Greeting from Cocos (Keeling) Islands

Dear all,

This was written on Sunday the 17th.

It’s about 2:00pm on a hot and humid afternoon and I am on Cocos Island. (The West Island to be precise).

Tropical? You betchya!

I arrived on Valentine’s Day and got here a wee bit early due to the weather. That a curiosity.

Usually when the weather is bad one arrives late! This time however, the National Jet flight which was scheduled to operate Perth, Learmonth (tech stop for fuel), Christmas Island and then Cocos Island, had to bypass Christmas Island due to weather. Apparently the weather there was quite foul with a nearby tropical cyclone causing strong wind, low cloud and driving rain. Usually when they can’t land at Christmas Island they divert to nearby Jakarta, refuel and wait for the weather to clear. This time the weather at Jakarta was also bad, so the option to push on to Cocos was obvious.

It’s a big ocean out there. Lots and lots of blue and very few places to land. We’re pretty fussy about getting our options right.

As it turned out, after we diverted to Cocos Island, the weather at Christmas Island cleared quite nicely. So, after landing at Cocos, the crew took the aircraft on the same afternoon back out of Cocos, to Christmas and returned at about sunset in Cocos to complete the flying schedule for the day. Heroic!

I got off while I had the chance on the first arrival in Cocos. (The novelty of the jump seat had well and truly worn off).

Anyhow, as I said it is now Sunday afternoon. I have been here since Thursday and most of my work is done. I’m now hanging around waiting for the aeroplane to come in at 2:20 completing the same scheduled service. Guess what?

The weather in Christmas Island is yet again foul but the weather in Jakarta is OK, so the flight has diverted there. I’m yet to find out if they will be able to make it back to Christmas Island later today and still have enough duty flying hours left to finish tonight in Cocos. I’ll have to wait and see. In the mean time I can’t have a beer because if they do make it to Cocos tonight, I’ll have to be back on the job.

Well, at least I have a nice air-conditioned motel unit to relax in and I can receive the cricket from Adelaide on TV and on the local radio. I have the lap top, and all the photos that I have taken with three cameras have now been transferred. I’ve been able to get them sorted and most have been compressed down to low resolution images, so I can send you a few nice pix. I’ve also done some good panoramas and I think you’re going to be pretty impressed with this place.

Actually I find it rather novel watching the live TV from Adelaide. We’re 4 hours ahead of Adelaide. I have just seen the sunset over Adelaide oval, and here its still very much SPF 30+.

The sunset scene from my bedroom door.

The good news is that I have managed to get a lot of the work I needed to complete, all done by Friday evening, so yesterday was a total R&R day.

On Thursday night I joined with the flight crew and together we enjoyed a Valentine’s day dinner at the Cocos Island Motel restaurant, the ‘Tropika’. Afterwards, we all wandered over the road to the ‘Cocos Club’ and there was a huge run on the ‘Coronas’. The place was pretty well jumping. I got roped into playing bar billiards with the local Imam who didn’t seem to mind being in the company of so much alcohol. He played like hell, and drank orange juice all night which gave him a distinct advantage. I also managed a game of billards with one of the Clunes-Ross family. The lady beat me most unfairly I thought as she was almost falling out of her Valentine’s Day dress in a normal stance. Leaning over the billiard table left nothing to the imagination (as you might well imagine). I’m rather sorry I didn’t have my camera handy. All in all, the good folk here are extremely friendly.

On Friday I saw off our aeroplane and momentarily, I had this feeling of being stranded on a desert island. I tidied up some loose ends with our local airline agent, and then I managed a good days work with the Shell Aviation agent. I got the grand tour of the West Island from the jetty and bulk fuel store at the North end of the Island, down to Scout’s Park and the ‘Yacht Club’ at the South end of the Island.

I think all up, the total road distance is about 7km. Its too hot and humid to walk. Bicycles are available, but I’m afraid it’s been too many years for this black duck to take up such transport. My thighs started to ache at the mere thought of riding a ‘tredley’.

Geoff the refueler showed me the boat ramp at ‘Rumah Baru’, the surf shack at ‘Trannies’, the Quarantine station, golf club, the ‘secret squirrel’ spy station, and after that we had a lovely cup of tea on his front veranda.

Yes, I could sing about ‘My Island Home”.

The houses front right onto the airport, just outside the runway strip. There is no fence, and the golf course straddles both sides of the runway at the Southern End. They have 9 holes. The runway is treated as a water-hazard, so if your ball hits the bitumen, you take a penalty stroke and play from the nearest edge of the bitumen. Don’t worry about aeroplanes. The NJS flight is the only aircraft activity since I have been here.

They care a lot about our NJS flights in this part of the world. It’s the only relatively quick and reliable way out – although tickets are mighty expensive.

I find it all rather amusing as the aerodrome has the same security classification as Perth or Adelaide airport. Can you imagine playing golf across the runway at Adelaide?

Its such a casual place though. Everything runs on banana time. The shops are only open for a few hours each day. Pretty much everything shuts down at 2:00 pm. The club is quite reliable though and is well patronized.

Down at ‘Trannies’, the locals leave their surf-boards in a beach-side shelter. Such is the trust and mutual respect on the island, they leave a gentle notice for the tourist to not borrow a surf-board with out the owners permission.


Would you kindly not borrow a surf-board without the owner's permission?

Oh, and they don’t much lock doors or their cars here. You will always find the keys in the ignition. No point in stealing a car - no where to go!

On Saturday (yesterday) some new friends and I went over to Direction Island on the local ferry. I teamed up with a visiting school teacher and a couple of Marine Safety Investigators who arrived with me on Thursday. We all decided to have a delightful picnic lunch on the island, try some snorkel diving, and just kick back. What a great day out.


Ready to go snorkel diving at Direction Island.

The round trip on the ferry, including the connecting bus cost only $5 per person. Julie, the visiting school teacher, scrounged an esky and ice. Jose’, the local chef arranged some fruit, drinks and chicken and salad rolls for us, and we all hired some snorkel gear.

Well, I can tell you it was just the most perfect day out. We met some other folk as you would expect, and in particular we teamed up with a young grazier and his wife and two young kids. They were on holidays from near Ravensthorpe in WA which is another place National Jet fly to. They get about 4 weeks between the end of the last harvest, and having to be ready for the opening rains next month. Tough life.

We swam and dived at the yachties corner on Direction Island for most of the day. There is a swimming pontoon, fresh water in tanks, long drop dunnies, and nice hammocks slung between coconut trees. Just super.

There is a beaut little shelter which has obviously been set up by the local council and is obviously well patronised by boaties. The place is festooned with memorabilia from visiting yachts and as soon as I saw it, I recalled images of the place having popped up in travel shows on TV and magazine articles. I know there are some good pictures on the internet – probably on Google Earth, and certainly in ‘Panoramio’.


With friends on "DI". L-R Neville, Julie, Greg, Mark.

The big highlight of the trip to ‘DI’ was the snorkel dive opportunity in ‘The Rip’.

‘The Rip’ is the channel at the South Eastern end of Direction Island, between ‘DI’ and ‘Home Island’. It’s called ‘The Rip’ fairly obviously because there is a strong tidal flow into the lagoon. As the afternoon wore on, it lived up to its name and the current became too strong to cope with comfortably. Because we were a little bit too unsure of local conditions to trust the idea of being swept into the lagoon and wade back through the shallows we took the conservative approach and stayed upstream and relatively close to shore.


‘The Rip’ at DI. Home Island in the distance.

‘I can’t say the coral was much to write home about. The variety of fish was good though, and I loved the abundance of the coral trout. I was a little alarmed by the curious black tip reef sharks which circled around (menacingly so I thought because they were very inquisitive and very close), but I was assured they’re quite harmless. They were probably up to 2m long, always on the move, and cruising near the surface. Hmmm. I was more than ready to punch one on the snout if it got too close.

Anyhow, thats enough for this blog.

The aeroplane did make it in to Cocos Island late on Sunday afternoon after the diversion to Jakarta then returning to Christmas Island. I indulged in a few drinkies at the Cocos Club with the crew before giving it away early enough to get a good nights sleep before the jump back to Christmas Island on Monday morning.

Busselton district and back to Perth via NJS

Dear all,

This is an update to Wednesday the 13th.

I just wanted to let you know I had a good trip to Busselton. I stayed overnight at the Baudin Lodge B&B and that was quite an enjoyable experience. Lovely new accommodation. There are four double bedrooms with ensuite joining onto a common living, dining, kitchen area. Delightfully appointed. There were two elderly couples staying over and we really enjoyed each other’s company very much. One couple were visiting from Vancouver, Canada and the subject of Faith’s recent trip over there was a good topic for discussion. I gather they live quite nearby Bouchart Gardens which you will remember so well Faith. (I hope I have remembered the name correctly).

I had an opportunity to drive around the Busselton district on Monday afternoon. Heather Jenkins at Geographe Bay tourist association provided a hire car for me and arranged some free access at several spots. I went out to Dunsborough, Cape Naturaliste, Yallingup, Prevelly, Mount Margaret and back to Busselton via Carbanup and the Margaret River wine district. I made it back in time to join them for dinner at the Ship Inn and they shouted an excellent local grain fed beef steak and bottle of Margaret River Cab Sav.


Surfing at Yallingup. The famous break has been flattened a bit by the strong on-shore wind, but the surfers were still persisting.

The real work was done on Tuesday morning starting at about 6:00 with the positioning flight arriving very early from Perth to take the miners up to the Pilbara. I completed the aerodrome inspections during the day and then reviewed the return flight. Unfortunately my visit to Busselton came to an end all too quickly as I had to jump on the flight back to Perth, but I’ll be back to Busselton again soon. It really is a lovely spot and in some respects it reminded me of towns like Port Lincoln and Beachport.

The flight back to Perth was a very scenic run via Rotnest Island and boy, did I get some spectacular pictures.


Fremantle harbour, from VH-NJR while on descent into PER via Rotnest Island on the way back from Busselton.


Perth city, from the jump seat on VH-NJR, taking the cruisey route to PER via Rotnest Island and the Swan River.


Short final at PER, from the jump seat on VH-NJR.
Neville the Devil.

Busselton, Cape Naturaliste & Margaret River

Dear all,

Well having arrived in Perth from Adelaide by air yesterday afternoon, as I write this morning (Monday the 12th of February 2008), I am enjoying a comfortable ride on the ‘Australind’ train service from Perth to Bunbury, WA. I say ‘comfortable’ but as a veteran air-traveller, I am somewhat un-nerved by the absence of a life jacket under my seat, lack of seat belts, and sad paucity of cabin emergency evacuation procedures or demonstration. The quiet ride without high-speed air noise, turbulence or turbine jet engine whoosh is also taking some getting used to.

But never mind – I love trains; I always have. Like Lance, I never got the Hornby train set that I wanted as a kid, so I tend to make up for it in my later years by riding the track at every opportunity I can. It gives me a bit of a cheap thrill, and it probably doesn’t hurt to be kept on the straight and narrow every now and then.

Without overstating the point, I was in Melbourne last week for three days. While my off-sider commuted by taxi most days to the seminar we were attending, I got my thrills by riding Melbourne trains and trams.

I was pleased to find there are at least three separate tram routes and one suburban rail serving the Glenferrie area from Melbourne CBD with a service on at least one of these around every 5 minutes. Round trip $6.80. Taxi fair approx $50 and it nearly takes as long as the public transport.

But I digress because it has been a bit of a hectic time lately I suppose, and I'm in relaxation mode now.

I didn’t get back from Melbourne until late on Friday evening (the 8th of Feb). I only had Saturday to draw breath and then it was off again on Sunday to Perth. I stayed overnight at the Saville Park Suites on Hay Street in an apartment big enough to sleep a boat load of refugees.

Hay Street – is that why I was sneezing this morning?

My 30 minutes of exercise yesterday evening turned into a marathon walk around East Perth. I was a bit lost without a map. Of course being a techno geek, I did have my GPS logger on and running, but a fat lot of use that thing is without a display. I’m going to get a PDA on Wednesday so I can plug in the logger. I’ve decided its nice to know where I’ve been, but its even nicer to know where I am.

So why am I going down to Bunbury by train today?

Well, that’s because Bunbury is where the train stops. I’m going to connect with the bus from Perth at Bunbury and go on to Busselton. How else would you get to Busselton? I wonder if there is a lot of them – busses that is. (I wonder if it had a train service it would have been called Trainton? Sounds like the name of an early design TV tube.

I digress. Back to the buses, as if the name isn’t weird enough, the bus to Busselton left Perth an hour before the train. So why would you catch the bus I ask? That extra hour in the scratcher was a bit of alright.

But more to the point, I’m going to Busselton because that is where Busselton Airport is, and I’m booked to catch a plane from there to Perth. Eh??

Well, National Jet has recently started an air service out of Busselton for one of the mining companies flying employees to the Pilbara. An increasing number of people now live out of Perth because of the housing shortage in that fair city. Rather than a big commute to Perth airport to get to the Pilbara each week, the mining companies are flying folks out of Busselton. That also means the mining companies can offer much more attractive packages for skilled people to live in Busselton and commute to the Pilbara. Such is the acute shortage of labour.

And where do I fit into the equation? Well, because this is a new air service for NJS and this aerodrome, periodically after starting up I need to go down to Busselton and have a look at the air safety aspects of the operation. I need time there to review the aerodrome facilities and serviceability, services, ramp ground handling, passenger check-in, load control, weight and balance, freight acceptance, storage and handling, security, and so forth. Now that is at least two days work, which tragically leaves me with some gaps that can only be filled by a tour of the nearby Margaret River wineries and photographic opportunities at Geographe Bay.



More about that tomorrow night perhaps and then later in the week I’ll tell you some of the unfolding saga of my coming trip to Cocos and Christmas Islands.

Well, the country-side south of Perth is fairly wide, brown, and undulating a little as the train line follows the southern reaches of the Darling Ranges as they drop away into the surrounding sheep grazing country. Ummm, I just spotted some dairy cattle, so delete reference to any exclusivity for the sheep.

Hello, the train has just pulled up. I think we are at Dwellingup. Somethings up, and as it turned out I was in someone else’s seat. They turned up, with their nose turned up, and now I’m in the right seat. Bugger – I’m cramped now.

OK, enough of this.

NJS provided the accommodation at the Baudin Lodge and the Geographe Bay Tourist Association provided the Hyundai Elantra. If you ever get over this way, please make sure you stay here.

Just to finish off, I thought I would mention to Faith that while I’m out and about I use my lap top to stay in touch. There are several ways that I do this.

For example, at motels and hotels, I find mostly they have a broadband connections available and I can log in without too much fuss. When I open Internet Explorer, the service provider web page jumps up. It’s just a simple log in from there, and I pay the usage costs with the motel/hotel bill. Alternatively, you can plug in via the telephone line and use a dial up service but I find it so tediously slow, I never bother. There is however usually a good saving on broadband costs.

If you have a wireless modem, you can also connect via wireless and there are quite a few free wireless connection points around places like airport terminals, hotels, motels and city centres. Some may have some limitations on what you can access, but that is a small concession if the service is free. The limitations shouldn’t be enough to prevent you getting your email. Motels and hotels generally charge about $12 per hour for a broadband unlimited wireless connection. One hour is about all you need if you prepare you material for sending while off line.

You should be able to connect to your email account at any of the zillion internet shops around the traps too. You use the internet shop PC so you don’t have to cart your lap top around. I actually haven’t tried using my own lap top at an internet shop. You may be able to do that so just go and ask.

Now, in my case I am interested in the email on both my work and home accounts. In both cases while I am away I can connect to the mail server via Internet Explorer. For example, with my Bigpond account, I simply go to www.bigpond.com.au then log in with my account name and password and bingo, I can send and receive my email.

Although I could use MS Outlook on my lap top to get my home email, I don’t bother.

At home I use MS Outlook on my desk top PC to get my email. Because my work email account can’t be directly accessed from the outside world, while I am away I log in via Internet Explorer to a remote portal that work has provided. The portal enables me to access quite a bit of data and tools that I use at work, as well as my work email. Therefore, as long as I can get access to the World Wide Web, I’m not really out of contact with the office.

I can’t give you much advice regarding account types and dollar amounts Faith. I think the sort of accounts offered by the likes of Telstra Bigpond are generally fairly competitive and pretty reliable. I have unlimited broadband at the highest speed at home so my monthly rate is around $69 or thereabouts if my memory serves me correctly. There are two issues you need to think about – one is how you normally connect at home, the amount of data your are likely to send and receive each month and the speed you would like to do that. The other is the sort of storage capacity you want with your email server, (most folks don’t need to have much storage because they download and delete their email in the one go). You might want extra email addresses, and perhaps you might want to run a web page. No matter what your email set up is, you should be able to access it via a web interface, or MS Outlook.

Well, the train has just pulled into and now is moving out of Waroona and I think there might be a seat with a bit more space just down the carriage, so I’m going for a mooch.

See you soon.

Neville the Devil.