Goodbye Lucy and Moby

Well after the excitement of Frazer Island we were looking forward to taking it easy in Darragh's sisters' (Orna) boyfriend's (Maurice) brother's (Vincent) house! Bit of a mouthful but it was good fun. We landed about an hour outside Brisbane just as they were finishing off a new porch (they had just moved in) and did a bit of odds and ends to get the place cleared up. Earned our keep anyway and were treated to a lovely barbecue. After dinner we burned the "For Sale" sign, about an hour before being told you have to pay for them if they don't get returned. Oh well. Big thanks to Vincent, Elaine and little Ben for all the hospitality they showed us. The following day we took a trip into Brisbane to have a look around. Lovely city, and I think it really changed our opinions on Australia. Until that point we'd only seen small beach towns, but this is a proper city. Very livable! Spent the afternoon around the museums...

The following day we visited the Steve Irwin Zoo. Pretty impressive array of animals - I think the Red Panda's definitely stole the show. Darragh did his best to take one home but they weren't as friendly as they seemed. We saw a pretty cool wildlife show which included some pretty nuts birds and also a lot of crocodiles. They are scary animals. Met some Kangaroos and other wildlife. Made for some perfect cheesy photo opportunities.......

Some of the Crocs are friendly enough in fairness....

That night we headed back to Brisbane for a night out. Met Trish who showed us around and some friends from the Whitsunday trip a few weeks ago. Brisbane was quite expensive however so we only stayed one night. Apparently it's the most expensive place in the world to park, with car parks being about $25 an hour (About 18 Euro). We were up early the next morning to head to Byron Bay (most easterly spot in Australia) to meet more friends.

At Byron we met Louise, Ben, Dee, Carol and Aisling for a few nights out. Lovely spot. Campsite right on the beach and everything within a 3 minute walk. One afternoon Darragh, Conor and Micheal rented some surfboards to give that a go, but from the sounds of things, they might as well be bodyboards. They came back battered and bruised after a few hours dying for a cup of Barry's Tea to get the blood going again. At least they avoided the sharks I suppose!

By the time we left Byron, we were running out of days, and needed to get the vans back to Sydney for the Thursday and we still had about 1,000km ahead of us. We took a few long days to get down the coast, just stopping off to sleep, eat and let Darragh put on his wizard hat to go see Harry Potter. On one of the long drives however, we spotted a golf course just off the highway so decided to give that a go. It didn't start off very well - I shot an 11 at the Par 4 first, Darragh hit a 10 at the second. It didn't help that there were kangaroos all over the golf course! We settled down eventually with Conor winning by five shots from me, Mick and Ed joint third with Darragh taking up the rear. I won't embarrass ourselves with the actual scores!

One last stop off on the trip was to the Hunter Valley for a wine tasting tour. Great day out. 55 wines sampled in about 7 hours, mixed in with a bit of Cheese and chocolate tasting. We all had our favourites but unfortunately most of the spots only sell from their cellar door, meaning we'll never get the chance to actually buy them. We got a lot of info anyway, handy to know what goes with what, which wines will age well etc. We thought the Semillon, Verdelho and the Merlot were the best. Check out the wine connoisseur head on Mick Cahill below..........

We got the vans back just about in time, with 10 minutes to spare. Unfortunately we had forgotten to wash the outsides so the lady at the rental spot sent us off to a car wash. the extra 20 minutes took us over our rental period, so we had to pay a late fee. Cheeky lady! Got to Sydney anyway in one piece. 3,916 km and 23 days later. The vans were good fun, although a lot of the campsites were very remote. Worked out about the same price as getting the bus/hostels but it was nice to have the freedom. It did get a little cold at night towards the end though.

Fraser Island - corr blimey!

Hi Mom - I'm still alive (no thanks to Kevin Ed but we'll get to that later....)! After doing the Whit Sundays we headed South towards our next port of call - Fraser Island. We stopped for a night in a place called Rockhampton and watched a film called the Hangover. Go and see it people. It's about as funny as watching Darragh trying to get into the top section of the camper van......and that's funny.

Anyway we got a bit of advice from a couple of people in Airlie which was to go to a place called Rainbow beach to get the ferry across to Fraser Island. First piece of travel advice I'm going to give on this blog - do not ever go there. We landed in at 9 on a Friday night and were literally the only people on the street. We weren't even able to book our trip on Fraser until the following Tuesday so we bailed out of there the next morning and headed back up to Hervey bay and checked into Palace Backpackers. We had to get up at 6 30 the following morning to get our briefing on the island and get the lowdown on driving a 4x4. Cue cheesy photo number one of Mark Canning with the van. Fraser Island for the uninformed happens to be the largest sand island in the world measuring 120km in length. You basically get into your jeep and drive across it on the first day, up and down it on the second day and back across on the third day. There were 3 jeeps leaving the hostel containg about 12 Irish people, an Israeli, a couple of English (Simon and Louise) and a smattering of Europeans including some Frenchies who thought they were on a guided tour/holiday (everyone else being the staff). We pitched up for the night at the Cornwells camp site. It was more of an area of sand dune zoned for camping than anything else so the nice hot showers, toilet facilities and camp kitchen were absent. That didn't really bother us too much as we cracked into a feed of burgers and hotdogs cooked up by the resident chef, Darragh O' Keeffe aided by sous-chef Natasha. In fairness to Darragh, while we all had some reservations at the start of the roadtrip, his cooking is improving and he may even be thanked someday for feeding us. The goon was then unloaded (see previous blog entry for definition of goon) and the classic campfire singsong was had. There were a few Dutch songs busted out at one stage which left us quite impressed. The rest of the night passed without incident save for a pack of dingoes who decided to tuck into the other Irish guys food for the trip. Second piece of travel advice - don't leave an esky full of meat out in the open with about 20 dingoes sniffing around the place.

The next day we got up and began our trek along the beach. The sand is rock hard at low tide so you can go as fast as you would on a road. The convoy stopped at a couple of places including the ship wreck of the Maheno and also a spot called Indian Head
Indian Head is famous for being the breeding ground for Tiger sharks, Bull Sharks and Hammerhead sharks.......that's too many sharks for one headland if you ask me. We also spotted a giant manta ray and a humpback whale so it was worth the climb up the hill and the view ain't bad either. All deadly marine life aside, the jeeps can't swim too well so you have to negotiate a stretch of soft sand inland to get to the next section of beach and the wonderfully overhyped champagne pools (they are in fact a couple of rock pools). The trick to getting through the soft stuff is to go into low range, stick it into second gear and go hard at it. Now this is fine if you're in the front seat but if you're stuck next to the door at the back then you're in for a bumpy ride. Kevin took it upon himself to break the bypass land speed record and I was suspeneded in mid air for about 5 seconds. I can however claim to be the first Corkman in space though!

We headed back to base then and ate the remainder of the burgers and sausages before having the usual early night in. Our last day on the trip consisted of us packing up all the gear and heading back to the ferry via Lake McKenzie. FYI - It is a "perched" lake sitting on top of compact sand and vegetable matter 100 metres above sea level. It also happens to be absolutely freezing but that didn't bother Kevin "The 'Hoff" O' Sullivan as he braved the icy cold. They're made of different stuff down there in Beara alright! We caught the ferry back across then and dropped off the jeeps in one piece. Our new friends from the trip, Simon and Louise, cooked up a fajita storm then back in the hostel (I'm mentioning food a lot I know) and we all pretty much passed out in advance of our trip to Brisbane the next day.

Australia........Ah Yeah!

We really thought we knew what Australia was going to be like. How couldn't we! We were all raised on a diet of Home And Away followed by liberal helpings of Neighbours (especially during the Holly Valance years). Most of us can recite the "Call that a knife, this is a knife" scene from Crocodile Dundee by rote. This was going to be a piece of cake.

We were meant to have decided our method of transport from Cairns to Sydney before landing but instead left it till the last minute (our overriding philosophy so far has been "it'll all be alright on the day" and it hasn't let us down yet). We spent two days in Cairns (or as the locals say Caaaarns) planning our attack. Suggestions included jumping on/off buses, renting a few cars, renting a massive Winnebago, stealing a helicopter. These were all discarded in favor of renting 2 3-person campervans (think a tall Hiace van and leave your caravan jokes to yourself). Micheal and Mark share driving one, while Conor and Eddie are in the other. We have walkie talkies to keep in contact so we make a proper convoy on the roard. As I can't drive (and cycling 4000km is not an option) I have been handed the rather difficult task of keeping the lads fed and watered. Some of the bbq's have been epic, my personal favorite being Mexican night.

Sleeping arrangements are slightly cramped but as the weather gets colder the further we go south it could turn out to be a blessing.

Cairns was good craic, big shout out to Josh who we had met in Thailand and ran into on our hostel (Gilligan's). Had a great night out with him in the local pub, the Woolshed. Next day we were eager to hit the road so headed south as soon as we got the vans sorted. Mick spends most of the journeys with his head out the window, see below.

Spent one quiet night in Mission Beach before making our first stop in Townsville. I loved it there; it has a beautiful beach side promenade strewn with open BBQ sites, flood light open areas for footie and free swimming pools. The standard of public facilities here is excellent and its heartening to see no vandalism or defacement. Mark has promised to upload a video on the place so won't go into too much but suffice to say I was very sorry to leave.

Next stop was Arlie Beach where we went on a boat trip to the Whitsunday Islands, a collection of around 74 beautiful islands just off the coast bordered by the great barrier reef. Things started well when a baby and mother hump backed whale decided to escort us out of harbour. The animal spottings continued with dolphin and turtles seen at various times over the 3 days. Got a chance to snorkel and finally put our scuba diving skills to test by doing a dive to 18 metres in the Great Barrier reef. Lots of amazing coral and fish (including a few clown fish, the main guys from Nemo). Brilliant but feckin' freezing!

My favorite place on the boat trip was to the beautiful white sand beach, Whitehaven. This is a 15 km beach with sand made up of 95% silica that is so fine that NASA borrowed some to make the lenses in the Hubble telescope. Just realised that this will probably only be of interest to me, my Dad and any other nerds/physics teachers out there!

In the evenings we had a bit of laugh with the other passengers, especially our new Irish friends Barrai and Sarah who promised a mention in their blog if we put a pic of them. Ball is in your court now guys!

One of the other passengers suggested a social bonding game (AKA drinking game) called Chicken goggles, as usual we were only too ready to look like idiots

PS, two new words for your vocabulary

• Goon - 4 litres of Australian wine of questionable content and dubious quality served in a box. The warnings of the box state that it may contain traces of nuts and fish eggs. Mark points out that caviar is made from fish egg, he was always the positive one
  
• Freedom Parking - finding a quiet place to park the vans and crash for the night, usually a shopping centre car park or quiet side road. Fine until security guard wakes you at 6am.

MICKs South East Asia Top 5

Ok I decided to give my top 5 South East Asia experiences. I would definitely recommend the following if you are tripping around Asia. It was hard to pick the top five as we have done so much in the last few months but.....

in at Number 1: Tubing, Laos.

We all agreed that this had to be number one. It was the craziest thing we done on our trip so far. We spent two days on the river floating from bar to bar. The zip lines, swings, water slides, and mud baths are serious craic. Some of the pictures speak for themselves.

Number 2: Chu Chi Tunnels

Chu Chi Tunnels is one of the best tourist attractions in Asia. We definitely recommend going to see the tunnels if you are in Saigon. We crawled 100m through one of the tunnels. It was one of the hardest things we did so far.

Number 3: Padi - Open Water Diving Cert

We completed the 4 day PADI diving course in Koh Tao. A great experience. The course consisted of class work, an exam, basic diving skills in a swimming pool and finally diving in the ocean. We reached a dept of 18 metres where we had a dance off, we did the Marcarena and also made a human pyramid. We have also dived the Great Barrier Reef since Asia so we have another dive to add to our dive log books.

A video of our diving in Koh Tao will be uploaded here in the near future.......

Number 4: Ankor Temples, Phnom Penn

We visited the Ankor Temples in Phnom Penn. The largest is Angkor Wat, which is a massive temple and is even on their national flag. The ruins of Angkor are located in the middle of forests. The place is breathtakingly beautiful.

Number 5: Live bands in the Philippines

There are unreal live music bands all over the Philippines. Every bar we went to had a band playing on a stage. They really like American music and some would give Beyonce a run for her money. Special mention to the band Blush....If you are ever in Manila look them up!

Philippines

Apologies for the lack of updates. We've been to a few remote places that didn't have electricity let alone internet and also had a bit of camera trouble (3 cameras bit the dust in 2 weeks). This entry is brought to you by Conor "Chingy" Murphy, from Milltown that came to visit us. I'll start it off as he arrived a few days late (Cheers American Airlines!).

Our landing spot in the Philippines was Clark Airport near Angeles City. We had heard that there was a good nightlife there, but on landing discovered that WAS is the most important word in the sentence. Until 1990, USA had a huge army presence there, but when they withdrew (wahey!), it basically left 1,000 unemployed prostitutes and a string of sex tourists. We landed at 12, went for lunch and a walk through town and were out of there on the 2pm bus. As close to hell on earth as you can imagine. So we arrived in Manila a few days early in the lovely business district of Makata. A bit expensive for our budget, but we did find a lovely Irish bar and a hotel by the bay and settled into to watch the Lions test. Dissapointing result, but we did make some nice contacts with a few Scots. One was the regional manager of the largest employer in the world which happens to be a security firm. Handy if we got in trouble! Anyway, they enjoyed our rendition of Irish songs. Conor (Chingy) arrived the following day so I'll let him take it from here.....

Thanks Marcus - I corrected all your grammar mistakes above! When I got to Manila I made my way to a different hotel and slept off a massive journey which took me from Haiti to Brazil and onto Manila via New York! I spent my first day visiting a guy I know who runs a manufacturing plant in Manila - very obvious why Ireland can't compete when it comes to manufacturing. Met up with the guys (Minors) on the first evening which was emotional to say the least! Everybody is in top form and for all the mothers out there - they're looking sharp! Manila is a strange enough city. It's absolutely massive, but there's surprisingly little to do there. The whole sex industry is quite disturbing and some of the things you see around the streets isn't very pleasent. Intramuros is probably the best tourist site - it's an old Spanish quarter from colonial times. Needless to say that due to the lack of cultural sites there was a few hours spent consuming different types of food and local beers. In the excitement of it all, there was dance-offs in niteclubs, drinking at some great on-street bars and listening to unreal live music bands who would put their Irish counterparts to shame. Along the way we befriended one particular band called Blush and had a great night in the lead singers 39th floor apartment the night before we left for Borocay Island. The same night we were informed by staff at the Irish Bar that the 'all you can drink' ended the previous Saturday due to a group of Scots and Irish. Tut tut.......

Getting to Borocay was nothing short of priceless and due to flight bookings, the Minors left before me. At check-in we were all weighed individually which was a little strange! We arrived separately at Kalibo airport and then faced a 2 hour bus journey to Caticlan port where you get the boat to Borocay. When I finally made it to Caticlan, it was dark, the Minors were already in Borocay and I hadn't notion where! When I got to the island the only place that was open was the police station. I made my way over to the man in charge and asked him did he see 5 white lads passing through earlier who were probably looking around for accommodation tips. After a few shouts and banging on a table this woman appeared and said, "yes, there were 5 white boys here earlier. They are staying in the Borocay Holiday Resort in room 208. Take that tricycle and you'll find them". Without even thinking about it off I went and sure enough when I made the resort there was Kevin Ed tearing up and down pool like a fish. Magic!

Borocay was pretty cool to be fair. Very relaxed, beautiful beach, good bars and good food and a welcome change from Manila. We were pretty well behaved throughout - activities ranged from walking, swimming, doing laundry and eating. The nightlife is pretty good - very random niteclubs frequented by some interesting characters. Mick is showing signs of becoming a psychologist when he goes back to work. He has a particular knack of talking to complete nutcases and making them appear normal. Shakeys pizza was becoming a firm favourite, but a local dish called Topsilong (beef, rice, soup, veg) for less than a €1 was also popular. How you like them apples D2 €12 lunch people?! We watched the 3rd Test in the Lions tour - the same night Keeffe informed us that he was beginning to forget simple maths. Those long bus journeys have taken their toll.......We had a great day out which culminated in meeting the lads at a Hobbitt Bar! The owner loves Lord of the Rings apparently.

We left Borocay (can't remember exactly how) for Cebu. Had to reroute to another airport coz a plane had crashed at the airport the week previous and was still on the runway. Long enough trip to a city that doesn't really have anything to do. We were only there for a night before heading to another fantastic island called Malapascou. Our hotel was right on the beach and next to a great little bar/restaurant. We behaved ourselves the first night and took it handy due to a snorkelling session planned for the following morning. I'm very proud of myself for taking part given the extreme fear of the open sea that I have, but to be fair I was hanging on to the side of the boat for the most part. The coral and all those small fish were pretty cool. During one part of the session we were taken to the wreck of an old Japanese warship from World War II. The second night can only be described as the 'attack of the Red Horse'. Red Horse is a Filipino beer that comes in a pint bottle with no reference to the alcohol content. Earlier that evening Mick and I arrived back to our room which was under water due to a leak in the roof. Cameras, clothes, books - DEAD! Needless to say a few bottles of Red Horse were consumed. Our collective dance and singing qualities were on full show as we serenaded a group of Canadians and a brilliant crew from Italy. Mick, Trick and I led the dancing from the bar-top while Ed caused havoc with a stunning version of 'Katie'. A great night. The GREATEST night!

Our third day was spent hanging around. The weather wasn't great so fellas caught up on some sleep and missed reading. The worst dinner ever was held at an Italian restaurant on the island where the pizza tasted like warm, cornflakes box with a lot of tomato sauce and cheese - not the best preparation for the local Friday night disco on the beach. All shapes, sizes and ages were in attendance and the performance of the night had to go to a 7 year old boy who tore up the beach with some ridiculous dance moves. The Italians tried in vain to compete, but your man was having none of it. The night itself was a great end to the Philippine adventure. It's a great place to visit once you get away from Manila. The people are fantastic - very hospitable and helpful and it's very reasonable. From Malapascou, we made our way back to Cebu for an onward departure to Singapore.

South East Asia..........Done!

Apologies for the lack of blog posts recently. We have been hopping from remote island to more remote island and the Internet facilities haven't been great (think two cans joined by a piece of string). The posts will be a bit backwards too because we had a special guest for the last few weeks, our favourite senior; Conor Murphy. He is winging his way back to Haiti now and will be doing the update for the Philippines shortly.

We flew from the Philippines to Singapore last week and with a bit of time to kill before our flight down under we decided to head north to Malaysia and the beautiful island of Tioman. This was a bit of a last minute call but turned out to be a great idea because the island is amazing. We stayed in beach huts just off the beautiful white sand beach of Salang.



Salang is meant to be the liveliest part of the island but it was pretty quiet when we got there. We spent a lot of our time between Four's Cafe and Bak Bok Rock Cafe. Bak Bok was a beach shack practically overhanging the water. Its tiny but great fun, one of the nights there we were practically the only customers and still managed to drink the bar dry. BiBi (our favourite barman) had to race up the beach for more supplies. We then proceeded to finish them too!

Our last night in Tioman saw our tearful farewell to Conor. We sent him off in style with another epic night at the Bak Bok. Mark threw on the ipod with the playlist from the Great Friday going away party and BiBi seemed to have learnd his lesson and was well stocked for the night. God knows how we got up for the 7:30 ferry the next morning!

We headed back to Singapore and Conor caught his flight back to Haiti. He looked a shadow of the man he had been just a few weeks earlier.














Singapore is a very clean, modernized city when compared to some of the other places we passed through in South East Asia. Yesterday we took in the Singapore National History Museum and caught a cable car over to Sentosa island. There we had a street luge race as a way of deciding who was most qualified to drive the camper van we are thinking of renting in Oz. See Mark and Mick getting set up in their ultra powerful machines below.

After a stewards enquiry the finishing order was
1st - Mick - used his low drag well to just pass Conor at the line
2nd - Conor - should have won but got cocky and started celebrating early
3rd - Mark - early favourite but really let himself down on the day
4th - Darragh - benefited from flying start but not being able to steer proved a hindrance
5th - Eddie - might as well have not turned up his head was someplace else

Last night we met a few of Conor's work friends (Gill and Michelle) for a night out in Singapore. It is a really expensive city compared to what we are used to, prices are around what you would pay at home.

So the South East Asia leg of our journey is over and we are heading to Oz in a few hours. We'll all be a bit sad to say goodbye.


PS: Guess what we did this morning (see below). We're going to Hollywood baby!!

Malaysia

I'll be honest with ya, I wasn't expecting much from Malaysia. If it weren't for the fact that our flight out was from KL, we'd probably have given it a skip. It would have been a monumental mistake. We only had a week there, but it was one of the best spots so far.

The trip from Thailand was a bit of a journey. 3 buses to the border, got across about 10pm, then hopped in a few taxis and headed to the nearest town, Kuala Besut. We spent a night there but after all the traveling we were just ready for bed. Next morning we were up early and on the first bus to the port. There were two options when we got there, a slow boat and a fast boat. We splashed out and got the fast boat - they weren't lying. Two outboard 200 horsepower engines. Think formula one car on water. We absolutely flew across the South China Sea.

The thing about Malaysia, is that most of the population is Muslim, and non drinkers, so the government know that they can tax drink as much as they like, and it won't affect the voters. So they do. Heavily! Coming from the 8 weeks we had endured, our bodies deserved a break, so we decided to take a few days of detox. We ended up staying a week on The Perhentians, most of which consisted of afternoons on the beach, sunset games of beach volleyball (the 5 of us managed to somehow win a set against the locals; an average height advantage of two feet each probably helped), and then a rather large evening meal at a restaurant owned by a lady from Carrick on Suir.


We had planned to do a few activities there, but our laziness kicked in, and the fishing and diving trips were put on hold. The one day we did something was a snorkeling trip. We had expected to see coral and a few fish, but as you see from the previous blog entry, we were greeted by Turtles and Black Tip Sharks. The boat driver assured us they wouldn't bite, but there was one moment, when there were about 6 of them circling us, that I wasn't too confident. Kevin Eddie versus a Shark could be a good storyline for Jaws 5.The last night before we left was a bit of an adventure too. Having booked the 7.30am boat off the island, we decided to get an early night and were in bed by 12. We were reading and listening to music for a while but once the lights went out, Ed spotted a rat - a BIG rat. So Ed "informed" us, and we turned on the light for a look. Sure enough there was a fairly sizable animal on the wardrobe. At this point, 5 of us were in boxer shorts standing on Ed's bed, Darragh with a skipping rope for protection (the Rat's natural enemy). If you looked in the window you'd have been worried. So anyway, deciding that there was no way we could sleep, we went down to the bar for a nightcap. We regrouped and tried to come up with a plan for the night. Option 1 was to sleep on the beach, but then it started raining so that was out of the question. Option 2 was to go back to the room. Having a quick think, we realised that the rat only came into the room when it was dark, so the lights were to stay on anyway. Then we decided that the rat would figure out we were asleep, so we needed some noise, preferably conversations. There were two options on the iPod - the Michel Thomas Spanish lessons, or Darragh's collection of Ray D'Arcy podcasts. We went with Ray, hoping that the rat wouldn't figure out that he was listening to an Irish Morning Radio show. We fell asleep eventually - Trick woke at one stage to see a rat climbing into the frame of my bed, but thought better of waking me thankfully. We survived!

Kuala Lumpur was our next stop, and a lovely spot. After the rat adventure we decided to go for the posh area of town and found a lovely hostel walking distance from the shopping malls. KL is very western, quite like times square. The shopping centers are amazing. Very posh altogether. Mick wandered into what he thought was a car showroom at one point - turns out it was the car park! The food court of the shopping center was about the size of Dundrum Town Center.

The sightseeing was a weird experience. The Petronas is free to go up, but unfortunately you need to be there early. Well, earlier than we were there anyway. So we went up the 460m KL Tower instead. It was 8 Euro to go up which we thought was a bit steep, but the views were well worth it. It made the skyscrapers below look like a Lego city. In addition, for some strange reason, included in the price with the ticket to go to the top, was entry to a zoo, a Telephone Museum, a pony ride, and a trip in a Formula 1 simulator. Not too sure what the logical connection is, but it justified the price to some extent. The Zoo was a bit of an awakening. Spiders, snakes, and all sorts of life threatening creatures - all of which seemed to live in Australia. Not looking forward to meeting them again!

The F1 simulator was interesting too. We're planning on renting a vehicle of some sort in Australia, and this was a bit of an audition for the drivers seat. I finished a respectable 10th in the race, Ed somehow crashed on a straight, and Darragh went one better, toppling his vehicle! They can cook or something!