Is there anyone out there?

ok well I would have thought that people would be following my adventures. I know some of my friends have to be reading this but you are all suspeciously quite. Ah well I write this more for me than you anyway.

Right now there is a large group of early 20's people watching Tennis on tv. They are into the oddest sports here. I know people like tennis but I had allways thought it was old sophisticated types. There was a guy up in the stands painted up like he was at a football game.

Anyway, poastcards are off and now it's a race to see who gets to canada first. we are flying to sydney tomorow night, heading into Bisbane for the day first. The last to days found us driving leisurly around the sunshine coast (expanse of coast between Brisbane and Frasure Island. There are a lot more people here, everything is built up and the houses are quite impressive. May be because you can swim at the beach here without fear of crocks or jellyfish, water is too cold for them.

Speakin of Crocks yesterday we visited the world famous Australia Zoo, home of the Crocodile Hunter. Oh my to say this zoo has been commercialized is a huge understatement. There is the Animal Planet Crockoseam, A giant Colloseam for live animal shows. Each crockodile pen has bleacher seating around it to view the daily feedings. And, last but not least there are enought immages of Steve Irwen around the place to make you think he has come back from the dead, it's a little sad really. The zoo however is top notch, good enclosures, lots of animals and you can really get close to some of them. The Kangaroo pen was freely explorable and you could walk up to pet and feed any one of them. Also peted a kaola. It was a cool place but at $50 admission is a bit pricey.

Today we went on a hike in the Glass House mountains a series of old volcano lava tubes that now have ben exposed due to erosion of the limestone around them. Stunning to look at but unfortunatly they are quite tall and steep so we where only able to walk around them not summit any one of them. Oh well theres allways the Blue mountains in sydney.

My time is about up on the comp here so I will leave for another day.

TTFN

I have sand in my underpants

Ok where did I leave off. I was diving in the whytsundays. So after leaving Airly Beach and forgetting to once again send off my poastcards in the morning we started the long boaring drive to Rockhampton. It's worth noteing at this point that we have been sorrounded by flooding. Both on our intended driving route and in places we have departed. That being said it's allways dry as a bone when we are actually there so we have been extreamly lucky.

The road to Rockhampton is long and empty, very much like Saskatachewan but with trees. We saw lots of cows which makes sense as Rockhampton is the beef center of the country, mabe it's like a wet Alberta then. Just north of the city we Stopped at some cool caves. These where huge and there was a walking tour with a very knowledgable guide. Definatly something to see if your ever in the area.

The next day we started out to Hervy Bay where the 4x4 rental place is. One short stop however had to be made at a very important landmark. As I had said before Rum is big here and a chance to tour the countrys #1 distillary could not be passed up. I got to see the giant tank of molasas, the fermentation tanks and most important the maturation kegs. Massive barrels the size of my dorm room. Each one holds 6 million dollars worth of rum as it ages two years before being sold. Again if your in the area it's highly recomended. Now is it good rum well.......Not great but not bad eather. I would drink it over bacardi or captain morgan but since I don't drink those either that's not really important. Im more of an Appelton Estates, Lambs Navy rum kind of guy. The one cool thing is they sell premixed rum and coke by the keg, that's right bars here have draft rum and coke on Tap. Now I go to my happy place.

Frasure Island, the point of this poast. Frasure island is the worlds largest sand island. You can only navigate it by 4x4 which we rented the next day in Hervy Bay. You have to take a barge and youget dropped off on a beach with a map and a rough list of things to see. With the Island being soemthing like 75km long there is a lot to see. There are driving paths through the islands interor but the sand can get pretty deep and going is slow. The main method of travel is along the beach which is like driving on a road, you can get up to 80kph, except there are rivers you have to drive through and rock sticking up all over the place. First day we checked out some cool lakes, deep and with water clearer than any I have ever seen, better than when I was on the Reef. There was a cool river you could drift down like a ride at a water park and An old giant ship wreck on the beach. That night we camped on the dunes overlooking the beach and we where the only people for about a klick in each direction. A very lazy morning followed since we could not travel on the beach untill about 2 hours after high tide. We got going around noon and started north to check out some cool sand formations farther north. We saw a plane take off from the beach and started heading for the barge dock to catch our boat home at 4. There was a lot of fun driving through sand and I leaft with the keen desire to purchace a jeep and treak off into the interior of BC.

Fun was had by all and I sustained a few more good sun burns. See we had been driving with windows up AC on up untill this point but now we where 1700km south of the tropical rain forests we started in and it was cool enough to role the windows down and burn my damn arm. How am I going to explain a truckers tan on my right arm.

Seriosly, postcards are out tomorow. Except for Tim's cause I still don't have his home address.

Adventures in Reefdom

Ok so as we leave cape tribulation, Daintree national park, behind us and start traveling south I can help but wonder what the hell all this tall grass being farmed by the side of the road is. There is a lot of it and it goes on for days of driving. Oh we see other stuff too like pinapples and banana farms but this grass is really pervasive. Actually after a day we figured out it was sugarcane, main component in Australias national drink, Rum. Yes that's right after all the places I have gone and the people i talk to I can only conclude that Rum is drunk equaly as much as beer here, more on that later.

Our destination was Arlie beach, a little tourist community situated right in the Whytsunday Islands. It took us two days of travel stopping at a nice bed and breakfast in Townsvill along the way. The Coral inn I think it was called, well it had coral in the name anyway. Good place, found it in the Lonley Planet guide book we bought for the trip, also an encelent purchace. We had booked a vacation package for arlie beach back home through a brocure we got at travel cuts. Awesome Oz Adventures, they where called and it turned out to be a truly awesome experiance.

Day 1 was an all day sailing adventure on a huge Catamaran called the Camira. It was a really fun experiance, well worth what we paid and more. We borded in the harborm took off our shoes and set sail, well actualy there was no wind so we set moter but really that was the only disapointing part. The Crew were really friendly and took care of our every need. We had morning tea, lunch and afternoon tea with as much food as we could eat combined with unlimited beverages both alchoholic and non-alchoholic. Activites included the cruise around the island chain as well as snorkeling on a coral reef and an hour at a truly massive pure white beach. Super day but it was notheing compared to the next day.

Day 2 back at the dock but this time we are getting on a different boat one takeing us on the 2 hour trip to the great barrier reef. The company has a giant floating platform out at knuckle reef. From there you can snorkle, swim, take sub and glass bottem boat rides and more importantly for me, Scuba Dive. I went on two dives that day while Geneva took some boat rides and snorkled around the reef. The platform has a moon pool you dive from and the first time I was standing on the edge looking down at the sea floor 12 m below I was so awestruck I forgot everyting I was supposed to be doing. First off I have never been in water where you could see 12 m down to the sea floor then being able to see the bassive berms of coral sorrounding me, to awesome for words. Then drifing slowly to the ocean floor, being pulled along the reef by the current, seing hard coral up close for the first time. Oh and the Anenome fish. I tood 30 pictures my first dive and only 10 my second because mycamara card was full from all the other stuff I had done. luckaly that was all I needed it for and Gen has hers for the rest of the trip. I can't really describe to a non diver how amazing the experiance was, Ill just have to put up the picutres and you can see for yourslef.

Time running out again. We have been really busy and we took the 3rd day at Arlie beach to just laze around finaly, probably lazed around too much bucause I forgot to send out the poastcard I got from the cape. Got some more poastcards from arlie beach and forgot to send them out too. Infact we are leaving tomorow for a 2 day 4X4 tour of Fraser Island and I still Have forgotten to send them, when I do remember I can never find a poast office or news agency to buy staps at, or they are closed. I have decided to jsut get all my cards and send them out in one shot instead of trickeling them back home like I had origionaly planned. Hopefully they will get to you before I actually arrive home, but maby not.

Ah my life for a spell checker.

It's Hot, Africa Hot

When I was at the moot I had unlimited internet access but now that Geneva and I are on the move it's a bit harder to check my emails and even more difficul to write a blog entry. Let's see what I can say before my internet card runs out.

After the moot I went to Sydney and waited for Genevas arrival. She arrived and we flew up to Cairns the next day. Oh man I thought Sydney was hot but Cairns is something else. Several throusand km to the north right in the tropics of Australia. When we arrived we rented a car and started our 2 hour drive to cape tribulation, after a short shopping spree that is for an esky(cooler) and food.

When we got neer the cape the geography changed quite a bit. Dantree National park is like a little micro climet. All of a sudden we where in a tropical rain forest like something you see out of national Geographic, not what I expected of australia at all. Oh and we throught Cairns was hot. Nothing prepared me for the intense heat and humidity of the cape. When you come out of the shower and can't dry off because you are sweating too much that's Africa Hot. I can't even guess the temperature but it had to be near 40 and as humid as it could possably be.

What did we do there. Day 1 we went on a guided hike through the rain forest in the morning. If I was in canada I would just find a hiking trail and go off but since I know nothing about the rainforest I througt my first ventrue into it would be enhanced by a knowledgable guide. It was an awesome hike and I learned a tonn of stuff. The cap trib area has the oldest rainforests in the world. Some species of trees where thought to be exctinct 40 million year ago untill a farmaer chopped a bunch down to stop his cows from being poisoned. There a plants there that predate ferns. That after noon we walked along the beach, went for a swim in the local swimming hole and went on a hike through a mangrove swamp. For dinner we went to this nice resterant called Dragonfly. It was located deep in the rainforest and made for the most unique of eating establishments. I had some the the best prawns I have ever had in my life and the setting made it all the better.

Next day we started off with a bit of sea kayaking across some of the reefs in the area. The jellyfish are in season and the crocks our out of the rivers hunting for mates so it's not really safe to swim. The kayaking was awesome, cool pictures to come. After kayaking we picked up a cocunut off the beach, there where hundreds of trees. The tour guide came backe and opened it with a machettie. Fresh cocanut milk, right of a tree fresh, is actualy a bit sparkeling, like pop or champaign. It was so ammazingly tasty I will never be able to eat a store bought one again. Add in a few fresh picked passion fruit and it made for an awesome lunch. In the after noon we went on a river cruse to see some crocks. Unfortunatly they seemed to be a bit shy but we did see a lot of mangroves and the tour guide was very knowlagable. It was an ok cruise but i really wanted to see some crocs. Dinner that night was Kraft dinner and tuna with Brocolii.

2 min of comp time left. the next day we left the cape for a 2 day trip south to arlie beach where we are now. Ill write about that later, needless to say there are a lot of suggar cane plantations around here and the climate changes a lot, very quickly on the way south.

Ta ta for now.

Aussie Moot Day near the end, 12 i think, im loosing the concept of time by this point.

Ok so the expidition is over and I have done my gold activity. Now is the period with lots of time on site. I came as staff and it's time to do staff things. For the last 2 days I have been running the Caves. They built an artificial cave on site here, not for the moot it was here before the moot. Cataract scout park is an amazing facitily here in the bush. Tonnes of factilities for camping. It was almost made for huge long camps. there are 10 large, very large, 100 tents + large sites. Each of which has full washroom and laundry facitities. There is also about 10 general perpous buildings and a scouring museam. Built in on site activities include a high ropes course, cave, giant swing, kick ass obstical course, archary range and a water slide (a big one too, waterpark class). It also has Funnel Webs, Red backs, Brown snakes and Drop Bears. Ya it's an interesting place liveing for 2 weeks in an area containg some of the most toxit animals in the world. Can't wait untill I get up to queensland, yay Box Jellyfish.

Last night was Contingent night at the moot. Each of the groups here put on a 5 min show. We lipsynched a nice little canadian number, The king of spain by Moxy Fruvous. I was the king of spain as I had 2 attendents. We danced and acted out the song and I was well received by the people I talked to. Of they could have just been being nice.

I have been useing my internet time over the past few days to search for sutibel accomidation post moot. The search was slow and annoying as all the hotells in sydney are fairly pricey and due to travel requirements we did not want to hostel it at this time. Then a few people put me on to some web sites. I never knew this but hotells that are not booked out dramaticly reduce their rates in order to clear the vacancies, a little money is better than no money i guess. These deals can be found on some websites and after looking at these I managed to save 50% on a nice hotell room for 2 days. Located right in the center of the city beside central station.

• tripadvisor.com - is a good site with reviews of all accomidations so you can check out what people think of them. It also has a search funcion to list accomidations based on Rates, types and locations
• Wotif - Great way to find amazing deals on hoels. This is where i found mine. Info is not that geat on the site so you need to find more about the hotell somewhere else.
• Rates to Go - Another good deal seaching site, this one has more info on the hotels but is a bit harder to seach. Wotif just shows you all days for 2 weeks for each hotell and what is avalibel while for this one you need to specify your travel dates.
• Last Minute com - this is a good one too, covers more than hotells but i prever the prevous 2.

Well that's it for now. Tomorow is the last full day then i head to the city to meet up with geneva who flys in on the 13th. Ill try to get one more entry before We hit Cape tribulation on the 14th.

Aussie Moot Day 9

2 poasts in one day, well it's 12:07 so that is technically the next day but screw that technicality. What did I do today you may ask, or you may not care in which case you can Take Off. I went horse back riding. We are each allowed one gold activity and as I was looking down the list I realized I have done each of these at least once before, except horse back riding that is. Oh sure I had one lesson from a friends ex at one time but that was not much more than running around a barn. The ride was great, we went all over the country side and the horse did all the work, I didn't even need to navigate cause they are trained to follow. It's really a beautifull country. That being said when they run you get thrown up and down in the saddle something fearce. My ass really hurts right now. Next time I ride with a pillow.

Tonight is Aussie night at the Pub/Dance Place. They had an band come in and we had a bush party. It's like a canadian Kitchen party only replace the maritime theme with more of a western theme. There was dancing and singing and i didn't know any of the songs except the land down under. The more I stay here the more I see just how alike we are. Canadians and Australians could be cousins, well I guess we are in a way all being members of the commonwelth. Aside from a slight change in the names of things you could go from one courntry to the other an not miss a beat, except the 30 degree change in temperature.

Just remember:
Flip Flops are called Thongs
Thongs are also called Thongs so you can see my confusion.
A Dunny is a Toilet
They drink Cordial instead of Kool-aid
And they play some game called Cricket. That game from hitchikers guide to the Galixy. apparently the games can last up to 5 days. immagine a baseball game that runs 7 hours a day for 5 days. And get this, there is not even any ice involved. Crazy aussies.

Contingent night is in 2 days and the girls decided we are lip syncing to Moxy Fruvous's the King of Spain. Guess what part I was voulinteered for.

Aussie Moot Days 4-8 : Dive Expidition

Ok so 5 day trip of diving. Well 4 days of diving and a day of travel. There where some awesome sites planned. The most exciting was going to be south west rocks. I say was going to be because a Cyclone is currently hitting queensland causing all kinds of nasty. The entire east coast of Australia is experianceing monster waves and that cut out many promising dive sites. We where limited to protected bays like Sydney Harbor and Nelson bay, someplace we where going to go anyway but we couldn't do the boat dive.

This happens in diving. When you go out you have to allways expect that it may not be safe to dive, it's part of the sport. Im a bit dissapointed but I accept it. We did do a lot of fun dives and I saw lots of cool stuff. A lot will be explained when I put up my dive photos uppon return to canada but I can mention a few things now.

Our first 2 days where in Manly which is on the north end of sydney harbor and home to one of the best beaches in the world. We dove off the north head just inside the harbor at two sites. The first was called waterfall and the second was old mans hat. There where located at the south end of the land mass shown.

View Larger Map

The next day we dove in the harbor on a sandy flat with a bunch of artificial reef material. The Next day we went to nelsons bay and hit up a dive site called Halafax for some reason. We then did a night dive at a site called pipeline. Both of these dives where along the south side of the bay and they had a tonn of sealife. I saw one of everything on that night dive. From sharks to rays to octopus to cuttlefish to eels. It was pretty kick ass.

All the dives where good, 22 degrees C as compared to my usual of around 10. The visability is around what I would expect in Canada but i was told it was horrable compared to what it usualy is. I really would have like to see that clear water, damn Cyclone. The life was a cross of what I would see in canada and what's in the tropics. The sharks are smaller and sit on the bottem, the two I saw are the Wobbegong and Port Jackson Shark we don't see sharks that often in western Canada appart from dogfish which are elsusive and the six gill which lives at 2000m. I also saw Cuttlefish, and seahorses both of which i have never seen in canada. The fish species are a bit more colourfull but not tropical in nature. The sponges and soft coral are simmilar to what I have seen before in theat respect and so are the Nudibranch. Different species ofcourse but simmilar looking. Everything was generaly a lot smaller too, except the sharks and groupers. We have a bigger fish and anenomes in general so I had to get really close to the rocks to see all the cool stuff.

Can't wait for Queensland and all that tropical water. Stay tuned for pictures when I get home.

Aussiemoot day 3

Don't have much time to post today. We are leaving for our expeditions in 10 min. I'm going to be doing 4 days of diving in the Sydney region an i'm pretty damn excited. Yesterday at 7 marked the end of our epic 21 hour new years celebration with western Canada. It started at 10 the previous night with Newzeland.

We also went to the beach yesterday. I thought i put on good amounts of sunscreen but the sun is something special here. I am burned in places I never thought I could be burned. You need to cover every exposed inch of skin in much the same way you would if you where in sudbury in the middle of winter where exposed flesh freezes in 15 seconds. The burns are pretty minor as i was still on the look out but one really painful one is under my chin. Do you have any idea what it's like to shave over a sunburn. I hope you never have to find out.

Got's to go. Shawn out

ps. my life for a coffee that's not Foldures instant poison. Seriously i don't think they know how to Brew coffee here.