‘Feeding the fish’ the job spec said – is this close enough?

Not much time left this year to teach you how to speak in an Australian tongue, so here goes with a few more Aussisms:

• Youse – pronounced yewz or yooce – ‘What are youse trying to say’. Commonly used to imply the plural of ‘you’.
• Bonzer/Bonza – An adjective expressing great enthusiasm or approval: ‘a bonzer bloke’. It is not widely used nowadays, other than in books, or films depicting the stereotypical Aussie
• Larrikin – a wild, unruly or undisciplined person

Our morning had been energetic to say the least; first stop had been the beach at Mooloolaba to meet Robbie Sherwell for a sunrise surfing lesson on the long sandy beach. Having lived in South Africa for a few years I’d surfed before but Bre had never tried it out and we both raced into the foamy shorebreak with our fat foam boards to try and conquer the waves!

Bre has prefect balance having been a gymnast for much of her early life and mastered standing up straight away, the two of us played around in the water for ages riding to the beach then turning and paddling back out for another go. Robbie was excellent and helped us to get out back every time the waves became too much for our tired, unfit shoulders. I can’t wait to get back into the wet stuff once more after Best Job has finished…

As one well known surfing brand states “only a surfer knows the feeling”…

Another slightly higher profile lesson awaited me once I’d hung up my boardshorts back at the Hyatt resort in Coolum – a quick golf lesson with PGA professional Adam Scott the recent winner of the Australian Open!

During our stay at the Hyatt, a major golf tournament was being hosted, the last round of the Australian PGA competition and consequently the resort was alive with golfing pro’s and enthusiasts. I made my way down to the practice range and felt the lump in my throat get bigger – I was going to have to play alongside the big guns here and I don’t think my two comedy games on Hamilton Island golf course would hold me in good stead! The pressure of having about five cameras pointed at me wouldn’t do too much to improve my game either!

Adam showed me exactly what to do and over the course of the lesson I learnt how to hold myself and the club throughout the stroke and genuinely improved what was a very questionable swing into…a slightly better one. I won’t be winning this competition anytime soon but at least I might not find the rough every time – thank you Adam!

It’s not necessarily one of the Islands of the Great Barrier Reef as Moreton is just off Brisbane and therefore too far south, but it’s truly fantastic place to visit where you can take part in one of the many activities which are on offer. Tangalooma resort on the island is also home to the famous wild dolphin feeding program so it was somewhere we couldn’t resist the thought of visiting!

The wind was howling as we arrived at the departure point in Brisbane ready to board the fast catamaran across to Moreton Island and Tangalooma resort, as we left the confines of the river and entered the open ocean the swell picked up and the boat rolled around accordingly – there were a few green faces as we arrived at the jetty around an hour later.

Henk the resort manager was there to meet us, a friendly guy who has made Tangalooma his home for the past few years and really does live the place. As we walked along the arrivals jetty people were already starting to gather for the daily dolphin feeding show so we raced to our rooms, dropped our bags off and headed down to the beach. Tonight I was to become an honorary Marine Biologist!

Aleisha Constein has been working here for three years and helps members of the public down the sand to the waters edge where every night between seven and eleven dolphins arrive to take fish from their hands! It’s an awesome sight I can tell you as five lines of people queue up ready for some interaction with these incredible creatures. Each night the dolphins come to the beach for around an hour and each night return to the same line to feed. There is enough food to go around but never so much that the dolphins don’t retain their natural feeding requirements – in fact only 10% of their daily diet comes from these sessions.

Echo is a 17 year old male who arrived to the beach as an orphan and has been a regular feeder here for a couple of years, he’s easy to identify as there’s a little bit mark out of his tail from a shark attack a few years ago – amazing!

Feeding dolphins is a very belittling experience – being able to get so close to such graceful creatures fills me with wonderment and after spending the night so close felt blown away by the interaction. What a great way to introduce children to them!

There’s no point on sitting around soaking up the sun and doing nothing when you’re staying somewhere with as much on offer as Tangalooma has, so after a quick breakfast Henk piles us all into the resort’s Land Cruiser and drives us up the deep sand roads to a famous site on the island. The Desert.

The place is a vast wilderness, Moreton island is all sand and most of it appears to be here in the form of massive sand dunes and the prevailing winds have moulded and shaped them into huge steep-sided slopes perfect for a bit of fun. We grab our waxed pieces of wood and make for the top of the super heated sand arriving at the top five minutes later after a lot of huffing and puffing.

The next step is to try and get comfortable on the tiny scrap of wood lying belly-down before sliding all the way down to the bottom of the dune at speeds of up to 40 km/h. The secret with this is to keep your mouth and eyes shut!

It’s a brilliant way to waste some energy and time, sweating it out poldding up the dunes and then racing back down again and good practice for the next activity on the agenda – ATV racing!

We’ve done a little of this before whilst being here in Australia but nothing could prepare us for quite how good the course here on Moreton Island is! We had a quick safety briefing and headed out of the resort in convoy not knowing what to expect, as we left the tarmac and hit the soft sand it dawned on me that this is the perfect location for racing about. The track is well away from the resort with little sound pollution and no environmental damage to the surface either as it’s only sand!

For the next hour Bre and I tear about racing around after our instructor as we explore the island; head along the beach, burn down the slopes and figure out the gear systems on these wickedly good fun machines. By the time we get to the end of the course we’ve been covered in dust (again) and feel tired and dirty. What a day of fun…

Tangalooma offers so much in the way of fun and activities for all ages, the range of foods and restaurants on the island mean you’re never far from the next meal and we loved it. Considering the island is only an hour away from Queensland’s capital the air is fresh, the water clear and you can forget the pressure of city life during a short weekend away.

Land of the giant mango….

Location: Ayr, Queensland
Weather: Back to the way I like it, Simpson’s sky with just a few clouds. 29°c

The pleasure of being on the open road once more was refreshing! Having the chance to drive from one location to another in the same way that so many other people explore this vast country is something I’ll do more of next year…much more!

Now Bowen’s a pretty famous town in Queensland, in 2007 Baz Luhrmann brought the entire set and cast of the film ‘Australia’ here to shoot the epic movie and it’s become a huge part of Bowen’s history. So much so that there’s even a water reservoir in town which has ‘Bowenwood’ emblazoned on the side of it in the style of the famous Hollywood sign…superb.

I pulled into the Tourism Bowen office (which is easy enough to find once you get the right road out of town) and there’s a gigantic mango replica in the gardens, which stands 10 metres high, making it very hard to miss.

Jane and Kelly were to be my guides for the day and had a whistle-stop tour of the town planned for me, so off we went as full speed. No time to waste here you know…

The town is spread out over quite a large area, extending to the ocean in the east, with a number of beautiful little bays to break up the coastline, the best way to get a better view is to get up high and half an hour later we’d made it to the top of Murray Hill giving gorgeous views of the surrounding coastline.

Bowen in the only place along the Queensland coastline where the Great Barrier Reef extends all the way to the shore offering a very unique experience for snorkelers and divers alike. This part of the mainland coast is also very different from where I’ve visited so far, the large granite formations reminiscent of Magnetic Island, coming alive with colour as the sun sets at the end of the day.

Next stop Walter’s Hibiscus Farm…now before I came here I honestly thought there was only one variety of hibiscus flower but how wrong I could be…there’s over 15,000! The garden around Walter’s house in simply breathtaking, a labour of love and something to be very proud of with colour bursting from every corner – and behind every corner there’s a story too about the name, location or size of his little friends. It’s probably one of the most photographic places I’ve been so far. If only my Mum was still in the country to see it!

Time for a couple of holes at the local Bowen Golf Course…literally three of them, and flukey me went and birdied on of the hardest holes on the course. Must have been all that practice I picked up on Dent Island…or maybe it was just a fluke.

The frenetic energy of the day means one thing…hunger pangs, so we make a bee-line for the top of another hill, this time Flagstaff, and the 360 restaurant offering awesome views of the surrounding town and countryside. I give in once more and tempt myself with yet another portion of succulent prawns – well they’re supposed to be good for you.

We make our way back to Rose Bay and to the Rose Bay resort where I’ll be staying for the night, Paul the owner is there to greet me and together with my ridiculous amount of kit, I make my way upstairs to one of the penthouse suites overlooking the bay. What a cracking setup…huge rooms with sea views, luxurious furniture and most importantly for me, a big comfy bed. After the last few days activity I’ll be needing that for sure.

But the day’s not finished yet, as the evening draws in we make our way to the Summer garden Theatre where Ben de Luca, the owner of this classic cinema is there to greet us on arrival in exactly the same way that he does to every customer who walks through the doors.

This little gem is very special, coming from the UK where all of the classic little cinemas have closed down and been replaced by huge multi-screen complexes, Bowen has this very original location, which prides itself on the personal touch. There’s only two screens, one seating 300, the other 86 and Ben the owner has been here for 46 years making it a shrine to all things ‘movie’.

When the big guns came into town for the filming of ‘Australia’ all of the film’s rushes were played here along with special screenings for none less than Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman.

Ben kindly played the opening trailer and first 15 minutes of the film for me before we headed up to the projection room to see the operations centre and the equipment needed to do it. Being a engineer by trade I spent ages fussing over the machines and mechanisms that are needed to project a film out onto the screen. I sincerely hope that digital never replaces film in places like this…there’s a certain art to it all!

Early the next morning my alarm clock rang out again, I was off diving again! A little different from my last one on the Yongala as I’d be entering the water by walking down the beach. The last time I’d done that was in May back in the UK in freezing cold water.

I met Brian and Ann from Aussie Reef Dive at the beach, checked the equipment over and kitted up. What a way to start the day! Brian then pulled out of the truck something I’ve always wanted to use…a Seadoo propulsion unit to pull me through the water rather than the usual kicking method.

As we left the shore it took a little getting used to but within minutes I felt very confident following Brian exactly where he went, the only thing you have to watch with these is your depth as it’d be very easy to come up far too quickly, but as we’re only diving in five metres of water here it’s not so much of an issue.

The coral here is fantastic, there’s a huge variety literally metres from the shore and the perfect place for families and those on a budget to come out and explore the Great Barrier Reef up close and personal. Our visibility was slightly reduced as the previous evening’s wind had whipped up the waves and in shallower water this stirs up the bottom but this couldn’t detract from the fun I was having playing around with my my means of transport.

My final Bowen experience was one I’d waited a while for – the chance to go fishing! As we made our way down to the marina I spotted out boat for the day, the awesome 58ft ‘Providence’. Andy the skipper and owner welcomed me onboard and as we made our way out into open water explained we had three hours to catch dinner. Another Andrew, Andy’s mate, showed me how to tie on the huge lures we’d be using…hopefully to catch some King Mackerel – monsters of the ocean which put up much more of a fight than the one’s I’m used to coming from the UK.

With four lines out, each with a slightly different rig on to get to all depths of the ocean, we trawled around one reef, then another, then Middle Island, then back around Middle Island for three whole hours….and not even a bite! It must be something to do with me you know – I have to be one of the most unsuccesful fisherman there is and for some reason I still love it. It must be something very male and deeply rooted in me, the expectation of one day catching ‘The Big One’ keeps dragging me back for more.

Defeated we arrived back at the marina with one more ‘new’ appointment to make – a visit to Arabon Seafoods to see what we should have caught. The very kind owner, whose name escapes me, donated two Coral Trout fillets to my evening barbeque. I would not be going hungry tonight thanks to him!

A quick visit on the way out of town to the famous Jochheim’s Pie Shop which during the filming of the movie introduced a new product – the Hunkie Aussie Meat Pie after Hugh Jackman made it his favourite snack whilst working!

Bowen pleasantly surprised me, when you initially drive into the town centre it’s much the same as many other coastal towns but once you start to explore it further and get under the skin of it, there’s loads to do, plenty of little bays you can have almost to yourself and a very friendly population who stop and chat as you walk down the street.

My girlfriend Bre adores mangoes and we’ll be back up this was for sure during the season which happens around November and December, mark my words.

End of day location: Bowen, Queensland
Distance covered: 100kms

A night on the ‘Big Island’…

Back to the Aussism’s at the request of some followers:

• dinkum – as in ‘fair dinkum’, genuine, fair, honest, truthful
• pushover – A person or thing which is very easy to do, master or acquire. ‘That exam was a pushover’
• cop-shop – a police station

Location: Hamilton Island

Weather: Oh my goodness, it’s raining! Still a balmy 28c though….

It was officially the start of spring here in Australia on the 1st September which of course heralded a change in the weather…I awoke to grey clouds and even light rain, how on earth would I cope!

Bre arrived back on Hamilton Island yesterday after her extended spell down on the Gold Coast, it’s awesome to have her energy back in the house and as Mum and Dad are here we all headed out to Mariners Restaurant on Front Street for a reunion dinner.

Now I love my seafood, like really love it! Whenever there’s a seafood platter on the menu I just have to try it and tonight was no exception. Mariners is rumoured to be one of the best on the coast so the inevitable order happened. Twenty minutes later I was presented with a mountainous plate of both hot and cold seafood; oysters, prawns, soft-shelled crab, lobster, fish and attempted to make my way to the bottom of the pile.

Question – What exactly is the difference between a crayfish and a lobster? (I thought it may be either a regional variation in name or something to do with having pincers or not. Would be great to hear your answers? Some ideas are here

Anna Bligh, the Premier of Queensland, recommended to me a few weeks ago that if whilst doing this job I wanted to try and maintain my waistline I should avoid eating red meat and go for the fish option when eating out…..do you think stuffing myself to almost bursting point on seafood counts? I hope so.

As all of us are together again for at least a few days we’d decided to head away from the islands for a few days and visit what’s known here as the ‘Big Island’ – or mainland Australia, so we caught the Fantasea ferry across to Shute Harbour jumped in a cab and made for the car rental offices in Airlie Beach.

This last car I actually drove that wasn’t my golf buggy was the Audi RS6 V10 monster on the airport runway during Race Week, so when I found out I’d be driving an automatic Hyundai Elantra for the next couple of days I was just a wee bit disappointed – oh well it’ll get us there!

We headed south along the Bruce Highway past seemingly endless sugarcane plantations, through my first taste of traditional Queensland towns and villages before finally turning inland towards the Clarke Range of mountains and our final destination Eungella National Park, west of Mackay.

The park covers nearly 500 km² and climbs to 1280m above sea level at the impressive Mount Dalrymple but is mainly inaccessible due to its mountainous geography except for the walking tracks around Broken River and Finch Hatton Gorge. There’s large areas of tropical and sub-tropical vegetation that have been isolated from other rainforest areas (or riverine forest as it’s actually known here) for thousands of years and now boast a number of unique species.

We headed straight for Finch Hatton Gorge and the Forest Flying cable runway experience which allows you to strap yourself into a seat harness and fly through the canopy of the forest 20 metres from the floor…I’d cunningly booked all four of us in for this knowing that if Mum caught wind of what we’d actually be doing she’d back out, so when we arrived at the launch site and it dawned on her there’d be nowhere to run to. God, I sound like an awful son don’t I!

The trees around the site are teeming with fruit bats all hanging upside down in the sunshine, wrapped in their wings, screeching every time they’re disturbed and tainting the air with that lovely smell that only bats can provide. Picking our way through the melee we found Dave ready to strap us into out harnesses….

After a five minute climb to gain some altitude we arrived at our first launch platform and in turn strapped ourselves onto the 220m cable and launched ourself down the runway, what a fantastic way to see the rainforest from a totally different angle – I spotted a python resting on the canopy after a meal of tasty bat, a huge spider and loads of fruit bats who scattered as I screamed past!

Mum admitted to being scared s***less before having her first go but once she’d actually gone down the first of the two cables was thoroughly enjoying herself and smiling again. But as with all good things, it was over far too quickly and we made our way back to the car and headed off for some lunch.

One of the main reasons for the trip to Eungella was to visit Broken River to try and find the very unique and recluse Platypus – that very Australian of creatures. Rumour has it they frequent the river in this part of the park so a great place to finish off the day.

We checked into Broken River Mountain Resort and found a beautifully relaxed retreat  nestled in the woods with a quaint little cabin overlooking the river complete with two rooms and woodburner stove – and surprisingly we’d actually need it as the temperature would drop later in the evening!

Off to find one of these little critters then…there’s a viewing platform on the banks positioned above the water and from here we stood and waited. First the tell-tale sign of bubbles, then a swirl of water and finally the little thing poked its head out for a breath! Excellent.

I stood and watched the platypus for ages taking great delight in tracking its movements under the surface as it used its highly sensitive bill to detect even the slightest electrical signals given out by the muscular movements of its prey – freshwater shrimps. The Platypus is much smaller than I’d imagined but perfectly designed for the job; webbed feet, broad tail and waterproof fur make it a specialist hunter.

Once we’d had another superbly cooked dinner and filled our bellies to near bursting point it was a short waddle back to our charming little cottage for the night but being up at around 800m the night-time temperature was decidedly cooler than that on the island. In fact it was so much colder we even lit the wood-burner to provide some additional heat whilst we whipped through 12 games of Scattagories.

This is a part of Queensland I hadn’t been to at all and it was excellent to get into a car a feel the freedom of the open road once more…memories of last year driving around Africa came flooding back! This week I’ll be doing it again but instead heading north towards Townsville as I venture up the coast before stepping off on Magnetic and Hinchinbrook Islands, there’s some extremely exciting dives coming up which I can’t wait for!

End of day location: Eungella, Queensland

Distance travelled: 223kms