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Greetings from Bangkok. As promised an update on how our travels have gone so far (apologies for those who are doubled up on Rens mail). This is a long one so I suggest you go get your reading glasses!!
Well we made it to Thailand safe and sound, spent the first two days in Bangkok, it was a real eye opener - very smelly, very busy but very cool. The first day we went on a tour to a floating market where we floated on a boat and bought stuff - it was very cool, we then went to the Bridge over River Kwai and no real surprises it was a bridge over a river called Kwai. To be completely honest we didn't really have a clue what it was all about only that we had heard it somewhere in a movie and thought it would be cool to go and see, so we now know all the history and interesting facts surrounding it(some stuff to do with the war for those of you not in the know!), but a really cool little town and some great scenery. On the 2nd day we went to the Grand Palace and what a grand palace it was, very ornate - I assured Ren that we wouldn't have to wear any form of special attire as surely they cater for the tourist, however once we got there we were whistled over by the fashion police and ended up having to invest in a couple of sarongs.
We hightailed it out of Bangkok on the night train on Wed night heading North to Chang Mai, the excitement was huge as we had heard the train was very cool and quite taken with the whole concept of sleeping in a bed on a train. When we arrived at the station and boarded our house for the night we were quite surprised and I think Renee summed it up brilliantly with the comment "this looks nothing like the Blue Train" although to be fair it did have blue seats. However at about 9 o' clock a very helpful Thai man came around an whipped the rather uncomfortable fake leather seats into two excellent beds with sheets, a pillow, a curtain and a reading light - I was very chuffed and after a couple of rounds of Trivia Pursuit we settled in for the night.
We arrived in Chang Mai or Chow Main as Renee insisted on calling it and booked into the kiffest guest house with ...... a pool - a definite must considering the temperature when we landed in Bangkok was 37 degrees and hasn't dropped since. Chang Mai is brill, it is a very cool city with the inner part surrounded by a moat. We cruised around the night markets and did a bit of sight seeing and shopping and lazing by the pool.
Yesterday we set off on a 2 day/1 night trek to the hill tribes north of Chang Mai. We were accompanied by 2 English couples (just cant get away from the Brits - just kidding!!) and a Japanese guy called Japan (well that's what we called him anyway). We had a really cool guide called Tun (a hill triber himself). The trek started off with an hour and a half elephant ride through the rain forest - our elephant was called Moenie, what a sweety - Ren had heard elephants hairs were as sharp as needles and therefore was a little apprehensive at getting on Moenie - however the hair turned out to be normal and in now way injured us. What a jol - I loved the Elly. After that we set off on a hike up a hill, after about 15 minutes we wished we had gone to see the Flat Land Tribes as it was a helluva hill - perhaps even a mountain???? We stopped off for lunch at a water fall and then carried on up Everest - what a scene - Ren who proclaimed herself the Anthropologist of the trip (a childhood ambition) was calling the shots with Tun demanding breaks much to my delight. We arrived at the Karen Village Hill Tribe after 5 and immediately got comfy in our mud hut on our bamboo floor beds and nodded off for a bit due to extreme fatigue. We then got up and had a look around the tribe - hells bells this was like stuff out of another century - I think they were finding us as fascinating as we were finding them. We then had a Thai green curry cooked by Tun and some tunes from what turned out to be a rather musical group of people (me and Ren just listened!!!). After dinner Tun brought out desert - a bowl of fried maggots - seriously - he then ate about half the bowl claiming they were an aphrodisiac and then offered them around - after some serious rubber arm bending, Ren and I decided that if I do it you do it kind of thing, so we ended up eating fried maggots - yuck - although they tasted a little bit like coconut and would probably have been good if we didn't know what they were. Anyway to cut a long story shot, it was very cool - the one English couple got engaged that night (must have been the maggots), we then walked out of the hills the next day, got caught in a torrential downpour and learnt the true meaning of the word RAIN forest and bamboo rafted back to the spot where the truck picked us up.
All in all a very good week - Thailand so far has been a win. We are heading down South tomorrow to Ko Tao an island where we are planning on doing our Advanced Dive course.
Will keep you informed of our progress along the line but until then a Thai Boxing show beckons.
Keep well - Jo
Well just to update you all, me and Ren have spent the last 6 nights on an island called Ko Tao. Without a doubt it is the most beautiful place I have ever seen, we arrived here last Tuesday and couldn't believe our luck, it is white beaches with a turquoise sea and palm trees.
On Wed we started our diving, Ren did a refresher course and I joined her for a dive in the afternoon - it was really good, great to be underwater again, we then spent the rest of the afternoon snorkelling off the boat as everybody else was doing a second dive (we were saving ourselves for the Advanced course), we were pretending to be in the movie, The Big Blue, and free diving down to the coral, it was great until I almost burst my ear drum and had to retire to the boat for fear of causing any damage.
On Thursday we started our Advanced Course - the first two dives were a deep dive , 34 metres - very cool, we had to do underwater calculations to see whether we were narked (narked is when you get high from being so deep in the water) - suffice to say, Ren was seeing coloured spots and I was battling to added 80+90 - lots of fun. The second dive was a navigation one where we had to use a compass under water to navigate around, the best part of this dive was Ren was navigating in front of me and I was counting her kicks (to determine the distance) when she navigated straight into a Trigger Fish pit (Trigger Fish are very territorial fish and will attack when you invade their space) well as you can imagine these little guys (well not so little, about the size of small dogs) were not so chuffed with us swimming through their house and started attacking Rens fins - I was desperately trying not to laugh and catch up to Ren to tell her to watch out, what a lag!!
After these dives we took a day off and went on a trip to a marine park where we did 3 dives - it was amazing, we went and had lunch and the most incredible beach ever and then walked to an inland lake which looked like something out of the blue lagoon - very cool.
We then carried on with our Advanced course and the highlight had to be our night dive. It was so cool, we went out just before sunset and kitted up watching the sun set over the sea - amazing. We then jumped into the black water and descended to about 20 metres where we went Barracuda hunting - Barracuda (which are about half a metre long) hunt at night and if you spot one, you follow it and try and pick out a fish with your torch, once the Barracuda sees the fish it will attack and eat it - we managed to see 3 Barracuda's feeding, it really was a treat. Towards the end of the dive we all got into a semi circle at the bottom of the sea and the instructor signalled for use to turn off the torches, it was at this stage I realised I no longer had a torch???? I have no idea what I did with it, I thought Ren was playing a joke on me, so we ended up having a very confusing few minutes of me asked her to give my torch back and her swearing blind she didn't have it - the instructor was in hysterics - Dumb and Dumber go Advanced Diving!!, any way to cut a long story short, the torch was gone and all those that still had them, turned them off and when it was pitch black, you wave your arms and all these luminous things called phosphorescence appear - very cool!!
After we had finished our course, we decided to spend one more day on the island where we hired a scooter for the day, it wasn't quite as easy to ride this thing as originally expected, so me being the allocated driver spent the morning clutching onto the handle bars, after a few hours I said to Ren that I am really starting to get the hang of this thing - 10 minutes later we found ourselves veering off the road into a bush, narrowly missing a huge rock - it was time to take the evil thing back to its owner. Because of this we had the afternoon to kill and decided to go shark hunting, so hired a kayak and we managed to convince a Dive Master we had became friendly with to come with us as a guide/rower??? We paddled around to a place called Rocky Bay which is renown for its black tip reef sharks and tied our boat to a buoy and jumped off with snorkels - it was quite scary actually, I was expecting a huge Jaws like monster to come swimming out of the murky waters - but it was nothing like that, we spotted a couple of sharks (half a metre) and followed them underwater, it was actually amazing to swim with them, such majestic creatures that they make other fish look clumsy in the water. All in all Ko Tao has been superb, we have met some really cool people and done some really cool things, another win for the books.
We are catching an overnight ferry tonight back onto the main land where we are heading to a national park for a few days to go Tiger hunting. Will keep you updated on our next adventures.
Hope you are well and dying to hear news from home, so keep those emails coming.....
Keep well - Jo
Hope everybody is well, thanks for all the emails, its great to hear everybodies news and it keeps us chatting for hours. Once again this is a long one with bad spelling so you have been warned.....
I am writing this email from Singapore with Ren and Julia sitting right beside me!! Yes we have managed to meeting up with Julia safely although it have been quite an adventure getting here........
The last email I sent we were leaving Ko Tao - the diving island and heading to the jungle. We arrived in the jungle after quite and adventure on the overnight ferry which was described to us as "Avoid if possible", i will leave the rest up to your imagination but I now have quite a good idea how sheep and cattle feel. After a 4 hour ride on a local Thai bus with only local Thai people we arrived in the jungle and booked ourselves into the local jungle hut, which we thought would be fun as it had no electricty - well it was fun until the sun went down and we realised that we were a 10 minute walk through the jungle away from the nearest living soul - mmmmmm, a bit scary. We then went on a day trip into the National Park which was beautiful, a huge lake bordered by limestone cliffs - we had lunch on a floating lodge and then went on a 2 hour hike/climb through the jungle. This jungle has an eco system that is 160 millon years old so it was extremely dense and jungle like, quite cool. After the walk we got back on the boat and i discovered that i have been viscously attacked by a killer leech which happily crawled out of my sock - eeeeeekkk!!!!!
After the jungle we decided to head back to the beach and were convinced by 2 Swiss doctors to go on the public bus again as they also wanted to have an adventure like we had getting there. So the rubber arms got twisted and we ended up parking on the side of the road waiting for what turned out to be a very alusive public bus for an hour and a half, eventually hitch hiked on the back of a truck to the next town to catch our bus from there, we ended up catching a bus, tuk tuk and longboat to get to the beach, a journey that took 12 hours instead of the normal 3!!!!
Rai Ley Beach was awesome, really beutiful and we ended up seeing a whole bunch of people we had met up north and on Ko Tao so it was quite feastive, everybody seems to travel similar routes so i am sure it wont be the last time we see them. We spent about 4 days there and then decided to head down to Ko Phi Phi which is supposed to be one of the most beutiful islands in Thailand however.......
we arrived in a monsoon, it was heaving it down like I have never seen in my life, we got absolutely soaked to the bone and our backpacks and everything in them got just as wet - as you can imagine, not happy campers. We spend 3 days on Phi Phi and it just didnt stop raining, before the grumps set in we decided to cut our losses and head down to Malaysia.
As always Ren and Jo dont go the normal route, no we decided to go to the east coast of Malaysia while the rest of the backpacker population headed west (we didnt realise this at the time). We ended up in a mini van once again full of Thai people and we were the only westerners in sight, we were heading for the boarder - we had calculated that we would get there at 7:30pm - no worries - mmmmmm - i guess the purpose of having guide books is to read them beforehand as i opened our Malaysia one for the first time in the mini van only to read that the boarder closed any time between 5 and 9 depending on the mood of the customs guys - hells teeth, we began to frett but it got worse, we also read in the now very handy guide book that under no circumstanses should a westerner stay in the town just before the border as it is really dodgy and full of prostitues. As you can imagine the fright was enormous, i was having images of us camped up at the border for the night. However somebody was looking out for us and the Thai driver (who couldnt speak a word of english) took us straight to the boarder, we got there at about 7:45, it was still open and we put on our backpacks on the walked the half a kilometer through the boarder waving goodbye to Thailand having no idea what to expect on the other side.
Malaysia was wonderful - we spent the first night in a guesthouse in a town a hour from the boarder and then caught a ferry across to the Perinthean Islands which are described in the "handy guide book" as "The most beautiful in Malaysia". They were 2 small islands off the east coast and to me it felt like the remotest place i have been to yet. The weather still wasnt great but at least it didnt rain. We did a dive on our second day there which was brillent - it was on a reef called Secret Reef (28m) and it had the highest concentration of fish life i have ever seen under the water - brillent. We then went on a snorkelling trip the next day and snorkelled with turtles and a massive Black tipped Reef Shark, it was quite scary, I saw it first and grabbed Rens hand to pull her closer, she prompley grabbed me and put me and between herself and the shark!!!!
We were leaving the island on Sunday on the 4 o'clock ferry to get the the train station for the 8:20 train to Singapore. Of course the whole concept of pre-booking didnt really enter our heads and we have calculated that we had enough time and money to make it to the train station by 6:30 and were going to pay for the ticket on our Visas. Well at about 3 the weather turned and the 4 o'clock ferry decided that he didnt want to chance the choppy seas - this was not good for us as we had to, had to be in Singapore the next day to meet Julia. After an hour of begging we finally got a guy to agree to take us and 2 other couples at 5, the man kindly suggested that we cover our backpacks in black bags as it was going to be a wet ride, and a wet and rough ride it was. But all was well, we got to the train station at about 7:30 sopping wet and a little tired by this stage and happily asked for 2 tickets to Singapore to be placed on our Visa's, the response we got was, "what is a Visa??"... PANIC!!!! They didnt take visa only cash, so now we have under an hour to get cash somehow and back to the station - once again somebody was looking out for us as a very sweet Malaysian taxi driver said he was take us to get money and to the bus station so we could catch a bus - good one - after a 15 minute ride into town to get money, we went to the bus station only to find out that all the buses to Singapore were full - no worries the taxi man said, he knows another station, we went to the other station, also full!! It was not 7:55, we hopped back in his taxi and said "ride like the wind buddy - we have got a train to catch" - i reckon this guy had been a formula one driver in his past life as he drove like a machine, me and Ren sat in the back singing "Simply the Best" with Tina Turner on the radio. Well to cut a long story short we got on the train with minutes to spare after giving the taxi man what must have been the biggest tip of his life.
We arrived safely in Singapore in time to meet Julia at the airport. Singapore is great, reminds me very much of Dubai, large buildings, immacutly clean, its good to be back in a 1st world country again. We leave tomorrow night to Bali, Indonesia and will be spending the evening getting aquainted with it via the guide book!!!!!!
Once again thanks for the emails, its so great to hear from home, I apoligise for not emailing back all the time but some of the computers we have been on are so slow they are basically going backwards.
Until the next update....
Jo
Well, today is our last day in South East Asia, we have spent the last 10 days in Indonesia (We heard that it was the place to be at the moment and we are now on our way to Afghanistan - just kidding!!!)
We arrived in Bali 2 Thursday's ago after much deliberation in Singapore as to whether it was a good idea or not with the whole Muslim thing - however we found out that Bali is actually 90% Hindu so decided to give it a go..........
We started off in a place called Kuta which we quickly found out is Australia's version of Ibiza - full of drunk youngsters looking for some fun, now that we are mature young lasses we decided to swiftly move on and leave the partying for when we return to London/SA. We moved on to an island just off the East coast called Lembogan - it was cool but lacked the beauty of the Thai Beaches. The interesting thing about the island is that they grow Seaweed and when the tide is low you can see all the seaweed beds and the locals harvesting it. We did some really good snorkelling but the highlight of our time on the island was coming across an Indonesian religious ceremony (it was apparently their version of Christmas), the locals seemed happy to let us and a handful of other westerners observe - the general gist of the dancing and music was the good spirits (represented by a dragon type creature) were trying to get rid of the bad spirits (a very scary man dressed in a costume like some island witch doctor out of an Indiana Jones movies). It was all very exciting until the good spirit and the bad spirit were battling it out and we noticed the general crowd starting to get a bit edgy - a kind local informed us that the "actors" were in a trance and if they come near us, get ready to move quickly - and that we did, right out of there!!
After the island we headed inland to a place called Tirtaganges - it is famous for its hot springs which are filled with holy water, we stayed in a guesthouse right on the springs. After 5 minutes of being there we made friends with a "guide" called Gusti who invited us to come and watch cock fighting in his village, we happily agreed and found ourselves in a cock fighting pit surrounded by Balinese men, not another westerner or women in sight!! Cock fighting itself is quite gruesome, they tie blades to the back of the cocks legs and then harass them until they are quite grumpy, the crowd then places their bets by what seems like random shouting at nobody in particular??? and they then let the cocks go and they basically fly into each other and stab the other one until one dies!!!! It wasn't great to see but at I suppose its Bali's version of Spain's bull fighting - awful but very much a part of there culture and tradition.
The next day our pal Gusti took us on a 15km hike through terraced rice paddy fields and little Indonesian villages - it was fantastic, so pretty and rural and Gusti was a hoot all day long, he told us that "Bali is free from danger, it is cool like coca cola" - what a hoot!! It was this day when the US started bombing the Afs, we were quite concerned and contemplated getting out of Bali - after another discussion we decided to stay but move on as, although Tirtaganges was lovely we were the only people in our guesthouse for 2 nights and there were a very small number of western faces around - we started to feel that everybody had left Bali and we were the only uninformed muppets to remain!
So the next port of call was a place called Lovina - which was a coastal town with a lot more people around. We spent 4 days there, the highlights were snorkelling and going dolphin watching, it was actually really cool, the little ones were jumping and doing back flips, it was so sweet. We also did a lot of lazing around the pool and I for one was quite relived to be moving on before boredom set in.
So here we are sitting, exhausted, in a town called Ubud where we have been for the last 2 days - it is great - fantastic shopping which always makes girls happy, especially since we have managed to organise Julia's cousin to keep some of our stuff bags in Sydney with her until we get there - I have practically halved my backpack which in itself is going to make my life a lot easier from now onwards. The reason why we are exhausted is because we got up at 3:00am this morning and did an 8km hike up an active volcano with torches to see the sun set (something I haven't seen since I was about 16!!) We climbed Mt Batur which is Bali's 2nd biggest volcano, its last big eruption was in 1963, apparently it took out a few villages and people. The last time it erupted was in 1999 and 2 German tourists were killed, we had a fantastic guide called Good-day (seriously!!) who told us that he and the rest of the guides carried their bodies off the mountain - scary stuff hey??, apparently it just erupted without warning, its quite freaky to think that it could have erupted then and there for us (yeah right!!). It was amazing to see as the crater was still smoking and we could see where the sulphur had turned the rock yellow and the dried up lava. It was very cool!!!
So there ends our adventures in South East Asia, we are flying to Aus tonight and going to Cairns (top of Australia) via Sydney. I must admit as nice as Bali has been, and as safe as it was, I have had a slightly uneasy feeling throughout these 10 days and it will be a welcome relief to get out of Indonesia at during this time period.
I hope you are all well - as always thanks for the emails, it means the world to us getting news from home.
Until the next exciting episode......
Jo
Its sooo good to be in a country where bread tastes like bread and having milk in your tea is a viable option!!!
Australia is great..... we arrived in Cairns last Monday (top east of Oz) and spent a couple of days eating and finding out what there was to do in the country, after much ummmming and aaahhing we decided that the first thing we would do downunder was head outback. We decided to go on an all inclusive 5 day "Safari".....
We were picked up from our hostel by our Aussie tour guide Mark who immediately strapped into his best "Suif Effrikan" accent and spoke like that for the rest of the trip, we quickly retaliated by calling him Meeeaark for the next 5 days. When we got into the 4 wheel drive Safari Van we were greeted by 2 Swiss lasses, a German lad, 1 English girl and 3 English boys from - Birmingham - of course this brought on my very best "Northern" accent so between that and speaking to Meeeaark in Australian there wasn't much room left for the good ol South African accent in the next 5 days.
The first day we did some cool walking in the rainforest and swimming in waterfalls and taking photo's at lookout points. That night we stayed in a one horse town in a hostel and went on a night canoeing safari, it was really cool, I got to see a family of Kangaroo's (Mom, dad and Joey) which was really cool and some other funny fury things - Australia really does have some funny animals - wombats, possums, quolls, wallabies, kangaroos, wallaroos - all kinds of roo's.... they are all really cute and fury but wouldn't last a minute in Africa!! The one thing I was slightly disappointed about was not seeing a platypus - they were in the river where we were canoeing but the Swiss girl who we named, "The Swiss Mountain Goat", was basically a Camel Man and had her canoe going at a rate of knots and she was the only one to see them as she was miles ahead of the group and scared them off before we arrived - mmmmmmm - not impressed!!!
The next day we headed deep into the outback and did a serious walk to the top of a mountain, it was a great view but hard work. We then stopped off at another one horse town (population was about 120) to stock up on booze, that was quite a tourist attraction in itself, doing some local spotting!! That night we pulled up at out "campsite" - basically it was Nothing in the middle of Nowhere and had a lovely evening around the campfire and then settled down in our "Swags" (basically army type sleeping bags) and spent the night sleeping under the stars - it was very cool.
The next day after a bath in the local stream we stopped off at an aboriginal reservation and tried to learn how to play the didgeridoo - I however failed miserably at it the only sound I was able to make was a spitting type gargling sound (which I thought actually sounded better than the normal didgeridoo) - we then had a go at throwing a boomerang and once again I let the side down by only being able to throw it straight (which in itself is quite a feat!). Ren and Julia were getting really good at it and I got board of having to keep on fetching mine - the general consensus of the group was that I wouldn't have made a very good Aboriginal! We did however get a demonstration by a regta egta Abo called Marty (Maaarrrrdy) he was making the most amazing sounds out of it, he was making sounds of a dingo and kookaburra bird and kangaroos, it was brilliant!!
That evening was probably the highlight of my tour, we went to an old mining town as we were camping at the base of this old miners property, so we stopped in to say hi to him and lo and behold, you will never guess what was lying on the floor - a pet kangaroo called Rubi, well I never, I couldn't believe our luck. Rubi was so cute, she sat with us while we had tea, we got to pat her and have a look at her pouch, Julia was trying to get her to take a chocolate chip cookie "to put in her pouch" for later - she wasn't interested for some reason!! Rubi however got board of us before we could have a photo shoot with her, much to my distress!!!
Anyway I am now going into far to much detail so to sum up the rest of the trip, we spent that night sleeping in Swags once again, the next day we headed out of the outback up to a place called Cape Tribulation and Port Douglas , both really beautiful beaches and spent the night in a hostel up there, it was really nice, managed to have a few toots with the our fellow travellers. After the trip we were dropped off back in Cairns.
The next day we hooked up with one Birmingham guys (Jason) who has a camper van (we managed to convince him to come diving in Townsville with us) and we drove down in the van with him, spending 2 days in a place called Mission beach with was lovely. We are now in Townsville and have just been joined by Kate (the 4 lasses have been reunited again!!), tomorrow we are off on a 3 day, 2 night live aboard diving trip out to the Great Barrier Reef (you live and dive off the boat - yipee!!). Julia and Kate are coming with us but only going to be snorkelling - will let you know how it goes......
As always thanks for the all the emails, it keeps us entertained for hours relying stories from home. Hope you are all well and stay well.
I will write again soon...
Jo
Hi There
Hope all is well in London/SA/Alaska. I must apologise for not replying personally to emails but I promise to be better, now that we are in Australia the computer situation has vastly improved so that makes it a lot easier now!!
I know it hasn't been too long since my last mail but I thought I would write another one anyway as I have to tell you about the diving (be warned this is another long one!!).......
Diving on the Great Barrier Reef was a experience I will never forget. We booked onto a 3 day, 2 night liveaboard trip from a town called Townsville. We started out early in the morning and it took us 4 hours to get out to the reef, once we got there, we had a general briefing, of the 20 odd people on the boat, myself, Renee, Jason (the guy from Birmingham) and 3 others were certified divers, the rest were on their Open Water One Course (ie. learning how to dive for the first time). The instructor basically said to us that we can do our own thing if we felt confident enough. It was great, we looked at the reef from the boat and plotted the general direction we were going to take and jumped in. The first dive was just Ren, Jason and myself, it was really strange going on a dive by ourselves and not being lead by a Dive Master or instructor - the coral on the reef was outstanding and it was so much fun just cruising around underwater by ourselves. Kate and Julia were snorkelling and towards the end of the dive we saw them at the surface and entertained them (much to their delight) doing forward and backwards somersaults and blowing bubble rings (skills we picked up in Thailand). The second dive was much the same, the highlight of the day was the night dive......
No torch lost this time!! the dive itself wasn't great (didn't see much), Ren and myself decided to come up first and on our way up to the surface we bumped into 6 Manta Rays - it was incredible - they were just "flying" above and below us, amazing creatures (I have always wanted to see one and now there were 6!!!), I must admit we got a bit of a fright as we were unsure at that stage as to whether they were man eaters or not - turned out they were not and it was pretty cool for Kate and Julia as they could see their shadows from the boat.
The next day we moved onto a different part of the Reef and it was without a doubt the most beautiful coral I have eva seen. The first 2 dives we went with the instructor to a place called Shark Alley - looking for sharks, we didn't see any but I can't tell you how beautiful the coral and fish were. The 3rd dive we decided to go solo, Ren, Jason, myself and two Americans, this dive was without a doubt the best dive I had eva done (by this stage) it was soooooo beautiful under water we swam through Coral Gardens and in and out of the Reef there were shoals and shoals of amazing colourful fish, as we turned a corner we spotted a White Tipped Reef Shark that was just sitting on the bottom of the ocean, it was so amazing to watch it, once it sensed our presence it swam off and then turned around and swam straight for me and Ren - eeeeekkk - all of a sudden shark spotting wasn't so super, but it was fine it turned away just before it reached us!!!
Now the main reason why people do liveaboards from Townsville is because there is a Ship Wreck called the SS Yongala that lies 30m at the bottom of the ocean, because of this the conditions can be very variable and every person we spoke to on our way down to Townsville hadn't been able to dive it because the conditions weren't right and basically told us to not even get our hopes up. Just a bit of background about the Wreck. The SS Yongala was a passenger steamer that sank in 1911 taking 123 people with it, the ship is 300 foot long on lies in 30m of water, it is rated the BEST dive site in Australia and the 5th best Wreck dive in the world.......
The night before the instructor gathered us all together to do a briefing on the off chance that the conditions would allow us to dive it in the morning (they would only be able to tell us then). Basically in the briefing he told us that the current there was so strong that it could suck the mask off your face, the sea life around the Wreck was so dense that at times you couldn't see the ship and that the fish you would see will be the biggest you have eva and will eva see on a dive - mmmmmmmm!!!!!! At 5:30am the next morning we awoke to the captain shouting - THE SS YONGALA, it was game on!!!!!!
We kitted up and jumped in, we descended on a line, we were told under no circumstances to let go of the line, we soon found out why, the current was sooooo strong, as we descended all we could see was blue and then all of a sudden the shape of the ship entered our vision - it was breath-taking, me and Ren grabbed onto each other and started swimming along the ship holding tightly onto each others hands - it was incredible the entire ship was covered in the most amazing coral, there were fish everywhere, if you looked away from the ship out into the blue we could see massive tuna, mackerel and barracuda, the fish life around the ship was dense and huge - the normal reef fish were about 5 times bigger than we were used to seeing, there were massive white sea snakes cruising around (they are the most poisonous snakes in the world but apparently don't bite!!!!!!). We could make out the shape of the ship 100% and it was freaky to think of all those dead people/skeletons inside it. The first dive ended quite quickly for us (we only got half way along the ship) as we basically sucked our air dry within 20 minutes because of the strong current we were swimming against and the general excitement!! going up hanging onto the line we had to do our 5 meter safety stop and were basically like flagpoles flapping in the wind because the current was trying to pull us off the line. After an hours rest on the boat it was Yongala time again. This time we made a pact to try and conserve our air, the second dive was the best, we managed the swim the entire length of the ship from bow to stern, we saw the hugest fish I have eva seen in my whole life, it was massive, we had sea snakes cruising past our heads, we saw the coolest turtle just messing about in the ships hull, we had so much fun taking photo's of the ship and the fish that our instructor eventually came looking for us as everybody else was doing there safety stop already. The Yongala was undoubtabley the most unbelievable diving experience of my life - it probably wont get better than this unfortunately!!!!
After the diving we headed out of Townsville, (luckily Jason enjoys our company so we are still travelling in his camper van with him - what a luck for the oues!!) onto an Island called Magnetic Island, the highlights of this island for me were, spotting 2 Koala Bears in a tree (very cute!!!), having a Possum with its baby on her back come right onto our balcony to check out what we were having for dinner and having Rainbow Cockatiels eating bread off our hands.
We are now in a place called Airly Beach and are saying goodbye to Jason and doing a 3 day, 2 night sailing trip on a racing boat called the British Defender, I will let you know how it goes, should be a goodie. We are meeting our friend Alan next Tuesday so are all looking forward to seeing him and getting the London gos!!!
Well I am sure most of you have to get back to work now so I wont ramble on for any longer - until next time, stay well.
Lots a Luv
Jo
Howdy All
Well today is our last day in Oz, I am sitting in Sydney at the mo., freezing cold and soaking wet, yes I may as well be in London!!!!
Since my last mail we have been up to quite a bit, so here goes......
After the incredible diving experience we headed down (still in Campervan with English lad Jason) to Airlie beach. From Airlie beach we went sailing around the Whitsunday Islands on a yacht called the British Defencer, this particular boat has won the Whitbread Sailing Race (supposedly a famous race in Oz) a few times, i.e. it was a fast baby. It was very cool, we got to help sail the boat and once the sails were up the boat basically tilted on its side and rode like the wind, at times we were up to 14 knots and holding on for dear life. We slept two nights on the boat in little bays and also got to snorkel off the boat during the day. The Whitsunday Islands themselves had incredible beaches and views, its was a goodie!!
After Airlie we said goodbye to Jason and caught an overnight train to Harvey Bay, the train was quite an experience and we got our first taste of the Australian hillbillies which we referred to as "Train Folk", hells teeth it was a scene, the mullet hairdo and having no teeth is obviously the in thing around those parts!!
We met up with the our 5th and final travelling partner, Alan, in Harvey Bay and booked ourselves on a 4X4 trip to Fraser Island. What the 4X4 trip entailed was 11 people (5 of them being the South Africans) being grouped together, taken shopping for supplies for 3 days, being given camping equipment and a bloody great big 4x4, shown the general direction of the ferry onto the island and told to have a good time???? I couldn't believe they just give 11 strangers a 4x4 and let them loose on the Island to have a jol!!! Well as you can imagine the excitement was huge, Fraser Island is the worlds largest sand island, its beach is regarded as an official highway, lots of fun to be had. We met the other 6 people in the group, a very cool bunch of Poms, Canadians and a Dutch lass. The morning we left they gave us a talk on safety on the Island as it turns out many a traveller has managed to kill themselves by being daft - we were warned with our lives to be careful with the car as the 'very Australian' speaker kept on saying "If yiz do this... yiz is gonna get a ride yiz didn't pay for, or if yiz do that.... yiz aint commin off that island". Another warning we got was to stay out of the sea as it is a tiger shark breeding ground and as it was aptly put by the same Ozzy chap "Them sharks will eat yiz up then spew you up, then eat your mate, then spew him out, etc etc..", the final warning was that Fraser island is famous for its Dingoes (wild Australian dogs) and to be "Dingo Smart" and go to the toilet etc in groups. So with the fear of the devil in us we caught a ferry across to the island. It was brilliant, we went swimming in beautiful inland lakes, we all got a turn to drive along the beach, we got stuck in the sand a few times and all had to dig furiously to get the 4x4 out before the waves crashed over it. The first night we camped under the stars and got to know our fellow travellers over much red wine and tequila. Renee spotted the first Dingo running past our camp fire and it was basically game on with the Dingo's after that, they were everywhere, Julia became the chef Dingo spotter of the group and Julia, Kate and Ren almost went to the toilet on top of one's head at one stage - they are quite frightening things and can be very dangerous (a small boy was killed by one on the Island earlier this year!). We got to see some tiger sharks, turtles and rays from a lookout point called Indian Heads which was great and the second night we camped basically on the beach just under a massive sand dune. All in all a good time was had on Fraser Island, and we all got off the island safe and sound.
After Fraser we headed down to Sydney which is a beautiful city, so clean and vibrant, it is amazing to see the Opera house and Harbour Bridge after seeing so many pictures of them its quite weird to see them up close and personal. After spending a few days doing all the touristy things we headed out of Sydney to the Blue Mountains and Hunters Valley (the wine region) back in the camper van with Jason, we also got to the Olympic Village and had swimming races in the Olympic pool, which was cool. We are now back in Sydney and the weather is muck, I am really looking forward to NZ where we are heading tomorrow (lets hope the weather is kinder to us).
That's about it for the time being - hope all is well with everybody and as much as we are having a good time, all the family and friends are being missed and we cant wait to see every bodies funny faces again in Dec/Jan.
Until the next update ......
Jo
Well we are now on our last leg of the journey and have been in New Zealand for the last 2 weeks, due to the fact that NZ was our last port of call, I hadn't really thought too much about it or what to expect and I have been pleasantly surprised, it has turned out to but one of, if not the most beautiful country I have been to yet......
We arrived in Christchurch and spent our first few days at Richard's house (Kate's boy), waiting for him to finish work. Richard lives in a small country town (if you can call it that!) and it was cool to see how the locals do things. The highlight was going 4x4,ing in a river with Richard and friend's Landrovers, it was such a jol, he let the girls all have a go at manoeuvring this beast of a car and Renee did us all proud by taking the words "give it some gas" to the extreme and managed to get all 4 wheels in the air going up a 45 degree incline, both Kate and Julia managed to get the cars stuck in the river and we had to get towed out - go the girls!!!!
Once Richard had finished work, the 7 of us set out on a 3 week road trip around the South Island. The transport we are using is the oldest clapped-out Ford Escort you have ever seen which is named - The Pitt, and a 4 wheel drive bakkie which is named the Ute (short for Utility which is the Kiwi word for bakkie). Our first port of call was a mere hour and a half away to a town called Timuka where Richards Aunt and Uncle live. We pulled into their house for a braai and before we knew it, half the neighbourhood and their dogs had arrived to check out the Saffers. It wasn't long before the Uncle went into his shed/brewery and pulled out N number of jars of homebrew bourbon, a merry night was had by all which concluded in a rendition of 'Don't want to be all by myself' led by Ren, myself and Uncle Steve's dad, Grandad Bob - it was a goodie.
After that we headed to Nana Black's, Richards gran, we drove into the Mackenzie Basin through the most amazing scenery, with snow capped mountains and large turquoise-blue glacial lakes that look like mirrors. We decided to try and catch our dinner that night, however Kate turned out to be the only hunter of the pack and pulled in a good 15cm Rainbow Trout (which Nana rather undercooked for her breakfast much to Kates delight/horror!!!).
After saying cheers to the nana we headed to Queenstown, the extreme sport capital of NZ, you could do any kind of extreme sport your heart desired. We opted for lugeing which is basically racing down a mountain on a little go-cart, lots of fun. We also decided to go Jet Boating, this is when you go on a speed boat through a river canyon, it goes sooooo fast and the aim is to try and get the boat as close to the canyon sides as possible - I kid you not we missed the walls by inches, they also do 360 turns in the boat right up against the canyon, it really got the blood pumping!!!!!!
Next stop was Milford Sound - for myself, this turned out to be the most amazing/beautiful place I have been to in my 24 years on this earth, it was fantastic. It is basically a fjord, a sea inlet that had been carved by a glacier X number of years ago, the result was an inlet surrounded by massive cliffs that have cascading waterfalls coming off them, scenery like I have never seen before. We did an overnight cruise on the fjord and it was brilliant, we saw dolphins, seals, penguins, but the scenery was just out of this world - Kate hit the nail on the head when she said that it looked like something out of Jurassic Park. The night we went it was raining and misty which gave it a very eery feel, but sooo cool!!!!
After Milford we went to a place called Mt Aspiring (Richards favourite place in the world). We went on a 4 hour hike and ended up at the Rob Roy Glacier, once again the scenery was fantastic. This best thing about the day was whilst we were having lunch looking up at the Glacier, a large bit of it cracked off (it sounded like thunder) and started falling down the mountain, it was amazing seeing this large mass of snow coming tumbling down, it looked like a waterfall but of snow!! On the way back Richard amused us by catching sheep so we could all have a stroke and take a picture - hee hee, what a mullet!! That night we free camped in a random field amongst the sheep and cows, it was great, really getting back to nature, drinking from the stream and all that good stuff.
We now find our selves in a place called - mmmmmm - I am not sure to tell you the truth but we are going hiking tomorrow on a glacier with snow boots and ice picks - should be good but rather cold I think.
Well that's about it for the moment, we have just under 2 weeks left of our World Tour now, we have still got some cools things to look forward to but I am getting rather sad at the prospect of all the fun coming to an end.
Until the next and final exciting episode......
Jo
Hi There
Today is my the last day of my trip - scary stuff hey!!!
When I sent my last email, we were going on a glacier walk the next day however due to bad weather - i.e rain, we had to cancel that. Rain was the name of the game whilst we were on the West Coast (aptly named the Wet Coast), I had never seen so much rain, Ren decided to leave us at this stage and head back to SA so the touring party was down to 6. We decided to try and outrun the weather and headed upto Nelson where we wanted to go on a Sea Kayaking trip, only to find....... Rain. Apparently NZ was having its worse weather since 1893 - cool hey???? After spending a few rather frustrating days in Nelson we decided to head on to Kiakora, famous for its Whales, only to find that the Whales werent playing the game either, obviously fair weather creatures and there were none to be seen. Then all of a sudden the rain stopped and the fun began......
It started to clear in Kiakora where we were staying in "Luxary Apartments" owned by a really cool guy called Graham, the evening the weather cleared Graham gave us some fish he had caught that day and we decided to have a bonfire on the beach and braai them. It was so cool, we made a massive bonfire out of driftwood, cooked our fish (which were delicious) and watched the clouds move out, the sky clear and the stars come out. The next morning, Graham took Kate and I crayfish hunting in his boat, we helped/watched him pull up his crayfish pots out of 25m of water, squealing with delight when seeing the crayfish, all in all we/he caught 6 which he steamed for us and we ate with coffee that morning for breakfast - excellent!!!
The next day the sun came out and it was blue skys - game on!! We decided to head back to Nelson to do our kayaking trip. Armed with food for 3 days and camping equipement, we hired 3 Sea Kayaks, had a 4 hour briefing to make sure we knew what we were doing, had enough food/equipment and knew how to get out of difficult situations, etc, etc. A guide took us out for the first hour as it was very windy that morning and they were considering not letting us go, however once we hit the water the wind died down and it turned out to be a beautiful day. It was amazing, we were in 3 double kayaks (which we later named; The Panter, Wallis and Ginger - Jason and I were in the Panter which was bright pink and by far the best one!!!) cruising along the penisular of a National Park called Abal Tasman, the scenery was outstanding!! We paddled along and stopped at beaches for lunch and camped in little bays at night, we even had seals swimming right next to our Kayaks at one stage. We collected mussels and ate them on our second night, which I thought was great as we had now turned into hunter/gatherers and on that note Jason and myself turned our kayak into a fishing vessel on the last day and both managed to catch a fish with hand lines - a very exciting time for me as catching a fish was something I desperatly wanted to do before I left NZ. On the last day we took a fellow South Africans advise (who we meet at one of the camp sites) and turned out kayaks into sailing vessels and rafted The Panter, Wallis and Ginger together, used a tarpalin as a sail and sailed home much to the girls delight (at not having to paddle) and the boys horror (due to the lack of speed!!). What a wonderful experience.
After that we headed back to Grahams spot in Kiakora and this morning we had one more go at Whale spotting, this time we decided to go by helicopter!!! We arrived at the heli-pad in the morning only to be told that no whales had been spotted yet so the chances of seeing one was slim. We decided to give it a go anyway and all hopped into the helicopter. Just after take off we heard through our headsets that 4 Orca Whales had been spotted, well the excitment was enormous, Killer Whales are one of those things that I would give my left arm to see. We got above them and it was amazing there were 2 bulls and 2 cows, you could tell because the bulls had massive dorsal fins, we got to see them pretty close up - it was out of this world. After watching them for a while, I looked a little further out only to see the hugest shark ever, I informed the pilot and we went down to have a look, and it was, wait for it........ a 4 to 5 metre GREAT WHITE SHARK - can you belive it, hells teeth the excitment was just about over flowing, it looked so majestic in the water. On the way back we passed a huge pod of dolphins, which looked kind of boring in comparison. When we landed the pilot apologised because we we didnt get to see a Sperm Whale however what he didnt know what that I would have paid 50 times that to see a Killer Whale and a Great White Shark - it was perfect!!!!
Well NZ really has pulled one out the bag for us in our last week and I shall had very fond memories of this awesome country.
I cant belive today is the last day of my trip - to be honest I couldnt have asked for a better 3 and a half months, It has been wonderful seeing all these different places and being able to have these kind of experinces with my best friends.
Tomorrow I leave for South Africa and arrive there - tomorrow - mmmmmm. I am very excited to touch down on African soil again and even more excited to see my big brother Mark and all the Safers. After SA I am hitting London on the 14th Janauary which will be very exciting as I will get to see my Mum, Dad and little brother David and all the Londoners.
Well I guess that all folks no more long emails to trudge through.......
Check you later Jo