Author: David Clark

Here is another shot of our hotel for the week:

The Mare Fan Fryslan is a former small cargo ship, no sails, converted to a three masted schooner with rooms for about 40 people. Fortunately, our trip only had about half that many so we had lots of space. Most days we were on our bikes around 9:00 and then rode until we’d meet up with the ship around 2:00. After that we grabbed our showers and then rejoined the rest of the passengers to chat, help with the sails, and eventually have dinner. Liane had to do most of the talking as most of the other passengers on this trip were German speaking.  I did learn the German word “schnell” which means go quickly. Some locals out walking their dogs  felt Liane was cycling too slowly and took a moment to teach me the word.  For some reason, she did not appreciate this.

We did spend one meal in French with a Belgian, where I can at least listen, and one in English with an Australian.  Having three masts and 5 sails off them meant that helping with the sails was a big job. The sails were hand-cranked into position. We needed up to three people on the cranks in some cases.

Here is the obligatory windmill shot from one of our rides:

And here is the modern version which was a lot more popular:

There are a few thousand of these all over the land and out on the water.  You can also tell from this picture that our riding wasn’t very challenging – the land is flat!

Like the other countries we visited in our time off, the local residents were often of the furry variety.

 

These two are sitting on the top of one of the dikes holding back the ocean.

Unfortunately, our plans for a Danube bike trip have fallen through (yet again). The boat was going through a refurb and it took longer than expected. After much discussion, we decided to return to Victoria and get back to our “real” life. After a long day of train, plane, bus and ferry, we have returned to Victoria,  We are now looking at places to live and figuring out what we will be working on.

This is a very quick update just to let people know where we are as I left that undecided when I last posted. We spent four days in Amsterdam, primarily recovering from something we caught on the way over. We assume it was some form of food poisoning. Quiet time. We’re now just north of there in Enkhuizen. Just one photo for today – our lodging for the next week:

We’re going sailing! Sort of.  The boat is the home base for a cycling tour of part of northern Holland.   Most of the days will be spent riding but we will sail between locations and spend at least one day just sailing.

We’re off travelling again for a few weeks.  We decided to start in Portugal.

We spent about 3 days in Lisbon mainly recovering from jet lag and exploring the more touristy parts of the town while doing so. Lisbon is relatively modern by European standards. A major earthquake (estimated at 8.5 to 9.0 Richter) on November 1st in 1755 destroyed much of the city. This was shortly followed by a tsunami that destroyed much of the south coast and caused more damage to Lisbon. As the triple-threat completed, the candles the population had lit for the commemoration of All Saints Day ignited massive fires throughout the city.  Estimates vary but it seems around half the population was killed and around 85% of the buildings destroyed. The city engineers used this destruction as an opportunity to rebuild the city with a more modern layout including some wider roads and many public squares.  It is still very cramped by our standards but much better than it could have been.

 

Fish and seafood are definitely the most popular foods here.  Dinners were heavily tilted in favour of fish, in particular cod.  Oddly, the country doesn’t seem to have any domestic cod and imports most of it from Norway.  Sardines are a big thing here (sorry).  They are popular for any meal.  This tourist shop in Lisbon only sells sardines.  You go in and buy the can with your birth year on it.

From Lisbon, we travelled south in the Algarve area to walk several sections of the Rota Vicentina (Fisherman’s Trail).  The tour group we were with had said we’d do between 6 and 10 kilometres each day.  Fortunately we had several people with us who had equipment to actually measure the distances.  Most days were around 15k and had significant amounts of up and down.  Our legs were aching.  But the scenery was beautiful and the dinners excellent if a little too wine-soaked.

Between the walks, we visited several towns, a tile factory where we painted our own tile, a pottery studio, forts, a distillery, a bakery where we made our own bread for lunch and several nice restaurants.  Unfortunately, I don’t have pictures of two of the more interesting forts.  Both were at the top of high cliffs.  I think one was about 35 metres up and the other was closer to 75 metres above the sea.  The previously mentioned tsunami had destroyed both of them.  I acquired a new respected for the height and power of a tsunami while seeing those.

Here is a shot of one town we stayed in taken from a section of our walk.

 

We are now back in Lisbon letting our legs recover while we figure out our next stop.

We had a quiet time in Launceston.  Our main activity was walking the local park, Cataract Gorge, a couple of times.  It’s just a nice way to spend a couple of hours.  There is a cafe with many fairly aggressive peacocks in the middle where we stopped a couple of times.

This picture shows a “log” shelter part way along the path.  However, the frame isn’t actually logs but is instead hand sculpted concrete.  Even close-up, it looks good.

From Launceston, we headed down the west coast to Strahan.  While it is less than 300km, it makes for a tiring drive because the roads have many curves.  In Strahan, we took a cruise in MacQuarie Harbour and up part of the Gordon River.  The port is actually a very large mixed salt and fresh water lake or lagoon.

One particularly interesting part of the cruise was a visit to the Sarah Island penal colony ruins.   The island was a combination jail and ship-building facility.  They selected trained ship-builders from the convicts and trained up some others.  The remaining convicts logged the local pine which was particularly impervious to water.  The site had the reputation of being a particularly brutal place to incarcerated at first.  However, over time and through leadership changes, negotiations with the convicts to get higher production levels, the conditions slowly got better.  When the overall governor got word of the improved work conditions on Sarah Island, he deemed it completely unacceptable.  This lead to the creation of a new penal colony at Port Arthur, which we visited on a previous trip, in order to re-establish appropriately vicious conditions.  The ruins on the island are quite limited but here is one:

While in Strahan, we also did some walking.  The weather wasn’t entirely cooperative but we still had a good time.  This small waterfall is in one of the local parks.

After Strahan, we headed inland to Cradle Mountain.  This national park is know for its great hiking.  On our first full day there, we did a hike of about 6 hours.  The hike went in from the parking area, up to a plateau and then across the base of the actual Cradle Mountain before continuing as a loop around the other side of a small lake.

The first picture is from the start of the hike and shows the lake and mountain.

This picture is from up on the plateau.

We ended up walking across the base of the mountain a bit below the snow patch.  The walk was moderately challenging.  Liane was particularly unimpressed when I asked her to treat one section as if she was rappelling and just walk backwards down the face while holding on to the chain provided.  We had a great day.  Liane did several more smaller hikes the next day while I recovered from an allergy attack.  Definitely a great park to visit.

We then spent a couple of days in Hobart including a visit to the famous Salamanca Markets where Liane replaced the hat she misplaced at Cradle Mountain.  We then headed to Freycinet park on the east coast.  Unfortunately, a major storm arrived on the coast about the same time we did so we spent much of our time storm watching.  The waves were pretty impressive.  On our last day though, the weather cleared so we got a couple of nice walks in the park.

Here is a shot of Wine Glass Bay:

And another showing some interesting erosion:

We also took a walk in Bicheno which is the town just north of the park where we were staying.  During the storm, I wouldn’t have been able to get this close safely.

We’re now in Sydney spending our last few days here walking around the city.  I’d forgotten how crowded the downtown is here.  Lots going on, but lots of people too.  We were asked what Australians most popular food was.  We can definitely answer chips (french fries).   We got so tired of them that we would go to Thai or Indian restaurants just to get rice.  However, looking on line, it’s apparently Pavlova, a meringue based dessert.  It seems to be the most popular Christmas dessert at least according to the television ads.  Oh and kangaroo tastes like beef.  We head back to Canada early next week so this will be our last post for this trip.

It has been a while, so this will be a somewhat longer post than normal.

From the Sunshine Coast we headed, with some trepidation, down the coast toward Sydney (which we decided not to visit on this trip). While a beautiful coast, it has a reputation as being more developed and less pleasant than the Sunshine Coast. Our first stop, Gold Coast, definitely lived up to that reputation with massive towers a couple of blocks back from the beach. The beach itself was beautiful but the town didn’t impress us (other than the curry place, very good).

Our next stop was Byron Bay, which means we had transitioned from Queensland to New South Wales. How to summarize? Byron Bay is different. I heard somebody compare it to Tofino in the sense of the hippy culture and the prevalence of various chemicals. Except it is warm.  There was a nice park and semi-secluded beach for walking though.

If you look really carefully through the mist you can see the lighthouse out on the point.

We continued south through Coffs Harbour, Port MacQuarie, and then Lake MacQuarie.   On the way down, we mainly saw some wild life.  Not too many pictures, but here are a couple.

 

Despite the name, Lake MacQuarie is actually more of an oversized lagoon – as we discovered when we discussed going swimming with some locals.  Evidently it is somewhat known for two things: sharks and blue-ringed octopi.  Neither is expected in a lake nor healthy to get bit by.  Still, a nice place and the B&B we were at was great.  We got to watch the lorikeets while sitting beside the (somewhat cool) pool.

From Lake MacQuarie, we headed around Sydney and into the Blue Mountains.  We landed at a nice inn/B&B in Katoomba.  Our original plan had been 3 days in Katoomba and then 3 days in Canberra but after two days in Katoomba, we decided we didn’t want to leave so we booked the extra three days and started look for more hikes.  Unfortunately, my personal favourite hike, National Pass, was closed due to the danger of rock falls, so we had to take several other walks.   Wentworth Falls was still a favourite area but we also spent some time in BlackHeath and Leura.  Liane figures that all the up and down we did should stand us in good stead when we get to skiing.

Here is the obligatory Three Sisters picture from the Blue Mountains:

We are now in Launceston, Tasmania and headed south-west toward Strahan.   More walking and maybe a day cruise in our future.

In the last entry, two weeks ago, I said we’d decided not to go to the Sunshine Coast. Well, the forecast changed so our plans did as well. I’d apologize, but writing this while sitting on a deck surrounded by palm trees might impact my sincerity.

We’ve been staying in the town of Mooloolaba about 100km north of Brisbane.  It’s basically a long beach backed by restaurants, cafes and hotels.  There are rocks in the picture below but most of the beach is very nice sand.

On most days, Liane hits the beach early morning and late afternoon. I frequently join her but occasionally just head straight for a cafe. Here is Liane in her element.

We took one day out to go to K’gari.  In the past, this gone through a few renamings but was most recently known as Fraser Island.  We spent most of the tour being driven around in a 4×4 tour bus but did get some swimming in at Lake MacKenzie and a guided walk through one of the rain forest sections.   The most noted wildlife on the island is the dingo but, unfortunately, it is mainly known for attacks on humans.  The signs to not discard food or in any way encourage contact are all over.

From here, we are getting another car and driving south through the Gold Coast and likely as far as Canberra but ending in Sydney.

You may have noticed a distinct lack of updates. Part of the reason for this is that I try to wait until I have some nice pictures before posting. For the last week, we’ve been living through some record setting storms on our drive down to Brisbane. Went to Rockhampton.  Rockhampton was hit by major rains shortly after we left.   As an aside, while there, I actually got to visit with a person I only know through video games – interesting world.   Nearby,  Bundaberg has had a bit more than a half metre of rain so far in October and is expecting more.   Half of that was in a period of about a day shortly after we passed through.  Sounds more like a snow report.   We spent a day in Agnes Water – two days later it was cut off due to flooded roads. Then on to Hervey Bay – I count myself lucky having not had to traverse any flooded roads on the way out.   Our stay in Peregian Beach consisted of staying in a very nice rental and catching up on our reading – too windy and rainy to go out most of the time.  Almost all of the beaches have been closed.  Normally these conditions don’t occur until much later in the season.  I guess we got lucky.

With the lack of pictures, I decided to post on some miscellaneous topics.

Driving

Driving on the “other” side has been going reasonably well but we have had a couple of exciting moments.  The worst of these came when I didn’t recognize that something was a roundabout and not a normal turn.  Fortunately, there was no other traffic around in that case.  I’ve also had a couple cases of confusing signage but I suspect the locals get caught by those as well.  Other than those, the main problem has been confusing the wiper control for the turn signals.  For some reason, Liane finds it hilarious.  Unfortunately, I recall the same problems last time I was here (both the control and Liane).

Place Names

You see all these wonderful long names here and wonder how to pronounce them.  I’ve finally concluded that the locals just don’t.  Everything gets shortened.  Rockhampton is Rocky.  Brisbane is Brissie (pronounced as “z”).  Bundaberg, yep Bundy.  Even Tasmania is Tassie.

Gambling

It is amazing how much of the advertising here seems to be targeted at the gambling market.   Melbourne Cup, a horse race and easily the biggest gambling event here, takes place in a couple of weeks so we’ve been seeing lots of signs for  restaurants hosting large events for it.  We stopped in a “Sports Club” when desperate for lunch one day and it was somewhere between casino and betting parlour.   Pokies (poker machines) are available in any small pub.  On average, adults lose $500 to these machines annually.  As somebody with no interest in it, I find it a bit disturbing.

Expedia

We’ve used the Expedia booking site for most of our hotels and transportation.  Have to say it has worked out very well.  On occasion we’ve walked into our accommodation and gone “Wow!”  Have to read the reviews and ratings but overall we are impressed.

We’re now pouring over weather forecasts and maps trying to figure out where we want to be next week.  The “Sunshine Coast” doesn’t currently look like the place to be.  Tasmania is a good possibility.  At least we’d get to use our cooler weather gear.

Obligatory picture here.  Canada has giant Nickels, Australia has the mega-Mango:

 

We headed north from Cairns along the Cook Highway to Port Douglas (Capt. James Cook really got around).  The real highlight of Port Douglas is the view of the coast as you drive up.

We also took some time to visit the Mossman Gorge and hike along the river.

After Port Douglas, we headed back south past Cairns to the Babinda Boulders park which is mainly known as a swimming hole but also has the really interesting “boulders” in the river itself.

From there we went to the Josephine Falls park for more walking and picture taking.

We actually didn’t swim at either of these swimming areas as we’d had a problem with leaches at Babinda on a prior trip and Josephine Falls also mentioned they might be an issue there are well.

We then travelled to Townsville, a relatively larger city a bit further down the coast.  As mentioned before, we aren’t much into cities but we did want to take the ferry out to Magnetic Island and do some hiking. While on the trail, we found ourselves being watched by a rather sleepy koala in the tree beside the trail.

Definitely a highlight of the first portion of the trip as we hadn’t seen a wild koala on our prior trips.  On a side note: our bus driver on the island grew up in Oak Bay.

We took today to rest and get some chores done while staying at a resort in Bowen.

On a final note, I get the occasional question about where we actually are. The blog lags by as much as a week but there is a map on the home page of the blog if you scroll down. I tend to keep that fairly up to day. I have noticed that I have to hit refresh in the browser to get the most up-to-date version.

We spent the last few days of our Iceland trip in Reykjavic itself. For both of us, some work had accumulated while we drove around the country and it could no longer wait.  In addition to our work though, we managed to hit a few restaurants, hit the big flea market, and take a walking tour.  Iceland seems to have had a less turbulent history than many other countries.  It is odd seeing the parliament and the prime minister’s office without any visible security.

A few points for others intending to visit Iceland

Expensive

As many have noted, Iceland is expensive.  Figure on 2-3 times what you’d expect to pay in Canada.  As mentioned before, eating at restaurants is particularly pricey and spending $200 a day for a person is not actually difficult to achieve if you always eat out.  Even taking care, you will exceed $100 a day by eating out.  If you eat out, you will likely be eating a lot of lamb and fish.  It is good though.

Food

As mentioned above, eating out is expensive.  Lots of hotels have kitchenettes and you can certainly cook meals for yourself while camping.  It helps keep prices down if you shop at the large grocery stores like Bonus, Kronan or Netto for your food instead of the smaller convenience stores in the tourist district.  However, don’t expect N.A. levels of selection in Iceland.  Iceland has a total population around 335,000 people – making it smaller than greater Victoria but more spread out.  What food we did see was good quality but there was little variety.  Liane wants me to add that Gluten Free was a challenge in Iceland.

Language

Don’t worry about it.  Half the staff working in tourism are foreigners and I suspect they are hired based on language skills.  Poland and Australia were particularly well represented.  Even the local Icelanders all had English ranging from adequate to fluent.

Money

Everything here goes on the credit card.   You get strange looks for using cash.  We did find some gas stations would not take one of our credit cards but the other cards worked just fine.

Driving

The drivers here are quite good.  The speeding fines are large so we didn’t find too many insane speeders like you see in N.A.   Like much of Europe, traffic circles are prevalent and you have to learn how to drive them but that just takes practice.  One issue here is distracted driving – I thought Victoria was bad for cell phone use while driving but Reykjavic is worse.  The only saving grace is that the drivers do seem a bit more aware of the issue and manage to pull themselves away from their call when needed.

Northern Lights

These are mostly a winter thing so don’t expect to see great displays here during anything close to the tourist season.  Face it, in summer it doesn’t even really get dark.  If you are here though when it gets dark, check the forecast at http://en.vedur.is/weather/forecasts/aurora/ to find out the best nights for viewing.

We’ve now left Iceland and landed in Cairns, Queensland, Australia.  So we went from volcanos and glaciers to palm trees and crocodiles.  At this point, we are focussed on recovering from our jet lag.

A couple of final pictures from Iceland. First, me at the Kerid crater late in the trip.

and then Liane with the Unknown Bureaucrat outside Reykjavic city hall.

After Sauðárkrókur, we headed back toward the geothermal area just inland from Reykjavic. Of particular interest was Geysir, the source of the word geyser, and the associated geyser Stokkur. Geysir is basically dormant at this time as the channels supporting it became blocked during an earthquake. It does erupt but usually only during earthquakes at this time. Stokkur is a few metres and away erupts quite reliably at least once every ten minutes or so. Unfortunately, I couldn’t catch any good photos of this but here is one that I got.

As you can see, it moves a fair amount of water.

From Geysir, we drove inland and explored some of the nearby parks and hiking areas.  However, the weather really wasn’t cooperating so we left after a couple of days to spend our final two days with the van exploring the peninsula north of Reykjavic.  Here are a couple of photos from that region.

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We then returned to Reykjavic and returned the camper to the agency.