Lire l’original en français
Who would have thought a simple bike would have caused so many headaches … We are, after all, in one of the most industrialised country on the planet, but, contrary to the rest of the civilised world, this country doesn’t make any effort to recycle rubbish, (don’t even think of taking up the topic of composting here…) so, it’s easy to believe the government will do nothing to promote the green option of using a simple bicycle.
We finally found a used bike in a garage sale. At the cost of $ 30 Australian dollars, it was a pretty good deal, at least, at first sight. Since we already have a plastic storage box on the roof of Shocker, we decided to buy a bike rack to put on the back of the car in order to haul our new mount. First snare: if we put the bike there, it hides the vehicle registration plate, which is a Traffic Regulation infraction. So we are being advised to put a mini plate provided by the Roads and Traffic Authority, the local Automobile Department. At first glance, a simple and logical solution…
Second snare: said plate must be bought at the cost of $ 75, because the $ 300 paid for front and back registration fees is not enough to cover the cost of another 2 × 6 in piece of metal. A bit frustrating, but still, acceptable… So we order the third copy of our precious alphanumeric code. And that’s when the third snare came up, just before finalising the transaction.
Since this small plate is of irregular size, we must modify the type of the entire car registration to reflect the “fantasy” type, like the ones who adorn the back of their car with cryptic messages where numbers replace vowels and make their remark completely illegible. The whole of it represents an annual rate increase of another $ 150 and they don’t even let us change our plate for “RT4SuX”. How unfair!
To end this transaction in a blaze of glory, the lady at the counter finally announces that, since we bought the car in another Australian State, we cannot do any of the prior options until we modify all registrations to Queensland, the state where we bought said bike rack… And, of course, before we can do that, we must have the car inspected by a State certified mechanics to make sure everything is A OK. Then, I will have to shop for new insurances, since the ones I have don’t cover cars licensed elsewhere than New South Wales. All and all, this rusty ten-speed bike would cost us about $ 600 Australian dollars. Splendid!
As we were leaving the RTA office, a municipal worker, who had witnessed our ordeal, takes me aside and gives me another option to fix my problem : he suggests I take a piece of cardboard and write my registration number with a black marker pen. Police officers like tourists, and my foreigner driver’s license will ensure me a “No worries mate!” instead of the usual ticket. Considering the alternative, it just might not be a bad idea…
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See His and Hers Pictures
Monday, December 28, 2009
Saturday, December 19, 2009
Drop the anchor!
Read the French translation
To many people in Agnes Water, a town less than 30 nautical miles from the Great Barrier Reef, their first scuba diving experiences can be described with colorful adjectives like “exhilarating”, “jaw-dropping” and “fish filled”. For me, when I look back at the first time I donned on my scuba gear in the southern hemisphere, I will always remember it as the hour and a half I spent in the murky waters of the 1770 Marina, scraping barnacles off the hull of the local dive center’s main passenger ship. I agree, it’s not as glamorous, but it’s a good way to learn the ropes of everything revolving around the diving industry. And besides, that bought me a full day of diving on the reef tomorrow, so I can’t really complain.
So it is how we decided to settle down for a little while in this little peninsula town while I do my Dive Master internship. If it was good enough for Captain Cook back in ’70, it should be good enough for us. Stephanie has already found a job in a bakery and is bringing back home a steady supply of sweets rolls and tasty cakes every night. We should be morbidly obese by the time we skip town, in two or three months from now.
Agnes Water library is also where I bought a really cool science fiction book. It’s a collection of three short stories written way back in 1930, back in a time where it was still politically correct to refer to African Americans as “colored people” and that1999 was considered to be far enough in the future to think that scientist would have built machines to make vehicles go through walls and that we’d have colonized ALL the planets and asteroids of our solar system. It’s a pretty interesting read; and a great insight on the ambition that mankind has toward its own evolution.
For the past couple of days, I have been assigned the very important role of head gardener here at the Southern Cross Tourist Resort in exchange for accommodation and free food. When they first asked me if I knew how to tend to a garden, I just nodded, not really believing it myself. But as it turns out, after only two days of pretending I knew what I was doing, I ended up really liking it and actually being very good at it. As it happens, I am apparently a naturally skilled hedge sculptor, turning bushes into nice geometric shapes, those of which can never be found in nature; the owners of the resort seem to like them though. It just goes to show, it’s always worth it to pretend that you know what you’re talking about, it might turn out that you actually do.
See HER view
See His and Hers Pictures
To many people in Agnes Water, a town less than 30 nautical miles from the Great Barrier Reef, their first scuba diving experiences can be described with colorful adjectives like “exhilarating”, “jaw-dropping” and “fish filled”. For me, when I look back at the first time I donned on my scuba gear in the southern hemisphere, I will always remember it as the hour and a half I spent in the murky waters of the 1770 Marina, scraping barnacles off the hull of the local dive center’s main passenger ship. I agree, it’s not as glamorous, but it’s a good way to learn the ropes of everything revolving around the diving industry. And besides, that bought me a full day of diving on the reef tomorrow, so I can’t really complain.
So it is how we decided to settle down for a little while in this little peninsula town while I do my Dive Master internship. If it was good enough for Captain Cook back in ’70, it should be good enough for us. Stephanie has already found a job in a bakery and is bringing back home a steady supply of sweets rolls and tasty cakes every night. We should be morbidly obese by the time we skip town, in two or three months from now.
Agnes Water library is also where I bought a really cool science fiction book. It’s a collection of three short stories written way back in 1930, back in a time where it was still politically correct to refer to African Americans as “colored people” and that1999 was considered to be far enough in the future to think that scientist would have built machines to make vehicles go through walls and that we’d have colonized ALL the planets and asteroids of our solar system. It’s a pretty interesting read; and a great insight on the ambition that mankind has toward its own evolution.
For the past couple of days, I have been assigned the very important role of head gardener here at the Southern Cross Tourist Resort in exchange for accommodation and free food. When they first asked me if I knew how to tend to a garden, I just nodded, not really believing it myself. But as it turns out, after only two days of pretending I knew what I was doing, I ended up really liking it and actually being very good at it. As it happens, I am apparently a naturally skilled hedge sculptor, turning bushes into nice geometric shapes, those of which can never be found in nature; the owners of the resort seem to like them though. It just goes to show, it’s always worth it to pretend that you know what you’re talking about, it might turn out that you actually do.
See HER view
See His and Hers Pictures
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
K91809
Lire l’original en français
As I am writing these words, we’re driving at 80 km/h on a secondary road to a village named 1770 in honour of the year Captain Cook accosted his ship there for the first time. Stéphanie is driving, having taken driving on the left side of the road right away. Fifteen minutes after we left, we realised in horror that we had left her hiking boots on the roof of the car. After a moment of panic, we turned around, going back sadly on our tracks, only to realize when we stopped that they were still on the roof. Needless to say, anti-skid soles of North Face boots are second to none.
A few days ago, we went to Mon Repos Conservation Park where, this time of year, you can find tens of giant turtles nesting on the beach every night. During de period of about 100 days, 350 of the 700 Loggerhead turtles remaining in the whole Pacific Ocean will come and lay 400-600 eggs each on the hot sand. Only one out of 1000 of them will reach the adult age of 35. The turtle nice enough to let us come close to her is musically named K91809 and she entertained us for a good hour and a half, even letting us hold her eggs in our hands. Strangely, I was expecting to find soft and slimy eggs, like the ones found in the rest of the aquatic world. In fact, it’s the exact same type of egg hens lay, white, rigid and fragile. The only difference is that they are perfectly round, like the ping-pong balls used to replace them in the display stand of the reception center.
The heat, these days, is almost unbearable. UV Index, for its part, hit the roof yesterday with a rating of 15. I didn’t check, but I would bet an index of 16 can only be reached on the melting surface of the Sun. No surprise here if I tell you that there are more skin cancer clinics here than tanning salons. So we took advantage of this hot day to take refuge under water and go see the first glimpse of the reefs beginning under this latitude. Because of the last days’ rains, unfortunately, the water was too cloudy to take good pictures, but I was pleased to discover about fifteen new species I had never seen before! I’ve also found a diving center willing to give me really groovy courses at a very no-nonsense price, and all this under the tropical waters surrounding the first islands of the Great Barrier Reef, just an hour from the coast by boat. This augurs VERY well.
It is also under this extreme heat that we attended our very first Christmas celebrations with a Christmas carolling concert in one of Bundaberg’s parks. Except for the uneasiness of not feeling like December AT ALL, we were pleasantly surprised to learn that here, in traditional carols, Rudolph doesn’t help Santa to control his sled in a snowy, but rather a FOGGY Christmas night. What a great local adaptation!
See HER view
See His and Hers Pictures
As I am writing these words, we’re driving at 80 km/h on a secondary road to a village named 1770 in honour of the year Captain Cook accosted his ship there for the first time. Stéphanie is driving, having taken driving on the left side of the road right away. Fifteen minutes after we left, we realised in horror that we had left her hiking boots on the roof of the car. After a moment of panic, we turned around, going back sadly on our tracks, only to realize when we stopped that they were still on the roof. Needless to say, anti-skid soles of North Face boots are second to none.
A few days ago, we went to Mon Repos Conservation Park where, this time of year, you can find tens of giant turtles nesting on the beach every night. During de period of about 100 days, 350 of the 700 Loggerhead turtles remaining in the whole Pacific Ocean will come and lay 400-600 eggs each on the hot sand. Only one out of 1000 of them will reach the adult age of 35. The turtle nice enough to let us come close to her is musically named K91809 and she entertained us for a good hour and a half, even letting us hold her eggs in our hands. Strangely, I was expecting to find soft and slimy eggs, like the ones found in the rest of the aquatic world. In fact, it’s the exact same type of egg hens lay, white, rigid and fragile. The only difference is that they are perfectly round, like the ping-pong balls used to replace them in the display stand of the reception center.
The heat, these days, is almost unbearable. UV Index, for its part, hit the roof yesterday with a rating of 15. I didn’t check, but I would bet an index of 16 can only be reached on the melting surface of the Sun. No surprise here if I tell you that there are more skin cancer clinics here than tanning salons. So we took advantage of this hot day to take refuge under water and go see the first glimpse of the reefs beginning under this latitude. Because of the last days’ rains, unfortunately, the water was too cloudy to take good pictures, but I was pleased to discover about fifteen new species I had never seen before! I’ve also found a diving center willing to give me really groovy courses at a very no-nonsense price, and all this under the tropical waters surrounding the first islands of the Great Barrier Reef, just an hour from the coast by boat. This augurs VERY well.
It is also under this extreme heat that we attended our very first Christmas celebrations with a Christmas carolling concert in one of Bundaberg’s parks. Except for the uneasiness of not feeling like December AT ALL, we were pleasantly surprised to learn that here, in traditional carols, Rudolph doesn’t help Santa to control his sled in a snowy, but rather a FOGGY Christmas night. What a great local adaptation!
See HER view
See His and Hers Pictures
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