Tales from the Quim

So if this is news you are no doubt the last person to hear about my trip to Hong Kong and Macau. Whopper answered the call and joined me on an assult on South East China. We stopped in on Sydney on the way and did a lap around a few Darlinghurst bars, oggled some bad fashion at the Darlo and played some pool at the Green Park, and even fitted in a quick visit to see limb0, it was good to see my old stomping ground still existed..

We flew Virgin Atlantic, which was by far the best airline I have ever travelled on to date, awesome in every way, although the English hostesses were nice until they opened their whiney mouths, the Asian ones seemed nicer because the whiney English accent wasn’t as obvious to me when they spoke Cantonese.

The hotel we chose was right in the action, smallest room possible, but large enough to crash in, and $85 AUD a night for 2 it was a bargain, smack in the guts of Mong Kok.

There is a serious lack of pubs in Kowloon. You can just go buy some beers at 7-11 and walk around with them, go to a resturant, Karoke bar (beware some are dodgy – we found out.)… but getting a nice seat and downing a few beers watching people walk past isn’t much of a passtime over there. We found a couple of places that were aceptable, but if you want pubs (pubs are a western thing) Wan Chai was the place, just dont make eye contact with the freelance asian (everything except Chinese) hookers everywhere, they’ll still poke your ribs and try to get your attention.. uhhh.. and if yer drunk they will all look about 24/28, but that means they are 40 :P My apologies for the first image here, I was quite drunk, the place is called COCKEYE. buahahaha.

Food was the best thing about Hong Kong, it’s good and cheap, it’s everywhere, and if you like Chinese you’re in luck. Had some bbq goose, which I am struggling to find over here, and some bbq pidgeon, both awesome. The usual assortment of pork and chickens feet, and more pork in several different ways. The scampi we had looked nothing like a prawn or crayfish, and I didn’t get a photo, I hope Whopper did.. but they tasted like bug.

Macau rocks, the Portugese architecture is stunning after spending time in downtown Mong Kok, the place is much cleaner, less crowded. The Casino’s are stunning. The driving is bad, pedestrian crossings are a lure to get you to step onto the road and get run over, it appears they are just there so the ambulance knows where to go. I’ve never seen so many scooters anywhere. There is really no reason to own a car there, cabs are stupidly cheap, and it’s only about 24km² anyway. We had some African Chicken (pictured above) which is a local speciality, and incredible, well worth having if you go, along with some local Macau beer (you’ll need a few to wash it down). The ruins of St Mary were everything you’d expect and a walk around the top of the hill to see the view from the old cannons is well worth it. Overall I’d go for 2-3 days if you can make it, then you’ll be out of options except gambling or eating.

As for the Crown Casino, it’s pretty average compared to Wynns or Sands. Just another casino, also so far from any other action that you may as well find somewhere else to stay. Sorry James.

Here’s before and after shots of Whopper :) This should sum up what 10 days of Honkers will do to you..

My photos are HERE as per usual, I’ll link to Whoppers when I find out where that is.

So we went to Fraser again, this makes 3 visits in the last year, sure it is a stunning place, probably the best camping spot you can drive to, but I really need to stop blowing all my annual leave there. This time we had some new recruits in the Jedi wagon and Cres pax’ing with me.

Guru would have been happy (if he’d come – sand allergy, go figure…) that everyone made it on time at 5:30am to depart, It’s been a long time since I’ve been on the road at 5:30am and Kingsford Smith was bumper to bumper. What’s with people these days? what’s with traffic? bah!

Minimum fuss once we were on the highway, we were straight onto the barge and starting to play up…

It was a fantastic drive up the coast as usual, until we got to Indian Head where not one, but TWO busses were bogged, a lot of people were waiting and looking but we decided to cut through and go around..

Stopped in a the Orchid Beach servo and then on to the South Ngkala Rocks bypass.. Cres I went first and then ended up getting 3 beers in before anyone else came through.. Che5ter came out with 2 cars attached with snatch straps behind him! Show off, alas there was no photo!

We arrived to disturb the peace for IP, Jedi and Wayne (Jedi’s bro), who had been there for a few days in advance and were visibly over-relaxed. I named them the Read Only Crew as they just sat around and watched the green campers destroy the view and peace with little to no movement or facial expression. We packed the weber (thanks to fatty), and didn’t take long to get cooking.

I suppose what goes on tour stays on tour, and I’m sick of writing this blog post… The next tour is Hong Kong from the 17th to the 26th, and the next post after that!

My photos HERE, Jedi’s HERE, Siq’s HERE, more when I find them…

OK So I’ve been slack and not posted for a while, all the excitement of Fraser was dulled by the breakage of my gearbox in the 60, more on that later.

Fraser Island is still there, we confirmed it had not moved far. The advertised departure times were a bit misleading, IP had to see the meat mechanic so they were delayed a little, I had some small grief I suspect from dodgy diesel but Angry and I had the lead by about 24 hours, so we agreed to meet up with IP and MK up the cape.
We hit Orchid Beach and Waddy Point for 2 days, Iron Chef Bronco took the lead with some Chicken soup hybrid stew and I followed up with some battered deep fried tailor caught fresh from Orchid Beach.

I took some long exposure pics of the full (or almost full) moon at Orchid Beach and the Sandy Cape so I could pad out a blog post more with something that was not about beer or food or 4wd’s or fishing.

After a couple of days of up the cape we were ready to try something new and headed down to Woralie Creek. On the way we encountered a storm and I took this footage of a water spout forming, cool huh.

The west coast beaches are awesome, we were the only people around, we tried out some of the beach, which has some soft bits but with a bit of caution seems like a good mission for another time, Moon Point to Wathumba? hmm, maybe I should get a winch as well :)

On the way back down the coast past Dili Village the idler shaft bearing in my gearbox decided to come to an end of life agreement with the rest of the 60. Got home OK, just made a lot of metal on metal grinding noise on the way :)
MadKitty has some pics and Ironpaw also.