The Final Blog Posting

Well, we've come to the end of the Big Trip 2008 and it's been a trip of a lifetime.... lots of interesting places and new sights and sounds. The natural beauty of the South Island of New Zealand, The beaches, rainforest and the Great Barrier Reef of Australia. And it was so good to see Ray and Pat and the rest of the NZ Watkinsons. I suppose it's all about new experiences - and we have had lots of those.

Carolyn and I have had fun doing this blog, and we hope you have enjoyed it too.

To sum, some final stats: The total miles flown round the world:

And, a summary of the time zones and changes we travelled through. You can see that the 24 hours lost when we crossed the International Date Line exactly compensated for all the other changes. Which is what you would hope would happen, since we ended up exactly back where we started.

Until the next Big Trip!

Home.

We came back home to the worst traffic we'd seen in two months. And dull, freezing weather. And the sight of two months of mail waiting to be opened and dealt with: And we didn't see one Kangaroo while we were in Australia. But of course we have one at home:

Leg 10 : Hong Kong to London : 5989 miles

Well, that's it. The final leg.

Home on a British Airways Boeing 747-300, altitude 38000 ft; cruising speed 538 mph, all the way to Terminal 5, Heathrow, London.

Yes, we landed at Terminal 5 just 24 hours after it opened, and luckily survived, baggage and all.

Notice how the flight started due north from Hong Kong, crossing China, and then either Mongolia or Kazakhstan (I was asleep at the time) before entering Russia. We flew very close to St. Petersburg and flew over the Baltic Sea and then Holland. I thought it was not a very direct route and wondered if it was to avoid Tibet or Pakistan or something. But when you have a look on Google Earth, it is pretty direct. (Still can't get the hang of the world being round...).

Chinese Communist Propaganda Posters

We found the History Museum of Hong Kong very interesting, mainly for the view point of history from the Chinese side, and as evidence of the current Chinese political attitudes.

And I think the impression gained was that British rule was (definitely in the past tense) seen to be ambivalent (banking system, stability, financial growth) bordering on affection; but frowning at the Opium trade (Opium, made from the sap of poppies, is the raw material for morphine and heroin) and the resulting Opium War to enforce it.

Also visible in the exhibits was anger at the Japanese - the military rule during WW2 was a disaster, which still sours relations between the two countries today.

In 1997 Hong Kong became a "Special Administration Region" of China - the policy is "One country, Two systems" - can you imagine that happening in the UK? It's a good example of Chinese pragmaticness - they didn't want to kill the Golden Goose of trade and financial services in Hong Kong by introducing Communist culture into the terrority.

A side exhibition displayed propaganda posters from the 50s and 60s. The poster below is titled 'The Spirit of Daqing' and shows "Iron Man" Wang Jinxi in suitable heroic pose:

We also liked this poster, becuase it reminded us of Priya and Robi; it is titled 'We would like to be the doves of peace':

Hong Kong Container Port

We first mentioned freight containers in the blog when we saw the Port of Napier in New Zealand. As we already know, containerization is a fairly recent revolution in logistics and shipping. And here, in Hong Kong, we come to one of the biggest container ports in the world.
[below: the view of the Kwai Chung container port from the airport bus]

The dawn of the territory's containerization came in 1972 when the container ship 'Toyko Bay' arrived at Kwai Chung. By 1975/76, containerized cargoes already accounted for 51% of the total tonnage imported and exported through the port. In 1980, Hong Kong had elipsed Osaka to be the third largest container port in the *world*.

In 1987, Hong Kong had further ovetaken Rotterdam and New York to became the world's largest container port in terms of container throughput. handling 23.5 million twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs).On average, some 231,000 ships, comprising both ocean vessels and river vessels for cargo and passenger traffic, visit the port of Hong Kong yearly.

Hong Kong at Night

It's big, bright, and, yes, fairly clever - The main business district at night. The frontage in particular is lit up like a Christmas Tree:

The small skyscrapers in the picture are tall - must be 50 or 60 storeys high. The really big one is therefore abolsutely massive - it's the '2IFC' (IFC stands for the International Finance Centre) and it must be well over a 100 floors high.

Hong Kong

It's like another planet. The contrast from Australian and New Zealand cities in terms of teeming humanity and the general hustle and bustle was obvious.
Hong Kong, although built and controlled by the British for over 150 years is definitely part of Asia. There is a sense of non-Western culture (again not something we had felt in Oz and NZ) and more similar to our visits to India.

And the reason why Hong Kong was built, wedged between a rocky island and a mountain, is BUSINESS. And that's with a really big 'B'. And with knobs on. And then some more knobs, and then, after a step back and tilt of the head to check the overall impression, another level of knobs on top of that. Yes, with all the trappings of Western big business life, it's as if the 1980s never went away - imposing city skyscrapers proudly proclaiming Corporate Land - men in business suits, women in power suits, earnest people in Cafes obviously having business meetings.

Leg 9 : Sydney to Hong Kong : 4587 miles

We leave the southern hemisphere and head back home, with a two day stopover at Hong Kong to break up the journey. Goodbye sun and summer, hello cloud and winter.

Our aeroplane was a modern Airbus A330-300 which is a 767 equivalent with a 297 passenger capacity. There are only 10 of this type of aircraft in the Quantas fleet. Crusing altitude was 36,000 ft; and it took 3.5 hours(! - it's a big place) to cross Australia (crossing the coast west of Darwin).

Sydney Revisited

Sydney is an interesting, lively city with lots of history. Everything that Auckland isn't, in fact. We were looking forward to our (brief) return, with a long list of the things we wanted to do, top of the list was a last bit of sunbathing at the famous Bondi Beach.

[below: a typical Aussie beach bum at Bondi beach on Easter Sunday (when I believe it was snowing in the UK)]

We also spend an interesting day at the city's Science and Technology museum, called the Powerhouse, walking through the Chinatown district on the way and doing some shopping in Paddy's Markets.

Darling Harbour was redeveloped in the 1980s to a modern, tourist and commercial centre. A replica of Captain Cook's ship, the HMS Endeavour, is moored there. The ship is surprisingly small in which to spend two and a half years of your life.

Carolyn and I had seen it before, back in 1997 when it visited Boston on a tour of the UK. We had mentioned the visit to Mum (Gwen) and Dad (Ted) and they came up to see it. We all knew that Captain Cook was Dad's hero. The Wikipedia entry for HMS Endeavour is worth a read, particularly the story of the ship hitting the Great Barrier Reef.We also found a nice pub, The Lord Nelson, which did good food, and more importantly, had its own micro brewery. Its ales were 'Trafalgar Pale Ale' at 4.5% which was served, like all the beers in New Zealand and Australia, too cold and tasted just like lager. Their flagship (sorry) beer was 'Three Sheets' at 5.0% which also tasted just like lager. Oh well.

Leg 8 : Cairns to Sydney : 1221 miles

It's the start of the long journey home; the first part is to return to Sydney where we spend the Easter weekend before flying to Hong Kong.
A little way into the flight, looking down on the blue seas of the Queensland coast, the Great Barrier Reef could be easily seen in the distance:

Bart the Croc!

While at Port Douglas, we visited the crocodile reserve. Everything crocodiles, lazing on the shore, in the lake, in the gift shop, and perhaps even on the canteen menu. There was an amusing lecture about lizards and snakes, but the definite highlight was the lecture about crocodiles, the star being Bart.

Bart was an old croc; certainly not the quickest croc in the swamp and I suspect that the management had given him rubber teeth. So, have a look at the video (sorry again about the quality) and decide for yourself if you could try a go at being a crocodile keeper...

Great Barrier Reef

It *must* be one of the natural wonders of the world. A vast coral reef, just under the surface of the Pacific Ocean, stretching along the coast of Queenland. Home to a myriad of multicoloured fish and other sea creatures.

[below: the Great Barrier Reef from space]
It was the first time Carolyn and I had been snorkeling and after an hour bouncing along in a fast ship to get to the reef feeling a bit sick, we wondered whether it was going to be worth it.

[below: Catamarans (ships with two hulls) are very fast, but this means that the travel is very bumpy!]
Wow! It was. It was a big help that the sea was warm for swimming (an amazing 27 degrees C) and the tour company provided good advice and the right equipment. Once you get used to a snorkel mask (breathing through the mouth, not the nose!)and get comfortable swimming about you experience a tremendous feeling of freedom in three dimensions. Remember this is salt water so you are more bouyant than in a swimming pool, so it takes very little effort to float. The feeling is one of weighlessness, and excitement of a new environment and sensation.

[below: What's this?? A monster from the deep?]

[below: No! It's snorkling dude!]

Tropical Weather in Port Douglas

After the sunny, dry weather in Sydney and for the journey north to Brisbane, we flew to Cairns in Northern Queensland and stayed for a few days in Port Douglas. The weather was totally different - it was their wet season, and we experienced rain and wind.

So what causes this tropical weather?

During the summer, the sea becomes warm (about 27 degrees - I know, I've swam in it). The prevaling wind is from the east, so as the warm moist air from the Tasman Sea is forced up over the mountains the air cools, condenses and clouds are formed. The resulting rain makes this area one of the wettest in Australia with an average of 12 feet of rain each year.
The picture above shows the beach at Port Douglas - notice the clear blue skies over the sea, and the clouds over the mountains.

Leg 7 : Brisbane to Cairns : 866 miles

So, just to recap, we arrived in Australia at Sydney, hired a car and took 10 days to slowly work our way up to Brisbane, and then a flight to Cairns in northern part of Queensland for the Great Barrier Reef!

Ficus Watkinsiana

The Strangler Fig, or Ficus watkinsiana to give its proper latin name, is a strange tree of the rainforest, with an interesting method of survival.

By using an adult tree as its host, the strangler fig avoids competition for light and nutrients at ground level. Its fruit (the fig, containing the seed) is tasty to birds and monkeys, so encouraging the seed to be desposited high in a tree's branches. From there, it sends long thin roots down the side of the tree to the ground to secure a supply of water and nutrients. It also grows upwards from the seed, reaching the sunlight available at the forest canopy before any other tree can do so growing from the forest floor. Eventually, the roots from the strangler fig become so thick to surround the original tree and kill it.