So while I was sitting in the doctor's office in Townsville, Qld, the doctor waiting to see if I had a bad reaction to this antibiotic prescribed for my little case of blood poisoning, induced by a very small puncture wound from a rock in the river, I figured it was time for me to catch you up on things as I have been ever so negligent in keeping this thing up-to-date.
I know the title of this post surely caught your eye, but you'll just have to read everything in order to find out what I mean.
I know the title of this post surely caught your eye, but you'll just have to read everything in order to find out what I mean.
I left you off telling you that I had just left Melbourne. Since Wilson's Prom was closed due to the fires, Stinger took us to Philip Island on our way to the Melbourne transition. As I already shared, I was only here for twelve hours. The Melbourne to Adelaide portion of the trip continued with Tilly, and primarily a new group of people save Xavier from France and the four Danish girls (dubbed The Great Danes by Stinger, a name which followed them up until my departure, but I'm sure all the way up to Darwin). On the first day of the tour, Tilly took us to get up close with a few lazing koalas, and also went on an amazing tree top walk through the rain forest canopies of Otway National Park. After dinner in Princetown (where you never lock your doors as there are only 11 locals--one of the guys in the male cabins locked the doors and there were no keys to open it), our home for the night, we all piled back into the bus to check out the Twelve Apostles (seven of which remain in tact) just in time for rain to start falling from the sky, creating a magnificent misting effect in front of the structures. Coming back here again the next morning (3/6/09) for a view in the daylight, we also stopped to see the Bay of Martyrs, Bay of Islands, and London Bridge. London Bridge now only has one arch as the first one has fallen (how ironic that London Bridge fell down), and there is quite an interesting storing behind it. The arch that bridged the mainland to the second arch of the structure crumbled and fell away, dividing the structure and the mainland from each other, and stranding two individuals on the now island rock. Immediately, news crews were on the scene in helicopters, taking pictures of the rock and the two stranded individuals. What made this situation particularly funny was that the two people standing on London Bridge had called in sick to work that day, and now their false absence was being flashed across the television. To further the situation, the couple happened to be married--to other people. And that is the story behind London Bridge falling. We then went on to the Grampians after a lot of driving, and did a very steep walk up to a spectacular lookout point to total approximately 1.5 hours of walking round-trip.
Most of us didn't feel the Grampians walk until the next morning when we awoke for a sunrise walk to the top of the Pinnacle during which a startled wallaby hopped past myself and a couple of others, only to land on a wet rock where it slid a bit before struggling to his over-sized feet and hopping off into the bush. We also stumbled upon some other Aussie wildlife: two completely intoxicated Aussies who had both fallen out with their wives the night prior, and thought it a good idea to get drunk and do a trek up the mountain to the Pinnacle. I am pretty sure we woke them as they were sleeping in a cavern-like area, one of them sporting a flashy tiara. From here, we continued our morning by stopping by Hollow Mountain, and taking a walk down to MacKenzie Falls as we all finally began to mentally wake up by this point. We continued on our way to Adelaide, stopping for an hour in Horsham (Victoria's--perhaps Australia's--cleanest town where a by-passer even stopped to pick up an item that had fallen off of a hanger on the sidewalk, and then continued on with her errands). Horsham also boasts home to the bakery that makes the best Vanilla Slice in all of Australia. Now I had never had this dessert that has a custard middle sandwiched between puff pastry and topped with some vanilla icing, but I had to give it a shot. I stood in line at the bakery, and was ever so pleased with this delicious Australian dessert, so much so that I stopped at another bakery and tried theirs. After only two slices of Vanilla Slice, I felt this a sufficient qualification for me to be able to say that the first bakery deserved its hard-earned title as the second bakery's custard middle was much to hard and lacked a creaminess factor, as well as being a little too eggy in flavor. Needless to say, I wasn't very hungry for the remainder of the day.
We arrived in Adelaide that afternoon, gaining an extra half-hour (seriously, either don't change the time, or give us a whole hour, but half?). Fortunately, this wasn't enough to fully confuse my body. Adelaide, where I stayed for two days before continuing on with the Adelaide to Alice Springs portion of the trip, was a great city. It had a spectacular weekend market where I bought a sun-dress that I call my waltzing Matilda dress, handmade and only $15. This weekend there were also tons of activities going on from a family fair to a music festival that I would have loved to have attended had it not been so expensive. Instead, however, Emily (a Brit), Maireke (from Germany), and myself along with another girl headed to Glenalg beach which was a 40 minute tram ride from the city to the coast. Unfortunately, there was no time to watch the sunset as we were leaving at 6 am the next day and, it being a National holiday (of which Australia has an endless number), the reception desk would be closed and we felt entitled to get our $20 deposits back, what with Cannon Street Backpackers (yes, this is a warning) being such a dodgy place. I just have to provide a quick sidenote of this place, which came in a close second to the Oceanic in Auckland: there were toenail clippings on the floor of our dorm, we were given only a topsheet and expected to sleep on a stained mattress (fortunately, I managed to swindle another sheet when I went to get a pillow, of which they had no supply when I first arrived), and the bathrooms always needed cleaning because people would sneak in other people who slept in their vehicles in the alley way during the night to use them. Now there was an upside to this place, which I found very odd: free apple pie every night, and a make-it-yourself pancake, toast, and fresh fruit brekkie the next morning. I suppose this compensated, although they probably could have used these funds on, oh, I don't know, sheets, pillow cases, and employees...
Come Monday morning, we had to be up around 5:30 to catch the next bus for our trip. That's the thing I've discovered about organized tours--you get up very very early. 6:00 am wasn't so bad, I was able to do 5:30, but when we got to this next portion, we were getting up between 4:15 and 5:30 every day. Our first day with Lawless, the new driver, we checked out some Aboriginal rock art at Yourambulla Caves and then did a longer walk in the afternoon, topped off with a BBQ dinner where I abandoned my food rules and tried for the first time some camel sausages (eh.), kangaroo (yum!), and emu burgers (they raise emu in Florida, right?!). I caught a lot of flack for the remainder of the trip for eating meat when I had specified vegetarian and fish, but how often do you get the chance to try kangaroo?
By 3/12/09, day 10 of the trip, we had made it to Coober Pedy, an opal mining town, where we went noodling (you search for remnants of opals that the miners dump since you must have a license to mine here). I think I got some pretty promising little tidbits that I'd love to have polished and made into something, opal being my birth stone and all. After this activity, we all went on our own way for a bit of free time. I was inside of a cafe, away from the entrance, when I noticed some howling winds and I assumed that the black cloud hanging outside had finally broken loose, but when I went to investigate I discovered that it was an enormous dust storm, then followed by a torrential downpour, then followed by a hale storm, and topped of with a beautiful rainbow, all in a ten minute period. The bush has some pretty incredible weather tendencies, but a local said that was the first time in over twenty years that he had seen hale in that town. I guess that compensated for not getting to see the summer snowfall in Jindabyne on day two of the tour (but let's admit, snow in summer would have been so much more fun!). We spent most of the next day on the road to Uluru, also known as Ayer's Rock, in Yulara.
Something that few people tend to realize about the outback is all the flies. I invested in a two dollar fly net which fully served its purpose as days nine through thirteen we were constantly fighting off the flies. Nothing that bit, just plain old annoying picnic flies that surrounded you as the temperature was so hot that it produced what felt like waves--like we were in a convection oven. You could literally feel the heat sucking the moisture from your skin when stepping off of the bus the last two days. Anyhow, after walking around Uluru (and fighting off the flies), we refueled our bodies with some biscuits and fruit cake (America needs to learn to have fruit cake like that during the holidays and people would actually eat it), and then had some cheap Aussie bubbly (didn't matter that it was cheap as it was gonna go to our heads after that walk anyway) as we watched the sun set against Uluru, and while I jumped back and forth from taking pictures of the rock to the sunset.
The next morning we were up bright and early to watch the sun rise before heading over to Kata Tjuta (The Olgas) for a 1.5 hour walk, finishing just in time to have a spare few minutes to take a dip in the pool at the bottom of camp before we had to be on the road again. By 3/14, day 13, we had made it to Alice Springs, but not before visiting Kings Canyon where we hiked through the Lost City and the Garden of Eden early for a 3-4 hour walk, finishing just as it began to get extremely hot. This final night, we all got together and had somewhat of a farewell dinner and some drinks (and maybe some of us drank the 3.5 Liters of goon, or cheap wine, that we hadn't drank the duration of the last seven days. I never again want to see another box of wine in my life.).
Apparently I had gotten a little out of it the night before, and in my attempt to set my alarm, I somehow re-set my watch, waking up for my bus to the airport at 5:50 rather than 7:30. My body was very ungrateful for this cruel disservice, and it made my plane ride to Perth somewhat of a brutal journey. But it was here in Perth that I fell in love, with none other than the city itself. As you may know, I deliberated for quite some time before deciding to go to Perth and I am ever so happy that I went. I only spent three days here, but in those three days I trekked the city by foot, visited the Swan Bells which are just across the street from the WA Supreme Court and chime regularly throughout the day, took the ferry across Swan River (just across the street from the Courts) to the zoo, and managed to investigate the rest of the city from the government buildings to the malls. I also went to Scarborough Beach to watch the first day of the Life Saving Competition (it was Masters and a Nippers Exposition), where I happened upon a fellow who was--hold on now--the husband to the friend of the husband from whose wife I bought my paddleboard and met through my Jr. Lifeguard coach. She also placed first in a couple of her events, despite how nervous she was. Good on her! I was very impressed to see women (and men) well into their sixties, and even seventies, still active and competing in surf life saving here.
I was sad to leave Perth (especially on a red eye) at midnight that evening, but I wanted to try and see what I could of Melbourne in one day. So after a flight of a little over two hours, we arrived in Melbourne at 5:35 am where I caught the bus to the Southern Cross Station, and watched the city wake up as I waited for my 6:30 tram to St. Kilda, a suburb of Melbourne where I had previously stayed. I arrived at the hostel at 7:10 after chatting it up with Francis, a fellow who belongs to an MLM business that was recently on Donald Trump's Celebrity Apprentice. He also tried to recruit me, but I've had my share of MLMs. ;-) Arriving at the hostel, I had a cup of tea with milk (strange habit I've acquired here, primarily from the influence of UK tourists and not so much Kiwis and Aussies) with a couple of biscuits while planning my day. I walked a few minutes to St. Kilda Beach, which reminded me a bit of Pompano (good for memories, but that's not the greatest compliment as far as water and sand quality are concerned), and eventually found myself out on the pier where fishermen seemed to be catching more starfish than anything else. From here, I headed over to the Botanical Gardens (something I love about NZ and Oz is that there are Botanical Gardens in nearly every decent sized city) where I meandered about for shy of an hour before heading back to the hostel to toss my belongings in my room.
Once acquainted with my roommates for the night (many had been there a couple weeks to a few months, and I wished I could have stayed much longer as it was like one big family), and then caught the tram back into Melbourne for a bit of wandering. Here, I stopped at a little conservative bookstore that was hidden on the third floor of an old office building and nosed around for a bit, stumbling upon books from American and Australian politics to medicine, health, and economics. I found a little booklet that I'm sure my dad will thoroughly enjoy. Next I was off by foot to walk by the Victoria Parliament before stopping in the park for a bite of lunch --a cup of yogurt and a bag of salt and vinegar crisps made with real MSG, and let's not forget the kiwi fruit. (It was this moment that I put two and two together and realized that it's called the kiwi fruit because much like a kiwi, it's round and fuzzy. And flightless. Yes, I'm a little slow about these obvious things.) After laying on my back and relaxing for a few minutes on the cool lawn, I got back on my feet and took a looksie at the Royal Exhibition Building, which has quite the history. I have neither the time nor the money to share that with you at the moment. Anyhow, I discovered that since I was carrying my student ID (woohoo for blurry pictures!), I got a decreased rate to go on a tour of the Building, and also got free admission into the Melbourne Museum, which, while it wasn't initially in my plans, I went ahead and took since it was (what's the magic word that backpackers love?) free.
I walked all the way back to Southern Cross rather than taking the free tram as it was a good way for me to take in all the sights along the way, and then hopped on it to return to St. Kilda just in time for a stop at the grocery store before heading off to the beach once again to watch the sun set. It was a fantastic view, and I reminisced a little as a life saver who reminded me a bit of Rob Finch was in the water with some life savers in training, learning them up on rescue techniques. Before departing, I meandered a bit more through St. Kilda to check out the little shops (nothing special from that in all the other cities), and then retired to bed early as I had to be up for my flight to Cairns by 4:30 am.
So far, I have to say that I love Perth and Melbourne the most, and would love to stay long term in either one of them. I must have somewhat decent taste as all the Aussies I've spoken to after this have said that Perth and Melbourne are probably the best cities Oz has to offer.
That's all for now, folks. I'm off to the Whitsundays and will fill you in on Cairns later. Tata.
Most of us didn't feel the Grampians walk until the next morning when we awoke for a sunrise walk to the top of the Pinnacle during which a startled wallaby hopped past myself and a couple of others, only to land on a wet rock where it slid a bit before struggling to his over-sized feet and hopping off into the bush. We also stumbled upon some other Aussie wildlife: two completely intoxicated Aussies who had both fallen out with their wives the night prior, and thought it a good idea to get drunk and do a trek up the mountain to the Pinnacle. I am pretty sure we woke them as they were sleeping in a cavern-like area, one of them sporting a flashy tiara. From here, we continued our morning by stopping by Hollow Mountain, and taking a walk down to MacKenzie Falls as we all finally began to mentally wake up by this point. We continued on our way to Adelaide, stopping for an hour in Horsham (Victoria's--perhaps Australia's--cleanest town where a by-passer even stopped to pick up an item that had fallen off of a hanger on the sidewalk, and then continued on with her errands). Horsham also boasts home to the bakery that makes the best Vanilla Slice in all of Australia. Now I had never had this dessert that has a custard middle sandwiched between puff pastry and topped with some vanilla icing, but I had to give it a shot. I stood in line at the bakery, and was ever so pleased with this delicious Australian dessert, so much so that I stopped at another bakery and tried theirs. After only two slices of Vanilla Slice, I felt this a sufficient qualification for me to be able to say that the first bakery deserved its hard-earned title as the second bakery's custard middle was much to hard and lacked a creaminess factor, as well as being a little too eggy in flavor. Needless to say, I wasn't very hungry for the remainder of the day.
We arrived in Adelaide that afternoon, gaining an extra half-hour (seriously, either don't change the time, or give us a whole hour, but half?). Fortunately, this wasn't enough to fully confuse my body. Adelaide, where I stayed for two days before continuing on with the Adelaide to Alice Springs portion of the trip, was a great city. It had a spectacular weekend market where I bought a sun-dress that I call my waltzing Matilda dress, handmade and only $15. This weekend there were also tons of activities going on from a family fair to a music festival that I would have loved to have attended had it not been so expensive. Instead, however, Emily (a Brit), Maireke (from Germany), and myself along with another girl headed to Glenalg beach which was a 40 minute tram ride from the city to the coast. Unfortunately, there was no time to watch the sunset as we were leaving at 6 am the next day and, it being a National holiday (of which Australia has an endless number), the reception desk would be closed and we felt entitled to get our $20 deposits back, what with Cannon Street Backpackers (yes, this is a warning) being such a dodgy place. I just have to provide a quick sidenote of this place, which came in a close second to the Oceanic in Auckland: there were toenail clippings on the floor of our dorm, we were given only a topsheet and expected to sleep on a stained mattress (fortunately, I managed to swindle another sheet when I went to get a pillow, of which they had no supply when I first arrived), and the bathrooms always needed cleaning because people would sneak in other people who slept in their vehicles in the alley way during the night to use them. Now there was an upside to this place, which I found very odd: free apple pie every night, and a make-it-yourself pancake, toast, and fresh fruit brekkie the next morning. I suppose this compensated, although they probably could have used these funds on, oh, I don't know, sheets, pillow cases, and employees...
Come Monday morning, we had to be up around 5:30 to catch the next bus for our trip. That's the thing I've discovered about organized tours--you get up very very early. 6:00 am wasn't so bad, I was able to do 5:30, but when we got to this next portion, we were getting up between 4:15 and 5:30 every day. Our first day with Lawless, the new driver, we checked out some Aboriginal rock art at Yourambulla Caves and then did a longer walk in the afternoon, topped off with a BBQ dinner where I abandoned my food rules and tried for the first time some camel sausages (eh.), kangaroo (yum!), and emu burgers (they raise emu in Florida, right?!). I caught a lot of flack for the remainder of the trip for eating meat when I had specified vegetarian and fish, but how often do you get the chance to try kangaroo?
By 3/12/09, day 10 of the trip, we had made it to Coober Pedy, an opal mining town, where we went noodling (you search for remnants of opals that the miners dump since you must have a license to mine here). I think I got some pretty promising little tidbits that I'd love to have polished and made into something, opal being my birth stone and all. After this activity, we all went on our own way for a bit of free time. I was inside of a cafe, away from the entrance, when I noticed some howling winds and I assumed that the black cloud hanging outside had finally broken loose, but when I went to investigate I discovered that it was an enormous dust storm, then followed by a torrential downpour, then followed by a hale storm, and topped of with a beautiful rainbow, all in a ten minute period. The bush has some pretty incredible weather tendencies, but a local said that was the first time in over twenty years that he had seen hale in that town. I guess that compensated for not getting to see the summer snowfall in Jindabyne on day two of the tour (but let's admit, snow in summer would have been so much more fun!). We spent most of the next day on the road to Uluru, also known as Ayer's Rock, in Yulara.
Something that few people tend to realize about the outback is all the flies. I invested in a two dollar fly net which fully served its purpose as days nine through thirteen we were constantly fighting off the flies. Nothing that bit, just plain old annoying picnic flies that surrounded you as the temperature was so hot that it produced what felt like waves--like we were in a convection oven. You could literally feel the heat sucking the moisture from your skin when stepping off of the bus the last two days. Anyhow, after walking around Uluru (and fighting off the flies), we refueled our bodies with some biscuits and fruit cake (America needs to learn to have fruit cake like that during the holidays and people would actually eat it), and then had some cheap Aussie bubbly (didn't matter that it was cheap as it was gonna go to our heads after that walk anyway) as we watched the sun set against Uluru, and while I jumped back and forth from taking pictures of the rock to the sunset.
The next morning we were up bright and early to watch the sun rise before heading over to Kata Tjuta (The Olgas) for a 1.5 hour walk, finishing just in time to have a spare few minutes to take a dip in the pool at the bottom of camp before we had to be on the road again. By 3/14, day 13, we had made it to Alice Springs, but not before visiting Kings Canyon where we hiked through the Lost City and the Garden of Eden early for a 3-4 hour walk, finishing just as it began to get extremely hot. This final night, we all got together and had somewhat of a farewell dinner and some drinks (and maybe some of us drank the 3.5 Liters of goon, or cheap wine, that we hadn't drank the duration of the last seven days. I never again want to see another box of wine in my life.).
Apparently I had gotten a little out of it the night before, and in my attempt to set my alarm, I somehow re-set my watch, waking up for my bus to the airport at 5:50 rather than 7:30. My body was very ungrateful for this cruel disservice, and it made my plane ride to Perth somewhat of a brutal journey. But it was here in Perth that I fell in love, with none other than the city itself. As you may know, I deliberated for quite some time before deciding to go to Perth and I am ever so happy that I went. I only spent three days here, but in those three days I trekked the city by foot, visited the Swan Bells which are just across the street from the WA Supreme Court and chime regularly throughout the day, took the ferry across Swan River (just across the street from the Courts) to the zoo, and managed to investigate the rest of the city from the government buildings to the malls. I also went to Scarborough Beach to watch the first day of the Life Saving Competition (it was Masters and a Nippers Exposition), where I happened upon a fellow who was--hold on now--the husband to the friend of the husband from whose wife I bought my paddleboard and met through my Jr. Lifeguard coach. She also placed first in a couple of her events, despite how nervous she was. Good on her! I was very impressed to see women (and men) well into their sixties, and even seventies, still active and competing in surf life saving here.
I was sad to leave Perth (especially on a red eye) at midnight that evening, but I wanted to try and see what I could of Melbourne in one day. So after a flight of a little over two hours, we arrived in Melbourne at 5:35 am where I caught the bus to the Southern Cross Station, and watched the city wake up as I waited for my 6:30 tram to St. Kilda, a suburb of Melbourne where I had previously stayed. I arrived at the hostel at 7:10 after chatting it up with Francis, a fellow who belongs to an MLM business that was recently on Donald Trump's Celebrity Apprentice. He also tried to recruit me, but I've had my share of MLMs. ;-) Arriving at the hostel, I had a cup of tea with milk (strange habit I've acquired here, primarily from the influence of UK tourists and not so much Kiwis and Aussies) with a couple of biscuits while planning my day. I walked a few minutes to St. Kilda Beach, which reminded me a bit of Pompano (good for memories, but that's not the greatest compliment as far as water and sand quality are concerned), and eventually found myself out on the pier where fishermen seemed to be catching more starfish than anything else. From here, I headed over to the Botanical Gardens (something I love about NZ and Oz is that there are Botanical Gardens in nearly every decent sized city) where I meandered about for shy of an hour before heading back to the hostel to toss my belongings in my room.
Once acquainted with my roommates for the night (many had been there a couple weeks to a few months, and I wished I could have stayed much longer as it was like one big family), and then caught the tram back into Melbourne for a bit of wandering. Here, I stopped at a little conservative bookstore that was hidden on the third floor of an old office building and nosed around for a bit, stumbling upon books from American and Australian politics to medicine, health, and economics. I found a little booklet that I'm sure my dad will thoroughly enjoy. Next I was off by foot to walk by the Victoria Parliament before stopping in the park for a bite of lunch --a cup of yogurt and a bag of salt and vinegar crisps made with real MSG, and let's not forget the kiwi fruit. (It was this moment that I put two and two together and realized that it's called the kiwi fruit because much like a kiwi, it's round and fuzzy. And flightless. Yes, I'm a little slow about these obvious things.) After laying on my back and relaxing for a few minutes on the cool lawn, I got back on my feet and took a looksie at the Royal Exhibition Building, which has quite the history. I have neither the time nor the money to share that with you at the moment. Anyhow, I discovered that since I was carrying my student ID (woohoo for blurry pictures!), I got a decreased rate to go on a tour of the Building, and also got free admission into the Melbourne Museum, which, while it wasn't initially in my plans, I went ahead and took since it was (what's the magic word that backpackers love?) free.
I walked all the way back to Southern Cross rather than taking the free tram as it was a good way for me to take in all the sights along the way, and then hopped on it to return to St. Kilda just in time for a stop at the grocery store before heading off to the beach once again to watch the sun set. It was a fantastic view, and I reminisced a little as a life saver who reminded me a bit of Rob Finch was in the water with some life savers in training, learning them up on rescue techniques. Before departing, I meandered a bit more through St. Kilda to check out the little shops (nothing special from that in all the other cities), and then retired to bed early as I had to be up for my flight to Cairns by 4:30 am.
So far, I have to say that I love Perth and Melbourne the most, and would love to stay long term in either one of them. I must have somewhat decent taste as all the Aussies I've spoken to after this have said that Perth and Melbourne are probably the best cities Oz has to offer.
That's all for now, folks. I'm off to the Whitsundays and will fill you in on Cairns later. Tata.
