Heading Home

Well, my time in Australia has come to an end. It has all been so much more amazing than I imagined it would be. I am really going to miss being so close to the beach, living with people from 3 different continents, but most importantly I will miss all of the wonderful friends that I've made here.

I'm not looking forward to the next 24 hours, which is pretty much exactly how long I will be traveling to get back to Indiana. After that though, it will be nice to be back home with family and friends from home close by...and even though they are playing so terribly this year, I'll be happy to get to some Reds games in the near future. Maybe they can put something together over the next few months with me back in town. It'll be nice to enjoy some warm weather as well!

And it's never too early to look ahead to where my next travels may take me. A potential trip to Germany in two years is on the horizon, then maybe I'll take advantage of a couple of invitations to Brazil and relatively soon I will definitely be back in Australia.

I can't say enough about how much I have enjoyed the past five and a half months in Australia. It has been, by far, the most enjoyable experience of my life.

Road Trip

My last trip in Australia took place with my two best mates, Dom and Harry. The best part about this trip was that we had no specific plans as to where we had to go. We only knew that we were picking up the rental car in Sydney and had to return it in Melbourne four days later. We had a general idea of what we wanted to do, but had nothing planned as far as where we were staying each night and that was great because it gave us the flexibility to just go with the flow and depending on how a certain place was we could spend more or less time there.

So we left a rainy and cold Sydney behind on June 26 and set off on our road trip. We headed for Canberra, Australia’s capital city, first and when we got there about 3.5 hours later the temperature had dropped by about 7 or 8 degrees Celsius. Well, there really wasn’t too much to see in Canberra, as expected, but we still needed to get out of the car and move around a bit, so what better to do than throw the Frisbee around? The location we picked could have been better because the place we chose was very wet and muddy. Anyway, we had a fun time with that as usual even though our hands were freezing. After awhile, we experienced an extremely hilarious occurrence with a local man walking his dog, but I won’t get into the details because it’s only that funny to the three of us, but yes it really is funny, mate! J

That wasn’t the end of the laughter in Canberra because not long after that hilarious guy, I attempted to make some sort of spectacular catch or something and ended up sliding across the mud and falling right on my ass, drenching my jeans, shoes and my left arm. It was quite hilarious, and all I remember is slipping and then getting up and laughing hysterically along with the guys. It was funny at the time, but what wasn’t funny was that those were the only pair of jeans I brought with me and now they were wet and muddy and the same goes for my shoes.

Well after the Frisbee, we went and bought some groceries for the next couple of days and then got back on the road and drove to Wagga Wagga! Now, it’s not pronounced like it looks. Just like LakeWabby actually is pronounced like Wobby, Wagga Wagga is pronounced like Wogga Wogga. There really wasn’t much reason for us to go to Wagga Wagga other than to say that we’ve been in Wagga Wagga. However, when we got there around 8 pm or so, we spotted a huge open field in a park that was perfect for some Frisbee and boomerang. It was quite dark and I nearly lost my boomerang twice, but we still had a lot of fun. I got frustrated after throwing Frisbee for awhile because my right arm started hurting to where I really couldn’t throw well anymore. However, this gave me an excellent opportunity to work on my left-handed throwing skills and it paid off handsomely. Although I am still much better with my right hand, I am now competent with my left, too!

Well after I lost my boomerang for the last time and we all walked around for about 20 minutes, some skaters who were doing their thing in a nearby skate park started chatting with Dom and after Harry and I found my boomerang we joined them. These guys were pretty young, yet very nice and they directed us to a beach where we would be able to set up our tent and camp out for the night. They also told us where the movies were in case we wanted to check that out….easy answer. We finally got those guys to stop talking and we made our way to the beach. After passing a few “shops with postcards, churches and (stuff),” we found this beach. We checked it out and thought it was perfect, however, it soon started raining and after scaring away a possum and, unintentionally, a guy in his car, we ended up just chatting in the car for hours and then just sleeping in the car. That ended up being one of the worst nights of sleep I’ve had in awhile, but nevertheless it was free.

It rained all that night and we were up pretty early the next day. After a quick stop at Macker’s (McDonald’s) for breakfast we set our sights for Melbourne. On the way, we stopped for some boomerang in a random field and savored the little bit of sunshine that we had seen in awhile. The boomeranging was fun, however, I was the only one to throw it and then catch it. Don’t think I’m awesome or anything because it was far from ideal. As it came back it went way over my head and I had to run after it real far and then got lucky to catch it. Anyway, we finally made our way back towards Melbourne and poor Dom had to drive most of the rest of the way in rain and heavy winds.

When we got to Melbourne, we found a parking spot and went out to explore a little bit, but it was rainy and cold and sucked, so we got back in the car and decided to head on to Geelong, where we had arranged accommodation at a hostel. It took us awhile to get out of Melbourne, but the guys finally navigated me out of there and we made it to Geelong. The place we stayed was a bit dodgy, but after sleeping in the car the night before we were looking forward to a night sleeping in beds. However, that wouldn’t come until we had a few drinks downstairs at the pub. It was quite an interesting place. It was one guy’s birthday and he was just out of control. Then there was another guy, we’ll call him Fonzi, he took the longest to shoot each pool shot that I have ever seen in my life. After Dom went 1-1 in pool games and we all reeked of smoke, we went outside to get some fresh air before heading to bed.

It was great to get a shower at the hostel and sleep in that bed, so we were nice and refreshed for Day 3 in which our plan was to venture along the Great Ocean Road. It turned out to provide some spectacular scenery as you might expect. We stopped at a few different places along the way, a waterfall called CarisbrookFalls, and the OtwaysNational Park, where we spotted a koala up in a tree and quickly stopped and got out to take photos of the little guy. This was especially welcoming because we had seen so many signs warning us to be on the lookout for all sorts of animals crossing the road, but we hadn't seen any of them until this koala. After that we saw about 5 more as we left the Otways, so that was really awesome. We also saw tons of enormous cows. I mean these things were so fat, they must have all been pregnant or something. Anyway, we must have spent too much time stopping at these other places because it was dark by the time we got to the 12 Apostles, a series of rock formations that stick up out of the water, of which there are now only 6 left. Our original plan was to do the entire Great Ocean Road in one day and then head up north to Grampians National Park, however we decided our time would be much better spent on the Great Ocean Road, so we proceeded to drive along to the end of the Great Ocean Road to a town called Port Fairy and search for a place to camp and then we would drive back along the Great Ocean Road the next day on our way back to Melbourne. But first, as we were leaving the 12 Apostles, we came across our first wild kangaroo sighting. I was driving and eating a muesli bar when I spotted the roos in the road ahead, but my mouth was full so I just made some strange noise to get the guys’ attention and then flashed the headlights so we could see them better and finally I got the word “kangaroos” out of my mouth.I quickly stopped along the side of the road and Dom jumped out hoping to get some photos, but the roos were long gone by then.

So we continued on toward Port Fairy, stopped on the way to get stunned at Hungry Jack’s and when we finally did get to Port Fairy we stopped at the first beach we could find and threw some Frisbee, then moved along to look for a good place to camp. We found one that we thought would be nice, but it had a funny smell and then we found a sign that said there was a $200 fine for camping at that spot, so that one was out of the question. Finally, we found a place that Harry called “paradise”. It had a huge dry area that we thought would be ideal for some Frisbee in the morning and a nice place out of sight from the road where we could set up the tent. After getting set up there it was time to relax, have some beers and chill out on the rocks on the beach. I think we all agree that that night was the most fun we had on the trip. Just sitting around talking with the guys out on the beach was great.

The next morning it was time to head back towards Melbourne and catch the things that that we missed on the Great Ocean Road. It turned out that we missed the best things, like the Bay of Islands, LondonBridge, Loch Ard Gorge and we got to see the 12 Apostles a little better, although it was raining again and was so cold. The Bay of Islands is just like the name suggests, a bay cut out of the land with a lot of rock islands around in it. It was actually almost more interesting to see than the 12 Apostles because there was a large bay cut out along with rock formations sticking up out of the water. LondonBridge was a long rock jutting out with an archway underneath it, however, in 1990 the archway collapsed leaving just an island off of the coast. It was really interesting that when it collapsed there were actually people stuck out on the island that had to be rescued by a helicopter. Loch Ard Gorge is famous because it is the site of a famous shipwreck that claimed the lives of 52 people and only had 2 survivors. There were a few caves and places where water flowed under the rocks and back out to where you could see it. Pretty interesting stuff!

Eventually, we made our way back to Melbourne, but not before we stopped in a small town called Anglesea to see some wild kangaroos at a place that was recommended by our trusty Lonely Planet manual. It did not lie, because we saw heaps of kangaroos out on the golf course just munching away at the grass. It was almost too easy to see them that it felt like a zoo or something, but they are not in any way there at the golf course against their will, so we decided that it definitely counts as seeing wild kangaroos.

We made arrangements to stay in a hostel in downtown Melbourne for night #4, since it would be cool to explore the city and also our flight was from Melbourne the next day anyway. Not surprisingly, we started off the next day with some Frisbee in the park, followed by a ride on the free tram around the city. We got off at some point and just walked around the rest of the time looking at whatever we could see. The only sort of famous thing that I knew anything about is Rod Laver Arena, where the Australian Open tennis tournament is played. Harry says that they also have swimming and some other Olympic events there as well. But it was nice to just explore around Melbourne, which is a very beautiful city with a variety of different styles of buildings which we all really liked.

Finally, it was time for us to take the rental car back and then get to the bus station to head to the airport. Everything from then on went very smoothly, until we got to Sydney, where we missed our bus from the airport by about 30 seconds. So we had to wait an hour for the next bus, so what better to do than eat up all the extra food we had left, which consisted of cheese, bread and wine…no joke! So that’s what we did for the next hour or so, sat and ate cheese sandwiches and drank wine at the bus stop. A fitting end to a wonderful road trip. The only bad thing that came about from this trip was that I got a pretty nasty head cold, which is no wonder at all considering my feet were wet half of the time and we slept outside twice. It was well worth it though!

Like any time that you spend five days with the same two people there are lots of inside jokes and silly things that happen that are only funny to those who experienced them and that is so true for our trip. It’s awesome, because those are things that the three of us will always share together. That is the kind of stuff that I will really miss when I go back home, just spending time with these guys and having no worries about anything else that is going on. These times are a big reason why I came to Australia and I’m so glad that I was able to share it with such great guys like Harry and Dom.

Fraser Island

The adventures down under just continue to get better and better. It’s incredible how each trip I take is so amazing that it can’t be topped, yet the next trip actually is even more unbelievable. Anyway, this time the setting was the world’s largest sand island, FraserIsland. We had all just finished up classes, so some friends and I decided to get out of cold and rainy Sydney and head north. It actually wasn’t that easy, for me anyway, because I had been quite concerned about how much money I was spending and what I had left. Luckily, I have amazing friends here that are just pushy enough and they convinced me that this would be worth it. Wow, they were right! So thank you Courtney, Joelle, and Ania!

So it all began bright and early Sunday morning when we caught a 7:30 flight to HerveyBay, which has the smallest commercial airport I have ever seen. Seriously, they have only one gate and just two planes fly into and out of the airport each day. So, we arrived at about 9:15 and had an easy ride to our hostel. We had quite a relaxed day on the beach where I collected heaps of coral and shells to bring back with me and as always, a day at the beach with Dom would not be complete without some good frisbee action. We got to bed fairly early, because early the next day our adventure on Fraser would begin.

We woke up at about 5:45 on Monday morning to get ready for briefing at 6:30. So what we got ourselves into was a three day, two night self-guided tour around FraserIsland. Now, self-guided means there is no tour guide involved and you do everything on your own. So we would be driving ourselves around the island, finding our own campsites and cooking our own food. Sounds easy enough, right? Well our group of friends totaled 6 and the overall groups consisted of 10 people, so we were a little bit concerned about being put with people we wouldn’t get along with. Also, at the briefing we got the feeling like there wasn’t really as much freedom to do whatever we wanted, because they told us that they wanted all three groups to stay together and camp together. Naturally, keeping 30 people together and wanting to do the same things would be difficult. So, all of the excitement that we had built up was toned down just a bit after the briefing.

Well, the four others that got put in a group with us turned out to be great people and we all got along just fine. The others were Jonas and Aurelia, a young couple from Germany traveling around Australia before going back home and starting their studies. Then we had a French couple, David and Audrey, who were doing the same thing, but had been going for a bit longer. They arrived in Australia, bought a camper van and just started driving to all their destinations. And the group of friends that I came with from Sydney was Dom, my German mate who everyone knows by now, Mike from New York, goes to Cornell, Courtney from Atlanta, goes to Georgia Tech, Joelle a Canadian that lives in Washington DC, but goes to McGill in Canada, and lastly our token Aussie, Ania! Everyone in our group seemed to have pretty much the same mentality about FraserIsland, unlike the other groups. The other groups seemed to want much more for it to be a party and be real crazy, however our group was more relaxed and chill about it. Don’t get me wrong, it’s definitely fun to be social and meet tons of people from all over the world, but here I was much more interested in enjoying the beauty of FraserIsland, tossing around the frisbee in the dark as wild dingos wandered around and the stars and Milky Way galaxy shines brightly above us. I would have many more opportunities to meet people, but how many other times would I be able to enjoy nature in this way?

Anyway, back to the actual trip itself. Each group was given all the supplies needed except for the food, so we had to make a stop at Woolies before heading to the island. This in itself was quite difficult, considering the group only knew each other for maybe an hour and wasn’t sure what kind of foods everyone liked. But we made it out ok after spending only about $250, which isn’t too bad when you split it up among 10 people. After somehow fitting everything and ourselves into the truck, we were off toward the barge that would take us on to Fraser. Our first driver designated was Jonas, since he had experience driving on the other side of the road, but he did an amazing job backing the truck down onto the barge and we let him know about it. Then we had a 40 minute ride out to the island and we were set off on our own. Pretty quickly our group broke away from the others since they were being pretty slow about everything. We wanted to get going as quickly as possible!

Now, we knew that we’d be driving on sand most of the time and there was the possibility of getting stuck. That’s why we needed four-wheel drive vehicles, but I had no idea the roads would be so bad and so bumpy. We learned straight away from the beginning, it was not going to be an easy ride. There were so many times throughout the trip that it really felt like we were going to tip over or get stuck, but we never did…sort of. But it was mainly because we had such legendary drivers!

Our first stop was LakeMcKenzie, which we had all heard of because it’s the most well-known lake on Fraser. The water there is just so clean and fresh, it was like being in a swimming pool, but without the chlorine taste, so that was a real treat. It was a little bit cold, but it was worth it to get in. It was so nice and refreshing and it actually ended up counting as our shower for the day J. Dom and I had our first intense frisbee session on Fraser here at Lake McKenzie, too, so even though I had already been in Lake McKenzie and felt nice and clean, it didn’t last too long because I was rolling around and diving in the sand to catch Dom’s crazy throws. We also had our first dingo sighting here at LakeMcKenzie. We were all in the water, except Joelle, and the dingo just wandered up to our towels looking for any kind of snack, but found Joelle instead who quickly shouted it away.

As for the dingos, we were warned quite a bit about them. They can be dangerous and have been known to attack and kill small children. Basically, it’s illegal to feed them or leave food out for them. Over time, people had been feeding them, making them more brave around humans. This is a problem because they are wild animals and can be aggressive about getting food, especially if it’s a mother with babies. So the idea is to get people to stop feeding them so that they won’t want to come around humans. As it is, it’s hard not to want to feed them, because they look so thin and friendly. But that is all part of their scheme. It was so neat though that they would just come up almost out of nowhere and be right there by you. We probably saw around 15 over the three days which was far more than I expected we would.

So after LakeMcKenzie, we continued on driving toward the eastern beach to look for a campsite. Well, it didn’t exactly end up being that easy. Somewhere along the way we took a wrong turn and began driving west and didn’t realize it until we were at the west coast with not much daylight left. This was a problem because we are not allowed to camp on the west side of the island and we are also not supposed to drive at night. There was also this absolutely idiotic guy on the west coast who told us we were on the east side and that we couldn’t camp on the east side, we had to go back to the west side on the other side of the island. He said all of this even though the sun was setting right there in the west. There is a pretty good chance that he was using his Aussie sarcasm to seriously mess with us, but in any case we knew we couldn’t stay there. So, we decided to just turn around and keep driving until we got to the eastern beach. David was the lucky hero who got the pleasure of driving at night. It took us about a little more than an hour to get to the eastern beach and it was so hard to see all the holes in the road, so it was a wicked crazy ride that night. Luckily, we did finally get there safe and stopped at the first campsite area we could find. We had to set up camp and cook dinner in the dark, but it wasn’t too bad. If anything, the whole adventure that night provided us with a good group bonding experience. After we were all set up, it was time to relax with everyone, have some beers, hear about each other’s experiences in Australia so far and just enjoy everyone’s company. We also had a late night Tim Tam Slam and Dom and I also had to try out the glow in the dark frisbee.

The next morning Dom and I woke up just in time to catch the sunrise and other’s followed soon thereafter. The mornings on Fraser were quite cold, but it was well worth it to see that sunrise. After breakfast, I walked out to the ocean to rinse out my bowl and as I began walking back to the campsite I saw a dingo walking towards me from down the beach. I stopped to watch it and it ended up walking up pretty close to me and gave me that look as if to say, “I’m hungry, give me some food!” But I resisted and finally started walking back, but the dingo just followed me. It wandered around quite close to the campsite and gave us all some great photo opportunities. Finally, David ran it off, because like we were told, we want to try to get them a little less used to being around humans. It’s really cool though that they come up real close to us like that.

After we got the truck packed up, it was my turn to drive and we set off for Indian Head. It was surprisingly easy to get used to driving on the other side of the vehicle and shifting with my left hand, since it was a manual transmission. I didn’t really have to worry about driving on the other side of the road too much because there really isn’t a traditional road and not many other cars passing. It’s pretty funny how sitting in the back as a passenger it feels like the driver doesn’t have much control of the vehicle and it makes you uneasy sometimes, but when you are driving, you feel so much in control and actually you are. So it was actually much easier to be driving than riding in the back. I didn’t have to drive on nearly as bad of roads as David and Jonas since most of it was just along the nice smooth beach.

After about an hour, we arrived at Indian Head, a huge rock formation with an incredible view of the island and ocean. It was even sort of scary at some points, because there are no guard rails or warning signs and it was a very far fall down to the bottom. In the water we could see some sting rays and David, Audrey and Aurelia even saw some whales far off in the distance. I did get to see quite a few whales myself later on the trip, thankfully. After spending a good hour or so at Indian Head, we moved on to the Champagne Pools, which ended up being crap because the tide was out and there wasn’t much water in the pools. But we finally met back up with the other two groups we were supposed to be with. We didn’t last too long with them though, because we had lunch and were ready to go, so we left them behind once again.

We headed off to search for our next campsite, stopping along the way at a campground to wash up our dishes. We found a place along the beach again, but did actually camp along with the other two groups this night. And we arrived and got set up before dark, too, which was a plus! Before dinner, a few of us decided to climb the big hill at the back of our campsite in hopes of getting a nice few of the sunset. However, the vegetation got extremely thick and the hill was much larger than we anticipated, so we just stopped at a comfortable place and took pictures of the horizon in the east. Sounds a little strange considering the sun sets in the west, but it was still really nice to be up there and look down and out over the ocean.

We finally decided to go back down to the campsite and this was much, much quicker since we could basically just slide down the sand. It was quite dirty and potentially dangerous, but still heaps of fun. When we got down, we began cooking our spaghetti dinner, which took ages since we had to boil such a large pot of water, but it was well worth it, because it was very tasty! Afterwards it was Tim Tam Time, followed by what I will simply call a group QF and leave it at that. But then obviously, we had to get our frisbee and stargazing in. We came across quite a few dingos that night, too, and later in the night as Mike, Dom and I were out on the beach, one of them even sat down and watched us throw the frisbee around. At night, obviously it was much more difficult to see them, so you wouldn’t know they were there until they were pretty close. That night as we all slept they came around the campsite fairly often and the girls even said that some dingos “attacked” their tent, but I’m not so sure how accurate that is.

The next morning, once again we were up for the sunrise. It was actually much better this time, too, because the clouds were really interesting, as you can hopefully see in the photo. After breakfast and packing up for one last time, we headed south down the beach toward EliCreek and LakeWabby. The stop at EliCreek was nothing too great, mainly because the creek just wasn’t too full of water or flowing very fast. Usually, you can float down it out to the beach, but not on this day. However, we did get to see a whale in the water pretty close to the beach, flapping its fins and playing around. That was really a sight to see, because I had been trying to see some whales off the coast in Sydney for some time, but now I finally did get to see some. The day before we even saw some far off in the distance that were jumping almost entirely out of the water and making huge splashes. Just an amazing thing to see!

After gazing at the whales, we then set our sights straight for LakeWabby (pronounced like “wobby”). When we got there, we came across one of the other groups again, but they didn’t feel up to taking the 1.5 km walk down to the lake because they were all “in a hungover mood”. So weak! We were not such lazy bums and took the walk down. It was well worth it! LakeWabby is surrounded by huge hills of sand that Dom and I found exceptionally good for some extreme frisbee. We decided it would be awesome to run down the hill while the other one throws the frisbee out over the water for the runner to jump out and grab then fall into the water. Unfortunately it was only successful once, as I had the throw and Dom the beautiful catch, but that one time was so awesome that it made it well worth all our effort. After that we were quite exhausted, so we laid on the hill to rest, but the rest for me anyway would be short-lived.

As we were lounging there a dingo came walking by. This wasn’t really a big deal since we had gotten used to seeing them around near us. However, this one decided to walk up to where everyone’s bags were and actually grabbed Ania’s purse and started running off with it! Mike and David immediately started chasing after it and I soon followed. After a little while, David looked back and yelled down from the top of a hill, “Well you can forget about your bag!” When I got to the top I could see that the dingo had run all the way across the huge field of sand and was far away from us. I caught up with the guys and we figured there was no chance of catching it and that the bag was gone, but for some reason we decided to keep running after it, following its tracks. The last point we saw it was just before a forest of trees and I was telling myself that if it wasn’t just over the hill at the edge of the forest I wouldn’t chase after it anymore, because who knows if it has a big group of other dingos waiting in the woods and I for sure didn’t want to get it cornered somewhere and get it real scared. Luckily, it had stopped just over that last hill, had dropped the bag and was licking a muesli bar wrapper! I didn’t want it to run off with the bag again, so I snuck up around the side of it and sort of yelled and clapped to scare it off and it worked. We had the bag back! We were all quite exhausted from running after it over the sand and up the hills, but it’s now fun to say that I have chased down a wild dingo and won! After that, it was definitely time for a serious nap. Then Dom and I decided to have a go at one last intense frisbee session and it turned out to be nothing short of that. LakeWabby definitely provided us with our best frisbeeing to date!

We finally walked back to the carpark, had a big lunch, trying to use up all of the food we had left since we were leaving the island in a few hours. Then it was time to head back to the barge landing and eventually HerveyBay. However, as soon as we left, Jonas complained about the truck acting up. He couldn’t shift very easily at all and finally the clutch completely gave out! We were stopped at the top of one of the worst turns, so some of us finally got out and pushed it down the hill to where he could turn off and be out of the middle of the road. Now we were really in a pickle, because we needed to be moving to get to the barge in time and get back across to the mainland. Otherwise, we would be spending another night on the island with not much food or water. The tour company had told us to simply call them if we ever come across a problem, yet there was absolutely no cell phone signal on the island, so we had to just wait for someone to drive by who could hopefully help us out in some way. We were also concerned that we would be responsible for the vehicle problems and would lose our $500 bond that we put down for it. Also, some people who were leaving HerveyBay that night or early the next morning were concerned about missing their connections, causing lots of chaos. Breaking down like this was the exact reason why the company wanted all of the groups to stay together, but we figured the others had already been past where we were. Finally someone did come by and offered to take some of us to the next intersection where surely someone would be able to take them on to the barge and get help from there. We decided that the three people who most needed to get back to the mainland tonight were the ones to go. That ended up being Mike, Jonas and Aurelia because they were leaving HerveyBay the soonest. Mike was even supposed to leave later that night. So then the rest of us were left to just wait and hope they could get help out to us.

I was quite upset about having to stay on the island another night without food or water and being in a place where we really couldn’t set up our tents or anything. I was tired of having to dig a hole every time I needed to drop a deuce and hadn’t had a shower in about three days. Well, luckily some others did drive by and slowly we received enough advice about what to do that we finally figured out we could just start the truck in second gear and just keep it there. There was no clutch at all, so as soon as you started the car it would start moving and whenever we stopped it would just shut off. After traveling that way at about 10 kilometers per hour, we arrived back at KingfisherBay about an hour later. We were well late of making the barge, but it turns out that this place is where they take our trucks to have them worked on anyway, so we were able to just leave it there, grab most of our gear out of the truck and make the last ferry back to the mainland with about five minutes to spare. Finally, I could relax, because we were going to make it back to our hostel that night and it seemed like we wouldn’t be responsible for breaking anything on the truck.

It actually all turned out perfect. The troubles provided much more excitement to an already wonderful trip and we even had a much better ride back to the mainland, riding on the front of the ferry, heading into the sunset. We didn’t have to clean out our truck like the others and we got picked up straight from the harbor and taken back to the hostel. It was such a great end to a crazy, wonderful time on FraserIsland. We also got all of our bond money back and everyone made their connections to their next destination just fine. So what once seemed like it would be a horrible end to an otherwise great trip, turned out to make it all that much better in the end.

Weekend in the Bush

I finally got a weekend away from the city and it turned out to be much more fun than I anticipated. It was for a field trip for my Australian Wildlife Biology class, so there were lots of mandatory activities I had to take part in, but they were all quite fun and interesting. We studied such things as the plants in the area and the soil at various elevations, which directly contributed to why certain plants grew in those areas. As far as animals go, we caught small mammals, like rats, bats (photo at left) and a small marsupial called a brown antechinus. Bird watching was on the agenda for one morning and my group spotted about 30 different species. We also went out one night frogging at a pond and saw some really tiny frogs hanging onto reeds, which you can also see here on the left. Another pretty neat activity we did was sending out owl calls in the hopes that we would get some to call back to us, but we didn’t have any luck with that. We also called out to some bats, flying foxes and the best one, a koala. Now, I’m pretty sure that no one reading this has ever heard a koala grunting, but let me tell you, it is not anything like what you might expect. It sounds pretty freaky, especially when you’re standing outside in complete darkness. I think we were all shocked at how energetic and scary-sounding the koala was.

Anyway, the whole reason for the staff at Smith’s Lake for doing all this animal observing was for survey purposes. Some of the animals we were looking for are endangered, so it gives them a chance to monitor the numbers of each species and report it to the state wildlife department. As for the students, well we learned heaps about many different plants and animals and got to observe them in their natural habitat. The koala grunting was probably the most interesting bit of info I acquired this weekend simply because I always thought the were so docile and if they made any noise it would be pretty quiet, but I sure was wrong.

The weather up at Smith’s Lake was pretty good, too, at least during the day. Smith’s Lake is located north of Sydney by about 4 hours driving, so it was naturally a bit warmer. However, at night it got quite cold and since the rooms we slept in had screens at the corners open to the elements, we noticed the cold nights quite a bit more than we do in our houses in Sydney.

In addition to the biology that I learned over the weekend, I also learned a bit about stars and the solar system. Now, this was not part of the class work, but my good friend Dominik is taking an astronomy class and the sky is so ridiculously clear at night where we were, so we actually spent quite a bit of time out underneath the stars just gazing. If I truly believed in wishing on falling stars, I would imagine I’d be pretty lucky over the next few years, because I probably saw about 50 of them. We could just see so many stars and the Milky Way galaxy was very bright, too. Amazingly, Dom actually got some really good photos of it all, but the standard rule holds true; that the pictures don’t do it justice. They’re still amazingly good though. In the picture at the bottom, you can see the sun setting over Smith’s Lake and the moon and maybe if you look close enough you can even see the planet Venus at the top of the photo. Pretty cool stuff.

Now, all of this stuff was cool, I really feel like I learned a lot about natural biology in general and I feel I have a much deeper appreciation for the natural environment, but the best part, by far, was just spending time (and constantly repeating funny lines from The Office) with my good friends, Dom and Harry, as well as making lots of new friends. We had three awesome days and two great evenings of just chatting away about nonsense around the fire and out under the stars by the lake. It’s a shame that this trip had to come so late in the school year because now we only have three more weeks of class to spend with each other, but it was still a great time and it has even inspired our next adventure, a road trip into the Outback!

Special thanks to Dom for the use of all of the photos in this post!

Two Tough Weeks

I sure am glad that the last two weeks are over with because I had quite a bit of work that was due, so I was actually busy with school stuff, for once. The next couple of weeks will be pretty laid back until the last week in May when I have a few others big assignments due. But now if I’m smart about this, I’ll get started on some things this week and get ahead a little bit so I don’t have to bust my tail later, but we’ll see how that goes. In about a week I go to Smith’s Lake for my Australian Wildlife Biology field trip. It should be alright, but I’m worried about what I am going to wear because our instructor told us to wear crummy clothes. Well, I don’t have any crummy clothes, so I may just have to go to the Salvation Army store or something. He said we need boots, too, so I guess I’ll have to purchase some of those…kind of a pain.

So this weekend was nice, especially considering how busy I was the past couple of weeks with all the school work. Friday night I went out with the CooRan Crew (Dom, Harry, Kris, me) and also Harry’s brother, Ian, who is visiting Sydney for about a week. We went to the IMAX and saw Spiderman 3. The IMAX experience was so much better this time because we sat about three rows from the top of the theater and not three rows from the front. It made a huge difference. As for the movie, I thought it was alright. Not great, but not terrible. It was about what I expected and what I think anyone could expect. Lots of people were saying it really sucked but I mean it’s Spiderman, based on a comic book, it’s not going to have some deep, inspiring message. So, I’m really not sure what all those people were expecting. Anyway, after the movie we just went out to a pub in DarlingHarbour for a little bit and called it a night shortly thereafter.

Saturday was spent on the beach with Miriana (Brazilian housemate) and Jochen and some others followed a bit later. By the time everyone else arrived, Miriana and I were too hungry and decided to leave and make some food. So, we ended up making eggplant lasagna and carrot cake. I use the term “we” very lightly because really it was Miriana who was doing all the work and she had the knowledge of what needed to be done. All I did was cut the cheese J. Apparently eggplant lasagna is pretty common in Brazil, but I had never heard of it. Instead of using pasta in it, you just use the eggplant instead and there is no cottage cheese like mom puts in it back home. Oh man, I really miss that! The carrot cake was also quite different from what I’m used to, because here we mashed up all the carrots in the cake, but mom’s carrot cake always still had the pieces of carrot that you could taste and she uses tasty white icing and the Brazilians use chocolate. Anyway, it was fun to try something new and we had some guests join us as well.

After dinner we went to Coogee Bay Hotel for a drink. We were a group of two Brazilians, two Aussies, a German and an American. I still really love how diverse the groups of people are that I go out with. While at the CBH my favorite player for Sydney FC (soccer), David Carney, showed up at the table right next to us. He was looking good and ready for the big match this Wednesday, which I will also be attending. Anyway, as usual we all had fun talking about our different languages and cultural differences. It’s always a great topic of conversation and leads to some interesting and funny discoveries. After the CBH, Dom and I went downtown to celebrate the birthday of a good friend, Manish. We ended up having a group of about 15 people, so it was a pretty good time. Manish is a really funny guy and I enjoy it anytime he’s around. The first club we tried getting into, we got denied because Manish didn’t have a driver’s license, because in Dubai they don’t list the age on your driver’s license. It was pretty funny because everyone except Dom, Manish and me had already gone in and then they all had to come back out. So, we had to move on to a different place that would accept Manish’s PADI (certified scuba diving) ID. We ended up at Shark Hotel, which we had been told was “rubbish” but it was free entry, so we figured we’d check it out. It turned out to be just ok, really big and not a ton of people there, but we had our own big group so it didn’t matter. We ended up staying there and just danced the rest of the night away. I don’t think I got home until about 4:30, but it was well worth it for big Manish (clap, clap, clap) Manish (clap, clap, clap). <--Sorry, inside joke between Dom and me.

Sunday was a usual, lazy Sunday relaxing on the beach and just taking it easy. Nothing exciting at all, just a lazy day, but I love that because I know that in a couple of months I won’t have those days at all anymore, so I’m taking advantage of it now as much as I can, even if it does make me feel extremely unproductive and useless!

And today, Monday, was the usual relaxed Monday. Everyone I know has class, but I don’t so I usually hit the beach or go for a walk or jog and get caught up on any school work I might have. This Monday I decided to take a walk along the same path that I usually jog, but I decided to take a lot of pictures to show everyone when I get back home. It’s really a beautiful area to jog through, as Andy knows, and it’s funny all the new things that I noticed while walking and taking time to really see everything. I also made myself a nice, big lunch/dinner before heading off to yoga, which I don’t think I’ve mentioned is really, really great. I never thought I would enjoy yoga as much as I do. I just feel really good on Monday evenings because my body is so loose and relaxed. Now, we do quite a bit of strengthening in the yoga class that I’m doing, so Tuesdays I’m usually pretty sore, but it’s not too bad.

So, that’s a pretty normal weekend for me. Have fun and expend a lot of energy on Friday and Saturday, then relax and regenerate on Sunday and Monday. Tuesday begins the school week! :(

God Bless America

It was a fun, interesting and overall enjoyable weekend here in Sydney. However, I did receive my first real anti-American comments. I was at a barbie on Saturday and got to chatting with an Australian guy and when I told him I was from America, he seemed to offer me his sympathy. I was a quite confused. He started going on about how everything is out of control in the US and George W. Bush is a terrible guy, just like the Australian Prime Minister, John Howard. Inevitably, he got to the topic of the Virginia Tech shooting and how that’s just so crazy and wouldn’t happen in any country but America. Even more interesting was that earlier in the day I had been chatting about the same thing with one of my friends from South Korea, Sam, who said he has some friends on exchange in the US who are sort of scared after what happened, since the shooter was Korean. He even had sort of the same view as the Australian guy, that America needs stronger gun laws, because it’s impossible in Korea, for instance, to have any kind of gun at all and that’s why, according to Sam, nothing like that ever happens in South Korea. It was really interesting how the same thing came up in two different conversations, but I guess it’s such a big deal and something that’s on the minds of a lot of people when they think about America.

Anyway, back to the Australian guy at the barbie, I wasn’t too eager to get into a political debate or any kind of confrontation for that matter, so I basically just smoothed things over, while letting him speak his mind. There was even a point after his bashing of the Australian government where I said, “well hey, Australia is still one of our good allies,” to which he responds, “unfortunately.” For the record, it was quite clear to me that this guy had been drinking for quite awhile. However, I also believe that when people are under the influence of alcohol, they tend to tell the truth and give their honest opinion about whatever it is they’re speaking of.

My response to both of these guys was pretty much the same. For a country like the US to offer their people so much freedom and to have so many different types of people from so many different cultures living there, some bad things are going to happen. That obviously does not make it ok for these tragedies to occur, but you can’t say the whole country is a bad place because of a few horrific events that do happen.

Strangely, it sort of reminds me of how my favorite NFL team, the Cincinnati Bengals, is portrayed around the league. Because of the wrong actions of a few of the younger, less mature members of the team, everyone has to deal with the consequences. The bad stuff gets magnified and overshadows the good things that people do. Unfortunately, it works the same way throughout the world. One major thing that I've learned from being away from the US for so long is how much I love it there and it's made my loyalty to my country so much stronger. Despite the bad things that do happen, I am truly proud to be an American! I know that's such a cliche but I mean it!

Well, anyway, like I said, I did have some fun this weekend, highlighted by the grand opening of Pancakes atDarlingHarbour on Sunday night. One of my housemates, Alessandra, works there and invited Jochen, my roommate, and me to come and get some free food! Now, this is definitely a one-time thing in Sydney. We felt quite special because only guests of employees received this benefit. We had to stop at an information desk and ask exactly where the restaurant was located and the lady said that she didn’t think it was open yet, but directed us there anyway. We knew that it was open to us! Then when we got to the door the hostess was a bit skeptical and asked if we knew anyone working there and when we mentioned Alessandra’s name we were in! So, needless to say, I stuffed myself quite full with the Aussie Sunrise breakfast and a Greek salad, with a coffee and even a little bit of Jochen’s steak and mushroom crepes. Great stuff! And the best part is that this Pancakes is in a much better location than the one I used to frequent, located at The Rocks.

Also this weekend I went to the Sydney Aquarium. If you really know me, then you know how much I like tropical fish. Even though I had be there for my Marine Environment class and complete a three page handout, I still really enjoyed it. I got to see some pretty massive sharks and some very interesting looking fish. I also petted a small shark and touched some sea anemones, starfish and sea cucumbers. We also stumbled in on a fight/play between some seals. They got into it pretty ferociously, so I’m not quite sure if they were playing or not. They had the tanks where you could walk underneath the water and the seals would be swimming overhead. The shark tank was the same, where they would just swim right over your head and you could marvel at how massive they are. The best part of it all was the Great Barrier Reef section. There were so many colorful fish, as well as some reef sharks. However, it still took a backseat to what I experienced actually being at the Great Barrier Reef itself. So, it was all real cool, but still nothing like actually being with the fish in their natural habitat.

Finally, I finished my first big assignment for Australian Wildlife Biology on Sunday. I wrote about the Orange-bellied Parrot, which is a critically endangered bird endemic to (only found in) Australia. But it’s nice to have that done with, before I start on the next paper for Australian Economic Development, which is due on Friday!

Also, the NFL Draft was this weekend and I couldn’t help but pay pretty close attention to what was happening. I’m still sort of curious about some of the Bengals picks, but I’m not going to go crazy like a lot of our fans and call the Bengals stupid for selecting a running back and not defense with the second round pick. I know that there is so much about the draft and the team and the players they select that the fans do not see. I trust Marvin and soon he’ll take us to the top!

Andy's Trip Down Under

Well the past couple of weeks have been some of the best times I’ve had while in Australia and it can mostly be attributed to the fact that I spent it with my brother, Andy. The time spent with him showed me just how lucky I am to be here and that maybe I’m not enjoying it all quite as much as I could be. He continuously commented how much he loved Sydney and that it’s the most beautiful city he’s ever visited. I am also starting to realize that I probably won’t understand just how great this place is until after I’ve left. At least I still have a couple of months left!

Our first week was spent in Cairns and as expected we had an amazing time. The highlights would definitely include our trip to TjapukaiCulturalPark, Kuranda via the SkyRail, ParonellaPark and of course the scuba diving/snorkeling trip on the Great Barrier Reef. Not to mention all the relaxation time and chatting with Andy, which is obviously something we hadn’t done in a long time.

TjapukaiCulturalPark is a place that allows visitors to get a glimpse into the Aboriginal culture and history in the Cairns area. It started off sort of disappointing, actually. We were so excited to get to try out some boomerang and spear throwing, but since it was rainy we didn’t get to do that. However, we decided to hang around in hopes that the weather would get better and we’d get our chance and to our delight that happened! Andy is definitely the better boomeranger but I did better at the spear throwing. The spear throwing was sort of interesting because you don’t throw it like you would think, just like a javelin. You use an extra tool, a spear-thrower, to help get better force and aim behind it, but as you can imagine it takes some time to get good at it. I think I just got lucky.

The next day we came back to the Tjapukai gift shop since we couldn’t get to Kuranda as hoped, and we ended up getting a short demonstration on how to play the didgeridoo. We also each decided to purchase an authentic boomerang and later that day as we were just walking back from the city to our hotel, we realized that the park we had walked by everyday was a perfect location to experiment with our new boomerangs. So we spent the next hour or so in the park throwing our boomerangs around and actually did get them to come back to us a couple of times. Again, I got lucky and was the first one to actually catch it, but Andy was much more consistent with getting good throws that came back to him and finally he caught a few of them.

We finally did make it to Kuranda and it was a good time as well, but a little more laid back. Getting there was the most exciting part. We rode the SkyRail which is basically a huge ski lift that takes you over the top of the canopy of the rainforest, so as you can imagine, it was very, very picturesque along the whole ride. On the way up to Kuranda we stopped at a couple places and got out to walk around in the rainforest and at another stop we checked out BarronFalls. In Kuranda we visited a few wildlife parks, Butterfly Sanctuary, BirdWorld and KoalaPark. They were all really cool and at KoalaPark, we finally got to hold a koala which Andy had been talking about doing all week. Also while in Kuranda, we got to see some Aboriginal kids performing some dances on the street. A couple of the kids were really tiny and they were all painted up, so it was a good, funny little show. The trip back on the SkyRail was also very neat for a different reason. This time we couldn’t really see a whole lot because we were going through clouds. It had a really eerie, mysterious feeling, because it was sort of dark and really quiet, too. So even though we took the same path back, it was nice to get a different experience out of it.

Friday was our big day out on the reef. We had to go with a bigger boat with a lot more people than my previous trip. The reason was that the water was quite rough and the smaller sailboats get tossed around really bad, so a lot of those weren’t even operating. The ride out was pretty wild. They weren’t kidding about it being rough out on the sea and Andy and I were pretty glad we took our sea sickness pills because about half of the people on the boat were on the back deck vomiting. It was also really dangerous to even just walk around the boat because it was rocking so much and even on the way back two people cut themselves while trying to get to the bathroom. One guy even probably had to get stitches on his hand when we got back to shore.

But anyway, onto the good stuff about the trip. Well first of all the weather was much nicer than my last trip, so the fish looked so much brighter in the sunlight. We went down for a dive first and got to get our pictures taken with two clownfish swimming around in an anemone and we also just got to swim around and look at various things around the sea floor. The water was a little murky since the sea was so rough and lots of the particles from the seabed had been kicked up, but it wasn’t that bad. It was yet another awesome experience. But I actually enjoyed the snorkeling a bit better. The reef where we were was so close to the top of the water that there were so many fish and coral right at the surface. The only bad part was that with the sea being so rough it pushed you around quite a bit, so it got frustrating when you couldn’t just sit in one spot. In some areas it was hard to snorkel through the reef because I was afraid of getting pushed onto some coral which would be bad news. So we had to be careful about where we went. Now, the highlight of Andy’s day had to be when he saw a shark, twice! I was right there next to him, but somehow didn’t get to see it at all. He said it was a pretty long one, maybe five feet or so, but didn’t really look like it was big enough to do too much damage. I really wish I would have seen it. I did get to see a really huge sea turtle, though. Without hesitation, I’d say the trip out on the reef was the highlight of our stay in Cairns, as expected. It’s just such an amazing place and it’s really a shame that scientists are saying the reef will be severely decimated over the next 25 to 50 years and only about 10% of what is there now will remain. So, if you haven’t been to the Great Barrier Reef yet, make every effort to do so, because it is one of the most beautiful places on earth.

It was going to be extremely difficult for anything to top our trip to the reef, but ParonellaPark came pretty close. It’s a Spanish castle located up in the rainforest tablelands area and you’re probably wondering what a Spanish castle is doing in Australia. Well Jose Paronella, who the park is named after, had a dream of living in a castle, but he wanted it located in a place where it would be unique. Well it’s pretty amazing what he was able to build. He built it along a small river where there is a small waterfall, which he used to install a hydroelectric system to power his castle. There were so many unexpected things around the place, like tennis courts, really fancy latrines and even a tunnel of love. It was easy to see that the guy had a really big imagination. Just walking around the place, every time you thought that it was big enough, there would be another path leading to another surprise. It’s such a neat place that it’s sort of difficult to explain in words. It’s something that you just have to see to understand. The only unfortunate part of ParonellaPark was that it rained pretty hard on us and we got soaked! But like the owner told us, the rain gives you the real experience of what it was like back when Jose lived there.

Also, during the week we spent some time with some people we met there in Cairns through Harry, my American friend who I hang out with a lot back in Sydney. Lindsay and Shannon are from Virginia, that’s how they know Harry, and Jess and Martina are from Minnesota. They are all also studying abroad, but in Perth. I hope I get to visit Perth, the most isolated city in the world, so it’s nice to know some people who could show me around. We’ll see if I can actually make it out there. But we had a good time with them at the Woolshed and Gilligan’s a couple of different nights. It was good for Andy and I to be able to chat with other people and not be stuck just talking to each other all week. J

Oh and I almost forgot to mention my big purchase of the week. After much deliberation about the cost and hassle of transporting it around, I finally gave in and bought myself a didgeridoo. It’s quite a nice one, so it wasn’t cheap, but it’s really awesome, so I’m glad I got it. It wasn’t very fun to carry around the airport, but it was worth it. I’m not too good at playing it right now, but hopefully I can find some time to get better before I go back home to the US.

Andy’s second week in Australia, we spent a lot of time visiting places around Sydney. We checked out Circular Quay and the Opera House, obviously. We also took a very nice walk through Hyde Park and into the Royal Botanical Gardens, which is absolutely beautiful, and then took a ferry across the harbor and then walked back to The Rocks via the HarbourBridge. The next day we took the Coogee to Bondi walk along the coast and that was excellent as well. There are just so many great views along the ocean there and I’m glad Andy could see all of it during his short stay. Another night we checked out DarlingHarbour and then also hit Kings Cross, which is quite different from a lot of the other places around the city; not so nice and clean. That is also the place where I lost my phone on Andy’s last night in Sydney. A real bummer, but we still had a pretty fun night and I’ve since purchased a new, better phone. Sorry Chris for losing the phone you gave me, but I’m sure you know how Kings Cross is and I hope you’ll understand J Sandwiched in and amongst all this we found time to have a really fun night at the Coogee Bay Hotel, just right down the street from where I live. A lot of my friends and housemates all went out with us, so it was nice for Andy to meet and hang out with all of them.

So, that’s what’s happened over the last couple of weeks and the reason for the delay in posting for awhile. Hopefully I can keep up with it a little better from here on out, but I do actually have to start doing some school work. Yuck, I know, but believe me it’s nothing too difficult. For instance, this weekend I have to go to the Sydney Aquarium for my Marine Environment class. It could be so much worse!