Visiting yet another colony of the Empire

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Part I - Sydney

So, to Australia. After the of the journey there, it was only fair that I got a decent break. As luck would have it, a couple of friends from University live in Sydney, and they were being visited by another couple of chaps who I've known on and off for the last few years. This made a decent pack of us for caroousing around the nightspots of Sydney. I'd lost touch with my Syndey based chums, and had forgotten just what hospitable people they are. They also have a wonderful harbour front pad with pool, and a signed photo of John Howard that reads 'Welcome to Australia'. So pretty well set up, then.

Sydney is one of those large harbour cities that constantly tops lists of the best places in the world to live, along with the likes of Hong Kong, San Francisco and Hull. Spend any time there and it's easy to see why. A typical day: get up and have swim in pool; sea kayak in the harbour; spend some time on the beach; shop in the afternoon; then out for drinks and spectacular seafood. I naturally asume that this is how most Sydneyites spend all of their time, as this is how I spent my time there. As I've postulated, especially recently, work just gets in the way of having a proper life.

I stayed in a nice clean downtown hostel called Wake Up! (I shouted this at the staff every morning) that had the atmosphere of Byker Grove, without the sinister shadows of Ant & Dec. Lots of fresh faced 18 year olds having a wholesome time, but not seeing much of Australia, or indeed Sydney. I may have been the only resident to be having such a marvellously decadent stay in Sydney, returning only late into the nights to rest my caviar stuffed torso. Sydney is a great place to recharge the batteries after rather less comfortable places: the showers are hot; the food is fantastic; and of course one can speak English to the locals (rather than shouting in English slowly, as I have done in previous locations).

Sydney is also surprisingly small, at least if one discounts the sprawling suburbs, and it is fairly easy to walk the main central areas. Getting to the beaches requires somewhat more planning, but as luck would have it, we had the use of a convertable to ensure we arrived in style. After a few days of leading a decidely un-backpacker life, and accumulating another couple of ing hangovers, it was with mixed emotions that I left for the North East: Cairns and the Great Barrier Reef.

Part II: Cairns and the Great Barrier Reef

Lots of rain on the first couple of days precluded an in-depth exploration of Cairns, but from what I saw, it's pretty much like any other small seaside resort geared to lager monsters. Lots of cheap bars, and you can't swim in the sea 'cos of the jellyfish. Still, I did follow the guidebook's advice and went to a lecture (!) entitled 'Reef Teach', led by a chap doing his best Ace Ventura impression, complete with highly animated mimicry of marine creatures and sudden tourettes-like changes in volume. This was surprisingly fun, especially the acting out of the behaviour of a certain sea-cucumber that wards off strangers by coughing its lungs out of its arse. Rather like my friend Olly on the NY subway.

I booked a place on a boat to tour and dive the Great Barrier and Osprey reefs for 5 days. The diving was incredible and it put Thailand to shame. Multitudes of fish, turtles, sharks, 100kg cod (one of which is simply known as 'The Bitch' by the locals - I gave her my own name based on an individual I've known recently), all curiously wondering what those strange bubble blowing creatures were that were invading their territory. As usual, I was one of the least experienced people there, but did OK. The best laugh was a dive that the dive director called 'Pod Racing'. Essentially, this was a load of underwater canyons and tunnels that one had to negotiate at a fair old pace to keep up, while paying reasonable attention to not getting snagged and drowning horribly. There was a degree of trepidation on my part at the idea of this, but it was as enormous wheeze. I explained the concept to a Star Wars nerd I met on the last day in Cairns (he had a phone that occasionally spoke to him in a Yoda voice, 'A message from the Dark Side, you have'), and he looked veritably tumescent.

Deciding that scuba diving alone wasn't an expensive enough hobby, I naturally chose to take up underwater photography. This should get the cash flowing out of my bank account nicely. I hired a camera to record some of the fun that went on underwater, and managed to get a handful of shots that were OK (and roughly 400 that were crap). It's rather harder than it sounds to concentrate on framing the perfect pic when you're also concentrating on breathing and not being swept away by a current. I'm attaching some of my favourites.

Other highlights of the trip: Firstly, I had my peeling weatherbeaten face and feet cleaned by a school of cleaner fish on one of the night dives. I'd seen this happen to another chap in Thailand who had a grusome motorbike graze, but there it was just one of the little blue coolies. On the GBR, hundreds of the minimum wage fish attacked me like they hadn't had a good meal of skin in ages. The sensation was rather peculiar: rather like being aggressively tickled, but the result was astonishing. No more flaky skin! It's just possible that I have inadvertently discovered a massively expensive and entirely impracticle alternative to Head & Shoulders.

Secondly, the shark feeding frenzy. Unfortunately, no pix came out of this, so you'll have to trust me that we witnessed 40-50 sharks going crazy over some fish heads. The experience reminded me of buffet eating in America. Fortunately, none of the sharks required those electric scooters favoured by terminally obese Americans. (The return to Cairns prompted a lager induced frenzy that had none of the grace of its marine equivalent).

Thirdly, the people on board. A really top bunch of guys from all over the world, mostly very relaxed and intent on having a good time. Not much booze was consumed on board due to the fatigue of incessant diving, but the banter was good.

Following this splurge of cash, I recooped some of my losses at the Blackjack tables in Cairns, and chose to treat myself to a skydive. Donning a full body diaper and getting up at an ungodly hour, I was disappointed to find it raining heavily, which inevitably led to the cancelation of the dive. This may have been a good thing, as the DVD we watched in the skydive office while waiting for clearer skies included an individual on a tandem skydive with copious amounts of spewing from her face (I think she may have bitten her tongue). A strange thing to show prospective divers with trembling bowels...


Part III: Brisbane

I foolishly thought that I'd whip down the East coast of Oz in no time at all and was crestfallen to discover that a coach from Cairns to Brisbane would eat up 30 hours of my valuable time. In the knowledge that I would spend the entire journey wedged beside a sullen child eating egg sandwiches (this normally happens to me on long bus journeys), I made the prompt decision to fly to Brisbane.

Ah Brisbane, the disappointing son of Sydney. Well, first impressions are important, and those of Brisbane weren't great. A small town atmosphere with big city traffic and s wearing their 'Yorksire clobber' (micro-skirts and imbecilic expressions - so not everything was bad). I checked out the casino on the first night, and won a bit more cash. An aside on casino behaviour: I've spent a fair bit of time in casinos in the last few years, and they are the same the world over. People getting stupefyingly drunk at tables where the odds are as stacked against them as a two-headed coin toss. In the knowledge of this (albeit not conscious) they insist on displaying the veneer of 'fitting in', in the desparate hope that other human beings will not realise what folly they are engaged in. This accounts for the world weary hand signals that Blackjack players use to punctuate their fiscal decline. Now I'm as guilty of this as the next man, but there's something quite dispiriting, and also magnificently illuminating about human behaviour, about the way that Blackjack players insist on pretending that their way of playing is near fool-proof, it's just that they're having a bad spell of luck. My view on Blackjack (unless one has the time and wherewithall to count cards): you're going to lose, so you might as well keep the stakes low and treat losses as the expense of having a social evening with your fellow gamblers.

Anyhoo, Texas Hold 'Em is a different kettle of Scorpion Fish altogether. The beautiful game! A supermodel on each arm!! $1,000,000 on the table!!! Amarillo Slim buying you a bourbon, slapping you on the back, and asking you to marry his daughter!!!! Yes, this is the sort of gambling that has the potential to win friends and influence people (albeit degenerates). I geared myself up for the evening in true Taxi Driver style ('are you looking at my cards?'), put on my best clothes, which by now are best described as earthy, and set off for the casino. Maybe now Bris-Vegas would live up to its wholey inappropriate nickname!

Alas, my loin girded and my resolve fortified by strong liqour, there was no space on the tables for a humble patsy like myself and I was forced to return, wallet between legs, to the Blackjack tables. Fortune favoured me again, and I comfortably paid for the day's excesses of Subway sandwiches and bottled water. Casinos 0 - Unemployed Ian 3. This is a healthy lead to take into the tricky away leg in Vegas later in the year...

Brisbane redeemed itself somewhat towards the end of my stay in Oz. I did discover a couple of decent museums, and various intriguing nightspots, and the place shed some of its provinciality. It's just that the place had the air of a cool Bronx suburb, without the spice of Manhattan around the corner. Presumably the South Island of New Zealand will be more cosmopolitan?

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Photos

Can you guess what it is yet?
A Tassled Wobbegong Shark doing its best to look inconspicuous at night on the Great Barrier Reef.

Lunging with a sausage
Recreating the Grange Hill credits with the guys in Sydney.

Doing my best to look like a Hollywood mogul
Sydney Harbour in the background

Standard backpacker nosh.
Smoked salmon and caviar.

A Leaf Scorpion Fish
No prizes for guessing what this little blighter is disguised as.

Dive buddies
Martin (aus Munchen) and Dana (from Colorado)

Giant Clam
NB - don't put your head inside one of these.

Comments

[matt & pete]

sambucca
g'day mate! Noticed you didn't mention anything about your alcoholic state whilst in Sydney, falling asleep on pub stools at 2am after several shots of sambucca... Or that they sent out a search party to rescue us whilst kayaking... We had a great time in Fraser Island, certainly recommend it if you can fit it in. See you back in Oz / UK.

[Tom]

I thought we took it as read that every night involved Ian falling asleep in pubs (casinos, stip clubs) at 2am after several shots of sambucca (gin, vodka, rum, ethanol)? He can't write this down in his blog every time.