- Crystal clear freshwater spring in South Australia known as Piccaninnie Ponds. My friends Valerie Taylor and Tanya Binning shown here. The water is pure and high in calcium. It flows into a stream that leads to the ocean. Very deep, over 200 feet. Underwater photography has been my passion in Australia. Offshore Taiwan should present some exciting creatures. Sharks and pelagic fish – we need very clear blue ocean water for best pictures.
Category: My Australia pictures
Buddhist temple on Princes Highway, 2 hours south of Sydney.
First time I’ve seen fresh seaweed on sale in my area. (It’s probably common in Sydney). Spicy with sesame seeds and not cheap at NT$ 800 per kilo. Price for the king crab legs and claws is a bit less than half the price of live local lobster. Lobster is NT $ 2600 kg crab NT $ 1150 kg Is it the same crab on sale in night market such at Liouhe Street in Kaohsiung? It’s worth investigating.
“Finding Nemo” resulted in many more anemone fish being collected.
It might be a difficult project to set up. Green Island and Orchid Island offer some potential for scuba diving tourism (and underwater photographers). The idea requires the feeding of fish and their protection from being caught or speared.
A live fish, photographed dozens or even hundreds of times by different visitors. The value is easy to see and far exceeds the money earned from a single dead fish.
These pictures, the same scuba dive on the same roll of film. The place is a remote part of the Great Barrier Reef. It;s expensive to get there. Charter boats earn a good living taking groups of divers on 5-day trips.
The people who could benefit best from diving tourism are boat owners and hotels.
Maori wrasse, protected in many countries under CITES
Potato cod – one of several. This one has what appears to be an old wound from a spear.
Painted sweetlip
Large cod in this cave.
Note: These pictures are from 1991 and the place has changed considerably. Although still a popular destination “The Cod Hole” is only a fraction as good today. People in their ignorance change things despite their good intentions and the help of marine park regulations. Perhaps the best form of underwater tourism (especially for Orchid Island) lies with drifting on the surface in offshore blue water currents with pelagic species like whales, marlin, and some sharks?
The positives and negative lessons are available to be learned from Australia.
When I came to Taiwan in April 2002 the exchange rate was much tougher than today. A NT$100 was like spending $5 at home. The Australian dollar has become much stronger today due to international banks seeing Australia as a safe haven to store their funds. Plus the mining boom with PRC overtaking Japan as our number one trading partner.
It’s winter in Australia. People have the flu and some cough without covering their mouth. Taiwan could teach Australia a lot. Yet only now are my friends curious about why I keep returning to Taiwan for as often as four months each year.
My Taiwanese friends believe Australia is a paradise – yes it probably is – in some respects but not all. Is anywhere perfect? Taiwanese food is miles better than what ordinary Australians eat. Take frozen fish . The contents of the packet below at 49% flour – I think that ratio changed when the fish cooked and shriveled up.
Sale price was about NT$200 this week.
Taiwan is like a health trip for me. Good quality bottled water (cheaper than in Australia) and restaurant food a pleasant change from my home cooking.
beer, manufactured fruit juices and soft drinks. This is Australia today.
Sydney night life (1950s and 1960s)
Cantonese food has been popular in Australia for more than one hundred years. This menu is from a theatre restaurant of the past, showing front and back of a once lavish menu jacket. Called Chequers it was sometime in the 1960s before Australia switched to decimal currency. Leading American entertainers performed at Chequers. Prices were as high as the customers could tolerate. Click the link to see more of old Sydney from one of my other blogs.
Most expensive item, supreme Lobster priced at 31/6 would be roughly NT $2,000 today.
The story by a Pulitzer Prize-winning author is available on-line at Taipei Times.
http://taipeitimes.com/News/editorials/archives/2012/03/13/2003527643
HIT SONG (1951) Rose Rose by Frankie Laine
When I was a little kid this was a favorite song. My introduction to the orient? Subliminal advertising or brain programming?
(Words are about an American who finds love in Malaya yet can’t take the girl home).
There’s a couple of Taiwanese restaurants in Sydney’s Chinatown, and another nearby. It’s now different to when I was last in Sydney, now about three years ago.
A friend who knows I enjoy Taiwanese culture sent this message.
This one is wild. Visits me every day for raw sugar. His mate has a split beak.
These oysters in the shell are from the seaside village of Wooli (pronounced wool-eye) on the mid north coast of New South Wales. Purchased at a seafood outlet. Restaurant prices would be double.
They should be the best quality in the state. Absolutely no pollution in the Wooli River. (No industry or agriculture upstream, just a national park).
The price is steep as compared with those huge plastic bags of oysters sold at fish markets in Taiwan.
Come to think of it, oysters in Taiwan are smaller but there are lots of them. In Australia, oysters in restaurants are larger than those shown on this plate, yesterday. (I’ll be spending the NT $500 early in the New Year on my 12th or 13th return visit).
