Australia: A Photo Journey

At last, it is done! I have processed all the pictures from the Australia Trip. I still have a few that need work --- for instance, all the panoramas need to be stitched, and I need to play with the HDR, but the bulk of the work is done. Enjoy!

Sydney

Blue Mountains

Great Barrier Reef

Atherton Tablelands

Melbourne

Tasmania

Tasmanian Overland Track

Great Ocean Road

Perth and Margaret River

Ningaloo Reef

The Red Center

Australia Panoramas

Australia Impressions

The best feature of Australia is Australians. Australians are funny, friendly, and the most welcoming people. I've lost count of the number of times we camped out in a campground and had a neighbor come by and greet us, say hi, or give us tips. Whether it's the climate, or because a large number of folks we meet are tourists, it's such an amazing experience. It's even institutionalized. Young people, for instance, can apply for a working holiday visa, where you can work (and minimum wage is $12.50/hour in Australia!) while on vacation for up to a year. There aren't too many other countries that are so generous to visitors!

As an old continent, I knew intellectually that Australia would be eroded and not have as many mountains, but that still did not prepare me for the emotional reaction I had when I visited. This is definitely a country where most of the features are off the coast, under the water. Australia is definitely a great place to visit for a SCUBA diver or a snorkeler. The water is nice, and the wildlife plentiful --- for this trip, the highlight was definitely the trip to Ningaloo Reef. What an amazing place.

I learned that one of the reasons why I enjoy my cycling trips, and why I enjoyed the coast to coast trek is the navigational challenge. At the time when I did the Coast to Coast, I was annoyed by how frequently I would get lost. It was only after doing the Tasmanian Overland Track that I realized that being led by the nose had never been the experience I was after in the outdoors, even if I had some nominal choice as to which side-trips I could choose to take!

What would I do differently on this trip? The big one would have been to plan to visit Ningaloo right from the start. That would have saved us some time and money! Secondly, rather than doing the Overland Track, I would have chosen to whitewater raft the Franklin/Gordon river system. While the Overland Track is nice, I don't think it actually offers anything that many other hiking trails in New Zealand, the U.S., or anywhere in Europe doesn't, while the wild rivers in Tasmania were really impressive. I would cut the amount of time spent in the Red Center to just 3-4 days rather than almost an entire week. While Kings Canyon is impressive, it really wasn't worth a whole day, and by the time we got to Alice Springs we were quite sick of desert. I don't expect to visit Bryce Canyon, or any of the desert U.S. parks either, after this visit to the desert.

All in all, however, this was definitely a trip of a lifetime.

Australia Index

This is the consolidated Australia related trip index and report. The photos are still being processed and worked on (hopefully it'll go much faster when the new machine arrives). I'll also try to update the text-heavy pages with photos as well.

• Sydney
• Sydney (Part II)
• Sydney (Part III)
• The Blue Mountains
• The Blue Mountains (Part II)
• The Jenolan Caves
• The Spirit of Freedom
• The Atherton Tablelands
• Melbourne
• Tasmania
• Tasmania (Part II)
• The Tasmanian Overland Track
• Tasmania (Part IV)
• The Great Ocean Road
• Perth
• The Margaret River Area
• Ningaloo Reef
• The Red Center
• Conclusion: Australia Impressions
• Australia: A Photo Journey
• Equipment Review: Stephenson Warmlite Tent

The Red Center

The flight to Ayers Rock was without a hitch. The small airport that was the destination had a resort bus waiting to take us to our hotels. We soon realized that Ayers Rock served a captive audience --- visitors to Uluru/Kata Tjuta National Park, and most folks just stayed in the captive Ayers Rock resort. The temperature was astoundingly warm, 37 degrees Celsius. We did not realize that this was the coolest day temperature we would experience over the next 6 days.

Like Cradle Mountain Lodge, Ayers Rock Resort was run by the Voyages company, which seemed to own a lot of captive-audience type resorts. I'm inherently suspicious of such resorts, and Voyages confirmed my fears. Our room was tiny, without even a table to sit down and eat at, the better to which to force us to dine at the restaurants.

We walked down to the visitor center, and tried to decide between the options provided for our free time. Lisa definitely wanted a camel ride, and the star-gazing option seemed like a good idea, but the resort offered Sounds of Silence, a combination nice dinner + star-gazing. I neglected to notice that the nice dinner was actually a buffet with unlimited alcohol, which really meant that this wasn't all that good a deal for us.

Looking at the guide book, we saw that the Outback Pioneer Inn had a self-service BBQ which might be interesting, so we walked over and had dinner there. The meats were interesting, beef, emu, kangaroo, and some sea food, but after trying everything I decided that I still liked beef better.

The next morning, we got picked up at 5:45am for a walk around the base of Uluru. The Anangu people ask visitors not to climb Uluru, so most tours just take you around the bottom of Uluru. Up close, the monolithic piece of rock is impressive, and the guides did a good job of getting us to a good sunrise viewing area, but the rest of the walk was meh. I could have gleaned all the stories by reading plaques around the walk, and didn't enjoy having pace forced upon me by others in the group.

We then had a free afternoon, during which we took a nap, had lunch, and read. At 38 degrees, it was really too warm to do much else. When dinner rolled around, we were shuffled onto a bus and taken to a set of dunes near the resort. The location was obviously not chosen by a photographer, as the sunset was hitting Uluru wrong, and while we could see the Olgas, they were too far away to be a realistic subject.

Dinner wasn't terribly inspired, but the star gazing portion was. The speaker had a flair for drama, and used a high powered lazer pointer to illuminate the night sky. It was easily the best part of the evening.

We were told to expect a pick up at 6:35am the next day, but when we got to the reception at 6:30am, we were told that the bus had left without us. This pissed me off, and I was even more pissed when told later that this was official AAT Kings policy --- they'd give you a pick up time but show up 10-15 minutes early, and leave without you if the hotel somehow got you registered incorrectly, or their data was incorrect.

To try to salvage the rest of the day, we rented a car and went to the cultural center, where we got a presentation of bushtucker and the traditional foods of the Anangu people. We then rearranged our schedule so that we had our camel ride that evening and then Kata Tjuta again the next morning before we left.

The camel ride was interesting. It turns out that Australia probably has a million feral camels in the country, mostly because the government tried to get the cameleers to shoot their camels rather than paying for them to be shipped back to the middle east, resulting in the cameleers just letting their camels go free. So the camel population went from a mere 20000 to a million in about a century, and Australia now has a camel population problem since in the outback they have no natural predators.

I thought that it would be like a horse ride, but instead, the cameleer had it set up like an old-time camel train --- she would load all of us up on the camels, and then lead the camels by walking in front of the lead camel, which was tied to all the other camels in a train. I got along fine with my camel, but the camel behind us kept trying to take a bite off me or my shoe. Fortunately, during the ride, he managed to get some grass and finally left me alone. The views were similar to what we got the day before, but at least we were moving. Being on a camel is very much like being on a boat --- you can't fight it, so you learn to let yourself flow with the camel's motion.

Our last night in Ayers Rock Resort went uneventfully, and we awoke early the next day to get onto the tour bus. Kata Tjuta's Valley of the Winds walk was not very windy that day, and it was down right warm by the time we got to the first lookout. We learned a few things about aboriginal traditions by the driver, who used to teach English to them. One of the interesting things was their burial traditions: historically, they would put the bodies onto trees, and only after the bones had been bleached, would they then bury what's left. Well, that can't happen in a tourist area, so they aren't allowed to do that now. One big belief is that if you die in an area and aren't buried properly according to that tradition, the place becomes haunted as your soul sticks around. Hence the request for you not to climb Uluru --- they don't want your soul hanging around if you died there (only 37 people have died, but it's not such a big place that 37 souls wouldn't make the place quite haunted, I supposed).

After we were returned to our hotel, we only had an hour before our bus transfer happened, which took us to Kings Canyon. During the drive there, I was very happy not to be the one driving, since I had never seen a road so darn straight for so long! Arriving at the Voyages-Run Kings Canyon Resort, we found it to be an incredibly run down place, with one mediocre restaurant, and not much to do but drink. That didn't interest us, but we were signed up for the 5:45am rim walk the next day anyway, so going to bed early after we were cheated out of the sunset by incoming clouds was the thing to do.

The walk around Kings Canyon Rim was easy: 6km is barely 4 miles, but even at 5:45am, the temperature was warm, and the day was projected to be 41 degrees C. The climb went by fast, with only a few stops to get pictures, and we were at the lost city by the time the sun came out and greeted us. I was used to Canyons being carved out by rivers, but it turned out that the Canyon was eroded almost completely by rainfall --- there was no river running through it! We got a geological overview, including the fact that this part of Australia once was taller than Everest! 360 million years of erosion without any tectonic plate action has made Australia as flat as a pancake (relatiely) as a result.

By the time we got back to our hotel, the day was warm, and getting warmer. We ate lunch after checking out, and were shuttled to Alice Springs by bus again, this time getting into Alice Springs Resort at 7pm. It was too late by then to do anything but eat at the hotel restaurant and do laundry.

Our one day in Alice Springs was entirely driven by the McDonnel Ranges coach tour, which led us to several short walks, a swimming hole, and the Glen Helen gorge. Again checking in at a blistering 41 degrees C, we got views of the desert, beautiful in its own way, but I was quite sick of the Australian outback by this point, and ready to return to more temperate climates.

Exmouth, Australia

The flight to Exmouth went off uneventfully, despite a 5:40am Taxi pick up and flight attendants that were quite intrigued by the Kindle. We originally planned not to have a car in Exmouth, but the airport pickup shuttle person told us that having a car was a must, so we stopped off in town to rent a stick-shift car for $50/day.

Getting into the Best Western, we discovered that it was right in the middle of the former U.S. Naval base! The owner, Axel, was a German transplant who had lived in Exmouth for 15 years with his wife and kids, and eagerly set us up in a nice room that looked like great value (full kitchen, full size refrigerator, etc.). He then gave us an orientation of the area, lent us an ice box, an umbrella, and rented us snorkels and masks.

We then headed to town for lunch and a visit to the shopping center to fill the ice box, and then drove to Turquoise Bay to try the drift snorkel. The beach is filled with pieces of coral skeletons, just to show you how robust this coral reef is. The drift snorkel is set in a lagoon with a consistent current from South to North. You enter through the South, and the current carries you to the North, the only catch being that if you forget to leave the lagoon before it carries you past the Southern sandbar, a powerful rip-tide will send you right into the Indian Ocean, where there's no landfall between Australia and Africa!

We snorkeled cautiously, and it was a lot of fun --- I even saw a reef shark moving around in the water. Then while preparing for another entry, I saw another snorkeler doing something very smart --- she put on her fins and stepped backwards towards the reef, and by the time she was forced to swim, she was almost right on the reef, and didn't have to fight the current at all. I followed suit and had a great time.

In fact, we had too great a time, since after we were done it was 4pm, and we were feeling a little sun exposed. We drove South to Sandy Bay, which was a pretty place, and then back North to Mandu-Mandu gorge, which was a walk up to the highest place in the park for a good view of the entire Ningaloo Reef. I started the walk, but found the going tough, not because of elevation gain, but because the trail was right on a stream bed which was rocky and painful to walk on. After a while I started looking for short cuts. I found a rock climbing ascent, but on examination discovered that I just wasn't good enough to do it. A little while later, I backtracked and found a chimney. I'd read about how to do this in The Freedom of the Hills about 10 years back, but never had a chance to apply it, and so took the chance to do so. What do you know, it worked like a charm.

Once at the summit, I took a few pictures, and walked back down, and on the return, discovered to my chagrin that if I had only been more patient I would have found the non-mountaineering ascent. C'est la vie. Lisa then wanted to look for turtle hatchlings, while I wanted to see the sunset from the local lighthouse. Fortunately, the two attractions were right next to each other and so we could each do so. I found the sunset disappointing, however, and Lisa found no turtle hatchlings.

We had dinner at Whalers in town, and the food was found to be absolutely top-notch, right up there with the best I had at Google, while the service was slow but acceptable.

The next morning, we were picked up at 7:40 for the Navy Pier Dive, billed as one of the top 10 dives in the world. The U.S. Navy built a submarine communications system that consisted of really high towers (the tallest is taller than the Eiffel, but doesn't look that tall because we had nothing to compare it to), and ran a base in Exmouth in the 1960s. Since then, most of the work has been automated away, except for the pier, which is used to deliver diesel to operate the system.

The dive itself was quite amazing --- you really do feel like you're in an aquarium, surrounded by fish. We saw Rays, Sharks (multiple of them!), Lion fish (also multiple), Potato Cods (big huge ones), schools of Barracuda, the list goes on. The visibility was not great (20 feet at most), but the density of wild life was quite impressive. If you're in the area, this dive is definitely a must do.

We returned to the hotel at noon, went to town to have lunch at Grace's Tavern (surprisingly good food), and then I went snorkeling again while Lisa stayed at the hotel. By the time I returned, it was almost time to return the car, so we did so and had dinner at Pinnochio's, an Italian establishment that was disappointing.

The dive on Saturday was changed on account of the wind --- it was way too strong to go to the Murions, so we were sent to the West Coast instead. We dived two dives and did a snorkel in between, but I wasn't too happy with the dive guides this time. The reason is the Ningaloo Reef Dreaming also trains Dive Masters (known as Dive Control Specialists in the SSI lingo). In this case, the number of trainee Dive Masters outnumbered the paying customers (this is because Ningaloo trains you for free if you work for them as an intern for 4 weeks after your Dive Master course), and I did not appreciate being used as a guinea pig for trainees during a dive I'm paying for. The first dive felt like a race, with the trainees shooting off like a rocket, and us paying customers chasing them. The second one was considerably better, with better wild life viewing, but with all the switching arounds and confusion, I would have preferred getting an experienced guide. If you're signed up for a trip with these guys, I recommend making sure you get a real dive guide, not an intern or a trainee!

By the time the diving was over it was nearly 4pm, so we chilled in the hotel room and did a BBQ for dinner.

The big disappointment this morning was that our whale shark spotting trip had been cancelled, again due to wind. We salvaged the day by renting a car, and going snorkeling again, first at South Mandu (which Lisa loved), a site where the coral is practically at your nose, granting great visibility but few large fish, and then we had lunch at the Yardie River. We finished up the day at Turquoise Bay again, but on the non-drift loop, where we saw a small Manta Ray, and I spotted a clown fish --- but the drift loop really is better. Dinner was at Whalers again, as we tried to drown away our sorrow at not seeing Whale Sharks with good food.

Margaret River Area

We started driving in the morning after a quick supermarket breakfast and stocking up at a near by super-market. This was interrupted by stops to take calls from our travel agent about the Ningaloo trip, and so we made it only to Bunbury around noon, where we had lunch. At lunch, we confirmed all our arrangements with Ningaloo Reef Dreaming for our dives, but with one snag, they wanted everything faxed to them in writing, which was quite tricky --- there were no guarantees we would be able to arrange that today. Our travel agent offered to deal with that for us, so we remained hopeful.

At Busselton, we stopped at the information center, and saw the ads for the Bushtucker Canoe tour. That sounded like a lot of fun, especially since it meant a chance to try the Australian Witchetty grub, so we signed up for it. I also called the Hamelin Bay caravan park to see if they had a powered site for the night.

Then onwards we went, to Cowaramup, where an road sign for a wine shop stopped us. We had seen signs for a mango wine earlier and had hoped to see it, but it turned out that the shop didn't have it. They did point us at the Berry Farm, and we resolved to see that tomorrow. After that, we gassed up the car and headed to Hamelin Bay Campground, which was right in the middle of Leeuwin-Naturaliste National Park. The Australians don't seem to mind having a commercial campground in the middle of their National Park. The campground is quite pretty, and very close to the beach, so after we had a quick dinner, we walked along the beach for some sunset photos. After the sunset, we were treated to a visit to the beach by Manta Rays, who were drawn by fishermen scaling fishes on the beach. Lisa had quite a bit of fun feeding them with the fish scaling remains.

The next morning, we drove the much touted Caves Road, which winds along the Karri forest to the Pevelly Cove for the Bushtucker tour. The tour guide, a former policeman from Perth named Chris, delighted in showing us the forests, the birds of the area, as well as a short hike and of course, the Bush lunch. The Witchetty grub was not bad, tasting a bit like a nut. Well worth the trip! On the way back, we had a canoe race, and with Lisa & I sharing the canoe with Chris, we won the race and a bottle of wine for Yuri and Monique.

After this trip, we went back to Margaret River and used the internet cafe there to finalize our Ningaloo trip. With all that printing and writing and faxing behind us, we headed to the Berry Farm, which to our delight had Mango wine. A tasting, however, revealed a sharp, spicy taste to the wine which made it a disappointing wine, despite my wanting to like anything mango-related. We did try their sparking strawberry wine and their sparkling nashi pear wine, and those were quite good, so we bought a bottle of the pear wine for the evening.

Having done so, we decided to stay at Hamelin Bay again for the night, since an inspection of the Riverside Caravan Park in Margaret River didn't impress us. Rather than provision the caravan for one more night of cooking, we decided to buy take out food in Augusta. While we were in the area, we took a look at the cape (unfortunately arriving at the lighthouse just as it closed), and were surprised to find that the color patch cafe calling itself the last dining house before Antarctica.

The overcast day meant that the sunset wasn't nearly as good that day, but we met an Australian family and spent an evening with them.

Our last day in the Perth region started out overcast, but as we drove back along Caves road, which slowly started to look more and more like other wine valleys in the world (including Napa valley), we started seeing more and more sun, until it became only partly cloudy at the Busselton pier, where Chris had recommended that we rent snorkels and swim back from the end of the pier so we could see the fishes up close and personal. I did so, and the water was cool, but not unbearable. Folks in the underwater observatory took pictures of me, though! I enjoyed the swim for about 20 minutes and then got stung by two jelly fish in quick succession, ending my snorkel in a hurry.

After that, the drive back to Perth happened uneventfully. At Monique and Yuri's home, we unloaded everything, and I borrowed one of their bikes and stuffed it back into the camper van to drive to the return office. I made it back there just in time, returned the van with no problems, and then rode my back. The ride back was initially terrible, with heavy traffic and hot weather. But I soon found the cool bike path along the Swan river, and that made for nice riding.

Lisa & I repacked our bags for Ningaloo, had a final reunion with Yuri (who was going to Europe on business the next day) and Monique, and had dinner at the local Asian food restaurant. We had a 5:45am taxi pick up the next day, so we went to bed early. At this point, I noticed my CPAP mask was damaged from the trip, so had to make some repairs with scotch tape.

Perth

We got off the plane right on time in Perth, and walked from fall into summer. The weather was well over 28 degrees centigrade, and it was warm just walking to the taxi stand where we took at taxi to the Maui rental. The rental was for 10 days, so we bought a National Park Pass as well as renting the awning. Now that we knew what we wanted, and knew the van well, checking it out was easy.

We then drove to Monique and Yuri's house in East Perth, which was nicely located near the river and seemed to be a pretty upscale location. Just as we found parking, Monique and Yuri walked up and helped us move our luggage into their home. Despite being in suburbia, Yuri and Monique managed to keep a European lifestyle despite living in Australia, by being able to bike to work, and not driving very much. Yuri had just bought a Jeep, though, and was working on installing Roo bars. He needed some parts, and so was glad that we showed up with a van, and he and I made a run down to the store while Lisa and Monique took a walk.

For dinner, we rode bicycles to Fraser's a restaurant on top of the hill in Perth. Since we couldn't find a bicycle small enough for Lisa, Yuri did the gentlemanly thing and gave Lisa a lift on the rear rack of his dutch bike. The views from Fraser's was good, as was the food.

The next morning, Monique had a triathlon she was doing as part of a corporate challenge, and we rode to the start line to cheer her on. After that, we packed everything up and drove our van to a caravan park in Fremantle, since we had a dive scheduled on Monday. Lisa's friend Daniel showed up to pick us up and show us his place of work, E Shed markets, the major tourist market in the area. It turned out that Daniel was the general manager for the market, which is owned by ING.

After the tour, Daniel dropped us off at the Fremantle prison, where we had signed up for the 3:45pm tunnel tour with Tara, whom we had met on the Overland track. Monique and Yuri also joined us, and we got to see the underground part of the prison, which was apparently also featured in The Amazing Race TV show. It was quite a fun tour, and when it was all over we got pictures and went off to have dinner with Daniel and his friend A.

Daniel, Lisa, A. and I exchanged travel stories and food longings, since A. was from Singapore and of course, that's what Singaporeans do when they meet --- discuss food.

The next morning, we drove once again to E-shed to meet our dive guides and get fitted for our dive gear --- we were going to dive Rottnest island today! Our driver was late, however, so we ended up browsing at the store --- they had a brochure for Ningaloo Reef Dreaming, an outfit that did dives up North, and also advertised a Whale Shark tour. Since Ningaloo was at least a 4 day round trip drive, we had written it off, but I thought that if we used a plane to get there, it could work out. I called Swain Travel, our travel operator and asked them to look into it for me, and Ningaloo Reef Dreaming as well, to see if Whale Sharks were in season. The big one was that we would lose the use of our camper van without any refund, but a sunk cost is a sunk cost.

The two dives at Rottnest were great --- the water was a little cold, at 22 degrees, but once the wet suits filled up it was comfortable. The dives were along limestone bottoms, so there were a lot of swim-throughs, and a lot of wildlife, though the water did not have great visibility. Still it was fun and Lisa and I thought that since our Great Barrier Reef dive was so disappointing, we could make it up here.

That night, we went to Woodmans Point caravan park, and had dinner once again with Daniel and A. We would head South the next day for Margaret River.

The Great Ocean Road

We arrived in Melbourne and got a Taxi to the Maui Rentals depot to pick up our campervan. The Maui Spirit 2 is basically a Toyota Hiace Full-Size van retro-fitted to include everything for on-board living except showers and toilets. It's configurable to have sleeping quarters either in the loft or in the main cabin, has a refrigerator (that can run off a deep cycle marine battery), a micro-wave (hooked up only), a butane powered stove, and a full set of cooking and eating utensils.

The first thing that struck us about it was how much like a sailboat the camper van was. Everything stows away into locking cabinets, just like a boat, and there are little cubby holes under the cushions just like on a boat for storage.

Driving a big van around the narrow streets of Melbourne is definitely not for the faint of heart. You always feel like you're hogging way too much space, and it was my first experience with a vehicle that big and heavy. After a few misadventures (including not being able to find a caravan park, and having to return to the rental place because of some misplaced items, and breaking a couple of glasses by forgetting to secure one of the cubby holes), we finally got the boat, uh, campervan provisioned and parked at an expensive Melbourne park --- a powerless unit for $29.50 (including a 10% discount for driving a Maui).

We caught the tram down to Melbourne to chow down some Asian food, knowing we would not be able to get food of this quality for the rest of the trip.

The next morning, we woke up to find that some rain had fallen over night, but the van exhibited no condenstation at all, since it was so well ventilated. We started off along the road to the Great Ocean road. The weather was rainy, and not at all friendly but by the time we pulled into the town of Torquay, things had gotten quite a bit better.

Torquay is supposedly the surfing capital of the world, but when I asked about surfing lessons, none were to be had for the afternoon, apparently due to some regulations about surfing schools. They were happy to rent me a surf-board, but given that I didn't know what I was doing, I felt that to be pointless.

We headed down the coast to Apollo Bay, stopping every so often for sights, but by the time we got there, the sky had cleared up and I decided it would be wise to head over to see the 12 Apostles --- Lisa wanted to do a Platypus spotting eco-tour, but we could not do that day because he was all booked up, and since that tour happened in the evenings and dusk, we would have to camp out in Bruce's town of Forest to participate.

We got to Port Campbell around 5:30pm, secured a powered camping spot, and then proceeded to the 12 Apostles, eating a quick dinner in the car park before heading out to shoot the sunset. I don't know what the results of that shoot are, but we stayed out until well after dark, and then headed back into Port Campbell for some shut-eye.

We had seen some brochures for the Ortways Fly Treetop walk, and since that was along the way to Forest, decided that it would be a worthwhile stop. However, not before a second visit to the 12 Apostles and Gibson's steps for another look at those gorgeous sea-stacks and limestone formations.

The Otway Fly treetop walk was fascinating since you get a chance to see the rainforest at the canopy level, including a 50m tower. What's enjoyable is how cool it is on a hot day. Temperate rainforests are definitely a ton nicer than tropical ones --- I might even be able to walk i none some day without itching all over just from the associasion of a rain forest with nasty creepy bugs.

After that, we noted that we were near the Triplet falls, and went in the for a lunch in the parking lot and a visit to the falls, which weren't too impressive as there hasn't been much rain lately (those of you who've hard of the Australian wildfires know that since it's been all over the news). The walk, however, was nice and cool despite the warm day, and the loop nicely arranged.

The drive over C159 to Forest was narrow and slow --- it would make an excellent cycling road except for all the signs to watch out for logging trucks. I did not see a single other car on the road, however, let alone a logging truck, so a cyclist might very well find himself in luck except on logging days. Arriving in Forest, we found where we were to meet Bruce (our guide for Platypus spotting), and then went to the Caravan park, where I negotiated a $22 stay for the night with power hookup.

The Platypus tour was interesting. Bruce told us quite a lot about running one of these eco-tour business (he also ran a mountain bike tour business in town, as well as a mountain bike rental business). As a one man shop, he spent quite a bit of time in paper-work, getting accreditation (which turns out to be mostly writing policy and filling out paper work), permits, etc. The platypus sighting itself was in Lake Elizabeth, part of the national park (we could have camped for free there, except for all the warnings about how the parks were closed due to weather). The lake itself was only 50 years old, and quite placid when we started off despite a building wind. We did spot 3 platypuses, and Bruce was adept at anticipating where they were. Lisa, however, was disappointed because she got much better views of the platypuses at the Sydney aquarium. You didn't really get to see the entire body of the platypus, just the eyes, and a shadow of a bill, and then a bit of the body when it dives.

We slept well that night, but we awakened in the middle of the night to quite a bit of rain and wind. The next morning was quite cloudy and windy. The wind was the reason why the parks were closed (a bit of fire can spread quickly in a bit of wind), but the rain seemed like it should have kept the fire danger low. Nonetheless, with no way to visit the National Parks, we decided to drive the Great Ocean highway and visit the Cape Ortway Lighthouse, the oldest lighthouse in Australia. That gave us a chance to see Koalas in the wild, as well as take in some history.

After that, the rain started up in earnest, so much so that when we passed the 12 Apostles again, Lisa opted not to stop. Past Port Campbell, we spotted a hitch-hiker hiking in the rain, but were too late to stop for him. We went on to see some other sights, such as London Bridge and the Grotto, all artifacts of the limestone in the area being moulded, dissolved, and shaped by the waves. We were relieved to see that someone else did pick up our hitch-hiker, but were surprised to find him again walking the road some time later, and this time stopped to pick him up, which was how we met Evan.

Evan was an industrial engineer in Seattle, and was now travelling in Australia for 8 weeks. He did however seem to have brought rain everywhere he traveled, in Tasmania and elsewhere, and was in the middle of the Great Ocean Walk when the wind and rain came and blew all his hopes of completing the walk out of the window. He was nevertheless in good humor, and seemed determined to get to Portland today.

We weren't going quite that far, however, and when we got to Warrambool to fuel up, I got a tip as to a caravan park that was out of the wind. We dropped Evan off after that and went to the caravan park, which charged $30 for a powered-site and $26 for an unpowered-site. While preparing for dinner, Lisa spotted an ad for a laser and sound show called Shipwrecked. The park even had a discount for the show for us, and was kind enough to call and arrange everything for us, including a taxi (we were reluctant to tear down everything we had put up).

The show turned out to be a video about the two survivors of the Loch Ard, the skipper and crew, and what it was like to travel back in those days (a 13 week journey from England to Australia). Then it was followed by a walk through the historic recreation of the village of Warrambool as it was back then. Finally, the show itself, which was a laser projection onto a veil of water generated by fountains. Lisa was quite captivated and I was impressed. Definitely recommended.

Rain and wind continued to greet us in the morning, and my attempts to find surfing or scuba diving fell completely through due to the weather. We drove to Port Fairy, a nice little town and had a glorius meat-pie for me and a vegetarian pie for Lisa. If someone ever figures out how to import this food to Palo Alto they will be wealthy for life. Port Fairy was charming, but it was too early to stop there, so we moved on to Portland, where we were directed to drive onto the breakwater, and then visit the Enchanted Forest, which was indeed very enchanting. Looking for a caravan park that was out of the wind, we eventually settled on the Portland Claremont Caravan Park, which only had unpowered sites (for $20) left when we decided upon them.

There, we met Isabel and Samuel, who were on a 4WD journey around the world. They had started in Lucern in Switzerland, where they lived, and driven all the way to Turkey, through the Middle East, and then through Russia before boarding a ship to Australia. All through this trip, we'll meet Americans traveling for 4-8 weeks, and then we'd meet Europeans, who'd have been traveling for 1.5 years or more. We had a good time exchanging stories.

The morning started out nice, but soon were interrupted by the now familiar rain and wind. We saw notices about how bringing fruits and veggies into South Australia could result in a $2500 fine, so we had a quick breakfast of all the fruits and veggies we had left, and then set off to Bridgewater. There, we saw the blowholes of Portland, and a "Petrified Forest" that turned out to be a series of tubes created through some natural processes. We did see the strangest series of rainbows due to the weather conditions though --- first the middle part with the ends, then just the ends without the middle, then the left half, all within 10 minutes.

Driven forward by the rain, we drove on to Nelson, then across the border into South Australia. At a gas station, we spotted a picnic area across the street and used that to make a French toast lunch. The driving now became easy, the challenge mostly being the campervan acting like a huge sail, which makes side winds extremely unhappy for me to cope with.

We drove past Robe, where there was a memorial for Chinese who disembarked for the gold rush and then walked 200 miles to the work-sites because of the head-count taxes on incoming ships from China. Then on to Kingston. The campervan's modifications did not include a gas tank expansion, so I was forced to fuel up again there. (The gas tank is only 15 gallons or so!) We decided to shorten the next day's drive by camping out in Cooroong National Park along the south coast. The first camp-site we saw was none too good, though sheltered, so we kept going. This park is huge, lengthwise --- it took a good hour to drive to the next camp-site and scout it. The fees were extremely reasonable, though: $5. It was already 7pm by the time we got there, and with the overcast skies, there wasn't much of a sunset, despite the scenic nature of the campground.

The next morning, we woke up to the sound of birdcalls instead of car doors and stoves, which is what it should be like camping out in a National Park instead of a commercial campground. Rob, a camper next to us was going to be counting birds over the weekend as part of an international agreement to track migratory birds, and gave us quite a tutorial on rare birds and what they look like. Lacking binoculars, however, we could not do more than squint at little dots on a faraway lagoon.

The drive to Adelaide went very fast, much faster than I expected, given the long distance between drives. By noon, we were checking into the Adelaide Shores Caravan Park, which was where the rental place recommended we stay the night before our return, given our early flight the next day. We then cooked and ate lunch, took showers, and went for a walk on the beach, which was again bereft of swimmers, and then went to downtown Adelaide, where the information center told us we arrived right in the midst of the Fringe Festival, a collection of live events in the city. Lisa went and got a foot massage while I walked around figuring out that most of the comedy venues weren't sold out, and I could just pick up tickets at the door.

Lisa had found during the massage the name of a good place that made Curry Fish-head. We went to the "Best of Adelaide" comedy show at 6:00pm, where we found out that Adelaide was half an hour off from Melbourne, a strange time-zone difference. The show itself was worth $20, and got a good sampling of local talent, and got to see Gordon Southern live for about 15 minutes. It was a pity that his main show was at 9:00pm, or we would have gone for it.

The Curry Fish-head was excellent, with the right taste, though not perhaps with the right amount of spicyness, but Lisa already thought it was quite hot, so it was a good compromise.

Tasmania (Part IV)

After we got off the track, we ate a quick lunch at Lake St. Clair and then drove to Strahan in the rain. We were definitely feeling sticky and smelling nasty as we drove, so I had every incentive to make it fast, but the combination of wet roads and twisty one does not make for fast driving, so it took us until 5:30pm to get to Strahan Village resorts.

Our travel agent must think that we're rich or something, since so far, she's not put us up with anything but swanky hotels. I guess this is what happens when I let someone else do the work of planning our trip. Nevertheless, it was such a relief to get out of the rain and into a hot shower that I don't think any of us complained at all.

After dinner, we did laundry, and then went to bed for an early morning Cruise into the Gordon River. Breakfast was meat pies and then it was onto the Lady Jane Franklin II, a fast catamaran ferry with specially designed low-wake engines for use inside the National Park. Pretty slick.

The trip was a total tourist trap, along with the mini-walk in the rain forest, and lunch. I would normally not be impressed with things like this, but I'd just came off a 6 day walk with a backpack, so something that let me veg out was a good option. It was a misty morning, and we got to see the mist rise from the forests and the river, as well as enjoy the reflections on the river. It was all very controlled, like a Disneyland ride, which I guess was what they were going for. We did get a guided tour of Sarah Island, which was a shipyard building 132 boats by convicts. The last boat got stolen by the convicts themselves. That part of the tour was worth it.

After we returned, we went to the post office to pick up a COD package from our previous hotel, where Lisa had left a shirt. Then we went to Ocean beach to scout and noticed that Mutton birds show up at Dusk, and made plans to return the next day, since we'd already made plans to night to eat at the 42-degree view restaurant. We returned to town just in time to catch the 2 person play, "The Ship that Never Was." Since there were about 15 people involved in the story, the play drafts members of the audience to play bit parts, with an elaborate stage that can be rigged up like a stage. I enjoyed it but Lisa thought the Australian accent too thick to penetrate.

The 42 degree view restaurant turned out to be an expensive buffet dinner. It was a nice buffet, with Oysters and everything, but the food felt very familiar. Then we realized that we'd seen it before --- on the Lady Jane Franklin. The same family owned all these operations and re-used their food preparations everywhere. We resolved not to eat at the same family-run place again.

We signed up for the Wilderness Railway just before the Overland Track, on the recommendation of some other tourists we met. Having a completely different weather gave the trip a completely different view, and it is a great complement to the Gordon River Cruise. Where that was about pristine Wilderness, this is all about the destructiveness of man's mining activities. The railway goes along the King River, which is a completely dead river, because the Lyell Mining company dumped all its tailings into the Queen River, which flowed into it. As a result, 10 years ago, the river had the consistency of wet concrete, and even now it still had no life at all in it. I'm guessing the government had no budget to clean up the river, but at least the mine is no longer dumping its tailings into the river!

The railway ride was almost all day, so we extended our stay in Strahan by one night and had dinner at Risby Cove, an excellent restaurant recommended by the Rough Guide. After that, we immediately headed over to Ocean beach to catch the sunset, and wait for the Mutton birds, who only came back around 9:00pm. Those are hard working birds that look a lot like the birds you draw as a kid --- two long wings and a torpedo body. I didn't get any pictures since it really was too dark and they moved very fast.

After that, it was one more round of laundry, and then packing for the next day.

The drive to Hobart was 4.5 hours long, made longer because of the bane of a driver's existence --- the huge camper van being towed by an underpowered truck that refuses to pull over despite having 10 cars behind it. By the time we got to Hobart, the trip had taken 5.5 hours and I was quite tired, but still had to run downtown to see if I could find an eyeglass shop to repair my titanium glasses, which had broken at the bridge. I learned that titanium has to be welded in an oxygen free environment, and only a shop in Melbourne could do it!

By this time, I had gotten repeated notification from my employer that I had to fill out my tax forms or else, so I spent the rest of my night in Hobart (after an un-satisfying dinner) filling out tax forms. It turns out that having someone else do my taxes is just like doing them myself on TurboTax. If not for the foreign stuff, I never would have had to worry about it whatsoever. I wish I had more time to explore Hobart, but I'm not a city person anyway, and there seemed to be massive alcohol driven parties at all the pubs on Friday night.

The Overland Track (Tasmania Part 3)

After a hefty breakfast, we were shuttled over to the Ronny Creek trailhead by the shuttle services at 10:00am. At the walker's registration, I noticed that another group had already left for the Overland. We started in beautiful sunshine and lifting fog. Walking along the level path that was the boardwalk at the start of the track gave me a fit of optimism that this would be a relatively easy walk, even with the heaviest pack I've ever had in my life.

All that evaporated an hour later, when I was faced with a steep trail. Sweating and breathing heavily, we got to the top only to discover after a short flat section another trail going up, this time with cables to assist what looked like an almost vertical ascent, much like what one sees at the top of half-dome. Doing so with a heavy pack felt like suicide, and when I got to the top I had to drop my back and immediately go back to help Lisa up. Even then, there was still a little bit of extra climbing before getting to Marion's lookout and the end of the steep section, where we met Sarah and A.

We took a deep breath and looked around --- all around were mountains (not high mountains --- there's nothing taller than 1663m in Tasmania), and Dove Lake far below showed us that we'd climbed a thousand feet or so. With that feeling we headed to the true high point and then made for Kitchen hut, a good spot for lunch but had no drinking water. There we ran into Sarah and A. again, but they were heading for Cradle Mountain's summit and Lisa & I were feeling low on water, so opted to move on. I was to later discover that Sarah and A. had a ton of water and would have been happy to donate some to us.

We met Vladimir, a Russian living in Queensland who was hiking the track as well. He had just done Cradle Mountain summit, and walked along with us exchanging stories. We were then passed by a bunch of fast walking hikers --- these were the folks who paid $2500 a person in exchange for guides to carry and cook their food, mountain huts with hot showers, and no need to carry anything but clothing in their packs. We felt envious of their speed and obviously lighter packs, but felt a little less envious when we saw that they looked a little herded together.
By and by, we reached the first hut we would stay at, Waterfall Valley hut. The group camp site was up in the trees, and Lisa and I pitched our tent on one of the tent platforms. The drinking water was down by a secondary hut, so we chose to cook there. This was the first time I'd ever used my Trangia stove indoors and I was impressed --- I had never seen it boil water so fast! At this rate, I was definitely carrying way too much fuel! Then more trackers came in, having all taken the Tassie Link shuttle from Launceston, which got them into Cradle Mountain around noon. Despite all that, most of them had done the Cradle Mountain summit.

We exchanged equipment tips, and stories. These were people whom we would share the track with for the next few days, and it was worth getting to know them: Monique & Yuri, a Dutch couple now living in Perth, Dana and Satoshi Kato, a Japanese couple from Tokyo, Annabel, Jen, and Tara, from Perth as well, John and Connor Fitzgerald, a father and son pair of musicians, who were commemorating John's impending retirement.

The next day we started the trek with overcast skies and low fog. We spent the time to the Lake Will turnoff chatting with Jacob, an American from Arizona. The walking was relatively easy and we opted to visit Lake Will for lunch. Lake Will was pretty but by the time we got there we felt little rain drops, and so ate a fast lunch at the beach and then headed back to the intersection to find that most folks had decided not to do the side-trek, instead opting for an easy rest day or combining two days together to make a 25km day to save time on the track.

Windermere Valley hut was situated nicely enough, at the bottom of a valley. By the time we got there, the sun was out and it was warm. The location wasn't particularly inspiring, but Lisa preferred the tent to the hut so we camped out. At this point we learned that Sarah's backpack had been broken into. At dinner, we met a Frenchman who was doing the track in 4 days.

We woke up in the middle of the night to hear a wombat scratching at our tent trying to get into our food! Turning on Lisa's headlight made him go away, but the next morning we found that he had bitten through one of the tents, creating in it a hole the size of my fist! That taught us that no matter what the rangers told us, we should keep backpacks and food in the huts, not in the tents!

This was to be our longest day. The hiking wasn't particularly hard, walking through plains with a few ups and downs, but the scenery was spectacular, since when there aren't any trees, the mountains really do come out and show themselves. There was also not a cloud in the sky.

The 16.75km took its toll, however, and by the time we got to Frog Creek Camp, we were quite worn out. By the time we got to New Perlion hut, we were quite done for the day. Someone mentioned that there was a swimming hole at the old hut 25 minutes away, but an extra hour round trip did not seem worth the effort, so we just pitched our tent, had dinner, shot a few sunset pictures, and then went to bed.

As far as huts go, the New Perlion hut is unique in that the hut proper has much better scenery than the tent platforms, so if you visit it, stay in the hut instead of camping. By the time we figured that out we had already pitched our tent, and were too tired to take it down right away, but we really should have, as that night was the coldest of the entire trip!

We woke up the next to find the tent completely wet from condensation because it was so cold. At least the walk to Kia Ora hut wouldn't be challenging today, we speculated. Satoshi and Dana were planning to skip right over it and go on directly to Windy Ridge, but I harbored hopes that we'd do Mt. Ossa.

Well, by the time we got to the intersection with Mt. Ossa, Lisa was having her monthly cramps, so that shot that idea to hell. However, we did make it to the saddle to see the summit proper tower above us. Well, after that intersection, there was still quite a bit of up and down, and we arrived at Kia Ora properly tired. The tent platforms there were quite good, and after pitching the tent I tried going for a swim, but fell and hit my tailbone and sprained my right pinky instead. When John and Connor showed me the proper swimming hole which had no such risks I was quite embarrassed. The water was extremely cold, however, and none of us could stay in for long.

That night, I told everyone that Lisa's birthday was tomorrow. Everyone gave her good wishes, as we retired to an extremely windy night, with the wind howling and flapping the tent flies all night. This did have the benefit of granting us a completely dry tent in the morning!

It being Lisa's birthday, we sang Happy Birthday to her in the morning before setting off. We did discover that we had miscalculated the amount of toilet paper to bring, and thus Lisa's first birthday present this year was a spare roll of toilet paper from Tara!

The walk itself was uneventful --- we did a side trip to see two waterfalls, and then got to Windy Ridge hut after rainforests and various bushes. Since we had to walk out early the next day to the ferry on a schedule, we decided not to camp but to stay in the hut for the night instead. What a lucky decision that turned out to be!

At dinner, Tara, Jenn, Monique told me that the Cradle Mountain Huts guide had said that he would try to bake a chocolate cake for our birthday girls (Lisa's birthday was the 23rd, and Annabel's was the 24th). Lo and behold, right at dinner time a chocolate cake was delivered, and Happy Birthday was sung once again! Pete, a Canadian was making custard at the same time and we had a perfect blend.

After the cake was had and everyone settled down, John announced that he would sing a song for our birthday girls --- to my surprise he performed a song I knew, "The Rambling Rover", which I have a copy of, as performed by Silly Wizards on their Live Album. Not to be outdone, Connor gave a percussion performance with clicks, snaps, and fist.

By this time, the weather had truly taken a turn for the worse --- we saw sheets of rain, then lightning (followed by thunder), and then hail! Staying in the hut never felt like such a correct decision. Folks started moving bivy sacks, sleeping bags and entire tents into the hut to escape the rain.

The rain did not let up all through the night and the hut was cold as ice the next morning. By the time we left we had used up all our food, given away the rest of our chocolate, and gritted our teeth for a miserable walk. It turned out that the rain had softened quite a bit, but what trail was definitely wet and muddy. We pushed through, trusting our boots to protect us. Well, the insides of our boots got damp anyway --- I don't know why that would be. Lisa's made out of Gore-Tex, and mine is leather with a fresh layer of wax. It could be that my waxing job is bad, but hers shouldn't need waxing. Perhaps when the fabric is saturated it doesn't breath out any more and we get damp feet from our feet no longer breathing? A cursory Google search turned up nothing, but if you know something about this please post here. I mainly want to know whether the waxing job I did was inadequate, or whether even with a perfect waxing job damp feet is to be expected.

In any case, the walk out was boring, through rainforests and not much scenery --- shadows of the surrounding mountains through the clouds were as much as we got, in between long periods of staring at the trail so as to not step on a slippery rock or wet tree roots. We did stop to get out the camera from the dry bag at the suspension bridge, but the rest of the time just put our heads down and tried to make good time.

Getting to Narcissus hut and using the radio to confirm our ferry booking, I felt my load lighten up despite the rain. At 12:45pm, we walked to the ferry jetty, loaded onto the Ferry, and headed across Lake St. Clair in the light misty rain, ending our Tasmanian wilderness adventure. It's been incredibly pretty for the first 4 days --- the last 2 were a little boring but as my first self-contained really long walk, I can't think of a gentler introduction.

Tasmania (Part II)

On the 18th of the morning, I woke up at Dawn, put everything that wasn't needed for the track in the car, and started the drive. It's never stress-free starting a drive to a deadline, but the combination of early hour, foreign country, and the wrong side of the road made this drive something altogether. I started in the fog, but soon, the sun came out and gave me gorgeous views of the area. I couldn't stop and take pictures, since I didn't know how much time it would really take for me to do the drive. However, it was indeed a gorgeous sunrise, and I did gawk a little as I drove through all the National Parks I had to drive through in order to get to Lake St. Clair through the gorgeous morning.

Arriving at Lake St. Clair, I checked with the ranger as to where to park the car, and then found the Tasmanian Tour company van parked just as I left the visitor center. I chatted with the driver and he gave me the impression that he expected a heck of a lot more than 1 passenger! Nevertheless, we were all good for the ride. We drove East instead of West, and started down a series of dirt roads at incredibly high speeds. I did get to see the Great Lake, and several other sights, but the rough roads (the driver proudly told me that the van's suspension had never been replaced) made for a really bumpy ride.

At this point the driver received a phone call on his mobile. He answered it (yes, while driving on dirt roads at high speed), and then said to me, "I guess you're getting the scenic tour today --- we're going to Launceston to pick up others!" It turned out that the tour company had agreed to ferry two other walkers from the Penny Royal in Launceston to Cradle Mountain that day, but had screwed up and forgotten to pick them up!

This turned my transfer from a 3 hour transfer to a 5 hour one, and by the time we stopped at Cradle Mountain Transit Center it was 2:15pm. The two walkers we picked up were quite antsy, especially when it started raining as we entered the park. I walked over to the park center with them, and had no trouble at all picking up my Overland track pass, despite it being before 3pm, and not having any paperwork for me. I then went back to the lodge, had a quick lunch, and then Lisa and I took the shuttle over to Dove Lake for a look around. Dove lake was beautiful in the misty rain, but then we wanted to go to the feeding session for the Tasmanian Devil center, and so took the shuttle back after only about 20 minutes or so.

The Tasmanian Devil center's tour was really a movie, followed by a question and answer session about Devil Facial Tumour Disease, which is a cancer that can spread by contact. This has several implications and apparently the entire population is really vulnerable to it, thereby causing possible extinction for the entire species in 20 years' time! What's fascinating about it is that the vulnerability is caused by an insufficient amount of genetic diversity amongst the Devil population (All Devils can be traced to about 10000 or so animals due to some prior population crash), and some researchers speculate that humans may be vulnerable to a similar sort of disease given that we have about as much genetic diversity as the Tasmanian devils. (There's a great SF story in there somewhere)

We got to pet Tasmanian devils, and then walked back to the hotel in the rain for dinner before going to a real bed for the last time in a while, hoping for good weather.

Tasmania (Part 1)

We arrived at the Melbourne airport to discover that not only was the flight to Launceston not run by Qantas, but also we were for some reason not in the computer system! Fortunately, all that was straightened out but we barely got to the gates on time. After all the smooth flights so far this was quite a shock.

Arriving at Launceston airport, we found ourselves in an airport so un-automated that baggage carousels didn't exist! Tasmania was also very strict about enforcing quarantine, and they used dogs to sniffed our carry-on baggage as well as our lugguage for non-native plants and fruits. The process was long enough that I had time to check out the rental car and still come back and watch the baggage carousels unload.

Then we headed downtown to buy everything we couldn't buy before --- fuel for the stove, lighters, matches, and regular food for 3 nights of car camping. We found an organic foodstore that had vegetarian indian pouches for food, and the super-market had Horlicks instead of just Milo. That's quite a treat for us, so we bought it despite the price. We loaded up with water, and then headed over to Cataract Gorges, which was both a swimming area and a hike.

While Lisa took a nap, I swam around the pool and then checked out the gorge's swimming hole. It was the oddest swimming experience I ever had --- the top layer of water was warm, but if you swam around you swirled water up from the bottom and got quite chilled!

We then took a quick walk and then I looked at the map as to where to spend the night. The visitor center had suggested Longford, but I saw pictures of Freycinet National Park 2.5 hours away, and was captivated and wanted to drive there right away! It was a long drive, but quite worth it as the scenery along the way was gorgeous. When we got to the Park the visitor center was closed but they had kindly listed the open camp-sites. We visited the first one that was free (site 19) and couldn't believe our eyes! The site is a raised platform that had fences on four sides, no benches or table, but the beach was literally 10 foot steps away! Not only that, the beach was next to empty!

We just couldn't believe how luck we were, until we had to drive the stakes into the ground --- Freycinet is only recommended for free standing tents, and we didn't bring one this time! Nevertheless, we got dinner, sunset pictures, and then discovered that the showers were cold! Ouch ouch. That night a possum visited our site, attracted by our garbage --- it must have een quite used to people, since it did not scare at all, and after we took away the garbage bag, it climbed a tree.

The next morning, we made a quick breakfast, and then were approached by a ranger who gave us a friendly notice to pay up! He noticed me struggling with the stakes, got a pair of pliers, and helped me with them. What a nice guy. We took a walk on the beach and then we to pay up our visitor park passes as well as the camping ($13 a night!). Then we were off to hike Wine Glass Lookout (pretty, and not at all strenuous) and the Cape Tourville Lighthouse (gorgeous!).

One of our Easton aluminum stakes had a separated cap as a result of our struggling with stake removal, and the ranger had suggested that we go to Bischofen for contact cement. We drove there and found that as promised, the general store (named The Log Cabin) was indeed opened, and sold us super-glue, some guylines, and a couple more stakes for car camping. I'd spied a scenic drive marker earlier, so we went back and drove that. There's an incredible blow-hole right in Bischofen, where the waves pushing through below some beach rocks, would pressurize and blow water up through some holes. Touristy but in a nice way.

More scenic driving until about 4:30pm, when we arrived at St. Helens and determined to find a campground with hot showers this time. We ended up at the Tourist Caravan Park just out of St. Helens, and had a grand time talking to our neighbors in the park, who were eager to give us suggestions as to where to go and so forth.

That night, I discovered that my CPAP machine was no longer getting power from the battery. A look at the cigarette lighter mechanism showed that it had broken. Well, I could take it apart but that would take daylight, so I went to sleep without it instead.

The next morning started off gloomy. We ate a quick breakfast, took down the tent, and were sent to a local auto-parts store to find a replacement fuse for the cigarette lighter adapter --- when I took it apart, I found a broken fuse. Replacing the fuse did the trick, and I bought several more fuses to tide me over in case of another failure.

We then drove out to the Bay of Fires and the Garden, which was a pretty collection of rocks similar to what one might see in Point Reyes, but in a desolate and windy environment with very few tourists. Wild and desolate country indeed! That detour took a couple of hours so we had lunch back in St. Helens on the way out. We then started to drive West towards Cradle Mountain. Lisa wanted to see a Lavendar farm/garden that was on the map, so we drove there, stopping only for a short walk through a rainforest that was an educational exhibit on the road. Arriving at the Lavendar farm, we smelled lavendar oil in the air and went to see the distillery.

After that we had a decision to make --- camp out on the North coast? Or head down to Longford where we had a campsite recommended to us on our first day in Tasmania? Looking at the map, I wanted to avoid more driving, so we drove down to Longford to find that the commercial campground was pretty and very well laid out. Well worth the $20/night.

The next morning, I started by arranging transportion from Lake St. Clair back to Cradle Mountain for when I shuttled the car to the southern end of the Overland track. Transportation being what it was in Tasmania, it took me a few calls to find someone who would do it --- it turned out that the Tasmania Tour Company was happy to do so.

The drive to Cradle Mountain Lodge was interesting, taking us past King Solomon's Caves, where we arrived just in time to get a National Park Service tour. This was much different from the Jenolan Caves --- this tour was much more about ecology and damage, as well as living creatures in the caves than it was about the formations. Quite worth the money, however, and the views were very good.

Arriving at Cradle Mountain around 1:00pm, we ate lunch at one of the hotels, then visited the park information office to confirm everything. I was then told that I had to book the ferry for our return if we were planning to use the ferry. Discovering that my cell phone didn't work, I had to wait until we got to our hotel room at the Cradle Mountain Lodge to make that arrangement.

By the time all was said and done, it was time to take the Enchanted Walk scheduled at the lodge to see and hear about the interesting animals living in the park: the Wombat, the Platypus, and of course, the Tasmanian Devil. I also found out that it would take a 3 hour drive to get to Lake St. Clair, which meant that I had to get up at 6:00am the next day to make the 10:00am shuttle that I had arranged!

The evening was spent packing, arranging what had to be brought with us on the overland track, what would be left in the car, and checking that we had everything we needed for a 6 day, 5 night walk --- the longest self-contained backpacking trip I had arranged in my life.

Melbourne

Melbourne

We picked up our rental car and found ourselves driving on the freeway towards the city. There was a toll-way, but after our last experience paying for it, I opted instead for the surface streets. Australian drivers are generally terrible. They swerve all over the place, drive too fast, and seem generally unable to follow a painted line. But Melbourne takes the cake for driving insanity. There are 12 intersections where you cannot turn right from the right-most lane (they drive on the left side of the road, so you already have a cognitive disadvantage). Instead, what you're supposed to do is to make a right turn from the left-side curb, executing in a car what cyclists call a box-turn: you drive to the corner of the street where you wish to make a right turn, stop the car (annoying anyone behind you), and then when the light changes, you can then execute your right turn after the intersection clears but before the rest of the cars move. I have no idea how accidents don't happen, but this is easily the biggest insanity I've seen as yet.

We arrived at our hotel at 6:00pm, and then headed out for lunch. By sheer luck, I walked into what was the best Singaporean restaurant of the trip so far, a place called Singapore Chom Chom. One of my favorite noodle dishes in Singapore was this dish called Mee Pok (sic). It's basically a noodle dish with fishballs, fishcake slices, minced pork (yes, that's probably how the name came about), and flat twisted egg noodles, with a spicy vinegar sauce that when done right, gives it the distinctive taste. It's served unmixed so you can mix it all. Well, Singapore Chom Chom is the only place outside Singapore I've found that served Mee Pok, and what a treat that was! Lisa also tried Rojak for the first time.

We then walked around the city some more, and I shot some night scenes and we went to bed.

The next morning was shopping day, as this was our last chance to pick up more camping gear in a big city before having to pay island prices. We bought cheap sleeping pads, mosquito veils, insect repellent + sunscreen, freeze-dried food (none of my favorite Mountain House was available, mugs, cutlery, and lexan bowls, so we had to settle for a New Zealand brand and pray that it tastes good), a hat for me, and enough ramen to tide us over for some time.

By lunch time, we were quite hungry and found yet another Singaporean restaurant, this one not as good as Singapore Chom-Chom, but we did end up meeting some Singaporeans who were living in Melbourne who could give us tips on where to go. They suggested St. Kilda Beach, the Victorian Market, the Eureka SkyEdge building for views of the city, and the botanical gardens. We went back to dump all our gear and then proceeded to take the train ride around the city. By the time we got to the Victorian Market, however, it was closed. We ate once again at Singapore Chom Chom (the Mee Pok was just as good the second time) for dinner, and then visited the SkyEdge building, which is easily the tallest building in Melbourne.

The night view was very pretty, but the place was totally a tourist trap. It was a nice enough place to watch the sunset, but the glass had just enough dirt and dust on it that pictures came out horrible. You'll just have to pay up. The gimmick here is the Edge experience, which is a glass cube that extrudes from the building with variable frosting so you can see all 88 stories below you as well as the sides and top. I think it's highly over-rated, but we're tourists, so what can we do.

By the time we were done it was 10:00pm, so off to bed it was with us.

The next day, we rented bicycles and rode to the Botanical gardens and even rode through it quite a bit before being told that bicycling was verboten there. Oops. Well, that took care of that. We then toured the veterans memorial, rode along the Yana river until it went out of town, and then came back just in time to catch a new performance at the computerized bells exhibit. This time for a change they got human performers, who would stand on elastic steel stilts and use their body weights to swing from bell to bell and ring the bells to music. There were 3 of them and we got to watch a rehearsal and a performance for the cameras.

Lisa wanted to try out a cantonese restaurant for lunch, so we did, and after that we went back to the hotel to pick up the car and drive it to St. Kilda Beach, where Lisa got a foot massage and I visited an internet parlour that was too slow for use but nevertheless had every booth filled with people performing job searches.

With that, we returned to the hotel where I paid the toll for tomorrow's trip to the airport, having finally figured out that you could pay the toll in advance! Then we went out to get some more food at the Old-Town Singapore Kopitiam (not recommended) which the Singaporeans suggested but I found not so good. We ended up back at Singapore Chom Chom for a third visit when Lisa wanted some coconut rice and I pointed out that for $3 more we could get a whole plate of Nasi Lemak at Singapore Chom Chom.

Atherton

Pardo's friend Guy Carpenter greeted us onboard the Spirit of Freedom right at 7:15am, having told us via e-mail that if we tried to take the taxi to his home where he'd offered to put us up for a couple of nights, the taxi driver would just laugh in glee. Tall and with the look of a well-adapted Australian, Guy had lived in the Cairns area for the last 15 years or so.

Lisa had mentioned wanting to get a photo with Koalas, so Guy offered to take us to what he felt to be the best of the Wildlife habitats in the area. It turned out that Guy contracted at the Geographical Information Service department of the government two days a week, as well as supporting the local conservation efforts as a volunteer, which made him eminently qualified to make good decisions about such things. We then made a long drive to the place, making stops every so often to get pictures of the area. He mentioned that that past Port Douglas, there were the Daintrees, which had voted to stay off the grid. If the weather had been less warm and humid we would have considered going out there, but it was hot and humid and Guy lived up in the Tablelands/highlands area, which would make everything really more comfortable, so we decided that we would make our way back to his place eventually.

The Wildlife habitat was great --- they somehow managed to get a lot of wildlife in a small place without it seeming unnatural. We arrived early enough to follow the morning feeding cart, and so we got to see birds arrive and snatch fish off the feeding cart, as well as get various species of birds pointed out to us, either by Guy or by the feeding agent.

After that, we went to Port Douglas for lunch, where we found a cheap sushi place that also served an amazingly authentic Char Siew Bao. Then on the way back, we stopped by the Barron Falls --- with the monsoon rains we could see the incredible amount of silt built into the river --- an outpouring of brown water slammed down 500 feet from the top of the fall, creating a massive spray and a breeze that blew secondary streams into the air before they even met the river.

After that sight, we got to see the train station over at Karuda, unchanged for 100 years, with train passing at most once very 3 hours or so. We were then brought to the Carpenter home, with introduction to Francesca, their lovely daughter Jasmine (an impressive 10th grader at Atherton high school). They fed us an amazing dinner with vegetarian pumpkin soup, fresh homemade bread, and we talked for the rest of the evening about friends and matters in Australia and throughout the world.

The next morning started with a visit to the Curtain Fig, an enormous fig tree that had strangled its host, which then fell upon another tree during a windstorm, forming a curtain of roots from up high that was amazing. We then walked around Meecham lake, reminding me why I didn't plan any camping or hiking in the rainforest --- the verdant lush growth made me itch just walking around on an improved trail around it.

Lunch was at an old veteran's convalescent home. We then took the waterfalls route, stopping at no less than three waterfalls, which were clearly at the height of the wet season --- it was hard to believe that in June, these powerful cascades would diminish to a trickle. We then dropped by the local chocolate and cheese factory, buying some chocolate for the family, and getting a video of the cheese-making process, then a quick visit to the Chinese temple that was closed. It turned out that some of the early settlers in this part of Australia were Chinese, and unlike Chinese in other parts of the world, they were so respected that they were never subject to any of the concentration camps that occured during world war 2.

Guy knew the person who ran the bat hospital, so after a quick call we received permission to visit. The facility, which had taken over Jenny's home and her life had both mega (fruit eating) and micro (insect eating) bats, and took in bats that were injured in barbed wire, carelessly put together fruit nets, or in recent years, orphans whose parents were infected by a virus carried by local ticks. We were given a quick tour of the facilities, including the recovery areas as well as shown the baby Albino bats that were brought in from Cairns that looked just amazing.

We then returned to the Carpenter home for a soak in the pool, just the thing for the tropical heat, and another great meal and more conversation. It's always great to have hospitable hosts watch out for you and show you around, and this would definitely be a highlight of our trip!

Cairns

We arrived on Wednesday and didn't even get into our transport shuttle before a deluge of tropical monsoon came down on us. Fortunately, the rain was warm, typical of tropical monsoons, but with word of three cyclones in formation in the area, the prospects did not look good for good diving. We gave Spirit of Freedom a call and they confirmed that we'd be picked up the next morning.

Cairns turned out to be extremely oriented towards Japanese tourists. Lots of stores had Japanese speakers and Japanese signs, and we counted no less than 3 Japanese restaurant, including a Japanese noodle place that was extremely authentic. We then explored the town, which seemed pretty dead in the monsoon.

The next morning we were picked up at 7:25 sharp by the van from the Spirit of Freedom, and were taken to a local small plane airport to get weighed and flown to Lizard island. The flight was a nice low one, at 2000', granting us what would have been a nice view of the area. However, we did see a few squalls and I worried very much about the weather on the upcoming dives.

Landing on Lizard Island, we found that our boat was on the other side of the Island from the landing strip because of the prevailing conditions. We were taken to the Spirit of Freedom by 2 tenders, and the luggage moved separately. Once everyone was on board we were given an orientation, checked out on rental equipment, and provided with snacks. The boat schedule was organized around eating and diving. You'd wake up, eat, dive, eat, dive, and repeat up to 5 times a day.

We started with 2 dives for our first days, and I could definitely see the effect of having three cyclones in the area. The water was murky, with lots of particulate matter in it --- so much so that I resolved not to bother with a camera under-water while I re-oriented myself to diving. The food was amazing. I couldn't believe what Chef Andrew managed to produce from his tiny kitchen.

The next day, I woke up at 6:15 for the early morning dive, and then chose to skip the second dive. I resolved to do no more than 3-4 dives a day, including the night dive, since DCI sounds scary, and I don't always trust computers. Others on the trip did all the dives with no side effects, but I was told that the previous week, someone got bent. If you do 4-5 dives a day for 3 days straight, I'm not going to be too surprised that DCI rears its ugly head.

After lunch, however, we received an announcement --- the rest of the dives were canceled while we searched for the lost divers from SpoilSport. Passengers with binoculars broke them out and helped search, but I didn't have binoculars, so spent the day reading. We did eventually help the tender which delivered doctors to Fascination, which eventually picked up the lost divers get back to SpoilSport.

Saturday morning brought us more diving, and my first night dive. The day dives were pretty good, but the currents were so strong that I could easily see how one could get swept away. In fact, on my second dive of the day, I exhausted almost all my air getting back to the boat because returning to it took intense swimming against the current. I'm normally a strong swimmer on the surface, but with scuba gear and underwater, I'm not as good as I normally am.

The night dive was fun, everyone wearing glow sticks, and a flash light that let you see what was going on. The water wasn't any clearer but since you only were seeing what you pointed your light at, you weren't getting it in your face all the time.

The last day had 4 dives, two of which were Steve's Bohmmie. What a fantastic dive site that was. Gobs of wildlife, and the crew were so enthusiastic that we dived it twice. After 3 dives, I was so exhausted that I skipped out on the last dive, choosing to spend it chatting with the skipper of the vessel instead.

All in all, while I was disappointed by the weather, I was not at all disappointed by the experience. The Spirit of Freedom is highly recommended if you're going to do a dive trip in the area.

Aboard the Spirit of Freedom

Some of you might have heard about the case where a couple of Americans got separated from their dive boat yesterday in the Great Barrier Reef and drifted for 7.5 hours yesterday until they were found by a helicopter S&R. That couple was not us, but our dive boat was in the vicinity of SpoilSport when the event happened and our boat joined in the search and rescue operation. It was quite exciting with a lot of chasing and radio communications --- it turned out that it was very nearly the Spirit of Freedom that found them, but the information provided was a little off so the Spirit turned around just a bit too early and thus prolonged the search and rescue effort.

The weather's been not too great here in the Great Barrier Reef but we're still diving. It's just not super pretty with lots of current and waves, but the skipper is doing a great job finding relatively calm places and there's still plenty of wildlife to be seen, just not the 60' visibility we had hoped for. Oh well.

Jenolan Caves and More

We woke up early today to get an early start to get to the Jenolan caves. It took an hour to drive there, but what a trip! We got there just in time to sign up for the Caves of Baal, and the guide took us into a big cave, complete with stalactites, stalagmites, and lighting meant to set them off for best viewing. Well, not only that, they had music playing and the lighting fixtures timed to the music so you would see pieces fade in and out. It sounds really cheesy, but it was so well executed I had a great time despite my natural cynicism about such tourist traps.

Then we had a quick lunch and our second cave tour, the adventure "plug-hole" tour. They suited us up in safety gear, but unlike the Bridge Climb, we would actually need the gear. We first abseiled down to the cave entrance --- when I first saw the pictures I thought it was like rappelling, but you're supposed to walk down, not push your feet against the wall and bounce along the wall. This took quite a bit of doing. Then we were led into the caves proper, and talked through the various maneuvers needed to get ourselves through it. The guides did so with such natural humor that everyone did it and had great fun, crawling through spaces (some headfirst, some on the side, and many on our butts).

Then we took a self-guided tour of the huge caves at the entrance, then went to see the Kanaga Walls. This was where I made the mistake of putting my naked camera in the backseat along with the tripod. While driving along the unpaved road, Lisa heard a loud noise, and I moved the camera to the front seat but it was too late --- the screen of my DSLR is now cracked! My experience with Canon is that they will fix it under warranty at no charge, but since the camera is still operational, that will have to wait until I get back to the U.S. I've done this lots of times with my film SLRs with no problems, but I forgot that the DSLRs have a vulnerable component on their bodies. Ah well... If I leave the camera at home I'd never get any good pictures, even if it was kept pristine.

The Blue Mountains

February 2nd

We got up and had breakfast at the hotel, then headed out to Echo point to begin a relatively short hike: The Giant's Stairway to Leura Forest, the Federal Pass, and then the Prince Henry Cliff Walk. It was warm at the top of the stairway, but as we descended into shade it got cooler and cooler until deep in the forest we were feeling quite comfortable! Then, we walked into the forest which was nothing special, but once the stairs back up began we found some of the prettiest waterfalls ever. These weren't particularly big, but there were many of them, and each one was quite different from the previous ones. The stairways were constructed such that we could keep our feet dry, but there would still be the occasional spray to cool us off as we climbed. One of the highlights was a fall that came down like mist, lighting up in the air as the droplets descended.

At the top, the Prince Henry Cliff walk was also nothing special, though there were many lookouts. We then had lunch at a Cantonese restaurant in town that was nothing special, but did have Beef Rendang (not that great though!). Then we took a nap in the heat of the afternoon, and then did a driving tour of the area, though we didn't end up with any sunset photos worth speaking of.

Katoomba in the Blue Mountains

We got up and again had breakfast in the room. After packing everything, we walked down to the train station and caught the Eastern Suburbs line to Kings Cross, where we found our car rental place after walking for about 4 blocks. The day was incredibly warm (afterwards, someone would tell me it was 34 degrees), and we were relieved to discover that our rental car had air conditioning!

Using our handy GPS, we traveled out of town into the Blue Mountains on a 2 hour drive. Just before Katoomba, we turned off to visit the Wentworth Falls. I originally thought this was a 30 minute walk, but after getting to the bottom of the upper falls and taking a shower in one, I spoke to a Sydney native and he talked me into doing a longer loop to the National Pass. Well, Lisa and I had plenty of food, so we chose to forge ahead and do it. There's something about this trail that's great --- you feel like you're hiking in some exotic country, with step stones placed in the mud, but weeping walls above you dripping water onto you. (Where is all that water coming from? It's hot as heck and hasn't rained for days!)

We were really impressed by the beauty of this hike, though the mountains themselves aren't much taller than our native Santa Cruz mountains. (It still doesn't hold a candle to the Swiss Alps, though) After that, we checked into the Carrington Hotel, a swanky-looking colonial style old hotel with no air conditioner but really expensive looking lounges. At last it started to cool down and we went to have dinner where Lisa had a wonderful veggie pot pie at a diner-looking restaurant and I had a kangaroo burger (gamey, not all that great, but I gotta try, right?).

Then it was time to shoot the sunset at echo point, where we had an astonishing light show. We'll see how the photos turned out. I ran into a German couple (from Hamburg) who were on a round-the-world 9-month trip. You know, I do my little trips and think that it's so great that I can get 2 months off from work, and of course the Germans (and the English) out-do me all the time.

Sydney III

We woke up late and had breakfast in the hotel. Lisa was feeling a little tired after the activities of the night before, so we skipped the zoo in favor of a trip to the Aquarium. What's really amusing to me is how well they've tackled the space issues --- quite a bit of the Aquarium doubled back on itself, and they really made good use of space by having some large aquariums that had glass bottoms and underground passages so you could look up through. I'm definitely a big fan of tropical fish, and they had a nice collection of sharks and Dugongs.

After that, we finally cracked open our guide book to look for a place to eat, and discovered that the best food court was over in Paddy's Market near our hotel. We went there and ordered Nasi Lemak and Hainan Chicken. Yummy!

We then caught a bus out to the Circular Quay again, and then walked over to the Botanic Gardens, which looked quite a bit more wilted than I expected in the heat. Nevertheless, I ran around playing photographer, we got to see the fruit bats, and I even got some pictures of parrots later in the evening (shot at ISO 3200 --- I would never have attempted such pictures with film!). I'm definitely becoming a fan of the Canon 5D Mk II.

After that, we went back and had a late dinner, including more satay and Roti Canai, and Char Kway Teow which wasn't quite to spec. Food court dining is awesome, and I'd forgotten how much I miss it.