Ari's Planet

Somehow I made it to Broome. Whew, it's hot here. Found a couple of guys who are doing the Gibb River Road (GRR). This is a dirt road that goes more or less from Broome to Kununnura (not exactly, see a map). We're planning to leave Saturday and take about 10 days to complete the 660 km track. One of the guys is an Aussie tour guide with 30 years experience and a shiny big 4 WD. The other guy is a Brit with a camper van. This afternoon they took their cars to be serviced. We're hoping to find a couple of more people to go with us and share expenses. There's an outside chance one more guy with a 4WD will join us, and having an extra vehicle will make me feel better. The big thing is the road can get flooded in the "wet", which we're rapidly approaching, making it completely impassable. This is really the tail-end of the season. The road is still open, though there's only one open service station on the way, so we'll be carrying plenty of water, food, and fuel. There are amazing gorges as side-trips, but my understanding is that these are mostly or entirely closed now due to the season.

Guess what? There are holidays in the middle of December! Who knew! That's right, Australia takes off and leaves from around mid-December to end of January. The airlines figured this out before me and know they can charge stupid amounts for normally cheap airfares. For instance, Darwin to Singpapore on Jetstar is often $50 to $100, but during this season it ranges from $300 and up. Not only that, but I'd much rather get to Bangkok, since there are cheaper flights from there to Kolkata, India, which is where I think I'll start my tour there, but there are no flights on the cheap airlines from Darwin to Bangkok. Vayama and a few other services come up with amazing routes taking me to Cairns, to Sydney, and then back up to Singapore, which is absurd. Flights from Cairns aren't cheap either. Options are to leave Australia ASAP, which I don't want to do, or extend my visa for $100. But first, I need to escape Exmouth. There's a bus that comes through, with a transfer, at a stupid hour in the middle of the night and involves a scary number of hours to get to Broome, from which I still need to move on to the next destination. I can get a ride to Port Hedland, but then I'd be stuck there for 4 days waiting for the bus. There is nothing to do in Port Hedland. Hmm.

A batch of photos from my trip up the coast from Perth to Exmouth.

Cape Range NP	Carnarvon area	Coral Bay
Exmouth	Francois Peron NP	Geraldton
Kalbarri and Kalbarri NP	Lake Thetis (stromatolites)	Pinnacles Desert
Shark Bay World Heritage Area	Stockyard Gully NP	West Australia (various)

After Coral Bay we drove up to Exmouth. The starter motor burnt out attempting to start up at the gas station, leading to an impromptu extension of our stay in the Exmouth area. I went for a dive, oggled (literally) fucking Green turtles (the correct and more polite term is "mating", but walking up to your friends and saying "I saw fucking green turtles" is much more satisfying), and we spent a few days push-starting the car around Cape Range NP and being blown over by the winds. Tomorrow our plan is to head out to Karijini NP for a few days and then back down to Exmouth where I will do some more diving. In the meantime, my attempt to burn DVDs turned into a virus erradication effort on one of the dive shop's computers.

Traveling in an old Nisan 4WD and having a ball. Snorkelled the last couple of days--it was stunning. Tomorrow is time for more snorkeling. The thermometer in the car says it's 40C and it feels it. Dry, flat, red sand. It looks like Australia, complete to the Emu crossing the road.

After two weeks of checking notice boards I caught up with a nice British couple heading up from Perth to Broome in their newly-painted matte-black 4WD. Along with a German guy, we'll head out tomorrow after my 3rd JE shot and some food shopping for a ~2-3 week sweep up the west coast to Broome. Lots of fun it will be, so many things to see.

Probably the safest solution is to get a basic domestic individual health insurance plan for the US and supplement it with one of the international plans such as those offered by insuremytrip. The domestic plan will cover the usual medical treatments in the US and the interntional plan will cover overseas treatment. Individual plans via bcbs are very expensive, at least $230 a month, so one of the state's subsidized medical plans would be more affordable. Therefore, which state plan do I get? Which international plan do I get? Can I cancel my travelplus insruance, which offers 100,000 evac insurance and get a prorated refund if the other medical plans offer suitable coverage? How does it work if both insurers offer coverage for the same thing?

Traveler's Emergency Network, provides emergency travel services, including $100,000 evacuation insurance for $129 annual individual membership.
InsureMyTrip.com, quotes and comparisons of several travel and medical policies; very convenient.

Latest photos from Australia are up:

Collie area	Fremantle	Perth
Rottnest Island	Sydney

After several hours picking out the latest photos and writing short descriptions, followed by much wrangling with OpenOffice Calc (a spreadsheet program with some missing features), Exiftool (which chokes on single quotes and parentheses), Bash shell, and too much (re)uploading of files, I have severly wounded the Beast of No Description or Titles, at least for the new photos. My last major batch of photos from New Zealand is now online, including:

Auckland
Awanui
Cape Reinga
Kerikeri
Northland
Piha
Tongariro

cape to cape Transport from Busselton, Dunsborough, Margaret River and Augusta. The north end is closest to Dunsborough, the south end is closest to Augusta. Transwa goes to Busselton, Margaret River, Augusta, but Greyhound only goes to Augusta. Leaves
Perth Sun-Thu 1230 arrives Busselton 1628, Margaret River 1745, Augusta 1815. Sun to Fri there's a bus also at 0830. Return, there are buses leaving 0830 and 1505 from Augusta.

Transport

transwa routes map. A 10% discount for backpackers VIP/YHA cardholders only by phone 1300 66 22 05.
greyhound routes
easyrider seems like the best option.

Backpacker sites

http://www.backpackerboard.com/

On my list

Nilgaloo reef diving (whale sharks, etc.)
Kakadu NP (NT)

Sydney was not my place. A big city. Seemed nice enough. The opera house was nice and iconic. The art gallery had free admission and I admired all the very British romantic paintings from the 19th century. Students in school uniforms--white with tie for a group of young teenagers, yellow shirts for younger kids--were being tought about various works. There was an immense drawing of Russians running away from Napoleon's forces and another painting of British forces repelling 4000 Zulu warriors (I think this got made into a Hollywood movie).

My last day in New Zealand was a great success. That day I trundeled into town and picked up a few last-minute gifts. On the way, a couple of fellow hostel inmates sprung for several of my books. Two Germans, in rapid succession, both commented "hey, I've seen that film" on seeing a copy of "The Art of War". Yes, I know that's sad but they're nice guys. Getting rid of the books bought me some cash for gifts, as well as lightening my load an avoiding a repeat of the Great Plastic Bag Burst of 2002. Later I met up with a few more hostel mates and we went fishing outside Auckland. Actually, they went fishing and I took pictures. My rule: teach a man to take pictures and he'll get a photo, teach a man to fish and he may or may not eat that night. I ate some Chinese concoction and we all swilled sandy Irish Cream. The big frenchman made off with a nice snapper, and I got great sunset shots of the Auckland skyline, or rather of the light that was not blocked by man's buildings. The next morning was early and involved a failure to eat my last three tomatos. I did get to the airport properly on time, was given several conflicting opinions about taking matches on a plane, and enjoyed not having to take off my boots to go through security. The flight was uneventful, accompanied by the dreadful Get Smart. I seem to have dozed off at some point, which is the only way I can explain the following events. After landing at a typical airport, I made my way into what looked like a typical city, found a typical hostel, checked in, and went for what I thought would be a typical walk. Now, my flight, at least as I recalled booking it, was from Auckland to Sydney, which if you look up a map is in Australia. Now, imagine my shock when it turned out I was in Brazil! Just a short walk out, and there were all these Brazillian flags, Brazillian girls, Brazillian food, Brazillian music. Now, Brazil is a right nice place, but I just wasn't expecting it on this particular day. I think they may have put up a replica of the Sydney Opera House (probably another Disney production), but other than that, I just can't figure it out. Maybe when I fell asleep a kea escaped from the cargo hold, ate through the cabin floor, and hijacked the plane. That, at any rate, seems like the most plausible explanation.

I was booking a flight with Virgin Blue, one of the discount domestic Australian airlines, to fly from Sydney to Perth. The booking page said I would be generating about 270 kg of CO2* and that I could offset this amount for a bit under AUD$4. The money would go to an Australian government approved abatement program. The link about the program brought me to Virgin Blue's Fly Carbon Neutral page. Here, it is stated that the money will go to either LMS Generation or to a Waste Composting facility operated by the Southern Metropolitan Regional Council. LMS Generation uses gases from waste to generate power. This, in itself, does not reduce carbon emissions.

There is a small remnant of the forest that once covered the north of NZ. There are some 300 plant species, the most massive being the giant New Zealand kauri trees that were mined nearly out of existence in the 18th and first half of the 20th centuries. Tane Mahuta, the largest known surviving NZ kauri, is enormous. Its girth is astonishing, its height impressive. It is estimated at 2000 years old, but I have heard people say it may be 4000 years old. Kauri grow very slowly, a tree planted 12 years ago looks like a seedling of any other tree, a tree is not worth harvesting until it is 200 or more years old. Kauri shed their lower branches, so only the crown is filled with branches and leaves. There, maybe 50 meters up, another more than 30 species of plants make their homes, mosses, epiphytes, flowers, roots streaming in the air. On a rainy day water drips through the forest. Kauri and other trees climb up, ferns and all sorts of things cover the wet ground. The Kauri Museum is misnamed: it should be called the Kauri Logging Museum. Only a living kauri forest can convey what the forest is like. In the museum are impressive logs, ancient wood tens of thousands, even tens of millions, of years old. There is translucent gold kauri gum. There are manequins and displays, machines and gadgets, a wall of love for chainsaws, a light that breaks in the sky (ceiling) above the revolutionary Caterpillar tractor. People fish in NZ. The waters here are not yet depleted, men are so happy to gather food from the seas. Where is the yonder light that breaks over the sonar equipped fishing fleet that so changed the oceans? The fish do not jump into the nets in American waters. Lambs skip across the rolling waves of land that were forested. The museum does not convey the living kauri, it conveys the denuded ocean, by hook and by barb of sharpened steel, the rotating blade of a saw. Tane split his parents and let light into the world, Tane Mahuta lets the light of understanding into the dim heart.

At dawn, lambs followed their mums on close cropped grass. My movements startled, a camera lens raised, a lamb's ears turn, its mother grazes on. A goose walked under my tripod, as I was intent on a bird walking through a rivulet running to the sea lit by the rising sun. A tui (starling sized) chased a kereru (a large pigeon), for it had settled in its tree. Men walked out to fish on a rock, a shad lay dead under glowing pohutukawa, holding the sea and the land at bay, lest oysters carve into their curving bark, blister tidal stone. Out of peat are hauled trees, which fell yesterday, 50,000, 100,000 years ago, from seams of coal comes wood that is 30,000,000 years older. On Tane Mahuta live 30 species of plants high in the air, their roots swriling in the sky, the great time-faring canoe that caries them beyond men, past moa. Rain drips, drips, drips.

After getting bogged down in Mt. Eden for a couple of months, it is time to move on to new places. I've rented a van from Wicked Campers ($19/day) for 10 days, starting Monday, to take me up to North Land. Up at Cape Reinga is a tree whose roots surround the entrance to the Maori underworld. I hope to see this place, which reminds me of Muroto Misaki in Japan, a place at the edge of a vast sea believed to be a gateway for the souls of the departed.

I posted some photos from New Zealand that hadn't made it up yet:

Auckland
Coromandel
Okarito
Rangitoto
Rotorua
Thames

One rainy Sunday morning, England, America and Italy were sitting there watching possibly the worst episode of Star Trek Voyager, in which Commander Chakotay is stranded on a planet at war and is apparently aided by men who completely, but not unintelligibly, mangle the English language, with phrases such as "trunks" for forest. It was the unnecessary use of the word "crave" on this imaginary planet at war, however, which led to the War of Italy and France vs. English of 2008. As every schoolchild knows by now, this war started in New Zealand over what initially seemed like a trifling misunderstanding. Italy, not knowing what "crave" meant, asked America what it meant, which America dutifully answered "want" (later historians have claimed that this meddling by America led to the subsequent fighting, though others counter that this is a highly revisionist version of events). Italy, seeking to explore this new word, attempted to use it in a sentence.

http://wikitravel.org/en/Mount_Kinabalu cost MYR 465 ~= USD 140 18/08/08
http://www.sabahtravelguide.com/features/default.asp?page=immigration

orangutan help http://www.orangutans.com.au/Orangutan-News/Volunteer-Help-for-BOS-Proje...
USD 40/night * 2 week = USD 1120

kalimantan http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalimantan
visa multiple USD 155, single 60 day USD 70, arrival 30 day USD 25
http://www.indonesianembassy.org.nz/consular/consular.php
7 week volunteer projects http://www.orangutantrop.com/volunteer/volunteer.html
We run three expeditions of seven weeks between mid-June and mid-November. This is
the dry season and the best time for carrying out research.
GBP 1300 + ~ GBP 5/day * 49 ~= GBP 1550 ~= USD 2896 ~= USD 59 / day 18/08/08

Not having schistosomiasis parasites running around has made the day much fuller of time and energy. So what goes on? Well, not too much really. There's life in a quiet suburban hostel. People come and go. Some stay for months, giving a chance to get to know them. Every evening the kitchen fills up. We take turns, or not, commandeering the one gas stove. This is the preferred cooking area, as the electric stove has two settings on all its burners: off and burn-your-food. One of the most fun things is watching people from different cultures concoct their dinners. Everyone has their own way of eating, Asians use rice flower, Europeans cook heavier dishes in pots, I cook my own measley cuisine (I call it "Ari Cuisine", which isn't saying much). Unfortunately for the continent, Europeans don't know how to make pancakes. They make these thin things without any fluffiness and are sorely deprived of maple syrup and blueberries. Hmmph, I think it is quite obvious why they all want to come to America! Now we're trying to watch the Olympics, but after the opening ceremonies I wonder if anything they show is based on true events.