Initial Thoughts And Observations On Australia

Australia is the 6th largest country in the world, the largest island and the only continent that is also a country. It has a population of 21m of which 1.5% are indiginous.


It has the worlds 10 most poisonous snakes.


The people here are lovely.


The Northern Territories is not a state. Although it has no representatives in Parliament the people still vote.

All bars and hotels seem to be called just hotels.


Pokies? They are everywhere. Why Why Why ? !!

Meat Raffles - what is that all about...?


The country is run by a war-mongering racist w*nker.


No-one knows why New South Wales is called New South Wales.

There was no such thing as Aussie citizenship until 1949, up until then everyone was British subjects.


Until the 1960s Aboriginal mothers did not have legal rights to their children.


At Shark Bay there are living rocks that are 3bn years old and were the precursor for all living beings.


In May 1993, The Japanese cult Aum Shinrikyo ( those of the sarin gas attacks ) exploded a small nuclear device in Western Australia and nobody noticed, such is the size and remoteness of most of the country.


The TV here is awful.

Melbourne May 2007

Having left the Americas behind us we now found ourselves in the land of Oz which will be our home for the foreseeable future. Wanting to ease our way in slowly we paid a visit to our newly married friends Emma and Marcus currently living in Seddon in the Melbourne burbs. It's great to see them after so long!

Melbourne is a great city and what it lacks in beaches and weather it more than makes up for in it's relaxed vibe and continental style culture.

Whilst there we hired a car and drove the Ocean Road along the south coast of Victoria. We stayed at the BIMBI campsite in Otway National Park and saw our first wild Koalas! The next day we continued along the coast and visited the 12 Apostles, a series of 12 rock stacks formed from collapsed arches. We stayed in a caravan park in Woollanbool for the night which had a welcome Jacuzzi spa. In the morning we drove back across Melbourne to the Yarra Valley where we went wine tasting.

Back in Melbourne we managed to get ourselves thrown out of the Workshop bar for moving a table. We also found the bowling alley Strike and had a very drunken game one night.

After 10 days of exploring Melbourne and the surrounding area we said goodbye and got a flight up to the Gold Coast to stay with Mels parents and wait for our things to arrive from the UK.

Melbourne photos here.

The Big Trip: Los Angeles - A Crazy Place

From one crazy place to another.

After a long journey from Buenos Aires including a stop off at Mexico City we finally landed in the smoggy and sprawling city that is Los Angeles.

We were heading straight for Hollywood, the lions den of US culture, and the exact opposite of everything we've come to know and love over the past eight months. An exhorbitant taxi ride saw us pull up at our amazingly located hostel right on Hollywood Boulevard in the middle of all the action.

After settling in, we decide to walk down the boulevard to take in the Hollywood atmosphere. We were not disappointed. The street was full of crazy people, either trying to sell you stuff, doing those silly human statue impressions or dressed up as Yoda or Shrek. And this was during the day! When the sun went down it got a lot more bizarre when the real crazies came out of the woodwork shambling up the boulevard and talking to themselves which a lot of people seem to do here. We escaped into the Mann theatre which was showing 28 Weeks Later, a film about a bunch of virus infected human zombies.

The following day we decided to head over to Universal Studios. However, apart from the tour of the film lots which was interesting it was basically a theme park with some good rides/experiences. All in all though it wasn't really worth the entry fee.

We awoke early the next morning and took the long journey across town to Venice Beach which wasn't half as tacky as I'd expected it to be. We had sushi by the beach and then I got a tattoo.

Back on Hollywood Boulevard we were about to check out some bars when we ran into a guy we'd met the night before called Eddie. Eddie is homeless and wheelchair bound and seems to spend his entire day cruising up and down the boulevard. We ended up hanging out with (sometimes pushing) him and he took us on a mini tour of the local area whilst giving us his fascinating and very sad life story.

On our last day I thought it would be a great idea to go celebrity spotting so off we went to Beverly Hills in the hope we might bump into Brangelina or George. However, there were none to be found. In fact, Beverly Hills was strangely quiet and the shops more like designer facades. We took lunch in an Italian corner cafe where I was sure we would see some but still no luck. We still had one card up our sleeves though, the Beverly Hills Hotel, the place to celeb spot and just a short walk away through mansion lined backstreets. On arrival we found our way to the cocktail lounge, ordered two overpriced Mojitos and waited...

If there were any celebs here they were certainly keeping a low profile and after about an hour of feeling totally out of place we finally gave up and returned back to the hotel. We just had time to spend a couple of hours around the pool at the Roosevelt Hotel before it was time to head off to the airport and onwards to the Land of Oz!

Farewell America!

Pics here.


Stuff
The best budget place to stay in LA by a long way is the Orange Drive Manor Hostel just next door to the Kodak Theatre on Hollwood Bld at just GBP36 a night for a double.
Beauty Bar - a cool hangout and god cocktails
Must do - see a film at the Chinese Mann Theatre - it's where they first showed Star Wars you know.
Must do - take a stroll down Venice beach
Must do - relax around the pool at the Roosevelt Hotel

The Big Trip: Argentina Part 2: Four Go Mad in Buenos Aires

And so onto the final chapter of our Latin American journey, Buenos Aires. It was here that we were to meet up with our mates Si and Damo and take possession of an apartment in the centre of town for a few days.

Mel and I had a couple of days to kill before the others arrived so we got ourselves a cheap hotel and attempted to get a flavour of the city.

Buenos Aires is a huge sprawling city of 13m inhabitants that is more European in feel than South American. I liken it to a fusion of Barcelona and New York. It boasts everything a traveller could ask for from a city, grand avenues, a vibrant cafe culture, bustling cobbled streets, great shopping, fantastic restaurants and a truly 24hr nightlife. Seriously, the people here think nothing of eating out at say, 11pm, before hitting the bars and clubs. This is what we decided to do for my birthday. After a few drinks locally we decided to head down to a recommended steak restaurant called La Brigada in the area known as San Telmo. We noticed a little smile from the waiter as we ordered but thought nothing of it until the steaks arrived to audible gasps from those around us, they were the biggest steaks we'd ever seen! Check em out here! We did manage to get through them but our plans to go out clubbing were knocked on the head as we realized we were too full and bloated to do anything apart from head back to the hotel.

The next day I went to the airport to pick Damo up and after he had settled in to his hostel we wasted no time in checking out some of the local bars, we even found a hilarious Goth bar full of moody teenage drinkers.

The folowing morning Simon arrived and we all went off to check out the apartment we had rented. It was fantastic and would provide us the perfect base for the rest of our time in BA. We just had time to dump our stuff before it was time to experience one of BAs other passions, football! We had organised tickets through Damo's hostel to see the local side Boca Juniors, former club of Maradona, take on Racing, another BA club. We had great seats and the atmosphere was awesome even before the game had started. The legendary Boca band provided a heartbeat of drums and horns throughout the entire 90 minutes not even pausing for the goals. It turned out to be a classic game 2-2 with 3 penalties! See the pics here.

The next day we tried unsuccessfully to find a decent city tour with which to orient ourselves and take in some of the sights but we did manage to find an excellent restaurant with great food and Flamenco performances.

Another one of the must do's in BA is the cemetary in the area of Recoleta. It houses some fantastic mausoleums including that of Eva Peron and appears to be a favoured spot for cats as well.

Damo left a couple of days later to catch up with girlfriend in Chile whilst we decided to take a boat across to Uruguay for the day. This was really just to say we'd been to Uruguay as the port town of Colonia was really only worth 2hrs and the rest was spent sheltering from the pouring rain.

Back in BA, we visited the excellent MALBA, the modern art galley before heading into the trendy Palermo district for Thai lunch. Later on we went to another funky restuarant called Patagonia del Sur only to find it was $200 a head so instead we returned to our favourite La Brigada for more delicious steak before hitting the bars. After many rounds of the local Red Bull equivalent and Vodka we found ourselves wandering the streets of San Telmo at 8.30 the next morning until we eventually found a cafe for breakfast and a much needed break. We rested for the remainder of the day.

Our time in BA and South America was almost at an end but there was just time to spend a couple of days visiting probably the most spectacular attraction that Argentina has to offer, the waterfalls at Iguazu. These are the most impressive falls I have ever seen and extremely photogenic from almost every angle. You cannot visit Argentina without coming here.

Check out the photos here.

Eventually we had to leave this wonderful place and soon we were on a flight back to BA for our last night in South America. We celebrated in style with steak and wine at a great local restaurant La Cabrera. The next morning we said farewell to Simon and packed our bags for the last time before heading for the airport.

Looking back, we have had more amazing experiences than we could possibly have imagined. It seems like a lifetime ago that we were learning the Spanish language beside the lake in Guatemala not knowing what was ahead of us. We've gone back in time to the Mayan civilisation at Tikal, gone in search of the Jaguar in Costa Rica, dived with hammerheads and played with sealions in the incomparable Galapagos and climbed mountains in Ecuador. In Peru we trekked the worlds deepest canyon of Colca, found the condor at the sacred site of Macchu Pichu and journeyed with the Shaman in the Amazonian jungle. We cycled the worlds most dangerous road in Bolivia and then spent the most magical three weeks walking Roy the puma and monkeys at Inti Wari Yassi animal refuge. And to finish we savoured the fine wines and steaks that the world has to offer in Argentina not to mention the incredible waterfalls of Iguazu.

But we have also been robbed twice and in the case of Mel received stitches twice due to hole that shouldn't have been there and a spider monkey that definitely was.

Most of all we've met some lovely friends (and animals) who we shall never forget.

And so, after almost eight months in this extraordinary part of the world, we are finally on our way to Australia, the land of sunshine and koalas!

Just one short stop in Los Angeles to go...

Adios y cuidarte mis amigos !



Stuff:
La Brigada, San Telmo - best steaks in BA!
La Cabrera - also amazing steaks and wine
Millhouse Hostel - a great centrally located hostel
Our apartment 1180 Avenide de Mayo

The Big Trip: Argentina Part 1: Mendoza and Patagonia

After leaving Bolivia, we take the bus from the border to the Chilean town of San Pedro de Atacama. This place, it has to be said, sucks and is only here as a tourist trap for those entering and leaving the country. It is a false town full of pricey hotels and boutique handicraft shops and American tourists who believe they are having an 'authentic' experience. We got the first bus we could out of there and over the border into Argentina.


After a couple of days in the pleasant and quite agreeable town of Salta we jumped aboard another overnight bus which took us south to Mendoza, the wine capital of Argentina and a place I'd been looking forward to for months. Mendoza is a great place to relax and sample the delights of the fantastic wine and the famous lomo (Argentinian beef), and that's exactly what we did for the next few days.

One of the most fun things we did in Mendoza was the Bikes and Wines tour which is exactly what it says on the tin. We hired some bikes and were given a map describing a route that took in several vineyards in the Maipu valley. At each stop we were offered a tour around the vineyard followed by tastings of their favourite vintages. After the first vineyard we skipped the tours and went straight to the tastings. We tasted many fantastic wines especially the Malbec, the full-bodied red for which the region is famed for and yet somehow managed to return the bikes on time.

A friend and fellow wine enthusiast of ours Tracy, who we picked up on the way over from Chile, decided that it would be a great idea to go paragliding. So the next day, nursing rather sore heads, we headed for the hills where after a short briefing we strapped ourselves to an instructor and jumped off the hillside. It was a great feeling to be soaring above such beautiful landscape although at 15 minutes the flight was over too quickly for me. Still, it cleared the head.

A few more days enjoying the local cuisine and we were off to Bariloche in the northern part of Patagonia. Bariloche is an unbelievably picturesque village set in the foothills of the Andes and is very reminiscent of a Swiss alpine ski resort being also famed for it's chocolate and a nice line in St Bernards. In fact, amongst other outdoor activities, this place is an extremely popular skiing destination but we were here to clear our heads in the clean crisp mountain air before heading over to Buenos Aires.

After a couple of days walking in the mountains we were finally ready for the final chapter of our trip...



Stuff:
Currency - Peso, 3 to a dollar
Best Restaurant for Steak: Don Tristan in Mendoza



Some more books I've read in the past few weeks...



On The Way Down by Nick Hornby - A funny and poignant story of four strangers who meet on top of a building on New Years Eve intent on committing suicide.

Bel Canto by Ann Patchett - Appallingly bad written book on the theme of Stockholm Syndrome, the relationships built up between a bunch of hostages and their captors. It's mind-numbingly soporific but somehow still managed to win an Orange award.

Paperweight by Stepehen Fry - A collection of his articles, transcripts and plays written for various publications and radio. Very funny and worth a read.

Angels and Demons by Dan Brown - NO, NO, NO, NO, NO, NO and NO again !!!

Emergency Sex by Kenneth Cain, Heidi Postlewait and Andrew Thompson - A beautifully written book about the experiences of three UN workers in various war-torn parts of the world in the early 1990s. Rewarding and inspirational stuff.

100 Years Of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez - Or 100 years of boredom. Look, this is one of the most beautifully written books you will ever read charting the birth, rise and fall of a fictional town Macondo over a hundred years. But it is difficult to read in that almost all of the characters share the same name and the central theme of the cyclical nature of reality means that it feels repetative and rambling at times, there's even one sentence that spans two pages! Wierd and wonderful magic realism.

Popcorn by Ben Elton - In this book, Elton is inspired by Tarantino and Natural Born Killers to discuss the question of whether life imitates art or vice-versa whilst also satirising the modern day blame culture. Excellent book for the beach.

The Big Trip: Bolivia Part 3: Uyuni and Beyond

After a long, bumpy but incredibly scenic journey from Potosi we finally arrived in Uyuni, the starting point for a three day tour across the Salar de Uyuni towards the Chilean border.

Uyuni is a dull and depressing town so after booking our tour and having bought supplies we wasted no time in visiting the local drinking establishments for a couple of swift ones before bed.

The trip didn't start well. Not only do we leave late but the driver, guide and cook promised for the trip all turn out to be the same person who as it soon transpires cannot drive, guide or cook.

So, our first stop was the salt flats themselves, the largest in the world, a stunning white sea of salt stretching as far as they eye can see. The edge of the sea is peppered with rows of salt pyramids recently 'farmed' from the flats by itinerant workers. After tarping the bottom of the Toyota to protect it from the salt we made our way across the lake for about 4 hours to a beautiful cactus adorned island complete with a shoreline still visible from a time before the sea dried up. We took lunch here then drove for another few hours to San Juan, a small ramshackle town on the far shore of the lake where we spent a cold night in a dormitory.

The next day, after another late start, we travel through some stunning landscapes stopping at bizarre rock formations and a flamingo lake. Our driver seemed to resent his guiding duties and would only speak when spoken to, thus we found it easier to resort to our guidebooks to tell us what we were looking at. We finally rocked up at another camp for the evening where after more decidingly dodgy food we drank rum in a vain attempt to warm ourselves up from the cold desert air.

The best of the tour was definitely saved for the last day. An early start saw us drive to some spectacular geysers and steam vents. Then whilst lunch was being prepared we took the opportunity to bath in thermal springs before heading off to our last detsination before the border, the Laguna Verde, a beautiful lake tinged green by algae and dominated by a perfect coned volcano.

At the border with Chile , a dusty outpost in the middle of the desert with one small building and a pointless road barrier, we said goodbye to the others and also to Bolivia which has to be one of the most varied and fascinating countries in the world, and certainly my favourite so far.

Click here for all the Uyuni photos.

Click here for all Bolivia photos.

Stuff:

Excusion $75 from Uyuni with Oasis Tours who I would not recommend. A four day tour takes you back across the side of the salt flats to Uyuni visiting a train graveyard amongst other things.

The Big Trip: Bolivia Part 2: Animals and Dynamite

Another awesome chapter to our trip was working at the Inti Wara Yassi animal refuge in Villa Tunari to the east of La Paz.

After an overnight bus ride from La Paz to Cochabamba and then an interesting journey to Villa Tunari involving the negotiation of a landslide by JCB and motorcycle, we finally arrived at the refuge.

We were met by a bunch of friendly volunteers who seemed over happy to see us. It transpired that they were running short of volunteers and we were the first to turn up in 3 days. We were then given a brief tour around the refuge before being assigned our roles. Having only committed for two weeks we thought it would be unlikely to be working with the monkeys or big cats (they normally require 4 weeks for this) but I was gobsmacked to be asked to work with Roy an energetic Puma who's reputation seems to precede him. Roy is one of 6 pumas at the refuge who for differing reasons can never be released. Mel was a little less fortunate however when she was assigned to help look after the birds including 4 pairs of noisy macaws. She was even less happy to find whilst her working day was 7.30 to 6, mine would be 9 to 4.30 (those working with cats have a shorter day).

After finding some accomodation and some cheap second hand clothes we turned up the next morning for our first days work. I was to be helping Harold, a French volunteer, give Roy his two walks through the jungle. I was taken up to Roys cage where I got my first sight of him. I cannot say that I wasn't a little bit nervous and my heart was pounding when he let him out of his cage and he came straight up to me to eat some grass from my hands (to aid digestion apparently). Luckily Roy was tethered to a runner, a taut rope strung between his cage and a tree, such that he could only reach a certain distance either side.

My first few days with Roy would be just following him and Harold. There must always be two people with each cat as accidents can and have happened. Harold detached Roy from his runner and onto his lead which was fastened around the waist and off we went. It was such a strange feeling to be in such close proximity to a Puma and I was quite scared. Coupled with this, the terrain was quite treacherous with many steep climbs and descents and plenty of roots to twist your ankles on. So, most of my time was spent just trying to keep up and not fall over.

I was told that Roy would always have a go at new volunteers so I was very careful to stay right behind Harold. Also accompanying us was a French documentary maker called Julien who was in the process of producing a documntary about the park and thought he might get some good footage of Roy and a new volunteer.

Within the first 15 mins I was to see what Roy could be like as he sprung on me from within some bushes and quickly had his jaws around my knees. My adrenaline was pumping and his teeth and claws hurt quite a bit leaving some nice tears in my trousers. Harold managed to pull him off but not before the whole incident was captured on video!

After a few more heart stopping moments with Roy including an awesome full flight leap at Julien we finally made it back to base where, after Roy was safely on his runner, I could finally calm down and try to work out what just happened.

The second walk of the day was shorter but no less unnerving with another attack on myself where he tried to taste my other knee.

When we descended at the end of the day my trousers were ripped to shreds and I was wondering if I could do this for two weeks. It seemed everyone knew about Roy and asked me how I felt being Roys new toy.

Mel, who doesn't really like birds, hadn't enjoyed her day cleaning and feeding the macaws whse incessant screeching was already driving her crazy. She convinced her to stay at it for t more days then ask if a transfer would be possible.

After another day in which I stroked Roy for the first time there followed a two day break whilst he was sedated so he could have his collar changed. This was much easier said than done involving three volunteers to manouvre him onto place before the vet could insert the needle to put him under and change the collar. Whilst we waited for Roy to recover I went to visit Mel in the monkey park, where she had been transferred, to find her caring for an ill baby cappuccino monkey called Colita and surrounded by a group of local children from a nearby orphanage. The monkeys are amazing, each having a distinct personality and place within the monkey hierarchy. The group dynamics constantly shift with the arrival or departure of members of the group and it is endlessly fascinating to watch them adopt and change roles. They are not all friendly though and there are frequent intermonkey attacks and attacks on volunteers if they happen to try to intervene especially if it involves the larger jeffes or alpha males. In fact, volunteers requiring stitches to quite deep bites is not an uncommon occurence.

So, the following day would be my first day taking the lead myself which I was very nervous about. I tentatively attached the lead to him and led him off up into the jungle. Every now and then he would take off into a sprint with me in tow trying desperately not to be pulled along the forest floor. Remarkarbly, for my first time on the lead, there were no attacks on either of the walks although his speed was testing me especially along the slippery river beds.

The next day it all went pairshaped when Harold was bitten hard by Roy on the afternoons walk. Although I wasn't to know this at the time this bite was to put Harold out of action for the next two weeks. This meant that after just two days leading him I was about to become Roy Walker (geddit?) number 1 with a new English volunteer Toni to assist me part time until Harold recoveed. This meant having to do everything myself; releasing him from the cage, cleaning the cage, walking him, feeding him and then coaxing him back into the cage at the end of the day (no easy task). I wasn't at all comfortable walking Roy without Harold, who knew and could avert most of Roys attacks, and the thought of two inexperienced Englishman walking a fully grown Puma around a jungle was as scary to us as it was funny to everyone else. I mean, what could possibly go wrong?

As it happened, Roy was a model Puma, and in the next 4 days only attacked once and even then it was easily thwarted. I was now much more confident with the job and really enjoying it. I also felt that was gaining the trust of him and getting to know his personality.

A new volunteer Aaron would be taking over from Toni so we celebrated his survival with a few too many drinks and my first ever karaoke turn at the local disco. Well, it was St.Patricks Day!

For the next ten days I trained and then cowalked Roy with Aaron, a death metal fanatic from Perth. When we were not walking Roy, Aaron would subject him to Slayer and Metallica riffs on his guitar which I think Roy appreciated.

Our evenings were spent at local restaurants and marathon sessions of Uno, an uberaddictive cardgame that became very animated especially after a few drinks and with Aussies playing too.

In this time, Mel had got promoted to work with the spider monkeys but not before she sustained a nasty bite from a cappuccino that turned resulting in the need for stitches, the second time this trip!

It was with much sadness that after three weeks (we decided to stay one more) we had to say farewell to all our good friends at the refuge, both animal and human and make our way south to Cochabamba for a well deserved couple of days of luxury in a hotel (hot water, comfy beds!)

We moved on to Potosi on an overnight bus and arrived early morning and in time to check into a hostel and take a tour of the famous local silver and tin mines. Potosi, at 4000m, is a town built around the rich mineral resources of the local mountain Cerra Rico (Rich Mountain). After getting kitted out in overalls and headlamps and having bought coca leaves and dynamite for the miners, our guide took us down several levels of the mines to see the miners at work. It was incredibly claustrophic and the air was filled with dust making it hard to breath. It is impossible to believe that the miners work in these conditions, sometimes up to 24hrs a day, with no food (just chewing the coca) and barely any breaks. The average life expectancy of the miners is only 45 but the money is very good and for most there are no other job opportunites. The youngest worker is just 8yrs old. We watched a miner making a hole, in which to plant dynamite, that would take him 4hrs to chisel out using manual tools. It was painful to watch. The miners are self-employed but most work in co-operatives and share the profits equally. Electric tools eg drills, wagons are just starting to be introduced by the more wealthy of the co-operatives but still most of the work is manual and soul-destroyingly mundane.

On a lighter note, we did get to blow up a few sticks of dynamite afterwards which was great fun. See the video here.

Pics here

We are stuck in Potosi now whilst national roadblocks are in place blocking our route to Uyuni and the salt flats. Hopefully we can get out soon...

Stuff:
Inti Wara Yassi - minimum 2wk commitment required, $90 donation plus extra $30 to stay in a local B&B if you chose not to take up their very basic accomodation.
Hostel Villa Tunari B&B very good and clean, B35 per night
Aranjuez Hotel, Cochabamba $50 per double
Restaurant, Cochabamba: Bufalos, magnificent steak, all u can eat, carved off a skewer at your table
Koala Den, Potosi B90 for double
Koala Tours for mine tour B80