Five Star Backpacking

Well hello again everyone and thanks to all of you who have been leaving me your comments. Some random ones last time which is great! Although I am thinking about filing a missing persons report for the following people - Wilma, Sub, Pamela, Sharon, Gill, Phil (both Hall and Harrison). Sorry for boring you guys.


Anyhow for those of you still paying attention (Andy) I'll get on with it.


The picture below is Cairns, the north east coast of Australia. It doesn't look like much and to be honest theres nothing really special about the town itself in my view. It does however have one thing going for it.......only the bloody Great Barrier Reef!


So I didn't waste any time and immediately booked a trip out to the reef to do some snorkelling. I very nearly didn't get to go as when I booked it the weather forecast was 25knots. I'm not really sure exactly what that means other than being told that once it hits 30knots everything is cancelled! It takes about 1hr 30mins to get out to the reef dive points that we were going to so I was told it could get pretty rough. This was further emphasised when boarding the vessel and they were dishing out sea sickness tablets like smarties, strongly advising that we take them. But why would you take sea sickness tablets if your not actually sea sick!? I wasn't going to put some unknown pills in my temple to treat something that I dont yet have and may not actually suffer from! I reminded myself of dad there. Anyhow I didn't take them and didn't get sea sick. Theres a lesson in there somewhere if you care to look. Having said that it was an extremely rough ride to get to where we were going. But my was it worth it.


The Great Barrier Reef is everything you hope it will be and more. The moment you put your head in the water you are just amazed and fascinated by what you see. Thankfully in the morning the sun came out and the coral was so bright and colourful and there were just so many weird and wonderful fish absolutely everywhere. Too many to count Andy! Even seen a huge turtle. I cant really do it justice by trying to describe it. All I can say is go there. Now. Hurry up. Okay you can read the rest of this, leave a comment and then go.


After Cairns I flew to Brisbane. I was there for 3 days and didn't take one single picture. Its not that there wasn't anything to take pictures of, I'm sure there was, its just the frame of mind I was in. I didn't really know what I was doing or where I was going next. The east coast is great but it was winter time and, although not cold, it wasn't really the weather for Surfers Paradise or Byron Bay or the Gold Coast. So I was kind of not knowing what to do from here. I knew I had planned to meet up with my uncle Des at his and Debras place in Sydney but that wasn't to be until the end of June. What to do!? I had one interesting night out in Brisbane with one of the strangest characters I've met to date and who I can only describe as Side Show Bob! So after a couple of days of misery I decided I had to do something and get out of here. So I booked my flight to Sydney and actually e-mailed Des from the airport to tell him I would be arriving in a few hours and would he be about. At this time I didn't even know if he would be at home because as mentioned earlier I had originally told him I wouldn't be here until end of June.


Now being the kind and considerate chap that I am I booked into a hostel in the city centre for a couple of nights. After all I hadn't given much notice that I was coming and anyway thought it would be a good idea to check out the backpacker scene in Sydney.


This is just a random picture I took when wandering around pretty lost really on my first day in Sydney. Its pretty cool dont you think.


So I booked into a hostel called 'The Funk House' in the Kings Cross area of Sydney. I can hear Marty laughing already. Kings Cross is where all the backpackers hostels are, its also the red light district of Sydney. It wasnt too bad really and I had a couple of decent nights but I would be lying if I said I wasn't glad to leave. The main reason for being glad to leave was because Des had instantly replied to my e-mail that I'd sent in the airport and was coming to pick me up on Saturday morning. He had offered to rescue me from Kings Cross earlier but I had already paid and anyway I've stayed in worse places, much worse.....remember thon prison dorm in Durban SA! So I was looking forward to staying in a house. That may sound strange but after 3 months of living in dorms of up to 10 people I couldn't wait to be in a room of my own, assuming Des and Debra didn't plan on making me sleep in their room!



Well I wasn't disappointed. The morning they picked me up was beautiful. The sun was shining and it was about 20 degrees, the first day of winter! So we went and had breakfast at a little cafe on the north side of the harbour. The food was good and the view was pretty decent too, only the Sydney Harbour Bridge and Grand Opera House!

Des and I at the Harbour Bridge

Des and Debra live in a place called Chatswood in the North of the city only anout 10mins from the city centre. Needless to say its a really nice little area. So this is when the backpacking turned 5 star. I had my own room in which the bed was bigger than some of the dorms I've slept in! I slept horizontally, diagonally maybe even vertically, just because I could. I hadn't really known what to expect about this week and was a little nervous at first. For those of you who dont know, Des is my mums brother who left Belfast to live in Australia in 1981, the year I was born. He has of course been back to Belfast to visit on many occassions but given the distance etc I wouldn't have said we were particularly close, although we always got on fine. Debra and Des have been married for about 4 or 5 years now (I hope I got that right guys!) and I'd only met Debra once or twice before. This little bit of nervousness was soon to disappear as Des and Debra made me feel most welcome, at home even. As did the weather but more about that later.

This is Palm beach and thankfully the sun was shining on this day.

Debra, Des and I at a Japanese Tappenyakee restaurant (I know thats probably not spelt correctly but I lost the card)

This was like no other restaurant I've ever eaten in. The chef barbeques the food right there in front of you. Then at regular intervals he'll start throwing the food at you. Eggs usually or rice. The picture below shows me about to have a bowl of rice thrown into the empty bowl sitting on my head. Its really good fun and the entertainment is as much a part of it as the food. Me being the foreigner ended up as most of the entertainment. Although I must also mention Des who couldn't catch an egg and Debra who nearly threw an entire bowl of rice over the women beside her. All good fun.

One of the best things about staying here was that there was never a dull moment. Every night Des would be barbequing or we would be going out for dinner with their friends. And it was great to meet some of the close friends of Des and Debra, who were all good guys, friendly and fun.

I must mention young Megs. This is Debras neice who she kindly introduced me to as Des claims hes not quite up to speed on the local night club scene in Sydney. Anyway she was great fun, a little crazy with a good heart. I'm sure she wouldn't mind me saying that. So we went out on the Wednesday night after dinner. She learnt one very important lesson that night. A petite 21 year old Australian girl shouldn't try and keep up with a 27 year old Irish professional! But she did, and then pondered why .......as she was talking to the big white telephone. I got the blame of course, because shes a girl and thats what they do! But it was all good fun and it was great to have the company of a genuine, cool, Australian chick for a couple of days.

Megs, me and Debra

I've left Australia now but not without a little regret. I really loved Sydney, despite the freak rain that we had all week. It really didn't matter, I was in great company and I was sad to leave. I really couldn't have asked for a better last week in Australia and its with huge thanks to both Des and Debra. Debra was actually able to turn most of my clothes back to their original colour!! Oh and I guess I must also mention that Des and I played a couple of games of snooker. All of Ireland probably knows the scores already so I'll say no more than that.

I must take this opportunity to thank you guys again. Getting to know you guys better has been one of the highlights of my travels. I still reckon I'll be seeing you pretty soon!

Thats it for now, you know what to do, especially you slackers who I haven't heard from in a while.

And I Would Walk 10 Thousand Miles...

Well hello again folks. I note that I have come into a bit of criticism at the length of time it has taken me to update this.


I had to wait 19 years for the latest Indiana Jones film so quit your complaining! Anyway I agree it has been too long and why is this you may ask? Consider this, from Belfast to Dublin is 167km. In the last week I have travelled 6350km. Yes thats six thousand three hundred and fifty! Since arriving in Australia I've travelled 10487km and in total since leaving home, 12613km. Thats not counting the international flights. So what I'm really trying to say is that I've covered quite a distance and must take time to compile my thoughts in order to put this poetry in motion.


So I last left you when I was in Broome, Western Australia. I have since travelled through 2 new time zones (absolutely no need!) and am currently in Cairns and on my way to Brisbane.


I left Broome to go on a 6 day camping tour to Darwin in the Northern Territory.



And this was to be the legend who took us, his name is 'Freckle' aka Brendan Hogan. He says his mum has researched the family tree and that he is in some way related to Paul Hogan (aka Crocodile Dundee). You can actually see a vague resemblance!

Now this was an exciting time for me. My 1st outback bush camping experience. And an experience it was. In order to get to Darwin you have to leave Broome and travel through an area called the Kimberley. Just to give you an idea of what this place is like I think I should explain the size again. The Kimberley region is the size of Germany. 82000000 people (thats 82 million for the slow ones) live in Germany. 30000 people (thats 30 thousand for Sub) live in The Kimberley. It is remote and has some proper hard core bush men as well as lots of remote Aboriginal communities. We drove through cattle stations the size of Belgium.

Since my last blog post I also sense that some people aren't convinced about the details of my snake attack and have requested some photographic evidence of such dangers which I have claimed to face. So I just want to re-inforce the fact. There are more things that will kill you in the Australian Outback than there are in Bin Ladens cave.

Just check out this bad boy just waiting for me to lose my footing.

And this is no Croc farm or reserve. This is in the wild. Look how ridiculously close we were.

I must confess though that these are fresh water crocodiles. Fresh water crocodiles dont attack humans, they are not territorial and so dont get annoyed when you are in their space. If they were salt water crocodiles the above photo would be a close up of the interior lining of its stomach. Just to confuse things though, salt water crocodiles can live in both fresh and salt water. Thats not fair is it!

I often wonder when these guides say things like, 'these are freshies and they dont attack humans unless provoked.' My translation is this....'these are freshies and they haven't starting attacking humans yet, not that we know of anyway.' And anyway, how do you know if you are provoking a crocodile? I mean I assume that dancing on its head might be quite provocative but really whos going to do that. So what if its just had a bad day? You know its hot, dry, the wifes been nagging and hes not getting any action, that coupled with just one too many fly shits on the eyeball and who knows. He might just decide to take a chunk out of the nearest nosey photographer, just because he can. I would.

This is not the snake that violated me, but it is highly poisonous. Freckle nearly stood on it when he was taking us on a bit of a hike. He was clearly alarmed and simply said that if it bit us we would die. Simple as that. Just because of where we were. This is Flying Doctors territory you see. How cool is that!! I used to just think that that was just a made up show for Saturday night TV after the A-Team. But no the Flying Doctors are alive and well but that snake bite would have killed us long before they could get us to hospital.

And so to the Bungle Bungles. Its difficult to explain what these things are. It was hot and I wasn't really listening. They're kind of just Bungles of sandstone rock formations which are completely weird. I think you've gathered I'm not going to become a Geologist. Pretty damn cool though dont you think.

There had been a fire here a couple of weeks earlier and it spreads like (oh better not say that)...like wild fire I guess!

This is a spider web that stretched across a small river. That thing in the middle isn't actually the spider its just his web. Its called a St Georges Cross spider I think, for obvious reasons. We did actually see the spider a bit later on but I wasn't able to take a picture of it. My zoom lens wasn't strong enough from 3 miles downstream. Well you have to keep a safe distance.

So we camped under the stars for 5 nights, no tent just a sleeping bag and swag. Swags are great. They're like a roll out cocoon that you put your sleeping bag inside and then zip it up and you'll be snug as a bug in a rug...or a fag in a swag!lol! The best thing about sleeping outside under the stars is the 'Southern Cross' constellation. I found it in South Africa and its been following me round ever since. I absolutely love it and it will be the thing I miss most when I return to the Northern Hemisphere. I want to take it with me but I dont think customs would let me through at the airport. Have you anything to declare? Eh yes, I have some outer space in my hand luggage.

Anyway. We stopped off at some little road houses along the way and met some very interesting characters. Road Train drivers mostly. Pretty much because thats really all there is here, thousands of kilometres of straight roads. It takes days to get anywhere from anywhere. Well it was at one of these little road house pubs where I heard the best sentence I have heard since leaving home and possibly ever. Two drivers, big, bearded, Outback Ozzie truckers were sitting having a few beers after a long days drive. The banter was flowing as quickly as the beer. One of these guys was complaining about how busy he was and how he has to do everything for everyone etc... His mate turned to him and said this, 'If bullshit were bitumen, you could build a shit highway.' I'll never forget that sentence or the guy who said it in the rough, half cut Australian accent. Maybe you had to be there but I dont care because I was.

And so to Darwin. Its a nice place and was pretty warm at around 35degrees but I only stayed here for a few days. Oh and mum I went to a museum here! Check me out, I've been away for 3 months and I've already read a book and been to a museum.

From Darwin I took a ridiculously long greyhound bus journey to Alice Springs, 22hours it took. Alice is pretty uninteresting, not much to do and lots of drunk Aboriginals. Most travellers just come here as a gateway for getting to the rock, as I did. Although I'm glad I came here because it is a constant source of amusement for my wharped mind....people sometimes ask, 'Well have you got a girl yet?' To which I reply, 'Well I was in Alice for 3 days.'

So to the rock, Ayers Rock and now officially called Uluru. Uluru is the Aboriginal name for the rock and it is now under their supervision. Uluru means 'meeting place'. Its about a 5 hour coach drive from Alice Springs, which is just down the road in Australian terms.

And here it is!

I dont really know what to make of it. It is what it is, a big red rock in the middle of the outback. Theres lots of Aboriginal significance to it of course but essentially to me its a big red rock. It didn't disappoint me, but it didn't blow me away either. Its nowhere near as smooth as it looks when you get up close to it.

Proof that I was there

And of course the famous, must have, sunset picture. Everyones seen this picture a hundred times on TV and books etc but theres something very satisfying having actually been there and taken the picture myself.

From the rock back to Alice and then a flight to the north east coast and Cairns. Cairns is a popular gateway for exploring the Great Barrier Reef. Now I was excited.

This is the skyline view from the plane somewhere between Alice Springs and Cairns.

So I'm going to leave it at that for now even though I'm now actually in Brisbane but I'll save that for next time. I hope you've enjoyed my update. If you have read this you must leave a comment, no matter who you are!

Close Encounters

Ok so Liverpool didn't make it into the European Cup Final, its a big disappointment I know, but when compared to the fact that I was very nearly attacked by a snake and could quite possibley have died, it seems a little insignificant. Check out the crime scene below.

Ok so the picture doesn't look like much but let me explain. I'm sitting on a beach in a place called Exmouth. By beach I mean a Western Australian beach - big, beautiful and completely empty. No swimmers, no life guards, no sun bathers, just nothing. So I'm sitting on the sand reading a book (yes mum, a book!!) I'm concentrating quite intently on my book (there are some big words) when all of a sudden I sense something out of the corner of my eye. I look up and to my absolute shock and surprise I see a snake hurtling towards me. Before I know it its literally 1ft away from me. It stops there and starts hissing and putting its tounge out at me (how rude), meanwhile I scramble backwards as quick as possible. Once its happy that its achieved its primary objective, which I assume was to scare the life out of me, it moved on into the bushes behind me. If you look closely at the photo you can actually see its path. Start at the bottom middle of the picture and you can see were it approached me and then veered off to the right.

Interesting in the very book I was reading at the time of my close encounter, I learnt that of the ten most poisonous snakes in the world, ten of them are Australian. I'm not sure what type of snake this was but until I find out lets just say it was one of the top ten, no top 5, no actually number 1 on the list..............it might actually have been a crocodile.

So anyway where in the world am I? I'm in Broome. Its a town in the North West. Its the dry season here now which is cooler than the wet season. Dont be fooled though, cooler in Australia is different than cooler anywhere else. The water temperature was 29degrees today with air temperature at a nice cool 35degrees. I think I have a bit of a tan coming along.

As I think I mentioned before I've been travelling up to Broome from Perth on the Easyrider bus. Jumping off for a few days here and there along the way. This basically means that you keep bumping in to the same people on the way. You can meet someone one day, leave the next, and find them ahead of you again 5 days later. This happened a lot and by the time we got to Exmouth, famous for its deadly snakes of course, everyone who was boarding the next bus new each other pretty well. We all stayed together and seen in the last few days of the tour.

These are some of the guys.

The guy in the France top is Antoine, from Paris. I didnt think French people had a sense of humour until I met him. A very funny guy, who turned into Borat after about 3 beers. The guy in the South Africa football top is me. Remember me.

This is Beno. Our driver, tour guide, chef and basically just a crazy Australian who calls his bus 'Bruce'. No really he does and he wont let anyone call it the bus. It has to be called Bruce. Too much sunshine up here I think.

Theres that South African guy again with some crazy Canadian chick. The guy behind is a cook at a cattle station we were staying at.

This is me just about to take my morning bath.

Here we have some English, Irish and French........and some Portugese guy on the left.

Skippy

This is Craig the croc. Hes going to help me make some shoes and bags.

Graeme, I saw this sign and thought instantly of you. I dont know how or why, but at least I haven't forgotten you.

So thats really it for now. Short and sweet this time. I'm heading on a 6 day camping tour from Broome to Darwin tomorrow, so wish me luck with the spiders! We go through an area called the Bungle Bungles, quite famous I'm told but I'd never heard of it, I just like the name. I bet Eddie knows what it is!

Get commenting!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Western Australia

Well hello again my faithful followers. Thank you to all of you who have been leaving your comments, keep them coming. Instead of 'Hello' I should have said 'How you going?' That seems to be the standard greeting, in Western Australia anyway. I'm beginning to think this 'gooday mate' might be a bit of a myth. A bit like Fosters beer. Haven't seen any yet Colin, sorry, but if I do I'll be sure to keep it in the shade. Well you wouldn't want a warm beer would ya! Just in case your interested, and your probably not, the common greeting throughout South Africa was 'How is it?' Interesting.

Well as you know I flew into Perth nearly 2 weeks ago from Johannesburg. What a contrast! I cant begin to tell you how different these places are. So here it is, Perth.

Its just a lovely city. Its nice, clean, spacious, hot, safe and the people are friendly. You can go out here at night and walk anywhere at any time with no worries whatsoever. After coming from Durban and JoBurg I took full advantage of this new found freedom and made the most of it. Its possibly got something to do with the fact that I've just come from somewhere so different but its amazing how you just feel a different atmosphere in the air. Cars here roll majestly up to the traffic lights, slowly stop at the red light and wait patiently for it to change. As if the cars themselves are glad of the rest in the scorching heat. Even 'rush hour' here feels more like 'ah well I guess we best get going mate hour'. By contrast in the two and a half weeks that I stayed in Cape Town I witnessed 4 accidents outside the building I was staying in. It was on a one way street.

Just another little observation I made which interested me. In my last day in JoBurg I happened to lift the local newspaper as I ate my final healthy breakfast in Wimpy. I turned to the 'letters to the editor' page and read the letter of the week. It was a letter of support for a local member of parliament who had recently made a statement on the major crime problem in Johannesburg. This statement introduced the idea of a new 'shoot to kill' policy to help rid the town of its rapists and murderers, in it the politician is quoted as actually saying, 'shoot the bastards'. All of the other letters were similar in their support for this last ditch effort to fight crime.

On my first day in Perth I bought a Western Australian. In this newspaper I happened to come across a similar page with letters to the editor. The letter of the week was a complaint from an elderly women who had become extremely upset at the amount of swearing she was now having to put up with at football matches.

So my first impressions of Perth were good. Its such a remote City. I mean really remote. Its the Capital of Western Australia but the nearest big City from here is a 3.5 hour flight away and I think possibly in a different time zone. I like this about Perth. Its like Perth could misbehave and no one would ever find out about it. It doesn't but it could and I think it should.

So the question on at least 50% of your lips (thats 50% of the people who are reading this, not just your upper or lower lip) What about the Australian women? Well I'm glad to report that in Perth the Aussie girls were very impressive. In fact I dont think I seen one single girl below the all important cut off 7 out 10 score. I think Perth has some sort of system which means that any female unfortunate enough to fall below this level is not allowed out during daylight hours. Better still, at night they are restricted to clearly identified zones in the less populated areas of the City. This is of course how a proper City should be run.

Theres Irish pubs everywhere but I think Colin named this one himself.

So I've left Perth now and am heading up the stunning West Coast of Australia, all the way to Broome and eventually to Darwin. Its hard to describe how incredibly big this country is. And on the west coast the best thing about it is its big and empty. Theres hours and hours and hundreds of miles of nothing but harsh land and incredibly adaptable trees and plants that can live there. Oh and Kangaroos of course. Loads of them. Seen my first one about 30mins outside Perth.

This is the bus I've been travelling up in. Its doesn't look like much but its a lot bigger than thon South African Baz Bus and it has air conditioning.

This is one of the first places we stopped called the Pinnacles Desert. Thousands of random stone pillars, nobody really knows how they got there.......well I dont.

Now. Look at this!! The only thing missing from this picture is Mick Dundee with his crocodile skin jacket and 12inche blade. At 09.30am on Tuesday morning, just before I would have been clocking in to work, I was swimming just a bit further down this gorge. The real Australia. Oh and yes........Spiders!!! To get to this place we had to do a bit of a bush walk and I seen my first proper big mad Australian spiders. Funnily enough spiders have always been one of the first things that I think about when I think of Australia. And now I know why. To be honest I'd been kind of dreading this moment but knew it had to come sooner or later. So as we're walking down the guide points up and says calmly, 'spider'. After running back to the bus for a quick change of underwear, I looked up. It was huge and thankfully about 5 meters above and in front of us. On a web that hung between two trees and looked like you could have trampolined off. That is if you were criminally insane, as you would surely be eaten. I've seen 2 more since then. Massive and disgusting but at least up to now they've had the decency to remain outdoors and not invade my private space. I'm told its only a matter of time though.

This is a typical beach on the West Coast. Big, beautiful and practically empty.

This is what I'm looking at out the window of the bus for about 8 hours a day.

Well thats it for now, I'm shattered and this has just cost a whopping $12.50! I hope the book sales revenue will cover that. If your still awake please do leave a comment, its good to here from you all.

'This Is Africa'

Well hello again to my trusty blog followers, you know I love you both.

I just landed in Perth about 3 hours ago and I cant check into my hostel until 3pm!! Disgusted! I'm extremely tired as I just cant sleep on planes and I lost 7 hours on the way here which I'm still trying to find.

I think its only fair and proper that I round up my African adventures in one final blog, so here goes......

I think I left it last time that I was in a Durban hotel. This was not part of my original plan I must say. I arrived in Durban at about 7.30 on I think a Friday evening and as usual the Baz Bus dropped me off at my chosen hostel. Imagine what you think prison would be like from anything you've seen on TV..... or speak to Graeme. Well this place was exactly what I imagine prison to be like, from the cold stone walls to the bars on every window, door, entry and exit. It wasn't just a back packers hostel it seemed that people actually lived here, very poor people and thus only black people of course. But having been in Africa for 5 weeks at this point its not like it was strange to be totally surrounded and outnumbered by people who are black, its just that these people were extremely dodgy looking. Anyhow I was shown to my cell which consisted of 4 sets of bunk beds. The first person I spoke to in here was a man of about 45 years old originally from Zambia. His advice was simple - take your watch off, only ever carry the money you need, no wallet, phone or cards and never go out round here at night. You might be ok during the day (although perhaps not as someone from here was mugged at 9.30 last Sunday morning). This is not exactly what I wanted to hear after seeing the state of the place that I would be couped up in. But you have to take the good with the bad and so I thought I'd give the place a chance and so made my way to the bar (which was basically just the reception desk). There was a small crowd gathered round the tv lounge area watching a film about a young black slave who begun a rebellion against his master and this led to an all out revoult. Anyway they were watching this very attentively. That is until a young Indian chap crashed through the door and cranked the CD player on and up to full blast. This did not please the viewers as you would expect but there seemed to be a reluctance by them to do anything about it. It turns out this Indian guy has a gun in his room and hes clearly insane. He began speaking to me and from what I could make out, he wanted me to understand that he could write extremely well but that 'it wasn't for him'. He also told me that he was 'f****d up'. Your telling me. (This storey is getting extremely long and I'm getting tired) Anyway I thought it best to leave it at that and go to bed for the night. Shorty after I went to bed (with all my personally belongings cosied up beside me) guess who makes an appearance in the dorm! And yes hes sleeping in the bed across from me! So just to set the seen and I am not exaggerating. I am lying there pretending to be asleep. Theres a guy in the bed in front who is snoring so loudly I thought I was in Kruger Park. Meanwhile the women above him is clearly having some sort of night terrors and lurching and yelping uncontrollably. So I peer up from my fake sleep to see my Indian friend sat up in his bed staring intensley at my snoring friend. It is difficult to know what goes on in the mind of a f****d up, armed Indian man who neglects to use his gift of writing, but on this occassion I thought it might have been, 'If he doesn't shut the hell up I'm going to blow his brains out'.

I dreamt of being in a train on the beach.

Anyhow I got up at 7am walked to a beach front hotel, checked in, got a taxi back to get my things and spent the next 4 days watching live Premiership football in luxury. It had to be done.

After Durban I went to Northern Drakensberg. By far the most scenic and best hostel yet. This is it.

And this is the view from the other side! Pretty spectacular!

I'm not going to go into too much detail cos I actually am wrecked now but basically this is where we seen what some people might refer to as the real Africa. In other words the kind of pictures you see on the news or whatever. We actually went to the province of Lesotho. This is not part of South Africa, its a separate country with border control and passport stamping etc. Check it out on a map! Its also the highest country in the world, starts at about 2000m above sea level. One of the staff took us in here and they assured us that we would not be seeing any other tourists. This is a village where we went to the school, visited the witch doctor etc A full culture shock tour. I'd love to go into more detail but wont so check out the cool photos.

This is actually the highest waterfall in Africa and the second highest in the world. Lets be honest as far as waterfalls go its crap. But it is very very high.

Very briefly I spent the last 3 days in JoBurg and I must mention my hosts Bruce and Gertie who are possibly the friendliest most welcoming and interesting people I have met in South Africa.

This is a typical home in a good area of JoBurg. Thats a 6ft wall with an electrified fence on top. With alarms linked to a private, armed security company. This is normal for every house.

You'll see that the title for this blog is 'This is Africa'. Its the one thing I will remember hearing over and over again wherever I went in South Africa. It is such a random place its hard to describe and this I think is also the attitude of many Africans because when you ask for an explanation into a particular random event that you have just witnessed, more often than not the answer you will get is simply, 'this is Africa'. And its a good answer. Why are there cows on the beach? Why are we in a 2 wheel drive minibus driving up a dirt track that a Land Rover Discovery would have difficulty with? Why is there a horse in the petrol station? Why is there a cow on the bonnet? Why is that colourfully attired women carrying a tin of diesel on her head? 'This is Africa' is a satisfactory answer to all of these questions. And I think you might have to come here to find out why. Although I've hardly scratched the surface, for me South Africa is cleary a very different place. A very wonderful place.

THIS WAS AFRICA

Where In The World Am I

Well hello again everyone. Ok its been a few weeks now since I've updated the blog for various reasons and I'm sure your all absolutely delighted to see a new entry. Mossel Bay and thon train seems like a lifetime ago.

So having taken the advice on the poster I gladly 'escaped for life' and made my way, again via the Baz Bus, another few hours up the coast to a small town called Knysna. I think thats spelt correctly, anyway its pronounced Nize-Na. Just spent 2 nights here as theres not a lot to it, really enjoyed my time here though. The hostel was like a B&B, clean, spacious and with about 4 clean bathrooms to choose from in the morning. I was in a Dorm with 4 professional cyclists who were about to participate in a highly publicized mountain bike race over the next week, which would eventually end back in Cape Town. These guys were Slovenian and BBQ'd fresh fish on both nights I was there. Everyone staying at the Hostel attended these 'events'. There were a couple of Germans (as there is everywhere in SA), some French and Dutch. In fact for the first time ever I was the only person at the table with English as their first (and only) language. Gladly though everyone spoke in one common language, English, so that everyone could understand what was going on. It was good banter in a broken English kind of way.

Anyway not wanting to bore you too much so just a quick note on the photo below. This is Knysna Bay. It used to be a commercial port until about 50 years ago when they finally realised that about a third of ships that tried to get here ended up sinking. The entrance to the port below is 250m wide, however only 60m is passable due to huge rocks underneath. Hence all the crashing. If you go straight through there and keep going dead straight for about 10000km you'll reach Australia, apparently. I'm not cancelling my flight though. And heres a little insurance fact for all you sorry souls who are still in the Industry! Lloyds of London refused to Insure any ship which was to pass through here. So there you go.


My next stop was another 6 hours up the coast to the town of Port Elizabeth. A very eventful 1st night involving an encounter with a diamond smuggler from Cameroon. I declined his job offer. If you haven't heard the full story by now you never will. Anyhow the hostel owner was a very helpful, if a little strange, chap who was originally from Leicester but had been living in SA for about 25 years. It soon became apparent that he was involved in a variety of different business enterprises and occassionally decided he would try and actually run the hostel, which I believe to be the most legitimate but least profitable of his ventures. Luckily he seemed keen to make sure I enjoyed my stay (might have something to do with me looking after his brand new Audi A3 on my 1st night). So I spent the 1st day on the beach, it was a belter of day.

Then he got me a job as a Park Ranger! Obviously not really like but I did go on a day safari in a renouned national reserve about 100km away. This is me trying to steal the jeep.

So I guess I better prove it and show you some pictures of the animals (Game as we call them here)

I really enjoyed the game drive, something I've always wanted to do. The drive to the reserve took us through some pretty remote and poor places. We past one Township (shanty town) with a huge, half empty, grave yard at one end. Our driver informed us that it was expected that the grave yard would be full by the end of the year. Why? Aids. Still a major major problem here.

This was the Africa that I hadn't yet seen but knew existed. Its not unusual to have to stop in the middle of the road to wait for a cow, a heard of cows, a horse or goat or pretty much anything to pass by in front of you. This is an area where if you wanted to marry someone from the village you give the father a certain number of cows. People still live like this. I wonder how many cows I would be worth.

Yeah I had to borrow a dodgey, ancient UK adapter plug as a lost mine back in Cape Town. (I'm still convinced that Graeme took it home in his bag) So the only way I could get it to charge was at an odd angle. So my map proved to be extremely useful.

Next stop Coffee Bay. By far the most remote place I've stayed yet. Another 4 hours up the everlasting coast of South Africa. Its one of these kind of projects were the back packers lodge is in a remote village and the local people play a big role in the running of it, providing some jobs etc. It seemed to work pretty well. One of the activities you could do here was a hike to 'the whole in the wall.' Now I was puzzled. After some (but not a lot of) consideration I thought it reasonably possible that, as we were in a remote spot, the nearest ATM was a 4 hour hike away. There we could withdraw some money and have a spot of lunch. Luckily I didn't convey these thoughts to my fellow hikers........as this is 'the whole in the wall.'

On the hike back from the whole in the wall we came across this little troop. The taller guy is actually our guide, I think he just wanted in on the picture. Yes thats a dead sheep in the wheel barrow, or a doner kebab waiting to happen, depending on how you look at it. The interesting thing is how it got there. One of our hikers, a girl from Cape Town, felt sorry for the poor wee sheepy weepy and asked our guide to ask these kids what happened to it. So he has a brief chat with them in their local language (cant remeber the name of it now) and returns to us with the explanation. The sheep was running around happily, prancing even, in the mid afternoon sunshine, when all of a sudden it lost its bearings and slipped off the top of the cliff and into the sea and drowned. The girl who had asked the question was genuinely upset and looked round for any more little sheep who might be prancing precariously close to the cliff edge. Now. Perhaps I am a little sinical but I am not quite sure that I believe that this sheep forgot were it was and slipped of the edge of the cliff. Then by chance a group of local, very hungry kids who happened to be out walking their savage dog whilst playing with their wheel barrow, stumbled across it. I'll let you make your own mind up.

This is my dorm, a pretty decent one in comparison to others. I was however joined in the shower by a spider, a moth and a small lizard (no jokes please)

Pool room and bar in the adjacent lodge - The Coffee Shack

This place was mad for drumming and at night some locals would come down and play the drums. They were incredible and by the end of it they were almost in a kind of trance. They really do love the drums.

I've moved on from Coffee Bay and am now in Durban. I'm in a hotel and for very good reason. Anyhow I will tell you all about that in my next entry soon. I hope you enjoy reading this. If you've read it and not left a comment then your not my friend anymore...........leave your comments!!!!

Mossel Bay - Sat 22nd - Tues 25th March

Well here it is, that train I had told you I would be staying in. I suppose I should first clarify that the 40min drive I thought would take me there was in fact the best part of 5 hours. Nothing to do with traffic or bad driving just a major miscalculation on my part. Luckily I had found this out the day before I left so I was prepared, and its not like I was driving anyway. This was my first trip on the extremely efficient and reliable 'Baz Bus.' Its a great service that travels daily along the entire cost of South Africa, not all in one day obviously, and drops you right to the door of whatever back packers you have decided to stay at. Its a much bigger place than I realised!

So I was intrigued at the idea of staying on a train on a beach, sounded good, novel. The picture below in the actual view from the window beside my bed. Impressive.

You'll also see that the small town of Mossel Bay has a really rather nice little beach. The water was pretty cold I thought, even though I'd been told that this was the Indian Ocean which should be warmer than the Atlantic Ocean at Cape Town. In fact I think the water at the beach in Newcastle, Co Down, is slightly warmer. In fact this town kind of reminds me of Newcastle, its small, coastal, and attracts lots of local visitors at public holidays like Easter as it was when I was here. There are some differences though. I like Newcastle.

Mossel Bay on the other hand is Newcastle without the amusements, bumper cars, a slide, nice ice-cream, a forrest park and basically any sort of entertainment or stimulation of any kind. In fact you can do everything there is to do in Mossel Bay in one day, and that allows for a generous lye in in the morning and an early night. (bar/restaurant closed at 10.30). And I was booked in here for 3 nights.

So this is the famous train. Not the Orient Express, but I certainly wasn't expecting anything like that for 5 pounds a night. I might just point out at this stage that the track you can see in front of our train is an actual operating railway line!!! Granted its not the busiest or fasted station in the world and I only seen about 3 trains pass through while I stayed here, but even still. I could just imagine getting up in the morning, half asleep, bleary eyed, stepping out for some air and getting flattened by a steam train!

So to the issue of accommodation. This was the long awaited - Dorm Experience. I had had an idea in mind of what to expect. No privacy, quite compact, but reasonabley clean with most of the facilities that the modern traveller apparently expects. This was not to be the case. This was a train. This was just a train. Imagine that an old NIR train has just transported a crowd of clubbers to Portrush for a big night, the passengers disembark, the cleaner forgets to get on and the train breaks down somewhere near a beach on the return journey. This is what I was faced with. The Dorm, at the back of the train, had 8 sets of bunk beds back to back or should I say head to head. Dirty pillows, not so sure bout the sheets either. It was a dump!

This is the kitchen, no seriously it is. We also had to brush our teeth at that wash basin because there was no room in the 'bathroom.' The bathroom by the way was just a train bathroom. This is fine if your on a short train journey and need to go, and even then you try and hold it in for as long as possible. But this is somewhere that I was to live for 3 nights. A dump. Oh and there was a shower room, well a door that you opened and when you stepped in, you were in the shower. The shower was cold. No hot water. I met one nice person here who stayed in the cell for just one night and was then released.

So you might gather that I didn't have the greatest of times in Mossel Bay and you would be right. But do not fear, I have moved on and am currently in a lovely little hostel, more like a B&B, in a large victorian building. Things are looking up and I will update you on that in a few days because I'm a slow typer and this is costing me!

Anyway I just want to leave you with an image which for me was perfect. I took this photo in the town of Mossel Bay. I think it speaks for itself and I shall say no more.

MORE PHOTOS - AS REQUESTED

Hi again. I received a complaint that there weren't enough photos on the blog. So here you go, hope your happy now Gill! (And no I wont put any naked ones of me on, so stop asking!)

This is me in case you'd forgotten

Me, Penny and Phil at the footy match

Me studying the game. This was a Cape

Town Ajax vs Platinum Stars match at

Athlone Stadium. The stadium will be used

as a training ground during the World Cup

in 2010. It was a decent standard of football

on a good pitch, nothing near any of the top

leagues in Europe though, and attracted a

very enthusiastic ground of about 4-5000.

This guy was an absolute legend. It says Superfan 1
on his shirt. He ran up and down the full lenght of the
pitch, waving his flag and shouting, the whole 90mins
of the game. Honestly, he covered more ground than
both linesmen, the referee and half the players put
together.

This is the Waterfront area of Cape Town.

Two French Navy ships are in town.

A very cleverly composed photo, if I do say so
myself! Look were Graeme is everyone.

Another view from Table Mountain

More Table Mountain views


So I hope you enjoy the photos. It will prob be a week or so before I'm back blogging so I expect loads of comments by then. I'm off on Saturday morning to a place called Mossel Bay. I think its only about 40mins away. I'm staying there for 3 nights, in a train on the beach! The train doesn't actually move by the way! Will be in a shared Dorm with about 10 other randomers, so this is were it really starts. I hope my years of summer camps and early EBR weekends holds me in good stead! I also hope Egg Head doesn't make an appearance! Who?? nearly all of you have just asked......well it all started with an expolsion at a gas works a long time ago......ah forget it its a long story, ask any Harrison and they can tell you all about it!!

A Week To Remember

Hi again, its been a full week now since my last update and what a week it has been! I'll try and remeber the best bits and let you see as much as possible in the way of photographs, although I still haven't quite got the nack of positioning them where I want them yet. (Any ideas Andy)

Yes its been a good week with lots of interesting places visited, sights seen and people met. But I'm sure you'll agree that there are seldom things in life which are funnier than when one of our fellow men........falls over!

Yes of course its Graeme and yes of course a drink was spilt, chair broken and glass smashed. Entertainment at its best!

Of course there is a much more sophisticated side to both Graeme and myself. This is demonstrated in the above photo, where we are 'wine tasting' yes wine tasting at some of South Africas finest vineyards. One of Phils friends, Dave, was kind enough to take the three of us into the wine district, a stunning drive through the countryside. Pretty much everywhere you drive here is through stunning countryside! Any how, Graeme and I, being keen wine enthusiasts, had already decided that we definately weren't spitting into no bucket!! And neither we did because each glass of wine you were offered was simply a taste and no more. Its probably just as well as it was 11am. Despite the lack of quantity there were some delicious wines we tried, good wines that would have cost 50 - 60GBP, but we could pick up here for the equivalent of less than 10 pounds. Enjoy that Pecan white, Jim, unless Graeme had it drunk on his way home!

Well I'm definately having problems with these photos so I'm just going to upload them all at the end and they can go where they go! (Just spent last 30mins trying to put them on!!)

So, after the vineyards we headed south, as far south as you can go in Cape Town. To the Cape of Good Hope and Cape Point, almost the most Southernly point in all of Africa. When you look out the left of the car you see the Atlantic Ocean, look right and you have mountains. It is stunning, I'll let the pictures speak for themselves. Cape point has possibley the most stunning views I have ever seen.... and Baboons! Yes those crazy monkey things. We past some on the way there and I got a picture, random. The funny thing is there are signs all over the visitor centre reminding us that 'Baboons are dangerous wild animals and will try and steal your food, but be nice to them because they are endangered' or something along those lines (not a direct National Heritage quote) Graeme was at pains to point out that if he was sitting quietly at a park bench enjoying his packed lunch, and a great big monkey jumped out of nowhere and stole his Mars Bar, his first reaction would be a swift elbow to the jaw. Endangered or not, food is food!

Cape point is largely regarded as the place where the Atlantic Ocean meets the Indian Ocean. It looked like they got on just fine.

We spent Graemes last night at Pennys house, just out of town. Had a bit of an early St Patricks Day party, then on to a lively bar just round the corner. And I mean people dancing on tables lively. Was a good night.

So its just me all on my own now. Been in Cape town for 2 weeks and looking forward to getting on the move and getting this journey started. I've decided to leave on Friday instead of next Tuesday as originally planned. Heading round the coast, the garden route as its called, then all the way up to JoBurg. So thats the rough plan for the next few weeks, I will of course keep you updated as best possible.

By the way if you've read this and not left a comment, thats rude, the more comments the better.

A bit of 'Ireland' in Africa

Well its been a while now since I've been on the blog, largely because with the arrival of Graeme on Friday theres been little or no time to do anything, particularly anything constructive like updating a blog. Those of you who know Graeme would have expected that he would bring his own unique style with him, and let it loose no matter where in the world he is. He arrived at about mid day on Friday, we went for lunch, had a few drinks, it was all very pleasant. I wont go into too much detail but, but the night ended with me walking back to the apartment, having temporarily misplaced Graeme, to find a one legged, homeless local black man having a bowl of Special K and a vodka/redbull. His name was Richard, we forgot to ask where his other leg was.

Anyway for more details on that one you'll have to contact Graeme on his return.

Yesterday was a different story altogether, with an exhausting 2.5hour hike up Table Mountain, in 36degree heat. It was pretty tough going, even for 2 fit, health crazed young men like ourselves. But so worth it as I hope you'll see below.

We also went out to a local club on Sat Night for my brother Phils birthday. Met Penny who is a lovely girl. I'm getting bored writing now, check out these photos!!!! Good Times!

CAPE TOWN, SOUTH AFRICA

Hi everyone, and thanks for either caring enough or just being plain nosey enough to log on to my blog.

Unfortunately there arent any pictures yet as I'm only just here and this typewriter I'm using doesn't appear to have that facility, either that or I just dont have a clue what I'm doing (which I think may be a recurring theme during the course of this eh.......holiday)

I left Belfast on Monday 3rd March and have now arrived in Cape Town. Nothing interesting to report on the travel side, well other than its well over 3quid (cant find the pound side on this thing) for a pint of stella at Heathrow! Yes the bar staff were wearing masks!

I tell you what this is pressure, I've never done a blog before let alone against the clock. Theres a clock on the screen counting down my minutes of internet time left, its making me a bit uncomfortable but I hope it gives me a good review!

Anyway, first impressions of Cape Town are good the weather is great, hot and sunny but with a good wind to freshen it up. Only been hear a few hours so not much more to tell. Already missing some of the closest people back home quite a lot, but there wont be much time for that in a few days time, when the Legend that is Graeme Ireland is released upon us...........stay tuned!!