Day 10 & 11
Yesterday Morning Donna Tom and I stayed behind while the others went looking for fresh oysters on the rocks at Somerset Beach but couldn't get there as the water was too deep. They did manage to get a couple of small ones though.
They were back at camp by 11.30 and then after some lunch they all went (except for Claire and I) and looked at WWII aircraft wreckages. It was nice to have a quiet day here at camp. We decided to have a camp oven dinner 'Karl's surprise' which the meat ranged from saus, steak and lamb neck chops. Unfortunately the fire failed us and had to be cooked on gas BUT the fire was good enough for 'Yogis syrup dumplings' which were amazing and not a trip without them.
Karl, Greg and John went up in helicopter and took some nice shots Yoges had a fish on the rocks, but no luck.
Today we were up by 6am to be able to catch the ferry to Thursday Island by 8. The trip over was smooth going. Once on the island we had a 1 1/2 hours to kill until our bus tour of the island. We walked the streets - yogi checked out the Real Estate window while we waited for coffee. We checked out some little shops and was disappointed that there were no markets today. We hopped on the bus and first stop was Green Hill Fort where the island was protected in WWII from the Japanese. The native TI didn't inhabit the island till 1945 as it was a military island up until then. The bunkers at this Fort are filled with memorabilia and is a very interesting museum. Our next stop was the cemetery where the head stones all face the same way and are very elaborate. They have one ceremony for the burial, then cover the grave with flowers, the. When the headstone comes, they have another ceremony for laying that, but cover it in plastic until the final ceremony where it is decorated with a fence or marble or something special and then unveil it in the final ceremony which then the mourning period is then over. The whole extended family is expected to attend eve if they live in sthn end of Australia.
The pearl divers from years ago have a section of their own. The Japanese were well sought after as divers as they took bigger risks and Dover deeper. Unfortunately a lot of them died of The Benz.
This Island is absolutely beautiful. We were greeted with a little boy whose mum is a teacher and he said to us 'welcome to Thursday Island' and proceeded to ask us to watch him on his skate board!!!heaps of people greeted us this way.
After the bus tour we had lunch at the most northern pub in Australia then shopped and caught the ferry home. The trip home was a bit choppier than going over.
When we got back to camp yogi, tom and I did our chopper ride which was amazing and my first ever chopper ride. Tomorrow we sleep in till 9 then we are heading off to wherever we end up towards the East Coast.
Comments
Post a Comment