Sean Mc on Skynet

French Alps

2010-01-25T21:27:00.006Z

Waaaaay back in June 2009 we went on a jaunt to the Southern French Alps. We spent almost a month there just paddling paddling and more paddling, and some eating and drinking. Right now it's too long ago for me to trying coming up with stuff to write about all the rivers we ran and the people we paddled with so instead I'm just going to let you browse through some photo's. http://www.skynet.ie/~seanmc/gallery/frenchalps2009

Irish Canoepolo Open 2009

2009-09-30T16:33:00.003+01:00

After some technical issues the photo's from this years Open are at last online.... click here for them

This was my first time at this venue and I can't wait to go back, especially if the weather is as good again. It was just like polo should be, warm weather and cold beer.

The Div1 final was a repeat of the Club champs held in Athy earlier in the summer but this time Wildwater Kayak Club managed to beat Kilcock canoepolo club in what was for the most part a very disciplined final.

That's the last outdoor competition of the year in these parts so it's back to the warmer swimming pools for the winter.

Clashganny Canoeslalom 2009

2009-08-25T20:25:00.002+01:00

As far as I know this is a new venue for slalom in Ireland and in my opinion it has great potential. Unfortunately on the day of the race another 150mm of water would've been nice but still it was a great day out with lots of sunshine.

I felt that my own paddling improved from the last race but I was still losing lots of time at the gates, reasonably quick between the gates at least. My boat handling was much improved on the last race, helped by having played the club champs in polo in the meantime.

The full results are at www.irishcanoeslalom.com

The Mens K1 Patrick Hynes took the honours this time beating Peter Prussak the winner in Newbridge a few weeks prior.

Clare Vance again took the honours in the Womens K1.

In the Juniors it was Tom Burke who won out show how his training for the recent Junior Wildwater Racing world has paid off.

Local girl Brianna Mallon was the winner in the Junior Girls K1.

Although there was a good turnout with competitors from Cork, Kilkenny, Waterford and Dublin it was disappointing that none of our C1 competitors made the trip
, maybe next year.

Big thanks goes to Patrick McCorkmack who organised the whole event and thanks too to all his helpers who did start line, gate judging, end line and whatever needed to be done.
Photo's are at Clashganny Photo's

Canoepolo Club Champs 2009

2009-08-11T21:08:00.003+01:00

After having successfully hosted a 1-day competition earlier in the year Athy canoe club were given the honour of hosting this years Club Championships. It's an ideal venue as the pitches are set up on the Grand Canal which is just the right width, and more importantly there's a coffee shop lest than 40m from the endline of pitch 1. What more could you ask for?

There were no surprises in division 1 with WWKC and KCPC contesting the final again.
The full list of results and games scores are on www.canoepolo.ie but here's the short version

Div1
1st Demons (Kilcock)
2nd WWKC (WWKC)
3rd Swink (Norh Kildare KC)
4th Devils (Kilcock)
5th Kamikaze (WWKC)

Div2
1st Bad Company (Norh Kildare KC)
2nd Grade 5 (WWKC,Athy)
3rd Hawkes (Norh Kildare KC)
4th CUIG (Mixture)
5th Okey Dokey (WWKC)

Div3
1st Aquacats (Kilkenny)
2nd IBLIS (Kilcock)
3rd Polomints(WWKC)
4th Aquaphobes (WWKC)
5th Aquabots (WWKC)

There's a selection of photo's from the weekend at Athy Club Champs 09 Photos

Newbridge Canoe Slalom 2009

2009-08-11T15:52:00.002+01:00

This was the first race on the new 6-race calender and went off very successfully. There were upwards of 20 racers, which isn't bad considering slalom is almost dead in this country. Paddlers came from Cork, Galway, Monaghan and even a few Czech paddlers who've been living in Ireland, plus plenty of locals.

For me it was my first slalom race in about 3 years, and it showed. I wasn't too good in the first place but I was still worse than I used to be, the complete lack of practice showed. I think it really showed in my ability to turn the boat, that comes as no surprise given that for the last 3-4 years I've been concentrating on wildwater racing instead. I'm looking forward to the next race all the same though.

All the results are at www.irishcanoeslalom.com and there's some pictures on this site's gallery, click the link above or www.skynet.ie/~seanmc/gallery/NewbridgeSlalom09

Blackwater 10k Race

2009-05-20T17:22:00.004+01:00

This race was held on the 17th May 09.

To finish a hectic weekend of driving and activity the last thing on the agenda was to run a 10km race. I'd never run a race of any sort before so I didn't really know what I was letting myself in for but "how bad could it be?"

Training had been far from ideal, one guy asked me had I "been doing much miles", my reply was , "oh yeah, I ran 2.5km on Tuesday" I think the shock of that was what caused him to stumble. Prior to that I'd probably gone for a 5km run about 3 weeks ago.

The race started and I faced my biggest problem, how far is 10km? When I run I leave my house and go for a run, I've no idea how far I run, nor do I know what my pace is in terms of mins/km. The upside of this is that ignorance is bliss, the downside was that I started off too slow. I caught up with another runner at 2-3km and got chatting, his goal was about 55mins, I figured that was ok so ran with him. At 5km though I began thinking that he was a bit slow so took off. I would've liked to run under 50minutes but at this stage I knew I had held back for too long and now had too much to make up in the second 5km. Not knowing how long 10km is, I still held back a little bit and when I got to 7km I was still feeling energetic so I upped the pace a little more and still had fuel for a sprint finish (just 'cos it feels good).

How did I do? My final time was 51minutes 28seconds. I'm happy with that but know I can do better. I ran the first 5km in 27:30 and the secnd 5km in 23:58
Now I've got to set a goal for next time.....

About the course, it was through the Rossmore forest park just outside Monaghan town with most of it on forest trail with lots of twists and turns so there was no fear of monotony. As a course I absolutely loved it, running through the forest is so much nicer than running on the roads. Maybe I should try cross country, hmmm.....

Athy 1-day Canoepolo Competition

2009-05-19T21:29:00.002+01:00

This is a new venue for Irish canoepolo and the only thing people are saying is "when will the next comp be"

The pitches were setup on a stretch on the canal that flows through the town so it was nice and central. For the day Jimmy had set up 2 pitches but the venue has the potential for many more. The canal at this point seems to be perfect for polo, the right width and enough structures nearby to facilitate hanging goals if you don't have floating ones. Best of all... there's a coffee shop less than 20m from the endline of one pitch.

It was a 1-day competition but none the less plenty of teams showed up, including the Irish mens and ladies teams and Muppets from div1. If it's good enough for teams of that calibre it's good enough for a full competition.

It was a great day and a super effort by organiser and local Jimmy Byrne.

Follow this link for a few photo's of the day http://www.skynet.ie/~seanmc/gallery/AthyPolo09

Fermanagh Harriers Point-to-Point 2009

2009-05-19T13:43:00.003+01:00

As usual the Fermanagh Harriers held their annual point-to-point races at Necarne just outside Enniskillen. It's been a long time since I'd been to horse races of any sort and had never been to this point-to-point meet. Unfortunately conditions weren't ideal, it had rained heavily for a few days prior to the meet and the weather on the day was likely to tempt people to stay indoors instead. In the end though everything went off without a hitch and it turned out to be a historic day for point-to-point racing as jockey Derek O'Connor rode his 100th winner, the first ever point-to-point jockey to do some, you can read a bit about it here http://www.irish-point-to-point.com/news.asp?key=6998 . In another noteworthy achievement local trainer David Christie has his 100th winner since moving to his yard at Derryglin.

Of course I was only there to see what photo's I could take so follow this link to see what I took http://www.skynet.ie/~seanmc/gallery/NecarneP2P09

Interesting Web Traffic

2009-04-30T19:52:00.001+01:00

The stats from the traffic coming to this site over the last few days is making me wonder what's so interesting about my life that so many agencies are checking me out.

Maybe the CIA or the FBI are next!

The Flesk at 0.7m

2009-04-17T17:49:00.004+01:00

There'd been a lot of rain in Cork for a few days and hopes were high that rivers would be up. It seems that most of the rain fell in Cork though and the Flesk didn't get much, so by time we got there it was only at 0.7m, low but runnable. The Flesk never fails to disappoint and even though the level was low there was plenty of entertainment and lots of swims. It had been a long time since I was last on the Flesk and it was everybit as good as I had remembered, .9 on the gauge wouldv'e been nice though but you can't have everything I guess.

There's a few photo's here http://www.skynet.ie/~seanmc/gallery/Flesk17-4-09

UCCCC Air Ramp 2009

2009-03-01T23:04:00.002Z

UCC Canoe club built their now annual Big Air Ramp for the college Rag week. Once again it drew a large crowd and some spectacular landings.

There's a few photo's in the gallery http://www.skynet.ie/~seanmc/gallery/AirRamp09

San Francisco

2009-01-05T15:32:00.003Z

Well, we got a bus from LA to SanFrancisco so not much I can say about looking out a bus window for 6 hours, even less to say when it's dark for half of the time. We got to San Francisco 2 days before thanksgiving so at least we had time to figure where places where before they closed for the biggest holiday of the year.

Day 1, it rained and rained and rained, and rained somemore. It didn't make the city very appealing but nonetheless we persevered and took a quick look through Chinatown and went down to Pier39 and fishermans wharf. By time we got to Fishermans Wharf we were so wet that we didn't really feel much like looking around the place so we just went for tea and cake to cheer ourselves up. Before lunch we made enquiries about the tour to Alcatraz and booked ourselves onto the trip for 9:30am on Saturday morning, hoping that the weather would improve. At least we'd done one important thing for the day, because after lunch we just for a bus home and hung around the hostel for most of the even where it was warm and dry.

Warners Bros Studio Tour

2009-01-05T15:31:00.012Z

Being in the movie making capital of the world we could pass up the chance of doing a studio tour. We chose the Warner Bros studio. Warner Bros have been synonymous with the movie industry since it first started in Hollywood and still churns out lots of movies, tv series and even cartoons. This is where ER is shot, Friends was made and even The Perfect Storm with George Clooney.

What surprised me about the tour was how much of the same set(s) we see in so many shows and movies but they're totally redecorated so you wouldn't even recognise them. For example, scenes from Spiderman were shot on the same street as The Last Samurai, both of which are just around the corner from the ambulance bay for ER which is a few metres from Central Park in friends.

Amongst the props we got to see were the flying car from the Harry Potter films, the Batmobile and a whole load of costumes from the Harry Potter films but we weren't allowed take pictures of them.

We got to see the set for the series two and a half men starring Charlie Sheen, but no pictures allowed. What struck me about this set was how small it is compared to what you expect from seeing the show.

It was a tour I expected to be good but nowhere near as good or as full of surprises as it was. I did learn never to believe ANYTHING you see on the big screen, the day was as magical as anything Disneyland could throw at you.

Los Angeles and Hollywood

2009-01-05T15:31:00.010Z

We had 3 days to spend in Los Angeles to see as many celebrities as we could. We arrived in the late afternoon and were pretty tired from the long flight but we tried to fight it.

Our hostel was just off the famous Hollywood Boulevard so was ideally located. The area has an infectious energy and is constantly buzzing with excitement. On the famous street there's the Hollywood walk of fame, where there's paving stones dedicated to the stars. The plaques are for 5 different categories, honouring peoples contribution to film, radio, television, stage or the music industry. With over 1800 plaques it's not surprising that there were a few people I'd never heard of, but Chuck Norris was there so the rest don't matter.

Also to see in LA is the old mexican/Spanish quarters which strangely enough is called the Pueblo Nuevo because it was relcoated when the main bus and train station was built. Maybe it was because it was Sunday but there was a carnival atmosphere around here with lots of families out for the day and plenty of Mexican music and dance. Other areas we visited were Little Tokyo and the obligatory Chinatown, bothn of which we could have done without. Although we did get a huge feed for next to nothing in Little Tokyo.

One of our main reasons for going into the city centre was to find out how we could get to San Francisco in a few days time, that proved unbelievablly difficult to do so we came home again without any further answers. Back to the hustle and bustle of Hollywood (sounds great doesn't it!)

Flying to the USA

2009-01-05T15:30:00.004Z

We'd spent a little over a month in Australia and in that time we'd seen as much as we possibly could and caught up with as many of our friends as we could but it was time to move on. We had a long haul flight to get from Sydney to Los Angeles via a stopover in Nadi(Fiji).

We had previously heard horror stories about checking for USA bound flights at Sydney so we made certain to be at the airport in plenty of time. The stories must be all lies because we were checked in in under 20minutes, so much for it taking several hours.

We still had Los Angeles Airport ahead of us or LAX as it's known. LAX has a reputation for being an absolute nightmare to get through, and that doesn't even include having to get through USA customs and immigration whose personnel have a reputation also. Again we were settling in for the long haul and much to our surprise we had our bags collected and were waiting for our transport in under 45minutes, must be our lucky day. The only hard part was when the man from Immigration asked us where we would be spending thanksgiving, we just replied "when is it?" He got a laugh out of it.

Last Days in Sydney

2009-01-05T15:29:00.004Z

Back in Sydney we still had a few places to see amongst them were Bondi Beach. Bondi is well known in both Irish and Kiwi circles and the biggest destination for anyone who moves to Sydney. It's so well known in Irish circles that it's been dubbed County Bondi. I'm sure the Kiwi's would refer to it as a region on the island off the coast of NZ :) So what did we think of Bondi? I was surprised how small the beach was, from what I'd seen and heard I had expected the beach to be much larger. The large crowd and the huge number of surfers didn't surprise me in the least though. We didn't hang around too long but were glad that we were now able to say "we came, we saw and we ran anyway". After Bondi we got a bus into town and from there we got the ferry out to Manly Beach.

I'd heard previously how this beach was much quieter and the place where the locals went. It's a totally different beach, several times larger with less crowds or at least a lower density of crowds, the surf wasn't as clean but that's just down to the weather. Another plus for Manly is the bakery just across the road from the ferry terminal; they make excellent chocolate éclairs! Aside from being a nice area the ferry trip out to Manly offers great views of the cityscape, harbour bridge and Opera House from the water.

Our last full day in Sydney and it was going to be a busy one, not to mention having to pack all our stuff. We were going to Darling harbour, 2 reasons; we hadn't been there yet and we had arranged to meet some relations of Clare's. There's not really a lot to see at Darling harbour but it is the kind of place you could sit down and drink coffee all day long and just watch the world go by. I thought it would make an ideal location for a canoepolo pitch, if the water was a bit cleaner. We ended up spending most of the day in Darling harbour and afterwards headed back to the rocks for food and drinks.

Last week we didn't get a chance to properly see the night markets so we made a plan to arrive earlier this week and have a proper look around. The night markets are full of stalls displaying various cottage industry handicrafts. Some great stuff there but much of it was a little pricey. I got the feeling that people put the price up because of the name attached to the markets. Afterwards we continued to enjoy the pubs in the area and caught up with our Kiwi friends Dave and Nic again, this was great because when we left NZ we didn't know when we'd see them again.

Blue Mountains

2009-01-04T21:58:00.002Z

We were all set to get away from Sydney for a few days and it had been suggested that we go out to the Blue Mountains for a few days hillwalking. We were able to purchase a Blue Mountains explorer pass which included the train to get there and back, unlimited use of the trains whilst there and unlimited use of the hop-on-hop-off explorer bus.
The day we arrived we didn’t really plan on doing much walking, just a short walk to the end of Katoomba village to see what was around and to get our bearings, 4½ hours later we arrived home. We had gone to see one of the mountain lookouts at the end of the village then figured on walking the short distance along the clifftop to where the cable car was running from, still feeling energetic we continued from here. Next we went down to the valley floor, this was our mistake for the day because when you go down you usually have to go back up at some stage. In this case there were 1233 steps back up! This time we were super hungry when we arrived home.
Day 2 in the Blue Mountains and we were going to choose a shorter walking route. We got the train from Kotoomba to Blackheath to start our walk. We started our walk from the train station and went to one of the information service centres in the park, from there we did a loop away from the centre and finishing back near the train station, 3½ hours walking in total, and no steps today so much easier than yesterday.
Day 3, our last day and using the train again. We headed in the opposite direction from Kotoomba today, down to the town of Wentworth falls. We mainly followed the Sir Isaac Newton trail and had intended following trails to bring us back to Kotoomba but unfortunately a number of the trails were closed from maintenance so we ended up back-tracking along the same route and getting the train back to Kotoomba, where our bags were in the hostel. The walk still took us 3¼ hours to complete.

Sydney

2009-01-04T21:42:00.004Z

Sydney, one of the best known cities in the world, but what's to see when you're hanging around for a few days?
Our first day we had to hand back the rental car so once that was taken care of we got the train into the city centre to have a look around. First on our list were the Sydney harbour bridge and the Sydney Opera House. What surprised me about the opera house was that it wasn't white but a bit off white, this colour difference isn't noticeable in any photo's of it. After seeing the two big sights we walked further along the waterfront to the botanic gardens where you can go out to a headland and get a view of the harbour bridge and the opera house at the same time, a perfect postcard.

The Olympic games were held in Sydney in 2000 and the stadium is still in use as a sports stadium. They now run tours of the stadium. There's not a whole pile to say about the tour but the highlight was that they still have the actual podium on which all the athletes stood to receive their medals. They allow people to stand on it and take photo's, naturally I got a gold medal that day. The stadium is now used to host cricket, soccer and rugby league games and is host to the bulldogs rugby league team. Also near to the stadium is the Olympic aquatic and hockey stadium. The athletics track from the Olympics was taken up after the games had finished and was re-laid in a purpose built stadium a few hundred metres away.

Today was another Olympic day, this time it was time for the whitewater stadium in Penrith. This is an artificial river where the water is pumped by some large pumps and the various features on the 'river' are created by a number of removeable obstacles. The course is a grade 3 section of water and is rafted almost continuously by various groups. For us though we were interested in paddling it. At the centre you can hire all the equipment you need, boat, paddles, buoyancy aid, etc. If only all rivers had the same facilities, when you'd paddled the course all you had to do was paddle onto a conveyer belt and it brought you back up to the top and you could paddle again it was great. For me the only downside to the day was getting stuck under a raft and swimming, to make things worse the raft guide was Shane from DCUCC whom I already knew from at home. I'd heard a number of people complain about Penrith in the past but in my opinion it is a great facility for anyone who wants to learn to paddle or to improve their paddling. It has everything, a flatwater lake to learn the basics and then some gentle moving water at the bottom of the course and on the course there's drops, waves and eddy's, what more could you ask for? A great days paddling and we were tired and hungry after it, but we weren't too tired to go drinking.

Terrigal

2008-12-28T18:22:00.002Z

We drove from Hunter Valley to Newcastle on the coast with the notion that it would be a nice drive from Newcastle down along the coast to Terrigal where we were meeting up with some UCCCC paddlers who'd moved over a few months back. I'll can now say it's not worth driving along the coast, the map is deceiving and you don't see any ocean or coastline along the way, next time I'd be opting for the freeway instead.
We had planned on just staying with Gunther, Mary and Eilís for a few hours but our arms got twisted and the drink started flowing and before we knew it we were staying the night and having a BBQ. The next day we did drive to Sydney, only a few days later than expected.

On to Hunter Valley and it's vineyards

2008-12-28T16:31:00.010Z

There isn't really much to see between Tamworth the Hunter Valley wine producing area so it was a day of driving mainly. We stopped to have a look at a mountain known as burning mountain. It sounds impressive, but after seeing so much volcanic activity in the Taupo area I'm now a bit choosier about these things. We walked uphill for about an hour to have a look at some vague wisps of smoke coming out of the ground, not worth it I think. See here for some more information

We just drove on to Hunter Valley after lunch. Last time we did a wine tour in NZ I did the driving but now it was my turn to do the tasting. Clare had the pleasure of watching the wine take effect on me this time, I had fun and she just laughed at me.
We visited 3 wineries in total, McGuigans, Glandore and Mistletoe. Our next call was to Harrigans Irish bar where we knew the manager of the Cellar, Grant Oosterdijk. The problem with knowing the manager is that the wine samples you get are that much bigger than normal, not that it's always a bad thing of course.

Glen Innes(Stonehenge) and Nymboida

2008-12-21T16:49:00.003Z

When we left Tenterfield our first stop was Glen Innes, just a few km along the road, where we'd been told about a modern Stonehenge monument. A few years back it seems the locals wanted to attract some tourists to the town so they built s copy of the Stonehenge monument. It's impressive alright but it doesn't seem to draw the same numbers as the real Stonehenge in England.
There's not a lot else to see in the area though so we continued driving towards Grafton in search of nymboida national park and canoe centre. Unfortunately for us the road was closed 97km along the way and the very officious road worker wouldn't tell us a way around and we didn't have a map good enough, all he kept saying was that the department of transport advice is blah blah blah. We had little choice but to wait for a few hours until the road reopened. Once the road reopened we continued on to Nymboida.
We hadn't been paddling for a while now so we were eager to get wet again. We'd been told about the canoe centre at Nymboida. Before the whitewater course at Penrith was built this was the big place for slalom and downriver racing in Australia. It's a simple enough setup, there's a hydro power plant on the river and the river has been slightly modified with various sized boulders being put in the flow to create features. When we were there the water level was very low but we could easily see the potential of the place. We arrived late in the evening so it wasn't worth renting paddling kit so we used their camp cabins for the night. We rented plastic slalom boats for a half-day and ran the course over and over. As it's a short run we could just carry our boats back up to the top and go again. Most of the course is grade II but there's one grade III rapid.
From Nymboida we continued south to Tamworth, our route there took us along another route called 'waterfall way' but we'd had enough water for the day so didn't even bother stopping to look. A few km along the road after leaving the canoe centre we saw the best roadsign ever, it's sign warning of a steep descent ahead but there's a playboat on the roof of the car, clearly doctored by someone with too much time on their hands but it looks cool.

Brisbane

2008-12-14T04:38:00.006Z

We'd stopped off in Brisbane to visit Steff so we might as well see what the city has to offer whilst we are here. People had told us that there wasn't a lot to see/do in Brisbane and they were right. Brisbane is the Capital of Queensland so it was certainly the busiest place in the state and there was a good atmosphere and lots of bars and eateries as you walked around the streets. This good vibe may have been becasue the Melbourne Cup was on at the same time as we were there so there were lots of parties going on. On the South bank there's a public park with gardens with a public pool that takes the form of a beach, complete with sand and a beach lifeguard hut that has a surfski. I can't really workout why they need a ski to patrol a few hundred square metre's of water. The main feature of the city is the river that it's built on, this is a very busy river and is used for various commuter craft to ferry people in and out of the city centre. We'd been told that it also offered the best views of the city so we took a ferry ride from one end of the route to the other and back. When this was done we thought we'd seen enough of Brisbane so we called it a day. I think the city council must be watching what other places around the world are up to because they have a giant ferris wheel that bears a remarkable resemblance to the London Eye.

Day 2 in Brisbane and we went to Wet'n'Wild, this is a water based theme park fulls of pools and waterslides. The weather so far in Oz had been great for us but wouldn't you know it that the day we decide to get wet it was raining! On the plus side it meant that we didn't have to queue for ages to get on any of the rides. We did get cold though so popped back to the changing rooms regularly for a hot shower.

As it was wet'n'cold and there were no queues at the park we were done fairly early so went to see the much famed surfers paradise. Even though it was wet and dull day the place still oozed tacky tourism from every corner. There were shops selling souvenirs everywhere and tacky neon signs on every business. We decided there and then that it wasn't really the place we wanted to hang around for too long, even though the surf was good, but busy even on a wet miserable day. We had a look around for a few hours and went home again. What surprised me about the area was the number of high rise buildings, I'd never really associated Australia with skyscrapers but here there were plenty.

Dinner normally isn't something worth blogging about but we had skippy for dinner, yes we had kangaroo steaks...mmmm ... tasty....

The next day we moved on from Brisbane, but instead of taking the coastal route we headed inland for some adventure.

Australia Zoo

2008-12-14T04:08:00.002Z

We're all going to the zoo today, zoo today, zoo today... you get the idea.
Today we were visitng Australia Zoo, the animal habitat made famous by Steve "crocodile hunter" Irwin. After seeing so many tv programs about the famous crocodile hunter on television over the years and was looking forward to visiting the zoo. In a lot of ways it's like many other zoo's, they keep a wide range of animals in captivity but making the best efforts to ensure the welfare of the animals is taken care of. What make's it different is that there are lots of native Australian animals that are on the endangered species list.
Although the man who made the zoo famous is now dead his memory lives on and cannot be forgotten by visitors. In fact it's hard to forget him because his image is everywhere. Although the zoo has many animals the biggest show of the day is the crocodile show. This is a great display and information centre about the crocodile and is held daily in a specially constructed arena which by my guess holds about 2000 people. Although it's billed as a crocodile show there's also a large and small birds display and the elephants are brought out to please the crown too.
There's not really a lot to say about today, we wandered about looking at strange looking animals so what can you say?
Here's a few sample pictures from the day, I'll try to put up some more soon.

After the Zoo it was onwards to Brisbane to meet a friend of ours Steff whom we'd first met in Uganda a few years back.

Fraser Island

2008-12-10T06:17:00.006Z

As I've already said we booked onto a trip to Fraser Island, this is a 3 day, 2 night trip where they set 10 tourists in a 4x4 off-road truck loose on the worlds biggest Sand Island. Being a sand island there's no sealed road on the island and all the unsealed roads are tracks in the soft sand. A potential recipe for disaster you might think. Fortunately the group we ended up with were all like minded people wanted a fun weekend and just to get along with each other. Everyone in the group pulled their weight and everyone drove responsiblly and with the comfort of the other 9 people in mind, a great bunch of people. Our group included, 1 Corkmand(that's me), 1 from Monaghan(Clare), 2 from Dublin, 1 from Kildare, 1 from Laois, 2 English girls and 2 German girls.

Before leaving Hervey Bay were given a quick driving lesson which didn't involve driving(it was assumed we knew what a steering wheel was) and a talk about what equipment we were bringing with us to the island. All camping gear and cooking equipment and even some firewood was provided. We each chipped in €20 to buy food and most of us donated some food that we had ourselves already.

The tour company gave us a suggested itinerary for the trip so we couldn't even get lost. They even escorted us to the ferry to make sure we got there on time. Once the ferry pulled away from the port we were on our own.

Once on the island our first stop was Lake Mackenzie, the largest freshwater lake on the island. It amazes me that a sand island can have over 100 freshwater lakes. This lake was probably the nicest scene we'd come across so far in Australia. The photo below doesn't do it justice.

Although the island isn't really that large it still takes time to get anywhere because of the and trails. So the itinerary for the rest of the day kept us along the beach, we had a look at a rusted old shipwreck, the ship was called the Maheno. The other sight of the day was a rock formation known as the pinnacles. The pinnacles look good but after seeing so many other rock formations they're really just more rocks.

By now it was getting late and we still had to get to our campsite and cook dinner. We stayed at the Dundubarra campground. This was a national parks campsite and was fully equipped with toilets, showers and bbq's for cooking on. There was even a dingo fence around the perimeter to keep the dingos out, not that we saw many of them anyway.

The next morning we had to get going early to drive north to Indian heads. The reason for getting going early was that we had to be at Indian head before the tide got too high and we'd have been stranded. We looked about this area for a while, hoping to see some sharks in the water below. I'm not sure we saw some sharks but we did see a dolphin playing in the surf, it was catching a wave in and then swimming out to catch it back in again. I'd never seen a dolphin playing in the surf before, it was fascinating.

From there we had a 40minute walk north to Middle Rocks aka Champagne pools. As we neared the area we saw a group of people bathing in a rockpool so we figured that was it, and joined them. It wasn't until sometime later that 2 of us decided to have a look around the area and found the real champagne pools, at the far side of the same headland. They were fun to play about in, the waves continuously crashed into the large pool and gave them a frothy champagne like look (hence the name) and still it was big enough to find calm water to lie in. UNfortunately by time we dragged evveryone else to the pols we didn't have a lot of time to lounge around, but it was still worth it. After this it was a long slog back to 4x4 in the heat of the midday sun before driving back to Dundubarra campsite to have lunch.

AFter lunch we drove further down the beach to Eli creek, we'd been told that this was a great place to go for a swim in the river and float gently downstream much like a lazy river at a leisure centre. It was so lazy though that there wasn't much floating involved but walking the shallow water instead to get downstream. I think it had been hyped up a bit. It didn't take long to get bored here so we played volleyball until the sun was almost set instead.

Our campsite tonight was the K'gari aborgine camp. No bbq tonight so it was regular cooking on gas stoves instead, but we did have a campfire that went on until the wee small hours. The Aborigine in charge of the site joined us and played his dijerdoo for a few hours, he gave moct of us the chance to play too but not too many people were able to get a note out. There was no dingo fence about this site so we did see a few dingo's wandering through the site during the course of the evening.

Up early again to race the tide along the beach so we could visit Lake Wabby. It was only a 2km walk from the beach into Lake Wabby but it was one of the toughest slogs I've ever done. The first 750m were easy trail wakling but after that we were walking across a sandblow(mini desert) where every footstep we out in the ground sunk into the soft dry sand. I think it was worth it for the view of the lake, only thing was though, we now had to walk 2km back.

Our trip was nearly over now, just another visit to Lake Mackenzie before driving to the ferry. It was a good weekend made great by the by the people on the trip.

Our plan for the next day was to visit Australia Zoo so after getting back to Hervey bay we got on the road South as quick as we could and phoned ahead to sort out accomodation in a place called Mooloolaba

If you want more information on the tour company we used just go to http://www.uniquefraser.com
or if you want to find out more about Frser Island go here http://www.fraserisland.net

Bowen to Airlie Beach

2008-12-10T05:41:00.004Z

We got to Bowen the previous night and eventually found somewhere to stay for the night, all the hostels in the town were full and the campsites were pricey, and to crown it all off... there was nothing to do in the town. So why did we stop here, I hear you ask? It was on the map, we were tired and needed somewhere to sleep. Bearing that in mind we didn't waste any time in getting going the next morning.

We drove to Airly beach to enquire about going sailing in the Whitsunday's for a few days.

We'd been told it was "fantastic, out of this world" etc. We didn't go. We'd have been on a sail boat for 3 days and doing some snorkelling, which we'd done plenty of already. On a sail boat for 3 days sounds like fun but you don't even get to do any of the sailing stuff yourself, you just lie out on deck and roast like a piece of meat, not for us thank you very much, we'd rather be doing active stuff. We did book ourselves onto a tour to Fraser Island though so it wasn't a complete waste of a stop, and had lunch and went for a swim. They have a manmade lagoon right in the town where you can swim for free. When they call it a lagoon they really mean an outdoor swimming pool but it's good nonetheless.

With no further reason to hang around Airlie Beach we kept driving in search of more activity. We somehow stumbled across a place called the Finch Hatton gorge, I'm not sure how we managed to 'stumble' across it, given that it's about 40km from the main highway and down about 10km of unsealed dirt track but we did. Wow, was it worth it! When we arrived there were only 2 other cars in the carpark so we knew it was going to be quiet. We spent about 2 1/2 hours walking through the rainforest up to some waterfalls. At the base of the second one was a pool where we were told we could go for a swim. It was a hot humid day and we were after walking uphill for the last 80 minutes so a refreshing swim was just what we needed. Swimming shorts on and into the picturesque pool... oh s**t it's freezing, this wasn't in the brochure. I think I stayed in just about long enough to be able to coherently say "it's freezing". After I had warmed up on the bank I did go back in for a proper swim, it wasn't as bad this time, I would even say it was super refreshing and well worth it.

Back at the car we were hungry after the walking and swimming so we opted for lunch. Some of the wildlife in these parts are very very cheeky. We had the boot door (trunk for you Americans) open and were sitting at the boot munching our food when along comes a bird looking for food, a so called wild bird sitting less that 2foot from us! The picture show's it happily sitting on the open door of the car, he wasn't alone either, all of his buddies were watching to see how he got on before joining him.

Onwards to McKay, and this time we'd phoned ahead to book our accomodation so no worries.