Scuba Diving

Hello from the Great Barrier Reef!

   My last four days at Kutchera were busy, but still fun.  On Sunday evening Belinda and I took a stroll down to the river with the dogs.  

Belinda

The water was still warm after the heat of the day and the dogs had a wonderful time swimming and searching for the rocks Belinda would toss into the water.  Over the weekend Dan was gone, and he returned with a six week old Border Collie puppy.  She is so cute!  Dan has named her Gibbit. 

Dan with Rocky and Gibbit

   Monday was my final day of fencing.  I must admit that while I like riding the motor bikes and seeing all the scenery, I was very happy to be done with the hot, dusty work of checking the fences. 

    On Tuesday I helped Belinda prepare the lower house for mustering.  While bringing in the cattle to vaccinate and sort, Belinda and her mustering team will make take their meals in the lower house and use the house itself as a temporary headquarters.  Wednesday we went around the house doing general chores and I got all of my gear ready to leave. 

    Thursday was a sad day as I left Kutchera and said good-bye to everyone.  By the evening the bus had dropped me off in Cairns and my Aunt Carol and Uncle Dana were there to meet me at the bus station.  We spent the night in Cairns and then were picked up early the next morning to begin our first, three day adventure out on the Great Barrier Reef. 

Sunrise as the boat leaves the harbor on our first day

We are diving off of a two separate three day live aboard tours with Pro-Dive Cairns.  The first morning we spent doing safety briefings on our way out to the reef.  The boat ride out to the reef took 3 hours, and most of the morning.  Ater safety briefing, we were assigned our rooms.  The boat has three levels with 15 bedrooms and 8 heads.  Each bedroom has either a large two person bed, or a set of bunk beds.  The top level has three rooms with two heads, the wheel house and a back deck with benches.  The second level of the boat has the main deck with all of the scuba equipment, rinse off showers, and duck board where enter and exit the water.  Inside on the second level is the galley and the saloon where we take our meals.  And on the bottom level are more rooms with four more heads.  I was assigned a room on this top level which I was fortunate enough to share with a Maree. 

Maree

Maree is a certified diver and buddied up with us on several dives.  On this first trip the boat was completely full.  We had a group of about fourteen gap year kids from Denmark and some other backpackers who were part of two open water certification classes that were completing their required open water dives.  Besides Aunt Carol, Uncle Dana, Maree and myself, there were five other certified divers.  Four of these divers were also from Denmark and the fifth was a local diver.  There were also two snorkelers on board. 

Dining in the Saloon

The boat has a captain, cook (this time there was also a cook in training), three diving instructors because of the number of students, a instructor who was completing his dive master training, and a dive supervisor.  The instructors instruct open water and advanced open water courses and the dive supervisor does all of the dive briefings and makes sure that everything runs smoothly.  Dive briefings usually consist of a hand drawn map of the site, complete with depths and areas of special interest.  The dive supervisor then informs the certified divers about the site, and gives us some different dive plans we can follow for the particular site.  The diver supervisor also sets a maximum dive depth and time. 

The Great Barrier Reef

   As soon as the boat was secured to the mooring blocks at our first site, the dive supervisor gave us our briefing and we donned our gear.  All of the gear is provided by the company, but divers are welcome to bring their own gear as well.  The water was about 85 degrees.  Our first dive site was on Milln Reef and it was a pretty simple site to dive.  As soon as we entered the water I could see fish everywhere.  The fish are the most amazing colors of purple, pink, electric blue, bright green, neon yellow, orange, and more.  The corals are also brightly colored and the sand is a beautiful white. 

A Unicorn Fish

I spent most of the first dive pointing and blowing bubbles out of my mask, acting  like a little kid in a candy store.  Swimming on the Barrier Reef is akin to being dunked into the world’s largest aquarium, and it looks like a scene from Finding Nemo but without the animation and talking fish.  On this first dive, besides the numerous fish, we saw a moray eel sticking its head out of its den of coral.  Our second dive of the day was at the same location and we continued to see new creatures, including a blue spotted sting ray and several types of large sea cucumbers.  For our third dive we changed sides of the reef and on that site we saw a lion fish and a large grouper.  The next day we continued to eat, sleep and dive. 

Anemone Fish

We did four dives including a night dive.  The first two dives were Flynn Reef, which has a large bommie in the middle with a wall that goes down to 20 meters on the side.   “Bommie” is the Australian term for a large outcropping of coral.  There are two types of coral, hard and soft.  The hard corals are little fan like creatures that live together en-masse, and each creature has its own little limestone shell it secretes for itself.  The hard corals expand as the old coral creatures die and the new ones form their own protective covering on top of the old coral’s limestone shell.     

One of the smaller bommies with hard coral

    The third dive we did was a pre-dive to familiarize ourselves with the location of our night dive.  During our afternoon dive I saw a yellow black-spotted box fish, two turtles, and several kinds of parrot fish.  The night dive was not as scary as I thought it would be.  First of all the boat itself has flood lights underneath, so if you do get lost, all you have to do is swim toward the light.  And secondly, every diver is equipped with a very bright flash light. The dive location is known as “Gordons” and it has a group of three bommies known as Mickey Mouse.  At night a large sea turtle named Brian, sleeps in a sandy alcove at the base of one of the bommies.  And we were lucky enough to see Brian asleep in his home.  We were told that Brian is over one hundred and forty years old.  He is about the size of a medium coffee table.  We also saw a few reef sharks out hunting and lots of little red eyes from the shrimp hiding between the coral. 

Sunset at sea

    On our third day we started out on our dive and I was in charge of navigation.  I failed miserably.  I started out all wrong because when we descended I became turned around and took my compass heading from the wrong mooring block.  We ended up out in water that was much deeper than the depth we were suppose to be diving at.  Thankfully, Aunt Carol and Uncle Dana pulled me back from the abyss and we just dived in more shallow water for the rest of the day.  We had two more dives that morning, both on a very nice reef with plenty of little bommies.  We saw another eel and some very pretty fish.  The boat then returned to Cairns that afternoon. 

Aunt Carol after one of our dives

We spent the night ashore and then in the morning headed out on the same boat, but with a new group of divers. 

Aunt Carol and Uncle Dana enjoying the boat ride

On the trip back out to the reef we enjoyed the beautiful day and saw some dolphins playing in the waves generated by the boat. 

Dolphins!

Yesterday we spent our first dive back at a familiar reef.  I had no trouble with navigation on that reef.  We saw some interesting nudibranchs (sea slugs) and some beautiful white fan coral.  We then moved on to a new dive sight, named the “whale” because it has a slit along one side that spews up water like a whale’s blow hole during rough seas.  We saw some more turtles and two lion fish.  The water was beautiful and the dive was fairly simple.  We dove at the same sight for both our afternoon and night dive and ran across of school of Bump Headed Parrot fish.  The night dive was beautiful.  Hard corals keep their polyps, or feathery tentacles, hidden inside their shells during the day, but at night they feed and so the polyps come out.  These feathery structures are generally the same color as the hard outside of the coral and so it makes the coral seem like it has sprouted colorful fur. 

A  large Butterfly Fish

  Today was another day full of diving.  Four dives total.  We had three dives sites today.  This morning we dove the whale again and saw an even larger number of Bump Headed Parrot fish, then we changed reefs and dove on Flynn reef.  These sites are now a bit familiar since we dove on them the last trip.  The afternoon and evening dives were especially good for turtles.  This afternoon Aunt Carol was almost run over by a small female turtle wanting her picture taken.  And then tonight we saw the large turtle that lives on Gordons dive site.  And we also saw a very large trumpet fish and while we were waiting to climb the ladder back onto the boat we watched the Grey Reef sharks circling around underneath the boat. 

Sunrise over the ocean

  Tomorrow is our last day of diving and then we will have a few days of sightseeing.  More photos soon.    

 Love,

   Hana

Fencing and Welding

Hi Everyone,

  The last two weeks have just flown by.  Last Monday and Tuesday Belinda and I stayed at the house while the guys went out fencing.  Belinda had office work to do and I helped her with maintenance on some of the machines.  On Wednesday Dan and Belinda worked on fixing the tractor.  Jeremy and Brian went out for a ride around the property and found a Black Headed Rock Python.

Brian with his snake

On Thursday Jeremy and Brian left and we continued fixing machinery and doing maintenance on the motor bikes.  Belinda went to a friend’s Birthday party and made a supply run over the weekend.  So on Friday just Dan and I went out fencing.  I drove one of the motor bikes myself.  Some of the dogs wanted to come with me, but there just wasn’t enough room for them all. 

Molly, Moby, and Babe ready to ride

 The terrain was fairly rough, but the greatest challenge about driving was weaving through all of the scrub and little trees while trying to watch the fence for any breaks.  Along the way Dan helped me improve my fence mending skills.  I now know how to make a figure eight knot between two pieces of wire (and make sure it holds) and I know how to tighten up the fence by running the wire through the pliers and then using the pliers as a lever to strain the wire up tight. Through the dust and haze of riding we did see some interesting wild life. 

Wild piglet running across the road

Getting my photo with a large stick bug

  It was a very long day, but the beautiful purple and pink sunset at the end was gorgeous.   

Saturday morning I helped Dan finish the boundary fence.  In the afternoon Dan checked the nearby holding paddocks while I did some chores at the house.  Every night we have to feed and lock up the dogs, chickens, and orphan calves.  Some of the younger calves are feed powdered milk and like human children, the calves can be a bit sloppy and let the milk dribble out of their mouths while feeding. 

Rocky making sure none of the milk goes to waste

Sunday was a wonderful day of rest.  I watched TV and ate plenty of my favorite Banana Chocolate Chip cookies. 

On Monday Dan continued fencing and I did some baking.  The country here is full of surprises.  The land looks harsh and barren, but then you are surprised by the natural beauty and the fragile animals that manage to exist here. 



Little Green Frog

Butterfly with transparent wings

We spent Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday repairing more machines, cleaning out radiators, and doing house chores.  I know I seem to constantly write about maintaining and fixing machinery, but it is important to keep machines in top shape here because if a machine fails, there is no one else out here to come and rescue the stranded.

  Belinda is preparing the station for mustering the cattle, which will begin in a few weeks once all the fences have been repaired.  On Friday and Saturday I helped Belinda to add some improvements to the cattle yards.  A few weeks ago the guys poured a concrete slab underneath one of the cattle crushes.  So Belinda spent the weekend welding in the steel frames for the roof, tool bench and rack for the propane bottle used to heat up the branding irons. 

Belinda welding

We worked under the supervision of the dogs.  They found our work to be absolutely riveting.

Moby

 Belinda showed me how to check that each length of steel is level and the corners are all 90 degrees before welding.  I also learned how to use the large angle grinder so I could cut the next pieces of steel while Belinda was welding. 

Using the smaller angle grinder to cut through
a sheet of steel

  All my Best,

    Hana

Kutchera Station

Hello from Queensland! 

On Saturday Elisa and I helped Charmaine to spread out some of the mulch we had made on the front beds.  In the evening, Elisa and I attended Easter Vigil Mass at the local Parish. The Mass was very similar to the way we celebrate Easter at home.  At the end of Mass the priest handed out gummy candy to everyone as a special Easter treat.   

Me and Elisa on our way to Mass

Easter morning we made chocolate chip pancakes ate them with fruit for a breakfast.  We then drove to the neighboring town of Penguin to attend the Sunday markets.  The market stalls are set up in a large building which was good since it was raining.  The markets had local crafts, foods, antiques, books, clothes, and other junk/treasures. 

Penguin Markets

 

For Easter dinner Wayne and Charmaine invited their neighbors and fellow helpx hosts, John and Glenda, and their current helpers, Ice from Hong Kong, and Katie from Germany, to join us for dinner.  We ate a lovely meal of sausages, chicken, green salad, potato salad, carrots, and rolls. For conversation John and Alex discussed the current and future problems of a world based on oil consumption.

Easter Dinner

 And for dessert we had Germany apple pie.  German apple pie has the sugar and spices mixed into the pie crust and in place of a top crust the remaining dough is just sprinkled in pieces on top.  It was very sweet and delicious.

German Apple Pie

 

Monday morning I helped Charmaine to pull out five hydrangea bushes from Glenda’s garden so we could transplant them over in Charmaine’s garden.  Pulling out such large bushes was a lot of work, but Charmaine and I had fun chatting while we worked.  In order to pull out the huge bushes we had to first chop off all of the branches.  Then we used a pick axe to dig a trench around the base of the bush. 

Diggin out Hydrangea

We also saw some very colorful Tasmanian mushrooms in the back corners of Glenda’s garden. 

 

Tuesday was a very exciting and yet sad day.  It was the day I flew out of Tasmania.  Wayne and Charmaine drove me to the airport, and I said a very heartfelt good-bye.  Wayne and Charmaine were such wonderful hosts.  They treated me like a member of the family and were always thinking of things to see and do that would interests me and the other helpers who were staying.  I loved Charmaine’s cooking and watching music concerts with her on DVD.  Wayne always had an interesting opinion or topic to discuss, and he was willing to let me help him with the painting and outside work.  And I will of course miss Toby, who would sit with me on the couch while we watched Big Bang Theory.  I don’t think I could ever express how grateful I am to Wayne and Charmaine for their kindness and hospitality.  And some day I hope to see them again, either in America or on another trip to Australia. 

Flying out of Tassie

Late Tuesday I landed in Cairns in Queensland.  All of my flights and plane changes went without a hitch.  While I sat in the Melbourne airport, a little girl, almost two years old, was waiting for the same flight with her parents.  I was sitting in the corner over by the window, and she kept coming over to sit next to me and “chat”.  She actually could not talk yet, but she would point at things and happily burble.  I felt honored to be chosen as her confidant. 

I spent the night in a backpackers’ hostel in Cairns and the next morning I caught a very early bus out to the middle of Queensland.  The ride was almost eight hours.  We drove through several mountain passes, past tropical plants, large ant hills, avocado, banana, mango, coffee, and sugar cane plantations.  The farther inland we traveled the drier it became.  The last town we stopped in was Georgetown.  The surrounding country is scrub land and while during the rainy season there is plenty of water, currently the landscape appears very dry. 

View from the bus

 And just outside of Georgetown the bus met my new hostess, Belinda, and her five dogs, on the side of the highway.  Kutchera station is my new residence for the next few weeks.  The station raises Brahman cattle on over 200,000 acres.  Belinda runs the whole station pretty much on her own.  She occasionally has a station hand or backpackers come through who help her, but for the last eight years she has been managing the station without any other assistance. 

Kutchera Station

The same night I arrived, Belinda’s recently hired station hand, Dan, arrived.  Dan worked at Kutchera a few years ago.  Besides the cattle, there are five horses, five chooks, eight dogs, and orphan calves to feed near the house.  And out on the property itself there are wallabies, birds, wild pigs, snakes, lizards, and dingoes. 

Goanna that wondered up near the house

On Thursday morning, Dan and Belinda worked on welding the last pieces onto a new loading ramp for the trucks. 

Dan welding

In the evening we feed and locked in all the animals.  The orphan calves are fed some pelts and the two of the smaller ones are given powdered milk. 

Feeding the orphan calves

Friday morning was spent in trying to take out parts from under the large dozer that Belinda uses to repair roads that wash out during the rainy season.  Unfortunately the parts that had to be taken out to be replaced were right under the back of the dozer in a place that was very hard to maneuver around. 

Belinda driving the dozer

Belinda had to do grocery and supply runs for most of the weekend, so on Saturday morning I cleaned out the battery boxes on the sides of the dozer while Dan dug out a pad for concrete in the cattle yards.  After lunch I helped Dan to start leveling out the base of the pad.  Belinda would like to pour concrete around the cattle crush so that she can set up her gear for de-horning and branding the cattle right there. 

Sunday was our day off.  Belinda believes that every week we should have some time off from doing the station work or else everyone goes sour on it.  Dan took me with him to see if he and his dog, Rocky, could rind and catch any wild pigs. 

Rocky

We didn’t find any pigs, but we did get to ride the motor bike through some beautiful country.  Even though Queensland is full of scrub and seems to be quite dry, during the wet season heavy rains pour down washing out roads and fences and then filling up natural watering holes and lagoons.  These wet areas are home to many birds, fish, and plants.  Many of the lagoons are filled with beautiful water lilies. 

Lagoon

Water Lily

Brolgas near the lagoon

On Monday Belinda and Dan finished replacing the parts for the dozer and in the afternoon two more helpers arrived.  Jeremy and Brian are from the LA area in California and they are excited to work in the outback as part of their Australian trip. 

Setting up the pad for pouring concrete

Tuesday morning the boys laid out the rebar and frame work for the concrete slab while Belinda and I worked on replacing the rear brakes on one of the motor bikes.  Belinda had me take apart the rear brake system for one of the bikes and clean out all the dirt and rust.  Being a mechanic is very messy work. 

Belinda replacing the brakes on one of the motor bikes

Wednesday morning the three guys started pouring the concrete in the slab.  Belinda and I had to drive into town to get some more bags of concrete. 


Pouring concrete

The highway into down is mainly just one strip of asphalt with the occasional passing area in between.  So when cars meet on the single strip they have to drive with one wheel off the road in order to pass. 

Outback driving

Georgetown is a small town but it does have the necessities: grocery store, gas station, post office, pub, and a small building where people can buy anything from horse feed and spare sprinkler parts to bags of concrete. 

After pouring the concrete slab, on Thursday morning we got all our supplies together and headed out on the motor bikes to work on repairing the breaks in the boundary fence.   The fence has the occasional snapped wire or loose post, but the hardest parts to fix are the flood gates.  Flood gates are where the fence crosses one of the numerous little creeks or streams that run between the properties.  During the wet season these little creeks grow into huge, gushing rivers full of downed trees and debris that flow right through the fences. 

Putting up new fence where the water
 knocked down the old fence

Once the fence itself is repaired at these creeks, we must then hang logs, called brushing, underneath the wires to add weight to pull the fence down low enough so that the cattle cannot walk through the river and under the fence. 

Belinda stringing up brushing under the fence

We spent all of Thursday, Friday, and Saturday working our way through over 200 km of fence.  The days were very hot and we would often immerse ourselves in the creeks during our lunch break to cool off.  On the three motor bikes we had two chain saws for cutting trees that had fallen on the fences, an axe to hammer in posts, pliers, wire, cloth cool bags full of frozen water bottles, five people, and Dan’s dog, Rocky.  Every day we would return hot, dusty, and tired, but we had plenty of laughs during the day. 

Dan, Belinda, Jeremy, and Brian out fencing

On Friday we drove out to the farthest point on the boundary and we ended up riding through the scrub for over an hour in the dark on our way home.  I thought we were going to end up lost for sure, but after eight years, Belinda knows her way around the property pretty well.  The stars in the night sky were gorgeous and Belinda pointed out some of the different constellations to me, the most obvious was the Southern Cross.  The Southern and Northern Hemispheres each have a different celestial pole which means that from the North Pole a person would not be able to see any of the stars that a person would be able to see from the South Pole and vice-versa.  So from Australia I can see some of the same stars that I would be able to see from home, but there are also some different stars.  I can still see the Milky Way though. J 

Today is Sunday again, and everyone is taking a much needed break.  And tomorrow the work will begin again. 

I hope you are all enjoying a beautiful Spring.

Love,

    Hana

Sunset on the station