Travelling Post 41 - Back on the East Coast

After over 7 months of being away, I arrived back on the East Coast last week, however this time I stayed in Cairns, way up in the Tropical North.

My first day in Cairns was spent spending money, a whole lotta money, but as the blogs that will be coming your way over the next few weeks will show, it'll be worth it. My second day was spent on Palm Cove beach, relaxing, reading, getting a tan. After the busyness of the past few weeks and the even more busy next three weeks I needed a day to relax, so I did.

On my third day in Cairns I took a day trip to Cape Tribulation, where the Daintree Rainforest meets the beach. Cape Trib is a spectacularly beautiful place but, being 3hours away from Cairns, a little far to go on a day trip. We only got a 30 minute board walk through one part opf the Rainforest when we should have had more, that said I did enjoy the tour. The tour started with a nature cruise on the Daintree River before heading for the aforementioned walk and then lunch. After lunch it was beach time, but no swimming, couldn't be bothered with the whole drying myself afterwards, then the only other notable stop I remember was the ice cream place. Daintree Ice-cream is made on site, from locally produced fruit and only sold in that place in the whole world, well the sell worked on me, and I bought some - it was delicious.






















Above, the road through the Daintree Rainforest
Below, where the rainforest meets the beach



















My fourth day was spent on the Great Barrier Reef, and I have to say I was disappointed. Yes the Coral was amazing, the fish were multi coloured, and the ocean was amazingly clear, but at Ningaloo, on the other side of the continent, it was all that and more. Ningaloo just had something extra, it had a good tour. I paid $100 for my GBR tour and $130 for my Manta Ray and Ningaloo tour, and a got a whole lot more for $30 extra. At Ningaloo I got 3 guided snorkels, lots of information about the reef and it's inhabitants with around 11/2 hours in the water, at GBR I got 2 unguided snorkels and very little information (when I tried asking about turtles the guy I asked barely spoke English and didn't know much.) I was able to spend more time in the water at around 2 hours of swim time, this was split with an hour in each spot which was about half an hour too long. I was pretty disappointed, but I did manage to spot a turtle (with no help from the crew) and swam alongside it for 10 minutes - that made up for the poor tour.

My fifth and final in day around Cairns was spent in the touristy village of Kuranda getting back to nature with a visit to the Australian Venom Zoo - full with an array of scary, venomous or poisonous creatures that can kill you or your pet in 15 minutes. I also visited a Koala Zoo, where I fed Kangaroos again and after that walked for far too long to Barron Falls. A pretty good day, if too much walking.

Next stop: South to Mission Beach and white water rafting

Travelling Post 40 - One big, great, rusty, rock

On Friday I left Alice Springs for an amazing 3 day, 2 night trip to Uluru and back with The Rock Tour. In terms of tours it was my best yet and sat in front of Uluru, eating dinner as the sun sat behind me is, most definitely a highlight of the trip. But I'm jumping ahead of myself.

On our first day I arose at a ridiculously early 5.20am to get ready and picked up for 6.15am. Once on the bus it was sleep time before a 3 hour walk around Kings Canyon, which was a good hard walk to get us all worn out before heading to our nights camping. The advantage of this walk, unlike the others undertaken on the trip was The Garden of Eden, a billabong half way into the walk filled with freezing cold water to cool us down in the 30+ degree heat. As advised by Nick the tour guide, I went in fully clothed.

Kings Canyon

Our first, and second, nights camping was in a swag bag, under the stars. The best way to describe a swag bag is a canvas sleeping bag with a mattress in it, but a sleeping bag goes inside the swag bag. It was an interesting experience, but a surprisingly comfortable one to. On the second night we had to place our shoes off the ground so as to stop dingoes taking them, that worried me slightly, what if they found no shoes and decided to take me in their stead!

Our second day began at an even more ridiculously early 5am and it was off for another 3hour walk, this time to The Olgas, or to give them their Aboriginal name Kata Tjuta. The Aboriginal story behind these amazing rock formations is related to Uluru. Uluru was built by two boys who started off building a mud pile, when they had finished they slid down Uluru and threw away the stones that were in their way, which ended up in a big pile; Kata Tjuta. There is obviously a scientific story behind their creation but i cannot remember it, and will not be half as interesting as the Aboriginal tale.

After Kata Tjuta it was off to the cultural centre before sunset at Uluru. I was expecting to see the sun setting behind Uluru, but instead the sun set behind us as we watched Uluru changed colour, or rather we saw it change shades of the same colour. The sunset was watched by many people who all had arrived at a viewing area, luckily we were there quite early so I sat down near the front with some friends I'd made. Some people there had paid hundreds more dollars than I to be there and be waiter served with glasses of champagne, but if you ask me the best way is the way we did it. Sat in the dirt, chatting, having a laugh and trying to take a picture every 5 minutes to get the changes. Then, just after sunset, but when it was still light, our tour guide had finished making dinner so we got up, grabbed our dinner and sat back down where we were and ate it there, no table needed. It was a really nice evening, and I took lots and lots of photos, all of the same thing.

















Sunset

The final day was. yet again, a really ridiculously early 5am start so as to get to Uluru for sunrise. Again the sun was behind us as we watched Uluru come out of darkness. It wasn't as impressive as sun set, I think it was because the viewing area was smaller, and it had lost the novelty value.
















Sunrise


After sunset we walked the majority of the reddish monolith, so coloured because of the oxidisation of the surface iron content, then it was off home via a quick 5 minute camel ride.

When I made the decision to come to Australia, I made the decision to visit Uluru at the same time, its synonymous with the country and not only a great natural site but also one of huge cultural significance to the indigenous population. As you walk around Uluru, there are sections that you are forbidden to take pictures because they are sacred places, being respectful no one of me or my friends took pictures. The original inhabitants of the area, known as Anangu, request that no one climbs the rock but because it is leased out to the Australian Government it isn't forbidden. At the cultural centre it explains why this is so, yet there were still people on the tour who wanted to climb it which was disappointing. What wasn't was when we arrived the climb was closed due to strong winds, so they didn't get their wish. Ha.

I didn't know whether to expect a spiritual experience or whether it would be just a big rock. Well I never got a spiritual experience, anyone who knows me could have told me that I'm not that sort of person, but neither was it just a big rock. I think I recognised it for what it is, both an impressive feat of nature which is historically and culturally significant and neither facade of the rock should not to be dismissed as trivial.

Travelling Post 39 - Jump little croc, jump

From Perth I headed to Darwin via 4 days of trains just to see two things:-

• The city itself (nice enough)
• Litchfield National Park (worth the trip)

I'd never heard of Litchfield before I arrived in Australia but, like everyone else who has watched Crocodile Dundee I have seen its larger neighbour Kakadu. Litchfield is a smaller version of Kakadu with more sights closer together, and whilst Kakadu is not suitable for a day trip Litchfield is. It is a national park with many billabongs, crocs, termites and other Australian nature but our tour was centered around the watering holes.

To start the day the tour headed to Adelaide River, not actually in Litchfield, for a half hour-or-so tour up the river to see saltwater crocodiles jump out of the river. The crocs were mostly around 3-4 metres long and would happily eat you if it was you hanging on the end of the rod. They eat anything with a heartbeat, as the skipper explained, or in other cases anything that recently had a heartbeat.

There was this one croc, nicknamed 'Grandpa' or 'Hannibal,' who ruled the river, the simple reason being he was massive at 6-7 metres. Whilst the crew members managed to coax Grandpa to the boat for a feed he didn't jump out of the water, if he had that would have been amazing. On the other hand just being so close to such a powerful creature in its natural habitat was exhilarating in itself. Not sure how I would have felt if the boat was not in between him and me, exhilarating probably wouldn't cover in that circumstance, dead might though.

After the tour it was into Litchfield where we visited 2 small waterfalls and swam in their pools, viewed a larger waterfall and then jumped into Buley Holes, a series of small pools. At the end we viewed some massive termite mounds and then headed home. It was a really enjoyable and relaxing tour, but not what I was expecting, there was no real walking, only a few hundred metres to billabongs and back, but the freshwater swimming was refreshing, I'd had enough of saltwater these past 10 months.

Travelling Post 38 - The day I met a prince

On my final day of my tour we visited Hutt River Province, an independent sovereign state located in Western Australia. "Never heard of it," i hear you say, not surprising really, neither have many Australians, neither had I until I read about it in a list of '100 things to do in Australia you've never heard of' in Australian Traveller magazine.

The Casley family own a Wheat producing farm in Western Australia but in 1969 the Australian Government wanted to limit the amount of wheat that they family could sell, severely impacting their income. When the Casley family then requested compensation, as due to them according to the law, they put in a request for more land, not money. Two weeks after this request a bill was introduced into Parliament whereby the Government would have the power to resume any rural lands. The family then used British law and found loop holes in that which allowed them to secede and so they created Hutt River Province, an 18,000 acre independent state. Then, when the Australian Government failed to formally recognise the Hutt River Province, they became a Principality to further protect themselves and the former head of the household Leonard George Casley and his wife became Prince and Princess of Hutt River Province. (a fuller account can be found here http://www.huttriver.net/HRHistory.htm) The Province now has consulates and embassies around the world, they stamp your passport, and people can apply for citizenship, they have around 13,000 citizens despite only 6-10 people living in the state. I was informed by my tour guide that he thinks the Hutt River Province is the only country in the world formed without bloodshed.

Upon my visit to the Province I was given a tour of the grounds by the Prince himself. I think the Prince is a genius, you have to be to think of something like secession to solve a land problem. I am not the only one who thinks him a genius. As well as having an acute legal mind he has contributed to the study of mathematics to such a degree that staff members in one US University believed he has made the greatest contribution since Copernicus. He is also very eccentric, funny and a captivating man, even if his Aussie accent is difficult to understand at times. The Australian government is embarrassed by this situation which is why many people haven't heard of it, not helping the matter is a lack of signposts to the Province. There is only one directional signpost on the roads to the Province but it does have border signs in and out of WA/HRP.

The Prince and I posing in his chapel,. In addition to the chapel, the HRP has its own currecny, stamps and post office.

A statue of the great Prince.

















Here I am on the border leaving my third country on my travels.