Nevers Endeavors

Why you should never buy a plane ticket on Expedia

2012-02-26T19:28:00.000+11:00

Why you should never buy a plane ticket on Expedia...or the cautions if you do.

We have had 2 major adventures with international tickets...unfortunately both with Expedia. Grrr!
The first "adventure" is that we found a deal for our tickets from San Fransisco (SFO) to Sydney, Australia (SYD) (via Vancouver...but heck...it was Business Class so it was not a big tragedy and I had never seen Vancouver before). It was about $300 per ticket cheaper than any other ticket. BUT since we were doing a company international move...things were of course going to be changed/delayed. SO we found ourselves having to move our ticket.

Matthew did most of the work as I was still in Brussels working. It was painful! What he first discovered was that Expedia would not move the ticket. Period. But there was nothing on the Expedia website that said we could not change our tickets. Nothing, anywhere when we bought it. Normally to change a ticket, you expect to pay the change fee and the difference in fare. No problem, we expected this...but NO.

We did not expect what Expedia told us. They said that there was absolutely no way to change the ticket...period. They were helpless, don't you know. Not their fault. We had to call Air Canada. Air Canada said Expedia had to make the change as they had no issues once we paid the change fee. Expedia told us we could not change because of Air Canada. (We elevated to a supervisor level) Air Canada (whose customer support is actually quite good) said it was a totally normal ticket and of course they could change it, they just needed Expedia to do so. So with Air Canada on the line, we were kept on hold for 45 minutes calling back into Expedia and then put on hold. And then hung up on by Expedia.
Eventually we discovered:
- Expedia has a 1h45min timer on your call and the line gets disconnected after that. Yep...so if you don't have someone with your call back number, you go back to the start of the whole thing. We ran into this multiple times in this process and asked corporate and yep...it is true
- Each call center has different hold music (so if you don't like the agent, hang up and try again and if the hold music is different, you may be in luck)
- Every single Expedia rep will try to put you through the exact same script no matter how many times you have already gone through it on the exact same call.
- It takes 3 levels of escalation before you hit corporate for an actual employee of Expedia who actually can change your ticket even thought they tell you they can't.
- The fine fine fine print said that our ticket was non-refundable AND NON CHANGEABLE but it was buried so low that we could not access it in the general agreement policies when we bought the tickets
- Expedia says there are no change fees - well folks I am here to say that they do...but they call it a cancellation fee. They would not change the ticket for us...we were forced to Cancel our ticket and get a refund (minus the cancellation fee)
After 4 hours, 13 minutes of phone time and talking with over half a dozen people we FINALLY found someone we could talk to and do something and we changed our flights. Ugh.

The Final tally:
Elapsed time: 4h13mins on phone.
Escalations: 5
Max Escalation Level Reached: 3
Calls Dropped by Expedia right at 1:45min: 3
Number of transfers to AirCanada: 4

Expedia's "special tickets" are a little too special. Do not ever buy one. You will be stuck with a completely useless ticket if anything changes. In my case I actually had to cancel both tickets and reissue them with the new dates.

I guess I should have learned but I used them again to buy tickets for my parents to come visit. Due to a computer glitch somewhere, only 3 of the 6 letters came out in my dads last name. My mother called about this. After being on hold for extended periods of time with Expedia, they said they could not do anything and she would have to call Air New Zealand (ANZ). Mom called ANZ and they told her she had to talk to Expedia. Calling Expedia back (and being told to call ANZ again), she said that she would stay on hold while they talked to each other. Expedia came back and said that ANZ could not change the name without her buying a new ticket and getting the other one refunded. This would be $300. She was frustrated but agreed.
THEN she was told that neither she NOR HE could get a refund for my dad's ticket becuase I had bought the ticket. WHAT?? So I called.
The rollercoaster started again. Expedia told me I had to talk to the airline. I called ANZ and they told me I had to call Expedia (sound familiar??). Here is the crazy part....ANZ also told me that if it was an ANZ ticket, they could make the change but since one of the flight segments is on United, they could not make the change. I thought this was ridiculous since it was a ANZ ticket on all segments...one of the segments in operated by United but it has a ANZ flight number. Code share partners apparently does not mean anything that can help you. The Star Alliance partnership is a JOKE! Grrr!!!
I call Expedia again and spoke with a very friendly guy named Tom in Manilla (there was a typhoon going on). He tried to help but it turns out but apparently Expedia needed to talk with the ANZ office in the United States and they were not open. Grrr!
He took my number and said they would call back. They did. I was shocked. Unfortuntaly the person still had no power. After an hour on the phone explaining the same thing, they told me that (I know this is a shock) the ANZ desk in the US that handles travel agents was closed and we had to talk with them. Oh...Expedia also said that for an airline like Delta, a 3 letter change is not a problem BUT this was ANZ. Nice! This person also told me that CLEARLY, it was my mistake. Like I don't know how to spell my last name.
I call back AGAIN and explain the whole thing AGAIN...this time I reached a supervisor. I could recite the lines at this point. The difference this time is that she said that she would call me back and she actually did. It was an ungodly hour in the morning, but I did receive a call back. She explained that we were going to separate the 2 tickets on the itinerary. I had to pay the difference for my dad's ticket to the current price. Frustrating! ANZ was blaming this on the United flight. They said that if all the flights were on ANZ, they could add the extra letters to the name. I can tell you that the airline partners are not really partners, there are handshakes that pretend to make traveler's lives more convienanient but only when it suits the airline. I ended up getting out of the deal for under $300 and one more call from Expedia. What and ordeal!!
Here is the other fun thing. We could not pick seats or get info about changes to flight times. We ended up calling United and ANZ directly to take care of these issues.

The even BETTER part was when I went to Expedia to log on while in Sydney. I couldn't. Since I was not in the US, I could not just pull up www.expedia.com and get my itineraries. I had to figure out how to get to the US site to sign in. I finally found the convoluted way to the US website from the Australian one and logged in to my account (with the user name and password I was using before). So Expedia does not even have a working partnership with Expedia. In this modern day and age why would a travel agent site not be normalized across countries??? I was quite concerned and thought I had messed up my password and such. UGH! More silly frustrations with Expedia.

A word of advice. Always try and buy directly from the airline. ANZ is not a friendly. Experiences with Expedia are painful if anything goes wrong.
Grrrr!!

Adelaide - South Australia

2011-12-31T21:01:00.000+11:00

We went to visit the capital of South Australia, Adelaide. I had never been to South Australia (SA) so I was quite excited. SA is the only state in Australia that does not have a historical beginning centered around a penal colony. In fact there was never a penal colony in SA...a fact that the South Australians are VERY proud. I heard this fact within 30 minutes of landing and then repeated multiple times over the weekend by different individuals. Very proud!

We were greeted at the airport by our amazing tour guide friend. She took us on a tour of the city. Like all major Australian cities, Adelaide is situated near a mountain range and the ocean. It was a planned city. There are four quadrants built around the central Victoria Square. Each quadrant has its own square of green park space. They are extreemly organized.

This vision was that of Colonel Light. He selected the location and designed the quadrants and parks. Against much opposition, Colonel Light's vision is the backbone of Adelaide. Overlooking the city is a monument to the founder of Adelaide.

I like Adelaide. It is a very livable, neat little city. It has the best aspects of a large city without the downsides. It offers great public transit in the city center, professional sports, and a university.

Cricket is huge in Adelaide. The Adelaide Oval is their massive cricket pitch, seating 36,000 people. It was established in 1871 and has a rich history. The University is charming. On one side of the university is a walking path along the river Torrens complete with a picturesque footbridge. The river Torrens could be mistaken for a creek from what we saw. The irony of the name was not lost on us.



Rainforest Building

Just down from the university is the Adelaide Botanic Garden. It is free to enter and worth the visit. There is a nice walking path around several ponds with ducks and water lilies. We watched a tree full of brightly colored parrots that were hanging upside down. The succulent garden had some crazy plants including what Matthew described as "fractal broccoli cactus". The rose garden is extensive. Even in the late winter, we found some roses blooming. The rose garden lies in the shadow of the "rainforest" building. It is a large, modern, spacey (or Spanish explorer hat) design.
Near the entrance to the rainforest building was a tree that has been dated to be between 1500 and 2000 years old. It fell when it was 500.
An oddity were the plaques around the garden. We found a plaque to commemorate a lunatic asylum from 1852 to 1902. I can not imagine the person who decided to spend public money on the plaque...interesting thing to commemorate.

Giant Fig Trees

Outside the garden were HUGE giant fig trees. I loved them. The roots were taller than I am! I could stand next to the tree and not been seen. They are beautiful graceful trees.

The botanical garden in the center of town is not the best botanical garden in Adelaide. Mount Lofty Botanic Garden has a Rhododendron Path that was still in full bloom in September. The azaleas and rhododendrons were stunning.

There are lots of jokes about the "Special Bus". Well...Adelaide is apparently the place where one can catch the Special Bus. The center of the city is easy to navigate. A free bus operates around the perimeter of the city center.

We decided to explore the city market. Adelaide's market is a block from Victoria Square. Like the city itself, it is remarkably well laid out. It was clean and extremely bright. It was a sharp contrast to the markets in Melbourne and Sydney. This market also only has food, unlike the larger markets that sell just about anything.

There are also trams that run regularly from the city center to the beach town, Glenelg. Tickets are sold on the tram.
This beach town looks and feels like any other generic beach town. We walked to the end of the pier. The day we visited, the wind was so strong that some of the sea spray was splashing up on the pier.
The view from the pier is a bay so big that you cannot see across. It was crazy windy and the waves splashed up to the walkway. The fish measuring station would have made my father excited.

Even though it was chilly and windy we did as you would do in any beach town, we grabbed ice-cream. We found a place that has a station to apply unlimited nuts and toppings on your ice-cream. The place was called Copenhagen's. It was down the walk from another ice cream place named after a European city. Ironically, a popular ice cream place in Europe was "Australian Ice Cream". This idea Australian ice-cream in Europe but European ice cream in Australia. Hmmm.

Adelaide is full of history. We walked around the hills above Adelaide to the Glen Osmond silver-lead mine.
It was the first metal mine in Australia. The fortunes of Adelaide rose and fell with the mines. Miners flooded into SA but quickly cleared out to follow the gold rush in Victoria. It was impressive to look in and see the beginning the mine shaft. I would hate to have worked down there.

The city was full of animals. I had one of the most up-close and personal experiences with a koala that I have ever had. We were sitting in a spa (we would call it a hot tub) and heard scratching behind Matthew's head. There, about 1 foot from his head, a koala was trying to climb up a palm tree. Poor guy could not get up as his claws could not dig into the trunk of the palm. He tried a couple of times and then gave up. He was so little and fluffy and cute. He looked at us, then up the tree, and then to us again. I can't believe how close I was to a wild koala! He walked to within a foot of my head on his way to a tree with bark. It was amazing to be in a city and yet so close such an amazing animal.

From Adelaide, you can drive up to the Flinders Range for hiking or down to Kangaroo Island. On the way down south is a wonderful place called Second Valley. We went to go kayaking.

We grabbed lunch at a traditional Aussie pie place. Pies and rolls are a staple in Australia. Like in the UK, they put all kinds of savory meat fillings inside a pastry wrapping. We also learned about the South Australian's affinity to flavored iced coffee and milk drinks. Egg nog is one of the most popular flavors. They were surprised that egg nog is not available year round in the United States, where it is exclusively a holiday flavor. By the way, egg nog flavored milk in SA has a much lighter flavor and is not as thick as that in the US.

Second Valley is a neat place along the ocean. Apparently when Colonel Light first went to SA, the first valley they found was named Rapid Bay. They used the creative name of Second Valley to....yep...the second valley they found.

Donning the "slenderizing" wet suits, we jumped into kayaks and started our battle against the brisk wind and cold waves. We were kayaking along amazing cliffs. The cold and wind were even worse once we started paddling. Luckily, the wind was blowing back into shore so we had to work to get out and would get the wind to help us back. It was HARD to paddle. We stopped for lunch at one of the few scattered beaches down the coast.

Metamorphic, sedimentary schist sounds like dirty words. The rock was jumbled up over time with cliffs that drop straight into ocean. It had such an old feeling. The beautiful colors of rock next to the cold, tropical, turquoise colored water was spectacular. Along the waterline it had been worn smooth by the waves. It was fantastic to climb around these old rocks.

The layers of rock carved from wind and waves were fun to walk on. The different levels offered foot and hand holds. We walked to a cave at the next beach down. There is a seal colony just pass Rapid Bay. We kayaked past an old jetty around the headland. It was like going through rapids. There were dozens of seals lounging on the rocks. They were smart and not struggling through the water like we were. After clearing the headlands, we wind took us on a ride back to the jetty. I was cold and tired but happy about the experience exploring the quiet valley. The hot shower was heaven!
Rain moved in on our way back to Adelaide. We saw a double rainbow. Stunning!

Overall we really enjoyed Adelaide and South Australia. I plan to go back to explore more on my next trip to Australia.

Tasman Peninsula - Tasmania

2011-12-17T19:39:00.000+11:00

Van Diemen's Land was the original name Europeans had for Tasmania. Named in honor of the Dutch Governor General, Anthony Van Dieman sent Able Tasman on the voyage that lead to his landing in 1642. Van Diemen's Land was an apt name for another reason. Home of Australia's largest penal colony, Tasmania was truly a hellish place. Over 67,000 convicts were shipped to Tasmania and forced into to hard labor.

Once a brutal penal colony, the Historic Port Arthur is now one of the most visited tourist destinations in Tasmania. The entrance ticket includes a multi day pass into the grounds, a guided walking tour, and a boat cruise. The tour guides are historians and have interesting stories of people who have touched them. The entire place is now a series of museums. One section takes you through a "day in a life" of one of the convict by name.
Another building has a computer where you can look up your family name to see if you have a convict family ancestry. The scariest place is the isolation area including the half meter concrete walls and the place where the convicts had church in individual, isolated, standing sections. Not to anyone's surprise, the insane asylum was adjacent to the isolation building.

The grounds are beautiful; almost pretty enough to forget about the miserable history.

My favorite building is the church. It is beautiful but surreal place. It had a fire that burnt out the roof. Now, it is an open structure. The boat ride was also a highlight. It sails past the boy's prison island and the graveyard island.

We went on a ghost tour (for an added charge). The highlight was seeing a living wild Tassie devil, of course since it was dark, it was just a glimpse.

Only a few kilometers from Port Author is The Remarkable Cave. The site was recommended by the managers of our accommodation. It was a great recommendation! Because it was not the easiest to find, it was fairly deserted.

The path was short and lead along a stunning cliff that soared above the tumultuous ocean below. The water was memorizing with the waves that churning in and out. The cave outlines the shape of Tasmania...apparently that is why it is called remarkable :)

The cliff face leading into the Remarkable Cave had an interesting section of rock where Dolerite met sandstone as the Earth's surface was being forced up. The texture and color was beautiful. It is a stunning place.

We also visited some of the more popular cliff tourist spots on the Tasman Peninsula...the Tasman Arch, the Blowhole, and the Devils Kitchen.

A stroll for an hour or two will bring you to the edge of sheer drops, overlooking massive chasms, surging ocean, off-shore islands, white-sand beaches, and waterfalls that tumble into the sea. It is a beautiful coastline.

One fun side trips is a drive through Doo Town. The houses in this little stretch of road name themselves using "Doo" in their name. My favorites are "Thistle Doo Me" and "Wattle-I-Doo". Don't blink or you might miss it. The "town" is really just a group of houses and shacks.

It is important to note that you wan to not wait too long to eat. They close things down after about 7 and very little (if anything) will be open.

The Tasman Peninsula is only 75 miles southeast of Hobart on the far south eastern part of the island of Tasmania. It is full of history and rugged coast lines with its own quirky since of humor. I love it!

Sydney Royal Botanical Gardens

2011-10-31T21:52:00.000+11:00

Eels and bats...oh my...am I in Transylvania? Nope. I am in downtown Sydney.

Some of the best views of the Sydney icons are offered from the public gardens. The Sydney Royal Botanic Gardens is part of the original garden called the Governor's Domain.
In 1816, the land was set aside by the Governor of Sydney, Governor Macquarie. The huge number of things in Australia named Macquarie is a testimony to his governing (or his vanity). One spot in the park is named Mrs. Macquarie's Seat. She liked to sit, look out at the harbour, and watch the ships coming and going. Since he was Governor, he had a road built through the Domain just for her to get there. The seat is carved out of stone. It's good to be The Governor.

Just above this spot is one of the most photographed spots in all of Sydney (you would never know it because it is where people stand).

The viewpoint looks back on the Opera House with the Harbour Bridge backdrop. It is the PERFECT place to watch fireworks on New Years (if you can get there early enough). I did exactly that in 2001 when Australia celebrated its Centennial of becoming the commonwealth. It was an amazing spot but by noon, the place was packed.

The park is beautiful. It has expanded since the original Domain and now is over 30 hectares. Throughout most of the park you can see the skyscrapers of downtown Sydney just behind the trees.

The gardens can be accessed from several entrances including an easy walk from Circular Quay around the Sydney Opera House. It is open until around dusk and is free to enter. They even have daily free hour long walking tours. The tours are different depending on the guide, but most of the volunteers conducting the tour are quite good.

The plants include an herb garden, rose garden, palm house, Chinese garden, and natural indigenous plants. Every tour makes a point to stop at the Wollemi Pine. It is one of the world's oldest and rarest tree species belonging to a 200 million-year-old plant family. It had only been seen in the fossil record and was thought to be extinct. A grove of them were discovered in the mid 1990's by a botanist bushwalking in the Blue Mountains west of Sydney. Several specimens have been sent to protected parks to help ensure the survival of the species.

Among the most stunning sights are the Jacaranda trees in full bloom. The purple was so beautiful and vibrant. The other show-off is the yellow wattle. The yellow poof balls are all over the tree (pictured above).

The tall, proud Norfolk Pines are also scattered through the park. These trees were imported from Norfolk Island (a Pacific island east of Australia, between New Caledonia and New Zealand). Captain Cook thought that the trees would make excellent ship masts, as their trunks are so straight and tall. This was not the case but their distinctive features are great for marking harbour entrances. They are scattered throughout the South Pacific.

I love the Queensland Bottle Tree. There is an aboriginal story about the tree. The legend goes that the tree was a beautiful tree, but was vain. The tree would flaunt its beauty to all of the other trees around. The gods warned the tree to stop. The tree ignored the warnings. So the gods came down and uprooted the tree, turned it upside down. The bottle tree has remained with all of its roots in the air.

The gardens are full of animals. Sulfur-Crested Cockatoos are found in droves. They crunch on seeds and nuts. And they are LOUD. You hear a flock of cockatoos before you can see them. They are constantly screeching at each other and jostling. It is a lot of fun to see them display their crest of yellow head feathers.

The other bird frequently seen in the garden is the Australian White Ibis. The ibis are strange looking birds. They have long, thin, curved beaks. They are much quieter than their compatriots but also can be cheeky.

One of my favorite discoveries was the ponds with ducks and eels. We were told that the ponds are emptied out occasionally for cleaning. The eels are removed and relocated. The park workers have seen new eels slithering across the grass from the harbour back to the pond. Yep, they can actually move across land to get to their desired destination. Fascinating. I laughed at the plaque beside the pond that describes how natural it is for a cuddly duckling to become an eel meal.

It is strange to think of bats in a park in a major city. There are hundreds of fruit bats (or flying foxes) in the trees. Unfortunately, they are damaging the trees since they are not leaving for their normal migration. So the trees never recover. I guess they have decided that they like the views from the garden as well.

The sandstone in the park has been carved out over time creating beautiful spots to sit. The Sydney Royal Botanic Garden is a great place to read quietly, go for a walk, or picnic with friends.
It is a favorite Sydney destination and a must see when visiting..

Mozart's Don Giovanni - Sydney Opera House

2011-10-11T22:18:00.000+11:00

Picture from Don Giovanni article
from Sydney Paper

It is always a good sign when an opera opens with an incredibly muscled man jumping out of a window wearing skimpy black leather shorts and an open shirt. Then he opens his mouth and a deep, huge, booming baritone voice fills the entire theater...it was like butter. Oh my...a six pack with butter.

We saw Mozart's Don Giovanni at the Sydney Opera House. It was stunning. One of the best operas I have ever seen.

Don Giovanni is a character that you love to hate. He is a gallivanting, narcissistic cad who preys on women...literally thousands of women. In the opening scene, he gets in trouble when he is challenged by a girl's father who he ends up killing in the duel. Instead of going away to another unsuspecting female pool in another country, he stays in the same area. He is hunted by an ex-lover after making his presence known to her by propositioning her inadvertently. She is torn as she is still captivated by him but knows he is no good. Then he aggressively pursues another woman on her wedding day by neutralizing her groom. The betrothed of the girl whose father he killed vows revenge to prove his love. For those keeping score at home, that is a soprano, a mezzo-soprano and an alto (three female leads) and two fiancées (a baritone and a very high tenor) all out to get Don. Not to mention Don Giovanni's own manservant who does not like him either. In the end, a statue of the father he killed in Act I raises the powers of darkness to come and drag Don's soul into the depths of hell.

Mozart really knew how to write music. The score is great. It has both intense music and melodic interludes. The vocal arrangements are stunning. Some scenes have 5 operatic leads all singing harmoniously together.

The voices were absolutely incredible in the Sydney production! Teddy Tahu Rhodes played Don Giovanni. He is amazing in this role! With his powerful baritone voice and stage presence, he blew everyone else out of the water . The actor portraying Don Giovanni needs to be overpowering. He is also competing with the other five leads. Teddy succeeded.

The remaining cast members were all extremely strong and powerful in their own right. Donna Anna was played by an Australian and lit up the stage. Zerlina's voice was beautiful. I could have listened to them all night. My other favorite was listening to the sweet tenor who played Don Ottavio (Henry Choo). His voice was so soft and sweet. Don Ottavio is shafted the whole show. I felt sorry for him. His voice reflects the tenderness of the character. Amongst such depravity, he is the only really sympathetic character in the play.

They must have spent their entire budget on the vocal talent. The sets are fairly minimal with just a big space on stage with doors/balcony. But we did not go for the props. The show was fantastic with all of the full voices. The last scene was strangely blocked. Don Giovanni almost escapes from the hands of death (strapped to a coffin) and then gets grabbed a different way for no apparent reason other than to use the trap door in the stage floor. I guess they wanted to show off the one fancy part of the set. It is saved by the entire back part of the set crashing to the stage floor. Drama drama drama.

We sat in row Q on the floor and the seats were fantastic. Row Q is just about the best row in the house. The first ten rows are directly under the surtitles so you can't see them and the overhanging balcony obstructs the view from the last 4 or so rows. The sound is perfect. We were just right and not even any porridge spilled. There was, however, some cooked chicken (and silverware and cups) flung across the stage in the second act when Don Giovanni is acting like a slob. He's and eating and drinking as much as he is tossing around, and he's throwing anything he puts his hands on. But Row Q was outside the splash zone.

I have come to think that with La Boehme, Macbeth and now, Don Giovanni, that opera is all about plotting and death.

Nature in the City

2011-09-22T21:21:00.000+10:00

Sydney has been a fun city to live in. Unlike when I lived in North Queensland, there are significantly fewer opportunities for animal interactions in a big city. In Townsville, we had little geckos in our house daily. I missed the sound of their calls when I moved.

In the more temperate city, birds are more prevalent. Ibis and seagulls were common to see everywhere in Sydney. The botanical gardens were full of flying foxes (bats) and the loud cacophony of the sulfur crested cockatoo which were fun to see in the middle of a city.

We lived on the 7th floor of a high rise building. It was normal to have bird visitors on the ledge outside of our building. The lorikeets were my favorite. They were so brightly colored with bright blue heads, rich red beaks, green backs and stunning yellow chests. They tended to visit in pairs.

Rainbow Lorikeet in Sydney

One morning I heard very loud squawk...louder than normal. I moved the curtain over our window and saw that one had come in and was on the inside of the window and was talking to his partner on the outside of the window. They were trying to figure out why they were not able to be next to each other. I left the curtain closed and he eventually found his way out.

He was so much nicer than the magpies that came into visit.

My not-so-plesant visitor came on multiple occasions. I was sitting in our apartment in Sydney. I opened the window because it was a beautiful day and I wanted the airflow. A magpie came into the cracked window and flew into the apartment. He landed on the kitchen counter, looked around, pooped, and flew out. I learned that I needed to close the windows when I left. This happened 3 or 4 times. I did not appreciate the gifts left.

Sydney is full of birds. The Australian White Ibis and seagulls were commonplace. The ibis are not like the common birds I am used to. They are white birds with black heads and a long, curved black beak.
The whip bird was not common to see but was fun to hear. It has an amazing sound. The song started as a high pitched sound that grew louder and louder and louder in a crescendo. Then the song would drop off suddenly. The effect was like a beautiful whistle whip cracking.

Out walking in any park or forest area, it was normal to hear the laugh of the kookaburra. I love the sound of kookaburras. Their sound is so much fun and makes me smile.

Nature in the city is fun especially if it stays OUTSIDE.

Grampians National Park, Victoria

2011-09-18T21:46:00.000+10:00

The Grumpies!
Matthew and I went to hike in the Grampians National Park in western Victoria. Three hours from Melbourne, it is a great location for a weekend away. September/October is the height of the wild flower season in Australia.
The Grampians is home to such fantastically named places as Flat Rock, Mount Zero, Mount Abrupt, and Mount Difficult. Whoever named some of these places had no naming ability or a quirky sense of humor.

The Grampians themselves are a range of big, old mountains that sit on a totally flat plain. They rise up out of an otherwise featureless expanse of flat. There are not really even hills leading up to the Grampians. It is just flat and then mountains.

The drive out to Halls Gap (the gateway town to the Grampians) from Melbourne is not very exciting. It is 3 hours across a plain with farms and some scattered gum trees. We drove it at night, so it was even less exciting. The only indication that we were getting closer was that the houses were more and more sparse and the trees were more and more dense.

Halls Gap is quite small. We were able to walk from one end of the town to the other in less than 30 minutes. It has places to sleep, a couple restaurants (most on the expensive side) and some little shops but not much else along the single main road. We stayed at Ted's Beds which worked well for us. Ted is a really nice guy who loves what he does. We were given the Grand Tour and he recommended some hiking options. Several of the trails were only minutes from our room. Great location!


Orange flower is the Parrot Pea (Dillwynia Sericea)	Showy Parrot Pea (yellow)

	Pink flower is the Leafless Bitter Pea (Daviesia Brevifolia)

Like all the other guests at the hostel, we had come to hike and see wildflowers. Boronia Peak was one of the hikes Ted had suggested. It was listed as a 3 hour return trip up to a peak with good views of the area. The path was beautiful with all of the different little wild flowers. The flowers were all very small but they littered the landscape creating a collage of colour. It was impressive.

The most prolific were the species of pea flowers. The flower is very small. We thought they were a small orchid at first. The peas came in a wide variety of colors, stem and leaf types. They were among the most striking due to the shear quantity in the forest.


Variable Prickly Grevillea (Grevillea Aquifolium)	Sasparilla Vine (Hardenbergia Violacea)

Water Wattle (Acacia Retinodes)	Grampians Thryptomene (Thryptomene Calycina)

Cat Claws (Grevillea Alpina)	Guinea Flower (Hibbertia fasciculate)

Flower Variety

Matthew liked the Grevillea. It is such a different shaped flower than we had seen before. It was also larger than the rest of the little wild flowers. He also liked the Cat Claws because they were so unique.

My favorite was the wattle. The flower is a little poof ball of bright yellow. They just look happy.

I also loved the fuzzy flowers.

Along the walk I found several places where one lone flower was sticking up out of the most impossible place including out of rocks or on a cliff. It was the poster flower for a motivational poster labeled something like "Persistence...growing in spite of the odds".

The lower part of the walk was filled with wildflowers. The lower forest gave way to rocks...large rocks. The upper part of the walk consisted of climbing over and around large boulders that formed high plateaus and deep crevices. It was important to keep a good footing on this part of the hike. They were the type of rocks that yearned to be climbed on.

It took us longer to hike than 3 hours, mostly because we had to stop to photograph flowers along the way and climb on the rocks at the top. We found a great place to eat a snack at the peak.
The view at the top was spectacular and offered 360 degree vistas. It felt like we were at the top of the world. The valley below was flat and lead to a lake. The side of the surrounding hills went straight up. From where we were, we watched the tiny miniature trucks moving up and down the road.

After our first hike, we walked the other way across a different street from Ted's to do the Climatis Falls hike. On the way we passed a cricket pitch that was fully fielded. I am sure they had too many players on the field.
The kangaroos had moved in for a game but their game was eating grass and relaxing. The field was full of over 50. Kangaroos have such powerful muscles. I enjoyed watching the joey poking out of his momma's pouch. We also saw one rolling around the ground on his back like a big dog scratching himself. It was funny to see a kangaroo lying on his back.

Kangaroos fielding Cricket Pitch

The waterfall was disappointing; not worth the very easy walk. There was barely more than a dribble of water. We did find a side trail that was fun. It was the start of a much longer hike. We found a great rock outcrop that was flat. A perfect spot to watch the sunset to the sound of a laughing kookaburra.

The sunset that evening painted the night sky with beautiful pinks and purples in the wispy clouds. It was like an artist brushed the sky with watercolor paint on the blue canvas.

The next day we drove around to some of the better known falls.

MacKenzie Waterfall is one of the highlights of the Grampians. We were underwhelmed. It was a nice waterfall but nothing to write home about...or blog about. They divert a large percentage of the water. Even with all the rain this year, the water was not really flowing. The water is eroding the earth so they say they are decreasing the falls "moving backwards" by diverting water. Sounded like justification to do what they wanted to do as all moving water wears away the earth it moves over.

We also drove to the popular Reed Lookout / The Balconies and the Pinnacle Lookout.

The Balconies Lookout

The Reed Lookout and The Balconies are at the same place, just two different vistas. The Reed Lookout gives a panorama of the valley over to the Mount Difficult Mountain Range. The Balconies lookout off to another side of the valley. It has rocks that are in the shape of a Muppet character. This creature surveys the beautiful valley from on high. Pinnacle Lookout was also impressive. The lookouts were all spectacular.

On the way to the last hike of the day we saw fields of mustard. The striking bright yellow was magnificent. There were several fields of blooming mustard around the Grampians.

My favorite hike of the day was Hollow Mountain. The trail was amazing. If you do not like bounding over smearing yourself down between two rocks, bounding over boulders, or heights...this is not the hike for you. It is short hike up (and I mean straight UP) that offers a magnificent view of the Mount Stapylton Range and the surrounding Wimmera Plains.

Hollow Mountain is popular among rock climbers as a safe place to practice ....because of the large open crevices on the mountain (hence the name Hallow). At the top, it is easy to see the flat expanse of plains that is disrupted by the rise of Hallow Mountain and Mount Stapylton. This contrast of the mountains in the otherwise flat farmland landscape adds to the drama of the place.

I really liked the Grampians.

On the way back to Melbourne, we saw the giant fiberglass koala. He is pretty scary.

Verdi's Macbeth - Sydney Opera House

2011-09-13T21:08:00.000+10:00

After our success with La Boheme, we decided to try for rush tickets to Macbeth at the Sydney Opera House. It was showing on a Tuesday night and luckily it was a VERY slow night at the Opera House. Normally when you buy standing room tickets, you expect to stand. But since about half of the upper deck was empty, we were able to sit in the balcony about 9 rows back. YEA!
At intermission we moved down to row 3. We were surprised at how big of a difference the 6 rows made in the view and the sound...we felt so much closer even though the original seats were fabulous.

Bubble bubble toil and trouble...

For those of you who slept through high school English, Macbeth is Shakespeare's classic story of a power hungry man who becomes Scotland's king by the traditional means...regicide. The story includes his equally power hungry wife who goads him into the murder when he begins to lose his nerve. One killing leads to many many more. And how can a story be made better...yep...a coven of witches. The original play has just three, but this production had an entire coven divided into three groups.

We knew nothing about the actual score, but Verdi's music was so much better than we expected. It helped the story progress and was interesting. It had some truly dramatic moments and flowed really well. No symphonically induced napping.

The voices were incredible. Lady Macbeth and Banquo were both outstanding. Although the leads had magnificent voices, the big stand out was, surprisingly, a more minor character, Macduff. His mellow voice was a high baritone or low tenor with a fabulous tone. He did not get much stage time, but he he stole every aria he sang and ended up getting a huge round of applause at the end. He actually seemed quite surprised by this.
Note that seeing the opera won't help anyone struggling with Shakespearean English because it is all sung in Italian.

It was a nice night out. Is that wrong to say that for a show all about murder?

Tonga - Tongatapu

2011-08-24T00:59:00.000+10:00

Malo e lelei (hello in Tongan)
The Kingdom of Tonga is a group of over 170 islands in the South Pacific Ocean stretched over a distance of 700,000 square kilometers (270,000 square miles). Situated just west of the International Date Line, it is the first Pacific nation to see the new day. Tonga is divided into 4 main island groups. Tongatapu in the south has the capital Nuku'alofa and the international airport. The Ha'apai group is north of Tongatapu but geographically the middle of Tonga. It consists mainly of low lying islands but also has two volcanos. The newest island on Earth is in Ha'apai. Vava'u is north of Ha'apai and is a huge draw for snorkelers and yachties. In the far north is the Niuatoputapu group. The isolated volcanic islands are home to traditional Tongan culture and customs. It is the least developed island group.
I visited Tongatapu and Vava'u.
There are many choices of places to stay in Tongatapu. The capital city is actually about 25 minutes away from the airport. Accommodations range from 5 minutes away to over an hour to get to some of the resorts. I only spent one night in Tongatapu. Since I was arriving so late, I chose a place close to the airport.
I stayed at the Fua'ahotu Transit Lodge. It was great value for money. It was inexpensive and included pick up and drop off at the airport (and some cereal and toast for breakfast).
My room was nothing flash but I did not care about the torn flooring or the bad paint job...the bed was passable. Unfortunately, I did not sleep well as the roosters next door were quite vocal throughout the night and the sound of mosquitoes buzzing in my ear. I did like the outside veranda area to sit and the comfortable, squishy couches in the lounge area. Nancy and her family ran the place. She was delightful.
I arranged two separate adventures with them. The first day I had about 6 hours before my domestic flight up to Vava'u so they showed me downtown. We went to the market and several stores as well as the ATM. The market was filled with veggies, clothes, toiletries, handmade handicrafts and more. The city was larger I than expected. It was somewhat thrown together with older buildings clumped haphazardly next to newer ones on streets that may or may not have large potholes.

On my return trip to Tongatapu, Nancy and her father picked me up at the airport and took me on a 5 hour island tour.

Inside Hini Cave

Our first stop was Hina Cave at Oholei Beach Resort. It was a pretty place. There was a covered walkway that ended at treacherous stairs leading down to a picture perfect white sand beach next to the ocean. On the beach there was a large cave where they sometimes do performances with traditional music and dancing. The cave was fairly deep and opened up to the sky in some parts where you could see tree roots reaching down for water. Caves are common to Tonga due to the erosion of limestone by saltwater.

Haamonga a Maui

The next stop was on the far east side of the island. "The Big Rock" is sometimes referred to as the Stonehenge of the Pacific. It was an arch formed by a huge coral rock notched into and suspended by two equally large pieces of coral rock. Each upright pillar is said to weigh 30 to 40 tonnes and extends several meters into the ground. Standing under it, I could not touch the top with my arms extended above my head. The legend behind the structure is that the big rock or Haamonga a Maui was built around 1200AD by the eleventh Tui Tonga. Tui Tonga was supposedly to be 7 feet 9 inches tall. There are several theories as to how the structure was built and the purpose of the structure. There was another rock that was placed in the general area. It was called the Sitting Mound or Stone Backrest. It is said that the eleventh Tui Tonga had a fear of being killed from behind so he had this giant stone placed at his position in the Kava circle. The coral boulder weighs 3.5 tons. Big rocks!
The Kava ceremony is traditional in most Polynesian cultures. In Tonga, the ceremony is for men. In the ceremony an eligible bachelorette mixes dried kava root powder with water. There is a sequence with mixing and then handing out a cup to drink to the men in the circle. Kava has anesthetic properties and therefore has a numbing, tingling sensation when consumed. It does not taste particularly good. It is, however, popular to drink. There are places on the island that advertise Tongan kava.

The next stop was the best stop.

The blow holes are a popular tourist destination. I thought it was going to couple of individual blow holes but the entire coastline that was lined with a series of blowholes along a huge stretch of rocky headland. I was blown away (pun intended).
It was beautiful! A wave would come and crash into the land. From underneath, the first part of the wave would spray water up through cracks in the rock. The crest would hit and water would crash up and over the rocks sending water into the air. As the last part of the wave would fight against the dissipating crest and the last bits of energy would slowly recede like a geyser turning off. That is the normal progression of a blow hole. But in Tongatapu the energy would transfer itself along the shore so that there was a ripple effect of the wave rise and fall continuing down the coast line. Fantastic! The rock was an old coral reef. It was very sharp and hard. I could easily make out the different types of coral that once lived when this rock was under the water.

We visited the 2 monuments to Christianity on Tongatapu. The Christian missionaries landing in Tonga changed Tonga forever. Tonga is currently extremely Christian. Everything closes about noon on Saturday and does not start up again until Monday morning. Nothing is open on Sunday and church starts at 5am. One of the monuments is the location of "The First Sacrament of the Lord's Supper" and the other is the landing site of Rev. John Thomas who brought Christianity to Tonga (according to the monument) in 1826.

Surfer's Beach

The last stop on the tour was the surfers beach (pictured right). What is missing in the photo? Yep...waves! This beach had flat, calm water. It did not even have enough wave action to body surf...much less use a full size surf board and have a prayer of standing. Apparently, when the weather is right, it is a great place to surf.

After the tour, Nancy and I walked to the beach down the road from the transit lodge. The beach was pretty rocky and the water was extremely cold. My favorite moment of the whole day was seeing a whale breach as we were walking to the beach. It was beautiful to have the humpback whales say goodbye like that. It was the cherry on top of my island tour (one of those really good cherries...ok...make it a dark chocolate covered strawberry). ;)

Tonga - Vava'u

2011-08-22T21:24:00.000+10:00

Vava'u is the island group on the north side of Tonga. It is pronounced va-va and then a pause and a hard U (like in Bucharest).

This island group is known for being Tonga's most scenic with dense green vegetation growing on rocky islands surrounded by pristine white sand beaches and crystal blue waters. There are 34 islands and over half are uninhabited. Yachties frequent the waters of Vava'u. The islands are fringed by coral reefs and are known for snorkeling and sport fishing. The waters of Vava'u are also a humpback whale breeding and calving ground.

I flew from Tongatapu on Chathams Pacific (Tonga's domestic airline). At the airport I was amused that my boarding pass was a hand written slip of paper with my name, destination, seat and date. Stapled to my boarding pass was my bag tag. It consisted of a 1in square colored piece of paper that they hand wrote the number 13 (I am guessing I was the 13th bag to go on the plane). The distance between the seats was surprising and reminded me of airplane seats in the old days...I could extend my legs and not hit the seat in front of me. The plane was built with enough room to be comfortable for Tongans. Sadly, I did not get a window seat and the girl next to me spent the entire time with the shade closed or looking out the window blocking the view. Grrr!!

The roads from the Vava'u airport to town were shocking. I watched the progression of cars in front of us as they swerved from one side of the street to the other. They were avoiding pot holes. Some of the pot holes were more like trenches. The vehicles had to slow down to try not to be swallowed. The traffic curved and swerved from the airport to the main town of Neiafu. The roads in town were better (see pictures below).

The main street is not very long. It starts at the steps that lead down into the market and ends at a very large white Catholic church. The buildings are what I expected for a third world island nation. Some are modern and some have been around for a long time with different colors or pealing paint. The main shopping venues are called the "Chinese Shops." The shops can be as simple as a long room like a cargo container with a window cut out with bars up to separate the salesperson from the patron. Others are actual stores that you can walk into. The other shopping area is the market.
The outdoor market is a paved space under a metal roof divided into 2 areas. The first area is the fresh fruit and veg and the second area is handmade crafts. Goods are displayed on tables. Each merchant trying to get the tourists to stop and look because their table "is the best".

On my first walk through town the huge pit in the sidewalk at the top of the main road was pointed out to me. We laughed about how it would be important to pay attention because one wrong step and....wow..and me not being the most graceful. I can imagine that the pit caused some injuries to those stumbling home at might. This pit was impressive and I used it as my landmark the remainder of my time in Neiafu. The pit was filled with trash (not out of place in the town). It was a massive thing that took up a majority of the sidewalk.

Market Building

The market was fun. As expected, they sold only what was in season. The variety of fruit and veg was more limited than I expected. I was hoping to make a good stir-fry one day but they only had tomatoes and cucumbers. They also had large amounts of huge root vegetables but I had no idea what they were or how to cook any of them. Oh well. The other side of the market sold more tourist items. Lots of woven bags and bowls, jewelry and hand carved wood, bone and shell. It was interesting to meander down the aisles but if you hesitated for even a split second, the merchant would pounce and would begin describing everything on their table and, of course, "make a special deal for you just today". I did like a piece of jewelry that had a beautiful flower carved from a shell that I could not put down. But it was too small. After paying half the price up front, they made me one the right size that I picked up 2 days later. Yea!

One other thing to mention about walking the streets of Vava'u. Pigs. Yep...big pigs and little piglets. Pigs are a symbol of Tonga (according to some of the Tongans I asked). I understood why after wandering around. It is common to see pigs and chickens cross the road. It was quite funny to watch a little piglet trot to the opposite side of the road from mom in the scatter when a person approached. After the person passed, the little piglet would dart back across the street and mom would raise quite a ruckus scolding the little piggy. Wow...was the little guy in trouble. I saw this more than once. The roosters were a morning wake up call most days. They too were common pedestrians. I am sure the true answer as to why the chicken crossed the road must have something to do with pigs.

The flipside to the main part of Neifu was the tourist side of the town. Places that catered to the Yachties and tourists transiting through that advertised wireless internet and tour bookings. Some serving extremely overpriced food that may (or generally not) live up to the price. Most of the tourist shops/restaurants are owned by foreigners who came to Tonga and decided to stay. These places looked like a tropical paradise.

Many of the Tonga travel guides recommended going to church on Sunday. I could not figure out what church service was THE service to attend for the full Tongan Sunday Church Experience. I asked several people including Tongans and tourists who had been on the island on Sunday. The answer I received was that it really does not matter what church...just go. The other question I had was "Why?"...the recommendation again just said to go to church. The reason became clear very quickly. In one word...the singing. Starting at 5am, the bells of the churches rang and rang and rang and rang. It woke me up. It also woke up the roosters who decided to join in. Then the singing began. It was beautiful to listen to (if it was not 5am) while lying in bed in the pitch black. Then the church bells of a neighboring church started. Singing, bells and cock-a-doodle-doo. Yep...that was my 5am Vava'u Sunday morning. Bells and singing ensued again around 9 for the next services. It was surreal to walk through the deserted streets while the music floated through the air from multiple directions.
The singing is phenomenal. There are many churches to choose from and the music is largely similar with large, full multiple part harmonies that you can feel in your body.
In the large Catholic cathedral, people were scattered around the church belting out hymns in Tongan. Everything was sung like in a high mass including the responses. The music was not only beautiful...it was moving. The other fun thing was to see everyone in their Sunday best. From evening gowns to traditional Tongan attire to tourists in island wear, the church was full of color.

Neiafu feels like a ghost town on Sunday (with the exception of church...so I guess it is a Holy Ghost town). Nothing is open except for places that have Tongan Feasts. These feasts have tons of food ranging from a simple garden salad to corned beef, octopus or sea cucumber. The food is arranged beautifully on buffet tables. The climax of the progression of food is always the suckling pig (not just any pig mind you...a suckling pig).
Some of the Tongan Feasts include cultural dancing, some just focus on the food. We went out to a beautiful place by the 'Ene'io Botanical Gardens. The gardens were started in 1972 by an agronomist who still has a passion for his plants. The 22 acre garden is filled with over 500 plant species. We were not able to go into the gardens on Sunday but you can schedule to take a tour of the gardens during the week. We ate and had the remainder of the day to enjoy the beach. I attempted to snorkel but it was too shallow to get to see much. I was so afraid that I was going to touch what coral was alive that it was not enjoyable. Overall, it was a nice way to spend a lazy Sunday afternoon.
The guests of Port Wine Guest House were invited to join in a Tongan Feast one evening later in the week. This was part of a commercial that they were filming for the Rugby World Cup (yes, I will be on Tongan TV in a commercial waving a Tongan flag from a hammock saying 'Go Tonga'). After filming, we were able to eat. Yum! I have to say that the highlight was the octopus. It was delicious and I went back for thirds.

While in Vava'u, I stayed in two places, Blue Lagoon Resort on an outer island and Port Wine Guest House in Neiafu.
Blue Lagoon was a 40+ minute boat ride out to the island of Foiata. It was a small island that I walked in less than 30 minutes. They have up to 6 bungalows or Fales (pronounced "Fall" and a long "A") that are designed with local materials but have power and hot showers. It is a tropical paradise perfect for couples who want to treat themselves. I did feel very alone being by myself even though the other guests were warm and friendly. The island resort is run by a German and his Tongan family. He immigrated over 20 years ago and has never looked back. The staff were nice but (maybe it is the German influence) not super warm. There were several times I was quite taken aback because of comments made to me that made it not hard to leave the island when it was time to go. The communication was also lacking which made it difficult for me in the planning stage.

Overall, the island was beautiful and I felt like I had chosen the first class route in my selection of locations. I stayed in the Mango Fale and I loved my veranda view. I spent lots of time sitting and watching the sunset. I also liked falling asleep to the ocean waves lapping on the beach below my room.

Since the island is so isolated, everyone eats at the restaurant on the island. The food is fantastic and the portions are generous. I read that it was the best food in Tonga and I do believe it. The breakfasts and dinners were extensive and all very good. I chose to stay on the island because they had a whale watch package that worked out to be comparable pricing to other packages AND they only put 4 people on the boat. That was worth paying a bit extra. Without the whale boat trip and the advantage of only 4 people on the boat and the length of time out on the water, I probably would not go back to the resort.

(Tales of whale adventures begin in next post.)

Port Wine was fabulous. They were one of the few places that wrote back promptly. Unfortunately, they were full when I originally wrote but I tried once I arrived into Tonga and they had had a cancellation. They are amazing! The owners, Tai and Luisa, are so warm and inviting. From the moment I walked into the gate, I was treated like a friend/family. I received a warm greeting and was given the tour. I was also greeted by name and asked how my day was daily.
I stayed in the old house. They have a shared kitchen and bathroom and everyone had their own room.

Breakfast

Coconut lessons
(with left handed knife)

They have a garden with fresh herbs and peppers that are available for guests to use. Papaya and bananas were offered when they were ripe. The inside was very comfortable, the outside veranda was great and I enjoyed lounging in the hammocks.
Everyone was so friendly. I spent time talking with not only the other guests but Tai and Luisa as well as everyone who worked there. Tai took time to give me lessons on how to open a coconut. According to Tai, I was having a hard time because I was using a left handed knife. Ha Ha! You should have seen me try to hold the coconut in one hand and cut it open with the hatchet in the other. It was fun (and probably even more amusing for the spectators). The fresh coconut meat was then available for everyone to try and eat.
I arrived as a stranger and left a friend. I would go back there in a heartbeat! Port Wine was my favorite part of anything on the land in Tonga. An added bonus was meeting John...we spent long hours talking on the breezy veranda or the comfortable couches. We are kindred spirits. I met a lifelong friend at Port Wine.

My flight back to Tongatapu was incredible. I was given an isle seat on the way to Vava'u, so I requested a window seat. They were nice enough to move around my seat assignment. When I was getting situated on the plane, the flight attendant asked me if I wanted to sit up front. Sure. She walked away. I asked her what row so that I could move. She looked at me funny and said..."No up front...with the pilots. Just leave your things here and come with me". I grabbed my camera and went up. She told me to stand on this little step in between the pilots' seats. I moved out of the way and she pulled out the jump seat and helped me get strapped in. They fitted me with headphones and a microphone to talk with the pilots when they had time. I could not believe it! I wanted and window seat and BOY did I get one!
The pilots told me when I could get up and take some photos and they pointed out some of the sites along the way. Wow! What a great way to say goodbye to Vava'u!

Go Tonga!

Swimming with Humpback Whales (Day 6 of 6)

2011-08-18T21:17:00.000+10:00

Last day...we saw whale spouts from the back side of the restaurant. I was excited to see whales before even stepping foot on the jetty.
I could feel the weight of the pressure of the last day of whale swimming as I walked down the pier to the boat. I really wanted a good day to end the trip. After 2 days (Day 4 and Day 5) of limited whale time, I had high hopes and active butterflies about what the day would hold.

We left a bit late and another boat had "claimed" the whales we had seen at breakfast. We went over there anyway. The boat decided to "share" the whale with us. YEA! We helped spot the whales for them and after their swim, we would get a turn. First we had to hope that the whales wanted to swim with us.

The whales were swimming next to an island. They turned and swam closer and closer to the shore. Our boat stayed out in front while the other boat followed them closer and closer. Finally, they backed off and left some space for the whales to move away from land and back out to the water...straight to us. The group of humpbacks slowed down as they moved out into open water. Our partner boat had to try a couple of times to get both of their groups in the water.
Then it was our turn.

We jumped in and saw nothing. We were able to hear their songs. They were audible about 2 meters down. Unfortunately, I am super buoyant and had a hard time staying down to listen to them for any length of time.

On our next try we did catch a glimpse of several whales in the group.
YEA!

Whale breaching - back splash!

The other boat took a turn swimming while we stayed on whale watch. The other boat disappeared when it was our turn again. The whales were not in the mood for a slow swim, but they were moving slowly enough to stick with us. They decided to have a little fun and began to tail slap, fin slap, spy hop (where they bob their heads straight up and down in the water...almost like they are looking for something or checking to see what the things up above the water are up to), and breach. I loved seeing the breaches when they turned and landed on their backs with their pectoral fins splayed out in front of them... or when they twist in the air and their pectoral fins wrap around their bodies. It was so much fun!!

There were several males swimming with the mom and calf. They seemed like they were having a great time with each of them taking turns doing acrobatics.

About 15 meters off the side of the boat, the huge female humpback whale thrust herself almost all of the way out of the water straight up. The breach was fantastic. She was suspended in the air for a couple of seconds and then turned slightly and crashed down into the water with a splash.

I was excited about getting back in the water but was not sure if it would work since the whales were so energetic. Sam, our whale guide, jumped in the water to see if they would be receptive to us joining them in the water. I waited with eager anticipation.
I was really surprised when we were given the signal to come swim. :)

I plunged into the water at his signal and gently wondered over to the mom and calf. The mother was very large. Her belly was white and it had quite a bit of texture to it with knobs and bumps. Her baby was decent size for a calf...either born early in the season or probably last year's calf that was born later. He swam under mom and looked at us. When we did not move closer and scare him he decided to show off for us.

I watched as he prepared. I thought it was preparing to venture out from mom towards us. I was right and wrong. He was gearing up to head out from mom but not near us. I could almost see the determination on his face. With tremendous force and a huge flip of his tail, he moved out from under his mother. I saw another one, two, three tail flaps and watched in awe as he thrust himself out of the water.
We were able to witness a whale breach while in the water next to him. I picked my head up above the surface to see the mass of his body hang in the air. Then PUSCH - - the water suddenly had trillions of tiny bubbles filling the area as the whale landed on the surface and interjected air into the water. I could not see anything of the little whale until a couple of seconds later. I saw him move his forceful tail flap, and he was out of the water again.
He breached 3 times as he progressively moved further away from us. His mom and her escorts slowly caught up with him. It was incredible. My mouth was gaping open...luckily, I had a snorkel in my mouth to prevent an influx of salty water. Sam said that seeing something like that was really rare...he sees that MAYBE once a season. What a treat!

Back in the water with the mom and baby who decided to have fun and be playful. I am out of words. Words can not express...but here are some pictures.





Swimming with Humpback Whales

We thanked the whales for sharing some of their day with us and for the amazing experience!! I sat on the bow of the boat on the way back in to lunch, my feet hanging over the edge and a huge smile stretched across my face. I saw a big cloud over Nuku Island and felt a couple of rain drops. We turned away. I thought we were going to a different island. Sadly, I was told that a big storm was rolling in and it was decided that we should head back to the island for safety.
Back on the island, I played on the beach and around in the tide pools. The crabs were wonderful. Ghost crabs (sand crabs or Ocypode) were peaking in and out of the sand holes they dig out to live. They are so busy scavenging or digging. They are fun to watch sitting still on the beach.

Goby on Sand

Snail with Mucus Trail

I also spotted a little crab in the tide pool. He was just about the size of my thumb nail. The camouflage on these guys is amazing!

I found a little goby that was also camouflaged extremely well. His markings blended so well with the sand that unless he moved, he looked like another grain of sand. He was only a couple of centimeters long.

I found a snail leaving its mucus trail. Snails travel on the layer of mucus and therefore leave a track along the path that they follow.

Brittle Star

There was also a brittle star sticking out from under the rock ledge. Like other echinoderms, including starfish, they have the 5 point radial symmetry. I like how delicate the legs of the brittle stars look.

Long black sea cucumber

Contrary to the echinoderm, the Holothuria leucospilota or long black sea cucumber has no symmetry. It is tubular and has little suction feet over its body for mobility. This sea cucumber can grow up to 1 meter long. It looks quite flimsy as it stretches to find organic mater to shove in its mouth. It was my favorite critter in the tide pools to watch.
Tide pools can be so full of life. These were alive with lots of interesting little animals.

The storm never hit. :( I guess I am glad we were safe but I was sad to end my Tonga whale watch and swim adventure on a short day. On the other hand...what an amazing dream I just lived!

Day 1, 2, 3...all the way to my last day...all with a special experience that I would not trade. Humpback whales are beautiful, majestic, intelligent animals that should be treasured and protected for generations to see. I can not imagine seeing one of these creatures and not falling in love.

YEA for HUMPBACK WHALES!!!!

Vava'u Whale Watch and Swim (Day 5 of 6)

2011-08-17T22:54:00.000+10:00

I felt better about Day 5 than I did Day 4. I was hoping it would be a better day.
Unlike the other days (Day 1, 2, & 3), the first group of whales did not dive and avoid us. They were not staying in one spot, but at least they stayed on the surface.

It was exciting to take my gear out of my bag after...much less get in the water after Day 4. They swam too fast for me to get a look when I first jumped in. I only saw blue water. On the second try, I saw a blur of 2 whales. I was able to get a good look a 3 whales swimming under me on the third try. It was quick but great to see a humpback. They dove deep and were gone.

King's Island

We ate lunch on the King's Island. Apparently, the old king was burried in a coral tomb at the top of the island. This island was a landmark all week. It is distinctive and easy to see. It looked like a wide brimmed ladies hat or a crocadlie ready to pounce depending on how I squinted my eyes. The island was great...a pretty beach, snorkeling, and a trail that led into the densely packed vegetation.

I followed the trail after eating my tuna sandwich. I was surprised at how dark it became ...how quickly. It was fun. I felt like I was in a huge dense forest, not a 2 minute walk from a beach. I would have loved to have continued up the path but we were given a 5 minute warning....we had a whale. Yea!

Back on the boat we raced 20 minutes straight out. Another boat had been swimming with a set of whales and offering to share with us. We arrived and they were jumping in for the last time. Their whale guide helped indicate the direction that they were swimming after the whales dived again. We moved, waited and the whales surfaced. They ended up turning in front of our path. It was a very quick pass by but our swimmers were at least able to get a good look. The whales dove a couple more times and we left them alone.

On the way back we went over to where another boat has been swimming with a mom and calf. There was one boat with them that somehow turned into two. We decided to wait for a turn.

Unfortunately, the boats took way too long and a huge cargo boat moved through which made the whales dive. We waited and waited and waited.

They resurfaced. We took our opportunity and jumped in. It was the largest female yet with a calf from last year. Wow. Immense. Massive!!

We were able to see the whales as they swam next to us. They spent a little time there and then slowly swam away.
AMAZING!

We were so lucky to have stayed out on the water for an extended time. I think they allowed us to stay out late because we did not get to go swimming the day before. On our way back to the island, we were treated to a glorious sunset. The sky was painted with such vibrant color that played with the clouds creating a beautiful symphony. Wow...this world is amazing.
Isn't it interesting...the sun sets every day but there are those days that a simple sunset catches you so off guard. Here's to not being jaded in life and enjoying the little things...to appreciating the sunsets every day.

Humpback Whale Watch Tonga (Day 4 of 6)

2011-08-16T22:53:00.000+10:00

Day 4 was completely different from the previous 3 days. I woke up with the odd feeling of not being excited to get in the water. Strange. We ate breakfast and headed out. For a change, we went to the east side of the islands to find a protected spot and to avoid other boats. We did not find any boats. However, we did not find many whales either...none that wanted to swim anyway. We followed a couple of whale spouts in the distance but the whales would dive and would stay below for 15 minutes or more. The entire morning was just as frustrating. Grrr.
Apparently none of the other boats had had any luck either.

Lunch was fun. We went to this beautiful beach at Port Mourelle on Kapa Island. On the way we oooogled at the massive boats moored off the beach. One of them (allegedly owned by the richest man in the world) was 5 or 6 stories tall and had a slide...yep a slide that went from the top story down into the water. It was crazy. It even had a part that extended out to anchor itself against the side of the boat. Another huge yacht was moored behind the massive one...it must have arrived first. I bet he thought that he was "all that" until the larger boat, that dwarfed his boat, pulled up. Then to add insult to injury... he started to inflate the slide. We passed another boat that had multiple "dinghies" of varying sizes...one of them almost the size of our boat. This was apparently THE place to park expensive boats.
The beach was another picture perfect place.
After lunch we went over to the west side of the islands. It was the same as it had been all morning...if not more frustrating. We drove around for an hour and saw very little. Sam (our whale guide) stood at alert.

He spotted a pectoral fin in the air. A humpback whale's pectoral fins can be up to 15 feet long...so it is noticeable when they raise their fin out of the water. It was still an amazing spot...seeing one pectoral fin in the ocean of blue. As we raced over, we hoped he would stay around. Luckily, he continued to splash and hold his fin or tail in the air as we approached. He decided to increase his aerobics routine.

The humpback began body lunging. This is when they propel the front half of their body out of the water...like a submarine surfacing. And with their big dark bodies and torpedo shape, they really do look like a sub surfacing. He lunged several times. It was impressive. But it did not stop there. A few minutes later, he breached. Breaching is when they thrust their whole body up and out of the water. I can not imagine how much power is required to thrust that much mass up and out of the water. AND then they sometimes twist which wraps their pectoral fins around their belly. Just impressive!

No one knows why they slap, breach or lunge. There are theories that range from trying to knock sea lice or barnacles off their bodies to curiosity to playfulness. Whatever the reason...it was fun to watch.
After his second breach, he slapped his tail a couple of times and swam away.

We headed home. I did not even get my gear out of the bag but at least our day ended on an up note. Seeing a breaching whale was great!

Hopefully the weather during the day was calm enough for the whales to want to swim with us on my next day on the water.

Humpback Whale Watch and Swim (Day 3 of 6)

2011-08-15T00:18:00.000+10:00

Day 3 began similarly to Day 1 and Day 2...beautiful weather and excited people.
It took us more time to find whales, but once we did...wow. We found a group of males following a female. They were each vying for her attention in the hopes that she would choose him. One fun comment I heard was that the males dive under the females and start blowing bubbles. Apparently the male that tickles with bubbles the best is more attractive. I knew humpbacks used bubbles for bubble feeding, but this was a new spin. I guess all mammals use what they have to flirt.

We did catch a quick glimpse in the water 2 or 3 times as they raced forward. It was fun to see so many whales.

They did not really want to swim with us, but they did want to play. It started with us following them. They did not dive or try and evade the boat. When we would jump in, they would swim off quickly, so we were only able to get glimpses of them. There were over 5 males who were all much smaller than the female.

The fun thing was that they waited for us to get back into the boat and catch up to them. They enjoyed swimming with the boat...sometimes as close as 5 meters away. They would match our speed, then bolt out in front, outrunning us. They would then slow down so we would pass them just to catch back up. It was a game and we were invited in.

The humpbacks were traveling alongside the boat. They came SO CLOSE. It was amazing. I was concerned a couple of times about the close proximity of the whales. I was afraid we would injure a whale if either one of them or us in the boat took a bad turn. I had never been that close while in a moving boat. But since they approached us, it was allowed by regulations according to our expert boat driver who kept a close eye on their position.

Coral Gardens in Vava'u

We ate lunch on the boat over by a place called Coral Gardens. It is known as the best place to snorkel in Tonga - a reputation it lived up to! It was stunning. The amount and variety of healthy coral was wonderful. The coral was growing on an incline from 10m up to where the water crashed just below the surface. It was so densely packed that every inch of space was utilized.

The majority of the coral was Acropora branching and plate formations. But there were all different species of coral in every type of shape. The plates were the most impressive as some were up to 3 meters in diameter.

Clown fish with
beefy green Acropora coral

The colors were also amazing...I was shocked at the purple and florescent green corals...colors that I had not seen before.
The fish were fairly scarce. I did see some, but not as many as I would have expected in such a healthy coral reef. I was happy to get a picture of a clown fish and my favorite longfin bannerfish (pictured right with the staghorn coral).
It was stunning and I could have spent all day snorkeling in this one area. I wish I had a weight belt because I was expending tons of energy duck diving down for pictures. I reluctantly left.

Vava'u is famous for its caves. The combination of sandstone and ocean has carved out some interesting places. Two of the popular caves are Swallows Cave, that a boat can drive into, and Mariners Cave which is accessible by swimming. There is also a cave that can be accessed when scuba diving.

We went over by Mariners Cave where another boat was swimming with a mother and calf. There was already another boat waiting for a turn. We found a different whale in the same area and followed him but he did not want to swim with us.


Mariners Cave - with and without humidity

Since we were next to the cave, we decided to go in.
It was a reasonable dive down and swim into the cave...about the length of the boat. Our whale guide went in first so that we would have his fins to guide us as to when it was safe to surface.
It was strange. I went to take a picture and the whole place filled with humidity...so much that I could not see the end of the cave. Then the humidity would disappear and everything would clear up. The cave would pressurize, and I had to keep equalizing my ears. It was strange.

Snorkeler and Whale Fin
in close proximity

When we came out from the cave, we had about 10 minutes away before it was our turn to swim with the mom and calf. Our boat driver had put us "in line" when we went into the cave. YEA! We were very excited.

The mom and calf had an escort with them. Unlike most of the escorts we had seen, this one was completely laid back. He stayed below and was not moving but was just in view. We could make out his outline but no features.

The little calf was shy. He hid out on the far side of his enormous mother. At first I could not even really see him. I finally spotted an extra pectoral fin and his nose peaked out from around his mom. He was not even curious...just shy.

Because the sun was in a difficult spot for pictures and both mom and escort were relaxed, we decided to swim around to the other side of the mother. She was not just big...she was beefy.
And WOW did she have a HUGE tail. It was probably longer than I am...I was impressed.

The little calf did not know how to deal with us on the "protected" side. He looked for some assurance from his mom and swam up to her head and stayed there with his tail facing us. It was really cute. Eventually she nudged him and he moved to the other side of her.
It was about that time that the escort decided to come up and take a breath. Oh my goodness. He came up from the depths slowly. Sam actually pointed it out to me. I felt like I was right above him but there was no where for me to go as we were right next to the mom and calf. I became very calm...I think the awe/shock took over. I watched him ascend to the surface to my left and the female was to my right with her "little" calf that was longer than I am.

I looked left and right and left again...sandwiched between these two massive animals. I thought I was dreaming. He stayed at the surface for a couple of minutes before diving down and swimming off. The mother and calf followed him. Amazing!

We swam back to the boat and were given the option to swim again. What a silly question! They had not moved very far so we were back in the water in no time.

Humpback Calf with Mom

Something happened to the calf when they swam off and had a little break from us. I guess he felt like we had been introduced because that little shy guy act was in the past. He started by spending time in his "safe place" up by his mom's head but this time he was facing us. He then progressed to swimming around a bit more on our side of his mom. Pretty soon he was swimming around and coming over closer to us. The three of them dove down and he surfaced next to us. It was so much fun to watch. He would look at us, and at one point I raised my arm up and down and he did the same with his pectoral fin. I don't know if it was coincidence or not...but I was super excited that he was waving back at me.

All of the whales were a little more active the second time in the water. They dove down and came straight back up by us. The little calf was leading the way. It was so much fun. I liked seeing all of them down below. We were able to watch the three of them float there...it was like the movie mist with the water and the light...the type they would put in to designate a dream sequence.

When they swam away again, we left them to enjoy their evening and went back. What a day!

That evening the sunset was stunning.
I woke up in the middle of the night to the sound of howling wind and the rain pelting down. A huge storm had blown in. I moved things into the closet so it would not get wet. I guess I would find out how the whales would react to a storm the next day.

Humpback Whale Swim (Day 2 of 6)

2011-08-14T23:52:00.000+10:00

Day 2. I will say right now that I had thought about taking a photo trip because I really wanted great pictures from this dream of getting to swim with whales. I decided that I would not do that because I wanted to spend more time concentrating on the experience and less time worrying about taking the best photo. I was just hoping that one or two pictures would come out. Well...this post is really hard because I took so many pictures...it is difficult to cull down and decide on the best of the best. Hopefully, it will tell an interesting story with the right pictures to share a bit of the majesty. It was an amazing day!
Day 2 started the same way as Day 1. We had breakfast and headed out. The first group of whales that we spotted did not want to play. We followed the group up and down as they paced up and back next to an island. Since they were on the move, we went to seek a more social group.
We headed out a bit further north than we had been the previous day. The interesting thing to me was that Ullie (our boat driver) headed out wherever he felt like. The whale boats do not use tracking or spotting equipment or anything...just internal whale sense. Sam (our whale guide) would stand on the roof and watch and Ullie would stick his head out of the window and they would both look for spouts. The other 3 of us on the boat looked out other sides of the boat scanning the horizon for signs of whales.
Sam spotted a whale tail out of the water. This magnificent tail was sitting above the surface, not moving. It was the longest fluke I had ever seen.
Sam mentioned that he thought it might be a pregnant female because they tend to spend lots of time hanging vertically in the water with their tails up in the air. He was right.

She was floating vertically in the water column with up to a meter of her tail above the surface. Under the water, she was fairly motionless and could not care less that we were around. I looked at her just after we were in the water and saw a reasonably sized bump do a ripple or wave across her white belly. I was so excited that I saw the baby in her belly move. Her baby was big and was obviously moving around. It was incredible!!!

Whale skin
(found floating in the water)

Sam found some whale skin floating in the water and we were all able to touch it. I was surprised at how smooth the skin was. It was like a textured paper with ridges but still smooth.

She had an escort with her. He was in the vicinity (normally below), leaving her space but staying with her. I was fascinated by both the male and female floating vertically in the water column. To take a breath she would float up and then down without any effort expended. I could not even see how the female was moving (which made orientating myself in the water a bit interesting). She would come up, take a breath, and then head down straight vertical again. I expected more of the arching dive...this was not arching, it was straight vertical. Impressive!!

Humpbacks are known for being playful. I think they like to have fun. Another amazing thing that I saw was how they came up for air. Sometime it was exactly as expected with the animal surfacing, taking a breath, and diving with a soft arch back down below. However, I also saw them surface with their belly towards the surface of the water...a completely unexpected orientation (pictured left). They would then flip upright to take their breath. I think they enjoy life.

The female was completely vertical for the majority of our time with her. She moved up and down in the water column effortlessly. Sometimes her tail was completely out of the water and sometimes she would drift down so deep that we could barely make out her white colored tail. I saw a whole lot of whale butt. After 45 minutes or so, they swam away. They relocated fairly close, but we decided to give them their space. We thanked them for sharing their morning with us, and we waved goodbye.

Lunch was on a beautiful spit beach on Nuku Island (more egg sandwiches...still weird). The beach was one of those perfect iconic South Pacific spots. The dark blue water that transitioned to turquoise and became almost completely clear up to a white sand beach fringing the green, palm tree lined island vegetation. We each grabbed a coconut that had fallen from a palm tree to sit on and positioned it in the shade of the tree. It was so pretty.

After lunch we headed out again.

This was our day to see whale tails in the air!
Sam spotted 2 whale spouts and a lot of splashing. It did not take long before we were all able to see the scarred tail in the air. A humpback whale's fluke is unique, like a fingerprint. The fluke is one way individuals can be identified. She must have been quite old to have so many scars on her tail.

Based on the large and small water spouts, we could tell that we had found a mom and calf. They were not moving. Sam called us in the water almost immediately. The mom was big. She was sleeping. I mean she was ASLEEP....completely dead to the world. Her calf was much larger than the one we had seen the day before. He was pretty big but he did not look big when he swam next to his mom. She was MASSIVE.

Before we arrived, the calf had been playing around, jumping and splashing. He became shy as soon as we were in the water. He did not like us. He would come out and swim around a little bit but was more comfortable using his mom's body as a shield...putting her large mass between him and us. He would then peak out from under his mom. It was so cute. I could picture any toddler acting the same way.

Since she was asleep, we were able to take the time to really look at her (and her calf when he would swim around) and see the details of these beautiful animals. Her pectoral fins were long and scalloped along the front and smooth along the back. They were almost outlined in white. Barnacles were growing on her fin and tail. I guess you would not notice a hitchhiker if you had that much surface area.

Speaking of hitchhikers, the whales had an entire ecosystem of fish living under and around them. Some of these fish, mostly remora, were up to several feet long. Remora are designed to attach to large pelagic animals to "hitch a ride" with a flattened part on the top of their head to help suction onto another animal. Remoras use the large animals for transport and protection. They eat parasites (usually copepods), sloughed off skin and scraps. I just did not expect the large fish population swimming with only two whales.

Humpbacks have distinctive bumps on top of their head and around their mouth. Apparently these nodules, called tubercles, contain one hair follicle. So like humans, they also have bearded faces. I love the bumpy face. It is another unique feature to this majestic animal.

Her face was elongated with the hinge of her mouth so much further back than expected. This provides the ability to open extremely wide to take in a large volume when feeding. Humpbacks are filter feeders. Their grooved belly is designed to expand. Humpbacks can up to double their size due to their water intake during feeding. The water is then expelled through plates of baleen. The krill and small fish are caught in the baleen as the water passes through, acting as a rake to collect all of the good stuff. The suction must be incredible when they open that huge mouth.

She was so beautiful to watch. We were told to stay up near the mom's face so that if she woke up she would be able to see us. We did not want her to panic or think that we posed any threat to her calf. Forty tons of startled whale would be a bad thing. While sleeping, she was absolutely still. When she needed to take a breath she would slowly float to the surface. After her breath, she would float back down and just hang in the water. So peaceful.

By contrast, the little calf became less shy and more and more insistent that his mom wake up. He began nudging her. Then he would swim up and slap the surface. He was doing everything he could do to wake her up. He swam around and around. He started slapping the top of the water. His tail fluke was completely out of the air on several tail slaps (pictured right). He started bumping into her. "MOM!" Then he started ramming into her. At first he was poking her in the side and then in progressively more and more annoying places (like her eye). I could hear him saying "mom", "Mom!", "Moooommmmm...wake up!" in that whiny toddler voice.

Whale between me and the boat

After we had been in the water with her for over an hour, she finally woke up. She was extremely calm...probably groggy after that deep of a sleep. Again I could almost hear her say "what...huh?" in a very tired voice. They swam off with no particular urgency. The calf seemed happier. We picked our heads out of the water and smiled at each other. WOW! Back on the boat, we spotted them about 50 feet from where we were swimming with them. Apparently, mom moved just enough to appease her calf and then decided that nap time was not over.

Moon Rise in Vava'u Tonga

What a great day in the water! Yea to tales in the air and hours of entertainment with magnificent animals.

It felt wonderful to go back and have a warm shower. The moon rise that night was fantastic.
What a dream. What a day!

How could the next day top this???

Humpback Whale Swimming in Tonga (Day 1 of 6)

2011-08-13T13:40:00.000+10:00

My whale swim package included pick up and drop off at the airport. When I arrived in Vava'u from Tongatapu, I looked around and did not see anyone holding a sign with my name or the Blue Lagoon Resort. I looked and looked. After asking, I was directed toward a couple of guys who were standing around talking. I asked for Blue Lagoon and one of the guys motioned to a van sitting across the parking lot. We walked over and I had no idea if he was the arranged driver OR if he thought I wanted to pay to go there. I was comforted when he mentioned Tabu (who I had been emailing at Blue Lagoon). It was wild...the van was stuffed with stuffed animals and religious articles including very faded stickers.

I was transferred to a boat. Blue Lagoon Resort is on one of the outer islands. The trip took 40+ minutes by boat from the dock on the mainland to Foe'ata Island. It was fun to ride along and look at the other islands of Vava'u in the deep blue water. Some of the islands were quite large and some were little more than a clump of trees. I was surprised that most of the islands had lush, green vegetation on top of rocky cliffs. Some of the cliffs were interesting to look at because the rock was being undercut by the water lapping below. The first thing I noticed was this island that had been separated from the main island. There were several trees growing strong on this little clump of land. I thought it was a great picture for one of those motivational (or de-motivational) posters...something about persistence and growing in the face of opposition.
We pulled up to the pier and I was helped off the boat. They showed me to my fale. It was quite spacious and had a huge bed that was draped with a mosquito net. The whole back was open to the bay and I could hear the water lapping on the beach below. My favorite part was the verandah that looked out on the bay. Beautiful!
I walked around the island. It took less than an hour to circumnavigate. The interior of the island was not very nice and seem to be a broken down dump area. I found out later that the debris on the island was from a cyclone that had hit the island hard.
The beach areas were nice. There were some chunks of coral skeleton that I would have loved to have carried home...but the picture will have to do. The most exciting part of my island tour was the sign I saw walking into the restaurant. The sign said "Whale Watch Depart 8am". Yea!

I did not sleep well that night because I was so nervous and excited. I did not need my alarm to wake me up for the 8am breakfast...I was already awake. While we were eating breakfast we spotted the sprays from whales. WOW! Seeing whales from breakfast! I was already jumping up and down.
Getting on the boat was a challenge. They put a ladder down to give us a walkway between the dock and the boat. However, the nails did not hold the slats of ladder square. With the boat was moving, the pier was the only constant. The elevation of the roof was also low compared to one's height standing on the ladder. It was a bit disconcerting. You had to step across the ladder, then step between the ladder onto the boat and then avoid the ladder while walking onto the boat without knocking your head on the roof. Thankfully, the boat driver, Ullie and our whale guide, Sam, helped us get on by holding our hand on either end.

We spotted a whale spout almost immediately....then another two bursts of water shot into the air. We followed the group of humpbacks for a little bit. They would swim and then dive. Then surface and dive again. When the whales dove, Sam would note the time. An adult humpback can hold their breath for up to about 20 minutes. Calves need to breathe more often so they resurface much earlier. We looked the entire time but as the 20 minute mark approached, we kept a particularly keen eye out so that we would not miss where they surfaced.
After a while Sam got in the water to check things out.
There was nothing to see but he said that we could get in and hear the whale song. I jumped at the chance and threw on my mask, fins and snorkel. We had to dive down to hear. I did a duck dive and, after equalizing, I could hear the deep beautiful sound of the song.... I wish I had weights on so that I could stay down longer...grrr...I am too buoyant! I dove again and again to hear for as long as possible. Apparently the moms with calves don’t sing but the males who are looking for love belt out their songs (as all good courting men should do...ha-ha). I was overcome by how amazing it was to be in the water and hear the song and know that they were close. I was here.

Back on the boat we were on the hunt, searching for whales. We found. Boy, did we find! We wandered over to a spot that seemed very open with little islands in the distance. We spotted a whale at 12:00 and started to travel in that direction. Suddenly, Ullie turned the boat around. I started to ask why when I saw the water spout. He had seen a group of at least 2 whales at 6:00. He explained that it was MUCH easier to swim with a group that included a calf than with one solitary animal.
The group was traveling at a reasonable speed. It turned out that there were 3 whales, an escort with a mom and calf. The escort is normally a male who is waiting for an opportunity to mate with the female. He tries to guard against other males. Sometimes the escort is aggressive and defends the female against any intruder including boats...sometimes not. This escort was pushing the mom and pushing the mom even more. He even pushed the baby a couple times. We followed for a little bit and just as we were getting ready to leave the group to not stress out the mom, they slowed down. The mom must have told the escort to lay off or something because he disappeared.
The two seemed to be resting (understandable after being pushed so hard). Sam went in to test the waters to see if she would be amenable to us swimming with her. He lowered himself in to minimize splashing and slowly made his way over to the mom. We were given the signal to join him. I reminded myself to lower in gently to limit any splashing regardless of how eager I was.
I swam over and saw the momma. She was smaller than I expected. The baby came up slowly next to his mom and it was so little...I was shocked. Thinking the mom was small was an optical illusion because she was so huge next to her calf. The little guy was easily twice my length. It was awesome! Not awesome like the everyday word of "Oh...I found a $10 in my pocket...that is awesome" but AWE-SOME from the root of the word...Awe inspiring. I was so moved that I was tearing up (not a good thing because if steamed up my mask). I tried to memorize every detail of this amazingly huge gentle giant with a graceful long pectoral fin and a long bumpy head wearing a smile.
We swam with them twice. We swam with them until they moved too far for us to see and then we got back in the boat and repositioned and had another 30 minutes with the pair. I can not put into words how amazing it was to be in the water next to a humpback whale.

Soft Coral - with tentacles extended

We ate lunch on the boat. Lunch consisted of two egg sandwiches and a piece of fruit. Yep...egg. Strange! We snorkeled a bit after lunch. It was a nice snorkel. There was a large amount of coral but not very many fish. The coral was densely packed all vying for their spot of ground and bit of sunlight. In one spot I saw the relatively fast growing branching corals (acropora and porities) trying to reach for the sun by extending upwards; the plate corals (acropora and turbinaria) reaching out horizontal to find more sun; the coral boulders (faviidae and porities) that grow slowly and take more ground space but are strong and less sesceptible to currents and the soft corals that bend and sway in the current and uses chemical defenses to secure their territory. It was a pretty place. The reef was quite shallow and with all the coral species, the colors were vibrant.

After lunch we joined a line of boats waiting to swim with a mom and calf. The rule is that no more than 2 boats can wait in line. Each boat gets 2 swims or 30 minutes with the whale and after 1.5 hours, all boats must leave the whale to rest. It was hard to wait. In the far distance I spotted a whale breaching and saw a spout from another whale a bit closer. Thankfully the line of boats moved fairly quickly.
When our turn came, we lowered into the water quietly. It was fantastic! The mom and calf were below the surface sitting nose to nose...a picture perfect postcard (I just wish the water was clearer so I could have taken a perfect picture). They floated to the surface for a breath. The pair were completely relaxed and spent some time at the surface. Again, I was taking in the beautiful smile, the wise eye, the long ridges along the belly, the arch of the pectoral fin...every detail that I could.

They floated back down and we were able to get a great view from the top. The baby began to surface and did this beautiful dance to the top including a perfect pirouette and then rolled on her belly to the surface. The mother joined. I was captivated at the grace and beauty. We watched as their tails disappeared in the distance. WOW! We were back in the water in no time. The whales were so calm. The mom and baby dove and started to swim under the boat. I went one way and the others went another. They were RIGHT under us. The baby started toward the surface. He was so little next to his mom even though he was longer than me.

Humpback Calf wanting to Shake Hands

He slowly ascended and as he did he turned to look at me. This is not me thinking this...he turned so that I could see his eye. I looked him in the eye and he followed me, watching as he surfaced. Time stood still as he kept getting closer and closer and continued to look at me. He was breathtaking. We both looked each other in the eye until he turned to join his mom. She had started to surface and swim away. She had watched her calf ascend and it seemed like she had decided it was time for him to stop playing with the humans. He looked back at me one more time then he and his mom swam off. It was magical! After they were out of sight, I stuck my head out of the water and yelled. Owhhhh! Oh my goodness! He was extraordinary...so graceful in the water. :) Sam mentioned that the calf had come so close to me that he could not get a picture without me in it. He was less than 2 meters away from me. He was so amazing! I tried to take a picture of his eye (since he filled my camera field of vision) and I could only get his fin. What a day!
On our way back we saw another single whale in the water. She was sitting on the top of the water and just relaxing. We were told that we could fit in another swim if we hurried. Sam went to "test the waters" and signaled for us. The whale was on the surface. She slowly floated down and then turned and began to swim away. The movement looked like it was effortless. She turned back and circled towards us. We were able to get a great view of her from the bumps on her nose to the white underside of her tail and her long beautiful pectoral fins complete with growing barnacles. She turned and then swam away. We popped our heads out of the water when we could no longer see her tail. Wow! She flipped her tail in the air and hit the surface with her tail a couple of times as if to wave goodbye.
I could not move for a bit. I pinched myself to see if this day really happened or not...it felt more like a dream than reality. We were told that it was a remarkable and not normal. All THREE whale interactions were incredible and that did not even include the singing. The experiences on the first day exceeded my hopes.

I did a bit of snorkeling on the reef in front of the island to complete the day. There were not many things to see but it was fun to watch a group of clown fish swimming in their anemone. The dominant fish in a clown fish group is the female. This female tried to defend her territory from my camera. I also enjoyed looking at the crazy shapes and spaces that the bright blue starfish molded himself into. What a GREAT first day in the water in Tonga! Incredible to think I had 5 more...

Tonga Whale Watch Planning

2011-08-04T22:50:00.000+10:00

I want to explain my whole purpose for going to Tonga. I have, as long as I can remember, always loved humpback whales. I never put rock star or teenage idol posters on my walls...I had posters of whales...beautiful, majestic whales. I have always dreamed of being in the water and seeing a humpback whale. I never thought I would get to live my dream.

Humpbacks are baleen, filter feeding whales. The southern hemisphere humpbacks feed in Antarctica and migrate towards the equator to calf and breed. They have a gestation period of 12 months. Calves are normally 3 to 6 meters (10-20 feet) at birth and weigh 1 to 2 tons. They initially put on 45 kg (100 pounds) per day from their mothers milk.
The calf typically returns with its mother to the breeding ground the following year. The two will separate on the following migration down to Antarctica. Not relying on mom's defences, the calf then begins its struggle to be independent. Juveniles mature at 5-7 years old. Females normally breed every 2-3 years. Like other whales, whaling put incredible pressure on the humpback whales. The human pressures added to the ecological ones and the humpback population significantly decreased. They were placed on the endangered species list in 1966. Since then, their population has been making a comeback.

Tonga banned whaling in 1978. This was important to the humpbacks as the warm waters of Tonga are a calving and breeding ground. The Tongan humpback population has increased since the ban. One niche of Tonga's tourist industry centered around whale watching. In the late 1990's, some companies began swimming with humpbacks. Thus began a new kind of pressure on the population. The Kingdom of Tonga actively embraced the new industry and, in 2001, guidelines were established to protect the whales. These guidelines continue to evolve.

I did not know what the rules were even after I arrived. I had to ask. One thing that needs to evolve is that the rules should be blatantly clear to everyone. I found out that every company is required to have a boat driver and a whale guide that are specifically licensed to interact with the whales. If the boat driver is not licensed, a much larger distance from the whale is to be maintained. Without a whale guide, no one is to jump in the water with a whale. The big thing on the whale swim boats (and the one rule I did learn while researching my trip) is that only 4 people (plus whale guide) are allowed in the water at one time. There are also protocols for how many boats can be in line to swim with the whale and duration of swim time.

There are multiple officially licensed whale swim companies that operate in Vava'u (I saw anything from 9-14 companies listed). Some companies offer only packages, some only day trips and some offer a combo. The number of passengers vary from 4 to 20...doing the math, that is a lot of time not in the water.

Like trip planning for any new location, the amount (or lack) of information can be overwhelming. It was hard to find equivalent information on each company. So in my true style, I created a spreadsheet (if you know me at all...this is not shocking). My spreadsheet listed the company, duration of package, days swimming with whales, total number of people on the boat and other things included like meals, transport, flights, etc. The spreadsheet helped clear up many questions. One thing that became clear to me was the total number of people on a boat was important. I decided to book a package ahead of time and chose the place that would offer me the most time in the water with only 4 people on the boat. Surprisingly the package I selected with only 4 people on the boat was not the most expensive one out there; the most expensive one I found had 12 people on the boat.

I learned that emailing Tonga does not always work and calling is futile. Most places do not communicate. If they do, they do not communicate well. I asked for an itinerary for my 7 day package four times that I already booked and STILL did not get a response. I felt like I was taking a HUGE leap of faith. Oh and one other point of interest...Tonga charges 4-5% for credit card charges (plus whatever your card charges for international transactions). So if you can, try to make time to extract money out (via ATM or arrive with cash) it might save you on the transaction fee. I tried to wire transfer money down. The address and bank numbers sent to me on the invoice did not match up with the official information and my money is still stuck in limbo. Just a heads up. Welcome to Tonga. :)

Despite the challenges and the amount of unknowns on my spreadsheet, I booked my trip to take my leap of faith into my dream.

Sydney - Aroma Festival

2011-07-31T21:58:00.000+10:00

Giraffe Monitoring the
Situation

We wondered down to the Rocks where there was a festival going on for the day on Sunday. The Aroma Festival featuring coffee, tea, and chocolate. How could that be bad?
The Rocks was alive with people meandering around. The festival was comprised of tables and tables of vendors, each displaying their wares. Almost all of the vendors represented some kind of food or drink. There were also several stages with musical and dance presentations. I liked the stage with the harbour bridge as a back drop.

We had fun wondering around seeking out the tables that had taste testers. I thought having samples was a good idea. There were so many vendors that we found ourselves preferentially stopping at the tables that would let us taste test...seemed like a small expense to entice a sale. The granola, cherry and nut places were yummy. We were also able to sample many different teas. I found it odd that none of the coffee places were giving out samples. We also looked around for cleaver names and investigated those booths. Matthew's favorite was a coffee place named "Sacred Grounds". After the afternoon of smelling and sampling (and some buying),
Matthew chose a coffee place and we were able to witness the artistry of pouring a pretty cup of coffee. I never knew that coffee had become an artform...apparently it has in some places. This guy was a master with milk foam. :)

View from Sydney Harbour Bridge

We walked home over the Sydney Harbour Bridge as the sun set and the lights of Sydney began to glow. It was a nice (and yummy) day out.

La Boheme Opera - Sydney Opera House

2011-07-28T06:11:00.000+10:00

La Boheme was playing at the Sydney Opera House. Puccini's opera is the classic love story about two friends in love with two very different women. They are Bohemians who struggle with passion, jealousy and ultimately, health and death. The Sydney production set the story in 1930's Germany.

I looked into tickets which ranged from 65 to 280 AUD on the website but I could not find any seats under $150. We had previously been to the theater and found out (what is not advertised) that sometimes they sell discounted standing room only tickets for that day's performance. Sometimes people stand in line well before the box office opens. The best part is that the standing room tickets are full view tickets where you can see the whole stage as well as the surtitles (which are not subtitles because they are above the stage). For La Boheme, the $150 seats are restricted view, so we decided to try our luck with standing room tickets on a Thursday night.

We were lucky that Thursday morning. There was only one lady in line ahead of me and she didn't want all ten available tickets. The tickets were less than the lowest price that I had seen listed. Yea!

Matthew came home from work and we dressed up, donning our most comfortable shoes. As we took the ferry over from McMahon's Point, it was hard to believe we'd actually be going not just in The Opera House but in the actual Opera Theatre. We were both excited.

The inside of the Sydney Opera House echoes the shapes from the outside. The bathroom stalls are even wavy. We felt very grown-up to ascend the stairs up to the main level. Since we would be standing for a long time, we sat on a bench just outside the ticket taker until the very last moment.

I was amazed at the intimate size of the theater but due to the shape, there are many restricted view seats. Since the theater is so steeply sloped, the stage is viable even in the back. The standing tickets were great...one of the best places in the house. We could see everything well. There is a little half wall in front of you that you can lean against. At intermission, we quickly found a couch to sit down on and helped ourselves to the water provided. After intermission we were pleasantly surprised when the usher told us that we could sit anywhere there were seats available (I guess they figured that if they were not there by then, they were not coming). Yea!

La Boheme
The music and voices were amazing. The staging was sometime great and sometimes just plain strange. In Act II, the restaurant scene for Muzetta's Waltz was incredible. There were so many things to see. In Act III, the staging was just... well... strange. It was supposed to be in a guardhouse that had a fenced courtyard but it looked more like a jailyard for no discernible reason. It was just odd. I felt like there was something missing in the story, but evidently Puccini's edited out a scene that helps the story flow.

Another thing I questioned about this production was that the scene featured on some of the advertising posters has a woman up against a wall with a man leaning into her and rain falling. The posters have an emotional resonance. I loved the poster. But this scene did not exist in the presentation we saw and the couple featured on the poster were not in the opera. It was not just different performers...that scene did not exist. Strange and somewhat disappointing.

We enjoyed discussing the show on our way home. Matthew had announced before the show how he had discovered that the musical Rent was loosely based on La Boheme. I laughed and said "not so loosely". He agreed after the first scene that loosely was not the right word. We watched the DVD of Rent 2 nights later so he could see it. I like that they had all but 2 of the Original Broadway Cast in the movie instead of hiring Hollywood stars. Anyway...

Overall we enjoyed out night seeing La Boheme at the Sydney Opera House. We enjoyed the show and were blown away by the voices. We had a fabulous night out. Glad I wore comfortable shoes!

Food Experimentation Stories

2011-07-22T11:05:00.000+10:00

When you are cooking in a one bedroom apartment that is not yours, you have to be creative about how to cook what you would be able to do in YOUR kitchen. I also do not like to eat out so we experiment with different types of food. It is also different to cook in a different country where things do not always taste the same. Ask about German Strength onions or English peanut butter or the whole adventure of trying to find sour cream on two continents and three countries.

So one day I mentioned that I have had gnocchi recently and decided that if cooked well...it is good. Matthew decided that we could DEFINITELY cook it because after all...it is only potato pasta and we have cooked with potatoes before and cooked pasta before...how hard could it be? :) Australians have a strange affinity to pumpkin...so why not make pumpkin gnocchi...no problem.

We looked at 3 different grocery stores for nutmeg (called for in the recipe we had for gnocchi). Luckily the Google kitchen chef came to our aid and bested a small amount of nutmeg upon us and wished us luck in our endeavour. We needed more than luck as it turns out.

We decided that we could deviate a bit from the gnocchi recipe in how we cooked the potatoes and that we decided to make pumpkin gnocchi...not regular gnocchi (should have been our first big flag). The recipe said to bake the potatoes in the oven but since we were cooking the pumpkin in the oven and our oven is small, we decided to boil the potatoes. Little did we know that this was a bad idea. We also decided to cook a double recipe since we had so many potatoes. It is probably not the best plan to cook a double anything when doing truly experimental cooking...but since we had made pasta several times before, Matthew made the assertion that we would be fine.

Our first sign of trouble was when the dough had the consistency of pancake batter even after we had added all of the flour. We did not take this as a fail because we had made pasta before. So add more flour.

2 more cups of flour and we now had cookie dough. According to the resident expert of the house, pasta dough is dry and this was not it...we needed more flour. So add more flour.

One kilo bag (2.2 pounds) of flour later (3 times the amount called for in the recipe). AND since we had made pasta before, we knew there was a problem, it was still too sticky.

We aborted the effort to get the right consistency of dough and tried to cook some of them, trying to get something for dinner but deciding that we were not going to keep anything left over. Well...not shockingly, they tasted like flour and were pretty slimy (the recipe said that if they were slimy....we should add more flour...ha ha...we found that funny). The good news was that they sat like a lump in my tummy and so I did not feel hungry once we declared the dinner a fail.

I did something strange that night. I was so tired from cooking that day that we cleaned up the counters and cooking implements but left about a 4" ball of dough in the bowl to discard the next morning.
We were greeted with a surprise. Our dough had decided to escape. It made it up and consumed the bowl and was making a run for the counter. I approached carefully and when I touched it, it deflated a little bit. After Matthew left for work, I turned my attention back to it and I swear it had inflated and grown more. I decided to cook the thing as it smelled like sourdough, that and it would be a WHILE lot easier to throw out if it was solid. I was picturing a B movie and seeing it climb back up the trash chute and come smother us in the middle of the night. Turns out, it made a pretty good sourdough bread that made a killer french toast.
We have not tried gnocchi again yet...just because this loaf of bread was tamed, does not mean that the next one will not turn on us.

You will be relieved to know that we did use the pasta masters knowledge (even without a rolling pin) and made a great pumpkin pasta for lasagna and pumpkin bread for a great Italian dinner.

Love Never Dies - The Musical

2011-07-18T13:26:00.000+10:00

Love Never Dies from Andrew Lloyd Webber was showing at the Regent Theater in Melbourne. We decided to treat ourselves to a night at the theater.

Regent Theatre Foyer

The theatre is beautiful. The walls are carved and ornate having a regal air. Just beautiful. The painted ceilings and window boxes in the foyer with large sweeping curtains added to the rich vintage feeling of the Regent Theater. It was impressive.
Love Never Dies is the follow on story to the phenomenal Phantom of the Opera that opened in the West End in London 1986 and is the longest running musical on Broadway to date.
The story of the Phantom and Christine continues 10 years later at Coney Island where the phantom is now running the freak show. He has never lost his desire for Christine. Christine is a world renowned soprano. She accepts an invitation to come to New York to sing, not knowing that the Phantom is behind the invitation. She brings her family including her husband, Raul whom she had run away with at the end of the original story. He has not become the ravishing hero that he once was.

Inside Picture of Pamphlet

The show is visually stunning. Everything was big with lots of colors and interesting things to look at in every direction. It was impressive and mesmerizing to watch.

There were a couple of musical highlights, particularly some of the interplay of voices in one duet and one quartet. I did not feel that had the depth of music that most of Webber's other musicals have. I was not singing a song from the musical days later. All of the main performers in the show that we saw had beautiful voices and sang marvelously. It was great that no one person stood out. They all were strong.

The story, however, is...well...lacking and that's putting it very nicely. There are multiple story lines and not all of them make sense. It felt like they were trying to make a soup from everything in the fridge without paying attention to what was going in and they just hoped that it would taste good. But in the end, the flavors didn't blend at all. In my opinion, the story was not well thought out, the plot was weak, and it relied on the original story to carry the show. It seemed like this amazing artist just wanted some cash so he churned something out based on a previous success and did not care about the quality. I was disappointed. At one point, when one of the biggest twists was introduced, I lost the story as I searched in my own memory asking "What? WHAT?" "When did THAT happen in the original story?" It is not a good thing to have happen while watching a performance...to spend more time in my head than paying attention to what was happening onstage. Matthew and I exchanged notes at intermission and he was just as perplexed as I was. The second act tried to tie everything in a neat bow but they had already let too many things unravel.

Overall, it was a nice night out listening to beautiful voices and watching amazing sets in a beautiful theater...too bad about the story.

Dandenong Ranges - Melbourne Weekend

2011-07-17T00:11:00.000+10:00

Our second weekend in Melbourne Australia began with a quick trip back to the Victoria Market for some picnic supplies. We decided to go hiking in the Dandenong Ranges. They're a range of high hills about an hour east of Melbourne. We headed out in our little ugly green rental car. This thing was ugly. Ugly Green. As in no-one-ever-should-ever-have-painted-a-car-this-color green. It did manage the trip out the expressway quickly though and we began to drive further up into the hills.

The Dandenongs are actually 5 individual parks (some national parks), a bunch of smaller forests and sanctuaries with various villages all stuck together to make one big region. Since the whole area encloses several small towns, it's not actually uninhabited. We drove up on one of the main mountain roads to Olinda, which is where two of the main roads cross. The drive up was pretty and very twisty. Good thing we didn't blink because the town wan't very big. And this was one of the bigger towns.
Since it was already early afternoon, we stopped at a random roadside B&B. This region has a ton of little hotels and B&Bs. The main industry around here is "quaint". That B&B told us to go back into town and stop at another B&B in an old mill that ran a booking service. We turned around and headed back into Olinda and found The Loft In The Mill right at the main crossroads. It was tricky finding a parking spot, but managed to find the main reception area. We decided not to book anything immediately and instead wait for evening to increase our negotiating power. We grabbed some hiking maps and headed out to find a spot for an afternoon hike.

Arboretum View

We chose a spot on the map called Eagle's Nest thinking it would offer good views and be high up. On the way we passed an arboretum that was pretty but decided to find something less manicured. Also Eagle's Nest would be higher up, right? Evidently eagles in Australia nest in the lowlands or at least not at the top of the hill as the road went down the ridge pretty steeply. We also almost immediately ran out of pavement and the road turned into dirt. Which thanks to all the recent rain, was actually muddy. After a couple kilometers, we hit the turn off for Eagle's Nest, but found out it was closed for construction (and even more downhill). We drove down the dirt "road" and found a spot where someone else had pulled off the road. We figured there must be a trail head. We were right.
The trail itself started on the far side of a little creek and then split to go around the bottom of a hill. We chose the right fork semi-randomly and started around the hill counterclockwise along the muddy trail. Since we still had about 3 hours of daylight, we set a leisurely pace. We decided to walk uphill first so we decided to take the first trail that went up (since Eagles Nest had not offered the overlook we were hoping). The first trail we came to was a fire road and it went straight up the hill to our left. We started up the steep, muddy hill. I quickly became concerned about getting back down. I had visions of sliding down on my bum and ending up full of mud. We turned around. Thanks to Matthew for support, we made it down, safely on our feet. We decided to continue along the base of the hill and hope that it was less muddy.
This path was more like a trail and less of a road (which was good). The trail wound through a forest and even had some elevation. We were able to see on the top of a nice hill as well as down along a creek over the course of the couple hour walk. The forest around us was almost all gum (eucylptus) trees with a tall canopy and leafy undergrowth of amazing ferns. It smelled wonderful. The whole forest was well watered, so everything was green.
We liked the fun moss that grew on the top of tree stumps and fence posts. It liked us too and even gave us a smile. Such a neat place.
We did not run into any animals but it was fun to listen to the multitude of different bird calls.
Due to Matthew's great navigation, we ended up waking in a loop (not too bad for not having a map). It was a nice walk. Back at the car we grabbed a quick snack and tried not to get the car too muddy (even though a bit of mud might have been an improvement on the car color).
On our way out of the forest we passed a sign that said Berry Farm. We had to stop. They advertise berries year round. Unfortunately, Australia does not grow berries in winter and therefore there were no fresh berries for sale. They did, however, have frozen berries. We purchased some kumquats and 1/2 kilo (the smallest quantity they would sell) of frozen raspberries. If we must...we must. We consoled each other over the tragedy of being forced to buy 1/2 kilo of raspberries. We were not heading to a freezer anytime soon...so naturally we had to consume them as we drove. YUM!
Now that we were armed with berries, the next order of business was finding a bed for the evening. We stopped at several B&Bs to try and find a place to stay. One place was situated on the top of a hill and we stopped to watch the sunset through the trees. It was beautiful. The raspberries made the sunset even more spectacular. :)
We had no luck finding a place that had vacancy and were directed back to Olinda and Loft in the Mill because they have a booking service. They recognized us when we walked back and were happy that we did not get lost in the woods or attached by drop bears (a very concerning thing in the wilds of Australia). The nice thing was that they did have a booking service, the bad thing is that they had in their heads the type of place that one desired and pretty much pushed you in that direction.
We ended up in a VERY nice place for the night but it was WAY more than we needed or wanted. Oh well. When we arrived, the parking lot was full and there were LOTS of people dressed up in dresses and uniforms in the lobby. The hotel was hosting a fire brigade event. I felt out of place in my muddy hiking clothes.
We checked in and went up to our room. The "honeymoon suite" was almost the size of our apartment and had the largest 4 poster bed that I had ever slept in in my life. It was quite amazing. The room was also freezing. They apparently do not heat the rooms ahead of time. We put the heat on full blast and went downstairs to eat.
. We ended up sitting in the bar area because it had a wood burning fire. One of the chiefs of the fire brigade thought our fire was too small, in his professional opinion, and thew more wood on the fire. He kept checking on us...it was cute. At one point he ordered the staff to get us more wood. :)
A couple we met and spent most of the evening chatting with (not with the fire brigade) mentioned that the Rhododendron Garden was worth a visit...even in the winter. So after breakfast, we headed back to Olinda to the garden. We were both impressed. The park is about 20 hectacres, which is a decent sized garden.
There was not tons in bloom but what was impressed us. The colors of rhododendrons were varied and beautiful. One of my favorites was the beautiful camila tree that had various colors of flowers from bright pink to soft purple. I also loved the Winter Gold tree. It stood out and even glowed even with no leaves. Some of the other plants including the banksias It was a great garden.

The garden is known for the resident birds as well. The Superb Lyrebird mimics the sounds of other birds. They are amazing! They also do a dance to attract mates. They look like large chickens with long tails and really strong, large legs. Wondering down a path, we almost stumbled over 2 lyerbirds...one on either side of the path. We were able to watch the bird dig at the ground, looking for grubs to munch. A male bird ran across the path. It was exciting.

Holland Honeyeater is a type of bird that frequents the gardens around the bottle brushes and banksias. They were quite territorial and it was fun to watch the birds interact with each other. had one guy that decided to model in my photo shoot...I was excited. I think he would like his angles and the composition of his pictures (especially considering I do not have a whomping zoom lens).
We also enjoyed watching the surperb fairy wrens (and yes the surperb is part of their official name). They are little small birds that have straight large tails that stick up another half their body size. The male surperb fairy wren is shocking bright blue. He was gorgeous but bounced around so much that photos were not possible.

Banksia bush

I was pleasantly surprised with the garden. It would be amazing in the spring (Sept/Oct) when the azaleas all bloom. We enjoyed our time in the Dandenong Ranges.

Melbourne Market and Wine Country

2011-07-11T12:43:00.000+10:00

We spent a weekend in Melbourne Australia. I had flown down on Sunday evening to work for a couple weeks. We had bought a ticket for Matthew on Tiger Airways to fly down for the weekend. When I arrived I found out that the airports were a bit of a mess because Tiger Airways had been grounded due to safety concerns. GREAT...NOT! We immediately bought a new ticket for Matthew on a different airline which was about $100 more expensive. He arrived on Friday evening about 30 min late but did arrive safely.

Ever since we visited Melbourne the first time, Matthew has been raving about the socks that we purchased at the Victoria Market. Now, almost 3 years later, the biggest item on his agenda was going to the market to buy socks. Crazy I know. So...the first full day in Melbourne...we headed to the Victoria Market.

The market is a large, several square block building that houses hundreds of stalls selling everything from souvineres, leather jackets, and socks to cheese, fruit/veggies, and breakfast sandwiches with coffee and smoothies. We were amused by the long line of people waiting to buy "American Doughnuts" from a VW bug van. It was fun to watch them make the donuts and fill them with jam. A lady told us that she traveled down from Queensland to have these donuts. We decided to try them. I will say...fresh hot donuts were good.
Lunch consisted of some fruit, cheese, jamon, and bread that we purchased at the market. There is an outside seating area that was nice and warm.
After lunch we wondered into the non-food side of the market. We looked at some aboriginal art from a local tribe. We had noticed this tribes paintings at a stand at the market in Sydney. The have beautiful shapes to the animals that we both liked. We saw several paintings that we both liked and agonized over which one, if any, to purchase. Negotiations ensued. :) We also saw this lady that carved flowers out of soap. It was amazing. She gave us a demonstration....we were impressed. She even uses soap that smells like the flower. She had roses, lilies, lotus flowers, and orchids. All carved out of soap. In talking with the artist, she said she'd originally learned how to carve centerpieces out of fruit while in Thailand, but got tired of people eating all her hard work.
At some point in all of our wanderings, we noticed that people were packing up. We were surprised since it was only about 3:30 and the market had started to close down. It became an urgent mission to find socks. To everyone's relief, we found and purchased 3 pairs of socks. When we were back in the hotel that night, Matthew tried on his socks and proclaimed to all who would listen how his feet were in heaven and made a face of utter bliss.
On Sunday we drove out to Yarra Valley. Yarra Valley is the wine country on the east side of Melbourne. It is only about 1 to 1.5 hour drive. It was a wet WET day but we really enjoyed ourselves.
It was recommended that we go to the Yarra Valley Dairy for lunch. The road to the dairy was not paved entirely...it looked like more of a dirt path and with the rain...well. I was not sure if it was even the right way but the sign said to go forward and there was no other way to go forward but down the one lane muddy road. The parking lot did have a couple of cars. We found the closest parking spot that was on the uphill side of the lot so that if we did get stuck in the mud, gravity might help out. The building looked like an overgrown shed with a corrugated metal roof.
Inside there is a counter and we were offered a free cheese tasting of about 7 different locally produced varieties. We found out that it is better to put your name in for a table BEFORE cheese tasting...but oh well...we were dry and did not have an agenda. The only thing they have to eat is a cheese plate and some baked goods along with coffee, tea, or wine (and in the summer time there is home made ice cream).

The cheese plate comes with bread and your choice of relish. It is a LOT of cheese but very good. We enjoyed trying the different types on each type of bread. We both agreed that the Marinated Parisian Feta that they make (lower right little bowl) was the best. It really did not taste like feta...more like the best goats cheese I had ever eaten.
We stayed until the cows came home... literally. The poor cows sloshed their way down the path. What started as one cow because a parade of woo (moo only we are down under). We decided to buy some cheese to take home. Our favorite came in a small jar or a giant one kilogram tub.
After enjoying the cheese and the floor show, we dashed out to the car...trying to avoid the big puddles. We drove to the closest winery. Yarra Yearing Vineyard (by the way...the titles of the wineries are all pretty confusing as many of them have very similar sounding names). We walked in to a HUGE cold feeling building. It was pretty but it was like they were trying to hard. We decided to go try some place a bit more inviting.
Yearing Station was another that was recommended. This was more our speed (except for the prices). We walked in and they had wine sitting on on a simple wooden table. The wine list started at 90 AUD! They did have a roaring fire in the room. Matthew did a wine tasting (only $5) and I warmed myself by the fire. One of the vineyard cats was placed in his bed by the fire by one of the women working at the winery. He was super friendly and so we cuddled some while Matthew sampled the peppery, light oaky finishes.

The lady serving the wine (sample 5 of 7 for Matthew) made a casual offhanded comment about the roos coming down from the hill. sure enough...looking out at the rows of grape vines...we could see several kangaroos. The more we looked, the more we saw. We have been to several winerys including thoes in California, France, and Italy but never would I have imagined placing a kangaroo in amoust the grapes. We asked if they eat the grapes. Apparently not...they only eat the grass and weeds, so they like them bouncing around.
We walked around the back of the house to see if we could get a bit closer. It was fun to watch but they did get skittish if you move too fast or get too close.


Yarra Valley Vinyard - with Kangaroos

We had time to stop by one more winery. Warramate was right next door and night and day different. This one looked like it was in someone's house...but not upscale house...more like the backside of a barn. We walked in the and the guy poured us both a decent taste. I declined since I was driving. He poured himself a glass as well. He told us that there was definitely a benefit to working at a vineyard as he smiled and took another sip of his wine. This was the most laid back wine tasting I had been to. We chatted for a while and Matthew bought a bottle. The grapes were all the same but the bottles were about a quarter the price.

Yummy Cheese

It was a good day. The challenge was how to get the cheese home without leaking the olive oil all over our suitcase.

Exmouth

2011-06-21T23:57:00.000+10:00

I spent time exploring Exmouth while I was not able to be in the water. I found several groups of wonderfully friendly people. Unfortunately, a car is needed to see anything outside of the Exmouth proper. We had time to see a little of Cape Range National Park on our last day of the tour up to Exmouth but there is much more to the national park.
My first day to explore was with an incredibly nice Irishman who I met on the whale shark boat. He lives in Perth and had 2 friends visiting. The second day was with an Aussie who works in the mining industry. He was exploring with his 2 friends. We met in the car rental shop as we were both inquiring about renting a car to dive for the day and then drop at the airport. There was only 1 car. I let him have it and then he was nice enough to invite me to join them. I really enjoyed both of my days out and about in Exmouth. It is nice to be traveling and run into some more great people.
Both days we explored the national park on the south side of Exmouth. There are 2 roads that lead into it. Shothole Canyon Road is 14km outside of town. The road is in the valley of the canyon and is not the smoothest road. There is a picnic area and scenic overlook spot at the end. The colors of the rocks were amazing. It was a beautiful drive.
The other road, about 21 km outside of town, is the Charles Knife Canyon. This dive is up on the ridge so the views look down into the canyon. The sheer drops are pretty impressive. You can also see the ocean from some of the overlooks. It was really pretty.



Shothole Canyon Road	Charles Knife Canyon Road

Pebble Beach is on the way back into town. It was, just as the name indicates, completely comprised of 2-4cm round rocks. Apparently it is a great place to see whales in September/October when they migrate down south. The most interesting thing on the beach was a sign that talked about the seasons for the animal life in the Exmouth waters.

On the other side of Exmouth, we drove up to the lighthouse. Exmouth is situated on one side of the peninsula because it was initially not a tourist destination but a support town for the Naval Communications Station. The lighthouse is at the tip. It was able to get a picture with water in the background...this is impressive since the lighthouse is SO FAR back from the coastline. The overlook is actually closer to the water than the lighthouse itself.

We stopped by a Turtle Sanctuary information center. During the turtle season, this is a good beach to watch them come in to lay eggs or to see the hatchlings start their fight for life as they work their way out into the ocean. It was a strange area. There was a story board that had was written as if it were a child's book with rhyming but the story was quite morbid. The pictures....well....the pictures are a bit...I don't know how to put into words how I felt a picture of a crab decapitating a baby turtle. A bit graphic.
There is a ranger station where you have to pay to enter Cape Range National Park on the beach side.
The very end of the road is Yadie Creek. We took the Nature Hike. The hike wound along the top of the gorge and looked down on the creek. The area is known for rock wallabys. We did manage to see one of these shy animals. We also almost walked over several wallaby and kangaroos eating a snack. They were not concerned about us at all. It was a nice hike and highly recommended.
Back to the Water -

I think one of the reasons that Exmouth beaches have such great coral is that the beaches aren't really in Exmouth. The beaches are protected by the national park and therefore access is more restricted than Coral Bay.

I tried snorkeling at Lakeside (the first spot to park in the national park). I think we went to the wrong area because it was recommended but the marked area for snorkeling was pretty boring...mostly algae. The only thing that saved it was that the beach was pretty and we saw a shoveled ray in the first 2 minutes of the snorkel.

We went to Turquoise Bay each time I went out to the National Park. Turquoise Bay is beautiful. I wondered down both sides of the beach. One side is beach and more beach. the other side gets rocky. iIt was fun to walk along the flat rocks...I kept hearing scratching noises and felt like I was being watched. Turns out there were tons of little crabs in the rocks and they were watching. If I approached, the scurried to a hiding spot in the rocks. There were also lots of Chiton (which look like a funny shaped rocks but are animals that seal themselves in a moist environment so they can survive when exposed to air for extended periods of time.

Sea Cucumber in Turquoise Bay

I rescued a sea cucumber that had come in a bit too far and was left stranded when the tide when out. Sea cucumbers do not have any protection if they are out of water. He was baking on the rock. I put him back into the ocean.
It was a fun tidal flat area with lots of critters to see.

Trigger fish

Parrot fish

I also enjoyed more time snorkeling at Turquoise. I was there for a sunset snorkel one of the days. It was beautiful to see the amazing color and animals below and see the sun doing its best to paint the sky with its own brilliant color. It was beautiful.
I liked where I stayed in Exmouth. Most of the people who I met stayed at Potshot backpackers or hotel so I had to walk down to meet them but it was not a long walk. Potshot Backpackers was not the nicest or cleanest place. It was not warm and comforting and it FELT like an old backpackers place that was not cared for. The nice thing was that the communal kitchen did have cooking equipment (knives, pots, pans) and (for a deposit) they would hand out place settings (but watch out for the cracked mugs). There was also a toilet/shower in each room BUT in the backpackers, there were 10 beds in each room. I did not like it there.

Visitors outside of my room

I moved to Aspen Holiday Park. It was really clean and nice. I was more at home from the minute I walked in...well maybe after about 5 min. The guy at the front desk was quite abrupt when I told him that I had a reservation and gave him my name, he responded with "No you don't!" ;I thought he was joking....so I repeated myself and then asked if he wanted to see the reservation. He said yes because he did not believe that I had a reservation (apparently I was not in the system). I presented my printed reservation after digging it out from the bottom of my bag. He was quite confused. The lady at the other end of the desk overheard my name and said, "is this her reservation". She thought it was a joke because of the combo of my name and email address...so she did not enter it but kept it around. At that point they were very nice and laughed about the whole situation with me and we made jokes about it the whole time I was there. I even was given a ride to my room in a golf cart. My room felt really new. There were only 4 beds per room (and since it was the off season...I had the room to myself). The bathroom/really nice warm showers/laundry were a quick walk across the park road.

Visitor at the picnic area

The grilling/cooking facilities were fantastic however you had to provide all your own things or you could rent a well equipped cooking kit from the front desk. If you needed anything...just a plate and knife...that was your only option.
They also has a nice shaded pool area and they showed 2 movies outside on a big screen twice while I was there. They were kids movies. I took my sleeping bag and picnic dinner over to watch the shows. I really liked the place.

Since there were not a lot of city lights, I did take the opportunity to go outside and try to get the southern cross in a photo again. It was fun but I did get bitten by mossies (an Australian mosquito) on the walk. The Southern Cross looks like a kite (I would say a cross but there is an extra star). It is featured on the Australia flag. There are 2 pointer stars that point to the south. They are the brighter than the southern cross. It is strange to look up and be disoriented with the stars in the sky. When I returned home from living in Australia I found that I really missed the southern cross when it no longer looked down on me.
The other funny thing is that I could not escape the song from the fire display during Vivid Sydney. I like the song...makes me think of the fun we had walking around Vivid Sydney (see my blog post for a video of the fire display). I heard it everywhere. If it is not a big thing anywhere else, it sure is popular in Australia.

View from plane - Exmouth to Perth

The airport in really small...in fact there is nothing to buy, eat, drink once you pass security...even the bathrooms are outside the secure area. It is on a military base so you are also not allowed to take pictures of any kind. It was cute. My flight pack to Perth was pretty and Eddie (who I met at the car place) was nice enough to drop me at the backpackers in Perth.
By the way...never stay in Governor Robinsons hostel in Perth...well...I don't mean never but I would not stay there again. They were not the warmest of people and the long term residents there really complained about the lack of help and support. They ended up calling the wrong shuttle service for me even though I handed him my voucher. It made for a VERY unpleasant morning. The shuttle service they called has regular routes and pick up times. The front desk clerk told me to be up and ready 45 minutes earlier than what I had been told when I called the shuttle company previously. When they arrived, I jumped in the shuttle and was told that my voucher was for the other company. Luckily I had not shut hotel front door enough for the lock to engage and I was able to get back in because it was cold. I paced and fretted about if the right company would pick me up. They did. City Link picks up based on request and that is why I would have had 45 min extra sleep. I made it to the airport with time to spare and bid WA goodbye until next time.

Whale Sharks!

2011-06-19T23:48:00.000+10:00

Whale Sharks are amazing. The whole goal of my WA trip was to see whale sharks. I booked my trip that was linked to a 3-Day Live Aboard Diving trip and the Navy Pier dive and negotiated a great package deal with Whale Shark-n-Dive (WSD). I had also negotiated a discount deal (the YHA discount price) with Ningaloo Reef Dreaming (NRD) and thought it was good because they give you a free picture CD according to the advertising. Matthew paid for a trip with them at the price I negotiated and since he could not go...he said he booked the trip for me (SO SWEET). I was a bit stressed because NRD sent a voucher (and said I needed to have it) but it had the wrong date. I had to get them to reissue it and then could not find a place to print it. Ended up I did not need the voucher.
I found out, once I arrived in WA, that NRD's reputation is that they are "a bunch of cowboys" and do not do things in a professional manner. They have their own plane but the rumor is that sometimes they don't even put it up. I don't know if all the rumors are true but I was concerned about booking through them.
The day I went out with NRD...there was only one other company that braved the weather and sent a boat out. The good thing was that there was no concerns about another boat getting our shark...the bad thing was that it was rough and they ended up going in early (after we saw our shark and he dove) because of rough weather (high winds). Their normal boat had a hole in the hull (rumors are from hitting the reef - very bad for the reef and boat) so we used their spare boat (actually it was their old boat that they had sold but were now renting it back until their new boat was fixed). The waves crashed over the sides as we were going out to look for sharks. Anything that was not in a tub with a lid (which they provided) was soaked.
The crew was fun and worked hard. They were very blunt about the international regulations to protect the sharks which was a good thing. They did push very hard with respect to swimming fast and the speed of entry in/exit out of the water. Getting in and out of the boat was really hard. I saw more people with bloody scratches and cuts and if someone was not bleeding, they were bruised. We were on the hunt for sharks...but not the kind that are attracted by blood. It was a rough trip. I also felt a sense of stress to get in and out with urgency...it was not an excited urgency but a stressed one.
They did have a photographer on board, however, we were not given a picture CD. Instead they gave us a little slip of paper with a link to a website that had the photos for us to download (if you acted within 2 weeks). I want to highlight that all of the photos featured in this blog were taken by me with my camera.
The snorkel they provided was the cheap kind with no splash guard or relief. It was not good equipment for this type of swimming...it made it difficult to get the water out.
They did have snacks every time we came in from the water. They served lunch on the boat which was basically sandwiches...it was good.
At the end of the trip, everyone was happy because we did see a shark. In total we saw 2 manta rays from the boat, several humpback whales (including one that breached) and had 2 swims with a fantastic shark.

Whale Shark-n-Dive had a reputation of being professional, customer-oriented...a great company. They have the best equipment and the fastest, nicest boat on the water. (by the way...I did find out that generally speaking, if a dive shop is located on the premises of your accommodation, there is a local discount for the trip (Aspen Holiday Park had a discount for WSD))
They lived up to the reputation. The equipment was very good (relief and splash guards on the snorkels (which made a big difference in the overall experience)). The boat was fantastic...nothing got wet unless it was meant to. It was FAST! Getting in and out of the boat was significantly easier...the board on the back of the boat is lower, I think, and it seems softer for some reason. I did not see any blood. I liked the upper deck area and the boat had a hot water shower on the back so you could rinse off and warm up a bit. They have a videographer on board and he sells videos from the trip. They too had snacks every time we came out of the water...the snacks were excellent (more than just opening a bag of cookies). Lunch consisted of sandwiches and salads and was very good.
My original trip was canceled - no boats went out due to 3 meter swells so I rescheduled (to my back-up day).
On my second attempt, it was a beautiful day on the water...sunny and calm. We saw everything including a ray during the morning snorkel, two mantas (that we swam with), humpbacks including a little baby on his momma's back, a sea snake on the surface, turtles and a crazy marlin that jumped out of the water no less than 15 times. We did not see a shark.
I rearranged my return to Perth (with Matthew's help) and rescheduled for the third attempt. The weather was not as nice on my last trip but we did get to swim with a manta and swim twice with a very slow moving shark. Both trips with WSD were great. I did not feel rushed or pressured...there was only an air of excitement but no stress. I would highly recommend WSD (and tell them Noel said "Hi").
Overall I LOVED my time on the water in Exmouth.

The structure of all of the trips were the same. The bus picked me up outside my accomidation at about 7:15am. We were taken to Tantabiddi Boat Ramp. There was a tidal area that we had to cross...sometimes it was dry and sometimes it was a river.
On one of the trips out it was guarded by a very brave crab. He was standing at attention as ridged as I had ever seen a crab. The gal in front of me thought it was fake until she stopped and bent down to look at him and he snapped his claws so hard and fast that she jumped and let out a yelp. It was funny. He stayed at attention. An aggressive and brave crab.
Everyone going out to see sharks met at this beach. The individual boats sent tenders to collect the passengers.

Beautiful Coral Interaction

Once on board the shark boat, snorkeling equipment was sorted for everyone. They gave the boat safety talk and then the snorkel brief. The boats then moved to a spot to do a morning snorkel.
The morning snorkel was an opportunity for everyone to test out the borrowed equipment. It also was a good way for the crew to get a read on everyone's snorkel ability. NRDs snorkel spot offered nothing...there was nothing to see and it was a big race. Everyone was with their group (2 swimming groups on the boat) and we were told to just follow our spotter. The snorkel time with WSD was on your own. A pleasant experience.

Fungidae Corals

Nudibranch

We went to a beautiful spot and saw some fantastic coral and reef fish. We saw a huge ray under a coral overhang. There was a great variety of different coral, each fighting for their spot on the ground and their access to sunlight. One of my favorites is the Fungidae. They are the most mobile of the hard corals. I saw other invertebrates including nudibranchs (shell-less snails) of different colors and shapes.

Parrot-fish at
Cleaning Station

Turtle

We were able to see many different reef fish. I like watching the cleaning wrasse work away at cleaning stations (see picture with a parrot fish). Parrot fish are fun...the front of their faces look like a parrot beak. While snorkeling you can hear crackling in the water...that is the parrot fish scrapping coral to get the algae out of the coral. You can even see scrapes on coral from the parrot fish.
The turtle was a nice goodbye to my last whale shark snorkel experience.

The snorkel ended and everyone was back on the boat by about 10am when the spotter planes went up in the air. The waiting game began....During the wait to get a good call from a spotter plane, we kept an eye out for other marine life. Mantas were a exciting spot.

On the two WSD trips, we were able to swim with the mantas. Manta swimming is different from whale shark swimming. You don't want to swim after them. If they are curious, they will approach you. We silently lowered ourselves into the water and floated over to them but kept a distance.
It was beautiful! They are so graceful and beautiful. Mantas feed on plankton and small fish. They funnel food in and have gill bars to keep the good stuff and let the water through. Mantas were called devil rays in old lore but they are harmless beautiful animals that are among the most awe-inspiring things I have seen. I remember the silence in the water as the beautiful animals danced in the water to music that they seemed to create. It was stunning. They were curious enough to stick around and show us part of the symphony that they create daily. It is magical; beauty and grace itself.

Humpback whales were migrating up from Antarctica to their nursery up between Indonesia and northern Australia. Up there they have their young, train the young whales, breed, etc. They return in the spring to go back to feed.
-

From the boat we saw some whales in the distance...we only saw water spouts. Others surfaced close to the boat. I was able to see two different whales breach. It was so exciting to see the beautiful animal thrust herself out of the water and twist so that her fins wrapped around her body. Apparently, they normally are very focused this time of year and are not more active than they need to be....so this was a special treat. In September/October, they tend to be more active and they jump and play much more.

Spotting amazing animals is to fill the time while the waiting game continues for big spotty fish. We were given a talk on whale sharks. Very little is known about whale sharks. They are the largest fish in the sea. They can grow up to 18 meters. Most of the sharks around Exmouth are juvenile males (5 to 7 meters long). They don't know where they go when they leave the Ningaloo waters or why they surface. The guess is that they follow their food source. They do tend to surface more when it is sunny out (and it is MUCH easier for the spotter planes to see). All of the world's largest animals including whale sharks are filter feeders. The largest animals feed on the smallest. Whale sharks are beautiful and graceful. They have large tails that help propel them. The top of their body is hard for protection while their underbelly is softer.

Whale sharks are protected in most nations. Only 10 snorkelers are allowed to swim with a shark at one time for a maximum of an hour. You must maintain a distance of 3 meters from head and body and 4 meters from their tail. You are not allowed to swim over or under them. Diving down generally scares them and that makes them dive...so duck diving is not allowed (also why you only snorkel and not dive with them).
When a shark is spotted, the boat engines rev and they tell you to get ready. People get with their group (20 people on the boat = 2 groups) and get masks ready and puts fins on. The boat pulls up in front of the shark. The crew member who is the spotter gets in and indicates that they see the shark by raising their hand in the air. The group gets in as fast as possible with a giant stride entry into the water and you must position yourself behind the spotter or on the other side of the shark behind the sharks eyes.
I got in the water and looked for our spotter. I was also looking in the water...looking. I saw a shadow and soon the shadow became defined. He was beautiful and right in front of me...swimming straight at me. It was like a dream. I woke out of my dream moment and remembered to swim out of the way. Once I was behind the spotter, I just swam. My goal was to keep with him as long as I could. Sometimes they swim fast and all you get to appreciate is their huge powerful tail. If the shark swims slowly, there is time to look down his amazing body.Then swim like mad and take it all in until you are told to stop to let the other group take their turn. It is wild and amazing! The boat comes around and picks you up. Then, if you are lucky enough, you get ready to do it all over again.
I experienced both. I remember kicking for all I was worth (by the way when the say anyone can swim with whale sharks...that is true. But you may see lots of tail). In my moment, swimming, all others did not exist. Just me and my big spotty fish. His beautiful pattern with rows of white spots in perfect lines. Then down the length of his body are ridges. So amazing. They also both had a whole community of fish including ramora and little reef fish. It is a whole little ecosystem around the animal. The fish use the shark for protection. It is crazy how many fish travel with this giant of the ocean.
I was lucky to get two swims with the sharks I saw. They are beautiful powerful animals that give us the gift of visiting the surface. I remembered to take pictures and the second trip, I took video. Excuse the quality, I was swimming fast even if it does not seem like it. :)

What an amazing animal...what an amazing experience!