the way home...

the last time i wrote i was in lovely airlie beach on the great barrier reef. i am currently sitting in the delta airline lounge at the honolulu airport. sometimes my body tells me it has had enough and to not harass it anymore. i had yet another huge, gross blister on the bottom of my toe & the thought of schlepping my suitcase around with a pronounced limp seemed a bad idea. 5 years ago in a similar situation my sister susan almost physically ahd to put my on aplane from budapest because i was in such bad shape. so hoping to not to repeat that so badly i opted to head home. i will say it was a great trip and i should be happy to be leaving while i still wanted to be there and still was having fun as opposed to think i exhausted what i wanted to do. i met lots
of great people that i will email occasionally and look up if/when i am in calgary, london, ireland, brisbane, sydney and the aforementioned airlie beach. don't think you can ask for much more than that. i'll be in portland tonight, then head to socal for my sister's birthday this weekend. yahoo!

GBR

here are the few pictures that I have from the Reef. Maybe I will get some emailed to me from others on my trip.
http://gallery.me.com/dbrodie1#100245

a small part of The Great Barrier Reef

After 3 days & 2 nights on a sailboat I still felt the motion of the boat for hours. It will be hard to surpass this part of my trip. It wasn't all stellar, but it was more about experiencing than seeing. The Kiana, a 60 ft. boat had 12 passengers, most there for the diving on The Great Barrier Reef, not sailing. The mix this time was French, German, Canadian, South African, Australian and me.
When we set out the water was good, but after lunch it got a bit rough & we had some hurlage going overboard. I got queasy later in the day, but more when I was below deck. Needless to say, I stayed on deck as long as possible then succumbed & took some travacalm which helped a lot. I'm not sure where we moored the first night, but our morning took us to Whitehaven Beach which is apparently the 4th most photographed place in Australia after the Sydney Opera House, The Harbour Bridge and Uluru/Ayres Rock. So that means I've photographed the top 4. The problem with the GBR is that there are extremely dangerous jelly fish. Some are only as big as a thumb nail, but can cause death or something almost as bad. You see incredibly beautiful beaches, warm water and no people swimming unless encased in a stinger suit & in some hood. Beachgoing can be tedious. At Whitehaven I put on my stinger suit & hood to swim for about 5 minutes. After coming out of the water & getting the stupid thing off, I put it in my bag on top of my camera. Needless to say after a 20 minute hike back to the boat my camera got too wet to keep functioning. The photos may emerge at some point & I have promises of emailed pictures of the trip. Onward…to the afternoon. We motored some more, then it was diving/snorkeling time. It didn't occur to me that if I wanted to dive I should have a note from my doctor, but being a diabetic that is the case. No diving for me, only snorkeling which turned out better since we had clouds & some rain making deeper depths murkier.
I snorkeled once before & it was like, here's a mask & snorkel…go. My mask probably filled with water & got foggy, not conducive to a good experience. This time around us newbies got all sorts of instruction & encouragement plus a beautiful place to tool around. The fish & coral I photographed from the semisub were now right off my fingertips. It was awesome. We motored farther around Cook Island, went out again for more fun & beauty. Then it was time to sail to Hayman Island & moor for the night. The wind was up so we had a pretty good sail.
The lights of the boats attract squid which then lurk in the water unintentionally as bait. We were hoping for dolphins, but Brent our skipper said he sees them only every 4 or 5 times he's there. We asked when the last time was and he said about 5 trips ago. Woohoo! We could see the squid, bat fish, a huge fish I can't recall the name of & GT's which I also obviously can't remember the whole name of. GT's jump out of the water & loudly splash down, so we kind of kept thinking DOLPHINS!
but no. Then someone spotted a dolphin mom & babe, for the next hour plus 8 of us basically ran from one side of the boat to the other watching them & one other dolphin swim & feed. Who knows why that's so great, but it is.
Turtles were the other thing we wanted to see & I missed one in the afternoon because I was helping keep a towel from going overboard. Our crew went after everything that went over including a lid to a sunscreen bottle. Everything we have is a hazard to the ocean life. Apparently even sunscreen is bad because if it gets on the coral it does it's screening job & the coral dies. Back to turtles, I finally did get to see one swimming along, but not for long. As we went out diving & snorkeling that morning turtles were the thing to look for. Some divers saw one for a brief second, but none of us snorkelers did. But I saw more incredible coral & fish
who's names I don't know. It was hard to get out of the water & pack up to go.
We did, though & we had been promised a sail back to Airlie Beach with all sails up. Mostly because I had been talking to Brent about sailing & how I was there to sail more than to dive. Those of us who volunteered raised the sails & the brave of us went to the front of the boat for an amazing sail. The mast was at about a 45 degree angle instead of 90 degrees & even though we were on the high side the waves were big enough to drench us every 10 mins or so. At one point one of the women was literally hanging on to her husbands leg to keep from sliding across the deck. Brent used the motor a time or 2 because the wind was so strong that he was having trouble maneuvering. He was thoroughly enjoying it, but I think if at least one of the passengers hadn't been so keen to sail the sails would've been taken down & the boat would've motored back. All of us up front loved it, I'm not so sure about those at the back.
Firmly back on shore most of us met up last night for drinks, dinner & dancing. Another good set of people on their way to further adventures. I have no idea where I'm going next. Maybe another part of the reef for more snorkeling or maybe Tasmania. I'll let you know.

green island

i only did a half trip to green island and it was way too short. pictures from the semi submersible boat linked below. did a little snorkeling, ended up with lots of salt water and snot coming out of my nose, but fun and beautiful. lots of rain today made the trip out slightly rough, a few japanese tourists with barf bags tp their faces. on to airlie beach tomorrow to get on a sailboat for
3 days. looking forward to it. http://www.me.com/gallery/#100237

Kuranda Rainforest

Here's what I learned today:
1. If you don't charge your camera battery often enough it will die at an inopportune moment such as while riding a skyway over a beautiful waterfall in a rainforest.
2. Taking pictures with a disposable film camera seems very odd.
3. Cockroaches and termites are in the same family.
4. Coffee is part of the Gardenia family, which obviously is much better than being from the cockroach/termite family.
5. Dingoes don't bark, they howl unless they grow near dogs, then they sometimes throw in a bark with the howl.
6. Cassowary plum stones can't be planted and grown. They have to be eaten by a cassowary and pooped out in order
to grow.
7. Cassowaries are a very bizarre looking bird. They have a claw on their middle toe which looks to be a very effective weapon and the crest on their head is used to get vegetation out of the way in dense forest.
Now on to what I did today...I intended to take the Kuranda Scenic Railway up to Kuranda do the rainforest tour and come back via the Skyrail. However the Scenic Railway was closed because of a derailment a few weeks ago. Alright then, glad it didn't happen while I was riding it. I took the Skyrail up and back, it's a gondola that takes about 20 minutes to get from the outskirts of Cairns up to the rainforest town of Kuranda. There are a couple of stops where you can wander through the rainfoest and be amazed by what you see. I was amazed being over the rainforest, too because you can't see the ground through the trees and vines. Which slightly terrified me when I thought about it. It's w-a-a-a-a-a-y down there. The town of Kuranda is cute, but of course morphing into a tourist trap when it used to be an Aboriginal village with a fair amount of cultural heritage. There is a butterfly sanctuary I didn't go into because even though I have seen many wild animals in enclosures in the past weeks, the thought of butterflies being hemmed in was too much. I also passed on the venom zoo, though seeing those things behind glass might be a relief. On to the wildlife and rainforest area where I learned most of what I listed. I did get to see a female kangaroo clean out her pouch which was kind of freaky because one second there's a stomach and the next there's a slit with darker fur underneath. Weird.
Tomorrow I head out for my first Great Barrier Reef outing to Green Island. Not sure if I will do snorkeling or a helmet dive, seems like it might be the helmet dive just because of the name. The camera is recharging, so hopefully more pics on the way soon. Since today was photographed on actual film, who knows if those will show up. Off to find some fish for dinner.

more photos

I will try to get back in and label the photos but since the free wifi is almost up i thought i should get the pictures out there.
http://gallery.me.com/dbrodie1

Uluru

I have been in the red center for 3 days, staying in a luxury "tent" that has air conditioning, king size bed, free mini-bar and stereo. There are 16 tents so generally no more than 32 people at the most. It's been great fun and I have met good people. Most people stay 2 nights and the activities are planned to get the highlights in the area done in a short time. It starts of with a sunset viewing of Uluru with champagne, cheese, fruit and crackers. The picture above is from that evening. The weather has been cloudy and rainy. It doesn't make for the incredible red pictures that everyone wants to have, but that's okay. After dinner we looked at the night sky with the help of a pretty good telescope. The highlight was Saturn complete with rings. The next morning started at 5:30 with a sunrise viewing of Kata Tjuta/The Olgas, which apparently is more sacred to the Aboriginals than Uluru. In the afternoon we did a short walk at Uluru, looking at some of the sacred areas and learning the stories of the rock. 3 of the couples I arrived with also were staying 3 nights, so we became a group within a group. Yesterday morning was the sunrise at Uluru walk to the main watering hole. Our smaller group all opted to do the entire base walk of Uluru instead of the shorter outing. It took about 2 1/2 hours and by the end my gimpy leg was even gimpier. I did manage not to fall to far behind the rest and when I got back I told them to not take their easy gait and rhythm for granted. Last night we celebrated 2 birthdays for 2 of our group. Since all food and beverages are included we did a good job of finishing off many bottles of many different alcohols. This morning was a sleep in and relax time. I managed to sleep until 7:15 after going to bed at 3. Almost time for a nap now at 10:45. I fly to Cairns this afternoon and start my exploration of The Great Barrier Reef and maybe some rain forest as well.

link to pictures

http://gallery.me.com/dbrodie1 Since I've been having so much trouble getting pictures to load, I'm going back to my old gallery so hopefully you can get a look at some places I've been. Let me know if it doesn't work.

Kangaroo Island to the Ghan Train

It's hard trying to find time to write things down before starting on another adventure. I was on Kangaroo Island for 2 days and was getting close to visual overload, even though the visual was mostly flora and fauna. I saw kangaroos (duh) of the wild variety, the albino variety and the not really tame but you could feed them and pet them variety, koalas, emus, sea lions, seals, tamar wallabies, echidnas, wombats, snakes, (singular) crocodile, kestrels, kookaburras, owls, eagles and cassowary (also singular). And as much as I don't like petting zoos or wildlife parks, it was definitely a thrill having a kangaroo squat next to me and eat out of my hand. They will hook their paws onto your fingers so you don't take the food away from them. Oh and the penguins! Seeing penguins hanging out at their burrows was great. They used to be called fairy penguins, but too much political correctness got in the way and now they're called little penguins. Oh and the pelican feeding! There's a local guy who feeds the pelicans every day and now it's advertised and some days dozens of people show up to watch. Apparently pelicans can't dive under water, so part of the feeding is throwing fish into the water to make the pelicans try and dive. Their heads go down, their butts and feet go up in the air and then they literally pop back up. It was pretty hilarious, though maybe not for the pelicans. Echidnas are a very bizarre animal, looking rather porcupine like and apparently wombats are so brick-like that if you hit them with your car at a reasonable speed, the car is generally worse off than the wombat.

Met a Canadian couple, the woman also a diabetic with the same inulin pump as I have. The man had to take our picture a few times with our pumps in plain few because "it just never happens that you travel with someone else who has a pump". Went to a sheep cheese and yogurt making place, a eucalyptus distillery and a honey bee farm. I really wanted to buy some honey for my dad, but Kangaroo Island is a bee sanctuary as is Perth, where I hope to go, so any honey would be confiscated. Can't bung up the bees.

Today I got on the Ghan Train which travels from Adelaide north to Darwin. I'll get off at Alice Springs, still a 26 hour train ride. I am in gold class, which means meals are included and I have a room or more like a large closet with a small bed for myself. The bed and the sink fold out of the wall and when you come back from dinner your bed is made and you can hardly open the door to get in.

In the 10 hours I've been on the train I may have been told at least 8 more things that I HAVE to do while in Australia. And if I can't fit them in I "just need to call up and say I'll be late, that's all".

Adelaide

Been in Adelaide a couple of days. Longer than I intended, but that's the way it's worked out. They do this thing called Northern Lights which is illuminating some of the old buildings on the North Terrace with patterns that change every 5 minutes or so. I happened on it my first night without my camera, so I only took 2 pictures of the same building on my phone, but hopefully you can get the idea. It's pretty impressive. Wandering around town yesterday I came across my favorite store name ever. Acoustic Stomach…they sell purses. I think I stood and stared for a few minutes.

My Dad always talks about how friendly the Aussies are and if they hear your accent they will ask where you're from and be totally enthralled. Hopefully any sister reading this to Dad is now paraphrasing because of course times have changed and we Americans are not so loved anymore. At any rate, while out to dinner last night I offered to take a photo of 8 women out together. After returning the camera and going back to my wine one of the women turned to me and did the where are you from and a few other requisite questions before telling me that she and her best friend were going to Las Vegas in May because she had met the most wonderful man from Richmond. Va online and Vegas was the meet up point. I tried not to break in and say are you effing crazy? half way around the world to meet someone you met online? In Vegas? So long story long, Aussies are friendly, but sometimes they just wanna talk about themselves.

Today I went on a wine tasting tour of the Barossa Valley. I now know more about Barossa Valley wine than I know about Oregon wine. I won't tell you everything I learned here. Of the 9 people on the tour I bought the most and now have to figure our how to ship it home. The 4th and last vineyard was the smallest by far and had some great wines and offered some deals. The couple buying before me bought, then tried to talk the nice guy who had done our tasting in to giving them a bigger percentage off, then some wine glasses with their logo and finally a polo shirt also with the logo. The woman was American so while the nice guy kept saying no and they wouldn't lay off I started encouraging her to back off.

No go. The nice guy finally went in the back and took off his polo shirt and gave it them. That made them happy enough. Me up next, I do my purchase and after he packs all the wine for us and the couple walk away he hands me another bottle of one of the wines that they only sell at the vineyard and that I had purchased. I'm sure it was because I was trying to get those people of his back. I wanted to tell them that I got a better freebie than they did, but I didn't.

Tomorrow off to Kangaroo Island to look for…KANGAROOS!

where I've been

I may have to bail on this blog. Not sure it it's my computer, my connection or my willingness to figure out how to do this easily. I keep trying to upload pictures and write and generally something goes wrong so it all goes away. Since I'm internet service is pricey and I'm usually doing this in the evening after a full day, I get frustrated. So at any rate, what have I been up to?

I just finished a whirlwind tour of The Great Ocean Road and The Grampians National Park. I took a fun helicopter ride around the 12 Apostles, which you might know if you watch the Australian Open as I do. The Pinnacles in the Grampians is a hike that my legs will remember for a long time. It wasn't too long, just lots of rocks to climb up and jump down off of. The titanium rod in my leg was not happy about it.

Couldn't quite resist being a Koala for a minute, or actually holding a koala named Bilbo that I was holding. That happened at a "wildlife park" which I didn't really like because it had too small of cages for some of the birds and they also pick some animals to be handled by people, so visitors can have pictures taken. I did succumb to the picture taking, though not with the baby kangaroo who seemed to be only a few months old. And since these are wild animals and sometimes don't take to the taming then you end up with the wallabee that I met on a path and it proceeded to kick at me and get me more than once with his clawed feet. It was not good. The rest of the tour was fun, most of the people were mid-twenties and I treid not to feel too old. 17 of us with people from China, Singapore, Japan, Argentina, England, Finland, Germany, France. Last night after most people were in bed and most of the alcohol had been drunk, some of us had to wander through the small town to see if we could find any kangaroos. Success! 2 of them were hopping down the main street in town, apparently looking for some good grub. We got within a few feet and they didn't seem to mind having 5 rather drunk people creep up on them, food was much more important. May try to get a few more pictures up tomorrow.