Driving from Melbourne to Sydney...

...in our beautiful new car. Well not quite new, a Toyota Corolla 2001 with 70,000 kms on the clock. But we are very proud of her. The beginnings of a beautiful friendship...


First stop was the famous Healesville Animal Sanctuary just out of Melbourne. We saw dingos and koalas and all kind of cute Aussie critters.




The highlight though was the bird show which was similar to the one we saw on Grouse Mountain with Keira, except with Australian birds. This owl was particularly beautiful and loved flighing so close over the heads of the audience that it left our hair up on end. The kestrel was an amazing catcher of food thrown into the air.



Then we visited Badger Weir, a tract of pristine forest.


We ovrnighted with Anne and David. Anne is Mike's sister's husband's sister if that makes sense. What a wonderful couple. They made us feel so welcome. David has a classic MG car which was great to explore.


Next day, we visited Philips Island, famous for its Fairy Penguins - the smallest penguin in the world.


The Silver Gulls posed nicely for the camera...



...as did Ally. Ah, cute! The coastline here was very impressive. So nice to be in a country again with big waves after the tranquil coastline of the UK.


Then we drove through a region famous for its enormous worms - the largest in the world. We read about them in Bill Bryson's book "Down Under" but didn't see any live ones. A local museum that we visited had some old photos showing their extraordinary length.



We saw this beautiful white kookabara. The all white form is quite rare apparently.


Thought provoking. Many parts of Australia are experiencing severe droughts at the moment and water is becoming a precious resource.


Came accross some beautiful pelicans on a river estuary and stopped to photograph them. The Australian Pelican offically has the longest bill in the world. Certainly is impressive.




Beautiful red and white cliffs in Ben Boyd National Park. The beaches went on for ever and the sand was pristine white.


This little cottage in the tiny town of Tilba up in the hills hosted a wonderful collection of Australian nature photographs. Inspiring.


We stopped for a night at Kiana - famous for its blowhole that can send surf 60 metres into the air on a stormy day. We didn't see it blow quite so high but impressive nevertheless, especially with its booming sound effects.



We saw these amazing parrots in the Royal National Park coming into Sidney. Very accomodating they were for portrait shots. They are very loving and spend hours nibbling and nuzzling their partners.

An exhibition of genius (Ally)

There is an exhibition of Leonardo de Vinci's machines in Melbourne at the moment. I was so thrilled to find Melbourne offering such an interesting exhibition and I knew we could not miss it.

Essentially the exhibition was about a family who had looked to the drawings made by Leonardo during his life (between 1452 – 1519) and created working models from those drawings – using the materials and methods of the time.

While I found the working models interesting, it was the BBC documentary about his life which blew me away.

I learnt that Leonardo was born illegitimate with no mother figure. Therefore, he received no formal education – only his explorations and observations of nature in Tuscany (which was to inspire him throughout his life). He stated that, “knowledge should be born of observation and experience.” Many scholars believe his very lack of education was a great strength - he did not know what he should know so was a free thinker (in the extreme it would seem).

He was a passionate and obsessive man who “wanted to know everything there was to know about everything” and he spent a lifetime studying biology, chemistry, geology, engineering, anatomy and painting – all the while inventing new and wonderful things.

He also made discoveries centuries ahead of his time. For example, he studied anatomy later in his life and did so by doing what had never been done before – he dissected and meticulously drew the internal workings of dead bodies. When dissecting an old man, he noted that his veins had grown thick and narrow whereas a young boy had clear veins. He deducted that something came out of the blood and attached itself to them. Apart from the word cholesterol, he had made a 20th century medical discovery.

He also concocted a recipe should you wish to dissect an eyeball. Boil the eyeball in the white of egg and it goes harder and therefore easier to cut. I wonder what he could have achieved with modern methods. His studies of the human body are the most extensive to date by any single individual.

He spent most of his life working for rich, vain and cruel men who were all trying to fight to keep their positions of power. The Renaissance was a time of great growth but the cost was huge conflict and uncertainty. Leonardo was a man of peace but his economic needs meant he had to use his engineering skills to invent all kinds of military weapons.

So he created the plans for a tank (a revolving wooden structure), a double hulled ship, bridges that could be assembled overnight, a robotic knight, the parachute, and an underwater breathing apparatus. He presented his ideas of men walking across the bottom of the Venician lagoon in diving suits to put holes in the Turkish ships to the Venician council. As the narrator of the documentary put it, “the idea has a James Bond touch even by today’s standards – he wondered what the 15thC council must have made of Leonardo’s idea.”

He was also the first to develop a perfectly to scale aerial map of a city. He did this by painstakingly pacing out the many streets himself. Maps with such accuracy would not be developed for many years.

In Florence he was in huge competition with Michelangelo. Leonardo was a gentleman with manners who had a certain idea of how things should be done. Whereas, Michelangelo was a slob (in the extreme, he did not wash for whole winters) and he had few manners. But he did what Leonardo struggled to do, he finished projects. Whereas Leonardo’s mind was constantly moving onto the next subject. He was not a Completer Finisher (pity they did not have the Adis team test in those days). Put a Completer Finisher and the Ideas person (of his standard) in a team leads one to wonder about what a different world this would have been if 300 years ago, we had had diving men, parachutes, the tank, hang-gliders and his medical discoveries.

His lifetime quest was to find a way for man to fly – he thought it would bring him fame – and indeed it would have if he could have actually tested his parachute and hang-glider. The BBC, using specialists, actually implemented several of his inventions and they all worked. Watching a man safely jump from 10,000 feet in a 15th century parachute was incredible.
The BBC narrator said that de Vinci was the world’s greatest ever genius – a genius who had the furthest reach of mind. Newton & Einstein were specialists whereas Leonardo wanted to know everything and he certainly applied his mind to a huge range. It made me really sad when in his notes he would ask, “what will it will all be worth?” And the answer (at the time) was nothing.

He notes were lost (indeed only about a quarter survive) and as none of his drawn models were built, no-one really appreciate his genius. In-fact, it was only when the Mona Lisa was “discovered” (he worked on it for about 20 years) and her secret smile that lead people to wonder about the man. Hence, the search and discovery of his notes scattered around the globe.


He left behind many beautiful paintings like the Mona Lisa and The Last Supper (he developed the oil painting technique, therefore changing painting techniques forever) and of-course his invention ideas. Although perhaps his ideas have been superseded, his paintings will always inspire as will his passion and sincere dedication to life and learning.
I couldn’t help but wonder what other Leonardo’s there are out there and hope in these days of the internet, their genius does not get lost or go unacknowledged.

I will be thinking about this exhibition for a long time to come. So in answer to his question, “what it is all worth?”: Inspiration is priceless.

Melbourne

We have arrived in Melbourne. A big contrast to relatively sleepy Perth. In fact, the CBD reminds me a little of London with its European architecture, streams of people spewing from the train station and plethora of cultural activities (there is a Picasso Exhibition, Leonardo Da Vinci inventions exhibition and international film festival on the go as we speak.)

We look forward to spending a few days exploring the city, suburbs and surrounds - and potentially buying a car to take us North.



To call Melbourners footie mad is a massive understatement. They live for the game - Australian Rules Football that is. The players are more famous and popular here than any celebrity star from "Neighbours" could ever hope to be. I went to see a game today, after learning the rules from a propaganda video that made fun of every other sport played and called footie all but the answer to world peace. I was quite prepared to hate the game. Instead I found myself loving it. Very fast and brutal at times, the players make enormous leaps into the sky and photographic opportunities abound - the ultimate test of a sport's metal when I happen to have my camera in the crowd.




Of course, I got into the spirit and had my face painted in the colour of the bulldogs - in friendly rivalry with my new found mate, Harold from Germany, who opted for the "Melbourne Demons" My team proceeded to get thrashed. Oh well.



The fans were a delight to watch - not quite as animated as Rio football fantatics but close. And they start the fans very young - I have never counted so many little kids wearing team hats with their cute little cheeks painted. This particular dad was most disappointed with the performance of The Bulldogs, as was junior!



I wondered what these pipes were for. I suspected they might belch flame like the ones at the Crowne Entertainment complex (see below). I stopped to photograph them (at a respectful sistance) at sunset when they suddenly started chiming - each pipe in a different tone. It sounded absolutely beautiful. It's little touches like this that make Melbourne very special.



We visited the Melbourne Botanical Gardens, situated very close to the CBD. Beautiful and tranquil and suprisingly, totally free.



The swans in Australia are black - unusual for swans. This fellow in the botanical gardens was very accommodating for photos. I think he wanted bread.



We also went for a lovely walk along the famous Yarra River, the Thames of Melbourne. The weather was beautiful, defying all the gloomy warnings we have had about Melbourne's icey chills. We'd better wait around to experience it before we get an overly sunny view of the city.



We watched Pirates of the Carribean (a really fun movie) at the Crowne City entertainment complex. As we walked out, the chimneys lining the river unexpectedly belched huge plumes of hot flame and we thought that we were in the midst of an enormous gas leak. Scary! Turned out this is firey performance is a nightly occurrence to scare the hell out of the tourists. It certainly was impressive.





Melbourne at Night
What a gorgeous place at night with all the buildings lit up. We had some great walks by the river.



And I had an adventurous frolic in the city fountain. Got a bit soaked but worth it for the photographic opportunities:



We had a re-union with Isaac who we met at Galapagos. His home town is Melbourne and it was great to get to see him. He gave us stacks of brilliant info on the city and also Australian wildlife (he is a zoologist by profession) and introduced us to the joys of Asian noodle soup. He was leaving the next day for Cambridge, UK (small world!) to write up a study he did in Georgia for the last two years. Amazing and inspiring guy.



Some nice photos taken by Ally when she visited the Melbourne beach. The bulging mouth is the entrance to the markets. A bit freaky!!

Fascinating facts about Australia

We have been re-reading Bill Bryson's fantastic (and hilarious) travel book about Australia called "Down Under" as well as "The Lonely Planet Australia."

Here are some of the fascinating facts we have gleaned:

GEOGRAPHY

• Australia is the only island that is also a continent and the only continent that is also a country.

• Australia's population is small by world standards - only about 20 million. China grows by a larger amount every year.

HISTORY

• It is conjectured that Aborigines arrived in Australia about 46,000 years ago, at a time of lower sea levels, during the ice age. They came via South East Asia and had to cross water passages at least 70 km's wide

• The first colonists from Europe nearly starved to death waiting for shipped in supplies rather than finding out what the indigenous population was eating.

• Several of the early European explorers were so convinced that they would encounter mighty river systems or even an inland sea that they took boats with them into the interior. Thomas Mitchell, who explored vast tracks of New South Whales and Victoria in the 1830's, dragged two wooden skiffs over 3000 miles of arid scrub without once getting them wet, but refused to the last to give them up.

• The gold rush of the 1850's marked the end of Australia as a penal colony and its beginning as a nation. In less than a decade, the country took in 600,000 new faces, more than doubling its population.

LANDMARKS

• When Sydney's city burghers decided to put a bridge across the harbour, they determinded to make it the longest bridge in the world. Stretching 1650 feet, it took almost 10 years to build. Just before it was completed in 1932, the Bayonne Bridge in New York quietly opened and was found to be 25 inches longer.

DANGEROUS CREATURES

• Five of Australia's creatures - the funnel web spider, box jellyfish, blue ringed octopus, paralysis tick and stone fish are the most lethal of their type in the world.

• Australia is home to 10 of the world's 15 most venomous snakes.

• Of Australia's 155 species of land snakes, 93 are venomous.

• The Australian Taipan is the most poisonous snake in the world with a lunge so swift and a venom so potent that your last mortal utterance is likely to be: "I say, is that a sn-"

GEOLOGY

• For the last 90 million years, Australia has been geologically comatose. It was too flat, warm and dry to attract glaciers, its crust to ancient and thick to be punctuated by volcanoes or folded into mountains. Under such conditons, no new soil is created and the old soil is leached of its goodness, making much of Australia's soil infertile.

• Ayer's Rock (Uluru) is the eroded stump of a mountain that 350 million years ago was the height of the Andes.

AMAZING CREATURES

• The largest roo that ever existed was the giant short-faced kangaroo, which lived during the Pleistocene era. It grew to heights of up to 3 m!

• The saltwater crocodile is the world's largest reptile - males can reach a staggering 6 m long

• One of the most common marsupials in Australia are nocturnal rat like creatures called antechinus. They live for only 11 months, the first 10 of which are spent eating and growing. Then their minds suddenly become obsessed with sex, so much so that they forget to eat and sleep. Instead, they gather in groups and try to woo passing females with serenading squeeks. By the end of August, just two weeks after reaching puberty - every male is dead, exhausted by sex, and by carrying around swollen testes.

• Marsupials are so energy efficient that they need to eat one-fifth less food than equivilent-sized placental mammals.

• Kangaroos hop because it is the most energy efficient way of getting around at medium speeds. The energy of the bounce is stored in the leg tendons, much like a pogo stick.

• Koalas eat gum leaves which are so toxic that they use 20% of their energy just detoxifying their food. They make up for this by having tiny brains (our human brains take up 20% of our energy.) Living in tree tops with so few predators means koalas can get by with few wits at all.

• So challenging are conditions in Australia that several of its birds (kookaburras, magpies and blue wrens toname a few) have developed a breeding system called "helpers at the nest" Young adults stay with their parents to help bring up new chicks.

• The dingo is thought to have been the world's first domesticated dog and the ancestor of all domestic dog breeds.

Snow in Ceres, Cape Town

We just got sent these lovely shots of the kids enjoying one of their first snow experiences. Tugs at my heart. Thanks mum!


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Videos from Uyuni Salt Pans

Haha, so much fun!

Perth

We are exploring Perth for a few days before heading to Melbourne, Sidney and Brisbane. It certainly is a lovely, laid back city with lots of rollerblading tracks along the river - a big boon in my book. We met up with Colin and Natalie who we met at Galapagos so great to see some friendly faces too - makes a big difference. King's Park is fantastic and apart from exploring suburbs, we are also managing to take in some sights.

Fair dinkum, mate, it's a roo! This little fellow at the Caversham Wildlife park just loved my ear!

Believe it or not, this little joey had emerged just minutes before from mum's pouch! Who would have thought that such a grown up youngster would still live at home! Wonder if mum will go through empty pouch syndrome when the joey finally decides to leave?



Also saw these two interesting characters at the park. The owl was a real charmer with its winking.



We love King's Park with its lush lawns and beautiful views of the city. The baobab trees (never knew they grew here in Austrlia too!) make us feel at home.





My new baby from Singapore. I've dreamed of getting a digital SLR for a long time. Only problem is it makes me feel like a beginner. You can take amazing shots if you get it right, awful if not. I refuse to use the automatic settings!!



Needless to say, I practiced with some of the local birds during our visit to King's Park. I particularly loved seeing this Galah (pink and grey cockatoo). There are lots of cockatoos and parrots here.







We met up with Colin and Natalie who we met at Galapagos. They invited us over to their house for one of the most delicious curries I have ever tasted, complimented with delicious local wine. So great to spend time with two such wonderful people.

Singapore

We passed through Singapore on our way to Perth. An amazing city with skyscrapers that literally seem to scrape the sky. We only had a day to expore the city and spent a fair amount of that shopping for electronics which are just incredibly cheap here (well relatively speaking anyway).

Of course, the one thing that strikes you immediately about Singapore is just how clean and organised the city is. As a result, it has been labelled by some as a little "souless" - although personally, after the helter skelter of some of the wilder South American cities, it was a pleasant breather. You certainly feel very safe and carrying your camera around is no problem - though ironically, we took very few photos!

One of the reasons for Singapore's orderliness is many years of strict rules and regulations. In fact, you can be fined for practically anything... no spitting..$20 no skateboarding..$40 no cigarette butts..$50 no gum chewing...$60 no farting..$70. In tourist shops, they even sell drinking mugs with the rules on them. There are posters prominently displayed telling people what to do and not to do.

We went to a bar with an amazing view of the city by night. Beautiful.




It was great to meet up with Ally's cousin, Lianne, who is an air hostess for Quantus (London to Singapore route) and luckily was there the same time as us.



The Merlion statue is a favorite among visitors. Part-fish, part lion, the Merlion, situated at the mouth of the Singapore River is a fitting icon of Singapore since legend says it was near here that Indonesian Prince Sang Nila Utama first glimpsed the "Singa", or lion that gives Singapore its name.

Special connections (2006)

Trip

• Doug & Claudia
• Russell
• Letter to Pantanol guide
• Survivor essay for Russell
• Girls in Torres del Paine
• Via blog: Caroline, Carleen, Charlie, Keri, Keira, Robyn, Russell, Tony

Family tributes on blog

• Dad memories and letter on blog
• Mum and Jo memories on blog

Ally

• Ally's delight in Manly big bubble bath
• Red dress
• Supporting Ally in Australia (on a high)

Australia

• Doug and Claudia
• Glen and Carleen (Brisbane)
• Dr Cosgrove