Travel Reading

I have been reading a lot on this trip, and am currently on book number 50 in 8 months. I have mainly been swapping books at various hostels, but have also bought a few second hand books and downloaded books. Books swaps are great because you sometimes end up reading books you would have never picked otherwise, and I have found some gems. I decided to write this post because I have just finished reading one of the those amazing books that changes your whole perspective on how things work and makes you feel inspired to get up and do something.

The books is called The Value of Nothing by Raj Patel and is about how modern society values everything through the market, the impact that this world view has including the social and ecological costs and some alternatives. It is an excellently written and well researched booked with cohesive intelligent arguments. He put into words so many things that I felt were wrong but was unable to into articulate why.

One of the arguments that really struck a chord with me relates to what he describes as the 'privatisation of profit and the socialisation of risk'. This seems like a perfect description of the problems behind the recession in Ireland at the moment. Bankers and developers were allowed to earn massive profits from the property bubble and behave in a reckless matter, but when the whole thing crashed, it is the citizens that pick up the tab.

Some of the other sections that I found really interesting discussed externalities (things the price we pay for goods doesn't include, for example, the cost of cleaning up pollution that falls to the Government, i.e. the tax payer, instead of the company that creates the mess) and our current ideas around ownership and property (ideas that are so ingrained in our psyche but are relatively new ways of thinking). Read this book, immediately, if not sooner!

Some other books that I thought were excellent and would recommend are;

AD 500 by Simon Young

This book is written as a travelogue for 'civilised' Greeks travelling to the 'barbaric' islands of Ireland and Britain around AD 500. It is hilarious, describing some of the really odd customs of the time and showing the Greeks destain with a bit of casual racism.

World without End by Ken Follett

Ken Follett started off writing crime thrillers, a genre I like to dabble in. He then started writing historical novels, as you do, and turned out to be particularly talented at it. This is the second novel in the series charting life in Knightsbridge from 1327. It follows the struggles of and between the towns people, the merchants and the clergy. Like the first book, one of the chief characters is a builder with a turbulent love life.

How to be a Woman by Caitlin Moran

I remember a lecturer in college asking if we thought there was gender equality in Ireland, and everyone shrugging and saying yeah. How wrong we were. Even just in terms of work issues, women still earn less on average than men for doing the same job, have a whole host of barriers preventing them from getting the good jobs in the first place, carry most of the burden when it comes to child care and domestic work.

Anyway back to the book, this looks at a the modern face of sexism, where it may not be as blatant as in the 1950s (and madmen!) but exists in a more subtle but still destructive form. She says if you want to see if sexism exists ask two questions - Is it polite? Do men have to do it? Feminism is nearly seen as a dirty word now, but it is not about man hating or an 'us and them' mentality. It is about mutual respect, cooperation and equality. This book has some great arguements and will have you laughing your head off at the same time.

Marching Powder by Rusty Young

This is a real backpacker book, and we have spotted it in loads of book exchanges and backpacker bookshops. In fact, it was recommended to us by a backpacker, thanks Simon! It is about an English drug smuggler who ends up in a Bolivian jail. The jail is not like a normal prison and runs like a mini economy, with shops, restaurants and businesses. The prisoners even have to buy their cells. Many wives and kids live in the jail also. The book describes his experiences living in the jail, including running tours to travellers!

Australia 2 - Convicts, Surf and Magestic Mountains

We booked into a friendly little hostel in Brisbane called Aussie Way. It is a converted house and the place felt quite homely. Unfortunately, it was not too homely, and as they were full we could only stay the one night and had to book into another hostel around the corner called, Banana Benders or something crazy like that, for our second night.

We wanted a spot of culture in Brisbane and went to visit the modern art museum. They were in the middle of renovations and only had a few pieces on display, one of which was a plastic seal holding a piano on its nose. From our observations, this scenario is factually incorrect as seals are not that large and would not possibly be able to support the weight of piano on their nose.

An inaccurate portrayal of a seal

We also visited a museum in the The Commissariat Store Building which was built by convicts. We were a bit disappointed by this museum, as it didn't have much information about the convicts themselves. It was more about the people who set it up. Being quite self centred, we wanted to learn more about the Irish people who had been sent over for robbing bread to feed their starving families and the like, but this was not to happen. Out of the convicts held in the prison, half were Irish, so it would seem like an obvious nationality to have some information on. They had a full section on Italian immigrants though, always with the Italians.

We went on a wander about the town, which has some pretty traditional style buildings and impressive modern glass boxes. Surprisingly, for a city, we also got some wildlife watching in. See exhibits below.

 

 

Another mad animal

It was on this walk, in one of the book shops that Niamh found, quite possibly, the best book ever. It shows you how to make slippers including the swan shaped ones on the cover. These are up there with the giant Guinness shaped slippers as comfort and style foot kings.

Byron Bay is a cool hippie and surfing town. There are loads of mad hemp wearing, long haired people walking around in bare feet. There is also loads of music and busking, cafes selling soy dandy lattes, organic food shops and arts and crafts.

We stayed in the Cape Byron Youth Hostel near the town centre. The evening we arrived was pretty horrendous weather wise but we were told that it would clear up the following afternoon. This was a lie. We booked into to do a kayaking trip with dolphins and a surfing lesson anyways, based on some other randomer telling us the weather was due to clear up.

The kayaking trip was cancelled, the official reason being, ridiculously humongous waves. Niamh shed many tears at missing the dolphins. We went for a walk to the lighthouse instead, which was a nice walk, but was only 40% as good as dolphins. Also, in the last post we forgot to mention we saw dolphins on the boat over to Frazer Island, they were amazing!

The surfing lesson the next day was on though, cause waves are good for surfing apparently. We went with Mojo Surf. We really enjoyed the surfing and managed to stand on the boards (with help!). The instructors were sound too. However, they booked far too many people on the lesson. There were 21 people to 3 instructors, which left very little one on one time. More annoyingly, 21 people in small space is crowded. We managed to get the hang of catching waves, but the amount of times you would have to dive of the board to avoid crashing into someone or into a board was ridiculous. It got quite frustrating towards the end. You spend so much time marching out against the tide, finding a spot, picking your wave, catching it and then working up the courage to stand up only to have some plank standing in front of you. Actually, it is not fair to say some plank, cause we were that plank on several occasions, it was more a case of too many people, too little space. Niamh also managed to get hit on the head by the surf board on several occasions. It is probably not the best sport for people who are spatially challenged. But overall, it was great craic and something we will be trying again.

You understand how surfers are so fit. We were reduced to being just a pair of two large human cramps the next day and could not lift our arms higher than elbow level.

That evening we hopped on a night bus, shudder, to the Blue Mountains. We booked into No. 14, which is without a doubt the best hostel we have stayed in in Australia. It is an old wooden house and has two common rooms, a lovely kitchen and nice outdoor chill out areas. It even has an oven, we haven't had an oven in months! We baked pork with a mustard cheese sauce for dinner the first night, delicious.

We went on an epic hike along cliffs that look into the forest. We underestimated the time it would take to do our hike by a factor of two hours and were pretty exhausted by the end. But it was well worth the trek. We saw an echidna which is a hedgehog like animal, but weirder, like most creatures this part of the world.

 

We grabbed lunch in the town and went for a coffee in a great 40s art deco style cafe.

Katoomba is a really nice village. There are loads of great cafes and restaurants (that we window shop at because our budget does not allow many meals out). One cafe we made it into was decorated like a wandering indoor tree house, it was beautiful. It was run by some mad religious cult, but we just choose not to engage with that part, it looks nice!

There were also some knitters and crocheters about, who have left some brightly coloured squares wrapped around lamp posts and flower pots.

We really liked it Katoomba and stayed longer than planned and would of stayed longer, if time permitted. After a few days, we hopped on the train to get a connecting night bus to Sydney, hopefully our last one in Australia. Before we left, Emmet found a reminder of home (a picture of his office!).

We have noticed loads of street art in Australia so far and have put together a collection of our favourites.

 

 We have arrived in Melbourne and love it so far, but more about that next time.

Travel Song

When we went travelling in Eastern Europe everywhere we went Gnarls Barkley's song Crazy was played. It became our travel song and everytime we hear it now it reminds us of our trip. We have been looking for a travel song on this trip. Unfortunately, in Asia our main musical options were Karaoke, which just didn't cut the mustard for us. We have had higher hopes for New Zealand and Australia. However, a travel song must be a pop song, so you have a chance of hearing it in shops and pubs. Our hopes have been dashed by the dismal state of pop music, a fact we knew but have now scientifically confirmed through intense observation, logical deduction and statistical reasoning. For example, one of the most common songs to be played is the one that goes 'this is crazy, I just met you, heres my number, call me maybe'. It has been rammed down our throats so much, we know the chorus. Everyone involved in the production and promotion of this atrocity should be strapped to a chair and made listen to Atomic Kitten for several years as punishment. Other options include scantily clad female artists with so little self respect as to set the feminism movement back fifty years. I urge them, especially Rhianna, one of the biggest offenders to stop stripping and gyrating and instead repeat the mantra ' I do not need to be a slut for people to like me, I am more than a sex object'. So we are still waiting for a travel song but have little hope...We will post it if we find it though!

Australia Part 1 - Fishies, Coffee and Jeeps

We took our third flight of the trip from Auckland to Cairns, our excuse being the massive ocean and the lack of ferries. We had expected a grilling like in the Australian customs programme, but fortunately the staff were sound and we sauntered through with no issues. We arrived into Cairns late but were ultra organised (go us) and had already booked a bus, which was waiting for us as soon as we left the airport and brought us to our hostel Dreamtime.

We have ten weeks in total to travel Australia. Our plan is to travel the East Coast from Cairns down to Melbourne over a period of eight weeks. We will spend four weeks volunteering in exchange for accomodation and food, if someone will have us, and four weeks actually travelling, which is not a lot of time considering the distance. We will then travel back up to Sydney and spend the two weeks period over Christmas and New Year with friends and family.

We spent a day settling into Australia and then the next day we rented a car and set off on a road trip for two days around Cairns. We first drove through the outback in search of all kinds of wierd and wonderful creatures. We spotted turtles at Lake Eacham, a platypus which is officially the maddest animal to ever exist, many Brush Turkeys and massive termite mounds (which we didn't manage to photograph as we were on a main road and didn't fancy hanging out the car window to get a fuzzy mediocre snap).

This our first picture of a turtle, National Geographic eat your heart out!

A platypus...Seriously, give us a call National Geographic.

We went to see a curtain fig tree. Fig trees grow around another existing tree until they strangle their host tree to death. Not very neighbourly behaviour. This particular one, then fell on another tree, which created the curtain effect. Australia, like New Zealand, has a real prehistoric feel about it. Everything is massive. You feel dwarfed by the size of the trees. This one was too big to fit in a picture.

Our final stop on the first day was Coffee Works, a centre dedicated to all things coffee. All of the ingredients of a cup of coffee are grown/reared in the vicinity, the coffee beans, the sugar and the cows for the milk. They have a tasting room where you can try loads of different roasts and beans from Australia and beyond. We morphed into connaisseurs, or so we like to think. They also produce chocolate and you can try as much as you like. It was the best day ever.

We had a bit of a drive up to Cape Tribulation where we were spending the night and exploring the following day. The second day, we had some locally made biodynamic ice cream for breakfast, yes we are adults, and then spent some time walking around the area. Cape Tribulation is in the Daintree National Park which is famous as the area where the rain forest meets the great barrier reef. It has loads of beautiful beaches and eerie mangrove swamps. Unfortunately, they are also home to crocodiles and jelly fish so we did not go for a dip.

Emmet posing on a rock.

We then drove down to the Mossman Gorge, which is a beautiful area with rainforest and clear waters. It had crocodile free swimming, but of course we hadn't any togs with us, lesson learnt. We were keeping an out for Cassowaries, which are massive birds, the biggest land animal in Australia. They look like a cross between a bird and a dinosaur. They also disembowel people if their frightened. We learned about the disembowelment after we returned from the road trip, and were then pretty happy we hadn't happened across one.

Our final stop of the day was the pretty coastal town of Port Douglas where we stopped for the most measly slice of quiche ever and left quite hungry.

Back in Cairns, we organised a snorkelling trip in the Great Barrier Reef. We booked with a company called Compass, which is the cheapest option available, just our style. Fortunately for us, not everyone thinks the same and they didn't have enough people to run so we got an upgrade with Reef Experience. Score. It was a brilliant day, even better than we expected. There are so many fish, some of them just swimming around you. Loads of them are crazy, bright colours, some are even neon, tipping a hat to the eighties. At one stage we were swimming. Niamh turned to say something to Emmet, but when she turned was face to face with a turtle, which had come up for air. Niamh also saw a shark. The sharks up North are not dangerous and are quite small in shark terms. They don't really bother with you, if you leave them alone and don't try poking them in the eye for the craic, so we avoided doing that. The reef was beautiful too. You see pictures and see it on TV, but it's amazing when you are there, swimming right above it. It was one of the highlights so far for sure.

 

That night it was movie night in the hostel, so we sat back and chilled after a long day, all swam out and nicely burnt. The next day we were heading to Airlie Beech. We were getting the night bus, so we hung around Cairns all day getting coffee and going to the cinema (to see Argo, which was alright). Then we got the bus that night for another long, uncomfortable journey. Poor us.

We arrived in Airlie Beech, which is another really touristy Australian town, but is a nice place. Airlie Beach was a stop off for us to break up the journey South. We stayed in Nomads which is a resorty style backpackers place. Not really our cup of tea, it feeels a bit like a cattlemart, but was grand for a few days. Unbeknowst to us we arrived on Halloween. Our room mates were all sound and we all headed out for a big night out. They were more prepared than us and had bin bags and accessories to make a costume, we had to go as ourselves. As it turns out, dressing up is not a big deal in Australia so we didn't stand out as the boring feckers who didn't bother. We had a great night and partied hard.

Everyone was dying the next day and mucho sleep was to be had by all. We eventually peeled our sore bodies from our beds and went to the lagoon to swim and sit in the sun for a bit. Niamh told me that my legs look normal now with a tan, as opposed to the usual old man looking numbers I have. Is this a complement? I'm not so sure. Then a few days later a seventy year old women with nude coloured socks pulled up her calves told him she saw better legs on a chair. Poor Emmet and his bony old man legs.

The following night we headed onto Noosa, which is the town you go to as a base for Fraser Island. Noosa is a really nice area. The local residents didn't want it turn into a high rise Australian version of Tenerife like a lot of the Sunshine Coast and Gold Coast. They battled with the council for years and prevented this type of development. They have created a massive national park just outside the town that has loads of amazing wildlife and beautiful walks. We got a couple of nights at another Nomads included in the trip so reluctantly stayed there. It was as souless as the previous one and had all the ridiculous strict rules and no drink policy, as they want you to spend money in their bar. It is probably the worst hostel we have stayed in on the trip. It is clean and has most of the faciltiies you need, but is missing a human touch. As we said earlier, it feel like a cattlemart, people in people out, more dollars in the cash register. When you living out of a rucksack, you need the places you stay in to have a homely feel, neither Nomads hostel we stayed in had this. Rant over, I feel better now.

Frazer Island is the biggest sand island in the world and is about a two hour drive away from Noosa. We booked the trip without knowing a whole lot about it, which we don't normally do. Niamh normally insists on wandering for several hours to price check and do some internet research. We had a briefing before we left for the trip and we a little apprehensive, as it was not what we expected. We would be driving around in 4 by 4's but everyone would get the chance to drive. So basically your putting your safety in the hands of strangers. On top of that there wasn't the option to get full insurance, so you would be liable for any damage to the jeep up to a thousand dollars each even if your not driving. The tour turned out to be really good and we really enjoyed it, however better insurance would have reduced the nerves a little.

The island was beautiful and we had a good group with us. Our guide Adam was sound too. We had three jeeps and took it in turns to have a bash at driving alone the beach and through forest off road tracks. We visted lots of beautiful lakes, waded through a crystal clear creek and went to see a ship wreck. We saw dingos, dolphins, jellyfish and turtles. We didn't see any of the poisonous snakes but we did see a massive Huntsman spider dead in the toilet. We are hoping not to see a live one but I believe that unlikely in this country. Later that night we had food and sat around the table playing drinking games. Myself and Niamh polished off our two bottles of $5 bottles of red wine. Oh yeah, budget drinking at it's best. It was a great night and the next day we did more of the same and headed back on the ferry.

 

 

 

 

We got back and everyone went for a shower and we went for a bite to eat with a German guy and girl, Christian and Nicole that were on the trip with us. Later everyone met in the bar for more beers and we all had a great night. Another hangover day the following was to be had but not as bad as the last.

On our final day in Noosa we went for a walk. It was the day of the Melbourne cup, so the whole town was decked out. Anyway, here is some photos of stuff.

We went for a walk in the National Park in search of Koalas and spotted one in a tree, which was great. One guy working in the hostel told us it took him three months to spot one. So either he is is rubbish a looking at trees and noticing there is a little bear sitting in it, or we got lucky. Either way, job done. We took some photos and we headed to sit on the beach. I buried Niamh in the sand for a while and then we strolled back to the hostel for some grub. We had a nice quite night and had dinner with Lachlan, a Scottish lad we met on the Frazer Island trip. Emmet showed him all of the 548 photos on the Ipad, he is a very patient person.
 

Another enviable wildlife shot of a Koala's arse

 
 From here it's onto Brisbane where Emmet may convince more people to see all of our holiday pictures.In the meantime here is our impressive collection of photographs of sign posts.

No. Sorry, no different sized dogs please.