Sunday, November 30, 2003

Melbourne - arriving back in a big city

Well, for the first time in 2 months we're in a big city - and a confusing one at that! We bypassed Brisbane, so this will our first 'real' city since Sydney at the beginning of October. And it was a nightmare - the traffic was all over the place, especially after being used to straight, long country roads with nothing much on them. The worst thing about driving in Melbourne is the trams - to allow for them on many streets the right turn is called a "hook turn", which means pulling over to the left while indicating right, and then waiting for the traffic lights to turn red, and then shooting across the junction suddenly. Sounds odd? Try doing it, in a campervan, with two children in the back shouting about the fact you're a mad driver! After the second time, I wimped out, and took three lefts at the next junction rather than one right. But the nice side of Melbourne are the houses in the suburbs - full of cute, picture postcard cottages like the one in the picture. It gives the city a cosy feel which is absent from most big cities.

The reason that we are here is to meet Gloria and Michael, who arrive in Melbourne on Tuesday. They are expecting us to meet them at their hotel on Thursday, but we plan to surprise them at the airport at 6 o'clock tomorrow morning (something that we couldn't say about here until they were on the plane). So there they'll be - 26 hours on a plane, 3 hours in transit, arriving at 6am, which is really 7pm for them, and then they get ambushed by 2 grown ups and 2 hyper-excited girls. Confusion won't be the word for it!

Friday, November 28, 2003

Thursday, November 27, 2003

Wildlife-tastic!

We’ve seen quite a lot of wildlife in the wild while we’ve been in Australia – kangaroo, emu, eagle, dingo, parrot, crocodile, tree kangaroo, platypus, wallaby, cockatoo, blue tongued lizard, koala, snakes, monitor lizard, iguana, possum, shark, whale, brumby (wild horse), turtle, dolphin, tree-frog, cane-toad and probably others. But today the highlight was spotting an echidna running across the road. We stopped to take a good look at it, and couldn’t believe how weird it looked in real life. In many ways its like a cross between a hedgehog and a porcupine, but with a strange snout borrowed from an ant-eater. Without a doubt, the wildlife has been a real treat for the girls. And when their Nana and Opa arrive next week, I’m sure we’ll be led by them to spot many more animals and birds. The two things we still want to see are the Thorny Devil (a lizard), a Sydney Funnel Web spider (the world’s deadliest spider, so perhaps we don’t really want to see one!) and a Taipan (the world’s deadliest snake, ditto!)

Wednesday, November 26, 2003

Driving round the world



Today we left Pambulla and drove around the south coast into Victoria, and to a village called Lake Tyree. We’ve just gone through 8,000 kilometres of driving here in Australia – added together with all of the other driving we’ve done on the trip so far, it works out at 11,000 miles. That means we’ve driven the equivalent of halfway around the world – so we didn’t need to fly anywhere at all! Half of them have been driven in this camper, in the last 7 weeks. While it has been good to have the van, its started to drive us all a little crazy, especially the last week when we were confined inside by the rain for long stretches. Probably one of our greatest expenses will have been petrol, although fortunately we’ve not come across a country where its as expensive as at home (which is a bit of a relief, as we’ve not come across a vehicle as fuel efficient as at home either!). Here in Australia petrol is 90 cents a litre (about 36p), and in the States it was around the same (90 cents) a gallon (about 60p a gallon). Amazingly, in both countries we’ve commonly heard people complaining about the price of fuel – they must be a bit shocked when they come to Europe on holiday. Mind you, you’d be hard pushed to drive 4,000 miles around the UK in 7 weeks!

The long drives, and the constant travel, has sometimes been a bit disorienting – with places starting to look the same the world over. Especially things like churches – this one was in Eden in southern New South Wales, but it could easily be on the North West coast of the States, or in California, or Sweden, or Canada etc. You do have to stop yourself occasionally and remind yourself which country you’re in.

Tuesday, November 25, 2003

Going south

We’re sitting in the seaside town of Pambula Beach – well, it’s a village with a shop and a petrol station, but here in Australia that counts for a town (you should see what counts as a city!). The good news for us is that the weather is improving, and although its still cool, the sun is starting to shine a lot more again. Phew! The girls love this campsite, because there’s an indoor pool (as well as two outdoor ones), a big playpark with trampolines, and kangaroos hanging out all over the caravan park. As you can see, they relax right between the caravans, always scrounging for food! Its also nice that there are other children of their own age to play with - although we’ve met a few families as we’ve travelled, it has not been as many as we’d expected, because most children are in school!

But
At this site, we were right next door to a tent with Emma and Bryce, around the same age as Charlotte and Emily, and they became partners in crime – seeing how close to the vans they could throw the Frisbee (Aaargh!) and how easily they could sneak off to the trampolines without an adult spotting (Very, very it seemed!). For three days we’ve had a relaxing time here, around the camper and on the beach.

Monday, November 24, 2003

Sunday, November 23, 2003

The whitest beach in the world - not

According to the Guinness Book of Records, we’ve been staying on the “Whitest Beach in the World”. But sadly we’ve been staying here (Huskisson in Jervis Bay) on the greyest days of the year – it has rained virtually non-stop for three days (There, that’s a bunch of you smiling with a very smug grin, now that you know that its not perfect for us every day!). Apparently it never rains for three days in a row, and it never, never rains all day. So I guess we should be happy that we’re here to celebrate the drought-busting weather. But its just not fair – the whitest beach in the world is a dull tone of grey, the blue sea is mucky green/brown, and the sky is horrible. And every minute the clouds seem to move closer and closer to the ground. So there you go – Australia isn’t always sunny, and isn’t always dry.

To add to our gloom, we listened to the radio for three hours this morning and they only mentioned the World Cup twice (funny, it was 24-hour world cup before the final), and then only to remark that “really both teams won”. Well, Mr Pommy-Basher, they didn’t. England won. You lost. You came second. And NOBODY EVER REMEMBERS WHO CAME SECOND.

Saturday, November 22, 2003

Like Christians to the coliseum

Well, although we’re not the biggest rugby fans in the world (I don’t even understand the rules), there seemed to be only one thing to do today, after all of the Pom-bashing in the papers. We decided to go completely overboard and put our head into the metaphorical lion’s mouth – by painting our faces and heading down to the local Aussie-filled pub. Australia, until a week ago indifferent to the cup and critical of the Wallabies, has performed an astonishing turnaround. Suddenly the radio is full of World Cup items, there was an official “Green and Gold Friday”, where everybody was encouraged to wear team colours, and we’re sick of hearing of recipes for Green and Gold food. Astonishing, considering that a week ago nobody seemed to care (because they didn’t ever expect to make the final). But any chance they’ve got to bash a Pom, they’ll take it.

Anyway, I’ll describe the scene – 300 hundred Aussies standing in a pub, watching the pre-match commentary, and in we walk. Suddenly silence descends, and everybody looks in our direction (just like when I walked into the Banff swimming pool with the Victorian swimming costume on...). It was slightly unnerving, and we weren’t sure what would happen. Anyway, it was okay – three lonely English fans on the far side of the bar cheered at us, and started a chorus of ‘Swing Low’, and we managed to get to the bar without a mauling – but barman decided with a smile to add a “World Cup Tax” to our drinks prices, because according to him “I shouldn’t be serving you with an offensive T-shirt on!”.

During the game it was predictably rowdy, with us 6 England fans trying to cheer at the right times in opposition to 300 “Go Aussies Go” calls. It was a nerve-wracking game for everybody to watch, but as English we really didn’t want to lose and hear the Aussie’s go on and on and on about it. Of course, in the last few seconds of normal time, the pub erupted when Australia equalised, and the game went into extra time. Then it went alternately quiet and noisy for the next 20 minutes, until it was all over and we’d won. Phew!

Of course, we were generous in our praise of their team (who wouldn’t be in that setting) but it didn’t stop us rubbing it in by posing for this photo in front of them all, and getting the biggest Wallaby fan in the room to take it! As we made our way out, lots of people good-naturedly shook our hands or patted our backs and said things like “Good playing today mate”. It was a great night, and the girls loved it, even if it did get a little bit noisy at times. Charlotte especially left really excited, even more so when the other fans gave her the flag to take away.

Friday, November 21, 2003

Shark!

In one of those curious coincidences that turns into a treat for the girls, we drove back into Jervis Bay this afternoon (where we’ve been staying since Thursday night) at the same time as the official weigh in for the “White Beach fishing competition”. They were catching Meiko sharks, and when we arrived they were hoisting the winner – a 143 kilo fish about 8 foot long. The girls were fascinated to see it all going on, and especially when it ghoulishly starting dripping blood from its mouth when it was lowered from the scales. It was all a long way away from a Friday afternoon at home!

C'mon England

Tired and frustrated with all the Pom-bashing going on over here for the rugby World Cup final, we thought we’d get in the spirit. So today we’ve tarted up the van with a nice logo and tomorrow it’ll be the turn of the face paints. Oh, and a nice official England RWC T-Shirt and hat for the bargain price of $12 (about £5!) – apparently there’s no demand over here for England stuff. If we’d been Kiwi’s it would have been even cheaper - $5 for a T-shirt, hat and scarf set!

Anyway, tomorrow night we’ll be in a pub in front of a large screen, and an even larger crowd of Wallaby fans. Ooh Err! This might be my last ever diary update!

Wednesday, November 19, 2003

Dishy!

We continued to drive south, through Dubbo (nope, don’t think there’s a town with that name in the UK), and stopping for lunch and sightseeing at Parkes Radio Telescope. Perhaps, if we’d not seen the film “The Dish”, we’d have driven straight past, but who could resist visiting a film star, and the place where the pictures of the first moonwalk were received. But a radio telescope isn’t exactly the most exciting thing for a 4-year old (or even an 8-year old for that matter), so although it was interesting, it wasn’t fascinating. We did learn some stuff about the speed of light and light years, but perhaps the most fascinating for the girls was the replica telescope control desk made for the film – every button and dial worked, and they soon had all the lights flashing away like a disco. (Its at times like these I’m glad I’m not a teacher – and when you remember that its not the Christmas toys they play with – it’s the boxes!)

Anyway, its worthy of a mention because the radio telescope was big, although it wasn’t listed as the Big Telescope or anything. In fact, one of astronomers was keen to point out it wasn’t the biggest in the world, and there were plenty of other ‘big’ telescopes around.

Our overnight stop was going to be in Young, but we found the campsite full (Young is the “Cherry Capital of Australia”, and has an annual Cherry Festival which is on now, so the campsite was full of itinerant cherry-pickers and retired couples with nothing better to do than drive thousands of miles to visit an invisible cherry festival). Apart from the Big Cherries (it was late, I really couldn’t be bothered to stop the van to take a picture, I’m sorry) there was nothing else that looked even vaguely Cherry Festival-like, so I can only assume that cherry-type celebrations are deliberately low key! So we ended up driving to Cootamundra (another town with seemingly nothing to make it stand out in our memories), the birthplace of Don Bradman (celebrated by a bronze statue in the park, which Emily though looked like a golfer!).

And so we ended our evening – after three days of inland driving, covering 700 miles, we’ve seen very little of outstanding interest, except some pretty ugly post-mortem kangaroos, which will be memorable for their smell!

Tuesday, November 18, 2003

Still inland

We woke up on Monday morning (the 17th) to strong winds and grey clouds, and the forecast of rain for three days. So we packed up, and instead of staying for a few more days at Arakoon, set off inland. Before we left the coast we called into the local library in Kempsey town to catch up with some important emails. After that the first 5 hours of driving seemed to be mostly uphill, with windy roads and steep drops. As we climbed, the weather closed in more, until eventually we were driving through the clouds, with rain falling around, and the road slippery with water. It was just like the November weather at home! But it was great scenery – tropical forests filled with parakeets and cockatoos.

When the mist cleared, we were driving across cattle country – rolling meadows – all the way to Tamworth, where we arrived at dusk. Its weird pulling into towns with the same names as towns from home – today we drove through Oxford Flats – but they are normally completely different from each other (who could compare grey, cold Newcastle in England, with warm, Oceanside Newcastle, New South Wales. Anyway, Tamworth (New South Wales) seemed a depressing town mainly there because you have to drive through it (aha – maybe they’re not all that different after all).

Anyway, I was able to forgive Tamworth its blandness once I discovered that it was the “Home of Australian Country Music”, which manifested itself in the big “Golden Guitar”. This is perhaps our last chance for a ‘big’ photo, having missed the Big Banana and the Big Peanut on both the way up and down. I still wonder what its all about? Why build ‘big’ things all over the place? It mainly seems to be as tourist attractions? Had somebody heard “Build it and they will come” out of context, and set to building as many big things as they could think of?

So with our big guitar photo safely taken, we headed off further south, and further inland. The inland drives are pretty boring – I think we’ve proved that to ourselves twice now – and about the only distinguishing factor is how many dKpM (dead Kangaroos per Mile) we’ll see. Some stretches of road have huge numbers – maybe 3 or 4 in a mile – while others escape without one for 10 or 15 kilometres. But every road has got one! Sometimes they’re pretty inoffensive – just a small body lying on the verge – but often the bodies sit their for quite some time, roasting slowly in the sun. And if you drive past one of those, with your windows open and the wind blowing towards you, it can smell horrible. The smell of a decomposing kangaroo is like nothing I’ve ever smelt before – worse than a wheelie bin at the end of a hot summer, and a lot worse than a broken down freezer a month later – and it’s the smell which I’ll always associate with the outback. Mmmmm, nice.

Anyway, our bed for the night ended up in Gilgandra (the home of the Cooeeii – yes, the calling sound, which was invented here at the beginning of a march of conscripts towards Sydney during the First World War). I was stunned to see that they hadn’t built a “Big Cooeeii” in memory of it – probably too difficult to visualise!

Monday, November 17, 2003

Sunday, November 16, 2003

A Prison, a park and a beach – what more could you want?

We’re staying in the Arakoon State Park, which is a great place to stay – the campsite is spaced out, and pretty quiet normally (although its busier today because it is the weekend), and there’s plenty of space for tents, plus a dozen spots with power for caravans and camper vans (basically, we pull up and plug in an extension lead, which powers the kettle, lights, fan etc). Although we’ve got a backup battery, which can run the fridge and lights for 24 hours, and a gas stove to cook on, it is still more convenient to be able to have mains electricity.

The campsite is in the shadow of an old prison, Trial Bay Gaol, which was used in the 1890’s, and again as an internment camp in the First World War. Now it’s a ruin, with all of the walls standing but no roof left. The girls loved it for the two cells which had been restored to show what they looked like as a prison – Emily felt very sorry for the two stuffed dummies which had obviously been locked up for a long time!

Like all parks in Australia, whether it’s caravan parks, national parks or even some car parks, there’s public barbecues available to cook on – but this here they’re wood burning, rather than the normal gas or electric ones we’ve seen. So tonight we had our sausages burned on the barbecue for tea!

(By the way, we watched the England-France game at the South West Rocks Country Club last night, enjoying an all-you-can-eat buffet for £13 for the whole family, and then watched England kick the French into touch on a 20-foot screen! Altogether very enjoyable, even if we were surrounded by Australia fans who had quite a bit to say about England’s playing style. We’re obviously going to have to consider where we watch next weeks’ game – it would be nice to find at least a couple of other Poms to watch it with!

Saturday, November 15, 2003

Still driving

We’ve now driven almost 4,000 miles in 5 weeks, so the picture on the left is what I’ve been looking at for a long time now. It seems amazing to both Sarah and I that Charlotte and Emily have adjusted so well to travelling around so much. They seem happy sitting for hours in the back, drawing, chatting and sleeping, as long as we stop at a play park for lunch. They have become so tolerant of travelling, that 3 hours is regarded as a short drive. But they are always happy when we settle down somewhere for a couple of nights, because it means that they can spend a day exploring the area, finding new play parks, and playing with the other children. Even though its during term time here in Australia, there are often children of Charlotte’s age travelling with their parents. Here in Oz, employees get an extended holiday after every 7 or 10 years service, when they get 10 weeks fully paid holiday. It seems that many of them use that to go around the country in a caravan, taking their children out of school – and the schools see it as a positive experience for the children. It is a bit of contrast to back home, where the prevailing attitude to taking children out of school for holidays is that it’s evil!

Just in case you’re following our trip with a map, we’ve now reached South West rocks, south of Coffs Harbour. We stopped for a night at Nambucca Heads, which was a nice estuary, but the caravan park was packed tight, so we’ve moved further south. We’re now in a state park campsite, right beside a beautiful white beach, with huge wild kangaroos bouncing around the site. It’s so nice that we’ve decided to settle down here for a few nights. We’re a few miles from the closest town, but we’re going to drive off there tomorrow night to see England thrash France (wishful thinking?), having heard Australia unexpectedly beat the Kiwis on the radio tonight

Thursday, November 13, 2003

Mount Warning

Since visiting the zoo, we’ve been driving down the coast again, leaving Queensland and heading into New South Wales, covering a further 400 miles. We’re now at a campsite at Mount Warning, inland from the coast. The site is in a field bordered by the edge of the forest, and is basically a big open field with power points dotted around (so that we’ve got lights and tea-making!). We prefer these kinds of sites, where we’re not packed into regimented lines, and things are a bit more natural. As the sun set, we had a campfire near the van, and toasted crumpets for tea, and then watched the wallabies running around the campsite as it got dark. Perfect.

Wednesday, November 12, 2003

Crikey! Nice necklace!

We’ve finally arrived at the Australia Zoo, home of Steve Irwin the Crocodile Hunter. The visit was part of Emily’s birthday present, but just before going in she told us that she didn’t really want to see any crocodiles, which makes up 60% of what’s in the zoo! (Actually Emily told us that she didn’t want to see any “trotodiles”, as she still pronounces C’s as T’s. And she still pronounces G’s as D’s – so both “dog” and “God” come out as “dod”). We’d called into the Zoo on the way up the coast, but we hadn’t made it past the packed out car park – it was the last day of the school holidays, so we decided to come back once it was quieter.

The zoo featured almost exclusively Australian animals, some of which we’d already seen at a distance, so we set out to get a better look at them. We watched two crocodile shows, where they got the crocs to come out of the water to grab some meat – it demonstrated to us all how vicious they could be, rather than the docile animals they appear when they are sitting on river banks, and then we wandered off to see some gentler animals.

The girls were able to get right up to the kangaroos, and stroke their soft fur. They were amazed to see a joey sticking out of it’s pouch, although because it was a bit bigger, it was the legs and tail that stuck out, with its head buried deep down. And when they saw the koalas, they decided that they bore a striking resemblance to their Naughty Uncle Euan, because of their ability to sleep anywhere, in the most uncomfortable positions!

The highlight of the day was the photo session with the python. Charlotte loved it, but Emily sensibly decided she didn’t want a python draped over her shoulders! I was lucky enough to get the tail end, which just felt like an arm moving around me. Sarah, at the other end, started laughing hysterically when the head moved around towards her instead of looking at the camera, and then it’s forked tongue started darting out towards her face. We were all relieved when it was all over, and a bit relieved that the fear doesn’t show in our eyes in the photo!

It was a great visit, where we had some fun and Charlotte and Emily both learnt some more about the animals of Australia.

Tuesday, November 11, 2003

Emily's Birthday day

This morning we woke up to Emily's birthday - and like Charlotte she was excited to open her presents and cards, including some from home. We've had to choose presents carefully, as when we leave the camper van next month we'll be back to carrying everything in our rucksacks - so most things will be used up by the end of the month. I'm praying that the Barbie Bingo game, that a friend sent from home, will wear out by then too - especially if we carry on having to play it 16 hours a day!

Then it was on the road again, towards the coast. Again, it was miles of boring scenery, which got even more boring when we drove through a wheat growing area - we didn't even see any wildlife there, nor any trees - just like at home the farmers had removed everything to create a flat, yellow landscape with nothing to break up the view. But the most exciting thing happened to be on the road in front of us (yes, after 700 miles of outback, this was really exciting!) when we got pulled over by the police in order to let a house go past. We knew that they did this - lift up wooden houses and move them around - but we hadn't expected one to come down the road towards us. It gave 'moving house' a different meaning. It set us wondering - If you move house like this do you have to pack up? Can you stay in the house while it's moved? We decided that there was probably a couple of pensioners sitting on the sofa, trying to stop their teacups sliding off their laps!

We ended our day in a small village called Crows Nest, in the nicest location for Emily's birthday tea party - tonight the camper van will definitely be a room with a view!

Monday, November 10, 2003

Another Outback day

Today was spent driving from Emerald to Roma. On the way out of Emerald we found yet another example of the 'Big' phenomena - the Big Easel. The small picture on the left doesn't really do it justice - click to see the real size. There's something strange in the Australian character that makes them create these nutty 'big' sights. Why do they do it? Do they think it will make people flock to their town to see it? Certainly some of them are used as attractions (we got sick of seeing the "Only 200km/100km/50km/20km/10km to the Big Pineapple" signs on the way up).

The rest of the day was taken up with more boring outback scenery - I really can't say much more - 300 miles of looking at this, and spotting the occasional animal, or even rarer, a car coming the other way. The only thing which really disturbed the drive was when a road train came charging towards us - huge artics with two trailers. They're okay on main roads, but if one's heading towards you on a narrow road, you need a good grip on your steering wheel as they approach, because of the drag and the way you end up so close to them.

Sunday, November 09, 2003

Heading through the Outback

Heading through the Outback
For the last day we've been driving through the Outback. Although our drive up north was entirely along the coast, we wanted to see some of the inland of Australia as well, so we opted to turn inwards from Mackay, and drive down for a few hundred kilometers through the inland areas.

Pretty soon we realised that it was going to be very, very boring. Or at least, the scenery was, as it was mostly just dry lands with thousands of eucalyptus trees clinging onto life. After 300 kilometres we stopped for lunch in a town called Moranbah, which was is at the centre of the open cast mining area of Australia. Mmmm, nice landscapes! Anyway, its major claim to fame was yet another big - The Big Bucket - which they'd put outside of town for all to see as you approached. It may not look so big on the picture, but look out for Emily standing in front of it. So there you go, just one highlight of our drive inland - and more of the strange 'Big' phenomenon here in Oz.

Further driving simply reinforced the loneliness of the outback. The drives between towns were up to 80 miles, and often the 'towns' were no more than half a dozen houses, a petrol station, a chip shop (or Chippo as the Aussies call them) and a newsagent. And every 20 or so miles we'd pass a house alongside the road, or a dusty orange road heading towards a house in the distance. All of the houses have windmills to draw water out of their boreholes, but we know that they're rapidly running out of water after 2 years of drought.

We also saw quite a bit of wildlife, including plenty of kangaroos in the late afternoons, eating the roadside grass (beyond the fences there's no grass at all, as the cows have grazed the land down to nothing), and then a real treat when we saw 4 emu's running alongside and then across the road.
At one point we came across some cattle drovers who'd come from further west, where it was even drier. They'd basically led their cattle for 4 months towards the east, where a small amount of rain had fallen. They were following marked stock routes, and using the verges to keep their cattle alive. To us they looked incredibly thin, but apparently they are a lot healthier now that when they set out. There were 4 drovers looking after 1,300 cattle. In Oz they're not called cowboys, but Jackaroos and Jillaroos. They had a very fatalistic view of life - when we asked when they'd be going back with the cattle, their answer was "When it rains."


We finished our drive in Emerald, a town which was obviously the hub of its local area (it was the largest town in a 1,500 square mile area). We spent the evening at the RSL club in town (all towns seems to have a Retired Servicemens League club, which seems to exist mainly to have somewhere to put Pokies - one-armed bandits) watching the England versus Wales game on the big screen.

Thursday, November 06, 2003

Great Barrier Reef – Part 2

Today was an antidote to yesterday – a day full of excitement and a bit of adventure! We’d booked a trip to the outer Great Barrier Reef from Airlie Beach. Run by a company called FantaSea, it involved a 2½ hour catamaran trip out to a floating reef platform moored just off reef miles out to sea. The first bit was okay, because it was within the islands, but then we emerged out into the open sea, and the waves started to get bigger, and we realised that taking a trip to the reef on a windy day – 20 knot winds meant 2 metre waves – wasn’t the best idea of this week. By the time we got out to ReefWorld, the floating platform, we were all on the verge of feeling seasick. In fact, I had the little paper bag in my hands, thinking that I’d be using it any minute. But fortunately we arrived in the nick of tine, and it all calmed down. The area we were visiting was in a narrow passage between two reefs, so it was calm, and surrounded by beautifully light blue water.

First off, we went to the underwater observatory, with huge thick glass windows looking onto the reef wall. Following the reef feature we’d attended in Cairns, Charlotte was keen to spot each type of fish and coral. The attraction of being fed meant that loads of fish swam past the windows, from weenie striped ones, to huge dark green wrass.

Then it was off to the semi-submersible – for the second time in 2 weeks. This time the coral was more impressive, as we were able to follow the wall, and were over quite deep water. The girls loved it, especially as they now had a greater appreciation of what they were looking at – Emily didn’t tire of shouting ‘parrot fish’, ‘soft coral’ etc etc (Don’t know what the ‘reef interpreter’ made of this, sitting alongside us trying to do a commentary!)

Then it was time for lunch, and then back out for a snorkel over the reef. Charlotte showed no hesitation in gearing up with snorkel, flippers and float jacket, and jumping into the ocean, 30 miles from the nearest land! We swam for about half an hour, with Emily happily sitting on Reefworld watching us snorkel around. Then Charlotte decided to dry out, while Sarah and I carried on snorkeling for another 15 minutes. And then Sarah went in, and I carried on snorkeling long enough to dive down and wave at them through the underwater observatory windows (after all, that’s the kind of things that Dads are invented for!).


Then finally, it was time for another trip on the submarine, before heading back on board the catamaran for the trip home. (By this time, you may be wondering what a ‘reefworld’ looks like, hence the very sad diagram alongside! Well, at least you now know. Overall it was a fantastic day – not the kind of thing we’d have done if it was just two of us, but ideal with the girls.

The trip back was just as rough as the trip out, so we took the precaution of taking a motion sickness tablet, which worked a treat, and before we knew it we were back in Shute Harbour (well, it took about 2 ½ hours, but the girls slept right through, which made it very relaxing. At normal prices, it would have cost us AU$400, which is just over £160 – which we’d never have paid for a single day’s trip. But with our YHA cards, the price came down to AU$210, about £90, which didn’t seem too bad for the whole family, including morning coffees, lunch and afternoon tea with fresh fruit and chocolate cake.

We find that some of the things we could do in Australia, that we know the girls would get a lot from, are too expensive for our budget. And this day was a good example, because in Cairns the same trip didn’t have discounts, and so we’d decided not to do it. We were really pleased to be able to do it here, and the girls certainly enjoyed the day as much as we thought they would, and we’re sure it’s been an educational experience for them both, as well as a fun activity. I wasn’t able to stay for the second half of the reef lecture in Cairns, as the presenter didn’t like Emily moving around during his talk (she had spotted an open biscuit barrel in the room), so we had to leave halfway through. But Charlotte had obviously been paying attention, as she started to tell me things about the reef that I didn’t know, that she’d learnt during the part I’d missed. Charlotte’s classroom this year is definitely turning out to be in some interesting places!

Wednesday, November 05, 2003

Pressing the pause button

Today was a chance to ‘pause’, to recharge our collective batteries, and catch up on some sleep. Every now and again we get to the point of needing a rest for a day – perhaps to catch up after having 24 hours a day with the girls being too energetic! And today was one of those days, which was handy because it was also a wet day – every couple of hours it rained for half an hour. And just to prove that not every day is sunny on our trip, I rather sadly took a photo of the rain running off the camper van awning. There, some people will be very happy now – David Hunt to mention one. And just to seal your satisfaction, let me add that when its raining there’s not much freedom – basically we’re confined to the van, watching the rain run down the windows, and the condensation block the view. And, under our breaths, curse a lady called Caroline for teaching Charlotte the ‘See, Chop, Knee’ rhyming song (with actions) that she likes at times like this!

And so, although we’re staying at a campsite called “Adventure Whitsundays”, our day was full of anything but! Oh, and not a firework in sight in the evening. Surely our former colonies would have kept up the old traditions of their mother country? What is internationalisation coming to?

Sunday, November 02, 2003

Let’s get a video for the night....


We’re finally back at Mission Beach after 9 days, which means that we’re heading back down south to Sydney after driving North for the first month – so far we’ve driven 2,000 miles in the month. It also means that we’re finally able to pickup our video of the BBC Holiday programme. (Oh, and it also means that we’ve got a chance of spotting the endangered Cassowary bird shown on the sign, but as there are so few left, we’re only likely to see them on signs). Anyway, back to the video. Since it was broadcast in England we’ve had a few emails from friends, making oblique references to my white legs and Sarah’s sandwich making technique. And we don’t know what you’re all talking about! Amanda at the BBC had arranged to Fedex us a tape as soon as the programme was broadcast, so that we could see ourselves on telly, but we had to leave the Treehouse before it arrived. We knew we were coming back, so we just had to wait.


And waiting turned out to be the game of the day. When we arrived at the hostel, they knew they’d seen a Fedex package, but they couldn’t find it. They thought it might have been sent back. They thought it might be for somebody else. Eventually they decided that Dennis the manager would know about it. And he’d gone out for 2 or 3 hours. So we sat and waited. Then we had lunch and waited. Then we went for a swim and waited. And finally, three hours later Dennis appeared, with the package in his hand – with the neat little BBC VHS tape inside.

But the Treehouse doesn’t have a TV, and the video player in the staff quarters was broken. But Dennis offered to let us watch it at his house in town – but first he had a bit of business to sort out. So we waited. And waited. And waited. Four hours later, as the sun started to set, Dennis appeared and we started to go. And then, after 6 hours of waiting, one of the staff said “I’ve got a video in my caravan”, across the car park. So instead of having to traipse across town, we all walked across the car park and sat down outside his caravan (it was very kind of him to let us watch it outside his caravan, but I wonder why he didn’t mention it four hours ago!). Anyway, all of this waiting had served to rack up the excitement for us. Sarah had initially decided that she couldn’t watch it just yet, and would perhaps wait a week or so, but in the end the waiting of the afternoon was long enough, so we all sat down together, on a patch of sand, under a shade awning, surrounded by rainforest plants. Quite a setting!

So now we’ve seen what you’ve all been emailing us about. And now I know never to wear a Victorian bathing suit again. And that you look fatter on TV (please, please tell me that it’s the effect of the lens). Oh, and you still hate seeing and hearing yourself on the screen. But we did look and sound like ourselves, and we didn’t think we were made to look like raving loonies. So now we can stop worrying about how silly we might look, and whether they’d include this bit and that bit which we didn’t like........until next time.

Saturday, November 01, 2003

No children were hurt during the making of this photograph...

I just found these photographs on the camera from our visit to the tropical fruit farm a couple of days ago. Charlotte is doing a project on tropical fruit – how they grow, where they grow, what they are like, what they are used for etc. And the visit to the fruit farm helped her to cover quite a few of them, to see the way they grow, and to taste some of the more exotic ones (we all decided that ‘Chocolate Pudding Sapote’ was YUCK!). Sarah also took some photo’s of Charlotte with the different fruit, and her impressions of them – if you click on the image on the left, you can find out what Charlotte was doing to make this face, and you can see what she thinks of the smell of Jack Fruit.