Elad’s blog

After my dive a few days ago, I spent the last couple of days just finding out what’s there on the surface level of the ocean in Australia. Namely, I had a short yet glamorous surfing career. At the peak of my career I even starting to stand on my surfboard for at least 3, maybe even 4 seconds, before falling into the water. It was hard to get there, though. I had to repeat the first (and only) surfing lesson twice (they gave me the second time free!) and at some point the guide took me aside to show me some special tricks to the not-so-balanced.
Wave surfing is really hard. The main thing that attracts people to it, I believe, is the speed you can develop on a surfboard. It really is fast, and you are very close to the water level, which adds a lot to the experience. Nonetheless, after these two days I decided that my preferable marine sports remains diving. Not swimming and not surfing. Who knows - I still have to try cayaking, and probably there are some other things I will try, later in my travel.

Surfers Paradise is an ingenious name to a city. It is a small but very touristic city (huge hotels, arcades, night clubs, the entire business) that serves as the unofficial capital of the Gold-Coast. Queensland is divided into coasts. From Byron-Bay to Brisbane is the Gold Coast, later comes the Sunshine Coast, and so forth - Pretty much like in Spain. Another thing common to Australia and Spain is the tendency to take everything easy - not lazyness or an urge to postpone everything to tommorow, but just a feeling that nothing is urgent, which is very common in Australia and is most striking to an Israeli traveler like me.

Tommorow I will move on. The next destination is probably Brisbane, Queensland’s capital. After that, I will go to Noosa and to Harvey Bay.

Here is a nice story about Captain James Cook, the great explorer of the southern seas, and the one who discovered Australia.

He first landed on Botany Bay, where Sydney’s airport is now located. He saw nothing there, and continued sailing along the coast, heading north. He went pass the easternmost point of Australia, which is now called Byron Bay after his grandson (Cook is generally admired here) and then he reached a point where the water was full of rocks. To prevent others from crushing into this rock he marked it on his map, and clearly stated: “Warning! Point Dangerous!”.

As it happened, the word “Warning” was written just by the location of the highest mountain in New South Wales. Thus, the one who followed Cook understood that this was the name of the mountain, and until this very day the highest mountain in New South Wales is named“Mount Warning”. Needless to mention, the rocks at the sea are called, of course, “Point Dangerous”.

Today We left Byron Bay and headed to Queensland. First, we climbed to the lighthouse at Byron, and saw a huge herd of dolpihns swimming in the bay beyond us. Once we were done watching the dolphins, we headed to Surfers-Paradise (yes, it is actually a name of a place!).
After reading the above story at my lonely planet, we decided not to go directly to Surfers but to make a small detour and visit this mountain. We didn’t arrive directly to it, because it turned out to be too far away, but we did enter the mountain area (some dozens of kilometres off the seashore) and had a lovely scenic drive through the mountains.

We also stopped for a nice hiking there, just following a small river to a waterfall that went through a stone arch and formed a small pool. After the hike we prepared some tea and had a lovely afternoon. This mountain area is very different then the Blue Mountains. The main flora is at parts dominated by pines and oaks, and at parts is the remaining of a small rainforest - with huge trees and jungle-like atmosphere. Between the mountains are green fields, with many cows and some horses at the small villages.

At the evening we arrived at Surfers-Paradise. It is quite different than what I expected - doesn’t seem like a small, lazy, beachtown, but much more touristic and commercialized - with big hotels, store arcades, and all this stuff. Tomorrow I will probably try a bit surfing, to see if the town’s name is actually justified.

The way to Byron Bay is beautiful. The hills make place to meadows, and the eucaliptuses change into endless fields of sugar canes. The last 30 kilometres are going along the beach, so you can see the ocean in one side, and the sugar cane fields on the other. The weather also changed dramatically: some 500 or 600 kilometres north of Sydney, it is no longer autumn. Now we are in deep summer, with temperatures over 25 degrees, blue sky, and very strong sun.
Byron Bay is the easternmost point of the australian mainland. It is a small beachtown, which lives around the sea at the day and around the parties at the night. We arrived at the afternoon, so after finding an accomodation and preparing a dinner (we usually buy food at the supermarket and cook for ourselves) we went straight to a party at one bar. The place was full of girls, and I’ve never seen such a blond concentration in my life. To make things even better, the normal reaction of a girl who realizes we come from Israel is something like: “How Exotic”.
My diving course paid itself completely. I did today a dive (my first dive in Australia!). It was at Julian Rocks, a small marine reserve some 2.5 kilometres off the Byron shore. We arrived there on a small engine boat (which was fun by itself - looking at the lighthouse from the sea) and started to dive.
This diving site is regarded special because in this point the northern current and the southern current meet. This creates a mixture of many types of fish: we’ve seen the large cold-water fish, and some smaller colorful tropical fish. But fish were not the story. The dive started with a giant turtle that was wandering around about 7 meters below the sea level (they are here in vast amounts; it also ended with a turtle). Than there were some Wobigong Sharks (small, flat, and harmless sand sharks) and one Leopard Shark (same same, only that it’s skin is all spotted, like a Leopard fur). At our maximum depth, 18 meters, we went into an opening or an underwater cave. Our guide went inside, and a moment later it appeared, majestically swimming out of the cave - the Grey Nurse Shark.
The Grey Nurse Shark is a big shark (the one we saw was at least two, probably three meters long) which is very rare - it is actually an endangered animal, and the only reson that Julian Rocks were declared a natural reserve is because this is one of the rare places in which, one month only every year, the Grey Sharks can be seen (they come here to breed). It is not dangerous to man, though it does look very scary, especially when you float at the entrance of its cave 18 meters deep and it passes less than a meter from you (swimming slowly and totally ignoring you). It was a VERY nice sight.
I must have been excited, because I consumed a lot of air there. Soon after that, I had to come up and my dive lasted only 30 minutes (not including the way up) - but it was full of sharks and turtles, so it was very nice.

I still haven’t decided what I’m going to do tomorrow. I can move to Queensland (either Brisbane or Surfers-Paradise), I can stay at Byron and cath some sea. or I can make a nice hike at one of the inland rainforest reserves here - I will probably see to it tomorrow morning, depends on how much fun tonight’s party will be!

Today we continued our journey to the north coast of NSW. In the way, we crossed the land of the Koalas, where there are more Koalas than anywhere else in the world.
The Koala is a very funny animal. It is a small bear-style creature, which lives approximately 10 years, all of them on a eucaliptus tree. Every Koala chooses its 4 waking hours in which it is active (either day or night, doesn’t matter to them), and sleeps for the rest 20 hours every day. During those 4 hours it eats the leaves of the tree it lives on, and that’s about it. Ain’t it a wonderful life?
We’ve seen, and touched, Koalas at the Billabong Koala Breeding Center, where they breed Koalas for some reason. It is actually a very nice park, something like a small zoo, and it also hosts many other Australian animals: from Casowary (a big bird, size almost like an ostrich but looks more like a huge turkey) to spider-monkeys, to many kinds of parrots (e.g., Galla pink parrots), to Wombats (something in the middle between a Koala and a Bevar), to Emus, and of course - Kangaroos, both normal (several species) and albino ones. We gave the Kangaroos some food (corn seeds), and they came and ate from our hands - we even gave them a hug! The kangaroos have furs similar to dogs, very nice and good to touch. The fur of Koalas, though, is much more rigid-like and not that soft (although it is also very nice to pet with).
Besides playing with those lovely animals we also had an attraction at the spider-monkey’s cage. The monkeys were having sex, and during the show they were re-inventing major parts of the Kama-Sutra. For example, in substantial parts of the act one monkey was hanging on using only its tail. Most acrobatic indeed.

We drove today a few hundred Kilometres to the north, all of the way was inside forests and high bush, many eucaliptuses and rivers crossing every now and than. I must admire the highways here. The australians keep excellent roads. For example, every few kilometres in their highway there is a special route if you need to turn back. There are also excellent resting points along the way, and road signs. They also have very effective adds against high speed. They have enormous fees here (If you get caught driving too fast you may have to pay more than 1500$) and they keep publishing it in every possible place.

A few years ago, I did with Oded a nice travel in western Europe. Among other places, we went to see a nice cave in the middle of France. I think its name is grottes-la-cave. It is a very big cave, with several halls, full of stalactites and stuff, but the frenchmen killed the cave: they put concrete on the floor, electrical lights everywhere, and all was very guided and touristic and commercialized.
At Jenola Caves they took it one step further: here the guides have a remote control to turn on and off separate light bulbs to color specific stalagmites and stalactites.
The caves themselves are huge (I visited just one cave, and it took over 1.5 hour of guided tour - you can’t go inside without a guide). The cave I visited have many halls, with funny names (’the cathedral’, ‘the exhibition’, and so forth) and not so many stalactites (actually, I think our Avshalom cave at Sorek Reserve is more beautiful). The cave, however, is very similar to the french one - the route is marked with concrete, handrails are all over it, and all the electricity - the guide said they are even having concerts inside the cave twice a month.
More beautiful than the cave was the way to it. It is located at the other side of the Blue Mountains (e.g., not the Sydney side but the inland, western, side) so we had to cross the mountains and than proceed in the valley west to the mountains, on their shadow. The land here resembles very much the Golan (Lior, you would love it!), full of small hills with yellow grass and bush, every now and then you see cows and eucaliptus trees. When climbing the mountains again it was really similar to the small roads that climb the Golan from the Hula, with all the eucaliptuses on both sides and the road being very small and taking many curves - actually, there was a part there that looked just like the road from Gonen to Gadot, by the Jordan River, only that here its length was a few dozens of kilometres. The mountains themselves are very beautiful, with many different trees - pines, eucaliptuses, and more. We crossed them again and started to go north along the shore highway. We reached Newcastel and booked here for the night.
The australians really have something about England and English names - half of their towns are named after English towns (on our way here we crossed, for example, Windsor). They don’t behave like the Englishman sent their parents to the end of the world - they actually love very much being English, at least in their culture.

Yesterday morning I went to finish all the car paperwork: I changed the ownership, I made an insurance, I bought a converter from the cigarette lighter to 220V (I found a used one on the car market) and a small radio transmitter to connect to my NOMAD so I can hear my music in the car (it actually works!) I didn’t find in Sydney, though, the spare battery for my Nomad that I didn’t find in Hong-Kong.
All the morning I was still very angry at the Habad Rabbi from Sydney. On Saturday evening I found him showing to some Israeli travelers a really nasty Habad propaganda movie, stating how Herzel wanted to make us all christians. It made me really, really, angry at these Habad guys. At first they seem to help, but I guess Heinlein was right - nothing comes for free.
At one o’clock I met with my lifters, and since they also have a driving license (and they drove in New-Zealand) I went and added them to the insurance (it costs nothing, and now they can also drive). It took some more time, and so it happened that we only left Sydney around 15:00.
We stopped at the olimpic park just outside Sydney. They have some funny stuff there - for example, they moved the Atletics race-track out of the stadium because they needed more space in the field (Rogby required larger field than soccer). They also have the first few rows of seats move back to make the field larger. The place is very nice, but over all it was pretty disappointing - for every facility they charge you entrance separately, and there isn’t too much to do there. So we left the olimpic park and headed to the Blue Mountains.
We arrived at Katoomba on the evening, and cooked a very nice dinner (actually, just pasta and simple things, but it was good). At the evening guess whom I bumped at the youth-hostel? Correct, it is Gadi, the non-Atudai guy from two posts ago. He came separately to Katoomba.
We went to a bar together, but it was very weak. So we went back, and today all the four of us went hiking just outside Katoomba, for a nice 5-hour hike. The place is in the middle of mountains, with very beautifull clifs and limestone formations - including their famous ‘three sisters’, which are three rock towers (like in NAHAL AMMUD, only much much bigger). The place is full of huge trees and very special birds - all sorts of parrots (mainly red but also on other colors) and other birds are flying just by you. In the clifs used to be coal mines, but we didn’t enter them. What we did do is walking the ‘giant stairs’ - a set of very steep and very long stairs that are carved in the rock and go all the way down the cliff into the valley. Than we took on the way up a nice train, which the locals claim to be the steepest train in the world (I’m not certain. This train is very steep indeed, but so is the one at Hong-Kong, so I’m really not sure).
It was really a nice hike. Tomorrow we’ll probably go to see some famous caves here, and than leave the area towards the north coast.

Today is full of surprises. I just found myself two lifters, Roee and Alex, who will join me tomorrow to the Blue Mountains.
I bounced into them in the supermarket, after we’ve met a few days ago. My current plans are as following: tomorrow morning I will finish all the paperwork and stuff with the car. Around noon we will leave to the Blue Mountains (it’s their name. It comes because they’re supposed to be surrounded by a blue mist that comes from all the oil that vaporises from millions of eucaliptus trees there). If everthing is fine, we will be heading to Katoomba, which is the local center there. It is also going to be full moon tomorrow, so the forest is bound to be beautiful.

I keep bouncing on him.
When I studied at the Technion, there was this guy, that asked the normal ATUDAI questions (to make every profesor angry), and acted like an ATUDAI, and wasn’t one. I guess there is one in every year.
Then when I was in Tel-Aviv university I found him on one corridor. He was doing an M.Sc. at electrical engineering.
And now I meet him on Bondi Beach. Isn’t this a small world?
I just went out to get some air and see what’s going on after having spent most of the day checking my new car and property, and planning my travel (see my comment on the previous post), and I crashed into him - the last, but I mean last, person I’d expect to find here.
I wander what else the future holds.

As you understand from the title, I’ve seen StarWars episode III. Since I’m not a spoiler (and since I’m certain almost everybody who reads this post will see the movie), I’ll just sum it up by saying that there are many lightsword combats, and Anakeen does become Darth-Vedar, as you already know. Tell me after you’ve seen the movie and we’ll discuss more details. In the meantime, an interesting trivia thingy: when I studied at the Technion, we had this funny profesor (I think it was Baruch Fisher, who taught me basic electro-optics) who tried to invent an actual lightsword (the problem lies in the sharp edge at the end of the sword). I don’t know if he actually succeeded in doing so.

Besides this, this morning we had here some 17 or 18 degrees and the seashore was FULL of surfers and other half-naked people. I wonder how they don’t freeze.

And besides, I finally baught a car. It was a really nice bargain: I lowered the guys from 3000$ to 1950$. It’s a 1990 Ford Falcon st/wagon, cream color, and has full receipts three years back that it received all its services in garages and stuff. The guys were two engineers from England, who came here to travel and ended up working for 15 months, and now had to come back for a wedding so they needed to sell the car. The two owners before them were also not backpackers, so the car was really looked after - much better than the normal 20 years old rusted garbage they sell here for backpackers. It also has full 12 months rego (rego is like TEST here; they passed it two weeks ago) so it won’t be problem to sale. And the best part - because they came here to travel, they baught a *lot* of camping stuff, and almost didn’t get to use it! So I also own now two tents (one large and one small), a table, 4 chairs, a gas stove, a lamp, full kitchenwere (pots, plates, knives - everything! actually, more than I had when I was a student and probably more than Uri has in his house right now). They even gave me a bag full of spices, pasta, rice and stuff. It is so full, that I have no place on the back of the car - I may need to leave some behind me! The car has a radio+c.d. player (not that I have c.d’s), but the airconditioning doesn’t work. I won’t fix it now - When I get north I’ll see if I really need it.
I found the car in the backpacker car market at KingsCross, which is a neighbourhood in Sydney. I have the car and already paid them, but I will still need to wait in Sydney until Monday morning to finish all the registration thingys with the authorities here - these ignorant australians don’t work Sundays!
Tomorrow I will finish preparations to leave this city in Monday. If I have some time, maybe I’ll do some drive just to practice or get a dive here. In the meantime, I practiced driving it from the car market to my appartment, and found that a) the vinkers are in the wrong side, so I always turn on the vishers instead of the winkers (also, when you turn right you have to lower the winker, and when you turn left you have to raise it - the opposite than in Israel). and b) It’s quite hard to keep the lane, I always think I’m too much to the center of the road, while I’m actually located more left than I think. Apart from that - I’m a natural driver, as you all know.

Mix a bit of Ramalla with the main street of Nazareth. add a touch of Gaza City and some Lebanese styling. What have you got? You’ve got Sydney’s unfamous suburb Lakemba.

Australians are really keen to help. I told yesterday one Aussie guy at the hostel that I was looking for a car, and he bought me a local trade newspaper (www.tradingpost.com.au), and didn’t even ask for money.
The trade newspaper has many advertisements, and some of them where to vehicle parkings at Lakemba. Together with Arik’s advice, I took this morning a train to this suburb, to see what’s there.
The minute I went off the train I figured out I’m back in the middle east. The main street is Haldoon Street; there are shops like “Hamze’s hair-dressing” (specializing with men’s hair, of course. Did you ever see the hair of a decent Arab woman? You won’t get the chance to see it in Lakemba, where Iranian fashion is the high moda). There are also some Islamic bookshops there, where they have in the front windows books in Arabic with the face of our late friend Yassin on the cover, and the memories of the Bosnian former muslim president what’s-his-name (Leon, you probably know this).
Haldoon street also has Lebanese restaurants, middle-eastern butchers, and so forth. Of course, it also has plenty of car garages over there - what do Arabs all over the world have with old cars???
I went there for some time, didn’t find anything usefull, and felt really uncomfortable with all this Arabic around me - so I took the next train back to the city without buying anything (The suburbian train network here is really efficient. I wish we had a public transportation network - both busses and trains - close to their standards).

I finally reached a decision: I don’t like Sydney. At least, not in the winter.

I found there’s a backpackers car-market at the city here. It’s good, because you get the car full of hiking stuff (tents, gas, chairs, everything you need for hiking); and the people need to sell the cars because they have flights, so they can be bargained. I’ve seen there a very nice Falcon (12 month rego, not a scratch on it, and it is owned by two English engineers who came to travel but ended up working here, so there are receipts that it made all the treatments and oil replacements on time - it looks really good). The only problem is that it has very high milage (400,000km for a car from 1987), but I think I will buy it tomorrow, if I can bargain their price and if nothing else comes up in the market.

Apart from this I moved again. I now live in a studio appartment, with no other persons. It’s a really nice place, in an Israeli building, and the appartment is really good - I could even consider hiring such an appartment in Israel.

All the other pieces also begin to fall: The bank got me my ATM card; I went to N.R.S.A. (The local car club - like MEMSI in Israel) and they gave me free road maps of all Australia - because I’m a MEMSI member; and I got the books Oded sent me - Thanks Oded!

I even started publishing that I’m looking for Lifters, I hope something will come out of it.