The Blue Mountains - First Experiences in the Australian "Bush"

The Three Sisters

Katoomba, February 20 – Our first encounter with the Australian “bush” would be the Blue Mountains about 2 hours to the west of Sydney. So newly equipped with our rental car and trying to get used to driving on the other side of the road, we headed to the hills of Australia's Great Dividing Range and the town of Katoomba, home to a rock formation known as “Three Sisters”.

View from Govetts Leap Lookoff

Katoomba like all the communities in the area is built on the mountain plateau overlooking a large canyon. Here we found a climate more akin to our Newfoundland summers, mid-20's during the day and mid-teens with a heavy dew in the evenings. This cool moist climate supported a lush and vast temperate rainforest that carpeted the canyon floor. This seemed to be Australia's version of the Grand Canyon.

Descending into the Canyon

We spent the next 3 days hiking and exploring this spectacular canyon. Trails led us along the edge of the canyon. Another trail equipped with many ladders and steep stairs cut out of the cliff took us to the canyon floor and into the forest before we returned top side by the world's steepest and we like to think scariest funicular railway. The railway started on a flat but quickly steepened to a 128% grade or over 52 degrees . It felt like being dragged vertically backwards up a rickety roller coaster. But we all agree the most spectacular hike was along the National Pass trail that descended halfway down the canyon wall before taking us for several kilometres along a narrow ledge.

Canopy of Tree Ferns

The trails let us scale up and down 100's of metres of sandstone cliffs leading us to spectacular waterfalls and some outstanding views. In the canyon, we were treated to a rainforest of beautiful tree ferns and huge gum trees shedding their bark. We encountered one of natures best mimics, the lyre bird as it foraged for insects and hidden in the forest was also the remains of past human endeavours. Old coal mines were now being reclaimed by the forest and human exploitation has been replaced with preservation. The canyon is once again filled with a vast temperate rainforest and has become a World Heritage Site.

Showing the Flag

The Blue Mountains are impressive but almost as impressive was the work of the trail builders that created safe passage ways into this spectacular landscape. Australians seem to love exploring the landscape around them and have taken a lot effort to provide access to it. We were happy to oblige ourselves of these opportunities and enjoyed our first excursion into the Australian bush.

For more of our pictures of the Blue Mountains check out our web album.

Arriving in the Land of Oz

Happy to be in Australia

Sydney, February 17 – We were all looking forward to our time in Australia. When planning our trip, Australia was top on our list to visit. Like many people we were intrigued by its beautiful landscapes and unfamiliar animals. Now after 3 months of traveling in non-English speaking countries, we had an additional reason to look forward to our 10 weeks in Australia. We were all looking forward to the comfort of being in a country with a familiar language and culture.

Darling Harbour, Sydney

We arrived in Sydney and started our Australian visit with a few days exploring the city and preparing for the rest of our 10 weeks in Australia. Our first stop in Sydney of course was Circular Quay to see the Sydney Opera House and the Harbour Bridge. Both of these structures where impressive and definitely in the same class as other great civic monuments like Big Ben, the Eiffel Tower, and the Blue Mosque. Having seen Sydney's iconic sites we were now free to get on with the bigger goal of preparing for our entire visit to Australia. In other words shopping for camping gear, cell phones, and clothes as well visiting information centres.

Sydney Aquarium

Our preparations also included familiarizing ourselves with the animals that we hoped to see in the Australian bush. This required spending a day visiting the Sydney Aquarium and Sydney Wildlife World. There Aaron got to pet a kangaroo, we all saw a huge saltwater crocodile, and dozens of lizards. At the aquarium we got some amazing views of sharks, dugongs, and sea turtles. Both places had made a real effort to house and display the animals in very natural like settings. If seeing the real animals wasn't enough, both places had some fantastic full size replicas of the animals all made of Lego.

Niall with a Croc

We enjoyed both places and appreciated the close views of the animals as well as some good insights from the exhibits and guides about these animals. Hopefully we would have some of our own opportunities to see these animals in the wild. Well perhaps not all of them, as Wildlife World was complete with some of the many large insects and poisonous spiders that would also be lurking out there. This of course did not help to ease Aaron's or Susan's concerns about our plans to camp in Australia.

Enjoying the surf at Manly

Our last full day in Sydney was a Sunday and we decided to spend it like many Australians with a visit to a beach. As it was family day on the Sydney transportation system we took advantage of the cheap ferry fares to Manly Beach. This gave us a 30 minute cruise of Sydney Harbour before arriving at Manly wharf where a 2 minute walk took us to the beach with the open surf of the Pacific Ocean. There we spent the afternoon playing in the surf under the supervision of the iconic yellow and red dressed Australian surf guards. We finished the day with a meal at a local bistro (aka pub) before cruising back to Sydney and enjoying the view of the city lit up at night. It had been a great day.

Harbour Bridge at Night

After only a few days it was easy to fall into the lay back and friendly lifestyle of the Australians. This is a place that is less about wearing suits and more about wearing flipflops or going barefoot and when an Australian says “no worries” they really mean it.

Check out more of our pictures of Sydney in our web album.

Return to Bangkok

At the Grand Palace

February 15, 2011 - Returning to Bangkok, we set out to visit the Grand Palace and some of the city's temples. Arriving at the Palace we were immediately informed by a “helpful” passer by that the palace was closed for lunch. He immediately suggested a tuk-tuk tour of the areas other temples and of course shopping districts. This was all of course for 40 baht or about $1.50 and within seconds a pair of tuk-tuks were waiting for us.

Tuk-tuk riding in Bangkok

With the boys wanting a tuk-tuk ride through Bangkok, temptation took over our better judgment and we soon were headed through the streets of Bangkok in a pair of colourfully decorated tuk-tuks. We did manage to see one temple where we had a quick introduction to their typical design before we were led to some “shopping districts”. These shopping districts of course were specific stores, mainly jewelery stores and tailor shops which Thailand is known. After just window shopping in the high end stores I took the opportunity to purchase some tailor made shirts and Susan found a nice ring. But we were tiring of shopping and anxious to get back to see the temple. Unfortunately the tuk-tuk drivers seemed to have a quota of stores we were to visit so after a little more time than we wanted we found ourselves back at the Grand Palace for our visit there.

Temple at the Grand Palace

The palace was large and ornate as most palaces seem to be but in typical Thai style gilt gold, coloured glass, and jewels seemed to cover everything. Dragons, elephants, and mythical Thai dragons were incorporated everywhere. There was no mistaking this for the palaces and castles we saw in Europe but it was by no means less grand. We spent several hours exploring the palace, visiting the temple of the Emerald Bhudda, looking at 100's of metres of murals of Thai mythology. Here was another of the world's civilizations that we know so little about.

One of many markets in Bangkok

Leaving the refuge of the palace we were again facing the hustle of Bangkok's street sellers and its traffic. We wandered through some markets and found ourselves down by the river which was just as busy as everywhere else in Bangkok. Boats were rocking and bouncing through the chop and everywhere there were long narrow open boats taxiing people up and down the river. There was almost as many water taxis on the river as taxis on the streets. With Susan's “love” of rocking boats and crazy taxi drivers we thought it best to to be a spectator to this part of Bangkok life. Our last full day in Thailand was coming to a close, we would end it with a visit to one of Bangkok's night markets.

Water taxi on the Chao Phraya River

Our visit to Thailand was finishing better than it had begun but in many ways, we feel our 16 days in Thailand was a missed opportunity. We had arrived unexpectedly and unprepared for our 2 weeks here. Most of our time was spent relaxing and convalescing in Phuket. Our appetites were not up to exploring very much of the Thai cuisine. Visits across the Cambodian border to Angor Wat were not possible due to border clashes between Thailand and Cambodia. Shopping was cheap and once again to Susan's frustration, time and luggage space limited this activity. We did see enough of the country to learn that the people are friendly with perhaps the exception of some of the taxi drivers. Susan and I both agree that Thailand is definitely a place we would like to go back to but next time with more notice and with more of a plan.

For more of our pictures of our Thailand exerience check out our web album.

An Extended Stay in Thailand

February 1, 2011 - After a great safari we returned to Arusha and started to get reconnected to what was happening in the rest of the world. I made quick check of the CBC website to catch up on what was happening at home and discovered the main headline was about unrest in Egypt. An email from our tour company in Egypt confirmed the unrest but felt our tour would go on, another email from our travel agent advised us of our cancellation options, and a third email from a friend advised us not to go to Egypt. We were all looking forward to our visit to Egypt but by the next morning any hope of us visiting Egypt had vanished. The unrest had gotten worse, Canada was not recommending travel to Egypt, and our tour had been canceled. We were disappointed that we would miss Egypt but glad to avoid the crisis.

As we left Arusha and headed for Nairobi. We all were wondering what our next steps would be. That was decided for us by our travel insurance company. In this case, the terms of the policy were to get us to our next destination. We would by pass Egypt and head directly to Thailand but instead of a 3 day layover in Bangkok we were now faced with a 16 day visit with no plans. I suppose there are worse places we could have ended up.

At our hotel in Nairobi, Susan and I took turns supervising the kids at the hotel pool while we started to make arrangements for new flights and accommodations in Thailand. We were relieved to be back on track and would have a place to stay when we arrived. The rest of our plans would have to wait until we arrived in Thailand.

After a day of flying we reached Bangkok early in the next morning. The first thing we did was pick up a copy of the Lonely Planet Guide for Thailand and then headed off to our hotel for some much needed rest. The hotel room was a luxurious 2 bedroom apartment complete with a washer and dryer, which after our safari we put to good use. Apart from the typical harrowing taxi ride from the airport, our first day in Thailand was confined to our hotel and the local grocery store.

On our second day in Bangkok we started our acclimatization process and headed out to explore the city. This meant getting use to the heat and humidity, learning to navigate the public transit system, and avoiding the tourist scams. As we had over 2 weeks in Thailand, we decided to take our time easing into Thailand. After a few hours of exploring and finding an English bookstore for the boys, we headed back to the pool in the hotel.

It was early the next morning when things started to go wrong for us as both boys woke up sick. Our third day in Bangkok was spent in the hotel as the boys recuperated. This was the day we decided we needed some down time and made plans to head to the beaches of Phuket. The next day with the boys feeling better we headed to an aquarium the boys had discovered. It was at the aquarium when Susan got sick and I joined her about 6 hours later. The next day we were both zombies as we endured another couple of crazy taxi rides and flight delays on our way to Phuket.

Phuket took less time for acclimatization, the beach was a 5 minute walk from our hotel and the water was crystal clear and about 28 degrees. We spent the next few days recuperating and just relaxing at the beach before I got sick again. With another bout of sickness our few days at the beach stretched into a week at Phuket. During that time the boys did manage to swim with and ride a baby elephant, we all did some snorkeling, Susan and I tried the Thai massage, and at about 10 dollars Susan had a pedicure and manicure. And we learned that one can shop in Phuket by just laying on the beach, as a steady stream of sellers worked their way up and down the beach. Sooner or later someone would come by with something you wanted to buy. We were starting to get very use to life on the beaches of Phuket but we needed to get back to Bangkok for our flight to Australia and we also wanted to visit the Grand Palace and visit some of Bangkok's temples.

For more pictures of our Thailand experience check out our web album.

Ngorongoro Crater – Good-Bye to Africa

Ngorongoro Crater

After the Serengeti our safari was coming to a close but on our way back to Arusha we had one more stop to make, Ngorongoro Crater. The crater is a microcosm of the African wilderness, its 300 square kilometres provides a self contained environment to support elephants, rhinos, zebras, wildebeests, lions, hippos, and more. This was our last chance to see African wildlife and if lucky we maybe a lion in action.

Rhinoceros

Before descending the 400m into the crater we spent a cool night camping near the lip of the crater. (Even at the equator things can get cold when you are 2000 metres above sea level.) From our vantage point we could look down and make out herds of animals and at night when the campsite was quiet you could here lions roaring from the crater floor. But this was later drowned out by the sound of zebras grazing next to our tent.

Wildebeest with calf

The visit to the crater began early in the morning and was short just 5 hours but we were continuously seeing wildlife. It was a morning of stopping for lines of wildebeest as they headed to their watering hole, seeing our first rhinos, and watching a lioness as she finished off killing a wildebeest. It was another great day on safari and Ngorongoro was a fitting good bye to Africa. It gave us our chance to see once again all the animals that we had become so familiar with over the last 7 days. We were satisfied with what we had been able to see which was more than we had imagined.

With our safari crew

With my head out the top of the safari vehicle, looking over the crater, and recalling all that we had seen in the last seven days, I could feel myself grinning from ear to ear. It had been a wonderful experience. Any doubts about visiting Africa had long disappeared, our African safari had been the right thing to do.





For more of our pictures of Norongoro Crater, check out our web album.