A few backdated entries...


Amadee Lighthouse

Our last day on the island, which we spent having a much better time than expected at the Amadée lighthouse snorkeling.

I had booked a tour to the Amadée lighthouse earlier in the week from the tour operator in the hotel... Chris and I had a little argument; he said I paid twice as much as I should have since we had vouchers for A$60 each and I had paid 10200XPF. Hm. Grrrr... maybe those were the 'Japanese prices' that Andre warned us about. Chris then thought some more, and it looks like I only paid US$10 more …

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Nouméa, New Caledonia

Day of wandering about central Nouméa... with actual decisiveness towards the end! We rent a 4WD!

10:00am

One of the frustrating things I'm finding here in New Caledonia is that there are interesting things to see here on this island, but finding out where they are and how to get to them is very difficult. I've been trying to find more information about the strange plant life and landscapes here--but to no avail. The ranger at the Parc Provincal de la Rivière Bleue didn't have information, the botanic gardens …

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Bonjour

In New Caledonia. A very strange island. Half French, as in France French, with butter from Normandy shipped halfway around the world and Bordeaux wine. Nevermind that Australia and New Zealand are less than a three hour flight away... and the closest big city is Brisbane.

Getting irritated that I can't find any local information about interesting plants. It's not on most tourist's agendas... we're not the right kind of tourist, though. With prices so high here (an hour of Internet access at a cafe is US$10, a rental car is US$70 a day from a cheap place …

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Sydney, NSW, Australia to Nouméa, New Caledonia

A long day--flying to New Caledonia from Sydney, then getting to the hotel took up most of the day.

Early wakeup--6am. Got dressed, put the stuff in bags in the car (parked in an underground car park at the Stamford Plaza Airport), then a quick breakfast. Looking out the window, we could see the airport covered in fog, but we didn't worry.

Hopped on the 8am shuttle to the international terminal--which took forever as we also stopped by the Ibis and the Holiday Inn. Arrived at the airport at 8:45 and checked in for our 10:25 flight. The …

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Canberra, the past days


Tired Phrase

One heard three times today: "Australia is a young nation, so... [insert some whinging here]."

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Gippsland

Well, yesterday (Sunday) we had one thing to do: go to the Buchan Caves in eastern Victoria. It's one of the few nature thingies you can do regardless of the weather--and good for that, as it has just been pissing down rain on Saturday since we left the Prom. Fields were all flooded, rivers were surging, and potholes were sprouting.

Buchan Caves were fairly interesting; we did the Royal Cave tour. With six inches of rain in the past few days, they were wet as well--the water had percolated the 30m or so into the cave system, with dripping water …

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Invisible sizzle.

Yes, that's what I think I did to my modem when I plugged it into the lovely phone line at the St George Motor Inn in north Melbourne last week.

But all is better now; an quasi-cheapo PCMCIA modem now does the work. Still, I still think the old modem could be OK, and perhaps it's the phone system here in the past three hotels. They all emit an odd warbling tone for the dial tone--and then just go silent while you dial. Even now, I can't dial my very national ISP, Telstra BigPond, on this particular phone line. So …

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Wilsons Prom

Wonderful day hiking around at the Prom (Wilson's Promotory NP).

We rented a cabin in the park for tomorrow night, at the very southern tip of the park--and the Australian mainland! Should be fun, though it is a 19km hike in.

Yet another Strange Wildlife Sighting today: while waiting in the parking lot, Chris got a jump from a rosella that landed on the radio aerial! The rosella--a kind of parrot--then hopped onto the rear view mirror on my door. I snapped a few pics, then it flew off. It wasn't more than two feet away.

That's one thing …

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Things to do in Melbourne when you're dead tired.

Back from Tasmania. The ferry departed at about 4.30pm on Saturday. We once again took advantage of the 'Teen Lounge/Galactica' video game and pinball machines, noticing that (a) Teenagers of Today have no concept how to play pinball and (b) pinball machines on ships don't have their tilt sensors activated at all!

So we had dinner at 6.30, read a bit, and went to bed... for the ferry was scheduled to dock in Melbourne about 5:00am. yawn You couldn't sleep much past 3am anyway, since they kept on announcing 'Breakfast is now served in the Promenade …

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We don't care... we don't have to!

Grrr. My ISP, Telstra BigPond, has a very interesting ISP dialin number. There's only one number for all of Australia, and it's charged at the price of a local call (80 cents typically). Makes it handy.

Telstra, being the national telco company and holding a pretty good monopoly on local phone service, pulled this off by creating their very own special area code: 01.

Irritatingly enough, though, some PBX's can't handle this funky new-and-Telstra BigPond ISP number at all. Like the PBX that's in this rather dingy apartment we've rented for the week in Melbourne.

So... hee hee, I dusted …

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