Basirk in Australia

The continuing adventures of Chris Bassett

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2003-05-24 22:50:24 Done quite a bit since Brisbane. We went to Bribie Island which was ok. There was a nice long beach that we walked down for about an hour and never reached the end.

We then went to the Glasshouse Mountains which were quite cool and climbed up Mt. Ngungun (silent N) and Mt. Beerwah. Beerwah was really *great* fun because it was quite a tricky climb. There were long stretches that required both hands and feet to drag you up the steep rock face. The rock was quite grippy (especially with my newly acquired boots) but the hand holds got a bit few and far between in places. It really made your toes tingle and gave me a real buzz. It took about 2 hours to get to the top which is just over 500m up. Ancy C will be proud :)

We also visited the Australia Zoo at Beerwah. This is the place that Steve "Crikey, that Taipan looks like he's going to bite" Irwin has made famous. There's loads of crocks there, which moved very quickly at feeding time. I stroked a number of Kangeroos and koalas. Kangeroos are really soft, and koalas have a sort of matted fur. Really cute though!

We are now at a place called Noosa Heads which is a bit posh as it's a commuter town for Brisbane. Great beach which I'll be visiting later today :)

I'm attempting to fashion a coolbox (known locally as an esky) cooler. Stu suggested we might need something like that as he poured marg on the sandwiches he was making. I've gathered together some huricane lamp wicks, a Vileda super absorbant cloth, a CPU fan, a tupaware container and an empty coke bottle. I'll keep you posted as to my progress.

We've booked a Suzuki 4WD, 3-day trip to Fraser Island for Wednesday. The weather looks like it might be raining then so we may have to cancel. Fingers crossed though!

2003-05-19 02:36:11 We left Surfers and visited a friend near Logan, just south of Brisbane. It made a very welcome break from caravan parks - and we got fed roast chicken with real veg and stuffing and everything! They have 10 acres of land and it's great. Makes you want to sell up everything back home and buy a plot of land out here where you can work on your car without worrying about getting oil on the gravel in the shared drive. They were building a flippin BOAT in a corner of there back yard. The horse had 5 acres alone!

We then spent a couple of days in a caravan park juts outside Brisbane. Brisbane is a pretty cool place. It's a lot more relaxed than the bustling Sydney, and the atmosphere seems more friendly. We felt we had to try the local Guinness in an Irish pub called Murphys (confusing!) and I have to say that Guinness really doesn't travel all that well. It was drinkable, but not a patch on the stuff back home. I might try to get a can or two and see what that's like.

The last 3 days have been spent sunning ourselves on North Stradbroke Island, just East of Brisbane. You get there via a car ferry which takes about 3/4 hour. There are some really great beaches there and our campsite was just meters from one on the west, sheltered side. The first night we saw a couple of dolfins swim by just 20 meters from where we were sat! We also saw a number of turtles swim past. I bought a snorkel, which is great fun, and you get to see all the fish of which there were very many :) The East side of the island has some really rugged cliffs and long beaches, and is favoured by the surfers. It's great to watch.

I'm now back in Brisbane and we'll be making our way further north tomorrow. No idea where we'll get to. It's all jolly good fun.

Oh, and the weather has been great since we left Brisbane 3 days ago, and is expected to stay quite good. This is a great relief to me, as playing cards while stuck in the van can make you slightly crazy. We played chess the other night - that's how crazy we got! I won :)

2003-05-11 22:24:40 It's sunny and hot and we're at the beach!

The high-rise skyline that we saw at Tweed Head was actually Surfers Paradise, which is where we are now.It's an odd place as there are all these tall buildings that you'd associate with a space deprived city, and yet a short distance outside the city centre you're not lacking for space at all.Someone's making lots of money selling space in these high-rise buildings. One floor costs 2 million dollars, or 2 half floors costs 1.8 million. Yeah, that made me blink too.

We spent a day or two on the beach soaking up the rays and swimming. We also climbed up Mt. Warning, so named by Captain Cook as it provides a warning to shipping of the presence of the reef... or something... I think. Anyway, It was quite a tricky climb with the last bit requiring a chain banister to help you haul yourself up. It was also quite good to abseil down using said chain, although I think I was doing a bit of a Bond as most people just seemed to scrabble down. The view was really good (when the cload parted) and you could see all the way to Cape Byron.

Stu spent the some of the morning compressing the items in the storage area under the beds. He didn't do a bad job, and now the stove is stored in the back giving more living space forward of the beds. How long this will last I'm not sure, especially given my propensity to purchase... stuff, and the need to reach that particular item that is buried right behind everything else that we thought would be needed more often.

Handy hint: don't where a brimmed hat when you get in and out of a van. The brim hides the top of the door frame resulting it sudden contact twixt head and van. If you do it 3 times in one day it really does hurt a lot. Really, it hurts A LOT. The same goes for walking in forests containing hanging vines (as found around Mt. Warning) with said hat. Ask Stu about that one :)

I've just got my photos back and tragically there are no photos of my new hair cut. Shame that. There are some really good panoramic shots of cliff faces and vistas. I'm really go and try to get some of them up on the net when we get to Brisbane. There's also quite a good shot of me dangling my feet off a cliff. No mum, it was a really small cliff. Honest.

We're leaving Surfers Paradise today and heading to an area called Logan just South of Brisbane. Then it's onto Brisbane and beyond! We picked up some leaflets for Tandem Sky Dives and Scuba Diving. That's two separate activities of course, but only because you'd look stupid sky diving with flippers.

2003-05-07 01:36:37 It's still raining :(

We moved up the coast a bit, and are now stationed at a place called Tweed Head. The weather forcast is for continued showers until Thursday or Friday.

We are right at the bottom of the Gold Coast now, and I'm not sure if we're in Queensland or not. The petrol prices are a lot lower (about 30p/litre) so I suspect we are. We can see Brisbane, which is right at the top of the Gold Coast, on the far horizon. We will probably be up that way for the start of next week.

Just bought an air freshener for the van. It smells like fly spray, which is odd as the fly spray smells of Rainforest Fresh. Makes you wonder.

We also invested in a double gas hob. Now we can cook twice as much pasta in half the time :) Of course this also opens up the debate of whether we should eat veg with the pasta. It's a tricky one alright...

2003-05-04 19:44:39 We got to Byron Bay on Sunday morning and by 11:00am it was absolutely teeming down. It's been sunny/torrential downpoor ever since and a local tells us this weather is unusual and it will be like this for a couple of days. We've heard this so many times and it's starting to get a bit depressing. Wherever we go it rains and it really puts a dampner on things, so to speak.

Byron is a very outdoorsy kind of place, so the rain is very unfortunate as it means we can't do very much. There is also a strong wind which can be cold, and a number of beaches south of here have been closed. There's loads of "surfer dudes" wandering around with those garish coarse clothes that are "really, kind like, cool, you know?". This is obviously a place for budget travellers - you should see the number of backpackers huddled against the rain in the bus shelter :) Poor little mites. Once again I am pleased we have a van to sleep in - the tent next to us nearly blew away last night. Well, it got a bit flattened anyway.

We'll be staying here tonight in the vain hope that the rain will clear by tomorrow. The beach here is great and it would be quite nice to take a breather from all our running around, and lie in the sun for a while.

I'm going to buy some travel games now. Rummy and Shithead can only be played so many times in one evening before you start to go a little crazy. Especially if you keep losing...

Thanks again for all your e-mails people.

2003-05-02 22:31:33 Now in Lismore.

After leaving Glen Innes we pushed North to Girraween National Park in Queesland. Another great place. They have camping facilities there (including hot showers :) which cost us only 16 dollars for two nights. The area is littered with huge - and I mean HUGE - granite boulders that look like they've just been dropped from the sky. We did a 11km walk that took us to the top of Mt Norman. That was quite a hike, especially as the weather was quite warm. Yes, you heard right! It was sunny and warm, nay hot!

That evening, as we sipped a Tooheys, we heard rustling outside. I wound the window down and was confonted by a kangoroo grazing next to the van. She looked at me, I looked at her, and then she compeletely ignored me and carried on eating. I glanced left and saw two bush tailed possoms in the tree (also next to the van) and another on the ground. The possoms also ignored me. I obviously have an inoffensive appearance, or maybe their claws are sharper.

I got out my side of the van, slid the side door back, got my camera, went back into the van. Still they ignored me. I was about to take a photo when I was reminded that these animals are nocternal (it was very dark at the time), and taking a flash photo would probably scare the living crap out of the poor little mites. I took the photo anyway. They just ignored me.

So then we went East to a place on the coast called Lennox Head. It's just South of Byron Bay, but apparently not as commercialised. That was yesterday, and that evening the heavens opened, replete with thunder and lightening. This is not normal apparently. Yeah right - that's what they tell all the tourists I bet. We'll stay there again this evening then head up towards the Gold Coast.

Forgot to mention in my last log that I got about 30 sapphires at Boolabinda. The vast majority have inclusions, which are flaws or mineral bits in them. These inclusions mean that when the crystal is held up to the light it is not competely clear, and so can't really be cut. The big one I had no inclusions, and so could be cut (yay).

I cooked last night. Pasta, tomato paste, Pataks jalfrazi curry paste, chilli sauce and corned beef. Yum. Actually it wasn't all that bad, or maybe I'm just getting used to that sort of food... Domino Pizza tonight though :)

Just bought a duvet as my sleeping bag was feeling a little restrictive. I was so cosy last night :)

In New South Wales (NSW) there are speed cameras everywhere and everyone keeps to the speed limit. In Queensland that isn't the case, so things will be interesting when we head up there. Erm, got to go now - parking about to expire and still need lunch.

2003-04-29 02:20:26 Back in Glen Innes!

We've spent the last 3 days out at a place called Boolabinda. It's a homestead where you can do fossicking. The weather has been very variable - really crap one moment then hot and sunny. The best day has been today - shame we had to leave!

At Boolabinda you can camp, hire the equipment (panning trays, shovel) and go panning at the river that runs through their place. They guys there give you some basic tuition then you're on your own. The idea is to shovel some dirt into the panning trays. There are 2 trays one on top of the other. The upper tray has coarser mesh than the lower tray. You take your tray of dirt to the river, swirl it around in a particular way then tip the contents onto a flat rock. In places where you find sapphires you also find a particular type of black pebble which is about the same density and size as sapphires. Because of the fancy swirling you do in the pan, these black pebbles collect at the centre, bottom of the pan. The long and short of it is, any sapphires should be in the centre of your pile of pebbles, surrounded by black pebbles. If there aren't any black pebbles then you probably won't find any sapphires either.

So, do I find any? Yep! Loads of em! I also found some zircon and garnet. The largest sapphire I have could be cut and would be worth about 25 quid.

Here's a little known fact - not all saphires are blue. You can get all sorts of colours including clear, green, yellow and red (also known as a ruby!). The ones I got varied from practically clear to deep blue. There were also some blue ones with red in them.

Random comments now follow:
I saw my first roo the other day!
Evenings can get very boring when you've run out of beer.
There's loads of parrots and cockatoos flying around this place!
I've just had a haircut - grade 2 clippers all over. If I go for a couple of days without a shower I don't look so grim now :)
I saw an ant an inch long. That was feaky.
Starting to miss my car.
There was a leech in my shower :/

Evening meals get interesting when you run out of some essential ingredients. Last night Stu cooked a "biriani" - rice, tin of Mild Curry, chilli sauce, jalfrazi curry paste - all mixed up. Very interesting. Still, made a change from noodles.

We're moving East tomorrow where we hear it is actually warm and sunny. Looking forward to that!

2003-04-23 21:36:40 Now in Glen Innes.

We spent a night at the Torrington Caravan Park which was an experience. This place was recommended by our friend in the Sydney camping shop. We met Manuel, the Spanish owner, who speaks quite bad English with a strong Ozy accent (depsite being in the country for over 40 years!). There were a number of permanent residents or were a crystal short of a cluster, and so we felt the need to take all valuables with is. The shower pump had expired and gone to meet its maker - Manuel was most annoyed and his choice of words (a mix of Spanish and Oz) was interesting.

We bumped into a bloke called Goerge who does fossicking as a hobby. He'd been going to the same caravan park for 20 years and knew the locals quite well. He kindly offered to take us for a crash coarse in fossicking, and came back with some really cool quarts crustal clusters. We may well meet up with him again for some tuition on other minerals - hopefully gems :)

Due to the shower pump issue and the need to do some laundary we back-tracked a little way South to Glen Innes and went to the Blue Saphire Caravan Park. You should see the facilities here - gleaming tiled loos with pot plants everywhere. Fantastic showers too, if you don't mind the odd leech sharing with you.

Sorry - skipped over the fossicking stuff a bit quick didn't I. We were driven down some unsealed roads and then veared off into the bush. We got out and were supplied with a little fossicking hammer (like a little pick) and followed the example of George and a couple of locals who also came along. We started looking at the ground and turning some rocks over. I found zilch. After 2 mins George came over with a handful of quartz crystals! He showed me what to look out for and after a while I started noticing sparkling stuff in the dirt - you just pick 'em out, clean 'em up, and there you have a crystal. Turn over certain rocks and you get who clusters of crystal underneath.

The reason this stuff is lying around is because there were lots of tin mines in the area. I lost count of how many holes in the ground there were (the shaft entrances). During the mining they blasted out the rock, extracted the tin and threw away the stuff that wasn't valuable - quartz, topaz, emerald (!). As a result, these crystals are just lying around on the ground for us to find. The locals keep the best spots to themselves. There is apparently a lot of rivalry.

That's about all the news for now. The van is getting more organised due to the addition of a stacking drawer thingy. Mozzies are becoming more of an issue so the mosquito net is being installed. We'll be hanging around here for a couple of days then probably heading back east to the coast.

The sun is hot but the air is still cool. At least there's no rain!

2003-04-21 22:10:25 Now in Armidale having spent the last 2 nights at New England N.P.

After leaving Port Macquarie, we went west through Dorrigo and visited the Dorrigo N.P. Anyone who thinks Aus is just a dessert wilderness should be forced to go to this place. It is a subtropical rainforest complete with huge buttressed trees, vines - the works. It was simply amazing! We then went a bit further to Cathedral Rock N.P. (across some well dodgy unsealed roads) but when we got there found it had recently had a fire sweep through it. So we went instead to New England N.P. which was a bit further on.

The New England N.P. was very... damp. It's always like that, and provides the ideal environment for some variety of beech. All the trees and rocks are dripping with lichen and moss - quite spooky.

Today we dropped into another N.P. which I can't remember the name of (something Willomomi) where there's a huge gorge and waterfall. Spectacular.

The sun is out - here's hoping it stays that way for fossicking.

2003-04-18 23:21:38 Again, lots has been happening! Unfortunately, not really enough time right now to go into too much detail :(

The concise version is here, details to follow!

Left Sydney, got lost and accidentally drove over Harbour Bridge, which was actually quite cool! Drove to Leura in the Blue Moutains on the Great Western Highway. Did loads of walking in the most fantastic scenery you've ever seen! Cool temperate rainforest with gorges and cliffs - amazing! Go look up some pictures of the place. Did some more walking around Katoomba and Blackheath (Govetts Leap). Then the weather closed in (as it normally does this time of year apparently) so we used the opportunity to motor north along Route 69 between Wollemi National Park and Yengo N.P. Now that was fun driving in the van :)

Stopped over in Dungog then carried on the next day to Crowdy Bay N.P. via the M1 and finally stopped at Port Macquarie (which is where I am now).

We wanted to see Barrington Tops N.P. while at Dungog, but the weather fluctuating between very, VERY, wet, and bright, hot sunshine. I hear you guys back home have had some good weather recently... typical.

We will now head off to Coffs Harbour, then hang a left to Armidale and Glen Innes for the fossicking. Bring in on! Hope the weather clear though or we'll be digging mud :/

The van is great - pretty well equiped now. I bough a little rug for my side :) Food is good, comprising mainly of cereal, sandwiches, noodles and beer. Also, recently we've been experimenting with Easter Eggs.

I should mention that the roads between the places we've visited have been amazing. The scenery is amazing, and the road surface for the most part has been good.

Until next time.

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2003-05-24 22:50:24	Done quite a bit since Brisbane. We went to Bribie Island which was ok. There was a nice long beach that we walked down for about an hour and never reached the end. We then went to the Glasshouse Mountains which were quite cool and climbed up Mt. Ngungun (silent N) and Mt. Beerwah. Beerwah was really great fun because it was quite a tricky climb. There were long stretches that required both hands and feet to drag you up the steep rock face. The rock was quite grippy (especially with my newly acquired boots) but the hand holds got a bit few and far between in places. It really made your toes tingle and gave me a real buzz. It took about 2 hours to get to the top which is just over 500m up. Ancy C will be proud :) We also visited the Australia Zoo at Beerwah. This is the place that Steve "Crikey, that Taipan looks like he's going to bite" Irwin has made famous. There's loads of crocks there, which moved very quickly at feeding time. I stroked a number of Kangeroos and koalas. Kangeroos are really soft, and koalas have a sort of matted fur. Really cute though! We are now at a place called Noosa Heads which is a bit posh as it's a commuter town for Brisbane. Great beach which I'll be visiting later today :) I'm attempting to fashion a coolbox (known locally as an esky) cooler. Stu suggested we might need something like that as he poured marg on the sandwiches he was making. I've gathered together some huricane lamp wicks, a Vileda super absorbant cloth, a CPU fan, a tupaware container and an empty coke bottle. I'll keep you posted as to my progress. We've booked a Suzuki 4WD, 3-day trip to Fraser Island for Wednesday. The weather looks like it might be raining then so we may have to cancel. Fingers crossed though!
2003-05-19 02:36:11	We left Surfers and visited a friend near Logan, just south of Brisbane. It made a very welcome break from caravan parks - and we got fed roast chicken with real veg and stuffing and everything! They have 10 acres of land and it's great. Makes you want to sell up everything back home and buy a plot of land out here where you can work on your car without worrying about getting oil on the gravel in the shared drive. They were building a flippin BOAT in a corner of there back yard. The horse had 5 acres alone! We then spent a couple of days in a caravan park juts outside Brisbane. Brisbane is a pretty cool place. It's a lot more relaxed than the bustling Sydney, and the atmosphere seems more friendly. We felt we had to try the local Guinness in an Irish pub called Murphys (confusing!) and I have to say that Guinness really doesn't travel all that well. It was drinkable, but not a patch on the stuff back home. I might try to get a can or two and see what that's like. The last 3 days have been spent sunning ourselves on North Stradbroke Island, just East of Brisbane. You get there via a car ferry which takes about 3/4 hour. There are some really great beaches there and our campsite was just meters from one on the west, sheltered side. The first night we saw a couple of dolfins swim by just 20 meters from where we were sat! We also saw a number of turtles swim past. I bought a snorkel, which is great fun, and you get to see all the fish of which there were very many :) The East side of the island has some really rugged cliffs and long beaches, and is favoured by the surfers. It's great to watch. I'm now back in Brisbane and we'll be making our way further north tomorrow. No idea where we'll get to. It's all jolly good fun. Oh, and the weather has been great since we left Brisbane 3 days ago, and is expected to stay quite good. This is a great relief to me, as playing cards while stuck in the van can make you slightly crazy. We played chess the other night - that's how crazy we got! I won :)
2003-05-11 22:24:40	It's sunny and hot and we're at the beach! The high-rise skyline that we saw at Tweed Head was actually Surfers Paradise, which is where we are now.It's an odd place as there are all these tall buildings that you'd associate with a space deprived city, and yet a short distance outside the city centre you're not lacking for space at all.Someone's making lots of money selling space in these high-rise buildings. One floor costs 2 million dollars, or 2 half floors costs 1.8 million. Yeah, that made me blink too. We spent a day or two on the beach soaking up the rays and swimming. We also climbed up Mt. Warning, so named by Captain Cook as it provides a warning to shipping of the presence of the reef... or something... I think. Anyway, It was quite a tricky climb with the last bit requiring a chain banister to help you haul yourself up. It was also quite good to abseil down using said chain, although I think I was doing a bit of a Bond as most people just seemed to scrabble down. The view was really good (when the cload parted) and you could see all the way to Cape Byron. Stu spent the some of the morning compressing the items in the storage area under the beds. He didn't do a bad job, and now the stove is stored in the back giving more living space forward of the beds. How long this will last I'm not sure, especially given my propensity to purchase... stuff, and the need to reach that particular item that is buried right behind everything else that we thought would be needed more often. Handy hint: don't where a brimmed hat when you get in and out of a van. The brim hides the top of the door frame resulting it sudden contact twixt head and van. If you do it 3 times in one day it really does hurt a lot. Really, it hurts A LOT. The same goes for walking in forests containing hanging vines (as found around Mt. Warning) with said hat. Ask Stu about that one :) I've just got my photos back and tragically there are no photos of my new hair cut. Shame that. There are some really good panoramic shots of cliff faces and vistas. I'm really go and try to get some of them up on the net when we get to Brisbane. There's also quite a good shot of me dangling my feet off a cliff. No mum, it was a really small cliff. Honest. We're leaving Surfers Paradise today and heading to an area called Logan just South of Brisbane. Then it's onto Brisbane and beyond! We picked up some leaflets for Tandem Sky Dives and Scuba Diving. That's two separate activities of course, but only because you'd look stupid sky diving with flippers.
2003-05-07 01:36:37	It's still raining :( We moved up the coast a bit, and are now stationed at a place called Tweed Head. The weather forcast is for continued showers until Thursday or Friday. We are right at the bottom of the Gold Coast now, and I'm not sure if we're in Queensland or not. The petrol prices are a lot lower (about 30p/litre) so I suspect we are. We can see Brisbane, which is right at the top of the Gold Coast, on the far horizon. We will probably be up that way for the start of next week. Just bought an air freshener for the van. It smells like fly spray, which is odd as the fly spray smells of Rainforest Fresh. Makes you wonder. We also invested in a double gas hob. Now we can cook twice as much pasta in half the time :) Of course this also opens up the debate of whether we should eat veg with the pasta. It's a tricky one alright...
2003-05-04 19:44:39	We got to Byron Bay on Sunday morning and by 11:00am it was absolutely teeming down. It's been sunny/torrential downpoor ever since and a local tells us this weather is unusual and it will be like this for a couple of days. We've heard this so many times and it's starting to get a bit depressing. Wherever we go it rains and it really puts a dampner on things, so to speak. Byron is a very outdoorsy kind of place, so the rain is very unfortunate as it means we can't do very much. There is also a strong wind which can be cold, and a number of beaches south of here have been closed. There's loads of "surfer dudes" wandering around with those garish coarse clothes that are "really, kind like, cool, you know?". This is obviously a place for budget travellers - you should see the number of backpackers huddled against the rain in the bus shelter :) Poor little mites. Once again I am pleased we have a van to sleep in - the tent next to us nearly blew away last night. Well, it got a bit flattened anyway. We'll be staying here tonight in the vain hope that the rain will clear by tomorrow. The beach here is great and it would be quite nice to take a breather from all our running around, and lie in the sun for a while. I'm going to buy some travel games now. Rummy and Shithead can only be played so many times in one evening before you start to go a little crazy. Especially if you keep losing... Thanks again for all your e-mails people.
2003-05-02 22:31:33	Now in Lismore. After leaving Glen Innes we pushed North to Girraween National Park in Queesland. Another great place. They have camping facilities there (including hot showers :) which cost us only 16 dollars for two nights. The area is littered with huge - and I mean HUGE - granite boulders that look like they've just been dropped from the sky. We did a 11km walk that took us to the top of Mt Norman. That was quite a hike, especially as the weather was quite warm. Yes, you heard right! It was sunny and warm, nay hot! That evening, as we sipped a Tooheys, we heard rustling outside. I wound the window down and was confonted by a kangoroo grazing next to the van. She looked at me, I looked at her, and then she compeletely ignored me and carried on eating. I glanced left and saw two bush tailed possoms in the tree (also next to the van) and another on the ground. The possoms also ignored me. I obviously have an inoffensive appearance, or maybe their claws are sharper. I got out my side of the van, slid the side door back, got my camera, went back into the van. Still they ignored me. I was about to take a photo when I was reminded that these animals are nocternal (it was very dark at the time), and taking a flash photo would probably scare the living crap out of the poor little mites. I took the photo anyway. They just ignored me. So then we went East to a place on the coast called Lennox Head. It's just South of Byron Bay, but apparently not as commercialised. That was yesterday, and that evening the heavens opened, replete with thunder and lightening. This is not normal apparently. Yeah right - that's what they tell all the tourists I bet. We'll stay there again this evening then head up towards the Gold Coast. Forgot to mention in my last log that I got about 30 sapphires at Boolabinda. The vast majority have inclusions, which are flaws or mineral bits in them. These inclusions mean that when the crystal is held up to the light it is not competely clear, and so can't really be cut. The big one I had no inclusions, and so could be cut (yay). I cooked last night. Pasta, tomato paste, Pataks jalfrazi curry paste, chilli sauce and corned beef. Yum. Actually it wasn't all that bad, or maybe I'm just getting used to that sort of food... Domino Pizza tonight though :) Just bought a duvet as my sleeping bag was feeling a little restrictive. I was so cosy last night :) In New South Wales (NSW) there are speed cameras everywhere and everyone keeps to the speed limit. In Queensland that isn't the case, so things will be interesting when we head up there. Erm, got to go now - parking about to expire and still need lunch.
2003-04-29 02:20:26	Back in Glen Innes! We've spent the last 3 days out at a place called Boolabinda. It's a homestead where you can do fossicking. The weather has been very variable - really crap one moment then hot and sunny. The best day has been today - shame we had to leave! At Boolabinda you can camp, hire the equipment (panning trays, shovel) and go panning at the river that runs through their place. They guys there give you some basic tuition then you're on your own. The idea is to shovel some dirt into the panning trays. There are 2 trays one on top of the other. The upper tray has coarser mesh than the lower tray. You take your tray of dirt to the river, swirl it around in a particular way then tip the contents onto a flat rock. In places where you find sapphires you also find a particular type of black pebble which is about the same density and size as sapphires. Because of the fancy swirling you do in the pan, these black pebbles collect at the centre, bottom of the pan. The long and short of it is, any sapphires should be in the centre of your pile of pebbles, surrounded by black pebbles. If there aren't any black pebbles then you probably won't find any sapphires either. So, do I find any? Yep! Loads of em! I also found some zircon and garnet. The largest sapphire I have could be cut and would be worth about 25 quid. Here's a little known fact - not all saphires are blue. You can get all sorts of colours including clear, green, yellow and red (also known as a ruby!). The ones I got varied from practically clear to deep blue. There were also some blue ones with red in them. Random comments now follow: I saw my first roo the other day! Evenings can get very boring when you've run out of beer. There's loads of parrots and cockatoos flying around this place! I've just had a haircut - grade 2 clippers all over. If I go for a couple of days without a shower I don't look so grim now :) I saw an ant an inch long. That was feaky. Starting to miss my car. There was a leech in my shower :/ Evening meals get interesting when you run out of some essential ingredients. Last night Stu cooked a "biriani" - rice, tin of Mild Curry, chilli sauce, jalfrazi curry paste - all mixed up. Very interesting. Still, made a change from noodles. We're moving East tomorrow where we hear it is actually warm and sunny. Looking forward to that!
2003-04-23 21:36:40	Now in Glen Innes. We spent a night at the Torrington Caravan Park which was an experience. This place was recommended by our friend in the Sydney camping shop. We met Manuel, the Spanish owner, who speaks quite bad English with a strong Ozy accent (depsite being in the country for over 40 years!). There were a number of permanent residents or were a crystal short of a cluster, and so we felt the need to take all valuables with is. The shower pump had expired and gone to meet its maker - Manuel was most annoyed and his choice of words (a mix of Spanish and Oz) was interesting. We bumped into a bloke called Goerge who does fossicking as a hobby. He'd been going to the same caravan park for 20 years and knew the locals quite well. He kindly offered to take us for a crash coarse in fossicking, and came back with some really cool quarts crustal clusters. We may well meet up with him again for some tuition on other minerals - hopefully gems :) Due to the shower pump issue and the need to do some laundary we back-tracked a little way South to Glen Innes and went to the Blue Saphire Caravan Park. You should see the facilities here - gleaming tiled loos with pot plants everywhere. Fantastic showers too, if you don't mind the odd leech sharing with you. Sorry - skipped over the fossicking stuff a bit quick didn't I. We were driven down some unsealed roads and then veared off into the bush. We got out and were supplied with a little fossicking hammer (like a little pick) and followed the example of George and a couple of locals who also came along. We started looking at the ground and turning some rocks over. I found zilch. After 2 mins George came over with a handful of quartz crystals! He showed me what to look out for and after a while I started noticing sparkling stuff in the dirt - you just pick 'em out, clean 'em up, and there you have a crystal. Turn over certain rocks and you get who clusters of crystal underneath. The reason this stuff is lying around is because there were lots of tin mines in the area. I lost count of how many holes in the ground there were (the shaft entrances). During the mining they blasted out the rock, extracted the tin and threw away the stuff that wasn't valuable - quartz, topaz, emerald (!). As a result, these crystals are just lying around on the ground for us to find. The locals keep the best spots to themselves. There is apparently a lot of rivalry. That's about all the news for now. The van is getting more organised due to the addition of a stacking drawer thingy. Mozzies are becoming more of an issue so the mosquito net is being installed. We'll be hanging around here for a couple of days then probably heading back east to the coast. The sun is hot but the air is still cool. At least there's no rain!
2003-04-21 22:10:25	Now in Armidale having spent the last 2 nights at New England N.P. After leaving Port Macquarie, we went west through Dorrigo and visited the Dorrigo N.P. Anyone who thinks Aus is just a dessert wilderness should be forced to go to this place. It is a subtropical rainforest complete with huge buttressed trees, vines - the works. It was simply amazing! We then went a bit further to Cathedral Rock N.P. (across some well dodgy unsealed roads) but when we got there found it had recently had a fire sweep through it. So we went instead to New England N.P. which was a bit further on. The New England N.P. was very... damp. It's always like that, and provides the ideal environment for some variety of beech. All the trees and rocks are dripping with lichen and moss - quite spooky. Today we dropped into another N.P. which I can't remember the name of (something Willomomi) where there's a huge gorge and waterfall. Spectacular. The sun is out - here's hoping it stays that way for fossicking.
2003-04-18 23:21:38	Again, lots has been happening! Unfortunately, not really enough time right now to go into too much detail :( The concise version is here, details to follow! Left Sydney, got lost and accidentally drove over Harbour Bridge, which was actually quite cool! Drove to Leura in the Blue Moutains on the Great Western Highway. Did loads of walking in the most fantastic scenery you've ever seen! Cool temperate rainforest with gorges and cliffs - amazing! Go look up some pictures of the place. Did some more walking around Katoomba and Blackheath (Govetts Leap). Then the weather closed in (as it normally does this time of year apparently) so we used the opportunity to motor north along Route 69 between Wollemi National Park and Yengo N.P. Now that was fun driving in the van :) Stopped over in Dungog then carried on the next day to Crowdy Bay N.P. via the M1 and finally stopped at Port Macquarie (which is where I am now). We wanted to see Barrington Tops N.P. while at Dungog, but the weather fluctuating between very, VERY, wet, and bright, hot sunshine. I hear you guys back home have had some good weather recently... typical. We will now head off to Coffs Harbour, then hang a left to Armidale and Glen Innes for the fossicking. Bring in on! Hope the weather clear though or we'll be digging mud :/ The van is great - pretty well equiped now. I bough a little rug for my side :) Food is good, comprising mainly of cereal, sandwiches, noodles and beer. Also, recently we've been experimenting with Easter Eggs. I should mention that the roads between the places we've visited have been amazing. The scenery is amazing, and the road surface for the most part has been good. Until next time.