Weekend in Sydney

We arrived in Sydney late friday night. It was a smooth flight thankfully and also pretty quick. The luggage also came off pretty quick which was annoying cos they had a tv with the rugby on so I'd have been happy to wait for ages.

Caela's place was out in Balmain - a suburb just west of the main city and it took about half an hour to get there from the airport. Her directions had mentioned the car-park looking like the bat-cave and when we arrived it was really clear. The drive headed down into the carpark that had been cut into the rock so it looked like you were driving into a cave. Only thing missing was the waterfall.

The apartment was owned by her work and they were allowed to use it at weekends and it was a pretty impressive place. It had three bedrooms, two bathrooms and a large kitchen/dining room/living room area with a huge tv and computer. The balcony had a wonderful view over the water.

We were all fairly crowded in there as there was Caela, Caela's boyfriend John (another Brit), Dave K, Eleri, two of Caela's friends from Melbourne - Irene (who was actually Canadian)and Katherine and two of Irene's friends from Canada: Ryan and Shannon who were on their honeymoon. So in total there were ten of us: two Brits, one Aussie and seven Canadians.

We stayed at the apartment chatting and drinking till about 1 when we hit the sack. Most people were getting up early to go and do the Harbour Bridge climb anyway although that didn't include me cos I've already done it once.

I managed to sleep through everyone leaving in the morning so Dave, Eleri, Katherine and I had a leisurely start to our day. We grabbed a taxi into the city centre and met everyone in the Rocks at a pub. They'd just had a lunch so we grabbed a few beers and joined them.

We pretty much had to prise ourselves away from the pub to go and actually do something so we wandered through the Rocks market (I nearly got left behind due to chatting to a very friendly ginger tom cat) and then down to Circular Quay where we booked ourselves on a harbour cruise tour. and had an ice-cream too. Macadamia Nut. Very nice.

The cruise took about an hour (or one beer depending on which way you look at it) and took us out around the Opera House past the Botanical Gardens and Lady Macquarie's chair. We hugged the southern part of the habour before heading across to that bit where they stuck the HMAS Australia mast (I'm sure they said why but I confess I wasn't listening) past Johnny Howard's place and the Governor General's (who had a much nicer place) and then under the Harbour Bridge for about a second before going back under the Harbour Bridge and then on into Circular Quay. Got some good pics too which I'll upload when I can find a computer to upload them. But hey the net's only $2 an hour here.

Headed back to the apartment after loading up with BBQ stuff and then, funnily enough, had a BBQ. And some beer. Ended up playing blackjack before heading off to a bar somewhere in Sydney for a few hours. Fairly entertaining night but that's all I'll say.......

The next day had, understandably, a slow start. In fact the morning just didn't happen. However, the afternoon saw the two Daves, Ryan and I head to the SCG to see Manly Sea Eagles play Parramatta Eels (that's Rugby League for you non-sports people). It was pretty cool to arrive at the SCG - although it was smaller than I expected. It's right next to Aussie Stadium too (Sydney Football Stadium). We got tickets ($22 a head) and went in. The tickets were general admission but we had pretty much free rein as we were so early. We got there with 10 minutes still to go in the first half of the Manly - Parra reserve game - just in time to see Parra score a converted try to make it 16 all at the break. Our seats were just on the try-line and also next to this old guy who was supporting Manly and making very loud comments all the time. He was very entertaining particularly when they brought out some of the members of the '76 Grand final sides and the announcer asked if anyone had been there. Bet you can't guess who was?

Anyway, the reserve game was pretty entertaining with the Manly half-back binned for smacking someone in the face, and Parra ran in two tries to have a comfortable lead. Manly brought it back to 6 points with a try of their own before Parra got a penalty to make their lead 8 points. Manly then pulled off a quick re-start to reclaim the ball and went over in the corner and then grabbed the winning try to win by 2 with about 17 seconds left on the clock.

The main game didn't dissappoint either with Parra racing to a 16 point lead (16 Keen not 18) and went into the break at 16-10. Manly levelled at 22-22 with about 20 minutes to go and then we had a cagey to and fro for a while before Matt Orford landed a great drop-goal under pressure. Parra went back down and the other end and Tim Smith skewed his wide to give Manly the win 23-22.

OK everyone who tuned out for the rugby can start reading again.

We got back in time for a rushed dinner and to say good-bye to Irene, Ryan and Shannon who were catching a flight to Melbourne then the remaining six of us headed over to Manly and to the Quarantine station.

A bit of history first. The Quarantine station was established in the early 1800s to house people who had arrived on a ship that had disease on board. If one person had disease then the whole ship was quarantined - separated into healthy and sick people. It only closed in 1984. It was a real exercise in learning as they knew very little about disease and how it was contracted and some of the measures they took did nothing. There were also some really poor decisions such as burying people right next to their fresh water source!

The station was, eventually divided into different classes - to reflect the tickets purchased for passage and naturally we spent most of our time going through the third class and third class steerage areas during our ghost tour as this is where the conditions were worst.

The main difference on this tour was we had equipment with us and I managed to get to carry one of the EMF (electro-magnetic frequency) detectors. As with the Port Arthur tour I'll put the ghost sightings and stories in a separate post.

We started at the Admin block which is where the Doctor who looked after the third class lived. As soon as we entered there was a really strong smell of chemicals which the guide assured us wasn't normal. One of the other EMF readers got a strong reading and the guide used her stronger, more localised reader to get a real anomaly in the centre of the room which then vanished.

From there we went to the third class dining quarters and on the way Caela got a reading on my meter but it vanished fairly quickly. The third class dining quarters sat on the hill with a view over towards Manly. It was a large open room with a cellar where the kitchen was located. We all trooped in and the guide explained some of the history and stories of the place. Just as we all headed to the kitchen my EMF reader got a really strong reading for a few seconds. We stopped to try and locate it but it was gone fairly quickly. It was as if a spirit was materialising every so often just to check on us.

My overall impression of the site was that it was a lot calmer and more peaceful than last time and most places felt very serene.

The exception was the asiatic quarters where, due to the White Australia policy, non-caucasians lived in very cramped accomodation. We had two strange occurences here. One, which was only heard by Dave K and I (because we were right at the edge of the group and closest to the sound) was two or three heavy footsteps on the veranda. We went over and tried to recreate the sound later on and stamping our feet on the veranda made the same sound.

The other was more strange and heard by the whole group. Just as we were finishing up there and preparing to move on there was a sound that sounded like a door opening. It was a higher pitched noise like a creak. I went over and tried to recreate it by moving objects about but couldn't recreate it. To be honest, even the description of it as a door creak doesn't feel quite right.

From there we headed down towards the wharf and into the shower blocks where they used to head to straight from the ships and had to shower in Carbolic acid. Again the shower room felt a lot more peaceful this time and there wasn't any activity other than the guide scaring Eleri and Caela by banging the shower door at the end of a story. Us men weren't scared... (OK so I knew it was coming).

Next stop was the hospital which involved a walk up a steep path to a rocky outcrop where both hospitals were situated. Unfortunately one had burnt down due to an electrical fault. The hospital did have an atmosphere in it but I didn't pick up any EMF readings. Intriguingly the guide wouldn't come in but more on that later.

We did have another Possum experience and they were very active even if the spirits weren't.

Our final stop of the day was the morgue which was a small building with two rooms. One had a bench and various instruments arranged on it and the other simply had the concrete slab with grooves down it for various liquids to run off from.

We had one more 'experience' when passing the admin block, my EMF reader maxed out very briefly and I was unable to locate the source as if a spirit had rushed past.

It was quite a labourious trip home via the Manly ferry and it was about half midnight by the time we got back to the apartment and we all still needed to pack.

An early start this morning and Caela, Dave K and Eleri headed off to the airport and Dave and I headed into the city with a grouchy cab driver (he had the airport booking but we swapped taxis).

Around and about Brisbane

Slightly out of order I know but thats life!

The day before we headed up to Fraser Island we took a trip up to Australia Zoo. We got there just in time for the run of shows that they do in the Crocoseum around lunch time. First up was the snake show. We missed the start so we had no idea what any of the snakes were that were being shown but we did get to see the entertaining little skit they did about how to treat snake bites involving a larrikin trying to beat up the 'snake' with a bat and getting bitten. The first aid guy came on and treated the 'snake' first before throwing the larrikin into the pool.

The next show was the tiger show. They brought on two of their Sumatran tigers who were about two years old. They were pretty much full grown and were very impressive although very playful. They did a few tricks to show how far they can jump and their ability to stand on their hind legs. They even managed to get one of them to go for a swim.

Next up was the free flight bird show and they brought out several different birds. We got to see Black Cockatoos, a wedge-tailed eagle, a kookaburra and two beautfiul parrots.

The final show was the main event. They brought out a saltwater crocodile. The show started with the big-screen TV showing how they brought the crocodile out by splashing the water and stamping their feet right by the side in order to make the crocodile come out and defend his territory. Once he was out in the arena they demonstrated his striking prowess by dangling food close to the edge so he had to strike for it. Scariest of all was the 'tail-walk' where, using his tail, the croc was able to propel himself about 2m out of the water to strike at bait hanging from a platform.

There was a second croc show - done in one of the croc's actual enclosures - about an hour and a half after the first one so we went and did a few of the less ferocious animals while we waited including camels, dingos, cassowaries and tasmanian devils.

The second croc show didn't feature as much as the first but what was noticeable was the keepers were a lot more wary of this particular croc, a 3m beast called Agro. He also seemed a little more clever - biding his time to try and encourage the keeper to get a little closer!!

From there we wandered through the Kangaroo enclosure to feed them although they were mostly stuffed and we were only able to find a few that actually wanted any food. We did get to see a young Joey feeding from it's mother.

Dave K then managed to get into a staring match with an Emu and it started to make some bizarre noises. Probably fancied him.

Our next stop was the Tiger Temple where the keepers were showing off some different tigers - I forget which species. They really looked like over-szied kittens in there, although a love-tap from one of those would hurt. One of the keepers did manage to accidentally hit one of the tigers on the head with a ball and it went and sulked for a while.

On the Anzac day public holiday Dave and I headed up to Mooloolaba on the Sunshine Coast for the day for a bit of sunbathing. The waves were pretty impressive and I did go out into the sea but regretted it fairly quickly after an impressive wipe out saw me smacked into the sand. The rips were also fairly strong and it took me a fair old time to get back out again!

The rest of the week in Brisbane involved packing and sorting out my flat and eventually handing it over.

Friday, my last in Brisbane, we took in a few sights including driving up to Mt Coot-tha look out with spectacular views over the city and you could see as far as Moreton Island, down south to the Border Ranges and out west to Warwick and Main Range National Park. We also had a wander through Mt Coot-tha botanical gardens.

Good-bye to Brisbane

Well after 22 months and some 40-odd sporting matches it's time to say good-bye to a place that will always retain a special place in my heart.

It's kind off weird to look back and see how low Brisbane was in the list of places to stay when we were first looking to come here but now I can't imagine being anywhere else!!

So here's my top places in Brisbane:

a) Suncorp Stadium - my second home. Just fell short of 30 matches here covering the Broncos, Queensland Roar, the Reds, two Origin games, two Australia games and even two Queensland Origin training sessions. Whilst the atmosphere was mostly crap and often the on-field action was no better it is an amazing stadium with good beer, good food and good memories.

b) The Story Bridge Hotel - best pub in Brisbane. By a mile. No matter what mood you are in there is a place. Even if it is just to go the bottle shop, get yourself a six pack and crash in front of the tele. And I nearly 8-balled my Dad there.

c) South Bank - just full of life. It is such a unique concept and such a vibrant place even on a work day. Almost makes you want to have kids just to take them there. The water is wonderul (albeit probably 50% kid pee) and great places to eat and drink.

d) Roma Street Parklands - everyone knows about the Botanical gardens and the Mt Coot-tha botanical gardens, but these are my favourite. It's so cool how they've mixed in the water features and exotic plants with board walks. And it's only 15 minutes from the Suncorp Stadium.

e) The Gabba. Noticing a pattern here? Whilst not quite the Suncorp Stadium, I did get to see Glenn McGrath being smacked over his head for six and Gilchrist being bowled first ball of the entire match. Unlike all my friends still queuing up to get in.

f)Queen St Mall - just for the fact that its always full of life and has nice places to eat and plenty of places to spend your money.

There are plenty more but those are the main places for me. I'll certainly miss the old place.

Fraser Island

I managed to drag the Canadians out of bed fairly early and we gathered all our stuff and caught a cab to the car rental place to collect our 4WD: a nice big Toyota Landcruiser.

We set-off at about 9:30, stopping at a supermarket to buy all our food (alcohol had already been done the night before!). It took us about an hour and a half to reach Gympie where we grabbed lunch (a very healthy McDonalds) although Eleri bought a happy meal (she's only little) and we got our trip mascot: a little stuffed dog which was called Soccer (I was outvoted 3-1. Philistine Canadians).

We then wended our way through the Great Sandy National Park to Rainbow Beach - the last bit of 'civilisation' before Fraser Island. We got our national park permit here, refuelled, brought the tyres down to 30 psi ready for sand driving and locked the front wheels. We killed a bit of time here for half an hour so that, by the time we reached Fraser Island, the tide would have gone out sufficiently to allow us to drive on the beach all the way up to Eurong - where we were staying.

We eventually set off up towards Inskip Point where we would get the ferry across. It was tarmac roads for about 11k until we hit the sand. We stopped just short and tried to engage the 4WD. Between Dave and myself we couldn't work it out, until I turned the engine back on and realised that we had been putting it in and out of 4WD without realising it. Just to make things worse, Dave K had been recording the whole thing on the video camera without us realising it and cut it off before we actually engaged it!!

I was quite nervous before hitting the sand for the first time. From experience I knew that the sand at Inskip point across to the ferry is always really soft and hard work even if it is a short distance. Thankfully we got across and on to the ferry without mis-hap and started heading across the Fraser Island. Both Daves and Eleri were very excited at this point (especially when I pointed out how close the Island actually was) and even I was excited as it had been a good 15 months since I'd been there.

The other 4WD on the barge was obviously a bit nervous so the ferry guy told him to follow me off the barge even though he was supposed to go first. I managed to hit the beach fine and avoid any Gibson style mishaps (i.e. burning the clutch out within seconds of getting on the island). We headed up the beach to the resort. Took us about 45 minutes in total even going about 60/70 kph along the beach as the tide was heading out leaving some nice hard sand to drive on.

We got to the resort about 4/5pm and checked in. We had a nice apartment on the third floor and the balcony looked over the pool towards the sea. We got all out stuff in, loaded the fridge (and I mean loaded!!) and then all headed into the pool with the plastic football to play around for a few hours doing headers. Dave K and I set the record with 12 whereas Eleri and Dave managed 7 headers in 10 attempts. Which does mean they managed at least three efforts where they threw the ball to each other and missed.

Our first full day on Fraser was absolutely beautiful with blue skies and sun. We headed up the beach to Cornwall Break road and then headed inland towards Lake Wabby. It was our first bit of driving on inland tracks and I was loving it! We were bouncing around like crazy trying to avoid all the pot-holes and the suspension was earning it's keep. It was also quite a scenic drive through the rainforest. We arrived at Lake Wabby car park and the first thing we saw was an impressive 1m long Lace Monitor which slowly moved off as we tried to get a closer look.

The walk to Lake Wabby lookout was about 500m but was well worth it when we got there. Wabby is a natural tea-tree oil lake (hence the green appearance). It is pushed up against a huge sand dune. It was about a km walk down through the rain-forest to get to the lake and you arrive right at the top of the sand dune. There was a family using boogy boards to slide down the sand and into the water. We set ourselves up by the lake shore and dived straight in. There were whole shoals of either catfish or dogfish swimming around. They got pretty close to us too, which allowed us to take the piss out of Dave more due to his fear of sharks!

We spent about two hours here before walking back up the hill to the car and heading back to the resort for lunch. After lunch, we took the back route out of Eurong and headed to Lake McKenzie. The roads here, while still pitted and full of pot-holes, were a lot wider and worked in a kind of one-way system meaning that we didn't have to keep reversing into passing places. The forest here was really impressive and we saw some HUGE trees. It took us about half an hour to get to Lake McKenzie. When we arrived it was absolutely heaving with tourists although because a fair few were on the daily tour buses they left fairly quickly and within half an hour it was a lot more peaceful. We chilled out here throwing the ball around and drinking the lake (ok so that was mainly me but it did taste nice!).

The next day we got up early and headed up 75 mile beach pretty much all the way to the top of the island. The tide was starting to head in so we had to use the small inland tracks to get round Poyungan Rocks and Yidney Rocks. Our first stop was the wreck of the Maheno. She was a passenger liner being transported to Japan to be broken up as scrap metal when bad weather cut the towline to the ship towing her and she ended up beached on Fraser Island. Refloating her was considered impossible and she was abandoned there. She was also used as target practice during WWII. It's amazing how much has broken up in the two years since I first saw the wreck and it probably won't be long before she's completely gone.

We continued our way up the beach to Indian Head (named by Captain Cook because he saw lots of aborigines stood on it watching im sail by) and took the small inland track round the head land and headed up towards the Champagne Pools. This was new territory for me too as I'd never been this far up before - mainly due to running out of time. The walk from the car park to the pools had some amazing views back down to Indian Head too. The pools themselves are very large rock pools - some deep enough that you can't stand up in them. The waves look really impressive breaking over the rocks and flooding the pools (giving them the name).

We worked our way back down the beach (round various heads and rocks) to Eli Creek which is the largest creek that empties out into the ocean on the Eastern beach. It has formed a lazy river which can float you all the way down. Unfortunately the water level was a lot lower than I'd seen before so it couldn't really do that. It was also starting to rain a little so we didn't spend long here. We did see a small eel though.

Our final day on Fraser started with a bit of a crisis. As we started to load up the 4WD we noticed the hazards were flashing. We started the car to make sure the battery was fine and checked to see that there were no alarms flashing. We then called the breakdown assistance people who suggested removing the fuse and putting it back in. After three attempts for them to work out which fuse box the indicator fuses were in, we located it and removed it to try and re-set the hazards but that didn't work. Eventually we decided to leave the fuse out until we got back onto the mainland, put it back into the car for the drive to Brisbane, then remove it until we returned the car.

After we had sorted this out we headed back inland where the plan was to head to Lake McKenzie for a bit then head southwards past some new lakes to Dilli village then head down to the barge. McKenzie was pretty empty when we arrived, mainly because we were so early and we managed to get some good pictures although it did start to rain.

We then drove round McKenzie to join up with the road heading south. Our first call was Lake Birrabeen, which was a beautiful lake - at least the equal to Lake McKenzie so it was suprising that there were so few people there. We had a swim and a bit of a game of cricket (entertaining teaching the two Dave's to play cricket). We then continued south to Lake Boomanjin where we stopped for a short time. It was a beautiful lake but nowhere near as beautiful as the others.

The driving got pretty entertaining from hereon as we met plenty of traffic coming the other way with not too many places to pass and we had several tight squeezes and one instance of having to reverse back about 200m when meeting about three oncoming cars. The worst case was meeting the slasher coming on to meet us. The slasher is a tractor with a giant circular saw on the side whcih is used to cut back vegetation. Unfortunately for us, the only passing place we could find was on the same side as the slasher and so he very delicately passed us with the saw retracted. Still far too close for comfort. He had left some souvenirs and we spend the remainder of the trip meandering round discarded tree branches.

Once we made it to the beach it was a quick trip down to the barge and back across to the mainland.

Queensland Road Trip

As part of my last weekend in Brisbane, Chalky and I decided to do a little road-trip. With no plan at all we chucked a few things in the back of his car and headed off on Good Friday.

We headed down the Cunningham Highway out west towards Warwick. Our first stop was Aratula - just East of the Great Dividing Ranges and the Main Range National Park. Aratula was a tiny little place but did a very nice Chicken sandwich. We only stopped here for about half an hour before heading on.

The road took us through the Great Dividing Ranges and some spectacular views before we met the New England highway and headed south into Warwick.

Warwick is a fairly large town - at least for one not on the coast. It was however, absolutely dead on the account of it being a public holiday. Not one single shop was open not even a newsagent. The town itself was very pretty and green. We wandered to the park and saw the War Memorial (like most other memorials in Australia - it says 1914 - 1919 - I have yet to work out who the Australians were fighting in 1919. Maybe no-one told them the war was over) and then down the main street. They have a fairly impressive town hall and post office with some wonderful architecture.

Next stop, further south down the highway, was Stanthorpe. Very similar to Warwick, although with slightly more of an industrial feel to it and probably only half the size. It still had the same features though: park, town hall, post office, two churches and a chartered accountants! We stopped here for lunch after we found a place that was actually open.

Just north off the border with New South Wales was our next stop: a national park called Giraween National Park. We drove to the information centre and found a couple of good walks. It was about 4pm by this point so we decided on one that the information board said would take approximately 2 hours which we figured we could do in an hour (we had a rugby game to catch at 6). It involved climbing a peak called 'The Pyramid'.

Before we had even left the camp-ground we saw a Kangaroo happily munching away on grass. Unfortunately, he wasn't happy for long as the people behind us decided to chase it. Shame there are idiots everywhere.

We set off through some open forest, crossed a creek, and very shortly we got our first sight of the peak. It was a granite dome and looked very steep from where we were standing. We set-off up the peak at a fairly steady pace and soon reached the foot of the dome where we realised that it was even steeper than we first thought. The angle was probably about 30 degrees and the rock itself was quite slippy so we were taking fairly small steps. There were white dots painted on the slope which allowed us the follow a route up - it wasn't a straight route as it meandered to the left and found less steep areas. The view at the top was well worth it though with a 360 degree view of the national park all around us.

The walk back down was a lot quicker and we got back to the car within an hour of setting off and headed back through the park to the New England Highway. It wasn't long before we had crossed the border into New South Wales and were at our destination for the night off Tenterfield, allegedly the birthplace of the Australian nation although we weren't able to find out why. We found ourselves a motel room just in time to catch the opening Super 14 match of the weekend, before grabbing a Chinese and then watching the opening NRL match of the weekend.

The following morning, we had a good breakfast of bacon and eggs before heading east towards Casino and Lisemore along the Bruxner Highway. It was quite a windy road for the first 50 km or so and there were very few towns - just small villages: Drake, Tabulam and Mummulgum before arriving in Casino. Casino is quite a large place but we couldn't find a casino so no idea why it's called that.

From there we headed north towards Kyogle and the Border Ranges National Park. We didn't bother stopping in Kyogle but headed into the Border Ranges. On a hunch, we took a route signposted "Scenic Drive" but did say Brisbane. This was a private road funded and maintained by the local Lions group. They even provided the funds to build it, in order to maintain a better route between Queensland and New South Wales. It proved to be a great choice, not only because it was actually quicker (it cut a corner for us), but the scenery was spectacular as it winded it's way through the Border Ranges and into Queensland. It pretty much followed the route of the train line - built to bring out timber from when they used to log the forests here. We stopped once, at a lookout point and then continued into Queensland. Once in Queensland, the terrain was a lot more open and grassy and we crossed several creeks over tiny wooden bridges. We did get stuck behind a slow moving campervan at this point but lost him just before we turned off the Lions road and onto the Mount Lindesay Highway heading north to Beaudesert and Brisbane.

We stopped in Beaudesert for a late lunch after passing the Boystown site and pointing out a few of the cottages and the gym that we could see from the road to Chalky. We didn't hang around though and headed towards Mt Tamborine National Park where we enjoyed a leisurely drive up into the park, through North Tamborine and Eagle Heights before meeting the Pacific Highway and on back to Brisbane.