By the time Monday morning rolled around, it was already time to leave Darwin and its tropical weather and head south to the centre of Australia, and more specifically Alice Springs and the world-famous Uluru/Ayers Rock. With that in mind, we picked up our next relocation van and headed out of the city. Our first day on the road was a short one though, as we decided to go on one of the famous “jumping crocodile cruises” that are well-known in the Northern Territory. After driving down some serious back country roads to get to the boat departure point, Leeanna and I were more than ready to see some crocs. So with that in mind, we boarded a small boat with about 20 people or so and headed out in search of wild crocodiles. It didn’t take long, and within minutes our tour guide had a massive croc jumping out of the water to grab hunks of meat off a stick. It was pretty hairy, as we were able to get right up close to the crocs and they were often smashing into the side of the boat. We ended up probably seeing about ten different crocs of varying sizes, with the larger ones being over fifteen feet long! After surviving the crocodile adventure, we nearly ended up in a really bad situation when we almost ran out of gas in the middle of the outback with very few cars around and no mobile phone reception. Somehow, after driving for over eighty kilometres with the gas light on and my armpits decidedly getting sweatier by the minute we managed to roll (literally) into the town of Katherine and put 60.5 litres of petrol into a 60 litre tank. Phew! As we arrived into town after dark, most of the caravan parks were booked up, so we headed about fifteen kilometres out of town to a place known as Springvale Homestead, which in addition to being a caravan park is also apparently the oldest homestead in the Northern Territory. It’s also home to tons of wallabies that seem to be everywhere, and I narrowly avoided running over a few of the suckers on my way in.
Tuesday morning we woke up and headed over to a billabong in the caravan park to check out some of the local crocs who lived there. We managed to spot one, which gave everyone a scare, although I was more frightened by the birds that appeared to be half turkey, half dove that were lingering nearby. Definitely some of the weirdest shit I’ve ever seen. Prior to departing Katherine that morning, the good ole girlfriend and I decided to take in a morning tour at the Katherine School of the Air. The school bills itself as the largest classroom in the world, as it covers over a million square kilometres. Basically it acts as a long distance classroom for kids living in remote parts of the country (cattle ranches, fishing communities, etc.), who connect to their teachers via satellite and internet feeds. It certainly requires a lot of discipline on the children’s parts, and I know that if I was going to school via satellite, I probably would have dropped out by senior kindergarten. Next on the busy day’s agenda was to call home for Father’s Day, which I was a day late on and feeling quite guilty about. Luckily my old man didn’t seem to mind too much as he has other kids and a wife who apparently love him more than I do. After departing Katherine with the weight of Father’s Day now off of me, we started heading south towards Alice Springs. We stopped for a quick break in the town of Matarenko (sp?) that was conveniently home to some lovely hot springs. I took a dip in the 34°C springs, although I couldn’t convince Leeanna to join me. What I did manage to do though, was sway her to drive a campervan for the first time. Fatigue has really started to cripple me lately while driving, so naturally it was time for the little lady to step up and man the ship. She did an admirable job, at least for a woman, and we arrived in the town of Tennant Creek for the night with our appendages still intact.
The next morning we woke up bright and early as we had a lot of ground to cover, namely about 1000 kilometres from Tennant Creek down to Uluru/Ayers rock. For those not in the know, Uluru as the local indigenous people call it is the largest monolithic rock in the world or some bullshit like that. It also happens to be the biggest tourist attraction in the Northern Territory, as let’s face it; people love to stare at gigantic rocks. The drive went off without a hitch, as we stopped for a short time in Alice Springs to seek some tourist advice and quickly stretch our legs. The drive itself was pretty boring to put it mildly, and after close to eleven hours on the road, I was quite happy to see Uluru and all that comes with it from the Stuart Highway. Since tours to Uluru have become such big business, there is a huge resort about fifteen kilometres away that has numerous hotels, shops, bars, and what seems to be one of the biggest and busiest caravan parks in the world. After settling in to our site and realizing we drank all of our booze the previous two nights, it’s safe to assume that the evening was a fairly tame affair of crosswords and staring into each other’s eyes longingly. Note: some details have been changed to make the writer seem like much more a romantic then he really his.
Thursday Leeanna and I were up at the crack of dawn as we had a full day of walking around rocks planned (Come on, who doesn’t love a good rock walk?). After packing up our trusty campervan, we drove over to the national park and promptly handed over $50, which has to be the highest fee in the world for admission to look at rocks. With that in mind we set out first to take a gander around Katja Tuta, which is another collection of gigantic rocks and such located within the park. We arrived there and took a nice 2.5 kilometre stroll through the rocks and gorges and ended up chatting lengthily with some old Australian dude who had competed in the 1956 Olympics for wrestling. The best part of the conversation though had to be when his sister (who was around 75 years old) told me quite directly that “pussies can’t wrestle”. Guess that explains why I was always on the tennis team in high school! Since we were now getting quite good at walking, upon arrival at Uluru I managed to convince Leeanna that we should walk the entire 11 kilometre track around the base of the world’s largest monolithic rock (I think that’s the claim to fame). Fortunately, we survived the walk, although we were pestered by flies to no end. At one point, Leeanna counted over 25 flies resting on my back, and I probably had another ten buzzing around my head and trying to nibble on my ear wax. On the unfortunate side, I did not experience any of the spiritual mumbo jumbo that supposedly comes from the rock. According to the Aboriginal people, Uluru is one of the most sacred and spiritual sites in the world. I’m still calling it a big motherfuckin’ rock. End of discussion. That night after our exhausting walks, we drove out to the designated car park they have in the park where you can go and watch the sunset over the rock. It really is quite magnificent as the sun setting causes the rock to change colours and provides all of us amateur photographers with a chance to get some amazing pictures. It was most definitely a great way to unwind after a day that saw way too much exercise for an out-of-shape wanker like me.
Friday morning I had to drag Leeanna out of bed as we had to drive about 500 kilometres into Alice Springs to return our campervan by the early afternoon. We made it with lots of time to spare, although we nearly took some damage when two dingoes (wild dogs) ran out in front of the van while I was driving at about 130 kilometres per hour. Luckily for the pooches I have cat-like (no pun intended) reflexes and I am only in the business of killing birds while driving. On that note, I have managed to drive over 10,000 kilometres in Australia and not kill anything... except for about 20-25 birds. The birds in the Southern Hemisphere seem to take great pride in nose-diving into my campervans and meeting a grisly end to their lives. After pulling into Alice Springs, we discovered we had gone over our kilometre allotment by about 200 kilometres and ended up having to fork out an extra $150. A great example of when trying to travel on a budget backfires! With our bank accounts significantly lighter from the fuel costs ($650 in under four days) and everything else that seems to be burning a hole in our pockets, we made our way over to our hostel (Toddy’s Backpacker’s [6/10]) that looked like it had been lifted right out of some 1970s porno film. I mean don’t get me wrong, I love wood panelling, squeaky mattresses and walls that are probably covered in cum shots, but it wouldn’t hurt to spruce the place up a little. I am also quite sure there were some hookers, or escorts as gentlemen like to call them, operating out of one of the rooms. With that in mind, we set out on the town that night to find the local institution/restaurant they call “The Overlanders”. Upon our arrival, we set foot into what seemed like a genuine throwback to the good ole wild west days, and the best decor I have even seen for an eatery. To try and be somewhat exotic, I ordered a “Bush Tucker” plate that came with samplings of crocodile, kangaroo, emu, and camel meat. I managed to throw them back and can say with the exception of the camel, they were all quite tasty. Leeanna on the other hand is a wimp (translation: likes to order the most expensive thing on the menu whenever I take her to a steak house) and opted to eat a filet mignon instead. All the food managed to stay down that night, which was aided quite nicely by the few jugs of beer we consumed thereafter to celebrate our arrival into the heart of Australia’s outback.
The next morning it was time to check out Alice Springs and all the booming metropolis of 25,000 people had to offer. The fact is, there really isn’t too much to do unless you actually head out of town. We made the executive decision to spend $7 each and check out the Royal Flying Doctor’s Museum and Tour. The two of us were educated in all things having to do with the art of providing medical services to people in remote areas, etc. I know, riveting stuff! The rest of the afternoon was spent shopping and going around taking pictures of goofy shit, like signs proclaiming “Men Only” and “Grog (Aussie slang for alcohol) Free Zone”. To get our party rolling that Saturday night, the two of us went on a hot date to do some cosmic bowling. As always, Brent won, because let’s face it, I’m a legend. This was followed by a trip to the hostel bar, for what was supposed to be a quick jug of beer at 9:30pm before we headed off to the room for the night. Instead, we ran into an Australian couple who insisted we head into town with them to the local hotspot “Bojangle’s”. Not wanting to be rude, I happily obliged and Leeanna and I were off to the races. Much like the restaurant we had ate at the night before, the bar was tackily/awesomely done up in a very cowboy theme. Naturally, we proceeded to get right fucked up and go back to our new found friends’ place at 2:30am, to watch their dog go crazy and do lots of goofy shit. And before you ask, yes I am actually 26 years old, as shocking as that may sound at times.
Sunday morning was a good reminder of why I don’t drink as hard as I used to do. Hangovers seem to get worse the older I get and my recovery time is bordering on a full day. Eventually, Leeanna and I scraped ourselves out of bed around lunch time and headed into town to check out the local markets and climb some big hill (ANZAC Hill) that provided us with views of the town and the surrounding mountain ranges. As we were both in fine form, this was more than enough activity for one day and we promptly retired to the hostel for the remainder of the day. We only re-emerged later that evening to go and check out the new flick, “Get Him To The Greek”. Must say it was quite an enjoyable little piece of cinema, although I still haven’t quite learned how to enjoy the Australian art of paying $15 to $20 for a movie ticket.
Monday morning it was time to pack up and get the hell out of the cool winter weather (highs around 20°C) of Alice Springs and head to the east coast and the tropical resort town of Cairns, where every day is generally a beautiful one. We not-so-sadly packed up our bags and headed to the airport to catch our flight. We had to connect through Uluru airport so we got one more prime look at “the rock”. From there, we had a two hour flight to the far north of Queensland on a near empty plane, as there were only 19 people on a plane that had a capacity of 115. Suffice to say, the Qantas service was top-notch!
And now, after falling way behind on my blogs for a few weeks, I can officially say I am caught up, again! Leeanna and I have just checked into our hostel in Cairns, equipped with our own balcony and what appears to be a lovely room. So on this most glorious of Monday nights with our beers in hand, I say to you, have a great Canada Day and enjoy the “northern summer”!
Monday, June 28, 2010
Sunday, June 27, 2010
Monday, June 21, 2010- Breaking News: Darwin Has A Wave Pool! Stones Chip Windshields!
Our first night of having our own beds in a campervan was met with an early rise as we were doing an 8:00am boat tour of the nearby Geikie Gorge. The boat tour provided us with some beautiful surroundings and photo opportunities galore. As we traversed the Fitzroy River on our boat, we managed to see lots of freshwater crocodiles resting on the banks and a large abundance of native birdlife (I sound like a nature nerd, yes I know). Add into this the fact that you were surrounded by rock walls hundreds of feet high on either side of you and you have the recipe for some great morning scenery. One of the craziest things about the far north of Australia is that for half of the year everything is flooded. In a pavilion they had markers indicating how high the flood waters rose to each year. Suffice to say that some years it rose over fifteen feet. In the rivers and such, the water levels can rise by substantially more and this naturally leads to no one being in the area for large chunks of the year. Following the tour, we hit the road again and promptly almost hit the largest lizard I have even seen. We also had some close encounters with wallabies (small kangaroos) and frequently saw cattle and horses grazing freely by the sides of the road. Apparently up here most farmers don’t believe in fences as they have cattle farms that are millions of square acres (no joke!). Naturally, this leads to the occasional cow ending up as road kill. I guess if you are after cheap steaks this is definitely the way to go. After arriving into the happening town on Kununurra that night, I concluded that the stone-chip I had picked up that day on the windshield would need to be addressed the following day as I did not have accident insurance on the vehicle. I was afraid/knew I would have to buy a new windshield, which on a van that size would probably cost as much as I had remaining in my bank account!
Arising on Thursday morning, I had one thing and one thing only on my mind, strippers. Actually I had my windshield on my mind and where to get it fixed. I ended up finding a joint in the town we were in that would do it for $80 that afternoon. Seeing as how the girlfriend and I had some time to kill before the windshield repair job, we went out of town to check out some place called the Zebra Rock Gallery. In short, we thought it was going to be the spot where we can see the zebra rocks, which are these naturally occurring rocks that not surprisingly had a zebra-like pattern. Turns out, the actual site (and only site place in the world to view them) was a few hundred kilometres away and was only visible for a couple weeks of the year when the tides were right. So, Leeanna and I had to settle for looking at the many inane objects they made using the zebra rocks. The highlight though was definitely getting the slice of bread they give you with your one dollar admission fee and feeding it to the hundreds of catfish in the lake. Yes, it was that exciting of a place. With our riveting morning behind us, we took our vehicle to get the stone chip fixed and I hoped they wouldn’t give me any hassle as it was not my vehicle and I am pretty sure you are not allowed to operate on fleet vehicles unless the company says so. Luckily, no one batted an eye and the chip was fixed with half an hour. We were on the road by about 2:00pm, although it gets dark at 6:00pm and this in turn led to a short day of driving. We stayed in some roadhouse town they call Victoria River, which left us with about five or six hours of driving the next day to get into Darwin.
Friday we had a pretty unspectacular six hour drive into the capital city of the Northern Territory, Darwin. While most of the capital cities in Australia have populations in the millions, Darwin has only about 100,000 people although this makes it far and away the largest city in the territory. In fact, it’s the only city in the territory. Just before arriving at the campervan depot, I smudged some mud over the spot on the windshield where the stone chip had been. There was also another stone chip in the corner of the window and I wasn’t sure if this was from me or somebody else. So, I gave that one an once-over with the mud and hoped no one would notice. Bizarrely, working at the campervan place was a dude named Max who used to work at the restaurant beside mine in Melbourne. He ended up being the guy who took care of my vehicle inspection and paperwork and he didn’t pick-up on the stone chips. I was home free! Our hostel turned out to be pretty average (Banyan View Lodge [6/10]), so with that in mind, we dropped off our bags, got showered up, and headed out for dinner. Cuisine that night came from a place known as Mitchelli’s Pizza that claimed to have the best pizza in Darwin. Seems to me to be a lot like claiming to have the best ice skating rink in rural Africa. Competition minimal. After dinner, we went to a couple of different local bars for some beverages and to watch the World Cup. Not surprisingly, all of the bars were just rammed with testosterone as the V8s (Australia’s version of NASCAR) were in town for the weekend. As you can imagine, drunk, ignorant, middle-age men were the standard for the weekend. I, unlike most people in the city that weekend behaved myself though and when we went back to the hostel we chilled out and watched some more World Cup games in the common area. Turns out an older gentleman (roughly 70ish) staying in the hostel took exception to us watching television at 1:00am and stormed out of his room in his tighty-whiteys and proceeded to tell us (in a very rude, profane way) to keep it quiet. Thinking that we were quiet enough and his outfit hilarious, the six or so of us watching television had a good laugh and went back to the boob-tube. Well, low and behold, a minute later the old fucker came storming out of his room again, this time with a mouth full of curse words and a porcelain mug. In short time, he whipped the mug at the wall over our heads, which smashed into a million pieces all over us. Mr. Underpants stormed out of the room, we were all in shock/laughing, and the hostel was going to have to find some new wall decorations. Best moment of the week, hands down!
After hiding in our rooms for fear that the crazy old man might throw some mugs at us, we eventually found our way out and into the city. After strolling the whole distance on Mitchell Street (one main street in Darwin, pretty uneventful) we made our way to the waterfront precinct. From there, we headed over to the World War II oil storage tunnels, which are basically exactly what they sound like, huge oil tunnels about fifteen feet tall and fifteen feet wide that run underneath the city. I don’t think they were ever used very much, but are an interesting attraction nonetheless. That night after dinner, we made our way back to the waterfront area, this time to catch a movie under the stars at Deckchair Cinema. Just like in Broome, Darwin has an old movie theatre that was all outdoors. While these wouldn’t fly too well in Canada, they are a great idea in a place like Darwin, where it “cools down” to 30°C in the winter! The film showing that night was “The Men Who Stare At Goats” with George Clooney and Jeff Bridges. Good to see a not-so-serious war film for once. Brings back fond memories of my childhood and my Dad forcing me to watch M*A*S*H* every night. Following the movie, the girlfriend and I bee-lined it for the pub to catch Australia’s second game of the World Cup. They had been thrashed in their first game 4-0 by Germany; so many people had already given up on the Socceroos. Australia ended up tying Ghana 1-1, which pretty much all but eliminates them from progressing forward in the tournament. To combat this, we drowned our sorrows in a few jugs of beer, which if all went according to plan would also help in my sleeping that night.
As most of the water around Darwin is not safe to swim in due to saltwater crocodiles and box jellyfish, the fine people of Darwin decided to build a wave pool in their waterfront precinct. Naturally Leeanna and I (ok, mostly me) wanted to splash about with all the kids and that is exactly what we did on Sunday. After rising rather late in the morning, we made our way down to the wave pool and proceeded to splish and splash all the live long day with our inner tubes. I did think about taking a dump in the wave pool to scare off some of the kids, but then decided that this might be a little cruel. This was really the only thing we did of any interest on Sunday, as I suspect we are starting to get a little “touristed” out and tired of constantly beating the traveller’s trail.
In totally unrelated news, Leeanna and I both appeared to have gotten attacked by either bed bugs, sand flies, or some other mysterious creature. We have both been itching like crazy for over a week now and our extremities are covered in bites. This in turn has led to some pretty sleepless nights at times and the anti-histamines we picked up seem to be only helping mildly. In conclusion, I would just like to state that I am in fact very itchy and hate all forms of flying bugs. Fuck nature.
Arising on Thursday morning, I had one thing and one thing only on my mind, strippers. Actually I had my windshield on my mind and where to get it fixed. I ended up finding a joint in the town we were in that would do it for $80 that afternoon. Seeing as how the girlfriend and I had some time to kill before the windshield repair job, we went out of town to check out some place called the Zebra Rock Gallery. In short, we thought it was going to be the spot where we can see the zebra rocks, which are these naturally occurring rocks that not surprisingly had a zebra-like pattern. Turns out, the actual site (and only site place in the world to view them) was a few hundred kilometres away and was only visible for a couple weeks of the year when the tides were right. So, Leeanna and I had to settle for looking at the many inane objects they made using the zebra rocks. The highlight though was definitely getting the slice of bread they give you with your one dollar admission fee and feeding it to the hundreds of catfish in the lake. Yes, it was that exciting of a place. With our riveting morning behind us, we took our vehicle to get the stone chip fixed and I hoped they wouldn’t give me any hassle as it was not my vehicle and I am pretty sure you are not allowed to operate on fleet vehicles unless the company says so. Luckily, no one batted an eye and the chip was fixed with half an hour. We were on the road by about 2:00pm, although it gets dark at 6:00pm and this in turn led to a short day of driving. We stayed in some roadhouse town they call Victoria River, which left us with about five or six hours of driving the next day to get into Darwin.
Friday we had a pretty unspectacular six hour drive into the capital city of the Northern Territory, Darwin. While most of the capital cities in Australia have populations in the millions, Darwin has only about 100,000 people although this makes it far and away the largest city in the territory. In fact, it’s the only city in the territory. Just before arriving at the campervan depot, I smudged some mud over the spot on the windshield where the stone chip had been. There was also another stone chip in the corner of the window and I wasn’t sure if this was from me or somebody else. So, I gave that one an once-over with the mud and hoped no one would notice. Bizarrely, working at the campervan place was a dude named Max who used to work at the restaurant beside mine in Melbourne. He ended up being the guy who took care of my vehicle inspection and paperwork and he didn’t pick-up on the stone chips. I was home free! Our hostel turned out to be pretty average (Banyan View Lodge [6/10]), so with that in mind, we dropped off our bags, got showered up, and headed out for dinner. Cuisine that night came from a place known as Mitchelli’s Pizza that claimed to have the best pizza in Darwin. Seems to me to be a lot like claiming to have the best ice skating rink in rural Africa. Competition minimal. After dinner, we went to a couple of different local bars for some beverages and to watch the World Cup. Not surprisingly, all of the bars were just rammed with testosterone as the V8s (Australia’s version of NASCAR) were in town for the weekend. As you can imagine, drunk, ignorant, middle-age men were the standard for the weekend. I, unlike most people in the city that weekend behaved myself though and when we went back to the hostel we chilled out and watched some more World Cup games in the common area. Turns out an older gentleman (roughly 70ish) staying in the hostel took exception to us watching television at 1:00am and stormed out of his room in his tighty-whiteys and proceeded to tell us (in a very rude, profane way) to keep it quiet. Thinking that we were quiet enough and his outfit hilarious, the six or so of us watching television had a good laugh and went back to the boob-tube. Well, low and behold, a minute later the old fucker came storming out of his room again, this time with a mouth full of curse words and a porcelain mug. In short time, he whipped the mug at the wall over our heads, which smashed into a million pieces all over us. Mr. Underpants stormed out of the room, we were all in shock/laughing, and the hostel was going to have to find some new wall decorations. Best moment of the week, hands down!
After hiding in our rooms for fear that the crazy old man might throw some mugs at us, we eventually found our way out and into the city. After strolling the whole distance on Mitchell Street (one main street in Darwin, pretty uneventful) we made our way to the waterfront precinct. From there, we headed over to the World War II oil storage tunnels, which are basically exactly what they sound like, huge oil tunnels about fifteen feet tall and fifteen feet wide that run underneath the city. I don’t think they were ever used very much, but are an interesting attraction nonetheless. That night after dinner, we made our way back to the waterfront area, this time to catch a movie under the stars at Deckchair Cinema. Just like in Broome, Darwin has an old movie theatre that was all outdoors. While these wouldn’t fly too well in Canada, they are a great idea in a place like Darwin, where it “cools down” to 30°C in the winter! The film showing that night was “The Men Who Stare At Goats” with George Clooney and Jeff Bridges. Good to see a not-so-serious war film for once. Brings back fond memories of my childhood and my Dad forcing me to watch M*A*S*H* every night. Following the movie, the girlfriend and I bee-lined it for the pub to catch Australia’s second game of the World Cup. They had been thrashed in their first game 4-0 by Germany; so many people had already given up on the Socceroos. Australia ended up tying Ghana 1-1, which pretty much all but eliminates them from progressing forward in the tournament. To combat this, we drowned our sorrows in a few jugs of beer, which if all went according to plan would also help in my sleeping that night.
As most of the water around Darwin is not safe to swim in due to saltwater crocodiles and box jellyfish, the fine people of Darwin decided to build a wave pool in their waterfront precinct. Naturally Leeanna and I (ok, mostly me) wanted to splash about with all the kids and that is exactly what we did on Sunday. After rising rather late in the morning, we made our way down to the wave pool and proceeded to splish and splash all the live long day with our inner tubes. I did think about taking a dump in the wave pool to scare off some of the kids, but then decided that this might be a little cruel. This was really the only thing we did of any interest on Sunday, as I suspect we are starting to get a little “touristed” out and tired of constantly beating the traveller’s trail.
In totally unrelated news, Leeanna and I both appeared to have gotten attacked by either bed bugs, sand flies, or some other mysterious creature. We have both been itching like crazy for over a week now and our extremities are covered in bites. This in turn has led to some pretty sleepless nights at times and the anti-histamines we picked up seem to be only helping mildly. In conclusion, I would just like to state that I am in fact very itchy and hate all forms of flying bugs. Fuck nature.
Saturday, June 26, 2010
Wednesday, June 16, 2010- This Ain’t Jap Town, It’s China Town You Asshole!
As previously mentioned, our first day in Broome we were both running on empty due to our snore-a-lot roommate. But since we were seeing tropical weather for the first time in months we had little time to waste and promptly made our way down to Cable Beach which is the “famous” beach in Broome and just so happened to be around the corner from us. We spent a few hours just chilling out there and whatnot, as we had to take advantage of the 30°C weather (it seems, up until this point that we have been visit¬¬ing all of the cities in Australia that actually experience their version of winter). At the beach, I decided that a leisurely stroll was in order, and the next thing I knew, I was walking amongst fat, old naked people. Turns out, I had walked myself right into the nudist beach, although the hot chicks were nowhere to be seen. Just old dudes with wrinkly balls and women my grandmother’s age who somehow think it’s appropriate to weigh 400 pounds and sunbathe naked. Nightmares! After escaping the nudist beach with my shorts intact, Leeanna and I went back to the hostel and managed to arrange to get a room change. For the rest of our time in Broome, we were afforded a four person room with no one else in it, which was a lot better than sharing with the fuck-head they called Rodney. After resettling in, we made our way back to the beach where we had booked a sunset camel ride. Turns out the two things Broome is most known for are its camel rides and sunsets, so why not just combine the two? We ended up having a great time on our camel Amos and the sunset was tres magnifique! Hell we even got to feed our camel a carrot. What more can you ask for?
Saturday we decided to visit Malcolm Douglas’ Wilderness Park/Crocodile Farm. The only problem was that it was 20 kilometres outside of town. To combat this, we rented a little gas-powered scooter, which I almost crashed instantly the first time I got on it. Turns out you’re not supposed to put the throttle all the way down in front of a cement wall. This naturally made Leeanna a little bit nervous about hoping on but I was eventually able to convince her that I was a stud driver. Before heading out to the wilderness park, we stopped at the Japanese cemetery in town to quickly check it out. Broome has a long history of Japanese people living there, as the town is famous for its pearls and evidently many of the best pearl divers came over from Japan. After getting out to the crocodile farm in one piece, we paid our sickly high admission ($30 each) and made our way in. As soon as you go in, there are crocs just everywhere, both freshwater/freshies (not man-eating) and salt-water/salties (love snacking on humans). We took some time to check out the hundreds of different crocs and croc pens, in addition to a wide selection of other Australian wildlife such as an owl that barks, wallabies, dingoes, etc. I almost shit my pants walking by one of the chain link pens when a croc decided to lunge towards the fence at me! Leeanna found this quite amusing to say the least. What we and everyone else was really there for though was the crocodile feeding and tour. This was pretty entertaining, as the croc keeper or whatever you want to call him goes around to all the different cages and feeds the crocs. You get to see crocs fight for food, jump out of the water, and just generally do tons of crazy shit that would make any sane man a little bit nervous. We also all got to hold a baby crocodile and take pictures of ourselves with it acting like stupid tourists. After the tour we rode our scooter back into town, very much looking like Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels a la “Dumb and Dumber”.
The next day Leeanna decided that she wanted to sleep in a bit, while I wanted to ride around like a badass on my scooter before my 24-hour rental was up. I rode out to a place outside of town called Gantheaume Point, which provides some beautiful views of the ocean and cliffs and all that great stuff. It is also home to some fossilized dinosaur footprints that you can see when the tide is low at certain times each month. Naturally when I was there the tide was in, so I had to settle for staring at a concrete slab with replicas of the footprints. Really quite stupid, but naturally I took pictures of it anyways. After filling up the massive four litre gas tank on my sweet ride, I went back to pickup Leeanna and take her out to drive the scooter before it had to be returned. I managed to convince her to drive in a parking lot but that was as far as she would go. Pussy! That afternoon we discovered that they were having a free BBQ at the Broome Surf and Lifesaving Club down the street from us, as they were celebrating the end of some big Western Australia tourism campaign. It featured free hot dogs (I ate like 4, cause I’m a gluttonous pig), the most famous band in all of Broome (the irony), a reptile show, face painting, etc. It was good times all around and I had to go lay on the beach for a while afterwards to let the meat settle into the trunk. After meandering back to the hostel I decided, not sure if it was consciously or sub-consciously to get piss drunk around some strangers Leeanna and I were hanging out with. Turns out I started cussing a lot and making fun of them, which led the girlfriend to corner me as I was exiting the bathroom and drag me to the room before I really upset to uptights. Apparently I embarrassed her, but I just think the other people were all losers and had no sense of humour. Just sayin’.
The next morning I managed to drag my hung-over ass down to the bus stop and we made our way into town, or more specifically China Town which is the heart of the city. Turns out it used to be called Jap Town, but in keeping with the worldwide theme and not wanting to be racist I guess they decided to rename it. Our first tourist stop of the day was Sun Cinemas to take a gander at the world’s oldest outdoor picture garden. I believe we call such things movie theatres in Canada, but picture garden does have a nice ring to it, I must admit. After realizing we had forgotten the memory chip for our camera and no pictures would be taken today, Leeanna and I headed over to Pearl Luggers, a museum and tour on the history of pearling in the Broome area. To be quite honest the tour was shit as we had a rookie tour guide. This, combined with my throbbing head made the whole experience seem like the worst forty dollars I had spent in some time. After our education in pearling we perused what little there was to peruse in the downtown district of Broome before heading back to our hostel and getting ready to hit the road the following morning.
Tuesday morning I made my way out to the campervan place to pick up our newest ride which we would be taking to Darwin (about 2000 kilometres away). Just to clarify, all of our campervan rentals so far have been relocations, which basically means when a company needs a campervan moved from one city to another they will hire it out really cheap to you. Usually they cost only $5 a day and often times they will refund a small percentage of your fuel costs. The only catch is that you have to meet their deadlines for getting the vehicle from point A to point B and you often have a restriction on the number of kilometres you can use (thus limiting side trips). It is a great way to see the country from ground level, although it’s not as cheap as most people expect due to astronomical fuel prices and vans that seem to drink gas. Most of the vans use between 15 and 18 litres of fuel per 100 kilometres. Add into the equation that once you are outside the major cities, gas prices rise from about $1.30/$1.40 up to between $1.60 and $1.80 per litre. Since Leeanna and I have been doing relocations for the campervan companies, we drive different vehicle all the time. This time we were lucky enough to get a 6-man campervan that featured three double beds, a television, a bathroom and good amount of space for two people! Anyways, after swinging back to pickup Leeanna at the hostel and grab groceries we had a decidedly late start to the day and therefore only drove a few hours to the small town of Fitzroy Crossing. The one thing I must say you really start to notice in the northern part of the country, especially in the small towns, is the large number of Aboriginal (Native) people. Interesting fact, they (Aboriginals) have the oldest surviving continuous culture in the world. Another interesting fact is that they seem to dislike wearing shoes and appear to be afraid of dentists.
Saturday we decided to visit Malcolm Douglas’ Wilderness Park/Crocodile Farm. The only problem was that it was 20 kilometres outside of town. To combat this, we rented a little gas-powered scooter, which I almost crashed instantly the first time I got on it. Turns out you’re not supposed to put the throttle all the way down in front of a cement wall. This naturally made Leeanna a little bit nervous about hoping on but I was eventually able to convince her that I was a stud driver. Before heading out to the wilderness park, we stopped at the Japanese cemetery in town to quickly check it out. Broome has a long history of Japanese people living there, as the town is famous for its pearls and evidently many of the best pearl divers came over from Japan. After getting out to the crocodile farm in one piece, we paid our sickly high admission ($30 each) and made our way in. As soon as you go in, there are crocs just everywhere, both freshwater/freshies (not man-eating) and salt-water/salties (love snacking on humans). We took some time to check out the hundreds of different crocs and croc pens, in addition to a wide selection of other Australian wildlife such as an owl that barks, wallabies, dingoes, etc. I almost shit my pants walking by one of the chain link pens when a croc decided to lunge towards the fence at me! Leeanna found this quite amusing to say the least. What we and everyone else was really there for though was the crocodile feeding and tour. This was pretty entertaining, as the croc keeper or whatever you want to call him goes around to all the different cages and feeds the crocs. You get to see crocs fight for food, jump out of the water, and just generally do tons of crazy shit that would make any sane man a little bit nervous. We also all got to hold a baby crocodile and take pictures of ourselves with it acting like stupid tourists. After the tour we rode our scooter back into town, very much looking like Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels a la “Dumb and Dumber”.
The next day Leeanna decided that she wanted to sleep in a bit, while I wanted to ride around like a badass on my scooter before my 24-hour rental was up. I rode out to a place outside of town called Gantheaume Point, which provides some beautiful views of the ocean and cliffs and all that great stuff. It is also home to some fossilized dinosaur footprints that you can see when the tide is low at certain times each month. Naturally when I was there the tide was in, so I had to settle for staring at a concrete slab with replicas of the footprints. Really quite stupid, but naturally I took pictures of it anyways. After filling up the massive four litre gas tank on my sweet ride, I went back to pickup Leeanna and take her out to drive the scooter before it had to be returned. I managed to convince her to drive in a parking lot but that was as far as she would go. Pussy! That afternoon we discovered that they were having a free BBQ at the Broome Surf and Lifesaving Club down the street from us, as they were celebrating the end of some big Western Australia tourism campaign. It featured free hot dogs (I ate like 4, cause I’m a gluttonous pig), the most famous band in all of Broome (the irony), a reptile show, face painting, etc. It was good times all around and I had to go lay on the beach for a while afterwards to let the meat settle into the trunk. After meandering back to the hostel I decided, not sure if it was consciously or sub-consciously to get piss drunk around some strangers Leeanna and I were hanging out with. Turns out I started cussing a lot and making fun of them, which led the girlfriend to corner me as I was exiting the bathroom and drag me to the room before I really upset to uptights. Apparently I embarrassed her, but I just think the other people were all losers and had no sense of humour. Just sayin’.
The next morning I managed to drag my hung-over ass down to the bus stop and we made our way into town, or more specifically China Town which is the heart of the city. Turns out it used to be called Jap Town, but in keeping with the worldwide theme and not wanting to be racist I guess they decided to rename it. Our first tourist stop of the day was Sun Cinemas to take a gander at the world’s oldest outdoor picture garden. I believe we call such things movie theatres in Canada, but picture garden does have a nice ring to it, I must admit. After realizing we had forgotten the memory chip for our camera and no pictures would be taken today, Leeanna and I headed over to Pearl Luggers, a museum and tour on the history of pearling in the Broome area. To be quite honest the tour was shit as we had a rookie tour guide. This, combined with my throbbing head made the whole experience seem like the worst forty dollars I had spent in some time. After our education in pearling we perused what little there was to peruse in the downtown district of Broome before heading back to our hostel and getting ready to hit the road the following morning.
Tuesday morning I made my way out to the campervan place to pick up our newest ride which we would be taking to Darwin (about 2000 kilometres away). Just to clarify, all of our campervan rentals so far have been relocations, which basically means when a company needs a campervan moved from one city to another they will hire it out really cheap to you. Usually they cost only $5 a day and often times they will refund a small percentage of your fuel costs. The only catch is that you have to meet their deadlines for getting the vehicle from point A to point B and you often have a restriction on the number of kilometres you can use (thus limiting side trips). It is a great way to see the country from ground level, although it’s not as cheap as most people expect due to astronomical fuel prices and vans that seem to drink gas. Most of the vans use between 15 and 18 litres of fuel per 100 kilometres. Add into the equation that once you are outside the major cities, gas prices rise from about $1.30/$1.40 up to between $1.60 and $1.80 per litre. Since Leeanna and I have been doing relocations for the campervan companies, we drive different vehicle all the time. This time we were lucky enough to get a 6-man campervan that featured three double beds, a television, a bathroom and good amount of space for two people! Anyways, after swinging back to pickup Leeanna at the hostel and grab groceries we had a decidedly late start to the day and therefore only drove a few hours to the small town of Fitzroy Crossing. The one thing I must say you really start to notice in the northern part of the country, especially in the small towns, is the large number of Aboriginal (Native) people. Interesting fact, they (Aboriginals) have the oldest surviving continuous culture in the world. Another interesting fact is that they seem to dislike wearing shoes and appear to be afraid of dentists.
Friday, June 11, 2010
Friday, June 11, 2010- Brent And The Whale Shark. A Story Of Interspecies Love.
The next morning it was back to the local tourism trail, although this time we had Zale as our personal escort. She decided that a day trip was in order to the world famous wine region known as the Margaret River wine region. It is located about three hours south of Perth, and is home to a plethora of wineries and other attractions. Our first stop of the day was at the Busselton Jetty, which is apparently the longest jetty (boat dock) in the southern hemisphere. I don’t think I could see the end of it from the shore. Unfortunately it was closed for construction, so after a quick stop it was back in the car. Our next stop was to one of the caves in the area. There are a handful of these gigantic walkthrough caves in the area that have now become major tourist sites. We decided to visit Mammoth Cave, which had a self-guided tour. I have never really experienced anything like that, and must say it was quite a unique experience. That natural construction and evolution of the caves is quite fascinating to say the least. We followed the caves up with a drive down to Hammelin Bay which is famous for its huge manta and sting rays which come right into shore. Unfortunately, the water was really choppy so we had to “settle” for some terrific camera shots and be on our way. We had much more important business to attend to anyways, as next on the agenda was the all-important winery visits. Zale had agreed to be the DD, which left Leeanna and I free to sample some of the regions finest wines. Our first stop was at one of the big wineries, Saracen Estates, where we settled in for a quick lunch at their brewery before purchasing some wine. When it was all said and done, we visited five wineries and a chocolate factory (had to satisfy Leeanna’s cravings!) and came home with a fairly solid bounty of wine. It’s pretty safe to assume that I drank a fair amount of wine that night before tucking myself in for a good night’s rest.
Leeanna finally got her wish on Sunday morning, as there was a “Twilight” marathon on the television. Sorry, actually it was her other wish come true, dolphins in the backyard. That morning for the first time since we had arrived there was a pod of dolphins swimming around the canals behind the house. We watched them playing in the water for probably a good hour before they decided to saunter off. After our little dolphin experience, Zale took us over to check out the condo building that Trevor is managing the construction of. We were given the grand tour of the building and got to see what 3.5 million dollars can buy you these days (apparently not too much). If you weren’t so wealthy, you could always buy the condos on the first floor, which started from a cool million dollars even. On that note, our hosts had arranged for some of their friends to take us all out sailing on their 40-foot yacht that afternoon. They really didn’t have to twist our arms too hard to make us come along. The boat was beautiful and featured a whole live aboard area down below, complete with a kitchen, living room, and two bedrooms. We saw a few more dolphins on our sail, and not so wisely Leeanna and I were even allowed to take the steering wheel for a short time. I inherently was more interested in the food w¬e were being provided with, so don’t go counting me in for a career change just yet. After our lovely evening sail, we hit up “New Asian Delights” for some tasty Chinese food before retreating back to the house (and my really comfortable bed) for my final sleep there.
Monday it was time for me to say my final farewell to Zale and company, as I was flying about 1200 kilometres north to the town of Exmouth, which is famous for giving people the opportunity to snorkel with whale sharks in the wild. I did get one more final appearance from the dolphins that morning in the backyard which was a fitting send off. Zale and Leeanna drove me to the airport and for the first time since we had been in Australia, Leeanna and I went our separate ways for a few days. She had no desire to do the whole whale shark excursion, so she decided to stay in the luxury of Zale’s apartment for an extra three nights. Secretly, I think Leeanna wanted to be rid of me for awhile, but I may never fully know the truth! After flying into Exmouth (population 3,000), our shuttle bus from the airport was promptly greeted by sheep all over the road. I had officially arrived in rural Australia! That afternoon I didn’t really do too much, as I just checked into my 7-person dorm (Potshot Hotel [3.5]) and aside from some grocery shopping I just lazed about and enjoyed the first tropical weather I had seen in a couple of months. I spent the evening hanging out some Spanish guy named Javier (as if!), who was some kind of champion swimmer in Spain or something to that effect. Somewhere in the broken English, I discovered that he had competed at the European and World Championships and that he was also doing the whale shark excursion the following morning. I tucked into bed fairly early that evening, as I was giddy with anticipation for the whale shark dive the next day. Sadly, my bed was uber-uncomfortable and I resigned myself to the fact that I was not going to be getting much in the way of sleep for the next couple of nights.
The next morning I was up at the crack of dawn, as it was time to get down to business with the whale sharks. For those not in the know, whale sharks are the largest fish in the ocean, and can grow to over 30 metres or something silly like that. Most of them are in the three to six metre range though, but still quite sizeable nonetheless. Despite their huge size, they are very laid back, and only feed on microscopic plankton. This in turn makes it quite safe to snorkel alongside the gentle giants, who act as if you are not even there. Now that we have some background, let’s get back to the story. The tour company I was doing the excursion with picked me up at my hotel, and along with about 12 other people we were taken out to our boat for the day. After getting fitted out with wet suits and snorkels and given all the safety briefings, we did a nice early morning dive in one of the many coral reefs in the area. There were tons of fish that looked like they had just jumped off the pages of National Geographic and we also managed to find a sting ray. Around ten in the morning, the spotter plane took to the sky and began to look for any whale sharks in the area. This turned out to be quite difficult that day as there was tons of cloud cover which made it hard to see into the water from up above. In the mean time, we did manage to find some humpback whales and dolphins in the area that we promptly all ooohed and ahhhed at from the safety of our boat. Finally after a couple of hours a whale shark was found, which meant full speed ahead. We got all of our gear on and ready to go before being summoned into the water by our tour leaders. Hands down, there are few things as exhilarating as dropping into the middle of the ocean with just a pair of fins, a snorkel mask, and a giant whale shark. The first swim lasted for a few minutes, before the shark took off and jetted down to the deeper confines below. Over the next few hours, we managed to get in three more dives with the 4-5 metre whale shark, although by the end I was starting to feel quite fatigued (see: Brent is getting fat and out of shape). Sadly, the one child on our boat got stung by two jellyfish at the same time and it kind of spooked me as we had not been warned about the jellies. Sure enough after this little incident I did manage to see a few jellies in the water, which were waaaaaaay more frightening than the big fish we were staring at. That afternoon, our boat also happened to stumble across a giant sea snake that according to our guides is more venomous than any land-based snake. Not surprisingly, they did not let us dive with it! The rest of the day went off without a hitch (so long as you don’t count my seasickness into the equation) and was definitely one of my more memorable experiences so far in Australia. I spent the evening winding down in the television room at the hostel, listening to tales from some Australian fisherman and a crazy 50-year old lady who had just had a bad breakup and was now riding her bike around Australia. Each to their own. Each to their own.
Wednesday morning I ran into Javier, the Spaniard, and we decided to rent a car and drive out to Cape Range National Park. Cape Range happens to be home to the largest fringing coral reef in the world, although it is not nearly as popular as the Great Barrier Reef on the other side of the country. We also managed to round up Fred the Swedish dude and some French chick to come along for the excursion that not only provided us with extra company but also helped in offsetting the costs of the day out. On the drive out, I managed to spot my first emu (think giant ostrich) in addition to seeing tons of these giant termite mounds, some of which appeared to be taller than me. The four of us spent the day visiting a couple of different beaches and basically just snorkelled and laid in sun. Freddy boy managed to see a couple of reef sharks and some turtles, although naturally I never saw anything beyond fish and salt water that kept finding its way into my goggles. Javier and I also managed to find a fairly sizeable snake that was nestled in the rocks and we felt it necessary to poke with a snorkel fin to see if it was still alive. It was, and damn did it move fast! As we were driving the 65 kilometres back into town that afternoon, I got my first real taste of kangaroos and wallabies en masse. I reckon I probably saw over 150 of the little bastards who just seemed to be lining the side of the road in a great big procession. Shockingly, we made it back to Exmouth in one piece and the car was no worse for the wear. That night, I just sat around the hostel waiting for the Greyhound bus (no choice, as there were no flights for five days) that would be taking me on a 19-hour journey north to the tropical resort town of Broome. I walked to the bus station with some Japanese girl from my hostel and tried to engage her in conversation for what felt like the longest, most awkward hour of my life. Finally around 10:30pm we boarded the bus and were happily on our way to Broome, where I would be meeting back up with Miss Leeanna.
The 19-hour bus ride from Exmouth to Broome was pretty uneventful. Luckily, the bus was only about half full so I was able to get a pair of seats for myself. This is especially advantageous for my sleeping patterns, which basically consists of flopping around and jerking my neck in strange motions. Throughout the night, I am pretty sure the bus driver hit at least five kangaroos or similar sized animals, as I kept hearing loud thumps under the bus. I also glanced out the window a few times to see kangaroos madly dashing in front of the bus. The bus was also brought to a standstill once as a herd of cattle decided to lazily stroll into the path of the bus. Makes me hungry for a good ole fashioned angus beef steak. After rolling into Broome around 5:30pm I made my way over to our hostel which was located a bit outside of the city in the Cable Beach area. Leeanna joined me shortly thereafter and alas our reunion was complete! What a touching tale, I know. Since it was pitch black out by the time we got our shit together, we just chilled around the hostel, then went for a stroll to the beach and to a local bar.
Last night was Leeanna’s first time having to sleep to in a hostel room with other people, as we had to book a four-person room due to lack of availability of rooms right now. It turned out there was only one other person in the room with us, so we figured it wouldn’t be too bad. Little did we know that our roommate was a fat middle-aged tradesman who snored like a warthog, yelled and screamed in his sleep, and set his alarm clock for 4:30am so that he could “see his mate off”. Needless to say I’m writing this on under two hours sleep and Leeanna did not sleep all night. Put a bullet in my head please.
Leeanna finally got her wish on Sunday morning, as there was a “Twilight” marathon on the television. Sorry, actually it was her other wish come true, dolphins in the backyard. That morning for the first time since we had arrived there was a pod of dolphins swimming around the canals behind the house. We watched them playing in the water for probably a good hour before they decided to saunter off. After our little dolphin experience, Zale took us over to check out the condo building that Trevor is managing the construction of. We were given the grand tour of the building and got to see what 3.5 million dollars can buy you these days (apparently not too much). If you weren’t so wealthy, you could always buy the condos on the first floor, which started from a cool million dollars even. On that note, our hosts had arranged for some of their friends to take us all out sailing on their 40-foot yacht that afternoon. They really didn’t have to twist our arms too hard to make us come along. The boat was beautiful and featured a whole live aboard area down below, complete with a kitchen, living room, and two bedrooms. We saw a few more dolphins on our sail, and not so wisely Leeanna and I were even allowed to take the steering wheel for a short time. I inherently was more interested in the food w¬e were being provided with, so don’t go counting me in for a career change just yet. After our lovely evening sail, we hit up “New Asian Delights” for some tasty Chinese food before retreating back to the house (and my really comfortable bed) for my final sleep there.
Monday it was time for me to say my final farewell to Zale and company, as I was flying about 1200 kilometres north to the town of Exmouth, which is famous for giving people the opportunity to snorkel with whale sharks in the wild. I did get one more final appearance from the dolphins that morning in the backyard which was a fitting send off. Zale and Leeanna drove me to the airport and for the first time since we had been in Australia, Leeanna and I went our separate ways for a few days. She had no desire to do the whole whale shark excursion, so she decided to stay in the luxury of Zale’s apartment for an extra three nights. Secretly, I think Leeanna wanted to be rid of me for awhile, but I may never fully know the truth! After flying into Exmouth (population 3,000), our shuttle bus from the airport was promptly greeted by sheep all over the road. I had officially arrived in rural Australia! That afternoon I didn’t really do too much, as I just checked into my 7-person dorm (Potshot Hotel [3.5]) and aside from some grocery shopping I just lazed about and enjoyed the first tropical weather I had seen in a couple of months. I spent the evening hanging out some Spanish guy named Javier (as if!), who was some kind of champion swimmer in Spain or something to that effect. Somewhere in the broken English, I discovered that he had competed at the European and World Championships and that he was also doing the whale shark excursion the following morning. I tucked into bed fairly early that evening, as I was giddy with anticipation for the whale shark dive the next day. Sadly, my bed was uber-uncomfortable and I resigned myself to the fact that I was not going to be getting much in the way of sleep for the next couple of nights.
The next morning I was up at the crack of dawn, as it was time to get down to business with the whale sharks. For those not in the know, whale sharks are the largest fish in the ocean, and can grow to over 30 metres or something silly like that. Most of them are in the three to six metre range though, but still quite sizeable nonetheless. Despite their huge size, they are very laid back, and only feed on microscopic plankton. This in turn makes it quite safe to snorkel alongside the gentle giants, who act as if you are not even there. Now that we have some background, let’s get back to the story. The tour company I was doing the excursion with picked me up at my hotel, and along with about 12 other people we were taken out to our boat for the day. After getting fitted out with wet suits and snorkels and given all the safety briefings, we did a nice early morning dive in one of the many coral reefs in the area. There were tons of fish that looked like they had just jumped off the pages of National Geographic and we also managed to find a sting ray. Around ten in the morning, the spotter plane took to the sky and began to look for any whale sharks in the area. This turned out to be quite difficult that day as there was tons of cloud cover which made it hard to see into the water from up above. In the mean time, we did manage to find some humpback whales and dolphins in the area that we promptly all ooohed and ahhhed at from the safety of our boat. Finally after a couple of hours a whale shark was found, which meant full speed ahead. We got all of our gear on and ready to go before being summoned into the water by our tour leaders. Hands down, there are few things as exhilarating as dropping into the middle of the ocean with just a pair of fins, a snorkel mask, and a giant whale shark. The first swim lasted for a few minutes, before the shark took off and jetted down to the deeper confines below. Over the next few hours, we managed to get in three more dives with the 4-5 metre whale shark, although by the end I was starting to feel quite fatigued (see: Brent is getting fat and out of shape). Sadly, the one child on our boat got stung by two jellyfish at the same time and it kind of spooked me as we had not been warned about the jellies. Sure enough after this little incident I did manage to see a few jellies in the water, which were waaaaaaay more frightening than the big fish we were staring at. That afternoon, our boat also happened to stumble across a giant sea snake that according to our guides is more venomous than any land-based snake. Not surprisingly, they did not let us dive with it! The rest of the day went off without a hitch (so long as you don’t count my seasickness into the equation) and was definitely one of my more memorable experiences so far in Australia. I spent the evening winding down in the television room at the hostel, listening to tales from some Australian fisherman and a crazy 50-year old lady who had just had a bad breakup and was now riding her bike around Australia. Each to their own. Each to their own.
Wednesday morning I ran into Javier, the Spaniard, and we decided to rent a car and drive out to Cape Range National Park. Cape Range happens to be home to the largest fringing coral reef in the world, although it is not nearly as popular as the Great Barrier Reef on the other side of the country. We also managed to round up Fred the Swedish dude and some French chick to come along for the excursion that not only provided us with extra company but also helped in offsetting the costs of the day out. On the drive out, I managed to spot my first emu (think giant ostrich) in addition to seeing tons of these giant termite mounds, some of which appeared to be taller than me. The four of us spent the day visiting a couple of different beaches and basically just snorkelled and laid in sun. Freddy boy managed to see a couple of reef sharks and some turtles, although naturally I never saw anything beyond fish and salt water that kept finding its way into my goggles. Javier and I also managed to find a fairly sizeable snake that was nestled in the rocks and we felt it necessary to poke with a snorkel fin to see if it was still alive. It was, and damn did it move fast! As we were driving the 65 kilometres back into town that afternoon, I got my first real taste of kangaroos and wallabies en masse. I reckon I probably saw over 150 of the little bastards who just seemed to be lining the side of the road in a great big procession. Shockingly, we made it back to Exmouth in one piece and the car was no worse for the wear. That night, I just sat around the hostel waiting for the Greyhound bus (no choice, as there were no flights for five days) that would be taking me on a 19-hour journey north to the tropical resort town of Broome. I walked to the bus station with some Japanese girl from my hostel and tried to engage her in conversation for what felt like the longest, most awkward hour of my life. Finally around 10:30pm we boarded the bus and were happily on our way to Broome, where I would be meeting back up with Miss Leeanna.
The 19-hour bus ride from Exmouth to Broome was pretty uneventful. Luckily, the bus was only about half full so I was able to get a pair of seats for myself. This is especially advantageous for my sleeping patterns, which basically consists of flopping around and jerking my neck in strange motions. Throughout the night, I am pretty sure the bus driver hit at least five kangaroos or similar sized animals, as I kept hearing loud thumps under the bus. I also glanced out the window a few times to see kangaroos madly dashing in front of the bus. The bus was also brought to a standstill once as a herd of cattle decided to lazily stroll into the path of the bus. Makes me hungry for a good ole fashioned angus beef steak. After rolling into Broome around 5:30pm I made my way over to our hostel which was located a bit outside of the city in the Cable Beach area. Leeanna joined me shortly thereafter and alas our reunion was complete! What a touching tale, I know. Since it was pitch black out by the time we got our shit together, we just chilled around the hostel, then went for a stroll to the beach and to a local bar.
Last night was Leeanna’s first time having to sleep to in a hostel room with other people, as we had to book a four-person room due to lack of availability of rooms right now. It turned out there was only one other person in the room with us, so we figured it wouldn’t be too bad. Little did we know that our roommate was a fat middle-aged tradesman who snored like a warthog, yelled and screamed in his sleep, and set his alarm clock for 4:30am so that he could “see his mate off”. Needless to say I’m writing this on under two hours sleep and Leeanna did not sleep all night. Put a bullet in my head please.
Thursday, June 10, 2010
Saturday, June 5, 2010- I Got Crabs. And Damn They’re Scary!
Since Leeanna and I were having such a great time relaxing and enjoying the lifestyle of the west coast, we decided to hang around for a while. With Zale and Trevor’s blessing, we decided another week’s stay was in order.
To commence the week, the girlfriend and I decided to do what we do best; be lazy. Since it was Monday, Zale and Trevor were at work which gave Leeanna and I free range of the property. Eventually, we decided to go and peruse the shoreline of Mandurah. This was followed by a trip to the bowling alley, where I thoroughly destroyed Leeanna. My scores were less than impressive, but more than enough to slaughter a woman. I mean after all, women ARE second class citizens. That night, Trevor’s nephew Lachlan arrived from the east coast. He’s a good bloke, about twenty years old, who is spending the next six weeks with them over his university holidays. So for the remainder of our time, the house would be more like a hotel, with the five of us living in beautiful harmony, or something to that effect.
After a few fairly relaxed days, Tuesday morning marked the arrival of that time (not Tool Time), tourist time! Leeanna and I grabbed the train into Perth city in the morning with no real idea of what we were actually going to do when we got there. After getting instantly lost (one of my trademark moves), I decided that we should check out something different to what we usually do. Every city seems to have zoos, aquariums, museums, churches, etc, but not every city has a mint/money factory. Thus, we arrived at the Perth Mint and took a tour and learned all about the world of gold manufacturing and how to make silver coins, etc. All very useful information, in case I ever decide to get into the business of printing my own currency. We followed up that with a trip to the Swan Bell Tower, which is basically just a small tower with a bunch of bells in it. I’m still trying to figure out why we paid $11 each to go up the tower, but that shall remain one of life’s great mysteries. Our last stop on the tourist trail was the Perth Botanical Gardens. I have become somewhat of an expert on botanical gardens, and can safely say that Perth has one of the more impressive displays in the country. It featured some great views overlooking the city skyline and an impressive treetop walk. Before catching the train home, we hit up a restaurant called Fast Eddy’s Diner for some chow. Let me tell you I have l have literally never seen a corn beef and rye sandwich come out of a kitchen so fast. Probably not a good thing, but I survived nonetheless.
Wednesday morning we arouse bright and early to catch the twice weekly shuttle bus from Mandurah to the Burswood Casino in Perth. The coach bus left at about 8:30am, and it’s safe to say that Leeanna and I were a bit out of our league; well at least from an age standpoint. Of the eighty or so people on the bus, there was only one other person who appeared to be under 65, and he was well into his 40s. Suffice to say, the seniors were no physical threat and we survived the day. It was actually a pretty fun day out, as our $10 round trip bus ride, also included a $20 buffet lunch (top-notch!) and $3 worth of gambling chips each. Factor in a bus trip that was an hour and a half each way, and you my friend have yourself a good deal. Over the course of the day, Leeanna and I managed to log some time at the blackjack tables, casino war tables, keno, video poker, and video roulette (our favourite). All-in-all, the day ended up costing me $100 bang on, as I decided to keep the bleeding to a minimum for once in my life. I must say it felt great to actually go home from a casino with some money in my pocket for once. Hell hath frozen over.
The next day, I was left on my own to visit Rottnest Island, as Leeanna had no interest in trucking along for my escapades. Rottnest is one of, if not Perth’s top tourist attraction. It is an island that is about 12 kilometres off the coast and is only accessible by ferry. There are very few motor vehicles (a few buses and service vehicles) and the primary means of transportation is by good ole fashioned pedal bikes. Also, outside of birds and reptiles, the only animal present on the island is quokkas. No what is a quokka you ask? Think of a massively overgrown rat that looks like a miniature kangaroo and you pretty much get the picture. Anyways, Thursday morning Zale dropped me off on her way to work all by lonesome self at the pier to catch the ferry out to the island. After arriving on Rottnest, I promptly purchased a bus ticket and rode the bus around the entire circumference of the island and took in all of the now typical amazing Australian views. Since this only took 45 minutes, and I had a full day to kill, my bus ride was swiftly followed by a trip to the bike rental shop and the snorkel rental company. Rottnest is also famous for its coral reefs and snorkel trails, which I figured I would explore. So I took my now getting fatter-by-the-day, out-of-shape ass and started pedaling around the island. I eventually arrived at one of the main snorkelling spots, only to find the beach completely empty. I decided to attempt to brave the waters on my own with my snorkel gear, but was quickly thwarted by the cold water and ferocious waves. I probably only made it out about 30 feet offshore, when I decided, like a little girly man, that I should turn back. Common sense told me that since no one was around for probably miles, it was in my best interest not to start drowning in the ocean. Anyways, after my failed attempt at snorkelling, I biked around the whole island and took a ton of “scenery” pictures. After tucking in for a nice lunch at the only pub on the island, I set back out on my bicycle to once again attempt to snorkel. In short, I again failed out of not wanting to drown on a beach by myself. Clearly, the $20 snorkel rental fee was money not so well spent and would have been a much better investment at the local bottle shop. Late in the afternoon, I finally managed to spot some quokkas in the wild/on the side of the road. I tried to coax them into some model shots, but my efforts seemed to be in vain. To sum it up, I was quite gassed after pedalling over 40 kilometres that day, and was quite relieved and ready to rest when Zale picked me up from the ferry that night. My fitness levels are now at an all-time low. Heart attack seems imminent. To complement my failing heart, Trevor decided to take the whole “family” out for dinner that night to this nice little restaurant on the Mandurah foreshore. Tasty food, and good company, not too much you can ask for in life.
After three solid days on the tourist trail, Friday was a “take it easy” day. Leeanna and I (mostly me) volunteered to cook dinner for Trevor, Zale, and Lachlan. Since we are such amazing cooks, we decided to make chicken fajitas, which were apparently quite foreign to Trevor. To my knowledge, nobody got food poisoning which as far as I’m concerned made the meal a resounding success. The highlight of the day though had to be checking the crab nets which we had put in the water the night before. To those not in the know when it comes to crabbing, basically you just put a net with meat in it in the water and wait for a crab to park its rump in it. You check your nets every so often and more often than not there’s a little bastard with pinchers in there just waiting to be boiled up. Leeanna and I ended up catching a few crabs, although I must ashamedly admit that we were afraid to grab it without Lachlan present. What a couple of pansies we are! We ended up getting our hands on the crabs for some photo opportunities, although we threw them back in the ocean as I am currently campaigning to head up the Australian chapter of PETA.
To commence the week, the girlfriend and I decided to do what we do best; be lazy. Since it was Monday, Zale and Trevor were at work which gave Leeanna and I free range of the property. Eventually, we decided to go and peruse the shoreline of Mandurah. This was followed by a trip to the bowling alley, where I thoroughly destroyed Leeanna. My scores were less than impressive, but more than enough to slaughter a woman. I mean after all, women ARE second class citizens. That night, Trevor’s nephew Lachlan arrived from the east coast. He’s a good bloke, about twenty years old, who is spending the next six weeks with them over his university holidays. So for the remainder of our time, the house would be more like a hotel, with the five of us living in beautiful harmony, or something to that effect.
After a few fairly relaxed days, Tuesday morning marked the arrival of that time (not Tool Time), tourist time! Leeanna and I grabbed the train into Perth city in the morning with no real idea of what we were actually going to do when we got there. After getting instantly lost (one of my trademark moves), I decided that we should check out something different to what we usually do. Every city seems to have zoos, aquariums, museums, churches, etc, but not every city has a mint/money factory. Thus, we arrived at the Perth Mint and took a tour and learned all about the world of gold manufacturing and how to make silver coins, etc. All very useful information, in case I ever decide to get into the business of printing my own currency. We followed up that with a trip to the Swan Bell Tower, which is basically just a small tower with a bunch of bells in it. I’m still trying to figure out why we paid $11 each to go up the tower, but that shall remain one of life’s great mysteries. Our last stop on the tourist trail was the Perth Botanical Gardens. I have become somewhat of an expert on botanical gardens, and can safely say that Perth has one of the more impressive displays in the country. It featured some great views overlooking the city skyline and an impressive treetop walk. Before catching the train home, we hit up a restaurant called Fast Eddy’s Diner for some chow. Let me tell you I have l have literally never seen a corn beef and rye sandwich come out of a kitchen so fast. Probably not a good thing, but I survived nonetheless.
Wednesday morning we arouse bright and early to catch the twice weekly shuttle bus from Mandurah to the Burswood Casino in Perth. The coach bus left at about 8:30am, and it’s safe to say that Leeanna and I were a bit out of our league; well at least from an age standpoint. Of the eighty or so people on the bus, there was only one other person who appeared to be under 65, and he was well into his 40s. Suffice to say, the seniors were no physical threat and we survived the day. It was actually a pretty fun day out, as our $10 round trip bus ride, also included a $20 buffet lunch (top-notch!) and $3 worth of gambling chips each. Factor in a bus trip that was an hour and a half each way, and you my friend have yourself a good deal. Over the course of the day, Leeanna and I managed to log some time at the blackjack tables, casino war tables, keno, video poker, and video roulette (our favourite). All-in-all, the day ended up costing me $100 bang on, as I decided to keep the bleeding to a minimum for once in my life. I must say it felt great to actually go home from a casino with some money in my pocket for once. Hell hath frozen over.
The next day, I was left on my own to visit Rottnest Island, as Leeanna had no interest in trucking along for my escapades. Rottnest is one of, if not Perth’s top tourist attraction. It is an island that is about 12 kilometres off the coast and is only accessible by ferry. There are very few motor vehicles (a few buses and service vehicles) and the primary means of transportation is by good ole fashioned pedal bikes. Also, outside of birds and reptiles, the only animal present on the island is quokkas. No what is a quokka you ask? Think of a massively overgrown rat that looks like a miniature kangaroo and you pretty much get the picture. Anyways, Thursday morning Zale dropped me off on her way to work all by lonesome self at the pier to catch the ferry out to the island. After arriving on Rottnest, I promptly purchased a bus ticket and rode the bus around the entire circumference of the island and took in all of the now typical amazing Australian views. Since this only took 45 minutes, and I had a full day to kill, my bus ride was swiftly followed by a trip to the bike rental shop and the snorkel rental company. Rottnest is also famous for its coral reefs and snorkel trails, which I figured I would explore. So I took my now getting fatter-by-the-day, out-of-shape ass and started pedaling around the island. I eventually arrived at one of the main snorkelling spots, only to find the beach completely empty. I decided to attempt to brave the waters on my own with my snorkel gear, but was quickly thwarted by the cold water and ferocious waves. I probably only made it out about 30 feet offshore, when I decided, like a little girly man, that I should turn back. Common sense told me that since no one was around for probably miles, it was in my best interest not to start drowning in the ocean. Anyways, after my failed attempt at snorkelling, I biked around the whole island and took a ton of “scenery” pictures. After tucking in for a nice lunch at the only pub on the island, I set back out on my bicycle to once again attempt to snorkel. In short, I again failed out of not wanting to drown on a beach by myself. Clearly, the $20 snorkel rental fee was money not so well spent and would have been a much better investment at the local bottle shop. Late in the afternoon, I finally managed to spot some quokkas in the wild/on the side of the road. I tried to coax them into some model shots, but my efforts seemed to be in vain. To sum it up, I was quite gassed after pedalling over 40 kilometres that day, and was quite relieved and ready to rest when Zale picked me up from the ferry that night. My fitness levels are now at an all-time low. Heart attack seems imminent. To complement my failing heart, Trevor decided to take the whole “family” out for dinner that night to this nice little restaurant on the Mandurah foreshore. Tasty food, and good company, not too much you can ask for in life.
After three solid days on the tourist trail, Friday was a “take it easy” day. Leeanna and I (mostly me) volunteered to cook dinner for Trevor, Zale, and Lachlan. Since we are such amazing cooks, we decided to make chicken fajitas, which were apparently quite foreign to Trevor. To my knowledge, nobody got food poisoning which as far as I’m concerned made the meal a resounding success. The highlight of the day though had to be checking the crab nets which we had put in the water the night before. To those not in the know when it comes to crabbing, basically you just put a net with meat in it in the water and wait for a crab to park its rump in it. You check your nets every so often and more often than not there’s a little bastard with pinchers in there just waiting to be boiled up. Leeanna and I ended up catching a few crabs, although I must ashamedly admit that we were afraid to grab it without Lachlan present. What a couple of pansies we are! We ended up getting our hands on the crabs for some photo opportunities, although we threw them back in the ocean as I am currently campaigning to head up the Australian chapter of PETA.
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