Written on 1st August 2006

Hi mates 🙂 ,

I am still in one piece and no crocodile has eaten me 🙂 . I and my friends flew to Darwin, hired a 4WD (4 wheel drive) car Toyota LandCruiser and went for a 12-days trip the length and breadth of nature parks in Northern Territory. The weather was quite hot although winter is here. The sun was shining all day, was more than 30 degrees and no clouds at all. I was thinking about nice cold weather in Ireland 😉 .

First we went to Litchfield National Park, there are plenty of waterfalls and pools for swimming as well as walking tracks and no crocodiles. It was cool as we could swim all day. We also went through a few creeks there with our car, the deepest one was about 1m, but our car was 100% waterproof even with a schnorchel. Roads were made from gravel or sand. The other day we went to some off-road track and to drive 9km took us about 2 hours because we had to cross about 5 creeks, go across rocks, sand and also to clean trees from our way. On the way back, however, our car got sunk in one of the creeks. It was a sandy creek and our wheels got into sand. The creek was about one meter deep luckily without crocodiles and we had to get off through car windows, unload whole car, bring stones from the near rock plane and put them under the wheels. It took us about 2 hours to get out of there and we were a bit scared because there was nobody to help us, even mobile phones did not work.

I also celebrated my birthday in the middle of nowhere just with melted chocolate (from my friends) and with warm beer on the top of a hill under a radio transmitter. It was a very unusual celebration, but I liked it 🙂 .

After Litchfield we have seen plenty of other small parks, some with hot springs, some with good walks, some with Aboriginal paintings (Aboriginals are people who lived in Australia before Europeans came here and they also own nearly all the land in Northern Territory. The Australian goverment must lease land from them. It’s good to know that people here did not have the same destiny like indians in America). Another thing were fires. Every day there was a fire somewhere in the forest and noone carred. It is a kind of protection against bigger fires later in the dry season and sunrise or sunset look very good with smoke on horizon 🙂 .

Our last park was Kakadu Park, full of salties (Saltwater crocodilles) which are dangerous to people. It is a very agressive animal and it is dangerous to swim anywhere in this area. My guide recommends to swim only in a swimming pool in Jabiru town 🙂 . But it was not that bad. We went through a few 4WD tracks, one of them was to JimJim Falls, beautiful falls with a large cold pool. The water was about same temperature like the sea in Barcelona in early December 😉 , about 15 degrees, still warmer than the Irish Sea. We spent there whole day, lying on the sandy beach and swimming between rocks under waterfall about 150m high. Then we got to Ubirr rock to see a sunset together with about 200 people. It is a very famous tourist attraction. Once I went to a billabong where I paid a guided tour on boat. It was excellent as my guide was an aboriginal women and she talked a lot about their culture, about birds and animals, about trees, I saw salties from a close distance as well as snakes. We also met lots of kinds of mosquitoes, none of them was friendly to me 🙂 .

It’s strange here in Australia that they do not have villages. Everything is called at least town. We went through "a town" which was only one building with 4 people in there. It was a petrol station, a shop and a restaurant. I talked to an owner for a while, lovely lady. We have also seen a few old towns, now abandoned, in a bush. Lots of those were founded during a gold rush and abandoned later when a mine was empty.

At the end of the trip we were dirty from red sand and we could not find any place with a shower or any creek without crocodilles for a few days. Even my mum would not probably recognise me (unshaven, smelly and dirty – that is me 😀 ) . The last day we stopped in the Aviation Heritage Museum near Darwin and I went for a 2 hours’ guided tour about a plane B52. Now I am an expert about that, because I had to translate for my friend as well.

But not everything went good. Two of my friends left us in the middle of nowhere after just 4 days and after they had an argument between themselves. I asked for a reason but they did not answered me and just left. I was very sad and disappointed by their behaviour and asked them again in Darwin at the airport but again I did not get any reasonable answer. They just said they had not felt good. So for the rest of the trip I am just with one friend who I did not know so much before. But he is a good guy 🙂 .

We spent two days in Darwin and visited a gaol, museums about WWII and beaches and got a bit sunburn. Then we flew to Brisbane on Sunday and at the moment we are staying there, planning the next trip down to Melbourne. My friend wants to hire a car but I want to do something a bit more adventureous and go by bus or hitch hiking. First we are going to Hervey bay and Fraser Island and than down the coast to Sydney and Melbourne with a few stopovers.

Please feel free to forward this to anyone who I forgot to send it to.

Pavel (Inža)

Written on 15th July 2006

Hi my friends,

I am again back to you from Australia. Last weekend we went for a three-days trip to Chillagoe which used to be a mining town about 200km west from Cairns. Now it is just a small village with about 20 people living there. It is also a last stop where you can take petrol since we found a sign, that the next petrol station is about 560km far away. We went to see caves (quite nice, nicer than in Ireland – my personal opinion) and went also to an old smelter. I took a piece of marble from a close mining site. In the evenings we slept next to creeks in tents, made a fire and talked about the sky 🙂 . We have not met any crocodile, so all of us are still in a good health. But I was quite scared when I had to go to the loo in the middle of night and was checking bush as well as water 🙂 . But in the morning we went swimming to those creeks and it was really nice (still warmer that the Irish Sea 🙂 ).

We also went to wetlands near Mareeba for a walk and have seen lots of termite mounds. We tried a mango wine, which is quite sweet but good, and tried also coffee from the "local factory".

I started my four-days diving course on Monday and it was really great. I missed a half of the first day but I studied in the evening instead. We trained for first two days in a pool and next two days in the ocean. First two days we had a theory as well. In the pool we practiced various skills mainly emergency skills like how to ascent in an emergency situation, how to change a mask, BCD or a weigh belt. Also how to hover in the water, swim with a snorchel or a regulator and also how to equalise the pressure in your head (in your ears).

On Wednesday we went first time to the Great Barrier Reef, the reef located about 50km from the coast. The weather was bad since Monday and the ocean was very rough. I got sick 10 minutes before the boat stopped and we should have gone diving. I was told that it is better to be underwater than on the boat and we went down, where we practiced the same things like in the pool. We had two dives on Wednesday. My buddy was a girl from Germany because I was moved to a German group. The instructor spoke German and English because of me. In the pool we were in a big group of nine people, so this was better for me as the other group was smaller.

Others from the diving course paid for overnight staying on the boat, so on Wednesday I lost all my buddies including instructors. On Thursday I got a new buddy and we made a group of two people. It was excellent as we finished all trainings in 5 minutes and then our new instructor led us along corals and showed us fishes and everything. I did not get sick on Thursday even though the ocean was rougher than the day before. We had two dives with the instructor and a fun dive, just by ourselves. For the fun dive I bought an underwater camera and took many pictures. Unfortunatelly it is a standard camera so I am going to see those pictures after a few months.

Yesterday we went to a party in a night club. My friends had a leaving party from the school so I met lots of people from Korea, Japan as well as Australia (teachers 🙂 ). We got a bit drunk and were dancing on tables. My friends got a bit sad because they have to leave and they are not gonna see these people probably again.

Today we are going to see an interstate rodeo in Mareeba in the afternoon and tomorrow we are flying to Darwin (to the Norhern Territory). We have hired a 4WD car and going to travel around national parks for 10 days. We need to buy a lot of food because there is almost nothing on the way. It will be the wildest part of our trip. Looking forward to it. It will be also a bit dangerous because there is a lot of crocodiles and snakes on the north. We are going to be careful.

Please feel free to forward this to anyone who I forgot to send it to.

Pavel (Inža)

Written on 7th July 2006

Hi my friends,

I am writing from Australia after one week here. It’s a beautiful country, and even it is a winter here, the temperature is too hot for me, about 30 degrees. When I arrived last Thursday, it was cold and rainy and I thought I was back to Ireland 🙂 . I have been staying in Cairns in a friend’s house until next Saturday when we are flying to Darwin. I am here with three friends of me, Kuře, Smejki and Kukin.

I went to a botanic garden here in Cairns, to rainforest, to a walking track with a nice view on Cairns and the ocean. Last weekend we went to Atherthon Tablelands, which is a very nice place in mountains with lots of waterfalls, lakes etc. I swam there of course, in a crystal-clean water together with turtles and fishes. It was much warmer than Irish Sea 😀 .

I have paid a four-days diving course which is starting next Monday. It should be two days of theory in a pool and two days of diving and snorchelling in the sea near the Great Barrier Reef. I got sunburned as well, two days ago, when I cycled to the Cairns’ northern beaches. The beaches are really nice, but sometimes you can see a sign warning of crocodiles. But they have a lagoon here in Cairns, which is a big pool so I go swimming there.

Yesterday I went by car to Port Douglas to see a park where I got also a "breakfast with birds". It is a breakfast contained mainly from fruit taking part in a big tent. You can eat while birds are flying above you head, sometimes they sit on your plate and eat with you 🙂 . It was really nice and I saw also Koalas, Crocodiles, Kangaroos, which I fed (they were overfed, they did not want anything from me 🙁 ). Then I went for a walk to a rainforrest.

This weekend we are going to Chillagoe for 3 days since we have hired a car. I have got also an Australian mobile +61413448379, but if you wanted to call me, be aware that we are in a time zone UTC+10. I have been writing a diary but unfortunatelly only in czech. But you can have a look at photos from Aussie at http://australie.aikidoprosek.cz/index.php?cont=viewalbum (not working anymore – photos will be published in my gallery), which is administrated by my friends Kuře and Smejki. My photos are going to be added later.

Australian english sounds a bit funny to me. They make words shorter and use words like Aussie, barbie, veggie etc. Everyone is called ‘mate’ even you see him first time.

Take care, from a land of kangaroos says hello Pavel (Inža).

Sorry, but this post is available only in Czech.

Sorry, but this post is available only in Czech.