TravelStream™ news feed for member davidandelaine on TravelPod's free travel blogs service http://www.travelpod.com/syndication/rss/davidandelaine en-us Copyright ©2009 TravelPod.com Tue, 26 Jul 2005 06:10:31 -0400 http://www.travelpod.com http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/davidandelaine/australia_04-05/1121681160/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/davidandelaine/australia_04-05/1121681160/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/davidandelaine/australia_04-05/1121681160/tpod.html Tue, 26 Jul 2005 06:10:31 -0400 Adventures in the upside down part of the world!!

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Bangkok, Thailand

The first official day of the tour was just a meet and greet day for everyone to get to the hotel and meet each other. We have a lovely guide named Tong who so far is proving to be very entertaining! We have 8 ozzies on the trip, 6 of whom seem really nice. A nice french lad and English lad and a girl from Mexico. Generally the group dynamics seem good and will hopefully bode well for the rest of the tour. Tong took us all our to dinner tonight to a lovely little thai restaurant tucked down a back alley that you would never have found in a million years. The food was to die for and cost us about 5 pounds for the two of us. The conversation flowed very well all night and I think we are all very excited to get going tomorrow.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/davidandelaine/australia_04-05/1122627720/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/davidandelaine/australia_04-05/1122627720/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/davidandelaine/australia_04-05/1122627720/tpod.html Tue, 26 Jul 2005 06:04:00 -0400 Adventures in the upside down part of the world!!

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Perth/Fremantle, Australia

Well our last two weeks we decided to spend on the west coast overe here in Perth. We decided that this time was really for us to prepare for leaving Australia and generally chilling out after the last 3 months of constant travelling, as well as seeing as much as our now very minute budget would allow!

Our first week we spent in Perth itself, a nice enough city but sometimes a bit ghost like. We had a look around the mint - very interesting to see both gold and silver ingots as well as hundreds of different commemorative coins, mostly of the chinese new years strangely enough! We spent some time just walking around Perth's parks and public gardens and enjoyed a coffee down on the river!

It was great to catch up with friends from around oz too, David and Merv who we met back on our first day in Sydney live in Perth so it was great to see them stood behind their market stall that we had heard so much about, and doing a roaring trade i might add! It was also great to catch up with Paula and John and Ollie and Lisa from Melbourne too, it almost g\felt like a mini reunion!

The next 5 days we spend down in Fremantle, some 25 minutes south of Perth. Here we hired a car and really enjoyed driving arond the countryside, especially the swan valley where we found a chocolate factory giving out huge free samples followed by a winery doing free samples of wine and cheese (we ate like kings without even touching the budget!). There are also some really fabulous coastal stops and public parks which we spent time enjoying. There is a street in Fremantle known as the cappucino strip so we made sure to have a coffee in a different cafe on the strip everyday!

Sadly then it was back to Perth for our last few days in Australia. Time enough for a lovely last supper with Paula and John, some last minute souvenir shopping and some reflection over our last 7 months in Australia. Neither of us can really believe we are at the end of this part of our trip. It has been such an amzing trip for us with so many highlights that I think we would both struggle to come up with a favourite. Keep your fingers crossed that we enjoy the rest of our trip as much as we have enjoyed oz!

Fairwell Australia - may we see your beautiful lands again some day!
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/davidandelaine/australia_04-05/1121418960/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/davidandelaine/australia_04-05/1121418960/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/davidandelaine/australia_04-05/1121418960/tpod.html Sun, 17 Jul 2005 05:32:46 -0400 Adventures in the upside down part of the world!!

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Bangkok, Thailand

Well we have made it! Elaine cried for the first 15 minutes of the flight out of Perth but she soon stopped when they put a tasty sandwhich and a glass of red wine infront of her! Neither of us slept much though so by the time we reached Bangkok 7 hours later we were pretty much knackered to say the least. Our hotel is lovely, in the west of the city near to all the shopping malls!!!! We have two pools and the 5th and 12th floors of the hotel as well as a beauty salon, massage parlour, 5 restaurants and 3 tailors. Needless to say everything is much more expensive in the hotel than outside but for the first night we were too tired and too nervous to go out exploring! We had a lovely vietnamese meal though and slept very well in crisp white sheets!

Day two we were feeling much more advenurous so we jumped aboard the skytrain which runs above the city and headed west for half an hour to the weekend markets. We could see the markets below the train for minutes before we stopped, we had never seen anything so big, a market the size of a city! The sights and smells were exactly what we had hoped for - so many people crammed into some very small places, the atmosphere was tangible. There was everything for sale from the cutest fluffy puppies to fabrics and wood carvings to flowers and knock off designer gear - everything you could have wanted and more. There was also food stalls everywhere, wherever you looked someone was crouching down and guzzling rice or noodles or some unrecognisable substance! SO much of it we didn't even recognise but the smells were very enticing.

After some swimming and sunbaking back at the hotel, we again ventured out on the skytrain that night, this time to the east of our hotel to the foodloft! A huge plaza of different food stands in a lovely rooftop dining area. We headed straight for the Thai/Malaysian stand and we were definately not disappointed - chicken satay for David and Thai green curry with fish balls for Elaine - we could definately get used to this!

Day three we got a bit cocky and a bit lost! Inspired by yesterday's market visit we jumped in a taxi to a market in the centre of Bankok - our taxi driver dropped us off but not really where we were expecting to be and we found ourselves in the middle of a chinese (not Thai!) second hand market. After what felt like hours of looking at stalls selling nothing but machinery, fake watches and remote controls, we made it our of the market but then had no idea where we were! We walked and walked and walked. Eventually we found something on the map we recognised and found ourselves in China town. This was amazing, every sign written in Thai, Chinese and English! Again the sights and sounds were busy and bustling and generally fabulous! After so much walking though in 34 degree heat we were knackered, so we jumped in a tuktuk and headed home. Don't think we bartered enough over the fare but it was great fun whizzing around the city in the back - don't know how there is anyone alive in Bangkok the way they all drive! Back to the pool for some swimming and sunbaking and generally enjoying ourslevs! Tonight we go exploring for some more fabulous Thai food and then tomorrow we join our tour for the next 9 days up to the river Kwai and Chang Mai - we will keep you posted!
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/davidandelaine/australia_04-05/1119677820/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/davidandelaine/australia_04-05/1119677820/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/davidandelaine/australia_04-05/1119677820/tpod.html Sat, 09 Jul 2005 00:22:15 -0400 Adventures in the upside down part of the world!!

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Alice Springs, Australia

Well, this was it, the trip we had been most looking forward to - Ayres Rock and the Red Centre. We flew into Alice Springs yesterday where we met up with our tour guide and the rest of the group and headed off to Australia's red centre. We were a party of 20 including our guide Chris who was fabulous throughout the whole 3 and a half day tour. We started off at 6.00am and complete with our tents and sleeping bags as well as lots of food(!) headed off to our first stop at Stewarts Well where we met the internationally acclaimed singing Dingo "Dinky". Dinkyt is famous the world over for being a semi domesticated dingo who loves to sing along to the piano. Fearing that this could be somewhat cringeworthy we reluctantly watched as Dinky climbed aboard the piano and whilst walking up and down the keys promptly began singing his little lungs out! There was not a dry eye in the house with all the laughter which Dinky seemed to feed off! He is so famous throughout OZ there is even a question about him in the ozzy version of trivial pursuit!
Next was Rainbow Valley, so called because of all the colours in the sands ranging from purest white silica sand to deep red clay - our first experience of really red earth so typically associated with Australia.

We set up camp for the night at Kings Canyon cattle station where we bonded as a group over the camp fire wolfing down some great camp tucker then settled in for an early night in oiur tents/swags due to the 5.30am start the next day.

Day two saw us up before day break to watch the sun rise over King's canyon and then do the 8km walk around the rim of the canyon. This was a truly fabulous experience, the sun rise was fantastic and the views from the canyon just amazing. Chris, our guide was brilliant, he talked to us about the bush tucker and the local trees and rock formations and stuff.

Then we headed to Uluru (ayres Rock) definately the high;light of the trip for most of us and it definately didn't let us down. None of us could really believe just how HUGE it was and watching the sun set and making it glow a magnificent red was really an experience of a lifetime. Again we watched the stars and passed the evening around the camp fire.

ANother dawn rise the next morning to watch the sun rise behind Uluru along with 4,000 other people commonly known as the dawn circus! Still it was magnificent if a little freezing! We then did the 10km walk around the base of Ayres Rock where saw some amazing rock formations, natural pools and aboriginal cave paintings. After a hearty BBQ camp lunch we set off to Kata Tjuta - the Olgas. These are believed to have originally been a monolith around 10 times bigger than Uluru which now stand as 36 separate boulders. They were breath takingly huge and beautiful. We did the 8km walk through them with views which were simply undescribable and then retired with a glass of wine and watched the sun set over them. This trip could not get any better.

sadly the next day we arose very early again and drove a couple of hours north where we said goodbye to half of the group who were carrying on for another few days whilst the rest of us headed back to Alice Springs. In a very short period of time we had really bonded as a group and we will miss them all.

We had hugely high expectations for this trip and each and every one of them was reached and surpassed. We have done 'real' australia now and loved every minute of it!!
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/davidandelaine/australia_04-05/1119603120/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/davidandelaine/australia_04-05/1119603120/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/davidandelaine/australia_04-05/1119603120/tpod.html Sat, 09 Jul 2005 00:14:20 -0400 Adventures in the upside down part of the world!!

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ALice Springs, Australia

Today was our last day on the East Coast of Australia. We are quite sad to be leaving, it feels a little like we are reaching the end of our travels, but really we still have lots to look forward to. Today we fly to Alice Springs and then tomorrow it is off to Ayres Rock woohoo!! Watch this space!
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/davidandelaine/australia_04-05/1118998440/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/davidandelaine/australia_04-05/1118998440/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/davidandelaine/australia_04-05/1118998440/tpod.html Sat, 09 Jul 2005 00:12:08 -0400 Adventures in the upside down part of the world!!

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Cairns, Australia

We can't believe we are in Cairns already - up at the top end of the east coast - where did all our time go?! Our hostel here is lovely although they seem a little intent on badgering us to book tours through them, little do they know that we have no money left ha ha !!!

We spent a couple of days just acquainting ourselves with the city which is a lot nicer than we had expected from other peoples accounts. It is very easy to get about here even though we are a little out of the way. There is a beautiful lagoon here as you are not able to swim in the sea this far north. The sun was so hot on our first day and the lagoon just shone a magnificent aqua marine with most of the population of Cairns bathing in its glory! There is a beautiful art gallery here which is home to some local and indigenous art works. One of the exhibits, about travelling overseas was just amazing and some of the local aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children had done a collection of art works which were just lovely, hard to keep your eyes dry really.

There are some amazing markets in Cairns too and we feel we have seen it all now, from fabulous fruit and veg, to wine made from mangos and purses made from Kangaroo scrotum!! (can't imagine we will be buying many of them!).

We also hired a car for a couple of days to get out and about a bit further. Our travels took us first up to Cape Tribulation and Port Douglas. The Cape is beautiful, we felt very like Tasmania with its greenery and rainforest, views absolutely to die for. Port Douglas was a quaint little place, probably a little bit prettier than Cairns if the truth be told. Our second day with the car took us out to the Atherton tablelands. We visted coffee plantations where David took a microlight flight over the country side seeing whole paddoks full of Kangaroos and red earth as far as the eye could see (our first experience of 'real' Australia!). I stayed put on the ground enjoying the coffee the sunset and the beautiful surroundings.

We visted some really lovely little market villages, some fruit vineyards and lots of flat flat land covered with enormous red earth termite hills. This part of the country is described as the area where the rainforest meets the outback - a very appropriate description and a fabulous part of the country.

Another couple of days here just relaxing and preparing for our outback experience in Uluru next!
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/davidandelaine/australia_04-05/1118481300/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/davidandelaine/australia_04-05/1118481300/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/davidandelaine/australia_04-05/1118481300/tpod.html Sat, 09 Jul 2005 00:08:48 -0400 Adventures in the upside down part of the world!!

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Magnetic Island, Australia

Thank you all for keeping your fingers crossed, magnetic island is sooooo much better than Townsville! We are atying in a hostel here where the dorms are set up in alpine type chalets. We are 8 people in ours and they all seem a canny bunch so we have settled quickly! Magnetic island is home to some lovely beaches, beautiful coves for snorkelling and some fabulous walking. We did a fabulous walk up through the old war time forts which now sit dormant on the island, mostly at the top of very high hills which once you have started to breath properly again, provide just the most amazing views over the island and the ocean back to boringsville. We were lucky enough to see 2 wild Koalas tucked away in the trees - sooooo excited to see 'real' ones, you know, not in a zoo or anything!! david was just as excited about the gun implacements as I was about the Koalas!

At night our hostel was home to flocks of thousands of rainbow lorakeets who would happily sit all over you arms and head to be fed - poor David was rueing the day his hair fell out and left him with no protection from little bird claws! The at dinner, we were always joined by several very cute tiny little possums who would do ANYTHING it took to share our fajitas!!!

We have really enjoyed it here, next stop mission beach!
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/davidandelaine/australia_04-05/1118136180/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/davidandelaine/australia_04-05/1118136180/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/davidandelaine/australia_04-05/1118136180/tpod.html Sat, 09 Jul 2005 00:05:56 -0400 Adventures in the upside down part of the world!!

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Airlie Beach, Australia

Airlie Beach is just lovely. A proper little seaside town come party town with loads of atmosphere. Our YHA is gorgeous so we are two happy bunnies! Airlie Beach, although lovely in it's own right with a lovely man made lagoon, nice walking and great little shops, is really the gateway for the Whitsunday Islands, rumoured to be among the most spectacular islands in the world, a rumour which is reflected in the cost of staying on the biggest of the islands, Hamilton island, a couple of thousand dollars per person per night!!

However, it is possible to do the trips slightly cheaper and we opted for a powered raft to be our transport of choice. Our first stop was to an inlet which offered views over the islands and surrounding sea which were undescribably beautiful, aqua sea like we have never seen before and sands so white they alomost hurt to look at. Next we headed down onto those white sands at Whitehaven beach. Here we swam in warm pure aqua marine seas along with hundreds of fishes and our snorkles! I felt as if I was in a boutny advert the whole time, it is hard to believe that places this beautiful actually exist and you can actually visit them.

After some lunch we headed out to manta ray bay where we donned some very unattractive wetsuits, an underwater camera and our snorkels and went in search of the Great Barrier Reef. We didn't have to look far and we definately were not disappointed, the fish and the coral were unbelievable. We saw clams the size of you head and fishes of all colours sizes and patters, most of whom were very interested in our camera so we have lots of underwater shots!

This was such an amazing place, we would recommend it to all of you!
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/davidandelaine/australia_04-05/1117788000/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/davidandelaine/australia_04-05/1117788000/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/davidandelaine/australia_04-05/1117788000/tpod.html Fri, 08 Jul 2005 23:59:24 -0400 Adventures in the upside down part of the world!!

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Great Keppel Island, Australia

In an attempt to escape the toads, we decided to head over the water to Great Keppel Island and boy was it great - NO TOADS!! Very clean toilets and showers and our own lovely little room in the local YHA. Great Keppel island is quite a small island off the coast of Rockhampton. The beaches here are just gorgeous and the sea still safe for you to swim in, unfortunately though we were rained out for the first couple of days so no swimming then! We enterained ourselves with lots of very steep walking which provided us with stunning views across the island and the beaches and coves and well as uncovering to us a hidden camel farm, a completely deserted enormous white sanded beach and a local homestay inhabited by very tame and inquistive chickens, Guinea fowl and peacocks. We quickly learned that the cockeral had a taste for sweeties so we beat a hastey retreat back up the hill with our jeelies still intact!
Our third day there was a scorcher so it was on with the togs and straight into the sea. The snorkelling was great, the water was so clear and there were litterally hundreds of fish. Everything was going well until David spotted a very deadly stone fish which scared us both out of the water, we then had to make do with hours of sunbaking on the vast beach - a hard life hey! Tommorow we return to the toads - but this time we are prepared!
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/davidandelaine/australia_04-05/1117432560/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/davidandelaine/australia_04-05/1117432560/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/davidandelaine/australia_04-05/1117432560/tpod.html Fri, 08 Jul 2005 23:57:00 -0400 Adventures in the upside down part of the world!!

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Agnes Water/Town of 1770, Australia

We weren't too sure what to expect from this tiny little dot on the map of the east coast but actually we have been pleasantly surprised. We have a lovely little hostel near the beach and the weather is lovely, which is a good thing coz there really is very little to do here except relax and that is so much easier in the sun!

we have managed to entertain ourselves with a scooter roo tour though! This is basically some local guy who owns a load of scooters and rents them out for a tour around the local area. david and I doubled up on our 'little blue devil' along with about 30 others. Both Agnes Water and Town of 1770 are set entirely within national park so we had plenty of opportunity to see some local wild wallabies and kangaroos. We were taken through some beautiful park land and up to a look out where the views over the ocean were just lovely.

The main stop on the tour was at a local watering hole to have a drink and watch the sunset over the sea. We of course participated and felt very relaxed and content! Then it was back on the bikes for the return leg of the journey. This time as it was much duskier, the kangaroos were out in force. A huge troop of them decided to hope along side of us keping up easily with our 50 -60 kph. Then they decided to hop straight infront of our bike to get to the bushland on the other side of the road - what a sight, they really are HUGE up close and amazingly powerful and beautiful.

Then it was off to stand as a group under a kangaroo road sign in order for us to be offical scooter-rooers!!
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