Perth at Night

MMMmmm pretty.

Wilsons Promontory

Our last long weekend was spent escaping the city to camp in beautiful and pristine Wilsons Promontory, the most southernly point of mainland Australia. Several trails and back country campsites were closed due to bush fires and we wimped out of the 22 k hike to the lighthouse on the tip of the Prom but, goodness gracious, there were enough spectacular hikes and sights near the Tidal River campsite.

The wind was biting and it rained yet fires were not allowed--in January this part of the park was consumed by fire. The campsite was saved but much of the nearby forest and bushland was burnt. However, the fire created its own beauty. It exposed the granite peaks of Mount Oberon and this spring brought regeneration: little fragile wildflowers, spiky cones growing out of grass tufts which only appear after fire, and leaves covering the blackened eucalypt trunks like moss.


If you hold your mouse over the pictures, we've tagged them all with labels.

steve comes to visit

My brother Steve spend a week of his three week Aussie adventure with us down in the tempermental south. There was a biting cold wind from the Antarctic when we hit the Great Ocean Road but 35 degree Celius weather a day or two later. However, he persevered despite Mother Nature's inconsistencies and his bum foot to clamber over the tidal pools at Anglesea, meet salty old lighthouse keepers, feed cute as possums, and pose in front of the iconic not-quite-12-anymore Apostles. We kept him readily supplied with cheap wine and tim tams. Or so we would have you believe. Fun was had by all.

Scooterin Perth

There's no cooler way to tour Perth. It's Fonzi cool. Video & photos of perth, fremantle, & Rottnest Island (quokkas!!.) Also included is a journey on the Highway to Hell that leads to the gravesite of Bon Scott. Hopefully he didn't & we don't end up there.

monkey mia

Way back three, four weeks ago, we flew to Western Australia for our last two week holiday. One surprising highlight on our Perth to Exmouth tour was a visit to famed Monkey Mia for the feeding of the wild dolphins. I don't know why it was such a surprise that it would be so cool but I guess we thought it would be a bit hokey. Of course it wasn't--I mean, we got to see these beautiful creatures up close! For a prairie girl like me, they are like real life unicorns: a creature of mythology in the flesh.

We had to wait a while for the dolphins to make their appearance (much to the disgust of a German tourist who was quite angry that they didn't keep to their ETA of 8 am). Finally, five dolphins showed up--four females, one with her very lively and playful young son. The park has a policy of only feeding mature dolphins as, in the past, the baby dolphins would become so reliant on the fish that they never learned to hunt. They also ration the amount of fish so it is more of a snack than a meal but the dolphins still show up. Below, this one is checking us out--they can't see 'up' very well so they need to roll on their side to get a good look. Lucky Damo got choosen to feed one!



We also got to see my new favorite bird: the pelican. I just adore the way they look with their big black eyes and waddling steps on their flat paddle feet. They're very graceful in the air and while standing still but clumsy-cute walking on the sand. They are also quite aggressive if you get close, lashing out with their giant pointy beak, opening it impossibly wide to threaten a chomp.

We do have friends (The Sequel)

A big thanks to Jackie and Doug Cameron (Nico's parents) who DID indeed make the 24 hour pilgrimage by plane from Canada all the way down under. For the first part of the trip I was back in Canada for work but managed to hook back in time for a visit to Alice Springs & Uluru, which Nico has already posted about. It was super nice of them to fly us out to visit the rock with them. It was also great to see them here!!

Highlights were visiting Uluru and Kata Tjuta (procouned Karta Choota) as Nico pointed out earlier.

While in Alice Springs (about 500 kms from the rock) we also hit the site of the REAL Alice Springs where the central telegraph station was built back in the 1800's. It cost 328,000 pounds to build and stretched from Adelaide to Darwin through the driest desert. The 'little town down the road' called Stuart (or Sturt...can't remember) eventually outgrew Alice Springs which went through many transformations from telegraph station, to POW camp, to Aboriginal indoctrination center (when the government took kids away from their parents in the hopes to indoctrinate them into white society,) etc. Now it's a historic park. Sturt took the name Alice Springs sometime in the 1900's.

We do have friends!

Screw you guys back home for not visiting us! At least we now know who our friends are - Darren & Kelly made the trip from Sydney down to see us for a four day weekend back on August 24th. One of those days was spent spanking a record hangover...damn you beer, wine, shots, highballs...

So where'd we take our visiting Aussies? To our favorite spots on the Great Ocean Road. Wreck Beach, The Koala Drive where you are sure to spot a plethora of koalas in the wild up close and personal, and, of course, the 12 apostles (well, only 9 remaining, those apostles keep dropping like, well, apostles being persecuted by the Romans.)

Unfortunately, all good things come to an end!

Stargazing

This is the shot I have been trying and trying to get...I finally got it! I wanted to do this with Uluru so that stripes of stars would be surrounding the giant rock at night, unfortunately I've never held the shutter open long enough. This shot was taken using 100 ASA film (very slow speed) with the camera on a stand. The shutter was held open for between 10 and 15 minutes turning night to day but leaving behind a stunning array of stars.


The second shot was taken pointing the camera straight up at the sky (and away from the moon which would over expose it.) You can see the milky way as a foggy patch running the length of the middle.

Ants on the Rock

This is why you avoid Uluru mid-morning.

To vote Damo off, dial . . . .

fact: Kata Tjuta (the Olgas) was even more stunning than Uluru. But that begs the question: is Damo even more stunning than Kata Tjuta? We hiked between the weirdly shaped bulges as Damo posed and preened.

One Giant Rock

fact: Uluru (Ayer's Rock) is indeed a great big rock. I know that may seem pretty self evident given its previous name but it wasn't until we got there that the immensity of this giant pebble hit home. It's not a big hill or a small mountain--it's one big red rock. Like an iceberg, a good chunk of it is underground. 345 metres are above ground and that's what we climbed.

fact: it is strongly recommended that you don't climb Uluru. Climbing was part of an initiation ceremony that marked the passage of boys into manhood so there's a cultural reason why they ask you not to climb. Secondly, it's just dangerous. At times, you're on a razor edge ridge, with just a metre of sloping space before the edge steeply drops off. There is a safety chain, but despite that, I got a bit freaked. I'm not scared of heights but I just don't like precarious situations and this was one of them. Damo, ironically, wasn't scared at all and he has a height phobia. But the Rock was there and, like countless other tourists before us, we couldn't resist its challenge.

Life on the Reef

We now ask that you travel back in time with us, not long ago, on a planet not very distant at all, in fact closer than you can imagine, Nico and Damo hit the Great Barrier Reef. Well, not hit it, but took a three hour boat tour (egads, first warning) out through inclemant seas to the Great Barrier Reef.

To be more specific, the date was July 19, 2006 and the planet was the planet Earth. And this trip was a 5 day spree in the Cairns/Port Douglas region of Australia just prior to our trip to 'The Top End.'

The boat ride over was through very rough water and several passengers were delicately grasping barf bags in the rear of the vessel (a reenactment of what this looks like is to the right.) Fortunately for us, this old crappy boat was not our final destination. Our final destination was The Reef Encounter, a live aboard pontoon boat for an overnight stay on the reef....it even had a hot tub to warm up after snorkelling or scuba diving.


The next post will be about our experiences on the live aboard vessel including snorkelling and scuba diving on the world's biggest reef. For now, sunset over the reef as we sipped on a nice glass of Cabernet Sauvignon...mmmm.

Ubirr

But, now you know this story,
and you'll be coming to earth.
You'll be part of earth when you die.
You responsible now.
You got to go with us.
To earth.
Might be you can hang on.
Hang onto this story.
To this earth.
Bill Neidjie, Gagudju Man (Aborigine caretaker of Kakadu)









Breathtaking views of Kakadu from atop the rock.



Rock art found at Ubirr: a scene depiciting a fight between two groups, superimposed by a fishing trap.









Look up, way up, on the ceiling of this rock overhang, to see the cute little Mimi spirit. As it was generally accepted that no human hands could reach over and below the overhang from the clifftop, nor could they reach that high from the ground to paint this little critter, it is said to be the work of the Mimi spirits--a little "hello there!" to the the humans.

rock art

Day Four of our camping tour: After an early morning primer at the Warradjan Aboriginal Cultural Centre on the cultures of the different groups who lived (and still live) in the Kakadu area, we hiked out to Nourlangie Rock to see the rock art, such as Ms. Nipply pictured here (a bad spirit).


This overhanging rock was used as a shelter during the Wet and has layers and layers of paintings--some possibly as old as 65 000 years. There are many many more rock art sites all around Kakadu and across Australia, some possibly 65 000 years old. Down south where we live, the recent bush fires in the Grampians National Park uncovered sites that no one knew about. There are also other sites that have restricted access due to the sacredness of the teachings and images.

At this site, there was a diversity of age and style in the paintings. Some were really old and more simplistic, such as these handprints. Others might be just a recent 200 years old--this ship records contact with the Europeans and, in other spots, lace gloves (like those worned by European women) and men with guns are painted on the rock walls.

It was amazing to see these messages from the past, the record of lives lived. Some of the stories and meaning behind the paintings have been lost when the different cultural groups have died out or been assimilated (forcibly and not). Other stories were not to be told outside a culture or gender group but there's been a recent push to break away from that tradition in order to preserve what knowledge still remains.

Here is the X-ray style of art--thought to teach the kids what fish or other animals were good to eat and which parts to cut and use. Also probably a bit of magic involved in these paintings--good luck for hunting or reverence for the creature who provides subsistence. Look closely behind the fish to see the kangaroo, an older style painting over which the XRay fish and turtle were painted.


They estimate the date of the paintings using various techiniques - some scientific - and some less so. For example, the subject of the paintings can be used to date the image - paintings of megafauna that have been extinct for 20,000 years must be at least 20,000 years old. Those showing a boomerang used in hunting would coincide with the time that the area was open dry plains instead of heavily forrested (try using a boomerang in a heavily forrested area - it doesn't work.) Those of boats, called 'Contact Art', less than 300 years old.

The paintings also have three distinct styles. The earliest form (like the handprints) are simply impressions and date back to possibly 60,000 years ago. These images were made by holding an object against the rock, filling the mouth with ochre paint and spraying it onto the rock wall. The next phase were stylistic images - like a solid kangaroo, other animals, or a series of images that tell a story. The final and most recent style is XRay art which is at most 2000 years old.