Dawin to Alice Springs

At this time of year a lot of Australia is really quite cold and in some places absolutely freezing. Darwin on the other hand was lovely and hot so I very much enjoyed a few days wandering around in the sun. I went on a nine day tour from Darwin down to Alice Springs which included visiting the Litchfield and Kakadu National Parks in the North and Uluru, Kata Tjutu and Kings Canyon when we got down to Alice Springs. Litchfield and Kakadu were both really beautiful. We visited termite mounds (I'm now quite knowledgeable on termites and how they spend their days) and lots of really pretty waterfalls and swimming holes. We visited rocks where there were Aboriginal paintings that dated back thousands of years and learnt some of the stories behind them, although a lot of the stories have never been told to non Aborigines. You have to earn the right to know them and sadly we have not. We went on a boat trip where we saw lots of crocodiles, both salt water ones - the huge ones that are very likely to eat you - and fresh water ones - the smaller ones which are less likely to eat you. There were so many different kinds of birds around. Although I've never been particularly excited about birds before I was really fascinated by them the whole time and now I think even the sea gulls are pretty cool! One bird which we didn't see whilst on the boat trip but that certainly deserves a special mention is the Punk Pigeon. Well, I'm not actually sure that that's it's real name but I'll put a photo of it on my bebo site and then you'll understand - such a cool bird!
On our journey South we stopped off at a place called Katherine Gorge where we walked around the top of the gorge whilst some people canoed in the river beneath us risking their lives with the crocodiles. It was again very beautiful and there were lots of lovely views across the endless country side. We stopped off to see the Devils Marbles. These were huge boulders in the middle of no where. We had the best time climbing around them and really could have spent all day there although disappointingly we only had an hour so our climbing was a little limited. We went to Daly Waters where the oldest pub in Australia is. This is a very strange place with lots of funny signs for sale and skittles set up in the road for any one who'd like to play. The pub is full of all sorts of memorabilia from people who have visited it in the past. I'd say the most popular items to be left there were underwear. There was a lot of driving to get down to Alice but our tour guide kept us amused with puzzles and games and getting us to help to fly the bus!
By the time we got down to Alice the weather was freezing. We got to have a swim in some warm thermal baths which was nice but not so nice when we had to get out, in fact not nice at all. We visited lots of special rocks which all together were so amazing. There were huge rocks called Kata Tjuta which we walked around. They would have been so much fun to climb but they're sacred to the Aborigines so we weren't aloud. We visited Uluru and walked all the way around (waring a hat and scarf the whole time) and watched the sun rise and set over it seeing the beautiful colours that the sun makes it turn. We visited Kings Canyon which was amazing but again extremely cold. On quite a few evenings lots of us slept out under the stars in swags. The sky there was so beautiful with hardly any lights to hide the stars and despite the temperatures going down to 1 degrees, with lots of layers of clothes on, my hat and scarf and two sleeping bags I actually wasn't too cold. Getting out in the morning wasn't the nicest experience though!

Come to Australia, you might accidentally get killed

Here are the words to a song all about some of the delightful creatures you might get to meet in Australia.....


Redback, Funnel-Web, Blue-ringed octopus
Taipan, Tigersnake and a Box jellyfish
Stonefish and the poison thing that lives in a shell
That spikes you when you pick it up

Come to Australia
You might accidentally get killed

Your life's constantly under threat
Have you been bitten yet?
You've only got three minutes left
Before a massive coronary breakdown

Redback, Funnel-Web, Blue-ringed octopus
Tiapan, Tigersnake and a Box jellyfish
Big shark just waiting for you to go swimming
At Bondi Beach

Come to Australia
You might accidentally get killed
Your blood is bound to be spilled
With fear your pants will be filled
Because you might accidentally get killed



So there we go, some words of wisdom! I have been lucky enough to meet a few of these lovely creatures and even had the privilege of being bitten by something not so nice whilst I was sleeping out in my swag - didn't stand a chance! I'm pleased to be able to say that I am still very much alive although this did lengthen my stay here in rainy Sydney. Hopefully though I will be in New Zealand in a few hours..... although I guess you never can be certain when in a land such as this one.

My stay on Tamborine Mountain

In between my work on the macadamia farm and my trip to Fraser Island I've been staying on Tamborine Mountain with my Auntie, Uncle, 8 year old cousin Jack and Cobber and Dart - their two dogs. It's a really relaxing place to be despite very frequent attacks from Jack who possibly has more weapons than the British army!
Although years ago a lot of the trees on the mountain were cut down so the land could be used for farming, there is now quite a lot of rainforest here and some beautiful walks through it. There are amazing views over to the coast on one side of the mountain and the other way, inland to more mountains. I've been cycling around the top of the mountain (haven't dared to go down it for fear of the journey back up) and have even gone to a couple of yoga classes! We went to a masked ball where I attempted to dance the Pride of Erin but failed miserably. My cousin and his partner on the other hand were experts.
My Uncle and cousin are both big fans of pies so on a few occasions we've been to a cafe that apparently sells the best pies around. I can't vouch for this from personal experience as all the pies had meat in them but I can say that never once was even a little bit of pie left on any plate at the end of the meal and they did do very nice vegie burgers with a huge amount of salad in them - a little tricky to eat without getting covered in food. Oh yes, and they did very good chocolate mud cake too.
We've been down to the coast where we had races coming in from the sea on body boards and have been up to a beautiful mountain called Mt Roberts where we walked through the rainforest. When I came to Australia before we had stayed here and my main memory was of feeding big crows outside our tent. There were two wooden posts, one shorter than the other and one crow would sit on the taller post, one on the shorter post and the rest on the ground. I'd throw a bit of bread in the air and the crow on the taller post would fly into the air and catch it then fly back to the ground. The crow on the shorter post would move up to the taller post and one of the crows on the ground would take its place. They were all extremely good at taking turns, something you perhaps would expect of crows! We went back and saw where we'd camped but all the surrounding plants had really grown and I couldn't see the feeding posts.
We spent a weekend away in a place called Killarney which is down near the New South Wales boarder. There is such a bad drought there that all the countryside around the town is brown. We had lunch in a little town called Tenterfield and explored the surrounding area. We drove to the top of mountains, did some rock climbing and talked to many, many sheep!

Fraser Island

Fraser Island is a beautiful sand island off the East coast of Australia, a few hours North of Brisbane. At around 166 square kilometers it is the largest sand island in the world. I spent a couple of days there with a group of people from all over the world. We drove along the beach to Indian Head where we climbed to the edge of the rocks and had really pretty views back down the island and out to sea. It was the very start of the whale season and we were lucky enough to see the spray from a whale (although the whale itself kept hidden) and a couple of Manta rays in the sea beneath us. We walked through the rainforest and went to a lake with crystal clear waters and white sandy beaches. We saw a dingo where we were staying and were warned that we shouldn't walk around alone as they might attack though this was the first and last one we saw. Somehow a few of us managed to get up at 5.30 in the morning to see the sun rise from the sea. This wasn't exactly what we saw as it was a little cloudy but it was very beautiful all the same.