Into The Wild West

Tuesday, December 29, 2009

Ok so you know how its weird when you come across a place where you can see for ever and you can’t see anything much, like a desert, or if you’ve never been to one; like Yorkshire. So the Nullarbor plain is translated as Treeless Plain, the reason for this is because it has no trees, ‘big deal there are plenty of places without trees' you think. Of course this is true, there are, however can you look out the window of a train for an hour and detect anything different about the scenery? (when it's moving) if so than you have yet to experience the Nullarbor, it was much like travelling the Northern Territory where it all looked pretty much the same only here you could see for miles, and all you could see was these tough little cactus like shrubs that somehow lived there. Also when you went to sleep and woke up the next day, the scenery looked exactly the same, checked against photos, the only difference being the position of the sun. It really made you wonder if indeed you had moved at all or weren’t just stuck in some weird space/time paradox thingy where you can never leave.

We had one stop where we got out, at a place called Cook, and a weird little place it was. Just a bunch of abandoned buildings that somehow got there, (I have no idea how they got so far into nowhere, but they did) a little shop selling random souvenirs, even if no one lives there they will still try to make money outta you, and a few signs that appropriately summed up the place.

I travelled as far as Kalgoorlie but during the day and a half that I was on the train I got to know the others pretty well, including a Turkish lady who was off to Perth to join an archaeology course, a bunch of people from the other carriage, all a very cheerful friendly bunch and 1 guy who snored so loudly I thought perhaps we had truly entered an alien dimension. Sven joined me in my carriage, which had much more space and we flipped around the chairs (you can do that in Oz, flip round chairs on trains, no idea why but its brilliant.) so we each had 2 extra wide seats to ourselves, perfect. We chilled out and snacked, watched films, I disappeared to do a little writing, I came back and ate more, we told each other about our lives and other halves (blank in my case) and of course we slept. Nearing Kalgoorlie I was quite annoyed a my choice, whilst I wanted to see the famous little town and its little gold mine, I didn’t really care and I if I had carried on to Perth I would get to hang out with my new friends for a little longer instead of missing them as would happen as they were both leaving Perth on or before the day I arrived.

So anyways we arrived at night having gone a full day and a bit and went out to grab some food. There was a few of us and when I came back from dropping my bags off at the hostel there was even more, all sitting outside a Japanese as it was the only reasonably priced food around. I got extra as well as one of the german girls didn’t want all of hers. Two for the price of one! Sadly though the time came to say goodbye and I hugged lots of people and had only 1 e-mail, hopefully he had all of theirs… time to retire it was so back to the Gold dust YHA to start my life in the west.

Adelaide

Tuesday, December 22, 2009

Leaving Coober Pedy was interesting; I remembered I had cleverly hung my towel out to dry just before leaving right next to where we were waiting for our shuttle and of course I had left without it even though it was right in front of me. So I ran back. I got the hostel sweaty and panicky not wanting to miss the bus, naturally even after I got back to the bus stop I still had to wait another 10 minutes before it arrived. The journey was not pleasant, it just happens to be one of those journeys where everything is slightly more crowded, so you are confined to one seat for the whole night, get approximately no sleep and arrive thoroughly tired and stressed.

So Adelaide it was and I had an energy drink to help me stay awake through the morning so I could meet Di at the YHA and chat about more free stuff she had arranged for me. By this time I was knackered from all my camping and heatstroke so all I really wanted was to lie down and sleep for a month, however I was offered a Surf Day and a Wine Tour so I couldn’t very well say no thanks I don’t like Wine or Surfing could I, not much point in me being in Oz if that was the case.

So I went on a Groovy Grape tour of the Barossa Valley, stopping at bizarre things such as a giant rocking horse and a whispering wall that allows conversations at great distances. We were half way to a winery when the bus screeched to a halt and our tour guide jumped out, ran across the road and leapt a fence all the while leaving us to scratch our heads in confusion. He returned proudly holding an echidna and proceeded to tell us everything about echidnas completing my experience of monotremes. Then we went and got drunk as you do, enjoying one good wine after another and some lovely scenic views. Some wineries were just about the wine and others were more about the way it was made and a tour of the actual winery rather than as many bottles as you can try. As the day progressed everyone became more and more silly and then we found an empty barrel, Dan our tour guide looked rather like a little gremlin hiding in it. Lunch was after the 3^rd winery, an odd way around in my point of view, mainly because I had forgotten breakfast, it consisted of kangaroo steaks and other stuff, which I forget as it wasn’t steak, however I did get more steak as someone couldn’t eat theirs.

Surf and Sun picked me up early the next morning and dragged me down to Middleton beach, newly decorated with seaweed, so much there was almost no beach left. Tom our instructor got us going and then switched my board for a shorter one and got me turning, finally I can surf for real! The waves were great in the morning and really good for practicing, nice and orderly, unfortunately they became a bit scrambled later on and we ended up with messy waves all crashing into each other and only a few waves were caught in the later part of the day, but I was happy, I had learned to turn! Eventually tom took a little film and I naturally chose that moment to fall over painfully winding myself on my board and looking like a total plonker. What made it more embarrassing was the size of the wave, which would be less than a foot high, however I did manage to get it right after so it was ok in the end.

My last day in Adelaide before heading off on the Indian Pacific was spent with Sven, a shy guy who I met on the wine tour and a couple of nutters I had seen the night before playing a crazy game of ping pong whilst running in circles round the table. The Ping Pongers were; Bob, a guy with a hunch and Franzi, a pretty redhead, direction being provided by Bob who seemed to know everything; we visited the aboriginal art centre, I had just bought some edibles and didn't want them to go 'wrong' in the heat so i ran back to the hostel and said i would meet them at the Art centre, typically I arrived seconds after they went in to watch a show and had to sit outside for ages and wait for them! Then we went to the botanical gardens before getting some shopping and preparing a fast, speedy but large dinner as Sven and myself had to be off fairly soon.

An Update...

Thursday, December 17, 2009

Hello faithfull and lovely readers.

I wish to tell you that my blog is in the Northern Territory at Alice Springs however I am in South Australia having already been to and from the West. My trip has been amazing and full of fun however I have been moving slightly too fast to tell you in time so I have got behind, just so you know and don't think I'm still up North, and I currently don't have a moustache even though I will be uploading pictures with my moustache intact, it's not Movember but it was...

So on with the story.

The time came to leave again and off I went, this time to a little place in the middle of nowhere, just like everywhere else in Australia, called Coober Pedy. This place manages to be different however in that most of the buildings go downwards not up. In order to save on Air Con they just dug down and put everything underground where the heat is much more consistent; being cool when its 50 up top and staying cool when up top freezes during the night. A place where you pray underground, read underground, eat underground but search for opals above ground. Opals of course being the only reason anyone lives in that part of the desert, it being nothing like an oasis.

I met an English Bloke here and we went on our own opal hunt for a blistering and utterly un-lucrative hour, well perhaps the one I found would have fetched 5 cents and his might have stretched to 6, however that means little in Oz where they have abandoned the use of 1 and 2 cent coins meaning everything is simply rounded to the nearest 5 multiple. So altogether we had 10 cents of opal and a big headache, plus several sneezing fits from the dust. Time to go underground! We visited a church, which was open, but no one was home, so we sneaked about and found a tunnel, leading deep into the ground, which ended in a spooky room/cave with no lights that rather reminded me of a resident evil scenario. The backpackers, run by a lovely guy named Martin, with a superb beard also reminded me of resident evil with its eerie underground layout, all thoroughly exciting and jolly good fun.

The only interesting thing we found above ground was the Spaceship from the film Pitch Black, which was about a random deserted planet, filmed around Coober Pedy, appropriate. I was kind of expecting the Spaceship to have at least a sign or perhaps be enclosed somehow but no, we crested a hill to see a road with a Spaceship parked forever, right next to it, just there in the middle of an underground town was a Spaceship by the road looking as if the owner simply couldn’t be bothered to come back and pick it up, only in Coober Pedy.

A Treasure Hunt

Sunday, December 13, 2009

It is here again, this time it shouldn't be banned by Youtube, Soundtrack is different but hey, sacrifices sometimes have to be made. Hope you like it.

An Oasis

Saturday, December 12, 2009

We got back. That much surprised me. I paid the girls the money I owed them for the trip, which was very little considering what we did and off I went to the YHA, which was full, so off I went to some other place down the road which took about 5 hours and 3 bath tubs of sweat to reach, carrying just my day bag as I had left the bigger one in the YHA, both bags would have killed me in that heat.

Funny how things work out, I was pretty annoyed at walking so far and wasn’t too wowed by the other hostel, however I did meet a gorgeous woman from Taiwan here who made my dinner a lot nicer and I also bumped into my good friend Marc who walked out of the darkness in a sinister fashion to surprise me at around 11 whilst I was up typing. And then the next morning as I went to get brekkie I encountered a couple who were on one of my earlier bus journeys and who were also the same people I had bumped into at Kings Canyon. Still I have to wonder at how often I meet the same people and how easy it is to keep bumping into them, it’s one of the great things about travelling somewhere like Australia where there is so much space and so few towns in between, everyone ends up in the same places so it is almost like walking around your home town where your likely to see people you know.

After breakfast it was back to the YHA with me and back on the net, which wasn’t working at the other hostel. I noticed we had some new talent, a phrase I would not normally use due its derogatory connotations (so don’t ask me why I’m using it now, I have no idea.) There were a lot more pretty girls than before and one who stood out; a tall, dark, auburn beauty that I later found out had a boyfriend, what a shame. However we still stayed up talking, scoffing chocolate and watching films together. We both agreed that Valkyrie being a Nazi German film with only American actors was utter tosh, Tom Cruise is not a convincing actor at the best of times and when trying to be a German Hero his ‘skills’ are somewhat misplaced. Needless to say I found her company very charming and was again sad to be heading in the opposite direction.

The Red Centre

Sunday, December 6, 2009

I arrived in Alice Springs, or at least part of me did. I felt as if half of me had entered a different dimension and wouldn’t be leaving soon. I also had no idea how I would get to Uluru as I really had no money left at this point, I think my bank account held less than $90, so I was feeling a little tense and wired when I arrived. However after a while I settled into Alice Springs hostel, which was a pretty nice place and decided seeing as everything had worked for me so far I would simply chill out and let things happen. So I came to the conclusion that waiting wouldn’t provide food as well and that I would still have to shop for it, shame that, however whilst I was at the supermarket I did meet a couple of German girls who said they were taking a car out to Uluru right away, that was quick I thought as I asked if I might tag along in their spare seat, they said they would have a think and get back to me, I offered them dinner that night and then found out they were fine with me going, hurrah for cooking!

So I cooked up some roast potatoes, steak and veggies, which tasted pretty damn good! Yes I do appreciate my own food, very Un-English I know. Eventually the decision was reached to leave the next day, hallelujah I could at least have one night in a bed, before the next adventure. The only thing that went wrong that night is someone stealing my beautiful blue knife, I mean come on, who steals a knife?! So far I had lost my wallet, scarf, hat and now a knife, all very important whilst backpacking and all were probably stolen, ‘I have no money people, be nice.’ So I had a lovely night of sleep and arose to an early, mad start, off into the desert this time.

For some reason the girls didn’t like air con so they left it off, it wasn’t as much of a problem at first as it wasn’t that hot in the morning, but it got hot fast and still they didn’t turn it on. I did ask eventually but they said they didn’t want to use it and seeing as I was the extra in the group I couldn’t very well demand it, it wouldn’t be British. So there I was in an oven with four German girls who preferred their own language, I soon passed out.

Uluru is pretty damn big, although I have to admit at first I thought it looked small, then when you get close you realise how massive it is. Just one huge big red stone, in the middle of a desert. We went in and chilled out at the shop for a while, leaving the oven behind us, ‘Oh sweet salvation’ and got some ice cream before taking a walk around the rock to experience its majestic beauty. The beauty part got a little lost half way through a mouthful of flies but it was definitely there for a while. Unfortunately I couldn’t climb it as they don’t open the climb when the temp goes higher than 36, it was 46… the girls agreed to come back the next day if the climb was open but then wed go to Kata Tjuta early to do the walk there before it got too insane.

As should now be obvious, it was of course, just at the insane point, before they close the walk off and refuse to let anyone through, and of course the climb at Uluru was closed, due to it being 46 again. So the walk around Kata Tjuta was intense and extremely wearying, this combined with the fact that flies were hounding me like a 2-day corpse and I had not slept the night before (it turns out that the desert is bloody cold at night in a tent) made it all in all a trying day, then we drove to Kings Canyon, with no Air Con.

The Kings Canyon walk I am rather proud of, the girls didn’t want to do it, but were happy to wait for me to walk around. So I pretty much ran it. 2 hours later I was back at the car park. I did do this first thing in the morning however hence how I am still alive. The Canyon was the best bit for me; beautiful and dramatic with enough time to appreciate it even at my fast pace, it made the biggest impact. I even took some film whilst there, then overtook people and took more film, somehow when I‘m in a beautiful place I have the energy of a madman, and it’s very useful. The view at the end of the Canyon is fantastic, even though it’s just of the car park that’s too far in the distance to really stand out, I was pretty high too, so high I could hardly make out the 4 girls standing on the platform down the bottom, who I soon figured out were my German friends. When you come around the other side of the Canyon there is a gorgeous view of the cliff that has recently been exposed leaving a sheer wall of multicoloured rock. Unfortunately there is also 5 times the amount of people, in my case anyhow, although I didn’t mind much when I realised I knew some of them.

Luckily we didn’t stay out again, I had by then enough, of superheated food that went off in 5 minutes, a sun that made you want to cry with its intensity, which of course you cant, as you have evaporated and the freezing nights that pass by without any sleeping involved, not even in a good way. Instead we drove back and today was so hot I even managed to convince the girls to turn on the Air Con, truly I had ascended!

Kakadu and away

Saturday, December 5, 2009

So the next day we naturally missed the sunrise again and decided to head back to Katherine just to film a little more. That done we headed off to finally visit Kakadu which was the whole point of the trip anyway, or so I had figured. During the long car journey I bombarded Kate with questions, something I had been doing pretty much every second we weren’t filming. She did all the driving (a lot of companies wont rent out a car to someone under 21) and we talked about a story I have been working on for a while pointing out that my female characters were a little underdeveloped, I had 1, and about 6 male characters with more popping up all the time. So maybe she had a point. She also explained pretty much everything there is to know about Reiki, which was rather fascinating.

Eventually we got to Kakadu and our intended spot; Ubirr, we viewed the art and climbed up to enjoy the scenery, stopping every now and then to film something that I had no idea what I would do with, so far the film had been in many directions and none of them worked so I was feeling a little stressed about the whole thing. We climbed the rock and I tried not to faint as we stumbled about in the sun, getting excited by the prospect of something to climb and then almost injuring myself in my delirious, overheated state. Ubirr is a rock, a big rock, which has a wonderful 360 view of wetlands, rock and more rocks. Ok so perhaps that explanation was a little rubbish. We could see for miles in every direction, right into Arnham land (aboriginal land where permits are required for entry) one side and a lake on the other, then of course the rest of the view would be the rocks I mentioned which were equally spectacular. When we finally left it was almost sunset, we had planned on getting at least half way back so as to be able to drop off the car in the morning easily… with 300km to go this of course didn’t happen, in fact nothing so far had really gone to plan, not that it was a bad thing.

Finally we woke up before sunrise, at last! Not that we did anything with the sunrise after all but never mind. It was time to leave the Northern Territory at last, and for that I was quite grateful, having slept in the roasting car the night before due to the amount of wildlife around us, I was feeling pretty yuck, also I hadn’t really slept much. All in all it had been an intense 3 days, with plenty of madness and confusion, an information overdose, far to much heat and all whilst attempting to make a movie. Kate dropped me off at the Ghan train station where I then found out after she left that I hadn’t been able to sort out my ticket after all (I had no idea of the ticket situation due to the outback having no phone signal, me having no phone battery, my solar charger that powers my phone actually melting in the heat and not having actually spoken to the person who was activating my ticket) and that I wouldn’t be able to board this train. Bugger.

In the end one of the managers gave me a lift back into town where I booked my greyhound ticket instead and found Kate in her favourite café. Kate figured seeing as we had a half hour we might as well make use of the twist of fate and turn me into a real Reiki practitioner. So now I have magic healing hands of Reiki, which means I got a burger and then sat on a bus for 21 hours completing yet another sleepless night.

Katherine

Friday, December 4, 2009

So the plan was to wake up before sunrise and head off somewhere else in Litchfield, maybe film the sunrise and hopefully get something done whilst the day was still just hot. Naturally we woke up late and missed that opportunity, so we messed about with the camera for a while and enjoyed breakfast before heading off to find the next location, we turned off at one location but it lead to an unsealed road so we turned back, the next turning was the same, and so was the next, eventually we had driven about 100km and been nowhere, we figured seeing as we were heading towards Katherine we may as well just head there, so there we did head.

Katherine Gorge was awe inspiring, huge, beautiful and with a bloody great view at the top! Naturally in the heat I struggled just to reach the building next to the car park, we had a quick meal of a pie or something and then off we went, swimming. According to Kate the river did have crocodiles in but we should be fine as long as we stayed near the other people etc. only problem was we wanted to film… as it turned out the people nearby came in handy for that, an English girl filmed us while we splashed around and I pretended to be attacked by a croc. Funnily enough it was kind of like method acting, I wasn’t really sure if Kate was simply doing the typical Aussie thing and trying to scare the Pom (English person), or if there really were crocodiles in the river, so whilst I was splashing about and disappearing under water I was also imagining vividly what would happen if there were crocs and one was biting my leg.

After this we climbed up to the top just to punish ourselves a little more, and checked out the view, which I mentioned before, Gorgeous. After that I noticed there were two ways back and remembered seeing another that went along the top of the gorge rather than back down all those stairs, I said we should take that, thinking we had done the worst and it couldn’t be any harder than the climb up. I spent much of the walk back apologising, it took at least an hour maybe 2 and seemed to be going in the opposite direction to the car most of the way which was thoroughly disheartening. This meant it was almost sunset by the time we reached Katherine town to grab some food, (sandwich stuff which I promised to put together on the way) before we headed off to Kakadu. There is a rule in Australia: unless you are a huge bus and cannot be hurt by large objects do not drive at night, you will hit a kangaroo, or perhaps several, and they will damage your car, and probably you as well. This is not something to scare the Pom’s I was on a bus over night, we hit 5. I know people who rented a car and drove at night, they were unfortunate. So we stayed in Katherine that night, much to my dismay, however we were lent a mattress by an ex Pommy who was feeling generous and that meant at least it was partly comfortable if still stupendously sauna like.

Litchfield

Thursday, December 3, 2009

Talk about a fated meeting. I had yet to see the North except for Darwin but I didn’t have anywhere near enough money for a tour of Kakadu. Kate had already been on a tour but she wanted the chance to go back by herself before she got stuck at work in Darwin. The car rental gave unlimited mileage, however only for a 3 day rental, so what the heck we thought, and went for it. I paid for the car, Kate paid for everything else. At 5 the next morning we headed into the outback.

We figured we would head into Litchfield, the nearest National Park and see as much as possible in a day then travel to Kakadu for the next 2 days. We loaded up and jumped in the car, put on the first of a bunch of CD’s I had made for the trip and off we rolled. Half asleep I was staring quite blankly out of the window when I noticed the sun, just popping up over the horizon in the wing mirror, screeching to a halt we hopped out and took the fist bit of footage of the journey, we had begun! We made another stop just as the temperature was getting unbearable, at about 8 O’clock to film the remains of a bush fire still smoking, handily placed just for us to notice it. Eventually we made it to our first intended stop at a beautiful fall, the heat being already way into the unbearable stage at about 9 O’clock but luckily the sun wasn’t yet high enough to shine over the fall so the whole place was in shade, plus of course there was water to swim in. Majestic and beautiful it would have made a perfect place to film; typically I had forgotten the camera.

We swam and Snorkelled a little as Kate had brought goggles, spying lots of fish but mostly murky darkness that kind of freaked me out a little, I don’t like deep water. However it did mean I knew where the rocks were underwater so when I climbed up the fall I knew where to jump back in and where I would have a slightly less comfortable landing. When we got out Kate said that if you dropped some bread in the water hundreds of fish would appear out of nowhere, so to prove it she did. The bread hit the water and one nanosecond later every fish in the known galaxy was suddenly fighting over the one measly bit of bread. Literally there were more fish than water and they seemed to pop straight out of the rocks, never before have I seen a fish pop out of nowhere like that and certainly not in the thousands, quite a spectacle. Time for our own food we went and found a little stream for our picnic and conversed about Angels and the taste of Ants whilst a dragonfly flew in the same pattern for about half an hour right next to us. Perhaps it wanted our food or maybe it had been given bad directions, who knows.

When we got back to the car I was genuinely shocked, it wasn’t even midday yet and yet the car was hotter than a poker pulled from a fire, we had barely begun, and for the next few days there was nowhere for me to hide, I was living in the harsh hot and entirely real outback. At least we had air con in the car for a brief respite before arriving at our next stop, where we actually filmed something and it turned out to be perfect. We went off the beaten track to find a little section of river complete with Goanna’s, a little fall and a snorkelling experience that resembled swimming through an underwater city. My hope of living till the end of the day was restored as soon as I got in the water and my body temp dropped from about 120 to 45.

We stayed at a campsite that night and realised when we got there that we hadn’t quite prepared for this trip. We had no swag, no tent, only one sleeping bag between us and just a billy can to cook with. Somehow we managed, we borrowed a tarp, which we put on the grass as it would be softer than our designated dirt square, I used a sleeping bag liner and Kate used her Sleeping bag, luckily it didn’t rain. For food we improvised, beans I ate cold out of the can, toast we made on a barbecue, sausages were easy, veg… hmm… never mind, we had oranges, that’s healthy right?

Wednesday, November 25, 2009

For all those who are wondering what its like to catch the bus all the way to Darwin from cairns I urge you to keep wondering and never find out. Certain words come close to describing it: painful, torture, agony, hell, exhausting. Really all you need to know was it took a long time, 41 hours, and it’s a lot like an endurance test. I didn’t crack but boy did I want to, the only thing that stopped me leaping off the bus is not wanting to be left out in the middle of nowhere in one of the ‘towns’ we stopped at. So I endured and crazily was able to walk through the melting heat of Darwin’s afternoon to find my hostel. Now here’s the really insane part, after such a journey you expect to be exhausted right, well I was, however I didn’t sleep that night. Instead I met Kate who is a filmmaker and Reiki teacher and we took a walk and stayed up all night talking about films and Reiki and whatnot, amazing how awake a good conversation can make you. When the sun had risen we decided to head back to the hostel and finally I got a bit of rest, rising in the afternoon. So in total I was up around 70 hours before finally getting to bed, truly a long day.

The next day I met up with Marc who had flown over after I left on the bus, we went to the Crocodile Cove which I was unhappy to pay for but figured I may as well considering I was there and he wanted to see it. It was, after all my annoyance, pretty damn good, I got to hold a little Salty, saw some big Salties and I mean BIG, these fella’s weren’t pretty. But they were very cool, we also found about 100 babies in a big enclosure, which was also awesome, so now I have seen a ton of crocs, including all the various breeds around the world, stuffed mostly, and even old Charlie’s skull, complete with axe wounds. In the evening I visited the famous night market with Kate, which was very fun, a colourful array of stalls selling all kinds of things a lot of it very good quality, and we ate the food she had made earlier and talked some more.

One of the most hilarious things I have ever seen happened at her last hostel, we went over there to swim in the pool as they had shut ours and after we’d had our swim, were sitting, talking and chilling out, the lads arrived. In a big chain, quite akin to the way ants will run in a line, they streamed into the pool and began to run around the edge anti-clockwise, running faster and faster until they had created a whirlpool and eventually collapsed, the current they had created being so strong they could just lay back and get dragged around the pool. This was by far the most bizarre thing I have witnessed so far on my journey; just the suddenness and randomness of it totally surprised me, but what an idea! I had not my camera with me, otherwise pictures and film would now be online, so instead of filming I jumped in and joined them on their quest to make a raging current in the confines of a swimming pool.

For most of my time in the north I talked, with Kate, about all kinds of extra ordinary stuff as if it was totally ordinary. Again those of a sceptical view should look away at this time. We spoke about Past Lives, Angels and Reiki; she informed about most of the stuff I needed more information about, like how Reiki actually worked, where it came from and about Angels and their ways, and she also told me about Indigo and Crystal Children, which I still need more info on, there just wasn’t enough time to fit all the information in, even with staying up all night. Mainly our talking consisted of me asking questions and Kate filling me in on various subjects, her knowledge is a little more comprehensive than mine. We swapped Reiki treatments, and I found out my Reiki isn’t proper Reiki, great. We also talked about some slightly more normal stuff, including our trips round Oz, what she was doing in Darwin and the recent films we had made. Hers being a short film shot from the point of view of a crocodile called Sweetheart, and actual famous croc that lived near Darwin.

One thing I have to say about Darwin is the heat! My god the HEAT! It’s so hot you open the door and think you’ve just opened the oven door; just sitting down is a sweat-inducing task. The main reason Kate and I stayed up so late to talk is that during the day you simply cannot think, and only at about 2 in the morning does the heat drop to a still humid 30 centigrade which is just about bearable. Around perhaps 5 in the morning the heat tended to be around a pleasant 25 and this made it the best time to chat. However as soon as the sun rises the heat shoots straight back up so sunrise was bedtime, ahh air-con!

Uncles and Cousins

Monday, November 23, 2009

One of the pretty girls working at Cairns Central YHA convinced me to do Uncle Brian’s tour. I never got to meet uncle Brian, he had an accident coming out of the shower to get the phone one day, slipped on the kitchen floor and his wife tried to stop his fall, he ended up impregnating her and so he now has a kid to look after and leaves the cousins to do the tours.

Cousin Rohan! He was our guide for the day, taught us some pretty weird stuff and told us stories like the one above all day, hilarious man and clearly loving his job. He greeted me at the hostel and I got on Gus the Wonderbus, then was treated to a recital of the names of everyone on the bus which Rohan did perfectly except for my name, which had been put on the list as Khan, my last name. Still, for every other person we picked up he recited the names again and got it right every time, apparently Brian had told him when he got the job, “The only thing that matters is that you remember their names, I don’t care if you drown a few as long as you shout out the right name when you try to save them.”

Our tour was to go to the Atherton Tablelands and have plenty of fun! And that we did, off we headed with Rohan telling us tales about Gus and his love triangle with Vulvina (his girlfriend) and Vanessa (an ambulance that took a fancy to him), and about his friend Bruce the highway, whenever Gus turned onto or off Bruce the Highway he would honk twice to say “Hi, Bruce” or “Bye, Bruce.” We started with a river that has a spooky story, one that claims the life of a male in their 20’s, always an outsider once a year, the story being about an aboriginal girl who fell in love with an outsider then drowned herself in the river when he was killed and when a man the same age swims in the river she pulls them down thinking it might be her lover. After that story we took some pictures of the place, which was very beautiful and enticing, turns out there are actually gaps in the riverbed which is rock, creating plug hole type scenarios that can pull down and drown anyone who swims over them. Still, beautiful place and we learned some interesting stuff about slow growing trees containing Cyanide.

So enough of the things that can kill you, onto the next stop, we went to a river and a natural rockslide, ran around like idiots, jumping down the rock slide and attempting to get up the rocks in the first place which turned out to be the funniest part, the only way up was a rock slope which naturally, was slippery when wet, and seeing as you had to reach it from the water, well everyone was having trouble so Rohan and I had to pull them up. The day was beautiful and so were a couple of the girls, and as we were swimming all day I had plenty of time to admire them in their bikini’s, especially one redhead from Holland called Marjanne, who’s a nurse so she’s smart as well as beautiful, always a bonus. So on we went, Cousin Rohan leaving us often confused but mostly just in hysterics and getting us to do ridiculous things such as playing where’s Wally, a game in which you must pass a hollow mint to one another on matchsticks held in mouths. It made for some great photos.

The next swim was at a waterfall with water that was “Extremely Refreshing,” according to Rohan who refuses to refer to the water as cold, the others attested to this by squealing a lot as the slowly waded in. I stood at the bank for a while hoping I would warm up a little before going in but as we were in shade this was only counter productive, eventually I grew some balls and went for it, splashing the rest of the group who were only up to their knees and being the first one to the waterfall, before realising how refreshed I felt. As soon as I stopped swimming with all my might to ignore the refreshment, I thought I might be dying or at least that my lungs had grown icicles, and in that state I sat and shivered whilst I waited for 3 others to get to the waterfall and sit by me and Rohan to notice, get out the camera and take shots of us freezing our asses off in the refreshing bath.

Our last swim was at a lovely lake which most people just looked at, I felt it couldn’t be wasted and so I had fun flipping into it from a little jetty and swimming around just long enough to notice I was bored without the rest of them. So instead I got out and ate muffins and drank hot chocolate, whilst being rude to the lovely Marjanne, at which point I would like to ask, why is it us boys never know how to be nice to a pretty girl and instead make fun of her and act like idiots? I found her very enticing so whenever I was in her company I insulted her and acted like a prat, pretty much the whole day. Granted I started off nice and I was actually interested when she told me about herself but I didn’t act like it. Really, when will we learn a better way of flirting? It’s embarrassing.

We all left the lake feeling pretty elated and then quickly stopped at a little river where we watched a platypus swim around, diving for food and resurfacing to eat. All of us were shocked at how small it was, with a duckbill and soft, sleek otter style fur and around a foot in length it was easily the cutest weird thing I have seen so far. Then we all hopped back in the bus for the long journey home in which we had a sing-along, which was hilarious and Elmo was passed around for us to hug and sing to. I really didn’t want to get out of the bus when we got back, dreading leaving my enlightened state and going back into the normal world, I hugged Rohan and said goodbye to the wonderful people that I will probably never see again.

Uncle Brian certainly knows how to run a tour.

In Cairns

Saturday, November 14, 2009

A few things happened here.

met Jochen here again, this was the final part of his journey before heading back to Sydney and then home again, so we figured we would take a walk and see what we could see, a Dutch friend of his accompanied us. We walked the esplanade observed the view of mud and then Jochen found a volleyball game to join in, we left him there, much as I love volleyball (sarcasm, although the last time I played I somehow won the game, resulting in hilarious icy forfeits for the opposers) I didn’t feel up to a game this night, so the Dutchie and I walked back and I bought an onyx bracelet from a little shop on the way. We said goodbye to Jochen in the morning and off he went, back to the real home of the Germans.

The filmmaker I was going to meet in Mission Beach has a house in Cairns, and his office is also there, he wasn’t sure he would be back whilst I was still there but in the end he was, so something went right. I had been involved in a production in England earlier in the year and they had just requested some extra footage of thoughts and feelings (interview style) about the event, and Richard who had worked on the event just happened to live in Cairns so he suggested we meet up and do the shoot there. We went for lunch at a great pizza place and I had a tandoori chicken pizza, bizarre but tasty whilst his camera charged, and we talked for hours about various things including my thoughts on the event and what I felt about the guy who the event was about and his message. When it came to shooting Richard asked me to shorten, but repeat everything I had told him earlier.

Also whilst here I met Marc, a witty Irish chap that I got on great with and we went out and sang karaoke (‘I’m too Sexy’ for me, ‘Hey Jude’ and something by Elvis for Marc), took turns dancing with a crazy Spanish (I think) girl and went to an open mic night at 12 Bar Blue a great little bar where even the owners jumped on stage for an impressive song or 2, naturally Marc sang again however I without having the words to read in front of me would have got about 2 lines into any song the band knew and then had to sing “La lala la, laaa la laa, la.” And that would have been slightly embarrassing.

On our last day before Darwin, (he took the plane I took the bus) we went for a walk through the botanical gardens and took an English girl called Hannah with us, she was sweet bless her, but my god was she a Kamuckla! That by the way is a word from my dad’s language, which describes someone who is argumentative, difficult and stubborn. We discovered she liked to argue about things earlier on but didn’t think that much of it, however whilst on this walk she would challenge every thing Marc or I said to the point that we were afraid of calling the sky blue with white fluffy bits, we might be penalized. I think Marc found this harder to deal with than I did and try as I might to placate her and find a subject we could discuss without fighting it was to no avail. When I tried films and said I liked Tarantino she told me that he was a terrible director and extremely arrogant, I asked why and the reasons she gave were irrelevant to my question so another argument spawned. I asked about her in general figuring that if she was telling me about herself we couldn’t argue on it, yet we did and she got extremely angry with me. Eventually I figured that if I didn’t ask questions and simply agreed with her on every subject, she would stop attacking every word I said, but even this didn’t work and eventually when Marc gave her a little scrap of paper he found, with one of those life is fun, be happy sayings on it in an attempt to break the tension and cheer her up she started crying.

All in all it wasn’t quite the walk I had expected, it turned out she got upset with me asking questions because of something I had said earlier about someone else that made her think I would be extremely judgemental and uncaring. I guess it was just the tip of the iceberg and who knows, enough stuff was stored in there that it could have come out at anytime even without provocation. Unfortunately I can be quite provocative.

Perhaps the most exciting thing that happened was the discovery that the local supermarket sold SPAM, yes that’s right, SPAM! And the purchasing of a beautiful new blue knife, which allowed me to actually cut vegetables rather than simply pummel them into pieces with the hostel knives which are consistently blunt in every single hostel in the galaxy.

Onwards and upwards, and downwards.

Thursday, November 12, 2009

Sadly I have to keep moving; again I cursed my luck at winning a competition that gave me a ton of free stuff at the cost of having to leave a pretty girl behind, she went south and I had to continue my free holiday to the north.

Ok so after leaving Magnetic Island and Annette, my to do list had skydiving at the top, time to jump mission beach. The Treehouse YHA is a lovely little place, run by a sweet old couple that looked after me and were generally very friendly and helpful, it’s an all wooden building complete with an old dog and gigantic cat at mission beach, which is essentially another excuse to live by the beach and is just a few houses in between the jungle and a beach. Naturally 99.98% of Aussies live by the coast where it is considerably easier to breath and perform such actions as standing without instantly being inside a cocoon of your own sweat. I met a generous guy here who passed on a bit of food, showed me his photography projects and explained how he was biking down the east coast, a feat I thought slightly insane considering the heat and distance involved.

I woke up and got myself prepared, a friendly skydiver picked me up and off we trundled through the rain, which had picked this day to show up, just this day. He said it should clear up but if the conditions got any worse we would have to postpone until midday or maybe tomorrow, so naturally whilst I was talking to ‘The Boss’ about whether or not a free film would be a good idea for them to do, (naturally I didn’t want to pay for it) the rain grew, and grew into such epic proportions that soon it could be heard far away in space, naturally I only speculate as I was of course trapped under the deluge, but there was so much water I began to question whether in fact the sea had recently migrated just to pay us a visit. Even the mist from such a downpour could have put out most bush fires. The jump was cancelled.

I was also planning on meeting a filmmaker, who was staying in Mission Beach during the filming for Sea Patrol, but he had no car and I didn’t fancy ridiculous taxi fairs so we failed at that too.

So I left Mission Beach having achieved nothing but meeting a ridiculously oversized cat, and a Swiss man with a moustache! In Cairns I had more luck but I still didn’t get the free video, they agreed to it, but only after I had jumped, I think they got a little caught up in the debating of who was the one responsible for that type of decision so they never got round to realising they only had a short time before I had already fallen from the plane and that the video would be slightly useless without anyone in it.

So sorry people, the video and pictures of the jump would have cost me an extra $150 and that seemed a little steep! Plus mad seeing as my bank was surprisingly empty at this point.

Magnetic Island

Tuesday, November 10, 2009

I met an Isreali named Dor in airlie beach who left the day before me headed to Magnetic Island, both of us were staying at bungalow bay YHA so we met up there, drove around on the scooter he had rented and thought very hard about what to cook, he also pointed me in the direction of a Dutch girl he said was interested in getting a scooter and exploring, suggesting we go together. Introducing Annette, red hair, Dutch and a writer as well, we couldn’t get a scooter so I waited until she finished her little tour (I neglected to do the tour on grounds of being unable to wait for food) and we headed off on a walk which took slightly longer than we expected.

Our plan was to head to the Fort, the most common walk to do and the closest to the YHA, eventually we found the start of the route and headed up, all the while talking about sex, relationships and how most men think, eventually moving on to the subject of books, she now knows most of the one I’m writing but still has not divulged anything other than the gender of her main character and the book genre, oh and someone dies.

She was attractive but older than me so I assumed she wouldn’t be interested and I was totally honest about pretty much everything (sorry guys) whereas normally with a pretty girl I would be more reserved. The fort has a nice view and I discovered how afraid of heights she was, this girl scares easily, its comical, but we were really hot at this point so we wanted to find a beach and swim, unfortunately the nearest beach was ages away. We had to walk all the way back to the start of the fort trail before heading down a different road which pointed in the direction of beaches. We searched several possible’s only to be disappointed and thought we would never find one when we met a cheerful man who said ‘yeah, just round the corner.’ sure enough Florence bay was there and worth the walk, secluded and beautiful, surrounded by cliffs and the sun was getting low, my first thought was wow, romantic spot.

Annette commented on possible dangerous animals such as jellyfish or crocs so I responded by getting in the water and announcing that I had not died, therefore it was probably fine. We swam about for a while, still talking about relationships and men’s behaviour, she has a thing for Israeli men I found but didn’t like the way they weren’t actually interested in anything lasting longer than one night. I explained to her that this was in fact all men, not just Israelis who had one-track minds, but then pointed out there were the odd exceptions such as myself, who put food in first place. Eventually we noticed it was getting a little cold and the sun was disappearing behind the trees, so we washed off our feet and headed off, continuing down the same road as I had spied a shortcut on the map, adventure time.

We walked for a while, then carried on, then reached a little path through the woods and took it, eventually deciding it didn’t seem right and heading back, then carried on down the road which abruptly ended, with a beach. We found a couple on the beach and asked them how to get back to the hostel and they directed us all the way back to the main road, at least an hours walk and I was sure there was a shortcut so we took my route.

Going back down the little forest path we went over boulders and through rougher and wilder scenery before reaching, a signpost, saying the name of a beach we weren’t after, we pressed on. And kept walking, noting that the light wasn’t anywhere near as strong, and kept walking, finally we reached a beach and I saw it was the one signposted, and next to that, was a sign directing us to horseshoe bay, our beach, salvation! Well, over the next hill anyway. So we climbed, and kept climbing, but the light kept failing and we watched the sunset whilst we climbed over rocks and boulders and prayed it wouldn’t get too dark before we reached the bay.

It got dark, and we kept going and I kept yawning, distressing Annette even more as we descended the other side of the hill in darkness. She was scared and I did my best to stay positive, knowing full well I had no clue where we were or where we were going. But I pretended and on we went, visibility went altogether and we sort of guessed at where we were not really being able to see anything, then suddenly we were on sand! ‘Yes sand, we have reached the bay, at last, all we have to do is walk in this direction and oh, the ground is wet, the beach is over there. Where are we then, why is there all that water in the way? What do we do? Bugger.’ We decided to walk through a little path in front of these random houses that just happened to be there and realised that it wasn’t a path when it disappeared into the bushes and they disappeared into the water, all of this we could just about see from the light of the houses. Our fear rising we decided to ask a local, however nutty they may be it was our best chance of getting out of this scary place and onto that beach on the other side without getting eaten by crocs or anything else. The guy in the house said we were pretty silly to have been out after dark. Helpful. And also that we had to go back, or just wade through the creek as there was no way around, he said if we tried to go around we would just ending up with broken bones. Thanks for the morale boost! He repeatedly told us very helpfully that we should have come back earlier and that we weren’t very clever and eventually said ‘yeah just wade across as it’s the only way to get over the other side now that the tides in.’

Annette mentioned crocs again, that made me feel better about wading through a saltwater creek in the dark having no idea what was in there, as I knew full well that saltwater crocs have been known to show up at beaches in the north, and lie silently in wait for their prey. So we stood by it and made up our minds that if a grumpy old man, who thought we were stupid had told us to wade through a creek it must be safe, at least we tried to convince ourselves this as we prepared to cross by removing our bags and shoes. Ignoring the splashing sounds coming from the water in front of us.

Holding all our stuff above our heads we began to cross, the water getting deeper with every step reaching waist height about a third of the way across. Terrified that the ground under me that I had no way of predicting might have the odd hole in I slowly stumbled on, water rising up my spine, creeping closer to my bag, which I lifted higher, which made me feel more exposed and kept walking. Annette was ahead of me which probably had nothing to do with the ladies first rule and I was very relieved when I saw her stop sinking and start to rise out of the water. Reaching salvation at the other side we hugged and wept for our safety! Ok maybe we just hugged and said wearily ‘lets get home.’ Which we promptly did and watched into the wild to celebrate our victory! I felt tired but very awake after it so decided to go for a walk down to the beach and she accompanied me, the sprinklers had got everything so finding a sitting spot was difficult. Finding a kissing spot was even more difficult, but somehow we managed to find several.

We stayed in our separate rooms that night. The next day was different, no details coming up for obvious reasons, we had a lazy day and stayed indoors a lot, satisfied with our one adventure. Oh and we got a bigger bed, figured it might be useful.

Finally the internet is letting me upload things, stress! However it is done.

Summertime/Whitsunday

Thursday, October 29, 2009

Summertime; my new home for 3 days, and a pretty one too, if a little cosy. Our skipper was called cookie, from being a chef, Flo was the funny onboard German (you cannot escape them) and Shani might be the correct spelling for our cook’s name. Summertime was a lovely timber boat, with a Jacuzzi on the back, nice big sails that we only got to use on the last day and plenty of food. That’s right lots and lots of food. I did my best to get through all of it however even I don’t have the stomach space for 15 peoples meals.

So the 3 days went like this: head towards the islands, eat, check out Whitehaven beach, eat, sleep for a bit, eat, kayak and see turtles, eat, snorkel or dive the beautiful reef, eat, more snorkel, more eat, sleep, eat, snorkel, eat then sail back. All of this was naturally interspaced by snacks so I found it to be a lovely trip.

On the first night I fell asleep, lying on the deck, stargazing, it was peaceful and beautiful, according to Flo I snore exceedingly loud. The kayaking was awesome, I have kayaked many a time but never on such serene sea and with turtles popping up everywhere and the snorkelling was very pretty, I maxed out my camera almost instantaneously. I tried diving and typically, one of my water phobias I had forgotten and presumed dead, chose to wait until we had established I knew what I was doing in the water to then pop up and make me panic about the total ease and control at which I handled the dive. “Something must be wrong, warning, warning! He feels fine underwater, that means code red! Go go panic!” so my dive was cut short when I used up half my tank of air in about 5 seconds, a half hour dive might have been a problem. After this I just stuck to snorkelling and was fine.

Oh did I mention the food? We had wombat steaks and cakes and pies and fruit, not all made of wombat please note. Tea and biscuits pretty much whenever you weren’t in the water and then followed by the large meals, naturally always involving seconds, Shani knows how to cook, cute too, perfect woman! The crew were generally pretty awesome taking great care of us and entertaining us with their antics and funny music, showing us great times and cookie even refused to let me come back on the boat after my diving freak out, insisting I enjoy my time by snorkelling instead, which was just what I needed. Mind reader? Or maybe just sadist? On the last night we even played a game called crack racing! Where you had to transport a bottle cap from a starting line to a cup using only your buttocks. Girl’s vs. Boys, naturally the boys won, actually is that natural…?

I was sad to leave the lovely boat but also glad to be on dry land with space to walk or run if I felt the need, I stayed a couple of nights in Airlie recovering and hoping the swaying would stop then headed north once more this time to Townsville, or more accurately to magnetic island, this place was interesting.

A Bit Further North!

Monday, October 26, 2009

Back to Hervey Bay where I stayed a couple of nights just to get cleaned and sorted and then north towards the Whitsunday Adventure. Stopping only in Rockhampton.

Rockhampton………

Sleep

I woke up, saw the sun and thought ‘holy moly’ (not exact words) ‘its bright, that means it must be late, that means I must have missed my coach,’ I allowed my self one brief nanosecond of dispair before grabbing my phone and turning it on, waiting for it to boot up and tell me the bloody time was quite stressful, eventually the thing told me it was 6.43, my shuttle leaves at 6.45, perfect timing! I panic, ‘I cant make it! I’ll be late! Arghhhh!’ I also realise that my phone is very possibly slow as I have had that problem before.

I leapt out of bed grabbing my shorts and pulling them on all in (I’d like to say one smooth move here) several clumsy movements, looking like a teenage boy who just woke up with the girl with the super scary dad, who happens to be just outside. Instead of a crazed dad carrying an axe, I hopped out half naked to find the shuttle bus driver just walking out of a door to my left, I implored him to wait and naturally he said “No worries mate.” This is definitely the fastest packing I have ever done taking all of 6 seconds, then a further 9 to realise I had forgotten stuff in the fridge, sprint to the kitchen, retrieve and pack that as well. ‘Bugger, the bed sheets!’ Add 8 seconds. Walking to the bus took around 11, naturally I would run but it’s a little difficult with big bags that threaten to remove my arms with just a tad of jolting. I get the stuff in the bus and jump in the passenger seat, sitting down and realising that I managed to get up and pack then get to the bus in under a minute! All whilst talking to the Israeli in my room! Astounded by my speed and berating myself for not setting an alarm we headed to the greyhound. I was the first one on, after all that crazy stuff the bus waited around another 20 minutes whilst I swapped seats looking for the most comfortable one. Perhaps I don’t need to be organised, let luck do all the work whilst you lie in!

We left and the driver proceeded to play us more Pink songs than I knew existed, I think he was a fan. Airlie beach is great, no honestly it’s really interesting with lots to do and see and… ok I’m lying; its 1 street with 3 bars. Luckily I had nothing to do but sleep and get on a boat.

Fraser Island

Saturday, October 24, 2009

Fraser Island

To get a real flavour of Fraser Island you need to be there, crystal clear fresh water lakes, a beach almost 100kms long, friendly campfire dingo’s and an aboriginal to entertain us all. Watch the video. There’s also the tendency to hit your head every 3 seconds on the roof of the car, its that bumpy. My group contained a Scottish couple, 2 French girls, 3 Danes (1 man 2 girls) and 3 welsh girls, I was the only English one there. 11 of us in 1 4-wheel drive Toyota that really wasn’t designed for sand and a massive amount of sand to explore, what could go wrong? We got stuck on the first day, took a track next to our camp and ended up having to get out and push the car just to turn it around whilst a guy in a real sand vehicle drove around us. Angry and frustrated we retreated back to base.

3 days is enough to spend on a sand island but to see half of Fraser you’d need at least a week, and to be on speed. We explored a creek, found some Aussies who had set up their chairs in the creek and were enjoying some cold beers in cold chairs, genius. Then on to the shipwreck, its pretty damn cool, but still just another shipwreck, got some cool photos of it, broke the distance rule and then continued up to the camp. That night we had a Barbie and my god (Eatalottia, god of food) was there plenty of meat, reminded me of camping with my family in the new forest a tradition that is kept to every year, tons of food and then cricket! We didn’t have a cricket set on Fraser. After dinner some time the camp owner come out to play, an aboriginal with the Scottish name of Malcolm, he also has an aboriginal name but I have no idea how to spell it, I know it means ‘Thunder is coming’ which naturally I thought was awesome, everyone calls him smiley though so that’s what we stuck to. He played the didgeridoo, which is really called ‘Yigi yigi’ or various other names, and told us all about his culture.

Smiley mentioned the sunrise and that there was a nice little spot to watch it from behind his house, so in the morning I panicked thinking I had already missed it and rushed off down to the little perch at which I found smiley sitting there waiting still, I sat next to him and we talked about more personal things such as his family back home and he told me a little more about the way he lives, in the best of both worlds as he put it, having the freedom of living on Fraser and sharing his culture with us and then going back to the mainland to his wife and kids in their nice house and fancy car. The sun came up just after I got there so really my timing was perfect, and so was the sunrise, from our position we got to look over the beach and the sea, watching a couple chase each other and dance on the beach who looked like they thought no one was watching. The sun came up red, then slowly turned gold as it rose creating a line of gold on the sea and beach where it reflected, pure beauty. Also made me realise where the idea of a Yellow Brick Road came from. Later in the morning he took us on a bushwalk and explained the use of various plants then did a dance for us. Fascinating stuff.

On our schedule we had the champagne pools and had been told how wonderful they were. Indian head the start of our walking point was really cool, even though we melted, its basically a cliff and the dangerous part of that appealed immensely to me, so naturally I sat and took photos over the edge and hopped along the boulders to the farthest point and we watched the pair of dolphins, stingray and shark float around in the water nearby. All good fun then we headed off to the pools, 2 hours and 3 gallons of sweat later we got there, all to find something we looked at and thought, ‘hmm this cant be it must be round the corner.’ So sitting on the rocks and feeling utterly pissed off at such a huge anti-climax we sat by the 1 remaining pool with water in and ate our lunch, then read books and went back to the car. What a waste of a day on a paradise island. Our longest day over we headed back and made the most of it by having a contest in the car to see who could keep the most water in a full cup. Hilarity and wetness naturally ensued, what fun! This night I cooked, (I actually cooked the night before too) we had spaghetti bolognaise which was delicious, of course it was I made it! Vainly enjoying the delicious perfectly made dinner I helped myself to 3rds and sat round the campfire.

The company who sent us out and everyone we spoke to said don’t swim in the sea, there are tiger sharks and you’ll get dragged out and eaten. Well I can prove that’s rubbish as I didn’t get eaten, nor did the jellyfish they failed to mention sting me. Even though I swam several times. Smiley informed me it was rubbish too, apparently he even had a surfer come over with an aboriginal made board and try out the waves, then leave the board behind as a present to Smiley. So obviously it’s all scare tactics. Anyway the last day was when we went to lake McKenzie, the jewel of the island. We left late on the way there and almost had to drive through the sea which seeing as our car had trouble with sand we weren’t confident about. Luckily we just made it, and then we headed into the jungle again. The lake was gorgeous, and we swam in it for hours, splashing about and sunbathing, I too sunbathed but not intentionally, I fell asleep on the beach (the lake has a beach, white sand) and woke up sunburned and confused. The trip wouldn’t be complete if we didn’t get stuck at least 3 more times, so we proceeded to complete it on the way to the ferry worrying about being late but determined not to miss the really boggy patches. Crazy French Estelle was driving and we had a scream, literally.

The next City

Thursday, October 22, 2009

So what can I say of Brisbane, it is a city, it has a river, it has a YHA. What else you say? Umm buildings… sky… lots of flies. Ok I’ll be nice; the botanical gardens while being nowhere near Sydney’s are pretty and the banyan trees there are damn cool, it has a pleasant area next to the river with artful walkways and a nice lagoon and a few places to explore but I didn’t do much exploring nor did I stay long. However while I was there I encountered Jochen and Jana 2 people I had met before in the Blue Mountains. Jochen and I searched for a pub, and failed, for some reason the pubs in Brisbane are impossible to find, for us at least, even though we kept hearing about them. The bars we did find were all packed and extremely noisy when all we wanted was a quiet drink, we eventually went into one but ended up downing our drinks just to be free of the awful atmosphere. We tried to find another but to no avail, I was still feeling ill and thought I might just fall asleep in the road if we didn’t go back.

Next I headed to Hervey Bay to start my Fraser Island trip, I stayed the night at the colonial village YHA where I was greeted with a drink, some sweets and lots of smiles and laughter, reprimanded for cutting my hair in my video and even given my own private room! I had booked my Fraser Island trip for the next morning but I hadn’t realised because of the company I booked it with I would need to be at another hostel in the morning, stupid. Anyway it was booked and paid for, just be more organised than me and this wont happen. I didn’t mind that much though as I got on with the staff and was actually tempted to stay for a while longer just because its such a cool hostel, shame I had to leave at 6 in the morning.

A Stay With Gossamer

Sunday, October 18, 2009

I had arranged to stay with a friend for a couple of days and so I left Byron having only put my feet in the water, literally. Named Gossamer, she lives in Surfers paradise and welcomed me into her home. If when travelling you get the chance to stop at a friends DO IT! I can’t express how helpful it is to get out of hostels just for a couple of nights, staying at hostels is great for socialising and adventuring but every now and then you need a bit of space. This is exactly what I got, wonderful it was. While I was there she fed me tons of food, gave me some interesting insights into my soul, the meaning of life and showed me the lookout that looks over the Gold Coast, it’s quite a view. It was a bizarre experience; her house is small and cosy, crystals everywhere and a washing machine that threatens to tear down the house every cycle and I had my own room, which was wonderful, space and time to chill out and edit my film, which I hadn’t had before, in hostels it’s practically impossible. But we also started one of her sessions, which I wont go into in total detail as I don’t know a huge amount about it, I just know its like a psychic journey or something, tough to explain.

If you think this psychic kind of stuff is rubbish, feel free to go talk to a wall for all I care. The session was pretty powerful, not like a normal session (what’s a normal session anyway), it was like a huge energetic shift, so I went from being exhausted from all the people and places and madness, thinking I was getting a rest, to having a totally different type of ordeal whilst recovering from the first.

Yeah so I guess its pretty obvious I’m a fan of all this mumbo jumbo, some of my friends call it voodoo, some call it crap but hey what do I care, I do Shiatsu and Reiki so the odd soul journey is perfectly normal for me. Call me weird but I even like healthy eating, I know how crazy is that! All my friends naturally think I am severely unhinged due to my enjoyment of real food and wanting to keep my body relatively alive at such a young age, I mean surely I should wait until I have bowel cancer, gallstones and heart failure at least before I consider eating something that’s coloured green, what possible use could it be to start being healthy now! Ok so recently, on my mothers orders please note, I bought a big pot of powdered greens, perhaps going a little far maybe, but I don’t think so. The taste naturally isn’t quite caviar, almost as disgusting though, but it is remarkably useful for someone like me who can feel it if I have eaten too much greasy rubbish or only meat for the past few days, it’s like getting all your veg. in one shot.

So Gossamer took care of me for a few days and then sent me on my way feeling rested from my overwhelm of hostels and people, and overwhelmed at my new found bits of soul knowledge or whatever just happened. I headed up to Brisbane, or rather she drove me there, which was very sweet of her, and we managed to get lost in the crazy one-way system of Brisbane’s streets always having the hostel in sight just not being able to reach it!

Onwards, to Byron's Bay

Tuesday, October 13, 2009

The next leg of the journey was considerably more painful, getting up earlier this time, around 5 and having to walk what I was told was a half hour walk to the bus coach carrying my backpack and bigger backpack which turned out to be an hour walk getting me there literally as the bus pulled up. After that it was just fairly bumpy, the road conditions in Australia do seem a little dismal, no offence to whoever looks after them but being used to English roads and being able to plan a world takeover in the back of a car or just sleep I was surprised by how difficult it was to type, on a laptop that seemed hell bent on flying all over the place! Using the loo became a very complicated procedure in such circumstances. Although I suppose Brighton has some worse roads but they aren’t 2000 miles long.

The journey consisted of boredom, a giant prawn and at Yamba a few people got on including one funny Swedish girl who complimented me on my iPod taste (beyonce and lion king soundtrack, not mine I swear!) and then proceeded to curl up against me and fall asleep, ‘strange’ I thought, ‘man she fell asleep fast!’ and eventually we got to byron bay where she woke up and also got off. I found out later she was staying in the same hostel as me, with an English guy who told me the Swedes were totally mental and all about Yamba and how cool it was, annoying the hell outta me as I didn’t have time to visit it before Byron, and I wanted to.

Byron bay, annoyingly, because I have a cold, is a surfing town! Meaning while here the options are surf, swim on the glorious beach, kayak with dolphins and party hard. I tried to swim, I really did, but its quite hard to when your body feels like crap and is imploring you not to! What I did manage was totally more exciting, I walked to the lighthouse dressed in the same gear I wore for the blue mountains, useful in cold mountains but not, I repeat not in the burning Australian sun! I needed this gear though as I wanted to complete my film and needed a couple of shots, which I eventually got after hours of walking around and seeing some spectacular views including a humpback breaching in the distance.

While in Byron I had the best burger of my life from a place called the corner shop, check it out its awesome, and also the best 2 sandwiches from the same place, which were equally godlike. I met an extremely cute Canadian girl and I really mean extremely, some really cool surfers who I almost thrashed at pool, and the guy who shared the honey at Coffs harbour, I forget his name which is really annoying as I’m sure it not hard to remember, anyway I was feeling pretty lame that night so he cooked for me, which was wonderful, being so tall he believes in big portions and I thoroughly approved of the many sausages, potatoes and broccoli (instead of salad, for me.)

Heading up the East Coast, First stop Coffs Harbour

Saturday, October 10, 2009

Waking up has never been a fun occasion for me, waking up at 5.30 on a Saturday didn’t make it any better. It was a dark day, literally; I looked out of the bus window and thought wow the moon looks bright, then I realised it was the sun I was staring directly at, somehow my eyes hadn’t disintegrated and that another dust storm had hit the east coast. It was nice to have someone I knew on my first greyhound journey and it passed with only a few tears (we watched seven pounds, one of the best films ever made) and we spied some interesting birds on the way. Eventually we ended up in Coffs Harbour where Lisa departed to god knows where and I was picked up by a very friendly YHA driver who took me to an equally friendly hostel.

Coffs I discovered is a pretty small and quiet place, I think it had a total of 3 pubs, for some reason I can’t fathom its referred to as a city. Here I met some very interesting characters including a guy from Bristol with a hilarious accent that I had to take several seconds just to process every time he said anything to me (much like Joey from Northern Ireland I met during my first week) which is bizarre as he’s from my country and only a few hours away. An American who played world of Warcraft until the cows came home (but Coffs has no cows), a German girl who got bounced around like a space hopper on speed and a very tall guy who gave me some honey for my lemon and ginger tea!

I should point out at this point that on my third day in Sydney I got ill, possibly to do with surfing in very cold water then drinking far too much straight after (not water obviously) but however it happened I still have the cold. Hence the lemon and ginger tea (Twinings of London which I was very pleased to find) and my joy at being offered some honey which improves the flavour so wonderfully! This is very frustrating for me as it makes swimming and all the wonderful activities one can do in water, which are quite abundant up the east coast quite unpleasant. So if I don’t mention my sea kayaking and surf experiences it’s because there wasn’t any. Anyway back to the story.

I went for a walk with Lisa along the beach, explored the local Sunday market (in a car park just like at home) and ate some kanga bangas (kangeroo sausages). The market was fun, got some very cheap fresh veg. the sausages were quite tasty although I couldn’t eat them all so I left the rest with the tall guy and the beach was extremely long, beautiful like Bondi but massive and we got lost in the woods at the end of it. As soon as we left the hostel I realised it was cold, however my bravado refused to let me go get warm (clever mechanism that) so I didn't go back in for a jumper, I'm still caught off guard by the short but extremely hot days, I guess the time to be about 4 and 10 minutes later the sun sets and I'm frozen! Confusing. The walk back almost had icicles hanging off my nose, ok i exaggerate but still. We got back to the hostel, I said goodbye to Lisa and watched several episodes of chuck before going to sleep.

My Last Night in Sydney

Thursday, October 8, 2009

I left the Blue Mountains eager to be back in Sydney where I could find Nora and annoyed that I would be leaving again the next morning, but hey my journey has to start, right! Seeing as Australia is a fairly large country I presumed I should get on with it rather than stay in Sydney for 3 months, somehow I think the blog might get boring. I got back to central and waited around for a minute as I had arranged to meet Lisa at 1, at least that’s the time I remember, I was there at one. Waiting bores me a lot so eventually I figured it must have been 2, I finished some errands and came back at 2, well 2.30 ish. No sign of Lisa so I got on with whatever I was doing. In retrospect it was silly to wait, naturally I didn’t see either of the girls until it was time to eat some dinner!

This time we made a joint meal of spaghetti bolognaise, it was pretty good but could have done with more time, which we neglected to give on our stomachs orders. Half way through eating Lisa tells me that she has family in Coffs Harbour (a place I had just taken off my list to visit) and is leaving on the same bus as me. “Oh” I say. “I just cancelled Coffs, should I change it back again?” “Yeah” she says and thus, with that fateful word, I embarked upon a nightmare of switching bus times and room locations which I thought would be easy but once started took a very long time and many complications to overcome; including the hostel computers dying, people changing the wrong thing and more.

After Lisa left I was alone with Nora, what to do…? I suggested we go on the roof and so we did, we stood up there for a while, my arms wrapped around her as we watched the moon and the city at night, eventually we got bored and went for a walk. We held hands as we drifted through the streets, walking in the direction of the harbour, amusing ourselves by taking photos of each other doing silly poses along the way and at one point even skipping (yes I am really 6 years old.) When we got to the opera house we found it lit up pink, and took some more photos. Then watched bats fly around the harbour bridge, lit up as they flew by the bridge lights beneath them, creating quite an interesting display, kind of like firefly’s from a great distance. More poses on the steps and then we just sat there for a while, long enough for Nora to almost fall asleep so I guessed it was time to call it a night. Right now typing this, I miss her.

The search for the ruined castle

Tuesday, October 6, 2009

Up to date?!

Sunday, October 4, 2009

Ok people so far i have been uploading blogs roughly a week after things happen, Ive been trying to keep it that way but I'm lagging, being on the road all the time changing hostels almost every other day leaves little time to write. So not being able to access what i have previously written due to having no wi-fi at my current location this will not be the next section of the story, which is about nora and then the start of the journey, but hey ya win some ya lose some. I thought instead id give a brief overview of whats happening and happened so far.

So right now this second I am sitting in Colonial village YHA an awesome little place which i recommend visiting, I have just eaten an elegantly shaped trough of chili con carne but somehow still feel hungry, god knows why. They were very surprised i even finished it and i feel like another. The place has a really nice family style air which is lovely, and due to my celebrity like status (for shaving my head in the video) I have been upgraded to a double room all to myself. pity nora isnt here....

Tomorrow really early I head out to Fraser island, should be awesome only im gonna have to get up extra early to make it due to mixing up the accomodation. Still Im glad I did as I really like it here, might come back after Fraser just to hang out for a few days.

So far I have spent a week and a half in sydney, then headed to the blue mountains for a couple of magical days, it really is incredible there everyone should go, nice hostel too (not just saying that to please them.) Then I went back to sydney for the night before heading up the east coast with Lisa; a friend of Nora (the beautiful german girl I met in Sydney) and then on to Byron Bay which has It's charm, awesome place but I couldn't swim due to being ill, so experience marred somewhat. After that I spent a couple of days with a friend who lives near surfers paradise, she looked after me cooking tons of food and took me up the lookout in surfers! My god what a view, if you only have a little money and time just do the lookout, Q1 its called.
Then on to brisbane which was insanely hot, had some pretty areas but I didnt see much while there. I left Brisbane this morning, now I am at the colonial village in hervey bay!

There will be no posts in the next few days; partially due to me being on a desert island...
however as soon as I am back in civilization I shall endeavor to have up the next part of the story in detail plus some Fraser Island Photos on Flickr.

Just so you know on the last post about the blue mountains, if you click the title it will link you to my first video of the blog so far. Check it out I'm rather proud:D

Ciao ciao readers

the search for ruined castle. blue mountains

Friday, October 2, 2009

The Blue Mountains

I woke up, wondered why someone had turned on an orange light and then closed my eyes again, a few minutes later I opened them and noticed no lights were on, but the room was orange. Wondering what alien race had invaded I went downstairs to make some breakfast. I got everything packed in the orange hue and checked out, somewhat puzzled. Someone told me it was a dust storm and I replied ‘oh really, I thought it was a Martian attack, splendid.’ Newly armed with the information that we had just had half the countries topsoil dropped on our heads I caught a train to Katoomba.

On the train I met an Australian, or ‘Tassie’ to be precise, apparently there is some rivalry. She told me about the miraculous train seats that could face either way and I proceeded to figure out exactly how this worked, figuring out leading me nowhere I sat down, soon as I did this a cold faced, no nonsense, but quite small business woman walked into the carriage and flipped several seats over to make room for herself. Feeling quite silly and also puny I had another go. Making it look a lot harder than the small lady I got the seat over and viola, I could face forward as well. The journey passed and we moved from orange city into slightly clearer countryside, which I think was only clearer because of the time passing not the location, I’m told everywhere was orange that morning. Gradually we made our way into the hazy blue of the mountains, they are called the Blue Mountains because if you look at them from a distance they are blue! Ahh the logic! I know I mentioned that already. They are blue for a reason though, which is all because of the eucalyptus that grow there, the oil from these lovely trees creates a blue haze which can be seen from afar, such as from Sydney.

While we journeyed through the mountains, I was wondering aloud (as I do often) how far Katoomba was, as getting lost was not on my agenda, I was answered by my newfound Tasmanian friend and a German guy at the same time, this same German also

happened to be getting off at Katoomba, and staying in the YHA there so we walked across the little mountain town together shivering like crazy, somehow without the sun shining Australia is really just a codename for Antarctica, and I did start to wonder perhaps if it wasn’t dust and really the Martians after all that caused this weird day! We were determined hikers however and after being plonked in the same room we decided to enjoy the fresh air.

Katoomba is a lovely little town, more of a village really. One supermarket covers everyone’s needs, if not then tough for them! It’s on the doorstep of the mountains, literally, 600 steps to reach some walks but still. Before our walk we had some lunch in the most

bizarre café I have ever seen, called the common ground café! I think the common ground they mention would be the Blue Mountains; they dressed in pyjama style trousers, wore jumpers and waistcoats, the men had beards and ponytails and the women just had ponytails. It was lit a yellow orangey colour, had a fireplace (great idea considering the current temperature) which we were nowhere near (not so great an idea considering the current temperature) and a cosy and awesome looking little upstairs area. Certainly the most interesting place id ever seen, the food was also interesting, hint: do not eat silverside, I figured seeing as I couldn’t see anything I liked on the menu I may as well experiment. Conclusion of experiment is: corned beef should be used only for display purposes much like my tin of spam. Never eaten! God knows why its called silverside as the actual ‘roast beef’ in the sandwich was actually silver, shining even! The corned beef was just pink.

On to the mountains, they are the important part in this post I figure. We left George (also in our room) after our lunch and headed into the wild windy cold mountains, I had to go back to the hostel and put on my thermals, as it was so cold, cleverly I had reckoned on not needing my jacket for my entire trip and this is still currently in storage in Sydney. We did the route called The Three Sisters, which goes under and around three, very tall sandstone rocks, there are various tales about the name, mostly involving a man turning his daughters to stone. It was cold and windy, but we climbed on rocks and enjoyed it all the same! After our long trek down the 600 steps aptly called the giants stairway we reached the path we would follow at the base of the cliff edges. The Blue Mountains are huge sandstone plateaus with deposits of iron and large sections of clay among them, the clay being washed away quickest forming the massive cliffs we explored, and the iron is clearly visible as veins all the way along it. Quite a spectacle.

The next day we ventured out on a longer route, this time George our American buddy joined us and we searched for Ruined Castle. George is a pilot we found out later, a man who wanted to be a pilot just for the sake of it and has some major knee problems but still walked faster than me the whole way there and back. Jochen is the German, proving that they weren’t just in Sydney, tall, bald and likes food and good beer. They helped me film and we wandered through the now sunny Blue Mountains enjoying the spectacular views and peaceful surroundings. Watching some of the eucalyptus turn silver at midday and still wondering at the cold ones we made our way to the castle that I was very disappointed to discover was actually just some old rocks…

On top of the old rocks which are definitely worth the walk to get to, we had a 360 degree view of the cliffs around us and it was by far the best (also scariest due to being on the precarious rock atop ruined castle) view that I have seen so far. Forget the Sydney bridge walk, just walk to ruined castle, sure it takes a few hours longer but it’s so much better and doesn’t cost almost $200 for half an hour. The walk back along the streets of Katoomba almost made my hands drop off with cold but we got some good food and beer in us later which warmed us as well as paving the way towards a very good sleep.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RL4pYwuFcCo

use this link to see my first video, or click the title of this post.