Australia and Malaysia photos up on the web

Hello,

I finally put together a heavily reduced collection of photos and uploaded them here. There are probably loads of typos as I did it really late at night and I was feeling more than a little sparse.

Returning to Oxford has been fun, it's great to see everyone and get back into the swing of student life. On Saturday I went to the Exeter ball which was excellent fun. I haven't uploaded my photos yet, but here are Caroline's. Yesterday I went sailing which was fantastic, I'd forgotten quite how much I love it, even if I did capsize in the absolutely freezing water!

Well I decided to spend the next couple of days in the lab and to do some research, so I guess I should get on with that.

Cheers,


Ali

The end of Oz, Malaysia, and home...

I think where I left you last was just before heading up to Queensland.

Queensland - Great barrier reef, rain forest, and outback
We flew up to Queensland and on the first full day there we went out to the reef, which was amazing. For Dad's 60th birthday we had offered him SCUBA diving lessons or a hot air balloon flight, and he had reluctantly decided that he should probably do the hot air balloon flight as he wasn't up to the diving course. However on the reef it was possible for him to do a trial dive which was just the right thing. It was doubly cool as we were there to see him and there was an underwater viewing area so I could take lots of photos and video of him. I tried snorkeling for the first time and that was excellent too - it was amazing being so close to so many colourful, and in some cases large, fish.

The following days we visited rain forests and went up to the tableland and drove out a bit into the outback. I hadn't been in rain forest since I was in Ecuador and it was really great to experience it again. Unfortunately on one walk, a leech decided to take a liking to me - which I didn't notice for some time, until I spotted a rather fat leech slurping away. After putting some salt on, the leech gave up and then it was just a matter of wearing a plaster until it healed despite the anticoagulants.


North of Melbourne
The following weekend we went away with Kate and Obi exploring to the North of Melbourne. We stayed in a town near Castlemaine (of XXXX fame) and visited, amongst other things, a former gold mine. It was pretty impressive as the ground beneath the entire region is riddled with a network of literally thousands of different mines, which means occasionally people's houses disappear after heavy rainfall, because it turns out they were built over a forgotten hole! Sadly this marked the end of our time with Kate and Obi as we were to slowly start winding our way back to the UK.

Sydney
We flew to Sydney from Melbourne, and encountered there the first bad weather of the trip: the day we arrived was fairly gray and it did rain at one stage. The harbour was still outstanding though, especially at night when all the city, the bridge, and the opera house were lit up. As well as going on a tour of the opera house we went to see a play one evening (Influence by David Williamson).

Another day we traveled up to the Blue mountains which were spectacular. They are blue coloured due to a mist secreted by eucalyptus trees in the heat. The area was similar to the grand canyon in topology and I really enjoyed the walking there. It reminded me how much I love hiking - in exactly the same way walking in Colorado did, just over a year ago.

Kuala Lumpur
From Sydney we flew back to Kuala Lumpur where we were for about thirty six hours. The primary goal of this was lots of shopping and a little sight seeing. The highlight of my purchases was a new digital camera, but I also got some clothes, shoes, and DVD's.

Ipswich!
The flight back to the UK was about twelve and a half hours, and we stayed with some family friends near Heathrow after that. The following morning was a tough reminder of normal life in the UK - crawling around the M25 in the pouring rain! :(

So it's back to research and uni life. I'm quite looking forward to going back to Oxford and seeing everyone.

Time to try and recover a bit more from the jet lag.


Ali

PS I downloaded my photos to the PC today and I will try and edit them down to a relatively small collection, as there are way too many to bore people with on the web at the moment.

Melbourne Day 3

Firstly, an aside: I am aware that I am writing a lot more that I usually do on my blog however this is as much a diary for myself as anyone else. Once I upload my photos, I hope to link between them and these little notes, making a more complete journal of my travels. (If I had remembered to bring my digital camera cable I could do that right now!)

Today was a really great day. Having finalised plans with the travel agent for travel to the great barrier reef and Sydney, we went out to the Yarra valley which is a wine growing region. It was really spectacular with vineyards on the rolling hills. We also went to an animal sanctuary which was awesome. To my Dad's delight they had the only two monotremes (egg laying mammals) there, the duck-billed platypus and the echidna. There were also kangaroos, wallabies, koalas, wombats, etc. etc.

I certainly still really like Australia and the people continue to be incredibly friendly. My Mum's talking about emigrating which is quite a contrast from not wanting to come here! I can see her point though, although I kind of anticipated such thoughts on my behalf before even coming here.

Tomorrow we're off to the great ocean road for a few days which should be a very different landscape again.

Adios chicos y chicas,


Ali