The Outback is another one of those words that Aussie’s words that means a lot to them but not much to anyone else (take billabong or dunny as other examples). As far as I could figure out, generally it means the part of Australia that is not on the coast and not built up, and for those familiar with the geography of Australia, that means that the outback covers quite a large area.
Leaving behind the beautiful coast line north of Cairns within a day we found ourselves pretty much in the middle of nowhere although not before we sampled some beautiful mountainous rain forest. By chance we stopped in a car park for lunch, surrounded by those wonderful rain forest sights, sounds and smells, only to discover a natural wonder. Creatively dubbed “The Crater” we found ourselves staring some 60 metres down into a large (yup you’ve guessed it) crater at a rather murky pool, which apparently went - at least - a further 130 metres under the water (no one has been deeper to find out)! It was the result of volcanic activity in the area and was actually formed with a violent volcanic gas explosion which blew this massive hole through the rock. Impressive, this power of nature stuff.
I use the term we quite a lot in this blog, and that usually refers to Espe and I, however the attentive amongst you will remember that a charming Frenchman rode with us up to Cairns. When we (Espe and I) returned from our four day live aboard on the Great Barrier Reef I checked my phone to see a few messages from Guillaume, who unsuccessful in finding work in Cairns decided he would head over to Katherine or Darwin instead. He asked, provided that it wasn’t to much of an intrusion, if we would possibly be kind enough to take him with us, but only if it really was no inconvenience at all. We’d enjoyed his company, cooking and washing up skills previously so were happy to invite him back on board, besides, his contribution to the fuel cost was a great help.
We (Espe, Guillaume and I) knew we were out in the outback for real once we were surrounded by red soil and not a lot else. The nothingness was really striking, as was the straightness of the roads which even the Romans would have been proud of. The longest, and dullest straight we covered stretched for some 70kms.
Boring huh? That was a mere 30 seconds… now imagine 8 hours of that a day, for a week. We are talking serious distances here and with over 500 km between towns, villages even, being stocked up with fuel, food and water was essential. You might imagine it as boring, but I loved it. Despite being big and empty, the outback is incredibly diverse and besides there are lots of distractions apart from the great sounds emanating from the ipod (Gotan Project’s “Mi Confesión” is a current favorite).
Of great interest, at least to Guillaume and I, were the massive 50 metre long 3 or 4 trailer road trains hurtle towards you at great speed. Not as scary as facing and Indian bus in a Rickshaw but still quite daunting when you have to pull off the road onto the gravel as one of these goliaths passes by.
Another thing that continued to amaze me about Australia, and this is not just in the outback but everywhere, is the diversity of wildlife. Take the following for example.
The termite hills in the photo above deserve a mention. We saw thousands of these mounds spread along the side of the road. Often lots of small ones close together giving a grave yard like appearance, but sometimes we were treated to a single huge mound rising over two metres tall. Fascinating story of how they come to be but I can’t bring myself to write it now (it’s 11.15pm, I’ve been up since 5.30, running round like a madman all day and I have a flight to catch tomorrow morning). Next time we’re enjoying a beer, remind me and I’ll fill you in.
Occasionally in between the nothingness, big towns, even small cities would exist seemingly thriving in the middle of nowhere. Mt Isa, a huge mining town was one such place and as we passed through our timing could not have been better, as we arrived for the final day of the Mount Isa Rodeo, apparently Australia’s biggest Rodeo event. So of course, we went along to see what it was all about. I had no idea really what to expect but the event gave an entertaining insight into outback culture. There were a collection of events including the standard bull and horse buckerroo but along with it horse time trials, capturing and riding of a wild horse (possibly the toughest event), team lasso events whereby the contestant had to capture a calf by the horns and rear legs. All impressive stuff, which I hope my pictures are testament to. Best of all though was how 90% of the crowd were dressed like cowboys.
I write this from Sydney. I have a headache and I am absolutely shattered. I’ve spent the last week and a bit attempting to fix the van, running between mechanics, stressing, frequently visiting Super Cheap Auto (Australia’s Halfords equivalent), faffing and abusing the hospitality of friends. Needless to say, I will write up about all that at a later date when I’m able to look back at it and smile but for the moment I am over a month and some 10 posts behind with this blog.
Casting my mind back… The Great Barrier Reef. The worlds largest living collective organism, the only living thing visible from space, stretching some 1600 miles. (I’ve no idea if the above is correct or not, but I’m just to tired to bother checking it.) The reef is not actually continuous but made up of some 3000 individual reefs.
Mention the Barrier Reef to any diver and it should evoke an excited reaction. Diving The Reef was on my 100 things to do before I die list but I’d been warned by several travellers that, at least with regards to individual dives go one shouldn’t expect any better than what SE Asia has to offer. Still that was no reason not to find out for myself. The cost of dive trips, however, was.
Thankfully through our camp site we found out about a “Hosty” program where by we could go out to a live aboard boat for 2 days as guests and then stay on as hosts for free, cleaning the rooms, making the beds, washing up etc, in return for food, accommodation and some free diving. I couldn’t sign up fast enough…
We were taken out to our boat, Reef Encounter, by a day tripping boat owned and run by the same company. It was old, small and slow… about three other boats steamed past us on the way, but “no worries”, we got to see some more whales, once again nice and close.
After the old banger that brought us out to the reef, I wasn’t expecting anything special. As a result I was more than pleasantly surprised when I saw our gleaming white home for the next few days surrounding by pristine blue shimmering water. This was a big luxury catamaran. With large dive platform, sun deck, hot tub (I can’t spell jacusy) and helipad, I was amazed by the size and levels of comfort aboard this vessel.
The boat also had a huge dining room and lounge, ideal for enjoying the well prepared meals and tasty beverage afterwards lounging on the comfy sofas. I couldn’t help but feel that despite being quite an expensive trip, it should have cost more.
Being on board for four days meant we got to meet a lot of people. Most spent only one night aboard before returning to terra firma but there were a few who were on board for longer, especially other hosties who we were working with and the crew members who, with the exception of our second boss, were all good fun. It was really pleasant socialising with people with similar interest in diving and travel. My only gripe here was that with all the diving, eating and ‘hosty-ing’ there wasn’t enough time for anything else.
On our third day on Reef Encounter two Spanish chaps came aboard. My attention was first drawn to them when the dive master was trying to tell off one of the guys who had surfaced without his buddy and had no air, absolutely none, left in his tank. With less than basic English I ended up having to translate and tell the guy off myself. These guys were relatively inexperienced, but this was was not the only time we saw them diving carelessly. Unfortunately I’ve got the impression from Chris and others, that this is quite common in Spain with people not having a great deal of respect for the rules.
That said, I can’t take anything away from Ignacio & Miguel-Angelo. Along with spending time with them on Reef Encounter, we shared the return trip to Cairns together. Top chaps, especially Ignacio who started learning English 15 days before coming to Australia and despite having very little grasp of the language wasn’t afraid in the slightest to try.
I suppose I should mention a bit about the diving really. The reef’s were good, the turtles and sharks abundant and with giant clams (and I mean giant), barracuda, lion fish, super fast giant travelli, bat fish and wonderfully diverse and colourful coral there was plenty to see.
After hearing so much hype about the Great Barrier Reef, I’d dumbed down my expectations so not to be disappointed. At the end of the day, when up close it is just another reef. The most impressive reef I can recall was in Thailand, but that was my first ever experience of coral reefs so of course it seemed incredible. The Great Barrier Reef is incredible, mainly because of it sheer size (best seen from the air no doubt but our budget just couldn’t stretch to that), but after spending the two months leading up to this diving in Asia it had a lot to live up to. Add to that that the fact that we only visited two different dive spots meant my experience of The Reef is very, very limited.
Having switched back to the transfer boat at the end of our trip we got an hour’s snorkeling over one of the reefs. This was such a different experience from all the dives we’d done, and a very pleasant one at that. While diving you are always deeper and at the edge of the reef. While snorkeling over the top. This results in different lighting, different coral and different aquatic life.
Over the four days I got eleven dives in and my log bog is only a few pages away from being full. This was the first time, bar one ill faited experience in Las Islas Hormigas, that I was left to navigate and guide my own dives. Up until now we’d always been following a Dive Master. With Espe and I being on our own we were, after a dive site briefing, able to explore at our own pace looking at what we wanted to see and only surface when we got low on air. Navigating for myself was a real confidence booster, and as Nicky has been telling me for years, it really isn’t that difficult.
I’m still more than dozen dives away from the magic 100 but I’m feeling more and more comfortable in the water with each dive, or at least I would have if the equipment was up to spec. Of the 11 dives, on two of them I was cold. On the others I was frozen. The company charged us extra to hire wetsuits, yet were only able to provide thin, warn out shorties. At 22 degrees, with my frame, a shorty is not going to keep me warm. So I squeezed on a second one to in a desperate attempt to slow the loss of all that precious body heat but alas this wasn’t up to the job either.
Being so lanky very few suits fit me. If they are long enough then they are too loose. If they are tight enough then they are too short. It was better diving with the second suit but I was constantly having to pull the suit down to prevent the suit from castrating me. I actually had to abort one dive due to the pain. Again, it annoys me immensely that companies can provide such good service with regards to comfort and dive equipment (even dive computers were provided) and yet not offer suitable wetsuits. If you are not comfortable to the point that you are not enjoying the dive then what is the point?
Rant over. All in all, it was a good trip and I think that the up close and personal encounters with the turtles will remain in my mind for ever.
This was the first time in the water with my new camera and case. With it’s underwater mode and combined with the use of my strobe, I’m pretty impressed with some of the results. After enjoying the diving so much without the camera in the Philippines, I only took the camera in on every other dive or so to make sure I got the best of both worlds. I’ll leave you here with some of the best pics of the trip. I’m off for a beer, some food and to see what England can manage against New Zealand in the Cricket.
Oh, and on a completely unrelated note, spare a thought for an ex work colleague and friend of mine, Alan, who has been in the wars lately (and here I was complaining of some cut and bruised knuckles).
It’s been a while since I’ve had a good rant, and besides I know you prefer reading about me getting annoyed than about me having fun.
While on the British Defender there was one slightly crazy German on board. She managed to annoy several people including the skipper with her ways. Somehow, and I’m still not sure how as I hardly even talked to her, she invited herself along in our van as she wanted to make her way up to Cairns via Mission Beach… exactly our plan.
Espe’s attempt to put her off, “there is space in the van but there is no where to sleep”, was responded to with “no problem I’ve got a tent”. I didn’t want to take her but my inability to say “no, piss off” once again got the better of me. Espe suggested that to counter the German invasion we invite Guillaume along. Guillaume was a very friendly French chap who was on the boat with us. OK, so the French don’t have the best track record against their neighbours, but we figured one ally would be better than none.
Things started off ok but soon deteriorated. In short she didn’t actually listen to or register anything I said to her, she made a mess of the van cluttering it with all of her stuff, she demanded to sit up front with us as the view was better, she deformed my sun glasses when clambering around in the front of the van and complained at our slow progress. Despite all of this she happily enjoyed the benefits of charging her phone of my battery, using my fridge and stove and eating my cereal only to go on and complained at petrol costs. Thankfully she left us at Mission Beach and took the bus up to Cairns as we were “wandering about aimlessly”. She left without even the slightest hint of gratitude for getting her that far / putting up with her for so long. She was young, 18 I think, but very immature for her age. Basically she was after a free ride but when it turned out not to be what she was expected she got frustrated.
What, in actual fact, frustrated me the most is that I did not express how much she annoyed me. It was pretty clear that she was oblivious to the things that wound Espe and I up yet when she left us she was clearly upset with me, firstly for not getting her to cairns and secondly for splitting the petrol costs between three instead of four. So many things I would have loved to have pointed out but instead refrained. This is something I do far to often, holding things back out of politeness when I should really voice it all. The only condolence is I can I can vent here.
As Sir Isaac so kindly pointed out, for every negative comes a positive, and as generally seems to be the case for me (although I’m sure this part is psychological) the positive tends to outweigh the negative.
Guillaume, our other passenger couldn’t have been more of a contrast. A true gentlemen, courteous, generous and entertaining. A legendary chap… Guillaume decided to pack in his job and travel to Australia. Apparently this had been a dream for some time but he didn’t realise it was attainable until a friend of a friend buggered off to Oz. Now Guillaume is here and one of the main things on his agenda is trying to improve his English. He has a good level already, despite an endearing accent, but has bucket loads of motivation and questions and it is a pleasure to help. Along with helping him improve it has been great fun mocking his pronunciation of I ate / I hate. A bad sign though is that he has picked up the Harrow “init” along with the occasional “bugger”. Still I could be teaching him worse words…
I was expecting to meet more great characters (an expectation based on previous travelling trips) but I think I now know myself better than ever and although I can get along with most people there are few who leave an impression and leave me happy to have met them. Guillaume, however, is one of those.
The Whitsundays are 74 beautiful tropical islands on the east coast of Australia discovered by Captain Cook on the day after Whit Sunday (he forgot to adjust for crossing the international date line). They are a major attraction and the standard way to see them is with some kind of sailing trip. There are all sorts of boats to cater for different interests and budgets. I wanted to go on one of the Maxi Racing Yachts because, well biggest and fastest is always best. With that in mind I also wanted to avoid the party boats full of 18 year old piss heads. I’ll quote from a mail I received from Rob, someone I met in Vietnam shortly after he visited the Whitsundays…
“When we booked the trip we were asked if we wanted an excursion boat or a party boat and of course we chose the party boat but nothing could have prepared us for this carnage. This was beer bongs at 7.30am; this was Come on Aileen before 17.00. The scale of the destruciton was due largely to a bunch of lads from Manchester who called themsleves “Group D” (this had been their group number on Fraser Island apparently, we were the far more refined “Group C”). They brought the beer bong and were instrumental in much of the debauchery. One of their number - Alistair from Ireland never actually made it onto the boat. Alistair was a classy guy, on the day we sailed Alistair had his cock out by 10am, had shagged some desperate Scottish lass by 11am, was naked on all fours licking crisps and beer off the ground during the sail briefing and then passed out en route to the yacht. Some paramedics were called and the rest of Group D had to run back and negotiate his release. When he rejoined us he got his cock out again and shouted that we could all suck it. To our relief the skipper eventually said he wasn’t allowed on the yacht and he forfeited his trip, thank Christ.”
In the end we settled for 2 days and 2 nights aboard the maxi yacht British Defender. Time would tell how it would turn out however I was looking forward to getting to know people on our trip. With some 30 odd people on the boat there were bound to be some people I would get on well with although I was put off a little before we even got on board by three English lads, a Londoner and a pair of Jordys. They emptied six litres of water only to fill the plastic bottles with Vodka (no glass bottles allowed on board). All this for two nights on the boat.
Regardless I got talking to the geezer from Wembley shortly after boarding the boat and he told me all about his trip on Fraser Island… driving really fast on the beach and scaring the living daylights out of the girls in the back so much so that he got voted out of the driving seat (they were on board and able to confirm this). This was exactly what I feared when deciding against the Fraser self drive and made me even more glad that I didn’t do it. As the time past it became evident that this guy was friendly enough, but a true attention seeker and it occurred to me later that he genuinely couldn’t appreciate that not everybody lived their life like he did… The fact that he was planing a rugby world cup trip with his mates to Ko Samui said it all really.
Anyway aboard the boat with the sails hoisted the weather promptly turned, clouding over and making it somewhat chilly on board which wasn’t helped by the occasional splash (”Its a water sport. You will get wet” one of the crew members helpfully reminded us). I got chatting to several of the English on board but generally the conversation dried up after the standard where you been where you going spiel. There were two exceptions however, an gay chap who was well travelled and well learned and a Scottish girl who just didn’t stop talking… for two full days. Much as was the case in Madrid, I found myself getting on much better with the non English on the boat. I can’t really pin point why but for me conversations about how wasted one can get start to be tedious after a while… Most people on the boat, Germans, Dutch, French, Italians etc enjoyed a drink in the evening, but surprise surprise it was the Brits who were putting them away, separated into their own little group getting louder and louder as the nights went on (frustrating come early morning when there are 30 people crammed into a 24 metre boat with more than 20 trying to sleep). I can sympathise with Alan and his Benicassim grumble completely, and for that matter my Polish friends in Krakow who have to put up with Brits abroad far too often. This is how the 2nd evening ended up…
That is not strictly true. This is where the second night was headed with the Brit group when I retired to bed. One guy woke up on the floor as he was unable to climb into his berth (much to his girlfriend’s disgust) and another chap was unable to even make it below deck. Needless to say they were looking a lot worse for wear the following morning especially considering that rocking boats are not the place for monster hangovers.
Enough about the people. A little about the boat, British Defender. She was built for and raced in the 1989/90 Whitbread around the world race by the British Armed forces at a cost of £3.4 million. As a few of you know, I really like Sailing. Since family holidays on the Norfolk broads I’ve always enjoyed it. I am also impressed by technology and machines and yachts are no exception. This was a no expense spared racing thoroughbred… Of carbon fibre kevlar composite construction, even the tables were made from carbon fibre, all to give a lightweight and strong hull. With a full skilled crew she can manage in excess of 20 knots. This impressed me, and if you understand what on earth I’m talking about it will probably impress you too.
While sailing in the Whitsundays we only managed a mere 12 knots, but with the boat leaning nicely over to one side with all thirty of us seated high on the other, legs dangling over the ocean, to counter balance it proved to be good fun…
British Defender had lines and sheets everywhere (that’s ropes to the lay person - I was corrected on this by our skipper). Everything I’ve ever sailed has been very simple. A main line for each of the sails with maybe a few others for the sake of trimming. This beast was absolutely covered in lines. So many that with no amount of nerdy staring following them up, down and around the mast could I figure out what they were all for.
We were required to help out while sailing but this stretched no further than raising the sails with the grinders (winches) or repositioning them after a tack. This is what you’ve probably seen on TV with the Americas Cup with 6 or 8 members of the crew winding large handles very quickly with the look of relative ease. I can tell you now, that it is bloody hard work hauling a main sail up a 115 ft mast!
I took several opportunities to try and learn from our skipper (all these damn lines where doing my head in) and although I still got off the boat not understanding it all I knew a hell of a lot more than when I clambered a board). As a bonus, I even got some knot tying lessons (I’ll try to post a video of our skipper tying a knot in spectacular jammy git fashion, in the meantime here’s an uninspiring picture of me at the helm).
Now there was a bit more to this trip than just sailing and socialising. On day one we went to see Whitehaeven beach, first from a high view point then up close on the sand. It is the real gem of the Whitsundays but I’ll let the picture below explain why, and no, it is not mine, the weather and tide didn’t afford us such a view.
Walking out on one of the sand banks of fine silica sand just off the beach I was about 50 metres out with the water only at knee height. I turned around and was a little surprised to see a stingray resting on the sand about three metres behind me. It had either just arrived or I’d walked dangerously close to it without noticing. He seemed perfectly happy for me to stand within a metre of him. After about 30 seconds or so he gracefully swam off but slowly enough for me to follow him for a few metres. Wonderful creatures.
After our trip to Whitheaven beach and after another great feed from the on board chef we went snorkeling. I have to say the reef (which I believe is a tiny part of the huge Great Barrier Reef) was incredible. The coral was so vibrant, diverse and colourful as was the aquatic life. I could have stayed for hours if it wasn’t so cold. The went suits we had to rent in addition to the cost of the trip were as good as useless and like many others after 10 minutes I had to get out of the water.
Aussies are hardcore. They live with some of the most dangerous creatures in the world. They also will enter the water regardless of the temperature. The rest of the world do not. The wetsuits were woefully inadequate for “normal people”. Very few people bothered to go snorkeling the following day for this reason. This was of real annoyance to me. After paying a lot of money for the trip I was very frustrated and not being able to enjoy it due to discomfort. Unfortunately this was not to be the last time this happened to me in Australia.
Apart from the wet suits and bad weather (which cleared up 20 minutes before we arrived back in port) it was a good trip. Nice people, an impressive boat, stunning scenery and we even had the added bonus of several up close humpback whale sightings that were better than those we saw on the dedicated whale watching trip we went on in Hervey Bay… such is life.
