Going Back In Time

Well, I am back in the US of A now. From the time I left my apartment in Australia until I landed in Burlington was about 42 hours. Not much sleeping happened in that time but life goes on. The only delay I had was on the last flight, from New York's JFK to Burlington. Figures it's the last flight! The trip from Australia to LA was interesting because we left on Thursday at 12:30 pm and arrived on Thursday at 12:15 pm. Flying like 8,000 miles in negative 15 minutes, not bad!! Not much excitement otherwise. I mistakenly started driving on the left side of the road my first time back behind the wheel. Luckily it was on the dirt roads of Westford, VT with no other cars around. I have adjusted to the time quite quickly, but the sun setting so much later has confused me. It would be dark at about 5 pm in Brisbane when I left and it's just getting dark now at 9pm. I've got most things unpacked and laundry is going, so that means I'm really back. I'll miss Australia, but I also missed home and am glad to be back. I hope you've enjoyed reading my adventures in the land down under! Cheers!

True Story

Living in Brisbane for the past 4 months I've seen the Story Bridge many times. I'd always hears about the Sydney Harbor Bridge Climb but have yet to do it. When I heard about a bridge climb right here I decided I had to do it.

The day after I got back from Cairns I was off to climb the biggest bridge in Brisbane! I paid my student rate online and had my confirmation printout in hand when I arrived at the HQ of the Story Bridge Adventure Climb. Through out the preparation and the actual climb I learned some very interesting information about this bridge.

Opened for operation on July 6, 1940, the Story Bridge is the largest steel bridge designed, fabricated and constructed in Australia by Australians. The Story Bridge was one of the then governments’ three major public works projects, creating years of employment for many men during the Great Depression. Construction took five years, one year longer than planned, and Queenslander, Dr John Bradfield(same man that designed the Sydney Harbour Bridge) was Consulting Engineer. His design team prepared approx 600 working drawings, and interestingly design for the bridge was based heavily on that of the Jacques Cartier Bridge in Montreal. The overall cost of the bridge was about £1,492,000 and seven years after completion, the State Government sold the Story Bridge to the Brisbane City Council for £750,000. This was only paid off in 1999. The Bridge runs north/south joining Kangaroo Point to Brisbane City and Fortitude Valley.

The bridge is 1,072 meters long from the southern to northern anchor piers and the Bridge’s summit is 74 meters to ground, similar in height to a 22-story building. Currently the bridge is repainted every 7 years using 17,500 litres of paint. I don't think I'd enjoy that job! The approx 1.5 km climb route takes you over the(on average) 70,000 cars cross the bridge everyday. There are more than 1100 stairs climbed up or down during the entire 2 1/2 hour journey. The road on the bridge is called the Bradfield Highway, and is the shortest highway in Australia. It is not to be confused with the Bradfield Highway that spans the Sydney Harbour Bridge.

The weather cooperated and the rain stopped overnight and cleared enough for an amazing 360 view. There were 8 others climbing besides me in our group, including two men using gift certificates for their 60th birthdays. I was the only foreigner and definitely the youngest in the group. Still had an absolute blast and made a great way to wrap up my time in BrisVegas.

Cameras aren't allowed on the climb, but I purchased a paper copy of 3 of the shots they took which I hope to scan in at some point soon. To get an idea the 1 minute promotional video from their website can be found at... http://storybridgeadventureclimb.com.au/download/storybridge_1min.mov

Here I am post climb in my suit. Very stylish, I know. I asked if I could take it home, but they wouldn't let me.

Frame worthy

A few of my favorite pictures I took on the Great Barrier Reef... Enjoy!unicorn fish
Interrupting turtle lunchtime

Ardeadoris egretta nudibranchInside a giant clam

Lionfish on the night dive
Pink anemone fish
clownfish trying to hide
turtle heading up for a breath of air.



Video Clip of John and Michele swimming along

Into the Blue

My trip to Cairns last week was an amazing adventure and one not to be forgotten.

My adventure started on June 2nd with the first time I'd been to the Brisbane airport since I arrived down under. This time though I was headed to the domestic terminal which is a short train ride beyond the international terminal. I flew to Cairns on Virgin Blue and took a taxi to a hostel called Tropic Days where I would stay for the night. I walked around the downtown area of Cairns and found The Esplanade which is the boardwalk area near the water. There is a beautiful pool that appears to just extend right into the ocean, many picnic areas and lots of space to enjoy the tropical north Queensland atmosphere. Cairns is definitely a tourist city, and if the Great Barrier Reef suddenly dies that city isn't going to last long.

Sunday morning I was up as the sun was rising to meet the van from ProDive Cairns that picked me up just after 6 am. The van driver was one of the instructors that would be on the boat with us. After a few more stops to pick up others, we all unloaded at ProDive’s downtown location. We sorted out bags, gear, and other last minute details before loading everything back up again and driving out onto the pier to board the boat. Breakfast was waiting for us when we boarded the boat and after a few minutes of getting to know people, room and "safety number" assignments were given out. I shared room 14, which was on the lower level(meaning no ocean view) with Josee, age 22, from Ontario, Canada. I took the bottom bunk in our room and had just about an inch of space to spare between my head and the wall when I laid down. I've decided that Australia isn't used to tall people, and I'm glad to be on the short end of the family.

We took in the views of the mountains that surround Cairns until there was no more land in sight. I managed to spot a dolphin swimming along the side of the boat for about a minute, and after about 3 hours of rocking back and forth, we made it to our first stop, Milln Reef. Once we tied up to the mooring balls the group split up. Of the 32 customers on the boat 11 of us were already certified divers, one was a snorkeler, and the other 20 were open water students. Of the students, about 6 were taking the class in German taught by Instructor Matti, while Dave and Eri took the rest. The diving officer on the boat was Oscar who oversaw the diving activities and did the dive site briefings. The skipper of our 78 foot boat SCUBAPRO III was Mark, and the two cooks were Marie and Freddie.

We did the usual sign your life away paperwork, got changed, and jumped in for our first dive around 11am. The area of Milln Reef that we were on was called Petaj and when I asked there wasn’t a consensus of what that means or where it came from. We surfaced and from there on out it was either dive, eat, or sleep!

Lunch was next and then dive two around 2:30 at the same site, but going out in a different direction. The boat them moved to the section of Milln called The Whale, which because of the coral formation the waves crashing give the illusion of a whale’s blow hole. We dove here at 4:30, had dinner and then after watching the sunset did a night dive around 7:30. We wrapped up the night by looking at some of the pictures that I had taken, watching parts of a Blue Planet documentary and having a snack before bed.

Monday morning we were woken up at 6:45 to make sure we were mostly functional by 7:30 for the first dive of the day. Breakfast was ready by the time we dried off and we motored over to a section of Flynn Reef called Tennis Court. I’ll note that I didn’t see any signs of fluorescent yellow balls or rackets, but was told it got the name because of a large sandy patch off the stern(back) of the boat. Go figure. We did one dive here at 10am, had lunch, and then moved along the reef to Gordon’s for dives 7 and 8 at 3 and 7:30 pm respectively. We had a bit of a scare when the skipper mistook the moon rising between some clouds for a boat on fire, but as we watched worried that something was wrong, it continued to rise and sure enough was just the moon. Tuesday morning we had a wake up time of 5:45 and slipped into the water, literally, as the sun was rising at 6:20 in hopes of seeing some sharks. Being the second buddy team in the water paid off because we found an approx 6 foot long white tipped shark trying to catch a few winks when we found him. We had breakfast again and were back in the water again at a new site, Coral Gardens by 8:30, had morning tea, and did our last dive at 10:30. Once we were out of the water it was a lot of people running around disassembling gear and cleaning until lunch and the boat ride back to Cairns.

I managed to do all 11 dives on the trip and took my camera on ever dive. Over all I took more than 400 pictures which I transferred to my laptop between dives. It was great to share them with people on the boat and in case I do start to forget, I have it well documented.

The group was made up of mostly people traveling around Australia alone and aged 18-35. Most were from the UK, but also Germany, Italy, Canada, and a couple from the US. My dive buddy for the trip was Nick who was traveling for a few weeks with his girlfriend, both from London. We usually made a small group with the couple from the US, John and Michele, for the dives. John and Michele got married late last year, sold their house and cars and are traveling around the world. I shared several of my pictures with them, which are posted on their travel journal at http://www.myworldjournal.com/generic/default.asp?username=john-michele. They told me several stories of their adventures including a visit to Antarctica. They have inspired me to keep traveling and we hope to visit each other’s homes to dive more once they return to the states.

After the trip we carried on the ProDive tradition to go out for drinks on the evening of our return and had a great time exchanging contact info and taking a few more pictures to remember the fun times. Wednesday morning I made my way to the airport and flew back to Brisbane. I spent almost the entire flight sleeping so I would be ready for my next adventure.

I selected some of the 400+ pictures I took. They can be found at the links below. The title of the album has the site, date, and dive number(s) in it followed by the link and the number of pictures in the album.

The GBR Part 1- June 3rd Cairns & Milln Reef- 'Petaj' Dives 1 & 2
http://uqedu.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2028644&l=84e1b&id=44801562
# of pictures: 59

The GBR Part 2- June 3rd & 4th "The Whale" Dives 3, 4 & 5
http://uqedu.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2028646&l=33b80&id=44801562
# of pictures: 48

The GBR Part 3- June 4th Flynn Reef "Tennis Court" Dive 6
http://uqedu.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2028647&l=c7551&id=44801562
# of pictures: 35

The GBR Part 4- June 4th & 5th "Gordons" Dives 7, 8 & 9
http://uqedu.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2028648&l=0f799&id=44801562
# of pictures: 56

The GBR Part 5- June 5th "Coral Gardens" Dive 10
http://uqedu.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2028700&l=a4a4e&id=44801562
# of pictures: 32

The GBR Part 6- June 5th "Coral Gardens" Dive 11
http://uqedu.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2028701&l=643f4&id=44801562
# of pictures: 52

Cairns and drinks with my new friends
http://uqedu.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2028702&l=8038b&id=44801562
# of pictures: 18

Also a good place to get a better perspective of where the dive sites are is at the following link… http://www.prodive-cairns.com.au/divesites.html

Cheers!

Playing Catch up

It’s been a while since I’ve last written! Where has the time gone! I went on a field trip to the Port of Brisbane for one of my classes, to the ANZAC Day Parade, and Buddha’s Birthday Celebration.

The purpose of the Port of Brisbane trip was to look at coastal development and I was very impressed with the extensive planning and use of “green” design to make their operations more sustainable. The main attraction is the 1.7km extension of land they are in the process of making using dredge material from the channel through Moreton Bay to the Port. The expansion project uses the material from maintenance dredging. Maintenance dredging is done to maintain the necessary depth for ships in the channels before arrival at the port, and at the actual port along the wharves and jetties. Rather than dumping the material back at sea, the port is using it for the expansion project. Using maintenance dredging material only, the whole expansion is projected to be completed in a 15 year time span. The annual maintenance dredging for the Port of Brisbane is about one million cubic meters of sand, and with a plan to use that material for the port expansion the need to dump it back offshore, or find another suitable location on land has been eliminated for the time being. The port was previously located in several areas further upstream along the Brisbane River, but with the foresight of the growth of the area the main shipping operations were moved out to the current location at the Fishermans Islands. This movement has allowed for a more controlled and well planed facility with greater environmental protection plans and land use which was thoroughly explained to us by the Port’s Environmental Manager who then gave us a tour of the facilities.

ANZAC Day, April 25^th, is similar to Memorial Day in the States. ANZAC is an acronym for Australia New Zealand Army Corps. ANZAC day is held in both Australia and New Zealand on the anniversary of the first major offensive to use ANZAC troops on the shores of Gallipoli in Turkey in 1915. The parade held in downtown Brisbane featured veterans marching from(as you probably guessed) Australia and New Zealand, but also British, Polish, Japanese, and an American Legion group to name a few. There were also quite a few US Army vehicles(with “Caution Left Hand Drive” signs on them) which were used as rides for many of the eldest in the parade. ANZAC Day starts with sunrise services, which started at approx 4:30 am and I thus opted out of, as well as some ANZAC biscuits as a snack. As for the story of said biscuits, some say that they started as biscuits made by the Troops in the trenches with provisions they had at hand to relieve the boredom of their battle rations. And some say they came about due to resourceful of the women on the "home front" in an endeavor to make a treat for their loved ones that would survive the long journey by post to the war front. Where ever they came from, they aren’t bad, especially with some milk.

Buddha’s Birthday I stumbled upon after seeing a movie. I was enjoying an ice cream while walking to the ferry terminal when I noticed the lights and music from the celebration on the opposite side of the river. Curious, I walked across the bridge and explored the festivities. I didn’t actually see much in the way of celebrating Buddha’s birthday. There were many tents with people selling souvenir type items and various foods, as well as a mini climbing wall and a Ferris wheel. Unimpressed by the lack of actual celebrating Buddha I went to the nearest ferry terminal and as I was waiting for the next ferry arrived there was an impressive fireworks display and I had a perfect viewing spot. So, I watched the fireworks and minutes after it ended the ferry came and away I went. In reading online later I found out the traditional events of “washing” Buddha and others happened during the day, so I missed it.

Well, I should have more on my live aboard trip and the Story Bridge climb posted soon.