Andy and Sam

The Croom in Broome

noreply@blogger.com (Sam) — Sun, 27 Jul 2008 04:28:00 +0000

Knowing how much we love our jollies and hate working, it was high time for some adventure. So hold onto your hats dears- we're off on an epic journey right now! Exmouth, some few hundred miles up the coast from cold and rainy Perth (we have 60 days of gloomy weather a year here, life can be hard) was our first destination. The only real reason to go to Exmouth is to try your luck at swimming with a whale shark. These mighty beasts grow 5-12 metres on average, with the largest one on record measuring 17 metres! Fortunately, they are harmless to us humans and most other aquatic life as they are plankton- feeders and have a massive mouth to filter all the krill as the cruise along. They are officially the largest fish in the sea (they are sharks, not whales) and frequent these waters from March- June each year. Humans pose more of a threat to these amazing creatures as, unbelievably, they also
fall prey to the evils of shark-finning. This diabolical trade has reached gargantuan proportions and is currently one of the biggest threats to our ecosystem. For more info, go and see Sharkwater and whatever you do, do not patronise (Chinese) restaurants serving shark fin soup, or buy any other shark products. Without sharks, the top predators are removed from the equation, which is creating environmental chaos in our oceans. Sea Shepherd do a fantastic job of frightening away all the bad people who would rather earn their money slicing fins off live sharks before throwing them back in the ocean only to be eaten slowly by other fish. So, rather than send us any money for Christmas, please make a donation to Sea Shepherd instead!

Now it's still rather chilly up in Exmouth this time of year, but the good people at Ningaloo Reef Dreaming don't believe in giving you a wet suit as it can slow you down in the water when you are hot-finning after a shark. Setting out on boat, the calm water twinkling in the sunshine and the spotter plane above us, we knew we were in for a wonderous time. Perfect conditions and almost three weeks away from work! It wasn't too long before the pilot noticed a shark, and radioed the skipper. The boat then positions itself in front of the whale shark, everyone jumps in the sea and waits for its enormous mouth to loom towards you. As soon as you see it, you have to move to the side so you can all swim along together marveling in the wonder of nature.

It can be very scary waiting for something whose size you can't quite comprehend to find you. Suddenly, there she was - a 6.5 metre female, gliding majestically through the water as if expending no energy at all. We, on the other hand, had to swim as fast as our little Croom legs could go, just to keep up for five minutes. After this time, the shark was pretty much out of sight and so the next group jump in the their turn and so the cycle repeats for as long as the shark wants to stay with you. We managed to swim with her for a full hour - the maximum time the allow you by law. Lunching on the boat, two humpback whales decided to play near the boat just to add to our already amazing day. Another couple of days spent exploring Cape Range National Park, enjoying the nightlife of Exmouth (bars:2, restaurants:3, luxury accommodation:1). But really, why stay in the Novotel Resort when you can have Ningaloo Lodge complete with baby cockroaches to keep you company?

Broome is the gateway to the Kimberley region of NW Australia and lies another few hundred miles up the coast from Exmouth. July marks the beginning of the dry season in the Kimberley, making it the only sane time to visit. As the plane touched down from Exmouth, picture-postcard colours of the region - bright red pindan earth, white sand beaches and aquamarine sea struck us instantly. Established by Japanese entrepreneurs in the 1880's, Broome's main industry was pearling, and the town remains strongly influenced by it's Asian connections. Malay and Chinese joined forces with Aboriginal divers to man the lucrative but dangerous trade. Many divers died from decompression sickness as primitive dive equipment was used. The breathing apparatus consisted of a long tube leading up to the boat and the diver communicated with the boatman with a series of tugs on the rope. Many others were eaten by sharks or got Beri Beri, but somehow amongst the 400 peal-luggers, 80% of the world's mother-of-pearl originated from these waters.

Our first night in Broome consisted of us staying in yet more luxury accommodation. This time it was my doing, some dodgy backpacker place we could not escape quick enough from. So we headed straight out to Gauntethaume Point. Home to the best collection of dinosaur footprints in the world (apparently eight different types), we were more inspired by the beautiful sunset over the red rocks (see third picture) as the tide was in and most footprints obscured. We have since learnt that this spot is a sacred Aboriginal site and you aren't supposed to climb on the rocks. So sorry about that. Also sorry about the bottle of wine and cheese nibbles consumed in celebration of the next leg of the holiday...

Broome is famous for it's iconic white sand Cable Beach. It is actually closer in proximity to Indonesia than any other Australian state and it's sense of isolation is palpable. A must-do is a sunset camel-ride and a must-have photo is the camel train plodding along the beach. Our camel was called 'Rusty,' a wayward creature who didn't like to be stroked (as he was likely to give you a nasty nip) and he did a lot of wailing. So we trotted up and down the beach for an hour, with some poor girl whose job it was to pick up all the camel poo as we went along (bare hands!)

An annoying couple on the camel in front insisted on trying to stroke Rusty, even though they had been told not to with his biting history. I was envisaging the beast becoming enraged and throwing us to the ground in a hilarious but deadly episode of Death-by-Camel-Toe, but all he did was grind his big yellow teeth. Andy almost came a cropper as he was dismounting as unruly Rusty tried to stand up. He managed to regain control and Rusty received a sandy carrot as a treat.

We then headed off in our 4WD camper on our roadtrip. First stop was Cape Leveque, on the Dampier Peninsular (4th picture). Most of this remote region is Aboriginal Land and you need to have permission to be there. Within half an hour of leaving Broome, we found ourselves in the outback. The red, corrugated unsealed roads took some getting used to and driving on them can be quite hazardous. Being the organised (read paranoid) types though, we had about 60 litres of water, two full tanks of fuel and enough food to feed Rusty for a month.

I know I might have a natural tendancy towards drama, but you do still hear of people being found dead in their vehicles, having run out of supplies! Good job we had our satelite phone (scarily complicated to use, would have been no use in a proper emergency), on loan and a couple of mobiles with no reception. Before long we encountered a dead cow lying in the road, it's stomach contents spilled all over the road and in a sorry state of decomposition. Thus began our 3,500km roadtrip, interrupted only by the need to return to Broome to go to the ATM! All that organisation and we hadn't even thought about bringing any money with us. Oh dear...

Derby is famous for it's enormous baob 'prison tree,' used as a lockup for Aboriginal prisoners en-route to The Old Derby Gaol (photo 7). The tree is thought to be over 1,000 years old and measures 17 metres round. Derby also marks the start of the notorious Gibb River Road, a track so lumpy and bumpy, only 4WDs are allowed. Baob trees are synonymous with images of the Kimberley. Found also in Madagascar and Africa, the trees store water in their massive trunks to see them through the dry season. According to Aboriginal folklore, the tree formed too high an opinion of itself, which made the gods angry, causing them to pull the tree out of the ground and throw it back in upside down.

Baobs are used locally for shelter, food, water and medicine. Approaching the prison tree, I noticed a small fire in the bushland nearby. By the time we had taken several photos and had conversations surrounding imagining how horrific it might be to be locked inside a tree in the desert heat with a load of snakes, the small fire had progressed to a massive bush fire (photo 5). It made a very eerie backdrop with lots of crows circling the scene, smoke, red earth. I felt quite eager to escape the scene, rather that be left burning in the middle of a fire, but it seems we had to get sufficient footage of the incident before moving on.

The Kimberley is gorge country, and an area of astounding natural beauty, with each gorge presenting very different geological features. Windjana Gorge, and Tunnel Creek offered our first taste of the gorges. Tunnel Creek is a 750m-long passage which is pitch-dark in places. You have to take a torch and there are bats, so the wade through the icy water is quite scary. This is croc territory, so you have to be careful as some gorges have saltwater crocs ("salties,") i.e. the dangerous ones, some have freshwater crocs ("freshies") i.e. the harmless ones and some have neither. And if you can't see them, it could be that they are waiting on the waterbed for you! Windjana is home to hundreds of freshies, some of them quite big and menacing-looking. Beautiful Bell Gorge (above, right), fortuitously tranquil and devoid of tourists on the way in... shame we encountered a bus-load of Americans on the way out.

Mornington Wilderness Camp had come highly recommended and so we luxuriated in a two-night stay! Normally we move on each and every day, which can be pretty exhausting as you are either driving or walking. The main excitement of Mornington is the presence of a bar, something quite rare in these parts. When I say luxuriated, I mean we stayed in an eco-camp, devoid of flush loos, sat absolutely freezing on a small stool listening to a Sandy Toksvig-lookalike talk about the importance of saving shrews and promptly gave myself food poisoning from a dodgy kangaroo steak. We both ate the same thing, but of course I had to have mine blood-rare and we were cooking by crappy torchlight, so it could have been crawling with maggots for all I could see. Next morning I was feeling rather weak, but my husband being of a caring nature made us go out on a canoing expedition through Dimond gorge (above). Cruising up the mirror-still water, I soon got over myself and we had a great day. All the driving had taken its toll on the van, though as we discovered a flat tyre the following morning. Andy did a great job changing the tyre and the mission to get organise a spare only altered our course slightly.

This gave us the opportunity to take a flight over the Mitchell Falls from Drysdale Station. Personally, I had more fun experiencing life in the outback than I did on the scenic flight... there are some strange people who choose to live in absolute isolation from the rest of the world. But the beer was cold, they had a spare tyre and they were a very friendly bunch, if a little scary. Andy was in his element, humming the tune from Deliverance at every opportunity. Not the best way to make friends.

Beautiful Galvans Gorge (left) proved to be a hidden beauty and revealed our only glimpse of Aborignal Rock art. Nestled underneath a stunning waterfall the safe swimming hole was only really safe if you pretended not to notice the spiders sitting in massive webs over the water. Of course, I'd left my bikini in the van and was boiling hot so had to swim in my pants. We then got chatting to an old couple who were, surprise surprise from Brighton. Of course I couldn't exit the water until Andy had finished his 40 minute conversation with them as I was partially-clothed, but perhaps I shoudln't have been so prudish as the old boy stripped off completely and dried himself in front of us! This is when the training comes in handy and I managed not to drown with fright, having seen many such beauties in my time. I'm sure Kununurra would've been nice but we were so tired by this point, it was all we could do to collapse in the campsite with a bottle of wine and our books. The Mirima National Park remained unexplored and we conserved our energy for the final leg of the tour...

The Bungle Bungles, within Purnululu National Park is probably one of the biggest drawcards of the region. The orange-striped limestone domes stand in their thousands and resemble huge beehives. They are the result of millions of years' weathering and are one of Australia's most distinctive landscapes. A World Heritage Area, the grey and orange bands are the result of iron oxide and blue-green algae. We had been told that the road to Purnululu was horrendous, but we weren't to be outdone. Our bushcamper van was tiny for living and sleeping in, but did the job required on the pretty awful unsealed roads. So while it was only a 52km journey, it took us 3 hour to reach the national park.

A series of different walks take you to the main sites; Echidna Chasm, Cathedral Gorge, and Piccaninny Gorge. The Mini Palms Track, featuring tall palm trees protruding from sheer rock faces and dramatic scenery. Termite mounds are a feature all over the Kimberley and are seen clinging in precarious places over the Bungles Bungles. Weaving through the tight crevasses of Echidna Chasm, where the steep walls obscure the sky, we wondered if Purnululu might have been better observed from the sky, just to appreciate the size of the place. There was much excitement to be had when Andy spotted a large snake in the road. Closer inspection revealed it to be deceased, the victim of a hit-and-run escapade. Referring to our invaluable Snake Guide, I decided it was a non-venemous, much to Andy's disappointment.

The disappointment continued when it became apparent that the 7 hour side-trip to Wolfe Creek was not going to be possible due to time constraints. But really, it would have been far less a terrifying ordeal than spending the night at
Halls Creek. The campsite was totally feral and lacking any green at all. We only stayed there because we were too knackered to drive onto Fitzroy Crossing. There we were, sat wrapped all cosy in our sleeping bags watching a film on the laptop, when we became increasingly aware of a disturbance in the park next door. There was a huge row going on and lots of barking feral dogs. It was kind of distracting as we were trying to watch the film, but the ranting became louder and louder. Next thing we know, a group of blokes start throwing stones into the campsite and for some reason seemed very cross. We locked ourselves in the camper and turned the lights out to observe a young bloke running for his life past the van. It turn out they had been taking photos of some locals having a fight. I mean, and this had started all the drama. How stupid can you be?!!? Suffice to say, we were very glad to leave Halls Creek bight and early the following morning, even if we were camping next door to a bull mastif and an old feller who owned a double-barelled shotgun!!! After a few more gorges thrown in for good measure it was thankfully time to return to Perth for a good rest. Next time it's 5* luxury the whole way and I am doing the planning!

Surfing in Lancelin

noreply@blogger.com (chem7) — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 14:06:00 +0000

Hi all, yes we've survived the Outback and have been back swaning about Perth for 3 weeks now. I'm gonna have to relay holiday vids and photos another time, but heres a nice high definition vid of us and our mates doing some surfing, well actually its our mates Dan, Helen, John and Gisele doing the surfing, cause it was too cold for us to get in the water, but we do appear in the vid, I spent the whole time taking the video with John's camcorder and he edited it. It might play a bit slow on some connections, cause it's high def footage, so patience...

Surf School at Lancelin from John Eustace on Vimeo.

Oz Tv

noreply@blogger.com (chem7) — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 09:03:00 +0000

After a hard day in workhouse Australia, my wife and I retire to the drawing room to peruse the local Tv stations. As at home, there's a lot of crap on, but here there's even more. We don't watch tons of telly, but what we mainly end up watching are British shows. Kitchen Nightmares, BBC documentaries, there's one on at the mo called Wild China, which is pretty cool, Ladette to Lady (Genius). There's not a lot of good Oz-made Tv, everyone seems to love a program called 'Good News Week', which is a rip off of Have I got News for You, but without the humour, I've actually been accused of not understanding Ozzie humour, but the sad truth is that its too mild for me. When they show films here, which is most nights, they fill them full of adverts, at least every 15 minutes, it drives you mad. They have got the weather here, but I'll take good old British Tv back any time. In watching all those adverts, we've spotted an absolute corker and I don't know if its on at home, so at the risk of becoming Chris Tarrent, please enjoy this little beaut :)

West Coast Eagles

noreply@blogger.com (chem7) — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 13:32:00 +0000

Winter has officially arrived down under and is thankfully nothing like it is at home. It is certainly raining more, usually on a Wednesday night when I play Tennis...but the sun seems to be out fairly often and it remains tee-shirt weather...in winter!!
With the arrival of winter comes AFL, otherwise known as Ozzie Rules Football. Its been running for a few weeks now and I've made a vague attempt to follow the fortunes of Perths 2 sides, the West Coast Eagles and the Freemantle Dockers. Both teams are playing like a bag of shite and are routed to the bottom of the table, Freemantle have won 1 match out of 10, although htis 1 match was against the Eagles and being a derby win counts for alot in bragging rights. Perth (Eagles) have won 2 games and I was fortunate enough to have attended their second game and bring them some good old fashioned Pommie luck. My mate Joel had season tickets and took me along and was good enough to answer my foolish Pom questions throughout the game.
Its a game of 4 quarters, each about 25 minutes long and about a 20 minute break at halftime. The pitch is a massive oval shape, a fair bit bigger than a normal footaball pitch and there are 18 players a side. Their is a goal at either end that has 4 posts, the 2 middle posts are the main goal and you get 6 points if you kick the ball through them, however if the ball hits a post or goes through the other smaller posts then its 1 point. You can chuck the ball to each other, but you have to punch the ball, whilst doing this anyone can tackle you. You can also kick the ball with the object of kicking it to a team mate and him catching it without it touching th pitch. If this happens, its called a 'mark' and the player cannot be tackled and so had a kind of a free kick. Yes it is a bit confusing, but like most thigs, pretty exciting when watched live. Theres a crowd of 40,000 and a decent atmosphere to boot.
One of the stranger things about the game, is the sheer amount of people on the pitch at any one time. 18 players a side, then 3 refs + I think 2 linesmen, also and this is odd, at any time in the game 'Runners' can come onto the pitch, 1 a side I think and just have a chat with the players, you know give them a bit of encourement, pass on some tactics, very wierd. When a goal is scored, loads of people run on the pitch to dosh out water and its just gets plain silly. Oh and its quite violent as well, some decent punches and shoulder barging going on :)

Before I go, another thing that has returned with the coming of winter, is whales!
I love a whale me and its one of many brilliant things about this country to enjoy. There we were having a nice stroll along the beach, on our way to get some beer and oysters at a bar, a bar called 'The Oyster Bar' on Port beach, near Freo when we noticed some funny black fin shapes and alot of splashing. Only about 150 meters off shore were 2-3 Southern Right Whales lolling about, slowly cruising along, how cool is that??!!

I love my Life and I love my Wife!!!!

noreply@blogger.com (chem7) — Sun, 06 Apr 2008 10:06:00 +0000

Yes it's true, life is great (I'm not including work) here, the temperature has cooled by a few degrees and now we're not sweating constantly, which is nice. I seem to have developed green fingers and have turned our little patio into a mini garden center, after going to a Chilli festival and ended up buying 5 chilli plants, I've also added a tomato plant, corriander, rosemary, parsley, mint, oregano and a roquet plant. Each day I water them and demand that my tomato plant produce tomatos, but still waiting, the chilli plants have gone mad and we can't eat enough of them!
We've booked up our winter holiday, we're going to the Kimberleys in June, this is where Wolf Creek is and loads of incredible scenery, we're also stopping on route to swim with a Whale Shark, at last!! It looks like we're staying here for a couple of years at the mo and so we're planning on visiting the Uk for Xmas this year, can't wait to see you all!
Here's some recent pics of us at the Zoo :)

PS: Have been doing some Remixes of Josh and Roger's new band 'This Mono Galaxy', you can have a listen here, any comments welcome!

chem7 (me)

This Mono Galaxy

noreply@blogger.com (chem7) — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 00:15:00 +0000

Our fortunes in OZ seemed to have changed for the better and we are now both having a rather spiffing time. Inbetween Tennis, the Gym, getting down with the kids at Krafty Kuts, weekending down south visiting the Wineries, flopping about on the gorgeous beaches of Perth, checking out the Surf action, climbing artificial rock faces theres little time to write the blog, so a few words and some pics might suffice.
Been having a great time remixing Josh and Rogers new 80's pop hits 'This Mono Galaxy' which you can have a listen to here, the original mucis that is.
Also on a musical note, this is the Krafty Kuts Remix of Bitter Sweet Symphony, mmmmm, its lovely :)

Happy New 2008

noreply@blogger.com (Sam) — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 00:51:00 +0000

Happy New Year to you all. Hope you all had a lovely Chrsitmas. It goes without saying that we missed you all dearly, but fortunately we were unable to dwell on this issue as it was 45 degrees on Christmas Day and Boxing Day was 46. That's centigrade, making Perth officially the hottest place on the planet at that time! Having only experienced 42 degrees before, that little bit extra does make a difference, believe me. Horrific, it even hurt to breathe. But we had to join in with tradition, so on Christmas morning after opening our prezzies, we headed to the beach wth our new friends (see, we can do it) Orla & Lucy for champagne & strawberries. Yum. At 9:30am it was already packed, so everybody could bag some shade and set their picnics out. I was the Designated Driver, an honour which was to prove fairly short-lived. So Andy got quite drunk. By 10am he was leaping into the sea as if he weren't scared of cold water and frolicking with strangers wearing santa hats.

After a few hours of chilling out and reading my Harold Shipman biography (a festive treat!), we headed over to another friends house for a Barbie. Hilary & Matthew are very nice people because they have lived in Brighton. They have just bought a lovley house, but in keeping with the rest of Aussie society, it's in the middle of nowhere and getting there involves some planning. Especially since I'd ditched the whole driving idea by now and decided I needed wine to survive the heat. So we walked to the station and then had to walk to their house from the station. That's a 30 minute total walk in 45 degrees with a drunken husband who kept laughing at me for being so hot and bothered. After passing several skeletons along the side of the road, we got there absolutely dying. I collapsed with a bottle of wine and two rather perky Burmese cats, while the boys actually went OUTSIDE to BBQ! By this point, the outside temperature had reached 47 degrees and with everybody caning the A/C across the city, several hundreds of homes had a power cut and were without electricity for a few hours. Can you imagine?!?!

Boxing day we knew was going to be just as bad, so we headed for the beach and just stayed there all day. Andy isn't one for sitting in the shade, so we just kept running into the sea every 20 minutes to cool off. It's probably the best place to be when it's that hot as at least there is a breeze, which the locals call the Freemantle Doctor. Our Christmas prezzie to ourselves was our car. I was so excited to finally have a means to go exploring, as so far we've only been away for the day once since we arrived here 3 months ago.

So I let Andy have sole control over the project and off he went. He decided to buy a little Dihatsu Charade, which turns out to be an apt name for the thing. He bought it for $2,000 (our last $2,000) from a 'very trustworthy' doctor who was returning to Sri Lanka after working here for a while. We had it a week and it seemed fine running about town- until we took it on a longer venture. We were heading South to Cape Naturaliste and were almost at Bunbury when I said "I can smell something funny." At about the same time Andy said "Shit, the temperature gauge is on red!" and about now, we saw smoke and steam billowing from the bonnet. As we pulled over onto the snake-infested roadside, we could actually hear the water boiling in the radiator. I truly believed the thing was about to explode and knew instantly we had made a grave error. I swear you could even see spiders sat in their humongous webs abut 20 metres away, just waiting for something like this to happen. Andy, the eternal optomist said we should just wait until it cooled down. Me, knowing we were doomed, said we should just call the RAC and be done with it. It was at this point I realised Andy had used the last of our drinking water to fill up the radiator. I mean, what sort of madness leads to such foolishness! Has he not listened to a word Bear Grills has said?

Several rows and about an hour later, it seems evident that the car isn't cooling down, so we call the RAC man. An old lady who is quite clearly a serial killer stops and gives us some water. Obviously the water was poisonous, so I only had a sip and then the RAC arrives and says he can either tow us back to Perth at $3.5/km or, we can try to get back ourselves, which in his opinion, he seriously doubted we could manage. So of course I am persuaded to try drivng back. We stop every half hour to top op the cooling fluid and miraculously we make it back home in one piece. Five hours later and all we have seen is the kangaroo sculpure at Mandurah station. My optimism is shattered and Andy has to take me to see Ratatouille at the open-air cinema to calm me down. It worked temporarily, but now we are waiting for the car to be fixed. The head gasket has blown and apparently the cylinder has a big crack down it which had been subjected to a temporary welding job, so it turns out the good doctor may have been pulling a fast one after all. On the plus side, my husband now has muscles.

Rottnest

noreply@blogger.com (Sam) — Sun, 16 Dec 2007 06:09:00 +0000

Rottnest Island, or "Rotto" as it's known round here, is a tiny car-free island, dotted with secluded tropical bays. It's only 19km offshore from Freemantle, so it's a popular weekend getaway for locals. It measures 11km by 4.5km, so getting around by bike is the only way to see the island properly. The journey has been long-awaiting as the school-leavers or 'schoolies' have been in residence for the past couple of weeks and aparently it's a terrible idea to go anywhere near this time as it's just one big teenage party. As we boarded the ferry in Perth with our mountain bikes, a couple of dolphins were swimming right next to us in the harbour, waiting for the dolphin-cruise to depart.

A Dutch Explorer called Willem de Vlamingh claimed discovery of the island in 1696, and named it "Rat's Nest," due to the large population of what he perceived to be enormous rodents. They were actually quokkas, which are very cute little things which look like a cross between a wombat and a tiny kangaroo. Some of them are very tame, but there are often report of people playing "quokka soccer" with them but now they are protected which is good as they are very cute. There are somewhere between 8,000 and 12,000 on Rotto and populations are found in the forests of the mainland.

There is actually evidence of Aboriginal occupation dating from 7,000 years ago and from 1838 until 1920, the inhabitants of Rottnest were Aboriginal prisoners from the mainland. The island is still a sacred site to the Noongar tribe as hundreds of their tribe died there. The prison cells are now hotel rooms which are supposedly haunted. There are a couple of other places to stay on the island, but most people camp out. So while there is very little to do on the island apart from cycle aound and admire the views, it's a very relaxing place... or it would be if it weren't for the flies!

The flies in Australia are totally rank and are presnt in their millions on hot days. They come in from the desert and head straight for your mouth, nose or eyes, deperate as they are for moisture. You might look ridiculous wearing a fly-net, but they are a bloody good idea all things considered. Otherwise, the diving is supposed to be good as is the swimming and snorkelling so we'll get round to that one day soon. There a several shipwrecks which are shallow enough to be viewed snorkelling but you need a boat to access them.

After catching the ferry back to Perth in the evening, we went in search of a quiet drink along the Esplanade. However, our search brought us to the Lucky Shag which was full of Sunday all-day drinkers and I disovered to my horror that on my way to the toilet, someone had vomited into my bike helmet. Unfortunately, although I'd done a rough clean-up of the situation, I still had to wear the helmet home!

Not that we got very far home, because we saw a throng of people gathering for some open-air event in the park by the Swan Bells. As it was free, Andy suggested we stay to listen to Symphony in the City. This necessitated us buying more beers and lying down in the grass with more people than I thought actually lived in Perth. It was very pleasant anyway and I think I fell asleep, having had a great action-packed weekend. It's such a shame anybody has to work.

Surf's Up

noreply@blogger.com (Sam) — Sun, 02 Dec 2007 01:25:00 +0000

Hello Dears! A prolonged silence from this end means I can justify a ramble and a chunter without any rudeness from the readers. Several of you have been very busy with having babies and/or bringing up existing babies. A big congratulations to Suze & James on the arrival of Joe ("a nine stoner") and to Jamie & Hazel for producing Evie, who I know enjoyed our skype episode last week. How bizarre seeing each other all these million miles away... you looking all pasty and blissfully happy and us all brown and knackered with it being way past our bedtime. Bring on more skype. Baby Nell continues to be gorgeous, as does my lovely neice Lily who was had her first birthday recently. Happy Birthday Lily!

I think our problematic journey into migrant workerdom has been well documented by my husband, so I won't focus on all the problems we've been having since we arrived. I'm over being a whinging Pom, things are on the up. So to combat the homesickness, we've been making the most of sunshine and the outdoors lifestyle which is the Aussie way. Our first consistently good week since we left home 8 weeks ago began with our very first surfing lesson. Our friend Dan and his girlfriend Helen, decided to take us out and introduce us to the waves. Baby waves, he said. I just wanted to look cool, so I went along even though my back was killing me. The day before I'd had a hardcore massage from David Beckham's physio when he played for Real Madrid!

You see tons of people strolling effortlessly down the beach with a board slung under their arm. Let me tell you, there is even a certain degree of talent required here - especially when you are half the size of your board. So I had to have my board carried for me (not cool). We then did a bit of practicing jumping up on the board on the beach. If you're just starting off, Dan said you should just get onto your knees (again, not cool). Next thing, we were in the water. At least some of us were, Andy was doing his embarrassing thing of getting into the water slowly by splashing his chest gingerly with water to get 'accustomed to it.' Luckily, we had leg straps for the boards, otherwise we'd have been a few boards down by the end of the day. Then you lie on your belly (more tricky than you'd imagine) and wait for a wave. When a nice one comes along, you start paddling (see demonstration) and then try to stand up. Andy was actually quite good, but I'm not sure I really got it. It was much more fun just staying on your front without even attempting to stand up. Trouble is, the waves are pretty powerful and I learnt a valuable lesson - don't turn your back to them! One minute I was just stood in the sea chatting when Dan looked worried and said "hold onto your sunnies!" This massive wave came and dumped me. This basically means the wave forces you under and spin you around a few times as if you're in a washing machine. You have to push your board out of the way or it could knock you out and the whole business is less than pleasant! I lost my sunnies and had salt water pouring our of my nose for the rest of the day, which was quite invigorating. After that I felt a bit wobbly so took to sunbathing instead. We then spent the rest of the day chilling out on nearby
Cottesloe beach, which has to be our favourite spot. A perfect, lazy weekend.

Andy being knocked over by a wave...

Climbing the Walls. . . :)

noreply@blogger.com (chem7) — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 12:59:00 +0000

Literally at the end of our road is a big, wall climbing facility. I've started going there with my mate Dan from work who's not long been going himself. James took me climbing in Shoreham earlier this year which was a really good first taste for it, so its wicked to have a place so near me now.
The walls are probably about 10 meters high, which is easily high enough to make me whimper like a girl once I've reached the top and have to let go to be brought safely down to earth by Dan. For those of you unfamilier with climbing, there are ropes strung from the ceiling dangling down the wall. You both wear harnesses and attach yourselves to a rope. One person climbs whilst the other person stays at the bottom and keeps the rope taut, so that you can't fall.
It's all good fun, even though it's indoors, I feel like I should be outside constantly here. I've yet to persuade Sam to come climbing, I think I'm on a losing battle here :)
I finally got round to seeing Perth Glory yesterday, Perths useless footy team. They're bottom of the league and have won only one game all season and luckily for me managed to win their second game yesterday! They were playing Melbourne Victory and yes, they've all got shite names, probably the worst being 'Queensland Roar', I wish I was joking...
$25 (£11) gets you into the ground, not a bad price, there were about 8000 or so people there, which was a reasonably full stadium and a pretty good atmosphere. There are seated and terraced sections and you can go and watch the game from almost wherever you want. The actual football isn't exactly Premier league standard, but it's ok, a few beers and the added bonus of cheer leaders during half-time made for a thouroughly enjoyable match, especially as we (I'm a Perth supporter now ) won 3-1. I managed to video the second goal for your perusal, quite a nice effort.

If anyone fancy's a chat online sometime, then download Skype from here and if we're online at the same time, we can wave and pull faces at each other via the magic of full screen video link broadband. We are often in (and online) between 9am and 12pm UK time, email me or Sam for our Skype contact info.

Perth Glory v Melbourne Victory :)

Life in Perth so far...

noreply@blogger.com (chem7) — Sun, 18 Nov 2007 01:04:00 +0000

Yeah I know I haven't done a blog update for ages, but life gets in the way as you know. We've been getting used to life down under and its not been a bed of roses by any means, but I think its getting better. We've been in our flat for 3-4 weeks now and have started getting a few pics up on the walls and its actually feeling like home a bit more now, as opposed to an Ikea showroom / warehouse. Work is better too and for those who don't know, was a real pain in the arse to start with and still is quite a bit, but the more I think about it, the real problem is that its nursing and thats the crux of the matter. We're both doing a job that we don't like anymore and that's obviously harder to do when you've moved to the other side of the world. It's definately time to start a new career, but what?? The nurses at work are mostly very nice and we've been invited out several times by some of them. Alot of the Dr's are dicks and that's the least harsh word I could think of. They're a very old school bunch and seem to think nurses a hinderance more than 'part of the team'. I was shouted at on almost my first day for daring to pass on a message, arsehole! You can't believe the rudeness of people, we've nick-named him 'Bad Santa' due to the beard. When you're scrubbing with this particular Dr, he doesn't even say hello to you. There's another one who Sam introduced herself to saying 'Hi, I'm Sam, I'm new here'. To which he replied 'Congratulations, Well done'. Tw*t! Sam later shut a door in his face. That's work then, oh yeah every single peice of equipment is different to what we're used to, making you feel like you've never nursed before, but it has improved a fair bit since we started there.
On a positive note, life otherwise in Perth is pretty nice. The weather is glorious about 98% of the time and I winge like a proper pom if the sun isn't out constantly. We've both joined a really nice gym which is located in Kings Park, a massively gorgeous park in the middle of Perth. It's my first experience in a gym and so far it's good, I've joined mainly to get into Tennis and Squash and have my first taste of Tennis booked up for tonight, it's called 'Rusty Raquets' I can hear Flan laughing now :) I seem to have gone a bit fitness mad, I think it's something about Australia that makes you have to get out there and exercise. I've even been wall climbing, there's a climbing place just down the end of our road, you would love it James.
We've been catching up with a few people we know from Brighton over here, Sarah Dawes (Baggy) and her hubby Mark and son Evan, have been living over here for about 5 years and life seems to have been treating them very well. Also on holiday over here were Cassie and Adam from the County, we went to the Northbridge festival on the Saturday they were here. Northbridge is the suberb where we live, so it was literally round the corner from our house. They'd set a stage up in the middle of the road and had various bands on, it was fairly lame as 'festivals' go, but headlining was none other than DJ Kentaro, mental mixing man from Japan, his set was bonkers, he was virtually scratching with his tongue, really, really wicked stuff. I've posted a little vid of the start of his set, theres quite a few vid's up on Youtube of his stuff, which you will also find frequently adorning Alex's blog :)
We've been going to the cinema a fair bit too and I don't know if it's been on in the UK yet or what, but '30 Days of Night' is the scariest film since 'The Descent'. Vampire action at its most terrifying ;)

DJ Kentaro - Northbridge, Perth.

30 Days of Night Trailer.

Here's some pics of our little flat :)

Diving The Maldives

noreply@blogger.com (chem7) — Thu, 11 Oct 2007 05:33:00 +0000

Before we arrived in Oz, we went to the Maldives on our honeymoon and happened to do a few dives.
Here's some of the best photo's I took whilst diving in the Maldives. I mainly took films this time and I've cobbled them together in the video below. The diving was absolutely amazing, I even managed to persuade the wife to join in. The diving is exceptional, due to the very diverse nature of the fishlife in the Indian Ocean. We saw sharks and Rays pretty much every dive and I was lucky enough to see a Manta Ray and a few Hammerheads. I wasn't able to get any great footage of the hammerheads as the dives were at six in the morning and so the lighting was that good. I was just as excited seeing the small critters as I was the big stuff too. There were some great little shrimps about and you could watch them hanging out with giant Mooray eels, giving them a clean.

Hope you like the pics and vid! The music is Under The Red Sea by Lost Tribe off my Deeper Shades of hooj Vol. 3

The Blog is back :)

noreply@blogger.com (chem7) — Sun, 07 Oct 2007 10:24:00 +0000

Finally, after months of boring you all with our talk of leaving England, we are off! We are now migrant workers, living in Perth, Western Australia, for one year, employment commencing scarily soon (tomorrow). It seems that married life is all about having fun. If only someone had told me. In just a month, we managed to squeeze in an amazing wedding, two weeks diving in the Maldives, followed by a UK tour to say our farewells to family and friends and now this! There were a few tears, especially upon leaving Hel, Margo & Olivia – our dear housemates, but as we made our way through the rain and grey of dismal London, at the start of our torrid journey to Singapore, we felt sure we’d made the right decision. Well sort of sure...bit concerned about the clothes shopping possibilities in Goth-addled WA.

Singapore was as we remembered – a well-ordered but essentially boring, pretend country. There were only two things on our agenda though – have curry, go to zoo. This time, we stayed in Chinatown at a little place called the Inn on Temple Street, which was quite acceptable and rather posher than Little India. Trouble was, it was so hot and humid, and on top of the jetlag, this put is in quite a turmoil. Following a lovely sleep next to a Sumatran rhino, we ferreted around Orchard Road trying to haggle over camera prices and ended up buying nothing. If anybody remembers how Andy suffers with jetlag, I’m sure you are feeling my pain - potentially another fortnight of moaning.

After 3 days, which was rather long enough, we journeyed onto Perth. The 5 hour flight was quite bearable but the timing meant another night without sleep. Not to worry, we thought, as we’d be in a nice comfy bed soon enough! At the risk of sounding like whinging Poms, our initial misfortune in Perth has lasted all week! It all began as we checked into The Hostel. At about 50 quid a night, it was pretty expensive considering what we got out of the deal. We had an agonising 4 jet-lagged hours before we could check in so went on a zombie-mission looking for estate agents. No joy in the housing department, we scuttled off the bed.

The Hostel is directly located on the railway line, it has a tannoy system which conveys messages straight into everybody’s room at all hours of the day, and it is infested with bedbugs. Andy has been bitten quite a lot and believes the ropey-looking duvet to be the culprit. I knew there was a reason I didn’t go near it. So there we were, atrocious with exhaustion and in a 20 minute period, there were 6 Hi-de-Hi announcements, several trains and a cleaner breaking-and-entering. Two boil-washes later, we happily left YHA Perth City for the lovely Emperor’s Crown! Onwards and upwards...

We are now living in a temporary apartment, and by the end of the week, we hope to have found something more permanent , but the rental scene here is quite problematic. Apparently house prices have shot up in accordance with the mining boom, so there is huge demand for rental properties. Still, everyone we have met so far is really friendly and helpful. The bloke in the mobile phone shop said “ah, you too are just so cute,” and laughed at us a lot for not understanding what he was saying. When Andy asked if we could top up our phone credit using a cash-point (sorry, ATM), the bloke said he’d heard of such a thing but never seen it in reality... Ah, the future! Consequently, we were charmed into buying two new (very cheap, quite rubbish) mobiles and we have Aussie bank accounts but are still of no fixed abode.

In one week, we have viewed 10 properties, and out of that has some one hopeful and a couple of not-too-terribles. Fingers crossed!!! You basically phone lots of estate agents, nobody answers their phone and if they do call you back it's to tell you when the property is to be viewed. This is a torrid process, as there is no limit to the number of people who can turn up. One place we went to see had 37 of us busseling for space! Many of the flats are in the middle of nowhere, some are infested with snakes and many have rude and hideous estate agents showing you around! One old crone even started swearing about how overworked she was and that nobody worked as hard as she did for as little gain.

On a more positive note– the beer is sold in Pints in Perth, not pots or schooners or some other daft and feeble measure, and is icy cold. The weather is beautiful – crisp and sunny, and today we had a smashing barbie in Kings park.

Mr and Mrs Masters :)

noreply@blogger.com (chem7) — Sat, 01 Sep 2007 14:59:00 +0000

More pics soon...

Plans...

noreply@blogger.com (chem7) — Mon, 05 Mar 2007 00:49:00 +0000

A new laptop and the installation of broadband means that the blog is back, for a bit, well certainly for this update anyway. It seems a real effort to blog here in good old England, but I'll attempt to keep it going a bit more consistently this time.
Lots of planning is the norm at the house of Flanagan these days, a house that was to be a very temporary home, has turned into a home till October, when hopefully, we'll be winging our way back to Australia. Yup, we've just not had enough of the old travelling lark and we loved the west si-eed so much, we've gone and (fingers crossed) got ourselves jobs in Perth. We'll be working in the Cath Labs at the Mount Hospital on a years contract. Will we stay longer? Who knows is the answer to that, it's all very well travelling round a country and loving it, but working there away from family and friends is another thing. There's several months of hanging around waiting for paperwork, visas etc to sort themselves out before we go, so in the mean time we've been organising a wedding and when I say we I obviously mean Sam, mainly. The venue has been booked, the evening do sorted and all manner of other key items have been bought or ordered. We'll be having our ceremony and meal at Blanche House, a very cool, hip hotel for groovy people such as ourselves and then we're off to the newly refurbished Hanbury Ballrooms in the evening for a bit of a dance and possibly a spot of making box shapes before the night is out. We went for a meal at Blanche House last weekend to road test the food and its amazing, its looks beautiful and tastes gorgeous, phew, here's a pic of the chocolate cake and ice-cream pud I had mmmmmm.
Enough of the plans for the moment, exciting as they are, more waffling from me soon, here's a video of Margo, one of Helen's sausage dogs or the Dachshund Defenders as they're known around here. See the way she shakes the tennis ball about, that's what she did to a massive rat the other day, snapping its neck, what a dog!!

ruby 2 shoes

noreply@blogger.com (chem7) — Sat, 10 Feb 2007 14:10:00 +0000

I’ve been trying to write this blog for ages, but keep being thwarted by various things. The number one culprit is my computer, which is currently sitting in the ‘Geeks on Wheels’ office, hopefully being fixed. It’s actually the first time ever that I’ve had to have a pc repaired, I can sort 99% of problems out myself, but when the nature of the problem means you can’t even log on to Windows itself, I have to hold my own nerd hands up and call in the Uber Nerds. I’m having to resort to internet cafes and if I’m honest, I can’t be arsed to do that too much.
The misery of being back in England is thankfully declining and we are both now starting to climb out of the pit of despair in which we have been wallowing for the last month or so. So what have we been up to? About three weeks ago now, we paid a visit to my sisters to celebrate Ruby’s second birthday and that’s why there’s an inordinate number of photos of an insanely cute little girl on our blog. Rachel has spent a year teaching Rubes our names and now she can confidently say ‘Andy and Pam’ : ) Current favourite words include ‘two’ and ‘mine’, as she wanders around the house, she’s forever pointing at items and then saying ‘mine’. Still as long as she doesn’t grow up to be materialistic : ) If you’re wandering why she’s dressed as some kind of Viking, it’s because we paid a visit to the Museum of Sheffield. Not the first place you would think of visiting admittedly, but it’s a great museum, especially for kids, its very interactive, full of buttons to press and clothes to dress up in. One of the funniest / most disturbing exhibits is a gnarly old lion called ‘Joey’. Ruby has become quite taken by this flea bitten, hundred year old thing and marched around the museum chanting ‘Joey, Joey, Joey’ until it was time to go. I blame the mother. The museum visit was all part of the birthday celebration which of course included a lot of present opening. I am in two minds about presents for very young children, the cruel and logical side of me says why bother? They’re never going to remember it, so why not save your money. Luckily for Ruby, a dance mat style piano, a la Tom Hanks in Big was on hand to save the day and even better, it was annoyingly loud, as a little treat for Rachel and Joe too. It’s funny what kids pick up from their parents. Rachel and Joe are obsessively tidy and if a crumb falls to the floor, it is swept up instantly. Watching Ruby unwrapping her presents it was funny to see her tear a strip off and place it carefully on the ground, then another strip and another, all laid immaculately in a pile. I can see the OCD coming, a mile off : )
As you can see from the pics, she is indeed the happiest kid on the planet and this is largely due to the brilliantly knitted poncho that she received, courtesy of Auntie Pam. Samantha’s knitting is progressing exponentially and she has recently finished a very cute pair of baby booties, very complicated they look to, three kinds of stitch involved I’m led to understand.
More news from the homeland soon.

England, sweet England...

noreply@blogger.com (chem7) — Wed, 31 Jan 2007 13:57:00 +0000

Returning to England in January after a year away is quite possibly one of the lowest points in my life so far. There are a lot of factors at work here involved in my despair and actually some of the time, I think its good to be back. I realise I’m not in Darfur, Iraq or some of the other more horrifying places on the planet to live, but England with its grey skies, its air of aggression and the general hectic ness of life, is pretty intense at times. Adding to my blackness has been a massive bout of jetlag, which lasted a week or so and then just as I thought I was getting over that, a nice, big cold with a thoroughly enjoyable dry, tickly, hacking cough has come to stay. Great. On top of all of this my mind has been full of weighty decisions that have to be made in the very near future. Where should we live? Brighton? The outskirts? Somewhere else in England? Australia? When we’ve decided where to live then we obviously have to find the right property and potentially get a preposterously, sickeningly large mortgage. Possibly £200,000. Gulp. Oh and then organise a wedding, and reproduce. Yup its finally time at the age of 35 that I have to do ‘adult’ things. Did I mention that we start back at work tomorrow? No? Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!
So you see, I’ve been a trifle out of sorts  The biggest come down ever after the biggest party ever I guess. If I haven’t been very good at getting back in contact with you all then hopefully you’ll understand where my head is at and rest assured I’ll be back to my normal self shortly.
On a positive tip some things are good to get back to. Seeing everyone after so long has been very, very good indeed. and its extra specially good to be staying in Helen’s luxury house till we get our act together. Hanging out with Hel, walking the sausage dogs, doing a bit of cooking and lounging about has been just what the Dr ordered. Also nice is to be able to watch some good old fashioned British Tv and see some damn good films too. Last night I finally watched the whole of The Hostel and almost as good as watching the film, was watching Helen cowering behind a cushion as she tried to avoid seeing daft Yanks being tortured. Getting my computer back up and running had been great and after 3 days of trying to make my synth work, it now does and it’s been f**king brilliant to be making some music again! I’ve not done anything concrete yet, but just getting back in that musical saddle again, remembering how the software works, has all been good. I’m using Acid Pro 5 and Fruity Loops currently, although as soon as I’m hooked up on broadband again, I think I’ll be grabbing Acid 6 from somewhere and seeing what number the latest Cubase is up to.
Walking around Brighton I've noticed alot of new graffiti here and there and very good it is too. It's good to see some nice art work adorning the shabbier bits of town, mind you London road is still a shit hole, oh yeah, you can swear on my blog now if you want Alex ;)
More thoughts from me coming to this blog soon.

Return to Blighty

noreply@blogger.com (chem7) — Sun, 14 Jan 2007 00:41:00 +0000

The last two days of our stay on Rarotonga have seen the sun reappear, like some kind of tease and have also led to the discovery of a goat that has a center hair parting, in fact, exactly like Jamie used to have, many moons ago :)
We went to 'Island Night' at a local bar and were surprised to discover that unlike the many huge Polynesian specimens on display around the island, this night featured some of the more lithe, younger Cook Islanders who danced away to the furious drumming of their elders like it was some kind of Pacific rave. The drumming was so good, I bought the CD and intend to sample it to death and then sell it to the highest bidder, Mwah ha ha!
We've just returned our faithful moped to its owners and are about to settle down for a final bout of suntanning at the pool before we get on the plane tonight. The moped was great, I love riding them, especially not having to wear a helmet, it's one of life's simple pleasures. It of course brought back memories of riding about Vietnam and the rest of South East Asia, brilliant days!

That's it. That's really it. The final blog of our year away, it seems like it's been, ooh, a year long and at the same time, like no time at all since we left. What a year it's been for us, quite simply the best year of our lives. It's pretty hard sitting here trying to articulate the words to sum up all the different experiences we've had that have made this year so incredible. The highlights of the trip for me have been many, but the standouts, never-to-be-forgotten moments would include:
Getting engaged: You don't forget that kind of thing in a hurry and I think I found the most perfect spot in New Zealand for it.
Japan: I'm still blown away by that place, except for it being a bit cold at times, I couldn't fault anything about it. Tokyo is a city of dizzying contrasts and excitement that I'm really looking forward to exploring again, I could bang on and on about everywhere we went and how good it all was, but I spent a month doing that last January, I even enjoyed hanging out with Alex, Eremi and Ant!
Borneo: Another amazing country. The wildlife there is something else, seeing Orang Utans in the wild and walking through the jungle was superb.
Sipadan: The best diving of my life, jaw-dropping, breath-taking underwater experiences that will live with me forever.
The Gibbon Experience: Being terrified as a storm raged around us in a tree house 50 meters off the ground may not sound fun, but something I would recommend anyone to do, absolutely mental :)
Western Australia: What a surprise, that Oz would be such a great place. Especially Western Oz, outstanding scenery and wildlife made for an unforgettable time.
Angkor Wat: 40 degree temperatures were pretty hard to take, but we sweated our way round the worlds biggest temple for 3 days and it was awesome.

In fact almost every day was outstanding, some days we actually rowed (I know that's hard to believe), some days we just spent washing, interneting, at the post office, but even then it was good, because we weren't at work and we were doing and seeing things that the majority of people will never do. Travelling, how I hate that term, but travelling none the less, is probably something that I should have done years ago when I was just a lad, I'd have probably spent the next decade continuing to travel about, but I feel that being a cynical, wizened 30 something year old has made me really appreciate even more everything we've done. It's a year that when I'm on my death bed (if I'm in bed), thinking about my life and what I've done with it and hopefully they'll be a lot more time yet to fill with family, friends and other amazing experiences, but it'll be one of those things that I'll look back on and be satisfied that I really lived my life in that period.
Well that's it folks, we hope you've enjoyed our blog as much as we've enjoyed writing it, I know its tough, but you'll all have to get back on with your lives now. If it's any consolation we'll be back in your lives in good old England come Monday morning.
A massive thanks to everyone who put Comments on our blog and who sent us emails, we love you guys :)

We're coming home :)

Paradise Lost

noreply@blogger.com (chem7) — Fri, 12 Jan 2007 02:37:00 +0000

The penultimate blog of our year away, I can't believe its all but over. In 4 days time we're going to be touching down in sunny England and the magical place that is Heathrow, mmmmmm.
The last few days have found us doing very, very little again, this time not because we've been lazing about in the sun, but because its been raining. Raining solid for the last 4 days. Its been pretty much the longest 4 days of my life, cooped up in our little bungalow, reading, playing a bit of PlayStation, knitting ( a lot of) moaning about the weather (aren't we always) and then escaping the tedium of the day as night falls to go out to a restaurant. Yep I know we're not at work and I know we're not freezing in England, but Rarotonga is officially the most boring place on the planet .... when its raining, there is literally nothing to do, so why have I stuck a photo of a lionfish on the blog. The day before the heavens opened on us I went diving once again and once again Sam pulled out at the last second, claiming that the rain the previous night and the clouds that morning would spoil her experience, these days our Samantha will settle for nothing less than perfection. The dive company have subsequently banned her from diving with them as she keeps cancelling at the last second :) The dives were very pleasant, the visibility pretty good and a reasonable amount of fish about to keep my interest up, Rarotonga isn't the Barrier Reef, but its not the English Channel either.

Some of the boredom of the last few days has been lessened by meeting some very nice 'normal' people. It's typical, you go away for a whole year, meeting tons of people along the way, the majority turning out to be fools and then right at the end you meet some genuinely nice ones. Namely a couple of Scots, Ronny and Alison and all the way from Bristol and er Macclesfield, Chris and Amy. We've been hanging out at various bars and restaurants these last few nights, escaping the rabble at our guesthouse and generally having a marvellous time. We look forward to meeting up for some more beers with you guys in a nice cold, smoky pub in England!
We're off to 'Island Night' tonight to watch some preposterously fat Polynesians dance and sing for us, Hoorah!
Final thoughts coming to a blog near you very soon.

Just Read: The Pilo Family Circus by Will Elliott - Psychotic clowns, Jamie you would love this book!

Listening to: Aphex Twin - Drukqs

Lazy Melts

noreply@blogger.com (Sam) — Sat, 06 Jan 2007 00:50:00 +0000

At this stage in the game, we have become extremely lazy. Given our year of ultimate excitement and doing, I have reasoned that this is acceptable behavior. We've been here for a week (possibly?) and so far we've done very, very little. The first 5 days were spent pool-side, listening to the youngsters at our hostel talk a load of boring drivel. All that 'where've you been, where you going next?' which seems to be the standard format for every interaction when you're on the road. By day five I was feeling somewhat mental, the cabin-fever at an almost intolerable level. But as the island had been shut for 4 days over New Year, there wasn't much we could do about it. The knitting reached prolific heights, even in the heat and severe humidity. It was time to get mobile. We went on a mission to find a moped. In the Cook Islands, you need to acquire a driving license before you hit the road, or at least that's the order in which you'd assume things to go. So out we went, got the bus into 'town,' hopped off to find the police station. Three police stations later, it was discovered that no, you have to hire a bike first, drive to the police station and THEN sit your test. A very hot and sweaty mission it turned out to be, especially as there weren't any drink-selling shops open. You could have bought black pearls (big business over here) all over town that day, but not a bottle of water in sight. Finally, the next day, three bike shops and another couple of bus journeys later, Andy was sitting his test. This involved going 100 meters down the road in a big group with a very grumpy policeman in pursuit. Eventually, after a bit of a wait and a prison-photo, we had a moped.

Hurray! We could now escape the confines of Rarotonga Backpackers. It's actually a very nice little place and quite cheap (not that I want cheap, but apparently the luxury boutiques are out of the question 'at this stage.') The pool is tiny but provides adequate wallowing facilities. Much more interesting and tropical though, is the beach. It's your classic stereotype of a south Pacific Island... palm trees, white sand, warm 27 degree crystal-clear sea, dotted with big mammas and the occasional snorkeler seeking out sea-cucumbers. A delicacy in Asia and Rarotonga, you bite off the head and suck the spaghetti-like innards from inside while it's still wriggling. It's not all bad though, because if you throw them back in the sea, they will regenerate new insides and become whole again. Mmmm!
Snorkeling is pretty special, with numerous large pipe fish, pufferfish, butterfly fish and boxfish.

Slightly annoying though, is the ever-menacing trigger-fish, our well-known enemy. This time it's the prevalent Picasso triggerfish which is the nasty one, it's main aim in life to take chunks out of holiday makers in the name of protecting their territory. Evil. Andy went on a couple of dives this morning, but I did my usual trick of chickening out at the last minute. There were two factors at play in the brain - 1. I'd had absolutely no sleep after we'd had to move out of our bungalow and into a tiny double room which offers no solitude from the backpacker crowd 2. There's been a massive storm during the night, and I was a bit scared that the visibility would be rubbish and it would be choppy out. Apparently I didn't miss much as we saw more snorkeling yesterday, even though Andy did his first wreck dive.

One of the most striking things about Rarotonga is the numerous colourful graves dotted about. Usually, relatives are buried in the back garden of local houses, but there are some enormous graveyards as well. Since the missionaries arrived here in 1821, Christianity has played a big role in island life. Some people even go to church as a tourist activity, but this is mainly because everybody gets a free lunch afterwards! So, zooming along on the moped (40 minutes to go round the whole island!), you see these colourful sights, churches, signs for posh resorts (mercifully hidden from my view), locals heading out wearing bright shirts and a flower tucked behind their ears. Behind the left means you're single, behind the right indicates you're taken for). Quite often, you have to swerve to miss the odd piglet or chicken, but as the speed-limit is 40 kph (20kph in the town!) this doesn't pose much of a problem.

Cook Islanders are Polynesians, closely related to the Maoris of NZ and Tahiti and first settled here around 1500 years ago. The Europeans landed a 1,000 years later and in 1773 Captain Cook spotted the islands, but didn't actually land on Rarotonga. He then went on to meet his demise in Hawaii where he was stabbed to death in 1779, and William Bligh one of his crew went onto lead the infamous Mutiny on the Bounty a decade thereafter. The missionaries brought lots of nasty diseases with them like smallpox and dysentery which wiped out a few of the locals at that time. They did a good job of stopping the practice of cannibalism though, a torturous method involving skewering the victim on a spear and then barbecuing over an open fire so as to remove the hair and cuticles. Then the body was steamed in an underground oven and shared equally amongst the tribal warriors. The most prized cuts were the thighs and the intestines and the women weren't allowed to join in. Today, there are 14,000 laid back, friendly Rarotongan inhabitants, ambling along with 16,000 pigs! It's so laid-back it's difficult to stand up sometimes and in this heat, there seems little point in exerting oneself unnecessarily. One week to go, maybe we should do something tomorrow?

Currently drinking : Vailima, a Samoan brew with a nice label.

Currently Reading : The Crow Road, by the inimitable Iain Banks.

Worst Film of the Year : Eragon. An unsurprisingly dreadful tale about a dragon written by a 17 year old (you can tell).

Best Film of the Week : Marie Antionette. A film about lovely frocks and cakes.

The Cook Islands

noreply@blogger.com (chem7) — Fri, 29 Dec 2006 03:19:00 +0000

Welcome to the Cook Islands and the middle of no-where! In fact the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Here's a confusing tale of time for you all. We flew on Saturday 30th at 2pm from New Zealand and landed in Rarotonga, the largest of the Cook Islands, on Friday 29th at 10.40pm. When we woke the next day, it was Saturday the 30th all over again, which made that particular Saturday, the longest Saturday of my life, literally. When we left New Zealand, we were 13 hours ahead of you guys and now we're 10 hours behind you, so while you were all celebrating midnight and 2007, we were sunbathing by our pool at 2pm New Years Eve! How weird is that? Answers on a postcard, even though I know how and why, I'm still confused :)
Rarotonga is 32k in diameter and takes 2 hours to ride around the whole island on a bike, apparently. The island is surrounded on all sides by a reef which looks amazing and will get some pics up soon. There are about 15 islands that people live on in the group, but probably loads of other smaller ones too, Rarotonga has a population of about 18,000, but you see very few people walking around, one of the other islands I saw in the LP, has a population of 2 :)
Since we got here 2-3 days ago, the most we have done is get our lazy bums out onto the sun loungers by the pool, the only exception was last night, New Years, when we managed to drag ourselves to the beach for some late night drinks. It was a very pleasant affair, me and Samantha, some cheap fizz and the odd hound, Sam has indeed now started making friends with dogs again. It was pretty cool sitting on a beach in the South Pacific, something that dreams are made of really and here we were living that dream, kinda weird :)
Happy New Year to you all and we'll see you in 2 weeks!!!

"Rotorua smells like Manure..."

noreply@blogger.com (Sam) — Tue, 26 Dec 2006 04:04:00 +0000

I hope you all had a splendid Chistmas. We missed you all terribly and even though we were in Rotorua, a city famous for its geothermal regions and it's strong sense of Maori culture, it was still a bit lacking in something essential without the ones we love (you know who you are). But we couldn't mope around for long - we had to inventively bring a bit of magic to a deserted holiday park! My fab prezzies were a tub of my most favourite Ginger Souffle body cream from Origins (how I've missed you) and a book about knitting for thickies (apparently previous projects have been too adventurous). Santa brought Andy a Japanese comic and a couple of DVDs. Our families also donated us lots of money to the ever-dwindling hardship fund. Many thanks to you all !! 5* luxury in Rarotonga here we come!

Christmas morning was spent at Te Puia, one of the largest geothermal parks in the area. Unfortunately, the craters, fumaroles, bubbling mud pools, spewing geysers and volcanic mineral deposits weren't quite enough to impress Andy, who I could tell was already awaiting the Maori concert with trepitation. We wouldn't have normally gone to such a tourist-fest, but it was included in the entrance fee and is a good way to see an example of a kapa haka, or group performance. Andy anxiously said that we had to sit at the back to we weren't picked out to get on stage with any scary warriors. As would follow with these sort of affairs, one of audience had to volunteer to be our representative and greet the warrior who was brandishing a large spear. This tribal Polynesian ritual dictates that the host will challenge the visitor and lay down an offering such as a leaf before him. The visitor whould accept the leaf whilst maintaining eye-contact, to indicate that he somes peacefully. Whakapapa, or genealogy is a very important aspect of the belief system. Maori belief states that we do not just present an individual being, but with all the spirits of our ancestors in tow. Once inside the marae, or meeting house, speeches of welcome are made and then the musical and dancing performances begin.

The Maori, being the indigenous people of Aotearoa (NZ), first arrived in voyaging canoes from Hawaiki, their ancestral homeland some 1,00o years ago. There are legends about almost everything in New Zealand, but the most well-known are those about Maui and the origins of the country. It states that he caught the North Island of Aoteroa from the sea with a giant fishing hook. If you look at a map of the North Island, it resembles a fish, the far North being the tail of the fish and Wellington representing its mouth. The South Island represents Maui's canoe and Stewart Island was his anchor. Traditional Maori arts and crafts are practiced throughout the country, most notable fantastic wood, greenstone or bone carvings, in typical designs such as the fish hook (in keeping with the legend) and the Hei Tiki, a fertility symbol. Weaving and moko (tatooing) are also still widely practiced, which in my book is cool ("keeping wool alive"). While it is customary for men have their whole face and body covered with amazing designs (including their bottoms), female moko is more usually seen to cover only their mouth and chin area. Quite possibly the coolest tatts around.

Just because a bloke with a funny beard and rainbow sandals was picked to represent us, this added fuel to Andy's fire. He then had to greet each member of the other tribe by doing a hongi (ie. pressing noses twice). This is the traditional greeting which means sharing of life breath. I suppose that could have a down side too. Thus followed half an hour of traditional song and dance which involved a fair amount of Poi. This time it's cool though, because we're not on a Thai beach and they could do it properly. Fully relieved for the ordeal to be over, Andy marched us off to commence dinner preparations.

Despite our fear, the caravan park was totally devoid of other people on Christmas day. We sat there in the desolate campers kitchen with enough food for a Hangi, feeling guity about the lonesome man who sat with a bread roll and a banana while we merrily made our way through a bottle of cava, a fancy bottle of red and several Tuis. The dinner was monstrous hybrid of flavours including, but not exclusively, olive and sundried tomato stuffing, spicy red cabbage and lamb shanks. So it was us and the bread-roll man who actually turned out to be a jolly nice and decent Aussie.

After we'd made a right show of ourselves, we rolled into the hot tub where we sweated off the booze. An unforgiving and sobering moment occurred when my camera's self-timer went off twice. The photo immediately following this poised scene, was one of my stomach and thighs climbing out of the tub towards the camera. Now that's something that no girl post-Christmas lunch should ever see. A couple of DVDs later, it was time for the second best thing about Christmas dinner - Christmas dinner leftovers. Thus ensued a fitful nights sleep littered with nightmares. I dreamt I was so fat I looked like Anne Diamond and had taken to wearing an enormous jumper. That's what happens when you go to bed stuffed.

Boxing day was attempt to get my fiance to appreciate all this natural power and raw beauty. 20km south of Rotorua, is Waiotapu. Having been here before, I knew how amazing the colours were and how totally otherworldly the place felt - like being on the moon. So here we were, on a baking hot Boxing day, wandering through clouds of hot sulphurous steam, trying our best to stick to the narrow pathway with our hangovers fully intact to prevent being boiled to death in the 90 degree water, and he still wasn't having the time of his life. The amazing colours you see here are formed due to the different mineral elements such as suphur, iron oxide, carbon and manganese. Mr. Mounter would state that all these elements are "the most abundant in the earth's crust," well they certaily are here. The water is so hot in places (upto 300 degrees C in parts!!) that the minerals are leached from the rocks, transported through to the surface as steam where they are absorbed into the ground. The whole place totally stinks of rotten eggs, due to hydrogen sulphide spewing about all over the place. Wai-O-Tapu, meaning 'sacred waters,' covers 18 sq km of surface land, and dates back 160,000 years. The park sits on the edge of the largest volcanic caldera of the Taupo region and the stream water is heated by residual magma from previous eruptions.

Traditionally, the waters were used for cooking and the mud for bathing. It's therapeutic properties were recognised many moons ago and can help alleviate aches and pains associated with arthritis and rheumatism. Indeed, rickety souls around in the early 1900's could test this hypothesis at the The Rotorua Bath House, a hospital / spa, eager to cash in on this economy. But it all went quickly wrong when, after a few years and great investment, the sulphurous elements began to destrol the metal pipes and very quickly it became a dank and mouldy place falling to pieces (ooh, sounds familiar, RSCH). It now stands as a museum and has lots of interesting and bizarre exhibits and the treatments on offer. The mud is still used in Rotorua's hospital today for similar conditions. Not being upto more heat and eggy vapour, we laid down in a park by the lake and fell asleep for the afternoon. Well, I didn't as I'm currently heavily involved with the wool project of the week - another scarf (very safe).

We did pop to Christchurch for a couple of days before all this volcanic malarky, but I wasn't really in the mood for taking photos in light of recent news from home. This city, which has a palpable British air with it's cathedral and punting down the river Avon seemed quite pleasnat, apart from the disasterously wet weather. In fact, all we managed to do was to see my old friend Helen. Actually, she's not that old, but she is indeed very lovely. We met at Uni before she had the good sense to escape our ridiculous course. She now lives in this fab country with her bloke Bruce and they picked us up in the POURING rain, for a comforting evening of roast dinner, champagne and stories of the good old days. Much fun was had dissecting our course-mates personalities (that bit was mainly me, I have to say) and Andy says I did a lot of talking in general. Even for me. Well, it's been about 10 years, so there was a lot to say. They have a beautiful house by the beach, but we couldn't see this due to the driving rain. It was like staying in a posh boutique hotel, where the towels are all rolled up neatly. We even had a goody bag containing mince pies and sweeties! Truly, it was great to see Hennals with her new hair!!

A frightening ferry journey across the Cook's Strait, saw swells of 4 metres. Luckily, the day before it had been over 8 metres and the whole affair took about 8 hours of sheltering in the Marlborough sound rather than the intesded 2 hours. People were vomiting, children were green, but we were OK though we had to sit separately as the ferry was packed. All we do now, is wait for our flight to The Cook Islands - our final destination. Where has the time gone?!?!?!

Festive read of the week : Schapelle Corby : My Life ( The story of the Australian caught with narcotics and now serving 20 years in an Indonesian slammer - the only crime she is guilty of is having the greatest chav name in history).

Festive Campaign : Justice for Schapelle!

Festive Film of the Week : Kiki's Delivery service - a Japanese animation about a trainee witch and one of the many spur-of-the-moment Christmas presents to Andy.

The Routeburn Track

noreply@blogger.com (chem7) — Sun, 24 Dec 2006 05:37:00 +0000

Before Christmas came and went, we had one last adventure in the South island.
We love walking so much that we decided to walk some more, in fact another 36k along the Routeburn Track. We' ve now walked about 100k around New Zealand, which for Sam, is more than she has driven in our campervans over the last three and a half months :)
The walk that everyone wants to do in NZ is the Milford track, in fact its so popular that its booked up in advance for months and so we couldn't go on it. Our second choice was the Routeburn track, a walk that takes you through forests and alpine mountain ranges and in many peoples opinion is actually the more scenic of the two tracks, as for much of the Milford, you are walking in a valley, not up in the mountains themselves. Having learnt our lessons from the Abel Tasman walk, we got ourselves kitted out with brand new rucksacks, took along some decent grub and I made sure I had a good book with me and Sam, as her OCD dictates, took her knitting.
The Routeburn track starts about forty minutes bus journey from Glenorchy, which is itself about an hour from Queenstown. Arriving at two in the afternoon we set off into a forest and gradually headed uphill, along the way spotting three mice and a small parakeet, not all at once you understand. We emerged from the wood into the valley you see above, surrounded by high mountains and had a snack before continuing our climb. Rounding a corner in the forest we came upon a man holding some shears. This was either a Psycho about to murder us or a Ranger clearing shrubbery from the path. Luckily it was the latter and he accompanied us on the remaining short journey to our first hut, the Routeburn Falls hut. Along the way he picked some leaves from a bush and said a lot of travellers ate them, saying they tasted a bit like chocolate. I nibbled the corner of one, but thought it tasted weird, so spat it out, Sam said to him she thought they might be poisonous which of course he denied, but we were then convinced he was actually a Psycho Ranger, the third option that we had forgotten. The Falls hut had a great view of a valley and the mountains and a waterfall just behind it. We ate a Tuna salad with dressing that we'd pre-made, much nicer than space food. We crashed out in the bunk room which was basically, rows of bunk beds and this time there was no hanky-panky to endure, it was very cold though and we didn't get much sleep. The next day found us climbing once again up through a valley and onwards through the mountains. It was a beautiful, sunny day and the scenery got better and better as the day wore on. Lunchtime brought us to a day shelter next to the beautiful Lake Harris, which as you can see had an amazing green colour around the edges. After another quality salad for lunch we decided to climb Conical Hill. We'd been told that morning that the hill walk was closed due to two sections of snow, one of which if you slipped could lead to a rather nasty fall. However lots of people were still doing this section of the walk and the views at the top of the hill were meant to be spectacular so we decided to go as high as we could without taking too many risks. The first section of snow we came to was very steep and we carefully made our way up it digging our feet in deeply as we went, fashioning our own stairs out of the snow. It must have been about a hundred or so meters long, but straight uphill. After clambering up some rocks after that we came to the second section of snow. This was the dodgy bit and you could see that if you slipped and couldn't stop yourself, you would plummet down the side of the mountain to your possible doom. Sam decided on staying where she was, but I had to continue, so close to the top I had to see the views. Taking it very slowly and carefully, really digging my feet in, following previous walkers footsteps I inched my way up to the top. In fact it was fairly easy in the end and when I got to the top I was rewarded with 360 degree incredible views of the surrounding mountains. You could even see right down to the Tasman sea. I knew Sam had to see it, so I went back down to get her, but she had already decided to come up and so I met her halfway. It's definitely one of the best landscape views I've experienced in my life, up there with Yosemite (USA), Sapa (Vietnam), Western Oz (the whole of) and the views of Mount Cook and Tasman here in NZ. Getting back down the mountain was a bit trickier. The first and more scary section proved the easier, the second section involved Sam going at a snails pace and me slipping and sliding on my bum and then coming back up again to help Sam and then Sam telling me off for not helping her :)
We spent the afternoon walking along a track that ran along the side of the mountains looking down on a valley on our way to the second hut of the journey. The second hut was situated at the bottom of another valley by a lake called Lake Mackenzie. It was another picture perfect location to spend the night at. The lake was gorgeous and at time almost mirror like. Some nutty types were having a quick swim when we got there, the water must have been about 10 degrees! Another hut, another mad ranger, who gave us all a fire briefing in the style of someone who has always wanted to be a stand up comedian, but who instead is someone who spends far to much time in the woods...alone. For those of you interested in camp cooking ( I don't mean gay cooking Alex) we had instant mash with Mexican beans and salami, again miles nicer that space food. Apart from bringing better food, we also brought condiments in small snap lock baggies. Salt, Pepper, Chilli flakes and grated cheese were some of the little 'luxuries' that made everything taste much better.
The last day of our walk saw us strolling a mere three hours through a wood. It had turned into a bit of a crappy day and we were pleased to finally get to the third and last hut. We camped out in the hut, virtually the only people there, me reading and Sam knitting. Our peace and tranquility was spoilt somewhat by an exceedingly annoying Scottish mother, who began ordering people around as soon as she entered and ended up filling the hut with smoke, setting off the fire alarm, as she ordered some hapless bloke to light a fire with wet wood. Nice one. Finishing the walk the next day we were collected by a bus for a visit to see Milford Sound before being taken back to Queenstown later that day. Milford Sound is the most famous tourist destination in NZ. It's where the boat journey in the first Lord of the Rings film was filmed and is the first of about thirteen fjords that stretch down this bit of the west coast, surprisingly its called Fjordland. Unfortunately the weather was shockingly awful, rain, mist and low lying clouds meant that the dramatic features of the Sound could hardly be seen and so the best photo I took was this one of Sam :) Getting back to Queenstown was great, it's the nicest town we've been in NZ, so beautiful, but after another day there we had to get going to Christchurch over on the east coast. On the way there we drove past Mount Cook again and this time saw it spectacularly mirrored in another lake. I've never seen anything quite like it. Stunning!

Currently Watching: Grey's Anatomy

Listening to: Cinerama - Va Va Voom

Happy Christmas!!!!

noreply@blogger.com (chem7) — Sun, 24 Dec 2006 04:57:00 +0000

A massive amount of general waving and screaming from us to you all as we say:

Happy Christmas!!!!!

We've just arrived in Rotorua, possibly one of the world's smelliest city's. It's not me this time, it's the sulphurous pools and springs that abound in this area. We've checked in to the always great 'Top 10' camping ground and just been to the supermarket to get our Xmas lunch, Lamb shanks, mmmmmm! The fridge is full of fizzy white wine, Tui beer and a bit of space left for some snags for a barbi. The weather has picked up and we're back on the North island again hoping for a sunny Christmas, the first time I've ever hoped for that! We're gonna go see the volcanic action Xmas morning and then its dinner, followed by a dvd and a mince pie (cheers Helen). It's all looking good, even the Toon won yesterday. If you want a festive laugh then check out Cut-thumb's Xmas blog, it does contain some cursing though :)
For those of you worrying about our upcoming date with the military coup in Fiji, worry no more, cause we've changed our flights and we're off to the Cook Islands instead.

Hope you all have a great day wherever you are, we'll be thinking of you (some of you) in our own special way. Here with her own Xmas message is the cutest girl of them all......my niece Ruby!

The Best Grandad...

noreply@blogger.com (Sam) — Wed, 20 Dec 2006 01:48:00 +0000

In Memory of Tom Croom Senior

1920- 2006

You will be forever missed
Thank-you so much for all of it...
XXX