Hey guys,
Just a quick note as I'm fairly knackered right now, but then, after two days of 6.30am starts and dive courses, its little wonder. So, today we finished off most the pool session stuff today, and tomorrow it is out to the reef for four whole days of diving - i'll even be doing some deep dive stuff at 30metres, and a night dive too, so as excited and nervous as i am, I can't wait. The first few times with the kit seemed a little strange, but its all quickly come into place, and if i can just keep the thought of violent decompression sickness and exploding nitrogen bubbles in my brain at a distance, it could just be fun ;) I'm planning to hire a underwater didigtal camera too, so that should be pretty rad too. Anyways, a pimpelly curly haired aussie youth is attempting to turf me out of the internet cafe, so i best go - but thanks for all the comments on the car sale - good news all round, seriously. So, speak to you all laters.
Friday, 21 September 2007
Wednesday, 19 September 2007
Sold the car!
Yes awesome news, Le Tank, aka the hunk 'o' crap money hole, has some how miraculously been sold! its been a strange old few days what with emilie leaving, and me in cairns on my own after so long, and the car giving me one problem after another - i'm so happy to have sold it and minimised my losses on it! So tomorrow I start a 6 day dive course out on the Barrier Reef! Awesome! Can't wait, should be great stuff. From there i get back and the next day i fly back to Sydney for work, so its all coming out quite nicely to be honest. Anyway, times up so have to dash, but looking forward to seeing everyone again very soon!
Wednesday, 12 September 2007
Back in Cairns
Just a quick post, but here is a link to some pictures from Lady Musgrave Island
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=4250&l=dcaa2&id=508109359
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=4250&l=dcaa2&id=508109359
Tuesday, 11 September 2007
Karunda
Hey guys,
Back from a brief trip into the outback - we drove from Cape Tribulation through the inland road, about 300km in total, up to Cooktown - basically as far north as you can get on a normal road on the east coast.
And wow it was pretty crazy stuff, real outback and no mistake - baking hot scrub and savannah land, kangrooes, massive termite mounds everywhere and endless flat roads. We passed through a few one pub towns (no really, mt carbine has one pub and one road house gas stations, thats it) and what seemed like a eternity later got into Cooktown - a weird place. Very remote and really with nothing happening, despite the virilent invasion of germans (seriously, it was unbelieveable, of the 20 or so people we met, all were german. And fucking annoyingly so I'm afraid to say). We stayed just a full day, and really, that was plenty - 'Cooktown, where we make the most of the miserable history we have!' could easily be the slogan. Still, it was good to see something authentic like that.
Still, its very very much made me question the whole outback leg of my travelling - the drive back in particular. We foolishly did some 30kms on some pretty rough unsealed road to get to an admittadley nice waterfall, and on the way back everything seemed fine - until we almost hit two wallabies. And then a massive white cow, standing in the middle of the road. And then two kangerooes. After all that, the car has been making a weird tapping noise. Mechanic assures me that its a tappette thats not quite closing properly, suggests an oil change and some lubricant stuff. Thing is, we didn't know all that last nigth when we limped into the 'functional' ('crap') two on Mareeba, where incidentally there was no accomodation other then a room in a bearded truckers house. Of course, his mates all tried to help fix the car, up to the point of 'come back tomorrow with a case of piss, i'll bring my tools and we'll be right'. I can't beleive we were actually half considering all that as an option even! Thankfully we decided to keep on going to here, and the mechanic says the guys would have trashed the car (still further) if IU had let them anywhere near the thing. So I'm glad we made a good decision under the stressful circumstances.
So, whats next? Still weighing up the options in my mind to be honest. Maybe work back in Sydney, maybe learn to dive in Cairns, maybe go to Perth. Probably a combination of all three I suspect. Its hard to know whats best, but I am sure the answer will as ever present itself to me. Anyways, until then speak laters.
Back from a brief trip into the outback - we drove from Cape Tribulation through the inland road, about 300km in total, up to Cooktown - basically as far north as you can get on a normal road on the east coast.
And wow it was pretty crazy stuff, real outback and no mistake - baking hot scrub and savannah land, kangrooes, massive termite mounds everywhere and endless flat roads. We passed through a few one pub towns (no really, mt carbine has one pub and one road house gas stations, thats it) and what seemed like a eternity later got into Cooktown - a weird place. Very remote and really with nothing happening, despite the virilent invasion of germans (seriously, it was unbelieveable, of the 20 or so people we met, all were german. And fucking annoyingly so I'm afraid to say). We stayed just a full day, and really, that was plenty - 'Cooktown, where we make the most of the miserable history we have!' could easily be the slogan. Still, it was good to see something authentic like that.
Still, its very very much made me question the whole outback leg of my travelling - the drive back in particular. We foolishly did some 30kms on some pretty rough unsealed road to get to an admittadley nice waterfall, and on the way back everything seemed fine - until we almost hit two wallabies. And then a massive white cow, standing in the middle of the road. And then two kangerooes. After all that, the car has been making a weird tapping noise. Mechanic assures me that its a tappette thats not quite closing properly, suggests an oil change and some lubricant stuff. Thing is, we didn't know all that last nigth when we limped into the 'functional' ('crap') two on Mareeba, where incidentally there was no accomodation other then a room in a bearded truckers house. Of course, his mates all tried to help fix the car, up to the point of 'come back tomorrow with a case of piss, i'll bring my tools and we'll be right'. I can't beleive we were actually half considering all that as an option even! Thankfully we decided to keep on going to here, and the mechanic says the guys would have trashed the car (still further) if IU had let them anywhere near the thing. So I'm glad we made a good decision under the stressful circumstances.
So, whats next? Still weighing up the options in my mind to be honest. Maybe work back in Sydney, maybe learn to dive in Cairns, maybe go to Perth. Probably a combination of all three I suspect. Its hard to know whats best, but I am sure the answer will as ever present itself to me. Anyways, until then speak laters.
Friday, 7 September 2007
Day Whatever - Cape Tribulation
Morning all,
Yes, by some bizarre twist of fate, I seem to have awoken at a ashcokingly early 7.30am this moring, bright eyed and cheery, so I thought I would plunge into the cyber realm for an hour or so, listen to some banging psytrance on my ipod in this tent in the middle of the oldest rainforest on earth. Just to mix it up a little.
So, we've been in Cape Tribulation for three days now - this is real wild country, about two hours north of Cairns, into the old old rainforest. Its very beautiful and, after the holiday resort hell hole that is Port Douglas, quite a nice change. We're staying in cabins out in the rainforest, which is great, and went on a night walk through the forest with a guide the night before last, which was also a lot of fun. Yesterday we went horse riding through the rainforest, which was also a pretty amazing experience, so its another great thing to tick of the list (skydive, snorkelling, white water rafting etc).
In a few hours we're going to drive north still further, up to Cooktown, which is just about as far north as you can get in Oz without a 4x4, so I'm excited. We'll be going through the outback and over some mountain ranges too, so it should be fantastic drive - Emilie is even doing some of the driving! ;)
My longer term plans still remain a little unclear, despite furious thinking on the issue day and night in the back of my mind. I could sell the car in Cairns and go back to Sydney for a months worth of work, and save over a thousand pounds (no small amount), but then again, when am I going to be in Oz like this again, with my own wheels and 40 days to spare? Right now I am thinking I want to keep on roadtripping, and having looked at the available time, I think I have more then enough time to hit Darwin, Alice Springs, Adelaide and then Sydney - and still have time to sell the car. There is just so much out there, and I'm desperate to see it - and I know the sense of acheivement and satisfaction that I will feel when I drive back into Sydney in the same car I left in, having done 5000km, will be something I'll take with my for the rest of my life. So, its looking like thats the plan at the moment! ;)
Yes, by some bizarre twist of fate, I seem to have awoken at a ashcokingly early 7.30am this moring, bright eyed and cheery, so I thought I would plunge into the cyber realm for an hour or so, listen to some banging psytrance on my ipod in this tent in the middle of the oldest rainforest on earth. Just to mix it up a little.
So, we've been in Cape Tribulation for three days now - this is real wild country, about two hours north of Cairns, into the old old rainforest. Its very beautiful and, after the holiday resort hell hole that is Port Douglas, quite a nice change. We're staying in cabins out in the rainforest, which is great, and went on a night walk through the forest with a guide the night before last, which was also a lot of fun. Yesterday we went horse riding through the rainforest, which was also a pretty amazing experience, so its another great thing to tick of the list (skydive, snorkelling, white water rafting etc).
In a few hours we're going to drive north still further, up to Cooktown, which is just about as far north as you can get in Oz without a 4x4, so I'm excited. We'll be going through the outback and over some mountain ranges too, so it should be fantastic drive - Emilie is even doing some of the driving! ;)
My longer term plans still remain a little unclear, despite furious thinking on the issue day and night in the back of my mind. I could sell the car in Cairns and go back to Sydney for a months worth of work, and save over a thousand pounds (no small amount), but then again, when am I going to be in Oz like this again, with my own wheels and 40 days to spare? Right now I am thinking I want to keep on roadtripping, and having looked at the available time, I think I have more then enough time to hit Darwin, Alice Springs, Adelaide and then Sydney - and still have time to sell the car. There is just so much out there, and I'm desperate to see it - and I know the sense of acheivement and satisfaction that I will feel when I drive back into Sydney in the same car I left in, having done 5000km, will be something I'll take with my for the rest of my life. So, its looking like thats the plan at the moment! ;)
Tuesday, 4 September 2007
Port Douglas
Hey all, bit bored so got on the internet. Tired too to be honest, camping up here - which probably wasn't the best plan. Both me and emilie are getting really tired out from being on the move all the time, and the rather excessively cheesy (and german) backpacker scene up here is starting to grind a little. I guess I am just getting too old for this shit, as danny glover would say. So its off to Cape Tribulation tomorrow, then back to Cairns and around I guess. Not too sure what next. Anyway, time to go, amazing how quick it goes when you pay for it...
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