TravelStream™ news feed for member mcaren on TravelPod's free travel blogs service http://www.travelpod.com/syndication/rss/mcaren en-us Copyright ©2009 TravelPod.com Wed, 27 Feb 2008 04:32:25 -0500 http://www.travelpod.com http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mcaren/lob2007/1204024980/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mcaren/lob2007/1204024980/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mcaren/lob2007/1204024980/tpod.html Wed, 27 Feb 2008 04:32:25 -0500 Life Outside Belgium - Going to the Southern Hemisphere

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Capetown, South Africa

Well, it's been a good while since I last updated the blog and since then I've become a paid up member of the paragliding world (subject to getting my theory exam marked). I've had the most amazing time here in South Africa and it's amazing too that I've realised a dream - to learn to fly! I've compiled a little video of some of the flying here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cf4XCG8EResAnd now nearly 5 months after I started off (how lucky am I!) it's time to go back to Europe and amazingly I'm going to the company that I left back in October. They have a very exciting contract lined up - there are some exciting projects in the pipeline and it will be good to get back to work I suppose - not least for the health of my finances!This has been an incredible adventure and I can't quite believe that it's coming to an end. I'll never forget the last 5 months and I've got a wealth of memories to last a lifetime. Thank goodness for the internet too. I can dip back into this website when I start to forget that any of this ever happened to me! Thanks for sharing this with me and see you soon!Love,Martin
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mcaren/lob2007/1200559620/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mcaren/lob2007/1200559620/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mcaren/lob2007/1200559620/tpod.html Fri, 18 Jan 2008 07:55:34 -0500 Life Outside Belgium - Going to the Southern Hemisphere

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Franschhoek, South Africa

Hiya! Well the paragliding is coming on in leaps and bounds. I've managed to get 30 solo flights now and around 5 and a half hours of air time. I'm well on the way to getting my license. I had the most amazing flight today. We flew from a hillside near a place called Franschoek which is one of the wine growing regions of South Africa. I flew up along a mountain ridge and I was getting good lift and catching the odd thermal here and there. I managed to keep rising up the ridge to the summit and then I just kept on going. I was circling around way above the summit in these lovely thermals and I managed to climb to cloud base. I could have gone higher but you're not allowed to fly in clouds (it's very dangerous because you can't see anything and other aircraft can't see you either).  So I stayed there soaring like an eagle for about an hour before I was radioed back down to earth. Quite an amazing day!Cheers,Martin
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mcaren/lob2007/1198423500/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mcaren/lob2007/1198423500/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mcaren/lob2007/1198423500/tpod.html Thu, 27 Dec 2007 04:39:45 -0500 Life Outside Belgium - Going to the Southern Hemisphere

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Wilderness, South Africa

Hi everyone and Happy Christmas!Here at long last is the latest installment of the blog. I'm writing this from a place called Wilderness on the South African coast about 450km east of Cape Town on the famous Garden Route. Firstly I want to apologise for not updating the blog for a long time. I've had a kind of blog fatigue lately - it takes such a long time to write the blog and upload the photos - from 2 to 6 hours to complete an entry like this and edit it and get the photos resized and uploaded - and so I've been putting it off. If you think about it, I've done 30 or so entries and taking a conservative average of 2 hours for each entry that's seven and a half full working days that I've spent sitting in front of a computer - and although it's worth it because it means that I get to capture all these wonderful experiences and images it can sometimes be a pain.Also, I know a couple of my friends were a bit worried about the lack of news - especially seeing as I've been in South Africa and it's not entirely known to be the safest place on the planet - but let me assure you that both Kaska and me are fine and well! We've been having a lovely time exploring Cape Town and the Cape coastline - known as the "Garden Route" - eating and drinking, relaxing by various swimming pools, swimming in the sea, sunning ourselves and generally have a great time in one of the loveliest parts of South Africa. Before I get into what I've been doing I really wanted to say what a wonderful country South Africa is. It really is a slice of heaven and it seems to have everything - great landscapes, great weather, a natural abundance of wildlife and a people who are so friendly and so open - perhaps more so than any other country I've visited. It's true that there is a huge problem here that is the hangover of apartheid and there are terrible social injustices that you see every day and they are like an open wound that is not healing. But despite that the people are the country are so warm and open - it's refreshing. As for safety - if you take sensible precautions - avoid certain areas, especially at night - then (touch wood) you are pretty much as safe here as you would be in any city you care to think of.  Well today is Christmas Eve and it's raining outside! I think this is only the second time since I started travelling in October that it's rained during the day time! So this is the perfect opportunity to send you this update and wish you a Happy Christmas and New Year.  We've been so lucky with the weather during our time here - it's been sunny more or less every day. However we did experience the ferocious winds that plague Cape Town during the summer months. This wind is known as the "Cape Doctor", a powerful south-easterly wind which clears the Cape air of pollution (hence the name "Cape Doctor"). Apparently it's well known, but it was a shock to me - when it's windy in Cape Town, you can't escape it. It is constant and howling and it never lets up. We had about two days of this and by the end of the second day we were both going a bit mad - they say the wind in Cape Town will make you go crazy! The Mercedes Benz that I was going to hire for a couple of days has become something of a more permanent fixture! Given the fact that she (I don't know why but this car is a girl!) is so cheap to hire and so much fun to drive we decided to hire her out for the whole time we've been here in South Africa (I'll be taking her back on the 27th of December). We were a bit worried about drawing attention to ourselves driving around in this beautiful machine, but after chatting to a number of different people we were given the view that we'd be just as likely to get carjacked in a smaller car as in this one and in some ways this was a safer car to drive because she's big and she's fast and therefore more likely to be able to get us out of trouble if anything untoward happened. But thankfully we haven't had any problems and the car has been an absolute joy to drive as you can see in the photos.    I did actually have a bit of a special treat on one of the days when the owner of the car lent me his Porsche Speedster to drive around in for a couple of hours while the guys gave the Merc an oil change and wash. It was absolutely fantastic to drive around in this dream car although Kaska wasn't too keen on it - she said it sounded like a tractor! One of the things about being in South Africa that is advantageous for European holiday makers is the strength of the Euro and the pound against the Rand. Basically your money goes a very, very long way - from hotels, to car hire, to eating and drinking out - living life here is very cheap. We stayed the first week in a lovely hotel called the Ritz which is in a part of town called Sea Point. It was a lovely starting point and close to both the centre of Cape Town (i.e. places like the V&A docks) and also to the road around Chapman's Peak which then takes you on to to Cape Point and the Cape of Good Hope. It was here that we picked up the Merc. We spent a day driving Chapman's Peak (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chapman%27s_Peak) and the roads to Cape Point and the Cape of Good Hope and it was stunning. Perhaps one of the most beautiful drives I've ever done in my life and it was certainly helped by the lovely weather and the beautiful car! There is something spectacular about Cape Point (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cape_Point) and the Cape of Good Hope (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cape_of_Good_Hope) - the seas here are treacherous looking even on the calm day that we were there and you can easily imagine how terrifying these places must have been to the poor souls whose ships have been swallowed up by the swell over the years.   It was also great to see some of the indigenous animals which we hadn't expected to see! We were surprised to see ostriches and baboons as we drove from Cape Point to the Cape of Good Hope! Another day we visited a place called Muizenberg on the east side of the Cape peninsula.  We wanted to get away from Capetown to try and escape the ferocious wind that had been driving us crazy. The only problem was that it was actually worse in Muizenberg and it was a struggle to even be able to sit down on the beach!  Eventually we had to leave Muizenberg because it was just too windy so we decided to check out two special beaches - Boulders Beach and Foxy Beach. They are special because of the thousands of penguins who live there (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boulders_Beach. It was amazing to walk down the boardwalk on the beach and be surrounded by thousands of little penguins! They aren't afraid of people so they just stand and look at you as you walk past them and they are literally everywhere! During the week we stayed in Cape Town we'd hoped to take the cable car to the top of the Table Mountain. Unfortunately due to the high winds it was closed right up to the last day but we were lucky when on our last day the wind died down, the sun came out and on a gloriously hot day we managed to ride to the top enjoy the magnificent views from the summit. One of the things that really hits you when you first arrive in Cape Town is Table Mountain. It's huge and it dominates every vista of the city. It's a beautiful, ever changeable and sometimes sinister looking mountain. The trademark tablecloth of clouds is a joy to see as it hangs over the mountain - it was there the whole of our stay until the last day when it cleared and we managed to take a ride to the summit on the cable car. For the rest of the time it is a living, swirling, breathing mass of clouds that pours off the mountain, evaporating as it does so. It's a sight to behold and it's quite captivating to watch. One of the better views of it is from the Victoria and Alfred (V&A) waterfront which is a chic downtown area of converted docklands crammed with posh restaurants and a nice shopping centre - it's a very popular part of Cape Town and is busy day and night. We had some lovely meals there during our stopover. Eventually we decided to explore the coast to the south and east of Cape Town. Our first stop - Hermanus. Hermanus is on the famous Garden Route that leads east out of Cape Town. It's only about 100 km from Cape Town and this area is famous for the Southern Right Whales that mate and give birth in the bay between July and November. Unfortunately for us most of the calves and mothers have already left by December to make the voyage to Antarctic Waters for the summer. We were told that if we were lucky we might see some stragglers, but in any case we wanted to explore this part of the world and if we saw whales that would be a bonus. We weren't disappointed. We had heard from the owner of the guesthouse we were staying at in Hermanus that there were still some whales and their calves in a place called Die Kelders a few miles down the coast.  So we decided to pass by this spot as we carried on along the Garden Route. Nothing could have prepared us for what we saw when we arrived there. Basically Die Kelders is a small village overlooking the ocean. It's famous only for the whales and as we drove along the small headland we saw them. Not one or two, but around 6 or 7 pairs - mothers and calves lolling around in the blue waters. They were so close to the shore that you felt as if you could almost touch them. It was incredible! We could hear them breathing through their blowholes when they surfaced for air and they were just swimming around very slowly and really they seemed to be just lounging around in the bay and getting ready for the long swim south. The calves swim around their mothers, sometimes raising their tail fins in the air, sometimes slapping the water with their flippers and generally they seemed to be having a great time! It was amazing to see. There was even an albino calf who seemed to be a bit of a show off. He was slapping his tail fin in the water vigorously and making lots of splashing and noises. Just when we thought it couldn't get any better, one of the calves started breaching - that is swimming rapidly upwards so that his body came partially out of the water and then splashed back down again (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breaching). This energetic teenager was doing it over and over again - maybe 10 or 15 times and it was simply stunning to watch. Because he was doing it so much, it was very easy to get the fantastic photos you see below. It was simply jaw dropping to watch and it makes my hairs stand on end just writing this now - that's how good it was! And then as we were sitting on the rocks watching this - we actually heard the mother calling to the calf - we were actually hearing real whale song and it was incredible. And so our little guy stopped his splashing around and made his way back to his mum. We wondered if she'd told him to stop messing around and behave himself! How lucky were we to have seen all this - because any day now, probably even as I'm writing this, they will have left the bay and started their journey southwards.   The day seeing the whales at Die Kelders I'd taken a boat ride out from a place called Klein Baai to go whale watching and to find Great White Sharks and seals in a place called Shark Alley. Shark Alley is home to the densest known population of Great White Sharks in the world, attracted by the abundance the Cape fur seals - there's a breeding colony of 60,000 South African fur seals on nearby Geyser Rock. They say that if you've ever seen a documentary about Great White Sharks it was more than likely filmed here or at least very close by. On the day we took the boat it was very windy which was making the sea quite choppy. We were on an inflatable type boat (a big one mind you) and we left the harbour with a dozen or so of us on board. The sea was very rough and some of the children on board started crying because they were scared - mind you the captain had warned us before we left that it would be. As their kids became increasingly distressed so did the parents and then a few other people started to feel sick. It wasn't looking good. It soon became clear that we couldn't go on like this so the captain offered to return to the harbour and drop off anyone that didn't want to go through with it. When we touched down, everyone got off apart from me, another english bloke and a russian fellow who had actually got on our boat by mistake (he was supposed to go shark cage diving). The captain and crew were disappointed because they said they needed at least 5 passengers to cover the petrol costs so he got on the phone to his boss to see what we should do. Myself and my seamates were also disappointed because we wanted to see sharks and whales. So we were very relieved when the captain came back a few minutes later and told us that his boss had said it would be OK to sail out with the three of us. We'd head out to sea, locate the Great White shark diving boat that the Russian guy was supposed to be on and drop him on that boat before we would sail on to find any whales that might be in the area. This all started to sound alot better - the russian guy was particularly keen to jump from one boat to another in 6 foot swell in shark infested water! The captain said it was actually illegal to do this (for obvious reasons), but there was no other way to get the russian guy onto the Great White Shark boat and so this should be our secret. It was all very exciting, clandestine and probably unbelievably stupid! So off we went into open water, being thrown around all over the place on the incredibly choppy ocean. And because the boat was lighter now minus the ten other passenger we were like a cork bobbing in the waves - every once in a while our feet would leave the floor as we were floored by a series of waves. It was great! After fifteen minutes of this punishment we arrived at the Great White Shark boat. Our russian comrade wasted no time to get to the front of our boat and leap across! A great cheer went up from both boats as he was hauled safely aboard! We decided to hang around for a few minutes to see if a Great White would come along. By the way, I was planning to do a shark cage dive but after hearing about how it works I changed my mind. Basically the shark cages fit up to 10 people at a time, you only get about 10 minutes in the cage and there's no guarantee that you'll actually get to see a Great White - especially not at this time of the year because they are more interested in eating the young seal pups on Dyer Island rather than hanging around a tourist boat that's dropping bits of dead fish into the sea. And all this at a very high price - even for South Africa. The whole thing seemed to be a tacky and expensive affair and about as far away from the natural beauty and power that Great White Sharks are as you can get. We did get a brief glimpse of a Great White, but it wasn't particularly impressive from this distance so we soon headed off towards the kelp beds to see if we could find some whales. We saw two or three whales and their calves and it was lovely. In retrospect it was better seeing them from the cliffs at Die Kelders but nevertheless it was amazing to be so close to these graceful and beautiful animals. We soon headed off to Dyer Island and Shark Alley to have a look at the seals. I've never seen so many seals in my whole life and even from a distance the island was an assualt on your sense of smell!! All that seal poo and I suppose dead seals hanging around makes quite an interesting smell. Also, the sound of 60,000 seals grunting and fighting and barking at each other was pretty impressive! It was a lovely end to our journey on the boat with all these seals chattering on the rocks or swimming around us.  And so on from Die Kelders we continued east towards Mossel Bay. We were getting very close to Christmas by this point and Mossel Bay was very busy which we didn't like so much. So we spent a night there and headed out the next day. We passed lovely places like Wilderness (it's the name of a town) and Knysna and finally on to Plettenberg Bay where we'd been warned there'd be no chance of getting accommodation over the Christmas period. Basically all these places are the destination for everyone coming from Jo'burg to spend Christmas and New Year. Plettenberg seemed to be a brash, loud and overcrowded place and we couldn't get any place to stay there - not that we even really wanted to. So we decided to head back towards Wilderness because it had looked alot more quiet and peaceful. And so now here we are staying in a lovely hotel overlooking the ocean. It has a great pool, gardens, it's own irish pub and great food. It's the perfect location to spend Christmas and we're feeling very at home here.   We went horse riding in the mountains yesterday and now we're feeling very sore but happy.   I'll be taking Kaska back to Cape Town on the 26th December and she'll fly back to Belgium - she says the holidays have gone too quickly - I think I know what she means. Hopefully before she goes we'll have a chance to paraglide from the sea cliffs here - I said I'd get her that as a Christmas present, but it all depends if this rain clears. In any case, we'll have a nice, quiet celebration of Christmas here in Wilderness - a long way from home, but it will be nice in a different way. It does feel a little strange to be in a hot place, far away from home for Christmas - but not in a bad way - just different. And then after Kaska is gone I'll be staying on the coast near Cape Town until the end of January. I've decided to fulfil a little dream of mine - I'm going to learn to paraglide. I can learn here for a about half the price that it would cost if I were to do it in Europe. These are the people I'll be doing it with - http://www.birdmen.co.za/. So that will take me to the end of January and in between paragliding I'm going to learn to kitesurf again (I've never done it enough to get good at it). So when I get back in February, I should be tanned and fit and have two new hobbies for next summer in Europe - god knows I need something to keep me busy! Finally I'll be looking to start back at work at the start of February - these once in a lifetime travelling experiences don't come cheap, so I need to restock the old coffers at some point. There is an opportunity in Melbourne, Australia that sounds interesting or perhaps back in Brussels, or maybe a short term piece of work in the UK. So that just leaves me to wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. I will do a few more updates of the blog here and there but it'll be more or less idling along until the end of Jan beginning of February when I'll probably put the blog to bed. But who knows, maybe this is something that will continue... Love,Martin
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mcaren/lob2007/1197388920/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mcaren/lob2007/1197388920/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mcaren/lob2007/1197388920/tpod.html Tue, 11 Dec 2007 11:14:03 -0500 Life Outside Belgium - Going to the Southern Hemisphere

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Cape Town, South Africa

I just hired my dream car!
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mcaren/lob2007/1196410320/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mcaren/lob2007/1196410320/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mcaren/lob2007/1196410320/tpod.html Mon, 10 Dec 2007 15:06:45 -0500 Life Outside Belgium - Going to the Southern Hemisphere

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Uluru, Australia

From Adelaide I flew out to the red centre of Australia - Alice Springs and Uluru (Ayers Rock, as Uluru is often called, is the English name for what the Aborigines call Uluru). There was a brief stopover in Alice Springs and then a short connecting flight to Uluru. I'd been told that it would be hot in Alice Springs (it's pretty much at the centre of Australia), but I didn't realise just how hot it would be. Looking out of the window of the plane the greenish landscape of Adelaide was very quickly replaced by an arid looking desert scattered with salt lakes here and there. As you get closer to Alice Springs the desert goes from a sandy colour to a deep red colour - the same kind of colour as Uluru. It was all very exciting!  I stepped off the plane in Alice Springs and was hit by a dry heat - it was the same sensation that you get when you open a hot oven and your face is too close to the door. It was only 11 in the morning already it was 42 degrees! I want to take a moment to tell a funny anecdote that happened on the plane - I was sitting in the second row in a window seat and there was a couple in the seat in front with the most obnoxious child I've ever seen. He was about 5 or 6 years old and he moaned and thrashed about in his chair for the whole flight - in an annoying, winy, Aussie accent. He didn't want his food (he threw it at the window), he wouldn't put the blind of his window up and as we landed he threw his pencils all over the floor. As we taxied to the terminal I picked them up and wondered which of his orifices the pencils might fit up - the little shit. Presently he stood on his chair and started shouting at the other passengers. I had to physically hold myself back from not shoving both pencils up his nostrils as his annoying little head bobbed angrily in front of me. His parents were totally useless...imagine this in a winy Aussie accent - "Shane, would you please sit down? Shane, the captain will come and tell you off if you don't be a good little boy." etc, etc...I mean, what's that all about? Sit the kid down yourself and tell it to shut up. Grrrrrrrr! The air stewardess who'd been very patient the whole flight started to become annoyed and practically had to restrain the kid to sit him down and eventually he did with accompanying moans and complaints about this and that. She noticed that I had a couple of the pencils still in my hand so I gave them to her and she gave them back to the boy. As I got off the plane I told her that we should have lobotomised this kid with them, rather than give them him back - the smile that she gave me made me realise that she was thinking the same thing as well!When I arrived in Yulara (the nearest settlement to Uluru) I didn't have anywhere to stay yet. In fact Yulara is the only place to stay near Uluru. It's a small resourt that has been custom built just outside the national park and it's a rip off. I had to stay there though because there's no other choice. It's either that or sleep in the outback which you're not allowed to do or head back to Alice Springs which is 450 Km away. They've got you stitched up basically...so I had to pay 40$AUS per night to stay in a dorm in the Outback Pioneer hostel which by any standards is twice as much as you should be paying. On the first night I spent some time watching the sun going down. They say that the sunsets here are spectacular due to combination of the desert atmosphere and red sand - it was certainly breathtaking watching it. Apart from the daylight robbery that is the Ayers Rock Resort, the Red Centre (as the area is known) is quite amazing. And the heat is something else - as I said, it's a dry heat and when the wind blows which it often does it's like a furnace. From time to time they close paths (paths which anywhere else would always be safe to walk on) because of the high temperatures. It's a pretty unforgiving place where it's semi arid (around 350mm of rain per year) and yet there's loads of wildlife and the place is greener than I would have imagined. In total I spent three days in and around Yulara. I spent an afternoon touring round the Olgas mountains (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Olgas) on the first day. It was ferociously hot and the air conditioning on the bus wasn't working properly which made the bus like an oven. A couple of German's on the bus started to feel unwell on the bus and the driver was getting a bit worried about them. But we carried on anyway and had a small hike into one of the valleys. It was incredibly hot and although we only walked about 2 KM it was hard going to the point of being exhausting. The sheer heat really saps your energy and it's no wonder that people who get lost in this unforgiving landscape don't last long. You are recommended to drink 1 litre of water *per *hour* when you are doing any kind of exercise here and I can see why. The same evening I went to see Uluru as the sun set. I'd been dying to see it and now here I was. In fact the sun disappeared behind some clouds as it was setting, so I never got to see the rock change colour as it's supposed to, but in any case it was still pretty spectacular. It's strange because up close Uluru looks completely different than you imagine it would. It's full of holes and scars and pitted here and there - the shapes and contours are amazing.  I decided that I wanted to see Uluru during sunrise as well, even if this did mean getting up ridiculously early to do so. So I booked myself on a sunrise walk around the base of Uluru. Basically you walk around the base of the rock to see the sunrise and to admire the changing face of it and to hear the aboriginal stories about how the rock came to be. This area  is one of the most sacred aboriginal sites in Australia. Because it's so sacred you are also discouraged to climb the rock out of respect to the people - it'd be like climbing over gravestones. Still, many tourists want to climb the rock and do so - up to 300 people per day might be clambering over the rock. It's pretty dangerous though - if the temperature rises above 36 degrees, or there's a 25 knots wind at the summit, or the aborigines ask for the rock to be closed for religious reasons (i.e. if an elder dies) then the rock is closed to people wanting to climb it. It won't be long, I think, until it will be closed for good to climbers. It's not an easy climb either. Over the years, 35 or so people have died climbing or descending the rock - mostly from heart attacks brought on by the physically demanding conditions - the steep climb plus dry heat. So the sunrinse tour started at 5am. I'm so not a morning person and I almost missed the wake up call - it was only because a swedish woman staying in my dorm woke me at 4.45 that I didn't miss it (And no, we weren't doing anything together!). It was worth getting up early for. At that time of the day it's nice and cool and there was a lovely breeze blowing and so the 10km trek around the base was easier going than it would have been in the full heat of the day. It was wonderful to see the sun rise and it was also astonishing as we walked around the rock to see how it changes in shape and texture and colour and character. Some of the rock formations are truly astonishing like the impossible looking wave rock that looks like a 4 metre high breaker that's been frozen as rock or the heart shaped formation. Some shapes even look like faces with sinister or funny grins. One of my favourites is a part of the rock that looks like someone with 7 or 8 belly buttons! Even from a distance but at different angles, the rock looks completely different. It was also lovely to hear the aboriginal "dreamtime" stories of how the rock was created and the stories and mythology that surround the rock. The guides were very friendly and knowledgeable and you could feel how passionate they were about this place. It was lovely. By 10am were were done and the furnace was starting to get very hot again. I had arranged to pick up a hire car and so I spent the rest of the day driving around the rock and the Olgas just marvelling at how uniquely beautiful they both are. I also visited the cultural centre which wasn't great but I discovered something there...I have a friend who collects sand (I don't know why, but she does). So in each country that I've visited I've got her a bit of sand from one place or another. I figured that the piece de resistance would be some sand from Ayers Rock so I gathered a little bit on the sunrise walk. It was only when I was at the cultural centre that I realised that taking sand or rock from Ayers rock is a cursed thing and if you do then all sorts of terrible things will happen to you. The superstition of this so called curse is pretty strong because there's actually a "sorry book" at the cultural centre with literally hundreds of letters sent in from all over the world with stories from people who took rocks or sand and have been plagued by bad luck. To atone themselves, these people have posted back the rock and sand they "stole" and sent a grovelling apology! Now I'm not generally superstitious and I thought long and hard about taking my sand back to where I took it. One side was telling me not to be so silly and to be rational and being rational it wasn't anyone else sand to stake a claim on and that there's no such things as curses, but in the end I settled for the fact that taking sand from Uluru would be like taking a hymnbook from a church and that if everyone did what I did there'd be no sand left anyway, so I took my sand back to the spot I took it from, emptied it out onto the ground, made my apologies and left. (I did get some sand from outside the National Park boundaries - the great spirits of the outback can tell sand which has been taken from outside of the park and they don't mind!). So that was my trip to Uluru and it was lovely. Looking at Uluru stirs up something deeply spiritual and primeval and it's an experience that I will not forget quickly. And so as we taxied up the runway at Uluru airport to fly to tropical Cairns and the Great Barrier Reef there was a dust devil just a couple of hundred metres from the plane which had created an fiery column of  sand suspended from the sky. It was an impressive sight and I wondered secretly if it was a sign from the mighty spirits of Uluru thanking me for putting the sand back where it belonged...
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mcaren/lob2007/1197219240/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mcaren/lob2007/1197219240/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mcaren/lob2007/1197219240/tpod.html Sun, 09 Dec 2007 12:05:27 -0500 Life Outside Belgium - Going to the Southern Hemisphere

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Johannesburg, South Africa

Hiya,This is a quick one...I'm just in Jo'burg airport on my way to Capetown. I've just had a 14 hour flight which was hellish - although I did manage to get an exit seat...but next to the fattest man on earth (who was very pleasant all the same) and wedged right next to the exit door which has a great big sticky out thing where the inflatable escape ramp deploys from...so not very much room at all basically. But I made it and I did manage to get a little bit of sleep. As I type this my eyes are practically closing! Don't you just hate long distance flights that mess up your body clock. It's 7pm here local time which means I've been awake for about 24 hours now. My flight to Cape Town leaves at 9pm so with any luck I'll be tucked up in bed in a nice hotel somewhere within 4 hours. Tomorrow I'm going to do some catching up with the blog and fill in the sections on Uluru and Cairns/Port Douglas.By the way, I was very lucky because I've managed to catch an ear infection the last few days and it's been very painful and uncomfortable. I was so worried about cathching the plane because I heard that flying with ear infections can be excruciatingly painful and lead to permanent ear damage...! So I went to a doctor in Sydney yesterday and he said I'd be alright to fly and he gave me some antibiotics. Thankfully he was right and my ear was fine throughout the flight. Thank goodness for that. Amazing that I've never had an ear infection in my entire life and then the one time I do is that day before I fly 14hrs across the Pacific Ocean (or is it Indian? I don't care at this stage of the day). But from what I've read it's not uncommon to get ear infections if you're diving (I was snorkelling in the Great Barrier Reef and I went quite deep and didn't equalise). Well I'll close now...I feel I'm starting to ramble!Cheerio,Martin
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mcaren/lob2007/1196143680/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mcaren/lob2007/1196143680/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mcaren/lob2007/1196143680/tpod.html Fri, 07 Dec 2007 02:57:06 -0500 Life Outside Belgium - Going to the Southern Hemisphere

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Port Campbell, Australia

After spending the weekend in Melbourne with Dan and Brooke I headed along the Great Ocean Road and then on to Adelaide. The Great Ocean Road is known as one of the nicest drives in Australia. Going from Melbourne to Adelaide is a pretty long drive (around 1200KM) and seeing as I was going to do this in 2 days I wanted to hire a nice car. I wasn't disappointed. The lady at Hertz gave me a Ford XR6 here. It's a 4 litre, V6 beast and although it's an automatic it has lots of punch and a pretty high top end. I knew I was going to have a lot of fun with this car. I also knew I'd have to stop somewhere overnight but I didn't really have a clue as to where so I just started driving and decided to see where I ended up - if there's one thing I've learnt since starting travelling it's that often, the less you plan, the better the experience. I've also found that wherever you go there's always somewhere to stay. The big advantage of this approach is that if you like somewhere along the way and want to stop then you can because you've got no deadlines and no fixed itinerary. So off I went and soon enough the sprawling suburbs of Melbourne were behind me. It was a glorious summer's day and I was very quickly blasting down the motorway towards the great Ocean Road enjoying the V6 power as we boys tend to do. Within an hour I was on the winding road by the sea - I was on the Great Ocean Road - with cliffs on one side and the massive, breaking waves of the Indian Ocean on the other - the windows down, music on and enjoying the magnificent vistas - in a word, it's great! I stopped maybe 8 or 9 times along the way on this first day wherever another awesome vista opened up. It was remarkable to me just how big the of the ocean were. It looked as if the ocean was breathing as the waves that had travelled thousands of miles on the open ocean prepared to crash against the shore.It was great to be back on the open road again and I didn't want to stop. It was only when I started to get  near to a place called Port Campbell and the sun was starting to set that I figured that this would be a good place to stop overnight. You soon learn when driving anywhere in Australia that there can be many hundreds or even thousands of kilometres between towns in certain parts of Australia and looking at my map Port Campbell seemed to be a good choice to rest up for the night. In any case Port Campbell is near the famous Twelve Apostles Rock formations and it would be a good place to make a start in the morning . I had a lovely meal overlooking the bay as the sun went down and treated everyone to a magnificent sunset. It was so peaceful and quiet in this little place and as the sun set so the stars came out and nature gave us another of her beautiful shows - every now and again a shooting star would dash across the sky like a stray firework. It was a lovely end to another great day.On the Thursday (29th November) the day started like most have been in Australia - brightand sunny and warm. I wanted to make an early start because I realised that I had to drive still 800 KM to Adelaide in one day. I don't know how I did it, but I completely misjudged the distance between Melbourne and Adelaide and so I had to some serious catching up to do. On top of this I still had to visit the Twelve Apostles so I knew it was going to be a longold day. I set off at 10am (not early I know, but I'm not a morning person) and drove theshort distance to the Twelve Apostles - they were absolutely fantastic - they stand defiantly in the sea, and yet somehow with the resignation that they will one day be swallowed by therelentless swell that is forever shaping and slowly pushing back this ancient coastline. Iwas extremely lucky because within 10 minutes of arriving at the first viewing point a seafog came rolling in. Within 5 minutes the fog had completely enveloped the rocks and visibility was down to less than 100 metres. I was lucky because many people arrived after me and they didn't get to see anything. For me, it was awesome just to watch the fog swirling around the headland in a very bizarre way - it was like being on the lip of a giant kettle! At this point I want to say something about Australia that you never read in the travel brochures, and that is the flies - they are everywhere! Since I arrived in Sydney two weeks earlier the flies have been a constant nuisance. You cannot escape them and they love to annoy you - they like to fly into your eyes and mouth and no matter how much you swat them they always come back and they never seem to get tired. I'd kind of got used to swatting them by the time I'd arrived here this morning, but today they were worse than ever. They don't even respond to fly spray! In a way it was quite good that the fog came because it gave me the motivation I neededto tackle the next leg of the journey to Adelaide - time was getting on and I had a long way still to go. Once you've passed the Twelve Apostles the road starts to head inland fairly quickly and so it wasn't long until I was heading inland and through some lovely scenery - rolling hills gave way to sandy scrub as I made my way to Adelaide. And there was even some pine forest along the way. The road was long and straight and I got to do some pretty outrageous speeds...it's a good job that you're in the middle of nowhere so that there are no other cars or police around...or so I thought. After driving for a solid 6 hours with little or no stops I started to get nearer to Adelaide where I would fly out to Ayers Rock the next day. I'd met a girl (Nina) who owned a ranch near Adelaide when I'd been in Auckland and she'd said that if I was passing Adelaide while in Australia that I should stop at her place and say hi. I had sent a couple of emails to her when I'd realised I'd be passing through and she'd said it would be fine to stop by, but I hadn't had time to warn her that I'd be passing through today so when I saw a signpost for her town I figured I'd chance it and try and find her place. It was starting to get dark and I was running low on fuel and I only had an address - but I didn't want to not go and then regret it. So I turned off at the signpost to "Strathalbyn" and headed out into the dusk. I followed a country road into Strathalbyn not knowing what to expect or if I'd be able to find her street and as it turned out I couldn't find it. Although Strathalbyn is pretty small I think it was a bit overoptimistic to expect her street to magically appear. I drove around for 20 minutes down a number of lanes but I conceded defeat as it was getting dark, I was still 50km from Adelaide and I didn't have anywhere to stay for the night. So I headed back to Adelaide. As I put my foot down and headed out into the night in my rear view mirror I saw a set of lights following me in the distance. This is nothing unusual (although you can drive for ages without seeing another car on many Aussie roads) but the difference here was that although I was going over the speed limit these lights were getting closer. I instinctively let off the gas. I was right too, as within a few seconds the car was behind me and the blue and red flashing lights came on...I was being pulled over by the police! I knew I'd been driving pretty fast back there, but I wasn't sure how fast and I was a bit worried because I'd been driving some fairly spectacular speeds earlier on in the day and I figured that was all going to come back and haunt me now. I pulled over, wound down the window and tried to look as innocent as I could. The policewoman was actually really friendly - she told me that she'd been passing the opposite direction and her radar had picked me up doing 119 in a 100km/h zone (I didn't realise that police cars had forward pointing radar!) and she asked me to step out of the car and show my driver's licence. She couldn't have been more friendly - there was none of the british police attitude of "You've been a silly boy then haven't you..." she just said it was going to cost me 300 dollars (that's alot!) and how was my holiday going and what was I doing here and where was I going. When I told her that I was trying to find my friend she even got her map out to try and help. Now that's what I call a positive booking! I mean, you wouldn't get that in the UK would you? Or am I being too cynical? But the best bit was yet to come - I asked her what I needed to do with regards to paying the fine. She paused for a second and then she said, "I shouldn't really say this, but if you're not planning to come back to Australia any time soon I'd just file it in the bin. I have to issue it, but it's up to you whether you pay it or not." I gave her my biggest, happiest grin. She could have been all serious, but she was honest and I admired that. Having said all this, I may want to come back here and work one day so I will pay the fine. I even thanked her in the end, because I really felt that although I'd been done for speeding it was actually a pleasant experience! We exchanged goodbyes and I drove off (slowly) towards Adelaide. I found somewhere close to the airport, had a couple of beers and finally fell straight asleep after driving 1200km in two days! The next stop - Uluru (Ayers Rock).
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mcaren/lob2007/1196240040/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mcaren/lob2007/1196240040/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mcaren/lob2007/1196240040/tpod.html Thu, 29 Nov 2007 03:57:28 -0500 Life Outside Belgium - Going to the Southern Hemisphere

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Adelaide, Australia

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]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mcaren/lob2007/1196325780/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mcaren/lob2007/1196325780/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mcaren/lob2007/1196325780/tpod.html Thu, 29 Nov 2007 03:47:21 -0500 Life Outside Belgium - Going to the Southern Hemisphere

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Uluru, Australia

I've just arrived in Uluru (Ayer's Rock) today from Adelaide and it's flippin' hot! It was 40 degrees at 11am! I'm not sure how long I can last this heat and I've already decided to stay here for 3 days instead of 4. I need to update the blog with my time on the Great Ocean Road from Melbourne to Adelaide, but that will have to wait...I probably won't update the blog for a few days until I can get somewhere with air conditioning at least! The heat is stifling!I hope you're all well, I'll send some of this monstrous heat your way!Cheers,Martin
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Melbourne, Australia

Hi Everyone,Just a quick update today. I'm having a couple of days here in Melbourne before I drive along the Great Coast Road to Adelaide and then on to Ayers Rock.It's great staying with Dan and Brooke in the South Yarra suburb of Melbourne. It's been about 6 years since I saw them so we've been doing a lot of catching up. I grabbed a coffee today with an old colleague who is from Melbourne and I worked with in London back in 2000-2001 - she's married and pregnant now. :-) It's good to catch up.The weather is good and Melbourne seems to be a great city.Bye for Now,Martin
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