20 July 2016

We are still in the Kununurra area, enjoying the weather, scenery and a tour by air of the surrounding country and the diamond mine of course. Our discoveries over the past few days:

• We stayed at the El Questro resort for a couple of days and discovered there are two types of people who visit El Questro.  There are those who pay $3000 per person per night and those who pay $20 per person a night.  One group camps, the other, well we don’t know what the other group does. Guess which group we were part of.  When you visit the many walks, gorges or lookouts at El Questro you discover there is only place on the entire resort where you get a distant glimpse of where the $3000 people stay.  Seems the $3000 people don’t want to be seen.
• El Questro means nothing it just sounds like it might be Spanish.
• We drove to the Pentecost River crossing which is a renowned location on the Gibb River Road with a stunning backdrop of ancient sandstone ridges. A number of vehicles arrived and some drove across the ford to get that special picture.  The cars and trucks took their turn to get a picture without anyone else intruding.   Enter the drone.  A new vehicle arrived and the passenger got out to set his drone flying over the crossing to get action shots of their car driving through the river.  I fear in years to come we will see drone wars at locations that attract large numbers of megapixel collectors.  Will someone create an app that creates a force field around your drone thereby keeping others at bay?
• Many readers of this stream of consciousness would have at some time in their life experienced the shock of seeing a snake at their feet or maybe under their feet or maybe a spider just too close for comfort, generally a huge man-eating spider.   It is at these times that we break into a dance that is very ancient and part of our DNA.  You can’t stop the dance; its involuntary.  Along with the dance we utter a set of again very ancient words that just spew forth.  This is the context of my next story.
• We were collecting fire wood off the side of the road in some long grass, middle of the day and the sun is high.  Great snake time I hear you say.  I was in the long grass and I picked up a piece of perfectly weathered wood and threw it to Russ; it landed at his feet.  He was on the road loading wood into the car.  I called out ‘At your feet’, meaning there is a piece of fire wood at your feet.  He heard ‘At your feet’, meaning there is a snake at your feet.  And so the ancient dance was invoked and Russ did a jig on the road in response to fire wood.  We all enjoyed great merriment at Russ’s expense.  His last words were something to the effect that this won’t be forgotten and he will get revenge, suggesting if a crocodile is approaching I would be on my own!
• The Argyle diamond mine is pretty impressive.  The mining company aren’t too happy about tourists visiting the place but the local traditional owners of the land insisted on the tourists.  It’s hard to get to and only two companies offer the tours.  Security is super tight and if you drop something don’t think you can just bend down and pick it up.  If you do you can expect a full body search before leaving the property.  On a good day they were achieving 20kgs of diamonds in a day!
• This is the only source of rare pink diamonds which are cut and polished in Perth.  They thought pink sounded better than brown diamonds.  I guess it’s all about the marketing
• Yes, in answer to your unspoken question; we did get a sample.  It was so small my macro lens could not focus on it.
• The fascinating thing is that the old gold prospectors were finding diamonds in the creeks nearby back in the 1890s but nobody explored any further until the late 1980s when a group of young geologists found diamonds all along this old creek bed.  Further exploration and they found the source of the diamonds which is where the mine is now.
• Speaking of recently discovered treasures in the Australian outback there is more to tell.  We have all heard about the last aborigines to have no contact with white people who were found in the remote desert back in the 1970s.  Then there is one of the biggest diamond mines in the world and it was only established in the 1990s.  And last but not least the Bungle Bungles were only ‘discovered’ as a tourist destination in the early 1980s after a TV crew who were making a doco about the Kimberleys were invited by a local helicopter pilot to come with him for a flight over the Bungles.  After that footage hit the TV suddenly people wanted to visit this amazing location.  Makes you wonder what else is out there.  Bill Bryson mentioned in his book about Australia a story about Japanese terrorists exploding an atom bomb in outback Australia and nobody noticed.  Not sure how true this is but it gives you an idea of the emptiness of the place.
• Sandalwood is grown in large plantations up here.  Sandalwood was one of the crops introduced because of all the water in Lake Argyle which is so large it is defined as an inland sea.  I thought, irrigation system to grow fire wood you have to be joking but alas when you look at the number of incense sticks burnt in South and SE Asia on a daily basis and it’s in the billions and the fact there is very little wild sandalwood left this is probably a good investment.   Sandalwood currently sells for $100,000 a tonne which means Mahatma Gandhi’s funeral pyre would now cost $300,000.  And this is just for the wood, the oil is even more expensive.  Sandalwood takes 15 years to be ready for harvest and since it’s a parasitic plant growing this stuff is not easy.  I will be watching the value of sandalwood stocks in the next few years.
• Speaking of irrigation systems; I think its Stage Five of the Ord River systems that has just been sold off for development.  This stage is massive covering thousands and thousands of acres and you guessed it we sold it to the Chinese.  They are going to grow sugar cane to make ethanol.  No comment.

We are heading north towards Darwin but there will be stops on the way.  Tonight we are at Keep River National Park.  The reference to river is questionable but there are crocodiles in the water holes.  Freshwater crocs of course and they don’t eat you or so they say.

13 July 2016

The Kimberley is our current location.  The land of boab trees, fruit bats and brahman cross cattle.  We have finally escaped winter with temperatures here in the low to mid 30s.  This is the life; warm days and cool nights.   The cold weather clothing has been stored away and its now shorts and swimming gear.  Observations from the Kimberley:

• The Bungle Bungle National Park or Purnululu is something to behold and dare I say a better experience than Uluru and Kata Tjuta(Ayers Rock and The Olgas).  This might be heresy since Uluru has become such an Australian icon however the Bungles are amazing and well worth a visit.
• They, that being the WA state government, have to get their act together when it comes to road maintenance up here.  The WA end of the Tanami was bad enough but I have since heard the road into Wolfe Creek, a meteor crater, was far worse and was responsible for destroying the suspension of a number of cars in recent days.  This is crazy, Wolfe Creek is one of the biggest craters in the world and it should be accessible to international tourists who would really appreciate the experience.  But no, the roads up here are only for the intrepid four wheel driver with a well prepared vehicle.  Of course this group enjoys the fact there are no tourists in their field of view but this is not helping the development of the tropical north.  More rant to come.
• We camped outside of the Bungle Bungle park and drove in the next day.  Going in wasn’t too bad as I drove fast enough to manage the corrugations.  With speed you just hit the top of the corrugation and don’t bounce over every lump and bump. The drive out at 4.30pm was a whole different experience.  Driving into the setting sun, with dust from other vehicles and wandering cattle meant this was a time for caution and of course lower speeds.  The corrugations on the way out were horrendous.
• It turns out the Bungle Bungles were part of a huge cattle station and the owners didn’t appreciate the tourism value of the landscape contained within the boundaries of their property.  When this became apparent they agreed to the creation of a national park, one of the conditions being that the government maintain the road that traversed their property.  The owners of the cattle station did not want to be responsible for helping tourists with broken down vehicles.  Well you can guess what has happened – maintenance on the road is nowhere near sufficient for a site that attracts the tourism demands of this site.
• Kununurra is amazingly green and it’s all about the water which is free. With Lake Argyle just a short distance away the supply of water is almost inexhaustible.  This means Kununurra is a green oasis in the middle of a dry and never ending savannah.  There are palm trees and vast lawns everywhere.  At the camp ground they even ask you to water your site every day to keep the place green.  Compare that with Coober Pedy where the showers were timed to save water and the camp ground is just gravel.
• They say that when in full flood during the wet the Ord river is second only to the Amazon for output.  Of course this probably only lasts a short while.  Regardless, too much water to waste so in the 1960s they built a dam.  It was really a solution to an undefined problem.  They thought with all this water they could grow cotton.  The bugs ate the cotton.  Next they tried rice.  Perfect with all that water.  Problem was the magpie geese from the north flew down and ate all the rice.  Next it was sugar cane but didn’t make enough money.  And so it went on.  Now the big news up here is sandalwood trees for incense and perfume.  They tried farming barramundi in Lake Argyle and found you could import the fish cheaper from Indonesia.  An excellent example of a solution waiting for a problem.  That said without the water there would be no Kununurra and maybe there will be a time when it will make economic sense to send all this water to Perth, a city in need of a regular supply of water.
• We visited the prison boab tree yesterday.  It seems back in the 1890s a number of policemen were bringing a number of aborigines in for trial at Wyndham.  They were 25 miles out from the town and had to stop for the night.  They found a large boab tree and noticing there were holes in the top of the tree they realised it was hollow.  The police cut an entrance into the trunk of the tree and confined their prisoners into what would have been a cool retreat out of the sun and weather.   The tree was huge and somewhat ancient then, who knows how old it actually is; it is like the old sentinel of the surrounding bush.  Do you think the coppers got planning approval to cut a hole in this venerable old tree – I think not.
• Down the road from the prison boab is some aboriginal rock art.  Again, I have no idea how old it is but would image the art is 10s of thousand of years old and it’s just by the side of a dirt road accessible to all.
• Wyndham is an interesting town.  The Japanese bombed it in WW2 but you have to wonder why they bothered.  It’s a dry and dusty port surrounded by vast open country.  You can’t swim in the sea because of crocodiles, there are no beaches only mangroves and the tidal movement is such its either mud flats or muddy water.  This is Australia’s defence against invasion, crocodiles, mud flats and nowhere to go for 100s of kilometres once you arrive.
• You see some massive road trains up here – a semi trailer with up to four trailers in tow.  The most interesting vehicle to date has been a grader on the Tanami.  The grader was moving to a new location and wasn’t doing the grading bit when we saw him however the configuration of his vehicle was interesting.   Behind the grader was a large trailer with a fuel tank, behind that was another trailer this time it was something that looked like an accommodation unit and behind that was a truck.  So in total the grader was towing three vehicles.  You have to assume the grader drivers are on the road for long periods and don’t go home every night for a hot meal and a night to watch the football.
• Categories of travellers up here:
  • Well prepared for remote travel with heavy duty 4WD vehicle and off road camper.  Has all the off road toys.  Vehicle has a big engine. Easily identified because the car is rarely never washed.  It’s a badge of honour to have a dusty red vehicle and dusty red wife and dusty red kids.
  • Travels dirt roads but not extreme.  Enjoys a shower when one is available. At least windows of car are washed and maybe whole vehicle when the layer of dust and dirt effects fuel consumption.  Falls between the other two groups and learns stuff from both.
  • Never leave the bitumen.  Car is washed at every opportunity as is the caravan.  It’s never a camper trailer.  Generally shower and put on clean clothes after hitching up caravan.  Always look immaculate.  Has many on-road toys which may include a satellite dish. May have a small dog.
  • All groups are well travelled.  First group could be travelling just on school holidays or doing the big trip of several months.  The second group as per the first with the addition of they have been doing trips like this for a while.  Third group are generally retired and have been travelling for years.  They never experience a winter and enjoy their creature comforts along the way.
• Still the camp grounds are filled with the retired.  I have however discovered a major advantage of camping with this demographic – they are all in bed by 9.00pm and the camp ground is dead quiet.  Sorry that should be very
• The cupboard door that came off on the Tanami has been fixed however our travelling companion Russ damaged a spring on his trailer on the Bungle Bungle road.  This has now been fixed and he is off on the road again.

Our next destination is the El Questro resort on the Gibb River road and after that we will be heading for Darwin.

10 July 2016

We have now crossed the Tropic of Capricorn and are officially in the warm climes away from winter in the south.  This is a good thing and something to be celebrated.  We are in Halls Creek having completed the Tanami Road, a journey of about 1000 kms from Alice Springs.  We have driven from the centre of Australia to the north west area and the Kimberley region.  The Tanami Desert is vast, flat and practically empty but it evokes stories that need telling.

• Our first stop along the  road was to be at Tilmouth Springs, 200kms along the way and the first opportunity to top up our fuel.  The road house had no signs that would indicate the fuel company selling the fuel.  Clearly advertising is superfluous when you have no competitors. We pulled up to the fuel pump with a great sense of expectation.  This was our start to the Tanami and we were ready for the first part of our plan – fill up at Tilmouth.  The pump didn’t start.  I assumed the operator in the store needed to turn on the machine and fuel would flow.  I ambled up to the shop to be met by the lady operating the road house.  She greeted me with the words ‘we are out of fuel’.  What, a petrol station without fuel, that can’t be.  She assured us fuel would be arriving that afternoon or maybe tomorrow and that her competitor who is 100kms up the road had plenty.  We had fuel enough to do the next 100kms.  We stayed and enjoyed a coffee which had not run out.
• You have to appreciate the sense of humour of the person erecting the sign which says call 1800 XXXX for road conditions.  There is no mobile telephone reception out there nor any places with a phone where you could call and ask the question.  A perfect bureaucratic solution, make the public think there is a service being provided when there is none which means no cost! Everybody is happy.
• The sealed road continued for another 80kms ending about 20kms before the community of Yuendumu.  Now the Yuendumu petrol station is not like what you might find in the cities and towns of Australia, the UK or the USA.  There was a sign ‘Petrol’ painted on an old piece of metal with an arrow pointing in the direction of the Yuendumu community.  We followed the sign, searching for a roadhouse or something that might resemble a fuel filling station.  We made a couple of turns and there before us was a couple of fuel bowsers rising from the dirt.  No concrete hardstand here.  Some distance away was a rough hut that as a kid would have made a pretty good cubby house.  We pulled up and a character appeared out of the cubby house.  No shoes and very old and tattered clothes.  He greeted us with ‘I accept cash, card or bullion’.   So this was the place where we could fill our tanks.
• It turned out our fuel attendant had lived in Yuendumu for forty years.  His wife had been a teacher in the community.  He went on to explain he spoke some Walpiri, the local language and was good enough to tell a joke in Walpiri but did not consider himself to be an accomplished Walpiri speaker. Walpiri is a language spoken by only about 3000 indigenous people in central Australia.  Our fuel attendant went on to discuss languages in general and theories of education and learning.  This was a man worth listening to. He spoke Dutch, Spanish and English and of course a bit of Walpiri – enough to tell a joke and embarrass himself.
• As our conversation went on more customers arrived; he had the only fuel for 100s of kms in both directions.  When I commented he had customers waiting his response was: where are they going to go?  His competitors were 300kms in one direction and 500kms in the other.  Our conversation continued.  The fuel was $2.18 a litre so I was going get the most value out of my purchase if it included a conversation with a 60 year old Dutchman who had lived in the Tanami for 40 years in an Aboriginal community.
• After the fuel we dropped our tyre pressures down to 25psi and continued, ready for 700kms of dirt road and corrugations.  This was to be our remote adventure.  Our first night on the Tanami was at the Flooded Creek campsite.  We were the only ones there and the peace and silence was amazing.  As night fell the stars lit up the sky.  The Milky Way filled the sky as we spotted satellites and shooting stars.  Night photography was attempted with mixed results.
• Through the night we heard and saw the occasional Road Train, a semi trailer with four trailers.  We could see their headlights and the row of running lights along the following trailers.  Night time was clearly not the time to be on the During the day when a Road Train approached you pulled over and maybe stopped.  They move for no one, never slow and create dust clouds to behold.
• Our second day on the Tanami stated with a spectacular sunrise.  We hit the road for another 300kms plus day.  The road surface varied from good enough to do 90kph down to 60kph over the heavily corrugated sections.  There were no fences, buildings, cattle or even wild life except maybe for that wedge tail eagle we nearly hit and the camels we didn’t see.  Our travelling companion Russ called our attention to the camels over the radio but they had moved on by the time we got there (or he was making up their presence.)
• After 330kms we pulled up at the WA/NT border campsite.  It was about 2.00pm and we were ready for a break from driving.  The road varied a lot and there was no time to drop your guard.  The radio helped with the lead vehicle able to call out oncoming traffic and the rear driver able to call out passing traffic.  In fact there were very few other cars or trucks, the road is lightly travelled.  We camped well off the road and again we were on our own. Tonight it would be a lamb roast dinner with a 2006 shiraz.  Not bad for the middle of nowhere.  We were hesitant to claim we had conquered the Tanami and yet it was only 300kms to Halls Creek.
• Next morning, a 100 metres down the road and we had gone back an hour and a half.  We had started at 8.30am and now it was 7.00am, fantastic.   We had crossed into WA and a new time zone.  We had not however, finished with the Tanami a realisation reinforced by deteriorating road conditions and very soft sand and deep corrugations.    I heard a very slight change in the road noise which is pretty bad anyway but it seemed different.  I was curious so I found a ‘good’ surface to stop on to inspect my tyres.  Five were good, one not so.
• One tyre on the van was completed destroyed with the outer laminate wrapped around the axle.  Time to appreciate a good jack and the fact I had tightened all the wheel studs to a point I knew I could take a wheel off.  Half an hour of sweat and effort and we were back on the road.  No more spare tyre.
• The Billiluna community was our next refuelling stop and since I had emptied my gerry cans it was with great expectations that we arrived at the only fuel point for 100s of kms.  Where were the bowsers?  There were couple of shipping containers with buttons, maybe a pump and a hose attached.  Maybe this was the bowser?  A walk over to the ‘shop’ where you paid for what you thought you needed at $2.62 a litre.  You were given a card with a magnetic strip which you then used at the bowser in order to get your fuel.  We successfully filled our tank, a great feeling.  The fuel pump had a sign warning about ‘the’ camel which is aggressive, will corner you and it will bite.  We didn’t see the camel until we drove away, it was lurking behind the containers.  Just missed out on being bitten by a camel – maybe next time.
• By the time we arrived at Halls Creek the damage tally was:
  • Russ had lost one driving light; its somewhere on the Tanami.
  • One cupboard door came off in our van.
  • One tyre destroyed
  • The tailgate on the car is now difficult to open.
  • My radio antenna came off but was easily re-attached.
  • Dust everywhere but not as bad as expected.
• The good things that happened:
  • We found a thumb screw that secures the TV.  It had been missing for two years and was sitting in the middle of the van floor when we arrived in Halls Creek.
  • Our extra fuel got us through so the planning was right.
  • We dove the Tanami!

We are now at the Bungle Bungle caravan park with plans for an adventure into the park tomorrow sans the van.  Oh and we have two brand new tyres with better specifications than the last set.

1 July 2016

As you can tell from the title we are now in dingo country.  They wander the campground and can be seen along the walking tracks.  The country is wide open and very empty except for the amazing sites of Uluru, Kata Tjuta, Mt Connor  and other geological interruptions to an otherwise dead flat country.  This is a landscape that was forged 400 million years ago.  Of course there are those pesky retired people filling up the campgrounds but I will avoid going on about them.

My latest reflections:

• We have now walked to the top of Uluru (Ayers Rock) and around the rock.  This time it was the ‘around’ bit.  The first time I was somewhat younger so the climb to the top was the only option.  Maybe in another 40 years you will be able to walk through the rock!   This time it was a 10km (6.2 mile) walk and after the rain large sections of the track was under water so after much dodging, jumping and going off the track we both ended up with wet feet.  Some water is still flowing off the rock.
• The required energy food for such a walk is of course snakes.  I don’t mean the reptile version, I am of course referring to the edible lollies (candy).  Many who know me will not be surprised by this revelation.
• The desert  is amazingly green, even the Spinifex is green.  The mulga and desert oaks look healthy and not like they are about to die from a lack of water.
• This landscape is very ancient with 400 million year old rocks.  These mountains existed before Australia existed and before the Australian continent separated from Antarctica and 150 million years before the dinosaurs died out.  By comparison the North American Rockies are about 80 million years old.
• In the Flinders Ranges we came across information signs that had the ‘million’ as in million years rubbed out.  One sign had the added graffiti of ‘bloody creationists’.  Well it seems this vandal continued on from the Flinders Ranges because his/her handiwork is in evidence up here.  This kind of graffiti has been known to bring forth the grumpy old man in me.
• Diesel at  a 63% mark up from prices at home!  You can buy a loaf of bread for about $1.99 which is pretty close to prices at home, or even a hot meat pie for $4.00.  Post cards are still $1.50.  (Yes we have to buy postcards for the granddaughters.  We want them to experience mail from sources other than the internet and without viruses .  I realise we are trying to maintain a rapidly vanishing past.)   So why is it that diesel or petrol is inflated by 63%.  Of course there is no competition and you can’t drive to the next petrol station when they are about 300km apart.  There is no lack of patrons when it is unusual to ever enter a petrol station without at least a couple of patrons queuing for fuel.  Of course on top of paying $1.96 a litre the petrol station today was unable to accept credit cards so it had to be in cash.  Ahhhhhh!  End of rant.  And ‘they’ wonder why Australian families holiday in Bali!  Ok, now I will stop.
• Kings Canyon is an amazing place to visit and to walk through, exploring the water holes and creeks that are flowing following the recent rains.  There are ancient cycad trees growing in the middle of the desert, remnants of when Australia was a wetter place.  The ambience is amazing and somewhat overwhelming until your drifting thoughts are interrupted by a family of noisy teenage boys who insist on climbing all the rock domes, yelling down to their parents and throwing rocks to mum and dad for their examination.  We would slow down or then walk faster all in the remote hope of putting distance between us and our contemplation of the place and the noisy ones – no luck.  But as luck would have it over a 6km walk the noisy boys started to tire and climbing the rocks became less interesting and just walking quietly with mum and dad became more attractive.  Yay, we could again enjoy the scenery and the silence.
• Dog Sitting on the Tucker box is an Australian icon however the new version is a dingo on the garbage bins.
• The butterflies are at it again wearing white parkas hiking the Australian bush or maybe Ugg boots on rocky tracks or how about shiny gold sneakers.  I despair.
• We are enjoying the fact our van includes a gas heater.  We may be in the desert but these mornings are pretty chilly so the heater makes life that little bit more comfortable.  We are soft, yes I can but agree.
• You can tell this country gets very hot with very high levels of UV exposure when you notice every road sign, advertising placard or painted wall is so faded.  It explains the weathered look of the locals.
• We drove the direct route from Kings canyon to Alice Springs.  It was a 200km dirt road with lots of corrugations.  We drove the road with two other vehicles keeping in touch via radio.  We had to watch for wild horses crossing the road.  The horses are in very good condition after the rain and green growth.  This section of road was our preparation for the Tanami Road which is 800 kms of dirt with very limited fuel.  More on this part of the trip to come.
• Today is Territory Day and the fireworks are going off.  Fireworks can only be bought on one day of the year and can only be set off after 6.00pm on that same day.  However as I was driving home from the shops at about 4.30pm the fireworks were going off which was pretty disconcerting when the blast was coming from the road just beside where you were driving.

Tomorrow we are off to drive the length of the Tanami Road of about 1000kms.  We have plotted where we can buy fuel and will be carrying extra fuel.  Looking forward to the peace and quiet of the remote desert.

25 June 2016

Our travels continue into the northern realms of South Australia with a new focus on arriving at Uluru (Ayers Rock).  This long distance travelling and not working is intellectually challenging however over the past couple of days we have achieved a couple of major successes:

• Yesterday we left Map 94-95 and moved onto Map 93 and now its Map 128 where we will stay for some days.  Maps 94-95 cover a lot of country and we spent many days on those pages but no more and who knows when these pages will be visited again; one of those mysteries for the life of the traveller.
• The second major achievement was a 2 minute shower.  Up here water is so scarce you pay 20 cents for 2 minutes of water.  You can continue to insert more 20 cent pieces to get more but I saw this limit as a clear challenge.  A complete wash, not just the grubby bits, including washing my hair in 2 minutes.  It’s got to be a record.
• Finally, I achieved a hat trick with drive-through camp sites.   Yes, I can reverse onto a site but a drive-through makes life so easy both for the arrival and exiting part of the visit.  Renmark, Port Augusta and now Coober Pedy; feeling pretty smug.

To other matters:

• We had assumed finding a campsite each night would not be a problem. I mean it’s the middle winter, there are no school holidays and we are in the middle of the outback.  And yet at 4.00pm there were about 12 vans queued up waiting to check into the park we had chosen to stay at in Coober Pedy.  Who are these people and why are they not at work?  There were some young families doing the big trip, a family from Switzerland enjoying a three week trip through the centre of Australia and then there are all these retired people filling the camp grounds.  The previous Treasurer was right, they should be back at work and leaving the roads open and campsites available.  We have now had to book way ahead only to discover camp grounds at Uluru and Kings Canyon are all booked out!  These people should be at home preparing their tax returns.
• 5 of the top 10 pizza shops in Australia is in Coober Pedy.  It’s a long way to go for a pizza but they are outstanding.   We shared an El Paso which sported jalapeno chillies amongst other spicy things and a Coat of Arms which included kangaroo and emu.  Don’t you love a country that has a pizza that includes the meat of the two animals on our coat of arms.   I can’t imagine buying a pizza with bald eagle meat in the US or lion meat in the UK.
• The country is so flat it’s hard to work out where the creeks begin and where they end.  They seem to start from nowhere and go nowhere, they connect to nothing and just seem to vanish somewhere in the distance.  They could probably flow in either direction depending on where the rain had fallen.
• They have a habit up here of naming homesteads (ranches) after nonexistent mountains.  There is Mount Cavenagh. Mount Willoughby, Wellbourn Hill and many others.  Trust me there are no mountains, possible a slight hillock but that’s it.   It was probably just a ploy to make the properties sound attractive.  Cavenagh Hillock, Willoughby Slight Rise or Wellbourn Mound don’t grab the imagination.
• There are many signs along the roads warning of wandering cattle.  Unfortunately the cow silhouette they use is of a  healthy looking dairy cow with a full udder.  The cows up here show no resemblance to such an animal.
• After 40 years we finally visited the place where Barb and I met.  Back then it was a wind mill, a large iron water tank, cattle troughs and one dirt track.  Now it’s on a sealed highway, has a road house and petrol station, there are permanent residents, a mailbox, a police station, camp ground and motel.  We couldn’t find the original bore or tank; it should have been made a heritage site.
• We are now at Uluru or Ayers Rock.  Its bucketing with rain and the rock is nowhere to be seen.  Hopefully the rain will stop tomorrow.  Of course the time to come will be in a month’s time when the desert flowers are in full bloom. It’s like fishing; it’s always you should have been here yesterday when the fish were biting.

That’s enough and with all this rain I am ready for a glass of wine.  Tomorrow we plan for a 10km walk around the rock if it’s still there and it hasn’t sunk down into a desert bog.

19 June 2015

It’s the start of our big trip.  This time no passports, visas or queues to get through body scans.  No avoidance of international roaming and checking international rates for currency conversion.  We have a general idea of where we are going but we are having lots of rain and the country is looking very wet.  It’s a guess whether some of the roads we want to travel will be closed due to flooding or wash outs.  Here goes for the first couple of days:

 

• Today it was the torturous last  minute packing when you are constantly wondering what have I not packed and what will I need over the next 3 months.  Airlines do us a favour when they say you can take one bag of a certain size and weight.  When you have a car and van the limits know no limits.
• It’s also very hard to leave a warm and dry house and head off for a camping adventure when is cold and wet.  That wood fire looked so inviting – we left home why?  To quote our friends in the middle of the Gobi desert ‘What for’?
• The road we travelled today is also a stock route.  It’s the main highway between Sydney and Adelaide but we were lucky enough to come across a herd of several hundred steers being driven along the road.  The steers fell into almost two groups; those that walked on the left and those that walked on the right.  Of course there was one free thinking cow who walked along the white line, right down the middle, regardless of the cars creeping past.  The cows on the right occasionally looked over at the cows on the left.  There was a hesitation about changing sides but then they would stay on their side.  The cows on the left did the same.  A quick glance to those on the right, hesitation and a hint of changing sides.  I am sure the cows were mooing ‘cross the road and join us’ but there was very little crossing of the road.  At the back of the herd was a drover on a quad bike.  I am sure he thought he was in control but I am equally sure the cows set the pace and decided who walked on the right and who walked on the left side of the road.
• The cows seemed to be an allegory for politics.  There is always those that walk on the left and those that always walk on the right side of the road.  Never the twain will meet.  There is also that free thinking non-member of the herd who insists on walking the white line.  The guy on the bike is the one who thinks he is one of those up front influencing the cows but really they’re at the back following the butt end of the herd and the one cow they are worried about is the one following the white line.  Dam those independent thinkers!
• The Australian bush is supposed to be hot and dry so days of wet and cold with creeks running in flood and the paddocks all flooded is almost an out of body experience.
• Day Two:  We drove from Hay to Renmark.  Along this road we saw something that many would assume were huge bales of cotton.    Do not be confused, they were in fact enormous, evil witchetty grubs crawling across the landscape.  All the way to the horizon there were scores maybe hundreds of these witchetty grubs, all crawling towards the highway.  Marching toward destruction and havoc on the main highway from Adelaide to Sydney.  Excellent material for a B Grade horror movie.  For my foreign readers checkout:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Witchetty_grub.
• The display from our video camera at the back of the van was for most of the day upside down.  Its amazing how quickly the brain can adapt to an inverted image and make sense of it.  The image eventually fixed itself. One of those weird technical situations when you realise the technology is in control.
• The website for closed roads tells me the roads we wanted to drive are closed or only open to heavy Sounds like  a change of plans is required.  Of course our travelling companion who is ahead of us and is now out of mobile phone coverage, so no emails, SMS or phone calls to adjust our plans. Sounds like life in the 1980s!  Not sure how we will cope.
• Today I heard someone refer to us as ‘grey nomads’.  How insulting; I might be greying but nomad suggests a lack of a sense of direction or purpose, just aimless wandering.  I know where I am heading!
• Whilst many think accent, rugby and the haka are the only things that separate Australia and New Zealand.  No, there is one more major difference.  In Australia there are signs telling you about the camp grounds in the town you are approaching well before you get there.  This is something NZ should really consider.  It’s too late when you are already lost in the town looking for accommodation.
• Finally, every major undertaking has a vision and mission statement and we have decided our Vision is ‘High Quality Recycling Across Australia’.  We will achieve this through our Mission  statement  which  is “The distribution of containers that once held high quality wine and beer across the recycling bins of Australia”.  We think this is a socially responsible vision that somehow will save the polar bears.  These mission and vision statements were developed without a workshop or any stakeholder engagement. No consultants were  injured in the development of these statements.

 

That’s it for the moment. More to come.  Not sure where we will be next but we are heading to the town where Barb and I met 41 years ago.

27 April 2016

It’s no surprise that this last log did not get written in New Zealand and it remains my last job after unpacking and putting stuff away, filling the laundry basket, checking the credit card accounts for damage and checking the voicemail.   I have now reached a point where I feel I can legitimately download my last thoughts on the trip to SI NZ.  So here goes:

• The Chinese middle class are on the move and travelling.   No longer sequestered in air conditioned coaches, they are now confident travellers hiring motor homes and camping in campgrounds often with their extended families.  On a recent fishing trip there were nine in the boat fishing, seven of whom were Chinese, none had been in a boat before or had ever fished.

Unfortunately the average Chinese traveller has not quite got the notion of clothes for travelling.  They are generally dressed for a stroll through Central Park in late autumn.  Flat soled shoes, business trousers, city styled overcoats and frilly pink umbrellas were de rigueur on rocky and steep tracks to view the glaciers.  Audrey, I think there is a Marketing opp for Frederick.

• Deleting photos.  Do you remember the good old days when you only had 36 photos on a roll of film so you made sure you didn’t waste any.  You would get the photo right before hitting the shutter.  People were posed, the pic framed, the focus right.  You dropped off the film at the chemist and a week later picked up your memories of your trip.  If they were slides, some weeks later you would receive a small package in the mail.  You would then go through your work, discard any duds and mount them in a photo album.  It all seemed pretty simple.

Now we have technology to make everything so much easier.  So we snap away collecting megapixels with gay abandon.  Clicking away in the knowledge I can always delete any I don’t need later. And so by example when we travelled for a year in 1979 we took 700 photos (slides actually) and in three weeks in New Zealand we took 654 photos!

When the nice young lady from Malaysia offered to take my picture with the glacier in the background she didn’t take one photo, oh no, she took three.  So now it’s up to me to make a decision on which one is the best, which is well framed, is the colour and focus right, do they meet the rule of thirds and so it goes on.  Why didn’t she get it right the first time.  The solution, I keep all three pics because I can’t choose.

So now we face the question of how do you store your photos, do you need backup copies, which ones will you print or will you create a book, do you delete them from the SD card, do you create an album on your iPad, will you view them on your TV and so it goes on.   Technology has made it so much easier (as spoken with a heavy sense of sarcasm).

• Butterflies on boats – one of our young fishers was resplendent in black tights with sparkles.  It was like the Milky Way emblazoned on her legs.  The bling was there as was the colourful shoes.  We had a butterfly on the boat.  Butterflies don’t like the ocean, they get seasick.  It’s so relaxing looking out over the ocean swells hauling a double header of blue cod with the sound of someone filling a plastic bag in the background.
• Whale watching – we got to see sperm whales off the coast of Kaikoura.  They could have just been large logs that periodically let forth with a geyser of steam.  That was until the fluke lifted and the whale returned to the depths to catch squid at about 1000 metres.  It seems the young males stay in the area all year; in contrast the females stay in the tropics where the water is warmer. Go figure.
• Crayfish and fillets – after two hours of fishing we returned to our motor home with a crayfish each and six fillets of deep sea fish.  That night we ate the crayfish and following we exceeded all standards of appropriate meal size and ate all six fillets, with chips.  Eating so well created an interesting comparison with the food being prepared in the camp kitchen that night.  It ranged from peanut butter and jelly toasted sandwiches or breakfast cereal for the impoverished backpackers, through to noodles, steamed vegetables and soup for the Chinese families or maybe bouillabaisse for a French family.  We went for steamed crayfish and later fish fillets in beer batter, simple but honest.
• Airports, they are all the same.  Yeah, I know they are a bit different but fundamentally all airport architects came out of the same school.

You start your wonderful adventure in an airport with security queues, display screen, shops selling overpriced souvenirs, all in air conditioned comfort and your pockets stuffed with passports and exit or entry paperwork. Three weeks later you are back in an airport with security queues, display screen, shops selling overpriced souvenirs, all in air conditioned comfort and your pockets stuffed with passports and exit or entry paperwork and you wonder if it was all a dream, did it really happen?  You then realise your megapixel collection will reassure it did in fact happen as will your credit card – but there is that moment of doubt when you are back in that airport waiting for the return flight.

• Travelling with a rugby team of teenagers filling the back half of aircraft – not my preferred travelling style.
• Observations – New Zealanders are great entrepreneurs and proud of their country.  They create fantastic opportunities for tourists to empty their wallets in return for a good and often frightening time.  They have bungee jumps, cliff swings, mountain bike runs, jet boats, train rides, hikes along the coast that start with a water taxi delivery, fishing trips that end with you receiving a crayfish and just overwhelming scenery.  The country is incredibly clean, neat and tidy, and pretty empty.  There is no graffiti, no litter and no delaminated tyres strewn along the roads.  There are no derelict and abandoned buildings, no farm yards filled with rusting old farm machinery.  The shopping malls display pictures of people bike riding, sailing and hiking.   I reckon I could live in New Zealand if only I could learn how to correctly pronounce the word Maori.

That’s it until the next adventure which might be on a river or a trip through the Oz backyard.  As always if you have had enough of these emails just say so and you will see no more.  I was encouraged by a UK journalist one evening in Wanaka to move to a blog site. If that happens your inbox will offer a sigh of relief and I will tell you what the address might be.

Yours in perpetual motion.

21 April 2016

Since the last Log we have experienced an overnight cruise in some amazing wilderness and have driven the entire length of the west coast and are now in warmer weather camped by a beach.

• The overnight cruise on Doubtful Sound started with a 50min boat ride across a lake, followed by a 45min bus ride over the mountains and then embarking on a larger boat with accommodation for the 70 or so adventurers.  The predominant attire amongst the travellers was of the ubiquitous beige, black, brown, blue and other similarly non descript colours of fleece jackets.  Amongst this group was one young woman from Japan who wore light coloured shorts with a lace fringe, red tights and bling in her hair, around her neck and hanging from her ears.  Faux fur formed the collar of her jacket.  A butterfly amongst the moths.
• The cruise included a two hour kayak paddle.  The group included a wide range of water skills but all were very aware of the cold water, the depth of the fiord, the remoteness of the location and the vulnerability of a kayak.  Into this mix there is always one paddler who is somewhat less spatially aware of others and would seem to have a knack of getting too close to others, causing fear of a collision or worse still tipping.  It was in this atmosphere that without a word said the less spatially aware paddler was suddenly on their own with a wide margin between their kayak and other fellow paddlers. As they moved so the margin around them flowed.
• It’s a challenge trying to swat sand flies while ensuring your kayak remains upright and you dry.  There is a sand fly season in New Zealand and if you are planning on travelling here you should attempt to manage your time around these pesky little biters.  For your edification and for planning purposes the sand fly season runs to a day from 1 January to 31 December.
• At the end of the paddle a few brave and might I say younger members of the troupe jumped off the back of the boat for a swim in less than tropical water – ah youth.
• Dinner was a sumptuous feast of varied meats, seafood and salads.  Our table included  two other couples, one from the UK (Peak District no less) and the other from San Francisco.  At this stage conversation is about our mutual agreement that the scenery is overwhelming, the cruise was a great choice, the food is pretty good and that tomorrow will be amazing.  We are all a reasonably homogenous group in appearance, age, quality of photographic equipment and appreciation of the experience.
• It is over dinner however that you suddenly discover the fellow travellers at your table are a senior law lecturer who now runs a ballooning business and a CEO of a multinational advertising company.  Not so homogenous after all.  Both are full of wonderful travel recommendations and email addresses are exchanged.
• Some of our company spend the entire afternoon and next morning taking pictures of themselves with selfie sticks with the fiord, waterfalls and mountains in the background of their own magnificence.  Confession – I do not own a selfie stick.
• New level of self indulgent photography –  taking a picture of the comments you made in the Visitors Book – and what for I ask myself.
• The end of the cruise and we are exhausted from the experience.  As we drive back towards Queenstown we realise that what two days ago was amazing is now hum drum. All scenery now comes a poor second to Doubtful Sound.
• I thought the south of New Zealand was pretty empty with little traffic and no major towns that might include a Maccas or even a traffic light.  Let me say the west coast is even more empty.  It was two days of driving before we came to a town of any significant size.
• We head to the West Coast and discover the town of Haast and its offering of fish and chips for lunch.  Now the town of Haast is pretty much a café, a petrol station and a collection of houses.   It’s a tiny place in a windswept location, trapped between the Tasman Sea and the mountains.  In this remote setting we enjoy fish and chips comprising a large filet of Orange Roughy and for just $16, including the chips.   It was the only fish they offered. These are the gems you find in remote and windswept fishing villages.  Imagine what you would pay for Orange Roughy in a fancy Sydney restaurant, not $16 with chips!
• From Haast our journey takes us to the two most accessible glaciers in New Zealand, Fox and Franz Josef.  A word of warning to all readers if you want to see these glaciers, go now they are retreating rapidly.  Its confronting to see where these glaciers were in 2008 and where they are now.
• Amazing fact; the west coast mountains of New Zealand continue to rise faster than any other mountains in the world and if it wasn’t for glaciers and other forms of erosion would, over the past few million years, be six times higher than they are now.  Well I was amazed.
• I said at the beginning of this trip that we were not good at planning and that our destinations are often decided on local advice as we travel through the country.  And so it was with Ferge Burgers and Doubtful Sound.  We can now add the Abel Tasman national park to that list.  Over the past week when we asked fellow campers where they were heading we often got the reply – Abel Tasman. And so we now find ourselves camped opposite a wonderful beach on the boundary of Abel Tasman national park.  Tomorrow we have a boat ride up into the park where we will be dropped off for a 11km hike and then picked up in the afternoon for our return home.  This afternoon we did yet another kayak tour.  This time it was just us in a double kayak and our guide in a single, so no spatially challenged paddlers, oh no.

That’s it for Log 13.  Our time in NZ is coming to an end with just whale watching and crayfish (lobster) dinners to go.  There will probably be a Log 14 before we return to Oz.

8 April 2016

Dear All Travel Log Addressees,

After a break of about 4 months we decided the time was right for new adventures so we are now travelling through the South Island of the Land of the Long White Cloud (New Zealand for the uninitiated).  The great thing about NZ is its close to Oz, they pretty much speak English and they understand you when you order a flat white.

We have come to the conclusion that our approach to travel is a little bit organic.  We are not good at planning and so it is with this trip; the flights were booked as was the first night in a motel and the motorhome that would be home for the next 21 days, after that we are making it up as we go.  Regardless of the lack of planning we are thoroughly enjoying our NZ wanderings.  NZ is similar to Oz but then again so different which inspires the following stream of consciousness:

• Before leaving Oz, our first OSM was at Sydney international airport.  We have all experienced Cattle Class when flying. Well, we have now discovered Goat Class.  It seems we export by airfreight live goats, packed tightly in wooden crates.  I am guessing reaching their destination is not a happy time for the goats and they are certainly packed in closer than the aforementioned Cattle Class.  So maybe on reflection Cattle Class is not so bad when you consider the alternative.
• I wonder if we will ever see stock yards at airports with drovers and their dogs working the passengers stock onto aircraft.  Is there an airport design option developing here?
• New Zealand is about the most neat and tidy country I have visited.  Even the trees on farms are trimmed so that they form tall, narrow barriers between fields; amazing.  The traffic is sparse and the scenery overwhelming; from amazing coastal vistas to mountains comparable with the Swiss Alps. And its empty; no freeways, no massive car parks, no long queues anywhere and no rubbish.  Rarely do you see a farm surrounded by rusting old cars and expired farm equipment.
• New Zealand is a bit like Scotland but with better roads and you can understand  what people are saying.
• The voices at the campgrounds are like the UN.  There are Germans, French, Koreans, Australians, Japanese, Chinese, even English and more to be heard on an average night at the camp kitchen.  The range of food being prepared is better than a food court at a Westfield shopping centre.
• The range of international visitors creates  a number of challenges on the road which is highlighted by the desire of the NZ government to stop these people killing themselves.   Over the men’s urinal in one town was a sign in about six languages exhorting drivers to stay on the left amongst other pretty obvious driving suggestions.  Accompanying the sign was a map depicting all the deaths on the local roads over a five year period with a key to how people had died, like driving on the wrong side of the road, driving too fast, too tired etc etc.  Seems this sign was only on display in the Men’s toilet.  Obviously the women don’t stay long enough in the toilet to read such a comprehensive piece of public information.
• Have you ever packed away the camera about 2 seconds too early?  We had decided that enough megapixels had been collected and so the camera was put away at the very moment we drove under a hawk that was hovering probably two metres above the road and just to the side.  We virtually drove under it with no pics to prove the event.  It was amazing.
• Last night we spent the evening chatting with our neighbours, a couple from Taiwan.  It was a great conversation about running a farm, life and politics in Taiwan. Tonight the camp kitchen is full of high school students from Thailand along with families from China and India (I think).
• Amusing sign yesterday “Stay Left, It’s That Simple”; you have to chuckle at the New Zealand ability to be so blunt and should this sign be in more languages and not just English.
• As an example of cultural challenges, tonight’s campground toilets include instructions on how to use the loo and where to put the paper.   I wonder if the same instructions are in the ladies loo; maybe they just know these things or again the ladies don’t have the time to read such instructions? Whatever, it’s always nice to have something to read in the loo. NZ is not the most exotic location but it continues to entertain.
• Amusing road sign today “Hidden Queue Ahead”.  Why is there a queue in the middle of nowhere and more importantly why is it hidden?
• There are signs everywhere that NZ is doing OK, be it the number of Land Cruisers, BMWs, Mercedes and fancy boats owned by the locals or just the quality of shops and restaurants.  Seems there is money in sheep and dairy.

3 November 2015

Dear All Travel Log Addressees,

The following reflections have been inspired by a recent trip to Hawaii, specifically the island of Maui to catch up with Barb’s three sisters and one sister-in-law who shall be referred to in the collective form as The Sisters throughout this piece.

• This was our 14^th trip to the US to visit family and the first that did not involve 30 hours of travel, a multitude of security queues and the ever changing TSA rules on what you must remove from your person or bags in order to move to the next level of the game.   This game is also designed to bring forth the grumpy old man within me, to insight Pele, the Hawaiian fire goddess to come forward.  Fortunately, like Pele there are no violent eruptions just small releases of steam.
• Apart from being the token male my role on this trip was not dissimilar to that of Morgan Freeman in Driving Miss Daisy.  From the moment we arrived I had become the designated driver.  Now whilst I enjoyed that job, gleaning accurate driving instructions from five different voices with a multitude of simultaneous conversations overlaying the instructions, whilst driving on the other side of the road was entertaining.  Regardless of our efforts we observed no road rage in Maui.
• I believe the role of driver was in recognition that I could never keep up with or contribute to the ten different, simultaneous conversations that were occurring in the back of the vehicle.
• We attended a Luau.  The Sisters were very pleased to receive leis as they entered the venue.  I had a string of black nuts hung around my neck.  I am told they are Kukui nuts.  So while The Sisters got flowers I got a string of nuts.  I wondered why this was and have come the conclusion its part of a game conducted by the waiting staff at the Luau.  The way the game works is the guy handing out the necklace of black nuts selects the guest with the daggiest, and most colourful Hawaiian shirt and he indicates his selection by awarding the necklace of nuts.  Now throughout the evening the waiting staff move amongst the guests checking out the other Hawaiian shirts.  They then award points for whether the guy who had awarded the necklace had picked the worst shirt.  Each night this process continues and at the end of the season the votes are tallied and the person with the most points wins the money. So I am assuming I got the black nuts because of my outstandingly colourful shirt!
• When it comes to travel there are all sorts of new high tech gadgets designed to make your travel easier.  We have high wicking, quick drying, SPF50 clothes that protect us from the sun, they breathe in high humidity and yet keep us warm in the cold.  There are sandals with super comfortable heals and grips designed to take us to the slopes of Everest. And there are more, however all these new fangled items pale into insignificance when compared to a disabled parking permit, the ultimate travel accessory.  US parking spaces are large by world standards but disabled spaces are huge and they are at the front door to resorts and places of interest.  We did have some mobility issues in the group including the very recent installation of a titanium knee so the parking permit was very much appreciated.  My challenge now is how to get a disabled parking permit that will be recognised in all countries.  Imagine, like an international driving licence, having an international parking permit.
• In the UK you will see cars from Germany and France.  In NSW you will see cars from Victoria, Queensland or even WA.  Yet in Hawaii you will see only cars with Hawaiian rego plates.  I can only conclude, and this might be a long shot that people don’t drive to Hawaii!
• Hawaii and in particular the island of Oahu has a very unique homeless problem.  It seems some homeless people in North America have decided homelessness in Hawaii is a much better option than on the mainland.  I would have to say the choice between winter in Alberta or Waikiki is really no choice.  Whole families are arriving without jobs, money, or shelter or even knowing anyone in Hawaii.  One story involved the estranged wife in Florida who bought her ne’er-do-well ex-husband a one way ticket to Honolulu.  It’s the Hawaiian version of illegal immigrants and the proposed solution – you wouldn’t believe it, the local politicians want to house them on an island and off the streets of Honolulu.  It’s amazing how wherever you go the preferred solutions seem to be the same.  (reference to Australian treatment of illegal boat arrivals)
• We enjoyed a morning snorkelling in the Molokini crater.  The crater is an extinct volcano just off the coast of Maui.  The snorkelling was great fun but after about one hour in the water a subtle change occurred.   No it wasn’t the tide or the arrival of sharks or something similar.  After about an hour about nine more snorkelling tour boats had arrived and suddenly the balance had changed- there were more looking at the fish than there were fish to look at.  Maybe that’s an exaggeration but there were an awful lot of people in that crater.
• In Australia we introduced the cane toad to eat a beetle that lived in the sugar cane where the toad couldn’t venture.  The toad has gone on to become a huge ecological disaster.  In Hawaii they introduced the mongoose to control rats and mice in the sugar cane.  The rats and mice were nocturnal and the mongooses were active in the daytime.  Result, the mongoose ate all the ground based native birds in Hawaii; same story in New Zealand with weasels.   The end result Maui is infested with Indian Myna birds and native birds are long gone.  The other wild animals on Maui are goats, pigs and deer – yep none native to the islands.  A familiar story maybe?
• Definition of remote in Hawaii – your cell phone doesn’t work.  Car rental companies don’t like their cars on the south side of Maui because there is no cell phone access – where would that put most car rental companies in Australia?   The road had a section of dirt (500 metres) and was narrow in a couple of places (better than most roads in Scotland) and yet this was remote wilderness.  I guess it all depends on the local context.
• In contrast Honolulu with only 347,000 people enjoys freeways of six lanes in each direction.  It’s like LA in the middle of the Pacific.
• Final comment and a bit of consultant speak.  (Consultant speak in italics.)   To make the seven days work to everyone’s satisfaction I won the job of facilitating a planning session.  The planning identified the desired outcomes that were common to all participants and those specific to the few.  We agree a way forward and importantly, and almost uniquely when compared to organisational business plans, we stuck with it and made no changes.   This ensured the shared goal was achieved, namely to have a good time whilst allowing for lots of variation from sunset dinners at sea, to helicopter rides and snorkelling tours all according to the preferences of the individual team members.  All done without the use of PowerPoint.  In future reunions I am sure we will unpack this trip in order to better define what team dynamics came into play that facilitated the success of this coming together of The Sisters.

All travel has been suspended for the upcoming summer and fire season.  There will be a No 11 in the series I just don’t know when or what the subject of No 11 might be.  As always if you don’t want these emails cluttering up your inbox just drop me a note.

Yours in perpetual confusion when it comes to the TSA