Windjana Gorge
Stunning Kimberley boab
Getting up close and personal with the crocs at Windjana
Derby sunset at the Jetty
Me, Tash & Pauline at the Boab Ball
My mudcrab! Look at the size of that beauty!
Tuesday, September 19, 2006
Kimberley photos
Windjana Gorge
Monday, September 11, 2006
Southeast Asia: by plane, train and automobile...
Ok everyone stop panicking! I realise that perhaps I have been offline for a little longer than usual (what's two months...?) and for that I apologise - but its all ok, I am still alive, very much alive, and having a ball...sorry for worrying you all, I have received the emails and have taken note, and will not be silent for so long next time... :)
So...what have I been up to...I really don't know where to start...I shall try to collect my thoughts and abbreviate them so you don't all have to read another 'novel'...
I left Australia two months ago for Southeast Asia, and what an experience it was. It was overwhelming, inspiring, mind-blowing, depressing, dirty, beautiful, smelly, serene, infact I really think I experienced every possible emotion during the time I was there, and I'm still struggling to find the right words to describe it...but I'll give it a go, bear with me...
Flying into Bangkok was an assalt on the senses in every sense, I went into immediate shellshock, due to the insaneness, the chaos, and the sheer number of people around...it probably wouldn't have been so bad if i'd arrived after living in a normal city, however coming from a town with a population of less than 5000, to a city of millions, i'm sure anyone would've had to take a moment... I spent my first day just wandering, trying to take it all in without feeling too overwhelmed, but I did experience a great wash of relief when Bernie finally arrived on her flight from Melbourne that night - and what a happy reunion it was! There was much excited chattering and gossiping until the wee hours of the morning when after lovely hot showers (our last for many weeks) we finally crashed into our most comfortable hotel beds (also our last for many weeks)... After checking out of our hotel we headed across town to find the first of many grotty backpackers for our final night in Bangkok and then we were off to explore what we could in the time we had...we also organised our ticket out of there. The next morning, bright and early at 7am we boarded a bus that was going to take us to the border of Thailand and Cambodia, and settled in for what we thought was going to be a 10-hour bus trip through to Siem Reap in Cambodia...well, weren't we ever wrong about that?!? The ride to the Thai border was quite managable but at the border was where the fun started. We were to get used to the various forms of transport across borders - cattle trucks, motorbikes, and walking and this particular border was a combination of the cattle truck and walking...and standing...for a very long long time...while 10 people all examine your passport, first on the Thai side then on the Cambodian side of the border...all in 40 degree heat, fun...but the fun doesn't stop there...then we bordered our 'air-conditioned bus' that was going to take us the other 150km to Siem Reap...shame that it was actually a 12-seater van with broken windows packed full of 20 backpackers with all our packs inside as well, with us lucky ones sitting in the aisle, for the next 9 hours! Yes, it took 9 hours to drive 150km...we were thrown from one side of the 'bus' to the other, up and down, we all ended up with head injuries and covered in orange dust - good thing i was already used to that part! So our 10-hour bus trip turned into a mammoth 15-hour nightmare trip, but we survived and ended up bonding with ALL our fellow travellers - as you do when you're all sitting on top of each other (!) but especially with 2 Danish sisters who we ended up travelling with through a lot of our trip...what an introduction to Cambodia eh???
So there we were in Siem Reap for a few days, the home of the great Angkor Wat (one of the Wonders of the World). We spent a day recovering, and then a fabulous day cycling around the Angkor ruins. The Angkor Wat itself was amazing, huge, but totally overrun with hideous tourists which kinda took away from the whole experience, but the smaller temples and ruins were just spectacular. We found a little village kid at one of the ruins hiding in the long grass and he ended up taking us around the ruins, pointing out interesting things, telling us all about the history - and kept ducking and hiding in the grass whenever a policeman went past - he apparently wasn't a registered tour guide at the grand age of 8 and therefore wasn't allowed to be showing us anything! It was a great day, Bernie and I even had our 'Lara Croft' moment in Ta Prohm - the temple where the film Tomb Raider was made. The rest of our time in Siem Reap was taken up with visiting the Landmine Musuem - horrific but inspiring that someone is actually trying to make a difference, and just taking in the sights, sounds and smells of Cambodia. The number of amputees from landmines that are begging on the streets is heartbreaking, and the drugged babies that are carried around by their 4 or 5 year old sibling, begging for money for the supposed 'sick' baby was so shocking, but at the same time, there were children that were so delightful and still grinning even after you turned them down for the 20th time saying that you really weren't going to buy anything off them!
Onto Phnom Penh where we stayed in probably the worst guest house of the trip - a squat toilet with not even a bucket to flush(!), holes in the walls, gaps between the walls and the doorways, no windows, you name it, it was that bad...but it was also only 50cents a night! In the few days in Phnom Penh we visited the Killing Fields at Choeung Ek, and the S21 prison/concentration camp/museum - mindblowing. It was an incredibly depressing experience, very moving, and upsetting, and shocking. We came out of a daze at the end of our time in Phnom Penh with an almost hatred for human beings, it amazes me that we still continue to massacre each other for pathetic reasons, killing hundreds of thousands of people in the most grotesque ways, and still end up exactly where we started from each time...so on that note we decided we had to get out of Cambodia, everything in Cambodia is centred around the war, the genocide, and the ongoing problems with landmines, and it was quite an experience to be there, but it all got too much and when we realised that we hadn't laughed or smiled all day it was time to move on...so we headed to Vietnam.
Phnom Penh to Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam was another loooong bus journey, another long hot walk across another border, through no man's land, and into Vietnam - after having to fork out even more money to the Vietnamese officials just coz they asked for it...not very nice...and then into another van with 20 people for 12 seats for another long ride to HCMC with - a singing guide(!) - talk about torture! It was pretty obvious right from the border of Vietnam that it was a much richer country than Cambodia, there is still poverty but no where near the same extent of what we'd already seen. It wasn't a bad city but one night was enough for us and we decided to head to the coast for some serious beach time. But before we left we got an email from our friend Neil who was supposed to be joining us to say he'd lost all his money and cards one night and had to head back to Australia early - silly boy! So we weren't going to see Neil which was a shame but unfortunately, them's the breaks! So onto Mui Ne!
Mui Ne is a quiet little fishing village on the coast famous for making fish sauce - and yes you can smell the village a long time before you actually get there! But it was nice for a few days, just to chill out, enjoy the fresh ocean air and explore the Red and White sand dunes, go sand boarding and cycle around the coast enjoying the amazing scenery, hills, and lush rice paddies, with a backdrop of sparkling blue water. We did have a little incident when walking along the beach one day, obviously walked a little too far and out of our area, because we came across three dead dogs within about 20m of each other! They were in various stages of decomposing and as you can imagine we turned and hightailed it out of there very quickly! It also managed to keep us out of the water in Mui Ne quite successfully! After a few days in Mui Ne we headed up the coast to Nha Trang which is a much bigger town, more like a city and a bit resorty too. It was nice enough, and we went on a crazy boat trip where we got to enjoy a floating bar with free wine for most of the afternoon - can't go wrong! Only tragedy was that this was where my camera decided to pack a sad and didn't want to work anymore! So Bernie became official photographer. We caught the overnight bus to Hoi An from there, and that was another experience. As many people know, I'm a hopeless sleeper, I seem to lack the ability to just sleep anywhere and that was definitely true on this bus trip, but i didn't mind so much in the end. The road wound around the coast of Vietnam in the carved-out side of the mountains and all I could see was a sea of twinkling lights from the fishing boats on the water and the moonlight reflecting off the buddhist monks head that was sitting in front of me! Quite a magical experience at the time..
Hoi An was a lovely town, had a great beach that we frequented often for the 6 days we spent there! We got to know all the locals on the beach who after a couple of days were spending their time hanging out with us instead of wandering the beach, selling their pineapples and mangoes like they usually do...fabulous fun. We also met a man named My Phong at a restaurant we ate at one night who told us he did trips out to his village to show people around and teach them about Vietnamese culture. We weren't sure whether we were getting ripped off or not, but thought we'd give it a go and the next day headed out on motorbikes (the only form of transport in Asia) to his village. What a day. We learnt so much about Vietnamese history, culture, religion, the war, and just general life. It was one of the best days of our trip. He took us into his home, around his village, we were introduced to every family in the village, drank tea in every house and shared a meal with his family, it was such an amazing show of hospitality and generosity. While we were in Hoi An we also went out to the My Son ruins which were cool but nowhere near as amazing as the Angkor ruins, and the Marble Mountains which were beautiful. When we decided it was time to move on from Hoi An, we tried booking the bus to Hanoi, but that was full, and then the train, but that was full, and so we had to fly...except there was only 'business class' seats available...we thought that we had may as well spend the extra money otherwise we'd just be spending it staying on in Hoi An, so imagine our surpirse when our ticket ended up with us at the very back of the plane, with no more leg room than anyone else and only a glass of water to drink the whole flight...hmmm...another asian scam experience...!
Hanoi was a very busy, big, smelly city that I didn't enjoy particularly but you get that...we went out to Halong Bay for 3 days for a boat trip and to stay on Cat Ba Island National Park, which was ok, but not great - coming from NZ I expected a national park to BE a national park, but rather it was a resort town for local vietnamese with hotels, restaurants, and lots and lots of rubbish and pollution...i couldn't even go in the water coz it was too polluted! But after that disaster of a trip and another day in Hanoi visiting all the different museums, we got the overnight train to Sapa up in the highland where we were signed up for a 4 day trek. Now Sapa was fabulous! It was probably my favourite place of the whole trip. Its a small town nestled halfway up the side of a mountain, in the middle of a huge valley, surrounded by cloud, with mountain peaks towering overhead, it was magical. The landscape was so green and lush, and the the crops and rice paddies terraced down the mountains just created the most beautiful picture. We trekked through all the villages down in the valleys for 4 days, homestaying with families in the villages, it was hard work, but it was such an incredible experience to be able to live with and talk to and get to know these beautiful village people. We were very sad to leave after 4 days, but we had to catch the overnight train back to Hanoi before flying out the next day back to Bangkok..!
Ok everyone stop panicking! I realise that perhaps I have been offline for a little longer than usual (what's two months...?) and for that I apologise - but its all ok, I am still alive, very much alive, and having a ball...sorry for worrying you all, I have received the emails and have taken note, and will not be silent for so long next time... :)
So...what have I been up to...I really don't know where to start...I shall try to collect my thoughts and abbreviate them so you don't all have to read another 'novel'...
I left Australia two months ago for Southeast Asia, and what an experience it was. It was overwhelming, inspiring, mind-blowing, depressing, dirty, beautiful, smelly, serene, infact I really think I experienced every possible emotion during the time I was there, and I'm still struggling to find the right words to describe it...but I'll give it a go, bear with me...
Flying into Bangkok was an assalt on the senses in every sense, I went into immediate shellshock, due to the insaneness, the chaos, and the sheer number of people around...it probably wouldn't have been so bad if i'd arrived after living in a normal city, however coming from a town with a population of less than 5000, to a city of millions, i'm sure anyone would've had to take a moment... I spent my first day just wandering, trying to take it all in without feeling too overwhelmed, but I did experience a great wash of relief when Bernie finally arrived on her flight from Melbourne that night - and what a happy reunion it was! There was much excited chattering and gossiping until the wee hours of the morning when after lovely hot showers (our last for many weeks) we finally crashed into our most comfortable hotel beds (also our last for many weeks)... After checking out of our hotel we headed across town to find the first of many grotty backpackers for our final night in Bangkok and then we were off to explore what we could in the time we had...we also organised our ticket out of there. The next morning, bright and early at 7am we boarded a bus that was going to take us to the border of Thailand and Cambodia, and settled in for what we thought was going to be a 10-hour bus trip through to Siem Reap in Cambodia...well, weren't we ever wrong about that?!? The ride to the Thai border was quite managable but at the border was where the fun started. We were to get used to the various forms of transport across borders - cattle trucks, motorbikes, and walking and this particular border was a combination of the cattle truck and walking...and standing...for a very long long time...while 10 people all examine your passport, first on the Thai side then on the Cambodian side of the border...all in 40 degree heat, fun...but the fun doesn't stop there...then we bordered our 'air-conditioned bus' that was going to take us the other 150km to Siem Reap...shame that it was actually a 12-seater van with broken windows packed full of 20 backpackers with all our packs inside as well, with us lucky ones sitting in the aisle, for the next 9 hours! Yes, it took 9 hours to drive 150km...we were thrown from one side of the 'bus' to the other, up and down, we all ended up with head injuries and covered in orange dust - good thing i was already used to that part! So our 10-hour bus trip turned into a mammoth 15-hour nightmare trip, but we survived and ended up bonding with ALL our fellow travellers - as you do when you're all sitting on top of each other (!) but especially with 2 Danish sisters who we ended up travelling with through a lot of our trip...what an introduction to Cambodia eh???
So there we were in Siem Reap for a few days, the home of the great Angkor Wat (one of the Wonders of the World). We spent a day recovering, and then a fabulous day cycling around the Angkor ruins. The Angkor Wat itself was amazing, huge, but totally overrun with hideous tourists which kinda took away from the whole experience, but the smaller temples and ruins were just spectacular. We found a little village kid at one of the ruins hiding in the long grass and he ended up taking us around the ruins, pointing out interesting things, telling us all about the history - and kept ducking and hiding in the grass whenever a policeman went past - he apparently wasn't a registered tour guide at the grand age of 8 and therefore wasn't allowed to be showing us anything! It was a great day, Bernie and I even had our 'Lara Croft' moment in Ta Prohm - the temple where the film Tomb Raider was made. The rest of our time in Siem Reap was taken up with visiting the Landmine Musuem - horrific but inspiring that someone is actually trying to make a difference, and just taking in the sights, sounds and smells of Cambodia. The number of amputees from landmines that are begging on the streets is heartbreaking, and the drugged babies that are carried around by their 4 or 5 year old sibling, begging for money for the supposed 'sick' baby was so shocking, but at the same time, there were children that were so delightful and still grinning even after you turned them down for the 20th time saying that you really weren't going to buy anything off them!
Onto Phnom Penh where we stayed in probably the worst guest house of the trip - a squat toilet with not even a bucket to flush(!), holes in the walls, gaps between the walls and the doorways, no windows, you name it, it was that bad...but it was also only 50cents a night! In the few days in Phnom Penh we visited the Killing Fields at Choeung Ek, and the S21 prison/concentration camp/museum - mindblowing. It was an incredibly depressing experience, very moving, and upsetting, and shocking. We came out of a daze at the end of our time in Phnom Penh with an almost hatred for human beings, it amazes me that we still continue to massacre each other for pathetic reasons, killing hundreds of thousands of people in the most grotesque ways, and still end up exactly where we started from each time...so on that note we decided we had to get out of Cambodia, everything in Cambodia is centred around the war, the genocide, and the ongoing problems with landmines, and it was quite an experience to be there, but it all got too much and when we realised that we hadn't laughed or smiled all day it was time to move on...so we headed to Vietnam.
Phnom Penh to Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam was another loooong bus journey, another long hot walk across another border, through no man's land, and into Vietnam - after having to fork out even more money to the Vietnamese officials just coz they asked for it...not very nice...and then into another van with 20 people for 12 seats for another long ride to HCMC with - a singing guide(!) - talk about torture! It was pretty obvious right from the border of Vietnam that it was a much richer country than Cambodia, there is still poverty but no where near the same extent of what we'd already seen. It wasn't a bad city but one night was enough for us and we decided to head to the coast for some serious beach time. But before we left we got an email from our friend Neil who was supposed to be joining us to say he'd lost all his money and cards one night and had to head back to Australia early - silly boy! So we weren't going to see Neil which was a shame but unfortunately, them's the breaks! So onto Mui Ne!
Mui Ne is a quiet little fishing village on the coast famous for making fish sauce - and yes you can smell the village a long time before you actually get there! But it was nice for a few days, just to chill out, enjoy the fresh ocean air and explore the Red and White sand dunes, go sand boarding and cycle around the coast enjoying the amazing scenery, hills, and lush rice paddies, with a backdrop of sparkling blue water. We did have a little incident when walking along the beach one day, obviously walked a little too far and out of our area, because we came across three dead dogs within about 20m of each other! They were in various stages of decomposing and as you can imagine we turned and hightailed it out of there very quickly! It also managed to keep us out of the water in Mui Ne quite successfully! After a few days in Mui Ne we headed up the coast to Nha Trang which is a much bigger town, more like a city and a bit resorty too. It was nice enough, and we went on a crazy boat trip where we got to enjoy a floating bar with free wine for most of the afternoon - can't go wrong! Only tragedy was that this was where my camera decided to pack a sad and didn't want to work anymore! So Bernie became official photographer. We caught the overnight bus to Hoi An from there, and that was another experience. As many people know, I'm a hopeless sleeper, I seem to lack the ability to just sleep anywhere and that was definitely true on this bus trip, but i didn't mind so much in the end. The road wound around the coast of Vietnam in the carved-out side of the mountains and all I could see was a sea of twinkling lights from the fishing boats on the water and the moonlight reflecting off the buddhist monks head that was sitting in front of me! Quite a magical experience at the time..
Hoi An was a lovely town, had a great beach that we frequented often for the 6 days we spent there! We got to know all the locals on the beach who after a couple of days were spending their time hanging out with us instead of wandering the beach, selling their pineapples and mangoes like they usually do...fabulous fun. We also met a man named My Phong at a restaurant we ate at one night who told us he did trips out to his village to show people around and teach them about Vietnamese culture. We weren't sure whether we were getting ripped off or not, but thought we'd give it a go and the next day headed out on motorbikes (the only form of transport in Asia) to his village. What a day. We learnt so much about Vietnamese history, culture, religion, the war, and just general life. It was one of the best days of our trip. He took us into his home, around his village, we were introduced to every family in the village, drank tea in every house and shared a meal with his family, it was such an amazing show of hospitality and generosity. While we were in Hoi An we also went out to the My Son ruins which were cool but nowhere near as amazing as the Angkor ruins, and the Marble Mountains which were beautiful. When we decided it was time to move on from Hoi An, we tried booking the bus to Hanoi, but that was full, and then the train, but that was full, and so we had to fly...except there was only 'business class' seats available...we thought that we had may as well spend the extra money otherwise we'd just be spending it staying on in Hoi An, so imagine our surpirse when our ticket ended up with us at the very back of the plane, with no more leg room than anyone else and only a glass of water to drink the whole flight...hmmm...another asian scam experience...!
Hanoi was a very busy, big, smelly city that I didn't enjoy particularly but you get that...we went out to Halong Bay for 3 days for a boat trip and to stay on Cat Ba Island National Park, which was ok, but not great - coming from NZ I expected a national park to BE a national park, but rather it was a resort town for local vietnamese with hotels, restaurants, and lots and lots of rubbish and pollution...i couldn't even go in the water coz it was too polluted! But after that disaster of a trip and another day in Hanoi visiting all the different museums, we got the overnight train to Sapa up in the highland where we were signed up for a 4 day trek. Now Sapa was fabulous! It was probably my favourite place of the whole trip. Its a small town nestled halfway up the side of a mountain, in the middle of a huge valley, surrounded by cloud, with mountain peaks towering overhead, it was magical. The landscape was so green and lush, and the the crops and rice paddies terraced down the mountains just created the most beautiful picture. We trekked through all the villages down in the valleys for 4 days, homestaying with families in the villages, it was hard work, but it was such an incredible experience to be able to live with and talk to and get to know these beautiful village people. We were very sad to leave after 4 days, but we had to catch the overnight train back to Hanoi before flying out the next day back to Bangkok..!
In Bangkok it was a sad farewell to Bernie who was heading home to Ireland after being gone 10 months, although she was so excited to be going home it was hard to stay sad. And I caught a flight up to Chiang Mai in the north of Thailand where for a week I went hiking, elephant trekking, river rafting and even managed a Thai cooking course! All too soon it was over though and I was on my way back to Australia, and back to work.
Final thoughts on Asia: for an area that appears to be such a contradiction in humanity, with the history of war so recent and so intricately wound into everyday life, I am amazed that people have such strength and resilience and are able to continue smiling throughout. My trip affected me in ways i wasn't really expecting and it moved me immensly. I am in total admiration of the hundreds of children that I met and played with through Cambodia and Vietnam. They have such fighting spirits and it seems that each generation thats born comes out ready to battle on, grinning the whole time...its inspiring, and it makes you appreciate being brought up in a country of peace more than you can ever fully comprehend.
So here I am, back in Derby, in the Outback, getting used to working again...its a hard life...so I'm here for 2 more months before heading to South America! Hooray! Time to knuckle down and earn some money and try not to spend it! There was another tragedy while I was away in Asia though - my cellphone went walkies somewhere...it was left in Australia but obviously missed me, went to find me, and is now missing in action...so anyone who has be calling or texting in the last couple of months - terribly sorry but I won't have got the message! I've just picked up a new number now i'm back in Derby though - onto my third phone number since i've been here - ridiculous!
Well, sorry, it did turn into a bit of an essay, didn't mean it to, but there was just too much to say as per usual. I hope everyone is well, and happy. I can't wait to hear news from home or abroad...
Love always
Red Ron of the Outback
Lessons from the Outback: #5 Always watch out for crocs while crabbing...
Hi all,
Well, another month has flown by and I find myself often wonderingwhere on earth the time is going...
My time in Derby is up for now, I had a great last few weeks. Icontinued to work hard and had a couple of weeks of night shift thrownin for good measure, just to make sure I hadn't forgotten what theywere like I think! But I managed to fill my spare time easily, withfishing, crabbing and sightseeing...ahhh, what a life...
We had a great day out on the King Sound with Grant (nurse manager) and a couple of his friends. We took the boat out and had the rods cast but unfortunately the fish were not biting and the King Sound Barramundi were definitely not making any appearances. We cruised around looking for better spots, even found ourselves anchored to an abandoned barge in the middle of KIng Sound, but alas, still no fish however there was fabulous tanning to be had by all (I promise I really did have my sunscreen on too though!) and lovely company for a day out on the water. What I did realise from that day was that even though Derby is surrounded by water, you can still feel incredibly land-locked because you can't go into the water. Just having the salt air in your face was amazing.
About two weeks ago Tash (housemate) and I went on a great trip up to Windjara Gorge and Tunnel Creek. It was a long day starting at 8am and we didn't get home til 8pm but it was definitely worth it, a fabulous day. Windjara Gorge is up the Gibb RIver Rd (corrugated gravel 4WD rd - a very bumpy trip) and is an ancient reef that millions of years ago was underwater but now towers above the ground creating a magnificent gorge in the middle with white sand, green water and best of all, hundreds of freshwater crocodiles!
The scenery is breathtaking and the history is quite something too with fossils visible everywhere through the gorge. So we lay with the crocs for a while, enjoying the sunshine and loud screeching of the white parakeets that call Windjara home as well.
After leving Windjara Gorge we headed to Tunnel Creek where we did a little informal rock climbing into an underground cave sustem where there are all sorts of fabulous things like bats, crocs, eels and catfish to play with as well as some Aboriginal rock art and a few more Aboriginal stories to be told. And it all involves walking through the cave, almost waistdeep in very cold water, hopeing that you're not the one that discovers the croc, catfish or eels first. I'd sucked up enough courage by the end to go for a very chilly swim at the northern end of the cave only to be told after I got out that there was a huge croc in THAT pool! I think I truly had palpitations at that moment!
But the real croc experience came just last week after my last shift in Derby when my housemates and I were taken out by Brra Bob in his boat to the King Sound for a spot of crabbing.. well... crabbing is great fun, for humans but apparently for crocs too coz they love to come and stal not only the bait from the pots but any crabs that have climbed in as well! We were halfway thorugh our morning of crabbing and were getting into a nice routine of pulling up the crab pots, checking, re-baiting, putting them back down when I saw about 15m away from the boat a rather dark slim head bobbing in the water. I believe some rather delightful words came out of my mouth when I realised that I was staring at a salt-water crocs head and then followed the line in the water to find the end of his tail sticking out of the water some few metres further down! Not very reassuring when there's 5 of you in a little tinny boat the same length as the croc! So I raised the alarm as quietly as you might imagine but hollering about the "huge bloody Salty!!!!!" and when everyone went to have a look he dived right under.
So I was given a reasonable amount of grief about the supposed salty when who should choose to resurface but the said salty! And man, did everyone see him that time! He ws obviously a little curious about us as we were him, although I think there was possibly a little more fear on our boat than with dear Salty, because he had come closer by a considerable number of metres! Everyone got a good look at him and his size and his teeth and then Barra Bob hightailed it outta there with the excuse "no croc gonna get my crabs!". We all had a small sigh of relief, smiled at each other and then proceeded to burst into excited babbles of exclamation of the fact that WE saw a SALTY!!
Now for anyone who is interested and doesn't know the difference between the salties and the freshies listen up....
Freshies have a narrow jaw with a single line of raised scale onto their head and are relatively harmless to humans as long you leave them alone and don't bother them. They'll usually move away from you if you hop in to go swimming where they are.
But Salties on the other hand have quite an apetite for humans and if you're anywhere close, you will end up being the main course served for lunch - not nice. They're recognisable by their wide jaw, and I'm reasonably proud of myself because after a little research and small amount of practice I seem able to tell them apart! And just if you're interested the crabbing trip ended splendidly with 6 big mudcrabs being caught and promptly cooked up at the Nurses QUarters for lunch - Yum!
So after a yummy lunch of fresh crab, I grabbed a couple of hourssleep and then rose in time for my farewell party at the NursesQuarters! What a day! It was a great night, had the BBQ going, lotsof wine flowing and fell into bed around 3am - ouch!Friday was pack up day in Derby, and as I was a little slow to startthe day, it was a good thing I didn't seem to accumulate too much inthe time I was there! When I was all packed and ready to go, Ingrid(housemate) and I hopped in Pauline's (housemate) car (bless her) andcruised down to Broome for a final weekend in the Northwest beforeheading south again, and what a weekend it was!
I don't think we managed 4 hours sleep between us over the whole weekend, partly due tonot being in bed long enough, partly due to the Outdoor Disco next toour backpackers and partly due to noisy neighbours and the substantiallack of any type of soundproofing once the disco had finished! But atleast we had Cable Beach to lie on all day to recover - nothing better. We also had a look at Gantheaume Pt with the beautiful redrock formations, dinosaur footprints and Anastacia's Pool, kinda cool. Anastacia's Pool is a circular area of rock that is rumoured to havebeen dug out of a large slab at Gantheaume Pt by an old lighthousekeeper for his wife who was riddled with arthritis. When there is a really high tide, the water comes up and splashes into the pool therefore filling it so his wife could sit in there to ease her pain, cool huh?
It was time to farewell Broome on Sunday morning and I flew back downto Perth for a couple of days that I have managed to fill quite easilywith catching up with Mary and Emma, seeing the 'Amazing Human Bodyexhibition' and shopping for all necessities for Asia! The time hasflown by, I'm now packed and organized and simply cannot wait to geton that plane and be in Bangkok! We leave for the airport any minutenow once i'm off the computer. Asia had better be ready for Red Ron -coz I'm on my way!
Take care all,Roni xxx
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)