it went tits up today

It started OK. Lovely sunny morning, and even the goats and alpacas were on top form, even if they did give me some odd looks. Maybe even they are told not to accept goodies from a stranger.

So we all got up early to go riding.....but Nadine's bike wouldn't start. after much tinkering and swearing,  and it still not starting, we suspected an electrical fault and had to admit defeat as we had anyway (nor suitable tools) of testing anything electrical.

So we took Jacqui's bike, but only managed to get about 2 km down the road before all of the bikes conked out and we had to get the mechanic who had fixed them, to come out.Turned out the chokes were set up wrong and he fixed them but Nadine's bike was indeed an electrical fault and had to be taken off to be fixed. That should be back in the morning, which is just as well as we are leaving for The Snowy Mountains late morning anyway.

But we did get a ride in later - 15 kms down the road to Marulan, where we met some local farm blokes.

" Blimey, I got chain saws bigger than those engines"

" Yeah but you couldn't ride your chain saws round Oz could you?"

" No, fair enough"

Farkling

Spent all morning fiddling with the bikes, trying to work out where to put what. Jacqui has done a great job getting them specked up but the stashing of personal kit and getting things as you want them is always the hardest bit. Got exasperated after a while so will have to finish it tomorrow.

It's chilly here at the moment. The day started well but then the wind came up, the temp dropped, and it turned into Britain. And there was me thinking I was done with the cold. Apparently not. So glad I have a good sleeping bag, bivi bag, silk liner combo.

We had another poke around Goulburn this afternoon. It's a bit of a sleepy little place now it's been bypassed by the Hume Highway, but was obviously quite a nice town, with some very nice old single storey wooden houses with verandas. Will get some pics tomorrow. It's also home to a gaol, the police academy and a giant model merino sheep. Such style.

In bed now but can't sleep as my finger is throbbing away and giving me gip. I sliced it open with my leatherman earlier this evening. Not the best use of it but at least I can vouch for its sharpness; it's a deep cut alright.

Up the coast and back again

We drove from The Entrance to Safety Beach, just north of Coff’s Harbour. That took us six hours, yet according to the map, we’d only moved a fraction of a distance when compared to the whole coast. The distances involved here are enormous and it takes a while to get your head around it. And unlike in Europe with its very developed road network, there is usually only one way to go, plus a few country diversions, unless of course, you fly. But then you don’t see anything and don’t notice the changes.

That didn’t top us getting pulled by the police for a random breath test just after leaving Bulahdelah. Gordon was driving but as none of us had been drinking, it was a very quick affair and we were soon on our way. The copper was OK too, telling us about his recent holiday in the UK.

It was noticeably cooler as we drove north too - which was a bit odd, given that north down here is warmer than south. It was a result of a 10º drop in the unseasonably hot weather and warm winds down south in the past few days - 35-37º c down to 25º; much more comfortable.

Coff’s is a fairly big town and is in banana country. I know this because apart from seeing banana palms everywhere, the giant banana at the side of the road with the town name on it, said so.

And we had to try some of their banana cake and banana crepe.

We stayed with Grant, a friend of Nadine’s, who lives just off the ocean. The stuff we’d shipped from London had arrived at his place earlier in the week and was safely stashed in his garage. It was mostly riding and camping gear that would have been too bulky and tiresome to lug through the States, but it was relief to get it as the shipping company had mucked us about a bit. And even better, a few roos turned up on his front lawn to see what was going on. 

The morning walk to breakfast was great - right alongside the ocean.

 Bright sun and lots of surf with about three people in sight - plus two horrible dead puffer fish. Seeing those things ( the fish, not the people) makes you question why anybody would want to get in the water, knowing that those things are lurking under the waves. Never mind sharks, these things might not attack but they look really creepy, like those ink drawings of fish from the early 1800s. Real monsters.

We repacked our stuff today too, decanting a shipping crate each into one bag, then stuffed it all in the car for the drive down to Nadine’s parents, two hours or so south, near Kempsey. Its a lovely place - in the country but within reach of Kempsey, surrounded by gum trees, a few young cows and no noise. 

Gordon got a tick in the back of his head, a burrowing insect that digs into skin, gorges on blood, injects toxins then clears off, leaving the donor itching and a bit sore if lucky, or sometimes with creeping paralysis if they’re not. Eric got this one out by spraying it with meths then pulling it out with tweezers but you have to ensure that you get the whole thing out and not leave then head as that will then infect and cause problems. This one was about the size of a small pea. 

The following morning, we were up earlyish for a walk with her parents dogs. The sun had been up for a while and I had been woken by a right old racket going on outside - heaps of different birds all yelling and shouting at each other, trying to be top bird for the day I guess.  I’m not sure if its because the noise they make is different or if they really are more noisy than European birds, but they do make a din. I don’t remember the birds being that vocal in the States, so maybe it is just here.

A few roos were hopping about too and they stopped to have a look at us as we walked by. A mother with a joey in the pouch, a few lone hoppers and a couple of wallabies all making the most of the beautiful early morning light and doing their thing before the sun came up and super heated their day.

After breakfast, Silke (Nadine’s mum) drove us into Kempsey to buy a few things - a fishing rod (Nadine) and a machete (Gordon) I already have an axe an a billy can so I didn't need anything. Then we  came back, picked up Eric (Nadine’s dad) and went to the pub in Bellbrook, a few kms away.

The verges en route had been burnt last week in a small bushfire which had thankfully not spread. It was probably due to somebody flicking a lighted cigarette butt out of the window. Is amazing how in a country where such devastation can be caused so easily and affect so many people, that such carelessness happens. But its just a variation of thoughtlessness that happens elsewhere. Maybe it only a close personal call will change the behaviour of such people.

So on Sunday morning, we were up early and off at 0900 for the 6 hour drive back to Sydney to stay with Nadine's aunt and uncle before another long drive to pick up the bikes for the next part of our adventure. Cant wait to see the little steeds.

We stopped en route for  a Fredo pie, an absolute must. Gordon had crocodile, Nadine Emu and I, being a vegetarian of some 35 years,  had a taste of both (pies). Well, it would have been rude not to have sampled local offerings. Didn't think much of the crocodile a bit like chicken, but Emu was quite nice.....a bit beefy.

But this business of place being named after familiar places in Britain really muddles your head..... Cardiff and Newcastle are near each other, whilst Kew and Wallsend are not to far apart either. Very confusing.

Aunt and Uncle were very nice and made us very welcome. A really pleasant evening with them and Oma (Grandma).

**Note on the bush fires....although most have died down because the weather has cooled, 3.5 thousand hectares was on fire near Kempsey last night and the air was thick with smoke. Silke also told us that she had gone to Catherine Hill Bay the day after us and seen a digger digging out cola from just under the surface  and that it was alight in the digger scoop. Now that is scary. 

Been up the coast a bit today

Drove up to Catherine's Hill Bay which copped the fires last week. It was obviouisly a lovely place and what's left is pretty nice too.

The pier in the picture was originally a jetty from which they loaded coal onto ships bound for Newcastle just up the coast. Literally carrying coals to Newcastle..... 

It's a bit posh and expensive though .... this small building plot was a cool 1.6 million dollars.

The garage on the main road had burnt down but the shrimp survived as did the garden centre bit. Whilst everything around was torched, these people were sitting on benches, presumably workers still selling the pots out in the open.

After that we nipped up to Swansea. (nice little place) before coming back to The Entrance to see the pelicans being fed.

The feeding has been going on every afternoon since 1979 when a bloke from the chippy across the road started to feed them scraps. Now a whole gang turn up everyday at 1530 hrs. Big old things that live for about 25 years.

O

Cant do pics at the moment folks

That's because the wifi is weedy where I am....but will stick em up as soon as I can get a decent signal. I've also reduced the image size so loading them via my phone should be easier. Fingers crossed.

A day of doing jobs

It was a warm spring day here - a balmy 34º - so what better than a day for doing jobs.

Medicare was first on the list, the Australian equivalent of NHS, but unlike in the UK, you have to prove you are entitled to it and be registered before getting treatment. There is a reciprocal agreement with the UK, citizens of both countries having access to the same level of medical care. Even Oz citizens have to prove they have contributed via taxes before getting access to medical care, but its not like the American system though where your medical insurance is scrutinised before you get looked at and as you bleed to death or die of the plague as you wait. Whist I hope not to need it, its good to know that in case of illness of accident, help is available. And the lady was nice too; she broke her ankle on a trip to the Arctic last year, so understood exactly what the concerns were likely to be.

Then we did phones. We now have Aussie mobile numbers which will make things much easier and cheaper.

After that, helmets. Aussie law requires them to be penetration approved and marked accordingly, so we decided to buy them here to comply with the law, plus we didn’t want to drag ours across the States. But just like in the UK, the salesman ( a ginger bloke called Alex) immediately assumed the ‘ you’re women so can’t possibly know anything about riding’ idea, and directed everything towards Gordon. When it became clear that we did, had done it for real quite a bit before, and knew exactly what we needed and why, he switched to giving us advice on Australian seasons, and the need to take water into the Outback. ‘Yeah we know thanks, we’ve ridden in more extreme places than Oz before and know how to look after ourselves. We’ll be fine.’ But your could see in his eyes that the woman bit was really vexing him, so we got him to order the lids and left.

The biggest faff of the day was the bank. We’d opened an account in London with an Aussie bank about six weeks before we left  London; all we needed to do was go in, prove our identity, and get our cards. But that didn’t happen. Whilst they had our account and with quite a few grand of our money in it, the cards giving us access to it were nowhere to be found. Bugger. Instead (as requested) of checking with the woman who had been dealing with our account and who was in the bank, the woman with whom we were dealing, cancelled the missing cards and requested they be reissued at the Goulburn branch for pick up next week ( we’ll be down that way but now have to make a special trip to collect them)  and tried sending us on our way. However, as we needed still to be set up with on line banking, she called somebody to help us....and that’s when it all came out. 

The cards had indeed been issued and were in the personal file of the woman (Joan) whom we had been dealing with on line. But for some reason, Joan hadn’t told anybody nor noted the file, so nobody knew where they were. And because the other woman had blundered ahead and put a stop on them without speaking to Joan as we asked her to, the cards which Joan then produced were useless. What a frigging fiasco. Really frustrating and unprofessional you Commonwealth Bank people of Gosford. Whilst it might not be a big deal to you, you really messed us about and caused us problems. So please sort yourselves out and think about the impact it has on your customers particularly as you have quite a bit of our money in your possession. It’s your job, but if you cant do it, then go and work at Aldi or something. Not impressed.

But the day ended well with a barbie at Nadine’s brother’s - also called Gordon; very confusing.

On the plane

On the plane at the moment so no internet. We’re about 90 mins out of Honolulu, aboard  a JetStar airbus A330-200. Its a long old flight too - 10 hours and 3 minutes southwest across the Pacific Ocean to Sydney.

Things were a bit fraught this morning as our flight was at 0815, but the boys’ was even earlier at 0625. Fortunately, we still had the hire car - a cavernous low fat wallowy van thing that could only have been invented in America - which made getting everybody to the airport and checked in on time, much easier. And of course there was no traffic about at that time - we left the apartment at 0330 - although we still managed to get pulled by the cops, blue lights an all. I think it was because we made a sharp left turn, which must have looked like we were trying to avoid the parked police car. But once Nadine told him we were trying to get to the airport, he was fine and gave us directions.

It was sad seeing the boys go but I think they’ve had a good time and have certainly packed stuff in, what with five days in Vancouver, three in San Francisco and a full week in Hawaii. But they both have jobs to go back to so they were on a time limit.

Our last day in Hawaii was fun - snorkelling off Hanuama Bay on the east of the island. Its a reef, with heaps of brightly coloured fish and coral literally just metres from the beach. It is actually a marine sanctuary but it used to be an unrestricted swimming and fishing area, but years of that have depleted the reef somewhat. So now they encourage people to go there but teach them about it in the hope that they will be more aware of the surroundings, and what a reef constitutes, and treat it a bit more respectfully.

We hired snorkelling gear there and that enabelled us to go out across the reef. But it was low tide and the water level was falling quite rapidly whilst we were there. That made swimming difficult after a while because as water rushes through the channels between the rocks, the current pushes and pulls you, and the lower the water level, the more chance you have of getting scraped on the sharp coral. And we all did get scraped - legs, arms, hands, feet. That’s not good for the coral of course, but its also not good for us as scrapes mean blood, and blood attracts sharks. And scrapes are easily infected with bacteria from the corals.

The water was very clear though, and sunlight filtered through it just like it does in the movies, making patterns on the sand and glinting of the fish and corals, making the fish shine as they dart about, and giving the rocks and coral a startlingly bright appearance. 

And the fish weren’t bothered by our presence. Rather, they were indifferent and just got on with their lives, small gangs feeding on the coral, picking parasites off each other,  coasting on the current, before flicking their bodies  and turning together in different directions. How do they know when to do that, when to turn and when to dart in unison? Birds do the same thing at dusk, playing on warm air currents in the fading light in swarms.  What is it called? A botheration or something.

It is weird world though, silent and constantly moving as if a wind were blowing through it and back every second, causing things to waft. When get used to this and the fish just being around you, you start to notice other creatures, in the same way that when you go into the dark, your eyes adjust, gradually revealing things that were right there the whole time; sea cucumbers, anemones and little shellfish. I was half hoping to see a conger eel just because we had been told they were there and the habitat was all about - rock holes and crevices - but in retrospect, I’m sort of glad that I didn’t because they are right up there on the sea monster-ometer, along with sharks and stingy jellyfish.

After leaving the reef, ate lunch in a rural cafe that we happened upon. It was run by a nice older couple from the mainland - her from California, him from Oregon, but they had both lived in Hawaii for years. And it was proper food too, not the processed and over sugared stuff that I keep complaining about.

In the evening, we went to a luau - a Hawaiian shindig with food and dancing and various traditional skills on display. It was all rigged up for tourists of course, and its not the sort of thing I would usually bother with, but it was very well done and the food was excellent. We all got dragged up on stage at various times, but big surprise of the evening was George who had disappeared while the rest of us were made to get up and wiggle our bums on stage, arms in air,  Hawaiian style. We assumed he’d gone to hide, but not so; after a drum roll, a big bloke in a grass skirt ran on stage and tapped the chief on the shoulder. It was George of course, who’d been put up to do a solo. He did a good job too, really hamming it up in a sort of London meets Honolulu sort of way that got the whole audience clapping and cheering. Good boy. I’ve always told them two things : 1. some things are worth getting in trouble for, and 2. if you get put on the spot, take control of it and make a real spectacle of yourself. And he certainly did the latter.

The venue was brilliant too; a ranch on the edge of the ocean which once it got dark, was lit up by a full moon. The rain died off too, which was just as well as the whole thing was outside under the stars.

Then it was back to the apartment, pack, sleep for a few hours, then up and out for the airport and the next part of the journey; Australia. We’re planning on staying there for about a year, travelling round on motorbikes. We know the stuff we shipped has arrived in Oz ( mostly riding gear) and its been cleared by customs. Now we have to go north to retrieve it from a friend of Nadine who kindly accepted custody of it. We have to do that this week, as well as buy helmets, get insurance, swap driving licenses, activate a bank account ( already opened from London) and register for Medicare (Australian emergency NHS which we get, courtesy of a reciprocal arrangement with the UK). Hopefully, thatwill all go to plan and we’ll be off on our first ride in the Snowy Mountains next Wednesday, about October 29th I think. Fingers crossed then!

Almost halfway there now, and all of us have been sleeping so far. One of the best bits about air travel (for me at least, although I might be a bit strange here) are the destination maps they have in the airline’s publication. There is something fascinating about the maps they use showing the curvature of the earth and the lines joining places. And now that technology allows it, what is even better, is the constantly updating electronic map that you find on your tv screen. Even though we’re now five hours into a 10 hour fight over the Pacific and there is really nothing at all to see, even if we were seated at the side ( we’re in the middle) I’m addicted to the map and the local seabed geography that it keeps showing. For a start, we crossed the equator about half and hour ago and so are now officially ‘ down under’ , but the things marked are now things like ‘ New Britain Trench’, Vityaz Trench, Tonga Trench Eauripik Rise and Magellan Seamounts. And land markers are places like Lima, Ho chi Minh City, Kona Kintabalu and Port Moresby. Its all very foreign and a long way away. Even the second language on information is Japanese, not the familiar French or Spanish of longhaul northern hemisphere jaunts.

We just had dinner. Well everybody else did; I had to make do with a dried up old sandwich yet again because they had apparently run out of veg meals. How hard can it be? Get the passenger manifest, match it up with pre-ordered meal requests and seat numbers so the woman in seat 49F ( me) gets her preordered vegetarian meal; do not give it to somebody else who on a whim has decided they don’t fancy the chicken or pork, and hasn’t bothered to make a meal request. Donkies.

Immigration was easy and not at all as I remember if from before. Astonishingly, the electronic visa thing worked for me and I was stamped in then waved through without any problems at all. Same as at quarantine, albeit I did get stopped and questioned about where I’d been and what I’d been up to. But the fella was nice, so it was quite a good chat.

There is a noticeable pall of bushfire smoke over Sydney, and it got more pronounced as we drove north towards the Central Coast. And there is a fairly strong burning smell in the air too - a bit autumnal wood smokey. But a state of emergency has been declared in NSW and many homes have been lost. However, it looks like it might cooling down now.

Off to Oz tomorrow.....

........ early so will do a proper blog on the plane as its already 2155 and we're up at 0300.

Had a fab day today. Went snorkelling with local fish on a reef.

Then went to a  luau - a Hawaiian thing with food and dancing and all that sort of stuff. It was actually really good despite the tourist aspect.

Quad biking and Pearl Harbour

Had a very brief surf this morning but the waves were rubbish again, and Nadine got hit in the face by her board, making her nose bleed. That meant we had to get out sharpish - sharks can smell blood a long way off and we had no wish to test that theory.

So once she had sorted her face out,  and we had all eaten breakfast, we headed out to the airport to hire a car.  This island is lovely but it is difficult to get around other than in the tourist areas. And of course tat means that if you want to go off the beaten track or just somewhere that is not on a bus line, you're snookered. Even if you can get anywhere, it takes forever. So that's why we hired a car.

First stop was Pearl Harbor. The USS Arizona memorial was still shut, but the USS Missouri was open.

This was the ship that the Japanese surrender was taken on.

The ship was  in Tokyo bay at the time, and during the relatively brief time that the US fought in WW2, it was hit twice by kamikaze, the side still showing signs of the impact.

The ship then went on to serve in Korea and the first Gulf War before being mothballed in 1992. The bloke showing us around was ex Navy (30 years ma'am) and was quite chuffed when I told him that several members of my family were ex Royal Navy, as I would have been had they let women go to sea when I left school. But there was no way I was going to be a teacher, a nurse or a secretary, and confined to shore under discipline regulations when I could have been free to do other stuff. So I never did join up, although I sometimes wonder whether I should have done. But it's too late now. Maybe in the next life.

They were also filming Hawaii Five O ( new version) alongside the Missouri. Its an active naval base and photo taking is very restricted, but that's just an invitation as far as I'm concerned.

After that, we headed to Kualoa Ranch for a spot of quad biking.

This  ranch is used as a movie and TV set for various things - Jurassic Park, Lost, Godzilla, You, me and Dupree, Hawaii 50 etc. n between times, they run quad biking jaunts, and that's what we did. Various film sets, including Godzilla's footprints were there/. They were originally 2 m deep but we filled in to just a few cms after a while.

The place is inside an old crater and the rocks walls are volcanic and brittle. Its also home to several old legends and some said it was creepy. I didn't get that feeling at all, but it was interesting learning about the various trees and fruit - guava

and  kuiki nut, which are used as a laxative. These are the nuts that you see people wearing as necklaces.

They taste like a cross between brazil nuts and chestnuts.

Unfortunately, Gordon managed to break two bikes - a puncture and a drowned carb - but it was OK as he got a lift back to base.