Struth! 007 puts Thai island on the map

IN his continuing search for the more weird, wacky and wondrous in the world of travel, David Ellis says that while most countries would give the proverbial quids to have a block-buster movie shot on one of their biggest beaches or islands, fellow travel writer Roderick Eime points out that Thailand's had one of its smallest islands and beaches used not once, but twice, in such block-busters.

Dry weather holiday calendar

RAIN can dampen any holidaymaker's spirits.

And if you think the downpour that seems to coincide with your annual camping holiday is nothing more than bad luck, take a closer look at the calendar – you may actually be betting against the dry weather odds.

To help travellers lower the risk of a holiday drenching, Flight Centre has scoured the Bureau of Meteorology's (BOM) historical weather statistics to find the driest months at Australia's holiday hotspots.

"Obviously, weather is unpredictable and there can be no guarantees of clear skies and endless sunshine, but history shows you may be safe to leave the umbrella at home if you travel at specific times of the year," Flight Centre Limited global marketing manager Colin Bowman said.

"This is the case both in Australia and overseas.

"Our suggestions below are not necessarily the year's driest months at every location, but history shows that travellers can expect low rainfall and a high percentage of sunny days if they take off on holidays to these hotspots at these times."

January

At the dawn of the new year, head to Melbourne and the Great Ocean Road.

BOM records show that Melbourne receives an average of 47.3mm of rainfall in January, not to mention its highest average temperature (25.9 degrees), while Lorne receives just 39.4mm of rain.

February

Tasmania is at its driest in February, with Hobart receiving just 40.1mm of rain on average during the month. According to BOM, you are also most likely to enjoy more clear days (4.3) than during any other month.

Adelaide is also a great dry weather bet in February, averaging just 13.5mm of rain.

March

After catching the last of the summer sun on the Apple Isle, travellers can spring across Bass Strait to Geelong, where average monthly rainfall is 34.6mm.

April

In April, you may not need to shelter from the rain underground if you head to Coober Pedy in the South Australian outback.

Average temperature is a comfortable 27.6 degrees and average rainfall is just 6.5mm.

May

You'll be a little early for the city's famous motor sport action if you drop in to Bathurst in May, but chances are you will see sunshine.

May is the second driest month in Bathurst, marginally behind April. BOM records show that the city averages 41.9mm of rainfall.

June

The average temperature is a chilly 12.3 degrees, but there's little chance of rain in the nation's capital in June, with Canberra receiving an average 37.9mm of rain.

July

After chilling out in the Canberra sun, head north to Darwin in July.

History shows that travellers can expect just 1.2mm of rain on average and the year's coolest maximum temperatures (30.5 degrees).

On the way to the Top End, stop off at Uluru, which receives just 9.2mm of rain on average during the month.

August

In August, follow the sun back to the East Coast and stop off in Port Douglas, where average rainfall is just 24.1mm – about 18 times less than travellers can expect during the year's wettest month in Queensland's tropical north (March).

Nearby Cairns is also at its driest, with monthly rainfall averaging 27mm.

September

A host of holiday hotspots are good dry weather options in September, including Hamilton Island (27.9mm), the Gold Coast (43.8mm), Brisbane (45.7mm), the Sunshine Coast (55.8mm), Byron Bay (65.9mm) and Sydney (68.6mm).

October

Chances are you won't need the wet weather clothes if you're heading to Broome in October.
History shows an average monthly rainfall of just 1.4mm.

November

As the year draws to a close, consider Norfolk Island (75mm) or Newcastle (70.5mm).

December

If you're heading to Lord Howe Island and your Christmas wish is for sunshine, you may just be in luck. According to BOM, the island is at its driest in December (103.9mm of rain on average).

Struth! 30 million glasses of wine a day

 

IN his continuing search for the more weird, wacky and wondrous in the world of travel, David Ellis says that 30-million glasses of Australian wines are now consumed here and around the world every day of the year.

 

That's nearly 11-billion glasses annually, making us Number 4 on the list of the world's Top Ten wine exporting countries, behind Italy that's Number 1, France and Spain.

 

And now Wine Australia, the Australian Government authority whose job it is to get even more people sipping Australian reds, whites, bubblies and fortifieds, has declared April as Aussie Wine Month, and is urging us to visit local wine regions and when there to buy up big, to order Australian-label wines we've not tried before when dining out, and to take part in around 100 wine-related events around the country.

 

Because, it points out, the local industry is now worth $4.3-billion to the economy every year, employs 52,000 people in 2,400 wineries and on 6,200 vineyards, and that we now have no fewer than 65 winemaking regions across the country.

 

If you want to know where some of those 100 Aussie Wine Month events are being held in April, go to www.apluswines.com

 

Bundanoon becomes Brigadoon for a day - April 6

BUNDANOON'S STONES AN UPLIFTING EXPERIENCE

David Ellis

THE Scots have been doing it for centuries, the Icelanders for as long as they can remember, and on the other side of the world, it's been revered in Hawaiian history as a sign of royal strength.

We're talking about lifting stones. Not any old stones, but special stones that can weigh anything up to 165kg each, which is some lift. And in Hawaii's case, actually a stone slab that weighs around 3,000kg, and which legend said that whoever could move it would one day unite all of the warring islands into one peaceful nation…

And someone did.

Today strongmen around the world are still lifting stones, and this April 6 at Bundanoon in the picturesque NSW Southern Highlands – just half way between Sydney and Canberra – four of the strongest of Australia's strongmen will attempt to be the quickest to lift five stones ranging from 115kg to 165kg each onto the tops of wine barrels during the 36^st annual Bundanoon is Brigadoon.

This wonderfully colourful, fun and event-filled day is now one of the world's largest gatherings of all things Scottish outside Scotland, a day when this pretty little village of just 2,500 country folk rises from the Autumn mist and welcomes an amazing (and amazed) 12,000 or more visitors to the skirl of the bagpipes of a score Pipe Bands.

And where the air is filled with aromas of fresh-baked Highland shortbreads and Abernethy biscuits, Scots pies and drop scones, gingerbreads and butterscotches, of blood pudding and haggis…

And where this year's Tartan Warriors – Aaron Monks, Luke Reynolds, Morgan Westmoreland and Jordan Steffens  – will vie to see who will become this year's Bundanoon is Brigadoon Champion by lifting those five Stones of Manhood onto their wine barrels in the quickest time, and judged by Australia's super-strongman, David Huxley (who apart from being a multi-times Tartan Warriors Champion himself, once pulled a 184-tonne Boeing 747 Jumbo Jet for a-near 100m along a tarmac at Sydney Airport…)

Lifting stones has been around for centuries: in Scotland a boy was welcomed into manhood when he could lift a special clan "testing stone" to the height of his waist, and in later life men challenged each other to lift mightier stones above their heads.

In ancient Iceland, fishing boat captains would carry a 100+kg stone aboard their vessels, requiring those seeking work with them to prove their strength by raising the stone to their chests…

And in Hawaii, legend had it that whoever could move the sacred near-three tonne Naha Stone on the Big Island Hawaii, would one day unite the warring islands: at just 14 years of age the boy who would become King Kamehameha the Great, not only moved the Naha Stone, but completely rolled it over – and 38 years later, in 1810 as King, he united the islands just as the prophecy had foretold.

If lifting stones is not your scene there'll be plenty else to enthral at this year's Bundanoon is Brigadoon: how about watching brawny blokes tossing around what at 6m long appear to be scaled-down power poles called cabers, and more playfully hurling water-filled balloons 40m or more for others to catch without getting a burst-balloon drenching.

Or others tossing fresh-laid eggs to be caught deftly enough a-near 60m away to avoid any gooey consequences… and more sedately with their bonnie lasses, demonstrating Scottish Country and Highland Dances.

Visitors can join in many of these events, toe-tap to a colourful Street Parade of those twenty Pipe Bands with its floats and marching Clans, and be amazed by a replica scene from The Battle of Waterloo by the 92^nd Gordon Highlanders, complete with mess tents, kitchens, headquarters, a surgeon's tent, military supply hut and displays of historic firearms, swords and bayonets.

There'll be games for children and a 5-and-under Bonny Bairns Highland Dress Competition, a whopping 100 arts, crafts, Scottish and Tartan speciality stalls, and thirty Clans and Societies will answer visitors' enquiries about their possible Scottish ancestry… with the day ending with a Scottish dance night in the local hall.

And if you are visiting by train you won't be able to miss the local Bundanoon railway station: CityRail re-signposts it for the day BRIGADOON. Entry: adults $20, child $6, family (2+2) $45; details (02) 4883 7471 or www.brigadoon.net.au

                                                          …………………………….

Photo Captions:

[] THE skirl of bagpipes will greet the 12,000+ visitors to this year's Bundanoon is Brigadoon in the NSW Southern Highlands. (Jeff McGill.)

[] NOW that's a stone…. (Alaistair Saunders)  

[] WHAT a hoot: tossing down-sized power poles. (Jeff McGill)

[] EVEN CityRail gets in the spirit of things: Bundanoon Station becomes Brigadoon for a day. (CityRail)

[] STALLS with everything Scottish for the young and old. (Jeff McGill)

Struth! Cruise is garbage

 IN his continuing search for the more weird, wacky and wondrous in the world of travel, David Ellis says that most people ready to spend US$10,000 on a 20-day North Pacific cruise would expect rainbow coloured drinks by the pool, escargot and lobster at dinner, and chocolates on the pillow when they turn-in – not being told to help sift through thousands of tonnes of plastic rubbish.

But fourteen "cruise-goers" will be doing the latter from Honolulu to Vancouver in July as part of a study of what ultimately happens to a vast mass of plastic from the size of soft-drink bottles to confetti that floats in the North Pacific Gyre – or more usually known as the "Great Pacific Garbage Patch."

It's estimated to be twice the size of Texas, and is caused by a circular current of water sucking everything that's dumped into the North Pacific into one central point, where by agitation and inter-action it ultimately breaks down into confetti-size pieces floating around 5-metres below the surface.

The fourteen "lucky cruisers" sailing on the 23-metre yacht Sea Dragon will collect samples that will be used in studies by the Algalita Marine Research Foundation in Long Beach, California.

A spokesman said: "If this was some great island of garbage floating on the surface we could send ships in to scoop it up, remove and destroy it. But it's a thin soup of plastics just below the surface that can be quite thick in parts, while in others carry just a handful of plastic confetti in an area the size of a football field.

"Most importantly we are trying to find out if fish eat this confetti can they absorb it harmlessly, does it pass through their bodies, or does it ultimately kill them? And what is it doing to the state of the ocean?"

PS: for your $10,000 besides no cocktails by the pool and collecting garbage, you'll also be expected to help with the cooking, sail the ship and stand watch overnight.

Windsor Castle Blaze - repairers go to work

WEEKENDER'S $90M FIRE DAMAGE BILL

David Ellis

WHEN the renovators were called in to repair some fire damage to a weekender on England's River Thames in 1992, the owner wanted the work  to match the original as faithfully as possible.

This may have been a simple request had the place in question been a 1960s brick bungalow, or even a rustic riverside farmhouse.

But this was neither: the building was Windsor Castle, and the owner was the Queen.

Yet after the renovation job that cost an astonishing AU$90m, visitors to Windsor Castle today are often little aware that they are walking amid furnishings, murals, drapes and carpets that are largely painstaking replicas of the originals destroyed in that disastrous 1992 fire.

Windsor Castle's origins date back over 900 years to when William the Conqueror built a little timber and earth fortress on a 30m high hill overlooking the Thames, as protection for London against invaders from the west (London being a solid day's march away.)

Over the centuries the solid stone castle as we know it today evolved, with its role changing from that of a fortification to a royal palace – in fact the rambling 1,200-room bastion is the largest inhabited castle/palace in the world, the oldest in continuous occupation, and the world's only working royal residence that is open to the public.

Both Edward III and Henry VI were born here.

And the Queen who, with the help of hundreds of thousands of paying tourists a year, pays for the upkeep of this sprawling collection of rooms and galleries, halls, chambers, ballrooms, chapels and drawing rooms – not to mention the hectares of surrounding manicured gardens – considers it her favourite retreat, spending most of her weekends here.

In November 1992 the fire that broke out in the north-east corner of the Castle ravaged over 100 rooms and nine State Rooms, but fortuitously most of their priceless arts works had been removed just days earlier for display elsewhere.

Hundreds of specialists were brought in to restore the least damaged areas, and create new rooms and chambers in those areas that had been totally destroyed – their brief being to make them fit as harmoniously as possible with the remainder of the castle.

Hundreds more artisans and craftsmen were recruited from private companies, government departments and voluntarily came out of retirement to recreate furnishings, art works, murals, drapes and tapestries, ornate candelabras and chandeliers, carved staircases, carpets and polished timber wall panellings.

Many visitors today don't distinguish where the original ends and the renovated begins. A clue is the floors: while these intricately patterned new areas have been hand-crafted to resemble the original parquet designs, it will take years of tourists' feet for them to assume that well-trodden look.

Allow at least two hours at Windsor Castle. Areas of particular interest include the China Museum, the Ante Throne Room, King's Drawing Room and King's Bed Chamber, the Queen's Drawing Room, Queen's Ballroom, the Queen's Guard Chamber, Presence Chamber and Audience Chamber, St George's Hall and Private Chapel (resting place of ten British sovereigns,) the State Dining Room and the Grand Reception Room... and the remarkable gardens.

The castle abounds with treasures dating back centuries, including masterpieces by Rembrandt, Rubens, Holbein and van Dyck, and priceless English furniture and porcelain.

And don't miss the extraordinary Queen Mary's Dolls' House, a Lilliputian masterpiece that was created in 1923 on a scale of 1 to 12.  It took 1,500 tradesmen three years to complete, with every room of the 7-storey mansion-in-miniature built and furnished to exactly as it would have been at the time – including working lifts that stop at every floor, electric lights, and even running water in all five bathrooms.

Windsor Castle is 50kms from London. Travel agents can book you onto organised tours from London as part of UK holiday programs, or simply take the train to either Windsor or Eton Stations that are each about 5-minutes walk from the Castle.

You can do a self-guided tour using a guide book or audio unit, and there are conducted tours of parts of the castle grounds.

Windsor Castle is 15km from Heathrow Airport, causing one American tourist to famously ask a guide as planes flew over every few minutes: "Why would they build a famous castle so close to an airport?"

 

PHOTO CAPTIONS: 

[] WINDSOR Castle, the favourite weekend getaway of England's Queen Elizabeth.

[] THE magnificent chapel within Windsor Castle.

[] READY to have a few mates around for dinner: the King's Dining Room is fit, well, for a king.

[] QUEEN Mary's Dolls House at Windsor Castle: 1500 tradesmen took three years in the early 1920s to create its extraordinary detail.                                                                                                                                            


Originally issied 11 OCTOBER 2010

Whale watching in Queensland's Hervey Bay

Whales don’t keep mum about their babies for Hervey Bay visitors

By Adrienne Costin

“Folks, I think we’re in luck,” boomed across the deck of Freedom III. “It looks like we have a mum bringing her new baby over to the boat.”

The mum in question weighed around 20 tonnes (she was only young) and her baby was far bigger than most of us had ever seen – but when you are talking humpback whales, this is what to expect, especially when you are whale watching in the whale’s winter holiday grounds, Platypus Bay off Queensland’s Fraser Coast.

The youngster may have been huge but it was very shy and kept hiding under its mother. But she was having none of it and sank below the surface, then gently rising with the youngster resting on her giant head. She stayed for at least 10 minutes, every so often sinking down and then rising again as if to reassure baby that all was ok.

Satisfied her offspring had been suitably admired, the mother sank below the surface and the two swam away, like two silent submarines, to another part of the bay, and perhaps to another of the nine boats in the Hervey Bay whale watching fleet.

This familiarity is what Hervey Bay whale watch operators, and their guests, are now enjoying.

“These whales have grown up with the boats and know they have nothing to fear.

“In fact, quite the opposite, they want to interact with us,” said the ship’s captain Barry Stewart.

Freedom III joined the whale watch fleet for the first time in 2009. The 58 foot catamaran was previously owned by famous documentary producer Ben Cropp and offers 360 degree viewing on three levels.

Fabulous whale watching opportunities are backed up with luxurious surrounding, sumptuous home-cooked goodies for morning and afternoon tea and a delicious tropical lunchtime buffet. The boat is surveyed to take a maximum of 49 guests but owners Keith and Sue Reid prefer to host around 40 for maximum travelling pleasure.

There was barely time to enjoy a cuppa before we were called to the decks again. This time to watch a slightly older baby perfecting the breach, that amazing manouevre where the whale lunges sideways from the water, arches through the air and then crashes back down into the water.

As before, we marvelled as the huge mother, this one older and bigger than the last, leapt from the water, her youngster mimicking her actions seconds later. The pair leapt and plunged in a semi-circle around the boat before diving one last time and disappearing from view – most likely to take a breather after their exertion.

If ever we needed proof that whale watching in Hervey Bay was an up close and personal experience then these four whales alone provided it. While they were the standouts of the day’s experience, we also enjoyed other whale watch experience – a pod of youngsters (I can’t actually tell the difference but this is what we were told) raced by seeming to play tag, blows on the horizon from unseen whales, tail flaps from others who also chose to stay anonymous.

When you are dealing with a creature that is the equivalent in size to 11 elephants or 600 people it is hard not to be impressed, especially when their acrobatic skills are so phenomenal. The Hervey Bay experience is even more special because it is here that watchers can enjoy the whales at rest and play before they make their long journey back to the Antarctic.

All in all it was a magnificent day on the water! Perhaps one day I will take my kids to meet theirs.

The Facts

Freedom III operates daily whale watch cruises during the season from late July to November departing the Great Sandy Straits Marina at 9.30am and returning at 3pm. Prices are $120 adults, $80 children (4-14 years), $105 seniors and students, $320 family four – two adults, two children. www.freedomwhalewatch.com.au

For information on all Hervey Bay whale watches cruises, accommodation packages and other information visit www.whalesherveybay.com.au

Getting there:

Qantaslink offers daily flights between Brisbane and the Fraser Coast. www.qantas.com.au

Virgin Blue flies direct to Hervey Bay from Sydney with connections from other ports. www.virginblue.com.au

QR Tilt Train packages from Brisbane to Hervey Bay start at $74 per person one way. www.tilttrain.com.au

For more information on the Hervey Bay and the Fraser Coast visit www.queenslandholidays.com.au

Struth! The Road of Death

IN his continuing search for the more weird, wacky and wondrous in the world of travel, David Ellis says that if you complain at election time about the condition of some of our country roads, consider the lot of those who have to use the North Yungas Road in Bolivia – known locally as El Camino de la Muerte, or The Road of Death.

Running 60-something kilometres from the administrative capital of La Paz to Coroico in the Amazon rainforest region of the country's north, the road rises as high as 4650m in some places and drops to around 1200m in the mountains at its final destination.

But it's the way that it clings to the mountainous cliff-sides that have earned it its gruesome nickname, coupled with the fact its just 3.2m wide, has no guard rails, and in most places falls 600m or more into valleys below.

Add to this the torrential rain that can make the surface like glass and its little wonder that before an alternative road was built, the North Yungas Road claimed between 200 and 300 lives a year, including in one horror accident more than 100 passengers in a bus that fell off the side into a ravine below.

And yet despite being only 3.2m wide, heavy trucks that still use the road actually pass each other – bizarrely each travelling on "the wrong side of the road" to do so, but meaning that the driver of the truck heading downhill is on the outside of the road, and therefore can see just how close his wheels are to the 600m drop below him.

While fewer trucks are now using the road, its still popular with thrill-seeking holidaymakers in 4WDs – and in recent years has been luring increasing numbers of mountain bike enthusiasts who are catered for by local companies that take them and their bikes to the highest point of the road for a 50km-plus, heart-stopping downhill ride that's dubbed The Dice With Death….