Phew, you'll be glad to hear we're back in Sydney and in the BLAZING sunshine although I shouldn't say that and jinx us... Currently sitting in christiane's lovely beach residence after an overnight flight from Darwin. We've had showers and done some washing and had cups of tea and EVERYthing, it's so exciting, and this afternoon we are going to the beach. As of today it's our last week in Australia. Where did that go exactly!
When I left you we were about to board the bus from Airlie to Cairns which had previously been doomed to all and sundry, but we had a lucky break in the clouds and made it in one piece. Cairns itself was a bit dull, apart from a nice beachfront pool, but we were only there one day and then we flew to Darwin. Here is everything you will ever need to know about Darwin. 1) It is very hot. 2) It is very wet. 3) It has the highest alcohol consumption per person in the WORLD. 4) It is the gateway to Kakadu, the national park where Crocodile Dundee was filmed. 5) The top tourist attraction in the city itself is when someone from the tourist office goes and throws bread in the harbour and some fish come and eat it.
So guess which one we were there for. Yes that's right, number 3. Hehe, only kidding, of course it was number 4.
So Darwin is not very big, and a bit of a cultural wasteland, but we did find some good graffitti. (Graffitti in australia is often quite classy). We had an infuriating night in the hostel trying to cook some pasta when the gas kept going off, and a loud swedish woman was trying to tell me how to boil water (she nearly ended up wearing it) then the next morning we set off for Kakadu.
The first of the many cool things we saw were these giant cathedral termite mounds. You get the picture of Zoe for that one, I was pulling a hilarious "ant face". We also saw some tombstone termites. Our guide for Kakadu was very clever, he made termites interesting and I would even go so far as to recommend looking them up on wikipedia. they have one queen in each hill. I won't spoilt the rest. On the subject of our guide, he was a regular crocodile dundee outback genius (probably no coincidence). He screeched to a halt, ran over to a tree, and caught us a frill-necked lizard. It soon got its own back. After the lizard excitement we went for a walk. In the wet season Kakadu is mainly grassy floodplains, rocky rainforest and canyony waterfalls. All v cool. I managed to lose a flip flop trying to get a photo from the middle of the river. Luckily I am very nimble and after a bit of flailing around with a stick, I managed to fish it out before it went over this. Look how happy I am. I'd never have found it, and they were a right bargain, $10 in Byron Bay.
Then we got to grips with the wildlife you all go to Kakadu to see. This is me looking nervous around the local Olive Python. And then losing my cool when it went for the nuts. And then we went on a boat where some lunatic dangles meat off it, so you can see the crocodiles. This one was really old and massive. This one was small and graceful.
Somewhere hidden away in the hills was some ancient rock art, loads of it, between 4,000 and 20,000 years old. I won't bore you but here's my favourite, the lightning god. And then we polished off the day with another good outback sunset.
We did loads of walking Kakadu (you have to) so the boots got a good wear. The walks take you to all sorts of isolated and idyllic little ponds and waterfalls, it was amazing. This sign obviously gets ignored by the occasional nutter. Same went for the one that says "jump in at your own risk". Here's another waterfall, Zoe at the bottom of it and some of us swimming somewhere. On the way back we went to a roadhouse where they have the actual buffalo from Crocodile dundee, stuffed.
So that was another trip and another group, and another hunky but somewhat brainless assistant guide. We finished it off in the true Darwin tradition of watching a drunk band, pouring beer up your nose, go-go girls, and drinking rubbish alcopops because you get a scratchcard.
I'll leave you with this sign which made Zoe's day. (That would be Ms Zoe Driver, in case you didn't know).
I'm going to the beach now. (This one)
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
Monday, February 18, 2008
Who's Harry Krishna?
Ahhh thanks guys it's nice to come back to some comments. You'll be sad to hear that straw hat bit the dust.
I have got SO much to tell you I don't know where to start. Not many pictures unfortunately but the reasons for that will become evident. So, basically, Australia is having it's worst weather in 40 years (the time period varies depending who you ask). Or so we are being told. We are beginning to wonder if the whole sunny Australia thing is a clever tourism myth, some sort of global joke. Apart from a few days in sydney and Melbourne it has rained perpetually since we got here. Queensland (where we are now) has been hit by cyclones, widespread floods and all the roads are closed. It's all quite funny. Keep that in your head as a backdrop to the following...
We stayed in Byron bay for a few days to chill out. Byron bay is a cool hippy town so it was definitely a good place to recharge. There was a shop offering to paint you as a fairy but we never got round to it. We had a bit of a laugh taking the piss out of some capoera dancers, I'm sorry, I have come round slightly to Yoga now I've discovered one of my best friends is a yoga teacher, but capoera is taking things too far (if you haven't come across it before it's a "martial art" that blends fighting and breakdancing; sounds cool; isn't). During the 5 days we were in Byron there was a brief few hours of sun so I went surfing and I Think zoe walked to the lighthouse. We had a giant dinosaur living in our garden, who we named Cooper. We also watched Fool's Gold which has very few redeeming features but is possibly worth seeing for Ray Winstone's Deep South (America) accent.
From Byron we moved north to Hervey bay which was the base for our Fraser Island Adventure. And it was quite an adventure, let me tell you. It's a big (100mile long) island made entirely of sand and rainforest and the idea is you hire a 4x4, buy some food, get the ferry, and spend 3 days bombing up and down the beaches and through the forests. The problem is you have to cook, drive, camp and co-operate with a group of complete strangers which would normally be fine, but we got stuck with some totally ineffectual 19 year old Germans & Belgians who were just far too young to look after themselves. And they were all too young to drive, so between 11 of us there were only two of us driving, me and a girl called emma from Southampton who was LOVELY and made it all worthwhile. Anyway, we (I) managed to burst a tyre 15 minutes into the journey, on some sort of jungle root, which was quite funny. Despite this we managed to get to the other side of the island and set up camp. We made sure we camped with the other vans so we had some nice people to talk to.
At this point the weather totally collapsed, and all our carefully erected tents along the beach (this was the view - it was very remote) started to leak. We managed to get 3 of the vans together and strapped up a ground sheet between them. In time honoured tradition, to ignore the fact we were wet and cold, we all got drunk. This proved to be a mistake because we forgot to put the rubbish in the van so our camp was invaded by dingoes at4/5am which was about the same time all the tents fell apart and flooded. Waking up in a howling gale surrounded by flat tents and dingoes was a really cool experience.
It all got better from here, despite a second burst tyre. The weather didn't improve and the tents were so f*cked we checked into a lodge for the second night. This meant we got to have a shower and a proper feed. Unfortunately by this point my camera was beyond repair but hopefully I can steal some other people's off facebook at a later date. What I can show you is the nice lake , the main road at its busiest, and a parrot. Oh and the two drivers, me and Emma, and of course Zoe Driver.
So we made it back to the mainland in one piece and were confronted with loads of horror stories about the floods and some tourists being winched off a boat etc. We were booked on a bus going North (right into the middle of it all) to get on a boat to the whitsunday islands. Not wise, but we decided to go anyway. We were really lucky - there was a cyclone and some of the buses just before and after ours got stuck along the way, or flooded, but ours made it through by some miracle although it took 24 hours instead of 14. And when we got there we discovered all the boats had been cancelled, (alot were all smashed up) except one; a racing yacht called "Spank Me" (groan) which was the only one capable of sailing in such bad weather. Being the intrepid people we are we transferred onto it, leaving our nice comfortable catamaran with a lounge and bar safely in the harbour. I'm SO glad we did it, it was amazing and we met such an ace group of people. Basically we spent 3 days reliving "The Perfect Storm", drinking cheap wine out of a bag, and not being dry once. I went scuba diving for the first time ever, at the Great Barrier Reef, which was a very proud moment, I have a certificate to prove it.
I didn't take many photos because my (new) camera was getting soaking wet and all the pictures I did take are generally of us all getting pissed and drawing on ourselves with luminous zinc sticks. But here are the photos anyway. Here's the boat. Here's Driver driving. These are our new friends Theresa and Philippa and here we are with our sunblock on. This is our captain biting his nails which is never a good sign and here he is trying to fix the generator, a key moment in all our memories. This is the boat that the tourists were winched off (see above). this is Tara modelling the bedroom that 12 of us had to fit in (You can actually see all 12 beds in that photo). This is everyone winding up the sails and here we all are drunk.
I think I've just run out of time on the internet so I had better go, but just to finish off - we are stranded in Airlie beach and all the buses are cancelled and the airport closed. There is 3 METRES of rain predicted tonight, and somehow we have to get to Cairns in 2 days, wish us luck...
I have got SO much to tell you I don't know where to start. Not many pictures unfortunately but the reasons for that will become evident. So, basically, Australia is having it's worst weather in 40 years (the time period varies depending who you ask). Or so we are being told. We are beginning to wonder if the whole sunny Australia thing is a clever tourism myth, some sort of global joke. Apart from a few days in sydney and Melbourne it has rained perpetually since we got here. Queensland (where we are now) has been hit by cyclones, widespread floods and all the roads are closed. It's all quite funny. Keep that in your head as a backdrop to the following...
We stayed in Byron bay for a few days to chill out. Byron bay is a cool hippy town so it was definitely a good place to recharge. There was a shop offering to paint you as a fairy but we never got round to it. We had a bit of a laugh taking the piss out of some capoera dancers, I'm sorry, I have come round slightly to Yoga now I've discovered one of my best friends is a yoga teacher, but capoera is taking things too far (if you haven't come across it before it's a "martial art" that blends fighting and breakdancing; sounds cool; isn't). During the 5 days we were in Byron there was a brief few hours of sun so I went surfing and I Think zoe walked to the lighthouse. We had a giant dinosaur living in our garden, who we named Cooper. We also watched Fool's Gold which has very few redeeming features but is possibly worth seeing for Ray Winstone's Deep South (America) accent.
From Byron we moved north to Hervey bay which was the base for our Fraser Island Adventure. And it was quite an adventure, let me tell you. It's a big (100mile long) island made entirely of sand and rainforest and the idea is you hire a 4x4, buy some food, get the ferry, and spend 3 days bombing up and down the beaches and through the forests. The problem is you have to cook, drive, camp and co-operate with a group of complete strangers which would normally be fine, but we got stuck with some totally ineffectual 19 year old Germans & Belgians who were just far too young to look after themselves. And they were all too young to drive, so between 11 of us there were only two of us driving, me and a girl called emma from Southampton who was LOVELY and made it all worthwhile. Anyway, we (I) managed to burst a tyre 15 minutes into the journey, on some sort of jungle root, which was quite funny. Despite this we managed to get to the other side of the island and set up camp. We made sure we camped with the other vans so we had some nice people to talk to.
At this point the weather totally collapsed, and all our carefully erected tents along the beach (this was the view - it was very remote) started to leak. We managed to get 3 of the vans together and strapped up a ground sheet between them. In time honoured tradition, to ignore the fact we were wet and cold, we all got drunk. This proved to be a mistake because we forgot to put the rubbish in the van so our camp was invaded by dingoes at4/5am which was about the same time all the tents fell apart and flooded. Waking up in a howling gale surrounded by flat tents and dingoes was a really cool experience.
It all got better from here, despite a second burst tyre. The weather didn't improve and the tents were so f*cked we checked into a lodge for the second night. This meant we got to have a shower and a proper feed. Unfortunately by this point my camera was beyond repair but hopefully I can steal some other people's off facebook at a later date. What I can show you is the nice lake , the main road at its busiest, and a parrot. Oh and the two drivers, me and Emma, and of course Zoe Driver.
So we made it back to the mainland in one piece and were confronted with loads of horror stories about the floods and some tourists being winched off a boat etc. We were booked on a bus going North (right into the middle of it all) to get on a boat to the whitsunday islands. Not wise, but we decided to go anyway. We were really lucky - there was a cyclone and some of the buses just before and after ours got stuck along the way, or flooded, but ours made it through by some miracle although it took 24 hours instead of 14. And when we got there we discovered all the boats had been cancelled, (alot were all smashed up) except one; a racing yacht called "Spank Me" (groan) which was the only one capable of sailing in such bad weather. Being the intrepid people we are we transferred onto it, leaving our nice comfortable catamaran with a lounge and bar safely in the harbour. I'm SO glad we did it, it was amazing and we met such an ace group of people. Basically we spent 3 days reliving "The Perfect Storm", drinking cheap wine out of a bag, and not being dry once. I went scuba diving for the first time ever, at the Great Barrier Reef, which was a very proud moment, I have a certificate to prove it.
I didn't take many photos because my (new) camera was getting soaking wet and all the pictures I did take are generally of us all getting pissed and drawing on ourselves with luminous zinc sticks. But here are the photos anyway. Here's the boat. Here's Driver driving. These are our new friends Theresa and Philippa and here we are with our sunblock on. This is our captain biting his nails which is never a good sign and here he is trying to fix the generator, a key moment in all our memories. This is the boat that the tourists were winched off (see above). this is Tara modelling the bedroom that 12 of us had to fit in (You can actually see all 12 beds in that photo). This is everyone winding up the sails and here we all are drunk.
I think I've just run out of time on the internet so I had better go, but just to finish off - we are stranded in Airlie beach and all the buses are cancelled and the airport closed. There is 3 METRES of rain predicted tonight, and somehow we have to get to Cairns in 2 days, wish us luck...
Tuesday, February 5, 2008
Ice cold in alice
Hello kids,
First of all some general admin.
1) Happy birthday Rachel! (I know it's late, sorry) hope you had a great day :)
2) My mistake on the last post; it's not 4 days drive from Bateman's Bay to Sydney it's 4 hours. heh. Those Australians amongst you were probably wondering what route we had taken there...
Speaking of which,
3) Clare, call yourself an aussie - they are "Grey Kangaroos" not "Wallabies". (What funny animal names you have here). One of them was a baby though so I'll let you off.
So all in all sydney was great, you probably picked up on that, but it was very exciting leaving because we were getting our first internal flight. Not least because we were heading to the desert, and deserts are way cool.
Oh, I should warn you before I start writing that my camera is completely up the spout, and the light meter ist kerput, so some of the photos are really weird colours.
Unfortunately our plane to Alice Springs wasn't a little Indiana jones plane with propellers, it was a proper passenger plane. Alice is, however, not a proper town. It is a mini place (smaller than wilmslow) and I think it's famous because a) it has a nice name (although no spring) and b) it's the only town for 3 days drive in each direction, of which there are two - up and down. Why anyone would want to live there I've no idea, but it is quite chilled (despite being VERY hot). Zoe got a new day-sack. I bought a hat then sat down and had a beer which attracted several flies, one wasp, and an aborigine. I also bought some pink sunglasses. They will crop up later...
We were a bit unlucky with our accomodation in Alice; it was a 16 person dorm in a hostel, and the other 14 inhabitants were perma-drunk australian manual workers who insisted on calling me buddy and bro (etc) and trying to get me to smoke weed with them. Going to bed involved wading through porn magazines, work boots and beer cans. Luckily we were only there for 1 night.
So, now for the red photos. Our "outback safari" was really really ace. We were basically bunged in a minibus for 3 days with the same 20 people, camping under the stars, eating rubbish food and visiting red rocks, and walking a lot. We loved it.
So here's the bus and the road, and here's the view (which I stared at for a total of approximately 15 hours). The weather was rubbish (It was cloudy) so we were denied a sunset at The Rock - therfore it looked like this. Not very red at all. Unless you employ the red filter. And here's the team. The next day we also missed out on a sunrise thanks to the weather. But then we did the long hike all the way round it which was really wicked. Once you start learning about all the aborigine stuff it takes on a weird spooky atmosphere, like a huge cathedral. Here's a weird mouth thing. This is me by a pond where a giant snake-lady had a fight. this is Zoe modelling her lovely fly hat. (we both have them, aren't they gorgeous).
I particularly liked the wave cave. Apparently aborigines made their kids stand here for days, because they believe you have to learn patience before you can become a real man. This explains a lot. In case you haven't seen it before, here's what Uluru looks like at close quarters. This is Zoe modelling a close up of the rock, for those of you who are interested in geology you can see it's made of a rusty metal type thing. To be precise.
We also visited the Olgas, and I took a brief detour to Mars.
Camping was a laugh. We slept in swags and made our own bread. (That's Kerry, Hi Kerry). See if you can spot the Irish person in this photo. We camped right in the depths of the outback. Here I am collecting firewood. At night a dingo came in, looking for babies to steal. Here he is looking at me. And here he is leaving. (Stu we'd like you to name him, seeing as you did such a good job with Karl the goat.) Here's an outback sunset, and this is one of my favourite pictures ever, an upside down Orion, taken from my cosy swag. The stars were beyond amazing, but I won't lose my cool and gush. Anyone who's been to the middle of nowhere will know what I mean.
And the other highlight from the "Red Centre" of Australia, as it's known, was the King's Canyon. It was a bit of a climb, but at the top there was a fossilised sea, plants left over from dinosaur times and perhaps best of all, the bit where they filmed some of Priscilla Queen of the Desert. We took it in turns to do the frock on a rock pose (Me. Zoe). There was also an ancient billabong called the Garden of Eden which ironically was probably discovered by aborigines about 70,000 years before the bible was written. That's all the politics I'm doing today folks.
There's lots more I could say about that very cool part of the world but the photos go on a bit and they're all the same colour. We had a night out in Alice with our outback friends, a brief stay in Brisbane where I briefly thought I'd accidentally caught a plane back to Stockport, (What on earth Scott and Charlene are doing there I have no idea), got out as quick as we could and are now in Byron Bay, home of hippie surf culture, before heading up to do some sailing in the Whitsundays. Unfortunately it is chucking it down with rain so we are at a bit of a loose end. You're not allowed to swim because it's all stormy so I am predicting an afternoon in the pub.
I'll just leave you with my latest persona; Outback Rick.
First of all some general admin.
1) Happy birthday Rachel! (I know it's late, sorry) hope you had a great day :)
2) My mistake on the last post; it's not 4 days drive from Bateman's Bay to Sydney it's 4 hours. heh. Those Australians amongst you were probably wondering what route we had taken there...
Speaking of which,
3) Clare, call yourself an aussie - they are "Grey Kangaroos" not "Wallabies". (What funny animal names you have here). One of them was a baby though so I'll let you off.
So all in all sydney was great, you probably picked up on that, but it was very exciting leaving because we were getting our first internal flight. Not least because we were heading to the desert, and deserts are way cool.
Oh, I should warn you before I start writing that my camera is completely up the spout, and the light meter ist kerput, so some of the photos are really weird colours.
Unfortunately our plane to Alice Springs wasn't a little Indiana jones plane with propellers, it was a proper passenger plane. Alice is, however, not a proper town. It is a mini place (smaller than wilmslow) and I think it's famous because a) it has a nice name (although no spring) and b) it's the only town for 3 days drive in each direction, of which there are two - up and down. Why anyone would want to live there I've no idea, but it is quite chilled (despite being VERY hot). Zoe got a new day-sack. I bought a hat then sat down and had a beer which attracted several flies, one wasp, and an aborigine. I also bought some pink sunglasses. They will crop up later...
We were a bit unlucky with our accomodation in Alice; it was a 16 person dorm in a hostel, and the other 14 inhabitants were perma-drunk australian manual workers who insisted on calling me buddy and bro (etc) and trying to get me to smoke weed with them. Going to bed involved wading through porn magazines, work boots and beer cans. Luckily we were only there for 1 night.
So, now for the red photos. Our "outback safari" was really really ace. We were basically bunged in a minibus for 3 days with the same 20 people, camping under the stars, eating rubbish food and visiting red rocks, and walking a lot. We loved it.
So here's the bus and the road, and here's the view (which I stared at for a total of approximately 15 hours). The weather was rubbish (It was cloudy) so we were denied a sunset at The Rock - therfore it looked like this. Not very red at all. Unless you employ the red filter. And here's the team. The next day we also missed out on a sunrise thanks to the weather. But then we did the long hike all the way round it which was really wicked. Once you start learning about all the aborigine stuff it takes on a weird spooky atmosphere, like a huge cathedral. Here's a weird mouth thing. This is me by a pond where a giant snake-lady had a fight. this is Zoe modelling her lovely fly hat. (we both have them, aren't they gorgeous).
I particularly liked the wave cave. Apparently aborigines made their kids stand here for days, because they believe you have to learn patience before you can become a real man. This explains a lot. In case you haven't seen it before, here's what Uluru looks like at close quarters. This is Zoe modelling a close up of the rock, for those of you who are interested in geology you can see it's made of a rusty metal type thing. To be precise.
We also visited the Olgas, and I took a brief detour to Mars.
Camping was a laugh. We slept in swags and made our own bread. (That's Kerry, Hi Kerry). See if you can spot the Irish person in this photo. We camped right in the depths of the outback. Here I am collecting firewood. At night a dingo came in, looking for babies to steal. Here he is looking at me. And here he is leaving. (Stu we'd like you to name him, seeing as you did such a good job with Karl the goat.) Here's an outback sunset, and this is one of my favourite pictures ever, an upside down Orion, taken from my cosy swag. The stars were beyond amazing, but I won't lose my cool and gush. Anyone who's been to the middle of nowhere will know what I mean.
And the other highlight from the "Red Centre" of Australia, as it's known, was the King's Canyon. It was a bit of a climb, but at the top there was a fossilised sea, plants left over from dinosaur times and perhaps best of all, the bit where they filmed some of Priscilla Queen of the Desert. We took it in turns to do the frock on a rock pose (Me. Zoe). There was also an ancient billabong called the Garden of Eden which ironically was probably discovered by aborigines about 70,000 years before the bible was written. That's all the politics I'm doing today folks.
There's lots more I could say about that very cool part of the world but the photos go on a bit and they're all the same colour. We had a night out in Alice with our outback friends, a brief stay in Brisbane where I briefly thought I'd accidentally caught a plane back to Stockport, (What on earth Scott and Charlene are doing there I have no idea), got out as quick as we could and are now in Byron Bay, home of hippie surf culture, before heading up to do some sailing in the Whitsundays. Unfortunately it is chucking it down with rain so we are at a bit of a loose end. You're not allowed to swim because it's all stormy so I am predicting an afternoon in the pub.
I'll just leave you with my latest persona; Outback Rick.
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