Well this is my penultimate Oz blog and this centres just on Perth so it may be kind of short and sweet which is quite like Perth. So following on from my last blog where I decided it was time to work and spend three months here and wait for the good weather in South Australia….well things again have changed (again) I have decided to push through the bad weather and come out of the other side in South America where I hopefully will meet Tim in Chile or Peru. The only problem with this is that NZ will be wet and cold so will Melbourne and South Australia also I am having to drive on my own which is costing quite a lot then I have to sell my car to pay for the airfare to Chile from Auckland which is costing an arm and a leg due to the lack of airlines offering this service, another decision that I have made is that I will couch surf* in NZ and depending on that success South America, enough of my plans here is what happened in Perth.
We started off in the Billabong hostel which when we first arrived was a complete pig hole with the rooms being very basic and often dirty with the occupants items flung around the room and the staff being rude then we changed to one of the nicest most friendly hostels I have ever stayed in, The Witches Hat. This hostel is small but very warm and when I say warm I mean the mood of the place, it has a main living room with three comfy sofas and a large plasma TV where everyone congregates after work or as in my case after looking around town. This place was perfect for watching the football with most people watching the games which were on at 19:00, 22:00 and 02:30 and this was where I realised I was living the dream…..cast your mind back 4 years I was working through the world cup and dreamed a dream of watching as many games as possible now 4 years later I am living that dream perched on one of the comfy chairs with a little creatures beer watching as many of the games as possible. Another reason to stay in this place was the fact the manager gave me 4 days free after completing some demolition work in the garden to which I was also paid. I could quite happily have stayed in this hostel for months and months but unfortunately this would have cost me quite some money.
What did we do in Perth, well we went out drinking went to Fremantle and we went to an AFL game (Eagles vs. Bulldogs), visited the kings gardens which were stunning and gave a glimpse across the city skyline other than that there is not much to do in Perth as it is quite a small city but saying that there is something about the place that I fell in love with its small and the CBD is not massive but it is the attitude of the people here they may be less cool than Melbourne’s and not as rich as Sydney’s but they have a friendliness that is unquestionable, Perth was becoming one of my favourite cities and to work here and live in the Hat would have been great as I had already made myself at home becoming friends with all the long termers, it was easy to get work here but the problem was hours as not many places wanted to give 40+ hours so anything less it would only pay for living expenses and I already had my mind set on the beautiful South America.
So there we have it the end of the West Coast if it was warm and I had a full car I would go south and visit the wine region of Margaret River but this will add more money onto the travelling. Next are South Australia and the round up of Australia.
Friday, 11 June 2010
7 Days In Sunny June
The whale shark is a slow moving filter feeding shark, the largest living fish species. The largest confirmed individual had a length of 12.65 meters (41.50 ft) and a weight of more than 21.5 tones, but unconfirmed claims report considerably larger whale sharks. The shark is found in tropical and warm oceans, lives in the open sea with a lifespan of about 70 years. The species originated about 60 million years ago. Although whale sharks have very large mouths, they feed mainly, though not exclusively, on plankton, microscopic plants and animals, although the BBC program Planet Earth filmed a whale shark feeding on a school of small fish. The skin of the whale shark is that of the thickest of any living creature and can reach 15cm thick along the dorsal.
In Africa, the names for the whale shark are very evocative: "papa shillingi" in Kenya came from the myth that God threw shillings upon the shark which are now its spots. In Madagascar the name is "marokintana" meaning "many stars".
The dive was amazing the spotter plane found a 4 meter long shark and the crew rushed to the muster stations and we set a course for the circling plane and the mounting number of boats that were sending people in to dive with the shark. Australian law prevents no more than 10 people diving with the shark at any time and it restricts the distance from the aquatic beast….no riding its fin’s like Sea Biscuit for me then. I was quite surprised there were no Japanese tourists on the dive as I am quite sure they would try and use some part of its body to rejuvenate their sexual libido and gain immortality or just jump into the water thinking it was a huge ‘Yo Sushi!’ restaurant but alas there were mainly only Australians and English. Snorkelling with the sharks was an amazing experience that I will never forget or most likely get to do again but it was not quite as incredible as some tourists have made out and this could be due to the size of the shark we swam with, at 4 meters long its not the biggest when compared to the largest ever recorded (18 meters) and with other tourists talking of seeing 8 or 9 meter long sharks this leaves quite a bitter taste. When the plane/boat spots the shark there is a frenzy not from the shark but from the countless numbers of tour groups and boats that populate the area spring into action and all head toward the unaware shark like some kind of Gum Ball Rally and the first band there get to dive with it first. Lucky for the tour groups the shark goes in a straight line sucking up plankton so all the boats kind of line up 30 meters or so apart so that when one group ends another begins, I can not imagine what the shark thinks of this all….if I come back as a whale shark I will attack.
Driving along the West Coast as much like with all of Australia the flies are a major problem and especially so when you head out of the city and into the bush. The flies will land anywhere on your body but generally the face its like they know what will really piss you off, I have had flies try and land and take the moisture from my eyeballs and even go in my ear to depths that a Q-tip would be jealous and all the while you are batting them away they buzz off for 2 seconds then land in exactly the same spot, this wave like motion that you continue until you get back in the car or walk into a spider web is called the Australian wave. This was much the case around the cape and generally everywhere we went it made me think that I was not in WA but Western Africa then I think to myself if only as I would be knee deep in World Cup fever; face paint, steel drum, WAGS, Uri Geller, England fourth favourite even though we will never get past the quarters, Rooney’s inevitable red card, the British public and media backlash against Rooney, Terry’s missed penalty, Pizza Hut’s obligatory advert with Terry crying god I will miss it all. I shed a tear as I write this as it is going to be extremely hard almost impossible to see the world cup due to the time distance and the licensing laws here…….next story line for Mission Impossible 4, I don’t think even Tom Cruise could abseil knife in mouth into some Australian bar and get them to switch it from Australian Rules Football to Soccer (Football)….sob sob. After that little cry I will get back to the story the story of my adventures or lack there of in Australia.
Leaving Exmouth which was over priced and under styled we headed for Coral Bay which again is a small town (one street) which was over priced ($6 for 1 cucumber) and maybe over styled as being this amazing place that people could stay for weeks on end, sure the beach was picture perfect and the water was crystal clear with a sublime aqua marine colour but these beaches are now a dime a dozen on my trip, seeing these crop up all the time in my pictures much like an annoying friend at a party who wants to be in every picture. We spent a day on the beach playing football - used in its most loose term due to Jess and mines ability although it was hot and I do have a cut on my foot, sunbathing and snorkelling and in the evening we headed for a few pints and a burger to treat ourselves to a hard days relaxing. Maybe with hindsight on my side we should have soaked up a few more days there as the weather with every kilometre driving south the weather has started heading ‘south’.
Camping is becoming very expensive with them charging up to $15 per person to sleep on the ground even if we share a tent and some places like Queensland they try and charge us for two pitches not together to put two tents up so we always say there are only two of us and we basically sneak Sal in but in the long run it has saved 14 x $15 give or take. I am sure we will get caught at some point but Sal will be our ‘hitchhiker’ friend we picked up who is not staying here. There are other things us backpackers do to save the odd buck here and there but for people who have not been there and done it it may seem……..well…..odd.
After Coral Bay we headed to another spit of land which is known as Sharks Bay and the main attraction here apart from a psychotic camp ground employee who probably had his mothers dead body dressed in the attic using her as some sick ventriloquist dummy was Monkey Mia, another national park which because they have fed dolphins so much at the shore line they come back every morning to feed and this brings us, the tourists, in great numbers. I was not impressed by this circus act at all, all they have basically done is make a wild animal extremely lazy and you may say the same about Playstaion 3 and me but these animals are not out looking for food as the fat lady in the water is feeding them and they come in numbers ranging from 4- 19 “depending on how many mates they tell” was the description from the employee with the microphone. I would much prefer to swim with dolphins in the real wild albeit I probably would soil myself thinking the fin was a shark but with this money making scheme I did not enter the water or beg like some people to feed them. Don’t be disheartened though as there was something there that I did like and whilst everyone was looking left I was looking right and caught the most amazing sun rise and got to hangout with an animal I had not seen in the wild or in captivity before…….the Pelican. At first I was quite anxious around it as memories of a kid with geese chasing me wings flapping and beaks pecking flashed in my thought box but as I neared closer the pelican couldn’t give a hoot that I was practically in his personal space taking picture upon picture from every different angle and at one point I almost got the impression that the pelican was doing poses on purpose.
From Sharks Bay we were on the path towards Perth but we wanted to see Kalibarry Nartional park along a slight detour, well more 150 km out of our way and it was not worth it. I am starting to think that Australia just name any patch of land a national park as long as it has one gorge, one billabong (waterhole) and/or a waterfall then the request bill heads off to Canberra (Australia’s capital) and they give it some wishy washy name…..Wishy Washy National Park and charge people to enter, in my view there should be some valuing system, take my favourite – Karijini set that as the bar and rate everything against that and this will save people time and more importantly money. Thank God that we didn’t pay for this one. I think it is because Australia is so big they do this and to describe to you exactly how big this area is I will not tell you the area in miles square or hectares or even tell you how many times England can fit into this country instead I will tell you a story:
I have recently discovered by way of extensive reading that on May 28, 1993, a large seismic disturbance occurred in Western Australia, Australia tripped sensors across the globe scientists were baffled I may be wrong but in the place where this ‘earthquake’ happened there are no fault lines so earthquake was not an option, the scientists went back to researching why three buses come at once and why sick days are mostly taken on Mondays or Fridays. It was 4 years later that the Australia worked out that this ‘seismic disturbance’ was likely a nuclear bomb test by a terrorist group from Japan known as Aum Shinrikyo, you may remember this group as the ones who let of the sarin gas in the Tokyo underground, on top of this it was later discovered that Aum owned a large plot of land near the epicenter. Witnesses around the area (truckers and campers) saw a bright flash of light "like a far off explosion". Now process this; Australia is so big it takes 4 years to realise that a nuclear bomb explosion has occurred in their own country…..Imagine this in the UK, ok ok in Slough we probably would not notice but anywhere else it would make headlines around the world and this leads me on to make a note that when do we ever hear about Australian news/politics/gossip/science/sport anything in fact well unless we beat them in the Ashes test like last summer then we hear all about it in England but compare this to the other side of the Atlantic we get to hear if Obama sneezes and sometimes that will make headlines, on the other hand some of Australia’s news is quite laughable and is suprising it makes it into Australian papers, for example when in the Northern Territories not quite remembering where but I spied a paper not local but a major NT paper and the headline was
‘HORNY ROO STALKS NORTHERN TERRITORY WOMEN’
It had a picture of a kangaroo I don’t think it was the kangaroo in question but I feared looking inside incase of them printing an e-fit which would likely have made me lose all bowl and urinal control. I guess that answers my question we don’t hear about Australia because nothing of world importance happens here and even when it does Australians forget about it too like when they lost a prime minister one day he dived into the swell of the ocean never to be seen again, why couldn’t England have that luck with Gordon ‘The Gofer’ Brown the Thames was on his doorstep.
At the moment I am half a days drive from Perth, not too sure what to expect from this city apart from weather wise as everyone has been telling us its cold but Australian cold and English cold are two very very different beasts, I wont crack out the thermal underwear quite yet.
*Emo kids – for those readers who do not have a clue these are teenagers who listen to punky rocky American bands where they think that the words about killing themselves and being unhappy are emotionally fitting to their current life. Bands include – My Chemical Romance, Panic! At the Disco, Fall Out Boy so get to the Apple store online and hit them up but leave the rusty razor blade in the draw guys!
Saturday, 5 June 2010
West Side Story
Before I talk about our remaining time in Broome we had to get some more people for the ride and I decided on taking three people instead of four so our first candidate was a French girl who on first sighting knew she would say a few days down the line that she didn’t want to go with us and this was confirmed by one of my Italian friends who described her as ‘very French’, however her bad luck is someone’s good luck and we lucked out with Salvador from Chile. When I first met Sal I immediately liked him and liked him more as the days went on but more on that later. It’s a strange thing having some much stuff in the car I liken it to how much someone earns for example if someone earns £15,000 a year they live to those means (well most men do) and if you earn £90,000 you live to those means so when there were two of us in the car there was still no space for stuff even though I can fit 4 peoples backpacks in and a swag with three people there seems to be less room than when I had four.
Sal
The staircase to the moon was one of the most spectacular events that I have ever witnessed and will doubt never witness again it started with everyone congregating on Town Beach which is not a very pleasant beach when compared to Cable but it has a jetty and is one of the best places see the event. 17:32 rolled round and on the horizon you could see the moon starting to rise as if like the sun the moon or we were coming into orbit of Mars as the moon was bright orange almost red and the reflections on the mud flats gave the moon its trick….the stairway.
While everyone was looking left I was looking right and got to see and take some of the best sunset pictures like something from a Sony Bravia TV advert with the sky there were a thousand shades of pink with hot purples and crimson reds and this is why the residents of Broome live here.
Broome has somewhat classed itself as the ‘Capri’ of Australia and nothing says this more than a game of horse polo on the beach with all the wealthy holiday makers heading to the top restaurant on the beach overlooking the Indian Ocean however I know that this is just overpriced and imported from Queensland still as some waiter said there you could put whipped cream on a dog turd and sell it for $30 and add some hazelnut and they will pay more……57cent noodles for me then.
To celebrate our last night in Broome we had a beach party to go to but that was later on in the evening so we headed back to our camp site where we had the worst experience with Australians I have ever had and ever hope to have, it was like a train wreck with David Brent x 1000 so let me start at the beginning……..the couple in mention the lady (Used in the most loose term possible) is 31 but looks more 41 and the guy is around 35 and they are either generally drunk or arguing or both (I mentioned after to others that they look like they are out of some domestic violence handbook) but this particular night they were drunk and they decided to sit with us for a beer, immediately the enjoyment in our group dropped then it got worse…a lot worse. Im not sure if words or this blog can truly let you in to some of the absolute shit they were talking but I try, where to begin well there is only so long you can continue with that fake laugh or fake interest and you generally can only do that when you have a slight idea what they are talking about as I have had conversations with Indians/Thai’s/Khmer who can speak little to no English and know the points where to laugh and where to look concerned and so on but this guy was borderline mental. Please see examples below:
Chris is distracting himself from the conversation by removing his phone and pretending to text someone anyone then the guy says are you typing English? Are you saying ‘HELLO’ Yes I replied all the while thinking fuck the plan has not worked in fact its done the total opposite, he then tells me how to spell ‘HELLO’……”You spell it L7” at this point I don’t know whether to laugh or wait for the punch line so I look at him like ‘what?!’ he then repeats it again “L7” not sure if im missing something I just look at him perplexed in the end I let it fizzle out hoping that someone may save me…..no one did.
Another classic from Morecambe and Wise was Vente (Italian for 20 those who do not know) divided by 4 = 100 mmmmmm yeah, this nugget of pure mathematical genius was repeated to us several times like you would tell a death elderly lady where the bus stop was.
There is still more…. A fireman’s lift is abbreviated PML (Phire mans lift)
More…..he started spouting codes circles within circles numbers become codes become fucking nonsense at this point I’m thinking he might have been a janitor at a college and he feels smarter than everyone else and when he see’s an unfinished equation he finishes it, his best friend in Ben Affleck too, either that or he has seen the Da Vinci code far too many times. Numbnuts girlfriend proudly tells us that he is a very clever man and has worked a lot of stuff out that not many people could do….maybe in planet of the apes but that may still be offensive to the apes.
It was at this point I felt I had a strong case to be flown to Switzerland and take euthanasia it was that painful.
Time for the girl to pipe up with a story of her own as everything she had said before that had been about drinking in Alice Springs (surprise surprise), the story was she tried to move a cow with a stick and instead jabbed it up the arse yep it went straight in im just hoping no animals were harmed in the making of that story but I cant be sure. It’s about now that I can not take anymore as all stories were directed at me so I started looking for a way out. Sal already had his ‘me no understand mucho English’ routine by staring aimlessly at the stars, DAMN that was a good one and I was right in the firing line of both these complete morons so I set the plan in motion yawning every 2 seconds then telling everyone I was really tired so after 2 minutes I was off to bed but let me know when we go to the beach party aka when they are gone, it was a cowards way out I admit but I couldn’t take it anymore so I left my band of brothers still in the trenches taking the mortars……I guess I will not be getting the VC for that heroic act in the face of boredom.
I could see from the outset where this event was heading from the moment I saw Dumb and so dumb im certified retarded so when I came back to socialise it was no surprise what direction it took. I decided to tell a friends story where the point was that the German language is quite aggressive no matter what they say so I hailed two German sounding words and described it as being translated as ‘Nice seat’ to which the guy came over asking what the German words were and in hindsight I should have uttered any two words the dipshit would not have known but I tried to explain to them it was a story and could not know the actual words to which him and his fiancé had a shit-fit and argument and somehow concluded that we were telling them to ‘go get fucked’ violence is never the answer but that was where it was heading so it made up our minds to head to the party. I would have suggested removing them from the gene pool but the guy already had like 15 daughters….100 years from now stupid people are taking over the world….FACT.
Beach party was cool bring your own firewood and booze this was the night I was taking it easy as I was driving the next day but I didn’t get home until 0400 ish and got up at 0600 the next morning when Jess woke me up to go for a early morning walk…….who does that that early?
We said auf viedesan to Broome and headed off to Karujini National Park along the highway and considering I had two hours sleep I didn’t do to bad driving three hours and now this was the point where I had to let someone else drive. There is a big difference in the highways of Australia and England in Aus the highways are only 2 lanes wide and the sense of urgency you get on British roads is non existent because if there is a cattle truck in front you might as well just slow down and soak in the scenery. The next day we arrived at the park and we decided to stay for 4 days so we could see as much as possible again the park consists of waterfalls gorges and pools where you can swim and I was surprised how nice some of the walks were but im not sure if my feet appreciated it and if they had eyes they would have cried, one walk in particular was to hike to the top of Mt Bruce (2nd highest peak in WA) it got hard in some places and there were times when I wanted to say every peak we came across was the peak but there is no feeling like it when you reach the summit.
Gorges
80 mile beach
The walks were also classed so class 2 was able for people with zimmer frames where class 5 was for high level of fitness with no apparent route. Camping in the park was basic but this was where Sal came into his own, he forgot to mention that he is probably one of the worlds best campers having camped in South Chile by the time I would take to put my tent up he had already got his and mine erected, cooking was another of his talents as camp cooking is normally boring but we ate very very well, there are some points where Sal makes me look lazy as he is always doing something fear not I will teach him the art of ‘chillaxing’. Part of the road in the park is un-sealed (no tarmac) so its dirt or gravel and parts of it did look and feel like a Colin McRae rally game I just needed the co-driver to utter instructions like ‘easy right over dip into medium long left’.
This type of road cost the car a tire and I was super glad I had bought a new tire in Darwin and the tire change would also make a Formula one change seem slow. We left the park and headed toward Exmouth where we would stay and then head down the cape to some places not in the Lonely Planet however our worst nightmares happened when our spare tire which was now on the car blew up (literally)……..Wolf Creek, Wrong Turn, The Hills Have Eyes, Tremors and Harry and The Henderson’s were all the films that flashed through my head…..it was 17:00 and we knew there would be no one else on the road we were on till the morning so we had to set camp beside the side of the road and wait till first light………well if we made it that far. Lucky for us I at least knew the international sign for help unlike the Canadian girl who thought mimicking the famous ‘Scream’ picture would be internationally recognised….it wasn’t.
All was not too bad as I did pay for the top breakdown service the RAC had but its pretty much no use when you have not got a signal on your phone so first we needed to get someone to make the call, lucky for us the Australians are very helpful when it comes to people breaking down and a lovely couple agreed to make the call….then what do we do, do we wait and hope they did or keep getting people to pull over?…our decision was made when they came back 30 mins later to let us know they had made the call now it was our turn to wait and wait we did in the baking sun it took them 5.5 hours to come 70 miles to get us so overall from pop to saved we waited over 20 hours. $200 down and two wheels up we were on the highway again to Exmouth.
waiting by the side of the road
Exmouth was not very charming to look at not sure if it was due to the weather but we were here for only one reason and that was to swim with the biggest Mammal in the Ocean the Whale Shark………….will tell all in the next blog.