Across the Nullarbor

I’ve completed one of the great road journeys of Australia – travelling across the Nullarbor from Perth to Adelaide, a distance of about 1,700 miles. It was a 9-day camping trip, and camping facilities ranged from caravan parks with camp kitchens and nice bathrooms to farms stays to parking the bus out in the middle of the bush, pitching a tent and lighting a fire. The Nullarbor Plain is the area in between Perth and Adelaide. It’s mostly unpopulated, even back before Europeans settled Australia. There’s no fresh water, and the heart of the region is a flat, treeless plain. Not a heck of a lot out there at all! The only human civilization across the Eyre Highway, which runs through the heart of the Nullarbor, is roadhouses established to cater for the travelers crossing the highway. They’re INCREDIBLY expensive. We’re talking $1.75 for a postcard (in main cities you can get them for 30 cents) and $6 for a 20 oz coke. They’re incredibly remote places though. I thought Glen Helen was “remote” until I drove through the Nullarbor. We were only an hour and a half away from a town of 25,000, which due to its own isolation from other major Australian cities, had basically every service you could need. These roadhouses were so remote that you could drive hundreds of miles only to reach one of the dipshit towns that border the Nullarbor; little places with maybe a thousand or so people. Towns of any significant size were even further still.

It’s towards the end of the main season for travel in the lower parts of Oz (remember, we’re reading into winter!), so the group was small. Just 6 of us for most of the trip, until a couple of people hopped on at one of the stops a few days before the end. This trip was my first time sleeping in a swag! Do we have swags in North America? I’m no hardcore camping expert, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen one. Basically, they eliminate the need for a tent. It’s a big canvas bag that you throw a thin mattress in, and then you put your sleeping bag on top of the mattress and zip up the swag after you’re all tucked in. There’s a big canvas flap at the end where your head is, which you can flip over for privacy or if it’s raining. The swag is waterproof. So you don’t need a tent – you just roll out your canvas bag wherever you like and curl up and go to sleep. We did actually use tents though, we just put the swags inside. It gets quite chilly at night this time of year, and the tent really does provide a lot more warmth. I foolishly didn’t take a picture of the swag, but I’ll do more swag camping as my travels continue, so I’ll make sure to take a photo then.

Basically the trip was separated into three parts – touring around in southwest Western Australia, crossing the Nullarbor, and touring around the bottom of South Australia. There are a few random things of interest to see while crossing the Nullarbor, but we had super shitty weather for most of our trip, so we had to skip quite a bit of the Nullarbor sightseeing and just plow through.

The trip was quite a bit of driving. You can kind of figure that though, crossing 1700 miles in 9 days, when you have to stop early each day because the sun sets early, and also make a stop in the middle of the day to prepare, eat, and clean up after lunch. For the most part we had a good combination of a bit of sightseeing and covering distance. There was really only one day where we just did nothing but drive. The weather was horrible, and it was one of the nights where we were supposed to just camp out in the bush. The guide decided in the end to drive an extra 180 miles that day to get us to a caravan park so that we wouldn’t be out in tents in a storm. We covered over 500 miles that day. That’s a LOT of driving.

Here are some of the highlights of the crossing, since I know most of you don’t actually read what I write anyway, you just skim and then look at the pictures J

Here I am at Wave Rock, which is not too far from Perth – it’s doable as a day trip. I took the horrible tourist picture, pretending to “surf” the wave. Yes, this picture is on the same level of horribleness as the ones where the tourists pretend to “hold up” the leaning tower of Pisa.

This next one is the sunset from out first night. We slept just in swags that night (and it was nippy!) on some lady’s porch out in the middle of absolutely nowhere. Usually the tour camps in a national park the first night, but there was a bad bush fire a couple of years back and the campsites aren’t fixed yet. So instead we sleep on the floor of Mary’s porch out on her farm.

This one is from Cape Le Grand national park. The water was BEAUTIFUL. Prettier than anything I’ve ever seen in the Caribbean. Unfortunately the weather was shit, but you can still tell from the photo how gorgeous it would be on a nice sunny day.

Here’s the road sign from the start of the Eyre Highway at the beginning of the Nullarbor. Look how far we are from Adelaide! Yes, it’s in kilometers (1986 kilometers is about 1200 miles), but it’s rare to see a road sign with THAT high of a distance!

Here’s the start of the road. You can kind of get a feel for just how desolate of an area we were heading into…

It’s a tent! Not super interesting, but this is the first tent that I ever pitched all by myself, without anyone else’s help.

Here’s the signpost in Eucla, which is near the border of South Australia and Western Australia. Again, the distances are in kilometers (mileage would be about 25% more than half the kilometer value i.e. 800 km is about 500 miles), but still, the distance numbers are BIG. We’re a long way from anywhere.

Here’s a photo of the Great Australian Bight, which is the sea underneath the part of Australia that we were crossing. The cliffs extend for ages – the dramatic scenery along the coast never seems to stop.

Here I am posing with a road sign that you’d only find in Australia!

We did a coastal cliff top walk where the waves smashed so hard into the rocks that you got a bit wet.

Here’s another seaside photo from a different spot. There was a cave behind me that we usually can go and visit, but the sea was too rough that day because of the bad weather, and the tour guide didn’t want us to get swept away. Fair enough.

There was a bright side to all the crap weather that we had – double rainbows!

We did a swim with sea lions and dolphins one day. The water was quite chilly and we got rained on a bit, but it was still a good day.  Here’s a picture of an adult female and a pup. The pup is looking longingly and the female is ignoring him because that isn’t her baby. Poor pup can’t find his mama! They all kind of look the same J

And here is a photo of the group snorkeling with some bottlenose dolphins. I made very sure to stay close to the snorkel guide while swimming around. We were in shark-infested waters, and the guide wore a shark shield on his ankle, which sort of looked like an alcohol monitoring bracelet. Basically it sends out a pulse that sharks don’t like, and any of them in the area vacate. We had seen a baby sea lion with a scar on it from a shark bite, and if you look closely at one of the dolphin’s dorsal fins, you’ll see that it’s torn; also from a battle with a shark. So yeah, I think I spent more time in the water watching for the guide than for the marine mammals!

We spent a night camping at a koala sanctuary. There were lots of koalas up in the trees, and most of them were low enough that you could actually get a good look at them. I liked this particular one. He was sort of straddling a branch, and when the wind started up he had to hold on for dear life!

The next batch of photos explains why I flew to Perth, in order to then travel across to Adelaide just to fly back to Perth once the tour was finished. The Perth to Adelaide tour was the only direction that went to Port Lincoln, a town that isn’t very well serviced by trains or buses. The other tour direction takes a different route. The two different routes enable the tour company to run loop tours that start and finish in the same city, and I’m sure it also helps the tour guides from being bored out of their skulls.

Port Lincoln itself is pretty boring. It’s a rough around the edges fishing town of about 13,500. I walked around town in about a half hour, and then spent the rest of our free time in Port Lincoln at McDonalds using the wifi. The reason that I wanted to go there is for a day trip that runs out of the town. It’s a trip out to the Neptune Islands, which are about 40 miles off the cost of South Australia. The Neptune Islands are completely uninhabited, and are the home base for a sea lion colony. Why is this worth 2 extra plane rides? Simple. It is not what’s ON the islands that is of interest; it is what lives in the surrounding waters:

Jaws! Yes, I took that photo under water, and I did not use the zoom on my camera. Jaws really is that close. The Neptune Islands are a hotbed for Great White sharks. It’s one of the top 2 places in the world to dive with them (the other being somewhere off the coast of South Africa). So yeah – there was NO way I was missing this. Cage diving with the biggest, baddest sharks alive was on my must-do list, so I made it happen.

It’s one smooth operation though. The boat, the Calypso Star, is a nice little yacht with great food and all you can drink soda! They gave us a lovely breakfast spread, snacks all day, and a nice lunch platter. On the 2 and a half hour ride out to the islands, they played us videos of people getting attacked by sharks on the multiple flat screen tvs. Very nice.

The water was choppy since it’s the open ocean, but I took some preventative sea sickness medication for the first time. It worked well – plenty of people on the boat who didn’t take anything beforehand got sick – but one of the side effects of the medication is that it makes you drowsy. So while I was wide awake when the sharks were around, otherwise, unless I was drinking or eating, I was curled up in a little ball on the bench, taking a nap. Staying horizontal also helps with keeping motion sickness at bay anyway, so I had no problem napping my way out to where we were headed.

Once we got there, they lowered the cage (pictured here still on the deck) and poured what they called “shark sauce” into the water.

I think it was some sort of tuna blood mixture. They dumped in gallons and gallons, and soon enough our first interested participant showed up. It was a bronze whaler shark, which is big, but not Jaws. I didn’t see the bronze whaler, as I was getting into my wetsuit.

By the time they had lined us up to do the obligatory what’s your name, where are you from and are you excited line of questioning, the first great white had showed up.  The cage could accommodate 6 people, so one by one we climbed on in. I haven’t scuba dived in over 6 years, so it took me a few minutes to calm down enough to breathe normally under water. I’d forgotten what a weird feeling it is!

There were at least 2 sharks that were in the area while we were in the cage, since I saw 2 at once. After I got out the crew on board said that there were actually 5 in the area – apparently I was looking at all different sharks, but I just couldn’t tell the difference! The only one who stood out was one that was noticeably larger than the rest. Most were about 15 feet in length, but this one behemoth must have been about 18, and was also a bit wider and huskier looking.

Here’s one of my favorite pictures:

You can get clear pictures of them because the cage has a giant gap in it. It’s not big enough for Jaws to get in, but if you want to be a jackass and go home with fewer body parts, it IS large enough for you to very easily stick out your arm.  Heck if you’re of small stature and feeling suicidal, you could strip off the weight belt they put on you and just swim through the gap.

The next one sort of makes me smile and makes me a bit sad as well. I was waiting for another shark to appear, when one emerged from the blue swimming right towards me. He was coming straight ahead, staring with his big beaty shark eyes. I got excited. I thought: here it is! My money shot! The potential greatest, most awesomest photo I’ve ever taken, a great white shark staring at me, the two of us nearly nose to nose. But my excitement turned into me getting flustered, and I tripped over the bar at the bottom of the cage (you’re supposed to wrap your feet around it to help you from floating back up to the top) and instead of taking the greatest picture ever, I snapped as I was floundering around and got this fuzzy crap instead:

It still gives you a good idea though as to just how close they actually come. The tip of his snout was probably about two, two and a half feet away from me. And I missed the picture because I got excited and fell over. I fell over under water. Yeah.

I had no sense of time down there. You could have told me I was down there for 5 minutes or 50 minutes, and I wouldn’t have known what to believe. Based on the time stamps on my photos, I was submerged for somewhere in the 40-45 minute range. On full boats they only give you 20 minutes in the cage, but we were 12 on a boat designed to accommodate 40 shark divers, so they gave us extra time.

Once back up on deck the fun didn’t stop, it was just from a different angle. I got out of the wetsuit and got a cup of tea and then went out onto the deck. In order to make the sharks more “excitable,” they throw in chunks of dead tuna, and then pull them away really fast, which makes Jaws & co chase it. They grab it more than half the time, and sometimes they succeed in ripping the tuna off the end of the rope. It’s really awesome to see a great white jump out of the water after food. I know awesome is a poorman’s adjective, but what other word would you use for this? Here’s one of the fish coming up out of the water for a snack. Isn’t he precious???

By the time the second group of divers were in the cage, a total of 8 different great whites had shown up, plus that lone bronze whaler (who quickly swam off when the big guys showed up). That’s a LOT of sharks. Some of them didn’t show up until towards the end, which means that 2 or 3 of those big guys had swam in from over an hour away to investigate the blood they smelled in the water. Great whites can swim at about 25 mph, so imagine how far away some of them swam in from to see what was going on in our area. Again, let me reiterate: 8 Great White sharks. All circling our boat, hungry hungry hungry. It was a lovely day. Here I am post-dive, holding up the camera displaying my favorite photo.

Our last day of the tour was primarily driving from Port Lincoln back to Adelaide, We made a stop in Port Augusta on the way back, and went to a really cool outback museum. Port Augusta is sort of the last piece of real civilization before you head up north into the South Australian outback, and then up towards the Northern Territory.

So that was my 9-day excursion across the Nullarbor. The day after I got back I spent a free day on my own wandering around Adelaide. I mostly just walked, but I also spent a couple of hours at a free museum, which I really enjoyed. I’d post a few photos of Adelaide itself, but after pictures of giant sharks I fear that some lovely urban photos of a nice city landscape might pale in comparison J.

I’m posting this from Perth, where I have about a day and a half on my own. Tomorrow I’m going to explore the city, and then on June 1^st my ping-pong-ing between Adelaide and Perth finally ends, as I start a 21-day trip up the west coast of Australia. It’s not as touristed as the east coast route (WA is even FARTHER away from everything than the east coast of Australia is), but it’s supposed to be just as beautiful, if not more so.

Hopefully I’ll be able to get a blog up halfway through the trip, but if not then I’ll be sure to post a giant one from Darwin in 3 weeks!

The Great Ocean Road, Grampians & KI

I continued on from Melbourne across the coastline of Victoria via the Great Ocean Road. It’s supposed to be one of Australia’s prettiest drives, and it certainly didn’t disappoint! I did a two-day tour from Melbourne, with the first day taking in the sights of the GOR and the second day a tour of Grampians National Park. Here’s the start of the road! It used to be a toll road back in the day, so they kept one of the old fashioned gates and put up a big sign, in case you didn’t already know where you were J

One of our stops along the road included looking for wild koalas. I’ve never seen one in the wild before! There’s a bunch who live near a caravan park just off the road, and I was able to spot a few.

I even saw him move around a bit, which is a rare treat, as koalas sleep 20 hours a day.

We also went for a little hike in the rainforest. The scenery was really quite pretty, and there were lots of funky looking mushrooms, which I took oodles of photos of:

The highlight of the Great Ocean Road is rock structures called the Twelve Apostles. There aren’t actually twelve of the rock formations; I believe there are only 9. They are called the Twelve Apostles though because someone thought it was a snazzy sounding name and would attract more tourists to the region. It worked. If I had a nickel for every tour bus I saw traveling along the GOR that day, I’d have a boatload of nickels.

Unfortunately due to the time of day the majority of the rock structures came out a bit dark in the pictures. The sun was on a better angle for the other direction though, and there were a couple of the ol’ apostles to be seen down that way as well:

We also stopped at a gorge that was the site of a famous shipwreck that had only 2 survivors.  If you’re going to get washed up on shore though after your boat sinks, this is a pretty scenic place to do it:

The weather for the Great Ocean Road day was a bit wacky – constant flip flopping between sunshine and rain – but one of the positives was that we were treated to several awesome rainbows!

The last scenic stop along the Great Ocean Road was a place called London Bridge. The whole thing used to be connected, but not that long ago the first arch collapsed, stranding two people who were at the end on a freshly made island.

We spent that night at a random hostel called Ned’s Other Beds in the Grampians National Park. The drive was a bit hairy though. We did it well after dark, so the tour guide made sure that everyone was wearing seatbelts and was prepared for any sudden stops or swerves. Kangaroos are super cute and all, but they aren’t very smart and have a nasty habit of jumping out into oncoming vehicles. The guide said that on average, he hits and kills one on the night drive to the Grampians about every 6 months, and of course there are many other close calls – roos who are successfully avoided. We saw a few on the sides of the road during the drive, but they weren’t out leaping around all over the place that night, which was a good thing.

Did some hiking in the Grampians on day 2. Here’s a view from a big hill we were climbing:

And me sitting at the top of the hike! The last 15 minutes of the hike was basically rock climbing. I almost gave up and turned around when I reached a really steep one with no footholds, but I gave it one gargantuan try and successfully hoisted myself up onto the rock, but I was short on a bit of skin on my elbow J

At the bottom of the walk back down, the roos were out grazing. I almost walked right into one!

After the morning/early afternoon hiking around the Grampians, we drove to a town called Horsham. Half the bus was catching a coach bus to Adelaide (me included) while the other half went back with the tour guide to Melbourne. So that was it for the state of Victoria! I basically spent 5 days sightseeing. It would have been nice to have had a few more days, but I basically saw the main parts that I wanted to see – Melbourne, the Great Ocean Road and the Grampians. So off to a new state – South Australia!

The bus ride to Adelaide was about 6 hours long. Luckily enough, the hostel I booked was literally 2 blocks away from the bus station. It’s always nice when you arrive in a new city at night by yourself that your accommodation is basically right there. It was a really nice hostel too. Both the Adelaide and Melbourne YHAs I was very impressed with.

Didn’t have a whole lot of time in Adelaide. I was up and outside the hostel by 6:10 am the next morning to catch my next tour bus to Kangaroo Island. I was also sick. AGAIN. I’ve gotten a cold 4 times in the past 10 and a half months. Ugh. That’ll be one nice thing about not travelling anymore in a few months time – maybe I’ll be able to maintain my health! Anyway, KI is off the coast of South Australia. I didn’t know a lot about it, other than it’s a mecca for wildlife spotting. Roos, wallabies, seals, sea lions, koalas, etc… I was surprised at how large it was, and how populated as well. I sort of imagined it as this tiny island where koalas hung out in the trees over grazing kangaroos who had to hop over the occasional echidna, with the bark of the sea lions in the background. It’s a pretty big place though, about 75 miles long and 30 miles wide. It’s also home to about 4500 people.

We did cover quite a bit in 2 days. We visited a Eucalyptus oil distillery (where I bought some pure oil to unclog my nose), a sea lion colony, a marron (freshwater crayfish) farm and a winery on day 1. Here’s some of the KI coastline:

And some sea lions sleeping on the beach:

You could get pretty close to them, although we were asked to keep at least a 10-meter distance. They were mostly sleeping, but there were plenty of semi-active young pups to gawk at, including a couple who were nursing.

We spent the night at a farm hostel in a koala sanctuary, and had a failed attempt to locate penguins on the beach after dark. The tour guide said he found some dead ones under some rocks in a little cave, but I wasn’t sure if he was being serious or not.

The next morning we went for a koala spotting walk. There were plenty up in the trees (including one who seemingly got lost and was sleeping in a pine tree), but they were all quite high and all you could make out was a gray fur ball nestled up towards the top. We also visited a granite rock structure called the remarkable rocks. From a distance they looked pretty dull – it’s a bit tough to get excited about visiting granite – but up close they were quite amazing. They looked like some sort of crazy Salvatore Dali painting. It was like a granite funhouse, where everything was warped and weird and you never knew what sort of funky stuff was going to appear around the corner. Here I am with the rocks:

After the rocks we visited a Seal colony. These guys were much more active that the previous day’s Australian sea lions, but you couldn’t get as close to them. They sure picked an amazing natural habitat for their colony though! It was quite some amazing real estate. Here’s a picture of a bunch of them on the rocks (my photos of the prettier real estate don’t have as clear a shot of the actual seals)

The last KI activity was sand boarding. I’d done it before in New Zealand and had sort of had my fulfillment of the whole sand boarding scene, plus I was sick so I didn’t really feel like tumbling down a sand dune. I gave it one go anyway, and as predicted, fell off the thing and went tumbling down the sand dune. I spent the rest of my time taking pictures of other people and watching the boys try to out-do each other on sand board stunts down the hill.

We got back to Adelaide after an hour-long ride to the KI ferry, a 50-minute ferry ride, and then an hour and a half drive back to Adelaide. I was pooped. KI was gorgeous though – an expensive trip, mostly due to the super high cost of the KI ferry – and well worth the time and effort to go.

The next day was a free day in Adelaide, my first day in the city. I was still sick though, so I decided to use it as a rest day. I’ll be back in Adelaide a couple more times during my travels, so I’ll check out the town then. I had a free pancake breakfast at the hostel (they give you free pancakes!!!!!), ran a few errands, did some laundry and then spent the rest of the day on the internet and futzing with my journal.

This morning was a bit hectic – my clothes out on the line hadn’t dried sufficiently in 24 hours so I had to throw them in the dryer last minute, and then I lost my room key, which I never found. I was on a tight schedule, as I needed to make a bus to go to the airport. Got to the airport on time and got on the plane, but somehow I spilled whiteout all over myself. Hands, clothes, forehead and upper lip. I haven’t a clue how it happened.

I’m writing and posting this from Perth, Western Australia! The west coast! Haven’t been to this part of the country yet either. I leave tomorrow morning though, bright and early, to do a 9-day camping trip across WA and back into South Australia, finishing up in Adelaide. I then fly back to Perth and commence my travels up the west coast of Australia towards the tropical north. Why not just tour from Adelaide to Perth, you might ask? Why the 2 seemingly unnecessary flights? Ahhh, yes it does seem stupid up front that I flew to Perth only to tour back to Adelaide, when in the end I just need to go back to Perth again. BUT, the Adelaide to Perth direction goes to slightly different places that the Perth to Adelaide tour. One of my MUST SEE (or rather, must do) stops was only available on the Perth to Adelaide route, so I had to throw in 2 extra plane rides to make it happen. You’ll see in the next blog why I did this. I had no choice. I could not miss this stop.

So I’m hanging out in Perth for the afternoon. It’s much warmer here than in Victoria or South Australia. It sort of has a southern California vibe to it. I’ve only walked through the city as far as the bus stop to the hostel and the hostel to the supermarket (I had to buy bottled water. WA is the first state in Australia that I’ve been to where I absolutely cannot drink the tap water. It tastes like shit), but it seems like a really nice city. Again, I’ll be a tourist in Perth when I’m here next time.

That’s all for now kids! See ya on the flip side!

From Dexter to Tassie to Melbourne

I left you all hanging upon my return from New Zealand, which seems like ages ago at this point! Let’s dive right in then, shall we?

I returned from New Zealand, spent a day in Sydney (couldn’t make my flights work on the same day) and then flew up to Alice Springs, for some much needed relaxation up in the outback before my big journey around the country. There isn’t a whole lot to report on for those 5 days. I got into Dexter though, which I’m sure makes my father very proud. Watched it on a brand new 8-foot long projector screen too. I had initially though that the concept of an 8 foot television was excessive, but turns out I was wrong. It’s pretty awesome. So I watched a lot of giant Dexter, played a few games of scrabble, and even worked as a kitchen hand one night! That’s probably the closest I’ll ever come to being a chef in a restaurant. I mostly washed dishes and prepared plates for the food. I had no idea there was so much to be washed in the kitchen. I’d spent hours in that kitchen over the course of my working time at Glen Helen, but half the crap I was washing up I’d never even seen before - all sorts of odd contraptions and 87 different pans used for who knows what. So the next time you eat out, take a moment and think about ALL the dishes that went into making your food become a reality. It’s a lot of stuff.

I have to comment here on flying domestic within Australia. I don’t think I’ve mentioned what a pleasure it is, although at times the lack of security makes me (who is used to American standards) a bit uneasy. In Australia and New Zealand, if you use a self-check in computer, then nobody checks your ID. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve gotten on an airplane in this part of the world and never once had to take a photo ID out. You can also take liquids as carry on items! Remember those days? I had a bottle of rum in my backpack, and on I went through security. You can also still go up to the gate even if you don’t have a ticket. When did we stop that in the United States? Like 20 years ago maybe? So my companions who went with me into town to se me off in Alice hung out with me by the gate, and I said farewell at the gate with the “last call for the flight to Sydney” announcement in the background. Sort of like something out of a movie. But onward I went!

I treated myself to a night at a fancy hotel when I got back to Sydney – that American Express Starwood credit card was an amazing decision in retrospect. King-sized bed in an actual hotel, as opposed to a shared dorm with bunks, which is my usual form of accommodation. The next morning I was at the immigration office bright and early at 9 am, and 25 minutes and $290 later, I was granted permission to stay in Australia 25 days past my work visa expiry date. Thanks guys!

I stayed with my friend Julie in Newtown (near where I lived in Enmore last July-early November) for the next couple of nights. She had a spare room, so I had my own bedroom! I was very grateful for the place to crash and it was so nice to hang out with her for a bit. My time at her house was also significant because I came across the scariest dog I’ve encountered yet in Australia at her house. It hated me, and growled and barked every time I was even close. I actually started to get a bit uneasy around it. I can’t remember the last time I was afraid of a dog. Here’s a picture of Loki:

Yeah. That giant marshmallow had me shaking in my boots. I’m still determined to win the dog over though. I might bring it back some souvenir dog treats or something in an effort to buy its affection.

The first day of my backpacking journey around Australia was May 5^th. I had breakfast with Julie in Newtown, and then took the train to the airport for my flight to Hobart, Tasmania. I shall return to Sydney on July 24^th. Until then it’s just me and whatever I was able to cram into Stewart, my 70-liter backpack.

I got to Tasmania in the late afternoon, and my tour bus picked me up the following morning for a 5-day whirlwind tour around the state. I already had my first mishap with Stewart that first morning. I thought a little staircase was a flat landing and went for a bit of a tumble. Falling down 3 stairs isn’t a huge deal, but with a 40-pound enormous backpack on your back, a 20-pound smaller one on your front, and a 5-pound food bag (currently filled with extra shoes and washing powder) in one hand, falling down 3 stairs is a bit dangerous. I landed luckily though, and just slightly bruised my knee. That was a good reminder though to be super careful when covered from head to toe in bags.

Anyway, moving on from my spastic-ness, my Tasmania tour was with a small group backpacker-geared company called Under Down Under. For those of you who don’t know where Tasmania is, it’s an island state of Australia underneath the mainland. About an hour flight from Melbourne, and an hour and a half from Sydney. It was a mid-sized van, and there were 13 of us, all about early to mid-20s. We did a TON of sightseeing each day, and while I could bore you to death with detailed descriptions of everything, I’ll just put up a few pictures of some of my favorites and a little description. That sound OK with everyone?

Here’s a photo from Mt. Field National Park. This was actually the first stop we made. We did a bit of a hike through the forest. Tasmania is really awesome in that it doesn’t feel anything at all like mainland Australia. The landscape and the plant life and the overall vibe is just incredibly different. It actually felt a bit at times like I was back in New Zealand, with all the ferns and chilly weather.

This is Queenstown. Queenstown in New Zealand is a world famous adventure destination, on the shores of a gorgeous lake with a mountain range called the remarkables in the background. Queenstown, Tasmania is an old mining town with no shrubbery or trees or grasses in the surrounding area because the mining back in the day produced acid rain which killed everything. Driving up to Queenstown kind of felt like driving through a lunar landscape. Here’s a photo of the little town. It was an odd place. I watched these kids ride around on their bikes through their misty old mining village, and tried to imagine what it could possibly be like growing up there.

This is a photo of me hiking in Cradle Mountain National Park, in Cradle Valley. We did a group hike up to Marion’s Lookout. I don’t know how high it was, but my heart was racing for about 10 minutes after we finally reached the summit, and my calf muscles were sore the next day. So it was pretty friggin high up. Unfortunately I didn’t actually see Cradle Mountain, as we weren’t blessed with great weather, but we still were able to take in some amazing views, so I can’t complain.

Towards the end of that same hike, I saw my first wild wombat!

This is a picture of Cataract Gorge, just outside the center of Launceston, which is Tasmania’s second largest city after Hobart. It was really pretty – it reminded me quite a bit of the gorges up in Ithaca.

This next one was taken at the Bay of Fires. It’s an amazing beach, the water is so clear and takes on that Caribbean shade of blue! I didn’t go swimming (keep in mind we’re heading into winter down here…) but just hanging out on the beach was pretty entertaining unto itself.

This is from the last long hike that we did, in Freycinet National Park. We hiked up over a little mountain and then back down the other side to get to Wineglass Bay, which is what this photo is. Again, a bit nippy for swimming, but the scenery was so spectacular that I was sufficiently amused.

Devils! What trip to Tasmania would be complete without seeing some Tasmanian devils? I’d seen them before in zoos in Sydney, but it was much more satisfying to see them in a zoo in Tasmania J They’re in trouble though out in the wild. There’s some sort of fast-growing cancer that spreads on contact that’s killing them off. It’s very sad. No one’s sure what’s causing it yet, or how to stop it. The two devils pictured here are sisters. They were in the middle of a hell of an argument when we walked up to their enclosure.

So those are some of the highlights of my trip to Tasmania! It’s a beautiful place. I think I’m going to add walking the Overland Track to my bucket list of things to do before I die. The track is in Cradle Mountain – Lake St. Clair National park, and the little walk that we did up to Marion’s lookout was one of the routes you can take to get to the starting point of it. One day I shall return! When my fitness level is a bit higher that is, so I can handle it….

So I bid Tassie adieu and headed off on the next leg of my journey: Melbourne! Australia’s other big city, which I had not yet been to. It was about an hour flight from Hobart, but the flight took off at 6:05 am, so that was a bit difficult for me. I got to my hostel nice and early, well before check-in time, so I used the time to catch up with my emails and whatnot. The hostel itself is awesome. This place is like the Ritz Carlton of the YHA hostel network. I wish every hostel I stayed in was as sexy as this one! Plus it’s a drop outside the city center on a nice, quiet and leafy street, which means it’s not a magnet for the grungy, party backpacker crowd. I like to avoid them as often as possible.

Once I was able to check in and put my things in my room, I headed off into the city to run an errand and check out Chinatown for dinner. It’s commonly said that Melbourne is the most European of Australia’s cities, and I’d have to agree wholeheartedly with that. I’m sort of glad I ended up plopping myself down in Sydney when I first got here though. Sydney felt like Australia, just the urban part. Melbourne doesn’t feel like Oz at all! It’s like being in some random European town. There are tree lined boulevards, horse-drawn carriages in the streets, trams everywhere, lots of historic buildings, a river running through the middle of town and chilly gray weather. It seems out of place when I pass a souvenir shop and they are selling koala and kangaroo merchandise. It’s a fantastic city though, really unique and charming. They even have a free tour bus! Every city has them, the giant overpriced hop-on, hop-off busses designed to shuttle tourists around the city’s main attractions. But the bus in Melbourne is free! Amazing stuff! There’s also a free tram. It’s an old tram first used in the city back in the 1930s, and it circles around the downtown area, providing commentary and useful information about what attractions are near what stops. I was beyond impressed. Melbourne sure does take very good care of their tourists! Here’s a few random photos that I’ve taken:

This one below is the Shrine of Remembrance, a memorial for fallen soldiers near the city’s Botanical Gardens:

A view of one side of Melbourne over the Yarra River:

A tram in front of one of the historic buildings:

The Melbourne Cricket Ground, Australia’s largest stadium, with a seating capacity of 100,000:

Federation Square and St. Patrick’s Cathedral:

The historic Flinders Street Station:

I also treated myself to food in Melbourne. For the most part, when the tours aren’t feeding me I’m keeping it as simple as possible. My next 2 dinners that I’m preparing for myself consist of instant noodles and a peanut butter sandwich on night 1, and a can of beans on night 2. Yeah. A can of beans. But in Melbourne I ate! I tried two restaurants in Chinatown for their xiao long bao soup dumplings, and tonight I headed over to Little Italy for some Italian food. I also checked out the Queen Victoria Markets yesterday morning, and got a bushel of grapes for a buck and some famous King Island cheese for a mid-day snack. It’s nice to eat well! Melbourne is the last stop on my itinerary though that’s really known for its gastronomical indulgences. Until Europe, when I shall splurge again, it’s going to be a heck of a lot of instant noodles, peanut butter sandwiches, and beans.

So my time at Glen Helen was wonderful, Tasmania was stunning, and Melbourne was impressive. What’s next? I’m travelling to Adelaide tomorrow morning via the Great Ocean road, stopping at Grampians National Park, and then heading over to Kangaroo Island, which is supposedly one of the best places in Australia to spot a koala in the wild. Stay tuned!!!

Aotearoa Round 2 - Sweet As!

And so my travels in New Zealand have finally come to a close. I spent an additional 9 and a half days running around being a crazy tourist, and I was quite happy with everything that I saw. Definitely worth the return trip!

So I flew back from Glen Helen on April 11th and spent a few days re-organizing myself. I shipped home one of my giant suitcases! I’m starting my preparations to go home at the end of August. I’d like to be able to get on the airplane without checking additional bags at extra cost and without paying heavy baggage fees. It’s going to be tough, but I am determined to make it work!  I’d like to say that my time in Sydney was enjoyable, but it was not. While I very much liked being in a city again (although being amongst massive quantities of people again was a bit strange…) and eating lots of thai food and soup dumplings, the hostel I stayed in was absolutely awful. I tried a new one this time because it was in my old neighborhood, but it was terrible. Gross, uninhabitable, and filled with inconsiderate nitwits. I was not a fan at all. I will not be returning.

I flew in to Wellington to start NZ round 2, which is the capital of the country at the bottom of the north island. I was standing in line to get through customs when I saw someone who looked like Orlando Bloom. I said to myself: that looks like Orlando Bloom! Then I took another look at the dark-haired guy carrying the year-old baby who looked to be the same age as Orlando’s son Flynn, and then I said to myself: That IS Orlando Bloom and Flynn! An A-list celebrity and a celebrity offspring sighting! So exciting! What better welcome back to New Zealand present than having Legolas himself greet me at the airport! I guess it does make sense though. He is filming The Hobbit movie in Wellington, and he has to get there somehow! I was quite pumped to be back in Kiwi land after that. I’d been in the country for like 7 seconds and I was already seeing some cool stuff J

The rest of the day was spent relaxing at the hostel in Wellington. I’d stayed at the place a couple of times when I was in town before – it’s a nice hostel, converted from a hotel, so it has much more of a hotel-vibe to it than a backpacker joint.

Day 1 in New Zealand Round 2 was spent at Te Papa, New Zealand’s national museum. It’s a pretty hi-tech place. Very modern, with exhibits on New Zealand’s geology and geography, Maori culture, and European history. I went on an introductory tour first, and then wandered around for the rest of the day myself. I was quite impressed with everything. They had a giant colorful marae (Maori meeting house), a hologram show, a house that shakes to simulate an earthquake and a couple of motion simulator rides. Te Papa was much more bad-ass than any museum I can recall visiting in the recent past.  I was already pleased with my decision to return to the country. I wouldn’t have wanted to miss that experience.

Day 2 was also spent in Wellington. I went on my first Lord of the Rings tour! It was a day trip through the Wellington area to visit film locations, as well as to visit the Weta Caves, which is where a lot of movie production is done for films made in New Zealand. The tour group was small that day, just me and one other girl – ironically, a Cornell undergrad from Trumansburg. Small world! We visited lots of places in the Wellington area. It was neat to see where they filmed stuff, but it was also nice to get to drive around Wellington and the surrounding area just to see what it looked like. We took a bunch of super dorky photos at the different film locations; and while I think they are super awesome, some of them are so nerdy that I dare not actually post them on the blog (or facebook J) Here are a couple of non-dorky ones though:

We learned quite a bit about how they filmed things to give the appearance of people being all different sizes. Here’s an example shot of me and the other chick – both of us are about the same height, but not in the photo:

Pretty cool trick, eh? Here’s another picture:

Looks pretty dull, but this is THE spot where they hobbits hid from the Nazgul in the first movie (the tree was computer generated):

 All in all, a very worthwhile excursion!

Day 3 was a travel day. I took a bus from Wellington to Rotorua, which is about a 7 hour drive. Once I got to Rotorua I went souvenir shopping for all the things that I didn’t buy last time. I also have to mention the Rotorua hostel. Super nice, and one of my favorite hostels I’ve stayed at thus far on this whole trip. It was a big old house, and the place was run by a very nice husband and wife team. There were beds only, NO bunks, and the mattresses were quite comfy. I managed to sneak a bed in an alcove, so it felt like I was sharing the room with only one other person. Plus the place had bathtubs and a hot tub outside. Not bad for $22 a night!

Day 4 was the start of the last section of the Stray bus tour. There is a 3 day side trip based out of Rotorua that I didn’t have time to do on the first trip, so I scheduled it for round 2. It was just a small van, only 8 of us plus the driver. We went out to the eastern cape of the north island, which has a very high population of Maori people. The drive out to the first overnight stop was lovely, but the roads were super windy and I got a bit of motion sickness. I’m getting old! Here’s a photo of the place we stayed at:

 It was a little hostel run by a Maori guy and his family in a pretty rural section of the coast – no mobile service! I spent the afternoon on a fishing boat. We rode around the bay picking up lobster traps. Those suckers are HUGE! Here I am posing with a few of our conquests:

We had a nice bbq dinner that night (including freshly caught lobsters J) that our driver prepared, and then stayed up late chit chatting. It was nice and relaxing.

Day 5 we slowly made our way over to Gisborne, which is the biggest city on the east cape. We stopped at a few little touristy spots along the way before arriving at our hostel, which was another beach shack, only this one had a farm in the backyard. Ocean in the front and farm in the back – not too bad! Here’s a picture of the yard right out front:

We had a traditional Maori hangi meal for dinner that night in an enclosed fire pit -  also quite a nice evening. I wasn’t too hungry, so I ended up feeding most of the meat in my meal to the hostel cat in a weak attempt to buy his affection.

The morning of day 6 was spent at the beach hostel. A lot of people went surfing with the free surfboards provided, but I took the opportunity to hang out solo in the hot tub instead. I then spent the rest of the morning chasing around the cat, with partial success. We took a slow afternoon drive back to Rotorua, again stopping at a few local tourist spots along the way. We got back to town around 5:30, where I hopped off the Stray bus for the final time! The hop on hop off bus ended up being a great move for me. I took advantage of the hopping off feature when I travelled most of the country in December/early January, plus I was able to see so much more than I would have with a regular tour. I will miss the orange Stray bus!

Day 7 was back to me on my own. My first stop was a morning trip to Rainbow Springs Wildlife Park. It was just outside the Rotorua CBD, so it was a short bus ride. The main reason for my trip to the wildlife park was to see a kiwi bird. In fact, one of the main reasons I returned to New Zealand was to see a kiwi. It seemed criminal to have spent all that time in Kiwi land without actually seeing one of the famous endangered national birds! I took a 10 am tour of the country’s largest kiwi hatchery. I didn’t get to see any birds in the hatchery, but there were 4 in the nocturnal viewing area, including one who was running laps like a madman. They’re so cute! I learned quite a bit about them on the tour – I really didn’t know much at all beforehand. My only regret is that I wasn’t able to get any pictures of them. They’re very sensitive to light, so you can’t take any photos of them L. The rest of the park was nice as well. Tons of native birds and trees, including a kea bird who danced better than I can.

The afternoon of day 7 was spent going on a 2 hour walking tour of Rotorua that was recommended by one of the hostel owners. It took me first through Kuirau park, which is a free area of geothermal activity to walk through. Rotorua is famous for its steam vents and boiling mud pools and sulphur smell – it’s an area of very active volcanic and geothermal activity. The next stop on the walk was through a Maori village on the shores of lake rotorua. The village itself was interesting enough, but the fact that some of the homes had backyards with steam rising out of them was pretty awesome; although I think I’d find that more amusing in theory than in practice – having a geothermal steam vent in my backyard might freak me out a bit. The last part of the walk took me by the shores of lake rotorua around a golf course. Lots more random steam vents, pretty views, and a wildlife reserve. I returned to my hostel 2 hours later with sore feet and a lot of awesome pictures.

I went to the pools at the Polynesian spa that night. It’s rated as one of the world’s top 10 spas, and it was only 2 blocks from where I was staying. There were 7 pools in total, including one that overlooked the lake. I sat in the lakeside pool and watched the sun set over the water. It was pretty cool J

I woke up early on day 8 to take a bus to a farm outside of Matamata – the home of HOBBITON! The actual Hobbiton set isn’t exactly the one that was used in Lord of the Rings – they unfortunately dismantled it after they were done filming. The current set is the re-created one that was built for the filming of the upcoming Hobbit films. Whatever, it’s still Hobbiton! It was unreal being on a LOTR set – like stepping into a movie! Here I am in front of one of the hobbit holes:

I even bought the Hobbit book at the Hobbiton store. I haven’t read it yet, so I figured what better place on earth to buy the book than the homeland of the Hobbits? It was the perfect souvenir for the perfect morning out in the Shire.

I spent that afternoon at Te Puia, which is sort of a Maori cultural park. They had a carving school where you could watch the apprentices learn traditional carving skills, a weaving school, a model village, a kiwi house (this kiwi was sleeping though), and a thermal area with a geyser that went off every 30 minutes or so. Here’s a picture of the landscape at Te Puia:

My last stop of the day was at a local spa for a mud bath. It was 20 minutes in a super hot bathtub filled with thermal mud. It was fun! The water was a bit too warm though, and I ended up giving myself a headache by sitting in there and playing with the mud for too long.

Day 9 was my last full day in New Zealand. I spent the morning at Wai-O-Tapu, which is another thermal area. I’d already seen a bunch of thermal stuff, but this place was known for being particularly spectacular – and it certainly was! The colors and the features at this place are really indescribable. It was like walking through another planet. Here’s one photo of the landscape:

And here’s me in front of a pool of water that’s naturally neon green:

The rest of the afternoon was spent waiting for 5 pm to get on my bus back up to Auckland. The next morning I got up at 4:45 in the morning and flew back to Sydney. The morning that followed that was a flight back up to Alice Springs for a few days rest at Glen Helen – and then the big schlep begins. 2 and a half months starting in Tasmania, and then going allllll the way around the country. But my plan for the next few days involves a lot of sitting and coke drinking and watching tv J.

Last Month at GHR

I’m back! No, I haven’t forgotten about my blog. I’m very aware that it’s been nearly a month since I updated last, which certainly breaks my guidelines of trying to do an entry every couple of weeks. I suppose part of the reason is that there hasn’t been a whole lot going on recently that’s blog-able. I even had a conversation with a co-worker about it the other day. For the most part, there aren’t a lot of things that happen day to day that my general readers would care about. There’s only so much of this kind of stuff that you guys would find entertaining: Got another mosquito bite today. Saw a snake. Picked him up and played with him. Fed a centipede to a lizard. Sold a meat pie. Struggled to open the “twist top” with a bottle opener on yet ANOTHER bottle of beer. Spilled unidentified food substances on myself. Yadda yadda…. You get the idea. My personal journal has been a bit thin over the past few weeks as well. Now that’s not to say that my time at Glen Helen has been dull towards the end, after I got over the excitement of the new surroundings and new job - quite the contrary, in fact. I just think towards the end of my stay in the West MacDonnell ranges, I simply started to focus more on living my life than constantly stressing about squeezing in the time to write about it – and that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

We finally got over the slump of the slow season. While I adore the heat of the desert in the summer, most people disagree and Central Australia isn’t super packed with tourists during the summertime (keep in mind summer is Dec/Jan/Feb!) I started in the midst of the slow season, where it was commonplace for there to be only a couple of the 25 motel rooms with people in them. Things start to pick up a bit in April, so for my final wok weekend I got a taste of what the busy season is like. My last weekend was Easter weekend, when the place was jam packed. Full motel, half-full backpacker bunkhouse, and half-full campground. That’s a LOT of f*cking people, who all need stuff all at the same time. It was especially tough because other than Easter weekend, it’s still not super busy, so the staff numbers aren’t really at what they normally would be when the place is consistently full over July & August. That meant there was a LOT of work to be done and not a lot of workers, ALL of the time. It was interesting. On Good Friday I started work at 2 pm and by the time we closed up the place so that it wasn’t a complete dire mess, it was 1:15 am. The next day I started at 12:30 in the afternoon and left at 12:15 am, just shy of the 12-hour mark. Easter weekend is a big family camping and party weekend in Australia – no partying for us in the hospitality industry though! Despite being slightly stressed out, I was glad for the experience. It gets quite crazy when the place is hopping. Plus the live entertainment recently started up again, so the homestead has a much livelier feel to it with live music 5 nights a week. Much different from those early days in January where we were closing up the registers and locking the doors at 8:30 at night, and I spent my days windexing windows that had been thoroughly windexed the day before, waiting for someone to show up and buy a coke or a beer or an ice cream cone.

We also had some recent missing person drama. A mentally disabled man somehow got away from his family while going out for a hike by Redbank gorge and was gone for quite a while. We cancelled our scenic helicopter flights and the pilot spent his days doing search and rescue instead. There were cops and search and rescue people everywhere for a couple of days. He was finally found, sitting on a cliff somewhere. He had eventually realized to light a fire, and our pilot was able to spot the smoke.

http://www.news.com.au/breaking-news/south-australian-man-michael-kenny-missing-in-redbank-gorge-found/story-e6frfku0-1226322303088

My last shift was quite special. It was documented as a photo essay! If I could go back in time, one of the things I would have done differently at Glen Helen is better photo documentation. I spent all this time at this place and with a certain small group of people, and barely had any pictures of anything at all! My last shift I had my good friend & next door neighbor (whose identity shall be suppressed per his/her wishes!!! J)  follow me around and take pictures of everything. Literally. Everything. I even have pictures of me taking out the trash and trying in vain to discern the old, scruffy cutlery from the new shiny stuff. It’s quite brilliant actually. Here are some of my favorite ones:

Me helping someone at reception:

Me pumping gas!!!!

Me being a waitress:

Me doing my favorite activity – restocking the fridge!!!!

And, the one thing I thought I’d never do in life – me being a bartender!

I was pretty content with most of my last shift. It was fairly busy, and we had a pretty packed restaurant that night as well. I did the waitressing all by myself, with no help and no mistakes. I was pretty pleased with that. Everyone hung out for quite a few hours after, and we had a fun night. It was a good way to close out my Glen Helen career.

I had booked my flight to go back to Sydney on April 11^th, and was therefore planning on working up through the 10^th. One of the staff needed to be in town on the 10^th though, so I left a day early and spent my last day in Central Australia hanging out in civilization again.  I had McDonalds chicken nuggets for lunch, and even went to the movies! As much as I will miss my new home away from home 135 km west of Alice Springs, it was quite nice to be in civilization again.

I’m writing this from the plane (at least the first draft anyway). We’re probably about 45 minutes outside of Sydney at this point. When I was walking towards the airplane in Alice, seeing the airport for the first time since I stepped off the flight coming up here on January 23^rd, I was amazed at how quickly the time flew. I’ve been up here about 11 weeks. It seemed more like 11 days! Time in general is flying  by quickly. The month after next, I’ll hit the one year mark away from home.

As this era comes to a close, it’s only fitting to do a recap on the experience. I wish I could recap the era nicely and put it into a concise little paragraph filled with reflections and witty commentary on my time as an outback waitress and bartender, but that would be impossible. Once I got to Australia and the panic attack of oh-my-gosh-what-have-I-done settled and dissipated, I decided that I wanted to have a nice city job in Sydney (which I successfully found at HSBC) and a nice random ass job somewhere a bit more rural somewhere else; the kind of job that I could only do in Australia. I don’t recall exactly what got me thinking about the outback, but it seemed like it would be a cool experience. I vaguely remember stumbling across the Northern Territory’s official website and falling across this video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LFe0oe-537Q

I was sold. Lots of emails and plan arrangements later, I stepped off an airplane in Alice Springs to be picked up by one of the owners of Glen Helen Resort, who was nice enough to hire me without any hospitality experience. I don’t know what it was exactly about the place, but I decided that’s where I wanted to be, and I made it work. I changed a bit of the overall plan for my year in Oz to make Glen Helen fit into my schedule, and I can’t say that I have any regrets. Both the job experiences and the personal experiences out there in the middle of nowhere were priceless. Never in my wildest dreams did I envision myself as a bartender at an Australian outback pub, but there I was, the girl from Queens pouring drinks in the Northern Territory. Pretty good stuff!

When I got back from my 2 and a half months of travels in January – that would be Jillaroo school, surf camp, and my tour of New Zealand, for those of you who are a little fuzzy on the details – I couldn’t wait for more. I sort of looked at my time at Glen Helen as somewhat of a means to an end. While I hoped to enjoy the experience of living and working in the outback, I looked at the time up here as a time to make money and relax. I had sleep to catch up on, books to read and dozens of discs of Lost to watch. I planned on lots of journal writing and lots of coke drinking, spending quiet time in my very own room. In the end though, Glen Helen has been the most significant experience of this whole trip thus far, and I can already say with confidence that it’ll remain so, regardless of what comes next. Yes, there is scuba diving to be done, Hobbiton to visit, great white sharks to swim with and many nights ahead of me sleeping in a swag under the stars; but in the end, sometimes the more basic things in life carry much more meaning and have a much greater impact.

What’s next for me? 3 days in Sydney that are going to be filled with lots of yummy asian food and even more not so yummy (but necessary) errands, and then off to New Zealand! Yes, I’ve been there before. But there was so much more to do that I’m going back. I have 10 days of stuff planned for myself before I start touring Australia! After that I fly over to London (and Suzy’s couch) for the Olympics, followed by a quick visit to Paris and a yet-to-be-determined location, and then…Whitestone? My goodness, time flies!