As a farewell gift, my employer offered me a fishing trip. Since everyone who wanted to come is usually on a plane, we had to wait 2 months to find a spot in everyone's calendar. Turns out this day was probably the worst day to go after pelagic fish. Too much rain had cooled the water so the marlin stayed waaaay off shore and there was too much food in the water to get any fish really interested. I did catch a nice Dolphin fish though.
Problem: I can't end the season like this so I have to go again. :)
We drive up the coast from Kaikoura and find a small pool, about 10m by 10m full of... drum roll... baby seals. Their cuddliness is off the chart and they seem to be perpetually playing.
Emma, Kieran and myself jump back as one emerges from the water and comes running at us. Turns out all it wanted is to say "Hi, I'm a baby seal, whatchadoin?" After a quick look around we conclude mum is out fishing so: I take Kieran on my arm and get closer to the seals, one comes out of the water and I manage to touch it. Kieran loves it. Further up there is a waterfall with a good dozen of other baby seals. Very cool indeed. We can only hope not too many people will discover this place before the authorities have to close it down, or make it payable.
Emma booked our swim with dolphins months back and now, the day is here. Yay. Unfortunately there's a 35 knot wind that could blow off the hair of a man's head. So swimming is recommended only for 'very experienced swimmers'. Right, well we didn't come across the Tasman sea to miss an opportunity like this, but still that sea looks pretty angry. After a rollercoaster ride on the boat to get to the dolphins we find ourselves in the water, a soothing 12C warm. It feels like a million needles are viciously being jabbed in my head. But that doesn't matter: there they are: the dolphins. We swim and play with them. They swim circles around us as we dive down. They jump out of the water they are beautiful. We even see 2 mums bringing their babies to show the babies some very slow moving creatures.
For Emma's birthday I had decided to take her to Town of 1770. And, as usual - as I organise the trip - the 'bad-weather-bassie' curse strikes again. This time it even scares the captain of our boat that took us to the Great Barrier Reef.
Yep: Emma took the auxiliary to go fishing off the reef when black clouds rolled in from the coast. The Captain starts running - If there's one thing that gets me nervous it's running captains - and we see all the birds fly back to the Island ready to hide for the storm that is about to be unleashed. Emma makes it back - barely - with her soaked fishing party and crew scramble to tie down all the gear. It only lasts for about 45 minutes, but man, this was a vicious storm. We enjoy some Canoeing, the millions of soldier crabs and the good weather.
Scaring the living crap out of our son has become some sort of a sport. Nothing mean or bad, really, but taking him out of his comfort zone and having him experience as many things as possible is actually turning out to be fun. >:o)
Well, it was time to fly across the ditch again to the U.S. This time it was a new record: Brisbane --> Los Angeles --> Santa Rosa --> Detroit --> Syracuse --> Washington Dulles --> Los Angeles --> Brisbane. All of that in 10 days. I guess my new boss wanted to kick the tires and see if I would fall apart when given a challenge.
Well, I almost did: on the Syracuse --> Dulles leg of the trip the plane's landing gear came down,
With a thud-- No worries
Went up again! -- Slightly worried
About 50 meters above the landing strip the Pilot floored it -- Lightly nervous
And we found ourselves circling 5000 foot up wondering what was going on. -- Nervous
After 40 minutes of testing flaps, throttle, landing gear, control surfaces etc. -- Slightly scared
The pilot reminded us that if we needed to review any safety measures our safety card was in the pocket of the seat in front of us. -- Scared
He added: We expect an uneventful landing and the stewardess looked like she'd just soiled herself -- Really Scared.
As the plane came down for the second attempt, the last few meters -- Scared the shit outta me!
And the plane landed with no problems. -- Cool bananas + poker face.
There’s weekly event like none other on earth. The Cane Toad Races. Well, I wouldn’t be myself if I didn’t participate, so I bid to buy my toad and here we go. I kiss the toad; this is a mandatory ritual before the races, aaaand we’re off! Fat Bastard, Freddo the Homosexual frog and Camel Toad are the stars of the races. The idea is to persuade them to jump off the table by any means possible except you’re not allowed to touch them with your hands. So we’re all given a party flute and whistle the unfortunate amphibians off the table. Yelling at them doesn't help... believe I've tried.
I apparently have a technique that works as my toad is the first one off the table and on the ground. I now have to catch my toad, and bear in mind that I am carrying Kieran on my Right Arm, and dunk the toad in a bucket at the other end of the stage. Bang! Slam! Dunk! I win... Whoohoo. Me big bombastic toad master. I think my next career move is to become a toad-stable master.
It’s winter and fishing time. We’re off to go and catch some snapper, Jew fish, king fish and anything else that’ll bite. I was a bit over enthusiastic dressing in only shorts and thongs as the first 2 hours I am truly freezing my tits off. The fishing is good, we catch a lot of keepers. And then it happens, one of us has got something big. The rod bends deeply, the owner is fighting for every inch of line, when all of the sudden he is almost pulled into the water. It takes 10 seconds for my mate to find back his feet and reel in what was supposed to be a monster. But... only the head comes up, the rest has been eaten by a monster shark.
I catch the largest fish of the day: a nice shark. We see plenty of Whales and a dolphin enjoys jumping on the waves of our wake.
My mate loses his hat on the way back. Check the picture: hat, no-hat.
Today we’ve rented a boat and Kieran takes a liking to the captain’s seat. We’ve got huge steaks, salad, fishing rods and the weather is stunning. Fortunately we encounter some friendly locals willing to give us their bug spray as the sand flies are relentless, there’ll be no relief from the heat as the waters are infested with crocs. We catch a couple of fish, see some sunken boats from the hurricane that came through here earlier this year and enjoy the quiet nature.
Yep, we’re in Cairns again. A nice spot to go to go in the winter. We decide to go diving with a local operator claiming they have a unique Whale swimming license. The whale story proves to be a scam as one of the senior master divers who has been working with the operator for 2 years confirms that he hasn’t swum with any of them...
But, the diving is spectacular and as the saying goes: the best place to be is under the sea.
It had been a few years since I last stood on water-skis and let me tell you, I need to get back in shape. A few short moments of skiing pleasure had to be paid with 3 days of deep muscle-pains.
Don a colleague and friend of mine took us out on this boat (a V8 Malibu!) to visit the beautiful Gold Coast. What a beautiful day!
Despite my sincerest efforts not to have to travel so much lately, the opposite seems to be happening. On the 1st of May:
From 00:30 till 06:30 from Darwin to Brisbane
Then from 09:30 till 23:30 to Los Angeles
Then from 02:30 till 06:30 from Los Angeles to San Diego (where it is 11:00 the previous day).
A total time of 30 hours of travel, only to arrive the same day at 11:00 AM? Funny that ey? Basically I’ve just done the impossible and created myself a 43 hour day. See that picture of me? yep, that is exactly how I felt... completely shagged.
San Diego is at a stone’s throw from the Mexican Border and we are celebrating Cinquo de Mayo here. Nice place! Nice People! Nice Colleagues. All in all, well worth the mind-numbing flights.
A Salty is a real mean bastard and I don’t use the word lightly... They will not die easily (several shots to the head won’t do it), they have over 3600kgs of biting power (to put that in perspective: you and I have about 20kgs), they’re sneaky and stealthy, patient, smart, lightning fast and really freaking large. It is as cuddly as a running chainsaw and generally has a despicable temper... as I said: a real mean bastard.
Common and moderately intelligent people tend to keep a safe distance between themselves and a Salty. Emma on the other hand prefers to get close and personal: tease them, make ‘m jump, scare away the fish they are trying to catch and swim with one... This one, being the 3rd largest Crocodile in captivity in the world.... A real mean bastard.
Darwin is like nothing on earth. If a cyclone doesn't blow your house to the other side of the bay, or a crocodile doesn't chose to stay in your private pool, or the hot and wet season doesn’t drive you completely and utterly out of your mind, or the box jelly fish doesn't sting you, then you’ve had a good year.
I managed to convince my bank to extend Credit Card limit and with good reason. Darwin is freaking expensive! Some of the day tours are well within the realm of exorbitant. We chose to view the famous Jim Jim falls from a plane as the roads are still closed in this season. (Catch 22 really: once the roads open, Jim Jim falls will not be as mighty as when you can't get there)
So, why go here (or live here) at all? Good question. I guess you’ll have to fly down here to find out. I’ll show you a couple of reasons.
The nature is still really wild here.
The Saltwater Crocs are something to behold.
Kakadu and Arnhem Land are mind bogglingly huge and most of it is untouched.
The people have this rugged funny sense of humour.
This week I’m in New Caledonia for work. The only flight available was on a Saturday, so I had to spend a Weekend, all alone, on a tropical island. First of all, the food is absolutely beautiful, the weather is fantastic and I have a 5 star hotel. Looks like a good start to a good week.
I decide to go diving with the local operator. We dive at the Amedee Island. It is a marine reserve filled with fish. I see my very first Eagle Rays flashing by. They are very fast and always seem to be playful. A school of grey sharks are interested in us a come in for a closer look, they size us up and decide not to have a go at us.
And then, it happens: a giant Manta ray, about 5 meters is hovering just above the sea floor. There is a very strong current so I have to hold on to the rocks. I make as little bubbles as possible and slowly claw closer to the enormous animal. I have to breathe and the bubbles scare it away. With 2 strong flicks of it wings is whooshes off, but! It makes a giant full circle and I can see it’s going to come back exactly where it was... I quickly take a few deep breaths; hold my breath while clawing to the exact location where it was earlier... aaand there it is, just above me about 50 cms. Like a giant blanket! The other divers look at me, slightly worried, slightly jealous. I extend my arm and touch it. It feels like the inside of your cheek, but you can feel clearly the strong muscles just below the skin. I now have to breathe again, and I expect it to fly away, but it doesn’t.
We make our way up to Phnom Penh over the Mekong by fast boat. After having eaten noodles every day for a while, we decide to indulge and go to the best restaurant in town. Emma has certainly planned this trip to perfection. After the bus ride from hell, where we were overtaking a car, that was overtaking a truck, that was overtaking motorcycle, that was overtaking a cyclist that was overtaking a cow (no shit!), we arrive in Siem Reap. We’ve met a couple who lived in Siem Reap for a year and they recommended us Yut as the best guide in town. Yut made us visit what he believes are the 4 most interesting temples around Siem Reap. I guess we feel what a million people before us felt: this is pretty amazing stuff. Some of the temples are over 1000 years old. The level of detail of the carvings is stunning. Our guide lets us climb where ever we want, the site isn’t sealed off and you can go everywhere your courage will allow you. Emma gets to fly over the region in an ULM and spots temples and the (not) floating villages.
After beautiful Hoi Ahn Ho Chi Min city, or Saigon as the locals still prefer to call it. Emma has a friend here from her Barbados days and decides to have a serious wine session. I decide to leave them drinking and jump on a Moped-taxi. Zipping through dense Saigon traffic at night having drunk a few beers is good fun and somewhat surreal, especially when my driver decides to do a U-Turn and go against traffic for a while. The next night we sleep somewhere on the banks of the Mekong at some bloke’s house. (home stay). Then, one evening sitting at the table we are suddenly raided by 20 students, they want to understand the tourists as they are studying Tourist Consumer Behaviour. Their tactic is to get us talking by feeding us rice wine and beers. We talk for many hours but Emma is still paying for her big night in HCM city with a headache and goes to bed early.
To maximize our time and squeeze every last drop of enjoyment out of this trip, we take the night train to Sapa in a very luxurious, private sleeper. Upon arrival, we go straight to the local market and see, chickens, ducks, vegetables, clothes and unfortunate living fish being chopped in half. The rice fields are stunning (the main reason we came here). Our guide, Miss May, knows the best places to eat and drink with the locals and shows us how the local people live their lives.
After a quick night trip south we go to Halong Bay where we sleep on the boat and visit the Caves and go squid fishing. I give Karaoke in Vietnamese a go and everyone has a good laugh at me.
