Day 40: Totally Love Venice!

Today was Michelle’s birthday.  What a perfect place to spend a birthday! After getting the train into Venezia Santa Lucia, we saw the Orient Express awaiting departure at the platform.  That train looks like a must do experience, but when I looked it up online afterwards, it only travelled from Venice to Paris.  Not sure why it's still called the Orient Express anymore?

Day 12: Urinal Games, college pranks and dog's seeing ghosts

London’s damn Tube strike was still on. So for our trip to Cambridge we caught a double-decker bus to Waterloo.  As luck would have it, the northern line was still operational so we could tube it quickly to King’s Cross Station.
I grabbed our tickets and within minutes we were on the Cambridge Express, and almost as quickly, getting off the train at Cambridge less than an hour later.  Too easy!

We walked downhill into town and after a quick wander around, grabbed a pretty decent burger at Ta Bouche for lunch.  Now, I wouldn’t normally share any toilet experiences, but the loos downstairs at Ta Bouche were certainly a little novel, at least in my experiences to date.  You see, the urinals all had screens above them, and little sensors in the urinal to allow you to control a game with, well…
Read about it here on Wikipedia

Day 11: London Gardens and Pubs

Today I decided to do a little exploration around London.  Shaz and Ken were back at work, and Michelle wanted to have a quiet day.  I had a rough idea where I wanted to go, including visiting a few of the London parks so off I headed.
Today was a tube strike so I decided to bus it to Waterloo.  Now buses aren’t the quickest way around London at the best of times, and during peak hour when there are no tubes running they pretty much were hardly moving.  So I got off at London Bridge and decided to walk it.
Since I’d walked the south side of the river before, I crossed over and walked along the north bank.  It was an enjoyable if uneventful stroll: passing morning joggers, like-minded tourists and families, and suited workers grabbing their morning coffees.

Europe Day 10: Tower of London

Today we spent the entire day exploring the Tower of London.  All Day.  From about 10 in the morning, all the way through till 5PM.  I think I saw pretty much everything.
Let’s see….
I’d bought the tickets online the night before to avoid queuing, and so I had to pick them up from Tower Hill.  This meant that I ended up walking around the entire periphery of the Tower of London site.  But I didn't have to queue.  So entire wall of Tower of London from outside.  Tick.

Europe Day 8: Edinburgh

The Deacon House Café.   A most fine place for breakfast: close, full of history, and full of scones.  Drambuie scones.  I mean, could there ever be a finer scone, ever?

Europe Day 5: Cotswolds to Bath

Next stop was somewhere starting with ‘B’.
Let’s see, Bourton?
Banbury?
How about Broadway?  Yes.  Broadway was a very large town, however the inner city was a beautiful village in the same style as the other Cotswolds towns we had so far visited.

Europe Day 3: London

Michelle and I were up early to try and get some internet time in.  The internet at Shaz and Ken’s is pretty much broken, so we thought we’d head down to Starbucks.  Luckily they weren't open and we went to Caffe Paridiso, on Shad Thames for breakfast instead.  Shaz and Ken joined us a bit later, and after we finished coffees and breakfast we caught the tube to Hampstead.

New Zealand: Bay of Islands

Today we awoke to another cloudy wet day.  We enjoyed a tasty breakfast on our balcony with a gaggle of curious onlookers.

Luang Prabang and Pak Ou Caves

Up early today for a 6:00am pickup. We watched the monks doing their dawn alms collection. Very beautiful to watch. A large family had come to give alms and they were the centre of attention with lots of tourists taking their photo, even before the monks arrived.

The monks came in single file in their saffron robes accepting rice, bananas and other food without acknowledgement. When their bowls were full, or just at their choosing they take some food out of their bowls and give it to some poor children who were standing at the side of the procession.

Mandalay, Amarapura and Ava

It would have been perfect to stay another day or two or three in Bagan. Bagan was beautiful with so much to see and do. Soe told us about Mt Popa; how it was used as a hill station and that it is jungle with many animals including monkeys to be seen. We will have to visit there next time we come to Myanmar.

This morning the sunrise was stunning. We could see the warm crimson glow on the stupas. One large golden stupa was especially magnificent. The fogged car windows didn't faze our driver and we arrived quickly at the airport.

Cairns Road Trip Day 13: Mossman Gorge

 
 
 
 

Cairns Road Trip Day 10: Michaelmas Cay

 A great day out on the reef, vomiting Japanese tourists, scuba diving, birds, birds and more birds

Cairns Road Trip Day 5: Virgins, gems and burgers

Got up early to try and spot a platypus, but no luck. Eurasian Coots where still there, but that's all. Had a nice hot shower, had breakkie and said goodbye to the two guys I met the night before. Left the campground at 7:45.
Passed a war memorial on the way out, consisting of the remains of an American plan which crashed in bad weather in the area. Back on the highway I saw many Wedgetailed Eagles, a lot of them quite close up perched on a roo carcass at the roadside. They always flew away when I got too close, so no good photos.
I even spotted a dingo crossing the road!
I missed the turnoff to the geocache at Springsure, but saw the virgin rock from the roadside. It could almost have been carved!
Emerald was quite a big town, and I listened to John Laws stir up the masses with his emotive arguments on the radio as I continued North. Filled up here after waiting for a Winnebago to refuel. This was only my second Winnebago, but I had seen countless caravans, undoubtedlly baby-boomers doing their around Australia Trip. I'm determined to do mine long before I hit 50! My entire walk of Carnarvon Gorge I passed only one person below 40, and only another 2 below 50.


Emerald, as well as nearby Rubyvale and Sapphire are named as this is gemstone country, so I must come back here one day with James and do some fossicking.
I had good mobile coverage all the way pretty much from Emerald to Clearmont, where I stopped in town and bought a King Burger. What a hamburger. I ate it beside the Hoods Lagoon, relaxing as the ducks glided past. I was going to stop at Belyando Crossing, but a number of people where already stopped there, and there didn't seem much water by the river so I continued on, leaving the family there to enjoy the company of the Apostlebirds in peace.
A few hundred kilometres of often very straight, and also at times quite narrow road later and I was in Charters Towers. The red and white microwave tower on the south side of town, my only memory from a visit 20 years prior.
I got to the QP&W Office just as they had locked up right on 4:30, but they opened up again for me so I could pick up a camping permit for Dalrymple NP.


30 minutes further along the road, after filling up I came to Fletchers Creek Camping reserve, which was quite busy, full of those BBs in the caravans behind Landcruisers.
I continued down the sandy track to the Burdekin, a nice spot already taken by the river but I found a nice secluded spot at the end of the track where the Fletchers Creek flows slowly into the very low Burdekin. Much of the sandy riverbed is exposed, with the river slowly snaking its way from one side of the bed to the other.


Some swamp wallabies were enjoying my chosen campsite when I arrived, but quickly moved on as I parked the car and set-up the tent. I have weak mobile reception here too, which is good. It's quite warm tonight. It's amazing the difference a 1/2 to 1 day's drive can make. My first night was sub zero in the Warrambungles. In Carnarvon Gorge it was about 9 degrees over night. Here at Dalrymple it's very warm; even a little muggy. Looking forward to catching up with my family tomorrow afternoon in Cairns.

Cairns Road Trip Day 3 and the awesomeness of Carnarvon

Morning showed that I had camped in a beautiful campsite under the trees beside the river. I got out and walked around a little then after breakfast I packed up and headed back to the highway.
The drive through the Central Highlands was very scenic. I saw Wedgetailed Eagle soaring over the roadside ,and nearly came to grief with a huge peice of mining equipment or something driving down the highway taking up the whole road.


I arrived at Takarakka around lunch time and setup camp and had lunch. Since I was here so early, I walked up to Bimboola Spur, 7K return. The climb up the gully was very steep, but the views from the lookout were beautiful.


Along the walk I came across some pretty faced white cheeked wallabies; the gorge area and views are very beautiful.



On the way back to camp I stopped off and walked to Baloon Cave, which is an Aboriginal Cultural walk which has signposts along the way explaining various faces of aboriginal life. The walk ended at the cave which had hand stencil aboriginal rock art.
I returned to camp for a much needed wash. The washroom facilities are very clean and sorely needed. I then headed off to the rock pool, spotting an echidna along the way. It was very relaxing sitting here for a while watching the turtles gracefully swim up and down. I waited to see a platypus, but had no luck tonight. I did see a type of honeyeater which dive bombed me, as well as an Azure Kingfisher. I remained watching the bats fly overhead till 5:30, when I gave up on the platypus and headed back to camp for dinner.

Cairns Road Trip Day 2 and a rock called the breadknife

I was up quite early, and had some cereal for breakfast with the Currawongs and Kangaroos. My tent was covered in ice; it was damn cold last night! I packed up camp and was at the carpark for the Grand High Tops walk by about 8:00 in the morning. It goes without saying that nobody else was there!


I spotted many animals along the walk; Kangaroos, emus, kookaburras and other birds. It was a fantastic walk across the Grand High Tops, with magnificent views of the Breadknife. I walked back via Ogma Camp and Spirey Creek and this was a most enjoyable walk as well. I saw eagles soaring around the Bluff, and also spotted some wild goats with kids as well. I passed another couple at the end of the walk, almost completing the whole walk without seeing any people, and arrived back at the carpark, which now had dozens of cards parked in it. Obviously there were lots of people following me. I wasn't hungry yet, so I drove on towards St George.


I drove through lots of pasture land today, and I made a short visit to Lightening Ridge. After a quick refuel in town, and a visit to the Opal Cave I explored around some of the back-lots where I found many small opal diggings, as well as a few ruins.


Back on the highway driving into the evening I saw many kangaroos, emus, crested pigeons, apostlebirds and also many cows and sheep along the road. The sunset was magnificent!


It was getting late, but I decided to continue to my planned campsite. I arrived long after dark, (the picture on the right is actually from the next morning!) and so I decided to sleep in the car for tonight. Shrimp Mee Goreng for dinner and another sandwich. Simple but tasty.

A day Hike on French Island

It was time for an easy walk after some of the more recent walks that I had arranged. Travelling to French Island also seemed to offer a bit of excitement, as it required a ferry ride to get there.
An early start was in order due to the ferry leaving at 8:30, so James and I bundled into the car and left home about 6:30. My day had begun a lot earlier though, as I had incorrectly set my alarm, and had woken up at about 4:00!
We stopped in at Frankston looking for a Baker's Delight to pick up some scones, but I couldn't find one anywhere. I took the chance of finding a store in hastings, which thankfully paid off. I did have to wait another 20 minutes for the scones to finish cooking though
We arrived at Stony Point with 30 minutes to spare, and awaited the rest of our walking party to arrive. Patty 7 David cut it really fine, arriving right on the nose as the ferry was about to leave



Less than half an hour later and we were on French Island. We followed the Day Walks Victoria walk notes, and headed north along the beach, but our progress was thwarted by the high tide and Tankerton Creek. A proper reading of the walk notes says to do the walk in reverse at high tide...


A short backtrack, and we continued along Coast Road. The weather wasn't looking good, but spirits remained high despite a light drizzle


We continued on to Chilcott Rocks, which were not much more than a low rocky outcrop on a slight point. There were a number of sea birds around, as well as some swans which seemed a little unusual. Don't they normally hang around lakes and not the beach?

 

The walk entered the National Park area, and we were hopeful of spotting some wildlife, but it was not to be today. We couldn't even hear any Pobblebonks at Pobblebonk Swamp

 

We climbed to the Pinnacle, which is a low sand dune offering views over the island. The weather had cleared, but the mosquitos were swarming. I'd never seen so many in all my life! The picnic shelter had fallen into disrepair and was becoming lost in the bracken.
The path wound back on itself then joined up with a firebreak whcih we followed back to Clump Road.


James was getting quite tired at this point, and had put in a fantastic effort given this was his longest walk to date. We'd covered about 10km before his feet were starting to hurt him, which was pretty good considering he was wearing new shoes.

 

We stopped in to the store for icecreams, but eventually ended up abandoning our brought lunches and hoeing into som pretty good organic burgers. A good hour plus later and we continued past some old houses rusting away, and kept a watchful eye out for koalas at the footy ovals, again without any luck.


We had plenty of time to kill before the ferry was due back, so we turned left aftger the ovals to the beach, and walked across the mud flats, spotting a few various birds along the way.

 
 

David was quite adept at his mud skating!


We took the chance on whether we could make it along the the beach back to the ferry, which was good as it turned out to be an interstieng walk, making our way through the swamps and marches.

 

Back on the mainland we watched the pelicans get a feed of fish from a successful catch before heading on home