The End

My five months in Australia ended with a final week of hanging out in Sydney with Amira, and then a gruelling 30-hour journey back to Finland. The best welcome-back present I got was the feeling of coming home when we landed at Helsinki-Vantaa - in spite of being away for a long time (first 9 months doing and internship in Germany, then 5 months beachbumming in Australia), Finland didn't feel like a strange place but a welcoming home.

Unsurprisingly, I didn't find the meaning of life in Australia. However, I did find out a lot of things about myself: what things I enjoy doing, what makes me feel insecure, and how much uncomfortability I can endure. As you have surely realized when following my journey through this blog, I have had a lot of great highs, and my share of depressing lows as well. It is both the inconveniences and the breath-taking moments that I will stay with me as memories to share with others, and to go back to when ordinary life sometimes feels uneventful.

Looking back at the eight months that have passed since I got back, I can tell that I definitely needed that break from everything to appreciate what I have back home. However, I'm afraid that my travel fever has only been cured temporarily... Until the next adventure.

Top End Crocodile Hunting

My tour of The Kimberley finished in the northernmost city of Australia: Darwin, the capital of Nothern Territory. The tropical top end of Australia is literally the last frontier, Darwin being the biggest town with only 85 000 people. I had expected to see a rustic, dusty town resembling the Darwin we saw in the movie Australia but, having been wiped out by a cyclone in the seventies, Darwin had turned to a modern, clean city. There were all the services I could hope for. I especially liked the newly-built shorefront with neat lawns and clear lines on the buildings - funnily, it reminded me of some seaside areas of Helsinki, minus the palm trees obviously.

I actually liked Darwin quite a lot. I enjoyed walking around in the heat, checking out the botanical gardens (which I always seem to like, no matter where I go) and the sunset markets on Mindil Beach. My food budget was kept almost intact, as I had collected so much leftover food from the last tour that I was well fed for my whole stay. All in all, Darwin was a very pleasant place to stay.

The main reason, next to checking out the fabulous Kakadu national park, to come to Darwin had been my wish to see some reptiles closely related to dinosaurs: crocodiles, those scarily fascinating killer machines whom the evolution has found so perfect that they haven't changed in 200 million years. Specifically, I wanted to get to know the Australian saltwater crocs. They often grow to be 4-6 m long. Crocodiles are one of the most capable killers in the world, thanks to their enormous strength. A large crocodile can bite with a force equivalent to 7600 kg, which is almost twice as hard as tyrannosaurus rex, and several times harder than the great white shark.
I started by going to one of Darwin's crocodile zoos. I picked Crocosaurus Cove because it was conveniently located across the street from my hostel, and couldn't have made a better choice: I ended up staying there for three hours, too fascinated by these amazing creatures to leave. The zoo was very interactive. I got some hands-on activity as I got to go "fishing", that is, make juvenile crocs jump out of the water by hanging a piece of meat in the end of a rod. They had a show where they fed the big, 5-m crocs in the same way. They also had an activity called Cage of Death where they lower you into the pool in a glass box to swim with the crocs (would've loved to do that, but it was too expensive) - the crocs were too busy resting to pay much attention, though. Or well, actually one croc couple was getting busy mating... Quite a thing to see, looked like the smaller female croc would be crushed under the 700 kg male!

I made friends with another huge crocodile called Harry, who kept following me behind the glass wall, touching its face to the glass where my hand was. He looked me straight to the eye, and I got a strange, not too pleasant feeling that he would love to eat me.
After two days' resting in Darwin, it was time to embark on my last tour in Australia, a three-day camping trip in Kakadu national park. Kakadu is World Heritage listed for its nature and its Aboriginal culture. And what a gorgeous place it was! On the other hand, Kakadu is also known as the most risky or dangerous tourist destination in Australia - not because of the crocodile attacks though, but other accidents caused when you're not being careful enough: driving accidents, falling off cliffs, dehydration. I suffered from dehydration too, but otherwise I got out happy and unscathed.

We were nine people and a guide stuck in a horrible little car, but it didn't matter because we got on so well. Some of us very well actually - I ended up sleeping alone because the girl who was supposed to share the tent with me hooked up with the guide. I didn't mind having the see-through tent to myself though, but enjoyed many hour lying awake looking at the sky, because the full moon made me unable to sleep. The guide taught us how to find the Southern Cross and the Little Scorpion star formations. Evenings were spent around the campfire - Strongbow has never tasted so good as those evenings after long, hot days. I also learnt to play the Aboriginal instrument didgeridoo, and was actually pretty good at it.

The first day of the tour was full of highlights. We took a cruise on the Adelaide river and saw crocodiles jumping out of the water. Earlier I had put my sunglasses on top of my hat when having my picture taken with a python, and had completely forgotten about it. So when I gazed down from the cruise boat at the crocs, my shades fell into the water. I looked from a croc to my glasses, and decided that I valued keeping my arm more than the shades, so I didn't try to fetch them back.
In the afternoon we hiked up Barramundi Gorge and had a fabulous swim on the top of the big waterfall. We spent a long time there, swimming between the cliffs, jumping from the 3-m vantage point, climbing over the rocks to go higher upstream to the pools warmed by hot springs. For me the scary part was diving through some tunnels inside the cliffs. Some of the holes were pretty narrow, and one was almost two metres below the surface. I was proud of myself for daring to do it even though I was scared of being under water.

On the second day we visited Yellow Waters wetlands, which were gorgeous. There were a lot of birds, and I made some nice shots of them. Later, we hiked to see the Jim Jim falls and the Twin falls, and of course welcomed a swim in the rock pool to cool off in the heat of the day (about +32 degrees celcius - quite a winter they have there).

The third day was devoted to Aboriginal culture. We visited numerous rock art sites, and I was amazed how well the several-thousand-year-old paintings were preserved. I usually don't think much of visitor centres, but the displays in Bowali Visitor Centre were well made and very interesting. I truly respect Aborigines for how well they know their land and take care of it, knowing when to clean it by burning, finding all kinds of edible plants of animals, never overhunting. Everywhere in the world white people have lost that understanding of and connection to the nature.
We finished off the day in the middle of Aboriginal land in Ubirr, which is a place with fabulous rock art and even more stunning 360-degree views over the surrounding wetlands.

On the drive back to Darwin we spotted a massive, perhaps 6-metre-long crocodile sunbathing on a riverbed. It has become clear to me that the rivers in Kakadu are teeming with crocs. It is for a good reason that all the waterways are marked with croc warning signs, as accidents do occur, mostly when people are behaving stupidly. To illustrate this, I'll share three stories that all took place at the same sport along the East Alligator River where also we had lunch on our final day.

1. A few men are fishing at the river. After the long day they relax with some drinks. They get drunk, and decide it would be fun to swim across the river. They do that... and get to the other side without a scratch. It is deemed such a miracle that nothing happened, that they end up in newspaper headlines the next day: two men swam across the river and did NOT get eaten by crocodiles.

2. A married couple is on a fishing holiday. A holiday snapshot is taken, picturing the man standing ankle-deep in the river fishing, the woman on his left side, and an Aboriginal guide on far left. One minute after the photo was taken, a crocodile jumps out of the river and snaps the husband's head off.

3. A woman is on her way to Arnhemland. To get there, you have to cross the East Alligator River. The woman mistakes the boatramp for the river crossing (it's very common in Kakadu that you cross rivers by driving straight through them in a car), drives to the middle of the river, and gets stuck. She quickly climbs onto the roof of the car, jumps to the back of the car, and on to the shore. She turns around, and sees five crocodiles surrounding the car. She's damn lucky to be alive.Crocodiles are bloody terrifying.

Trucking through The Kimberley

Most touring companies travel across The Kimberley in nine days, adding up to around 3000 km of road from Broome to Darwin. As it has been clear throughout all my entries, I don't have much money left, so I opted for a 6-day budget version instead. I had booked the tour early on, and was gutted to find on arrival in Perth that some agencies were offering the same tour for $100 less. I figured it's always worth a try to look for a better deal, so I emailed the tour company voicing my disappointment and asking for a better price based on the travel agency's special offer. Who said complaining is not a good thing? Certainly moaning paid off this time, as I got the full $100 discount I wanted. Woohoo!

I soon came to realize that the problem with the six-day tour would be the considerable lack of time. We had tough wake up times each morning, the worst one at 4 am, while having the alarm at 6:30 was considered a sleep-in. It also meant that we spent a vast amount of time on our tour truck: the second day we drove for 14 hours, including only three short breaks! Therefore, most of the 3000 km journey was spent gazing through the bus window, looking at the empty landscape dotted with termite mounds and small heaps of grass, with a curious yellow, red and lilac soil. I did enjoy the more hilly parts of the scenery, and the adorable bottle-shaped boab trees. However, there is a limit to how long you can entertain yourself with that. There was no music as the guide didn't have an iPod and other passengers liked to keep their music to themselves, for some reason. During the tour I managed to go through a 900-page novel and several magazines, that's how boring it was!I didn't like our tour guide at all. The former army guy didn't believe in friendliness, and we saw his butt crack more often (5 times a day on average) than his smile (once during the whole tour). He didn't believe in hygiene either, not changing clothes or washing himself during the whole tour, and so also I got to wash my hair only once during the six days. If you approached him with any questions, he replied in an often rude or disrespectful way. Hearing some other guys talking to their groups made me realize how little information we got from ours about the sights we visited. I'm still considering sending feedback about him to the tour company.

Except for the lack of hygiene, I kind of enjoyed the rougher way of living. There's something very romantic about cooking your (quite delicious) meals above the campfire. (I was constantly hungry during the tour and kept eating loads anytime we got some food, because there were often 10-hour breaks between meals. The guide nicknamed me Mrs Machine, because I reminded him of a guy called Machine who ate shitloads and still stayed thin. I didn't even eat any more than the other people on the tour, it's just that they all snacked at all our roadhouse stops with chips and muffins and were therefore not that hungry during meal times, whereas I did pretty well at avoiding junk food and didn't snack.) I also liked sleeping in swags, which are very thin mattresses inside a big plastic pouch - reminded me of the body bags they put corpses in in hospitals. I had to pile on several layers of clothes to stay warm as my sleeping bag is very thin, but apart from that I actually slept pretty well huddled deep inside the swag, like in a cool, dark womb.

I continued to feel pretty homesick. Maybe that's way I didn't really enjoy the company of the other group members, as I would much rather have talked to my friends from home, whom I miss terribly. I was often cranky in the mornings because of lack of energy, as we were often too much in a hurry to boil some water - I only realized I was craving caffeine, when a cup of coffee at a roadhouse instantly lifted my spirits.

Despite the inconveniences and my moodiness, the fabulous sights we saw definitely made the tour worth the money.

First, we saw the towering walls of Windjana Gorge, a former coral reef that turned into stone when the ocean retreated away from there ages ago. On our walk into the gorge we spotted a freshwater crocodile on the riverbed lazing in the sun. It was quite small and didn't look threatening at all. Freshies rarely cause any trouble to humans, unless they are provoked.

Next sight was Tunnel Creek, a river running inside a cave. It was fun to walk in the river in the knee-deep water. Negotiating the pitch black tunnels without a torch was maybe a bit risky as I had to stay close to other people who had lights, and still couldn't see what I was doing most of the time. I enjoyed the little adrenaline I got from that. I was gutted I didn't have my camera (had left it in the car because the guide said that it would be wet, but actually it would've been fine to even take my DSLR) as the view in the end of the tunnel was lovely. (Found only one picture on Google but it isn't representative at all, so won't share.)

Then we got some bad news: as it had been raining heavily a week before, the dirt roads had still not recovered and were thus closed, which meant we weren't able to visit Geikie Gorge, AND would have to drive all the way back to the highway, making a 380-km-detour to get back on track! So vulnerable people are to the power of nature in the Outback. Thanks to this, we had to waste the next day sitting on the bus. We drove for 14 hours, only stopping for toilet breaks and to look at a big tree. The driver also wasn't very interested in our energy levels, as there was a 10-hour break between breakfast and "lunch"! After the boring second day we were glad to spend a whole day exploring the Purnululu (Bungle Bungles) national park, another World Heritage listed site. The gorges and the walks were magnificent, despite the punishing heat. There were a lot of funny-looking cows hanging out around the entrance to the park - they had a hanging neck that reminded me of turkeys.

I don't remember much of the fourth day, except that we ended up in El Questro homestead, a campsite that I loved because I could finally have a shower. We also visited Emma Gorge for a hiek and a swim under a gorgeous waterfall. After four days of heat and no washing up, it was fantastic to cool of in the waterfall pool, and let the water slowly drop on your face (being dry season, there wasn't that much water falling down).On the fifth day we got up before dawn again to visit some hot springs before other tourists get there. Then we drove on to Kununurra, where we visited a very boring sandalwood cafe and the shop of a rum brewery (I wasn't impressed by the brewery either, but the rum was surprisingly good). After a night in a bush camp with zero facilities (girls just love being behind the bush in the dry land that doesn't even soak up liquid...), on our last day we visited the stunning Lake Argyle, which made me realize how much I had missed lakes.(sorry, had to copy a tiny version of my picture from Facebook)

In the late afternoon we finally arrived in Darwin. We had agreed to meet up later for drinks. To be honest, I had no intention to actually show up (I can be rude when I don't like the people in question), but my plans for a quiet night were wrecked as one guy wanted to walk up to the pub together as he was staying in the hostel next to mine. I ended up going, and didn't really enjoy it at all as I was tired and not motivated.

All in all, I'm glad I got to see some of the sights of The Kimberley, but otherwise it was a really bad timing for going as I wasn't in the mood for it at all.

Unflattering impressions on Broome

After the lengthy bus ride when I finally arrived in Broome it was dark and raining. One of my bags was missing, but I luckily found it after asking the bus driver to go through the empty-looking luggage trunk once more - it was between some boxes in some compartment that hadn't been opened. When I arrived at my hostel completely soaked I was so happy to find out that Thursday was a free hot dog night and I wouldn't have to cook.

We were supposed to be in the middle of the dry season (northern parts of Australia have only two seasons: wet&hot and dry&hot) but apparently the nature didn't agree to this, as it had been raining for a week when I arrived. I found the rain refreshing. It was nice and cosy to sit on a verandah reading a book in the comfortably warm, moist air. But then it started pouring with rain, and all the streets turned into rivers and roadsides to red mud. I managed to lose my flipflop twice while running around the block to the cinema (to watch Eclipse, of course) and had to charge back to retrieve it when the current in the ankle-deep water carried it away. Or make that neck-deep water, when a less-than-considerate driver passed me with his car in full speed, causing a massive splash of water to hit me. Thanks a lot, mate!

The locals altogether were not very friendly. One morning I was walking on the street, vaguely registering three about 10-year-old Aboriginal kids passing to another direction. "Have you ever seen a blonde snap?" I heard one of them ask, and then a WHOOSH and a CRASH when a glass bottle hit a pole right next to me, the splinters scattering everywhere. Luckily they showed no talent for baseball (nor any other sport that includes throwing things) so I could leave the scene with a murderous look but unscathed. They didn't follow me or say anything more. I felt slightly shaken, as the bottle could have hurt me really badly had it hit me. However, I felt more sad than angry - these kids must be feeling very low if this is what they do to innocent passers-by. I could understand their hatred: their land had been stolen by white people, leaving them with nothing but diseases, alcoholism and unemployment - all in all not a bright future. (For example, the life expectancy of Aborigines is over 20 years less than that of white Australians.) Their hostility made a dent on the atmosphere of the town. I felt uncomfortable walking around on my own even during the day, and unsafe come nightfall.

Broome was a lot like Exmouth but bigger, with 16 000 residents as opposed to Exmouth's mere 2500. There were some signs of "civilization" that I had been missing: a movie theatre, McDonalds (=cheap ice cream), and a well-stocked supermarket (I was sick of expensive IGAs with only white bread and half-rotten vegetables). However, I had lost interest in small town sightseeing, and the sweet heat had the side effect of just chilling out instead of getting to know the town. Every day I was planning to go to the famous Cable Beach to watch the sunset, but didn't manage to make enough effort to catch the free bus, with excuses like "I'm hungry", "it's too hot" or "there aren't enough clouds on the sky for the dramatic effect". On Tuesday, the fifth day in town, I finally felt up to going. The beach and the sunset were nice, but still forgettable if it weren't for the camel riders. I don't know what the fuss is about. (I guess my total lack of interest in beaches doesn't exactly make me a good judge of them, though.)




I would say that the expectations built on Broome by advertizing were not met. The only things I found remotely interesting were the Cable Beach (which is an hour's walk from the town anyway), and the pearling history (that I didn't learn anything about during my stay). Apparently the nature around Broome is supposed to be beautiful, but there was no way of seeing any of it without a car. I must say I'm not surprised that the locals have made a reputation of being very lazy employees - it's so hot all the time that you have little interest for much else than sitting in the shade or cooling off in the water.

On my way to the beach I heard a crazy story. The night before, some drunk French backpacker had decided to climb over the fence of a crocodile park. To attempt to ride a five-meter saltwater crocodile. (Wanna straddle one of these? http://images.mirror.co.uk/upl/m3/mar2008/4/1/7F1108CA-9860-8C2C-CE20EF257ACBFAA9.jpg) That's one of the most stupid things I've ever heard if you're not Crocodile Dundee! Result: the guy is now in a hospital, fighting for his life. The hostel manager has been bombarded by phone calls from news channels asking more about it, that's how he knew and could tell us all about it.

Anyone up for some plumbing in the sun? According to a diagnose by me, Australia desperately needs plumbers who actually know what they are doing. I would say that about half of taps in Australia leak, seriously. Also the sewers in the sinks just don't work - it can't be only the result of careless use that any given day two thirds of the sinks in any given hostel are clogged. And qho was the idiot who decided that hot and cold water should be controlled by different handles? Usually the result is that you either get burning hot or icy water - nothing in between is available. I think the plumber who installed the taps in my Broome hostel either doesn't speak any English, is blind, or just retarded: in the shower you get hot water from the tap that's labelled 'cold', and lukewarm from the tap with no label. In the kitchen, both taps are labelled 'hot', but usually you get only cold water from both - until they run out of it, and there's only hot left. Please, someone come and save the poor Australians!

My hostel is cheap, and that's about the only praise I have for it. The owner doesn't five a shit about their guests. The kitchen is a nightmare: it's filthy, every single appliance or piece of cutlery is broken, and mice eat your food at night. Neither toilets nor rooms are cleaned often enough. The quiet time is not enforced: no-one does anything to stop it when people shout and sing at 5am. In other words, Broome's Last Resort is a shithole.

Oops, looks like my entry so far has been pretty negative. Must be because I'm homesick again (or at least looking forward to going back to a comfortable life). Even if I'm not too impressed by Broome, there are some things I appreciate about it: having the basic services again, library with free internet, the gorgeous weather... After a three-week winter I'm happy about the heat again.

I also enjoyed a visit to the local weekend markets. There was a lot of nice stuff to explore. I bought a cute pair of freshwater pearl earrings, and almost bought a framed photo (but decided against it in the end, because it wasn't perfect enough that I would want to carry it around).

At any case, I was very ready to leave come Thursday morning, when it was time to depart for another tour, this time of The Kimberleys.

Cruising the Coral Coast Part 2: Being stalked in Coral Bay

So, the morning after the end of the tour I wake up in my dorm and notice that all the beds I can see are empty. The others are gone, and even D the German girl has changed rooms (she got upgraded after taking up cleaning duty in exchange for a free stay). I feel weird but happy to be alone again, and let out a sigh. Then I hear His creepy voice wishing me good morning. I can't believe it! Mr Annoying has made a last-minute decision to stay in Coral Bay for a few more days before continuing his tour, and therefore I have the "pleasure" to stay with him for three more nights. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!

Had I expected Mr Annoying to stay around, I would certainly had nightmares about him. However, the reality turned out to match anything I could have imagined: he decided to turn into my personal stalker. Wherever I went, he followed me. He asked me five times a day what I was planning to do next, and always tagged along. Avoiding him wasn't that easy as we shared a room and he usually woke up before me and waited until I got up. Being in a town that consists of one short strip of road and a beach, there weren't many places I could go to. Suddenly the ladies room was a very attractive place to spend time in...

I did everything I could short of screaming at him to fuck off and leave me alone (since when am I too nice to do that?!) but had little success in avoiding him. Twice I managed to escape to the beach while he was in the toilet, but both times I only had five minutes of freedom before he found me. One morning I managed to wake up before him, so I tiptoed out of the room, grabbed D and went for a long walk. We strolled along the shoreline climbing across the rocks, keeping an eye out for sharks as that bay was the breeding area of the local reef sharks. (During the breeding season you could see hundreds of them patrolling around, but now in the winter we saw none.) We climbed on top of a high sand dune and looked at the empty landscape in front of us. I found it amazing that any kind of life could survive there, but there was actually a lot of low shrubbery covering the sand floor. We also saw a kangaroo bouncing through the waste land. It was nice to get out of the village for a while, and those hours were also critical for my sanity!

The guy was incredibly stupid for not getting it that I couldn't stand him. Whenever I saw him, an involuntary grimace spread on my face. When he talked to me, I honestly could not make myself look at him because he disgusted me so much. I always left wherever I was if he showed up. I never said a word to him unless answering a question, never told him where I was going if I could avoid answering the direct question, never showed any sign on interest in his existence. HELLO??!! Maybe he is a sort of masochist and enjoys being around someone who hates him.

Easyrider had made a deal with a local snorkel gear shop so we could borrow a snorkelling set free of charge for the duration of our stay. This was awesome for two reasons: 1) the reef was so close that you could reach it from the beach, so all the coral and the fish were only a minute's swim away, 2) as Mr Annoying was hopeless in underwater navigation (as prooved during our kayaking trip), there was no way he could follow me around in the water. No need to say that during the three free days I spent hours snorkelling despite the water being quite chilly.

When the other people from our tour group returned from a national park two nights later, I was so relieved I wanted to cry. Everybody else hated Mr Annoying as well, so they listened very sympathetically my ranting about him. Damn, the guy is such a sad case that I would feel sorry for him, that is if he hadn't managed to make me hate him.

My last night in Coral Bay we had a party in the tour bus. Mr Annoying had went to bed early, so I had a great time just because he wasn't there. The Texan let it slip that he had had a disturbing man-to-man talk with Mr Annoying when they had been sharing a room, and Mr Annoyinh had shared his views on most of the girls on tour. Of course we bullied him to tell us, which was a mistake as we'd have been saved from a lot of disgusting images not knowing... In Mr Annoying's opinion, the shy English girl was clearly a closet freak who likes all kinds of kinky stuff behind the closed doors. The German girl K had big curly hair which prompted him to fantasize about pulling her hair while takin her. Ewww! Me he found intriguing and, according to the Texan, Mr Annoying was absolutely obsessed with me (why, I sort of noticed). I didn't want to hear a word more, and was seriously freaked out.

The following morning I didn't tell Mr Annoying when exactly I was leaving, so I managed to sneak out without saying goodbye to him. He asked for my surname so that he could add me on Facebook, but I threw in the classic move and gave him a piece of paper so he could write down his name instead. (Does it surprise you that I threw the note away later?) No way I would give him any contact details that would help him to find me again!

I have met many creeps and weirdoes in my time, but I can honestly say that I've found the winner, the most revolting guy I've ever met. I know that he's going to be in Broome the same time as me. Please hope with me that I won't bump into him again, this time completely alone...

Cruising the Coral Coast Part 3: Magic of the Ocean

I've had this entry ready for a month - just realized that I never remembered to publish it!

---

I'm in the ocean. There's an enormous whale 10 meters from me. It's not allowed to swim with whales, because their strength and unpredictability makes them dangerous, but there's not much you can do when you're swimming in open water and suddenly one surfaces between you and your boat. I can very clearly see the whale gliding in the surface. It wouldn't take many seconds for it to swim to where I am, and wash over me if I was on its path. I feel vulnerable and in awe at the same time. It's a humbling experience to be so close to something so large, especially when we're in his backyard, not mine.

Before I tell you about the literally wildest day of my life so far, let's go back to where we were in the end of last entry.

Early on a Thursday morning I jumped on the Easyrider bus for the last time (or so I thought) to travel to Exmouth, another small town 150 km away. Two of my friends had come up to the bus to say goodbye to me. The driver was a funny guy and tried to kidnap them by starting the bus and driving away, all of us aboard. D escaped by jumping off at a crossroads, but K was up for a day exploring Exmouth, so she stayed on the bus. (The shuttle service was free of charge for Easyrider customers and would go back to CB the same day.)

We had a fun drive to Exmouth, drawing on the windows (those markers come off by wiping), bitching about Mr Annoying (the driver would go to the national park with him for two nights, so he needed to be warned - we're so mean), and making extra stops and detours to admire 2-3 m tall termite mounds and the views over the gorges surrounding the Cape Range national park.

When the other passengers had been dropped off, K and I joined the drived for a leisure ride to the lighthouse. We had lunch up there, keeping an eye out for whales. We saw several of them but I wasn't that impressed because from so far away we could only see big splashes of water. We played around the town a bit more, but then it was time for K and the driver to go back to CB. Left alone, I was instantly bored.

I spent Friday not doing much. I prepared a blog entry, read a novel, walked around the town trying to find something interesting (but failed). I even visited both IGA supermarkets to compare prices, which turned out to be worthwhile s one was clearly cheaper than the other - it escapes why on Earth there are two shops of the same chain in the same mall, offering the same line of products for different prices.

At least I was well fed. My first evening I happened to be in the right place (kitchen) at the right time (dinner), just when the guide of a tour company called Red Earth Safaris was going to dispose of all that they had left. No throwing food away! I presented myself aremd with all my containers, and collected enough food for four dinners. Nice! (And it was much better than my cookings - having spices to use can do wonders...)

The town of Exmouth is quite displeasing to the eye. I wonder why all the buildings are so ugly: flat-roofed boxes with grey or beige corrugated iron walls. I'm aware of the fact that the whole town was wiped out by a cyclone 11 years ago, but what about other Australian towns? It's as ugly in every small settlement along the West coast. Do they really not care how their buildings look like? They can't all be too poor to do something about it. It could be lack of the sense of style - when I see some exterior decorations have been done, it's usually something very interesting, like the brick wall in my Broome hostel that was painted mint green with purple stripes. I see heaps of interior design magazines in shops, so there seems to be a market for that. I so wish they would also read magazines on exteriors.

On Saturday it was time for the event I had come to Exmouth for: a cruise with the opportunity to swim with the biggest fish in the world - a whaleshark. Before you think I'm as suicidal as Finns get, or at least have gone mental, I'll tell you a fact about whalesharks. Although they are definitely sharks and have the "whale-" part in their name because of their sheer size (the biggest whaleshark recorded was a whopping 18 m long!), they do have another thing in common with whales - their diet. Whalesharks eat plankton and a few other small organisms, filtering them from the water they swallow. Thus, I would definitely not look like an appetizing snack to them.

In the beginning of the cruise we sorted out our snorkelling gear and got some short-sleeved wetsuits to fight the coldness of the water. We had been out at the sea for about an hour and were on our way to some snorkelling site, when we spotted something more interesting: manta rays! These "eagles of the sea" are pretty peaceful fellows and don't have any parts they could harm humans with, so we decided to go and greet them. The first group was entering the water, when I saw two dorsal fins swimming towards the boat. SHARKS! I had to options to choose from: 1) stay on the boat safe from the sharks bu miss out on the mantas, or 2) trust that the crew knew their trade well enough to recognize what type of sharks these were (which I wasn't too sure of as the crew consisted of young backpackers) and not let us in the water if it wasn't safe. The first group was in the water now and went chasing the sharks, swimming away from the boat, so I decided to trust our collective luck and jumped in... to greet at huge, 3-meter-wide manta swimming directly towards me. It looked more like an alien or a spaceship than something out of this world.

The manta circled around me playfully. I could only appreciate its elegance while snapping away with my camera. Soon it disappeared in the ocean, swimming too fast for us to keep up.

Next, we were greeted by a green sea turtle swimming below us. Those beings are so pretty, and I was happy to finally see one in the wild. Next, our group leader collected us together and told us to listen. "There's a whale coming." I dipped my head under the surface to see if I could see it coming, but the visibility wasn't that good as there was too much glittering plankton (plankton seriously looks like someone has dumped millions of pieces of makeup glitter into the ocean). I lifted my head and suddenly I saw the humpback whale heaving itself from the water, a mere ten meters in front of me. The exposed part of the back was the size of a car, so I could only imagine how large the whole thing was.

The captain motioned us to get back on the boat, but once we were all onboard, he spotted more rays and chanted "go go go go go go go" again. This time it was a group of three mantas, all of them as big as the one we had seen before. They swam around and around, playing with the
weird humans. One of them glided below me, swimming together with me so close that I could've touched it if I wanted to. I could see all the details of its body, and the school of little colourful fish swimming between its jaws. It didn't feel real. It was pure magic.

I was back on the boat, gloating with excitement and the awe I felt. I found it hard to believe that the highlight of the cruise was still ahead of us.

It took only half an hour till we got a message from our spotter plane that helped with looking for the wildlife. They had found a whaleshark, and it was very close to us. Frantic action started when everyone tried to get ready as quick as possible.

When it was my turn, I stepped into the water, and stopped to float. We had been told that we would be dropped in front of the shark, so it was only a matter of waiting. After fifteen seconds I could see it charging towards me, really fast. I quickly jumped to the side to let it pass, then started swimming alongside its head. (If we swam in front of it, the shark would probably freak out and use the only defence meganism it knew - diving deep down not to be seen again, which we didn't want to happen.) The thing was damn fast, and I had to kick as hard as I possibly could to keep up. We changed turns with the other half of our group (only ten people are allowed to swim the shark simultaneously), and then it was our turn again to swim on the other side of it. We had been there for twenty minutes, and I was completely exhausted. Then, suddenly the shark started to descend, and it sank to the depths (I can only tell you it was deep, I couldn't make out anything below me) and we couldn't see it anymore.

Once the adrenaline wore off, I sat on the deck contemplating the fact that I had just swum with the biggest fish in the ocean. Ours wasn't fully grown yet, but at about 5 m long it still looked massive. I don't know how to describe what I felt when I saw the shark charge at me. There were no words in my head, just alertness. It was amazing. I can't believe the crew members do this every day and get paid for it! May I please steal the job of the photographer guy? (All pics in this entry are by me, though.)



After all the exercise, the simple cold lunch tasted amazing. Then it was time for our last snorkel of the day. I didn't stay in the water for long, because the nasty stinging sealices were biting me too much, and it was too deep to see much anyway. My feet were hurting, and once I took the fins off again I discovered the reason: all that flipping had peeled the skin off some of my toes, which, combined with the salty water, didn't feel too nice.



So I settled on the deck and entertained myself with an other awesome activity: whalewatching. I was told that the noise I had heard underwater had been the whales talking to each other. There were so many of them, some of them swimming quite close to the boat. Two adolescent whales kept breaching (that's whale jargon for jumping out of the water) all the time. Too bad my crappy camera was too slow to capture it very well. (Still, I'm glad I didn't bring the better camera, as I manged to slosh water on the other one several times - the waterproof pouch was on though, so no harm done.)

***

I forgot to mention one thing in the Coral Bay entry. Since it fits the "magic of the ocean" theme, I'll go into it now. It's about a really special wildlife encounter that illustrates how rich the nature is and how special moments you can experience in Ningaloo Marine Park.

One day (while I was in Coral Bay too), some people went on a whalewatching cruise, and found quite a scene: they saw a killer while slaughter a baby humpback whale. The next day, a few guys from my hostel were out at the sea fishing, when they came across the carcass of the baby humpback - with a bunch of tiger sharks feeding on it. The guys were watching the scene intently, one of them leaning out of the boat to get a better view. He didn't notice that one of the sharks got curious and started to approach the boat, but luckily his friends did and yanked him backwards before the shark got close. Tiger sharks are not in the same category with the harmless reef sharks that I've seen - these sharks could rip you apart.

Had I been there, I probably would have been scared shitless and never dare to swim in the ocean again. Still, I can only be fascinated about the story. It would have been priceless to experience that!

***

The following day I was already bored again - the town was so uninspiring that I was getting desperate. Even the TV at the hostel only had one channel - and a very weird one at that, showing programs in languages like Russian and Chinese without subtitles. There must've been something wrong with the TV set... So, in the afternoon I was on my way to the used book store to see if I could find something new to read (for the first time I had ended up in a hostel with no books lying around when I needed one), when I spotted a familiar bus at the gas station, someone waiving at me behind the window. My saviour had arrived! I had know that D the German girl was coming to Exmouth that day, but I didn't know when, nor where she was planning to stay. But now destiny (or whoever takes care of these things) had brought us togethere and she could check in to the same room with me. I was so grateful not having to be bored anymore!

For two days I had company and a very good time. Apart from her taking the same whaleshark tour I had done (and having an equally awesome time), we spent all our time together gossiping and watching movies on her laptop. We also gave in to the temptation and watched the new Twilight movie 'Eclipse' online, as neither of us wanted to wait until getting to some place big enough to have a movie theatre.

On Wednesday morninh D left on a flight to Melbourne, and I stayed to wait for my bus that would leave at 10:30 in the evening. I actually had quite a productive day: having discovered that you could use the hostel computers for free if you didn't go online, I could finally arrange all my pictures (I worked on them for hours and still wasn't finished) and work on my course plan for when I go back to uni in September. I also went to the library to read, and managed to leave my phone there. Luckily, I noticed it was gone and knew where to look for it, so I could run back to the library ten minutes before the closing time. I don't know why taking care of all my stuff seems to get more and more difficult as time passes - maybe I just don't care enough.

I left the town on the bus late in the evening. I was going to change buses after we reached the highway, so I was planning to have something to eat at the roadhouse while waiting. It turned out that "turn off" literally meant just that - it was a crossroads in the middle of nowhere and nothing else. I was so happy that the bus driver had to pick up people from the other bus and so couldn't just dump as there. It wouldn't have been fun waiting outside in the darkness with nowehere to sit, especially as the connecting bus was 1,5 hours late. Luckily, I had also prepared well with a pillow, sleeping back, eye mask, ear plugs, food, and a magazine, so the 21-hour ride to Broome wasn't as bad as it sounds. It was just boring. The only remotely funny moment was when, ironically for an American company, we stopped at McDonalds for breakfast. (I was glad to have my own food - I've had brekky at McD once, and never hope to repeat that mistake again.)

Cruising the Coral Coast Part 1: Easyrider Tour from Perth to Coral Bay

Eventually it was time to leave Perth and hit the road that should end in Darwin after more than 4000 km of empty highways and bumpy dirt tracks. Initially, I had wanted to take Greyhound buses all the way until Broome (2700 km from Perth). As that plan didn't work (see the Cairns entry for my lengthy rant) I was going to join Easyrider backpacker tour bus until Exmouth, and then take a Greyhound express bus to Broome from there.

It all started with a sunrise in Perth.


Our group consisted of three English people, a Texan, two Germans, and me. The tour leader looked like a truckie lesbian by first impression (I hope no-one who doesn't already know how rude I am reads this blog), but later I found out that she had shaved her head to raise money and support for her flatmate who had been diagnosed with cancer. How sweet is that!

Easyrider turned out to be a no-rules-just-get-drunk type of tour, which I wasn't too happy about. I found it hard to understand how these people had the energy and wish to drink the whole day and night every single day! I ended up drinking goon (boxed wine of the cheapest and lowest quality) with them every other day as well, just because I couldn't face being sober anymore with all the drunk people around. (Drunk people seem to want everybody else to share their condition so there was no end to their insisting that you should drink as well.) Apart from the drinking, I enjoyed their company (except for Mr. Annoying Guy, who I'm going to complain about in my next entry) and grew fond of them in the end.



Our first stop was the Pinnacles desert in Nambung national park. Pinnacles are limestone pillars left over when erosion and the ocean washed away most of the other soil, a long time ago of course. The landscape looks otherworldly with the forest of fallos symbols sticking out of the sand floor. The place doesn't look like it should exist on Earth.


Our destination for the next two days was Kalbarri, as small fishing village of about 4000 people. In the evenings there isn't much else to do than retiring to the village pub to play pool or sing karaoke. (According to my observation, the Western Australians seem to be the biggest drinkers in Australia... And the smaller your town, the more you drink, as there's nothing else to do.) Other option was drinking on the beach, where we helped some local guys to lay their new pre-grown lawn, in exchange for a box of bier.

In the morning of our second day we were off to Kalbarri national park to do some canoeing on the river. It was awesome! I canoed with a German girl. Although we did a lot of zigzaging in the beginning, I quickly learnt to steer the boat and we ended up being the fastest team. The first hour it was warm and sunny, and it was a pleasure to glide along the river appreciating the scenery. Then the weather changed abruptly, it started pouring with rain and the river began to flow the wrong way (away from the ocean) because of the blowing wind, which made it a real struggle to get forward. When we arrived to our first stop (and the only one, as nobody wanted to continue paddling - the kayaking company guy said that these were the toughest conditions they'd ever experienced there) we all were soaked and exhausted. Dressed in garbage bags for some extra warmth, we attacked the warm brunch that was waiting for us. The fried eggs, bacon and toast were maybe the most welcome meal I've ever had, and tasted heavenly!

Initially, I had wanted to hop off the bus in Kalbarri and stay too extra nights, before catching the next Easyrider bus to continue the tour. However, I heard now that the next bus had been cancelled, so I would either have to stay a whole week to wait for the next one, or continue with the current group. I figured that I would probably get bored if I stayed in town much longer (at least after a cool Swedish guy I met would leave), so actually it was a good thing that I had to change my plans. I believed it would be better to be stuck in Coral Bay in the end of the tour than where I was. So, the following morning I got on the bus with the others and off we went.

On that third morning we visited another part of the Kalbarri national park. We did some walks in the gorgeous gorges and took some funny cliff hanging pictures.


We really got to hang from the cliffs too, as we tried some abseiling, Abseiling is the opposite of rock climbing: you lower yourself down a cliff wall hanging from a rope. At first it felt unnatural to step off from the edge of the cliff, but once I got the hang of it, it was great fun bouncing down the wall. I'd love to do more of that some time!


We continued on to our next destination, Shark Bay the national park and World Heritage Area. To protect the environment from non-native animals, mostly wild cats, a fence has been put up across the whole peninsula. There is only one gate in it for cars to go through. And what prevents the cats to walk through the gate, you may ask. Loudspeakers! They have installed motion detectors that are connected to a set of loudspeakers. Whenever something moves near the gate, the speakers emits the sound of dogs barking. Apparently this method works to keep the cats away. Ingenious!

We spent our first day touring the national park. The coastline was stunning, with the turquoise ocean, white beach and orange desert sand making an intriguing contrast.


Shark Bay has got its name from the large number of sharks that inhabit the area. We didn't go to the water to greet them - it was so windy and chilly that no-one was attracted to the idea of being dragged behind a boat in a boom net. However, we visited an oceanarium, where we got to see lots of local fish captured from the area. The highlight was definitely when our tour guide fed fish to the big sharks. I was standing next to him, so I could see the sharks' teeth and strength from only a meter away. It was quite scary. One girl was clever enough to drop her wallet in the tanks, and our tour guide had to fish it out.


On our way back we stopped at a hot spring. It looked like a common hot tub, but actually the water rose up from somewhere deep down the ground. At 40 degrees warm it was lovely to soak in, just what we needed after a long, windy day.

We stayed two nights in the little village of Denham. Again there wasn't much to do at night except for partying. I was tired and too stubborn to give in to social pressure, so I skipped the hot tub party and went to bed early. Apparently I missed on something as the party turned out to be quite eventful. It was organized by a local guy who was in the Australian 'Farmer Wants a Wife" TV show ('Maajussille morsian' in Finland) and works in the oceanarium. He has brought one of the fish tanks home and uses it as a hot tub! I hear people were jumping off the roof to the pool, and one guy got his pants ripped to pieces when playing with a Bob-Cat, and thus had to come back wearing a skirt. Sounds legendary, too bad that I wasn't in the mood!

Next morning we got up early to visit a resort called Monkey Mia, where wild dolphins show up for feeding punctually at 7:30 every morning. I've seen dolphins many times before in captivity, but it was still nice to see wild ones up close.


After the dolphins it was time to continue the ride north. During the long drive we were once again entertained by boxes of goon. Maybe that's why one of the girls forgot her purse at a toilet stop, and we had to turn around at the Tropic of Capricorn to do an extra 100 km return loop to fetch it. (And why I got "tired" early and didn't see the eclipse that occurred that night! Bugger!) Still, we managed to reach our destination, Coral Bay, just in time to witness a stunning sunset.


Describing Coral Bay even as a tiny village would be exaggerating, as there is almost nothing there. I have no idea where the 190 permanent residents live, as I saw no buildings apart from the two hotels, caravan parks and a handful of shops. There was no cell phone reception for any other operators than Telstra. (As I didn't feel like going online either, it meant I spent a week without any contact to other parts of the world, apart from watching the England-Germany game - I don't know if I've ever been isolated like that before!) Even the water supply was very basic: the hostel had drinking water taps only in the kitchen, so you showered and brushed your teeth with slightly salty water. Despite all this, I liked Coral Bay enormously. I felt sad to leave after five nights, which is a sure sign that I've really liked some place. I think I'll have to place CB in my TOP 3 list of favourite places in Australia. The details of why I liked it so much will be recounted in my next entry.

The morning of our sixth day together (and for me the last day of the tour - apart from me and a German girl D, the other would continue to Karijini national park the next day, before returning to Coral Bay after two nights) I was surprised to wake up with no sign of hangover. That was good as we were due to go for an ocean kayaking trip. We dressed in wetsuits and hopped on yellow plastic thingies, two in each of them, and started paddling out to the reef. The wind was quite strong, but even though it made moving forward hard work, me and my former canoeing partner K had a benefit on our side: the tour guide was quite sexist and thus of the opinion that girls cannot possibly have the muscle power nor the skill to handle a kayak, so as we were the only kayaking team without a male, he had bound our kayak with a rope behind his. This made him have to drag us whenever we slowed down too much. Actually we did pretty well and were faster than the two kayaks with the boys, but still we were grateful to get the support as it enabled us to save our energy for later.

We paddled for about half an hour, during which time Mr. Annoying (who had boasted to be really good at kayaking as he had been in his school's kayaking team) managed to turn his kayak upside down, and make himself, his partner and all their gear to fall off, so that the guide had to dive down to fetch their snorkelling masks. (Mr. Annoying was already bragging about his in reality non-existent skills in Kalbarri, where he totally sucked at steering his canoe and made the girls do all the work.)


Nevertheless, we managed to reach our mooring spot out at the reef, hooked up our kayaks, donned the snorkelling gear on and hopped to the water, straight into a big school of fish!


It took Mr. Annoying ten minutes to wander away from the group and get lost, so that he had to be rescued. The incident didn't surprise any of us anymore, but with this and the falling out of the kayak before, the guide wasn't too impressed with him.

During our snorkel, we saw heaps of fish and coral. However, the main attraction was the "shark cleaning station" - a piece of coral that reef sharks like to come to have their teeth cleaned by little fish. I would never have dared to go there alone, but since the guide was still in one piece and seemed to know what he was doing, I actually felt pretty safe. We saw four sharks, one of them quite small and the largest one much bigger than me. They were apparently harmless black and white tip reef sharks. In the midst of admiring the sharks, I passed my camera to the Texan so he could duck dive down and take a closer picture of the sharks. Just then two of the sharks came out from under a rock, something happened, and when the guy surfaced again he didn't have my camera. F**K!!! Luckily, the guide spotted the camera floating (it's buoyant because there's air trapped inside the waterproof pouch) ten meters from us, so we could fetch it back. Phew, no harm done (except for me not being able to take pictures of the sharks - however, the guide took some so I can share those).


With the end of the kayaking trip my tour was officially over. Our last night together I was feeling homesick and not interested in the company of my group. Luckily, I found a nice Danish girl to have a good bitching & moaning session with. The others were going to leave first thing in the morning, and I would be pretty much on my own again for the next three days as D would move to another room (she got upgraded after taking up cleaning duty to pay for her stay). Or so I thought - I was in for a surprise in the following morning.