Australia 2013 Diaries

Friday 22cnd Nov 2013

Memories

I’m here in Australia! The journey was really long, which won’t be a surprise to anyone as it is literally the other side of the world! After a twelve hour flight, I stopped for a short time in Singapore airport before the next flight. I had to stay in the airport as my next flight was in six hour’s time. So I started bumming round looking for stuff to do. Luckily the geniuses at Singapore airport have basically made an entire world full of lots of interesting stuff to see and do and explore.  A couple of people told me about the outdoor swimming pool linking straight to the airport. After 12 bloody hours cramped onto an aeroplane, there was nothing I wanted to do more than stretch out my limbs and exercise. It was located right at the other end of the terminal, but I only had my hand luggage, and it didn’t take me long to reach it. A little circular foyer area leads outside to the steps up to the poolside. As I stepped out the heat of the country hit me almost like a palpable wave. Remember, I stepped from freezing autumnal London into the air-conditioned aeroplane and then airport. So this was my first real experience of the changing temperature across the globe (although, as it turned out, I hadn’t seen anything yet!).

A quick change into my swimsuit and I entered the blissfully cool water. The pool isn’t too big, and has no deep end. But it’s big enough to do quarter lengths to and fro. I swim breaststroke, and just the feeling of my muscles moving again was nothing less than heaven. I tried not to think about the long wait and journey I still had ahead of me before I reached Australia and actually got to sleep. After a few laps (mostly surrounded by others that were inexplicably just standing motionless by the edge of the pool), I reached up and rested my arms on the side of the slightly raised Jacuzzi bath section. A man in his thirties was lounging in there, with a frown furrowing his brow, visible above his black sunglasses.



In Singapore airport

“Hey!” I said “Nice in there?”

“Well...” He started, a little doubtfully. “It’s not very warm, is it?”

Experimentally I flicked my hand through the water he was sitting in, estimating it to be about seven or eight degrees above the water I was swimming around in.

“Feels pretty hot to me!”

I wondered if he had just come from the Sahara. Definitely he hadn’t come from Baltic Britain. My hand was half boiled from the brief swipe through the water!

I left him to it, and got out. There was still a lot more time to kill. The terminal was full of various shops of restaurants which could potentially be used for entertainment value. However, my average attention span for shopping is about five minutes. So I used that to negotiate buying one pair of pants out of a multipack (as mine had gotten wet poolside, and I wasn’t prepared to go commando for any appreciable amount of time), and then headed up to grab some food. Discovering a little Chinese restaurant, I bought my staple meal of egg fried rice and sat down to a leisurely chow.

“Australian? American?” My waiter enquired.

“Oh. Umm. English!” (It genuinely took me a moment to remember this fact – I’m not a good traveller).

“Ah!” He exclaimed, seizing upon this with relish. “Soccer!”

“Well, actually ‘soccer’ is more of an American thing.” I started. “In England...oh, you’ve gone” I resumed my meal.

Then it was onto the next flight! Half the time on the plane this time at least. But I was joined in my row by an UNWAKEABLE GIANT who was on the outside seat. I slept the first few hours of the flight, and woke up to find I had missed the meal. Gently I prodded him to try and get out and find some sustenance. No response. I prodded again.

“Excuse me?...” Still nothing.

Okay, I’m going for it!

I shook the man vigorously, rattling the seat, squealing “Excuse me!” in increasing desperation like a starving Oliver Twist. I was completely incredulous when twenty whole seconds of this yielded nothing except hostile glares from the other passengers. In the end I simply climbed clumsily over the mountain, including a frankly embarrassing mid-climb straddle that I’m pretty glad he wasn’t awake for.

I went to sort myself out some food. When I returned?... the man was fully awake, and typing out a document on his laptop. Bastard.

Reunited with friends

Then, finally in Australia! Once I got through security and out into the front of the airport it was 6.20am local time, and I’d lost a whole day through my time zone swapping craziness (don’t worry, I think I’ll get it back). Oli was there waiting for me! So good to see her. Straight away we fell into the same pattern of friendship and banter. She had worked a nightshift just before coming to meet me, so she was pretty knackered as well. We went to McDonalds for some hot chocolate, and then back to the house that she is staying in. It is a really nice house, clean and bright with cool little sayings on the walls. The landlord’s Jack Russell, Bear, potters about the house expecting pats. I had a little donder out into the garden area. The ants are like beasts of war out here. I don’t think I’ll go within fifty paces of them if I can help it! Oli says it is like everything in Australia is on steroids! The birds are so loud as well, it’s awesome! There are wild Kookaburras flying about and making a racket. Then I conked out in Oli’s bed for three hours (after this I had to get up to restrict sleep and manage my jetlag). After I got up, we played board games and ate chocolate afternoon! Bliss. We planned out some of our itinerary; we have a lot of things planned! Now in my hotel room. Pretty damn tired! Gotta rest this head. Night... x

 

Saturday 23^rd Nov 2013

Feeding the wildlife

Today we had a very relaxed recovering from jetlag/nightshift day. I sort of woke at 7.30am and had some breakfast. Then had one of these jerky half-awake type of naps until finally Oli rang the phone. I knew I would need her about in order to keep myself awake! We wandered about for a bit collecting various items of food, then finally found the way down to the nearest botanical gardens. In the parks all over Brisbane there are these Ibis birds strutting about everywhere with one mission in their minds – to steal your food! In terms of intensity, they are somewhere between a pigeon and a goose. In that, you do dare to shoo them, but you’d do it with your bag instead of your foot. However, they are not too quick to get the hint, and love to walk in a little circle and return for another run at your lunch! But I discovered that if you try to feed them to get them to leave, you just end up with twenty hungry Ibis! Some of the restaurants in Brisbane with outdoors seating areas even had little signs up warning to keep an eye on your food as they couldn’t replace it if the Ibis took it. We did feed some of the smaller birds though. They looked like little Australian chaffinches and were very sweet although still had a wicked beak on them. But we had to stop once the Ibis caught wind of the activity.

Exploring the city

We spent the whole afternoon chilling out in the gardens and playing cards, and then went off to the cinema as Stephen wanted to see The Hunger Games. I haven’t seen the first film or read the books, so I delightfully asked ‘What’s going?’ every few minutes until I was unceremoniously shushed. Bah. I’ll still never know why she didn’t just kill the Presidenty guy when she was alone in a room with him. On the way back to the hotel I saw a massive spider just hanging out at the side of the path. Hoping to God he is a benevolent spider (if there is such a thing), as he KNOWS WHERE I LIVE! Or at least where I’m staying. I’m sure he’s none too interested really. At the moment I expect he’s sheltering somewhere as a rather epic thunderstorm has just started to rage outside.



Sunday 24^th Nov 2013



Brisbane Southbank

Today Oli couldn’t meet until later as she was busy organising all of our itinerary stuff. Yes, I know I should be helping, but...well if you’ve met me, you’ll know I don’t do organising stuff well. It took all my efficient energy to arrange my trip to Australia, and I was superbly impressed with myself that I remembered to arrange my Visa.

Whilst she was doing that I spent a few hours dondering around Brisbane exploring. This is one of my absolute favourite things to do, and it was great to have a new city to do it in! I went down through the King Edward Park, checking carefully for beasties as I went. I wandered through the outdoors Queensland mall and listened to a Salvation Army band for a while. Wandering on, I came to a riverside cycle path. Cyclists and runners were busily going to and fro on it. The whole path was concrete and small, hot alcoves of sand were dotted here and there alongside it, with the river lapping upon them. I saw a few pigeons with tiny little Mohicans (no joke) walking about the sand.



Statue

At the end of the path I turned onto the bridge and walked across the river to the South Bank, stopping for a drink and a banana from a handily placed vendor on the way. It was so, so hot! I was definitely feeling dehydrated having been out walking for more than an hour. At the other side of the bridge I lay down on a bench and read a bit of my book. I considered going into the Maritime Museum, but there was a charge to enter, and you can see most of it when walking across the bridge! Before long it got too hot to just lie there in the baking sun, so I carried on and encountered the bustling South Bank! It’s quite beautiful! An arched walkway of stone and wrapped flowers stretches in a curve along the bank. There are some cool statues dotted about, including a man and his dog, and what looked like a Chinese Emperor. Ants and Ibis are plentiful here as everywhere else in the city. There are grass slopes and water features. Further on, a cobbled river turned unexpectedly into a huge public water play area! Adults and children alike splashed and played throughout the area, laughing. It looked like great fun, but I didn’t have my swimming gear with me, so I walked on. The next thing I found were these cool little riverside markets. Some of the stalls were selling similar types of things you might find in Camden (t-shirts, jewellery, food), but some of them had some cool stuff such as boomerangs and didgeridoos. I didn’t buy anything at the time, but hopefully we will pop back and get some cool gifts for people! After this I had to get back so that I would be ready to meet Oli.

The mermaid bar

When we met up, we headed out for a bite to eat. Nom! Bread and humous and fishcakes. Then off to a quiet, chilled little bar called Lefties. Apparently, this bar used to be a strip club. It was closed down as they were basically allowing some of the woman to work as prostitutes from the club.  So they recommisioned it into a bar with a marine theme. The top area of the bar is even called The Mermaid Lounge, and has murals, statues and a large (plastic) shark on the wall. The bottom area, where we sat, was centred around a live music stage. One of Stephen’s friends was the drummer in the band that played. They are very enthused! As my tolerance for prolonged bar habitation is only slightly above that for my tolerance for shopping, I left them to it quite early. I need to be rested for tomorrow anyhow.

Monday 25^th November 2013

Heading to the Island

So today we went off to explore the Tangalooma resort on Moreton Island! It is basically a little tamed corner of a desert island, but they have all sorts of amazing activities to do like quad biking, scuba, parasailing, snorkelling, etc. We took the express boat over early in the morning. It was a great feeling standing on the back of the boat. The wind whipped around and salt spray was being thrown up into our faces. On the boat, me and Oli got a chance for a proper chat and catch up!



I 'sea' you! Bwahaha!

Arriving on the island, we stepped out onto the pier with sun and sand all around us, and the sea an inch away (this probably goes without saying, as the boat was, you know, floating on seawater). A helicopter was actually landing just as we disembarked, pretty cool! I’ve never seen one that close up in real life before. Can’t imagine what it would be like to go up in one! There’s another plan on the horizon right there.

Wildlife on Tangalooma

The island’s wildlife is amazing! Colonies of penguins and what looked like pelicans were clustered around the pier. Kookaburras flitted about from tree to tree above our head.  Geckos pop in and out from the shaded areas. On the trip over we even saw that the sea was chock-a-bloc with large white jellyfish. Before I saw them, I was actually musing with Oli about the swim back to the shore if I were to fall in. That thought soon went out of the window! If I went overboard I would have much more immediate problems from the hundreds of stings I would be likely to receive. Luckily they weren’t close to the island shore where the swimming area was. I did once get stung by a jellyfish on a British beach, and that hurt enough for me to cry (in my defence, I was about twelve at that time). But I bet a sting from an amped up Aussie jellyfish would hurt a little bit more!

After lunch, we changed into our swimming gear and went for a swim in the beautifully warm sea. Even though we didn’t go as far as the marker pier it was pretty fun splashing about. Me and Oli did some body surfing onto the beach, using the waves to beach ourselves and seeing how far we could slide. I could barely believe that I was lying on an island paradise beach!

Sand Tobogganing!

We got out and changed just in time for the desert safari. In the safari, we drove out to a little expanse of sand (probably not quite wild enough to be called desert, as such) to try out the sand tobogganing. The sand was bright, and blinding. It made viewing the whole expanse of pseudo desert a particularly squinty affair. The tobogganing was pretty cool. You simply have a length of flat wood, one side polished and one rough. Trekking up to the top of a huge white sand dune, we used candle wax to grease up the polished side of the board and laid the edge out over the start of the drop. They had showed us exactly how you’re supposed to do the tobogganing, with the front of the board held up. If you let it down, it will dig into the sand when you’re sliding fast and you will end up face planting! The hill was pretty big, so wasn’t too keen to do that. You have to raise your legs up as well, obviously, so you can easily slide down. Donning my goggles (to prevent the sand scratching up my eyeballs), I lay down on the board and eyed up the drop with some trepidation. But as with anything like this, you’ve got to fully commit! It’s when you um and er and do a half job that you get into trouble. So I positioned, lifted myself up and away and I went! The slide is so, so fast and you don’t get time to think anything but bloody hell, here I gooooooo.... As soon as you are at the bottom, it’s up straight away so that you don’t clog up the run for anyone else. It was amazing fun, but I definitely started feeling the climb back up after a while. To make it easier I used my tobogganing board as a sort of walking stick, but still huffing and puffing my way to the top. Managed to get three slides in. The only thing that ruined it a little bit was the attitude of the guides. They were quite grumpy and rude, rushing people. Considering that is their jobs, I didn’t think that was necessary. If you don’t like your job, find one you do!

Quad biking!

Getting back, we had a little wander around the Marine Centre. They had a few displays on conservation on turtles and whales. On the wall was displayed a huge saw that used to be used to saw up whale bones. Grim! The next thing we had on our agenda was the quad biking. Yeah! The quad bikes were great fun. Really intuitive and easy to drive. The only thing was that the accelerator was operated with your right thumb, and so after 45 minutes of riding it became harder and harder to control it as your thumb grew tired! I loved zipping round the sandy bends in the desert and up and down the trails! At one point we rode high above the sea, looking out over the horizon as far as you could see. I was hard pressed to concentrate on where I was going with such a beautiful view next to us. If it hadn’t been for the others I probably would have inadvertently driven over the edge.

Island at Dusk

We got a little bit of time to sit and relax, watching the sun set over the edge of the island. Just after dusk, the dolphins began coming in for their feed. They are used to being fed at this time every evening, so they have adjusted their timing so they get fed. The resort allows people to give the fish to the dolphins in the water, but only about ten per cent of their total food requirement is provided in this way. They do this so that the dolphins still have to hunt and provide for themselves and are not reliant only on humans. They organise it well, lining people up by the fish buckets in four lines and having them come in one by one. I got a sixteen year old male dolphin who took the fish pretty gently. Oli managed to get a feisty one! He turned sharply at one point and his fin slapped her leg!

On the boat journey back from the island I was bloody knackered! I noticed that I now have quite a dramatic suntan from swimming in the sea, in the shape of my swimming costume. Hopefully it will look brown and impressive by the end of the holiday.

Tuesday 26^th Nov 2013

Thai Chi

A chill out day today after the full on craziness of yesterday! Wandered down to the town in the morning to get some bits and bobs for lunch, and then met Oli at 11am. We were planning to find the free Thai Chi class being held in the botanical gardens. It is increasingly impossible to eat in this park due to the ever present Ibis, especially near the water. Their level of perseverance is really quite impressive! We had to relocate a couple of times to get all of our food eaten. Whilst eating we had our cheese packet lying open on the grass. We had an amusing interlude when we noticed an ant had fetched up a huge crumb of cheese in relation to its body size, and was gamely trying to tug it across the grass towards his home. It was an epic struggle if I ever saw one! We took a video and tried out our best Australian ant impersonations...don’t say we don’t know how to have fun! Ahem. After a few minutes of fruitless searching, we eventually found the free thai chi class. We did make a wander past the paid thai chi class, which was four people doing perfect thai chi in unbroken unison (even when we spoke to them). I was pretty fucking glad that did not turn out to be our class. I’m fairly sure I would have spoilt the beauty of the moment. Our class was slightly more haphazard, about fifteen people of varying shapes and sizes. The class was held at the edge of the park near a river and waterfall. The teacher brought some soothing tai chi music to play, and talked about the history or physical benefits of the movements as he went through them. At the moment I have an old lady hip, so I found some of them difficult due to the fact I can’t put any weight on it. Still, the pace and level of the class was really good, especially when you take into account the hot weather.

Our friend Mr. Lizard

After the class we sat and ate mango by the river. Just sitting and minding our own business. Then Oli looks sideways and BAM! The lizard is right next to her, staring up at her with hopeful eyes. The little thing had come from the river to start begging our food. We gave him a piece of mango and he slurped it down without so much as a chew, licking his lips happily. Blinking, he looked back at us both. So we adopted a ‘piece for me, piece for you’ system that he seemed very happy with. He stayed with us for most of the mango eating, until the other wildlife suddenly clocked onto his scam. What they hadn’t factored in was that cuteness was a very important factor. A dark cloud of flies, Ibis and chaffinch types descended on us and the lizard. They chased him back into the river, nipping him. But I refused to give them any mango. Bullies!

Next, we wandered over to the South Bank, and headed to the pool areas that I discovered the other day. There is an adjoining outdoor pool bit as well. It was a bit chilly to start with, but after a couple of laps we warmed up. Many people were casually splashing about or watching the pool. The whole thing is free, and they have lifeguards covering it, so pretty sweet! After a while, my leg began to ache quite a lot, so we made our way back over the river and to our beds for the night.

Ash called me at 7pm and we chatted for about twenty minutes. The phone has a very annoying delay meaning that sometimes we cannot hear the other person! We made a rule that we would say “Potato, potato” instead of “Hello, hello” if we could not hear, as it is less irritating. Gotta love that I found someone just as wacky as myself!

Wednesday 27^th Nov 2013



kangaroos!

So today we went to the famous Australian Zoo, set up by Steve Irwin and his family! As an interesting backdrop to the trip, a keeper at the zoo had been attacked literally the day before by a tiger. Entering the zoo, I actually saw one Mother ask a zookeeper if the tiger was still at large. Yeah, I like to bring my infants right into the potential danger zone before double checking its safety status. It’s just how I roll.

Tailstand

The zoo was pretty interesting, and most of the enclosures had a great level of shelter for the animals. I.e., they were more concerned with the animals being comfortable than the people being able to see them. Which is the way round it should be in my opinion. They had tons of animals at the zoo, from komodo dragons, koalas and kangaroos, to birds and snakes of all descriptions. We were lucky enough to get to the amphitheatre in time for the main show of the day. In this show, they have various breeds of bird and crocodile flit around. These huge birds are whooshing around above your head, making you want to duck! One bird knew to fly to the spectator with a folded up banknote in her hand, there is some oddly specific training if I ever saw it. The show was finished with a large crocodile being fed from a height so that it would perform a ‘tailstand’, something they do in the wild when coming out of water after their prey. Very fast, and very scary! There was an amazing rainforest section with butterflies and birds flitting around waterfalls. We also wandered through the kangaroo enclosure, in which you can literally go right up to the kangaroos! I was sure that they would attack if you tried to touch, but a passing ranger assured me that they are used to it. So I gingerly ventured forward and started patting one on the head and then its belly! Although it didn’t seem at all perturbed by the experience, it certainly wasn’t getting any pleasure from it. After a short time it hopped off to its important duties. We visited the reptile house and saw all of the venomous snakes. Near the end of the day we headed up to the Africa section of the zoo. The giraffes were fed whilst we were there! They also had zebras and rhinos.

Africa in Australia!

On our way back from Africa, we encountered a ranger who was rounding everyone up to collect them into the little tram that runs through the zoo, as it was almost leaving time. We spent a little bit of time in the gift shop, and then decided finally to go over to the hospital section. They had this area on show here where koalas that were recovering from anaesthetics could be seen. They also showed the most impressive range and amount of incubators I had ever seen! It was pretty cool, and sort of made me want to volunteer there. But of course, there is probably a list as long as the flight to Australia of people who would volunteer there. They had a few displays dotted around the main viewing room. The weirdest/coolest display was a koala skull which looked like it still had the cancerous lump attached to it.

Now that it’s getting closer, I’m starting to get a little bit nervous about diving. I’ll have to go right over the buddy protocols with Oli so that neither of us are too rusty.

Thursday 28^th Nov 2013



Boxing clever

Another chilled out day today hanging with Oli. We went back down to the botanical gardens, this time to try out the free boxing. Despite my hip injury meaning that I couldn’t do the kicks or knees, I had a great time jabbing, hooking and uppercutting! The lady came over at one point and told me that I had good power, woot woot! But my accuracy? Ehhh, not so impressive. I almost whacked Oli in the face a couple of times (by accident, I swear!). I have a feeling my arms are gonna ache from all the impact.

Afterwards we wandered back down to the South Bank and had another swim about. As we chatted, we went over all the diving hand signals to ensure we were on the same page. We also established a protocol for who would lead in a procession situation (me, as she is a stronger swimmer).

After scarfing down some cream laden crepes, we played a primer game of chess to get us prepared for the board games night. I won, natch. Then we headed off to George square, where several versions of giant games had been set up! There were also tables and tables full of normal games for people to play. This is all for free! Brisbane council is doing something right. There was giant chess, scrabble, connect four, jenga, twister and Chinese checkers.



Nobody beats ME at chess, dammit!

My first gym master battle (eternal respect to you if you followed that) was with an old man who was evidently much better than I was at chess. I mean, it really doesn’t take much to earn that title. I made some very stupid chess moves during that game. But what I hated was that the dude kept undoing my move and making me do what he thought I should in the game! You know what, just beat me! I’ll learn from it, you’ll feel smart and most of all I won’t feel the urge to cave your head in with a giant pawn. Everybody wins! Whilst we were playing, he asked me several times as to my Saturday night plans, and if I liked to dance. I found myself REALLY regretting my choice of chess partner. Thank God that once my King was buried I could go off and find Oli.

She was playing the giant chess with some kind of crazy chess genius (from Poland, I think). He was 29 years old, and had been playing for 25 years. Yup, do the maths on that one. Mental. After getting our combined arses metaphorically whipped by this guy, we sat round and had a drink to celebrate his victory. I also had an entire twelve inch pizza. Ahem. We also stood and critiqued the ongoing giant scrabble game. It was all fun and laughter until one of the players popped to the loo, and I was asked to replace him for a short time. Every time I was about to put a word down the games supervisor guy would start ranting about this or that possibility on the board. Gah! Leave me to play the game in peace! Thank God the actual player came back quickly; I couldn’t have borne that for much longer!

Despite having quite a meandery, stressless day, by the time I hit the sack I was absolutely dead to the world. I had to wake up in the middle of the night to switch off all the lights and the TV.

Friday 29^th Nov 2013



Lone Pine

Just a short little trip out today to the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary. It’s an okay place, but the animal habitats aren’t anywhere near as animal orientated as Australia Zoo. The whole place was absolutely roasting hot today. I was sweating to the max, and I had shorts on. Oli was actually wearing full length denim jeans. She looked pretty uncomfortable!

The first thing we did was go to the Koala talk and pet. They also told us about the flooding incident at the sanctuary, where in a massive hurry everyone had to rescue all the koalas from the lower sections of the sanctuary. Next up, we headed over to hear the birds of prey talk. They brought out more and more impressive raptors, until the last one was absolutely bloody huge. A gigantic eagle that still seemed more than happy to tamely wait for its chopped bits of meat. I actually got to hold one of the birds on my hand during one part of the demonstration (mostly because I practically dislocated my arm upwards when they asked for volunteers). I was also highly amused by the parents hurriedly rushing their toddler out when one of the raptors ate a mouse whole! Erm, too late, she already saw it.



More Kangaroos

After a few more enclosures we came across the huge kangaroo section, which must have had over a hundred kangaroos in it. That included some Mothers which still had their young sticking out of their pouches. It’s ever so surreal. But obviously you weren’t allowed to touch them. We got a bag of kangaroo pellets from the shop and were hand feeding the other kangaroos.

After the reptile house, we saw a whole section devoted to the duck billed platypus. There were two of them swimming about in the water. Interestingly, they are actually nocturnal, so they swap the day-night cycles so that they swim during the day. I tried to ask a few more questions on how they actually do it, but the woman doing the talk seems to have been reading off of a sheet and didn’t actually know anything about the management herself. Shame. After this talk, Oli and Stephen went off to see the Tasmanian Devil talk and I stayed for a sec in the platypus house. Well, I don’t know if there was still a little bit of jetlag, but before I knew it I was waking back up! Wandering outside, I caught the very tail end of the Tasmanian Devil talk.

Lorikeet feeding

We waited around in the sun and wandered through the gift shop for a bit after that, for the Lorikeet feeding. At four o’clock, the woman came out with some kind of milky grain stuff in little dishes, and then attached them to the top of long poles. Before she even came out, I could see the colourful little birds gathering in the trees above and occasionally flitting to and fro. But once she came out with this mixture...Wow! The air exploded with a cacophony of noise and colour as all the birds flew at once down to eat. It was overwhelming, and very difficult not to duck as they flew above like a fireball. If something startled one, they would all rise again in unison and wheel round again to land. Once they had settled on the trays, you were allowed to pick them up by the poles so that you could get a little picture with them. The birds actually preferred the trays with no one lifting them, but I got one or two on the one I had.

After a bit of time, the food was all gone, and alas it was time for us to go as well! So Stephen drove us back to the town. As I was walking back to the hotel, I saw a street performer similar to ones that you get in London (and I guess, any big city). She was a ballerina, and only moved whenever someone put down some money. Otherwise, no matter how she was standing, she would stay perfectly still!

Saturday 30^th Nov 2013

Pancakes, yessss!

Today was a chess and relaxation day! You might be thinking I’ve had quite a few of these, but hey, I’m on holiday! I headed over to Oli’s place and we played game after game of chess! I am winning most of these games at the moment. Probably about the only person I could beat at chess! But I can see Oli getting better and better, and learning my game style. Worrying! Oli made pancakes and we also had a giant panatonne, washed down with plenty of tea. Bliss!

Graveyard, brrr...

In the evening we had booked ourselves onto a spooky Brisbane graveyard ghost tour. The woman was pretty funky, and had a kind of strict yet spooky persona. Occasionally she would forget she was supposed to be doing it and would accidentally drop it when talking! There were stories galore, from child murderers and evil nuns to criminals buried alive as punishment! I took a few photos initially, but soon got a kind of feeling like I might accidentally take a picture of a ghost! So I put my camera away. We had torches as we walked, but had to turn them off during the story stops. So I got this feeling like something could be standing right next to me! The story of the evil nuns particularly really creeped me out, and I was sure I could sort of see them gliding around just out of my range of clear vision. The guide told a really funny story in which a previous guide group could hear what sounded like footsteps crunching on the leaves towards them, but couldn’t see anything. They were sure it was the nuns coming for them. They saw the leaves near them moving as if an invisible force walked over them...and then realised it was a frog hopping along! Phew. By the end of the tour I was actually pleased to get out of the graveyard and go for some scampi and chips.

Sunday 1^st Dec 2013

Brisbane Eye

Today we fully discovered the boats that bounce around the shore in the middle of Brisbane from South to North shore. Eating crepes, drinking hot chocolate and standing out on the bow of the boat whilst it went from place to place. We headed to the market as well, and got a few bits and bobs for presents.

Testing the waters

Monday 2cnd Dec 2013



Beautiful scenery

Right now I’m lying in my bed in a rented apartment in the town of 1770! This is supposed to be the first place that the Endeavour moored, and we have travelled here to finally get in some diving on the Great Barrier Reef. It took bloody ages to get here, about six hours. Stephen must be knackered! Oli brought loads of food, including some homemade cheesecake from her landlady. He drove all the way here with minimal stops. When we got here and to the apartment, we realised that the main sliding doors were open and only the fly doors were shut. All the fly doors had slits at the level of the door handle! It’s really obvious that at one point these were accidentally the only thing locked before someone left the apartment, and they were slit so that the door handle could be turned and everything in the apartment stolen! As soon as we realised this it made us a little bit paranoid...but probably the reason that they had been left in this way was so that no-one in future made the same mistake. Apart from this aspect it is a pretty nice little place. It has a tiny little swimming pool and an outdoors table as well as en suite bedrooms and a lounge area. Not bad! Tomorrow we go out to the harbour to go out and dive! So exciting. Gotta get some rest now.

Tuesday 3^rd Dec 2013

On our nautical adventure!

Today was the day of diving! I was so excited to finally see the famous Great Barrier Reef. The boat journey from the dock was absolutely mental. It was on Lady Musgrove cruises, although it was less a cruise and more like a cross between a speed boat and a washing machine. Now, I’m not normally one for seasickness – but after only a few minutes on the waves, I could feel the nausea washing over me. I had noticed that they had placed two sick bags in the bag of each seat, and before I knew it the sound and smell of vomiting surrounded me. Pressing hard on the pressure points on my wrist, I pushed myself back in my seat and closed my eyes, dissociating myself from the boat around me.



The crowded pontoon

Finally, we arrived, and I stumbled off of the boat onto the pontoon, a little worse for wear. We got little bits of cake and cups of tea as we exited, which actually settled my stomach a little. The pontoon itself was actually smaller than the boat, and people crowded onto it, excited for their activities. Some people were snorkelling, some diving, some going on island walks and some just sunbathing and feeding the fish. We were due to dive, of course.



About to dive

I was so nervous for the dive, having never dove in salt water before. Locating the Dive Master, I asked her several questions about the dive and the equipment, including any differences between that and fresh water. After a few though, she basically told me that she couldn’t answer any more questions and that I shouldn’t dive if I didn’t want to. I was pretty concerned that we didn’t wet the cylinder bands prior to attaching the cylinder, as I had learned that could lead to the cylinder slipping. This was also my first dive since the training dives, but I don’t think I was the only one.

We climbed in the boat and travelled a short distance out to the dive site. On the way we were given a quick briefing on the dive. We checked out all the equipment, and got the masks, goggles, BCD, tank, etc. on. There was a bit of momentary hesitation just as I was about to do my giant stride out into the water, afraid I would accidentally hit the ladder, but I heard the guy behind me geeing me on (as the boat was drifting slightly, so too much hesitation would spread out the divers). In I went! Oli was just before me, but I could tell as soon as we entered that she was having problems with her mask. It was filling with water every time she tried to go under. The upshot was that, we all went down together, but I lost her almost immediately as she bobbed back up to sort out her mask. Worrying and panicking, I signalled frantically to the Dive Master that I couldn’t find my buddy. But she didn’t seem to understand, and the group started to move off. Hanging back, I finally caught a sight of Oli and checked she was ok. She was, but her mask was filling up the whole bloody time.

Us with the Dive Masters

On this dive we went right down to 12 metres! It was pretty scary seeing the surface diminish and disappear. But once we got right down, the amount of fish, coral and other creatures around was amazing. The Dive Master led the group, while the other guide held a balloon that signalled our position to the boat on the surface. I was really uber aware of my responsibilities as a buddy, so I stayed close to Oli. It was a shame as she stayed near the back, so we didn’t get to see the shark that the others saw! I did see a turtle though, absolutely huge and effortlessly gliding through the water. It took only a few strokes before he had pulled away from us. The whole of the water was filled with life and movement. At one point I was really confused that I was swimming and swimming and couldn’t make any headway at all! Then it occurred to me that it was the current. Just before we came up I was astounded to see one of the other divers attempt to grab one of the fish! Aghast, I grabbed him and shook my head slowly at him. He stopped then thankfully.

The Island is out there!

We went back up to the pontoon for an absolutely great lunch! There was pasta and bread and prawns and cream cakes and even more! I stuffed myself to the brim, and then sat in the sun digesting and watching the myriad of fish. The boat even had a downstairs section so you could see straight out into the water. Then back in the water, this time just the water around the pontoon. We went down to 6 metres, and explored the coral and fish there. I have to say, being in the water with so many fish (attracted in a huge cloud due to being routinely fed from the pontoon) was a little bit scary! Some looked like massive fucking trout. Some of the free divers just swimming around the pontoon were actually diving past us when we were at 3 metres!

Naptime

I was absolutely bloody knackered after all the diving, so I was asleep most of the way on the boat ride home! In the evening we went out to a nearby restaurant, and before the food was served, I was wandering around the outside and exploring. I soon darted back to the light restaurant when I almost got scalped by a low flying bat! As it landed on a nearby tree, the whole thing rocked on its roots. I went white as a sheet and scuttled backwards, surrounded by the chuckles of a nearby table that had seen my exploits!

Wednesday 4^th December 2013

Surfing

Another challenge today! We had arranged ourselves a surfing lesson. Having never surfed before I was definitely excited to get out into the sea. We were picked up by the van, which was already chock full of other students. We squeezed in the back, and took a little detour around picking up others. By the time we got to the beach we were like very squeezed sardines! At one point in the journey I think I inhaled, and found myself unable to exhale. After a lifetime subsisting on one inhaled breath, we got to the beach and spilled out in relief! The van had come to a stop in the woods just above the beach. We each got a surfboard, and carried it down the sandy wooden path to the beach. I felt like a real adventurer! With the board held above me and rested on the top of my head, my arms were feeling it!

Sardines!

Finally assembled, it was time to start the lesson. The sand was baking hot, and I hopped across it ooching and ouching as I went. We all lined the boards up, and then had to take turns to show our surfing skills. When you see a wave coming behind you, you have to paddle, paddle, paddle, paddle, POP! This means pushing water behind you as fast as you can, and then when you are sure you have caught the wave, popping up onto your feet as fast as you can! Then you try to keep your balance and ride the wave to the shore. After we all showed the skill to satisfaction, we were allowed to enter the water and try it for real. Now, here is something that I am sure I knew at some point, but evidently forgot – breaking waters are really fucking powerful. We had to push past these breakers to get to a good point in the water. If they hit your board when it was across your body (as opposed to facing forwards or backwards), the board would slam into you and drive you several feet backwards towards the shore. This actually means that even when you wipe out, there is no time for tears and tantrums. You have to get up and swing your board round immediately or you will be sent flying again. This makes surfing more psychologically exhausting than it is physically in my opinion.

Surfboards

Anyway, with our boards round the right way, we lay on them in wait for the perfect wave. Some of the smaller waves are okay to miss; they just wobble you a bit. But if a larger wave comes, you have to catch it or risk being half drowned. After a few false starts I finally caught a wave!

“Whoohoo!” I shouted, and popped onto my feet in glee! The next second I was chinning the bottom of the seabed and inhaling the saltwater through my nostrils. Dammit! Turns out this isn’t quite as easy as I thought. Not that I thought it was going to be a walk in the park, but I apparently have very little balance. Still, I persevered. After many twenty or so wipeouts, I finally stood up for long enough that someone took a photo of me! And then wiped out. Ah well.

We spent about four hours in the water surfing! Or trying to surf in my case. After about three I was thinking that’s me, but there was still time to go. So I’d probably be really shit at tolerating waterboarding. Hey ho, learn something new and all that.

So surfing – fun for two hours, then mostly about breathing in salt water. I would love to try more casually, i.e. pop in and out of the water as I felt like. Also, the teachers were weirdly English phobic. By which I mean, ruled by nonsensical stereotypes regarding people from England. They had lots of fun enlightening me on their views throughout the class. You know those situations where you are subjected to a sort of latent hostility for no apparent reason, and you just find yourself really confused? I am a grump, so I get a few of those. But this was definitely not due to my disposition. I was warned prior to travelling that I may encounter this attitude, so thank God I was able to mostly ignore it and just concentrate on surfing.

Afterwards, I laid on the sofa, ate junk food and watched shark documentaries. I am sure I had earned it!

Friday 6^th December 2013



Spot the photobomb

Yesterday, we travelled back from 1770, so it was a pretty uneventful day. The only event was that Oli and Stephen were called and asked to work overnight. We already had plans for today to go to Dreamland today, so I was very surprised when they accepted! I was really worried that they would just feel shit and tired all day. It turned out okay though. But random new information – I am absolutely petrified of theme park rides now! So bizarre considering some of the stuff I do. I knew I shouldn’t have read my way through the entire ride accidents website. Still, even with my wimp factor turned up full blast, I loved the day! We had a zombie laser gun shootout, rode the Kobra and the rollercoaster, and ate copious quantities of over expensive fudge! This was the final outing of Australia, and we had a lot of fun. As with most theme park outings, the entire day passed in a sort of blurred dream of craziness and queuing. The best ride was definitely the drop tower, which my eyeballs left about 60 foot up in the air when it dropped!

So I’m back in the land of sub 10 degrees temperatures now! Saturday was spent packing, and Sunday travelling back. I’m pretty chuffed that I got the chance to go to Australia, although sad I couldn’t travel around more (due to money). I hope this is one of many travels. My new resolution is to go to at least three other countries this year! Or maybe four! So keep your eye out for more (slightly grumpy) exploits!

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