Travel Diary - Australia 95/96
After nearly three years in Amsterdam I returned to the UK, specifically Farnborough. I soon remembered why I was desperate to get out of Farnborough in the first place. So I started looking around something else. Then I saw an advert in Computer Weekly. Half page advert, a picture of a guy surfing a big wave and a headline about taking the tube to work. A few of us in the office joked about how we should apply. I did! A week or so later I'd got a job offer to start ASAP in Brisbane. The start of another adventure.
I lived in the Paddington area of Brisbane, in one of a small group of houses surrounding a swimming pool. Nice! When I think of Brisbane I think of the weather. I arrived in November, it was hot and the sun vicious. Every night around 5pm we'd have a short sharp thunderstorm. At 4:45 there'd be blue skies but the wind would start to get up. The skies would start to turn black with a green tinge and then thunder, lightening, hammering rain. Then 10 minutes later we'd have clear blue skies again amazing.
December and January it got more and more humid culminating in 10 days of 90 degrees and 90% humidity which was a killer. In March it pissed down, really pissed down. Enough to fill a bucket over night. I had to drive 100 yards to the bus stop it was so wet. In 3 weeks it never stopped, the Brisbane river flooded and reservoirs were filled. But the Winter was fantastic. About 20 degrees everyday and clear blue skies for months.
I did some work whilst in Brisbane on Creek St near the Eagle St pier. Played cricket for Valleys in the lower grades, our first grade team included Matthew Hayden and Allan Border! And had some great nights out at The Gabba watching the Brisbane Bears as they still were back then.
I did do a bit of travelling around whilst in Australia. First trip was down to Sydney for a few days. Stayed with a friend of a friend and had a decent tour of the city. Opera House tick, harbour bridge tick, boat trip around the harbour tick. I liked the harbour area but there seemed to be a lot of very ordinary areas between the burbs and the centre. Nice enough place but didn't grab me as a place to live. For me it's trying too hard to be a world city rather than Australian.
Whilst in Australia I had to see Sydney.
Also made a trip down to Melbourne for the last game of the AFL season. Down to see the Bears play Collingwood. I think we were the only Bears fans in the whole of Victoria Park. Atmosphere did feel a bit hostile not helped by us wearing Bears shirts. Thankfully we lost which did pacify the natives a bit. After we decided we needed a drink and talked a reluctant Jim into a pub nearby. We walked in and the place went quiet. A staunch Magpies pub and three guys walk in, two with Bears shirts on and Jim cowering behind. But and old bloke at the bar hears our English accents and loudly offers us a drink. From then on the mad Brits who flew down from Brisbane to watch the Bears didn't buy a drink all night.
About six weeks before my first year was up came the time decide whether I would stay or go. If they'd come up with significantly more then I would have stayed but they didn't and all in all I'm quite glad they didn't. A year was about the right amount of time. Once I had decide I was leaving there was one trip I had to make, up through Queensland to Cairns and dive the Barrier Reef. Whilst in Brisbane I learnt to scuba dive so I was ready.
First stop on the way up was the beautiful Whitsundays.
Next stop Cairns where I booked up a live aboard trip out to the reef but had a couple of days to kill before it sailed so I did a trip out into the rainforest.
I did two trips out onto the reef. The first was on the inner reef on a sailing boat with Down Under Dive. On the trip I took my Padi Advanced certification dives. So a deep dive down to 30m and a night dive which was amazing.
My second trip was out to the outer reef in the Coral Sea aboard the Rum Runner. An overnight trip out and then dive computers on and a first dive before breakfast. Come up to a full breakfast and loads of fresh fruit. The crew clean the kit and ready it for our next dive whilst we lie in the sun. Then kit on and we dive again. This is the life.
And there were some amazing dives. We drift dived some virgin reef with massive untouched fan corals nothing like the fans on the inner reef which were broken by so many divers brushing against them. Massive walls dives and towering sea stacks. Sharks, shoals of scary barracuda and 50m+ visibility.
On the way back in we dived the Cod Hole. The most famous dive site on the Ribbon Reefs by far. Cod Hole is known for the groups of large (150kg or more) Potato Cod and Maori Wrasse that have become accustomed to divers over the past 30 years, and will approach quite closely. It was just amazing being so close to such big fish.
One final adventure before I head back to Brisbane, some white water rafting with Raging Thunder on the Tully River. On the day I was there they ran two boats and split us into the more cautious in one boat the rest of us mad buggers were put in the other. We really went for it and luckily didn't turn the boat over but it wasn't for lack of trying. I was at the back with the guide and one rapid we went into really hard and the guide let our a real scream he wasn't faking. When we came out the other side he said he had never been in on that line before and come out without losing someone overboard. It was great fun!
Kangaroos and koalas, fantastic. I made many trips up to Alma Park Zoo, to see Skippy and friends.
My last day in Brisbane was spent at the Gabba watching the first day of the Australia West Indies test match.
