HCMC, Cambodia - Siem Reap - Angkor and other Wats

It was a shame to leave HCMC without really delving into anything but the mini bar in the Executive Suite. There is so much recent history which comes under the banner of 'not another US horses ass of intervention' but thats it, the French having showered themselves in glory too in their own Indochina escapade and they all got their asses well and truly whipped. In another venture I have to say i'd back the Viet every time, both metaphorically and at CORALS (5-4 on) to whip all their asses.
So be it, we get off to the airport and on to Siem Reap in Cambodia and the Wats of Angkor and others. Its reputation precedes it and it may turn out ot be the first wonder of the world.
We have a recommendation from the ladies that shop for a spartan hotel with rudimentary facilities and but we are hardy young things and a plank of wood suffices for our supple bodies. Anyway the five star Soma Devi fitted the bill perfectly. Li picked us up from the airport, a really charming fellow who promise to be our guide for the 3 days that our pass to the Wats last. So we luxuriated in the pool for the afternoon and supped golden honey drinks from lotus petals whilst having our feet massaged by the pool....pah.
Li picked us up after our skin was soft enought to allow silk scarves to cascade and it was off toe Tonle Sap Lake on the outskirts of the town and the Lifeblood of Cambodia. It supplies most of the fish and lake side living for thousands of people although there iis the inevitable fish crisis and raw sewage pumping straight out of the stilted house and then being swept up by pails on strings straight into the cooking pot...these people must have immense constitutions!All the people live on the lakes edge and there is a variety of houses on show. Stilted mansions with sprawling decks and winding staircases. Smaller dwellings on a two room basis, very nice view though-but and finally the all purpose combo house/fishing boat with ancillary fast boat lashed to the side. The houses are moved each year as the size of the lake changes dramatically from rainy to dry season cf: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tonle_Sap
We were driven around the lake by our charming captain who modelled himself on various hardman movies and sat smouldering in his fatigues in the back. If somebody blindfolded you, span you around and dropedyouin a boat in the lake it would be an impossible escape! There are a thousand channels and backwaters with beautiful boats moored up with their associated menageries, fish factory farms in large mesh boxes and guard dogs looking quite at home on their platform. We stop at a depressing crocodile farm and cafe which has stopped processing the crocodiles as the price has plummeted so the crocs are 30 to a cage and looking miserable as...There are fish farms which they use to feed the crocs and the occasional tourist and a sullen fish feeding chick who gives you the look as you pass the fish pool where she is chocking in lumps of fish food into the snake head fish pit. There are children with snakes, souvenir outlets and photo ops but it is time to leave and dwell on sewage management in the third world. Feeling a little peckish so we stop at a snake vendor on the way back for some 'wolf nipple chips' and some snake kebab, very tasty and crisp with a chickeny edge to it with a little chilli to give it zest!!
Li was picking us up for the morning vigil to Angkor Wat and our first view of the great temples. The weather was a little cloudy and the throngs decended on the path across the moat to the entrance to Angkor. There was a buzz of anticipation even though the clouds muffled the glorious sunrise which arrived to athe snapping of a thousand cameras and chatter in a hundred languages. We then spent a couple of hours wandering around Angkor which is difficult to put into context unless you have experienced personally the shear scale fo the buildings. The entirety of the buildings are carved from a local sandstone and evey available space is adorned with iconic figures from Hindu scriptures. Brahma, Visnu and Shiva and a thousand variations from the tales are played out as the Temple was periodically Buddhist and many clones on the same theme. Along the immense galleries there are friezes of the many leaders who ruled in regal processions or battles against the Champa or Siam kingdoms. The Khmer kingdom was large in the 8-14 centuries, a million people lived in the Angkor Thom for the building of the temples and this large population was possible due to the rice cultivation sustained by incredible irrigation patterns which the whole area depended on. Well Wikipedia can do it much better and the history of the peoples is reflected in the incredible temples and traces of the sophisticated civilisations which lived here for centuries. There are also many other temples littered across Thailand, Vietnam and Loas all pertaining to this complex people. The Iconic temple is Ta Prohm, the temple entangled with the Jungle and great Banyan trees, roots delving into the very brickwork of the temples to produce an eery shroud, the very buildings seemingly being devoured by the forest. Plans are afoot to take the trees out and restore Ta Prohm like Angkor Wat so the famous 'root photos' may soon be history.
The whole area of Siem Reap is littered with old roads form its former glory times and it was fantastic to take a tuk tuk along these now paved roads to the temples following in the footsteps of the people who haved lived here for the past 1200 years...it really hasn't changed a great deal and the faces of the people also tell the story. There is a huge variety of colours, shapes and sizes all mixed together but they are very attractive people, gentle and anxious to chat in English, always with a smile.
The skills which made this area so great at one time have not been forgotten and workshops for carving, silk painting, laquering are all around Siem Reap. The ingenuity oozes form every street corner and workshop to the shops where the items are sold. The Angkor Artisans workshop where blind and mute people work in all the areas of carving, silk weaving and painting ot laquering is just fantastic with half finished items littering all the workshops and you get the impression of what it must have been like with a million people churning out temple parts to build Angkor Wat et al, staggering stuff.
We reluctantly leave the Cambodian people on the way to Luang Prabang and Laos thinking there can't be much more to indulge the senses....foolish words man!

Vietnam, Hanoi, Halong Bay, Hoi An and beyond

We are now travelling at the speed of light and having loitered for months and slurped machiato capos for hours we now don't have time to lose. There is the rest of the world to see in 6 weeks...now money is no object and we book flights like a deranged Howard Hughes! The next leg of our journey takes us to Hanoi via Manila and Kuala Lumpur with one night at the posh stop airport hotel KL - The Pan Pacific hotel and resort. Lush, deep pile carpets usher you to delicious food outlets desirous of your complete satisfaction...and they have our undivided attention.
Next morning to Hanoi, we arrive late in the evening minus one visa that didn't arrive on the web. Fantastic levels of beaurocracy not witnessed for a while ending with a large bung to a spotty official to secure Fo's visa...great fun and bunging officialdom in frightening green army uniforms in the full glare of security cameras...a real treat!
Our first alloted hotel, whilst charming turns out to be cut with infestations of bed bugs and also the things three up in the food chain that eat the things that eat the things that eat bed bugs. They are big, red, like aphids and impossible to crush
so we move to another hotel after Fo has given the VERY young manager a total ear lashing.
Hanoi is full of charm, oozes character from every shop to street vendor but they don't overly bother you. I don't know what I expected but the million smiling faces atop a million (4 actually) scooters zipping along streets and across junctions with no rational order is just exciting in itself. The Old town of Hanoi is where it all happens and food is eaten all day, everywhere and out of everything that holds noodles in liquid, down to a plastic bag if you are on the scooter, farming a mobile call, talking to the next person with a 10 foot high stack on the back with the rest of the family! There is not an angry face and no disputes in the scooter circus, a slight misunderstanding is cause for a smile and a swerve, not a whiff of road rage.
It is difficult not to fall in love with the town and the people. They have endured a lot in their recent history (not least of all having the French all over them like a rash telling them how to run their country - tres amusant) but all this is forgotten by the incredibly young population who are part of the massive post war baby boom encouraged by the all knowing ones to up the population. And so they have. Up from 50 million or so after WWII to 90 million now...OMG!
Day trips: Earth dwellers are randomly picked by some heavenly force and thrown together in the back of a mini-bus early in the morning, blearily acknowledging that somehow fate has brought them together....and it must be for a purpose. The magnanimous company of the beautiful Swathee and her multi-talented husband Shyam was made even more exciting and fascinating by Barcelona's jewelry design guru and general whirlwind, the fabulous Isabel.
We set off for Nihn Binh and eventually the temples in Hu Lua, the old capital of Vietnam before it was transferred in 1010 to its present spot. From here Mark, Swathee, Shyam and the guide trundled off on inadequate bikes (no brakes), lifted from their owners 10 seconds earlier and set off through the gorges in the midday sun whilst the cool gang tootled off in the mini-bus, the disparate groups rendezvousing in Tam Coc later. A memory from Tam Coc will stick in the mind for a good while. Being rowed through the mistyly mysterious limestone gorge of Tam Coc by the friendliest couple from a riverside stilt house, without falter, and then swapping national songs in a chorus heard right through the gorgeous gorge was a wonderful experience, even if I did subject them to a wobbly version of Streets of London (remember Bayreuth 1973 older chums?). We exchanged photographs of children and they rowed us overweight Europeans 8kms through the vast gorge and sold us hand woven and embroidered linen for sale from a freezer box on board the floating half melon. A wonderful moment was shared between the four of us, and friends and family will be able to share this moment through their Christmas gifts made by the couple's own fair hands.
Worlds, both earthly and celestial were put to rights and an appreciation of each others company extended to Van Minhs Jazz Club later in the evening where cocktails and dinner were consumed with fun and verve, to the accompliment of fine sax tones.

Halong bay is to the north of Hanoi and a good three hours by mini bus. Large limestone columns thrust to the heavens from the bay and there are many of them covering 200km2. We have tree days and two nights (on a junk in the bay followed by a hotel on Cat Ba island} and our shipmates turn out to be an incredible group consisting of:
Grupo Australiano - Neha, Sejal, Shefali (3 sisters) and Lizzie (sister incluido)
Grupo Malaysiano - three sisters and a daughter to one of the ladies
Grupo Croatiano - Senad (olive oil wrestler), Isa, Helena and Mum (unpronouncable name)
Grupo Ingles - Mark and Fo
Guide - very randy (girl in every junk) - Ho An
'One big happy family' was Ho An's adage although I think this referred mainly to his desire for concubines from wherever they may fall from the heavens. The scenery was heavenly although my image of a small fleet of junks pootling around the dramatic scene turned out to be the biggest flotilla to gather in a small bay since the D-Day landings. It was also misty which added to the mystique of the area. Kayaking, swimming and cycling around Cat Ba island with a trip to a typical Vietnamese village felt as carefree as Swallows and Amazons but the highlight of the trip was sitting with a tea in the old village whilst Ho An gave us a brief history and personal diatribe on Vietnam, past and present...all tinged with such a sense of humour that it was charming in the extreme, where tragedy was humour and struggle honourable. A sense of pride in the struggle (against allcomers) is probably the best way to describe it.
Well after this trip we found ourselves marvellously entangled with Grupo Croat and Grupo Aus. Two more trips to the Jazz club and then a trip to Hoi An where we spent a great few days with the gorgeous Neha, Sejal, Shefali and Lizzie. Hoi An is the centre of all things tailored; suits, shirts, silk dresses all hand made in 24 hours or less. A World heritage site, due to the stunning old quarter, which actually was under about two feet of water until the day before we left. The rains were interminable but the fun incessant. A great spot to stay and chill, charming people with infinite patience in the face of ludicrous deadlines...
Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC) bought us together again with the Grupo Aus and we had a really stupendous last day of wanton pleasures (food and the finest wines available to man) in the New World Hotel, Executive Suite, which will never quite be the same quiet refuge that it previously was.
We finally say goodbye and leave HCMC for Siem Reap and Angkor Wat. Vietnam is a fabulous country and peoples...it is sad to leave with so much still to be revealed by the Viet people

Manila and the Palau Archipeligo

Air Asia is the Ryan Air of the East and the youth culture airline. It seems to be primarily for transporting labour between the phillipines and other countries in the region. There is a real party atmosphere as people are travelling home after long periods of work in Kota Kinabalu. We arrive in Clark Airbase which is still used as a military base and runs a few airline charters through it. There area around is littered with the remains of the American part of the airbase, hundreds of bunkers and camoflagued underground stores are strewn around, but no Americans.
We pass one of the many volcanos that dominate the skyline along a smart highway south to Metro Manila. Manila was quite a small town and then ballooned after WWII as people arrived on the promise of wealth and glitter in the metropolis, engulfing many of the surrounding towns like Quezon City to form the Metro Manila. It is clogged with traffic, confusing concrete structures meet in multilevelled transport hell and at night it is 'Bladerunner' city. The bus terminal has a gaggle of taxi drivers who loiter waiting for the gravy train, and we are it! the taxi is f*£%ed but the fellow is charming and well, he can't afford a merc with a back axle.
We are slumming it in the Hyatt Hotel and Casino which is surprisingly cheap and a very welcome sight in this traffic and vendor swill! Unfortunately our plane for Palau doesn't leave until Wednesday and Manila's sights are out there waiting to surprise and astound us.
Intramuros really turns out to be interesting. The old centre of the capital, Spanish of course, a great fort, an old prison, a visitor centre and a strange mercury like river running past the forts battlements. There were a few seminal moments in Manilas history and now it stands as a constantly teetering democracy. It is incredible that a country so near to Malaysia, Japan and other countries that show a propensity to honesty in the highest ranks (relative of course) is so steeped in corruption. It runs rampant through every level where the currency is hard cash, dollars. Payoffs, bribes, handouts so that consequently you never get anything at face value. If you spend $10 on a window, the money that reaches the budget for the window is $2.20 after you have 'dashed' the principles and the middlemen that make, sell, market or deliver the window not forgeting the officials that sanction it! Incredible. So a small elite group pocket millions while the average person in the street sees none of the benefits that should be heaped onto them from development...its mindboggling!! But despite all this the people are resigned to their world and are cheerful through it all...i think i would have shot up at least five Mcdonalds outlets in frustration by this stage.
Continental airlines take us to Palau. The security in the airport is multilayered, even down to checking my lucky stone and the crack in my flip flop. We leave at 11 and arrive to an island welcome at 1.30am. It was dark so we couldn't see the famous island chain shots and had to settle for a tropical rain storm arrival at Koror, the capital.
Whisked to the Waterfront Villas by our 'Betel nut' chewing chauffeur, a welcome bed and our first meeting with our host and personal safety executive, Arnold. He and his lovely Palau-en wife, Jamie, run the hotel which is on the south east of the island with a picture book view and a wealth of fascination in its pivotal position to the lives of many people who make it their home here, be it a holiday or a years working on the island.
Palau is a soup of fascinating people thrown together in a large broth of intrigue which is the local politics, people, extranejos who work here, visitors and people who came and never left. Everyone has a story and most of them would do justice to a W.S. Maughan short story collection which a slither of Hemingway. There are too many stories to tell and too many fascinating people who we are lucky enough to spend a little time with.
Needless to say that the main attraction, the outrageous scenery and totally breathtaking diving live up to the bang they are given in the marketing tosh. Each Island is a piece of sea floor lifted up to the surface of the sea and then sprinkled with vegetation. The sides of the islands are generally shear with small occasional inlets with tiny beaches where you really have to have a picnic for 10 years and grow a beard! We venture out each day in the dive boat, dive another incomparable dive site, loll in awe at the scenery on the way home and pinch yourself that you are in the film.
Downtown Koror is fascinating and gives up few secrets until you visit the museum or get to talk to some of the locals one the dive boats or when they give you a guide of the island. Even then the underlying fabric of the island and the people who populate it is never really exposed. There is a recent history of population and inter island fighting at the private museum which is a great feature, the variety of the peoples looks is amazing within such close proximity. There was terrible battles here during WWII as well and hideous losses on the American and Japanese sides. Both cultures leave their marks here in different ways.
A mixture of the fascinating, the macabre, the tragic, coupled with the undeniably unique scenery makes Palau a great spot for a dive in to the unknown...now back to the known in Manila and our shrine to Western Fascism...the Hyatt Casino and hotel...ciao Palau

Sabah: Sipidan and the Paradise Isles

Groundhog day, only this time we are going to Tawau on the way to Palau Sipadan, the centre of diving in the known world and of Malaysia. The plane is full of business types wending their merry way to Tawau, a port on the south east side of Sabah for trading and crossing over to the Indonesian province of Kalimantan or onwards to the Phillipines via Zamboanga. The bumpy road trip from Tawau to Semporna passes through acre upon acre of Palm oil plantations and scattered villages. Palm oil is the main business in these parts, harvesting and processing is a gruelling job in tropical heat for little money, except for the plantation companies etc
Wooden shacks and shops on stilts line the lively waterfront of Semporna and we boarded our speedy transport across the Celebes sea (a certain W. Dampier has sailed here before) to the cluster of small dive islands 36km off shore. Our paradise castaway island for the week was Mabul where we stayed on the everso smart SMART resort, populated and staffed with an eclectic mixture of Malaysian, Philippine, Indonesian, Japanese and European folk. There was enough food on continuous loop to supply the Russian army and a few seemingly recent conscripts of the same consuming as much of it as possible along with their erm, nubile female companions!
The island is run like a very slick thing and the diving is in waves all day so there is no let up for the fish and turtles. Boat after boat leaves the dock until the late afternoon and night dives are also available if you haven't had enough by then. The sun sinks over the island and the heat rises momentarily before settling back down to very hot. There is the Mabul Sipidan resort that we are on and just across the island is the Water Bungalows which is very posh and involves some diving, a lot of massage, honey treatments and lying on ergo chairs looking out to sea from your private balcony. The resort on Sipidan itself was closed down in 2003 to try and effect some rest for the island. It is now populated by probably the luckiest army in the world that keeps an eye out for illegal fishermen, dive boats and other types...in between a little diving themelves and lolling on pristine beaches in full fatigues! Although it has many dive sites it is much smaller than a lot of the islands and a lot of people visit these sites from above and below the water. All the people involved in the diving are the 'Big smile brigade' and clearly enjoy their role of toru guides and boat marshallers in this azure paradise. They are all very potective of this jewel they have and proud of the area and of the traditions that have seen people living and harvesting from the long boats in the Sulu and Celebes Sea for generations past and hopefully into the future. There are fishing boats around and you see them stalking the horizon but this is true of all fishing grounds everywhere.
It takes all sorts to enjoy and appreciate the wonders of the deep blue sea and one of the great things about visiting the splendid dive spots in the world is the weird and wonderful flora and fauna you encounter– and that includes homo sapien! You can always rely on sharing a tiger shark experience or manta sighting with nervous novices, excitable risk-takers, irascible mid Europeans and the folk with all the gadgets. At supper after 3 dives a day you can find yourself sitting next to the dive geek whose topic of conversation concerns how many bar was left in his tank after his Noxis ran out, or a heated debate on present euro politics, football, obesity, or how many of the world class sites you have dived from the Cousteau top ten. Whatever the discussion, nationality, politics or wealth you can only wonder at the sight of a zillion colours and sizes of fish lazily dancing in the azure shimmer of the reef and experience the wonderful curtain of calm and tranquillity as you float and ripple among them.
We see many sharks and there is an over abundance of turtles but this is a small island and there are many turtle hatcheries.
The great shoals of reef fish seem to have disappeared but this is also seasonal so it may be just that. Still the diving is very special along with the resort and the island people.
We leave Sipidan and make our way back via a smart hotel and another flight to Kota Kinabalu. The band doesn't come out to the airport for a second time and there is no Rolls again. It is nice to be home in the Jesselton and we have a grand night with Ivor, a local fellow, who takes us for dinner, to the fish market and the Phillipino night market which is ablaze with colour in fish, vegetable, spice and a thousand other stalls and small hawkers stations cooking the food fresh on barbies. Kota Kinabalu and Bahia is a treasure and one could get lost here and enjoy every moment but Manila calls, with a very throaty cough!

Sabah: Kota Kinabalu, Sandakan and Sepilok

There is an amazing number of people flying to Kota Kinabalu (KK) and we are aboard a 737 with a feast of nations. This is one of three flights a day so KK is seemingly the hub and true centre of activity for Sabah. Malaysian Air Services (MAS) are also upgrading all the flight schedules and taking over from all the regional networks to provide aa slicker and more regular service. Sabah is the Eastern portion of Malaysian Borneo and i guess we can thank our lucky's that Malaysia has a portion of Borneo which they may look after with more zest than the 'Logging loonies' of Indonesian Borneo who are whittling the once great forests of IB down faster than you can say 'Suharto'.
At KK we arrive and immediately ring the 'Jesselton Hotel' to find out why the band isn't playing on our arrival and the 'Rolls' isn't here to meet us:
http://www.jesseltonhotel.com/
worth a quick perusal of the website...smacks of colonialism.
We get a taxi and the band must have given up at the hotel as well so we have an unheralded welcome and we are alloted room 203. Later in the stay it turns out the place is cut with history. For a start KK was originally called Jesselton, further reading:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kota_Kinabalu
The Jesselton Hotel was then founded in 1954 and was the only hotel in town...until now that is. Famous people to have graced the Hotel (although perhaps not Room 203) include; Lady Mountbatten, Prince Phillip, Muhammed Ali and Fiona Dampier (room 203 has now been renamed 'The Damp Suite'). It is a great establishment and there is a waiter by the name of 'Chai yu Sin' who has worked here since 1960 and is completely charming...along with a waitress by the name of 'Trai nee' but we call her Vera!
KK is a fantastic border town. 300k people now but growing to 500k in the next 4 years or so and the gateway to Sabah.
We check in for the flight to Sandakan in the north of Sabah and the link town to Sepilok, our destination, and the most famous of the 'Orang Utan' rehabilitation centres. The forest is being cut down so fast the O-U have no time to react and are slaughtered or taken as pets. Our destination first is the 'Gomantong Caves', the bird spit production centre of the world, the source of a fair proportion of the birds nests eaten in the east. We go with our guide Maria to the park and happen upon a wild Orang Utan at the entrance. He lolls around in the tree above us shaking it periodically in a show of defiance. He is a large male and when he hangs you can see that his arms are incredibly long, typically twice as long as the body. They are also twice as strong as humans by body weight and so dextrous for a large mammal up a tree, thinking back to the tree climbing adventures of the formative years!
We move onto the Gomantong caves and enter them through some pristine jungle. the caves are enormous and the roof is a good 75-100m above us. The men use bamboo ladders to climb to the roof to harvest and it does look ridiculously precarious. This is the cave where David Attenborough climbed on the large pile of Guano whilst urine and poo rained down on him from above...it is just like that. Maria does a remake of this famous walk and it is soft and gooey under foot. The smell of urinary ammonia is ovewhelming and the mounds of poo are continuously moving due to the attention of dung beetles and a million cockroaches...your average nightmare on poo-street.
A memory forged on my brain forever.
The caves are dramatic and the sun pours in through the many entrances in the junglescape.
We leave the cave for the Sukau River Lodge we are staying in. It is up the tributory of the river and reminds you of 'Carry on up the Jungle' We check in to our cabin, complete with mossie nets and get some jungle tucker. Full of great food we set of in the river boat with our able boatmen in Man Utd shirts and Maria, our tireless guide. This area is famous for the Plebosus monkeys and we see many along with cheeky packs of monkeys who are clearly unafraid of our precense if not a little pleased to show off in front of us. The Plebosus monkeys tolerate us but make no effort to chat. In fact on of the large males sits in the tree like Cyrano de Bergerac with his tail hanging and his 'red Chilli' afront (Plebosus cod piece) in the words of Maria. There are jungle sounds all around and we get a great feeling for the forest, snakes, monitor lizards and all manner of cicadas.
A great dinner in the evening and some great people staying at the lodge...we all venture out for a night walk - with leech sock leggings - and again get a great feeling for the vibrancy of the forest and the animals which make it their realm, we celebrate with much vodka and beer...such brave young things.
In the morning we catch the jungle sunrise and set off for Sepilok..the Orang utan sanctuary. It was set up in part by Dian Fossey's boyfriend-of 'Gorillas in the mist' - (need to check this) and houses Orang Utans from just born to 4 years and older if they have difficulty being released into the wild, the ultimate aim of the project.
After a short AV show to explain the centre, we observe the OU's from a boardwalk some ten feet from their feeding platform. They are the most loveable animals and move in such a graceful, meaningful way along the ropewalks provided. Of course it does help if you have hands on your feet and a disproportionate body weight to strength ratio!
One of the females has a baby and behaves in such a human female way towards the 'child' it is a toal tear jerking moment of total requited love. We watch the OU's eating and fending off the other monkey tribes from the feeding platform and then we have to leave. It has been a moment to really savour and it is sad that the forests of both Borneos, the O-U's home, are being swallowed up at such a rate and a situation thats only going to accelerate.
If you want to read more about this and sepilok via a UK charity:
http://www.orangutan-appeal.org.uk/
We fly back to KK and it is encouraging that a lot of the flight is over cloud drenched virgin mountain forest which looks so stunning from the plane at 22000 feet.
Back to the Jesselton Hotel and Room 203, The Dampier Suite.

Malacca and Kuala Lumpur

It is sad to leave Matty and the gang but we have to move or the moss gathers! A short trip to Johor, the Malaysian border town, Passport control and we are in Malaysia. Its a 4 hour trip to Malacca. The land is generally forested although it has the scourge of the Palm Oil plantations that have hit this part of the world.
Vast plantations cover Malaysia and Indonesia to produce Bio-diesels and edible palm oil.
Reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palm_oil#Environmental_and_cultural_impact
The journey is pleasant and there we travel through small towns on the way to Malacca. Itis evident that we are now in a muslim country as the precense of mosques has increased, thankyou James! We are due in Malacca at noon and the heat is overwhelming. we pass the new large city mosque which is only rivalled in size by the new Tescos built right next to the bus station.
We taxi to the Puri Hotel, a boutique style chinese establishment in the old quarter of Malacca, one street from Jonker street, the cultural and market centre of 'Old Malacca'. Just by the entrance to Jonker street, from the old bridge you can see the remains of the portuguese fort that once made up an enclosing wall which protected Malacca. This has all gone but the foundations of the fort remains and there are people 'panning' the silt under the fort in the river for old Portuguese and British currency. The Puri hotel has been renovated and is really comfortable with a cool central courtyard where the restaurant and bars are all found with service from the 'hoard of a thousand' smiling waiters (Indonesian).
Malacca was the thriving central port of the area until the Portuguese rocked up in 1511 and spoiled the party. The usual change of hands ensued: the Dutch in 1611, English in the 1780's and Malaysian Independence was declared, again in Malacca, in 1957 or so.
The town has a rich history of immigration from all areas of SE Asia, Javanese, Sudanese, Burmese, Sulus, Khmers, Thais etc but the chinese immigrants imposed themselves on the trade to Malacca. A lot of the houses on the hotels street and the parallel Jonker street are old Peranakan houses of wealthy 'Baba' (chinese immigrant) merchants and their wives, the Nyonya (the names of the Straits born descendants of the original Chinese immigrants). They are shoulder to shoulder with classic chinese shop houses and restaurants in the old quarter. As in Singapore a lot of destruction of the old quarter has taken place in the modernisation of the town. Despite that there are some marvellous examples of the old houses which are mostley shops and bars now. The Geographer bar is a great central meeting place on Jonker street doing delicious Lhaksa or pie and chips. They also have a veritable fayre of music for the delictation. He plays a Moog organ and various drum and beat boxes and knocks out 'Feelings', rcok classics and is periodically joined by a 'Sheila' who does a throaty Tina Turner impression while her husband undresses her with his eyes from the ringside table...whatever turns you on! In the bar opposite there is the Malysian Cat Stevens who does a remarkable 'Here coms the sun' and 'Wild World' allbeit with a 'comedy chinese' overvoice and the battle of the 'one man bands' ensues.
It is hotter in Malacca than it was in Singapore and it is difficlut to stay out in the midday sun without being drenched in sweat and anyway if you venture out the locals are all relaxing in the shade. Transport around the old town is in Malacca tuk-tuk which are decorated to the extreme with silk flowers and lights all washed along with a thumping bass box under each seat pumping out rock anthems. The owners congregate in the old town square waiting for rides. They are the equivalent of the Gondaliers of Venice, great at a quick town tour and a serenade, but pirates of the backtreets with fares in the Rm10 for a stealthy 100m.
We don't spend enough time here and miss a lot of the sites. a week would do it justice. Unfortunately we have a 'one pound', two hour busride to Kuala Lumpur (KL)and we mean to be on it.
The bus takes us to Central KL and we get an equally long taxi ride to KL airport which costs '20 pounds' and parks us at the Concorde Airport Hotel which must be a converted barracks. We leave for Kota Kinabalu, Sabah in the morning. We booked this on a whim but this is the great advantage of having no plan (serious for a virgo), you can book great places at the drop of. The plane fairs are very cheap as well although this does not ease the 'green footprint' which is embarrasingly monstrous at the mo..sorry Polar Bears, but it may be too late already.

Sydney to Singapore

A quick flight from Sydney, 3 films and two dinners and we arrive in Singapore. Immediately the humidity hits you like a hot towel, the temperature changes and it is a all new kind of heat, but not entirely unpleasant. Matt and Lap y los ninos have just moved here from England and are layed up in some serviced apartments in the centre of town. We head there in a very air conditioned taxi.
Great to see Matty, Lap, Tamsin and Kai and their swish apartment on the 21st floor of 'Great World'. Apartments, shopping, swimming pool and your whole life in a block! Its a halfway house for gringos coming to live in Singapore and every nationality is represented.
Singapore is very clean, in fact so clean you could drop your cheese sandwich on the pavement, tread on it by mistake, kick it around the drains, leave it 'til breakfast and you would be completely safe...but don't try that at home.
It is truly a 21st century town in ever sense. Four levels of transport, higher and lower flight, MRT, overland and underground and it all runs like clockwork to all the places you need to go and a lot of it is free. This doesn't account for the 'Mall' effect which overcomes you after 4 days in the Mall 'serviced' Apartments. Symptoms are snacking, adoration of sushi, slight jitters on leaving serviced apartment, desire to return to safe haven of apartment, lavish treatments in mall (reflexology, massage etc) leading to eventual breakdown of normal functions and browsing of Mall 'style' magazines and purchase of flat from internet!
We visit Chinatown, Little India and other old style areas which retain the last vestiges of old Singapore. Fascinating lines of old shop houses in the old style, which are reflected in the new 'Living Malls' we are staying in: variation on a theme of shop/apartment living. This is essential now as it is so hot and everything needs to be air conditioned. It is strange to wander along the street in stifling heat and every so often pass a mall door and feel the cool air flooding out onto the street. How did they manage the heat pre-electricity and air-con. I guess movement was at a premium and one didn't work 9-5 in the heat of the day for HSBC.
And then of course we visit Orchard Boulevard and press our noses up against every shop window and dribble over 98" plasma screens, Ipods (variegated colours) and all manner of indulgencies of the sensory purchase organs. Its heaven for gadget-oholics and people here SHOP!! Your credit card spookily finds its way into your hand (much like the ring that Frodo and Bilbo have to look after) and you move towards shops unconsciously aching to purchase - its unnerving, you could get seriously credited-up here!
On the Sunday the whole gang go to Raffles for the Tiffin Curry. This is a 33 dish curry event that goes on every day in the Tiffin Room at the Hotel and it is a festival of flavours. All the curries are exquisitely prepared to the highest level of taste orgasm. One small trifle of each dish is enough to send flavour flares to the outer reaches of you pleasure nodes and bathe you in sherbet baths of delirium.
So its not half bad. The lavish decor of the hotel and the white gloved waiters take you back 100 years to a time when one had the time to lunch, digest and rouse for high tea without fear of interruption from working practises...i talk of course of the idle classes. Its such a pleasure to then digest lunch wandering around the hallowed archways of Raffles which has been lovingly restored and then sold to a Chinese hotel chain. (used to be owned by Swisshotels until they fell into admin with Swissair although i find it hard not to utter a titter at any financial problems to befall Swiss companies as they are generally so smug, with their smart window boxes and perfect chocolate...pah!!!) It is also the Autumn festival in Singapore and there are lanterns adorning every building and park, with food stalls and stages set up in everywhere for evening celebrations.
On our final night we go for a small celebration at the East Coast restaurant 'resort'.The meal is amazing and we are in the biggest restaurant in the world. We are on table 548 and we are surrounded by 500 people, one of 10 restaurants...all the waitresses have PDA's and order on these, the food then arriving minutes later 'fresh as' and all correcto!!
Singapore imports everything it eats, drives or washes with. It is an incredible city of contrasts, energy and ingenuity. On top of that where do all the builders come from? In England you can't get somebody to tile your bathroom and here everywhere is a building site. We are very smug in Europe but the impression is that
the East has got a lot further towards 'many people city living' and sharing the same space comfortably...town planners, please come to 'Red Dot'
Made a lucky escape from the mall and got out with credit virtually in tact, phew. Still feel slight jitters in the legs when i leave any mall...must aleviate with visit to Shakspeares house!!!

23000km later, Sydney and birthdays

A quick flight from Ballina and back to the starting point in June, lovely, gorgeous Sydney! Time flies and we arrive back in Sydney with a better view of Australia as a country and its potential for its occupants. Its a massive country with vast wealth in mineral, cultural and landscape terms. The people are optimistic, proud and determined to let the world share in their fortune. The word competitive springs to everyones mind with the mention of Australia in the sporting arena, and rightly so, but i think that pertains mainly to sport and they are much more thoughtful and level headed in other areas. The countries treatment of the Aboriginies is rubbish but England doesn't have too much to be proud of in the treatment of Indigenous populations and to support Australia in this sticky issue is the most constructive approach. Great to be back with Nick and Nikki and to have CloDeli around the corner again for large breakfasts and a place to sit and watch the world go past in Clovelly. Its a busy mini street with all the essentials available: Clodeli is the hub and people who breakfast from all walks are in and out for take outs or a sit-downs.
The 'Tagine' is particularly yummy, hot and tasty with poached eggs laced with peperoni sausage in a spiced sauce washed down with a frothed flat-white (latte in anybody elses language).
We are in for a birthday treat with some old KJCérs coming around for a catch up and a supper. A double celebration as Nick is off to climb Kilimanjaroo and is leaving the next day via Dar Es Salaam (Always sounds exotic and dangerous) before setting off to climb the peak which is 5895m although it is made up of three distinct peaks.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Kilimanjaro
We have a fantastic dinner with some great company complete with a highly competitive game of 'Articulate' which became competitive as a direct result of the formation of teams - Old KJCérs against the rest of the world...which arouses the latent competitive fire in any aussies gut...game on!
Lovely evening with a little back-slapping about how good we all look for our age and how there couldn't be a better looking group in the world sitting down for dinner
looking less like their age etc etc...foolish words man. Please welcome..the 40+ hangover that takes a week to clear...the sort an average student can shake off by 11 before joining the Olympic drinking team for a weekend saturated in spirit...alas, i knew you well, once.
We set off on the Sunday (still a day to go before the birthday but this is one to last a few days) for Melbourne with Jetstar who drop us off at Avalon airport on the west side of Geelong. We set off north which will take us through Ararat, Warracknabeal, Ballarat and places to Brad, Sue and Wills house. Them we met in Heron Island live in a beautiful agricultural area north of Warracknabeal. This is our final destination. On the way we stop in at Ararat to meet Brian Bourne (no relation to Jason), our guru and friend from Henley who is working a locum in a chiropractic practise. It is very cold here and this is it...its beautiful, the sun shines but a cold wind runs up the high street, up your trousers, through every crack in your house and you remain cold for a good portion of the year. We lunch and then Brian kindly gives us a treatment in the new practise. It feels like home!!
Next stop, Gualquil and the house that Brad and Sue built...with a little help from Will, their son. We arrive late in the evening and there is a supper and the largest choco cake sitting waiting for our attention. Great night and a chocolate cake that really is just chocolate...marvellous...we have to finish it off in the morning.
We get a tour of the farm in the morning, the land is parched a little and rain is needed now or as soon as..it is distinctly possible that it may not! Its a fertile area but is in a rain shadow and it is always a close thing on the crops. The wheat is looking a little short and there is brown appearing in sections...water please. We visit the goat colony - 500 or so - very popular with the Asian market and are good hardy animals to rear, they remind me of Isla Juan Fernandez - or Robinson Crusoe Island and the goats there which lived in perfect isolation without any particular problem for 300 years or so. Its a lovely farm and a real insight into the farming community in Victoria and Australia...bit like blighty really, same public indifference to the farmers plight. Will has just mastered the bi-cycle and it is an onour to see him careering around the yard for the first time.
We have very important dinner date in Melbourne for the third of its kind on this birthday...never tire of it. We arrive at Julien and Nicoles for a slurp of champagne before off for a top nosher at The Sails restaurant on Elwood seafront. It is brilliant and rounds off the birthday celebrations...a real treat and gracious, thanks to all those that took part!!
Back to Sydney via Jetstar for our last few days in Aus. Nikki, Nick and Alice have bought us tickets for Il Tricotto, Puccini at the Opera House...what an absolute treat and a great send off from Sydney. The performance is totally brilliant, the cast, the orchestra and the setting. Great birthday all round.
Now Asia and the Orient...with lashings of green curry, toast, Marmite and afternoon tea!

Brisbane to Byron Bay

We arrive in Brisbane and check into the same hotel as Malcolm and Mike, in fact the next room with a view over the Brisbane CBD where building is going on at a rampant pace...the same as the rest of Australia. Brisbanes population is anticiapted to rise from 1.4 million to 4 million by 2020...phew!
Quick dinner with Malcolm and Mike in the Southbank which bears a striking resemblance to Londons Southbank although the view across the harbour and relentless water taxis whisking people to all ports on the harbourside is where the comparison falls lame. Londons underused waterway, one of the greatest in the world is a travesty, even the Romans had water taxis to the northshore for 15 dinari!
In the morning we catch the Byron expressbus. It takes you straight to Byron through the attractive rolling hills along the highway going south. Byron is an island of serenity amongst towns bearing a striking resemblence to its US brethren with all things 'fastfood', allbeit with a charming addition of the Aussie slant. Every town has a blockbuster out of town shopping mall to augment the small line of original shops trying to 'bust' a living on scant takings. The growth of all the coastal towns is stratospheric...what is the legacy?
Byron is still as 'Byronesque' as we arrive in Shirley Street. People of all ages and degrees of hippydom parading with a definite feeling that you have come to animal farm for backpackers. The average age has plummeted from 52 to 27 by crossing the railway line (disused) at the entrance to Byron and the lines of shops implore you to strip off and get on the boardies.
The beach which stretches off into the distance northward has a few surfers near the wreck and a scatter of people soaking up the rays. We settle in to our apartment and nip off to woolworths for a fridge fill.
Byron has notoriousley fickle weather at this time of the year, beautiful sunny days interspersed with rain and storms.
Byron is awash with alternative medicine, treatments, crystal shops etc all pertaining to the health of the body, mind or spirit. Already relaxation has set in and its a town where you can sit in a cafe all day and let the passers-by wash over your visual senses. If you like vegan, vegetarian, fishatarian, low carbo, no gluten or a great side of kangaroo, there is an outlet on the corner.
I check in for acupuncture, a nutritionist, a homeopathist and a chance meeting with a numerist in a jewellers supplies a complement of the treatments on offer. The numerist particularly states some remarkable personality traits for Fo and I from just a birthdate and declares us imcomplete without the third member of the 17/11 gang..i refer of course to domenicus bertellius. We have to replace him with a blue stone which we must grip in our hand from its pocket refuge. Dom if you are there, its not as gripping or satisfying as having an evening of merriment in your company, although clearly a lot cheaper (not relevent).
My acupuncturist is a co-founder of the settlement of Nimbin which rose from the resistance movement which tied themselves to trees in the forest to the northwest of Byron some 30 years ago. From this grew the town which is a testament to freedom, free-love and top quality grass with a slight identity crisis in the rampant free-market economy Australia has become. It still holds on desperately to its roots and there is still a sense of great creativity of thought, music and art. This is evident at the local Sunday market in Byron Bay where food, music and art are all mixed in equal amounts in a scene which would sit comfortably in the San Fran of the 60's, including the odd Geri Garcia lookalike.
When the weather is unsettled in Byron we comfort ourselves with the great devil television but it is the US Open and the World Athletic Championships. How wonderful is television when you can just drink tea in Byron Bay, Aus and watch the Williams sisters in the baking humidity of New York...i must remember not to knock it in future.
Malcolm and Mike drive down from Brisbane to join us for a few days and walks to the Lighthouse with amazing views in all directions and possible dolphin sightings, meals in Why-Dot (Why-not with a cold and a bad font), Fresh and a couple of tight bands at the Beach Hotel round up a trip to the wonderful Byron. The bubble may be bursting though as building is becoming more onerous and expensive and shops with tricky expensive labels seem to creeping in under the cross-wire, ah well, plus ca change! Time to return to the beginning of the round Australia trek, 23,000km later.

Brisbane to Heron Island

The way to Heron Island is a well trodden path and there is always a great feeling of anticipation on the way there. Once you arrive in Brisbane you check in for the flight to Gladstone which has its own little sub terminal for planes with propellors which always seems like stepping back in time. The plane goes to Gladstone and then you are into the hotels radar and its all things 'Heron'. Gladstone is another town growing at an exponential rate due to it sitting on ludicrously large deposits of 'turkey wrap' or aluminium and coal. There is a huge port and a thousand ships waiting to get in a load Al or Fe into their bowels for dumping in China or Malaysia for 'their' building boom.
Heron Island is approached in one of two ways. By boat, a new 20 million super-cat or by helicopter. the helicopter is a great thrill and the pilot invariably dips down into the reefs that are all part of the same southern portion of the Great Barrier reef system. This is the southern most part of the 2000 km long reef and the largest living organism in the world..in our continual drive towards the biggest, the longest or the most enormous. It isn't of course one organism but it is a living continuous mass which does defy adjectives large enough to describe it! Anyway its awesome...
We take the boat and the trip takes two hours. The approach to the islands harbour is unmistakable. The plethora of blues, changing water depths, and the backdrop of yellow and green in an otherwise blue expanse is almost etherial. We are here..Heron Island and fve days of the best diving in the world, coupled with a tropical island of indescribable qualities...oh yes we like it!
Normally at christmas if you come there is a wildlife festival 24 hours a day. If the 'ruddy' noody turns aren't dive bombing you, the herons are causing havoc in the noddy's trees trying to steal their eggs and the 'mutton' birds caw like deserted babies all night in their nocturnal mating 'chat'. Meanwhile the turtles are coming onto the beach every night to lay their eggs which sometimes requires the use of the 'Turtle hotline' present in each of the rooms. If a turtle is in distress or is stuck in a tree root which often happens, one tap of the hotline and the 'turtle rescue team' are despatched to tackle any turtle tribulation!
There is also a research station run by the University of Brisbane which recently burnt down and is being rebuilt.
The diving lives up to expectations although the water temperature is lower than normal and the sun a little lower in the sky. Luckily Fo can snorkel at the same time as the divers are downunder...in fact in some cases the snorkellers see a lot more than the dive team...or so they say.
Brad is the buddy for the week. He is a farmer from north of Melbourne and has dived all over including a stint at the Coral Cay setup in the Phillipines. Only the second person i have met who has been on a Coral Cay expedition.
See www.coralcay.org
So in between diving, snorkelling, swimming with baby sharks in the evening and spending a bit of time with Brad, Sue and Will we just lay on the golden sands of the island and revelled in the solitude and silence. At night the stars reached right down to the horizon,they were as clear as i have seen and we were lucky enough to have a star expert on the island for a bit of education to boot.
Heron Island has to be top ten in the places you have to visit before you move to
Eastbourne.
Lets go to Brissie!!

Darwin, Cairns and Cape Tribulation

You pull out a tent peg and suddenly rendered frozen in a position no sensible human would choose bent staring at the floor cursing for England. We knew it was bound to happen to one of us slaves to our vertebrae discs – over six weeks camping full of tent erections and blow up mattresses, climbing in and out of cramped vans, on and off precarious bed-ledges designed for lithesome ten year olds. This time the twisted spirit of slippery discs frowned upon Marco – and we gingerly said farewell to Broome in baking sunshine leaving by plane instead of the 4WD drive tour of the Kimbereley’s to Darwin that would have taken us deeply off road 'outback' for sure.

Our short and sultry experience of Darwin was made all the more invigorating by the energetic company of Brad and Aileeen who seemingly took us under their wings as we bumbled around the Barramundi Lodge backpackers like fish out of water searching in vain for pain relief and our ensuite respectively! At 11pm it was a humid 28 degrees and sweat was collecting in pools at our feet. The temperature rockets up in the summer and the humidity clocks 100 per cent. Then only english-folk and backpackers venture out for some extra tea of a long run at midday in a freshly starched collar!!
Our new pals from the Northern territories (of the UK) took us for tours round the compact city which boasts all the trappings of a modern city, a posh harbour full of grog palaces, a waterfront, hotels full of japanese tourists and a higher than average use of valium and amphetamines! Darwin is a town full of outbacker spirit and a real frontier state...the closest town where you can get dinner being Kupang in West Timor. It has gone through sweeping changes over 20 years and boasts all the mod cons and an extraordinary council building which wouldn't be out of place in Gormenghast. Definitely worth a visit and of course right on the start/end of a visit to the Kimberleys
Unfortunately the stifling frustration of not being able to move, sit, stand or lie down comfortably drove Mark onwards and eastwards and we flew out of Darwin three days later to the more temperate climate of Cairns - in search of physiotherapy and the tropical rainforest.
We arrive in Carins and set up in the Comfort Inn. Charming people and comfy beds. Also a small bar by the pool which opened every night for Seabreezes and the 'Lobeter Pot' restaurant which included a chef who looked like he had just walked in from a stint on a desert island and didn't have time to spruce up before putting on the fatigues for cooking.

And this is where it to go a bit pear shaped! Having been a confirmed Brian ‘magic hands’ Bourne (chiropractor and white wizard) fan for years Marco was loathe to cross no mans land into enemy territory but a physio was all that was on offer. The result was almost predictable - and if it wasn't so mindnumbingly painful, rather amusing - and a full bells ringing, onlooker wailing removal from the the practise on a stretcher into an ambulance. This was only after an ethereal amount of morphine and a lot of encouragement from the paramedics, one of whom was from Weston-super-mare. Great photo opportunity pour moi! Especially the zimmer frame stolen from the one legged octagenerian in the bed next door – which heralded the first steps by our hero: definitely one for the archives!
After copious amounts of mind altering drugs (would prefer body altering ones please) we were able to set off to the tropical lushness of the rainforest in Cape Tribulation named by Capt Cook due to the problems he had navigating the Great Barruier Reef when he first landed on the east coast 80 years after old Uncle William. Us Dampiers’ are made of sterner stuff and I drove Mark carefully northwards after several days recuperation and catch-up with the English Premiership overlooking Cairns Esplanade. The piece of highway between Port Douglas and Cairns is probably my favourite patch of road this side of Austrlaia – empty white beaches joined at the hip with tangled rainforest and the most azure of seas. As we approached Cape Trib the weather got warmer and wetter – it is RAINforest after all and the road recently metallised wound through the twisting canopy and boughs like parasitic ivy. It felt wrong that modern technology and the combustion engine should invade this wonderland - where nature is in control and man is not King.
We holed up at Cape Trib camping in a safari tent straight from 'Carry on up the Khyber' The beach was on our doorstep and tropical birds seranaded us all day and night whilst forest turkeys wandered around the campsite with their red shrivelled necks a blank looks. the campsite was a mix of all nationalities from around the world and the camp kitchen was like 'Hells Kitchen' every night!!
The whole coast is a tangle of mangrove and Salties (large crocodiles) have made their home here. The females tend to live up the creeks and require about 1.5km of free space. The males are polygamous and like to have three or four females in their hareem and keep a close eye on them all, but they are their own bosses and they do have the weekends off!
Despite the beauty of the beaches and the surf you can only swim here for approx 4 months of the years. The stinger Jelly-fish, which live attached to the mangrove roots for the winter all release themselves into the creeks and then the sea and get mating too, then you swim in the sea at your peril.
We observed lady crocs in the creek trying to warm themselves up, the water temperature being a little too cool for them. They look so passive but i am sure they can move incredibly fast when roused.
The Daintree Rainforset is the oldest rainforest in the world at 65 million years and beats the Amazon by some way - the Amazon being about 10 million years old - and has the greatest diversity in the world. It is also the omnly place in the world where two world heritage sites meet each other..the Daintree Rainforest and the Great Barrier Reef and it certainly is a jewel in Australia.
We stop in at Port Douglas on the way back to Cairns. A beautiful coastal town with a beautiful river port and anchorage leading to the sea. It is also extremely posh and is littered with Hydratherapy hotels with attached golf courses..the ideal his and hers weekend spot. There are happy smiling uniformly tanned couples smiling at you from their futon romp having just returned from their respective therapies imploring you to join their world from hoarding outside every 'village', yuk...no thanks you obviously never eat cheesecake and i don't want a condo.
We ahve to leave Cairns for Brisbane and we have picked up a great diving deal for 'Heron Island'...so that is too good to miss.
Goodbye Cairns and hello island cheesecake!

The North West Highway, Karratha and Broome

It was a shame to leave Dampier, Karratha, Brad and the privateers coast, it had been fascinating and there was still much to discover in this industrial mining area but also one of the most beautiful coastlines we have visited. The mining companies actively discourage visitors here and it will remain so as long as they have a strangle hold over the available accommodation, the economy and the land...so be it. It seems that big companies will hold the glove in the north of Australia and its mineral resources with much of the money going overseas.
We set off for 80 mile beach which is the half way mark to Broome. We arrive at dusk, the road to the Caravan Park is red and sandy ...we slither to the gate and get our spot right by the beach. Its dark, the moon is large lighting up the beach which is covered in white shells. Its even more beautiful in the morning, the sun hot and high and fisherman all along the beach. The high tide is the time to catch the blue nose trout and the whole campsite must have been knee deep in water on the shoreline. A quick swim in the water, breakfast and on the road to Brooome. The road is red and long and we arrive late to the Roebuck Caravan park in Broome, we get an unpowered site and settle in. We walk down to the beach and the stairway to the moon is allegedly taking place this evening. The moon rises over the mudflats and is reflected a thousand times in the shallow water giving a path to the stars. Actually its slightly inclement for this to take place but 3-4000 people have gathered to watch from the town beach and its a beautiful white moonlit evening.
Broome is a great little town surrounded on all sides by beach. The town beach below the campsite has beautiful waters and allegedly...crocks. a lot of people stand on the edge of the water and look doubtfully at the sea..a few brave ones have taken the plunge...crocks or no crocks. The other beach is cable beach on the east of the coast. It is gorgeous and the popular beach in the town. We spend days lying on cable beach just chilling...its serene.
If we were going to visit the place Dampier anchored to careen his boat Cygnet in 1688 we had the not very difficult decision to make – shall we go and stay in Cape Leveque Koolmajan Resort? The answer would always be yes once visited and we flew to the tip of the Dampier Peninsula over flat bush, stunning inlets and beaches –to an exclusive, simple, peaceful and serene lodge/campsite where food and really comfortable accommodation is provided - and you are left to your own devices.
We made a rendezvous with Eric Hunter one of the Bardi people who runs the Tag-a-long tour and a boat hire business at the resort and hired him to take us to Karrakatta Bay near One Arm Point. The location of Dampier’s harbouring and cleaning of the Cygnet in 1688 has been fiercely discussed by historians for many years but the conclusion is the remote Karrakatta Bay which you can only approach in a hefty 4WD driven by someone who knew where he was going – and we luckily had Eric guiding us. When we arrived through a wood of paper-bark gum tree – Melaleuca, I was stunned to see the bay so wide and at very low tide exactly as Dampier described it – with mangroves and a wooded area, with low dunes where the crew set up their tents and repaired the sails. We were joined by thousands of soldier crabs all scuttling the same way across the wet sand, on serious manoeuvres, pincers to the sky. How could somewhere so beautiful be unvisited or not attract any inhabitants? Eric divulged that the Aboriginal Tourist Commission had considered setting up the resort there but the bay contains sites of ceremonial significance for the Bardi people who decided to settle for Cape Leveque.
We had an opportunity to walk the whole beach and photograph the aboriginal sites before we made our way to the community of One Arm Point the central settlement for the Bardi people. Here we bought water and snacks in the shop before Eric took us to the hatchery where we were entertained by Barry and Eric who explained how the fish and turtles were having a helping hand in their conservation and Barry very kindly presented me with a beautiful shell as a gift to a Dampier…..
On our way back to the log cabin we stopped at a viewpoint for Kings Sound where Dampier sailed and first touched base with the unknown country New Holland in 1688. It was on one of the islands here he met and conversed with the indigenous people of this exotic arid land, the first white man to record such a meeting, and later the native Australians were to be termed Aboriginal people, and where he wrote the description that was to last to present times and mark his place in history. Dampier had been to many countries and spent time with different cultures and native communities – but this was the first time a ship and white men had ever been seen by the long resident indigenous indians and it would change their destiny and history for ever.
I had an illuminating chat with Paul Sampi, Erics uncle and aboriginal elder of the local community Bardi people and I learned how some of the traditional practices of hunting and gathering are still used every day. Just as we were talking Bulla came by carrying his fishing spear back from a hard mornings work and gave me a quick demonstration how to catch my breakfast. In the 20th Century both Paul and Eric were brought up on a strict catholic mission in Lombardina and recalled several tough stories from their childhoods. Paul was proud to reveal he had 8 children and 36 grandchildren and how important they were to him – a good catholic through and through.
Back at our log cabin we had 2 more blissful days chilling writing and swimming with various creatures to comfort us – notably the green tree frog that lived in the loo cistern. We cannot recommend the Kooljaman resort and the friendship of the Bardi people high enough.
Back in Broome there is much Dampier memorabelia which is scattered around the town. There is a memorial park which houses a memorial to Dampier and gives some spurious information about a landing and buried treasure...all tosh i think.
Broome is a town with a real feeling of Australia which has been lost in the cappucino capitals around the rest of the country. Its refreshing and there is a spirit of freedom here being surrounded by thousands of miles of desert and bush.
The problem of booze and indigenous people getting 'out if it' is rampant here and its the worst i think we have seen. Still don't know whether there is an answer or it will just bumble not being addressed as is the policy it seems.
It is a sad day but we have to hand our beloved van back so we hire a load of equipment from Shane the camping Mafia. On the saturday it seems like the whole town is off to the 'Broome Races' (including Shane Belafonte) and all our campsite. We decline but the town is deserted as is the beach. Later that night there is much hilarity and champagne giggledrops and the couple next door to our tent have won the the 'Pearl necklace classic'...they bandy the trophy around and we get a shot, a horse shoe encrusted in pearls...quite a trophy. They have dressed for the occasion and all this around a dusty track on the northern spit of the town...Ascot, eat your heart out.
This is the busiest time of the year in the north and it is impossible to get flights, hotels, campsites and the flight to Darwin costs a 'kings ransome' The morning we leave 'Shane Belafonte' is unavailable after a skinfull at the races and we hang around..meanwhile i do my back in...brilliant!!! We set off for Darwin and the great 'Top End' and home of the Salties....new place, new adventures.

The North West Highway, Dampier Revisited

For 575kms the flat arid bush imperceptibly changed its landscape to hilly outcrops, some classified as ranges in the distance, of raw red sandstone – iron rich rising out of a perfectly flat tableland in between. We were heading into mining country where instead of plunder and pillage of the seas of beautiful fish white man turned his eye onto the land for some of the richest deposits of iron ore in the world. Hamersley Iron's operations in the Pilbara are integreated across eight mines, a dedicated heavy haul railway and port facilities in Dampier. From the enormous open cast at Tom Price to Karratha and Dampier the millions of acres of originally Aboriginal land was dedicated to make two huge companies, neither Australian owned, even huger. With the estimated value of $190 mdpd (million dollars per day) we're not talking small fry here and I wondered what royalties were paid to the Aboriginal communities for the 'use' of their land, after all they were there first! These often sacred sights of cultural significence...my understanding the answer in none, null, zero.
Our entry into Karratha after a long hot drive was a welcome of salvation - we would be saved by any number of fundamentalist Christian sects – with pole position taken by the Jehovas witnesses who sported their meeting hall proudly on the great north highway towards Karratha town centre. Then as we ventured along the Karratha north circular various side streets promised us secondary deliverence with sign posts to the Church of the Latter Day Saints (Mormons to you), the Seventh Day Adventist church, the good ol' Sali Army and last but by no means least the Catholics with a modern monstrosity pointing a pinnacle of hail mary's to the sky. Thank god! Atonement and retribution was close at hand – those mining sinners souls must be in desperate need for a whole lot of saving. Its funny isn't it that when you come upon a group of incredibly hard working fellows chasing the filthy dollar you always find some nutty types who want to save them from that murky fate? Ploughing on around several roundabouts we happened upon our little Bethlehem for the next few nights – Karratha Caravan Park. The reportedly upmarket Pilbarri Tourist Park had already decreed 'no room at the inn' and the alternative was KCP as we liked to call it who promised on the phone they would squeeze us in between a couple of their vans if we were lucky! We were – their address was Karratha Light Industrial estate – very salubrious but beggars and all that. Multi skilled Jazz greeted us to the Merthyr Tydfil of Western Australia, answered the phone three times, sorted some post for 2 large, very long bearded chaps who may have been in the band ZZ Top their flourescent jackets covered in a light red dust ,and told off her kids while handing me the a key to the toilet – 'Ladies is always kept locked love, you'll need this!' Mmm, an unsettled feeling was slowly creeping into my boiled dry subconscious – why did the ladies have to be kept locked? The answer didn't take long to dawn judging our new surroundings - we had booked into a miners residential camp for three nights and they might want to take a peek! I recalled the evangelists along the route to the camp – who am I to sit on the moral low ground? I would have thought brothels more useful in frustrated male environments, not God. After all wasn't Mary Magdalene….?
We had arranged to take a guided sail trip round the archipelago and land on East Lewis island where William Dampier had all those years ago with a fellow WD enthusiast Brad Beaumont and had to leave from a jetty in the town of Dampier a few kilometres away, so we made a hasty retreat from our new home to give the family namesake a reccy. We entered Dampier the town, created and named in 1966 as the new service port and accommodation to support the mining conglomerate Hammersley Iron and later Woodside Gas, now read Rio Tinto and Shell.If you look past the enormous tankers that hold 200,000 tons of iron ore and can be filled in 12 hours using the 2kms of rail trucks (behind one strong little engine), the gas terminal and the port you will gaze in wonder at the beauty of the Dampier Archipelago, low slung islands fading into the distance dotted in the sparkling sea like lonely lily pads on a pond. Everything was flat and quiet and we watched a stunning sunset over the bay, nearly tripping over the vibrant red Sturt pea (Willdampia Formosa) growing wild in the car park – was this some sort of sign?
The next landing point of the William voyage in 1699 was to journey north from Sharks Bay where the Roebuck crew 'jogg'd along' using 'favourable winds' the west coast of New Holland and found themselves threading the leaky ship carefully through the Dampier Archipelago named by French explorer of note, Louis de Freycinet over a century later in 1803 as an honour to this remarkable voyage of discovery. At first William anchored the Roebuck off Enderby Island and then on 1st September weighed anchor off East Lewis Island, took a tender with some of the crew and landed at what is now called Pirates Cove on East Lewis Island. Once more his curiosity and passion for natural history took him away to that different place he so often went when on dry land and he voraciously gathered specimens, recording their look, smell and taste and wrote himself into western natural history books. Modern research recognises that the 'stones all of a rusty colour, and Ponderous' are the natural heaps of dark red boulders lying on the shore today – Gidley Granophyree, an igneous intrusive rock approximately 3000 million years old. His gatherings included the species of Olearia, currently known as Eurybia dampieri; probably the Green Bird Flower (Crotalaria cunninghamii) named Bibarn Bibarn by the Ngarluma people who for thousands of years, unbeknownst to him and western naturalists for 250 years thereafter, used it in a solution as an eyewash for sore eyes, or soaked in a wet cloth and applied to the head to relieve headaches, swellings or pain; the common blue tropical plant Northern Bluebell (Trichodesma zeylanicum)aboriginal name Warrawanggan Jabajaba which they used either as a diuretic or to bathe sores once boiled in water.
We had the great fortune to sail to East Lewis with Brad and a curious crew of friendly folk on board the Spinifex Spray a double masted lugger, sporting the skull and crossbones me hearties! For Brad was another of those curious native Australians I keep meeting - a complete Dampier nut! How lucky am I to have so much interest and knowledge shared by people who are truly passionate about my extraordinary ancestor as I am. And I have to say Brad is the nearest thing to a bucaneer sea-dog you are going to meet - he has all the character and stories of a pioneering explorer having spent much of his life helping other countries while in the army and in other guises. He is a book himself - and I hope he takes a moment to record his adventures one day like William did.
We stepped onto the beach at East Lewis and it was exactly as William described - a tingle shivered down my spine. Brad knew this place well and showed us to the memorial the local school children had built for the William Dampier tricentenary in 1999. Just above the beach on one of the red ponderous rocks Willam referred to was some clear extraordinary rock art - maybe preceding Dampiers visit or not, another magical symbol of the indigenos 'owners' of this land.
We had a wonderful cooling swim, a hearty lunch and beers were had by all. On our return we stopped on Sams island, where an unusual characterful Serb had lived in a self built fort and where he is now buried. Brad is involved with the upkeep of this beautiful place, an island of independence in a corporate landscape of huge (mostly offshore) mining companies. Sam arrived in Australia and worked in the mines and eventually moved to he isand in sight of the port, already a reasonably large operation. He built himself a house to live in, a castle and a kitchen to cook in. When he retired he moved here permanantly and the palm trees he had planted many years before served his shady patch where he sat and surveyed his territory. An attempt was made to evict him but it failed ad he died and was buried on his plot. It commands beautiful views of the bay and it is still tempting to ring the bell Sam installed to announce your arrival to the birds, lizards and other creatures which live in his shaded garden.

the North West Highway, Coral Bay

Its another tantalising piece of road to Coral Bay which is still the great NW highway with a turnoff to Coral Bay. The roads are all sealed but the one to Coral Bay was a recent addition. Prior to that it was a dirt track and a 4WD domain which kept the Britz toaster brigade and anybody with 2WD out. Now it is relatively easy place to get to and a regular stop on the flashpacker trail. Now when we left Denham, Des and Annette took pity on us and gave us a Bill Bryson Audiobook..Downunder.
We are the only Britz van with a tape machine in the western desert and the Western Hemispere...sigh
We had listened to TBO Elton John which is great...the first 26 times...and then well Sad Songs becomes saddos and then we have to switch to ABC Western Australia radio which is a bit 'Good Morning Vietnam' a la Radio 210. Thats the local nonsense in Reading...and then there is James Lush who god bless his mum...sounds like Gary Davies...the king of nonces if ever there was from the heady days of Radio 1...well when you are about to renounce the Lion King and apply to the priesthood for a vow of silence...turn it over.
So we cut into Bill Bryson. Actually I think he is a brilliant writer in his genre and the stories about England, the pubs, the people. We pick up in Aussie and he beautifully describes Perth and then embellishes each stroy with facts, simple stuff. Lovely bit about the Stromatolites in Hamelin Pools where we had just been and a lovely bit about a trip to Alice Springs with his producer mate from the beeb involving good aussie hangovers and not opening puffy eyes for risk of bleeding to death!
Anyway a very good story which really tickled the van muppets:
'So this freind of his is having an extension done and his daughter was helping the builders. At the end of the week they give her a silver coin for helping them and the father takes her to the bank to open an account. The manager asks her if she enjoys working with the builders and she says yes. Then he asks her if the builders are likely to be on site next week and if she is going to be working and she says 'only if we get the fucking bricks!' boom boom. Well after a diet of EJ this was a breath of humour badly needed.
After all this we arrive in Coral Bay and it looks small, sandy and the home to Ningaloo Reef. There is lots of men gathered around another gutting table for the
catch of the day so fishing is all well and good and living in Coral Bay. The campsite is great and we wander to the Dive shop. We dive tomorrow on Ningaloo - inner reef.
From the shore you can see the reef fringes the whole bay and forms a sanctuary inside for the inner reef. The weather has been rubbish recently and diving on the outer reef, where the big fish live and probably the sharks, is a no go.
The reef stretches up to Exmouth in the north and Whale Sharks are here for 2 months and have just left..no worries.
The diving the next day is fabulous and then we snorkel in the bay in the afternoon which is a tad murky but the water is a beautiful temperature and there is coral and stuff to see. Fo comes snorkelling on the dive boat and probaly sees more life on the surface than we do below the surface. The coral is in great nick and there is plenty of life with sharks, rays and barracuda around. The next day we are doing the
'Manta Ray interactive experience' as the lingo goes.
We leave at 9 as usual and make for the place the spotter plane tells us the Mantas want to get 'interactive'. The visibility sucks and i think the pilot has been on the grog. We follow a couple of cold leads and then Emily, Dive Master and spotter girl, gets a hot lead and swims along behind the assailant with her arm directly in the air indicating visual contact. She was very fast considering she only had one arm and two fins to propell with and she signalled for us to enter the water. We followed the Manta for a long way but didn't interact too much as she was clearly late for a meeting on the other side of the reef and we were all in hot pursuit. They are truly beautiful animals and there will be other meetings! We knock off and head for a dive on the reef again. Very beautiful, lots of life and a great divemaster in Emily who can finally bring her arm down from above her head with some heavy physio.
Apart from the diving and the local fauna in the bayside cafe the town is deliciously small, the beach reaches all the way round the bay where you can always find a quiet spot to yourself and its generally paradise. Like the whole of the west coast at this time of year campsites are full, you cannot book ahead in most cases and everybody wants to be in the same place. It is set to grow although hopefully it won't lose the special atmosphere it has now. Besides that there is still very few resorts on the coast and heaps of coast. We have to leave, the toast is ready and we have only a couple of weeks to get to Broome...back on the highway again towards Karratha and Dampier, Fo's spiritual home!

The North West Highway to Coral Bay

We leave Perth in our Moulinex Toaster (Britz Camper) looking forward to nights being serenaded by cicadas gazing lazily into the skies as thousands of shooting stars break over our heads as we barby the hind quarters of a mammal or two. You really do leave civilization very quickly and we were on the open road. Other campers showed their respect by a wave of the hand...we were in a huge club of toasters all cooking slices around the rim of Australia. Allegedly because of the season it is the only way to travel as hotels are full and there ain't nowhere else to stay...Hail the camper van nee 'galloping Gourmet' kitchen on wheels...no crustaceans will be safe in our neck of the woods..you will fry!!! Our first stop is Cervantes, crayfish capital of Western Australia (WA). It is now off season and the boats are pulled up onto the shore and the fisherman have all gone off to spend their wads up and down the coast. We check into the Pinnacles Camping Park. Standard issue in WA is a 'very large' 4Wdrive with 'roo-bars' on the front (preferably with a Rams horns mounted atop - a la 'Dukes of Hazard') towing a large camper...the Roo-bars are essential as we nearly took out two Joeys as we foolishly disregarded the advise about driving at dusk, and they are very big! Their carcases lie on the side of the road where other 'duskers' have come to grief. We cook ourselves spaghetti bolognese...when in Rome...and a charming fellow from the next camper along called Andrew drops in with some friendley advice and a bottle of Kinwarra for the Spag. Its delicious and the stars and planets, especially Venus, welcome us to Cervantes. The camper is split into two and one bed is made up of the seats and table, the other is a shelf perched above this table with a foot of room above it. I get the shelf....by dint of fact that i can actually climb up there and by getting into a particular position which would have made Houdini envious...remove my clothes and wriggle into my sleeping bag. If you want to get out in the night..forget it. In the dark you have to balance one foot on the sink and the other on the end of the seat/bed and lower yourself into the abyss...reversing the procedure for re-entry to shelfdom! Its the best nights sleep I've had for a while which must mean I have tendencies to Japanese hotels and karaoke...strange. Fo, being an insomniac is awake through the whole procedure reading 'Billabong Bills 50 easy to cook Emu/roadkill' recipes. We leave teh campsite and drop into the garage/deli/bakery/bait&tackle shop/family advise centre for breakfast. A terribly gay blade cooked us a slap-up and gave us some friendly advise about the best way to approach a pinnacle although i think we are on crossed conjugates at this point and we leave for the 'Pinnacles Desert'...which is full of pinnacles. Extraordinary large natural forms of re-cemented sandstone in a sea of sand dunes. They are dramatic and interesting and we both mount one for the benefits of a saucy photo! We leave knowing we have a long drive ahead to Sharks Bay and Denham...hoping its nothing like the one near Slough. We arrive just before roadkill'o'clock and check into a charming campsite on the bay run by whats left of Stalag 93 from '44. The bay is fabulous and we take an dusk walk along the esplanade into town. We have already enquired with Haupmansturer sheila in the camp shop and she rather charmingly assured us that no boats would take us to Dirk Hartog (DH) Island where Dampier landed in 1699. Strange really, the bay is full of boats and you can see DH island, surely some salty seadog would dump us there before going off to the slaughter that is the fishing charter business that is the mainstay of the fleet. On top of this there must be a hundred boats all parked around town all waiting to join in the fishing-fest nay daily marine slaughter! We talk to the first fishing boat 'Unreal' fish charters...well!!! Heath (not cliffe) agrees to take us and he is the friendliest seadog you could ever meet. Great we are set but not for a few days.
Still Denham has a wealth of things to do and we are going to do them all. First off snorkelling equipment and then to the beach. Snorkel for hours, nothing to see but the water is gorgeous...and what a sunset...this is definately not Slough!
Over the next few days we do the sights! We swim with dolphins at Monkey Mia, they are such perceptive animals and are very tame here, they are fed in the morning but not at any other times as they have a propensity to get lazy - then not go fishing for themselves or teach the little pups how to catch dinner. One pup this year has already died from starvation.
The following day we go to Whalebone and Shell beaches. Both beautiful places in this empty landscape where you are unlucky if you are not the only visitors. There is so much space and so much unspoilt coastline. The coast from Perth to Exmouth is 1800km -ish and then you have another 1000 or so km to Broome with only 6 or 7 small centres of population. Things are changing though and the area is in boomtime with the mines in the north desperate for workers and shortages of people all the way up the coast. Tourism is taking off but the only way to travel is in a camper and it really does feel like a frontier area with most of the roads having only recently been paved but they still flood if the rains come...which, rather surprisingly, they frequently do. This gives the whole area a carpet of light green and small flowers break out over the entire desert..thus the 'Flower State'
We also visit Eagle Bluff which is a meeting place for all kinds of Planktonics. Sharks, dugongs, turtles etc all come into the bay to feed and chat. The whole of Sharks bay is a marine reserve and covers some 24000km2 which is practically all carpeted in sea grass. The depth of the bay is sometimes only 4m and it traps the seawater in pockets. These pockets are distinct areas which have high salt concentrations becoming hypersaline. The species of animals that inhabit these hypersaline areas are thus distinct to these pockets and adapt specifically to the local conditions. Thus you find specialist animals which are found nowhere else on the coast or in the world. New species of animals are constantly being found in Sharks Bay and there is no sign that there is any shortage of new ones, just not enough scientists looking for them.
In the campsite there is a wealth of people and some fantastic characters and similar to the animals around here I imagine they are not found anywhere else in the world (except Earls Court obviously). They are colourful in their character, in their speech and stories and they are incredibly friendly, open, hospitable people who seem to enjoy every day for the 'hell of it'! I really like them. We have met Des and Annette, both psychologists (worrying) and they are great fun and a mine of information. They have the most gorgeous Labradoodle called Lizzie who is complete character and we want to steal her away and take her north. This is not practical.
Dirk Hartog Island is tomorrow and the anticiaption is killing Fo...more spaghetti then to quell this over excitement........
....as a descendant of William Dampier I am honoured to write this piece of the blog -our trip to Dirk Hartog Island where Will landed in 1699 on his commissioned 'voyage to New Holland'. He had thoughfully written the coordinates down in his navigators log and so we landed at exactly the same spot of the island - now known as Dampier's Landing. Luckily for us we had a travelling companion and explorer Leon Deschamps, local Denham lad and acute Dampier nut - there is nothing he doesn't know about Dampier, Dirk Hartog, turtles and aboriginal pursuits to name but a few subjects.
We were all fascinated - including Heath and Byron our friendly seadog brothers.
We swam ashore to behold the low dunes just as Dampier had descibed them and a paradisical beach skirted with beautiful aquamarine shallows. Dampier collected and recorded 24 species of flora from the west coast of Oz, many from this exact point and his specimens still exist today in the herbarium at Oxford University. So I set about emulating my life-long hero and attempted to identify and collect the same species Dampier had 300 years ago. It was not difficult - my first step onto shore and I could see cuttle fish 'shell's' all across the tide line stretching away to the east. Dampier is attributed with the discovery and naming of the cuttle fish in the annals of natural history as well as the avacado, an archipelago, Sharks Bay itself and the word 'barbeque' to name but a few. He was quite a bashful fellow and didn't feel the need to name his discoveries after himself - sometimes losing the kudos of discovery thereafter.
We trod carefully through the bush and came upon the commemorative plaque installed at the site where he was expected to have collected his samples on August 17th 1999 exactly 300 years after he first set foot. Sadly we were reminded of 21st century man here where a plastic clad windswept barbeque (would you believe) blew in shredded tatters across our horizon. Leon was positively embarrassed.
We made our own discovery while on the beach - a magnificent armpour-plated crab with golden hairy legs and claws - hopefully a new sub-species (also a Dampier word)to be attributed to a Dampier in 2007!
We sadly had to leave Dampiers Landing if we were to sail round to Turtle Bay another haunt of Wills, and poor Leon and Byron had the unenviable job of hauling aboard this super slim torso. Talking of humpbacked whales, one very courteously breached before us as we rounded Cape Inscription - this was turning into the BEST day. The steep red cliffs of Turtle Bay loomed in front of us and again a beautiful beach with an array of shells and plants , and a sad little loggerhead turtle cemetry half way up the cliff - their husks baked in the sun. Leon speculated they had been taken by seabirds for a turtle meat lunch - but I wondered if they weren't washed up there during a storm as there were so many in one place.
This was another magical backdrop of family (and world) history with still a few more in Western Oz to go - sayonara Sharks Bay - we will return.....
It is sad to leave Denham, the campsite full of 'Go West' characters but Coral Bay calls and we have to go via Carnarvon...Wales?? On the way to Wales we stop off at Hamelin Pool, an old Telegraph Station, famous in itself as a telegraph station but an older more important living thing lurks here (and not the knotty old relic who sold me a cornetto. Here, in ancient reefs off the beach, are to be found stromatolites, the first living things to inhabit our planet 3.5 billion years ago and they are still slowly going about their business now. Single celled animals which grow only 1cm a year in a, leaving their skeleton behind in the form of prehistoric and pre 'National Desigh Awards' totally random lumps which to the untrained eye may be an insignificant blob. Not so these animals give off small amounts of oxygen which then accumulated over 2 billion years to give us our primeval oxygen rich atmosphere...so in effect the 'big daddy' of us all! Magnificent.
We stay the night in Carnarvon and they arrange a firework display for us, the charm offensive goes on. Its a day of revelling and boozing and they have indulged. There are merry folk everywhere and lots of people swigging out of highly suspicious bottles of coke.
We set off north again after a coffee and egg and bacon not...McMuffin from a charming Coffee shop in Carnarvon. We set off sated for the Blow Holes just up the coast.
Its a great drive, the recent rain has bought all the flowers out in the desert and we skirt the McCleod Lake to Quobba, blow hole capital!! Another breathtaking piece of coastline with the most incredible jets of water shooting up to 50-100 feet in the air as a front drop to a coastal swell of titanic proportions crashing onto the coastline and breaking on the reefs which fringe the coast. We stop for a little
snorkel in the bay. The water is not so clear due to the swell I imagine but it is a great little bay full of conflicting currents from the inlets and surprisingly good life on the reef. A stop for a Blowhole experience with photos...next stop Coral Bay.

Adelaide to Perth - The Nullabur Plain

All aboard the Indian Pacific – came over the tannoy in Adelaide rail station. A wonderful locomotive with silver grey carriages freshly washed for the similarly grey nomadic passengers. We jumped into Red Kangaroo class, very middle of the range – and cheerily laughed when shown to our sleeper cabins, the same size as your kitchen table. Not much snoring room for two chunky virgo's!
Across the Nullabour we voyage with 3000kms to go gaping at the soon-to-be-familiar vision of blue-grey low lying shrubbery speckled onto a deep terracotta backdrop , the occasional tree, there when you go to sleep and there when you wake up 7 hours later. At least a feeling of consistency.
When you spend time in an enclosed space with strangers from all corners of the globe,whether it be on board a Chilean ferry or an Australian train you certainly get to know their characters and habits enough to write a book, no less! I enjoy people watching at the best of times and I enjoy more trying to guess creatively their lives and places of work, why are they travelling, who have they left behind? This journey was no exception and we had a glorious time spying on (and being ignored by) those wealthy types in up-market Gold class who had their beds turned down and a 5 course gourmet meal with a selection of superior wines , Australian only of course. (We had what suspiciously looked like British Rail sandwiches turning up at the corners due to the air miles!) They had probably made their money investing in the Gold mines of the southwest and had come on this trip to see how their investment was doing at the Superpit in Kalgoorlie where we stopped for a few hours one evening. Kalgoorlie is a fascinating mining town before, after and during the goldrush and we were lucky enough to have the most amusing tour guide who was hell bent on showing us among other buildings, the houses belonging to the local hookers and their red lights. Luckily for the ermine clad elite, gold mining is going through a huge BOOM! and the giant pit (largest opencast mine in the world) full of seemingly dinky toy trucks it was so deep, produces 1 tonne of gold per day!! 'No worries' as they say out here - none at all it would seam!( 'Scuse the pun)
Everybody in Red Kagaroo class became familiar with a family of four children all under 8 yrs with the most patient amazonian mother and the naughtiest 3 year old Oscar running up and down the corridors in the sleeping carriages giving us all a wake up call at 5.30 am. His brothers and sister invariably locked him out of their carriage for a bit of peace I imagine so he could scream and yell making sure nobody else had any, until he was let in. "Oh so your'e Oscar' each grey haired occupant would say when they emerged blearily from their undersized carriage. He will be quite a character one day. When we arrived I was happy to note mum and all four kids were greeted at Perth, by her equally amazonian sister and three cousins. What a school holiday this will be - I wonder how may Dads would have made the same trip across the Nullabor?
Arriving in Perth we had the fortune to meet up with kindly friends of Sheryl Campbell whom we had spent many an hour chatting to on the Navimag trip in Chile, and they gave us valuable guidance on places to visit and how not to be run over by kangaroos on manouvres while driving our camper through the bush as we proceeded up the west coast of Australia. Perth is a beautiful city , spacious and green with wide avenues and stunning scenery, capped by Kings Park overlooking the city and Swan river. Here we whiled away many an hour tramping about the 1000 acres of botannical beauty and gazing humbly at the memorials of those who gave their lives through Australian history. It is a serene place of reflection in a stunning position.
In Freemantle the victorian buildings of worth still stand preserved with reverence contrasting with the innovative modern architecture of the Western Australian Maritime Museum . Here I was fortunate enough to meet Dr Mick McCarthy, Curator, marine archaeologist and professed Dampier fan who dived onto the wreck of Dampiers leaky ship the Roebuck, where it sank in Acension Island. His team, within the first hour of the expedition, salvaged the ships bell and a giant clam from Williams shell collection that went down with the ship. Fascinating stuff! I have to thank Mac for all his encouragement and guidance towards my plans of hopefully contributing further to the profile raising of old Uncle Willliam. You never know, my dreams may yet to come to fruition!

Melbourne to Adelaide

Leaving Sydney behind we head down Highway 1 on the first leg of our road trip round Australia. I am excited - the wind through my hair and another capacious hot chocolate in my tum we head for the hills - well the coast actually that lies between Sydney and Melbourne . The little corolla straining under the weight of our ever growing book collection we drive through plenty of eucalyptus forests not passing many cars at all which is, I am warned by the wise old fruit next to me, something I'd better get used to - oh,and its raining. No, I mean raining ,,,,hard. New South Wales and Victoria have been on desperate measures for 3 years without a single drop of rain and resevoirs at all time lows of 23% and the like - and all they had to do was invite a little known Dampier to stay and the whole place suddenly gets a lot more dampyer - hic!
Battling through the never ending forests of gum and the sound of it being rapaciously chewed in my ear by the now 18 months (and counting) non smoker we hole up in a pretty lagoonside town of Merimbula in a hotel motel with a peculiar sense of spatial design. The tumbleweed rolled past us down the deserted street as we attempt vainly to find a cafe, restaurant or front parlour open and warmly welcoming the disconsolate heroes with huge pies or roast of the day - and it was only 8pm. Eventually we had to 'knock up' a kindly Thai grandmother who was putting her bed socks on behind the CLOSED sign on the door and persuaded her to knock us up a quick chicken sate which we ate salaciously back 'home'.

Dawn broke behind a wall of water and leaving still fewer local smiling faces behind we set off towards Melbourne hoping to reach Bairnsdale for the next stop. We took a brave guess that this was not going to happen as we left New South Wales and progressed into Victoria....underwater. The bridge over the River Mitchell had been obscured by the torrent which had burst its banks -the road was closed. We were steered to stop overnight (but more likely 3 nights) at Lakes Entrance, the attractive tourist spot where several rivers converge into inland lakes that only a strip of land,the said township, and miles of stringy dunes,separates lake from ocean. This is where we should have used our combined MENSA score of 408 to work out that torrential rivers converge into lakes which overflow into...Lakes Entrance, and they did exactly that - into our motel car park overnight. So upon rising we were faced with the news that 3 lakes and four rivers were approaching from the rear and the full moon promised the highest tide of the year from the front - hmmn, time to leave. It became a humbling experience driving gingerly through little villages completely awash with river water, only the cross bar of the soccer goal visible above the swirling muddy soup and trees buried underwater almost to their tops. As we left the flood plains and climbed up towards melbourne the sheep in fields by the road gradually became whiter and cleaner - as they found higher ground.

We arrived in Melbourne to a very warm and fluffy welcome from Nicole and Julian, the highly fit and intelligent thirty somethings we had the pleasure to meet in El Calafate, Argentina on the Perito Merino Glacier. Would Mark manage a week of vegetarian fayre I wondered to myself as his face contorted at the sight of Lentil and Kidney Bean soup with extra pulses, vainly trying to pluck off the white hairs sticking to his black fleece, courtesy of Nic and Julians little princess, Chebbie. Seriously, we had a wonderful time slobbing out in their smart flat while they commuted to their highly important work places, interspersing huge cooked breakfasts with strenuous trips to art galleries and museums, Federation Square and the Luna Fun Park in St Kilda. Here our friendly Melbournians decided to pay me back for my slovenly ways by frightening me out of my pants on the oldest roller coaster on the planet seemingly made of balsa wood and old chewing gum and having a remarkable propencity to sway in time with the gusts of wind and rain. Thanks guys..... The other highlight of our stay was the nail biter game of rugger at the amazing MCG stadium between the All Blacks and the Wallabies - Mark knew, of course , the Aussies would win and they did - don't they always win everything??!

With a short 50 minute hop to Adelaide by air and our white fur covered luggage in tow, we arrived to be met by another old KJC school friend Jeremy Goldfinger, who seemingly has struck gold in his garden or won a bundle on Canasta in the Casino Royale in Monte Carlo! The lovely Vicky, a woman of the greatest patience, sweet Laura and vivacious Matt in his wedding dress greeted us at wind and rain swept Goldeneye Castle making us very comfortable and replete, and helped us watch Wimbledon late into the night. The following day we ventured together down to the coast to tiny seaside village of Sellecks where Gold-Bond has a beach house to see how it had faired after the storm and heigh ho, how small this world is, Trents parents live down the street behind! So a merry meeting was had by all where old friends met new and hopefully last as long as Goldenpants run of luck at the Casino!

With sage words of advice about investments and MI5 Jeremy dropped us at the Adelaide train station for the next leg of the trip boarding the Indian Pacific sleeper train to cross the Nullabur Plain to Perth. Grey nomads brigade - we were searching for our bus passes before we realised we still have fourteen years to go - and 3000kms - you just get carried away with the ambience of it all!