Ken Goes to Aussie Land

Where has the time gone?

2008-10-17T12:22:00.000-03:00

2008-10-11 - Saturday

Today is another travel day. 650 km to our next destination. But unlike all other travel days, this one is different. This one is to be our last. The last day of packing up the van and it's faithful blue trailer; The last day of travelling as a group; the last day of combining forces to complete a crossword puzzle; the last day of communal van sleeping ...

The last day we'll be sharing a lunch of sandwiches and juice (Ok, maybe it's not all bad).

Today's drive was really no different than any others we have done. The night before, we had presented Matt (our Tour Leader) with a new FM transmitter for his van stereo... To replace the one that had died during our tour... And we were now putting it into good use... Changing up the music we've been listening to a bit.

We did complete one more crossword puzzle and pretty much everyone did doze off atleast once on the ride to our final destination.

I don't think the finality of it all really began hitting home until a view of Sydney could be seen in the distant foreground, and certainly by the time we had crossed over the Sydney Harbour Bridge there was no escaping that we were now in the final minutes of our collective journey.

We pulled up to the gateway hotel and began unloading the van. Once completed, there was time for one last group shot and some final good-byes before we all started moving in our separate directions.

I'm not sure what the reason, but these final minutes did not feel as final as I expected they would. Initially I had envisioned much more emotion and much more anxiety involved with saying good bye to a group of strangers with whom I've spent the last month (practically 24/7) getting to know and exploring Australia with. Maybe it's because collectively, we've already added each other as facebook friends - so that sense of finality has been somehow cyberly diffused; or maybe it's because we are all (except for a couple) getting together tonight for supper... And will be getting together over the next couple of days to explore Sydney; I don't know, I just know that this parting of the ways doesn't feel as heavy as I had expected it would.

As mentioned, we all, except for two, did get together later that evening for supper at a downtown pub then it was back to my hostel for a good night's sleep.

Some final reflections on the OzXposure portion of my trip:

All in all, the trip was absolutely awesome. I couldn't have asked for anything more. I was given the opportunity explore and experience Australia as I had only thought possible in my dreams.

I've walked around the monolith Uluru; I've seen it cast in both sunrise and sunset light. I have met and interacted with native aboriginees; have slept on the devil's marbles and partied in Darwin; have camped under the stars of the southern hemisphere; have held pythons and swam with crocodiles (although I never saw them, I'm sure they were around). I have bungee jumped from a 50 meter (164 foot) platform and have dove on the Great Barrier Reef. I have sailed around the Whitsundays and have explored a sand Island. I have petted kangaroos; have held a koala and have had upteen other experiences of a lifetime. (And thanks to Bart, not only do I have my photos, but also those of my trek mates - all 14,000+ of them - to help me recall those experiences.)

I still have a couple of days to explore Sydney and I'll try to keep updating my blog to reflect those experiences as well; but in the meantime, I do want to thank all those who have taken the time to leave a comment... I've enjoyed receiving and reading them. I'm glad someone out there is enjoying all this writing! :-) This blog has certainly been an interesting little experiment.

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Hogg's Breath

2008-10-17T12:15:00.001-03:00

2009-10-10 - Friday

Another bit of bad news this morning. I've been keeping a little touch of the sniffles at bay for the last couple of days... Something that's travelling around the van. Unfortunately, I think the exertion of yesterday's surf lesson combined with walking around all afternoon with a damp swimsuit on gave it the leverage to grab hold. I've awoken this morning to a sore throat and a congested chest.

Luckly there's already drugs going around the van that will help keep it in check... Or atleast suppress some of the symptoms such as the congestion.

Oh well, better for it to happen now rather than a couple of weeks ago.

This morning, several of my trek mates are heading back to the beach to practice some more surfing. I'm glad I didn't sign up for that. There was a touch of rain last night, and the skies are overcast and looking pretty gloomy right now. I'm thinking it's not going to be as fun out there today as it was yesterday.

Instead, I'm heading back into Byron to join some other trek mates for breakfast and then spending the day souvenier shopping.

Byron is a very laid back town and its core is certainly set up to cater to the tourist. It's streets are lined with cafes, boutiques, and other specialized shops (such as surfing), and of course souvenier shops.

With a good dent in my souvenir shopping and some "Noodles in a Box" in my tummy (for lunch); we're picked up from downtown Byron and head off to our next, and last, overnight destination: Coffs Harbour; a short 250 km ride.

Like several of our destinations throughout this trip; we don't have any activities planned for Coff's Harbour. It's simply serving as a gateway or layover on our way to our true destination; being Sydney for this leg.

So, like most travelling days, the highlight will be supper and tonight, it's off the menu: Hogg's Breath's menu. A pub around the corner from our hostel.

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Surf's Up!

2008-10-17T12:11:00.001-03:00

2008-10-09 - Thursday

Today I learn to surf...well, that's the idea anyway. Given it's only a 3 hour course, I'll keep my hopes grounded in reality. I had a similar experience this winter with snowboarding... After three hours of lessons, I was pretty much exhausted and barely got off of the bunny hill...technically, I probably shouldn't have.

Shortly after 9am a group of us were brought down to the local beach where we would be learning to surf at the site called "The Wreck", aptly named for the wreck which is visible just off the beach.

After being introduced to our instructor, I believe his name was Fraser... But I might be confusing it with his dog's name... But for the sake of clarity, I'll continue to refer to him as Fraser, we were outfitted with wetsuits and rash suits (a thin shirt that adds in traction with the board; also easily identifies us to Fraser).

Helping Fraser this morning is Sarah. I do remember her name as shortly after our instruction began she had identified herself as Canadian... liviing in Australia for the last cuople of years.

Fraser struck me as exactly what a "surfer" instructor should be. ** Caution: some pretty generalized stereotypical descriptors are about to be dished out. ** He was super laid back, at ease with the world, and perhaps slightly out of phase with it. What I mean is that while clearly intelligent and wise in the ways of surfing, his speech was so relaxed that it could be interpretted in a couple of ways: deeply profound and slow, weighing the words that were to be spoken; or slightly dazed and confused; trying to remember the words just spoken so they could be followed with the proper works to complete a meaningful sentence. I suspect it was somewhere in between those two extremes. He also spoke with plenty of colourful surfer slang... As if trying to decode everyday Aussie slang wasn't enough!

Fraser, with some supplementary instruction from Sarah, began with the basics. We reviewed the physical area we'll be surfing in; some basic common sense safety guidelines (no surfing in swim zones, ensure you have a clear line with the beach before taking a wave, how to swim out of a rip tide, etc.); The basic parts of the board and some of the slang used to descibe these parts.

Then it was into the water... But first without boards. This part of the lesson was all about getting comfortable with reading and looking for the types of waves we'll be trying to surf. To help with this, we spent several minutes body surfing. Several of us got along Ok with this; especially Peter who appeared much more seasoned than the rest of us. None of us, though, could match the skill of Fraser as he caught white wave after white wave. And while the rest of us normally had our heads burried in the wave, his was several inches ahead of it, back arched, clearly able to see the track he was surfing.

Then it was back up on the beach for some more theory and land practice of some surfing skills, which included:

* How to steer the surf board out to the waves (we were only working in waste high waters today);

* How to properly mount the surf board;

* How to row to match the speed of the wave;

* Once on a wave, how to transition from the rowing position to the surfing position;

* How to accelerate / decelerate;

* How to properly dismount the surf board

And with one final review of the safety guidelines, we were heading back into the water, surf boards in hand.

It took a bit of support and determination, for sure, but within 15 to 20 minutes several of my trekmates were "catching waves" and were up on their boards "surfing".

The waves we were after are the ones which have already broke (and have turned white); versus those which are rolling in, called green waves. The reason for this is that white waves have the flatest tops, and thus the timing to catch them does not have to be as exacting as when trying to catch a green wave.

After another 10 minutes, it was pretty clear to Fraser that we were all getting pretty tired... So we headed into shore for a quick break and some photos.

Then it was back in for more practice. Now, I had no problems with getting my board out to the waves; or for spotting and catching waves. My biggest problem was the transitioning from the rowing position to the standing position... Just couldn't get those legs positioned properly. Nonetheless, it was a great experience... And I am taking away some good theory which I can continue to practice should I ever find myself on a beach somewhere with a surf board in hand... And some waves, of course.

Those of my trek mates who were really into it decided to continue surfing for the afternoon and even booked their boards to continue practicing tomorrow morning.

As for me, I'm heading into town this afternoon... See what Byron Bay is all about.

Oh, and all those photos that were being taken. We ended up buying them.

Before heading back to the campground for supper; Matt had taken us up to visit Cape Byron. In addition to being the most easterly point on mainland Australia; Cape Byron is also well known for it's picturesque lighthouse and the frequent sightings of dolphins and humpback whales just off the coast.

Well, I did see the lighthouse (pretty hard to miss it really); but unfortunately, no dolphins or humpbacks. I had thought I had seen a small pod of dolphins kicking it up in the distance, but upon closer inspection they turned out to be a pod of surfers swimming out to their next wave. :-(

For supper tonight, it was back to Nick and me. Already?? My, how time flies. Tonight we have a bit of a group effort going on. There were a couple of folks helping with the grocery shopping and again, there's a couple of us doing the prep work. The actual cooking is solely Nick and myself though. We're cooking up a goulash of sorts: boiled potato smoothered in a red wine sauce (of sorts), green and red peppers, butternut squash, carrots and sausage.

It's the last meal we will have to prepare... Meaning both for Nick and I; as well as for the group as a whole. Tomorrow we eat out and the day following our tour comes to an end. :-(

Tonight also represents our last night of camping... Tomorrow we're in a hostel. In total, 23 nights of camping... My longest camping adventure ever and sure to be a record for a long time to come.

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From paradise back to reality ... of a sort

2008-10-12T08:49:00.002-03:00

2008-10-08 - Wednesday

Our second day on Moreton Island was a sleep in day, Ya-hoo!!

After packing up all all of our stuff and dropping it down by the beach, where we'll be meeting up with the ferry, it was off to another hike... this one to the highest point on Moreton Island: Mount Tempest.

It's hard to believe this entire island is composed of sand while looking at it from a distance. Sand is found on beaches - but this Island also has mountains and valleys; how can they all be composed of sand as well.

Well take a drive through the island and it's quickly confirmed for you that it is most definitely composed of sand. Several of the roads we travelled to get to the base of Mount Tempest were dug deep through sand hills; which rose far above the roof of our vehicles. On either side of these passages, you could see the depths of sand and deep, deep roots from the vegetation above. An amazing thing to see.

We also came across one or two "traffic jams". Since many of the roads are single lane, dual direction; these are not too uncommon; although in our two days here, we've only come across two jams. To help drivers along, every so often you'd see spots where passing shoulders were placed; designed to allow one vehicle to pull over, allowing on coming vehicles to pass.

Well, the trek up Mount Tempest confirmed for us as well that this is a sand Island. The entire path up the mountain was sand based... With several staircases in place to help keep the sand in place. It was a relatively steep hike, and even though we started it reasonably early, the sun still had plenty of time to heat the sand below our feet and was presenlty searing us from above as well. It was certainly a hot hike.

Once at the top of Mount Tempest, we had quite the view scape of the island. On one side was a view out towards the ocean with several large sand dunes leading the way to the closest beach. In the other direction, looking inland, you could see forests of tropical plants, other smaller "mountains" and valleys. And in a third direction, not too far in the distance, you could see "the desert"; an area of white sand void of plant life but harbouring a giant sand dune. This would be our next destination for some lessons in sand boarding!

Because of the lack of reference points within the desert, determining it's true size was not easy - nor was it something I even considered until one of those large 4WD tour buses drove across it to transport a group of school children to the far side of the giant dune. The tour bus went from the size of "tour bus" to dinky by the time it reached the other side. This inland desert was quite large.

With school children on one side of the dune, and a group of tourists using another, we were off to claim our "track". Now the first thing we learned was that sand boarding is nothing like snowboarding! First, you don't buckle yourself into a board, instead you lie flat as you can on one, except for your upper torso, which you arch up (along with the board) so as to form a smooth rounded surface area. Next, you don't try to steer or slallom down the hill, but rather you try to keep as rigid as possible; any deviation to these tips could result in pits in the track, or worse, a wipe out which would just ruin the track altogether. And the biggest rule in sandboarding: "Don't walk on the track!!!". Doing so puts all kinds of pits in it and slows it down.

Unfortunately, no one has yet had the insight to install a "lift" of any sort... So, we had to climb to the top of the dune, repeatedly. Now, just be clear - sand boading is loads of fun, climbing to the top of a giant sand dune, not so much... But the second is a requirement of the first - so, no more complaining.

I was pretty surprised at the speeds you could pick up sand boarding. We also engaged in a little game of "who could go the farthest". Knowing that momentum was determined in part by mass - I thought I'd be a safe bet for this one; but such was not the case. In each run I came close to the record, but never surpassed it. Kudos to Jessica for holding both the record of shortest and longest runs (however, results are not final until the blood doping tests are completed... So we'll have to see if she retains the title! :-) )

With lessons over, we headed down to the beach for a liesurely walk back to the ferry "terminal" to await our departure.

For the record, driving in Matt's 4WD was an experience! A good one. Except for one little issue when we first arrived on the Island (I would have helped push, but I was preoccupied getting some cool pics of a pelican - sorry Matt. :-) ), he had no problems at all negotiating that thing around the sand roads -be they hard or soft!

With vehicles loaded, again a very cool thing to witness, and engines roaring; the catamaran slowly unbeached itself with no evidence of extreme effort, except for the deep vibrations of the engines under stress. Once unbeached, it simply pulled a 180 and headed off to the mainland.

As I got settled on the ferry, I realized I was quite pooped and decided to lie down - unbeknownst to me, in doing so I lost the "contest" of who would last the longest before passing out. I would have won the one for who would have passed out first... But no one thought to call that one. :-(

When the ferry landed it was right back on the road for us. Our destination tonight would be Byron Bay; a 220 km ride and our latest arrival yet (somewhere in the proximity of 9:00pm, including time for grocery shopping).

Supper tonight is being prepared by Martin and Peter. On the menu: savoury and sweet pancakes. The savoury ones were made up of bacon, onions and such; the sweet ones were made up of banana slices, strawberries and such.

Hmmm, a savoury one for supper followed by a sweet one for desert... Awesome!!

(And here I thought I'd be losing a bit of weight on this adventure... Not!)

A Sandy Piece of Paradise

2008-10-12T05:04:00.000-03:00

2008-10-07 - Tuesday

Ok, today we embark on what Matt (our Tour Leader) believes will be one of the highlights of our trip: two days, one night on Moreton Island. With that kind of buildup, I'm certainly looking forward to it.

We walked on to our ferry at 8:30 this morning with our daypacks in hand and esky's trailing - basically the basics of what we'll be needing over the next two days - and started our hour and a half cruise over to the island. This ferry is quite similar to the CAT ferry we have in Nova Scota, but perhaps not as large. Its a twin hull catamaran and can accommodate about 50 vehicles. In addition to the vehicle deck, there's an enclosed passenger deck and above that the bridge and passenger observatory deck.

The biggest difference between this Cat and ours is that this one is designed to deploy vechiles directly on the beach. As such, the front of the Catamaran has a huge draw bridge type of thing that simply drops onto the beach head; serving both as an anchor for the catamaran and as a method to offload the ship.

It was sooo cool to watch the ship approach the island and then feel the power of the engines as it beached itself.

Moreton Island is like no Island I've ever been on. Physically, it measures 37 kilometres long, up to 10 kilometres wide and is wedge-shaped. It's primarily composed of sand with some deposits of sandstone. And despite the low nutrient sandy soils and tea-stained, hi acidity waters the Island is teaming with life; both vegetation based and animal based.

There are no paved roads on the island. All transportation is via shared sand trails in 4WD SUV's, typically Land Rovers or variations there of, including large 4WD tour buses and smaller quad bikes.

We were picked up on the beach by George, a guide with the "Hooked on Moreton" tour company.

We packed up our gear into the enclosed trailer and divided ourselves between our two jeeps. The one I chose will be driven by Matt... Was it the right choice? Only time will tell. :-)

We drove directly to the cabins we'll be calling home for this evening; deposited our bags and chilled for a bit. Then it was off to our first stop: North point for a quick hike around the Champagne Pools and Honeymoon Bay. The Champagne Pools, I don't think this is an official name, but nonetheless, get their name from the water that trickles down the backside of rock formations as waves come crashing up against them (like champagne).

After the quick hike and some quick photo ops; it was down to the beach for an hour or so of swimming and body boarding. The sand was quite similar to the sand at Whitehead Beach. Very white, although not as quite but fine and sweaky. The strangest sound. The water was beautiful: just the right temperature and very, very salty.

After expending a bit of energy trying my hand at body boarding I decided to just kick back and relax in the water. With the salt density just adding to my already quite bouyant frame :-), I had no problems practically lying on top of the water while the waves gently rolled over me.

This is heaven on Earth - completely separated from the rest of the world. I had heard on the ferry that the world was presently wrestling with a monetary crisis but for now that might has well been in another universe.

Just after getting out of the water, as we were preparing to leave the beach for our next stop, someone had noticed a couple of dolphins in the water. Unfortunately, I wasn't quick enough to get my camera out. But there they were two dolphins swimming together along the wave crests just where we were body boarding (and I was floating) moments ago - less than 100 feet from the beach. How cool is that!

After that little interlude, we were off on another short hike to Cape Moreton which lead up to Brisbane's first lighthouse. Built by convicts in 1857 of local sandstone, it still stands; albeit fully automated now.

Reaching the top of the hill to see the lighthouse was cool; and seeing the stretch of beach behind it was certainly worth the hike as well; but the pinnacle for many was catching views of several whales just off shore - humpbacks at that - feeding and playing. One particular humpback spent quite a lot of time splashing it's tail around and flapping it's flipper into the water. Not sure of it's intentent; but it certainly provided us with several very cool minutes of entertainment.

After this hike it was on to another swim; this one at the Blue Lagoon; and inland fresh water lagoon; surrounded by, you guessed it - sandy shores and a sandy bottom! This swim was a wee bit cooler than the ocean was; but it was nice to wash all that sand off. Then we were back to camp.

Just before supper, several of us ran down to the beach, walked really - not easy to run in this sand stuff - to witness the setting sun. Then it was back to prepare supper. Tonight was Nikki and Bart's turn again; and on the menu was Chops Killpatrick with salad - but instead of pork chops we had pork rashers (resembed super thick - like half an inch thick - bacon slices). Most definitely hit the spot.

Finally, before calling it a day, several of us once again headed down to the beach hoping to see some bright stars; unfortunately, the clouds wouldn't cooperate and in it's place we took in the city lights of Brisbane off in the distance; accompanied by the lights of planes coming into and taking off from the Brisbane airport... Not quite as spectacular as the stars hidden from us far above, but it will have to do.

I look forward to my second day on this sandy escape from reality.

Cultural word association

2008-10-11T19:20:00.001-03:00

2008-10-06 - Monday

As mentioned yesterday, the Port of Brisbane is our destination today. Again, there are no activities planned; today's plan is just to drive the 550 km to get ourselves to Brisbane so we can meet our ferry ride to Moreton Island tomorrow morning.

It's funny to think that we'll be driving to Brisbane, but not really taking any time to see the city of Brisbane; after all, it is one of the more recognizable Australian cities. But that's just not the way this tour is designed. I can't really say I'm upset by that either. If I had wanted to tour all of the cities of Australia, I could have signed up for that type of tour... I can't say I'd have traded anything I've done yet to tour any of the cities we've passed through in more depth... and really, I will have a couple of days to explore Sydney... So that's cool enough for me - well, maybe Melbourne would have been cool too... But we can't be greedy now, can we.

On the way to Brisbane, we stopped into the Ettamogh Pub, which is attached to a themed park called Aussie World. Ettamogh's claim to fame (as far as I could figure) was that the crew of builders had forgotten their levels at home when they build this structure. Except for the bar and tables, there's not one vertically straight wall in the building.

Well, I don't have much more to write for today, so I'll fill it in a bit with some of things I've learned about the English language from my English and Australian co-trekkers:

* Pants are underwear, not outerwear (I got more than one strange look when I mentioned, "I think I'll wear pants today.")

* Trousers are outerwear (what we would refer to as pants)

* Aluminum is pronounced <a lu min eum> not <a lum in um>

* Cheers is used to express thank you and good bye, but not hello

* Rubbage bins are garbage cans

* Thongs are flip-flops, not underwear

* Esky is a food storage cooler

There's more and if I can recall them, I'll add them before I post this entry.

So, back to the Port of Brisbane. Brisbane is basically a commercial centre for Queensland; there's really no touristy stuff there. So, other than shopping, which I could do without, I wasn't really missing anything by not touring the city.

However, pulling into our accommodations for the night, Matt (our tour leader) could sense some pent up edginess with the group as a result of 2 long days of travel; so he suggested we hit a local beach to work off some energy.

It was a great suggestion. The beach was actually more a sandbar; with Brisbane visible to the west ant Moreton Island just barely visible to the east.

Along the sandbar route we walked, there were several beached jellyfish - a translucent blue in colour; and a great deal of washed up, dead coral.

On the way back, Paul came across a miniature porcupine fish which fluttered around our feet. He was a pretty cute little fella and more ressembled a wind up toy than a living creature. I'm sure Pugsy, my sisters Boston Terrier, would have loved to play with it... don't think the porcupine fish would have enjoyed it very much though.

With some energy spent it was back to our site for supper. Prepared by Emma and Jessica, we had a choice of seafood or meat sauce (red) over a bed of spaghetti.

The wheels on the bus are still going strong!

2008-10-11T19:16:00.001-03:00

2008-10-05 - Sunday

Today is another travel day. We're off to Tannum Sands, 520 km away. We don't have any activities planned for Tannum Sands, it's more of a half way point to the Port of Brisbane... Not that we have any activities planned for Brisbane either... It's serving more as our gateway to a two day/one night sand Island experience on Moreton Island.

One cool thing about this drive is that we once again crossed the Tropic of Capricorn, only this time we're travelling South.

Our new participant, Emma, has some distant family in Tannum Sands, so she's off to stay the evening with them. For the rest of us, it's basically set up camp, prep supper and crash in preparation for tomorrow's drive.

I must say, these drives are quite tedious, but given the vastness of Australia we have all come to realize, more or less, it's the only economical way to get between points of interest. On the plus side, it's been these long drives that has afforded me the time to write my blog entries (and keep my sleep quotas in check! :-) ).

The person I have the greatest amount of respect for during these long trips is Matt (our Tour Leader); he's the one responsible for driving all these distances - day in and day out. He's not normally the first the crash at night; but is always the first up - and to be able to put in these super long days is just wild.

As with all of these long driving days, the highlight becomes supper; and so it was again tonight... And Matthew and Sasha were up for the challenge.

Tonight they have prepared chicken and beef kebabs with fried potatoe wedges... Ahhh, nice.

Whitsundays on a Saturday

2008-10-11T19:12:00.001-03:00

2008-10-04 - Saturday

Today, we're spending the day at sea sailing around the Whitsundays, a group of 74 islands, aboard the purple catamaran, Camira.

This catamaran, appeared to be slightly smaller in size than the one we had out in Cairns; but certainly no less impressive. It was pretty hard to miss it...it litterally was purple in colour, except for it's name, which was painted along its side in bright yellow. It easily stood out amongst the other sailing vesssels in the marina with their typical whilt and black sailing colour schemes.

The skies above us were clear and sunny; however, in the distance gloomy clouds were present. I was hoping that's just where they would stay...in the distance.

There was about 40 of us who boarded the Camira at the dock and after a basic safety briefing we were off to our first stop: Day Dream, a resort Island about 1/2 out. Although we were half motoring, half sailing, I got the feeling from the crew that our progress was slower than they had hoped, basically because we were only using one engine and the winds just weren't up to pulling the slack.

The stop was a short one, only long enough to pick up an additional 20 or so passengers and we were off again to our first activity: snorkling. I suppose I should say second activity; as the skies above us continued to be clear and many were soaking up the rays on deck.

With regards to the snorkling, I'd have to say it was a wee bit disappointing. It certainly had nothing to do with the crew; as they were completely compentent in their preparations and protocols; but rather a series of other little things: my mask refused to stay clear - even after a soap suds rinse and multiple spit swooshes; as well, the rains of the last couple of days had left the waters a bit silty; and finally after being so spoiled with our snorkling on the Great Barrier Reef, our current location just couldn't compete with it in terms of colours, and variety.

Once we had returned onboard, snacks were put out; the bar was open (an all you could drink bar at that); and the sunbathing resumed as we motored/sailed to our next destination: White Haven Beach.

White Haven Beach is located on Whitsundays Island, a protected Wilderness National Park. The Beach itself was a brilliant white and the sand was the finest, as in tiny particles, sand I've ever had walked on...and it squeaked. Every step generated a squeaky sound under your foot...it was the coolest thing!

Given its National Park status, the forest behind the beach was pretty much off grounds...as such our activities were limited to the beach; which really wasn't a problem as there was more than enough to keep us occupied. Several us engaged in some extreme frisbee playing; while others of us chose extreme volleyball. Several were just content to take an extended walk along the beach and others still were just interested in a bit of swimming.

After a couple of hours on the beach, it was back on board for lunch: a buffet with choices of beef, sausage, and fish with all kinds of veggies, pastas and salads to go with it.

With lunch completed it was back to sunbathing and making new acquaintances. During the day we had met a couple of Canadians from the West Coast travelling across Australia and New Zealand for the next six months; Bart had found some folks from Holland; There was Emma and JoHannah from Sweden who where travelling across Australia on Work Visas and finally Alana and her cousin Tamara (and her two friends), all from Australia enjoying some holidays.

Ah yes, it was a good day.

On the way back , we tried to get a nice group shot on the bow of the catamaran; however, Captain John was not very pleased with so many of us on the netted deck , apparently it was only guarenteed to hold 10 and we were 15 plus. He threatened to stop the boat unless we disbanded immediately. Luckily, we were able to get a shot or two in before having to break up and "tip-toe" off of the netting.

For supper tonight it was back down town and then to the Beaches for some music and maybe some dancing... Where hopefully we'll be met by some of the new acquaintances we met today.

Well, Emma and JoHannah did catch up with us; but no such luck with Alana and Tamara. It still proved to be a pretty fun/interesting night.

We left the Beaches early and opted for a live one man band show down the road. Shortly after arriving, and purely by chance I ended up having a most intersting chat with one of the locals by the name of Denver. Well sort of a local. He currently calls Airlee Beach his place of residence; but wanted to be quite clear with us that he was not "from" the Gold Coast (apparently there's a stigma attached to "growing up" on the Gold Coast). Denver and several of his work mates were out partying hard on their hard earned money. The conversation between Denver, myself and his mates spanned a wide range of topics: What it was like living/working in Australia, Politics, where the world is going wrong and what we can do to make it right. Of course, as the conversation went on; so did the alcohol - so I'm not so sure how much sense it would have made to anyone else by the end of it. But, with the exception of Matt (our tour leader), it was still the most insight and
lively conversation I've had with an Assuie yet.

Cute, cuddly Koalas

2008-10-09T01:34:00.003-03:00

2008-10-03 - Friday

Today we're off to Airlie Beach (pronounced eh-lee); however, on the way we've stopped in to the Billabong Santuary.

The Billabong Santuary serves several important roles: they provide an opportunity for the general public to get up and close with some of the typical creatures found in Australia: Koalas, Wallabee's, Crocodiles, Snakes, Birds, Turtles, Kangaroos, etc.; And in doing so, helps to inform the public of some of the pressures against the healthy survival of some of these creatures, such as the Wallabee, Koala, and Cassoware (and australian flightless bird, slightly smaller than an emu).

The Santuary is over 250 acres; however, we only glimpsed a small fraction of that.

Being the only opportunity to see some of these particular animals up close, I tried to take full advantage of it. The kangaroos, for example, were so tame that it was more like being in a petting zoo. You could easily approach one of these creatures and give them a little pet behind the ears. Another special part of this visit was the opportunity to hold a Koala.

I wasn't sure if I was very keen to do this at the onset. As cute as the pictures are; there was a part of me that just felt it was unnatural for the Koala, stressed it unnecessarily and in some ways belittles the creature. The guides were very good at explaining the rules in place to ensure such things don't happen, especially introducing unnecessary stress to the animal.

In fact, I was surprised to learn that, at least at this Santuary, Koalas are only permitted to "work" a half hour a day; partly to minimize these stressors, but also because they need the other 23.5 hours to nap, nap, sleep and eat a little and nap a lot more.

With my mind set at ease, I queued for my photo - how could I not... It was a once of a lifetime opportunity, my "donation" was going to a good cause, and gosh darn it they're just so cute!

Once we arrived in Airlie Beach, we had set up camp and started getting ready to head in to town for supper. This would be one of the few nights we've eaten out.

But before going out, I really wanted to do something about the length of my hair. It was just over a month since it was buzzed last and I was feeling the need for another cut - too much grey starting to show. :-) I had asked Matt (our tour leader) if I'd be able to find a barber open in town at this relatively late hour. He said probably, but that he also had a pair of clippers that I could borrow... But they didn't have any guards. Luckly, my sister had already introduced me to buzz cuts without guards...so I was ok with that. I don't quite have the knack for buzzing my own hair yet; so Sophie, having prior experience with cutting her own family's hair, volunteered to do the honours... Then the coolest thing happened. One by one, the rest of the guys starting coming forward saying they'd like a buzz cut as well. In total, we had 7 people elect to have their hair buzzed that night. I must say, there were more than a few glances in our direction that
night as we headed out for supper. No need for torches (flashlights) tonight as the moonlight easily reflected off of our bald white domes like blinding lights!

Marsh Flies on the Rapids!

2008-10-09T01:28:00.002-03:00

2008-10-02 - Thursday

Today was another excellent day (I'm not going to even bother mentioning how much over budget I'm runnng!)

Today all of the guys, except for two, spent the day white water rafting with Raging Thunder along the Tilley River.

The day started out a bit overcast, but would eventually turn into a mix of sun and fierce down pours.

As we approached our launch, our group of seven was split into two rafts and joined by others to round it out at an even six per boat plus a guide. In my boat we had Matthew, Paul, Nick and myself. We were joined by Mike and Steve from the UK. Our guide was Mauricio from Chile, "Chile" they called him - original, no.

We signed up for the "Extreme" tour, which came with many perks, including first out in the rapids, more extreme rapid passages (ie. Sideways, backwards, surfing the rapids, etc), more water time and also first in to lunch!

Along with what you would expect white water rafting (six rowers and one guide negotiating rocks and rapids down a quickly moving river) there was also ample opportunities to swim certain rapids, jump off of six meter plus rocks, practice raft rolls and even take a trilling ride down a water chute.

To be honest, I can't think of a better way to spend a rainy day... the entire experience was one giant blast... And several mentioned it was the best rafting experience they've ever had! The only downside, if I had to mention one, was the Marsh flies. At home we call them Horse flies... And they are huge... And when they bite, they hurt... A lot. They were everywhere along the rapids and they didn't believe in taking breaks... But then again, neither did we! We had more dead Marsh flies in the bottom of our raft than I could count.

When we had finally arrived back at camp, we had a couple of hours to kill before supper... And the other members of our group who decided not to go white water rafting were not back from their hiking yet... So I decided to catch up on some sleep and grab a quick nap.

When I awoke, Amy and Andrea were well into their preparations for tonights supper: fried bananas and pineapple slices over a bed of rice and chicken tikki massalla.

Several of the group were convinced that we had seen the last of the rain. Paul, I and several others were not so convinced and decided to set tents. Fortunate for us; as shortly after we all crashed for the night, it did begin to rain. And while Paul and I were relatively comfortable in our tent; the sound of several others could be heard (by those not wearing ear plusgs} as they scampered around securing their tarp against the falling rain.

High above the Rainforest Floor...

2008-10-09T01:23:00.001-03:00

2008-10-01 - Wednesday

Before heading out to our next destination, Mission Beach, the majority of us opted to take in the Skyrail.

Skyrail is a gondola ride which takes you along a 7.5 km cableway above the canopy of the Barron Gorge National Park. The park is a protected site and is part of the Wet Tropics World Heritage Area.

The trip across the rainforest finishes up in the community of Kuranda and there are two transfer stations along the way offering two different experiences within the rain forest canopy. The first was Red Peak. At this station, there was a short boardwalk which guided you along the canopy floor pointing out different plants and their strategies for surviving in the canopy. For example, the strategy for many sun loving plants in the rain forest is to actually bind themselves to another taller plant and use them to stretch into the sunlight. From the Gondola we could easily see these ferns clinging to larger Pine and Silkwoods... They really looked out of place really.

The second station stop at Barron Falls gave us great views over the Barron River, the Gorge and the Falls themselves (where the river falls 280 meters as it travels towards the coast). We could also see remnants of the Barron Falls hydro-electric construction camp built in the 1930's. Finally, there was also an interpretive centre at this station which introduced us to some of the animals which could be found in the rainforest; as well, the sources for many of the sounds we were hearing while walking along the canopy's floor.

The community of Kuranda was very much developed with the tourist in mind. There were a smattering of restaurants, cafes, tourist shops and markets. We took a quick walk through the community and a couple of us did buy some wares. I took the opportunity to mail some postcards (finally), and took a moment to savour a delicious Iced coffee topped with real cream whipped cream.

We then all headed back to our starting point, back over the rain forest canopy via the gondolas... A ride that took us about 1/2 hour...this time we travelled straight through, making our switches at each transfer station.

Once we had arrived, it was back into the van and we began our short 160 km ride to Mission Beach.

Once in Mission Beach, the majority of the group headed to the beach (despite the gloomy skies); however, the rotation was back to Nick and I to create something for supper tonight... so we were off to the grocery market.

Upon our return, we had learned that both Martin and Paul had retrieved some coconut husks from the beach and were now attempting to open them by throwing them against the fire pit, smashing them with stones, and several other inventive ways with little success. Then they tried going at them with an axe and there was success! Fresh coconut juice and coconut meat for all!

Oh, and by the way, our choice for supper, pasta shells covered in a seafood sauce comprised of calamri rings, haddock, salmon, mussels, onions, garlic and red and green peppers all sauted and mixed in an Alfredo sauce. Neither one of us really knew what we were doing, but it did turn out pretty good!

A diving we will go!

2008-10-09T01:18:00.001-03:00

2008-09-30 - Tuesday

With my log book in hand and a fresh battery in my dive computer we all headed down towards the waterfront to meet up with our host today: Passions of Paradise tour company and their catamaran who will be taking us out to the Great Barrier Reef for our dive experience.

The visit to the Great Barrier Reef was one of the things I've been really been looking forward to. I might have also added bungee jumping, but I really didn't have any intentions of doing that until a couple of days ago (and even then I definitely wasn't looking forward to it). So, I'm pretty excited about today's activities, to say the least.

I don't deal well with specifications, so I won't try to here, suffice to say we were on a pretty large double hulled catamaran, outfitted with a decent sized dining area; as well as, plenty of sunbathing deck space. There was also about 30 stations in the back of the boat for assembling dive equipment. It was quite impressive to say the least. Including our group of 15, there was additional 40 or so also taking in the cruise.

There are 3 certified divers in our group: Matt (our guide), Sophie and myself. Because of this, our group was basically divided in two. Certified divers and others. The certified divers would be provided with a dive master and sent on two guided tours of the sections of reef we'll be visiting. The others will receive some basic instruction and then have the opportunity to have an assisted dive later in the day. There would also be some opportunity to do some snorkling for those who were not interested or not able ot participate in the diving experience.

Shortly after heading out of the Cairns harbour, we met our dive master, Sandra (from Germany) who took the six certified divers aside and proivded us with a briefing on where we will be diving and what types of things we would be seeing.

After a bit more cruising and then getting our gear together we were boarding our tender to our dive site.

Again, the pictures taken on the actual dive are on my other camera; and I can't easily transfer them to my little computer. However, once I do I'll upload them.

Ok, it's been over a year since my last dive and I may not be in the best of shape right now, so those two things together resulted in me being quite the air hog today. Nonetheless, these were very enjoyable dives.

The first dive saw me buddied with Katrin from Germany. Collectively, we had seen lots of different kinds of fish: Parrotfish, wrasses, clownfish, reef shark, octopus and all kinds of coral creatures: fans, brain, bowl, etc. The highlights were definitely the white tipped reef shark, the octopus (although I didn't see it), and the giant Mullosks.

After the first dive, we were transported to a beach island where we were moored off of for some snorkling before heading back to the catamaran for lunch.

After lunch, we were off to our second dive spot. For this dive, the catamaran was moored pretty much over the coral reef, so into the water with a giant stride were we.

My dive buddy for this one was Matt (our guide). For this dive I was certainly more relaxed, so my consumption was slightly better...but still quite heavy. Luckly Matt's was quite similar. The sights to be seen on this dive were similar to the last, except with this one I tried to say closer to the front of the group rather than the back which gave me better photo opportunities. As a result, I got some nice pics of another white tipped reef shark and an anenomefish, aka, clownfish... Also got some better group shots.

After the dives, we all got together to do a debriefing and complete our profiles... And before you knew it we were sailing back to Cairns harbour.

For as much as I enjoyed the dives and the experience as a whole, I'd have to say that I was not as blown away by this experience as I had expected to be. Perhaps if I had experienced the Great Barrier Reef before the Bahamas, my assessment would be different. Now I know this assessment is a little unfair given that I had over 15 dives in the Bahamas and only 2 here; but regardless the "Wow" factor just wasn't as present for these dives. I guess it was because I was so spoiled by what I had seen in the Bahamas.

Don't get me wrong, as mentioned, these were very enjoyable dives, full of life, variety and colour (albeit perhaps not quite as striking as the Bahamas), and they absolutely represent a highlight of my trip. And on top of all that I can now say that I have dove the Great Barrier Reef!

The catamaran pulled into it's slip early enough for us to enjoy a touch of sun by the Cairns community pool before heading back to the hostel for another BBQ's supper (see yesterday's description).

3... 2... 1... Jump!

2008-10-09T01:14:00.002-03:00

2008-09-29 - Monday

Tsk, tsk, already reusing titles...but as you'll shortly see, it's very fitting.

Compared to the last couple of days, today's drive will be a breeze... Only 365 km to Cairns (remember, pronounced "cans").

On the way to Cairns, we stopped at Millea Millea falls for a cool, refreshing dip in another fresh water falls. Correction, cool is not the correct adjective, it was downright cold. So cold that none of us could weather much more than a very quick dip - a stark contrast to the fresh water pools of only a couple of days ago. I would certainly put it down as one of those little hide-aways better seen than experienced! :-)

It may only have been a 365 km drive; however, in terms of landscapes, it represented the most dramatic changes we've seen yet. Left behind was the red soil and dust, sparse trees and shades of brown and grey to be replaced by magnificently lush greens: Trees, grasses, ferns and other plants. By far the healthiest landscapes we've seen yet.

Ok, it's time for another personal sharing moment. More or less unknown to my trek mates, I've spent the last couple of days in quiet comtemplation. My body and soul heavy with a decision I knew I would soon have to make. Unfortunately, our arrival to Cairns indicated that my time for contemplation had now come to an end and that a final decision was required.

With one final internal weighing of the arguments, the decision was made and with minimal fanfare, I embarked on a personal trek that would bring me face to face with one of my greatest fears.

The voyage was little more than half an hour, but was one of the longest half hours I've had to endure. With every step closer to my destination, I had to work harder and harder to fight back the fear; to try and maintain an air of calm. If ever a Vulcan mind meld was available to help share the strength of another, now would have been the time. In the absence of such powers, I found myself focusing on seamingly insignificant things... the structures around me; how they were composed, how they worked. Anything that helped to separate me from what I was about to face.

Finally the time had come. After some final words of encouragement and last minute instruction from my guide; I smiled, looked forward and took a leap of faith.

What followed was what I'm sure was clocked at under 3 seconds, but felt much, much longer, of gut wrenching terror of a sort I had never experienced in my life - for before me all I could see was death, my own in particular, in a most horrifying manner. I could feel my body was frozen in stance...all except for my lungs and vocal cords who were working in unison to create a vocalization of the fear I was experiencing, uttering a scream unlike any I had ever produced in my life. I could hear it clearly all around me as the end quickly approached. And then a most miraculous thing happened, I felt a force being exerted on my body, pulling me back from the edge of my demise and before I knew it; I was plunged into a watery world not of my own and an instant later was back in my own looking down over my trek mates. It was at this point that I had known all would be Ok. Adrenalin pumping and swinging victorious over my fear I knew that I had made the right
decision. With another two whips of the bungee cord, my voyage was over and I knew deep inside, I was better for it!

There were two of us who took on our fears and conqurred them that day: Both myself and Paul. For it, we were rewarded with a free T-Shirt. Matt had also jumped that day, it was his 3rd and finally Sophie took on a giant swinging rope in the form of a Mingie cord.

It was a good day!

Both tonight and tomorrow night, we'll be staying in the Bohemai Central Hostel in downtown Cairns. Our supper tonight will be prepared by them as well and consists of three types of salads (one leafy vegetable, two pasta); BBQ'd beef and sausage.

But before supper, several of us made time for a game of Ultimate Water Polo Rugby. The rules are relatively straight forward (which of course were all made up as the game progressed). The game takes place in a standard sized hostel pool and each team consists of 3 players. The objective of the game is to get the volley ball to the opponents side of the pool and score a point by tagging said ball to said poolside... anyway you can. Being the gentlemen we are, there was an unspoken rule of no underwater bagging... but other than this pretty much anything was legal.

Well, I'm sure that if the Hostel knew the kind of mayhem that was about to unfold, they never would have tossed that volleyball to us.

It was a display of testosterone worthy of its own Wild Animal Kingdom documentary! By the time the game was called, due to lack of light, several inches of water was removed from the pool and pretty much all players were sporting a minor scratch or two.

In the end it was the team of Paul, Nick and Ken that were victorious (the other team of Matthew, Martin and Bart will undoubtedly dispute this; but history is written by those with a pen - or in this case a Nokia N800 - so Yea for us!)

Finally, as I had first mentioned, my 30 day tour is made up of two tours: an 18 day tour and a 12 day tour. Well, today represents the end of the first tour and tomorrow the beginning of the next. As such, we were to have some people leave and others join. Nikki was scheduled to leave us, but has decided that she enjoys our company so much she'd like to stay on for the rest of the tour. In addition, we have two more participants joining us (technically tomorrow, but they are staying at the hostel with us tonight). They are Emma from the UK and Jessica from Germany.

Well, that's about it for tonight. Need a good night's sleep for tomorrow I dive on the Great Barrier Reef!!

Crocks, Snakes and Karaoke

2008-10-06T09:41:00.000-03:00

2008-09-28 - Sunday

Ok, well maybe instead of mentioning every early morning (since they are pretty much the norm), perhaps I'll mention just the late ones! Just for clarification though...this was another early one! :-)

Today is our last huge driving day (770 km). To break it up a bit, we've stopped into the little town of Normanton for lunch. Normanton features both an historic railway museum and their bigger claim to fame, in my opinion, a replica of the largest Crocodile ever captured in Australia. Named Krys, he was an 8.63 meter (28 foot) estuarine crocodile captured in 1957.

Tonight we are camping in the community of Mount Surprise. Our host is Russell Dennis, owner of Planet Earth Adventures. Russell is an entrepreneur in the truest sense of the word, involved in a touch of everything. His sign reads "museum, restaurant, campground, gas, tyres, pool table, Internet". In addition, he sells organically grown produce from his garden and hosts "Russell's World Famous Snake Show". Walking around his property, it was clear that he shared my father's philosophy that there's no such thing as junk, only used materials waiting to find their next use - the ultimate recyclers.

So, for supper tonight, we ordered from Russell's menu, which included evening specials of Spagetti and meat sauce and personal sized "how ever you want it" pizzas. I went with the pizza.

After the pizza Russell ran his World Famous Snake show for us, where we were given the opportunity to get up close and personal with three of his resident snakes, Clancy, Tracy and Dolly. Clancy was a black-headed python, Tracy was Carpet python and Dolly was a yellow tree snake. We also had the opportunity to handle the Water Python, regarded by the Aboriginees as the Rainbow Serpent; one of their creation animals.

After the snake show it was on to the real entertainment: Karoke on the big screen. We were all treated to about two hours of each others mascaring of both new and older rock and roll songs...and trust me, the singing did not get any better as the drinking went on!

F'n Flies!

2008-10-06T09:35:00.000-03:00

2008-09-27 - Saturday

Last night we were bush camping in a unused gravel pit...atleast I don't think it's been used in a while...it's hard to tell here. Since rain is so rare, any impressions made in the ground, ie. Tractor tires, just remain there until disturbed. So who knows when these tracks were last made...there is a tree or two growing in some of them so that may be a clue.

Anyway, woke up around 6am to very damp sleeping bags due to the dew this morning, mine was downright wet...also woke up to flies...thousands of them (Ok, maybe hundreds, but they felt like thousands, maybe millions!). I may have mentioned these flies already...they are by far the most annoying flies I've ever encountered anywhere. They were so bad this morning that all we could do was pack up camp and head out...no stopping for breakfast. We've decided to drive for a bit and try for breakfast later.

Today we travelled across the Queensland border...time to move our clocks forward by a 1/2 hour.

As previously mentioned, this was another long driving day ( 800km). We'll be spending the night in Conclurry and again, the only real highlight was supper.

Tonight we have red peppers, stuffed with hamburger (mince meat) and couscous, prepared by Peter and Martin... And they certainly were the highlight to a long driving day.

The wheels on the bus go round and round...

2008-09-29T09:32:00.000-03:00

2008-09-26 - Friday

Today is one of 3 very long driving days as we begin our trek to the East Coast. We're scheduled to clock around 700 kilometers today.

We were up at 5am and on the road by 6am.

There's really not much I could write about today's adventure except that it was characterized by the longest stretches of barren landscape I've seen yet...or have ever seen for that matter.

The roads were pretty wild. We changed from a two lane highway to a one lane highway. The rule of thumb is that as you approach an approaching vehicle, you both pull one set of wheels off to the dirt and continue driving, at a reduced speed. If that opposing vehicle happens to be a road train, then you pull over as far as possible and just wait for them to pass. Apparently with road trains, the slight left to right corrections made at the cabin are magnified by the time it gets to the 3rd and 4th trailers to a very prominent fishtailing from left to right. Luckily, we've only come across 2 length road trains so far - and they're not quite so bad...but we still have another day.

As Paul so eloquently put it; the only thing we really had to look forward to today was this evening's supper - so the pressure was on for Bart and Nikki to deliver. And deliver they did!

After a long day of driving, and the last couple of hours fighting with thousands of pesky houseflies who loved nothing more than buzzing around, and landing on our ears and any other exposed orafice; it was a great treat to enjoy a meal of nasi and sate ajam (which consisted of chicken cooked in a peanut sauce, with flavoured rice) served with sauted vegetables. Gourmet meals in the middle of nowhere...who woulda thunk!

After about 45 minutes of the best star viewing I've ever had - it was just so dark and the Milky Way was just so bright - it was time for our largest bonfire yet. It was a roaring fire (we needed to use up the last of our campfire wood - and we had plenty). After the bonfire it was time to crash, for tomorrow promised to be yet another long day of driving.

Time to Gorge!

2008-09-29T09:26:00.000-03:00

2008-09-25 - Thursday

Remember the pics of the termite mounds from a couple of days ago...and I had mentioned that I would be seeing even bigger ones in a couple of days...well, here we are...a couple of days later.

Our first stop are the giant termite mounds of the Catherdal Termites; as well as those of the Magnetic Termites. Now the cathedral termites build "one of the more spectacular termite mounds, with columar structures of ornate pillars and fluted buttresses; reminscent of mediaeval cathedrals" (taken from their literature).

Looking at the mounds built by the Magnetic Termites, the field looks more like a graveyard filled with headstones rather than termite mounds. The mounds in this field easily reach over 10 feet and are built by a creature respected by many as master builders.

In short (yeah, right), they are called Magnetic Termites because these structures are predominantly built along the Northern-South axis, in general. As these termites thrive only under very specific condtions, overtime, through trial and error, they have devised a building system which provides them with those conditions. Whether it be the searing heat of the dry season or the wet flood plains of the wet season, these specially designed mounds are able to regulate the internal living conditions to what the termites need to thrive. For example, by building along the North-South axis, the mounds are able to operate like solar panels, collecting the sun's heat during the morning; as well as survive the force of the prevailing winds. It's believed that termites are able to pass along this building knowledge between generations and that the termites themselves are sensitive to the magnetic bearing they need to build along.

After our stop at the Termite mounds it was off to Katherine to replenish our surplies and do a bit of shopping.

Next we were off to our evening campsite, Katherine Gorge, with more than enough time to take in the Katherine Gorge cruise; or as a couple of us did - canoe it. (Technically, they were open, flat bottom kayaks; but apparently they call them canoes here. It can all get a wee bit confusing at times.) In any case, the canoe option was a much slower paced experience than the cruise, and we didn't get to visit the second Gorge, but it was a great experience nonetheless. Slower, more time to explore the interesting little things near the cliffs edges. This was also a known crock locale, and the crock cages along the river were a pretty clear reminder of this...as were the signs on the sand beaches along the river which stated, "Do not approach, known crocodile resting area". Ok, we approached the first...then saw the sign and respected the warning for the rest. Didn't see any crocks on any of these sand beaches though...not sure if that was a good thing or not.

After the relative exertion of energy canoeing along the Gorge, it was a welcomed change to lounge by the pool with a rum 'n rasin ice cream and a Solo carbonated lemon-aide (do we have these in Canada - I don't ever recall seeing them, if not, we should get some... They're quite refreshing!)

For supper this evening, it was a departure from our norm of beef based dishes to fish based dish. Basa fillets (a Vietnamese fish) for all with fried potato slices and salad prepared by Matt and Sasha.

We also had several visits from wild wallabees (similar to kangaroos, but different and generally smaller). In total there were about 6; one larger with about 5 juvenilles. These visitors did little to deter the group from sleeping without tents - which has more or less become to norm now.

Up for a swim, anyone?

2008-09-29T09:20:00.000-03:00

2008-09-24 - Wednesday

Ok, it was another late night...but not for the reasons you may be thinking!! (Well, Ok, maybe partly for the reasons you may be thinking).

We did go out to the Vic for another night of partying... and party we did. Some of us harder than the night before. As for me; I think I partied as hard, but it was alcohol free - thank goodness.

If I hadn't mentioned before, one of the attractions of the Vic, besides the cheap food, is their party games - the prizes for which are normally jugs of beer. Well, we were the clear victors that night, taking home jug after jug... Which no doubt added to the party spirit. Again, it was an early start so it was a relatively early end. We were back from the Vic around midnight, but unfortunately that wasn't the end of my night. For you see, I was nearing a crisis...I was down to my last pair of underwear and really didn't want to resort to spraying them, flipping them inside-out, holding them out the window while driving or any other methods I've heard of for restoring their "freshness". T.M.I. ? Sorry...I thought we were at that next level of sharing already. :-)

So, due to the speed of the machines I was using, it was another 3 hours before I got to bed. I was able to use that time to get caught up on some emails and upload some blog entries...so it was productive time.

After about 5 hours of sleep, I was greeted with another issue. About a week ago, I had noticed a very slight patch of rash on the front of my right leg. I had watched it for a day or two and noticed that it wasn't progressing any and in fact was getting better so I didn't really think anything of it. I suspected it was brought on by the heat or the wool socks I used while hiking.

Well, this morning, it had grown considerably and was blood red, worse, it was on both legs and had climbed up to my knees in a series of blotchy patches. There were no other symptoms, no itchiness, no pain what so ever...but given it's new appearance, I figured I really should get it checked out while we were in a city with realatively accessible doctors. So, while the group went to stock up on supplies, I ran down to the local community clinic. I don't recall the techical jargon, but after discussing with a doctor I was assured that it wasn't anything to be overly concerned about. The doctor surmised that it was some form of bacterial infection which was most probably spurred by some kind of environmental element and that it was undoubtedly agrivated by the heat and friction generated by dancing in jeans last night (all my shorts were dirty as well). He prescribed me 10 doses of anti-biotics and I was on my way.

<< Just as a quick note to those who may be overly concerned about the rash (read "Mom"); as of the writing of this blog entry (3 days later); the anti-biotics are working their magic - the rash has subsided dramatically and I suspect it will be completely gone by the time I upload this entry. >>

So, today was a day for swimming. We explored 3 different falls and took the opportunity to try all of them out.

The first was called Wangi falls. These seemed to be busiest of the three we visited. This set of falls were characterized by a very large water pool with two sets of falls running opposite to the entry point. These falls were also known to be inhabitated by fresh water crocodiles - and the posted signs made a point to indicate that you were assuming the risk should you wish to swim with them. Perhaps it was because the swimmers didn't read English, or could not interpret the rather dire pictures; but the warnings did not appear to be a deterant for the 10's of people presently enjoying a refreshing dip.

To be honest, it did little to deter us as well. It didn't take anytime for all of us to be in the water and swimming towards the larger of the two falls.

After about 45 minutes of swimming, we were out for lunch and then off to our second set of falls.

These were called Florence Falls. And again, they were busier than Matt had ever seen them...but then again, we were visiting them later in the day than Matt had ever done so previously as well.

These water pool associated with these falls were much smaller than the first and the falls themselves were about 1/2 the height of the first. However, all sides of the water pool, except for where the water flowed out of the pool was surrounded by this cliff and I rather liked the intimacy it created as compared to the other falls.

Matt had taken down his Mask and snorkel, so we had all taken turns discovering the underside of these falls as well. Below the water line, many a fish could be seen ranging in size from a couple of inches to just short of a foot. Also visible were one or two quite tall trees which for one reason or another had lost their footing on the cliffs edge and now call the floor of this pool their new home.

After an hour of relaxing in this pool, it was off to our evening campsite and the home of our last swimming hole: buley rock hole.

There wasn't really a set of falls here; unless perhaps you were the size of a smurf. Instead there were a series of waterholes, each fed by the one previous with water cascading down and over a rock embankment to the next. The first pool, measured only 20 feet or so in diameter, and was just as deep...so it did make for some nice diving...certainly not to Olympic standards...but fun nonetheless.

For supper tonight: Chicken Alfredo, prepared by Matt and Paul.

Ok, mission accomplished!

2008-09-29T09:13:00.000-03:00

2008-09-23 - Tuesday

It wasn't a late night, I think we pretty much were all back at the hostel by 1:30am; however, we started at 7:30pm ... So that's still 6 hours of rather heavy partying.

And it was definitely a morning for sleeping in. Matt, our guide, dropped by around 8am to ensure everyone was doing well; after, confirming that I was, I proceeded to roll over and sleep for another 3.5 hours. Yep, up at 11 and feeling the side-effects of the night before; I was pretty sure at this point that it was going to be a quiet day. Which worked out quiet well, since today was a free day anyway.

Paul and I found a cafe serving breakfast 'till noon. I had ordered a big breakfast but could only put down half of it...and even with that my body took issue with me.

After "brunch" we headed out to explore the city a bit, first looking for the first coast we could find...didn't take much, it was only two streets over. I believe it was called bicentennial park and we walked along it's length for a while, down to an attraction called Aquascene where once a day ocean fish will converge for daily feedings. I guess it's pretty interesting...we missed it by an hour.

At this time, I'd like to share with you my experiences with Australian Public Washrooms. Now, I know these particular systems aren't available everywhere in Australa; but I have seen them both in Alice Springs and here in Darwin... And I swear, they're right out of Star Trek.

From the outside, they simply look like a misplaced silvery metalic cube measuring 10x10x10 feet (approximately). When you approach one, you notice that it has two doors and a display panel between them. The panel explains that a green or red light will indicate if the facility is available for use. If it is, you simply press it's corresponding button and the door slides open. As you step into the cube, a voice from overhead welcomes you. You are instructed to press another button to close and lock the door. As you do, you are informed that you have 10 minutes to use the facilities before the doors automatically unlock again. The voice is then replaced by softly playing musac (elevator music). The inside is as futuristic as the outside, done up in tile and chrome. There is, as one would expect, a toilet, a toilet paper dispenser (push button operated - no less), an integrated sink with automatic water flow and air dryer. The toilet automatically flushes by activating either the hand washer or by openning the door. To leave the facility, you simply press the unlock button and the door slides open (I'm sure I also heard the star trek sliding door sound effect as it did so).

Unfortunately, my description doesn't do it justice, you really have to experience it for yourself. If I happen across another, I'll try to snap some pics! We really should get some of these in Canada...they're awesome!

After the walk in the park, my plan had been to do some souvenier shopping, get caught up on email, write some postcards and do some laundry. Paul had planned on checking out a local beach. It was suggested that there was a local beach with a market on it; so thinking we could kill two birds with one stone we headed in that direction.

Before catching the #4 bus to Mindi beach, we stopped into a local Aboriginal souvenier store specializing in Aboriginal musical instruments. I no sooner walked in store when I was greeted by the stores attendant, Walter.

Walter was an older gentleman, probably mid 50's if I were to hazzard a guess. He matched me in height and had a rather dark complexion, but certainly not as dark as any of the Aboriginals we've seen. He was certainly Australian and it quickly became apparent that he was passionate about Australian culture and the role music played in it.

Walter had asked my name, which I gave, and noticing that I was eyeing a didgeredoo had asked if I had ever played one. I responded no, except for Matts, which we tinkered with around the campfire a couple of times. He immediately began telling me about the different types of didgereedos and sized me up with a properly sized one. Concerned that this was going to quickly turn into a sales pitch, I had mentioned that I was travelling with a tour group and wasn't prepared to buy one. "No Worries" was his reply and he continued with what pretty much turned into a 45 minute lesson on didgeredoo playing. Right from the proper way to vibrate your lips, to proper mouth positioning, to vocalization while playing. He also went into the different types of didgereedo playing; for each region had thier own forms of didgereedos and their own methods and reasons for playing them...much of this part of the conversation was way over my head. Nonetheless, thank you Walter, your beginner tips on didgereedo playing were greatly appreciated.

PS. Mom / Dad ... There may be a rather long, cylindrical parcel arriving on the doorstep in the next couple of weeks.

Ok, back to bus #4 to Mindi beach. Well, the beach we found, the markets we did not.

It had surprised both of us how unpopulated the beach was - deserted really. There's probably a couple of good reasons for this: 1. These waters do have crocodiles in them; 2. If the Crocks don't get you, the box jelly fish surely will. They're little, but pack a massive punch. The pain their stingers exert have caused many to go into shock and a percentage of those to die. Still though it was surprising not to see any sun worshippers as the beach was quite sandy; and the sun was ripe.

Despite the dangers presented by the crocks and box jelly fish, I collected the courage to press ahead and dip my toes into the Timor Sea. :-)

After litterally hours of walking we made our way back to Darwin's city center with not one souvenier....but I did snap a nice picture of the city from the most northerly point in Darwin; had a nice refreshing Solo (carbonated lemonaide) and a Magnum ice cream (just barely)... And now feeling fully recovered from the previous night's activities!

Tonight we gathered for another night of cheap food, relatively cheap drinks and lots more dancing at the Vic. I'll certainly be partaking in the food and the dancing, not so much so of the drinks though. Once in a blue moon is really all I wish to deal with.

Tomorrow we leave Darwin, heading south on the Stuart Hightway, towards the connector, Barkley Highway, that will take us east towards Cairns (prounced "cans" - It's taken be a bit to get that right...but that's how Australians pronounce it).

1... 2... 3... Jump!

2008-09-29T08:45:00.000-03:00

2008-09-22 - Monday

Today we had another appointment with crocks, but these were the jumping variety!

We met up with the "Spectacular Jumping Crocodile Cruise", and our hosts, Ian and Sissy, who would be taking us out on the Aledaile river to meet these athletic creatures.

Ian's appearance seemed to be pulled right out of the Crocodile Dundee character woredrobe: Leather brimbed crocodile toothed hat, leather crocodile toothed necklace and leather wristbands. I don't really know which came first, the look or the movie, but regardless, it worked for him; and somehow added to his authenticity.

But, before the cruise, Ian introduced us to one of his "pets", a juvenile python named Monty, yep, Monty the Python ... Clever, yes?

As you can see from the pics, Monty was about 5 feet in length, was quite strong; but also quite gentle. As long as he was able to move where he wanted he was fine.

So, back to our jumping crocks. The crocks along this river have developed the unique ability to jump out of the water to grab birds from trees along the riverbanks.

Unfortunately, these pictures don't do any justice for the scale of these creatures. The smaller crocks that we saw were about 4 feet in size, with the majority of them being closer to 8 feet in length.

If you look at one of these pictures closely, you'll notice that the crock's hind legs are almost totally out of the water. That's because the power to perform the jump comes completely from their tail. According to Ian, once a crock commits to jumping, it has to follow thru; otherwise, the buildup of lactic acid in the crock's tail muscles could kill it.

Towards the midpoint of our tour, Ian and Sissy started to get quite excited. The reason... They had spotted the dominant male of this waterway, aka "Hannibal the Cannibal". Again, my pictures do no justice to the true size of Hannibal. As he pulled up along our boat, his snout almost in line with our bow, the tip of this tail reached back to about 3/4's to the Stern. He measured approximately 6.1 meters (21 feet long - giver or take a few). Ian had estimated he was close to 100 years old.

While everyone was quite impressed with the size of Hannibal, it was only when Ian had beached our boat, while Sissy encouraged Hannibal up on shore, that the true immensity of Hannibal could be appreciated. Just massive and easily over a ton in weight. And even with his years and size, he had little problem getting his massive structure above the water in his demonstration of crocodile jumping.

On the way back into the dock, for which we are now running about 20 minutes behind schedule due to our encounter with Hannibal (trust me, no one is upset) Sissy demonstrated the talents of some of the local birds of prey - throwing out piecies of meat as they swooped down and caught them with their talons.

With many a thank you given and the crocks left to rest, we were off to our next destination and home for the next two nights: Darwin.

Tonight is the first night we've had during our trek to really let loose and party a bit. To acoomplish this mission, we'll be heading to "The Vic"; a well known watering hole for backpackers, featuring a nightly $5.00 meal, games and drink specials.

For supper: Whatever the VIC is serving.

Crocks, crocks, everywhere...and I don't mean the shoes

2008-09-29T08:37:00.000-03:00

2008-09-21 - Sunday

We are definitely in crock country...there's no mistaking it now.

Nice and early this morning (7am), a good number of us took in the Yellow Water Billybong boat cruise along the South Alligator River floodplain in the Kakadu National Park... yes, it is called the Alligator River, but it is inhabited by Crocodiles.

Unfortunately I don't have the stats in from of me, but it's certainly worth mentioning that the National Park we're currently in, Kakadu, is large. In total, it's almost the size of Switzerland. It has something like 7 distinct types of landscapes and is home to a fair representation of all the critters one could hope to see while in Australia. Darn it I wish I had those stats. If I can find them before I post, I'll add them. They really are quite impressive. But, back to the Crocks...

We ended up seeing them pretty much every 120 feet or so... But by no means were they the only creatures... There were more kinds of birds than I could count... And it definitely goes without saying that there were more than I could identify.

I've included some pics, but don't ask me what they are. If you know, feel free to mention so. :-)

For the afternoon, we were off to the Anbangbang Gallery, where we did a little walk around some rocks which served as both a shelter and a painting canvas for generations of aboriginals (back as far as 20,000 years according to the info panels). The rock art we saw depicted such things as stories, which probably served both to entertain and teach; as well as, some paintings which depicted thier spirits. One such spirit, a particularly dangerous character called Nabulwinjbulwinj (Nar-bull-win-bull-win) would eat females after striking them with a yam.

There were several pieces of art where you could clearly see it was superimposed over another... which was a common practice among Rock Artists... After all, there are only so many nice flat giant rock formations to go around.

Then we were on the road again. Tonight our home will be the Kakadu Lodge in Jabaru.

Several of us headed out for another sunset view tonight. We drove to Ubirr, approximately 40km from our campsite. Before the sunset, we took time to discover more rock art. According to the info panels, the rock art in Ubirr represents some of the finest collections in the world.

Again, the art we saw depicted stories, spirits, instructional diagrams and such. Really neat stuff. Our trek through the art collection brought up to a cliff side overlooking flat and wetlands. Below us, kangaroos could be seen bouncing along; as well as plenty of white cockateel looking birds could be seen flying past.

This sunset was different than any of the others we've experienced to date. As we approached Ubirr; Matt, our guide, suggested that once we got to the sunset location, we should find a space to be alone and just use the time to reflect: Reflect on the aboriginees that may have experienced similar sunsets in the past, or on anything at all really, but to just use the time in a quiet way.

Everyone took the advice, and while we didn't really compare experiences, everyone did seem to take something uniquely special away from it.

Finally, for supper tonight, a real treat - two whopping homemade bacon cheeseburgers and our first desert: BBQ'd Bananas (wrapped in foil, cut lengthwise with chocolate in the middle... Hmmmm) prepared by Andrea and Amy. Unfortunately, the two whopping homemade bacon cheeseburgers just didn't leave any room for desert. :-( However, we are refridgerating them for tomorrow. :-)

Termite mounds and waterfalls

2008-09-29T08:29:00.000-03:00

2008-09-20 - Saturday

Today was a driving day, broken up by a short stop to check out some monsterous termite mounds and then later a great waterfalls/pool for a refreshing afternoon dip.

Since crossing the Tropic of Capricon, we've seen a definite change in both temperature and landscape. In terms of temperature, it's been much hotter, and much more humid. In terms of landscape, the trees are different, less sparse and in general the land looks more healthier.

Healthy... but with a whole lotta termite mounds... thousands of them. Maybe there's a direct correlation between health of the land and the number of termite mounds...(I know there's a word to describe these types of "false" correlations...but I just can't recall what it is right now). In any case there is plenty of them...and they are huge. They range in height from a couple inches, to a couple of feet. Apparently we'll see even larger ones in a couple of days. The ones I'm posing beside are a good 10's of years old, some are upwards of a hundred.

Our stop for lunch included a very refreshing fresh water waterfall/pool. It was a two falls system, the first called Edith falls and the second, slightly more spectacular, called Lillian Falls. The photos for these are actually located on my underwater camera... and I can't easily transfer them to my little computer right now... However, once I do get it transferred I'll post them.

Tonight it was my turn to cook. Well, not just me, but me and one of my trek mates, Nick. We've chosen to cook up a Spaghetti and meat sauce. We started with a basic sauce, as a base, to which we added sauted green and red peppers, onions, chunked mushrooms and of course hamburger. It went over fabulously...but as it is with any camping adventure, we probably could have cooked Mac and Cheese and get the same reaction. :-)

PS. The little guy in sunglasses is Anton, He's Matt's (our tour guide) little wombat...a gift from from a previous tour. He sits on the dashboard day in and day out, normally watching the road ahead of us for kangaroos (who like to jump out in front of unsuspecting motorists). Today, he has chosen to sport Martin's hat and sunglasses whilst participating in our varied and incredibly interesting conversations (which take place between our nap marathons). Not sure who he's calling on the cell phone in this particular picture, but apparently he was the only one to get cell reception during this leg of the trip.

Where does the time go?

2008-09-23T13:39:00.000-03:00

2008-09-19 - Friday

One week down already; where does the time go?

Today, we're off to an old cattle station which has been given back to the Aboriginees. Known as Manyallaluk, "The Dreaming Place", the local people now use the land to offer various cultural activities; as well as sell thier artistic wares.

Today we have the pleasure of being hosted by two local Aboriginals, John and Nathan. John is one of the community elders and speaks in a broken sort of English, so softly that great amounts of concentration is required in order to hear him...and even then his conversation is intermixed with little chuckles, leaving you wondering what joke I may have missed.

Nathan, on the other hand, reminded me of one of the characters on Cool Runnings...laid back, always with a smile, and quick to laugh at this own jokes. I believe he may have been John's son...and it was his additional comments at several key moments that helped many of us understand what John was trying to convey.

They have spent the day teaching about the vegetation around us and how it was used in traditional every day life. They identified the types of trees which were used for spear making, didgeridoo making, medicine and spicing food. We were also shown what minerals and plants were used to colour baskets and used in traditional painting.

We were also introduced to the green ant. A fiesty little creature whose abdomen is swollen with a green type of goo. When crushed and inhaled, the vapours instantly wake up the olfactory system with a strong scent of vinegar. If boiled in water, the vapour will help to clear any nasal congestions and when eaten raw they have both a sweet and terrifically sour taste - it's the best way I could describe it (from my firsthand experience}.

After our walk of discovery, it was on to spear throwing, where we got to try our hand at throwing a spear using a traditional tool called a woomera (spelling may be off, but this is how it sounds). Basically, the woomera was a multifunction tool used by men for various things such as digging and hacking. With respect to spear throwing, it served to extend the reach of their arm allowing them to transfer more energy to the spear - hurling it much faster and with a greater force than what they could do without it.

Once everyone had atleast one try of spear throwing, we moved on to the infamous Didgeridoo. John had already told us a bit about the process of building a Didgeridoo on our discovery walk and now he spoke a bit about it's use and then treated us to a little of his own playing. He was quite good at it...then he passed it over to us...we were not so good at it.

Ahhh, time for lunch. A departure from the norm today, as we were treated to garden salad, roasted Kangaroo tail (regarded as a delicacy), regular beef steak, sausage, beets and corn.

After lunch, it was back to learning. John and Nathan took us through some of the natural pigments and artistic style used by the local artisans. The pigments, as used by men, were primarily composed of red and yellow oachres along with a white pigment from a local clay. Their paint brush is a local grass which is skinned between the fingernails to expose the fibers. Their drawing style is quite different from the Aboriginees near Uluru. The Uluru Aboriginees draw everything using dots, while the local Aboriginees use lines.

After creating two pieces of work, they handed over a blank canvas to us and invited us to make our own creations. Without doubt we have some pretty artistic folks on this tour. Our creations ranged from desert animals to portraits.

After the art lessons, it was on to basket weaving. Christine was the facilitator for this demonstration. It was a pretty intricate process of "sewing" tinted straw onto a line already created while encasing 3 or 4 other strands of straw in the process to create thinkness...basically creating a very large coiled snake that is sewed to itself.

The final demonstration of the day was fire making. While I did enjoy all of the other demonstrations, this one was by far my most favourite. It was fire making with nothing more than two sticks and a wee piece of charcoal.

John and Nathan had a fire going within minutes...then they passed it on to us...we're still working on it!

After the demonstrations were completed, we headed up to their gallery...everything was for sale. While there was some very cool stuff in there, I was able to resist. I'd show you a picture of some of the cool stuff if I could, but cameras were prohibited from the gallery.

After a quite filling supper of fajitas, John returned to our site to relate some "bedtime" stories. I won't go into details, but in general, these stories are used to share beliefs, knowledge and the laws of the people from one generation to another. For those of us who could hear (and understand) John, they were cool little insights to their culture.

On top of the world down under!

2008-09-23T13:32:00.000-03:00

2008-09-18 - Thursday

I guess that's a bit of an oxymoron, but waking on top of these giant boulders really does give the impression that you're on top of the world...as there doesn't appear to be any higher structures around us.

I'm not sure about down below where the rest of the campers were camping out; but, up here, there was quite a bit of wind all evening long. I did remember to bring my hat this time, so that helped quite a bit. However, I was awakened several times during the night, as the winds picked up, fearng that my sandals or camera or pillow was about to be blown off the top of this rock. Luckily all of my belongings, as well as myself, remained relatively motionless all evening long.

All of us rock dwellers awoke shortly before sunrise and there were several snaps taken before we headed down for an early morning breakfast.

After cleanup and a quick exploration of the marbles in this area, we headed out for a quick ride up the road to the most famous of the Devil's Marbles. These have been featured in many a photograph by many different folks portraying many different poses; and for you're viewing pleasure, I've added another here as well. :-)

Once we've all completed our posing, in was back in the van for the 700km ride to Mataranica, our next stop (except, of course, for those necessary pit stops along the way).

These grand drives between destinations again serve as testamony to the vastness of this country we're exploring. Many of the roads we've travelled literally go tens of miles before requiring a turn, and when they do, its generally in the form of an intersection (quite similar to roads I've travelled in Ontario's southern farming communities; and those of the Canadian Praries). Furthermore, traffic, whether it be on our side or opposing is few and far between.

Matt, our guide, has indicated that these areas are indeed populated; however, dwellings as we would expect to see are nowhere in sight. Instead, as he explains, most residents of this region would live on the cattle ranches that dot the landscape...but are not necessarily visible from the highway we're on.

To break up the rather monotomous drive, we pulled off for a quick visit to "Daly Waters Pub", and eccentric, "historic" little place established in 1930. In reminded me of a pub I was in on Bimini Island called the "Pub at the end of the World". Both featured certain unmentionables stapled to their ceilings, autographed by their bequeather. In addition, there were all kinds of other parafenalia including horse saddles, old beer bottles, postcards and someones artificial leg. I would hope they no longer needed it!

We arrived at our campground tonight with plenty of time to experience the Mataranica hot springs pool. A great naturally heated pool featuring crystal clear blue water and even a turtle or two to boot.

The hot springs were mentioned on the Itinerary...the bats; however, were not. Over 200,000 "Little Red Flying Fox" bats hung upside down from the trees in the typical "vampire" stance - wings drawn around them enclosing their bodies inside. These, however, have no interest in blood, they are fruit bats and call this place home during September and October primarily to feed off of the nectar of the eucalypt flowers from neighbouring woodlands.

Their presence, especially in these numbers, was quite amazing; however, did not detract from the fun to be had in the hot springs...until dusk began to fall. Then, as being coordinated by a conductor (or perhaps that dude slapping the water with his pink noodle float); thousands upon thousands of bats awoke for their night of feeding. What little sky we could see above the hot springs quickly became obscured as these little beasts set of for their evening feast. While amazing to look at, they posed a very big problem...how do we get back to our rig without being hit by the droppings of over 200,000 bats. While many of us were successful, there were some who were not. I am happy to say that I did make it back to the rig without incident.

After a quick wash up, it was up to Maluka's Bar, the campgrounds bar and grill, for supper. Tonight, I have the Seafood platter: prawns, scallops, callamari, haddock with fries and salad.

We have agreed as a group to sleep under the stars again tonight...or atleast without tents. Because of the fear of bat droppings from the returning bats, we'll be spending the night under the protection of a concrete roofed shelter. Given the balmy 37 degrees we have going on right now, it may make for a nice evening; as long as the mosquitos stay away!

A game of marbles anyone?

2008-09-22T04:41:00.000-03:00

2008-09-17 - Wednesday

What an awesome sleep under the stars! The moon was so bright, it casted moon shadows over the landscape. I wouldn't say it was my best sleep yet; but it was pretty close. In fact, the only stirring I did was when the winds picked up and I could feel a slight chill on my head...I should have worn my hat I suppose.

Our group was spread out into several little pockets of sleeping bags; and as such, as one got up it pretty much started a chain reaction. We were all up shortly after sunrise.

This morning, the plan is to head back into Alice Springs; do enough grocery shopping to last us a couple of days and give folks time to check emails, do some shopping.

While in Alice Springs we also checked out the School of Air. Because of the vastness of Australia's Northern Territory, there are small pockets of children in rather remote regions. In order to ensure these children receive a proper education, the Northern Territory School system created the School of Air back in 1955. Originally, lessons were sent to the children via the postal service. The children were also able to interact with their teacher via radio during certain times of the day...a virtual classroom spanning thousands of kilometers, if you will. In 2000, the system was upgraded to deliver it's programming via satellite Internet. While at the school we had witnessed an English class going on with about a dozen school children interacting via one way cameras, voice conferencing and a version of Internet Messenger.

As related by our tour guide, there's no doubt that the system works, as the children consistently score in the top 10 percentile of their National tests. Once the children reach their teen years, they continue their studies either through another form of distance education or through boarding schools.

After leaving Alice Springs, we continued along on Stuart Highway to a small park indicating the we were leaving the desert region of Australia and moving into the Tropics of Capricorn. From here on we can expect even warmer temperatures and higher humidity versus they dryness of the last couple of days. After a quick lunch it was back in the van for a 5 hour drive to the Devil's Marbles.

The Devil's Marbles is a pretty accurate description for the landscape before us. The land was strewn with random giant boulders as if the Gods had left a game of marbles part way thru. Apparenty the explanation for this is similar to the formation of Uluru. The homogeneous rock that forms these marbles just happened to be much harder than the surrounding rock. As the landscape eroded, the softer materials were carried away leaving these peculiar formations.

We arrived on site just in time to be dazzled by the setting sun. While not as impressive as the setting sun of Uluru, it was quite the sight nonetheless; especially when taken in from the top of one of these stray marbles.

After sunset, we navigated our way back down to solid ground and our first group began preparations for supper while a couple of others, myself included, experimented with trying to get some star pictures, primarily of the Southern Cross, Australia's National constellation.

This was our first of a couple of Bush camping nights; so our amenities were few...no running water (actually, no water - except what we brought in), no plumbed toilets (basically outhouses), no Barbie's to BBQ on...only our fire pit. Even so, our first cooking group did a great job of preparing Steak (Scottish cut) and Salad.

After another couple of hours around the fire pit, I just couldn't keep my eyes open any longer, so I grabbed my sleeping pad, sleeping bag and camera and headed up to spend the night on one of the more accessible marbles. I did my best to make my self believe it was no more different than sleeping in the top bunk of a bunkbed; however, I still wasn't interested in getting too close to the edge.

After about a half an hour, I was joined by another 5 of my Trek buddies...it's surprising how many sleeping bags you can fit on top of a giant marble.

Finally, a morning to sleep in a bit....

2008-09-22T04:34:00.000-03:00

2008-09-16 - Tuesday

Finally, a morning to sleep in a bit....unfortunately, our campsite was flanked on both sides by two huge groups of school children out on their own camping adventure. Luckily, I have ear plugs (thanks Joe) and am not afraid to use them!

Despite children playing basketball at the break of dawn, I was able to sleep in to about 8am.

We do have a bit of a routine when it comes to meals so far. Breakfast has been consiting of your choice of Corn Flakes or Sultan Flakes (which are really raisin bran with bigger raisins in it); and tea or coffee if you so wish. For lunches, it's been primarily make-it-yourself sandwiches of lettuce, tomato, ham, salami, cucumber, etc. Pretty tasty and definitlely provides the energy needed for the hikes we've been doing.

Suppers are a different story. These we take time to prepare and enjoy. Since we basically have a new group, our menu has begun a new...so I'll try to make it a point to share with you what it is each evening. But basically, except for tonight's, suppers are prepared by groups of 4 who are responsible for both meal preparation and clean up.

So, after breakfast and breaking camp, it was off to Ormiston Gorge and Pound for most challenging hike yet.

This hike, approximately 6km in length was the most challenging yet, by far.

The hike, called the Ormiston Pound Walk " took us up along the Gorges side, then down on to a dry riverbed, which supported a couple of permanent water holes. The largest waterhole was surrounded by sand and looked to have at least a couple of permanent residents: a couple of little ducks and a wallabee. The walk along the riverbed changed from sand to larger bolders. To be honest, this micro-landscape were much more reminiscent of rocky beaches back home...not the middle of the desert in Australia.

After about an half hour of boulder hopping, we were back to sand and then to rock chips as we completed the 3 hour circuit back to our camp site.

Once back at the campsite, all partook in some refreshing "cold ones" before moving on to a couple of silly "get to know everyone" games.

After a couple of rounds of these games it was time to prepare supper.

For tonight, Cesar Salad, Mashed Potatoes and Kangaroo Steak...hmmmm, good!

After supper and clean up, we all gathered around the fire for some more storytelling and trying our hand at Didgeridoo playing.

Finally, influenced by our new participants, who have been sleeping under the stars in the "swags" for their last trek, we chose to camp sans tents tonight, and instead just setup our groundsheets and sleeping bags for a night under the stars.

The mornings are getting earlier!

2008-09-16T23:30:00.001-03:00

2008-09-15 - Monday

Believe it or not, this was a 5am morning. Four of us, Sophie, Paul, Myself and our guide Matt headed off to climb Kings Canyon to witness the sunrise.

Up, prep'd, had breakfast and was on the trail head by 6am. We speed hiked around to our lookout site and waited for the sun to rise. As it came up we took a couple of "pose" shots and a couple of the rising sun, of course, and then continued our speed hike back down the canyon to collect the rest of our group and start our 5 hour trek back to Alice Springs.

Yesterday, it took us about 3.5 hours to complete the hike, this morning, we completed it in under an hour and a half, including the 20min stop for pics.

Once in Alice Springs, we took a tour of the Alice Springs Desert Park, where we learned of the life that exists in the desert (even if we don't see it). It was a great opportunity to get up and close to all the little (and big) critters that live out there; things like: Thorny Devils, Desert Rats, Legless Lizards and such. We finished our tour of the Park with a live show entitled "Birds of Prey", which showcased many of Australia's desert birds of prey (sorta makes sense, given the name of the show).

After the show, we booked into our campsite and met our new compadres, who are joining us from another tour. After some introductions it was off to Annie's Place for some supper.

So, in addition to our six, we now have: Bart from Holland, Matt from Belgium, Andrea from Switzerland, Martin and Nick from England, and Sasha from Austria.

Side Story:

In the process of booking out of Annie's Place a couple of days ago, I had misplaced by "Canada" cap. I knew it was a long shot, but I checked with their front desk to see if it was returned and sure enough there it was. Pretty cool. Unfortunately, my micro towel wasn't there...but I have another...so I'll be fine.

Another Early Morning

2008-09-16T23:27:00.001-03:00

Sunday (2008-09-14)

Ok, up again this morning for another sunrise photo op. Of Uluru, except this time we'll be situated on the eastern side of the Monolith so we can see the face light up with the sunrise.

An "official" sunrise viewing spot is currently under construction, so for now we pull over on the side of the road with the hundreds of other visitors who have come out this morning to experience it.

It was a morning of subtler changes as the sun rose behind us...different than the morning before. Instead of sharp contrasts and sillouttes everywhere, it was more of a softer transition from a dark landscape to one lit by the rising sun. Except for Uluru. Similar to the sunset of a couple of nights before, the Eastern face of Uluru was set ablaze in brilliant orange as the sun hit it, creating deep shadows in several spots where it's smooth skin was crevaced or sheered off.

Not everyone was up for the sunrise viewing this morning, so once we had seen what we come to see, it was back to the campsite for breakfast and break camp. This would be the only time on our trip where we'll have the luxury of two nights at a camp site.

Today, we start back to Alice Springs, but first we'll stay a night at King's Canyon.

After a couple of hours on the road, sharing stories of previous trips and adventures, we pull into our campsite, start a laundry and head off for a quick, but very refreshing swim.

Now it's off to another hike. This one, called King's Canyon Park, is 5.5km and will take us up the canyon's side and along the canyon's top finishing up with a relatively easy decent on the other side.

The climb was really quite steep - 200 meters using a staircase built into the side of the canyon...a climb which forced me to take one or two rebreather stops.

It was well worth it though as it really brought home how vast and sparse the landscape is. Miles and miles of nothing around us. The rock formation was also pretty wild in itself and provided several really cool photo ops.

Finally, there were several locations within the canyon that served as catchments and collected rain water in to massive pools. Protected from the sun, they serve as great swimming holes for the local habitat and visitors alike. Unfortunately, the areas has just been too dry recently and the water in the swimming hole too stagnant to allow swimming to be safe...but it did look pretty cool nonetheless.

We stayed on the canyon long enough to watch the sunset and then used our torches (read flashlights) to navigate our way down back to the bus and back to camp for supper and an early night...for tomorrow a group of us head back up to witness the sunrise from the top of the Canyon.

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Sun Rises and Wind Tunnels

2008-09-15T06:19:00.000-03:00

Saturday (2008-09-13)

Up at 6am and over to the Uluru sunset viewing spot to witness this morning's sunrise.

Thank goodness for digital cameras...and the ability to instantly delete photos...I had a lot! Every minute towards the approaching sunrise seemed to change the landscapes in a suttle way worthy of yet another photo. It was certainly a morning for silloutte photos.

There was absolutely no one at the site with us (they would have proceeded onward to the official sunrise location).

The sun rose just to the left of Uluru, creating awesome contrasts between the blue, pink, and orange bands of the developing sky and the silloutte of Uluru itself - just striking!

The great thing about how we travel (16 passenger bus with a trailer in tow) is that we pretty much carry everything we need with us. As such, after sunrise, we simply just openned the trailer up and had an impromptu litle breakfast right in the parking lot of the view site.

After breakfast, it was off to the Ayres Rock Cultural Centre. There we learned a bit more of the Aboriginees, the Anangu's. Thier traditional way of life, the separation of roles between men and women, adults and children. How they lived off the land. We also learned of the hardships created when their land was discovered by the white man (it's a familiar story); but also how in recent years real efforts have been made to make amends to this, including the return of sacred lands, and how shared management is working to protect these lands, but still allow them to be accessible to visitors. There is also efforts underway to both protect and grow Anangu's traditions through a junior park rangers program.

After the cultural centre, we had lunch and headed off for our second hike. This one to Kata Tjuta, meaning many heads.

This 7.4km hike took us around another outcropping of rock which really just doesn't fit with its surrounding landscape.

That it where the similarities with Uluru stop though. Kata Tjuta is actually sizeably larger than Uluru; however, unlike Uluru it is not a monolith. It is not composed out of one homogenous rock. Instead, it is composed of many kinds of boulders "cemented" together. From a distance, it looks quite smooth and consistent; however, once you get closer to it, you can clearly see the individual rocks and boulders that make up Kata Tjuta.

Another striking attribute of Kata Tjuta is that it's formation creates a natural funnel; which, as wind speeds rise create an awesome wind tunnel effect. And in fact, the hike we were doing was called "Valley of the Winds". We didn't experience any of this effect on the begining of this hike; however, as we completed the loop around the mountain and were making our exit we were practically being pushed back by the force of the wind. To be honest, the force of the wind and the (I wouldn't call it deafing...but certainly very, very loud) screeching of the wind as it rushed past my ears was absolutely exhilerating!

Uluru....here I come!

2008-09-15T06:13:00.000-03:00

Friday (2008-09-12)

Up at 6am...quick continnental breakfast...and over to the hotel next door to meet the group that I'll be travelling with for the next 30 days.

Well, it wasn't the entire group...only 1/2, we'll meet the other half when we swing back to Alice Springs in a couple of days.

After some introductions and paper work we were on our way to Uluru, aka Ayres Rock, aka "The Rock"...the red moniloth in the middle of nowhere.

During the 5 hour ride, which included time for a quick roadside lunch, I had the opportunity to learn a little bit about who is on this trek with me. So far we have our tour guide, an Australian, Matt; 1 Hollander, Peter, and 4 folks from the UK: Sophie, Nikki, Amy and Paul (whom I had met on the ride to Annie's Place).

Once we arrived in Ayres, we set up tents at the Ayres Rock Resort and headed over for a 9.4km hike around the base of Uluru. Formerly known as Ayres Rock, the lands are a sacred place for the local Aboriginees, who refer to themselves as Anangu, "The People". Recently, the lands were formerly returned to the Anangu under the condition that they would be leased back to the governments National Park system. As a result the lands are now managed by a shared team of Aboriginees and Government members.

There is the opportunity to climb Uluru; however, the walk is a traditionally sacred walk for the Anangu and as such they have requested that tourists not do it. In consideration of this, we instead did the 9.4km hike around the base.

Uluru is not the only formation out here in the desert which doesn't look like it belongs, but it certainly is the most famous and perhaps the one most surrounded in mystery. What I mean is that because Uluru plays a very important role in the spiritual culture of the Aborignees; there's a lot of locations and information about how those locations were used in their ceremonies which just isn't made available to visitors. There are several sites around the base which are out of bounds and where photography isn't permitted. It certainly all adds to the mystery of the monolith.

As for my experience hiking around the base; I couldn't say it was anything spirtual for me; however, it was quite amazing in it's own right; especially realizing that for me this hike represents a culmunation of many months planning and many more years (many, many years) of dreaming.

After the hike we took up position to watch the sunset behind us. As it sank below the horizon, the sky was filled with various hues of red and blue while the face of Uluru was set a blaze in a brilliant orange. And by chance if that wasn't wild enough, there was champagne, strawberries, cheese and crackers for all as well.

Quite the beginning for what I'm sure is going to be an amazing experience!

Off to Alice Springs...

2008-09-15T06:10:00.000-03:00

Thursday (2008-09-11)

Well, I thought today would the day that I was putting my Shake Awake alarm clock to the test (never had a need to use it on the flight over)...however, as it turned out I was up quite a bit before the alarm was scheduled to go off.

Got off to the airport and on to my Qantas flight without any hitches...and in to Alice Springs shortly after noon.

In Alice Springs I had stayed at another Hostel called Annie's. They offer free pick up from the airport (bonus). Ended up meeting another traveller on the same tour as me, Paul, and another dude from France, Fro (can't recall what this was short for).

After booking into Annie's, the three of us, plus another, Mattias (from Germany) went into "town" for a quick tour, some money, and supper.

Given our tour started early the next morning, I hit the sack around 9pm and promptly passed out.

Survived Day One!

2008-09-15T06:08:00.000-03:00

Wednesday (2008-09-10)

Ok, not only do I like napping...I think it may very well be my superpower! Thirteen hour time difference and no apparent jet lag.

So, I arrived in Sydney just after 8am (Aussie time)...got through customs with minimal issues...had to declare my hiking boots for inspection as they had a touch of dirt on them...but other than that a breeze.

I was really happy to see my luggage. I guess in this modern age of air travel it shouldn't be such a concerrn...but I've had occassion where my luggae didn't make it between Sydney, NS and Moncton, NB...so don't think my fears were ungrounded.

It was a pretty low key day today (intentionally). Since I'll be spending 4 days here at the conclusion of my OzXposure tour, I didn't really feel the need to run around finding landmarks. I did take the time to walk down to the harbour to check out the Sydney Opera House and the Sydney Harbour Bridge...how could I not.

Some people were surprised that I was staying at hostels during my pre and post tour time (they were even more surprised that my tour was pretty much all camping)...but first impressions are suggesting it's not going to be too bad at all. It's very communal in nature: Shared kitchen, shared dining, shared bathroom, dorm rooms (not necessarily the tidiest)...but all in all a very good atmosphere and friendly people. I guess that makes sense, since so many of the folks using the facilities are low budget travellers out to meet new people as well.

Australian Sunrise

2008-09-09T18:03:00.000-03:00

Well, technically...I have no idea where I was - other than somewhere over the Pacific Ocean (beccause I can't get a fix on my GPS)...and further technically I guess it's just pre-sunrise. Nonetheless here's a picture I took early this morning as we crossed the Pacific.

I think it's in the air!

2008-09-09T14:32:00.000-03:00

Well, I had hoped to write this entry before leaving the Vancouver Airport...but the turnaround was just too quick...but technically, I think I'm still in North America...so I'm Ok.

So, I'm into this blog about two weeks now and I feel I can share a little bit more about myself with you. So, here it goes...

I love to nap.

It's true. Now many of you know this about me already; so I guess it's not so much about sharing as it is about recognizing a truth. But did you know that I especially love napping on airplanes. It doesn't matter how well I've slept the night before, how short the flight is, or how many times I've napped on earlier legs of the trip; as soon as the engines start up and the wheels start moving I can't keep my eyes open. On more than one previous trip (I'm sad to say) I've found myself appologizing to my seat mates for my lack of conversational interaction and the inevitable drool puddle that will be forming on my pillow before the end of our flight...then, within minutes, crashing out.

Well there, now you know. Hmm, maybe it's something in the air?

Ok, so I've just travelled from East coast to West coast...what have I learned?

1. This little computer of mine is proving to be more and more awesome. I was able to connect to the Halifax airport wi-fi and call my sister through that Internet connection with Skype. The quality of the call was just as good as a land line. I was very impressed. Things didn't go as well when we tried to video conference, but oh well...that simply would have been gravy. Hopefully it will work as well from Australia. If so, I should be able to make pretty cheap calls home (as long as I can find free wi-fi that is)

2. Wi-fi Internet service in Toronto's airport is not free. You have to subscribe to boingo (and it's not cheap)...so I didn't do any surfing in Toronto.

3. Getting a GPS lock while flying is not as easy as I thought it would be. Not that I'm not used to knowing where I am while flying...but it would have been cool to watch my progress in realtime.

4. Wi-fi Internet service in Vancouver's airport is free - just didn't have enough time to do anything with it.

4. Air Canada does provide pillows and blankets for red-eye flights...so my little Lug nap sac wasn't exactly a requirement...however, it is super comfortable just the same.

Ok, I'm signing out now...got movies to watch and napping to do!

One more wakeup!

2008-09-07T23:39:00.006-03:00

Well, that's it. Years of dreaming, months of planning ... and here we are. One more wake up before the adventure begins.

A lot of people have been asking me this last week whether or not I'm excited. For sure, I'm feeling a level of excitement...but I think there's still a much larger level of disbelief going on. It's still pretty hard for me to digest that I'm actually getting to do this trip.

I think a lot of my excitement is also being tempered by how much still has to take place before my tour begins:

A full day of flying (and landing); running to find my next gate; and flying again. But that only gets me across the country.
Then there's another several hours making a trans-pacific crossing to Australia...so hoping my luggage lands with me.
Once I land in Sydney, Australia, I have to navigate the Sydney transportation network to find my hostel;
Up again early the following morning to catch another flight to Alice Springs....oh, I hope that shake alarm works like it's supposed to!
A quick meet and greet that night with my tour group and one final wake up (@ 6:30AM Aussie Time...that Shake Awake will definitely be paying for itself on this trip!) to meet my group @ 7:30AM and start the month long tour.

But that's all part of the Adventure, after all, isn't it!

So, yes I'm excited. But I don't think it's all going to really hit me until I'm throwing my baggage into that tour van.

----------------------------------------

Finally, here's a Google Maps "Mash up" that illustrates how close Australia really is to the opposite side of the world from Cape Breton. Well, it's not exact...but definitely close enough!

If the Earth were a sandwich!

Good night all & Take Care!

Strategies for comfortable flying

2008-09-01T19:42:00.008-03:00

I'll be spending a whole lotta time in the air just getting to Australia...so, I thought I'd share some of my plans for getting to the land down under all rested up and ready to begin my adventure.

First to relieve boredom while in the air (and to help keep in touch with family when in Australia) I've purchased a Nokia N800...this amazing little handheld not only provides wi-fi connectivity to the Internet but is also capable of playing music and videos and has a ton of open source software available for it.

I already know that I have noooo problem falling asleep on planes...as soon as the wheels start moving I normally apologize to the people on either side of me and fall into a deep sleep until we finally land...well, I'll wake every once and a while just to check if I've created any drool puddles. :-)

Well the days of free pillows and blankets while flying are pretty much gone......so I've decided to bring my own. The Nap Sac Travel Blanket, by Lug Travel, is a two in one combo. It provides a nice fuzzy blanket and a fuzzy pillow to go with it. Additionally, I plan to use it as my camping pillow on my trip.

But what if I do want to wake up...I really don't want an alarm clock going off and bothering the people around me. For that, I will be relying on my "shake awake" alarm clock. I'll also be using it in the hostels that I'll be staying in.

So, that's pretty much it on the gadget side...for the rest I'll be following some of the wisdom I've found on the Internet, including:

Be comfortable
Stretch often (5 Exercises To De-stress On Long Flights)
Keep hydrated

A bit from the brochure...

2008-08-26T21:11:00.000-03:00

Some Highlights

Here's a quick look at some of the things which are included with my tour:

Admission to all National Parks and Aboriginal sights as per the itinerary
2 days 4WD excursion to Fraser Island
Full day cruise to the Outer Barrier Reef with free snorkelling (I'll be Scuba diving)
Yellow Water Billabong Cruise
Katherine Gorge Cruise
Visit to a working Camel Ranch
Manyallaluk Experience - learning Aboriginal culture

And some other optional activities:

Fraser Island plane flight
Bungee Jump (hmmm, maybe)
Whitsunday sailing cruise
Scuba Diving (definitely)
White Water Rafting
Tandem Sky Diving (done that, sorta)
Horse Riding
Fishing trip
Dunk Island Cruise
Sea Kayaking
Surfing Lessons (we'll see)
Scenic flights (could be cool)
Camel riding (would make and interesting picture!)
Hot Air Ballooning (opportunity for some pretty cool aerial photos)
Harley Davidson ride

The Writeup:

Now, the brochure is written as if traveling from Sydney, AU to Alice Springs, AU...so, read through it and then flip it around to figure out what I'll be up to.

We travel the coast road north for a stop at a koala breeding park before a night stop on the beach. On to Fraser Island for a two day 4WD adventure on the world’s largest sand island. Take a swim in crystal clear waters or explore the unusual rock formations and a local shipwreck.

Onto the gateway of the Whitsunday Islands, Airlie Beach where you’ll have a free day to go sailing on a racing yacht, take a cruise to a millionaire's resort or just swim in the warm tropical waters. For adrenaline junkies, there’s bungee jumping, sky-diving and loads of watersports to get your heart racing.

Whitewater raft or sea kayak on Mission Beach before our next stop in Cairns. Join a sailing boat to explore the Great Barrier Reef with its incredible diversity of marine life. Hand feed the fish, snorkel among the coral in the clear waters or try scuba diving (no experience needed). This is a day you will remember for the rest of your life.

West over the Great Dividing Range and maybe stop at a tea plantation or take time out for a soak in the hot springs before arriving at our bush camp, complete with hot showers, a fire and great views of the Australian outback.

Entering the Northern Territory, we camp among the wildlife at Katherine Gorge. Cruise up two of the spectacular gorge systems before heading further north to visit the famous Magnetic termite mounds. Enjoy a free day to take in the sights of Darwin before we depart to the "World Heritage Listed" Kakadu National Park. Visit Nourlangie Rock to see Aboriginal rock art thousands of years old. Search for crocodiles, birds, snakes, dingos and much more on our Yellow Water Billabong Cruise.

Camp at an Aboriginal buffalo station and learn how the aboriginals existed for thousands of years in harmony with their surroundings. Hike the eerie Devils Marbles with plenty of opportunities for some stunning photographs on the boulders. We arrive at Alice Springs mid-afternoon and head out on the town for a meal and some nightlife.

The next morning, experience a breathtaking champagne hot-air balloon flight or do an optional day tour through the Western MacDonnell ranges. Take a morning camel ride over stunning sand hills before we marvel at the sheer cliffs of Kings Canyon.

Next, one of the worlds' largest monoliths, Uluru (Ayers Rock). Discover some Aboriginal legends that abound in this World Heritage Area. Later this afternoon you can explore the Olgas before viewing the fiery sunset. Wake up early the next morning for a stunning sunrise over Uluru. We will have one last chance to visit the magical site before heading back to the desert oasis of Alice Springs and a last night on the town to put the final touch on this amazing adventure.

Ok! The countdown is on!

2008-08-25T20:58:00.001-03:00

Ok, I'm officially less than two weeks away from my trip to Australia. So, as such, I thought I'd start by sharing a bit about my trip with you.

First, some background:

I'm not sure what the reason...maybe just because Australia represents the "Other side of the world"...but for as long as I can remember I've always wanted to visit it.

For the last number of years; I've been following Trek Australia, seeing what tours they offered, what their prices were; hoping one day I may be able to join them.

Well, I had no idea this would be the year. All of the cosmological requirements to allow such a thing to happen just all seemed to fall into place and boom...here I am with less than 2 weeks to go.

The Tour Company:

As I mentioned, I've been watching Trek Australia for several years now...so, when it became apparent that I was going to be able to do this trip the decision on who to do it with was pretty easy. Trek Australia has recently undergone a name change. They are now called OzXposure (http://www.ozxposure.com) ... Check them out. I was able to book my tour through their Canadian Distributor, Trek Escapes (http://www.trekescapes.com). Another great company to check out.

So, my trip will take me though Central, Northern and Eastern Australia. If I had more time (and money) I would have loved to continue my tour of the continent and of New Zealand as well...perhaps some other day. I'll be traveling for a total of 39 days...the last week I have to myself in Sydney.

Here's a quick look at what my Itinerary looks like:

2008-09-08 - Monday - Depart Sydney, CAN
2008-09-10 - Wednesday - Arrive in Sydney, AU
2008-09-11 - Thursday - Depart Sydney, AU; Arrive in Alice Springs, AU

2008-09-12 - Friday - OzXposure tour begins
2008-09-13 - Saturday - Uluru/Ayers Rock
2008-09-14 - Sunday - Uluru/Ayers Rock
2008-09-15 - Monday - Kings Canyon
2008-09-16 - Tuesday - Alice Springs
2008-09-17 - Wednesday - Alice Springs
2008-09-18 - Thursday - Devils Marbles
2008-09-19 - Friday - Mataranka Hot Springs
2008-09-20 - Saturday - Manyallaluk
2008-09-21 - Sunday - Kakadu
2008-09-22 - Monday - Kakadu
2008-09-23 - Tuesday - Darwin
2008-09-24 - Wednesday - Darwin
2008-09-25 - Thursday - Linchfield
2008-09-26 - Friday - Katherine Gorge
2008-09-27 - Saturday - Bush Camp
2008-09-28 - Sunday - Cloncurry
2008-09-29 - Monday - Mt Surprise
2008-09-30 - Tuesday - Ellis Breach
2008-10-01 - Wednesday - Cairns / Barrier Reef
2008-10-02 - Thursday - Cairns
2008-10-03 - Friday - Mission Beach
2008-10-04 - Saturday - Mission Beach
2008-10-05 - Sunday - Arlie Beach
2008-10-06 - Monday - Arlie Beach
2008-10-07 - Tuesday - Rockhampton
2008-10-08 - Wednesday - Redcliffe
2008-10-09 - Thursday - Moreton Island
2008-10-10 - Friday - Surfers Paradise
2008-10-11 - Saturday - Coffs Harbour - OzXposure Tour Concludes

2008-10-12 - 2008-10-14 - Tour Sydney
2008-10-15 - Depart Sydney, AU
2008-10-15 - Arrive Sydney, CAN

So, that's the Itinerary in a nutshell. I'll try to fill it in with some of the activities I hope to be partaking in during the next week or so.