4 out of 7 states

3 days ago I got back from a 2 destination trip that ran about a week. The first stop was to the second most populated city and the old capital of Australia: Melbourne, Victoria. The flight in was not a good one. My friend Kristin and I were supposed to leave Townsville at about 8 but instead we left around 10, putting us at Melbourne airport around 1:30 am. We also caught a cab, which was ridiculously expensive and after that I vow NEVER to take a cab again.

After paying the outlandish fee to get to our hostel, we checked in. The 2 men behind that counter seemed to take forever and I'm pretty positive both of them were inebriated as it was around 3 am on a Sunday night. We settled in bed just after 3 and 5 hours later we awoke to meet up with another friend of ours for breaky and checked out. We then took the tram to town where our other hostel was. Now the interesting thing about the Melbourne tram is that no one checks if you purchased a ticket/got it stamped in the machine. Essentially my friends and I got around the city for free either by walking or slipping on the tram on one of the middle/back doors unbeknown to the driver.

Our next place of accommodation was in the city at a place called Elizabeth hostel. Now for the city it was a pretty nice place. We got a three person room with a single bed and a bunked bed (which squeaked uncontrollably with any shift or movement made on it) on the top floor. On this floor, people often hung out in the lounge and were loud until all hours of the morning and smoked cigarettes out the windows in the hallway and bathroom. But really, this place was not that bad I swear.

Our first real day in Melbourne was spent walking around various parts of the city and just enjoying the scenery. There was a comedy festival during our time there and we ended up seeing two shows. One was a Wilson Dixon, who played the guitar and sang little ditties between stories. The other stand up we saw was Jim Jeffries, who was rather raunchy and a slight bigot, but hilarious (especially when you've had a few).

There were also stops to an art gallery (where I was able to sneak a few photos), the Royal Botanical Gardens, the Crown Casino (I lost A$3), The State Library (which had its own art gallery!), St. Paul's Cathedral, and an ice bar. The ice bar was super cool (no pun intended). We paid A$30 for 30 minutes into this little room where everything was made of ice. Now that sounds like a lot when its something you can sometimes get for free, but it was worth it. We got a free shot and a free cocktail, that were not only original but the best one's I've ever tasted. We got served in glasses made out of pure ice and hopped around taking pictures next to ice sculptures and ice sculpted chairs.

While in Melbourne we also decided to do the great ocean road, so we rented a car. Now my three friends and I are all 21, and you can rent a car in Australia when you are 21 (for an fee for being under 25), but we had never driven on the right said of the car/left side of the road before. We've seen it done, but actually doing it was amazingly rather easy. After a few wrong turns, we ended up heading west toward Geelong, where there is an information center. After stopping and listening to a number of suggestions, we decided to drive until we saw the 12 Apostles and then call it great adventure on the great ocean road.

Along the way we stopped at a number of small towns and off road niches and took various pictures. Some were of a famous light house, some of the beautiful scenery, people surfing in the chilly waters, etc. We stopped in a place named Wye River and ate a delicious lunch and talked to an Australian couple who had been to America about traveling. They made me think that maybe some of my Aussie friends will come and visit American someday, and then I could show them around my country! We also went a little ways up the road and turned onto a path where we saw heaps of koalas. Okay not tonnes but 4 or 5. One even had a baby on its back!

On one of our last day in Melbourne did a few relaxing things. The first was the city museum, which was the strangest museum I have ever been to. The have some bizarre exhibits of some of the history of Melbourne and old gold vaults in the basement. These vaults had been converted into mini informative cinemas. One went dark as soon as we entered and a surround sound speaker system blasted the word "GOLD" in creepy voices. After that odd experience we walked toward federation square, but on our way we discovered an ally way with heaps of terrific artwork all outside walls of various buildings. There was even a man there with a professional camera, who I guessed was from a magazine, taking pictures.

Then we walked to Lygon street near our hostel, which is supposed to be historically Italian part of the city. Oddly enough we past by loads of tai and asian cuisine, when we were finally stopped in our tracks by a little Italian man. He offered us free glasses of champagne if we ate there and along with his ludacrisly stereotypical italian antics we gave in and sat down to eat some of the best italian food i've ever tasted. My friend I was with told me it was a lot like NYC that restaurant owners grab you off of the street and tell you to eat at their establishment because "its the best!"

The day before we flew to Tasmania, we did what was by far the highlight of my excursion to Melbourne. My friend and I heard about this wine tour, so we signed up for it and we had a great time. The tour guide was a guy in his late 30s who made the bus ride out to 4 wineries we went to interesting and fun. He taught us how that wine can be made out of just about anything and how to taste it. The hosts of each winery spouted off various facts about their wine and some provided us with lunch or stuff to snack on while we tasted our beverage. Our guide also informed of us that the Victoria bush fires put a damper on the wine industry in that area, so I felt lucky to have gone.

Everyone seemed to be having a great time after we got going and soon we were all talking and sharing stories, which sounds incredibly cheesy but it was actually a fine display of what wine really does to certain people. One guy even gave us his number, invited my friend and I to hang out at the pub later that night, and told us to come visit him in Perth. We never did make it to the pub though. Instead we took a much needed nap as we had had been going non-stop since arriving in Melbourne and not getting much sleep at night. Then we ate our last dinner in melbourne and went to bed early.

Early to bed early to rise though. We had to get up at 3AM just to get ourselves to the airport for a 6AM flight. That is one thing that I really dislike about flying is that it really does seem to take all day (especially when you fly from the East coast of America to Australia) That aside we made the most of our day after landing in Hobart. We rented another car and drove into the city and stayed at a hostel called The Pickled Frog. Sounds like a strange name, but it was the best hostel I have ever stayed at. Slightly on the hippy side, but everyone there seemed to be young travelers from around the world, which made it the perfect place for us.

The start of our time in Tasmania was at the information center, where we spent a half hour or so planning places to go that day as well as the next. From the tourist information building, we drove up the road to the oldest brewery in Australia, Cascade Brewery. Our tour guide through the brewery was a short Australian guy with a speech that he had obviously rehearst so many times he could probably say it in his sleep. The interesting part about him was that anytime something went not according to plan, there was an awkward air swarming around when the guide hesitated to, for lack of a better example, answer a question. After the tour we were guided into the bar/reception area where we tried samples of beer and Australias stongest cyder.

We then drove to the top of Mt. Wellington where there was a neat view of the city. However, when we got about 30 meters below the pinacle the fog was so thick that we had to turn around and headed back to the hostel. We strolled around Hobart for the rest of the day, went shopping, planned the next day and went to bed early yet again. We got up somewhat early and enjoyed a leiusurely drive toward Port Arthur on Tasman Island, a historical site where there is a juvunial prison and other relatively famous things to see. Our drive there was spectacular, but when we arrived in port Arthur neither my friend or I wanted to pay the money to go on a historical tour so we got in our car and drove off toward Richmond. Following lunch we went to an animal farm called Zoodoo that holds a lot of native as well as exotic animals from around the world, including the famous TASMANIAN devil and one of the only monomers in the world, the echidna.

That night at the hostel we did the friendly thing, and talked with some of the other guests, starting with an American who had come over to Melbourne to work at a winery (go figure). Surprisingly I actually met an Australian from Brisbane at this hostel so we also befriended her and a Chilian, who I ended up playing a game of pool with (surprisingly we won!) I met other people who were staying there from Melbourne who ended up trying to discuss the Aborignal problem in Australia vs. the Native American problem in the US. It was an interesting 15 minute discussion and as much as I love a good discussion I wasn't having much of it and more into having a good time.

The next day was a quiet one. Somewhat relaxing in our own sort of way. We woke up in the morning, made breakfast and set off toward the Salamanca market, supposedly Australia's largest market. Kristin said she has been to bigger/better markets, but being that I've never been before, I was surprised at how much I enjoyed shopping. Perhaps its just because I was interested in buying all the touristy stuff though. After the market Kristin and I went back to the hostel for a break and then split up. She stayed in Hobart and I took the car to a Mt. Field National Park.

I'm not sure I like the concept of paying to get into a national park because after all nature is all around and I didn't need to pay money to see it. But it was in my guidebook so I did it anyway and I'm not sure it was really worth the money, but hey I got some good pictures of some waterfalls and some gigantic trees large enough to make a little hut inside the trunk of the base. Plus on the drive there I stopped on the side of the road looked out at some scenery that I swear I've seen in dozens of movies. Or at least it should be; it was that majestic. So I hiked a few trails around Mt. Field and headed back to Hobart that night where Kristin and I had a delicious steak dinner at The Ball and Chain that specialize in steak and steak sauces. Once again, some of the best food I've ever had. We ended our night with a few glasses of cyder with dinner and hit the hay early for another early flight back to Townsville, where we had a layover in Sydney, making it my 4th state visited in Australia out of 7!

All in all my lecture recess was pretty amazing. Good food, sweet drinks, and the awesome scenery. Pictures to come soon hopefully.

swimming on an Easter birthday

It appears that over half of April has flashed right by and I haven’t made an entry in a few weeks. I would have put something up sooner, but my school gives an internet quota each month and I guess I’ve been online a lot without knowing it. So I can either buy more or wait until May 1st when I get recharged. Out of principle but mostly cheapness, I was going to wait, but no one is willing to let me use their internet so I was forced to buy some.

This month has been something though. I finally finished my first major assignment of the semester yesterday (a riveting paper about the rabbit in Australia) and I celebrated my 21st birthday! It was a good time. I had a party night to bring in my birthday and free drinks galore to complement it. Don’t worry though, I didn’t even try make it to 21 drinks. My actual birthday was fairly relaxing. Unfortunately, I had to attend class, but afterward I went out to dinner with my two friends. Still I think I might have to celebrate my Australian date (august 4th) birthday, when I get back to the states just for kicks.

On my birthday weekend, which also happened to be Easter weekend, I went sailing on a maxi boat. Me and 28 other people went cruising around Whitsundays for 3 days and it was…not as good as it could have been. Call me spoiled, but there was only a half a day of sunshine during our entire trip. Typically, the views around the islands are gorgeous and many of them are featured in calendars and on postcards. However, majority of our trip was spent either under the rain cover or in raincoats.

Still, the one day that we did have sunshine, I got slightly sunburned, seasick, and some of those postcard worthy pictures. We went to a place called Whitehaven beach where the sand is just about as white as paper and the water is as blue as the sky. The water surrounding the ocean was chalk full of wild life too. I saw a half a dozen sting rays swimming almost directly past my feet and when I got back on the boat we spotted a massive sea turtle, who looked as ancient as the sea itself!

I also took the opportunity to go snorkeling each day that we were out on the boat. The first day we went out was during low tide. I ended up going too close to the coast and practically started hyperventilating because I thought I was going to crash into a huge mound of coral. I did end up smashing into some other part of the reef, only to find out later, that what I “destroyed” was actually all ready dead coral. I swam back to where most of the group was swimming and swallowed a huge gulp of seawater because I thought one of the people snorkeling was an eel!

My freak out snorkeling experience aside, I saw some amazing stuff. I caught some spectacular “aerial” views of angelfish, schools of a zebra looking fish, fish that looked flatter than pancakes, fish bigger than my face, and rainbow fish (that the best I can do with description). I also spotted a giant clam the last day we went snorkeling. I only wish I had purchased an underwater camera, but I’m going to save that for the full blown Great Barrier Reef.

The crew on the boat was also a good time. One of the deck hands made fun of all the safety precautions she had to go through and the captain made funnies wherever he could about things that we could and couldn’t do on their boat. The skipper showed us a few games that tested out sea legs and our personal boundaries with strangers all for the sake of fun. So all in all, despite the mostly dreary weather, I had a blast sailing and I can’t wait to go again.

When I wrote the majority of this entry I was at a hostel in Melbourne, where I will be spending a four days and nights exploring the 2nd largest city in Australia. Then I flew off to Australia’s smallest state of Tasmania. Awesome aye? Lastly I'd like to give my cousin Katie a shout on her birthday. Happy Birthday cousin!

Maggie Island Diving

This past weekend I took 4 days to complete my open water diving certification of Magnetic Island, just a ferry ride away from Townsville. I can now scuba dive up to 18 meters below the surface of any body of water. During my certification instructors only took us down to a depth of about 6 meters, but it was still amazing. The feeling of being able to breath underwater is unlike any other. You have about 50 pounds of equipment on and as soon as you put on your flippers and deflate your BC its like you passed through the threshold into another world.

We started off our certification by watching several somewhat dull but essential videos and completing a written exam (which was the first test I have aced in years). Some of the information was drilled into my head so I think I’ll remember it FOREVER! Then, we put on our wet suits and air tank and practiced various skills in the pool, which we eventually duplicated in the ocean on one of our four dives. Other than the skills that every basic diver has to know we got a tour of the reef that is just off the coast of Maggie Island. Granted it wasn’t the Great Barrier Reef, but feeding the fishies and seeing stingray and coral was incredible. There is so much to see right below the water’s surface. Needless to say, scuba diving is one of my new favorite activities and I hope that I’ll do a lot more of it here and throughout my lifetime. (Marsh family, when is your next trip to the Virgin Islands?)

Other than my beautiful adventure under the sea (hah) I stayed in my first hostel type accommodation. I do not think I met one person from Australia that was staying in the entire site. I don’t even think I met a fellow American citizen. I did however meet plenty of Europeans from the UK, Germany, Denmark, and Estonia. I was amazed to see how many people were not working or going to school and simply traveling around Australia for a few months! In fact, even the diving instructors (who were the only people working, but loved what they did so much it wasn’t really work) were not born and raised in Australia.

My friend Allison, who completed the course with me, and I were placed in the same hostel as a group of English boys of around the age of 19. They were extremely friendly; they chatted us up as soon as we walked in, and a couple hours later we were sharing drinks at the pub/club attached to the hostel. Unfortunately, I never got their information so I’m not sure I’ll ever see them again.

The next night we went back to the pub/club and talked with a ton of locals who come to the hostel just to have a “night on the town.” I had some interesting conversations and developed a sense of interest in the Australian version of racism. There is a lot of stereotyping and a somewhat skewed view of the place of aborigines in Australian society. Locals seem to think that there is only a proper aborigine and a bum on the street who collects government money because of his heritage. I find this interesting because I had such an awesome time learning all that I did from a somewhat integrated aborigine, Uncle Rusty. Regardless, I just listened to what they had to say about it and retired to bed early for an early day of diving.
Luckily, Allison and I befriended a couple in our scuba diving certification class that actually liked to do the touristy stuff. After our first two real dives in the ocean we went out on a hike through the rain forest. But don’t get caught up in your typical thoughts of what a typical rainforest is. This doesn’t look like the rain forests you find in Africa or South America. No monkeys or gorillas just little animals like lizards and snakes and the occasional koala! Unfortunately, we weren’t lucky enough to catch a glimpse of a wild koala on our excursion. Despite our lack of wild koalas, I did get to know Leanne and Gary (our UK friends), and although they were slightly older (24) I felt like I was on a somewhat even playing field with them in the world. It was a strange feeling because although I thought I should feel as though they were more mature, I did not feel as though they were. Anyways, I didn't forget to get their information so maybe I'll be able to meet up with them sometime in the future.

Aside from my weekend in the water, I am just trying to get ahead on my studies before I travel around for lecture recess (aka spring break). I’ll be going to Whitsundays during Easter weekend and then to Melbourne and Tasmania less than a week later. From the looks of it, April is going to be an exciting month!