We flew an hour and a half north of Perth on Skywest Airlines to Learmonth airport.  Nearest town is Exmouth – est. 1967 (so, it’s  younger than both me and Janet).  And headed in our small white 1998 Hyundai Excel (courtesy of Autumn at Allens Car Hire in Exmouth, and following a protracted struggle with bags) down our first long genuine Australian outback road down to Coral Bay (one street and a bay – more later). 
The airplane window had revealed miles of red mountains, nothingness and dirt tracks and a few sealed roads to the east.  Jack and Janet had views on the west of strange salt lakes and bizarrely shaped estuaries.  Strange unearthly colours on both sides made me think of other planets as being more homelike.  At ground level the landscape through which we were driving was red and covered in strange cacti and scrubs and punctuated by giant orange-red stacks (termite mounds?).
 

Coral Bay was one street and we piled down to the end of it to the Ningaloo Reef Resort.  This was really like Tangalooma on the last trip.  Comfortable (at least initially) with bar, pool and beach view.

And what a view.  We have winter light and summer heat.  The bay view is fringed and framed by palm trees.  The sea beyond is turquoise with darker and lighter bits denoting the presence of the Ningaloo Reef Marine Park.  An area of outstanding natural beauty- as they say.  The Reef here ios much shorter than the one so far, far away on the other side of the continent.  Much smaller and closer to the shore. A plethora of tours in glass bottomed boats and numerous offers of snorkel hire.

The first day was orientating ourselves, the second was spent trying to remember how to snorkel properly.  We had fins, mask and breathing tube for the day before our trip to the outer reef.  We walked out to the 5 knot sign on the edge of what is known as Paradise Bay and waded in.  The sea was a clear pale turquoise deepening into a shelf which then changed again over the reef.  It was a spectacular moment – moving from swimming pool type conditions to feeling like you were in an aquarium.  There were fish of every size and shape and colour in amongst the coral.  It took us all a while to get used to it and the sea temperature was on the cold side (even as a hardy northern hemisphere boy) –although tropical to look at.  With a wet suit we would have fared better but we stayed in for a long time letting the current swing us back round to the bay and then walking back up the shore to where we had left our stuff under a hanging red rock just poking out from the dunes (this is a weird landscape – did I mention that?).

In the evening we ate at Fin’s Café next to the trailer/caravan camp – packed with serious long distance aussie holiday makers. Barbecues, power, light, satellite dishes for the Fox-Tel so they can keep track on their favourite Aussie rules teams. At this time the people on the move are generally without children of school age.  Retired couples, younger families, single people, world travellers.  The food was good and so was the wine from the Bottle Shop (combined with a serious, male-orientated wild west bar and huge Australia map and photos of great nights there!).

The next day was our trip out to the outer reef. Meeting at the Eco tour shop in the morning with 8 others – mother and child and three couples of all ages (one young Swiss couple going slowly anti-clockwise round Australia.  We collected our wet suits, loaded our bags onto the dinghy and then onto the boat.  The crew were a young woman called Fran (possibly European but her accent was really hard to place) and the captain of the boat – an Aussie called Pedro.  Headed out towards the outer reef and beyond.  First up – some whale watching.

Big Coincidence of the holiday so far…
On the way out got talking to Lisl and her daughter Niamh.  Turns out that Lisl is a teacher from Perth researching computers in education for her MA and that she heard Prof Richard Kimbell speak about e-assessment on PDAs last year.  What are the chances that you can travel so far and be on a random sample of 12 people and one of them turns out to be someone who knows someone you’ve worked with? (I did a couple of days of field work and some meetings with Richard last year and the year before on that very project!)

After work talk for a while (which started to make me think work thoughts previously missing from the trip), headed out to the front of the boat and watched the water deepen in colour and take us out of the reef area to the open sea, the blue of the Indian Ocean.  Watching now for Humpback Whales on their migration up the coast from Antarctica to calve in the warmer waters of the tropics (we are just above the tropic of Capricorn here!).  When we do see them there is a flurry of cameras and trying to stay on your feet as you try and line up a shot. Much better to stop and forget about the camera and juts watch these beautiful creatures jump out of the sea – mother and calf sweeping along.  We keep a respectful distance.  This is an eco tour after all and the whales are probably watching us too.  It is an awe-inspiring sight.

Next up – looking for rays to swim with – but we fail in this search.  Although we do see a dolphin and then some Whale sharks – dugongs – beautiful creatures and the inspiration behind the tales of mermaids. 

Pedro throws out a line to start fishing and after a long ride around there is a huge bite and t he sight of a beautiful fish streaking through the water alongside the boat.  “Fastest fish in the sea” shouts Pedro and between himself, Fran and a passenger who can fish, they land this great creature on the back of the boat.  “You can take this home for tea later if you want,” he says after administering the final blow to the head.  This is as close to the kill as I’ve ever been and it is a strange feeling.

Finally head back to the reef to a shark cleaning station where reef sharks and others come to the coral reef be cleaned by the parasites and organisms and little fishes before setting off on the hunt again.  Here we all don our wet suits and ease into the sea off the end of the boat.  Cold shock.  Even huger numbers of fish – Emperors nearby with smaller fish in attendance.  Someone from the boat is feeding them crackers or bread and they crowd round us snapping (Alice gets a little bite).  Then it’s off all of us bunched together swimming away from the boat through the coral looking for sharks.  If this doesn’t confront our fears (esp Alice and Jack’s head on) I don’t know what will.  See the dark shape 11 m below parked and cleaned setting off so fast back up to the gap in the reef and the open sea.  We have been swimming for some time now and there is no sign of the boat initially – so this is one of the adrenaline moments you get.  I am reassuring people but actually in need of a bit myself.  Then Fran points it out – about 50m away – I had been completely disorientated by the swim and the cold and everything…

Back on board – we are all a little stunned by the day – how amazing it’s been.  Quiet chatting with other people and then putting ashore.  But not before Pedro has gutted and prepared the fish for us to take away with us – our remaining two nights’ worth of fish here.  A beautiful Wahoo (nope never heard of it either). Cooked back at the apartment with garlic, lemon and butter and eaten with take away chips and a bottle of cold something or other from the bottle shop.  A great day out.

Only downside of the whole thing is the lack of water at the resort.  They are expanding and the workmen doing the job keep cutting the pipes and cutting the supply.  This is Ok for a bit but becomes a bit more of a problem with no showering for two days ands intermittent washing up.  Late in the evenhing it finally returns and the next days looks a little more hygienic than this one.  But this is the wild west.  This is a tiny, tiny settlement with one street and we can see the outback from the end of the road to the bay!

There’s a lot to write but…Internet cafes tend to disable the USB ports so I haven’t been able to get pictures or text onto the blog since Perth (where there was wireless access in the hotel).  Also – as I think I might have mentioned, the 12" Powerbook died in Melbourne – total hard disk failure. In the middle of backing up the Tokyo and early Melbourne pictures.  I suspect that’s all just gone.  Now travelling with John’s old 15" powerbook and uploading whenever / wherever possible.  Currently writing this on Saturday 18th in an Internet Cafe in Coral Bay which hasn’t let me tell all about the reef, the whales and sharks and our outer reef adventure yesterday.  So that may have to wait until we move to Exmouth tomorrow to a Novotel (which may have a wireless network  fingers crossed!)

Only a day and a half really in these cities.

Perth first impressions as follows:
Perth Water / Swan River
Calm vista of a large estuary a welcoming carpet of still (ish) blue-green-brown
In front of skyscrapers projecting a modern and firmly utopian-capitalist vision
In town – buses that cost nothing to travel on – 3 city Cats in blue, green and red to get you around
In fact no transport costs anything in the central zone – trains or buses
So this is the first strangeness
In the evening we wander down Hay St mistakenly looking for restaurants. But this is the business and shopping district, closed down and full of after-dark end-of-the day people.
Including our first sighting on this trip of the hitherto hidden indigenous people. Dislocated, drunk and shouting things.
This is the Bill Bryson version of things – where the invisibility and lack of talking about it becomes an issue in itself. But of course people are talking about it now after Mal Braff and John Howard’s interventions. More of this later…

We abandon Hay St and head in a cab over to Northbridge with a Chinese-Aussie cab driver – very friendly. Full of chat. Not for the first time on this trip we are struck by the friendliness of strangers. He lands us in Sorrento. An Italian family restaurant presided over by a woman who has a hairdo like my mother used to get. This is karma I think and so it proves to be with a friendly atmosphere and lovely service and nice food. We had been touted at some length by the Fishy Place over the road and on the second day we went there. Not so great.

But the second day was really good with two outings/activities. In the first of these we rode the red cat round to ABOUT Bike Hire and borrowed four bikes.

We then cycled down to the Narrows Bridge and round the south bank of the river and back over the Causeway and Hennison Island. Only 10k but it was good to cycle again and the views were lovely. The park in South Perth allowed us to see all sides of Perth. A tidy beautiful area of parkland, strange birds, the Swan River, the views across to the WACA, the junkie needle depository in the toilets, the big houses, the trees of all different shapes…all of it memorable. But best of all – seeing the Black Swan. Picture the scene, a serene and beautiful pair of black swans in the middle of Perth Water, drifting idly across – an English tourist in a cycle helmet and dark glasses desperately running along the bank trying to get the perfect shot in front of Perth’s skyscrapers with the swans in the foreground.


Reminded constantly in the city of the Triffids, the late, great David McComb and that brilliant last album (well all of their brilliant albums in fact).

The other thing we did was ride the train out to Fremantle. And here the atmosphere was so different. This town was founded by the modest Captain Fremantle in 1829 when he declared the whole west coast of this vast continent for George IVth. As such there are loads of older buildings, no high rise, lots of reminders of smaller English municipalities, probably more echoes of New Zealand in fact. Very beautiful. Cafes and shops and sailboats and little malls. And we see and smell the Indian Ocean for the first time and look across to Rottnest Island – holiday destination of many South Western Australians. Some echoes of the actions of the founding fathers of this land are in the history of the Roundhouse – a building at the convergence of the new and old harbours, next to Bathers Bay where indigenous peoples were held prior to their deportation and enforced exile from the lands around Perth/Fremantle. It’s a sobering thought amongst all the undoubted beauty of the scene. There is also the gorgeous area in the middle around the parish church and town hall and statue to Australia’s wartime leader – Prime Minister Curtin – the only WA MP ever to hold that high office. Overall impressions of Fremantle are of a great, human sort of place.

Next up for us is the remote and strange Ningaloo Reef and Coral Bay. We have the good fortune to have our flight changed and moved back to 10.30. We are all a bit weay and the extra couple of hours sleep is most welcome………

John and Gina’s wedding…

Lots of very happy memories to take away.
From the ceremony in the Victoria State Parliament right through to the dancing after midnight to eighties music with a mixed group of hairdressers and anaesthetists. And everything in between. I’ve never been at such a do that combined being posh and well catered with being human and friendly. I managed to stay clear of the after hours in the nightclub and call it quits with the lovely wine and beer at the reception in Champions in Federation Square. Family and friends seemed to get along so well. There was a great Quicktime movie which Joe (best man) had edited with stills from photos of John and Gina in their respective childhoods so far apart. He made a lovely speech – great balance between the usual dishing the dirt and the unusual and frank admissions of love and respect for John. Janet had a tricky mission with absent friends after Bill’s death last year but managed a lovely, subtle speech which mixed humour, warmth and emotion together. The same in equal measure went for John, Gina and Dennis (Gina’s dad) – great words from all. Lots of drinking and dancing ensued (including the knee dance – but mainly for Jack’s benefit – he will inherit the gene and it’s best not to hide it). The children had a great do – Alice and Jack both loved being members of the wedding. And I have a horrible feeling that this has set the bar for Alice’s do one day! I feel a little sorry for Debs – Joe’s girlfriend – because she got the full- on GoBetweens story from me (and very probably the Brian Eno being a genius talk too). Accident of the seating plan. But she was polite and smiled through it all!
Janet came home really happy that we’d gone and smiley and needing sleep badly after coming down from the event and making that difficult but wonderful speech.
And that was that.

Melbourne has been – up to the time of writing – a mixture of meeting new and old friends, shopping, eating fine food and – particularly – drinking.  Especially yesterday at the Crown Plaza – the enormous 24 hour gambling city within a city.  In fact John’s stag do (or buck do or gentleman’s evening) stretched from lunchtime up to the small, small hours of the day after.  It introduced me to two things I don’t normally do – (and there’s a  good reason why I don’t do these things).  The first was formula 1 driving in a computerised simulator somewhere out in the far eastern suburbs (In Kath and Kim’s country), arriving there by minibus.  I came last or second to last in most races, crashing so badly on one occasion that I crashed the computer too.  Jack, who joined in this part of the buck, fared better.  It was really hard and I was absolutely useless – so it’s not a new career option.  The second thing, much later in the evening was gambling in the Crown Casino – just play gambling.  Whilst all my classmates were busy ripping each other off at my school, I just didn’t get it and still don’t.  But we had good tuition, it was great company (– very easy going and friendly.  A mix of family, Australian medics (anaesthetists) and the UK representatives.me and the best man, Joe)
and fascinating to get a glimpse of another culture.  This was a place in which the concept of night and day was lost (even more than being on a plane).  Money poured out of people.  Cash machines rang out.  Drinks were following faster and faster as the night hurtled towards its inevitable conclusion.  Kebabs in the centre of Melbourne at 3 a.m.

The day after was long and slow.  Jack and I used the web at Port Melbourne Library.  Alice and went in to the city to sort out some more of the wedding preparation and then we wandered into Federation Square.  Lots of new buildings and the Australian Centre for the Moving Image. ACMI.  Fantastic.  Digital storytelling – archival material featuring Australians and their memories. Selections of students’ digital work which was great…

Seems churlish to moan about an undeniably glamorous sounding trip from Tokyo to Melbourne via Sydney but…it was something of an ordeal.  Began well at the fabulous Narita Airport.  Busy, busy, busy but guess what?  Calm, efficient, well organised, friendly even.  I was not homesick for Heathrow (as in abandon all hope etc.).  Neither was it the very lnog flight over the Pacific, over New Guinea in the night and all down the East Coast of Australia to Sydney.  Twas long and boring and sleepless and 9.5 hours but…OK.  OUr problems began at Sydney when we had to leave the plane, get re-screened and then get back on the plane for the Melbourne leg.  we did all this.  But the plane didn’t leave for three hours while they fixed something that was wrong with engine no. 2.  I’m glad they did this obviously but after a sleepless, uncomfortable night, three hours more sitting in those seats and then another  flight to Melbourne.  It was time for the trip’s first genuine AAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRGGGHHHHHHHH moment.

And then…
Great to be met by John and Gina.  I don’t think we were ver good company initially.  Grey, yawning people in your house…

4th August
Today – new Tokyo.
After yesterday’s shrines and older things.
By overground to Ebisu and then from there via underground to Rippongi to the Rippongi Hills development.  Built in 2003 with an observation deck overlooking Tokyo – at the height of Canary Wharf (well, two floors higher at 52), an art gallery and a “sky aquarium”.  Like a cross between that tower and the London Eye. Breathtaking views – the highest point in the city – great photocalls for the landmarks like the Tokyo Tower, just like the Eiffel Tower but red!  It’s almost possible to get a handle on where we were / are.

Some more impressions;
Food court
Quiet
Soup factory and Bagel Bagel
Spotless toilets (all with running water available to cover any noises – also with bidet feature)
Louise Bourgeois Spider, last seen at the Tate Modern guarding the entrance to the Tower
The Metro Hat – through which you emerge from the train
Le Courboisier creativity show, including model houses reminds me of the inspiration behind the Ferrier Estate in Greenwich)

After quick, late, light lunch – off to the shopping districts of Harajuku and then Shibuya.
Familiar names (Gap, Ralph Lauren), mingle with the unfamiliar (Irony Corner being my favourite).  Boutiques and restaurants, trendy shops, Gallop for shoes.  But it is much hotter and more humid today and everyone is flagging!

Hit Shibuya just as a hundred or so mobiles are pointed skywards by some young folk gathered at the statue of Hachiko the dog.  They are staring up at a birthday greeting for one of their mates broadcast on a giant video screen.  Here is Piccadilly Circus and the Clock at Waterloo Station combined – a mad meeting point and street crossing with neon neon, neon everywhere and half of Tokyo’s millions crossing from six directions at once.  This is the cliché of what it’s like to be here.  The senses are overwhelmed and no photo or video clip will quite do it justice I think.

Back at the hotel shower off the heat of the day and walk out for last meal on the 35th Floor of the Maranuochi Building – piano player, fantastic view of Tokyo by night.

Flying there

11 hours and 25 minutes

The day before the first full day in Tokyo
Began our stay with a Hotel or Limousine Bus into the centre from Narita Airport.  Past outskirts that look like all city outskirts.  Weaving through the traffic along the expressways.  It takes about an hour to get there.  Greeted by people who knew we would be there and when.  Everyone has had a bad night and wants to compare notes about it.  Head out and about to find somewhere to eat after figuring out the shower/bathroom.  And free Internet access.  Find a pub that seems to do a Japanese style Tapas and lovely local beer.  Some of this food has a mixed reception among the group. But the chips with rosemary and other herbs go down well.  There is too much tiredness around for too much adventure.

3rd August The first full day in Tokyo
Began the day in by waking up with a few minutes to get breakfast.  Having slept through the 8 o’clock alarm having not really slept between 4 and 6 and then plunging into a really deep sleep and dreaming of chasing a black and white striped bee round the room. 
There’s the Herald Tribune outside the door in a plastic bag – the world’s news in just 24 pages.  A bridge has collapsed in Minneapolis and the picture of it buckled and cracked fills the front page.

Breakfast is in the pink hotel breakfast room with elderly travellers from the US and Britain having their pictures taken with the waiters and waitresses.  It’s a buffet and the staff smile tolerantly at the just-in-timers.  Ten to ten.

Began the day out by walking the short distance to Tokyo Station in the humidity and heat of the day to confront the ticket office and baffling array of places and lines and trains and bustle and everyone else knowing what they were doing.  True to form so far, we were immediately, effortlessly helped by a smiling person to buy tickets for the Yamamote Line to Shimbashi –where we were going to walk to the river to go to Asakusa by ferry. Three tickets plus one –this seems to be the way of it here. It cost 160 Yen for each of us. The Yamamote is an overhead line that trundles in a circle round the main districts of the city centre at about the height of the DLR.  So it’s an excellent way of seeing things and getting places.

First impressions:
Cool air-conditioned trains
Helpful people
Bustle and hustle without noise
Cars that seem to make no sound and never jump the lights
Eight lane highways cutting through everything
Humidity
Scent in the air
Bikes on the pavement. Legally.
Trains overhead and under your feet.
Power lines dangling overhead
Sudden old buildings
Buildings on top of buildings

Walking from Shimbashi we found ourselves off the tourist trail and getting rapidly more lost. Cut through some roadworks out and under the expressway into the Hama Riku Teien – gardens by the Samuda River.

Here we had tea in the traditional way in the floating teahouse in the middle of the ornamental pond in the Hama Riku Teien.  You take off your shoes and wait on the mat and a woman brings you a bowl of green tea (hot or cold) with a sweet next to it.  She kneels in front of each of you in turn and bows. You bow in return.  Turn the bowl and drink it in three sips.  I have to drink Jack’s when she’s not looking.  You then eat a sweet covered in a sugary jelly.  I have to eat Alice’s when the waitress is not looking.

Outside the only sound is of the trees rustling in the wind and the fish jumping in the pond.  The teahouse is so still.  Some equally awestruck Korean tourists take our picture when we ask.  I photograph the absence of people through the window with nothing disturbing the moment.  And we are in the middle of Tokyo.

The riverboat leaves from the corner of the park.  We travel up under the 14 bridges.  Buy drinks on the boat.  An elderly traveller in front shows his granddaughter some of the sights of Tokyo on the way up, tells hers stories all along the way.

Off the boat and in search of somewhere to eat.  The jet lag is kicking in weirdly with all of us ravenous and in need of something familiar. Just as well we find the neon lit Miami Italian place with pizzas and pasta and apple juice and iced water.  And feel like we are coping and adjusting. 

Then up the street that leads to the Senso Ji shrine.  Full of tourist capturing shops.  And there are sweets and fans and purses to buy.  But it’s all so beautifully done and at the end is the fantastic ensemble of buildings at the Senso Ji.  The pilgrims wafting incense towards themselves before visiting the shrine, throwing some money in the box.  The shrine is the home to a 7.5 cm gold figure of a goddess found miraculously in some fishing nets. 

The fishermen are celebrated at Asakusa shrine next door.  Jack and I take a closer look.  A priest approaches the shrine and claps twice in prayer.  The trees rustle back.  Cut paper prayers and wishes swing in the breeze.

Home on a long walk through to Ueno Station. Long because the City Map I have misses out some of the Asakusa Dori.  The station is the same sort of size as Tokyo Station and we manage to figure out the machine ourselves.  We roll slowly back along the Yamamote line. 

Glimpses of:
Neon
Other trains
Late workers coming home
Sounds of Mrs Mills organ phrases at all the stops on the line

From the window of the train

Walk back to the Hotel and start to feel drowsy but keep the illusion of being awake going long enough for a normal bedtime.  Manage a late bite in the restaurant downstairs.  Some comfort food again.