Here we are another season starts which is now number three for me and its going to be a ripper but more about that a little later. Wanted to start this entry with a little bit about that I've been up to since you last read my long winded blog about my little life. Like my last blog www.absoluteantarctica.blogspot.com i will be adding LOTS of useless information, pictures, video and links for you to look at or not.
Well after arriving back in Hobart on April the 16th 2011 I spent a couple weeks there just easing my way back into society. I find that the sudden change of pace can be a little daunting at times and spending the time in Hobart helps I think. Moreover acclimatizing to Hobart weather before heading back North to the heat of the Gold Coast is a little more comfortable.
After finally arriving home back on the Gold Coast on the Saturday the 30th April just in time for Mothers Day as those of you who know me i am a mummy's boy! Was nice being home with the one exception that for the second season in a row my house had been water damaged! NOT HAPPY anyway enough about that.
After starting to deal with getting the claim started and catching up with a some friends it was June and the beginning of a the next part of my adventure in a Dwarf Minki whale tour was just around the corner. In last years blog some of you might remember a good friend of mine Rowdy aka Cliff. Well last year he embarked on a journey to swim with them and after seeing him on the Sunday Night program HERE and talking to him at length while at Casey last year i decided i had to go and do it.
Originally Cliff and another mate Tim was to be coming with me, but Cliff got a winter at Davis so his time at Casey was cut short and is currently still there. So it was just me and my father a car a a couple thousand kilometers. Being very time rich i though we would be able to make it into a bit of a road trip.
First stop was Gin Gin and some absolutely incredible cooking from a good family friend.
Karin's house in Gin Gin.
No i don't really look impressed do i but i was just itching for the most incredible duck that Karin had cooked!!!
Next stop was Rubyvale and an attempt to find some accommodation. Well there was a little problem there as we had decided to go in school holidays and Rubyvale was a little booked out. Having gone everywhere looking for accommodation we ended up heading back to Emerald with out tail between our legs for the night.
After a night there and a little Internet surfing on my behalf i had a new plan. The Willows was a fossicking site that i found by chance and after a couple calls in the morning we found there was accommodation there and when we arrived it felt like we had stepped back in time, back to the 1970's. Very small town with nothing other than 2 caravan parks and 50 or so houses and that's it and i do mean it. We got a self contained flat and then needed to get some food and as there was nothing in town, back to Rubyvale we go.
So after three days of fossicking this is some of what we had found.
Showing how it is done..........
Well small i know but bigger ones to come.
Here they are the biggens.............
But not having shops in Willows meant that we had to keep on going to Rubyvale to get food and after 3 nights it was time to move on.
I had decided that as both Dad and myself had done this route before together and not having any real time constraints we were going to take any road that we hadn't before. Where ever we could we would take B grade roads and dirt over them.
Leaving Willows.....
I wanted to show Dad Dysart as i had worked out of there so there was our next stop and back through Rubyvale to head out to Dysart. Along the way i snapped a couple for you...
A Dragline at Peck Downs i think. I took this pic from the road and really doesn't do the actually size justice of how bloody big it really is.
Here is a bucket from a dragline to give you some perspective on how big they really are. Kinda cheated a little bit on the first pic as it was taken with a fish eye lens.
Same thing with these dumpies they are a little bigger than you think. Id say they are about 250t dump trucks that look like ants on that hill....
Some time a little later on the road we was this...
A Cat 789C, well the chassy of one anyway...............................
Some sort of bird feasting on the road kill on the side of the road.
Same birdy...........
Nice little creek we stopped at to take a pic of.......................dont aske me where!!!
From where that pic was taken it was 15km to the trees you can see at the end is 15km.
So that was a mammoth days driving over some very ordinary roads as you can see all dirt roads as you can see from the above pic but we eventually made it into Charters Towers for a stop over before we made it to Mt Surprise for some more fissicking. This time for some Topaz and rather than a wet style it was dry but definitely harder than Emerald fossicking. No pics of the ones we got but we did get some of what it looked like.
So enough digging, it was time for us to be making our way to Cairns for a night and dinner with Mark and Charmy. Charmane is a friend from my first season down south. We had been in Antarctica for a couple days/weeks and she informed me that I knew her ex husband...........Mark. Now Mark and me we good mates at school...............what a spin out huh. Unreal dinner but it was time to get up to Port Douglas and the while purpose of this trip those Dwarf Minki Whales.
So we get down to the wharf and find the boat organize our stuff and we had a bit of time to kill so we went to a coffee shop overlooking the wharfs and relaxed. Sitting there drinking coffee and relaxing and i see this guy walk past that looked familiar. Steve a friend from my first season down south was in town on holidays from Sydney. What a spin out but neither of us had too much time as we were about to get onto the boat so we planned to catch up when i got back into town.
SO MINKI MINKI MINK time!!!!!
ABSOLUTELY INCREDIBLE
The tour was run my a lad by the name of John Rummey and with the cooperation of the Dr Alastair Birtles (James Cook University) they conduct a unique experience of lifetime. Johns web site of your interested in finding out more is http://www.marineencounters.com.au/index.htm .Eco tourism at its best and can HIGHLY recommend it to anyone who wants a unique experience.
More about Alastair and John can be found HERE too..............
John and his lovely wife meet us at the ship and the journey was about to begin.
Elizabeth EII and her wicked crew.................
Chillaxing...................its a tuff life.
Here we are on the line............what they do is through a line out the back of the boat and you hang onto it and while at anchor or drifting the Dwarf Minki Whales come to you. If you look close you can see a Minki at the end of the line with his/her mouth just out of the water. One of the days we were in the water for 7 hours and 38 different Whales were doing circle work around us. Unlike Whale Sharks where you get dropped into the water in front of them, then they swim past. Minki Whales are very curious and actively seek interaction with us. Sometimes they come sooooooooooo close that you can see the most amazing patterns and swirls on their skin. A holy experience...............
See the white marks on the Minki................that is caused from a Cookiecutter Shark and ugly looking creatures that only a mother could love!! Some Minkis have hundreds of these holes on them. It doesn't harm them and it can take up to 7 years for them to heal from what i understand!
Cheeky little fish wouldn't leave us alone while we were on the line.............
Here is one of the fins on the side which is where many features can be found to identify individuals just from the swirls dark patches and marks. The markings on the left are different to right and with a keen eye Alastair was able to identify many he has seen in the years previous.
Drinks on Lizard Island on sunset......................
Besides doing all the swimming with the Whales before i left the coast i was able to get my advanced open water scuba dive ticket and did 22 amazing dives in and around the Ribbon No 9 and 10 that we were handing around a couple pics from there....
Pic: John Rummey
Cuttle fish were amazing to dive with they flash colours and don't think they were too impressed that we disturbed their mating but then a GT (Travelly) came through as a great rate of knots and scared the S(*&^ out of me and the Cuttle Fish!!!
Pic: John Rummey
Steve's Bommie...............
Pic: Justin
Me................
Pic: John Rummey
Steve's Bommie again................top is 5m and bottom is about 30m and at the bottom is a little surprise that i wont spoil if you get a chance to dive it.......
Pic: John Rummey
Olive Sea snake and me above!
Before long the trip was over and once arriving back into Cairns another couple friends from the Div were here along with Charmaine who also was an expeditionar from my first season. She had been contacted by another expo that was also in town David from WA and with so many of us in town i knew it was going to be fun.
Unfortunately i had to drop Dad off at the airport for his trip home as i knew Mum wouldn't let him get into any sort of mischief where as me i think it is kind of expected now!! LOL So my next part begins..................................
So after a couple dinners and catching up with more expos somehow i manages to convince that Wendy should do the minjin at AJ Hackett in Cairns...........Don't ask me how but i did and well i had to do it with her but it was a small sacrifice to a massive laugh believe me..........here is some pics.
Not to sure if she is laughing of crying there!!!!!!!!!
Wendy was holding my arm so hard that when we got off it was visibly blue..............
At the top I'm saying to Wendy look at the view and once she opened her eyes i pulled the rip cord allowing my hearing to never be the same again......
Smile for the camera!!!
Wendy also did it so darn it i had to do it again as I'm too fat to allow us all to go on at once!
Angela also decided that she had to do the Bungy, she is the braver sister....................i managed to capture the initial moments of jumping and i think these pictures speak a billion words.
Green Island was another one of our stops and here all of us squeezed into a semi submersible and looked at underwater stuff.........
Including fish.............
Here is a nice view from under some trees..........
A bird just in case you didn't know what they look like up this way!!
One of the beaches on the island...........
Another bird.......but a different one of course!!
Unfortunately the time on the island was limited as we caught a late ferry and had to catch the early ferry so we ended up only spending about 4 hours on the island.
Wendy and myself did the Kuranda Railway where one of the girls that did the Dwarf Minki Whale tour happened to be working.............
Also there was a bubble incident but that's all ill talk about that one!!!!!!!!!
Sadly my time was over with the girls and i was now onto my next port of call an old friend from School who was married to one of the girls i go down south with that i am positive will be making an appearance in the blogs to come, Charmane.
One of the other things we did other than partying and catching up was we went go karting. Now this isn't an average hire kart but real race karts. WOW what a blast but as i was a little more endowed in my behind regions compared to Mark it was a VERY VERY tight squeeze. My hips at the end of the day were so sore that my last lap i remember being in that much pain but not wanting to get out of it as i was having that much fun!
Mark fueling up............
Mark showing me how its really done..............
So again it was time to move on and my next stop was Ayr. Ayr is an interesting little town with a whole lot of nothing in it other than some very good friends and the most incredible dive site Ive experienced.
Hadn't seen the Olivarie's since there was only one rug rat and now there is 4 and Jo had a hell of a lot less grey hair. But it was fun to see them and unfortunately i was doing that much talking i forgot to take any pics but youll just have to take my word for it.
As for the dive i ended up staying at Yongala Dive Shop who also both organized the dive and put me through a Enriched Air course. Again unfortunately i dont have any pics from that dive as firstly i dont know where the hell i put them and secondly they arnt mine to put up. But what i can tell you is there is some massive animals down there at the wreck and it was increadable. No wonder its been voted the 6th best wreck dive in the world.
So after staying there for a grand total of 3 days it was time to move on and next stop was Mt Shizer or better know as Mt Isa. A good friend of mine Donna lives there and we had decided that a trip to Lawn Hill was in order.
I had been up there about 10 years ago and well it hasnt changed much............
Pics only here..........
So after Lawn Hill for 2 days we headed back to Mt Isa where i did some more rest and recoup as i knew that the next two days were not going to be good. Blackall was next being only a stop over for the night. Gin Gin next where again Karin cooked up a storm.
Stopped into Sunshine Coast to catch up with Ed the crazy irishman who was south with me last season.
Here we are Ed and myself looking hot as ever!!!
Then last stop Gold Coast HOME where i was to start getting my stuff together to head down again.
This year i needed to be in Hobart 4 weeks before departure as i was to do a Coxwains course to enable me to drive the IRB (inflatable boats) down here. Many thanks to Ken Smith for putting up with me for the 3 weeks before the Division accommodation kicked in too i must say.
But i am going to have to quickly wrap this the first of many up as i am currently sitting at my dest on the Aroura Australia heading out to sea. There is a couple links you might find intresting over the next 12-14 days while i am sailing down.................
HERE is a link to the SITREPS (Situation reports)
HERE is a copy of a web cam set up on the ship that updated periodiclly.
HERE is a voyage map
So here it is.......................................number 3 and as i am now on the boat heading out to sea i am now getting excited. I have missed lots of things of what ive been up to but the one think i think you might have gathered by now is there wasnt much work involved. Work for me since the 16th April was 1 day. I WAS HAVING WAY TO MUCH FUN TO WORK.
SOOOOOOOOOO next time you talk to me is going to be from the ICE.
Take Care
Michael
P.S................."Love is an attempt to change a piece of a dream world into reality."
Theodor Reik
Theodor Reik
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