Category: Australia

Landing strip at the airport

 Ayers Rock is now known by its native name “Uluru”.  The Australian government gave the land back to the Aborigines in the 1980s and now leases it back from them. 

Our dusty RAV 4

All lodging at Uluru is owned by one company.  We are staying at Sails in the Desert Hotel.  It is not the most expensive, but it is still expensive.  Everything is overpriced which is what happens when one company has a monopoly.

Lobby of the Sails Hotel

Exterior and pool area

 We filled our pack with water and sun screen and we made a beeline for the Uluru Rock State Park.  At the entrance we ask if the Rock is open for climbing.  The attendant told us it would be closed all day because of high temperatures.  She tells us that it is rarely open because it closes for high temperatures or high winds or expected high temperatures or winds.  The Aborigine people now have a voice in the administration of the Uluru Rock and surrounding areas.  They have lobbied to ban climbing on the Rock because they believe it is sacred.  The Australian government recently took the matter to a vote and voted to keep the Rock open to climbing.  The end result is that climbing is open but last year there were only 55 days that it was open and any excuse is used to close it.  The Aborigines can close the climb for any reason including spiritual reasons or special celebration days or ancestor anniversary days.

Inside the Cultural center.  The Aborigine people do paintings with a lot of dots.  Their painting tell stories of dreams.

 The Aborigines learn to eat grub worms and seeds and to suck water from the leaves.  They have a tradition of dot painting.  We bought a small dot painting from an Aborigine woman.

Aborigine women

Amazing formations up close

Walking to the water hole

Iphone self portrait

There are petroglyphs in caves and near water holes at the base of the rock.

Petroglyphs in a cave area

They tell a story

 There are beautiful views of the red rock formations. 

Looks like a teapot arm

We walked a section called the Mala Walk. 

Scott starting the Mala walk

There are lots of small caves or overhanging rock areas on the Mala walk

Barb checking out the beautiful canyon

Does it make you want to grab your rope and harness?  Sorry, that would be off limits.

Self portrait time

Time for a rest

Having a little snack

It had a cave where the women would teach the children and young girls how to cook food.  

There were worn indentions in the rock floor where the women would grind food and cook

 There was a cave where the men would teach the young men how to hunt.

Old people must rest, but we are not old.  We are just waiting for the right moment to continue

At sunset we went over to the southeast side of the rock and stopped our car on the side of the highway and took pictures and toasted our water bottles to the beauty of the moment.  The Rock was glowing red in the sunset.

Driving the RAV 4

Beautiful

We went back to the hotel and ate at the buffet.  The Kangaroo kabobs were great.  Kangaroo meat is very tasty and lean meat.

Sunrise

The Park Ranger tells us it is closed because it will be too hot.  It is 5:30 in the morning and it is not hot and the wind is not blowing and there are no clouds in the sky BUT the Rock is closed.  We anticipated this answer so we had a Plan B.

Our pilot was 23 years old

 But what a beautiful flight.  We flew up the middle of the Great Barrier Reef looking down on an ocean route that would have been taken by Captain James Cook in 1770 as he sailed north looking for a way to escape from the treacherous sailing within the Great Barrier Reef.  Since the time of Captain Cook there has been 600 shipwrecks on this reef system.

Views from the plane to the reef 8000 feet below

Amazingly clear water with coral and sand seen from the plane

The Runway

Our first view of Lizard Island.  The freighter brings supplies every two weeks.

Barb on the plane

The airport at Lizard Island

Captain Cook named Lizard Island in 1770.  He had sailed from England and spent 23 months on the ocean before landing on mainland Australia close to modern day Sydney.  He named the area Botany Bay because he found so many plants that were not known in his world.  He rested 9 days and then sailed north up the coast and struck a coral outcrop of the Great Barrier Reef.  It ripped a clean hole in the side of his ship and he had to throw cannons and ballast overboard in order to float the ship free of the reef with the aid of a high tide.  The crew wrapped a sail over the hole and limped into a safe harbor now named Cooktown.  For 48 days the crew repaired the boat and foraged for food and managed not to be killed by the native Aborigine tribes.  [Cook was later killed in Hawaii by the native Hawaiians when he was speared as a test to see whether he was a God.]  Cook thought he could escape the reef by sailing to the north.  When they set sail again it became increasingly difficult to navigate through a narrowing channel through the Great Barrier Reef.  When Cook was caught between shallow reef on the mainland side and waves crashing on the ribbon outer reef he decided to climb the highest island to see if he could see an escape out to sea.

Map of the great barrier reef.  Lizard Island is the orange island on the top right.

Close up of Lizard Island

As he climbed he noticed that large lizards (one to two meters tip to tail) were “pretty plenty” so he named the island Lizard Island.  When he reached the top (now named “Cook’s Look”) he could see for 20 miles and he found a deep water break in the outer reef where waves crash on coral on either side of the deep water.  Today this is called Cook’s Passage and it is still used today as the safe exit to the north out of the Great Barrier Reef.  Captain Cook’s charts with distances and depths are amazingly accurate.

Dining area

Having lunch

Lobby

Pool area that we never used.  The ocean is the best pool.

Our bedroom

Scott on the deck

 That afternoon we have them throw some drinks and lunch into a cooler on our boat and we go to Turtle Beach.  We snorkel, lounge, and goof off.  This is a little bit of heaven.  Giant Clams are everywhere.  Each one has different coloring since florescent microorganisms attach themselves to the clams.

Scott, the skipper of the dinghy

Lots of private beaches

Gourmet lunch box

Our dinghy parked at our personal beach

Barb Snorkeling

Giant clam shell with a starfish

 Our room has a nice view of the sunsets over the Coral Sea.

Our room is on the hill with sunset views

Sunset the first night taken from our room

Take me to my beach

Self portrait

We took these photos with an underwater camera

Beautiful coral

Colorful fish and coral

Lots of varieties of fish

More of Barb’s beach artwork

On Saturday we have arranged to go to the outer ribbon reefs to make a couple of deep water dives on the Great Barrier Reef.  Our first dive is at Cod Hole where we will dive with the Giant Potato Cod.  This is one of the most famous dive sites on the Great Barrier Reef and is only accessible on a day trip from our Lizard Island Resort.  Any other diver who makes his way out this far must spend multiple nights on a boat to get there and back.

Looking back at Anchor Bay and the fishing boat available to Lizard Island guests

 On the way out we spot a group of dolphins jumping in and out of the water.  Our Skipper steers over toward the dolphins and the dolphins turn and begin to ride and jump in the swell pushed forward by the bow of our boat.  The dolphins are having so much fun jumping, darting, and flying on the wave.  It is no wonder that sailors love the dolphins.   What a beautiful sight.

The middle one wins by a nose

Barb is having as much fun as the dolphins

Scott

 Our Skipper told us that there are only 3 or 4 days per year that are this nice for weather, water visibility, and flat water.  It is a beautiful day.  I guess we are just lucky.

Barb with all the gear

Scott in the dinghy

The coral and fish are amazing.  This is the Great Barrier Reef!!!!  Yahoo!!!  Right away we spot a Bump Headed Parrot Fish.  These guys create about 5 tons of sand per year by chewing up the reef.    They say the top of their heads is filled with oil to offset the heavy bones in their jaws and skull.

Barb is on the left

 
We saw two white tipped sharks resting under a ledge.  We are happy that they seem to be sleeping.

White tipped sharks

Barb chasing a potato cod

Why the sad face?

 Here is a beautiful school of Sweet Lips fish.

Huge school

Beautiful colors

After a gourmet lunch we head over to our next dive site.  We are going to do a wall dive on Reef Number 10.  The ocean floor falls away to a depth of 2000 meters on the outside of the wall.  We only dive to a depth of about 60 feet.  Colors begin to disappear when you go deeper than 20 feet in the water.

Reef wall

Scott

Barb

Parrot fish

This one looks florescent

Barb getting out after her dive

Some of the fish we saw

More fish

As we were pulling into Lizard Island Anchor Bay after a beautiful day of diving the first mate got onto the dive platform and began dipping a dead fish in the water.  He said he was chumming for a 700 lb Grouper that lives here.  Instead of getting the Grouper we soon had about 5 Black Tipped Sharks chasing the dead fish. 

                                                                  Video of the sharks
On Sunday we take our boat at 9:00 am and explore the west side of Lizard Island.  We motor through the Blue Lagoon past the Great Barrier Reef Research Station.  

The blue lagoon

Coconut bowling

We motor back to the east side of the island and go snorkeling in Mermaid Cove.

A bit rocky

We watched a plane come in for a landing

View of Watson’s Beach

 We came across this lizard.  He is about 1 ½ meters long.  They say these lizards are related to the Komodo Dragon Lizard found in Indonesia.  This lizard has a long forked tongue.  We are glad this guy is not aggressive.

He had a forked tongue

Scott along the trail

Time for a little rest

The views just keep getting better

Scott on top

 At the top there is a dial that indicates where Cooks Passage is located.  The deep water passage is clearly visible today.  

Barb is pointing to Cooks Passage

 From this vantage point high on an island mountain you can see the safe passage out of the reef.  You can see the whitewater breaking on the ribbon reef on either side of the safe passage. 

Barb is having fun

Monday is our last day.  We want to snorkel in a new spot so we load up our boat with our snorkel gear and some drinks and head toward the Blue Lagoon.  The water is a little rough but we get the anchor on the dinghy to hold so we suit up and jump in to see what there is to see.  We fought the current to get 50 yards offshore to get on top of the reef.  The coral is nice but there are not many fish.  The current is strong and we have to swim parallel to the beach to make it back to shore.

There was a marlin fishing contest while we were there.  They were catching (and releasing) marlins this big.  They were 1200 pounds and about 3 meters long.

It is time to fly back to Cairns on a Cessna Caravan.  We will spend the night in Cairns and catch a 7:30 am flight for our 2.5 hour flight to Ayres Rock.

Beautiful Island

When we flew in we couldn’t see the mountain at the end of the island.  It was too foggy.

 The clouds thinned out and we were able to land and it is a beautiful day.  Since our room was not ready we changed into our swim suits and were outfitted for our bicycles which will be our mode of transportation during our stay.

Remember to drive on the wrong side of the road!

We rode past the 9 hole golf course.

Breathtaking beauty.  It’s hard to watch the road.

Scott

 We rode to the far end of the island to begin a hike.  The hike will loop past the turtle beach (where we can see turtles swimming in shallow water) and up steep slopes to a ridge with beautiful views along the coastline and back across Lord Howe and far out to sea.

Watch your step!

It feels great to get some exercise.

The views are magnificent. 

At the end of the hike we walked through cow fields.

Views from every hole

Barb at hole #1

Everything is on the honor system.  Just put money in the pot, grab some clubs and a couple of balls and go play.

 We ride past deserted beautiful beaches.  Put $4 in a wooden box and take a boogie board out into the surf or put $6 in the box and take a wet suit.  Wet suits are a good idea.  The water is 18.5 degrees C (65 degrees F).  I think this is a little warmer than San Diego water.  Akumal water is about 82 degrees F.

Beautiful beaches

Amazing colors

 We ride past the airport.

You can park your bike anywhere and not worry about it.

 We start our hike up to the ridges in order to look at this beautiful island from above.

Start of the hike

Views from above

Scott near Kim’s lookout

Arch at neighboring island

View of Ned’s Beach

There are few cars on the island.  Everyone rides a bike.  The maximum speed limit for cars and bikes is 25 kilometers per hour (17 miles per hour).  Surfers carry their surfboards on their bikes.

Scott better watch his toes!

We went to Ned’s Beach and Barb fed the fish some pellets.  She created quite a commotion.  We saw a dorsal fin so there is at least one shark.  The fish guide tacked on the wall of a shed shows that Galapagos sharks are present.  They don’t look scary but we hope they are well fed.

Barb feeds the fish

They know where they can get fed.

Riding back to the hotel

 What a beautiful day on Lord Howe.

This one is protecting the eggs

Barb at the beach

When it started to sprinkle we took cover in the forest under the canopy of trees and branches. We spread out our towels and lounged around for an hour reading the local newspaper that we bought.  There is a moratorium on building and each rental home must have a license for the permitted number of beds so that total tourists don’t exceed 400.

Self portrait again

Wood Hen endemic to the island.  They will actually walk towards you when you make noise or whistle.

Pretty flowers

Wood Hens

A towel for the rain

 After the sun came out again we had our picnic on the beach on an old wooden bench overlooking Blinky Beach.  What a beautiful spot.

Where we had our picnic

After lunch we wanted to hire a boat to take us to the best snorkel holes around the island so we could see the “Double Header Fish” which is only found around this island.   But they need 4 persons and we didn’t want to pay the extra money.  They told us that you could see Double Header fish over at Ned’s Beach so we rode our bikes over, rented wet suits for $12 and jumped in.  

We put our money in the pot, grabbed some wet suits and snorkel gear and went looking for the double headed fish.

Scott self portrait

It was cold!

Picture of the Double header fish we saw.

The water is so beautiful

 The coral gardens were lush and were covered with green fan type plants.  We saw a small Green Turtle, 2 Double Header Fish, the Wrasse Fish (banana fish), the Dusky Butterfly Fish, the King Fish (I had one for dinner the night before), and many other bright and colorful fish.  Reef fish are always bright but come in different varieties all over the world.  Red Sea fish are different than Palancar Reef fish, which are different than Cayman Island fish, which are different than Tahiti fish.  Lord Howe fish are also very different.  I had never seen a Double Header Fish or an Elegant Wrasse fish before.

Last minute photos

We check out the lodges in case some one in the family or our friends want to visit Lord Howe.  Only Capella Lodge has a view of the ocean.  All other lodges are hidden in the trees.  I suppose this kind of zoning makes the island more attractive for all.  Our favorite is Capella but it is not practical for families.  All other apartments seem to have been built in the 1960s.  The Ocean View Apartments are nice for families but there is no ocean view.  But all lodges are a 3 minute bike ride to a beach.

 Here are some photos of Capella Lodge where we stayed.

Entrance to Capella Lodge.  It is the only hotel that has any kind of view of the beaches.

Our bedroom

Bedroom sitting area

Dining area

Our patio

View from the dining area

One of the locals is hosting a slide show on birds and airplanes for a $5 admission charge.  We stop in and learn about the unique bird life on the island and we also learn about the history of aviation.  There have been lots of airplane crashes on and near Lord Howe.  All scheduled aircraft were amphibious (“flying boats”) until they built the runway on Lord Howe in the 1970s.  Many of those flying boats came to a bad end when they would stay overnight in the bay when a storm would come up and smash the airplanes into the shore.

View from one of the holes on the golf course

During the night the winds were howling.  Our deck furniture was being blown back and forth.  We learned the next morning that wind gusts were recorded at 107 kilometers per hour.  This is around 70 MPH.  At breakfast we expected to learn that Quantas Airlines was refusing to attempt a landing on Lord Howe but no one had notice of the cancelled flight yet.  As the day progressed the winds abated but it was still gusting.  At noon we went to the airport to check in for our 1 pm flight.  The attendant checked us in and we waited with about 30 other people hoping we would hear or see the propeller plane that was coming from Sydney to pick us up.  At 1pm it landed and refueled and by 2 pm we were happy to get away from Lord Howe Island.  Our next stop is Lizard Island and it is in the middle of the Great Barrier Reef at the north end and there is clear warm weather and warm water and we are excited to get there. 

Off to Lizard Island……

They are all roped into the rail with a harness

Later in the day we took a ferry over to Manly Beach.  The harbor views from the ferry were fun.  There was heavy wind and the sailboats were having fun!!

View of the Opera house from the ferry

Photo from the ferry

Manly Beach was a hoppin’ place

Barb enjoying the sunshine

Scott at the beach

It was fun to watch the sailboats