Moreton Island

Before I left Brisbane I took a trip to Moreton Island on a 4wd tour to do some sandboarding and boogie boarding. Moreton is the third largest sand island in the world. If you hadn't guessed already a sand island is one that is made entirely out of sand, although the classification system actually allows them to have the odd rock or two as they don't interfere with the predominant sandy flavour of the environment. Neighbouring Fraser Island and Straddie take the prizes for biggest and second biggest respectively, but both are more heavily populated and Straddie cheats slightly and has some tarmac roads. Moreton is far more isolated than the others and less populated - there's probably less than 200 people on it at any one time, and there's at least 100km of beaches for those people to disappear into.

One of the bays on Moreton


Ships wrecked off the beach to create a safe swimming area.


To get there a 4wd is essential as like on all good sand islands the roads are entirely made out of sand. This makes for some comedy moments when "city folk" buy new jeeps and try and test out their off road capabilities. The daily ferry deposits you on the main beach and you're straight into the soft powdery stuff up to your axles if you don't know what you're doing. According to Matt, who has first hand experience, the locals then spend a good 30 minutes giving you helpful advice while the other ferry users queue behind you in the intense heat. I too have experience of getting car's stuck on beaches - having been an innocent passenger when a couple of friends recklessly endangered a Renault 19 on a beach in Cornwall, but that's another story.

Fortunately we had an experienced driver who took us out to the Moreton desert without incident and we stopped off on the dunes to do some sandboarding. I have to say that I had envisioned myself gliding gracefully down the slopes on a sleek surfboard-style contraption. I wasn't expecting a sandboard to be a lump of rectanglar plywood like you might find in any hardware store, but that's exactly what they are. They also make great shelves if you find you don't have a taste for the sport, so investing in one isn't such a bad move.

sandboarding in the desert

The dunes you go down are angled at 45 degrees and go on for about 100 metres. You lie down on the board face first and lift up the front of the board with your arms so you dont turn your mouth into a sand-shovel. Then someone pushes you and you fly off at 30 miles and hour (my guestimate - I'd left my radar gun in my other shorts) until the dune levels out and you have to make the long climb back up to the top again. You carry on like this until everyone is dehydrated, abraded and dessicated, then you get back in the van and go have a swim somewhere much cooler. And you'll never get a pebbly beach on a sand island, so you're guaranteed some soft stuff to lay your towel on.... which was nice....

The Big Day Out

It's big, it lasts one day, and you have to go out to get there.

The Big Day Out is a one day festival that tours through Australia and New Zealand. On Sunday we went to catch the show at the Gold Coast.
http://www.bigdayout.com/

It was incredibly hot with beautiful but blistering sunshine all day, so we were all really glad that marshalls were spraying the crowd with water from hoses as we watched the bands. I was particularly glad that the marshalls spent most of their time spraying water over girls in bikinis (although this did nothing to help my personal cooling).

The internet cafe is about to close so I'll have to fill in the details of the bands on the blog later. I just wanted to get in the fact that we saw lots of girls in bikini's getting sprayed with water...

Monday, 20th January

Researchers have concluded that the most depressing day in Britain each year is the Monday closest to the 24th January. It sums up a number of factors including winter blues, debts from christmas and broken new year's resolutions.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/01/21/back_monday/

You might be interested to know that on Monday 20th January I got up late, had brunch with a beautiful Australian girl, had a dip in the pool, then had a couple of beers in the sunshine at a very nice cafe. Just goes to show the 20th of January is equally depressing out here...

ps. here is the view from Matt and Sam's balcony:

Australia Zoo

Australia Zoo is one of the biggest tourist attractions in Queensland, which is in part down to the fact that it is home to "Mr Crikey" himself - Steve "The Croc Botherer" Irwin. For those of you not familiar with him, Irwin has rapidly become something of a superstar around the world for wrestling animals that normal men would be running away from. It may be fair to describe him as not being the sharpest tool in the shed, but what he lacks in intellectual acuity he makes up in enthusiasm, courage and tireless self-marketing. In fact I suspect that he's probably a lot sharper than he appears, and that his moronic gawping is part of his carefully constructed stage persona intended to give him an air of neandertal ruggedness. After all nobody wants to hear him to give an extensive discourse on the crocodilian reproductive cycle, they want him to shout "Crikey, that's a big croc! Let's jump on him!" then leap on its back and lash it up with ropes.

So crowds in tens of thousands trek to Australia Zoo each day to watch the gladiatorial spectacle of men wrestling with crocodiles, tigers, snakes and parrots. And every day tens of thousands of people leave with a sense of wonder at the courage of the performers, but also leave a little disappointed that no one got eaten in front of their expectantly whirring camcorders.

On Wednesday I decided I was going to be one of those happy customers and would catch the train up to the zoo at Beerwah. I didn't want to see anyone lose an arm or anything serious (I'd forgotten my camcorder), but maybe just see them get a little nip from a croc to remind them what the true order of the food chain is. But when Wednesday came I overslept and the pool looked so inviting so i sat by that instead. I resolved to go the next day, so on Thursday I got up extra early and arrived at the railway station at the crack of 10:15. The man in the ticket office didn't have good news for me and told me that I'd left it too late. By the time i'd caught the next train, travelled to Beerwah, then transferred to the zoo it would be past 1:30 and by that time most of the star performers would already have been eaten. I gave up on the zoo for that day and amused myself in the Queensland Museum and the excellent art gallery next door. I'd go to the zoo on Friday I decided, and picked up a brochure from the tourist information to consolidate the fact.

Tourism starts early in Australia (the train that I needed to get left at 8:06am).
This tourist starts late.
There's clearly some incompatibility here that needs to be resolved but I'm not sure whether either party is going to budge. I made a token effort this morning to watch the time on the bedside clock tick past the hour i should be getting up, but neither my mind or my body was willing and i turned over and had another snooze.

Maybe this afternoon I'll sit by the pool and cut out the little crocodiles from the Australia Zoo brochure and make them eat a little cut-out Steve Irwin....

I've booked a two day 4WD tour of Moreton Island for Tuesday next week, which happens to start at 7am. I made sure that I booked one where they pick you up from your apartment, and I gave them instructions that if I'm not there waiting outside at 6:55 they may break down the door and drag me down to the Land Rover by force...

We'll see...


ps... this is a kangaroo that took a fancy to me at the Koala sanctuary, which you can tell by the provocative way she's sitting:

Dangerous Mammals

Just about everything in Australia can kill you. It's home to 9 out of the 10 most venomous snakes in the world and to almost all of the deadliest spiders too. In the sea you can be eaten by sharks, poisoned by the blue ringed octopus, dragged out to sea by fearsome rip tides then stung to death by box jellyfish. Australia is also home to 8 out of the 10 most potent alcoholic drinks.

Knowing that it's such a risky place, it was with great trepidation that I made my way up the Brisbane river to meet one of Australia's most deadly mammals - the koala.

After sleeping for 20 hours a day, the koala wakes up to go on a wanton forest rampage, moving at lightning speeds of up to 3 feet per hour. His razor sharp teeth can cut through leaves like they were cutting through... well, leaves. His claws are strong enough to grip on to the branches of trees until he goes to sleep and falls off. They smell pretty bad too.

And I was going to get to cuddle one.

Fortunately animal handlers were on hand to make sure that the koala didn't go crazy and start eating children or anything. As you can see from the photo, when it was my turn for a cuddle the little bastard went straight for my nipples and gave me a full on "nipple gripple". He also wiped his bum on my nice white t-shirt.

We're going to a "bush tucker" restaurant this weekend.
Koala steaks all round...

Straddie Island

I went off to Stradbroke Island this weekend with Matt, Sam and a couple of their friends Bek and Tracey. It's a pretty cool place with loads and loads of sandy beaches and some beautiful scenery.

After being crowned "Whitest Man on the Beach" in Barcelona back in 2004, I was keen to extend my title to the shorelines of Australia, so I quickly uncovered my dazzling chest for the admiration of both the native people and local wildlife. I could tell they were impressed. Small children were taking photographs and bikini clad women were crowding round to get a tan from the whiteness reflected from my suncreamed body. I'm not sure, but at this present moment I think I could be the whitest man in Australia - I'll keep you posted when I've had a chance to check out some more of the competition. Keep this under you hats, but there has to be a Guiness World Record for "torso reflectivity" and I could well be in with a shot. Where's Norris McWherter when you need him?

Straddie Island has had a bit of a bad press in the news recently as there was a terrible shark attack just off Amity Point on the 8th January.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200601/s1543729.htm
To be honest I was a bit concerned that my lack of suntan might prove to be an interesting curiosity to any passing sharks in the area. It's said that a shark can smell a drop of blood in the sea from several miles away - I wasnt sure about their abilities to detect Englishmen in the water at similar distances, but I wasn't taking any chances. I was on a state of high alert and my senses were bristling for any signs of danger. By thrashing my arms and legs wildly I successfully fought of off several underwater attacks from floating driftwood, pieces of seaweed and sand clouds stirred up by my own feet. When I got back to shore I was pleased to discover that i still had a full complement of limbs (I checked twice just to make sure I hadn't double counted anything) and so the next time I go to the shoe store I'm happy to say I will still be buying footwear in pairs instead of lonely singles.

For some cool pictures of Straddie, check out Matt and Sam's blog at http://samsharpe100.blogspot.com/2005/01/surfing-and-squid-on-straddie.html

Airline Food

I arrived in Brisbane last night, slightly grubby and dazed after 29 hours of travelling. I counted that in that time I'd had 6 full meals. As a thin person this seemed a little excessive to me, but it got me thinking that maybe that's why you always end up seated next to fat people on planes. Maybe many years ago they were thin people too, but several hundred thousand air miles later their weight has spiralled up to the point where they sit half on their seat, and half on your armrest.

In general the meals were quite good, but I do have to warn you that if you ever go on Malaysian Airlines and the stewardess offers you beef steak then don't let her give it to you. Tell them you're a vegetarian or a Hindu - anything so that you get an option other than the steak.
The chicken is good. The chicken is tender. But some time in the past Gate Gourmet appears to have subcontracted out its entire beef steak operation to World of Leather. What I was presented with was not a steak, but rather an off-cut from a sofa. If the cast of "Lost" had been flying Malaysian Airlines when their plane crashed on the island they would have been severely short of food, but wouldn't have been short of material for making new shoes.

Not only was it tough, we only got a plastic knife and fork to cut it with - presumably this is to stop terrorists from storming the cabin armed with stainless steel cutlery. The truth is the aeroplane would have been more at risk from a band of terrorists swinging a sock full of steak dinners as they're not only hard and bulky, but they're also square and have vicious corners.