Paco On Tour

Cairns (Fitzroy Island) & Perth

I had a “free” flight to Cairns, I had completed my first scuba-diving course in Brazil and there was the Great Barrier Reef beckoning – by reputation one of the better places to do some diving in the country and some say around the world.

I decided that a five day break in the itinerary was justified and it would be fun to go on a several day boat trip out to the Outer Reef – which is about 40-50 km from the coast itself – to get the best diving and an “unforgettable” experience as they say in the brochures. But the price was pretty unforgettable too and not being an expert diver by any stretch of the imagination and particularly the fact that this was not the best season for swimming here – visibility is down and it being the rainy season you are likely to get relatively bad weather anyway – I decided to go for a rather less glamorous option.

Cairns is really a costal-resort town without much else to it and I thought it would be nice to stay on an island off the coast, which also promised better scuba territory. I forgot my hard-learned lesson that pre-bookings are rarely a good idea since scouting once you are in a place almost inevitably yields better results. Throwing caution to the wind, I booked my six nights at Fitzroy Island together with a 3 day diving course and a couple of days of more dives. I found a place which was probably fine for a couple of days but became a little too cramped for so many. I did take it philosophically though and got my diary out and the many books I had bought in Melbourne – out of a sudden bookish spree there – and set down to some serious reading sessions.

The weather was better than I expected and by the end I was a nice reddish colour, a little in preparation for the following destinations, and the diving course was quite a bit of fun too. Swimming around here, even without much visibility, was very much like doing so inside an exotic fish tank. Lots of brightly coloured fish and extraordinary range of corals in orange, red, pink, blue or deep purple – quite a site. The food was not really up to Brazilian standard but alright. I did enjoy the time to myself though nothing to see on the island itself and not really that many people there either – it is really the low season around here – which meant that I had more than enough time to dedicate to my own thoughts, a little writing and a lot of reading, as I mentioned. Mostly travel writing in fact, including a very interesting and entertaining book on Brazil by an Australian author. I have started writing a few comments on the books I have read on the trip – you can find them at the bottom of the right hand column of the Blog.

Otherwise, it was a bit of a strange stay here. In a sense I could have been just about anywhere in the tropics and it might not have made a great difference, which is not really such a great feeling if you want to go out and discover. I suppose Australia has been a little bit like that though, not having had enough time to steep myself into the country at times it just felt like I was touching barely the surface of the places I visited. I have enjoyed it but rather in a more “holiday” rather than “traveler” sense – if you see what I mean – and I am rather looking forward to returning to the discovering part in South East Asia.

Before that, a quick visit to my cousin in Perth followed by a few days in Singapore. I reached the one-year mark of my trip here and that was a bit of an eye-opener in itself.

Perth was a great place. Much larger than I had imagined – at nearly 2 million inhabitants – and pretty remote, as far from Sydney as it is from Singapore. Fortunately, I once again had the pleasure of visiting family. Lucy, Alistair and the two children - Elliot I only 4 weeks old – came to live here only a few months before I set on the trip and looked very well settled in already.

Perth reminded me quite a bit of many of those cities with a Mediterranean setting and feel in Spain, Italy, California or the east coast of Australia itself. Here the most striking element is the thorough modern feel the city has, very little history to be perceived at all. There is apparently a high rate of immigration from South Africa and even quite a few incomers from England too. Wonderful gardens along the banks of one of the few rivers along the West coast, that bisects the city centre, and a surprising sprawl of urban area where everybody wants to live within almost walking distance to the sea, resulting in a city over 100 km long but only a few km deep it seemed. It all looks rather more like Lo Angeles than Barcelona really. Very dry, lots of bush and not all that much more around really – although I didn’t go out to explore too much, rather I took the opportunity to enjoy visiting family members, which I haven’t seen for quite a while now!, and the two lads especially.

Great fun with all of them and, of course, a nice big house in the suburbs – which seems to be almost more of a right around here than a privilege in this part of the world :-)

Stayed here for only three days and after a great rest said goodbye to Australia and set off to Singapore. Only a 5 hour flight away (short for your usual inter-continental flights) but quite a big difference with what I had seen before and my first entry into Asia – at least that I could remember!

Melbourne

I arrived in Melbourne, having catched a flight from Sydney - no time for the bus, and cheap air fares are quite easy to obtain between the two cities- after an hour and a half flight and not terribly sure what to expect. Whislt I had been in Sydney before, this was my first visit to Australia's second city. I had been told it was "more European" than Sydney - whatever that means - "Australia's culture capital", even "nicer people out here", not quite sure where that last one came from but I am sure it must have been from some Victorian (Melbourne's state is called Victoria). I headed straight to the most central YHA in town. I haven't bought a guidebook for Australia and accomodation is a little bit hit-and-miss without some kind of reference as to the choice and a short unbiased description . The weather unfortunately was not that great and I had a lot of writing to catch up on, especially for the Blog, and I was most adamant that I would do it before I left the city. Thankfully, Melbourne had a most beautiful and advanced City Library in the centre of downtown. This area felt very University-like, witha member of Faculties around it and many students flocking in and out at lunch time or after class.

One thing that did strike me was the very high number of people from Asian extraction. This was already the case in Sydney, but for some reason seemed higher here, although it is true that China Town was near :-) I also believed that there was a large Greek and generally Balkan presence in the city, althoug I did seem to be seeing more Italian restaurants than anything else. Then again I was not really in the mood to visit everything there was to see in a three day rush.

I just let the city present whatever there was time for and was more accessibl. Unfortunately (for my knowledge of the place) I did sit in the library for quite a few hours writing a little and also indulging in some leisurely reading, which I actually hadn't done - or at least felt the lack of - for some time.

I suppose the city did have a rather more 'European' feeling to it in a way, although in a rather sedate form somehow. It seems to extend over many square km and certianly doesn't have that more intense 'city' feel such as you can find in Sydney, for example. It reminded me more of Auckland than Wellington, if I may be permitted the comparison.

The river is one of the main arteries of town and some impressive parks and walkways have been built along it. As usual, I have not met many locals but rather foreigners travelling along - mostly English of course - which is nice enough, although a bit of a pity in a way. I have started to wonder if there is much point in these very short (3-4 day) visits to places and flying off to the next destination (a little island off Cairns coming up). In terms of actually getting to know a place and its people it is a little pointless, I could almost be anywhere. I certainly don't feel like my knowledge of Australia and its distinctive culture has been enhanced very much. When planning the trip, I knew I would have only a short a time to actually develop a "feel" for the place, but being here now I am actually rather surprised as how little that time has realy been. Perhaps the fact that there are, in essence, many similarities between the way of life here and that of Western Europe, say, means that it is rather harder to spot the more distinctive particularities. Bolivia, or even Brasil, do have a number of particuarly striking contrasts - as cultures and behavior - Australia far less, or at least that is what it seems to me...

I departed Melbourne after a "comfortable" three days. Having pretty much got the Blog up to date - finally! - and cut back my email backlog (apologies for all those extra-late replies!) to an acceptable level. Victor is doing a great job on the photography front and has almost finished uploading all photos until the second week in NZ, I still have to send him the next batch!

So I am off to Cairns, to check out the Great Barrier Reef for a few days, completing my scuba-diving training and then visiting my cousin Lucy at the beginning of March before flying off to Singapore on the 6th

Sydney

My departure from Christchurch - in the rain - would take me to my first destination in Australia, Sydney. The three and a half hour flight went without a hitch and upon landing I recalled vividly my previous arrival to this airport almost six years ago to the day, before the Olympics had been held here, and following an exhausting 24 hour flight from Brussels. This time round it was rather different, a couple of hours back to my watch - I am still in credit having lost the whole of 16 of January to some time hole - and entrance into the largest metropolis Down Under and boy do you notice it! After the relative tranquillity and sedateness of Kiwi cities this flamboyant virtual-capital of Oz was in full swing. Much more cosmopolitan than any city I had seen up to now, a myriad of nationalities and of course an important Asian community that, whilst somewhat present in Auckland, was quite a bit larger here.

Having spent almost a couple of weeks in the city visiting my cousin Jo in 1999 I was relatively familiar with the place, at least around the city centre, and enjoyed roaming around places I recalled, the Opera House - of course - but also the most scenic walk from Coogee Beach to Bondi Beach itself, on your way you cross what must be one of the best located cemeteries in the world with incredible views over the ocean. Narrowly missed a heavy storm that afternoon, which fell on the city just as I had boarded the bus that would take me to the city centre from Bondi.

This time round I stayed in the very pleasant neighbourhood of Glebe, just west of Darlinghurst Harbour, filled with expensive looking houses from the 1880s and 1890s but nevertheless with a rather bohemian feeling to it.

In fact Sydney still retains all the charms that enchanted me on my first visit. Dozens of beaches only a bus/bike/car ride away; great architecture and town planning together with the spice and colour that its varied population give it. Unfortunately I would miss the world famous Mardi Gras Festival by a couple of weeks (early March for that) but I could already imagine the great Gay Parade in full swing. The only other city that has evoked such desire to remain - for a long time that is - has been Rio (perhaps also Buenos Aires but for different reasons) - and coming here with Rio still fresh in my mind I could see why. But what struck me as well was the comparative orderliness and, of course, wealth to be found in Sydney that is not (cannot?) be present in Rio. The conspicuous wealth has probably become more noticeable now than when I visited back in 1999, the country has certainly boomed and Sydney would certainly be the place to see the results of that. As in all places with "extra" wealth it is sometimes difficult to keep the ‘charming spirit’, which might have existed in the first place. It might also be that travelling as a backpacker, it is well nigh impossible to enjoy some of the more expensive allures of the city - eating, shopping, shows, etc. - which do remain affordable in less wealthy countries, But of course, the same wealth necessary to enjoy these in Sydney would get you so much more in Brazil or Argentina. I don’t want to fall into the classic moan of the backpacker "but it was so much cheaper/better/fancier in…." it is simply a matter of observation of things that I didn’t realise before acquiring the experience I have now. Of course, having stayed with my cousin last time, it is certainly very different to be with somebody who knows the place - and can put you up - than alone in a city of these characteristics and the difference between both situations perhaps is more marked in the "first world" than elsewhere. In any case three and a half days can hardly do justice to Sydney, with variable weather and me wishing to have a dash of culture I found myself spending a lot of time in museums/libraries and bookshops simply browsing and enjoying those fleeting moments of intellectual discovery, which are not always so common out in nature J

Internet, surprisingly enough, was less common and more expensive than in New Zealand itself! It seems evident that the availability and price of public connections are inversely proportional to the wealth and private availability of such connection. A little like payphones and mobile phones I suppose. In any case, I have stopped looking - I knew New Zealand and Australia were going to be financial blips on my spending graph so I shouldn’t act surprised now! What I have found is a marked descent - in general - of the variety of nationalities I now encounter in hostels and elsewhere: A great percentage of English, the great majority in fact, a few Germans plus miscellaneous really, but no southern Europeans (incl. French) to speak of. Having said that I did hear Hungarian, Welsh, Icelandic and Serbian spoken by native speakers in my vicinity in a period of 36 hours, so freakish like that still happens!

I was a little sorry to leave Sydney so soon, but realised it is probably best visited with a few more dollars in your pocket and a little more time… I set off to Melbourne, from which I write this, where I will also be staying for little more than 3 days, at least time to have a quick look around in the second city of the country.