Breakfast in Tokyo, Lunch in Cape Town & Dinner in Medellín

For the last 5 days I have been on a safari in Kruger park and I’ve taken about 400 pictures/videos in that time. I’ll start at the beginning, this may take a while.

My safari was not within the national park, but in a couple different game reserves bordering the park on it’s Western edge. The only difference between the park and the reserves is one is govt run, the others privately owned and managed. There are no fences and the wildlife is free to move about to wherever it wants. The reason I chose a private reserve safari instead of the park was A, no mobs of other tourists around, and B, me and my small group would have 2 professional guides taking us around for the time period. I also chose a camping safari instead of going to one of the lodges, since the price tag for these is very high (by camping I was able to stay in the park twice as long for the same $$$).

My 4 night/5 day safari started with me getting up at 4:00 in the morning for the bus pickup taking me to the reserve. (after it went to Joburg to pick up the rest of my group, why is my hostel always the first pickup location!?) It’s about a 6 hour drive to the park from here, which is in the far East of South Africa, bordering Mozambique. That drive time was spent sleeping, or trying to anyway.
Once we arrived there we stopped at a bush pub just outside the reserve to meetup with out guides and have lunch. The rest of my group were, remarkably, all Norwegians! Two separate groups of them, all together we were 8 + the 2 guides.

After lunch we drove into the reserve and to the camp, I wasn’t really expecting much from this but since it’s through the reserve the whole way it’s essentially just a viewing drive that gets you where you’re going. We saw impala pretty much straight away, the novelty of that wore off by the evening though, there’s lots of impala around.

Then we came across a large herd of buffalo crossing the road, the first “big 5” sighting. These guys are quite different looking than the North American “buffalo”.(the term “big 5” was invented by the hunters originally as the 5 most dangerous animals to hunt, now it’s basically just a marketing term for the tourism industry. the big 5 are: Lion, Elephant, Rhino, Buffalo and Leopard.)

After that, when we were getting pretty close to the camp we suddenly rounded a corner and there were a group of elephants. Females with young, we startled them as much as they startled us and one of the females was trumpeting and being aggressive towards us. Needless to say we drove off pretty quickly.

We soon arrived at camp, already very happy about already seeing 2 of the big five on the afternoon of day 1. Camp was large, very nice tents on wooden platforms off the ground. Solar power was the only power except for the gas heating the water for the showers. Nice spot.

Next on the agenda was the sundown/night drive. Starting about an hour and a half before sunset, stopping for sundowner drinks, and concluding with a 2 hour drive after dark. Lots more impala were around, and then just before we stopped for drinks we saw another elephant. This one was a male by himself, and much more placid than the earlier group.

The last part of the day was the night drive. Essentially driving around in the very cold night looking for animals. One guide driving, the other sitting on the lookout seat on front of the landrover with a spot light, shining it from side to side looking for the animals that are only active (or more active) at night. Top of the list being the cats, and I don’t mean household pets. First sighting was a Caracal, a small wildcat similar to the Lynx and apparently very rare to see. The the best moment of the already awesome day, nearing the end of the drive we saw a Lion. A solitary male Lion, who walked along side the vehicle a little, about 5 meters away, then stopped to look at us before walking off and disappearing into the bush. Taking pictures after dark is next to impossible in these circumstances, I tried my luck with videos. (I can’t embed the videos from youtube here or it messes up my formating so just click the link)

Technically May 16th was the longest day of my life so far. The flight from Sydney to Johannesburg is 14 hours and there’s an 8 hour time difference between them. That works out to mean that I spent 14 hours in flight and arrived 6 hours after I left.

Once I got to the airport in Sydney I stood in just about the longest checkin queue I have ever had to queue in for more than 30 minutes. When I finally got up to the counter everything got much better though, I had been randomly selected to be upgraded to business class since economy was overbooked! I’ve never been in business class before and it could not have come at a better time. The food is actually good, the seats recline almost horizontally and I had 40+ films and loads more tv shows to choose from on my personal tv. Managed a bit of sleep, and never really got bored, it didn’t seem like 14 hours that’s for sure.

Entry into South Africa was the easiest for any country so far, there was no entry card to fill out and the only question I was asked was where I had flown in from before my passport was stamped and I was waived through. From the airport I was met by a driver from my hostel in Pretoria, a 45 minute drive. That trip cost me less than the 10 minute shuttle to Sydney airport. You may be wondering why I’m in Pretoria if I flew into Joburg, but I got so many comments from people telling me to leave Joburg as soon as possible I just decided to bypass staying there at all, I may do a day tour there from Pretoria on the day after I return from my safari to see the sights there. Once I arrived at my hostel, which is in a quiet mostly residential area I went down the road to restaurant/pub on the corner for dinner. The place was packed full of white South Africans very passionately watching a local rugby game. The food there was centered around steaks, in many many shapes and sizes (they like their meat here). My very large grilled steak came with chips and a beer and cost me $7USD, hallelujah I can afford to eat out again! After that I went back to my hostel exhausted and went to bed.

Next day, after confirming my safari trip the following day to Kruger NP and being briefed on which areas around Pretoria were safe for me to walk in/go to and which weren’t, I went out and got some stuff I needed for the safari trip in a nearby suburb complete with a small shopping mall and a Sunday morning flea market. Pretoria is the administrative capital of the country so in the afternoon I checked out the Union buildings (headquarters of the South African govt) and their grounds.

One thing that features above most others when people talk of South Africa is crime and it is evident that people take lots of precautions against this. My hostel is walled in with an electric fence on top of the brick wall, only way to get in is with a code at the main gate.

There’s also a night security guard on duty. I’ve never stayed anywhere with such things before. What’s strange is, the whole street is lined with nice looking houses, walled in and with either razor wire or electric fences atop the walls. There’s loads of streets like this in the suburbs here.

People driving around in bmws, audis, mercedes etc and barbed wire surrounding their houses. Perhaps the weirdest thing about it is it doesn’t feel unsafe in this area during the day, a nice middleclass/upper middle class tree lined residential street with electric fences and razor wire. At night it’s a different place.

On a lighter note, I have elephant and rhino paper money now. That is just cool.

In the morning I’m off to the land of the elephants and rhinos for a 4 night guided driving/walking safari in Kruger national park. There will be no electricity for the duration of that time so I’ll blog next when I get back.

Today I’m flying to South Africa and it feels like I’m starting my trip all over again from the beginning. I’ve been in Australia for so long that even though I’ve been traveling around and seeing stuff recently the country itself has grown very familiar to me, to the point where just being here in itself is not exciting anymore. I can’t wait to be in South Africa, a new country, culture and continent for me. The only thing I’m not looking forward to is the flight there, 14 hours long, 4 hours longer than any previous flight I’ve taken in my life, and it’s through the middle of the day. I have armed myself with some Bill Bryson reading material, a fully charged iPod and I’m hoping Qantas has some good in flight movies. The fact that I could watch 4 full length films and still only be just over halfway done with the flight is not something I want to dwell on.

I’ve been in Oz for 5 months and here’s my quick review.
My favourite city here is Melbourne, except on the 46 degree days, I could live there.
Snorkeling on the Ningaloo and GB reefs was amazing, a whole new world to me and probably my #1 memory from my stay.
Queensland is awesome, the beaches, the rainforest, the reef…
Tasmania is also beautiful, in different ways, just colder.
I tried to pick a favourite beach but I couldn’t, there were contenders from all the states I’ve been in here..

and one last thing I have just discovered…

SYDNEY IS FREAKING COLD IN MAY!!!

signing off from Australia

Thursday was my last day in Cairns and the original plan was to be spending it getting stuff sorted for South Africa but because of my reef trip fiasco I had another day trip to do. The weather was gorgeous, the first time on any of my reef visits, making for some great views at the michaelmas cay where the boat went.

This was by far the largest and nicest boat I’ve seen the reef on, with a fancy buffet lunch and wine included and the boat was only half full with 50 people on it. There were a couple other boats at the same reef section but for the most part I wasn’t crowded by other snorkelers, some people go all the way out there and settle for glass bottom boat viewing, I spent as much time snorkeling either side of lunch as possible.

Despite everything I’d heard about the disappointing state of the reef near Cairns, at least the part I saw was nice. Hardly any obvious fin damage and what there was was in the very shallow bit near the beach. Loads of cool corals and fish, I saw an octopus, first time for that, and while I was taking a closer look at it and turtle swam no more than a meter away from me! This was incredible to me since the water was so busy in this section, I figured all the larger stuff would be scared off but this turtle let me swim with him for at least 10 minutes, as he went down into various coral formations looking for food and then surfacing for air before disappearing into the distance, those guys can move fast when they want to. It was the largest sea turtle I’ve seen yet and I’ve been really lucky to see as many of them as I have.

I arrived back in Cairns at sunset, exhausted, sore all over after spending so much time on the go this week after a great boat ride back and fantastic day out. This week has been beyond great, including the white water rafting, rainforest and two reef snorkels in 4 days, a fantastic way to finish up my time in Australia. I fixed dinner at the hostel, and ended up spending the better part of the evening hanging out with some other guest there, after so long of not wanting to be around the main backpacker crowd it was really refreshing to meet some other like minded people. Eventually I retreated to the formalities of packing for my flight the next day and booking a room in South Africa for my arrival date. I still only have a basic plan for South Africa and at this point I see it changing the whole time I’m there, I just need to pick a safari to do, there are just too many great sounding ones possible!

Just under 4 months until my rtw ticket is up, I’ve been on the road for over 9 months now and this is the end of this leg of the trip, I’m highly anticipating the next one, bring on South Africa!

My last few days in Australia have been hectic, fast paced and awesome.  I’ll start at the beginning…

Monday morning, still on a high from the previous days rafting trip I left Cairns for Cape Tribulation, which is home to apparently the oldest surviving rainforest on the planet, the Daintree, and with the great barrier reef not far off shore.  The tourist term is “where the rainforest meets the reef”.  Stunningly beautiful would be a good description.  Crocs, sharks, jellyfish, massive spiders, snakes, this area has it all!  My tour on the way North stopped at a few worthwhile locations but the rainforest around Cape Tribulation beats the rest hands down.  The fact that it rained all day, very heavily for most of it couldn’t even conceal that. My hostel at the cape was made up of little cabins surrounded by rainforest, very close to the beach with nothing else anywhere near.

I was supposed to go on a snorkeling trip to the reef on Tuesday, but when I called the day before to confirm they informed me that the boat I was booked on was out of the water for repairs this week.  There was one other local fast boat doing half day trips to the reef but the agency I booked with didn’t deal with them so they offered to put me on a boat out of Cairns when I was back there.  Despite the fact that it was a nicer boat, with more stuff included I only reluctantly accepted knowing that trying to get my money back would not be nearly worth the hassle.  I didn’t really want to see the reef around Cairns with all the stories of overcrowded trips and damaged coral, more on that later.

I decided to go on the local boat the next morning so I could still see the reef in Cape Trib, and it’s nice up there.  Saw a couple turtles, and swam with one of them for a while, the visibility in the water was great and the reef there is home to a massive group of clams.  Massive in the sense that these clams are larger than me, I didn’t know such things existed.

In the afternoon once I returned from the reef the weather had cleared off somewhat so I walked around Cape Trib beach.

My last day I did a hike along beaches and through the rainforest to a water hole in one of the rivers, such an awesome place.  Surrounded by rainforest, the water wasn’t even cold and it was too far upstream for the crocs to be.  Beautiful swimming spot, this area is amazing!

Later that day on my tour back to Cairns we stopped for a Daintree river cruise to try and see some crocs, just finding one female, only about 1 1/2 meters long.  No sign of the 6 meter dominant male that lives on the river, I can’t really imagine a crocodile that big…

My 2nd overnight bus in as many days went better than the first one, though this is mainly because I was so tired from not sleeping on the first one that I would have slept anywhere. I arrived in Cairns at 6:30 in the morning and was greeted by rain, dry season my ass. I basically spent the rest of the day either reading my recently purchased book on South Africa, figuring out various travel details for the rest of the trip and just getting things done that need to be done before I leave Australia.

Next morning I was up at 5:30 (before a few other people at my hostel here had gone to bed…) for my pickup to go rafting on the Tully river, I’m actually used to early mornings now. This river is grades 3 and 4, compared to my only previous experience with rafting in New Zealand where it was grade 4-5. However, this was a far better rafting day, and I loved the NZ one.

We were rafting for about 5 hours in total, with a lunch break in the middle, it rained on and off but rafting through the rainforest is actually one thing where the rain didn’t affect the enjoyment. We started on the easier grade 3 section of the river, the on to the grade 4 section. It was all great, especially the grade 4 stuff in the afternoon. The biggest improvement over the previous time I rafted was the sheer amount of rapids we went through. Last time there were a handful of big rapids (maybe 5 or so if I recall correctly), on the Tully there were probably 10 or so of the grade 4 rapids and an equal amount of the grade 3 stuff in the morning, the river was running high due to the recent rainfall making it even better. Also the environment you’re rafting in is awesome, ancient rainforest with various butterflies and birds flying by the rafts and passing quite a few nice cliffs and waterfalls along the rivers edge, it being a wet misty day added to the atmosphere.

Here’s a nice photo sequence..

The Chilean guide who was in my raft was fantastic, and the group on my raft was able to follow instructions well, thus avoiding getting stuck places and making the experience all the more fun. (one raft had terrible time following basic instructions like ‘move left’ or ‘forward paddle’, quite amusingly to the rest of us) Several other things that didn’t happen in New Zealand, we went for swims at various places in the river (it not being cold), including jumping in of 5m high rocks and floating in the water through some minor white water, went through a couple rapids in more interesting than the usual ways (such as doing a 360 spin going through) and, at the end of one of the last rapids our raft flipped upside down dumping us out (this was premeditated by our guide). Being in the water was almost as much fun as being in the raft, for short periods anyway ;)

I now have 5 days left in Australia, the next 3 of them will by around Cape Tribulation in the rain forest, after that I have a day in Cairns to sort out anything I haven’t done yet before flying to Sydney for my last night here and my flight the morning after to Jo-burg.

I arrived in the tiny settlements of Agnes Waters and 1770 during a downpour of rain, thankfully my hostel was across the road from the bus stop, I still got soaked however. My only reason for stopping here was to take my first day trip out to the great barrier reef, unfortunately there were high winds out at sea so the boats weren’t running any trips the day I was supposed to go, or the next day. I decided to wait the 2 extra days instead of canceling. The only problem with that is these towns are tiny, just one small supermarket, a couple restaurants, another shop and some tourist offices in addition to the hostels and resorts here. Nothing to go do except chill on the beach or at the hostel. Fortunately the hostel was a good one, and they put on good movies in the lounge at night, something to keep me from going insane. They also had a French chef backpacker staying there cooking $5 meals every night!

When I finally got to go out to the reef the ocean was still not calm, just not rough like the previous days, lets just say after the 2 1/2 hours it required to get to the reef no one on the boat was feeling too good except possibly the crew. The site we went to was just off this coral island, not a bad site.

The reef, or the bit I snorkeled on anyway, looked pretty similar to the Ningaloo reef out in WA I snorkeled the other week, some more colourful corals and some different fish but overall similar. (They both look like reefs!) I saw a couple sea turtles from the boat surface for air but none while I was in the water, and no sharks this time. I did find nemo, and a bunch of his friends though. Cool stuff. I don’t have underwater pictures since this boat didn’t have a photographer with us. Reefs are awesome, just laying there floating in the water and looking at stuff, never really gets boring, some new school of fish will appear or you spot cool different coral!

The boat ride back was slightly faster then the way out, but with a higher swell. Meaning more holding on and more getting wet. The weather wasn’t particularly sunny or warm either so by the time we got back to shore, around sunset, everyone was pretty cold and wet. I had just enough time once I got back to the hostel to have a shower and get the hostel dinner before I had to catch my night bus. The bus ride was 9 hours, I arrived at Airlie beach at 6:30 in the morning and had the whole day there before my next night bus that night, onto Cairns, the result of me staying an extra night in Agnes Waters waiting to go to the reef. It rained on and off the whole day, making me glad I didn’t book a Whitsundays sailing trip, it would’ve been miserable. As it was I just had a day to kill trying to stay dry, but firmly on dry land.

Perfect day for a island sailing adventure eh?

I only have 8 days left in Australia now and the good weather seems to have deserted me. Since I left Noosa it has been unpredictable and fast changing, I’m hoping it sorts itself out for some nice warm sunny days once I’m in Cairns and the rainforest, I’m firmly in the tropics now and todays British weather is not very tropical! I’ve got 3 major stops left here before I go to South Africa, how time flies!

I saw the sunrise on my way to the bus station leaving Brisbane, I’ve been seeing an awful lot of those lately. The bus was to Noosa, where the Noosa river comes to the ocean, with the everglades along the river. It’s also surrounded by great beaches and great coastline. I just had one day here, hence the early bus, and the weather was perfect for it. Walking through the national park here reminded me of the Abel Tasman park in NZ somewhat, great beaches, secluded coves, not many people around, hiking through natural bush…

The next morning I left Noosa and got on another bus for 5 hours, up to Hervey Bay, springboard for my Fraser Island trip. The trip I booked for Fraser Island was for a guided tour of 2 days, 1 night on the island. I was picked up from my hostel at 7:00 (after seeing another sunrise, I’m almost used to this now) and instead of taking the ferry from Hervey Bay to Fraser Island we drove an hour and a half South to Rainbow Beach to pickup more people and took the ferry to the other end of the island from there. This wasn’t ideal because we weren’t on the island until around 9:30, on a 2 day schedule time is short and I would’ve probably booked a different tour that actually took the ferry in Hervey Bay if I would have realized this.

The reason I booked with the company I did, was because they promised groups of 14 people maximum (instead of the 40 many companies say), and in reality our group only had 7 people in it. The weather was cloudy and wet when we arrived on the island, where that came from I have no idea, but it cleared off somewhat as the day went on. There are no real roads on Fraser Island, just tracks through the sand (the island is the largest sand island on earth). So to get up and down the island you drive on the beaches and to get across you drive these sand tracks through the bush and sub tropical rainforest. We walked through some of this rain forest, more interesting than the temperate stuff I’ve been seeing for a while now but it’s still not real tropical rainforest, I have to wait another week for that…

You can’t swim in the ocean around Fraser because it’s a breeding ground for tiger sharks, for swimming options you have to head inland on the island to the lakes. The lakes are all freshwater, some fed by the water table underneath the island and some fed by rainfall. The one we stopped at, Lake Makenzie, is fed by rainfall, surrounded by superfine white sand and has vivid blue colours in it. Not too cold either, pretty nice…

The 2nd day on the island we saw the Indian head lookout, some different coloured sand formations and many freshwater streams running into the sea. The weather had cleared off overnight and was a warm sunny day, making everything look much nicer.

The downside of being able to drive up and down the beach is, everyone is driving up and down the beach. This isn’t even peak season here yet either. There’s just something about seeing tyre tracks all over the beach with jeeps coming and going that takes away from the island experience, there’s also a fair few tour groups and due to either tide levels or poor planning (or the tour drivers want to stand around and talk to each other, my bet).

I wont be recommending the company I went with to anyone, mainly because I wasn’t too thrilled with the guide and the departure, although I don’t think, from what I saw of them, the other tour companies would’ve been much better. The best way to see this island would be in your own 4×4 (not crammed in with 10 other people like the backpacker “self drive tours”), but for those of us with no experience driving in such conditions the options aren’t that many. The island’s cool, a lot bigger than I though it was though. An extra day would’ve been ideal to see more of the lakes and sand dunes, and some magical powers to make the bus loads of people vanish into the air.

Next stop, Great Barrier Reef!

I’ve spent 2 nights (couchsurfing) in Brisbane. Several people have told me not to bother stopping here, but just like Adelaide I had to at least give it a couple days. Although in the end it probably does end up as my least favourite Australian city (except Hobart but that doesn’t really count as a city in my opinion), the problem I have with Brisbane isn’t that it’s a bad place, it just doesn’t stand out in any real way from other cities. It looks very North American with lots of tall buildings etc, there’s some nice areas and it wouldn’t be a bad place to live, it just doesn’t offer much for the traveler. Especially the traveler not spending any money, I think I have spent about $20 in my 2 days, most that on stuff for the next few days.

In my wanderings around the city, I went to the Southbank of the river, home of a giant sightseeing wheel which every city seems to want now (I really don’t see the point in places like this, London can justify it with the view, Brisbane or Melbourne give me a break). But the most interesting (read: hilarious) thing there was the man made beach. Complete with palm trees and, lifeguards. Signs up everywhere saying danger, despite the fact that the majority of it is basically a wading pool with sand. I’ve never seen anything quite like it before really.

I leave here in the morning, heading North to Noosa and the sunshine coast. I have 17 days left in Australia and most of them are already planned, this will be the fastest paced part of my Australian trip so far!

It took me until my 3rd day in Byron Bay to actually go see anything other than walking down to the beach in darkness my first night here. First I went didjeridoo shopping (so much fun trying out all of them in the shop) as requested for a couple people in America. I love spending other peoples money on cool stuff, especially after spending so much of mine the day before! After that I went to the beaches, at least a couple of them.

Pretty much standard Australian beaches, not the best I’ve seen by any stretch but there was plenty going on there. I went for a brief swim, despite the fact that by looking at it I could tell it wasn’t going to be nearly as nice as the Indian Ocean was. I wasn’t wrong, and I headed up to Cape Byron by the lighthouse for the sunset instead.

I like Byron, it’s a shame I spent most of my time here avoiding spending money on any daily stuff and booking all my tours. The town is full of cool cafes, restaurants, artistic souvenir shops, street performers, surfers, scuba divers and people in camper vans. It’s got a great atmosphere, an awesome place to chill out. Unfortunately I’ve only been doing that in the evenings, I wish I was stopping here for my last couple nights to relax after this whirlwind tour ahead of me… I have to settle for Cairns, not exactly ideal for that.

Speaking of the ever longer evenings, the time I gave for sunset yesterday may have been off a bit. Today the sun set around 5. That’s right, 5pm. Also, since the nights are long now it’s cold during them, last night it got down to 10 degrees (50 for you Americans) I had to actually use my jumper, something I hadn’t anticipated anywhere along here. The days are still warm and sunny and the locals here delight in telling people that this is winter here. The worst thing about the early sunset is so much less time to do/see stuff. Glad I’m heading North to Brisbane tomorrow, I’m sure the sun wont be up much later there but every time I head North it will improve slightly. I’ll have my first experience with the Australian Greyhound buses tomorrow morning, I’m very impressed with their service over the phone and how easy it was to setup travel dates on the website, lets hope the buses themselves live up to those standards.