Tsunami? For Real?

Guys, I'm not going to lie, I had really high hopes for this weekend.  I was going to take some awesome photos and a lot of video and really wow you all with tales of adventure and excitement.  What I actually did was get really really wet.

The weekend started out promising, I left work about 11:30 and made my way to the train station to meet up with Leah.  I had packed my backpack and taken it to work so I didn't have to waste any precious time going home. We met up at noon and grabbed the train to Cleveland, about an hour train ride south from Brissie.  Once we made Cleveland we hopped the ferry over to North Stradbroke Island. Straddie as the locals call it is one of the so called sand islands along Queensland's coast. The ferry ride was about 30 mins and in that time it started to rain, and it rained a lot.

We had to grab a bus from the ferry landing over to the other side of the Island where we had reserved a campsite.  The campground was just across the road from the dive centre and right on the beach.  Our camping spot was less than a hundred metres from the ocean.  It was fantastic.  By the time we set up our tent it was really looking ominous and we walked up the beach for an hour or two and got some dinner at a fish and chips shop a few kilometers from our camp.  By the time we were done eating the rain started so we popped into a hotel bar and grabbed a jug of beer and sat on the veranda for a while drinking.

We walked back in the rain to our camp and the skies actually cleared for a while. By this time it was dark but the moon was shining brightly so we took our towels out on to the beach and read for a while.  I managed to fall asleep on the beach and we got into our tent about 9:30.

Sometime in the middle of the night it started to rain again. I don't actually mind when it rains at night while we're in the tent.  Our tent is nice and water proof and the sound is quite soothing to me.  I slept like a rock.  I didn't open my eyes until 5:30.

When we crawled out of the tent the skies didn't look very promising, but we were scheduled to dive at 7:15 so we were in good spirits.  We had coffee and an apple for breakfast and walked over to the dive centre.  The dive centre on Straddie is much smaller than the one in Byron Bay but I found it to be comparable in professionalism.  Checking in and gearing up were smooth and we were given a briefing about what to expect and what was expected from us.  While that was happening the skies opened up again and it started to downpour.

The boat launch was a bit of an adventure, the tide was in, the surf was rough and I don't think the guy towing the boat to the beach was very experienced because it took a couple of goes before we were headed out to the dive site.  The ride out was rough as.  The swell was about three metres and just about everyone on the boat was looking green pretty quickly.  The winds were up and we were all being pummeled with spray as we mad the 3 or 4 k out to the site.  When we finally dropped anchor half the people on the boat were puking.

Even Leah who is a confirmed non-seasicker was looking pretty rough.  I felt pretty crook (love that term) but managed to keep from puking.  Even one of our guides had too much and was leaning over the side of the boat feeding the fish.  It was a barf-a-rama.

Our dive site was the Turtle Caves area of flat rock.  Click this link to read more about it.

We geared up with the boat bobbing and it was a little nerve wracking but we got it done.  Once we were geared up we did a back entry over the side and started down.  What a difference under the boat!  Once we were under all sea sickness slipped right away and everything was peaceful.  I was shocked that the visibility was as good as it was.  We could see about 10-15 metres.  We made our way down the anchor line and almost immediately we saw an enormous shark.  Leah's eyes almost popped out of her head.  It was a grey nurse shark and not interested in us at all but it was really cool.  The guide told us later it was a female and most certainly pregnant.  Grey nurse sharks are really rare to see around here this time of year and our guides were super excited that she was there.  The picture on the flat rock page from before is a grey nurse. We saw her make several laps of the area and was never more than a few metres away the whole time we were down.  After that we saw tons and tons of other fish.  Our guide motioned us over to a rock over hang and signaled for us to take a look under it.  There was a big hawk billed sea turtle under there and he swam out and right past us.  I swam right along with him for about ten metres and I could tell he was checking me out just as much as I was checking him out.  That for me was the highlight.

We had our deepest dive to date on this one.  We bottomed out at 24.9 metres.  (thats 81.5 feet)  It's thrilling to be that deep and scary in a good way.  We're not allowed to go any deeper without more certification.  I'll be working on that, but Leah is a little more hesitant.

We had about thirty minutes of bottom time and when our air was 3/4 gone we headed for the top.  Getting in the boat is pretty easy.  You hand your weighs over to the guide on the boat and get out of your vest and fins and climb right it.  It is so easy to gloat on the surface wearing a wet suit.  Your buoyant in the salt water anyway but add a 5mm wet suit and you almost cant sink.  The water was warm and felt great.  We were surprised to find out it had started pissing rain again and it rained hard for ten minutes after we got into the boat.  We had about an hour of time between dives and they provided us with some gummi worms and soup. It sounds weird but a little sugar in your stomach when you're feeling sea sick really makes a difference. We both passed on the soup though.

Our next dive was a couple of kilometres closer to the island at an area called Shag Rock.  It wasn't as deep but the water was a little less rough.  We got in and spent nearly 40 minutes bottom time and saw a bunch of Wobbegong sharks and a really cool Leopard Shark.

Once we were done we headed back to the dive centre and were done by noon.  We had our dive logs signed off and stamped and we made our way to lunch. We hit up this sort of questionable looking servo (petrol station) that was recommended for their great burgers. Sure enough the burgers were out of control.  We were both ravenous.  I had the "Straddie" burger and it was a masterpiece.  It had a pineapple ring, cheese, bacon, a fried egg, beetroot lettuce tomato onion and bbq sauce.  Seriously good.

After that we spent the day walking, we wanted to go a couple of miles and check out some of the headlands rocks that we had heard about, but it wouldn't stop raining and eventually it was a major downpour and really not fun anymore.  We stopped at a bottle-o (liquor store, god I love the Aussie language) and got a six pack of bourbon and ginger ale pre mixed in cans.  I didn't know these existed before this weekend and I might have a new favorite.

We went back to the campsite still soaked and got ourselves a hot shower.  Then we sat under a pavilion and made dinner.  It rained hard as for a while and we read to each other to stay entertained.  We hit the sack about nine pm again and hoped that the clouds would part in the morning.  Aside from the scuba we hadn't even gotten in the ocean.

We both slept like stones and woke up to a sunny day for the first time.  We made a cup of coffee and were deciding which beach to go to when the surf patrol came running up to us and told us there was a tsunami warning and they were closing all the beaches.  He said we had better get out quickly as where we were camped would surely be swept away if it hit.  Needless to say we got our shit together and were packed up as quick as.  I think we set some kind of record.

So we got an early ferry and made our way back to Brisbane and were home right about noon.   A pretty busy weekend cut short, thankfully it wasn't tragic.

One more thing.  With all the rain we didn't make any videos or take many pictures at all.  In fact I think I only took five pictures total all weekend. Here's the best one looking out over Cylinder Beach.

Stradbroke Island Here We Come

I didn't forget about the blog yesterday, I went bowling, actually "ten pin bowling" as they say here, with some of the guys from work.  As you know just hanging with the fellas isn't something I get to do very often so I was pretty happy to skip a blog day for it.  I didn't get home until almost 11:00 pm well past the normal bed time and was tired as all day.  And I couldn't afford to be slow at work today as we were absolutely hammered with calls today.

Pretty much since I came home tonight we've been packing our packs for a trip.  We're taking the ferry over to North Stradbroke Island tomorrow.  I get to leave at noon and we're catching the train direct to the ferry stop.  We've booked a couple of dives and have our fingers crossed that the weather cooperates.  We really will be camping this time and we may catch some rain.  I don't care about that as long as the water is clear.

I'm sorry we left you all (Aussies would say Youse but I just can't bring myself to do it) high and dry yesterday and we're skipping out on Friday for you this week but hopefully we'll make it up with some entertaining stories and perhaps a new video or two.  This will be our first camping trip done totally without a car and we're both a little nervous to see how it goes.  Wish us luck.  We should have another post for Monday, but maybe we can get something up on Sunday if we're not too worn out.

How We Spent Our Summer Vacation, Part II

Rebuffed by rain at Mt. Warning we headed down to Byron Bay on Sunday morning.  The ride down was a piece of cake.  It's only about 60k further south from the mountain.  When we arrived the sun was shining and the town was packed.  Byron Bay is a small town built on the bay from which it takes it's name.  James Cook (Yep, Captain Cook) named it such on his expedition to map the east coast of Australia.  Cape Byron is actually the eastern most tip of Australia.  On top of the hill on the cape is a gorgeous white light house.  It really makes an idyllic setting.

We got into town about 10:00 and set about finding a campsite for the night.  This turned out to be a real pain.  Every campground in town was packed with people.  We had been told that everyone was on vacation this week, but we didn't think they literally meant EVERYONE. The town was over run with people on holiday.  We actually had to sit in traffic for thirty minutes or so just to get into town.  We quickly found out that the prices for camping during the week were out of control.  Most places wanted to charge us $35 per person per night.  That's $70 a night to sleep in our own tent.  We weren't going to have that so we decided to drive a bit and check our options.

We checked at least five different campgrounds or "caravan parks" as they're called here, in Byron and then started going to other towns. Most of the other towns were just as packed and not nearly as nice as Byron was. We drove all over the place with no luck. So we spent most of the day driving and after nearly 200k we wound up back in Byron and camping on the high school football field for $40.  We felt defeated.  The woman hosting at the football field told us that they had just raised their rates to sort of keep up with the rest of the town, but she felt that the prices people were charging were "just ridiculous".
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We had been sitting in the car all day so we decided to check out the beach.  It was the best decision we made all day.  We had done very little (read: none) research about Byron before we went there and were surprised constantly by the beauty of the place.  We first drove up the hill to the light house and found the parking lot full.  We snapped a few quick pics and drove back down the hill.

At the bottom of the hill we found a trail head that climbed back up and around the point.  The hike did us a world of good.  We both felt a lot better after streching our legs a little and working up a sweat.  Plus we got a bunch of great pictures.

Here's one of Leah at the eastern most point of Australia

                                  

 and here she is after we climbed the hill, you can just see where we were in the last picture down below.  I was a wee bit sweaty by the time we made it up.

After the climb we went back down and walked on the beach for an hour or so.  By the time we were ready to head to the campsite the skies were looking a little dark.  Here's a picture of me doing one of my favorite things, sitting on a rock by the sea.

Tuckered we grabbed a sandwich at Subway (Seven, Seven, Seven dollar foot longs!) and ate a quick dinner before it started to rain.  Once it did start to rain in earnest we fell asleep pretty quickly.  Despite the camping frustration we were feeling pretty excited to try scuba in the morning.

It rained most of the night and it actually helped us sleep.  We woke up about 6:00 and headed into town to get some coffee.  We're both getting used to drinking one cup of super strong espresso instead of the normal pot of joe.  I have noticed that people look at us a little funny when we drink a "long black" without sugar.

Our class was scheduled for 8:00 and we took our time having coffee and actually ate a nice brekkie.  A luxury we don't allow ourselves too often these days.  Full and rested we headed up the street and into my new obsession.

Tomorrow: Discover Scuba!

Happy New Year and How We Spent Our Summer Vacation Part I.

Welcome to 2010.

Leah and I rang in the new year by waking up at 3:30am and climbing a mountain, but that's getting ahead of the story.

We Started our week on Boxing Day by heading down to Mt. Warning National Park in New South Wales. It's just over the border and about 1.5 hrs from home. We packed up the Rav 4 and Leah jumped behind the wheel. Driving on the left is not as strange as it sounds. We got the hang of it pretty quickly with a few exceptions. The wipers and turn signals are on opposite sides of the wheel, so we had the cleanest windscreen in Australia most of the week. Just about every time we went to make a turn we turned on the wipers instead. You don't realize just how unconscious most of driving is until you switch up the basics. We also are having a hard time adjusting to the rear view mirror being on the left of the driver. And backing up can be a bit hairy. Other than that we're pro.

We had taken our time getting ready and left Brissie about 1:00pm. The drive down to the park was pretty easy, though we did make a wrong turn and went about 30k out of our way. We found a campground on the road leading up to the park and got ourselves a tent site.  The camp ground (Mt. Warning Holiday Park) was packed with people.  We soon found out that this would be a theme of our trip.  We set up the tent and planned to hike the mountain first thing in the morning.  Sunrise is about 5:45 am and since NSW is an hour ahead of Queensland that meant we'd have to get up around 2:30 Brissie time to make the summit by the crack of dawn.  Not gonna happen at that point.

Once we had camp set up we met a couple of travelers who were in the middle of a three month trip around Australia.  Turns out they are Americans and believe it or not they live at 37th and Lipan in Denver.  (That's not far from where we were if you're not familiar)  What a small world this is.  We had fun with them drinking a few beers and enjoying each others accents.  It felt quite homey for the evening.

Around sunset the clouds rolled in and it started raining.  At the time we didn't think too much of it and went to bed. We got up about six and headed to the trail head to start our hike.  Just as we were about to get out of the car it started raining again only this time with a vengeance.  This was full blown sub-tropical rain forest rain.  We made it about 100 meters up the trail before we were both soaked and decided to call it off.  We were both pretty bummed out.  At that point we only had two solid plans and the hike was one of them.

Since the rain had kept us from heading up the hill we decided to head over to Byron Bay and secure a campsite, on the way out we noticed this sign on a car offering what I'm sure is the best deal on a spray tan in Australia.

We didn't take them up on the offer.

Tomorrow: Byron Bay