Finding Nemo

Hey, we survived the deep sea dives and are now certified scuba divers! Yay! I don't know how often we can sample of this glorious hobby as it is so expensive, but for three days on the Great Barrier Reef we entered another world, one that humans are not meant to partake in....oh, the marvels of technology!
Turtles, jellyfish, giant sea slugs and clams, thousands of fish in colours so vibrant and shapes so ridiculous that it was hard to soak in all the new life around us on each salty half hour dream-like excursion below the surface. On our first independent dive, only the two of us to navigate our way through the deeps, Mike descended deeper than we were certified to go to tickle a thorny sea slug lazing about on the sandy sea bed, and was punished by witnessing our new underwater camera popping out of its "secure fastening" on his inflatable vest to rocket 19.4 meters to the surface above and shoot a meter above the surf! Climbing onto the boat lamenting our loss, we were thrilled to find the crew flashing self-portraits with a familiar-looking device which they had spotted and retrieved from the choppy waves. We have now spent 209 minutes below the surface, sometimes calm, occasionally a bit frightening...as Mike and I were exploring the coral reef on our last dive, the 40 knots wind and strong current above dragged the boat and its moorings out to the deeper ocean, so when all the divers surfaced, we could not swim against the current to reach it, nor the coast 50 kms away. Every person had to be rescued in an inflatable motorboat. A 1 meter wide jellyfish was floating along with the two of us waiting for the boat, we left him to his own fate.
The highlight was the guided dive at night, I was nervous enough already when during our pre-dive safety briefing, someone yelled out "Sharks!" and we peered over the rail to where we were about to leap into the water in our scuba gear...the boat's spotlight had attracted loads of little fish, which had in turn attracted 10 or more black-tipped reef sharks which were stirring up a froth of seafoam in their predatory circling. This was just the type of situation I imagine everyone's mother to warn them against participating, but our dive leader swore that they would not bother us as long as we did not hassle them. They were only 2.5 meters long after all. He said "If you shine your flashlight at the reefwall and see little red eyes glowing back at you, it is probably a lobster: catch it for our dinner. If you shine your light into the deep and see two green eyes, it is probably a shark. If those two eyes begin to diverge, it is coming at you: stop shining your light on it!" He didn't reveal how us being blind to our shark's progress in our direction would protect us 10 meters below the surface!
Now we have dried off and the land has ceased to undulate beneath our wobbly landlegs, back at the Cairns campground which is a definite step down from the private ensuite cabin and great meals on the boat. No one is beckoning us to join them on the five-a-day dives off the back of a boat to view a seascape too bizarre for us to have imagined, but Taiwan is now calling us so we will be leaving the southern hemishpere in a few short hours....

Just add water!

For a refreshing change from our 2 weeks in the desert, we have emerged from our journey across the Outback unscathed, and tomorrow morning we sail out to the Great Barrier Reef for three days (and two nights on the boat on the Reef) to get our scuba diving certification! We figured this would be a good way to commemorate our seventh anniversary, and a very refreshing way to wash off the desert dust we’ve been covered in since the first morning we leapt out of the campervan to wonder at the desert at dawn; that very first dry-air sunrise smile cracked my lip!
The last four days driving from Uluru and Alice Springs through the Outback that separated us from the Cairns coast were long days of driving from dawn till sunset, sometimes on single lane roads that demanded us to pull over onto the shoulder and stop to allow the road trains roar past us. We spent the nights curled around a fire camped at springs at the edge of the road, marked by windmills pumping water up from bores that we could wash our dishes in. The great horizon was broken by millions upon millions of waist-high termite mounds, and very few road signs (all of which had been blasted by shotguns), and our attention by the occasional country music station that might buzz into reception. Apart from that we just had our three charity shop cassette tapes to amuse us, a varied compilation: Neil Diamond, Bobby McFerrin, and the Best of Mariachi music. The moment we crossed the Tropic of Capricorn, the air temperature began to warm, and life began to return to the landscape after a few thousand kilometers. Mike’s surprise of the week was the 1.5 meter long lizard crawling across the highway ahead, and mine was the green frogs that clung desperately to the inside of the outback toilet bowls as I flushed them! I can’t see that that is their ideal habitat, but I saw three!
After only four rock chips in the windshield and a broken headlight from a spit-up stone, we reached the high altitude rainforest near the Atherton Highlands for a day to refresh beside waterfalls. Mike has driven us 7403 kilometres in the last three weeks across this great country, so he deserves this break by the sea! We’ll be in Taiwan in six days!

Desert Roaming

We have finally arrived at Alice Springs, an urban oasis in the middle of the Australian desert Outback, and first thing we did is head straight for an internet cafe! Australian travelling photos are long overdue, plus Mike's got to register for his Electrical Engineering university courses online for his September start (and we had to assess the damage the many petrol fill-ups across the Outback has done to our finances).

So, where to catch up from...we last updated from New Zealand's South Island, from Dunedin where we were still bloated from the morning's chocolate factory tour and five story one ton chocolate waterfall...from there our final Kiwiland wish was granted and we witnessed fairy penguins surfing in from their day out at sea and scurrying into their little holes after pausing to preen themselves for our dusky viewing pleasure. Then we shot up to Christchurch to drop off our beloved campervan, and catch up with Hayley and crew again, and then back up to Wellington for a day and a half to say our final goodbyes :(
The flight to Sydney was only a few hours, and it almost felt like home to see the sunset over a huge horizon again. Our hospitality club host, Ollie, got us going in the right direction for how to do Sydney in three days, and then Tomasi (who Mike had worked with in Wellington) showed us the beach scene. We were a little disappointed (and more than a little relieved) to realize that despite having all the world's most poisonous creatures in one country, and all the frightening tales to go with it, nothing scary has jumped out and bit us, or even rattled in the bushes, or spun any webs to ensnare us. It was even a bit anti-climatic not to be chased by hairy spiders or glistening snakes, but now that we are camping, it makes our runs out to the bush to pee in the middle of the night alot less spooky. But those fruit bats dangling and climbing the trees in the afternoon in Sydney's Botanic Gardens, that was eery. Everything in this country is huge: those bats had a meter wing span. Families were picnicing in the shade, and above them were creatures that looked like they could swoop down and carry off their children! We were only visiting the gardens to see cockatoos!
So, big full moon rise over the Sydney Opera House, kangaroo pie and crocodile pizza, lazy afternoons watching the surfers on the famous beaches, catching up with friends we had met in Europe, not a bad first impression of a new land! And then we were off in our own Priscilla, Queen of the Desert campervan! (though ours isn't nearly as shiny)
First stop was to go hiking in the Blue Mountains and to see limestone caves, and then we beelined it south to meet Anne, my mom's 1977 European Contiki tour backpacker friend who I was named after. We hadn't seen each other in 28 years, but I wondered if with my head shaved perhaps I don't look that different to our last visit when I was a week old. Her husband George was an Outback tour guide so he loaded us up with maps and camping guides and planned out our itinerary for us, and told us where to get cheap fuel, and made sure we were carrying enough water for our ambitious journey through the Outback. Good thing, because we didn't really know what we were getting ourselves into! Anne toured us through their goldmining town of Bendigo, filled us up with good homecooking, took us to their local pub to have a game of pool with their son, Matthew (and for us to sneak photos of the cowboys leaning on the bar), and drove us around the countryside to spy our first live kangaroos. Up until then we had only seen kangaroos dead on the side of the road, which was quite startling, but since we have seen hundreds: lazing in the shade on golf courses, hopping across our path when we are hiking, little joeys with their heads reaching out of their mom's pouch to nibble at the grass, bounding across the road in front of us as we're hurtling down the highway! In the Outback you just don't drive after dark, or not at over 30 kms per hour at least.
They sent us on our way to Melbourne well fed and equipped, where we were taken on great urban tours with more friends we had met in Europe, and then the Real Adventure began. Mike's now expert left-side driving wound us past dozens of beaches and glorious coastal cliffs on the Great Ocean Road, and what was that dense little wad in that eucalyptus tree? Yes, a grumpy little ball of fur that barely had the energy to glare at us for the photo before dozing off back to sleep, our first koala, the cutest animal on the planet! You can just imagine our delight, and two more blinking at us through the bushes down the road. We didn't dare cuddle them with their gorgeous little padded noses and tree-climbing claws, but I'm still holding out for a koala sanctuary that has tamed at least one to receive our affection. Up from the coast we hiked through the Grampian Mountains, spying emus frantically hurtling through the bush, and kookaburras singing in the burnt gum trees. The bush fires are evident in so many places, as is the acute water shortage, and we hadn't even made it into the desert yet! An excellent Aboriginal Centre had a theatre which illustrated the Dreamtime Creation stories of the original inhabitants of the area, and we drove far too far on awful, dust-corrugated gravel roads past giant termite mounds to see ancient ochre cave paintings of handprints and emu tracks.
We burned straight through Adelaide, as we had a huge journey ahead of us still, and the next day there we were in the desert, the great Outback, a flat red expanse with grey scrub, no water, a hot glaring sun but a cold wind that nearly dropped down to 0 at night (it is winter), and a big road across a continent in front of us, traversed by trucks called "road trains" which pull three semi-trailers. For hours and hours, the last four days and the next seven. Sand, lots of space for Mike to perfect his boomerang throwing skills, flocks of meter tall eagles feasting on kangaroo roadkill, once the sun beats through the cold wind the flies begin bouncing off our eyeballs, bleached bones, we've seen one dingo. We spent the first night in Coober Pedy, the opal mining town where 50% of the inhabitants live in homes dug underground, and the next day we arrived to see the sunset on Uluru, Ayer's Rock. We were glad that we organized to go on an aboriginal tour of The Rock: two guides walked us through their sacred area, and in their language (with an interpreter) told us the creation stories of Uluru, illustrating them with pictures drawn in the dust. Mike got to learn to throw a spear, and how to make bush glue and start a fire. Hopefully we won't have to resort to digging for witchetty grubs or honey ants on this journey though. Mmmm, bushtucker.
This afternoon we hauled our rattly campervan through the desert to find three meteorite craters, and had a dusty camel ride on Pebbles and Benji. We have yet to see any of the 100 000 wild camels wandering through the desert, set loose once motor vehicles replaced their necessity in the 1930's. Another week of desert dwelling for us, and we will have reached the ocean again at Cairns, for something completely different! Yay for scuba diving! Might be Teipei on July 1st when we get the precious combination of a fast internet connection and time and energy to update again!

Big Red Centre

Hey from OZ's big red centre! We're about a third of the way along our ambitious driving extravaganza around and through this continent country! We're just using exceptionally expensive internet in Coober Pedy, the opal mining town near Ayre's Rock where most of the homes (and this internet cafe) are caves dug into the desert, so no time to talk of koalas and kangaroos and Sydney and Melbourne and Anne and George's for the moment, but its all good! We've got a big journey ahead of us still, but hope to update soon, maybe a week or two, from a more...cosmopolitan location!