Diving with Whale Sharks!

Since it's the middle of winter and most of our friends are freezing up in Boston, or Colorado, or Maine, we thought we'd share a little warmer weather with you...

Last June we spent about a week diving and snorkeling on Australia's wild west coast.  One area we visited was Ningaloo Reef, near the town of Exmouth and a full two day drive north of Perth.  It's a stark, remote place with excellent reefs, lots of wildlife, and whale sharks.  Whale sharks are gentle filter feeders and stop at Ningaloo during their annual migrations to feed on krill, plankton, and other small aquatic organisms.

We were lucky enough to get out on a day when no other boats were on the water, and had close encounters with several of these beautiful animals.  The ones we swam with were about 20-30 feet long; it's hard to tell from the videos, but they move so quickly it's hard to keep up.  We're not professional videographers, and apologize for the jerky GoPro footage...

One technical note: blogger may automatically downgrade the video resolution for you.  If that happens and the video is grainy, you can view these in HD by clicking on the little "YouTube" button on the video (which will open it directly in YouTube) and then using the gear icon at the lower right of the video to change the resolution to HD.  Here's a more complete explanation.

Enjoy!

Best of 2014 -- Part 1: The Southern Hemisphere

It goes without saying that 2014 was an awesome year.  After a month back in the States we've had time to reflect on our adventures and start putting together a few highlights.  Here's the first installment, recapping our six months in the southern hemisphere, through Chile, Australia, and New Zealand.  Enjoy it... we certainly did.

You can also view this video here on Youtube.  And if you prefer the traditional photo album format, have a look here.

The Epic Sign Post

One thing we learned while traveling this year: there are a lot of signs in the world. Signs, we also learned, come in many flavors, from helpful to funny, and downright strange.  At some point, we started taking pictures of them.  So, without further ado, here are some of our favorites.

Australia

Mixing British sensibility and caution with the Australian devil-may-care attitude, road signs in Australia are both practical and entertaining...

They forgot about the sharks.

Many tourists forgot this, so these were quite helpful.

A disheartening sign, especially since we were biking and wine tasting.

New Zealand

We spent a lot of time at holiday parks (a.k.a. campgrounds) in New Zealand. While the people running these parks were almost always kind and friendly, they also invariably posted slightly crazed signs like the one below. Woe to the camper who doesn't obey the signs... 

Malaysia

Signs like the one below were common throughout Southeast Asia, where durian is a popular fruit to eat. It also smells strongly of trash and makes everything around it smell like trash - as we discovered on a very long train ride in Vietnam.

Vietnam

Speaking of Vietnam, it was the source of some of our favorite signs, from propaganda to helpful rules about which guests were allowed in your room.

These signs contained no sense of irony.

Picky guesthouse owners. No prostitutes?!

Their third bullet was inviting, but we did not eat here.

Thailand

Thailand had a more mothering tone to its signs, warning us about dangerous people out to take our stuff and hurt us. Thank you Thailand!

 

Unfortunately, this sign was posted in a Buddhist temple.  Where all the monks were dressed in red... 

Excellent advice for life on the last line. 

Japan

Japan also likes to provide lots of signs, though they often advertised their usefulness in English, then offered all the information in Japanese. Below are three of our favorite English translation signs  - they capture the friendly and polite spirit of the Japanese we met.

We never saw the bee. 

This sign would have been more useful in Mongolia. 

Yes, let's!

And so, the next time you're abroad, just remember:

Perth, and onward

We are wrapping up three fairly relaxed days in Perth, and headed to Malaysia this evening. Perth is a nice city, along the Swan River and close to the Indian Ocean. It has the usual big-city draws of nice parks, good (if expensive) food, and a very nice art museum.  But what made our stay special was the amazing hospitality of Penny, a woman we had never met before who picked us up, dropped us off, fed us, and welcomed us into her home for three nights. A friend of Erin's aunt, Penny is retired and also loves to travel - we enjoyed her stories and tips on places from Italy to Mongolia to Japan. It's trite but true: people are what make travel special.

Now we're off to Kuala Lumpur, where we'll spend some time with another friend (and explore Malaysia a bit) before heading to Cambodia on July 13. And perhaps appropriately, as we sit by our gate waiting to board our first flight to the Asian continent, Gangnam Style is playing on the TV. This next leg should be interesting. 

Best of Oz and En-Zed

It's raining and windy for our last road trip day in southwest Australia, which means we're sampling the local brews and reminiscing on the past four months of travel. Below are a few of our highlights from Aussie and Kiwi country.

Best campsite (backcountry): Walls of Jeruselum, with it's view over an alpine meadow full of wallabies.

Best car camping: Camping at Peter's farm along the Murray River in South Australia, even with the "Danger: Snakes" sign.

Best multi-day hike: Tongariro Northern Circuit, with bluebird days, views of Mordor and Mt. Doom, and an excuse to use crampons, how could it not be? Runner up: Kepler Track in Milford Sound, which got us above the trees and the clouds.

Best day hike: Erin's pick is Gertrude's Saddle in Milford Sound - awe inspiring is the only way I can describe it. Brook's pick is Cradle Mountain, a little bit of Patagonia stuck on Tasmania.

Best swim: apart from the whale sharks (which basically trumps all else) plunging into the Antactcic Ocean in Frecynet N.P., Tasmania.

Best beer: Emperically, Sprig and Fern scotch ale and bitter in Nelson, NZ. Most memorable: a cold pint of Steinlager after compling the Milford track.

Best wine: Soul Growers Shiraz in the Barossa valley.

Best spirits: Brook: Spingbank 7-year scotch after climbing Gertrude's Saddle. Erin: dark and stormys with Barbados rum and Bundabergs Ginger Beer at Bullara station.

Best wildlife encounter: Swimming with a 40 foot whale shark.

Best people encounter: Stephan and Michael, two german dudes we hiked the Milford with then ran into (accidentally) about five times in random places across NZ.

Favorite Road: Indian Ocean Highway, Western Australia.

Worst road: the 23 km approach to Walls

of Jeruselem. Imagine off-road rally driving on sharp, basket-ball-sized rocks in a VW Jetta. We rescued an Ozzie couple who's rental car fared worse than ours.

Best moment: Brook: Dive #10 on the GBR. Erin: cycling to wineries in the Barossa valley.

Worst moment: Second day of a 2-day, 35-mile mud slog of a hike on the Queen Charlotte track, underfed and in a hurry.

Best food: Venison stew in Nelson, compliments of Yvonne (the cook) and Julian (the hunter).

Worst food: sausage, anywhere the Brits have been. Seriously - what's with the filler and complete lack of taste?

What we'll miss the most: the independence and pure freedom of a road trip. Runner up: g'day, mate... too easy!

Place we would move to: Erin: Tasmania. Brook: Nelson, NZ. Luckily, they're only a 5-6 hour flight apart...

Thoughts On a Roadtrip

Since late February, we've been on an extended road trip through Australia and New Zealand. After about four months, we've come to both love and loathe different aspects of life on the road. For example: camping is awesome, but having indoor plumbing is nice too. And while we've learned to love holiday parks, some of which are truly fantastic (see earlier post), we also dread paying $40 for a night in one only to find the internet (which we often have paid extra for) doesn't actually work or that we've managed to pitch our tent under the only street lamp for miles around.  But mostly, it's been a wonderful experience, filled with unplanned adventures, interesting people met along the way, and the occasional mishap.  

We are returning our campervan in a few days, and won't be driving much for the rest of the year (except for a jeep trip in Mongolia, but that's a whole other story). And before we return this rumbling contraption we've called home for the past three weeks, we thought a few road trip fun facts and figures were in order. So here it goes... Driving around Oz and NZ, in a nutshell:

- 12,500+ kilometers driven (almost 8,000 miles)

- $1,700 spent on fuel

- 115 days on the road

- 30+ days of hiking

- 27 holiday parks

- 15 nights indoors

- 13 dives

- 12 (or so) national parks

- 7 wine regions

- 4 rental vehicles (two cars, two camper vans)

- 3 hitchhikers given a lift (plus the rescue of one stranded Australian couple in Tasmania, two lost Israelies in New Zealand, and a German woman who was way off trail on Mount Doom)

- 2 countries

- 1 speeding ticket (so far)

From Tasmania to Fjordland to Western Australia, we've been lucky to camp in a few amazing spots (sunset on the Indian Ocean from an empty beach, lonely Ozzie bush with kangaroos for company, bluebird days on Mt. Cook, sunrise on the pacific coast of NZ...). We've also meet some really cool folks.  Like last night, when we met Glenn (and his dog Trixie) - a 50ish bricklayer/surfer from Tassie who was on the epic road trip of a lifetime, with the goal of surfing every great break in Australia. People like that are what make life on the road special. And above all, that's why we keep traveling.

Sharks, Termites and Ghosts...oh my!

It's been a couple of weeks since our last update because the internet hasn't quite reached the northwest coast of Australia. But we're back in the Perth area now and happy to say we survived our 3,000 kilometer road trip as far into the "outback" as our two-wheel drive delivery van/caravan would let us.

The Aussie Route 1 took us past thousands of giant termite mounds, mysterious rock pinnacles in the desert, and some beautiful campsites, including a night camping alone at the most haunted homestead in Western Australia. We detoured to the town of Exmouth to swim with whale sharks (video coming, hopefully) and manta rays, watch the humpback whales migrate, and dive to a reef shark cleaning station. We also started to explore some off-the-beaten track campsites, often relying on the advice of "grey nomads," Ozzie retirees who have sold their homes and live in roving packs of caravans.

It was a beautiful trip through a sometimes desolate coastline, with interesting marine life and a little Australian Outback mixed in. Here's an album with a few pictures: https://plus.google.com/photos/103829313469224560701/albums/6027171525075874177

We're now headed south, to the Margaret River area for some good food and wine, before swinging back up to Perth for our flight to Malaysia on June 30.  Hopefully we'll get a chance to upload a whale shark video at some point in the near future, depending on the whims of the internet gods...

Diving The GBR

Since he was a kid, Brook has wanted to dive on the Great Barrier Reef. And so, for his birthday in the midst of this whole adventure, we decided to spend a few days diving.

First, it was two days in the classroom and pool while Erin did her dive training and Brook sat in as a refresher. Then onto the Pro Dive boat for three days. While Erin wrapped up her open water certification, Brook took an advanced course and did his first ever night dive, complete with several sharks - which are largely harmless on the GBR thanks to an abundance of fish. After the training, we had another 5 dives together (11 total for Brook, and 9 for Erin) in great conditions. For the divers out there, we had mild chop and light rain at times on the surface, but minimal current and 20-25 meters of visibility most dives. Great conditions and great dive sites combined for some spectacular wildlife encounters, including the aforementioned sharks (three species, including a rare woebegone), lots of turtles, buffalo parrotfish, and giant wrasse that like to play with divers. Plus lots of pretty coral, nudibranches, lionfish, giant clams and much more. We couldn't capture it all on our hired camera, plus we're still working on our underwater camera skills, but here are a few of the highlights: https://plus.google.com/photos/103829313469224560701/albums/6021015688754455025.

We hope you enjoy them as much as we did...  Now it's off to Australia's west coast for some more diving - including a trip to find whale sharks and manta rays, if we're lucky...

Learning to love holiday parks

Holiday parks are a thing in Australia and New Zealand. We'd heard of them before arriving - that they're great, family run affairs and also that they're loud, crowded, over-priced campgrounds. We've found both descriptions are true, along with everything in between.

Holiday parks aren't your average KOA campground, located in a few high-traffic tourist areas. They are everywhere. Nearly every town has one, or three.  There are smaller parks with not much more than a grill (in Australia, this isn't actually a grill, but rather a flat metal griddle - all the better to collect your bacon fat and stir-fry your shrimp) and a hot shower, and there are big holiday park chains with amenities like bouncy balls, mini golf and water parks.

At first, we found the fancy amenities and $35-40 price tag to camp a little offensive. Who needs hot showers, a TV and a full kitchen when they're camping? It's camping after all!

How wrong we were. After three months living out of a tent and Mo, finding a nice indoor space to hang out ranks pretty high. Wood stove to keep warm? Score! Not having to haul dishes from Mo? Yes! Beer fridge and hot showers after surfing? Excellent! Getting more than three feet away from each other? Sign me up. 

They're also a great place to meet Aussies or Kiwis (not just the ubiquitous German backpackers) since they are very popular among the locals. We've gotten great travel tips while making dinner in the common kitchen, stayed warm and dry during pounding rainstorms, and Brook had a fascinating hour-long chat about hog and cattle husbandry with one park owner. So, a lesson from our holiday park traveling: put aside your camping snobbery and when in Rome...

On the road in Oz

Tasmania is a tough act to follow. But we did our best by road tripping through Victoria and South Australia. The first few days we drove the great ocean road in Victoria, spending three nights in Apollo Bay - a classic tourist beach town where we surfed (sort of), attempted to hike (turns out most hikes are really short walks), saw koalas and aborted a visit to a "scenic lighthouse" because they wanted $20 each for the pleasure (we've already seen a few in Maine). To recover from our rigorous road trip, we spent three nights relaxing at a little studio apartment in the Barossa Valley - if you've never tried Air Bnb, we highly recommend it - and doing some serious wine tasting. Something like 20 vineyards in 4 days. It was rough.

Pictures can be found here: https://plus.google.com/photos/103829313469224560701/albums/5994629804271970657

After that, it was back to roughing it in South Australia, and some serious driving. It reminded us of driving through Kansas, except for the constant threat of a kangaroo or emu running into the road. We spent one night in the little (really little) town of Melrose, where there's the North Star hotel. The best pub we've been to so far, complete with endearing bartender, local drunk and a helpful local who invited us to camp on his farm on our way back to Melbourne. Then it was back to hiking: alligator gorge (no alligators, but the ever-present threat of snakes), Wilpena Pound, and Rawnsley's Bluff. Hundreds of annoying flies aside, it was beautiful country and a good lesson in geology. The rocks change color with the light, there are kangaroos, emus and goats everywhere, and we enjoyed a blissfully quiet, dark campsite at Wilpena (dark campsites being hard to find in Australia given the proclivity for streetlights in holiday parks, which are basically fields of RVs with our tiny tent in their midst). To top off our Aussie roadtrip, we stopped at our new friend's farm on the Murray River and enjoyed another quiet night of camping overlooking a beautiful river and its resident pelicans. Nevermind the "Danger Snakes" sign.

Pictures from South Australia can be found here: https://plus.google.com/photos/103829313469224560701/albums/5996138697562193313

And as an aside: internet in Australia is sparse and slow. And in New Zealand it's sparse, slow, and expensive (you pay by the megabyte, because NZ has a single internet cable to Australia and is otherwise cut off from the 21st century). So our posts may be a bit sporadic these next few months - bear with us. We promise it will be worth the wait...

Koalas

Yes, there are koala bears in Australia, and yes, they are extraordinarily cute. Although they don't seem to do much but dangle photogenically from gum trees.

We had a few nice walks in and around Appollo Bay & Cape Ottoway yesterday, but elected to skip the famed lighthouse for which there is an absurd $19.50 admission charge (each), to see this "historic" sight that has been operating since around 1850. Since we can visit older lighthouses, for free, any time we like in Maine, we figured our funds were better spent on wine.  Besides, who cares for the recent and impermanent works of man when there's wildlife, 300-year-old trees, and an ancient coastline to explore.

Why we love Tasmania

Tasmania is the size of Ireland, but with epic mountains, wineries, and endless beaches.  You just need to look past the venomous snakes, and it's a very cool place.  We spent a couple of weeks there, from February 27 to March 11, and could have spent a couple more.  We managed to hit three national parks (see prior posts for Cradle Mountain and Walls of Jerusalem), ending with Freycinet park (pronounced frey-seh-ney) which is a cool peninsula jutting out into the Tasman Sea.  

Between our treks we visited about 10 wineries in the Tamar and Piper River valleys, which specialize in Pinot Noir, Chardonnay and bubbly. The cool climate and sandy soil in the Tamar Valley makes for very well-balanced  Chardonnay (or "chardy" - the Australians seem intent on abbreviating everything possible) that holds up to oak well, so you get a touch of vanilla and cream along with refreshing citrus and mineralilty at the end. Same goes for the Pinot: earthy, dark fruit to start and then a long, flinty finish. And the bubbly from the Piper River area is just darned good, French style champagne.

Along with great hiking and wine, Tassie is a very hospitable island - free wi-fi in town centers, enthusiastic locals, and lots of wallabies and other wildlife to view. This also means lots of efforts by the wallabies and brush-tailed possums to steal your food  - we were literally beating (gently, mind you) on one wallaby with a hiking pole with little effect, had our tent chewed through on one memorable evening, and Brook entertained himself by chasing a particularly intrepid possum (which we caught rappelling down to our food bag) through the trees one night.  And we did see a few snakes, but they were pretty skittish and left us alone.  Which is a good thing. 

Great hiking, great wine, and friendly locals - what's not to love?  We highly recommend a trip.  And if you do go, make sure to visit the Tamar and Piper Valleys (for the wine) and the aforementioned national parks.  along with Fish Frenzy in Hobart for some damned-good fish n' chips. You won't be disappointed.  Here's a link to some final photos, including wine country and Freycinet: http://tinyurl.com/k7gdhro

Climbing Cradle Mountain

About 10 days ago we spent two nights camping in the Cradle Mountain area of Tasmania, and got lucky with a bluebird day on which to climb Cradle Mountain (about 12 miles and 5,000 vertical feet).  The range is ancient, related to Torres del Paine (which we visited six weeks ago) and fairly awesome. We'll just let these photos explain.

Here's the album link if the above doesn't work for you:
https://plus.google.com/photos/103829313469224560701/albums/5987266105280429361

Tassie trifecta

We've been in Tassie about 12 days, and could stay longer. We've climbed craggy peaks, swam at pristine beaches, and just finished 3-day backpacking trip in Freycinet National Park, which is an isolated peninsula with mountains and great beaches (trip report an pics coming soon). We took a break for a few days in the midst of all this to go wine tasting in the Tamar Valley and, much to our surprise, Tasmania produces some of the best Chardonnay we've had anywhere, along with excellent pinot noir and bubbly. A few nights back, we stayed in a lovely "granny flat" we found through air bnb, picked up some local lamb, and did some damage to our wine supply. 

Not too shabby. 

Headed to Hobart now and backto the  mainland tomorrow. We'll put up a more complete hiking trip report when we get some decent internet (which is hard to find while camping).

The Walls of Jerusalem

In Tasmanian there is a place called the Walls of Jerusalem.  It's in the midst of wild and rugged country, tucked down a narrow, winding 40-kilometer road - the last 24 of which are a rough dirt track. Notwithstanding our VW Jetta rental car, and the fact that driving on dirt roads negates the rental insurance, we made the 5 hour drive from Hobart and spent an amazing 3 days hiking and camping in the Tasmanian back country. The hike in to the Wild Dog campsite is only about 3 hours, but the real gem is the long hike on day two that takes you past alpine lakes, cliffs, and to the summit of Mt. Jerusalem itself. We saw wallabies, all manner of birds, and the odd snake along the way. Not to mention star-drenched skies at night, icy dawns, huge trees, and an Australian couple who wasn't so lucky with their (identical) rental car (we gave them a lift back to town; they bought us a beer at the pub).

It might rate as one of our all-time favorite hikes.  Here's a small photo gallery of what we saw along the way.

And yes, that is a hand-carved cribbage board.

Australia!

Since we were little kids, we've both wanted to go to Australia. The Outback, the kangaroos, the funny accent; All of it seemed foreign and very cool. Now that we're finally in Australia, it is indeed very cool (no kangaroos yet, though). But it's also surprisingly familiar. We've been in Melbourne for a couple of days, mostly wandering around town, recovering from jet lag and a 30-hour journey, and replacing broken camping gear. And in those wanderings, the place has grown on us. It's kind of like Boston or San Fran, but more laid back, and with beaches and very expensive beer ($25 per 6-pack, thanks to very high taxes and an historic national drinking problem).

Tonight we're headed to an Aussie Rules Football game (aka "footie") and tomorrow morning it's off to Tasmania for some camping and hiking. In the meantime, we're enjoying Melbourne's laid-back vibe.