Position: The Caretaker of the Islands of the Great Barrier Reef, Australia Location: Hamilton Island Employer: Tourism Queensland Compensation: A salary package of AUD $150,000 for a six-month contract (that’s $96,950.34 in U.S. dollars) Responsibilities: Through weekly blog posts, a photo journal, and a video gallery, tell the world what’s taking place on the Islands of the Great Barrier Reef. The schedule could include sampling a new luxury spa treatment at qualia on Hamilton Island, trying out new snorkeling gear on Heron Island, or bushwalking on Hinchinbrook Island. Not to mention mandatory daily walks on the stunning, white sand beaches.

Lizard Island in the Great Barrier Reef, Australia. Photo courtesy of Tourism Queensland.

The position, which is being touted as “The Best Job In The World,” has been advertised in newspapers around the globe and on the following video, which Queensland Tourism posted to YouTube:

Within hours of the appearance of the video, the agency’s website crashed when thousands of curious web surfers clicked through to see if the job was for real. Read the rest of this entry »

Residents of Byron Bay, Australia see gorgeous sunsets like this almost every night:

Beautiful sunset on the beach at Byron Bay, Australia

Goodbye Australia…..

The three words that best describe Australia to me are:

1. DIVERSE: In so many ways – the country is an enticing mix of many different ethnicities; many different geologic landforms; a mix between wonderfully modern, cultured cities and remote rural locales, etc.
2. VAST: Australia is not the biggest country in the world. But it is huge in a way that I have not seen elsewhere, with incomprehensible vast open spaces in the center of the continent that are virtually unpopulated.
3. EXPENSIVE: I may have been influenced by all the time I spent in Sydney, which is the 21st most expensive city in the world, but overall I found Australia to be quite expensive.

Because there is SO much in Sydney that I haven’t had time to see, deciding what to do on my last day in this beautiful city was tough. Ultimately, the decision was made for me when my friend, Jane, with whom I’ve been staying, said that coming to Sydney and not seeing Bondi Beach was like going to Paris and not seeing the Eiffel Tower.

Bondi Beach is famous with surfers the world over for its waves and famous with tourists and residents for its cliff walk that leads from the wide crescent that is Bondi Beach, up and over the rocky headland to Tamarama and Bronte Beaches. We had not done the cliff walk before this because the weather in Sydney has been unusually rainy, but today the weather cooperated, providing us with a crisp, sunny day with not a cloud in sight. Afterward, since it was such a nice day we had lunch on the outdoor terrace of a North Bondi restaurant, enjoying a spectacular view of the bay (I can’t believe I dined outdoors in 55 degree weather) and then toured some of Jane’s favorite beaches that are tucked into hidden corners all over Sydney. So, here are a few photos of the things I saw today – if only I had another three weeks here!

Bondi Bay, with double overhead surf and an offshore wind:

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The Olgas (Kata Tjuta)

Despite being equally as impressive and just as beautiful as Ayers Rock (some say more beautiful), The Olgas are the less-visited geological formation at Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park in central Australia. Located just 27 miles from Ayers Rock, the Olgas are a series of rounded domes that poke their heads above the sand dunes covering the valley floor – thus their Anangu name of Kata Tjuta, meaning “many heads.” Determined not to miss this step-child attraction, I boarded a shuttle bus early this morning, bound for the hour and a half Olga Gorge Walk.

I stepped off the bus into the coldest temperatures yet and was immediately chilled to the bone. With my head lowered against buffeting winds, I made my way down the canyon passageway, Kata’s Tjuta’s giant red “heads” held high and and unfazed by the weather. This was a landscape reminiscent of Ayers Rock in some ways – the red rock, the desert floor, the scrub landscape, and the water catchments carved out of rock – but in other ways Kata Tjuta is a world apart. Ayers Rock is composed of iron-rich feldspar sands that were compressed by geologic forces over time into Arkose sandstone. Kata Tjuta is comprised of conglomerate, a mix of granite and basalt pebbles, cobbles and boulders that have been cemented together by mud and sand over the eons. From a distance the two formations look similar. Up close there is no comparison, yet the source of these two geologic formations is identical.

The Olgas (Kata Tjuta)

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In the very center of the Australian continent is a vast and featureless desert of red sand and scrub vegetation that stretches in all directions as far as the eye can see. Only two features relieve this otherwise monotonous landscape – the giant red sandstone monolith known as Ayers Rock and the lesser-known conglomerate hills commonly referred to as The Olgas. The indigenous Anangu Aborigines who are the stewards of this ancient land refer to these features by their traditional names – Uluru and Kata Tjuta, respectively.

Ayers Rock (Uluru) in the center of the Australian continent

Ayers Rock (Uluru) at sunset

To say that the UNESCO World Heritage Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park is remote would be an understatement. Located more than 500 miles from the nearest town, the only way to reach the park is to drive for days through a harsh, unforgiving land, or to fly in with Quantas, the sole operator serving the tiny airport. Once at Uluru, the only accommodations available are at one of five hotels in the American-owned Voyages resort complex. The Voyages operation is a monopoly in every sense of the word. Not only do they own all five hotels, they also own the grocery store, the tour company, the gift stores, the restaurants, the shuttle services, etc. The result is twofold. First, because they have no competition, their prices are exorbitant. I am in the least expensive hotel room they offer – $154 per night. The salad I had for lunch yesterday set me back $20. Company-owned shuttle buses carry tourists from the resort to the National Park at a cost of $40 for the five-mile ride. The facilities are in poor condition – with winter temperatures approaching zero at night, I repeatedly heard guests complain that the heat did not work in their room and the resort’s only answer was to deliver more blankets. The employees are surly at best and in most cases downright rude, acting as if guests are an imposition on their time. The signage is poor and it is difficult to find your way around the resort. There is limited information made available about how, when and where the shuttles operate, etc., etc.

Despite all of the above, the Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park is not to be missed. On the evening I arrived I climbed to an observation point and watched Ayers Rock change from red to purple in the rays of the setting sun. Read the rest of this entry »

The Dalai Lama speaks in Sydney, Australia

I have been trying to attend the annual teachings of the Dalai Lama in Dharamsala, India for the past three years, but each year something got in the way. So when I discovered that His Holiness was to make a public appearance in Sydney, I scheduled my travels around Australia accordingly. Despite cold, blustery weather and intermittent spitting rain, several thousand other people also thought it important to be present this morning at the open-air amphitheater in Sydney’s Domain Park.

It is not hard to understand why the Dalai Lama commands such devotion and respect. Within seconds of taking the stage, he had everyone laughing. He began his discourse with the idea that our minds are clear in the morning, then digressed about the raucous party that was going on in the hotel where he was staying the night before. With a twinkle in his eye and a grin he conceded that the people at the party probably didn’t have very clear minds that morning. Read the rest of this entry »

Basically, I hate tours. I detest being loaded onto a bus with 49 other people and herded like cattle from one tourist spot to the next. I loathe hearing, ‘We’ll be leaving here for exactly 18 minutes,’ when I’d like to stay for two hours shooting photos or hiking the trail to the overlook point. But in Cairns there is no other choice – there was no way to get to the places I wanted to see unless I rented a pricey car. So with trepidation I booked two tours in Cairns – hoping for the best but expecting the worst. The first, Uncle Brian’s Atherton Tablelands and Waterfalls Tour, was highly recommended by Rob at Cairns City Backpackers. He said it was deliberately designed to be off the beaten track in the highlands west of the city, which he insisted are more beautiful than anything I would see if I did the more famous tours to Daintree Rainforest and Cape Tribulation. I considered the possibility that Rob was pushing this tour because he was getting a cut but then dismissed the idea. He seemed like a pretty sincere guy. So I took a leap of faith and booked it at a cost of $109.

Uncle Brian's tour bus - "Gus the Bus"

From the moment I boarded “Gus The Bus” at 8AM, I knew this tour was going to be different. Our guide, Bart, was a showman in every sense of the word. Standing about 5′ 10″ with curly long blond hair pulled back in a ponytail, Bart wore his daily uniform of khaki shorts, a T-shirt and sandals (he claims to not own a pair of shoes other than golf shoes), kicking off his sandals at every opportunity to go barefoot. He memorized the names of every person on the bus (15 of us) and engaged each of us in a long conversation via his headset and microphone as we drove down the road. He wanted details: how long had we been traveling, where had we been, where were we going, and oh, by the way, is there a romance going on between the two of you in the back of the bus who are both from Germany but just met at a backpacker’s lodge? By the time we were 20 miles down the road we knew each others life histories. Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve really been in a funk lately. I don’t know why. I thought it may have been due to the cold weather but it seemed to persist even after I arrived in warmer climates. In Sydney recently, I attended a meditation class, where the teacher discussed the benefit of “remaining present” every moment of our lives. After the class we talked a bit and I told him about my tendency to get bored with things when they are no longer challenging. He suggested that I could be totally present even when I was in a state of boredom, “Ask yourself, what is boredom. Take it out and examine it. Look at it from every angle. Even boredom can be interesting when we are totally present.” So I decided to just sit with my funk. In it. To let it consume me, if that’s what it wanted. To examine it from every angle.

I asked myself what I was really feeling. I found loneliness in there. I miss my family and friends. I am moving so rapidly from place to place that, while I am meeting some wonderful people and making friends, about the time I get to know someone I have to hit the road again. Read the rest of this entry »