11
May
Elephant sanctuary Malaysia
3
May
Leaving Australia to fly to Singapore – just a few hickups
Posted from Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.
At the Airport in Melbourne
And away we go…. We made our flight to Singapore but not without a level of drama. Firstly, we noticed a crack in the side undercarriage of our hire car the day before we had to fly out. Of course, we had not taken the extra insurance, and our travel insurance did not start till the following day. Looks like we were going to be stung for $700. We were running a bit late, needed to get fuel, got to the post office, the chemist drop off the car, argue about the damage, then check in. We knew we might have some problems checking in as well… more about that in a minute.
We decided to come clean with the damage and claim we had not caused it(we hadn’t) even though it was not on the inspection report. Luckily, the hertz guy was very reasonable and didn’t worry about it. Whew. We had panicked about it for 24 hours. Next, after lining up for 30 minutes we tried to check in only to be told no, sorry, no can do. We did not have proof of onward travel. Of course we didn’t, we were buying train tickets in Singapore. Apparently even though Singapore does not care, Jetstar does as they could get in trouble for letting us on the plan without such proof. It’s all bullshit, they just want to sell you a “fully refundable ticket” which for 4 tickets costs $120 in admin fees. My tip? Never fly Jetstar. So we rush to the ticket counter and buy 4 fully refundable airfares to Kuala Lumpa. Raced back to check in. The tickets we had just bought apparently were no good, there was some problem with payment. More waiting, finally we are told my CC has been refused! Great, leaving to go overseas and my cc has been cancelled for some reason. Nici buys the tickets on her CC and we finally check in.
All sweet. It’s kind of a stupid requirement. We now had proof of onward travel that would allow us to fly to Singapore, and we cash in our tickets when we got there…..So basically we had proof of ability to purchase a fully refundable ticket. Oh well. Beaurocracy.
I ring my bank, phone credit ends in the middle of the call. Ring on Nic’s phone, get through… CC is fine again. Fill my script, race to the gate and we make it with time to spare(flight was 20 minutes late which also helped). We just had time to buy some Macadamias chocolates for our host and we join the line as the final call is made. We board with no further problems and we are on our way.
25
April
Angourie-nsw,Richard and the kids stay,while Nici returns to Brisbane
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- relaxing
Angourie is a nice little place east of Yamba, but a bit limiting if the weather is bad and you aren’t a keen surfer. Nici had gone with the car for 3 days, I did schoolwork with kids, we made rock castles on the beach, we explored rock pools and we swam in the blue pool. The Blue Pool is a man made quarry style pool right beside the ocean. Its deep, it can be cold, its full of little fish and its major fun to jump into from the many natural platforms. I’ve jumped from the very top a few times, but not this time. Too scary to do it with too little kids here relying on me.
Ayesha jumped in from about 3 meters, and Orlando did too from about 50cm. Both, were very excited. We went rock pooling at the north end of Shelley Beach, and it was awesome. Halfway between low and high tide…. there was a plethora of old favourites. Little fish, crabs, those funny anemone things with the red fronds that close up when you touch them…. but also some stuff we’d never seen before. There was a bright blue fish that looked like it would be at home in a tropical fish exhibit. Its fins looked more like decorative plumes than fins and it swam more like a butterfly than a fish. There were plenty of large fish in one pool, fish more than 25cm long – no idea what they were, possibly Australian Salmon. To top it all off, there was an Octopus, who was most concerned about our presence. He was not small, probably 35 cm from the tip of his head to the tip of his tentacles, and he was a fast mover. One moment pretending to be invisible, the next, shooting off as he realised we could see him. He escaped through a crack in the rock pool, into the ocean.
It was nice to doodle around just the kiddies and me for a few days. Nici returned after 3 days and we headed south west to Man River…
24
April
Easter 2010 at Lake Alexendria and saying good bye to Jassy Bella
The Easter Rabbit arrives by speedboat…. behind a car . We woke up on Easter Sunday to very loud singing only to find a service being done at the lake shore at sunrise, i think it was about 5.30am. You have to remember that there really wasn’t anything else out there except a bunch of campers like us, but maybe all these weekend campers belonged to the same church. Oh well ,it was Easter Sunday and even though we are on the road, we still need to keep up with our little family traditions for the kids. So this year our Easter Egg hunt was happend in our Caravan. The kids had a laugh, and so did Richard and i as we kept finding the not found once and gobbled them up over the coming days as we tydied up the caravan. We’d just finished our very own egg hunt, when kids started streaming out of the caravan park and heading to the edge of the lake. We were told the Easter Bunny was coming. And come he did. By Speed boat to the pier of the sailing club. The problem is… the lake was way low 1.2 metres below sea level when it’s supposed to be at sea level…. so the pier was 500 metres from the water. Thus the Easter bunny arrived by boat, pulled by a car. Kids didn’t care – it all just meant chocolate to them. We the rest of the day, driving around playing tourist in the outskirts of Adelaide. We went to a strawberry farm and picked/ate about a ton of strawberries. We went to Hahndorf(German replica town) and ate Bratwurst, other Germany stuff and wandered around. Jasmine shopped, buying lots of nice clothes in the two 2ndhand shops. It was a nice day. Then we raced Jas to the airport, and fare welled her back to Melbourne. it was the shortest 5 days we had with her ever. We were sad to see her go knowing that we probably wouldn’t see her again till Christmas. Orlando still not really understanding to why Jassy Bella is not with us all the time, was very sad,you see Jasmine lived with us till he was 3, then went to Melbourne. Every visit since than he has always told her, she has to come back and live with us as he is too sad without her. He did it again when we left her and was very emotional as we drove away from the airport.It brakes my heart to see him like that. We quietly drove the tourist drive back to Lake Alexandria. It was so beautiful that soon everybody had forgotten there sadness. Lots of little towns, all very European in style, Sandstone frontages, Craft and Art everywhere, and lots of Pubs and Ccafes. Awesome. Only 15 minutes from the centre of Adelaide town and we were in genuine farmland. We headed back to our campsite and left the next morning to head into Adelaide and find a camp closer to town. Richard also had to put in a few days of work,so it was important to go somewhere where i can keep the kiddies entertained.
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- "Yeah mum look how many i found"
24
April
Hand feeding Dolphin on North Stradbroke QLD
By chance we met a couple who told us that it was an open secret, that the locals caught fish of the pier at Amity, and fed them to the dolphins. Apparently lights had been put in some 3 decades prior, and the dolphins had arrived to chase the Pike that were attracted to the lights. Fisherman would throw too small fish back into the water – and a fish too long out of water is pretty easy pickings for a dolphin!
Soon, the dolphins were being fed on purpose, then after a while, allowed themselves to be hand fed. We had to go, and see it live of course. We packed up a pick nick dinner for Trish’s family and us, and headed down to the pier.
When we arrived, the dolphins were not around, having moved further down the beach, but a small crowed had gather on the jetty. We thought perhaps we’d missed out. Then we saw some commotion down the beach and we ran down to check it out. A girl was in the water holding pieces of squid, and the dolphins were taking it from her.
Ayesha, never one for being slow to step up, stripped off, asked for some squid and hand fed a dolphin whilst in waist deep water. Meanwhile, Orlando who’d missed out came with me back to the pier, where we borrowed some fishing fear, he caught a fish on his first cast and then hand fed it to a dolphin. (Now THAT was going to be a difficult first fishing experience to live up to). Ayesha followed suit with a fish shortly after and it was on! We had so much fun fishing and feeding the dolphins.
To add to the excitement, there was a colourful gent fishing for sharks off the same pier, and he hooked a dolphin. The kids and us were horrified! He just shook his head at us and laughed. "Don’t worry, dolphins are too smart to get hooked" And true to his word, he cranked and yanked and the dolphin who had been holding the hooked fish sideways in its mouth, let go. It’s not something I’d do, but this guy seemed to know what he was on about.
We caught around 10 fish that night and the dolphins were happy! Then someone thought it would be fine to take a photo using a flash and that scared the dolphins away,well it was time to head home anyway. Trish and crew had left ages ago.
We left the colourful gent as he pumped his reel trying to land a big shark….. we think it got away as well though.
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- Waiting
for the dolphins
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- Catching fish
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- Dolphin on North Stradbroke
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- feeding the dolphins
1
November
8 Rottnest Island- Australia
Posted from Rottnest Island, Western Australia, Australia.
Rottnest Island was my 40th Birthday present to myself. This was an Island where only service cars could drive and everybody else was walking or bike riding. It was the perfect place to unwind after a long trip from up north. Rottnest is such a beautiful island just outside Perth on the west coast of Australia. It is surrounded by deep blue water and it’s excellent for snorkeling, swimming and bike riding which was exactly what we did for 4 days. Oh and we drank a bottle of Champaign for my birthday. Yes yes it was extremely low key for me, but somehow i enjoyed it. I wasn’t too pleased with the whole idea of turning 40 anyway.
3
September
5 Warrnambool-Victoria
We stayed here for 2 nights. Highlight for me was Nici driving the Caravan in and backing it in in front of all these grey Nomads. She’d never done it before, let alone in front of a crowd and she did it magnificently. Warrnambool was a pretty stepping stone for,schoolwork and catching up with our friend Sherry.
20
June
4 Australia Uluru
The beautiful outback of Uluru! As we enter the Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park , we became very excited at the fact of being so close to this famous Australian icon. We learn later that the traditional landowners call themselves Anangu(Pronounced arn-ang-oo. They say that this land was created by the creation ancestors. In their travels they left marks in the land and made laws for us to keep and live by .
Uluru and the area around it, is now part of the world Heritage listing , both for cultural and natural values.We decided to walk around the base, it was only going to be 12 km. Ha ha our kids had only done 7 km across the Kings Canyon, but that was a very rough track, so really 12 km of flat walking, partially in the shade seemed quite okay. Half way along Oh boy , we all wished we had bikes since you can ride around it, but we did it and we learned a lot. What an amazing place.
Around the base of the rock are important sensitive sites, that under traditional men’s law and traditional women’s laws, are forbidden to be viewed or entered unless properly authorised by senior men or women. This apparently has been custom for tens of thousands of years. We could only view these from very large distances,and in some cases you could not see them at all. We also found some small waterfalls around the base.
This was some of the things we read, as we walked around the base ;
”We learn from our grandmothers and grandfathers and their generations. We learnt well and we have not forgotten. We’ve learned from the old people of this place, and will always keep the Tjukurpa in our hearts and minds. We know this place- we are ninti, knowledgeable.”Signed traditional owner. The aboriginal people also said that Tjukurpa has been translated by many people as the dreamtime or the dreaming. This does not seem right to them, as it’s not imaginary or fleeting, this word has a much deeper complex meaning.
It was incredible to be in this area and to learn about this culture that after 25 years of living in I knew nothing about. It’s just not quite the same living in Byron Bay, and reading about it in a book.
In another sign that stood out for us was the please don’t climb Uluru. The culture reasons for this is,its a great spiritual significance to the Anangu people, secondly they claim, it is quite dangerous and over 35 people have died while attempting to climb Uluru. The aboriginal people feel great sadness when a person dies or is hurt on their land, and of course there are also environmental reasons. As I said we were very happy to abide by these rules, and in any case it was an amazing photo opportunity. I think it took us 4-5 hrs , and I was so proud of my kids. We fell into our car, drove to the next supermarket and bought heaps of food to take home and cook. The next day we decided to go to the famous Kata Tjuta (meaning, many heads), which were again very different but just equally stunning . It has 36 steep sided domes that lie about 32 km west of Uluru. We decided to do the Valley of the winds walk. 7.4 km for circuit roughly a three-hour walk. I think that the kids were still recovering from yesterday, and ran out of juice very quickly. Sir Richard decided to do the full circle, and I took the kids back the way we came. Walking can become very addictive, if it hadn’t been for Ayesha and Orlando I think us adults would have done hiking pretty much every second day, if we could have.
As it was very expensive for us to stay in the camping ground something like $60 a night to park our little camper ,plus $25 a day entry to the park we decide to only camp there for three days. I think my biggest surprise was finding this huge resort at Uluru, five or six hotels, a shopping centre, lots of restaurants, petrol stations, airport, and so on something for everybody i guess.
Uluru was definitely a highlight for all of us on our trip around Australia.
