Kia Ora, Bro this place is Sweet As

After a final few days in Byron Bay with the whole group it was time to say goodbye to my friends of 4 months. We had a great time on our last days sea kayaking and the final nights. Hope any of you guys reading this had safe travels home or to your various other destinations.

Snagged a noon flight to Auckland on Wednesday to meet the parents at the hotel in downtown Auckland. Our first full day together we went to Waikia (spelling) Island that is just off the coast of Auckland and allows some more low key island life for those that wish to commute via ferry. This little island was a great start to the vacation with the family. It had a nice atmosphere with a solid city centre that provided us with ample opportunity to delve into New Zealand culture. The only downside was a bus driver who was adamant that no one other than a New Zealander could ever understand the differences between Aussie rules, Rugby League, and Rugby Union. Whatever, wasn't offended, he is just stuck in his own little world of hierarchy that I could really care less about.

Listening to: Apocalypse Please – Muse

After our little island excursion, we headed to the downtown area of Auckland and just roamed around for the rest of the day to see the rest of what Auckland had to offer. We jumped on our flight to Queenstown the next day and picked up our rental car that we would have for the next few days. Oh right hand drive. This sticker pretty much explains everything that needs to be said on that front.

We pulled into Queenstown about a half an hour later to see a bustling resort town that was rapidly preparing for the approaching snow season (seasons backwards down here). Queenstown is a smaller, just as expensive version of Aspen minus the proximity of ski-in ski-out hotels. All of the roads to the “ski hills” are dirt roads that snake up the mountain to the lifts which are pretty high up on each peak. Qtown is where Peter Jackson and his posse spent most of their time filming the Lord of the Rings series as it is centrally located to most of the filming locations. Our first night in Queenstown was spent wandering around the town and sorting out what we would do for our three days that we would be here. We found a few good options for the following days: seeing a musical adaptation of Oliver Twist and taking an off road safari to see LOTR filming locations.

The first up was the musical adaptation of Oliver Twist aptly named “Oliver”. It was put on by the local community theatre in Queenstown and like the other musical/music acts I have seen in my time here, was surprisingly well done. It was really neat to see the story told in a different way than I had ever seen before.

After the performance, we headed out on a safari the next morning to take in the sights of a few filming locations of the LOTR trilogy that were shot on location in New Zealand. Our guide was a 5 foot tall woman with cayenne pepper running through her veins, Fran was full of energy and more than happy to tell stories of just about anything. She led us on a splendid journey through the country side of Queenstown and the surrounding areas that was second to none. We were the only three on the tour so we had some liberty to do our own thing. She even (much to my mom's chagrin) stopped by the first ever commercial bungee jump site so that I could dive head first off over the river. The bridge is 43 meters (141 feet) tall and I was able to dunk a good portion of my arms into the frigid water below.

Listening to: Wolves – Machine Head

(Will get pictures up ASAP post Queenstown) After this grand experience, we headed out for a nice drive down a river bed, with running water going through it. Fran claims that this was a “public highway” although I refuse to believe that any city council in the free world would allow a river to be used a 4WD trail. At least the Hickory City Council would never deem this as a logical idea for anyone, not without a waiver and declaration of next of kin. This wrapped up our last day in Queenstown and we were now off on a drive to Aoraki/Mt. Cook National Park (pretty much like Denali vs. Mt. McKinley). We'll stick with Aoraki for the obvious reasons. For those of you playing along at home, Aoraki is where Sir Edmund Hillary trained for his and Tenzing Norgay's first ascent of Mt. Everest.

We got into Aoraki late in the afternoon and weren't able to see much due to some serious cloud cover that had the whole valley socked in with low clouds. Hoping for a clear second day in Aoraki NP we woke up to see much of the same, but on our drive out, some of the clouds began to break up over the peaks of some of the taller mountains. From what the posters in the gift shop looked like, Aoraki would be a beautiful place to see on a bright, sunny, summer day, and quite a fun hike up as well. With Aoraki NP in the books, we turned the car north towards Christchurch and for this segment, I'll let the mother figure of the family recap our experience:

Christchurch is a beautiful city with a very British feeling more than the rest of NZ! The weather continues to not be the optimal but then we remember we are here in the winter so not really prime time for tourism but that does have its perks. No waiting in long lines and getting in to all the exhibits, etc that we wanted to see. The International Antarctica Center was very interesting with penguins and a room you could suit up and experience snow and sub Arctic weather. There are many here who have not experience or seen snow. Great to see a site where there is so much international cooperation and research on protecting the continent. Off to a tourist site where you can drive an army tank! Then we catch a flight to Melbourne and begin our Aussie adventures.

After a short stint in Christchurch, we caught a plane across the Tasman Sea to Melbourne (read: Melbin). This being my second time in the city, I can't say I felt like I had been before, as we spent just over 2 days in the city during our first time through and a good bit of that was spent in class and the harbour, preparing/waiting for our boat to fight gale force winds so we could get to Tasmania. Back to the present, we spent our first night in Melbourne looking around the Yarra River walk. (Flanners, Syl, and Ladelman if you are reading this, we inadvertently ate at that same food court we ate at before the concert). Let me finish the random shoutouts here, Bui, I'm doing 5k (I will switch back, I promise) at just under 7 min/mi pace. Stoked for this fall. Anyhows, we took our second day to grab the free city circle tram to get a view of the city and head over to the City Museum. This museum was the Science Centre and Discovery Place, rolled into one and pumped full of Floyd Landis grade HGH and blood doping agents. There was an impressive exhibit for the Titanic which I can only assume was a well funded travelling exhibit. Tons of artifacts were well displayed and even a part of the ship's hull had been recovered and placed on display. We wandered around and even saw Phar Lap (google it) in all his taxidermy glory. Also a really neat exhibit that showcased a local design school's finalists for a product design competition. Once we finished with the museum we headed back to the hotel to grab what little sleep we could before our 6am flight the next day for Cairns (read: Cans).

Listening to: Tuesday's Gone – Lynyrd Skynyrd

We arrived mid afternoon on the 21^st in Dunk Island. Google “Dunk Island, QLD” and you can skip this next part of rambling. Dunk is a small island south of Cairns that is a 30 minute flight away from the city. It sits about 2k (just over a mile) off the coast of the mainland but is quite a considerable distance from any form of serious civilisation (like most of Australia). The place was really well built even though we found out it (like Darwin, for those sorry souls reading this consistently) was wiped out by a cyclone about 5 years ago, Larry to be exact. We took a trip on the 2^nd day out to the Great Barrier reef where the folks would go snorkelling and I would get some more diving in. We took the hour boat ride out to the reef and anchored in a deep part of the lagoon and no sooner had we anchored than the other 3 divers and myself were leaping head first (kidding) off the boat. We got to have 2 dives with 40 minute bottom times thanks to the shallow depth (10m/33ft). Thanks to a lingering cold I sucked 200bar of air on the first dive in just about 35 minutes. With some tips from the dive master I got the full bottom time on the second dive and even got some really neat skin diving done in between. Up to about 3 hours of total bottom time now, not sure if that makes me more certified or as SRR aptly calls it certifiable. We played catch with 2 different types of sea cucumbers and got to lay on the bottom by two different sea turtles. Who much to my dismay do not speak with surfer drawls like the ones that frequent the East Australian Current in Finding Nemo. Sigh.

Listening to: Don't Leave (When Winter Comes) - CunninLynguists

After we took in the reef for the day we headed back to our island abode. Dunk was a really welcome respite from the travelling that we had been doing over the past 10 days. Sitting by the beach and having a beer with lunch was receiving no complaints from me at any point. Our time at the island was a great experience with only about 20 other guests on the island at any given point but we are off to Sydney now for the final leg in our journey. This country will make you smile and drop your jaw with its beauty and hospitality but it will cause a brain haemorrhage and various other gastrointestinal disorders with the high cost of living and lack of cheap (yeah not free) internet. That's my excuse for not posting this update until now. Sorry for those of you who were hoping for a consistent update during our adventure. Hope the US of A is still in one piece for our return trip home and I am stoked out of my mind for some good “reverse culture shock” since apparently my life is going to come to a screeching halt when I realise that the US is a different country from Australia and that I have fallen face first out of the looking glass. That's all for now.

Cheers!

-zuey, rick, and trudy

Racing Toads, UFOs, Crocs, Sweat, and Billabongs

Wow it's almost been a month since I spilled my thoughts on this thing. Here it goes.

Sitting in Darwin International waiting on a flight back to Brissy seems foreign as it feels as if I have just landed in the tropical realm that is the top end of the Northern Territory. Much like its Canadian cousin, the NT is sparsely populated with an equal knack for inhospitable conditions. The wet seasons brings massive monsoon storms from the tropical waters of the equatorial Pacific and the dry season renders the land cracked and dry with the months of June through August average less than one day of rain a month. Needless to say I picked a hell of a place to work for the weather bureau.

My first day at work (back on April 6th) consisted of running around meeting every single person in the station and trying to explain what I was doing in Australia (SIT kids you feel this pain) and then why I was at the Bureau. Everyone there was extremely welcoming and helped me in any way possible. I will spare you the details of what all I learned there as most people could care less why monsoon troughs cause rain to fall over the top end and leave the southern parts of the territory dry. At any rate, I enjoyed my experience thoroughly and if any of you guys find this through Facebook or other means, thanks for all of your help while I was in Darwin.

The weekends in Darwin left nothing to be desired as I had various activities that fell into place to create a surreal experience and allowed me a window into what it is like to be a true “Territorian”. On my first weekend, I headed over to one of the numerous Darwin markets that gain national fame for their amazing fresh fruit and inordinate variety of fresh Asian cuisine. Darwin is a very diverse city that over the years has been called home to natives of Fiji, Samoa, Laos, Cambodia, Thailand, the Philippines, Timor, and pretty much any other country that is on a peninsula or a Pacific island. These markets were my heaven as I have never seen so much curry, vegetable fried rice, and woks on stoves creating amazing smells and tastes.

A Darwin Sunset

 

My next weekend, I headed out to see the Darwin Symphony Orchestra in their first concert of the 2010 season. They were welcoming in a new conductor/director from Amman (I think?) and he was more than willing and able for the task at hand. The concert was great, especially the fact that the DSO is a community orchestra that only has one member who is a professional player. I sat beside two very funny ladies who kept me on my toes throughout the concert and were more than happy to lend opinions on current events and what I should see in Darwin during intermission. It was a great time all around. I also headed out to a free water park with some of the staff at the bureau in the suburbs of Darwin which was sponsored by the NT government. It has 3 slides that were about 3 stories high and a water playground for the kids to hang out on with a giant bucket that dumped heaps of water down on unsuspecting parents or the kids who flocked to it as soon as it began to tilt on its axis.

On my third weekend I got to meet Liams' (my roommate) Aunt and Uncle along with their daughter and a family friend. They took me out into the tidal mangrove forests that is coastal Darwin. The NT news usually runs a story at least once a week that involves some sort of croc attack or sighting that occurs in these waters. With the best being a front page picture that shows a “fisho” (fisherman, Aussies love to abbreviate even the shortest words) with a friend swimming back to their boat as a croc is no more that 10 feet away swimming in a eerily similar direction to that of the swimmer. One word of warning, the NT News makes the Hickory Daily Record appear to be the Wall Street Journal. A headline that was run after a well known NASA balloon that had received news coverage just a day earlier crashed into a car was “Unknown spacecraft crashes into car” with little silhouettes of white aliens in the background. I really wanted to meet the editor of the paper as it was truly a delight to read and the editorials and the “txts to the editor” put most of the stories in the paper to a laughable shame.

I digress, a lot. At any rate, I got to go mud crabbing in the mangrove forests that allowed me the opportunity to catch three of these elusive buggers and eat them later on in the night along with an amazing ham hock soup that Meg whipped up while we waited at the house. This was a great time through and through and thank you Meg for your gracious Aussie hospitality!!!

My last weekend, after finishing work and my paper was a 3 day trip down to Litchfield and Kakadu National Parks. I had been trying to plan this since I had known I was going to Darwin but everything fell into place on the second to last week of my trip. The trip left at 6am and headed straight into the heart of Litchfield NP. We got to swim in a fair amount of water holes that put anything I have every swam in to shame, except for a handful in Tasmania. The beauty of these secluded places was unreal and it was damn near hot enough for the water to be boiling but the fresh water spilling off the waterfalls that graced each spot allowed for a cool refreshment to the mid day sauna that is the NT outback. Not to leaving anything for want, the “Saloon” at our camp site the first night hosted cane toad racing. Okay, quick history, cane toads were brought in to eat bugs that were damaging Australia and they overtook the bugs, populated like rabbits, and are now a national past time for hunting innovations. The ways of eliminating these little demons (they are poisonous, but this shouldn't surprise you since pretty much everything here kills or maims you beyond all belief) includes but is surely not limited to shotguns, cricket bats, 7 irons (although long irons are preferred for distance events), bricks, and cars. These guys are put into a bucket, with numbers on them, and like true Aussies everyone bets on which one should get out of the circle first , twice, just to make it fair. After they serve the purpose of amusing drunk fishermen and tourists, they are put to rest by the bar staff.

Listening to: The Dragster Wave - Ghinzu


After a great day in Litchfield we headed down to
Kakadu for two days of swimming, 20,000 year old rock art, and croc watching. Kakadu is the biggest NP in Australia by size and is mostly a vast expanse of tropical savanna that seems like instant death for any unlucky motorist or someone just very lost. I really wanna see Bear Grylls give Kakadu a fair go. We took our troop carrier/apocalypse vehicle/off road bus through many trails that are just normal roads to Aussies but would cause most American 4WD owners to have an inadvertent bowel movement. The rock art in Kakadu is amazing and to think about the shear age of them makes you feel very small. More swimming in spectacular billabongs was to follow before we headed out on a croc cruise. Now before you get too excited, we were in a National Park, so they cannot bait the water to entice the crocs or make them jump out of the water with the old meat on a stick trick so no crazed pictures here. Just some eyes and spikes peeking out of the water to give us just enough to know they meant business.

Picture section: Kakadu and Litchfield

After a long drive back to Darwin, I finished up the last of my work and got my life packed up again to head to the airport today for my flight back to Brisbane. Crashing at Owen's for the last time tonight then catching a train back to Byron Bay to present my project. I can't believe I have 6 days left on the program, but after that headed to New Zealand to meet the parents for a soon to be great vacation through NZ and back into Oz for round two of Sydney and Melbourne with a stop at the reef for some serious aquatic adventures. Ready for some cooler weather in NZ and then geared up for a good time back in NC for summer!! It's been real Darwin.


Cheers!!
-zuey

Playing in the tropics.

 Waiting on my stir-fry to marinate so I'm going to see if I can get a quick (picture-less, sorry, I'm on a mobile broadband card) update cranked out. Took a short bus ride to Lismore to crash with Gus' home stay parent Ed Curran for two nights. Ed was more than generous to host us for the time. I just sorted out the final details for my internship at the Bureau of Meteorology and my stay in Darwin. If you read this Ed, thanks for all of your insight and many more thanks for giving us a roof over our heads plus staying at the bus station for the extra hour to wait on that damned bus!!!

After the two days I took the 3 hour journey up to Brisbane via bus. Bus was late for the first time all trip (can't win 'em all). Met Owen at the station in Brisbane around 10:30pm and headed out to the western suburbs and crashed early. The next day was Easter and more importantly Owen's birthday. Congrats on the big 2-0. Nice to meet a ton of his friends, grill out, and then head out later on to check out the Brissy nightlife. Thanks again Owen for the place to crash and I'll definitely swing back through on my way to Byron.

Woke up about 6am the next morning and after a minor heart attack over a misplaced wallet, I ran down to the awaiting cab and headed to the airport. No dramas about getting through security although Subway down under really needs to get its act together on the breakfast front. Slept the whole plane flight and woke up to the plane touching down in tropical Darwin. As soon as I stepped off the jet, I realized I was in a different world. Felt like the worst day of summer in NC where you step out of the door and begin to sweat while having the wind knocked out of you.

Listening to: Parabola -- TOOL

Got to my hostel shortly thereafter and was pretty surprised that they get away with borderline false advertising (don't feel like going into it, it was dodgy, let's just leave it at that) so after one night there, I called up Liam who works for the Treasury in Darwin, and promptly moved into his spare room in Millner, NT. Much closer to the BOM office and out of "Central Business District" of Darwin. This place is very odd, I will try to get my hands around a description before I leave but I am still formulating my thoughts now. My second night with Liam, we went out to dinner with his buddies at Mackas (McDonalds) and he entered into an eating contest that was who could finish a family meal first. I don't think these have made it stateside yet but they consist of 2 big macs, 2 quarter pounders, 6 chicken nuggets, 4 small fries, and 4 small sodas. Liam put up a good fight but threw in the towel with 3 fries and the chicken nuggets left over. His friend managed to eat the whole thing in just under 13 minutes I think. Great way to be introduced to real Darwin citizens!

At any rate, started work 3 days ago and have been very happy with my decision to work for the Bureau (even though I am switching my major to Environmental Science, no jokes here). The crew that works there is very closely knit and there is even an American that I can share stories with WOOOO!!! So all is well 11 degrees south of the equator. Just hoping for a cyclone or some form of tropical cluster$%^& so that all of the alarms and whatnot can go off at the station. Time for dinner. Will get some pictures up at some point in the future. Still sweating profusely.

Cheers!
-zuey

There they go packing stadiums as Shady spits his flow.

Day 6 of our 2nd to last stay in Byron Bay and this place still doesn't leave much to be desired apart from alpine peaks that plunge into the massive expanses of beaches that are strewn across this great country.

Getting really pumped about bringing ideas back to the states in order to make some serious changes in what I have been doing for the environment. I may not be learning another language (although that can be debated at times) but I feel as though the drastic difference in ideas of how to be good stewards of our earth is enough to constitute a serious cultural experience. Really working hard to find some ways to fix our house and campus at Valpo to increase sustainability, but most importantly saving some greenbacks in the process.

The original sustainable house.

With our plans to go to Cooloola National Park squashed because we can't play dodge the cyclone on this trip either (definitely on the "thou shalt not" list), we journeyed down to New England National Park instead. We headed down with John Sinclair (http://www.sinclair.org.au/) who has pretty much seen everything and done whatever you have with some insane twist involved. He has worked on conserving Fraser Island especially but seems to have his hand in just about everything that is related to conservation and/or Australia.

Just a regular BAMF.

John drives a lifted, standard transmission Toyota Land Cruiser with a bumper and a snorkel, just so you know he's cool. We headed to a few different places while we were down in the park but most centered around an area that was situated in a cloud forest (see picture) which made for some er....interesting views. 

 Award for the worst placed lookout ever.

Listening to: Blood In Blood Out -- Jedi Mind Tricks

After seeing the views that were to be had here, we headed down the valley. Let me rephrase that, we headed down the side of a cliff. I didn't manage any pictures of this event but anyone who was with us can attest that we were dropping off the face of the earth as in my ears were popping at points of the hike.

 Jesh taking a break at "Weeping Rock".

After a few hours of controlled free fall, we started to climb back up but somehow we teleported and never really gained all of our elevation back. This miffed all of us when we made it back to the bus with little to no effort after such a dramatic entrance into the woods. Chatting with Collin Fields on Gmail chat right now, missing a senate budget meeting makes me feel all nostalgic inside. Definitely happy about skipping out on mid-west winter, but very sad that I missed a tornado outbreak in NC. Probably for the best. I digress. After this little adventure through the woods we headed back to our accommodations at Yarrando Lodge in the midst of the National Park.

Just another jam session. Yes 4 people in this room.

You see this room and probably cringe, we see it and smile. We even had our own veranda out the back of the room. Living in this country has been really great, tents, hostels, boats, trains, parks, the occasional apartment, and lofts in the midst of the rain forest. I can't ask for much more out of SIT. At Yarrando we even had the opportunity to try and burn the building down with a nice fire pit.

 

Next day in NENP we went to a place called Cathedral Rocks, now this place I could live at. It is just a giant rock/boulder outcrop that is in a rolling valley which has a great 360 degree view from the summit. So much potential for epic mountain bike trails and some serious boulder problems abound this great land.

Wait, left? Who has water?

Now, if you have been following this thing for any amount of time/have known me for any amount of time, my choices for activities are usually less than docile and to my mother's and my cello teacher's chagrin usually involve potential loss of limbs, if not mortal danger to myself or others around me. This hike was right down my alley for weekend activities. A short quick hike that went straight up a boulder field that had no established paths and was weathered granite that had tons of grip. Needless to say, I was back in my ideal element of the outdoors with a dose of (here you go Sally) certified certifiable insanity.

No SCUBA Diving, but this seems safe.

Well, got to hop all over boulders and I managed to get lost/stuck down here.

 Just at the crack NE of my shadow.

After a bit of bushwhacking and some unsafe ascending I managed to work my way around to the left of this picture and get back up to the group. Whoops. Oh well, no harm no foul.

Listening to:  The Way I Am -- Eminem

Got to go back to the worst placed lookout ever and it turns out that it does clear up every so often. So with our continued blessing by the weather gods (guess this degree is worth something) we got to see quite the panorama.

Blue Ridge Mountains or Australia?

Headed back down to go for a dip in a river. This way we save money on showers and all just smell the same instead of the body odor smell we just have a general stench to us.

 

 Driving back, we slammed on the breaks to save this little guy from a certain "Froggerish" end to his spikey life.

Echnidia

This pretty much wraps up the New England National Park trip. Great time all around. Sitting here in Why Not Cafe drinking the best Chocolate Chai that I have ever tasted. We have our final exam tomorrow then I head back to Lismore for 2 days with Gus' homestay, up to Brisbane for Easter weekend with Owen (Aussie we met back in February), then off to Darwin to forecast the weather for a month. Stoked out of my mind for these next few weeks. Going to whip out my fanny pack and join the tourist mobs at this place for sure in Darwin: CROCS!!!! Check it out, you won't be sorry, well you might be, but if you valued your time very much you wouldn't be reading this intellectual work of genius. All I have for now.

Cheers!

-zuey

What can I get for yous?

Hello there, been in home stays for exactly 2 weeks now, tonight is my last night in Lismore. The Hymers have been great to live with for this past bit and Ehren and Arthur are a great time and manage to keep me running on fumes with their seemingly unending supply of energy. Not much to update on as these days have been quite relaxing and dare I say normal. Went to a few neat places during the home stay period. Started off with this waterfall which should be called a cliff jumping arena.

This place was wicked fun as you just run and jump off anything into a really deep freshwater pool. After we had our fill with this headed back to the beach for some R&R (guess that has been our whole trip). Not much eventful.

A few days later we went to Minumayi falls and sat underneath them and almost froze to death, well not really froze but cold is relative. 

Got to golf in Australia with Steve (host mom's boyfriend). We shared a bag of clubs and got to ride in a left hand drive (very weird to me now) cart.

Headed to NZ after the program is over and then back through Oz with mom and dad. Very excited about that. Going to Darwin, NT for the month of April to work for the Bureau of Meteorology up there. Will be some good posts from there I foresee. That pretty much sums up my life from these past 2 weeks. We are headed to New England National Park for a bit, then back to Byron Bay for 4 days, then off to Darwin! Will post a legitimate post then. This one wins the "most lethargic post of the year award".


Listening to: All Eyez On Me -- 2Pac

Cheers!

-zuey

Back North

Whelp, time for a bit of a recap. Spent the second day in Sydney hanging out with one of Mary's friends, Kathleen. She is at the University of New South Whales in Sydney but lives on Coogee beach, right next to the famous Bondi beach. It was a really good day, got to see a different, more my type part of Sydney. The Aussies have another good thing in place here, pour concrete at the base of a cliff side so that people can swim in a true saltwater pool near the cliff face with minimal risk of being turned into ground meat. Well after spending some time with Kathleen, we had to catch yet another overnight train back to Casino and then a short bus ride to Lismore to begin our home stays. Life experience #23425 gained on this trip. Left Sydney at 4pm and if you remember the first leg of the journey to Tasmania, you remember this is a 12 hour train trip. Yep, got into Casino at 4am and then hopped (er, stumbled) onto a bus for the 20 minute ride into Lismore. We arrived at the bus station, still in the dark and were expecting to head to this aquatic center to swim, wake-up, and/or shower. Well, this was a Saturday (maybe?) and needless to say, they open at 10am on Saturdays. I guess swimmers here don't subscribe to the ungodly hour practice rules.

Listening to: Little Wing - J. Hendrix

So after finding out this lovely bit of news we headed over to the park where we were meeting our families at 9am (this is 5am now) to introduce ourselves as the American students that would be living with them for 2 weeks. Since most of us hadn't showered in just under 24 hours we were pretty grungy but most of the group choose to sleep on benches in the park or my personal favorite, in the tunnel of the play set.

 Not really an SIT student. Sorry.

While the group was sleeping, Phebes, Zeeka, and I headed to the local bus station to find some showers. Free showers at local bus station, odd concept I know. After this we headed back to the park and had some breakfast that was cooked on the grills on site. Eggs, croissants, juice, and sweet nectar of life coffee from a french press. Fast forward a few hours and I met the awesome family that I would be living with for a while: Laura (single mom), Ehren-15, and Arthur-13. They are really great and receptive of having another male in the house. Here is where I am going to delve into some of the cultural differences between us and them (just gonna ignore grammar here for a bit). First off, they are not afraid of letting nature into their homes. All of our windows are open 24/7 and there is just a tiny wall unit A/C in one room. Once the dirty dishes are put into the sink, a trail of ants begins to take shape and start the clean up process for you. Spiders roaming around my bedroom along with more ants (before you start gagging/gasping/groaning, spiders eat 'skeeters, therefore I love spiders). 3 garbage bins (rubbish, recycling, compost). Aussie homes have these cool outlets that can turn off so you virtually eliminate phantom loads (leaving your phone/laptop charger in when not in use).

The Australian culture is much more perceptive of its natural resources as well (they essentially live in an uninhabitable country) as the environment as a whole.

The family I live with do not consider themselves to be "environmentalists" or "greenies" by any means but they still take care of their planet better than many Americans ever will. Hopping off my soapbox. On a lighter note, I think every Aussie thinks that when an American turns 18 we go out and buy a handgun (instead of the typical cigs and porn) without any licensing program in place and just go ape-shit.

But he parties like it's his birthday.

On a related note to this picture, the "gangsters" at Ehren and Arthur's school are called G-Units. Really glad American culture is spreading its seed far and wide.

Listening to: Things Goin' On - Lynyrd Skynyrd (makes me miss fried chicken and sweet tea)

I learned how to sail this past weekend, Ehren is a nationally competitive sailor in Aussieland and quickly showed me the ropes along with scaring the ever living hell out of me a few times by removing the majority of the boat from the water and nearly removing my head with the boom a time or two.

I'll stick with my wake boat if this is business as usual for sailing.

After sailing in the harbor near Ballina, we went a bit more inland for some old fashion, testosterone fueled, cliff jumping. Walked up to the cliffs and Arthur just hopped off as if he was jumping into a pool, mind you this is a 35ft cliff into water. I've sent myself down things on a bike that most people wouldn't walk down (Keegan, buy a bike, I have been watching videos and am having a Renaissance), but this kid has very little fear. So I strapped my camera to my hand, hit the record button and jumped off. The first bit of the video is really cool but I managed to hit the stop button upon impact (imagine that, I squeezed down after hitting the water from 35ft?). Had a few classes and a Sustainability Workshop the past few days which inspired me on many fronts to bring what I am learning here back to the states to make changes in my personal life and the places I live. I think that is why I am here? At any rate, home stay is fun, same bed for 4 nights now (could get used to this) but we have a 5 day weekend (spring break?) and then some more class, and after that Coolola National Park. Sorry for the abrupt wrap-up, living in a home has turned me into an old man (bed before 11pm). Give ya an update later on in the home stay period.

Cheers!

-zuey

March 1st -- Day 7

Well after a week in Tasmania we have seen a ton and I can barely remember what happened each day without reading back through my blog posts. Every night is in a different place and it is extremely nice to see a good portion of the state but some consistency is nice. I guess we will get some much needed down time when we settle into home stays on the 6th in Lismore. Today we took the Lady Jane Franklin II up the Gordon River for a morning boat cruise. It was a great change from driving around in the bus and tromping through the woods.


We got the chance to hear a lot about the local history of Strahan and the surround areas. She cruised at about 27 knots and is a very slick looking catamaran. We spent about 6 hours on the tour which involved a stop over on Sarah Island aka "Hell on Earth" this place was one of the convict colonies that was established as an Auschwitz-like work camp that was there for the harvesting of the local Huon Pine trees. In their infinite wisdom, the English decided to clear cut the island. Brief Meteorology/Climate spiel, Tasmania sits in the midst of the "roaring 40s" which is the band of southern latitude where winds hurtle across the globe unabated by land masses. This is/was great for shipping because they could essentially ride the conveyor belt but trees form great wind breaks. Tasmania also sits at a similar location to New York in the states, minus the large land mass to regulate inland temperature. To recap, the English clear cut an island south of 40 degrees longitude that is completely exposed to one of the harshest climates in the world and they didn't have central air, just a few wood stoves.

Needless to say, they quickly realized their boo-boo (first winter) and constructed giant walls around the island to act as wind breaks until the trees grew back. After this they began handing out lashings to all of the prisoners and they kept record of this. 200 convicts received 3500 lashings in just under 11 years and there were over 120 escape attempts.

Listening to: Sergei Saratovsky - Chopin, Nocturne in B major, Op. 9 No. 3 (thanks Marin)

After our cruise down the Gordon River we headed for Cradle Mountain National Park, I was very excited about this. Any time we get away from all forms of civilization the hair on the back of my neck stands up in anticipation. Cradle Mountain is part of the World Heritage Area that also encompasses Lake St. Clair in central Tasmania. The mountain itself rises to 1545m (5069 ft) and usually has snow on it for most of year apart from summer. We have been blessed with great weather in Tasmania so far and today was no exception. We got into our bunk house at about 5pm and had a few hours of daylight to blow before we spun up dinner, so Gus and I headed out on a little day hike.

No more than 30 meters down the path we stumbled upon a mom and baby Wombat (now seen every animal I want to see down here minus Tasmanian Devil) who were taking a break at a little pond to get a drink.
Wombats might be the dorkiest/moronic animals on the face of the planet. It is blatantly obvious they have no natural predators because their reaction time and decision making rivals that of a squirrel who has been rendered deaf and blind. When people speak of hunting Wombats they mean, "I walked over, picked up the Wombat, and took it home with me". Don't get me wrong, they are adorable and I'm sure serve some deeper purpose in the web of life but it is lost on me. As Gus and I headed up towards Crater Lake we saw a few more Wombats but none as close as these. It was a really good hike and we passed a really nice waterfall before reaching the lake.

Pretty pleased with myself over this shot.

After we reached this point is was a short climb up to the lake to check out a nice mountain lake that was a serene place to just relax and unwind.
At this point I decided to take my watch out to see how much time had passed by and Gus and I realized we had 15 minutes before we were supposed to be cooking dinner at the bottom of the hill. Needless to say, we began running down the hill and made it down in 12 minutes (we hiked this same pathway later with the group and it took 26 minutes to descend...) and made it back in time to get dinner cooked and ready. Our behavior definitely falls under the "no-list". A peaceful, restful night filled with fireside guitar playing followed after the minor drama that unfolded earlier.

Listening to: Cure for the Itch - Linkin Park (don't judge, my iTunes is on shuffle)

March 2nd -- Day 8

We split into two groups today and did two different hikes. One went around one of the lakes and the other took the trail that Gus and I did, but went to the peaks you see in the background of the last picture. Decided I would like to see it from up there so I took the latter option. We started out pretty early on in the day (would have loved to wake up really early and summit Cradle Mt. but no such luck) and hit this part once we got to the mountain.
Just a set of ledges that some poor trail crew got to anchor a chain rail to at some point that shoots straight up the face of the mountain. Australians choose steps over switchbacks. Once we hit the outlook point we had a great 360 view of the park and Cradle Mountain.

Hung out at the outlook for about 30 minutes and just took it all in and then headed back down for some welcomed sandwiches at the base of the peaks.

Listening to: The Needle and Damage Done - Neil Young

After eating, we took a bus ride back up to Devonport and hopped back on the Spirit of Tasmania I for a much tamer trip across the strait to Melbourne.

March 3 (Back on the mainland)

Got into Melbourne at 6am and caught an 830am train to Sydney and got into Sydney at 8:40pm. I credit these marathon train rides with any mental disorders I obtain here. The 14 hour plane flight here was a joke compared to an all day ride on a train. We got into our hostel (Sydney Central YHA) at about 9:30 which is the largest hostel in Australia I believe.

March 4

Spent my first free day in Sydney so far working on the essay that is due soon and our survey project that amounts to no real data or correlation. It is about noon now and we are going to head down to the harbor to see the opera house and everything else. Did the whole tourist thing today, went to the Opera House and the Harbor along with seeing the Botanical Gardens.

Yeah, my hair is getting unruly and no shaving.

Hopefully heading to the Blue Mountains tomorrow before we head to Lismore on another overnight train ride (loosing brain cells) and then into home stays for 2 weeks.

Cheers!
-zuey

25 February – Day 3

Hello again. This is going to be written in installments because I don’t want to leave anything out from our time here in Tasmania. For the first time since our group met (probably exactly a month by the time I get this posted) we have individual rooms for the most part. Even at our apartments we are in open lofts and pull out couches. Don’t get me wrong, the apartments in Byron Bay, hostels in various cities, and camping out are great, but there is something to be said for a large, warm bed in a closed room. Don’t worry, my window is open so I can get my dose of nature. There are about 6 of us that have what I think are queen size beds in a room WITH a door! Also on a hygiene note I took one of the best showers of my life today, from my experience in Oz you get consistent hot water OR water pressure. Finally had both this evening and enjoyed all 5 minutes of it. Trying to be environmentally conscious in the shower department is a skill I am slowly acquiring. This was day 3, night 2 in the southernmost state in Australia. If you take a look at “Tassie” (Aussies love their abbreviations) on a map, one will see large amounts of green and very few dots indicating population centers.

Listening to: All Eyez On Me vs. Bittersweet Symphony - 2Pac and The Aranbee Pop Symphony Orchestra (DJ Hero Soundtrack) Yes…I have the whole thing on my iTunes.

I will hopefully get pictures up simultaneously with this blog post, because where we went today was absolutely beautiful. Initially we just saw a “lake” surrounded by mountains, but slowly learned an ugly truth about this body of water that is more rightly named a “reservoir”. What used to be Lake Pedder is now called Huon-Serpentine Impoundment (the greens were really happy about the dam....) after the “hydros” (hydroelectric power companies) dammed the lake along with two other lakes in the area to create a large reservoir for hydroelectric energy and recreational activities. This story should be on the international circuit because it has everything that international media craves: corruption, murder, sabotage, deceit, and big money corporations. After learning all of the history behind the stunning scene we were taking in, it took on a bit of a different meaning and continued to illustrate the fight that goes on the world over between environmentalists and the government/big businesses. We headed back down the mountains a bit to our lodging arrangements and thus ended Day 3 in Tasmania! Oh, and there were some platypus sightings today behind our rooms.

26 February – Day 4

Well, another day of paradise in the books. Today we took about a 6k hike up Mt. Field in Mt. Field National Park, we saw some interesting geological formations that caused little cirque lakes to form all over the mountain. We did have the option of swimming in the one at the bottom if we chose to do so. Coming into our Tasmanian excursion, we were all expecting snow, ice, war, rapture, famine, tsunamis (this actually almost happened), locust swarms, and various other natural disasters in this state. I think I might have taken a little bit of liberty with that last part, but I will leave that up to you. At any rate, we moved on to the Styx (yes, like the band) Forest which is a forest preserve but it just goes to show you, even when you protect something, people want more. The entrance sign reads "Welcome to the Styx State Forest: Big Tree Forest Reserve", the ladder part has been modified to read "ONE Big Tree ReserveD". Granted there are some huge trees (80+ meters, that's about 263 feet for those playing at home) but the park caters to the general public, not your typical conservationist. After checking out really big trees, we headed down to a nice river to have another swim. Neither of the two swimming experiences have been exactly warm, but just the experience of swimming below the 40th parallel has some form of weird pleasure to me. Saw my first platypus today, good times. That is the day in a nutshell, next!

Listening to: Vicarious - TOOL

27 February – Day 5

Ahh, I could live in this place FOREVER. Today we headed out to the Florentine forest to check out the protester camp that is situated in the middle of a logging road that the companies are trying to push through to reach a group of trees they want.

We spent about 45 minutes touring their camp and hearing their "war" stories. They have what are called 'tree seats' which are about 20m off the ground and are attached to a rope that is interconnected with about 20 other things. There are about 6 of these that will be occupied when the logging companies/police come through on a raid so that if they want to get through, they have to cut the rope. If the rope is cut, 6 people are killed at the hands of the logging companies and police. Needless to say, you have to be a pretty intense person to take a seat on one of these contraptions. The media is always on hand for the raids so this would never be done for obvious consequences, however, the protesters have what is called a "black wallaby" who is a person that runs through the forest with a video camera rolling the whole time a raid is occurring so that nothing goes down that can't be sent off to the AP. Another contraption in the road are two cars that have their wheels removed and have cement poured in the chassis. These babies are called dragons.

These are also connected to the tree seats, if that rope is cut, giant logs suspended from the air come crashing down on these two cars. Not only is that more blood on the loggers hands, it makes a hell of a lot of noise to alert any one around that a raid is happening. After hanging out with the protesters for a while we headed to Lake St. Claire! On our trip to the lake, we took a few day hikes and on one hike we encountered a Tiger Snake, this little guy is the 8th deadliest animal in Australia (read WORLD) and the 3rd deadliest snake (same rules). He was just hanging out off the side of the trail and gave us no trouble what so ever.

1/10 deadliest animals seen.

Lake St. Claire might just be perfect. We arrived at our camps which were just National Park bunkhouses with a kitchen attached.

Everyone really enjoyed our time here immensely. Phebes, Laura, Kerstin, and myself walked out after dinner to a full moon, cloudless sky and just sat on the rocks in silence, taking everything in. I decided I would wake up early the next morning to check out the sunrise for something different.

28 February -- Day 6

So at 5:40am (sun rises early here) I drug myself out of bed and brewed a quick cup of tea and headed down to the lake with Aimee, Catie, and Laura to check out the rising of the sun. Snagged a few pictures (discovered my camera has a 16:9 aspect ratio on it).

Definitely nothing wrong with waking up to this on a daily basis. This was the start to another good day filled with hiking. We headed on our way Strahan, but stopped a few times on the way. During one of the trips we learned of the earthquake that struck Chile and quickly realized we were on an island that is barely protected by New Zealand. Thankfully, we are on the western side of Tasmania so there is no danger of us being struck by any waves, but there are tsunami warnings out for the eastern coast which is a very scary reality. On one of our 4 or 5 hikes we spotted yet another tiger snake this guy was also just off the trail and paid us no never mind. After that is all said and done I am pretty tired in general sitting here at Mollys: Great Food having just received my chicken sandwich, I think I am going to sign off from this marathon post and eat some well deserved grease. Hope all is well stateside!

Cheers!

-zuey