The flight from Perth was my earliest start so far, mainly due to the fact that the cheap bus from the hostel to the airport ran so infrequently. So despite the flight being at 8am I had to be ready for the bus at 5:35am, I did as a result get pretty nice seats at the front of both flights though. Cairns airport I thought was pretty bad in that once the flight is called and you hand over your boarding pass, you then basically go outside and follow painted lines on the concrete to your plane. But that was before I got to Alice Springs where you get off the plane and follow coloured lines to get to the terminal (and then cross the path of taxiing planes when you leave as well). There was a bit of a hold up at Alice which meant I ended up arriving in Perth about the same time as my parents, so instead of as planned me catching a bus over to the International terminal to meet them, they came and picked me up in the hire car. We eventually found our hotel/apartment which was very plush. The next day we headed out first around Perth, myself hobbling quite badly (it seems that a blister on my big toe had become infected whilst scuba diving in the reef). We ended up at the Swan Bells, which is a quite fancy new building (which the Australians naturally kicked up a fuss about, nothing to do with the way it looked, just that the government was paying for it, they don’t seem to see the point in spending money to boost the local economy do Australians). The bells were originally in St Martins church off Trafalgar Square in London, and we even got to ring one of them, which is actually surprisingly tricky. Then in the afternoon we headed up to Kings Park for more of a hobble. The next day we took a very long drive out to the Pinnacles which is a very odd place, a desert filled with what look like props from the original Star Trek, in other words large artificial looking columns of stone. We also visited a beach, and gave up on the idea of lunch due to the whole area being either very local or the only food store not really selling much.
We intended the next day to go to Scarborough, however much like the English town with the same name, there wasn’t much to see. We carried on up the coast and eventually found the AQWA centre which was a big aquarium type place with various attractions. The biggest attraction was the moving walkway which went through a tunnel under an aquarium full of turtles, sharks and other reef marine life. It was also here that I saw one of the most amusing sights I’ve seen in a while, the fat family who couldn’t actually manage to stand for the length of the trip round so were instead sat down on the moving walkway. We also got to so the seals feeding, although it has to be said they are very smelly creatures. We headed to another beach on the way home, City Beach, which provided some more amusing signs for the collection, my personal favourite being Caution: Dumping Surf.
On the Thursday we took an all day wine tour around the Swan Valley, which took in 5 wineries, a cheese factory, a brewery and a chocolate factory. Not all the wines were that good (and there were lots unlike the backpacker tasting trip in Melbourne, usually 7-9 different ones to try at each), but they all did some quite good ports and muscats. The cheese factory was good, chocolate factory expensive but providing lots of free samples, and the brewery was quite pleasant. The brewery did provide amusement in the form of the barman having the campest german accent ever (beat Herr Lipp of the League of Gents hands down), but it turned out that he just put the accent for the customers.
On Friday we decided to take a trip to Guildford and York which are both heritage towns, which means the National Trust owns them and determines what people can build there etc. That said they’re both only just over 100 years old which is quite young in English terms, oh and there’s not really much at either. In between we ended up at another winery which actually produced quite good wine (a novelty considering the others we’d been to the day before).
On the Saturday we just pottered about town in the morning before taking a boat trip to Fremantle and back. We had dinner at the Chinese restaurant at the pier which we’d been to a few nights before. It was quite an interesting meal as we’d asked the manager to serve us whatever he wanted. So we started with Oysters, followed by Squid and then something else which I forget. The main course was Lobster (which was very fresh) and noodles which was very nice. I should also mention the quite different Peking Duck we had the first time we went there. Instead of getting the duck to put in your pancakes you just got the crispy skin (and they made the pancakes for you as well), then you got a second course made of the actual duck that you ate inside lettuce bowls.
Sunday was spent doing not much except packing and getting some sleep for the early start on Monday for my flight to Singapore/Kuala Lumpur.
My parents dropped me off at 4:30am at Perth airport (they had a later direct flight to KL). My Dad mentioned something about the place being pretty deserted when he last flew out of Perth, but we saw a person at a check in desk through the glass and some people waiting. As it turns out despite being able to wait inside the airport the check in desks don’t open until 5am, and in fact it was a cardboard cut-out by the check in desk, and the person we thought was waiting was in fact a bronze bust of someone. Before 5 though a few more people turned up and whilst the duty frees etc didn’t open until 6am at least the café was open.
Well I've now finished the 5 day diving course and am a PADI certified Open Water diver, which means I can go anywhere diving to a maximum depth of 18 metres.
The course itself was great fun, the first day started off with watching some videos in the classroom to teach us about the equipment, how water density (and air for that matter) varies with depth - go down ten metres air is half the density, water has doubled, at twenty air is a third, water has tripled and so on and other useful things such as how light is absorbed differently the deeper you go and how everything appears much bigger than it is (hence you come up saying did you see that shark, it was gianormous!). There's also the fact that sound travels four times as fast which is a very strange sensation. Then there's the little technique called equalisation, which is why you should never dive with a cold, as you go down your ears block (like they do on a plane) and you need to equalise by either swallowing (which gets very difficult in salt water on hot days as your mouth tends to dry up) or by pinching your nose and breathing out through it, but more on that later. There were various other things we learned about nitrogen narcosis (which is quite an amusing symptom of deep diving ~30 metres), decompression sickness (or the bends), which is mostly caused by making an ascent greater than 18 metres a minute, but I won't go into boring detail. Before the afternoon pool session, if we hadn't already we had to take a medical, which I almost failed (on the lung capacity test). The medical did also consist of the evil balance test: one foot in front of the other arms crossed, hands on shoulders and eyes closed for about 2 minutes, try it it's not that easy to not sway.
The afternoon pool session consisted of various skills underwater such as mask removals and replacement/clearing which are always fun. We also had a pool session in the morning on the second day, and that was when we had the most evil skill, we were all sat in a circle and passed our mask to the left, then put on the mask from the right and cleared it, this was repeated until everyone got their original mask back, which took a while considering that there were eight in our training group and the instructor. The other most evil mask replacement exercise had to be when Diana our instructor took all our masks dropped them the other side of the pool and made us all swim underwater to retrieve them, that was real carnage. I could go on about the other skills we learnt but I won't bore you all to death. Although of course as you may already know, when you go recreational scuba diving you need a buddy so you can check each others equipment before you enter the water (as if your air runs out you need to use their alternate air source - there's none of that sharing of second stage regulators these days like you see in the movies). My buddy was Emre, who was turkish, but has worked in America for the last 4 years. After the pool training we headed out for lunch before going to the Pro-Dive shop (Pro-dive was the place I was learning) to sort out wet suits, BCDs, fins, masks, snorkels for the boat trip. I ended up buying my own mask, which is the absolute mutts nuts, the TUSA Visualator, it's single lens, and has a massive viewing area compared to other masks as well as having straps that are also adjustable up and down to customise the fit even better. I also got a pretty sweet TUSA snorkel which has the Hyper Dry system to prevent water entering the top when snorkelling on the surface and a system so that water can be blown out the bottom of the snorkel. We then headed back to the training centre for the final instructional video on how to use a dive planner and diving computer and the exam, which if not easy enough on it's own, was made easier by the main instructor Phil (who took the other group in the pool) telling us all the answers to questions he didn't teach us or which were wrong because the book and videos were more up to date than the exam. I got 48 out of 50 although I should have got 49, but for some reason when I knew the answer was C I checked A. Still it really was so easy. As part of the course we also got entry to the nightly reef teach talk given by some mad irish man, who was somewhat reminiscent of Olly Plimsolls from the League of Gentlemen, which was quite interesting to learn about various species of fish and coral.
The next morning involved getting up at 5:30 to walk round the block to the Pro Dive shop for 6:15 to catch buses to the docks. In addition to the 18 off our course there were another load of more experienced divers on the boat so it was pretty full, but still very comfortable. We only had two dives on the first day and these weren't to the full depth of 18m, I think it was either 14 then 12, or 12 then 10 (if you do repetetive dives you have to go shallower on each dive). There was no real problem with the extra depth apart from my first descent was a bit botched after I let go of the guide rope and continued straight up. An extra weight on the weight belt sorted me out though (although I later went back down to 6 as opposed to 7, as apparently 7 was too much - each weight is 1.5kg!) The second dive was probably the worst for skills as we started off with a CESA, basically an emergency ascent from about 6 metres, but being careful not to ascend above 18 metres/minute and also remembering to say ahhh (this is important as you only do a CESA when you have no air left and your buddy is nowhere to be found, but you musn't hold your breath underwater as if you do and ascend the air in your lungs expands as it becomes less dense and you end up with lung overexpansion problems. Then we actually went down to the max depth and did lovely lovely mask removals and replacements (much worse in salt water) and a few other skills before doing an alternate air source ascent (i.e. breathing off your buddys alternate regulator). After this we got to do some snorkelling, which is great fun as well, especially when you have a good snorkel that you can easily clear after diving down, we managed to see quite a lot including following a turtle and having a fish swim right up to us and then follow one of us.
The next day started off with a dive before breakfast to 18 metres which wasn't that bad at all, another mask removal and then just a little swim around. After breakfast we had another dive down to 16 metres and much more of a swim around through the reefs. After that dive we were all qualified, which meant we were free to go off on other dives without an instructor and also that we didn't have to dismantle all our kit after each dive. Also before each dive we now have to attend a briefing which gives an overview of the area and how to get where. We went out in the afternoon to 14 metres max, but the dive got a bit messy when it got shallow as loads of people ended up in the same spot (and quite a few surfaced which is not a good thing to do before going back down), so me and Emre headed off elsewhere to explore, saw quite a lot including a Manta and some Giant clams. The next dive (and my last) was the night dive, which whilst only supposed to be a 12m, ended up being a 13.5 for about everyone, but that didn't matter as we had at least 6 hours until the next dive. Night dives are quite simply amazing, although it's very difficult to maintain control and see others. We did also get to see the giant turtle Brian, who lives in a cave at night and a shark and lots of other things. However when I surfaced my right ear was giving me a bit of gyp, basically my sinuses were blocked on my right side, which did mean I shouldn't go diving. So I missed out on the last three dives the next day as I didn't want to damage my ears or have to abort the dive at a metre or two. I did get to do a bit of snorkelling though which as always was good fun.
Finally after we got back we all went out for a meal, quite handily at the place next to my hostel, and then ended up at the Woolshed which is quite frankly a dive (and if you're ever in Cairns no matter how many discount vouchers you get, the food really is quite bad), but Phil got us in free. It wasn't all that bad though as there was a stage for dancing on, by stage I refer to the tables. But they did play some great tunes and the beer was quite cheap.
I would say to everyone who's ever thought about it to give Scuba diving a try, it's great fun and probably the best way to see the barrier reef.
Well I decided to take it easy on Saturday and just had a little wonder round the city in order to find an alarm clock seeing as I actually had a somewhat early flight (which was 30 minutes earlier leaving than the ticket said). Then in the evening I ended up going out with a couple of people. The Australian lad from Sydney (Terry) lead the way and we soon discovered that Melbourne city centre is pretty devoid of pubs and clubs. We eventually found one that was pretty dead and after a few drinks decided to go to the club just down the block. However the girls weren't happy with the $10 entry fee, so we decided to find some other bars/clubs.
The barmaid in the first pub had mentioned another street, so again Terry lead the way but we soon realised that the clubs in question were in completely the other corner of the city. After about 30 minutes we came upon one which looking at the punters we decided was not quite for us (if we'd had some gothic makeup on then we'd have been alright). The next club along the street had a massive queue so we carried on and got given some fliers for free entry to what I think was called showgirls. I was initially concerned that there seemed to be lots of adverts for Chippendale type shows plastered to the building next door, but after a closer look it appeared that in fact there was such and establishment next door (or so it seemed).
So we went in and the upstairs was gated off so we went into the downstairs bar which despite having Karaoke (a redeeming feature, although not for the version of Welcome to the Jungle) did seem to be somewhat after sitting there for a while rather full of men. What particularly concerned myself and Terry was the fact that the men playing pool all seemed to be wearing very tight tops, had dodgy haircuts and kept putting their arms around each other. There was actually one woman there but she did have quite a manly face and an obvious wig. The two girls did find this all very amusing, so after a couple of drinks we decided to try and go upstairs (as I'd noticed that the gate was briefly open when I'd gone to the toilet). The gate however was still closed, then some chap standing by the side said to a bloke who came down the stairs let this four up, but I don't want any of those other lads going up (referring to some fellas behind us). The upstairs greeted us with the sight of two topless male strippers, although they were leaving, fortunately we had missed the male strip show. It did appear that all the women were in fact upstairs for this reason. Still the club was dire and despite the promise on the flyer of a cheesey 70/80/90s night there was no such music played.
I managed to get up early enough to catch my flight though, so I'm now in Cairns and start learning to dive tomorrow. I don't know how long each days lesson lasts, so I may not check my emails until the end of the week (I definitely won't be able to check them for the two nights I'm out on the boat). Cairns is lovely though, some sunshine at last as well.
Despite a rather heavy thursday night at the pub that doesn't close around the corner, I managed to somehow get ready for 8 to meet the bus. We first of all headed down to Bells Beach, which is the last beach in the movie Point Break, although it's not as they actually filmed on some beach in Portland. Still Bells Beach is pretty much where it all started and the nearby town is home to the likes of Quiksilver and Ripcurl. We then carried on along the Great Ocean Road (which unsurprisingly is a road along the ocean and about 300km long). We stopped somewhere I can't remember to go Koala stopping (unsurprisingly they were all asleep). Then stopped in Apollo Bay for lunch at a rather nice place that did lots of fried seafood very cheap. In the afternoon we visited a rainforest and the Twelve Apostles. The 12 Apostles are giant rock stacks in the sea, although there's now only 8 as the other four over time disappeared/eroded away. We also took in Loch Ard Gorge and the collapsed London Bridge, which when it did collapse and strand some people on the rocks wasn't believed by the locals until about the tenth person reporting it.
Well the wine tasting trip (around the Yarra valley) yesterday was very pleasant, amazing how easy it is to get drunk on very little wine. Started the day at a winery I can't remember the name of, where the driver taught us how to test wines, in total there were 5 wines sampled here but I didn't particularly like any of them. Next up was Rochford which had better wines, as lunch was late we ended up trying six here, then had lunch (which was a passable steak, the restaurant was very nice though and a load of travellers didn't look too out of place!) which came with a whole glass of wine. Lunchtime discussions of whether downing a pint of Baileys was a feasible challenge (if your names not Tommy Walsh) soon raised an interesting conundrum arrived at after discussing various methods to drink lots in a short time. Someone mentioned a pub that has a speed pourer that is like a cows udder (i.e. fills six pints at once), so naturally the question arose of what would come out of a real cow if you fed if solely Water, Hops, Malt and Sugar. A cow does have multiple stomachs so fermentation may occur during digestion, but what would come out the udders?
Then we tried another couple before heading onto St Austins (by which point everyone was pretty much wrecked and the third person this trip told me I sounded just like Ricky Gervais) to try another 6 wines, these again I wasn't exactly enamoured with. Finally we went to Domaine Chandon (associated with Moet and Chandon) where we got to see the whole works of the place (a novelty in Oz apparently) and a whole glass of bubbly (although we also wangled a taster of some of their red bubbly which wasn't worth it) and some cheese (and beetroot!).
Today I went to the Melbourne museum which is quite an interesting place even if the exhibits aren't that big. However they did have a section devoted to Neighbours and the Scullys old kitchen (i.e. before the fire) as well as a time line up until 1999 detailing who lived in which house and moved to which house etc. I was particularly impressed (being such a big child in museums) with the quality interactive displays provided by some Australian record company I'd never heard of (they claim to be Kylies record label but seeing as the other musicians they were proud of were called Motor Cycle Fellatio or something like that I don't think they're that big overseas!).
Tomorrow I'm off on a day trip down Ocean Road as I decided the Neighbours tour was a right rip off, they take you to ramsay street, drive you past the studio and thats about it.
Well I haven't done too much in Melbourne (I have only been here a couple of days though). The hostel is very nice although the rooms seem to have been designed by a prison cell designer. However apart from that it's pretty much like a nice hotel and is only the second hostel I've stayed in that has a restaurant.
I spent most of my first day wandering around the city, which is quite varied in its design, there's a lot of old victorian buildings and some very old run down looking houses, equally lots of skyscrapers and very odd looking new buildings.
Today I visited the Victoria Market which is one of the oldest (110 years) markets in the world (and biggest), but I'm not a market person, so there wasn't really anything of interest there (unless you're into fresh veg and some dubious clothing). I also visited the Old Melbourne Gaol, which, as a claim to fame, is where Ned Kelly was hanged. It's a pretty interesting place (and quite cheap) with lots of tales about who was imprisoned there, how it was based on Pentonville in London as well as displaying one of the Kelly gangs armour suits and Neds gun. There's also an interesting tale of how when the prison closed the gallows (or scaffold) was moved to another prison, but the trapdoor didn't fit so an inmate who was a carpenter was tasked with fixing it to work. Then ironically the same prisoner was the first person to be hanged after it was working.
Tomorrow I'm off on a tour round 4 of the local winerys, and I'll probably go out on some other tours in the next few days (still not sure whether the Neighbours tour is worth the money though!)