Friday 31 May 2002: Rockhampton to Eungella, Queensland

In the morning, a quick visit to the Kershaw Gardens, an Australia native
botanic garden, then the other two Rockhampton tourist attractions of Dreamtime
Aboriginal Center and Capricornia Caves, before driving north to Eungella
National Park, west of Mackay.

Kershaw Botanic Gardens was OK.  Not spectacular, but not sucky
either--just OK.  It was built as a Bicentennial project in 1988, and is a
bit tatty here and there, but the trees and plants don't seem to mind!  
Almost all the plants were labeled, and as it specialized in dry tropical
natives, it was good to see.  I took many more …

more ...


Sun 26 May 2002: Mitchell to Longreach, Queensland

Another kinda long day through sparsely populated country, with just a break or two.
After yesterday's tiring day, we got on the road late--10:00--and drove west. About half an hour out of Mitchell, we spotted a turnoff for "Ooline Park", to find an out-of-the-way set of picnic tables and a bunch of numbered posts along a hillside trail. Nothing else. I was interested in finding the wily ooline tree, a rainforest remnant tree known to be growing in those semi-arid parts. No luck, though I did finally a good picture of a 5m tall prickly pear cactus. They grow …

more ...



Sat 25 May: Roma to Mitchell, Queensland, via the Mt Moffat section of Carnarvon National Park

A long 4WD touring day... about 500 kilometers long, through the little visited Mt Moffat section of Carnarvon National Park in western Queensland. We saw a bit of wildlife, and one of the caves with Aboriginal art, but were disappointed that the largest cave was closed a month ago, and the second largest was a bit damaged. It was a long day, with a bit of interesting things thrown in, but in the end just tiring.

We didn't sleep well. There was thunder and lightning all night, and the rain pounded on the metal roof of the motel off and …

more ...





Binna Burra to Brisbane to Surfers

Packing up early, we finished up at Binna Burra with a 'bush brekkie BBQ' and a trip on the flying fox, then headed into Brisbane for the final car preparation work for our Cape York and Kimberley trips. Once finished there, we decided to see what the Gold Coast is all about, and stayed in Surfer's Paradise for the night.

The bush breakfast was OK... Barry did all the cooking, and I saw how billy tea is made. Billy tea is simple: boil the water in the billy, throw in a handful of tea, take the billy off the fire …

more ...

McChenyism

Today on the news I saw VP Dick Cheney (on camera!) tell journalists they were 'unpatriotic' for asking how President George Bush reacted to intelligence reports in August 2001 about future terrorist attacks.

It's the 'you can't ask this question if you're a good American' defense.

After four months outside the US, I really don't trust George Bush as President if his administration is pulling this lame shit. So why do so many Americans think he's doing a great job? Are my fellow Americans that deluded that 21st-century McCarthyism is now acceptable to them?

Or do the major American news …

more ...



Lismore NSW to Brisbane, QUEENSLAND

[Note: Queensland is pronounced Queens-LAND, two distinct syllables, the S very distinct from the L.]

We left Lismore about 9 and drove east towards Byron Bay, then headed straight into Brisbane, stopping at Tropical Fruit World for some breakfast. Then we did a bit of shopping around Brisbane, had quite a yummy meal downtown, and headed to bed early.

The drive from Lismore to Byron was kinda congested; it was a busy Saturday morning. We headed straight out to the Byron Bay lighthouse, where just below is the most easterly point of the Australian mainland… and we were quite pleased …

more ...


Nouméa, New Caledonia

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 …

more ...

Canberra, the next day

Spend a wonderfully pleasant day in Canberra. Mailed off a box of books back home; for the record, it's A$60 to mail a 16kg box of printed material to the US.

Then a bit of more shopping at the clearance racks at Katmandhu, a block away from the apartment. I needed a few more hiking shirts, as my old North Face 100% nylon shirt has got a bit too stinky. Walked by a park with some 'garden sculptures' of huge casuarina seedpods--must get a picture of myself sitting on them tomorrow morning.

Then we drove over to the Australian …

more ...

Tired Phrase

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

more ...

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 …

more ...

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 …

more ...

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 about …

more ...