Emu's near Exmouth

(21 Mar 2011, Exmouth) Emu's are as common as dirt in this part of Western Australia. It's the far north western corner of the country where we've come to snorkel on the Ningaloo Reef at Cape Range National Park.

Exmouth is outside the park so there was quite a bit of driving back and forth to the various swimming sites. e.g., Torquoise Bay is probably the most famous, there's a "drift snorkel" that's pretty good.

There's many road hazards you need to watch for in the park. Emu's are very big, about 5-6 foot tall and probably as heavy as a person. They're wandering about by the side of the road feasting on the bugs (locusts I assume) which are quite thick given recent rainfalls. You wouldn't want to run into one. Emu's I mean -- of course you run into the bugs!

By the same token you wouldn't want to run into a wild horse, or a kangaroo, or a large lizard (we met a Perentie one morning crossing the road .. it was about 5 feet long!). We're told that the Perentie is the largest lizard in Australia and the second largest in the world. It was the biggest one I've ever seen.

We're told to watch for large pythons and crocodiles in the Kimberley region but haven't met any of those. Nor do we want to.

Big Rigs in the Pilbarra

(March 22, 2011) My family drives trucks, long haul big trucks, but nothing like the trucks in the Pilbarra. We drove from Exmouth into the interior to see the Karijini National Park -- in a land as flat as Australia the Karijini and the Hamersley mountain ranges of the Pilbarra provide some interesting contrast.

That red dust of the Australian landscape is red for a good reason -- it's the rust of iron ore. This truck is on display at Paraburdoo where they have an open pit iron mine. The vehicle is huge and reminds us of one Tony, my brother, took us to see in Western Canada. He likes big rigs, he'd love this one.

We stayed nearby in the town of Tom Price at the Karijini Lodge run by Rio Tinto (there's another big mine nearby). A typical mining town with few options for tourists like us.

Sunset Camel Ride on Cable Beach

On March 25, 2011 Kate and I (along with another 8 or so couples, some younger, some older, some anniversaries, some singles) took a sunset camel train ride on Cable Beach. We rode the lead camel, Horris, who is an old hand at this game. He's from NT and has been in several movies including "Australia" of course. Weather was perfect with a stunning sunset. Today it's cloudy so we were lucky to have gone when we did.

There are three different companies who all conduct tours at the same time and for a similar cost. Ours was the "Ships of the Desert" and lots of fun. There were 9 camels who patiently put up with the punters on board. The crew of four had a couple from France, a young woman from Turkey and the captain, another young lady, whose family owned the company.

We took lots of photos, they took photos, and they even took photos with our cameras -- this is one with our camera. We bought a package of three photos they had taken. I asked about getting digital copies and the captain said sure, just contact us from their web page. I did and they kindly supplied a bundle of great photos they had taken.

We had quite the conversation with the guide from Turkey who, like us, loves to snorkel. We had snorkelled at many of the same places including the Ningaloo Reef at Coral Bay and Exmouth (we agreed that Coral Bay is the best) and, big surprise, Magnetic Island on the east coast!

The captain told us that she swims at Cable Beach all year round. Signs warn us this is not prudent. It's currently the season for nasty stingers -- Box Jelly Fish and Irrikanji can do real damage. We haven't seen any but are reluctant to venture into the water even with our full skins (ie. body suits). The captain says we should give it a go .... you'd have to be very unlucky to get hit by a stinger. Mind you, you'd require hospitalization if you were unlucky.

Weather is very warm. Our room at the Pearl of Cable Beach is a wonderful retreat. A joy after some of the places we've had along the road.

Starting these Notes

Kate and I are travelling in Australia and will blog some of the more interesting events and post a few photos.

We've been in Perth since mid February (Kate was working with colleagues at NDRI) and have been driving north towards Darwin since mid March. We're in Broome where our drive has met the predicted obstacle - roads are closed due to flooding, washouts, etc. We can't go any further.

We've cancelled rooms we've booked and flights we had arranged from Darwin. Our plans are to stay here a while and return to Perth. From Perth we'll fly to Melbourne for Kate's KBS meeting. Back to Canada mid-April in time for Dad's 97th birthday.

You're supposed to tour the Kimberley in the winter -- outside the rainy season when roads are closed.

Perth

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We were in Perth, Western Australia from mid February to mid March -- avoiding the cold of our winters and enjoying the warmth of their summer.

We rented a small apartment for the month near Scarborough Beach (that's north of the CBD but not as far north as when we stayed at Sorrento back in 2004). Kate was busy enough with work at NDRI/Curtin University and I had lots of time to explore the city. We'd often go on adventures, especially on weekends. The odd creature in the photo is a "Quaka" which are only found on Rottnest Island near Perth. They're large rodents, very curious and friendly.

We took a short boat trip out to Penguin Island near Rockingham (that's just a little south of the city) to swim and see the Little Penguins (sometimes called Little Blue or Ferrie Penguin). These were in a zoo like viewing area. If there are some in the wild we didn't see them. They're endangered and wiped out in many parts of the country -- they rest during the night in burrows and are easy prey for cats, rats and dogs. All creatures that have been brought into the country.

We of course spent a lot of time on Scarborough Beach, there are nice restaurants on the beach and lovely sunsets. You're on the west coast of Australia. And there's lovely sand beaches for miles and miles. We visited many of them. We learned about the distinction between "Bogans" and "Hoons" -- even went to an event where they celebrate Bogans. Both are Australian slang and derogatory. In our part of the world we'd say "red neck" rather than "bogan". "Hoons" are the idiots who jack up their cars and burn donuts -- we were told that Scarborough Beach was rife with them but nothing seemed out of place to us. Perhaps that happens more around the December - January holiday period. Kids were back at school when we were there.

One weekend we went south to the Margaret River wine region with our bicycles. Probably the best wine area in all of Western Australia. We bicycled around a bit (gosh it was hot), sampled lots of wines, good restaurants and went swimming in the ocean. At the South Western tip, Cape Leuwin, we did a tour of the Blackwood River on a small boats . Lots of birds, some wind surfers and even a couple of dolphin. At Hamelin Bay we met up with some friendly stingray at the beach. There's the beautiful Yarri forest nearby. On the way back we stopped at the Bussleton Jetty.

There's lots to see in Perth. Reabold Hill is natural parkland within the city near NDRI with good views of the city. I went one day after dropping Kate at work. At Cottesloe Beach, south side of Perth,  there was an impressive juried sculpture exhibition right on the beach. Lots of bright colors and thought provoking works. King's Park in Perth is always interesting. It's a huge park with lots of natural woods and grasslands. There are great views of the city and the Swan River. Lots of interesting trees including a giant Boab (bottle tree) that they trucked thousands of kms from the Kimberley region (up near Broome and Darwin).

Kate and I visited the town of Fremantle again. Our first trip to Australia was to a conference held here in 2003 (per-digital era). It's the container port harbor on the Swan River. At the local farmer's market you could buy free-range ostrich eggs. They're huge. We stopped into a funky bar, "Mojos", in North Fremantle and caught an afternoon of music.

I've mentioned already our bike trip on Rottnest Island. There are a lot of secluded bays where you can go snorkelling in crystal clear waters. I managed to gash my head open swimming under some rocks.

Perth is a lovely city to visit. The weather is ideal, the beaches go on forever, there's nearby vineyards and lots of great wine. We like visiting, it's unfortunate that it's just so far away!

Uganda

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Kate's KBS Society had a special meeting at the Munyonyo Commonwealth Resort on Lake Victoria just outside of Kampala in Uganda. This was our first trip to Africa. We flew there through Heathrow in London, then straight south to Kampala.

The resort is quite a fancy place and was built recently for a Commonwealth of Nations 2007 meeting (the commonwealth is a league of 54 nations with very close ties to England including places like Canada, Australia, India, Uganda and many more). But there are some things that remind one that you're in a developing nation -- minimal internet, mosquito nets over your beds, tap water that should be boiled first, avoid the lake (schistosomiasis), and more. I suspect it's the only luxury resort of it's kind.

The resort is quite luxurious compared to what's outside those walls. The rooms are large and well cared for. The grounds are landscaped with tended gardens, artificial waterfalls, palm tree, lots of flowers and wild life. There's several swimming pools, a cricket pitch and even stables with fine horse flesh (I'm not a judge, but they looked pretty nice). Of the wildlife the storks, ibis and weaver birds are all quite interesting. The monkeys are there whether you like them or not. I gather they can be a bother. The snails make the snails in Burgundy look like pikers ... I wonder if anyone eats them? One would be a meal.

The grounds are so lovely -- wedding parties come for photo sessions, some have their weddings and banquets here. And it would appear that the wedding culture is very much like north america -- long flowing gowns, veils, attendants in tuxedos, the whole nine yards. But there are some peculiarities to marriage as polygamy is allowed in Uganda. We found out about that sort of by the by. We were talking to our driver who was taking us some place and he was talking about his mother and his other mother his father's second wife. You mean your mother died and father remarried? No. You mean your parents divorced and your father remarried again? No. It took a while to figure out that his dad had two wives.

We stayed mostly on the resort grounds. I did venture out and walked to a nearby fishing village;  another time we had a driver take us into Kampala. People were friendly and seemed happy. Gift shops had mostly hand fabricated clothes and art works. It's a pretty hard scrabble life.

We had some nice dinners together at the resort. Often there's an Indian influence to their dishes -- spices, curry, and so on. We had an interesting conversation with one of the servers. She was a pretty young woman, perhaps 20 years old or so. We wanted to take some drinks to one of the pools that overlook the lake and she insisted on helping. We got talking to her and discovered that she felt really fortunate to have this job serving guests at the resort -- there aren't that many jobs around. We asked if she was getting good tips from the guests as the restaurant had a 15% VAT and 5% tip added. Close to tears she told us that she didn't get any of that, it was scooped by the resort. After that we made sure to tip in cash directly to the server. Kate told her that she had worked as a server when she was her age. How can that be possible? How did you end up where you are? The answer was education. She had no hopes of having an education or of doing any better than being an underpaid server at a resort serving rich foreigners like us.

And, by African standards, Uganda is doing pretty well.

There's a picture in the album of Kate with a couple of security guards. Each are carrying shotguns -- I don't think they've ever been used. Both weapons were a little rusty and they one had a dinted barrel. I wonder if they'd be safe to fire?

Kate and I had an adventure on Ngamba Island near Entebbe. It's a secluded island that's a chimpanzee refuge. Our friends took a white water rafting tour on the river one day (those aren't my pictures). Other friends took a safari tour into the wilds, staying over night and meeting up with rhino's and other native beasts. We weren't keen on bumping around on the back roads -- the roads around the resort where bad enough.

I mentioned schistosomiasis in Lake Victoria. It's a parasite that's carried by snails that will get in your eyes and will make you blind. That's why the water isn't safe for swimming. There are lots of crazy stories about  people mucking with the eco-system. Lake Victoria is the source of the Nile and separated from the Nile by Victoria Falls. This meant that the lake had a unique eco-system with fishes that were only found here. Below the falls there's the large Nile perch (they're huge, some as big as a person). Someone had the bright idea back in the 1950's that they should bring them to the lake and establish a commercial fishery -- this nearly wiped out the native and much smaller fishes. To make matters worse the big perch are a commercial fishery from bigger boats for external markets, the natives who fished from their small canoes relied on the smaller fish for their food!

Anyways, check out the photos. It's an interesting place to visit and staying at the Munyonyo Resort gives you the western comforts.

Monroe Landon Woods

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My friend Charles, pictured at left, wanted to go on a guided nature walk in the Monroe Landon Woods in Norfolk County near Simcoe Ontario -- it's a little ways from London where Charles lives. I'm his chauffeur today and we drive the hour and a half or so to join the group.

It's a cool fall day with some sun, lots of color in the woods, and lots to see.

Charles took some pictures on film, I did too on digital.