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| Coffee'ing |
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| GB reef'ing |
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Annoying....... |
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Rum'ing |
Got a very early train from Nambour, which was free with a match ticket, Nambour is a smallish town just outside Noosa 100 ks north of Brisbane. Once at Brisbane there was also a free bus service from the central station right into the guts of the ground. Just unheard hey.
All day Dave was like a dog with a very large bone. Me on the other hand was staring down 8 hours on a small plastic seat. It was a little dull,
but sometimes that's test cricket for you I'm told. Think I am more of a 20/20 bring your own Pimms sort of cricket follower. On the other hand the ozzy/pom banter made up for the dull moments. The best chant of the day award going to the Ozzies: "you're in re-cess-ion" which rang out for a good 5 odd mins. In return the poms give it "we've got the ash-es" There were so many others but most can't really be repeated but you get the picture.
The boys did well, just a shame it was a little grind out like. Not so good for your non-test match folk. However 517 for 1 is some going, but yeah not too thrilling. But with things edging towards a draw the barmy army were celebrating hard, as in these parts a draw is as good as a win.
Noosa is a lovely spot with a real laid back vibe. Free of ugly high-rise developments this small beachside town has plenty of style and pockets of wealth, mega wealth you could say (think Sandbanks with a big longboard community). We booked a lovely apartment in the hills for a couple of days. The hostels have been great but every now and then you just got to have your own place, and Noosa has plenty on offer when it comes to selfcatering options. Not to mention being able to just pop to the loo in the middle of the night and not worry about putting your pants on correctly, or not as the case maybe. Another luxury is an oven and washing machine! It certainly was time to eat something from a oven and catch up on some laundry!
The ashes are well underway and the Ozzie female has been officially promoted to lead sit-on mower operator. Strictly a temporary position, this promotion only lasts for a period of 6 weeks. After this point normal service will resume. We are sat overlooking Noosa, a respectable 28 degrees, ashes on regular tv, working through a pot of tea with a mince pie in hand. How good can it get?
We ventured over to Eumundi for the twice weekly market. This place has managed to pull off a Fremantle kinda of feel.
A very laid back sort of place that makes you feel good about yourself. Eumundi market has over 200 stalls with everything from food, jewellery, local crafts and artwork. Great way to spend a Saturday morning. Of course Dave managed to buy a few 'treasures'.
Noosa is a renowned spot for longboarders with Noosa Heads providing plenty of choice when it comes to riding long peeling point breaks, Tea Tree, Little Cove and First Point to mention but a few. Outside of the busy weekend we hired a longboard for the day, within the the excitment of the shop we momentarily forgot the actual size of our present wheels being similar to a roller boot style car. With only a small way to go though she was ok to drive with a foot or so hanging out back. Before running from the hire enquired whether any thin wetsuits where up for hire, to which the reply came in the most deepest of ozzy acsents "ohhhh mate you don't need a wettie here mate, this is the sunshine coast, you'd be roasting matey in a wettie up here'. How the poms smiled. With the Getzs fully loaded we headed for Sunshine beach, a bit messy though as a onshore was blowing a fair bit. No change by the avro it was time to move onto a small cove that was just round the headland, which from the headland road looked to have some pretty nice attractive peeling waves just forming out at the point. We were parked up and in like a shot. Great to be on the board with just boardies. For the next couple of hours we had a easy time just picking waves up as they came though off the point. Talk of a tale of two bays. Great conditions though knowing that round the head it was blowing a right Hollie!
......oh come on it's nearly Christmas!
Bundaberg is famous for producing Australia's favourite rum, Bundaberg rum (marketing guru must have been off sick that day). 90% is sold in oz, 9% is exported to NZ and only 1% is exported to the rest of the world. It's safe to say these ozzy lot drink a lot of bundy rum. Bundaberg's Distilling company was incorporated in November 1888. The first rum was officially distilled in 1889 - 22,500 gallons of it.
The discovery that molasses fermented into alcohol was made by plantation slaves in the Caribbean. 
We had a tour of the museum and production plant. Alcohol levels are so high that any items with a battery had to be locked away prior to the tour in case of an explosion! You could get high just walking around this place! They store the rum for 2 years in American wood barrels.
Pleased to say that the tour concluded with a tasting session. Now rum isn't high on our favoured drinks list, but mixed with ginger beer it wasn't half bad!
Today, still raining, we head for cover at a local cultural centre for some local aboriginal history and lessons in the art of Didgeridoo playing and boomerang throwing. 
The Didgeridoo uncovered - a hollow piece of timber bored out by termites, normally coated at one end with bees wax. Used as a musical wind instrument at traditional ceremonies and no doubt in times of fun throughout many homes of international travelling folk when they finally get back home. Well it beats the sound of someone murdering a love song on a acoustic guitar. Didj Dave dropped some techno vibes, a little more practice required!
The boomerang thought to be produced purely as a fun time item although some models
were used to hunt though these were not designed to come back! We both gave our boomerangs some wellie and pleased to say they did return, sort of!Whilst completing our training we discussed aboriginal history with our guides. They touched on the history surrounding the natural migration of Papua New Guineans (PNG) back in the 50s and 60s to the Northern and NSW territories. They first had to navigate their way across the stretch of seas between northern oz and PNG. This is known as the Torres Strait named after early Spanish explorers. Within these waters are 18 islands that are inhabited but there are many that are not. There are over 100 islands in total. This section of ocean is 150 kms wide and very dangerous for ocean going ships. If captains do guide their vessels safely through this stretch of seas they then have the barrier reef to contend with.
Travelling away from a region that is tropical and contains large scale mountainous rain forests was never gonna be a dry experience but the weather over the last couple of days has been something else. The locals have tagged it anti-cyclonic gloom !! With this said it kinda made our decision to opt for the bus to start the first leg of our journey south.
We left Cairns at dawn with an 8 hour road trip to complete. The bus picked up fellow travelling folk at Gordonvale, Innisfail, Mission beach and Tully. All a bit same, same but different if you get what we mean. Tully being famous as the wettest town in Oz and to celebrate this fact the town has positioned a 7.9 metre high wellie boot in it's centre (7.9 metres being the amount of rain which fell in 1950). As it happened our brief time in Tully and come to think of it the whole 8 hour journey, it was pretty wet!
These lands are sugar cane country. As far as you can see there are fields and fields of it. Narrow gauge railtracks line the main roads, these link the vast fields to the sugar mills which is the first thing you spot when you enter Tully. Her chimney smoking silently as we passed through. Ahhhh smell the molasses! Most of the sugar produced goes into the production of local rum.
We had a change of drivers at Townsville, which looked more like Doomsville Let's just say the place could do with a bit a work.
The pull for Airlie Beach world over is getting out on the water and seeing the Whitsunday islands. But not when it's cloudy as hell, raining horizontally and blowing a choppy 30-35 knots. So after sharing Airlie Beach for one night with a zillion partying schoolies (the oz term for a school leaver) we headed for the Bruce highway to continue our journey south.
The bus ditched we picked up our new ride, a bronze Hyundai Glitz. She looked like a roller boot on these roads. She's probably one of the smallest cars on the road downunder, belting speaker system though. Rucksacks brimming from the ridiculously tiny boot the drive down to Rockhampton (Rocky) was like a drive across Bodmin moor, in January.
To our right the mist bouncing off the Great Dividing Ranges and to our left the storm clouds rolled in from the barrier reef. Who'd have though it hey, the land of the sun shade and stubby cooler getting rain and sheet grey cloud stretching out for some 1000 kms. All pretty rubbish really. But fear not, us Brits are masters in this situation as these sorts of conditions are two a penny in the land of the inclement weather. The show 'always' goes on.
Our trip up to the rain forest of Cape Tribulation for some croc spotting in natural surroundings certainly lived up to it's name, ponchos at the ready, it pretty much chucked it down all day. At the moment we are in the season known as the 'Build Up' season prior to the wet season. It's around 90% humidity and a fair bit of rainfall occurs most days with flooding in some parts.We then jumped onto a boat for a Daintree river cruise - Croc watch !! Boarding advice given - 'Whatever happens do not lean out of the boat'. It was certainly highlighted this wasn't zoo type conditions, and all rivers and lakes in these tropical parts are deemed croc inhabited, all definitely very wild and therefore extremely dangerous. The Daintree River is very wide but very shallow. 500mm in the centre at low tide. Perfect for saltys. The river is 10kms from the ocean. Tree snakes, non-venomous though, hmmm, hang from the Mangrove trees that line the river. Again perfect for those saltys to sneak about in looking all very dangerous. We did manage to spot one!
Some quick croc facts:
The Oz salt water croc, known as the salty, is deemed the ultimate ambush predator and normally hunt in or around the waters edge. They grow up to 7 metres long and can hold their breath for 4-5 hours. They are strong enough to project their whole body weight completely out of the water to capture any passing prey. Attacks on humans are rare, last year there was none but the year before there were 5 in Oz. All attacks have been river based, and all on locals. Saltys are known to swim hundreds of Kms out to sea to hunt. The journey up to Cape Trib was on the Captain Cook highway which hugs the coastline and was windy to say the least. Shame that the beaches contain the dreaded box and erigangy jelly fish. Safety catch nets are provided for swimming areas, not sure though if these would keep out those saltys though!! Cape Tribulation is the only spot in the world where two natural world heritage sites meet, rain forest and reef. In the wet season it isn't uncommon for a metre of rain to fall overnight, cutting off access. The forest contains 3500 different types of plants and is thought to be the oldest rainforest in the world. The forest contains the highest number of the worlds most endangered and at risk of extinction natural plants and species. We did a boardwalk through a part of the rainforest looking out for snakes, spiders and anything else that could take a bite!
Cape tribulation was was given it's name by Captain Cook after his ship ran aground on the GB reef. Could Cookie be tagged as the first tourist to vandalise the reef ?
On route to Cape Trib beach we pulled in at the Jindalba boardwalk. A 3 kms walk that traverses through the forest slightly above the forest floor. Some great wildlife and plant species on view but every noise from the bush got you thinking. What the *!*? is in there and is it on route to eat us !!
Just off the Cook highway the Walu Wugirriga (Alexander lookout) it was just possible through the low clouds to see where the rain forest and Daintree river meets the ocean and the great barrier reef. Great views also of the Alexander ranges and Snapper island. Still raining !!
We stopped at Mosseman gorge. At the end of a newly opened suspended causeway the mountain rains are tamed as they tumble over huge granite boulders to create a cool fresh water clear swimming holes of Mosseman Gorge. Getting in was cold and the general feeling seemed a bit crazy at first, crocs still on most peoples mind, but as the sun broke through the high tree canopy all seemed pretty good.
On arrival at tropical Cairns straight away it was clear it was totally
different to anywhere else we've stayed in Oz. Like a seaside town
with all the usual suspects regarding shops, bars etc all overflowing with tourists which sometimes isn't always a good thing. It was clear that this place had lots to see and do and our wallet was going to hurt!
We jumped onto our boat, Silverswift, that was taking us out to the
Great Barrier Reef. 80 minutes of slightly choppy water, with plenty of
sick bags on the go, we get to our first reef site. We practiced our
usual theory - don't be first in or last out! Throughout the day we anchored at various spots: Flynn, Pellowe, Milln and Thetford reefs all just off the edge of the continental shelf.
The reef at a glance: Larger than the great wall of china The only living thing visible from space It's one of the seven wonders of the world It stretches for 2300 kms from the Torres Strait to north of Bundaberg (that's approximately the same distance as London to Athens) It pulls two million visitors per year generating $2 billion Everyone entering the water is encouraged to wear a stinger suit, a sexy tight fitting little Lycra number, now with added mitts and hood, nice. This is because of the jellyfish are such a problem. Once suited up and masks and snorkels at the ready we jumped into the deep. Your first reaction is a mighty big one. With water as warm as a bath but not a coastline in sight, masses of fish and the most well known coral going just sat there 1 metre below the surface. The coral, especially the soft moving corals, were just amazing. Crazy in colour as well as in shape.
Back at the backpackers we'd met a great couple from the Netherlands, Richard and Carolina, we'd gone halves the hire of a underwater camera which was great fun. At one point it started to rain and when you were under the surface you could actually hear the rain drops hitting the sea. Plenty of marine life spotted; reef shark, turtle and fish galore. Pleased to say that we came home with limbs in tact and only one jellyfish spotted.
Back from the rock and a few hours to kill before our flight to Cairns we dropped into the Royal Flying Doctors Service (RFDS) Museum. The Flying Doctors, remember the program well yeah ?
as clinics in remote places, a gp service over the radio and replenishing medical chests. They cover over 20 million km per year and have a fleet of 43 planes with each aircraft costing $6 million. Each plane needs replacing every 10/15 years! It started in 1928 with an aircraft (De Havilland DH50) hired from Quantas at a cost of 2 shillings per mile. The landing strips they use all over the country are owned by landowners/farmers. It is the landowner's responsibility to maintain these strips at their own expense. Strips are either lit or unlit, if unlit they can not be used at night and that patient would have to get to the nearest lit strip or wait till daylight, and that could be several 100 kms (not good in the case of the old snake bite where every second counts).
After 25 hours on the rails we were reving to go. A Ford Falcon station wagon awaited us complete with camping equipment. One small minor detail - no tent only a swag (google it, then imagine Fe in one, no flippin chance). The wagon had cruise control so the 440 km wasn't too bad but no time was to be wasted in order to arrive by dusk, not just roo action here, cattle, camels and thorny devils also roaming around!
Obviously our wagon didn't have curtains but that didn't matter as at 4.30am we were up and heading for sunrise at the rock. You start to see the rock some 30 kms away as you work your way along the Lasseter highway with anticipation on what's it gonna be like. And then wham there she is just sat there glowing. Its one of those really, an object when no matter how many times you've seen it in pictures nothing really prepares you for your first sight of such a mass of red rock just sat there on the horizon.
Dusk brings another wave of tour buses back to the rock for the sunset. After a bit of a cloudy day we were treated with a gap in the clouds and the sun showing itself just before dipping on the horizon. 
Everything at Uluru still runs according to aboriginal law. All rangers wear a badge carrying the image if Uluru. The aboriginals believe this is the way things should be. The national park is protected according to the law. Aboriginal people are constantly training rangers and scientists about the animals and plants within 
