Mercury Studios Overseas

Airlines Don’t Suck So Much

david@mercury-studios.com (David) — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 17:40:00 +0000

Subtitle: A380’s and Home
So I’m back home now—back in the US of A. Actually I was two days ago, but I slept most of the first day then didn’t feel like writing a blog the second day. This just happens to be my 63rd blog post, which means of the 150 or so days I was in Australia, I managed to write one for every two and a half days which isn’t bad. Now to the blog title:
I can easily say that this trip, as apposed to the trip that brought me to Australia (Airlines Suck) was ten times less stressful and difficult. I have to admit it all looked to be going pear shaped when I left Monday morning and a wheel burst on my luggage about half way to the train/bus station that would take me to the airport then there was a good 40 minute wait to check in and drop off bags, but it got resounded better after that. In fairness the check-in wait was due in majority to the brand spanking new A380 (which I flew on) heading to LAX, and what I could only guess was a 747 headed New Zealand and on to LAX. On, what I estimated to be its 25th passengered voyage across the pacific, the A380 is a monster. It doesn’t look quite so imposing from the outside but from the inside the wings are enormous and the cabin is ridiculously wide (on the bottom level). While at the gate, the wings bow, bending under weight or length. As you take off, your ears pop just but the speed which it has to attain to get off the ground. The wings—which must be made out of the most flexible material ever—straighten, wobble and bounce around in the wind. But when you’re up, clouds that would disturb any other plane are shredded by the enormity of this plane. This led to one fairly smooth flight, and the softest landing I’ve ever experienced (compared to one of the worst—top 3—on the connecting flight). The landing was partly due to the fact that the land was much closer than anticipated because of intense fog in the LA area (the pilot had threatened a missed attempt it was so bad). Surprisingly, this angry bull of a plane came to a stop before the end of the run way and taxied to the gate surrounded by airport police (bizarre?!). Due to the crazy amount of people on the plane LAX used two baggage belts to distribute luggage, which was a pain in the ass for singular travelers like me. Customs was a breeze, and my bags were deposited again (checked through, thanks Qantas!) and with boarding pass in had (thanks Qantas!) I could jump in the insanely long queue for security at Terminal 4 LAX for my connecting flight. 6 hours later I was in JFK (thanks STA! ), picking up my luggage from a near empty luggage belt because everyone took their lives and their kitchen sinks on the plane as carry on (thanks AA baggage fees! ), and in a car bound for Kinnelon, home.
It’s cold here. And there are no leaves on the trees. This bugs me.
Melbourne—‘the most livable city in the world’ (Economist tested, David approved).

Victoria (Vic) Market

david@mercury-studios.com (David) — Fri, 28 Nov 2008 11:14:00 +0000

As the largest open air market in the southern hemisphere it is by no means the prettiest, but it is the best. I’ve been to this place at least once a week every week while being here. While that partially because it’s so close, 4 minutes walk down Peel Street, but mostly because its such good value and selection. Vic markets main attractions are its meat market, its veggie market, delicatessen, restaurants/cafes and general merchandising. Spread over numerous sheds and buildings it’s easy to get lost amongst the stalls. I didn’t get a chance to go in the first week I was in Melbourne, but I remember first walking into the open air sheds and just being amazed (and this was just one of the numerous sheds—selling just veggies). The great things about fruit and vegetables at the market is that they are cheap, cheaper than any prices you get at Safeway or Coles (big brand supermarkets), so from that point I brought most, if not all, of my produce from the Vic Market for the remainder of the semester. The meat section is also astounding, with two aisles of butchers, serving and dicing fresh beef, pork, lamb, chicken and fish. I also never bought meat from a supermarket for the rest of the semester. Next door is the delicatessen building. Just walking in this door makes me drool. With bakeries in building, and more cheese than a whole heard of sheep and goats could make in a lifetime. It also has deli meats, certain marinated meats and specialty meats like rabbit, crocodile or kangaroo (it’s good, honest). Finally there’s the area where you undoubtedly spend the most amount of time at Vic Market (partially because it makes up so much of it), the merchandise section. With the best selection of souvenirs, useful goods and useless goods it’s a great place to pick up something for a very cheap price. Bargain! It’s often worth a walk through even if you don’t intend on getting anything because there is just so much in there.
There are downsides to the market though. The first is its opening hours: Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday, morning to mid afternoon. The second is the quality, sometimes you really have to look hard for something that’s even worth the price their asking. And finally is the quantity, if you really think about how this place works: the retailers buy in bulk and all the similar stores sell the same crap. If you can get over those three things, you can spend hours hunting down the best price for two potatoes, a boomerang or that perfect pork chop.

MCG and Footy

david@mercury-studios.com (David) — Fri, 28 Nov 2008 10:45:00 +0000

(click to enlarge)

This is a post I’ve wanted to right pretty much since the first weeks in Melbourne. But (lying) I wanted to wait till I toured the place, which I did yesterday. In the semester that I’ve been here, I’ve been to the ‘g’ (as the MCG is referred to), home of the Melbourne Cricket Club, 4 times. 3 times to see footy matches and once to tour the place and explore the national sports museum. Footy is an interesting sport, but we‘ll get to that in a second, first its venue for 46 games a year.
Seating just over 100,000 in its permanent seating. It was home to the 1956 Melbourne Olympics and 2006 common wealth games. The Victoria cricket club and numerous footy teams call this place home. They lease the grounds along with a multitude of others including soccer, rugby, concerts, international cricket and international footy. It’s also home to the Boxing Day test match, a long held tradition in Australia. The six white light towers light the field, and are the largest for a stadium of its size in the southern hemisphere. In the center of the oval is a unique drop-in pitch for cricket that allows 10 cricket strips to be grown externally and placed into the centre. I saw three footy matches there; coincidentally every time I saw the Hawthorne Hawks…who went on to win the premier ship. I chose to support the Richmond Tigers, as they were the first team I saw win and they looked pretty good…they came in 9th (which apparently is sort of a curse/traditional place).
Footy:
I believe there are four stages to the appreciation of Australian Rules football. The first I experience when I first watched a match on TV. The first stage is characterized by complete confusion at the crazy game you’re watching. There’s kicking, passing, running, jumping, giant banners, oversized pompoms and four goal posts! Then when they win there are team songs, like theme songs for a team which a played and everyone knows the words and sings along. Most of the songs are set to other tunes like the Hawks being set to the tune of Yankee Doodle Dandy. Anyway at the end of the first stage, you’re confused, you want to know more, and you were thoroughly amused by that game. So you look up and/or learn the rules and that leads you to the second stage. I looked up the rules during the first game, and the rules aren’t really that hard. At this point you are completely content with the game, so you watch more. Then stage three hits, and that’s the onset of confusion again. There are more rules to this game that was initially apparent. Rules about tackling, running with the ball and passes—there one particular rule that makes the crowd yell ‘Come On!’ or ‘Awww!’ The next stage I never got to because I only saw three games live and the season was ending. But I assume the next stage is regular seats with meat pies and beers, calling out the player’s names, with radio commentary in one ear and complete understanding.
Whichever stage of understanding you are on with this absurd yet great game, you will undoubtedly enjoy it. And I did see the tigers play once, they lost…to the hawks.

Like the tiger of old,
We’re strong and were bold.
Oh we’re from tiger… (Yellow and black)
Oh we’re from Tigerland!

Wilson's Promontory (the Prom)

david@mercury-studios.com (David) — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 06:27:00 +0000

Before Tassie, and even before exams started Barry another friend Meiko and I went to do Wilsons Prom in a weekend. We probably couldn’t have picked a better weekend as the weather was clear yet not too warm. This is surprising because this whole trip (car, capsite, tent and food) was planned in just under three days. Like the last two trips this one is in bullets:

DAY ONE:
• 2 hours drive from Melbourne east to Wilson prom, the most southerly tip of the Australian continent (excluding Tasmania).
• Wilsons prom is a huge national park, with an entrance at one end, a winding road down the middle to Tidal River, a fairly large camp site, at the other end.
• The prom is the largest coastal national park in Victoria, combining natural wildlife and a mix of sclerophyll and cool temperate rain forrest.
• In 2005, a portion of it (mostly along the east side of mount Oberon) was burnt by a wild fire and the traces of it still exist today, though the green has grown back.
• At the campsite it took a good 45 minutes to set up this new tent Barry had bought from Big W (basically wal*mart).
• After those shenanigans we took a walk up mount Oberon to the lookout point for some awesome views down on Tidal River, and further down to the south where the light house marks the tip.
• The idea was after that to take the walk west of Tidal River to see the sun set along Squeak Beach (that squeaky sand again). We got part way and saw a wild kangaroo and wombat on the way.
• That night we make shifted a barbeque dinner and played some card games into the night.
• Around 11 we took a walk down the beach to try and see some stars (I still haven’t beaten Phillip Island…but I didn’t go to the outback). We ran into about 3 wombats on the way, bringing that nights total up to about 6.
• There was a really awesome warm wind coming off the sea while we sat outside, but later at night that wind turned pretty strong and the tent (which probably wasn’t built right) took a battering
• We got up about three times to readjust tent pegs, the tent at some points was flat on us from the wind.DAY TWO:
• The night before while eating dinner we had talked to a guy and he had suggested we take the trail down to Sealer Cove. The trail goes from about the centre of the Prom, out to the east coast.
• Its also 10 km.
• One way.
• Despite its length, which really wasn’t that bad looking back, the walk was actually really nice beginning in the scorched rock and trees below Mt Oberon down into sclerophyll forest and further down into cool temperate rainforest and alternating between the two after that (shades of Victoria, Australia).
• We saw two wallabies, but that was it despite numerous occasions of rustling in the woods around us.
• There was a cool stream about halfway down (or up depending on which way you see it), which had really clean and cold water which was just one of the spots we stopped for a rest.
• After just shy of 20 km of walking in a day, we fell into the car and collapsed.
• We then had a good hearty meal of Maccas on the way back (I think we earned it).

Tassie: 'The Kind of Photo You Might Use as a Screen Saver'

david@mercury-studios.com (David) — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 11:40:00 +0000

(Continued from ‘Welcome to Another Beautiful Day in Paradise’)

Day Five:
• The second half of the 6 day tour follows the east coast down to Hobart. As we awoke the Spirit of Tasmania II was docking from its trip from Melbourne.
• After breakfast at the Elizabeth Town Café for breakfast, we exchanged travelers from those doing the west coast for those doing the east coast. With three others doing the entire six days like myself.
• The ETC was about half way between davenport and Launceston. At Launceston we stopped at Cataract Gorge.
• At Ledgerwood we stopped to see the chainsaw carvings of Eddie Freeman to honor the soldiers of WWI (and ‘trim’ some annoying trees for the town).
• Through the farm land we entered cool temperate rainforest again to see St. Columba falls—90 meters of waterfall.
• Out to the coast and to 2009’s Lonely Planet Tourist Destination of the Year, the Bay of Fires. With white sands and bright blue-turquoise waters, countered by the red rocks it’s easy to see why. However it rained the entire time we were there.
• That night we stayed at Bicheno (bick-en-oh), slightly further down the coast.

Day Six:
• The rain hadn’t stopped that night, and the east coast is supposedly substantially better than the west for days of rain a year.
• We stopped quickly at the Bicheno blowhole on the rocks of the shore.
• With rain still coming down hard we arrived on the Fraycinet Peninsular and National Park to see Wineglass Bay (the east coasts most iconic sight). Here it is:• I swear its there…somewhere.
• On our way down the to the Tasman peninsular along the coast we took a short cut through sclerophyll forest, along a fairly good dirt track—it is adventure tours after all.
• We arrived in Port Arthur that night, the most notorious convict station in Tasmania and probably Australia.
• Me and Mary, someone else who was doing the whole six days, took a ghost tour of the supposedly haunted place.
• The Separate Prison was perhaps the scariest place, the doors banging and draft from open windows didn’t help.
• After raining most of the day, it had stopped by the evening, and was clearing.

Day Seven:
• With clear skies in the morning we had a chance to see the dolerite columns on the coast, and remarkable cave (but the trail to it was closed—apparently its remarkable)
• We had time to explore the penal colony known as Port Arthur.
• With only a short time, we had a tour as well as time to look around ourselves with a guide book.
• Lunch back at the ATA accommodation (fittingly named ‘the penitentiary’) before going to see some Tasmania Devils have their lunch.
• Khani says he never misses the devils feeding, and when you watch them you can understand why.
• They’re unbelievably cute marsupials given their vicious nature and the jaw strength second only to the salty crocodile—strong enough to bite through bone.
• Tasmanian Devils are only found wild in Tasmania now, and due to a transferable cancer known as devil facial tumor disease were recently marked as an endangered species (May 2008).• The centre also had a dancing and talking corellas, and hand feeding kangaroos and wallabies.
• As we left it began to rain, and rained the entire trip back to Hobart to conclude the tour.
• That night I walked out along to battery point, on the west side of Hobart.

Day Eight:
• If everything had been right I would have come home on this day, but because of an error by STA Travel quoting six a six night tour instead of 5, I had an extra day in Hobart.
• This was actually good because I didn’t get to see much of Tasmania’s capital city on my first night.
• In the morning the sky was clear again and I went to the Salamanca Market, the most beautiful market in the world. The whole street is lined with tents and stalls, below the sandstone buildings of Salamanca Street and Mt wellington in the background.
• After a good while in the market I went to the Tasmania Museum for a couple of hours.
• Following that I took a walk up to the botanical gardens. I missed the actual gardens the first time through, walking up through the soldier’s avenue, queen’s domain. On the way down (Hobart is built on a hill) I managed to find the actual gardens—much smaller than any of the other state’s.
• Somehow I managed to stumble upon the site of Beaumarie’s Zoo, famously the last place of known existence for the Thylacine (or Tasmania Tiger). It’s now supposedly extinct, though no one can prove either way.
• With that my last day in Tasmania ended, the next morning was my flight with pickup at 7am.

6 nights and 475 pictures and movies later my time in Tasmania was over and I had to head back to Melbourne to finish my exams. The whole trip was enjoyable, but the west coast substantially more that the east. Perhaps it was the weather, the things we did or the other people on the tour, but the west coast was truly spectacular, while the east coast was just good.
Oh, and the names of these two posts come from sayings Khani said pretty much every day.

Tassie: 'Welcome to Another Beautiful Day in Paradise'

david@mercury-studios.com (David) — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 11:32:00 +0000

Just got back from another quick trip (8 days), during the exam period. With so much time between exams—2 weeks between the last and the next—it was easy to schedule something in between, and something I had wanted to do since starting planning trips was Tasmania. A state of Australia (one of eight), but an island unto itself separated from the mainland country-continent, to its self. Like the great ocean road, ill do all of Tassie in bullet form.

Day One:
• I left from Melbourne around midday
• The flight was unbelievably short, from Melbourne to near the southern tip of Tasmania, Hobart. Just 5 songs on my iPod. And some amazing sights of Melbourne as it was a fairly clear day.
• Hobart wasn’t as clear, with colder temperatures (it was 30 the day before in Melbourne, then around 15 in Hobart) and rain threatening.
• I stayed in Montgomery’s YHA (monty’s) that night, which is a really nice establishment apart from being on the third floor.

Day Two:
• 6.35 pickup and the beginning of the first half of the trip, up the west coast.
• I went with Adventure Tours Australia, which offers a 6 day trip consisting of two 3 day parts (which can be taken singularly).
• The tour guide for the entirety of the trip was Khani, a friendly and energetic guy with stories galore and knowledge to boot.
• First stop was Mt field national park, where we walked through the tour trees and visited horseshoe and Russell falls.
• After a quick lunch, we stopped at Lake St Clair, the deepest lake in Australia.
• Continuing up the west coast we stopped at the second purest water source in the world, the Franklin River.
• Later that afternoon we pushed over the top of the mountain ranges, and down into the mining communities of the west coast.
• We ended the day in the town of Strahan (pronounced ‘strawn’), on the edge of the Macquarie Harbour (larger than the Sydney harbor and home of Sarah Island, a former convict station referred to as hell on earth)
• That night’s accommodation, and the next 4 nights (save one), was ATA owned—this just happened to be the newest and best.
• Khani is also an accomplished didgeridoo player

Day Three:
• It had been cloudy the day before, and we awoke to rain filled skies. Not surprising as the west coast of Tassie get about 300 days of rain a year.
• We took a walk to another waterfall that morning, Hogarth falls; 20 mins inland through cool temperate rain forest.
• After that a quick walk around Strahan, especially the wood centre (Sarah island convicts initially harvested the prized and old Huon pine)
• The Macquarie harbor’s entrance is narrow and shallow, and referred to hells gates. We went there next for a walk along the sand to the channel and look out to the southern ocean.
• A quick lunch in Zeehan then further up towards Cradle Mountain.
• By then the clouds were clearing and the clouds were lifting. With the west coasts reputation of 1 out of 7 nice days, we took the opportunity to get a good photo of Cradle Mountain across dove lake—Tassie’s most iconic land feature.
• We stopped at Waldheim, Gustav Weindorfer’s cottage. From there and on the way out of the park we saw 15 wombats, which is a record.
• Accommodation that night was in cabins inside the cradle mountain park.

Day Four:
• The weather held (in fact it was better) and in the morning we were able to take the more adventurous walk up to Marion’s Lookout from Dove Lake for an unobstructed view of Cradle Mountain.
• It had snowed (yea, in Australia) a couple of days before and there was still snow on the ground at Marions Lookout and up to the summit of Cradle Mountain.
• After lunch in Cradle Mountain we headed further north through the town of murals, Sheffield.
• The next town over was the town of topiary, Railton.
• The penultimate stop of the day was at Anver’s house of chocolate in Latrobe.
• Finally in Davenport we went to the coast to look out over the bass straight, staying in ATA accommodation to end the first half of the tour.
• As the sun set, the Spirit of Tasmania I, pulled away from dock for its trip to Melbourne.

Australian Idol

david@mercury-studios.com (David) — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 11:07:00 +0000

The Australian Idol finale was last night. Way back when I first arrived in Australia it was being advertised and it was advertised near constantly for a full month before it actually premiered. Ten practically did my head in with an unprecedented recursion of a single advertisement featuring the top 100 and the song ‘Can You Feel It’ (the Jackson five). Well after the auditions were over and the top 24 announced I kind of tuned the show out. This was also partially due to my loosing the signal for TEN on my TV. I did decided to watch the final, and was surprised to see two people I actually remembered from the auditions as the final two. The show began with the top 12 singing ‘Can You Feel It,’ and I remembered how glad I was when that finally stopped repeating on channel TEN.
After watching about 40 mins I put in my vote for Wes, and as there is only one night of finale (as opposed to American idols two), waited for the results. In the end Wes won, which is good because in their last two performances I preferred Wes over Luke. Wes’ first single song is actually really good, and I can see him selling a lot of copies of that tune. The whole show was really well put together, very compact and not as strung out as its American counterpart which was good.
The finale of the show has always taken place at the Sydney opera house, this year they held it outside and it poured with rain the whole show.

Great Ocean Road

david@mercury-studios.com (David) — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 08:36:00 +0000

In order to catch this blog up in as fast a fashion as I possibly can before this study abroad is over I’m going to have to change to elaborated bullet points of the major points to a trip and leave your creative little minds to fill in the gaps. This blogs filler should be a big ol’ bucket of bus-van, 21 person seater.

DAY ONE:
• The trip was through Melbourne Uni, the Outdoors club. For a small price they were offering trip along the great ocean road for Melbourne Uni students.
• The great ocean road is a winding road east of Melbourne along the cliffs of the coast built by returning war vets who had no jobs.
• Starting on Saturday fairly early in the morning with a two hour drive to our first destination
• 2 hour surfing lesson, I stood up almost at first but progressed fairly quickly backwards after that.
• The beginning of the great ocean road is marked by a log ‘entrance way’
• Second stop, huge waterfall (and so cold!)
• The windey part of the road began then, in and our along the headlands. Great views and sights.
• Third stop, wild koalas. Truly wild, not like the Phillip Island conservatory. And a joey fairly fresh out of his mothers pouch climbing amount the leaves.
• There were numerous stops along the way to get out and see some of the best sights from the great ocean road.
• At the waterfall the tour leader, ‘Azza’ (as he proposed to be called) filled the bus-van with sticks.
• That night at a backpackers in Apollo Bay, Azza lit a bonfire with said sticks and we sat around that for the last bit of the night.

DAY TWO:
• The next morning we headed into the rainforest first where Azza gave us a history/biology lesson of sorts about the massively huge and tall trees there.
• Heading back to the coast and the great ocean road we stopped at a few more beaches and overlooks for the views.
• The 12 apostles (or the ‘sow and piglets’ as they may have previously been referred to) were the next stop. What used to be 12 stumps of un-eroded rock separated from the mainland (now something like 8).
• Gorge Beach, where a ship had shipwrecked and the only two survivors washed ashore. We stayed here for a while. The water was absolutely freezing (I did go in), and learned a bit more about aussy footy (like how to kick and handball). Randomly ran into some of Barrys friends who I met in Brisbane.
• London Bridge—it did in fact fall down. A peninsular of sorts out into the sea that used to be like a bridge till the middle fell out. As bill Bryson (and Azza tell), two people were stuck out there when the bridge fell, they were cheating on their respective counterparts.
• Finally there was lunch, and the trip back to Melbourne.

It was good and enjoyable trip, definitively worth the money. The views and sights from the road were pretty spectacular, even the road itself. I would highly recommend it especially for study abroad students at Melbourne Uni who don’t have access to transport out there (and even if you do).

Classes: Part One

david@mercury-studios.com (David) — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 05:51:00 +0000

This is a series of posts I’ve been meaning to make since orientation exactly 12 weeks ago now. And being as this past week signaled the end of classes right now might be an apt time to write about classes overseas at the University of Melbourne. This first post is about taking classes overseas, and a second will be about the actual classes and professors. And this post basically follows on from this post
That Monday I took my first lectures in my classes, Chemistry, Culture Media Life, War State and Society, and Australian Indigenous Studies as well as my first tutorial for Chemistry. By Wednesday I had dropped chemistry (which I realized was WAY over my head) in favor of Globalization. With that change the rest of the week followed fairly smoothly as I began to understand and appreciate the Aussie way of classes. That was:
Each of my classes has three teaching hours a week. 2 of those are lectures. Lectures are in the large lecture halls around campus—most buildings have one, some have two, one even had 4 smaller ones. Here a single lecturer or a host of guest lectures give you the bulk of the information you will need for the class. Terms, theories, definitions and facts are shoved into you brain as fast as the lecture can in their 50 minute time period. The remaining hour is a tutorial. Here the big lecture hall is split into smaller groups (10-20 people each) to hold meetings throughout the week for sessions with tutorial teachers. In many cases tutorials take the form of discussions about the weeks topics presented in the lectures. It’s here that the information jostling around in your head is solidified with examples and clarification into something meaningful. After particularly confusing weeks it’s easy to see the benefit that tutorials have on classes. In some cases, like my Chemistry class which I promptly dropped, there are Practicals. Practicals are generally once a week in addition to lectures and tutorials and usually last for 3 to 4 hours for realistic application of the week’s material. Then finally for all classes there is reading. Interdisciplinary subjects and broad ranging subjects generally utilize a reader, while more concise subject will use the traditional textbook (chemistry, par example). The readers are separated by weekly divides and contain one to two readings that supplement the week’s lectures. Readers are good sources for material, information and quotes for essays that have to be written throughout the year, as well as for the reason they were designed—to be read.
The class day is split up into one hour periods, with one running into the back of the next. This means that lecturers and teachers generally run from 5 mins in to 5 mins before so students can get between classes. Although in some cases (my Culture Media Life lecture) the lecturer often ran to the very end or even over the time period.

I See Trees of Green...

david@mercury-studios.com (David) — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 07:16:00 +0000

...red roses tooI see em bloom...for me and for youAnd I think to myself...what a wonderful world.
I see skies of blue...clouds of whiteBright blessed days...dark sacred nightsAnd I think to myself...what a wonderful world.

(Spring: given that you experience every season on any given day in Melbourne)

To the Rescue

david@mercury-studios.com (David) — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 05:42:00 +0000

This is a regular part of my day. With the Royal Melbourne Hospital practically right across the street it does mean should i get injured in any way its right there, but it also means that everyone else is going there. There are two medical helicopters (the other one looks cooler) and they both land here at least 3 times a day although on a good day it can be over 10.

AusTour 20: Pictures

david@mercury-studios.com (David) — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 01:39:00 +0000

Pictures from AusTour (everything from Brisbane down to Sydney and into South Australia) have been added to the Gallery. That’s everything for AusTour, and it took me long enough to recount…

Oh and if you want to see or read every post from AusTour you can look at this page thanks to the magic of Blogger’s Labels!

The Melbourne Cup

david@mercury-studios.com (David) — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 12:02:00 +0000

Sunny and beautiful were the conditions for this Melbourne Cup day (the biggest horse race in Victoria—and I think Australia too) it really couldn’t have gotten any better. I went with Barry, some friends from AustraLearn and RMIT village for the 148th Melbourne Cup. The Melbourne Cup race is actually the 7th race of the day (out of 10) which is again part of a bigger festival at Flemington Racecourse the Melbourne cup festival (including Derby Cup day this past Saturday). It was my first time to a horse race so I wasn’t exactly sure what to expect but had been watching the other major races (Caulfield Cup and Derby Day Cup) in the previous weeks of the spring racing season. Melbourne cup isn’t just about the races, it’s about the fashion and flowers and there were many absurdly large hats and hairpins in the crowd. It was fairly packed at the racecourse, the general admission area being the grass zone between and in front of the two stands (grand stand and hill stand). The racecourse did look good and all the flowers were in bloom (mysteriously, they must train them or something as blooming was definitively 2,3 or even 4 weeks ago). The other part of the cup, of course, is the betting. The Melbourne cup is the most betted upon race in Australia (‘the celebration that stops a nation’) so I’d been trying to figure it out in the run up. I’d set a limit of $25 for betting that day with a good portion going to the actual Melbourne cup race(as most people do, the Melbourne cup is one that all join in on regardless of their experience). We arrived for race 4, but I didn’t bet till race 5. Reservedly I put $5 on Hips Don’t Lie to place (3.6 to 1 odds)…he would win, making that my first win in horse racing ever. The next race I bet on was the Melbourne cup, picking 3 horses to place and Nom De Jeu to win…none of those happened. In race 9 I picked Tour Guide to place (3.3 to 1 odds)…and he came in third. Finally race 10 picked Secret Flyer to place…as he passed us he was in third but fell half a length behind crossing in 4th. All in all, I ended up winning $1, that is I departed with one dollar more betting money than I arrived with (take that punters). Of course my strategies were based on punters odds and by how much I liked the horses’ name.
The Melbourne cup race itself was incredibly tight for first and second with about a half a nose between them (Viewed edging out Bauer) as they crossed the finish line.

Oh and Barry did fairly well too, ridiculously, getting some $40 and $60 winning tickets (he even had Bauer to win the Cup with 40 to 1 odds—missed that by half a nose) . Other people didn’t do so well. It’s all luck really and it’s all part of the sport. And overall it was a great day.

AusTour 19: Adelaide: the complete Review

david@mercury-studios.com (David) — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 01:37:00 +0000

Adelaide was great overall. It was like Melbourne multiplied by 0.65 and with 10 times the amount of grass. It was definitely quieter than Melbourne can ever be—not as exciting. On the plus side it makes a great place to get away from the city yet still be in the city if you know what I mean. The transport system isn’t great, but it’s not a big city so there is little problem. It was a good place to add on to the end of trip, not as expensive or as hot as Uluru and Alice springs, or as far as Perth, with enough to keep a tourist occupied and satisfied for a couple of days. And I can earnestly say I was satisfied.

AusTour 18: Adelaide Day Two

david@mercury-studios.com (David) — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 01:31:00 +0000

After a less exciting and informational ride back to Adelaide I stored my luggage in the terminal (having to return later that night) for day two in Adelaide. The first stop I made, and one I had seen the day before was the Rundle Street mall. Here I counted no less that 3 clowns, at least 7 instrument performers (including a singer, harmonica-ist, two boys emphatically playing ‘pep-band’ songs on trumpets, and several guitarists), 1 free tattoo lady [i was tempted...], 2 people on huge balls, and a couple of other people I cant remember right now. Rundle Street mall is a pedestrian only section of Rundle Street with more shops than your dog has fleas. Following that I walked up to the Adelaide oval for an actual tour. The old man who led it, dressed to the nines (or perhaps the eights) in a uniform you would probably expect from the turn of the century (20th that is) was fairly informative about the history of the oval and its specific significance in cricket history (host of the ashes in 1884 where England won!) as well as some of the major players after whom the stands had been named. We got to go out onto the oval grass (pretty cool) but the most impressive part was going inside the traditionally kept and still operable scoreboard. It’s a fairly mammoth task of operating this monster, and required at least 4 men on a good day.Following the oval tour I went down to the Adelaide art museum. Mostly this was to see some of their Aboriginal Art (Again for my essay), but I also spent some time in their more classical art of which they have a lot. For free entry it was good just walk quickly through the fairly sizable rooms for a quick glance at the art. As five o’clock neared again and everything in Adelaide began to shut down I headed down through Adelaide Uni to the banks of the Torrens. I sat for a while on the quite banks of the river, watching the ducks, rowers and sun sinking in the sky.
As the day drew to a close I grabbed dinner before heading back to the bus terminal for my bus back to Melbourne to end the trip. It was an overnight bus getting into Melbourne at 6:30 in the morning. It was good to be back in Melbourne, a city that is now incredibly familiar to me, but it was also nice to be away from it. Somehow I managed to get from Southern Cross station to my apartment without a single tram passing in my direction, a 30 minute walk.

AusTour 17: Kangaroo Island

david@mercury-studios.com (David) — Sun, 02 Nov 2008 01:24:00 +0000

aka the most unplanned and inefficient part of the entire trip. I had decided to go to kangaroo island on a whim—it was in the vicinity of Adelaide and was relatively easy to get to. What I didn’t decide on was how exactly I would get around such a large island. Most people rent cars or take tours to see the entire island. Me, I didn’t. Regardless of this deficiency I decided to treat Kangaroo Island as a day to relax, to take it slow for once on the trip.
The day began with a 6:45am bus from Adelaide bus terminal to make a ferry at 9. The bus and ferry were run by the same company, sea link. The bus driver was friendly even for such an hour and gave some pretty good commentary coming out of Adelaide and down through the valleys and wine (and olive) valleys. I’m sure it was interesting but I don’t remember much about it, partially and mostly because it was SO GAWD DAMN EARLY IN THE MORNING. Anyway when the bus got to the 45 min ferry line I saw the high and rough seas, groaned and took a travel sick pill before hiding in the centre of the ship away from anything that proved just how much we were rocking. Arriving in one piece and without any spillages, I disembarked to find a place to drop my stuff. Id seen the YHA from the ship so knew it wasn’t far and when I got there I found my key on the counter and let myself into my room. The owner of the hostel sprang up from nowhere after about five minutes and she was really nice and helpful. With my bags stowed in my room of six for one (!) I went ‘into town,’ what I mean by that is I went into the two roads that run parallel to form Penneshaw. The lady at the info desk was entirely unhelpful and arrogant so I left with little more than a map. With it only being about 11am I went into the only café in town, ordered a cup of tea and sat down with the days paper (how Bill Byrson!).
The owner of Kangaroo Island YHA had told me about a track along the coast and out to the ruins of a house. I decided I would walk that, having nothing else to do and no way to get anywhere else. The walk was pleseant and quiet, the sun was warm and the sky clear. I stumbled upon a group of wallabies and spent a while with them (probably most to their distress). It was a very casual wonder up and along the cliffs, in no hurry and stopping often to sit and look out to sea or across the hills. There was no hurry that had existed in the past 10 days, so it was entirely relaxing just to be able to go as fast or slow as I wanted. On the way back I saw some dolphins just off shore and watched them before they disappeared.
Back in Penneshaw I sat on the beach just taking in the atmosphere and basking in the sun for the remaining part of the afternoon. Again, incredibly relaxing atmosphere. After dinner there was a walk around the little penguin’s habitat for incredibly cheap. Unfortunately their colony has been decimated by seals eating the returning penguins so they weren’t nearly as loud or numerous as their Phillip Island cousins. After that I went across the road back to the YHA where I talked with 2 of the 4 other people staying there for a good while in the sitting room before heading to bed to depart the next morning at 11 back to Adelaide.
Kangaroo Island: the Complete Review
Yeah, I didn’t do anything really, but that was good. In the end that’s what I really wanted—not another action packed adventure. It’s definitively worth a visit if you do it right, there are lots of attractions on this quarantined island, they’re just spread out. With that in mind ill have to plan something better and come back to really explore the island.

AusTour 16: Adelaide Day One

david@mercury-studios.com (David) — Sat, 01 Nov 2008 01:17:00 +0000

As my first day in Adelaide dawned I decided I was going to follow the walking tour in the Lonely Planet book. We’d followed the one previously in Brisbane and it turned out alright (apart for being tired at the end). I headed north towards the start the botanical gardens and National Wine Centre. At some point I decided I didn’t want to do the tour because it had left out some of the places I wanted to see, so I used it as a rough guide before departing from it completely. My first stop was the Nation Wine Centre; Adelaide and South Australia are where a lot of Australia’s wine is produced (this and the Yarra Valley in Victoria), so I thought it an apt stop. The ‘museum’ was fairly generic and uninformative, the entrance rises above an open cellar and it was absolutely packed with wines of all kinds which was kind of interesting. From the Wine Centre I entered the botanical gardens. Adelaide’s botanical gardens are (smartly) split into two parts the actual gardens with plants of every kind for all over the world and, what most Aussies use Botanical Gardens for, the Botanic Park. The dichotomy allows the plants to grow and be admired and allows a place for Aussies to play and relax on weekends and days off (all the other botanical gardens I’ve seen in Australia mix the two). I walked through the rose garden, a symmetrical walk garden and past a pretty good replication of a Mediterranean house and garden and out past the zoo. The zoo was on my list of ‘maybes’ but looked uninviting from the road so I skipped it for now and continues over the Torrens into North Adelaide. Here I stopped quickly at St Peters cathedral where I was told pretty enthusiastically about their new stained glass windows that apparently represent Australia and its history. My next stop was the Adelaide Oval, I had planned to take a tour there and luckily the afternoon tours would start in the next couple of days. A stayed for a bit (the oval is part of Adelaide parks so you can just walk in) and watched the grounds men converting the footy pitch to a cricket ground. Following the oval I walked back into the CBD towards Tandanya an aboriginal Art museum (at that point I had to write a paper on indigenous Australia art for one of my Uni classes). The museum was showing aboriginal weaving at the time, which was fairly interesting and different from the painting traditionally associated with aboriginal art. With the working day closing I finished off my main attractions for the day in the Adelaide museum. The museum was fairly disorganized; there was no narrative just a show and tell performance. It was funny though seeing some of the North American animals in the mammal’s exhibit—mammals like the black bear which I see all too much off. As the museum closed I went up to Lights Vision which I believe is the highest natural point in the inner city with a view out onto the CBD. There was one thing left to do that day and that was to find dinner which was little problem, what was a problem was finding ice-cream anywhere in Adelaide—I mean proper ice-cream, the homemade stuff not the generically produced. Adelaide for one reason or another is completely devoid of ice-cream. I went back to My Place for the night and talked to some cool people about Kangaroo Island (where I would go the next day) and life in general. I had to go to sleep early because the bus left at 6:45. Yay.

AusTour 15: Adelaide an Arriving and Intro

david@mercury-studios.com (David) — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 01:13:00 +0000

Barry had left to return to Melbourne as his classes were starting up again, as Uni Melbourne didn’t start up for another week I had some more time to hit some more places. I chose to explore Adelaide for those days. I arrived into Adelaide later that night after leaving Sydney, slightly confused when the captain announced the time adding ‘if you want to change your watches.’ Id talked to a lady who had just come in international so I thought nothing of it, until I realized my phone clock and every other clock in the airport differed by 30 min’s (not a full hour, surprising). I’d done I little bit of research into how exactly to get from Adelaide airport to my accommodation—My Place Backpackers. I had to take a bus, I didn’t know which one nor when exactly I had to get off. So once again I was learning a transportation system as it was being imposed upon me. Needless to say I almost missed my stop and would have if I hadn’t asked the driver. I stepped out onto the street for the first time entirely in Adelaide (And south Australia for that matter)…and it looked nothing like I thought it would. It didn’t look bad, just different then what I had imagined. I partially blame Bill Bryson for this one I think. He chucked Adelaide and Canberra (Australia’s Capital) to close together in his book ‘In a Sunburned Country.’ I don’t know exactly what I was expecting, something like green lawns and white stone buildings both of which didn’t exist where I was standing and especially in the middle of the night.

Before diving head first into the warm waters of the next days schedule Ill finish this post by describing what Adelaide was, if it wasn’t what I thought it was. If at any point the previous paragraph came off as me depredating Adelaide it was because that was my initial impression as a fell asleep and it wasn’t until the next day (and daylight) that I found it a much nicer place. Adelaide has a pretty bizarre set up. The CBD runs along Torrens River, with North Adelaide sitting on the other side. King William Street runs vertically from north Adelaide through the CBD. Now here something peculiar happens. Road going horizontally across King William Street change names on the other side (Hindley becomes Rundle, Currie becomes Grenfell, Waymouth becomes Pirie, Franklin becomes Flinders etc). Adelaide began as a planned city, planned by Colonel William Light (Lights vision) to whom there is a statue on a hill on the north side of the Torrens. So while the previous illogicality seems to make no sense, there is a sense of direction to the city and it’s fairly easy to navigate. One of the other advantages is the ring (moat) of gardens or parklands that surrounds the inner city. As the inner city ends there is a block of Greenland before the suburbs begin, creating a buffer between the city and the suburbs. So in conclusion Adelaide proceeded to dispel any misconceptions I might have had about it the night before…which was good because I was there for two days.

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AusTour 14: Sydney: the Complete Review

david@mercury-studios.com (David) — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 01:15:00 +0000

(Sydney gets its own review post)

I did like Sydney. Like I mentioned in my first post on Sydney I was excited when I got there and this excitement carried through for the most part. I do, however, feel like I missed a lot of Sydney somehow. What we got in this trip to Sydney was the tourist experience. And we did it up proper. the see Sydney cards were really a blessing and a curse—get in easily, but have so much to do you don’t know what to do with yourself. In all it went too fast really, I would really have loved some more time to slow things down and take things at a slower pace rather than cram everything in. It will be something I will have to return to do at some point later as I feel like there was a lot of culture and life to Sydney that we missed. Also shoving it on the end of such a long trip down the east coast did it no justice either, by that point I was pretty exhausted…and it only continued on into Adelaide.

AusTour 13: Sydney Day Four

david@mercury-studios.com (David) — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 01:07:00 +0000

Day four dawned, and with it our last day in Sydney. After checking out and leaving our luggage with the hostel (what we had been doing the entire trip on the days we left when our departure was later in the day). We made our way down to darling harbour again where we had booked a ride on Sydney Jet. Sydney Jet was like the harbour cruise two days before. except that is was in a high speed jet boat, fish tailing and spinning etc. after donning fairly large ponchos we realized we might actually get wet on this ride. That was kind of an understatement; the guy who sat behind us might have been swimming at one point. Oh, and STOLEN PICTURE. Reasonably wet, we found some well prices fish and chips and dried off in the intermittent sun (typical as it was beautiful the day before). Following that we went to the National Maritime Museum which was on the opposite side of the harbour. We got entrance to the two ships they have with our See Sydney Cards—a submarine and a destroyer-type ship. The submarine was pretty fascinating, and I managed to do a classic door-swing through one of the portholes. The war ship was good, but I was extremely confused when the lights went off and it began simulating an attack sequence. The actual museum had some pretty cool stuff in it, included a temporary exhibit about toy boats to which there was a curious short film in French with toy-ship characters playing. Bizarre. With time running short we headed back to the hostel to retrieve our bags and through the end of rush hour headed to the airport. The trip there was hindered by one stick—that although the airport is in the transport system it requires a separate ticket to exit/enter the airport. After failing to find the source of a meat pie topped with mash potatoes in the airport and settling on Hungry Jacks for dinner again, Barry departed for Melbourne and I to Adelaide for more adventures around Australia.

AusTour 12: Sydney Day Three

david@mercury-studios.com (David) — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 01:00:00 +0000

Over exhausted and possibly with a mild case of heat exhaustion the next day dawned. The good news was it was going to be a nice day again—in fact it was going to hit 30 degrees centigrade. Our first stop was 2 hours on bicycles around Manly. Manly is a short ferry ride (one of Sydney’s 11 ferries named after the 11 ships in the first fleet to come to Australia in 1787—thanks Rocks tour!). In fact most of the locations outside Sydney are accessible by ferry either run by Sydney Ferries or the faster HabourCat’s. Manly is decidedly a beach culture; a thin strip is bordered on both sides by beaches and is a popular destination for Sydney day trippers. I should mention that it took us a good amount of time, a tour of Manly’s Ocean World (mucho insignificant compared to the Sydney aquarium we had seen the night before), a conversation with an old lady and a trip to the visitor centre before we actually found the bike place. There was no hassle to rent the bikes though and we made our way out along a suggested route by the bike shop man (a web designer/marketing student in uni…sounds vaguely familiar…). This route though was uphill most of the way, and by the time we got the top of the hill it was about time to go back down hill. After some creative directions by myself we got a quick tour of most of the city streets in Manly and visit to the beaches on both sides. After the ferry ride back from manly we made some impromptu decisions after missing the next schedule attractions (Barry’s fault for getting the location wrong) and got on the ferry to Darling Harbour. Essentially there are two sides to Sydney, the main harbour or circular quay where the Rocks, Opera House and Bridge are, and the secondary harbour (darling harbour) home of star city, plenty of clubs and restaurants, the aquarium, the national maritime museum and our next attraction Wildlife World.

Wildlife World is essentially the home of all critters Australian in Sydney (possibly apart from Tonga Zoo). Kangaroos, wallabies, spiders, snakes, koala’s, birds, and nocturnal’s (fact: there are more animals active at night in Australia than at day) etc. following Wildlife World we had some down time (thank god) before a night-time observatory tour at 830. The one hindrance to this was we needed to eat, and no where was open/ or even existed. It was absurd how we could be walking for 45 mins straight without passing a single restaurant open on a Sunday night. We would eventually settle for hungry jacks—fast food yum!

The observatory started with a free walk through the museum part of the observatory with some of the old telescopes and time keepers. There were some really fascinating objects in its collection but before we had time to see it all we were rounded up for a look at the stars. The observatory has two telescopes. The first was an old-fashioned one, hand adjusted through which we looked at Jupiter rising into the sky. The second was a more high-tech computer adjusted telescope which allowed us to see the double star that’s part of the Southern Cross. It was in this dome enclosure we found that the acoustics were just right now hear the person directly across from (even if they were whispering) you as if they were standing just behind you. It was bizarre and Barry and I had some fun with it before I said something too loud next to tour leader where he explained it and everyone caught on. The final part was a 3D star experience which proceeded to show just how small you were in comparison with the rest of the universe. I think I fell asleep near the end.

I eagerly embraced the bed when we returned that night before getting up for our fourth and last day in Sydney.

AusTour 11: Sydney Day Two

david@mercury-studios.com (David) — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 12:50:00 +0000

Our first full day in Sydney we were out and ready to go by 9. As someone had said on the phone the day before when we were booking attractions, ‘if you’ve got see Sydney cards, you’ve probably got places to be.’ This was true, at 9am that morning we were heading to a 2 hour walking tour of Sydney that didn’t exist. The phone went to some security service, and we never actually found the booth. Regardless of that setback we went towards the Opera House looking for a tour. We successfully acquired a tour, led by a very amicable Sue around, in and outside the Opera House. Because we missed the 10am Sydney tour we luckily got into the opera part of the opera house (surprisingly the smaller side) before a 12pm performance. In all we got to see 3 of the theatres including the biggest two. Both of the big theatres were amazing, size-wise, technology-wise, whatever-wise. We weren’t aloud to take pictures though so you’ll have to see it for yourself. Following the tour there was some time for picture taking around the Opera House. On the tour Sue had explained all about the history of the Opera House and its design (which I couldn’t possible recount here)—the whole structure really is amazing. During some more down time we went into the Botanical Gardens for a quick look (there were bats roosting in the trees) before heading to the Rocks for a Rocks walking tour. It was a walking tour but it was also the most action packed history lesson anyone could have ever conceived. The history of the rocks was pretty much like the smelliest, dirties, hardest fought story ever told. Maybe I’m exaggerating, but the area of the Rocks has evolved a lot in history…from a bunch of rocks over a harbor, to a town where the shit flows down the rocks from your upstairs neighbors through your house, to a historical site known and preserved as the Rocks. Oh and I can now tell you whose on the A$20 bill now too. Following that, and with knowledge falling out of our ears, we practically ran to the scenic cruise of the harbor (with complimentary free drink). The cruise was good because we quietly sailed by the front of the opera house for a view from the harbor, and under the bridge and out to islands and other lands whose descriptions couldn’t possibly have fit in my head (There was something about a ship wreck, a fort, and the prime ministers house). The sun was setting as we glided past the opera house for the second time, giving it a slightly red glow.

As the sun was going down we raced to the sky tower practically in the middle of Sydney to get a look at Sydney before, during and after sunset. The sky tower is the tallest free standing structure in the southern hemisphere, rising 328 meters with observation deck up top (as well as restaurants) and Oztrek down bottom. The views up top were pretty awesome; both out to the mountain ranges where the sun was setting out to the harbour and out towards the sea. Oztrek downstairs was both mildly amusing and dreadfully tacky (that’s all I’m going to say about that).

With the sun now completely set we headed to our final destination for the night, the Aquarium. It was deserted pretty much, which was cool because there was no one there. Unfortunately the seals were asleep, but everything else was awake and swimming around. Of particular awesomeness was the oceanarium (the tubes where the fish swim around you). There were some huge fish, sharks and turtles floating around in there and again the best part was there was practically anyone there.

Following that we returned to the hotel and crashed. Like BSOD bad.

AusTour 10: See Sydney Cards

david@mercury-studios.com (David) — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 07:04:00 +0000

Just as an aside. We managed to get these See Sydney Cards which you essentially pay one price for and you get entrance to attractions all over Sydney. It eliminated the hassle of carrying cash around and came with transportation tickets too. Barry found the cards online and he makes it sound like he discovered the Holy Grail. I haven’t mentioned that it’s in the 3rd page of Sydney in the Lonely Planet. Anyway they were extremely useful in both getting around and getting into attractions. That is, except for the questions they all asked: “where are you from?” which of course could be for us, where did you just come from, where are you living, where are you a resident or even where are you a citizen?

AusTour 9: Sydney Day One

david@mercury-studios.com (David) — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 07:00:00 +0000

So, fittingly as today is the 35th anniversary of the opening of the Sydney Opera House, we arrived into Sydney (thanks Google). As we drove in from Newcastle we came in over the Sydney harbor bridge with the Opera House rising beneath us. It was definitely the way to arrive into Sydney, and the view of the Opera House really is stunning. I guess for me it was something I never really thought I would see, so seeing it for the first time was pretty awesome. Our bus dumped us outside Sydney’s Central Station and once again we had to rapidly learn the Sydney transport system. We were heading to Kings Cross, out to one side of the city (I couldn’t tell you what side because Sydney’s orientation confuses me), to stay at the Pink House—yea, it was in fact pink. After checking in we went for a walk, heading towards the botanical gardens, but this became problematical with the sheer number of dead ends we encountered. We made it about half way to the botanical gardens, down an inordinate number of uneven steps before heading back to Kings Cross and the Hostel. On the way back we passed the largest billboard in the southern hemisphere, owned and utilized by Coca-Cola. Lonely planet described Kings Cross as “a densely populated dichotomy of good and evil. Strip joints, tacky tourist shops and backpackers hostels bang heads with classy restaurants, funky bars and gorgeous guesthouses. The cross retains a sleazy, cannibalistic aura, but the vague sense of menace is more imaginary than real.” This is the most aptly worded and accurate statement I’ve read in the lonely planet. We spend the night doing laundry and planning how exactly we were going to conquer Sydney in three days.

AusTour 8: Newcastle

david@mercury-studios.com (David) — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 12:25:00 +0000

We arrived at 3:30am in Newcastle. I knew exactly where this YHA was, and without much energy exhausted we got in and passed out. I should mention this is one of the most ‘hostel’ hostels I’ve ever stayed at. It used to be an Old Gentleman’s Club, the ceilings were high, it was spacious and the floors, banisters, windows, furniture were quaint-ornate. Overall the hostel had a very homey feel to it which was very agreeable. The next morning we slept in and practically missed breakfast. After eating we made our way down to the beeches, past the bathes and out to Nobbys’s head. One thing that made me extremely jealous was seeing a Newcastle Uni student reading his reader on the beech—something I haven’t and won’t be able to do in Melbourne. After reaching the farthest point on Nobbys’s head (used to be an island with a light house until it was joined with the mainland) we returned up the beech to the hostel to grab some body boards. The sun had rejoined us after yesterday’s debacle, and the beach was sunny and the waves clear. They were also high and strong. Simply getting out to a point where you could catch a wave was the hardest part, but the ride in was utterly rewarding—ridiculously fast and wild. The water was cold but withstandable, and the body soon got used to it. With that out of my system we headed back to the hostel for showers and a free barbeque and trivia night. I should add that during the time between body boarding and bbqing I headed up to the highest point in Newcastle to catch some pictures as the sun set. Following trivia night and getting ‘best name’ for “Thank God we Left Port Macquarie” we stayed to watch some of the bands in the local battle of the bands. One band was seriously good, but not everyone’s cup of tea, Memorial Drive. The next day we had just enough time to grab breakfast and a short walk through town and up the Queen’s Warf Tower for a look out on the port of Newcastle (‘the giant penis’) before meeting the bus at 11 to Sydney (oh and while waiting we saw Newcastle’s elusive, yet most famous, tram).
Newcastle: the Complete Review
This was a nice town, the atmosphere was relaxed and it was fairly clean. We discovered on the drive out on the bus that there was a whole end to Newcastle we never got to. We’d scheduled extra time in Newcastle for a bit of rest before Sydney, but could have easily eaten another day doing more of the things Newcastle had to offer. It might be worth noting that Newcastle Uni was one of the original placed I looked at attending—from the town, it wouldn’t have been a bad choice.