I was sitting out in this little park/plaza on my tablet with my backpack and bags piled around me in the middle of the night. It's sort of in the middle of the bar area, and it was a Friday night (or very early Saturday morning) so there were lots of really drunk people stumbling around shouting a lot. A few came over to talk with me, but it's New Zealand, so nobody really gave me much of a hassle. Finally around 3am I walked to the corner and caught my shuttle bus to the airport. There were only 2 other people on board, and the ride was a lot faster than it had been when I flew into Auckland due to there being nobody getting on or off and no traffic. I checked in and lounged around the airport and read some more. My flight path was a bit strange. It was cheaper to go to LA through Melbourne than direct, even though going through Melbourne meant flying for hours in the wrong direction first. I'm more concerned with money than time, and spending long hours sitting in a vehicle is routine by now.
The issue in Melbourne was that I was transferring between two airlines (JetStar and Qantas), and they weren't going to transfer my backpack to the second flight automatically. This meant that I had to get my bag, queue up to go through border control, go through another queue at customs (which is very thorough in Australia), go to the Qantas desk to get my boarding pass and check my bag for the new flight, then go through more queues back through security and border control again. There was only about 1:15 between when the first flight landed and I was supposed to board the second flight, and with all the long lines that time disappeared quickly and I was feeling a little nervous (and rather tired since I still hadn't slept). Ultimately I did get there in just under the time I needed, but it turned out to be moot since there was some sort of equipment trouble and boarding was delayed 40 minutes anyway. Finally we got on the plane and it was time to head back the way I'd just come, flying east over the Pacific.
The person sitting next to me on the flight was a blind Australian who was eventually heading to Venezuela to visit hospitals and orphanages as a clown with Patch Adams. That, combined with me having been travelling the world for a year made for lots to talk about. I also watched a few movies, and got a couple hours of much needed sleep. American border control is known for being pretty thorough, so the lines were slow. When it was finally my turn, I got grilled. My passport is by now rather colourful, which seemed to make him suspcious (in Australia, people going to backpack around the world is almost part of growing up, in America, not so much). This led to him asking for additional identification, which hasn't happened anywhere else in the world. I gave him additional identification, but of course since it's me the names didn't match exactly since all my IDs are slightly different. This led to more questioning about all my aliases (no, I've never gone by the name Rico Martinez Miller) before eventually letting me continue on. I finally got into the main terminal about 7:30am on March 7, the same time and date as I'd left Auckland like 20+ hours ago (gotta love the date-line time travel flights). I took my time getting a shuttle to Union Station, and since I was still really early decided to walk to Mariachi Plaza instead of taking the subway. My hostel was across the Los Angeles River, and in a rather poor and run down Mexican/Latino area. The hostel itself was a small independent one, but the staff was friendly and it was right next to the subway. I was pretty exhausted still from all the travel and not getting much sleep on the plane, so I napped a little and just spent the day in the local area, talking with other guests in the hostel and finding some nice little restaurants in the local area. After months of craving Mexican food, bein in the Mexican part of LA certainly gave me a lot of options. I managed to put off going to bed until late, partially since it was Saturday night and there were a lot of people coming and going. Finally I got some well deserved sleep.
Showing posts with label Australia. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Australia. Show all posts
Friday, March 22, 2013
Thursday, February 14, 2013
Days 315-316: King's Cross
I took the train back to Sydney and switched lines to go to the King's Cross area, where my new hostel was. King's Cross is the sleazy part of Sydney with all the bars and strip clubs. It seems to be full of borderline homeless people, junkies and has by far the highest ratio of people who talk to themselves of any place I can remember staying. Despite all that, it was still a fairly nice hostel and the area feels perfectly safe. It just has...lots of character. There's lots of cheap restaurants around, and the fact that I'd already spent quite a bit of time exploring Syndey combined with my ordeal from Katoomba meant that I was happy to just stay close by the hostel and not really venture too far out. The rain was also still a constant issue. It would be clear for a few hours, then it would pour for 40 minutes, then clear up quickly again. It was infrequent enough that you could still go out in the dry periods, but I don't think it went more than a few hours without rain over the two days.
Wednesday, February 13, 2013
Day 314: The Price of a Story
This one is for the people who feel jealous of me travelling everywhere and think that it's all sunshine, rainbows and butterflies!
I mentioned that I had planned for a longer hike the day before but had wasted too much time, so I decided to get it another go, leaving earlier in the morning this time and skipping by all the side trails I'd already explored the day before. The weather was nice and I made good time down the stairs to the floor. I got a bit mixed up in Scenic World which is a kind of nature park that runs a cablecar up and down the cliff. There were a lot of tourists around, and the the branch off to the trail I wanted was somewhat hidden and I missed it, but I managed to backtrack to find it and only lost half an hour, so I still had lots of time.
The first section of the trail had been wiped out by a pretty massive rockslide maybe 10 years ago. Paths over, under and throw things have slowly regrown, but it's still a tricky section where metal poles mark where the path should be since you're just sliding along loose gravel slopes for some of it.
As you can possibly tell from those pictures, the weather wasn't quite as nice anymore. There was still quite a bit of blue sky, but it was starting to get overcast. I was already 3 hours into things though, and it had been overcast a few times in the past couple days and always blown over without any rain, so I decided to press on ahead. Past the rocky section was the forest, and this trail went on for a long time - around 9km. At the end if split off with one path continuing onto the Solitary Mountain and the other one heading uphill to a place called Ruined Castle, which was my target. Ruined castle isn't actually a ruined castle. It's a rock formation of big stones on the top of a hill, but it was a good distance away for what I wanted to do for a hike. I scrambled up the rocks for a lovely view, but the sky had turned from overcast to dark black clouds, the wind had picked up a lot and the temperature had dropped.
After a few minutes enjoying my perch I climbed down to start heading back, trying to get back to the cover of the forest before the rain inevitably hit. I hadn't even made it back to the main trail before the rain started, and then turned from spitting to a steady drizzle. When I got back to the trail I hid in a niche beneath a rock, hoping the rain would stop quickly. It did not. Instead rain turned to downpour and downpour turned into downpour + hail. Yes, I managed to get hailed on for about an hour in summer in Australia. My niche had given me some cover for the lighter rain, but with the wind and the pounding rain it didn't offer much cover anymore, so I got back on the path and dashed ahead, hoping for better cover. There wasn't really any better cover to be had, and soon I was almost soaked through. I did stop under the trunk of a fallen tree long enough to wrap my camera case and wallet in a plastic bag I had to hopefully keep them somewhat dry, but the rest of me was already so wet that there was no point in trying to avoid the rain any longer.
The staircase I was taking up this time was about halfway between where the rockslide had been and where the path had branched off to go up to Ruined Castle. The sign at the point where the path led off to the stairs warned "Stairs can be slippery when wet" but when I actually got to the stairs I found a 900-step waterfall leading up to cliff. That's probably a bit of an exaggeration, since there were a few dry stretches, but probably at least half of the stairs up were covered by water ranging from 5cm to maybe 20cm pouring all the way down. Since my shoes and socks were soaked already I didn't make much effort to avoid the water, and just trudged up through it all.
By the time I got to the top I'd probably been in the cold rain in a t-shirt for 3 hours. The rain had slowed a little when I got to the top, so I stopped to evaluate things and make sure my wallet and camera were still relatively dry. This is when I discovered the leeches. I had 6 or 7 leeches on my legs and ankles which probably came from walking through the water up the stairs, as well as one on each arm, that I'm not quite so clear on. In Indonesia I had been told that leeches climb up trees and onto leaves and then when it rains it knocks them off the leaves onto things, so maybe that's what happened. There were another 10 or so leeches tucked into the laces and flaps of my shoes that hadn't managed to work to any fleshy bits yet. I'm told there's some special way to remove leeches to minimize the damage they do and to minimize the chance for infection, but I'm guessing that whoever invented it didn't do so after walking through the rain for 3 hours and discovering they were covered in leeches. In any case, my method of removal probably wasn't medically ideal, but it got the job done. I was now on this little abandoned dirt road out in the middle of the bush still at least a 2 hour walk from town, completely soaked through with blood pouring down my arms and legs. The walk back was pretty miserable. The rain picked up again and I was getting pretty cold by now. Despite all that, I still found the situation pretty amusingly terrible and couldn't help smiling and laughing at it all. By the time I got back to the hostel the blood from my arms had spread down with the help of the rain soak part of my shirt, which was unfortunately white. The reaction upon walking into the common room was one of shocked horror. I gave a quick explanation of my day and assured them I was alright before getting my towl and some dry clothes and having a long, hot shower. When I finally exited from the shower in dry clothes (but still bleeding, those bites bled for like 5 hours before they stopped) I heard one of the other guests asking the woman that runs the hostel "So what can you do around here on a rainy day?". I just grinned manically and offered "I have a suggestion for what -not- to do!"
I mentioned that I had planned for a longer hike the day before but had wasted too much time, so I decided to get it another go, leaving earlier in the morning this time and skipping by all the side trails I'd already explored the day before. The weather was nice and I made good time down the stairs to the floor. I got a bit mixed up in Scenic World which is a kind of nature park that runs a cablecar up and down the cliff. There were a lot of tourists around, and the the branch off to the trail I wanted was somewhat hidden and I missed it, but I managed to backtrack to find it and only lost half an hour, so I still had lots of time.
The first section of the trail had been wiped out by a pretty massive rockslide maybe 10 years ago. Paths over, under and throw things have slowly regrown, but it's still a tricky section where metal poles mark where the path should be since you're just sliding along loose gravel slopes for some of it.
As you can possibly tell from those pictures, the weather wasn't quite as nice anymore. There was still quite a bit of blue sky, but it was starting to get overcast. I was already 3 hours into things though, and it had been overcast a few times in the past couple days and always blown over without any rain, so I decided to press on ahead. Past the rocky section was the forest, and this trail went on for a long time - around 9km. At the end if split off with one path continuing onto the Solitary Mountain and the other one heading uphill to a place called Ruined Castle, which was my target. Ruined castle isn't actually a ruined castle. It's a rock formation of big stones on the top of a hill, but it was a good distance away for what I wanted to do for a hike. I scrambled up the rocks for a lovely view, but the sky had turned from overcast to dark black clouds, the wind had picked up a lot and the temperature had dropped.
After a few minutes enjoying my perch I climbed down to start heading back, trying to get back to the cover of the forest before the rain inevitably hit. I hadn't even made it back to the main trail before the rain started, and then turned from spitting to a steady drizzle. When I got back to the trail I hid in a niche beneath a rock, hoping the rain would stop quickly. It did not. Instead rain turned to downpour and downpour turned into downpour + hail. Yes, I managed to get hailed on for about an hour in summer in Australia. My niche had given me some cover for the lighter rain, but with the wind and the pounding rain it didn't offer much cover anymore, so I got back on the path and dashed ahead, hoping for better cover. There wasn't really any better cover to be had, and soon I was almost soaked through. I did stop under the trunk of a fallen tree long enough to wrap my camera case and wallet in a plastic bag I had to hopefully keep them somewhat dry, but the rest of me was already so wet that there was no point in trying to avoid the rain any longer.
The staircase I was taking up this time was about halfway between where the rockslide had been and where the path had branched off to go up to Ruined Castle. The sign at the point where the path led off to the stairs warned "Stairs can be slippery when wet" but when I actually got to the stairs I found a 900-step waterfall leading up to cliff. That's probably a bit of an exaggeration, since there were a few dry stretches, but probably at least half of the stairs up were covered by water ranging from 5cm to maybe 20cm pouring all the way down. Since my shoes and socks were soaked already I didn't make much effort to avoid the water, and just trudged up through it all.
By the time I got to the top I'd probably been in the cold rain in a t-shirt for 3 hours. The rain had slowed a little when I got to the top, so I stopped to evaluate things and make sure my wallet and camera were still relatively dry. This is when I discovered the leeches. I had 6 or 7 leeches on my legs and ankles which probably came from walking through the water up the stairs, as well as one on each arm, that I'm not quite so clear on. In Indonesia I had been told that leeches climb up trees and onto leaves and then when it rains it knocks them off the leaves onto things, so maybe that's what happened. There were another 10 or so leeches tucked into the laces and flaps of my shoes that hadn't managed to work to any fleshy bits yet. I'm told there's some special way to remove leeches to minimize the damage they do and to minimize the chance for infection, but I'm guessing that whoever invented it didn't do so after walking through the rain for 3 hours and discovering they were covered in leeches. In any case, my method of removal probably wasn't medically ideal, but it got the job done. I was now on this little abandoned dirt road out in the middle of the bush still at least a 2 hour walk from town, completely soaked through with blood pouring down my arms and legs. The walk back was pretty miserable. The rain picked up again and I was getting pretty cold by now. Despite all that, I still found the situation pretty amusingly terrible and couldn't help smiling and laughing at it all. By the time I got back to the hostel the blood from my arms had spread down with the help of the rain soak part of my shirt, which was unfortunately white. The reaction upon walking into the common room was one of shocked horror. I gave a quick explanation of my day and assured them I was alright before getting my towl and some dry clothes and having a long, hot shower. When I finally exited from the shower in dry clothes (but still bleeding, those bites bled for like 5 hours before they stopped) I heard one of the other guests asking the woman that runs the hostel "So what can you do around here on a rainy day?". I just grinned manically and offered "I have a suggestion for what -not- to do!"
Day 313: Hike #2
On the second day I was ready to tackle something a bit more ambitious. In the morning I took a different path to the park and got to the trails near Katommba Falls. After poking around some of the side paths I took one of the staircases down into forest below the cliffs. The stairways are around 900 steps and there are signs everywhere warning that they are difficult, but they're broken up and really not too bad. I had originally planned to go the opposite direction of the previous day but I'd lost a couple hours checking out side trails at the top so I changed my mind and walked along the same way as the previous day, only this time in the rainforest near the bottom of the valley instead of on the cliff at the top.
The route back up went past a few different waterfalls, and of course back up the 900 steps of a different staircase. Once at the top I followed the road for awhile but soon found another trail to continue along the cliff, eventually getting to a point called Bridal Veil Lookout which gave another sweeping view down into the valley.
I came back out near Leura and stopped by the grocery store there to buy a few things at their bakery for dinner, then walked back to Katoomba along the road.
The route back up went past a few different waterfalls, and of course back up the 900 steps of a different staircase. Once at the top I followed the road for awhile but soon found another trail to continue along the cliff, eventually getting to a point called Bridal Veil Lookout which gave another sweeping view down into the valley.
I came back out near Leura and stopped by the grocery store there to buy a few things at their bakery for dinner, then walked back to Katoomba along the road.
Day 312: Katoomba
I wasn't in too extreme of a rush since trains run pretty often out to the Blue Mountains, so I had an early lunch before heading to Central Station for the train. There's a suburban train line out to the mountains so the trip out is only about $8. I still don't really get why a 10 minute trip to the airport costs twice as much as a 2.5 hour trip out to Katoomba, but that's how things are. Katoomba is a small town right at the edge of the Blue Mountains National Park, and many of the hiking trails in the area begin from it. The hostel I'd booked was pretty amazing, and the only real downside to it was that you were only allowed 60MB of internet usage a day, which burns up fast even with just normal web browsing.
I was on the opposite side of town from the canyon down to the park, but I could walk there in about 40 minutes. Since it was already afternoon by the time I was checked in I didn't want to do anything too ambitious, so I walked down to the lookout at Echo Point and followed the edge of the cliff around past the 3 Sisters formation and popping out between Katoomba and the nearby town of Leura. It was about a 3 walk in total, and I good way to get a feeling for the town and get a few vistas out at the gorgeous view of the park.
I was on the opposite side of town from the canyon down to the park, but I could walk there in about 40 minutes. Since it was already afternoon by the time I was checked in I didn't want to do anything too ambitious, so I walked down to the lookout at Echo Point and followed the edge of the cliff around past the 3 Sisters formation and popping out between Katoomba and the nearby town of Leura. It was about a 3 walk in total, and I good way to get a feeling for the town and get a few vistas out at the gorgeous view of the park.
Days 309-311: Return of the Rain
While the rain wasn't constant, it was definitely regular, especially the first day. I spent a lot of the day in the hostel reading and using the internet. I had one trip out to China Town for lunch that ended up with me getting soaked, but by the evening the rain had died down enough that I ventured out with one of the girls in my room to try to find a place to each and watch the Australian Open men's final. Everywhere we went they either weren't playing it, or were playing it without volume. We found one place that had it in, but didn't serve food. We had a couple of beer there, then decided to hop over to McDonalds to grab food quickly between sets. Coincidentally they were actually playing the game in McDonalds, and we got talking to a few other people watching the game and ended up spending the next 2 hours watching tennis in McDonalds while eating 30 cent ice cream cones.
The next day I ventured out into a few of the Sydney districts further from the harbor. There was a small art gallery/shop in Surrey Hills that was my main focus for going to that area, but there were lots of the out of the way independent shops, restaurants and little bits of art that I enjoy so much.
From Surrey Hills I walked over to Newtown, which is another area that had been recommended to me. I didn't really know where to go though, and the main street of the area wasn't as interesting for me as Surrey Hills had been. I did find a burrito shop which had the best burritos I've had since leaving Canada, so it was still worth the trip over. In the evening the hostel had an activity out to a bar where you got a free drink and fries if you went. I have a hard time turning down free things, so I braved another period of pouring rain to go out. The free fries was actually massive plates of both fries and potato wedges. I didn't really stay out much beyond the food and drink, but Australia is so expensive that anything free helps.
I spent a lot of the next day in the hostel planning things and talking to the new round of people going through. One was having a birthday, and we decided to prepare a dinner of vegetables, rice and kangaroo steaks from the grocery store. We went out for drinks afterwards, but I didn't stay out too late since I had a train to catch in the morning.
The next day I ventured out into a few of the Sydney districts further from the harbor. There was a small art gallery/shop in Surrey Hills that was my main focus for going to that area, but there were lots of the out of the way independent shops, restaurants and little bits of art that I enjoy so much.
From Surrey Hills I walked over to Newtown, which is another area that had been recommended to me. I didn't really know where to go though, and the main street of the area wasn't as interesting for me as Surrey Hills had been. I did find a burrito shop which had the best burritos I've had since leaving Canada, so it was still worth the trip over. In the evening the hostel had an activity out to a bar where you got a free drink and fries if you went. I have a hard time turning down free things, so I braved another period of pouring rain to go out. The free fries was actually massive plates of both fries and potato wedges. I didn't really stay out much beyond the food and drink, but Australia is so expensive that anything free helps.
I spent a lot of the next day in the hostel planning things and talking to the new round of people going through. One was having a birthday, and we decided to prepare a dinner of vegetables, rice and kangaroo steaks from the grocery store. We went out for drinks afterwards, but I didn't stay out too late since I had a train to catch in the morning.
Day 308: Australia Day
I've been lucky enough to experience quite a few national holidays, and Australia Day in Sydney promised to be another good one. The weather was still holding up, so I took the bus over to Bondi Beach to spend the morning / early afternoon at the beach. The combination of sun and holiday meant that it was quite busy, with dozens of surfers, and thousands of swimmers. Thousands of swimmers probably sounds like an exaggeration, but it's not. There was some weird world record attempt going on for the longest chain of thongs (As a point of clarification, thongs in Australia would be what North Americans call flip-flops. Keeping track of Australian words of things is only slightly less challenging than learning a new language entirely). They were achieving this by having thousands of large foam thongs that people rushed with into the water, trying to link arms. The process was a bit slow because the waves are substantial and would keep knocking entire rows of people over, but it was entertaining to watch and probably fun to participate in.
From the beach I followed the walking path they have hugging along the coast going south. The walk took me past a few more beaches and eventually to Coogee. From Coogee I cut back inland for a pretty lengthy walk back to Bondi Junction to catch the metro back.
Back at the hostel I met up with some of the others and we decided to go out to Darling Harbor in the evening for the fireworks show. Prior to the fireworks starting they had some tall ships looping through and the most painfully dull event announcer ever running the show. The closest I can think of is a very slow-speaking Mr. Rogers with an Australian accent, repeating things over and over slower and slower because things were taking longer than expected and he refused to let there be quiet. Finally the fireworks started, and it was actually a pretty entertaining show. The two things that made it better than the fireworks I usually see (Canada Day in Toronto, for example) were that it was combined with a harbor laser show a bit like the one in Hong Kong, and that the fireworks were synchronized to music. I found the music actually made it a lot more interesting.
It was quite the crush getting away from the harbor afterwards, but luckily we only had a short walk back and after spending almost an hour slowly working our way out of the crowd the rest of the trip back was easy.
From the beach I followed the walking path they have hugging along the coast going south. The walk took me past a few more beaches and eventually to Coogee. From Coogee I cut back inland for a pretty lengthy walk back to Bondi Junction to catch the metro back.
Back at the hostel I met up with some of the others and we decided to go out to Darling Harbor in the evening for the fireworks show. Prior to the fireworks starting they had some tall ships looping through and the most painfully dull event announcer ever running the show. The closest I can think of is a very slow-speaking Mr. Rogers with an Australian accent, repeating things over and over slower and slower because things were taking longer than expected and he refused to let there be quiet. Finally the fireworks started, and it was actually a pretty entertaining show. The two things that made it better than the fireworks I usually see (Canada Day in Toronto, for example) were that it was combined with a harbor laser show a bit like the one in Hong Kong, and that the fireworks were synchronized to music. I found the music actually made it a lot more interesting.
It was quite the crush getting away from the harbor afterwards, but luckily we only had a short walk back and after spending almost an hour slowly working our way out of the crowd the rest of the trip back was easy.
Tuesday, February 12, 2013
Days 306-307: Sydney
Flying to Sydney went fine. After the 20ish flights I've done in the last year I have the process down to a science. There's an airport train into the city that dropped me off near where my hostel was, but like almost everything in Australia the price is a bit extreme. It was something like $17 for a train shuttle that was less than 15 minutes. The hostel I was staying in had a bar right below it, and apparently on Thursday through to Sunday, past 7pm the hostel lounge gets turned into a dance club so you can't use the wifi there. Luckily a roommate even more wifi desperate than I managed to figure out the password to the locked wifi of the travel agency across the street. It was slow and unreliable, but at least it offered some form of connection from inside our room on the top floor.
The following day finally offered some sun, I went exploring town. I walked through downtown and visited the Art Gallery of New South Whales, which was just as excellent as the Victoria Gallery in Melbourne. The Botanical Gardens were right across the street, so I wandered through them up towards the harbor, walking along the water until I got to the famous opera house.
From there I checked out The Rocks, which is the old historic city center part of Sydney next to the harbor. I eventually worked my way through the downtown back to the hostel and hung out there for the evening.
The following day finally offered some sun, I went exploring town. I walked through downtown and visited the Art Gallery of New South Whales, which was just as excellent as the Victoria Gallery in Melbourne. The Botanical Gardens were right across the street, so I wandered through them up towards the harbor, walking along the water until I got to the famous opera house.
From there I checked out The Rocks, which is the old historic city center part of Sydney next to the harbor. I eventually worked my way through the downtown back to the hostel and hung out there for the evening.
Saturday, February 9, 2013
Day 305: Mossman Gorge
Morning at Cape Tribulation was still wet. The rain wasn't solid, but it would start up again every 15 minutes so it was hard to do much outdoors. I did use one of the brief dry periods to explore the beach a little, but mostly we just sat around playing games until the bus picked us up around noon.
The bus took us to Mossman Gorge, home of the indigenous Kuku Yulanji tribe. We had a bit of a talk with one of the elder tribesmen about tribal traditions, way of life, and the plants and animals of the surrounding rainforest. Most of us found this the most interesting and overall best part of the trip, and it was fascinating to see all the uses they developed from plants in such a hostile environment. I think I mentioned earlier that most of the fruit in the forest is toxic, and even just to eat they needed to know all the properties of everything and how toxins could be leached out of some foods and not others. We also got a digeridoo lesson, and everybody loves digeridoos.
We did a walk into the forest to visit the river. Normally the water is calm and people go swimming there, but things are a bit different when it's been raining almost non-stop for a week.
We also stopped for a nice view down at where the Daintree River flows out into the ocean and meets the reef.
It was still raining when we got back to Cairns, and by this point I was quite happy to be preparing for another flight back down south.
The bus took us to Mossman Gorge, home of the indigenous Kuku Yulanji tribe. We had a bit of a talk with one of the elder tribesmen about tribal traditions, way of life, and the plants and animals of the surrounding rainforest. Most of us found this the most interesting and overall best part of the trip, and it was fascinating to see all the uses they developed from plants in such a hostile environment. I think I mentioned earlier that most of the fruit in the forest is toxic, and even just to eat they needed to know all the properties of everything and how toxins could be leached out of some foods and not others. We also got a digeridoo lesson, and everybody loves digeridoos.
We did a walk into the forest to visit the river. Normally the water is calm and people go swimming there, but things are a bit different when it's been raining almost non-stop for a week.
We also stopped for a nice view down at where the Daintree River flows out into the ocean and meets the reef.
It was still raining when we got back to Cairns, and by this point I was quite happy to be preparing for another flight back down south.
Friday, February 8, 2013
Day 304: The Daintree Rainforest and Cape Tribulation
I left most of my things in the hostel and got on a bus in the morning for a 2 day trip westward to visit the Daintree Rainforest. It was raining, but not too hard, and I had no intention of spending all my time sitting in Cairns waiting for the rain to pass. We stopped in the forest to do a walk around inside for maybe an hour, getting many of the plants and creatures pointed out by our guide. The area is the native habitat of the rather bizarre cassowary, which is a bit like an ostrich with a blue neck, but they are fairly rare and we didn't encounter any.
We also did a Daintree river cruise which was for the supposed purpose of spotting crocodiles, but with all the rain the crocodiles were hiding. We did at least get a deep education of mangrove trees! Eventually we got to our home for the night on Cape Tribulation. It was still pouring rain, and other than a short peek out at the beach there wasn't much to do. We were staying in cabins out in the jungle, but down the path closer to the beach was a giant tent that served as the bar/restaurant/common area. The prices were still expensive here, but the portions were impressive and the food was fantastic. In the end a group of us spent most of the evening playing cards and a game of monopoly (which I won, in spite of girls being cheaters).
Also, pictures apparently don't work and keep coming up as all scrambled. I'll try again later, but I'm so far behind on posts now that I need to start putting things up or I'll just give up entirely. Hopefully I'll get pictures working again at the next stop.
We also did a Daintree river cruise which was for the supposed purpose of spotting crocodiles, but with all the rain the crocodiles were hiding. We did at least get a deep education of mangrove trees! Eventually we got to our home for the night on Cape Tribulation. It was still pouring rain, and other than a short peek out at the beach there wasn't much to do. We were staying in cabins out in the jungle, but down the path closer to the beach was a giant tent that served as the bar/restaurant/common area. The prices were still expensive here, but the portions were impressive and the food was fantastic. In the end a group of us spent most of the evening playing cards and a game of monopoly (which I won, in spite of girls being cheaters).
Also, pictures apparently don't work and keep coming up as all scrambled. I'll try again later, but I'm so far behind on posts now that I need to start putting things up or I'll just give up entirely. Hopefully I'll get pictures working again at the next stop.
Sunday, February 3, 2013
Day 303: Laundry Day
Back in Cairns I had another day to relax before my next excursion. The expected rain finally hit, making it pretty annoying to do anything in town. Other than a visit to the mall across the street and a few trips out for meals I stuck around the hostel, spending the day reading, using the internet and doing laundry. The laundry didn't work out very well, and I ended up staining a few things and everything was still damp after the dryer. I had booked another trip for the following couple days, but the upcoming weather continued to look less than promising.
Saturday, January 26, 2013
Day 302: Calm Waters
The weather reports had predicted that the second day of the trip would be even worse than the first - but weather reports are terrible. It was a bit overcast but less windy in the morning, and as the day progressed it turned into a beautiful, sunny day.
In the morning I did my one dive of the trip. I'm not a water person, and I was pretty nervous about how I'd react, but I felt it was an amazing opportunity and something I really had to try at least once (especially since it was included in the price). As feared, I'm definitely not a natural. The fact that I'm not a great swimmer made me more concerned about how to react if anything went wrong, and it just led to me being very uncomfortable underwater. I tried, and I did learn a lot from the experience, but I was quite happy to stick to snorkelling for the rest of the stops. If I try scuba diving again, I think I'd want start the more conventional way and do the first few things in a pool instead of open water so that there's less to worry about while I get comfortable with things.
We had a total of 3 stops for diving and snorkelling on the second day, and ended up getting back to Cairns around 3pm. Overall, it was great to see the reef and do some things out at sea. I don't foresee many times where I'll pick being on the water over being out on a mountain or hiking through a forest, but it's nice to mix it up and get some variety when the chance presents itself.
In the morning I did my one dive of the trip. I'm not a water person, and I was pretty nervous about how I'd react, but I felt it was an amazing opportunity and something I really had to try at least once (especially since it was included in the price). As feared, I'm definitely not a natural. The fact that I'm not a great swimmer made me more concerned about how to react if anything went wrong, and it just led to me being very uncomfortable underwater. I tried, and I did learn a lot from the experience, but I was quite happy to stick to snorkelling for the rest of the stops. If I try scuba diving again, I think I'd want start the more conventional way and do the first few things in a pool instead of open water so that there's less to worry about while I get comfortable with things.
We had a total of 3 stops for diving and snorkelling on the second day, and ended up getting back to Cairns around 3pm. Overall, it was great to see the reef and do some things out at sea. I don't foresee many times where I'll pick being on the water over being out on a mountain or hiking through a forest, but it's nice to mix it up and get some variety when the chance presents itself.
Day 301: Stormy Weather
I got up early, stored most of my things in the hostel luggage room, and headed to the harbor to board the small ship I was heading out to sea with for 2 days at part of the Great Barrier Reef. It was a pretty small group, with just 8 travellers and 4 crew. Because they were having trouble selling space on the boat due to a cyclone warning and a week of constant rain I had got a substantial discount on the cost, and then also got a free upgrade to have the only private room on the ship since it was available and I was travelling alone. The first day at sea, especially the first 4 or 5 hours, were pretty miserable. There was a lot of wind, and it was pouring rain so that no matter what you did you were going to end up getting cold and soaked. All the wind was also making the sea quite choppy and was making me feel pretty queasy. I don't normally get seasick, but I haven't been on small boats in choppy water much either. By the time we got to the first dive site I was pretty nauseous, but jumped into the water to do some snorkelling. It was a lot warmer in the water than on the boat, and as soon as I was floating in the water all my nausea went away and I was feeling great.
Through the day we stopped 4 times for dives. My package only included one introductory scuba dive, and doing extras was going to cost more money than I could afford with my dwindling funds. Even without diving, the snorkelling was still amazing. In many places the reef is so close to the surface that you have to take care not to kick it when you swim, and there are dozens, if not hundreds of types of colourful corals and fish everywhere. I don't know that much about tropical fish, but clown fish (aka Nemo fish now, apparently) were one distinctive type. We also saw a few sea turtles, a sting ray and some small sharks between the thousands of fish and plants.
Unfortunately my camera isn't an underwater one, and it cost a lot more than I wanted to spend to rent one ($30 per day to rent a camera) so I don't have any pictures. Really though, it's one of those things that thousands of other people have posted pictures of online.
By evening the weather had calmed down quite a bit, and I found getting to sleep at night quite easy.
Through the day we stopped 4 times for dives. My package only included one introductory scuba dive, and doing extras was going to cost more money than I could afford with my dwindling funds. Even without diving, the snorkelling was still amazing. In many places the reef is so close to the surface that you have to take care not to kick it when you swim, and there are dozens, if not hundreds of types of colourful corals and fish everywhere. I don't know that much about tropical fish, but clown fish (aka Nemo fish now, apparently) were one distinctive type. We also saw a few sea turtles, a sting ray and some small sharks between the thousands of fish and plants.
Unfortunately my camera isn't an underwater one, and it cost a lot more than I wanted to spend to rent one ($30 per day to rent a camera) so I don't have any pictures. Really though, it's one of those things that thousands of other people have posted pictures of online.
By evening the weather had calmed down quite a bit, and I found getting to sleep at night quite easy.
Days 299-300: Exploring Cairns
As I mentioned, Cairns, as a town, is pretty dull. I had planned quite a bit of time in the area, so I wasn't really in a huge rush to take off on tours right away. I spent a few days walking around town booking things and just exploring around. On the second day I tried to walk to the botanical gardens because somebody had mentioned a rainforest hike there, but I ended up taking a wrong turn somewhere and getting lost, so in the end I gave up on it. The most interesting part of town was probably the harbor, which is the launching point for a lot of boats heading off to visit the reef.
Overall, not a terribly exciting couple of days. I bought a few groceries from across the street, since Australia is getting too expensive to eat out often. I also just relaxed and sat around the hostel talking to people and reading. I was just noticing the other day much I've read in the last 10 months. There is still a lot of empty time in the evenings and while waiting or travelling, but there are much fewer ways for me to spend that time lately, so I just settle on reading. At some point in Cairns I got around to reading the last book of Wheel of Time - feels a bit like the end of an era.
Overall, not a terribly exciting couple of days. I bought a few groceries from across the street, since Australia is getting too expensive to eat out often. I also just relaxed and sat around the hostel talking to people and reading. I was just noticing the other day much I've read in the last 10 months. There is still a lot of empty time in the evenings and while waiting or travelling, but there are much fewer ways for me to spend that time lately, so I just settle on reading. At some point in Cairns I got around to reading the last book of Wheel of Time - feels a bit like the end of an era.
Monday, January 21, 2013
Day 298: Flight to Queensland
My flight out of Melbourne was a pretty relaxed one. The plane didn't leave until 3:20pm, so getting to the airport wasn't as rushed as it sometimes is. The flight to Cairns was lower than a lot of the others I've done, so I got to see quite a bit of the terrain as we flew over.
Cairns itself is pretty small, and without anything much to do. The evening I got there I wandered around a bit to get some dinner, but other than little travel shops and restaurants there isn't anything exciting. For tourists it's mainly just a launching point to get at some of the interesting things in the area, which is what I also planned to do.
Cairns itself is pretty small, and without anything much to do. The evening I got there I wandered around a bit to get some dinner, but other than little travel shops and restaurants there isn't anything exciting. For tourists it's mainly just a launching point to get at some of the interesting things in the area, which is what I also planned to do.
Day 297: Opening Round
Prior to going to Healesville the day before I had stopped by Federation Square and waited in line for awhile to get a day pass ticket for the Australian Open for the following day. The day pass ticket lets you hop between any of the matches going on other than the ones in the two big stadiums, and since all 3 of the Canadian matches going on during the day were on the outer courts, it was a pretty inexpensive (especially by Australian standards) way of getting to watch some tennis and have a fun day out.
It was one of the hottest days since I'd gotten to Melbourne, but still quite comfortable. The Open is only a short walk from the city center, so I joined the flow of people walking down.
The first match I went to, at 11am was between Rebecca Marino and Shuai Peng. It was one of the smallest courts with maybe only 60 people watching, and not surprisingly the bulk of the crowd was Chinese, cheering for Peng. The loudest and most amusing of all the fans were two Australian guys dressed up and painted in Chinese flags who had loud and often elaborate cheers in mandarin almost every stop in play. In the end, Peng was just a lot better than Marino and the match was a bit of a blowout.
The next match was Milos Raonic vs. Jan Hajek. It was on the larger Show Court 2, and while it's nothing compared to the stadiums it was still a large crowd. My take on the game is that Milos, as expected, has a devastating serve and had a huge physical edge, but he still made a lot of unforced errors when it got to rallys, and he seems to give up on plays a lot. It's hard to tell much from watching a single match, but Milos could bail himself out when he fell behind a bit on his serve by just acing his opponent over and over. In the end Milos won in 4 sets.
The last full game I watched was Jesse Lavine and Tommy Robredo. This was the most entertaining game of the day for me, as it was pretty evenly matched and there were lots of rallying and net play. Neither player was terribly physically dominating, but they both worked hard and were always running. Lavine ultimately won it in 4 sets, but two of the sets ended in tie-breaks and the other two only had one servìce break in them. Overall the Canadians went 2-1, which isn't bad, even if it was only the opening round.
I watched bits and pieces of a few other matches going on throughout the day, but only watched the Canadian matches all the way through. Afterwards I walked back to Federation Square where they were playing the tennis on a giant screen and watched a few of the main court games from there.
It was one of the hottest days since I'd gotten to Melbourne, but still quite comfortable. The Open is only a short walk from the city center, so I joined the flow of people walking down.
The first match I went to, at 11am was between Rebecca Marino and Shuai Peng. It was one of the smallest courts with maybe only 60 people watching, and not surprisingly the bulk of the crowd was Chinese, cheering for Peng. The loudest and most amusing of all the fans were two Australian guys dressed up and painted in Chinese flags who had loud and often elaborate cheers in mandarin almost every stop in play. In the end, Peng was just a lot better than Marino and the match was a bit of a blowout.
The next match was Milos Raonic vs. Jan Hajek. It was on the larger Show Court 2, and while it's nothing compared to the stadiums it was still a large crowd. My take on the game is that Milos, as expected, has a devastating serve and had a huge physical edge, but he still made a lot of unforced errors when it got to rallys, and he seems to give up on plays a lot. It's hard to tell much from watching a single match, but Milos could bail himself out when he fell behind a bit on his serve by just acing his opponent over and over. In the end Milos won in 4 sets.
The last full game I watched was Jesse Lavine and Tommy Robredo. This was the most entertaining game of the day for me, as it was pretty evenly matched and there were lots of rallying and net play. Neither player was terribly physically dominating, but they both worked hard and were always running. Lavine ultimately won it in 4 sets, but two of the sets ended in tie-breaks and the other two only had one servìce break in them. Overall the Canadians went 2-1, which isn't bad, even if it was only the opening round.
I watched bits and pieces of a few other matches going on throughout the day, but only watched the Canadian matches all the way through. Afterwards I walked back to Federation Square where they were playing the tennis on a giant screen and watched a few of the main court games from there.
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