Carnet de voyage en Australie

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vendredi 2 mai 2008

I need a cuddle

After the Airlie beach adventure, and especially after the party with some people of my crew when we came back from the sea, I needed to relax a a calm place to sober a bit. Magnetic Island is the place. Some people chooses Mission Beach. One needs to take a breath before the final hurdle of Cairns which is not famous for his soft drinks. And that's the ideal place to spot koalas in the wild as well! They move very slowly and stay in the same tree during a week, on the same branch during a day, the lazy bastards, so it's easy to spot them, even for me. Plus people who manage to see them draw arrows on the ground to help other people to spot them. I still met a guy who didn't see any as he thought that the arrows were drawn by malicious people to "make lose time to other people". Some people are paranoid.

koala Koalas have a hard life

I even cuddled a koala at my hostel, it's generally forbidden to touch them as some specialist explain that it can stress them and give them a heart attack or something like this. I doubt it's true. These animals are like pot smoker, do you get the feeling that patting on the back one of your friend while he's smoking a big join of majijuana could give him a heart attack? Errrrrr....

meAndKoala.jpg

Lost on the great bareer reef

wings

So to sum up, my trip was the following so far : Sydney (5 days) -> Byron Bay (4 days) -> Brisbane (0.5 day) -> Noosa (3 days) -> Harvey Bay/Fraser Island (3 days) -> Airlie Beach/Whitsundays island (4 days) -> Magnetic Island (2 days) -> Cairns.
Most people add Town of 1770, Mission Beach and Cape Tribulation but short on time and not spending 1 year like most people I met, choices needed to be made. To be more precise, most people who spend 1 year stay generally 6 months in a place to work and don't limit themselves to the east coast.

Airlie beach is the launchpad to whitsunday islands and great bareer reef.
It's a place where the sun hits hard especially if you go 2 or 3 days sailing the beautiful whitsundays islands. Many white brittish people tried to defy the sun and they almost all failed. "I didn't know that one could get a sunburn in half an hour" are saying these tourists in line at the chemist with their back scarlet and smoking. It's painful to see. I have already my own personal fight with mosquitos I'm about to lose so I didn't forget my sunscreen. So far so good.

wings crew The people in my boat

I just forgot my camera in the boat during the whitsunday trip, and that's another personal fight I have in each of my trip. I lost again. Last time I travelled, I lost/was stolen my computer/credit card/shoes/phone so there is an improvement. But I need to check where is my passport because I haven't seen it for some time. Usually you get a bit of adrenaline when you realise you have lost something important like this but I don't get this adrenaline thing any more, my brain knows that losing things is a normal part of trip, like taking a bus. Travel makes oneself richer, I make other richer as well. *sight*
To get back on the sunburn subject and to be more fair, most brittish people I saw managed to get a nice suntan, I wonder what's their secret as for me it's only a choice between staying white or going red. Life is unfair.

When I chose my boat for the cruise, I got an headache. There are 100 different boats coming in hundred different packages. 2 days 2 nights, 3 days 2 nights, free dive in this one, better meals in this one, extra stuff in the other, different dates of departure... I managed to restrain my choice to two different boats, one was in the "islands and dive" section, the other in the "islandive" section. I asked what was the difference to the girl at the booking office. She didn't know and had to call 3 or 4 different person before finding the answer.
The withsunday trip was excellent, probably the best part of my trip so far, the more expensive as well, and I'm not even taking into account the new camera I will need to buy. The camera was not even mine by the way. I have yet to tell the owner of the camera that I lost his property. If you read this post, I'm sorry. I can't help losing things. But I dived in the grear coral reef and lost myself in the aquatic world (ooooh what a poet I am)

shark Attack

I'm bad at spotting things in the wild and it still works in the middle of the ocean. I'm generally the only one not able to see the dolphin jumping out of water. This time, I missed a manta ray cruising next to our ship. It's hard to miss as it's 3 meter wide. I will log this as a personal record. I can't spot a camera on a bed when I leave a place, so I guess there is a common reason to all this. Maybe I need glasses.

mauri brass His head is bigger than mine

vendredi 25 avril 2008

10 Australian things I didn't know before coming

Bondi Beach

1) There is a huge rivalry between Melbourne and Sydney. I made the mistake to say to 2 girls from Melbourne that I had been to Sydney during my trip and that I wouldn't go to Melbourne. I won't do it again. Which one is the best then? Half the tourist I met told me "Most people prefer Sydney to Melbourne anyway" and the other half told me "Most people prefer Melbourne to Sydney anyway". But all of them agreed that they had stayed too long in Brisbane. I stayed half a day and I agree.

2) The Sydney opera house is the 2nd most expensive human construction after the Canal of Suez. Someone messed up big time at some point I guess. And the acoustic inside is terrible because the danish architect left in the middle of the building process. All this makes laugh people from Melbourne.

3) There is more sand on Fraser Island than in the Sahara desert.

4) The existence of Fraser Island (it's on the east coast, 200km north of Brisbane)

5) Jelly fishes killed hundred more humans than sharks in Australia. Somehow, even knowing that, I would still be more impressed in front of a big shark.

6) You can buy kangaroo steaks in supermarket (I ate some and to give you an idea, it tastes like koala). Yesterday I ate some crocodile in a restaurant, it tastes like chicken, but don't say that in front of a crocodile.

7) The easiest place to have sex in Australia is in Bondi Beach, Sydney. Somehow, I have the feeling that it will be the easiest thing to remember for those who read this post. Melbourne people disagree with that fact.

8) Burgers Kings are called Hungry Jack here. But they don't have kangaroo whopper.

9) 90% of the population of the east of Australia is concentrated in Perth (2 million people). I agree that it's probably less interesting that the line about Bondi Beach.

10) I will never be a proper surfer (OK I kind of knew that before)

Fraser beach Fraser Island, a great place to put your name in the guinness book and build the biggest sandcastle ever made.

samedi 19 avril 2008

Aussies rule!

kangourou

Australians loves sport, especially in their sofa watching tv. They have their own sport, called Australian football or Aussie rules. I watched it a bit but can't explain it. The field is huge, like twice a football field, eggshaped, with around 50 players in each team, you can kick, play with your hand, pretty much do everything. It's to rugby what ultimate fighting is to boxing. It's a mess. They watch celtic football as well. It's football and rugby rolled into one. You can score a goal or just kick between the post. It's a mess as well.

Australian people are fun. My first night in Sydney, I decided to head for a pub and a beer to forget that my luggage was still in Hong Kong. I met some english and australian dudes there. 6 hours and 3 or 4 pubs later we were a dozen partying, whereas none of us knew each other 6 hours before. Each pub, we were gaining one or two more elements. A French girl met in Byron bay told me that some people started to sing in a bus in Sydney. At the arrival of the bus at bondi beach, the whole bus was singing, and they all decided to go in a pub to party. Australians involved in each case said that it was quite exceptional, but this kind of things would NEVER happen in Paris. We French people, or parisians at least, are boring people I reckon.

Harbour Bridge

Byron Bay

I headed for Byron Bay after that. Little touristic city where you can surf or party, most do both. People are cool there, I suspect most just try. I know I tried hard. A poor boy was attacked by a shark the day before I arrived. It happened a bit south of Byron bay while he was surfing (or more precisely bodysurfing). Awful story, his friend had to get him in the red water while the shark was still turning around. This colded me a little bit (ok it freaked me out), but probability is still bigger to get hit by the lightning. That's what they say, and that's what you tell yourself when you put the first foot in the water. But you still wonder what is this big black shadow right there in the water.

Byron Bay

You are considered a beginner in surf the first 4 years if you surf everyday, my surf instructor told me with an air of superiority. At my current rythm of 4 days per year, I should reach the intermediate level in around 365 years. Then, I'll be ready and I'll be cool. Byron bay must have the biggest concentration of blond people (both sex) outside sweden. All good looking and intermediate level in surf, with hats and playing guitar near the beach by night. I get the feeling that if I stayed there a bit longer, my hair would start turning blond.

I met a cool blond girl in Costa Rica and she lives in Byron Bay. Unfortunately, she's in silence radio mode for some time and I couldn't catch her there. Did she snub me or was she eaten by a shark, I don't know (the probability of her snubbing me is probably higher than getting hit by the lightning). All I know is that I tried to spot her once in Byron Bay, but I stopped after one hour as my neck was hurting. On a side note, I met a isrealian guy in my hostel, whom I had first met in Panama one year ago! This is a small world.

byronBeach2.mini.jpg

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