North Queensland

Wow! What a couple of weeks it’s been. On Monday afternoon I and a couple of other people joined a tour that had been making its way up the east coast. From the hostel we went down to the harbour and got onto a racing Yacht for our sail around the Whitsunday Islands. It was a little strange for me and my fellow travellers, because we were joining a tour that had already been going for over a week. Fortunately the four others who joined with me were really lovely people, so I hung around with them for most of the time. The rest of the group was pretty good too, but it was a little large, so very hard to really get to know everybody.

We started our sailing trip with a sunset sail out to Heyman Island, which was absolutely incredible. The sky was absolutely clear, so we got a beautiful red sunset over the ocean. Once the sun was down we had an absolutely incredible view of the stars. So good, in fact, that I decided to sleep out in deck that evening. Unfortunately it was actually pretty cold at night and very uncomfortable.

The next morning we went for a snorkel just off Heyman Island. There were hundreds of fish and some beautiful reef. I just wish I’d been diving down there, rather than snorkelling. It was a great taster for the diving I was going to be doing a little later in my trip. After snorkelling, we went out to Whitehaven beach, which absolutely deserves the label of the best beach in the world. The water was crystal clear and beautifully warm, the sand was pristine white. I thought I’d died and gone to heaven. After leaving paradise, we went for another sunset sail back towards the harbour, which was even more beautiful that the first. We anchored up for the night before sailing into port the next morning.

The weather for the sail was absolutely perfect; warm and sunny, without being unbearable. There wasn’t much wind, which meant we didn’t do too much sailing and were using the motor most of the time. The boat was a world championship winning sailing yacht, so there wasn’t a lot of room or luxury, but it was a really interesting experience and you soon got used to it.

After we got off the boat, we got onto the bus and drove pretty much all day to get to Cairns, with only a short stop for lunch in Townsville and a couple of other little stops.

On Thursday we had a free day in Cairns, with a bunch of optional activities to choose from. I decided to go White Water Rafting on the Tully River, which was great fun. The Tully is supposed to be one of the best places in Australia to go rafting and it really lived up to its reputation. I’d never actually done any white water rafting before then, but having done it, I’d love to do more.

Friday was the last day of the tour and we went up to Kuranda to the Koala sanctuary up there. We got to hold a Koala and have a photo taken with it, and feed some kangaroos. It was a really lovely way to end the tour, especially in the rainforest setting. We came back down to Cairns in the afternoon and said goodbye to the tour guides and all went out for a meal in the evening to say goodbye to everybody. All in all a really good tour and a great way to start my trip.

After a relaxing day in Cairns on Saturday I went up to Cape Tribulation for two days. On the first day we went to a wildlife sanctuary and saw some hundred of birds, and with some crocs and a few other things. Then we went for a boardwalk in the Rainforest, which was really beautiful. We saw some of the local wildlife, like a Southern Cassowary, which is very rare in the wild, as well as some beautiful butterflies. I then actually left that particular tour at lunch time and had the afternoon pretty much to myself in Cape Trib. A had a really relaxing few hours by the pool winding down. I wanted to do a guided night walk around the rainforest, but they were all booked up, unfortunately.

On Monday morning I went ‘Rainforest Surfing’, where you fly through the canopy on zip wires. It was a really interesting way of seeing the rainforest from a completely new angle. It was also a nice little adrenaline rush, especially when I was flying upside down! I was picked up after lunch and rejoined the tour back to Cairns. We went down to Cape Tribulation beach, which is the only place in the world where two World Heritage Listed Areas (The Great Barrier Reef and the Daintree Rainforest) meet. It wasn’t quite Whitehaven Beach, but it was pretty impressive. We then went Croc spotting up the Daintree River. We saw four crocs, but it wasn’t as good croc spotting in Northern Territory.

Then it was back to Cairns again. Tuesday was another quiet one before my Diving trip.

Early on Wednesday morning I got on a boat to go diving on the Great Barrier Reef. After a very turbulent two hours to get out there, we arrived at out first dive site. Because we were doing eleven dives over three days, we got into the water as soon as possible and got diving. The first dive was a little tricky for me, because I’d not been diving in quite a while, so it took some time to get back into it. Fortunately, by the second dive I’d managed to get the hang of it again, so the rest of the diving that day was much more fun! Each dive took between forty minutes and an hour, depending on depth and air consumption, so overall I had eight or nine hours diving! The first day was intense, given that we were doing four dives. Basically we would get out of the water, eat, have a short break, then get back in! In the evening I did my first ever night dive, which was a really interesting and surreal experience.

Thursday was a little less intense, but even so it went a little like this: wake up, dive, breakfast, dive, lunch, dive, dinner, dive. Exhausting! We had a little bit of free time between dives, which was usually spend resting, relaxing, playing cards and generally try to do as little as possible!

Friday was the last day of diving, so we only did three dives before heading back to shore. I then had a relaxing afternoon in which I almost went to sleep, I was that exhausted! That evening we all went out to a local pub for a meal and a drink to celebrate the end of our diving trip.

The diving on the reef was truly incredible! There were simply hundreds of fish, including some very beautiful butterfly fish, some hilariously ugly Parrot fish and some other truly bizarre varieties. Over the three days I swam with turtles and sharks, found Nemo a couple of times and generally had a great time! I hired an underwater camera for the three days and tried to take some photos. It’s very hard to take good photos underwater because the lighting is very different from the surface. Even so I think I got some decent ones. I also took a fair bit of video, which probably came out a little better.

To round of my stay in Cairns I did a 50 meter bungee jump on Saturday, which was incredibly scary, but a lot of fun! I flew back to Sydney yesterday morning at about six. I met with a friend from school who’s also doing a GAP year. He’s been in New Zealand, but came over to Sydney for a holiday. I am meeting with another friend who’s living out here for a couple of months later today as well, so the next couple of days should be good fun. I’m travelling back to Orange on Wednesday, for work to start on Thursday. After such a great couple of weeks, I’m not at all looking forward to going back to work! I’m not sure these two weeks have done anything but tire me out even more, so I expect that these first few weeks will be a little tough!

Back on the Horse

Holy God. A blog! What madness.

The last month of my life has been a crazy one in which I’ve lived out of a suitcase and without a reliable internet connection. I’ve been insanely busy travelling around Australia, either with my family or on my own. The few days in which I stayed in one place passed in a drunken haze while I watched England beat Australia in the cricket. Not terribly productive, but what can you do?

I’m back on the horse now however and thought it would be a good idea to tell you in a little more detail what I did on my extended hiatus.

Soon after my last blog, my parents and brother arrived from the UK (only one day before snow covered the country and closed Heathrow) and travelled up to Orange to see me. We did what little sightseeing there is around this town; hiking around the local hill, wine tasting, that sort of thing, before driving back to Sydney via the Blue Mountains for yet more walking!

From Sydney we flew to Melbourne, where we were staying for Christmas in a hotel in China Town. Christmas Eve was spent on St Kilda beach (I really hate beaches), and I managed to get a sunburn – a great start to our stay in Melbourne. Christmas Day was a bit better – we ate lunch at a really nice restaurant on the dockside before walking the length of the CBD along the river (my parents really like walking). It wasn’t terribly Christmassy, what with it being the middle of summer, but we survived. Actually it’s very strange how Australians have imported Christmas almost entirely unaltered from England, despite the fact that the weather is totally different – Santa still wears a huge red coat and all the cards have snowmen, reindeer and other wintery things on them.

On Boxing Day we took a bus tour around the City, hopping off to do some shopping (I also hate shopping) and some more walking. Stupidly I forgot to take my camera with me, so I didn’t get any photos of Melbourne. The day after Boxing Day we went to the MCG to watch a day of the cricket between England and Australia.

That marked the end of our visit to Melbourne. I found the city to be somewhat quiet, although visiting around Christmas may well have contributed to that. It was also quite unfinished. The area around the docklands was still being built, so it seemed like most of the city was a work in progress. It also felt very planned and soulless – it was built on a rigid grid pattern and seemed to have very little history – none of the city was really all that old.

Sydney was a stark contrast. We flew there on the 28^th and spent the next four days there. We met with some family friends the day after we arrived and walked around Sydney (yes, more walking). We did all the typical touristy stuff, like walking over the bridge, going up to the top of the Sydney Tower and walking through the Botanical Gardens to the Opera House. We were staying out in the Suburbs, a good 15 minute train journey away, which was a bit of a drag, so we spent pretty long days in the city to make the most of it.

The day before New Year’s Eve we took a bus trip around the city and out to Bondi Beach (more bloody beaches). I didn’t get sun burned this time, because a flatly refused to actually go to the beach; I went to an internet café instead. On New Year’s Eve we went to a point almost directly under the Harbour Bridge and staked out from 2 pm for the fireworks, which were absolutely spectacular! In our long day sitting around doing nothing, I started reading Stieg Larsson’s ‘The Girl Who Played with Fire’ (having not actually read the first book…) which I might review next week unless something more interesting comes up.

On New Year’s Day (happy new year, by the way), we went to Manly (a suburb or Sydney) to visit some more family friends and then went to the beach (again. This time I read). The day after that was my family’s last day in Aus, so we did some more wandering round Sydney (including going to the Chinese Garden) before saying our farewells. I then travelled to King’s Cross to the hostel in which I was staying for another week or so.

Thus began the part of my trip in which it was just me! Some of you might know that King’s Cross in Sydney’s Red Light District, which I didn’t know when I booked the hostel. Don’t fear; I didn’t hire any hookers during my week there. The reason I was staying in King’s Cross was that it is only a fairly short walk from the SCG, where I was going to watch the cricket that week.

The week passed in a fairly drunken haze, while England won The Ashes and I tried to survive without my parents paying for everything! It ended a rather enjoyable time in Sydney, which I preferred to Melbourne. Sydney was a lot busier (although that may have something to do with the time of year) and seemed more organic as a city – it was built on a grid, but it didn’t always stick to the grid like Melbourne did. Unfortunately it was also a lot harder to get around and there was an awful lot of traffic.

On the Saturday (that’s the 8^th) I flew to Hobart for a tour of Tasmania. My Tassie experience began first thing on Sunday with a trip to Richmond – a small village with an old bridge and some cute ducklings – we didn’t stay long – before continuing onto Port Arthur, the place where all the bad people went. And not just stole-a-loaf-of-bread bad, the repeat offenders got sent to ‘Hell on Earth’ as they called it. In the evening we got the opportunity to go back for a ghost tour, which was actually pretty spooky and very fun – basically the guide just walked us round the site and told us ghost stories relating to the places we visited.

On Monday we jet boat cruise around The Tasman Peninsula, which was great fun – we saw lots of dolphins and seals, as well as some stunning scenery. The sea was a bit choppy, so we got thrown around a bit, but it was all good fun. In the afternoon we drove up to Cole’s Bay on the edge of Freycinet National Park.

The next morning we walked through Freycinet and took in the beautiful Wineglass Bay, then it was up north to the Bay of Fires for more beautiful beaches and scenery.

On Wednesday we went across to Launceston (Australia’s 3^rd oldest city) to look at Cataract Gorge and pick up the 7^th member of our tour group and only the second non-English speaking. I was the only Englishman, there were 4 Aussies, a Dutch woman and a French Swiss (the latter we picked up in Launceston), overall a pretty good group. The Swiss girl’s English was pretty poor, which wasn’t ideal (neither was starting half way through).

After we left Launceston we drove all the way to the top the Cradle Mountain, where it was raining and we had no power… So we went to a local pub with a generator and stayed there for a little while, before huddling in front of the fire playing card and retelling ghost stories that we heard on the ghost tour (to the people who were too scared to go!)

The next day we were supposed to do some hiking around Cradle, but it was very wet and cold, so we walked for a bit, and then retreated into the pub, which was unfortunate. Despite the cold and the wet Cradle was beautiful. In the afternoon we drove down to Strahan, where it was supposed to be warm and dry.

Of course it rained most of the next day. We were supposed to go Quad Biking or Kayaking or some other optional activity, but we ended up just hiring sand boards and getting very wet on the dunes (and sandy). After a shower and a warm cup of tea, we headed out to the Franklin River to sample the fresh waster of the world’s only wild river (it runs without any human interference or usage from start to finish).

Saturday was the final day of our tour and it began with a stroll around part of Lake St Clair (Australia’s deepest freshwater lake), before heading out to Mt Field National Park to see the tallest flowering trees in the world. We staked out for a while to see some Platypus, but it was the middle of the day, so they refused to oblige us. Still we saw some very pretty waterfalls. Before returning to Hobart we stopped off at a wildlife sanctuary to see some of the locals. We met an adorable Wombat; some very misunderstood Tasmanian Devils (much cuter than the cartoon); a sleepy Koala (not actually a local); an Echidna; lots of Kangaroos (we even got to feed them) and even a Tasmanian Tiger! (Just kidding, they were extinct in the 1930s)

Then it was back to Hobart to say farewell and have one last evening of drinking together. Overall a fantastic tour; plenty of sights to see, even despite the weather. Tasmania reminded me of New Zealand in many ways – the North Island certainly (without the volcanism). It was lovely to see a part of Aus that most tourist neglect (some even miss it off the maps!). I’m especially glad that I was wise enough to leave Queensland until a little later on in the year (April), because I don’t think I’d have gotten very far!

I did actually have another day in Hobart. A number of the tour group met up for breakfast and explored the city a little (it didn’t take long) before going out separate ways. I first went to an internet café to catch up on what I’d missed (Tasmania is pretty backwards with regards to internet, so I was somewhat adrift all week. In fact one of the charms of Tassie, as well as one of its downfalls that it is a little like stepping into a time machine and going back somewhere between 5 and 20 years; so much is old fashioned and backwards.)

Anyway, after catching up with the world at large I went for another stroll along with picturesque dockside and followed my ears to a local music festival that happened to be going on (it also happened to be free!). It was an alternative Music Festival and had some very alternative stuff indeed, like an Italian man playing Minimalist music with kitchen utensils and a mixing deck, and a giant ball which made noises when hit that was released into the crowd so that we could make the music ourselves. There was some more conventional music as well, like a string quartet playing rock music (ok, not so conventional, but at least it’s with actually instruments, not pots and pans!)

And that’s why I’ve not had a blog in over 3 weeks.

Up top!

Some of you might know that I’ve spend the last week and a half travelling around the Northern Territory of Australia, which is why there has been no Project 365 for a while and no blog last week. Well I’m making it up to you by posting last weekend’s blog post today and also posting one on Saturday. I will also update Project 365 at some point in the next few days.

So anyway, I flew up to Alice Springs early Saturday morning (September 25th) and got in about midday, so I had the afternoon to relax by the pool and wind down before the tour started on Sunday. This way fortunate because it was an early start on Sunday – we had to have our bags on the bus at 6:30 in the morning! After a bit of breakfast we started the long trip to Uluru (4 or 5 hours on a bus). We had lunch in our resort before heading out to the Rock for the afternoon.

Uluru was very beautiful. Although some of the group climbed to the top, the Aboriginals request that you don’t, so I decided not to. Instead I did a walk around the bottom and took some very good photos! In the evening we sat and watched the sun set over the Rock, which was a wonderful experience.

Then it was back to our resort and into bed after a bit of supper in preparation for another long day. We woke up for breakfast at 5 am in order to get to Kata Tjuta (some big rocks a few miles away from Uluru) for sunrise and then do a two and a half hour walk around the domes before the heat set in. We retraced our steps in the afternoon on the way to King’s Canyon; our stop off point for that evening. Again it was dinner and an early night in preparation for another early morning the next day.

The early morning was so that we could walk through King’s Canyon before the heat of the day. This walk was probably the highlight of the trip; even better than Ayer’s Rock! The rock formations reminded me a lot of pictures I have seen of Cappadocia in central Turkey; needless to say it was absolutely stunning. That evening we returned to Alice for dinner at a charming pub called Bojangles. I ate an 800 gram steak, which I think was about 2 pounds! I got a certificate for my trouble from the restaurant and $5 from a friend, so it was worth it.

The next morning was a late start (thankfully because we’d stayed at the pub until late the last night). We travelled up to the Western MacDonnell Mountains and explored some of the beautiful rock formations in the morning and then went back to Alice for the afternoon. Some of the group stayed in Alice the afternoon, but about half a dozen of us (me included) went Quad biking, which was absolutely awesome! We then returned to our resort for dinner and entertainment in the form of a live Guitarist and a reptile handler. I got to have a snake wrapped around my neck!

From Alice we spend the next 2 days heading 'up the track' to Katherine. This involved 2 days of solid driving through some of the most desolate and deserted landscape I've ever seen. Apart from the occasional rest stop and a couple of small towns there was almost no sign of civilisation for miles on end. The small patches of civilisation were all pretty quirky as well. Two of the best were probably Daly Waters; a pub in which passers by have left pretty much every kind of memorabilia to adorn the walls. We left a vest signed by the entire tour to add to the extensive collection of crap, and Wycliffe Wells; the self-proclaimed UFO capital of Australia.

Eventually, after many long hours on the bus, we arrived in Katherine; the third largest town in The Territory. We had a bit of time to shop here before heading off to our accommodation for the evening. The next day we went Kayaking down the Katherine River before cooling off in the pools beneath Edith Falls - the first of many swimming stops over the next few days, which were much needed due to the oppressive tropical humidity. In the afternoon we headed into Kakadu; the largest National Park in Australia, and got settled down in our accommodation. Unlike the rest of the tour, this accommodation was in permanent tents, which was an interesting experience, but very humid given that they lacked air con!

The next morning I, along with half a dozen other people from the tour, went on a scenic flight over the national park, which was absolutely stunning. It proved to be a superb way to see the park both because of its vastness and the humidity making it impossible to spend too much time outside the air conditioned bus. The rest of the morning was spent exploring some of the Aboriginal art sites around Kakadu, which was a really interesting experience. It's a bit of a shame that we don't really know what most of the paintings represent. In the afternoon it was back to the camp site for a relaxing time in the pool and at the bar watching the Rugby League Grand Final.

We were up early the next morning so that we could get to Corroboree Billabong to get up close and personal with Australia's deadliest species - the Salt Water Croc! Fortunately no-one was eaten and we got to get a close look at both fresh and salt water Crocodiles as well as a plethora of bird species that inhabit the Billabong. After our close encounter we got back in the bus and drove to Mt Bundy for our final night together! Another tour member and I went on a guided horse ride through the homestead, which was good fun - and I didn't even fall off once! We saw lots of Wallabies and Kangaroos roaming the homestead as well as some huge termite mounds.

We departed Mt Bundy on the last day of our trip and headed to Lichfield National Park, where we spend a relaxing day travelling between waterfalls and swimming in the beautiful pools. Our last stop was Darwin, where we had dinner and hit the pub to say goodbye to everyone! I unfortunately had a plane to catch in the early hours, so I didn't stay for the duration. Even so it was a really good end to a really good trip and I look forward to my next one.