Arrived in Brisbane airport last Friday to the news of the Japanese earthquake and Tsunami. As soon as we landed we receeived an SMS at the airport from Anna’s sister Ailsa asking if our son David and his partner Mayumi were OK. Mistakenly, I thought this was referring to a scale 7 earthqauke 2 days before as we knew nothing , but then seemingly the timing was wrong so began to to get worried. Then received an SMS from Naomi that there had been a quake and tsunami an hour earlier. After a frantic 2 hour drive from the airport we finally got through to first Mayumi (SMS) and then David (email). Tokyo got badly shaken but no serious damage which is a tribute to their building, unlike the poor north-east of Honshu which got hit by the tsunami. We are flying to Tokyo on Wednesday evening and will go there anyway if possible. We plan to travel south to Hirsohima next Friday.
Leaving Brisbane we headed south to Surfers Paradise for the night in the Crown Plaza. Surfers Paradise is a bit like Torremolinos by the sea with brash high rise apartment blocks and hotels along a strip of beach. However the next morning we went down to a lovely stretch called Broadbeach. Heading further south for another swim at lovely Byron Bay which was humming with locals on Saturday and where we could find no rooms to stay in. So went on further to Ballina and found a massive 2 room apartment with river views. On then to Woolgoolga for another swim in perfect 30 degree sunshine before ending up at South West Rocks for the night. This coast of Australia has some wonderful beaches with fine white sand and empty beaches. In South West Rocks there were a group of young friends meeting up for a surf after school while the next headland had an 2 kilometres stretch of empty sand.
Now writing this post from Newcastle which seemed a good place to stop for the night. Still everyone makes mistakes as we seem to be in the middle of a run-down area. Earlier we drove up to the beach which was wild and windy but it would seem that Newcastle has seen better days. Tomorrow we head for Sydney.
Arrived in Manly to stay the night with friends before our flight to Tokyo (see next post). On route we passed many beautiful deserted beaches and went for a swim with these strange little jelly blobs scattered among the seaweed. I was the only person in the water, but learned later these jelly blobs are quite nasty jelly fish called bluebottles. Manly is a lovely spot with a great beach and a sheltered harbour where the ferry leaves every 20 minutes for downtown Sydney.
