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ECRadventure


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ECRadventure's Travel Blog

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Sydney... festivals and a longing for the city life

Sydney, Australia


We arrived into Sydney following the freeway up from Goulburn. Along the freeway we learned that the Sydney metropolitan area is very fond of electronic road tolls. After a few detours we were able to steer our way to the few cash tolls. We were running late to get the van back in time but due to the significant amount of coffee and water that we had in the morning, we had to stop before we arrived in Sydney. However, as it turns out that a few of the turn-offs on the freeway that allow access back onto the freeway in one direction. We ended up having to back track 5 km just to get to a road that would let us turn around! We then pulled into the hostel, off loaded our bags and the 2 weeks of goods that we had accumulated because we got used to having a temporary home, which surprisingly enough can be a lot of things. Good for us most of it was food!
Dropping off the van was easy, only a quick clean of the van and we were off. However, another experience in the poor service of Wicked vans was the many hassles trying to get our deposit back. Overall our van was good, it caused us no problems. After talking with many other people who rented with wicked and the general service that we had with them, we would recommend that anyone who is planning on doing the same thing go with one of the other companies, like Juicy, XXX, They may cost 10-30 a day, but we’d say they are probably worth it.
We stayed at the Big hostel just off of Elizabeth street and Hay street. It’s on the South side of Downtown Sydney and East of China town. Great location; right on the free bus line and within walking distance to all of the major sights in downtown Sydney. Nothing in Sydney is cheap, including our accommodation, but we were able to get a private room with a bathroom for $89 a night. For example of some of the other costs, a 2L of coke will set you back ~$4-5, a can of coke can cost up to $3 in some places, coffee is about $4 even at McDonalds, a six pack of beer is $20. All in all we tried to keep our costs down but it wasn’t easy. After getting rid of our van we spent the night just checking out our new neighbourhood and hostel.

On day two we went on a four hour walking tour of Sydney, it was a very good way to quickly see most of the sights; Sydney harbour, the opera house, the rocks, century old churches and pubs. Lets just say that walking for 4 hours in the humid summer heat is exhausting – so of course we had to indulge in a restaurant we found right by the hostel called Spice I am. This little gem of a restaurant is a Thai lovers paradise. The food was so amazing. Stuffed, we went back to the hostel for a nap and in the evening went out to see the much hyped Sydney Festival. The festival runs close to 2 weeks and it’s a mix of new theater performances, comedy shows and music concerts. The first night of the festival was free too and we decided to check it out, we were not disappointed. There were 5 stages all over the city that were showing free performances. As soon as we showed up we knew half the city was there as well. The first stage we saw was a variety of acrobatic shows, the second was a huge outdoor music concert and the third which we almost missed was the amazing Indian music box. The last performance was so amazing we both stood in awe, enjoying every moment of the Mangiyar Seduction. You can catch a glimpse of their show on this web link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YvKsrqCwyGQ


Walking home after the show, we were thinking that this festival is a lot like the Calgary Stampede in many ways. It draws hundreds of thousands of people in to the events and it is a great excuse for people to let off some steam. As per the Australian norm, things were winding down and people heading home just after 11.
The next day we set aside time to go and visit the travel agents office. We wanted to do some sailing around the Whitsunday islands and also dive on the Great Barrier Reef. Looking at all the information in our Lonely Planet book, we were still a little lost on how we were going to do both of these on our limited time frame and limited budget. However, as we were staying downtown almost everything in the city center was closed as it was Sunday. SO, we continued on our way with a fresh cup of coffee in hand to the Contemporary Arts Museum. The museum is free too, which is always a great plus! You aren’t allowed to bring in any cameras into the museum. There were some interesting pieces on the first two floors, but one of the main exhibits that we both really enjoyed was by an aboriginal woman. She worked in a variety of mediums to show the plight of the Aborigines and she is not afraid to show the darker side of history. One really interesting room was filled with ~4” of corn kernels on the floor. On the walls were a number of photographs of traditional ways of living. To see any of the pictures, you had to take your shoes/flip flops off and walk through the more than ankle deep corn kernels. What she was really trying to say is up to you, but it was very different than any exhibit we have seen yet. That night and like many nights and afternoons for the next few weeks we spent time on the internet doing research for our upcoming trips to India and the Middle East (Jordan/Israel).

One good thing about our hostel is that it has a great kitchen. It’s usually very crowded, but they have a good set-up, several fridges and it’s clean. We managed to take advantage of this and cook a lot of our own meals. We really enjoyed being able to eat veggies and meals how we like. For two people who normally sustain themselves on a diet of 60%+ raw and cooked veggies with no sauces, our world trip has been a constant battle for foods we prefer. After our breakfast we were out the door to the travel agent to get some ideas on how to organize the next stages of our trip. An hour and a half later we came out of the travel office with more information but no more of a clear direction on what to do. We each headed off to get our hair cut and to get our passports from the post office. We sent them off in Perth to the Indian Consulate for a tourist Visa. We picked them up with no hassles and ended up eating lunch in a food-court at the bottom of the post office. The food court was a sight to see. People running frantically to get meals, wolf them down and run away back to work. The tables and anything with a square inch of surface area was filled with garbage and half eaten food. It all seemed much more a scene out of Asia than downtown Sydney. After our late lunch we split up and wandered the city, window shopping and exploring.

We were in bed early that night, so that we would be well rested for our day trip to the zoo! We got up early to catch the first ferry out to Taronga Zoo. It’s definitely one of the best zoos that we’ve seen; after our experiences in Asia with the cruel treatment of animals, we had nearly sworn ourselves off of visiting any other zoos. However, we heard that this zoo is renowned for having lots of open spaces and that it’s on the forefront of nature conservation. Most of the animals have large enclosures with natural vegetation and areas where they can go to get away from the hordes of people. Only the giraffe and gorilla cages were too small and barren. All in all we had a great afternoon. One of the highlights for us was the walk-thru enclosure for the kangaroos. This enclosure has a double set of doors that you walk through and then are hit face-to-face with two dozen or so kangaroos of differing varieties. You could literally reach over and touch them, they are so close. The whole trip across Australia and we had to wait until this zoo to actually get a good glimpse of a kangaroo in the daytime!

After the zoo and for the entire next day we lounged around the city, surfed the internet and booked a trip from Airlie beach to sail the Whitsunday islands. In the evening we were off for a cinematic adventure! We made reservations at the GoVinda’s Restaurant and cinema. There was a vegetarian buffet (why does vegetarian often translate to ‘covered in butter/oil or cream sauce”?) followed by a movie. The movie is shown in a theater upstairs from the restaurant. The seats are big comfy beds. We watched a funny movie called “The invention of lying”. It’s definitely worth watching.

We spent the next day exploring the darling harbour and the Sydney fish market. We wanted to see this iconic Sydney market as it is world renowned for the quantity of seafood that is sold here each year. It is a customary Sydney-sider tradition at Christmas to come down to the market and stock up on all of the fruits of the sea. We wandered from store to store, amazed at the variety and size of some of the creatures. There was even seafood we had never heard of or seen called sea bugs, looks pretty much the same as it sounds, strange. We then settled down to some freshly cooked seafood, a bottle of white wine and some vine Bernard Calibeaut chocolate all for a steal of a price from the local markets. After our feast we were off for our night out at the Opera house. We booked an insider’s tour of the Opera house, followed by a comedy show. It was great to see the inside of such an iconic building (except the carpet which for some reason is purplec .eek… the tour guide said that when Pavarotti came to sing and saw that the reception went through the area with the purple rug he made them change the venue, he stated it was because purple was a bad luck color for Italians…we think it’s because it’s hideous). Right after the tour we got tickets to see an Australian comedian, we didn’t get half the jokes because of the slang or the references to news headlines but even so it was a great night.

We also got tickets the next day for a show called “6 impossible things before dinner” which was a one man illusion show. He challenges what you believe in, whether people can read minds or not and what the rational mind does in the face of an irrefutable demonstration of six very impossible events. Chad even got to be on stage! Each act required audience participation. Random people were chosen to go up on stage, and they were chosen by a foam football that flew around the room. If you caught the ball you got to go up. Three people were chosen, and everyone got to pick their seat and change their seat if they wanted to. Chad sat in seat number 2.Then you had to pick one of three different tests. The illusionist did these tests that the Russians performed during the cold war to see if some people they could recruit were psychic. Chads part in the show was to pick a card, at random. In the end, the performer not only guessed the right card, but also had a piece of paper on the back of the chair that had his guess written on it prior to the show. The guess showed which person would sit in which chair, which of the three tests that person would pick and the results of the test. The last test of the three was to guess a word out of the dictionary, chosen at random! Quite a show! It was an amazing show, the best secrets will stay secrets because if you ever see the show, you should be as amazed and thrilled as we were. We were sad to leave Sydney; it is such an amazing city with so much to offer but on the 17th we flew up up and away to Proserpine to sail and dive in the Whitsundays!


permalink written by  ECRadventure on January 16, 2010 from Sydney, Australia
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Mildura, Wagga Wagga and a total 180

Wagga Wagga, Australia


Mildura!

Pulling out of our Big 4 campground (seriously if you are in Aus, stay at these places, they are great campgrounds with all the amenities you may need and are usually super clean!) we stopped at a phone booth to make a call to Wicked Campers to extend the rental period on our van. When we left Perth, they told us just to make sure to call a few days before and it shouldn’t be a problem to add as many days as you would like onto the contract. We call and as it turns out we aren’t allowed to add any days to the contract. They say that we must have the van back in Sydney for the morning of the 8th. Hmmm, well, that sure doesn’t leave a lot of time for us to drive the 1300km, let alone head south to Adelaide and Melbourne. We went through all the options with them and then a few out of the box ideas with ourselves, like just bringing the van back whenever we wanted. With our credit card being stolen, they didn’t have any credit card info on us and couldn’t charge us. We figured our $1000 bond would just about cover the actual costs for renting the van for the next 10 days. However, there is the chance that they would consider this as ‘stealing’ the van, and our decision was to end the S.A. / Victoria part of our trip and make the drive straight to Sydney. Boo.

We stopped in at a tourist information booth and got ‘the quickest’ route to Sydney. Turns out they gave us the Bryan Colvin special. The roads were the backroads that may sure seem like they are going to take the least amount of time, but involve a lot of turns, stop signs and slower average speeds. Great navigating by Ewa kept us on the right track and we ended the day a little early in the small river side town Mildura. Our stop in Mildura proved to be a great break for us. The lady behind the counter at the campsite was about 6-8 beers into the night and gave us one of the best sites for a steal of a price. We pulled in and camped right beside a dock on the river. We spent a few hours relaxing with our feet in the river, drinking local wine and decompressing from the stress of the complete 180 change in our plans.

Wagga Wagga 6th

On our fast track to Sydney, Wagga Wagga was a town we stopped at in the evening just for the night. We stopped at the information center right on our way into town to see where we could stay. We stepped out of the van and were hit with seriously cold wind. It was cold! And here we were driving 7 hours with the AC on because it was hot in the van, we should have just opened a window. We got the directions to our caravan park (2 streets away) and drove down Church street, which was incidentally lined with 5 churches, one after another. To top it off they all looked like they were built two hundred years ago. We set up camp at our site and were excited because there was a restaurant we read about in our guide book here that sounded awesome. Surrounded by olive groves and vineyards the Magpie restaurant was going to be a treat for us. We drove around country roads trying to find it for a while but when we did…Christmas break and Aussie Summer holidays got us again! They were closed until February. So on we went back into town and ate at whatever was there… we ended up at a place called “Hogs breath” sounds delicious doesn’t it? It’s like Red Robins, an American style restaurant with license plates on the wall and everything.

After dinner we went back to our van and once again had warm enough weather in the evening to sit outside and enjoy the evening. There was a river nearby and many families that were enjoying the evening playing cricket and floating in the river. There were many cockatoos flying around, there were the usual pink small ones we have seen many times, but this time they were joined by a yellow variety that were twice their size and instead of a lovely coo they screamed like crows, but louder and more annoying, if that was possible. There were flocks of them, we have never seen exotic birds like this in the wild, it was beautiful to see them be free. We settled down by our beloved van and blogged a bit until Ewa jumped up from her seat because something small, furry and fast was running towards her. She freaked right out and Chad quickly turned on his flashlight at the animal…turns out it was a harmless possum, and he had friends! Possums freeze when you shine a light on them, pretty much like deer in the headlights. They turned out to be the entertainment for the night, by the end of it we were feeding them and petting them like cats, it was pretty cool. The next morning we were off again…fast track to the east coast.

Goulburn 7th
All day driving takes a lot out of you, especially when you’re passing so much fun stuff that you can’t do because you have to get your not so wicked van back to Sydney! We drove all day again and finally stopped in Goulburn. We stopped at the first caravan park we saw, it was getting dark and we were tired. The place seemed decent, we checked it and even bought a meat pie (our first one! They are one of Australia’s dishes- Like England!) We didn’t unpack much just grabbed our food and went to check out the camp kitchen. This one was super nice with stoves, fridge, tv in the room and everything was so clean…ahh the things you take for granted. We got distracted by the tv because we hadn’t seen any in quite some time and the lady who checked in came into the kitchen and told us to stop watching television and go outside quickly and move our van as we were causing a traffic jam! We quickly went outside to move the van ( we don’t want to cause no trouble mam) There was no one around…some tumble weeds and silence….howling wind. Hmm. We didn’t say anything and moved our van and laughed. We set aside the meat pie to have as an appetizer. The instructions said you could cook it in the oven or the microwave, as someone else was using the oven Ewa put it in the mic. It smelled so good..then in a hurry it smelled like it was burned…Ewa burned the only meat pie we ever had the pleasure of attempting to try! It wasn’t just burned, it was passed burned, the inside was charcoal. Oh well, next time meat pie! We had a great night cooking, watching tv and talking. We were in bed quite early and luckily Chad had to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night. As he opened our van door…what does he see? Two Kangaroos feeding in the moonlight right in front of our van! He quickly woke me up and I couldn’t see anything…damn sandman and his sand! But after adjusting we both watched quietly as two big beautiful Kangaroos fed in the moonlight, with another one we found around the other side of the van. We got up in the morning and had a quick breakfast, we only needed to drive a few more hours and we would be in Sydney…just in time to have the van back!

permalink written by  ECRadventure on January 6, 2010 from Wagga Wagga, Australia
from the travel blog: ECRadventure's Travel Blog
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Port Augusta... prawn cocktail WTF?

Port Augusta, Australia


The next morning we were very excited to get on the road and get out of the Nullabor roadhouse and the desert in general. Although we did note that at every gas station you could at least get your Long Black or a Cappuccino, no matter how removed you were from the rest of the world. We were up with the sun and drove all day long. We managed to make a few stops along the way, mostly searching for bathrooms and to top up on caffeine. The finger puppet made reappearance in the morning, to spread good cheer to all of the other drivers on the road. We started the tradition of the finger puppet early on in the trip to say hello to all the other drivers on the Nullabor. As you pull onto the highway in Norseman every driver goes out of their way to wave to you, although the wave is often only a one-finger raise off of the steering wheel. SO, to add a little more glam to our waving we decided to spice up the one finger wave and create a character to say hello to the folks. The farther along the highway the less and less people wave, but we tried to keep the tradition alive each morning with a new character!

That night, being right on the ocean we spent a good hour looking for a quality seafood restaurant. Now, by quality we mean Red lobster or better. We struck out and ended up at a fast food seafood joint where we got a small ‘secret sauce’ covered Prawn cocktail. The little snack was alright, just totally not what we had our sights set on. Settling into Port Augusta, we were officially off of the Nullabor and on our way down to Adelaide and South Australia!



permalink written by  ECRadventure on January 4, 2010 from Port Augusta, Australia
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Caiguna...desert and the long road ahead

Caiguna, Australia


Well, the day finally came to head out across the Nullabor and brave the desert. We managed to make great time on the road after a bit of a later start to the day, we ended up in Caiguna, ~420km from Kalgoolire. The roadhouse in Caiguna actually has a small desert museum that makes the stop at least slightly more entertaining than just being a gas station. The road is barren and desolate but surprisingly there are areas of vegetation and sparse forests. We didn’t have a lot to occupy our time along the way other than the sights of the desert, hunting to see if we could spot any animals and our conversation. We managed to see a number of eagles and a couple of emu’s but that is it. The tradition lives on, across the entire desert we didn’t see a single live kangaroo!

The next day we stopped for a tour of the Eucla telegraph house and the sand dunes, where we were again attacked by fearsome flying insects intent to lay eggs somewhere in us. It was a great little walk through the desert dunes until the flying insects started biting, about 20 minutes into the walk. We made a few stops along the way at cliffs overlooking the Southern Ocean. Standing on the cliffs you feel like you are at the end of the world, which is partly true! The only landmass south of us at that point is Antarctica. There was no one around to top it all off, it felt like a true deserted tropical island, it was stunning.

That night we stopped at the Nullabor roadhouse on the South Australian side of the state border. This roadhouse is about as barren as you can get. No cooking facilities, just a patch of dirt on the limestone plateau with some basic shower facilities. We got to take advantage of our little propane cooker that came with our campervan. While cooking and eating we literally had to chase away birds from our plates. Chad picked up the camping chair swinging it trying to chase the hopping birds away but they only ran far enough not to get hit and then would start hopping back towards us and our food. Apparently when you are that hungry, you don’t mind the odd chair in the face!




permalink written by  ECRadventure on January 3, 2010 from Caiguna, Australia
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Kalgoolrie... why is the brothel closed???

Kalgoorlie, Australia


We decided to side-track right from the get go and instead of heading east to the Nullarbor we went North to a mining town called Kalgoorlie, the equivalent of Fort Mac. If you sound it out it kind of sounds like : C a l g a r y. Why in the world did we want to go there? For one we missed the Mac a lot….haha, No. The town has many pubs, filled with miners who come in after their shift, still in their coveralls, for a few hours of drinking and socializing. They even have an electronic display showing the current stock market price for the various ores that they mine. The roads are some of the widest in the world, to accommodate all of the 'roadtrains' that used to make U-turns right in the middle of the street. Top this all off with each bar being served by ‘skimpies’ or women in lingerie, and that the town has a long tradition of legalized prostitution. It has tattoo parlours, brothels, churches and gambling. We said to ourselves, ‘how can we go wrong with this!?!?’ So we headed North, with the 200km side trip to have a taste of a working town. Right away when we pulled in you could tell that this was a rough and ready kind of place; a little worn around the edges with seedy characters almost everywhere.

We settled into our caravan park on the outskirts of town, where they told us “not to walk around at night, but to make sure to take a taxi after dark, because of the blacks (the aboriginals)”. The owners of the caravan park said that usually they don’t cause any problems but at night they travel in groups, so it’s better just in case to take a taxi. They reassured us that they’ve been living here for a long time and there’s no reason to worry and it’s safe…but take a taxi anyway. We found the story just a little disturbing but more because of the apparently racist opinion than for the apparent danger. After coming home after dark, we didn’t doubt them as much as the streets were filled with like people shuffling drunkenly around the streets in mobs.

We headed into downtown and saw that the place was nearly deserted. We forgot to take into account that this is January 1, 2010; a national holiday in just about every country around the planet. With it being a work town on top of that, nearly the entire city was somewhere else. Hahaa… whoops. We managed to stop in a couple of bars, chat with a few of the locals and see some of the skimpies before we headed down to the brothel for the famous tour!


Now, again the holiday managed to spoil our plans. The tour was supposed to be at 18:00 according to the guide book and to our caravan park owners, but with the holidays the Madame of the brothel decided to have the tour at 17:00 instead. All of the ladies of the establishment were away on vacation and the only reason for the brothel to be open was for the tour. As we pulled up at 17:50, a group of people leaving the building told us we were too late. Even pleading with puppy dog eyes through the door wouldn’t bring the Madame over to say hello and let us in. A few more stops around the town and we were back at our campsite with take-away Thai. The great thing about Kalgoolrie, is there are no flies and it’s actually warm at night! For the first time in many many days we were able to finally sit on our camping chairs outside of the van and enjoy the evening air! The next day we were set and ready to head back down south and then East across the great Nullabor!



permalink written by  ECRadventure on January 1, 2010 from Kalgoorlie, Australia
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Esperance..NYE and champagne!

Esperance, Australia


We continued along the winding rolling highway through ever changing scenery of forests. The trees seemed to change every 50-100 km with a whole new ecosystem. It kept the drive interesting, reminding us a lot of a drive through the Okanagan valley at times and through the Rockies at others. On the 30th, of December we stopped into Esperance to set-up camp for two nights. We figured with NYE the next day any place that we tried to stop in would likely be full. Esperance is quite small and it feels like a small town, with local butchers and one main street. With all of the tourists coming to see the beaches there are a lot more services than you’d expect! The beaches are truly amazing here. The water is crystal clear and beaches have white-silica sand that is as soft as can be. The only downside is the water is very very cold! On a nice warm day this wouldn’t be a problem, but both days that we were here, the temperature didn’t get above 21 degrees and there was a strong breeze so we just enjoyed the view.

On NYE, we picked up a bottle of sparkling wine and a few beers and settled into our van – again- for a night of talking and reading. The caravan park was too far out of the city to head to a bar, but we celebrated in style together! We tried to keep the tradition alive with the ‘round the world NYE” where you celebrate NYE with as many time zones as you can. However, with Sydney really being the first place in the world to celebrate NYE, we had a much later start than we normally would in Calgary! The next day, we were off for a drive to the Fort McMurray of Australia!



permalink written by  ECRadventure on December 31, 2009 from Esperance, Australia
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Bussleton, Margaret River, Augusta... Christmas in Australia

Augusta, Australia


On Christmas Eve, we headed south down the hi-way to Bussleton, where we settled down for two nights of doing not much but relaxing and swatting flies. We tried our best to blend the Australian tradition of BBQ’s on the beach at Christmas with our family traditions at home and we succeeded with moderate success! We hit a few beaches and some of the coast line around Geographie bay. The area has spectacular beaches and great winding roads for taking day trips. The one really disappointing aspect of the area was the amount of flies. Now, if you’re from Canada and have never seen ‘desert face flies’, I am 100% sure that you wouldn’t appreciate them. They swarm for your body cavities. Your nose, mouth, ears, eyes, anywhere that there may be a spec of moisture, they dive for it. They are also far more persistent than you can imagine. It ruined a lot of our experiences on the West coast because we couldn’t spend a minute outside. .

Christmas Eve was spent getting settled into the camp, cooking salmon and prawns on the Barbie and wrapping our presents. We spent the night in the van to avoid the bugs, but we had a great night together thinking of our families back home and enjoying our festive cheer. Christmas day we relaxed on the beach and chatted with family on the phone. At night, we indulged in a grand feast of roasted turkey breast with fried yams and potatoes. It was as close to Canadian as we could get, without actually cooking an entire turkey. As per Polish tradition we had “oplatek” ( blessed wafer, aka bread) before the meal and wished each other wonderful and positive things for the upcoming year. Ewa also made the closest version of Polish potato salad, it wasn’t Grandmas recipe but again, the closest we could get. We ended the meal indulging in an Aussie Chocolate pudding, it was pretty delish, a warm cake with chocolate sauce on top, you can actually buy them ready and heat them in the microwave

On Boxing day we headed out around the coast to the Margaret river region. It is surrounded by beautiful coast lines and river valleys that boast amazing vineyards, orchards and various farms. We spent the next two days wandering around. We visited an olive grove and tasted many strange and wonderful olive oils, tapenades, pestos, and olives. The combinations of olive oils were totally new and so delicious! They had mandarin, chilli, lemon etcetera see www.oliobello.com . We visited the Voyager vineyard, a chocolatier, a cereal / nut farm, and a delicatessen with gourmet cheeses. The two days in the region was an indulgence and we loved it!

After leaving Margaret river, we headed south to Augusta and then East to Pemberton and onward to Esperance. This area is famous for the rugged coast and giant forests. In Augusta we took the long drive out to the lighthouse and can claim to have stood on the most South-West part of Australia. Heading East we stopped at the Bicentennial tree, where you can climb 68 meters to an aerial platform above the surrounding trees. The climb is scary because there are no safety nets or guards. The ladder is made from iron poles drilled into the tree and they are very slippery. The higher you climb the more you lose focus because the height makes you dizzy. It was quite a rush to climb the tree; Ewa even had to climb on the outer edge of the ladder to pass another climber who was coming down the tree! After climbing the Bicentennial tree, we headed further East to the valley of the giants and walked the tree-top walk. It’s a 600 meter walk through the forest canopy at heights of 60 meters. The forest is mainly eucalyptus trees, which is a hard-wood species native to Australia. The wood is naturally fire-resistant and can withstand forest fire. The core of the tree will burn away, but the exterior remains intact. Some species can grow to over 100 meters and live for centuries.



permalink written by  ECRadventure on December 27, 2009 from Augusta, Australia
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Perth..viruses, theft and lost time

Perth, Australia


Australia! A continent that has its own way of doing everything: The animals, plants and customs are different here than anywhere in the world. They have marsupials, the outback aaannd they put Vegemite on toast. Now if anyone has ever tasted Vegemite, you might agree that putting it anywhere near your mouth and enjoying it is pretty unique. We were excited to visit a place neither one of us has been to yet and to experience all the amazing things it has to offer. Beaches, vineyards, seafood, diving the barrier reef and a road trip from Perth to Sydney.
We flew from Singapore via Kuala Lampur in Malaysia to Perth. The first leg of the trip was easy and we landed in Kuala Lampur and had several hours to kill until our next flight left for Oz. Unfortunately for us the airport in KL is a barren waste land. We were in a security area and couldn’t leave because we didn’t want to pay for the visa upon arrival, for only a few hours to leave the airport. So we settled into a restaurant where we had bad overpriced coffees and food. It was so cold in the airport and we couldn’t escape the cold and we didn’t have any of our warmer clothes with us. We were trying to kill as much time as possible by walking around, checking out the shops, the duty free, but there really wasn’t much in this airport. We got so busy trying to find something to do that we almost missed our flight – and we didn’t realize there was a time change between Phuket and Kuala Lampur…the flight was only an hour so we assumed there would be no time change…oops. We just heard “Tiger Airways is calling Passengers Miss Ewwwwa Stolarz and Mr. Shad Radka. Please report to gate A3A for immediate departure”. We ran to the gate and were the last passengers to get on, first time that that’s happened! But we were on and on our way to Perth. It was a five hour flight with no on board entertainment, drinks or food unless you paid. It was official we were leaving Asia where the free airline food and drinks and friendliness were so nice!

We arrived in Perth at night and were surprised that you could buy duty free once you got off the plane, score. Australia is very serious about protecting themselves against all foreign pests and animals that could contaminate their very fragile eco system. Upon arriving we were asked to declare anything that may cause harm to their environment, including items such as wood and straw. Why would anyone bring in wood? We would normally ask that question but before leaving Phuket Ewa bought a wood hair pin…if there were any worms in it could cause huge problems for them. The same goes for food, you cannot bring any food into Australia; none, not even the food you had left over on the airplane which most countries allow. Everyone is interrogated and bags are x-rayed and you have to declare everything, even medication. Since Ewa had a straw hat and an item made of wood security checked her bags. We didn’t think that normally people would bring in food. There was one passenger that we saw who tried to bring in an entire suitcase of food. We heard the authorities tell her she would be fined, heavily, and everything would be confiscated. Turns out we over paid on our visas because the website told us we needed to get a certain type but that information was incorrect and we paid about ten times more. But hey...now if we want to, we can enter Australia multiple times for up to three months for the next 12 months. Our tradition after leaving a city is to take the map from the previous city and tear it when we arrive in the new city. It is a symbolic end of the past and a fresh beginning. After all of our fight and visa troubles, we didn’t even have a Singapore map to rip up when we landed in Perth, so we tried unsuccessfully to rip up a baggage tag. Little did we know that this would be a bad omen for future troubles.

We arrived at our hostel in Perth and went for a bite to eat in the area. The first thing we noticed was that everyone was completely drunk in the streets. It was like a busy weekend night in a bar area on a Thursday night and it wasn’t even 11pm. Then we realized it was Christmas Holidays and we were in a “bar area” of town. Since all the restaurants were closed because it was so “late” (a shock coming from Asia where everything is open all the time!) All we could find to eat was a kebab. It was good ;)

That is one thing that is very strange for us, the fact that Australians like to either go to sleep very early or they don’t like to work very late. Restaurants, internet cafés, shopping centers, grocery stores all close before nine. People disappear from the streets and only the shadies stay out. We think that everyone is either really lamo and has a self-imposed curfew or they’re at the bar because all the Pubs and Bars are usually full.
We were feeling tired the next day so we didn’t do much except go to the grocery store. This was our first “day” in Australia and we realized pretty quickly what people were talking about when they warned us about the Australian Sun. It was 10am and we were cooking! No kidding ozone hole! SPF 45 seems not enough here. We decided that it would be impossible to do anything between 11 am and 4 pm. On the plus side once we reached the grocery store we were so excited to have such a large selection of fresh fruit and veg! Organic food! Local food! Whatever we were craving we could get here. The hostel owner put on a Barbie (BBQ) that night, it was all you can eat and it was delicious, there were steaks, lamb sausages, and Greek salad.

The following day we finally caught up on some much needed banking and found some really funny charges on our credit card from Winnipeg…don’t remember going to or buying anything in Winnipeg – crap someone stole our credit card number! This is the first time on the trip that we have had this happen to us, we are pretty lucky considering all the countries we’ve been to! We called Visa and went through all of the charges that weren’t ours and they are investigating it. Too bad for us we now don’t have our travel credit card, luckily our debit cards work at the ATM’s and Chad has a backup credit card. What a pain! We also didn’t know where we would have the new credit cards sent to; we don’t really have a permanent address. Next problem we ran into is our computer. We got a bad virus and it crashed our system. After countless hours trying to fix it on our own, we called in a ‘pro’. The pro wasted two of our days (confusion with when he was supposed to show up) and in the end simply wiped the hard drive. Great, there goes all our data! The following day Chad went down to the place where we were renting our road trip van from, a company called Wicked Vans. Basically this van has everything you need for a long term road trip in it; a bed, camping chairs and table, dishes, a sink and we splurged to make sure we had AC. When he got there they needed the credit card he used to make the booking to pay for it…oops yeah we don’t have that because the number was stolen. No worries Mate we take cash, debit or another credit card. Great, do you take American Express? No. Oh ok, I’ll pay debit. Sorry it was declined. That’s impossible, try it again (they tried 4 times until realizing that Australia debit works on Visa debit which is not the same as interact used back home in Canada) All we have left now is cash. Our bank won’t let us take enough money out in one day. So we had to go to the bank a few days in a row and call them to up our limit just so that we could take this van! We were ready to get out of Perth and get on the road. It’s a bit sad but with all the troubles we had, that we didn’t get to actually see much of the city and spent the time instead sorting out issues. Soon enough we were off like turtles, with our shell on our back… across Australia!

Finally on December 22nd we were leaving Perth and on a whim went to the Indian Visa office realizing that if we wanted to see India we should maybe send our passports away now before Christmas and New Years. We struggled if we wanted to go out of our way and find the office without all the right information, or just wait and send our applications by mail into Sydney later. We had the applications mostly filled out but were stuck on a few questions we didn’t know how to answer. So even though we were running late leaving the city (as always) we went to the office and it was the fastest most amazing Visa office we have ever been to! We were helped right away, no line and the visa officer helped us answer our questions, essentially telling us to ignore everything we couldn’t fill out! He was so fast! “Write this here, here and here, sign here. Glue your picture here. No you don’t need that. Yes sign here. That’ll be 220 dollars. Thank you and Happy Christmas”. Literally that is how fast we were in and out, and yes here in Australia, or at least Perth they say “Happy Christmas” not “Merry Christmas”. Chad joked he felt violated… that’s just how fast the process was! And we were on our way across Australia! We will be driving over 4000km from Perth all the way to Sydney, it’s sad that we haven’t done this in Canada. We’ve seen more of Australia than we have of our own country and when we get back we really want to see more of our side of the world.

We travelled north from Perth to check out the amazing pinnacles Ewa had heard about. Imagine Drumheller, but in Australia and in the middle of the desert. A national park in the middle of nowhere, we drove 300 km North to check out this natural beauty. We left from Perth, and travelled as far north as we could in one day, and stopped at the first caravan park we could find after sunset. Apparently it is quite unsafe to travel at night in Aus, with most of the wildlife being nocturnal. On the long drive up we were treated to an amazing sunset and beautiful skylines. The pinnacles and the area was amazing, being surrounded by the dessert, whipping wind and the limestone pillars. The wind was so strong at times that it almost was enough to blow you off of your feet. After leaving the pinnacles we stopped at a little beach called Hangover bay. This bay was amazing. Brilliant blue waters, really soft sand, but super cold water. We didn’t stop much longer than to take a stroll on the beach and snap a few photos but it is certainly worth the side trip from the pinnacles. If only we didn’t have such a strong dislike for cold water, it would have been much better! We also stopped at a ‘primordial’ lake (Lake Thetis), where there is cyanobacteria that is supposed to have been the initial building blocks of life on Earth. It was a lot less interesting than we thought, but hey, that’s what roadtrips are about, just stopping to see things that may be interesting! The after our trip to the pinnacles, we managed to make it all the way back down to Perth for the night, to stay at a caravan park outside of the city before continuing south.




permalink written by  ECRadventure on December 19, 2009 from Perth, Australia
from the travel blog: ECRadventure's Travel Blog
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Singapore...5 stars all the way!

Singapore, Singapore


We arrived in Singapore, greeted by helpful English speaking airport staff that helped us buy our metro cards. We got on the cheap metro and went straight to the Fairmont hotel. Thank-you Natalia, Dave, Ela, Miro, Tanya, Marty, Agnes, Ewa, Andrew, Mags, Grace, Rudy & Rose!! We were counting down the days to take advantage of the wonderful wedding present from our friends. The Fairmont in Singapore is a 5-star, amazing hotel. This was our goodbye to Asia and ironically we sent it western style instead of eastern, but we can’t complain. We pretty much stayed in the hotel our entire time in Singapore, lapping in the luxury.

We did manage to get out a little to meet up with Chad’s friends from Innisfail for a couple of visits. Great to see you Mark and Sara!! We got to hear about some of their travels, which gave us more ideas of where to go; so many places to see and so little time! We also visited little India and did some small Christmas shopping. Strange Singapore fact: Singapore doesn’t have weathermen or forecasts because it’s practically +29-33 every day with a 40% chance of rain. It rained nearly every day we were there and especially when we actually tried to go out and see or do something. Which, in turn made us head back into the hotel to take advantage our 5 star luxury (not trying to brag, but yea, it was that good ). We may be back to Singapore in the next few weeks/months since it’s a great hub for transportation around the region, which will give us another chance to better see the city. For now, we finally decided on our travel plans for the next weeks. Plane ticket in hand, we’re off for Perth, Australia to pick up a caravan and drive across Oz!




permalink written by  ECRadventure on December 14, 2009 from Singapore, Singapore
from the travel blog: ECRadventure's Travel Blog
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Phuket... retreats and time apart

Phuket, Thailand


We left our friends in Ko Tao and headed back on the ferry to Ko Samui for our flight to Phuket. Little did we know, but the rain that we had over the last few days at the coral view was the tail end of another hurricane in the Philippines. We got to enjoy 3-4 meter swells on the catamaran that we took between Ko Tao and Ko Samui - it was quite the ride! We arrived in Phuket after our short flight to find out that Phuket is run by a Taxi / Tuk-Tuk mafia – there’s no way to get a fair deal for a ride on Phuket island. They over charged significantly, (compared to what it should cost in Thailand) so it’s best to take the public bus, which runs only until 17:30. Just be careful, it may not run from or to where you would like to go.

We settled into our little guest house, where we paid 1000 Baht ($33 cdn) for the night. Turns out we paid this for a little tiny room that was literally only the width of our bed and had ~3.5 feet of clearance at the end of the bed before it ended in the stall sized bathroom, where you get to shower over the toilet (the norm in Asia). Awesome. Later we checked out the city went to the diving shop and wandered about the city. The Patong area is really just a beach, two main streets filled with touristy shops selling all the same same, restaurants, dive shops and old white guys toting Thai women on their arms. We had no time before the live a board to enjoy the city and really only had a few days after the diving before we were leaving for our retreats, so we may have missed some of the finer points of the area. We needed a place to use as a home base for coming back to before/after our diving and our retreats, and with Patong so central to it all, it just made sense to spend the extra time here.

One thing we learned finally is why the Asian men walk around with their shirts pulled exposing their stomachs. Even though this looks incredibly stupid, it has practical real-world applications. In hot humid countries you sweat. Turns out the longer you are here, the more you sweat from strange places. By the time we reached Thailand, Chad had discovered that he can sweat A LOT from his stomach. Strange fact – you would have never learned this living in Canada. But… not once did Chad partake in the Asian custom of pulling his shirt up over his stomach, to a point just below the nipples, simply to cool down.

Before we left for our diving live a board, we managed to get a great walk-in deal on the hotel Aspery, where we paid 1000 Baht a night for a proper hotel, with a decent bed, a semi-normal bathroom and access to the roof-top swimming pool. A much better upgrade than the guesthouse we just left. The rest of the time we wandered the streets, tasting local dishes from the street vendors (Pad Thai, mango sticky rice, fried chicken, tom yum soup, spicy papaya salad, fresh fruit / veggie juices, more coconut coated peanuts) going to the movies, working out and just wasting away the days. After all of our back and forth from Patong we were off to Singapore to relax in major comfort at the Fairmont and to see Mark and Sara (Chad’s friends) from Innisfail!

OUR RETREATS!

Ewa -

I left for my detox retreat on November 28th and was coming back to Phuket on Dec 5th, a full week before Chad was due back. A car picked me up at the hotel and it was a scenic half an hour drive to where the retreat was. The detox was fasting for one week with half a week or more as a pre-fast that I did on our live a board, as much as I could. No meat, eating as raw food as possible, no coffee, no alcohol and no sugar. The morning I got there they took an alkaline test on my saliva to determine how acidic my system was. I couldn’t drink or eat anything before that. I was really looking forward to this retreat, to relax, get away from the stress of travelling- haha just kidding. It was time to do something nice for my body and my mind. I didn’t eat any solid food for a week. I had 4 fibre shakes, 4 sets of vitamins, 2 coconut waters every day and a vegetable broth at night. For the first few days it was a bit difficult but also interesting because of the fibre shakes I wasn’t very hungry. The staff planned activities every morning evening you could do, but if you didn’t feel like it you could just nap or do your own thing. I chose to do as many as I could, there were a few that I struggled through because I didn’t have the energy but I did them anyway. We did beach walks, mountain walks and yoga in the mornings. The evening activities were all over the place from guided meditation, tai chi, yoga, Muay Tai boxing and talks on nutrition. I enjoyed it so much. After seven days though, I was ready to get back to reality and to the eating world. After seven days of nothing, you start dreaming of all of the things you want. Simple things like solids! A salad, some chilli peppers, a tom yum soup! The only thing I could have for three days after the fast was pure raw food so most of my cravings were off limits, including coffee  . That is one thing I missed a lot! An Americano….mmmm. I waited the three days to have it, and it was delicious.

Chad -

I have thought of doing a silent retreat for a very long time, and Ewa surprised me with arranging our trip to make sure we would be in Thailand in time for me to go to one of the more renowned retreats. I was up early in the morning to catch my minivan to head back East across Thailand to Chaya, which is 2/3 of the way back to Ko Tao. The minivan was an excellent experience, getting to spend 4 hours in an over-stuffed mini-van next to a vomiting woman - a great introduction to extreme patience. The first night I changed my plans and stayed at the main monastery in Suan Mok, rather than in a hotel in Surat Thani. This first night, I slept in a large communal room, on a concrete slab as my bed and with a wooden pillow. We were allowed a small bamboo mat to sleep on, and we all were given a blanket. The next day, early in the morning, the retreat started at the International Hermitage, just 1.5 km from the main monastery. There were about 90 other participants who were doing the silent retreat as well. The accommodation was the same as at the monastery, but at the hermitage, we each got our own room. There were no showers, only a large cistern filled with water, from which you took a ladle and poured the water onto yourself. The daily routine started with a 4am wake-up bell followed by a rotation of sitting meditations, walking meditations and Dhamma talks (Buddhist lessons). Breakfast at 8am and lunch at noon were thrown into the mix, along with one morning yoga session, all for 10 days straight. There was no conversation what so ever. Toss in the introduction day and the day after the retreat and you have practically 12 days of silent meditation time for yourself. The retreat was an amazing experience. I was able to learn a lot about my physical and mental limits. More importantly, I was able to explore some deep thoughts…. by Jack Handy (… hahaha, Mom and Dad that’s a Saturday Night Live reference for you) and it allowed me time to re-evaluate the path my life had been leading me down. By the end of the retreat, I was more than ready to head back to Phuket to scoop my bride back into my arms. We’ve been living inseparable for the past 9 months and the 2 weeks apart were beginning to be a little too much, especially not having any contact with each other in a different country.


permalink written by  ECRadventure on November 28, 2009 from Phuket, Thailand
from the travel blog: ECRadventure's Travel Blog
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