olliejohnson

Hawaii part 2

olliejohnson — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 00:00:00 GMT

View out over the south-west coast of Oahu

The next day we drove to the north of Oahu, around the area where they do a lot of the filming for Lost. We’d booked ourselves onto a horseback riding trip that promised a mountainous trail offering “panoramic views in all directions”.

La-hoola stopping for a bite to eat

Soon after we arrived at the base camp, we were joined by a group of 8 Latinos (3 fairly young couples and 2 kids) from California. We had to wait a little while after we arrived, to give the horses that had just come back from another trek a bit of a rest. This was a bit of a problem for one of the ladies, who kept on asking when the ‘whore-seeees’ were going to be ready. When we were all saddled up and ready to go, our guide told us how to control our horses and how it was important to try to keep our horses moving. The only time we should let our horses stop for a munch of grass on route, would be if someone’s horse had to stop to go to the loo. If this happened, you just had to yell out ‘potty break!’

Riding on the trail

About halfway through our journey, during one such break, one of the fat Latino women yelled out “the whore-seees aren’t the onleee ones who godda poop” Lovely. Throughout the rest of the journey (which although was fun to do as something different, didn’t offer quite the scenery we’d thought we’d get,) this woman kept on reminding us how she needed to go for a shit, and how increasingly desperate she was becoming. As we got back to the base camp and were unloaded, the shitty woman jumped the queue to be dismounted and promptly trotted off to the port-a-loo.

Massive turtles sunbathing on the beach

Before we left the north coast, we tried to find the Lost beach, and somewhat unsurprisingly, had no success. We did, however, find some giant turtles sunbathing on another beach, so stopped to take some pictures of them chilling out.

The launching point for the kayaks.

For our last full day in Hawaii we decided to hire a kayak and paddle out to some small islands that lay a few hundred metres offshore, to the east of Oahu. Only when we were ready to launch into the water did I realise that we didn’t actually have any water or food for the journey. So, I suggested to Angela that she go for a swim for a few minutes while I pop up the road to get some supplies. Though we were in a more residential neighbourhood, we were still in part of one of the major towns on the island, so I figured that it would only take me 15 minutes max to get to a store and back. I ended up walking, on a baking hot day and without water, for over an hour. There wasn’t a shop or even a bloody freshwater tap anywhere near the main beach in the town. Figuring that Angela was probably panicking about where I was, I hurried back only to find her relaxing in the shade taking pictures of the sand. When we did finally attempt to begin our journey towards the islands, we managed to capsize the kayak in the not inconsiderable surf, and Angela’s sunglasses, which had travelled all this way from Shrewsbury, were lost to the ocean. The second attempt to set off was a lot more successful, and we made it to the islands pretty quickly, navigating around the odd giant turtle that was looking to catch some waves.

We kayaked to these islands just off the coast from Kailua

The beach we landed on was absolutely packed, so we decided to try to hike around the island for somewhere a bit more peaceful, but equipped only with flip-flops, this adventure was fairly short lived, and we made our way back to the beach and went snorkelling instead. After taking a few more pictures, we paddled back and dropped the kayak off, before heading out for our last meal at the Cheesecake Factory - our restaurant of choice in Waikiki.

Palm trees at sunset

The next day we dropped the rental car back, and packed our bags one last time. We left them at the hotel while we did one last bit of shopping and had our last meal on the road. The shuttle bus to back to the airport got us there in good time, especially so given that once we arrived we discovered that our flight to L.A. had been delayed by 3 hours. Then I was ‘randomly selected’ for extra screening while going through airport security, which even involved my flip flops getting rubbed with some sort of cotton wool, which was then screened for something or other. Luckily, whatever they discovered can’t be illegal, so I was allowed on my way. The flight arrived in L.A. just in time for us to make our connection to Toronto, and we arrived there pretty much on time. My 1 year visa was processed and stuck in my passport, which brought a bit of symbolic closure to the last year’s globe-trotting. I was finally going to be somewhere to stay. At least for a little while.

Hawaii part 1

olliejohnson — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 00:00:00 GMT

Waikiki Beach

We’d decided to spend our 5 days in Hawaii just on Oahu, mainly because we’d run out of money, but also because we thought that there’d be more than enough on that island to keep us occupied. We’d managed to get a good deal on a hotel room in Waikiki, so it was a short walk to all the main shopping, drinking and eating areas, and of course Waikiki beach. We spent our first day on Oahu just investigating the immediate area. There was a nice market under the shade of a few massive trees that we looked around, but we spent the evening by the beach soaking up the atmosphere.

A quiet beach on the south-east of Oahu

The next morning we picked up a rental car and headed for Pearl Harbor (sic). We’d been told that unless we got there really early, we could face a long wait to get a ticket for the USS Arizona Memorial, and might not even get one at all. So, with this in mind, we left our hotel around midday and were on our way. The journey itself was only about 20 minutes, but funnily enough, the car park was already full and it looked like we were out of luck. We decided to try again the next day (and maybe get up a little earlier), and instead headed back past Waikiki onto the south-west of the island. The drive itself gave spectacular views as the road hugged the edges of cliffs with a clear blue sea crashing up against the rocks at the underneath, or rolling up along the occasional beach we passed. One of which, Sandy Beach, is considered the most dangerous beach on the island (in terms of injuries and rescues), but because of the conditions that create this, is really popular with bodysurfers

The place we were actually headed for was called Hanauma bay. This crescent shaped beach, though stunningly beautiful in its’ own right, is particularly famous for the snorkelling on offer from the moment you step into the crystal clear waters. A coral reef stretches across the width of the bay, and lies in what was once the bottom of a volcano; the seaward rim of which was gradually worn away through thousands of years of waves beating upon the rock. The rest remains though and provides a visually dramatic protective barrier, with arms extended around the bay before slowly dipping to meet the sea.

Hanauma Bay - lots of coral and tropical fish

Much like our experience in Doubtful Sound in New Zealand, before we were allowed to go down and have fun we had to do some mandatory boring/‘educational’ stuff. On this occasion, it involved being shepherded, on a boiling hot day, into a small movie theatre about 100 metres up the hill from the beach. Only once we’d sat and watched a 10 minute film about the how the bay was created, and then how to snorkel responsibly (which included a really irritating disney-esque song called ‘ don’t step on me’, presumably sung by the coral,) were we allowed onward to the beach itself. We probably spent just over an hour in the water, and although we did see lots of really nice tropical fish, it definitely wasn’t the best snorkelling experience of our trip. The ‘ don’t step on me’ philosophy has obviously been adopted a tad too late for the coral nearer the beach, as the vast majority of it has been broken into thousands of tiny pieces by fat Americans stomping all over it.

View from the back of the submarine USS Bowfin, Pearl Harbor

The next morning we tried to get up extra early for our Pearl harbor visit, but I guess the attempt lacked any real conviction, as we arrived around 11am. We picked up our tickets and discovered that it was still going to be a 2 hour wait for our Arizona memorial tour. To kill the time, we decided to pop across to the neighbouring exhibit; the USS Bowfin submarine museum. This was actually really interesting (well, for me at least, and Angela found it pretty interesting as far as history goes) as the museum charted the development of submarines from the very beginning up to the nuclear age. Then we got to walk through the USS Bowfin itself - a retired submarine, moored alongside the museum. The Bowfin survived the war without suffering any casualties, while sinking 44 ships during the same period. It was pretty eye-opening walking through the cabins and getting a feel for what it might have been like to live in such cramped and claustrophobic conditions.

View from the USS Arizona Memorial, Pearl Harbor

The Arizona memorial tour began with a video detailing exactly what happened on the morning of 7th December 1941 in Pearl Harbor, using eye-witness accounts and film from the time. 350 Japanese planes launched a surprise strike on the naval base and surrounding airfields in 2 waves, beginning their attack just before 8am. In total, 2,335 US servicemen and women were killed over the next 2 hours. Over half of these (1,177) died on board the USS Arizona, which was engulfed by a colossal fire which ripped through the front of the ship when a bomb exploded in the forward ammunition magazine. The average age of the enlisted men on the ship was just 19. The wreck of the Arizona has been left where it sank as a permanent memorial to all those who lost their life. A small structure has been built across the midsection of the ship‘s sunken remains, with the names of all those who died on the Arizona inscribed on a wall at the far end. After the film of the attack, the US Navy ferry you over to the memorial. The remains of a solitary turret is all that is left above the surface, but when the light hits the water in a certain way it’s still possible to see the ship a few feet below the waves. It’s a suitably moving experience, though it seemed a little odd to both me and Angela that most of the Japanese contingent and a few of the Americans touring the site seemed more worried about posing for pictures with Navy personnel than paying their respects to the casualties of war beneath us.

Tropical North Queensland and a stressful check-in

olliejohnson — Sat, 25 Aug 2007 00:00:00 GMT

The Barron falls

Our other main excursion while around Cairns was a journey into the rainforest to the west of the city. As part of a package we’d bought, we took a train ride through the jungle to a small town called Kuranda, and made the return journey by cable car (which took us right over the rainforest canopy.) The journeys themselves were pretty spectacular, although the rainforest looked to me pretty much just like normal forest, but with slightly greener trees. And the odd parrot.

Ollie feeding a vicious parrot

While in Kuranda, we paid visits to a bird sanctuary and a nature reserve. The bird sanctuary was actually pretty cool. It was a massive hemisphere with no cages, just a giant net held way above all the trees, so that although the birds couldn’t escape, they could at least fly around and go (roughly) where they wanted. My dad managed to get loads of good pictures of all the different types of birds, while I spent my time taking some pictures and trying to avoid getting crapped on. Angela was apparently less fearful of this than me, and even coaxed some birds onto her shoulders in exchange for some food (bird blackmail.)

A wallaby and her joey

At the animal sanctuary, we saw some wallabies and kangaroos with joeys in their pouches - and mum and Ang finally got to hug a Koala, though Ang said afterwards that it actually smelled pretty bad and didn’t look all that cute up close.

4 Mile Beach

This was pretty much the end of our time together as a foursome, so we said goodbye to my parents in Cairns as they flew back to Sydney, and the next day me and Angela caught the bus up to Port Douglas. We spent a long weekend there staying with one of Angela’s friends from home; Brooke, who is living there with her Aussie boyfriend, Kass. Apparently Tom Hanks had just been in town filming a new war film, but though we just managed to miss him, we really enjoyed our last few days in Australia chilling out in our subtropical setting. The town was smaller than I’d expected, but had a really relaxed atmosphere and really did feel (as Kass had said to me) like every day was a weekend.

Our last journey in Australia was a flight down to Syndey, where we spent one last day wandering around the city. The next morning we caught our last glimpse of the Harbour Bridge and Opera House, did some last minute souvenir shopping, and then caught the train to the airport for our flight to Hawaii.

The Opera House

The flight to Honolulu from Sydney was going to take about 13 hours. It was operated by JetStar (the Aussie equivalent of Easyjet.) It was the combination of these two factors that worried me. The main things I like about flying are the free food, free drinks, and the little tv screens in the back of the seat in front of you, where you can watch movies and see that map that shows you where you are in the world and how much longer there is to go. A JetStar flight promised none of the above. We’d actually booked the flight as part of our round-the-world ticket, so had no idea at the time who it would be with (though the rest of our flights had been BA and Qantas.) When we got to the check-in desk, we attempted to clarify the situation only to be greeted by the most unfriendly ‘assistant’ imaginable. As we were putting our bags on the belt to be weighed he lost it,

“Come on, come on! We haven’t got all day!”
Slightly taken aback, I then asked if we’d be given free meals on the flight.
“Free meals?! Why would we give you free meals?”
“Well, it’s a 13 hour flight, so we’re going to need some food. I know it’s a JetStar flight, but the flight number on our ticket is actually a Qantas number-and whenever we’ve flown with them before, we’ve been fed.”
“Well, well, well. How do they make a profit??!”
“So we don’t get meals?”
“No”
“OK, so can I order some food for us”
“Not here. At the counter at the end.”

It turned out that we couldn’t order any food at the counter at the end. But it also turned out that the guy checking us in was a useless liar, as we did get free meals with our ticket, complimentary drinks and (even!) a blanket - treats that they made most people on the flight pay extra for. There were, however, no mini-tv screens in front of us. Due to having crossed the International Date Line, we arrived in Hawaii about 11 hours before we‘d left Sydney. To further add to the surreal feeling, we were greeted by a genuinely friendly American Customs Officer....

The Great Barrier Reef

olliejohnson — Mon, 20 Aug 2007 00:00:00 GMT

Getting ready for a day of snorkeling

Early on in our 4 month trip down under, I received an email from my mum about a place that she’d found for us to stay while we visited the Great Barrier Reef and rainforest around Cairns. It looked nice enough: self-contained apartments; swimming pool; short walk down to the beach, and set in a quiet little town a short drive from Cairns itself. For some reason the main selling point for my mum however, was the towns name: Yorkey’s Knob. She said it seemed an appropriate stopping point for someone from Cockshutt. Feeling slightly nauseous, I advised leaving the booking until the last minute when we would be sure of the dates we’d need.

Sure enough, we ended up booking the place my mum had originally suggested while we were in Hervey Bay, and spent our first day in Yorkey’s Knob relaxing and catching up on sleep after the previous days’ flying, driving, off-roading, swimming and whale-watching. Me and Dad decided to hold a summit meeting with our friendly host to sort out all the things we’d need to book for the next few days. Angela and my mum stayed back in the apartment and probably talked about boys and make-up.

Ang snorkling away

Seeing as we were planning to go snorkelling at the Great Barrier Reef, I’d thought I’d take the opportunity to ease my parents into the experience by holding a little practise session in the evening. The water was already too cold to hold the nursery in the swimming pool, so I filled up the kitchen sink with warm water. I was amazed when my mum actually agreed to put the snorkel on and practice breathing with her head in the sink. The limitation of this technique was the lack of view (the bottom of the sink), and the constant danger of the tap above your head. The culmination of this brief foray into the underwater world was practising clearing the snorkel of water. My lack of forward planning meant that I hadn’t considered that this manoeuvre would spray water all over the kitchen.

A giant parrot fish

Our second day in Cairns was my dad’s birthday, so to celebrate we went to the Great Barrier Reef. We were warned beforehand that the winds were likely to be 20-25 knots, so the 1 ½ crossing to the Reef itself could be a bit rough. Not even my dad was quite sure exactly what a knot equated to, so we were a little taken aback by quite how rough the crossing turned out to be in the end. The general advice once on board seemed to be; take an anti-seasickness pill about half an hour before you travel. Failing that, Ang suggested going outside, holding onto the railing and looking at the horizon. However, Ang was the only one among us who had never really been seasick before. But if it worked, it sounded like a great solution to me. With the ship tumbling about in the waves, I’d make my way out onto the deck because I’d be feeling like I was about to hurl, but to everyone else it’d look like life wasn’t harsh enough for me in the protected little cabin. No, I wanted to go outside and battle the Sea eye to eye; fight the waves as they attempted to wash me overboard and laugh in the face of danger.

Rick and Sue's intro to snorkeling

As it happened, when I eventually went outside to join my parents who had taken an early exit, I was joining the majority of the people on the ship. It was a bit more like a walking into a doctor’s waiting room rather than waging war against the elements. Groans from sickly people emanated from above and to the side, and the occasional (bio-degradable) bag of vomit would fly over my head to land in the waters behind us.

A mauri wrass-- he was about a metre long

When we finally arrived at the pontoon (where we were to be based for the rest of the day,) everyone was looking a little bit green. But there was no respite for mum and dad, as (despite the comprehensive training I’d provided,) they’d decided to join a beginners snorkelling group and had to get kitted out and in the water straight away. Me and Angela decided against joining a group, and went in on our own with an underwater camera we’d hired for the occasion. The Coral was teeming with all sorts of colourful fish of all shapes and sizes, and we spent an hour either side of the buffet lunch we were given in the water, taking lots of pictures of the sights around us. I spent a good ¼ hour chasing a massive, metre-long fish (which turned out to be a Mauri Wrass) and eventually managed to get a good picture of it. This particular fish was apparently quite famous amongst the people working on the pontoon and even had a name; Wally. At one point in the afternoon, chasing a free meal, Wally swam right up and beached himself on the snorkelling platform at edge of the pontoon. I can only imagine Mauri Wrass don’t taste very nice.

Rick on his birthday

The crossing on the way back was a lot better, but we were still all glad to get back on dry land in the evening. We went out for my dad’s birthday meal at a boat club near our apartment, and the next evening he finally got his birthday (cheese)cake, which came complete with candles. His delight at this treat was all too apparent.

Off-roading on Fraser Island

olliejohnson — Sat, 18 Aug 2007 00:00:00 GMT

The 4WD, Trevor, taking a break from all his hard work

It was a 5:00 wake-up for our trip to Fraser Island. On the plus side, it meant that we’d probably avoid the weird old landlady. We were renting a 4 wheel drive truck for our 2-day journey onto the island, and we had to attend a mandatory instruction and safety briefing before we were allowed out of the paddock. Never one to enjoy reading instruction manuals before being allowed to play with new things, I was up for more of a ‘trial and error’ approach to our adventure. But apparently cars are a bit more complicated. I learned that there were 2 gearsticks in our new wagon. One was normal, with numbers for all the different gears; but there was another one that you weren’t allowed to touch while you were in motion, and had 3 angles you could push it in, called ‘High 4 wd’, ‘Low 4wd’ and ‘2 wd’. I found this confusing. It would have been a hell of a lot easier if they were just called A B & C. Luckily though, there was an easy system to help remember what to do with it all. You just had to leave weird gearstick alone unless you got stuck. And if you got stuck, you just had to ask dad what to do. Sorted.

The ‘safety’ aspect of the session involved the company doing just about everything they could to scare my mum out of any vague notion she might have had about driving on the island. What I took from it was this:
a) don’t get stuck in the sand, it’s really hard to get out.
b) the softest (and therefore most difficult to drive through) sand is along the top of the beach. If you want to get through it you have to drive as quick as you can.
c) don’t drive too fast on the beach - you might cross a massive drop in the sand (a washout) and flip the car and kill everyone.
d) don’t crash, there’s no ambulance on the island.
I can pretty easily spot when my mum is nervous about something. As we left the rental place I could see that she had her nervous face on.

Me and Ollie in Eli creek

Fraser Island is around 120 kms long and 10kms wide, and famously, composed entirely of sand. As such, it is the largest sand dune in the world. Somehow though, an impressive variety of vegetation has found a way to thrive on the island, and with it an impressive variety of fauna. Fraser Island is particularly well known as the home of large numbers of dingoes (an Aussie type of wild dog). Off the coast of the island you can, on a good day, see dolphins, tiger sharks and humpback whales. Finally, there are a handful of amazingly beautiful freshwater creeks and lakes, ideal for a cool swim on a hot day, and it was these I was particularly looking forward to seeing.

To get over to the island, you have to catch a ferry from the mainland. Apparently the captain of our little ship was a ‘hands on’ kind of guy, as he backed the cars in through a megaphone from his bridge overlooking the car deck. Half an hour later, we had landed on Fraser and were on our merry way. Dad was in charge of driving us for the first bit - we’d decided to head to our accommodation on the island to drop our luggage off before investigating properly. This hour-long journey proved to be a bit of an eye-opener. The sand was really soft in some places, in others there were giant bumps and dips in the track, and throughout the track was ridiculously narrow. We had to stop in front of a soft patch of sand to let some cars pass in the other direction, and when we attempted to get going again we didn’t have enough speed to get through. This led to the first occasion of the four of us on our hands and knees digging out the wheels on the trip. It took a couple of attempts to free us, and we were pretty grateful when our apartment came into view a few minutes later.

The Maheno Shipwreck

Having got refreshed we decided to head up the beach to visit a couple of sites to the north of the island. And it was my turn to drive. We had to get through the soft sand first though before the easy drive along the beach. More than aware of the problems caused by getting stuck, I got a bit of speed up before we hit the sand and fought the steering wheel as the truck attempted to follow several different sets of tracks at once. Then I saw someone trying to do the same up the same bit of track coming towards me. Neither of us wanted to stop, which meant we both ended up having to do so. He managed to reverse, I failed to move. Sure enough, in my first 5 minutes behind the wheel, I’d managed to get us stuck. We all jumped out again and began digging away around the wheels and underneath the engine, and were soon joined by an surprisingly helpful group of French teenagers. With the help of a shovel and a bit of a push we made it on the firmer sand pretty quickly. Just as soon as we became free however, another car had become stuck. Me, dad and Ang did a turn at the Good Samaritan while mum couldn’t be arsed and ‘watched over the car’. It took at least another 10 minutes to free this chap, during which time me and dad had our faces sandblasted a couple of times by free-spinning tyres while attempting to give a push from behind. Now wearing a good deal of the island, we continued on our journey. Mum had perfected her stabilisation technique in the back seat of hanging on to the ceiling grip with both hands, while wedging an inflatable cushion underneath her. What worried me in the driver’s seat wasn’t so much her wide-eyed panic as the hysterical laughter that accompanied it.

The Maheno shipwreck

After a few minutes we came to the wreck of the Maheno - a ship that was being towed on its’ way to be scraped when a violent storm hit and wrecked it on Fraser’s shores. Slowly being consumed by the sand, the rusting wreck’s hull, bottom third and stern are now no longer visible. Soon after the Maheno we came upon Eli Creek, and while mum and dad had a walk along the path beside the creek, Ang and I went in for a paddle, before we began the journey back to the apartment.

Lake Birrabeen

The next day we decided to have a look at the lakes on the island, taking in the deepest (Boomanjin) and the 2 most picturesque, Birrabeen and Mackenzie. All were freezing cold. Boomanjin seemed a bit dirtier, maybe because of algae, but whatever the reason, we saved our swimming and photos for Birrabeen and Mackenzie and it was well worth it. As you wander down from the car park you emerge through the bush onto startlingly white powdery sand, which slowly dips into the crystal clear waters of the lake. The sand is so fine it actually squeaks a little bit as you walk on it near the water’s edge. The water is so clear that it appears white for the first few metres, before deepening in colour as the waters themselves deepen, giving the lakes a distinctive turquoise halo when seen from a distance. Unfortunately we couldn’t stay for too long, as we’d been booked on the afternoon ferry back to the mainland. One final bumpy journey back to the dock and overly-complicated loading procedure later, and we were on our way.

After dropping our truck back at the rental depot, we made our way back to our apartment in Hervey Bay - this was the weird old lady’s place again (we’d already booked it before our first night’s stay). It turned out that she really wasn’t joking when she’d said ‘you’re lucky you’ve still got your room’, when we’d arrived the first night. We arrived at roughly the same time in the evening - my mum went up to the weird old lady’s place to get the keys and made it about halfway up the stairs before a rather confused looking old lady came down to greet her. Apparently all she did when my mum tried to talk to her was just shake her head, say ‘oh dear oh dear oh dear’, and mumble incoherently. It was only when they’d walked back to the car that she began to elaborate. ‘I’ve done something naughty’, she admitted. By this, she meant she’d let our room, which we’d already paid for, out to someone else. Cue frantic searching through the Lonely Planet and desperate calls on the mobile to find anywhere with space. We eventually found somewhere not too far up the road that could put us up for the night, and in a lot more pleasant surroundings too.

A koala and her joey

The next morning we drove back to Brisbane via the Glass House mountains, and even had time for a frantic 20 minute stop at a Koala sanctuary (so that Angela and mum could see them - though there wasn’t enough time for any hugging) before dashing off to the airport to catch our flight up to Cairns.

A fun city, a boring city, and some whales

olliejohnson — Fri, 17 Aug 2007 00:00:00 GMT

Ang in Sydney Harbour

We arrived in Sydney mid-afternoon and were picked up by a shuttle bus our hostel had arranged for us. In the middle of rush-hour traffic, our driver insisted on breaking only when within about 1 foot of other cars, cyclists, or pedestrians. After about 40 minutes in the death cab, we arrived at our hostel in King’s Cross, which we soon learned was the red light district of Sydney. Our hostel wasn’t so bad though and had free wireless internet. We decided not to waste anytime and walked to the harbour that evening to check out the Opera House and harbour bridge.

Harbour bridge

The next morning, we walked down to the harbour again to see the sights by daylight. In photos, I’ve always thought the Opera house was white, but up close it’s made up of tiles of white and light brown. It’s probably even more impressive in person than in photos. Ollie’s parents had recommended we buy tickets for a harbour cruise (one of those hop-on-hop-off things), so we did that and got great views of the harbour. This allowed for pictures of the Opera house from pretty much every angle to be taken. The tour guide on the boat “highly recommended” we get off at Watson harbour for lunch, which turned out to be just your average harbour with slightly overpriced meals offered at cafés along the waterfront. After getting back on the boat, our next stop, Darling Harbour, was much more worthwhile.

The Opera House

Lined with pretty cafés, fountains, and the odd shopping mall, the harbour was a definite Sydney favourite for the Brit and Canuck. There was a photo exhibit on with poster-size aerial pictures taken all over the world all by the same guy. We wandered as far as the Chinese Gardens from Darling Harbour, before returning to catch our ferry back to the main harbour. We’d decided on dinner in Chinatown that evening and walked back to our hostel before walking to Chinatown. As we looked at the map to decide upon our route, we discovered Chinatown was about 100m from the Chinese Gardens we’d been to earlier on. Oh well, at least we got our exercise.

A flaming Manly sign

Bondi Beach was our first stop the next day. It must have received its fame from its summer activities, which would probably make sense since it’s a beach. Aside from a few surfers on the water, there wasn’t much going on there. We did see a good, old-fashioned family man sitting with his wife and kids on the sand tastefully sporting a hoodie that said “Love to FCUK” on the back. The same guy was spotted the previous day in Sydney harbour wearing the same top. We took the ferry to Manly, a Sydney suburb on the northern shore of the harbour that afternoon. This was a required stop for Ol, since his sister and brother-in-law’s last name is Manley. Because it was the weekend, we decided to visit the weekend markets (or I decided, and Ollie reluctantly agreed) in the Rocks and Manly.

Ollie looking bored beside Brisbane

The following day we had to catch our flight to Brisbane. Unfortunately, Brisbane didn’t have as many interesting sights in store for us as Sydney did. In fact, it didn’t really have any. Upon arriving in Brisbane, I was pretty surprised to find that the city isn’t on the ocean, but on a dirty looking river. I guess with Surfer’s Paradise and Byron Bay nearby, they’ve got access to nice beaches. After a few days of wandering around the city, which mainly consists of office towers and malls, we finally discovered a charming bit on the south bank, with a small artificial beach. We finished the day by going up a mountain look-out. That evening, we were joined by Ollie’s parents, who had just flown in from Auckland.

Brisbane and some pink flowers

After an early start the next morning, we headed 3 hours up the coast to Hervey Bay, famous for its migrating humpback whales that stop by on their journey to the Antarctic. We made it just in time for the afternoon whale-watching trip. I expected we’d be seeing the whales about 50m from the boat at best. After ½ hour of motoring out into the bay aboard our catamaran, the boat was stopped because some humpbacks were spotted. The pod did some tricks for us, which we were able to see thanks to a couple pairs of binoculars Ollie’s parents had brought along (they’re much more prepared travellers than me and Ollie). Expecting the whales (which we were told were only a couple years old) to keep their distance, we were pleasantly surprised when the whales started swimming right up to the boat to check us out. According to the people working on the boat, the whales aren’t the least bit afraid of the boats and are actually very intrigued by them.

A humpback's tail

In the first pod we saw, one of the three whales tried to convince the other two to get away from the boat and swim somewhere else with him. They just shrugged him off, so he probably felt like a bit of a loser. If he does it everyday, he probably won’t have friends for too much longer. Ollie and I managed to find a good spot on the boat for viewing and the whales came within a few feet of us a bunch of times. They mostly did little twirls and pec slaps and did the odd breach (when they jump right out of the water and do a flip back in). The first pod hung around for a while, before they spotted another boat and suddenly we weren’t good enough for them. Luckily, we soon came across another pod which was just as curious about all the people on board and swam around for a long time. The four of us all had our cameras at the ready to try and get a good breaching photo, but it was Rick in the end, with his long lens, who captured a great one on camera.

A humpback breaching. Copyright Rick Johnson, 2007.

After about 3 hours of non-stop whale activity, we headed back into the harbour. It was definitely one of the most amazing things I’ve ever seen or done. From there, we headed to our hotel in Hervey bay for the night, which I’d booked on the phone a few days earlier. The proprietor had apparently been smoking and sun-tanning excessively for so many years, it was hard to tell if she was 50 or 80. When we arrived at 6pm, she told us we were lucky we still had our accommodation for the night. She lead us into the unit and asked me to remind her what my name was. After I told her, she said “Oh yeah, I knew it was something weird. What kind of name is that?” “Dutch,” I replied. “Oh, I thought you was Chinese or something. It sure doesn’t sound Dutch.” Not feeling she’d graced us enough with her presence, she stopped by about ½ hour later to bring us some extra towels.

Ollie's breaching picture

Ollie and I were looking at the whale watching photos on his laptop when she came over to check out our photos and asked if we could send some to her. I guess living in Hervey Bay, she didn’t have enough opportunities to photograph the whales herself or buy one of the hundreds of professional pictures circulating around the town. She then decided to tell Ollie about her deceased rottweiler and having him put down. After she’d overstayed what probably wasn’t even a welcome in the first place, we sat down to dinner. We made it an early night, because the next morning we were off to the world’s largest sandbar.

Journeys on the South Island

olliejohnson — Sat, 11 Aug 2007 00:00:00 GMT

Doubtful Sound

Our first night on the South Island was spent in a real dump of a campsite in a place called Blenheim, about ½ hour south from where the ferry landed. We had a train track about 20 metres away from our van and the site itself looked a bit like Glastonbury festival on a rainy year. Fighting our way through the sludge, we ambitiously decided to make pancakes for breakfast the next morning, having managed to melt the spatula on our first attempt earlier on in the trip. Proving that having a degree doesn’t equate to having common sense, we put the first experience down to bad luck and used the now semi-molten spatula again. And again it started to melt. Well fed on plastic pancakes, we decided to head across the north coast to Abel Tasman National Park before beginning the journey south. I’ll admit that my Abel Tasman knowledge is slightly sketchy, but what I am fairly sure of is that he was an explorer and probably Dutch, and from where we were in Abel Tasman National Park, you’d have to say he’s done pretty well in the ‘naming things after himself’ stakes. (Abel Tasman National Park looks out onto the Tasman Sea, over the other side of which lies Tasmania.) Though the park is New Zealand’s smallest, it must be amongst the most beautiful; with secluded beaches and bays, waters ranging from turquoise to emerald, and a resident colony of seals.

Seals in Abel Tasman

We decided to do a half-day kayaking tour of the park, which involved getting a speedboat to drop us off at one point and pick us up at another, with a couple of hours of kayaking in the middle. What somehow hadn’t really occurred to us was how much colder it would be kayaking in New Zealand than it was kayaking in the north-west of Australia. And we managed to forget my camera. Besides that though, we had a really good time, and Angela particularly enjoyed seeing the seal pups. (Luckily, I had the foresight to remove any clubbing equipment from her bag beforehand.)

Ollie skiing, Mt Hutt

We then had a 7 hour drive down to the Mt Hutt ski field near Christchurch, which took us past some amazing coastline and the top of the Southern Alps. We had time for a day’s skiing before my mum and dad joined us for the rest of our time on the South Island. Neither Angela nor I had been skiing for a few years, so we were both a little unsure as we stood at the top of the ski field at the top of a massive mountain, but after a lot of pride-swallowing snow-ploughing, we managed to inch our way down the slopes more and more quickly as the day went on. We only fell over once each, and mine was on the last turn of the day when I was getting a bit too cocky and promptly landed on my ass.

Thankfully, we managed to avoid hitting any penguins

The next day Mr and Mrs J landed in Christchurch after more than a few problems on route from England. (for greater depth, see my dad’s blog.) They still had one more issue on arrival - the place they’d booked their campervan from had decided to close early, so they had to make do with a chalet on our campsite and hope that it’d get sorted before we wanted to set off the next day. Luckily their campervan company pulled out all the stops in the morning, and after a taxi to the office, they quickly upgraded the olds before dad had a chance to get shirty. Now travelling in convoy, we headed to Oamaru to do some more bonding with nature. We got seats in a little stand, and watched as blue penguins (the smallest type in the world) came ashore at dusk and waddled with various speeds to their nests after a day frolicking in the pacific.

Moeraki boulders

Apparently the frolicking was not limited to time spent in the water, as we’d managed to catch the penguins in mating season, so we had the dubious pleasure of seeing our little exhibitionist friends go at it with wanton abandon. Unsurprisingly, given the adult content of the ‘show’, no cameras were allowed in, so unfortunately we have no images of this to share with you. However, we can show you a picture of the Moereki boulders, which we saw the next morning. These are just big round boulders half buried in the beach, and no-one really knows how or why they’re there. They look pretty good in photos though.

Queenstown from the top of the gondola

We’d planned a trip in Milford Sound, which is just one of dozens of fiords in the south-west of the South Island. As we arrived at the campsite the night before we hoped to leave, it was pouring down with rain, and had apparently been doing do for some while. This meant that the road to Milford Sound was closed due to avalanche risk - we were offered a trip on Doubtful Sound instead, which was meant to be just as beautiful but without all the tourists. This sounded like a load of crap to me, but seeing as it was all that was available we booked on for the next day. We went up to Queenstown and spent the day seeing the sights there. We caught the gondola up to the top of a mountain which overlooks the town, and gives amazing views of not only the town; but the lake by which it lies; and the surrounding mountains, the Remarkables. Angela and I went on a street luge track at the top of a mountain; surprisingly, Mr and Mrs J gave this a miss. My dad did, however, get his long zoom lens out on his camera and get some good shots of me zooming around the track (and almost managing to fall off,) with Angela slightly more sedate behind me, holding up a few nippy little Koreans.

Doubtful Sound from the lookout point

First thing the next morning we caught the bus from our campsite down to Doubtful Sound. For some reason unknown to any of us (even the middle-aged ones), the first part of the tour was to take us around some power station (powered by the water of the lake.) It kind of felt like one of those school trips, where you weren’t allowed to do the fun stuff until you’d done some boring ‘educational’ bit first. This involved being driven deep down under a mountain in a rickety old bus, while the driver explained that we’d just stay down in the power station as long as we all wanted to. I looked around the bus and tried to guess who it’d be that would make us all wait down there. Odds on favourites were a Belgian group, who looked easily capable of absorbing as much power-station information as New Zealand could throw at them. The most interesting part for me was hearing that the engineers that designed the tunnel (only 40 years ago) through the mountain had ‘allowed’ for 50 deaths in the construction, so it was really quite good that only 16 people had died.

A waterfall in Doubtful Sound

When it was explained that the tunnelling process consisted of the not exact science of blowing holes in the rock with dynamite, in the dark, this began to make more sense. I came to the conclusion that engineering degrees at Kiwi universities couldn’t be very competitive. Then came the fun part - we were taken to the bit with the big noisy machines, where some woman shouted over the noise to give a lecture about something or other. In the end, the Belgians surprised me by being the first out after me and Angela and some weird American girl that insisted on taking picture of absolutely everything (including many of the inside of the rickety bus, in the dark, as we made our way in and out of the tunnel.)

Seals on a big rock

When we did finally get out onto Doubtful Sound, we saw what all the fuss was about; dramatic landscapes with vast sheer mountains surrounding us, dipping their feet into the maze of waterways in which we chugged along. We were taken right up into the mouth of the fiord, where it became the Tasman Sea; and there we saw another colony of seals on a rocky island. On the way back through the fiord, we stopped to see some giant waterfalls cascading down the mountainside, before beginning the journey back to civilisation.

Franz Josef glacier

All that was left on our loop back up to Christchurch was a flying visit up the west coast, where we stopped to sea Fox and Franz Josef Glaciers. Both had carved out huge valleys before them, but clearly were now nowhere as near as impressive as they once were. Apparently they had bucked the global trend by actually advancing between the 1960’s - 1980’s, but had since begun retreating again.

On the road with Rick and Sue

Angela and I got one last taste of dramatic kiwi landscapes as we cut through the top of the southern alps on our way back to Christchurch, where we were saying goodbye to our campervan, and temporarily, my parents too. Unfortunately, the campervan place had a little surprise for us on our return, as we were told that we’d scratched the side a little and chipped the windscreen. A few days later we got a bill for $250. There was a small silver cloud though; we were on our way to Sydney.

More Journeys in the North Island

olliejohnson — Tue, 31 Jul 2007 00:00:00 GMT

The remains of the Hobbiton set

Since I’ve only seen the 1st and 3rd Lord of the Rings films and have never read the books, I wasn’t really sure what to expect from the Hobbiton set. Still, I knew Ollie was excited about it and we made our way to the small town of Matamata to see the farm where the scenes in Hobbiton were filmed (apparently one of 150+ LOTR sets across NZ). We paid $50 each to go on the 2 hour tour, so I thought there would be some serious Hobbitness going on, considering the length of the tour. I expected we’d see all the Hobbit holes in their on-screen form (or close to it) and the little Hobbit village all intact. After all, charging $50/person, they could certainly afford to do a lot of upkeep. The farm that was home to the set was massive and really lovely, and the set hardly took up any of the land. I was disappointed to learn that after filming, they had bulldozed most of the set. The guide stood before patches of what simply looked like grass to me and would say “this is the place where they had Bilbo’s birthday party!” and “over there is where the mill and the pub were!”, then would look around expectantly. Pretty much all that remained of the set were some of the hobbit holes, though without their gardens and décor. The clever sheep of the farm had apparently found the hobbit holes to be great winter homes for raising their young and had moved in. I tried to get a picture of one of these hobbit-impersonating sheep, but it didn’t really turn out. Ollie seemed to have found the patches of grass a little more interesting than I did and liked the tour.

Beaches on the Western Bay of Plenty, shaped like a heart

The trip to Hobbiton did take us by some beautiful countryside. From here, we made our way up to Mount Manganui on the Bay of Plenty. It took about a half hour to climb and we got a really nice view of the bay. We were also entertained by some kids with their Kiwi accents calling their dad “Diddy.”

Boiling mud

A few kms down the road we arrived in the city of Rotorua, with its distict sulphuric aroma, thanks to high geothermal activity in the area. It’s known as both the geothermal capital and Maori-cultural capital of NZ. So we knew we had to experience both these things while there. The first day, we went to Te Puia, the Maori cultural centre which is something like an amusement park, with Maori performances, a Kiwi-experience (where we saw kiwi birds), some geysers, and several mud and sulphur pools. As a side note, I thought some of you might like to know that English people pronounce “geysers” like “geezers.” The Kiwis and Aussies seem to make the distinction between the things that explode from the ground and old ladies, but the English remain confused. That evening, we went to a Maori cultural evening.

A Mauri warrior dressed in a wooly skirt/traditional costume

This consisted of seeing a Maori war canoe, watching a traditional Maori performance and eating a hangi (a traditionally cooked meal, cooked on hot rocks in the ground). The evening was a lot of fun and the food was pretty good too. Our Maori guide took a special liking to Ollie and me and kept calling us “Canada” (at the beginning of the evening, he’d asked the group of 70+ people where everyone was from and had decided that Ollie was also Canadian so I wouldn‘t be the only one) and saw to it that we got front-row seats at the performance, hurrying us along with “follow me this way Canada, hurry so I can give you the best seats in the house.” The next day we treated ourselves by visiting a thermal spa and went in the mud baths, then a sulphur pool. Although it may not sound or smell lovely, it was really relaxing and is supposedly really good for your skin.

Ang standing on the tour yacht

Next on the itinerary was Taupo, “the skydiving capital of NZ,” an inland town on a large lake. Ollie decided he would be doing some serious adventuring. We hiked to Huka falls, which is on the river in the town. Rather than being steep like most falls, they were really gradual and then dropped a couple metres. Much smaller than Niagara falls, less touristy, and cleaner. Not just here, but all over NZ, the water is amazingly clear and blue. In a few of the places we’ve been, the locals said they just take drinking water directly from their lake/river. Later on we went for a sail around Lake Taupo on a small yacht. A couple guys run this tour company, which takes you around the lake to see some Maori rock carvings and the greater part of the lake. There were only about 8 other passengers on the boat, one of whom was, by the sounds of it, a paparazzi (she said she works on a cruise ship taking pictures of celebrities). Anyway, she seemed to think her paparazzi ways were both suitable and required for her to get pictures on this quiet, friendly little sail boat. Anytime there was something interesting in sight, she would spring forward with her camera, obstructing anyone else who had their camera out while she took picture after picture. Part way through the journey, the skipper got out some biscuits and started feeding them to some ducks flying by. He then asked a little boy on board and any other passengers if they’d like to feed them as well. The little boy took a turn, but was soon pushed out of the way by the paparazzi’s mom, who seemed just as ruthless when it came to bird feeding as her daughter was when it came to photo taking. When the ducks refused to take her biscuit, she started muttering “stupid animals” at them. I had a turn and the ducks ate from my hand, probably because they were Timbit’s Kiwi relatives (Timbit was our pet duck when I was younger, may he rest in peace). Anyway, we saw the Maori rock carvings, which were impressive, then went back to land before it began to rain.

Making friends with the cameraman

The next day, Ollie decided he wanted to go ski-diving. The weather had been up and down, so there was a chance that it might not be on if it was too overcast. I was secretly hoping it would be, because I was a little nervous about the whole ski-diving thing. It ended up being a go, so Ollie went off to be a dare-devil and I went to an internet café and called the family (I couldn’t really go watch a moving plane). A couple hours later, we met up in the city again. I was pretty relieved he was still in one piece. He told me before hand he would be going for the cheapest option (a 12,000 ft dive, with no DVD), but ended up splashing out and going for the 15,000 ft jump and the whole DVD/picture set. The DVD was pretty cool./hilarious to see, with Ollie pulling some interesting faces during the jump. Importantly, we also saw the new Harry Potter movie while in Taupo.

Lambton harbour

On our way down to Wellington, we stopped to look at the mountains of Tongariro National Park. The clouds were pretty low though, so it was difficult to get a good view. After getting a little lost looking for the campsite, we settled in Wellington for the night. While it did have a nice, free museum that we explored for about an hour and a pretty harbourfront, the city was pretty boring. We wouldn’t have planned any time for Wellington, had we not needed to catch the ferry to the South Island from there. The ferry crossing was, as we had heard, very beautiful. The water was really calm the whole way over and the Marlborough sound that you journey through at the tip of the South Island was amazing. Three hours after having taken off, we arrived in Picton, and so began our time on the South Island.

The Honey Smuggler

olliejohnson — Sat, 07 Jul 2007 00:00:00 GMT

Cape Reinga

Our journey to Auckland was to actually take 2 flights - the first would take us to Sydney, where we were to have about an hour wait until the next flight took off to Auckland itself. Unfortunately, our first flight departed about ¾ hour late, and was then held up above Sydney for a while before landing. While waiting for the shuttle bus between the domestic and international terminals to arrive, we saw our flight to Auckland change from ‘boarding’ to ‘last call’. And we still had yet to go through the international flight security checks. So this led to the sight of me sprinting from there to our gate while trying to re-dress myself (belt, jacket, shoes and wallet had to be removed; laptop had to come out of its case etc…)

Mount Eden

Our time in Auckland airport didn’t go any more smoothly. Our flight apparently was the last of 4 or 5 arrivals in the last few minutes, meaning a queue of over and hour to get through passports checks. After this, we headed over to the baggage belt to collect our backpacks. We picked Angela’s up and waited for mine to come around. And waited. And waited. And waited. I went to check the other belts in case it was on one of those for some reason, but it wasn’t. So, we went over to the lost baggage counter and reported it. Apparently some of the bags hadn’t made the transfer in Sydney, but mine wasn’t on the list; they had no idea where mine was, but not to worry, hopefully it should turn up soon, and in the meantime, here’s a washbag with mini toothpaste and toothbrush, shampoo, shower gel, and most importantly, a Qantas t-shirt and shorts.

A Hobbit-sized tube of toothpaste from Qantas

There was one more hurdle before we could get out; handing in the landing card declaration and bag screening. We handed in our forms, and one backpack lighter than usual we loaded up our stuff onto the x-ray belt. As we waited for the bags on the other side, the lady scanning the bags asked what the jar in the bottom of Angela’s bag was. Completely confused as to why there was a jar in the bottom of her bag, she had to think for a second before remembering that she’d bought a jar of honey as a gift for someone. She had failed to note this on the landing card. Another chap was called over upon this admission, who inspected the jar and confirmed that yes, it was indeed honey, before sending us over to the naughty corner to have a word with a another man called Vijay, who had a very obvious-looking toupee. Vijay inspected the jar of honey very closely, passing it from hand to hand, and then read the script on the side carefully. He sighed. Something was clearly bothering Vijay. He looked like a man attempting to piece together a very complicated puzzle. With a furrowed brow, he placed the honey loosely in one palm, then lowered and lifted it slowly. He repeated the trick with the other hand. Finally he decided to make eye contact, and fixed Angela with a firm glare. “This is a very heavy item Angela…(dramatic pause) You claim that you did not remember that you had this jar of honey in your bag….. I’m wondering how you could possibly fail to notice such a heavy item in a bag?” After further questioning, a few mentions about the possible 5 year jail term for smugglers, and successfully managing to make Angela cry, he decided that the $200 fine was the most appropriate measure, and sent us on our way. Never have I been so happy to be out of an airport.

Whangarei Falls

Once in the city, despite all our experiences up to that point (and all we‘d heard about it), we found ourselves really liking Auckland. A city with 2 bays and surrounded by various mountains and volcanoes, it is unsurprisingly very easy on the eye; but it also has a real vibrancy, with lots of cool bars, shops and cafes, and a decent arts scene. And to cheer me up even more, the morning after we arrived my backpack caught a taxi from the airport to our hostel. And just in time too. A few minutes later we had our own taxi to pick up our campervan (which we’ve rented for the duration of our time here in NZ.) After a ridiculously short tour of how everything worked, the van was all ours. It’s pretty cool - a converted Ford Transit with a stove, microwave, fridge, sink, massive bed, bathroom and loads of storage space. Before we made our way north, we decided to spend another night in Auckland to see more of the sights, including going up an extinct volcano; Mount Eden, to get the best views of the city.

The Maori god of the Kauri forest-- Tane Mahuta

Unfortunately, our journey up into Northland coincided with the second worst storms in 100 years in the region (the worst being in March this year.) 24 hours of constant rainfall marooned us for a day in a small town on the way up to Cape Reinga, but when we did finally get there, we were pleased we’d made the effort. It’s at the very northern tip of the North Island, and from the lighthouse stationed amongst a rocky outcrop there you can see the point at which the Tasman Sea meets the Pacific Ocean - which is more than just an imaginary line in the sea, as massive waves are churned up in the spot where the different currents from the two clash. On our way back down, we stopped at an ancient Kauri forest to see a 2,000 year-old tree. This wasn’t quite as spectacular as Cape Reinga, but we had to respect the tree’s longevity. As we made our way back down past Auckland, my excitement about our next destination was palpable. We were off to Hobbiton.

Up/Down the Coral Coast Part 2

olliejohnson — Fri, 06 Jul 2007 00:00:00 GMT

Snorkeling like true adventurers

Well, after that little cliff-hanger Ollie left you off with, you’ve probably been itching to know what happened next. It kind of reminds me of that season-end cliff-hanger they left us with on Friends, when at the alter with Emily, Ross said “I take you, Rachel.” You’ve probably already guessed that Ollie did indeed receive a speeding ticket. The Great Northern Highway that takes you up the West coast toward Exmouth is anything but great. It’s flat, straight road that goes on for hundreds of kilometres with barren, red sandy outback on either side and you can drive for 20 minutes without evening seeing another form of life or a bend in the road. After receiving the speeding ticket, Ollie tried to explain it to himself and to me by bringing up all these factors as excuses. I think we both knew that the real reason behind it was that tricky little speeding gene Ollie had inherited. Anyway, out driving in the middle of nowhere, we didn’t expect cops to be hiding in the bush. Sure enough though, they were.

We found Nemo. He's just leaving his anenome for the day.

I was under the impression that for those radar guns to work, you had to actually pass the vehicle, but these cops caught Ollie from about 200 metres up the road. I guess radar gun technology exceeds that of the rest of the world in the outback. Supposedly, the cops don’t fine people for speeding if they’re driving 129 and Ol got a ticket for driving 130. Through all his disappointment and frustration, he failed to notice the name of the ticketing officer-- Officer Dicks. After I pointed this out to him, he was a little happier. Const. Dicks explained that there are several cattle roaming wild in the outback and we could hit one at any time. To that point, we hadn’t seen any.

We arrived in Coral Bay in the early evening and checked in to our hostel. Coral Bay is a town built around a bay, with it’s main attraction being-- you guessed it-- a coral reef. It has the Ningaloo reef (the world’s largest fringing reef, as far as I can remember) on its doorstep. That evening, we booked into a glass bottom boat/snorkelling tour of the reef for the following day. We picked up our flippers and masks before getting on the boat and then set off. The water was a bit murky, but we still had a good view of the coral.

Some very friendly snappers

I think the reason the coral here is pale in colour, rather than bright, is because it’s not in tropical water-- but I wasn’t listening to the guide too carefully, I was too busy looking for a Nemo fish. The first fish we were introduced to were the spangled emperors. These fish are quite big and love swimming right along the bottom of boats and close-by swimmers. We kept getting pulled around by the current while trying to put our masks on, because the guide told us to get in the water before putting them on. It wasn’t a great introduction to snorkelling for me. We got back on the boat after that and went to the next snorkelling spot. The wind was pretty strong and I was freezing, so I opted out of the second snorkel while Ollie went in.

While returning our snorkelling gear, we signed up for a kayak/snorkel trip for the next day. We were both pretty excited about this trip, because we thought it would make us proper adventurers. Our kayaking started in the afternoon, so we decided to try to make it to Turquoise Bay in the morning. The bay turned out to be further away than we’d anticipated and we had to turn back before even reaching it in order to make it to the kayaking on time. It turned out to be a 300 km detour in the end.

Us, about to embark on our epic kayaking adventure

The kayaking place supplied us with flippers, masks, and wetsuits and gave us a brief introduction to snorkelling and kayaking. Kurt, our very stereotypical Aussie guide, gave us a very useful hint, telling us to keep our heads underwater or else the current would pull us around. The only other people on the tour were our guide, his friend, and a German couple. My excitement over finally knowing more about a sport than Ollie was shattered when Kurt said that the guys would sit at the back of the boats and steer and the girls would sit in the front. We quickly turned into the star students on the trip when the German couple had to be towed along by our guide. When we got to the first snorkelling spot, we tied up our kayaks to the buoy and jumped in. We got up close to the spangled emperors again. Ollie pointed out that the fact that these fish are so friendly and that they’re also rumoured to be quite tasty was a rather unfortunate combination for them.

A jellyfish getting nibbled by proper fish

The first snorkelling spot was cool, but the second spot was amazing. Anytime we came by our guide snorkelling, he’d point out another sea creature we hadn’t spotted: two types of rays, a reef shark, a turtle, a clown fish. He had an underwater camera and got loads of photos of different sea animals and us snorkelling. Once underwater, it was easy to forget that there was a world of wind and choppy waves above us. The water underneath was so still and calm. When we stayed still for a few moments underwater, a friendly school of small, brightly coloured fish formed a wall around us. After a couple hours out kayaking and snorkelling, we returned to shore covered in salt and feeling pretty proud of our afternoon’s accomplishments. It was definitely the most fun day we spent in Australia -- aside from those countless thrilling days spent at the Plumbers Licensing Board, of course.

Ollie and I sitting at Nature's Window

The next day took us about 700km back down the coast to Kalbarri; a small seaside town set beside Kalbarri National Park. The day we arrived, we went to check out Kalbarri’s main attraction; Nature’s Window, a giant rock shaped like a picture frame that overlooks Kalbarri’s river gorges. Unfortunately, 50 flies had the same idea and flocked to Nature’s Window (most hitching a ride on Ollie’s back) with us.

Rainbow Valley gorges

The following day we went to see the coastal gorges, which were infinitely more impressive than the river gorges. We learned a history lesson or two about the stratosphere, and then got some photos along the coast. We had a flight to catch that evening at midnight, so began our journey back to Perth (with a stop at the Pinnacles in between.) The Pinnacles desert is full of thousands of tall limestone pillars that punctuate the landscape. Before we arrived we expected to have to park and then walk to the pinnacles, but were pleased to find a sandy road marked out with rocks winding through the desert.

The Pinnacles desert at sunset

As the sun set, we took our pictures, but were continuously blocked by some idiot with his tripod out and his family alongside, who all looked slightly embarrassed, and more than a little bored. We managed to avoid the kangaroos on our last journey on the West coast, which took us back to the airport. We checked in for our flight, which was to take us to Auckland with a connection in Sydney, and waited in the departure lounge.

A week on the Coral Coast Part 1

olliejohnson — Thu, 05 Jul 2007 00:00:00 GMT

The obligatory kangaroo-roadsign pose

After 7 weeks working to keep Western Australia’s plumbers in check, we decided we’d had quite enough of earning and saving, and thought we’d spend our last week on this side of the country exploring the west coast as far north as Exmouth (about 13 hours’ drive north of Perth.) Our planned route began with a couple of nights in Monkey Mia, before crossing the Tropic of Capricorn on the way up to Coral Bay, where we’d spend a few nights. Finally, we’d head down to Kalbarri for one night on our way back to Perth, hopefully just in time to catch our midnight flight to Auckland.

So, after work finished on Friday afternoon (where we were given a grand send-off party by a grateful Plumbers Licensing Board,) we went back to the hostel and packed ready to set off first thing the next morning. I had one last score to settle though. The week before we had made a lasagne and left half of it, labelled, in our bag, in the fridge to have for lunch at work the next day. When we came down in the morning, half of that had disappeared. A couple of days later, the same thing happened with a bread and butter pudding I’d made. I decided that if someone really had to have our leftovers, I might leave a little surprise in there for them. So, a Friday night trip to the chemists was made and, a couple of hours later, a delicious laxative-laden bread and butter pudding was lovingly left in the fridge, labelled exactly the same as the one before and left in the same spot. You can only begin to imagine my disappointment when we came down the next morning to find that the hostel mouse had decided to just take a spoonful on this occasion.

Ang playing in red dirt

Our journey to Monkey Mia began with a short trip over to another hostel in Perth to drop off Matt (A friend of Angela’s from home) and Emilia, who were leaving Perth after a week’s holiday to head back to the Gold Coast. After the best part of an hour’s driving, we were surprised to still see signs pointing off the highway towards Perth City. A quick check of our Greater Perth street directory revealed that we’d managed to get lost before even leaving the city, and had in fact begun to drive in a massive loop around it. Fortunately, from this point on we managed to keep to the right route, and 9 ½ hours after setting out, pulled in to the Monkey Mia resort with a moth-splattered windscreen.

Angela was pretty excited about the main attraction at Monkey Mia; wild dolphins that came to the beach every morning for a bit of showing off and half a bucket of fish. Apparently it all began one evening 40 years ago with a fisherman’s wife throwing the scraps of her husband’s catch to a pod of dolphins she saw nearby. The dolphins re-appeared the next day and they’ve been coming back almost every day ever since.

A dolphin attempting to look anything other than a vicious killing machine

Angela pored over the rules and regulations regarding dolphin etiquette in the little leaflet we’d been given when we’d arrived. You were supposed to stay in a straight line with the other visitors just out of the water. If the dolphins swam up to you, or you were asked to go up and give it a fish, you were under no circumstances allowed to touch it (Angela mentioned the next day that she had a strange dream that night, where a baby dolphin swam up to her during the feeding, and forced her to pat it on it‘s head with its flipper. What a weirdo.) The leaflet stressed that these were wild animals and that they could bite. My brother-in-law’s views on dolphins rang in my ears; “vicious little buggers……The badgers of the sea.” I paid particular attention to the dolphin stress signals that the leaflet identified: tail slapping on the water, coming out of the water with teeth bared and making loud clicking sounds were all included.

Our hero tames the wild killer

As we woke the next morning to sheet rain coming down, we decided it was probably best to wait till the next morning to try to catch the dolphins; nobody knows if / when they will appear, and they’d already had two feeding sessions that morning. So, we decided to hit the beach at the earliest possible feeding time the next morning, and as soon as we headed out we could see a crowd had already formed and the dolphins were there waiting for us. There were 4 dolphins in the shallows, slowly swimming around. The park ranger had us all arranged along the edge of the water, as apparently that made the dolphins more likely to swim along the line. They were introduced to the crowd as they waited for their food, and after about 20 minutes of swimming around, waving flippers and looking cute, they were given their food. Random people were picked from the crowd to give the fish to the dolphins, but neither Angela or I made the cut. We decided to pop to the resort’s shop on our way back to our room, and while Angela was still in there choosing postcards, I noticed that the dolphins had reappeared out on the beach. We made our way back down again, were able to get a really good view, and I was even given the honour of feeding one of the dolphins when the time came.

More shells on Shell Beach

Afterwards, we began the journey up to Coral Bay. Just outside Monkey Mia, we stopped off at the aptly named Shell Beach. It’s a massive beach made up entirely of tiny shells (which apparently is 5 metres deep.) An hour further up the road we made another detour to see the Stromatolites . I didn’t really understand what these were, but from what I do understand, they’re something like the first forms of life on Earth. They’re not much to look at though; just little mounds that would look to the layman (me) like weird little stumps of rock. And the information board next to them made the disconcertingly vague claim that stromatolites might have allowed all other life on earth to evolve. For me, if you’re going to claim responsibility for starting all life on Earth, you’ve got to sound certain about it. Perhaps allowing my mind to wander over such important issues, my focus drifted off my speedometer….

Befriending Quokkas on Rottnest Island

olliejohnson — Sat, 30 Jun 2007 00:00:00 GMT

A boat in one of the bays in Rottnest.

One of the ladies we work with, a former travel agent, stops by our desks every day telling us about places in the world she’s been and would like to go with great excitement: “I love Mauritius,” “I can’t wait to go to Brazil.” So when she told us that Rottnest was underwhelming and boring, our expectations weren’t set very high. I reluctantly got up early on the morning we planned to go and we made our way to Fremantle to catch the ferry. I was excited to meet some quokkas (the small marsupials that inhabit Rottnest Island), but wasn’t sure what else the island might have in store. Right when we got to the island, we walked a few minutes to the bike rental shop and picked up our bikes and some ugly helmets (we got there a few minutes too late, so all the slick helmets were gone). Taking a look at the map, we saw that the serious nature was to the south of where we were and the only settlement on the island was to the north. The self-proclaimed marsupial hunter decided it would be best for us to go south, explaining that the quokkas would likely be away from the town. I trusted him and we started off down the hilly roads of Rottnest Island. There’s a main road that runs all around the island along the coast, so we followed that and only encountered other cyclists every 15 minutes or so. Aside from the little town to the northeast, the island’s covered in beautiful greenery, with lots of small salt water lakes in the middle.

A beach on Rottnest

We’d stop every few minutes or so when we came across a bay to get some photos. More importantly though, we’d stop any time Ollie spotted shrubs that he thought might make quokka-friendly homes. Unfortunately, we encountered 3 departed quokkas before seeing any live ones. We only had about 4 hours between our ferry arrival and departure, so the pace required to make it around the island was pretty steady. Luckily, we had perfect weather for it-- sunny, with a nice breeze. Neither one of us having biked in a long time, we were pretty proud every time we overtook other cyclists, even though we didn’t admit to ourselves at the time that everyone else was probably just taking it easy to take in all the sights.

Sheila, definitely the cutest Quokka on show

The relentless quokka-hunt appeared to have failed as we came close to finishing our loop of the island and neared the town. As we were cycling into the town, Ollie calmly said, “there’s a quokka.” Based on the lack of expression in his voice, I thought it was another dead one. But sure enough, there was a little quokka outside a small hotel just hopping around. It was a bit of an anti-climax to be honest. Suddenly, two more quokkas hopped by and didn’t seem to be the least bit timid. Bruce, Sheila, and Shane Quokka appeared to have abandoned country-life, recognizing the possibilities the town held for them, and became young urban quokkas. Quokkas are about the size of rabbits, with pointy faces and short little arms and their hop looks a bit like what you would get if you took a video of a kangaroo and put it in slow-motion. For some unknown reason, when Dutch explorers came upon the island in the 1600s they thought the quokkas were rats and named the island ‘Rats Nest.’ Crazy Dutch. I gave Sheila Quokka a piece of my banana and in her quokka ways, she let me know that I was always welcome on Rottnest.

Perth city centre at night, from the ferry

Before long it was time to catch our ferry back to the mainland. We really enjoyed our day on the island and were lucky to have gone in the Australian winter, because we heard that in the summer months the island is packed with tourists. We even got to sneak a journey on the ferry down the Swan river and returned to Perth with sore leg muscles from our Tour de Rottnest.

The Canuck and Mr Orly go Wine Tasting

olliejohnson — Sat, 23 Jun 2007 00:00:00 GMT

The cellar door at Laurence vineyard

Escaping from the evil clutches of Gary and Eddie, we made our way to the only nearby hostel that had room for us: a hippie haven called Bambu. Once there, we discovered it was only marginally better than the hell-hole we’d left, and came complete with bed-bugs, crappy kitchen, filthy bathrooms and zombie-like French stoners endlessly stumbling about the corridor. (As I sagely noted to Angela, if you will market your hostel to hippies, you’re only ever going to end up in a whole heap of shit.)

Ang getting ready to binge drink.

Luckily that weekend was a bank holiday weekend (or long weekend if you’re not English), and we’d booked a weekend away in the Margaret River wine region about 3 hours south of Perth. We picked up our car rental as soon as we finished work - and got a car that was only on its’ second rental. (Why is new stuff always so much better? It even had that new car smell, and on the way down I was sadly excited to be taking it over the 1,000km mark on the distance counter thing.) Somehow we managed to make it down to our accommodation in Dunsborough without getting properly lost, and also without taking out any kangaroos. There was a slight surprise during checking in; as over the phone during booking, my name had apparently morphed into Johnson Orly, (a slight variation on the ‘Johnson London’ that the lady checking my U. S. Visa when travelling from Albany to Montreal had taken me to be.) Though I was more than happy to be addressed as Mr Orly for the duration of my stay, the presentation of my passport sadly cleared up the issue.

We signed up to a wine tour for the next day, which, although billed as a ‘half-day’ tour, still managed to take us to 5 vineyards, a cheese company, a chocolate company and a brewery. Andy, our driver and tour guide, looked more like the sort of bloke that enjoyed the odd keg of beer rather than the odd glass of wine, but he did seem to know his stuff. He threw plenty of wine facts at us as we careened around the dirt tracks between the vineyards, and I was left clinging to the hope that my knowing the names of a couple of grape types would see me through without too much embarrassment. I thought if I could throw in a couple of ‘mmm……fruity’ comments, or mention something about tannins then I’d be able to cover my tracks.

Ollie tasting a precocious red with flavours of blackcurrants & bacon fat

The first vineyard was an ‘open tasting’ one. This meant that rather than only letting them know when you didn’t want to try something, you had to be proactive and ask for stuff. Naturally, this ended up being the place where we had least. The next vineyard was legendary. Here, they plied us with every single wine in their range, which I think was at least a dozen, including reds, whites, rosés, sparkling whites, sparking reds and port. As I was in the process of working out how the Merlot was heavier in the mouth than the Cabernet Sauvignon Merlot, Ang came towards me brandishing a piece of laminated card that was to become our laymans guide to bull-shitting a wine-tasting. On it we found a massive list of adjectives that could (apparently) be used to describe a wine‘s taste or smell. Some of the more interesting ones: forest floor; pencil shavings; bacon fat; burnt toast and scorched earth. Aromas could be anything from ‘playful’ to ‘daring to be different’. Angela actually reckoned she could taste some burnt toast in hers, and not looking to be the one with crappy taste-buds I pretended I could too.

The forest, some ferns, and the sun

By the fifth vineyard, we both felt that all the wines pretty much tasted the same, and evidently Andy was becoming a little bored too, as we then began to investigate the other fineries on offer in Margaret River. First to the chocolate company, where, if you were prepared to join a queue at least 20 people deep, you could take as many chocolate drops as you could carry for free. Then off to the cheese place. As much as I do like cheese, free samples of this didn’t quite excite me as much as the free wine had. Finally, Andy decided to take us off to the first brewery to be set up in the area. It’s been there 12 months. To be fair though, the beer was decent, and sipping it while looking out over the surrounding fields as the sun set was a pretty good end to the day.

We spent another day driving down to Augusta, which is right on the coast about an hours drive further south from Dunsborough. Here, we saw the point at which the Indian and Southern Oceans met, and had also hoped to see some migrating whales. It was only when we got there that it occurred to us that we might not actually be able to see them from the shore. The road back took us through some really nice forest and, nearer to Dunsborough, past some massive caves. We stopped at Mammoth Cave for a look around and an argument about which ones were stalactites and which ones were stalagmites.

Geographe Bay

On our way back to Perth we stopped to spend some time posing for pictures at Bunker Bay on the white sandy beaches in front of a turquoise sea. All thoughts of bedbugs and crazy landlords were banished. We’d managed to book back in to the first hostel we’d stayed at (and our favourite), so were able to look forward to a nice, easy, stress free last few weeks working in Perth.

Gary, Eddie and the Great Escape

olliejohnson — Sun, 10 Jun 2007 00:00:00 GMT

After we got home from work on Friday (the day before we were due to move into the house share), Ollie called our landlord, Gary to see what time we should be moving in. “Hi, is that Gary?” “No, this is Eddie” “Oh, hi. My name’s Ollie. I’m supposed to be moving into Gary’s house share tomorrow” “OK, bring your stuff by the house at 10.” We were a little confused by the whole Eddie thing, but figured he might be Gary’s house mate or brother or co-landlord or something. Ollie informed me that Eddie sounded like Gary on drugs.

On Saturday, we were really looking forward to moving in to our own place. A guy from our hostel (a Yorkshire lad whose choice expression when describing any situation from an unfavourable to an awful one was “bloody nightmare”) had a rental car for the weekend and offered to drive us with all our stuff. Gary was there in his cleaning gear (including hot pink rubber gloves) to greet us. He was short, with greasy black hair and looked like he spent a few too many hours in the weights room, and, as you may have guessed from the pink gloves, was obviously quite stylish. Before we saw him in person, Ollie bet he was either really fat or really skinny. He maintained that he was partially right. Although we didn’t get to meet him, we found out that Eddie is also short with greasy black hair and muscles he’s pretty proud of. He has the same gloves! But Gary and Eddie aren’t twins-- they’re the same guy.

We’d already paid a deposit and Gary insisted we pay three weeks rent upfront. We said that it wasn’t possible and gave him a week’s rent and told him we’d pay the next two on Wednesday when we were paid at work. Surprisingly, he didn’t scream “I want my money now, bitch!” at us, and simply said we were to have it to him by Wednesday (for reference please see Will Ferrell‘s video, “The Landlord”). Shortly after, Gary and his rubber gloves set off. We started talking to some Irish girls who were also living in the house share. They explained to us that the names Gary and Eddie can’t be used interchangeably-- sometimes he’s Gary, and other times he’s Eddie. One girl even said that she called one time and Gary answered so she said, “hi, is that Gary?” and he said, “no, I’ll get him” and the same voice came back on the phone 5 seconds later as Gary. They said he’ll try to scam you out of any money he can for any reason, like leaving your bedroom light on (upon our arrival, we were presented with a little booklet of rules that Gary, in consultation with Eddie, had cooked up for us). Aside from a 40-something year old weirdo who was constantly sitting in the same place staring at everyone, the other tenants seemed really nice. They didn’t have many positive things to say about Gary or the house itself though.

Note: this is a dramatic reconstruction

After being there only an hour, Ollie and I began to discover the horrors that awaited us in Gary’s little house of fun. The kitchen was filthy and was equipped with 3 plates, approximately 4 forks and knives, and zero bowls. The bathroom was in quite a state as well. Bloody nightmare. Our room was alright, but we discovered some strange little white electronic device, which I promptly covered with one of my scarves in case it was a pervy camera Gary was using to spy on people changing. We tried to reassure ourselves that we’d only be there five weeks and that at least the Gary/Eddie split-personality thing was pretty damn entertaining. Anyway, it could’ve been worse-- we could’ve had a lush like Pearl for a landlord.

Not 24 hours after our arrival, Ollie and I were already contemplating an escape. Suddenly “only 5 weeks” became “a whole 5 weeks.” We went to Fremantle for the afternoon, and to pass the time while sitting in a café, started to make a list of pros and cons of our leaving and going back to our old hostel . This soon became a serious task and a points system was introduced to clarify the importance of each item. Here it is, verbatim:

Cons:
Lose one week’s rent (5)
Lose deposit (9)
No private room (7)
More expensive per week (3)

Pros:
Clean kitchen and bathroom (5)
Save money when we go away on weekends (4)
No critters (5)
Closer to train station (1)
TV, DVD player, x-box (4)
No Gary and Eddie (5)
No stupid rules (3)
No having to clear up other people’s stuff (4)
No more weird stares from creepy Irish dude (2)
Great feeling from being naughty and running away (3)
Good blog material (1)

It became clear what we had to do - the pro’s had it 37-24.

Note: this is a dramatic reconstruction

Because Ollie was so cruelly denied an action-packed government job where he could practice his Jack Bauer skills, we decided to shine as field agents in a daring escape. We knew we had to be out before Wednesday evening, when Gary was coming by to collect our next two weeks instalment. Our contacts in England and Canada were all in favour of our escape, as were our co-agents at our office. Immediately after we returned from work on Tuesday, we began packing our stuff up. Packing and unpacking are usually such annoying tasks, but this time it felt good. We had a lot of stuff, so we knew we couldn’t move it all in one go. Also, we had no one running point on the mission to configure satellite images or alert us of Gary’s whereabouts (for someone who claims to be an English version of Jack Bauer, my partner sure didn’t have a lot of connections). We first moved our smaller bags over to the hostel. Moving our big bags was going to be a challenge, since the kitchen was equipped with a security camera and was full of other tenants (Gary could’ve had a mole within the house). I wouldn’t have been surprised to learn that Gary (or more likely Eddie) spends all his time at home watching the feed from the security camera. When we returned to the house to complete the final leg of our mission, we were in for a surprise. Gary was in the house. Fortunately, a mole hadn’t alerted him of our escape (though my bet would’ve been on the creepy Irish guy or Nina Myers). Gary was there because two girls had had a bed bug infestation. We had to wait it out until Gary left and then we strapped on our big backpacks and surreptitiously slid past the camera in the kitchen and out the front door. The short walk to the hostel seemed to take ages and I think every short, greasy-haired, overly muscular guy in Perth was out for a walk that night, because a few times we thought we’d come face-to-face with Gary.

So that was that. As you can see, we really shone in our mission and so narrowly escaped. The film documenting our bravery and skill should be coming out in the next year. If we hadn’t made the wise decision to leave, we’d still be stuck in a dirty house and would probably be pretty miserable. Although it did mean we lost our deposit and a week’s rent, I’m happy we left. We now have an endless supply of plates and cutlery, managed to escape the many bloody nighmares that we had to endure (critters and weird stares, in particular), and have hopefully been provided with some decent blog material. After a stressful week, we decided to treat ourselves and headed down south to the Margaret River wine region for a weekend of wine tasting.

Hunting Roos in Perth

olliejohnson — Fri, 25 May 2007 00:00:00 GMT

A swan near the Swan River in Perth.

As we flew over the Indian Ocean on the way to Perth, Angela was still trying to get her head around the severe penalties for drug trafficking in Singapore. Flicking through the 60+ on demand movies that Qantas were offering us for the journey, I’d suddenly hear a sigh, followed by “I just can’t believe that you get executed for drug smuggling…it’s just ridiculous….I mean, so much for believing that drug dealers can turn their lives around eh?!” Wondering exactly what’d caused this little outburst I smile, sympathetically shake my head, and return my attention to the movie before checking my bag for any Canadian-bound merchandise that might have been planted there.

Waiting in the taxi queue at the airport a few hours later, Angela thought she’d enquire about the tipping etiquette. Big mistake. The hobo that had somehow found employment looking after the taxis at the airport was incensed by the very idea. “Bloody Americans!! Another bloody stupid idea by them to get us all to pay more, so the bloody employers don’t have to pay any wages! It’s a bloody disgrace.” Slightly taken aback, slightly jetlagged, we just stood there, thinking that he’d said his piece. Oh no. As though we’d attempted to defend this scandalous practice, he suddenly turned around again; bright red nose and wrinkly cheeks poking out through the grey scraggly mass of beard and hair that had seemingly overtaken his head. “Look, just you pay what it says on the meter. No more, no less, alright?” With one last exasperated sigh and shake of the head, the issue had been laid to rest. Welcome to Australia.

Ollie sitting on Cottesloe beach

We eventually found our way to the hostel (which was just north of the city centre) and settled in. We started job hunting and flat-hunting straight away, but both had a similar amount of success. That being none. As the weather was still surprisingly warm, and because it had been recommended to us to do so, we made our way to the west of the city while we continued our search. Here we stayed at a hostel right next to Cottesloe Beach, which (as far as we’re aware) is thought to be pretty much the best beach in the city. It was while we were here that we finally had some success in our searching - we’d both landed a job (for at least the next 2 weeks) at the same place. Hooray! Although, we did feel that we’d kind of earned it after sitting through a 2 hour induction at the temp agency run by a guy with halitosis. Our stinky friend at the agency described it as working for a government department, which sounds a hell of a lot more mysterious, and well, like 24 or something, than the actual agency we’ve ended up in…. the Plumbers Licensing Board. (Incidentally, after taking the 24 personality test online, I was delighted to find that I’m Jack Bauer. Angela claims that I lied on the test, but I maintain that I would, on discovering a bomb, cordon off the area and then disarm it myself.) Work could be a lot worse though; it’s pretty easy, and we’re in the same place (well, sat opposite each other to be exact) so we’ve been pretty lucky really. The only thing is that it’s to the north of the city, and not wanting the ridiculously long commute that faced us staying in Cottesloe, we decided to move back to where we’d started; Northbridge. A couple of days later, we’d also sorted out more permanent accommodation too, which we move in to this weekend. It’s in a massive house-share, but at least we get our own room.

Some jetties/boat bit.

Aside from the moving and working, we’ve managed a few little journeys in and around the city since we’ve been here. Last weekend we headed down to Fremantle, which is a really nice little harbour town about 30 mins away by train. We went to the Fremantle Market, where everything from fruit and fish to local art and crafts were on sale, before heading to a really cool bar that we’d read about; Little Creatures. This is a brewery / bar / restaurant right on the harbour, where you can drink the beer that’s been made right on the premises. And it’s pretty good too.

What's this??!! Ollie finds roo tracks.

The next day we headed to Heirisson Island, which is in the middle of the Swan River, just to the south of the city centre. Here, we’d heard about a wild colony of convict kangaroos that were fenced in to the lower half of the island. Having not seen any wild kangaroos since we’d arrived, I thought it was best to pay them a visit.
When we arrived, I was delighted to find that you could actually enter the roos’ enclosure. Angela however, was not so sure. “Can’t they break your leg with a kick or something?” I reassured her that I could probably take a roo if it tried any funny business, before darting through the gate to begin the hunt.

Kangaroo and The City

15 minutes later we’d still not seen even the slightest hint of kangaroo. We’d seen some rocks that looked like roos from a distance and a statue of some naked aboriginal guy pretending to lift some weights, but no actual roos. Just as I began to lose all hope of finding my marsupial friends I stumbled, Steve Irwin-esq, across some roo tracks. My expert eye told me they were recent. 5 minutes of tracking later, and I had found them - poking out of some reeds; a couple of ears, and attached to the ears, a kangaroo! We inched closer, but the roos were so chilled out / tired / tame, that we were able to get right up next to them for the obligatory photos. I was pretty excited about it all. Little did either of us realise what horrors were awaiting us over the next week.

This kangaroo just spent the whole time chilling. While I (Ollie) crept up to awe at mother nature, he yawned and scratched his balls. Legend.

3 Days in Singapore

olliejohnson — Sun, 06 May 2007 00:00:00 GMT

The man himself: Raffles.

We arrived in Singapore mid-afternoon to find there was a subway connection from the airport into the city. Stepping onto the underground, we tried to keep in mind the several Singaporean laws we’d checked up on at Ben’s (Ollie’s brother) earlier in the day. Thanks to my Nana, we had already learned of the “No spitting out gum” and “No littering” laws, but Wikipedia was able to fill in the rest of the gaps for us. These included:
You must flush toilets
No eating/drinking on public transit
No standing water
No Malaysian newspapers (which we thought was going to be most difficult to comply with--how could we cope 4 whole days without one?)
No oral sex, except as foreplay

Along with Ben and Ellie, we puzzled over how exactly the Singaporean police enforce the last one.

The Sultan Mosque

After we got off the impeccably clean and efficient MRT (the Singapore tube/metro, which Ollie insisted on calling the “tram” for no good reason), it was a short walk to our hostel. We followed our given directions for a couple blocks past Raffles Hospital, past the Sultan Mosque (which we would later learn was the location of our trusty alarm clock), but were unable to find the hostel. A few locals took one look at us with our backpacks and pointed us in the right direction. After getting settled in, we headed out for dinner at a Vietnamese restaurant. Walking along, it was clear everyone obeyed the “no littering law,” as there wasn’t a spec of garbage (“rubbish” to some of you) in sight. Ollie commented that Singapore was quite like going into that friend’s house we all had when we were little that was spotless and filled with expensive things and you were afraid to touch anything.

We had plans to catch up on our jet lag and sleep-in as late as we needed to, but unfortunately the Sultan Mosque had other plans for us. Shortly after 5:30 am, we were awoken by some strange singing. My first thought was that it was a songbird (speaking of songbirds, how’s that annoying mocking bird-frog in the yard, Dad? Have you “taken care” of it yet?). Ollie (rather sharply for such an early hour) pointed out that it was the dawn Call-to-prayer at the mosque. After about 10 minutes, our friend stopped singing, but it wasn’t until much later that I was finally able to fall asleep.

The Singapore Sling. Great photo, Angela.

When we did wake-up willingly, it was monsooning outside. Ollie insisted that these types of things usually only last an hour. After two hours of monsoon, we decided to face the day and see some sights. Ollie’s Grandpa and Hazel (my 80-year old friend I made on the plane from Toronto to Manchester) both suggested we go to Raffles and get a famous Singapore Sling. It was a bit of a hike to Raffles place, but the building was impressive. On the second floor, we found the Long Bar-- home to the $25 Singapore Sling. A few minutes of hesitation later, we decided to go for it and splurge on the famous Slings. Because we were throwing down $50 for two cocktails (and also because Ollie was drinking a cocktail), we made sure the occasion was well photographed and remembered. Our next “tram” journey took us to the Boat Quay, just at the mouth of the Singapore river. Here, we had some dodgy Chinese food at a riverside restaurant, Seafood on the Harbour, where the waiter seemed a little confused by the fact that we didn’t order any seafood. We then checked out some nearby sites, including the statue of Raffles, the parliament buildings, and the Merlion.

Fake Gaudi in Sentosa

The following morning we were again awoken at 5:30 and later journeyed to Sentosa, a small island off the south of the main city. At first it seemed like Singapore’s version of Disneyworld, without so many rides. It had some nice beaches to the south and pretty sites throughout. While making our way to the mini golf, we stumbled upon some multicoloured mosaic fountains. We decided that someone from Sentosa must have visited Barcelona-- either that or Gaudi had visited Sentosa. Our game of mini golf wasn’t quite as enjoyable as we’d hoped. Rather than that usual felty, green stuff you play mini golf on, it was instead more like gym floor. The ball wouldn’t stay still long enough for you to putt it, so it was a bit of a trick working it all out. The rest of the attractions seemed a bit overpriced and the heat was starting to get unbearable, so we headed back to the main city. That evening we went for dinner on the famous Orchard Road. The street is lined with several shopping malls, each housing different types of stores from discount to high-end.

Merlion against a skyscraper backdrop.

We had a flight to catch the following morning at 9:05 and figured we should be getting up in time to catch the MRT at 6:00 to be at the airport for 7:00. We discussed not setting our alarm at all and letting the dude at the Mosque wake us up at 5:30, but I was worried that because it was Saturday they may not do things at the same time. He proved me wrong when the singing came that morning at 5:30, just as my phone alarm was going off. We headed off to the MRT in good time and got to the airport in plenty of time. We stopped off at a pharmacy in the airport and tried to buy some gum to chew on the plane to ease the pressure changes. The woman at the pharmacy insisted on taking our passport details if we wanted to buy the gum (in case we intended to OD on chewing gum?), so we passed and just coped on the plane without it. Our boarding cards had stickers with “GATE CLOSES 15 BEFORE TAKE-OFF” in bold letters, so we were surprised to look up on the screens 45 minutes before departure to see “LAST CALL--GATE CLOSING” beside our flight number. After dashing to the gate, Ollie set off the alarm on the scanner door-thingy you walk through. It seemed either child labour is legal in Singapore or it was “take your kids to work” day, as Ollie was frisked by a boy no older than 12. And he’d like me to add that no, he didn’t enjoy it.

Setting Off

olliejohnson — Sun, 06 May 2007 00:00:00 GMT

After 10 weeks back in England, my travelling started again when I picked Angela up from Manchester airport at the ridiculously early time of 6:00. So began a whirlwind tour of England that would take in many of the major sights: Manchester, Leeds, Bristol, Cockshutt, Shellingford… Taking full advantage of BA’s online check-in facility, I moved us into the emergency exit seats. For the 13 hour flight to Singapore, I thought this was a genius move. There was concern that this might mean we lost our individual TV screens, but as we later found out, you still get one - it’s just hidden away in your armrest. Phew!

As we were waiting to go through the security checks at Heathrow, I glanced behind and saw a guy that looked a bit like Michael Clarke (Aussie cricketer) a couple of places behind me. Reasoning that the World Cup (which Australia had won) had only just ended in the Caribbean, I thought it couldn’t be - going through London seemed a little like going the long way round. But then Andrew Symonds (another Aussie cricketer, with pretty recognisable dreadlocked hair) came through a side bit right by us. As he walked through, the chap in front of us offered a good-willed ‘congratulations’, only to be sneered at in reply. Slightly baffled by this confrontation, Angela asked whether I knew who that guy was. I told her, and she looked suitably non-plussed. “Oh. I thought he just worked here or something. It seemed a bit strange that someone was congratulating him.“ I tried to impress on her how big a deal this guy was - “he plays for Australia!“ Nothing. “They’ve just won the World Cup!” Then, around the corner came 3 more players, including the captain, Ricky Ponting. Disappointingly, he wasn’t actually carrying the World Cup itself through security. For some reason, I’d always imagined that’s what people would do if they won major things like that. Seeing as our flight was eventually heading to Sydney (though we were getting off when it stopped in Singapore), I’d assumed that they’d be on our plane. Unfortunately not (though I didn’t actually find that out until about 11 hours in to the flight. This hadn’t stopped me from telling the guy next to me that the cricketers were up front in 1st class.)

Around the world in 180 days

olliejohnson — Fri, 09 Feb 2007 00:00:00 GMT

The first proper snowman of my trip

Due to staying in Canada and missing my flight back to Sydney, I suddenly found myself without any travel plans. Flights between Canada and Australia are bloody expensive round trip, but one way are even more so. Another consideration was that I needed to return to England at some point before next September in order to get my working holiday visa for Canada. So, it seemed to make quite a bit of sense for me to do that now, and then head back to Aus. I found a cheap flight from Toronto to London (check airtransat out for good deals to/from Canada) and arrived back in the middle of last week. Having escaped temperatures of -15 C (-28 C with wind chill) in Toronto, I brought the cold weather back with me, and a big snowfall arrived during my first night back in the country. This finally gave me the opportunity that had been cruelly denied me for the entire time that I'd been in Canada; to build a proper snowman. I was staying with my brother at the time, and we headed out first thing with his dogs to take advantage of the snow before it melted. As I began rolling up the first ball, I was delighted to find that I was using the only type of snow I'd ever known until my recent excursion in North America: good old British packing snow. Unfortunately, coal was in short supply, and searching our pockets for suitable replacements, we had to rely on dog treats for the snowman's features; but a fine figure was created none the less.

Back in the Cock

That weekend, I finally saw Mr and Mrs J again, about 8 months before they were expecting to see me. Clearly, both were delighted, if a little confused, and I'm now taking full advantage of the goodwill back home in Cockshutt. I'll be here for the next 6 weeks or so (which is about how long the visa process takes,) before heading back off to Australia.

So, after just over 6 months, I'm back where I began. The first part of my travels is over, which will, of course, mean the end of this particular blog. In a couple of months, if I've found anything interesting to write about, then I might just start a new one.
For now, the length of time I'll be here makes getting a job an unfortunate necessity. Working 9-5 back in the Shrews. Back to earth with a bang.

Crazy Old women

olliejohnson — Sat, 20 Jan 2007 00:00:00 GMT

The Canadian (better) Falls

Last weekend, Angela and I headed off to Niagara Falls, which is only a 2 hour drive away from here. I thought it would be nice to see the Falls in Winter, which it was, but it was also bitterly cold, and snowing heavily. Luckily our hotel was just a street up from the Falls themselves, and right next to the Rainbow Bridge (which takes you over the river into America), so our time outside was fairly short, though we still got to walk up to the Canadian Falls, and over the bridge for a few minutes in the USA. The main highlight of our trip however, was not one of the wonders of the natural world. It was, in fact, an old lady in a casino.

Angela and the American Falls

After we’d managed to gamble away the tiny amount that we’d decided we could afford, we grabbed dinner in a restaurant inside the casino itself. As we came out, there was a live band playing covers of loads of old songs. We stopped to watch them for a short while, and only after we’d been there for a couple of minutes did I notice a tiny hunched bundle of clothes, swaying in time to the beat at the front of the stage. Only, on closer inspection, it turned out to be a little old lady (who looked as though she was at least in her late 80’s), perched on the front of the stage with her little legs dangling down in front of her. She was wrapped up unnecessarily snugly in the heat of the casino, refusing to do so much as ditch the headscarf. To complete the old Granny look, she had her knitting to one side of her. The only thing that made her stand out quite as much as she did, and that had led to a fairly sizable crowd to form in a semicircle around her, was the fact that she was playing along with the rest of the band. On her walking stick. That’s right, a little old lady, knitting to one side, was perched on the edge of the stage playing air guitar on her walking stick. And it wasn’t something that she’d decided to do just for a second or even a minute. She spent the next half an hour strumming along to the music, with jaw set and a steely glint of determination in her eye.

An icy tree and the American Falls

After the band took a 10 minute break, they returned with even cheesier songs, such as “Hey Mickey“, and “Like a Virgin”. The little old dear could no longer keep seated. She had to get up and dance (though still playing air guitar on the walking stick). And she wasn’t prepared to do this on her own. She started stalking the crowd of onlookers, turning like an oil tanker before setting course and approaching her pray with an uncomfortably slow sense of inevitability, and pulling her victims in to dance with her. It was while she was in the midst of this crowd interaction that I saw her slowly turn to where me and Angela were standing, and ease on the accelerator. Like in that scene in Austin Powers where the guard gets run over by a steam-roller, I saw this coming from a long way off, had plenty of time to act, and yet felt rooted to the spot. Snapping myself out of this trance, I tried to dart around the corner, only to feel Angela holding on to my arm, tugging me back. “She just wants to dance with you!” My eyes must have shown my blind terror at the thought of not only having to attempt to dance sober, but having to do so in front of a massive crowd of people with a crazy little old lady, who would just stand there playing the air guitar on her walking stick.

A frozen bush and the American Falls

With hindsight, perhaps I should have explained this at the time to Angela. It certainly wouldn’t have been hard to at least have given a slightly more eloquent response than the one my terrorised mind came up with: “F**k that!”. I yanked my arm back and ran to hide behind a slot machine. Yes, a large group of people had just seen me run away from a little old lady, but at least here, crouched behind a slot machine, I was safe. I gave it a couple of minutes before I slowly peeked around the corner. And there was Angela, with a couple of other girls, dancing with the old lady. Feeling slightly ashamed of myself, I crept my way towards her around the back of the crowd. She soon spotted me, and started edging her way away from the old lady. Luckily she didn’t seem remotely pissed-off at me for deserting her. “I just couldn’t run away from her and leave her like that.” I shook my head, and said, “Canadians,” as if that explained it all. We watched a few more victims get sucked into join her ladyship, and then made our way back to the hotel.

The other London

olliejohnson — Wed, 20 Dec 2006 00:00:00 GMT

Me and Montreal from Mont Royale

In South-western Ontario, nestled halfway between Toronto and Detroit, and in one of the most southerly points in all of Canada, lies a little city called London. Only it's not all that little - it's home to roughly 350,000 (proudly laying claim to being Canada's 11th largest city), and one of the biggest and best uni's in Canada. But, like (I expect) most people on the other side of the Atlantic, I'd never heard of it until a year ago. So, some more London facts: it wasn't founded until 1823; has the most thunder and lightning storms of any area in Canada; the 'London Ribfest' is the second largest rib festival in North America; and last but certainly not least, claims 2 Miss Universes in the last 25 years! Oh, and a famous son, Ryan Gosling, is up for Best Actor at this years Oscars.

Me and Joey the kitten

I arrived here a few days before Christmas to a very warm welcome in a very festive house. I could not have been happier. After the lack of Christmas build-up in Australia, it made a real change arriving somewhere with not only a decent amount of decoration, but also the appropriate weather for the time of year. And arriving in the house a couple of days after me was Val's (Angela's little sister) 'secret' Christmas present to the family - an 8 week old kitten. Naming it that night, Val had to be dissuaded from naming it after a helper at her school and local Ice Hockey Star, Jordan Forman. Not just calling it Jordan, but the full 'Jordan Forman'. After Val turned down several alternate suggestions point-blank, she came up with the inspired choice of "Joey from friends", which was shortened to "Joey".

Bastien the New Year Turkey - dressed to kill.

The only problem was the lack of (promised) snow. But, even though I missed out on a white Christmas, I still ended up having an infinitely better one than I had anticipated when I left home last August. I had a proper traditional Christmas week - meeting lots of (Angela's) relatives and friends, opening lots of presents, doing the last minute Christmas shopping, and even having a chat with Him upstairs for the first time in years, with a Christmas Eve visit to church. And I even got a shout out from the vicar at the start of the service.

After seeing in the New Year in London, me and Angela headed up to Montreal to spend a few days observing the French, and chasing the snow. However, Montreal was in the midst of one of the warmest winter spells in ages, with temperatures up to a relatively mild 11 Degrees C. It took a hike up Mont Royale to discover my first Canadian snow - though it was old, iced-up snow that looked as though it could do with a bit of a clean, it satisfied my snow-lust at least temporarily.

Me revelling in my first sighting of snow in Canada

On top of Mont Royale, which overlooks the city, in between the patches of dirty snow, was an outdoor ice-rink. Having ticked 'seeing snow' off of my Canadian to-do list, I decided it was time for another challenge. So, strapping on the skates, I swallowed my pride and set out on to the ice, knowing that there were few places on earth that I would be shown to be an outsider quite so easily and made to look such an idiot so effortlessly. Happily, with my human stabiliser in hand, I only actually fell over once. And with the appearance on the ice of toddlers that could barely walk, having to push midget-sized zimmer frames in front of them to prevent them from falling over, I at least was able to get the better of someone on the ice. Though that still left everyone capable of forming a sentence to fly past me. And some that weren't.

Angela in a snow storm

Returning to London, my due date to fly back to Aus was rapidly approaching, and never one to be aware of outstaying my welcome, I jumped on Angela's suggestion that I try to rebook my flight - delaying it by another couple of weeks. This would also give me the chance to experience a proper snowfall - and for the last week or so we've had some on pretty much every day. I hadn’t really realised before that there were different types of snow. As far as I was aware, there was snow , and ice, and if you really wanted to break it down even further, there was snow that ‘stuck’ or ‘settled’, and snow that just melted. Judging this later category was an inexact science though, and was usually done in the past tense ie. “looks like that was settling snow”, or “turns out it wasn’t settling snow”. Well, apparently that list isn’t exhaustive - I’ve discovered ‘packing’ and ‘powdery’ snow. Eager to get outside and build a snowman, I’ve had the news broken to me that the snow outside is powdery snow. Apparently, the sort of snow I need is packing snow. If I’m going to do it properly, it seems my snowman is going to have to wait awhile.