Arriving to Cerisy-la-Salle

The flight from Shanghai to France (~twelve and a hour hours) was pretty brutal. No leg room, no new movies, and people in front of me stubbornly reclining their seats the entire journey. I didn't sleep the entire trip, so when we arrived to Paris I was feeling pretty ragged.

Luckily our new younger brother, Coco, had arrived to take us back to his family home in Cerisy-la-Salle! The trip would take three hours, but it was great to catch up with him on the way there. Unfortunately for Coco, he mis-read the arrival time, so he turned up at 7:30 AM instead of the evening! Poor guy, it was going to be a long day for us all!

Once we left Paris the traffic dwindled, and we made great time to our new home for the next week. We arrived just after midnight, and were treated to dinner, wine, bread and cheeses before finally making it to bed.

The next morning a typical French breakfast was waiting. Baguettes, croissants, pan do chocolate, black coffee, butter and many types of home made jams. Just what we needed! After we could eat no more (we were heartily encouraged to keep eating) we were given a tour of the house and property.

A fully stocked wine cellar, big fireplaces, chickens, geese, donkeys, a greenhouse, Jacuzzi, sauna, apple trees, exposed wooden beams, stone construction, beautiful gardens, it felt similar and different at the same time.

After the tour we were taken to a D-Day museum, the area of Normandy seeing lots of fighting during WW2. The museum was very interesting, and the virtual reality games were way more fun than it felt right having in such a place.

Coco took me on a small sight-seeing trip on the way back home for lunch, and after another hearty meal he suggested taking the metal detector out nearby to look for some WW2 artifacts.

After a couple of false starts (beer cans, miscellaneous pieces of metal) we uncovered a .50 calibre bullet casing from a Browning machine gun. The stamp on the casing indicated it was manufactured in Utah in 1943. We found it a few inches under dirt literally at the end of their street!

 

Such a surreal experience, nothing like that can be found in Australia!

Once I had cleaned off the dirt from the treasure-hunt, Coco took Hayden and I for a little more sight-seeing in the nearby towns. Every town seems to have a stunning church and / or cathedral, and beautiful gardens. And a nice little pub for a cheeky beer before heading back to dinner.

Jet lag was still in effect, and the weather only increased the desire for bed. Free flowing amazing wine didn't hurt either. We stayed up as late as possible, but another decent nights sleep was required and soon taken.

More photos here

Brisbane to Shanghai

On the advice of my brother, a well seasoned traveller, I booked my flight to Paris with an overnight stopover in Shanghai. His reasoning was sound, by breaking up the flight, you could get a good nights rest and arrive relatively fresh the next day.

Plus, he said, if your connecting flight is overnight the airline will put you up in a hotel and provide a good dinner and breakfast! It sounded to good to be true, and against my better judgment I didn't look to much into it. We boarded the first leg of the flight to Paris on a cool Monday morning.

The trip to the airport was uneventful, and we were assigned adjacent seats with extra leg room by the helpful flight assistant. So far so good!

The ten and a half hour flight went quickly enough, the Chinese airline we were flying with had a pretty dismal selection of movies to pass the time, but we arrived at night in Shanghai feeling fairly rested.

Unfortunately, and not all the surprising, it turns out we didn't have any accommodation provided (you get what you pay for). After trying a few help desks to confirm out situation, we came across a helpful Chinese guy who organised a 'cheap' room, with transfer to and from the station.

We were taken downstairs to a dubious looking van, and before too long we were on our way to somewhere in Shanghai for the night.

With better planning we could arranged accommodation on a train line and explored the city centre a little, but it was nice to go on a little adventure with my brother. Our 'hotel' was near enough to some nightlife, we dumped our bags in our room consisting of two thin blankets laid out the floor, and set off in the hot and humid night to see what was around.

We weren't far from a strip of little restaurants and shops, we walked up and down looking for interesting places or a way to get to the city centre, before choosing a decent little eatery for some late night dinner. Hayden couldn't remember any of his Chinese from his long trip years ago, so we got by with a bit of pointing at the menu.

Out came some noodles and dumplings, washed down with a couple of cold beers. Memories returning from my time in South East Asia years ago, the heat, the smell of food and spices in the street, and the utter incomprehensibility of the language. Felt like the start of a great adventure, what more could I ask for.

 
The beds were sufficient and we spent an hour or so walking around before we had to get back to the airport. It was extremely hazy (it looks worse in the photos), but breathing and walking around wasn't too bad. We ate some street food, took in some more sights, then were back to the airport for the final leg of the journey to Paris.

More photos here

Burnett Creek Canyon

After discovering the canyoning bug during my time in Sydney, I wanted to see what South East Queensland had to offer. I had read of a canyon in Northern NSW, near where I have climbed and kayaked in the past. I organized a few people to tag along and left Brisbane late one Friday afternoon.

 

After a quick stop for a great meal at the Railway Hotel in Beaudesert, we arrived at Tooloom Falls just outside of Urbenville. The camping area was pretty busy for a Friday night, be we found a spot to pitch our tents and settled in for the night.

The next morning we drove back north past Woodenbong, veering off along Mt Lindsay road to find the 4wd track that would take us towards the canyon. We left the black top and started up Dead Horse Mountain Road, slowly along the rutted tracks, the encroaching lantana leaving my 4wd with a fresh batch of scratches.

After forty-five minutes we arrived at the border fence which marked the start of the trail, we shouldered our gear, jumped the fence, and followed along the faint path to a small river bed. There were two parties of canyoners in front of us, so we went at a slow pace and enjoyed the setting.

The first couple of abseils were only short but there was enough water and height to make things interesting. A couple of swims followed before three abseils in quick succession, the last being a really fun 23m drop. One final short abseil followed by a couple of short jumps and we were out of the canyon.

We warmed in the sun before following the river bed downstream until it intersected a fire trail. Following this uphill we came upon the familiar track which took us back to our car.

We had just changed into dry clothes when the skies darkened, no sooner were we packed and ready to leave when the rain began. It came down quickly and heavily, turning the dirt road out of the forest into a slick and greasy mud track. Thankfully aggressive tires and locked diffs made it easy to get through, a bit of unexpected adventure to finish off things.

By the time I was back on bitumen the sun was out and I was off back towards the camp site to relax, only stopping to help a turtle / tortoise / terrapin make it safely across Mt Lindsay Road.

More light rain came and went for the rest of the afternoon, but dinner was hot, the beers were cold, and the roaring camp fire wasn't troubled by the drizzle.

The next morning was more of the same, no rock climbing was to be done in the wet, so I slowly packed up camp in between bouts of drizzle.

I took a quick swim and sat for a little while under the Tooloom Falls before setting off home. Half and hour with a pressure hose removed most of the mud plastered to my chassis, the lantana pin stripes will take a bit more work...

A really enjoyable weekend, look forward to more canyons in the near future!

More photos here