Wednesday, January 25, 2006

Homeward Bound

Singapore, Changi airport. All airports look curiously similar, and this could equally well be Heathrow or Schipol, but with better Sushi. Internet access is free, which is a nice perk. The first 6 hours of flying over and done with. Only 14 more to go, and Sarah's already bored. I've parked her in front of the Aussie Open tennis for now. I've managed to purchase a new spare battery for my camera, as I foolishly managed to lose my other one in the Blue Mountains somewhere.

The End

So, this is the end.

Last day in the Southern hemisphere, we've checked out of the Dreamtime hostel in Cairns and now just waiting for the taxi to take us to the airport. We have a nice 24h trip in front of us, broken up only by a 4h stopover in Singapore. The four months of this trip has passed rather quickly it seems. Seems like it was only yesterday my hands were bleeding from 9 pitches of Serenity Crack and Sons of Yesterday on the Royal Arches in Yosemite. Or seeing Sarah's smiling face after being hauled up after her canyon swing in Queenstown. So many memories, and the skiing is yet to come!

The next few days will be crazy. Landing at 6am Thursday, we're meeting up with our good friends Cath, Dave, Nana and Chris near Reading. On Friday we should be back in Brizzle, dumping the camping and climbing gear swapping it for our skis, and then it's off again 6am Saturday. It's a hard life.

Must dash, Sarah needs to check the latest snow report for Val Thorens..

Monday, January 23, 2006

Lake Wabby


Lake Wabby
Originally uploaded by hvs.
This lake was formed by a huge sand dune creating a dam of a creek.

Sarah en route to Lake Wabby


Sarah en route to Lake Wabby
Originally uploaded by hvs.
The interior of Fraser feels like the desert in places.

The view from our cabin


The view from our cabin
Originally uploaded by hvs.
The lounge area of Scubapro II

Scubapro III


Scubapro III
Originally uploaded by hvs.
This is our sister ship, Scubapro III. They're all identical.

Dingo


Dingo
Originally uploaded by hvs.
We saw lots of Dingoes walking around our camp

Seasick Sarah on Scubapro II


Seasick Sarah on Scubapro II
Originally uploaded by hvs.
It was a bit rough from time to time

Stef


Stef
Originally uploaded by hvs.
Stef at Lake Birrabeen, sensibly covered up from the sun..

Stef and Sarah


Stef and Sarah
Originally uploaded by hvs.
At lake Birrabeen

Sarah at the Lake Birrabeen


Sarah at the Lake Birrabeen
Originally uploaded by hvs.
Sarah enjoying the clear, warm waters of Lake Birrabeen. With no deadly animals in it.

Lake Birrabeen


Lake Birrabeen
Originally uploaded by hvs.
This is Lake Birrabeen - it's actually fresh water.

Sarah


Sarah
Originally uploaded by hvs.
Sarah making tracks on the beach at the Moheno shipwreck.

View from Indian Head


View from Indian Head
Originally uploaded by hvs.
Fraser is basically one 150k long beach. This is the view north from Indian Head, named by Cook.

Sarah and Stef at Eli Creek


Sarah and Stef at Eli Creek
Originally uploaded by hvs.
Eli Creek throws 90 million litres of fresh water back into the sea every day.

Our tame water dragon


Our tame water dragon
Originally uploaded by hvs.
The Hostel pet in Murwillumbah, a Water Dragon.

Fraser Island


Fraser Island
Originally uploaded by hvs.
We travelled around Fraser Island in this mean machine, holding 17 passengers.

The three sisters


The three sisters
Originally uploaded by hvs.
The three sisters is a much photographed rock formation in the Blue Mountains.

Blue mountains


Blue mountains
Originally uploaded by hvs.
The Blue Mountains in all their splendor. The blueish tint comes from the fine mist expelled by the Eucalyptus trees into the air, apparently. This is a climbing Mecca.

Diving the Great Barrier Reef

We flew up to Cairns on the Thursday night, and the nice people from Dreamtime lodge picked us up from the airport. The ProDive bus was scheduled to pick us up at the ungodly time of 6.15am the following morning. Cairns is a bit like a sauna - hot and humid 24h per day, but luckily our room in the nice hostel had AC - our first encounter with such a device since we got to Australia, funnily enough. We set the alarms for 5.30 and went to bed. On the dot, the bus was waiting outside and we got down to the dive shop in town to pick up gear etc. I got myself a nice prescription mask which meant that I wouldn't have to dive with contacts. The whole thing was run with the customary smooth efficiency we've come to expect from dive operations. We soon found ourselves on the jetty, boarding the ship which was to become our home for the next 3 days, Scubapro II - 24 metres of steel cruiser with all the trimmings. The boat normally caters for 32 people, but on our trip we were 8 short which was quite nice. A random selection of divers from all around the world, Brits, Danes, Americans, Canadians, Australians, Icelanders and the odd Swede, all different levels of proficiency from total beginners to divemasters. Our crew consisted of mainly Kiwis - Will the skipper, Brad the dive supervisor and Steve and Kelly, instructors and Karen the Cookie.

The transfer to the outer reef was about 3 hours, and the seas reasonably calm. However, some people started throwing up pretty quickly after leaving the harbour. Sarah felt a bit queasy, but held it together. We were to cram in 4 dives on the first day, including a night dive, and it felt a bit like we were doing nothing else but diving, eating or sleeping. The diving itself was awesome, vivid colours, incredible marine life - sharks, turtles, rays and the normal array of aquarium fish. This place was where they filmed the Great Barrier Reef part of Disney's "Finding Nemo" and everybody was looking for Nemo's stunt double who's reputedly still hanging around the area. Sarah was especially taken by the turtles which seem rather unperturbed by the presence of divers - they just go about their business, gently nudging you out of their way if you're blocking a particularly tasty-looking piece of coral. The Trigger fish are not quite so friendly.

We got exceptionally well fed, too, which was good as diving is hungry business. The diving off this boat was quite different than what we've been used to - here you're basically chucked in and expected to get on with it unguided which at first felt a bit scary, but soon one is relishing the extra degree of freedom of not being bound to the pace (or heaviest breather) of a larger group. The second day was a much more relaxed affair as we didn't have to cram so many dives into such a short amount of time. We still managed 4 dives but the first one was a pre-breakfast 7.30am. Stef got to experience the chemical whipping of a bluebottle wrapped around his arm. A dash of vinegar took the worst of the pain off. The trip also included a couple of night dives. Deprived of one's sense of sight, the dive experience is a very different one, and the crew did their best to stir up people's nerves. "Who's afraid of sharks?" was followed by food scraps over the side of the boat, and suddenly there was the shark circling the boat. Some people did bottle out at that point. The first night dive was a bit uneventful, but on the second night we spotted Bryan the King Kong of turtles, who takes up residence in the same coral cave every night. Unfortunately, we had to bail early as Sarah's torch ran out of battery after about 25 minutes. Night diving is hard enough with a functioning light source.

The last day crammed three dives in before lunch and our return to Cairns. The first dive was arguably the most memorable of the whole trip. All the usual suspects were out and about. We even saw an octopus and a Giant Moray Eel, all out looking for their breakfast.

A very enjoyable and professional trip, with 11 logged dives, and ProDive gets the Sarah & Stef seal of approval.

We're flying back to the UK on Wednesday. We're spending the last few days just hanging out in Cairns, looking for things to do for free, seeing that we've now reached the end of our budget. In less than a week we'll be skiing in France, a nice 45 degrees temperature differential.

Wednesday, January 18, 2006

Fraser Island

Fraser Island is a big pile of sand in the ocean, and it is said that every grain of sand off the Australian east coast will eventually be washed up on Fraser Island. It's something like 150k long and about a tenth of that wide at the widest point. It's one long beach, with a ribbon of rain forest growing along its spine. There are no roads - this is strictly 4WD territory. The sea around Fraser is singularly unsuitable for swimming. If the rips and undercurrents doesn't drown you, the plentiful sharks will finish the job. Fortunately, the island has some redeeming features - 50 or so crystal clear fresh water lakes in its interior, one more spectacular than the next. The rainforest is the home of some unusual flora and fauna not found anywhere else. Dingoes wander around everywhere - they might look like cute puppies but one is wise not to forget that they are wild animals. The dingoes here are the only pure breed left in Australia. The ones found on the mainland has been crossbred with domestic dogs.

There are several ways of exploring Fraser Island, ranging from hiring your own beat up 4WD and DIY-ing it, to fully guided tours in purpose-built 4WD trucks. After some soul-, and wallet searching we opted for the tour option. Hiring a landy or something between the two of us would have been beyond our budget. Sharing the hire with random punters didn't appeal. We went with Trailblazers, a 3-day, 2-night trip with 17 people. We had a beach hut base in the middle of the island where we slept and ate, but most of the time we were out and about. The crowd was diverse, ranging from Leicester surgeons to Essex boys on a mission and everything between. Mark, our guide was very amusing, and not afraid to wind up the gullible. The first day saw us drive pretty much the length of the east coast, stopping for a dip in Eli Creek, a freshwater creek running out from the dunes at a rate of 90 million litres a day. A lot of rain falls on Fraser, and it trickles down through the sand getting filtered to such purity that it's actually unhealthy to drink. No minerla content means that the osmosis pressure in the body is too low and the water can't actually enter our blood stream. A bit like drinking distilled water. Anyway, after between 30 and 100 years after falling as rain, the water reenters the sea through one of these creeks. At Indian head on the north eastern tip we hung around and watched the rays playing the water below before returning to camp and a BBQ + beer and a long night. The next day we went to one of the fresh water lakes, Lake Birrabeen, a so called 'window lake' in that it forms a window into the water table. Picture card perfect. The water so clear, and the sands so white that it was too painful to look at without sunglasses. We spent most of the day here, swimming and generally lazing about. Most people visiting Fraser rave about another lake, Lake McKenzie. It's easier to access, so most people go there, which was fine with us, seeing that we got to have Birrabeen to ourselves. Today we went to another lake which had been formed by a different process. A giant sand dune has created a dam, blocking off a creek. We walked to this lake across the sands, a real desert landscape. The swim was a most welcome escape from the heat. At lunch time we made our way back to the truck, had some foor and made our way back to Noosa. A great trip.

Sunday, January 15, 2006

Noosa

We're in Noosa, after a brief interlude in the curiously named Murwillumbah where we ascended the Mt Warning. Mt Warning is the remains of a now extinct massive shield volcano, and the caldera is the biggest in the southern hemisphere. The walk was about 8k round trip through dense rain forest. On a good day you'd be hard pushed to beat the view from the summit in the whole of Australia. We saw the homogenous grey-white of the inside of a cloud. We did, however, see our first wild Wallaby and lots of bush turkeys. The hostel in Murwillumbah was a nice affair, with only a handful of beds and a quirky man that's been running it singlehandedly for the last 21 years. Right on the river, several half-tame water dragons could be found lazing in the sunshine on the patio waiting for the house guests to feed them food scraps. We took the bus to Noosa, which after the slight disappointment of Byron Bay immediately felt right. The hostel we're staying in, Halse Lodge, is probably the nicest we'd seen so far. We got chatting to a bunch of people on the first night and the evening degenerated into a bit of a wine tasting extravaganza, and we were all paying the price the morning after. We recouperated on the beach with the biggest surf board we could lay our hands on. Sadly, I won't be giving up my (future) day job to become a surfer. It looks so deceptively easy in the hands of the skilled. Even if there is the occasional success in the small waves near the shore, most of the time one is either knocked about or left flailing as the wave washes over you.

Today we're about to head out on another walk in the rain forest looking for Koalas, and tomorrow we're going to Fraser Island for three days. Sarah's just booked our last travel - the bus from here to Brisbane from where we're flying to Cairns on the 19th for the last stop before we're again walking on European soil. Or snow, rather.

Bring on Val Thorens!

Monday, January 09, 2006

It's raining..rain

I'm slightly intoxicated. So is Stef. But I have to write about the rain we have just run home in. Never seen anything like it and I wish I could convey the volume of rain falling from the sky right now. I asked a guy outside the bar what was going on with the weather. He said it's probably rained more in the last few days than the last year and he guessed it was probably just bad timing for us. I guess he's right. Such is life. I'm going to bed now. If it's raining like this in the morning I might just stay there.

Birthday Byron

Today's my birthday, 27 years young. Don't all shout at once. Anyway - Byron Bay, the 'must' of the east coast. Sadly, it's a - pardon my French - sh*thole. Once a beautiful, alternative retreat for the hippies, drop-outs and dreadlocked surfers, it's now overrun with the usual chavvy lager-louts roaming the streets drunk, bare-chested and sun-burnt. It could be Brighton, but with better surf. The surf here is more gentle than in Lennox Head - bigger breaks, but not the tide-fuelled beach dumping that made the waves always seem to break on top of your head like we had there. It's rained solidly for two days here now, and eventhough it's warm it's not very inviting trying to get out to have a go. A spate of shark attacks further up the coast (where we're heading next) adds to the spice.

The last day in Lennox saw us out on windsurfers on the little lake (the sea would have been suicidal). I've spent many summers on a windsurfer in my early teens (but not really since), and it was fun to get reaquainted with the Art. It was Sarah's second go (she tried briefly at Beachcomber, too), and she had the dubious benefit of my instruction. She's actually talking to me again now, though.

I guess with Australia we've sort of drifted onto the teeny-bopper backpacker trail which is a very different experience from the American climbing roadtrip, the more mature and easy-going Fiji island hopping crowd and NZ outback. The remainder of our itinery is now set - we're going to visit Mt Warning national park next to scale the peak, and then to Noosa for a few more days hoping for fun in the surf and sun, three days on Fraser Island and then to Cairns for the diving. We had the option of catching the bus from Brisbane to Cairns, 32 hours door to door and $250, or flying with Jetstar, 2.5 hours and $79. Tough choice. The cheapo airlines are changing the geography of the world.

Friday, January 06, 2006

Lennox Head

We're in Lennox Head, just north of Ballina to which we caught a flight to decimate the miles we need to travel a bit more efficiently. Nice little beach-side resort, and we've decided to hang around here for a few more days. It's raining, but we're galvanised to that sort of thing by now. Sarah must have offended some weather God in a previous life. The surf here is brutal all along the 7 miles of golden sand. Going in for a swim is akin to a ride in the washing machine. Fun, but hard, bruising work. We're trying to book ahead for the rest of our trip. Neighbouring Byron Bay appears to be booked up to next Christmas, roughly. If we can find a bed there, we'll go there, otherwise head on for Noosa, and Fraser Island which everybody seems to rate as a 'must do'. We're flying Brisbane to Cairns on the 19th for our 3-day live-aboard dive trip before we're flying back to Blighty on the 25th. All good things..

Tuesday, January 03, 2006

A beautiful view

Well, we woke this morning to clear blue skies and a beautiful view of the Blue Mountains. The thunderstorms fortunately never materialised. We've walked for 5 hours today along part of the Prince Henry cliff top walk starting from our cottage. Then down the Giant Stairway next to the Three Sisters. Along the Federal Pass to the Katoomba Mines. We decided against walking up another staircase and took the railway back up to the top of the cliffs. This is the steepest railway in the world and the trip is short but steep. After a coffee and cake break we walked back along more of the cliff top walk to Echo Point. Having had enough of the heat we jumped on a bus back home. The views were spectacular.

Tomorrow we're flying to Ballina Byron. Stef's keen to try some more surfing.

Monday, January 02, 2006

Hot start to the New Year

Yesterday I experienced heat that I have never experienced before. We walked down to the opera house and the bridge on our way to take the ferry to Manly. During the walk there I finally understood how people can die of heat stroke. My body felt more exhausted than it did after the half marathon. My face was apparently as red and I was sweating alot more. Nice I know but I thought I might melt. Even the wind was warm like a hairdryer providing no respite at all. Fortunately the sea at Manly helped to bring my body temperature back into the relms of normality. Anyhow, in the evening we heard that it had been the hottest New Years day on record at 45 degrees and the 2nd hottest day in Sydney ever recorded. We had read earlier in the day in the papers that the heat, the low humidity and the warm north-westerly winds were a perfect mixture for bush fires. Sadly they were right and by the evening it seemed most of NSW was ablaze. Fortunately during the night we woke to the sound of very heavy rain which must have been a relief to the fireman who had apparently given up fighting many of the fires as a lost cause as it was proving too dangerous. Today everything is back to normal with overcast and rain.

On an additional note, we also heard the Sydney New Year fireworks cost a staggering $4 million. I couldn't help but wonder how much they cost when I was watching them and now I know.

Well we are now in the Blue Mountains for a couple of days. We've struck it lucky with accommodation as all the hostels seem to be full but the owner of one hostel has a holiday cottage with 5 double bedrooms that is normally let to groups but he is letting out the individual rooms. We're sharing the cottage with some australians, germans and a few dutch and it has 2 bathrooms, a kitchen and 2 lounges. In addition it's meant to have a beautiful view but we can't see anything for the low cloud/mist. Tomorrow's forecast is for thunder storms. Perhaps we'll leave without getting a view. It's feeling more like the New Zealand we came to love.

Sunday, January 01, 2006

Happy New Year

All is quiet on New Year's Day, as U2 said it so well. Sydney knows how to do a New Year's party, and we took it all in from the vantage point of the Royal Botannical Gardens facing the iconic views of the Harbour bridge and Opera house. There are a lot of Euros here - they're easy to spot - the ones with little or no skin left on their bared chests. The few Aussies that braved the astronomical crowds were sensibly covered up in long sleeves, sun hats and plenty of lotion. Slip, Slap & Slop. Add in the booze and the many Brits were soon passed out on the ground. Sarah and I sought shade during the hot hours with a little packed picnic, drinking only water. There are actually two fireworks displays. The first is at 9 and supposedly aimed at (yeah yeah) families with young children. It was remarkable, and the air was thick with the smell of gunpowder. We had a great spot just by the edge of the water. We then joined the queue for the bar. When I get the opportunity to upload some more photos, you can share this experience with me. Suffice to say, it reminded me of the bread shortage queues in Moscow the winter of the depression just after the Bolshevik revolution. We got ourselves a bottle of local bubbly at $25, with an enforced bottle deposit of $5. This seemed like a brilliant idea until you realised that you'd have to brave the queue again to get your deposit back, but still. The main event was even more spectacular, of course. Afterwards we picked up enough empties to be able to fund another adventure.

Today, new year's day, it's a sweltering 40 degrees, and being outside feels like sticking your head under one of those driers you find in public toilets. I know I moaned a bit about the NZ weather, but surely humans were not intended to live under these conditions.. give me a cool NZ downpour any day. We're heading to Manly beach on the ferry today, and tomorrow we're visiting the Blue Mountains in search of some shade.