On our first morning in Nadi, we were shown how coconut's were cracked open by the locals and got to drink the fresh juice inside. Very nice. We then headed into Nadi to get some bits and pieces and got completely harassed by all the shop keepers saying, 'come into my shop, very good prices'. It was a bit tiresome after a while, but we did get a couple of bargains. The next morning we got up bright and early to start our four day Feejee Experience tour of the main island, Viti Levu. We were greeted by 3 friendly tour guides another friendly, but typically scary driver. We had 20 people on our tour, mainly Europeans.
The tour went anticlockwise round the island. On the first day we went to Natadola Beach, driving through some amazing countryside on the way. Fiji is very diverse, with great beaches, rainforests and mountains. We also saw some self-sufficient villages reliant on crop growth / sugar cane for income and family meals. The beach was beautiful and the sea was lovely and warm. The only annoying thing was that we kept getting asked for money by some of the local kids. After the beach we headed to a coastal village. Our guides were really good and explained a lot about the structure, tradition and culture in Fiji. We then went on to Sigatoka sand dunes to do some 'sand boarding'. It was so much fun again, but extremely tiring walking up the sand dunes as the sand falls away under your feet. We had a competition to see who could finish the furthest from the bottom of the sand dunes, and one of the local girls won.
After getting sand blasted, we headed to the Coral Coast for the night. We stayed at The Beachhouse, where one series of Celebrity Love Island was filmed, and still looked very similar to the tv set. It was actually a really nice hostel and it was our first experience of staying in a Bure. We got up in the middle of the night to watch England beat Australia in the rugby!! It was great fun watching it with the Fijians, about 15 English people and 2 Australians, who typically gave us banter throughout the match, but couldn't take any back or accept that we were better (the Australians generally do not accept criticism very well at all).
Day two of our tour was so much fun! We drove to Navua and did a trek into the mountains. We ventured through the rainforest amidst the inner mountains of Fiji. We went up and down lots of steep 'steps' and waded through creeks (often for forty minutes at a time) where the water often came up to our waists. We did not want to think what was in there! It was very much like those Vietnam War films where the camouflaged soldiers quietly walk through the water with their guns ready.... and then suddenly get ambushed. We went 'Fiji time' at the back of the group with two of the female Fijian guides. It was such a good laugh and the rain poured down on us when we were in one of the creeks. We got really muddy and kept slipping over but no-one cared.
The trek took around 4 1/2 hours and then we stopped for an eagerly awaited lunch. The end of the trek intersects with the Navua River, where the film 'Anaconda' was filmed. There was a collection of rubber tubes waiting, which we sat on and cruised down the river in! Tubing down the river was really peaceful, but also funny trying desperately to paddle so not to hit the rocks that sporadically popped up. Looking around was so surreal, like being in Jurassic Park, with huge cliffs covered in amazing plants, trees and waterfalls. We stopped at one of the waterfalls and all took turns at jumping into the pools below. The final sector of the trek / swim was on a long boat (again, crazy drivers), back to the bus.
We headed into Suva for the night, the capital of Fiji. We saw the main buildings of significance, but unfortunately we couldn't go out as it was Sunday, and everything closes down on a Sunday in Fiji. We had a nice group meal at the hostel and a great Fijian dance show. Again, we woke up in the middle of the night to watch Fiji against South Africa; a great atmosphere once more with the Fijians. Dave got up earlier to watch the repeat of the upset quarter final, France versus New Zealand; and drank kava (perfectly legal) late into the night with the locals.
On our third day, we navigated the 'Banana Highway', which consisted of gravel roads and hence not a very nice journey in a bus! We stopped off to visit a local village, where we were involved in a traditional kava ceremony. Kava is a plant with long roots that many Fijians drink the whole time. However, a lot of them actually do not like it, especially the women. It gets mixed in a bowl with water and basically tastes like muddy water, yuk! When drinking it, your mouth goes a little bit numb. If you drink a lot of it, you can feel quite sleepy. Lins only had one bowl, and that was enough! As Dave was nominated the chief of our group he had to keep drinking it or it was considered rude. He slept well that night!
After leaving the village we headed to the Wanibuka River, where we got involved in some bilibili rafting. A bilibili raft is the main method of travel and transport that a lot of Fijians use up and down the rivers. They are made of around 16-berth bamboo rafts and can fit up to 10 people on them in a squeeze. We got into teams and the first part was spent cruising down the river, like on a gondolier. We then all gathered at the bottom of the river where we raced upstream to the finish line. It was actually really tiring but great fun.
We stayed the night at Volivoli Beach in Rakiraki. We had a great night as it was officially 'Fiji Day', the Fijians put on lots of games and dancing for us to do, as well as a bonfire night. We were lucky that it was Fiji Day during our tour, as all the Fijians were in a really good mood. The next morning was spent relaxing on some sun loungers, what a luxury when you are travelling! We then headed to a local school. We had a look round all the buildings and most classes greeted us with welcome songs. The kids were really sweet but you could tell that some of them were quite naughty. We didn't get to see any lessons being taught, but the school seemed more structured that we had anticipated. There were similar rules etc on the walls like in the UK.
Another long journey took us back to Nadi via the bottling plant where the famously good (?) 'Fiji Water' is made, The Ba district, where we tried some local curry (apart from Lins!), and then on to the Sabeto hot pools located at the base of the Sleeping Giant mountain range in the Sabeto Valley. First we jumped into the mud pools for some gooey beauty treatments and then into the hot mineral water pools. It was so relaxing and really hot (you would have loved it Dad!).
Unfortunately, Lins got ill on the morning of the first day, and the bug stayed with her for the whole tour. She went through stages of having a bad tummy, being sick, severe stomach cramps and coming out in hot flushes and cold sweats. Some of the terrible road conditions did not help. When we returned to Nadi, she went to a private GP, and was told that she had a bacterial infection. She was given some antibiotics and two injections, which completely knocked her out! We had to delay the next part of our trip as she was too ill. The tour was great though, we met some really nice people. During the whole of the tour our guides played the same cd, REALLY LOUD, on loop all the time. Slightly grating after a while.
We then had 2 weeks in the Yasawa Islands. We bought a 14 day hop on hop off boat pass. Our first night was spent at Kuata, which had really basic accommodation, but the really friendly staff made up for it. We did a summit walk to watch the sunset and a snorkel trip with white tip reef sharks, which was amazing, one of the best things that we have done since we have been away. It only cost us about 6 pounds each and we got to swim with 5 reef sharks for 30 minutes. We got some great photo's and on a few occasions the sharks came within a metre from us! It wasn't scary though but surprisingly calming watching them swim.
The next night was spent at Sunset Waya, a stunning beach with snorkelling. Again basic accommodation but this time also with slop for food. We were not impressed! Dave's meal was brought out with 10 ants on it, compliments of the chef. You have to wonder how long the food was sitting there for that many ants to be on the plate! As Lins was still ill and Dave was starting to get ill, sleeping at these places was unbearable. We both woke up sweating buckets and feeling that we were being suffocated by our mosquito nets. It was so hot and humid and there was no breeze or fans. Therefore we decided to stay at more expensive places to get a fan and decent food. This completely blew our budget, but it was worth it as we were too ill not to have a fan etc, and the accommodation was significantly better.
We then headed up to as far north as you can stay in the Yasawa's to Oarsmans Bay, our favourite place. The beach was white sand with crystal clear blue water, fringed with beautiful coral reef. The staff and accommodation were great. We met lots of really nice people. The meals in Fiji lend themselves to meeting people as you usually sit on a table of around 10 people or more. Again, the snorkelling here was amazing. We went to a traditional church service and village.
A week into our trip now, and we were starting to have had enough of ‘Fiji time’. 'Fiji time' is supposed to mean that when the locals say five minutes they really mean an hour at least. Everything is so laid back over there and the pace of life is extremely slow. However, we soon discovered that 'Fiji time' means 'lazy time' or when it suits the locals. We worked this out the hard way; missing a boat was one of many ocasions. We had put our names down for the 'church visit' the previous day with the leaving time clearly written on the board as 9:30. We were there at 9:20 and the boat wasn't even in sight! On this occasions 'Fiji time' meant leaving earlier without telling us! We also got told off for making a boat wait, when we were 2 minutes early, and the most frustrating of all, got left on an island while the locals forgot about us and went to get kava. Meanwhile, the sun went down, it got pitch black and we both got bitten by lots of mosquitoes, gnats and sand flies. We weren't impressed.
Oarsman's was amazing though; unfortunately Dave was really ill with stomach cramps, hot sweats, severe fatigue, heat rash etc. Being over 5 hours away from the mainland, where they have doctors, running water, cooked food ... he made a decision to see a local 'nurse' AKA witch doctor. She simply confirmed that the antibiotics that he had started taking (brought from England) were suitable for his symptoms. He began to feel better after a few days, but never really shook it off. Both of us were still feeling ill a week into our trip in New Zealand! Back to Oarsmans Bay and a little more drama. We found out that 2 days after we left, and literally right where we had been snorkelling, a Tiger Shark was caught in a fishing net! A lucky escape. Tiger sharks usually never come close to the small islands, but this one was tempted in by some lazy Fijians who killed a pig for a wedding feast and threw the insides into the ocean rather than disposing of them properly. A severe telling off for the staff all round!
We then headed south and stayed at Bay of Plenty, a new resort. This turned out to be a bit of a nightmare ... Lins' food had chicken in it (they had tried to pick out all of the meat in her meal to pretend that it was vegetarian, but failed), and we had no water in our bathroom for the whole of the morning; not ideal when you need a shower as you are sweating profusely, and need to flush the loo! However, what saved this place form being the worst resort ever was the fact that we went over to the local village for the evening for a rugby training session. Dave joined in with all the locals and it was great fun. Most of the Fijians were super quick. The best bit was that the Fijian 7's captain, John, was also from this village, and had just arrived back playing in the rugby World Cup in France. We got to chat with him and have our photo taken with him, he was extremely modest. Dave had bought a Fiji shirt in town so he got it signed; another one for the wall!
Our next hotel was Nanula Island resort in the blue lagoon; our nicest accommodation. We had the luxury of sun loungers, something much missed. We then had a free night on the Wana Taki boat. It is supposed to cruise round the islands, but only moved about 100m, no joke. At least it was free. We then stayed at Manta Ray resort, and Octopus resort for two nights each. At both islands we met up with some people form Oarsmans again. The snorkelling was absolutely amazing again, right off shore. Our last night on the Yasawa's was at Bounty Island, where some of the series to Celebrity Love Island were filmed (the one with Lee Sharpe, Paul Danan and Abi Titmuss). Here we had the privilege of air conditioning but also very rude staff!
At a couple of the budget hotels, the generator packed up around 8.00PM, leaving everyone in the pitch black. On one such time, the generator stopped working just after our evening meal. The staff stuck a torch in the middle of the room (meaning that all the bugs and huge moths swarmed round it) and sped off in their boat to get one from another island (without telling us what was going on)!
Most nights the Fijians put on a really great dance show (mainly the men), with great music and ‘Haka’ style moves. This was invariably followed by us getting up and dancing with them, brilliant fun. Dancing Fijian style is quality!!! We also had one show that involved a guy twirling a machete around and catching it. We were in the front row, extremely nervous as he kept dropping it. He actually miss threw the machete one time and it hit his neck...he just carried on though and all the staff (watching from outside the Bure) were laughing. Fire dances were also really common. These involved twirling long sticks with fire at both ends and the men putting them back and forward between their legs (again quite nerve racking at times to watch, bearing in mind the non-existent safety procedures in Fiji). The Fijians found it all very funny spinning these fire sticks around their bodies!
At every hotel in the Yasawa's, we were greeted by the staff singing and playing a traditional Fijian welcome song, in which we had to respond "Bula'. ‘Bula’ is a funny word....everyone says it the whole time and it seems to mean lots of other things apart from 'hello'. We also had beautiful fresh flowers put on our bed, bathroom and around the room. At most of the hotels, there were no safety precautions in place. We could take a kayak out at any time, and not leave our details or anything. It could be days before they realised that you were missing if something happened as they do not do any checks on equipment at the end of the day!
At most of the hotels in Fiji, people sit at big tables for meal times. This lent itself really well to meeting lots of people in a really chilled out atmosphere. We did love our time in Fiji but we did find it frustrating trying to get things done and constantly being told what people thought we wanted to hear rather than the right answer!
Monday, December 17, 2007
Thursday, October 4, 2007
Up the east coast
We left Sydney bright and early the day after we finished work. We left at 6.15am; just as everyone from the Kings Cross area was going home (not a very pretty sight if you've seen Kings Cross at night time). Our first stop was sunny Newcastle. We saw the beach, Nobby's Head and the city buildings. It was a pleasant enough place where everyone seemed to be walking a dog along the beach. If the owners looked friendly, we asked if we could stroke their dog (Lins misses having pets a lot now). Everyone so far has been more than willing to oblige. It was dead in the city centre though and we went to the most surreal cinema with psychedelic carpets and tiny speakers on the wall, which produced hardly any sound throughout the film!
We then had a week of heavy rain, the worst in Australia for years! Some of the places that we visited had a month's rain in one day! Great fun when you are travelling and have to walk everywhere with extremely heavy bags on both your front and back. We stopped off at Port Macquarie and Coffs Harbour, both of which had lovely beaches, but we just saw stormy seas and grey skies. We spent 3 days in Byron Bay, where we had lovely weather for one of the days and grey skies for the remainder. We did the long walk round Cape Byron and were lucky to see a large pod of dolphins that came about 50m from the shore line.
After Byron we went to Surfers Paradise for 4 days. We went to Dreamworld and Movie World theme parks; each of which had a few good rides each and torrential rain. We didn't warm to the high rise buildings too much all over the city but it was a bit more happening than Byron. We then arrived in sunny Brisbane and stayed for another 4 days. Brisbane is nice but there didn’t seem to be a lot to do there. We did the city walk, the Botanical Gardens, and looked at all the buildings on a boat cruise. We walked all along south bank, which was really nice. We also did a day trip to Moreton Island (about 75 minutes away). It was a gorgeous island and we had beautiful weather. We sat by the Tangalooma ship Wrecks and we practically had the beach to ourselves.
After Brisbane we stopped at Maroochydore for 2 days and visited Australia Zoo. We stayed in the hostel from hell! We got rudely awoken at 5.15am both days by travellers going fruit picking! ARRRRHHH! They were so noisy that we woke up completely startled, not knowing whether there was an earthquake outside! However, Australia Zoo was very excellent. All the animals seemed to be well looked after and the grounds were really clean and spectacular to walk around. However, it was also very sad as there were pictures of and tributes to Steve Irwin everywhere.
An hour up the road was Noosa; a much nicer place where it felt like we were on holiday rather than backpacking as it was quite posh in parts! We did a 2 hour surfing lesson, which was fun and we both stood up lots of times, although Lins struggled with the sea going in her eyes with her contact lenses. We also did a 2 hour kayak trip round the lagoon....nice houses!
We then arrived in Hervey Bay, where we were doing our Fraser Island tour from. We were so excited to be going to Fraser; the biggest sand island in the world. We ended up going with the YHA tour, which was quality. We had great food and accommodation (including no cooking or washing up for 3 days, woo hoo!). We were really lucky with our group. We only had 8 of us, but on the second day we joined with the group that started the day before us, which made 20 people in total. Everyone got on really well and we had a laugh with all of them. We went out quite a few times with a really funny and knowledgeable German guy from our tour up the coast. Our tour guide was also sound, but we think that most of them are over here. Our accommodation was at the Wilderness Lodges at the hotel on the island and we went out both nights to the Dingo Bar, very funny times. Highlights were: Basin Lake, Wanggoolba Creek, Lake Mckenzie, driving up 75 mile beach and the endless dirt tracks in our 4x4, swimming at Eli Creek, sand boarding down the dunes into a beautiful clear lake at the bottom (SOOOOO much fun!) and Lake Wabby. The sand at the lakes was so fine that it worked like it had some kind of cleaning powers so we all scrubbed our rings and they came out sparkling. It was such a great 3 days.
When we returned to Hervey bay, we did a Humpback Whale watching tour...infinitely better than the sea sick boat from hell in Sydney. We saw about 8 whales, including a mum and a calf. The mum and calf were sleeping on top of the water (called 'logging') about 50m away and we watched them for about 10 minutes, which was pretty awesome. We also saw some whales breaching a bit further away from the boat and one spy hop (where they 'stand' vertical in the water and stick the top quarter of their body out of the water) about 100m away from the boat. Hervey Bay is the best place in Oz to do whale watching trips. Lots of people were lucky enough to get the whales coming right up to their boats, but we were pleased with what we got.
From Hervey Bay, we had a 12 1/2 hour coach journey up to Airlie Beach. We loved it there, apart from the numerous tourist adverts and shops etc that line the main street. We did a sea turtle kayak trip round the Whitsunday Islands, which was great fun. We saw a white tip reef shark, which was brilliant! It swam right next to our kayak for about a minute and then swam off incredibly fast. We also did a 65 minute scenic plane flight over the Whitsunday Islands and Great Barrier Reef, which included a sea landing on the water out in the ocean - surprisingly smooth! It was brilliant to get an overview from the air and a better grasp of the scale of the reef. We also flew over heart reef, which was very cute! We were both fortunate enough to have a window seat. We were even luckier to see a Humpback Whale with a calf and 2 pods of about 8 dolphins! It was well worth the money.
The highlight of the east coast was probably our 3 day / 2 night sailing trip around the Whitsunday Islands, which left from Airlie Beach. We went on the Derwent Hunter boat, which was a classic tall sail ship. The boat was beautiful: made from classic timber with huge sails and a lot of space. We had a private double room with a shared bathroom with one other couple and the food was good.... lots of fresh fruit for breakfast. The food for vegetarians is pretty poor in Australia, so it was nice going on tours as the food is usually good quality. We were really lucky with our tour group, as we have been on all of our tours; we had 14 people on the boat and most people were in their late 20 - 30's. We had 3 crew and they were all really nice too. The skipper was into his stars, so we had a star talk both nights. We had perfect weather; it was so calm that we only had the sails up for about an hour over the 3 days, and even then we didn't move very far! This suited us fine though as with the wind would have come choppy water and the dreaded sea sickness! The boat only rocked a few times so no-one felt sick thank goodness.
Our trip consisted of eating, cruising along, snorkelling, visiting beaches and some more eating. We had to wear stinger suits when snorkelling, which are a million times easier to get on than wet suits and they keep you a little bit warmer too. At one of the snorkel sites that we went to (Blue Pearl Bay), the fish were being fed so there were literally hundreds of them swimming around, right into us. It was really funny! Out on the sea, we were so lucky to see about 14 humpback whales. We saw some mothers with their calves, and we also saw some adult males breaching in the distance and a young male breach quite close. They are so remarkable. We also saw lots of sea turtles (some really up close), quite a few dolphins and a young sea eagle dive fishing from about 30m in the sky, which was pretty spectacular.
It was sad to leave the beautiful Whitsunday’s, as we continued north to where it got hotter and hotter and we started to sweat as soon as we got out of the shower! Nice. The sea was a lovely temperature though. The beaches continued to get better and more impressive. We went to Townsville (nothing to do there), Mission Beach, Dunk Island (a water taxi ride from Mission Beach, great day), and Cairns. We didn't warm to Cairns very much. It is a bit of a dump to be honest with not much to do apart from go to the pub. It is not very pretty.
Before we arrived in Cairns, we both had our medicals to do our PADI diving courses. We were really gutted to find out that Dave cannot do diving over here due to his asthma. After our medicals, the Doctor was adamant that he should not do it as quite a few people with asthma have died after diving. Lins couldn’t decide whether to do it or not, and in the end decided that she would just keep doing introduction dives as it would be cheaper and take less time out of our trip.
From Cairns we hired a car for a week to go north. Along the way we stopped at Cairns' Northern Beaches (Holloways, Yorkey’s Knob, Trinity, Clifton, Ellis, Palm), which were all really pretty. We spent our first few nights at Port Douglas (beautiful), where we had a day on the gorgeous 4 mile beach and did a day's snorkel trip to the outer Great Barrier Reef. We did the Quiksilver trip to the pontoon based out on the reef, which was not what we had booked on to, but typically the boat we wanted to go on had broken down. However, we got the upgrade to the pontoon free and it was nice to try something different to what we were planning on doing in Cairns. It was a brilliant day and the food was gorgeous. Lins did an intro dive and snorkelled for about an hour and Dave snorkelled for ages, seeing lots of huge fish.
We then continued to Mossman gorge where we swam in the clear but freezing water, and The Daintree River where we did a crocodile boat cruise. We went on an electric boat, which was very quiet and also had a camera that zoomed in on all the crocs sunning themselves on the banks. Before arriving in Cape Tribulation we stopped at some more lovely beaches along the way (Cape Kimberly, Cow Bay and Thornton beach), which were all stunning. We stayed at two fabulous hostels in Cape Tribulation; they were right in the middle of the rainforest and we were literally surrounded by trees, lots of creepy crawlies, possums, cassowaries and birds that are amazing in the day time, but not when they wake you up at 4.30am! Our rooms were huts that consisted mostly of netting slightly thicker than mosquito nets, so we could hear all the wildlife outside as if it was in our room. It was very special waking up and looking round the room to see rainforest all around us.
We spent one and a half days on the beautiful Cape Tribulation beach....extremely relaxing and the water was a perfect temperature. We did jungle surfing too, which involved swinging from tree to tree in the rainforest on zip wires like flying foxes (like ‘Go Ape’ in England). We also stayed at Myall beach (round the corner) for a while and then headed back down south. It was great having a car as we got to see lots of lookouts and more beaches along the way. However, rather than dodging huge kangaroo's every 50m as in northern WA, we were trying to avoid cassowaries (big birds similar to but smaller than emu's with a blue, yellow and red head), snakes and goanna’s on the road!
Back in Cairns, the weather was not in our favour so we had a couple of days to catch up on dreaded admin and tax forms. We then did a boat trip with Quiksilver again to the outer Great Barrier Reef and visited 3 amazing sites. Lins did a dive at the first site and then snorkelled at the remaining two. Dave happily snorkelled at all three and was always the first one in and the last one out the water! He is now quite a competent swimmer after all of Lins’ coaching sessions! We saw some beautiful fish, including ones that had very striking colours and some simply huge ones. We were extremely fortunate to see two turtles. The second one gave us our own private reef tour for a whole twenty minutes! There was no-one else around. It was quite happy to swim along about 5-10m below us and we both dived down a few times to swim alongside it! We saw it munching on the coral, having itself cleaned by other small fish and swim along effortlessly. It even came up to the surface for air 2m in front of us. It truly was a wonderful experience.
Up the coast we have mainly been staying in YHA hostels. They have generally been of a higher standard for facilities and cleanliness; the hostels vary so much over here. Some are like hotels, and others are so gross that they attract people that have not washed for days or even weeks and have all sorts of horrid bugs. YUK! To be honest, we are a bit fed up of hostels now and severe lack of sleep.
The Greyhound bus continued to be a pretty good way of travelling and cheap. For most of the journey's we got two seats to ourselves and a film. Although we did come across several rude and grumpy drivers! We only had two buses that were delayed, amazing when you think of what 'Australian time' means.
We have seen lots of uncanny 'doubles' of our friends from the UK over here. It's quite surreal seeing these people as we have had to take several looks at them, which probably makes them feel extremely paranoid! The following people, we know where your double lives: Kate Ruszala, Graeme Stevenson, Nick Carroll, Jenny Pater, El Shaw, Paul WIlliams, Jo Edwards and Cherry Cheeseman.
After 6 months exactly, we have just left Oz to go to Fiji for 3 weeks, NZ for 8 weeks, followed by Bali for Christmas and NY. We have loved Australia, it is amazing to think that we have been to every state and driven so far. However, we would never live here, which is funny because we thought we might do one day. Although it's a great lifestyle over here in many respects, there are so many things different to England that are quite annoying and would stop us emigrating. But most importantly, it's just too far from our friends and family.
Today we arrived in Fiji early evening local time. We flew from Cairns via Brisbane, where we had the pleasure of waiting for four hours for our connecting flight. Both flight's were pretty good and the food was edible. About twenty minutes before the plane landed in Fiji, the hosteses came round with an insect spray and sprayed the whole of the plane! We felt like we were being gassed; it was really strange and lots of people held tissues to their mouths. On arrival in Fiji we were met by Fijians singing and playing the guitar. We were then taken to our hotel by a guy who thought he was Fiji's answer to Lewis Hamilton, although he didn't handle the bends too well! We were quite petrified as everyone seemed to be crazy drivers and not take too much notice of the road markings. Anyway, we are really looking forward to the next three weeks.
We then had a week of heavy rain, the worst in Australia for years! Some of the places that we visited had a month's rain in one day! Great fun when you are travelling and have to walk everywhere with extremely heavy bags on both your front and back. We stopped off at Port Macquarie and Coffs Harbour, both of which had lovely beaches, but we just saw stormy seas and grey skies. We spent 3 days in Byron Bay, where we had lovely weather for one of the days and grey skies for the remainder. We did the long walk round Cape Byron and were lucky to see a large pod of dolphins that came about 50m from the shore line.
After Byron we went to Surfers Paradise for 4 days. We went to Dreamworld and Movie World theme parks; each of which had a few good rides each and torrential rain. We didn't warm to the high rise buildings too much all over the city but it was a bit more happening than Byron. We then arrived in sunny Brisbane and stayed for another 4 days. Brisbane is nice but there didn’t seem to be a lot to do there. We did the city walk, the Botanical Gardens, and looked at all the buildings on a boat cruise. We walked all along south bank, which was really nice. We also did a day trip to Moreton Island (about 75 minutes away). It was a gorgeous island and we had beautiful weather. We sat by the Tangalooma ship Wrecks and we practically had the beach to ourselves.
After Brisbane we stopped at Maroochydore for 2 days and visited Australia Zoo. We stayed in the hostel from hell! We got rudely awoken at 5.15am both days by travellers going fruit picking! ARRRRHHH! They were so noisy that we woke up completely startled, not knowing whether there was an earthquake outside! However, Australia Zoo was very excellent. All the animals seemed to be well looked after and the grounds were really clean and spectacular to walk around. However, it was also very sad as there were pictures of and tributes to Steve Irwin everywhere.
An hour up the road was Noosa; a much nicer place where it felt like we were on holiday rather than backpacking as it was quite posh in parts! We did a 2 hour surfing lesson, which was fun and we both stood up lots of times, although Lins struggled with the sea going in her eyes with her contact lenses. We also did a 2 hour kayak trip round the lagoon....nice houses!
We then arrived in Hervey Bay, where we were doing our Fraser Island tour from. We were so excited to be going to Fraser; the biggest sand island in the world. We ended up going with the YHA tour, which was quality. We had great food and accommodation (including no cooking or washing up for 3 days, woo hoo!). We were really lucky with our group. We only had 8 of us, but on the second day we joined with the group that started the day before us, which made 20 people in total. Everyone got on really well and we had a laugh with all of them. We went out quite a few times with a really funny and knowledgeable German guy from our tour up the coast. Our tour guide was also sound, but we think that most of them are over here. Our accommodation was at the Wilderness Lodges at the hotel on the island and we went out both nights to the Dingo Bar, very funny times. Highlights were: Basin Lake, Wanggoolba Creek, Lake Mckenzie, driving up 75 mile beach and the endless dirt tracks in our 4x4, swimming at Eli Creek, sand boarding down the dunes into a beautiful clear lake at the bottom (SOOOOO much fun!) and Lake Wabby. The sand at the lakes was so fine that it worked like it had some kind of cleaning powers so we all scrubbed our rings and they came out sparkling. It was such a great 3 days.
When we returned to Hervey bay, we did a Humpback Whale watching tour...infinitely better than the sea sick boat from hell in Sydney. We saw about 8 whales, including a mum and a calf. The mum and calf were sleeping on top of the water (called 'logging') about 50m away and we watched them for about 10 minutes, which was pretty awesome. We also saw some whales breaching a bit further away from the boat and one spy hop (where they 'stand' vertical in the water and stick the top quarter of their body out of the water) about 100m away from the boat. Hervey Bay is the best place in Oz to do whale watching trips. Lots of people were lucky enough to get the whales coming right up to their boats, but we were pleased with what we got.
From Hervey Bay, we had a 12 1/2 hour coach journey up to Airlie Beach. We loved it there, apart from the numerous tourist adverts and shops etc that line the main street. We did a sea turtle kayak trip round the Whitsunday Islands, which was great fun. We saw a white tip reef shark, which was brilliant! It swam right next to our kayak for about a minute and then swam off incredibly fast. We also did a 65 minute scenic plane flight over the Whitsunday Islands and Great Barrier Reef, which included a sea landing on the water out in the ocean - surprisingly smooth! It was brilliant to get an overview from the air and a better grasp of the scale of the reef. We also flew over heart reef, which was very cute! We were both fortunate enough to have a window seat. We were even luckier to see a Humpback Whale with a calf and 2 pods of about 8 dolphins! It was well worth the money.
The highlight of the east coast was probably our 3 day / 2 night sailing trip around the Whitsunday Islands, which left from Airlie Beach. We went on the Derwent Hunter boat, which was a classic tall sail ship. The boat was beautiful: made from classic timber with huge sails and a lot of space. We had a private double room with a shared bathroom with one other couple and the food was good.... lots of fresh fruit for breakfast. The food for vegetarians is pretty poor in Australia, so it was nice going on tours as the food is usually good quality. We were really lucky with our tour group, as we have been on all of our tours; we had 14 people on the boat and most people were in their late 20 - 30's. We had 3 crew and they were all really nice too. The skipper was into his stars, so we had a star talk both nights. We had perfect weather; it was so calm that we only had the sails up for about an hour over the 3 days, and even then we didn't move very far! This suited us fine though as with the wind would have come choppy water and the dreaded sea sickness! The boat only rocked a few times so no-one felt sick thank goodness.
Our trip consisted of eating, cruising along, snorkelling, visiting beaches and some more eating. We had to wear stinger suits when snorkelling, which are a million times easier to get on than wet suits and they keep you a little bit warmer too. At one of the snorkel sites that we went to (Blue Pearl Bay), the fish were being fed so there were literally hundreds of them swimming around, right into us. It was really funny! Out on the sea, we were so lucky to see about 14 humpback whales. We saw some mothers with their calves, and we also saw some adult males breaching in the distance and a young male breach quite close. They are so remarkable. We also saw lots of sea turtles (some really up close), quite a few dolphins and a young sea eagle dive fishing from about 30m in the sky, which was pretty spectacular.
It was sad to leave the beautiful Whitsunday’s, as we continued north to where it got hotter and hotter and we started to sweat as soon as we got out of the shower! Nice. The sea was a lovely temperature though. The beaches continued to get better and more impressive. We went to Townsville (nothing to do there), Mission Beach, Dunk Island (a water taxi ride from Mission Beach, great day), and Cairns. We didn't warm to Cairns very much. It is a bit of a dump to be honest with not much to do apart from go to the pub. It is not very pretty.
Before we arrived in Cairns, we both had our medicals to do our PADI diving courses. We were really gutted to find out that Dave cannot do diving over here due to his asthma. After our medicals, the Doctor was adamant that he should not do it as quite a few people with asthma have died after diving. Lins couldn’t decide whether to do it or not, and in the end decided that she would just keep doing introduction dives as it would be cheaper and take less time out of our trip.
From Cairns we hired a car for a week to go north. Along the way we stopped at Cairns' Northern Beaches (Holloways, Yorkey’s Knob, Trinity, Clifton, Ellis, Palm), which were all really pretty. We spent our first few nights at Port Douglas (beautiful), where we had a day on the gorgeous 4 mile beach and did a day's snorkel trip to the outer Great Barrier Reef. We did the Quiksilver trip to the pontoon based out on the reef, which was not what we had booked on to, but typically the boat we wanted to go on had broken down. However, we got the upgrade to the pontoon free and it was nice to try something different to what we were planning on doing in Cairns. It was a brilliant day and the food was gorgeous. Lins did an intro dive and snorkelled for about an hour and Dave snorkelled for ages, seeing lots of huge fish.
We then continued to Mossman gorge where we swam in the clear but freezing water, and The Daintree River where we did a crocodile boat cruise. We went on an electric boat, which was very quiet and also had a camera that zoomed in on all the crocs sunning themselves on the banks. Before arriving in Cape Tribulation we stopped at some more lovely beaches along the way (Cape Kimberly, Cow Bay and Thornton beach), which were all stunning. We stayed at two fabulous hostels in Cape Tribulation; they were right in the middle of the rainforest and we were literally surrounded by trees, lots of creepy crawlies, possums, cassowaries and birds that are amazing in the day time, but not when they wake you up at 4.30am! Our rooms were huts that consisted mostly of netting slightly thicker than mosquito nets, so we could hear all the wildlife outside as if it was in our room. It was very special waking up and looking round the room to see rainforest all around us.
We spent one and a half days on the beautiful Cape Tribulation beach....extremely relaxing and the water was a perfect temperature. We did jungle surfing too, which involved swinging from tree to tree in the rainforest on zip wires like flying foxes (like ‘Go Ape’ in England). We also stayed at Myall beach (round the corner) for a while and then headed back down south. It was great having a car as we got to see lots of lookouts and more beaches along the way. However, rather than dodging huge kangaroo's every 50m as in northern WA, we were trying to avoid cassowaries (big birds similar to but smaller than emu's with a blue, yellow and red head), snakes and goanna’s on the road!
Back in Cairns, the weather was not in our favour so we had a couple of days to catch up on dreaded admin and tax forms. We then did a boat trip with Quiksilver again to the outer Great Barrier Reef and visited 3 amazing sites. Lins did a dive at the first site and then snorkelled at the remaining two. Dave happily snorkelled at all three and was always the first one in and the last one out the water! He is now quite a competent swimmer after all of Lins’ coaching sessions! We saw some beautiful fish, including ones that had very striking colours and some simply huge ones. We were extremely fortunate to see two turtles. The second one gave us our own private reef tour for a whole twenty minutes! There was no-one else around. It was quite happy to swim along about 5-10m below us and we both dived down a few times to swim alongside it! We saw it munching on the coral, having itself cleaned by other small fish and swim along effortlessly. It even came up to the surface for air 2m in front of us. It truly was a wonderful experience.
Up the coast we have mainly been staying in YHA hostels. They have generally been of a higher standard for facilities and cleanliness; the hostels vary so much over here. Some are like hotels, and others are so gross that they attract people that have not washed for days or even weeks and have all sorts of horrid bugs. YUK! To be honest, we are a bit fed up of hostels now and severe lack of sleep.
The Greyhound bus continued to be a pretty good way of travelling and cheap. For most of the journey's we got two seats to ourselves and a film. Although we did come across several rude and grumpy drivers! We only had two buses that were delayed, amazing when you think of what 'Australian time' means.
We have seen lots of uncanny 'doubles' of our friends from the UK over here. It's quite surreal seeing these people as we have had to take several looks at them, which probably makes them feel extremely paranoid! The following people, we know where your double lives: Kate Ruszala, Graeme Stevenson, Nick Carroll, Jenny Pater, El Shaw, Paul WIlliams, Jo Edwards and Cherry Cheeseman.
After 6 months exactly, we have just left Oz to go to Fiji for 3 weeks, NZ for 8 weeks, followed by Bali for Christmas and NY. We have loved Australia, it is amazing to think that we have been to every state and driven so far. However, we would never live here, which is funny because we thought we might do one day. Although it's a great lifestyle over here in many respects, there are so many things different to England that are quite annoying and would stop us emigrating. But most importantly, it's just too far from our friends and family.
Today we arrived in Fiji early evening local time. We flew from Cairns via Brisbane, where we had the pleasure of waiting for four hours for our connecting flight. Both flight's were pretty good and the food was edible. About twenty minutes before the plane landed in Fiji, the hosteses came round with an insect spray and sprayed the whole of the plane! We felt like we were being gassed; it was really strange and lots of people held tissues to their mouths. On arrival in Fiji we were met by Fijians singing and playing the guitar. We were then taken to our hotel by a guy who thought he was Fiji's answer to Lewis Hamilton, although he didn't handle the bends too well! We were quite petrified as everyone seemed to be crazy drivers and not take too much notice of the road markings. Anyway, we are really looking forward to the next three weeks.
Friday, August 17, 2007
Sydney
G’Day. We have finally finished teaching! No more work for 7 months! We have actually had a really good time teaching and we have learnt a lot. We worked for 8 weeks in total. Lins had 3 weeks at one primary school, 2 at another (lovely), 1 at a different school (same school that Dave was at for 6 weeks) and 2 weeks doing odd days at schools. Dave had 6 weeks at one school and 2 weeks at different schools each day. The blocks of work were at primary schools. It has been a great experience teaching abroad and also seeing what the primary aged kids get up to. All our schools (mainly slightly west of central Sydney) were very multicultural; the vast majority of the pupils (usually over 90%) were Korean, Chinese, SE Asian, Kiwi, Middle Eastern or ‘islanders’ (Cook Islands, Fiji etc). We did one day of child care in the school holidays, not our best experience.
Teaching in Oz has not differed too much to that in the UK. One main difference is that most of the primary schools teach split classes (e.g. Years 5 and 6 together). Also, most of the schools do not seem to care much what ‘casual’ teachers do. Often if we asked whether any work had been set or what topics or textbooks we could follow on with for continuity for the kids, the other teachers looked at us as if we were mad, and just said ‘do whatever’! We think that this was mainly a primary thing though. However, it has been interesting to use other school systems and curriculums. Another variation we have noticed in terms of the syllabuses is how much they teach their kids about state and federal governments and the environment in primary schools. They seem to do this really well; perhaps this, along with singing the National Anthem every week in assembly, is one of the reasons that most Aussie’s are so country proud. We were also quite surprised that the sport in public schools does not see that great compared to that in the UK. Perhaps we were expecting too much. One of the best things about teaching in primary schools was the free time they get on occasions, where we could play Monopoly and other games with the kids, not bad for a hard days work!
Most of the kids also use those ridiculously big bags, like you see on Home and Away. Quite different to our senior school kids that use handbags that can barley fit a pen and pencil in along with their make up. The kids themselves do not seem to be that dissimilar to those in the UK, the main difference is simply that a lot of them do not speak English very well.
The schools are more informal than those in the UK, for example, the dress code (or lack of one). A lot of teachers wear jeans, trainers and no ties, and the women often look as if they are going out on the town (really low tops, extremely tight jeans and high boots!). Quite strange.
In the school that Lins taught at for three weeks, 90% of the children were from China, Korea, or India. She got called Mr Chee Man by a little Vietnamese boy for a week until he finally clicked on what her name was. She also taught Michael Jackson for three weeks! It amazed us how some of the kids would speak half Chinese, half Korean and half rubbish, yet the other kids would somehow still understand most of what they said and be able to translate it to us! Lins did not like it very much at this school, they had really strange policies, such as parents being allowed to come into school at break and lunch and spoon-feed their children their food, literally. Lins also taught at a lovely private boys prep school for a day, really sweet kids that REALLY wanted to learn!
Here are some quotes from the lovely primary school that Lins was at for 2 weeks, which you would not usually hear in a typical secondary school in the UK: “Teacher, please can we have peace and quiet’, “Miss, please can we do some more learning”, “Miss, please can you tell my friend to stop talking to me so that I can work”! This was definitely the exception to the rule though.
At the primary school that Dave taught at for 6 weeks, the staff were really sound and the kids were not far off mini versions of Quilley kids! He was really sad to leave. They had a really good Aussie Rules football team and were crowned the AFL champions of all primary schools in NSW at the Sydney Cricket Ground (SCG).
Whilst we were in Sydney, the kids were on holidays for 2 weeks, so we did loads of sightseeing. We loved Sydney so much. We did: the Oz tower (great views over the city; we had a really good view of the tower from the end of our road), climbed the harbour bridge at dusk and had a really great sunset when we were at the top, toured the Opera House and saw Burt Bacharach one evening on his farewell tour. We cruised around the harbour on a coffee cruise with lots of scrumptious blueberry muffins (now Lins’ favourite ahead of chocolate!), did a whale-watching trip (where 75% of the passengers were violently sick 30 minutes into the trip for the next 3 ½ hours; we were not sick thank goodness as we had learned our lesson form last time). We also went on a day trip to the Blue Mountains and did some beautiful walks, went to Star City, saw 2 short 3D films at the IMAX cinema (the largest screen in the world), saw some AFL and NRL (rugby league) games, comedy nights, watched Oz defeat S Africa at the Telstra Dome in the Tri Nations (unfortunately). We checked out all the markets, sunbathed and swum at Bondi beach and walked to Coogee beach, went to Manly and the Northern beaches (Freshwater and Curl Curl), Palm Beach (where they film Home and Away), went to Sydney aquarium and saw the Kaiser Chiefs play in concert for our third year wedding anniversary. We think our favourite place was probably Darling Harbour, we went there many times for a drink (Boost Juice, YUM!) and to sit and relax, looking at the water and boats; it’s so clean and pretty. We have also done loads of reading, which has been great; we usually don’t get that much time in the UK. Lins is now a Potterholic (having not succumbed to the pressure of reading the first 5 books, silly mistake), and is desperately trying to find out the ending before someone spoils it for her!
Watching sport over here is not what we were expecting at all. They do not seem to be as passionate as the UK. From our experience it seems more like a social thing to do rather than watch your team play. At the Oz v S Africa game, the crowd was so quiet, it was almost ghost like. The only time any noise was made was when the Aussie's booed the SA's when they were going forward or taking a penalty kick. They also do very little singing and chanting, and the songs that they do know are unoriginal to say the least. We have been supporting the Roosters in the NRL and the Swans in AFL. AFL is a bizarre sport, it goes on for about 2 ½ hours including all the breaks, never starts on time (but what does over here?!) and has really annoying referee’s. Every game of sport we have watched over here, live or on the TV, has had some type of brawl, whether it be full on punches or handbags.
It was great living in the city and being able to get to things whenever we wanted. We were 2 minutes walk from the supermarket (surprisingly expensive over here), gym, restaurants, bars, train station etc. We were members of Fitness First whilst living in Sydney. There were amazing views of the Sydney harbour bridge and the opera house whilst we were working out! We also had the best Thai restaurant round the corner from us; the food was divine and the portions were big enough that Lins could make two meals out of it (Dave could not), and it was really cheap. We have also seen quite a few films in our spare time; we had a really cheap DVD hire shop round the corner from us and a Greater Union cinema, which had a cheap movie deal on.
For our first two weeks in Sydney there was heavy rain and flooding. We were not expecting it to get that wet and cold in Australia and it was a bit of a shock at first. After that we had a mixture of cold and hot days but it was nearly always a sunny day. The average was about 17 – 19 degrees, not bad for winter. For the last two weeks the weather has been markedly better, reaching 26 degrees on a couple of occasions! Dave actually got burnt one day, which he is quite impressed about considering the season.
We have both loved our time in Sydney and it will be sad to leave, however we are looking forward to getting back in the sun again. We begin heading up the coast as far as Port Douglas and Cape Tribulation tomorrow. Can't wait to get back to some proper sun and relaxation!
Teaching in Oz has not differed too much to that in the UK. One main difference is that most of the primary schools teach split classes (e.g. Years 5 and 6 together). Also, most of the schools do not seem to care much what ‘casual’ teachers do. Often if we asked whether any work had been set or what topics or textbooks we could follow on with for continuity for the kids, the other teachers looked at us as if we were mad, and just said ‘do whatever’! We think that this was mainly a primary thing though. However, it has been interesting to use other school systems and curriculums. Another variation we have noticed in terms of the syllabuses is how much they teach their kids about state and federal governments and the environment in primary schools. They seem to do this really well; perhaps this, along with singing the National Anthem every week in assembly, is one of the reasons that most Aussie’s are so country proud. We were also quite surprised that the sport in public schools does not see that great compared to that in the UK. Perhaps we were expecting too much. One of the best things about teaching in primary schools was the free time they get on occasions, where we could play Monopoly and other games with the kids, not bad for a hard days work!
Most of the kids also use those ridiculously big bags, like you see on Home and Away. Quite different to our senior school kids that use handbags that can barley fit a pen and pencil in along with their make up. The kids themselves do not seem to be that dissimilar to those in the UK, the main difference is simply that a lot of them do not speak English very well.
The schools are more informal than those in the UK, for example, the dress code (or lack of one). A lot of teachers wear jeans, trainers and no ties, and the women often look as if they are going out on the town (really low tops, extremely tight jeans and high boots!). Quite strange.
In the school that Lins taught at for three weeks, 90% of the children were from China, Korea, or India. She got called Mr Chee Man by a little Vietnamese boy for a week until he finally clicked on what her name was. She also taught Michael Jackson for three weeks! It amazed us how some of the kids would speak half Chinese, half Korean and half rubbish, yet the other kids would somehow still understand most of what they said and be able to translate it to us! Lins did not like it very much at this school, they had really strange policies, such as parents being allowed to come into school at break and lunch and spoon-feed their children their food, literally. Lins also taught at a lovely private boys prep school for a day, really sweet kids that REALLY wanted to learn!
Here are some quotes from the lovely primary school that Lins was at for 2 weeks, which you would not usually hear in a typical secondary school in the UK: “Teacher, please can we have peace and quiet’, “Miss, please can we do some more learning”, “Miss, please can you tell my friend to stop talking to me so that I can work”! This was definitely the exception to the rule though.
At the primary school that Dave taught at for 6 weeks, the staff were really sound and the kids were not far off mini versions of Quilley kids! He was really sad to leave. They had a really good Aussie Rules football team and were crowned the AFL champions of all primary schools in NSW at the Sydney Cricket Ground (SCG).
Whilst we were in Sydney, the kids were on holidays for 2 weeks, so we did loads of sightseeing. We loved Sydney so much. We did: the Oz tower (great views over the city; we had a really good view of the tower from the end of our road), climbed the harbour bridge at dusk and had a really great sunset when we were at the top, toured the Opera House and saw Burt Bacharach one evening on his farewell tour. We cruised around the harbour on a coffee cruise with lots of scrumptious blueberry muffins (now Lins’ favourite ahead of chocolate!), did a whale-watching trip (where 75% of the passengers were violently sick 30 minutes into the trip for the next 3 ½ hours; we were not sick thank goodness as we had learned our lesson form last time). We also went on a day trip to the Blue Mountains and did some beautiful walks, went to Star City, saw 2 short 3D films at the IMAX cinema (the largest screen in the world), saw some AFL and NRL (rugby league) games, comedy nights, watched Oz defeat S Africa at the Telstra Dome in the Tri Nations (unfortunately). We checked out all the markets, sunbathed and swum at Bondi beach and walked to Coogee beach, went to Manly and the Northern beaches (Freshwater and Curl Curl), Palm Beach (where they film Home and Away), went to Sydney aquarium and saw the Kaiser Chiefs play in concert for our third year wedding anniversary. We think our favourite place was probably Darling Harbour, we went there many times for a drink (Boost Juice, YUM!) and to sit and relax, looking at the water and boats; it’s so clean and pretty. We have also done loads of reading, which has been great; we usually don’t get that much time in the UK. Lins is now a Potterholic (having not succumbed to the pressure of reading the first 5 books, silly mistake), and is desperately trying to find out the ending before someone spoils it for her!
Watching sport over here is not what we were expecting at all. They do not seem to be as passionate as the UK. From our experience it seems more like a social thing to do rather than watch your team play. At the Oz v S Africa game, the crowd was so quiet, it was almost ghost like. The only time any noise was made was when the Aussie's booed the SA's when they were going forward or taking a penalty kick. They also do very little singing and chanting, and the songs that they do know are unoriginal to say the least. We have been supporting the Roosters in the NRL and the Swans in AFL. AFL is a bizarre sport, it goes on for about 2 ½ hours including all the breaks, never starts on time (but what does over here?!) and has really annoying referee’s. Every game of sport we have watched over here, live or on the TV, has had some type of brawl, whether it be full on punches or handbags.
It was great living in the city and being able to get to things whenever we wanted. We were 2 minutes walk from the supermarket (surprisingly expensive over here), gym, restaurants, bars, train station etc. We were members of Fitness First whilst living in Sydney. There were amazing views of the Sydney harbour bridge and the opera house whilst we were working out! We also had the best Thai restaurant round the corner from us; the food was divine and the portions were big enough that Lins could make two meals out of it (Dave could not), and it was really cheap. We have also seen quite a few films in our spare time; we had a really cheap DVD hire shop round the corner from us and a Greater Union cinema, which had a cheap movie deal on.
For our first two weeks in Sydney there was heavy rain and flooding. We were not expecting it to get that wet and cold in Australia and it was a bit of a shock at first. After that we had a mixture of cold and hot days but it was nearly always a sunny day. The average was about 17 – 19 degrees, not bad for winter. For the last two weeks the weather has been markedly better, reaching 26 degrees on a couple of occasions! Dave actually got burnt one day, which he is quite impressed about considering the season.
We have both loved our time in Sydney and it will be sad to leave, however we are looking forward to getting back in the sun again. We begin heading up the coast as far as Port Douglas and Cape Tribulation tomorrow. Can't wait to get back to some proper sun and relaxation!
Sunday, June 17, 2007
Tasmania - Melbourne- Canberra - Sydney
For our duration in Tasmania we hired a "Devil Campervan". It was our third campervan and by far the nicest. We had a fridge, microwave, 2 gas stoves, 20L water tank, pop top and an external power source. Having an external power source meant that at night time we stayed in a powered camp site and plugged a cable into a power socket outside, and then we could use all our electrical goods inside. Very exciting!
All the campsites and rest areas that we have used throughout Australia have had amazing views; many were by the lakes, cliffs and beaches, often with only one or two other vans at the same site. They have varied from having no facilities to just having horrible outside toilets (spiders!) to having hot power showers with washing facilities.
We both loved Tasmania so much and we think it will definitely be one of the nicest places we visit this year. The scenery is incredibly beautiful. Every corner we turned we saw amazing beaches, mountains, cliffs, rainforests, gorges, lakes and waterfalls. The roads are extremely windy and hilly, at times making us feel like we had been on a big dipper rollercoaster all day, and quite sick.
On our first day in Tas, we got our priorities right and headed straight for the Cadbury's factory in Hobart. We took full advantage of the free chocolate and stuffed ourselves silly until we both felt extremely sick. We rolled ourselves through the factory tour like Umpa Lumpa men. It was good fun and nice to get some free chocolate seeing that you have to take out a mortgage to get it over here. Oz chocolate is no-where near as nice as that in the UK, we told our guide this but she was Tassie through and through and couldn't bear to believe us.
After seeing the sights of Hobart, including the view from the top of Mt Wellington over the city, we drove SE to Port Arthur, which has a lot of history for the Australians. It was surprisingly really interesting and the grounds were pretty. We did a ghost tour of the jail and other old buildings at night time, which was really good fun. We all walked round in the pitch black and our guide told us about ghost sightings and tried to scare us along the way. We also did a history tour of the buildings in the day time. After Port Arthur, we went to a Tasmanian Devil Wildlife sanctuary! It was brilliant. We saw them feeding, which was a very aggressive and noisy affair. They are actually really sweet and they have lovely shiny fur coats. Afterwards the girls curled up together to go to sleep like cats, but they wouldn't let the male near them! He had to sleep on his own in the cold! The girls only go near the boys in mating season, which is only for a couple of weeks in a year! It was also amazing to hear their voices change from sounding like a dog, to roaring loudly like a lion. We both loved them as they are really sweet and fun.
We then headed up the East coast, stopping at Wineglass Bay, Bay of Fires and many other small beaches. We loved Wineglass Bay; we did a hike to see the amazing view and then walked along the beach. It came second in some recent poll of the world's best beaches and we could see why. It was surrounded by mountains and the sand was white. The tough hike there makes it all the more special.
At The Bay of Fires beaches, we had a gorgeous sunset.We then travelled across the northern part of Tas, seeing St Columbia Falls, Ralph Falls, Launceston, Stanley, Cradle Mountain & Dove Lake, Lake St Clair and Nelson and Russell Falls. We did lots of beautiful walks and saw lots more animals. We both love the animals over here and we have been really lucky to see lots of wildlife wondering around. We have noticed that the animals get more furry the further south you go in Oz!
Every evening we played poker, rummy and black jack with a mug of hot chocolate and some marshmallows. The places we were staying at in our vanwere in the middle of no-where, often freezing and there was nothing to do, but we both enjoyed cards! We were lucky with the weather during the day. It was really warm for Hobart and the East coast. For the rest of the time it was quite warm and we only had two days of rain, we were expecting a lot more.
It was good to see that Tasmanian's keep up the tradition over here of having equally as bad road signs as the rest of Oz. Signs, when rarely present, are very unclear and at extremely late notice. For example, a sign for a major highway will usually be at the turning, very occasionally with prior notice. We have only seen a handful of signs pre-warning you about a junction, and even then the distances are wrong (e.g. if the sign says turn in 300m, the actual turning will most likely be in 50m!). Anyway, enough of the road rage (don't get us started on Australian drivers!!). We did another 4,500km of driving in Tas so we feel like we got to know the roads pretty well.
After 12 days in Tas, we returned to stay with our friend Lee from uni. It was so good staying at his, not only because it was lovely to have some great company, but also because he has an amazing flat on the waterfront in St Kilda, which includes a bath (something Lins really misses form the UK). We did all the city highlights in Melbourne including the Eureka tower (great views over the city), tour of the MCG, the Crown Complex, the museums, the Botanical Gardens, visited Ramsay Street on the Neighbours tour, met the 'stars' at the Neighbours quiz night, and we joined a gym for 3 days! We also drove to the Dandedong Mountains (30k from the city) and got a really nice view of the city. We went to two AFL games (ok game, silly referees and very annoying men in luminous yellow running all over the pitch the whole time), one at the MCG and one at the Telstra Dome. We also went to a comedy night with Lee - we were quite worried about being picked on for being Pomes, but we were ok in the end!
After Melbourne we got the Greyhound bus to Canberra. We had 1 1/2 days there, which was plenty of time to see everything on offer. We went to the Australian Institute of Sport, which we both thought was good but we were expecting it to be a bit better, and all the main buildings and tours. We hired a bike, which was amusing! We both really liked Canberra for the time we there, the buildings looked lovely in the sun.
From Canberra we took the Greyhound bus to Sydney, and we stayed in a really grotty and noisy hostel for three days. We got a lot done though: registered with a teaching agency for work, spent hours looking for a flat and joined a gym. After two days we were finally successful in the flat hunting and we have got a really nice studio apartment in Darlinghurst (7 minute train / tube ride to central Sydney and 8 minutes to the brilliant shops at Bondi Junction). It is on the top floor of a block of flats in a quiet cul de sac; it has wooden floors, is nicely decorated and is very clean. We were keen on living near the beach, but we need to base ourselves in the city where the work is. We are only a 15 minute train ride from Bondi Beach, although we certainly won't be sunbathing while we are here as it's a bit chilly! It will be really nice to have a decent place all to ourselves for the next 9-10 weeks and unpack our things....what a luxury! We have everything we need literally 90 seconds from our flat, so it really is a great location.
We started work doing supply teaching on Thursday….in a place called Liverpool (we were at the same school)! We both had good days, although the kids were quite tough. It was a nightmare journey (2 hours door to door), so I don’t think we will be going there again unless there is no work anywhere else. They thought our accents were hilarious; quite a few kids thought we were from Scotland and most of the others couldn’t really understand the concept of an accent, frequently asking us if we thought they sounded different to English people. Bless the little darlings. On Friday Dave worked at a tough all boys school, similar to Quilley! Lins was at a primary school teaching Years 5 and 6 (although this is the same as UK Years 6 and 7). In their assembly, everyone stood to sing the national anthem at the end. Everyone got well into it, including the teachers. I couldn't help but grin. They are very patriotic here. Again, we both had good days, although it’s quite tiring when the kids keep trying it on all day (but we didn’t let them get away with much!). It was nice as we both got asked to go back to the schools on Monday so we must have done something right. We will tell you more stories when we have finished all our work, we are sure there will be lots. It will all be great experience. There is a lot of supply work around, which is good for us; if none is available then we will definitely get childcare work, which should be good fun (?!).
Most of you will be pleased to hear that we have had really bad weather over here. There have been storms and lots of heavy rain in NSW; some of their reservoirs are overflowing (unheard of over here). Parts of The Pacific Highway have also collapsed. It has also been quite chilly at night and Lins has had to buy a hot water bottle! It should clear up by the end of this week. Typical.
All the campsites and rest areas that we have used throughout Australia have had amazing views; many were by the lakes, cliffs and beaches, often with only one or two other vans at the same site. They have varied from having no facilities to just having horrible outside toilets (spiders!) to having hot power showers with washing facilities.
We both loved Tasmania so much and we think it will definitely be one of the nicest places we visit this year. The scenery is incredibly beautiful. Every corner we turned we saw amazing beaches, mountains, cliffs, rainforests, gorges, lakes and waterfalls. The roads are extremely windy and hilly, at times making us feel like we had been on a big dipper rollercoaster all day, and quite sick.
On our first day in Tas, we got our priorities right and headed straight for the Cadbury's factory in Hobart. We took full advantage of the free chocolate and stuffed ourselves silly until we both felt extremely sick. We rolled ourselves through the factory tour like Umpa Lumpa men. It was good fun and nice to get some free chocolate seeing that you have to take out a mortgage to get it over here. Oz chocolate is no-where near as nice as that in the UK, we told our guide this but she was Tassie through and through and couldn't bear to believe us.
After seeing the sights of Hobart, including the view from the top of Mt Wellington over the city, we drove SE to Port Arthur, which has a lot of history for the Australians. It was surprisingly really interesting and the grounds were pretty. We did a ghost tour of the jail and other old buildings at night time, which was really good fun. We all walked round in the pitch black and our guide told us about ghost sightings and tried to scare us along the way. We also did a history tour of the buildings in the day time. After Port Arthur, we went to a Tasmanian Devil Wildlife sanctuary! It was brilliant. We saw them feeding, which was a very aggressive and noisy affair. They are actually really sweet and they have lovely shiny fur coats. Afterwards the girls curled up together to go to sleep like cats, but they wouldn't let the male near them! He had to sleep on his own in the cold! The girls only go near the boys in mating season, which is only for a couple of weeks in a year! It was also amazing to hear their voices change from sounding like a dog, to roaring loudly like a lion. We both loved them as they are really sweet and fun.
We then headed up the East coast, stopping at Wineglass Bay, Bay of Fires and many other small beaches. We loved Wineglass Bay; we did a hike to see the amazing view and then walked along the beach. It came second in some recent poll of the world's best beaches and we could see why. It was surrounded by mountains and the sand was white. The tough hike there makes it all the more special.
At The Bay of Fires beaches, we had a gorgeous sunset.We then travelled across the northern part of Tas, seeing St Columbia Falls, Ralph Falls, Launceston, Stanley, Cradle Mountain & Dove Lake, Lake St Clair and Nelson and Russell Falls. We did lots of beautiful walks and saw lots more animals. We both love the animals over here and we have been really lucky to see lots of wildlife wondering around. We have noticed that the animals get more furry the further south you go in Oz!
Every evening we played poker, rummy and black jack with a mug of hot chocolate and some marshmallows. The places we were staying at in our vanwere in the middle of no-where, often freezing and there was nothing to do, but we both enjoyed cards! We were lucky with the weather during the day. It was really warm for Hobart and the East coast. For the rest of the time it was quite warm and we only had two days of rain, we were expecting a lot more.
It was good to see that Tasmanian's keep up the tradition over here of having equally as bad road signs as the rest of Oz. Signs, when rarely present, are very unclear and at extremely late notice. For example, a sign for a major highway will usually be at the turning, very occasionally with prior notice. We have only seen a handful of signs pre-warning you about a junction, and even then the distances are wrong (e.g. if the sign says turn in 300m, the actual turning will most likely be in 50m!). Anyway, enough of the road rage (don't get us started on Australian drivers!!). We did another 4,500km of driving in Tas so we feel like we got to know the roads pretty well.
After 12 days in Tas, we returned to stay with our friend Lee from uni. It was so good staying at his, not only because it was lovely to have some great company, but also because he has an amazing flat on the waterfront in St Kilda, which includes a bath (something Lins really misses form the UK). We did all the city highlights in Melbourne including the Eureka tower (great views over the city), tour of the MCG, the Crown Complex, the museums, the Botanical Gardens, visited Ramsay Street on the Neighbours tour, met the 'stars' at the Neighbours quiz night, and we joined a gym for 3 days! We also drove to the Dandedong Mountains (30k from the city) and got a really nice view of the city. We went to two AFL games (ok game, silly referees and very annoying men in luminous yellow running all over the pitch the whole time), one at the MCG and one at the Telstra Dome. We also went to a comedy night with Lee - we were quite worried about being picked on for being Pomes, but we were ok in the end!
After Melbourne we got the Greyhound bus to Canberra. We had 1 1/2 days there, which was plenty of time to see everything on offer. We went to the Australian Institute of Sport, which we both thought was good but we were expecting it to be a bit better, and all the main buildings and tours. We hired a bike, which was amusing! We both really liked Canberra for the time we there, the buildings looked lovely in the sun.
From Canberra we took the Greyhound bus to Sydney, and we stayed in a really grotty and noisy hostel for three days. We got a lot done though: registered with a teaching agency for work, spent hours looking for a flat and joined a gym. After two days we were finally successful in the flat hunting and we have got a really nice studio apartment in Darlinghurst (7 minute train / tube ride to central Sydney and 8 minutes to the brilliant shops at Bondi Junction). It is on the top floor of a block of flats in a quiet cul de sac; it has wooden floors, is nicely decorated and is very clean. We were keen on living near the beach, but we need to base ourselves in the city where the work is. We are only a 15 minute train ride from Bondi Beach, although we certainly won't be sunbathing while we are here as it's a bit chilly! It will be really nice to have a decent place all to ourselves for the next 9-10 weeks and unpack our things....what a luxury! We have everything we need literally 90 seconds from our flat, so it really is a great location.
We started work doing supply teaching on Thursday….in a place called Liverpool (we were at the same school)! We both had good days, although the kids were quite tough. It was a nightmare journey (2 hours door to door), so I don’t think we will be going there again unless there is no work anywhere else. They thought our accents were hilarious; quite a few kids thought we were from Scotland and most of the others couldn’t really understand the concept of an accent, frequently asking us if we thought they sounded different to English people. Bless the little darlings. On Friday Dave worked at a tough all boys school, similar to Quilley! Lins was at a primary school teaching Years 5 and 6 (although this is the same as UK Years 6 and 7). In their assembly, everyone stood to sing the national anthem at the end. Everyone got well into it, including the teachers. I couldn't help but grin. They are very patriotic here. Again, we both had good days, although it’s quite tiring when the kids keep trying it on all day (but we didn’t let them get away with much!). It was nice as we both got asked to go back to the schools on Monday so we must have done something right. We will tell you more stories when we have finished all our work, we are sure there will be lots. It will all be great experience. There is a lot of supply work around, which is good for us; if none is available then we will definitely get childcare work, which should be good fun (?!).
Most of you will be pleased to hear that we have had really bad weather over here. There have been storms and lots of heavy rain in NSW; some of their reservoirs are overflowing (unheard of over here). Parts of The Pacific Highway have also collapsed. It has also been quite chilly at night and Lins has had to buy a hot water bottle! It should clear up by the end of this week. Typical.
Tuesday, May 15, 2007
Uluru - Alice Springs - Adelaide - Great Ocean Road - Melbourne
After we left the NW of WA, we did the long journey back down to Perth in our 'Wicked' campervan. At Coral Bay, we snorkeled with green turtles! We were really fortunate as we were going to pay for a tour to try and find them, but we saw them when they were just swimming along below us. Dave spotted them both times!
On my birthday we went to Caversham Wildlife Park and spent the day in the company of some lovely fury friends. We fed some kangaroo's, which was quality, stroked some koala's and saw some crazy tasmanian devils running all over the place, amongst many over things. We also saw the Perth skyline at night, which was lovely.
After a month in WA, we flew to Uluru to do a 3 day tour. On the night that we arrived at our hostel we did the Sounds of Silence evening, which was so amazing; one of our best bits so far. We had sparkling wine whilst watching the sunset at Uluru and the Olgas, a fabulous meal, as much drink as we wanted and a star talk. We saw Venus, Saturn and Jupiter and some shooting stars. We were really lucky to have a sound table (there were 8 of us). We all got on really well and had a really good laugh all night.
Our 3 day tour was really good. There were 21 people on the tour as well as 10 million flies and everyone got on really well. We made especially good friends with a Dutch couple, Jos and Sonja (see the photo with the Elvis van). We did The Valley of the Winds walk at The Olgas, sunrise and sunset at Uluru as well as the base walk, and hiked round the rim at Kings Canyon. On our last night we all went out for a meal and some drinks. We had half a day in Alice Springs the next day and we bought a didgeridoo! It sounds quality! We also went to a Joey rescue centre and cuddled baby kangaroo's in pillow cases for 20 mins. There are lots of Joey (baby kangaroo) centre's in Oz. When the mum's are hit by cars on the road, often the Joey survives in the poutch. The volunteers go up and down the roads checking to see if they can find any Joey's, take them to the rescue centre, look after them for a few months (but they don't hand feed them to make it as natural as possible), and then release them in to the wild when the Joey's can easily bounce around and look after themselves. We were told to hold them for at least 10 minutes and the Joey's like it as it is supposedly a similar feeling to being in the mother's poutch. It was so amazing, and if we didn't have a plane to catch, I would have stayed there all day!
We flew to Adelaide on the same flight as our Dutch friends. We had a couple of days doing the city sights and Adelaide Hills, which were very picturesque. We hired a 'Wicked' campervan again and got an 'Elvis' one. It was quite grotty but nice to have some wheels again. We drove down to Cape Jervis and then did a day trip to Kangaroo Island, which was such good fun and we had a really good guide.
When we got to Kingston (2 hours west of Mt Gambier and the SA / Vic border), our van broke down...it was cooked. Elvis is officially dead! To cut a long story short, 'Wicked' were useless and gave us no help and simply left us where we broke down. Luckily the pick up guy was nice and gave us a lift to the bus station and we went to Mt Gambier late that night. We are still in dispute with 'Wicked' about our refund...nightmare. That night, we spent the night in Jail...a hostel that was used as a jail until 1995 and has been converted to sleep backpackers. Well, it has not really been converted as such. We slept in a cell and the beds were rock hard, but it was all good fun.
We then had to hire a car the next day, and had to stay in hostels for the next few nights. We had a good car and it was nice to feel safe on the road and travel in a bit more style. We did Mt Gambier and the amazing blue lake, and all the stops along The Great Ocean Road until we reached Melbourne. We loved every one of the sights along the way. Near The 12 Apostles we did a 16 minute helicopter ride over the Great Ocean Road. We were the only 2 people in it, along with the pilot of course, and it was so good! We got some brilliant photo's and video footage and it was such a brilliant experience.
So far we have been really fortunate with the weather.....it has been a lot hotter than we were expecting in Adelaide and along the Great Ocean Road. I think we might get a bit of a shock when we get to Tasmania!
We arrived in Melbourne on Tuesday evening, and our friend Lee from uni has very kindly offered to put us up. We fly to Tasmania on Thursday for 12 days, and then return to Melbourne.
On my birthday we went to Caversham Wildlife Park and spent the day in the company of some lovely fury friends. We fed some kangaroo's, which was quality, stroked some koala's and saw some crazy tasmanian devils running all over the place, amongst many over things. We also saw the Perth skyline at night, which was lovely.
After a month in WA, we flew to Uluru to do a 3 day tour. On the night that we arrived at our hostel we did the Sounds of Silence evening, which was so amazing; one of our best bits so far. We had sparkling wine whilst watching the sunset at Uluru and the Olgas, a fabulous meal, as much drink as we wanted and a star talk. We saw Venus, Saturn and Jupiter and some shooting stars. We were really lucky to have a sound table (there were 8 of us). We all got on really well and had a really good laugh all night.
Our 3 day tour was really good. There were 21 people on the tour as well as 10 million flies and everyone got on really well. We made especially good friends with a Dutch couple, Jos and Sonja (see the photo with the Elvis van). We did The Valley of the Winds walk at The Olgas, sunrise and sunset at Uluru as well as the base walk, and hiked round the rim at Kings Canyon. On our last night we all went out for a meal and some drinks. We had half a day in Alice Springs the next day and we bought a didgeridoo! It sounds quality! We also went to a Joey rescue centre and cuddled baby kangaroo's in pillow cases for 20 mins. There are lots of Joey (baby kangaroo) centre's in Oz. When the mum's are hit by cars on the road, often the Joey survives in the poutch. The volunteers go up and down the roads checking to see if they can find any Joey's, take them to the rescue centre, look after them for a few months (but they don't hand feed them to make it as natural as possible), and then release them in to the wild when the Joey's can easily bounce around and look after themselves. We were told to hold them for at least 10 minutes and the Joey's like it as it is supposedly a similar feeling to being in the mother's poutch. It was so amazing, and if we didn't have a plane to catch, I would have stayed there all day!
We flew to Adelaide on the same flight as our Dutch friends. We had a couple of days doing the city sights and Adelaide Hills, which were very picturesque. We hired a 'Wicked' campervan again and got an 'Elvis' one. It was quite grotty but nice to have some wheels again. We drove down to Cape Jervis and then did a day trip to Kangaroo Island, which was such good fun and we had a really good guide.
When we got to Kingston (2 hours west of Mt Gambier and the SA / Vic border), our van broke down...it was cooked. Elvis is officially dead! To cut a long story short, 'Wicked' were useless and gave us no help and simply left us where we broke down. Luckily the pick up guy was nice and gave us a lift to the bus station and we went to Mt Gambier late that night. We are still in dispute with 'Wicked' about our refund...nightmare. That night, we spent the night in Jail...a hostel that was used as a jail until 1995 and has been converted to sleep backpackers. Well, it has not really been converted as such. We slept in a cell and the beds were rock hard, but it was all good fun.
We then had to hire a car the next day, and had to stay in hostels for the next few nights. We had a good car and it was nice to feel safe on the road and travel in a bit more style. We did Mt Gambier and the amazing blue lake, and all the stops along The Great Ocean Road until we reached Melbourne. We loved every one of the sights along the way. Near The 12 Apostles we did a 16 minute helicopter ride over the Great Ocean Road. We were the only 2 people in it, along with the pilot of course, and it was so good! We got some brilliant photo's and video footage and it was such a brilliant experience.
So far we have been really fortunate with the weather.....it has been a lot hotter than we were expecting in Adelaide and along the Great Ocean Road. I think we might get a bit of a shock when we get to Tasmania!
We arrived in Melbourne on Tuesday evening, and our friend Lee from uni has very kindly offered to put us up. We fly to Tasmania on Thursday for 12 days, and then return to Melbourne.
Western Australia
Greetings! Hope you are all well. We are currently in Exmouth (the NW of WA) and it is chucking it down with rain! It only rains 3 days a year here on average, so we have done well.
We are loving it out here, but we are both quite surprised at how tired we are. We started off in Perth and spent a week doing the city and local beaches. We really enjoyed Perth - it's really clean and pretty but we were surpirsed at how much beer and chocolate costs! As it was the Easter period when we arrived, a lot of the hostels were fully booked, and we were lucky to get one in the city centre. We also stayed in 2 really nice hostels right by the beach. We then hired a 'Wicked' Campervan, which we have been in for almost 2 weeks. It drives well and is lots of fun. The back of the van converts into a double bed and we also have a sink, cool box (eski!), gas stove and cooking equipment. Dave does most of the driving (and cooking! I am actually not that great a camper yet).
First we headed south to do the Southern Curl, a 1,500 Km road trip from Perth to Albany return. Unlike in England it gets colder the further South you travel; so lets put that into context, it goes from 30 degrees to about 24. Highlights were: amazing beaches and bays, cliff top views, giant trees and widlife. Dave's become very good at dodging kangaroos at night time in the van! The big ones look fairly intimadating when they stand in the middle of the road on their hind legs with their fists up in the dark (Donnie Darko). We also climbed the Gloucester Tree (61m); Dave climbed it twice, first to test the safety of the rungs for me!
After five days we headed up North (30 degrees plus) from Perth to Exmouth another 3,500 Km return. We did the Pinnacles Desert (strange rocks in the middle of the desert); saw some huge gorges, National Parks, Monkey Mia, Coral Bay and Exmouth (Ningaloo Reef). We loved Monkey Mia - we saw ten dolphins, literally a metre away from us; we were ankle-deep in the water with them. We also saw green turtles and dugongs (manatees with a fin tale) on a boat cruise on a catamaran. On Saturday, Dave's birthday, we are going on a snorkel cruise to see whale and reef sharks; we really hope the whale sharks appear, should be a highlight of the entire trip. On Tuesday we return our van to Perth and on Wednesday we fly to Ulura (Ayres Rock) for 4 days.
Our next update will be from Victoria in a few weeks.
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