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Surf's Up
November 30, 2005
Byron Bay, New South Wales, Australia
Emily and I had our first surfing lessons this week. It was lots of fun. We both got up in our first lesson - I think I got up on my second try. Even though we had bad conditions, an onshore wind at low tide, we fought through it and had a good time. We had longboards, which are the easiest to catch the waves with, and our instructors pushed us into the kiddy waves right next to the beach. Even though this might sound pathetic, it doesn't really matter where you are when you stand up for the first time.
I ended up taking 2 lessons and Emily took 3 (she is a pro now). She went on an extra lesson the day I went scuba diving. On our last lesson together, we had a slightly insane instructor named Egor. He took us "out the back" which means that we paddled out past the first set of breaking waves. From there, we caught bigger waves that hadn't broken yet, which means that it was a LOT harder. Emily had a particularly rough day including a near collision with another surfer and getting stung by a jellyfish. Luckily, this hasn't dampened her spirits and she can't wait to get out and ride some more waves.
Byron Bay
We have spent the week in Byron Bay and have loved it. This is one of my favorite places of the whole trip. Byron Bay is a small, laid-back beach town that is between Brisbane and Sydney, just south of the Gold Coast. It doesn't have all of the skyskrapers of Surfer's Paradise but rather a small town feel where everyone just seems to get along - surfers, hippies, tourists, and locals of all ages. It has lots of good restaurants but no McDonalds or any of the big chains (except Subway).
Byron Bay has several nice beaches including Byron Main Beach, Clarks Beach, Wreck Beach (which has a shipwreck sticking out of the water just off shore), and Tallows Beach (where we had our first surf lesson). It also has good scuba diving at Julian Rocks, one of the top ten dive sites in Australia. I did one dive there and saw lots of Wobbegong sharks, scorpionfish, and cool starfish. We also did a short hike up to the beautiful Byron lighthouse, which is located on the most Eastern point of the Australian mainland.
Posted by tim at 09:38 PM | Comments (0)
Thanksgiving Feast
November 25, 2005
Byron Bay, New South Wales, Australia
Emily and I celebrated Thanksgiving in our hostel in Byron Bay. We had to make a few substitutions, but we ended up with quite a feast. We made mashed potatoes, stuffing, green beans, and cranberry sauce to go with our bird, a large roast chicken. We finished it off with chocolate chocolate chip muffins for dessert. Not too shabby. In keeping with the Turkey Day tradition, we even ate the leftovers for lunch the next day.
Cooking a Thanksgiving dinner in a hostel kitchen was a bit of a challenge. We ended up taking over about half of the kitchen but we managed. Well, I can't take too much credit...Emily was the chef. My only contributions were mashing the potatoes and going on a beer run.
Happy Thanksgiving everyone!
Posted by tim at 03:48 PM | Comments (2)
Great Barrier Reef
November 22, 2005
Magnetic Island, Queensland, Australia
When planning our time in Australia, Emily and I wanted to make sure to get up to Northern Queensland to see the Great Barrier Reef. The most popular spot to access the reef is Cairns, but we opted instead for Magnetic Island, which is further south, just off the coast of Townsville. Magnetic Island is a nice, quiet little island with lots of wildlife. There are lots of exotic birds everywhere, like parakeets and cockatoos and those damn laughing kookaburras. One day a group from our hostel went to feed the little rock wallabies, which was interesting. They are really noisy eaters, and it is fun to watch them bounce around effortlessly on the jagged rocks. Magnetic Island also has some nice beaches, but we were a bit afraid to go in the water since it is the season for the box jellyfish, which happen to be one of the most lethal creatures in the world. But we survived and even had time for a little entertainment - on our first night, we both entered a bar contest and rode the mechanical surfboard. I won't say we had the best showing, but it was fun and not the kind of thing you can do back home...
Snorkelling on the Reef
Emily and I took a day trip out to Wheeler Reef, the closest part of the Great Barrier Reef to Magnetic Island. It wasn't really "close" though, it is 48 nautical miles from shore and took about 2-3 hours to get to by boat. We lucked out with a beautiful day, the sun was shining and the water was almost like glass. The snorkelling was absolutely amazing. It easily surpassed Koh Phi Phi Ley as the best snorkelling in my life. The reef ranged from 5 feet below us to about 30 or so, but you could easily dive down and look under the coral shelves whenever you wanted to. The coral itself was beautiful, in every shape and color imaginable. There were some shades of coral that I don't think I had ever seen before like a bright, glowing blue. And the fish were the most amazing part. There were so many different species of colorful fish that it was like swimming in a big tropical aquarium. I can't even begin to describe or even remember everything that we saw there. All I can say is that it was amazing.
Posted by tim at 10:31 PM | Comments (0)
A Very Aussie BBQ
November 20, 2005
Magnetic Island, Queensland, Australia
Emily and I decided to grill out last night, and it turned into a bit of an adventure. There is a small park next to the beach at Alma Bay which is just a ten minute walk from our hostel. We bought all the supplies and hiked over to the park for a nice bbq dinner. The first challenge came from figuring out the bbq itself. Apparently in Australia the term "barbeque", or "barbie" as is it commonly known here, refers to a hot plate rather than a grill. We were thoroughly confused at first but soon realized that it is quite simple to operate - just push a button and it heats up.
Once that was all figured out, everything went rather smoothly. We cooked our food and sat down at a picnic table with our burgers and XXXX's (the local beer of Queensland). We were enjoying our meals when suddenly, as I was bringing the burger to my mouth to take a bite, a bird swooped in over my shoulder and grabbed it out of my hands!! We later found out that it was a Kookaburra, a rather small, stout brown and white bird with turquoise on its wings that loves meat.
While that bastard was enjoying the rest of my burger, I had plenty of time to look around the rest of the park. The sun was just setting and the animals were starting to creep in all around us. There were some other sneaky birds (I forget the name now) that would run on the ground and then just freeze in place. They had long, stick legs and big eyes. Then we saw some small figures bouncing around in the distance. They were little wallabies, which are kind of like miniature kangaroos, and there were several of them bouncing around the park. Finally, we saw a marsupial possum crawling around looking for some leftovers. Marsupial possums seem to be a bit more adventurous and quite a bit less disgusting then the possums back home.
We got to experience the Australian wildlife a bit more than we expected, but it made for quite an unforgettable bbq.
Posted by tim at 12:21 PM | Comments (1)
Diving the Yongala
November 19, 2005
Magnetic Island, Queensland, Australia
One of the main reasons I wanted to come up to the Townsville/Magnetic Island area was for a chance to dive the world-famous S.S. Yongala wreck. The S.S. Yongala was voted the best dive in Australia and is generally considered one of the top ten dives in the world. The Yongala is a 100 meter long boat that was sunk in 1911 and found in 1958. What makes it unique is that the entire ship is completely in tact and there is nothing else in the area, so all the life congregates at the wreck. This means that the dive is practically unparalleled in bio-diversity and there are lots of big things to see too.
Even though it cost a small fortune to dive it (so much for the budget), it was worth every penny. We lucked out with great diving conditions - relatively calm at the surface, barely any current, and 15-20 meters of visibility. I had two great dives, some of the best dives in my life. The ship itself isn't very much to see, in my opinion. It is hard to even tell it is a boat at all because it is so completely covered with coral. What makes the dive so amazing is all of the marine life there. I saw five bull rays, three turtles, four sea snakes, one shovelnose shark (aka guitar fish), some big wrass fish, as well as thousands and thousands of different, colorful fish. The smaller fish would congregate in huge schools right up next to the reef, while the bigger fish would swim a little ways away and occasionally dart in to the schools of small fish for a snack. The bull rays were about 5 feet wide and would let you swim right next to them, just an arm-length away, as they glided through the water. Pretty cool.
I rented a camera for the dives too. I'll upload those pictures as soon as possible.
Posted by tim at 05:00 PM | Comments (1)
Spectacular Sydney
November 16, 2005
Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
We had seven days to explore the city of Sydney and its surrounding areas. Our first stop, of course, was the legendary Sydney Opera House, the symbol of the city. It definitely lived up to expectations. The building is just amazing and the setting can't be beat - on the water right next to the Sydney Harbour Bridge. The thing that I really liked about it is that the building looks different and interesting from every different angle you see it from. The Royal Botanical Gardens right next to the Opera House were also really cool. It is a nice, pretty area to walk around and there are lots of interesting birds. One area also has a ton of flying foxes, which are really big bats (Mom, you would love it!). Later, we walked around the Darling Harbour area and went into the peaceful Chinese gardens there. We also ventured to some of the suburbs and saw Bondi Beach and the Olympic Park (where the 2000 Summer Olympics were held). Our last two days were at Manly beach, one of the main northern beaches, but the weather suddenly turned on us and we never made it out to the actual beach.
We also took two daytrips out of Sydney. Our first one was to the Blue Mountains. Rather than spending our money on a tour, we just took the city train out to the town of Katoomba. It is a nice, quaint little town that has beautiful views of the Blue Mountains (which aren't actually mountains but giant tree-filled gorges). The best view is from Echo Point, where you look out over the Three Sisters rock formation. We also took a short hike to see Katoomba falls. It was a very pretty area and it was good to get out and get some fresh air. Our second day trip was wine tasting in Hunter Valley. Hunter Valley is known for its Semillon (a white wine I had never heard of) and Shiraz, but it all tasted good to me. Our tour stopped at three different boutique wineries - Ivanhoe, Golden Grape, and Drayton Family Wines.
THE FLIES!!!!
Sydney (and all of Australia) is blessed with great weather and lots of outdoor activities, but there is a catch (there's always a catch). In order to enjoy the outdoors here, you must put up with the flies. This may seem trivial, but as anyone who has been down under can attest, these are no ordinary flies. These guys are relentless. I think it might be some rare species that is actually attracted to human faces - particularly mouths, nostrils, eyes, and the inside of ears. Luckily, it is only one or two at a time here, but supposedly in the Outback there are swarms of them around you all the time.
Posted by tim at 06:59 PM | Comments (0)
G'day mate!
November 09, 2005
Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
We finally made it to Australia (aka Oz, aka Down Under). This is one of the destinations that Emily and I have been looking forward to the most on our trip. Our first stop is Melbourne in the South and we will work our way up the East coast. Australia is a huge country so, even though we have a month here, we can only see a small portion of it. We've had to make some sacrifices for time and budget, but overall I am really excited about our itinerary and I think we are going to have a great time.
We are currently at our first stop, Melbourne. Emily has been a bit under the weather lately so we've been spending alot of time in the hostel trying to help her recover. Melbourne is a nice city but there doesn't seem to be too much to see or do here. The highlight of our time here has been a trip to Philips Island, which is 2 hours south-east of Melbourne.
Philips Island
We took a daytrip to nearby Philips Island to see the famous Penguin Parade. On the way, we got the quintessential Aussie experience - hand-feeding kangaroos and spotting koalas sleeping in the trees. Our first stop was at an Aussie cattle farm which had a load of other animals as well, including kangaroos. You were free to walk right up to the kangaroos, and they would eat right out of your hands! Our next stop was a koala conservation center where we could walk through the eucalyptus trees and spot the koalas sleeping in the branches. Koalas spend 20 hours a day sleeping because of their very low calorie diet. We were lucky enough to see one feeding and moving around; he even climbed down onto the handrail of the viewing platform just a couple feet away from us.
Our final stop was to see the little penguins. Philips Island is home to the smallest species of penguins in the world. Everyday, they go out to sea just before dawn and then return to their homes on land just after the sun sets. Small packs of penguins land on shore and waddle up the beach together until they get to their burrows. We got to walk on the boardwalk right next to the penguins as they made their way back to their nests where the baby chicks were waiting. We were afraid it might just be a tourist trap, but the penguin parade turned out to be a surprisingly interesting and fun experience.
Posted by tim at 12:03 AM | Comments (1)
Singapore Stopover
November 05, 2005
Singapore, Singapore
After leaving Bangkok we had a 5 day stopover in Singapore on the way to Australia. Singapore is quite a contrast to the rest of Asia that we have seen (India, Thailand, and Cambodia); it is a very clean and modern city and also quite wealthy. The official language is English and you can drink the tap water! (This may not seem like a big deal, but it has been over 3 months since we could do that.) While there certainly is some western influence, there is still a distinctly Asian feel to Singapore. I was often reminded of being back in China again. Chinese characters can be seen everywhere and there were a lot of the same foods, such as dumplings and hot pot (or "steamboat").
The main activities here are shopping and eating. It seems like every block there is an another enormous shopping complex. I have never seen so many shopping malls in one place (even more than Dubai, I think). The number of restaurants and food stalls is unbelievable too. A traditional greeting in Singapore is "Have you eaten yet?" I'm going to have to bring that one back to the US. Singapore is known for their street food. "Hawker stands" all over the city that sell great, cheap food. We have tried some of the local favorites such as kaya toast, a traditional Singaporean breakfast, and chili crabs, steamed crabs covered in a chili gravy.
There isn't a whole lot for tourists to do here (besides shopping and eating), so 5 days was probably more than enough time for us to stop here. One of the highlights, though, was the Singapore zoo, which is probably the best zoo I have ever been to. There aren't really any cages, so you are in closer contact to the animals and it feels more like you are out in the wild. My favorite part was feeding the baboons, who would do tricks such as backflips to get our attention/food. Besides the zoo, we also saw the Fountain of Wealth, which is the largest fountain in the world and was built on the principles of feng shui.
We are in the airport now so I am pretty sure we will make it out without being caned. Off to Australia next!
Posted by tim at 01:03 AM | Comments (1)