Nemo and Cooky take on the WORLD!

Where are we now?

2009-04-27T19:20:00.000-07:00

In Cambodia! But not for long.

So what have we done.... Looks like I missed out all of Australia (again). Mostly we were doing organisey type things. We did manage to get a trip along the Great Ocean Road and into the Grampians in, which was pretty good. Had a week-and-a-bit in Melbourne, went to the Neighbours sets and Ramsey Street (yeah!) and pottered about in Canberra for a bit.

Then we were in Thailand! On the flight over I had 8 under 5s in my immediate vicinity. The stuff of nightmares. But they were all erally well behaved and I even made friends with a Thai baby. Nice.

We decided to join a group to do a tour through Asia as after 7 months we're both utterly bored and tired of organising everything and the tour has taken all the hassle out of travel, which is rather nice. We had a couple of days in Bangkok where we met the group. Reports of riots and violence seem vastly exaggerated, no problems at all. We came to Cambodia about a week ago and have been busy little bees! First off we headed to Siam Reap, the gateway town to Angkor Wat. What a place. I've seen a million asian temples in my time, but the various different temples here just blew me away, particularly Ta Prohm where trees have been reclaiming it back into nature (if you've seen Lara Croft, which I haven't.. it was filmed here).

So.. after Angkor, we headed to Pnomh Penh. Here we visited the Killing Fields and Tuol Sleng prison. Absolutely heartbreaking places, and I think we were all in shock as we walked around looking at the skulls and bones sticking out of the ground and the stories from the guide. So hard to believe it was all so recent. A very sobering day. We also took in the Royal Palace complex, same same =)

Yesterday we arrived in Sihanoukville, which is where we are now. Unfortunately my purse was stolen from my zipped up bag which was next to me the whole time last night by one of the million kids trying to sell us bracelets etc. Bit of a pain, but there wasn't much in it and nothing irreplaceable. Just means that I'll have to blag my way onto a dive boat and that Jimbo has to act as my bank. Poor boy. Travelling with someone makes things like this so much easier to deal with.

Excuse me for the poor quality of this post: it was a long night last night and I'm pretty tired. However, a long day on the beach beckons =)

Till next time

xx

Back in Straya

2009-04-05T19:32:00.000-07:00

Hi!

After a very gentle poking from James' mum I've been reminded that I haven't been keeping this up to date. Whoops. So here I am again.

I left you 4 weeks ago just as I was about to take on 2 weeks of Conservation Volunteers New Zealand (CVNZ). What a marvellous two weeks it was. I was picked up from the rather dire Base hostel in rather lovely Christchurch on Monday morning by a chap called Sam in his minibus. Along with Sam were Bruno (French) and Andy (English). Sitting behind Sam I couldn't help but notice his 'interesting' haircut, but didn't feel like I could comment on it so left it. We drove out of Christchurch and headed over to the West Coast via Arthur's Pass. What a fabulous drive. I was also lucky enough to get my first sight of wild Keas at Arthurs Pass village. They certainly lived up to their 'cheeky' reputation, as one stole something from a group next to us causing a chap to leap from his seat, run across the road, jump onto a bin and haul himself up onto the roof of a bus shelter to rescue whatever it was that was taken. He came back triumphant, but I have the feeling that it doesn't always work out like that!

So anyway, after a few hours we made it over to Punakaiki. Luckily Andy (who had already been there a few weeks) asked Sam about his hair and it turned out that he'd dropped his hair clippers, picked them up, and continued to shave without realising that the guard had slipped off. Hmm. I must say I was glad to find out that the short patch of hair was not the result of brain surgery or similar. Waiting for us at the volunteer house were Laurie (also French) and James (a different one, also English, and according to him, the coolest guy I've ever met. Arrogant). It didn't take long for us to all fall into a routine of taking the mick out of each other =) Clearly we were going to work well together.

The work? In the first week at Punakaiki we ended up doing an assortment of jobs, ranging from building stoat traps, to painting, to planting native shrubs and trees. One of the aims at this project site is to return some land that was previously used as pasture to native bush. I must say it felt good to do something so worthwhile. The project only started about 4 months ago and already a lot has been accomplished. It would have been brilliant to spend more time there but alas one never knows these things until it's too late! Evenings at Punakaiki were spent on the beaches watching fabulous sunsets and then enjoying the food prepared by whoever felt like it. As I love french food, it was a real treat to have Bruno and Laurie there as they both prepared some first class meals. Sam also made us confit on a budget (chicken thighs instead of duck) which turned out to be fabulous.

The weekend was free time, and we decided to venture down to Hokitika to take in the Wild Food festival, something of a phenomenon in New Zealand. Originally intended as a celebration of all the food that can be found in the bush, it's now turned into something of a drunken event and an excuse to dress up with the food somewhat pushed into the background. There was some first class people watching to be had (where else could you see teletubbies mingling with oompa loompahs, while a man wandered past with a giant inflatable dolphin?), alongside the opportunity to try some more obscure tasty treats. Worms, huhu grubs, worm larvae ice cream, testicles.. you name it! I did think that $2 for a worm was a bit steep mind, could've just dug one up myself.

The next week we headed down to Okarito, just north of the glaciers. We stayed in the YHA, acutally a turn of the century schoolhouse, a remnant of the goldrush that took over the town. What a gorgeous little building. Unfortunately, this week wasn't to turn out quite as planned. 100m before arriving at the school (after driving about 5 hours) a lawnmower threw up a stone which smashed the back window of the van into a million pieces. Poor sam then had to try and make arrangements to get it fixed. The nearest place that could do it was 4 hours away... we'd passed through on our way down. Not so good.

The main objective in Okarito was to help clear away the gorse that was ruining a recreation area and also threatening to take over the beach. Not the most pleasant job in the world, and hard work, but quite satisfying to see what a difference a few hours with the loppers could make. We only managed to get a day and a half of work in, as the weather rained us off for a full day, and we had to leave a day early to get the van fixed. Andy, James and I went for a swim in the lagoon on the beach, getting eaten to death by sandflies in the process. Good times =)

Memorable quotes include:

Sam: 'I didn't realise Rudyard Kipling was so racist'
Katy: 'Well, he was brought up in colonial India.. maybe that had something to do with it..'
James: 'His apple pies are insane though!'

James: 'Is tuna made from dolphin?'

and other such amusements...

I haven't much time left on the internet meter and so much more to write about! For another view of the 2 weeks check out the blog of team leader Sam (http://wonderfulworldofsam.blogspot.com/2009/03/non-merci.html).

We were dropped off back in Christchurch and I spent the evening with Bruno and Laurie saying goodbye. I flew to beautiful Queenstown the next day to meet back up with James. What a stunning setting. During our few days there we made friends with a Canadian golf pro called Dan, and a fellow Geordie lass, Rachel. James, Dan and I went up to Deer Park Heights, a private farm which you could drive through and feed lots of different animals (kept me happy) and also the setting for many scenes from Lord of the Rings (kept the boys happy). Absolutely fabulous views from up there. Like true ecology/zoology graduates, the animals couldn't get enough of us and kept trying to break into the car. Donkey teeth look quite scary when pressed up against the window! A particularly perseverant goat took a fancy to James, and wouldn't stop trying to get into the car with him. I'm sure the hire company won't have been too impressed with the goat and donkey spit on the door handles. Oh well.

The 4 of us decided to go the ice bar in Queenstown together, that was pretty cool (pun very much intended =O) and had a great time decked out in the attractive parka jackets provided. None of us had ever been to one before and we all enjoyed the novelty of drinking out of ice glasses.

From there, we drove to Te Anau, a base to explore Milford Sound. We managed to visit the sound when there hadn't been any rain for 7 days (this area gets 7m annually!) which is unheard of. Apparently the waterfalls were mere trickles compared to usual, but they were still pretty impressive. We saw dolphins and plenty of fur seals. The drive there was almost as stunning as the sound itself. More Kea were spotted at the entrance to the Homer tunnel so we amused ourselves taking pictures of them.

From Te Anau, we went down to Invercargill for a couple of days. Not much going on there at all! We took a daytrip down to Bluff, because we'd heard about what a horrible little rundown town it was.. actually it wasn't *that* bad, and we took the obligatory pictures next to the famous AA sign there.

We had a rendezvous with Larnach Castle waiting for us, so we decided to take the Southern Scenic Route along the Catlins Coast to Dunedin. Due to the useless signposting we ended up going the wrong way for over 100km (whoops) before we realised our mistake. Thankfully we didn't have to backtrack too far, and cut across country to join the road, but it did a wee while to get to where we should've been.... We had lunch in the least friendly cafe in the entire world: I think the woman was offended that we dared to come in and try to spend money, and then made our way along. We stopped at one of the beaches along the way as my guidebook said that we had a chance of spotting a rare Hooker's sea lion here. Well.. we certainly did spot one! We headed on down the dune not really paying much attention and suddenly this massive head reared up infront of us. We had nearly walked straight into a fully grown male. He wasn't too happy about it and started lumbering towards us menacingly... hearts beating we ran backwards not taking our eyes off him (they can outpace us over 30m!)and went in separate directions. He decided that James looked more threatening than little old me (who wouldn't?) and so went after him, leaving me free to take photos and laugh! James beat a hasty retreat to the car. Another car pulled up, and the couple inside decided to take a closer look at him. James warned them that he wasn't a very happy sealion, but the man was having none of it. Only when the sealion let out a massive roar did the guy appear to wet his pants and scramble back to the safety of his car. Unfortunately his reatreat was hindered by a rather large puddle which caused his legs to pedal in a cartoon fashion, until he finally beat gravity and vaulted over the bonnet. Most amusing from my viewpoint!

Once the sealion had clambered up the hill and away from the car park we continued on our way, with many stops to admire the stunning views, and one stop to spot yellow eyed penguins coming out of the sea! We managed to see one a fair distance away. This was the first that James had seen, but I'd already seen them with my mum. Beautiful birds they are. One notable stop on the journey was at McCracken's rest, where we had to stop to take the infamous picture. We'd just got all posed with cameras on self timer when a bus pulled into the car park full of smirking faces. We retreated sheepishly as they got out and laughed all the way down the road =)

Well.. the journey to Dunedin took much longer than anticipated and we were pretty hungry when we got there, so we called Larnach to say we'd be arriving at about 10pm and went for some scran (i.e food). After dinner, we jumped in the car and drove along Otago peninsula. We pulled up to the castle gates and James pressed the buzzer. 'Is this my late check in?' asked the receptionist in her very strong kiwi accent.. James, not really thinking, heard 'chicken' (kiwi's have the vowel sounds all mixed up..) and responded with, 'Oh yes, I am your late little chicken!' He turned to me 'Oh, wasn't that so sweet, sounds like something mum would say!' When I told him what she had actually said we both dissolved in fits of giggles and he was so embarrassed he could hardly speak to her face to face! Luckily she hadn't realised his mistake... =) Most amusing.

We were staying in the castle as past of James' birthday present from his parents (thank you both!) and what a fabulous setting it was! I had really enjoyed the short time I spent on Otago peninsula with my parents when they visited and was eager to explore it a bit more. James wanted to visit the Cadbury factory in Dunedin for his birthday, so we had a short tour complete with free chocolate =) In the evening of we had a meal in William Larnach's very own dining. The meal was served 'house party style' and so we were sat with 8 aussies (who says australians don't visit NZ?) Good food and good conversation in a gorgeous room made for a memorable birthday evening for James and we both had a fantastic time, complete with chocolate birthday cake (YEAH!).

Our explorations of the peninsula uncovered loads of wildlife! I took James to the Royal Albatross Centre for his birthday present and we couldn't stop making exclamations about just how big and impressive they are. Incredible birds! This is the only mainland breeding site for Albatross in the entire world and it was such a privilege to view them nesting. We also managed to find many more photogenic Hooker's sealions, some fur seals, some more Yellow eyed penguins and some gorgeous Little Blue penguins. We enjoyed some more good food at 1908 restaurant (one evening I went in with soaking shoes and trousers having got a little too enthusiastic in my photo taking efforts and getting stranded in the sea without realising. Whoops) and generally had a pretty spectacular few days.

We flew back to Wellington, sorted some stuff out, posted some things home... Strange to be there and not see Anne and Ian (they're over here in Oz on hols at the moment). A couple of days ago we flew out here to Sydney.. both of us have struggled to adjust to the noise, people, dirt etc associated with city life after the tranquility of NZ! Yesterday we went to Sydney Aquarium which was just fabulous. A real highlight for me was seeing Platypus underwater and also Dugongs. What beautiful animals they are!

Tonight we fly to Melbourne, hopefully we'll meet up with Dan who we stayed with over xmas and new year. It would be great to catch up with him

Finally.. I've caught up. *exhale*

I hope all is well back home for everyone. Neither of us can believe that we'll be home in under 8 weeks. Crazy. Still, I'm sure we have a lot more adventures in store before then!

xx

From then till now...

2009-03-05T20:04:00.000-08:00

So it seems it's been a bit longer than I realised since I last updated!

Mum and Dad have been and gone! They arrived in Welly in absolutely horrific weather and I was expecting a very grumpy pair of travellers but they were actually amazingly happy - probably just to get off the plane! I had a great two weeks with them, highlights including:

-Swimming with dolphins in Kaikoura
-Watching Yellow-eyed penguins in Otago
-Climbing Franz Josef glacier
-Billy Connolly in Taupo

and many other things. Obviously it was pretty hard to say goodbye to them and to Tomek, but so good to see them all! Another hard goodbye was to Anne and Ian! They've been wonderful hosts for us over here and i was sad to leave their lovely house (and cat) behind!

Unfortunately, for the last few weeks, James has been rather poorly with glandular fever, although he's back up on his feet now. Because he ended up having to miss the North Island we're currently split up! I'm now down in Christchurch, having been kayaking in the Abel Tasman National Park for 3 days, and he's off exploring by himself. On Monday I go to do 2 weeks of conservation volunteering on the west coast of the South Island, and after that's finished I'll meet up with James in Queenstown. Busy busy!

Not much time to do an update so I'm sorry it's all a bit vague!

Katy xxx

P.S

2009-02-09T18:57:00.000-08:00

I forgot to mention...

James had a wee next to the Prime Minister of NZ in Auckland airport. AWESOME!

A bit more of New Zealand

2009-02-09T17:24:00.000-08:00

Hi all!

Eeek I have been lax with updating this blog. Sorry guys!

So, James and I headed up to Auckland with the idea of being there for a week. However, we got there and were both slightly unimpressed with the city so decided to run away the next day! Caught a bus up to the Whangerei so we could go diving (surprise surprise!). We stayed in a nice little caravan park in a wee cabin for two (which was only about $8 a night more than staying in a grotty dorm). The park had a jacuzzi and a pretty nice swimming pool. Lovely.

We booked two days diving at the Poor Knight's Islands. Jacques Cousteau ranked them in his top 10 sites, and they are generally regarded as the best temperate diving in the world. Naturally we were both quite excited to go diving there!

Unfortunately we had a really bad experience on the first day (hmmm diving for me has not been simple recently!). I was given a wetsuit with a 20cm ish hole in the crotch, fins that were too big and kept falling off and also a dodgy tank. I told the dive instructor but she said it wouldn't make a difference. Hmmm. James was given one small fin and one large fin so he had constant foot cramp. I was completely unable to enjoy myself as I was so cold - I oculd feel myself sliding into panic and tears were starting to come. After about 20 minutes underwater I needed to get out. During the dive I was too busy looking at my computer and checking my fins to really look around us. What was probably the most annoying thing is that the dive site itself was featured in the BBCs Blue Planet series and was a really interesting place. Gutted! So.. I wasn't going to to the 2nd dive, however they swapped my dodgy suit for a one too big. Obviously it still wasn't a good fit but it was better.

So.. we weren't going to go back the next day and called to try and cancel. The staff were really apologetic and convinced us to give it another go. When we arrived it was obvious that the skipper of our boat had given them all a real rollicking as they were treading on eggshells around us and gave us brand new kit! Suffice to say the diving was infinitely better, and we really enjoyed it. Such a shame that the first day was such a disaster, there was no need for it whatsoever.

Anyway, we've made a decision not to go diving for a while - my last 10 or so dives have all been problematic and i've been quite put off! So.. a rest is required!

We headed back to Auckland, and James felt a bit iffy, so off I went canyoning without him. Basically this was glorified gill scrambling =) A few abseils and jumps along the way. Absolutely beautiful scenery and a great place for a day like this.

And then it was the 1st of February - the arrival of Tomek! We headed to Auckland airport to pick him up. The plan was to get him and then jump straight on a bus to head up north to join our tour bus. However, the plane was over an hour late. Shouldn't have been a problem but there was a huge backlog of people trying to clear customs. After a couple of hours it was clear that we wouldn't make it, so I rearranged everything for the next day. Then people started filtering through and no Tomek. Another 30mins, still no Tomek. Eventually he appeared, but without any luggage - it had been left in Melbourne! Not easy for him after almost 40 hours of travel to try and sort this out, but he managed to get $90 out of them to buy some basics. He decided that we should just go and join the tour because otherwise he could miss a load of things waiting for it to turn up.

After a night in Auckland we were up early to head up to the Bay of Islands and on to join the Flying Kiwi bus. The first day was very relaxed and mostly spent in a swimming pool! It was nice that Tomek was able to recover from the flight like this!

We did loads of things in the following week - sandboarding, cultural show, sea kayaking around the Coromandel peninsula (beautiful!), hot springs, mud pools, Rotorua, Lake Taupo... In Taupo I noticed a familiar face when I looked out of the bus window, and jumped out to see a friend from home! Julie is travelling around with her friend for 6 weeks! I've previously been on a holiday with her to France, and she's very friendly with my Mum and with Nick and Sue. Completely bizarre to bump into her and really nice to see someone I know! Probably the only other person to have every escaped Haltwhistle too...

However, one of my favourite parts of the week was the Tongariro crossing. This was a beautiful walk through some volcanos (the setting for Mount Doom in LOTR). It was ridiculously hot though, with no cover so it was hard work!

Agh I'm running out of steam for writing. Currently we're back in Wellington waiting for my parents to arrive on Thursday. The weather is a bit grey and cloudy, but nothing to compare with you guys!

Katy xx

Wellington again!

2009-01-21T13:45:00.000-08:00

Hi all!

Sorry it's been a while! So... what've we been up to. Let's see if I can remember.

We moved into Anne and Ian's house as mentioned. They're fantastic, and completely spoiling us! So much so that they might never get rid of us.

We spent a few more days in Wellington. I took James to his first ever karate class. It was the first one back for the club after xmas and so they decided to make it a real killer. The boy done good - we must have done over 3000 punches/blocks at the start interspersed with sit ups/push ups etc and then some fighting at the end and he didn't get put off at all. So we'll probably be going back again tonight. On Saturday, Anne very kindly took us for a drive around Wellington and up to some viewpoints and then bought us a lovely breakfast. See... we're being spoilt rotten... so we got our bearings and saw lots of gorgeous views of the city.

On Sunday we headed over to the South Island to go and stay in the Bach (wooden house type thing) with Ian, Anne's husband, who had been there for the last month or so. The scenery there was absolutely stunning, and it was nice just to sit and take it all in without having to do anything! At Ian't suggestion we went out diving for a day. The water was a chilly 16 degrees and we were both wearing semi-dry suits, with a full hood and gloves. It made us look like US navy seals! The suits were pretty much brand new, so no leaks (YES!) and we were snug in the water. As we'd both anticipated freezing to death this was a welcome surprise! Ian came along with us on the boat, and at one point was the only man on deck, prompting him to ring Anne and tell her that he was skipper! We had a dive in a marine reserve, teeming with curious Blue Cod that came and nibbled our fingers, and another dive on the wreck of the Koi. Good fun. We're hoping to go back and dive the wreck of the Mikhail Lermentov in the near future.

What else... We went into Blenheim for a look around. Ummm can't remember... Came back with Ian to Wellington yesterday. Currently we're looking at ways to get up to Auckland and when we should go so we can meet Tomek on the 1st. Hope all is well at home!

Oh yeah.. Happy (belated) birthday Dan! And HI Gran!

Katy xx

Wellington, New Zealand

2009-01-09T00:46:00.000-08:00

Hello!

So we're in Wellington now. I can't really remember what we did in our last few days in Sydney, apart from climb the Harbour Bridge! That was pretty memorable. As you can see from the picture we got to wear a really sexy jumpsuit for the experience. High fashion indeed. The climb we did is a new one called the Discovery Climb. Basically you walk/climb up the lower arch until you hit the road, and then get onto the upper arch to climb to the top for the obligatory cheesy photo =) Definitely hairy at times. I can't imagine what it would've been like actually working on building it and not being roped on. We both had a fantastic time wandering around up there with our roommate Dan.

... and then we left Oz! Sob! However, here we are in Wellington and absolutely loving it. Completely different from Oz. Colder for a start (we've both just bought hoodies, and it seems the old board shorts might be remaining in our bags for a while!), but that's probably because it's so windy here! Both loving the city, it's fantastic just to wander around in and people watch. We haven't done too much apart from that yet, although we spent a wonderful few hours in the Te Papa museum getting very excited about the only Colossal Squid specimen on display in the world. Mmm cephalopod-tastic!

I've been in touch with a local Goju-Ryu karate club and am off to train with the Chief Instructor for NZ in a special dan grade class on Sunday which should be good. 4 months of doing nothing might hinder my fitness somewhat but I'm looking forward to it! I've also sent an email to the president of the NZ Northumbrian Pipers Society (such a thing does indeed exist!) but I haven't heard back yet so we'll see if anything comes of that. I'm sure that would completely melt my brain =)

We're not entirely sure of our plans past this next week or so. We're getting prepared for the arrival of Tomek on 31st and then my parents two weeks later, so plans are being made to fit around that. For the moment we're happy hanging out here. At the moment it looks like we'll be moving into Lisa's flat on Tuesday (thank you!) with the help of her wonderful mum Anne (thank you!) and then we'll take it from there.

Hope the weather is picking up at home!

Katy x

New Year Photos!

2009-01-02T16:17:00.000-08:00

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

Christmas and New Year!

2009-01-01T23:41:00.000-08:00

Hello all in 2009!

So we're getting towards the end of our stay in Sydney! I wish I'd been able to update this earlier as I can't remember what we've been up to. Seeing as none of you know though I could make it up and you'd be none the wiser. Hmmm.

Anyway. Christmas day. We woke up to a fairly overcast day. All of us from the dorm decided that a swim in the sea would be a good start to the day. THe water, however, was absolutely freezing so we beat a hasty retreat to the hostel to warm up. There was a bit of lunch provided by the hostel and so we sat and ate by the beach as the weather got steadily hotter. Many drinks were had (!) and we sat there chatting until 11pm when the police cleared the area. The atmosphere was fantastic - so many people on the beach, both tourists and locals, and there was no hassle at all.

The day was marred slightly at about 1am when a drunk lad threw himself accidentally from the 3rd floor balcony of our hostel. He was very lucky to land on a tin roof on the floor below, but he still fell a good 15m. James ended up doing the first aid, which can't have been fun, and we were all very proud of him for getting on with it and taking charge. The lad has ended up in hospital with severe internal damage. What a nice Christmas!

On boxing day we went to watch the start of the Sydney - Hobart yacht race leaving Sydney harbour - very cool.

On the 27th I was lucky enough to be taken for a wonderful dinner courtesy of James' parents (THANK YOU!) at Wildfire. We were seated looking directly at the Opera House, which was beautifully lit up. Stunning food and we both laughed like idiots the whole night. Fantastic =)

Hmmm losing detail as I run out of time! New Years Eve was a day and a half. We went to Cremorne Point at 11am to make sure we had a spot to view the fireworks from. It was completely manic with people getting horribly possessive over every square inch of space. The day passed pretty quickly. Thankfully we managed to get a good view of the fireworks and they were absolutely spectacular. Definitely worth the wait! I wish I could get some photos up, but these computers are rubbish and I can't. Promise I will soon though!

The journey back took up about 3.5 hours. We were really unlucky... got a broken bus, then a broken train, then had a big wait for our final bus. People who left 2 hours later than us got back to the hostel first! However we had an unforgettable night so no complaints!

Ok... the time is going. Had a grand day at Taronga Zoo with Jimbo today. We're off to New Zealand on the 5th. Still a few bits and bobs to do here.

Happy New Year to all our readers.. (and much love to Gran, who I know reads the blog avidly!).

xxx

Coogee Beach, Sydney!

2008-12-22T20:17:00.000-08:00

So. We made it! Here we are in Sydney!

Where did I leave you all? South West Rocks? I think so. Well, after leaving there, we headed south and ended up spending a night in Harrington. NOt much there really, but quite pretty. THe next day we headed to Myall Lake National Park, which was really beautiful. We were allowed to make a fire there, and after being frustrated on Fraser Island, we decided to make a little one just because we could =) A nice place to have lunch! Headed into the Hunter Valley and arrived in Cessnock late in the afternoon. Booked a tour and headed to bed.

The following day was wine tour day =) With over 200 vineyards there was a lot of choice. We went to 5, tasting up to 15 wines and liquers at each. We started drinking at about 9.30am (killer) and if I'm honest I was pretty tiddly by lunchtime! The temperature was well into the 30s which made it prtty hard going. B the end of the day we were both wrecked but had a fantastic time. There were only 4 of us on the tour, and the other 2 were an elderly couple so it was an interesting day!

After the Hunter Valley we drove into the Blue Mountains (via the suburbs of Sydney by mistake, oops), taking us approx. 8 hours to drive 150 miles. Not good. We spent 3 days in the mountains and did a couple of walks. Beautiful scenery.

Yesterday we handed Betty in. We've added 6,445km (or 4005 miles) to her clock in the 60 days we had her. We're now in a hostel in Coogee. Very basic but nice to have a real bed and showers and toilets available whenever we want!

Excuse this rubbish post but we had a late night last night at a foam party. Quite a change from Betty! If I don't write again before xmas, I hope all our faithful readers (!) have a wonderful time.

Katy x

Diving at SW Rocks

2008-12-14T21:12:00.000-08:00

HI all!

Just a quick one about diving!

We managed to get out yesterday - beautiful weather (the first sunshine for a week or so) and we were both very excited about this dive. Got kitted up and jumped into the water which was a bone chilling 19 degrees. Eek! That's cold! Descended down and headed around a rock face. The leader Larry signalled for us to let some air out of the BCD so that we stayed close to the bottom and we crawled over the top of a big rock, straight into a gulley called the aquarium.

Neither of us could believe our eyes, we were in the middle of over 30 grey nurse sharks, mostly over 2.5m long! Although they look pretty fierce they were very calm and were as interested in looking at us as we were in looking at them. What an experience! There were also turtles and rays in amongst the sharks. It was too much to take in! We spent about 46mins down there before we came up. One hour on the top (and a quick warm up!) and we were back in. This time we were to dive through an underwater cave approximately 100m long. The cave was pitch black in the middle and filled with large crayfish and black cod. The exit to the tunnel was the end of the shark gulley so again we sat and watched them. Wonderful. My exit from the water wasn't so good this time: problems with my mask meant that it kept flooding and so in the end I gave up and closed my eyes, holding onto James as we ascended. Really pretty scary and not a nice experience. Thankfully it only happened on the safety stop, it would have been horrific in the cave!

We both agreed that it was so good we had to do it again, so headed out this morning. Very different conditions - lots of swell and surge which made for difficult diving. Fish rock was again full of sharks, but we couldn't get into the cave because of the surge. The staff decided that it was getting worse so we headed to Green Island for our second dive. Dropped down to a nice sandy bottom at about 16m and swam around a bit. Saw big Bull rays, octopus and other things. Lots of wobbegongs again, very nice. Bit of a drama coming up when a guy came over to me and signalled out of air, so I gave him my spare regulator and we ascended together. Unfortunately he hadn't emptied his BCD so we fair rocketed up the last 6m or so. NOt the best way to do it but everyone was ok so no worries! I'm definitely getting a broad range of experiences at the moment!

So what now? We're going to get into Betty and see where we end up =)

Love to all!

Katy x

South West Rocks...

2008-12-12T20:52:00.000-08:00

I believe I left you all in Byron Bay, so that's where I'll pick up.

We didn't get up to too much in Byron - it was nice to finally pause and just relax. The weather was also pretty rubbish for a lot of the time we were there - lots of thunderstorms so we had to hide away quite a bit. We managed to get out for a surfing lesson one day which was very cool. Nice to get a reminder of how to do it, and I was even made to surf a pretty big wave. I felt pretty high up - can't wait to do more!

WE also managed to get out for a platypus tour (which involved a 4.30am start!). We were really lucky to see 3 and at one point one was less than 3m away from us. What an experience! A definite highlight for me. On the way back to the park we also saw a carpet python and a koala.

We left Byron and headed to Nimbin - an old hippy town where we were offered copious amounts of drugs, and then headed south to South West Rocks. After about 7-8 hours in Betty we were more than sick of her when we pulled up here! Had a nice chinese meal and slept on the main street. Classy.

Yesterday we had a bit of an explore - went the wrong way when suddenly James shouted, "Dolphin!" NOt entirely sure what he was on about as we were next to a small creek I asked him what he was on about, but sure enough there were 2 bottlenose dolphin in the river! We followed them for a good 15-20 minutes and they came very very close to us. We were jumping about like little idiots and running along the riverbank, not looking where we were going. Suddenly James stopped and pushed me backwards; we had been about 50cm from stepping on a very large snake! The snake (which we've been reliably informed was a red-bellied black snake) came straight at us and we ran away pretty quickly. We suddenly felt less comfortable about running around so beat a quick retreat to Betty!

The rest of the day we spent driving around and seein the sights. This morning we were supposed to go out diving, but poor weather meant it was cancelled. It's looking better now so fingers crossed for the morning! Looks like it could be one of the best dives yet so I'm feeling excited!

Hope all is well at home.

Katy x

... continued

2008-12-06T14:17:00.000-08:00

Morning/Evening!

Packed up and headed for the ferry, with James in the driving seat. We were in a Toyota Landcruiser 4x4 with space for 3 in the front and 8 in the back. Landed on the island and headed for Central Station for a look about. Not much there so straight onto Lake Birrabeen which was absolutely beautiful. The water was stunningly clean and refreshing, with immaculate white sands on the shores. We left there all too soon and headed to another lake, can't remember the name, but it wasn't as good! Drove across the island to the beach and pitched our tents for the night. After some food we ended up having a few drinks and generally being a bit silly. It was so tempting to get into the sea but we'd been warned a million times that we would be eaten by tiger sharks so we stayed well away! There were loads of dingos wandering around too. One girl who fell asleep on the beach awoke to one licking her face. Nice.

Anyway, the next morning the guys walked out to Lake Wabby (I missed this cos I didn't hear them go), came back, and then we all jumped into the truck and headed up north to Indian head. I was driving along the beach for the first 40mins or so. Definitely a bit tricky at high tide with no hard, wet sand to drive on but good fun. Took a couple of hours to get up there. Climbed up the rocks and looked out to sea for aforementioned sharks - no luck there but plenty of turtles to be seen. Around up to champagne pools, disappointing, and then back down past the Maheno shipwreck and a freshwater creek to the same campsite. Slightly less drunken evening =)

Last day on Fraser saw us head up to a viewpoint of Lake Wabby and then on to Lake MacKenzie. This is the lake that everyone raves about, but I honestly preferred Birrabeen as it was pretty similar but far less crowded. Spent a good couple of hours there and then back over to the mainland. Fraser was a stunning island but I reckon you need more than a couple of days to have a proper explore! The structure of our tour was too rigid to allow us to do this - most of the group were disappointed with that as we all purposely chose a self drive tour to allow us to see a bit more. Somewhere to return to in the future! Also, I had an eye infection all weekend which was less than fun when there was nowhere to wash and we were camping on the beach. Yum.

After Fraser we spent the night in Hervey Bay then drove down to Noosa, giving a lift to Mike from Holland who was part of our group. Turned out to be a pretty boring place, but had a look around the shops and bought some new shorts to replace some that were too beaten up from Fraser to bother rescuing and a rash vest. Tried to find some nightlife with Mike, but failed miserably so retired to Betty quite early.

We left for Mooloolaba the next morning to meet up with Bruce for a final time. Spent a chilled day wandering around and watching the surfers from the balcony of the surf club. Up early the next day to get to a dive shop. Yep, we finally managed to get the 3 of us together for a dive! This dive would the HMAS Brisbane, a battleship sunk 3 yrs ago after being made diver friendly. We were the only guests on the boat which was really cool - the day before they'd taken out 3 boats! A short 15min boat ride got us there and we all got kitted up. I was wearing a 7mm wetsuit because the water was a rather chilly 21 degrees. 7 minutes into the dive and at about 20m underwater, there was a loud BANG. Looked around and checked that everyone was ok. Then I heard a loud bubbling. Everyone still ok. Brain clicks on and I realise therefore that the air must be coming from me. What a genius! James came over to me, grabbed hold of me and handed me his spare regulator. Turns out the low pressure inflator hose on my BCD had burst! Luckily I was in the company of 3 instructors and Bruce, a very experienced divemaster so I couldn't have been in better hands. One of the dive guides came over and I switched to his regulator, but then he realised he didn't have a spare for himself (naughty!) and had to grab the spare from the other guide. After a lot of switching of regulators, dive guide Michelle took hold of me and dragged me up to the surface. A quick change of gear and a many exclamations of, "I've never seen anything like that before!" I was back in the water to finish the orientation of the wreck. No worries!

We regrouped on the boat and had an hour on the surface. Man it was cold. Hopped back in and this time we were able to penetrate the wreck.It was absolutely incredible. We went through tiny escape hatches and tunnels, into the captains quarters, boiler rooms... saw the KILL and SURVIVE buttons... very cool. Not much room to manoeuvre at all and pretty challenging. As it was only 3 years old there wasn't too much in the way of life there - lots of little fish and the startings of a reef. Saw some octopi and lionfish. In about 20 years it will be an amazing site - definitely one to revisit! I must say that after the second dive I had a bit of a delayed stress reaction but it was all ok. Few hugs and all was sorted!

Said goodbye to Bruce for the final time - he's off to sea for 4 months now, travelling to Antactica and the Galapagos and drove off to Moffat Beach. Spent a restless night in Betty due to a massive thunderstorm...

Next day we headed to Australia Zoo, home of the late Steve Irwin. Saw lots of animals, fed an elephant, stroked a koala... came away with the feeling that they were putting across a really good message to the Aussie people about protecting their native wildlife. Another thunderstrom cut our visit short. Drove up into the glass mountains national park with the hope of some good views in the morning, but the cloud didn't lift.

Bypassed Brisbane and headed straight for Surfer's Paradise. Turned out to be a characterless concrete jungle so we spent about 2 hours there before running away. I managed to buy a bikini to replace one that was stolen from Koala's in Hervey Bay so at least we accomplished something! Drove down to Byron Bay, and that's where we are now!

Bit of an epic there. Hopefully I'll keep on top of it a bit more in the future!

So... where were we?

2008-12-05T21:48:00.000-08:00

Hi all!

So.. it's been a while. From where I left off..

We went diving the next day in the Whitsunday islands. Nothing too spectacular but nice to have an easy dive with no current threatening to rip my limbs off. Went for a nice goodbye meal with Wayne and Jane in the evening. Packed up our flat and Betty in the morning and off we went!

6/7 hours down the road to Emu park. It was like Yungaburra - deserted and weird. We managed to get shouted at by the only charvas in all of Australia buzzing around in a red corsa so that made me feel like I was back in Halty! The next day we headed down to Bundaberg. I was feeling pretty ill so had a nap in Betty while James went for a tour of the rum factory. WEnt for a chinese and were hassled out of there by 8pm. We've noticed this in a few places - if you're eating after about 8.30 the staff start to clean up around you, turning off lights and generally employing all the tactics I used to use in the Angel to throw people out at closing time. It's very strange.

Anyway, we hopped into Betty to try and fing somewhere to sleep. After much meandering we came across the Mon Repos Turtle Rookery (I'd read about it in the guidebook, but there were no signs and we'd given up hope) at about 9pm. The tours had left at 7pm, but after sweet talking the ladies in the gift shop they radioed some of the staff who told us to come down as a turtle had just climbed up the beach. We wandered down to the beach to be met by the guy in charge of all the research and he took us over to 2 volunteers. The turtle was a large female Loggerhead and we were fortunate enough to watch her dig a hole, lay her eggs and then bury them over. Even better, we weren't part of the 40 strong group of tourists we passed on the way there. A fantastic experience.

THe next day we drove down to Hervey Bay to meet our group for the Fraser Island tour - the pair of us and 7 other guys! Definitely a bit too much testosterone in the air! Absolute farce with the organisers (Koala) and I definitely do not recommend them. However, I'll just start ranting if I go on about it and I don't have much time... Infact, it looks like I'll have to cut this short as I need to get back to Betty before the parking meter runs out but I'll finish it off tomorrow!

Katy x

Mike Ball..finally

2008-11-24T00:25:00.000-08:00

Okey dokey!

Well i guess its time i (James) finally got round to writing about our week's expedition on the "Mike Ball Dive Expeditions" live-a-board which we did 6 weeks ago. I'm rubbish at this writing business :D

After settling into a sailors life the first night (champagne, cheese & wine, fruit, 3 course meal, light alcoholic beverages...erm, thats a sailors life right?), we were up and diving the next morning after a relaxed full english breakfast (the food was the best bit on this boat, forget the diving!).

That day we did 4 dives all with nearly full coral cover (particularly Acropora palmata for those interested), plenty of Giant Clams of all colours, puffer fish and large barracuda. Visability was good, the dive operation was a well oiled machine with an 'open deck' which allowed you to dive as much or as little as you wanted.

We didnt manage to get out to Osprey reef as, despite that October was supposed to the calmest month, we were looking at the prospect of +30knot winds at an exposed reef 90miles off the coast. So we stayed protected inside the GBR.

Katy successfully completed her Enriched Air (Nitrox) course so we could spend longer underwater 'cus we just couldnt get enough when we were down there. We both also completed our Underwater Naturalist courses with an awsome/mental/mildly schizophrenic/slightly unbalanced chap called Laurence we seemed to know more about the marine life than the whole of Blue Planet and more.

Essentially, we dived a whole load of other awsome sites, those particularly worth mentioning include Acropolis - the whole site was 100% covered with table coral of many different colours; Code Hole - which is home to the giant Potato Cods (~2m), a few easily viewed white tip reef sharks and considerable current amongst other things; Steve's Bommie - with all the different types of anemone fish in one place, lion and scropion leaf fish, stone fish and the sweetest little baby white tip i've ever seen, can't have been more than 2ft and looked rather weary of a 2m nemo shoving its ugly face next to it.

There were also many other dive sites and some cool night dives as well, with pleatny of cuttlefish (i love cuttlefish, incredible creatures!!), nudibranchs, pygmy sea horses, white tip & black tip and grey reef sharks, lobsters, giant puffer fish and some crazy little Flame File Shells which look like they are conducting electricity.

We also met some great people on board, passangers and crew alike, ate delicious food everyday and had a lot of fun.

S.S Yongala

2008-11-22T18:57:00.000-08:00

Hi!

I hope everyone at home is well. So many people have been complaining about the cold and snow via facebook. My head gets confused whenever I realise that it's November and I'm sitting in 33 degree heat. Hmmm.

Anyway, I'll stop annoying you all =) 2 days ago we drove back up to Ayr so that we could dive the S.S Yongala. I didn't like Ayr the first time, and this visit compounded my dislike of the place. We went to a pub and ordered some food, which was given to some Japanese people. When we asked where our food was they got really angry and grudgingly agreed to actually feed us, however they had run out of what we'd ordered. Grrr. Keeping the 2 of us away from food when we're hungry really isn't a good idea. Luckily they survived to tell the tale. While we were eating I was convinced this guy was staring at me, but I wasn't sure if it was paranoia. I went to the toilet and as I came out he was standing outside the door and told me that he wished he'd been in there with me. Charming. I mumbled something and we scarpered. Nice place. I think the gene pool is perhaps a little shallow there.

We went to see Quantum of Solace (James had been particularly excited about this) but were both a bit disappointed. Well.. at least we got to see some exciting flashy action. We parked Betty up in the middle of the road as we had last time. I went to the public loos to brush my teeth, and was followed in by some drunk aboriginal teenagers who were banging on the doors and shouting at me. Legged it back to Betty and spent a very hot and restless night. I don't think we'll be going there again!

We set off in the morning for Alva Beach to get to the dive shop. There was a really strong wind and we were worried that it would be called off, but they decided it would be ok and we got into the boat in the early afternoon. A very rough journey of 40ish minutes got us to the dive site. Immediately it was obvious it wasn't going to be easy, with a really strong current and 2-3m swells. As soon as we got in the water I realised these would be the most challenging dives I've done. We descended down the line (hanging on for grim death otherwise we'd end up in New Zealand) and made our was down to the wreck at about 25m. The life on the wreck was incredible, everything seemed to be much bigger than on the reefs I've dived and the sheer amount of fish was overwhelming. To begin with we swam into the current, which I found really difficult. At one point I realised that I was swimming as hard as I possibly could and was making no headway. I managed to grab James and flail around to signal that, so we split off and started to head back. The journey back to the stern of the wreck was rather easier as you can imagine and it was the fastest drift dive I've ever done! Just behind us as we reached the line was a 3m Bull shark. Eek! As we were doing our safety stops on the line an eagle ray came up just below us and hovered for a few minutes. We were both really excited to see it - I've never seen one before and it was beautiful! We both returned to the boat with 30Bar of air left and feeling pretty tired.

After a one hour surface interval we were back in the water. Again the dive was much the same in terms of current. This time we saw a huge Loggerhead turtle (and many smaller ones) and several olive sea snakes. This time when we were doing our safety stops, two absolutely enormous Marbled rays came gliding around. I would the larger of them to have been pushing 3m across, but it's hard to tell. Incredible. Another tiring haul along the rope brought us back up on the boat. I could hardly move when I got back on the boat.

The Yongala was a steamship that sunk in a cyclone in 1911. She was built in Newcastle (hurray!) and then taken to Australia. If you're interested in reading about the history of the wreck it's all on the website that I put in the last blog.

The journey home was definitely one to remember. The swells had grown in size and it was getting dark. We were travelling in a metal boat with a large fuel tank and several tanks of both compressed oxygen and air. Directly into a raging lightning storm. Fantastic! As you can tell we made it back to shore alive by about 8pm. We made our way back to Airlie in Betty and collapsed into bed.

Today James has headed to Whitehaven beach to check it our for himself while I'm recovering. My hands and shoulders are really sore from hauling myself on the rope and because of an old injury to my left elbow, that has swollen up a bit. However, there's no way I would've missed those dives so no complaints here! Tomorrow we're off for some diving here, and then on Tuesday we're finally saying goodbye to Airlie and heading on down the coast. We'll be doing a 4x4 jeep safari on Fraser island next weekend which we're both looking forward to.

Sorry for the length of this one! I hope that you all get a bit of warmth soon!

Katy x

The end of an era?

2008-11-18T23:40:00.000-08:00

So.. we're coming to end of our stay at Airlie! Some good news first... James is now a fully qualified PADI Instructor! After 2 weeks of hard work and 2 days of exams the boy has passed and I'm very proud of him =)

What's next? Hopefully we'll be heading up to Ayr to dive the Yongala (http://www.yongaladive.com.au/) which will be amazing, but is somewhat weather dependent as the wreck is completely unprotected. We're also hoping to possibly go out on a dive boat for a few days around here. After that we'll be heading south to Fraser Island for a few days.

I haven't been up to much since I last updated. Bruce came visiting on Sunday (driving 15 hours up from Brisbane!). We went on a bit of an adventure on Monday around the local area, and then on Tuesday we went over to Whitehaven beach to chill out for the day while James was doing a first aid course. The beach itself has a high content of silica in the sand so squeaks when you walk on it (but not as loudly as the beaches in Salvador). It was absolutely perfect weather for it too. Lucky me!

Bruce left this morning to head up to Cairns for work. James finished his first aid course today and we're just getting our stuff together to get back on the road with Betty in the next few days.

Much love to all at home!

Katy x

Airlie Beach

2008-11-12T23:49:00.000-08:00

Hi all!

Just a quick update to confirm that we're alive. I haven't been up to much apart from reading and swimming in my private pool. It's a hard life really. Looks like we're going for a meal with our neighbours Wayne and Jane (!) this evening at the Hog's Breath Cafe. A relief at last from my cooking =)

Katy x

Airlie Beach

2008-11-02T22:37:00.001-08:00

Hi! So... here we are in Airlie Beach, our home for at least the next 2 weeks.

The story since we last spoke. We met up with Chiara (James' italian friend) in the afternoon and just hung around in Cairns. A really nice girl with some pretty funny expressions. They realised that they'd only ever met each other in the southern hemisphere, despite both living in Europe. We camped outside Mike Ball Dive Expeditions on Lake Street in Cairns, a very classy place to stay with public toilets a mere wander away.

We left in the morning and headed up to Kuranda. Most people go up there via a cablecar but we're cheap so we drove there. We wandered around for a little while and had lunch. Betty made a mess all over the carpark so we drove away quickly to avoid embarrassment. Headed down to Mareeba and on my suggestion made our way to the wetlands. The road there was unsealed, and was not all that good for poor old Betty, but we persevered and got there. Well worth it in the end. An absolutely stunning reserve and completely unexpected in the middle of the scrub surrounding it. Lots of birdlife and a crazy little frog.

After we were done there we headed down to Yungaburra. What an odd place. Imagine Haltwhistle in the middle of nowhere and then add some more inbreeding. We parked up at the Bruce Jones Market Place carpark and stayed there for the night. While I was on the phone to mum to find out about her broken collarbone (poor mum) I saw a tree kangaroo climbing about on a telegraph pole. Ace =) We went to the pub and were the only 2 people there. The barman was slowly getting drunk in the corner and at first seemed to resent us for entering. We had one drink and scarpered!

The next morning we headed to Millaa Millaa falls - stunning - and then drove the waterfall circuit around there. James hurt his ankle and it was a bit touch and go for a minute but thankfully it was ok, so no worries. Ruined his chance for a swim though which was a real shame.
We took the decision to head to Undara lava tubes which was a bit of a mission through the tablelands and into the outback. It wasn't helped by the fact that we took the wrong road for 42km.... meaning a backtrack of 42km. Whoops. This wouldn't normally have been a problem except it meant that we ended up driving at dusk. This is when the kangaroos, emus, cattle, wild pigs and other large creatures become active and hang out on the roads. Not something you want to hit, and we'd seen enough roadkill to know that there were a LOT of animals out here. Luckily we saw very little and made it there in one piece.

We were up early in the morning to see the lava tubes which were bigger than any I'd seen in other places. Pretty amazing structures. We had a long drive to Mission Beach (where James spent 5 weeks before I arrived) and camped out there next to the beach. I created a gourmet meal on bangers and mash, widening James' culinary experiences considerably, and we both promptly fell asleep. So much for the big night out!

Another trip to a waterfall followed - Wallaman falls, the highest in Australia. Again, another long drive to get there but it was beautiful. Unfortunately the marsh flies were too much for us and after many expressions of annoyance (such as 'gosh, these flies are annoying') we were forced away. Drove all the way to Ayr and spent a night parked up on the street. We went to the cinema (civilisation!) and watched a pretty stupid film called Step brothers.

Yesterday we made our way down the coast to Airlie, with a stop at a wonderful beach in Bowen on the way. We're living in a little flat next to the centre where James is doing his course. There's only one or two cockroaches =) It's nice to have some space to stretch out. I'm going to be spending a lot of time by the lagoon reading over the next 2 weeks....

Back in Cairns... again

2008-10-27T23:08:00.000-07:00

Ok... now we're back in Caaaaaaairns and Betty is all fixed up with a new battery and charger. I'm glad that we were right and that there was something wrong with her. The hire company were massively reluctant to believe us on the phone and so we had to drive back here to show them that things were not as they should be. After about an hours work she was ready for us.

It has occured to me that I haven't written anything about the week on the liveaboard. I'd love to put some pics up on here but James is currently busy sorting his pics out and they're all on his camera.

We rocked up to the boat at about 6pm on a Thursday evening to be greeted by a champagne reception. We met all the other guests and the crew. We were the youngest on board for the first part of the week but it was no problem. After a very bumpy night we made our way to the first dive site and were in the water at very early o' clock. The boat operated an open deck policy, which meant that you could pretty much dive when you wanted, up to 5 dives a day. I had to have an orientation dive just to prove that I'm not completely useless in the water as it had been over a year since I'd dived. After that dive we were able to buddy up and do as we liked at each dive site. This was far preferable to following a dive leader and being in a big group crowded around a reef and scaring everything away.

I won't bore you with the details of every dive (I'm sure James has that stored up for the future) but some highlights for me were seeing my first sharks (whitetip reef sharks and a grey reef shark), lots of cuttlefish, the Potato Cod at Cod Hole (particularly during the night dive when they followed the light of my torch to hunt with) and many other things. While on board I did the Nitrox speciality course which allowed me to use a different blend of gas with a much higher oxygen content. This made multiple dives far less tiring than if I'd been using air. We both did the Naturalist speciality course with the illustrious Laurence Buckingham, a man not quite of this planet. We weren't going to bother with it but after chatting to him we felt we had to. The man is a real gold mine of information, and we both learned a lot from him.

The week was split into two parts, with some members of the group leaving halfway through to be replaced by newcomers. We met some fantastic people on the boat, both crew and guests. Anyway, I'll leave this topic for James to talk about as it really is his forte and it seems like I haven't shut up yet =)

We should be heading out to the Atherton tablelands and that area tomorrow. Hopefully we'll be meeting up with a girl that James met on one of his Operation Wallacea expeditions later today so that'll be cool. We have to be in Airlie beach by Nov 3rd so that James can prepare for his diving instructors course. We'll be there for about a month in total, and I'm thinking of ways to pass the time as he'll be pretty busy all that time.

Stay in touch!

Katy x

Cape Tribulation

2008-10-26T22:35:00.000-07:00

Hey all!

After leaving Cairns in our lovely camper Betty, we made our way up to Port Douglas and stocked up on supplies. Chilled out on the beach for a while and then headed to the Mossman gorge. We timed it perfectly and ended up having the place to ourselves. The water was pretty cold but really refreshing. We camped there for a night as I pretty much passed out at 7.30 pm and slept through until about 9.30 =) Headed up to Daintree, realised there was literally nothing there, turned around, came back and went into a zoo we passed on the way. I had a great time feeding the kangaroos and wallabys. James, however, caught the attention of one of the males who got a bit overexcited by his presence and wanted a fight, jumping up and headbutting his one day old camera lens. Whoops.

Lenses intact we escaped and made our way over the river crossing and up to Cape Tribulation. There's pretty much nothing here but it's beautiful. The scenery on the drive up was gorgeous, although Betty doesn't like being thrown around corners very much. Last night we went on a night walk in the rainforest and found a tarantula, 3 Boyd's Forest Dragons, a tree frog and some other stuff.

So far today we have been sea kayaking (is it a wise idea for me to be on the sea here with this surname?) which was fantastic. The wind was around 25 knots around the headland and we were the only pair in the group who could get round - tremendous fun, if a bit wet. Came back, had lunch, then went canopy surfing in the rainforest. Basically we were in harnesses and zipped about on wires. Good fun.

So that's where we are now. Looks like we might have to head back into Cairns tomorrow as we think Betty's battery is on the blink. Hmmm.

K x

Diving

2008-10-23T17:37:00.000-07:00

Hey all...

Back from our very exciting week on a liveaboard with MIKE BALL dive expeditions. It was super awesome, except strong currents prevented us getting to Osprey Reef which was a bit of a kicker. We had some really brilliant dives and I saw my first sharks. I made friends with an Aussie called Bruce - we're thinking about keeping him as a pet.

Currently waiting for the camper to turn up so I have to go. I'll write a proper one later.

Katy x

Uluru, Kata-Tjuta and King's Canyon...

2008-10-15T17:37:00.000-07:00

... were fantastic! Don't have much time to write but I'll do my best.

Flew into Alice Springs. Turns out the Masters Games is being held there for the next 2 weeks - massive competition for lots of sports with teams from all over Oz. All participants must be over 35. This turned out to be really brilliant for us, because although the rooms were twice the price they normally would be, all the sites were more or less empty because there was no space in the town for tourists.

First day - up at 5am to be picked up and taken to Uluru. We were in a group of 10 (inc. guide) - 2 Swiss, 2 Germans, 1 Finn, 1 Korean, 2 Oz and us. GOt to Uluru and did the base walk - 9.4km in horriic heat. ULuru is hugely impressive and we managed to find a Thorny Devil along the way which kept me happy taking pics. Back to camp and we slept under the stars in swags. I was woken up sometime in the night by howling Dingos which was pretty eerie under a full moon =)

The next day we did a walk through Kata-Tjuta called the Valley of the Winds. Completely different landscapes (even though both places are big, red rocks) as this is made of granite, not sandstone. Also gorgeous. After the walk we drove about 300km to King's Canyon and camped in King's Creek cattle station. This one ranch is bigger than Belgium. Lots of cows. We cooked a Kangaroo tail in the fire and ate it, tasted like brisket. Lots of aboriginal tales around the fire and then bed.

Third day was a rim walk of King's Canyon. We both agree that this was the best part of the trip. I don't have time right now to describe it so I won't even try (Google it!). Hopefully I'll get some pics up soon...

Right now we're back in Cairns doing our washing and getting ready for the dive boat tonight - hopefully this trip will double the number of dives I've done! We'll be out of touch until next Thursday.

Katy xx

Edit: Found some more time to write. Forgot to tell you about James eating a Wichetty grub. On the way back to Alice Springs we stopped on the roadside for a loo break and saw a Wichetty tree. I was instructed to dig up the root until I found a swollen part and then snap it off. Lo and behold there was a grub inside, about 4 inches long. After a quick toasting on the fire, James bit the head off (spitting out loads of yellow goo) and then ate it =) Apparently it tasted like watery mashed potato. Unfortunately my pics of this are on my other camera and I can't get them off at the moment, but I've uploaded a few from the bigger camera on Facebook - take a look.

Uluru

2008-10-09T22:21:00.000-07:00

Hi!

Just a quick one - off to Uluru tomorrow for 5 days, so we'll more than likely be out of touch. Updates when we get back!

Katy x

Plans

2008-10-08T22:20:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone!

We've been frantically making plans. James found a lovely and very knowledgeable lady called Carmen at Experience Cairns (incase you're ever here) who knows everything there is to know about diving and everything else. She's managed to book us on a 7 day liveaboard with UNLIMITED dives for the very nice sum of about 700 pounds (a discount of about 800 pounds each!). Both very excited as this is quite literally some of the best diving in the world and we can't wait. Look up Osprey Reef if you're interested. We leave for that on Thurs 16th.

So, between now and then we may head out to Uluru (Ayer's Rock) which involves a bit of a journey but by all accounts is more than worth it. Future plans are to hire a camper and make our way slowly down the east coast to Sydney in time for Christmas and New Year.

Feels like I'm spending money at an horrific rate at the moment but it'll set us up for the next 3 months which will hopefully be a lot cheaper. We're in good spirits today as the $A has taken a fall today, which means that instead of 2.1 to the pound we now get about 2.5. Makes a big difference!

Tonight we're going to barbeque some bits of kangaroo and probably give ourselves food poisoning. Love to hear from you all so please keep in touch.

xxx

Nemo's first 5 weeks

2008-10-06T22:02:00.000-07:00

I think as i cant read, i find these things rather boring so ill keep it dyslexically simple :D

Ive been here 5 weeks so far, flew into Cairns and got the Greyhound bus to Mission Beach. Lovely place with 14km of pretty much unused beach. Stayed in the dive centre for the first 2 weeks then moved to an awesome hostel called Absolute for the last 3 weeks.

Completed my PADI Divemaster course with no problems, took an easy 4 weeks, so now i can take people on guided tours of the reef! Also went white water rafting and sky diving, both of which were awesome and must be done again. See Facebook for photos.

Met loads of locals and backpackers alike, all very friendly, especially 3 German girls called Ami, and two Mirijans (or something like that, sorry Miranda!).

Now in Cairns to meet the equally lovely Katy! It is nice. Apart from the tall buildings and more stressy city people. And cars. And a grid like layout. And a 'scrotty' (thanks for that word katy) beach. The End.

Nemo x

Katy arrives in Oz...

2008-10-06T21:53:00.001-07:00

Hello! And welcome to the tales of our lives out here.

I've finally arrived in Cairns over 40 hours after leaving 3 Castle Hill. I was lucky enough to put my first mark on my 'Neighbours stars that I have seen on this trip' chart, as I shared the flight to Heathrow from Newcastle with a certain JASON DONOVAN. Oh yeah!

Kerry and Lisa did a marvellous job of feeding me with a large amount of pig before I headed off to Singapore, which I am immensely grateful for. The flight to Singapore was pretty good, apart from the aggressive Indian businessman sat next to me. He seemed to be made entirely from very pointy elbows. After that, 5 very dull hours in Singapore airport (not a Neighbours star in sight) and then on to Cairns via Darwin. It was very boring.

I did have an exciting incident in Heathrow which I have so far forgotten to recount. I was walking past Wetherspoons when a very helpful barman shouted out, "Excuse me love, you've dropped something..." I looked around on the floor for the elusive dropped something, only to hear him shout, "...my jaw!" Well, I didn't hear it exactly, and kept grubbing about on the floor looking like a complete arse. Only 5 seconds later did I realise what a prankster he was, and shuffled away looking mighty embarrassed. =)

Now I'm in Cairns with the very lovely Nemo. After a shower, we went a-awandering and sorted out some diving type things. We then found the Esplanade, a big free outdoor swimming pool/lagoon. Very nice.

That's where I've got to so far. Comments always appreciated =)