Lins and Rich’s Travel Blog

The past few days have seen us cover another long stretch of the Australian Coast.  On Thursday, we crossed into another of the territories, taking our grand total of territories visited to 5 - not bad in a couple of months, though this has involved frequent winding on and winding back of watches and we are very confused as to what time it is anywhere in the world at any point.

 We begrudgingly made out way out of Melbourne last Tuesday morning and set out along the South Coast.  After a very brief spot of shopping in the Quick Silver and Roxy outlet stores, we soon arrived at the start of The Great Ocean Road.  This day involved lots of 2 minute journeys between viewpoints and photo stops which was wonerful at first but did get a little tedious after a while.  The first stop was the beack where Point Break was filmed as it is famous for its long surf.  The next few stops just allowed us to see the coast from a variety of angles!  Things did get quite exciting when we pulled into ‘Koala Cove’ and we got to see quite a significant number of wild koalas who lived relatively low in the trees, allowing us to get really close to them, though one stupid woman clearly didn’t feel that she approved of their 18 hours sleeping a day - she wanted entertainment so went over and shook the tree one of the koalas was sitting in.  I did voice my opinions on that rather loudly!

The highlights of the day came towards the end of the day when we reached ‘The Twelve Apostles’.  The coastline is ever changing in this area and many of the cliffs have spearated leaving large, stand alone sandstone structures off the coast.  These were a sight to behold (at first - once we’d stopped at about another 5 similar spots the following day, the initial impressiveness was beginning to wain!).  Most exciting, however , was the sunset visit to the rocks - the sunset itself was an utter disappointment due to the cloud, but the fairy penguins (or little penguins as they are now termed due to political correctness going way to far and the fear of offending the gay community - yes, that really is true) were coming up from the water to shelter at the rocks at the back of the beach for the night.  Now, penguins, it seems, are not very courageous creatures; they would approach the shore and form an orderly line, then those at the back would run back into the water and the ones further up the line would follow like lemmings once they realised the back penguins had left!  This routine went on for a good 20 minutes!  The light was not good enough to capture them photographically, though I did get a short video that shows this display a bit more effectively.

The following day, as I’ve already mentioned, began with continuing our exploration of the local coast line and famous features such as London Bridge which has fallen down!  The rocks got their name because they were once one large structure resembling London Bridge because of the 2 arches, however, the arch nearest the mainland collapsed in the 1990s leaving one couple stranded on the other arch.  They survived, no thanks to the policeman who took no notice when citizens came in to his office to tell him “London Bridge is falling down.”

We then went for our hard trek of the tour - this was a much shorter walk than the last but the terrain was more difficult as it was mostly over uneven rocks.  We climbed the ‘Pinnacle’ walk, which was about a 5 km round trip, and absorbed the views from the top, looking out at such vast distances as there is so much flat land around the area.  We also went to another look-out to see the ‘jaws of death’ - a rock formation that did resemble the wide open mouth of a large carniverous dinosaur.

 This was taken near the jaws of death, nothing to do with them but I like the photo! (Rich)

On day 3, we did some further walking (I only wish I felt fitter for all this climbing!), first descending the steps to get up close to the McKenzie Falls, then climbing them again - there were over 279 of them.  We then went for our second challenging walk…well: Rich did.  I chickened out half way up when it became apparent that the path from there to the top only provided about a metre’s land between me and all eternity.  Apparently the views from the top were fairly spectacular and Rich filmed them for me so i didn’t miss out completely.  I actually used the time to do another shorter walk to an Aboriginal shelter which contains drawings of emu tracks and hand prints and is an importnat part of aboriginal history and culture. 

The rest of the day was taken up with a 6 hour drive to Adelaide where we once again arrived in a city in the blazing sunshine but when we awoke the following morning we found that it was chucking down the rain.  After careful consideration we decided there was only one thing to do on a day like this - go to the cinema!  We went to see the 3D version of Beowulf, which had some reasonably impressive special effects but, other than that, had little to offer!

Yesterday we did do a little more exploration of Adelaide, meandering around the museum an gallery but, that was pretty much all there was to do there!  Well, there was a chocolate factory tour but that was fully booked so we had to miss it out.

This morning we flew back to Sydney and are just about to make our way over to our hostel on Coogee Beach - now, I could take this opportunity to rub in the fac that we’ll be spending our Christmas in glorious sunshine when we roll out of our beds onto the beach, but unfortunately, it’s due to rain for the next 2 days and we’ve heard some pretty dreadful reports about our hostel so I’m not sure there’s really much to be jealous of.  So instead, I’ll just wish you all a very merry Christmas and a Happy New Year - hopefully we’ll get to speak to some of you over the Christmas period.  Have a good one.  We miss seeing you all at Christmas. xxxxxxxxxxxxx

After my failed attempt to see the beautiful wildlife of the Great Barrier Reef, with the exception of my first sighting of wild dolphins, we were concerned that we may also have to knock the trip to Cape Tribulation on the head if I didn’t get any better, however, fortunately, my health improved enough for us to do the planned 2 day trip to the world’s oldest rainforest.

We departed Cairns early as there were a few stops to cram in along the beautiful Captain Cook Highway; the first of these being the Mossman Gorge. We were taken on a short guided walk through the rainforest that surrounds the gorge and were given some interesting details about the flora and fauna - our guide had spotted some very well camouflaged wildlife on the way in and so we were not surprised when he noticed a black snake under a pile of leaves.  He told us that the snake was harmless and could be handled so, checking that nobody had a heart condition in case anything unexpected occured, her delved into the leaves and threw the snake at Richie.  He didn’t flinch.  It took a couple of seconds for everyone to realise that the snake was, in fact, a plastic one our guide had planted there while we were all on the suspension bridge looking at the views of the Gorge and all the photos which had been taken carefully so as not to disturb the snake were deleted from the cameras!  Black snakes are, actually, deadly.

 From here, after some brave people had taken a short dip in the Mossman river (Richie didn’t let me in on account of being ill), we were taken to the Daintree River and swapped the bus for a boat.  We cruised down the river, surrounded by the mangrove trees and distant mountains in a boat driven and guided by a man who clearly knew the river like his own reflection.  The main purpose of the cruise was to spot crocodiles at the river’s edge but we were not fortunate enough to see any.  We did, however, gain an excellent understanding of the area (which may have been even greater if we didn’t have 2 rude, annoying girls behind us who decided that what they had to say was far more important than what the guide was saying and talkedloudly to each other throughout the majority of the trip) and saw numerous birds and a very large colony of bats sleeping in the trees on the bank.

Our next stop was our lunch stop at Cape Kimberly where the forest meets the beach and you look out onto snapper island, named because of its similarities to the shape of a crocodile.  This beack was absolutely covered in small crab holes and there were crabs of all sizes peering out of the tops of their homes and then scuttling along the sand when they believed the danger was gone.  These holes are surrounded by small sand balls as the crabs apparently extract the nutrients from the sand as they dig their holes and then they leave the sand balls to show the other crabs that the nutrients have been taken from the area and they should dig elsewhere:  clever!

 After a brief stop at a local ice-cream parlour, where the owner uses the exotic  fruits grown in her orchard to make ice-cream (flavours included chocolate-pudding fruit, passionfruit, coconut and another fruit I’ve never heard of), we did the final leg up to Cape Tribulation itself.  The Cape was named by Cook as it was the first place he ran into trouble when exploring Australia as his magnets were faulty.  The toursit board’s caption for Cape Trib is ‘Where the Rainforest meets the Reef’.  The reef here certainly isn’t as beautiful as it is in other areas; in fact, without the slogan, you may well not realise the reef is coral at all as it looks like clumps of rock.  That said, to stand on the beach and be surrounded on three sides by rainforest is truly magnificent.  We spent about 24 hours in and around the rainforest resort we were staying in, splashing around in the pool to help cope with the forest’s humidity, catching up with one of the girls we’d met on our East Coast trip who was staying at the same resort, and generally relaxing among the tall trees. 

We returned to our hostel in Cairns (spotting 2 very rare wild casssowaries en route) with just enough time to have dinner, do the washing and pack before having a couple of hours sleep and catching out very early flight back to Sydney the following morning. 

Sydney was, once again, fairly uneventful as most of our time was spent, once again, sorting stuff out in preparation to work there.  We did, however, catch up with Nikki and Alan who we’d met there the previous month and who have been staying in Syndey and working for the last month.  They are staying in a flat in Bondi, just seconds away from the beach, so last Sunday we headed over to their’s for a BBQ on the beach - there are no BBQs on Bondi itself so we walked around the costal path to Bronte, the next beach along, and spent a few hours there cooking and eating and catching up.  We then headed back to their’s to watch a DVD - it was so nice to be sat in a lounge, on a sofa, watching a film - a little luxury we’ve missed! 

So, with time to kill before Chirstmas, and knowing that we would be spending many more days loitering in Sydney while we wait for work, we decided that we didn’t want to waste the time we had, so we booked ourselves on a trip along the south coast.  We are currently in Melbourne, having left Sydney last Wednesday, and we arrived via Canberra, the Snowy Mountains and Wilson’s Promintory, and we will be heading off on another 3 day tour tomorrow that will lead us to Adelaide.

Canberra, Australia’s capital city, which sits in a territory all of its own, imaginatively called Australian Capital Territory, is possibly the dullest, smallest Capital City in the world!  It was chosen and constructed to avoid the Aussies having to make a decision between Sydney and Melbourne to be their capital.  It is apparently renowned for the 4 Ps: Porn(a big industry), Pyrotechnics(another big industry), Politics (home to the national parliament) and Pot (you can legally grow up to 3 marijuana plants in your garden) - what a combination!  We first visited the War Memorial which was a fairly interesting museum intended to inform visitors about Australian involvement in various wars.  This is supported by a host of monuments dedicated to the various wars and factions of the Australian and New Zealand Armed Forces  either side of the road between the War Memorial and the Parliament; they’ve even had the foresight to leave plots ready for future wars!  Our only other stop in Canberra was for a tour of Parliament.  And it seems as though, with those 2 stops, we had seen all that Canberra had to offer!

We arrived at our ‘little bit of luxury’ hostel later that day - the dorm room had tea and coffee making facilities, biscuits, towels and soap, and it was en-suite, and there was a sauna and heated swimming pool - you can’t do better than that.  We passed the evening playing killer pool and darts with our bus buddies and then got up bright and early then next morning to head into the snowy mountains and, believe it or not, in the heat of the Aussie Summer, there was still snow on them.  The walk our guide took us on was not for the unfit - so Rich and I struggled!  We hiked for about 2 1/2 hours, mostly uphill for the first half, at a height of around 2000m with views of Australia’s highest mountain, mount Kosciuszko, which stands at 2228m.  The National parkland we were walking on was incredibly beautiful and at times, the views were breath-taking.  Quite a few of the group gave up along the way, but those of us who persevered for what we were told would be a further 10 minutes climb (which turned out to be twice that) were duly rewarded with a vista of the mountains rolling around and below us.  The pictures, unfortunately, don’t do it justice.

Exhausted from all the walking, we were all very subdued during the long drive to our overnight stop, but we were kept on our toes admiring the views and watching for wildlife at the sides of the long and winding road through the National Parks.  We were able to spot a couple of wild koalas, one of which posed perfectly for photos (well, really he was just curiously checking us out)  from his position high up in the eucalyptus tree.

The following day we began driving early to get to Wilson’s Promintory, another National Park, where our guide had apparently spent his youth as a volunteer doing conservation work so we couldn’t really have been with anyone more qualified to take us on walk through the park to ’squeeky beach’ (and yes, the sand actually does squeek as you put your feet down).  This was another beautiful, though far less strenous walk than the last and we were really able to appreciate the spectacular surroundings.  The ocean here is a beautiful turquoise and the creeks have the appearance of tea as the tea tree oil falls into it from the trees in the park.

And so, finally, after lunch on the beach and one last drive, we arrived in Melbourne late on Friday evening.  This city has everything.  We have to leave first thing tomorrow and we have still seen only a tiny fraction of what Melbourne has to offer.  There is still so much I would like to do here.  On the other hand, we have used our time here well, doing things we may not necessarily do, to really get a feel of as much of what the city has to offer as we could in the time.  On Saturday we went to the Museum of Moving Image after brunch in one of Melbourne’s many excellent cafes.  We spent a few hours watching short films and playing on computer games, all for nothing.  We were then headed to the Museum of Performing of Arts but didn’t make it as we were distracted by the ‘Spiegeltent’.  This burlesque style tent is a performance space that comes to Melbourne for a couple of months each year and houses a wide range of fringe performances from all aspcets  of the arts.  We were passing at 3.30 and there was a performance by ‘The Unstrung Heroes’ billed for 4pm so we though ‘Why Not?’ and headed to the box office for our tickets to see the string quartet play.  Once seated, we were treated to a diverse repertoire that included Bach, Hungarian classics, and arrangements of Beatles songs, Bohemian Rhapsody, Smoke on the Water and, my favourite, a spine-tingling rendition of Stairway to Heaven.

We had been informed by our guide that Melbourne’s appeal lies, not just in its city centre, but equally in its suburbs so, after a trip to the nearby Queen Victoria Market, we underestimated the walk to Brunswick street, a bohemian area outside the city centre and arrived there in time for lunch at another of Mebourne’s delightful cafes.  We then did a spot of shopping in the quirky shops around the area before taking the tram to another district; St. Kilda.  This is the seaside area of Melbourne and is a bit reminiscent of Brighton.  We stopped for one of the cakes that the area is famous for and then met up with another fellow East Coast traveller, Lindsay.  We had a few drinks with her in St Kilda before heading back into the city to our hostel. 

In fact, we’ve had quite a few reunions lately - while stood in reception, checking in, Becca and Sarah, the girls we had spent time with in Thaliand, came into reception - they had arrived in Melbourne that morning and, although we had arranged to meet in Sydney as we were both going to be there over Christmas, none of us had any idea that we were all in Melbourne at the same time.  This follows the surprise I had in Sydney last week of being in the same hostel  as two of my former pupils!

So, finally we come to today.  We began today with a tour of the Melbourne Gaol - this is the prison where the famous Ned Kelly was held and executed (I say famous; I hadn’t actually heard of him, and for those of you who, like me, have no idea who he is, he was an outlaw who was sometimes compared to Robin Hood but, by the sounds of it was actually just a violent criminal).  The gaol itself was self-guided and had interesting displaystelling the stories and fates of some of the prisoners who had been held there.  It also included information about hangings and hangmen etc.

The gaol itself was interesting, however, the highlight was the tour of the building next door which was used, up until about 10 years ago, to hold those who were arrested around Melbourne.  We were handed our charge sheets on the way in and were taken through the procedure of arrest as though we had just been arrested.  I was charged with possession of an illegal weapon.  We had to declare our contraband, have an oral and shoe search, and were placed in a cell for lock-down for 4 minutes, 1 of which was ‘lights out’ time.  The role of sergeant was played incredibly well, presumable by an actor, though he may have been ex-police.

We then did our final cultural excursion to the National Gallery - they actually have two of them here, and we went to the international collection.  We saw displays of 80s fashion, contemporary design, portrait photography and some contemporary paintings.  We wandered back via the Botanical Gardens and Melbourne Cricket Ground, which Rich had wanted to tour but we had run out of time, so he had to be contented with photos of the outside.  The stadium is in an area of about 4 sports grounds and a number of tennis courts which were hosting the qualifiers for the Australian Open at the time we passed by so we were even able to see a bit of top-class tennis!

So, sorry this has been such a long one, but we needed to get up to date after the technical problems.

Hi everyone, finally were back. Due to a massive cock up by fasthost the blog was down for two weeks. Big thanks to Shep and Stu who got it back working again and as for fasthost - your offically muppets!

So better write an update, as we are so far behind will do the update in two halfs. Lins is going to be covering the return to Sydney and the South Coast to date and ill cover Cairns and the Great Barrier Reef.

 So when we last left you we were in Magnetic Island off Townsville and sunning ourselfs. Its a lovely place but there really is nothing to do so we took the oppertunity to relax, read and generally unwind (because its been so stressful up untill now!) Days were generally spent snorkiling over the reef just off shore, sea kayaking and generally sitting around. Now being so cut off mobile reception is limited and earlier in the week I had promised to call Mother to let her know I had not been eatten by a Koala. Quickly realised that the only place that had reception is a 1.5km hike to the highest point on the island. Off i went with just a phone in my hand. Probably around half way there I realised just how dark an island with no streetlights in the middle of knowhere is! I spent the whole of the coversation in the pitch black, stamping my feet and randomly jumping around to ensure that I scared off any snakes, spiders and anything else remotly posionous (they even have a sea shell that can kill you here!). Yes im an idiot! Magnetic Island - Lookout near snake hill

After the hardships of Magnetic island we were back on the road again for the final leg with the Oz experience up the east coast to Cairns. A tiny little four hour coach journey and it was quite sad. It is a great way to travel if your a back packer and great fun.

We had a couple of stops on the way to cairns, one was little more than five minutes and this was to see a view over a number of lakes that lead towards the sea. Was well worth a quick peak.

After another hour and a bit we made our next stop just outside Cairns at a commercial crocidile farm owned by a Australian/Italian with a big mouth and a belly to match! It was completely different from the other “Zoo`s” we had seen as the crocodiles here were farmed for there meat, teeth and leather and were not as pampered as the ones at Australia Zoo. There were a number of crocidiles that were display and breed crocs and these were usually nusiance crocs that had been removed from areas due to eating cows! The guys main way of controlling them was hitting them with a plastic rake and lots of jumping out the way!

There were two there that were particularly impressive, one a 16ft croc was let out after the men and women were split up so that he came out of the pen and cut us off in a dead end. Mick (the owner) then threw a dead chicken after us, the croc luckily did not follow and we were shown after that he had lost slight in one eye in a fight and therefore couldnt see the snak sitting by our feet - thank god!

  Plastic Rake vs 1 Tonne Croc - Totally cut off in a dead end!

The next croc we saw was the largest croc in captivity. Measuring 18ft and weighing a 1.3 tonnes Gregory is a massive thing who made a name for himself by eatting 50 cows before finally being caught by Mick. As part of his show Mick now sits on Gregorys back! Apprently it all started as a drunken bet for a six pack and Mick has done it every day for 15 years as part of the show and he has never gone for him once. Cant help but think one day he might!

 One day this will end in tears! And they wont be the crocs!

Once we had seen the various crocs and the standard Kangaroos and wallabies we made our way out to reception where we got to sample croc meat (tastes like fishy chicken!) and we were given the oppertunity to hold a snake. Now anyone that knows lins will know she is terrified of snakes and usually can not be anywhere near them. We after much persusion she held a snake called a “Childrens Python” long enough for me to take a photo, can not say she enjoyed it but good on her!

After the croc farm it was back on the bus and up to Cairns ready to tackle the Great Barrier Reef. On arrival we were told that there was a leaving party for the Oz Bus at the woolshed which is a legendary backpacker bar.  Its a classy joint where we got to see goldfish racing and a wet t shirt contest (sorry guys, no pictures). Still I managed to crawl in at around 3am (Lins quit around midnight).

The following day we arranged our diving. Now both Lins and myself are now addicted to diving in a big way and decided to complete our Advanced open water while we were in Cairns. Booking with pro dive we settled for a three night liveaboard over the reef. It was the next day where it all went a bit wrong for Lins and she got stinking flu. Unable to get out of bed for the next couple of days diving was out of the window. Pro dive refused to refund so we were off to sea, Lins to sleep and me to dive.

Have to say it was some of the best diving I have ever experienced in my limited diving career. The sea was crystal clear and calm so ever at 30m you could see the surface and the fish life was amazing.

The first couple of dives were in Milan reef and I partnered an american guy called Scott. We saw masses of small clown fish (nemo!), parrot fish, bat fish, butterfly fish and even a white tip reef shark as well as some huge sea cucumbers and giant clams. The coral is stunning and huge outcrops called bommies decend from the depths and teem with fish life. unlike diving in Thailand the dives are self guided and you have to navigate yourself which is great fun and scary at the same time!

After the first couple of dives, two german guys and myself had to complete our underwater naviagtion exercises which involved compass work e.t.c then came the night dive!.

Night diving is amazing and a little nerve racking to say the least. Having only a small field of vision you constantly have the feeling that things are watching you, even though there not! Swimming around we saw amazing sights, crabs and lobsters feeding (which are not out in the day). A slipper lobster which is a rare lobster hardley ever seen, and the most impresive a octopus which are crazy creatures. One guy had an amazing camera set up as he was a marine biologist and as he was taking photos the octopus came up and investigated his camera!. On the way to the surface we saw little squid attracted by the boats lights. The dive leader claim it was one of the best night dives he had ever done on the reef!

Day two started out with a deep dive. Deep diving is both exciting and scary at the same time, for the non divers when you get down to a certain level the nitrogen in you blood becomes toxic and you get something called nitrogen narcosis which is basically like being pissed! The instructor took an egg down with us to demonstrate pressure and broke it open and it sayed in one piece. Now this together with the effects was very funny and we all sat on the bottom in 30 metres of water giggling and passing it around!! He also got us to stand on our heads and spin around which again was very funny before we swam around a drop off and returned to the boat. As we returned right under the boat was a huge silver fish called a giant trevali. Shows you do not have to go deep to find the fish. After this we carried out two more dives  - a naturalist dive and a photography dive. Taking photos underwater is hard work but managed to take this shot which turned out ok

The next dive of note was in the evening, I had passed my Advanced and as such was not guided on the night dive. Scott was partnered with me again so off we went. We had been given a compass heading for a bommie called 180 bommie (guess the heading!) where something special was waiting!. It was even darker than the previous night due to cloud cover. Somehow I managed to find my way there (unbelivable as you all know my sense of direction!). After a few swims round we could not see anything but seeing a crab under a ledge I flipped upside down for a closer look and low and behold what we were looking for was tucked under the ledge - the legendary “Brian”!

Brian is a 146 year old green turtle and weighs in at nearly 350kg. He is the size of a dining table and to see him really took my breath away. He was tucked under a ledge of coral and if it wasnt for the crab we would not have seen him. To see somthing so old and rare was really humbling and a highlight of the trip so far. We were told that turtles are really under treat because  smokers chuck there fag butts on the floor, these are swept out to see and look like jellyfish to the turtles and choke them to death. Its really sad thought that these wonderful creatures are facing extintion and were to blame.

On the way back to the boat we witnessed red snappers hunting small fish using our torch light! And a large white tip shark and a meaty barracuda all silently crusing the water looking for unlucky victims! Back on the boat it turns out we were the only none guided people to see Brian so Scott and I were over the moon.

As the night went on, we all chilled out and lightning started in the distance. With no land for 50 miles we had a 360 vision and the lightning flashed around us like fireworks for hours. This was a warning of things to come. At three in the morning we were awoken but the ship rolling on some pretty fierce looking waves and moving. We were told later that a sail boat nearby had its anchor rope ripped out of its hull and was pushed onto the reef. They sent a mayday call and our boat was nearest so we went to help. This involved providing a tender (small boat) to aid a diver in viewing the damage. The situation was not great but the captin and the crew put in a great effort and all was well in the end. We were all awake by 4.30 so on deck we watched the sun rise. Lins managed to capture this shot which is one of the best of the trip so far.

Next day were the final three dives! I managed to get myself and Scott off course twice in a row and had to be towed back to the boat twice from 150m away (more like me!). Of course i was met with comments such as “advanced diver my arse” (dont you just love aussies!). The final dive was one of the best, we circled a large bommie and got to watch sharks feeding on fish in the rocks, titan trigger fish that will attack you if you get too close despite being only 2 ft long, huge giant trevellies and a large giant moray eel as well as millions of small fish.

I have to say it was stunning and i loved every second of it but its a relif to get back on dry land after being on a boat for three days!

Right, sorry if I have bumbled on, loads to cover and was an amazing experince so may take a couple of readings. Lins is picking up the story from Cairns so be sure to read her entry as well. We have also been on the computer alot recently looking for jobs so we now have loads of photos up so follow the link to the side. There all the photos we have taken rather than a selection so may want to edit your viewing but hopefully by the end of the year we will be up to date and have copied on the thailand photos as well.

Take care all and once again thanks to the Stu Crew for their great effort! Beer is on me in August!