28 July 2014 by thesmartwayround

Our Top Wildlife Experiences So Far… Part 1

Nothing beats seeing wildlife in their natural habitat and over the years we have been lucky enough to see our fair share. From almost being trampled by a family of elephants in South Africa, searching for the elusive nocturnal Bamboo Lemur in Madagascar to the other worldliness of Antarctica, in this two part blog we explore our favourite wildlife experiences from our travels so far….

1: Mountain Gorillas in the Parc National des Volcans Rwanda

This would have to be one of the most amazing hours of our lives. We hiked for roughly an hour into the rain forests of the Parc National des Volcans in Rwanda to get up close and personal with one of mans’ closest relatives.

One of the most amazing hours of our lives.

Visiting the Gorillas is strictly regulated, and rightly so, with less than an estimated 800 still in the wilds of Rwanda, Uganda and Democratic Republic of Congo. Only 10 visitors per day get to spend one incredible hour with a family watching them go about their business. Despite their size, (the males can weigh over 200 kg), they can be extremely quiet and the sound of them beating their chests was more like hollow drums being beaten than anything out of a King Kong movie.

Up close and personal with a 200kg Mountain Gorilla

They truly exhibit human like tendencies and when they make eye contact you can sense the intelligence behind those eyes. It is an experience you will never forget. I never thought anything would top visiting Antarctica, I was wrong.

2: Penguins in Antarctica

Antarctica is like another world, virtually devoid of human interference and one of the few places in the world where nature rules supreme.

Just one of the colonies of Penguins to be found in Antarctica’s harsh environment

It really is a privilege to visit Antarctica and to watch a colony of roughly half a million penguins squawk, clamber, dodge and bully each other was one of the highlights of my years of travel. Each penguin had a totally unique personality, and armed with your camera and just sitting still they would move around, investigate and try and make sense of you being there. Antarctica is one of the few places in the world where wildlife has not had to learn to fear man and the penguin’s curiosity was fascinating to behold. We can only hope that it remains this way.

The penguins go about their business as if you were not there

3: Madagascar’s Diverse and Unique Wildlife

After watching the BBC documentary series on Madagascar we thought we would be lucky to see half of what they experienced on the program, how wrong we were. Getting our Attenborough on was far easier than we thought, and we were lucky enough to see over 20 species of Lemur (our new favourite animals, sorry penguins you have dropped to number two!), dozens of incredibly colourful chameleon and geckos that looked like leaves. We never thought we would get so excited about spotting insects!

A Ring Tailed Lemur in the Andasibe National Park, Madagascar

Each national park was famous for a different variety of Lemur, or a special type of Chameleon. Our tip, make sure you link up with experienced local guides in the National Parks, without a good one you wont see a fraction of what can see you.

One of the stunning Chameleon we saw on Madagascar’s northern islands

4:Lake Nakuru National Park, Kenya

You can’t talk about wildlife experiences without mentioning Africa! While not the most famous, we loved Lake Nakuru National Park. A stunning location and diverse wildlife made this one of our best game park experiences in Africa. Containing four of the big five (the park is too small for elephants) as well as loads of monkey and flamingo all set around a beautiful large lake and only a couple of hours out side Nairobi, make sure you add this to your Kenyan wish list.

Our first Lion in Lake Nakuru National Park

5: Diving with Thresher Sharks in Malapascua, Philippines

While there are without doubt far better dive sites in the world, and perhaps because it was my first shark experience Malapascua makes the list. It is one of the few sites in the world where recreational divers can see these deep-water sharks. Every morning at dawn they swim up to a cleaning station at 30m below the surface. Their ribbon like tails majestically waving behind them and their huge black eyes and open mouths they almost look as if they were stoned! For divers, their fist shark experience is always something special, and mine was no exception.

The amazing tail of the Thresher Shark off Malapascua

Divers lined up at dawn as the Thresher sharks swim up to a 30m cleaning station

Next week in Part 2 we round out our top 10 wildlife experiences. Any ideas what we will find? Leave a guess below or tell us about your favourite wildlife experience around the world and we will have to add it to our travel bucket list!

– Dean

9 April 2014 by thesmartwayround

Overcoming Your Fears: Learning to Dive

When Natalie and I first met, she was already an accomplished diver, while I had had neither the opportunity to learn or had the inclination. This was quite a surprise for Natalie because on the surface this should have been something that appealed to me. It wasn’t until we had been together for about 18 months that I seriously thought about learning to dive.

I was in Central America on my annual enforced hiatus from Europe to stay within visa regulations when I had the idea. “When I get to Mexico I am going to learn to dive,” I told Natalie over Skype one day. “Seriously?” was the response on the other end, “that’s awesome”. After promising I would take the plunge so to speak there, was no getting out of it. So upon arriving in Playa Del Carmen I searched around until I decided Phocea Mexico was the dive company to help open up this whole new World to me.

When most people think of learning to dive some of the common fears and concerns are things such as breathing underwater, or encountering rather large and somewhat hungry marine life. My fears were a little more personal. Having worn glasses or contact lenses since I was 18 my biggest fear was what would happen if I lost my mask, and the possibility of my contacts washing away. This had always played on my mind and reared its ugly head again when I first learnt to dive.

I found Nemo!

The PADI course was a great mixture of theory and practice, slowly building up your confidence and skill sets in between experiencing the wonders of life underwater. Initially we went through the basics in a large swimming pool, something that I hated. Every time we went under the surface I was engulfed in a sense of claustrophobia, doubts spinning around my mind that this was not natural or ‘normal’. Amazingly on our first dive in the open water I was totally at ease. There was no feeling of claustrophobia, no uncertainty just a feeling of peace and being at ease. The tests and procedures continued and I never did feel comfortable removing my mask and that fear of being nearly blind underwater was ever persistent in the back of my mind.
Completing my Open Water certification was an amazing feeling, I had overcome my doubts but more importantly a new world of travel experiences had opened up for me, and ones both Natalie and I could now share together. As with any new skill you master there is one very important factor in ensuring those new skills ‘stick’, and that is practice. Sadly after learning, Natalie and I had little to no opportunity to go diving. With wedding planning and numerous visas eating into our time, diving slid off into the background of priorities. Just over two years after learning we were able to spend a few days at the end of our honeymoon diving together for the first time. As we kitted up, the procedures and training I had received in Mexico quickly came flooding back and my excitement levels rose.

Most importantly for me during that two-year gap I had received laser eye surgery and no longer needed contact lenses or glasses, a huge boost to my diving ‘career’ and my confidence! The one thing that had made me nervous before every dive was now non-existent so there really was nothing to hold me back.

As we planned our recent adventure we had decided it would be a great way to finish with a relaxed, almost mini holiday / honeymoon in the Philippines, and the basis of this trip was to do some quality diving together. The nerves and apprehension that had once been there was now replaced with excitement. To refresh my skills and improve my diving I completed my Advanced Open Water Certificate. My confidence and ability underwater soared over the two weeks in the Philippines and I was slowly catching Natalie in air consumption (or lack of!) and buoyancy control.

Practice makes perfect

As the saying goes, ‘practice makes perfect’, and it was so true with my diving. Control, manoeuvrability, buoyancy and breathing all became second nature down there and rather than constantly worrying about what I was doing I was now able to enjoy my surroundings.

Learning to dive really does open up a whole new world. From stunningly colourful coral to the intricately decorated tropical fish to schools of sardines that swim around in enormous schools as if controlled by some sort of collective consciousness, you certainly get a greater appreciation for just how amazing nature really is. The silence of life underwater is probably the most notable difference from life above the surface. For the most part all you hear is your breathing and the bubbles escaping your regulator. Over the last two weeks of our trip I was lucky enough to dive with turtles, hundreds of variety of fish and even see my first sharks!

Looking like a pro!

The beautiful thing about travelling is you are constantly challenged and given the opportunity to overcome your fears. Whether it is bungee jumping, skydiving, mountain climbing, or in my case learning to dive, the opportunities are almost always there when you travel. However, if you do challenge yourself and do something you would never have dreamt of back home, you may just discover a new hobby or new passion that will enhance future travels. That is what happened to me, I love diving and cannot wait until our next underwater adventures.

– Dean

7 April 2014 by thesmartwayround

Chapter 13: It’s More Fun in the Philippines….

… Say the marketing slogans. They are not wrong!

You can see why they say ‘it is more fun in the Philippines’!

Rewind to November last year, and we watched in horror as the atrocities of Typhoon Yolanda swept through, taking with it the livelihoods of thousands of Filipinos and the lives of well over 6000 people. Several people asked us if we were still going ahead with our plans to visit, but there was no stopping us. The devastation of such natural disasters continues long after the event itself and without tourists how could they afford to rebuild? There was never any question; wild horses would not stop us going.

Now firstly I should say that the Philippines were originally my baby. Having been on a few cruises (very different to backpacking I know!) with my parents I had over the years come across many many Filipino ship staff, and for a long time I have wanted to visit the country. Not only because I had heard how beautiful it was, but just so I could look them in the eyes and say I had been to their beautiful country. From the early stages of our planning, the Philippines was to be the ideal destination to end our travels and to be our second honeymoon (two weddings, two honeymoons sound fair don’t you think?!).

Lazy days

So we set off, and landed in Cebu, with little planned out and in need of some R&R. We initially spent a couple of nights at Kon Tiki divers (!) on Mactan Island, which enabled us to dust off the regulators and get ourselves wet with our first diving. These early dives were to be the first of about 16 dives that followed over the next two weeks and we loved every second of them!

The Smart Way Round under water!

We had heard about the huge shoals of sardines that swam off the coast of Cebu in Moalboal, so after our initial dives we headed over to the other side of Cebu Island. We found a lovely dive resort called Quo Vadis and felt very at home. Whilst there was little beach area the sunsets were incredible and we found ourselves easily settling into the diving, snoozing, rum at sunset drinking routine! We liked it so much that Dean decided it was time to up his skills and attempt to catch me up! He signed on to do his ‘Advanced Open Water’ PADI course. Even though I am a ‘Rescue Diver’ level, it really meant there was not too much between us in terms of the depths we could go to. He also decided to qualify in diving with Nitrox (Oxygen enriched air) so we could use that together. I won’t go into the benefits of using it, but its good stuff! So for me these few days were very relaxing, but for Dean they involved a lot more study!

Selfie with the Sardines

The diving here was instantly great. Even the house reef out of the front of the resort was like jumping into my Father’s fish tank and every dive was a joy. The sardines well and truly came out to play and at one point I could barely see up, down, left or right as I found myself in the middle of them. Quite spectacular. We saw plenty of special things. Turtles galore, but my favourite was a tiny blue ringed octopus that I managed to spot on a night dive. Quite a sight and pure fluke on my part!

Just like a fish tank!

A beautiful spot

All too soon it was time to move on and we headed over to Donsol a sleepy fishing village on another Island. It was a bit hair raising getting there. With the knock-on effect of a typhoon approaching (fortunately not one as bad as Yolanda) the rain was out to play and it took us three attempts for the pilot to land the plane. I’ll not lie – I was getting a bit scared by the end when we kept doing the emergency ascent!

Things in Donsol didn’t quite go to plan. The weather meant it was too rough to get out to the dive site we had hoped to dive. However we managed to have a fun few days as we went out to spot Whale sharks. This was a fun experience as we were with a couple of really cool people from our hotel. We sat around on the boat convinced that we wouldn’t see anything when all of a sudden we got the call to ‘prepare’. This involved sitting on the side of Bangka (‘catamaran’) and throwing ourselves into the water when the Whale Shark was near. The ones were saw were up to 8m in size, and were truly spectacular. We had seen them once before in Mozambique but these gentle giants are always special and it’s a true privilege to snorkel with them. There is also more of a theme park style experienced with these gentle giants somewhere else in the Philippines where they bait them. We do not agree with this at all and we were so pleased we had waited to see them in Donsol in their natural habit. Very special.

One of the majestic Whale Sharks

We also managed to get out to a local waterfall. The journey there was very eventful, as we had to abandon our tricycle, and walk some of the way through local villages. It was really interesting to see the simple way of life that exists within the village communities. By the time we got to the waterfall we really had earned our swim! To avoid some of the walk back we took a local Bangka (boat) back to our abandoned tricycle. The only problem was the tricycle was so caked in mud it took some convincing to get going! In the Philippines ‘road rehabilitation’ (road works) don’t mean don’t drive on the road. It simply means the going is a bit tough! Today was a fine example of that as the road was being built and with all the flooding was one big mud bath. I gave up with my shoes in the end and simply walked through the ‘road’ bare foot. I felt so sorry for the driver. My muddy feet were nothing compared to the amount of mud he was wearing! With lots of coaxing, eventually the trike made it and we were on our way! With the added adventure thrown in this had been a great day.

Bogged!

The lack of diving ending up being good as it forced us to do something different. We then took a bus back into Legazpi and went out on ATV (quad) bikes to see the Mt Mayon active volcano. We rode our bikes up and you could see the lava flows from the last major eruption less than ten years ago. Whilst we saw some of the volcano unfortunately we were not so lucky to see the top of it on the day we were there. Like a lot of days it was hidden rather mystically in cloud, but we still had an amazing time. We returned in time to do a rather unusual activity – fire fly watching! We boarded a boat and headed out to see these fascinating flies. As part of their mating rituals their bums light up into what can only be described as a spectacular display. They were gathered in trees along the banks of the river and they just looked like a fibre-optic Christmas trees. We were surprised at how much we loved them! When one landed up my arm I was enthralled with it. They were amazing!

Making our way up to the volcano

Now for the last part of our trip we had planned to slowly make our way back up to Manila, but that was before we heard about the majestic Thresher Sharks. This species of sharks tend to be deep dwellers, in waters up to 500m. We had heard that divers could see them in the waters off the Island of Malapascua. This was the only place in the World where they come shallow enough to dive with them. A simple google search revealed an image that we wanted to see. That was it. We changed our plans and set off on a mammoth travel day full of cancelled flights, missed flights, delayed planes, stressful encounters…. But it was all worth it. 14 hours later we arrived on our small part of paradise. Malapascua Island, one of nature’s hidden secrets.

Dawn on a dive boat – does life get any better?

Now it’s worth saying that whilst the waters were not the clearest, we saw some of the most interesting creatures of my whole diving career. Evolution dive centre had been recommended to us, and their dive guides Alex and Gino were simply outstanding. These local dive guides not only had a responsible head on their shoulders but they had incredible eyes. They spotted things from the tiniest Orang Utan crab (which in reality looked a bit like algae!) to bamboo sharks, wacky frog fish and exotic Nudi Branches.

With Gino and Alex

The variety of fish and were simply amazing, but the highlight definitely were the Thresher Sharks. We dived to ‘their’ dive site twice, and were not disappointed both days. For me the most special moment was when I was watching an Eagle Ray get a bit flustered, all of a sudden I looked up and saw a big Thresher lazily swimming past! They grow up to about 3m in size and have this most incredible tail fin. Their big eyes are a real feature of the species and they look almost surprised to see you! I have said it before, but I will say it again. This was a sight that we felt very honoured to experience and was just a fantastic end.

Thresher Sharks

On our dive boat

All too soon our diving adventure was over and we were preparing to pack all of our belongings. Whilst we didn’t want to come home, it was getting a little tiring carrying too much stuff (we still had all our cold weather -25 degree gear as well as a newly acquired wooden shark names ‘Clark’!).

What a trip, what an end!

As we boarded our 14 hour flight from Manila reality hit. We were heading back to where it all began and it was very sad. The journey had been an immense one, where we felt like we had achieved so much. Not only that but we have had a lot of fun, have lots of memories and lots of stories to tell. One thing was for sure though. This was not a goodbye for the Philippines, simply a ‘see you later – we’ll be back’. Next time diving the wrecks in Palawan awaits…..

– Natalie

2 April 2014 by thesmartwayround

16 Hours Flights and my Super Human Ability

It would have to be one of the longest flights in the world, 15 and a half hours from Manilla to London non stop. Worse still was that it was a day flight, departing Manilla at around seven in the morning and arriving in London mid afternoon the same day, needless to say neither of us where overly excited about the flight.

For most people there are a few things that you need to make sure the journey goes nice and smoothly. A great selection of movies always helps wile away the hours, a gripping book for when you can no longer squint at that tiny screen is also an ideal back up. Ensuring your iPod, smartphone or tablet is fully charged helps, however on this flight we had USB points in every seat which was fantastic. Perhaps some magazines, or even games of some sort.

The thought of such a long time cramped in a seat creates a sense of dread for most flyers (unless of course you fly Business or First Class, something we are yet to do). Not me however, I love long flights. I have the super human ability to sleep anywhere any time almost on demand. I can be asleep on a plane before it even takes off and usually do. In fact it is not uncommon for me to sleep for the best part of 18 hours on a flight from London Melbourne. To be totally honest I think the best I ever sleep is actually on a plane. Call it a super power if you like but my uncanny gift to sleep almost instantaneously on any moving vehicle also has the ability to drive Natalie crazy!

Natalie is the complete opposite and does not really sleep that much on flights so I am sure you can see how annoying it can be. As Natalie will often say I am quite possibly the worst travel companion when it comes to flying. So good am I at sleeping on moving objects, I thought I may miss most of our train adventures because I would be asleep! Thankfully I didn’t!

Natalie takes great pleasure at poking and prodding to wake me up just to say ‘hi’ or tell me she can’t sleep. If one half of The Smart Way Round can’t sleep why should the other half right?

With only a couple of hours sleep the night before and a 4am wake up, I was expecting that heavenly mist of sleepiness to descend upon me very early on into the flight. This flight was different. As if the Philippines Airline 777 was made of kryptonite my super power abandoned me and I couldn’t sleep. For the first time ever I think Natalie actually slept longer than I did. I exhausted the movie list, played games on my phone played my best playlists to sleep to and ….. Nothing!

For once I was forced to endure a mammoth flight like a normal traveller. I’m sure I Iooked at the clock a few times only to see it start to tick backwards! Finally to add insult to injury, when we arrived over London we had missed our scheduled landing time due to sitting on the runway in Manilla for 40 minutes and had to circle around a few times before landing.

Despite the incredibly long flight time and having my gift almost entirely disappear on me, the flight went relatively quick, or as quick as 16 hours can go. It was slightly bittersweet landing back home in London, the end of quite possibly the most amazing, life changing five month adventure we could possibly have imagined.

We still have the Philippines to fill you all in about and living and working in Europe means there is plenty for us to keep writing about. Arriving back home is not the end of The Smart Way Round but just the beginning!

– Dean

Ps I am currently writing this blog at 30,000ft using free wifi on Norwegian Air. If only they had it yesterday! Sadly I also must report my super power is yet to return….

The Smart Way Round

Travel blog of two overland adventurers and now family travellers. Just because you have kids doesn't mean the adventure stops.

Category Archives: Philipines

Our Top Wildlife Experiences So Far… Part 1

Overcoming Your Fears: Learning to Dive

Chapter 13: It’s More Fun in the Philippines….

16 Hours Flights and my Super Human Ability

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