Wednesday, April 3, 2024

The usual: Sin to Hel

Continuing my journey from Brisbane to Singapore, now heading to Hel...sinki. It is a wonderful route. This time I got an upgrade, by burning my last remaining upgrade voucher.

Slept more on a plane than I have ever slept, 8-9 hours. The flight was 13 hours.

The earlier leg was covered here and the Singapore lounge here.

Flight parameters:


Takeoff:


Meals:



Seat:

For more flying stories, check out the planetflier.com website! And of course the Planetcaver, and Planetskier blogs for other stories in Blogspot and TGR! The photos and text (c) 2024 by Jari Arkko. All rights reserved.

Flying Qantas from Brisbane

My flights from Brisbane back to Helsinki went via Qantas to Singapore and then onwards with Finnair. It was nice to visit the Brisbane airport, and Brisbane area overall as well of course. I had not been in Brisbane or anywhere in Queensland before!

Much recommended area to visit. The airport was straightforward, no issues, everything was pretty well laid out. Lounges were in the second floor, and at least in the Qantas lounge there was some breakfast, nice juices, etc. available.

The Qantas lounge in Brisbane:


Departure from BNE:


Arrival in SIN:


Meal during the flight:


And in Brisbane, it had been raining a ton during the night as well as on previous days. Apparently the roof of the airport did not entirely hold up, so they were scooping 10cm water pools from the corridors when I was walking towards the gate...

For more flying stories, check out the planetflier.com website! And of course the Planetcaver, and Planetskier blogs for other stories in Blogspot and TGR! The photos and text (c) 2024 by Jari Arkko. All rights reserved.

Qatar Lounge at SIN

Singapore Changi is such a nice airport. Potentially the *nicest* airport, to be exact., winning the best airport in the world titles left and right (link).

Some of the great things about it:

  • Efficient, very small number of queues and problems compared to the size of the operation
  • Nice design, good environment for people
  • Walkable even though large
  • Great shopping malls etc
  • Many lounges
This time was I Singapore while changing from a Brisbane - Singapore flight to a Singapore - Helsinki flight. I was there for six hours.. sadly the time went more to working than exploring the place. But I did camp out in the Qatar Premium Lounge, for the sake of gaining a new experience. My soon-to-be-gone status at Finnair lets me visit these lounges, so that's also a good reason to use it before it is gone :-)

The lounge was a bit of walk from my gates, but at the same time I saw many of the shops on the way. At the lounge you will find:
  • normal seating area
  • snacks table (fruit, bread, sweets, etc.)
  • a bar
  • working pods
  • a la carte restaurant
  • bathrooms and showers
Maybe something else too, as noted I did not have time to explore all. The showers were top notch, and no queues. Staff was extremely helpful and attentive. They even gave me a power converter plug when it turned out that the working pod power socket did not accept my euro plugs. 

A great lounge of course, the only thing missing was of course the sauna :-)



For more flying stories, check out the planetflier.com website! And of course the Planetcaver, and Planetskier blogs for other stories in Blogspot and TGR! The photos and text (c) 2024 by Jari Arkko. All rights reserved.

Tuesday, April 2, 2024

Beachmere Palms Motel Pool

Basic motel, in a nice beach town of 'Beachmere' though. But I'm here late and the wind and rain wouldn't let me go to the beach even if there was still light. And everything seems closed, even the motel doesn't have staff around, just a note for me to enter the room :-)

However, my motel does have a small pool. It is late Australian autumn, so it doesn't look like anyone's been in the pool in weeks or longer. Oh well, have to try it anyway :-)

Not bad. Back to the room and packing so that I can fly back home. I have to leave early, 6am to get to my flights from Brisbane. Beachmere is 45 minutes north of the airport.

Here's the link to the hotel. I can recommend it. Affordable, clean, next to the beach, though not luxury by any means. 



For more sauna and swimming stories, check out planetswimmer.com and saunablogger.cool websites! Read more urban exploration stories from theurbanexplorer.net, and other underground stories from planetcaver.net. Read the full Planetskier series at planetskier.net, or all blog articles from Blogspot or TGR. Photos and text (c) 2024 by Jari Arkko. All rights reserved.  I never photograph pools, beaches or saunas unless the facility is closed or empty.

Monday, April 1, 2024

Meeting the locals: Australian cave fauna

It has always been a dream for me to meet the locals when I get a change to visit some caves during travel. The humans, of course, but also the ones that have been there even longer than we have, from the little critters to some bigger ones, and maybe even some plants. It turns out that dreams can come true, as I got to see some amazing things on my recent trip to Australia. But also, nightmares can come true, too...

Let's start with the snake. I had had nightmares about this, actually. And there I was, crawling in a tight tunnel in the Capricorn Caves when the person in front of me spots a snake where the tight spot opens to a room. Not in front of our noses and under our bellies, but .. too close for comfort. And yes, it was a Python so non-venomous and mostly non-dangerous. But .. eww. 

We should of course remember that we humans are the guests in these places. Snakes, bats, and everything else are the real owners, so we need to accommodate them. A memorable meeting, however :-)

Next up, something less scary, glow worms! Like these: 


No wait, those are some mutant glow worms, maybe early prototypes? These were spotted in the Tamborine Mountain Glow Worm Cave, which is the world's only artificial glow worm sanctuary. But there's no photo of their non-prototype glow worms, as there was no photography inside the living quarters of the worms :-)

However, in the Springbrook Natural Bridge there's not only a natural bridge (arch), but also a waterfall, underground waterfall, a cave, and ... glow worms in their natural habitat. Wonderful:


Back in the Tamborine Mountain, the signs also warned us about Water dragons. I don't think I would have chased any water dragons, even if I had seen one, but I didn't. And what is a water dragon anyway? Is that like a self-sufficient dragon that can both light and extinguish fires?


Then we move to Paradise. Paradise Caves, specifically. On a place called Sunshine Beach, I kid you not :-)

Here there's obviously a cave. Sadly, I was too much of a wimp to enter it, just because I didn't want to fall to the sea. But on the way back there was something interesting, namely a forest of Paper Bark Tea Trees. What they do I they color water flowing through the forest streams like tea. So here's a little tea stream flowing to the sea:


And then in Mt. Etna Caves National Park, there's a cave... actually many caves but I could find one in the limited time I had. This cave had probably hundreds of butterflies. So cute couple here:



And back in Capricorn Caves, we also spotted an owl. Apparently it consumes bats for food...


So obviously there were bats. A massive amount of bats! When bats fly, it is pretty quiet. But when a massive number of bats fly in the upper parts of the cave, you can clearly hear it. Thousands. But it was interesting to me that sometimes bigger bat species can eat smaller bats, here's for instance a bat cut in half. (Are bats then cannibals?)


The bottom of the caves was largely bat shit, by the way, but also remains of various smaller animals. Digging is going on to examine the history of what's been eaten here. Here are some small bones, for instance, from the years past:


A lizard was also spotted in the cave:


And then we switch gears a bit and go to flora. A fern is a nice thing, but a rare fern is even nicer. Tectaria Devexa is a rare fern that used to flourish in Capricorn Caves. However, a forest fire few years back caused the cave's climate to change, as the surrounding forest did not protect the cave as much from the sun and wind. This wrecked havoc on the ferns as well, at some point only four remained. Now they are growing again, partially first in controlled environments but the pots are now being brought to the cave, and they seem to be doing fine. Here's one of the four ferns:


And some in-pot-grown ferns have recently moved in as well:


Another interesting fact of Capricorn Caves was the number of tree roots. And their size and length. Massive halls would have tens of meters long tree roots sticking down, and almost every part of the cave had roots growing. When there's rain, the cave too will get wet as it is not very deep, and sits under a rather porous piece of rock above it. Here's some cave forms side by side with some roots:


More roots:


Also, there's a few sinkholes in the cave, with roots and/or trees growing there as well. Here's one example:


Finally, the local humans! The Mt. Etna Caves and Capricorn Caves are located in a village called The Caves. There's obviously a pub, as there should be in every village:


And beer:


Not to mention a school:

More information about the caves I visited can be found from my earlier articles:

Some of these visits were unsuccessful, however, I didn't dare to go due to conditions or being scared of the reptiles I might step on :-) The full list of possible caves around Brisbane and their coordinates can be found from my previous article here. I visited only a small fraction of them, of course.

Read more urban exploration stories from theurbanexplorer.net, and other underground stories from planetcaver.net. Read the full Planetskier series at planetskier.net, or all blog articles from Blogspot or TGR. Photos and text (c) 2024 by Jari Arkko, map picture is a snapshot from Google Maps. All rights reserved. 

Capricorn Caves

Capricorn Caves is a limestone cave under a hill a town called The Caves, Queensland, Australia. This is a small town about 30 kilometers north of Rockhampton. A wonderful little town... with The Caves elementary school, The Caves bar, etc. But the cave! Such a nice place to visit. It is a commercial show cave with a variety of tours, from the basic tourist walking tour to more adventurous tours. I did both actually, was lucky to be able to reserve a slot in the adventure tour as well as they only do them if there's enough participants.

And so many things to talk about. Encounter with a snake while crawling. The roots everywhere in the cave, despite being high (up to 30 meter high rooms) the forest above the cave sends its roots down for water, I guess. There's a nice little restaurant/bar and a gift shop, easy parking... In the neighborhood there's also the Mt. Etna Caves national park.

But let's start with the snake. I had had nightmares about this, actually. And there I was, crawling in a tight tunnel in the Capricorn Caves when the person in front of me spots a snake where the tight spot opens to a room. Not in front of our noses and under our bellies, but .. too close for comfort. And yes, it was a Python so non-venomous and mostly non-dangerous. But .. eww.  (More about Australian cave fauna in another article.)


In a collapsed sinkhole:


Sign:


Owl in the cave:


The snake:


Cave restaurant and ticket sales facility:


Little thing:


Tunnels:


Local beer (the village is called The Caves):


The hill under which the cave is:


Adventure tour group:



Roots and stalactites:





Ferns growing in pots inside the cave, moved back here after being rescued elsewhere post-wildfires:


Entrance:



Nice mini-stalactites:


Crawling in the tunnels near the snake encounter:



Small bones dug up from the cave floor:


Bat bitten in half:

More information about other caves I visited in the area can be found from these articles:

Read more urban exploration stories from theurbanexplorer.net, and other underground stories from planetcaver.net. Read the full Planetskier series at planetskier.net, or all blog articles from Blogspot or TGR. Photos and text (c) 2024 by Jari Arkko, map picture is a snapshot from Google Maps. All rights reserved.