The Great Barrier Reef

I did it! On Tuesday (29 April), I paid a tour to go and dive on the Great Barrier Reef!

Wunderful!

To be more precised, it was on one of the reefs, 2 hours off Townsville.

2 dives.

Do you know that blue starfish exists? Totally blue!

That's amazing. That looks unreal. A blue like the one ue-sed to paint doors and shutters on the Greek Islands. Can you see? This beautiful intense blue.

Corals are all more beautiful and surprising than the other ones. Some enormous giant clams (let say 1 metre long without exagerating), permanently half-open, filtrate water through the 2 or 3 orifices of the large purple membrane that joins the 2 half-shells.

I saw Nemo! And his brothers and sisters! As beautiful and colourful as in the anim. Always close to the anemon which he leaves in symbiosis with.

And all sorts of fish, of differents sizes and colours. More than 1500 sopecies leave on the Great Barrier Reef.

I've learned that the individuals of one species - which name I can't remember - can change sex once in their life!

The Sergent Major, paradoxally, is dressed with black and white stripes.

Each look is the source of new discoveries. It's a fascinating environment.

Just at the end of the second dive, we furtively saw a shark! Not very big and probably harmless like most of the species, but a shark!

In fact, each year, only one person in Australia and some 3 in the world die because of a shark attack. The potential danger is rather small - more people die as the result of dogs attacks.

Sorry, I don't have any good pictures of underwater.

Townsville & Magnetic Island

I arrived in Townsville late on 20 April.
The next morning I took a ferry to Magnetic Island to join Steve, who then was staying at the some friends' place (a piece of land with a shed).
In just 2 days on the island, I saw all sorts of inhabitants, sometimes unexpected, as you can notice on the pictures. A heavenly island. swimming when get up, walk in the forest on the mountain walls, idleness under the palm trees, observation of the local fauna, sunset... Perfect!

I introduce you to our little companions :
- Allied Rock Wallaby (Petrogale assimilis) , a wallaby who leaves in the mountain. Every night, he and his friends and family came shyly close to us. Sometimes they let us approach (with some food). So cute!
- Brushtail Possum (Trichosurus vulpecula), a possum not shy at all, as soon as he can see or smell some food... or something else he can get its teeth into: one of them bit my finger, before attacking my toe!
- Eastern Shovel-nosed Ray (Aptychotrema rostrata), which translucent nose offers a good camouflage. This one is only a baby, but his mother is probably 1,20 m long!
- Rainbow Lorikeet (Trichoglossus haematodus), a particulary noisy bird!
- Sulphur-crested White Cockatoo (Cacatua galerita), who as well knows how to attract attention, with his very strident cry
- Bush Stone-curlew (Burhinus grallarius), a nocturnal bird who, high on his legs and with his low head, seems frail et shamed
- Death Adder (Acanthophis antarcticus), one of the world's most dangerous reptile
- Huntsman Spider ; actually, on the picture, it's just the skin (!)
And: another beautiful hairy spider, who looks like a tarentule, who was sunbathing in the midlle of the track (rare; usually, they hide in the forest) ; a lezard with a strangely short tail, a gastropod leaving in the mangrove, et some wunderful butterflies (why do you call them like hat? what the link with butter?!!).

The mangrove shelters some crocodiles, and better is not to venture too far away in the sea, because the sharks are not rare. It's possible to see some turtles too, but the reproduction season was finished.
The island, moun tainous, has a area of 52 km², including a 27-km² National Park.

New Zealand (7) - Northern Island

Last Saturday, I took a ferry in Picton, to go to the Northern Island. Beautiful cruise in Queen Charlotte Sound, and then Cook Strait.
Arriving by night in Wellington.

Te Papa Museum, in Wellington, is so interesting (and free) that I spent at least 4 hours, glancing through the exhibitions distributed on 6 floors. You can learn more about Maori the people, its culture, its history...
The Treaty of Waitangi is New Zealand's founding document. It is an agreement, in Maori and English, that was made, in 1840, between the British Crown and about 540 Maori rangatira (chiefs). It is a broad statement of principles on which the British and Maori made a political compact to found a nation state and build a government in New Zealand.


From Wellington, I went to Taupo, a little town which lies by the eponymous lake. A magnificent place.
Along the road, the lanscape

New Zealand (6) - West Coast

We continue our way to the North, along the West Coast.

Photo: before Lake Wakatipu, in Queenstown.
Queenstow is a resort town, with its shops (cloths, sport equipment...), its adventure tourism centres (jetboats, bungy jump, skiing, river surfing, canyon swing, sky diving, mountain biking, paragliding), its hotels... and its fabulous restaurant 'Ferburger': try the Holier Than Thou. One of the best vegetarian burgers in the world!

Yesterday, we had a half day glacier experience at Franz Josef Glacier or Ka Roimata o Hinehukatere, which is a 12 km long glacier located in Westland National Park.
Together with the Fox Glacier (where we also tramped) 20 km to the south, it is unique in the fact that it descends from the Southern Alps to just 240 metres above sea level amidst the greenery and lushness of a temperate rainforest.
It's just awesome!
Crampons attached to the shoes, we climbed the glacier with our guide who, equipped with a ice-axe, re-carved the stairs as and when we advanced.

This morning, halt in Ross, a gold mining town. It was an important centre during the West Coast goldrush of the 1860s and still has a large operating open cast mine adjacent to the town.
The largest gold nugget ever found in NZ was discovered in Ross. It was a massive 3.1 kg with a current value $112,000. The nugget as later purchased by the government of the day and presented to King George V, who turned it into a golden tea set!
We didn't find any nugget, but just in front of me, on the ground... a $100 banknote! The legend continues...

New Zealand (5) - Milford Sound

Yesterday morning, Scenic Cruise in the Milford Sound fjord.
Enchantment among these imposing mountains that fall down in the clear water.
Waterfalls cherish the cliffs and spash strongly.
Some Bottlenose Dolphins gave us a so nice spectacle!
Swimming close to the boat, jumping out of the water, playing together...
They are very beautiful animals.

New Zealand (4) - to the West Coast

On Saturday, we were joigned by Jason, a New Yorker, arrived in New Zealand 2 days ago, after 3 weeks in Australia. Beginning of his 7 month all-over-the-world trip.
A couple, met by Cal in the Church on Sunday morning, offered us hospitality. What a pleasure to sleep in a bed! The back seat of the car is not what we made the most comfortable...
Have taken yesterday morning (Monday) the direction of the West Coast. Still so many sheep. Fields of sheep! There would have been up to 70 million sheep some tens years ago; there are only about 45 million today! for a population of about 4.2 million New Zealanders (plus some 2 million overseas).
On each side of the road, the landscape is alike: flat fields of grass, separated by alignements of pines (probably windscreens), and also sometimes fields of apparently cabbages, some hills, and in the distance mountains, often brownish, sometimes more verdant.

After a rainy morning, the sun reappared.
We arrived in the end of the afternoon in Te Anau, just in time to book fo the Te Anau Glowworm Caves Exploration. First an half-an-hour scenic cruise across beautiful Lake Te Anau, the New Zealand's second largest lake, which lays more than 200 metres above sea level. Disambarking by night and visit of the Caves, within which a guide made us discover these strange inhabitants which are the glowworms. In a complete obscurity, hundreds of tiny green points seemed to hang above our heads, as as many stars in a summer night sky. The Caves are also remarkable by the passages and tunnels that a mildly acid river has dug in the limestone, over 12,000 years.
NB: No photos, because not allowed, especially in order not to disturb the glowworms.

New Zealand (3) - Dunedin and Otago Peninsula

Dunedin is a charmant city on the South-East coast of the South Island. Centered on a octagon-shaped square, it has among others the world's steepest street: Baldwin Street.

Over the 161.2 m length of the top section, it climbs a vertical height of 47.22 m, which is an average gradient of 1 in 3.41. On its steepest section the gradient is 1 in 2.86 m!
Every year, during Dunedin's Festival, take place social and competitive foot races to the top of the street and back. These races are known as the "Baldwin Street Gutbuster".

Arrived yesterday night on the Otago Peninsula.

Today, on the beach of the Sandfly Bay, we surprised some sea lions sleeping under the sun... Pretty improbable encounter, but delicious. The New Zealand Sea Lion is one of the rarest in the world and indisputably the most threatened species because of its restricted breeding range.

The male attain weights of up to 400 kg and a length of just over 3 m.

It's recommended not to approach them to less than 5 m. If disturbed, they can may rear up and roar.

Not seen any penguins, because they only come to the beach when the sun sets.

Then visit of the Larnach Castle gardens.