| |||||||||||||||||
Tuesday 1 December 1998 | |||||||||||||||||
| Had to rise and shine early for the dive centre pickup and was off to their training facility for the first of two days class theory and pool training. I booked a course with Deep Sea Diver's Den when in Sydney, as I had to start the course Tuesday (having a flight booked home on Sunday afternoon). It's very impressive that most of the activities (the tours, boat trips, bungy, skydives, etc.) run minibus services to pick up backpackers from the various hostels around town. There are a large number of busses packed with intrepid folk scurrying around Cairns early in the morning for these purposes. Once at the Divers Den site, the morning was an easy introduction session, with quiet a bit of paperwork (and the dive medical) to get out of the way. The afternoon being spent getting our hands on the equipment and doing exercises in the pool. The whole day wasn't exactly taxing, but you don't want to have to think too hard on a holiday such as this, do you? Went out for dinner to the Firkin Pub (was it the Fox and Firkin?) where I had a huge Mexican dish as everyone else looked on, as they were planning to eat somewhere a bit more posh later on. Stayed here for a while then moved on for drinks at the Woolshed, but I went home early again (well - you have to remember that early on this holiday is midnight) as I was pretty tired and had to contend with the pool again the next morning. | |||||||||||||||||
Wednesday 2 December 1998 | |||||||||||||||||
| Second day of the dive course which was again pretty easy going. Looking around at the group this morning, I felt a whole lot better for having such a small amount of alcohol and a decent amount of sleep the night before. After the course went down to the town centre to get some postcards (to send home to everyone and wish them a merry Xmas - how weird?), and is just as well this is all I was after as everything seems to close at 5pm on the dot here. Went to the Reef Teach talk conducted by some mad Irish guy. Shame I don't remember his name, as he was a very good entertainer, as well as being a marine biologist and dive instructor. Some will find his style a bit over the top - it's very much in the Billy Connelly vein. However, if you've got to put on a bit of a show to educate people about the Great Barrier Reef (the creatures out there, how we can protect it and what can be done to save it's environment) then this was the guy to do it. After the show, I did think about staying home but did the dumb thing and ended up drinking in The Woolshed until 2am.... hmm..... | |||||||||||||||||
Thursday 3 December 1998 | |||||||||||||||||
| Woke up at 5:45 and prepared for boat ride out to reef. I did feel quiet seedy and could have done without having to pack all my gear up and sort out a pack for a couple of days with a thumping hangover - yep, the Woolshed the night before was a dumb move indeed! When we got on the boat (Reef Quest) and began the 90 minute trip to the outer reef this began to look even dumber, as the rough seas compounded that chunderous feeling - urghhh... As we got to Norman Reef (a section named Playground) and took the first open water dive all was cured. The instructors were complaining that the visibility was about as bad as it gets (although I'm sure it was better than the 3m Alex estimated), apparently due to the high winds and tidal currents that we were experiencing (ah... that also explains the bad boat ride out here). This didn't really matter though, as just doing the exercises on the sea bed was pretty cool for one who's not done this sort of thing before. After lunch did a spot of snorkelling, then transferred to the Ocean Quest which was to be home for the next two nights. Did the second dive of the day and saw more of the reef this time (first meeting with a giant clam and few huge fish). Lazed on the sundeck for a short time before dinner - very nice!
After dinner the class took their final dive exam, modesty prevents me from telling who was the only student to get 100% and win a beer (particularly satisfying seeing the Scottish dive instructor dig deep for this). Yeah, right - it was me of course! Was my only one of the night though as diving, not drinking was my mission out here. | |||||||||||||||||
Friday 4 December 1998 | |||||||||||||||||
| Up feeling bright and breezy, despite being woken up by the generator at 5:30, which really did sound like it was the other side of the wall to my bunk. We ate a cooked breakie as the Ocean Quest plodded on to another site on Norman Reef (this one was, Caves) where another couple of training dives were completed (at 8:50, and 10:45). The 10:45 dive was our last before qualifying, so that was it - certified and allowed to roam free on the from now on. This last dive was filmed by the resident underwater cameraman, who had us doing all sorts of strange stuff on the bottom, like wearing sunnies and Santa hats, and I also chewed his plastic jaws model to show we've no fear of sharks! After all this underwater fun we did the traditional group and individual jumps off the first deck, face pulling, etc... all for the camera you understand. Had a nice relaxing afternoon of sitting on the sundeck, baking and eating the nice salad buffet lunch while the boat moved to yet another location (Ralph's Rocks). Had a pretty short (half hour) first dive with just my buddy and I at 3:30. We had planned to follow a few other newly qualified people, but seemed to loose them quiet easily, and also managed to get quiet disorientated. Good job all you have to do to get your bearings is surface, find the boat and then float back down again - at least we only had to do this once.
The final dive of the day came after dinner at 7:30. This is really cool! We followed Alex around the reef in a huge convoy. I think not being able to see anything much (only where you shine your torch) adds to the sensation of weightlessness and flight. The sight of all the other diver's torch beams cutting through the blackness is reminiscent of some space flight movie or something - all very cool.
| |||||||||||||||||
Saturday 5 December 1998 | |||||||||||||||||
Another early rise, but this one was self inflicted having set my alarm for 5:15. Why? Well, to get to watch the sunrise from the middle of the reef is not something one gets the opportunity to do very often, and seeing as we had our first dive planned at 6:30 I thought the extra half an hour or so out of bed would be worth it, and was right.
Had another dive in the Ralph's Rocks area at 6:30, taking an underwater camera we'd hired for the day. Although most of the shots were pretty dodgy, a few turned out OK:
Another hearty breakfast, and not much more of a break (only 1:20 surface time) and it was time to dive once more. We were now on an area known as Troppo (still Norman reef) where the final two dives of the day would take place. This was an excellent location, by far the best dive site yet with a huge coral wall from a couple of metres under the surface to over 30 meters deep. At a depth of around 10 meters we could really get that sensation of flight, being able to see the whole depth of the wall from surface to sea bed. We also met Wally, the huge and friendly Maori Wrasse and came across some large shoals of Parrot Fish flying through the water. The whole experience was utterly amazing. Made good use of this setting to take a couple of pretty long dives, as by now my buddy's air supply was beginning to last a lot longer. We managed to stay down almost 45 minutes each dive, even so, I still had 40% of my air supply left after each one for some reason. It was with a bit of a deflated feeling I climbed the steps out of the sea for the last time. This is very much like the feeling I get when reaching the bottom of the last ski run of a holiday. Damn! Still... at least there's lots of sun here and a great deck on which to lounge around. This I did for a few hours, listening to music, chatting with the buddies and writing a few postcards until Reef Quest returned to ferry us back to Cairns.
That evening we hung out at the Cock and Bull (apparently a well known dive joint) and joined up with a couple of other dive groups who had recently completed courses at Diver's Den. Also had a great laugh at one group of Japanese guys who were apparently due to take their final exams the next morning. Rather them than me... especially after the round after round of strange mixes they were on. Of course, we were having some fun and games too - taking in a few schooners though the snorkel (specially modified with a funnel at the top), and followed them with a few more. | |||||||||||||||||
Sunday 6 December 1998 | |||||||||||||||||
| Last day of the break... simply a day of packing and travel. Had to get up pretty early to be out of the hostel room (I'd returned to Up Top Down Under for my last night in Cairns) for 9:30. However, I was able to lounge by pool and write the rest of my cards. Not much else to say today... cab to airport... flight home to Sydney... rest and recuperate for the coming week. | |||||||||||||||||
Monday 7 - Thursday 10 December 1998 | |||||||||||||||||
| Back to work... yerch! Luckily though, find out my leaving date has been moved to 23 December as IBM have been given Optus' application development contract (hence nothing for us to do at EDS). Spent quiet a long time contemplating the options, but didn't really mind about this, as if I don't find work I would simply see more of Australia and ski more in Colorado on my way home. However, working more would allow me to stay in the Aussie summer more, shall just wait and see. Didn't do much sociably this week, but on Monday Suzy and Danish pals came over and we had dinner at the local curry spot (Shenhai) which was very nice as always. | |||||||||||||||||
Friday 11 December 1998 | |||||||||||||||||
Night of the EDS beach party in Darling Harbour. I wasn't officially invited to this (as a contractor) so did consider meeting up with everyone afterwards (midnight). However, was persuaded to come along, so after drinks at the Berry (as usual) went home to change and then met up with a few folk in Darling Harbour. Gained entry to the bash as the 'partner' of a permie, and must admit, I was pretty impressed by the layout.
The party was spread across a couple of the huge halls in the Exhibition Centre, and had a beach party/fairground theme, with dodgems, shooting galleries, etc. Also basketball and volleyball courts, dinning and a huge dance are. Made good use of the free bar (but not so the buffet), the dodgems (but not the shooting gallery) and the dance floor briefly, but was a bit disappointed with the music and lack of people on there. Although a few of the guys I was with played basketball (and had a go in the hula comp!) I steered clear of the ball sports courts which were proving to be quiet popular - I'm sure there were about 50 people on each side of the volleyball net by the end of the night.). We all wondered over to the Pontoon Bar in Cocklebay Warf (yes, very cheesy name), Darling Harbour afterwards danced around until 3am. For some stupid reason Kurt and I then decided to take a swim in Darling Harbour, albeit a brief one. I'm sure it was all his idea, but I think he'd say the same about me. Either way, this was pretty dumb, but we climbed out laughing so it can't have been that bad. Realising we were in the 3am (no taxi) zone, thought having more drinks would be a good move. Ended up in Jackson's where the door man didn't even notice my jeans were soaking (Kurt had a change of clothes) and we stayed until 5am. Managed to find a cab by this time and got home to see the sun starting to rise over the harbour. | |||||||||||||||||
Saturday 12 December 1998 | |||||||||||||||||
| Got up at midday just in time to meet Kim as she came home, having stayed at her mum's the night before after some work function out west. I wasn't feeling that bad really, just very tired and was glad to hear Kim didn't want to do anything too energetic. We just hung around in the park for a while in the afternoon and had a quiet night in as a consequence. | |||||||||||||||||
Sunday 13 December 1998 | |||||||||||||||||
| Woke up to a great day, so took an early morning trip to Balmoral Beach. Very nice start to the day, but this didn't continue as I had to do a spot of work later on. Yep - strange but true, I finish work in a couple of weeks, but have been asked to work the weekend for the first time today. Having done a few hours of the dreaded, went over to the rocks to meet up with James, Wendy, the Fishes, Scott, etc for drinks in The Orient. Spent a few hours sitting outside during the very nice early evening session. | |||||||||||||||||
Monday 14 - Wednesday 16 December 1998 | |||||||||||||||||
| Things picked up on Wednesday after a slow start to the week as a late invite to a Rockin' Harbour Cruise was extended late in the day. One of the guys at work had organised a few tickets for this bash onboard what looked at first sight like a pretty dodgy vessel. Of course, you shouldn't judge such a night out like this, because the boat turned out to be comfortable, with food and drink onboard - what more do you need? The bands playing were The Wetsuits, which consisted of members of some apparently famous Aussie bands: Jon from Paul Kelly and the Coloured Girls, Clyde from the Hoodoo Gurus and Bones from the Missing Links. Well, I shall just take their word for it, as I didn't recognise the names or the faces performing, but the act was pretty good, so this all may be true! The other headline band were The Del Emma's, which were described to me as, "The Ramones in drag". Well, all girl band (four piece) but they were really girls (not drag queens) so I don't know where that came from, again pretty decent, so who cares? Everyone got big group syndrome after the cruise and couldn't decide on where to carry on drinking. We ended up in The Orient, then for some reason went to the Club Bar at The Sydney Regent - extortionately priced cocktails, but they were very nice. The night then drew to a close as one of our party (and no, it wasn't me) was refused entry to Jackson's on George, probably a blessing in disguise by this point (1:30am) so it was time for home. | |||||||||||||||||
Thursday 17 December 1998 | |||||||||||||||||
| Late to work, but not much to do, and only a few days left, so what do you expect, especially after last night? Played squash with Alex after work, which was a bit of a struggle, but made it through to win 3-2 in just under and hour. | |||||||||||||||||
Friday 18 December 1998 | |||||||||||||||||
Another xmas party to attend this evening, this time thrown by Eurolink at the Novotel, Darling Harbour. Lots of drinks and some very nice nibbles from the gougons of fish to the sattay skewers from the barbie - yum! Both Scott and I won a magnum of champagne each in the raffle, which made a few people suspicious. As this function finished early we turned for home at not far gone 11pm (just like being back in the UK!).
| |||||||||||||||||
Saturday 19 December 1998 | |||||||||||||||||
| Wow... my eight hour theory (you know - eight hours is the optimum drinking session time, much more and won't be able to do anything the next day, and less than this enables work, exercise, etc. to be tackled as if nothing went on the previous night) has been proved once again, and I awake with no hangover in sight. This doesn't seem to be the case for Kim though, as she remains asleep while I go to Cremorne, then into the City for various bits of my Xmas shopping. The TLU party (well, pub crawl and dinner really) was on tonight - this was Kim's work function. Met at the Paragon at 6:30 then had dinner at Sketchies pasta bar. As usual, I ate far too much here, and shouldn't really have asked to have such a spicy dish (it was very hot!) as this called for lots of beer to cool me down in the process (damn shame!). We had planned a bit of a crawl, but there were some of the party that weren't really up to this. We stopped off at Bridie O'Reily's on the way to the Forbes, but again my plans were wrecked and we were forced to walk straight by (this was a great shame as he place was really buzzing by the look of the second floor). Eventually the group decided to check out the newly opened (a couple of weeks earlier) Shark Bar, which is not 'just a couple of minutes' (someone's quote) from the Forbes/CBD area, more like a 20 minute trek. Still, the Shark Bar did seem a pretty cool place, very big, with a huge fish tank in the centre of the place (although I'm not sure just how the reef sharks in there were handling the music). Played some pool (miraculously winning the table on the first attempt) then danced around for a while before leaving about 2am. Took a walk back down George St in search of a cab, and almost got stuck in the 3am zone once more before managing to catch a one that stopped right next to us, and I jumped into before the cabbie could complain. | |||||||||||||||||
Sunday 20 December 1998 | |||||||||||||||||
| Awoke early, 7:30 by some miracle. Or was it because of the sun streaming through the window ( we never use the curtains in the bedroom) and the racket the birds were making? Decided that nothing much was going to happen this morning, but why sleep at home on such a nice day, so went to Balmoral beach where we arrived by 9:30. Went home after a few hours here, and were straight out again to attend the Alex's BBQ. Spent a very nice arvo in his BBQ area with Alex, Richard, Don and our respective women, enjoying loads of BBQ tucker (steak, snags, salad, etc) and a few beers while just relaxing in this excellent location (we were sat right on the harbour's edge, directly opposite Circular Quay). [rocks_rhythm_boat.jpg[
Got home by 6pm and collapsed in front of the TV, absolutely knackered after the previous night and the day's events (I never do get much sleep on the beach, I wonder why I still keep trying). | |||||||||||||||||
Monday 21 December 1998 | |||||||||||||||||
| A few of us at work decided that this week was going to be a bit jammed with social activities, so why not have a night out on Monday just to fill it totally. The plan was a couple of quick drinks and a few games of pool in the Berry, but of course this turned into a few more... Amazingly though, we were the only people left in there by 9pm, and were asked to leave as the staff wanted to close up! Most people left, but Kurt, John (Egan), his girlie and I ended up next door in Giovanni's for dinner. A nice enough place I guess, but I wouldn't recommend it over some of the North Sydney's other eateries. Still, we were a bit short of options on a Monday night, and the place served it's purpose well enough. | |||||||||||||||||
Tuesday 22 December 1998 | |||||||||||||||||
| Had dinner at the excellent, 'It Had To Happen' with Joegen and Suzy. Another very nice Mexican meal in what was a very busy and rowdy place this evening. | |||||||||||||||||
Wednesday 23 December 1998 | |||||||||||||||||
Amusing fact of the night... The Shenhai is a BYO, a term which Con and Ilia took to new heights. Their choice of beverage for the evening was a bottle of scotch (Grants) and two litres of Coke! They did pretty well, and I helped them finish the last of it when we'd finished eating - good call guys! | |||||||||||||||||
Thursday 24 December 1998 | |||||||||||||||||
Christmas eve.. and it's nice and hot! So much for my three month holiday, had an interview for a position with IBM, on their Optus project surprisingly and get the job. Ah well... means I just have to spend more time in the Aussie summer, too hard a task I suppose.
Went over to Wendy's early afternoon to so we could stay the night and spend xmas day there, and lazed around in the garden for a while. In the evening, went to a party (well, backyard dink up) with Greg and Kazza, at a friend's place. We didn't stay long, and just as well as Greg and I ran out of beers having miscalculated the drinking rate. I was pretty impressed with the food laid on, which included loads of fresh prawns. I can't really handle too many of these though, they were just a bit too fishy, perhaps some BBQ'd baby octopus would have gone down better? | |||||||||||||||||
Friday 25 December 1998 | |||||||||||||||||
Christmas day, did the usual family things, being with Kim's family and all - open your pressies, watch everyone else do the same, then eat and drink constantly from midday to 9pm.
The day did have a bit of an Aussie twist to it, as although we had a roast lunch, it was eaten in the sun room, then afterwards we had a huge water fight in the back garden. Suzy and Joegen had come over earlier (11am) to join us, so there were a few of us running around with water pistols, then there was the occasional illegal use of the garden hose to cool things down. Being so hot, we all ended up just sat around in the sun, shooting each other just to keep cool.
Suzy and Joegen left late afternoon as Kim and I wondered off to her dad's place for yet more food and drink. Not that I dislike this sort of social activity, but as I'm sure everyone is aware, a Christmas day marathon like this can be a bit overwhelming. Anyway, we managed to survive this second assault on the waistline and returned to Wendy's to collapse in front of the box for a while before going to bed. Erm, except that it's not all over yet, got up in the middle of the night to call home and wish everyone in the UK a very merry xmas. Then, it was back to bed for some serious zees. | |||||||||||||||||
Saturday 26 December 1998 | |||||||||||||||||
| Due to the length of the previous day, today was put aside for a lot of lazing around and nothing much else. Can't quiet remember how this happened, but I'm sure a lot of naff TV viewing and sleeping was involved. I did manage to don my set of in-line skates early afternoon and do a few laps of the block, but that was it for action and adventure on boxing day I'm afraid. | |||||||||||||||||
Sunday 27 December 1998 | |||||||||||||||||
| Back home in North Sydney we awoke to a perfect day, and as luck would have it this was to continue - there was not a cloud in the sky from sunrise to sunset. Took a trip to Freshwater beach and soaked up the rays, was a bit disappointed that the surf was too wild (loads of big dumpers) to catch any waves so had to be content with floating around past the breakers between sessions of being grilled in the sun. The body's batteries always seem to be recharged after such a day at the beach, so felt a bit of squash late afternoon would go down well. Went to the rather deserted round robin session at Powerhouse and found just a couple of people to play and practice with. There was just time for a quick shower and change before meeting with Jakub (diving buddy type chap) in the Paragon as he was in town for a short time. We were joined later by the Fishes and Wendy, but this little drinking session was brought to an end due to the bar closing at 10:30! Very strange, but we though this wasn't really a problem as everyone seemed to still be recovering from the festivities, and it was off back home. | |||||||||||||||||
Monday 28 December 1998 | |||||||||||||||||
Another perfect beach day - Suzy and Joegen came up to the northern beaches with us. First stop Bilgola, then on to Palm beach. Just lazed in the sun all day... what a hard life.
Headed for home around 6:30 as the sun was getting low in the sky. Not wanting to strain ourselves, had to order a curry delivery for dinner which we ate vegged out in front of the TV. | |||||||||||||||||
Tuesday 29 December 1998 | |||||||||||||||||
| An overcast morning today, but this transitioned to a very nice afternoon, which we spent in the Pontoon Bar having drinks to celebrate of Winston's birthday. Was a great setting for this as we sat in their low deck chairs supping ice cold Han Premium, as the sun streamed into the bar, more and more as it went down behind the hotels on the other side of Darling harbour. Took great pleasure in seeing England win the fourth ashes test (our only concellation this series as it turned out) on the in house TV. Got home and thought it appropriate to call a few friends in the UK to spread the sporting news, because they'd have missed this by being at work, and to rub in what sort of a hard day we'd just had. | |||||||||||||||||
Wednesday 30 December 1998 | |||||||||||||||||
| Went over to the city for a spot of post xmas shopping, and managed to pick upa rather nice ski bag, which I will put to use in March. For the evening activity, it was down to Shelly Beach (next one south from Manly) for a BBQ organised by Fish, Wendy and their big group of pommie girlie friends. Unfortunately, Kim, Scott (on his own, Rachel being ill, and without suitable attire having spent the day at work, so ended up wearing a pair of Kim's shorts and one of my tee shirts) and I were ill prepared and had to dash off to the local fish and chip shop for our supper. Turned out to be a very nice evening spent lounging around on the beach eating, drinking, etc.
| |||||||||||||||||
Thursday 31 December 1998 | |||||||||||||||||
| A bit of a strange day, spent mainly just hanging around the home, and even doing a bit of tidying up (shock!), mainly because we anticipated a bit night, but also as the it wasn't really a beach weather day. First to arrive was Wendy, then Robert... and a couple of beers were had. Then came the girls (Fish, Wendy and flatmate), Suzy and Joegen. Had some nibbles then wondered down to watch the 9pm fireworks from what we thought would be the ideal location - right outside Luna Park. Shame was that although this gave us a front row for the bridge effects, the north bridge pylon totally obscured our view of the others to the east. As the works went on for quit some time we had time to walk round to see a few of those too before the finale on the bridge. Back home, Wendy (who stayed home to avoid the crowds) told us she had a beaut view off our balcony... doh!
A few more drinks at home (well, a couple of beers and a load of Baileys, em) before we wondered down to The Walder for Trisha's BBQ. The Walder is a pretty posh place ideally located right by the wharf in Kirribilli, which has a nice grassed area right on the harbour's edge. We also couldn't help noticing that it was just a quick hop over a small gap into the neighbouring garden contained a pool. Being such a warm night, and not really worrying too much about what people thought at this point it was over to their place for a dip in the pool. Ah... very nice! As we sat and cooled down Kim heard a phone ring and wondered over to an unconscious body (asleep right on the edge of the harbour), unclipped the phone from it's belt and started to chat away! The sleeper did groan a couple of times so we didn't worry too much, but he didn't wake up even when Kim finished the call and replaced his phone. As this incident showed, even people that swim in total strangers pools, uninvited, are not the worst behaved on a new year in Sydney. We watched the midnight fireworks from this Kirribilli vantage point too, then took another dip before staggering home and drinking some more, before eventually hitting the sack around 3am? Who knows? Something like that anyhow. | |||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||
