Tinsau on the Road...

2011-02-26T11:26:00.000-08:00

*****NOTICE*****

I have posted some pictures on Facebook and if you do not have access to Facebook you can use this direct link to see the pictures.

*****NOTICE*****

February 4, Friday: Same morning routine to get to KVC by 8:30. They were preparing for their worship, but those of us working on the site did not stay this morning. We got our tools and headed over. I wasn't sure what we would be working on since it seemed to me that the next step was beginning to work on the fence and none of the material for that was ready. But of course there were things to do. Several guys went to work on the stumps sticking out all over. Most of us set about raking and pulling all the loose material down into a pile near the bottom of the hill where the composting trench will end up. That also entailed going back through all that we had chopped down and cutting it into two categories: pieces that could be used for firewood and everything else to be composted. What began as a massive pile from the previous two days work was reduced greatly by this process. There was a lot of usable wood and the rest is much more compost friendly. We took our lunch break around 1 and then after a lot of discussion called it a day at 2pm. I went back to the center with Millie and the other girls. Part of the reason we stopped is that there is some dissension in the ranks about how much they are going to be making for their work. During most of the construction they are being considered 'apprentices' and will not make very much. I gather that the issue of the moment was that over the past few days we have been working on our own, without a leader from KVC and none of the guys think they need to 'apprentice' the use of a panga or slasher, as they have used them all their lives. They have a point there, but I do not know everything about the situation so I shouldn't say much more until I can talk to Wendy. I hung out in the office for an hour and then headed back to Wildebeest. After being dropped off at Yaya, I finally bought a cell phone, the most basic one there is. So now I have a usable local phone that will work in Uganda as well, and possibly Ethiopia. I almost stopped and bought some mangoes from a street vendor. I probably should have because they were better looking than the ones I have seen in the grocery stores. At Wildebeest I checked again on what I could find about SDA churches and decided I would walk over to the Newlife Church on 5^th Ngong. I'll visit the Lavington Church on a later date.

February 5, Sabbath: After a morning shower and breakfast, I began my walk to where I thought the church was located. It was a little further than I had remembered from my walk last Sunday, but I got there as everyone was dividing for lesson study at 8:45am. Church got out at 4:30pm. Of course there was a lunch break in there with some wonderful Kenyan food, including a porridge that tasted like quince paste. They had a guest speaker for the service and also the after lunch meeting: the newly elected president of the Central Kenya Conference (CKC), Mr. Frankline Wariba. One of the men that made sure I was well taken care of was Paul, who wants to take me to several places around Nairobi. During the lunch break the two of us had a long talk about many different things. There was a cute little girl of about 4, who marched right over to where I was in the second row and spent about 10 minutes stroking the hair on my arm in fascination. Eventually, she went back to her mother, but during lunch and again later, she waved when she saw me. After church was over, another church member, Rosa, dropped me off at the hostel

February 6, Sunday: Since there was a very large group leaving this morning, I stayed in bed until just after 8 when they were finally gone. As I was eating three bedraggled Americans came in and had breakfast too. They had just arrived on an over night bus from Kampala after climbing Kilimanjaro. We talked for a bit and then they went to get some more sleep since the bus ride had not been a good one. Aside from a trip to Uchumi to get some bananas, chips, and cookies, because the power was out at the hostel and therefore there was no food coming from the kitchen, I stayed on the grounds and read my current book, and did some of the puzzles in one of the Games magazines I brought along. In the afternoon, two of the guys from breakfast came out and we talked more about our respective trips and other things. They wanted to know a place to eat, so I went with them to Mesob, the Ethiopian place around the corner. And just like last time there was more food than any of us could eat. They did provide a take away container, which meant we could bring the remainder to their friend who had stayed behind sleeping. The other neat thing was that they had made half the restaurant ready for a wedding and that was just beginning before we left.

February 7, Monday: Got up early, had a rushed breakfast, to get out before another large group of people descended on the dining room and made it to Yaya to catch a matatu that was waiting right when I arrived. Just being a few minutes earlier made a big difference as traffic was lighter and we made good time. The center had just opened up when I got there, and slowly over the next twenty minutes the work group showed up. Jacob led us to the work site at 8:30 and talked to me the whole way there, telling of some of the issues that had been poking their heads up over the last week. The group I am working with had all started working without having received a clear answer on what they would be paid each day. That still has not been resolved, but they think it will be lower than many of them want to work for. Then when we basically finished the work that had been estimated to take four days in two, there was a kind of vacuum where no one stepped up and clarified what should be done next. Once the land was cleared. The next obvious step is putting up a fence around the place, but we really need someone to mark the real corners of the plot before we start digging holes. Also, while the mix of tools we had to work with was adequate for the initial jobs, we now have a broken pick (out of two) and a broken shovel (out of two). And just from seeing how difficult it is to uproot the stumps of the brush we have removed, the remaining shovel and pick will not survive either. That really is not a function of the tools being abused, it is much more that the quality of the tools is not there. We also lost a rake because the tines are flimsy enough to bend and in the course of four days that flexed it to the point of breaking.

All that said the group of young people working on the site are quite up beat. They know that they are making some sacrifices for the better of the community that the center will represent and they are all hard workers. There is constant chatter among them as we work and they are laughing much of the time. But as the issues have been brought up with no real response from those further up the chain, they are beginning to be frustrated. They have told me they will do the work, they just want someone to give them a better idea of the order and purposes of some of the tasks.

Well for the actual work of the day, we cut down another swathe of brush along the top of the property that I am quite sure is beyond the property line, but which will work as a buffer. We also cut the east edge back some more. Then a couple guys rounded up a wooden cart and we loaded it with wood from the wood pile (which I had actually thought would be completely gone over the weekend, but it was still intact, while someone had burned the entire compost pile to the ground). They sorted the wood by type, apparently some of it really doesn't bring much money and they will just keep it on site. We had a long siesta under the shade tree, did a bit more clean up and then headed back to the center at 4:30. I stayed at the center until 6:30 reading a newspaper and talking to some of the staff. Then a uneventful matatu ride back to Yaya and a walk home. I checked in with Wendy, left her a voice mail, then called Paul to see about where we should meet on Wednesday. With that settled I got some dinner and a shower.

February 8 Tuesday: Normal morning, we continued working, but we are running out of things to work on, without direction from above or tools/materials to begin some of the other tasks that will have to be done. At lunch they announced we would be having a meeting back at the center to address some of the issues that had been raised. The meeting was good in that problems were put out in the open and steps were taken to address them and streamline the process for when other issues do come up.

February 9 Wednesday: I slept until 8 in the tent which was nice because it had more legroom than the dorm beds, got up had a shower and some breakfast, said bye to Mike, Ross, and Justin, then left to go to the Ethiopian Embassy. As soon as I cleared security and got inside, the woman at the counter asked one question: what Nationality? My response of American got the immediate reply “Only Visa on arrival.” I asked if there were any way to get a visa to go overland and the reply was the same. Well, that does make some decisions easier. I'll definitely have to fly into Addis Ababa, now I just need to see if I go directly from Uganda, or come back to Nairobi (and see how the project has progressed in the month I will be gone). As I left the embassy, I gave Paul a call and told him I was on my way to City Hall and would be there in a few minutes. He arrived just a couple minutes after me and we walked east to a larger bus terminal to catch the first of several legs. Our first stop was near the New Life church, where a security guard who is a friend of Paul's was selling mangoes. We each ate two of them and then headed back out to a larger road and caught a bus to Ngong. I was able to point out where I was staying to Paul. We passed through the town of Karen, where many of the upper class of Nairobi, including the politicians, live. The odd thing about that is that it looks no different from the rest of the city, but I have to assume that beyond the major roads are some larger and fancier houses.

In Ngong we got out and began a long upward climb into the Ngong Hills, a series of seven peaks that rise impressively above the plateau that makes up the rest of Nairobi. We came to a ranger station where we paid our park fee and received a warning about only venturing as far as a sign marked “Do not continue without armed escort”. There are apparently issues with bandits in these hills, but that would not be the case for us. As we continued climbing we encountered hordes of school children coming down the mountain and resting under the trees. There is a small wind turbine farm and several cell phone towers. At the top of the first hill we did run into the Do Not Continue sign, but of course we continued. There are many small herds of goats and sheep and the occasional cow. And where there are animals there are the Masai herdsmen. Most still wear their traditional garb, but some do wear western style clothing now. When we crested the second hill a group of four Masai, told us it was best not to continue. They had been moving their herds away from the next hill because they had been seeing leopards. Although it would be amazing to see one, we took their advice and started back down. If you came up to these hills after a good rainstorm the views would be outstanding, but it has not rained for a while and the haze is enough that you cannot see Nairobi. For that matter, I had not seen the hills from Nairobi either.

When we got back down to Ngong, we took another matatu ride, through Masarai to Kiserian where Paul and his family live. Funny sighting in Masarai was a donkey walking out of a health clinic. In Kiserian we walked down the dirt path to Paul's house where we had a simple supper and a bible study, then Paul and his wife walked me back out to the main road and made sure I knew which matatus to take to get back home. It was already dark when I got to Ngong again and I had to walk a bit to where the right matatu would pick me up, so that was slightly uncomfortable, but I had no issues and made it home. Paul called to make sure I had gotten back safely.

February 10 Thursday: The morning was normal, but some combination of the sun, the manual labor, and possibly my Malaria meds, had me wiped out after lunch. I was beat and just survived until we finished for the day. Back at the center I just sat in the office for 45 minutes and had a Stoney Tangawizi. Then I got my ride back to Yaya and walked to Nakumatt, where I got another 5 liters of water, some Fanta, and an ice cream cone. Walked to the hostel and collapsed into bed, where I slept for three hours until about 9:30. All I could manage to do then was take a shower and go right back to bed.

2011-02-26T11:21:00.000-08:00

January 27-28 The long travel day: George dropped me of at SFO at 7:30 am and I quickly found the United checkin area at the International terminal. That gave me the first surprise of the day. The first leg of the journey was not a direct SFO to Brussels flight as I had thought. I had to fly to Chicago first and that meant I had to check in at the domestic terminal. Well, not a big deal, I had plenty of time, so I made the walk to the other terminal and quickly got my boarding passes. Security was not difficult, they did make the world safer by confiscating my can of 7UP, without giving me an option to drink it. At the actual boarding area it became clear that they had overbooked several flights heading to Chicago which is their hub and to which they have flights every hour. They were offering a $400 credit to anyone willing to wait for the next plane, and in hindsight I could have done that easily, with my layover in Chicago, but since the whole Chicago stop was a surprise to me I kept the flights as is.

So, flight to Chicago was uneventful from my aisle seat. Then flight to Brussels I had the window seat next to a man from Minnesota, heading home to Liberia to visit family. There was quite a bit of turbulence, but nothing abnormal to me, although my new Liberian friend did not enjoy it. As we approached the United Kingdom, watching the sunrise over the clouds covering everything below us was beautiful. The layover was close to two hours and I spent part of that going through security twice, since I was misdirected out of the area I could have stayed. The twice part was because I had a little water in my Nalgene, which necessitated dumping it in a bathroom and going through line again. Another surprise came in that the Brussels to Nairobi part of the journey was also not direct. We would be making a stop in Entebbe, but would not have to disembark from the plane while they refueled. The sunset was just as beautiful as the sunrise had been, as we flew south across Africa. And after an hour on the tarmac in Entebbe we made the last short leg to Nairobi, arriving on time just before 11 pm local time. I got my Visa on arrival, grabbed my bag, and met my driver outside the baggage area. He brought me directly to the Wildebeest Hostel and I got settled in and went almost directly to bed.

Back a few years ago when I visited South Africa, I watched 8 movies on the way over. This time the movie selections on all the legs were not worth watching and I ended up seeing only “Unstoppable” and about half of “The Town”. Neither one was that interesting. Luckily I did have a book with me and I read 250 pages between naps, plane transfers, etc.

January 29 Sabbath I awoke when my alarm went off at 7 am, but stayed in bed for another hour. There is breakfast included at the hostel, so I had a fruit salad with yoghurt and a few slices of bread. I planned on trying to find a church, but after eating I was hit by a need for more sleep and only woke up again close to noon. After that I did take a walk around the neighborhood of the hostel. There is a shopping mall a 10 minute walk away that has just about everything I could need, so I'll go there again tomorrow and probably buy a cheap local cell phone. It was nice to hear the familiar sounds of “Jambo” as people greeted each other in the street. Back at the hostel, I lounged in the garden under a shade structure and read for several hours. There are a host of different birds that seem to make their home in the garden and their songs are varied from sharp squawks to some beautiful tones. Nairobi appears to be quite flat, it did from the air and it certainly feels that way walking around. I've gathered some info from people here at the hostel about things to do and places to see, so once I have made contact with Wendy and get a better schedule of what I can contribute at NextAid, I'll make some short side trips to parks and other sites. There are plenty of mosquitoes and the netting in the dorm came in handy last night. I could hear the buzzing, but was safe. The staff said that because of the elevation, Nairobi does not have a malaria problem, but most other parts of the country you need to be careful. I started my meds anyway, since I have enough to make it until I'm in the Middle East.

January 30, Sunday: Getting back into the flow of being a traveler. I got up at 7:45, washed up, and left five sleeping roommates behind to get breakfast. Then armed with a $4 map of greater Nairobi I headed toward the city center. Once I hit a cross road I was watching for I veered north and tracked down the Ethiopian embassy. Two armed guards came out and asked me some questions about my beard and I got information on the embassy hours for when I return to get a visa, which I'll need if I am able to make the overland trek between Kenya and Ethiopia. Then a little backtracking to get on a major road and following it northeast until I could get to the National Museum, with a short break in Central Park, where I read a couple chapters in one of my books while a group of people sang hymns in their native language under some shade trees nearby. The National Museum is not huge, but has a nice collection of artifacts and art, photo records, and stuffed animal specimens, including a very extensive collection of birds. They also have a room dedicated to the various 'missing” links that have been discovered in East Africa. One disappointing thing was that the lighting in the rooms with the stuffed animal specimens was not good enough for taking pictures and since flash was not allowed I did not get many pics, several of which I really would have like. The animals were so unusual looking and unlike anything I had seen before. I did get a picture of the Golden-rumped elephant shrew. On the grounds around the museum are several sculptures and a separate snake farm/museum that reviews had lead me to believe was not worth the price. After that I headed further east and then south until I reached the CBD (Central Business District) where all the civic buildings are located. The High Court and City Hall are there, as well as the Kenyatta International Conference Center. The guidebooks say that the best views of the city are from the top of the KICC, but I may wait until there has been a rain to knock down some of the air pollution before ponying up the money to do that.

As I continued my walk back towards the hostel, I passed through Uhuru Park, which was full of people lounging in the shade of trees, using paddle boats in the two lakes, overwhelming the playground equipment, and so on. Some enterprising individuals has Powerwheels and were giving small children rides for a fee. Climbing up the hillside, I came to where there was a large crowd along the edge of a parking lot. They were watching a bunch of skateboarders jumping a four foot gap in the concrete. About half of them were white and had a filming crew with them (including a dolly and track). The crowd seemed to be intrigued by the whole thing, even though the entire time I watched only a couple of the boarders cleared the jump and those were not doing any 'tricks' besides landing the jump. I continued walking back and it being Sunday I frequently passed buildings where you could hear sermons being preached. Between that and the calls for worship at the Muslim mosques I don't know who wins for loudest display of honoring God.

Cute anecdote: There were two little British boys at the buffet for dinner tonight, neither one is older than four and they are not related. One boy saw only one thing on the buffet line and plaintively cried “Pasta Pasta Pasta”, until his father got him a plate with pasta on it. The second boy started babbling as soon as he got near the table and after a few seconds I could make out what he was saying. “Somadis, somadis, somadis, somadis”. He wanted some of this from each dish available. And when his father left off the green beans, he switched to “Beans, beans, beans”. That's the right attitude!

January 31, Monday: After breakfast, I read for a bit and then started looking through the safari options available through the hostel connections. Expensive!!! Wow. Nothing even close to my daily budget, with most costing $150+/per day (which on a “one day safari” translates to about 4 hours). At least the multi-day trips include accommodations. I will keeps looking because it would be a shame to miss a few of the places around here (Serengeti, Masai Mara, Great Rift Valley). I had made contact with Wendy yesterday and since she had meetings for most of today, we agreed I would come on Tuesday to see the Kawangware Vision Center. At lunch I had a decent vege burger. A lot of people showed up this afternoon, so the place is quite full and the conversation was lively. There was a group of friends from the UK/Switzerland/Australia that had just come back from a multi day safari and are headed tomorrow to Rwanda to see the mountain gorillas. There was another Australian guy, an America currently living in Ghana, and an Indian guy from Bangalore on a break from grad school in Davis. Everyone has stories of the places they have been and things they have done.

February 1, Tuesday: Since I only had to meet Wendy at 9:30 I had a leisurely breakfast before heading out. I walked a slightly circuitous route, but eventually found the YaYa Center where our meeting point was. Wendy was a little late due to traffic, and the traffic is amazing. It is stop and go for hours upon hours. And walking along the roads is tremendously healthy for the lungs. Anyway, just outside the YaYa Center we hopped on the 46 matatu and it eventually dropped us off less than a hundred meters from the KVC. Kawangware is a slum, like many others around the world, and it still is hard for me sometimes to see how people are forced to live. The last few kilometers are on dirt roads, power lines are haphazard and power is hard to count on. People are living in shipping containers and some of the other places I have seen are one room concrete block spaces that remind me very much of the brothels I stayed in in Papua New Guinea. Water comes from the river and it is brown from upstream runoff. I'm already used to hearing 'Mazungu' (white man) as I walk around and most of the school age kids shout out “How are you?” and then giggle shyly when I answer and ask them the same thing.

We got a quite tour of the KVC space and met most of the people working there. They were working on a batch of bags for Land Rover that were due tomorrow. We met Anastacia who cooks food everyday for all of the people there. Morris and Agasto are the two founders and they introduced me to Joel, who is the accountant and Kiragu, who is the architect for the new facility. Then we had a short meeting with the four of them and a number of the young people. Kiragu led out and did some diagrams on the chalkboard of what the general plan was and a rough timeline until the 18^th when the launch is scheduled. Afterwards we had a quick lunch and then Wendy left. I stayed for another hour or so and installed Quickbooks on one of the computers in the lab. Then I headed home, when a couple of the people from the center left to go purchase tools for our work tomorrow.

February 2, Wednesday: I had an early breakfast and walked to the Yaya Center to catch a mutatu at just after 8am, arriving at the center at 8:45. There was nothing for me to do at the center and the group clearing the land had already left for the site. Martin walked with me up to the site and they were just beginning to work from the flat at the bottom of the property closest to the river. At the meeting yesterday afternoon, they had budgeted 4 days to clear the land, and seeing the site made me wonder if that was too ambitious, but the group is fast and efficient. We had five pangas (machetes), two slashers (machetes with bends in them almost like golf clubs), two djembes (shovels), two rakes, and two mattocks. By lunchtime it was quite clear that we would be done with the bulk of the clearing in two days at most and then would be looking for the next facets to work on. The tile and brick making machines are not scheduled to arrive until Saturday. Lunch came close to 2 pm and afterwards we had a bit of a siesta. After a couple more hours of work, we called it a day and walked back to the center with all the tools. I left soon after and when I made it back to the hostel, I took a nap. I was tired, but happy at the progress that had been made. I got up again briefly, but went to bed early and sleep soundly.

February 3, Thursday: Again, an early breakfast of bread, peanut butter, jam and a spanish omelet, and walking to the Yaya Center. This time after waiting a few minutes I jumped on the 56 bus, since I knew it also went by the center. It turns out it only costs half as much, too: 10Ksh versus 20Ksh. Not sure why because the bus is much more spacious. The route might be slightly different, because this time we passed another SDA church at the Lavington Plantation, so I'll try visiting this one before I leave. Anyway, I made it to the center in time to join in on their morning worship, which consisted of an opening prayer in Kiswahili, then with drum accompaniment a nonstop 20 minutes of singing, merging one hymn with another, before a closing prayer. We also were clapping for the whole 20 minutes. The singing was very nice, but my hands are going to be sore from the clapping. Then those of us working at the new site grabbed all the tools and walked over. Still lots of people staring, but I've been told within a few days, everyone will know who I am. That is not hard to believe since I have only seen two other white people so far and they were on the main road not the inner slum. Kiswahili word of the day: Maji = water.

This evening I went to dinner at the Ethiopian place with Jenn, an Asian girl from New York, and Vivek, an Indian guy doing grad work at UC Davis. The food was awesome and cheaper than at the hostel and of large enough quantities that none of us was able to finish ours. They know each other from undergrad school and Vivek was visiting her on his way back to the US from a research project studying elephants in India. She is doing a project studying animals at a sanctuary in western Kenya. His research relates to sound studies to find out what noises would make elephants change their courses so as to keep them from destroying villages in parts of rural India.

2011-01-24T21:28:00.001-08:00

Okay, now a few from July/August and that will have to satisfy until I start posting the new stuff in a matter of days, internet willing....

July 4 Sunday Happy Fourth of July everyone back at home. No fireworks here in India. The day was spent cooped up in an upper bunk of a sleeper train completing a 32 hour train ride across the bulk of India. We arrived in Mumbai at 9:20pm to discover that Gabe did not have the address of our hotel written down anywhere and the prospect of finding open internet cafes was dim. We walked out of the railway station to get away from the most bothersome taxi drivers and eventually found one that was convinced he knew where the hotel was. That turned out to be a complete fabrication. Almost immediately he began pulling over to the sides of the street and calling to other cabbies and anyone who would listen for help finding the place. Of course no one seems to have any idea, but they all know other places they can take you for a great deal. Since it was partly our fault for not having the address/phone number (well, Gabe's anyway) we spent a great deal of time trying to get them to understand if they found us an internet cafe we could get the address. We were unable to get this across no matter what we tried. After a while, with our cabbie getting increasingly testy (he had agreed to a flat rate and I'm glad we had negotiated that before getting it), we found someone who spoke enough English to work something out. He did not know where the hotel was, but sent us to a cafe, Leopold Cafe, where many foreigners hang out and where there was a good chance to get an internet connection. Then we could work on the solution to our problem.

July 8 Thursday Today was rough day. Some might use the phrase 'soul searching', although that doesn't quite seem to fit for me. This theme does come up in my thought process with relative frequency, for whatever that is worth. Mumbai has been trying overall and India on a whole has maybe lived down to my lower expectations. Another rainy day began early with us meeting Terence, our guide/headache of the past few days. His claim to be able to get us into a Bollywood shoot was, of course, vaporware and we were pretty much ready to sever our contact with him, but he insisted on helping us get our tickets to our next destination and that was worth something. Before addressing that we made sure we were cleared at the hotel and they would watch our luggage until early afternoon. We took a bus to the Victoria Terminus and checked on train prices, which as we knew, were quite high. Then we walked around the building to where all the bus ticket vendors were located. Of course, we immediately run into some 'obstacles': there seem to be no buses with reclining seats or air conditioning headed to Rajastan state. So our choices are non A/C seats (stiff back none reclining) or sleeper (which is a bed, so you are lying down the entire 16 plus hours). We elected to go with the sleeper option, which was half the price of the train ticket and a method of transport we have not yet experienced. So Udaipur, here we come. With that squared away, we had a late breakfast of uttapams, dosas, vegetable cutlets, and various other things. And we paid for Terence's food as well. Then we walked a looooonnnnnggggg way to a bus that took us to the home where Gandhi lived for about 17 years and from which many of his campaigns for Indian freedom originated. It is a small simple place and now houses a decent sized library of his documents and those about him. The exhibits include letters to US presidents, Hitler, and Leo Tolstoy. It was special to me to spend the time carefully going through the exhibits, as Gandhi is one of my heroes. He spent a life time living by principles and a moral code that are worthy of emulation.

With our time nearly gone we hurried back to Volga II, dismissed Terence, grabbed our baggage, bought some water for the bus ride, and after about 10 cabbies, we found one that would actually use the meter to take us to the bus depot. All the other cabbies wanted to rip us off, usually to the tune of triple the true rate. Even the cabbie we took changed rates on us once we arrived. He suddenly wanted the meter rate, plus 35 rupees 'luggage fee'. We told him flat out that we were not paying any add on fee and had him show us the rate card, which is what we used to pay him the fair price for our trip. The bus was right there and we made a pile of our bags. We had decided we would put our Pac Saf mesh on our big packs, since we had had so many warnings about things disappearing. So we were both in the process of doing that, when a young guy started helping me with mine. I told him I did not need help, but he just kept involving himself. It was annoying because he just made it take longer, since he doesn't know how it gets attached and just got in the way. Anyway, I got the Pac Saf on, the guy said thank you, I thanked him rather tersely and then he was gone. Gabe got his on and we loaded them both into the back of the bus, then I realized my small backpack was not in the remaining pile of bags and I panicked. My computer as well as my backup hard drive were both in the backpack, plus my passport. That guy was the only person we thought had been near the luggage and Gabe took off down the street where he had headed. I was angry and full of adrenaline. It had only taken a few seconds of distraction and the bag was gone. And that it happened while we were securing other bags from theft.

Well, within minutes of Gabe heading down the street where the guy had gone, a small crowd was gathering outside the travel agent where we had purchased our tickets. And they seemed rather agitated themselves. Suddenly from the midst of the group appeared my bag. I quickly ran over and grabbed it. Nothing was missing when I looked through the compartments and as annoying as it was that they began asking for a 'reward' for the guy that had the bag, I gave him 60 rupees. I sent a quick thank you prayer to God and then scanned the street for Gabe. He made it back, just as they were ushering me onto the bus in preparation to leave. I told him the story and he told me of his looking down alley's and places to see if the bag had been dumped. So what had been a near disaster, became not so much of one. Just a warning to us both about how fast it can happen. As we began driving out of Mumbai we passed a series of billboards and that in conjunction with the other events of the day had me thinking long and hard. The billboards, which I am sorely sorry I did not get a picture of, were for an under construction housing project by a joint group of Indian developers. The image was of twin suns setting on a body of water with the tagline “Ultra luxury living that will force others to look up to you. For the privileged few.” As far as the eye can see around these billboards were the slums of Mumbai, shanties like you see in most any country with a large population of poor people. How is it that we as humans can be so oblivious or intentionally callous to the rest of humanity? How can someone justify an “ultra luxury” lifestyle while others live in such poverty? Another example from yesterday was a Four Seasons Hotel directly across the street from a slum that has one bathroom for each 9000 residents. How can we convince ourselves we are deserving of so much at the expense of others? How do the people living in the shadows of these premium accommodations see the whole thing? Is that why as a white person walking down the street I am seen as a money machine? How does someone honor Gandhi as the Father of free India, and mistreat their own countrymen? It boggles my mind and I get to a point where I wonder why God would choose to save any of us. And I have to remind myself that despite what is happening in the world, He does have a plan and ultimate control and though I will not understand it until I can ask Him about it directly, He loves me and everyone else on this big world. I can be responsible and try to improve the world around me. Maybe that does not accomplish much, but it is worth doing anyway.

July 9 Friday I woke up several times in the early morning and the 16 hour mark passed by. We needed another 2 and a half hours to eventually reach Udaipur. After unloading our bags and taking a bathroom break, we had competing cabbies wanting to take us everywhere and anywhere. This time we had a written list of several places to stay and after selecting a driver, had him take us to Anjani, which was supposed to have internet access. I waited with the tuk tuk while Gabe went to check on the actualities of the rooms. A guy stopped at the tuk tuk and gave me a card for another place. When Gabe got back he said the rooms were enormous, but also much more expensive, plus the internet was nearby, but not included. Next he checked out the place I got the card from, but those rooms were not very good. We asked for a place with internet access and they gave us the name of Hotel Minerwa. Our driver took us to a different place, using the amazing logic all cabbies seem to possess. We made him bring us to the Minerwa, and Gabe went in to check it out. A smiling Gabe emerged soon after, saying we definitely wanted to stay here. The price was great and the room is large compared to our places in Mumbai and Kolkata (but it is still half the size of the rooms at Anjani, which is crazy). We got registered and installed in room 304 then went to the roof top restaurant for breakfast. We both had curd with bananas and honey, and I had a masala omelette while Gabe had a tomato omelette and chai. Really good food and quite cheap. We talked with the waiter and got a lot of good info on the city. The hotel (and actually many of the hotels here) have a nearly nightly showing of the James Bond film, Octopussy, since it was partially filmed in Udaipur. He gave us the internet password, but we could not get it to work. They said it would be working later in the day. Regardless, this is already so much nicer and beautiful than the India we have experienced to this point and I am glad for it.

August 8 Sunday We woke up at 4 am to gauge the weather and it was actually raining. We went back to bed and got up closer to 7 to see that the clouds were breaking up. There was hope for pictures of the Annapurna range yet. It was still slightly drizzling, so we went over to Kangaroo and had breakfasts of fruit juice, brown toast with jam, fruit muesli with curd, tea and a croissant from the German bakery. Back to the hostel to check out of our room and put the bags in their storage for the day. We walked to the damside and all the way to the alternatively named Devi, Davis, or David Fall, where we planned to take a bus the remaining way up to the Shakti Stupa (World Peace Pagoda). Turns out that no bus actually goes to the Pagoda despite our having been informed otherwise, so we ended up walking the whole way up the mountain. We were drenched in sweat, the clouds refused to come off the higher peaks, and other clouds were threatening rain, but the walk and view were well worth it. It is somewhat sad to have been to the Himalayas and not have any pictures to show for it, but we really did see them on several occasions, when photography was just not really possible, in buses around the valley. As has been the case the last few days it has felt so much like Switzerland, with the way the mountains look, the houses all decorated, the friendly people, the smells of cows and grass, the sounds of chickens and goats, I really love it here.

The Peace Pagoda itself is rather impressive and if the clouds had cooperated it is the type of place you could sit all day and take pictures.

August 9 Monday Daybreak had us approaching the Nepalese border town of Sonauli and at 5:40 am we got dropped off in typical traveler fashion 6 kms from the actual border. Yay for convenience and practicality. A 50 rupee jeep ride got us to about 200 meters from the crossing. We walked to the immigration office on the Nepali side and got stamped out, walked across the no man's land to the Indian immigration office and within an hour were back in India with all our stamps in place. Then the hassles with taxis and rickshaws began as they all claimed we had a huge distance to cover to the bus station (we walked the one kilometer just over a week ago, so we know what it really is). Gabe discovered one mistake in that he did not change his money back to Indian rupees on the Nepali side. Similar to my extra Myanmar Kyat, it was much harder to change on the Indian side (that actually became a day long search for a place that would do the exchange and not flat out gouge on the transaction). We ran into a nearly full taxi landrover and again got a deal with rides to Gorakhpur for 100 rupees each. This is a double blessing because it cuts almost three hours off the travel time of the bus and at 100 rupees is barely more than the bus. Most people pay 200-250, but since they just want to pack the vehicle we have benefited in both directions. Our driver was in a hurry so we made good time and with a few short naps in our crammed seats in the back, we were suddenly in Gorakhpur by about 8:30 am. This time we got dropped off right at the train station which was great for us. We waded through the drivers trying to take us right back to Sonauli and while I guarded the mound of our bags, Gabe tried to track down train tickets to New Delhi. That was a whole story in itself and an hour and a half later

August 10 Tuesday We arrived in Delhi at 6 am and with the normal hassle of taxis got one to take us to Connaught Place (which is undergoing major renovation for the Commonwealth Games), where the rooms were either complete dumps or VERY expensive. That driver passed us on to another driver who said he would not charge us to help find a place to stay. That means he gets a commission on the room, but that can work both ways. After some really expensive options he did take us to Hotel Kumar Palace and we took a room. We dropped our bags in the room and after about five times of hotel staff knocking to see if we needed food/beer/laundry, we locked the door. We both took showers and then headed out to explore Delhi a bit and get some food. The metro system is supposed to be one of the more efficient ways of getting around the city and I have to agree after our time here. The subway is being greatly expanded and will be a nice system when completed (who knows when that might be), but we were able to use it very cheaply to get to a few places of interest. They are packed with people at all hours though. We actually ate at a cafe in the metro station, snacking on samosa, veg cutlets and other veg pastries, on top of some decent lassis.

August 11 Wednesday I arrived at the Indira Gandhi Int'l Airport about 12:30 and getting through customs/immigration including three separate scannings of my luggage and person I made it to the gate with fifteen minutes to spare. I was able to get the bags checked straight through to SFO, which is a blessing since I have the long German layover. The plane left 10 minutes late at 2:35 am. The flight was basically uneventful, we arrived in Frankfurt 10 minutes early due to favorable winds and I could listen to some decent inflight radio, but the movies were not ones I was interested in. With a seven hour layover in Frankfurt I was in no rush to get off the plane and was one of the very last. It was easy to find which terminal I needed to go to, but they had no info on which gate I would need to go to. My ticket indicated C13, but that is an isolated gate specifically for flights to/from Israel. So much for security fears and peace in the middle east. I chose to wait in a no man's land area until I could confirm which gate was mine before going through another round of baggage checks and scans.

2011-01-24T21:06:00.000-08:00

Some May and June notes....

May 1 Sabbath I showered and headed for church without breakfast this morning. A young man named
Tony from Kenya was one of the only other foreigners when I arrived, but then Marc Andre's family came and so there was a small group of us that could have an English lesson study when it was time to break for classes. The lesson this week was about the environment and how Christians should relate to it. We had some interesting conversation. Gabe and I have both been watching a number of documentaries lately and several have been on the state of the world and they paint a rather bleak picture. They mostly end on a hopeful note, but the reality is that we as humans have taken to our role as stewards of the earth very poorly and pushed the planet beyond the point of safe return. Overfishing, deforestation, pollution, depleted water supplies, the burgeoning oil crisis: any of these could cause a global catastrophy by themselves and we are facing them all at once. Despite how depressing that could all be, I see it more as a chance to learn and share with others how God still gives me hope and peace.

The new pastor gave his second sermon today and chose as a topic several aspects of the Job story.

Around 6:30 pm we left the hostel to meet with a person that knows people Gabe knows, who wanted to have dinner with us. Her name is Eva and she has been here for three years on a lectureship at a university here in Chiang Mai. She teaches Old Testament subjects, which seems to be an odd match in Thailand, but she seems to enjoy it. We met her at a Thai restaurant near the Amari Hotel on the west side of the city. For dinner we had two salads (one was a spicy banana flower salad and the other a pomelo salad), a baked fish dish, a fermented fish dish, a traditional soup, and a rice chicken dish. Eva is normally a fan of the pomelo salad, but this time it was different and not very good. The spicy banana flower was also a disappointment. It was more like a tuna salad and I could not even detect anything that seemed like banana flower, which I had been curious about. The baked fish was good, but the fermented fish dish was extremely tasty. I liked the soup although towards the end it was getting pretty salty.

May 3 Monday We slept in this morning to celebrate Thai Labor Day. Then after getting up and having breakfast we moved to a room on the first floor. We think it might be slightly cooler and it has the additional benefit of a stronger wifi signal (when the internet is up). Gabe brought out Citadels and we reacquainted ourselves with the basic rules while playing three games. It was good to finally get it into the mix as we have played quite a bit of Bonanza and San Juan, but this was our first foray into Citadels on this trip. Later in the afternoon we got in touch with Gabe's friend Eva and she gave us directions to meet her at a Burmese restaurant on the west side of town outside the moat. There was just enough time before we arranged to meet her that we could squeeze in massages. This was my second massage at this place. Gabe was getting his third. I have had seven massages so far in Thailand (I know that sounds extravagant, but I can live with that) and each one has been slightly different. By that I mean I have gotten a traditional Thai massage each time and while they follow a certain general pattern, each one has changed up maneuvers and techniques enough that they are different. Only one as been unsatisfactory and that was from a younger masseuse, which I just chalk up to her inexperience. For that matter, my best massage came from a girl that looked to be about 14. She had strong hands and knew what she was doing, while the other young woman had not been very confident in what she was doing. This time I had an older lady who was competent and I had a good massage. Gabe came out of his feeling pretty good, but started feeling sore soon after. That got worse the rest of the evening. He has to evaluate where that is going before we decide to go back.

Having the massages gave us little time to get to our dinner appointment, but we quickly flagged down a mini bus and were on our way. We weren't watching too closely and got out a block too soon and while that probably does not sound like much, outside the moat the blocks are LONG. Walking briskly we soon found the signs for the Burmese place, but it was closed and Eva wasn't around. Gabe called her and she was at a second Burmese place. We were at the right one, but since it was a holiday they were closed and she had gone to a second location nearby to see if they were open. With some rough directions we walked a little further and soon found Eva (and a little place called Hwme in the side alley of the Soi). She had already ordered five dishes and we added another. The food was delicious. There was a bean curd salad, a samosa salad, a tomato salad, a tea leaf salad, a morning glory salad, and then a sauteed mushroom and water cress dish, in addition to our portions of rice. Each one was wonderful, although the stand out for both Gabe and me was the samosa salad. We have learned to pick out the most obvious peppers and to live with the ones you miss before you get them in your mouth. I'm getting used to having the pepper induced hiccups quite regularly. We had some other excitement during dinner in the form of a lightning and thunder storm show (but no rain) and the wind that accompanied that twice knocked down the shade structure on the other side of the restaurant. Luckily no one was under the portion that fell. Just at the end of dinner it did sprinkle just a bit, but we were going to take a mini bus anyway so the little rain we did get hit with did not matter. Our mini bus dropped us at the Tae Phae gate and we grabbed ice cream cones before making a leisurely and indirect walk back 'home'.

May 4 Tuesday After getting up we arranged to go to the ADRA office and see what we could accomplish on the project. We picked up our 'usuals' at the Funky Monkey Cafe for breakfast and met Bob at the Monttri Hotel to drive to the office. Most of the office was empty because tomorrow is another holiday and so most people just take an extra day off. In the evening we met up with Tangmo and saw Iron 2 Man at the airport theater. Tangmo had her scooter, but we would not all fit, so Gabe and I walked back, which was not nearly as long a walk as I had imagined. Gabe split off to go to her house and I ended up walking back most of the way with a couple from Oregon, who had arrived in Chiang Mai three days ago. The guy was saying he had some dental work planned, since he did not have insurance back in the states, and the whole thing would only cost him $45 to do in Thailand.

May 5 Wednesday Another holiday, this time it is Coronation Day, so the office is closed. We slept in and were about to head out for a late breakfast when Eva called and invited us to lunch out at one of the nearby lakes. We met her and one of her friends at a coffee shop near one of the restaurants she had taken us to before and took his car out to the lake a short drive outside town. There were shade structures all along the lakeside, set back some because the lake is low in anticipation of the coming rainy season. We had brought a card game, and Eva had brought a badminton set, but there was too much wind for us to really do anything with either of those. We did order seven dishes for a shared lunch. The most unusual was one called jumping shrimp, which consisted of live shrimp in a strong chili paste. When it arrived Eva lifted the lid and several jumped out. Her friend tried putting them back in and several more jumped out. The people at the next shade structure were laughing at the whole thing since they are Thai and knew what to do. I took the dish and shook it for about a minute and that stunned most of the shrimp enough for everyone to start eating them. The other dishes were quite good.

May 8 Sabbath Another nice Sabbath in Chiang Mai. We had a strong rain shower just at the end of potluck after church and after the sun broke back through, Isaiah and his dad gave me a ride back to Safe House on their scooter.

May 9 Sunday We only left the hostel complex to have breakfast at Funky Monkey and eat lunch. Once it got dark we did meet the staff from the Funky Monkey at a nearby Wat to get dinner. There were five of them, Gabe and Tangmo, and me. I had three samosas, a plate of pad thai, a watermelon shake, and some lemon ancient ice for desert, all for less than three dollars. Jae is really going through a tough time, even though she tries hard not to show it, since her husband asked for a divorce and she has found out about infidelity on his part. She really wants the relationship to work and is not willing to let it go yet, but that is probably where it is headed. It is hard in some ways to realize how involved we have become in the lives of the Funky Monkey staff, the family at Safe House, people at the church, in a relatively short amount of time. I think it does speak to the fact that Gabe and I are accessible and open and people feel comfortable around us.

June 8 Tuesday To make it into Angkor Wat for sunrise we had to leave the hostel at 4:45 am. Our tuk tuk driver Ramon was on time and got us to the ticket entrance quickly. With a little more than a half hour to spare we got dropped off and so began a long day with visits to Angkor Thom then Bayon, then Bapuon then the Suor Prat Towers and the Khleangs, then the Elephant Terrace, the Phimeanakas and the Royal Palace, then the Leper King Terrace, then finally to Ta Prohm (Tombraider site). Then it was back home for showers and rest so much so that we missed dinner (it was raining as well)

June 9 Wednesday Our second day of Angkor began at 11 after we could not contact the person that had been recommended to us. We had a nice breakfast for $3.50 that included eggs, a small baguette with cheese, butter, and jam, fresh fruit and a pancake, with orange juice and tea. It was a place we found walking down a back alley scouting bike rental places. The temples we saw were Preah Khan, Neak Pean, Ta Som, East Mebon, Ta Keo, and Phnom Bakheng for sunset.

June 10 Thursday After breakfast at Le Tigre de Papier we met up with Ramon at 9am and headed to Roluos where three temples are concentrated. We drove to the farthest one first and visited tiny Lolei then Preah Ko then Bakong, then negotiated with our driver to head north to Banteay Srei then back near town to the monument for the Killing Fields in the Siem Reap area. Then back to hostel, to pub street to eat, internet and sleep

2011-01-24T20:52:00.000-08:00

Some snippets and incomplete thoughts from April.....

April 11 Sunday We slept in, eventually had breakfast and got sprayed by various Songkran celebrants as we made our way back to the hostel along the moat. We both fell asleep again and then I started watching Invictus, a film about Nelson Mandela at the time he took over as president of South Africa. Partway through the film a character asks one of Mandela's body guards what he is like and the response was that with the previous president his job had been to be invisible, but with the new president “To him no one is invisible.” Because of things I have been seeing and thinking about that was enough to make me start crying. That is what God is like to me. That is what I wish my life would convey to others. No one is invisible. No one is unworthy of acknowledgment. We were made to need human contact and contact with a higher power and yet most people spend great amounts of time and energy cutting themselves and others off. It is a challenge to me on this trip because sometimes I am inundated with beggars and these are a whole different class from the homeless in America. The range of physical deformities is astounding and cringeworthy and I can't possibly give money to all of them, but at the same time these are often the people who most need to know that they aren't invisible. The crowds move by like they aren't there and I do the same and I feel heartsick about it.

April 15 Thursday A good portion of today was dedicated to getting my taxes filed. My mom had gotten most of the necessary documents scanned and emailed to me and I was able to file online with a minimum of difficulty. It is nice to be getting everything back, even though it is not a very large amount since I only was working for the first two months of the year and then I had no income to speak of. (I did not bother reporting the $10 Australian I earned moving furniture at a hostel in Cairns). Of course this was secondary to celebrating another day of being wet to bring about the end of Songkran.

And part of an essay I was working on about the sex trafficking situation in Thailand

An Essay: The sex trade in Thailand and implications of trafficking

Part of the reason we came to Thailand in the first place was that it is an epicenter for sex tourism and human trafficking. We wanted to learn more first hand and possibly help to increase awareness of the issues for ourselves and within our spheres of influence. In that regard it has been an eye opening experience, with some preconceptions confirmed and many discounted or modified. The story goes back a long time, since much of this is tied to the oldest profession in the world.

There are two lynch pin pieces to this issue as I have come to see it, those being the historical male Thai perspective on relationships and the Vietnam war. To look at the first part of that, you have to understand that for centuries Thais practiced polygamy. This idea that men could have multiple partners openly and really have that be seen as a sign of wealth and power is deeply ingrained in the culture. It was only in the early part of the reign of the current king that the law was changed, banning polygamy as a gesture to the Western Civilized nations, that they were not as backward as some of their neighboring countries. So the gesture was made, but no change was effected in the mindset of the average Thai male. As a result, modern Thai men adjusted to have a wife and then many mistresses and/or prostitutes on the side. This apparently satisfies and preserves their cultural masculinity. There really is no stigma attached to visiting prostitutes.

The second prong, the Vietnam war, is when the sex trade really took hold, as Thailand became an R & R point for the US soldiers. The demand for sex was met by a willing Thais who saw the money making situation for what it was. By the time the Vietnam war was wrapping up, Thailand was gaining a reputation as a tourist destination and a place where beautiful girls and cheap sex were readily available.

It is a combination of these two things that has generated the human sex trafficking that tarnishes Thailand's reputation now. And it gets more tangled and complicated to closer you look. When foreigners come to Thailand looking for sex, they bring with them money and in the grand scheme of things the women servicing them are doing quite well for themselves financially, if at untold emotional and psychological cost. This can be demonstrated with the not uncommon example of a girl who has gone into prostitution returning to her home village capable of building a nicer house than the village chief. Other girls see this and since there is little stigma attached to the profession, it is very tempting and many do go into it willingly. The girls in this sector commonly do not work with pimps. The consequence of many girls and women going into sex work with foreigners is that there are fewer women for the average Thai man to achieve his virility quota. This is exacerbated by the issue of migrant work forces, where many men are away from their families for months at a time for work. These workers are commonly on the lowest earning levels, but they still have this ingrained cultural need to have multiple sexual partners. They demand access to very cheap sex and that demand is met through trafficked girls and women from neighboring extremely poor countries, such as Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam,and Burma. These are the girls that are living in absolutely atrocious circumstances and the horror stories we have seen and heard about are sickening.

There are other parallel issues dealing with the Ladyboy/Transgender and the Gay/Lesbian communities. Ladyboys are young men who are living as women. The sheer numbers of them is astounding. They are not openly accepted or ostracized, but they obviously....

2011-01-24T20:48:00.000-08:00

Here are some bits and pieces from my journal from March...

March 1 Monday In the morning after eating the free breakfast we booked a bicycle tour for tomorrow. Then we headed out into the city for the day. We met Gabe's high school classmate Ken, who is Thai and is a vice president of Citibank for the region. He had a box of items that Gabe's parents had sent for him that we needed to retrieve. We started out with him treating us to lunch and it was quite good. There were not many vegetarian options so I got a Thai papaya salad, which like many Thai foods was spicy, with a bit of sweetness. After eating and looking through all the things Gabe had in his care package we took a taxi down to the piers. Ken recommended we buy the day pass as we would be using the river quite a bit for the rest of the day. Our first stop was the Grand Palace, just so we could see where it was. It is quite expensive and during lunch Gabe discovered that his camera battery was dead, so we knew we would be coming back to a few of these places and did not need to spend the money now. Back at the piers we took a short ride to Wat Pho and walked around about a quarter of the grounds. There is a closed off portion that you pay 50 baht to enter and see an enormous reclining buddha, but with dead cameras it was not going to be today. Ken showed us where the Museum of Siam was behind the temple and though it was closed for the holiday, he highly recommended we come back for a visit. Back to the river and a short ride to the other side brought us to Wat Arun and we each paid 50 baht to get in. This is also known as the Temple of the Dawn. It has a number of towering spires with external staircases, which people seemed to have much more difficulty coming back down than climbing in the first place. Crossing back over the river we stopped at a small cafe for smoothies before walking into the Chinatown of BKK. Now it seems like a very familiar place. The decorations were still up for New Years and the vendors all have similar wares to what we have been seeing for the past several months. On the edge of Chinatown, Ken took us to an all you can eat Japanese restaurant which was different from what I have seen before. The food came by on a conveyor belt and you picked whatever you wanted. There was a hot pot on the table and you cooked your food choices to your liking and ate and ate and ate. Afterwards, Ken pointed us in the direction of the metro, we said our goodbyes, and headed back to the hostel.

March 2 Tuesday Gabe and I had our very simple free breakfast, then got a taxi over to the Hotel that was our meeting point for our bike tour with Absoluteexplorer.com. We were met just outside the lobby by Panida, a tiny Thai girl with a big personality. She brought us through a street market near the hotel that was mainly farmers from where she was going to be taking us. She showed and identified a number of unusual items in the market from roasted ants/ant larvae to bell apples (which I actually like, but had not known what they were called). Then we had an hour long train ride out to Klong Bang Phra, which translates to Canal Thin Monk village. For the next 6 hours or so we meandered through rice paddies, fish farms, prawn farms, tiny villages, and small temples, stopping to talk to local people, sample fruits, shaved ice, and plants, have lunch, see snakes, praying mantis, pick mangoes from a tree, visit a local elementary school, etc. It was a very hot day, but we were provided with plenty of water and most of the terrain was level. It is interesting that we know of mangoes for example, and know a couple kinds back in the states, but here there are at least 23 types of mangoes. There are a host of different eggplants, papayas, and many of the other vegetables we know as a single type are greatly varied here. Gabe and I both fell asleep during the train ride home. When we got to our station, Gabe headed straight back to the hostel, but I took about an hour to walk around the area of the station and photograph some of the graffiti work.

March3 Wednesday Now armed with the knowledge we had gathered with Ken on Monday we retraced some of our steps. We made it down to the Express Boat central pier and just took the single leg ticket for 25 baht. This made more sense than the full day ticket and would have saved us money even on Monday when we used the river a lot. We headed straight for the Grand Palace complex, not planning to go in because of the high cost, but to get what pictures we could. When we had been there before we had seen a place where it was possible to walk in without paying although this was a loophole that was easily cut off. Well we took pictures in the open area of the palace complex and then we got separated. I had walked into the toilet since it was convenient and apparently Gabe did not see me do that. When I came back out about two minutes later he was no where to be found. Well great, thanks for waiting! I checked all over the area I had access to and did not see him and after waiting a full 45 minutes with no sign of him, I left to continue my day on my own. We had made a basic outline of the places we had wanted to visit, so next on my list was Wat Pho. I walked down the east side of the Grand Palace to Wat Pho and went in. I spent a good hour wandering through the portions that were open to the public, where I could go into several shrines, observe a memorial service in progress, see where the temple massage school was (too expensive though), visit a sacred tree, and see plenty of Buddhist iconography. I did go to see the center piece Reclining Buddha, which is a massive gold colored buddha. Because of the way the temple is build around the statue it was difficult to get a full picture, but I did get a number of sectional shots. The feet were quite interesting as the pattern on the soles was made up of several hundred smaller images of plants, other gods, animals, etc. The whole time there is a musical accompaniment as people in the procession around the buddha drop coins into a line of offering drums that follow the entire length of the building. In several of the shrines were smaller buddha icons covered in gold leaf. It was beautiful the way they seemed to be decaying and shedding gold skin. I got a lot of pictures of these. When I completed my tour of Wat Pho, I returned to the pier and crossed the river to Wat Arun., I had already been there a few days before and since my camera was working at the time I already had pictures, but I figured it might be a good picture location at sunset and now I was on the right side of the river at least. Instead of going right into the Arun complex, I went along the north side and into the city away from the river. Once I got out to a major road I followed it towards another Wat we had seen during our rides on the river. Along the way I passed several Naval facilities, including one where some sort of graduation ceremony had just concluded. Swarms of people were clustered around young men and women in uniforms, showering them with flowers and gifts and piling into cars to head home. Further down the road, I was momentarily stopped in my tracks when three foot length of tail was hanging out of a bush into the sidewalk. I approached cautiously and what did I see? Crikey, ain't she a beauty! A large monitor lizard resting up. I grabbed the tail and got no response, but the creature was definitely alive and did not appear to have been hit by a car or anything. Still not a very safe place and I wonder how an animal that large survives in the midst of a city. Shortly after that incident I was at the temple and it was not nearly as impressive as the others, but still interesting. It was listed as one of 9 temples that are considered the holiest in all of Bangkok.

March 4 Thursday We returned to the area near Wat Pho this morning and split up temporarily. Gabe to really see Wat Arun across the river and me to see if I could get into the Grand Palace. We would meet in an hour and a half at the Museum of Siam. Well, when I got to the Grand Palace, the path that Gabe had been able to sneak into was blocked by a convention of toilet cleaning personnel. There was no chance of me getting in. So I made my way down to the Museum of Siam and waited in the air conditioned cafe drinking a tamarind fruit juice. Gabe arrived a few minutes after our scheduled meeting time and we then discovered that the museum was quite expensive. They could give us a group rate if we waited around and found four other people to join us. Well, we waited a bit, but not many people were coming in. Then one of the attendants told us if we came back at 4:30pm the museum was free for the last hour and a half. No problem, we can deal with that and so we set out to see a few other things in the area until 4:30. We took a tuk tuk (after turning down about 20 of his compatriots with their outrageous prices) with a driver that was willing to negotiate the price with us. The first stop was the Giant Swing, which is really a disappointment. In the middle of a large intersection is the frame work for a mega swing, probably 20+ meters high, but there is no swing. It has been removed for safety reasons. Boo boo boooooo. Our driver took us next to the Golden Mount and we released him there as we planned to walk back. The mount is a man made hill with a number of tombs, thousands of small buddha images, and a large golden shrine at the pinnacle. There were bells at each landing as you climbed the artificial mountain and the sounds are pleasant and all around you. Our walk back to the museum was rushed because we spent more time at the Golden Mount, with its great panoramic view of the city. This is a much more centralized point and you can see a lot from here.

Back at the Museum, we were met with a multitude of interactive exhibits details all aspects of Thai history and culture, including the contributions of the many non Thai groups that have had impacts here. There is a wealth of information here and Gabe was very impressed with the museum on the whole. I guess I was not that impressed, although I know they put a lot of work into it. It was smaller than I expected and while the interactive portions of the facility probably are great for school groups, I did not find too many of them engaging.

March 13 Sabbath Today we joined a group of new friends and took a long tail boat around Koh Phi Phi Don and the surrounding islands of Koh Phi Phi Le, Mosquito, and Bamboo. One guy was a young Chinese man who works in the Shanghai area. He was interested in talking to us about our time in his homeland. We were the first Americans he had encountered in a couple months of traveling through Vietnam, Laos, and Thailand. We stopped at a different Monkey Beach than the one we walked to yesterday. We also stopped at several other beaches along Phi Phi Don for snorkeling, then broke away and headed to Bamboo for some beach time. I ended up walking all the way around the island. It is quite small so that was no great feat. We boated past Mosquito, but did not actually stop there.

March 14 Sunday After checking out and leaving our bags for later pickup, we went down to have some pancakes and then visit the viewpoint. The trail to what turned out to be three official viewpoints and numerous unmarked ones was very close to our bungalow. It was not a long walk, but it was mostly up stairs and very steep. We were both sweating quite a bit by the first viewpoint. The second viewpoint was the best with extra elevation and a clear view of the isthmus and both bays, plus Koh Phi Phi Le in the distance. The third viewpoint was further down the ridge and while nice, it has a number of trees that block any serious picture taking. It was a pleasant place to sit in the shade for a bit and just relax. We walked back on the ridge beyond where we could descend and discovered a viewpoint of our own. It was very nice although difficult to find and not as spectacular as viewpoint two. Returning to retrieve our bags, we had a short amount of time to use the internet, then made our way to the pier at 3pm to begin our 16 hour journey back to BKK. In what is appearing to be typical Thai fashion, what our tickets say and what actually occurred before we were in BKK are completely different. Our tickets said we had a boat to Krabi then a bus straight up to BKK (which should have picked us up from the Krabi pier). Well at the Krabi pier we were herded onto a bus that took us to another bus depot, where after a wait we did get onto a nice looking air conditioned bus. It was nice looking, but horrendous for both Gabe and my knees. And we headed for Surat Thani, which is definitely not the most direct route to BKK. They made a stop a little more than halfway to Surat Thani and unloaded those who would continue that way and the rest of us headed north.

March 15 Monday Because of the uncomfortable seating, neither of us got much in the way of sleep and when the bus pulled over to the side of the road in BKK at 6 am, we were just as confused as everyone else. We were literally dropped of at the roadside, not at the Southbound Bus Depot, where our tickets said we were headed. There was also a cloud of taxi drivers to pounce on us when we disembarked. That lead us to think it was part of a planned scheme to get us to use the taxis. A little later another option emerged. There were Red Shirt protesters by the thousands gathering near the Grand Palace and many bus routes had been modified and some roads closed. The helpful taxi drivers where shouting that there were no buses at all and we had to take taxis, even though buses were driving by right behind them as they spoke. It is absurd. We walked away from the scene to where we could catch a bus we knew would get us close to 'home', which is now with Bronson, a teacher at Ekkamai International School. Eventually we made it to Soi 37 off Sukhumvit 71, but it took an hour more before Bronson could escape class and get us the key. He invited us to lunch at another school down the street, where we had all we could eat.

March 19 Friday We had made a decision to go and do some things on our own for the day, so we headed first to the post office and I sent a package home and a letter back to China. Then we took the #40 bus down to Sukhumvit 25 and got info on extending Gabe's India visa. Which is to say, we found out that they will not extend a tourist visa, like what we have. Other visa types they have ways of doing it, but not for tourists. So Gabe did have one option: apply for a new visa to replace the one he has and pay the full cost again. He filled out the paperwork and we dropped it off, but he has to go into the embassy once more on Monday for an interview, probably to explain why he is trying to apply for a visa while he already has an existing one. So we can mull our options over during the weekend before he has to pay anything on this new wrinkle. With that out of the way, we let our curiosity get the better of us and we hopped on the BTS to go right to the area being occupied by the Red Shirt protesters. There have been warnings by the US government and the Australian government to avoid the areas where they are congregating, so there was definitely some risk in what we were doing. We made our way around a few blocks of government buildings and then walked through a blockade to where the red shirts have taken over the street and set up their temporary housing. The people were in high spirits, we got many friendly greetings, and many people wanted us to take pictures of them. We passed a very long line of Red Shirts waiting in a line to give blood. Those taking the blood were wearing Red Cross uniforms, so I do not think this blood was headed for the parliament steps like some earlier demonstrations. The crowds got thicker and thicker as we approached the Parliament Building, but everyone was orderly and seemed quite happy. We were given bottled water and some bananas and generally welcomed openly.

March 20 Sabbath It was a busy day. It was the final day of a seminar series by the same couple that is leading out the Child Evangelism programs we helped out with this week. Gabe, Bronson,and I met Pastor Doug and his family at the mission and he drove us all over to the RAIS campus, where they had set up in the school auditorium yesterday afternoon. There was some free food in the cafeteria and that was a good thing since we had skipped it. Only problem was that it was fried rice and a vegetable rice soup. Gabe decided he would hold out for lunch. I had two plates of fried rice and some fruit they brought out, then headed up to the church area. The seminar has been held over the past three weekends, where people were being trained in how to work with child evangelism and starting last Wednesday they had been implementing what they learned in real life situations at four locations around the city.

March 21 Sunday This was about the laziest day I have had in several months. We stayed indoors for almost the whole day sitting in front of our computers with the fans blowing on us. The windows and doors were all open and it was hot, but the moving air felt good anyway. I finished sending pictures to our travel mates from the South Great Wall, got a few things posted to the blog, emailed several people, listened to music, monitored the news for Red Shirt activity, etc. Eventually, we did leave for a while in the late afternoon to get food. We ended up at the Green House, a nearby restaurant owned by the parents of some students from the SDA school. The prices are decent and they will make any dish vegetarian. They also adjust the prices if you make a dish vegetarian. So I had a Bamboo shoot with chicken dish (normally 80 baht) which they substituted tofu for the chicken and my bill was 45 baht. Then I added a watermelon shake for 20 baht. Gabe had a sweet and sour fish dish and then we split a pad sae eu dish. So for just over $3 I had enough good food for my meal and a very sweet watermelon shake. Walking back home, we stopped at a street vendor and got more shakes – mine was apple/banana and Gabe tried a coconut/pineapple combo. His pineapple was not very ripe, so the drink had an odd taste, but mine was quite good.

March 22 Monday Up early to meet the team at the mission, where all the pastors from Thailand (well the majority of them, 93 or so) were having their yearly convocation. That meant it was a perfect opportunity for H4BKK to gather some information for the future. When we arrived nothing was set up and it quickly became clear that much of the needed equipment was at a different location and therefore unaccessible for the day. We managed to get four cameras set up, each one different and recording to a different media (hard drive, DV, SD card, etc.). Not the way you want to go into a shooting day, but later we learned why it would be okay. The plan was to interview about half of the pastors and their spouses today and catch the rest tomorrow. What the interviews were supposed to focus on was how God has been working on individuals within each pastor's congregation and the immediate community they interact with. Goi was tasked with playing the role of producer, getting the pastors to come over and do the interviews. She did not like doing it, but we had about 50 interviews done by early afternoon. Even though Gabe and I do not speak Thai, it soon became clear that most of the pastors were telling stories from their own life, and while that may have been interesting it was not the aim of this project. And we were fairly confident that the reason we were getting this sort of info was the question sheet they were being given. When we had a chance to talk to Pastor Doug as the meetings were winding down for the day, we confirmed that there was a problem. This was frustrating to all of us. Most of a day's work was essentially unusable and it had been like pulling teeth to get the pastors to cooperation in doing that. Now we would have to do it again tomorrow. Oh, and the reason that it was not really a problem to have multiple formats on the cameras is that the information was just to get stories from each church. Later on teams will visit each church and film a segment to expand those stories and that is when consistency will matter. Because of the issues throughout the day, Gabe called a debriefing for everyone involved in the video work. It is important for the other volunteers to see how these happen as well as go over the positives and negatives from the day, because there are almost always some of both. That lasted for a couple hours and Doug's wife brought some noodles for us to eat and some molasses cookies. Four of us stayed and talked until 11:30 about the politics and reasons for the tensions between some of the parties we have been working with.

March 27 Sabbath This was a great day that almost did not happen for me. Gabe was having some issues with his upper back (unrelated to his previous back issues) and so he was not going to participate, but we had been invited to go with the Prison Ministry group to a Thai prison. The hitch was that we had to meet at the mission at 5:30am. I set my alarm for 5am and went to bed early, but when I woke up it was 5:23am. I had enough time to go to the bathroom, throw my close on, and head out. When I reached the reception of Bronson's apartment building the doors were locked and the alarm panel on the side looked complicated. Usually there is someone manning the desk, but not this morning. I tried Bronson's apartment number to see if that was the code, but no success. I felt frustrated that I would have woken up, but been locked inside the building and would miss the Prison Ministry trip. I climbed back up the five flights of stairs to Bronson's and laid down to go back to sleep. About half an hour later Bronson's phone was ringing and he answered it. It was Leah calling to see if I was still coming, they still had not left if I wanted to make it. Well Bronson told me he did not know the code, but there was a sliding door I could go through. That worked and I was on my way. Only five of us left from the mission. There were 3 other vans meeting us at the prison. We had rice and soy milk for breakfast while traveling and I napped part of the 2 hour drive to Kanchanaburi. When we arrived I still did not really understand what kind of program we would be involved in presenting. There were about 20 young people from one of the BKK churches and they had guitars, so they were obviously planning on playing some music. I know in the states, prison ministries often gives a basic church service along with whatever else they offer and assumed that was what we may be doing. I guess since the vast majoirity of the population is Buddhist, that should have seemed less likely and indeed it was not what we did. The youth group did play contemporary Christian music (minus any drums) and typical youth group church music and seemed to get a great response. What I ended up doing was helping prisoners select free eyeglasses. We had a range from +2.00 to -4.00 in 0.25 increments. I was doling out glasses on the negative end of that spectrum and most of the prisoners really needed reading glasses, so I was not nearly as busy as the other table was. Some people really needed the glasses and took the time to find ones that were as close as possible to their ocular needs, but true to the foibles of human nature several of the men tried on a single pair and took it, while a number of the women seemed far more concerned about what the glasses looked like than if they improved their vision. While this was going on there were three dentists working with the female prison population. They finished close to noon and we then spent an hour passing out care packages to each prisoner in the place. There were 1700 men and 274 women and there were enough for everyone. The warden was passing out the packages with the rest of us. I was surprised by how young some of the prisoners looked. I don't know what the age is that they can be tried as adults here, but I can hardly imagine some of them were out of their teens. We were provided a basic lunch after that and the youth group left for home. Those of us that remained turned our space in the prison yard into a dental treadmill. One dentist was identifying the problem teeth and giving a basic local anesthetic to four men at a time. Then they waited in a short queue until there was an open chair. The four chairs were basically split between the husband and wife dentist team, but really it was first come first served as fast as we could go. And that was amazingly fast. I think by the end we had worked on 10 percent of the prisoners. I had a couple different roles. First I was stripping the labels off the drug vials, so that they would fit into the syringe casings, then once that was done I was primarily holding the heads of the patients still while the dentists worked. We worked in teams of four: a dentist, one assistant to hand utensils to the dentist and remove large chunks from the patients mouth as the dentist continued working, a flashlight man to make sure the dentist could see in the mouth and me keeping the patient as still as possible. If you ever think of having dental work done overseas or in a mission setting, please understand that there is basically one procedure: extraction of the problem tooth. There is no patching or capping; the tooth simply comes out. I have had several issues with my teeth and I know how much it hurt, but I do not know how some of these men could hold out until their teeth were in the state that we got to see them in. Lots of them were like ice cream cones without any ice cream. And that makes extraction difficult since there is not much to grab onto. It leads to cracked teeth and much messier digging into the gums to remove the remaining roots. I get very squeamish at the sight of my own blood, but not at that of others, I don't know why that is or what it says about me. It was fascinating to watch how efficiently the two dentists removed the teeth and despite that efficiently, they tried to minimize the pain the men felt and even with the drugs there was a lot of pain. But there were several problem situations that hurt to watch as they had to really dig and cut up the gum to get the last little pieces out. I won't describe it further than that.

Several of those helping us out were prisoners themselves and by the end most of them had their mouths packed with cotton from their own dental work. There was also a constant audience watching over the short fence that blocked us off from the rest of the prison yard.

Back on the road.....finally!

2011-01-20T16:01:00.000-08:00

Well, after a long unintended hiatus from this blog, I am about to get on the road again. So, it is high time I make some noise here. First off, the new travel plans have me visiting Kenya and Uganda for approximately two months, then several weeks in Ethiopia before a six week stint through Egypt, Jordan, and Israel. A few weeks in Turkey will lead to visiting family and friends in Switzerland/Germany before returning home. Second, while I have all my pictures and videos backed up on the server of one of my best friends, I also am making quite a few of my pictures (much more than what is on here, like a couple thousand more) available on Flickr. The major sets by country are here. I hope to post some selected journal entries from the 'missing' months of the trip so far, before I take off next Thursday.

That's it for the moment.

2010-06-25T07:59:00.000-07:00

More Myanmar pictures....

Sunset in Bagon from the Oak Kyaung Gyi pagoda group.

Fairly typical view from anywhere in Bagon: fields waiting for rain and temples everywhere.

The painting quality is amazing since these were created between the 11th and 13th century.

Our driver, guide, and chariot in Mandalay.

The pedestal of the unfinished Mingun structure. If they had completed it the upper dome would have nearly tripled its height.

2010-06-25T07:23:00.000-07:00

A giant guardian lion outside Mingun, north of Mandalay. About 10 years ago an angry army general ordered both of them blown up and this is what remains.

The Maha Myat Muni Pagoda in Mandalay.

The tops of the stele's housing the Nanmyaebonthar Sannandawya Sandamuni.

Nanmyaebonthar Sannandawya Sandamuni Pagoda, AKA The Worlds Largest Book, with 1772 stone tablets inscribed with the entire Buddhist spiritual text. This is a view down through a bunch of the stele's housing the tablets.

Sculpture on the grounds of Shwedagon Pagoda.

2010-06-25T03:57:00.000-07:00

Pictures from our week in Myanmar. I have to highly recommend considering a visit to this country to anyone looking for absolutely friendly people, beautiful landscapes, practically no western products or branding anywhere, and absolutely friendly people (did I already say that) :) Easily one of my favorite countries so far on the trip.

I think this is the west entry to Shwedagon Pagoda, which is the spire in the background. Each entry is slightly different, but most people enter from the east (it is symbolic in Buddhism and thus is the grandest entrance). This is a "mediocre" entrance.

The upper level of Shwedagon Temple in Yangon. As with all temples/pagodas in Myanmar, you have to remove your shoes before entering. You quickly learn to run from shade to shade or to test which tiles do not transfer heat as much. I think we both made it through the week without burning our feet too badly.

The Karaweik restaurant on the edge of Kandawgyi Lake in Yangon as the day fades.

A very large Buddha with elaborate gold and wood carved backing. It was in a temple we never got the name of, but it has over $18 million in gems in the head piece. We had tea and snacks with the head monk of one of several monasteries on the grounds of the temple.

Cars waiting in line for gasoline. Most of their fuel is exported to Thailand or China, which of course creates shortages for their own people. Note the tiny blue taxi. This is fairly common transport in the capital city of Yangon. They sometimes squeeze six passengers into one of those.

2010-06-25T03:04:00.000-07:00

A few pictures from our visit to Cambodia. We only visited Siem Reap because we wanted to explore Angkor Wat, one of the seven wonders of the world, and that it certainly is. Since we were there in the low season for tourists, we were mobbed nearly everywhere to the point where we could not even exit our vehicle at times.

Archway carving detail at Angkor Wat.

Angkor Wat exterior. It is a massive structure. Most tours only stop for a little more than an hour, but we managed to stay for nearly five hours before we decided we needed to move on.

Faces on the towers of the Angkor Thom temple known as Bayon. There are 216 of the large faces on the exterior.

Trees taking over Ta Prohm. The person in the back is there for perspective. This is how most of the temples of Angkor were when the French 'rediscovered' them in the early 1900's. Ta Prohm was also used as a filming location for the Tomb Raider film.

The pinkish stone of Banteay Srei. It is considered by many to be a crown jewel of Angkorian art because of how much of the carving has survived almost 1100 years. It is sometimes called the Citadel of Women, partly for the color and partly because it is built to a smaller scale. Gabe and I would have to crawl to get inside (if you were allowed to do so that is).

2010-06-25T02:07:00.000-07:00

A few pictures from our brief visit to Laos. We were told it would be like Thailand "twenty years ago" and I think that was apt. A little more relaxed than Thailand, but also more expensive.

Patuxai, an Arc de Triomphe replica, in the capital city of Vientiane. Also referred to as the "vertical runway" because it was wholly built with cement donated by the US for the purpose of building a new airport.

A carved wooden guardian on the second floor of a six story pagoda we climbed to get an overview of the capital city.

The view from atop Phu Si in Luang Prabang, looking due East.

Sabbath Buddha, as designated by the seven naga looking over his shoulders, found on the slopes of Phu Si in Luang Prabang.

Sunset during our overnight stay in Pak Beng village as part of the Mekong river slow boat trip (boats pictured).

2010-03-21T00:58:00.000-07:00

February 22 Monday Our overnight train from Zhangjiajie came in on time at Guangzhou. We had what we thought would be adequate time to make it across town by metro to the other train station that would take us into Hong Kong. We did make our way across the city to the place we could buy our tickets about as fast as I think was possible for two heavy laden people in a new city. It was not that there was only one train and if we missed it we would lose a whole day. The trains run nearly every hour, but if we caught that first option available to us it would give us enough time to try and go to the Thailand embassy today and that would really gain us a day. And we were so close. The ticket windows said they stop selling tickets 20 minutes before the train leaves, we got there with about half an hour to go. Of course, we then ran into a snag. The tickets were more than we had expected and I only had enough Yuan left for my own ticket. Gabe had used all his Chinese money up and was going to borrow some from me. I had some Hong Kong dollars, but could not find them at this critical time. So Gabe went to look for an ATM and I searched for the Hong Kong money. Time was ticking away. With a few minutes to spare I found the Hong Kong money, but it was not quite enough for a ticket and they would not let me combine currencies to pay for a ticket. So when Gabe got back there were four other people in front of us in line and they closed ticket sales for the first train. Frustrating. We bought our tickets for the next one, waited almost an hour and then had a smooth three hour trip into Hom Hong station.

I had contacted Adrian, who I stayed with previously in Hong Kong, to see if we could stay again. That had been okay. Gabe and I thought we would leave our luggage somewhere and explore the city some before heading to Lamma Island, so we would not have to take the ferry twice just to drop off our bags. The train station has a left luggage department that wanted 55HK$ per bag to watch our stuff for four hours. At that point, knowing we were not going to the embassy today and with those ridiculous prices, we just headed for Lamma Island anyway. The extra ferry costs would be far less. The transition to Lamma Island was smooth and it was fun to show Gabe things and know where we were heading with certainty. Again, a snag arose. Adrian had said he would leave a key in a place he had left one for me before, but when we arrived that area had been recently cleaned and everything moved, so the key was no where to be found. My cell phone was nearly dead and not getting enough signal to send a text to Adrian and I was able to send an email, even though he is unable to read personal email at work, so that would not get us inside any faster. Then I remembered that his fiancée, Diana, had recently arrived in Hong Kong. A couple windows on the apartment were open and actually on the very first call of 'Diana', she heard us and let us in. They had expected us later in the evening, but she understood after we explained. So to be as unobtrusive as possible we just dropped off our bags and went to see Lamma Island. We walked through the village, out to a gazebo on the rocks on the northwest side of town and then walked towards the other side of the island, until we could look down on the other fishing village with the Japanese suicide boat tunnels. About three and a half hours later we made our way back as the sun slowly dropped down in the sky. We talked to Diana for a while before going down to the village once more to take care of dinner. We bought some pasta and sauce, cooked it all in two batches and ate it ravenously. When Adrian arrived from work, he told us we might only be able to stay the one night, since we had contacted he fairly short notice and he had other couch surfers coming. I appreciated that we could stay the one night and Gabe was happy to have experienced Lamma Island.

February 23 Tuesday After confirming that we needed a different place to stay the next few nights, Gabe picked a place in Causeway Bay for us to go to. First and most important stop though was the Thai embassy. We made it there quickly and after making a few new photocopies, we had our instructions to return in the morning to get our 60 day visas. Then we tracked down the hostel. The reception was in one building, but our rooms were in another. The room was decent, but just the way things were handled made it seem shady. We made sure they gave us a key to a separate area with internet access. So now we had an afternoon to do what ever we wanted. Gabe wanted to check out Mong Kok and see about camera lenses. The weather was nice so I did not want to be indoors. We split up with plans to meet on the Kowloon side of the harbor at 7:30pm for the light show extravaganza. I headed out to a dumpling shop I had visited a few times in my previous stay. After getting a decent sized bag of dumplings I wandered along the piers until I got to the Star Ferry pier and crossed over to the Kowloon side. I walked out to a headland area near the docks and discovered a large scale art exhibition based on recycled materials and found objects. There were models for repurposed public spaces, furniture from all sorts of unusual materials, solar flowers, and much more. It was not what I expected and I was happy to have taken the time to get out there. We did meet at the clock tower as the light show was preparing to start, but Gabe found it underwhelming. I had the same experience the first time I saw it. We crossed back over the harbor and tracked down some food before finally returning to the hostel for sleep.

February 24 Wednesday Yeah, we picked up our visa's this morning. Then we wandered the city, going through the Botanical Gardens and another large park near the Supreme Court building. In the late afternoon we had taken a street car to Happy Valley and after walking around we happened upon one of the entrance gates into the Happy Valley race course, where a crowd was gathering. Asking some questions let us know they were having races in a few hours and they were letting foreigners in for free if we showed our passports. So we made our way inside and looked over the facility. Quite impressive. We checked the views from the ground level, the third floor, and the seventh floor. The other levels were reserved for restaurants, clubs, kitchen facilities, and box seats. The food inside was VERY expensive and since we could return and get in free, we left and got some cheaper eats in the neighborhood and then returned a half an hour before the first race. We still got in easily. There were going to be five or six races, including a championship race to finish off the evening, but based on the time it was taking to complete each race we ended up leaving after the third one was complete. (We got back to the hostel in time to watch the results of the other races on TV) Watching three races gave us a chance to see one from level seven, one from level three, and the final one from the track side. It was an interesting experience and I'm glad we did it.

February 25 Thursday Gabe and I got up at 7am for what promised to be a rather long day and which turned out to be much tougher than we could have imagined. After finishing the last two slices of bread with the last container scrapings of Nutella, I went over to the other tower to drop off the key and collect my room deposit. Gabe met me down on the street corner and we walked a block and a half to the stop for our A22 bus to the airport. That was a clean trip, but our driver told us some misinformation and dropped us off at the wrong terminal. In some airports that could be disastrous but the Hong Kong has two terminals and they are actually connected by a short tunnel. At the correct terminal we checked our bags and then things started to get hairy. We had to walk back to the other terminal to actually go through customs. That was only a minor inconvenience, but while walking back I discovered I still had my Swiss Army knife in my pocket. That is a no no for all airlines I know of in the world today. Then Gabe also realized he had a spring baton he had purchased in Chengdu in his carry on. That would also qualify as a weapon. He put his into his camera bag hoping they would think it was photographic equipment. I just tossed my knife into my bad and was hoping for the best. We were split up at the passport screeners and I made it through despite the knife and a half full Nalgene of water. Gabe on the other hand set off alarm bells. I went over to where he was and they had pulled the baton from his bag. They told us that the police had been notified and they were on their way to talk to Gabe. Apparently, the baton is completely illegal in Hong Kong. The police arrived as well as a representative from the airline. The police did a second search of Gabe's bag, found nothing else and then told him they were placing him under arrest. Now we are in a serious pinch. They said he was going to spend the night in jail and have a court date tomorrow early afternoon. He would most likely be released at that point. They could not tell us anything about possible bail or other fees. We got a couple minutes to talk it over and decided that I would go on. I told Gabe I would email him detailed instructions on where I was staying and wait for him there. When I left the airline attendant was talking with him and a cluster of about 8 police and security people were also around him. One other thing I took a picture of the first officer that was talking to Gabe and they took my camera and made me delete the picture.

So, this could be very bad or only a minor wrinkle. If they simply confiscate the baton and let him go that would be great. But if they make a big deal out of this and it becomes part of Gabe's permanent record, it could prevent him from doing volunteer work on many of the projects we are looking at. The cost could be a problem. There was no way of knowing what they will want from him.

Once I was on the plane I had an uneventful flight. I took a short nap and read about 40 pages in my current book. Then we descended into the humidity of Bangkok. Hong Kong was much warmer than Chengdu or any of the other Chinese cities we had visited, but Bangkok takes it up another notch. I was sweating immediately. In the terminal I waited a full hour with everyone else to clear customs, then quickly got my bag. My next priority was finding internet access and booking a hostel, or at least getting good directions to one. On the fourth floor I found an ATM and withdrew 10,000 baht, then found the internet cafe next to the post office. The internet cafe would not let me use my own laptop, so I walked back into the terminal and signed up for an hour on one of the wifi networks broadcasting there. That was cheaper and I got the needed information. I found a free map and used it to find the free shuttle to the Transport Center, where I could catch a local bus to a stop near my hostel choice. At the TC I asked to confirm that the 552 was the right bus and got on. Fortunately for me there was another Caucasian man on board. When he heard me tell the ticket lady the stop I wanted, he stepped in and told me that the route had changed. This was still the best bus, but I would have to do a transfer. He was getting off at the same station I would need to transfer so that was helpful. He pointed out which buses I could take for the last leg and then went on his way. Traffic was at a complete stand still, but it was still almost three kilometers to my hostel, so I stayed on board and rested until we reached the Queens Park, which marked a half kilometer to the hostel. I got out there and walked the remainder, so I could get a brief look at the city from the sidewalk. The hostel was easy to find and I got checked in quickly. I have one roommate in a four bed dorm. He is Polish. He said when I was ready we could walk around the neighborhood a bit and get dinner. That was a good idea to me. When we went out, there was a street a couple blocks over that was wall to wall massage parlors, bars and prostitutes. It was sad to walk through there, hear all the calls from the girls, and see all the older Caucasian men hanging around. We ate in a simple place that was really cheap i.e. under $2. Then I checked for any message from Gabe and went to bed.

February 26 Friday This morning after the free breakfast of a single croissant and a cup of hot chocolate, I walked to the Indian embassy to begin the visa application process. After getting a number and explaining my question to the special case manager, I was sent to another building even closer to my hostel to do the actual paperwork. They did not care what passport I used for my visa and so I will be using the Swiss one for a while now. The second building is directly across the street from the hostel and on the 15th floor I got everything taken care of. It cost me $86 and would have been an additional $30 for the US passport. I'll be able to pick it up next Thursday afternoon. I did very little else the rest of the day as I was still waiting to hear from Gabe. In the evening the Polish guy and our new roommate went to the same cheap restaurant again and then I went to the Queen's Park, where I had started walked to the hostel the day before. It is a nice sized park and it was being heavily utilized by joggers, tennis players, badminton players, people relaxing, and so many more. There are quite a few sculptures in the park, but only a few really interesting ones. Back at the hostel I did get a message from Gabe saying he was on his way and that he would be in very late. I made sure the front desk knew he was coming and that they should hold the last bed in our dorm room for him. About 2 am he got in and he had a story to tell, but that is for him to explain.

February 27 Sabbath Once again Google maps led me astray. I had found the address for the Bangkok International SDA Church, which also happens to be the Ekkamai SDA K-12 school. The directions Googlemaps came up with seemed to point me further west than they should, but I don't read Thai and so what would I know. Gabe needed sleep and was just barely gaining consciousness when I set out for my walk to church. I walked a couple kilometers and was most of the way up between Sukhumvit and Petchiburi, two of the major roads that run mostly parallel through the city. I was stopped on the side of the road trying to make sense between the map and the directions, when a couple walked by then stopped. She was wearing an I Love Jesus t-shirt, which is kind of unusual in a country with 90+% buddhists. He asked if I needed any help. I told him I was looking for the SDA church. He said that the instructions I had did go to a school in the area but it was not a church school, it just had a similar name. He did not know exactly where I should be going, but invited me to come into the lobby of their apartment building where I could access the internet on my laptop (which I fortunately I had brought with me). With his help we found the correct location and he even wrote down instructions in Thai if I wanted to take a taxi. It was a ways and I would be late, but I preferred walking to taking a taxi. And after quite a bit more walking I found the church on a street that seems to be owned by the SDA's. There are three schools on this road, all associated with the church, a couple churches, ADRA, an ABC, several other agencies, and lots of mission housing. The church meets in a large auditorium on one of the school grounds and there was a large turnout for the service. It was really good to be back in church and it was an unexpected feeling to me to see how strong that sentiment was. Several parts of the service were just what I needed. A real surprise was that Mr. Karl Keller, who had been the music teacher part of the time I was in high school was there. He is now the principal of the school the church is located at. After church he introduced me to Nick, an SM doing graphic design work for the mission and teaching some English classes as well. There was a potluck with lots of good food and then I went and hung out with Nick for a while in the afternoon. Eventually, I walked back to the hostel.

In the evening, Gabe and I ventured out again to see if we could navigate our way Khao San Road. This is the heart of the backpacker district, made even more famous for its place in the film “The Beach”. It took us a while and a combination of transports, but we did make it there. The street is approximately a kilometer long and is wall to wall cheap hostels, travel agencies, massage parlors, restaurants, without mentioning the street vendors that make it nearly impossible for any vehicles to drive through. I did get some pad thai to eat from a street cart and we found out about a party later that evening. There was a meeting point at a stall on one end of the street. Amazingly, I had someone tap me on the shoulder: Marcus, one of the guys from Cairns, Australia, who gone on the atherton table lands trip four of us did with a rental car. That was a real surprise and we talked for a while. He was buying souvenirs and flying back to German the next day. He gave us some tips on what to see in the north. One of the vendors he had seen earlier on Khao San had moved and now he could not find them. After we finished talking, Gabe and I saw the vendor setting up on a side street, but there was no way to find Marcus again. Hopefully, he found the things he was looking for. We also noted where a specific massage parlor was that had some excellent reviews on line. We will probably come back at some point to try that.

So a little after 9pm we came back to the meeting point and a small group was gathering. We talked to a couple British guys, who turned out to be dj's. They told us the party was free, went all night and was not too far away. We shared a cab shortly there after to the location of the event. The music was all variants of psy and it got better as the night went on. Gabe stayed for a while before getting a cab back to the hostel and I stayed until about 5:30am, then with the help of a young Thai man, caught the right bus 'home'. At the party I was invited to play at another party next weekend on a barge in a lake. I will have to think about it, but that might be an interesting way to have my birthday.....

February 28 Sunday The Thai transportation system is for the most part incomprehensible. They have two lines of the Sky Train that really only reach a small portion of the city. There are several metro lines, but for the size of the city they do not reach many areas that people would want to see. So you are left to chance it with buses, tuk tuks, taxis, or motorcycle taxis. There is no route book to show what buses go where. I doubt it would make any difference if there were. They do not stop at the bus stops that are designated. You can flag one down anywhere in the street if you know what number to get on and you just press the stop button in the bus to get off. Luckily, people have been quite friendly and tell us which bus we need to take, although they don't always have the info correct. Then there is the issue of fares. Normal buses are not air conditioned and they have flat rates of 7 or 8 baht. Air conditioned buses have fares based on the distance traveled (and without pointing where we want to go on a map, it is difficult to communicate that – just part of our adventure) starting at 12 baht and going up from there. Then, randomly, some buses are free. I do not yet know how to differentiate the classes of bus until I get on one, when it becomes obvious with the A/C. Tuk tuk and taxi drivers seem nearly incapable of not lying and always start out with outrageous prices. We usually just walk away, but sometimes they negotiate and become reasonable. The taxi bikes we have not yet tried.

All of that is just prelude to say we eventually through a series of various transportation methods, managed to get ourselves to the Chatuchak market, which purports to be the worlds largest open market. I wouldn't doubt it after spending several hours through its mazes. They have literally everything for sale, but we were just looking and drinking fruit juice after fruit juice due to the heat. Lots of animals for sale, an extensive and fascinating selection of artworks, all sorts of food, flea market style merchandise, massage places, you name it, you can probably find it.

2010-03-04T23:14:00.000-08:00

Zhangjiajie National Park - spires evaporating into the afternoon haze.

South Great Wall of China, much smaller than its northern sibling, near Fenghuang

A shared meal for six in Chengdu - made me hungry posting it

Terracotta warrior detail

The main hall with some of the 6000+ warriors so far unearthed

2010-03-04T21:13:00.001-08:00

Detail at the gate to the Confucian family cemetary in Qufu

The Marble Boat in the Beijing Summer Palace. The story is this: after much of the summer palace had been destroyed by fire the queen rebuilt it, but she took the entire naval budget to do so. This was her token tribute to the navy. A stone boat.

Summer Palace shrine from top of hill after new snow

Great Wall of China Jinshanling/Simatai section

Jewelry in Shanghai Museum shaped like spider and turtle. Each is the size of a fingernail.

2010-03-03T19:28:00.000-08:00

Forest walkway just outside the Nanjing city wall

A canal scene in Suzhou

Multistory traffic interchange in Shanghai

Carvings in Hill Flying From Afar in Hangzhou

The start of the Long Bridge in Hangzhou

2010-03-03T17:27:00.000-08:00

A bridge in Luxun Park in Shanghai

Yuyuan Garden in Shanghai

Statue at Temple of 10,000 Buddhas (with pagoda in background)

Tian Tin Buddha in Hong Kong (aka The Big Buddha)

Gabe and a short Miao woman who eluded us for nearly 10 minutes. I never did get a good shot of her face.

2010-03-03T09:01:00.000-08:00

China text may be a while in coming, but pictures I have ready, so here is my return to the blog....

Light filtering down to pavilion through mountains at Zhangjiajie National Park

A Miao woman with temple in background.

Stilt houses on water's edge in Fenghuang

Picture of me at the Leshan Buddha

One of my favorite shots from the Leshan Buddha

2009-11-24T06:58:00.000-08:00

November 10 Tuesday China side: Well things were exciting for much of the rest of the day and mostly in ways I did not want it to be exciting. First, they could not find me in the airline system and sent me to a special customer service desk. The lady there was very helpful and was able to find that when I rescheduled the flight (which I had to do through Airtreks, I could not do it directly myself), the flight had been changed to November 6. Airtreks had sent me a confirmation email saying November 10. That was not a good feeling. Fortunately, she also said that when I had not shown up on the 6th the ticket was put in an open holding position and there were open seats on the flight that day so I could go after all. It took almost 40 minutes to get it straightened out and I let her know how much I appreciated her fixing it for me, especially since it took so long and that made some other customers behind me agitated (and rude). I got my main bag checked in right at the weight limit and things were looking better again. When I got to the screening area, they told me my carry on was too heavy (of course it was, I had it filled so the main bag was okay) and that I had the choice of throwing things out or returning to the check in desk and working with them on a solution. Well, my main bag was already at the limit so that was not much of an option, but I returned to the check in desk anyway. We went back and forth taking out items and weighing the bag to see what I could get away with. In the end (and this just shows the absurdity of our flight “safety” systems around the world) I had a bag that was acceptable to the screeners and I had an armload of books and every pocket in my jacket was stuffed with items. I went down to my gate and put all the things back into the bag, so the whole process was largely pointless. I did donate two items to a charity bin, but that was negligible as far as weight was concerned. The flight was fine, long enough to play some Bedazzle and watch three movies (Get Smart, Plastic City (a Japanese/Brazilian movie), and Wallander (a
Danish movie). Once in Hong Kong it went smoothly to get my bags and I found an ATM to get some cash. I got $HK2000 to get me started. That is about $258 US. The cheap way into the city is by bus, but since I was arriving late it would be quicker to take a train, which cost $HK100. I thought if this is how everything is, my money is not going to last long here. The airport train is the only expensive one though because they know people have to take it. Other routes are much cheaper, I happily discovered. The train (MTR) was fast and clean and everything is labeled in Chinese and English, so that was easy to deal with. I got to the Central Station and based on my directions from my Couchsurfing host, I found the #4 Pier with ferrys to Lamma Island, but just missed the 10:30 ferry, so I had to wait an hour for the next one. The ferry workers were helpful in showing me how the system works and it was easy after that (although the token machines were always reading the coins incorrectly and I had to overpay several times, but still it was literally pennies and not worth arguing over). After a half hour ferry ride we arrived on Lamma Island. There were a lot of people on the ferry given the time of night. The town of Yung Shue Wan has one main street and most of the people headed down that way. I was looking for a particular ice cream shop, but missed it and went much further down
the village before I stopped to ask for directions. Then it did not take long to find the stairs mentioned in my directions. My host had said there were 100 stairs and I thought it was probably just a number he threw out there, but there were just over one hundred stairs to the top. Just before the top was a split in the path and I followed the left branch which shortly came to a sign reading “End” and with two houses. This matched the directions I had, but one
house looked deserted and the other, after waking up some dogs, and their owner, was clearly not my destination. I left my bags at the deserted house and walked over to the right branch of the path. It led to a couple apartment buildings and the path continued on from there. This did not match the description I had in mind and I went back to where my bag was. My phone was almost dead battery wise and when I tried to send a text, it failed, so I was not sure if it was my phone not working in a new country or if the number was wrong, or what. I got out my netbook and could get a free wifi signal from somewhere in the neighborhood. I sent a message to my host, but it was nearly 1 am at this point and I expected him to have gone to bed. At the seemingly empty house there was a wicker couch thing in the side yard and I tried to get comfortable on that, but the mosquitoes were incessant and if I covered up it was so hot I was
quickly sticky with sweat. Neither option was pleasant and the time change being greater than I had realized meant I was getting very tired and miserable. I almost forgot one of the other things: with all the running around I was happy that there are public toilets open at all hours of the night and on Lamma the public toilets are squat toilets, so I had my first experience with one of those. Super exciting!!!! I'll continue the story tomorrow.

November 11 Wednesday I only slept a few hours, then because of the time differential combined with the uncomfortable sleeping surface in the garden, I stayed up. I read for a couple hours and watched the sunrise. Since I had not made contact with Adrian, my phone was low on battery, and he would be out all day working, I decided to take the ferry back to Hong Kong Central and look for hostels. I still had the address written down for YesInn, one of the better
rated hostels and took the subway to the nearest station to it. I found the place after a few minutes searching, but they were booked up for the night and tomorrow night. Bummer. The reception man did not know of any other hostels nearby, but he said I could use their wireless to find out where some others in Causeway Bay (not too far from YesInn) were. While looking, I got two emails, one from Adrian and another from Daniel, the guy staying with Adrian at the moment. I could go back to the island and meet Daniel who would let me into the flat. I still made a booking at YesInn and put a 5 dollar deposit down for 5 nights. Then lugging all my belongings, I retraced my route back to the subway, then to the ferry, then through Yung Shue Wan on Lamma Island. I texted Daniel that I was on the island again, but my phone is having issues and it told me the text failed. Here we go again, I started thinking. I hiked up the stairs to the place I had been last night and looked around. Nobody. I walked over to the other side where the path had forked. Nobody there either that I could see. I got out the netbook and it showed Adrian's wifi network giving off a signal from one of the buildings, so I knew I was at the right place at least. I left my backpack in a relatively safe spot and walked back down to Emily's Ice Cream Parlor to wait a bit and see if Daniel had gotten my text anyway. I read while I waited, but after twenty minutes, I headed back up the hill. This time there was someone on the deck and I
asked if he was Daniel. He was and he quickly let me in. Daniel is from the UK and his girlfriend Florine is from France. They are just finishing up a five month stint in China and head to India tomorrow. We talked quite a bit about our respective trips. They have been traveling for 8 months, came overland through Russia from Estonia, before entering China. They visited Taiwan and said it was easy to go there. That is something I'll have to look into because I would really like to visit Derek if I can.

Adrian's flat is actually quite nice. It has two bedrooms (Daniel and Florine have the second bedroom til they leave tomorrow, so I get the couch in the living room. The kitchen is VERY small, but the bathroom is really nice and there are two walkin closets, so there is a decent amount of space. Later Adrian told me he pays around $1500 US dollars a month for it and that is about a third of what it would cost in Hong Kong proper. He used to stay in a 9th floor flat
there that cost US$4000 per month (more than HK$30,000) and was smaller. The flat here has a nice view of one of the hills/mountains on the island and also of the harbor and ferry terminal. You do not see the city lights of Honk Kong at all, so you really do not feel like you are in a city, which is great.

Now that I was in the right place and had a chance to sit down for a bit, my first priority was to take a shower. Then I slept for a few hours until Adrian arrived home. Daniel and I went down to the village to buy some pasta sauce and a few other items for a dinner of spaghetti with pesto that we all ate together, then I went to bed shortly thereafter.

November 12 Thursday Adrian left for work quite early, I made some of my remaining oatmeal for breakfast, with an apple I purchased last night. Daniel and Florine got up and were finishing up their packing to go to India. They gave me a banana, some bread, a little peanut butter, some raisins and sunflower seeds since they did not want to take those things with them on the plane. That helps me out for sure. They left close to 11 and I worked on the computer for a bit. Later I walked around the village some, went to the two small temples and a couple other 'landmarks'. I did a bit of grocery shopping, got some soy milk and cereal, more peanut butter, some tomato sauce, corn and eggs.

November 13 Friday I wandered some more on Lamma, but stayed close to the village. With the good internet connection, I have been uploading my photographs and videos to Scott's server. It will still take a few days to get it all backed up, but then I'll have the added safety of knowing the pictures are secure.

In my version of a blog filibuster here is a list of the books I have read on the trip so far: (NonFiction) Last Chance to See by Douglas Adams, Abolition of Man by CS Lewis, Istanbul: Memories of a City by Orhan Pahuk, Are You Somebody? By Nuala O'Faolain, Dave Gorman's GoogleWhack Adventure!, A Walk In The Woods by Bill Bryson, Born on a Blue Day by Daniel Tammet, Marching Powder by Rusty Young, (Fiction) Seeker by Jack McDevitt, Past Watch: The Redemption of Christopher Columbus by Orson Scott Card, The Confessions of Max Tivoli by Andrew Sean Greer, The World According to Garp by John Irving, The Last Juror/The Chamber/The Runaway Jury/The Appeal by John Grisham, Tess of D'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy, Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston, 1984 by George Orwell, Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, Skinny Legs & All by Tom Robbins, The Great Pursuit by Tom Sharpe, Voices From The Street by Philip K Dick, Toad Triumphant by William Horwood, Dolphin Island by Arthur C Clarke, A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian by Marina Lewycka, The Dark Room by Rachel Seiffert, The Dharma Bums by Jack Kerouac, Prey by Michael Crichton, Perfume by Peter Susskind, In The Woods by Tana French, The Distance Between Us by Maggie Ofarrell, The Anatomist by Federico Andahazi, Breakheart Hill by Thomas H Cook, The Catcher In The Rye by JD Salinger, plus three compilations of short
stories: Ep;phany, McSweeney's Massive Treasury of Thrilling Tales, and It's All Good: How Do You Like It Here Now?

The book by Nuala O'Faolain was interesting enough that when I saw another book by her in a New Zealand hostel I was at, I grabbed it. That is what I am reading currently: My Dream Of You. I also have three others: Consider the Lobster by David Foster Wallace, Metro by Alasdair Duncan, and I Have Fun Everywhere I Go by Mike Edison. The last one I picked up just for the title alone. I have no idea what it is about.

This afternoon another couchsurfer arrived at Adrian's place. He is from Spain, but going to school in the Philippines studying anthropology. He was interested in hearing about PNG and we talked quite a bit about that and many other things. He is partly in Hong Kong to buy a computer, something Adrian told him was rather foolish. Hong Kong is not the place to get good deals on electronics. There are too many knockoffs and the only discounts you will get are due
to the lack of warranties on the products.

November 14 Sabbath I got up early and had breakfast. Mario and I left on the ferry together. He was headed for Mong Kok, where one of the bigger electronics markets is. I was going to the address I had for the Kowloon SDA church, near the Prince Edward MTR station. I arrived just before 9:30 and they had not started yet, but the greeter said they only have services in Cantonese. He gave me a map for another church that had bilingual services. I walked down following the directions and found it quite quickly. My path had taken me by Austin Road, so I had made a small stop there for some pictures. Sabbath school was just starting when I made it to the church. The english class was made up mostly of Filipinos, with a couple other nationalities also represented. We went over the lesson and then there was a discussion for a while about work and Sabbath, which is apparently a big issue here. Many of the Filipinos come through work agencies and while they request placement into jobs where they can have sabbath off, when they arrive that is often not the case. So they were talking about what they can do to be true to their beliefs in circumstances like this. It is definitely a challenge and one I have not had to deal with fortunately. For church everything was translated through headphones. After, there was a good potluck and an energetic Indian lady named Katy invited me to the Clearwater Bay church for next Sabbath. That is where the Hong Kong Adventist College is. I got my picture taken with some of the people at potluck including Maris from Indonesia, Babu from India, and Nori from the Philippines. Nori and Maris took me to the Kowloon Park, just a couple blocks away, to walk after eating. We went through the aviary and by some interesting fountains. At 3pm was a prayer meeting, so I went back to the church with Maris for that. I was supposed to contact Adrian about a dinner he had with some of his friends and that he had invited me to. The prayer meeting was scheduled to go until 6 I realized after it had begun. At five during a break between speakers I left to get in touch with Adrian. It turns out I could have stayed because the dinner is actually next weekend, but by the time I had worked that out I did not go back to the prayer meeting.

I walked down to the Kowloon harbor side where the Space Museum, Hong Kong Cultural Center, and the HK Museum of Art are located. The Cultural Center is apparently controversial because it is a large building with no windows facing the harbor (one of the better views in the city). I had read something about a nightly light show, but in my mind I had transformed that into a fireworks show and I did not remember the time it was supposed to occur. I wandered along the piers and through the Avenue of Stars (like the Hollywood one), then wandered back into the city interior. I never did see a show. Many of the buildings are rigged with lights and do their own displays, but they are random and this was supposed to be a coordinated show. After a while I headed back to Hong Kong central and caught a ferry back to Lamma.

November 15 Sunday Mario and I set out together with the plan of going to the Peak and then the Giant Buddha on Lantau Island. He was going to catch a plane back to the Philippines in the evening, having successfully purchased a computer yesterday. But things went awry right from the beginning. The weather was not great to start with, but as soon as we were halfway to Hong Kong Central, Mario could not find his cell phone. He was quite sure he had left it at Adrian's
and so we went back. I continued on to the Peak on my own. Turns out he must have had the phone with him anyway, so he wasted some money on ferry rides, because Adrian said he never came back to the flat. Hopefully, everything worked out for him. There are directions on my city map for how to get to the Peak tram, but they are silent on how to walk up. I know there are several roads leading up and so I just went in the general direction of the Peak. My path went through the Botanical Gardens, where I did not spend much time. They also have an aviary with many of the same birds as on the Kowloon side. I passed the tram station and began following Old Peak Road, which I figured had to go in the right direction. It does and after a good workout I emerged from just below the tram station at the Peak. The bad thing was the weather, which had not been nice anyway, had decided to get very windy and descend on the Peak in the form of a dense fog/cloud. I could not see anything. I still took a few pictures of Lions Pavilion and so on, but I will really have to come back on a better weather day. Going down the same way I went up I passed a house that I should have gotten a picture of (I did later, but it was not the same). In the driveway in front of the triple car garage were a Porsche, a BMW SUV, and a Ferrari. That may sound incredible, but I have actually seen quite a few Ferrari's and Lambourghini's on the roads here, alongside many many Mercedes, BMW, and other luxury cars. Nice cars seem to be the standard here if you are going to own a car at all. Once I was back down from the Peak I walked east to Causeway Bay, partly looking for a specific music shop (which happened to be closed when I found it even though it was still during the time it should have been open). I had a vegetable and egg fried noodle dinner in a small restaurant. I should have gotten pictures of another restaurant I passed that had 'Vegetarian soup with goose neck' and 'Vegetarian noodles with pork dumplings' on the menu.

2009-11-09T12:28:00.000-08:00

November 6 Friday I spent the morning taking care of laundry and surprisingly the dryers here did their job. Most places the dryers do not work properly and I have air dried my laundry almost exclusively on this trip. I got a positive response from one Hong Kong couchsurfer so my first few nights are in place and I will book a hostel for a few more. I might still get another response from one of the other couchsurfers I contacted. I returned to the post office and mailed off just under a kilo of papers and seashells by the slowest method possible, so it should arrive in a couple weeks. I had culled a couple shirts and a pair of shorts and those went to a donation bin in the hostel. Similarly, I dropped two books off at the mini library at the hostel. They did not have anything that I wanted to take in exchange, but I still have four books to work through in China, then I'll have to start hunting for more reading material. I checked my records and I have read over 13,000 pages so far on the trip. That sounds like a lot, but it is only 38 books. I started the trip with 6 books and have been fortunate to keep finding places to trade/exchange them as I finish.

November 7 Sabbath Mathew was true to his word and I got a text that a ride would be by to pick me up at 8:40. A church member with two of his teenaged children brought me to the church. Mathew had said he might not be there, so I was not expecting to see him. I went to the young adult sabbath school class and a small group of us went over the story of the rich young ruler. I enjoyed the class. One of the people in the class was a Thai woman named Mary. I spoke with her after the class and she gave me the name, email and phone number of a church leader in Bangkok to contact when we arrive there. She said the church would happily give us some housing if we needed it and could help them in some way. We shall see, but it was great to get another contact like that. The church service was kind of like a second service at PUC and the place was full. The sermon was excellent and it ended with a story about the Christian musician Steven Curtis Chapman and how one of his older sons had accidentally run over and killed his five year old sister. That hit me emotionally as I thought of my friends that have killed themselves and my father's death a year ago. A girl who is a teacher talked to me for a while after church was over and then Mathew also came. We went to the potluck, where haystacks were being served. They were good and I got seconds, plus desert. When we left, we took a drive out to the coast on the eastern side of Auckland and took a walk and talked. It was very pleasant. Before dropping me off this time he said his wife was returning that evening from a conference in Manila and they would like to invite me to dinner Sunday evening. I had a small late dinner because I had eaten so much at potluck. I seem to have just the right amount of food and will use everything I wanted to finish before I head to China.

November 8 Sunday I finished off my Nutella and peanut butter this morning.I went to the library and really should have done this sooner because the speed and connection is great. They have a 100 mb download limit, but no upload limit, so I could have been backing up my pictures to Scott's server. My guidebook for what is going on in Auckland in November had info on a short film festival. They are doing the screenings right next to the library so I went and got tickets to two of the sessions for Monday. At 6 pm Mathew and his wife, Helen, picked me up and we drove along the harbor for a while before making our way to a Thai food place called Grasshopper. The food was excellent and the company very nice.

November 9 Monday I spent more time at the library today getting the blog up to date and in the afternoon went to the shorts film festival showings of 12 shorts, six on the theme 'Calamitous Love' and six on “Curious Children'. The children set were better on the whole, but I enjoyed both sets. I got my bags pretty much set how I want them and will be able to finish packing quickly. I only was left with some cous cous that I wanted to take with me anyway and a Cadbury chocolate with macadamia nuts bar.

November 10 Tuesday Breakfast this morning was 2 minute noodles and a banana and with that I have used up my food. I'm heading to the post office to send out a couple postcards, then a quick stop at the library to post this, since it may be the last you hear from me on this forum for 6 plus weeks. I hope that is not the case, but it could be. My flight leaves at 1:30 and should take more than 10 hours, which means I'll be arriving rather late in Hong Kong, but my couchsurfing host gave me very good directions to get to his place. Mathew is picking me up and taking me to the airport in a few hours. He has been a godsend here in Auckland. Because of he and his wife I enjoyed my time much more than I would have otherwise. The next few weeks should go something like this: I have ten days of accommodation in Hong Kong, I may add a few more before leaving. Most likely I will take a two day train up to Beijing, if I can stop on the way for a couple days I might do that. Gabe is targeted at arriving in Beijing on December 1 or 2, not sure with the time change and then we will have to see from there. I hope you enjoy the pictures I posted yesterday and I post more as soon as I can.

2009-11-09T12:20:00.000-08:00

November 1 Sunday After the beautiful sunset I had seen last night at the thermal vents in the park in Rotorua, I wanted to go back in the morning and see them in the light of day. I made it back into town about 13 kms, stopping briefly at the Zorb facility, but they were not open that early so I could not exchange dvd's. The thermal vents were interesting in the morning light, but not nearly as magical as they had been. I did not spend very much time because the Coromandel Peninsula was calling and there was much I wanted to do in my time in the region. My first major stop was at the town of Mt Maunganui, where I climbed the mountain for which the town is named. Tremendous views again. There was a second finger of land that I walked out to the end of and watched some young guys jumping off the rocks into the ocean. There were also jellyfish visible in the water off shore. Next was the Karangahake Gorge area, which had been the home of several gold mining operations. I visited a waterfall, an old mining town remnant, and a few short walking trails. Whangamata is another old mining town, only this one still has a huge open pit mine operating. You can walk up to the edge of the open pit and look into the mammoth hole they are creating and the seemingly antlike machinery working down in it. Next was Wentworth Falls, a very nice two stage water fall of some 50+ meters. I watched the sunset from the top of Mt Paku and then drove a little further north in the dark before camping behind a hedge along the road.

November 2 Monday I had kind of been able to tell last night where I was camping and it was confirmed in the morning: the edge of a large kiwi farm. I got up early just in case the farmers showed up and did not want trespassers. I was only a few kms from Hot Water Beach and planned to have breakfast and reconfigure the car there. Well I got to the first beach access at close to 7 am and walked down to the beach. It was hard to tell if the tide was coming in or going out, but it was clearly not low tide. This was an unexpected surprise based on what the tides had been doing on other beaches throughout the day yesterday. I found a few of the 'hot tubs' people had made presumably yesterday. The beach is otherwise rather ordinary. I went back to the car and was eating breakfast when a maintenance lady came by to check the trash bins. I asked her about the tides and she said it would be low tide at 1:15 pm; too long to wait. I was also getting low on fuel and would have to watch that. So I left Hot Water Beach and drove a little further to
Cathedral Cove. It is a series of four coves and beaches that start from a high bluff and culminates at Cathedral Cove itself after about a half hour walk. I stopped at the other beaches on my way so it took longer, but I thought it was worth it. There are a number of arches, columns, and caves carved into the cliffs or free standing in the surf. There was also a natural shower under a small waterfalls right on the beach. A few people used it after venturing into the
surf. There were not many other people there yet and that was nice. The area seems that much better without crowds of people. When I got back to the car park, a couple buses had just arrived, so my timing was good here, if not at Hot Water Beach. I do not think my pictures really do it justice though. I continued from Cathedral Cove and went slightly north to a secluded beach that is listed as one of the top 20 in the world: New Chums Beach. It took half an hour to walk to it and there were two other people at the far end. Otherwise it was deserted. It did not look like anything special to me, but the cloudy weather at that point certainly aided that opinion. The sun came out for a few minutes and it improved the impression quite a bit. Next was Coromandel Town and it looked like most seaside towns. The remaining drive down the eastern side of the peninsula was seen at lowtide, so lots of mud flats were visible and while it was a nice windy road for driving (and that was truly fun) the coastline was less and less remarkable as I got closer to 'civilization'. In the late afternoon I came through Thames and just south of there entered the Pinnacles Park. I did a short walk to Hoffman's Pool and another to Edwards Lookout. The other walks in the area, while several sounded interesting were too far for me to be doing before dark. There are six or seven campgrounds spread throughout this park and I decided I'll park in one that looks nice and not have to worry about being woken up early as a trespasser. It was the first time I've set up camp in day light in a while and I used the time to clean the van somewhat, clean up all the dishes I would no longer need, cook dinner and then read some.

November 3 Tuesday Well, my final bit of time with the good spaceship ADAMA has arrived. I got up at 7 am from my campsite in the Kaurengi Forest, had my breakfast, cleaned all the dishes, separated all my things from those that stayed with the vehicle, brushed out the interior one more time, and left for Auckland at 8 am. The drive was rather boring. Not much to see on the highway. I had chosen not to follow the coast, because I had spent the last couple days mostly on the coast and the last day, specifically, where I could see across from the Coromandel peninsula to the coastline I would have been driving along. It still might have been preferable to the complete flatness of the plains leading most of the way to Auckland. I topped off the fuel in a suburb called Bombay and easily found the Spaceship depot in the southern suburb of Penrose. I had put a little over 9,000 kilometers on the Spaceship an almost 50/50 split between north and south island. It took me a while to finally pack everything away and head out as a pedestrian
once more. My belongings seem to continually expand and I seriously need to reduce in the next few days before heading to China. Good that one bag is mostly food stuffs. The Spaceship guide says the depot is walking distance from the Auckland CBD, but while that is technically correct it is about 10 km and I doubt anyone seriously does walk it. The lady at the counter said I could walk about a kilometer to the train station and it would only cost me $3.80, or they could call a cab that would be a flat rate $20. I took the train. The two conductor ladies were fascinated with all my baggage and my explanation of what it all was. Neither of them thought they could handle being on their own for 6+ months, like I have, but I had to tell them I have hardly been alone in that time, with all the people I have met, traveled with, couchsurfed with, etc. I got out at the Britomart Station (the central Auckland station) and walked up Queenstreet to one of the two YHA hostels in the city. I had to wait half an hour to be able to check in, got a room for one night (hoping I can contact someone and couchsurf part of the time), and met the two other guys already in the room, Carsten (from Germany) and Bruce (from Taiwan). I spent the afternoon charging my camera batteries and working on these notes. I got an hours worth of internet time at a cafe around the corner from the hostel. By the time I went to bed all eight beds in the dorm room were occupied.

November 4 Wednesday I booked another day at the YHA, then set out exploring. I walked to the top of Mt Eden, a volcanic crater and the highest point in the city. It offers surround views and you can really see how spread out Auckland is. I continued walking away from the city center in search of a hostel, but the directions I had written down from the internet were bad and I went much further than I needed to. A resident with a roadmap in his car helped me out and I eventually found the place. It was the same rate as I was already paying and they did not need any work done in exchange for free nights, so that will not work out. The people I contacted about couchsurfing also were not panning out. I had emailed Mathew (who I met at Taupo) and he had written back that there was a get together at the church for the teens and he would pick me up if I was interested in going. I told him I was, so in the evening he got me and we went out to the suburb of Papatoetoe where the PAPSDA church is. The building is beautiful and includes a church and school. One of the people there said they have 300 students in the primary school and another 300 in the SDA high school at nearby location. What they do on Wednesday evenings is open up the building for ping pong, foosball, basketball and other games for the teens, then they get together for some group activities and break up into smaller Bible study groups for those that are interested. We had vegeburgers and fries to eat before most of the teens started showing up. I played ping pong with Mathew for a while. When we all got together for the group part it was to play a game where you had to get others in the group to help you complete a list of tasks. After a while they had to come up with life principles that had been demostrated through the game – like cooperation with others, things are not always as easy as they look or sound, sharing, etc. Afterwards, Mathew drove me across the Auckland bridge to the community of Devanport which has a very nice view at the night lights from the city. Before dropping me off he loaned me a cell phone and told me he would make sure I had a ride to church on Sabbath. All of this was incredibly generous and I really appreciated it.

November 5 Thursday I walked to the SkyTower, then down to the Viaduct, where the central marina is, along the marina, to a grocery store, through the Auckland Domain, by the Museum, and eventually, back to the hostel. I sorted all the paper I am carrying into piles I could throw out or recycle/mail back home/keep with me. I went to a post office to check out my options on sending some of the stuff back to the states. Depending on the weight it could be expensive,
but I do not think I have more than 2 kg of papers and shells. I met a Swiss guy in the hostel and he and a French guy invited me to go eat dinner with them, so we ended up in a Korean place about a block from the hostel. There are many asian places in the area so our method of picking a place was to look in the windows and the first place with a lot of asians eating there would be the one, since they ought to know if the food is cooked correctlly and well. That seems like a logical approach and I know my dinner was good. I also met a funny Indian man named Vernon from Goa, who knew Goa Gil and is a professional guitar player. He was funny though because he was in our room for several nights and each afternoon he would come in and someone would have taken over his bed because he left nothing behind and no one would have known he was still using the bed. The rest of us have learned to leave a jacket or a couple books or SOMETHING to identify the bed as occupied. He said to look him up if I end up in Goa

2009-11-08T20:32:00.000-08:00

Mt Tauhara overlooking Lake Taupo

Rotorua thermal pools in early morning light

Wentworth Falls

Sheep on Mt Maunganui

Rotorua thermal pools at sunset

2009-11-08T18:38:00.000-08:00

Double bow over Huka Falls

The north island 'desert' with Mt Tongariro in background

Livestock gate at sunset

In Tongariro National Park after a light snow.

A waterfall in Tongariro National Park

2009-11-08T18:01:00.000-08:00

Whanganui River near Koriniti at sunset

Spaceship at campsite near Whanganui River

Black sand beach near Mokau, where I met elderly couple fishing

A pa (fortress site) along the coast

Natural Bridge near Waitomo

2009-11-08T17:57:00.000-08:00

October 26 Monday (Labor Day holiday in New Zealand) I had been looking forward to Rotorua, because it is the home of Zorbing and because of some recommendations passed on through my mom about a Hot Sand Beach on a lake in the area. I drove the last 28 kms into town from my camping area and stopped at the visitor center. The one snag involved with getting to Hot Sand Beach was confirmed for me: it is only accessible by boat. I was told I could head out there and there would be people operating like water taxis, but it would cost me. That was disappointing and I ended up not going there at all. I did go out to the Zorbing facility only a few kilometers outside of town with the intention of having a go at it. This also happened to be a dvd exchange site so I replaced the dvd I had watched last night. I spent nearly an hour watching people come down the hillside. There were three coarses and two variations on how you could ride in a Zorb. Two of the courses were straight runs (for racing against frends if you chose, and one was a windy zigzag course that looked like it was much more fun. You could ride in a dry Zorb strapped in so that you literally stuck to the side and went round and round with the sphere or you could do a wet Zorb by yourself or with a friend, and that was more like a self-contained water slide. Ultimately, after watching a number of people, I decided not to do it. Between the cost, the fact that it only lasted about a minute, and having already sky dived/scuba dived/bungy jumped, it ended up not looking nearly as exciting as I had imagined. I drove most of the way west from Rotorua towards the Waitomo region where there are many caves.

Another thing I forgot to mention. Rotorua is in the midst of a highly active thermal vent area. You can see puffs of smoke/steam rising from places all around as you drive or walk even in town. That also carries with it a relatively strong sulfur smell and you notice THAT long before you arrive in town. I'm not sure how the people that live there deal with it, they probably do not even notice after a while, but it is strong. Before I realized what it was I kept thinking there was something wrong with the Spaceship – then the lightbulb went on in my head.

October 27 Tuesday I was quite close to the Waitomo Caves, but after arriving at the visitor center and getting prices for the cave tours (all the main caves, and there are many, are on private property) I decided I was not going to do any of the packages. All were more than I could justify. I told myself that having seen parts of Mammoth Caves in Kentucky, I have already had this experience. I had a map with many free things and sights and I somewhat reluctantly went to explore as many of those as I could. I also made a quick stop to exchange dvds since this was one of the locations where that is possible. There was supposed to be a “Natural Tunnel” nearby, where gloworms could be seen, but either I missed the sign or there was none. I did find the second location on my map, the Natural Bridge, which was amazing. It is a narrow canyon of limestone that has eroded to leave two bridges stacked on top of each other. I next found the Puripuri Cave, a cave set on park land and therefore free. When I got to the cave entrance a crew was working on repairing and expanding the viewing platforms inside the cave, so I could not go in very far, but they also had massive lights to aid their work and it made the viewing I could do much better than it would have been otherwise. I enjoyed the rest of the afternoon slowly driving along the coast in a southerly direction. Apparently, there was a rally race going on and many cars with racing numbers passed me. I had actually seen them the day before going in a different direction than I was and had not paid any attention, but now they were all around me. This was on a scenic section of road and again it was mostly gravel. At the town of Mokau I changed course from where the race continued. I wanted to end up near Egmont National Park, which encompasses Mt. Taranaki, a dormant volcano and one of the main ski areas on the north island, but as I got closer and closer to the park, I could not find a place to pull off and camp. I had met an elderly couple out fishing for Whitebait at a beach earlier in the day and they had recommended which sides of the mountain to see, as the roads into the park come from many directions, but are not connected. So I actually ended up in the National Park before I had found a place to stay. It was also getting foggy as I drove up the mountain side. I passed a ranger station and figured if they saw me passing in the fog they would come and ask me to leave. I did eventually find a turn off with a level gravel area and made my camp. About an hour after I arrived a truck did drive past, but in the fog they did not see my location and I was undisturbed the rest of the night.

October 28 Wednesday A beautiful morning greeted me at 6:12 when my alarm went off. The sun was almost visible and the sky over Mt. Taranaki was completely clear. Fog all gone. I watched the sunrise on the mountain, read a little and had breakfast. Because I was not supposed to be camping inside the National Park where I was, I waited until a couple vehicles drove on up the road before I drove up to the top parking lot. I was almost there anyway, but if I had gone there last night I would have been found. Between the fog and the location I actually used, no one would have found me. But it was a perfect place for my whole morning. The viewing platform from the car park gave almost the same view as I had had. There were several long walks you could take from this top parking lot. I chose a trail called the Enchanted Track and headed off. It was supposed to go by a hut and I could see one in the distance and assumed that was the goal. But the trail started heading downhill and seemed to not have received any maintenance at all during the winter. There were trees and branches and washouts and lots of mud all along the trail and I really should have turned back early on, but I kept on because I did not want to go back UP the trail I had just come through. I figured that I had been wrong in thinking the hut I had seen was where I was heading and that instead I was going down the mountain to a ranger station I had passed the night before (and had alerted them to try and find me). After a while I came to a split in the trail where one branch continued to the ranger station and another that joined the Around The Mountain trail. From here on the trail was well maintained and you could see where they had been working even recently. I noticed that several of there traps had been tripped and contained dead rats mostly. Good for the birds. At the ranger station I had the choice of going back to the car park by following the road or taking a different trail. I certainly was not going back the way I came down and the road was not very appealing, so I headed up the Patea Trail. This one was also well maintained and I enjoyed the 4 km uphill journey. After leaving the mountain, I made my way to Wanganui to find out my options regarding the Bridge to Nowhere, one if the icons in the Whanganui River National Park. This turned out to be another disappointment. It is only accessible by boat (kayak or jet boat) or as part of a 4 day walk. Money and time both meant this would not happen. But I wanted to drive through the parts of the park that were accessible, so I headed north from town along the river and found a nice free campsite with water and restrooms about half way to the place where the boat tours left from, should I decide to do it anyway tomorrow.

October 29 Thursday It was raining when I first woke up at 6:30, so I decided to take it easy and slept in for another hour and a half. Then it had mostly cleared up and blue patches were showing up in the sky. I had my breakfast, got the Spaceship ready for travel and then read long enough to finish my current book, “Marching Powder” by Rusty Young. It is the true story of Thomas McFadden, a black British citizen convicted of drug trafficking in Bolivia and his incarceration at one of the most unusual prisons in the world in La Paz. It really is a fascinating story

It was noon when I eventually left my campsite and continued driving along the Whanganui River valley, lots of which was on gravel road. The recent rains meant that the river was much browner that it sometimes is and it was not particularly beautiful in it current incarnation. I did find a couple short walks so I wasn't driving only. It was still early afternoon when I left that National Park and crossed further east now into Tongoriro National Park. This is the other main ski area of the north island and there was a lot of snow on the mountains. The road I took into the park indicated it was closed at the 13 km mark due to the snow from the previous night and it looked like it might drop some more snow at any time. In the meantime it was a winter wonderland, with little piles of snow on every tree branch and bush. I drove up to the closed gate and there were two walks nearby to waterfalls. Both were beautiful with the snow all around. I took my chance and made a could small snowmen (who got included in a couple of the waterfall pictures). This was probably my favorite place on the north island to this point. When I came off the mountain, I began the drive back down to Wellington, so I could get my passport and visa on Friday. I did not plan to drive all the way down, but similar to what had happened near Mt Egmont, I could not find a safe/legal place to camp. This was a much more traveled road. I knew the hostel I wanted to stay at and while I arrived fairly late I went directly there. I had mentioned I should have checked out the Wellington hostels better in an earlier post. The hostel I stayed at tonight let me park on the property and stay in the Spaceship, but use their kitchen/bathroom/showers, as well as use the internet and recharge my camera battery and phone. All for less than the other place.

October 30 Friday I was at the Chinese embassy just after they opened and was able to pick up my approved visa and passport right away. I had had in the back of my mind the plan to stay in Wellington that night and attend church in the city, but knowing how long it had taken to drive down to Wellington already and knowing I was running out of time to see all I wanted to see, I found out where churches were on my way north and headed in that direction. Just outside of Wellington at Paramata, I picked up a hitchkiker, a New Zealander who was trying to get to Wanganui. I was able to get him as far as Bulls, and he said that was close enough that he could probably get someone to come pick him up. We had some interesting conversation. He works with young adults with autism and similar difficulty. He is caucasian, but has five daughters by a couple Maori women, so he told me quite a bit about their culture and answered some questions I had. After dropping him off I continued in the direction of Taupo, where I knew there was an SDA church. The road I took goes through what they call their desert. To me it was not desert, but you did remind me of parts of Arizona and between the gray clouds and the sun peaking through to illuminate the tumbleweed like grasses and plants it was actually very beautiful. I made it to Taupo before dark, stopped at the I-site which was already closed and an internet cafe to get good directions to the church, then drove up to a viewpoint overlooking the city. It was a nice view, but it was over the city and with sunset about a half an hour off, I did not want to wait there. I drove a little further down the road to Huka Falls, which I learned later is the most visited falls in New Zealand. It was already closed, but you could park outside the gates and walk into the park area. Several other cars were doing that so I joined them. This was amazing on a number of levels. Most waterfalls rely on height to be impressive. Huka Falls is almost more of a rapids than a waterfall, but it has an incredible amount of power behind it. That was clear the moment you first see it. Tremendous amounts of water surging through and churning up the water below it for at least the length of a football field. Added to this was the clouds and sunset colors AND a rainbow due to some rain in the distance and it was magical. I took a lot of pictures and stayed there until the sun was down. I had seen a couple potential places to stay in the short distance between Taupo town and the falls and one of those turned out to be just what I like.

October 31 Sabbath I got up early since I wasn't in a real campground, had a quick breakfast of cereal, yoghurt, a banana and the next to last piece of cake I have. Since I was so close to Huka Falls I went back to see it in the morning light. Different, but still immensely powerful. Being there early also meant I got more pictures and missed the bus load of 'aged' persons shuffling down the path as I left for church. I had good directions and it did not take me long to find the church, but when I arrived at 9:15 the parking lot was empty and the building locked up tight. The sign said services start at 10. That just means more reading time for me. After a bit a couple people came and when they opened the doors I went inside, where they welcomed me warmly. As seems to be a tradition, when I visit a church, the main pastor is away and a guest speaker will be presenting the sermon. Today it is one of the elder's wives from a neighboring town. First we had a lesson study on Numbers chapters 11 through 14. There was an active discussion, which is good. The sermon did not connect with me. It meandered all over the place and felt like it needed to be worked on some more. It was too unfocused and hard to follow. There was a potluck afterwards and one of the people I met was a guy about my age named Mathew, who was visiting from Auckland. We exchanged email addresses and I'll get in touch with him when I arrive there. Another member gave me two walks in the area that were worth doing in the time I would have. Both were good recommendations and I'm glad I followed up on them. First was the Opere Forest, a short walk through an old logging operation that has been thoroughly taken back by the vegetation. It was a nice walk with enough odds and ends to keep it interesting. Next I went up a local mountain, which I do not have the name of at the moment, although I know it is on one of the maps I have. This was a more strenuous hike to the peak of the mountain, through sheep pasture and forest and other terrain, but it was well worth the effort. Three hundred and sixty degree views and the sky was clear enough to take full advantage of that. I met a german backpackers when I was hiking back down. It was his second trip up because he wanted to get sunset pictures. I went a third time to Huka Falls, this time to another viewpoint on a hill further away and stopped at a place called Craters of the Moon. It is on private land and they charge to enter, so I was not intending to go in, but I wanted to see if there was anything to see on the way. Well it was mid afternoon and the place was already closed. There were several cars in a parking lot near some mountain bike trails and I left the Spaceship there to walk further in past the gate. From a couple points along the road you could see thermal activity and it did look interesting, although I could see no relation to the Moon. Not sure how they arrived at that name. When I got to the entry way there were three women who had similarly just wanted to see what was out there. Everything was locked up. We walked back together and in talking two of them were is a bit of a bind beecause they needed to get to Rotorua, where all their stuff and hostel were. By going to the Craters they had missed their last bus and it was really out of the way for the third woman to drive them there, even though she seemed willing to do it. I told them that was actually where I was heading and so it worked out for them and their host. I dropped them off at their hostel just before sunset and went to one of the thermal parks in the town to get pictures. I'm glad I did. The steam and sunset colors made for incredible photographs. Once it was sufficiently dark I drove a little more than 10 kms outside of town and found a place to park overnight near a cattle farm.

2009-11-08T17:53:00.000-08:00

October 21 Wednesday We were on the 8 am ferry so got up early, had the free hostel breakfast of cereal and bread and drove to the loading zone for the Bluebridge ferry company, one of the two that operates between Picton and Wellington. Julie and I spent most of the three hour trip on the open decks watching first the Marlborough Sound, then the receding south island and the growing north island as we approached. It was very windy, but the ship is so large you hardly noticed the seas. Two little bonuses were seeing a seal about halfway across and a bit later a school of dolphins. Once we arrived in Wellington, we disembarked and drove to the city center and the I-Site. Julie did not know where she wanted to stay that night. She was waiting to discuss that with her boyfriend. I picked up info on several hostels for myself. Julie had expected to have to wait a while before her boyfriend arrived, but actually he arrived shortly after we were ready to leave the I-Site. That worked out well. We said our goodbye's and since my vehicle was in a secure place I decided to walk to a couple of the hostels to check them out. Well the first one I got to looked good and I booked two nights. They could get me discounted parking vouchers (street parking is extremely regulated here). It turned out to be a good place to stay, but I should have checked out the others because one of the others that I stayed at later, was half the price and had off street parking. Oh well. So once I had lodging arranged I drove over to the Chinese embassy and got the correct paperwork to enter the country. I needed to get passport type pictures taken, so that is an new quest for me to resolve. Since the embassy is right next to the Botanical Gardens, I spend a couple hours exploring there. It encompasses a hill so there are several lookout points, a number of interesting sculptures, and even a free tram that brings people up and down. The embassy was already on the high side of the gardens so I did not ride the tram. These gardens are so much more interesting when the flowers are blooming and while that was a missing component of many of the gardens in Australia, it is now summery enough that the flowers are out in most places. After a while I drove down to the marina area, where the Te Papa museum is. It is a large place and because I was getting there in the late afternoon I only had time to see a single floor, but I will be back to see the rest. It is one of the more fascinating museums I have been in. It is a mix between a traditional museum and the Exploratorium in SF. There is so much interactive stuff (largely geared towards children, but still) that it made the experience a lot of fun.

October 22 Thursday I got up, had a free breakfast of cereal and bread, and found out where I could get passport photos taken. It took a while to find the place and I had to come back in a few hours to pick them up, which meant I did not get the paperwork turned in today. I spoke with Gabe on the phone for a bit, so he could reassure me that things are progressing on his end and that he is still going to join me in China. I went back to the Te Papa museum and spend quite a while there seeing nearly everything I had missed the day before. I also did some grocery shopping and wandered around the city, finding graffiti and sculptures and other interesting things to photograph.

October 23 Friday I got up, showered, packed my bag, loaded the Spaceship, called and talked to my mom, had breakfast and checked out of the hostel at 9:30. I drove over to the Chinese embassy to drop off the visa application. First surprise: they would not accept my Swiss passport, so I had to amend my application to use the US passport. I think this was purely a money thing. They charge $100 more for a US visa than a Swiss one and it was my mistake for asking too many questions about the differences before, so they knew I had both. I would also have to return in a weeks time to pick up the passport and visa if approved. I went out to the Spaceship and spent an hour or so looking at what that meant for my traveling plans on the north island. I had hoped that returning might not be necessary, because it would eat up so much time doing so. I also could not just hang around in Wellington, or I would see nothing else. I considered staying in Wellington for Sabbath, but Wellington really has not caught my attention and I was more than ready to keep moving, so I made the decision to head for Napier and the eastern side of the north island to begin visiting all four of the national parks. I drove pretty much straight through and after the none stop beauty of the south island I was rather underwhelmed. So much more development/so much less 'nature'. I found a place to camp in the evening a bit outside of Napier and settled in for the night.

October 24 Sabbath I got up and drove the last 28 kms into Napier. I had hoped to find a picnic spot on the way and eat breakfast there, but there were none in that area for whatever reason. My map was very basic and even though I had an address for the church I did not see any roads that I had listed. So I drove all the way downtown to the I-site and they gave me a better city map. I had to back track and found the church 10 minutes before sabbath school started. So I skipped breakfast, but that was okay in the long run. I had met a man from this church when I was at the church in Queenstown, but he was traveling again. The rest of the church was just as friendly as he had been. It was a fairly small church and so they did not have an organized potluck, but a couple said they were designated hosts for that weekend and I was welcome to join them and a few others for lunch at their home. So I followed the husband in my Spaceship, which several of them were interested in see, as they notice them on the roads, but had not had the opportunity to look at the interiors. There were nine people for lunch and it was a very pleasant afternoon. I had their names written down, but can't find that piece of paper now. About 4 pm I took my leave and continued north east towards Te Urewera National Park.

October 25 Sunday I fueled up before heading into Te Urewera NP and made it to Lake Waikaremoana mid morning. There are so long walks around the lake, all too long for what I have time for. I did do a short walk to some caves. They were caves in the same way as the caves around Linda Falls. The rocks have piled themselves in such ways as to leave small passages between them and you can go back inside them, but none deep enough that a flashlight (torch) would be necessary. There was also a walk/climb to Lou's Lookout which gave a comprehensive view of the lake area. I had to traverse 60 kms of gravel road and that made for rather slow going. And despite being back in a natural setting, it still was not as nice as most of the south island had been. Eventually I got to the town of Whakatane on the coast north of the national park. I picked up some information at the town center and exchanged dvds at a Spaceship substation, but did not spend much time in the town. The activity the town is most known for is cruises to White Island, which is clearly visible from the anywhere in the surrounding area. What is special about White Island is that it is an active volcano, but it spews gas and not lava/magma. Instead I continued west now towards Rotorua and made a roadside camp for myself near Kawerau.

Heading to China.....

2009-11-07T15:36:00.000-08:00

Traveling in the Spaceship, I did not have nearly enough time to keep my blog updated. I'm catching up on my notes still and will get everything up before I head into China for a couple reasons. Chiefly, that while I have been assured by many Chinese I have met on the road that the internet/wifi is free to everyone in China, the censorship means that this blog will not be updated while I am there. Blogger is one of the blocked websites. Facebook is also out, so I'll have to see how I can best keep people apprised of what is happening to me. Even Yahoo is selectively blocked, but I think my email will be fine. It appears it will only be a few more weeks before I am joined by Gabe and I look forward to that. So, I should have this up to date by Tuesday morning before I leave for Hong Kong.........

2009-11-07T15:09:00.000-08:00

Near Motueka where we camped for a night

Ligar Bay in late afternoon.

A pretty west coast beach shot

At the edge of Fox Glacier

Franz Joseph glacier from a lookout point.

2009-11-07T15:00:00.000-08:00

October 16 Friday We got up just after 7, had breakfast, then went into town so Julie could make a decision on the bungy jump. After she chose the option she wanted and was underway, I headed back to the hostel, with a brief stop to exchange a DVD. I had a relaxing morning, checked out of Deco Backpackers at 10, but then stayed and used the internet until almost noon, while Julie bungy jumped. I checked at the jump center at our meeting time, but they said since it had been a small group in the morning they actually had gotten back an hour early, so I returned to the car, which was still in the same place from the previous day. I knew that Julie had wanted to see the Botanical Garden and assumed that she must have gone there when they came back early. This turned out to be the case. So by early afternoon we had had some lunch and began driving towards the glaciers. We made a few stops, including the Gates of Haast and ended up finding a sideroad only 5 kms from Fox Glacier to stay at for the night. A couple lads from London with a Jucy van joined us for the strength in numbers principle of free camping and we settled in for the night.

October 17 Sabbath In the morning we went to the Fox Glacier and walked the main track to what is called the glacier terminal end, basically where the glacier is currently stopped. It is still almost a quarter mile from the glacier, but a tremendous view. We also took a walk on the other side of the valley that took us up a ridge where we had views looking down to the glacier. We saw morning tours heading to the glacier itself. In the afternoon we got a cold rain, but the forecast was for great weather on Sunday.

In the evening we drove the 26 kms to Franz Joseph township and camped for the night at a new business development park, that currently was just a roughly graded street layout in a forested section just outside the town ship. We planned to see this glacier in the morning.

October 18 Sunday Franz Joseph was nearly as impressive as Fox, but I liked Fox better. The groups going out to the Franz Joseph glacier were much bigger and they walked right up the terminal end, which just did not have the right feel to it when we saw it. There was much more information on Fox too, with a 550 meter cliff that used to be almost completely covered by the glacial ice and is now exposed. The glacial valleys get up to 7 meters of rain at the bottoms and nearly 15 meters of rain at the summits, if you can imagine. Both glaciers are “contracting” and there are markers showing where they were in 1930 and 1750 and they have shrunk a shocking amount. Again, we walked to the terminal end and also another trail that gave us some elevated views. The sky was steadily getting cloudier and when we drove down to Lake Matheson, which is famous for its reflective surface with the mountains in the background, the view was mostly obliterated and a non event. Eventually we left and continued up the coast which included an amazing visit to the Pancake Rocks region. I don't know how to describe the formations in this area, and got many good pictures, hopefully, I can post a few that do it justice. We continued on and made it past the town of Merchison, where we found a place to stay for the night

October 19 Monday Abel Tasman National Park was not much further, once we got up in the morning. But the information center had some bad news for us: all kayaking trips (which is the primary way of seeing most of the coastal formation in the park) have to be booked at least 24 hours in advance, so no kayaking for us. We got what information we could and headed for Cape Farewell to make the most of the day. The weather was not cooperating very well again. We could see very little from Cape Farewell, but did see quite a few other interesting things, enough to keep us occupied until we found a camp site next to a farm near Motueka. We had stopped in town and eaten at a great kebab place with the bland name of Coffee and Kebabs. Despite the name the food was phenomenal. The lady working there made giant falafels for us and was extremely friendly. The evening did turn out to be very special because the sunset combined with the low tide and the clouds to create a photographic wonderland of reflections. I took a lot of pictures, but should have taken even more.

October 20 Tuesday We got up and out of our campsite at 7:45. First stop back into Motueka for the bathrooms, breakfast and brushing teeth. Then we thought we could take our time driving to Picton, which really was not that far away. Unfortunately, there turned out to not be very much to see along the way. The town of Nelson was one of the places we did stop. It is the home of the geographic center of New Zealand, which happens coincidentally to rest at the top of a mountain overlooking the city. Coincidentally. It also decided to coincidentally begin raining when we got halfway up that mountain, so we took a few rushed pictures at the summit and hurried back down. The rain stopped before we made it back to the car. Nelson also had a library where we could get free internet and so while we did some email catchup, Julie also recharged her phone and camera. We got into Picton, found our hostel and a grocery store, and prepared for one more evening on the south island. Julie was excited that we would be in Wellington the next day and she would get to see her boyfriend again.

2009-11-07T14:38:00.000-08:00

October 11 Sunday We left the church in Oamaru and made our first stop at the Moeraki Boulders. The lighting and the tide were different so I have another whole set of pictures of these strange beach features. Then in Dunedin, I took Julie up to Signal Hill, we both walked up Baldwin St this time and took a walk through the Botanical Garden. I stopped at the train station so she could get her own pictures of the most photographed building in Dunedin. This time as we left we went out to explore the Otago Peninsula, instead of the northern side. We drove out to the actual Albatross colony sanctuary and were told at the visitor center that due to the new hatching of five chicks no one could disturb the birds or even go to the viewing station, but that if we waited around the cliffs a bit further south and watched the sky we should see a few of the adults in the air. It took a while, but yes we did see the albatross and they were beautiful. Very hard to photograph, but that was secondary to just seeing them in the wild. There are two penguin colonies in this same area, but both are on private land and the land owners charge $50 or more to go and see them. You also have to be there at specific times late in the evening when they return from eating in the sea all day. We had a map that showed us a number of places where we potentially could see both the blue eyed and yellow eyed penguins so we were not eager to spend that much money and wait several more hours for the penguins to make an appearance. We continued south into a region called curiously enough the Southland and a large section of coastal parkland called the Caitlins. We reached the coast itself at Kaka Point near sundown and by the time we got to Nugget Point it was getting dark. We began walking out to the lighthouse, but turned back. The place was so remote we just decided to camp in the car park for the night. The only downside was that there was a bitterly cold wind howling through. (The beach below the lighthouse is called Roaring Bay, and the wind makes it apt) We parked as close to the outhouse as possible to create a windbreak, eventually cooked a pasta dinner and watched a film before bedtime.

October 12 Monday Woke up early to watch the sunrise from our 'camp site' at Nugget Point/Roaring Bay. The sky was clear and we made it out to the lighthouse shortly after the sun had come up. No animals other than seagulls in sight, but it was pretty nonetheless. It was rather windy still so we made our way to Owaka and had breakfast behind the information center, which was not going to open until 9:30 so we decided not to wait and went on down through the Caitlins. There were a series of four waterfalls that we visited: Purakaunui, Matai, Horseshoe, and MacLean. Then we stopped for a bit at Curio Bay, which has a petrified forest embedded in the rock. This is best seen at low tide and the tide was already coming in, but we could still see many of the tree trunks scattered like pick up sticks in the rock surface. Three other places we would have liked to stop were closed still due to the lambing season: The Cathedral Caves, Slope Point (the southernmost point of the south island) and Waipapa Point. We had a little bit of a scare because all our side trips used more fuel than expected and we were in an area with few gas stations. The empty light was on and we arrived at one tiny town that was supposed to have fuel and their station was closed. The next option (only option really) was another 15 kms down the road. We made it there and their pumps were down as well. There was a power outage from the high winds. Luckily, while we were considering what to do, the power came back on. I had prayed to myself several times as we had gone further and further with the empty light on and this was just a little answer for me. It also gave me a chance to see how far I can push the spaceship. After refueling we made the last little leg into Invercargill. I texted Alex B who we planned to couchsurf with, but did not hear back from him. I had their address, so we just drove over and they were at home so there was no problem. They were three Uni students sharing a place. They are all studying various phases of music and it was fun to talk with them for the evening. One was leaving early the next morning to do a performance tour. Julie and I went back out and ate at a Indian restaurant. I had a really good spinach dish. Back at the couchsurfers place we got showers and shortly thereafter went to bed.

October 13 Tuesday We got up early, had a quick breakfast and then headed the 30 kilometers to the town of Bluff where we could catch a ferry across the Foveaux Strait to Stewart Island, It was not encouraging weather at all, with heavy overcast and actual rain as we neared Bluff. But we could see blue sky out on the horizon and the forecast said this was our best chance if we were going to go to the island at all. There was still a fair amount of wind and the hour long ferry ride was quite choppy, but it was partially blue sky that greeted us by the time we arrived in the town of Oban in Halfmoon Bay. We had booked a Paterson Inlet Cruise, which gave us a couple hours to explore before we had to join that tour. We walked from Oban around the Bay, past Butterfield Beach and Bragg Bay and decided we had enough time to take a trail along the coast to Horseshoe Point and then back by an inland route. The trail was pleasant at first, but got muddier and muddier and it really slowed us down. We started realizing that we were running out of time and were going as fast as we could. By the time we made it back to a paved road we had only 20 minutes to go almost 4 km, possible but not likely without running. We continued walking and hoped for a car to come by that could give us a ride. There are not many vehicles on the island. We were lucky though. A lady that just moved to the island a few months ago stopped and gave us a ride right to where we needed to be with several minutes to spare. She said she loved living on the island and her three children liked the personalized attention they were receiving at the 19 student school on the island.

For the afternoon we went on the Patterson Inlet Cruise, which went to a number of sites on the inlet and included an hour long guided tour on Ulva Island, a completely predator free island where many birds are being reintroduced and raised. The guided tour was extremely informative and my highlight of the cruise. We learned to identify several trees, birds, and plants I had been wondering about for weeks (lancewood, rimu, tui, and weka for instance). Ulva Island used to be the home of the area postmaster, when Stewart Island was a collection of 18 or more lumber mills. There is a private family residence on the island to this day and the current owners are in full cooperation with the bird saving initiatives. After the cruise we again had some time before our return to the mainland. We did another loop walk that took us along the coast to Deep Bay, which is so called because it goes so far inland (it is actually very shallow and two of the three boats that were moored there were up in the mud for the low tide).The ferry ride back was much calmer and we had no problems. We stopped back at the Couchsurfers place to retrieve our backpacks, grabbed a quick dinner to go in Invercargill and began driving towards Te Anau, where we planned to stay with another Couchsurfer. I had texted him earlier in the day to say we would be coming rather late in the evening. I had not gotten a reply. When we got to the edge of town I called Nathan. He had not received the texts, but remembered my emails and since we had the spaceship it was not a problem. He actually had someone staying on his couch already, an American from Florida, named Ryan. We all talked in the kitchen until almost 1 am and then headed out to bed.

October 14 Wednesday We were in no real rush based on the forecasted weather, so we had a leisurely morning before leaving Nathan's place in Te Anau. We stopped at the local library and were able to use the internet for only a few minutes before they chased us all out so they could use the computer room for a meeting. But we were able to still get a strong enough signal out in the parking lot and stayed long enough to check a few things. Julie bought some souvenirs in town, then we drove down to Lake Manapouri, which is the gateway to Doubtful Sound. As I mentioned the weather was not very good, with sprinkles off and on. In some ways that was a good thing as it made it easier to accept our earlier decision to skip the Doubtful Sound tours. They are much more involved (it takes two boat rides and a bus drive in between to reach this sound) and therefore much more expensive. Prohibitively so. But still tempting. Anyway, knowing that there were potentially at least 14 interesting stops on the way up to Milford Sound, we began that journey. The weather did absolutely not cooperate though. Everything was clouded over or fogged in and we only really got to see the Interpretive Center at Knob's Flat. We had to hope for a better weather day tomorrow and that is what the forecast was telling us we would get. We arrived at Milford Sound and went into the Information Center/Restaurant. The info center was closed and they were busy decorating for an Oktoberfest party. Really we should have had to go back more than 20 kms to an official campground (of which there were several), but we were told we could just stay in the car park. I half expected to be told to move at some point in the night, but it was certainly more convenient to be right there. We would not have to drive far in the morning, or get up as early as we would otherwise. We checked in at the restaurant later, but no music was playing yet and we decided not to eat there. No one bothered us at all that night, so it was a good decision for us to have made.

October 15 Thursday We got up from our No Camping allowed location and after a quick breakfast we walked over to the port where the four companies offering cruises in the sound are located. I also took some pictures as the sun was just beginning to hit Mitre Peak. There was a photographer who had waited an hour standing hip deep in the very cold water to get some shots very similar to mine. He was happy and I was happy, but a lot less cold. I had already decided I wanted to go with Mitre Peak Cruises and I think it was the right decision. They have the first cruise in the morning so we had the sound to ourselves at the beginning. They also have a lower price for that first cruise. The lighting was great as the sun slowly exposed itself on the walls of the fjord. There were so many waterfalls from the rain yesterday and the scenery was incredible. We went all the way out to the Tasman Sea and saw a yellow eyed penguin on the rocks, a few blue eyes swimming in the water, fur seals on rocks in another part of the fjord, and beauty all around in places with names like Bowen Falls, Harrison Cove, The Lion and the Elephant, Stirling Falls, and the Overhang. The cruise was informative and fun. There is so much rain in the sound that there is actually a layer of fresh water up to 12 meters deep sitting on top of the ocean salt water. We got close enough to one of the falls so that everyone got partially wet.

The weather was holding up and so on our return trip to Te Anau, we were able to make all the stops we had skipped yesterday. The interesting Chasm, The Homer Tunnel, Lyttles Flat View, Falls Creek Waterfall, the Hollyford River, Pops View, The Divide, Lake Gunn Nature Walk, Mirror Lakes, Eglinton Flats, and the Te Anau Downs Harbor all were out from their cloaks today. Even with all the stops we covered a lot of ground and made it all the way to Queenstown before dark. I went to the Deco Backpackers and they gave us a discounted rate for me being a return visitor and bringing a new person with me. They put us in a room where we could actually get internet signal, a great bonus. It was late enough that Julie could not book her bungy jump this evening, but we did get some information.

2009-10-20T00:39:00.000-07:00

Mitre Peak at sunrise in Milford Sound

Lightplay near Dead Man's Beach on Stewart Island

The lighthouse at Nugget Point just after sunrise.

Moeraki Boulders at low tide.

Lion Rock on the Aramoana Spit Beach

2009-10-20T00:24:00.001-07:00

October 6 Tuesday I picked Chris up just after 10 am at his hostel, but I had already had an active morning. I got up early and went to Bob's Cove. There is a short loop trail to a small peninsula with old lime kilns and a hilltop view spot. The clouds and lighting were very nice and I got a number of pictures. We had decided to take a route to Dunedin that followed a converted railway line that is now a mountain bike trail of some 170 kms. They take 3 day tours from the high ground down to the flatland. Actually driving the road criss crosses the old railway numerous times and I think it would be a lovely mountain bike route. There were not a lot of places that we felt we had to stop and take pictures, partly because after spending several days among the very impressive mountains, the nice green rolling hills, just did not seem as picturesque. So we made quite good time and arrived in Dunedin in the early afternoon. I dropped Chris off at his hostel near the city center and after a brief stop of my own at the city center (called the Octagon) to pick of a city map, I went to find something to do. I was looking for Baldwin St, which according to Guiness is the steepest street in the world, having bumped one of San Francisco's steep streets from the top spot. Apparently, five streets in Dunedin are in the top 10 for steepness. But is was just off the map and signs were not very good, so the hill I started driving up was not it, but it had signs indicating Signal Hill Lookout. It was worth the drive to the top. This was indeed a birds eye view of Dunedin and surrounds. I returned down the hill and did find Baldwin St. My Spaceship made it up and back down without much difficulty. I next stopped at the Botanical Gardens to discover that most of the buildings closed at 4 pm. No big deal. I drove down towards the town center again and stopped to take a couple pictures of the train station, which I had been told at the info center was the most photographed building in the city. I also checked the operating hours of the Cadbury factory. They have a tour for $20, but there is also a chocolate shop in the visitor center, so I'll try and stop there tomorrow when they are open. Next I drove out to a neighborhood to the south of town and found my Couchsurfing hosts: Sophia, Miguel, and their gato Guillermo. They got me settled in, let me look through a book of local walking trails, and then we shared a dinner. Their car was being repaired and was ready to be picked up, so I gave them a ride to the mechanics across town. We made a couple stops for other things on the way, but I was happy to do it in exchange for a place to sleep and get a shower. Back at their place I went to bed quite soon afterwards.

October 7 Wednesday I slept in a bit and my hosts were already gone when I got up. I made my own breakfast then headed out to embrace the day. I stopped at the library and was told I could not use the internet there, so I went down the street and paid for a half hour at a cafe. One message was from a person I had contacted in Christchurch, who wanted to travel around the south island for a couple weeks. That was good news to me. I also stopped by the Cadbury plant again, but discovered that even to get into the shop you had to have gone on the tour, so no cheap chocolate for me. Oh well. I hit the road to the northern side of town and headed for the coast through Port Chalmers. There was a nice overlook called Flagstaff Hill, but the rest of the town was extremely sleepy (outside of some dockworkers unloading box cars). I went the rest of the way to the coast to a a split portion of the shore called The Spit on one side and Spit Beach on the other. This is a region where there are sometimes albatross and penguins, but my hosts had told me there was not much chance to see either since the young had just left the nests and most had gone for the season. I certainly did not sea any penguins or albatross, but the beach was very nice and I enjoyed walking them and finding shells. At the far end of Spit Beach, where the penguins sometimes hang out there was a rock formation called Lion Rock. Not sure why, I saw no resemblance with a lion, but it did have a nice hole through it, that could only be seen when you went past it. I'm sure most people have no idea it is there, unless they actually walk to the far end of the beach. I returned to town in the early afternoon and made my way through the Botanical Gardens, which were open this time. Then I sought out two other lookouts in the hills to the west of town, but neither was nearly as impressive as Signal Hill. When I got back to my hosts house, Sophia was just getting ready to leave and invited me to watch her play in a hockey game. She said she had to leave right away to get ready, but that soup and salad were waiting for me in the kitchen. She gave me directions and I said I would come as soon as I ate. It was easy to find the hockey rink and it was a interesting back and forth game, which had a rather exciting ending with a final goal to tie the score coming with 3 seconds left. They then had to do a shoot out and every single player had a shot. At the beginning of going through a second tour one of Sophia's team mates made a shot and when the other team missed their shot, it was over. One note I have to mention. Having stayed in a couple homes now and talking with several other people, almost no homes in New Zealand have any insulation, so they get very cold. It has only been about ten years that insulation has been used, amazingly.

October 8 Thursday After leaving a note thanking my hosts, I drove back up to Christchurch with a stop at the Moeraki Boulders. They are fascinating. The information I gathered on them said they are created through calcification much like a pearl in an oyster. When they have opened up some of the up to 3 meter boulders they have found turtle skeletons, fish skeletons, and even dinosaur skeletons. They are scattered along a section of the beach and many of them have intriguing patterns on their outer surfaces. The tide was low and I got many pictures. As I got closer to Christchurch the clouds were getting thicker and thicker. I texted Julie to see when it would be good to meet, but did not hear back. I parked in a free parking area and walked down to the library where I could access the internet. I sent Julie a message through Couchsurfing and she texted me almost immediately. The number she had given me was not correct, but we got that straightened out. I drove to where she was staying with couchsurfers on the western side of town since it was raining by then. We walked down to a nearby mall and had some sushi while we talked about our plans. It went well and we agreed to leave the next morning. Back at the place she was staying, I got permission to park the Spaceship off the street and just use their bathroom. That worked just fine.

October 9 Thursday Julie brought her bag out and we rearranged a few things in the car before heading inland on the Inland Scenic Route I had been on not that long ago. This time we went straight to Rakaia Gorge and with only a few other stops at Lake Tekapo (with heavy clouding so the mountains were obscured), we soldiered on to Mt Cook and the White Horse campground. The information center was promising clear weather in the morning, but it was really overcast and began heavily snowing. It was windy and incredibly cold, but we made the best of it. We ran the heater as long as I dared and when I went to reposition the van so we could cook a little more out of the wind the car wouldn't start. So it was longer than I should have dared obviously. There was a couple from Alaska staying at the campground in a Jucy van. I checked with them and they said they would not leave in the morning until we were fixed up. I told them how much we would appreciate that.

October 10 Sabbath As promised the sky was completely clear and it was beautiful. And as promised the couple from Alaska retrieved a battery charger from the visitor center. Between us we got the car jumped and I ran the engine for about 20 minutes so it would not be a recurring problem. They had been doing some mountain climbing until the weather got too bad yesterday and were heading out to meet friends at another mountain further north, so we thanked them and let them go. We walked out on the Hooker Glacier walk as far as they would allow us (the rockfall was still being cleared up), but we could see the glacier by the time we had to stop. Then we went over to the Tasman Glacier and this time in addition to climbing the viewing point we also walked down to the lake shore where we were closer to the icebergs. No one was using the small boats today, but they were actually 12 seaters. When Chris and I had been there before I thought they were just 4 person dinghys, they looked so small along the icebergs. We spent the mid to late afternoon driving. Half of this terrain I had seen before with Chris, but the rest was new as we approched Oamaru, where my friend Jen Ogden lives. She had been camping at Stewart Island for the past week and I was hoping she was back so we could ask about the island and some other things. Julie is a certified teacher in Germany and wanted more info on the process of becoming certified in New Zealand. Jen is a teacher, so that would have been convenient. But it was not meant to be. We arrived and found the SDA church, which was right on the main street through town, but no one was there. The sign out front had a phone number for the pastor and a head elder. The first went to a wrong number and I interrupted someone's dinner and the second number just rang and rang. So no one could let us into the church. We parked behind the building and used a restroom down the street at a gas station and stayed the night. Julie is a rather picky eater in some ways, we stopped in five different restaurants and none was close enough to what she wanted and she absolutely does not cook herself. I made enough pasta for both of us and we ate that.

2009-10-19T16:51:00.001-07:00

October 1 Thursday We got up, broke camp and drove back by Twizel and up to Mt Cook/Aoraki, The sky was partially cloudy, but there were blue skies enough of the time for us to be hopeful. At the visitor center we checked out the available walks and were told we could go up the trail to the Mueller Hut until we hit the snow and then we would need to turn back. Only those with the correct snow equipment were allowed to continue. Correct equipment including axes, crampons, rope, etc. We did the Kea Point walk, which terminates with views of the Mueller glacier and the lake at its feet. This is not a particularly pretty glacier as it is mostlly a dirty gray from accumulated bits of rock and dust, but it is the first glacier we have come to so it is impressive none the less. We retraced our path until we could begin ascending the Mueller's Hut walk and went as high as we could. Once we hit the snow we had our lunch looking down over the valley. After climbing back down to the valley floor we drove about 14 kms to a side valley to see the Tasman Sea/Glacier and Blue Lakes. This entailed a short walk to a hilltop where we could see the three Blue Lakes, which are actually a deep green color, and the Tasman glacier terminal end and lake. The lake is spotted with icebergs and the glacier itself is much cleaner than Mueller's. There is a further trail down to the lake and we could see a couple small water craft venturing out to the icebergs. There is also a 8 km hike which would put you right at the glacier terminal end, but we chose not to do that. One other walk in the area is the walk to Hooker's Glacier. This one crosses two cable bridges before getting to the glacier itself, but due to a “rockfall” (landslide) that trail is closed.

So we left the Aoraki valley and began our drive towards Queenstown. We found a secluded little bend off the road along the Kawarau River gorge to camp in for the night about 40 kms outside of Queenstown. After dinner we watched “Lackawanna Blues” and went to bed.

October 2 Friday We woke up to a mostly clear sky with the sun shining. I got somewhat washed up in the frigid water of the Kawarau River and then Chris and I had breakfast. Our little campsite was excellent and it did not take long to break camp and be on our way the last little bit to Queenstown. The town is actually spread out over a long stretch of the Lake Wanatipu shore so the impression is of a much larger town than the 13,000 that actually live here. It is a hub for all kinds of extreme sports and outdoors activity in general. You can do jet boating, whitewater rafting, skydiving, bungy jumping (the first bungy jumps in th world happened just outside town on the Kawarau River), paragliding, mountain biking, hiking, etc. Chris is a member of BBH, a hostel collective similar to YHA (where I am a member) and so we went to a backpackers listed in his booklet. I got the discount as well for traveling with Chris. The first thing we both did was get showers. Then we walked down to the town center and I exchanged the dvd we had watched and Chris started getting info on whitewater rafting. I left him to climb Queenstown Hill and get an overview of the area. It was a nice walk, with a few sprinkles on the way up, but it was clear once I got to the summit. There was a lot of wind, but I had enough layers to be warm. When I returned to the hostel, Chris told me that they had already booked out the rafting trips for Saturday, so he booked for Sunday afternoon. The weather was supposed to be much better on Sunday anyway. That was fine with me. The hostel has free internet access so I tracked down the local SDA church. That involved calling a number because they do not have a permanent location and move from week to week. I read a book for a while before going to bed.

October 3 Sabbath Woke up to a dusting of snow as predicted and more wet clumpy snow falling. I got up and after breakfast of bread with nutella and banana, some yoghurt, and a nectarine, started walking to Frankton 6kms away. I chose not to drive, because it looked so nice with the snow. It was lovely walking along the lakeside with snow gently falling. The temp was 34 degrees so most of it was not really sticking to the ground, instead it was making slush and my shoes got wet quite quickly, which I had not really planned for. Cold wet socks are not the best for walking in. But it was a beautiful, quiet morning and I made it to the designated location, just after the 10:30am starting time I had been told. They were actually still having a morning tea and so I had a few cookies and a nice hot cup of ginger tea. There were 17 people in attendance for this week with the Queenstown SDA company. Pastor Soon Yeung said that in the three years he has been the pastor, his wife has each week declared that maybe this week she will be singing for him and he will be preaching to her (they are the only members of the company), but it has never happened once. People always show up. There was a youth group visiting from Invercargill, further south that made up the bulk of the group, but there were also three traveling Australians and myself. Seven different nationalities were also represented. We did not study the lesson, but instead had a discussion about broaching the subject of why bad things happen to good people with non Christians. One of the youth group members had the sermon about how we need to ask God specifically for help and truly believe He will answer. English is not the young man's mother tongue, but he did a good job anyway. Then we had a small potluch with just the right amount of food and eventually about 3 pm we split up and I headed back the way I came. The snow was nearly all melted, the sun was out, and while it had been very sleepy on my walk in the morning, people were out everywhere now. It was also still very cold. Instead of heading directly back to the hostel, I went through the Botanical Gardens and ran into Christopher about half way through. I continued back to the hostel and he stayed at the gardens a while longer. After a brief rest, I decided there was still enough time for another walk and so I headed towards the suburb of Fernhill on the west side of Queenstown. This leads to several multihour 'tramps', but I gave myself an hour up so I would not get back when it was too dark. I got a lot farther than I thought I would. The One Mile track follows an old water pipeline from a defunct gold mining operation up a canyon to a place called Midway Meadow. From here the Fernhill Loop goes an additional 2 hours, or the Ben Lomond Track goes to the top of the peak for which it is named in 5 hours, or you can walk to the top of the gondola. I decided to follow the Fernhill Loop for the time I had alloted myself. It worked out quite well, because when I had to turn around I had reached a creek crossing that was swollen with snow runoff. While I could see a way across it was probably safer that I did not try. I had a great time marching through the snow that was still heavy on the ground for the last half hour of my walk up. When I made my way back down to the trail head, I discovered that I had nearly done half of the Fernhill Loop and it had not taken nearly as long as they described. I also logged my 6000th picture of the trip, which seems like an awful lot, but I know I could have taken many many more.

In the evening Christopher ran into a English girl he knew from Australia and they went off together. I walked through the town center again and picked up some groceries I needed, then read some more and worked on my trip notes before going to bed.

October 4 Sunday We checked out of the hostel just before 10, but I hung around a while longer using the internet. While Christopher was out for the day whitewater rafting, I drove 10 kms west of Queenstown and walked the Mt Crichton/Sam Somers track. This was easily my favorite walk in the Queenstown area. It was a loop track and the way I went had me following a creek through a nice forest, eventually reaching Sam Somers cabin. The cabin has a couple rudimentary beds and all the cooking utensils you could need, although the whole trail is not really long enough to warrant camping overnight. There was also a somewhat sleepy red possum in the rafters. He woke up sufficiently to get hidden in a wall before I could get the camera out and attempt a picture, but I was glad to have seen one alive since I see so many along the roadsides dead. The trail continues and breaks out of the forest to snowy mountain peaks and there was a brief side jaunt through a narrow gap between two large sheets of stone to some old mine openings. At the peak of the trail there was a great view of the mountains and a few minutes later was another viewpoint overlooking Lake Dispute and Lake Wanatipu. While driving back to town I stopped at a turnout to read the Dept of Conservation marker. A lady parked there said she would let me know her favorite trails in the area. Top of the list: Mt Crichton/Sam Somers track. I told her I just came from there and it was my favorite as well. She recommended one branch of the Bob's Cove trail and a few places up near Glenorchy, where we are heading this evening.

I met Christopher at the appointed time and he said he was slightly disappointed with the whitewater rafting. It had been mostly in Class 3 rapids (we do a couple of those on inner tubes, when we pirate raft the Cache Creek), but too much of the time had been spent just floating lazily between the rapids. At least for the amount of money he spent. We drove up the valley to Glenorchy and made it to the campground at the foot of the Routeburn Track before dark. There was another German couple already there cooking over a small fire. We collected as much wood as we could, made our own dinner with our stove and then joined them to talk over the combined fire. It was bitterly cold and the fire only kept one side slightly warmer, so after talking for about an hour most of our wood was gone and we all headed for bed. They were both from Berlin and had been working picking fruit for almost four months. They were taking a break from that to see some of the island and then look for different jobs. They were going to try and go to the first hut on the Routeburn Track and stay one night. The same issue is in play here: there is snow all over the higher elevations and without the proper gear, you can only go so far. We will probably do another hike instead.

October 5 Monday We got up and decided to take the Rockburn trail past Lake Sylvan and see what we would do from there. The trail was quite muddy, but the forest is not very thick and with so much moss, it often felt like we were walking on a spongecake. Lake Sylvan was beautiful and we found a nice little hut at the end of the Rockburn trail. There was also a short diversion trail to a gorge and what a gorge it was. When we got on the small bridge we were probably looking straight down a narrow crevice churning with water 150 ft below us. Pictures can't even begin to show what it really looked like and we both thought it was the highlight of the walk to that point. Looking at our maps we thought we probably could walk along the river and make it back just as fast as going back on the trail, so we took that route. We wanted adventure, we got adventure. Very soon we had to cross the snow melt river and so we took off our shoes and socks and waded across. Very cold, but invigorating at the same time. Well, after doing this 6, 7, 8 times and the water getting deeper each time, we both began wondering about the wisdom of our decision. I was not worried about my feet, we had enough time between crossings for them to warm back up, but I was becoming concerned that we might get to a point where a crossing would be waist deep or more and with the swiftness of the water, that could lead to many other more serious risks. At one point before we got too concerned a group of canoeists went by. Later we watched a couple jet boats plow through the shallow water we had earlier crossed. Eventually we got to the side of the river we needed to be on and stayed there, but it was still almost an hour of walking through forest and field (with thousands of rabbits criss crossing it in a panic as we came) before we made it back to the car and campground. It was worth it, but tiring and we headed back to Queenstown without stopping at two other short walks that had been recommended to us. Since Chris had met his English friend he wanted to spend some more time with her, so I dropped him off in town at the hostel she was staying at and I went back outside town to a campground for the night.

2009-10-15T15:23:00.000-07:00

A cliche Kiwi experience

Mt Crichton walk above Lake Dispute and Lake Wanatipu

At Mt John Observatory over Lake Tekapo

The waters of Rakaia Gorge

Punt on Christchurch river

2009-10-15T15:15:00.000-07:00

September 26 Sabbath I showered, ate two bananas, a bagel, and some apricot yoghurt for breakfast, and headed out for church. The first option was the building I had checked out before (with no signage). Well it was a good thing I left early enough, because the building was still locked and no one was around at 9:20, so I abandoned that option and headed for a church on the north side of town. It was closer to where I was (I had a third address but it was further still). This morning the sun was out and there were some clouds but not many, so it was nice to be outside and it made the walk much more endurable. I hurried and made it while they were still in a song service for sabbath school. The St. Albans SDA Church is a small building with a small flock. (later someone said that was the smallest church in the area) There were about 15 people when I arrived and it maybe doubled when the last person came. The congregation is older, but they were very friendly and welcoming and the sermon by one of the members was spot on. Their main pastor has three churches, so they only get him once or twice a month. After church I was invited to the home of Jan Odonnell for lunch. She and her friend Olive are both widows whose husbands died about a year ago a week apart (about the time my dad died actually). We had a nice lunch of vegetable soup and home made bread (and some cookies for desert). Later they dropped me off a short distance from my hostel on their way to another friends birthday party. The weather was still very nice so the walk back was lovely. There are only two of us in the room now so we have lots of space to ourselves. I read for a while in the evening

September 27 Sunday Another day in CHCH. My notes are bad for this day and I did not go anywhere, so I'll leave it at that.

September 28 Monday By chance I found a notice from a German guy looking for a travel mate and we met and decided to give it a go. We will leave tomorrow after I pick up my campervan. I picked up some groceries and did a load of laundry. I also finished two books and picked up a new one. The ones I finished were called In The Woods and The Anatomist, a detective story and a historical expansion of the Italian who “discovered” much of what was known about the circulatory system and the clitoris in the 1600's. The one I picked up I am excited about: Born on a Blue Day. It is the autobiography of a highly functioning autistic savant with Aspergers and synesthesia.

September 29 Tuesday Vacated Around The World and walked with all my stuff to the Spaceship office. I got there at about 8:45 and the sign said Back at 9:15, so I waited. But I got to thinking and when no one arrived by 9:25, I concluded that maybe I needed to be at the other location in town, the actual Spaceship depot to pick up my vehicle. So I made the walk over to the second address and sure enough I had a vehicle waiting. They showed me what came with the van and how things worked with it and by 10 am I was over at Foley Towers to pick up Christopher. We basically just threw our bags in the back and planned to organize everything better when we stopped for the night. So leaving CHCH we headed for the Banks Peninsula and the town of Akaroa. Almost as soon as we got outside of town the weather cleared up and we had sunshine. We both thought that Christchurch had been pulling the wool over our eyes and it was probably the only cloudy/rainy place in all of New Zealand. We were partially right. The Banks Peninsula has several scenic drives through it and we took a different route back than the one we drove out on. The town at the end of the pen, Akaroa was incredibly small and is mainly a starting point for bay cruises (where small dolphins are frequently seen). There are many places to take walks in the hills (except that Sept and Oct are lambing season and about 90% of the walks were closed due to this. We did take a nice walk to the top of the ridge where we could see bays on both sides of the peninsula and some expansive views. I guess nice is how I would describe it in hindsight because the views more than made up for the almost nonexistent trail we followed up a stream bed to get to the top. After leaving Banks Peninsula we got on the Inland Scenic Route, which was indeed scenic. The landscape is lush green, with sheep nearly everywhere. As we got a little further inland we could see the snow capped peaks rising in the near distance. Our first real stop was at Rakaia Gorge, where the color of the water fascinated us. We knew of a place to camp, but diverted to the town of Methven to get a few groceries and see if anything was happening. The town was essentially dead, but we got a local map with some trails marked on it and headed for our campground near a place called Taylor's Stream. We watched “Supersize Me” after eating and then went to bed.

September 30 Wednesday After getting up, having breakfast, and breaking our camp at Taylor's Stream, we backtracked to the Gorge and did the Gorge Walk. It took us a couple hours, but was well worth it. The water has such an amazing color from the snow melt and the rock dust in it. We continued up to Lake Tekapo, with stops at the Church of the Good Shepard on the shore and a nice walk up to Mt John's Observatory for great views back to the town and all around. Then we continued past Twizel, with a stop to exchange dvd's at the Helicopter Line, to a campground near another river. I'll have to look the name up on a map. There was a German couple already there and we talked for a while before having dinner, watching a movie and going to bed.

2009-09-27T18:21:00.000-07:00

September 21 Monday I walked down to the Market street post office and mailed off a package to home. Postage: $100. That hurts and I still have too much stuff with me. I went to the Maritime Museum which was rather small and I went through it quickly. There was an exhibition on the history of the bikini, which was not as exciting as it might sound. They have three or four vessels that you can tour, but they all cost additional and so I gave them a miss. Next I went up to the Observatory and spent nearly an hour there, seeing the old telescopes and other things there. The caretaker was a friendly, but monstrously overweight man. Then as I was walking back to Asylum, I ran into Jon, my Scottish travelmate from earlier in my trip. One of the guys in the hostel said they had seen him, so it was not a complete shock to see him. We talked for a bit and he said he would join Danny and I when we got something to eat later in the evening. At about 6pm the three of us got together, but finding a place to please a Scottish, Korean, and American palate was not easy. We ended up at a pizza parlor, which was fine and cheap. Jon has decided to head back home within a week, instead of staying until November as he had planned earlier. Danny is excited about his new job. He said the first day went well, but he is worried about being lonely in Sydney. There are not very many Koreans here.

September 22 Tuesday I got up at 5:55, did my final bit of packing, slid my key under the reception door, dropped off my linens and went to the shuttle bus pickup spot. I ate my two bananas and an apple while waiting. There were only a couple other people in the bus, but we made many more stops and were full when we arrived at the airport. The many stops took longer than I was comfortable with and I kept watching the clock. My flight was at 8:50am, but it was an international one and in theory I should be there two hours early. I checked my bag at 7:35 and they got on the radio saying they were closing my flight after me. So anyone getting there later would not be allowed to fly. That was a big relief for me. I had an isle seat so did not get to see much during the flight and it was overcast when we arrived in Christchurch. I changed the 21 Australian dollars I still had to New Zealand dollars and caught a shuttle to the city center. My arrangement with the Dumbles, who I was to couchsurf with, was that I could arrive after 5pm. That meant I had nearly three hours to explore. Normally that would be plenty to do something, but I had my pack, my daypack and another bag, so I did not venture very far. I changed some more money and at 5 caught a bus heading towards the suburb of Opawa. Thankfully the directions the Dumbles had sent me were very good and I got off at the right stop and had a short walk to their house. They showed me my room which is a cottage by the garage. Very nice, private space with its own bathroom. Their daughter Maddie is 4 and like most small children likes to be the center of attention. Her grandmother was having a birthday and they were there to celebrate it with the Dumbles, but Maddie wanted everyone to know that even if it was grandmas day to be the star, she was still the second star. There is a two hour time difference between Australia and New Zealand and I had gotten up earlier than usually this morning, so after a while I headed out to the cottage, read for a bit and went to bed.

September 23 Wednesday I walked all over CHCH today, starting from the Opawa suburb where I'm staying at the moment, through an industrial section, moving along the south end of the city center, visiting backpackers (and finding a person who is leaving tomorrow to tour the country), most of the three city walks, the botanical gardens, the Museum, the main Art gallery, and other places. It was overcast all day and actually rained off and on, but I always had somewhere to duck into when it did. I was just finishing the Botanical Gardens when the first showers hit and so I spend some time in the Canterbury Museum. I liked the Around the World Backpackers and will probably go back there to stay once I leave the Dumble's. I met up with another person I had contacted through Couchsurfing, Alice, for smoothies and conversation. She is working with World Vision in public relations and has done quite a bit of volunteering/traveling. After that I met up with the potential travel partner who is leaving tomorrow. She had been on a day trip and we were both hungry so over some sub sandwiches we talked about the plans she had and how it might work for the two of us. She also had one other person to meet before making a decision. She could only take one more person. She promised to call later that evening to let me know yes or no. It turned out to be no. So I will keep looking at options.

September 24 Thursday I walked into town again, made a reservation for four nights at Around the World, and talked to four different rental companies about vehicles. Then I went to the library and did some number crunching. I had a really good quote for a Spaceship and it looked better and better as I worked the numbers, so I went back and booked it. It is a long term relocation and because I got it in Sept it still falls under their off season rate structure. If I had had to start in October the best rate I could hope for would be NZ$75 per day. I got it for NZ$25 per day. Now if I can find someone to share some fuel expenses it will work out even better, but I have the freedom to do just what I want if I choose. And because it is a space ship it has a bed, frig, cooker, etc for less than renting a car would be. Too bad Gabe is still trying to work up the nerve to join me. Come on, the travelings fine, Gabe. (Get well soon, back, I want to have a good friend to share my journey.

September 25 Friday After breakfast, when Maddie and her mom had left for kindy and squash, I left the couchsurfing experience behind and walked the 2+ miles to Around the World Backpackers, where I had made my reservation. Four nights at NZ$20/night. This is a smaller hostel run by a family living on the premises. It has free internet (non free wireless which I am not using, it is expensive), a large cd/dvd library (I ripped a few cd's using the free computer and my flashdrive), a nice kitchen, big backyard (too cold to hang out there yet anyway), small library/book exchange, etc. All the things that make a hostel nice. The dorms are only four beds each so that is also nicer than staying in a 16 bed dorm to get the cheapest rate. Even though it was just after 10 I could check right into my room. I walked to the address (across town) that indicated the nearest SDA church just to see where it was. The building had no signs on it and was locked up, but looked more like an office building than a church. I picked up some potato noodles for my dinner and they were very spicy. The texture was different from what I expected and they are not my favorite, but that could just be a mistake in how I prepared them. Earlier in the day I also sent a few emails to the Chinese embassy to make sure I can get the correct visa there. Just like with the Brazilian info I got a few days ago, it would cost me $160 as a US citizen, but only $60 as a swiss citizen. I also started looking into a side project that John Hemphill had given me to try and get a birth certificate for his grandfather. I now have the address and will stop by the Christchurch office of records on Monday.

2009-09-27T18:18:00.001-07:00

September 16 Wednesday We got up early again for sunrise, and again it was nice, but not what Geoff had been hoping for. We got back, had a quick breakfast, loaded the van with our bags and all the trash/recyclables, and cleaned the floors of the kitchen, bathrooms, and bunkhouses. Before leaving the park completely we stopped at the Ranger station and were given certificates for having served the park as volunteers. We also stopped at the art wherehouse to pick up a few more pieces for other people. I took the opportunity to get mine wrapped in bubble wrap. We stopped in Yulara again to get fuel then drove on to Alice Springs. It took a while longer than before because there were some heavy dust storms and visibility went to near zero several times. Our brief lunch stop was an adventure just keeping things from blowing away in the hard wind. I got dropped off at Haven (my hostel) and we had all agreed to meet at the restaurant in Annies Place in the evening for a sendoff. In Alice I walked over to Anzac Hill and took several pictures of graffiti, then walked down to the other end of town where I had seen some other graffiti. It was already getting dark and I found the place. It was at a youth center and there was a large group of teens playing rugby. I was on the property when a man accosted me and demanded to know what I was doing. We got it straightened out quickly, but they were definitely concerned about people just walking onto the property and their intentions towards the kids (sad state of the world when this is the case, but not really surprising). Most of the CVA volunteers got together for food and drinks at Annie's Place. We had a nice time once more and said our goodbyes for the most part. Several of us will meet in the airport again tomorrow.

September 17 Thursday The three other people in my room got up and left at 5:30am. They are part of a tour group coming from Darwin south. The girl had scattered her underwear all over the bathroom last night. I went back to sleep until almost 7:30. Then I had a simple breakfast of bread and jam, checked out of my room and waited in the lobby until the shuttle came to take me (and seven others) to the airport at 10:30. I spent the time reading (and realized I did not get a picture of my room at Haven – doh!). Once at the airport it did not take long before I saw Danny, Derek, Gary and Janet. Later after making it through the check in process we also met up with Gillian, Vita and Mei. My bag was one kilo over the limit so they charged me $10. I would not have known what to take out to get it under the limit because my carry on was really full. Those of us from CVA talked and exchanged email addresses and other things, including sandwiches until our flights started boarding. Five people were going to Melbourne on the same plane (and Danny was continuing on to Sydney later in the afternoon. One had a direct flight to Sydney, and Mei and I were on the same plane to Adelaide (but Mei was staying there while I was continuing to Sydney). Danny and I made arrangements to meet on Sunday for lunch. We all said our goodbyes and I got on my plane. There was a slight rain storm as we left Alice Springs and that translated into a lot of turbulence, so the trip was much like a good roller coaster. I enjoyed it and could continue reading, but I did not get to see much of the landscape from the air and my window seat was kind of wasted. My bag was checked straight through to Sydney, so I just had to wait for my plane in Adelaide. The flight to Sydney was uneventful and we arrived five minutes ahead of schedule. Airlines seem to have it in for backpackers. My bag came through and it wasn't until I was already walking out of the terminal that I realized that my tent was not attached to my bag. Why they had to remove it is beyond me, but I had to go back and pick it up from the luggage carousel. Nothing else seems to be missing. I caught a shuttle with six old people and two business types into the city. I was the last one dropped off. Got checked in at Asylum, but it was too late by then to get the free dinner, so I went to Coles to pick up some food for the next few days. I am almost out of Australian money and do not want to change more, but should be okay. I do not need much. I checked my budget and I did not manage to save anything while in Australia. I don't expect I'll be able to in New Zealand either, but after that things should be quite cheap for several countries.

September 18 Friday I spent some time getting my notes together and uploading pictures to Scott's server, but did not get my notes posted and the internet was down later when I tried. It just turned into a rather lazy day and that was fine with me.

September 19 Sabbath I walked to the Woolhara church this morning. I did not take a map, but followed essentially the same route as when I was here a month ago. Sabbath school, church, and a nice potluck all awaited me. The only downside was at the potluck an Indian man sat at my table and was non-stop jabbering about one conspiracy after another, which I as an America was supposed to confirm or deny for him. He gave me his email (I did not give him mine) and I do not plan to contact him. His ideas were so wild that I just tuned him out very soon after he joined the table, but he was persistent. As potluck was winding down, the Pathfinders were gathering to join Pathfinders from all over the greater Sydney area for a Drug Free Sydney Harbor Bridge walk. I was talking with one of the parents involved, having a really nice discussion about Adventism (he was not born into the church and we were comparing viewpoints from inside and outside) and he invited me to join the walk. I did not have anything really planned so I said yes. We drove across to the north side of the bridge and walked across with close to a thousand Pathfinders and like-minded people. It was late afternoon and the wind on the bridge made it rather chilly, but it was nice to do the whole Bridge. Before I had only gone to the first set of towers which had the observation deck and then gone back. I walked back to Asylum on my own. Again, while walking down a major street I got 'props' for my facial hair. That is an ongoing thing. People somehow feel compelled to tell me that they love my beard (it was a Abe Lincoln chinstrap style), or now goatee. The Taiwanese girls all were fascinated and wanted to see what I looked like without some of it, which was part of the reason I went down to the goatee. I'll let it grow again. But it has happened far more than I ever expected and people aren't shy about commenting or wanting to touch it.

September 20 Sunday Another nice big free breakfast of toast, fruit and a cereal suicide with yoghurt instead of milk. I met Danny at noon at the King's Cross Coles and we walked down to Chinatown, had some lunch at a Thai place near where he is living and then wandered over to a Brazilian culture festival at Darling Harbor. There was music, a small parade went through while we were there, and many booths, some with info and merchandise, but most selling Brazilian food stuffs. I talked to the people manning the embassy booth and discovered that because of reciprocal treatment of US citizens trying to visit Brazil, to how Brazilians are treated entering the US, it costs $270 for a visa. But the same regulation means that using my Swiss passport I can enter for free. Danny had to leave to meet some other friends and I went back to Paddy's market, picking up some apples and bananas. Back at Asylum I watched Blades of Glory with a group of people from the hostel. Danny stopped by again and we said we would meet tomorrow night to say goodbye. The internet was not working properly so I was able to upload some to Scott's server, but not post anything to my blog or access my email. Everyone in the hostel has been getting frustrated with the spotty internet usability. Several people were watching a remake (it must be a for TV version) of Michael Crichton's Andromeda Strain, which was laughable. I remember vaguely enjoying the book, but the other movie made from it was also rather goofy. The endings of many of his books are not satisfying to me, I've found.

2009-09-23T04:39:00.000-07:00

September 11 Friday It is funny. In South Africa, the group came up with the Stump the Austin game. Now I've acquired the name Austin Library. As in “Is the Austin Library open?” whenever one of the Taiwanese have a question on pronunciation or grammatical English, or any other question for that matter. They are all a fun group. They love taking pictures of each other. They are all hard workers. And I am happy to answer their questions. In particular I have a lot in common with Derek and we talk quite a bit. He has similar tastes in music/movies/many other things. We had a long conversation one evening, where he said the Taiwanese all liked me and how he could tell I had inner peace, which is something he finds rare in the people around him and which he is seeking. He does volunteer at a temple back at home and that is a place where he finds peace.

September 12 Sabbath. Thank God for the little things. On Monday when we started out we were told we would have one day off and it was scheduled for Saturday. Then they got the weather forecast and it looked like Sunday would be hotter and they tentatively changed it to have Sunday off and we would work on Sabbath. Well, I talked to Jeffrey and he said we could work something out no matter what happened, but as it turns out on Friday the updated forecast had a very hot Sabbath and an much cooler Sunday, so we are having our day off today. That means we get to go to Kata Tjuta. But first we walked around Uluru in one three hour loop. We have seen segments each day, but this was the whole thing. We had a relaxed middle of the day and in the early afternoon we headed to Kata Tjuta. Kata Tjuta is much less developed and still fairly private for the Aboriginals. There are only a couple walking tracks and we did the main one through the Valley of the Wind (which truly lives up to its name). The aboriginals believe the wind is the voices of their ancestors. The formations at Kata Tjuta are similar to Uluru, but the rock is much more intermixed with other mineral deposits, which is why the erosion has happened much faster here than at the Rock. Uluru seems to be a much purer iron ore base, slowly rusting away. We were supposed to go generally together as a group on this walk, but somehow the group got split in two with four of us heading west around the loop and the rest going east around the loop. So we met halfway around on the back side. And Janet lived up to her quickly solidifying reputation: she got all sullen when I did not want to walk with her back around the half of the walk I had already done, instead of getting to do the whole loop. Sorry, but I wanted to do the whole walk, not keep her company. The clouds and setting sun conspired to make a fantastic work of art on the horizon as we finished up our walk. Back at camp we had a great dinner of burgers and salad.

September 13 Sunday Our extra excursion today was to the Maluru Art wherehouse. Their gallery at the cultural center is only so big and everything else is stored at the wherehouse. There are thousands of carvings and tools, but not nearly as many paintings as I had hoped. But I did find a very beautiful piece and snagged it early on. In the gallery at the cultural center are three pieces I would love to have, but they are all over $2000. This was quite a bit smaller, but also in a price range I can justify.

September 14 Monday We got up at 5:55 to try and catch a sunrise, but the clouds did not cooperate. It was still beautiful, but just not we had hoped for. We still have two more chances. Work was again productive and Danny made a special dinner of kimbop, korean sushi.

September 15 Tuesday Our last day in the field. By the end of the day we had a week total of 263 bags of buffle removed and the equivalent area of 3.499 square kilometers cleared. That put us as the second highest group this year. There is only one session remaining. Not that it is a competition, but it felt good to know we had contributed. Derek, Gary, Geoff, and I cleaned out the van, while some of the others started prepping dinner: kebobs. Dinners have all been team efforts and the food was wonderful all the time. We were using up as much of the vegetables and food

2009-09-23T04:23:00.000-07:00

September 6 Sunday With our local map and recommendations from our host we set out for the West Macdonnell Ranges. The recommendations were spot on and we had a wonderful day. First we stopped at Standley Chasm and did a few kilometer walk to a scenic lookout and down a dry creekbed, then took the short path to the Chasm itself. We were there early in the morning and were the first people in the canyon. Most of the crowds come between 11 and 1:30, the window when at some point the sun will shine through the narrow gap at the top and flood the canyon walls with light for around 15 minutes. It is a picturesque canyon and the walk to it was quite nice, but it was not overly impressive to either Eva or myself. We then pushed on to near the end of the paved road in the West Macdonnells to a place called Ormiston Gorge. We had been told that the Pound walk was a good one, but when we arrived and considered the 2 ½ hour estimated time and the increasing heat of the day we chose the shorter Ghost Gum walk that included a lookout over the canyon. This turned out to be a nice walk and did not take nearly as long as the park signs had indicated. In the bottom of the canyon were several water holes of various size, but the water seemed rather stagnant and uninviting for a swim. We had another swimming hole in mind anyway. Returning about halfway to Alice Springs we stopped at Ellery's Big Hole and this was a true swimming hole. There were probably 40 people there mostly picnicing in the shade. The water was shockingly cold, but we had been warned about that (and the number of drownings that have resulted from people not paying attention to what the cold does to the human body). It was rather invigorating and I had a good swim. Eva only got in long enough to swim a short distance and be able to say she swam in an Australian watering hole. It was really cold and I do not blame her at all for get back out so quickly. There was only one other guy that seemed to be enjoying the water as much as I was. After my swim we ate our lunches and then went back to Alice Springs.

Our host asked us to help with some yardwork, which we were happy to do, and so we raked eucalyptus leaves and mowed the lawn. After that Eva and I went to the top of Anzac Hill to watch the sunset. It was a beautiful sunset that was slightly muted by the heavy clouds on the horizon. That ended up making it even more spectacular, because there was an unseen gap under the clouds and once the sun reached that point it lit up the clouds with rich reds from underneath. The hill also gives a good view of the city itself. I helped Eva navigate around town to all the backpackers hostels to put up notices for travel mates to continue her trip. She wants to spend some time in this area (there truly are more things to do in Alice Springs than one would imagine and the parks in the area promise a wealth of amazing sights) before continuing up to Darwin. I have been very fortunate to have had two great travel companions over the last month or so. Both Jon and Eva have been great people to get to know and spend time with. We made dinner and talked with our hosts until late in the evening and then turned in for the night. Carl, the son of our host recommended that we find and watch “Samson and Delilah” a newly released film from the Alice Springs area, so I may keep an eye out for that.

September 7 Monday Eva came with me to the orientation so she could get a little information on Conservation Volunteers of Australian for a possible future project instead of just WWOOFing across Australia. After she did that we said our goodbyes and I started meeting the fellow members of our 10 person volunteer group. We have one Australian woman, an English woman, a Korean guy, two Taiwanese guys and four Taiwanese girls and myself. Jeffrey our team leader seems to have boundless energy and a really friendly personality. Everyone seems quite nice, although the Australian woman appears to be like the Mary Ellen character from the Bill Bryson, book I just finished reading (A Walk in the Woods), which is not a compliment. She is the most talkative in the group and has the least intelligent things to say. Sad how that seems to go together in this case. Jeffrey briefed us on different aspects of the project while we drove to Uluru back the same way I had driven with Eva a couple days ago. It was about a five hour drive, which included stops at several lookouts taking in the three Red Center monoliths from a distance (Mt Conner, Uluru and Kata Tjuta). The view for Mt Conner is opposite an enormous dry lake bed that immediately brought to mind that Burning Man was wrapping up and the exodus was surely underway as I gazed over the mind numbing expanse that makes up central Australia. We also stopped once for Jeffrey to drag a kangaroo body off the road. We did this because there were several eagles at the carcass and Jeff told us they are monogamous. If one eagle were to get hit by a car or truck (which was likely in this case), the partner would hang around and very likely join the first in being hit). They are large beautiful birds and it was nice to see more after seeing so many while driving with Eva. Jeff also pointed out several other kites as we drove. We made a short stop at Yulara, the last spot of civilization before entering Uluru National Park. Yulara is 20 kilometers away and it is were everyone visiting the park has to stay. Except us. We are about a kilometer away from the Rock on the side with the best sunrise views. Truly I can say that as spectacular as the pictures of Uluru are from a distance, driving around it at close range is another experience entirely, the scale blows you away and the formations are incredible and vastly different from what I was expecting (but in such a good way). Another bonus we had as we drove in was that an echidna was feasting on ants in the middle of the road. This is quite a rare treat to see them in the first place and during daylight especially. We stopped long enough to make sure it was not run over until a ranger could arrive. He came out with two heavy blankets, tossed them on the echidna and carried it away from the road.

We have comfortable quarters, there is plenty of good food, and while the work will be hard, it looks like it will be quite rewarding and I am looking forward to it. I was on dish duty with Gillian from England after dinner, then I played a game of chess with one of the Taiwanese guys and a couple of games of Chinese checkers (Jump Checkers according to the Taiwanese) with some of the others.

September 8 Tuesday Today was a busy day, starting when we left the ranger compound at 8 am, although we only worked briefly at actual conservation work. First we did a half hour of weed pulling where we could comfortably identify the buffel grass we are trying to remove, then we went on a ranger guided walk on the Mala Trail section of the Uluru circuit. This was an excellent glimpse up close of a small section of the rock with caves, paintings, waterholes and more. Our guide told us the stories behind some of the rock features and the origins of the people who call this area home. One primary story was about a group of Mala men who were performing a ceremony on the top of the rock when a group of men from the Mulga Tree people came to invite them to a ceremony with them. Now apparently there are some hard and fast etiquette rules among the aboriginals and two came into conflict at this point: 1) once a ceremony has been begun it must be completed and 2) no invitation can be refused. So the Mala men who were in the midst of a ceremony already refused the invitation from the Mulga Tree men. This infuriated the Mulga Tree men and they summoned a powerful demon to punish the Mala people. A wise woman saw the demon approaching and went to warn the men, but since women are not allowed to attend men's ceremonies, she was chased off. She also went to warn the Mala women, but was too late and they were mostly killed. When the men realized what was happening it was too late and they fled with the demon pursuing and killing them too. For a long time the Mala stayed away from the rock because of this and it has significance today in that the path that people use when they climb the rock is the path the Mala men had used. This is why it is offensive to the Mala people to have others climbing the rock: it is a constant reminder of a bad memory for their people. The question I still need to ask a ranger is why, if those two aforementioned etiquette rules were known by everyone, did the Mulga Tree men make the first offensive move and interrupt a ceremony that had already begun. Either they did it intentionally to put the Mala people in a no win situation or they were so egotistical and selfish as to not even see their own offense, when their invitation was refused.

Regardless, the Rock is amazing. It is its own ecosystem out here in the semi arid outback, and that eco system is under human attack. There are nearly 400,000 yearly visitors and a quarter of them choose to climb the Rock. Many of those then use the top of the rock as their toilet instead of coming back down the half hour to the real bathrooms. This has created a sanitary problem which will likely close the top of the rock, when the wishes of the aboriginal people for years could not. We spent about 2 hours at the cultural learning center having lunch and learning more about the area. Then it was back to weeding for about a hour before returning to base camp. Gillian and I were on cooking duty for dinner and Geoffrey told us it would be prudent to get some of it prepared now since we had a ranger coming to speak with us about our contribution to the park and then we would be going to a private viewing site for the sunset. The menu called for stir fry chicken and we had already put out the chicken from the freezer in the morning, but we chopped broccoli, peppers, onions, zucchini, and carrots. We also got some garlic ready and cubed some tofu for the vegetarians in the group (there are three/four of us, me, Derek, and Gillian, and Danny who is Korean and only vegetarian because of food allergies.

When the ranger came he explained how the buffle grass got here (it was planted in the early sixties by park personnel to try and stop some erosion problems at that time), how it has spread and why, and how CVA and volunteers like us have been contributing to fixing the problem for the past nine years. He told us that the echidna that we saw yesterday was only the third one seen in close to 20 years in the park. The aboriginals eat them and that is a main reason they are scarce in the area, but they are rare anyway.

September 9 Wednesday We have a routine now. Up at 7 for breakfast, in the van by 8, work on clearing a section of buffle until 10:30, have morning tea (cookies/crackers/apples/oranges), more clearing until about 12:30, break for lunch near the cultural center, another session of work until 3:15 or 3:30 then back to camp. The evenings are mostly free. We usually go to a sunset viewing location and a couple people have cooking duties (and a couple other have clean up afterwards. Geoff said we are the first group he has led out here that has congregated outside in the open common area in the evenings. That is the most comfortable area, so it is surprising that we are the first. He said other groups all holed up in their separate rooms. My initial assessment of the Australian woman has been soundly confirmed. It is one of those things that is so sad it becomes funny. She is oblivious to the goals and aims of the conservation project, doesn't understand what we are supposed to be doing, does what she wants, wants to climb the rock, continually throws out completely random comments that have nothing to do with the the group conversation. It is embarassing. Luckily Geoff is a fantastic example of what Australians can be and so her damage is minimized. She seems to have latched onto me (as boyfriend material) and it is a struggle to make her understand that will never happen. She is as I said before completely oblivious to how she comes across and how other people are responding, to a degree I have never in my life seen. It makes it very clear why she is unemployed back in her home town of Melbourne.

September 10 Thursday Same routine. Gourry and I were cooking for the evening and making curry. We started early and while the rice was easy, the vegetables and curry mix were taking a long time. We all went to view the sunset and Gourry and I decided to turn the stove off, because we would be gone for an hour. I thought we would probably have to cook for a while longer when we returned, but actually there was enough heat in the pot to nicely cook everything and it was perfect once we got back. Did not have to hold up dinner at all.

2009-09-23T01:59:00.000-07:00

September 1 Tuesday Did further explorations of Adelaide on foot, visiting the main Art Gallery and the main Museum in the city as well as the cricket stadium, some of the northern suburbs, and half of the botanical gardens. This was my favorite botanical garden in Australia, mainly because this is the first that really had flowers in bloom. Almost every town has at least one, often many gardens (ie parks in American English), but up until now the plants have been largely dormant and spring has sprung here, so it is beautiful. I also found the requisite graffiti in back alleys for my photo collection. I checked again in the nearby hostels to see if anyone is traveling to Alice Springs, but did not find anything. With the plan in mind to give that search a couple more days, I booked two additional nights at the YHA. A small group from the hostel went out for pizza in the evening, including two of my new roommates from Germany.

September 2 Wednesday After breakfast, I walked to a travel agency several blocks away where I had seen an ad for train tickets to Alice Springs for $160. On my way I stopped in a hostel I had not checked yesterday and there was a posting from a girl looking for someone to drive with her to Darwin. I called her immediately and we talked briefly and set up a time to meet in the afternoon to talk about it and see if we could work together. So I was feeling a lot better and went to the travel agency. They told me that Greyhound had cancelled all their buses to Alice Springs as of Sept 1, which would have been a bit of shocking news if I had booked a ticket already (and I almost had on several occasions). The train fare I had seen would not work for me because of the dates I needed to arrive in Alice, but she offered me two options $210 with another bus company that included a stay underground at Coober Pedy or a plane for $119. The plane fare was the cheapest/fastest option I had seen yet, but since I am already flying back from Alice Springs, I really wanted to see the route from ground level in at least one direction. I told her I would likely be back in the afternoon. I went back to the YHA and read for a bit then headed to Chinatown to meet Eva near Coles. A few minutes after our appointed time she came. She had waited at the other entrance of the store for a bit before deciding to check where I was. I almost had done the same, but nonetheless we connected. We picked a little coffee shop and she had coffee while I ate a muffin. She has been WWOOFing in several cities for about 6 months and wants to apply to stay for another year. But she was taking some time out to travel the country and I was the first passenger she would be taking. She is also a Couchsurfer, so we had that in common. We decided that we both felt comfortable with each other and would plan to leave Friday morning. She had a contact in Alice Springs (friends of people she was working for earlier) that was expecting her by the end of the weekend, which worked for both of us time wise. I told her I was planning to borrow a bike and ride to the beach in the morning and she said she wanted to do that as well, so we arranged to meet about 9 and bring anyone else who was interested. After we parted, I immediately got in touch with Jon and told him I had a ride so he was free to take off when ever he got his situation squared away.

September 3 Thursday I had a great day. I picked up a free bike rental a block from my hostel and Eva came over with a bike from her hostel. Just like our first meeting we each waited on opposite sides of our planned meeting building before finding each other. No one else had wanted to make the ride with us. The two of us headed west out of the city along the river to the ocean. The path along the river is wonderful. One of the best things about Adelaide is its park space – there is so much of it, by design. When the city planners developed the layout they put a ring of parkland around the city center so that if ever attacked they could use that as a defensible space. Of course that has not happened and the resulting parkspace is something special. We walked along the beach for a stretch and Eva found a large lizard (reminded me of a gila monster, but not poisonous) which I got pictures of and picked up. She said they were common around the farm area where she was working before. By the time we returned to the city we had done about 40kms in wonderfully mild weather. Eva is a very level headed young woman and it was fun to talk with her. I think the next couple days will be fun traveling together.

September 4 Friday Eva came and picked me up at 9 am just across the street from the bus terminal and we began our journey to the Red Center. We did not have many places to stop or reasons to. Once we got past Port Augusta there were only roadhouses every 100-150 kilometers and that was pretty much it. We did spend nearly two hours walking around Port Augusta, more time than either of us realized. It was a pleasant city to walk in and it got us out of the car for some lunch and needed leg stretching. Then we pushed on and made it to Coober Pedy right around 8pm. Coober Pedy is the aboriginal name meaning White Man's Hole in the Ground. The claim to fame for this region is that (depending on which source you believe) 50 to 80% of the opal supply for the world comes from right here. The surroundings are festooned with the mounds of tailings and it does have a distinctly other worldly look, which is why the area was used for much of the filming of the Mad Max movies that made Mel Gibson a known name. Our hostel was indeed underground and Eva and I were half of the total staying for the night. We took quite a few pictures of the subterranean facilities. The older man who was running the place was an amusing Australian and very helpful. We had put in about 850 kms for the day so we went to bed pretty soon after getting there (that put us just over half way to Alice Springs). We had been on the lookout all day for Red Kangaroos, the largest of the kangaroo family, but the only living things we saw were a few emus. There where the normal roadkill to evidence that creatures do live in this inhospitable environment somehow.

September 5 Sabbath We got up at 6:30 knowing we had a long day ahead and probably a hot one as well. There is very little between Coober Pedy and Alice Springs, other than roadhouses, so it was a steady slog through the bright sun for another 700 kilometers. Eva is quite pleasant company and we talked about many different things. Once we arrived in Alice Springs, we went straight to the information center (which was closed early on the weekend), so Eva called the lady she was supposed to stay with and got directions to her house and also asked if I could stay there for two nights. That was no problem and really helps me out. Fantastic. The family are friends of another family that Eva was doing some WWOOFing work for. They have a nice house and we helped make dinner together before going to bed early.

2009-09-01T05:39:00.000-07:00

On the trail to the Balconies in the Grampians

Formations at Loch Ard Gorge

Cape Otway koala

Melbourne street art

Waterfall at Twelve Apostles

2009-09-01T02:28:00.000-07:00

Melbourne pedestrian bridge

Art along the Yarra River in Melbourne

Kangaroos in Wilson's Promontory (with evil eyes)

Me with oblivious wombat

Me on top of Mt Oberon in Wilson's Promontory

2009-08-31T16:15:00.000-07:00

August 26 Wednesday I stayed close to the hostel to rest after the marathon walking session yesterday and I got in touch with Scott, so I could begin backing up my pictures and video to his server. It will take me days to get it all uploaded to him, but it is good to get a start on that. I'll probably have a chance to upload some from Adelaide and then again the last couple days in Sydney when I am stationary and have a good pipeline.

August 27 Thursday I intended to go and see the other half of the National Gallery of Victoria, but I never made it to that part of the city. I did walk around some more and saw some more interesting bits of the city. Mainly it was a day to get ready to leave, so that included some grocery shopping and repacking my bag.

August 28 Friday Jon and I checked out of the hostel and left Melbourne behind. We quickly went through Geelong on our way to the coast and the Great Ocean Road. The first town on the Great Ocean Road is Torquay and we stopped for a couple pictures at Bell's Beach. A little further down the road is Point Addis where the first of the impressive cliffs are. This whole stretch of coastline is known as the Surf Coast and the windy weather from the past few days has the surfers out in droves. Next stop was at Aireys Inlet and Split Point. There is a nice lighthouse and several viewpoints overlooking Eagle Rock and Table Rock. At the town of Lorne we went slightly inland and hiked to Erskine Falls. Right above the town we found Teddy's Lookout, and just southeast of town we made another hike to Sheoak Falls and the Swallow Cave. Each stop was wonderful. We were starting to run out of daylight and had been told that Kennet River was probably the most likely place to see koalas. We tried to get there before it was too dark, but did not make it. The decision was made to check in Apollo Bay if there were other koala sites ahead of us and if not we could backtrack to Kennet River in the morning. So we continued on to Apollo Bay and checked into the Surfside Backpackers. A side note: for the second half of the day each time we stopped the car it would not start again, but since it is a manual I could give Jon a push start as long as we parked in appropriate locations. That worked for the whole afternoon.

While preparing our respective dinners Jon and I met an Irish girl named Orla. She was trying to get to Adelaide and had to be there to leave with a tour group at 6:30am on Monday morning. She had left Melbourne with a local bus and once she was already on the Great Ocean Road, she discovered that bus service did not continue to Adelaide on the weekends, so she was stuck and risked losing her large deposit on the tour. One option she was considering was going back to Melbourne and getting a direct Greyhound to Adelaide. I could just see Jon's eyes lighting up. He was immediately smitten with her and so he set about looking at how we could speed up our trip and help her out. This could be fun. I have become navigator and picker of places to stop and do things, so I looked at the maps. We had planned on seeing the second half of the Great Ocean Road on Sabbath, staying in Warrnambool or Port Fairy that night before heading up to the Grampians/Hall's Gap area, and then depending on what we found between the Grampians and Adelaide we would get there when we got there. Jon, like most of the travelers I have met who have their own cars, does not like to drive at night unnecessarily. This is because of the kangaroos and other wildlife that present a great road hazard (much like deer in the US). But now the circumstances had changed. He was a knight in shining armor and if we needed to drive at night we could do it. Together we mapped out a list of spots we wanted to see and figured out that we could do them all and still make it to Hall's Gap in one day. Then we could see the highlights of the Grampians and still make it to Adelaide late in the evening. Orla was still weighing her options, but let us know before we all went to bed that she would come with us. This turned out to be a real blessing for a couple reasons.

August 29 Sabbath Now with three of us and a foreboding gray sky, we set out to see what the day had in store for us. The car started right up (and never had a starting problem all day, which I appreciated) and we went further up the road that our hostel was on to the hills behind Apollo Bay to find Marriners Falls. It began drizzling as we started our hike, but we were not to be deterred. We had to make seven creek crossings and because of the recent rains the stepping stones were all under water, so we had to remove our shoes and make the crossings that way. Lots of fun in the 50 degree weather. By the time we got back to the car my shoes and socks were soaked and my overcoat and lower pant legs were similarly drenched. BUT it was worth it

We drove out towards the Cape Otway lighthouse, but only went as far as Bimbi Park. The lighthouse has a $15/person fee to get to the house and viewpoints and we knew the spectacular spots were still further up the road. The reason we were there was to see koalas and almost immediately upon hitting Bimbi park we started spotting them. I think they are rather lethargic on a normal basis anyway and with the rainy weather most were hunched in crooks of trees riding it out, but a few were engaged in eating leaves. We could not get too close to them because of fences, but I was happy to see them in the wild and in person. Far more rewarding to me than seeing them in a zoo.

Next, we headed inland at Lavers Hill to go up and see Triplet Falls in the Beech Forest part of Great Otway National Park. It was another set of lovely falls and a very pleasant, real rainforest walk. After that we headed on down the coast to the big rock formations. First were the Gibson Steps, an amazing view, but we could only go halfway down the cliff face because of repair work due to landslides. Next were the Twelve Apostles, huge freestanding stone structures. There are only eight apostles left with the others being reclaimed by the sea, most recently in 2006 one collapsed. Because of the rain we got the added bonus of waterfalls coming off the cliffs into the ocean. And our timing was impeccable because the clouds broke and the sun made itself known for the time we were at the Twelve Apostles and then the rain came. We journeyed further and spend nearly an hour at Loch Ard Gorge, which has a number of interesting arches, razorbacks, and other stone structures. We also made a short stop at The Arch, but skipped the London Bridge. This was a more famous arch that collapsed in June of this year. We also stopped briefly to see the Bay of Martyrs, which has many smaller rock formations out in it. Then it was getting dark and we made the push up to Hall's Gap through Dunkeld. By doing this at night we did miss two waterfalls I would have liked to have seen: Wannon and Nigretta Falls east of Hamilton, but we have seen so many waterfalls, I will not complain. At Hall's Gap we checked into the YHA Eco Backpackers and I got a hand drawn map and walking info from the guy at reception to help prepare for tomorrow.

I had mentioned that having Orla along was a blessing. When we first hit the rain along the coast, the wind was so strong that it broke the windshield wiper on the drivers side. So we rigged the wiper with fishing line and with Orla manning one side and me watching the other side we could keep the windshield clean for Jon. Great teamwork.

August 30 Sunday Orla, Jon, and I left the comfortable confines of the Grampians YHA at 9:20, drove into the Hall's Gap town center (where I grabbed a park map to aid us in finding the spots on the hand drawn map from the hostel and Orla picked up some food for herself at the towns only grocery store) and then headed towards the signature point of the Grampians: The Pinnacle. There is about a three mile trail out to the Pinnacle that goes through a section called the Grand Canyon. Very interesting and made more so with the flowing water down in it. Nothing like our Grand Canyon, but I liked it. The Pinnacle is just as impressive as they say it is, a single rock finger sticking out of the cliff face with a expansive view of the valley and town below. Our next stop was the road side Boroka Lookout which takes in view on the other side of the Grampian range, looking towards the Little Desert area. Our second walk of the day was from Reeds/Reids Lookout to the Balconies. I write Reeds/Reids because the parks own interal signage uses both at various times, so they are confused themselves. The Balconies are two staggered rock shelves jutting out from the cliff. Definitely not for those afraid of heights. The person at the hostel had told us this was a 90 minute hike, but it was a mostly flat walk of only 1 km. It would have been worth walking 90 minutes to regardless. Before leaving I got a nearly 360 degree video shot from the Reed Lookout Fire Tower.

Next was a stop at Mackenzie Falls, the other stop on almost every tour out in the Grampians. Again the signage is somewhat confusing, but we made the correct choice. 1.75 km to the Falls lookout or 1.15 km to the Falls base. The tours go to the lookout, so we obviously went to the base. Our path took us past two other waterfalls and I can confidently say that our views of the main falls were far superior to the tour lookout. This is a tremendous waterfall. One of the best I have seen in Australia.

We made a final stop at the Gulgurn Manja Shelter before making a beeline for Adelaide. The Shelter is one of the Aboriginal sites with cave paintings. The guidebooks say that 75% of the known paintings in the Victoria territory are located in the Grampians. Most are not marked on maps to keep them safe from tourists, but this site is easily accessible and was a very nice example for me. Jon said he has see far better in the Macdonnell Ranges north of Uluru, but since these are my first and possibly only cave painting, I was happy. We still had four hours of driving to do when we left the Shelter, a couple with the remaining daylight and a couple after dark. The drive went smoothly with a refueling stop in Bordertown, just inside South Australia territory. Orla and I had to be the manual windshield wipers on several occasions as individual clouds dumped their excess water. The three of us make quite a good team and the two days traveling together have been fun despite the less than ideal weather. It will be interesting to be on my own again in Adelaide.

August 31 Monday I spent a lot of time online, trying to back up more of my files to Scott's computer, but the hostel here only has a 50 Mb connection and back in Melbourne it was a 100, so everything is slower. In the afternoon I walked around the city some near the hostel, found the city center, a number of churches, two free museums that I explored, and lots of places to eat. I posted again looking for a ride up to Alice and checked the bulletin boards at the hostel. There are several people heading out west to Perth (like Jon, who I've been traveling with is), but no one heading north. I got a response from a German guy who will be doing the same thing as me in about three weeks, but that doesn't help either of us now. Jon and I finished settling our money for the trip (an excellent deal in my book) and then talked about the possibility of going to the Flinders Ranges and Coober Pedy together before he goes west. It would help me out quite a bit, but would be slightly out of the way for him. Coober Pedy is intriguing though because most of the citizens live underground (it gets that hot in the summer) and staying in an underground hostel would be an experience. We will have to make up our minds in the next couple days.

2009-08-31T03:59:00.000-07:00

August 21 Friday Leaving Foster, we decided we would drive through the Mornington Penninsula on our way to Melbourne. Cape Schanck ended up being the only place of note, with a nice lighthouse and some pretty coastal views. The whole peninsula is a wine growing region, but coming from wine country this did not really excite me. Once we made it to Melbourne we had the surprise of the first four hostels we checked with being full. This is winter and we had been told by many that most people head north to warmer weather, so we did not expect rooms to be a problem. Well we found three places in a two block radius that had rooms and after checking with all three chose the Melbourne International Backpackers. We checked in for a week and Jon found a place where he can park his car without getting a pile of tickets. We walked down Elizabeth St to Federation Square and then back up along Standon St. to get a quick view of the city just before sunset. I got some computer time to find the nearest SDA church and was at first surprised that I was at least 4 km from each of the nearest three. But when I checked the individual websites for those three, one was having their meetings for the next three weeks at the University of Melbourne (as part of an outreach program) and that was only 5 minutes walk from my hostel. I went and walked around some more in the evening and while it is much colder than the other parts of Australia I have been in, it seems to be a much livelier city than any other place. And just driving in, the architectural specimens here blow Canberra away.

August 22 Sabbath: I had my free hostel breakfast (it is called brekky here) of cereal and bread with jam. I also finally ate a sample of vegemite and I can say that to me it is vile. I finished the slice of bread I had it on, but had another bowl of cereal and a piece of bread with orange jam to get rid of the taste. I walked up to where my directions said the Gateway church group was meeting and it took a few minutes to locate the correct building. Then there was no one there. I went all the way to the third floor and finally ran into a lecturer just getting ready for an engineering class. He did not know anything about it, but said that most likely they would be using one of the two lecture halls on the first floor. I went back down, picked a seat where I could watch the door and read my Bible while waiting. About 20 minutes later a group of Asian young people came in in suits and began setting up two folding tables. I went over and confirmed I was in the right place (just really early). I spoke with a number of them, including a Thai, who will be in Thailand about the time Gabe and I will be. He is a literature evangelist and said he could help us with connections in Thailand. They were all curious about how I found about the meetings on the University campus. For the next three weeks one of the young doctors from the group is presenting a series of lectures produced by Mark Finley's ministry. Last night was the first meeting, there will be two today and another on Sunday, then they resume next weekend. I joined into a small adult sabbath school class and then the presentation for the main service came. He spoke on why if there is a good God, we have so much pain and suffering in the world. Afterwards there was a potluck with simple sandwiches and soup. This is a really friendly group of people and most of them are quite young. They invited me back for the evening meeting (and more free food) so I went home for a short nap. The evening meeting was on the topic of how history confirms His story. The presentations are simple, but I think they are necessarily so, since it is aimed at people who probably have little or no Christian background. There is a strong Chinese presence here and they offer a Mandarin translation through personal radios to anyone attending. The food after the meeting was light snacks and good fresh fruit. I met a lot of people again this evening.

About 9:30 I headed down to a place called the Roxanne where Protoculture from South Africa was the live performer. I really like his music. Josh gave me his second album as a gift and seeing him live was a treat. Very smooth music.

August 23 Sunday Since I only got back to the hostel at 6am, I slept until noon. When Jon came back to the room he told me he had gone to see the streets where the prime time 'soap' Neighbors' is filmed. It apparently has a huge following in the UK and Australia and so it was something special for him. We went for a walk across the Yarra river to where the inside sets and main studios were. We talked to the receptionist, but only people on the official paying tour can visit any of the sets and it has to be a non filming day. So we returned circuitously through the Botanical Gardens and along the river, the Sidney Myer Music Bowl, and several other places until we got back to Federation Square. Jon returned to the hostel and I went to the Australian Center for Contemporary Art. It was an interesting museum and I enjoyed it. They have a special exhibition of all of Salvador Dali's work, but I did not want to pay the hefty entrance fee for that part of the museum.

August 24 Monday was a quiet day

August 25 Tuesday Today I determined to explore the city on foot outside the CBD and it turned into a very interesting day. It was cold and there were threatening clouds, but it did not rain until just before I returned to the hostel and the sun actually came out on several occasions to my great approval. It felt wonderful when it was out. I started by going slightly north and west and exploring the gargantuan Victoria Markets, which is a maze of stalls and shops selling everything imaginable. The prices were higher than I have gotten used to at farmers markets here and that probably has to do with the cold weather meaning most of the produce is coming from other parts of the country. There are many vendors selling Aboriginal style art, but most of it is really a product of China. That leaves me somewhat torn. If you like a piece of art for its own sake it is probably worth getting and I have seen several pieces I really like, but know are not 'authentic'. All the pieces that are authentic are horrendously expensive. It is kind of a moot point because I do not have money budgeted for buying artwork on this trip and I already have a few souvenirs anyway. After the markets, I walked down King St. to where there is an Aboriginal gallery and museum. The museum was rather small, but it was interesting to talk to a couple of the people there about the aforementioned art issue. I meandered through the Docklands neighborhood and found a rather interesting art piece that I took a video of the wind interacting with. Then it was across one of the many pedestrian bridges over the Yarra river and a zigzagging path to the beach on the Port Phillip section of the city. I also had a short stop in the Gas Works Park which is a community art space with ceramics/painting/theatre/etc. Kind of like Nimbus Arts in the Napa Valley. It being winter the beach was deserted, save a few brave souls with their dogs. I walked all the way down to St. Kilda along the water front. The large ferries which go to Tasmania were docked at the piers. In St Kilda is Luna Park, a small amusement park with a couple rollercoasters, merry go rounds, and carnival type games, which I am certain is a popular spot in the summer. The signs outside said they are open on some winter days, but it is weather dependent and the weather had not looked good enough for today to be one of them. I then followed the aptly named Chapel Street, which turns into Church Street on the other side of the Yarra. They are aptly named because at one point there were five churches side by side on a single block. I spent a lot of time throughout the day backtracking and zigzagging down alleyways and train tracks photographing graffiti, murals, and other interesting things. I walked through trendy East Melbourne and the Fitzroy Gardens which hold the home of Captain Cook's parents, brought over stone by stone from England and a similar home of the care taker of the gardens for nearly fifty years. Just before I made it back to the hostel a light rain began to fall. Googlemaps put my walk at 25km by its quickest route, but with all my extra back and forth, I am sure I did several more kms than that. Later in the evening I had some good Pad Thai for dinner.

2009-08-23T18:08:00.000-07:00

Lookout above the town of Toora

Walkway at Frenches Narrows

Australian War Memorial

Me at Wentworth Falls

Wentworth Falls

2009-08-23T15:41:00.000-07:00

August 16 Sunday Jon and I agreed we would leave tomorrow and plan on spending a week in Melbourne once we arrive there. So I got what I could ready, bought some food supplies for the travel time and relaxed the rest of the day.

August 17 Monday Happy Happy Happy Yay for the Blue Mountains! We checked out of Asylum, I left one bag in storage until I get back in September, and we headed west of Sydney into the mountains. The guidebooks we have and advice from other travelers told us the best bet was to go straight to Katoomba and check in at one of the info centers or with locals on the good things to see. The tours that go up there from Sydney really only go to two outlooks (3 Sisters at Echo Point and Wentworth Falls), have a lunch and 'professional' commentary for $120 and up. We checked into the Blue Mountains YHA, got a basic area map and headed for the cliffs. Jon and I found a place to join the Prince Edward Cliff Trail and walked south until we met with the Three Sisters viewing station at Echo Point. We went down to the Sisters themselves on the upper part of the Giant Staircase (which goes all the way to the valley floor for longer hikes) There were many many viewing stations on the way, each of them tremendously spectacular. We continued south to the next town, Leura and the Cascades that bear the towns name. One beautiful sight after another. Slowly we returned to Katoomba and got in the car armed with the names of a few viewpoints further west that 'surpassed' Echo Point. First was Evan's Lookout and the second was Govett's Leap Lookout, which we watched sunset from. Wow and more wow. The only down side to the whole day was how difficult it was to get good pictures. The contrast between the ranges in the distance and the mountains/cliffs in the foreground caused constant issues. Added to that is the issue that gives the mountains their name: a slate colored haze comes from a fine mist of oil exuded by the eucalyptus trees. Whatever the cause the pictures just do not do the scenery any justice.

August 18 Tuesday Happy Happy Happy We checked out of the hostel and returned slightly north to see a few more places near the overlooks we saw yesterday afternoon. First was Hargreaves Outlook, and like the previous ones it takes your breath away. We also went to Mount Blackheath Outlook, which is similar and looks down the Megalong Valley. Then we started our journey out of the Blue Mountains toward Canberra. That meant a stop at Sublime Point, which is just that looking over the Jamison Valley. Then I thought we would stop for 15 minutes and see what Wentworth Falls was all about. Two and a half hours later we returned to the car VERY satisfied with a tremendous waterfall and wonderful hike (the Undercliff Path) under our belts. If I was on one of the tours I would feel really cheated with only a half hour here. Anne Lamott talks about there being basically two types of prayer: Help me-Help me-Help me, and Thank you-Thank you-Thank you. These past two days have been filled with Thank you's for the absolute beauty of nature.

We drove pretty much straight to Canberra after that, passing through long stretches of forest alternating with large sheep farms (stations). We got into Canberra just before sunset and the first thing we really noticed is that for a capital city there is very little traffic. That was proven true during the rest of our stay. After 6pm the streets were nearly deserted of both motor vehicles and pedestrians. I went with Jon to find a supermarket and very few people were out. We cooked our dinners in the hostel kitchen and then went to our room. We are in a ten bed dorm and one if the other people there had met Jon in Perth many months ago. He was in Canberra trying to get a replacement passport. I still wanted to do some exploring so I marked out the Lonely Planet walking tour of the city on a map they gave us at reception and set out. Canberra means meeting place in aboriginal and was selected (and created from scratch) as the capital when the two contenders at the time (Melbourne and Sydney) could not reach any peaceable compromise. More empty streets greeted me, so it seems peace was achieved through a boring location. I did like the way the Australian War Memorial looked at night. The National Carillon on Aspen Island was beautiful with its reflections on Lake Burley Griffin and the water feature outside the High Court building was quite nice, but the rest of the much touted architectural marvels of the city were yawn inducing. The Parliament Building in particular is unimpressive. I walked around the city for almost four hours and saw very little I would want to see again during the day.

It could be that the natural marvels we had seen in the Blue Mountains tainted my views. They certainly were enough to make me happy despite the poor showing of the capital.

August 19 Wednesday Happy Happy Happy, this is not a repeat from the previous two days.....After a bland and rather disappointing night walk through Canberra, I was ready to get out of the Australian Capital Territory as soon as possible. I told Jon I would like to visit the Australian War Memorial during daylight and see the city from one of the outlook mountains, either Black Mountain or Mt. Ainsley. Other than that let's hit the road. I am glad we went back to the War Memorial. It is an impressive building and beautiful in its own way inside. The names of all Australian soldiers to have lost their lives in any conflict are listed and flowers and an eternal flame add to the solemn feeling inside. Mt. Ainsley is slightly taller (not counting the touristy tower on Black Mountain) and it was on our way out of the city so that was our outlook mountain for the morning. And I'm glad we did do that. As boring as the city had seemed it was much more interesting to see from above like that. And it has the placement to give an unobstructed view from the War Memorial straight down the ANZAC parade, across the lake and up to the Parliament Building. There must be a rivalry between the people that maintain the Mt Ainsley lookout and the one on Black Mountain, because atop Mt Ainsley a lone stand of trees remained to obscure Black Mountain from the viewing stations.

We decided to skip a trip over to Tinbinbilla Nature Preserve, which sounded quite interesting, but was 140 km out of our way round trip. We pressed on and made it into Victoria territory in the early afternoon. We stopped at Coopracambra Nat. Park, but we could have skipped it. The Beehive Falls had no water flowing over it, so it was anticlimactic. We had a similar reaction to a stop at the intriguingly named Cabbage Leaf Palms Park, which I still have no idea where the name comes from. There were a few palms in the park, but nothing unusual. It was a pleasant 10 minute walk that we took and it would not surprise me if there were platypus in the area, but nothing special. We continued on the scenic route from Cape Conran to Marlo and did find several great things which explains the opening line for today. First we found a small group of wild kangaroos and got some nice pictures. Then on whim we stopped at a sign for Frenches Narrows. It doesn't show up in the guidebooks or on our maps, but it was beautiful. Sets of long sand dunes that flood with the high tides that just were lit fantastically in the afternoon sunlight. We continued and made our stopping point for the night shortly after sunset: Lakes Entrance. We are in a small hostel called the Riviera Backpackers. The YHA membership is already helping out with discounts at each of the last three places.

August 20 Thursday I woke up to greet the day in Lakes Entrance with high expectations. The last few days have brought all sorts of wonderful sights and surprises. I ate and loaded my bags into the car, turned in my room key and headed out to the Lakes Entrance entrance, while Jon stayed sleeping. He would meet me a while later. This is really another delta area and the years of material coming to the sea has created a 90 km earth and sand bar. A multitude of lakes exist behind this bar and the only outlet back to the ocean is at Lakes Entrance. There is a pedestrian bridge out to the sand bar and this area is supposedly the highlight of Lakes Entrance. From the footbridge there is about a 5 km walking circuit that I intended to take. The beach was nice, but as I have come to learn walking in sand is slow and the beach is endlessly long and straight so the view really does not change. The return on the circuit follows the inland side of the sand bar and has views of the Lakes Entrance marina, which did nothing to inspire me. It was also in sand. So it was long and slow and would not have been worth the time if it had not been for a group of seals at the boat channel to the ocean. They were trying to warm themselves in the morning sun with flippers and tails raised out of the water. Another thing that had irked me was that we stopped in Lakes Entrance because it was about the only place between Canberra and Wilson's Promonade that had a hostel according to our guidebooks (and we have more than one). At the hostel we stayed in there were flyers for two other hostels much closer to Wilson's Prom (one 10 kms outside the park entrance) and I really wish we had known that in hindsight.

Wilson's Promontory was our goal for the day with the plan to make it to Melbourne in the evening, but because of the distance from Lakes Entrance to the Prom everything took longer than we had planned. We made only one stop in Toora where there is a wind turbine farm on a hill with some good vantage points. No matter, it was 2 pm when we reached the Wilson's Promonade park entrance. We paid our park fee for day use and would see what we could before it got too dark. I was starting to see the time running out as we drove as far south as we possibly could. We skipped all the turn outs and turn offs on the way down so we could get as far into the park and then slowly make our way back out. That seemed logical at the start, but I kept watching the heavy overcast sky and gauging the suns position and thinking we are going to miss everything. It will be too dark when we get to the end and then all the stops on the way back will be too dark as well. BUT I should not have worried. This is now one of my most favorite natural places. We got to the end where there is a parking lot in the Telegraph Saddle, from which you can do a multitude of long hikes throughout the park. We focused on climbing Mt Oberon as it was one of the shortest options and offered the commanding views from the summit (if the light held). Shortly after starting the two mile uphill climb it began raining. Not hard, but enough to get you wet. We soldiered on. I'm a much faster walker than Jon, so I left him behind and made a beeline for the top. I passed four other hikers coming back down. It was quite cool, I was getting wet, and it was darker than I liked already in the forest. But I got to the top and hallelujah!: the rain stopped, there was still plenty of daylight, and the view was incredible. I took a lot of pictures and was jumping up and down with happiness when Jon made it to the top. We spent a while at the peak then returned down the mountain to make the most of our remaining daylight. That included a stop at Norman Beach which we had seen from the top of Mt Oberon. In the parking lot as we prepared to leave the beach a wombat waddled out of the shrubbery. It seemed completely oblivious to us as we took pictures and it let us get within a few feet of it. We stopped at a few more viewpoints, took pictures of wild emus and kangaroos along the roadside, and found that the path to the Whiskey Bay lookout (which the guidebooks say is where photographers camp out for sunsets) was blocked off. I was satisfied with what we had seen even if that last bit was a disappointment. We decided to make one more stop at a place called Cooper Lake before leaving the park. We followed a dirt road to a parking area, but no lake. We walked along a trail towards the beach and encountered many wombats, kangaroos, and wallabies. We were able to walk to within four feet of many of them and they largely ignored us. It was an incredible way to finish off our day in the park. By the time we left the park it was very late and we drove to Foster where we now knew there was a hostel, instead of pushing on to Melbourne. The hostel turned out to be a house with three bedrooms and we were the only people there.

2009-08-23T15:23:00.000-07:00

August 11 Tuesday I got up long enough to have the free breakfast, then went back to bed for a while longer. At 2 in the afternoon, I got in touch with Julie and we agreed to head down to the Opera House together at 5pm. Just before 5 I made my way to her hostel a few streets up the road from where I am and we meandered down through the Botanical Gardens as the sun was setting behind the city. We set out too late to really get any good views of the sunset, but it was a nice evening anyway. Neither of us has 'the right clothes' for a night at the opera, but I really do not care about that. Julie worries about it some and says she almost went shopping during the day to get a more appropriate costume. We did not find anywhere to eat while walking down to the harbor side and once there everything gets very expensive in a hurry. We were both somewhat hungry and the prospect of going into a 2 ½ hour performance without eating seemed daunting. The restaurant at the Opera House has selections ranging from $55 to $125 for entrees. Luckily inside the Opera House there is also a small bistro and we each got something to eat for $15 (she had a baked vegetable plate and I had a vegetable quiche and salad). There were programs for purchase for $15, but later when I had a chance to look through one, it barely had more information than the free sheet with basic details on it. We sat in the very middle, three rows from the back, which turned out to be very good seats. Julie had thought that since the price jumps up the next row in front of us it might be empty and actually two rows were empty. The orchestral music was great, the sets were one of my favorite parts of the production, and the performances were about what I expected. What I did not expect and what I thought felt out of place was the casting of a female in the role of Romeo. Maybe that is what counts as edgy and daring, but in the scenes where they were singing to each other it was somewhat confusing, since their voices were fairly similar. All the costuming was 40's and 50's gangster and that actually worked okay for me.

August 12 Wednesday: A do nothing day. I stayed at the hostel almost all day, read a lot, cooked a couple ears of corn for lunch, took a nap, watched a movie (a screener copy of The Taking of Pelham 123), etc. I did take the time to get directions for the nearest SDA church in the Woollahra district so I'll be ready on Sabbath. The district we are staying in is just below King's Cross and is called Woolloomooloo. There is an official sign when you enter the neighborhood that has a sheep (Wool) and toilet (loo) a cow (moo) and another toilet (loo) so the people here do have a sense of humor. Jon and I went out for dinner at both places we had vouchers for: the Old Fitzroy and the Gaff.

August 13 Thursday: Jon and I drove out to Bondi Beach around noon. It is a famous beach and was quite busy (this is winter after all). All the guidebooks point out that there are much better surfing beaches both north and south of Bondi, but its reputation keeps it on top. It is one of the first beaches to have surfing lifeguards and the surf boards were stationed every 50 meters or so. We walked the beach and out to a point on the north side. When we got back to the car it would not start. Jon said that it happens occasionally when the car overheats, but we had not driven the care more than 10 km and it had been sitting for a couple hours while we explored, so I really did not think that was the problem. So I started wondering if I'm riding in another lemon vehicle. I said a quick prayer to myself and we opened up the hood. We checked levels on fluids, for any loose wires, etc and found nothing. We went to the hotel across the street to look for a mechanic and they told us there was one a block and a half up the next street. And there was. He said he would look at the car if we got it towed there and gave us the number for a towing company. Jon called them and they said half an hour. The mechanic said he would close at 5pm. By 4:30 the tow-ers still had not shown up and Jon called them again. They said they were on their way. Well wouldn't you know it, as soon as he got off the phone he tried the ignition one more time and it started right up. We drove to a repair shop and stopped, but they did not have time to look at it then and so we drove back into the city. Jon will attempt to find a repair shop closer to where we are staying.

August 14 Friday. Another lazy day. I had breakfast of Weet Bix, Rice Krispies,and Corn Flakes with some toast and peanut butter. I did some laundry and talked to my mom for a bit in the middle of the day. The laundry was lucky because as soon as I had my load in a queue formed with three other people, so I did not have to wait and could dry most of my things in the sun. I watched most of Bruno with a group at the hostel and posted some notes on my blog. I had barley soup and an ear of corn for lunch. The most recent book I finished reading is The Dark Room by Rachel Seiffert and it put me over the 9000 page mark so far on my trip. The book is a triptych of stories from Nazi Germany and its aftermath, but the stories are not what we are used to when you think of that as the subject matter. First we have a boy with a physical defect that keeps him out of the German military, much to his dismay. It tells his perspective of watching the city of Berlin slowly empty and the change (or lack thereof) in his attitude as he realizes some of the horrors of war. The second story follows a 12 year old girl whose party member parents know they are going to be arrested and who send her on a cross country journey with her younger brothers and sisters to their grandmothers home. This is a perilous journey in war time and they do not all survive. The third story follows a young man who becomes obsessed with finding out what his grandfather, who was in the Waffen SS, really did during the war, to the detriment of his relationships with family, wife, and others he involves in the search. The writing is in a rather simple, unemotional style, but with the material it makes a powerful impression.

August 15 Sabbath. I was the first one in the kitchen this morning, had the last of my banana yoghurt with a mix of corn flakes, rice krispies, and Weet Bix and a couple slices of toast. Then armed with my Bible and water bottle I headed in the general direction of Woollarha district. I had tried to memorize the major streets on my path, but that was soon by the wayside. I knew I wanted to end up about two miles away on a southeastly heading. Anyway, I knew I was in the right area because the street signs were declaring I was in Woollarha. So I asked an older lady sitting on a bench outside the Post Office and she confirmed my heading and another five minutes and I was at the church. It is a smallish brick building in the middle of a neighborhood of small brick houses. (A few members told me this is one of the more affluent neighborhoods in Sydney, but I would have never guessed that). I'm still not used to seeing so many brick buildings. California building codes have invaded my brain through all the years working with my dad on house projects. I sat in on a small discussion group for the lesson and then the assistant pastor from one of the other Sydney churches gave a very good sermon on “Finishing the Race”. He is a Samoan, but by no means large in the way so many Samoans are. He included a funny story about himself in the sermon. In the Samoan culture being chubby indicates wealth and health and happiness. So he was telling how he was 'very happy' in elementary school and was resigned to finishing last on all running events until another boy who was even 'happier' than he was came to the school and he was able to run faster than the new boy. Of course there was also the serious point to the sermon: that we need to persevere in the race to heaven by keeping the communication with God open through Bible reading and daily prayer. It was a good sermon. And the potluck afterwards was also very good. I spoke with the guest pastor and several church members about my trip and had a good time.

2009-08-14T00:00:00.000-07:00

August 3 Monday We left the Fraser Island Backpackers with the goal of making it to Eurong where some mechanics for a resort are stationed. It started off badly because we died six times in the first couple kilometers. But the fifth car that we stopped came up with a partial solution: cranking up the idle so it would not die. That worked and we went straight to the ferry point on the south end of the island. I think both of us would have liked to stay another day and explore, but with the problem still a mystery, we went to get that solved first. At the ferry point was a lone dingo, probably hoping for scraps of food., but he left once several other vehicles showed up. So another nice ferry ride over to Inskip Point and a short drive had us in Rainbow Beach. There we found a mechanic station (there are many because quite a few companies rent four wheel drives for use on the island and I'm sure they get lots of mechanic work from having inexperienced drivers going over some of the trails we saw.. We wandered the city for a couple hours while they diagnosed and when they found the problem we returned. It was a small part that they did not have in stock and could only get on order from Japan. No other mechanic in Australia had the part they told Christine. It was not an expensive piece, but would take close to a week to get. So, rather than wait a week in Rainbow Beach, where the mechanic would be more expensive anyway, Christina put the idle back on high and we headed for Brisbane. First we attempted to do the beach run from Rainbow to Noosa, but we had used up too much of the low tide time with the mechanics and eventually had to turn back, which was the smart decision. On the highway we made a straight beeline to Brisbane, so we did not get to see anything in between, which was disappointing to me. We signed in at the YHA Brisbane on Upper Roma St., which is a fancy hostel. Very clean and more like a hotel than any of the other places I have been. It had a huge kitchen, a pool, expensive internet, and much less opportunity to meet people than at Asylum. We made spaghetti and then I went to my room to read.

August 4 Tuesday I set out to walk around the city while Christina attended to the car. She would let me know when she had news on that situation. So I walked along the river to the City Botanical Gardens, which are right next to the Queensland University campus in Brissy. There were many people lounging in the sun throughout the park and it really is more of a park than a botanical garden per se. It was also disappointing in that like much of this city things are under construction or remodeling. Many sections of the park were blocked off or fenced to keep people out. I did walk through the Mangrove Boardwalk along the riverbank. Taking the footbridge over to the South Bank neighborhood, I walked along the river with its park, restaurants, art installations and swimming lagoon (under repair). I went through the Queensland Museum, which was rather small with sections on Queensland history, a collection of animals, birds, reptiles, insects, etc from this part of Australia, some historically significant planes and automobiles, and a small aboriginal artwork section. After that I was planning to go through another section of the city, but Christina called and said we needed to get all our things out of the vehicle so she could leave it at the mechanics. They also had to order the part and had come to the same problem/solution so at least that was consistent. And it would also still take a week to get the part. So, I checked on line back at the hostel and contacted a person offering a ride to Sydney to tentatively arrange to go with him. And I looked around for a cheaper hostel as well. In the evening I went to a information session for the YHA membership and signed up for two years at the one year price. They are a world wide Hosteling organization in over 80 countries with over 5000 hostels. The membership gives discounts at any of those hostels and to many other things as well. I discovered an SDA church only a block away from the YHA during my walk earlier in the day.

August 5 Wednesday I checked out of the YHA at 9 am and brought one bag down to X Base to put in their storage until I can really check in at 2pm. I explored more of the city, about as much as I could without a vehicle. In the afternoon, I settled up with Christina and met Jon, who is from Scotland and has been in Australia since last November. He has nearly made a full loop around the country and will by the time he leaves in November. He wants to leave in the morning, since he has already been in Brisbane for a week and I've seen most of the significant sites in just a couple days, so I can understand his motivation. If I had another day I would walk out to Mt. Cooltha, but that will have to be on another trip. Julie called and said she would be arriving in Brisbane tomorrow, so we will miss each other, but I warned her which hostel Christina was staying in so they don't have to run into each other.

August 6 Thursday Jon arrived to pick me up from Xbase shortly after ten when I had checked out and we headed out of the city. I kind of wish I had had one more day in Brisbane, because there were a few other things I would have gone to see, plus Julie had wanted to hang out, but I was also grateful to have another ride so soon. This actually turned out to be a great day and Jon reminds me in many ways of Roger Dickinson, who I always enjoyed spending time around. He has many of the same mannerisms of Roger and even a similar voice, although he looks a lot more like Napoleon Dynamite.

The drive to Byron Bay is not a long one, so we checked into a hostel in the early afternoon. The Lonely Planet recommends the Lighthouse loop walk and it is wonderful. Amazing views, incredible beaches (Main, Tallow, Clarke, Wategos and Little Wategos), and we happened to be coming through at the right time to even see a few whales on their migration north. They were far enough out that it was not really worth taking pictures, but we could see them blowing water through their blowholes and the occasional flipper. We also came across a small bright green snake, which we left alone. I went back out to the beach to watch the sunset, something apparently many other people do as well because the beach was fairly crowded. Once the sun actually set it was very clear why we all waited at the beach for it. Simply incredible. I took a lot of pictures.

August ;7 ;Friday We checked out of Aquarius and headed on south out of Byron Bay. Our goal was to make it half way to Sydney today and that would put us at Port Macquarie. On the way we stopped in the town of Maclean, which was originally a Scottish settlement after an aborted attempt to settle in Papua New Guinea. The telephone poles are each decorated with a different Scottish clan pattern. Ther is also a lookout point with broad views of the surrounding land. We passed the SDA church (right beside the highway) in Coffs Harbor. The early afternoon found us on a stop at Nambucca Heads, a spectacular delta region. We had enough time to make one other detour to the top of Mt Yarrahpinni for a tremendous view that reminded me of God's Eye in South Africa. The view goes on forever. We made it to Port Macquarie just before dark and got settled into our hostel. Jon and I took a quick walk in a park in the middle of the city where the hostel manager said they often see koalas. It was too dark and the section we walked through was completely overwhelmed with flying foxes anyway, so I doubt koalas were anywhere near all that racket.

August 8 Sabbath After breakfast we walked the full loop through the park again, but never saw any koalas. Then we slowly made our way out of town stopping at view points and beaches all the way. Then it was pretty much a straight drive to Sydney.

We arrived in Sydney just after sunset and here the benefits and deficiencies of GPS showed themselves. Sydney is a sprawling city of more than 4 million people, it has several toll roads as you get nearer the center, and has many one way streets. The GPS guided us on a route that was only about 3 km longer, but circumvented the toll roads: Benefit. It also could not refresh fast enough in amongst the tall buildings and did not accurately indicate all the one way roads: Deficiency. Once we got close enough we just had to abandon the GPS and use our map and visual cues. Coming into the city we passed the SDA Hospital. We are staying at the Asylum sister property from Cairns, but this one is much smaller and as the desk people tell us, much more subdued than the Cairns one. It is in better physical shape for sure, but the kitchen is small and there is no pool, although I do not think it would be used even if there was one. The temperature is really not that cold and there has not been any rain for the past couple weeks, which makes it nicer for me at least. And like in Cairns it only took a couple minutes to meet some new people.

Jon and I walked down to where the Sydney Tower is because it is open until 9pm. It costs $30 to go on the tower. The alternative told to me by other backpackers up in Cairns is to go to the bar, which is one level down from the observation deck and get a drink there while the bar/restaurant rotates and gives you much the same view. Well, our first roadblock was that they have a strict dress code. Both of us were in shorts – no-no number one, and Jon was in sandals – no-no number two, and neither of us was wearing a collared shirt – no-no number three. Other than that we were golden. No reservations were needed and the girls at the reception desk were friendly enough and made it sound like it would not be a problem to come back. With that shot down for the time being we walked down to the Opera House and experimented with our cameras in getting night shots. Both of us need to work on this some more. Back at the hostel we got meal vouchers for two places and had a nice dinner less than five minutes from the hostel. Much bigger portions than the places in Cairns. I was full after the first place, but we walked to where the second place is just for reference.

August 9 Sunday Happy Birthday Adrian (and Audrey Tautou). I hope your family is doing well. This morning some major thoroughfares were blocked off for the City to Surf race, a 15km footrace a little like Bay to Breakers. There were around 15,000 runners and some were in costume, but they were the minority. It was fun to watch for a while, and I got to cheer a small contingent with an ADRA banner. I set out early and arranged to meet Jon at noon near the tower. I went through Hyde Park, saw the (closed for refurbishment) ANZAC memorial, a cathedral, the Botanical Gardens, Mrs. Macquaries Chair (with nice views of the Opera House and Harbor Bridge), and more. At the tower we ran into stumbling block two: the bar does not open until 5:30pm. We will have to come back again. Jon and I went down to the Opera House for daylight pictures and then he headed for the Harbor Bridge, while I went into the Contemporary Art Museum (free). After coming out of the museum, I also went up to the Pylon Tower on the Harbor Bridge, where you can pay $10 and climb an additional 7 stories up for an improved view. And for a mere $190 you can climb the entire bridge for what is I'm sure a great view. I skipped both. I went back down through town seeing the old Hospital, going through Chinatown and it's 'famous' Paddy's Market, which is almost like a flea market, lots of cheap stuff. I passed a Lindt chocolatier shop (one of four in the city). Julie called to say she would be arriving in the morning and would like to see some of the city. Jon and I had dinner together again and made a third trip down to the tower. The same girl who had been there the night before was there again and she recognized us. She had us on our way up quite quickly and once up there the view was tremendous. It is a much large city than it appears, but from 270 meters up you can see most of it. I had a smoothie made of passionfruit, kiwi, and mango and we split a portion of potato wedges seasoned with rosemary. Very good on both counts and cost less than just going to the observation deck alone.

August 10 Monday After breakfast and some phone tag, I met with Julie to walk around the city some. Right around the corner from my hostel is a boomerang shop and we spent an hour hearing stories from the shop lady and looking at boomerangs. The shop lady is the daughter of the owner, who is in his 70's and has been selling authentic boomerangs for more than fifty years in partnership with two different aboriginal tribes. There is a huge range in prices based on size, wood, decorations, shape, etc. .Julie bought five to take home, plus a didgeridoo. I got one for myself. As for walking, she has a sore left knee so we took it very slow and she only wanted to see a few things anyway, primarily the Opera House. We walked through Hyde Park and the Botanical Gardens, part of the Art Gallery of New South Wales, out to Mrs. Macquarie Point for views of the Opera house from the right, then the Opera House itself. She wanted to see what was playing and we both made guesses about what it would cost. They had a premiere performance of Bellini's The Capulets and the Mongetues scheduled for the next night and after talking it over we got tickets. We continued our walk and made it back to the Boomerang School shop around 3:30 and met the elderly owner who had wrapped Julie's items for transport. I'll have to figure mine out before I leave, but want to wait to see if I end up with any other items first

2009-08-03T23:52:00.000-07:00

The Wungul Sandblow on Fraser Island

Horseshoe Bay at Bowen QLD

A random scenic overlook in Queensland.

The intricate patterns of beach creatures cleaning out their homes during the low tide.

A shot from the back of Kangaroo Explorer on the Great Barrier Reef.

2009-08-03T23:31:00.000-07:00

August 1 Sabbath Happy Birthday Richard, Becky, and Scott! Happy Independence day Switzerland! We all got up, broke down the tents, repacked the car, and had a quick breakfast. Then it was back on the road to make the last leg to get to Fraser Island. We left the campground ahead of two other vehicles with French people also heading south. It took just over two hours to reach Hervey Bay. Christina picked up her pass to take the 4WD on the ferry and we drove down to the ferry staging area south of town. Then while waiting things between Julie and Christina blew up. When that was over they had come to an agreement where Julie would be gone as soon as we got off the island and over to Rainbow Beach. Wow, I have rarely seen such diametrical opposite personalities and it was an explosion waiting to happen. I did not think it would be this quick although it did not come as much of a surprise given the past few days. Well, on the 45 minute ferry ride Julie talked to a woman traveling with two small children and arranged to ride with her. It was a good solution for Julie, since the woman needed to be in Sydney for a flight on August 12, just like Julie. She gave me her email addresses and will give me some info on places she went while in India and that could be helpful for Gabe and I. When we arrived at Kingfisher Bay, Christina and Julie got into it again trying to work out how much Julie owed for the expenses to that point.

Not a very restful Sabbath all in all.

August 2 Sunday We checked out and got on 'the road' at 9 and the day looked good. It had rained some in the night and for that I could feel fortunate we stayed in the hostel, without fighting out way to the Dundubara campsite last night. High tide had been at 6 am so we were running up the beach at a great time. From Happy Valley we made our first stop at Eli Creek, walked the boardwalk up the canyon and walked back down in the creek itself. I had too many things in my pockets, otherwise it would have made for a nice swim in several spots. Instead, I kept close to the shallower sides and only got wet up to my knees. Still a lot of fun. Next was the Maheno wreck, a large cruise ship that ran aground and has become a feature of the island. It is heavily decayed and you are supposed to stay clear of it, but at the tide level when we reached it, we could walk right up to it and I got a lot of pictures. Christina and I were taking turns driving up the beach. Our third stop was 'The Pinnacles', a small stretch of beach front and a side canyon that is slightly reminiscent of Bryce Canyon in Utah. Another thing that really stands out is how many people are on the island simply to fish in the ocean. Camp after camp is setup with groups of fisherman, although those we talked to said the fishing was not good (which they attributed to the wind). We continued up the beach, passing the Dundubara campsite and going up to Red Canyon, another section of beach facing cliff of a rich red material. We returned to the Dundubara campsite to see where we would have been staying had things gone smoother the day before. It is actually a very nice campground and I would have liked to have stayed there. I spotted a goanna in the bushes, but only got a picture of his back end. It was a little over three feet long, very dark with orange speckling. Crikey.We did go out on the walking path to the Wungul Sandblow, an immense sand dune almost a mile in from the beach. I hiked up to where I could get a good view and take pictures (the dune continued up, I do not know how far) and then ran back down. I got high enough that I no longer saw any other human footprints, but there were dingo tracks and various birds, lizards, and snakes tracks. Coming back down the beach we headed inland just past the Pinnacles at K'gari to take in the Northern Forests scenic drive. A short drive brought us to a viewing walkway for the Knifeblade Sandblow. This was similar to the Wungul one, but we could not get directly on it like we could at Wungul. Still a beautiful view. Another 9 km of bumpy four wheeling and we took a short break to see Lake Allom. Not a whole lot to see at this acidic lake, so we did not do the walk around the lake, but from a small dock we witnessed the hordes of turtles that inhabit the lake. There were at least fifty that came right away when they saw us and by the time we left we could still see more swimming our direction. The signs all say not to feed them, but obviously people are feeding them because SO many were coming to greet us. Our next planned stop was going to be the two Boomerang Lakes, but we had car trouble instead. The engine simply died while we were driving. It started right away again, but died a minute later. First we thought it was the fuel and put in the gas from both gerry cans, but that did not solve the problem for long. We made it a couple km before it died again. There were no leaks under the vehicle, the oil was plenty full, water was full, air filter was clean, battery terminals clean and well connected, so it was a mystery. After the fifth time it died, I set out walking towards Happy Valley the short way (17 km) hoping to run into another vehicle, something that had not happened the entire time we were on the Northern Forest scenic route. Christina continued to experiment with the Nissan. I walked for two hours and twenty minutes when Christina came driving up and we slowly made it the rest of the way back to Happy Valley. In the mean time I had walked almost 9km in sand (mostly barefoot), had a blister on my left big toe, found a screwdriver and an antennae (which came in useful), gotten rained on, passed the Boomerang lakes (which looked very nice from my obscured view on the road), and encountered three dingos. I startled them as much as they startled me; one took off right away, one trotted about 40 meters up the road and off to the left and the third moved about 15 ft off the road to the right and laid down. I got a picture of that one, said a quick prayer, then carefully continued walked along the road, with the antennae and a stick in hand. .As far as I could tell they did not attempt to follow me. I did not realize there were so many types of Eucalyptus. The one I like best is the Bloodwood that appears to be bleeding. Some of them are incredibly beautiful. I also came upon a Strangler Fig that had completely outlived its host tree and was now an intricate web with a hollowed out center. There are also some trees that have bark much like a Redwood. I do not know what they are yet.

2009-08-03T22:48:00.000-07:00

July 25 Sabbath: Shower, breakfast and my papaya while walking to church started the day. I forgot to mention that earlier in the week a car accident had claimed the life of a five year old girl and her mother as they walked to the SDA school. It was in the papers and this morning there was a small insert in the bulletin telling a little more about the family. They were mentioned several times throughout the service. Charissa Fong was speaking again and made the need for more men and women like Caleb the primary focus of her sermon. It was another powerful sermon. Last week they had tentatively planned to have a potluck down on the esplanade, but the weather was heavy overcast this morning (and it actually had a couple showers during church), so we had the potluck at the church. The other reason it was changed to stay close to the church was that a 14 year old girl wanted to be baptized and they do baptisms outside and not during the service. So at 3pm after potluck we had a very nice baptism service. The girl is of Samoan ancestry and the family had fully decorated the baptistry with flowers and palm branches. I had eaten so much at the potluck that I skipped dinner completely and even though some people invited me to go out with them in the evening I stayed at the hostel and went to bed early.

July 26 Sunday I talked to Christina this morning and she is feeling much better, but will have to abandon the diving class. She wants to leave Tuesday or Wednesday, which is fine with me. We will meet tomorrow afternoon to do a bit more planning. I went by the Ken Duncan gallery again and picked up a couple postcards and a DVD that I'll have to send home before I leave the country. I got in touch with one guy in Sydney as a possible couchsurfing opportunity and another guy that was offering a ride from Sydney to Melbourne around the time I will be wanting one.

July 27 Monday is Monday

July 28 Tuesday Julie, Christina and I met for a while to plan a few details for our trip south and things seem to be falling into place. There had been a potential fourth person, but he apparently dropped out of contention earlier today, so it will be the three of us.

July 29 Wednesday Checked out of Asylum, got my key deposit back and said my goodbyes to some of the people I've gotten to know over the past month.

We made stops at Mission Beach, which was lovely and would have been nice to stay at longer, Jourama Falls, which were “closed”, and at Julie's brother's wife's sister's in Townsville. The last stop was unplanned, but worked out for a couple reasons. Julie got to visit a distant relation and the lady's husband was able to fix the wiring on the cigarette lighter connection to the refrigerator. I drove for a while at night and we saw several kangaroos and wallabies, including a couple crossing the road.

July 30 Thursday Beautiful stop at Horseshoe Bay in Airlie Beach. Most of the people on the beach were 'elderly', but the beach itself was breathtaking and I would happily have stayed there among the oldies to savor it a while longer. The girls are butting heads over every little thing. One wants to actually cook a lunch/one says it is a waste of time. One opens a second loaf of bread when the first is not completely done and the other gets mad. This could become a problem. We purchased a new stove in Bowen. Night drive to Eungella NP, which is supposed to be a platypus spotting oasis. We stayed in Crediton Hall park about 9 km from a prime platypus viewing section of the river..

July 31 Friday. Well the tensions between Julie and Christina are becoming very apparent. Christina wanted to sleep in and since she is in the locked car, we could not get access to any of our belongings that we had not already pulled out the night before. It also meant that we were not getting to the viewing station at the dawn/dusk time and risked missing our chance to see a platty. When she did get up she wanted to cook tea, but Julie put her foot down. We made it to the park and Julie and I did see a platypus shortly after getting to the river. It was just the two of us for nearly 20 minutes and then just before a group of other people came, the platty left. There were a couple of locals who said they had not seen a platty in the forty years they had lived in the area, so we felt privileged. The really surprising thing to me was how small it was. It was a full grown male and he was only about 15 inches long. Since seeing it we learned that that is completely normal. We missed a cave tour by about half an hour at another park just before sunset and camped at a rest stop outside the town of Gin Gin. My tent has been working out wonderfully and I'm really happy about that. We had a dinner of eggplant, rice, and curry.

On to August.....

2009-08-03T22:44:00.000-07:00

July 17 Friday. Today was a provincial holiday, so when I went to the Swiss bakery they were closed. But the farmers market was open and I got some bananas and a papaya. Then I made a loop to several of the travel shops checking the postings for cars for sale/ride shares/etc. Friday also means all you can eat BBQ at Asylum and they do a good job taking care of us vegetarians too. I was at a table with five Dutch people, an English guy, a German guy, and a girl from the Netherlands. Canadian Adam was also at the table briefly, but moved over to another table where two British girls he likes were eating.

July 18 Sabbath I got up, showered, had breakfast (including my papaya purchase from yesterday, yum), then walked the two miles to church. There is a guest speaker this week, Charissa Fong, a 21 year old from Sydney that has been preaching since she was 16. Actually she was preaching long before that, playing church at home with her younger sister. The practice/playing has certainly paid off, because she is a polished speaker now. It was impressive to hear her presentation on blind Bartemaeus and his meeting with Jesus. She is presenting a series each night this week, but I will only get to hear a couple of them because I will be diving for several days. There was another very nice potluck after church and I met a number of different people than from last week. I walked home around 2:30 and had a brief nap. In the evening a group of us went to have dinner at The Heritage and then also at Woolshed. That was enough to fill me. I returned to Asylum and finished packing for my diving trip, since I am leaving my large backpack at the hostel and only taking the smaller carry-on.

July 19 Sunday An early breakfast of cornflakes and a couple bananas, then a wait for the shuttle to collect me. They arrived 20 minutes late, but I was the next to last pickup so it was not too bad. We were quickly taken to the Cairns Dive Center and filled out paperwork while getting a briefing on how things would go for the rest of the morning. After our paperwork was done 9 of us doing live aboard options were shuttled down to the piers where we joined the daytrippers on the Sunkist taxi boat. A rather choppy two hours later we met up with the Kangaroo Explorer on the reef. We moved aboard the KE, got settled in our rooms (I am sharing a berth with two Germans) and had lunch. Immediately after lunch we got suited up and into the water. There are only two others taking the Advanced Diver course, an English girl named Christey and a German girl named Katrin. We were joined on the first dive by Goro from Japan, who is already an advanced diver, and our dive master was Leticia from France. The sky was mostly clear and that first dive was beautiful because of it. Light filtering down makes everything more vivid, the colors, textures, patterns, everything. The best thing I saw was a large brown cuttlefish hovering on the backside of a rock outcropping. Everyone else went right by it, but I got a good look at her (it turns out she is known in the area somewhat). She was about two feet long and I got to about 12 feet from her before I turned and left her alone. She remained in place the whole time. On this first dive Leticia pointed out things we could touch and things we should avoid, which was helpful. We handled a couple anemone and a sea cucumber and touched a few types of corals to get the sensations.

The second dive was at a site called the Fish Bowl. The four of us that dove together before went out on our own this time. A nice reef site, but I did not see anything spectacular. I know, I'm getting spoiled if it has to be spectacular to make it worth mentioning. There were many fish and they are beautiful, but after a few times they do start to become 'commonplace'. After a long surface interval that included dinner we got in the water one more time for a night dive. I'm glad I am getting the chance to do the night dives here, where it is nice and warm. I was not overly impressed with night diving. We did see crayfish and many other fish. We were told that if you spot small fish and light them up with your 'torch' you can often get larger fish to strike, but we did not see that. One lesson, red eyes are turtles and most fish. Green eyes mean SHARK. After our night dive which was led by Peter the dive instructor, we had a session to go over our dive for first thing in the morning: our deep dive. Both of the other girls have already done deeper dives than we are qualified for. I am somewhat apprehensive about a deep dive because it does take me longer to get the pressure equalized in my ears and I do not know how the deep dive with work with that. I think we all got a good night sleep.

July 20 Monday. I had set my alarm for 5:30am, since the schedule shows us doing a 6:30 dive. By 6 most people were in the lounge and we had a briefing on our location, a different portion of Briggs Reef.. We could watch the sun rising and it was just poking itself out of the ocean's horizon when we got in the water. The low level of light does make things less colorful, but no less busy in the water. The depth was really not a problem for me. All the issues are in the first 10 meters and then it seems to be much easier. It also worked much better to descend head first instead of sinking vertically. Immediately, we encountered a Napolean Wrasse, about 7 feet long and massive in its other dimensions as well. We also quickly came across a couple sharks resting on the sandy bed of the reef. They moved off and we did a few experiments to see the affects of the additional gravitational pressure. First, Peter had brought a raw egg which we peeled and it retained its shape (until a hungry opportunistic fish darted in and snatched it). We also had brought down a ripe tomato to see the color change as the pressure bruised the fruit. We ate the tomato at 30 meters; a little tricky but kind of fun. That out of the way we made a long slow ascent following the reef up to shallower water.

Our next dive was one in which we had to practice navigation skills with a compass. I get the principles, but still need more practice to feel comfortable doing this. I get easily distracted by pretty fish and plants and get off course. We had a long break between this dive and the next and in that time I took a nap, read some, and picked up an underwater camera for three future dives. Part of the break was taken up by moving to Milln Reef to a site called Club 10. On this dive I got 100 pictures and the light was decent, so I hope I have some good ones. It is quickly apparent that underwater photography is a challenge, because the subjects are often moving and the current means the camera operator is too. And you are not supposed to steady yourself by holding onto anything. That just makes the good shots that much more rewarding.

We did another night dive, but it was short and disappointing. The three of us in the course joined up with Marlin an older french woman who is an experienced diver, but that seemed to work against us. She descended immediately to the bottom, which is not where we had planned on going. The three of us made sure she saw the direction we were headed and she did follow us for a while below us, then disappeared. In a situation like this we have to spend a minute looking around then if you do not find the missing person, you have to come to the surface and let the boat know someone is missing if you do not see them at the surface. So we returned to the boat and they said she had come back and already gone out again with another diver. We just stayed at the boat. I do not think this helped my mediocre feeling about night diving.

I do need to mention that the food is really good on board and there is PLENTY to eat.

July 21 Tue. Woke up at 5:30am with Johannes to get ready for the morning dive. I ate a banana and an orange while we waited for the others to be roused. Again we watched the sun come up as the boat was moved to another site on Milln Reef. This one is called 3 Sisters for the three towering bommies that make up its principle features. I had the camera for the first two dives of the morning, so it was good that the sun was just coming up when we got ready to hit the water. It was Christey, Katrin, Marlin and I who buddied up again. We went to the 3rd Sister, the furthest one out and stayed there for the majority of our dive, starting at the bottom about 28 meters down and spiraling upward around it. It was still dark enough that most of my pictures are not sharp, but Katrin and I did get pictures of a turtle in the open water. After about half an hour we returned to the boat and breakfast.

Our second dive took us to the 1st and 2nd Sisters and light was better this time. Amazing corals, plants, and fish all around. I got decent pictures of a small skate/ray, a lion fish, a couple good ones of pair of nemos, and more. After turning in my camera, relaxing a bit and having some lunch we had our third dive. The light was fantastic again at this time and I really needed to have a camera on this dive because of that. Oh well. I slept half of the way back on the taxi boat, satisfied with my trip.

Back at Asylum I am now in room 17 (upstairs) and only have two room mates. This is a nicer room. My roommates are an Italian and a German named Beno. Beno has been traveling for almost nine months in Australia and is here with a Dutch guy and a French guy that he met along the way and partnered up with. They have each traveled nearly 25,000 km (although not all together) around the nation. Another guy at the hostel has been a storyboard editor for the Family Guy and wrote an episode that has not yet aired. He is a funny New Yorker and in love with my beard.

July 22 Wednesday I had a chance to talk with Scott and Josh/Lisa today on Skype. That was good. I sent them some of my underwater pictures. I went by the Swiss bakery again: two almond croissants and a chocolate one left with me.

July 23 Thursday Spent more time today tracking down a ride. I have not heard back from too many people, but that may not matter. This evening I met with Christina, a German girl with a 4WD. She is planning on heading south next week. She had been planning on leaving on Monday, but she has gotten a cold and had to put a dive course she was in on hold. If she feels better soon, she will continue the course, if not, she will abandon the course and head south anyway. She already has one passenger, Julie from Canada and is trying to get one more before we leave. So I think I am set for making the journey down at least as far as Sydney with them. Julie needs to be in Sydney by August 11, which is a little faster than I would like to make the trip, but I am in no position to complain. This should save me a couple hundred dollars over the next cheapest option.

July 24 Friday After a lazy morning, I went to the farmers market and got another papaya (pawpaw), a sack of apples, and a bunch of bananas. The damage: A$7.10 or $5.68. The papaya itself would have run A$6 at the supermarket. The Friday BBQ at Asylum was fun again with a lot of new faces since last week. Earlier in the day I got my plane ticket from Alice Springs to Sydney (via Adelaide). This was the cheapest option. I could have taken a train to Adelaide and then plane/or bus from there, but any possible combination would have been at least a $150 more. Even doing a car relocation with a rental agency would have cost more and put me under a real pressure deadline to drive from Alice Springs to Sydney in a little over four days; possible but risky. The train does sound interesting, but I will get to see more by driving up and then getting back to Sydney as fast as possible. I'm satisfied with how it is turning out. I also booked my hostel in Alice Springs for the one night I'll need it between finishing my volunteering project and my flight.

2009-07-18T01:51:00.000-07:00

Mungali Falls

Babinda Boulders

Curtain Fig Tree (one tree fell over into the second and both are covered in the parasitic fig)

The view looking up....

The view looking down

2009-07-18T01:48:00.000-07:00

July 9 Thursday I got a confirmation that I have been accepted for a volunteering position out at Uluru (Ayers Rock) for 10 days at the beginning of September. That was good news.

July 10 Friday. Today a group of four of us: Hendrick and Freddie, both from Germany, Ralph from the UK, and myself, rented a car and toured the Tablelands just south of Cairns. It is a region noted for waterfalls and farmland. We left at 9am and headed to Babinda Falls as our first stop. On the way we passed Walsh's Pyramid, a naturally shaped pyramid that has hiking trails on it. I might come back to climb it later on. Our next stop was Josephine Falls, where Freddie and I swam in the falls and slid down the smooth natural rock waterslide. Next was a two mile hike at Crowley's Lookout, which really was not worth it. There was a decent view from the road and we hiked a mile DOWN to a more expansive view of the same thing and then had to climb back UP a mile. The fourth stop was Mungali Falls, which was a worthy stop. This was followed by the three waterfalls in the Milla Milla loop: Elinjaa (very nice), Zillie (very nice), and Millaa Millaa (rather disappointing, in an overdeveloped kind of way). The highlight of the day came next in the form of The Crater. This is the remain of a large gas vent from deep within the earth that must have erupted during the flood. Tremendous. And as a bonus the ladder of cascades that make up Dinner Falls (and the headwaters of the Barron River) are here and beautiful in their own right. We took a short cut through the backroads to get to Malanda Falls, ,which is on all the tours, but to us it was a major disappointment. It is a completely developed swimming pool with ladders, stairs, artificial beach that happens to have a 10 foot cascade dropping into it (with a nice road overpass right behind it to spoil any picure opportunities). I am sure it is packed during the middle of the day, but we cruised through later in the afternoon and only stayed a few minutes. The final two stops were to the Curtain Fig Tree and the Cathedral Fig Tree on either end of Lake Tinnaroo. Both of these were amazing – like combination Dali/Giger paintings. Very otherworldly. We made it back to Asylum just as the Friday BBQ was getting underway. One of the best things about this day is that we saw all the highlights that two day trips with tours would have covered and it cost us each $31 when we split the total. The tours would have cost us each $300+. Yay for shared expenses!

July 11 Sabbath: Everyone was back from Camp and the church was full this week. I was invited to stay for their potluck and finally left around 3:30 after eating and talking to a lot of different people. And this time as I was walking back one of the ladies from church stopped to give me a ride, which I really appreciated, as it was quite hot in the afternoon. The rest of the day was just relaxing around the hostel.

July 12 Sunday. A couple Dutch travelers told a story of what their friends experienced driving through the Outback. It seems their friends had pulled to the side of the road for the night somewhere in aboriginal territory, which has similar self governance like many Indian reservations in the US. As they sat around their campfire having dinner, they heard gunshots. The shooting got closer until they could hear the bullets going overhead. They ran off into the brush and hid for several hours. One was bitten by something and his arm was swelling up. When they ventured back out to their van, everything had been stripped out of it, but it was still drivable. They did get their friend to a hospital and his bite got treated, but they were told not much would or could be do about the loss of their belongings. No a very reassuring story to hear.

July 13 Monday: Bungy jumping!!! I won a free bungy jump at the last Mad Monday and took advantage of it today. I rode out to the site with 10 girls all going for the first time just like me. If I had not gotten the gift cert. I probably would not have tried bungy. I loved sky diving and did not see much need to try both, but people say the two are almost mutually exclusive on the experience scale and since it was free, let's do it. This jump site is run by the AJ Hackett company, which has locations around the world. The tower is a 50 meter platform over the rainforest and a pool, where you can do a splash hit. I did not really feel nervous in the bus, but by the time I had climbed the platform I was shaking slightly. I got into the line of people already up there and watched several jumps. Then it was my turn. So I went right over, no sense in dragging it out and making it more stressful. I liked it, I hit the water, which most people did not get to do, and so I did it again. The second time was backwards, which was a very different feeling. Much easier because for the first few seconds you do not see what is happening, instead of watching the water rush up towards you. I got up to my shoulders in the water this time. And then it was just watching others jumping until my bus at 2:30. Oh, and a couple Japanese ladies wanted to have pictures taken with me because they watched me jump. Who am I to say no? They were part of a larger group and did not even want to climb the tower to see the view, but seemed to be enjoying watching the rest of us crazy people.

It was Mad Monday again, but this was much more subdued. The group was slightly smaller, but as there is so much changeover at a hostel, this group was just less rambunctious. I still made it home at 3am.

July 14 Tuesday. Finished reading a book (a collection of short stories all set in the Bay Area, not what I would have expected to find in a hostel in Australia), went back to the Botanical Gardens and finished looking through it. I also went by a spot where I had seen some graffiti, got some pictures, and found a aboriginal family living under a bridge. This was a reminder that the poor are never far away, and while this seems to be an awesome place to be if you are homeless, it does not make the situation any more satisfying to those who live it.

July 15 Wednesday. In the early afternoon, Adam (from Sweden), Adam (from Canada), Adam (from England), and I went to the Cairns lagoon and had a small bbq. It was a nice sunny day and we were surrounded by people working on their tans. Hendrick, Elsa, Henning, and I went to Woolshed, RhinoBar, and The Heritage to get free food at each location for dinner (Spaghetti with vegetables, spice Thai curry, and pasta with mushrooms). By the time we finished that we were all stuffed. Tonight was the third game of State of Origin and since I watched the first two while in PNG I wanted to see the conclusion. The Maroons representing Queensland (where I am currently) had won the first two contests and wanted a clean sweep. But the Blues of NSW made sure they came away with at least one victory by taking the game 28-16. My dive card finally arrived today. Thank you mom. Now I can get some diving in early next week before I start down the coast. I also mailed off another package home, so that should arrive in about a week.

July 16 Thursday I made arrangements to do some diving now that I have my card. I'll be living aboard a ship Sunday Monday and Tuesday, diving along the Great Barrier Reef. That will give me 10 dives and bump me up to Advance Dive certification, which will allow me to do deeper dives and night dives as well as a few other beneficial things. It will cost me just over $410, which is a great price and it includes the two nights accommodations on the boat, plus all meals during the three days. In PNG an advanced course would only include the required 5 dives, no accommodations, and run $400+. I also continued looking for rideshares down the coast. I am heading in the wrong direction this time of year, so the options are somewhat limited. Everyone is heading north to the warmer weather. It is a toss up as to whether it would be better to buy a travelers van/car and sell it in Sydney or get a bus pass. If Gabe was here it would be a no brainer, buying a car would be a great way to really keep the expenses down, but while I am doing this alone it makes the decision harder. The last couple days there has been a fair in town and tonight as Hendrick, Henning, Elsa, Vickie, and I were walking back to Asylum after getting free food we watched a nice fireworks display. It went on for a decent amount of time and had a large variety of fireworks. The one thing that really stuck out to me was that none of the fireworks were of the high altitude type we see so commonly in the US.

Pics to go with previous post

2009-07-18T01:27:00.000-07:00

Butterfly at Kuranda Butterfly Sanctuary

Butterflies at Kuranda Butterfly Sanctuary

The SDA Church in Cairns

Photogenic Pier at the Cairns harbor

The USS Essex

2009-07-18T01:20:00.000-07:00

July 1 Wednesday I spent a lot of time walking around today, probably put in seven miles. First down to the harbor to see the America naval vessels, the USS Essex, a carrier, and the USS Tortuga, its companion supply ship. Some of the 6000 sailors have been wandering town for the past week or so and will be for another week. The haircuts give them away. Which reminds me I need a haircut myself and made a note of a barbershop, while walking around. Then a serpentine path throughout the first few streets up from the promenade, ending at a shopping center that has one of the main grocery stores in Cairns. With my supplies, I returned to base. Lunch was a veggie pizza for $7. The place called it a large, but they only offer one size so it is kind of misleading. It was plenty big enough for one person, that is for sure.

July 2 Thursday I spent the morning online exploring and catching up now that I know I have a stable internet source for a while. I bought a world map. It is not my first choice. The Japanese guy I met in Madang had a really nice, compact multi-page atlas, but it was Japanese. This is a single world map and it will have to do for a wile, but I still haven't found what I'm looking for. Thank you U2. I had a banana and chocolate crepe on my way back to base after wandering around for several hours.

July 3 Friday. I made the decision to stay here for at least another week, after getting an email from Gabe about his progress. I've talked to several travel agents about various packages and like I thought the choices are overwhelming. I'm also looking for volunteering opportunities. My visa does not allow me to work, and from talking to other travelers, the jobs are all taken right now, anyway. There are A LOT of travelers here right now. Friday's the Asylum hosts a bbq and probably 70 of the residents where there. They actually made special food for the three of us that identified ourselves as vegetarian. It is a cornucopia of nationalities here. I was at a table with a French guy, a Chilean, two German girls, two French Swiss girls, a German guy, and a Japanese guy. Some have been here for months, some are here for school, some for work, most for vacation. Some have bought cars, some are hitchhiking, etc etc etc. The language differences slow us down only a little. While out for the afternoon, I bought a couple Nussgipfel at a Swiss bakery. These will be for tomorrow. I got some bread and cheese and more juice at the supermarket.

July 4 Sabbath. Happy 4th of July everyone back in America! My day started off with cornflakes and banana slices plus an orange, then a pleasant 40 minute walk to church. The Cairns SDA church/school is located in a nice neighborhood a couple miles in from the shoreline. The attendance was sparse, only because most of the members are at a campmeeting at Townsville, which has been running for the past week. Normally it is a busy church and they have a potluck every week, except this weekend. A 79 year old man gave the first sermon of his life, since the main pastor was also at the campmeeting. He went over a bunch of the promises given in the Psalms. People were friendly and wanted to know if I would be around for a little while. One lady brought a bag of pomelos to distribute and I got one. I had it with my lunch and it was good but very tart.

July 5 Sunday I slept in this morning, but went power walking in the afternoon; about 20 km, including a 7.5 km loop in the mountains behind the Botanical Gardens. The peak of Mount Lumley had some decent view points, but most had trees blocking significant parts of them and made picture taking moot almost. The Mount Whitfield side was similar. The Gardens are free, but they close early in the afternoon, so I only got through part of it and will go back to see the rest later. There are Bush turkeys everywhere and you can see immediately that they do not have any predators of substance, because they will let you get within a couple feet before they even look up from eating. My return home was through part of the rainforest/swamp in the center of town. It has a nice boardwalk winding through the park and signs say crocodile sightings are not unusual, although I have yet to see one.

July 6 Monday. I went on a day trip to the little town of Kuranda today. I was picked up by a shuttle at 7:25 and taken to the Kuranda Railway station. By 8:30 the train was loaded with passengers and we made our departure. The train makes its way slowly up from the coastline floor, along the Barron River gorge, past several waterfalls, most notably Barron Falls, and to the town of Kuranda. There was a lot of historical information given during the train ride about the man who single handedly envisioned the railway and through sheer determination saw it to completion. The main falls was impressive even though it is not the rainy season, but the pictures of it in full flow are amazing. The water's power is harnessed by an Australian power company in several places down the gorge. After a brief stop for photos, we continued to the town.

Kuranda itself is a tourist trap, with endless souvenir shops and pricey eateries. I skipped all of that and went to three places: The Butterfly Sanctuary, The Koala Garden, and Birdworld. I spent a long time in Birdworld, long enough for a cockatoo to bite off a piece of my camera. It still works fine, but the lens is not covered completely when the camera is turned off. Luckily I have a good case for it. Next, I spent a long time in the Butterfly Sanctuary. Dad would have loved it here. I remember going to the Butterfly exhibit when they first opened it at Marine World. There were many many butterflies, and each time I went back there were less and less. This was like that first trip magnified by ten. Butterflies everywhere including many of their signature ones: the Ulysses and the Cairns Birdwings. The Ulysses has brilliant blue coloring on its upper wings, but that is only visible when they are flying because the instant they land their wings are folded up. The Birdwings are like the butterfly in my picture from PNG. They have bright yellow on their undersides and a reflective green on top that shines in the sunlight. There was a photographer there who said it took almost 800 shots to get one of the Ulysses with the wings opened. He was relieved to have gotten one. He was still trying to get the green of the Birdwing in flight. I got a picture with two of them that shows the green, even if they are slightly blurry. I would recommend other visitors skip the Koala Garden. It was a small facility, the highlights being a kangaroo and wallaby petting area and a place where you could get a picture taken with a koala. The pictures were more than I would be willing to pay and feeding the wallabies was nice, but not really worth the price of admission. The other two places were wonderful. I also walked a couple miles out of town to a viewpoint looking back to Cairns. Good exercise.

The return trip to Cairns was via the Skyrail, a six seat gondola ride above the rainforest. You can get out at two different midway points and visit lookouts/small walking tracks/etc. This was definitely an interesting way of seeing the terrain, but not for those afraid of heights. My camera battery decided to run out on me at the second midway point, so I missed a few great shots as we crested the final hill and had spectacular views down on Cairns, but I had a thoroughly enjoyable day

At the Asylum, Monday means Mad Monday, where the majority of the residents collectively go out to dinner and then basically a pub crawl. A group of almost 80 went this time. There is free food, games, giveaways (I won a free bungy jump!), discounts, lots of music, and of course, general madness. I got home at 3 am.

2009-07-03T22:55:00.000-07:00

June 27 Sabbath This Sabbath finds me at the Garden Hills SDA church in Moresby, and it is an apt name. This is like a little oasis in the midst of one of the settlements. There is extreme poverty all around, but the church grounds are like a park and while the building is simple it stands out from the surroundings. Around 150 people are in attendance. That number includes around 30 new interests from the meetings of the past two weeks. I was treated like a guest of honor again and had a crowd around asking questions after the service. The pastor was kind of pushy about needing me to raise some money for a few of his pet projects that he was describing to me. Eventually, Joel, Watson, and I made our way back to the Transit Lodge with the bags Watson had been holding for me. He lives in the settlement and I got to meet his family. Most of the people living in this particular settlement come from the highlands. Like people everywhere they make the pilgrimage to the big city to try and find a better life, but it eludes them. I take a nap for a good chunk of the afternoon, then make a list of the things I need to try and do before I leave on Tuesday.

June 28 Sunday: I spent nearly the entire day at the Rugby Stadium. I went with Joel, who was working with a Police security detail at the stadium. I brought a book of short stories and poetry, but mostly from 10:30 am until 5 pm it was rugby rugby rugby. They actually had an earlier game starting at 9 am, but we did not watch it. So that means for about $4 you can spend a whole day at the major sporting arena in Mosbi watching 5 full rugby games. Now that is getting your money's worth. The first four games of the day are all between local city league teams and lead up to the showcase match between the Muruks and the City Rangers in PNG Professional Rugby League competition. Despite watching a fair amount of rugby during my time here, I still do not understand the penalty segment. I get the basic rules, but sometimes on penalties they get to kick to advance the ball, sometimes they have a scrum, sometimes their tackle count gets reset and the why has eluded me. There is also a tremendous difference between footie and rugby, with footie being much more physical from what I have seen, and they are kicking all the time. There was a pronounced difference in the skill level between the preliminary local matches and the Muruks/Rangers.

After the last game, which the Rangers held on to win 20-18, in the best game of the day, I got to visit the inside of a police station, before Joel and another officer walked me back to Gordons. I picked up my laundry from reception and did most of my packing. Then I had dinner and finished another book, so I can lighten my load in anticipation of a large charge when I fly to Australia.

June 29 Monday: I was cleaning my breakfast dishes in the lodge kitchen when a man came up to me. He introduced himself as Samraj and said he recognized me from the revival meeting on Friday. He is Sri Lankan and SDA and was at the lodge to visit the other Sri Lankan I had met before. Samraj says there are only 7 or so fellow country men and he likes to keep tabs on them and talk to them abour religion. And wonder of wonders he lives near PAU, where he was soon going. So an hour later, I was at the Gordons buses center with him heading to PAU. The school is in mid term break, but I got a good tour of the campus, which is huge. The school buildings cover about 150 acres, but they have an enormous amount of land devoted to gardens and wild spaces. I visited the campus church, the nursing dept, the library (undergoing renovations while school is out) and various other building. At the IT dept where Samraj works, another of his coworkers with a car was heading back into town, so he gave both of us a ride. Samraj went to visit another of the Sri Lankans and I went with his coworker to pick up Cat 6 cable to go into the library. Then he treated me to a late lunch and dropped me off at the lodge. I made sure my transportation to the airport was arranged for the morning, made some adjustments to my packing, bought some fresh bananas and peanuts at the open air market across the street to use up some of my remaining money and had a relaxing evening.

June 30 Tuesday: I gave my PNG cheap phone to one person who has helped me out, dropped off my room key,and headed to the airport at 7:30. We stopped by Airways to try one more time to get my PADI card, but the office was locked up despite the posted hours. Oh well, it is as much my fault for not getting that taken care of sooner. Joel was waiting at the airport and I gave him a letter to mail for me and some money to cover the letter, as well as some for him and Watson. Even though my flight was scheduled for 9:30 departure, they had us board at 8:30 and we left half an hour early. The flight itself was uneventful and though I had a window seat it did not help much, since cloud cover obscured nearly everything. The temperature is noticeably cooler in Cairns and while it is only a few degrees, I like it already. There are a lot of backpackers in Cairns and the city seems to cater to them quite a bit. I found a place three blocks from the shoreline and close to down town for $20 per night, which includes breakfast on site and free dinner vouchers to local establishments, and a host of other amenities. I am in a four bed room with a Canadian who has been in Aust for 8 months, a Frenchman I've only briefly met and a third guy who was asleep when I arrived to go to bed myself and gone in the morning when I awoke.

This is a city, but it has many parks and seems to have a host of wildlife all around. There are many birdwatchers with their telescopes and binoculars along the shore. I saw mud skippers there as well and while I had always thought they were small (less than 6 inches long), these are well over a foot long. There is a zoo within walking distance and I may go there for a visit. There are also many many little art galleries with beautiful photography and various art forms produced by people from the area. But the prices are shocking. Luckily I do not need to buy very much in the way of art on this trip.
I did succumb and buy one t-shirt. Now I need to get in touch with Gabe and find out how his back recovery is going and decide if I need to extend my time in Australia or how we proceed. There seems to be an overwhelming array of things to do in and around this part of Australia. Trying to pick a tour company will be a challenge in itself. I had dinner at a place five blocks from the hostel and it was a good portion of vegetarian spaghetti. Onwards to July.....