Day 165 April 23rd 2007, Dinner in the Desert - Cairns to Ayers Rock

We couldn't come to Australia and not visit one it's most famous attractions. There is quite a set up here or should I say monopoly. You have one resort to choose from that offers everything from camping to a 5 star hotel. These rating's are self administered as our 4 star room was clearly 3 star.

Top Photo: Us and the helicopter Bottom Photo: Up please

The scene is set as soon as you arrive, plenty of flies, red sand and great big sandstone rocks. Aside from Ayers rock there are also the Olgas which in my opinion are more interesting. Having never been in a helicopter before we took a 30 min tour of both Ayers Rock and the Olgas. After watching AirWolf as a kid I was a bit surprised at how slow the helicopter seemed to go.

Top Photo: Ayers Rock from the air Bottom Photo: The Olgas from the air

For dinner we took a short trip out into the desert to the "Sounds of Silence" where we enjoyed fine Australian fine, Kangaroo, Crocodile, Emu and some more traditional foods. Quite spectacular watching the sunset over Ayers Rock and the Olgas.

Top Photo: Shelley trying to work out the best way to drink champagne through a fly net Bottom: Dinner as the sunsets with the Olgas in the background

Highlights: The helicopter flight.

Day 164 April 22nd 2007, Uggggh - Cairns

After last nights farewell party we didn't get out of bed until 4PM. It was quite a party. Luckily we managed to get our 3rd vaccination for Japan and pick up some more malaria tablets for SE ASIA. I reckon that everyone in the medical center and pharmacy had also been out that night as I had to explain to the doctor, the nurse and the pharmacist why we only needed one injection (we have already had the first 2) and when the nurse started to read the instructions I almost picked up the 2 components of the vaccine and mixed them myself.

Highlights: An early night

Day 163 April 21st 2007, Rapture of the Deep - Cairns - Great Barrier Reef

The last few days have been pretty dry but there is one way of feeling a little merry underwater. At depths of around 30m you start to feel the effects of Nitrogen Narcosis described by Jacques Cousteau as the "Rapture of the Deep". After a slow descent we all did our best to count to 20 with some accuracy before drinking cans of coke. I didn't really feel any strong effects apart from when Shelley set me off laughing. As soon as you ascend a few meters the effects go.



After every dive you are left with some residual nitrogen in your system the amount depends on length and depth of dive, because of this we had to sit out the second dive of the day but we're ok for the third where we tried out our underwater photography skills. This made me realise pretty quickly how difficult it is. Firstly you have to float perfectly still next to whatever you are photographing, then you have to photograph it before you or it moves.


I spent about 10 minutes trying to get a picture of the famous "Nemo" who was busy defending his anemone against other fish, Shelley came along and took one shot getting it right first time. The picture above is the one I took as I didn't dare use Shelley's which is on her blog.

Highlights: Reef photo session

Day 162 April 20th 2007, Navigation - Cairns - Great Barrier Reef, PADI Course Day 4

We completed a total of 4 dives on the reef today including one night dive. The first 2 dives of the day completed our PADI certification and we were then set loose to explore on our own for the 3rd dive.

Studying hard onboard

Shelley read me the riot act again with regard to navigation and I once again tried to explain how I would ensure that we didn't get lost. Our first dive together was great, a sense of freedom no longer having to follow an instructor round. We saw an impressive Maori Wrasse, some small Reef Sharks and a grazing Green Sea Turtle, not to mention the 1000's of reef fish. After about 40 minutes we realised that we had gone a little too far and didn't have enough air to get back to the boat underwater. Surfacing we snorkeled back to the boat where Shelley pointed out on the chart exactly where I had gone wrong ;-)

Sunset from the dive deck

The last dive of the day was a night dive, jumping into pitch black water with just a little hand torch was a bit daunting especially as one of the first things I caught a glimpse of was quite a large reef shark. We were back with our instructor again and through what I think must be instinct all 8 of us followed him round like sheep, bunched together and continually bumping into one another. We didn't really see that much probably because of the noise we all made, there was a large Green Sea Turtle that had returned from the open sea to rest of the night.

One of the night dives leaving the boat

People have said to us that diving at night is better but after our first night dive I'm not that convinced and wouldn't rush to do another one.

Highlights: Getting lost on the reef

Day 161 April 19th 2007, Out to the Reef - Cairns - Great Barrier Reef, PADI Course Day 3

With the boring but amusing part of the course over we joined one of Pro Dive's liveaboards for 2 days and 3 nights on the reef.

Before departing at dawn for the 3 hour journey to the dive sites at the edge of the reef Shelley my diving buddy read me the riot act, "You need to do this properly and concentrate, you can't just go off doing your own thing without discussing it like you do when we are sailing" charming. I of course then had to try and explain why all the last minute course changes and doubling back we did in the Whitsundays did not mean we had gone the wrong way. With too many navigation faux pas to explain I quit while I was ahead.

We did two dives on the reef today going over the skills we had learnt in the pool, for some reason floating about in the ocean is pretty exhausting and the whole boat was asleep before 9PM

Highlights: Real Scuba Diving on the reef

Day 160 April 18th 2007, Toothpaste - Cairns - PADI Course Day 2

After our second pool lesson - great fun taking your mask of and replacing it under water, we headed off for a tour of the dive shop. As with any sport that has anything to do with water its easy to spend a fortune in a few minutes. Given that we would have to carry anything we brought around the rest of the world (Our very strict German Instructor Steffen didn't see the problem with carrying flippers, wetsuit and everything else you need round South East Asia) I escaped from the shop with just a mask and instructions about covering the glass with toothpaste and then spitting in it to keep it clear.

The day finished with a final exam which both myself and Shelley cruised through, phew!!

Highlights: No more pool off to the Ocean tomorrow

Day 159 April 17th 2007, Scuba in a Swimming Pool - Cairns - PADI Course Day 1

Learning to Scuba Dive has been on the to do list for quite a few years and the Great Barrier Reef has to be one of the best places to learn, contrast this to the UK and the warm English Channel and you can understand why we waited to get here to learn. Before we can get out to the reef though 2 days of classroom and swimming pool instruction had to be completed.

It's been a while since I've been at school and it took a while to get going, the first pool lesson was also pretty interesting as we bobbed about with the gracefulness of a Giraffe on ice skates. Nothing too difficult and to make the school experience complete we even got homework

Highlights: Sitting on the bottom of a swimming pool trying to blow rings of bubbles

Day 158 April 16th 2007, Worlds Most Dangerous Bird - Cairns - Cape Tribulation

Hiring one of the best cars money can buy we headed North from Cairns towards Cape Tribulation. Our first point of call was Daintree for a cruise on the river, the main attraction being the Saltwater Crocodiles that live along the coast and in the river systems of Northern Australia. The Saltwater Crocodile is the worlds largest living reptile and responsible for more attacks on humans than sharks. At up to 5m in length and weighing 770kg it would be difficult to evade their jaws in the water, on land they can sprint short distances but only in a straight line, apparently if you zig zag they won't catch you not that I plan to put this to the test.

No I did not choose this color

After a few minutes aboard our Daintree river cruise we came across a resident croc called Scarface (below). Fat Albert another local was nowhere to be seen.

Our boat driver was an expert in crashing into the river bank to get us close to the wildlife such as this green tree snake

Moving on from Daintree we continued up the coast to Cape Tribulation, a beautiful bay fringed by Rainforest and Mangroves. The cape was named by Lt James Cook in 1770- after his ship rand aground on one of the reefs "because here began all our troubles". The rainforest is home to thousands of species of birds and animals including the elusive Cassowarie.

A view over Cape Tribulation

From wikipedia "All cassowaries are usually shy, secretive birds of the deep forest, adept at disappearing long before a human knows they are there" We came across one standing in the middle of the car park at Cape Tribulation. The 2004 Guinness Book of Records list the Cassowarie as the worlds most dangerous bird, standing at almost 2m in height with sharp claws.

There are only around 1500 in Northern Queensland and the locals have put up quite a creative sign asking car drivers to slow down.


Highlights: The beach at Cape Tribulation was stunning

Day 157 April 15th 2007, At Last a Layin - Cairns

I'm pretty sure that I used to get more layins back home whilst working as I haven't got up after 9 for a long time, getting out of bed today at 11:30 was quite an exception. Travelling is such hard work I must have needed the sleep ;-) Catching up on admin and a run along the boardwalk took up most of the day.

With no beachfront as such in the city has put a lot of effort into creating a great waterfront, a boardwalk full of bars and restaurants complete with a man made lagoon.

Highlights: Taking it easy

Day 156 April 14th 2007, Full Circle - Darwin to Perth, 1,675km

Returning to Cairns completes the circumnavigation of Australia but not the tour with Ayers Rock and Brisbane still to see. Catching the first flight of the day from Darwin to Cairns left us pretty drained but the cooler temperatures were a welcome relief. The rain however isn't given that we came back to Cairns to get in some diving on the Great Barrier Reef. One advantage of the rainy weather is that it put the dampener on an outdoor rave going on next to our hotel, am I getting old or what?

Highlights: Coming back to the chilled out city of Cairns.

Day 155 April 13th 2007, Australian Wetlands - Darwin

Being a continent in itself Australia has a wide variety of landscapes to visit and near Darwin are some spectacular wetlands. Joining an organised tour we headed out by bus to Kakadu National park, our timing was pretty good as just 2 weeks ago most of the roads were under water.

The park itself is huge 19,804km which is about half the size of Switzerland. Our first stop of the day was at a bilabong, a bilabong is Australian for oxbow lake. Here we sought out the famous saltwater crocodile and found one snoozing under a tree.

With an abundance of fish in the bird life here is amazing

As you may recall from an earlier entry one of Australia's favourite films is Crocodile Dundee and some of the filming was done in Kakadu national park. Luckily there is a lot more culture here to see than film sites and we toured some amazing Aboriginal Cave partings, each with its own very interesting story.


One in particular shown above is about Namarandjolg. After committing incest he was turned into a giant saltwater crocodile. Incest in Aboriginal terms doesn't necessarily refer to your family it can extend to tribal memebers with the same cultural responsibility. The little guy on the right of the picture is Namarrgon who is the lightening man, he appears everytime there is a storm and creates lightening. Forgert what you learnt at school about static it's all down to this little guy.


The park contains some Aboriginal burial grounds, when someone dies they are wrapped in bark and placed in a cave. In recent times more modern objects have been used as one hiker who ignored the keep out signs found out. On entering a cave he found a suitcase, intrigued he opened it to find a set of human bones, shocked thinking that someone had been murdered he took the suitcase and contents to a local police station. Upon explaining his find to the local police he received a large fine. The fine for touching one of the cave partings in $22,000 Aus so I cant imagine the fine grave robbing. All in all that was one expensive hike.


To finish off the day we enjoyed a glass of wine at the window on the wetlands visitor center where we watched a beautiful sunset over the parks wetlands.

Highlights: The cave paintings

Day 154 April 12th 2007, Fish Food - Darwin

As far as town's go Darwin is quite small but there are a few interesting things to see. One of which occurs at high tide and even has a set of official street signs directing towards "Fish Feeding" Complete with gift shop tourists flock to the waters edge to throw stale bread at some quite large fish. Really one for the kids but quite interesting to see.

Highlights: Fish feeding frenzy

Day 153 April 11th 2007, Evolution - Perth to Darwin, 4,040km

With only a few hours sleep behind us we headed off to Perth Airport early to wave Kirsten off and a few hours later to catch our flight to Darwin. Shelley now seems to have stolen my ability to sleep the entire duration of a flight, waking up 5 mins before we land. I now on the other hand am able to only able to sleep for about 5 mins. The result being Shelley is full of beans whenever we arrive somewhere and I just want to go back to bed.

Through the power of the Internet we managed to book our accommodation in Darwin at Perth airport just before we flew out. This website http://www.wotif.com/ is highly recommend. We managed to find an apartment in Cullen Bay close to the marina, it's one of the buildings on the left in the picture below.


Arriving in Darwin was like arriving back in the Jungle of Peru its both hot and very humid here with temperatures in the 90's. Darwin although quite a small town has played a significant part in Australia's wartime History. It was also through Darwin that the first long distance telegraph cables came through connecting Australia to the rest of the World.

During WWII Darwin was attacked by the same Japanese fleet that bombed Pearl Harbor, although a less significant target than Pearl Harbor, Darwin was a strategic Military base and more bombs were dropped here than on Pearl Harbor.

Highlights: Sweating and drinking lots of water

Day 152 April 10th 2007, Royality - Denham to Perth, 1,100km

It's not everyday that you meet royalty and on route back to Perth today we stopped off at The Hutt River Principality. Formed in 1970 when its founder Leonard Casley declared War on Australia, surrendered after 4 days and under the British Treason Law declared Independence from the commonwealth. Sounds like quite a story, you should meet the guy. What it all comes down to though sounds like a tax dodge.

Above: Prince Leonard Below: Prince Leonard inspecting our passports

As with all Empires the course of Independence hasn't run smoothly, there have been plots to overthrow Prince Leonard and set up the Principality on a Pacific Island. Having been to a few such islands its probably a good idea they didn't succeed as in addition to all being crazy they would now all be either alcoholics or drug addicts. You can check out the official website here. To top it all off there is an energy pyramid in the middle of the site.

The Province is 40km off the main highway but is worth a visit for entertainment value. After having our passports stamped and admiring the church in which there are some very spooky portraits of Prince Leonard we made our exit.

The Hutt Principality wasn't the only strange thing in the Hutt River region, we came across a pink lagoon which looked like a toxic waste dump. The coloration was actually due to beta carotene.

With all the stops of the day we arrived back in Perth 14 hours after we set off leaving us with about 5 hours until we needed to be at the airport.

Highlights: Meeting Royalty

Day 151 April 9th 2007, Denham, What Big Teeth you have - Tour of Shark bay Area, 200km

The other great attraction on the West coast of Australia is Nigaloo reef, given we only had a few days up here and that it would be another days driving to get there we decided instead to explore Shark Bay which is a World Heritage Site.

Just South of Denham is Ocean Park which is a mini Sea World under construction, they do have though some impressive sharks including a small Tiger Shark. What was very strange is that the Tiger Shark at Ocean park is released every 3 months so that it doesn't get bored and a new one is caught, for a species close to being on the endangered list this didn't quite seem right.

Driving to the South of the bay we found something very interesting, Stromatolites - living fossils. These guys were around some 2.4 billion years ago and were responsible for converting enough of the Carbon Dioxide atmosphere to Oxygen to allow the formation of life as we know it today.

Stromatolites are only found in hyper saline water (very salty) where the extreme salty conditions inhibit other lifeforms which would graze on them. The geography and conditions within Shark Bay create water conditions that are between 1.5 and 2 times more saline than the sea.

Also worth seeing in Shark Bay is Shell Beach, so called because it is made up of millions of tiny shells and Eagle Bluff where there are spectacular views along the coast.

Highlights: The Grrrrrrrreat Tiger Shark

Day 150 April 8th 2007, Oh oh ah ah - Denham to Monkey Mia, 50km

With a name like Monkey Mia you would expect the main tourist attraction to be swinging through the trees not swimming in the sea. Dolphins not monkeys are the main tourist attraction here, there were a few camels (more on those later) but not a single monkey in sight.

About 20 or 30 years ago a lady, so the story goes, starting feeding wild dolphins fish scraps off the back of her boat. The dolphins started coming further and further in shore until it was possible to feed them from the beach. Word got out and before long tourists were feeding the dolphins anything they could get their hands on.

With all the free food around there were plenty of Pelicans

Today there is a group of wardens and researchers looking after the dolphins, they still get fed but in a very controlled manner. A mature dolphin needs about 8kg's of fish per day and selected dolphins get 2kg from the wardens once a day, preserving the need for them to find food for themselves.

With no more royalties from re-runs of flipper the dolphins now have to rely on handouts

It was incredible to see the dolphins only a few feet away, the baby dolphins turned up to see what was going on. It was amazing to see them swimming just past your feet. It would appear that the wardens were both highly knowledgeable with regard to dolphins and who should feed them, both myself and Paul (Tim's brother in law) were picked from the vast crowd to help with the feeding.

After a late breakfast we took a trip out on "shotover" a record breaking catamaran to tour the area for marine life. Shark Bay is home to 10,000 or 10% of the worlds Dugongs . We caught a brief glimpse of one (photo from wikipedia) The conditions weren't great but we saw quite a few turtles and a damn sea snake.

On the advice of the skipper we visited a hot tub at an old farm stead on the way back to our hotel. Very strange experience, sitting in a hot tub in the middle of a farm watching the Sun go down, whilst discussing everything from Anglo-Aussie politics to Neighbors. The night sky was amazing with no light pollution here at all, slight problem though when we left the hot tub as the route back through the farm to our car was almost invisible, great with all of the wonderful wildlife they have here.

Above: A view of the catamaran Below: Taking it easy on board

Above: The approach to the hot tub didn't look encouraging. Below: What do you mean Jason Donovan isn't the Prime Minister of Australia

Highlights: The baby dolphins

Day 149 April 7th 2007, Watch out for the Roos - Perth to Denham, 840km

Hiring a car to drive North from Perth was an interesting experience, no satnav or DVD player options just Roo bars and compulsory animal insurance. These come with advice from everyone we speak to telling us that if we see a Kangaroo don't brake as the front of the car will dip and the Roo will end up coming through the windscreen. Strewth !! Faced with a fully grown Kangaroo in the headlights I'm sure its easier said than done. The other piece of advice was don't drive at dusk or dawn.

The drive to Denham was pretty straight forward just one road and after 9 hours of driving we arrived in Denham with not so much as a whiff of a Kangaroo on route. Being a small town after 8PM very little was open apart from the Fish and Chip shop, even they were closing and made us sit outside in a blazing gale. Having the eating ability of a duck as my brother once put it I made quick work of my dinner before it blew away.

Highlights: Our 1 course dinner with great views of the phone booth