Glass bottomed boat ride and birds
Trip Start
Jul 03, 2007
1
6
8
Trip End
Jul 10, 2007
Lord Howe Island,
Australia
Sunday, July 8, 2007
G:
Up early so that we would be ready for the glass bottom boat. I had been laying awake listening to Mandi's snoring - very loud.
M:
We had to at least be aware of the time when we woke up because we were due on the glass-bottomed boat at 9am which meant leaving Ebbtide by 8:45. We sauntered through the village expecting to be the first people there anyway, but weren't. The atmosphere was very different, with the shed doors open to the beach - it was clear that today was a "goer."
G:
We did manage to walk down to Environmental Tours in time for the glass bottom boat trip. There were a couple of people going snorkelling, and that would have been good, but what to do about being salty and sticky for the rest of the day. We left our shoes and backpacks in the shed before clambering aboard a boat that looks far too small for the 18 passengers. However, we all fitted fine round the black walled box with the glass bottom.
M:
We had the full complement of eighteen including three kids (relatively well behaved - the oldest a bit precocious and inclined to lecture to the assembled multitudes while Mama smiled indulgently but at least she shut them up when the guide was talking!) and were all assembled on the beach by about 8:50. The glass bottom was smaller than the one we went on in Tasmania but much cleaner. Nevertheless, you still lose colour and clarity through glass and also that feeling of being in the fishes' domain. But a big advantage is that Gray can see better so it all breaks even.
G:
The skipper was great, a really dour and serious looking man with a dry sense of humour, and a deep love for his coral that is in 'such good condition'. It actually was amazing, such a variety of hard and soft corals with a huge number of anemones, clams and urchins. The fish life was also varied with a mix of sea fish like 'stinkers' and reef fish. The first thing that we saw was a ball of fins that turned out to be a school of catfish swimming in a clump, it really was weird!
M:
We were taken to several different sites where we saw different communities - some areas particularly rich in fish, others in coral. We saw larger schools of fish than we had at Ned's, as well as skates and flutes, and many more of the really beautiful parrotfish. Also, just as we were starting out, a ball of catfish - about twenty of them all bunched together so they looked like something big and scary.
At the last stop, two of the party went over to snorkel. One was a young woman who could have been anything between about 18 and 28 who reminded us so of Kathleen Clayton - someone who had spent far too much time in the company of her parents than is good for a youngster. She was snorkelling for the first time and was behaving as if she was about to snow-board off K2 or something, saying, ''one should try everything once!" Anyway she was ecstatic about the experience, just sitting saying, "that was awesome!!" all the way home. It was quite sweet. I was quite sorry we weren't snorkelling until I saw them freezing to death on the way home. And as Gray said, most of what made yesterday's experience so good was being able to come up from the beach and have a hot shower and get into non-salty, dry clothes!
G:
We stopped off at a number of holes, deep spots in the coral. At the second, our two intrepid snorkellers went in, and we were grateful to stay dry. The skipper then attached a sea urchin to the bottom of the boat so that the double header and all the other Wrasse would come and eat - it was quite a frenzy. He also had a sheet of perspex that he used to scrape the glass clear. Headed back to the boathouse once the snorkellers were done which was probably wise as the skinny lady was turning blue. There was warm water and paper towels to clean and dry our feet.
We stopped at the visitors centre for a cup of hot chocolate and a slice of pie before heading out past the airstrip for our walk. We were just passing when the 11:30am Dash was taking off, and we were surprised by how little of the runway it needed.
M:
Afterwards we set off south, stopping for hot chocolate at the Museum, and walked along the airstrip - by good fortune we were there just as a little Dash took off but despite all the planning in the world, and being in the right place at the right time, and having great stormy skies and lovely mountains as backgrounds, we both got fairly ordinary pictures.
G:
Our new map showed that the track to Muttonbird point climbed up to the 60m contour and then, more or less followed the level. Mandi still battled a bit, but the path was interesting with views back to the airfield and of the multi-stemmed Pandanus trees that are so weird.
M:
Then up the hill and along an approximate contour (which is why we chose this walk) to Muttonbird Point. There is a viewing platform from which one can look at the Boobies which are nesting at present. It's not what I'd describe as "thrilling" game-watching - a green hillside covered with white specks about 5m apart. Through binoculars you can see that the white specks are the rather handsome (but so Roman-nosed as to be faintly ridiculous) Boobies. Occasionally one stretches its neck or wings and mostly one or two are flying over the colony - perhaps parents taking a break from brooding or perhaps the other parent coming home for a shift - who knows? There were also some other big seabirds - we think wedgetail shearwaters - just flying around and occasionally diving spectacularly for fish. And lots of little dark birds flying over the colony - too small to identify but probably swallows, I'd think.
So not thrilling but very peaceful to sit for half an hour in the sun, the wind, the rain and then the sun again (this is Lord Howe Island after all!) watching the sea and the light and the waves and the birds.
G:
After about 45 minutes we came to the path down to the lookout over the point. Mandi was brave so we went down to the platform. The point is almost isolated from the island except for a narrow rocky ridge, so the birds obviously feel safe, so are prepared to nest. These Boobies or Muttonbirds are some of the larger gulls with a 1.7m wingspan, but mostly they just hung round on their nests like great white blobs. From time to time one would have had enough and would fly off for a minute before returning. There were a couple of other species, one doing circuits and bumps, and the other, diving for fish.
I tried to take some photos through the binoculars to get a good magnification, but I doubt that they will come out well.
M:
The path continues on the contour but without really getting anywhere so at present I am sitting high up with a view of Muttonbird Point while Gray goes on to see what else he can find.
G:
We went on for a while but soon Mandi had had enough and stopped. I went on fast for 20 minutes until I came to the stream at Rocky Road. I toyed with pressing on to the Boat Harbour, but decided against it, and returned to collect Mandi for the long walk home. I walked about 10km, but because it was in running shoes, seemed a lot further. I was so pissed off, as my new shoes have torn already. I will have to take them back to the shop. On the way back we walked over to the jetty and watched the Island Trader, hoping for some activity, but she with her 500t and 2.5m draft just sat there, so we went home.
M, Later:
He arrived back just as I wrote that, having calculated that we should start back then (about 2:45) if we were to be home by nightfall. It was a nice walk down despite following the same path we had taken earlier because the light was different - lower, so that it illuminated the trees differently and often better from a photographic point-of-view. I have been trying (unsuccessfully, I fear) to photograph inside woodlands and forests. They all turn out looking like a bunch of trees without a real subject or else if you focus in on something it just becomes a photo of a mossy branch or whatever without giving that feeling of being in a forest. I saw a couple of stunning examples in a book on Lord Howe Island and I suspect it would take a ND filter and tripod to even begin to get what I'd like - but certainly low light which illuminates certain trees or puts side-light on trunks or lights up leaves is a big help!!
As we got within sight of the airstrip we realized two things: one, that we'd missed the launch of the weather balloon (which I guess would look like a man letting go of a big white balloon but Gray would have enjoyed watching) by ten minutes and two, that the supply boat was almost certainly in at last because a busy convoy of trucks was ferrying aviation fuel in 44 gallon drums into the airport. So we walked fairly steadily to the jetty (only a couple of hundred metres beyond the "town" so hardly out of our way) and sure enough, there was a very green and yellow ship taking up most of the length of the jetty with a large contingent of interested by-standers on shore and five or six men in fluorescent vests leaning on stanchions (how nautical I sound! A "stanchion" is probably a small clip for holding a swinging door or something) and although the diesel containers looked unchanged they might have been replacement, full ones - certainly it didn't look as if any actual loading or unloading was going to take place. So after ten minutes we went on our way, stopping only to phone Sarah who wasn't home, of course, but swears the animals are fine and that she's doing her work.
At 6:30 we came out to find Emma not there! We stood and chatted for five minutes to a young couple from the mountains of Tasmania who reckon they are able to live there because she teaches swimming (in the fortnight that's warm enough, I suppose) and he writes animations for a New Zealand company - nice work if you can get it! Gray spent the next half hour fretting about how you'd get enough bandwidth etc etc but I just imagine how nice it must be to have an intellectually challenging job that you can do from the wilds of Tasmania!
G:
At 6:30 Emma collected us and another couple to go down to the town. They come from a wild part of Tasmania where he writes software for a New Zealand film company and she teaches swimming. They stopped off at Humpty Mick's and we went on to Pine Trees. There was a jazz band playing very loud, so we took our drinks to an adjacent lounge where the sound level was more reasonable. At 7pm we went into the dining room which is so much like all hotel dining rooms. Started with fennel and pea soup, then waited 45 minutes for our Kingfish, but it was worth the wait! Nice large firm flakes and cooked nearly perfectly, served on a bed of couscous along with a baked tomato, and some crushed olive dressing. The dressing was too strong and would have swamped the delicate flavour of the fish, so I ate it with the tomato.
M:
We ate at Pinetrees which is one of the oldest lodges. They have a jazz band - apparently one of eight (I don't know if they are specifically all jazz - the others could be string quartets for all I know) who each do a week's stint - who play before dinner, then again afterwards. This was the first time we have encountered anything big - up until now, everything has felt like something organized by the family on a wet Thursday, but this is a big old hotel with lots of public rooms and twenty or so tables sitting down to eat at 7pm. We didn't see how it could work but it did... although with a very long gap between soup and main so we suspect at least one crisis in the kitchen. However it was all fun as by now we know most of the visitors (even some of the islanders appear selling raffle tickets at the Bowlo one night and running the bar at the Milky Way the next!) and could gossip and speculate about them. We suspect that only about 200 of the islanders are here because so many seem to be away when you make enquiries about activities, and judging by the reported emptiness of some of the accommodation, possibly only about 100 tourists. Certainly on a tag-and-release basis, that's about all I should think.
Dinner was an excellent pea and fennel soup to start with - a very effective combination, with neither overpowering the other - followed by a choice of roast sirloin (which a fellow guest said was superb but it would have had to be to come close to Friday night's steak) or kingfish. It seemed cruel to eat them after seeing the beautiful things swimming free, and feeding them our stale bread, but one of the band members who we had met outside earlier had highly recommended it and so we chose that - and it was excellent - really almost as good as kingklip and perfectly cooked. Served with lemon-scented couscous and excellent veggies - nothing special but just well cooked. To follow, apple crumble (which is the island speciality - everywhere offers it!) or chocolate pudding - Gray had the apple and I the choc and they were both excellent.
G:
We had a choice of chocolate pudding or apple crumble for pudding. I had the latter which had the perfect crumble, then I had the rest of Mandi's chocolate. Meanwhile the storm had arrived and it was pissing with rain.
M:
There was coffee and cheese in the lounge afterwards but we were tired and I was reacting with my usual hot flush and burning eyes to my single glass of wine so we asked for our lift home and were here by soon after 9pm.
G:
We didn't feel like listening to more loud music, so got the young handlanger to take us home. He was permanent employ at the hotel, but said that he probably wouldn't want to live here long term. I had had two beers and two glasses of poor red wine, so was pretty tired.
M:
During dinner there had been almost continuous lightning and towards the end the rain started. It is raining with serious intent now (10:20pm) so I hope our last day won't be rained out..
01 Lagoon from the "CBD"
