The Australian Movies

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The other day while going through the photos from the Australian trip I realised I had quite a few videos as well that I couldn´t publish at the time due to bandwith limitations. But now I have no such limitations. :-)

So why not doing a post with all the videos?

So fasten your belt and get ready for some moving action! Nothing spectacular I must admit but you may find some quite interesting. The first video was taken on the trip from Sydney to Melbourne - Day 3.

As usual,  my camera does not allow me to take photos from long distances so I had to get pretty close in order to take a picture from the below kangaroos...but as soon as I started to get any closer they would jump away so if I wanted to capture them with my camera I would have to make it as a movie and this is the result:

The below second and third videos were taken in Tasmania while visiting the Tasmanian devil conservation park. I took a few photos from the tasmanian devils but you can't really appreciate how mean they are from a photo. A video however, it's another story. :-)

The below two cute things spent half an hour going at each other, unfortunatelly I only captured a few seconds but you can hear the sound they make when fighting.

The next one is my FAVORITE. Pay no attention to the image, only the sound it's important. Do you remember the talking toilet I blogged about when I was in Adelaide ?
See to believe!

Dangerous if you spend more than 10 minutes inside...the door unlocks...

The next set of videos were taken in Kangaroo Island - Day 1. If you like sea lions or seals you are in for a treat!

Momma sea lion and her calf.

They like to play too!

I also made a few movies of the New Zealand fur seals on Kangaroo Island - Day 2

Looking for Momma. A baby seal spent quite a lot of time looking for his/her momma, in the following 3 videos you can see him/her searching desperately all over...

The next video was taken at the pinnacles in the trip Perth to Broome - Day 1

I've noticed that all the photos I was taken weren't making justice to the place, in this video you can appreciate the magnitude of the area and how many pinnacles there were...although you can only see a small section of the area.

The next one is from our 3rd day on the trip Perth to Broome. Feeding the dolphins. Although it may not look like it, these are wild dolphins.

The next three videos were from when Aída, Sharon and Hitome when to see the whale sharks (Perth to Broome - Day 5)

And that was it ladies and gentlemen. All the videos I had from Australia. It took a while to upload them all but I hope you find them worth it of your precious time. :-)

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Australian Road Signs

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One day, a long time ago. Aída and I were typing away in some McDonalds somewhere in Australia. She lifted her head from the keyboard and out of the blue she asked me what would I do if one day I didn't have anything to post. If we have a day with no photos and if nothing remarkable happened that day.

I thought about it for a while and replied that I would do a post just with all the Australian Road Signs...

As it happens, not even uneventfull days could shout me up and I've managed to keep posting and talking even on days with barely no photos nor anything remarklable to talk about so in the end I could never publish the famous "Australian Road Signs post" that I had always kept for a rainy day.

So, ladies and gentlemen...this is it!

The Australian Road Sign Blog Post

This is my full collection. The weird and the wonderful from Australia. Enjoy!

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Back in Darwin - Day 3

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This was an odd day, as you all probably know by now there was a volcanic eruption in Iceland which has thrown a lot of ashes into the european skies forcing all the major airports to close. All the airlines a clueless about when they'll be able to operate and take passengers back to Europe.

Aída and myself were meant to take the flight from Darwin to Singapore and from there I would flight to Thailand the following day whereas Aída would take the flight to London and then another one to Tenerife.

As all the airports in London were closed we didn't know whether she should go to Singapore or stay put in Darwin until the situation clears up. According to the news, there were already 7000 people stranded in Singapore without accomodation, all hotels were fully booked since most flights to Europe stop at Singapore and there were no flights to Europe. Luckily I had booked mine one day before the problems started so I had no problem with finding a place to stay in Singapore while I wait for my flight to Thailand.

Alan was having similar problems trying to flight back to London. He was supposed to start working on Monday but the way things were going that wasn't a posibility and the airline had given him a provisional date of 26th of April, i.e. in one week.

So he had to go to the airport to talk to someone there and see what he could do about his flight but the shuttle service to the airport is quite expensive so he decided to find out whether there was a bus to go there, in the meantime I was trying to phone Quantas to find out what was happening about Aída's flight.

After 25 minutes on hold, Alan came back saying there was a bus that would leave him 15 minutes walk from the airport so as nobody was answering the phone (probably half of the world was calling the same number for the same reason we were) so Aída and I decided to tag along with him and go to the airport. It's always better talking to someone face to face.

The trip to the airport was more than we had bargained for. We asked the bus driver whether he could let us know when we got to the our stop. The driver was a nice old chinese man who didn't speak very good english but after repeating the same question 3-4 times in many different ways he managed to understand us.

In order to see the map we were showing him he took his sunglasses off and put the reading glasses on, when we paid for our tickets he took the sunglasses and asked me whether they were mine and I obviously said no but I asked Aída and Alan just in case if they were theirs to what they said no as well, I returned them to the driver and he said...oh! but those are my glasses!! :-?? He forgot what his glasses looked liked? It didn't inspire much confidence...

Then in one of the stops a group of aboriginals boarded the bus and they were all visibly drunk and shouting all the way, so much so that by the time we reached our stop the driver had to get off the bus, walk all around it and get back in through the back door just to let us know that that was our stop, we couldn't hear him with all the noise.

We were supposed to walk for 15 minutes or so according to what we had been told...it turned out we walked for about 30-45 minutes under the scorching midday sun, with our flip-flops (standard shoewear in Australia) and without any water... we walked and walked all along a very busy motorway.

Not exactly a relaxing walk in the woods...

We almost cried when we saw the terminal in the distance

We got inside the nicely air condicioned airport, run straight to the first stand we found and bought a nice and cool drink...the first half a litre went down in lest than 2 minutes...but at least we could talk again. :-)

So we went to practice our newly recovered ability to talk with the lady at the Quantas desk and pretty much told us there was nothing she or us could do at the moment. Aída would have to stay put in Darwin since they don't allow you to flight to Singapore unless you have a connecting flight somewhere outside Europe. Offered to pay her for 2 days accomodation in a nearby hotel but Aída declined prefering to spend her time with the rest of the gang, Sharon, Alan and the Austria team instead of being stuck at an airport hotel for 2 days. As soon as they open the airports in Europe, she would have to either call or go to the airport to get her flights changed.

In order to get back to our hotel there was no argument from anyone when we all decided to get a taxi...there was no way we would be walking back to the bus stop with our flip-flops in the middle of the this punishing  sun again...

We made it in time to spend a couple of hours by the gorgeous swimming pool, then we said our farewells and I went back to the airport to catch my flight to Singapore.

After spending 3 months travelling with Aída it's going to feel a bit weird not having her around now. This trip throughout Australia wouldn't have been the same thing without her. She's been a great travel companion and a lot of fun.

Who is going to tell me off now when unadvertely I start walking on a regeneration area instead of walking on the clearly marked path?
or when I start taking pictures from other people's parties?
Who is going to keep me on a leash now?


The flight to Singapore was practically empty, once at the airport I took the train to the city and walked for 10-15 real minutes up to my hotel...

This was the cheapest hotel I could find in Singapore, but I just wanted a place to sleep before taking my flight to Tailand tomorrow.

The room isn't too bad, it's small but big enough for me. Judge by yourself.

I've been in worse places...at least this one is clean which is all I need for one night.

Tomorrow I'll be going back to the airport to take my flight to Phuket (Thailand).


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Back in Darwin - Day 2

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I have no photos from this day except perhaps from one street I found interesting enough to photograph. :-)

The reason why there aren't any more photos is because esentially, we spent the day in the swimming pool...all day... :-)

At night we went back to "the Vic" again for dinner (they had a very varied menu, we never ate the same thing twice). Played a few games again and that was the day.

At this point, the volcano in Island was starting to cause problems in the European skies, that made our next day far more interesting. :-)
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Back in Darwin - Day 1

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We had a quiet and lazy morning which I used to go around town to find out a little bit more about what this town has to offer and I stumbled across Government House.

Nice one... Just by one side of it there was a plaque with an inscription explaining a little bit of the history of Darwin.

It seems the same 4 Japanese aircraft carriers that iniciated the attack on Perl Harbour, also attacked Darwin 10 weeks later. 292 people died on the attack and it seems they weren´t prepared for it and the whole harbour and the ships in it got completely demolished after the attack.

You never hear much about Australian involvement on the II World war but they did suffer many casualties and fought on the pacific front.

After the walk, it was library time...remember, free internet! :-)

And then it was dinner time so we went back to the Vic to claim our free dinner once more. :-)

After dinner the games commenced...The first one was to flip a jug and try to get it to fall on eithe the top or the bottom, if it falls on the side you lose.

I got really lucky and I managed to do it. I could tell you it's all in the wrist but the truth is that I have no idea how I did it.

Then there was another one in which they would trim down a 6 pack carton and you would have to pick it up with your teeth without using your hands (your hands couln't touch the ground either)... you can see me on the last stage of this game. :-)

Children! do not try this at home! you can get seriously injured...I had to hop my way to the hotel after that...

Unfortunately, I was competing against Mr Yoga Master so I never had a chance, the guy would just spread his legs as much as needed and pick it up with no effort whatsoever... but it was quite fun, and at least I made it to the final. :-)

Other Photos from the night. The Cocacola gang!

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Litchfield & Kakadu - Day 3

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Last day in Kakadu. We had a good tropical storm last night and when we woke up in the morning we found all the ground flooded (although our tents were still dry). So after our previous experiences, we quickly realised that today it would be a flip-flop day. No trekking boots.

The photos below are from the morning, although it may appear to be from the evening...that's what you see when you get up at 5am in the morning after a tropical storm... pitch dark and all flooded.

The first stop was in Yurmikmik, there we went to see the motorcar falls. The weird name comes from an old car that was left behind and people started using it to give directions, such as...yes walk until you find the motorcar and then turn right and continue for 50 metres...and from using it all the time the name stuck. Motorcar falls.

As always, warnings first...

It seems there maybe salties as well... Although before they open this section of the park they always go with a boat searching for salties and if they find any, they capture it and take it to a crocodile sanctuary.

And of course, the insect photo for today is:

Then we went to yet another waterfall even more impresive than the previous one.

Typical warnings

And the waterfall

Then we went to a local petrol station to have lunch.

and there they had a small shop where they were selling all sort of stuff...like this:

This product is illegal in Europe, the maximun DEET allowed in any product in Europe is 45%. DEET is highly toxic...but here you can find it...and if you are someone like some of the people in our tour, you may appreciate this illegality. Some people had more than 50 new bites every morning...They looked like they went to a mosquito party and they were the desert!

I can't complain. Only one mosquito bite in 3 days. :-) without any repelent nor long sleeves.

I'm telling you, they just don't like my blood, I must be an acquired taste...clearly not for all mosquitos, a bit like vegimite. Don't know what vegimite is?...you're so lucky! if you're british you are probably familiar with Marmite, vegimite is the Aussy response to marmite...but with an extra degree of disgustness... If you see the stuff in a shop near you...RUN!!! and don't look behind...

Anyway, after lunch we were driven again to our accomodation in Darwin. The Cavenagh, where Sharon and Alan were waiting for us. :-)




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