So, here I am in Palmerston North, New Zealand. Yesterday, I wrote a nice juicy blog entry covering the rest of my time in Maroochydore, including my Christmas festivities. As always, I wrote this blog entry on my computer while offline. When I finished, I shut down my MacBook and walked to the library here in Palmie to post it online. I arrived at the library, bought a wireless internet card (one hour for NZ$3 (CA$2) -- kinda cheap!), bought a big bowl of chai (NZ$5 ~ CA$3.33), sat down and turned on my computer.
Alas, it did not start. Not having had any problem with this computer before, I was not experienced in troubleshooting Macs. I took it to a computer shop to let them have a look. They think the hard drive is busted. Lovely.
In the hopes that I can get this computer working, or at least recover my data, I've shipped the computer back to Canada. I'll have more resources at my command there than I do here in New Zealand. Anyways, electronics are crazy expensive in New Zealand (even with their superweak dollar), so it will probably be cheaper to fix it there.
As a silver lining, this does significantly lighten the load I have to carry. My mantra has always been to TRAVEL LIGHT. Lately, in anticipation of my upcoming hiking endeavours on the South Island of New Zealand (oh man, I got some sweet stuff planned), I've been picking up clothing more suitable for the outdoors (it can get cold and rainy in those mountains!). My load has been getting heavier and I've been getting annoyed. Something had to get dropped, but I didn't know what to get rid of. It seemed like I needed all my stuff for some reason. Sending my computer back to Canada (as well as a couple of t-shirts, my fisherman pants, and my cheap Korean windbreaker jacket as packing material), should lighten my load significantly.
I'll keep on taking photographs. I have a 16 GB memory card in my camera. It's unlikely I'll completely fill it before getting back to Canada on April 2. If I do, I'll just get another card.
My output to this blog and my online photo albums will likely suffer greatly. My apologies... I know this sucks. I'm going to try and keep handwritten notes so I can do big piles of updates when I get back to Canada. Internet time is just too expensive here to sit in front of computers for the required dozens and dozens of hours to do it beforehand.
Even if I can't recover my hard drive, the amount of data lost is not too great. I have basically everything backed up since I left Canada in November. My past collections of photos and music are safe in Canada as of November. However, I've probably taken about 2000 photographs since then. The best of these have already been posted to Picasa, but I would lose the others (including the original full-sized versions of those photographs since November). This would suck, but it wouldn't be the end of the world.
Here's the ironic bit (at least, in the Alanis Morissete bastardized version of the word "ironic"). I was planning on burning all of my photographs since November to DVD before Meps left me about five days ago so she could bring them safely back to Canada for me. I didn't have time to do it, however (or more accurately, I foolishly did not MAKE time to do it). It would have taken two DVDs and a couple of hours to do the job and then I would be confident that my art and effort would be safe. Le sigh.
--
Rob Szumlakowski
Palmerston North, New Zealand
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
New Photos Posted: New Zealand 1
Hi hi hi! I've put up a photo album from my first adventures in New Zealand. In particular, this photo album covers the time that Meps was traveling with me on the North Island.
Enjoy!
--
Rob Sz
Palmerston North, New Zealand
Enjoy!
--
Rob Sz
Palmerston North, New Zealand
Thursday, January 15, 2009
Cleaning Out Broome
Editor’s Note: This is a big update! Let’s try and catch up a bit, shall we? Also, as I write this, I want you to know that I’m currently wearing a sticker on my forehead that says “Special”. Yes, I’m special.
December 13, 2008
...continued
So we were out of Karijini National Park, but we were still a long way from Broome. We still had almost two full days of driving to go. We continued to drive through the remote stretches of The Pilbara back towards the coast of the Indian Ocean. The next town we passed through was Port Hedland.
Yes! Civilization! I had reception for my mobile phone! Cold beverages! Air conditioning! Fresh bread!
We stopped at the shopping mall in Port Hedland for a short while. I needed to buy new flip flops... I only had this cheapo AU$8 (CA$6.70) for two weeks and they were already wrecked. This time I bought a proper pair (AU$30 ~ CA$25) that had a comfy mushy layer and had a kangaroo on them! They were my skippy flippies (since Aussies call kangaroos “skippies”)! They’re still going strong a month later!
I think, at this point, I was the dirtiest I’ve ever been. I hadn’t had a proper shower or shave in like three or four days. I had been wearing the same clothes (my “Karijini Dirties”) the same length of time. My boardshorts, which used to be two-toned white and beige, were now a uniform ruddy red colour from the dust. They would never be the same again. I actually felt somewhat self conscious while walking around that shopping mall!
Port Hedland is somewhat interesting since it’s the port that all of the iron ore that’s mined in The Pilbara heads to on long trains to get loaded onto ships. The trains are very long. We drove past one train for like ten minutes before we got past it! They are reputedly the longest trains in the world. The raw unprocessed iron ore is loaded onto ships to be taken to China for refining.
We continued driving on the way towards Broome. In the evening, we didn’t even reach a town... there aren’t any at all between Port Hedland and Broome (at least 500 km). Our stopping point that night was a little camping area on the Pardoo Cattle Station. At least they had hot showers! And a swimming pool! LUXURY!
That night we got to sleep under the stars again in our swags while wallabies hopped around the campground around us.
December 14, 2008
This was the last day of the tour. It was still a lot of driving to get to Broome. We stopped briefly at Eighty Mile Beach, which isn’t actually eighty miles long. Like many of the beaches in Australia and New Zealand with similar names, it got its name when some early explorers said something like, “Crikey! Look at that beach! I reckon it’s got to be eighty miles long!” Silly Aussies.
After driving for a bunch more hours, we finally reached Broome in the early afternoon! What a relief! We drove briefly through the town and onwards towards neighbouring Cable Beach. We stopped for photos and celebratory martinis at a beach bar. We had done it!!!
Everyone else was staying in backpacker’s hostels near Cable Beach. I was the only one who was silly enough to book myself into a hostel in Broome itself (about 8 km away). Tammy was going to give me a drive to drop me off at my place, but the bus wouldn’t start. Silly Turbo Charlie had a loose connection. After unhitching the trailer, me, Sasha, and Tok (Tammy’s boyfriend, who traveled with us through Karijini NP) managed to push the whole bus and get it started again. I guess Turbo Charlie wasn’t so turbo after all.
I went back to my hostel in the afternoon, but took the city bus back to Cable Beach in the evening. I watched the sunset on the Indian Ocean as a caravan of camels walked down Cable Beach.
After sunset, I heard singing and music. What was going on? Upon investigation, I discovered that Cable Beach was having a Christmas Concert. I got to see SANTA CLAUS!!!
Aussie Santa was kinda funny. He had a funny accent, his jacket wasn’t closed properly, and I think he was an aboriginal.
After hearing some Christmas carols in the lavish production, I met with the tour group again for a nice dinner at a restaurant at Cable Beach. Many beers were had, of course!
December 15, 2008
Today was a sightseeing day in Broome for me. It’s actually a pretty small place, and is famous for glorious Cable Beach and it’s pearl industry. Before the war, there was a rough-and-tumble pearl diving industry here. After the war, with the introduction of cultured pearls, the nature of the pearl industry changed, but Broome remained a centre of pearl production. Since it was the Japanese that brought the cultured pearl industry here, there is a heavy Japanese influence in the town.
I didn’t actually do much that day in Broome. I just walked around, took photos, and returned to the hostel to do laundry before catching my flight out of there. My Karijini Dirties got somewhat cleaned. The boardshorts were still ruddy red, but my olive Billabong t-shirt seemed to have escaped somewhat unscathed.
That evening I flew back to Perth (covering the distance, by air, in a couple hours, that took ten days overland -- though we didn’t go in a straight line!). At midnight, I caught another flight from Perth back to Brisbane. My time in Western Australia was finished.
So, Broome itself was kind of boring to me. It’s really just a beach resort town, much like any other, except very far from anywhere. You can really say, that in my trip to Broome, the real adventure was the journey itself, not the destination.
December 16, 2008
I landed in Brisbane about 5:30 AM. I collected my bag, found a bench to lie on, and promptly fell asleep for a few hours. I had not slept on my overnight flight.
Why would I stick around the airport for so long? I was waiting for Meps (AKA Melissa Johnson)! She was coming from Canada for a vacation and had somehow suckered me into planning her trip being her tour guide! I don’t mind planning someone else’s trip, as long as I get to go on it, too.
Around 10 AM, Meps emerged from her transpacific flight ordeal. We hopped into our rented car, a tiny blue Toyota Yaris and we thundered off (as only a tiny Yaris can). It was my first experience driving a stick shift car in a right-hand-side-drive car on the left side of the road. Yes, you have to operate the gear shift with your left hand. No, the pedals are in the same order. Yes, there is a clutch. No, I did just fine!!! I was quite impressed with myself.
We needed a name for our car. We’d have it for two weeks and it would take us lots of places. Meps called it “Little Larry,” but I decided to call it “Wee Lawrence” in a terrible Irish accent. Try saying it: “Weeeeeeee Law-rence!” Hilarious!
I drove us to Surfers Paradise, about one hour south of Brisbane. It’s probably the single most touristy place in the whole continent of Australia, being all condominiums, shopping malls, restaurants, beaches, and gimmicky tourist attractions. Normally I avoid these places (since I don’t consider myself a “tourist”), but Meps was on vacation, and it was a good place to start it off for her (besides, I hadn’t been here yet!).
That afternoon, I introduced Meps to the pleasures of goone (cheap boxed wine). Okay, by “pleasures” I mean, “a cheap way to get drunk”, but, now *I* was on vacation, too! Getting drunk is something that you’re supposed to do on vacation! So there!
Our hostel (the Islander Resort) was really more of a hotel than a hostel, sadly. The common areas and kitchen were extremely disappointing. It was challenging to find people to hang out with, so mostly Meps and I hung out with each other (drinking lots of goone), and enjoying the hot tub. We went in there a few days in a row, before discovering, in the light, that it was scummy and filled with bugs. Yuck.
December 17, 2008
Today, Meps and I took Wee Lawrence out for a spin and hung out in Brisbane for the day. We walked around the city centre where I bought myself some sweet new board shorts. They were kind of expensive (AU$79 ~ CA$66), but they looked really good. They weren’t the standard Billabong, Quicksilver, Ripcurl, or generic hibiscus-print boardshorts you see everyone else wearing. I gotta be different (even if it costs money)! I wonder if my backpacker-budget ideals are beginning to crack.
Walking around the Brisbane city centre was fun, because, of course, the city was decked out in Christmas decorations (only one week left!). There were buskers performing and there was a band playing Christmas music. Even though it was like 30 degrees and there was no snow whatsoever, I was totally getting into the Christmas spirit... just an upside-down version of it.
We stopped by the Brisbane South Bank park, across the river, too. It was a huge park and very swanky. There was an artificial beach and lagoon. Since Brisbane isn’t actually located on the sea, I guess the city planners decided to bring the beach into the city.
Meps said that she “still didn’t feel like she was in Australia yet”. We had to fix that. So, after a couple of ice creams (yay Rainbow Paddle Pops!), we drove to the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary to see some real Australian animals. There were plenty of koalas, kangaroos, sheep, lizards, birds, and snakes. We watched a fascinating sheep dog demonstration. The Aussie farm dude showed us how one man and two well-trained dogs can move an entire herd of sheep. It was funny watching the dogs run in fast orbits around the sheep, who, acted like sheep... That’s the only way I can say it. They herded close together and moved in a big wooly mob. The two little dogs pushed the whole rabble of woolies into a pen and then proceeded to jump ONTO the sheep and run around on TOP of the herd. I thought this was the best part of the show.
After the animal sanctuary, Meps confirmed that, yes, she finally felt like she really was in Australia. Mission accomplished.
The next destination was the lookout on top of Mt Coot-tha. The road curved up and up steeply and poor Wee Lawrence really struggled to get up there. The view from the top was pretty fantastic as the whole city of Brisbane stretched out before us.
December 18, 2008
I hadn’t been on any roller coasters since my first trip to Japan back in September 2004. That’s more than four years, and that’s officially much too long.
Thankfully, being the tourist hub that Surfers Paradise is, there are several amusement parks nearby. Though none of these are as big as Canada’s Wonderland (which I’ve decided is actually quite a large amusement park), Meps and I still got to enjoy a couple roller coasters and a whole lot of water slides today at Dream World! The roller coasters were fairly tame by my standards, but the water park was very very fun. It was a typical, glorious, sunny, hot, pre-Christmas day in Australia and the water park was highly appreciated.
Since Meps went on roller coasters with me, that makes her an official better travel buddy than Will Chau, who didn’t want to go on roller coasters when we went to Japan in April 2006. :P
December 19, 2008
Today was the third road trip in a row. We took Wee Lawrence one hour south, across the state border into New South Wales, and went to Byron Bay. I had spent six days there back in February, but today we were just here for the afternoon. Meps bought a book. I bought some Thai fisherman pants. It’s been a regret of mine that I didn’t buy more when I was in Thailand, so when I saw some for sale in one of the hippie stores in Byron Bay, I went for it. Fisherman pants are really light, baggy and comfortable pants that lots of people (especially backpackers) in Thailand wear. We also went to the lighthouse on Cape Byron (the easternmost point in Australia), had lunch at an organic cafe, and went to the beach (with huge waves!).
December 20, 2008
Today was a quiet day for me. We went to a shopping mall for some groceries, coffee, and to buy more goone. Meps went for a surfing lesson in the afternoon. I didn’t do much at all. I think I worked on my blog.
December 21, 2008
Nothing-day! We’re on vacation! We’re not obliged to do anything if we don’t want to. Normally, I usually take more nothing-days when traveling, but I was trying to be a good tour guide for Meps on her big vacation.
December 22, 2008
After two rest days (which I needed, deserved, and enjoyed, of course), it was time to do stuff again. It was our last day in Surfers Paradise, so it was finally time to go for a drive to one of the several national parks in the mountains outside of the city. Just 30 km from the coast, there was a plethora of parks and mountains to visit.
The one I chose to go to was Springbrook National Park, located on the edge of an old volcanic caldera from millions of years ago. It doesn’t really look like a volcano anymore, just a collection of pretty hills, cliffs, and plateaus. We took a short walk through a forest that had so many insects buzzing in the trees it was actually hard to hear each other talk. I had never been in a forest that was so noisy before. It was truly summer here in Australia (even though Christmas was only a few days away!).
We drove to a lookout with the very boastful name of “Best of All Lookout”. From there we could see all the way across the caldera, including to Mount Warning (the central peak) and all the way to Cape Byron on the coast with all the bumpy land in between. That’s a pretty good distance. It was a good lookout, but I’ve been to better :)
We had lunch at a picnic area near Purling Brook Falls. There was a hiking trail around the base of the falls, so we went for a little walk. At the start of the trail, we saw two rainbow lorikeets in a tree. Cool! Colourful birds! I had to try and take their pictures, of course.
It was kind of dark under the trees, though. My pictures weren’t turning out very well. I decided that I should break my own rule and use the camera’s flash while taking pictures of animals. One of the birds objected strongly to being flashed and actually flew up and attacked my camera!!! There was no damage, but I was certainly surprised. I guess I shouldn’t break my own rules. Stupid birds.
The waterfalls were pretty, at least:
You can see the hiking trail winding behind the cascade part way down. We got to walk behind the waterfall, of course!
From the bottom of the waterfall, there was a side path to a rock pool. There were some very-refreshed looking people coming up from there who had gone swimming. I had brought my swimmers, so we went down to check it out. When we got there, I found a ledge to jump into the water from. The water looked VERY VERY cold and I was reluctant to do it. After seeing some kids jump in I remembered how much I love jumping off of shit into shit and how much I live for this kind of stuff (yes, this really was my thought process), so I had to go for it.
Indeed, the water was very very cold. As an added bonus, I had to jump three times before we got a picture that turned out. The sacrifices I go through for my art...
The drive back was fun. Wee Lawrence was nearly out of petrol. It was a good thing though that most of the way back was downhill on a very twisty road. Usually, I threw the little guy into neutral and rolled most of the way down at speeds only vaguely acknowledging the posted speed limits. The road wasn’t very busy, so, remembering the lessons I learned from the crazy bus drivers in Southeast Asia, I cut all the corners on the hairpin turns and switchbacks that I could. Surprisingly, I didn’t terrify Meps too much. She’s a trooper!
December 23, 2008
Goodbye Surfers Paradise. We drove north two hours (putting us one hour north of Brisbane) to Maroochydore, on the Sunshine Coast. I had spent one week on the Sunshine Coast back in February with my father and sister. At that time it rained six of the seven days, making a mockery of the name “Sunshine Coast”. I still enjoyed the place, and I thought it would be a nice place to spend Christmas. Originally, I had wanted to spend the week in Byron Bay for some excellent Christmas partying, but the town seemed to be booked solid, so I thought the Sunshine Coast would make a suitable replacement. This time, however, instead of staying in Noosa, we stayed 30 km south in Maroochydore, which is somewhat less touristy.
In Maroochydore, we stayed at Cotton Tree Backpackers, located across the street from a park and a beach (an excellent setting). The backpackers was a proper one: a cozy house with only a couple dozen guests. Many of them seemed to be long-termers: transients (like me) who had settled in one place for a while to work (unlike me). Many backpackers in Australia stay for a year and spend most of it working. I, however, didn’t really feel the motivation to work, and I’m sure that I’ve seen much more of Australia in my four months here than many have in their year. Long-termers seem to be very cliquey and it’s hard to make friends with them, but the ones at Cotton Tree were very friendly and we had no problems being social (unlike in Surfers Paradise).
It was a Sunday night and it was hard to find a place in town to have dinner. Australia is really bad for restaurants on Sundays. Many are closed, and the ones that are open charge you an extra 10% for the privilege of being able to eat there on Sunday. Lots of other stuff is closed on Sunday, too. Sometimes it’s hard to remember how progressive Canada is in this regard.
I had a craving for fish and chips and I had some that night. The fish was snapper, which is definitely classified as “tastyfish.” Meps even tried some of my fish. It was the first time she had fish in like fifteen years. She survived the encounter and even said the fish was pretty good. Maybe the walls of her vegetarianism are starting to crack?
That night was a fun one. Cotton Tree Backpackers has a few picnic tables out front and we drank a lot of goone with the other people there. Mostly we chatted with Amanda, from New Zealand. Around midnight, she tried to call her friend who worked at a pizza to try and score us some free pizza. He didn’t answer the phone, but Amanda passed the phone around and we left silly messages on the voice mail. Silly us. We also hung out with Aemon, from Canada. There were actually a lot of Canadian backpackers at Cotton Tree. That just continues the trend of there being far more Canadian backpackers than Americans (though the numbers of Canadians are still dwarfed by English and Germans).
Tomorrow is Christmas Eve! But I’ll write about that in the next update, mmm’kay?
--
Rob Sz
Auckland, New Zealand
December 13, 2008
...continued
So we were out of Karijini National Park, but we were still a long way from Broome. We still had almost two full days of driving to go. We continued to drive through the remote stretches of The Pilbara back towards the coast of the Indian Ocean. The next town we passed through was Port Hedland.
Yes! Civilization! I had reception for my mobile phone! Cold beverages! Air conditioning! Fresh bread!
We stopped at the shopping mall in Port Hedland for a short while. I needed to buy new flip flops... I only had this cheapo AU$8 (CA$6.70) for two weeks and they were already wrecked. This time I bought a proper pair (AU$30 ~ CA$25) that had a comfy mushy layer and had a kangaroo on them! They were my skippy flippies (since Aussies call kangaroos “skippies”)! They’re still going strong a month later!
I think, at this point, I was the dirtiest I’ve ever been. I hadn’t had a proper shower or shave in like three or four days. I had been wearing the same clothes (my “Karijini Dirties”) the same length of time. My boardshorts, which used to be two-toned white and beige, were now a uniform ruddy red colour from the dust. They would never be the same again. I actually felt somewhat self conscious while walking around that shopping mall!
Port Hedland is somewhat interesting since it’s the port that all of the iron ore that’s mined in The Pilbara heads to on long trains to get loaded onto ships. The trains are very long. We drove past one train for like ten minutes before we got past it! They are reputedly the longest trains in the world. The raw unprocessed iron ore is loaded onto ships to be taken to China for refining.
We continued driving on the way towards Broome. In the evening, we didn’t even reach a town... there aren’t any at all between Port Hedland and Broome (at least 500 km). Our stopping point that night was a little camping area on the Pardoo Cattle Station. At least they had hot showers! And a swimming pool! LUXURY!
That night we got to sleep under the stars again in our swags while wallabies hopped around the campground around us.
December 14, 2008
This was the last day of the tour. It was still a lot of driving to get to Broome. We stopped briefly at Eighty Mile Beach, which isn’t actually eighty miles long. Like many of the beaches in Australia and New Zealand with similar names, it got its name when some early explorers said something like, “Crikey! Look at that beach! I reckon it’s got to be eighty miles long!” Silly Aussies.
After driving for a bunch more hours, we finally reached Broome in the early afternoon! What a relief! We drove briefly through the town and onwards towards neighbouring Cable Beach. We stopped for photos and celebratory martinis at a beach bar. We had done it!!!
Everyone else was staying in backpacker’s hostels near Cable Beach. I was the only one who was silly enough to book myself into a hostel in Broome itself (about 8 km away). Tammy was going to give me a drive to drop me off at my place, but the bus wouldn’t start. Silly Turbo Charlie had a loose connection. After unhitching the trailer, me, Sasha, and Tok (Tammy’s boyfriend, who traveled with us through Karijini NP) managed to push the whole bus and get it started again. I guess Turbo Charlie wasn’t so turbo after all.
I went back to my hostel in the afternoon, but took the city bus back to Cable Beach in the evening. I watched the sunset on the Indian Ocean as a caravan of camels walked down Cable Beach.
After sunset, I heard singing and music. What was going on? Upon investigation, I discovered that Cable Beach was having a Christmas Concert. I got to see SANTA CLAUS!!!
Aussie Santa was kinda funny. He had a funny accent, his jacket wasn’t closed properly, and I think he was an aboriginal.
After hearing some Christmas carols in the lavish production, I met with the tour group again for a nice dinner at a restaurant at Cable Beach. Many beers were had, of course!
December 15, 2008
Today was a sightseeing day in Broome for me. It’s actually a pretty small place, and is famous for glorious Cable Beach and it’s pearl industry. Before the war, there was a rough-and-tumble pearl diving industry here. After the war, with the introduction of cultured pearls, the nature of the pearl industry changed, but Broome remained a centre of pearl production. Since it was the Japanese that brought the cultured pearl industry here, there is a heavy Japanese influence in the town.
I didn’t actually do much that day in Broome. I just walked around, took photos, and returned to the hostel to do laundry before catching my flight out of there. My Karijini Dirties got somewhat cleaned. The boardshorts were still ruddy red, but my olive Billabong t-shirt seemed to have escaped somewhat unscathed.
That evening I flew back to Perth (covering the distance, by air, in a couple hours, that took ten days overland -- though we didn’t go in a straight line!). At midnight, I caught another flight from Perth back to Brisbane. My time in Western Australia was finished.
So, Broome itself was kind of boring to me. It’s really just a beach resort town, much like any other, except very far from anywhere. You can really say, that in my trip to Broome, the real adventure was the journey itself, not the destination.
December 16, 2008
I landed in Brisbane about 5:30 AM. I collected my bag, found a bench to lie on, and promptly fell asleep for a few hours. I had not slept on my overnight flight.
Why would I stick around the airport for so long? I was waiting for Meps (AKA Melissa Johnson)! She was coming from Canada for a vacation and had somehow suckered me into planning her trip being her tour guide! I don’t mind planning someone else’s trip, as long as I get to go on it, too.
Around 10 AM, Meps emerged from her transpacific flight ordeal. We hopped into our rented car, a tiny blue Toyota Yaris and we thundered off (as only a tiny Yaris can). It was my first experience driving a stick shift car in a right-hand-side-drive car on the left side of the road. Yes, you have to operate the gear shift with your left hand. No, the pedals are in the same order. Yes, there is a clutch. No, I did just fine!!! I was quite impressed with myself.
We needed a name for our car. We’d have it for two weeks and it would take us lots of places. Meps called it “Little Larry,” but I decided to call it “Wee Lawrence” in a terrible Irish accent. Try saying it: “Weeeeeeee Law-rence!” Hilarious!
I drove us to Surfers Paradise, about one hour south of Brisbane. It’s probably the single most touristy place in the whole continent of Australia, being all condominiums, shopping malls, restaurants, beaches, and gimmicky tourist attractions. Normally I avoid these places (since I don’t consider myself a “tourist”), but Meps was on vacation, and it was a good place to start it off for her (besides, I hadn’t been here yet!).
That afternoon, I introduced Meps to the pleasures of goone (cheap boxed wine). Okay, by “pleasures” I mean, “a cheap way to get drunk”, but, now *I* was on vacation, too! Getting drunk is something that you’re supposed to do on vacation! So there!
Our hostel (the Islander Resort) was really more of a hotel than a hostel, sadly. The common areas and kitchen were extremely disappointing. It was challenging to find people to hang out with, so mostly Meps and I hung out with each other (drinking lots of goone), and enjoying the hot tub. We went in there a few days in a row, before discovering, in the light, that it was scummy and filled with bugs. Yuck.
December 17, 2008
Today, Meps and I took Wee Lawrence out for a spin and hung out in Brisbane for the day. We walked around the city centre where I bought myself some sweet new board shorts. They were kind of expensive (AU$79 ~ CA$66), but they looked really good. They weren’t the standard Billabong, Quicksilver, Ripcurl, or generic hibiscus-print boardshorts you see everyone else wearing. I gotta be different (even if it costs money)! I wonder if my backpacker-budget ideals are beginning to crack.
Walking around the Brisbane city centre was fun, because, of course, the city was decked out in Christmas decorations (only one week left!). There were buskers performing and there was a band playing Christmas music. Even though it was like 30 degrees and there was no snow whatsoever, I was totally getting into the Christmas spirit... just an upside-down version of it.
We stopped by the Brisbane South Bank park, across the river, too. It was a huge park and very swanky. There was an artificial beach and lagoon. Since Brisbane isn’t actually located on the sea, I guess the city planners decided to bring the beach into the city.
Meps said that she “still didn’t feel like she was in Australia yet”. We had to fix that. So, after a couple of ice creams (yay Rainbow Paddle Pops!), we drove to the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary to see some real Australian animals. There were plenty of koalas, kangaroos, sheep, lizards, birds, and snakes. We watched a fascinating sheep dog demonstration. The Aussie farm dude showed us how one man and two well-trained dogs can move an entire herd of sheep. It was funny watching the dogs run in fast orbits around the sheep, who, acted like sheep... That’s the only way I can say it. They herded close together and moved in a big wooly mob. The two little dogs pushed the whole rabble of woolies into a pen and then proceeded to jump ONTO the sheep and run around on TOP of the herd. I thought this was the best part of the show.
After the animal sanctuary, Meps confirmed that, yes, she finally felt like she really was in Australia. Mission accomplished.
The next destination was the lookout on top of Mt Coot-tha. The road curved up and up steeply and poor Wee Lawrence really struggled to get up there. The view from the top was pretty fantastic as the whole city of Brisbane stretched out before us.
December 18, 2008
I hadn’t been on any roller coasters since my first trip to Japan back in September 2004. That’s more than four years, and that’s officially much too long.
Thankfully, being the tourist hub that Surfers Paradise is, there are several amusement parks nearby. Though none of these are as big as Canada’s Wonderland (which I’ve decided is actually quite a large amusement park), Meps and I still got to enjoy a couple roller coasters and a whole lot of water slides today at Dream World! The roller coasters were fairly tame by my standards, but the water park was very very fun. It was a typical, glorious, sunny, hot, pre-Christmas day in Australia and the water park was highly appreciated.
Since Meps went on roller coasters with me, that makes her an official better travel buddy than Will Chau, who didn’t want to go on roller coasters when we went to Japan in April 2006. :P
December 19, 2008
Today was the third road trip in a row. We took Wee Lawrence one hour south, across the state border into New South Wales, and went to Byron Bay. I had spent six days there back in February, but today we were just here for the afternoon. Meps bought a book. I bought some Thai fisherman pants. It’s been a regret of mine that I didn’t buy more when I was in Thailand, so when I saw some for sale in one of the hippie stores in Byron Bay, I went for it. Fisherman pants are really light, baggy and comfortable pants that lots of people (especially backpackers) in Thailand wear. We also went to the lighthouse on Cape Byron (the easternmost point in Australia), had lunch at an organic cafe, and went to the beach (with huge waves!).
December 20, 2008
Today was a quiet day for me. We went to a shopping mall for some groceries, coffee, and to buy more goone. Meps went for a surfing lesson in the afternoon. I didn’t do much at all. I think I worked on my blog.
December 21, 2008
Nothing-day! We’re on vacation! We’re not obliged to do anything if we don’t want to. Normally, I usually take more nothing-days when traveling, but I was trying to be a good tour guide for Meps on her big vacation.
December 22, 2008
After two rest days (which I needed, deserved, and enjoyed, of course), it was time to do stuff again. It was our last day in Surfers Paradise, so it was finally time to go for a drive to one of the several national parks in the mountains outside of the city. Just 30 km from the coast, there was a plethora of parks and mountains to visit.
The one I chose to go to was Springbrook National Park, located on the edge of an old volcanic caldera from millions of years ago. It doesn’t really look like a volcano anymore, just a collection of pretty hills, cliffs, and plateaus. We took a short walk through a forest that had so many insects buzzing in the trees it was actually hard to hear each other talk. I had never been in a forest that was so noisy before. It was truly summer here in Australia (even though Christmas was only a few days away!).
We drove to a lookout with the very boastful name of “Best of All Lookout”. From there we could see all the way across the caldera, including to Mount Warning (the central peak) and all the way to Cape Byron on the coast with all the bumpy land in between. That’s a pretty good distance. It was a good lookout, but I’ve been to better :)
We had lunch at a picnic area near Purling Brook Falls. There was a hiking trail around the base of the falls, so we went for a little walk. At the start of the trail, we saw two rainbow lorikeets in a tree. Cool! Colourful birds! I had to try and take their pictures, of course.
It was kind of dark under the trees, though. My pictures weren’t turning out very well. I decided that I should break my own rule and use the camera’s flash while taking pictures of animals. One of the birds objected strongly to being flashed and actually flew up and attacked my camera!!! There was no damage, but I was certainly surprised. I guess I shouldn’t break my own rules. Stupid birds.
The waterfalls were pretty, at least:
You can see the hiking trail winding behind the cascade part way down. We got to walk behind the waterfall, of course!
From the bottom of the waterfall, there was a side path to a rock pool. There were some very-refreshed looking people coming up from there who had gone swimming. I had brought my swimmers, so we went down to check it out. When we got there, I found a ledge to jump into the water from. The water looked VERY VERY cold and I was reluctant to do it. After seeing some kids jump in I remembered how much I love jumping off of shit into shit and how much I live for this kind of stuff (yes, this really was my thought process), so I had to go for it.
Indeed, the water was very very cold. As an added bonus, I had to jump three times before we got a picture that turned out. The sacrifices I go through for my art...
The drive back was fun. Wee Lawrence was nearly out of petrol. It was a good thing though that most of the way back was downhill on a very twisty road. Usually, I threw the little guy into neutral and rolled most of the way down at speeds only vaguely acknowledging the posted speed limits. The road wasn’t very busy, so, remembering the lessons I learned from the crazy bus drivers in Southeast Asia, I cut all the corners on the hairpin turns and switchbacks that I could. Surprisingly, I didn’t terrify Meps too much. She’s a trooper!
December 23, 2008
Goodbye Surfers Paradise. We drove north two hours (putting us one hour north of Brisbane) to Maroochydore, on the Sunshine Coast. I had spent one week on the Sunshine Coast back in February with my father and sister. At that time it rained six of the seven days, making a mockery of the name “Sunshine Coast”. I still enjoyed the place, and I thought it would be a nice place to spend Christmas. Originally, I had wanted to spend the week in Byron Bay for some excellent Christmas partying, but the town seemed to be booked solid, so I thought the Sunshine Coast would make a suitable replacement. This time, however, instead of staying in Noosa, we stayed 30 km south in Maroochydore, which is somewhat less touristy.
In Maroochydore, we stayed at Cotton Tree Backpackers, located across the street from a park and a beach (an excellent setting). The backpackers was a proper one: a cozy house with only a couple dozen guests. Many of them seemed to be long-termers: transients (like me) who had settled in one place for a while to work (unlike me). Many backpackers in Australia stay for a year and spend most of it working. I, however, didn’t really feel the motivation to work, and I’m sure that I’ve seen much more of Australia in my four months here than many have in their year. Long-termers seem to be very cliquey and it’s hard to make friends with them, but the ones at Cotton Tree were very friendly and we had no problems being social (unlike in Surfers Paradise).
It was a Sunday night and it was hard to find a place in town to have dinner. Australia is really bad for restaurants on Sundays. Many are closed, and the ones that are open charge you an extra 10% for the privilege of being able to eat there on Sunday. Lots of other stuff is closed on Sunday, too. Sometimes it’s hard to remember how progressive Canada is in this regard.
I had a craving for fish and chips and I had some that night. The fish was snapper, which is definitely classified as “tastyfish.” Meps even tried some of my fish. It was the first time she had fish in like fifteen years. She survived the encounter and even said the fish was pretty good. Maybe the walls of her vegetarianism are starting to crack?
That night was a fun one. Cotton Tree Backpackers has a few picnic tables out front and we drank a lot of goone with the other people there. Mostly we chatted with Amanda, from New Zealand. Around midnight, she tried to call her friend who worked at a pizza to try and score us some free pizza. He didn’t answer the phone, but Amanda passed the phone around and we left silly messages on the voice mail. Silly us. We also hung out with Aemon, from Canada. There were actually a lot of Canadian backpackers at Cotton Tree. That just continues the trend of there being far more Canadian backpackers than Americans (though the numbers of Canadians are still dwarfed by English and Germans).
Tomorrow is Christmas Eve! But I’ll write about that in the next update, mmm’kay?
--
Rob Sz
Auckland, New Zealand
Saturday, January 10, 2009
New Photos Posted: Australian Christmas Holiday
Hi! I've posted photos from my last three weeks in Australia... two weeks in Queensland and one in Sydney, where I spent Christmas and New Years! Meps came all the way from Canada to hang out (and force me to be her tour guide). Enjoy the pictures!
--
Rob Sz
Taupo, New Zealand
--
Rob Sz
Taupo, New Zealand
Karijini Dirties
Editor’s Note: I now seem to be writing about events that happened more than one month ago. I know I’m woefully behind. It’s hard for me, however, to find the time and MOTIVATION to work on this blog. I know it’s for a good cause, but it feels like a huge chore for me. I took a few stabs at it over the past couple weeks to pound out an update, but I ended up puttering around on my computer or making some excuses and making no progress. It is VERY HARD. Wish me luck this time.
December 9, 2008
We resume this distinguished journal in the town of Exmouth near the tip of a peninsula in Western Australia, sticking out into the tropical waters of the Indian Ocean. The nearest city with over fifty thousand people is Perth, some 1200 km to the south. In the other direction, there are NO cities with over fifty thousand people on the north coast of Australia anywhere. There are very few people that live in the distant reaches of this far flung continent.
The land is generally inhabited and used, but sparsely. Huge iron and aluminum (and probably other minerals), mines can be found in the stretches of emptiness. Much of the land is given over to huge cattle stations where real modern-day cowboys still go on regular round-ups. We actually had to stop several times on the road to Exmouth yesterday to wait for dim-witted cattle to clear the highway while Tammy blared Turbo Charlie’s (our tourbus) horn at them.
Anyways, back to the present. We had the special luxury today of NOT having to pack up our stuff in the morning today since we were spending two nights in a row at the same place in Exmouth. Yay!
We still had some driving to do today, though. We would be spending the day enjoying some of available activities in Cape Range National Park, outside of Exmouth. The first stop was a bush walk along Yardie Creek where Tammie showed us several forms of bush tucker (food that you could find growing in the wilderness) and bush medicine. We had some bush plums (actually a kind of fig). We saw some rock wallabies hopping around some rocks in a gorge, and saw big sting rays gliding slowly in the creek water far below us.
After Yardie Creek we got to spend the rest of the day at THE BEACH! And what a beach! We were at Turquoise Bay, where the water was turquoise... and blue, and green, and all sorts of shades in between. It was easily one of the most beautiful beaches I’ve seen.
We were far from the city and there weren’t too many people here. There was great snorkeling off shore (more of the Ningaloo Reef), but I had forgot to put in my contact lenses and my visibility was limited, so I took a couple of tries at it (the water magnifies the scenery to some degree, but my eyes are so terrible that it’s not enough), but spent most of the rest of the time soaking up the sun. The sand was white, powdery (and stuck everywhere, of course). I didn’t really have a beach towel, so I just laid on the sand. Back to basics, for me!
That night, we cooked up some BBQ at the campground in Exmouth. Barry and I drank the rest of our Emu Bitter beers. He was staying behind to do some scuba diving in Exmouth, which is said to be among the best in the world. Edouard was staying behind, too. He was returning back to Coral Bay to do the manta ray diving. Emails, phone numbers, and Facebook names were exchanged and plans were made to meet up again in Sydney.
December 10, 2008
Early start today. We had a LOT of driving. For most of the trip so far, we had been vaguely following the Indian Ocean coast northwards. Today we would head away from the coast farther into the interior of the continent, into a region of the Outback known as “The Pilbara” towards Karijini National Park.
We picked up a second guide, too: Sasha. It was his first time as a tour guide through Karijini NP and up to Broome, and he was along to learn the ropes from Tammy.
The vegetation was sparse. The soil was a rich red colour. This region was iron mining country. The ground was literally made from rusty sand. Tammy told us that drinking and cleaning water out here was limited and the dust stuck to EVERYTHING. It was her advice that we picked out one set of clothes to wear for the next three days. That one set of clothes would probably never recover, so don’t pick anything nice. I designated my crappy old Billabong board shorts and t-shirt to be the sacrificial clothing. I called them my “Karijini Dirties”.
After many hours of driving, we reached the town of Tom Price, a hub town for the mining industry. It was our last chance to buy beer, snacks, and any other necessary items for three days. After a picnic lunch and our shopping expedition, we pulled out of town, and drove the rest of the way to Karijini National Park.
The earth was red, but the vegetation was green. I remarked that the earth was decorated in Christmas colours. I felt festive.
There is a chain of mountains running through Karijini NP, the Hamersley Range. The chief attraction to the park, however, other than the stunning landscape, vegetation, and scenery, was the gorges. There were numerous gorges cut in the sand- and ironstone rock over the millenia etching their way across the landscape of the park. Lots of waterfalls, lots of rock pools, lots of jumping! I was going to love this place.
The first gorge was Hamersley Gorge. We went for a little swim and did some little jumping here. There was a cute little waterfall at one end of a rockpool. For a while near the end, I sat in the water slowly collecting and piling the rust-red pebbles and laying them in patterns on my feet. My movements were slow and deliberate and after a while, it seems the local fish accommodated themselves to my presence and stared swimming in orbits around me. After a while, I counted them: one, two, three, four, FIVE FISH! MUAHAHA! I think lightning flashed around me.
Our campsite was branded as an “eco-retreat”, whatever that means. We would be camped there for a total of three nights. We would be sleeping in “swags”, just as I had back in Australia’s Red Centre back in June. Swags, if you don’t remember, are human-sized canvas sacks with thin mattresses sewn into the bottom. You can roll them up and close them with snaps and straps. With a sleeping bag inside, you had the perfect mobile bed for the Outback.
That night, I made the realization that I didn’t have a sleeping bag for me. Well, I knew I didn’t have a sleeping bag, but since when I booked my tour on the phone I had assumed they would ask me if I needed one or not, where I would have said, “Yes”. They didn’t ask, so I sort of assumed things would work out and promptly forgot about it.
Now I was here and had no sleeping bag. Tammy was super busy and obviously stressy, so I decided not to bug her too much. It wasn’t too cold here (yet!), I could sleep in my swag without my sleeping bag, right? We had the option of sleeping in our swags in a big permanent tent, or on the ground under the stars. Since I didn’t have the sleeping bag to keep me warm, I bunkered down in the tent in my swag. If I got too cold, I would put on my hoodie. Suddenly, some of my tourmates (I think it was Jonathan and Ellen), brought me a sleeping bag! Tammy had extras. They cost AU$50, which is a bit much for the thin bags, but I was happy to take it.
Later, talking to Tammy, it turned out, due to a booking error and some miscalculations, I was able to get my sleeping back for free! Thank for Western Xposure! I hope to be able to put it to good use in New Zealand!
Snore!
December 11, 2008
Today would be a very very good day for a little rock crawler, cliff jumper, gadabout like me, oh yes.
After breaky, we went on a little drive to Weano Gorge. The vegetation at the surface was scraggly and sparse. At the bottom, there was a stream of water feeding a lush eden. It was a beautiful place.
We hiked along the bottom for a while before reaching a point where the shear rock walls narrowed to a path about one meter wide with the stream continuing as a trickle inside. Shoes off! We kept going through. We reached a point where a handrail and rope aided us down a waterfall before we found a rock pool. We got to walk a little farther before reaching a point where the gorge got so steep that Tammy said we would require abseiling equipment before getting out without calling the Search and Rescue people.
The water in the rock pool was cool and refreshing. We took some attempts at climbing the rock walls (with just hands and feet), but I wasn’t very good at it and didn’t get very high before pushing off and making a big splash in the water. There was a place where you could easily climb up to about eight meters and get a good jump into the water. Eight meters doesn’t sound like very high, but it does when you’re standing there at the top looking down. It took me a few three-counts before I decided to jump.
SO FUN. I’ve officially decided that jumping off stuff into stuff is very fun stuff and I need to do it more. This was pure play. Life is good.
After retracing our steps to exit the canyon we drove to another one, Hancock Gorge. This one was a bit harder to get into. We had to climb down some steep steps, down a ladder, and through the gorge a while before reaching a part where the rock walls descended straight into the water. Tammy gave us two choices here. We could try and climb along the sides and get through to the other side (about fifty meters). There were enough places to step on and hold on that even an inexperienced rock climber could go the whole distance if they kept their wits about them. The problem was, Tammy said that you had to do it without shoes since you needed the tactile feedback of your bare feet on the rock if you wanted to make it safely. There were too many places where the foot holds were only a few centimeters across. This wouldn’t have been a problem except for the fact that the rock had been baking in the sun for hours and was unpleasant to stand on with your bare feet for even a few seconds.
Everyone chose the second choice: give your packed lunch, books, and cameras to Sasha who would carry it across in his backpack. Then you would swim down the gorge while pushing your water bottle ahead of you (or just let it go and let the current carry it downstream).
After running the gauntlet, we ended up in a magical place: Kermit’s Pool. Another rockpool with some jumping (only about three meters), a little waterfall, and lots of places to lay out and relax. Not many other people came through here (it was hard to reach after all), and we were nearly alone for a few hours. We ate our packed sandwiches for lunch and relaxed for hours. Some people read books, swam, jumped, chatted, or slept. I jumped a few times, swam a bit, crawled into a rock crevasse pretending to be a lizard (or a naughty child, as Kerstin said). At first, the sun was still nearly overhead and baking the rocks directly. But since the gorge walls were so steep, it wasn’t very long before the shadows overtook the rocks. Rock surfaces that were too hot to stand on an hour ago were now sweetly warm and perfect to lie on and take naps.
I think Kermit’s Pool was probably my favourite place in Karijini National Park.
The way back was much easier since the sun no longer baked the rocks. We were able to walk (or at least scramble along the rock face) the whole way.
That night, armed with my sleeping bag and swag, I slept on the ground under the stars. It got cool at night, but not nearly as bad as it was when I was sleeping in swags back in July.
Camping here was amazing, though. The moon was full and lit up the entire landscape with an ethereal silvery glow. It was possible to walk around without a flashlight, using only the light of the moon. It’s astonishing to see how much light the moon really sheds when there are NO other light sources to interfere with it.
December 12, 2008
There was an optional gorge this morning: Joffre Gorge. It was in walking range of our campsite, but we had wake up very early to get there. Tammy warned us that it was a demanding climb to get down, but we would be rewarded with the opportunity to do very very high cliff jumps into the water. Sweet. I was ALL IN. Jumping off of shit into other shit was fun, after all! Only about five people from the tour ended up going the whole way. The other half continued sleeping in their swags.
Steep climb down, yeah, used to this now. There was a place where there would be waterfall if there was more water, but this morning it was bone dry. We continued in the other direction. To reach the end, we would have to swim through about two hundred meters of water. We were warned that the water would be VERY COLD, but it wasn’t so bad after all.
My problem, however, was my wishy-washy swimming skills. I can do fine in short distances, but two hundred meters is much to far for me to go in one attempt. I’m too weak. I had to stop and rest by clinging to the walls on the side many times. It’s a good thing that there were lots of places to stop. I don’t think I’m strong enough to swim that whole distance and probably would have drowned if I was forced to. Although I was one of the first people in the water (ever so enthusiastic!), I was the last to come out.
No cameras came for the ride, of course, sigh. Not worth the risk.
On the other side, we got to lay on some rocks in the sun for a while before examining the cliff diving possibilities. Oh, my god. There was a place where you could jump twenty meters into the water. No way I could that one. No one else did it, either. There were a few other places you could jump from lower though. There was one from about ten meters, and another from about twelve. A couple guys did the twelve meter one. Me and a couple other guys did the ten meter one. It wasn’t easy. I was very intimidated by the height. I actually walked to the edge, looked over, took some deep breaths, did some three counts, and chickened out. I didn’t go until I saw everyone else go. Wuss. If any of the girls from the tour were watching though (instead of back at the camp sleeping or sunning on the rocks out of sight), then I probably would have put on a better show...
On the way back to camp, we had to do that two hundred meter swim again. It was even harder the second time.
At camp, we had a proper brunch, we boasted of our jumping prowess to the slackers and headed off to Dale’s Gorge, where we would spend the whole afternoon. This gorge was HUGE and filled with a lush garden of trees, shrubs, flowers, boulders, pools, insects, and amazing scenery.
The weather in the bottom of the gorges is warm and pleasant. The heat and the sun at the top of the gorges was scorchy and oppressive. The sun beat down mercilessly. The air was generally dry and there were little, if any, clouds in the sky. Yes, it can rain here in torrents, but the wet season was still a few weeks away... To escape the heat, it was simple... enter the gorges and play in the water!
We spent several hours enjoying the scenery and serenity at Fern Pool (also called Jubura by the local Aboriginal people, who consider it to be a sacred place), truly a place that staggered me by its beauty.
There were a bunch of drunken local miners who were performing all sorts of horseplay in the water and making a lot of noise, disturbing the tranquility of the place. Why do people have to be so brash and insensitive in places where you it just feels wrong to? I’ve seen both local people and tourist people, Westerners and Easterners alike in lots of places just acting like jackasses and ruining the experience for other people. Every culture has its idiots. Ugh.
We walked through the gorge for a long time before reaching another pool at the other end, Circular Pool. This was our last chance for swimming for the day. We didn’t spend as long here as we did at any of the other pools, but we still got some good jumping in here. There was a place on a rock ledge where warm water dripped steadily from above. It was definitely warmer water that the water in the pool. It was really nice to stand under!
That night, back at the camp, it was the last night together for many of the people on the tour. Only five people were heading north the rest of the way to Broome. The other half would catch a southbound tour bus in the morning for a two day haul back to Perth. Ugh... that’s a LONG way... I was glad I was going all the way up to Broome... In Karijini, we were probably about three-quarters of the way there by now.
We played an amusing game in the campsite, called “Box Munching”. Tammy put an empty cereal box on ground. The lid was taken from the box. The goal was to pick up the box with your mouth without any part of your body touching the ground except for your two feet. After each round of play, part of the box would be ripped away, making it shorter and more difficult to pick up. Many interesting positions and body contortions were attempted. Surprisingly, I was very good at Box Munching, and I was able to pick it up from the flat ground when only about two millimeters of box remained above the bottom flat panel. I did not get removed from the game for touching the ground. We did not finish the game, however. Since as much of the box as possible was removed, we would have to continue by playing on a staircase and putting the box on a lower step. The campsite had no steps, so the game resulted in a draw!
December 13, 2008
I had slept under the stars again. It was hard to sleep in. The sun started to rise around five AM and shortly after the flies started to buzz around your head. You could get a small reprieve by pulling the flap of the swag over your head, but soon it would be hot and a few flies always managed to get inside anyways to interrupt your snooze.
The flies in Karijini were insidious. The flies were ubiquitious. The flies were a pestilence. They were everywhere at any time during daylight. They’d crawl on your face looking for stray bits of sweat and salt. They’d crawl on your lips. On the inside surface of your glasses. You could swat them away, but they’d return within half a minute. There’d be at least a dozen on the picnic table as you had your breakfast. There was a reprieve while in the gorges, thankfully. This was our last morning in Karijini and even though I was sad to leave such an amazing place, I would not miss the flies.
There was one more gorge: Kalamina Gorge. The climb down this one was easy. We had a quick morning dip to freshen up before heading out of Karijini National Park. After a couple hours of driving, we reached a roadhouse on the main north-south highway between Port Hedland (to the north of Karijini on the coast, but still south of Broome) and Perth. We met the other tour bus and said our big goodbyes. I would miss Dave, Inna and Julia. We made promises to meet up again soon!
With the tour group split in twain, we continued north to Broome...
To be continued...
--
Rob Szumlakowski
Taupo, New Zealand
December 9, 2008
We resume this distinguished journal in the town of Exmouth near the tip of a peninsula in Western Australia, sticking out into the tropical waters of the Indian Ocean. The nearest city with over fifty thousand people is Perth, some 1200 km to the south. In the other direction, there are NO cities with over fifty thousand people on the north coast of Australia anywhere. There are very few people that live in the distant reaches of this far flung continent.
The land is generally inhabited and used, but sparsely. Huge iron and aluminum (and probably other minerals), mines can be found in the stretches of emptiness. Much of the land is given over to huge cattle stations where real modern-day cowboys still go on regular round-ups. We actually had to stop several times on the road to Exmouth yesterday to wait for dim-witted cattle to clear the highway while Tammy blared Turbo Charlie’s (our tourbus) horn at them.
Anyways, back to the present. We had the special luxury today of NOT having to pack up our stuff in the morning today since we were spending two nights in a row at the same place in Exmouth. Yay!
We still had some driving to do today, though. We would be spending the day enjoying some of available activities in Cape Range National Park, outside of Exmouth. The first stop was a bush walk along Yardie Creek where Tammie showed us several forms of bush tucker (food that you could find growing in the wilderness) and bush medicine. We had some bush plums (actually a kind of fig). We saw some rock wallabies hopping around some rocks in a gorge, and saw big sting rays gliding slowly in the creek water far below us.
After Yardie Creek we got to spend the rest of the day at THE BEACH! And what a beach! We were at Turquoise Bay, where the water was turquoise... and blue, and green, and all sorts of shades in between. It was easily one of the most beautiful beaches I’ve seen.
We were far from the city and there weren’t too many people here. There was great snorkeling off shore (more of the Ningaloo Reef), but I had forgot to put in my contact lenses and my visibility was limited, so I took a couple of tries at it (the water magnifies the scenery to some degree, but my eyes are so terrible that it’s not enough), but spent most of the rest of the time soaking up the sun. The sand was white, powdery (and stuck everywhere, of course). I didn’t really have a beach towel, so I just laid on the sand. Back to basics, for me!
That night, we cooked up some BBQ at the campground in Exmouth. Barry and I drank the rest of our Emu Bitter beers. He was staying behind to do some scuba diving in Exmouth, which is said to be among the best in the world. Edouard was staying behind, too. He was returning back to Coral Bay to do the manta ray diving. Emails, phone numbers, and Facebook names were exchanged and plans were made to meet up again in Sydney.
December 10, 2008
Early start today. We had a LOT of driving. For most of the trip so far, we had been vaguely following the Indian Ocean coast northwards. Today we would head away from the coast farther into the interior of the continent, into a region of the Outback known as “The Pilbara” towards Karijini National Park.
We picked up a second guide, too: Sasha. It was his first time as a tour guide through Karijini NP and up to Broome, and he was along to learn the ropes from Tammy.
The vegetation was sparse. The soil was a rich red colour. This region was iron mining country. The ground was literally made from rusty sand. Tammy told us that drinking and cleaning water out here was limited and the dust stuck to EVERYTHING. It was her advice that we picked out one set of clothes to wear for the next three days. That one set of clothes would probably never recover, so don’t pick anything nice. I designated my crappy old Billabong board shorts and t-shirt to be the sacrificial clothing. I called them my “Karijini Dirties”.
After many hours of driving, we reached the town of Tom Price, a hub town for the mining industry. It was our last chance to buy beer, snacks, and any other necessary items for three days. After a picnic lunch and our shopping expedition, we pulled out of town, and drove the rest of the way to Karijini National Park.
The earth was red, but the vegetation was green. I remarked that the earth was decorated in Christmas colours. I felt festive.
There is a chain of mountains running through Karijini NP, the Hamersley Range. The chief attraction to the park, however, other than the stunning landscape, vegetation, and scenery, was the gorges. There were numerous gorges cut in the sand- and ironstone rock over the millenia etching their way across the landscape of the park. Lots of waterfalls, lots of rock pools, lots of jumping! I was going to love this place.
The first gorge was Hamersley Gorge. We went for a little swim and did some little jumping here. There was a cute little waterfall at one end of a rockpool. For a while near the end, I sat in the water slowly collecting and piling the rust-red pebbles and laying them in patterns on my feet. My movements were slow and deliberate and after a while, it seems the local fish accommodated themselves to my presence and stared swimming in orbits around me. After a while, I counted them: one, two, three, four, FIVE FISH! MUAHAHA! I think lightning flashed around me.
Our campsite was branded as an “eco-retreat”, whatever that means. We would be camped there for a total of three nights. We would be sleeping in “swags”, just as I had back in Australia’s Red Centre back in June. Swags, if you don’t remember, are human-sized canvas sacks with thin mattresses sewn into the bottom. You can roll them up and close them with snaps and straps. With a sleeping bag inside, you had the perfect mobile bed for the Outback.
That night, I made the realization that I didn’t have a sleeping bag for me. Well, I knew I didn’t have a sleeping bag, but since when I booked my tour on the phone I had assumed they would ask me if I needed one or not, where I would have said, “Yes”. They didn’t ask, so I sort of assumed things would work out and promptly forgot about it.
Now I was here and had no sleeping bag. Tammy was super busy and obviously stressy, so I decided not to bug her too much. It wasn’t too cold here (yet!), I could sleep in my swag without my sleeping bag, right? We had the option of sleeping in our swags in a big permanent tent, or on the ground under the stars. Since I didn’t have the sleeping bag to keep me warm, I bunkered down in the tent in my swag. If I got too cold, I would put on my hoodie. Suddenly, some of my tourmates (I think it was Jonathan and Ellen), brought me a sleeping bag! Tammy had extras. They cost AU$50, which is a bit much for the thin bags, but I was happy to take it.
Later, talking to Tammy, it turned out, due to a booking error and some miscalculations, I was able to get my sleeping back for free! Thank for Western Xposure! I hope to be able to put it to good use in New Zealand!
Snore!
December 11, 2008
Today would be a very very good day for a little rock crawler, cliff jumper, gadabout like me, oh yes.
After breaky, we went on a little drive to Weano Gorge. The vegetation at the surface was scraggly and sparse. At the bottom, there was a stream of water feeding a lush eden. It was a beautiful place.
We hiked along the bottom for a while before reaching a point where the shear rock walls narrowed to a path about one meter wide with the stream continuing as a trickle inside. Shoes off! We kept going through. We reached a point where a handrail and rope aided us down a waterfall before we found a rock pool. We got to walk a little farther before reaching a point where the gorge got so steep that Tammy said we would require abseiling equipment before getting out without calling the Search and Rescue people.
The water in the rock pool was cool and refreshing. We took some attempts at climbing the rock walls (with just hands and feet), but I wasn’t very good at it and didn’t get very high before pushing off and making a big splash in the water. There was a place where you could easily climb up to about eight meters and get a good jump into the water. Eight meters doesn’t sound like very high, but it does when you’re standing there at the top looking down. It took me a few three-counts before I decided to jump.
SO FUN. I’ve officially decided that jumping off stuff into stuff is very fun stuff and I need to do it more. This was pure play. Life is good.
After retracing our steps to exit the canyon we drove to another one, Hancock Gorge. This one was a bit harder to get into. We had to climb down some steep steps, down a ladder, and through the gorge a while before reaching a part where the rock walls descended straight into the water. Tammy gave us two choices here. We could try and climb along the sides and get through to the other side (about fifty meters). There were enough places to step on and hold on that even an inexperienced rock climber could go the whole distance if they kept their wits about them. The problem was, Tammy said that you had to do it without shoes since you needed the tactile feedback of your bare feet on the rock if you wanted to make it safely. There were too many places where the foot holds were only a few centimeters across. This wouldn’t have been a problem except for the fact that the rock had been baking in the sun for hours and was unpleasant to stand on with your bare feet for even a few seconds.
Everyone chose the second choice: give your packed lunch, books, and cameras to Sasha who would carry it across in his backpack. Then you would swim down the gorge while pushing your water bottle ahead of you (or just let it go and let the current carry it downstream).
After running the gauntlet, we ended up in a magical place: Kermit’s Pool. Another rockpool with some jumping (only about three meters), a little waterfall, and lots of places to lay out and relax. Not many other people came through here (it was hard to reach after all), and we were nearly alone for a few hours. We ate our packed sandwiches for lunch and relaxed for hours. Some people read books, swam, jumped, chatted, or slept. I jumped a few times, swam a bit, crawled into a rock crevasse pretending to be a lizard (or a naughty child, as Kerstin said). At first, the sun was still nearly overhead and baking the rocks directly. But since the gorge walls were so steep, it wasn’t very long before the shadows overtook the rocks. Rock surfaces that were too hot to stand on an hour ago were now sweetly warm and perfect to lie on and take naps.
I think Kermit’s Pool was probably my favourite place in Karijini National Park.
The way back was much easier since the sun no longer baked the rocks. We were able to walk (or at least scramble along the rock face) the whole way.
That night, armed with my sleeping bag and swag, I slept on the ground under the stars. It got cool at night, but not nearly as bad as it was when I was sleeping in swags back in July.
Camping here was amazing, though. The moon was full and lit up the entire landscape with an ethereal silvery glow. It was possible to walk around without a flashlight, using only the light of the moon. It’s astonishing to see how much light the moon really sheds when there are NO other light sources to interfere with it.
December 12, 2008
There was an optional gorge this morning: Joffre Gorge. It was in walking range of our campsite, but we had wake up very early to get there. Tammy warned us that it was a demanding climb to get down, but we would be rewarded with the opportunity to do very very high cliff jumps into the water. Sweet. I was ALL IN. Jumping off of shit into other shit was fun, after all! Only about five people from the tour ended up going the whole way. The other half continued sleeping in their swags.
Steep climb down, yeah, used to this now. There was a place where there would be waterfall if there was more water, but this morning it was bone dry. We continued in the other direction. To reach the end, we would have to swim through about two hundred meters of water. We were warned that the water would be VERY COLD, but it wasn’t so bad after all.
My problem, however, was my wishy-washy swimming skills. I can do fine in short distances, but two hundred meters is much to far for me to go in one attempt. I’m too weak. I had to stop and rest by clinging to the walls on the side many times. It’s a good thing that there were lots of places to stop. I don’t think I’m strong enough to swim that whole distance and probably would have drowned if I was forced to. Although I was one of the first people in the water (ever so enthusiastic!), I was the last to come out.
No cameras came for the ride, of course, sigh. Not worth the risk.
On the other side, we got to lay on some rocks in the sun for a while before examining the cliff diving possibilities. Oh, my god. There was a place where you could jump twenty meters into the water. No way I could that one. No one else did it, either. There were a few other places you could jump from lower though. There was one from about ten meters, and another from about twelve. A couple guys did the twelve meter one. Me and a couple other guys did the ten meter one. It wasn’t easy. I was very intimidated by the height. I actually walked to the edge, looked over, took some deep breaths, did some three counts, and chickened out. I didn’t go until I saw everyone else go. Wuss. If any of the girls from the tour were watching though (instead of back at the camp sleeping or sunning on the rocks out of sight), then I probably would have put on a better show...
On the way back to camp, we had to do that two hundred meter swim again. It was even harder the second time.
At camp, we had a proper brunch, we boasted of our jumping prowess to the slackers and headed off to Dale’s Gorge, where we would spend the whole afternoon. This gorge was HUGE and filled with a lush garden of trees, shrubs, flowers, boulders, pools, insects, and amazing scenery.
The weather in the bottom of the gorges is warm and pleasant. The heat and the sun at the top of the gorges was scorchy and oppressive. The sun beat down mercilessly. The air was generally dry and there were little, if any, clouds in the sky. Yes, it can rain here in torrents, but the wet season was still a few weeks away... To escape the heat, it was simple... enter the gorges and play in the water!
We spent several hours enjoying the scenery and serenity at Fern Pool (also called Jubura by the local Aboriginal people, who consider it to be a sacred place), truly a place that staggered me by its beauty.
There were a bunch of drunken local miners who were performing all sorts of horseplay in the water and making a lot of noise, disturbing the tranquility of the place. Why do people have to be so brash and insensitive in places where you it just feels wrong to? I’ve seen both local people and tourist people, Westerners and Easterners alike in lots of places just acting like jackasses and ruining the experience for other people. Every culture has its idiots. Ugh.
We walked through the gorge for a long time before reaching another pool at the other end, Circular Pool. This was our last chance for swimming for the day. We didn’t spend as long here as we did at any of the other pools, but we still got some good jumping in here. There was a place on a rock ledge where warm water dripped steadily from above. It was definitely warmer water that the water in the pool. It was really nice to stand under!
That night, back at the camp, it was the last night together for many of the people on the tour. Only five people were heading north the rest of the way to Broome. The other half would catch a southbound tour bus in the morning for a two day haul back to Perth. Ugh... that’s a LONG way... I was glad I was going all the way up to Broome... In Karijini, we were probably about three-quarters of the way there by now.
We played an amusing game in the campsite, called “Box Munching”. Tammy put an empty cereal box on ground. The lid was taken from the box. The goal was to pick up the box with your mouth without any part of your body touching the ground except for your two feet. After each round of play, part of the box would be ripped away, making it shorter and more difficult to pick up. Many interesting positions and body contortions were attempted. Surprisingly, I was very good at Box Munching, and I was able to pick it up from the flat ground when only about two millimeters of box remained above the bottom flat panel. I did not get removed from the game for touching the ground. We did not finish the game, however. Since as much of the box as possible was removed, we would have to continue by playing on a staircase and putting the box on a lower step. The campsite had no steps, so the game resulted in a draw!
December 13, 2008
I had slept under the stars again. It was hard to sleep in. The sun started to rise around five AM and shortly after the flies started to buzz around your head. You could get a small reprieve by pulling the flap of the swag over your head, but soon it would be hot and a few flies always managed to get inside anyways to interrupt your snooze.
The flies in Karijini were insidious. The flies were ubiquitious. The flies were a pestilence. They were everywhere at any time during daylight. They’d crawl on your face looking for stray bits of sweat and salt. They’d crawl on your lips. On the inside surface of your glasses. You could swat them away, but they’d return within half a minute. There’d be at least a dozen on the picnic table as you had your breakfast. There was a reprieve while in the gorges, thankfully. This was our last morning in Karijini and even though I was sad to leave such an amazing place, I would not miss the flies.
There was one more gorge: Kalamina Gorge. The climb down this one was easy. We had a quick morning dip to freshen up before heading out of Karijini National Park. After a couple hours of driving, we reached a roadhouse on the main north-south highway between Port Hedland (to the north of Karijini on the coast, but still south of Broome) and Perth. We met the other tour bus and said our big goodbyes. I would miss Dave, Inna and Julia. We made promises to meet up again soon!
With the tour group split in twain, we continued north to Broome...
To be continued...
--
Rob Szumlakowski
Taupo, New Zealand
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