Holland - Part 1 (Oct. 4-5, 2012)

After what seemed like a really short flight compared to our other flights, we transferred in Montreal and Zurich and quickly arrived in Amsterdam.  Picking up our car was a bit of a fiasco since it wasn't at the airport, but we finally got it and then I had to quickly adjust to driving on Dutch roads.  I guess they're not that different from Canada, but their signage is different, and the highway lanes work a little bit differently, too.  Luckily we rented a GPS, so between the three of us we figured it out and made it to Hilversum.

The reason we went to Holland in the first place was to visit my Great Aunt Els.  I've visited her a few times before, but we all know you can never visit Europe too many times!  It was absolutely wonderful to see her again.  She thinks her English is getting worse, and she's slowing down, but I think she's doing great.

After a quick catch up and lunch (breakfast?), we decided to get right into sightseeing.  There was an M.C. Escher exhibition at the local palace (Paleis Soestdijk) so we decided to go there to check it out.  Escher is known for his "never ending staircase" drawing, but I didn't recognize much else.  We weren't allowed to take any pictures at all inside the palace, and we weren't even allowed to bring our jackets, so I only have pictures of the outside.

The gardens around the palace were beautiful, but the weather started to turn so we went inside and had hot drinks instead.

After that, Ryan and I were definitely ready to relax.  Our jetlag eventually hit us, so Els made dinner, we looked at maps for our next few days of excursions, and we went to bed really early.  That night, though, the residence was having their monthly meeting, so the common room outside of our guest room was quite busy.  Els told us to put up some signs and a folding screen once everyone had left to make sure no one disturbed us, but we were so exhausted we went right to bed before they all left.  Sure enough, just when we got settled, a few crazy Dutch ladies opened our bedroom door, started LAUGHING, and then put the screen up for us!  We made sure to keep the door locked after that, but I think Els will be hearing about that for awhile.

After a much needed sleep, I dragged Ryan out of bed for breakfast with Els.  It was rough at first, but then he remembered that the Dutch are famous for cheese, so he recovered.  Our first destination for the day was Alkmaar, which is typically where there is a giant cheese market each week.  After barely navigating the small streets and cyclists, we found a parking spot and didn't dare move again.  Luckily it was right next to the town square!  There was no cheese market since the season had passed, but it was so fun to just wander around the town. 

The statue in the town square.

The weather wasn't great for the whole time we were in Holland, but it never once rained on us, and the sun always came out just in time for us to enjoy lunches on patios.  So after a brief snack at a pub (I think we had fries and mayo, and probably croquettes), we left Alkmaar and went to Hoorn. 

Hoorn is more known as a typical Dutch fishing village, with lots of ships and old buildings to look at.  Again, there was nothing in particular we wanted to see, so we just wandered around the town and snacked whenever we saw something we liked.

We thought this sign was hilarious coming from Australia - someone put a spider picture on the "Local Traffic Only" sign!  (I only just looked that up, but it was funny before too)

Next, on our way to Marken we decided to stop in Monnickendam Noord since it looked neat.  It was pretty typically Dutch, with lots of ships and little shops.  The coolest one was a shop that sold doll houses and all of the pieces for inside.  It was exactly how you imagine they were before Barbie's Dream House.  They even had electrical wiring for the chandeliers!

And since we still had a bit of time left in the day, we did eventually get to Marken, which is actually a little island joined to the main land by a long dyke/bridge.  What we didn't know, though, was that there aren't any cars allowed past the main parking lot of the island, and all tourists have to pay to park and then walk around.  Since we were only planning on staying for about an hour we were a bit reluctant, but we did it anyway.  It wasn't really our thing, though, since it was very touristy.  There was a wooden shoe making shop, lots of souvenir shops, and a few tour busses on guided tours.  The houses were neat, though, because they were quintessential fishing village houses.

We explored for awhile, but the real adventure was when we went to the grocery store!  We were making dinner that night, and we had already picked up some marinated chicken at a shop in Alkmaar, so we just needed some vegetables to go with it.  It was really strange though, because almost all of the produce was pre-cut and packaged!  You can get any kind of mix you want, but it's already prepared for you.  Then, the things that we bought by the pound, we actually had to weigh and tag ourselves.  We didn't realize that, so it caused quite the kafuffle at the checkout.

Just as a funny conclusion to the day, on the way home we encountered a cow crossing.  It was very reminiscent of the sheep crossing in New Zealand.

 That evening after a delicious dinner, Ryan and I were absolutely exhausted.  We looked through some old slides with Els, and then happily went to bed very early.  This time there was no trouble with the Dutch ladies!

The Eyre Peninsula Part 2

March 10-14, 2012

After our first night in Coffin Bay we decided to drive further up the coast in search of fish and a new campsite.  We had heard good things about Farm Beach, so that was our first stop.  It had a campsite that didn't look great, so we decided to spend the day fishing and exploring, but return to Coffin Bay to spend a second night.

Farm Beach was absolutely beautiful; the beach went for miles and rivalled any beach in the Caribbean.  The idea was that you drive on the beach so you can launch your boat, so with our 4WD camper van we drove away from everyone else and enjoyed the peace and quiet. 

We had hoped to catch some King George whiting, so we waded out into the ocean as far as we could and started fishing from there.

Ben caught one little fish that we later used as crab bait, but unfortunately we didn't catch anything edible.  The tide started coming in very quickly, so we packed up and left the beach.

By that time we were all quite frustrated that we weren't catching anything good, so we went back to Coffin Bay where we had seen some guys catching squid off of the jetty.  In the end we were very glad we did, since we finally had some luck and caught some squid!  It was funny because some kids came over while my line was in the water and started talking to me, and consequently I was completely ignoring my line.  I let it go slack, then all of a sudden I got a massive bite and reeled in a squid!  When you catch a squid it shoots ink everywhere on its way out of the water and after you've plopped it on the dock, so you have to watch out you don't get hit. 

I threw my line back in, and again while the kids were distracting me I got another one!  Over the next 20 minutes I think I caught 4 and Jeanne caught 1, then the waters went quiet again.  Excitedly, we rushed back to our campsite to Google how to clean and cook squid.  Cleaning them was actually kind of fun once you got the hang of it.  The tentacles were so weird because they still suction themselves to your fingers even after the squid is dead.

After all of the money we spent on rods/lures we figured that each of these squid was worth about $50, but boy were they delicious!

After dinner the kangaroos came back, and Ryan got this hilarious picture of them being confused at a crossroads.

The next morning I went back to the jetty bright an early, and Ryan joined me a bit later.  We didn't catch anything, but I saw the beautiful sunrise and enjoyed watching the herons and pelicans catch fish.

We packed up our campsite yet again, and continued on up the coast with a few stops to look at cliffs and more beaches.  One of note was our stop at Sheringa Beach, which was absolutely beautiful and surrounded by sand dunes.  Unfortunately the surf was way too rough for us to attempt any fishing, so we pressed on in search of a more protected bay or jetty.

We ended up in Venus Bay, which had a nice long jetty and tons of pelicans.

Ryan was very brave doing this.  The pelicans were massive!

We spent some long hours on this jetty, including one stretch where we took shifts and stayed for 2 entire tide cycles (12 hours) because we heard that fish liked the time when the tide changed, but we had almost no luck.  Ben and Jeanne each hooked a squid, but both managed to escape.  I caught a good size trevally fish, but that was also used as crab bait in the end. 

Pretty disheartened, we drove to our last hope: Streaky Bay.

Streaky Bay was awesome!  It was a small town with a long jetty, and within the first few hours of our arrival Ben and Jeanne caught a bucket of crabs.  While they were doing all of the hard work, I met an old man who had been to Georgetown, and Ryan basked in the cushy grass next to the ocean.  All seemed right in the world again. (Unfortunately I lost all of the pictures Jeanne took, so I don't have any pictures of the delicious feast.)

Streaky Bay as the sun is setting.

The next day we took our crab nets, chairs, rods, and beer to the jetty and set up for a relaxing day of fishing.  We took shifts and also spent some time wandering around the town and taking quick swims in the ocean.  Streaky Bay is well known for a high population of great white sharks, so the only safe place to swim there is in a giant metal cage attached to the jetty.  Supposedly people have seen sharks from inside of the cage looking out, so despite the cage my swims were brief.

We ended up with a few more crabs to finish off our last day of fishing.  To our surprise, when we got back to the campsite it was "country night" and there was a concert going on right across from our site.  We had the best seats in the house to see the hilarious old man singing songs like "Blueberry Hill" and telling jokes in between songs.  At one point he had a large coughing fit, which just made it more memorable.

On our last day we had a long drive from Streaky Bay back to Port Augusta, but luckily there were a few tourist attractions along the way to stop at.  The first was Pildappa Rock.

The second stop was the "halfway across Australia" marker, and a giant galah statue!

Ryan and I spent that night in a hotel in Port Augusta because I had to fly out at 6am the next day, and Ben and Jeanne continued on to Adelaide.  Luckily our trip was over, because that night there was a massive storm that would not have been fun to sleep through in a tent.  So in the end, everything worked out perfectly!

The Eyre Peninsula - Part 1

March 7-9, 2012

After a few weeks in Western Australia, my Uncle Ben and Aunt Jeanne came back to South Australia to spend one more week with us before heading back to Canada.  We decided to do a road trip along the Eyre Peninsula because we heard that it was fantastic for fishing and had some beautiful scenery. 

Instead of flying all of the way back to Adelaide from work, Ryan and I met Ben and Jeanne in Port Augusta (4 hours north of Adelaide).  They had already picked up the camper van so we continued immediately on to Whyalla.  There we had a great campsite right on the beach, and the next morning we rushed out to buy fishing gear.

Unfortunately I didn't take notes about this trip like I usually do, so I can't remember exactly what we did that day.  I think we tried our hand at fishing in Cowell that afternoon and caught our first fish.  Or that might have been in Arno Bay.

The Arno Bay campsite was right next to a jetty, so we knew we could get a good start on the fishing there.  Jetties are great for catching crab, so that became a priority for us.  Upon arrival at the campsite in Arno Bay we found out that we were just in time for a barbeque!  With our meal ticket we got a bottle of red wine for each couple, steak, sausages, chicken wings, and snapper, along with some great entertainment.  After a delicious meal we went out to try some more fishing. 

We caught a few little fish that we were able to use as bait for our crab nets, but we didn't catch anything we could eat.  The obvious highlight of the night, though, was when Ryan caught a Pt. Jackson Shark!  He pulled it up in our crab net.

The next morning I got up with the sun to try my luck at catching something.  I threw in the crab nets and a rod, but only the nets were a success.  There was an old man out on the jetty when I got there and right after I threw in my nets he asked me if I caught anything.  To my surprise there was already a Blue Swimmer Crab in my net!  After he helped me get it into the bucket I threw the nets back in.  A little while later I pulled up the net to find a sting ray in it!  In my panic I didn't think to take a picture of it, but it got back into the ocean safely after lowering the net. 

Unfortunately this guy was missing a claw.

After our luck ran out on that jetty, we continued our drive through Port Lincoln to Lincoln National Park.  This time, instead of fishing off of a jetty we used our 4 wheel drive to go off the beaten path and try our hand at some shore fishing.  The spot we found was beautiful, but unfortunately we didn't catch any fish.  The only thing I caught was Ryan's hat after it blew away and I had to rescue it.

  

Our resting place for the night was Coffin Bay - famous for its oysters.  By the time we got there we didn't get much of a chance to explore the area, but there were some friendly kangaroos a short ways away from our site, and hundreds of very chatty parrots!

Fishing on West Beach

Sorry to interrupt the tales of our WA adventure, but yesterday I went fishing with our neighbours and I thought I would tell you about it.

Our neighbours Bec and Lee really like fishing and are familiar with the area, so I was super excited to go with them.  We went to West Beach which is just a few kilometers south of where I live, and where a river meets the ocean.  They had never tried there before, but had heard it was a good spot. 

The concept of fishing off of a beach is really foreign to me.  My understanding of fishing is that you need semi-deep water, a flashy lour, and maybe a vessel or dock to get you to a good place.  This experience broke through all of those barriers and now I feel like I could fish anywhere!  It was quite simple really; we had a sinker that we covered with some fish attracting sand-like substance, then two hooks further up the line with pieces of squid on them.  We cast straight out into the ocean, then waited for bites!  Amazingly, this was a successful formula.  Lee caught a puffer fish almost immediately.

Note simplicity of fishing contraption.

Unfortunately they are poisonous and we had to throw it back, but it at least showed that the new location wasn't a dud.  About an hour later Lee caught a second puffer fish, further increasing our optimism.  It was fairly low tide and good fishing is supposed to be as the tide is coming in, so we expected our luck to improve.  In reality it just got colder, windier, and we caught tons of seaweed as the tide washed it in.

I had lots of bites, but no takers.

Just as we were packing it in, Lee caught a third puffer fish!  Overall  it was a fun first fishing experience in Australia, even if it wasn't exactly successful.  We ended off the evening showing off our beer can chicken skills to yet another curious pair, so it was an excellent end to the day.  (Cooking tip: Dr. Pepper tastes exactly the same as Guinness when shoved up the rear of a chicken!)

In other news, I've been sick for the past day and tomorrow is Ryan's last day home.  Don't get your hopes up for another post tomorrow, but I'll be back promptly on Wednesday!