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