19 septembre - Litchfield Park

Et hop, première vraie visite de parcs naturels, dans un bus composé de vieux/moins vieux.

Nous rencontrons de nombreux bus de touristes sur le chemin. Certains diront que c'est bon signe...Mes impressions à ce sujet sont mitigées. C'est en effet tout de même balot: 200.000 habitants sur le territoire de Northern Territory, qui représente 1/6e de l'Australie, un énorrrrrrme espace, en somme. Et malgré tout, il faut que les touristes se croisent en grand nombre en allant tous aux mêmes endroits! Voilà, je crois que vous comprendrez, à présent, pourquoi je n'aime pas faire le touriste.

Cela étant posé, les sites visités étaient intéressants, où j'ai pu voir:
- des nids de termites immenses, tout en hauteur (dont un de plus de 3 mètres!) et même un champ entier (quand je parle de champ, je veux dire une prairie entière) de nids de termites magnétiques, toutes orientées sur le vrai axe Nord/Sud (l'axe étant génétiquement transmis: pas de compas dans la tête, c'est tout une question de mémoire. Si j'ai bien compris, si le nid est construit sur un axe différent, il est détruit par les éléments, ou un truc comme çà...);
- des séries de cascades, très facilement accessibles; les touristes (dont je fais partie) ont d'ailleurs pu se baigner dans la petite étendue d'eau (chaude, car il fait 35°C) alimentée par deux petites cascades. Un vrai plaisir...jusqu'au moment où il s'est mis à pleuvoir, brièvement, fort heureusement, mais suffisamment pour me faire sortir de l'eau et me prendre une douche naturelle, "made in Australia".

Somme toute, ce qui me surprend le plus, c'est sûrement le côté très acccessible des sites que nous visitons. Une grande partie de la région est désormais fermée au public. Les collectivités locale se sont donc pliées en quatre pour baliser autant que possible les parties ouvertes aux touristes. Ils ont parfaitement réussi...jusqu'à peut être tuer toute idée d'effort. De nombreux touristes sont des septuagénaires: seule la chaleur leur pose parfois des problèmes.

PS: retour à l'hôtel, que je quitterai demain matin à 6h (arghhhhh) pour 48h, afin de visiter la réserve de Kakadu. Je n'ai toujours pas trouvé de bon restaurant à Darwin, et c'est pas faute d'avoir cherché.

Le contraste entre la bouffe d'ici et celle de Melbourne/Sydney est saisissant (et pas dans le bon sens pour Darwin!).

17 September - Darwin

Left Port Douglas in the afternoon, a little sad: this city is small, but nice and very efficiently run (DVD store, ice reams, good restaurants nicely spaced around the place, cafes, etc...a good beach....and the Great Barrier not so far away...sigh...).

Arrived in Darwin at 9.45pm, and am currently staying in a pretty nice hotel, called the Mantra Pandanas (or something like that), in a room twice as big as my apartment in Paris, two TVs, a fully equiped kitchen and NO alcohol around ;)

I'm in the mood of checking the city out before going to sleep, though i know i'll pay the price tomorrow, as pick-up time for the tour is 6.30am...SIGH....

Well, what the f..., i'll worry about that in the bus !

See ya all, I'm gong for a lonnnng walk around the city

16 septembre - Great Barrier Reef

Apres un reveil matinal assez facile (9am), le reste de la journee fut dediee a la visite de la Grande Barriere de Corail au nord de Port Douglas.

Un monument classe patrimoine mondial par l'unesco dans les annees 80, et j'ai vite compris pourquoi...

Ayant passe la moitie de ma vie a la Reunion, j'ai ete sensibilise aux barrieres de corail, aux coraux, aux poiscailles et autres joies de la mer...Mais la Grande Barriere, c'est tout de meme autre chose!!

Des coraux a perte de vue, a une profondeur de 6 a 10 metres tres souvent, le tout a plusieurs dizaines de kilometres de la cote (il nous a fallu 1h30 pour arriver a la barriere).

Des poissons partout, tres accessibles, de toutes les couleurs, comme les coraux, d'ailleurs. Lors de ma plongee en tuba, j'ai pu ennuyer des poissons aux humeurs territoriales (tout petits poissons, suis pas fou...), me faufiler entre des massifs de coraux par 5 ou 6 metres de profondeur, et meme voir un requin de recif (? = reef shark) d'assez pres!

J'ai pris des photos, mais sur pellicule, ramenerai le tout avec moi et tenterai de les scanner pour vous les montrer.

A notre retour, vers 16:00, j'etais epuise par mes baignades et plongees successives, mais tres content!

La soiree fut consacree a la lecture et a la TV.

Demain, je quitte port douglas pour Darwin et la visite de la reserve nationale de Kakadu.

15 September - Day off in Port Douglas

Day off!

I took the opportunity to update this blog, enjoy the swimming pool a little, read a little, walking in the main street of Port Douglas (the center of the city is abou 300-meter long), buy some flip-flops for tomorrow, when I am to visit the great barried reef.
Looking forward to it!

14 September - Daintree rain forest

Woke up at 7am, something that hadn't happened for quite a few weeks now.
Went on to visit Daintree (rain forest), crocodiles, etc. Interesting enough, not that impressive for someone who's lived half his life in La Réunion, but it was good to see some crazy green space.

11, 12 and 13 September - Sydney

11 September (im) - Sydney!!

First day in Sydney and the most imprinted memory of my travel so far: the Harbour and its Opera House.
the Opera House is definitely a must-see at one point in life, it's just great: great ,onument; great situation; grreat architecture; great to watch at day or night; wonderful surroundings (parks, walkways, restaurants nearby; bars, etc). Right in the middle of the city (or so it seems).
Second impression: Sydney is a huge city: - million people strong, two business centrers, a lot of apartments wherever you turn your head, kilometers of them.

The day was spent visiting the Harbou and its surroundings (gorgeous; really; have i said that too many times already? well i think it!). Apparently, there's a little feud between Melbourne and Sydney, pretty much in the form of what you would have between Paris and another greatly improved and French business prosperous city: Sydney definitely has the upside when it comes to architecture achievements and weather (4 or 5 °C over Melbournne's),but Melbourne just has the upper hand in terms of life standard, night activities and, yes, most definitely women (this last part was not even inserted under duress), don't really understand why yet (and Kevin and KG, when asked, just go with crazy stories about people in Sydney spending too much time mooning aover their buildings than their relationships or whatever, but I'm not buying that completely. Though it's definitely a gorgeous modern city)
Other notable events of the day included:
- Climbing the Bridge by sunset/at night: my having vertigo didn't interfere at all. A little bit have hough: AUS$179 (up to 240 depending on the starting hour). It lasted all in all 3 hours and wal pretty cool.
- Walking the streets and enjoying the architecture of the building)
- Eating great food: lunch at The Orchard and at night in an Italian restaurant called XXII (Sydney, jsut as Melbourne, is blessed with wonderful restaurants)
- Kevin hurt his foot at one point while I was doing the bridge climb (recurrent injury, appparently) and thus had to gut it out to continue the tour (lots of pain, that's just another evidnece of how great a friend this guy is);


12 September - Last full day in Sydney

Due to the organisation backlog and discrepancies, we came to realise that we would probably not have enough time to properly visit everything in Sydney; so decided to go by priority: we visited Darling Harbour, another grazet harbour with a wonderful view and (again) with many shops; restaurants, and a port totally integrated as a single architectural set. Great view!
We haad lunch there anad spent a little time reading and thinking, then caught the monorail (one-rail train doing a circle-trip in the middle of the city) and headed towards Centre Point (the big tower in Sydney) to appreciate the view of the whole city.
Had a few drinkss and dinner back at Darling Harbour (rsetaurant waas a seafood rest. called Nick's. Bar was the Cohibar, pretty good cocktails there, in particall the Passion Pink and the Apple and Cardammon Mojito). Finished in a night club where I had to change clothes (apparently, I was far too casual to get in: fortunately, Kev had me take a polo shirt just in case).
Finished at 3 or 4am and went to sleep.


13 September - Departure for Port Douglas (via Cairns)

At a quick breakfast in Sydney, nreaby the restaurant, we rushed and almost didn't make it forr the return trip to Melbourne. I arrived just on time in Melbourne to take another plane flying to Cairns. Arrived at Cairns at 7.30 pm, then took a bus tgo to Port Douglas, my current location. Hotel is ok (Mantra Aquaeus) anda i have an american kitchen to cook (just in case), a spa (which i have used already) and two swimming pools (just to prevent it eing too crowded, I guess: aussies do like to have their own space, and that's no surprise considering their huge country)
The place is not very big, but i spotted a nice restaurant.
Went to sleep kind of early, as my tour the following day was due to start at 8.10 am (arghhhhhhhhhh)

Australian mobile phone # - +61 (0)42 338 43 24

I subscribed to a prepaid mobile phone number, which is the following: +61 (0)42 338 43 24
Don't hesitate to call if need be! I'll still be checking my sms on my French number, but less regurlarly.