27) Technology in Paradise - (Surfer's that is...)

26) Noosa Heads

On the way back from Hervey Bay we cruised down a bit of the coast and ended up in Noosa Heads - something between a sleepy, AU seaside town and an upscale, full-euro 5 star resort/shopping town. Plus a beautiful little National Park. The guide mentions that "wealthy style cats and the well heeled ..have to simply share the beach with thongs and bronzed bikini bodies baring their bits.." (don't worry - Nancy held her hand over my eyes when we got to that bit. No pictures...)

The National Park is a gem some wise soul saved from development. Like much of AU history it has its sad side as the indigenous population (the Gubbi Gubbi tribe) were driven out by european timbermen in the 1800's The Name "Noosa" is thought to be a corruption of the aboriginal "noothera" meaning shade. But the logging was halted in the 1879 (as much of the natural resource extraction was shifted to gold in Gympie). It became a park in 1930.

The small trail system takes you along some boardwalks next to the ocean, and eventually out to spectacular views of "Witches Cauldron", "The Devils Kitchen" and "Hells Gate". There are fabulous rock outcrops (all volcanics), blowholes and sea cliffs with little pocket beaches in between. This place would be amazing in big surf! But it is also sports a world class surf break and the Noosa Longboard contest as well as the *10 day* Noosa 'Long Weekend of food, film, theatre, dance etc (now THAT is a long weekend!).

There was a koala snoozing in practically the first tree we passed, the electric blue Fairy Wren in the grass next to the trail and blue-tounged lizards about.

The rest is just pretty pics. Enjoy.

25) Surfing the back wave

We jaunted down to "Snapper Rocks" and Greenmont Beach which are home to "arguably some of the finest surfing breaks in Australia" and "one of the best known surf breaks in the world." In the area "the atmosphere on the water re wave selection and positioning is aggressive and at times even tribal." Gumbies need not apply! They won't let me go out there but I can watch!

But we found something even more fun down at an old concrete breakwater right at the Snapper Rocks. The huge concrete break wall has a 2.5 m vertical seaward wall. So the swell rolls in and reflects back out. There was a group of 8 kids on boogie boards out there - it looked insane when I first saw it - if you rode a wave in you would hit the wall headfirst!

But they were not riding IN - they were catching the backwave and riding OUT! Every so often, as waveforms tend to do, an incoming wave would reinforce an outgoing wave and - wham - 4-5 m high explosions - with you on your boogieboard right on top!

It was CRAZY!

Makes Waterworld rides look downright placid.....











........ I have to go get one of those boards........

24) This is big, really BIG!

Do a little dance, share a little love, it's the end of the semester and time to get-out-of-town! Time to head N and go see Hervey Bay!

It's about a 5 hr drive--through Brisbane, pine plantations, sugar cane fields, new and used homes--to the tourist town of Hervey Bay City and disembarking point for Fraser Island - the largest sand island in the world and a World Heritage Site -- but that is another destination for a future trip

So what, you may ask, is in Hervey Bay? I am so glad you asked! It is the beginning of the southward migration of Megaptera novaeangliae, the Southern Humpback Whale. We had booked with Peter and his Blue Dolphin catamaran sailboat for a day cruising Platypus Bay off of Fraser Island, in search of 'friendlies' - young adult whales who are not breeding yet, but follow the 6000 m migration from the Antarctic to the Great Barrier Reef. The "mums" are up north in the Reef giving birth, so the young males lead the way in heading south towards Antarctica for the summer (remember, we're opposite seasons down here!). The whales hang out in Hervey Bay for a rest along the way, and --watch the people on the tour boats!

Captain Peter Lynch picked us up first thing in the morning at the Emeraldine - the eco-friendly motel where we stayed, and drove us to the wharf. The rest of the passengers were retrieved along the way - a couple from Barcelona, another from Ireland, folks from Melbourne and Sydney and Cairns and a few from Brisbane. Melanie - the concierge, greeted us with tea and we set off out of the harbor. Melanie is from Holland - she came here 5 years ago on vacation and never left! She speaks 5 languages (including English). On the motor-assisted sail out Peter gave us an extensive run down on the Humpback - he has been working with whales and dolphins for 20 years and taking trips in Hervey for 8 - he is a veritable fount of whale knowledge and lore.

The Blue Dolphin is a 10.5 m sailboat weighing 4 tons (including people). We were told that a young adult whale can be 10-12 m and up to 25 tonnes (adults can be 14 m and 40 tonnes!). So when we approach the first "pod" of 2 whales it was with some degree of question as to what they would do with such a dinky boat!

But these guys were *curious*! - there is no other way to describe it. They would swim between boats (maximum 3 boats w/in 300 yds of whales. No closer than 100 yds. But if they swim toward you , a boat can remain in place) and "spyhop" (stand on their tails and raise their heads above water - they did this literally inches from the boat!

They would also roll on their backs, swim under the boat - one spyhopped in the gap between the 2 hulls of the catamaran!















They would slap their fins on the water and swim over and around each other. Then back to the other nearby boat to repeat the behaviors. It was really quite astounding! These 2 finally swam off and we headed in towards the beach where another pod of "sticky" whales had been reported. The whale watching boats - (there are 11 permits) seemed to keep each other informed about the comings and goings of the pods. Here it was 3 whales performing the same sorts of antics - rolling, spyhopping, big 'blows" (exhales) that created rainbows above them. They stuck with us for 30 min before swimming off to... whatever whales do when they are not watching tourists!

Lunch was an fantastic affair right down to the Australian wine. We spotted very large turtles basking on the surface (probably Greenbacks) and had great views of the (largely) unspoiled parts of Fraser Island.

















We discussed the sad history of man's relationship with whales - Peter reported that Russian scientists recently revealed the full extent of Russian whale "harvests" in the 18-1900's which raised the estimated decimation of Humpbacks - it is now estimated that the population went from 45 -50,000 whales to a low of 500. One of the other guests pretty much put it right out front.....

All in all, a pretty glorious day - we had a reflective afternoon tea, Peter explained the sand bank movement and history of Fraser Island. We plotted and planned how to get back up here to see the mums and calves in October.

23) Local Color

We saw an announcement for an annual event up in Mudgeeraba (the scary part is that I can almost write that w/out looking up the spelling!) - and decided to go check out the Mudgeeraba Livestock Show! This includes such activities as the election of Miss Mudgeeraba Show Girl and Miss Teen Mudgeeraba, cattle, horse and livestock showings, wood chopping (more on that insanity later!), craft shows, honey demonstrations (how to make honeycomb frames and get it out of the comb - centrifugal force!) show jumping, rides, ride-on mower races, entertainment and much, much more.

Sadly the first day arrived amid a 2 day downpour - they canceled all the evening activities including the dunny-derby and haystack race! So we bailed. But the next day dawned only heavily overcast and we headed over to the showgrounds. There were some typical craft things (and some very nice woodworking). The grounds were marginally a swamp - watching the riders in the jumping ring was painful as the footing looked horrific. All the horses seemed to fare well while we were there, but it seemed to our inexperienced eyes a pretty big risk to the animals (hey - the riders had helmets and don't get shot for broken bones!)

There were numerous eateries with a wide variety of fried-things-on-a-stick. I am afraid Dave and Callie's tour-de-SE fried grease stores had nothing on this place!





By far and away, the highlight was the State of Origin wood chopping contest. These guys are rather amazing - short axes you could probably shave with but they all stand around - very close by, as their mates chop big logs in half in more ways that you can image (vertical logs, between their feet, topping a post 20' off the ground after notching it for your standing plank. In the midst of it all - it started to rain. So now they have wet axe handles!

One of their best competitors was "just coming back from a serious injury".

Wonder how that could happen - go figure!

[Well I can't get my own little video to upload - go check out the 2 links below to see wood chopping competitors in action!

(if you want to see more of this sport look at
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jBkTQ2Mthj0
and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xQ_HO0F2toE

23) It only *looks* like purgatory!

Back at the infamous Kangaroo Point - this is a convenient place to try to catch a pump after doing things in 'the Big City'. Even with the early nightfall the lights make for some good entertainment in the evening. It is really interesting to try and thread an anchor with these big honkin' lights shining up from between your toes.

We got another good dose of the local ratings - there are at least 3 different guides for this little crag - by and large they disagree about the ratings. That, combined with the complete disagreement about converting a 19 to US decimal (is it 5.10 a , 5.10 b or 5.10d - depends on the website!) makes for some interesting flailing.

We ran into a US climber - now living in Shanghai. He mentioned a particular route about 10 meters down the crag that had pumped him out. "They told me it was only 5.9 but it was like a Valley .10b - every move!"

I am looking at this 17 meter, scruffy, edgy, blocky bit of quarried cliff, presently throwing nasty shadows at the dark, and thinking "Dude, do tell. Are we in the same place?"

But the city lights are quite pretty, there are some interesting art works about, chockers with kids of all ages (we have never *seen so* many "mums w/ prams" -- maybe its just coming from the odd demographic of Boulder but this place seems just awash with kids!) people out puttering in spud-boat kayaks in the twilight (and dodging the "RiverCat" ferry boats that cruise by.) There are evening rock climbing classes (they don't even start until the sun goes down), and lots of folks throwing various foodstuffs on the park provided gas barbies. Quite the urban atmosphere.

22) Anyone need a Barnslig Flodhast?

We have heard a number of comments that "its sounds like you are on an extended vacation!". Well that was Byron - here is his itinerary! (Now famously displayed in his bay)

Our actual day-to-day existence is much like all of yours - except for those EXTREME leisure barons on perpetual riding/climbing vacation (http://daveandcallie.blogspot.com) or who are riding and climbing around the west (http://shenkfuntimes.blogspot.com/) or "working" by climbing fabulous peaks in RMNP (no blog for her yet....) Anyway, our daily lives are much like yours .. except far less exciting. Far, far, less eventful...

So for a thrill-- and because we have a largish (guest room and all!) empty house we decided to .....


Go furniture shopping! Yah!)

Now for those of you who have NOT had the experience, IKEA is an iconic furniture "DESIGN" store. One does not buy furniture - one obtains designs. Their goal is low prices but their furniture is remarkably well made and well... designed! (You do have to appreciate the Scandinavian school of furniture to like this stuff - they are not big on full leather "Olde English" armchairs or "European, 8 coats of hand-buffed lacquer" tables.) Price seems to come first - they pick a price point and then design the artefact to be functional within that price.

We were agog at this warehouse full of STUFF - it was simply humongous. A big display room upstairs with nifty ensembles of furniture for the bedroom or the den or the kids room (to provide exambles of how you should be living). What astounded me was the modular nature of most things - they have designed "pieces" of a room -the consumer has to pick which pieces go together for the particular room/function. So you could either buy a complete table or you could select one of 20 counter tops, buy a variety of leg styles, chose from a whole different set of cabinets, add ons and hardware. They had CAD/CAM setups to plan out your room - and for those less technically minded - they had scale blocks and graph paper that allowed you to create a 3-D model of toy blocks that would match the proposed layout of the room you were outfitting.

Ah - the power of customization!

Well, we didn't go all out - we are getting used to empty space. The place is simply awash in "stuff" - more choices than you can shake a stick at (who knew there were 25 different choices in pillows for crying out loud! So we got a lamp, a chair and a couch. It all fit in the trunk. Hmmm. how did they do that?

SOME ASSEMBLY REQUIRED! (the dreaded words of every kit). But the instructions were amazing (a great example of semionics and symbology at work -



the people who design 9that word again!) these instructions are good!the tools were included and everything fit together flawlessly. All rather amazing!




So we now have some furniture - or I should say, Molly has some furniture (we get to use it if it is not occupied).

How is that for mundane!