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Sydney is a vibrant, young and fun city. Australia (4/99).

Horse-back riding for the first time ever. My horse kept stopping for a snack, kind of reminds me of me ! The Aussie Outback, New South Wales (4/99).

I probably spent every other day in the water for my 2 month journey up the Australian east coast. Lake McKenzie on Fraser Island, Queensland (5/99).

Fraser Island is the world largest sand island (123km x 15 km) and therefore has its own airstrip. I took a good look around, there really are no rocks at all on the island.  Queensland (5/99).

Magnetic Island, Queensland Coast (5/99).

4 day sailing trip around the Whitsunday Islands is easily the best thing I did in Australia (5/99).

I had a fun 2 months in Australia. It is a warm version of Canada with beaches instead of our snowy peaks. Everyone speaks english, its clean, safe and thoroughly Western. We all travel for different reasons. I travel for the thrill of adventure, to see the extraordinary and to discover new things. So for me, Australia was a bit boring. It would have suited me better as a trip with family and kids someday, or when I'm retired.  The Harbour Bridge, Sydney (4/99).

Date: Thu, 15 Apr 1999

Firstly, I have not been to a supermarket for maybe 3 years. Wow, I can't believe all the decisions you have to make and there are soooo many choices of the same products. Good thing my math is good since I am always calculating which is the cheapest (ie. $2.50 for 300g of Kraft Dinner versus $4.20 for 500g of Kraft Tuna). 

Also without a car, I have to carry it all long distances. Thats too bad because water-melon is cheap here. Today, I was in the downtown business district of Sydney during lunch hour. Seeing all those business people in their suits, all stressed-out and in a hurry gobbling down their lunches. It really struck me and reminded me of my previous life not so long ago. Don't mis-interpret this, I am not intentionally trying to jeer at all you guys, this was just my major thought of the day. 

So far I have been a good boy and have cooked 3 consecutive meals for myself. Stop lauging mother !!!! I actually quite enjoy it, trying out new things and then "testing" the results. Its too bad I am going to have to STOP cooking when I come back home. Ha Ha. 

So far Sydney has been a lot of fun, walking around the city with my room-mates, a Swedish girl and an Italian guy. Its mid-oct for this hemisphere but today was 27 C and sunny. No wonder they call Australia the lucky-continent.

Date: Sun, 25 Apr 1999

Was quite sad leaving Sydney and I now know why its generally considered the most livable city in the world in most polls. Visited a gold mine and panned for gold in the river. I actually caught a small piece the size of a grain of sand. That might not seem like much but most people get nothing or just a speck. I get to keep it so I will mail it home to make my gold watch. 

Rode a horse for the first time yesterday. My horse was well behaved but ate all the time. At every opportunity, she would wander off to the side and start munching on grass, no other horse (there was 30 of us) even came close....she kind of reminded me of me ! Sheared a sheep too. The shearer did one sheep in front of us to show us how and then me and friends sheared the other. Man, did we make a mess...the was wool all over and clumps here and there. Poor bugger must have gotten laughed at when we let him back into the sheep pen. 

Tomorrow's agenda, wake up 5 am, hike over to the nearby Cape to the watch the sunrise over the ocean.

Date: Thu, 27 May 1999

Yesterday, for the first time I got put on a stretcher with oxygen and IV drip, road in an ambulance and put into a hyperbaric chamber for a couple of hours. 

It was Day 1 for my Open Water Diver training and we were practicing regulator breathing without a mask underwater. 10 seconds into the exercise I inadvertently breathed a bit of water up my nose, gagged and popped my head above water. Due to bad luck and timing, I must have had a full breathe of air in my lungs at the moment I gagged and popped my head above the water. This caused a 10% over-stretch of lung capacity, which caused small lung rupture and air leak into my internal arteries. 

Within a minute, these air bubbles in my arteries were circulated to the left side of the brain causing my entire right side to be numb, inmobile and tingly. Air bubbles are in your brains' blood vessels causes blood circulation to the brain to slow down and damages arteries along the way. 

So, it was off to hospital and all that crap. This morning, I had more reflex, balance, coordination and sense of touch and feel tests done and another 90 minutes in the chamber. Still have daily hospital visits for evaluation. Presently I still have some dizziness and not yet 100% balance yet but I feel it getting better all the time. Doctor says diving career is over and even though he'd OK me to dive again, I won't (had many hours in the chamber to ponder things). 

Basically, a split-second error on my part in a controlled safe diving environment costs me ride to the hospital and days of treatment there-after. For me, this is a unacceptable risk and no other high-octane sport I participate in even comes close to the risk of diving. The error wasn't one of neglect or carelessness (such as forgetting to turn on the air tank etc.) but it was an error of natural spontaneous human reflex (breathing in through the nose !). The problem with diving is, the margin for error is practically nil. Anyhow, the Doctor says I am very lucky and recovery is speedy and progressing well. Many of his other patients in similar cases still do not have many motor skills after weeks and some may never regain them. 

On the bright side, I now have a lot more cash at my disposal since I get back $650 dive course fee and obviously have to cancel any future dives I had planned throughout my remaining 16 months. After obtaining my dive license, I was planning to really splurge on a 5 to 6 day $700 live-aboard dive trip to the very best premier dive sites in the Coral Sea (they gurantee 100 ft visibility or your money back !!!). We are talking the Vail, Whistler and Aspen of dive sites. Its funny how life is full of twists and turns. Within seconds my 3 week itinerary went from premier dive sites of this planet to 3 weeks veg'ing around doing nothing on the coast. Problem now is, I cannot do strenous activity for 2 weeks (no running, surfing etc.... not even snorkelling, the only thing I can do is walking or hiking). I can't fly for 3 weeks so I have to re-book my flight to Bali. I can't ascend over 300 metres above sea level for 2 weeks. Doctor has this big Australia map on the wall so he pointed out places were the highway gets too high...its a good thing Aus is a very flat country.

 Funny story. When he told me about the "cannot ascend above 300 metres" thing, I said, "What !!!!... I am going to Nepal in a couple of months". He said, "Calm down, its only for a couple of weeks". Hope I find a good book to read soon or better yet...a girl.

Date: Tue, 8 Jun 1999

Overall, Australia was good and there were no bad parts. Unfortunately, I am looking for extraordinary and spectacular and Aus simply did not have very much of that in my 8 weeks here. I am mostly at fault for staying on the well-worn massed tourist route of the East Coast. I am sure venturing to the Outback would have given me the challenge, adventure, excitement and sense of discovery that was so lacking on the Queensland coast. 

The big highlights were the times spent on boats out on the reef or sailing around islands. Amongst my biggest reasons for traveling is to see and experience something different. Here, the streets, the cities, the language, the food etc. are all very familiar, nothing too different from home. 

I am not at all dissapointed since I never had incredible expectations to begin with. Aussieland simply turned out to be what I had expected. I am really looking forward to Bali and especially the fact that I will be in Asia with Asian food, Asian prices and all the challenges of traveling in a developing region.

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