Drifting through Boxing Day

26th December

Santa brought Robin a new underwater camera, so we just had to try it out, and arranged a dive with the local dive shop. The boat took us to one of the local drift dives. The area is famous for coral walls, that literally drop down a hundred metres or more. This one wasn’t far off the coast, and our dive guide let us pick a depth we were happy at to drift along and look at the scenery. After the Great Barrier Reef, where there was virtually no current, the relatively fast current here was very different. There was lots to see from tiny newdibranch to a huge turtle. We almost landed on top of a smaller turtle on our descent. But from a photographer’s viewpoint it was a challenging dive – Robin described it as taking pictures from a moving train. But while the composition can be improved, the camera itself was proclaimed a million times better than his old one. Me – I just swam along and looked at the fish.

Tim and KM flew in that evening to join us. We are all going to stay on Bunaken Island tomorrow for more diving until the New Year.

Dreaming of a White Christmas

24th- 25th December

If it had been up to me, we would have spent Christmas Day in Sydney. But early on in the planning stage, Robin had made plain his desire to be as far away as possible from any Christmas celebrations. Manado, in northern Indonesia sounded just the place. Wrong. We’d forgotten about country’s Dutch heritage – and the area we’d picked for its wonderful marine life, is one of the few centres of Christianity in an otherwise Islamic, Buddhist, Hindu collection of islands. We can see a large white cross on a hillside as we fly in, and as soon as we arrive at our English-owned guest house we are told that the Christmas Eve service in the village is about to start and would we like to come along. Under most circumstances, I would have been interested to see how they celebrate Christmas here, but I’ve been travelling for 24 hours, and gained another three with the time difference, so all I really want is a beer, a meal and a bed.

You can fly direct from Australia to Indonesia, but for reasons too complicated to go into here, I didn’t. Instead, I flew to Singapore, arriving just in time to go to bed and get up the next morning and head back to the airport to fly to Kuala Lumpur where – at the most confusing budget airline airport in the world, I had to clear immigration into Malaysia in order to check in for the flight to Indonesia and go back through immigration again – and finally fly to Manado, where it took another hour to buy a visa and get through the Indonesian immigration barrier. The more third world a country, the more layers of bureaucracy there are to enter it.

It’s getting dark as we are driven from the airport over unlit potholed roads that twist and turn through tropical forests and past shanty villages, narrowly avoiding unlit pedestrians and motorbikes. Our guesthouse for the next three nights is in a small fishing village – just a couple of steps up on the prosperity scale from the ones we’ve driven through. Having built their house in this unlikely spot, our hosts are enthusiastic sponsors of village life, and have built a clinic, extended the school and help support village children through their education. All very worthy, but can’t help thinking that this is going to be a strange place to spend Christmas.

Some of the village children come back after church and we let off fireworks that an Ozzie guest has brought with him. Most of them are of the flash, bang rather than ooh-aaah variety, so the kids love them, and all want to light them and hold them while they are firing. Luckily there are no major injuries. I find out later that the Ozzie is a health and safety manager!.

Christmas day begins at 6.40am with the sound of church bells – or rather a car wheel rim being hit with an iron bar. Boxing day begins in the same way. Maybe every day does. But after breakfast we can hear melodic singing, so I walk down to take a look. The church is packed out. Those who can’t get bring chairs from home to sit outside the door, or under the shade of trees on the opposite side of the road. We wish each other “merry Christmas” and I walk down to the end of the village – it doesn’t take long – to see the local fishing boats in the lagoon. The boats could have been made anytime in the last 800 years.

There’s not much a view, as both the village and the guest house are surrounded by mangrove. We head to the pool, which we share with the owners’ golden retriever. In 32degree heat and 100% humidity, it’s the coolest place around – and beats seeking shade under the trees, where I’m eaten alive by insects. For the first time on this trip, I’m missing England – and the first white Christmas in decades! Instead of fluffy white snowflakes, we have an afternoon downpour and retreat inside to read our books.
Later that night, we do have Christmas dinner, duck, chicken, beef – even roast potatoes – and Christmas Pudding! I’m wearing a lovely flashing pink tiara and Robin is resplendent in his flashing santa hat. But the best bit of today was phoning the folks at home.

Love at first sight

19th- 23rd December

I’m in love. Head over heels in love. With Sydney. Not a man, you understand; a place. Though it it were a man, he’d be pretty much perfect. Good looking, interesting, relaxed, stylish, a touch romantic, fun to be around, with a city pad and a beach house.

From the moment I flew over the city and saw the tiny sails of the opera house nestling up to the coat hanger bridge, and the boats cruising round the vast expanse of harbour, I was hooked. After six days of this whirlwhind romance, I’m ready to move in.

It all started with dinner on Friday night. We never did find the Vietnamese restaurant recommended by the Rough Guide, but stumbled upon the best fish restaurant in town. Small, but perfectly formed, Fish Face is about the size of your average fish and chip shop, but locals come from miles around to sit around its stainless steel bar, or at one of the four pavement tables, We grabbed the last one available and I scampered across the road to the bottle shop. BYO wine is ubiquitous in Oz, even if the restaurant is licensed – and so much cheaper. (Sydney 1, London 0). My fish (a smooth dory) was the best I’ve ever tasted, and the waiter even gave instructions on how to eat it – start at the thinner end and leave the skin on, as it’s still cooking.

Fish Face is in Darlinghurst which, on a later, daytime wander we discovered was one of Sydney’s hip, arty, gay-friendly areas – no wonder I felt at home! I loved the tiny terraced houses, dating from the early 1900s and still with their decorative ironwork balconies. We also found another great restaurant there for brunch - this time we went looking for it. I’d been given Bill’s cookbook a couple of years ago, and love the simple recipe style. The restaurant itself is just as good and incredibly popular – there were queues on the street for a table at 11.30 in the morning. No nouvelle cuisine portions here – the ricotta pancakes with yogurt, honey and bananas kept me going through a marathon walk round town until dinner that evening.

Getting round Sydney is easy. The central area is compact enough to walk round, there are hundreds of buses to take you further afield, an underground service with double-decker trains and, of course, an excellent ferry service. People run for the last ferry out of Circular Quay just as they do for the last train out of Waterloo – but it seems more glamorous here. Could this be London in a parallel universe? Many of the names are familiar, but they’ve been thrown into the air and landed in a different place. Liverpool Street runs across the top of Hyde Park and turns right into Oxford Street. Paddington sits between the Surry Hills and Kings Cross - which then runs into the wonderfully named Woolloomooloo, and you know you’re back in Australia. And you don’t see huge flying foxes in the skies over London. There are said to be 22,000 roosting in the Botanical Gardens alone. In daylight hours they hang from every branch within view, wrapping their leathery wings around them like cloaks. There are now so many that they are damaging the trees – 18 dead so far - and the park authorities are petitioning to relocate them. Not sure how successful this will be. Do bats have homing instincts?

We choose a relatively cloudy day for our grand walk round town, admiring the bats and the buildings. Apart from the Opera House there is no truly stunning modern architecture, but Sydney has its fair share of Victoriana and Art Deco in spades. When the sun shines, the harbour draws you like a magnet, so where else would be we go on a blue-skied Saturday morning? We take pictures of the harbour bridge and the opera house from every angle and look round the Rocks market before hopping on the Manly Ferry – better, and cheaper than the Captain Cook harbour cruise, though I do feel sorry for the bloke promoting them dressed up in a white wig and 18th century sea captain’s uniform. The ferry, which offers even more bridge/opera house photo opportunities, is packed with people carrying surf boards heading for Manly Beach, a short walk through a shopping centre devoted to board shorts and bikinis. It’s the Saturday before Christmas but there's no sign of stressed-out shoppers battling for last minute presents, turkeys or brussell sprouts. Allow myself a smug smile. (Sydney 2, London 0)

As we walk along the beach and round the headland to Shelly Bay, I wonder if this is what England would be like if we had better weather. So much of Australia, and Sydney in particular, is culturally similar to the UK – not surprising as a high proportion of the population has British roots – but despite dubious media claims that they work longer hours than Europeans, there’s a more relaxed pace of life here. Drivers even stick to the speed limit, and only tourists from London jaywalk!

While novice surfers try to stay on their boards on Manly Beach and we watch a helicopter hovering overhead – is it on shark alert? - a flotilla of kayaks assembles in the sheltered waters of Shelly Bay. Then they’re off. We watch them paddle out and expect them to round a buoy and come back. But they keep on paddling until they disappear over the horizon. We never see them or the helicopter again. But we do find yet another culinary oasis for lunch and, with a glass of chilled wine in hand, watch the comings and goings on the beach. Bliss.

Back at Circular Quay we take a walk round the Opera House, trying to work out how to get inside. No intuitive wayposting here! Eventually find the box office, but everything pre-Christmas is booked up. But it’s a great incentive to come back to Sydney to see a performance there. We console ourselves with sundowners at the Opera Terrace Bar – along with half of Sydney. It’s a total melting point – people in shorts and t-shirts sit next to others in full evening dress, and everyone’s having a good time. We do eventually see another sold-out show in Sydney – the newly released Avatar movie in IMAX 3D. Not quite the cultural event I had in mind, but great fun all the same.

On the ferry back from Manly we watch a skywriter at work; C-A-L-L M-U-M. The initial letters are dispersing by the time the final M is formed, but we all get the message. Was it for one of the surfer dudes or a marketing ploy for the local phone company? A few days later we see another skywriting display at Bondi Beach, advertising their New Year’s Eve extravaganza. Ok, we didn’t quite celebrate Christmas Day with a BBQ at Bondi, but two days before is almost the same! We stretched out on the beach – not a deckchair in sight, the Ozzies just put a towel down – and listen to the gay boys chit-chatting all around us, before braving the bracing sea. It may be a glorious blue, but it’s the same temperature as the English coast in summer. But you can get the bus there from the centre of Sydney. (Sydney 3, London 0).

It’s our last full day in Sydney. After a morning on the beach, we have lunch at the legendary Icebergs Club – home of Bondi’s winter swimming club and a 50m saltwater pool into which the waves regularly crash during our summer lunch. Must be truly spectacular in winter. Then walk round the coastal path to Bronte beach taking in two smaller, but equally surfable beaches on the way, and bus back to town with the teenage surfers.

We splash out on our final meal at the wonderful Sydney Café on the top floor of the Old Customs House at Circular Quay, which has a fantastic view of the harbour bridge. We work our way through the cocktail list while waiting for a table, so no hardship there. And the wait is definitely worthwhile – both for the sublime food and the view. Throughout our stay, I’ve been fascinated by the bridge walkers – in exchange for around $300 you can walk up the curved metal arch to the top of the bridge. No doubt they get a great view of the city, but the distant grey figures marching up and down in groups of all day and most of the night, remind me of a chain gang. At 10pm they are still trudging up to have their photo taken with a bunch of strangers. As the last group disappears, the bridge stages a little light show – I looks like a series of Christmas baubles hanging down; but it could be linked to the New Year’s Eve fireworks. We’ll be long gone by then – but you never know, I could be back to see them another year.

Up and Down in the Blue Mountains

December 17th &18th

Dragging ourselves away from the Daintree, we take a 3 hour flight from Cairns to Sydney arriving mid-evening. The following morning we rent a car and drive to the Blue Mountains. The very name conjures up images of winding country roads, alpine villages and cool, fresh air. I put my goretex jacket and warm fleece into the day pack along with the sun cream. But names can be misleading. In the 1800s, early European settlers were unsure if they’d ever find a way through the mountains. Today a four lane highway runs straight through, and instead of alpine villages we find a suburban sprawl packed with tour buses. And it’s almost as hot as Uluru.

I leave the fleece and goretex in the car, and we elbow our way past camera happy Japanese tourists at the famous look out points – Wentworth Falls, Echo Point and The Three Sisters. The Blue Mountains appear as high sandstone plateau surrounding heavily forested valleys. There are eucalyptus trees as far as the eye can see, and they really do produce a blue haze. Several walking trails are closed as it is so dry that there is a high risk of fire, but we follow a path round the top of the mountain from The Three Sisters to the scenic tourist centre, where gondolas take the less energetic between the look-outs, and down into the forest below. We discover steps leading down and follow them. There are a great many steps. We pass several sweaty people climbing up them. My legs are turning to jelly just going down. After half and hour we reach the site of an old coal mine – you have to wonder how they discovered coal way down in the mountains, but it was apparently profitable for many years, supplying the Australian railway system. We decide not to puff our way back up the mountain, and are hauled to the top on the near vertical funicular railway that used to be used for coal trucks. We celebrate our arrival with our second ice cream of the day while waiting for the bus to take us back to town.

That night it rains. And rains. And rains. I dig out the fleece and the goretex. It is much cooler in the morning and we plan to drive further into the mountains, check out another famous viewpoint – Govetts Leap, and then tackle a three hour walk into the forest. There are no half measures in the mountains. We arrive at the lookout and can’t see a thing, the whole area is shrouded in a white mist. Our other senses are working overtime - we can hear the Bridal Veil falls clearly, and the eucalyptus smells heavenly. But there doesn’t seem much point in walking through dense fog, so we drive on and reach the highest point in the mountains and look down at the bowl of white cloud below. It’s not going to clear anytime soon. We abandon day two in the mountains and head for Mount Tomah Botanical Gardens. We show our true English spirit by walking round the gardens after lunch, even though we can’t see the tops of the trees as the mist is so low.

The gardens are on the Bells Line of Road – the winding alternative route back to Sydney. I’m sure it’s very pretty, but the only thing I could see were car headlights coming out of the fog. The mist finally cleared but our problems weren’t over. If you think London’s congestion charge is confusing, try Sydney’s road tolls. The tolls wouldn’t be a problem if you could actually pay them with cash. On some roads you have to have a prepaid e-ticket – but you don’t necessarily realise that until you’ve driven into the “you are about to be fined” zone. Avoiding them became far too stressful for the SatNav and the driver (me) so we gave up and drove straight over Sydney Harbour Bridge into the city. It’s the only way to arrive.

Daintree Dreaming

12th-16th December

On Saturday morning we rent a car and drive two hours up the coast to spend four fabulous chill-out days. Our destination is the magnificent Daintree Rainforest which sweeps down to the soft golden sands and dazzling blue seas leading to the Great Barrier Reef– with two World Heritage sites in one, it’s a veritable paradise. And so is our accommodation, which is so discreetly signed from the road that we miss it the first time past.

The Daintree Rainforest starts at the Daintree River and runs up to Cape Tribulation – around 25km of winding road, which then peters out into a track fringing the next section of forest. Cars are taken over the crocodile infested river on a chain ferry. On a later river trip – where we see just one juvenile croc, 9 months old and only 18” long – we are told that our chances of swimming across the river are zero. Though we don’t see them, the waters contain five or six crocs that are 5m long, and many more of 3-4m. I guess there has to be a flaw in every paradise – but paradoxically this is one of the reasons the area is so special. The salt water crocs slip out of the rivers and creeks into the sea and, along with the stingers (huge box jellyfish) that frequent the warm sea throughout the summer months, keep everyone out of the water - which means there is mile after mile of pristine empty beach.

There is also mile after mile of rainforest – and you are in the thick of it the minute you cross the river. The roadsigns change too. We have become used to seeing “kangaroo for the next 5km” or even “tortoise crossing” but the latest ones proclaim “cassowaries for the next 5km”. I’ve never heard of a cassowary! This is not so surprising, as the Daintree is one of their few habitats. These extraordinary flightless birds grow up to 2m in height and are descended from veloceraptors. They are also an endangered species, and the road through the Daintree is peppered with vicious speed humps to stop careless drivers crashing into them. After two days of negotiating said humps we see one ahead of us slowly and elegantly crossing the road. She – for we later discover that this is Big Bertha – is quite lovely, with bright blue and red neck plumage rising out of a pure black body, and a head topped with a crinkled crown.

We drive over the speed humps a few times looking for our boutique B&B. When we eventually spot the sign behind a palm frond, there is a 1.5km uphill track to negotiate to our own private “treehouse”, one of just three at Cockatoo Hill Retreat. Totally unoverlooked, our hilltop cabin has glazed doors leading to balconies running down two sides and looks out onto nothing but rainforest, mangrove trees and the sea. With polished hardwood floors, rattan table and chairs and a princess bed cocooned by white billowing insect nets, it is perfect – and made even more so by the delightful owner, Carmen, for whom nothing is too much trouble. We head to a nearby beach café for lunch, then stroll along the empty beach and paddle in the bath-warm water - before spotting the stinger and croc warning signs,. Luckily our hilltop retreat has an infinity swimming pool, and a supply of fresh coconut milk just harvested from the palm tree we recline under.

We become very attached to the pool, but manage to tear ourselves away for a walk at Coopers Creek under the expert guidance of Pru, a delightful septuagenarian who retired from Melbourne and bought her very own section of rainforest. She obviously adores it and generously shares her love and knowledge of the area as we walk through the outer trees and enter the double canopy of the ancient rainforest which was formed over 135 million years ago. There are examples of cyclids - trees that grew when dinosaurs roamed the earth – and we see one that is thought to be 2,000 years old, and is just about to flower and die. Under the forest canopy is like the land that time forgot. We see several dragons – pre-historic lizard-like creatures clinging to the trees. Though well disguised, they happy to pose as our cameras flash at them - check him out in the pic at the top of this blog.

Palm trees provide the shade of the under canopy, with the few remaining cedars and various species of slow-growing eucalyptus, some entwined in within the predatory fig trees, making up the top canopy. Surrounding the ancient forest, the outer trees are fast growing and protect the main forest from cyclones by funnelling winds upwards and over the tree tops. Pru has experienced two cyclones in the last 16 years and both took a metre or so from the top of the canopy, but there was no large scale loss of the ancient trees. It is very peaceful inside the ancient woodland, and less dense than one would imagine. Sapling-sized trees are often 100 years old – waiting for a larger tree to fall leaving the light for them to grow to the top of the canopy.

The forest floor also contains “bushes” of palms. Known as “wait a while” or “lawyer trees”, both their leaves and a whip like strand they produce to propagate have razor sharp spines that will catch on fur, feathers, or clothing causing those who are caught to wait a while. Once the whip like protrusions have buried their tips into the earth, the spines drop off leaving the smooth cane used for rattan furniture. In areas of damaged forest, plants like these are much more prolific as there is more light for them to develop and this is the typical image we have of westerners hacking their way through dense jungle. In this pristine rainforest, it is more like being in a cathedral of trees, and I was not surprised that Pru’s son had been married here. Pru is an old romantic. I ask why the song of the cicadas moves to a crescendo every now and then. She says that one is signalling his love of another and so he is not found and eaten by a bird, the others join in. It may not be true, but I think of it every time I hear their chorus swell.

Just as there are trees that are unique to the Daintree, there are certain plants that are only found at Coopers Creek – including the wonderfully named “idiot tree - and several species that will only germinate if the seeds have been eaten and passed through the cassowary. We see much evidence of this! We also come across another cassowary – Crinklecut – looking after two chicks, and realise these birds must be endangered if they are all individually named. Cassowaries have reversed the tradition male/female roles. Once the female has laid the eggs she is off, leaving dad to hatch and bring up the kids for 9 months. Crinklecut seemed quite happy with his role, and watching the chicks pushing and kicking each other, was like watching two children play-fighting in the back of a car.

This used to be logging country but the rainforest was protected in the mid-1980s, and now the relatively low-key tourist industry brings in more money than logging ever did. Long may it last. There is no mains electricity here and residents rely on generators and, increasingly, solar power. There is only one mobile phone provider and reception is patchy. TV and internet are only available via expensive satellite connections. But for a few days who needs any of this? We swim in fresh water creeks (no crocs); search for stick insects on fruit trees – and find one more easily on our white car; eat organic ice cream made from wattle seed, banana, mangosteen and loganberry; and feast on coral fish and blue crab, easily our best meal in Oz so far.

Cocooned in our princess bed, we fall asleep to the sounds of the forest, and wake to the sun streaking shafts of light on the tree canopy below. The Daintree is a very special place. We don’t want to leave.

Life on the Ocean Wave

 
December 9th-11th

From Uluru we fly to Cairns in Queensland. From the plane you can see more of the Red Centre, much of it apparently barren, with no trees visible, only the occasional straight road running as far as the eye can see. Not that the landscape is featureless, there are discernable hills, valleys, canyons and plains. After two hours, the dusty red panorama changes abruptly to the green rolling hills of the coastal rainforest. Coming into land at Cairns the ground is as lush and green as it was in Auckland – though the climate is very different. We are now in the tropical north east of Australia – famed both for the Daintree Rainforest and the Great Barrier Reef. After the intense dry heat of Uluru, you can feel the moisture in the air.

Cairns is a place people visit to go somewhere else – it’s a convenient centre for the reef, rainforest and Atherton Tablelands, but other than hotels, bars, restaurants and tour shops there’s not much here. In our time-shifted state this doesn’t matter – we check into our hotel around 7.30pm, and find the nearest bar for a quick drink and supper as we have to be up at 5.30am for our next adventure – three days diving the Great Barrier Reef.

I’ve never done a liveaboard before – but not being a fanatical diver, I thought 3 days would be perfect. I’d imagined floating around on calm blue seas, lazing under a shady canopy and occasionally venturing underwater to be guided to beautiful coral formations and shown an amazing array of aquatic life. How little I knew. I’m not sure if the very professional crew at ProDive were trying to cram as much into three days as possible, but life on a dive boat is hectic! After three hours on rough seas during which time we were meant to set up our dive gear, we arrive at Milln Reef, our first dive site, feeling decidedly queasy.

There are 30 fellow divers on board who fall into four groups – those doing their first open water qualification, with no experience; those doing their advanced qualification; certified divers like me, and a small group of snorkellers. We are a mixed bag of nationalities, ages and experience, but it soon becomes clear that certified divers are expected to navigate their own way round the reefs with the aid of a compass. I know I should be able to do this, but I’m used to having charming Caribbean boys setting up my kit and finding morays and lobsters hidden in nooks and crannies, so this DIY Aussie approach comes as a bit of a shock. Fortunately our first dive doesn’t present too many problems as there are just two co-ordinates to remember and Robin navigates us perfectly round the reef and back to the boat. There’s just time for lunch, a half hour snooze and then it’s time to be briefed for dive number 2. This one is more complicated and Oscar’s dive map shows a veritable maze of coral bombies to get lost in – but that seems to be part of the plan. As Oscar says, “this is the Great Barrier Reef, there’s always something to see even if you go the wrong way.” But it helps if you remember the co-ordinates that you are meant to be following – or at least the key landmarks that indicate when you are meant to make a turn. This time I’m the one who remembers that we are meant to turn, but despite much signalling to this effect on my part, Robin is determined to continue on the first course and I’m normally so rubbish with a compass that I follow him. Eventually we run out of bombies to explore and are left with a wide expanse of sand and the deep blue ocean beyond. We are lost and have to put Plan B into action – surface and look for the boat. The boat is miles away, and we have to signal for the tow of shame back to the right spot to continue the dive.

Back on board there’s cake on offer for those who have found their sea legs, another quick snooze and the briefing for the third dive of the day. And it’s still only 4 o’clock. Each dive is better than the last. The complexity of the corals here are nothing like I’ve seen before, and each bombie offers a different landscape. We see families of clownfish (little Nemos) swimming amongst the anemones, clouds of tiny blue fish hovering over brain coral, a diamond formation of large blue and yellow striped angels and many, many more, including the barracuda who comes to visit while we are hanging around on our 5m safety stop.

After dinner, I’m exhausted, but at 7.30 there is a night dive on offer, and most people do this too. And while I’m quite happy on deck, I’m still feeling wobbly inside the boat. It’s not quite warm enough to sleep under the stars, so I take a sick bag to bed – just in case. Fortunately it’s not needed. But I decide on a slower pace for Day 2 of diving, this time on Flynn Reef. I’m also getting used to the discipline of setting up my kit for each dive, and can finally use a compass – hurrah!

Although the crew don’t dive with us, they are very hot on safety. Divers are not allowed into the water unless Dave the spotter is in place on the top deck. Everyone is checked into and out of the water, with times and maximum depths noted, and coming up with less than 50bar of air is a punishable offence. We are also issued with safety numbers, which Dave checks off every time the boat is moved – so no chance of leaving anyone behind.

The night dive on Day 2 is a shark fest, specially engineered by the crew as a celebration for the newly certified Open Water divers. As I’m taking it easy today, I watch the fun from the top deck, as Oscar throws handfuls of bread into the water to feed the fish. The fish are voracious, and scramble for any scraps of food when we give our plates a rinse under the salt water hose after meals. At night the main feeders are the GTs – or giant terrallies. These are large red fish which literally snap at any food that comes their way, and will jump out of the water to beat another fish to a tasty morsel. They’ve also been known to take a bite at a careless toe left for too long in the water on the back step of the boat. With the boat lit up like Christmas Tree added to the food being thrown in, the water is a boiling mass of GTs – and where there are GTs there are also grey reef sharks, which feed on the same fish. Now grey reef sharks are not interested in bread, nor are they interested in eating GTs, but because they think the GTs are eating fish that would make a tasty shark supper we soon have five big guys circling around and snapping after the GTs. And lots of nervous looking new divers, who are not being helped by the music coming over the PA – themes from Jaws and Psycho among them. By the time they all get in, the experienced divers are already surfacing from their dive. But everyone comes back alive.

There are three more dives to fit in on day 3, the first at 6.30am as we have to leave the reef at 12.30 for our return journey to Cairns. For me it’s the best dive of the trip – life underwater is quite different early in the morning. Within 5 minutes we come across a shark settled on the sand, posing for photographs, and shortly afterwards come across a second, who takes off as we approach. I am one of the few divers not taking photographs, as I prefer to spend my time looking directly at the fish rather than through the lens of a camera. Obviously I think my way is better, and in this instance while the photographers were left taking a picture of the shark’s tail, I swam over the coral and met him face to face, and gave a little wave as he swam on by.

Our five turtle spottings provide more special moments on the dive. I swim slowly towards the surface with the first leatherback, stopping when I realise he may want to surface and I’m not ready to. And we find two large hawksbills having a breakfast feast on the corals. I’m not sure what they are eating but think its the algae that grows on dead coral, rather than the coral itself.

We move to Thetford Reef for our final two dives – a reef that can only be dived when conditions are right, about once every three months. The corals here are perfect and we swim through deep gullies then up over the top of the reef, seeing how life changes at different depths. Our last dive is at 11am – so there are minimal breaks between - and we meet a strong current on the way back, so I’m exhausted by the end, and happy to sleep on deck all the way back to Cairns. I have also discovered Robin’s stash of seasickness pills and pop one for the journey – which is totally calm – but this seems to have benefits back on land. While everyone else struggles to find their landlegs, even after a few beers, I'm back in the swing of things with no problem at all.

The Red Centre

 
December 6th-8th

If you draw a straight line from Perth on the west coast to Cairns on the east coast, the mid point is Uluru – now the most popular tourist stop in Australia, but traditionally one of the most sacred sites of the Anangu people – one of the thousand or so aboriginal tribes who lived off and nurtured the land for hundreds of years before the Europeans arrived

There is a geological explanation as to how this massive sandstone dome – height 348m, circumference 9.4km – came into being. But seeing it erupting out of a wide expanse of flat, semi-desert plain, it is easy to understand the aboriginal sense of wonderment and the sacred lore that surrounds “the rock”.

Arriving at the airport, the first sensation is the furnace blast of dry heat. Daytime temperatures soar to over 40C throughout our stay, which means most sightseeing starts at dawn, or towards dusk. We are staying at the Ayers Rock Resort – you have to – which runs free shuttle buses from the airport to its four hotels, one apartment complex and campsite. Our hotel backs onto a faux town square – which comprises a terrible restaurant (hair found in burger), an okay café, two tourist shops, a supermarket, hairdressers, bank, post office and, our first port of call, a tourist information office. We study the various tours on offer over an iced coffee and decide to go star-gazing in the desert that night, to get up early the next morning for a sunrise base-walk around Uluru that will explain its cultural significance, take it easy for the rest of the day, then go to see the rock again at sunset. For our last morning we book another sunrise walk, this time at Kata Tjuta – a larger, though not as famous, rocky outcrop formed at the same time as Uluru. Tours booked, we head of the pool and laze in the shade for a few hours. Realise this is the first time I’ve done this since Singapore over a month ago, and have the strange sensation of being on holiday. Make note – must do more of this in coming weeks.

Though the sun blazes down all afternoon, by dusk clouds are gathering and our star gazing trip is cancelled. There still seem to be plenty in one half of the sky, so we decide to take a walk and see if we can spot the South Cross ourselves. After half an hour we could still only recognise Orion – can anyone explain why this is the only constellation you can see in both hemispheres?
The next morning we are up at 4.15, smother ourselves in sunblock and join six other bleary eyed travellers to see sunrise at Uluru. As we are walking round the base, we miss out the classic photo-opportunity of the whole rock lit up by the first rays of the sun. But we get a close-up view of the rocks turning a vivid orange-red. And our leisurely four-hour walk round the base gives plenty of time for photographs of this fascinating natural monument, which has all kinds of nooks, crannies and caves, many of which are important sites in aboriginal culture, where the ancestors performed heroic deeds.
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Surprisingly it is also surrounded by trees. This semi-desert landscape does get rain from time to time, and there are a few waterholes at the base. Not all of the trees need rainwater. The desert oak spends the first 20 years of its life as a stick thin tree while putting its roots down 20m or more to the water table. Only then can it develop its canopy.

During the walk our guide explains how the rock was formed and why some spots are considered sacred by the traditional Aboriginal owners, the Anangu, and are still used for their gatherings. Much of the cultural lore also had a practical significance, for example as a way of teaching children to respect their elders and not to get in the way of dangerous snakes. Three of the world’s deadliest snakes are to be found near Uluru. And the dingos around there aren’t too friendly either. We also find out why the Australian athletes wear green and yellow – it represents the green leaves and yellow flowers of the wattle plant that grows all over the bush. And why the flag includes a kangaroo and an emu – they can only walk forwards, not backwards. And we finally find a way to tame another form of Australian wildlife – those pesky flies, which are so prevalent that they should have a place on the flag. The cure may not be stylish, but it works.. It’s a mesh bag that you put over your hat and fasten with a drawstring around you neck – apparently they land on your face looking for moisture as the atmosphere is so dry here.


Towards the end of our walk, at 10am, we passed the infamous spot where people can still climb Uluru – though the Anangu ask that they don’t. By then it is so hot that the climbing route has closed for the day. Looking up the path is so steep and narrow that I can’t understand why anyone in their right minds would attempt to climb, but 30% of visitors still disrespect the Anangu’s wishes and do so. Many are completely unprepared for the strenuous climb and accidents, even deaths, are not uncommon. Some of these stories are tragic, others are comic, such as the sheer stupidity of the man who attempt the climb wearing Crocs on his feet and was surprised when the rubber started to melt and continued in bare feet and burnt them; or the couple who strayed from the path, got stuck and had to be rescued by helicopter, and had to pay $4000 for the privilege.

We took shelter in the hottest part of the day – when temperatures soared to 47C – and returned to view the rock at a champagne sunset. Unfortunately the clouds gathered again, so we were not treated to a visual spectacular – but we enjoyed the champagne anyway, and in happy haze treated ourselves to a ridiculously expensive meal at the resort’s posh hotel, surrounded by the Japanese tourists who could afford to stay there.

The next morning sees another early start for our trip to Kata Tjuta. This time we do get to the viewing spot for sunrise – but the sun rises straight into a cloudy sky. But we have really come to do another walk, this time in the Valley of the Winds, which lives up to its name. This is the first walk I’ve done since leaving NZ that’s not suited to mums with prams, with a few steep gradients and rocky paths throughout. But even when the sun comes up it’s not too hot – it’s not yet 7am after all - and there are even more trees within the rocky outcrops to provide shade. Although these were formed at the same time as Uluru, their structure is different. While Uluru is a single sandstone mass, Kata Tjuta is made up of volcanic stones wrapped in red sandstone. The rocks here are higher – over 500m – but wearing away more quickly than Uluru. In a hundred million years or so, the sandstone will have gone, leaving behind a mass of granite stones. Having walked through the canyon, we take a circular walk through the bush, with views over yet more bush, going on for as far as you can see. This has to be one of the most elemental landscapes I’ve experienced. But there is plenty of life here – and not just poisonous snakes. We spot several different birds and three kangaroos – the latter more difficult than it sounds. If they are not hopping about, they look exactly like the grey stones dotted all over the bush.

Road, road and more road - how a fly drove us 200km

 
December 4th & 5th

We had stayed the night in Pemberton – the only people at the Karri Forest Motel, which also had the only restaurant open for dinner. We ate as soon as we arrived – it was 6.50pm and the kitchen was about to close – in an empty dining room decked out for Christmas. I insisted on having my photo taken with the snowman lamp and tiny Christmas tree bluetacked to the windowsill, destroying it in the process. The maitre’d got her own back by serving up an unidentifiable dish that had been cooked several months before.

Thinking it wise to breakfast elsewhere, we head to the Millhouse Café – if you ever find yourself in Pemberton, just look for the giant red marron holding a cup of coffee, outside. Breakfast would have been fine except for the flies. The flies in Australia deserve a blog entry of their own. There are lots of them. Think of as many flies as you possibly can, then multiply that by 1000. Having spent the last 10 days getting to know them intimately, it’s easy to see how the hat with corks hanging off it came about. The Aussie fly looks like small English house fly, but instead of heading for food, like normal flies, they made a beeline for your face. They are everywhere. If you go for a walk, expect at least six flies to buzz around your face, land on your nose and zip behind your sunglasses, while six of their mates hitch a ride on your back – more if you make the mistake of wearing a dark shirt. Everywhere you go, you see people shaking their heads, flapping their hands round their faces and making “phh, phh, phh” spitting sounds.

We were the only people breakfasting on the café terrace, and the entire fly population of Pemberton sought us out. Robin resorted to covering his mouth and nose with his hands – it was time to go, and fast. Two hours later we arrive in Walpole – where I realise I’ve left my handbag at the café. I blame the flies. We turn the car around and drive back. To pass the time on the journey, I count the other road users – 33 cars in 104km, plus a dead kangaroo...

They say every cloud has a silver lining – this one was rose coloured. Having retrieved my bag it was time for lunch, so we had to sample the famous red marron - a delicately, flavoured freshwater crayfish found in the rivers of tall tree country. Then it’s back to Walpole, again. And more trees – this used to be the heart of the logging industry after all.

While everyone else is gearing up for Christmas with rousing renditions of jingle bells, we discover a new festive tree – the tinglewood. It’s found only in one forest – between Walpole and Denmark – along the Great Southern coast. The locals are so proud of their tinglewood trees, they’ve built a 40m high walkway to admire them. You’re about two thirds of the height of the trees at 40m. Despite their great height, tinglewoods have shallow roots, and seem to develop huge vertical gouges in their trunks, or even complete man-size holes through the base of the tree as they age. And the root spread is so vast that when they finally fall over, the base is twice as high as me. But the special thing about this forest and the others we visit is the birdsong. Walking around you are immersed in these unfamiliar calls – but apart from parrots, hardly ever see the birds making them.

We tear ourselves away from the trees to take look at the strange elephant rocks by the Southern Ocean in William Bay - another beautiful cove in the setting sun - before arriving in Denmark to stay with Robin’s house exchangees. As well as a waterside property here, Angus and Lacey also own the house where we stayed in Perth, and in return will be using Robin’s flat on their visit to London next year. They have travelled the world in this way, and happily welcome complete strangers – like us – into their home and feed them delicious roast lamb dinners. They also have words of advice for our return journey to Perth – get back before dark to avoid the kangaroos. Apparently our near miss the other day wasn’t uncommon. They have had at least four kangaroo crashes, and Angus had to chop the head off an ostrich that broke both legs running straight into their stationary car. After checking that they didn’t want it themselves, the guys in the car behind took it home for dinner!

The following morning, before facing the kangaroo infested highway, we take a look round Albany. Albany has a well protected natural harbour, which made it the primary stopping point for the early settlers before Fremantle and Perth took over. Today, apart from a large concrete factory on the shoreline, it relishes in its small, sleepy town status, with well-preserved buildings reminding visitors of its pioneering past, and a Saturday market in the churchyard making it feel very English indeed.

There are no kangaroos on our journey back to Perth. But the road, which runs through the wheatbelt is dull beyond belief. We stop at one of only three towns on the road to boast a café. It’s closed. But the local hotel – a bar that doubles as a betting shop – is open, and as an added bonus, is hosting a speed sheep shearing competition. Forget the namby pamby wine region, and those tall forests now the loggers have gone – this is the real Australia. And the shearers still have the mullets to prove it. Watching several rounds of the competition even we can see there’s a technique to keeping your sheep still enough to shear. But the fastest man – 33 seconds – is disqualified. No doubt he missed a bit. Next time you spot a raggedy sheep in a field, you’ll know it’s been in a shearing competition.

Timber! tall tree (and lighthouse) country

 
December 3rd

A hectic schedule today. We are leaving Margaret River and heading for Tall Tree Country, but before leaving the Cape we want to see Jewel Cave – the largest of three limestone caves in the region, and Leeuwin Lighthouse, the most southwesterly point of Australia, and where the Southern and Indian Oceans meet.

Earlier in the week our aboriginal guide explained that the suffix “up” – meaning “place of” is still used for many town and village names. I delight in the fact that “Cowaramup” used to be the centre of the local dairy industry, and looking at the map, I’m hoping that Nannup is the place where grannies run day care centres, that ManjiMup is the speed-dating capital, and that Quinninup has a fertilisation clinic.

Jewel Cave, meanwhile, is on Caves Road. It was opened up to the public some 50 years ago after being found via a twisting solution hole leading down from the forest floor, You can still see the hole from the inside of the cave, which gets its name from the sparkles in the calcite stalactites and cave straws that abound there. The spun sugar cave straws – just a water drip in a diameter, with some dangling 5m from the cave roof are especially beautiful. Others have formed crystal droplets at the bottom and look like Christmas tree baubles. In another area, the calcite formations look like an underwater coral garden, and in yet another, the closely packed stalactites hang together like organ pipes. When the cave was first opened some of the crystals reflected in an underground lake. This disappeared in the 1980s – at about the same time as local farmers were encouraged to plant new forests – but it could return if the water table rises again.

We drive on through Augusta – another town named for an English woman, the pioneering settlers obviously had romance in their souls – and Flinders Bay, a wonderful stretch of beach with no-one on it – to Leeuwin Lighthouse. A sign at the entrance says snakes have been sighted and warns us to stick to the paths. I am on snake alert for the rest of the day.

Cape Leeuwin – named after the Dutch mariner who first spotted landfall here in the 1600s – was one of the busiest sea traffic routes on the Australian coast, particularly in the days when most Australia-bound ships travelled via the Cape of Good Hope. Before the lighthouse was built in 1895, there were 21 shipwrecks along the rocky stretch of coast. Afterwards, there was just one and everyone on board was rescued by the lighthouse keepers. The mechanism and the light itself were made in Birmingham and shipped out to Australia – and are still in perfect order – though the light is now automated, and no-one is required to climb to the top and hand crank it for 15 minutes every two hours. Both the Aussies and the Kiwis love to claim that things are the tallest, biggest, oldest, and this impressive lighthouse is no exception, being the tallest in mainland Australia. The view from the top is worth the climb. We have been lucky to visit Cape Leeuwin on a good day, and not when the wind is blowing at 150km/hour. The storms in the Southern Ocean are legendary as there is nothing between here and Antarctica, 5,000km south. It’s a stunningly blue-sky day again, and as we walk out onto the parapet, a pod of dolphins are playing in the waters below – at the very point where the two oceans meet.

Stopping for a fly-plagued picnic lunch in average tree country, we drive onto Pemberton, home to the Karri Forest trail, and the heart of Tall Tree Country. The Frenchman ahead of us at the tourist information demands to know the three things worth seeing here. He dismisses their most famous landmark – the Gloucester Tree – claiming it’s not high enough, at over 60m. The tall trees here may not be the biggest, but the light-filtering forests are spectacular. We drive and walk to Beddelup Falls, the Cascades and along the Heartbreak Trail - a long and hair-raisingly steep off-road track down to the river, named by the poor sods who cut down the trees to create it. We become expert in identifying karri (shed their bark) and marri(ooze red gum) trees, but are never quite sure which are jarrah. They are all eucalyptus, so you can only tell them apart by their different bark. Our final stop is Big Brook Reservoir – again surrounded by ancient forest, and part of the ubiquitous Bibbelum Track, which we seem to have followed throughout our journey. We eventually realised the track starts in Perth and finishes in Albany – our final destination on this road trip. A paved track surrounds the reservoir, and I idly wonder if this is to keep tourists like us safe from snakes and spiders. Robin pooh-poohs the idea, until I spot a green snake half way across the path! It raises its head to take a quick look at us and then slithers back into the undergrowth. We spend the rest of the walk discussing what we would do if one of us was bitten by a snake. Neither of us has a clue – but we later find out that we would need to bandage the limb tightly and splint it. Make note to carry bandages and sticks on walks from now on.

But our encounters with the natural world don’t stop there. As we drive away from the reservoir a large kangaroo leaps out in front of the car, followed by a smaller ‘roo. We are atravelling slowly enough to slam on the brakes and stop. Not sure who had the biggest fright – the kangaroo or us.

Wine dudes

 
December 2nd

We couldn’t come to one of Australia’s best wine regions without tasting a drop or two. Having studied the wine tours on offer, we decide on the one that encourages you to swallow not spit, and join 9 other wine dudes for a relaxed tour of 3 local vineyards, a local cheese producer, chocolate maker and a brewery.

The main industry here had been timber logging, with a bit of dairy farming, until the1960s when university professor from Perth realised the soil was similar to that of Bordeaux – very poor, very dry – in other words, ideal for vineyards. Since then Margaret River has become one of Australia’s best-loved wine regions – producing only 4% of its total wine, but 25% of the country’s premium wines.


Despite the poor soil, Margaret River appears lush and green in comparison with much of the region outside the Cape, and some of the vineyards are outstandingly beautiful, with landscaped reservoirs and manicured grounds. At our first stop, Tassell Park, the suitably red-nosed owner gives us a brief lesson in swirling, sniffing and tasting wine, before letting us loose on six of his best. On the whites, these range from a pure sauvignon blanc – unusual for this region – to an oaked chardonnay with “layers of flavour”, his description, not mine. We then move on to the reds, where cabernet sauvignon, merlot and shiraz dominate.

It’s not yet midday, and we’ve drank almost two glasses of wine, so we soak the alcohol up with cheese at the next stop. But then it’s straight onto the next vineyard – Hayshed for 10 more wines. We are given an order form and encouraged to write down comments. By this stage I’m wondering if I can retrain as a wine critic – but in the cold light of day I read my comments, “young but good”, “lemony” and in honour of my good friend, “a Christopher wine” and realise I’m unlikely to become the next Jancis Robinson. Our next task is to mix our own wine – perhaps I could become a wine blender instead. By this stage I’m having trouble measuring out the magic 50mls comprising 30% of cabernet mixed with 70% of merlot. We then learn that the blend we come up with we will drink with our picnic lunch. On hearing this Robin fills his test-tube to the brim with whatever is at hand. I later appreciate his quantity over quality approach, as the wind blows my glass over, and I force him to share his large glass of wine with me.

Refreshed with food rather than wine, we head for the chocolatier. I thought I was a chocaholic, but I’ve got nothing on Robin, who gleefully plundered the freebies and then bought half the chocolate in the shop. Realising that the only way I was going to get any attention was by disguising myself as a bar of chocolate, I bought the chocolate body lotion!

And we still had a final winery to visit. The Saracen winery was one of the lushly landscaped variety. Once we’d downed another 8 samples - by this time, they all tased the same, we moved onto their beers….. Amazingly we arrived back in town relatively sober, and ready for an hour long walk along the river. By which time we were in need of more wine and a sumptuous meal at Wino’s (I kid you not) the best restaurant in town.

Go West!

 
November 30th – December 1st

Monday morning, and once again not a single cloud dares to interrupt the impossibly blue sky. A perfect day to start a road trip. We are heading down the coast to the south-west tip of Australia, but have a few days to play with so there will be plenty of stopping off along the way. Once out of Perth the landscape is parched and the dead straight road is dotted with several bland surburban towns – though their seafront location makes them popular with young families and retirees. The largest is Bunbury, where you can take a boat to see dolphins and migrating whales, but we are too late., so make do with lunch overlooking the turquoise water, fine white sands and a guy taking time out to perfect his waterskiing skills.

We move on to Busselton – named for the Bussels, one of the founding English families in the area back in 1830 – where the Rough Guide has promised us the longest jetty in the southern hemisphere and the chance to view marine life 8m under the water from an observation post at the end of the pier. Once again we are thwarted. The jetty is undergoing reconstruction and there is a kilometre gap between the end of the truncated pier and the observation post now marooned at sea. The sun is still shining, but it’s blowing a gale as we watch three swimmers practising for the coming weekend’s ironman competition. The seagulls are having difficulty flying against the wind, but somehow the swimmers make progress against both the wind and the incoming tide.

We drive on and watch the landscape change as the miles roll by. The trees become thicker and greener – and signposts to wineries off the main road become commonplace. Margaret River is our destination, and out of season we easily find a huge modern apartment to call home for the next three nights.

Margaret River was apparently named for the English fiancé of an early settler – he failed in his attempt to lure her to a new world by naming a river after her, but the town’s name was set in stone. Today it is the centre of Western Australia’s wine region, but remains more of a village than a town. And our hopes of fine wine and fine dining are dashed on our first evening, as most of the restaurants close on Monday. We eventually find “The Spaghetti Bowl”, which turns out to be a good candidate for a Gordon Ramsey makeover, but we are happy enough to be fed that night, when the food eventually arrives.

Margaret River is our base to tour the SW Cape area – from Cape Naturaliste in the North to Cape Leeuwin in the South. On Tuesday we head north again towards Cape Naturaliste. As well as wine, the region is known as an artistic community, so we stop at various galleries along the way, admiring pieces we can’t afford to buy, and could never ship home even if we could. My favourite is a furniture workshop, with opulent and tactile tables hewn from planks of polished timber completely different to any seen in Europe or America. These are the Karri, Jarrah and Marri trees that predominate in ancient forests in the region. While Jarrah is similar in colour to mahogany – but with a completely different grain – Karri is much lighter in tone, mixing pinks, greys and pale coffee colours. I can’t help stroking the tables in admiration.

An aboriginal cultural centre offers a completely different experience. This small museum tells the story of aborigine life in the region since the arrival of Europeans in 1829. Aboriginal lore describes dead ancestors as light skinned, so the first Europeans were honoured and shown the best lands and hunting grounds – which they soon took as their own. While one or two aboriginal families managed to co-exist, most native people – who had previously known how to cherish their lands and reap the best from it over six seasons of the year – were sidelined, with many banned from coming into European townships. Worse was to come, with many herded away from their precious lands into missions, and with lighter-skinned children forcibly taken for adoption or to work in service to European families. Interestingly, aboriginal studies are now compulsory in WA schools at both primary and secondary level, and the centre plays host to several local schools throughout the year. And the Bibelman Track, one of the aborigine’s best known trading tracks through the region is still in existence – though now serves as a hiking trail.

We had lunch at Bunker’s Bay Café – described by the Rough Guide as the best seaside location in the world, and this pristine crescent moon beach is certainly one of them. Robin was hoping for a dip in the turquoise Indian Ocean but dipping a toe in was enough to show that a wetsuit was needed. Right on cue the surfers came down – in their wetsuits – followed by a couple dressed in white and heading for the flower strewn table and two chairs laid out for their wedding. If only they’d arrived an hour earlier, they would have had the beach to themselves.

We headed a couple of kilometres up the road to the northern cape lighthouse at Cape Naturaliste, and walked down to the whale watching lookout. Apparently this stretch of water is a resting point for whales heading back to the Antarctic. We were right at the end of the migration season and didn’t see any – though a Belgian couple at the look at the same time as us swore they saw one breaching the water.

It’s been a fairly overcast day, but driving back the sun is out and the quality of the light is absolutely wonderful. No wonder artists flock here, as they do to Cornwall. Is it something to do with the south west of a country? I’m not sure, but I do know the light is amazingly pure.

Up the Swannee River

 
November 27-29th

Friday morning, I fly to Perth. It’s a 4.5 hour flight – Australia is a continent, not a country – but I gain 3 hours in the process, so meet up with Robin at the airport by lunchtime. He has been here for a several days to present a paper on cosmology at a conference at the University of Western Australia – idyllically sited on the banks of the Swan River. But now we are both on holiday – and the sun is shining out of an incredibly blue sky, so we go to the Park. Kings Park is the biggest in Perth. It is beautifully kept with large areas of “wilderness”, the botanical gardens, and acres of space given over to recreation – today it seems that the local school is holding an annual sports day, complete with cheering parents and picnics. The botanical gardens are fascinating, but the plants are like nothing I’ve seen before. Western Australia (WA) is home to over 80% of the country’s plant species – most of them only found in Australia. The Park, like much of Perth, borders the Swan River, which sweeps out to the Indian Ocean at Fremantle, which acts as the main port for the city. Leaving the Park, we stroll along the shoreline until we reach the university. Although it was probably built in the 1960s, the attractive campus is vaguely Italianate – red-roofed, limestone buildings with pillared walkways – over looking paved courtyards and grassy banked amphitheatres. Many Italians settled in WA, and the region is known for its wine, olives and Italian restaurants.

The following day we head downtown and follow the tourist information guide’s local walking tour, which takes us through the compact business district to the relaxed but busy shopping streets, taking in the city’s historic buildings, and the its modern art gallery – home to some wonderful examples of contemporary aboriginal art. I have no idea how to interpret these intricate paintings, but hope we get an opportunity to understand more about the “dreamings” later. It’s a hot day, so we take a rest on a river cruise upstream. The captain is happy to point out landmarks – many of which have a degree of controversy to them. Perth is known for its “controversy” – though it all seems pretty tame to me. I guess they are so far from the other main cities of Australia that they have to find something to pass the time – other than boating, shopping, eating out, and generally enjoying an affluent, laid-back lifestyle. I have rarely seen so many restaurants, so full of people. We are lucky to get tables on both Friday and Saturday night.

If they know how to live life to the full in Perth, the port of Fremantle – about 20km away, but now pretty much an outer suburb – is overflowing. We take a trip down there on Sunday. Our first stop is a tour of the prison – a must-see tourist attraction, that’s about to become a world heritage site. It’s fascinating. Built in the mid 1800s by prisoners to house themselves, it was used as a high security prison until 1991 – and only closed down as there was no way to plumb toilets into the cells. Our guide was an ex-prison guard, who clearly liked locking doors behind him, and delighted in showing us the solitary confinement cells and the hangman’s noose. But his strangest revelation was that the prison chapel now hosts at least two weddings a month. I can’t wait to see it feature on “Four Weddings”!

Every town in WA has a cappuccino strip – we eat lunch on Fremantle’s and watch the world go by. In this case in souped-up cars and motorbikes from the 60s and 70s – including a classic three-wheeler bike with the passenger holding onto a small dog, complete with goggles.

Then it’s on to the maritime museum – in which Australia II – the America’s Cup-winning yacht – takes pride of place. Much of Fremantle’s charm stems from its many old buildings. The area was a rough dockyard until the mid-1980s, when it was renovated to host the country’s defence – and loss – of said cup. It’s made Fremantle a gem of a place though, and still with a bit of edge.

Welcome to the land down under

 
November 23rd-26th

I sit next to a Japanese woman obsessively applying moisturiser to her face, hands and arms throughout the 3 hour flight from Christchurch to Melbourne. She is intent on using a whole tub, and when her own skin can absorb no more, she rubs the remaining cream in her husband’s hands. Find myself transfixed by the bizarre process.

My first day in Melbourne is equally odd. After three weeks of seeing more sheep than people, the crowded streets come as quite a shock. I’ve always thought of myself as a city chick, but perhaps I’m a country bumpkin after all. Just kidding! Melbourne is the fashion capital of Australia, and 48 hours later, I’ve bought a new summer wardrobe, had a pedicure and my hair blow dried - all’s well again.

Melbourne is an interesting city, but at first, I don’t find much of it attractive. The downtown towers are functional rather than aesthetically pleasing. There are enormous motorway road bridges, which obviously serve a purpose but looking good isn’t one of them. And the city also has a large working dock yard – where they invented the static cranes now used all over the world for unloading container ships. Again, not pretty. You pass all this on a 1 hour boat trip along the Yarra River from the city centre to Williamstown, the original settlement in 1837 and the spot where the river meets the sea in Hobson’s Bay. Despite the promise of attractive historic buildings here, I thought it was a bit of a dump, but I trudged past a large BAE Systems site to see the Timeball Tower – where a large stone ball used to drop from the top of the tower at 1pm each day, so that ships could set their chronometers before setting out across the ocean.

Back in the city centre, I shoot up the 92 storeys of the Skydeck in an ear-popping 30 seconds. This is the southern hemisphere’s highest viewing platform, not to be confused with the southern hemisphere’s highest tower, which Auckland claims (one of many small rivalries between the two countries – the most important being who created the Pavlova!) From this great height I could finally see the City’s green parks – all uptown of the Central Business District (CBD) and harbour areas – and taking a walk round them, they are indeed oases of calm. In Fitzroy gardens, I stumbled across “the oldest building in Australia” – which is actually Captain Cook’s cottage, built in Yorkshire in the 1700s and re-erected here in 1934! The Japanese tourists loved it. They also loved the conservatory in the same park – filled with hydrangeas and a central water feature, and obviously a setting for many wedding photographs.

Once I get used to the pace of life again, Melbourne scores highly for the city vibe. The grid system makes it easy to get around the central area on foot, and there are many buses and trams (some free) to take you further afield. The shopping is great – in particular the attractive arcades and laneways, which do meander through late 19th and early 20th century buildings. If you get tired, there are many, many cafes, restaurants and bars to while away some time, all perfect for people watching. Opposite the old brick built Flinders Street station, Federation Square – surrounded by abstract, glass fronted arts centre buildings – is a popular gathering place. A sign says “poetry is the space between silence” – in the early evening the silence is broken both by the chatter coming from the bars and from the arty cartoons projected onto a 42-sheet wall.

Suitably revived, I walk across CBD to Wednesday’s Victoria night market. By day the old market sells fresh food. But each Wednesday evening leading up to Christmas it’s transformed into Melbourne’s version of Camden crossed with Borough markets. I wander through the clothes, jewellery, and massage stalls, sample the health giving properties of the local herbal teas, and finally settle for a tasty kangaroo burger and a bottle of Boag’s blonde, a low-carb beer that can only be good for you.

Melbourne was – and remains – the gateway to many of the country’s immigrants. Their stories are well told in the fascinating Museum of Immigration. The original POMs (prisoners of the motherland) have been far exceeded by un-enforced migrants from the UK, Germany, Italy, Croatia, Greece, Cyprus, China, and increasingly from other SE Asian countries, as well as those seeking refuge from conflicts in the Middle East and Africa. 1 in 4 Australians were born overseas. As someone who remembers school friends leaving as £10 POMS, I particularly enjoy the home movie footage of families travelling from England by sea in the 60s and 70s. And the exhibits don’t forget other immigrants – some less welcome than others – including rats – reason for immigration “we go anywhere we can”; cockroaches “we eat anything we can”; and cats “looking for fresh hunting opportunities, and needed to amuse humans.”

I’ve joked about the lack of history and heritage, but I find it truly refreshing how new many things seem on this trip. In different ways, both New Zealand and Australia are immediately striking for their cleanness, freshness and brightness. The very lack of history is a large part of the appeal.

Who's a pretty boy?

 
November 22nd & 23rd

Our final stop in Kaikoura brings another exotic creature. Tonight’s cosy B&B is called the Admiral Creighton – and Creighton the cockatoo seemed to take a shine to me. We tried to add to his repertoire of phrases, so he may well greet the next guests in a mix of London, Brooklyn and Queensland accents. On our final morning, we briefly check out the seal colonies off the beach – the gash on my leg means I can’t squeeze into a 7mm wetsuit and get in the freezing water – shame(!) - but you can see plenty from the beach. Once again there are lots of new borns on show; it’s spring here, after all. Sadly there is not time to hop in a boat and go whale watching – but at least the boats only go to view them now. When I visited the maritime museum in Auckland, I was horrified to see relatively recent footage of whalers in action, including a gruesome kill using a rocket propelled harpoon.

Then it’s back to Christchurch, where I say goodbye to my companions for the last two weeks, and spend my final 24 hours in New Zealand. Known as the Garden City, Christchurch has a very English feel – with many parks and green spaces, and punting on the River Avon which runs through the town centre. The B&B I stay in, a pretty clapboard house built in the early 1900s, has a garden full of large, gorgeously scented roses, probably brought over from England originally, just as the huge weeping willow trees that line the river were. I’m told that everything grows more quickly in NZ as it is so near the ozone hole over Antarctica. I don’t know if that’s true, but plants here definitely seem bigger.

The B&B is next to Christchurch Art Gallery, a striking modern building that houses an ever-changing series of exhibitions of work by NZ artists. Two of those I chanced upon were little gems. The first was a series of large scale photographs of the storage facilities at galleries and museums throughout NZ. I particularly liked the natural history stores, with their bizarre groupings of stuffed birds and beasts – some standing, others knocked over, still others lying corpse like in drawers. And the photograph of a moving image library, that inexplicably had a car bonnet and radiator grill nestled amongst the cans of film.

In another gallery, I sat on the floor and watched a film loop of the rippling blue water of one of NZ’s many lakes, listening to Gregorian chanting. It was strangely hypnotic and after a few minutes you start to see the black and white surface ripples as figures dancing over the lake. After seeing so many lakes, rivers, lagoons, fjords, sounds and seas in this country, I really enjoyed this simple, contemplative piece, which captures the essence of New Zealand.

Downhill diva

 
November 19th-22st

After spending 10 days together it feels strange that our intrepid group is splitting into hikers and bikers for two nights. We bikers wave a smug farewell to our hiker comrades at St Arnaud – the gateway to Nelson Lakes, where they will spend a couple of days trudging up and down yet more hills with heavy packs on their backs, and staying in very basic huts with no showers and the infamous long drop loos. The bikers travel on to the beautiful Marlborough Sound, where we will spend a day and a half cycling Queen Charlotte Track. Although the heavily wooded track is primarily for hikers, it is also a fantastic single track mountain bike route – one of the most famous in the world, and certainly one of the most beautiful. Winding through forested cliffs, to clearings along the ridge, it overlooks Marlborough Sounds – a complex coastline of drowned valleys that could well have been designed by Slartibartfast – and was used by Captain Cook and Maori traders for shelter and plentiful food.

We found ourselves staying at a boutique B&B, complete with outdoor Jacuzzi, which we definitely need to ease our aching limbs after a 30km off-road cycle on day two. Even better, our hostess Linda, a former baker, is a fantastic cook and while our hiking comrades are on rations – they have to carry anything they plan to cook on their trip – we eat like kings.

For expert mountain bikers, the track is not particularly technical. But I’m not an expert mountain biker, and have an irrational fear of narrow tracks, particularly hilly ones covered in tree roots, rocks and muddy puddles that loop round cliffs with sheer drops to the sea. I may not be an expert, but my friend Suzi is – so I remembered her advice and did the entire track looking at my front wheel rather than the view. And guess what, it was fun! Though I still managed to fall off in a gully and am now sporting the mother of all bruises on the inside of my knee, and a gash that should probably have been stitched on the back of my leg. Thankfully we had a doctor and a midwife on the trip to patch me up. Think I should stick to the road in future.

The following day I took it easy in the van as we drove through the Marlborough wine region, renowned for its sauvignon blancs. All the vineyards are planted in a dried up river valley, which apparently provides ideal conditions for them. Looking at the map is like reading the names on a wine list, so I guess it must be. We met up with the hikers at Forrest, one of the less well-known vineyards, and celebrated the end of our adventure with an afternoon of wine tasting.

Food glorious food

 
November 18th

Our journey up the west coast continued, with a brief stop in Hokatiki – famous for NZ Greenstone (or Jade) where we did a little window shopping and had lunch on the beach. I opted to try out a NZ pie – they are famed for them, apparently - a tasty chicken satay number.

This is another gold rush area, and the largest NZ nugget was found in nearby Westport. But it seems the gold prospectors here are not too enterprising – the fist sized nugget was used as a door stop in the local pub for a few years, then someone had the bright idea of giving it to the Queen. Bad idea. She had it melted down and put into a tea set.

At Punakaiki we took a look at the famous pancake rocks – which really do look like layers of black pancakes. No-one knows why they have this appearance, but geologists say they were pushed up out of the sea.

It had been a pretty staid morning by Active New Zealand standards, so another uphill hike was in order – but first we had to link arms and cross the fast-flowing Punakaiki River… in our walking boots. I tried rolling my trousers up above my knees, but they still got wet. Fortunately our socks acted like mini-wetsuits keeping our feet warm in our boots. The first half of the hike was up over a muddy pass, through a subtropical forest with palm trees mixed with tree ferns and beech trees, then down the other side to the Porari River, where we encountered our first weka – another of NZ’s flightless birds. The final section of the hike was flat, and could have been tackled by mum’s in flip flops, pushing prams. But my poor old boots, which I bought years ago to do the Inca Train and which had been patched up by a very nice man at Timpsons in Twickenham before this trip – had finally had it. I left them in the van for out guides to tie them to one of the boot fences we had passed earlier in our journey. A fitting tribute – to the boots and this trip.

Back in Punakaiki we had our second culinary treat of the day – FISH AND CHIPS! Not sure the American contingent new what to make of it, as they smothered theirs with tomato sauce, but the Brits agreed these were far better than those you get at home – fresher fish and a lighter batter. De-lic-ious!

A day at the beach

 
November 17th

We woke to bright blue skies with no sign of yesterday’s clouds and the joyous news that there wasn’t a bus ride today – we were spending the day at the beach! Okarito was the first NZ landfall spotted by a European, Abel Tasman, in 1642. Today it is a tiny settlement, with a permanent population of 35 – including Keri Hulme, the author of The Bone People, which is set here, and who doesn’t much like visitors. Unlike Richard, the town’s very hospitable mayor, who also runs the local coffee shop, kayak rental shop and nature tours, including kiwi-watching. Sadly we didn’t see the shy national bird, but Okarito Lagoon is a wildlife haven. Right now the lagoon is closed off from the sea by a sand spit and the main channel is relatively deep, with no mud flats emerging. Several tributaries branch off this channel into the surrounding forest, narrowing into creeks that have you performing 20 point turns or backing out. As you could stand up in most of the water, we were kitted up in our kayaks and sent out into the lagoon with only a map to guide us. With no instructor to make up for my paddling shortcomings, I paired up with Wendy, my very fit roommate, and suggested she also did the steering. This may have been a mistake, as we zig-zagged our way along the lagoon, and ended up in at least three overhanging bushes, but I suspect I would have done a lot worse. Drifting along another world reflected back at us in the mirror-like creeks. We could hear all manner of birdsong in the trees, but our main sightings were black swans, with signets, and the rare white heron – only 150 in the whole of New Zealand.

After 10km of paddling, it was time for lunch and the Trig Walk - steep and rocky, not one for prams or flip-flops – to a magnificent viewing point for the lagoon, and then a leisurely stroll back along the stone and driftwood strewn beach. Days don’t come much better than this.

Glacier blues

 
November 16th

By now we were on the western side of the Southern Alps, and as we headed out of Makarora, we soon hit the coast road and our first sight of the Tasman Sea – which under a cloudy grey sky looked just like the North Sea. The Franz Joseph Glacier was our main destination today, and I was looking forward to another helicopter ride, this time to the top of the glacier for an opportunity to hike on the icefield. Both the Franz Joseph and nearby Fox glaciers are currently growing by some 50m a year due to high snowfall in the area. But with the top of the mountain masked by heavy cloud, all helicopters were grounded.

The alternative was a tiring four hour technical hike up and down – hikes in NZ are never flat – a steep, rough track that wound its way through a dense forest of wet, moss-covered trees, ferns and craggy rocks. In its own way, this was quite beautiful – and I fully expected elves, goblins and orks to appear from the tangled undergrowth – but it wasn’t the fabulous white wilderness I was hoping to be in. In fact, there were just three view points through the greenery, the first overlooking glacial meltwater flowing out to the sea, and the second two – Rata Point and Christmas Lookout – overlooking the glacier itself. But with much of the mountain shrouded in cloud, I didn’t even see the snowy, white glacier to its best advantage. My only real disappointment of the trip. We consoled ourselves with cold beers and hot potato wedges in Franz Joseph village before driving to our overnight stop. This turned out to be the coolest beach house at Okarito Lagoon – with a lovely open plan living room, a cosy log stove and a huge dining table with the two biggest dining chairs I’ve ever seen. Like Alice through the Looking Glass, they made anyone who sat in them seem tiny.

Mums with prams

 
November 15th

By Sunday lunchtime, Jean was calling and it was time to burn off a few more calories. We headed out of town via Arrowtown and the Shotover River, the centre of the shortlived 19th century gold rush. Arrowtown is smaller than Queenstown, and its quaint buildings reflect its history - Victorian England meets the wild west. The road took us over the Cardrona Pass, with a great viewpoint, and towards the skifields of Coronet Peak and then onto Wanuka, where we stopped to hike/walk./stroll up to another viewpoint overlooking Iron Mountain.

In order to decide if we need to get our hiking boots on, the group has taken to asking our guides what type of walk we are about to encounter. Their answers have to be taken with a large pinch of salt. We have already learned that “I’ve done it in flip-flops” means it’s really steep but there aren’t too many rocks to scramble over. Today’s code, “mums with prams run up here”, actually meant it’s dry, dusty, windy and really steep, but it’s mostly gravel, with just the odd rough bit. And for the record, I didn’t see a single baby buggy on the track. We did, however, have a fantastic view of completely different scenery, with green fields and poplar trees in foreground surrounding an impossibly blue lake, with mountains behind. School field trips here would clearly show how glacial valleys are formed.

Our final destination today was Makarora – population 65 – staying at the Wilderness Resort, code for a few draughty A-frame chalets, and a pub that closed on Sundays. They are advertising for investors – but not sure if this one would make it through the Dragon’s Den.