Aotearoa
OK, so Im trying to blog a little more often than 3 weeks apart, as it takes so long to put together, so I’ve added this photo gallery thing to the software which makes writing them a bit quicker, but it does mean you need to match the photos and the stories yourselves, makes it more interesting that way I reckon!
I left off from Queenstown where I had spent 2 weeks with Ross and Gill. Guys, thanks very much again, and to sharkie too, it was cool to catch up and the road trip was awesome! “Ohau I love to ride” Haa!
From there I headed to Dunedin, apparently gaelic for ‘Edinburgh of the south’ and they have all the same street names we have in Edinburgh, but for some reason they have an ‘octagon’ in the city centre, don’t recall one of those in Edinburgh, but as my sister keeps reminding me, I am 30 now, so my memory might be going!!!
I visited the 2 touristy things in Dunedin, the Cadbury’s chocolate factory, and the Speights Brewery, both were pretty cool and got a tonne of free samples at both, so I was feeling fat and slightly pissed at the end of the day!
I also did a wildlife tour where we got to see some penguins pretty closely. They are used to the tour groups wandering around, and the one in the picture just wandered right passed us.
Also in Dunedin, is the steepest street in the world, which I only just conquered!
From there it was a quick trip up the coast via Christchurch again to Kiakora, where I got on a bicycle for the first time in ages and took a ride out to the Seal Colony at the cliffs. It was quite cool and we stopped at a small roadside shack for some really fresh mussels and scallops. Hmmm.
On the way up, we stopped at these lava rocks that are spheres, its quick spooky how round they are!
On the way up to Picton we stopped again and the driver told us to wander into the woods. After about 5 minutes we got to this waterfall and in the pool at the bottom were about 8 baby seals just swimming and playing away. It was pretty cool to get that close to them.
In Picton I was hoping to go Kayaking around Marlborough Sound to see Seals and possibly dolphins up close, but the weather was against me, so I just got the ferry over to Wellington.
Wasn’t hugely impressed with Wellington, mainly cause of the weather, but there’s nothing much to do there, apart from the Te Papa museum, which I was told was a really good interactive museum, but i wasn’t impressed to be honest. A lot of the interactive stuff was for kids and we got funny looks trying to join in!
I did, however, find a British shop that sold Irn Bru. My only mistake was only buying 1 can, it was gone in seconds!
Next place was Lake Taupo where we signed up for the 18.5km walk across the Tongariro Crossing, which is dubbed “New Zealand’s best 1 day walk”. I was a bit dubious about whether I could walk that far, especially as it had a 4 out of 5 difficulty rating and people had said it was really hard, but it wasn’t that bad. On the way up we were told that the big mountain beside us was Mt Doom from Lord of the Rings.
Continuing the Film Geek theme, we then wandered up to a part of the island called Coromandel where there is a beautiful beach called Cathedral Cove where parts of the new Narnia film were made. Also in the Coromandel I did some bone caving, which was pretty cool and I got to make a Maori amulet thing for myself.
I finally got to Auckland and met John-eee-boy from Uni. Was good to see him considering we worked out it had probably been ten years since we met. He’d never been up the Sky Tower in Auckland, so I dragged him up, not realising he was scared of heights. I wish I got a photo of his face in the elevator, priceless! John took me around the beaches of North Auckland and its amazing the difference between the west coast and east coast, considering in places the coasts are only 4km apart. The west is all black sand and quite rough seas, whereas the east is calm and beautiful sand.
John and Nicole kindly let me stay for a few days, which was competely awesome of them. The random cat picture in the gallery is of their cat getting comfy on my laptop! They also lent me their car for a few days (nutters, but thanks again guys) to go North of Auckland to see Cape Reinga and Paihia (pron. pie here, as in “can I buy a ‘pie here’). I went all the way up to the top of New Zealand and it has a similar feeling to John O Groats really. Big lighthouse and lots of sea! On the way back, we stopped on 90 mile beach, which has some wicked sand dunes for boarding down!
And that was New Zealand. Flew to Fiji today, loving the temperature here, even if it was raining when I landed. Hoodie and Jacket firmly planted in the bottom of the bag for at least a week! Oh, and 10 days till Vegas. Wicked!
A Monkey, Trout, Shark and Toad hit the snow!
So I just finished what I kept calling my ‘holiday from my holiday’ with Ross and Gillian in Queenstown. I had a wixked 2 weeks with them and really didn’t want to leave. Thoughts of coming back to NZ are starting to formulate now! Haa Haa!!
Anyway, I’ll give you a brief run down of whats been happening, basically cause i’m getting sick of writing them, and I am sure you are sick of reading them.
I arrived in NZ on the 7th and had a few days in Christchurch, where I met Andy who I was living with in Perth (in a hostel that is, not THAT way!) and Babs the crazy irish girl and a couple of her mates.
While in town there was a promo rail sliding competition for skiers and boarders. They brought a truck load of snow from the mountain to pack onto a ramp. Was quite a sight!!
I then got a train through the mountains to a place called Greymouth. Nothing really to do there, but I had to hang around and wait for the bus the next day. I then piled down to Franz Josef, where there’s a massive glacier to play on!
Had a few beers with the guys in Franz Josef, but we were all pretty tired after the day’s hiking the glacier, so it was a fairly tame night. The next day I had a day off because of the way the bus worked, and headed to Wanaka the next day, which nearly unravelled all my plans.
As we arrived in the town it started snowing, ‘great’ thinks I , new snow to board on. What I didn’t think about was it snowing to heavy the the roads were closed and the bus not being able to get through and me getting to Queenstown! Doh!!
Thinking we would be stuck in Wanaka for a couple of days, Mark and I hit the Wanaka attractions, which basically is Puzzleworld!
As you can see, mark and I are basically the same height, but they have this wierdo room that distortes your vision!!
They also have this room where the floor is on a 30 degree angle, and our brain cant really cope with it, most people feel slightly nauseous when they go in this room!
Luckily for me, the workshy Ross and Gill spent the day on the mountain then came across to Wanaka to get me even though the road was closed! What ensued was the quickest 2 weeks of my trip, and not because I can’t remember it because of booze!
The next day we were hoping to hit the slopes, but it was a bit cloudy and not great for my first time back on the white stuff, so we just chilled out in Queenstown, it was really good to be firstly with friends who know me and I don’t need to explain my whole trip for the gazillionth time, but also to be not staying in dorms!
The sunday, we hit Coronet Peak, just outside Queenstown, and it was really good to be back on the snow, but slightly surreal that it was in August!!
I went down to Milford Sound, which isn’t really a Sound at all its a Fjord. I’ll not explain the difference to save me sounding like a geology geek, you can look it up yourself! ( I know you will!!)
Then we went on the EPIC Snowboarding/Skiing Roadtrip. We headed up north to a small Ski Field called Ohau. What an amazing little field. Only 1 chairlift and about 10 runs or something, but hey, there was less than 100 people there. Wicked!
And the best thing was at the bottom of the hill
We then headed to Methven, to hit Mount Hutt, unfortunately it was closed due to bad weather, no matter we would go to one of the ones that were open. After some interesting 4WD action, we get to Mount Olympus :
Not sure if you can read the sign, but it says “Snow Chains and Courage must be carried at all times” Haa Haa!!!
Turns out that Mount Olympus wasnt a goer as the weather closed in after the guys had 1 run, and I couldn’t even get up the stupid Nutcracker lifts!
In Methven that night there was a sheep shearing contest, actually IN the pub!!!
Saturday, we got up and it was a glorious day, and a wicked time was had on Mount Hutt
The sunday we had planned on doing a 1/2 day on the way home somewhere, but the one we had planned on going to was shut, so we ended up in Tekapo, in more hot tubs!!
And then it was back in ‘Frank the Tank’, back to Queenstown!
And that was it. More to come later on other South Island Antics!!
Singing in the Rain
Where did I leave off after me remembering about Captain Munchies. Oh ye, up in Darwin, man I wish I was still up there, so nice and warm!!!
On the trip up from Alice, I met 3 Norwegian girls, who were staying in the same hostel as me. On our first day, we decided to just hang out by the pool in the hostel as you can’t go swimming in the sea because of the Jellyfish! Our 2nd day, we headed down to the beach to watch the “Beer Can Regatta”. This is where the locals use empty beer cans to make boats and then race them. It was quite cool to watch!!
The girls also wanted to try crocodile, so we went for dinner that night.
I spent a couple of more days in Darwin, just chilling out and drinking with the people in the Hostel. It was nice to just enjoy the sunshine after being in Perth for so long.
I then caught a flight to Brisbane on the east coast and had 1 day in Brisbane before heading North again to Noosa, to go to Australia Zoo.
I had a good day at Australia Zoo, although it wasn’t as good as I thought it would be, considering I’ve seen most of the animals in the wild, with the exception of the Koala’s, which were cool!
So on my way out from Australia Zoo, I stopped for an icecream, and sat on a bench and put my Camera down beside me. When I stood up, I left my camera just sittong on the Bench! Doh! I was so annoyed with myself, but at least I hadn’t lost many pictures, only the ones from that day. I reported it to the ‘Lost and Found’ Dept and hope they find it.
Meanwhile I had to get another Camera as I was heading to Fraser Island, one of the most beautiful places in Australia, and there was no way I was not having a camera there, so I bought a 2nd camera.
I then headed to Hervey Bay, the point which you leave for Fraser Island. The weather wasn’t looking great for a camping trip, as it was really cloudy and threatened to rain, but there wasn’t a lot I could do about it! As I was leaving for Hervey Bay, i got a phone call from Australia Zoo saying they had found my Camera, but I had bought another one and had no way of getting my old one before getting on the bus so I arranged to pick it up on my way back south.
We had 3 pretty good days on Fraser Island, even though it lashed down with rain for the first 2. The 3rd day brightened up a little, and we got to go swimming in Lake Mackenzie, such a beautiful place, here’s a bunch of photos :
And finally, here is all our van, in possibly the best weather we had for the whole 3 days!
With nothing much to do, we basically either drove somewhere, or sat in the van chatting or drinking booze!
After Fraser Island, I got a lift back down to Noosa with the 2 german girls on our tour, then hired a car to see some of the inland sights of South Queensland before heading back to brisbane. I stopped on the way down at the Glass House Mountains.
Oh, and the ‘Big Pineapple’.
I got to Brisbane and spent a couple of days there attempting to see the sights. I wanted to go to a few of the more obscure museums, but unfortunately they all seem to be closed on a Monday, so I basically spent the day wandering around Brisbane!
I also visited the XXXX brewery, but you weren’t allowed to take pictures inside, so this is the only one I got.
My last day in Brisbane, I got the ferry out to Stradbroke Island, (or Straddie as the locals call it)
Seen loads of these, but finally got a good photo of one on Straddie. The aussies call these guys ‘Punk Rock Pigeons’ !!
And finally, because Sunsets are the photos people usually react to the most, heres one on the ferry on the way back!
I then caught a bus down to Byron Bay, where I was when I started writing this blog. Its now about 10 days later and I should really put up another one, but this one will have to do for now!!
I can’t believe I forgot this!!!!!
So I can’t believe I forgot to post this picture in an earlier post. I was just sorting all my photos and cameraS, yes thats plural, more on that later and realised I didn’t actually put this up.
On my last day in Perth I went hunting for an establishment that was an integral part of my mate Stew’s life while here in Australia, and it wasn’t easy to find. 6 of us went down to Fremantle for the day, basically to drink beer, and after a few, there was only one place to go!
Yup, thats right, the infamous Captain Munchies. So Stew, I’ve now had a ‘Steak Kitchen Sink’ which is basically, 2 pieces of steak, 2 eggs, lettuce, tomato, cucumber, pineappe, beetroot, carrot and a whole heap of cholesterol!
Anyway, full post of what I’ve been up to in the last 2 weeks coming soon, but I wanted to post this now!
Journey’s to the Red Centre
Aw man, its so good to be back in the warm weather here in Darwin. I’ve just spent the last week seeing the Uluru and ‘The Red Centre’ and heading up to Darwin. The weather here is great, 30 degreed most days, the water is warm and its no wonder it feels like every backpacker in Australia is here at the moment, its so busy in Darwin.
So I left Alice Springs on an Adventure Tour heading initially south to see Uluru and Kata Tjuta (The Olgas) before heading north. I wouldn’t normally go for the tours, but time is a little tight now, so I need to get on with it.
Our first day was mainly spent driving, you kind of get used to it in Australia, long days driving interspersed with the occasional exciting bit. There’s no wonder it takes a year to see it all!
On the way down we stopped at a camel farm, where you can eat camel burgers
Our first major stop in the red centre was to Kata Tjuta, or known as The Olgas. Its a rock formation pushed up from tectonic plate pressure about 340 million years ago and is regarded as a sacred place for Aborigines.
We took a walk down ‘The Valley of he Winds’. Most of Kata Tjuta is off limits to tourists as it is still used as a ceremonial place for Aboriginal people. We had to rush the walk a little bit as we needed to head to Uluru for sunset.
There’s an official sunset lookout point, which is a bit of a circus at sunset. Loads of tour groups turn up there, but it was still amazing to see and to my surprise we got some Champagne to watch the sunset.
The next morning we were up really early to get back to Uluru for sunrise and we had a chance to walk either up it or around it. Now while you can still walk up it there’s a big sign at the bottom asking you not to as it is another sacred place for Aboriginal people here. To my surprise there were still a lot of people climbing it, most of which didn’t even acknowledge the sign at the bottom of the climb.
Instead, our group chose to walk around the base of Uluru, which I think is more interesting, as you get to see the dozen or so sacred places around the base of uluru, which are used for various things like a birthing area, and a school etc. Some of these you cannot take photos of as they are still used today.
It was amazing to watch it change colour again as the sun rose.
For the last part of Uluru, we walked a small section of Uluru that has the most features and got to see areas that were used for living and other activities along the way.
For our last day of the 3 day tour around Uluru, we headed to Kings Canyon, and on our way we stopped at Mt Connor, which is sometimes called ‘Fooluru’ as from a distance it looks like Uluru and gets many people on a first glance.
Our 3rd day was the most taxing walk and as a result we were up early again to get the difficult part of the walk completed before it got too hot. At King’s Canyon, we did the 9km ‘Rim Walk’ which involved a 500m climb up ‘Heart Attack Hill’ to get to the top of the Canyon. It wasn’t as bad as I thought, and the rest of the walk was easy. We stopped again at a few sights that were sacred to the Aboriginal People.
After we got back to the bus, we had a long drive back to Alice Springs. We had some dinner with the group, but it wasn’t a long night as we had to be up at 5:30 the next morning to get the bus up to Darwin!
After getting everything ready the night before, I got on the bus and our guide told us that the first stop was only 15 minutes out of Alice Springs.
Now heres an interesting fact I didn’t know. The reason the tropical lines are there is because between them there are only 2 seasons, wet and dry, as opposed to 4 we have elsewhere!
I don’t remember much after getting on the bus to take that photo, we drove for a long time and it was daylight by the time I woke!
We stopped at ‘Barrow Creek’ which is a telegraph station for the old overland telegraph line. In more recent history, there was a horrible Aboriginal Massacre here, and even more recently, its where the Joanna Lees and Peter Falconio case took place. I had totally forgotten about it, but its still a hot topic here!!
We also stopped and tasted some bush tucker on the way up, heres me eating a ‘bush coconut’, which actually is an animal like a grub!
The highlight of the day was stopping at ‘The Devils’ Marbles’ which is the main reason for doing this 1200 mile road trip over flying it, its quite a spooky place!
On our second day stopped at a place called ‘Daly Waters’ which is a small town of about 24 people. The only attraction is a famous pub where people leave things. People leave everything from Bras to tshirts to business cards.
Lastly for our second day, we stopped at a couple of hot springs, where the temperature is a constant 32 degreed throughout the year. It was really nice and warm water!
Our last day was spent at Katherine Gorge. Where we had an opportunity to Kayak down the Gorge. There were 2 South Korean Guys on our tour who had never been in a Kayak before and one of them couldn’t swim!
On our way into Darwin, we stopped at Edith Falls. A permanent waterhole that was really deep. As a result, the water was freezing. I did the 150m swim to the falls and sat in the waterfall fora bit. Just made me wish I had a waterproof camera. They warn you not to swim in the falls because there could potentially be Sat Water Crocodiles in it, but we went for it anyway, apparently there has never been one seen in there!
Our last stop before Darwin we stopped at a roadhouse that had a pub beside it with one famous resident. For anyone who has seen Crocodile Dundee (it was a favorite film of mine when I was a kid) the scene where he apparently tames a buffalo with his fingers, well when the buffalo died, they decided to stuff it and put it in the pub!
We had one night in darwin, where we had a good feed and a few too many beers before saying goodbye to Team Korea who weren’t joining us on the Kakadu Leg, before hitting the sack. Due to the hostel running out of beds, I got a private room, TV, fridge, own bathroom. By far the poshest accommodation I have stayed in while I have been traveling!
We started early for the Kakadu leg and unknown to us, our group that came up from Alice was spilt into 2 groups. It wasn’t too bad though, we saw them nearly everywhere we went! Our trip around Kakadu National Park mainly involved visiting some of the many waterfalls around the park. It was good to see and really good to be swimming in fresh water as the temperature was HOT!
Heres me at Twin Falls (even though there are 3 of them, 2 of them join together during the wet season!)
We also went on a Crocodile Cruise in one of the large Billabongs to see some saltwater crocs. THere are 10,000 of them in the Billabong, mainly just lying on the bottom, but a few come to sun themselves on the bank of the river.
Lastly for this trip, we stopped on our way home to see some Termite Nests. They are HUGE!!
So we go into Darwin where I am now, and I’ve got a few days here to top up the tan and just chill out before heading to the east coast. 22 days left in Australia and I;m not sure when I’ll be back, so I need to make the most of it!
Back on the Road
OK, so I’m sorry its been over a month since I wrote anything on here. To be honest, I’ve not been doing that much, just getting some more money together for the 2nd leg of the trip.
I must admit it feels a little weird now, I feel like I am coming home, whereas in reality I’ve still got another 5 months left at least. Whether my money will last another 5 months is another matter, but there you go.
So what’s been happening since the fishing trip in the last blog.
I worked for 2 months for the Department of Agriculture, Food and Trade Department, doing what I do at home, Web Development. I won’t go into too many gory details, as no one really cares about work, but it was a really good project and I was really torn between continuing the project and traveling some more. I eventually decided that I wanted to travel more and so I left after only 2 months.
HOW I was going to travel was another real problem in my mind. My mate Wiggy had put the idea in my head of buying a motorbike and riding across australia, and I was pretty much set on doing it, I even bought a bike, look :
After deliberating about it for around a month, I eventually decided that as it is winter here in Australia, and the rain is pretty unpredictable, I decided I didn’t fancy getting soaking for a week crossing Australia, so promptly sold it. I am currently contacting the Guinness Book of Records for the shortest Vehicle ownership of 3 weeks!!
Anyhoo, glossing over that mishap, some of the guys and I spent a long weekend South of Perth in Margaret River and Albany. As usually when you are on a road trip with 14 irish, it was pretty drunken, and when there is winery’s dishing out free wine, all day, then you know its going to be a good one! I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves!
It wasn’t all about wine though, we did cultural stuff too, like a Chocolate Factory, a Cheese Factory, and some touristy Stuff!
It was a lot of driving, and made me realise how BIG australia is. We saw a tiny amount of the South West and it was about 12 hours driving over the weekend!
The driving got so boring we even resorted to staging ‘crash photos’ in the car!!
On the last day in Albany, there were some Time Trials for vintage cars, including some AC Cobras (mainly for my dad’s benefit!).
A few weeks after that, we went paintballing for a guy in the hostels birthday. It was good fun, and surprisingly not as painful as when I did it at home
I promised Jason I would do another video for it like I did for the fishing trip, so watch this space for when I complete it.
Everything then went quiet for a few weeks, just trying to save money to see Australia. A few nights out were had, and heres some photos from my last night out. Thanks to Nigel, I am now quite familiar with the taste of JagerBombs, and will be forcing them all on you when I get home!
The next day, REALLY hungover, I had to catch a flight up to Alice Springs, where I am now, and my word, I am never flying with a Hangover again, I felt proper rough!
I’ve got 3 day here in Alice Springs, which by all account is enough, then I am off to see The Rock that is Uluru, and then heading north to Darwin over a week seeing all the sights in between.
Now I am back on the road, hopefully the blogs will be more frequent, so check back soon!
Gone Fishin’
I think one of the reasons I’ve not been blogging so much recently is that it gets a bit tedious typing it all. Those of you who are still reading will know the mammoth posts!!
So I thought I would try something different this blog. Heres my activities from last weekend!
Don’t play ‘The Beer Box Game’ with Japanese!
Its a nightmare. See below for more info, but lets just say they are good at it!
Anyway, here goes, I’m full of crepes, I’ll tell you later, so as its been the best part of a month since I wrote anything then I had better update people. To be honest, of all my posts, this is probably the least interesting, but keep reading!
So I left off in Singapore, where I stayed at ‘The Inn Crowd’ hostel for 4 nights. What an excellent place, really social and the staff are great.
I met a bunch of people and we had a great night out at Clarke Quay in Singapore. Unfortunately I’ve lost a great number of drunken photos due to a phone screw up, so there’s no evidence of my antics!! However, I am hoping to get some photos of ‘the clinic’ bar where the seats are wheelchairs and you can get shots in an IV bag, (no needle though). I also happened to be out with a bunch of nurses, which was good cause I couldn’t work the clamp on the IV bag and it went all over me!! As it was 18 quid for what felt like about 4 shots of alcohol, none of it could go to waste!
During the day we did some touristy stuff, but not too much. Its ust a nice city to wander round and look at the massive variety of buildings.
I had a wander round a couple of museums, including the Toy museum and a couple of arty farty ones, which were pretty cool.
We also headed down to the waterfront to see the Lion Fountain, Singapore is known as The Lion City, and thy have this half lion half fish fountain thing in the harbour.
I also met my friend from Uni, Woei Min and he took me out to some of the more local places in Singapore for some food. I had Sting Ray for the first time, which was nice. Had a bit of an odd taste, and it was a really meaty fish but good all the same.
We went to the Singapore Zoo Night Safari, which was pretty cool. I have no photos because tis pretty pointless, but it is amazing. There are no big fences between you and the animals, but yet they seem to say in their ‘enclosures’. The deer come right up to the bus thing that you are in.
He also took me down to the water front at night time, where they have a big wheel like the London Eye.
And that was really it for Singapore. I spent a lot of time playing with my new toy!
I’m totally loving having a Laptop, I must admit I never thought I would need one, but its been great having one, although i think my dad and a few of my mates (well biff really) will probably not speak to me for now being a Mac Owner (Geek).
I wish I had more time to spend in Singapore. Everyone I met on my travels said 3 days is enough in Singapore, but I found loads of things to do and had to miss a lot out because I had only given myself 3 days. Its a great place to get a snapshot of Asia, there’s lots of communities like Chinatown and Little India which you can get a great taste for that part of the world, and the food is amazing. Granted its waay more expensive than the rest of Asia, but if our coming from the UK I guess it doesn’t really matter.
From Singapore, I flew into Perth in Western Australia, where I still am now. Been here pretty much a month now and I must say its been nice to stay in one place for a bit, unpack the bag and sleep in the same bed for more than 3 nights in a row!
My whole reasoning for coming to Australia was to work to top up the funds for the rest of my trip. Not many backpackers can come here and not work due to how expensive it is. Basically like home prices. As one book I read in a hostel in Kuala Lumpor said ‘Don’t go to Australia after Asia, all you’ll do is complain how expensive everything is!!’. And its true, it takes a while to get back into paying ‘normal’ prices for stuff!
So after a couple of weeks of searching, I have got myself a contract working for the Department of Agriculture, moving their website from one geek technology to another. The details of which I’ll not go into as its a bit sad, but its good work and basically what I do at home!!! (Although i’m getting paid more than i do at home, if anyone from the NHS is reading!).
They have these Bells in Perth, called ‘The Swan Bells’. They are really old bells taken from some cathedral, and are now housed in a funky new glass tower.
I’ve been and done a few things in and around perth, including the old Prison in Fremantle, which was only shut in the 1990′s :
and a few of the markets in Freo that sell EVERYTHING!
Once I got my job I had 4 days to fill, and having been around Perth for 2 weeks trying to spend as little money as possible and looking for a job, I decided I needed to get out the city for a few days, so I booked myself on a 4 day backpacker tour to the north of Perth. This is probably as far north as I am going to get on this trip, as I really need to start heading east, towards Sydney.
So we headed north to The Pinnacles :
]
did some sandboarding (with BOTH my collarbones intact!!)
got to make fajitas for 20 people
Went to see some interesting rock formations (called Natures Window).
And headed to Shark Bay.
At Shark Bay, we went on a night walk with an Aboriginal Guy, Capes, who told us loads of interesting stories about Aboriginal Culture, how they believe they came into being, the different tribes an languages, and even tried to teach of us some of their language. He also cooked us some fish and played us some Didgeridoo, which was great. Contemplating getting one now!! IT was a really relaxing night, just sitting by the fire chilling out, listening to him talk.
The mains reason people come to Shark Bay is because for getting on for 50 years now, people have been feeding the Dolphins at the beach there. I’ll save the long story until I get home, but its amazing, these dolphins come into the beach at 8am everyday to be fed fish.
From Shark Bay, we headed to Shell Beach, which as you might expect is a beach made from Shells. Its quite unique in that the water in the bay is really shallow, so loads of small shellfish, they are a bit like cockles, live and die there, and when they die, the shells are washed up on the beach. Despite our guide telling us that it is protected area and we can’t take a shell from the beach, they do collect the shells in a JCB for a variety of uses, including chicken food!
Our last night, we spent at an Eco Farm Stay where the owners of the farm are trying to be completely carbon neutral. They decided to get rid of the sheep and plant trees on the land they use for the sheep. The long term plan is to become ‘carbon positive’ where they are pushing out more oxygen then they are using, and they will get PAID for the oxygen they output! Amazing idea, and the reckon its enough to live off too!
Anyway, as this was our last night, and the last tour for our guide Kim too, we decided to have a bit of a party. The majority of the backpackers were japanese and hadn’t exactly been party animals, first night they went to bed at 9:30, but this night we forced them to stay up, drink beer and play the beer box game!! Man, are they good at it. THey had never played it before, and with good reason, usually with the beer box game, people get out pretty evenly but at about 1cm from the floor, most of the japanese girls were still in the game. The last round was between 2 girls and we had to have a race to see who could pick up a 5cm * 5cm piece of the cardboard from the floor!
The last day, we were up early, see the sunrise photo, and headed to ‘The Principality of Hut River Province’, which is an independent principality to australia and has its own passport control an everything!! The guy did it back in the 60′s when he found a loophole in the law to stop him paying as much tax. He has his own money and army and even consulates to other countries!! I guess at one point it was a viable way of not paying tax, but now its just a stop on the backpacker route!
On our way home, we stopped at a Roadhouse and I saw my first 3 trailer road train!
And thats about it really. I’ll be in Perth for a while, which I am quite happy about, I’m staying in a Hostel where there are a load of other folk who are just here working, so there’s a good group to go drinking with. Next weekend we have chartered a fishing boat to go big game fishing, so hoping to catch a barracuda or a big tuna or something!
Oh ye, the Pancake thing. The hostel here does a sunday night meal for everyone, you chip in a few bucks and some people cook. Tonight, our French contingent cooked 250 crepes for us. 30 odd of us ate like bandits and there was still about 40 left for breakfast! Hooray, I just nee to get up early tomorrow to get some! and on that note, good night!!!!!
Where women glow and men plunder
According to ‘Men At Work’ anyway…….
Yes thats right folks, country number 9, Continent 2, I’m in Australia. Been in Perth here for 2 days, and struggling to know what to do. All I can say is its bloody expensive compared to Asia!!! If I keep spending at my current rate, then I’ll be home in 2 months, and none of you want that do you!!
I’m currently in Perth, WA deciding whether to get a job, or risk it and start traveling and hope my money lasts. As sick as this sounds, I am actually quite looking forward to working for a bit, as long as its not my usual day job. I’m currently looking into a job ranching sheep and cattle on motorbikes. Getting paid to ride motorbikes all day could be fun!!! (And it nearly pays as much as driving a desk at home!!)
I really don’t know. It wasn’t till I got here that you realise how far away from everything else it is!! The next big place east of here is about 4 days drive, and if you go north its 2 days!! I’ll let you know!!
Meanwhile, heres what I got up to since I last posted.
Bukit Tingi is a nice small town that used to be teeming with Backpackers a few years ago, you can tell mainly by the many backpacker bars and restaurants that are now basically deserted.
We didn’t do much in Bukit Tingi other than wander round the town.
We also visited the Japanese Tunnels. Built by Indonesia POW’s during the Second World War, the Japanese captured Indonesians during the night and made them dig the tunnels. No one in Indonesia even knew the tunnels existed until a year after the war had finished it was that secret.
After a hard morning just wandering and saying ‘hello’ to another 5000 people, we had lunch. Its a great way to eat in Indonesian Cafe’s. They just bring you about 20 plates of food, you eat what you want, then the charge you for what you’ve eaten. No ordering, waiting, complaining its taking too long etc etc. Good, healthy fast food!
After lunch we headed to the bar, Kenny and Almando had a beer, but i wanted a bit more of a wander round, so I left them to it and had a further walk.
From there we caught a bus to Lake Maninjau.
None of the 3 of us knew where to get off, but usually some friendly local will shout at you in their native tongue when its your stop, however on this occasion they didn’t and we went sailing past the place we wanted to get off. I realised we had gone into the town and back out the other side when the rice paddies started up again. So we stopped the bus and started to head back towards town. Fortunately there’s always an enterprising local driving past who has a pickup or minivan that you can clamber into for like 10p to take you to your destination.
On recommendation of the guys at one of the Bars in Bukit Tingi, we decided to stay at Lili’s.
its a great little place, right on the lake where you can go fishing, as long as you don’t look in the water as there are fish farms on either side, which isn’t so nice!!!
My Bungalow at Lilis, with the view from it below.
Its called a ‘lakeside retreat’ for a reason, in that there really isn’t much to do, so in usual form, Kenny and Armando hunted some local Whiskey and I must admit I gave in this time and got 2 bottles of the stuff too. the locals were a bit shocked when we ordered 6 bottles, but we were a bit disappointed we didn’t order more, they were only 330ml each!
Anyway, on our second day we decided we needed to do something, so a local guy offered to take us fishing. We donned our best fishing gear, and headed out to a pond. The main lake is so heavily fished by, well everyone, that we decided a pond would be better.
I don’t have anywhere near the patience I used to for fishing, so after about 1hr 10 minutes the 3 of us were thoroughly bored and decided to call it a day.
Just as well we didn’t catch anything because Lili had sent her chef into the market to buy us fish for our dinner!
The next day we decided to head to Padang city, and Lili recommended we stayed at Uncle Jacks, a small backpacker beach place about 25km north of the city. Padang city isn’t the most spectacular of places, so we decided to go for it and keep out of the smog.
I’ve no idea why i don’t have any photos of Uncle Jacks, cause its a great place. Literally 10m from the beach, great rooms, you get an all inclusive package including 3 meals a day, all of which were ace, Uncle Jack and all his family (which is massive by the way) are really nice people and I felt really relaxed there.
On our first full day there, we took advantage of a day trip out to the local island to go snorkelling. All was well, until we, or should I say, I, started snorkelling, the point of the day. I got caught on the coral and was pushed along the coral reef by a wave and scraped all my hands, elbows, thighs, knees, ankles, soles of my feet, the full bhuna. I stopped counting at 100 scratches!!!! So not being in a great mood after that, we called the day a bit early to get back and shower.
After we got back, there were 2 indonesian girls sitting around the social area looking a little sheepish, so being the friendly soul that he is, Kenny started chatting to them. We found out that Erika and Vera were studying to be English teachers and they heard that there were some westerners in Uncle Jacks and they wanted to practice their english. THis is a fairly common event while I have been traveling. A lot of asian people are learning english and like to take any opportunity to practice, especially with a native speaker.
So we all got chatting and they asked if we would like to go to their college the next day and meet the other students. Almando and Kenny were getting a flight to Java the next day, so as I had nothing planned for that day, I volunteered to go. These students hadn’t ever spoken to a native English speaker, and they were going to teach the subject to youngsters, so I felt compelled to do a small part.
The next day, Vera came and picked me up and we took her motorbike (me riding I hasten to add) to the school. I met the teacher and the other students and spent the day just sitting around talking with the students. It was really fun, if a little wierd!!!
Anyway, girls if you are reading, your now famous!
Front Row from left to right : Suchi, Ochi, Erika, Fifi, Nofi
Back Row from Left to right : Aseng, (sorry can’t remember the middle guys name) and Rivaldi
(Sorry if the spelling is wrong Guys)
Left to right : Fifi, Vera and Feby.
They all called me ‘uda’ which is how you address a male who is older than you in the Menang Dialect. (Or it might be straight indonesian, I can’t remember that either, I’m just impressed i remembered ‘uda’.)
I spent most of the day with them, and Erika kept asking me if I was tired. I was, but told her I wasn’t. eventually she could tell and got Vera to take me back to Uncle Jacks. Just as we were leaving, they students started forming a plan to come visit me at Uncle Jacks.
I didn’t mind, about an hour later 6 or 7 of them turned up and chatted to the other people staying in the guesthouse. I was really surprised cause they can all chat to each other quite well in english, they just seem to lose their confidence a bit when they talk to native english speakers.
I stayed one more day in Padang and then got my flight back to KL for the third time. Due to unforeseen circumstances I was running late and checked into my flight with 5 minutes to go. Thinking I then 45 minutes before my flight, I went to the cafe to get some lunch, but a guy from the airline told me that this was the only international flight of the day and the immigration guys were waiting for me to go through immigration before they knocked off for the day, so I put my lunch in my bag, luckily it was the Indonesian version of a Cornish Pasty (or Bridie for those of you in Scotland) and headed through.
The flight was 1 hr 20 minutes but after 45 minutes we landed in KL, how a 1 hr 20 minute flight can be 35 minutes early I have NO idea. However there were only about 30 people on the plane and I could feel on take off that the plane wasn’t trying anywhere nearly as hard as it usually does to take off.
Back in KL I met Karen Husband again for drinks and Dinner, with her boyfriend Scott and we had a fun night. I collected my stuff that I was storing with them, posted it the next morning, which was ridiculously cheap (8 quid for 4kg) and headed to Singapore on the Luxury bus.
I’ll put my singapore antics in another post, this one has been long enough!
I just want to finish this post with a little plea to anyone out there who is thinking of visiting Sumatra, in particular West Sumatra. The UK government and others are stating that Sumatra is a dangerous place to go and you shouldn’t visit. Not once in my time there did i ever feel in danger and there are lot of people who could really do with your cash (in legitimate ways) and a lot of people who just want you to talk to.
If you ever find yourself at Uncle Jacks Homestay, please ask about the students at the English Teachers school and go speak with them, they are a great bunch and they’ll even let you buy them lunch!!
I’ll be back to Indonesia, and Sumatra, just not sure when…………
Ever boiled an egg in a Volcano?
I have.
But more on that later….
I left off just as i was heading from Malaysian Borneo back to Kuala Lumpur for the Grand Prix. I met harry and Dennis in chinatown, KL, where we got the bus out to the sepang track.
Once we got in, I had to collect my ticket, which i thought would take ages, but the Malaysian Grand Prix isn’t hugely well attended and those that do go are pretty hard core and had been to the qualifying day,or even the practise day the day before, so there was no queue at all.
The first race we saw was an asian series, similar to Formula 2.
And then the Porsche Carrera touring series.
After, the drivers did a lap of the track in some old sports cars before the race.
After the race, i went back to my hostel, again back in the situation where i really didn’t know what to do with myself. I had still 3 weeks before my flight to Australia, and taking 3 weeks to get down to Singapore would be silly, I could almost walk at that pace, so I booked myself a flight out to Medan in Sumatra, Indonesia. The rest of my time in KL was just spent catching up with myself in the hostel and wandering around central KL.
The flight to Indonesia was only 55 minutes and we got to Medan with no problems, even though i nearly missed it because i was so engrossed in my book in the Airport!
On landing in Medan, myself and 2 other foreigners had to get a visa on arrival. This was a simple process, but the $25US I had brought with me wasn’t accepted by the Immigration guy as it didn’t go through his machine. So here i was stuck on the international side of indonesia with no money that they would accept, and no way to get back. Luckily the immigration guard allowed me to go through customs temporarily to get my big bag to retrieve my secret stash of US dollars. Having got a crisp clean $50 bill out, they promptly accepted that and i got scabby US dollars in return!!! In the process I met an irish guy, Kenny, who also was going through Sumatra, and we argued for ages with a taxi driver to take us to an ATM before taking us to the bus station. What a mission, and what a difference compared to easy Malaysia. Its like being back in Laos though, a place I loved, and feels good to be back in ‘real’ asia, as opposed to ‘westernised asia’.
We eventually got to a bus station and organised a bus up to Brestagi, up in the mountains.
It was a classic Asian style bus, packed to the rafters with people and their stuff, having no suspension to speak of, and the seats worn to the frames, great!!! Just what i had been missing! Indonesia is also the smoking capital of the world, everyone smokes here, so along with the usual array of delights, animals, children etc, in Indonesia you also have to cope with being smoked like a kipper while you are on the bus!
We got to Brestagi in the middle of the afternoon, and what a difference in temperature. Being 1300m above sea level, the climate is a lot cooler and means you get some relief from being a sweaty mess all day! After a quick discussion about where we were and finding somewhere to stay, we checked into our hotel and found 2 irish people who had just climbed the volcano near thew town that day. They said it was good and recommended their guide.
We promptly hired his services for the next day and went with them for a few beers in a nearby hotel. It seems Indonesians aren’t real big drinkers as this was the only place in town to get beer and we had drank them out of cold ones after 6 beers. (I’d like to point out, for my mum really, that that was 6 beers between 5 of us, not 6 each!) A good night was had getting the ‘craic’ with 3 irish although i sensed our guide wasn’t really following the conversation too well. You know what its like when the irish get a few beers in them, the english becomes a but slurred!
The next morning we were up at 7, well it was supposed to be 7, but i had forgotten to put my clock back an hour so it was actually 6, had some breakfast, got the hotel to make us a packed lunch and we met our guide.
He led us through a pretty easy, but steep path through the mountain to the top of the volcano, where the stink of sulphur was quite great. We passed a few of the steam outlets for the volcano, which sounded like a jet taking off.
After, we headed up to the very top of the volcano to eat some lunch. I only managed 1/2 of what i got as it was waay to spicy for me! The top of the volcano was really spectacular, and you can see all over, including the town below. It hasn’t blown up for 300 years, but I still wouldn’t live in the town, its way too close if this thing blows!
We chilled for a bit after lunch, and let our t-shirts dry on the rocks. It was really hot that day, even i the mountains, and it was a bit sweaty getting up!
I guess you want me to get to the egg boiling bit, so here it is. After lunch, we headed down to the crater lake, and found a really hot fissure. We put our 2 eggs in a bag, and in the sulphur water it went. After about 15 minutes, they were soft boiled!!
We decided to take an alternative way down the mountain to some hot springs, where we could recover from the walking. The journey down was waay harder than going up, and we came down the volcano through the jungle, on a tiny little track, sometimes having to cut our way through. Was really good, but tiring on the knees. I also hadn’t taken enough water with me, and was really beginning to feel dehydrated. A note to you all, take a lot of water!!
After a long downhill stretch through jungle some bamboo gardens we got to the small generating station that makes electricity from the heat of the volcano. The excess hot water is fed into several pools like swimming pools that enterprising indonesians have put changing rooms and restaurants around and you can go for a dip. Even after adding cold water, its still bloody hot!
I was pretty wrinkly after an hour relaxing in the hot tub, so we caught a bus back to Brestagi. We agreed to meet our guide later for dinner (its kind of the done thing to buy your guide dinner), so we showered and relaxed. When our guide showed up, he had brought 2 of his kids with him. I initially thought it was a bit cheeky bringing them, but we ate anyway and Kenny and I went halfes on the meal. It was 42000 rupiahs for a meal for 5. That’s roughly 2.70pounds for a meal for 5, so I wasn’t too put out by him bringing his kids with him! As soon as we ate, i could feel my eyelids closing, so we headed back to the hotel pretty quickly and crashed, I was knackered!
There’s not much else to see in Brestagi as I’ve seen enough cultural villages to do me a lifetime, so the next day we jumped on a bus to Danah Toba, a big ass lake formed from volcano’s in the middle of Sumatra. Getting there was a mission, involving 3 busses and a boat, with a couple of taxi busses thrown in for good measure!
In the middle of the lake is a big island, where most of the accommodation is, hence the boat. The town of Tuk-Tuk wouldn’t exist if it weren’t for the hotels, of which there were loads to choose from, but we stayed at one recommended to us, and as it happens, we met the touts at the harbour anyway!
Its a really nice place to chill out, the food is cheap and plentiful, and the weather is hot in the day time and cool at night. Perfect! Its also got its own mini climate as the surrounding mountains are so high, so there’s not too much rain.
On our first night there, we met 2 american guys, Shad and Alando, who had just arrived that morning, and decided the next day to take motorbikes and explore the island. What a disaster that turned out to be. We decided it would be a good idea to do a lap of the island, there being no way to get lost if we kept the water on our right and the mountains on our left. What we didn’t know until we got 3/4 the way round was that the road was blocked by landslides and we would have to go back the way we came. We only found this out at 7pm after being on the road since midday. We didn’t get back until 11pm to our cold BBQ that the hotel had organised for that night!!
The next 2 days were spent just lounging around the hotel, swimming in the lake, watching TV and playing pool and guitar. Its the kind of place that does that to you. Just as well we went on the bike trip on the first day as iot rained off and on for these 2 days.
On our 3rd day, we decided to head further south and took the 17 hour bus journey to Bukit Tingi, where I am now. The bus journey was entirely on the ‘Trans Sumatran Highway’ which sounds impressive, but really isn’t. At one point (at 2am) we had to get out the bus while it was pulled up a hill by a bulldozer!!!
An experience all the same, but not one I like to repeat!!
We arrived in Bukit Tingi mid afternoon and checked into a central hotel. Today we have just wandered around the town and seen some of the sights. Unless you are up for a 6-10 day trek, then theres nothing much else to do here, so we are heading to another volcanic lake tomorrow for some more chilling, swimming and watching TV!!!