Estelle and the snake

I forgot to tell this story about Estelle while at Agnes Waters:

While recuperating from a copious breakfast Emma and I see Estelle all of the sudden dance hip hop on extra-fast-forward while uttering bone-penetrating yells of fright and fury. What's this? Has she gone mad? Is this the newest dance-rage in Europe? Is Estelle perhaps faking a Epileptic attach not to be deported back to France?

No, it's much worse: while bringing the dishes back to the kitchen a snake that had been hiding next to the television had jumped on her hip and was trying to climb into her hair. A classic case of snake ambush.

After sending the offending animal flying 3 feet through the air, the snake falls on the floor, makes it to the couch and hides under it. No doubt pondering its next surprise.

Estelle regains her calm self quite rapidly for such an event and feels a bit sorry for the snake. She tells me to take it easy with the broom I've just grabbed to push the snake out to the balcony. To me, this would have been well enough to provide me with nightmares for... oh, let's say 2 or 3 years.

Turns out it was a tree snake, about a meter long, extremely lethal for people with weak hearts, but otherwise completely harmless.

Moreton Island bis...

G-Damned! This really pisses me off. We've had a hurricane in North Queensland last week, so the seas were choppy to say the least. This dumb captain chooses to risk it and loses 300 tons of oil off the of Moreton Island coast.
Turtles, Dolphins, Dugongs and birds, everything covered in a thick layer of black stinky oil.
We were on Moreton a few weeks back, and it doesn't look like we'll be back any time soon. Damn.

Newcastle

This week I'm in Newcastle.
Newcastle revolves around coal, coal, more coal and only coal; over a hundred million metric tonnes a year of coal that is. They are going to double that amount per year and still have enough for the next 120 years. So... yeah, If you are a 'militant terrorist tree hugging hippie' for the 'green armee faction' scared of the greenhouse effect: this is the place to blow up. It is by far the largest producer of coal in the world. The lives of about 300.000 people here in Newcastle revolve around coal.

I'm moving up in the world!
People take care of my flights, accommodation and other things. I get to my hotel and find a very nice room, with a giant HDTV, a 2 people Jacuzzi, with a view to the pool. In the morning a taxi is waiting for me to take me to my work. Yay, oh boy, do I feel important now... Well not quite:

I flew out here on Sunday night in shorts, thongs and t-shirt still wet from Byron bay beach. When I landed Emmanuelle called and attended me to the fact that I had forgotten to my shoes. So in the morning I jump in my cab in business shirt, trousers and... thongs to go and buy a pair of shoes. A very interesting sight to the guests at the hotel when I flip flopped past them. Once at the client, I find my working spot is under the main outlet of the Air Co in a gray corner of the office, the server does not have network access and is very noisy. There goes my ego; here I was thinking I was getting important only to find myself working in a spot where some people wouldn't be found dead. Sigh...

Bye Bye Estelle

The day is hot, really, really hot, you wouldn't believe how hot it really is, I mean, you think your oven is a hot place... it is almost, but not quite, completely unlike the temperature in your freezer. :o)

Anyway, the sun is up, we have a car and we have a Sunday to waste so off we go to Byron Bay, one of Emmanuelle's favourite spots. We look to the east from the most easterly point of Australia and see 2 dolphins and later a pod of dolphins swim in the waves. Estelle really likes this place as well and as I will be flying out to Newcastle that evening and Estelle will be flying back to France the next day, it seems a good place for a last day in Oz.

We race to the airport and with only 45 minutes before my flight I say goodbye to Estelle. Having soaked up the Ozzie way of life Estelle is reluctant to leave.

Who's next to visit us?

Moreton Island

Moreton Island is a bit of mixed blessing. Moreton Island sits between the ocean and the Brisbane shore. Because of that, the water at the Brisbane shores has no waves and is a bit brown coming from the Brisbane River. You have to drive north or south to find beautiful beaches and the true Pacific Ocean.

Moreton is one of the larger sand islands in the word and we decide to visit it. Emmanuelle, Estelle and I are off on a tourist trip to the island. The day is hot, very hot. The boat trip to Moreton takes about one hour. Once we've arrived, we snorkel around a couple of scuttled ships. The lunch is pretty good, and just after lunch I go 'boom netting'.(see picture for that). A little later we get a chance to spot turtles. I'm sure I've spotted 8-10 different turtles in a few minutes.

Lovely Moreton Island has 249 species of birds, a large population of turtles and some dugongs (unfortunately we missed those). We will be back here, because it's just a fabulous place and sooo close to home.

Billabong wave master

Okay so wave surfing, body surfing, diving and swimming was not enough. It's like Mick said: "I can't get no satisfaction". I find a flyer telling me I can go Kite Surfing for a friendly price on a beach nearby.

Turns out the instructor is 24 year old French bloke from Dunkerque. He's been on the Kite world tour for a while and decided to settle for the coming year in Agnes Waters. He's a good bloke and I invited him and his girlfriend to sleep at our house in April.
He knows his shit because over the intercom built in in my helmet he gives me about 4 instruction right to the point and perfectly timed. I pick up his tips and speed off to the sea, thinking about Tiger Sharks in the back of my mind... I passed the International Kite Organisation test with flying colors so now I can rent and insure any kite anywhere. It's good to know it's like cycling: once you know how to do it, you won't forget. It had been 5 years since I last went Kite Surfing...

Okay so still not enough... still no satisfaction... That evening we're off to go kayaking. We get there waaay to late after hesitance whether we should go or not. Once there (we took a shortcut being towed by one of the owners). we see a couple of dolphins and a young and a school of fish jumping at the surface. we kayak-surf waves after a short instruction and do our best to catch one or two. Estelle is really lucky because she's riding with the instructor that takes the Kayak to its physical limits. We see them scream by on the largest of waves. wooo-hooo!

That night I am knackered and go to sleep at 8:30. No need for a beer, no need for a bed-time story. As soon as my head hits the pillow I'm sleeping.

Southern Great Barrier Reef

Early rise, off we go, diving and snorkelling the southern great barrier reef. Emmanuelle and Estelle start out disappointed as the boat leaving next to us is much more luxurious (air co, male AND female toilets and a bar). We have an old diving boat that's slower, without air co and definitely does not have a bar (that pisses me off as well).
We arrive at the barrier reef and spot straight away 3 giant Mantas. That gets everyone's attention, and as the ocean is a perfect flat mirror no-one can resist getting in the water right now! I chose to go diving, Emmanuelle and Estelle prefer to go snorkelling. Imagine this: perfect blue waters, not a hint of wind, mirror flat seas, fish everywhere, a couple of islands in the distance and no noise but the 20 people or so on the boat. Not a bad place to be.

The first dive was okay. We saw what we expected to see on the reef, lots of fish some coral and some sharks.
The second dive is led by an amateur, we get lost in some labyrinth of coral and we get beached... truly beached. We have to crawl over the coral to get back to the deep water. Bhahaha, my new found Israelian friend laughs it out in disbelief.

I propose to my new mate to go together for the third dive, just him and me and try to get to the outer reef. He's been in the Israelian army for 4 years and calls me sergeant and says: 'you lead, I follow... okay?'... 'Okay!' I answer.

So here we go, the diving instructor just told me not to go beyond 14m as this is the 3rd dive and I answer 'sure buddy'. We dive straight to 20 meters and speed off to the outer reef, as fast as we can. We see many, many fish, a really rather large and intimidating gray shark, the biggest shovel nose shark I've ever seen aaaannnddd... Mantas!!! It took a while for my Israelian soldier to recover from the excitement: 'Sarge', he says, 'this was my best dive ever! thanks! these guys on the boat suck, you rock. Thanks!' Being quite pleased with myself I answer, 'at ease soldier'.

By the end of the day we got the following list: the biggest shovel-nose shark I ever saw, a leopard shark, a hand full of manta rays, a couple of huge sting rays (about 2,5 meters across), tuna, gray shark, white tip shark. Emmanuelle and Estelle saw more while snorkelling than I did while diving; they got the giant stingies and the leopard and some of the mantas.

Estelle and Emmanuelle are really, really happy they took this boat and not the touristy one.
What a splendid day. What a fantastic place. The southern Islands of the Great Barrier Reef are truly something to see before you die.

Lesson: don't take the luxurious, touristy one, take the local one.

Estelle

Emmanuelle's sister Estelle made it as the first one to come and visit us here in Australia. Who's next? Emmanuelle took a plane to meet her in Sydney and show her around the Opera House City for a few days.
They arrived on Tuesday evening and we decided to take Estelle to twin towns Agnes Waters and the town of 1770. It's called 1770 because that's where Captain Cook landed in 1770. It's a very small community, I'm guessing around 500 people live here.

The weather stations predict horrible weather with electric-storms, Lots of rain, lots of wind. This does not look good at all. It turns out we have the perfect weather for 4 days straight. Bhahahaaa and you though the weather predictions in Dutchy-land were crap.

The first day we decide to take it easy, shopping, beach, swimming and surfing. Estelle hurt her back while trying to surf and abandons the sport. I keep at it and actually am getting better and better at this sport.

Gargle blaster

My Laptop crashed. Working one minute, blue screen of death the next and my hard drive was reduced from the source of all information to a piece of metal... It felt like the pan-galactic gargle blaster: having you head smashed in by a lemon wrapped around a large gold brick. Whack!! ouch. (Gotta read the book the hitchhiker’s guide to the galaxy to get this one :o)

My Mind refers to its memory banks trying to figure out when the hell my last backup was made. This week? nope, last week, na'ah, o crap, o crap its been 3 weeks. You wouldn't believe how much work, personal information, pictures, e-mails, game scores and favourites you can lose in 3 weeks. Holy shit, what a drama. If you haven't done so: backup you HDD now... Like in right now... stop reading and make a freaking backup straight away. Still reading? Stop that and make a bloody backup.