Tag Archives: Travel

Birds, Travel, wildlife

US west coast Part II

8 November, 2017 yiz Leave a comment

6 September 2017 – 8 September 2017: Las Vegas

Back to LAX. Swap a small car with a medium SUV.

Then we drove to Las Vegas, a city that’s arguably more beautiful at night than during the day.

Revisiting the city, I have found out that that many free shows at various hotels, such as the Pirate Battle at Treasure Island, the Volcano at Mirage & Bellagio fountains were still on.

8 September 2017 – 10 September 2017: Grand Canyon National Park

We departed Nevada on the 8^th Morning and headed towards the Grand Canyon.

US roads are great for road trips – relatively flat and straight. Few cops hiding in the bushes like a lone lion trying to ambush a herd of migrating antelopes. Not many tolls to extract that extra few dollars from your wallet.

Grand Canyon is in Arizona, close to the border to Utah. We stayed in a small town called Kanab in Utah, which is at the border of Utah and Arizona. Although the longitude of Arizona and Utah are roughly the same, but because Utah has day light savings and Arizona does not, there is an hour time differences between the two.

The road went from Utah and Arizona back to Utah a few times, telling the exact time became hard if you were not watching where you crossed the border.

Utah and surrounding has some unique landscape and rock formations.

Horseshoe bend is named after its shape. The river beneath is the Colorado river.

There is a dam with a hydraulic power station a short drive away from the Horse shoe bend.

We went to the Grand Canyon North Rim the next day, it was cloudy in the morning, top of the canyon was shrouded in fog. But as the day went on, the fog started to disperse. By middle afternoon, the mist was gone. Grand Canyon took off the veil and revealed its true self to us. Sunset is beautiful in the canyon – sunlight shone from an angle and brought the contrast out of different layers. The scenery was spectacular.

Then the next day we proceeded to the South Rim.

If you are driving, there is no short cut between south rim and north rim. Going from North to South (or vise versa) involves driving around and cross a bridge over the Colorado River. The river isn’t the only thing named after the neighbour state to Arizona, there is also a place called Colorado City along highway 389.

Scenery at side of the road was also amazing, it’s not often when you see a gigantic gap in the middle of a vast flat plain.

South rim gives a more complete picture of the canyon than the North rim. Not only can you see the Colorado river beneath, different layers of the canyon are also very clear.

If you want to gain a bit knowledge on the grand canyon, the Yavapai Geology Museum is a place you should not miss. It’s also a place to understand why it’s called the grand canyon – there are three layers of canyon on top of each other, and the museum is one of the best places to witness this.

There were plenty of elks in the national park, they were not afraid of people either. On the way back from Grand Canyon south rim, we narrowly missed a deer that jumped right in front of the car.

10 September 2017- 13 September 2017: St George – Bryce Canyon National Park

Utah is an interesting place. I was warned of lacking of proper alcoholic drinks in the supermarket. Yep, no wine or hard liquor sold here, only Low-alcoholic beverages available. There were also some Mormons dressed in traditional clothing.

We visited Bryce Canyon national park. The view was special in its own way. It’s not often one sees a view point hoarded by a bunch of photographers. But at Bruce Point, we witnessed a group people with professional equipment positioning themselves at best viewing spots waiting for sunset.

Various birds came to greet us at breakfast.

13 September – 14 September: Salt lake city

Keep on driving north, we stopped over at the Salt Lake City.

Since the city has been named after it, we became intrigued by this great salt lake. So we went to see the lake for ourselves. Then we found out there was place with plenty of wildlife – Antelope Island.

Going over to Antelope Island State Park involves driving across a bridge over the salt lake.

There were plenty of birds on the lake. According to an official website, the region supports several million birds during busy seasons of the year.

A part of the lake looked like a mirror, reflected sky.

hiking, Travel

Tarkine Coast Walk

31 August, 2017 yiz 1 Comment

I landed at Launceston on 10th March, then the rest of the people from our bushwalking group and I have been picked up from Launceston airport the next day & driven to the ‘edge of the world’. It was a 3.5 hour drive. The walk started from Arthur River, it was much along the ocean with bits & pieces inland.

11 March 2017

The journey started from the end of the world, this end of the world:

This section of the track was shared by 4WD, hikers, dogs, wallabies and from the footprints, horses.

There was a section at the beginning of the track where logs apparently swept up by the sea blocked part of the beach.

We camped next to a stream on the first night. The organizer of the trip was experienced and had planned the trip in such a way that we were camping near water sources most of the nights. Not only we were able to re-fill our water, there was also opportunity to take a quick dip.

Apparently there were also Aboriginal carvings near our campsite on the first night.

Tarkine Day 1

12 March 2017

We woke up in the rain, the weather was gloomy all the way until lunch. It’s the day we spotted the first sick penguin and we called WIRES from my phone, but there was nothing much else we could do.

There were a few smaller towns along the way and some houses had solar panels, I even spotted one with both solar panels and windmill. Nearly all of them had rain water tanks. I guess the drawback of living in such a beautiful place close to nature is the lacking of utility such as electricity and water so one has to live off the grid.

Lunch was at a scenic little lagoon. A few people dipped into water for a quick swim while I was busy drying the tent.

We came across a few beaches filled with seaweed. It smelt awful. I was uncertain whether it was from the rotting seaweed or the rotten seafood, I mean sea creature wrapped in those seaweed. Seagulls seemed to not mind the smell and happy to be next to it though.

Tarkine Day 2

13 March 2017

The first three days, we had to share the beach with 4 wheel drives and buggies. When automobiles go pass you every 30 minutes, it doesn’t feel too much like a wildness track. On the good side, we have been getting water from the friendly local drivers.

The weather has improved since the second day. By the third day, there was amazing blue sky. It’s marvellous to walk on the beach where there was endless ocean on one side, and perpetual sand dunes on the other.

We saw the second sick penguin on our journey, but this one was in much better condition than the last one. It turned itself around and prepared to go back to the sea.

Tarkine Day 3

14 March 2017

It’s the first day into the territory where no vehicles were allowed. We bush bashed a bit and was slight lost in the morning. But soon we found our orientation, and ended on the beach. It’s not terribly hard since it’s a coast walk, we aimed for the beach, any beach really. Then we headed south as usual.

By the afternoon, we ended on the endless beach again. Because the landscape was fairly exposed, the wind showed its power. There were forceful waves on our right side, we had to be careful dodging some persistent invading ones, and we could see sand has been blown off the sand dunes on our left.

Occasionally tide caught up with one of us and one ended up with wet boots.

Tarkine Day 4

15 March 2017

This morning, we walked into an area full of bush food. There were a few people in the group who were experienced in bushcrafts. So I had some fresh bush fruit. It was great experience.

We pitched our tent next to an open area next to the cliff. The wind picked up at night, I laid in my tent, worried about when my tent was going to give in and collapse on me. I even got out trying to tie down the line, but it did work – the gale was too strong. The around 4am, the wind changed direction and with it, brought the rain. This somewhat relieved pressure on my tent, so I was able to get some sleep finally.

Tarkine Day 5

16 March 2017

After a night of strong wind, I woke up in a half collapsed tent and only had 2-3 hours of sleep.

Because it rained during the previous night and in early morning, we had to go across a few swamp.

I jokely called the water we have been drink the pure ‘Tasmania tea’ because of slightly yellowish stain in the water. But it’s very safe to drink, because the water was mainly from creeks and there were very few farms and towns up the stream. Colour of the water was from leaves.

The journey ended on the bank of Pieman River. We took a ferry down to Corinna, and were picked up by a shuttle bus after lunch.

Tarkine Day 6

17 March -18 March 2017

Back in Launceston, rested a bit, food was good.

Launceston

Travel

Wuhan/武汉

22 November, 2016 yiz 2 Comments

I have finally sorted out the pictures I have taken while on the rest of trip last month.

Most of them were taken in Wuhan(武汉). But there were a few taken in other cities and towns. A lot of those pictures were of tall residential buildings. They sprouted out mostly in the past 5-10 years. Before year 2000, there were almost none of those super tall towers, then bam! Now the city is now full of them.

There were also a few pictures taken around East Lake(东湖), Guiyuan Temple(归元寺), near the Yangtze river(长江) and at a few other odd places.

East Lake/东湖:

Guiyuan Temple(归元寺), HanZheng Jie(汉正街) & ZhongShan Park

Some other places:

If you love shopping, you should definitely visit HanZheng Jie(汉正街), large variety of goods are guaranteed at low prices! Although be able to speak Wuhan dialect does improve your bargain power in general.

Travel

Chengdu–Huanglong–jiuzhaigou / 成都-黄龙-九寨沟

27 October, 2016 yiz 5 Comments

20^th September 2016 – 26^th September 2016

Recently, my cousin and I visited Chengdu(成都), Huanglong(黄龙) and Jiuzhaigou(九寨沟).

Chengdu is a is the provincial capital of Sichuan province in Southwest China, that houses some 14 million inhabitants. Most parts of the city are modern, but there are also a few ancient places reserved for their historical significance.

Sichuan is famed for its hot and spicy food. I like hot and spicy food, so when we first went to a restaurant and ordered dishes and waitress asked ‘normal hotness?’ I replied with ‘yes’. But my cousin reminded me ‘you are in Sichuan’. And she was right. Despite the fact that we ordered ‘slightly spicy’ food, it was much hotter and spicier than I had expected.

The route to Huanglong(黄龙) & Jiuzhaigou(九寨沟) was through many tunnels. The road followed Min river(岷江). I was amazed to see many power transmission towers on tall mountains.

Towers at the top of the mountain - enlarge to see

Snowy tops in the distance

Huanglong is 3000 meters above sea level. So we were warned of altitude sickness. It wasn’t too bad for me, but there were a couple of people started throwing up while coach was traveling through the mountain region.

Huanglong was beautiful. We took the cable car up and walked down a couple of kilometres back to the entrance. I was constantly out of breath, most likely due to high altitude.

‘Jiuzhaigou(九寨沟) has a population density of 2000 people per square meter’, someone who has recently been there joked. Although it’s a bit exaggeration, there were a lot of tourists.

We spent a whole day there, walking some 20+ kilometres up and down the ‘Y’ shaped valleys. There were buses running up and down the same route, and we caught those a couple of times too.

Jiuzhaigou’s famed for its beautiful waters. The water displayed alluring colours because of the mineral and algae in the water.

This is ophiocordyceps sinensis, also know as insect plant (冬虫夏草).

I bought some on the way back. Insect plant is formed when fungi invades worm, and in China, it’s a herbal remedy. Apparently they only grow on tall mountains with altitude over 3000 meters.

On the road from Chengdu to Huanglong/Jiuzhaigou, we went past parts of the area worst affected by 2008 earthquake. Some of those towns were surrounded by tall mountains on all four sides with only one road going in and out of the place. Awe was how I felt.

Speaking of awesomeness, we have also had a day trip visiting Qingchengshan-Dujiangyan National Park (青城山-都江堰国家公园). Qingchengshan is famed for being one of the cradles for Tao religion and Dujiangyan is an irrigation system that was built some 2200 years ago. Dujiangyan divided river into two parts: inner river and outside river. The inner river is narrow but deep and the outer river is broad but shallow. Inner river is channelled into towns and farming area and the outer river is diverted away from civilization. During dry season, more water goes into the deep inner river while as during flooding, more water goes into broad outer river. Thus regardless of the weather, quantity of water into the town and farming area is regulated.

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