Black beauty - Dyrhólaey

Iceland’s tourist motto is ‘the land of fire and ice’. Active volcanoes and immense glaciers define its landscape. One of the many visible results of those volcanoes are the black sand beaches. You’ll see them at almost all coastlines. Another feature of the past eruptions is the abundance of basalt: a volcanic rock that forms during the cooling of lava.

The black beach of Reynisfjara towards Dyrhóleay 

Near the town of Vík, at Reynisfjara and Dyrhóleay, both features guarantee an impressive landscape. The unpredictable waves crashing at the black beach of Reynisfjara make a cool lookout towards the cliffs of Dyrhóleay.

Looking over Reynisfjara beach from Dyrhóleay 

The next exit off the ring road leads to Dyrhóleay. A steep (officially 4x4 only) winding road leads towards the top where the lighthouse is built. You can walk around it to the cliffs.

Dyrhóleay lighthouse

Looking toward the see you’ll see the double arch. Dyrhóleay means door hill island. The big arch (120m) can be a door for ships, or even planes, to go though. The black basalt is splattered in white bird droppings. Depending on the time of year an abundance of migrating or nesting sea bird can be seen.

Basalt arch

We saw mostly gulls flying around and nesting on the cliffs. Hundreds of them. Occasionally we saw a little flock of darker birds. Those were common guillemots.

Nesting gulls

Of course we were hoping to spot some puffins too. But we visited in late April, and the puffin season only starts mid May. Even so we scanned all cliffs with our binoculars. While walking back to the car we suddenly saw a little black spot moving in the grass edge next to the path. Not even two meters from us was that one delightful little puffin we were hoping for! After a minute it tumbled down the cliff but we saw it. Up close and personal.

Found a puffin!

Wonderland walk - Halls Gap

From the Great Ocean Road we headed north, to the Grampians. We decided to base ourselves in Halls Gap, a tiny village. And with a great campsite too; clean amenities, good camp kitchen, living area with fire place.

On the meadow adjacent to the campsite live emus and kangaroos.

I spy an emu eye

Now the Grampians are known for their grand views and hiking trails. After talking to the tourist info we opted for the Wonderland Loop, a medium to hard track, 9.6km, about 4-5 hours. Qualified for 'fit and energetic walkers'.... I've never thought of myself as that, but let's give it a shot. We set off at 10am. 

Nice bit of defined track

The first stretch from Halls Gap to the Wonderland carpark was relatively easy, but uphill at times. The track was mostly next to little creeks. It did surprise us that we sometimes had some trouble identifying the track. It's the first time that has happened since we're in the country. It did feel like genuine bush walking, since the track was not always obvious.  But that would get worse later on...

Up, up we went!

From the carpark we chose to do the route through 'The Grand Canyon'. That was a slightly exaggerated name, but impressive nonetheless. And where the steep ascent really began. 

'Grand Canyon', can you see the stepping stones?

We continued on the route to the Pinnacle. Most of the route was over rock flats and through little canyons. At the top of the plateau we had some trouble with the route, but after a few minutes we saw a little yellow arrow.

See the yellow arrow? And the carpark?

Some 2.5 hours into the walk we arrived at the top, with a great view. But very, very windy. We found sheltered spot where we ate our lunch, before we started our decent. We walked down on the eastern route, next to the cliffs. It's just funny how the upper cliff was completely fenced off, but you're can easily slip off 10 meters further... 

View over Halls Gap from the Pinnacle

The walk down took another hour and a half and wasn't very spectacular. It was a spectacular number of stairs though! My knees didn't like that one bit... But we made it! 

On our way down

When we walked back into Halls Gap at 14:30 a mob of kangaroos were lazily grazing, and very photogenic at it. After we had coffee and cake in the café, we drove back to the campsite. 

Kangaroo. Or wallaby?

To ease our tired muscles we had a soak in the hot outdoor pool. What a treat at 38'C while the day's temperature was only 5-10'C! We watched the resident flock of cockatoos while we bathed. 

Yellow crested cockatoo

P.S. We stil love the comments, but we'd love them even more if you added your name ;-)

Cuddly Koalas - Magnetic Island

When we were at home loosely planning this trip we intended to make our way down from Cairns to Sydney by public transport. Since the east coast is the busiest part of the country, with many hostels and most of the activities are or on the ocean, it seemed the most sensible option not the blow our money on expensive car or campervan hire. We just hadn't decided on bus or train yet.

The start of the Forts Walk

But when we got in our hostel in Cairns, we saw a sign for campervan relocations; basically you hire a van for $1 a day and even get money for petrol, but you have to get to the new location very quickly. We asked our receptionist about this deal, but it gave us only 3 days to get to Brisbane. We had planned to do that route in 2 weeks. Three days would be just driving and sleeping with no sightseeing on the way. She then offered to make a few quick enquiries to see what the prices were for renting a campervan, and we got a great deal: renting a Spaceship for $30 a day including full insurance! That meant we just had to pay the insurance fee. That's the same price as 2 bus tickets, plus we could save on accommodation costs. Monday morning we picked up a Spaceship named Nostromo, and drove to Townsville. 

First koala spotted!

Because we now had a campervan we opted for a day trip to Magnetic Island, instead of staying there overnight. After we got lunch at the supermarket, we drove to one of the two ferries and bought return tickets. And then came to the conclusion we had preferred to take the other ferry that went 18 times daily instead of 8... Well, nothing to be done about that now! 

We looked into the information leaflet and decided that we would bus around the island. Our main objective was to do the Forts walk, where it was rumoured you could very well spot wild koalas...

Sleepy face

Hat on, sunscreen applied, and off we went. And just after a few minutes we spotted our first koala up in a tree, neatly seated on a branch, nice fluffy ears and all!  After a few minutes of snapping photos we walked on, and just a few meters further was the second koala. We felt really lucky now. And the good thing about koalas, even the 'wild' ones, is that they hardly move. They just sit and doze, so playing paparazzo on them is real easy. The 'hard' part is that since they don't move, it's also really easy to walk past them.  Which we nearly did, when we saw a koala about 1 meter off the ground, probably just came down for a poop. 

Koala just 1 meter off the ground

Of course this was reason for a few close ups, and then... A tiny second head peekabooed around the side: she had a joey! How cool is that? Now that was really an unexpected treat. What was pretty strange is that the joey seemed really awake and alert, while the mother just appeared dozy. Though at a certain point mum did think all the attention (of course when we stopped to watch, so did a couple of other tourists) was a bit too much. When Rodie ran back for our water bottle, that we forgot in all our excitement, she had climbed up another tree. 

Just look at that face...

We walked back, in order to catch the bus back to one of the other bays to see the rock wallabies. When we arrived at Picnic Bay we clambered up the walking trail and had a wonderful view. But no wallabies. Odd. Now of course it's nature, so that can happen but still... When we walked back down I took another look into the leaflet, to discover that we were at the wrong bay! We should've gone to Arcadia Bay.  We considered taking the bus back there, but then opted out.  I'm sure we'll see lots of wallabies in the coming months and we had done quite some walking. We took the ferry back and drove our trusty Nostromo to the truck stop for a good nights sleep. 

View from the look out at Picnic Bay

In search of Nemo - Great Barrier Reef

Going to Australia, Queensland, where the Great Barrier Reef is, and not diving? Not an option!

After some consideration we opted for a 3 day / 2 night liveaboard with Pro Dive. That looked like pretty hardcore diving and the 11 dives in 3 days might be a bit too much for me, but this was the way to dive at the outer reefs. Financially it was quite a thing too (A$800/€500 per person) but hey... Once in a lifetime, right? 

That's what we looked like!

So, what did we do? We were picked up at 6:15am(!) at our hostel, checked in at the dive shop and then boarded our vessel in the marina. There were 32 divers on board, about halve of them in training, 4 instructors, 1 cook and 1 skipper. What we really liked is that this company does not send you down in groups with an instructor, but you go down independently as buddy pairs. That gives you so much more freedom.

Spot the spotted fish

We got breakfast on board while the crew loaded the stuff on board, and then headed out to the reef, where we arrived about 3,5 hours later and at 11:30am we had our first dive! But oh boy... What a current! This wasn't fun, is was about a 50m swim to the reef, but by the time we got there halve our air was gone! After 10 more minutes at the reef we surfaced and got a dingy ride back to the boat... Uhoh... After a reprimand from the dive master that we got way out off the area we went to the upper deck to catch our breath. And wonder if we really were that out of practice? But all the divers that surfaced had had the same problem, and lots of dingy rides that morning.  Turns out there had been some type of freak current (or so we were told at the next briefing). 

 

One of the anemone fish

The next dive at 14:30 was also at Flynt Reef, but this time on a reef closer to the to the boat: like swimming through an aquarium! Lovely colours and so many fish species. You could not avoid the parrot fish, and we spotted our first turtle! I just love turtles, especially when under water. They're every bit as surf dude as in the Nemo movie. We also spotted our first giant clams.

 

Like swimming through an aquarium 

We both skipped the 16:30 dive in favour of the night dive at 19:30. That was some serious underwater disco! Of course that's not very good for the wildlife spotting, but rather funny. We dove in groups as many of the divers had not done a night dive before. We did spot a parrot fish in a mucous bubble, that was rather special. And of course every small fish that you put a spotlight on was instant dinner for the bigger hunting fish. We also saw a flash of a reef shark. 

 

Look at that face...

The next morning we had a lay in, our first pre breakfast dive was at 7:30am. Unfortunately Rodie's night had not been very good. Our beds were 1.80m long, slightly on the short side for his 1.93m frame. Since they were 65cm wide and with 60cm headroom, he simply did not fit. The second night we put his mattress on the floor, left the door open and his feet slept in the hallway. Much to the amusement of our shipmates. 

The dive was at Tracy's little Bommie, a deeper dive to start the day with. This was a dive where we savoured all the smaller wonders of the corals and fish, and of course another turtle! We saw our first stingray and some more of the giant clams. 

 

Pretty amazing dives

For the second dive (at 10:30) we had moved to Milln reef and we decided to hire an underwater camera (thank you sponsors!). It was our first time ever and we had fun with it. And isn't it fun to see what we look like in the big blue? And of course it makes for a better blog post.  We met up with some turtles again, saw some anemone fish, angler fish, the ubiquitous parrot fish, so many fish I haven't got a clue what they're named. Rodie even made a some pretty cool videos of our dive!

The afternoon dive at 15:00 was similar to this, but without the camera. I skipped the night dive on their second day; simply not hardcore enough! Rodie did dive and saw one side of the sleeping Brian sticking out from underneath a rock. Who? Oh Brian, that's just the 2m turtle living there...

 

Tiny fish at one of the corals

The third day was again an early wake up call. The knock on the door was at 6am so we could be in the water at 6:30....  Who said this was vacation? We had a quickie briefing and changed into our gear in the black of the night, plunging in the water at dawn. That was quite special though, we saw the reef waking up. Slowly more and more fish emerged from their sleeping places. We also swam into a few reef sharks (black tips?) that just came back from their night's hunt, some turtles, (yes again, and I still love them!) and a badass barracuda. 

Parrotfish all around 

I decided to skip the second dive at 9:00 but Rodie went in and yes: he found Nemo's family! They lived in an anemone just a few meters from the boat. 6 cute little clown anemone fish. He also saw a moray eel, and some sharks. And of course those innumerable other fish.  For our last dive at 11:00 we were not assigned a specific itinerary at the briefing, so we first swam to the Nemos and that had a nice swim around, just to bid our goodbyes to the reef. At noon the boat headed for the shore again, and our diving trip was over!

Bye for now!

Pandas in the mist... - Chengdu

Of course, when you're travelling through China for some time, you HAVE to see its national symbol: panda bears!
China is very proud of them, and very protective. In a Chinese manner. So while their natural habitat keeps diminishing, serious money goes into breeding programs. One of the main, and very accessible, breeding facilities is in Chengdu. So that is where we went. And Chengdu in November turned out to be extra wet and foggy.

Panda's coming out into the mist

The panda centre is a little out of town. You can take a local bus, or book a tour with the place where you are staying. We stayed at a lovely hostel, and booked our transport through them. After paying the entrance fee you can wander through the park. The park looked much better, and more animal friendly, than we expected.
Though, as you can see from the photos, it was sometimes even hard to see the pandas in the mist!

One of the enclosures for the youngsters, food and exercise

Like in the wild, the pandas spend most of their time eating. Since pandas eat bamboo, one of the least nutritious foods one can imagine (for carnivores!), getting enough food in, is their main concern. Maybe their only concern, since pandas are not known for their breeding capacity.... That's where the breeding centers come into focus.

Always eating!

Because of the low calory intake, the panda is a very inactive animal and non social animal. It all requires just too much energy! And to make it even more of a challange: a female panda is fertil for about 23-36 hours per YEAR...
If a panda manages to get pregnant against all odds (or by AI), she usually gives birth to twins. But since a panda does not have enough milk for both, she only takes care of the stronger twin. To let it survive, the weaker cub is separated from the mother, and raised in a nursery. We were not allowed to visit the nursery, but could quietly walk passed the 'visiting window'.

About 2 week old cub

After about two years the cubs spend a few years in 'play groups' of 4-5 individuals, until they come to an age that they do no langer want to be sociable. The older animals al live solitary, as is their nature. But until then, they are super cute to watch!

You should relax while eating