Walkabout

Thanks to the Indian Pacific train I arrived safely in Adelaide. There was delay of 4 hours after a lightening storm brought down a power line across the track. Normally I would be very annoyed at such a delay on a train journey but with the Indian Pacific the journey is the thing, not the destination.

The delay did mean that I didn't get to see the Blue Mountains though as it was dark and I was fast asleep by the time we went through them. But I was awake early the next morning and after my shower (yes, a shower on a train) I watched the sun come up over the bush and was rewarded with sightings of many kangaroos and emus.

I was up early again this morning and took the tram to Glenelg, which is on the coast, 20 minutes south. My appointment with the dolphins had arrived.

At last I got to see what shark shield did.

Whenever dolphins are sighted the swimmers on the large boat are ushered into the water and cling to one of two ropes that trail behind. And in between the ropes trails shark shield, a bit of old rope that supposedly sends out pulses that sharks can't stand. If it's that good I wonder why the crew were so keen on me signing the indemnity form?

As soon as the shout went up I duly donned my snorkel and mask and worked my way down the rope. I couldn't see anything except the pale legs of the bloke in front. People on the boat were shouting and pointing. I looked to my left and no more than 25 feet away a fin appeared out of the water. Shark or dolphin? Luckily it was a bottlenose. But he stayed out to my left and didn't come to play so I never got the underwater view.

Then, on the rope opposite, a young girl began to panic and shout. What's that? Is she saying Help! or Shark? I wasn't quite sure but she certainly wasn't happy. I was the closest person to her and luckily I was trained in life saving many years ago. I began to recall my lessons. Number one - you're no use to anyone dead so don't put yourself in danger. Good advice. I moved as far away from her as I could. Besides if she was shouting Shark then all that thrashing about was asking for trouble. It was close, but I survived.

So did she.

There was one more call to get on the water and once again no dolphins were sighted actually under the water. After that I just lazed around on deck, like a Spitfire pilot waiting for the shout. It never came. I'd spent $98 and the people who didn't get in the water were the ones who saw dolphins, not the mugs who paid extra to get in the bloody water.

Being English I accepted that this was the way of things but as I left the boat a young French girl had a different viewpoint and was berating the crew - But I did not see any dolphins!

I left her to it.

The good news is that at no point did I feel remotely ill so my anti-puking measures are working so far. I was so glad I went off for fish and chips.

It was a beautiful day and very hot. It would have been a shame to leave the beach so I went for a walk.

From the pier I took photos of Glenelg as it seemed to be a very modern and attractive resort. I got a few shots too of a magnifiscent sting ray that glided under the pier. Not too big, maybe 6 feet across, but I really enjoyed seeing this creature flapping its wings and moving along so wild and free.

I pointed it out to a chap nearby. He then regaled me with fishing stories and told me how this area had beeen ruined. All the seaweed had been removed, driving the fish away, and local houses bull-dozed to make way for modern flats, all to make it more attractive to people. 'Don't tell me about the green house effect' he said. 'What about the greed house effect?' Suddenly I saw Glenelg differently.

I wandered up the beach and was pleased to see that further up the seaweed reappeared.

My walk took me past the young French girl who still looked unhappy and was saying something to her boyfriend. My French isn't too good, but I think it was 'But I did not see any dolphins!'

A short nap and a bit of sunburn later I made my way back but this time I walked along the promenade. The houses that fronted it were splendid and no two were alike. One in particular caught my eye. All steel, concrete and glass it was full of curves and designed so the top storey was the main living area. It was the grass that amazed me most. I was an unnatural green. I walked over to it to seee if it was real and it was. Every blade of uniform length and not a weed in sight. The groundsman at Wembley would be proud of this grass. I was perfect. And it was on a slope, so I've no idea how such precision was engineered. I wanted to take a picture so the next time the Green Thumb Man appears we can have a chat about what I should get for my money. But I was conscious of the security cameras and sure that somewhere unseen there was a rottweiller with and elastic band around its nuts to provide additional motivation to see off intruders.

I withdrew. But maybe I would have been okay, because what was odd is there were no people about at all. Apart form the odd workman painting or cementing something I never saw any residents of these award winning beachfront properties. It was eerily quiet.

So quite a day all in all. I'd paid nearly a $100 for the pleasure of being dragged through the sea on a rope just to prove that my sea sickness pills work. And then I'd gone walkabout for nothing and seen a majestic sting ray and been left wondering, not for the first time, about the nature of progress and man's need to sterilise nature in order to create communities worthy of Homes and Gardens.

Live long and prosper.

Notes from a bloody big island

G'day.

I've got a few minutes kicking back my heels at the youth hostel in Sydney before I venture west to Adelaide via the India Pacific Railway.

Sydney is all about water. As long as you are near the water it is a fantastic place. But come inland and it could be any major city in the world.

The two most famous waterfront attractions are the Harbour Bridge and the Opera House. Both of these have featured large in my adventures over the last 3 days.

The Opera House has proved both disappointing and breathtaking in equal measure. The play I saw on Monday evening, 'Optimism', was awful. It reached its lowest point at the end of the first half when a one armed man, dripping in mud sang 'I could be so happy' as a dirge. Still jet lagged, I dozed off only to be awoken by a loud gunshot. I thought at first that I had been shot. You can only imagine my disappointment to discover that I hadn't and that I had lived to return for the second half.

Salvation came by way of the Opera House tour the next day. The building was meant to take 3 years to construct at a cost of $7m. But so grand was the design that it was deemed impossible to build. Completion eventually took 16 years and the costs were over $100m.

Inside and out, the building is a thing of imense beauty. Let me share one piece of insider information about it. The building with its 10 sails is not white but a slightly creamy beige. The colour comes from an exterior coating of ceramic tiles, 1,360,006 of them to be exact. And they are very similar to the ones in my kitchen.

Yesterday, 26th January, was Australia Day and Sydney was in the mood to party all day long. I began my own celebration with an exhilerating climb to the top of the Harbour Bridge. From up there, 137 metres above the ground I had a grandstand view of the 100's of boats that streamed in and out of the harbour.

It was a hot, sunny day with 85% humidity so quite a few cold ones were needed as I flitted around The Rocks area and was spoiled by the many free concerts being performed.

Coming up next is a part of the trip I have long been looking forward to - the India Pacific Railway. The youth hostel I am in now was the old railway and I have been sleeping in a converted carriage. It is a railway enthusiasts dream as only yards away there is the modern railway station and the soothing hum of diesel locomotives drifts into the dorm.

So what will be my alsting impression of Sydney? The tower, the aquarium, the bridge, the opera house? No. The bats. They're huge. Every eveining at dusk they swoop over city like leather dinner plates. Hundreds of them. I stand there, open mouthed, looking up muttering 'Big bats' and pointing to anyone who might be interested. But no one is.

Live long and prosper.

E noho ra

'A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step' a wise man once said. It might have been Confucius, or maybe it was Mao Tse Tung. Either way, it was clearly someone who did a lot of walking and couldn't afford a push bike.

So how many steps does it take to start a journey of over 25, 000 miles? In my case, probably quite a few.

In just a few hours I will finally load myself up like a pack horse and take that step out of the door. Then I'll turn around and make sure I've turned the oven off. Then I'll check for my passport for the 10th time. Then I'll get to the end of the drive and suddenly remember something else and come back again. Then finally I'll be off, thinking 'Sod it, as long as I've got my credit card that's all that matters.'

It is always the first few hours of the journey that make me most nervous. That small trip from home to Heathrow gives me butterflies as I contemplate all the things that might go wrong and yet are beyond even my carefully planned control. Roll on coffee in the departure lounge.

My rucksack looks fairly empty. Which either means I am getting really good at packing only essentials, or I've forgotten loads of stuff. Only time will tell.

I have had to commit one painful act of sacrilege in order to keep my load down. My Lonely Planet guide to Australia contains exactly 1100 pages. Of these I need less than 100. So, lugging a thousand page book across so many miles is neither good for the ozone or me. Therefore I have cut out only the pages I need whilst making profuse apologies to the god of books.

Right, must dash. I've got a plane to catch and a whole new world to explore.


Live long and prosper.

P x 7

During my working life I learned the value of the 7 Ps - Proper Planning and Preparation Prevents Piss Poor Performance. As a habit it's one that I find hard to kick.

Roughly half way through my gap year, I can see a development in my approach to travelling as each journey pushes me a bit further out of my comfort zone.

My last big trip, to East Africa, was fantastic but I always had the safety net of JJ, Leo and Julius to keep me from harm and to guide me. On my next trip, to Australasia, I am pushing myself a bit further, but I am not yet the footloose and fancy free traveller, free to roam wherever the road may lead.

My addiction to the 7 Ps has led to me to hours of meticulous planning and I now have no fewer than 4 folders containing everything I need to make the next 5 weeks a success - one for travel documents, one for use in Australia, one for use in New Zealand and one with a back up of everything for me to give to Pete so that if any of the sharks, snakes or deadly spiders do get me in Australia he can carry on in New Zealand in my memory.

My packs are intended to save time and effort abroad. Want to know how to get from the Airport at Wellington to the hotel? Easy, there's a shuttle service and the number's in the pack. Need to confirm that the whale watching is going ahead? Easy, all the contact details are in the pack.

It all makes great sense but I can't help but feel that I'm cheating somehow. I'm away from home for 35 nights and I can tell you where I will be laying my weary head for all but one of those. That doesn't seem right. The missing night will be spent somewhere between Dunedin, in the far south of New Zealand, and Christchurch, my point of departure. Will finding the perfect resting place be a stress filled nightmare, or will to prove to be an uplifting experience in freedom? I'll let you know when I get back.

One or two people who kindly read this blog have asked if I will be keeping it up whilst I'm away. Well, yes and no. I'm travelling very light and certainly won't be able to take my laptop. Neither do I intend to while away precious drinking time in internet cafes. So I won't be writing lengthy updates on here. I can access the blog via may brilliant iPod, but I won't be typing away at length on that. Little tidbits will be served. Look upon them as the heures d'oeuvre.

I am, however, fully armed with notebooks and pens, a voice recorder and the most beautiful leather bound journal, given to me by someone very special, to record my every waking moment. So expect a more fulsome account of my antipodean adventure when I return at the end of February.

I probably won't be able to publish too many pictures from down under, so this is me trying to wean you off them.

Only 4 days to go until departure. I'm a mixture of eager anticipation and nerves, in case I have forgotten something. I think I'll just go and check my passport is in the correct wallet one more time.

Live long and prosper.

Taking the Elevator to Hell

Working out how to carry everything I need for my forthcoming trip to Australia and New Zealand has been a bit of a headache. I did have the use of an Army kitbag which was not only roomy but was also fitted with straps so it could be carried like a backpack. Unfortunately it was not roomy enough for youngest son who crammed it full of beer and brought it back severely damaged from Leeds Festival.

This led me to buy a conventional backpack, which got me around Africa ok but soon seems to get full. The opposite of a Tardis, it looks roomy from the outside but 2 pairs of underpants, a T shirt and a towel and it's full. This poses problems for both Wainwright and me.

Although he is barely 12" tall, my travelling companion does take up a fair bit of space and causes me to discard other items to accommodate him. From his point of view all this travelling is taking its toll and he has developed some serious weaknesses, as we discovered when we went for the Weakest Link audition.

Personally, I blame Angelina and Lynn for Wainwright's condition. He' s never been the same since they engaged in a three-way clinch with him in Turkey.

But as you can see from the picture, Wainwright has found a solution. I bought a special backpack for this trip that will safely store my camera equipment and which I can keep close by at all times as hand luggage. Luckily it came equipped with a Wainwright-sized hole at its core which he has cleverly snuck into. I have also re-stocked my first aid kit with super-strong glue, just in case.

With less than 2 weeks to go until I set off, it is hard to describe just how excited I am about this next trip. It's amazing to think that a year ago I wasn't even contemplating the journey. It only came about when I decided to abandon a long held wish to follow England around South Africa during the World Cup as it looked like being very expensive and difficult to organise.

It soon made more sense to spend my budget on a trip to New Zealand and then Australia followed on the basis of 'while you're down there you might as well....'

I envisaged New Zealand in particular as a quiet kind of trip - touring round by car or camper van, seeing the sights and getting in the odd walk. But it has evolved into something far more challenging and is far more in line with the activities I undertook in Turkey and Africa than with my sedate journey around Tuscany.

Take white water rafting for example. I doubt that it will be any more challenging in New Zealand than it was on the Nile, but the trip we are booked on culminates in a 21 foot waterfall. Now, according to my calculations that is the equivalent of placing a raft on the roof of my house, sitting in it and hoping to be in one piece by the time we reach the garden. I've seen pictures of it and they are all the same - a flimsy raft in a vertical position, plunging into some very turbulent water. There are no pictures of the same raft, full of happy, smiling people, emerging triumphant from the fall!

Later in the trip we venture on to a river once more. This time it is by means of a river board - a sort of short surf board that you cling to whilst negotiating white water. Fortunately there are no 21 foot drops, but there is the Dead Cow. Here is how the website describes it:

This rapid got its name from some kayakers who found a dead cow stuck on a rock. The cow is not there anymore but the name of the rapid has stuck. Dead Cow is the best place on the river to try some squirting (flying under water)- take a ride on the “Elevator to hell.” This squirt takes you down a couple of metres into the darkness before shooting you back up to daylight, all in a matter of seconds!

I had to ring my insurers to check on that one!

I don't regard myself as an adrenalin junkie and considering that we will visit the site of the world's first and biggest bungee jump I will be staying well away from it. But I do think that travel has taken on an unexpected twist and the urge to 'do' things rather than just see things has become irresistible. When I was in Africa there wasn't a day where I wanted to stay in bed as I knew each one held some form of adventure.

That same tingle of excitement is back now as I contemplate my latest, and biggest, awfully big adventure. I can't wait to sling my backpack on my shoulders, strap Wainwright to my chest and set out on a journey that will be well over 25,000 miles by the time I've finished.

Live long and prosper.

Paying to Chunder

Appa



I can't imagine how people created their own holidays before the internet came along. I have spent a large part of my weekend with the computer mouse in one hand and a piece of plastic in the other as I surfed the net following up suggestions for activities in New Zealand courtesy of my Lonely Planet guide.

At the risk of making you jealous I'll splurge out the list quickly - swimming with dolphins sea kayaking and vineyard tour whale watching white water rafting glacier walking fjord cruising river boarding puking.

Okay, maybe puking isn't an adventure sport but if you look at those activities you may notice that an awful lot of them involve being on water. And if that's not enough then I have decided to literally take the plunge and set out on a big catamaran thing in Adelaide and offer myself as shark bait. Plus, at the last count I am undertaking 9 separate voyages by air of between 40 minutes and 20 hours duration. Oh yes, and there's the ferry from North Island to South Island.

For someone with my legendary spewing ability that could amount to an awful lot of vomit.

As some of you may know I chunder for Yorkshire and almost got into the England team. My personal best followed an ill fated trip to Alton Towers where after only one ride I was wildly sick. The Guinness Book of Records said I was just one carrot short of the national record.

If you read about my paragliding trip in Turkey then you will know that my credentials extend to international spewing. Although for sustained puking over distance we have to look to South Africa.

On that occasion the kids and I had travelled to Jo'berg and then picked up a plane to cross to the east coast to a small airport near Knysna. All was well with the world until 2 things happened. The world below appeared to be engulfed in flame and strong winds meant heavy turbulence. Round and round the plane went. Up and down. I soon got through two sick bags. Eventually the flames (a forest fire) and wind were deemed to make it too dangerous to land and we diverted south to Cape Town.

There's nothing like 5 hours in an airport arrivals lounge to make you feel better I always think. And so it was that I began to feel human again and my stomach stopped churning.

It became apparent though that in order to reach our intended destination we would be travelling via a courtesy coach and what had been a short hop in the plane would be a gruelling 8 hours by road.

Luckily there was a small jet going our way and due to some law of aero-physics that I don't understand it was deemed suitable to land in conditions that would destroy its bigger cousins. Naturally I did what any man would do in such a situation - I played the poor-single-parent-me-with-these-fragile-kids card, even though by this time my youngest was a strapping 12 year old. I think I may even have squeezed out a tear for effect too.

However appalling my tactics, they had the desired effect and I blagged the last seats on the tiny jet. An hour later and we were back in the skies with whoops of 'Enjoy your coach ride suckers!'

Roughly 10 minutes after that we were back in the turbulence and my joy at escape was replaced with the horror of being plunged back into the Technicolor yawn zone. Luckily I had had the foresight to refill my stomach with sundry junk foods at Cape Town so I was soon able to fill up another 2 bags.

Much as I have enjoyed representing my county at the carrot and tomato spraying championships I feel it is time I retired. With this in mind I have been out this morning and secured large quantities of my secret weapon - Ginger. So far I have got ginger capsules, ginger gummy bears and ginger chews in the fervent belief that this might just stave off the inevitable for long enough for me to actually enjoy some of the expensive water based activities I have paid for. I'm taking boxes and boxes of sea-sickness pills too, I'm not that stupid. At least if the sharks eat me I'll be well sautéed in ginger.

I'm organising a sweepstake on the number of times I throw up. It's only a pound a ticket if anyone wants in.

Before I go to search for more homeopathic nausea remedies (there's ginger chewing gum out there somewhere but I can't find a retailer in the UK) may I refer you to the picture above. This is Appa in his new school jumper. And jolly happy and handsome he looks too. In case you don't know, Appa is a boy I met in an orphanage in Uganda. Thank you to Crystal for the photo.

Live long and proper.