martes, 15 de diciembre de 2009

lunes, 7 de diciembre de 2009

Back in Madrid

I arrived back to Madrid on Sunday morning, and after doing the worse thing possible for the Jet-lag, that is sleep 15 hours from 9 am to 24:00. I am now working with the photos.

I have to process about 3000 photos, which will take me very long, for the moment a only a hand full of them are being process

Some panomaric photos, taken from the mobile phone are in the following picasa album, here there are a few pictures I took using the panoramic option from the mobile phone. They are not good quality, but gives a better understanding of some of the spectacular views

Some photos about the 1st day in diving in the great Reef can be seen here I have reduced from 345 to just over 100 photos.

Filo Un anonimo conocido

viernes, 4 de diciembre de 2009

Day 25 This is the end........

Day 25  This is the end.....

Like the song of The Doors, which is the song I always try to listen before I go to bed before a marathon,  This is the end ....

Today was my last day in Australia, and I have to say that it has not been the most exiting one. Today I had the task to have a peek on Melbourne, which is a city that I indeed liked, lots of cafes, full of people in the street at all times, a city I would be comfortable living in. I went around the city and enjoyed it.

The other task that I had for today was shopping (which is not my most exiting exercise), I have been leaving all the shopping to the very last day, because I could not be carrying staff on all this travel, with packing and unpacking everyday. During all this travel, I have been finding things that were ok, but not buying them, and today,,,, I could only find 3 or 4 crappy souvenir shops with awful staff. And also trying to buy the didgeridoo for my friends, an small one, and all that I have found were crap and cost minimum 70 euros, and they would be souvenirs only (no chance to play nothing).  So I am living it to tomorrow morning in the Airports a couple of things if I find them,  if not .. well,  I'll have to come back again, which I wouldn't mind it.

Basic plan for what it is left, is going to meet the guys from the last trip from Adelaide, (yesterday we stayed till 2 am) to say goodbye, and tomorrow at 6 am wake up since I have the airplane leaving at 10:40.

Next update on the blog from Spain.

Filo Un anonimo conocido.

jueves, 3 de diciembre de 2009

Day 22, 23 & 24 Adelide- Melbourne Grampians+Great Ocean Road.

Day 22, 23 & 24 Adelaide- Melbourne Grampians+Great Ocean Road.
Day 22
Yet another 6:00 am start today, to being picked up at 7:00. I was lucky to change the clock in my mobile, since there is a 1h difference between Northern Territory and South Australia. If I wouldn't have done it, instead of write about the tour I am in, I will be starting to write about how I missed the bus.
But I didn't missed it.

The 3 days Tour seems like it is going to be good laugh . The tour guide, JP , is a funny Aussie, and so seems to be group, 17 including myself, majority of "chicks", using JP's words.

Today's plan is to go to Grampians do some walks, see waterfalls, and we will stay in a hostel in the Grampians National Park,

The Grampians are 500-600 kms away, so some time in the bus driving was required, but JP every now and then told us a story to entertain us. As well as some decent selection of music (I still remember how dreadful was the selection on the Darwin-Alice Springs was when guide Ipod was on ).

Just after lunch we arrived to the border with Victoria, and again we had to move the clocks forward, this time 30 minutes. That is the 4th clock change since I have arrived to Australia. This will be my last one before departing.

In the Grampians mountains apparently live something like 500.000 kangaroos, and all types of birds. Just before starting the National park we were able to see over half a dozen Red kangaroos & a couple of emus.

The place looks similar to the Blue Mountains, with a high number of eucalyptus trees. There was a huge fire 3-4 years ago, which affected 2/3 of the national park, and the place is recovering, although looks good already. First stop was the Mackenzie Falls, this time no swimming was allowed, so unfortunately I could not add it to the list of water holes/falls I had a swim/bath. Then we went to a look up point The Balconies to admire the beauty of the place.

Then as we were heading down to the hostel, 300 m from it, we saw about 25-35 Kangaroos. In hostel we had a BBQ, and child out with the people having a drink. As someone had cards we did as you would normally do,"Play drinking games", Horse Racing was by far the best one, getting everyone involved.

Day 23
The day didn't started too early 7 am up, 8ish in the bus. With a glorious spring day we went for a 4-5 km trek to the Pinnacle, another look up point of the Grampians, with the usual photo sessions.
After that we went to an aborigine center to see a video of the "Genesis "according to them, interesting, but after seen few in the last 3 a few of them, I preferred to stay in the shop terrace and grab a coffee.

We got into the bus again, and we left the Grampians heading to the Great Ocean Road, stopping for lunch in one of the picnic areas, using the electrical BBQs that are available everywhere in Australia. Not sure if I have talked in the blog about them, basically all over Australia there are free BBQs in picnic areas. They are everywhere, even in mountains. All of the ones I have seen were fairly clean.

We started the Great Ocean Road around 4:30. The Great Ocean Road goes parallel to the coast line, with plenty of spots to see how the ocean has produced funny shapes in the limestone coast. So we went to a couple of those before arriving to the hostel.
Bay of islands
Bay of Martyrs, spending some time in the beach.
London Bridge
We went to the Hostel unpack, and leave to get to The twelve Apostles for sunset. This is one of the places most representatives in the south, so the place was quite crowded but it was still ok. There are no longer 12 standing, since sea has brought some of them down.

The hostel we stayed was quite good, At least the location was, just in front of the beach, at Port Cambell. We had our dinner at reasonable time, that is 9:30, unlike most of the other days on all tours (always far to early), and then we stay till late (2:00-2:30 am) having some drinks, playing card games, etc

Day 24
We started the last day of the tour around 7:00. Unfortunately today was not as good as yesterday, a bit cloudy and windy. We started visiting close locations, "Loch Ard Gorge " and The twelve Apostles to try catch with with sun, unfortunately it was still cloudy.
The day improved as we were going to next destination, Mait's Rest RainForest. To tell you the truth I have already seen so much rainforest, that it didn't impresed me much.

We had lunch in Apollo Bay, not much to say about it.

As we continue with the Great Oc. Rd. Landscape changed, and become more eucalyptus tree forest. We stopped the bus, and we went to look for Koalas since there were many in the area. Walking about 200 m we were able to find a few of them, one of them fairly low, about 3 m high.

We continue our trip stopping a couple of times for small breaks, and photos, for example at the memorial arch for the construction of the Road, or Torquay surf city, home of Rip&Curl and Quicksilver. I didn't buy anything but this should be paradise for surf maniacs.

Arrival to Melbourne was around 7 pm. The sun came out and the wind disappeared, hopefully it will stay like that tomorrow.

I will probably meet the guys for dinner & a drink, and get ready for tomorrows last day in Australia, a combined shopping+visiting session day.

Filo un anonimo conocido.