Cairns Scuba Diving

So, I spend a couple of days on a boat to dive the Great Barrier Reef (more specifically Milln, Flynn and Thetford reefs) and to take my Rescue Diver course at the same time.

My diving operator Pro Dive Cairns is a solid diving company and I can recommend their services to all divers going to Cairns. Rescue Diver course was a demanding package of theory, pool practice and actual dives at the reef. Compared to earlier PADI open water courses this course is clearly more stressful but at the same time it presents the students with some effective techniques to cope with different kind of diving related emergency situations.  

However, the reef itself is a bit of a disappointment after all the hype from different sources. To me diving at Bunaken is still the best I’ve experienced. Marine life and the corals are just so much more in quantity there. Great Barrier Reef is still worth visiting while travelling Australia but it is not going to blow your sock off unless it is the first tropical reef you are visiting. Even so, I have to admit that encountering sharks is always a great moment of excitement while diving - especially during a night dive the boat lights created a great atmosphere for shark gazing. Also the underwater passages/tunnels at Cathedrals (Thetford reef) are really cool (don't go too deep).

The past 6-7 weeks travelling New Zealand and Australia have offered many new experiences as well as opportunities to meet some great people. Now it is (once again) time to head back home, enjoy Christmas time with family and then start some new challenges.

I'll upload my selection of Australian pictures as soon as I get a decent internet connection.  

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Adelaide - Uluru

I left Adelaide with new group early on Sunday (9th) and we turned our bus towards north. We did some wine tasting at Sevenhill winery at Clare Valley and after that we headed to Quorn – murder capital of Australia – for couple of nights. Town was the quietest place I have stayed so far on this trip. Feels like there is no one around so it is a bit surprising that just couple of weeks ago there was a double murder here and the statistics are not very flattering overall.

Next day we did a daytrip to nearby Flinders Ranges where we did some hiking. I myself hiked so called Mt. Ohlssen Bagge walk which offered some nice views down and around the Flinders Ranges area. Later the day we did short stops at Yourambulla aboriginal site as well as the ruins of Kanyaka homestead before returning to Quorn for the night. We also got our first feel of the outback weather as the temperature kept rising through the day all the way to 30 and at the same time the cooling wind of the morning changed to dry and hot breeze of the afternoon. At Coober Pedy it might be even 10 degrees more!

As we kept going north we stopped at Woomera for lunch and Lake Hart (salt lake) for some photos. The landscape has been changing all the time more and more dry which, of course, means the vegetation to slowly change from trees to bush land and finally just the famous red sand. At Cooper Pedy we got the first taste of outback environment which is extremely dry&hot. We spent the night  underground which was actually very comfortable and also very common way to live among the locals. After getting to know something about Opals we continued on towards north stopping for night at Marla. On the way we also had couple of photos of the Dog Fence (longest fence in the world, 5614 km) and the beautiful landscape of The Breakaways.

From Marla we finally made our way to Northern Territory and Erldunda where we changed to Adventure Tours bus. Our Topdeck group was placed in two different buses which was a bit annoying since we had already spend some time together and group was working quite ok. The bus I ended up was packed full (23 people) and so we began our drive towards Kings Canyon where we arrived later that afternoon. We did couple of walks (afternoon & morning) at the beautiful canyon before continuing to Uluru where arrived in the afternoon of Dec 14^th.

At Uluru we visited the aboriginal culture centre to familiarize ourselves with the key features of aboriginal life around the region. After that we did couple of walks at the base of the great rock and tried to enjoy a sunset at nearby lookout – only the view was darkened by a dust storm that made the visibility quite poor for photos. Next day we enjoyed yet another walk at Kata Tjutas NP where we did the Valley of the Winds walk after unsuccessful sunrise which was blocked by clouds and fog. Finally, after the walk we were able to get the full body shots of the rock with reasonable weather.

My great Australian road trip ended to Uluru as I boarded a plane to Cairns where I will enjoy the Great Barrier Reef underwater world for the last week of my trip.

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Melbourne – Adelaide

Past week (actually the week before that since I have not been able to post this earlier) has included a short stop at Melbourne which I already commented on my last post. Maybe Melbourne will show its true face to me next time. Anyway, I got on to Topdeck bus again, this time heading to Adelaide via Great Ocean Road. Great Ocean Road truly was great (although the weather was not). The scenery is beautiful and there are many good photo opportunities. However, my favorites were Twelve Apostles (quite naturally) and The Arch. We spend the night at the shiny and clean Port Campbell Hostel which had somewhat interesting solution of placing the toilets and showers on the same corridor with the rooms. It seemed to work quite nicely and I would imagine that also the cleaning and ventilation can be arranged more efficiently this way.

 

Finally from Warnambool we turned towards Grampians National park where we did a shorter walk (so called Pinnacle walk) and visited several viewpoints for scenery. Wildlife was very much present in form of several bird species and tens of Kangaroos which were hanging just outside of our nice Grampians Motel where we enjoyed a nice evening over some BBQ. Also the weather changed just overnight for the better since the temperature rose up to over twenty and the wind calmed down.

After Grampians we took a rather long drive to Adelaide where we arrived in the Friday afternoon just in time to have some dinner with my friend whom I met while traveling South America last year. I also attended to her father´s surprise birthday party the next day which offered me a good chance to socialize with some really nice Adelaideans.

Technical side note:

While driving I’ve been writing my journal and organizing my photos. The amount of data has grown at amazing pace (in this case around 25X) compared to the times of my first digital camera in 2005 when photos and videos of a 3 week trip took less than 600MB. Now I produce data around 5 GB per week even though I only have a regular pocket sized travel camera on me, I operate in jpg-format and I do relatively small amount of videos. Let’s see what is the regular size for a memory card in 2019. Anyone dare to guess?  Surely it can not be 128 GB, or can it?

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Sydney-Melbourne; emphasis on (bad) hostels.

On my last day at Sydney I did the daytrip to Blue Mountains which was quite ok apart from our group being too big which led to too much waiting and standing around. While in Sydney I stayed at the Sydney Central YHA which was big, noisy and dirty – carpets and ventilation of the rooms were in dire need of an update. Six guys in one room need more fresh air! Also cleaning of the toilets should take place more often.

Next morning I joined my small tour group to Melbourne. This time there were only four people on the bus. We started by driving to nations capital, Canberra, where we familiarized ourselves with the Parliament House as well as the National museum. Both of them are free to visit and there are lots of interesting pieces at display. Like I’ve stated before I’m really not a big museum kind of a guy but I have to admit that especially some abstract works in the museum were worth checking out.

From Canberra we continued towards Thredbo alpine village where we stayed for the night. I’ve been feeling a bit congested for the past couple of days and it did definitely not help that River Inn where we stayed had a strong and distinctive smell of mold in it. Again one example of a hostel which had old carpets in a humid environment without proper heating or ventilation systems. This seems to be a bad trend and it needs to change. 

The next morning we hiked the Mt. Kosciuszko walkway which is 13 km and 3 hour roundtrip to the peak of the highest mountain in Australia (2228m). Very cold and strong wind did not actually make the walk very enjoyable but that was my own fault since I left my gloves and wool hat behind because the weather in the valley looked so good. There was also one part after Rawson pass that was still ice and snow covered so we had to improvise a little bit to get back to the path. I was the only one sliding down once. To sum up the walkway: I recommend doing it but be prepared for cold weather as well as some snow on the way. From Thredbo we continued after our little mountaineering experience towards Lakes Entrance.

We stayed at Lakes Entrance RSL which was by far one of the best hostels I’ve stayed on my trips. Clean, fresh and quiet with good service – what else is there for hostel level accommodation? It is really not rocket science as they say.  And on top of a nice dinner at hostel restaurant we enjoyed beautiful sunset at the waterfront.

Too bad we had to leave early the next morning as we headed towards Wilsons Promontory National Park at the most southern tip of continental Australia. There we enjoyed a scenic walk to Squeaky Beach which does exactly what the name suggests when you walk on it. After some additional wildlife spotting we finally continued to Melbourne where I stayed for two nights before taking the direction towards Great Ocean Road. The limited time in Melbourne did not allow much so I did just a short city tour and that was about it. The weather has been really windy and rainy for the past few days which has been a bit of a surprise – I have only had one day of constant sunshine in Australia so far.(!)

My hostel in Melbourne – Nomads Industry at 196 A’beckett - was one of the worst places I’ve ever stayed. Hostel is noisy, dirty, moldy and has plenty of nonfunctional devices. Overall,  it is a disgrace to the good name of hostels. I have gained some perspective on my trips to say that this property should be declared as a health hazard until totally renovated. Well – nice to know what kind of business Nomads run.

In my opinion hostels are reflection of their owners and the management. If they want to run a nice, clean and cozy business, it can be done – I have seen some great places; they do exist. On the other hand if there is a constant stream of travelers (=money), there is also a big temptation to forget quality and maintenance which is disappointing. 

I’m a funny guy that way – I expect people and services continuously to try to do their best and try to improve. Maybe that is a bit idealistic in this greedy age of time but that is the view I want to maintain. 

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