Days 408 & 409: The Sunlander

The Economy cabin!

 We rolled our suitcases back down the hill from the hostel to Roma Street station.  They keep the Sunlander, the famous train that runs from Brisbane to Cairns hidden somewhere at the back of the station, and only inform you of where it is if you ask!  We reached the platform five minutes too late to check our luggage, but not too late for Mike to stand in a queue to see if he could upgrade our seats to a cabin for a smaller fee than advertised.  This resulted in a tiny economy triple cabin becoming available about five minutes before the train pulled out.  I should explain that we have Ausrail passes and can travel all we want for no extra money, but only in seats.  If we want to lie down at night we have to pay for an upgrade.  At the full rate, this comes to over $400 for three people, and the train companies don't advertise the fact that they have triples - and maybe they often don't.

It takes two full days and one night for the Sunlander to get to Cairns, but the time seemed to just fly by.  I should describe the scenery, though I spent quite a lot of the time reading, writing or dozing.  It started off with thin Eucalyptus woods that seemed to go on for most of the day.  This was especially the case since we had to stop for two hours due to some motorcyclists trying to ride along the railway line and one of them coming a cropper a bit ahead of us.  When we woke up the next morning, we were in savannah - very flat golden grasslands with occasional trees and blue mountains rising out of them here and there.  By the time we got near Cairns the hills were covered in the dense green rainforest we had come to see.

Day 407: Moreton Island

The beached ferry!

I decided we had to do a day trip to Moreton Island, so we spent an hour trying to book ferry tickets over Mike's cell phone.  Then we spent about $50 on a taxi to get us to the ferry terminal!  There is no other way to do it other than to take an organised tour, which frankly would have cost us an extra $30 for a lot less hassle.  Anyway, I was glad we went, because the ferry drops you on Moreton Island beach, right beside a line of wrecks where everyone goes snorkeling.  This may well be my main snorkeling adventure of the trip and I really liked swimming beside the wrecks. You get a really nice sense of depth when you swim beside them. I don't know how long they had been there, but they had already attracted quite big coral growths, lots of fish and the odd shark (the safer kind) and turtle.  Antonia and I have one set of snorkeling gear between us.  I can wear her flippers and goggles but not Mike's.  She can just about wear my wetsuit.  She looks kind of ridiculous in it, but it gives her a lot of buoyancy.  She needed it because it is quite a longish, deep swim from the beach to the wrecks, through a channel with a strongish current flowing through it.  Nothing much to an adult, but a bit challenging for a ten-year-old.

Part of the line of wrecks

After that we hiked along the beach to the resort to find some fish and chips, hiked back and went for another quick swim, before hopping back on the ferry.  That's about all you have time to do on a day trip to Moreton Island.

I don't suppose we will find one this big at Scarborough!

Day 406: Brisbane

We came up on the overnight train from Sydney in a carriage we shared with a guy who coughed in a way that made everyone else feel terminally ill. We arrived at about 6.30 am and hauled our suitcases up the hill to the hostel.  As you can imagine, we wandered around in a bit of a daze after that.  Brisbane is smart and clean on the inside (not so much in the outskirts our train hauled through).  The best thing about it is Street Beach, an artificial lake where you can swim for free.

The Brisbane Eye

The amazing free public artificial swimming lagoon

The strangest ship I ever saw

Day 404: Birds of Australia

This post is for all the birds we managed to photograph on the Austalia trip, so it will be updated from time to time.

Pelican at Manly

White ibis in Sydney Botanical Gardens

OK, so it's not a bird.  It's a flying fox, also from Sydney.

Cockatoos from the parliamentary gardens at Canberra

A curious Cookaburra from Moreton Island.  It's so fascinated by Antonia, it let me get this close.

A blue pelican in Cairns.  I couldn't resist it.

Day 401: Canberra Bonsais and Sculpture Park

Art Gallery of Australia

We wandered to the other side of Canberra's artificial lake, across a traffic roundabout that was hard of access, but contained a number of benches for the brave pioneers who did get there.  We passed a hobo pushing his supermarket trolley, then called in at the Bonsai collection (since Mike loves Bonsai). I spent my time thinking that after all, if it's possible to design a tree artificially, it should be possible to design a city, but you would have to understand how to do it.  Canberra's designer did not. Canberra is to cities what those ridiculous camouflaged phone masts are to trees.  I'm not saying it's unpleasant to visit, but if I had to live here, I would be on drugs within a month.  Mike on the other hand is having a massive nostalgia crisis for Washington DC because everything here seems to him to be based on his own capital city.  This tells you everything about Washington DC you need to know.

Bonsai 'forest' with real tree

Fog sculpture by Fujiko Nakaya

We spent the afternoon at the Art Gallery of Australia.  It's up there with the world's more impressive art museums, obviously with a very strong collection of Aborignal art. but also good Colonial art, some Asian and a bit of European and American thrown in.  The highlight for me was Sidney Nolan's series on the life of Ned Kelly, but that's because I'm developing an interest in Australia's folk hero.  We were only allowed to take photos in the sculpture garden and around the outside of the building but we got some nice ones.

Day 401: Australia's Parliament

Since I'm being a bit scathing about Canberra, even though I liked visiting it, I had to make a special post for Australia's Parliament.  It's one of the loveliest pieces of architecture I've ever visited.  For some reason, the way it's built into an earth bank reminds me slightly of Newgrange in Ireland.  I spent my time taking photos while Mike studied the Australian version of democracy.

Day 400: Canberra Sculpture Walk

If Wellington is the coolest little capital in the world, what shall we say about Canberra?  I think what most people say about Canberra is 'where is it?'  We arrived at what appeared to be a train station in the middle of nowhere and were greeted by a convenient bus that drove us through open bush to the hostel and dropped us there.  The hostel is in the very centre of Canberra, if it can be said to have a centre.  Canberra is sort of like Milton Keynes on steroids.  In fact, Mike said the best thing to do in Canberra would be to take some drug or other and wander around imagining oneself in a science fiction movie.  When we went out after dinner to look at the local sculptures, we bumped into a number of people who were doing just that.  Many of them were pushing their supply of drugs around the huge expanses of empty space in supermarket trolleys.  Otherwise, Canberra at 7:30 pm is about as deserted as most cities at 3:30 am.  That's what you get for designing a city in which only people who can't afford cars are wandering around on foot.  The hostel charges $25 dollars a day for a bike - for two people, that's nearly as much as a rental car, and they can get away with it because walking anywhere here takes forever.  Canberra should stand as an eternal monument to how not to build a liveable city. In the meantime, I'm rather enjoying it.  Going on a sculpture walk in a deserted city at 7:30pm is about as close to a science fiction movie on acid as you can get: