Jac’s Journey

Did I say that walking up a mountain cured me of my going-home-anxiety? Don’t believe a word of it.

Well, to be fair, it did for a while, but then, after the mud had fallen off my hiking boots (some lazy mare didn’t clean and wax them…) it came back in a slightly different form, washing over me in my third, and hopefully final, spell of homesickness.

The first spell was over Christmas and New Year in the Philippines. The second was in Chiang Mai in February. Now here we are in New Zealand, only five weeks ‘til I get home. And I’m homesick? In a few weeks’ time I’ll be climbing the walls desperate to get travelling again.

It went like this…

I left Te Anau and headed to Queenstown and Wanaka. These places are winter sports centres in New Zealand, making them quite different in that they’re filled with tourists. I’ve blissfully had much of New Zealand to myself and fellow adventurous nutters during the frigid month of July. Perhaps the volume of tourists wouldn’t have bothered me so much if I’d stuck to my original plan to learn to snowboard and go skydiving, but with time running out in New Zealand, I’ve decided to spend it trekking and scuba diving, two things I really adore doing.

School holidays are kicking around and several varieties of ‘Maw, Paw and the weans’ have been spotted. I was prepared for this and, by a country mile, Queenstown is the worst, so my plan to stop for lunch, take some photos and get a shifty on was a very good one.

Arriving into Wanaka, fewer ‘Maw, Paw and weans’ were to be seen, but what I hadn’t counted on were ‘asshole long termers’.

A little about ‘long termers’; these people are just like me. They’re travelling. Except they’ve stopped somewhere for a while to do some work. Rather than get their finger out and sort a room or a flat, they’ve decided to stay in a hostel for a while. This is the same choice I made when I was in Phnom Penh, but read on for further distinctions…

To be an ‘asshole long termer’, you need to be staying somewhere for a while and think that this makes you superior to those who are passing through for only a few days. You need to be able to toss your silky locks and give patronising advice with a patronising smile, because of course, you know everything about the place, having been there for six whole weeks. But most of all, you need to treat the hostel like you own it. You need to be obnoxious and rude to people who are, heavens above, in your favourite seat. You need to talk at the top of your voice, taking over all other conversations in the room. You need to believe that your decision to stop getting on the bus for a while makes you special.

As you may have already guessed, asshole long termers and I don’t get on.

Normally, I see them for the ridiculous creatures that they are, deriving their self-esteem from the length of time they’ve stayed somewhere. However, having had a bout of going-home-anxiety, followed by homesickness, not to mention the guilt I was carrying for not having cleaned my hiking boots, they caught me during a weak moment.

Mix in some awful weather that foiled my plans to trek; low clouds, biting wind, incessant rain, dull grey and brown landscape, not a mountain to be seen; I was not a happy chappy.

Thank heavens for Cinema Paradiso. A delight of a cinema, with sofas laid out in rows, beer, homemade cookies and a half time interval (very handy for the beer drinkers). I saw ‘In The Valley of Elah’, a great movie, and perfect for my dark Wanaka mood.

When I was 19, I started seeing a boy from Coatbridge. My mum didn’t like him (as ever, she was right) and she told me the best thing to come out of Coatbridge was the A89.

Well, the best thing about Queenstown and Wanaka was the road to the West Coast.

Still smarting from the Wanaka asshole long termers, but smarting more from my irritation that they’d gotten to me, I took my homesick behind to the West Coast. Desperate for a chat with my sister, a cuddle from my niece, a bottle of wine with friends, I turned the music up and took my emotional rollercoaster through the New Zealand west coast rollercoaster.

What a landscape; lakes, mountains, valleys, clouds, rain, blue skies, then that coastline. It was nature’s masterpiece presented to a hungry soul. Watching nature’s masterpiece unfold required some musical masterpieces, and I will forever remember that journey as the Pink Floyd journey, a couple of albums back to back then an hour of Comfortably Numb on repeat (is it humanly possible to listen to that song only once?).

By the time I reached Fox Glacier town, the home of independent-spirited west coasters, I’d got my sense of proportion back. Wan(a)ka long termers were back in the ridiculous box where they belonged, my homesickness was under control, my (still dirty) hiking boots were on and I was standing 50 metres from the terminal face of Fox Glacier.

To quote Pink Floyd, ‘Wish You Were Here’.

Queenstown and Wanaka

Arriving into Te Anau, I was overwhelmed by the choices open to me; visit Doubtful Sound or Milford Sound, or both; walk hundreds of different multi-day or single-day tracks; cruise, kayak, dive, swim, fish; the list was endless.

Fiordland is a beautiful and unusual part of the world. The dramatic shapes of the mountains were carved out by enormous glaciers in the last ice age. At times, the rock face is almost completely vertical, dwarfing you in the same way as a New York skyscraper. Snow perches precariously on ledges, eventually falling as an avalanche when the weight becomes too much. Trees cling to the side of the rock, roots thrust determinedly into crevices, gleaning every nutrient from the tiny amount of soil, moss and lichen. One of the wettest places in the world, it rains two days out of every three. That’s even more than Glasgow!

Iain had mentioned on his blog that he hadn’t been blown away by Milford Sound, so I decided to cruise Doubtful Sound. It’s harder to get to, you can only go on a tour, and therefore more expensive, but it’s significantly larger than Milford Sound. Fog greeted me in the morning, but soon cleared to create a beautiful and atmospheric cruise, with exciting moments like bottlenose dolphins swimming around the boat, fur seals relaxing on rocks at the Tasman Sea estuary and a close encounter with a waterfall, when the boat inched impossibly close to the rock face and we were able to fill our paper cups with waterfall water. At one point they turned off the boat engines and the ‘noise’ of the silence was overwhelming.

I had been hoping to dive either Doubtful or Milford Sound, but unfortunately the only dive shop available to me was closed for the winter. I missed out on a unique experience; because of the amount of rain, there’s so much fresh water running down the mountains that it never mixes completely with the salt water. The layer of fresh water that sits on top of the salt water has picked up tannins from the vegetation it passed through and looks a little like weak tea. The stained fresh water filters out light and just 10 metres below the surface, you find all kinds of sea life that would normally only be seen at depths too great for recreational diving. While I was on the cruise they showed a video shot by an underwater cameraman at Doubtful Sound. Just to rub it in.

My head was spinning about which trek to do. There’s a huge variety, from 5 minute dallies between a car park and a lakeside to 5 day mammoth treks, up and down mountains, through hill and dale and staying overnight in basic huts along the way. In winter, a lot of the multi-day treks in Fiordland close to all but the most experienced trekkers. Heating and water supplies are turned off in the huts, bridges are taken down to prevent avalanche damage and tracks can be blocked by tree falls. This means you need to be able to navigate in alpine conditions, use ice climbing equipment, wade across swollen rivers and survive in sub-zero overnight temperatures at altitude.

It always saddens me when I hear about tourists dying in the mountains in Scotland – we seem to have a few every year. But it’s taught me a lot of respect for mountains; it seems that while I’m more than happy to dive with Bull Sharks, I’ll show a snow-capped mountain the respect it’s due and stay well within the limits of my experience and capabilities. So, after much research into the multi-day treks available, I opted to stick to single day trekking around Fiordland.

Thinking in advance about driving the Milford Road, my expectations were very high. I’ve travelled lots of amazing roads on this trip; the Karkoram Highway in north-west China, the Friendship Highway in Tibet, the Great Ocean Road in Australia, and many other routes of incredible beauty, but interestingly, my favourite road in the world remains the A82 between Glasgow and Inverness. I knew that the Milford Road had the potential to oust it from my top spot.

Driving along the road, I thought of the many times I’ve driven the A82, which led me to think a lot about home. For the first time, I felt anxious about coming home. I was thinking about friends and family, about work, about how I want my life to be when I get back. I thought about the different expectations people will have of me when I get home and how difficult it will be to disappoint those I care about when their expectations don’t match what’s right for me, or what I want. I grew annoyed with myself; I was driving along one of the most beautiful roads in the world with a knot of anxiety in my stomach. I was looking at some of the most amazing scenery and had too much going on in my head to feel its wonder in the way it deserved.

As planned, at the half-way point, I parked at The Divide, pulled my hiking boots on, and set off to tackle the trek to Key Summit, the first day of the 4 day Routeburn track. After ten minutes walking, my anxiety knot loosened and I was able to breathe in the freshness of the air and feel my concerns leave me. It was relentless, a 919 metre climb with not one single flat bit! The track zig-zagged up the mountain and the summit rewarded my efforts with panoramic views across Fiordland.

With the perspective brought by a good puff up a mountain, I was able to put away my going home concerns. There will be difficult times when I get back, just as there have been difficult times on this trip, but I can only deal with them when I get back and thinking about them now doesn’t help at all; except perhaps in coming up with smart-ass answers to stupid questions like

“So, have you got travelling out of your system now?”

Leaving The Divide, I pressed my rosy cheeks on to Milford Sound. Arriving there an hour later, I was impressed by the magnificence of the Sound. Maybe it was because I didn’t do the cruise, but for me, the drive was better than the Sound itself; I had passed in the shadow of sheer rock face, driven through the incredible Homer Tunnel, and enjoyed spectacular and dramatic views.

Oh yes, it is most certainly a contender to beat the A82.

But all in all, for me, the A82 pips it at the post. It’s a longer road, with greater scenic variety, moving from the magnificence of Loch Lomond, through the wonderfully bleak Rannoch Moor, spectacular Glencoe, to Ben Nevis and the Great Glen, all the way to Inverness.

Yip, the A82 is still my winner.

Doubtful Sound

Milford Sound and Key Summit

Te Anau

I arrived in Dunedin with yet another ‘to do’ list. Walking the Hooker Valley track had proved that some of the gear I’d hoped to manage without was actually necessary. So, more spending was on the cards. Finally fully kitted out, I was ready to set off into the wilderness again, but not before sampling the cafes and restaurants of Dunedin, and paying a visit to the steepest street in the world.

Baldwin Street sits in a modest suburb of Dunedin. As I turned into it, I thought,

‘No way, it looks steep, but the steepest in the world? Surely not.’

Then I parked the car at the bottom and walked up.

‘Ok’, I puffed. ‘It just might be.’

I was patting myself on the back for having walked up as I watched other tourists drive their cars to the top and take photos before jumping back in the seat and tearing off. Then along came a young gentleman to make sure my episode of self-congratulation didn’t get out of hand.

He ran into view at the bottom of the street and proceeded to run all the way up. He didn’t even struggle at the steepest bit. When he got to the top I saluted him; he had just ran up the steepest street in the world, and was, quite frankly, no more puffed out than I had been from walking.

After a brief chat, I bade him farewell and walked back down. He ran back down. Reaching the bottom, he turned round and ran back up again.

Seems no matter where you are in the world, whenever you get too impressed with yourself, someone will come along and take the wind out of your sails.

Next stop was the Otago Peninsula, a haven for wildlife on the east coast, just a short drive from Dunedin. Sea lions, albatross and yellow-eyed penguins were waiting for me, along with a delicious night in a farmhouse that I had all to myself! I sat around in my pyjamas all evening in the lounge, just because I could. Ah, pyjama evenings, how I miss you.

But back to the wildlife; the huge Sea Lions were play-fighting on the beach, putting on a show just for me. I stopped to watch them, but not too close, they look clumsy and ungainly on land, but boy can they shift when they want to!

After this, I headed to the Royal Albatross Colony. I didn’t really know anything about Albatross’, to be honest. I knew they were really big sea birds, and something to do with sailors and luck, but apart from that, the Albatross section of my brain had tumbleweed rolling through it. In the space of an hour and a half, I learned so much about these fascinating birds. What I hadn’t realised was that they are Southern Hemisphere birds. I wrinkled my brow, thinking I was sure I’d heard people talk about them in Scotland. It turns out one solitary Royal Albatross found its way over the equator and into the Northern Hemisphere. Every year, for about twenty years, he came to mate somewhere on the Outer Hebrides, but of course, he was the only one for many thousands of miles and never found a partner, and then he died. Isn’t that a sad story?

I left the Royal Albatross colony and headed to the Yellow-Eyed Penguin colony. The little Blue Penguins I’d seen at Oamaru are fairly common in New Zealand, but the Yellow-Eyed Penguins are rare and endangered. They have completely different habits from the little Blues; they are shy and solitary where the Blues are very social and live close together. They also come back in from fishing earlier than the little Blues, which means it’s still light and you can take photos without needing a flash (the light from the flash is harmful and frightening for all penguins).

The Yellow-Eyed Penguin colony on Otago is privately owned and funded, and these guys do an excellent job. A system of hides and tunnels means that tourists cause little disruption while getting really close to the penguins. At one point, we were tipped off about the direction Jim the penguin was heading and sprinted through the tunnel system to stand beneath the wooden bridge just as he pattered over it. ‘Oi, Jim, I can see right up your beak.’

As Yellow-Eyed penguins are rare, we saw less than ten birds in the hour we were in the tunnels. I had expected to prefer the little Blues because they are so very small and cute and I saw so many of them, but the way this reserve was set up really won me round and I adored the Yellow-Eyes too. Hope you enjoy some of the extreme close-up photos I managed to get.

Bird-watching, eh? Never thought I’d see the day…

Dunedin

Otago Peninsua

I left Oamaru in bright sunshine, but the forecast was for south westerlies bringing clouds and freezing temperatures up from Antarctica. As I drove the lovely road towards Lake Tekapo and Aoraki Mount Cook, the weather came to meet me.

I was undecided whether to head first to the lake or the mountain, but as I approached the junction where my final decision would be made, you couldn’t even see the base of the mountains, so I kept driving towards the lower ground of Lake Tekapo to give Aoraki Mount Cook the chance to shake off its cloak of clouds and show me its face next day.

Lake Tekapo is a lovely part of the world, with the tiny Church of the Good Shepherd gracing its banks. The altar has a simple glass window behind it to allow worshippers to gaze upon the might of nature, with Aoraki Mount Cook providing the backdrop to prayers.

Some nice walks and hot springs make up the outdoorsy attractions, with St John’s observatory, the most southerly observatory in the world, mapping and observing the night sky. I couldn’t bring myself to strip down to my swimmers in those temperatures, so skipped the hot pools, but was hoping for some star gazing. Unfortunately, the clouds and rain masked the beauty of the night sky, so a Monopoly tournament in the hostel had to suffice.

Next morning, I set off for Aoraki Mount Cook, the weather still hiding the views I hoped for. As the rain turned to snow, I headed inside the new Edmund Hillary centre at the famous Hermitage hotel and was delighted to find a planetarium with 3D movies of a flight around Mount Cook and two films about the night sky, so I got to star gaze after all.

Having explored the Edmund Hillary centre, flown around Mount Cook and star gazed into the deepest corners of the universe, I was filled with a sense of wonder at the magnificence of nature and our own relative insignificance. When the galaxies and star systems extend beyond our imagining, when the mountains reach so far above us, when nature overwhelms with her beauty, it makes all our own little worries seem irrelevant.

That night, the skies cleared and I star gazed in the middle of the night from the car park of the hostel, trying to spot the Southern Cross and the other constellations I’d learned about that day. Next morning, I woke to the clearest of bright blue skies and ran outside in my pyjamas to admire the magnificence of the mountain range in Aoraki Mount Cook National Park.

A trek along the Kea Point and Hooker tracks led me to Hooker Lake and the Hooker Glacier. It was a glorious trek, dotted with snow and ice, but blessed with the warmth of the sun gleaming off the snow-capped mountains. Eventually reaching Hooker Lake, I ate my lunch contemplating the small icebergs floating like sculptures on the lake, listened to the chinking of the surface ice as it washed against the rocks, gazed up at the summit of Aoraki Mount Cook, New Zealand’s tallest mountain, and at the huge glacier at its feet. If only I’d had the gin and tonic the chinking ice made me thirst for…

The hostel was delightful, filled with adventurous and interesting people, who cooked and ate together in the evening, sharing stories. Our dinner table was a cosmopolitan assortment of Israel, Mexico, Germany, America and Scotland. Israel and Mexico joined me in the car next day and we shared petrol costs, music and stories as we headed further south.

I could so easily have skipped Aoraki Mount Cook. With the places I want to visit, there wasn’t an obvious way to include it because the roads are so circuitous round the mountains. I’m so glad I made the effort to go there and experience its splendour.

Aoraki Mount Cook

Lake Tekapo

With the freedom of having my own wheels, I don’t need to decide exactly where I’m going until I turn the key in the ignition. So I didn’t. I even delayed the decision by visiting the Antarctica centre in the morning, and only making a final route decision after lunch.

I finally turned the key and headed south, towards the bright lights of Oamaru, half way between Christchurch and Dunedin.

Oamaru is famous for doing something innovative to enable shipping of refrigerated meat, thereby kick-starting New Zealand’s international meat business. Between that and a one-time gold rush, there was substantial wealth kicking around for a bit. The result is some stunning Victorian buildings and a beauty about the town centre that is quite captivating.

But the lovely buildings were just a bonus. Stopping in Oamaru gave me the chance to see my first ever penguins in the wild. A group of us waited, escorted by the conservation people who monitor and support the Blue Penguin colony. Darkness fell, the sea crashed onto the rocks and I strained my eyes for a glimpse of the smallest penguin in the world.

Blue penguins are, like all penguins, flightless birds that spend a lot of time at sea. They nest on land, head out to sea at dawn, and return to their burrows at nightfall to feed their chicks regurgitated fish. This sounds pretty disgusting, but it’s not as if they could bring the stuff home in a shopping bag, I suppose. No wonder the chicks are chomping at the bit to get out of the burrows and do their own fishing from only a few weeks of age. Eating your parents’ vomit would do that for anyone.

When it’s time to come home, penguins from the same colony form a ‘raft’ out at sea (I have a very cute picture in my head of penguins holding flippers with each other…aw) and come back in together. This makes for exciting penguin-watching as you see several stumbling ashore at the same time. The waves were crashing onto the shore, smashing over the rocks, and throwing penguins ashore with them. I gasped as I watched them getting slung against the rocks, stumbling to their feet, climbing a little higher, only to get picked up by the next wave, pulled back out to sea and have to start all over again. Amazingly, they don’t get hurt by this, but it looked like really hard work to me…

Designed for swimming, penguins are full of grace in the water, but on land, they are a bit clumsy-looking and waddle, holding their flippers out to the side. Their characteristic shaking, which reminds me of a belly dancer, helps them cool down and manage their body temperature. Leaning forward to stay balanced, shaking like a belly dancer, falling over on their tums occasionally and waddling up the rocks, they held me spellbound. Then things get noisy; they call out to each other, recognising their partners and their own nests by sound. The hungry chicks scream for food from the burrow entrance; too much excitement for someone about to eat vomit, if you ask me.

I watched for over an hour, seeing more than 60 penguins come ashore; a real highlight.

Later, I headed out to a traditional bar that had been recommended and ordered a pint of the local amber nectar, Speights, brewed in Dunedin. As I pored over my guidebook, trying to decide between too many options for places to go next morning, I heard his unmistakeable dulcet tones; there was a fellow Weegie in the bar!

Turns out Maurice is not just a fellow Weegie, but a fellow Celtic supporter and also the Parky’s son from Tollcross Park, who lived across the road from where I grew up. What’re the chances of going to petite Oamaru and meeting someone who grew up in the same street? A lovely evening was spent discussing Glasgow, Tollcross, the Cel’ic, New Zealand and beer. Next thing, I looked around and realised the place had actually closed while were inside. Only I could find myself in a lock-in and not realise (rolls eyes).

I headed off with promises to stop back in for a coffee and a chat, because I was off to drive a loop that would bring me back through Oamaru in a few days’ time; I find it amazing that I can stay somewhere for one night and then suddenly have a friend to visit!

Resident Weegies and Blue Penguins; Oamaru has loads going for it!

Oamaru

(PS – photos added to Christchurch and a few to Australia)

Excited about what lay ahead, I departed Aussie shores for New Zealand. The 3-hour flight from Brisbane could have tricked me into thinking I wasn’t really going to the other side of the world, but I was headed for New Zealand – how could I possibly forget?

Flying south, for this Northern hemisphere kid, is synonymous with flying to the warmth; escaping winter. Yet here I was, flying south, straight into the depths of New Zealand’s winter; filled with gleeful plans.

Before I even touched down, New Zealand welcomed me with a birds-eye view of the spectacular Southern Alps. A four-day storm had just blown itself out leaving blue skies and cotton-puff clouds, but not before it had dumped a pile of crisp new snow over the mountains. Our flight path from Greymouth to Christchurch was a glorious gift and my forehead was pressed to the window for much of the time, blank immigration card forgotten in my lap as I watched Aoraki Mount Cook stand proudly head and shoulders above its neighbours and the snow line extend the length of the mountain range.

Christchurch is a lovely city. I gave myself a few days here to get adjusted to New Zealand and go shopping for some warm and waterproof gear. Slowly I worked my way through my list, revelling in my luck at needing new gear in time with Kathmandu’s 50% sale. I climbed to the top of the Cathedral tower, enjoying yet more views across the Alps, strolled around the Botanic gardens and relaxed in a fabulous hostel that had more in common with a country house hotel than some of the scruffy backpackers I’ve found myself in.

The Antarctica Centre was a highlight of my time in Christchurch; this doubles as a tourist attraction and the jumping off point for Antarctic scientific and survey teams who rely on Christchurch for support.

In the storm chamber, they recreate the experience of an Antarctic storm. Combine the windiest continent in the world with the coldest and you have serious brass monkey weather. As I stood in the simulated storm, swaddled in my borrowed down jacket, the temperature dropped from -8’C to -19’C, and the wind whipped sharply across my face.

I retreated further inside my hood, poked my hands deeper inside the fleece lined pockets and wondered how these guys lived out there for months on end. I felt pressure against my leg, looked down and noticed a little body pressed against me, using me as a wind block. He pressed his hood against my hip then locked his arm around my leg. Concerned, I asked,

‘You okay, wee one?’

But the wind whipped my words away.

As the simulated storm died down, he began to release my leg and I bent down to see a crumpled face; tears squeezing out, bottom lip trembling. He was too upset to tell me who he was with and I ended up taking him round the room asking him which adults belonged to him. Eventually we found his adults and I said farewell to my cute little Antarctic leg warmer.

The rest of the Antarctica centre offered lots to interest, but sadly, no more cuddles. I delighted in watching the blue penguins, learning about the weather patterns in Antarctica, the hole in the ozone layer and the history, geology and marine life of this amazing land mass and the Southern Ocean. I was delighted to find buttons I could press to hear humpback whale songs; they had been singing while I’d been diving on the Yongala, but I couldn’t tell whale-song from other underwater noises, so wasn’t able to identify it. Now I know what to listen for!

Leaving Christchurch to head south, kitted-out and ready for the wintry wilds of New Zealand, I turned the music up full blast, sang at the top of my voice and revelled in the novelty of being back behind the wheel; queen of the road.

New Zealand, here I come…

Christchurch

After the exhilaration of an incredible dive trip, returning to dry land was going to be tough. The dive crew met up for a few drinks the first night back in Cairns – I’m ashamed to say I was so knackered I was in bed for 11.30. Next night though, we went out again and I was there ‘til the bitter end, despite my early bus next morning; a fantastic farewell with a great bunch of people.

It was time to move on – to yet more diving.

But with continuing high winds, the boat at my next dive site couldn’t get out. So I headed to Magnetic Island to wait out the weather.

Arcadia Beach Guesthouse was a delightful place. In ten months of travelling, I have not had such a warm welcome nor been made to feel so completely at home. Trudy and Steve have created a special little place there, and I enjoyed kicking back on ‘Maggie’: a few bushwalks, great views, a long lie or two, leisurely evenings, catching up on some reading, a couple of glasses of wine and chats with new friends, a birthday cake, balloon and two renditions of ‘Happy Birthday’ made for a lovely stay.

Then as the winds died down, it was time to get diving again.

A short bus trip took me to Ayr, and back to the 1980s. Collected by the Yongala people, I was taken to Alva Beach, and back to the 1970s. I found myself in back-of-beyond Queensland, on an undeveloped 15 mile beach, with one of Australia’s best wreck dives on my doorstep. The locals were friendly and welcoming, the dogs were crazy and the only fish and chip shop was (thankfully) a hit.

I was excited about diving the SS Yongala; apparently one of the top ten wreck dives in the world. I now know why this is – you get to see all the big stuff there. I came eye to eye with a Bull Shark, saw loads of turtles, a massive manta ray, sea snakes and thousands of shoaling fish around the coral encrusted wreckage of the liner that sank almost 100 years ago.

A little about Bull Sharks… Wikipedia will tell you the Bull Shark is one of the four most dangerous sharks in the world (to humans), and perhaps the most dangerous of the four. It’s believed to be a Bull Shark that was responsible for the Jersey Shore attacks in 1916 that inspired the film ‘Jaws’.

I was maybe two metres away: we were eye to eye. I watched, mesmerised; we watched each other. Then I noticed my divemaster beckoning towards me and swam towards the rest of my group. Later he told me I’d been floating slowly upwards while I’d been watching the shark, in much the same way as a wounded turtle does. Sharks love to eat turtles; most shark attacks on humans happen through mistaken identity; and I was mimicking a wounded turtle two metres from a Bull Shark. My tummy flips whenever I think about – an incredible experience.

For me though, the Yongala dive site lacked the beauty of the reef, and while I loved seeing the ‘big’ things, I preferred diving in a place of incredible beauty. Imho, Steve’s Bommie on the Great Barrier Reef kicks the Yongala’s backside. But nonetheless, a couple of brilliant dives.

I headed back north to go south. I could have taken the bus to Brisbane, stopping off at Airlie Beach and Noosa en route. However, Greyhound Australia are running a scam and the price of the bus ticket was twice the price of the flight. I decided I didn’t want to see Airlie and Noosa that much and went to Townsville on the way to Brisbane.

By the time I got to Brissie, I’d run out of energy and enthusiasm for Australia and devoted myself to planning New Zealand. This is one of the places I’ve been most looking forward to: whoever’s running the book on how late I’m going to be home might want to keep the odds low until I get out of New Zealand…

And so, I find myself with mixed feelings about Australia.

I loved Melbourne – it’s a fantastic city and I really could imagine myself living there for a bit.

I adored the diving – I had some incredible, exhilarating underwater experiences on the Great Barrier Reef. The memories will last a lifetime.

But apart from these two things, Australia just hasn’t done it for me.

I remember when I was at school, I went out on a date with this gorgeous guy in my class. He played football, had the most amazing legs, was stunningly handsome and I’d fancied him for ages. When we finally went out, I found that we actually had very little in common, had hardly anything to talk about and in reality, I was bored.

I feel the same way about Australia. I’ve only spent a month here, and it’s a massive place, so perhaps I’ve not seen enough to judge fairly, but the gorgeous Australia and I just don’t have much in common. I can see the attraction (just as there’s no denying the beauty of footballers’ legs) but for me, overall…ho hum.

I realise that for some of you, Australia is your favourite or your dream destination and you’ll vehemently disagree with me. That’s ok. Post a comment and tell me what I missed. It may have been that I didn’t make enough room for Australia because I was still hankering after Asia, but I don’t think that’s the whole story.

My footballer was just as handsome after our boring dinner date as he’d been before it. Australia is still as beautiful and exotic as it was before I got here; we just didn’t click.

Magnetic Island

Having made the decision to splash out on a liveaboard, I twiddled my thumbs from Wednesday to Friday, waiting, just waiting, to go diving on the Great Barrier Reef – for real this time.

I could think of little else, and hung around Port Douglas, then Cairns, waiting, impatiently waiting. It was like being five years old, counting the number of sleeps ‘til Santa comes down the chimney.

At long last, Friday arrived and I was aboard, about to embark on my much anticipated trip…

I’ve now been diving 16 times on the Great Barrier Reef. I’d love to describe every individual dive in painstaking detail; in fact, I already have, in my journal. For the sake of an interesting blog, though, I’ll rein myself in.

You already know how much I love it down there; floating underwater, an uninvited but accepted guest of the diverse and fascinating marine life, exploring their homes and feeding grounds in the rainbow-hued coral reefs. On this trip I was lucky to be diving with some great people and for most of the time with my dive buddy, Val. With great people, fantastic dive sites, a lovely boat and superb food, it was everything I’d hoped it would be.

I’m going to try and share some special moments; hopefully these will convey some of the joy I felt during this incredible diving trip.

First, let’s get the big guys out of the way. Yes, I saw sharks. Several white tip reef sharks; shy little things. Well, I say little things; they’re well over a metre long. I got a really close look at them a couple of times, swimming beside or above them before they moved off for some peace and quiet. Their five side gills are so beautiful; I understand why BMW copied them for a sports car. They were hanging around several of the dive sites – so many that it became;

‘There’s another shark.’

‘Oh, yeah.’ Nods to dive buddy. Watches shark for a bit. Swims on.

One day between dives, I stood on the boat watching Minke Whales off in the distance, throwing themselves full breach out of the water, proudly displaying their white bellies. Excitement levels rose as they danced around our boat the next afternoon, but it was unfortunately a fleeting glimpse.

One of the most beautiful creatures of the deep, the turtle, appeared several times. During my closest encounter a lovely hawksbill turtle swam directly beneath me, less than a metre away. I hovered in mid-water, mesmerised, watching its graceful movements; head held erect, legs pulsing slowly as its shapely body, encased in shell, moved effortlessly off into the blue.

The Trigger Fish is one of my favourites. They’re a beautiful shape and have an aggressive nature. If you swim over the top of their nest they’ll chase you all the way to the surface, gnashing teeth that could sever a finger. I saw these on almost every dive. On one dive, I delighted in watching several Trigger Fish bathing; they hung in mid-water in secluded spots in the coral as a tiny cleaner fish nibbled all the nasty stuff off. They had a dreamy look on their faces – like a puppy when you scratch behind its ear, or me in a long, hot bubble bath.

I hadn’t been on a night dive before, but on this trip, went underwater in the dark three times. Once you’re underwater, the night time world is so different. The nocturnal creatures come out to play and you can only see what’s in your torch beam, so you pay lots of attention to detail.

The thing is, fish can see what’s in your torch beam too, so we were invariably accompanied by hungry Big Eye Travelly who would hunt in our torch beams. This means you can play God; find a fish, follow it with your torch beam for a minute or so, and hey presto, it’s dinner for the big guys.

Alex, leading the night dive (I opted for a guide for the night dives – hey, it’s dark down there!), was having fun ‘feeding’ little fish to the Travelly this way. I stymied them whenever I could by flicking my torch beam in their eyes. I’m glad to say, I saved a few…

In my head, I could hear the ‘fish-wives’ conversation.

‘What about those numpties that come down here at night with those moonbeams, waving them about trying to get us all eaten?’

‘I know, Aggie. Whenever I see one of those goddam boats, I keep the wee ones in watching telly til they go away. Shower of idiots.’

No’ me, Aggie! I did my best!

Except, of course, the night dive when I saw a Giant Moray Eel hunting. I’ve seen a Moray Eel before, but in daytime they hide in wall crevices and you only see their head sticking out. At night, they come out to play, and this guy was weaving through the coral, in and out of the torch-lit staghorn, making mincemeat of the little fish who thought it was a good hiding place; the Big Eye Travelly couldn’t touch them, but for the Moray Eel, they were as good as a fish supper from Enzo’s. And try as I might, I was spellbound and I could not take my torch beam away…

Salt n Vinegar?

One of the most exciting moments was on the way back to the boat after diving at Steve’s Bommie. Val and I started making our way back towards the boat, just a short distance away, or so we thought. During our dive, high winds had snapped the mooring and the boat had drifted off, so we waited on the surface for a pick-up. The small dingy sped over toward us; they had to do a few trips to get all the divers back, so didn’t hang about; ‘grab the rope, hold on’; they fired the dinghy engine and we were off. I was first on the rope, nearest the dinghy, and had a face full of bubbles as I sped through the water. Scuba Water-Skiing! What a rush!

The scariest moment of the trip was one of my own making. It’s a safety precaution to be back on the boat with 50 bar in your air tank. Thing is, 50 bar is a long time underwater. As my confidence grew I’d been pushing my air to the limit, to try and get the most out of each dive…only to be pulled up short by a timely lesson…

Val and I were having an amazing dive. At this dive site, it was like swimming through a fish nursery; so many cute baby fish, of many different types. It reminded me of the film ‘Finding Nemo’ when he went off to fishy school with his friends. The coral was stunning, piled on top of itself in an assortment of shapes, textures and colours, creating a tumble-down coral garden, walls and small pinnacles. I was rolling around slowly, looking in all directions; beautiful coral over here, fish over there, and the blue, blue ocean heading out towards Fiji. I floated over the top of corals, feeling like I was dancing as I swam around, over, upside down, focused in on really small parts, looking in nooks and crannies.

And time passed.

As Val and I started heading back, I was at 50 bar of air, and should have been back on the boat already; we were still a decent swim away, but had plenty of air to get back in safety. What I hadn’t banked on was a surprise current that whipped up and tried to drag us in the opposite direction. It took so much energy to push against the current that my remaining air depleted quickly. I started to worry a little, which made my air go even faster. We were fighting against the current, and trying to keep each other in sight. My tank was almost empty as I came close to the boat; I was going to make it, but all of a sudden, I could no longer see Val. I had 15 bar left; enough to get me to the boat, but not enough to look for Val. All my training kicked in, I got on the boat and enlisted help to find Val. Next thing, to my overwhelming relief, she popped up at the boat. Phew.

And so I learned my lesson. 50 bar might be a long time underwater, but it doesn’t last long with someone struggling to get to their boat. It’s a good emergency air supply and you never know what can happen in the Big Blue. You’ll be delighted to know I don’t push my air supply to its limits any longer…

And believe it or not, all these wonderful experiences and it wasn’t even the trip I’d booked. I’d chosen to go to Osprey Reef, but the winds were too high and Skipper said it would be too dangerous. So we didn’t get to Osprey – here’s what I missed…the Shark Feed at North Horn…

But it doesn’t really matter that we had to stick to the relative shelter of the reef rather than head out to the wilds of Osprey. I was a little disappointed initially, but had so many amazing dives on the Great Barrier Reef, the trip was everything I’d hoped and more.

I don’t have the equipment or skills for underwater photography, but Kiko, a friend from the boat, has them in abundance. He’s happy for me to share his photos here, and I’m delighted to share them with you. Hope you enjoy them as much as I do.

These Pictures were taken by Kiko Piai

Great Barrier Reef Dive Trip

(PS – photos now loaded for Melbourne and Great Ocean Road)