What time is it there?!

After five hours flying west and putting our watches back three hours we are still in the same country but we’ve traded the Pacific for the Indian Ocean. Perth is “The most remote major city in the world”, it’s closer to Jakarta than it is to Sydney. As you might expect this remoteness hasn’t exactly sheltered Perth from the onslaught of ‘globalisation’, and of course it has all the things you’d find in most big cities. Despite this it’s a nice place, although the city centre isn’t exactly overflowing with tourist attractions.

We did go and visit the Perth Mint which was quite interesting. You get to watch demonstrations of liquid gold being poured and made into bars, and if you’ve found the odd nugget lying around out in the desert you can sell it here (or buy more if you prefer). If you haven’t found yourself any gold then you can go and handle a real 12kg bar (it’s well protected against theft!), you could probably also buy it if you had the £95,000 or so that would be required.

Probably the most noticeable part of the skyline is the Swan Bell Tower, which was one of Western Australia’s Millennium projects. This is the home to the original bells of St Martin-in-the-fields in London. They were originally going to be melted down to make new bells, but the Aussies fancied them for themselves so they traded the bells for some nice new steel to make the replacements for St Martins. They did build a very impressive tower to put them in, and it gives good views across the city as well as a good look at the bells "in action".

Our next stop was just under three hours north of Sydney by train. This was another ‘staying with friends’ stop, so we didn’t do too much besides making a return visit to a few Hunter Valley wineries for “supplies”.

We were also fortunate to be able to spend plenty of time catching up, updating the website with text and photos (Thanks Darren and Katie!). This was all going nicely until somewhere after midnight on the last day, when disaster struck. Without going into details which will bore most of you, I managed to delete most of the formatting for the main page. Ooops.

Anyhow, if you’re reading this it means that it’s still fixed and I haven’t broken it again yet. There’s also a better backup plan in place so it doesn’t happen again (OH NO, it’s like being back at work again! At least I haven’t had to do a Powerpoint presentation of my ‘Action Plan’!!)

We spent a few days in Sydney at the end of our first visit to Australia, so we sort of already knew our way around. However, the last time we were here it was Easter weekend and the city was deserted, this time we were here for Australia Day and things were a bit different. There was quite a lot of activitiy around the city which you can see from the photos, we even managed to catch sight of the Commonwealth Games baton setting off for its journey around the country (in fact, since then it seems to have been following us!).

We were also here for one of the first “Safeway reunions” so we spent a little more time in the pub than we did last time as well.... There weren’t as many ‘attendees’ as we had once thought there might be, but those of us that made it had fun. We also had one of those “It’s a small world” moments when, amongst the million or so people wandering around Sydney, we managed to bump into another former Safeway colleague who moved here a couple of years ago and didn’t know we were coming!

Saturday began with another early start, as we needed to be at Hobart airport by 5am for our flight to Sydney. It'’s a hard life this travelling business!

Our early arrival meant that by 9am we had collected our hire car and were on our way out of the city for the 90 minute drive to the Blue Mountains. For some reason, probably because of our American experiences, I had expected that this would involve a big wide highway leading out across uninhabited plains before reaching the mountains. In fact, after a few miles of 'motorway'’, the road becomes a windy single carriageway road through an almost unbroken string of small towns (everyone of course wants to live in the mountains!).

After the anti-climax of the journey we reached Katoomba, the main tourist town in the area and our home for 3 nights. At first glance it seems to be a typical tourist town (tea shops, gift shops etc.) and, since you haven'’t really seen any mountains yet, you begin to wonder what all the fuss is about. However, after driving through the high street and into a nice residential suburb you suddenly come to a dead end where you can see that a lot of people are gazing over a railing at something you can'’t quite see from the car. Once you have eventually found a parking space then you too can wander over to the railing, and then you understand why everyone is there.

This is no doubt very geologically inaccurate, but it looked a bit like the Grand Canyon, although a bit smaller and very full of trees. Of course, the Grand Canyon rim is 60 miles from the nearest town which in turn is about 100 miles from anywhere else, but this is literally on the edge of town and there are houses on the other side of the street. We didn'’t check, but our guess is that property at this end of the street is quite pricey.

TIP: If you have a good view from your house and don't want anyone building a housing estate on it; have said view designated as a World Heritage site, that will certainly kill off any planning applications!

Once again we managed to come up with many convincing excuses for not doing the really long hikes in the area, but we did do the 2.5 hour 'Great Round Walk'’. This basically involves taking a cable car between two points at the top, clambering down the 800-odd steps of the '‘staircase'’ to the valley floor, walking back along the base and then catching the '“steepest railway in the world'” back to the top. (We'’re finding it increasingly entertaining to see the range of '‘inappropriate footwear'’ selected by other people on these walks. Note: Flip Flops are not what the guidebook had in mind when it mentioned '‘sturdy shoes'’!).

Our final day began (as all days should!) with a visit to the Cadbury factory on the edge of Hobart. We’d read that the tour was popular, and that booking was essential, but we weren’t expecting to have to go at 7:30am!!

After a healthy chocolate breakfast we headed southeast to Tasmania’s most famous non-natural attraction, Port Arthur. The prison complex here opened in 1830 and operated for the next 47 years.

Spending a day looking round an old prison may not sound very exciting, but there is a huge a amount of information to take in and it’s done just as well as Alcatraz (there is also an ‘Audio Tour’ here but we didn’t do it). Obviously, it is also a lot more relevant to British history. It seems that many of the staff and guides are descendants of men who spent time here, so their knowledge of the subject is fairly comprehensive.

The only way to get to see Wineglass Bay, unless you have a friend with a nice boat, is to walk up a pretty steep rocky path that consists of about 600 roughly hewn steps. Wineglass Bay has recently been voted one of the best beaches in the world and from several hundred feet up it certainly looked pretty fantastic ..... also another tick on the New Year exercise plan!

This was much like the National Parks that we went to in the US. The shuttle bus system was well signposted and very regular so it enabled getting around very easy. We did a fairly short 3km walk to Dove Lake at the base of Cradle Mountain which provided some spectacular views and went some of the way to working off the excesses of the Christmas and New Year period.

Tasmania seems to have its’ share of beaches who claim to have a Fairy penguin colony who trek up the beack every night to feed their young following a day fishing at sea. Given our experience on Kangaroo Island we were sceptical about these and considering most were charging a fee from anything between A$10 and A$20 we didn’t want to waste our money.

We found a place just outside Devonport which was staffed by a group of volunteers and where the payment was by donation only. This may have been because it could only really be reached by driving out of the town and wasn’t in a prime tourist catchment location. We also found out the the season seems to be slightly different here in Tasmania than on Kangaroo Island and they are still feeding their young and haven’t started moulting yet.

We reckon we had good value for our donation as we had a really informative guide and we saw lots of the tiny creatures returning to their nests and feeding their young. However, the photos haven’t got much better, so here's an idea of what they look like! Well worth another night of exposure to the elements and being wrapped up like we were ready for a days skiing.

Largely ‘famous’ for The Nut, a huge piece of rock which stands like Tasmania’s answer to Uluru on its’ northern coast. It was a pretty steep climb to the top but gave great views of the surrounding area and also gave us a good dose of the ‘roaring forties’, the winds that blow from South America across the 40 degree latitude.

.......that little place off the bottom of Australia known for having the worlds largest carniverous marsupials and somewhat 'British' weather.

We decided to go to Tasmania before we start our trek around the mainland because we are currently in the middle of summer (sorry to rub it in to our UK readers who we hear are experiencing the worst winter in recent years) and the Tasmanian climate with relatively warm days (about 23) and cool nights, so you can sleep, seemed a much more appealing option than 47 degrees at Uluru!

The island can only be described a beautiful. It is picture postcard stuff with stunning scenery, chocolate box houses and a patchwork quilt of farmland. Imagine England on the one or two beautiful days we get in the summer where the sky is clear blue, the clouds look like some one painted them on and all you can hear are the birds tweetering in the trees and you have Tasmania.

It’s all a bit like driving around the south west of England really, particularly as most of the town names are the same. Bridport, Lulworth and Weymouth are all on the same stretch of coast, and Exeter, Devonport and Launceston are not far away (although the pronunciation of the latter has no silent letters here).

One difference is that instead of oil seed rape growing in abundance, Tasmania grows opium poppies (legally, for medical purposes!). Not sure which is worse ..... we both got hayfever to match any summer in the UK.

Almost 40% of Tasmania is national park land and world heritage sites so we did alot of exploring the land around us on this trip and took in some wonderful sights and monumental exercise.

We decided to tackle the island in a clockwise direction, not for any specific reason. Although it looks quite small on the map, the roads aren’t very straight and there is alot of wildlife hanging around which makes the roadkill toll on Kangaroo Island quite small in comparison.

Luckily, once again we didn’t add to the toll but it did mean some quite violent braking for wallabies, spotted quolls (imagine a big ferret with cartoon spots) and echidna’s to name just a few.

Where there is no nearby natural feature to attract tourists several towns seem to have taken matters into their own hands and invented some kind of quirky attraction. Hence the funky mail boxes, strange topiary or murals on every available wall which have made for some fun photos that we have put in separate sets ..... you don’t have to look at them all! It made us question if the villages in the UK have the same sort of rural competitions going on with their neighbours .... answers on a postcard please.

Fancy living in a town called Penguin? Where there is a huge fiberglass penguin and all the litterbins are decorated with said creature.

Pelicans
In the main town of Kingscote the local population of Pelicans know that feeding time is 5pm. They start gathering from 4pm to ensure they get the best position on the rocks when John the local marine wildlife expert arrives. What is said about Germans and towels on sunbeds is not a patch on this spectacle! And not a minute too early, John appears complete with a box of raw fish. We were assured that this quantity was only 25% of their daily intake requirement so that they do not become dependent on it and still fish for themselves although judging by the way they were swarming around him and trying to steal the food out of the box, you would think that they hadn’t eaten since the same time yesterday!

Penguins
Also run from the Kingscote Marine Centre were nightly penguin viewings. The Little ‘fairy’ Penguin comes ashore when the sun goes down to feed its young after it has been fishing all day. We donned additional clothing layers as the wind blew really cold on the island and without the sun to counteract it, we knew we would be in for a cold night and we were not wrong.

During the tour we established that we were not really visiting at the right time of the year as the chicks have already been hatched and have finished feeding from the parents, the adults are currently moulting and therefore don’t leave their nests for 2-3 weeks and those that are not moulting yet are at sea collecting enough food to last them for the weeks when they will moult and therefore don’t come back to land during this period.

So we were prepared to see very few birds ..... but not prepared enough! Not one made its’ way up the beach after spending the day at sea. A few were tucked so far in their burrows that even if you stuck your head in the end you would barely see them, and a couple of others braved a little walk in a hole under some rocks and under the stairs we had just descended. Pictures were virtually impossible and our guide needed his head read. He was wearing a t-shirt and proclaiming that he loved the hot weather ..... it must have been 3 degrees with the wind chill. You will not be surprised to hear that he came from the UK (furthermore, he was a Yorkshireman) ...... Mark and I kept our mouths shut!!!!!

Seals & Sea Lions
Kangaroo Island is home to 2 types of Seals and Sea Lions. The New Zealand Fur Seal finds it’s home down near the Remarkable Rocks and Admirals Arch which is another rock formation located nearby. They were basking in the sun and often dropped into the ocean to cool down. As their fur is very dense they get hot quite quickly and need to be near the water to cool off whenever they like. There were a few young males who were showing off / practicing their battle skills for the day when they want to try to command a colony ...... must be a male thing!!!

Further up the coast is a colony of Australian Seal Lions who have a much less dense coat and can therefore bask in the sun for hours at a time after spending 3 days at sea hunting for food. It’s a kind of 3 days on, 3 days off rota .... what a life! We decided to pay the extra couple of dollars and join the seals on the beach. Some of them come up quite close to you although there were a few boisterous males who were generally being a nuiscance to many of the others who were happily sleeping. It seems to be that a male will pick on any other male that is smaller than them. When a larger male comes along and puts them in their place they run off, tail between their legs so to speak. All of this seems just to be practice for adulthood and was quite fun to watch. It was also amazing how fast they could ‘run’ despite looking like they struggle with every movement when on land, in fact we’re told they can run faster than most humans (although this may be a slight exaggeration). We also learnt that the whole neck stretching thing that you can see in the photos is believed to be theraputic and quite a comfortable position for them, this was described as ‘Seal Yoga’!

TIP: Don't scrimp on the entrance fee and just go to the boardwalk, the seals are quite a way away from you and you don’t get the full experience. It was well worth the extra few dollars to go down to the beach and the guide is really informative. As the guide says, “Where else in the world can you sit in a seals bedroom?”

Koalas:
According to a chap on the boat on the way over, Koalas are a real problem on Kangaroo Island and they are considering a number of options to control the population .... what Koalas? Mark and I began to wonder if the Aussie world was playing a little joke on the poms .... an island named after an animal who doesn’t seem to live there anymore and a problem with too many invisible koala’s wrecking the environment ..... well, eventually we found a few - sleeping, this is what they do for 19 hours a day ..... I know what I am coming back as!! Anyway, they looked pretty cute and it was good to see them in the wild, rather than locked in an enclosure and paraded out for a cuddle with tourists for a small fee.

Back on the proper tourist trail again and we decided to take a trip to Kangaroo Island which is just a few miles off the coast to the south of Adelaide. It is known for its wonderful wildlife although unfortunately a large amount of this seems to end up as roadkill.

The main roads on Kangaroo Island are fine and well maintained. The problem is that there are only 2 main roads both which head roughly in an east/west direction! Although these go to the main towns and tourist attractions, anthing else that you may want to experience outside of this requires you to travel on a very rough road which will shake all the nuts and bolts out of your car, nevermind what it does to your insides!

The car we had was lent to us by a very close friend and we decided that we would like to keep our friendship that way so we avoided the boneshaker roads. We also avoided adding to the roadkill toll which was good as we are not sure exactly how much damage a Kangaroo will inflict on a car but we suspect much the same as if you hit a horse and our budget won’t run to substantial bodywork repairs.

We didn’t manage to see a live Kangaroo and as this is what the island is named for, we were a little disappointed. Nonetheless, we did see some great, potentially ‘remarkable’ slights.

Almost at the furthest point on the Island from the main townships are a large collection of rocks which have been weathered by the rain and coastal breezes (or should we say gales as it really blew down there). The shapes that they have formed are really ‘remarkable’ ....... guess it didn’t take them long to come up with this name!

Due to the compound of the rocks, the weathering takes place VERY slowly and it was interesting to compare photographs that were nearly 100 years apart and there was very little change. Not much else to say about these really, thepictures tell you far more.

TIP: Hire a 4WD and go off the beaten track a bit any maybe you may have a better chance of spotting some Kangaroos.

After a few weeks of lounging around, struggling with the heat (Adelaide had the hottest December on record and the highest single Decemer day since 1939 at a whopping 42.7 degrees .... and January and February are meant to be hotter ....yikes!) and generaly eating and drinking too much, we decided that we really should see a bit of the city that was our current home. We trecked around some of the finer architectural sights of the city and saw some really pretty examples.

The climate here doesn’t lend itself to the buildings growing a protective covering of moss and lichen so they look much newer than some of them actually are, although none are really that old when compared to their European counterparts. Nonetheless, it was interesting to see this city which was designed from scratch by a man called William Light. It seems almost unthinkable that a city was planned from a blank canvas. To us London and its’ higgeldy-piggeldy streets that continually stretch further and further out are how cities develop. Not Adelaide, its’ streets are all perfectly mapped out as per Lights’ plan with a park nestling in each corner. It is totally symetrical and there it just sits, a little city on the southern coast of Australia almost as if it was placed with the same care that we would when we get a hotel on Mayfair.

In the UK we often think that the Aussies spend their entire lives barbecuing. This may well be true, but whilst the Brits now don’t seem satisfied with a BBQ unless there are a wide range of marinated meats with several different exotic looking salads, the Aussies have created the ‘minimalist’ BBQ solution.

For anyone needing tips on regularly catering for anything from a couple of friends to everyone you know, then the ‘Sausage Sizzle’ is your answer and probably your lifesaver.

You will need:
* Sausages
* White bread (1 slice per sausage)
* Onions (fried until golden)
* Condiments (as many as you like but MUST include Ketchup)
* Alcohol (Mandatory here, optional anywhere else!)

You will NOT need:
* Plates
* Cutlery

Method:
* Cook sausages on BBQ according to manufacturers guidelines!
* Take 1 slice of bread and lay in your left hand.
* Place sausage diagonally across the bread.
* Top with onions and condiments.
* Bring the exposed corners together in a folding motion.
* EAT.
* Follow with cocktails (optional)

Advantages:
1) You still have a hand free to hold your beer/wine/cocktail (unless you have all three of course).
2) Without all the salads and marinating meats there is more space in the fridge for beer.
3) There is no washing up for the hosts the next morning.

We did point out that we’d be accused of being cheap if we tried this at home without buying proper hot dog rolls/burger buns, but the response was along the lines of..... “why would you want to do that mate, when you’ve got perfectly good bread?!”

Hope everyone has had a happy New Year. We haven't really done a great deal during the past 3 weeks in Adelaide other than a trip to Kangaroo Island (more about that soon). We have had a chance to catch up with uploading photographs though, so follow the 'More Photos' link over on the left side of the page to see the second half of our Fiji trip.

We have also had a chance to do some other updates which we have been waiting several weeks to do, so read on....

Rocky Mountains:
Some better 'zoom' pictures of the spiral rail tunnels. Possibly not that exciting to many of you, but if you're interested they are in this photo set.

Vancouver Aquarium:
Some additional dolphin pictures from our 'Big' camera in this photo set.

Grand Canyon:
A few short video clips added. These aren't going to win any Oscars, but they might help to give a better idea of the scale of the place (if you haven't already been there).

Las Vegas:
Video clip of the interior of the Excalibur added.

Savusavu:
Video clip of the hot springs added.

Fiji Map:
Image updated to show our actual route around the islands.

Apologies if you get duplicated update emails for any of these, but it took me a couple of attempts to get some of them right!