More Miles.
Well, kilometres I guess because Australia is metric.
Here I am in Sydney now... Just one glass of wine the night before... geez, maybe there was more alcohol in that than I thought.
Just kidding, it was a planned trip, and I rendevous with Mom and Bob tomorrow morning. In fact, they should be somewhere over south-central Montana right now enroute to LAX.
Wander, wander, wander...
Country Crossing
I did precious little after getting off OceanQuest on Friday. The transfer boat, SeaQuest, is a posh thing indeed especially fitted out for the wealthy tourist set from Japan and east Asia. It cruises about 25 to 30 kt, though, so what a ride back to land. Anyway, I got back to the hostel, checked in, and went downtown for the free supper at the backpacker's joint
The Woolshed. Then it was early bed. Wah-hoo! Careful of the Woolshed link, they have an 'adult content' warning, but it's not a 'gentlemen's establishment'. Just overzealous backpackers spending too much money on nothing very important.
The next day was mostly sleeping in, phoning, washing clothes, cleaning up, etc. There was a group of Danish guys living at the hostel and they have 15 episodes of The Family Guy on a computer. Every night, we usually got together and watched a few episodes, which was almost a highlight when trying to wind down after all that dive boating. I also vegged out and watched a movie called
Birdman of Alcatraz - great show, I highly reccommend it if you get the chance. It was The Woolshed for dinner again - for good food everynight, you just can't beat $5! I went to bed a little early again, but the highlight was when I got up at 0400 to go to the washroom.
There were four other beds in my room and all of them were rented out. To my surprise, however, there were no other bodies in my room at that time of the morning! 'Hmmm, going to be a late night,' I thought. Well, the first stumbled in at about 0530 and left the door to the room open as well as the outside door to the hostel blowing in the breeze; the last fell into bed at 0730. I have precious little sympathy for drunks that turn on lights and clang around at those hours of the morning, so when I got up at 0800, I wasn't being too careful. But 0800 is still kinda early, so I was a little quiet. After 1200, though, tough luck suckers! They were too groggy to do anything about it though (racous, cackling, evil laughter). The response from the 0730 straggler - 'Alcohol should be illegal. I will never drink again.'
The following day was much the same. I went downtown and wandered a few of the shops, bought some fruit, and rode my bike. Then I asked the hostel girls if they wanted to get some pizza, because I had a craving for saturated and trans-fats. The next morning, it was time to bid tropical north Queensland goodbye and Jetstar to Melbourne. It was wonderful to fly again. The A320 was very new as well - the paint was hardly scratched and the T/O acceleration was quite strong. Don't know if they've changed any specs on the engines, though.
So there. Bruce so graciously picked me up from the airport in his shiny new Holden Commodore and I'm back with my adoptive Australian family. Helen and Bruce had a birthday cake, card, and Dean Martin 2 CD set present for me! How cool is that?! It's true - you should always have a cake for your birthday.
Alright, the tasks were set before me for the next couple of days: finish registering, find a place to live, get my student visa, book flight to Sydney, maybe move some stuff in...
Tuesday morning I got to the U and finished the enrolment paperwork, but when I went to hand it in, they said that they needed my student visa to finish enrolment. Shot down...
After that, I phoned a lady about a 'new' townhouse near the U and booked a look for after supper. Then I cut back into the city to do the student visa thing. Apparently you need to book an appointment, the first one of which available was for 4 May at 0900. Hmph... I wandered the shops in the city to pass some time and look at wardrobe upgrades. It's really quite funny to see winter season clothing just coming out in stores in March.
At 1700, I took the train back to the U and started to push hard on my bike to get to the townhouse on time. But my bike just wasn't into that kind of thing and promptly kicked the left hand pedal out of the crank! The threads on the pedal stripped out. So the rest of the way was made by foot. Well, after all that, one thing did work out, and that was the place to live. I'll post photos later, but nervous that I would lose it, I paid for the thing and picked up my key yesterday. It is quite new, three bedrooms, tons of windows, and comfortable living space. It's only about 10 minutes walk from the U and is in a gated townhouse complex. $140 per week all bills included.
The next day, I phoned the bike manufacturer about warranty repair, but was rubuked because the bike only has a 30 day warranty. He asked if I'd greased the pedal threads before installing. I said 'no' and he said 'that was your problem.' Luckily, the threads on the crank were good and the new pedal went in without trouble.
Today was highlighted by the search for house stuff, with me ending up buying a cool orangey bed sheet suite! Who new there were so many types of cutlery, dishes, etc., etc. Photos later.
Tomorrow is the flight to Sydney, where wayward me is to meet my parents! They get in on Sunday morning, but I was hoping to use Saturday to find some treats for them and go to
minus5. It's a pub in which the stay is limited to 30 minutes, but in which everything is made of ice! The bar, stools, glasses, ice, and walls are all ice. I have to get at least a little bit of snowy weather or I'll go nuts.
Congratulations to my brother and his wife on their new baby boy - another child I can corrupt with airplanes! I have misplaced your phone number, but I'll find it shortly and call you soon!!
Update complete!
Thanks...
Hey gang! Thanks for all the comments last post. I'm glad to have everyone along for this trip...
Hello to everyone! I miss you all lots. You are in my thoughts all the time.
Ed: if I could find a publisher crazy enough... Maybe a photocopier and a stapler?
K
Dived Out!
Shortly after I wrote the last post, I got a phone call from
Deep Sea Divers Den about my vounteering position. I was under the impression that I was to come by on Monday to confirm that
OceanQuest (OQ) was going to leave Tuesday morning; however, when they called, they wanted me at the shop in 30 mins ready to meet the boat and leave that afternoon! Not only were cyclonic winds still blowing a little, we were going to meet a boat and head out on the ocean the same day as a cat 5 storm made landfall 100 km south of Cairns!
Anyway, things went alright and the entire crew were hearded into a van and driven to the wharf. For big storms like Larry, boats are often driven up an estuary to avoid the biggest seas, and OceanQuest was no exception. The Trinity River flows beside Cairns out into the sea and there was an exodus of ships floating down the river back to the newly cycloned port. We loaded up, then got all our passengers, and bounced our way out to Saxon Reef, a 3 hour cruise away. Being the old salty I am, I was only mildly yicky from the crashing of the boat...
Normally, OQ stays out to sea for 4 months at a time. The dive company has two other boats it uses for day trips and for ferrying liveaboard passengers out to OQ everyday. OQ is kind of a floating hotel of sorts, but it has the musty scent of mildew and old age that comes with well used boats. Apparently a converted fishing trawler, the boat is captained by two sea salts, one of whom has a strong chest pounding manhood about being the only 'God' on board his ship - probably a fairly typical thing among skippers of boat. Bob and Noel are their names: Noel is quite a friendly chap and Bob is quite sweet and normally very friendly. However, on the first night, we were only at anchor and therefore the dive crew were put on watch to make sure we didn't drag. I was sharing the diving crew cabin space but volunteers are not dive crew... Anyway, one of the crew on watch got the depth sounder to display some menu that Bob was unable to easily clear and he flipped out at the whole watch crew, waking them all at 0500 hrs. He brought the whole gang up to the bridge (I was there too because I'm not silly enough to disobey an angry skipper and he did tell everyone in the dive cabins to get up there) and told them what happened, swore quite vehemently, then told the dive crew to acid wash the deck and get the boat back in order before breakfast.
Anyway, I found a groove and learned that when working in a kitchen on dishes, you can do the job well or do it fast, not both. I learned I was far too thorough with cleaning stuff ever to get done on time, so I gritted my teeth and left the corners and edges... What a learning experience that was. Anyway, I impressed the staff suitably enough that when the chef changed out with another two days ago, he said that 'we want to keep him' when asked about the volunteer! Ha! I was able to get everything done and do 4 dives a day - that totals 33 dives since the 10th of March! Hoo-wah... I wish I could do that to my flying logbook!
One dive story: there is a super cool fish called a
Maori Wrasse. One in particular - Wally - lives at a dive site on Norman Reef. When I went for my dive there Wally was hanging around the back of the boat and would come to greet each diver that came down the mooring line. This fish is probably from the top of my head to my knees in length and swims gracefully up to you, checking you out. He lets you swim with him and pet him while you are swimming together. It's totally the coolest thing you can do with a fish!
Okay, another diving story: if you are ever diving at night at a place with lots of sharks, but more importantly ones that are too small to eat you, bring an empty plastic bottle down on the dive. When you find a suitable spot, hide the light from your flashlight ('torch' as they call it), fill the bottle with some air from your regulator, then roll & squeeze the bottle in your hands. The sound is surprisingly loud and boy do sharks love it! I was down with the chef and he did this trick and out of the inky darkness shot 7 sharks to check out the 'commotion'. They zoom in at full speed, then catch a glimpse of some rather odd looking fish, and zoom away in a flash. Too cool...
Update complete!
All Clear.
Cyclone Larry actually topped out as a Category 5 just before making landfall over Innisfail early this morning (1400 your time)! It sounds like it caused lots of damage there, but we only got pounding wind and some rain, so everything is coolio here... Didn't even lose power or anything, just lots of leaves and fallen tree limbs.
Currently, everything's cloudy and overcast right now, so danger averted this time around. The clouds are already breaking in the east and it's only spitting right now.
Bonus Cyclone.
At the risk of frightening you guys, we've just been issued with a cyclone warning for Severe Tropical Cyclone Larry. It's supposed to hit this evening or early morning tonight (about 12 hours from now) and is currently classified as a Category 4 storm. They are calling for gusts between 120 km/h and 280 km/h. I've grabbed some food (one can each of corn, beans, peas, a one kg bag of museli, a box of good granola bars, and two 200 gm chocolate bars. I'll probably go grab a loaf of bread and two bottles of water as well. As it stands, the volunteer trip tomorrow is cancelled and I'm to check in on Tuesday to see if they are going to go out then.
The hostel manager is saying that power will likely be knocked out so I'm charging my cell phone now and if anything untoward happens, you can try me on that. Mom has the number if anyone wants it.
Kind of exciting! The webpage for the Bureau of Meteorology Cyclone Warning News Release is:
http://www.bom.gov.au/cgi-bin/wrap_fwo.pl?IDQP0005.txt. Other than that, there's no cyclone shelters to run to, so I'm probably going to hang out at the hostel for the next day or two.
Chat at cha guys soon!
Reefereeing.
Well 19 dives later and $33 richer, I'm back on solid earth. Which, by the way, is rocking as we speak. No earthquakes, but you know boats. Yeah the Reef is absolutely the most incredible, eye popping, heart stopping conglomeration of life anywhere on Earth... I bought the hour-long DVD video made especially during our dive trip to show everyone when I get back because frankly words can't do it justice. All I could think the entire time is how much I have to get R-man out on the Reef - it's like the screensaver, but there's more fish and they're much bigger. How about a potato cod that's 2 metres long and weighs more than 100 kg? To top it off, it likes being touched and it comes up to you to get its teeth tickled! Who knew? I'll never watch Finding Nemo in quite the same way again - you know how blue the water is in the film? Well, it really is that blue... Oh, here's some trivia for you (answer to follow at the bottom): What kind of fish is Nemo and his dad? I can see why sea turtles were picked for the surfer dude role now, too.
The volunteering was awesome as well - I got 3 dives each of the days and the work was pretty minimal. In fact, I found I preferred the volunteering to the paid trip because I had a function and wasn't left after every dive to sit on my hands. Work for a few hours a day, lots of dishes, dive the rest of the time. I would highly suggest this mode of travelling on the Reef.
Big seas though, and apparently there's Cyclone Larry, that's
Hurricane Larry to we North Americans, spinning away a couple hundred miles directly offshore from Cairns. That should be fun for the next trip I'm volunteering for on Monday... I've discovered that big rolly seas, and I mean big seas (2 to 3 metre swell), are difficult on my stomach. Didn't wretch, but had to go outside to watch the sea rocking to shake the feeling. Yeah, totally cool... Oh yeah, they share tips with the crew volunteer, so I'm $33 richer than when I started the tour! If you go, tip big! Trip Director Andy showed me how to make Australian Beers (well VB, anyway) palletable: ask for 'VB with a dash of lime'. They put lime cordial in it and it tastes great - a la the Red Cap Ale episode at Ed & Naomi's place.
Man, am I looking forward to wearing cosy clothing again... It seems, though, that it won't take much now either. It was basically 28 to 30 degrees on the sea the whole time we were out, with the water temperature a steady 28 degrees... Wow warm to these Canadian bones. Anyway, step inside to the aircon and almost get goosebumps. NOW HEAR THIS!! I actually went outside in the heat, more than once, to warm up... Ughh....
Anyway, that's life. I'm out Monday morning for the next trip then back to Melbourne on the 27th, sort through the student visa stuff, find a place to live, finish enrolling, then fly to Sydney probably on the 1st to rendevous with my parents on the 2nd.
Assigned reading:
'
How William Shatner Changed the World' - Man I love this guy. He's got to be one of my favourite celebrities. And, I am a nerd, so there.
'
Power Bacteria'
Update Complete!
Nemo and his dad are False Clown Anemonefish, not Clown Anemonefish. True Clowns have more black between their white stripes.
Kid Smarts.
Hi to R-man and T-dawg!!
In going with that theme, yet more evidence that we should all listen more to our inner child mentally and physically:
Run Like A Kid - Calgary Herald 9 Mar 2006
Fun, fun, fun!
Status.
Gang, I'll be away until the 17th. Unless the boat has Internet on it, I won't be able to entertain & excite your reading senses until then.
C u then...
Hostie with the Mostie.
Okay, so hostie-ing is to diving as... as... ______ is to flying; well, frankly there's nothing like it in flying. If there were, I'd surely be flying now... I was scooting around town occupying myself trying to find a non-leather watch strap, when I went to the Taka dive shop to pick up a log book and a diving slate. What did I see there but a photo, sitting serenly on some shelving, of an astronaut recently travelled with Taka. Anyone who knows me will know what happened next...
One thing led to another and I got another hostie-ing spot, but this time on Taka, the boat I head out with tomorrow for the full cost 5-day/4-night trip! I got to chatting with the clerk in the dive shop when we discovered that we shared a similar, and very personal, event in aviation. After sharing some emotions I went on with the story of my next couple of weeks and mentioned that I was hostie-ing on the 20th to 25th. She screwed her face up and asked when I was leaving Cairns. I said 'the 27th, why?' She said 'I'm quite short of hosties at the moment, can you do the 14th to the 17th?' I said 'Sure!'. She said 'Just don't mention to the crew that you're going to be a hostie until the 14th.' ... So there, almost a month of diving on the Reef and most of it for free! Who knew such things were possible?
Those of you travelling to Cairns with a diving certification - go hostie-ing! If anyone knows of this type of thing relating to flying, please let me know.
Yesterday was a bit of tropical adventure... I took a day trip up to the
Daintree Rainforest and Cape Tripbulation with Billy Tea Safaris. The rainforest is amazing. There are so many living things everywhere you look, it's almost almost overwhelming. Mosquitoes are in the mix as well, though, so look out. Saw a few crocs on a river cruise as well, but the ones we saw on the Adelaide River back in Kakadu were much closer and more active. Still an intimidating animal. Cape Tribulation is one of the only places where a rainforest bows to the sea and the beach has a fringing reef of the Great Barrier Reef present there as well. Tourism operators calls this 'where the reef meets the sea' and go further to claim that this only occurs in two places in the world, both in Australia. Cool to sea, though. My first real live reef!
We made billy tea (lots of tea leaves put into water boiled by campfire in a 'billy' - a rough and timble can used for camping; crunch a couple of eucalyptus leaves into the billy as well and you have yourself some yummy tea) and ate lots of tropical fruits: sapote, dragon fruit, pineapple, organic banana, passionfruit, and paw paw. Went for swim in a freshwater creek there as well - it was very refreshing in that the water was only 24 degrees! However, lots of people were complaining that it was 'too cold'. My reply: 'Go surfing on west Vancouver Island - that's cold. This is balmy.' Ah we Canadians - nothing is too cold for us ;-)
Anyway, got to go, chat at cha soon...
Scientific Traveller Research
After in depth observation, I have come to several significant findings regarding the sub-species of human known as
Homo sapiens travellerensis. My readership aside, I have found that the intellectual development of several specimens of this species is considerably stunted. As an example: there are signs written in plain and simple english which are placed in myriad places throughout the kitchen asking travellers, kindly might I add, to 'please wash, dry, and PUT AWAY all your dishes.' Now, since by mid-day in every hostel I've visited there is invariably a pile of either unwashed or unreturned dishes, I can only conclude that in general, travellers are either illiterate or stupid.
When it comes to proper nutrition, many specimens, although a decidedly smaller proportion, are wont to complain about the cost of food, but are more than willing to pay for and consume three pitchers of beer a night for consecutive nights.
Another finding concerns the ability of
H. travellerensis to find particular objects when desired. Take a room key, for example, this usually requires simply checking pockets or other such places for them, but when the entire contents of one's bag are strewn in a moat completely encircling one's bed, everything becomes much more difficult to find. Therefore, I ask these specimens not to endanger my personal property by requiring me to leave the door unlocked all day so that upon return, you can enter unimpeded.
More to follow in this multi part report.
Traveler's Plethora.
The remaining days in Darwin were a lot of walking, which was good because I need(ed) the exercise... I didn't realise I was always on the go so much at home; I acutely notice during how much of the day's time I am not doing something, as opposed to when I'm home and scurrying about. I like the touring and traveling, but I miss the purpose everyone and everything at home gives me.
Yes... Darwin walking. The rest of the fishy day was spent finding flights, chatting with Mom, then making supper. As for flights: the cheapest I found was with Virgin Blue (that Richard Branson's a cheeky one, huh?), then I thought since I was a free and easy independent traveler (Ed, no taking that out of context ;-), I'd check into what the travel agencies were offering. Well, they found the same cheap flight I did, but wanted $15 more to book it for me. Humph... Thanks, but I'll do it myself. It got booked for 4 March. The next day at 1045 I went to the Australian Aviation Heritage Centre and marvelled at my favourite-est creations all day. They have a B-52 in their hangar, 'one of only two in the world on display outside the U.S.'. For some reason, it gives me great satisfaction to say that I've seen both - the other one is in the Duxford Imperial War Museum (hangar 5) in England. Ego aside, the museum was wonderful. I very much miss the regularity of airports and flying machines in my normal life. However, not really any of the airplanes are flyable - most have been gutted... There was a lot of material on the first Japanese invasion of Darwin on 19 Feb 1942 (there were 64 raids in total), including the remains of a crashed zero, several engines from P-40s, a replica Spitfire Mk VIII (I got all excited there for a moment!), and instrument panels suffering the ravages of sea water. Have you ever seen a jet Link trainer? Then they talked about the various firsts in Australian aviation and the 1919, 1928, 1934 London-Australia Air Races. They had two decidedly flimsy-looking ultralights, an Aussie version Sabre, a Mirage, and a Cobra! I left at 1700. I spent so long in there that the front desk guy said 'wow, you've spent more time than most people do.' I'm bad when it comes to airplanes... So, that was that day in it's entirety. I went to a beach on Cullen Bay to watch the sunset, then set about making diner.
The next day (Friday) was a big walking day - I went to the WWII oil storage tunnels that were built after brilliant civic planners figured out that the then-present unprotected oil tanks sitting unprotected on the coast were vulnerable to Japanese attack. They dugout these tunnels and finished them almost in time for the war to finish. The two that you can walk though (Nos. 5 and 6) are 171 m and 71 m long, respectively. They are both 4.5m wide and 5 m tall. Capacities: 3.8 and 1.8 million litres respectively, lined with steel to act as bladderless containers. Walking through No. 5 is really quite an experience - to think that all that space was filled with fluid... There's now a photographic display that runs the length of No. 5... After that I went to the Wharf Precinct (Stoke's Hill Wharf) and marvelled at the deep fried goodness that filled the displays, decided to pass, then went back up to the city proper. After some debate (if you'll excuse the pun), I went into the Parliament House to look around. I ran into a staffer named Jan who, on a whim, took me behind locked doors to tour the parliamentary offices and the actual council floor. Cool! Then I took some free Internet from the state library and went back to make dinner. After that, across the street was playing a classical wind quintet. They played a couple of songs that I know, but I don't know which ones they were, so I can't tell you.
Virgin Blue only only departs Darwin at 0130, so it was a late night. There was a two hour layover in Brisbane, then a connecting flight to Cairns. I enjoyed them a lot, but I get frustrated with the disregard people have toward flying. They sit about in their chairs, trying to distract themselves, not really even thinking about this many-tonne masterpeice that's going to hurtle them at 500 mph into the blackness of tropical night. How cool is that?!? Anyone? Anyone?Ughh! I have to tell you about the air conditioning at the airport, though. Now, you all know me as a cold weather kind of guy - I like wearing a coat, soaring at 10,000 feet, and skiing, etc. But with all this sickening heat and humidity, my blood has thinned sufficiently to make airconditioning and the paltry 21 degrees of Brisbane feel cool. There I was, walking around the Bribane airport with goosebumps and an outright refusal to wear a coat in 21 degrees. I went so far as to leave my coat at Bruce and Helen's. Augh...
Cairns is lovely - it's a beautiful little city nestled between mountains and sugar cane fields. It's 'nice' temperature wise - high 20s instead of high 30s every day. Humidity is reasonable too; Darwin's humidity, as you now know, is perfectly unreasonable. There simply isn't anything you can do to make it go away. Anyway, the first order of business upon arrival was to decide on a place to stay (ah the beauty of backpacking), then get to it. After arriving at
Castaways Backpackers, I immediately set about to booking a dive trip to the Reef and was successful after much calling of phones (thankfully not mine). I got a
5 day/4 night trip to the outer reef with a boat called Taka. Don't ever book anything to do with diving before reaching Cairns beacuse it was a sweet standby rate that was a couple of hundred dollars less than MSRP. There are better deals out there, too... I leave on Friday 10th March. It's a life goal of mine to dive on the Reef, so I'm very excited! Then, because I don't like risking my life unnecessarily, I booked a refresher course at another dive school, which just happened today.
It was supposed to be a half-day review, but it turned out to be all day (0800-1500). I also booked myself in for another 5 day/4 night trip, but this time for a much better price - FREE! They have these 'Hostie' positions on the dive boats where you help put out food, clean the rooms, and clean up in exchange for your keep! I'll be changing linen, wiping out foul spots that shouldn't be shared here, serving food, etc. in exchange for room, board, and 2-3 dives a day. All that happens on 20-24 March. Because of all this, I decided to be a bit extravagant and got a new mask and snorkel, so that I wasn't sharing other people's face germs while on these two trips.
Let you know as things happen...
Update complete!
Flying in the Top End
For all the flyers out there:
I can't remember if I've shared this little bit of equatorial flying trivia before: I was chatting up the pilot back at William Creek on the trip up to Alice Springs. You know, that Cessna 210 flight I did...
Anyway, he was talking about the conditions they have to deal with in Arnhem Land during the Wet (summer). Now Arnhem Land is a little corner of land northeast of Darwin that is owned by Aborigines. It gets hot there, as I've now experienced... coupled with the humidity, as I've now experienced... alright, very hot and very humid. What does that give you? Density Altitude!!
How does a 19,000' density altitude sound?
Hu-wah!
Harry Potter Warning.
Don't let your kids read Harry Potter! They will become Satanists!
Sympatico-MSN Article Link:
Harry Devil
