Blue Mountains

So my Good Friday was spent "bush walking" (hah!) in the Blue Mountains. I did walk, and it was nice, but it wasn't what I'd call bush walking with the road pretty handy most of the time! I've been spoiled in NZ's isolation I think.

To start off with it was pretty quiet, apart from two groups of Japanese tourists shouting (really, shouting, quite unnecessarily). However as the day went on and I walked towards the must-see sights it got busier and busier. Hordes of Asian tourists - Chinese and Japanese as well as Indian/Pakistani/Bangladeshi - many dressed entirely inappropriately for a walk on anything except a high street. I saw dresses, handbags, and every sort of footwear including flip flops, ballet shoes, suede boots - but very few decent trainers or walking boots. The Europeans and Aussies were marginally better-equipped. I think the source of the problem was two-fold; one, the visitor's centre at Echo Point where there's a nice lookout, and two, "Scenicworld". Scenicworld (who named it, they need shooting?) has a cable car, a funicular railway, and a sort of horizontal cable car, and attracts loads of people. At the bottom of the cable car and the railway there's a boardwalk around what used to be the Katoomba coal mine, which was interesting, but, again busy.

So I walked most of the day, to see some waterfalls and the Three Sisters (rock formations) and down the Giant Staircase (878 steps, I wasn't walking up it!). Got the funicular railway up to the top of the cliff. It's the world's steepest and I thought it might be fun, which it was, though I didn't feel the need to scream as some other passengers did. Took a couple of pictures of other people for them and got generally irritated at having to avoid people taking pictures of themselves/girlfriends/boyfriends/friends/family in front of perfectly good views. The most random shot of the day was that of a Chinese lady who had asked me and an Aussie couple (who'd just climbed up a long flight of steps and were knackered) for help. She wanted a picture of herself and the Aussies in front of a sign. Nothing special about the sign ... I duly obliged, though I was as puzzled as the Aussies!

It was actually a pretty nice day, but would have been nicer with fewer people around.

Uploading to Flickr is ridiculously slow. I'm persevering, but I think it's unlikely I'll get anything from Brisbane or here up before I get back to Auckland.

Last state-hopping complete

Well, I'm now in the Blue Mountains in the small town of Katoomba - staying at a really rather nice YHA, which is large but extremely clean and comfortable, and has wireless. Yay. I am uploading some photos to Flickr but it's taking a long time - dunno why, but I'll get as many online as I can. Sitting on the sofa is about all I should be doing right now anyway as I managed to bash my head standing up too fast earlier on; whacked it on the bunk above mine. Bit of a headache, but I don't feel sick or anything!

Katoomba seems to be a nice little place. There are some walks to do, so that's tomorrow sorted, and I might go to the cinema too because they have a big one (and an Olympic-sized pool according to my map, which just reminds you you're in Oz - no town this small in the UK would have a 50m pool. Most wouldn't have any pool.) It's a tad hippyish, with several organic/wholefood cafés - had a lovely salad for lunch - and a crystal shop and that sort of thing. But not in a bad way.

New South Wales is, anyway, my last Aussie state before going back to NZ. It has been a bit of a whirlwind highlights tour, but it's been fun.

Better day in Brisbane

Another quickish update from Brisbane, after a really lovely day. Possibly my miserable mood was to do with the fact I'm a bit toured-out, after so many organised days in a row. I do like my independence, and today I did just what I wanted and it was great.

The run I sort of planned last night didn't happen, but I just about walked the same distance I'd thought of running with stops en route for culture and photographs. Went to the contemporary art gallery, which had a big exhibition of contemporary Chinese art that was really good - thought-provoking and visually interesting. Their contemporary indigenous section wasn't half bad either. Skipped the main art gallery, but wandered around the Queensland Museum (like the contemporary gallery, free entry). Then on to Brisbane's South Bank, a blatant rip-off of London complete with a big wheel, though there's a beach/lagoon thing instead of a Tate Modern and a Globe! It was nice though to wander around and watch the ibises - for some reason they're everywhere here, like pigeons in London but a bit more interesting (though smellier). Got the ferry across the river a while later and walked back through the Botanic Gardens and the city's shopping district, both of which were nice.

Just got back from a very pleasant dinner and catch-up with my former colleague from London, again on the South Bank; up at 7am tomorrow to catch my plane to Sydney.

Sailing (a bit) the Whitsundays

A quickish update from Brisbane - no more photos until I find wireless, which may not be until Sydney.

Spent the last couple of days on a yacht cruising the Whitsundays, which was fun enough with a nice bunch of people but didn't quite live up to my (possibly too high?) expectations. I maybe should have booked earlier to ensure the right boat, but didn't. The boat I was on is indeed a fast racing yacht, what I wanted, but the company's just split off from another company and clearly maintenance (or lack of) could be a reason. The yacht was a little run down, and right at the start our skipper couldn't get her in forward gear - kind of essential for leaving the harbour. They fiddled with the engine until they'd mended it, but that meant we were late leaving, and we only motorsailed the first afternoon under a gennaker despite all the other boats around sailing properly. Partly we were late, but also, we discovered when we asked, the mainsail had a tear in it. Actually I don't think the skipper was terribly impressed with a ripped mainsail either, it was his first trip with the company (see how I keep getting first-trip guides?) and he wanted to sail too. Additionally another yacht out at the same time had too many passengers on board for beds, and we had spare beds, so we had to meet up with her at night. That meant a decidedly more "party" atmosphere than I'd been looking for and I think the same went for most of the others on board - though not the four Swedish girls travelling as a group! Not that the socialising wasn't fun, but it meant less sleep than I'd been hoping for. Still a bit short.

Day two started with a trip ashore to see Whitehaven Beach and go for a swim, all togged up in stinger suits to guard against jellyfish. Lovely beach, absolutely white, turquoise sea, the works, so that set us off to a good start. Then we motored to a snorkelling/diving site, which was okay though not up to the standards of the reef further north. Visibility was a bit cloudy, but there was a lot of fish. I did see a fair bit of coral damage however, mostly algae of some description. :( After that we motored to a different mooring, had dinner, and then linked up with the other boat again. The party went on well past my bedtime and was noisy past the time I was trying to get to sleep. Grrr.

Today we started out with a morning snorkel - a quick one, as pretty shortly after getting in we started seeing jellyfish. We all made a fairly sharp exit from the water, despite the stinger suits! Then, thank heavens, we set both sails (the skipper had, I think, realised there were grumpy passengers on board) and had a good sail back to Airlie Beach. Wasn't long enough though and there wasn't a huge amount of audience participation. I helped a bit with the main halyard and that was it. However, a nice end to the trip.

Back in Airlie, a quick swim and a shower helped to freshen up. I'd planned to catch the local bus to the airport but on arrival at the bus stop realised I'd misjudged that one. Hadn't booked a shuttle. Had to get a taxi. Some $78 later, regretted the taxi and my uncharacteristic mismanagement. It's not like I'm skint yet, but the fact remains I didn't want to spend that on a taxi fare! Add to tiredness and by the time I finally got to the backpackers tonight I was thoroughly miserable. However, I decided trying to save a few more dollars would be silly while being miserable, and discovered a really excellent pizza, a glass of red wine and an icecream (lots of favourite food) have cheered me up a lot.

Tomorrow I plan to try and go for a morning run to get some decent exercise, and then I'm just going to wander around Brisbane for the day. I've contemplated going to Australia Zoo but then I wouldn't see anything of the city, and it's a long way and expensive. So I'm not going to bother. In the evening I'm meeting a former colleague for dinner, which I'm very much looking forward to.

Off sailing

I'm in Airlie Beach in the Whitsundays, off sailing shortly for two nights. Airlie Beach, frankly, isn't really my type of place and the bar was right below my dorm room last night - though I did manage to get to sleep despite the music blaring out. (I put earplugs in and they fell out during the night! I knew there was a reason I don't like earplugs.)

Weather's a tad variable now, but there is some wind which is what's important when sailing. Still extremely warm.

Uluru, etc.

Day 1

I was picked up for the Uluṟu tour bright and early and we were on the road after formalities soon after. We were a mixed bunch of one Brit (me), an Irishman, a Chinese couple, six Germans and three Austrians – so German was the majority language, though English the lingua franca. Our guide, Chris, turned out to be a Kiwi from the Hawke's Bay on his first trip as a guide (he'd obviously been on the tour himself a few times while training). He did a good job too, telling us about the landscape and the plants and so on as we drove away from Alice. We stopped at a camel farm first; I don't think any of our group did one of the short $5 rides but we stretched our legs and looked at camels, an emu and a couple of kangaroos in an enclosure for a bit. Central Australia is full of feral camels, over 500,000 of them at least and all descended from the camels brought out by the early European settlers and explorers. We spotted a few on the tour, by the side of the road and once a couple crossed in front of us.

Shortly after the camel farm we turned off the main highway on to the Ernest Giles road, 100km of unsealed bumpiness. We passed lots of “rivers” - being dry riverbeds – and collected firewood for the night's campfire. Chris showed us how to look for witchety grubs under acacia bushes. A small snake appeared and slithered away (I didn't see it) and he had better luck with the second bush, finding a hollow root where a grub had been though there was no grub. Apparently they're easier to find after rain.

Lunch was had at King's Creek Station. Like many of the cattle stations in central Australia, it doubles as a campsite, shop and petrol station – they've all been supplementing their income from tourism for about 60 years. It was in the 1960s that some farmers alerted a bloke called Jack Cotterill to the existence of King's Canyon, or Watarrka as the Aborigines call it, and tourists started heading out there. The canyon was our afternoon's walk, about 5.5km round the rim. It's red rock, in various weird shapes but predominantly looking like beehives (the old-fashioned sort, or resembling the NZ parliament building). We were there late enough that the light on the rock was really beautiful, particularly at the end of the walk when the sun was setting.

That meant it was dark by the time we got back to King's Creek. The campsite was a couple of kilometres down the road, and we discovered on arrival that one of the connectors providing power to the shelter had fallen off. Chris set about trying to fix it while the rest of us unloaded food from the back of the van.

Chris had been fiddling with the wires for about five minutes, trampling the sand by the truck while a couple of people provided torchlight and the rest of us looked on. I didn't see it happen, but suddenly Chris was calling for water and pouring it on his leg – a small snake had appeared from nowhere and had bitten him just above his sock. He wasn't sure if he'd been properly bitten or not and was initially going to carry on with getting the camp ready while he waited to find out if his leg was getting sore. (Cue “what!” from yours truly, who had visions of him collapsing in front of our eyes.) Luckily he saw sense and decided to get us all back to the station. He got his leg bandaged – by a medical student, though he didn't realise it at the time – and enlisted the Irishman's help to drive the van back. En route he spotted a quad bike from the station and called the guy over; he radioed ahead so when we arrived some of the station hands were out with their torches and help. They'd called the local nurse, who was based some 40km away, and they held Chris's hand and looked after him until she arrived.

Once she'd got there a couple of the station hands and three of us went back to get the food we'd unloaded, scanning the sand intently with very large torches for snakes. Because we didn't have the camp set up, and we hadn't eaten, the station put us up in little canvas cabins and let us use a kitchen and barbeque. We ate burgers and sausages at 10pm before collapsing into bed, exhausted after a slightly more dramatic day than planned.

Day 2

By the time we got up for breakfast at 6.30am a rescue team had arrived – Brad and Tony, who had driven overnight from Alice and had got to the station at 2.30am. But they were both up before us. Brad was there to mend the broken power and drive a ute back to Alice, while Tony was our replacement guide. We'd swapped new boy Chris for an old timer; Tony being your typical Aussie bush bloke with a long long beard. He was less talkative on the loudspeaker in the bus, but knew his stuff on our walks and was also very good at avoiding crowds. All about timing, he said.

We drove from King's Creek to Yulara, or Ayers Rock Resort, arriving by lunchtime. Yulara – it means “howling” in the local language – was purpose-built in the 1980s to control tourists, replacing a different settlement on the other side of Uluṟu. That place is now an Aboriginal community and is closed off, you need a permit to visit. Yulara has several hotels, a campsite, and, though we didn't see it, a shopping centre. In the middle of the desert. The organised tours have a separate campsite and our particular spot was away from the crowds, thank heavens. It's just starting to get busy right now, so it wasn't too bad generally but the campsite was full.

After lunch we headed to the Uluṟu cultural centre, which explains the significance of the site to the Anaṉgu people as well as the various “stories” associated with the rock. There are two major ones – one about a big battle between two snakes, and one about an interrupted ceremony. The centre also explained the history of the national park, which these days is run as a jointly managed effort between the Anaṉgu and the Australian government. They have rangers of both Aboriginal and Australian origin, and try to strike a balance between tourism and preserving the lifestyle and traditions of the local people. It seems they're doing a reasonable job and the centre was interesting.

Then we went out into the heat to see the rock itself. It's really an extraordinary thing, this huge lump of sandstone sticking out of the desert. The actual rock is really grey but it's covered in layers of red dust. It's not regular in any sense, with lots of bits sticking out and caves and so on. There's rock art, a major waterhole, and various places you can't take photos of because they are sacred to the Anaṉgu. The base walk is 9.4km but it was way too hot to do it all, so we did bits of it and drove around most of the rest. The climb was closed due to the heat – they shut it if the temperature is forecast above 36ºC. I wouldn't have climbed anyway; partly because they ask you not to, and partly because frankly it looks terrifying and horrible.

We were done with our walking by about 5.30pm. Tony took us to the sunset viewing point and showed us a good spot, again away from the hordes of coach passengers who settle down at tables with linen next to the coach park. We opened our fizzy wine, made Buck's Fizz and watched the rock change colour until the sun went down. It was rather lovely.

Getting back into the bus Tony said to me, “watch where you're sitting, there's a kangaroo tail in there”. Lo and behold there was indeed, a frozen tail in a plastic bag which he'd bought to cook. Not the nicest thing to see.

Back at the campsite Tony got the fire going and as a group we prepared a massive feast to cook on it – we had all the food we didn't eat the previous night as well! There was a big pot of vegetables, cooked slowly with spices; some pasta with spinach and feta; chicken; and kangaroo mince. And some garlic bread which I cooked in some embers. It was all fantastic, even the kangaroo which tasted somewhat like venison. Felt a bit stuffed afterwards and was happy to fall into my swag for the night. A swag is a sort of leather sleeping bag affair. There's a mattress and pillow inside, and you add your sleeping bag and zip yourself up so only your face is exposed to the night air. It's remarkably comfy and despite the snake incident of the previous night I wasn't at all worried. I think I'd been reassured by Tony's insistence that Chris's bite was absolutely extraordinary (and by now we knew he was safe and had come to no harm) as well as the fact it's a well-used campsite and they wouldn't let you do it if it wasn't safe. Some of the others felt a bit nervous though I think. It was nice lying there looking at the stars, with the fire gently burning behind me, and I slept pretty well through the night.

Day 3

Up even earlier on this day in order to have breakfast and pack up before sunrise. We went to a viewing point near Kata Tjuta, otherwise known as the Olgas, where you can see both Uluṟu and Kata Tjuta. Uluṟu gets the sun behind it, so is silhouetted against the sky, while Kata Tjuta gets the morning sun on red rocks. It was fairly busy but not uncomfortably so.

As soon as the sun was up Tony got us into the bus again so we could get the walk around Kata Tjuta done before it got too hot. Again they close it at 11am if it's forecast to be warm. We were on the track before 8am. The path's called the Valley of the Winds walk and near the beginning it was extraordinarily windy, but later on it was much more sheltered. Kata Tjuta is a collection of large dome-shaped rocks, essentially; but that doesn't quite do it justice.

Tony showed us how the various rocks in the area were formed, using pebbles to illustrate. Basically there was a big flood once upon a time which washed debris into a pile, creating the composite stone of Kata Tjuta. The sandstone of Uluṟu was left on its own, as was the nearby mesa of Mount Conner (which we'd seen on the road the previous day).

On the walk we saw a couple of dingoes up ahead, and a short while after two kangaroos in the bush. I was delighted when one of them bounced away, though my pictures are dreadful. I really wanted to see a wild kangaroo bouncing.

The walk takes you up to a sort of saddle, a divider between two gorges in the formations. Here all Tony's careful crowd-avoidance went to pot because we got up there at the same time as a horde of American teenagers arrived from the opposite direction. There seemed to be hundreds of them. Not fun. We left before they did, because they were coming back the same way they'd come and we wanted to get ahead.

We had lunch at the campsite again and then hit the long road back to Alice, stopping a few times on the way for drinks, stretching, and kangaroo tail for those that wanted it. I really didn't, it looked disgusting as it's all fat and sinew. No proper meat on it.

The last stop was at “Jim's Place”. Jim Cotterill is the son of Jack (see day 1) and he runs a roadhouse about 90km from Alice Springs. He's a down-to-earth Aussie in his 60s and he owns a singing dingo. Dinky the dingo and Jim do a little show for those who are interested. Basically Dinky was a victim of dingo poisoning – all his family was killed but Dinky was rescued, about eight years ago. He grew up in Jim's household as a dog, basically, and got used to the Cotterill daughters playing the piano. Soon they discovered Dinky would “sing” along to the music and learnt to hit the keys with his paws. Of course word spread and now Dinky's a worldwide celebrity with a question in the Aussie version of Trivial Pursuit. We had a performance – a bloke from another tour group played the piano. Dinky began to whine and then got up on to the keyboard and began to howl. It was totally out of tune and time with the music and we all found it completely hilarious. Jim said dingoes are very communicative, and basically Dinky is using music as a way of communicating with the family. There's a few videos on YouTube.

We got back to Alice about 6.30, time to shower and do laundry before a last meal as a group. Everyone was very nice and despite the various language barriers we got on well – I found myself helping the Chinese couple with rental car booking queries at the airport the next day because they were on the same flight as me. But I was exhausted after all the early starts, and was happy to collapse into bed!

Great Barrier

Another quick entry - wireless is down at my otherwise lovely hostel in Cairns, so I can't upload the long entry I did about Uluru (etc). Yesterday morning I went to Alice Springs' telegraph station, which was very interesting and really worthwhile and I survived the walk! Today I went snorkelling on the Great Barrier, and managed to find a small operator. They were really good, we did three dives and saw loads of different coral and fish and best of all a green turtle that swam around us for ages. Lots of fun. Tomorrow off to Cape Tribulation, a rainforest area further north.