Ryan Down Under

Quick Notes on 'Study' Week

2006-10-29T18:00:00.000+11:00

As is the norm, we had a week off to study for exams after classes. Usually not much studying is done during this week (took off to Queensland last semester), and being on an exchange was twice the excuse to not open a single book again.
The break was off to a good start with the trip to Mt. Kosciuszko and some more rest was needed after this so Beck and I took off to her condo on Philip Island for a few days. This was my third trip to the island and was again different from the others. I like that I made three visits, it started to feel like I had been making visits all my life.
It was a very low key and relaxing few days. We visited the Nobbies which was cool because it was so windy and the waves were nice and violent and the blowhole was blowing more than I have ever seen before.
Since it was still spring, the weather could be hit and miss. I would say we had a little of both - it was sunny, but not very warm. Still, we hung out at the beach for a bit, but the only wave I rode was this one out front of a surf shop.
After hanging out and chilling to the max, we arrived back home in the midst of preparations for the biggest Halloween party ever seen by most people who attended.
The party was taking place at our house, and had been in the planning stages for weeks. The word had gotten around, it was on a convenient day (Saturday the 28th), flyers were passed out and invites had been given as freely as candy to trick-or-treaters.
The party was to be in the style of a 'North American university/college' where everyone pays 15$ for (hopefully) all they can eat and drink. This would be fun for the Americans because it was like home, and fun for the Europeans because they hadn't attended such an event before.
Our budget started at around 700$ but the buzz was loud enough that we bumped that up to over 1000$. So we were all a bit nervous about losing money. We bought decorations, and had some posted from home. Arlen hooked us up with 100+ free sausages, we bought 20+ slabs of beer, boxes of wine and prizes for costumes.
Everything was going smoothly. I took my post at the BBQ and the people started showing up. I have to say I was extremely impressed with everyones effort for costumes. There was the quota 'Beerbarians' from the US, dracula, characters from movies, a cupcake, pirate, cupid, a box of wine and the most politcally incorrect costume of the season. Steve Irwin with a stingray barb in his chest and so many others.
In the end, the box of wine took first place for best costume while Cupid and Where's Waldo/Wally tied for second place.
By the time the last people left, drinks were just finished, a bit of food was still sitting around and, thanks to the almost 100 people that came out, the 7 or 8 of us who invested in the party each made a 6$ profit.
The neighbours behind us are a young couple and said it was cool to have a party, the other side of us is students, and the other side is an old lady who, when I mentioned the party, said 'I can barely hear you talking to me, dont worry about the noise, Ill be fine. You kids have fun!'. No police showed up either which is a nice change from similar parties in Canada.
Yes, the party was perfect. I have to give 98% of the credit to housemates Tara, Sabrina and Ashleigh. I will put you in touch with them if you are planning a similar party.
The party was talked about for weeks after, and is probably still mentioned by everyone who attended, which I believe gives it the status 'Legendary'.

Conquering Mt. Kosciuszko: Part 2 - Bagging the Summit

2006-10-23T18:00:00.000+10:00

There was a sense that we were a bit behind schedule as we pulled up to Charlotte Pass, where we parked the car. This is the highest point you can drive to in Australia at an elevation of 1830m. (If you know that the mountain itself is 2228m, you'll see that we weren't looking at a ridiculous climb). There is a road that leads just about to the summit, but it has been closed for environmental reasons. It is now an 18km return hike going the short way, but I figured it would suck to be tired and walk down the mountain looking at the same stuff we saw on the way up, so we picked the longer, 23km round trip up one trail that passes by a few lakes, and then down the road for the walk back.
We had been told that the weather is very unpredictable and to be prepared etc... The summit is where the coldest temperature in Australia was recorded in 1994: -23 Celcius... would have needed a toque if you were going up that day.
We had lots of layers with us anyway, and about 5 minutes into the walk, we started taking them off. The weather was gorgeous, the sun was strong.
The second photo was taken at the beginning of the hike. The trail in the middle is the one we followed up and over the mountains in the background, along the back and way over to the left where the summit is.
This area is where the headwaters of the Snowy River are located, crossing it was the first thing we did. You can see how clear the water is in this photo, almost like there isn't even water there.
From here it seemed to take forever to get to the first lake. We passed a few guys carrying skis who had found some leftover snowdrifts to play on.
It was nice to finally reach the first lake which I think was named Blue Lake. It was a perfect example of a cirque. Not a french circus, but an area where snow accumulates to feed a glacier that moves down the mountain. The wall beside the lake is where the glacier would have plucked rocks away before carrying them away. Such perfect examples of these glacial processes were great to see in person after reading about them in textbooks for the past 5 years. Here is a photo of the lake and wall beside it. And here is a link to another photo of a lake we passed a bit later on that also served as the location for the glacier to accumulate snow.
The climbing continued, and we were getting slightly bored of it until we got over a ridge and were treated to an awesome view. The entire time up to know, we were looking back on the hills behind us, but now were looking off the mountain to the rest of the mountains in the distance. Now it felt like we were getting somewhere so we marched on with renewed enthusiasm.
Other fun parts of the hike came when we had to walk through snowdrifts. It was a novelty to see snow this late in the season for one, and to see snow in Australia in general. This is one of the 3 occasions I saw snow during my year, and I know that some people my age who have lived there all their lives still haven't seen it at all.
You can see that there are no trees in the photo. I think the treeline lies around 1700-2000m, depending on the slope aspect, and anywhere above that, there is not even small bushes. The area is well known for wildflowers but we were too early to see much of that, other than this yellow one. When there weren't any rocks or flowers, the ground was covered in thick rugged grass.
As we powered on, mostly uphill still, we kept thinking the next high looking point would be the summit. We had no idea how far we walked, and only knew how long we had walked.
After the first 30 minutes of our hike, we passed maybe one other couple, but since there are 3 trails that converge at the turn off to the summit, it sure got a lot busier.
After setting off at around 11am, we made it to the summit shortly after 3pm of pretty steady walking, minus about 2 or 3 short breaks for eating and photo shoots.
We hung out at the top for awhile. I had great mobile phone reception but it was too late to call Canada, so a special friend, Beck, back in Melbourne got my full attention instead.
We had a nice group photo taken of us by another couple at the summit. And when they left, this trend-setting and infamous photo was taken. Congratulations to Flo and Jonas for also accomplishing this feat in December during Flo and Jonas' Excellent Adventure.
The sun still seemed strong, but we knew when it got dark out and we wanted to be back before that. We packed up and made our way down the road. The shadows grew really fast, and when they caught up with us, it got pretty chilly pretty fast. Lucky we had those extra layers with us all day. It was pretty much completely dark when we made it back to the car. Not gonna lie, after about 7-8 hours of walking we were beat. The last thing we wanted to do was set up a tent and cook, let alone the fact that it was now dark. We headed into Jindabyne to find a cheap place to stay. Everywhere was booked, but a man overheard Tara asking for a place in a bar and he gave us the number of a guy who manages some chalets. We got hooked up with a huge chalet for 80$ where we cooked all our leftover food, had some wine to celebrate, and then crashed into our beds hard. We slept very solidly, and got up and out to town around 10am to check out a few things.
We hit the road and headed for Melbourne. The drive was pretty uneventful since we went back the same way we came. Only once did I think we were in massive trouble was when we got pulled over by the police. He had actually passed us and turned around to get us. He asked for my drivers licence, and asked if it was my car. It wasn't and I told him exactly who it was registered too and where she lived. I did my research for exactly this sort of situation and it worked. He asked to look in the bungy corded shut trunk, gave me back my licence and bid us good day.
We rocked up to Melbourne and looked back on all our good fortune. Everyone was happy to have traveled with me since everything always works out so well.
Item #1 on my list of things to do in Australia can now be moved to the Australia Book of Highlights!

Conquering Mt. Kosciuszko: Part 1 - Getting There

2006-10-22T20:00:00.000+10:00

Reaching the highest point in Australia, Mt. Kosciuszko, was high on my list of things to do, and time and money was running out. We had a week long study break and I had Tara fully committed so the planning began, which wasn't much in the end; drive there, camp somewhere, climb the mountain and come home again.
The car I had acquired earlier in the semester seemed to not be having any problems so it would hopefully get us there and back, but we had no guarantees and would dump the car and figure something out if we had to.
We recruited Tracy and Jakob the Bad Ass Viking to keep the costs down and because we were sure they understood that this trip may not even get out of the city and they would be cool with this.
It was a very reckless idea, but 'reckless' = 'adventure' so we loaded the car right up, so much that Jakob had to sit on his blankets and headed out.
Once we found the right highway, everything was very uneventful. We were still nervous about the car just not working, and also the fact that it wasn't registered in my name, or the person before me's name and that it had no insurance, but all we had to do was be careful right?
We headed up to Wodonga where we picked up our groceries for the trip and a pot and a flashlight because we forgot that stuff.
From here the scenery only got better. Very colourful rolling hills making the drive on the 401 in Canada seem all the more shitty. We crossed into New South Wales and entered the park. There was noone to pay for a pass, so we didnt buy one. We checked the map for campgrounds and decided to stop one sooner than originally planned.
The old '89 Nissan was having a hard time on the hills in the park, and I think the engine was getting really hot, and things were making new noises on the corners, and we were smelling new things, so we took it easy and stopped another campground (Tom Groggins was the name) sooner which worked out really well as most things did on the trip.
We pulled in and there were kangaroos all over the place. We had the whole area to ourselves and quickly set up the tent and built a fire before all the light was gone. We cooked sausages and instant noodles with a flashlight, and washed them in the creek nearby. A change was coming through and it was windy all night, but we all still slept OK and it wasn't cold at all, yet.
In the morning it wasn't hard to get moving, we packed up and ate and said goodbye to the roos. We chugged along the bottom of the park and gained some altitude. We got really confused when we saw some really faint white flecks in the sky. Thought it might be ash or something, but it was definitely snow. We turned a few more corners and came to Dead Horse Gap. We stopped for a photo with snow on the ground and noticed how in the distance it was easy to see how the hills were gradually whiter as the elevation also increased. Its common sense, but you never see it. Here is a photo of it. I was almost nervous about the car driving on snowy roads, but nothing every accumulated so we were good to go.
We drove into the town of Jindabyne to check out the visitor center and figure out what we were even doing.
We drove up to Rainbow Lake for a quick hike. Nothing too impressive, just a lake that was built for a dam that powered a hotel nearby that has since burned down. I could hear corroboree frogs everywhere, but never found one even thought they should have been right in front of me.
Then we went to another hike that took us to a waterfall. We spotted wallabies on the way to the waterfall and then managed to get a group photo. On the walk back we came across from huge boulders that we climbed and could see the town of Jindabyne which was quite far in the distance. The rocks had some great examples of spheroidal weathering along with some freeze and thaw weathering that I of course told the others all about and had my picture taken beside because I make a good scale.
We moved on to the Island Bend campground, the Central Section map on this page gives an idea of where we are at. We decided to camp here because it is closest to the peak and would only be a short drive in the morning. I have to say that after checking out the other campgrounds on our way through the park, we picked the best two by far. They were scenic, quiet, had fire pits and running water (in the creek).
We came across another couple nearby who have been camping in the same spot for like 20 years. The pointed us towards the actual sites that have fire pits. We gathered some wood and got all set up right as the sun was setting. Before that we spotted a wombat and stalked it and checked out his burrow. We cooked up the same dinner as the night before, because its so easy and we settled in around the fire for awhile. We 'amused' ourselves well, and crashed in the tent, this time with more padding for the hips.
It was a lot colder that night, probably because we were higher up. We left all our food out for some dumb reason, and all our sausages were gone, the eggs were frozen and pecked at by birds, the butter was pecked at, the orange juice was frozen and the water in the pots and pan was frozen. We had a good laugh and things warmed up again as soon as the shadows were gone. We gathered ourselves up and went to start the car and nothing happened. The others thought our luck had caught up with us, but everything always works out for me so I wasn't concerned. We were so isolated, but I sent Jakob down to flag a car just in case. I think the engine was just colder than it had ever been in its life, and eventually it started and we were off. We said goodbye to the latest gang of kangaroos hanging out on the abandoned airstrip (the bottom of the hill in the photo) used when the area was a small town when the hydro-electric scheme was being built. Contrary to what we thought we had read, the forecast was absolutely perfect, not a cloud in the sky.
Finally after planning on making the trip for probably over a year, and planning the trip itself for like 3 days, and being in the shadow of the mountains for 2 nights, we were off to bag the summit!

Note: many of the links in this post lead to more photos.

Beach Club Trip to Wilsons Promontory

2006-10-16T18:00:00.000+10:00

My 6th and final Beach Club trip is finnished. A lot has changed since the first trip to Torquay but the fun level has only gone up.
The destination this time around was Wilsons Promontory, a peninsula sticking south from the mainland about 3 hours to the east of Melbourne. Travel agents I have talked to love this place and go back every year. You can see what the scenery is like in the first picture. They are the same mountains and rocks formations as in Tasmania, formed by the same mountain building event. It was pretty stunning to rock up to the Prom with the masses of rock and blue water showing themselves in grand views here and there. The mountain in the photo is Mt. Oberon which is 558 metres tall. We climbed it on Saturday in about 2 hours, and were rewarded with 360 degree views of the park around around us.
The second photo is me on the top of the mountain, it was very windy, almost dangerously windy. In the background is Tidal River, the main town of the National Park, and the next beach behind that is Squeaky Beach, where, as the name suggest, the sand squeaks. But I am getting ahead of myself.
This was the biggest Beach Club trip yet, with about 31 people. We didn't actually stay in the park, but rather about 20 minutes outside of it in a hole named Sandy Point. There was nothing there but holiday homes, and we took over 4 of them. The main one backed onto the beach via a 2 minute walk through the beach. I was keen to get in the ocean again, and did so right away. The water was suprisingly bearable and many people splashed around. I grabbed a surfboard and did my best with the waves on hand. Since the whole area is sandy, the water is shallow for a long ways out and doesn't make for good surfing, but I still managed to impress. Later on, Arlen got this shot of me, which is an almost exact replica of the Beach Club logo.
After taking up my spot at the BBQ, the rest of the evening was filled with the usual Beach Club silliness with a variety of semi-organized games. I even managed to get enough people excited enough to run to the beach in the pitch black, take off all our clothes and run into the water. There are photos... but they will not be posted.
On Saturday we went and climbed to the top of Mt Oberon, which was overall pretty spekky. There were lots of oppurtunities for me to share what I have learned at uni this semester too since a lot of the area we were walking through had been burned by a controlled burn that got out of control. All the trees were still recovering from the fire and all the seed capsules had burst open.
We had lunch in Tidal River later on, and we were swarmed by crimson rosellas, a small parrot like bird. They were more than comfortable enough to perch on our heads and shoulders and beg for food. At one point I had 4 or 5 on me I think. Visiting the park took up most of the day, and we later headed back to the houses where a bunch of us hit up the beach again.
Saturday night was full of more fun and games, the links to photo sites at the end of the post will fill you in.
On Sunday we headed back into the park for another walk into a valley with a variety of different plant species etc... We ended up taking a long was back to the cars and took in some more great views.
After the walk we went to Squeaky Beach which was proabably a highlight in itself. The squeaking sand was fun enough, and there were huge boulders at the north end of the beach. Oh, and there was a sign that warned of unexpected large waves which of course we don't really think to think about, except some people were walking around the boulders and found themselves knee deep in water before they knew what was going on. That was pretty funny.
I forgot to mention that my camera finally conked out on me on the way home from Sydney, probably because of all the sand in it so none of these photos are mine. Thanks for Future Shops Product Service Plan, it is being fixed for free.
After enjoying the beach for a while, we made our way home, which seemed to take way longer. We made the mandatory stop at a Hungry Jacks and bid farewell.
The Beach Club has been a huge highlight of my time in Australia and the trips were very much worth the 500$ or so that I ended up dropping on them. There were at least a few people who made it out to almost every trip this year, and it is with these people that I have found myself solid friends with which I guess speaks highly of the Beach Club.
At the Beach Club Annual General Meeting a new council was 'elected' and we concluded that we all had an awesome time over the past year (funnier if you were there). I also motioned that if at any time, 3 or people from the Beach Club are together, a Beach Club party can be declared and the motion was passed unanimously.
So there are more good times to come! The next of which I think is half planned to take place somewhere in Spain.

Links to photos:
Jonas' Photos
Toms Photos
Flos Photos
Jorgs Photos

Sydney: Part 2 - Harbour and Beach

2006-10-02T18:00:00.000+10:00

Originally we had the plan to have a spare day to do whatever else might happen to arise. It turned out that we had seen so little of the city the day before that we set off walking the city again. It was a bit less impressive, maybe because we had been there for 3 days already and were getting used to things.
We walked all the way down to George St. to Paddys Market. It was nothing special at all with all the same crap that can be found at the Queen Victoria market here in Melbourne.
We then walked up to Darling Harbour which is another hub of activity that we were told to see. It was impressive to see well the whole area had been planned and built around the water to make the most use of it.
We found the maritime museum which is no small place and walked through it since it was free. Came across the sail boat used by Kay Cottee to sail unassisted around the world. It was set up the same as it was when she was rounding Cape Horn. Interesting to see the difference between a regular boat and one that had been set up to sail for 190 days straight.
We wandered the harbour some more and found the others. Nearby was a Chinese Garden in the middle of the city. We walked through there and had some tea looking over the koi swimming in the ponds. The whole garden was really well done and worth the 3$ to get in.
As we passed by the Opera House on our walk home we noticed a large lineup forming to get into the forecourt to watch the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra simulcasted on big screen as they played inside.
We hurried home, grabbed some Indian take away food and som red wine and headed back over hoping it wasn't too late to get in. We had no trouble getting through security and joined 5000 others on the front steps. There was a strong feeling that this was a very special event and it was. The orchestra had never played in Australia in its 142 year history. The conductor, Valery Gergiev, seemed like a bit of a character and was fun to watch conduct. He even leaves the stage during the applause as if to let the orchestra have some of the credit without him there, and then he comes back to louder applause, which I think is probably common practice, but a small thing that makes it interesting. This video is the beginning of the second part of their set that night.
The whole evening was even cooler since just the day before I had been in the concert hall where they were playing. It was probably more fun to watch the orchestra on the steps with the opera house behind us and the bridge beside us than to be inside the concert hall itself. The tour guide told us that you are meant to enjoy your surroundings while listening to the music, and that we did.
Another highlight from sitting outside was when the conductor and a few of the orchestra members came outside to the stage. Valery Gergiev gave an impromptu speech and a some music was played.
The night was young and we were in Sydney so we decided to stop at every bar on the way home. A few left the tour early, but Tara and I made it to 5 different bars on the way home before heading down to Wolloomoolloo for a famous meat pie at around 4am. This was another thing I had no idea about before arriving. Having a meat pie from Henrys Cafe de Wheels is a 'must do' while in Sydney, and many celebrities go out of their way for it, including Colonel Sanders.
Sunday was our designated beach day. We hopped on a train near the hostel and caught to Bondi where we got on a bus to the beach, all for I think 6$ or so. It wasn't very far at all.
Bondi Beach is a a big attraction in the area and a real icon. It was fun to be there after watching a reality show on TV about the lifeguards names Bondi Rescue.
The weather was sunny but very windy and too cold to swim or lay around. A few left and went back to the city.
Those of us who stayed headed to the RSL to watch the footy grand final. Sydney was playing in it so there were lots of fans there and it got loud.
I can see Bondi Beach being a great place to spend time in the warmer weather but also as being very busy. The novelty of having a nice beach in the city is still pretty cool.
On Sunday we left the hostel at about 1030am for the drive home. We barely stopped and made it in about 10 hours. My camera finally conked out on the drive, probably from sand in the lens.
Renting a car ended up being a fairly good deal. We spent 240$ x 4 people for the car and gas in the end. A flight would have costed 90$ each way at least, and probably more because of people flying to Melbourne for the Rugby finals. The trip to the Blue Mountains would have costed 60$ each, so it was about the same except we had the novelty of having a car with us the whole time.
I feel like I got a good sense of city living in Sydney, and I think I like it better than Melbourne, but then again that could just be the 'honeymoon' effect of being in a city other than what is normal.
I am happy.

Sydney: Part 1 - Mountains and City

2006-09-28T18:00:00.000+10:00

We left Canberra at about 2:30pm for the relatively short drive over to Sydney. The drive happened to work out really well seeing as we didn't have a map. We followed the signs right to the city and went on a feeling from there. I knew we were staying just north of Kings Cross so followed those signs and I hoped I would see a familiar street name. Instead I saw the hostel itself so that was handy. We stayed at the Blue Parrot hostel in Potts Point. I loved this hostel because it did have that homey feeling. We rocked up and met up with Fredrik who was there since the previous week for a concert and enjoyed some dinner and bevvos on the patio where a lot of people joined us. The small size of the hostel and the good communal areas are what made it great. We ended up going out for a German girls birthday.
I have to say something about Kings Cross since I heard so many bad things before we went there. I loved it. The nightlife is great and there are tons of people out and about. There are police around and of course the usual interesting characters but they are fun. It is now a pretty well to do neighbourhood with lots of nice restaurants and hotels. I think anybody would feel perfectly safe walking through the area at 3 or 4 am. The only bad part about this area was the parking. We got a good deal from the hostel at 15$ per 24 hours to park pretty close by which was nice. We were close enough to the downtown area and the other attractions to walk everywhere which was nice.
Fredrik hadn't been to the Blue Mountains yet and he was leaving the day after so we made that our destination the next day. It was a 1 hour drive from the city centre out to the our first stop. We stopped at Wentworth Falls which was a pleasant surprise since we had no plan and didn't know what to expect. Great lookouts here and nice to chill on the edge of the falls and take it all in. This was another one of those 'wow, this is a big place' moments. It was more of a huge canyon than mountains though. From there we chugged along the edge of the valley and stopped at a few more lookouts. It wasn't busy at all which is why when we stopped at the official Three Sisters lookout I was surprised. There were buses everywhere and lots of infrastructure. The Queen had even been there to open the viewing area. I wa suprisingly not very impressed with the rock formation. The bigness of the valley is what got to me more.
We popped into the town of Katoomba which is the hub of the area. There were lots of interesting shops on the main street there and it didn't feel at all like the Australian I have come to know. I think its the mountain influence that made it feel like I was in Europe.
We were staisfied with what we had seen and headed back into Sydney. There was a supermarket right close to the hostel we grabbed some salad and chicken and cooked on the patio. For Fredriks last night a few of us checked out the bars in Kings Cross again. Not a huge night but nice to be out.
Thursday was a city day and we all made our way out of the hostel and towards the Opera House via the Royal Botanical Gardens. So after being in Sydney for 40 hours or so I finally got my first glimpse of that famous site. It was pretty cool and another one of those sites where everywhere else is quiet and then you get to the tip of the gardens and there are tourists all over the place. We sat around and took a few photos and I told some Asians that Veronica was a model from Slovakia and that I was an actor from Canada so they hurried and got their pictures taken with us.
We all sort of split up again and Tara and I came across some school kids who were sketching the bridge and opera house for their art class. I asked for a pencil and paper and started my own sketch. The kid I was talking to was so impressed with me and then all the other kids rushed over. The teacher looked pretty weirded out with a stranger taking control over her art class, but I think I taught the kids some good lessons like to just draw exactly what you see and not try to make it too perfect. I made an awesome sketch and answered all their questions about Canada, signed the sketch for the kid and took off.
We made our way to the Opera House and Tara and I took a tour for like 18$. This was the easily the coolest part of the day. The whole Opera House is so impressive and to hear about all the small things that went into the making of blew me away. It is designed so that everytime you leave a concert hall or theatre, you are greeted by views of the harbour. And of course everyone knows about the accoustics in the main concert hall and how they are perfect. We all clapped at once in the main concert hall and the listened to the sound linger for exactly 2.?? seconds. We were allowed to take photos too since there was noone else in there. It was set up for the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra who would be playing the following night which I'll get to in the next post. The pipe organ you can see in the photo has like 10 000 pipes we were told which would have been pretty rad to hear.
We left the opera house and met up with the others at Circular Quay. We grabbed some fish and chips and took the ferry to Manly Beach. This was another awesome little town. Just 30 minutes by ferry from the heart of the city and you were on the beach. There were a few surfers on the ferry as well. We strolled the main drag and for some reason this area had the cheapest souvenirs I had seen so I stocked up. It was too cold to go in the water so we sat around and then took the ferry back at dusk. There was a really cool atmosphere while we waited to leave. It seemed like there were wuite a few wives greeting their businessman husbands off the ferry with their kids. I think it would be cool to live on the beach and take the ferry into work everyday. We had some great views of the sun setting behind the bridge and Opera House on the way back too.
We got some groceries for dinner and took it easy for a night.
We had scheduled a spare day for anything that else that might come up, and that day ended up being used to see more of the city again.

"Canberra - The Nations Capital"

2006-09-25T18:00:00.000+10:00

I have to confess that the title to this post isn't very original; it is the slogan on the all the licence plates in Australian Capital Territory, just like one of my first posts "Victoria - The Place to Be".
This past week was the big Sydney road trip via Canberra. Why Canberra? Because it happens to be on the way and noone else I know who is travelling here has been there so its also unique for us.
On Monday morning after the Beach Club trip we went and picked up our spanking new Subaru Outback and loaded up. In the end we didnt recruit the numbers we wanted to it was me and the Americans in one car and Niclas and Veronika in the other. We made our way North and out of the city only 1 hour behind our non-existent schedule. There were lots of speed cameras on the Hume Freeway, they kept catching me off guard even though they were so obvious. There was 4 occasions on the trip where we thought we were busted, but we never heard about it from the rental company so that's good.
The guide books said there is not a heck of a lot between Melbourne and Sydney other than Canberra and they were dead on. This photo I took is the typical scenery pretty much all the way to Sydney. I'm glad it was as scenic as it was or else the drive would have been incredibly boring, like the 401 between London and Windsor. We skirted the Great Dividing Range so there were a lot of hills and even though it wasn't as flat as the outback, it still felt like a huge country.
Niclas kept up a good pace for us and we made it to the YHA hostel in Canberra in the early evening. There is not much to do there so we ordered pizza and went down to use the pool and hot tub which ended up not having hot water. I've probably mentioned before that I'm not a huge fan of the YHA hostels anywhere. They are too sterile and hotel like and don't have that homey feel.
Canberra is the city of parks so some of us went for a walk around the downtown area at night but couldn't find any trouble to get into but we found this one painting in a store that I can't see anyone ever owning because it would bother them so much for wanting to fix it.
The next morning we walked over to the War Memorial which is what really made the stop worthwhile. The whole museum is so well done and covers so much of Australias military history which I knew nothing about before coming to Australia. There were a lot of people there but I managed to get the picture of the lady and the wall with all the names of all the Australians lost in all the conflicts Australia has been involved in.
Next we walked down the main parade in town where you can see the old and new parliament houses in one directions (behind us in the photo) and the war memorial in the other direction.
The Floriade flower festival was being held so we walked over to the gardens to check it out. I have heard good things about the same thing in the Netherlands which happens every 10 years so I had high hopes. In the end it was a bit dissapointing with all the flowers looking the same and not even a windmill to represent Holland. It was just a lot of similar gardens all over the place. We didn't spend too much time there before we headed over to Parliament House.
We had heard good things about this place to. 1 billion dollars was spent to build it and it definitely had an expensive feeling to it. It also had a new feeling unlike other parliament houses that were built 100+ years ago. Wikipedia has a great entry for the parliament house here. We walked around and looked at stuff, nothing too exciting. We made our way to the senate which was fun because its what we see on tv. Overall it was kind of impressive and just something else to see before we set off again. The last picture is in front of the new parliament house looking south past old parliament house with the War Memorial at the end of the parade.
Final thoughts on Canberra: it would have been more fun if there was hot water in the hot tub. We were happy to arrive and happy to leave again less than 24 hours later.
Next up: Sydney!

Beach Club Trip to Apollo Bay

2006-09-24T18:00:00.000+10:00

Another stereotypical Beach Club trip is in the books and this one was to the most gorgeous destination yet: Apollo Bay on the Great Ocean Road where the hills of the Otway National Park meet the ocean. The first photo is a great example of what the scenery was like. The town of Apollo Bay is a tourism based town but is not as busy as Lorne.
The trip started with the usual drinks on the 3 hour bus ride down the first half of the Great Ocean Road; always a good time and no police this time around. We stayed in a small hostel owned by a 62 year old lady named Annie. The place obviously used to be a house and was expanded with three 5 bed rooms in the back. I would pick this type of accomodation over a really nice place like the Eco YHA in town any day because it is much more homey and accomodating. We hung out in the small kitchen and living room inside a lot and also had the whole place to ourselved pretty much.
When we arrived I took up my spot at the grill (with my pants on this time). We had some sausages and cardboard like burgers with the usual bottomless cooler of 'bevvos' (new Aussie slang). Things started to get exciting later on with a game of spin the bottle, but I backed out pretty quick after landing on a few guys and drinking instead of kissing. It was really weird and random but fun. Next we headed out to the local watering hole, one of 2 in town. This is where I ran into 2 older women on a 3 day 'manhunting' road trip as they put it. That was kind of funny, I didn't take the bait.
Saturday was the usual day at the beach which I was looking forward to after monitoring the swell forecast for the few days before. Apollo Bay is pretty sheltered so we went out of the way a bit halfway to Skenes Creek and the waves were pumping. I went with the boogie board this time because the surfbaord was expensive to rent and since the swell was so big, the waves tended to break barrel rather than fall on themselves. I ended up surfing in the whitewash of the waves which was pretty fun and easy. The more fun part came when me and Jeff swam way out past the breaking waves and sat right behind the wave break waiting for the big one that would mess us up the most. It was a greal feeling to sit and look out at the ocean and the beach and the mountains with the spray of the breaking wave blowing back at us. We eventually jumped on a pretty big wave and rode it nearly 100 metres into shore. Good times, but the water was freezing! This is the time when the water is the coldest. Cold enough that I got brain freeze everytime I ducked under a wave on my swim out.
We switched beaches later on and Jeff and I took the risk of jumping off some rocks into the huge waves like I've done before. That ended up working really well and we rode some good sized waves into the beach. We also had some good old fashioned fun trying to build a dam for a little creek emptying into the ocean.
That night we had the Mr. and Miss Beach Club 2006 pageant which was pure hilarity for more reasons than I can write here. Classic Beach Club fun with just the group of us.
On sunday the weather wass crap so we hung low and left the hostel earlier. We took a walk at Maits Rest where I had been the week before. This is a 30 minute rainforest walk with some really huge trees that are up to 100 metres tall. It was kind of cool to visit these places for a second time and appreciate them through the eyes of people who are seeing it for the first time. I think that is the case with a lot of things.
We took the back roads home which are just as windy and scenic. We made the usual stop at Hungry Jacks in Geelong and returned to Deakin in the early evening.
The next Beach Club trip is to Wilsons Promontory, the most southerly point in Australia and known to be extremely beautiful. A few travel agents I have talked to tend to go there every year because it is a favourite place of theirs.
Before this comes the big trip to Sydney happening the very next morning! Details of that are in the next post!
Here are links to other photos from the trip:
Jonas' photos
Arlens photos

The Great Ocean Road

2006-09-18T06:00:00.000+10:00

Last week I went to a wildlife park which wasn't too thrilling but I got my picture taken with a wombat and a koala.
This past weekend I went on one of the big trips I have been waiting for since I got here 7 months ago. I could write an entire book on the things I learned on the Great Ocean Road, but that would take too long. It is a very photogenic road and I took heaps of great photos but I guess I'll have to put up only the more interesting ones here.
We took off friday morning from Melbourne and headed cross country to the city of Warrnambool which as at the opposite end of the road. This town is known for harbouring whales in one of its bays at this time of year. I was a bit sceptical but sure enough we rocked up to the beach and just 100 metres off shore there were a few southern right whales waving back at us. More interesting that this though was a guy sitting in his parachute floating back and forth along the beach in the wind that blows up the cliff from the ocean.
From here we went to a game reserve named Tower Hill that is known to have emus and koalas in the wild. It wasn't even hard to spot the wildlife. We walked into an opening and there was emu chicks with the dad. From here we looked up and within reaching distance was a koala in the tree. The novelty of this would soon wear off.
I spotted a volcanic rock on the ground that seemed out of place, but later I learned that the area is an extinct volcano.
Further along the walk we spotted some kangaroos which was neat. Also along the walk we came across a few more koalas in the trees.
That night we headed into town to eat and learned that the band named Evermore was playing at the Deakin University campus nearby. Some phone calls were made and we were hooked up with some tickets and a bus to take us home afterwards. You have likely heard Evermores songs before. As the night went on I heard three songs that were familiar, one of which is from the OC soundtrack. So that was neat to take in at a small venue on a fellow campus.
The nest morning the real scenery began with a stop at the Bay of Islands at the beginning of the road. Here is a video panorama of this area.
Next stop was a grotto that we walked down to for some photos. After this we stopped at the famous London Arch, formerly known as the London Bridge before the section attaching it to land fell in 1990. Next stop was Loch Ard Gorge which has a bit of history to it. It was named after a boat that sank carrying valuable to Melbourne for a world fair. 52 people were killed but 2 18 year olds survived and were washed into this gorge. Quite the feat considering it looked pretty rough and we were there on a calm day and not a storm. After this we stopped at a not so popular site where there is a blowhole 100 metres in from the ocean as well as a gorge known as Thunder Gorge because of how loud it can be when the water is pushing in.
The next stop was the famous 12 Apostles - the biggest attraction in the state of Victoria. It is interesting to note that the name was changed in the 1950's from the Sow and Piglets so that it would sound more majestic and draw more visitors even though there were only 9 stacks. This whole site was so built up to accomodate tour buses that it sort if ruined the romance of the area. This might be why I enjoyed some of the other sites more than this one since the other sites have not been constantly fed to me in brochures before.
Notice in the photo of me and some of the stacks that the one closest to me has fallen down.
After taking in all these fantastics sights we headed to the Cape Otway Lighthouse which is the second most southern point in Australia after Wilsons Promontory (where I am going in October). I didn't think much of visiting a lighthouse but it turned out to be way more interesting that I thought. Our guide was full of stories about the area. During World War II, a Japanese sub surfaced off the coast, set up a small plane and launched it for reconnaissance. The plane landed, was loaded up and the sub dissappeared.
Another thing I didn't know about lighthouses was that they all have a unique light pattern. This one was 3 lines on top of each other that flash past every 3 (?) seconds. This is so that sailors can determine where they area. There is a story about a ship that saw a lighthouse on another island nearby, noticed the red in the light which means veer south, and ran straight into the side of the island. The prisms in the lighthouse cost 7 million dollars. The whole array of prisms and such weighs about 3 tons, but it sits on a pool of mercury so the whole thing can be turned with 1 finger.
We were also told about how back in the day, the lighthouse keeper had to run around all night to get the air flowing properly in the lighthouse so that the flame would stay at its brightest.
We stayed on a guy named Malcolms property that night. He has a house set up to host groups of students. As it turns out, Malcolm grew up in the lighthouse which was interesting to hear about. On the way into his place, on a 2 km stretch of road, we spotted 21 wild koalas including 2 with babies clinging on.
The next day was not as exciting since we got to territory I had already visited. We stopped for a walk in a rainforest where there are huge trees 100m tall which was pretty cool. After coming back down to the coast, the drive became very windy and hugged the edge of the coast. We stopped in Lorne for lunch and visited Erskine Falls which I had done before. Further on we arrived at Bells Beach which was going off in its classic form. Check out this video of a few guys catching the clean 6ft breaks.
From here the drive was back was inland and boring. We dropped a few people off at the Waterfront campus in Geelong which means that during this trip I visited 4 of the 5 Deakin campuses. This trip was just the beginning of a fury of travelling. Next weekend is the Beach Club trip to Apollo Bay and then we are off to Sydney for the week!
Here are other photos from the trip:
Jorgs photos

Beach Club Trip to Queenscliff

2006-09-10T17:09:00.000+10:00

Last week I was skiing in mountains north of Melbourne, and this past weekend was the first Beach Club trip of the term to Queenscliff about an hour from Melbourne. I guess Victoria can be compared to British Columbia with its vast range of seasonal activities all offered at the same time.
We stayed in a huge guesthouse named Whitehall that is in the process of being converted from an old age home. We had the entire house to ourselves and there was no lack of space. Many of us had our own queen size beds in one of the dozen plus rooms. There was a great patio outside where I BBQ'd dinner for everyone on the first night and where we chilled out a lot. The first night we didn't do much other than be loud and get reacquainted with each other. Ashleigh celebrated her birthday at midnight which included some entertainment from Fredrik which was nice... I guess.
On saturday morning we all gathered ourselves by around noon and headed out to a beach in Ocean Grove. We rustled up a few wetsuits from friends in the area, and had a few surfboards as well so off I went. You have to know that it is the end of winter and we are in the southern most area of the country and so the water is COLD! I only had a shorty and my scuba boots and so I was hurting pretty bad the whole time I was out there, which ended up being almost 2 hours I think. When I was finished I couldn't do anything with my hands. The waves were really great for learning. Not so small that they are no fun and no challenge, and not so big that they just demolish you everytime. I am getting the hang of surfing more and more every time I go out, and if I was warmer I would have done even better. Someone managed to get a shot of me looking very awkward but riding a wave nevertheless. I did make it look better than this, but just don't have photos.
The weather was pretty great, it was bearable to be on the beach in shorts and a t-shirt when the sun was out. And since it was winter, there was almost not a single other person on the beach as far as we could see.
Later on we took a drive to Pt. Lonsdale which is at the entrance to Port Philip Bay, the most dangerous heads in the world. On a previous Beach Club trip we visited Point Nepean on the other side of the heads, which you can see behind me and the housemates that also went on the trip. It was kind of fun to have now been to both sides.
On Sunday we again gathered ourselves slowly and headed out for a leisurely drive home via some mini putting and Subway.
The next Beach Club trip is at the end of September to Apollo Bay on the Great Ocean Road. It will be strange to go there since I am taking a trip along the entire Great Ocean Road the weekend before that. Immediately after the trip to Apollo Bay, 8 of us are taking off on a road trip to Sydney for a week. Soon the exam schedule will be out and more trip planning can proceed!

Here are links to other sites with photos from the trip:
Flos Photos
Jonas' Photos

Mt. Buller Ski Trip

2006-08-11T18:00:00.000+10:00

The student association has been putting on trips that I have gone on in the past and this one was a ski trip to Mt Buller, about 3 hours north of Melbourne. I thought it would be such a novel idea to go skiing in August so I signed up. The not so novel part was getting up at 3am to be at the bus by 3:30 to start driving. We stopped in Mansfield, a town near the mountain, for a buffet breakfeast and to rent equipment. So far, not a sign of snow and I was still very sceptical that there would be snow at all. We rocked up to the mountain at about 9am and there was indeed snow on most of the hills. The conditions were what I expected them to be like at their best, but it was actually one of the worst seasons in the past years. I paired up with the other experienced skiers. It was a weird feeling to be a Canadian skiing in Australia because I found myself assuming that I was automatically so much better than everyone else. I didn't let my country down though thats for sure. I fanged down the slopes like it was my job, and made the guy in charge happy that he had someone who could set a good pace.
The mountain was probably one of the biggest I've actually been on and we made a point of walking to the summit (1805m, only 400 away from the highest point in Australia) from the top of one of the chairlifts. You can see a prism like box in the first picture where there is a fire watch station at the top. This photo is a view of only the top of the mountain and there is much more to it. Other than the snow on the slopes, there was none anywhere else and all that was visible was unspoiled forest in all directions. It was pretty cool when the low clouds blew into the side of the mountains and shot upwards too.
The weather was pretty awesome too I guess. It was proabably around 0 degrees with lots of sun, so very warm. We went to a shack at the top of the mountains and bought some spaghetti and ate it on the patio with the the scene from the first photo as our view. There was definitely a slightly different atmosphere here than in all the places Ive skied in Ontario and Quebec. I cant quite put my finger on it, but it was a nice change.
Heres one part of the difference: the price! A lift ticket for the day for a student was 71$!!! The ski rentals were 30$ and then the bus trip there, breakfeast and entrance fees to the national park we were in was another 60$. All in all, this day trip, done relatively cheap, came to a total of 185$ for everything. A bit steep, but a small price to pay for such a novelty. Novelty has definitely become a theme for the past 6.5 months which is perfectly fine. The next trip in the planning stages is the Beach Club trip to Queenscliff which is just the tip of the travel extravaganza that is about to unfold as my time winds down here in Australia.

New Semester Antics

2006-08-05T14:08:00.000+10:00

Now that I had seen so much of Australia, I was almost at a loss of what to do for the last week we had off before classes resumed. The day after we got back from Central Australia, the new roommates showed up, and later the next week the first photo was taken when the whole house went together for the first time. 4 girls moved out and 4 new ones have moved in, 3 from the US and 1 from Slovakia. A few of use went to Niclas' aunts house over night on Saturday, a sort of house orientation trip. It was interesting to be there 5 months later than the first time because everything was such a brilliant green unlike the yellow shades before.
On Monday, the 3 Americans and Marcus left on the 2nd semester orientation trip to Lorne. The house was a bit lonely so I recruited Hayden and Fredrik and we left on our own trip which happened to be in Lorne as well. We hung out with all the new international students, but mostly did our own thing. We were in the Otways National Park where there are some old forests and lots of waterfalls. We managed to go for a few hikes and found a few waterfalls.
On Friday we hosted a sort of going away party for the people still in Australia and a welcome party for people who had just arrived as well as a bit of a reunion party for people from the Central Australia tour. Everything was planned quite well for that and we had a lot of people over and had some good fun.
On Monday classes started again. I have a very easy semester I reckon. I think the assignment will be fairly straight forward, I have good teachers and small classes. The best part is that I have fridays off. I also took over Haydens job at the fruit market nearby so I spend as much time as possible there on Monday, Tuesdays and Wednesdays. It's a great arrangement since I work when I want on the first 3 days of the week.
Through a long and complicated list of events, I have inherited a car which goes well with having Fridays off and a roommate who also has Fridays off. From the top of the hill by our house there are mountains in the distance, so we decided to drive to them to see what we could see. We were pleasantly surprised to come across a viewing area at the top of Mt. Dandenong from which the entire city could be seen. The CBD is visible in the right of the photo, about 40km away. So now when we are at the top of the hill by our house and see the cityscape in one direction and the mountains in the other direction we can say weve been to both. Next we drove around to a reservoir and then saw a sign for a trout fishing farm. We were on our way there and got distracted by a sign that said chickens for sale. We inquired and proceeded to buy 2 chickens and a bag of feed for 42$. The next day was spent building them a coop in the corner of the backyard which was really easy, because there was almost one there already and I found chicken wire under the house to finish it off. Now I have a great view from my bedroom window of the chickens doing their thing. It has been 2 weeks since then, and we should be getting eggs any day now that they are 20 weeks old. They are easy to tell apart, Lunch has a light neck and Dinner has a dark neck.
Last week was pretty routine with the usual classes and outing to the campus bar on Wednesday night. I had heard about a place named Organ Pipes National Park in my geology class last semester so that was out Friday destination. It took about an hour to get to out by the airport on the other side of the city. The lava flows here cooled in a unique way making the rocks joint the way they do and now they are exposed which makes them look like organ pipes. Near this there is some tesselated pavement which is basically the tops of these pipes. It made for another interesting trip to something I would have never taken the time to get to without a car.
The next big plan is to actually get this car registered in my name so that I am driving it slightly less illegally than I already am. The weather is pretty consistent here at the moment with highs around 12-15 and partly cloudy everyday. When the sun is out it is very nice and later this week it might go up to 17! Not bad for the dead of winter.
Next Friday I am going skiing about 2 hours away at Mt Buller. That should be interesting. I heard the snow is crap, but the novelty of skiing in August overruled everything. There are lots of other trips in being planned to so this semester should be pretty fun.

Central Australia Part 3: Kings Canyon and Alice Springs

2006-07-07T18:00:00.000+10:00

Now that the big items on the list of things to see had been checked off, we headed to ends of other roads in the desert. The next 2 nights were spent in Watarrka National Park where Kings Canyon is located, among other things. We stopped at Kathleen Springs on the way for a walk and lunch. There is a permanent pool of water here and it used to be a big stop for cattle, emus and camels, but we saw none of that. This is another area of Australia that I had no idea about before the trip but it was also very unique. This is another one of the few spots in the outback where there is water all year round. This, and the fact that the bottom of the canyon is sheltered from strong sun, means that vegetation can grow, so there are lots of trees and thick bush in the bottom. This oasis is know as the Garden of Eden. The canyon wall in the photo is flat and lined the way it is because in the past few years, huge pieces have fallen off. In the background you can see domes everywhere. These are also pretty cool, since it used to be flat land and this is the way it has eroded because of jointing in the rocks. I think a few people have died here already this year, and I can see why since there are steep ledges all over the place.
The campsite had a pool that we actually used, but just barely since the water was so cold because it is still almost 0 at night. We were pretty isloated here, so we spent the 2 nights around the campfire being social.
The next day was just as sunny and blue skied as all the rest which is nice. We got on the bus for a few hours to get to Alice Springs, which is pretty much the hub for the outback with a population of I think 30 000. This felt huge after being in the middle of nowhere for over a week. It is in the middle of the MacDonnell Ranges and the entrance to the town is known as Heavitree Gap and is impassable if the Todd River is flooded. Check out this link for a cool sattelite photo of the gap. We camped just to the south east of the gap and climbed the mountain one night and had a cool view of the city at night.
There is a nice downtown area, but the weird part is all the aboriginals who just sit around all day. We can't understand them because they do absolutely nothing all day, like not even talk to each other. Of course they are getting money from the government but they must still be so bored. I bought a cool painting of a guy named Trevor Hancox. I think he is sort of well known on the artist scene, but I like that it was a original water colour paiting of a place I would visit the next day: Glen Helen Gorge.
One afternoon we went on a sunset camel ride which was pretty cool. Hayden and I rode the 2nd fastest camel in Australia, and we are posing with it's jockey, what a highlight! The funny part was that earlier in the day I had a camel steak burger at a restaurant in town. I also found out that a young unbroken camel fresh from the desert can cost about 300$ while a full grown tamed racing camel (like the one we were riding) can sell for up to 8000$.
Any time we weren't in town, we were out visiting gaps, chasms and gorges.
The photo of the huge rock is from Simpsons Gap. This rock was just cool because I could see where it had fallen out of the side of the cliff and it was massive to walk around. Where I am standing is the river bed, and there is a sign nearby that says 'No Swimming'.
Over the few days we also went to Standley Chasm, which was a narrow passage through the ranges that was about 3-6 metres wide, and we also went to Trephina Gorge which was nothing too out of the ordinary by this point.
The coolest gorge was Glen Helen Gorge where this photo is from. This is yet another spot where there is water all year around. You can see just how brilliant the colours are with the oranges and blues and then green vegetation. It was like this everywhere. A few of us climbed up the one side to the top and we could see the pond of water at the bottom and the bit of river leading up to it. From this view we could see small schools of fish under the water and also ducks dive underwater and chase them. We also came across a rock wallaby on our way up. These guys are smaller than normal wallabys and are extremely agile on the rocks. Fun to watch.
After celebrating Americas Independence day, we were up early to pack everything up and get ready for the long haul home. But first the Korean lady ran me through a set of morning stretches which was pretty funny. We left at about 9am, and stopped at a few road houses on the way south. We stopped for dinner for an hour in our favourite town of Coober Pedy as we lost light. This is the most dangerous time to drive because of kangaroos. Luckily, the other bus was in front and cleared them out of the way. They hit one kangaroo and busted their headlight and another one ran right into the side of the bus. I slept in the aisle quite well all night from 3am-8am at which point we were in Adelaide. We continued to Melbourne and arrived at about 7pm, so 34 hours of travelling. It wasn't bad at all since we were all in good company and stopped enough.
So that was the 2nd half of my inter semester break AND I still had a whole other week off. On top of this there were about 90 new international students, 4 of which I would meet the next day in my own house.

Here are the links to other photos from the trip.
Main page: http://centralaustralia.leuser.eu
Jonas' Photos: http://pictures.beinder.net
Daniels Photos: http://www.centraloz2006.shutterfly.com
Itinerary for the trip can be found here.

Central Australia Part 2: The Olgas and Uluru

2006-06-30T18:00:00.000+10:00

After some good times at the little bar in a resort nearby, we went to visit the Olgas. This geological formation was so impressive that it is weird to think that more people don't know about it. I think I didn't know about it until I arrived in Australia and looked into this trip. We went on a cool hike that took us in between some of the huge hills or spires or whatever they should be called. During the whole walk I amused people by telling them how it was all formed and why there were big chunks of rock all cemented together. All the rock that makes up the Olgas is really unique and unlike pretty anything I had seen or heard about in school before. For such prominent geological features, I found it hard to find websites discussing their origins or giving more than an elementary level explanation. I ended up buying a think book that went into depth about them both which made visiting the area way cooler by knowing how it all got there.
Seeing as this was our first real day of visiting things, this was really impressive and I could see how some people think that the Olgas are more impressive than the rock, and for me at this point, I thought it would be hard to top.
After visiting the Olgas, we went to a sunset viewing area for Ayers Rock. We pulled into an area meant only for busses, and there were about 10 coach busses and a few smaller ones. That means over 500 people a day come out to watch the sunset. It is very popular to enjoy the sunset with champagne and snacks so that was organized for us. We also played a bit of frisbee and chilled out with the rock as a backdrop. And another random thing happened. I ran into a couple who I had gone sailing with in the Whitsundays! I had heard about the colour of the rock changing as the sun sets but didn't think too much of it. I have to say though, it was way more impressive than I thought it would be. The colour went from really light orange, to darker and then reddish, and then purple right before the sun was all the way down and it became greyish purple. And it happened fast! The links at the end of the post will have photos from the sunset, as well as the rest of the trip.
The next day we headed for the base of the rock. Most people were stoked to climb it even though the Aboriginals don't like you to. There wasn't as much signs or other information posted around telling us they would prefer we not climb it. Something made me think that there would be 2 Aboriginals at the base of the climb staring at you. But there wasn't. But the climb was closed anyway because of high winds at the top. I was so bummed. I wanted so bad to climb it and see the view. Instead we walked around the base which was pretty cool. The rock is so much bigger when you are right next to it, and there is also so much more depth to ir with huge valleys in it. When it was time to leave the climb opened and enough of us wanted to climb it that a bus took us back in the afternoon during our free time. That made us all pretty happy.
The climb was not easy. It was pretty steep and if you slipped and started rolling, it wouldn'y be easy to stop at all. I was surprised to see some pretty old people making the climb. You can see from the photo how steep it was. But the views of the flat desert all around were so cool and made it so worthwhile. Here is a link to another photo of how steep it is.
Off in the distance about 30km away the Olgas were visible and looked pretty cool. There is a chain going up the first bit, but there is so much more walking and climbing after that to get to the highest point. It took about 45 minutes to get to the highest point. The top is still very hilly, and other than that chain at the beginning, and marks on the rock indicating the trail there is nothing else stopping people from going and doing whatever they want, which is why so many people have slipped off and died. Something else suprising though was that there are bushes and small trees and grass growing here and there on the top.
So the whole climb up and down took about 3 hours with lots of fooling around. In the end about 40 out of the 90 of us made the climb. I didn't feel bad at all about doing it. It was all in the name of science so I could take photos on the top and study it etc... I have given photos to my geology professor here since he hasn't been there yet.
So now with the big highlights of the trip out of the way, I thought the rest of the trip wouldn't be as interesting, but it was.

Here are the links to other photos from the trip.
Main page: http://centralaustralia.leuser.eu
Jonas' Photos: http://pictures.beinder.net
Daniels Photos: http://www.centraloz2006.shutterfly.com
Itinerary for the trip can be found here.

Central Australia Part 1: Melbourne to Yulara

2006-06-27T18:00:00.000+10:00

I finally have a chance to jot down a little something about the Central Australia trip. So much was seen and done over the 12 days that this is almost difficult, but I'll try and give it a good run down even though I will leave out a lot. I could really go and write a book about this all.
We left campus at about 4am on June 25th. I didn't bother sleeping the night before so the bus ride went by pretty smoothly that day. We entered South Australia, and weirdly enough, we changed time zones and went back not 1 hour, but half an hour. We drove to Port Augusta which is past Adelaide where the road veers north into the desert. We set up our tents in the dark and slept in the cold, and then we woke up in the dark and took our tents down in the cold. The next day on the bus was more interesting because we actually got out into the desert where it is flat and barren in all directions. It became so obvious why this type of area is referred to as 'the land of the big sky'. We reached Coober Pedy before it was dark and took a quick tour of the town and went to a guys underground house. This was exciting for me, since I am so sure I saw the same guy and his house on TV before on Pilot Guides with Ian Wright. This was a real strange town where 70% of the people live underground and most people mine opals which is a whole interesting process in its own. There were 'noodle' piles all over the landscape around the town. These are where the miners dug up the earth and sifted through the dirt to find opals and left the leftovers in piles. There is also a golf course there. You have to carry around a piece of grass to hit from since there is no grass. This golf course also happens to have a reciprocal membership with St Andrews in Scotland. This means that instead of paying $300+ for a round on the old course, you can send away $75 and become a member of the Coober Pedy Golf Club and play for free.
We went to a local pub and watched Australia lose to Italy in the final seconds of their World Cup match. This is where I met Jimmy, an opal miner from Greece. Really interesting to talk to him about the industry etc...
We slept underground in some bunks that night, which was warmer than the tents. We also slept well since we had been at the pub until 3am, but suprisingly it wasn't even hard to get up again at 5 am and ride the bus all day again.
We drove north further into the Northern Territory, stoppping at roadhouses along the way which was kind of neat, since they are so isolated, yet get so much business because they are the only thing around. We turned off the Stuart Highway onto the Lasseter Highway and got our first glimpse of Ayers Rock which was pretty cool. Nothing prepares you for what it is like to approach it from the distance. It sticks out above the rest of the landscape so much and just seems really random.
We set up our camp in Yulara which is in a little resort type town where there is also a fancy hotel and other accomodation, and of course a pub. The great thing about this resort was that just steps away from the tent you could get a view of Ayers Rock and the Olgas which is another rock formation. So in the morning when I was suppose to be cleaning up, I just took a little walk walk with a cup of coffee and watched the colours of the landscape change as the sun rose. They made us get up so early every morning that I had the chance to enjoy quite a few sunrises which was cool.
The sunsets were just as cool too, especially since there are no mountains or buildings to get in the way. Dusk lasts a lot longer and the colours in the sky are really neat. And then the stars come out, and they are more brilliant than I have ever seen before. The entire sky down the to the horizon is packed so full it makes picking out constellations almost impossible.
The next few days were spent taking in the obvious sites and others.

Here are the links to other photos from the trip.
Main page: http://centralaustralia.leuser.eu
Jonas' Photos: http://pictures.beinder.net
Daniels Photos: http://www.centraloz2006.shutterfly.com
Itinerary for the trip can be found here.

Queensland Part 5: Afterthoughts

2006-06-24T21:26:00.000+10:00

Travelling this chunk of Australia has been heaps of fun. It was relatively easy to do with only one road going north and south. The majority of travellers hit up the same area, such as Fraser Island and the Whitsundays, which makes striking up a conversation pretty easy.
The various costs sure added up though. I kept track of pretty much all my expenses and the grand total was AUD $1550. This included 250$ for the flights, 300$ for the package deal from Peter Pans, all transportation and nights out. This works out to 86$ per day, which I dont think is too bad a price when it includes room and board as well as nights out and $100+ day trips.
Overall I think money wise I did really well, though I didn't expect it to add up to that much.
I am totally okay with these expenses because I feel I saw a lot more of the Brisbane to Cairns coast than I originally planned or thought I ever would.
Also, I ended up taking 290 photos over the 18 days, and I still think a huge regret is not taking enough. Mostly of smaller things, such as the places we ended up sleeping the car at and stuff like that.
I think the downside of trips like this is really getting to know people well and becoming friends with them only to, eventually, say to each other 'well, I had fun, see you never!'. This was the case with a few people I hung out with for pretty much all day every day for a week straight and a few times afterwards, though I think we will keep in at least some contact.
The highlight of the trip for me was probably seeing Fraser Island and diving on the Great Barrier Reef. So many times I was left with nothing else to say except 'this is so flippin' cool'. It's almost like a drug that travellers are after, and it can come from any random place, and not from just seeing things, but finding yourself so far off course from what you originally thought out.
I think this is also the first time that I feel like I couldn't convey everything I wanted to about my trip in these past few blog posts. So much more small stuff went down, and I have heaps of other amazing photos that I guess a few of you will be lucky enough to see later when I'm home again.
In about 6 hours I leave for Central Australia where I'm pretty sure I will be blown away again by the vastness of this continent. 12 days will take us to Coober Pedy, Alice Springs, Uluru and Kata Tjuta and likely a bunch of random places in between.
Expect another post or two in 2 weeks time!

Queensland Part 4: Cairns and Great Barrier Reef

2006-06-21T18:00:00.000+10:00

After the sailing trip there was an after party that included lots of dancing on tables among other things. This is where I had to work my magic and score a ride north again. I was introduced to an Israeli dude named Nadav who had a camper van and he agreed to take me to Townsville. I have to say, all the Israeli people I met on the trip have been real characters, tons of fun. My favourite quote from Nadav was 'Ryan, prepare your belly, we are going to have a stop at Subway!'. It wasn't too far to Townsville and I checked into a hostel, watched a movie and crashed. Next morning, Nadav came over to bring my camera which I left in his van, and we decided to drive to the top of Castle Hill that domintates the 'skyline' of townsville. Pretty cool, reminded me a lot of Mt. McKay in Thunder Bay. Similar height and similar sights from the top, that is to say, the water, the entire town and even the airport. Next we checked out the Sunday morning market downtown, where there was even a booth selling 'Poffertjes: little Dutch pancakes' at a price of 5$ for 18 or something like that.
Nadav had to stay in town to try and find a job and sell his camper van so I got on the bus for Cairns in the afternoon. I met a few guys from the sailing trip on the bus including Itai, another hilarious Israeli. In the end, after paying for gas, food and the hostel, I paid 10$ more than if I had just taken the bus, but I got to see a whole other town and have a few extra laughs. Again, scoring rides from people at the pub is definitely the way to travel.
I got to Cairns in the early evening, and went out to meet up with Itai and another friend from Switzerland, and also Paul who drove me to Airlie Beach. We took in the soccer game with some beers and a big sausage on a bun. Over the course of the night I tried to organize a day trip north to Mossman Gorge, and Port Douglas as well as the Daintree River, but failed miserably. The next day was one of the first nice days in Cairns for awhile so I went down to the lagoon and chilled all afternoon to actually finally get a tan so it looks like I've actually been in the tropical north when I got back to Melbourne, and it worked.
The next morning I was booked on a dive trip on the Noahs Ark Too. This was by far the cheapest and best valued trip to the reef that exists operating out of Cairns. I paid 100$ plus reef tax, plus 10$ more to have a guided scuba dive. The trip included 2 dives and a buffet lunch as well. Most companies charge 100$ plus another 40 and 30 for the first and second dives you take. The crew was awesome and heaps of fun. We pulled up to Michaelmas Cay, which had a sand island that is a bird sanctuary. I first went on the guided dive and I have to say it was a good idea and I recommend it. The instructor showed us a family of nemo fish swimming in an anemone, he taught us that you can actualyl touch a giant clam and have it close on your hand but still be able to get out, and the best part, he had a fish head in his pocket the whole time and there were sharks everywhere! Black and white tipped reef sharks up to 7 feet long circled us the whole time. I had the chance to stare one right down as it swam at me, and I could see the rows of teeth in his mouth. There were also giant trevallies swimming all around charging us to defend their territory. We also saw and played with some huge sea cucumbers and sting rays. We also came across a sea turtle which was pretty magical. They just have their fins out and appear to be flying effortlessly through the water like an eagle soars through the sky. I really should have had an underwater camera, there was so much cool stuff to see on those 2 dives. Something else I found exciting was people telling me that the diving gets even better than this in Malaysia and Thailand, so Ill be looking forward to that in December.
I met a guy named Dave from England on the dive trip as well as 2 Danish girls and we decided to rent a car the next day to drive North to see all the other stuff.
It cost 50$ to rent the car, plus 20$ for extra insurance and then 20$ for fuel in the end. Between 4 people, it sure beats paying 100$+ each for the organized day trips. We picked up the car and I was the designated driver, which the girls got a kick out of since I've barely ever driven a manual, and thats what this car was. It was such a piece of crap car it was hilarious. It was a Daihatsu for one thing, and super small. I eventually got the hang of driving the little guy and raced it like a rally car around the winding coastal roads, tons of fun.
No big deal though, we took off north and stopped at a lookout on our way to Mossman Gorge. This place was pretty cool. It was a pretty old rainforest and had a cool swimming hole.The water was really clear and green and there was a bunch of fish to keep us company. The water was way colder than out on the reef though. The trees were like I had never seen before with a special base to them that I should know all about from a wetlands class I've taken, but I have no idea. You can see from the picture how wild it was. There was also lots of places to jump into the creek and chill out and the shades of green were spectacular as you can also see from the pictures. The whole countryside is pretty cool up North of Cairns, with much more mountains that I originally thought would be there, as well as a road that winds along the coast.
We found our way onto some gravel back roads that led into the table lands there where there is just farms. We drove around there for awhile and climbed a coconut tree and found some banana trees. We also climbed one of the hills in a farmers field to get a view of the entire valley.
The worst and funniest part of the trip was when Dave was driving and he pressed the clutch instead of the gas and had time to yell 'oh shit' before he hit a pole in the parking lot of a grocery store. Scratched up the front panel pretty good. I was nervous because I was totally responsible for it but he said he would pay for it. They never called me about the damage so maybe it will just blow over.
The benefit of having the rental car was I didn't have to pay for a shuttle to the airport. Dave dropped me off there and just like that the whole trip was over. The plane wasn't full on the way home, so Ihad 3 seats to myself so I could crash after 3 late nights, early mornings and action packed days.

Queensland Part 3: Airlie Beach and the Whitsundays

2006-06-17T18:00:00.000+10:00

Before arriving in Airlie Beach, I called to reconfirm my spot on the sailboat for Monday. I was told that the boat had been out of the water for the past 2 weeks getting repaired so I was kind of screwed. I called up Peter Pans (the company I booked everything with), and they put me and Julia (friend from school here) on another boat leaving Tuesday instead. So on Monday afternoon Julia and I went to pay our extras for the trip (reef tax and stuff like that), and they said well that boat has been out of commission for a few days ever since it got beaten up in heavy winds the other day. So we were stressing a bit at this point and we went over to Peter Pans where cut a deal for another boat now leaving Wednesday instead. The funniest part was the trip advisor advising us NOT to go on this boat because it's known as the biggest piece of shit boat in all of the Whitsundays. The Tallarook III was the name of the boat, and the fact that it was so poorly looked upon by so many people who we talked to kind of made us more excited to go on it. In the end we payed 105$ less than the advertised price, so it was a great deal and I'll get to what the trip was like a bit.
Since we had to wait for this trip, Julia and I headed to Reef World on the great barrier reef for some snorkelling and stuff like that. The area has been experiencing really heavy winds so the seas were 2-3 metres. We were on a huge catamaran boat that carries up to 200 people but it still really rocked on the way over. It was hilarious to watch all the Asian people vomit in their little sick bags on the ride over and back as well. Check out this video that shows how much the baot was rocking. The view out the opposite window went from all sea to all sky.
The reef was pretty cool. There was a huge fish there named Wally who was a Napoleon Maori Wrasse who loved to be pet. We saw tons of parrot fish, giant clams, and other neat coral. On the way back we passed by something rather unique: a waterfall in the middle of the ocean. This was caused by the tide going down and all the water on top of the reef rushing out into the open ocean. There were also some humpback whales spotted on the way home; the first of the season but I didn't see them because I couldn't walk to the other side of the boat without falling over.
The next day we went to Vic Hislops Shark Expo. It was the most ridiculous thing I had ever seen, and fortunetely I am not too passionate about sharks or anything or else the expo would have really pissed me off. His basic idea is that there is an imbalance in the amount of fish in the ocean due to overfishing and now the great white sharks and tiger sharks are eating things they shouldn't so he goes out and kills them. There is a picture on the back of the flyer with a few sharks he caught with the caption 'Vic caught these sharks one winter in a bay waiting to eat baby whales'. The expo includes photographs of penguins, sea turtles and dolphins that he has found in the stomach of the sharks and says that this is wrong. He says that the sharks just kill for the fun of it. He also claims that there is a government conspiracy that says that sharks aren't as dangerous as they really are. There was also a real great white shark on display in a freezer. He justifies his catching sharks by donating the cartilage to cancer research. Anyway, it was really wild to see someone that believes so strongly in something that is such the opposite of what science has proven over and over.
Wednesday afternoon we set off on the Tallarook III into a sunset interrupted by a few showers on the horizon (another desktop background worthy photo). The boat was indeed very basic but I have to say, it had everything we needed for 46 hours out on the islands and was perfectly comfortable. Below deck was nothing but bunks, and at the stern of the boat was a covered sitting area and there was a bit of room at the front to lay out if the sun ever comes out. We were perfectly content with this set up. Another great thing was that the same company owns a bunch of other boats so they tied up nearby and we went over and partied on the other boats at night with the people who paid more. Since I am a certified for scuba diving, another guy and myself went on a dive in a bay and saw a bunch of cool stuff again like parrot fish and a potato cod. Having a free scuba dive included was a nice bonus since it would normally cost about 40$ to do it on any other boat.
Heres another tip for those travelling in pairs. At the hostel we were at, Julia and I were booked in for 2 nights. I simply didn't check in and they must have assumed I was coming because my bed stayed free. The next night my bed was taken so I just shared a bed with Julia. When we came back from the sailing trip, I didn't even book myself a bed. I went into the same room as Julia, and it turns out that 2 girls how paid for that night, were leaving. They had to pay for that night in order to stick around all day, so just like that I had a free bed again!
Another fun part of Airlie Beach was watching soccer. Quite often, there would be a huge amount of people from the countries that were playing. So I watched England play with a bunch of Enlgish people and then watched Holland play with a whole wack of people decked out in orange singing 'laat de leeuw niet in zijn hempie staand, hup Holland hup!'. So much fun in that atmosphere, and all the dutchies were thrilled to find out that I, though not from Holland, could converse with them in their language. The probably don't get that a lot.
We spent a few nights down by the lagoon, which is a 24 hour pool down by the waterfront, where we BBQ'd on the public grills and relaxed. Met tons of other random people including a family of 6 living in a van and travelling around the coast as well as some hilarious Dutch and German people travelling in camper vans.
And that was my week in Airlie Beach. A great place to chill out since it has a holiday town feel. You can walk from one end to the other in minutes and it feels like everyone there is on vacation.

Queensland Part 2: The Road to Airlie Beach

2006-06-11T18:00:00.000+10:00

The drive from Rainbow Beach to Airlie Beach (the jump off point for the Whitsundays) is about 12 hours I think. Fortuneately, I met a Paul on the Fraser Island trip and he agreed to take me and 2 others in his car for the trip north. This is by far the way to travel. You can see and do heaps more when you aren't on a bus that needs to keep a schedule. Another fantastic thing the state of Queensland has started is the Driver Reviver stations placed about 2 hours apart on the highway. There is not much along these highways so people become fatigued and these stations, run by local volunteer groups, offer free coffee and biscuits in order to encourage people to stop and take a break. I think we hit up about 4 of these on our way. They are the closest thing to a Tim Hortons stop that Australia has.
We read about a place called the Town of 1770 which is about an hour off the main highway and decided to make our way there for the first night. It was supposed to be an up and coming holiday town, but it was pretty much dead and the local restaurant/pub closed at about 930pm. After my success of sleeping on the beach on Fraser Island, we found a beach to sleep on there. And 30 minutes later it started raining, and my new 20$ sleeping bag didn't hold up well. 3 of them setup a tent and I ended up sleeping in the car which sucked, but was cheap I guess.
The next day we passed through the Tropic of Capricorn in the town of Rockhampton: beef capital of Australia. And what better thing to do in the beef capital than to have beef! We headed straight for the local McDonalds and downed a Big Mac to celebrate!
We ended up in Mackay that night and planned on sleeping out by the river or something. First we found the one bar in the whole town that was showing the England soccer game so we took that in on a patio first. Then we went to a caravan park and used their shower and bathroom facilities (awesome idea, noone there would ever know you don't belong there), and camped out on the other side of the street in a field beside a church. And it started raining again so I was back in the car while the others slept in the tent that ended up having a small river running through it. Again, it sucked, but it was cheap.
We arrived in Airlie Beach the next morning at 930am. Total cost was 35$ for my share of the gas plus 10$ for granola bars and apples and another 20$ for other food stops. It sure beats the 120$ bus ticket plus we got to take in a few more towns and have a few more laughs.
The east coast of Australia is an awesome place to get rides like this since chances are every traveller you run into is heading either north to Cairns or south to Sydney and it is quite common to run into people who have bought cars or camper vans and who are circling all of Australia. It's just a matter of getting out to the pub and making conversation.

Queensland Part 1: Brisbane to Fraser Island

2006-06-09T18:00:00.000+10:00

The past 2.5 weeks were full of ego-boosting good fortune. Everything came together as good or better than I could have hoped.
Niclas drove me to the airport for the 2 hour flight north to Brisbane. It still seems wild me to me that a 26 hour car trip can be done in 2 hours by plane. I took a shuttle bus down to Surfers Paradise and had the driver leave me at Melbas; one of the top night clubs on the east coast. I looked like an idiot with my backpack on there, so I stuffed it in a bush and went in to find Jeff or Owen so I could get the keys to their apartment. They showed up at 6am after work as the sun was coming up. Later on we hit the beach and got some meat for a BBQ later on. It was a good way to see Surfers Paradise since I would never want to stay there for too long. I took a bus to Rainbow Beach the next morning at 8:35am. This would be the jump off point for 3 days and 2 nights on Fraser Island.
Rainbow Beach is pretty quiet. There are 2 hostels, a strip of stores and some neighbourhoods. There was a meeting that afternoon to go over things for the departure the next day. We were put in groups of 11 who would travel together in a normal size Toyota Land Cruiser that has been re-outfitted for such trips. All of our gear went on the roof, and there was 3 people in the front seat, and 4 people facing 4 people in the back.
This is the part of the trip where I took on the nickname Captain America. This was mostly because I always had an idea of how we should all go about things. Where we should drive to, what we should see when, how to set up the camp, when we should leave in the morning and how the roof should be packed. I was told later on that my stepping into a leader type role was well appreciated since it kept things moving along nicely, and after hearing from other groups about their trips, they wish they had someone do the same thing since they saw a lot less and had a lot more conflict in their groups. It also paid off for me since I ended up sitting in the front with the map, or driving a lot. It was also funny to be introduced as Captain American later on in the trip by members of the group who had travelled ahead, and have the person I was being introduced to know all about me already.
It should be known that seeing Fraser Island basically involved driving down a 100+ kilometre of uninterrupted beach, while darting inland every once inawhile to see something, like Lake Mackenzie. It is a fresh water lake with really white sand and really blue water that was really impressive to see in the middle of the island. Another cool site was the Champagne Pools at the north end of the island. There are tidal pools cut off from the ocean by rocks. When a big enough wave comes along the water spills over these rocks and is full of fizz and bubbles like champagne so its kind of fun to sit in these pools while that happens.
One of the coolest parts of the trip was sleeping on the beach both nights. The first night people were sceptical and there was only 2 of us. I mainly wanted to sleep on the beach because I didnt want to have to get up in the morning to see the sunrise. As you can see, the results were awesome. The second night more people joined me on the beach, but it started to sprinkle a bit so they all went back in the tents. I had a pretty good sleeping bag so I figured it wouldn't rain enough to get me wet, and it didn't. The only nerveracking part was the dingo tracks all around me when I woke up. Fraser Island has the purest population of dingos in the world and it also the spot where a small kid actually was not eaten, but killed anyways by a pack of dingos. They weren't a big deal for us though, they came to see what we were cooking for dinner and we did exactly what the video told us to do: we yelled 'dingo go home!', and they left. Another time we were walking down a pretty long beach, and from the other direction came a lone dingo. He just walked past us with barely a glance, couldn't even be bothered with us.
The 4WD part of the trip was pretty fun too. I don't have pictures of us being stuck, but it happened quite a bit, mostly because we didn't realize the power of having the truck in 4Low. Eventually we learned that having the truck in 4Low and absolutely gunning the engine would get us through anything, so that was tons of fun blasting through soft sand over a foot deep and climbing some embankments, and powering through rivers that passed over the beach.
Fraser Island was a huge highlight, largely because of the cool people I met there who I ended up hanging out with for the rest of the week as we drive north in the one guys car together.
We'll get to that in the next post.

Queensland Bound!

2006-06-03T15:47:00.000+10:00

I leave for the airport in 45 minutes, I havent packed, I don't know where I'm going when I get there but I am, of course, absolutely confident.
Weather forecast looks fantastic, the water will be warm. Sunday I am hitting up Surfers Paradise to have a BBQ with some high school buddies who are there for the summer. After that I need to get myself 6 hours north to Fraser Island where I am until Friday. Then I need to get 17 MORE hours north to Airlie Beach where the boats leave to sail the Whitsundays. There I will be joined by a girl from school who happened to be planning a trip sailing at the same time as me.
After a week in the legendary Airlie Beach I will head north to Cairns at 17 degrees south of the equator. As far south as Jamaica is north. I will probably take a day trip maybe to the Daintree River and also, depending on the scubadiving in the Whitsundays, I may make another day trip out to the reef.
Perhaps Ill have a chance to throw up some pictures or whip up a little update while Im away, I have all sorts of coupons for free internet everywhere so we'll see.
I will also be really busy studying for the exam I have the day after I get back... just kidding, thats a huge lie, Im not going to touch a school related book. Ive had 2 exams so far, and done amazing on both, even going as far as to quote some scientific paper from the June 2 issue of Science where the first evidence for an extra terrestrial cause for the Cretaceous-Tertiary extinction (extinction of dinosaurs) was put forward which wasnt even touched on in class. Man, I can really nerd it up sometimes.
Alrights, Ive got things to do. Time to TCB.
Cheers!

Beach Club Trip to Philip Island

2006-05-22T23:21:00.001+10:00

Another classic beach club trip is over. They have all been so good I can't really even rank them from best to worst. This time we were in Philip Island where I have been before. We had a house rented for about 20 of us and another one rented nearby for the other 9 or 10. This meant there were much fewer rules for us to follow since we weren't in a hostel, and we took full advantage of this lack of rules.
On friday we didn't get up to too much. Our house was only a 5 minute walk to Surfies Point (the first picture, and latest addition to those worthy of a desktop background). A few of us had a go at surfing but we lost daylight pretty fast. It's dark out by 6pm now; again, not what I signed up for.
We made pizzas for supper and enjoyed some beverages and games until pretty late at night since there was noone telling us to be quiet.
The next morning I had big plans of getting up early and hitting up the beach again, but that never happens once morning actually comes around. It was a slow start, but a few of us went to the surf shop to rent some stuff (I used someone elses the night before). We went to the beach for the afternoon and the weather was way nicer than I expected, though the water was only 16 degrees. There is a reef sticking out of the beach and the surf was kind of big so I had the gnuis idea of walking out to the end of the reef and jumping in with a boogie board from there. Could have gone very wrong, but I didn't feel I could get beat up too bad with a wetsuit and my scuba boots on. It was a bit tricky, but I timed it just right so I didn't jump onto more rocks and I ended up having some awesome rides on the waves back to shore. The first ride shot my over some really shallow rocks which freaked me out, but it was all good. Probably not good for my confidence since I am only getting more of it which will get me back in the end.
We went into town later on to grab some food (photo with me and Flo from Germany) and other supplies for the night. I always get a good serving of fish and chips when I'm by the ocean. It has been a very consistent meal wherever It has always been the same fries and same fish no matter what store I get it from. The fish part of it is known as flake which is shark, and the cheapest kind of fish you can order. After this we went to the Nobbies at the very tip of the island. The sunset was great and the waves were crashing into shore pretty hard. Really impressive - check out the video, and the last picture of myself.
Saturday night was another awesome time. We started off by splitting into groups and having a karaoke contest with some Playstation 2 game. That got inappropriate fast and was pretty funny. Next we went to a bar in town and took it over since all 30 of us were there, and small town bars tend not to be too big. After getting home at 2:30am or so, things didn't quiet down too fast at all.
It is such a good time to party with a group of like minded people who have actually grown a bit close since most of us have been on all 3 trips. It will be tough to recreate the same atmosphere next term.
And now for other awesome news. I booked a flight to Brisbane on June 3rd and a flight home from Cairns on June 21. I have 3 weeks off until my one and only exam so I had to make use of it. I will hit up Fraser Island, the Whitsundays, and the Great Barrier Reef, as well as meet up with a few friends along the way. I am most excited to escape this late September-like weather of cold and rain and have a go at temperatures in the high 20's, water so clear it's barely there, and the white sand beaches that make up the tropics of Australia. After I come home from that, I leave 3 days later for a 12 day tour of central Australia. Good to have something to look forward to while I stress through the next 2 weeks!

Yacht Racing and Footy Weekend

2006-05-15T18:30:00.000+10:00

I didn't stray too far from home again this weekend. Since the Deakin Masters Challenge last Sunday, I have been in touch with a guy at the Royal Brighton Yacht Club who has been keeping me informed and found me a boat to sail on for Saturday. So that's what I did, I met up with the skipper and 3 other crew members and we went out onto the bay for the race. It wasn't too intense at all with wind speeds around 10 knots. This made it a great way to get familiar with the routines on keel boats since I am used to only sailing on dinghys. Theres not a lot more to it, but there is a lot of fine tuning of the sails that can be done to get a bit more speed. Since there are speedometres on board the boats, you can instantly see what difference your adjustments have done to your speed. Simply tightening the boomvang or moving the traveller can show an increase of .2 knots, so that was kind of neat. I didn't take any pictures because there was not a lot to see, and because I know I'll be out again sometime, and because I didn't bring a camera. So here is a picture of what the city looks like from the water, a picture from last Sunday taken from the edge of the docks.
On Sunday I went to the MCG to take in an Australia Rules Football match, also known as footy. What a great sport, a great combination of American football, soccer and rugby. Here is a link to the sport explained by Wikipedia. Basically the point to get the ball through the goals at either end of the field. Getting it through the middle goal is 6 points and the side goals are 1 point. If you kick the ball to another player on your team, this is known as a 'mark' since the defender will mark the spot the ballw as caught and the player can back up and kick it again etc... It was the Essendon Bombers vs the Carlton Blues on Sunday, but since I don't support a team, I was a bit indifferent. In the end the Blues won even though it was a close game most of the time. I was more impressed to see how these guys duke it out for four 25 minute quarters without equipment and without substitutes. I tried to find a video of some highlights and came up with this. The 2nd picture is from the very top of the stands looking down and of course includes myself (though the lighting is not so flattering). Notice the clothing, the weather has not been pretty here with lots of clouds, random rain, and temperatures in the mid teens. Not what I signed up for, but bearable I guess.
Overall, even though I'm not completely enthusiastic about the game, it was good to go out and watch it played in person in the biggest stadium in Australia. In the 3rd picture you should be able to see a guy or two dressed in neon green. These guys are runners and they are allowed on the field while the game is in play to relay messages from the coach to the players since the coaches sit in a glass box high above the action. There are also runners that bring out water to the players while the game is going. Just another peculiar aspect of the sport and the way things are different in Australia.
It only costs 12$ to go to a game, and the seating is casual so we can sit whereever we want except the members area. It really makes the game seem like the peoples sport since it is accessible to everyone, and people from all walks of life were present at the game.
There is 3 weeks of school left now and I have 2 major essays to get done and then 2 final tests. Then I have 3 weeks off before my one and only exam. That time needs to be filled with a trip and I've been scouting out destinations lately.
Next weekend is the final beach club trip to Philip Island where I have been already. A house has been rented for the crew and I'm told it should be another good time. There is a low pressure system moving in on friday which means not only a bit of rain, but a bigger swell size as well. The waves should be close to 2 metres with an onshore wind meaning a clean break so that should be awesome.
Details and photos from that will be up next.

Deakin Masters Challenge

2006-05-08T00:40:00.000+10:00

Waking up at 630am to pouring rain is not how you would want to start a day of sailing, but that was the scene this morning. Some guys from school organized a regatta as a school project so we travelled about an hour by tram and train to the Royal Brighton Yacht Club. This place sure beat the pants of the Fanshawe yacht Club in London, it was in a pretty upper class neighbourhood and not a cottage on a dinky lake.
We all met up in a fucntion room to be given the bad news: it was TOO windy to go out and there was a chance of heavy rain coming through, not that the picture (worthy of a desktop background) gives any evidence of it. (The rain did come, much later in the day).
We ended up all going down to the boats we would have sailed on to check them out and chat with the skippers. The guy I hung with was big into racing and has placed first in the Melbourne to Hobart race among others. It was really good to get some time with these skippers especialy since I've been reading books about some of the races, namely the Sydney to Hobart race of 1998, in a book titled Knockdown by Marting Dugard. Pretty intense stuff went down with 6 people losing their lives among other things.
We had some lunch after that and had a chance to meet some of the other skippers who were volunteering. The weather looked awesome, but the wind was still gusting to close to 40 knots (just over 70 km/h).
I don't consider the trip at all a waste because I met some of the important people at the club who have encouraged me and the rest to get in touch with them so we can crew for boats on wednesday or saturday afternoon races. I thought of doing this before, but it will be less awkward now that I will be recognized, as well as recognize some people there myself.
Hopefully this is the beginning of a fun, exciting and educational relationship.

Beach Club Trip to Sorrento

2006-05-01T22:50:00.000+10:00

In February, I figured that if I join the Beach Club, it would not only mean a chance surf and party a few times, but also to travel to different places and learn things. This past weekend we travelled to Sorrento, on the Mornington Peninsula. I have made trips here before for a beach day and to swim with the dolphins and seals, but there is a lot more to it.
Fall weather is upon us here, so when we arrived on Friday, no one was eager to get the beach so we just chilled out. A few of us walked down to the water front on the bay to harrass some pelicans, which I don't remember ever seeing in person before. They are big, and funny looking. We went to what was pretty much the only bar in town that night which is always a good time. Always a really chill crowd at these seaside bars and easy to make conversation with etc...
On Saturday we went right to the very tip of the Mornington Peninsula which has a surprising amount of history in it. In the first picture, the opening to Port Philip Bay is behind me, and this is one of the most treacherous harbour entrances in the world. Of course, entrances to ports are very important during wars, and the whole contains old buildings, tunnels and gun emplacements from past wars. The first shot fired by the Allies in World War II, was shot from here right after war was declared and a German boat was trying to get into the port. The entire area was only just opened to the public in 1988 and a large portion of the area is still used as a firing range.
This was all well and interesting but the sun was coming out and the surf was breaking cleanly. We headed back and had lunch and went to Portsea Back Beach. I rented a boogie board since there are lots of rocks here again and went at it even though the sun was going away and it was really cold. The second picture is what the beach looked like, and is the newest addition to the "photos worthy of being a desktop background" collection. I had no fins so it was a bit tricky to catch waves, but it was still great. The rocks were everywhere though, even though there is nothing but sand on the beaches. They were a pain, literally, here is a link to a photo of one of my ankles after that day. I can't wear socks, because it oozes and sticks to them. The third photo is a great example of the formations that come about when the water eats at the foosilized sand dunes.
On saturday night we made another visit to the bar and ended up hanging out until past 3am, since that's when bars close here I guess. Everyone loves the Canadian accent, especially when I say 'out and about', which I guess sounds more Canadian than I think.
It was raining sunday morning, but we still decided to check out a spot for cliff jumping before we went home. The cold and rainy weather discouraged a lot of people from going at it and in the end only 3 of us did it. It was pretty intense, since the tide was high and there was a strong current around the bottom. In the picture, we jumped off the highest point of the stack in the middle. Jumping is no problem, I've jumped from more than twice as high before, but getting out is tricky. The waves and current would have thrown me into the sharp rocks if I didn't time my approach. That makes it sound difficult, but it really wasn't, but still one of the more dangerous things I've done here. The rocks erode in such a way that they are like really rough sandpaper with lots of edges, so it beat up my hands a bit. All in good fun though. I don't see the novelty of the ocean wearing off anytime soon, that's for sure.
I plan on getting some other pictures and a video later on this week, so I'll add them to this post later.
Next sunday I will head down to the Royal Brighton Yacht Club to participate in the Deakin Masters Challenge. I will join a crew on one of 10 or so sailboats and race in a regatta. It's part of some guys from schools' project for a rec and leisure course. Should be good fun.

Yarra River Field Trip

2006-04-23T14:57:00.000+10:00

As part of my soils and geomorphology, we went a on field trip to various sites along the Yarra river which is the river that runs through Melbourne and is the source of its drinking water. We started by driving just over 2 hours to where the magic happens: the Upper Yarra Reservoir. The most interesting thing about this reservoir is that it is within the Yarra Ranged National Park, which means that all the land over which the water flowing into it comes from, is protected from logging and development. You can see in the first picture how the water is much lower than it should be since the summer has been very hot here. People still arent allowed to wash their cars at home and use water on pavement at all. We took some pretty useless mesaurements just below the dam and moved on.
The next site was kind of neat. Some hydrologists decided to blow a tunnel through a wall of rock and re-route the stream so that it didn't meander around a long bend. This was done simply so that the river would move faster and therefore have less of a chance to flood. After this stop we went to a floodplain pretty much just to look at it pretty much. It was at this point I realized we were on more of a sighseeing tour rather than a field trip, not that I was protesting.
After lunch we drove to another random spot along the river to notice that the river was getting bigger and that water moves faster along the outside edges, surprise surprise.
We went on to Yarra Bend Park which is right in the city and pretty close to where the river ends in the bay. Right nearby there was a huge mansion along with several other buildings on some parkland. Someone told me it was the old town asylum and it was built on this spot because it was bordered by the river on 3 sides so they only had to build a fence on one side. The asylum was also self sustaining so they did all their own fishing and gardening. The area was really nice on the edge of the river and would have probably been nice to live there way back when if it weren't for all the crazies.
The second last picture of the Yarra Bend Park and has been placed in my collection of "best photos taken in Australia". And the last picture is of me and the cityscape since I know the real reason people visit this blog is to look at photos of me.
On another note the Australian edition of Big Brother premiered tonight. I didn't ever follow it at home partly because it was on in the summer and also because it just got a bit boring and uninteresting. I have to say they do it a lot differently here. Everyone in the house is between 19 and 25 and instead of their being a host to talk to them, there is an actual voice of Big Brother who tells them what to do and who takes money away from the million dollar prize if the people in the house break any rules. Looks heaps more interesting than at home.
Tuesday is Anzac Day here, it's very simmilar to Rememberance Day at home except here it is one of the few national holidays where the university is actually closed. Here is a link with a bunch of information about the day and ceremonies associated with it.
This weekend is another beach club trip to Sorrento so you can look forward to a report from that.

Easter Weekend Events

2006-04-18T18:22:00.000+10:00

A lot of the exchange students took advantage of the 1 week Easter break to take a big trip north to Queensland where the sun still shines and the weather is still warm. I, unlike many of them, have a whole year to get there so I'm going to go in November.
The weekend had officially begun for me on Wednesday which was sweet. On Thursday the student government provided free beer at the campus pub, and since I'm a member of the BBQ club, I had some free sausages as well. The sun was even shining, so it made for a nice little afternoon on campus. Thursday night we went to a bar in town and I was way wrong about taking the tram home later. The last one left at 11:30 pm already. So me and another guy figured we'd walk a ways and catch a cab. We ran into some older guy who was going to McDonalds so we went with him and enjoyed some good Australian humor from him after which we went in a cab with him and he payed the rest of our way home to. Really nice to meet genuine people like that.
On friday my big plan was to make my way to Torquay for the Rip Curl Pro Championship surf tournament. I figured I would just find somewhere to crash after I got there and not worry about it. I left home in shorts and t-shirt in the warm sun. Once I arrived in Geelong where I had to switch to a bus, the weather had gotten cold and rainy. I also had to wait 4 hours to catch a bus the rest of the way because it was on a holiday schedule. I would have just hitch hiked the last bit of the way, it would have been really easy since Torquay is the next city down the road, but the weather was horrible and I didn't know where the main road was. In the meantime I had made some phone calls and had a guranteed day trip to Torquay lined up for Sunday, so I cut my losses and went home in jeans, sweatshirt and jacket. I probably would have stuck it out if the weather was at all decent. Whatever, I learned how easy and cheap it was to take the train places and might just use it more often.
On Saturday I took it easy all day. I was originally going to head to Torquay with Niclas and some other Swedish girls visiting him, but Niclas went to two wrong airports before picking them up and by then it was too late so we re scheduled for Sunday morning and went to see Ice Age 2.
We lefr at 7:30am on Sunday for the beach. It was cloudy and cool when we arrived and never got warmer. I had a feeling we wouldn't see much since the swell forcast for Bells Beach showed that the waves would be smaller. I was right and we later found out that the pros don't surf unless the waves are 6 feet or more. We still saw some good surfing by the juniors and it was neat to just be at a surf event and see how it all goes down. We did see Bethany Hamilton, the girl who got her arm bit off by a shark, come in second for her heat. That was really impressive. We had something to eat in town and checked out the surf outlets before heading home again.
Niclas' realtives were out of town and left him their house in the country to have some people over so me and 9 Swedes headed out there for a BBQ. It often seems like I'm being more exposed to more Swedish culture than Australian culture while I'm here. Check out the picture of the moon rising out in the country, it was a really deep orange and looked pretty cool. Difficult to capture the effect on camera though. We relaxed all night and the next morning it was actually nice enough to lay outside in shorts until the clouds came around again. So we just chilled out all day there with not a care in the world since we still had a week off from school ahead of us.
And that was the weekend for me. Nothing like I planned, but enjoyable nevertheless. For the rest of the week I might try and make an effort to do some of these major essays that are ruining my walk through the park down here.
I have a geology field trip on Friday where we are taking a boat down the Yarra River that runs all the way through Melbourne. I should have some good pictures from that if the weather holds out.

The Australian Floorball Open

2006-04-09T14:34:00.000+10:00

The Australia Floorball Open was being held nearby this past weekend. You may wonder why I know this and why I went to it on Saturday.
Well according to the entry for floorball in the Wikipedia, this sport is huge in Scadinavia. This is why my roommate Marcus happens to be good at it. I don't know what he did, but he made some phonecalls and got himself on the Sydney Blue Tongues team. He practiced a couple of times here in Melbourne and then joined up with the rest of the team for the tournament. Very random.
So Niclas and I went to watch Marcus and his team play in the quarter and semi-finals. There had to be at least 50 other people there to watch this national event as well!
I think half of the players at the tournament were Swedish or Finnish by the looks of some of their shirts, and because I heard a lot of the Swedish and Finnish profanities that I've been taught.
I have to say, it was really funny to watch these guys run around with little plastics sticks. It reminds me so much of games we played in elementary school gym class. Just look at the pictures, look at the goalies (Marcus is the red and black one), their "equipment" consists of a long sleeved padded shirt and baggy pants with thigh pads. They also look weird because they wear a helmet but have no gloves or sticks for their hands.
Like other sports, such as badminton and lawn bowling, floorball would be a lot more interesting if there was more contact and more aggressiveness.
On another note, check out this dude who crashed under my laptop the other night. Scared the crap out of me when I was sitting here typing and he came out to see what was up. Look how shiny he is, I hope he wasn't worth anything, or endangered, because I threw him in the garbage.
The weather has been cooler here, like 15 degrees. Not really what I signed up for but whatever.
This weekend is the Rip Curl Pro World Championship Tour surf tournament and I know a few people who are going. I have no other plans until friday the 21st, so I'm playing with the idea of packing a bag and 'drifting' down the Great Ocean Road for awhile. We'll see what happens, I'm totally free.

Grampians National Park: March 31 - April 2

2006-04-03T16:28:00.000+10:00

Another weekend trip is in the books. This time 32 of us travelled about 4 hours west of Melbourne to the Grampians National Park where we stayed at the Grampians Retreat and Field Studies Centre. We stayed in cabins and had all our meals home cooked by our hosts Dennis and Maree. They even made me a birthday cake that we ate after lunch on Saturday. The first picture is the view from the dining room window. This is Mt. Abrupt, our challenge for Saturday morning.
On Friday afternoon we took it easy with a 1 hour hike up the Picaninny, a small hill that still offered some great views and introduced me to some new plants and birds. We took it easy on Friday night with some table tennis so we could be up early the next day.
On saturday morning we set out at about 9:30am on the trail that would take us to the top of Mt. Abrupt. The views along the whole trail were magnificent. The landscape of the area is very unique. The mountains are surrounded by very flat plains that used to be used for harvesting rice. When the land dried up the land was then used for farming mostly sheep and some cattle as well. The area used to be an a shoreline and therefore lots of sand was deposited and turned into sandstone. The more resistant layers of sandstone were uplifted into their current position while the surrounding weaker sandstone was eroded leaving the plains that exist today. The second picture is the best example I have of the contrast between the mountains and the plains. The second mountain from the right is Mt. Abrupt. Here is a link with more detailed information on the geology of the area for those who care.
And of course here is a picture of me on the summit of Mt. Abrupt contemplating how cool it is to be there on my 22nd birthday and watching rain showers blow across the plains and into the mountains, missing us to the north. Here is a link to another awesome picture that I dont have room for here. It was really cool to be there and reminded me of the last mountain I was on top of in Como, Italy, except I walked up this one and took a funicular to the top of the other one. What goes up must come down and I have to say it is a lot easier to go up then go down. There is a lot more stress on the legs going down but you get to see everything you missed when you weren't looking backwards on the way up! The roud trip took us just over 3.5 hours with fairly frequent stops for photoshoots and what not.
After an awesome lunch of sweet chili chicken wraps and birthday cake, we went to a nearby winery. This was another Ma and Pa operation that has done well for itself. I have no interesting pictures from this visit but I managed to learn a lot. Did you know that it takes about 1kg of grapes to make 1 litre of wine? Did you know that under an agreement with the EU, champagne is called sparkling wine if it comes from anywhere other than the Champagne region of France? We also got a chance to sample their award winning Pinot Noir and Sauvignon Blanc wines among others.
Next we took a drive right up the middle of the national park which was probably the most interesting part of the trip. This past January, more than half the park was ravaged by the worst bushfires on record. This link has a great sattelite picture of the park while it was burning. For reference, the bottom right hand finger of the park is where we stayed and climbed Mt. Abrupt and it is probably about 100km from top to bottom. Here is another link with an articles about the bushfires. As we drove into the affected area, some of the sides of the moutains looked like the leaves had changed for autumn when in fact the leaves were brown and dead due to the intense heat. Most of the area we saw consisted of no vegetation close to the ground at all except for blackened twigs that didn't burn up completely and blackened tree trunks with dead leaves on them. Contrary to what you might think, the bush fire didn't always engulf entire trees, but rather burnt up the underbrush before moving on. This could be partly due to the fact that the eucalyptus trees shed their bark which provides fuel for the fire to burn up fast and not give it a chance to set fire to the actual tree. The picture you see is the typical landscape of the area. Notice how the trees have sprouted green plants all over them. The trees keep a bunch of 'epicormic' buds beneath their bark. They lie dormant until the tree loses it's canopy, in this case due to a bushfire. This provides almost instant leaves which helps the tree receive sustenance and helps it recover.
This link is a picture I took of some seed capsules. These capsules contained seeds that are only released under intense heat. The fire causes them to split open and release the seed thereby allowing the species to survive. These guys are smart and it was really cool to see their geniusness at work.
Saturday night we had a campfire under another sky jam packed with stars. We even hired a guy to come down and play guitar and sing for us. He taught us a bunch of old Australia folk songs and the meanings behind them.
On Sunday morning we went to a sheep dairy farm (Grampians Pure Sheep Milk Dairy near Glenthompson). Since farmers in Australia receive no subsidies at all, they often try other things to make money. This couple has been very successful in making yogurts and cheeses from sheep milk. First we watched as he brought out about 20 sheep into the milking parlour. Then he had put the milkers on every other sheep and by the time he put the last one on, the first one was finished and me moved the milkers over to all the other sheep. His sheep give about 3 litres of milk per day which is a far cry from the 40 litres a day that a good cow can provide. His wife then takes the milk to make her products. We sampled one of everything she makes. It was neat to be on their farm and meet the one single lady behind the product that can be sometimes found in the national grocery store and also in Hong Kong: the country that imports the most of her product. They mentioned that they often need help in their Spring, and later I found out that one guy in our group talked to them and will go back there to work for a month or two. I reckon it would be pretty neat to travel in Australia working on farms. Here is a lesson in Australia slang I learned at the sheep farm too: one person might refer to another person as a 'dag', eg. "You are a dag". A 'dag' occurs when sheep shit accumulates on the sheeps tail and rectum area and becomes infested with maggots. They eventually feed on the sheeps flesh causing it a great deal of pain. 'Dag' is therefore a very nasty term and you don't want to be called one.
After that visit we made our way to another section of the park for a short walk to a small mountain with caves. While the others looked at traces of Aboriginal art in the cave, I made my way to the top of the mountain and found this little lizard sunning himself. He was kind of enough to let me take his picture, but wouldn't let me hold him. It wass suprisingly the first reptile I had seen in the wild since arriving here 1.5 months ago. I am however told that the extremely venomous king snake can be found near the creek that runs behind the campus.
Before I end this post I want to show this last picture. I took it on Sunday morning after breakfeast. I walked down to the edge of the property and took this shot of the neighbouring field. It is a bit strange to find these massive river gum trees in the middle of fields. The kangaroos were all around me and though I could get pretty close to them, it was nothing like on Philip Island where they would approach us looking for food. These ones were clearly wild. This picture will go into the collection of my best from the trip and will stay on as my desktop background for next little while.
I have no big plans yet for the 1 week Easter break coming up but I'm sure I'll figure soemthing out. The weather has been cooler lately, around 20 degrees, which makes visits to the beach a little less appealing.
So that's all for now, I hope you learned something and you can always email if you want more pictures.
Cheers!

Beach Weekend in Torquay

2006-03-28T21:11:00.000+11:00

This past weekend the beach club from university went to Torquay: home to two or the surf industry’s biggest names, Rip Curl wetsuits, and Quiksilver clothing. The party got started as soon as we got in the vans (I guess it's not illegal here, but hey, "When in Rome"), and it took us almost 2 hours to get to Bells Beach Lodge. This was pretty much a stereotypical hostel, with a great atmosphere and a good mix of people other than our own group of about 25.
A few of us rented surf boards and wetsuits and then we all walked down to Torquay surf beach where I was met with the view in the first picture. This is pretty much the beginning of the Great Ocean Road and the coastline is spectacular from here westward. I spent no time at all on the beach since I was in the water for the next 2 hours surfing. These were the best waves thus far and made for some of the best rides I've had so far as well. We had spaghetti for supper and hit up the Torquay motel until the wee hours that night.
The next morning we all went back to Torquay surf beach for a few hours and out near the point was once again the best surfing I have done yet. The waves were more like swells since they didn't really break and mostly disappeared before getting to shore where they built up and eventually broke again. Longboards (which I used) are meant for riding these swells which never get a really steep face like the breaking waves do near shore.
A few of us left Torquay to go back to the hostel and then go about 10 minutes further down the coast to Bells Beach: one of the famous surf desitnations of the world where the Rip Curl Pro surf tournament is held every Easter (It is the oldest surf comepetition in the world dating back to the 1960's). I am in the picture with the beach in the background and as you can see it wasn't busy at all for late on a Saturday afternoon. There was literally 10 other people on the beach. We went down to check it out and swam out a ways since we heard it was all reef and was kind of dangerous. We heard right, a few metres out from the waterline there were rocks covered in weeds so it would indeed be dangerous to fall off a wave and get plowed into them.
That night we had a BBQ (it's still the season), and headed back again to the Torquay motel. After it shut down at around 2:30am, a few of us decided it was warm enough to swim, so we walked down to the empty beach and went for a swim under a perfectly clear sky with the milky way streaking across the sky above us. Such a cool experience.
The next day we went shopping in the morning and we found some factory outlet stores so I picked up a rash guard since I was planning on boogie boarding and not wearing a wetsuit in the afternoon since we were going to Bells Beach and I didn't want to become a part of the reef and since I was tired of paddling. The waves were much bigger that day (~2metres) and when I managed to catch a wave in just the right spot and drop down the face right in front of the barreling crest it was easily the coolest thing Mother Nature and I have ever done. It was suprisingly fast but a bit nerveracking to catch glimpses of the sea weeds under water in front of me. I spent the next 3 hours in the water doing it over and over again and also moved just past the point in the picture above to where the waves were a bit bigger but breaking on sand. (Here are 2 other links to other cool pictures that weren't great quality, but still give an idea of what it was like). Another guy in the group and I managed to catch the same wave and we just flew with it; him standing on his surfboard just a metre over from me laying on my board. Stoked is the word that best describes it.
Here is another picture I took that is now my desktop background. This is on the point in the background of the picture of me and Bells Beach. Notice the sedimentary rocks that make up the reef and also how clean the wave is breaking; one long line with the break moving across it which makes for awesome rides on surfbaords and boogie boards.
So that made for another weekend full of sun, sand, surf and parties and very little sleep. I was completely exhausted when I got home. I should be recovered for this coming weekend where I will celebrate my birthday in the Grampian Mountains. It should be interesting since it is the area that was affected by bushfires this past summer and we will be climbing Mt. Abrupt (~800 metres) and visiting waterfalls, a sheep farm and a winery.
That's all for now!
Cheers!

Commonwealth Games - Day 7: Athletics

2006-03-23T16:36:00.000+11:00

After attending the Canada vs Italy womens hockey game at the Olympics in Turi n, Italy, it only seemed appropriate that I attend an event at the Commonwealth Games here in Melbourne. It was another one of those last minute decisions, and at around 4pm, Niclas , his cousin and I drove part way and took the tram to Federation Square to buy tickets to the athletics competitions at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, aka the MCG or just the "G". This is the biggest stadium in Australia with a capacity of close to if not more than 100 000 people. Check out the videos linked at the end of the post to get a sense of what it was like. So many people makes for a really great atmosphere and I can't wait to attend an Aussie Rules Football match there.
We bought the cheapest tickets at $55 each, but I can't even tell you what the seats were like since I never actually went to them. The stadium wasn't full, and there were empty seats all over the expensive sections. Fortunetaly for me, the younger female volunteers who were supposed to be checking tickets were easily distracted from that task with some idle chit chat and a nice smile. I first sat behind the javelin field where fellow Banting Secondary School alumni Jessica Zelinka was competing in the heptathlon. After that was finished I walked around the outside until I found a section where noone was checking tickets and popped in again. I think I was in the volunteer section because they all had their uniforms on. I commented on one guys camera to break the ice and chatted with him about high jump. Turns out he coached one guy to a record of some sort that still stands from back in the 1980's and he is now in charge of public relations for the Queen's representative at the games. It's always more fun to watch an event with someone who knows a lot about it. He drew me diagrams of proper technique and told me which athletes were the lazy ones etc...
After that I went and sat 3 rows back from the track by the high jump. Canadas Mark Boswell hadn't even come out onto the field yet and some people were already eliminated from the competetion. He is easily the coolest cat on the high jump circuit with the way he jumps with sunglasses on among other things. The picture is of his gold medal winning jump. Shortly after that when the other guy missed his jump, he grabbed a flag and paraded right past me. The picture here on the CBC's website was taken about 10 metres to my left.
Shortly before this, Zelinka ran in the 800m; the final event of the heptathlon. She placed 3rd in that race and ended up coming in 4th overall for the event. All the results from the heptathlon can be found here (I still have no idea about how the points work for that) and results from all the other events are easy to get to from here.
The highlight of the night was the 400m finals. Check out this video for my view of the race. The "G" just blew up when the Australian, John Steffenson, or Steffo as the guy behind me who knows him called him, won the gold medal. Here is a video of Steffo on his victory lap. A real incredible atmosphere; those Aussies really love their sport and supporting their athletes. It's too bad that the games aren't getting more coverage at home, there is some exciting stuff going down and it's heaps of fun to watch.
Now it's time to pack for the weekend trip to Torquay!

Swimming with Dolphins and Seals

2006-03-20T21:10:00.000+11:00

Today about 20 of us headed down to Portsea to meet up with the cleverly named company Sea All Dolphin Swims. If you check out the pictures on their website, it was pretty much the exact same thing today. We started out by heading to where the dolphins were last spotted. There are extremely strict rules in place since there are only 80 dolphins in the entire bay and they are all wild. This meant that we had to hold on to "mermaid" lines from behind the boat as it towed us around. Dolphins are pretty curious by nature and they swam right underneath us several times, clicking and whistling as they went. It was tough to get a picture of them, but check out this video I took of them surfing off the bow of the boat. They loved this and did it for our boar, a catamaran near by, and the huge ferry that passed by a few times. Tons of fun.
Next we headed over to the seals' bachelor pad. This group of seals is made up of all juvenile males who were kicked out of their colony by the dominant males. They will beef up here for awhile before they go back to stake their claim. The current was really strong, but a bunch of us went at it anyways. We jumped in and caused a ruckus to make the seals come and in play with us. Sure enough about 20 or so jumped in and swam around with us. It was heaps of fun to dive under water and chase them and as be chased by them. They were really impressive to, since some were longer than me and weighing I think up to 300kg, and there was even a baby one. The guides said they are in the same family as dogs and coyotes, and it showed in their puppy like eyes and huge fangs.
Next we headed back to the pier which happened to have a reef next to it. This tiny reef alone has more weed species than the whole of the Japanese archaepeligo and more fish species than the bottom portion of the great barrier reef. It sounds like a big deal, but there wasn't a heck of a lot to see. A real treat though was finding sea dragons which are native only to the states of Victoria and South Australia. Here is a link with pictures, they have much longer bodies than sea horses. We also found and held sea stars and puffer fish and I swam alongside the resident stingray which was as long as me.
The seals and the reef were a huge bonus seeing as I though we would only be swimming with the dolphins. So there are another few items checked off the non-existent yet ever growing list of things to do while in Australia.
This weekend I make my way to Torquay with the Beach Club for even more sun, sand and surf.
It's all good downunder.

Golfing with Kangaroos and Cockatoos

2006-03-18T18:08:00.000+11:00

If you've ever played a Tiger Woods golf game and played on an Australian course in the game, you will have noticed kangaroos grazing in the fairways. We went to Yarrambat Park Community Golf Course and it wasn't quite like that today, but there were indeed kangaroos lazing around under the trees off to the side, totally oblivious to the people nearby. They are also really well camouflaged (there are kangaroos in that first picture in case you couldn't see them).I have a feeling this isn't as common as I might think since we were playing on a golf course about 40 minutes from here which is just to the north of the city. I'm not sure what's normal around here, but green fees here are heaps cheaper than at home. 18 holes today was $25 and it's actually only $10.50 on weekdays for students and seniors.
There was also a flock of female cockatoos causing quite a racket as well. I don't know what the sound they were making means, but it sounded like some were about to drop dead out of the tree. At least the posed nicely for a picture for me while they were digging in the dirt.
Another great thing about Australia is that you can golf all year round. It might be a bit cool in the winter, but the grass probably greens up nicely. It is the end of summer now, so a lot of the grass was really burned up.
Before we went to the golf course, we stopped by Niclas' relatives house to get his cousin and some clubs for me. They live about 5 minutes from the golf course and the scenery from their house is awesome; a real typcial hilly Australian landscape. It's actually pretty impressive and this picture I took will be my desktop background for the time being. I have some other great trips lined up and I'm sure another picture will take over then.
On a side note, last night was St. Patricks Day. We went to an Irish pub on Chapel Street. I was disappointed because other than people wearing green, it wasn't Irish at all. It wasn't like a pub at all, more just like any other club, with a DJ playing the usual music from any other night. There was also no green beer like in Canada. There is always next year...
When I go places, I follow our route on a map, and when I look at where I've been compared to the entire country it's pretty insignificant even though it has seemed like it's been a lot and been heaps of fun. I think I will constantly be reminded how massive Australia is, and be glad that I still have until December to get to as much as possible.
Here is a link to what's on the agenda for monday, should be fun!

Commonwealth Games - Opening Ceremonies

2006-03-16T15:22:00.000+11:00

Last night was the opening ceremonies of the Commonwealth Games here in Melbourne. I heard that they are not getting a whole lot of coverage at home, but this is a HUGE deal for the city of Melbourne. I didn't have plans last night but then it struck me that I really had to do something since it is happening down the street. Shortly after 8pm I took a tram into the middle of the (free) action. Tickets for the event in the stadium started at like 400$ so that wasn't really an option.
The ceremonies were actually pretty impressive, maybe moreso for me since I knew it was all going down on the other side of the river. Her Majesty the Queen was in attendance to decalre the games open. I don't know exactly what bits of news get to you, but there was a big controversy about not singing God Save the Queen this time around. The compromise was to sing like a half a verse. Some kid went up and mentioned that since the Queens 80th birthday was coming up, they would sing for her. Then some kids choir and a lady sang happy birthday and threw in the half a verse of God Save the Queen after that. Very well done. But man, they kept showing her on TV and that Prince Philip beside her never seemed too happy. He seems old and bitter, probably because noone knows him and his spotlight has been stolen by the Queen for the past 54 years of her reign.
The Queens Baton was also kind of neat. It travelled to everyone of the 71 Commonwealth countries, over 186 000km, with a message from the Queen in it, which she read to open the games. There was green on it to represent the Garden State that is Victoria. and gold on it to represent the goldfields of Victoria, as well as 71 flashing lights on it representing all the countries.
I have to say though, the most impressive part of the night was the fireworks. We were fortunate enough to have the big screen showing the fireworks in front of us, and then the actualy fireworks happening right behind us. There was actually 3 venues of fireworks, we were looking at the ones on the skyscrapers and could see some on the river and then there were more above the stadium. Check out this link to a video I took, it should give a good idea of the atmosphere.
The last picture is Flinders Street Station. It is pretty much an icon of Melbourne and a pretty impressive building as well being the gold colour that it is. There was masses of people piling out of everywhere after the ceremonies. The tram home was completely packed and just when you thought noone else would fit, some foreigners would squeeze their way in and make it tighter. Unreal how many people were everywhere last night, a real party atmosphere. Hopefully I will make out to some events next week, should be interesting.
That's all for now. I have to say, I have a busy and interesting month ahead with several trips planned.
Cheers!

Sorrento Beach

2006-03-12T16:13:00.000+11:00

On Saturday I experienced a whole new type of beach, at least I can't remember being at this type of ocean beach in the past. Often people assume a beach to be sand then water and not much else. We went to Sorrento Beach on the Mornington Peninsula, just over an hours drive from Melbourne. This beach had sand, water and tons more. Heres a geomorphology lesson for you: check out the picture of Marcus doing a backflip into a tidal pool. Now look at the cliffs behind him. These cliffs are actually fossilized sand dunes formed about 5000 - 10000 years ago from lime derived from sea shells. This made for a lot of interesting rock structures and some impressive tidal pools which a lot of people were snorkelling in, some I think were even spear fishing. A sign posted said you could find sea horses and octopii (?) in the tidal pools, among other things.
Check out the picture of me standing on some rocks. That is on the other side of a 4 metre deep tidal pool, beyond that is the open ocean. After seeing the ocean floor at low tide, I can see why its dangerous to surf in these places. You would just get annihilated on these rocks or stuck under ledges. Speaking of ledges, me and those kids in the picture hid under the rock ledge in front me and when the waves swept over it was like being behind a waterfall. Man, I was in a good mood and easily amused there.
Here is a picture of half of the beach. If you look carefully you can see the rock and tidal pool from the first picture. (Straight above the yellow tent). The picture of me is from around the corner. In a way it isn't the most practical beach since there are rocks everywhere, but to the left in the picture it is all sand and people were body boarding in the waves. I borrowed a kids board and caught some good waves and just flew, plowing over all the other kids, it was funny. Then I think the kids mom made him come and take the beard away from me.
Here's another fun trick I've learned: click on this link for a video panorama of the beach! I figured out how to upload short videos, so that should be fun.
I did some good learning, swimming and tanning on Saturday, so I hope I get back to Sorrento beach, or others like it, again soon.
Cheers!

Classes

2006-03-09T22:55:00.000+11:00

You will have to bear with another average post. Nothing too exciting has been happening lately. The second week of classes is almost over and I know you are all itching to know what its like to go to school here right? Here's a stunner, it's the exact same. We all attend power point lectures in big rooms and there are practical sessions where we have assignments to do. I can't say the content isn't interesting though, though it must hellishly tedious for everyone else. There is a lot of going over small bits of Australia history and how it caused current environmental issues to arise. Of course for me, I have almost no clue about all these things so I actually learn. It's also funny to hear about all the idiotic mistakes that the settlers made, like trying to find an inland sea. Imagine walking across Canada, but in a desert. It didn't go over so well.
I don't know if I mentioned it before, but I actually ended up in 2 first year courses and 1 third year course, or units as they are known here. Course is their word for degree.
The most boring class is History of Life. Every last bit of it is an easier rerun of a class I already took, but whatever, I'm getting good credit for it at home.
The best and most relevant class is Geomorpholgy and Soils. Although is a bit repetitive so far, it deals with a lot of Australia stuff that is new to me to. There will also be a good weekend field trip as well as a boat cruise down a river to look at stuff.
On another note, check out this possum I chased into a tree last night. I was told later they are really vicious if you try and grab them and that you have to grab them by the tail as close as possible to the body if you dont want to get hurt. I don't know why this guy knew these things. I think they watch Crocodile Hunter here as much as at home. There are also jokes that go around about making Steve Irwin the Prime Minister of Australia.
We have a car for the weekend so hopefully we can find some fun. The temperature gets hotter every day here until the rain comes and then the cycle starts over. Forecast is 33 degrees for Saturday and 36 degrees for Sunday.
Crazy to think that last week monday it was only 19 degrees and I had to wear a fleece to school.

BBQ Season

2006-03-05T23:13:00.000+11:00

With such amazing weather comes the BBQ, just the same as in Canada during the summer. I went to 2 different BBq's this weekend. Last night the Beach Club from the uni held an all you can eat and drink BBQ. It was kind of weird since they live in a old veterinary hospital. One guy has the X-ray room as his bedroom. The house was spacious though, they even had a separate building in the backyard with a toilet. The highlight and most random part of the night was the fire dancers. The president of the beach club happened to find out that these 2 people were fire dancers, so he invited them. It was cool, the girl told me earlier on that she was still new, but I told her that wass ok because the crowd will love it when she screws up with a fireball. And sure enough they did, though she never seemed to be too bothered when the ball of fire hit her bare skin.
There was quite an international crowd at the BBQ to. A few of us were making the usual small talk asking each other where we were from. I asked a black guy if he was from Kenya, and he was. So then I asked him if he could run far, and he got a good laugh out of that because the answer was no, he said he can't run at all because he's a smoker. Myth Busted!
This afternoon the land lady hosted a BBQ for all of her tenants at her house. It was a BYO event, so check out the sweet deal I got on this family pack of meat. It came with 4 beef patties, 4 beef sausages and 2 lamb chops. I ate all but 2 of the sausages, and washed it all down with a bottle of SARS. Whats up with that? I don't even know what it's supposed to stand for. Cola is cola though as far as I'm concerned.
Yep, BBQ's are always a good time, especially with new foods and drinks and all the new people. They love BBQ's enough down here that there is even a BBQ club on campus which I joined. Rumour has it that there is a free BBQ for us every tuesday and thursday, should be good. Once again, the University of Waterloo can take a lesson from the Aussies.
That's all for now.
Cheers!

The Tram

2006-03-02T19:18:00.000+11:00

I think Melbourne is the only city in Australia with a tram system. Route 75 runs down the street I live on and it's sort of loud. It has definitely helped keep me from sleeping in too late since I've been here, but at least it doesn't blow a loud whistle and scare me right out of my bed like the train at the Bokma farm in Nova Scotia. It takes between 30 and 40 minutes to travel to the Central Business District which is basically downtown Melbourne where all the shops and malls and other things are. You can see all the tall buildings in the picture. This picture was taken from out front of my house so I am constantly reminded that I do live in Melbourne and not just in some random suburb. To ride the tram in 1 zone costs I think $2.40 and that is valid for 2 hours unless you purchase it after 6pm which case it's valid until 2am. There are machines on the trams to buy these tickets and slots to validate them everytime you get on. This means that in a way you don't actually have to pay to ride the tram. I've heard of many people going over a month without an officer checking their ticket and others who have been fined $130 3 or 4 times since they have arrived here. In my case, I buy a ticket when I go into the city because that is where the officers are more likely to be. If I ride the tram 5 minutes to the Kmart or grocery store, I am sometimes the only person on the tram and then I don't bother. Don't tell anybody though. When other people are on the tram I become very suspicious about them because I heard that sometimes the officers go undercover and will sit opposite you for awhile and then flash a badge and ask to see your ticket. They can be pretty hardcore I guess, they are even allowed to arrest you if you can't provide identification even after you've left the tram. Also, the "act like a dumb tourist" strategy doesn't always work either which is too bad because it has gotten me out of a lot of trouble in the past.
So there's a little post to hold you over for a while. The weekend is coming up and might include a pretty massive party thrown by the beach club so maybe I'll have something to say about that.
Cheers!

Orientation Week

2006-02-28T21:54:00.000+11:00

Last week was orientation week on campus here. After frosh week at home as a first year student and a leader it was fun to do it all over again as a student. It was a lot different here that’s for sure. As an exchange student, I already had a day of orientation the previous week where we sat in a lecture theatre and were told the usual stuff like how to access stuff online and not to plagiarize etc… This was again the theme for all the new students on campus so I simply didn’t go to anything at school during the day. There was no faculty orientation where we were in teams and had random events like we did at Waterloo. Here it was all about the social gatherings at night. The big difference here was that everyone entering university was of age and therefore the week was not “dry” at all.

Monday was a big beach themed party with a live band. Up to this point I had pretty much met no Australians at all so it was nice to finally meet some. It was also nice to learn from several different girls just how attractive my Canadian accent is. Finally I get to be “the foreign guy”.

The week was planned well in that the nights following big party nights were a bit more subdued. We had some comedians and a hypnotist Tuesday night which made my face hurt from laughing so much. Lots of the humour was completely inappropriate which made it all the funnier. They poked a lot of fun at the Australians who were busted in Bali with drugs taped to their bodies. It was all educational to though since I learned about how politics and Prime Minister John Howard are viewed. The hypnotist was also really good and I just can't get over the things people come up with. For example, they were all told to act out what they do on a regular monday afternoon. One guy when asked what he was doing said , in the sleepy voice that people who are hypnotized have, "nothing at all, I am unemployed" another girl said "I'm making it look like I'm doing work, but I'm not because I hate my job". The most random stuff comes about. They were also asked to pretend they were really good dancers and one guy went up and did an amazing Michael Jackson impersonation with the moon walk and everything. Hypnotists are always really impressive and if you haven't seen one, you should. I have been hypnotized myself and I can assure you it is all real.

Wednesday was the mystery bus tour. Each bus had a theme and I was on the Jocks and Cheerleaders bus. I happened to have goggles and my high school swim team t-shirt, so I bought a bathing cap and went as a swimmer. Nowhere and no way else could I go to nice clubs in Melbourne dressed in shorts and t-shirt with goggles and a bathing cap one. It was a fun night as you can tell from the picture since everyone looked ridiculous. There were like 10 buses going and we got on the double decker bus and had a blast. All the buses were from a company named “Party Bus” I guess, since that is what was written on all the busses. I guess they do enough business that they can have over 10 buses meant just to drive partiers around.

Thursday was a wine and cheese night at a movie theatre. I think it was an effort by the student organization to fit some culture into the week, not only because of the wine and cheese, but because they showed the movie Syriana with George Clooney. A bit of a slow and dull movie for an orientation week but whatever the wine was great, and free. It was also neat to see a movie in an Australia theatre, because the theatres are more in the style of an old school theatre and less like the Famous Players theatres that are huge in every way.

I skipped the pajama party on Friday night so I could go to Philip Island for the weekend, it was no big deal since I sold my ticket for that.

In the end, there wasn’t much orientation school wise, but the social events definitely did their job. Lots of socializing was done, people were met and friends were made. Good on the student organization for that one.

I also enrolled in a few clubs such as the beach club, the BBQ club, the DUFF club, and the study abroad club. It seems like the main reason for all these clubs’ existence is to have parties and go on trips. Waterloo can learn a lesson from these guys. I shouldn’t have a free weekend from here on out with all the events that are planned.

Good times to come, till next time!

Cheers!

Philip Island

2006-02-27T00:18:00.001+11:00

When you visit Australia there is a list of things that simply have to be done. This past weekend I managed to check a bunch of things off on Philip Island.
Philip Island is about 140km to the south of Melbourne. We left here at about 7pm in a car belonging to swedish Niclas' aunt. We punched in the address of the caravan park in the GPS and off we went. I would say Philip Island is a cross between Prince Edward Island and Cocoa Beach in Florida. For one thing, you can cross the island in all direction within half an hour and there is lots of rolling farmland and the whole south coast is full of surf beaches and the whole "surfing desitnation" atmosphere persists throughout the island. Most cars you see are carrying a surfboard. We stayed at Amaroo Park in the town Cowes (pronounced cows) in a caravan park where we had a little cottage.
After a BBQ friday night, a few of us were up at 8:30am to go and rent boards and wetties (wetsuits are worn by everyone since the water isn't quite warm enough to stay in for 2.5 hours at once). I have to say that people working in surf shops are super cool. I don't want to say we talked him into giving us a deal, because we barely asked. We ended up getting our boards and wetties for 35$ (normally it's 50$) for the day and then we asked to have that day extended so we didn't have to give the equipment back at 5pm so we could catch the tide on its way in later on and then again in the morning. We went to the first beach and the swells were breaking very neatly but were not huge. This and the fact that my board was huge made it very easy for me to get going and I rode the second wave I attempted and most after that. Being "stoked" is the word that best describes that morning in the surf. No signs of sharks either which is good because I've read that great whites have been spotted not far from where we were.
That afternoon we headed for the Nobbies, which is basically a set of islands at the tip of Philip Island. What I was most surprised to see was penguins. I knew they were in the area, but I thought they were all out fishing for the day and that I would have to pay 17$ to watch them parade back in at night. But nope, there were a few that stayed behind; I guess they love the camera as much as I do. They all live in little holes in the cliffs and some of these burrows are really high up so it's really impressive that they walk all the way up every day.
Later in the afternoon we checked out Wollomai beach, which signs posted said is a world famous surf beach. It was big and the surf was pumping so we went at it. The current was a bit stronger here and the waves were a bit bigger which made using my boardwalk of a board difficult to use. No worries though, our time ran out as a huge squall passed over us. It was some of the most intense rain I've ever been in. We could barely even see the beach if we could even manage to look up with the rain driving into us. The lightning was a bit worrisome to, but none of the locals seemed to be in any rush, and hey, "when in Rome" right? We wrapped up surfing for the day since some people we were with got absolutely soaked.
After another BBQ that night we were up at 7:30am to get back to the beach while the tide was coming in. The waves were much "dirtier", less consistent and less pwerful but we stuck it out for a while and made the most of it. It was a refreshing way to wake up being the first ones on the beach, on a cool morning in the salt water. After we returned our gear we set off for a nature reserve of sorts. For 11$ we could wander the park and see and feed all the animals. There were wallabies (like a kangaroo but smaller, 3rd picture), koalas, wombats, emus, echidnas, kangaroos, tasmanian devils, dingos, birds and reptiles. The kangaroos and wallabies were free range and they had a huge area to roam and there were tons of them. The kangaroos were super friendly and fun and contrary to what the picture makes you think, they aren't boxers. The emus were the scariest, they have crazy eyes and can't take food from your hand without plucking it so hard it hurts. I asked the lady at the desk if she ever had an emu steak thinking she would be offended since they have them in the park, but she responded without a wink that she hasn't but has eaten heaps of kangaroo before. I wasn't going to take it to the next level and ask if she had ever eaten a koala. So the wildlife park was heaps of fun and so was the whole
weekend. It was really a perfect island to spend a weekend at.
School starts this week for me so we'll see what thats all about since it's been over almost 3 months since I've been to a class.
Now I'm going to go and figure out how to acquire a pet Kangaroo from the black market!
Cheers!

Kmart Lives On

2006-02-23T15:49:00.001+11:00

The last time I remember being in or seeing a Kmart wass probably about 10 years ago at the Seaway mall in Welland. I don't know what the history of the company has been since then, but Kmart is still going strong here in Australia. So strong in fact that this particular one about 2km away from me is open 24/7. How crazy is that?! The grocery store in the same plaza is also open 24/7 but that isn't nearly as uncommon since it is like that with Sobey's at home. Also, the other grocery store that is even closer to me is open until midnight. This is all fine and might seem normal until you look at the other stores. Last saturday I jumped on a bus and went to the mall to get the mobile phone I wanted and when I showed up at 5:30 everything was closed. I was warned that many things are a bit backwards and upside down here, and I guess store hours are just one of them.
So far it seems like the prices of most things are pretty close to the same here as in Canada. I think bananas are more expensive. Also, wine is almost 10$ cheaper here than home and liquor is on average 10$ more expensive here. And there are no 24 beers for $24 deals like at home either. It is also a bit more expensive.
On another note, check out these funny products I found at Kmart. In case you can't read it, the bottles say Staminade: Seriously Serious Stuff.

There should be a quick write up about orientation week soon and this weekend we are going to Philip Island for some sun , sand and surf. There should be come quality photos from those.

Cheers!

"Victoria - The Place to Be"

2006-02-19T14:09:00.000+11:00

Even though I had visited England before arriving here in Australia, I had not ever ridden in the front seat of a car that drives on the opposite side of the road. It didn't look too weird, but it felt weird when we turned corners. Also, for some reason I couldn't figure out which lane was the fast lane so I asked the driver and he said there is no such thing here. This seems a bit dangerous since people pass you on all sides. It made me realize how good of a system we have set up in Canada where you can "safely" travel 30km/h over the speed limit on major highways. They also have cameras here that will ticket you for going even 3km/h over the speed limit (which the driver enthusiastically ranted about having just been fined 130$ for doing so) so it made the 30 minute drive to the new house seem that much longer. It was however faster than riding a kangaroo which is obviously what I thought was the primary mode of transportation was here. All the licence plates here have the slogan "Victoria - The Place to Be" on them. Isn't that an effective slogan? It not only makes people proud/happy to live here, but every time an exchange student reads it, they miss home less.
Another weird thought came over me as we drove past the modern skyline of downtown Melbourne and a few helicopters flew past. It was just like the end of the book "The Chrysalids". In the end of that novel, a few kids from what we are led to believe is North America are rescued from the aftermath of a nuclear war and taken to what we are led to believe is Australia which largely escaped the effects of nuclear fallout. The book describes a scene similar to what I was driving through.A really random thought seeing as it's been like 7 years since I read that book, but weird thoughts happen after 40 hours of travel.
So here is a picture of my home for the next 10 months or so. It's in a really great location about 7 minutes walk to campus and right near a tram stop that can take me into downtown Melbourne in about 30 minutes. My room is the front left window. There are 7 of us living here, 3 Australian girls, 2 Indian girls, Marcus from Sweden and myself, and it looks like we will aget along easily. The backyard is small but functional, we have a BBQ and even a lemon tree (above Marcus' head). There are heaps of lemons on the tree and they should be ripe in a few weeks at which point I think we will make lemonade and probably have a party, since that is the thing to do here.
Here's another interesting fact: I live in the city of Whitehorse which I found out from the garbage bin and a newspaper calling itself the "Whitehorse Leader" or something like that. That really confused me for awhile. Turns out all addresses here go by suburb, and mine is Burwood. Whitehorse consists of many suburbs and then metropolitan Melbourne consists of many cities, just like Toronto I guess.
For my first few days here I actually barely me any Australians since I hung out with the exchange students mostly and they are mostly from Scandinavia, and North America. Orientation week is now on and surely I will meet a few new people there. I will likely have something interesting to post about this week so check for that.
Cheers!

The Near Disaster

2006-02-13T22:17:00.000+11:00

Like I mentioned before, the Milan airport is actually in Bergamo, 1 hour away. Fortuneately some smart entrepeneurs recognized that this can cause problems and have organized shuttle buses from the Central Station in Milan (seen in the picture) to the airport in Bergamo. I boarded one of these buses so as to get to the airport about 2 hours before my flight was to depart. I stood in line to check in and thought it was a bit weird that 9:55 and 16:00 were both listed as times for the flight to leave, but I just assumed that this meant it was also the same desk that was to be used for the 4:00pm flight later on. Before I go any further, it should be known that RyanAir's slogan is "The On-Time Airline" and they actually have really god statistics for arriving within 15 minutes of the scheduled arrival time. Also, I had changed my flight to London to leave from Milan instead of Torino because I did not want it to get dealyed because of fog and because it was easier to get to. So, imagine how I felt to find out that my flight to London had been delayed by 6 HOURS due to snow on some other runway in the country the plane was coming from. I could not believe it. Of all the planes it had to be the most important one since I was catching the flight to Australia the same day at 9:15pm. I would have arrived in London at about 5pm, taken a 1 hour train to the centre, then another 20 minutes to get to the hostel, then another 20 minutes to repack, then another 2o minutes to get to the train station that has the express train to Heathrow which in the end would have put me extremely close to missing the check in for the flight to Australia. So of all the amounts of time it could be delayed, it had to be 6 hours, not 5 or 4 or 1 which would have all been at least barely feasible.
Since the my entire trip had gone along so smoothly so far, I just dismissed this as a minor problem since everything works out fine for me anyways. I did exactly what TV has taught me to do and I had myself put on the standby list for a different flight into a different airport in London. Oddly enough I was the first person on stand by for this flight which makes me wonder what all the other people in front of me were up to. They could have all been put on this list and then not had to wait 6 hours in a crappy little airport, (but one with a view as seen in the other picture).
Anyway, I ended up getting on the other flight to London no problem and even managed to score a window seat for the cloudless flight over the Alps. Now I had all the time in the world to chill out in London for awhile. I made my way to the hostel where I originally stayed and my bags were all still there in a closet where I left them. I mailed a package home with souvenirs, grabbed some food, killed time in an internet cafe and watched some Olympic curling action with some Australians. They could not believe people play this game and made fun of it the whole time. "Boring as bat shit" was my favourite term they used to describe it.
Took the long train to Heathrow to save 20$ or so and checkin went well there. Then the delays start up again. 20 minutes at first. Then another 20 minutes. Then there was something not working on the plane and they had to get us a new one and transfer everything over to it. So another 2 hours delayed.
I settled in for the 12 hour flight to Singapore and once again had noone interesting sitting next to me to talk to. Nice thing about the long haul flights is that everyone has their own TV. I ended up watching several movies and TV shows, often watching one movie once and using it to sleep to the second time. It was dark a lot of the time but the sun came up as we flew over India, and it was exactly like you would think: brown ground, brown water and stinking of curry. Except I think the curry smell came from the vegetarian meal of the guy in front of me.
I ended up not getting up at all for 12 hours which made the stopover in Singapore a nice break. I walked around and checked out some shops. Most cameras and stuff like that was the same price as home. With the exchange, an iPod is only 3$ more there than it is here, though I don't know what the tax is, if any, in Singapore so maybe its better. Malaysia is the place to go tor the cheap stuff I'm told.
Got back on the same plane with lots of the same people and had an 8 hour flight into Melbourne. Once again I watched more movies and did not get up once. Flying over Australia was not exciting at all, once again, it's just like you are led to believe: nothing but flat red ground as far as you can see. I don't have a picture of it because there is really nothing to see.
The Melbourne airport was also much smaller than I would have thought and also very much in the middle of nowhere. Whatever. I was in a bit of a daze at this point and was for the rest of my first day in Australia, which I'll get to in the next post.
Cheers!

The Euro Trip Posts

2006-02-10T00:00:00.000+11:00

I have moved all the posts related to the Euro Trip to:
www.ryanseurotrip.blogspot.com
There are stories and pictures from England, Holland, France and Italy, including some from the Winter olympics in Torino.
Cheers!