And this is it! The last day! The end! I'm sure some of you out there are breathing a sigh of relief that I'm shutting up about this now, but I hope it was of some interest to people nevertheless. Anyway...
Day Thirteen:
Yep, sadly this was the day of our departure. It also happened to be Anzac day, a national holiday in which Australians and New Zealanders honor their war dead in general, and those who fell in the battle of Gallipoli in WWI in particular. A lot of people don't even realize that the Australians played a role in WWI, but they lost something like 8,000 people in that battle, a staggering number for such a sparsely populated country. And, I have to say, for all America's gung-ho flag-waving and continual protestations about how much we "Support Our Troops!", from what I've seen, the Australian people almost make me a little ashamed at how Americans treat such holidays. Namely, either by celebrating them as a fun excuse for a day off work, or by becoming aggressively over-sentimental. The Australian observance of Anzac day, by contrast, seemed to me much more universal, solemn, dignified, and heartfelt. Our tour guide even got up at 4 AM to attend a dawn remembrance service in Sydney, saying her friends would never forgive her if they found out she was in the city and hadn't gone. I can't easily imagine an American of the same age saying the same thing.
Anyway. We may not have been up at 4AM to honor the Australian war dead, but we were nevertheless up early, as we had to leave for the airport at 7:30. Our guide was back in plenty of time to say goodbye, though, and several members of our group were also there to see us off. (We were the first ones to depart that morning. A lot of the others didn't leave until the afternoon.)
I've already bitched about the flight back. Suffice it to say that it was, well, pretty much hell, that I was cramped and miserable and unable to sleep, and that by the time we landed in Los Angeles (which was only the first leg of the trip for me), everybody was tired and cranky and snappish. Not a pleasant way to wrap up two weeks of fun and relaxation, really, which is why I'm glad that it's already starting to fade in my memory a bit, in favor of the much more pleasant stuff in between the Flights From Hell. But, man, I cannot wait for the day when they finally get around to inventing the transporter. Or at least the day when I'm independently wealthy and can fly first class. I'm not taking any bets as to which of those two is less likely, though.
Showing posts with label australia. Show all posts
Showing posts with label australia. Show all posts
Saturday, June 28, 2008
What I Did On My Australian Vacation: Day Twelve
Yes, over two months after returning from the vacation, I'm finally getting very close to finishing up my account of it! Here we have...
Day Twelve:
This was our free day in Sydney, and my friend and I were on our own, since my relatives had opted for a bus tour of the Blue Mountains instead. As it turned out, we definitely made the better choice by staying in town, as they were fogged in the entire way, and, alas, the pretty views they'd paid to see were almost entirely invisible.
We started out at the National Maritime Museum, because it was nearby and it was free. It looked pretty small from the outside, and the name wasn't all that inspiring, so I had visions of a drab little place with displays of rusty sea anchors and mannequins in naval uniform. Much to my surprise, it turned out to be one of the most fascinating museums I've ever been in. I'd say it's not so much a museum of maritime history as a museum that takes the ocean as a central theme around which to build an exploration of all aspects of Australian history, with a lot of emphasis on social issues. We seemed to be the only ones there, and were immediately latched onto by a volunteer tour guide, who showed us around the entire museum. In was a long, substantial tour, full of all kinds of interesting stuff -- our guide clearly knew and cared about her subject matter -- and it still only scratched the surface of all the amazing pieces of history they had crammed in there. We could easily have spent the entire day there, and part of me seriously wanted to, but it hardly seemed right to spend our only day in Sydney looking at the inside of one museum, so we reluctantly tore ourselves away and went for a wander.
We did our exploration of the city (or, rather, a small section of it) partly on foot and partly via the monorail. You know, the only other monorails I've been on have been the one at Disneyworld and one that went back and forth between casinos at Las Vegas. I remember when they were the Transportation of the Future!, and we were all going to be using them to get around come the 21st century. What ever happened to that? Because now they're just sort of... retro. It's a shame, too, because they seem like a pretty good means of public transportation. The views are certainly better than on a subway. The one in Sydney just goes in a big circle around the center part of the city, but it was incredibly handy, considering that a) it was still raining off and on all day, and b) my friend can't necessarily walk for long distances without needing to sit down for a bit.
Anyway, we rode the monorail all the way around once, just for the hell of it, then got off and took a walk through the Queen Victoria Building. This, as the name might suggest, is an old Victorian building, which now houses a large, upscale shopping center. The interior is very pretty, and preserves a lot of the original decor. It also houses a huge mechanical clock that displays various scenes from Australian history. Here's a picture of the clock:
You gotta love the Victorians and their ostentatious mechanical gadgets.
After that, we were planning on visiting the Australian Museum, but as soon as we got close to it, we could see that that might not be a terribly good idea. There was a huge crowd of people there, and as far as we could tell, it looked like the line to get in stretched most of the way down the block. I'm not sure if there was something special going on that day, or if it's always that busy, or if it was just that everybody in Sydney decided that they had nothing better to do on a rainy Thursday than visit the museum, but whatever the cause, we figured that, well, if we didn't want to spend our entire day in Sydney inside a museum, we certainly didn't want to spend it standing outside of one waiting to get in.
We went and hung out in the park for a while, instead, while the sun was out, then had a nice lunch at some Malaysian place. Looking for something else to do, we realized that our monorail passes had come with coupons for $5 admission to something called the "Powerhouse Museum", and that said museum was right off a monorail stop (which was convenient, because it was raining harder at this point). We had no idea what exactly this place was, but it promised to have "something for everyone," so we figured we'd check it out and see whether that was an accurate assessment or not.
It turns out that it's called the "Powerhouse Museum" because it's located in what used to be an old powerhouse building, and that it bills itself as a museum of "science+design." The first floor seemed to be filled primarily with exhibits of Ordinary Household Items Designed So That You Cannot Tell What They Actually Are and Clothing That No One Would Ever Wear, Except Maybe in a 1970's Science Fiction Show. These were kind of entertaining to me, albeit in ways that I don't think they were quite intended to be, but left me a little dubious as to whether this was necessarily the most interesting way to spend the last day of my vacation. But the deeper we went into the building, the more interesting things got. The giant, functional (although not currently functioning) steam engine was pretty cool, as were the associated steampunk technology exhibits. But it wasn't until we hit the basement, which contained the nifty geeky computers-and-robots stuff that I was prepared to admit that the museum, did, indeed, live up to the "something for everyone" advertising. We had a lot of fun down there, looking at the obsolete computers and watching the dancing robot arm, and ended up staying until the museum closed.
Then we ate ice cream cones in the rain, which is the sort of experience I think everyone ought to embrace on a semi-regular basis.
That evening, this being the last full day of our tour, our whole group got together for a farewell dinner, at which there was much conversation and reminiscence, and much taking of photographs, and, yes, more mango daiquiris. Ah, parting is such sweet, mango-flavored sorrow...
Day Twelve:
This was our free day in Sydney, and my friend and I were on our own, since my relatives had opted for a bus tour of the Blue Mountains instead. As it turned out, we definitely made the better choice by staying in town, as they were fogged in the entire way, and, alas, the pretty views they'd paid to see were almost entirely invisible.
We started out at the National Maritime Museum, because it was nearby and it was free. It looked pretty small from the outside, and the name wasn't all that inspiring, so I had visions of a drab little place with displays of rusty sea anchors and mannequins in naval uniform. Much to my surprise, it turned out to be one of the most fascinating museums I've ever been in. I'd say it's not so much a museum of maritime history as a museum that takes the ocean as a central theme around which to build an exploration of all aspects of Australian history, with a lot of emphasis on social issues. We seemed to be the only ones there, and were immediately latched onto by a volunteer tour guide, who showed us around the entire museum. In was a long, substantial tour, full of all kinds of interesting stuff -- our guide clearly knew and cared about her subject matter -- and it still only scratched the surface of all the amazing pieces of history they had crammed in there. We could easily have spent the entire day there, and part of me seriously wanted to, but it hardly seemed right to spend our only day in Sydney looking at the inside of one museum, so we reluctantly tore ourselves away and went for a wander.
We did our exploration of the city (or, rather, a small section of it) partly on foot and partly via the monorail. You know, the only other monorails I've been on have been the one at Disneyworld and one that went back and forth between casinos at Las Vegas. I remember when they were the Transportation of the Future!, and we were all going to be using them to get around come the 21st century. What ever happened to that? Because now they're just sort of... retro. It's a shame, too, because they seem like a pretty good means of public transportation. The views are certainly better than on a subway. The one in Sydney just goes in a big circle around the center part of the city, but it was incredibly handy, considering that a) it was still raining off and on all day, and b) my friend can't necessarily walk for long distances without needing to sit down for a bit.
Anyway, we rode the monorail all the way around once, just for the hell of it, then got off and took a walk through the Queen Victoria Building. This, as the name might suggest, is an old Victorian building, which now houses a large, upscale shopping center. The interior is very pretty, and preserves a lot of the original decor. It also houses a huge mechanical clock that displays various scenes from Australian history. Here's a picture of the clock:
You gotta love the Victorians and their ostentatious mechanical gadgets.
After that, we were planning on visiting the Australian Museum, but as soon as we got close to it, we could see that that might not be a terribly good idea. There was a huge crowd of people there, and as far as we could tell, it looked like the line to get in stretched most of the way down the block. I'm not sure if there was something special going on that day, or if it's always that busy, or if it was just that everybody in Sydney decided that they had nothing better to do on a rainy Thursday than visit the museum, but whatever the cause, we figured that, well, if we didn't want to spend our entire day in Sydney inside a museum, we certainly didn't want to spend it standing outside of one waiting to get in.
We went and hung out in the park for a while, instead, while the sun was out, then had a nice lunch at some Malaysian place. Looking for something else to do, we realized that our monorail passes had come with coupons for $5 admission to something called the "Powerhouse Museum", and that said museum was right off a monorail stop (which was convenient, because it was raining harder at this point). We had no idea what exactly this place was, but it promised to have "something for everyone," so we figured we'd check it out and see whether that was an accurate assessment or not.
It turns out that it's called the "Powerhouse Museum" because it's located in what used to be an old powerhouse building, and that it bills itself as a museum of "science+design." The first floor seemed to be filled primarily with exhibits of Ordinary Household Items Designed So That You Cannot Tell What They Actually Are and Clothing That No One Would Ever Wear, Except Maybe in a 1970's Science Fiction Show. These were kind of entertaining to me, albeit in ways that I don't think they were quite intended to be, but left me a little dubious as to whether this was necessarily the most interesting way to spend the last day of my vacation. But the deeper we went into the building, the more interesting things got. The giant, functional (although not currently functioning) steam engine was pretty cool, as were the associated steam
Then we ate ice cream cones in the rain, which is the sort of experience I think everyone ought to embrace on a semi-regular basis.
That evening, this being the last full day of our tour, our whole group got together for a farewell dinner, at which there was much conversation and reminiscence, and much taking of photographs, and, yes, more mango daiquiris. Ah, parting is such sweet, mango-flavored sorrow...
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
What I Did On My Australian Vacation: Day Eleven
Day Eleven:
This was our first full day in Sydney, and it started out with a bus tour of the city. I found it much easier to relax and enjoy it this time than I did in Melbourne, knowing that I was actually going to have some time to get out and explore on my own the next day. I will say, though, that Sydney, while a pleasant enough city, didn't strike me with the same charming first impression that Melbourne did. Maybe it was simply that Melbourne was my first sight of Australia after that interminable plane ride; maybe it had something to do with the fact that our guide, a Sydneysider, over-hyped it a bit (albeit in a friendly and amusing way); or maybe it was just that both the weather and the traffic were worse than they had been in Melbourne.
Regardless, it was a nice tour, with stops at various parks and at the Royal Botanic Gardens. But the highlight was the tour of the Sydney Opera House. You know, I have to admit that I never understood quite what was so aesthetically impressive about the Opera House. It's eye-catching, certainly, but in a funny and rather impractical-looking way. I must say, though, that it's considerably more impressive close up, and the inside -- or much of the inside, at any rate -- is beautiful. Even if bits of it were torn up for renovations at the time. (They were putting in more elevators.) And even I, who knows essentially nothing about the practicalities of sound engineering, could tell that the acoustics in the theaters were exquisite. We also watched a couple of moderately interesting films on the history of the building, and learned that they started building it before they were remotely sure exactly how (or whether) the engineering was going to work... You have to love the eternal, borderline-insane, can-do optimism of the Aussies. Heh.
Here's a picture of the Opera House from across the harbor:
And one taken inside, in one of the areas where they'd actually let you take pictures:
After the Opera House, we headed out to Bondi Beach, a famous surfer beach that has apparently been featured in lots of movies that I've never seen. There weren't too many surfers out that day, as it was still raining off and on, but I've never let a little rain dissuade me from enjoying a stroll down the beach. (Hey, I live in a place that's about as land-locked as you can get. I take my beach-going however it comes.) Also, there was more ice cream. Yay!
Then it was back to town, where we boarded a boat for a luncheon cruise through Sydney Harbor, featuring yet another tasty buffet spread and some pretty views of the Opera House and the iconic Sydney Harbor Bridge.
After lunch, we went to some place that sold opals. Apparently Australia is quite famous for its opals, which are also the country's national gemstone. While several members of our group seemed to really enjoy shopping for opal jewelry, well, the only thing I'm less interested in than wearing jewelry is shopping for it. Fortunately, though, the shop also had some really cool displays of opalized fossils, so the less fashion-conscious and more science-minded of us could mostly keep ourselves entertained.
We then had the evening free, so my friend and I decided to visit the famous Sydney Aquarium, which was well worth spending a few hours exploring. I've been in lots of aquaria with observation tubes where you can walk among swimming sharks, but Sydney's blew them all out of the water. Er, so to speak. If nothing else, I didn't know rays got that big. Wow.
And then, because it happened to be said friend's birthday, my family and I took her out for dinner at a fun little restaurant on Darling Harbor, where we also discovered the joys of mango daiquiris, and my aunt's friend investigated the question of whether the Aussies might be onto something when it comes to the practice of putting fried eggs and beet slices on their burgers. (Her verdict: not bad. But I figured I'd stick with the chicken, anyway.)
This was our first full day in Sydney, and it started out with a bus tour of the city. I found it much easier to relax and enjoy it this time than I did in Melbourne, knowing that I was actually going to have some time to get out and explore on my own the next day. I will say, though, that Sydney, while a pleasant enough city, didn't strike me with the same charming first impression that Melbourne did. Maybe it was simply that Melbourne was my first sight of Australia after that interminable plane ride; maybe it had something to do with the fact that our guide, a Sydneysider, over-hyped it a bit (albeit in a friendly and amusing way); or maybe it was just that both the weather and the traffic were worse than they had been in Melbourne.
Regardless, it was a nice tour, with stops at various parks and at the Royal Botanic Gardens. But the highlight was the tour of the Sydney Opera House. You know, I have to admit that I never understood quite what was so aesthetically impressive about the Opera House. It's eye-catching, certainly, but in a funny and rather impractical-looking way. I must say, though, that it's considerably more impressive close up, and the inside -- or much of the inside, at any rate -- is beautiful. Even if bits of it were torn up for renovations at the time. (They were putting in more elevators.) And even I, who knows essentially nothing about the practicalities of sound engineering, could tell that the acoustics in the theaters were exquisite. We also watched a couple of moderately interesting films on the history of the building, and learned that they started building it before they were remotely sure exactly how (or whether) the engineering was going to work... You have to love the eternal, borderline-insane, can-do optimism of the Aussies. Heh.
Here's a picture of the Opera House from across the harbor:
And one taken inside, in one of the areas where they'd actually let you take pictures:
After the Opera House, we headed out to Bondi Beach, a famous surfer beach that has apparently been featured in lots of movies that I've never seen. There weren't too many surfers out that day, as it was still raining off and on, but I've never let a little rain dissuade me from enjoying a stroll down the beach. (Hey, I live in a place that's about as land-locked as you can get. I take my beach-going however it comes.) Also, there was more ice cream. Yay!
Then it was back to town, where we boarded a boat for a luncheon cruise through Sydney Harbor, featuring yet another tasty buffet spread and some pretty views of the Opera House and the iconic Sydney Harbor Bridge.
After lunch, we went to some place that sold opals. Apparently Australia is quite famous for its opals, which are also the country's national gemstone. While several members of our group seemed to really enjoy shopping for opal jewelry, well, the only thing I'm less interested in than wearing jewelry is shopping for it. Fortunately, though, the shop also had some really cool displays of opalized fossils, so the less fashion-conscious and more science-minded of us could mostly keep ourselves entertained.
We then had the evening free, so my friend and I decided to visit the famous Sydney Aquarium, which was well worth spending a few hours exploring. I've been in lots of aquaria with observation tubes where you can walk among swimming sharks, but Sydney's blew them all out of the water. Er, so to speak. If nothing else, I didn't know rays got that big. Wow.
And then, because it happened to be said friend's birthday, my family and I took her out for dinner at a fun little restaurant on Darling Harbor, where we also discovered the joys of mango daiquiris, and my aunt's friend investigated the question of whether the Aussies might be onto something when it comes to the practice of putting fried eggs and beet slices on their burgers. (Her verdict: not bad. But I figured I'd stick with the chicken, anyway.)
Thursday, June 12, 2008
What I Did On My Australian Vacation: Day Ten
I'm getting towards the end here, really!
Day Ten:
The casino across from our hotel had an attraction called the "Wildlife Dome," which we got a free ticket for when we arrived in Cairns, so we decided to go and check it out before leaving the city. I wasn't expecting a whole heck of a lot, to be honest, but what we saw of it was surprisingly nice, although the only wildlife we actually manged to see there were birds. We walked into the bird enclosure, discovered we'd arrived just in time for the bird show and stopped to watch, but that ate up most of the limited time we had that morning. I think it was worth it, though. It featured a talk from one of the birds' keepers, showcased lots of native Australian birds, and was generally pretty interesting. It also featured some unintentional moments of comedy, such as when she tried to get the kookaburra -- the only bird that came out in a carrier instead of flying freely around the enclosure and coming when called -- to go back into its box. Apparently it needed to be enticed into doing this with a trail of food scraps leading back to the carrier, but some other bird kept swooping in and stealing them, upon which the kookaburra would promptly fly right back to its slightly flummoxed handler.
And I got to have a fun personal encounter with a lorikeet (a smallish, colorful parrot). These birds eat nectar and are attracted to brightly colored flowers, so two volunteers from the audience, yours truly included, got to hold up some large fake flowers which the keeper would dab with drops of nectar or sugar water, and the bird would fly back and forth between them, sucking up the food. It was very nifty to watch. But at one point it arrived back at my flower before she did, looked displeased at finding no more food, and settled itself on top of my head to wait for some to arrive. I don't know why having a bird on top of your head should be that much fun, but somehow it is.
My mother managed to miss getting a picture of me with the bird on my noggin, but here I am giving it its lunch. You can probably tell I'm enjoying myself.
Anyway, after our bird encounter, we said goodbye to Cairns and left on a plane bound for Syndey.
Our hotel in Sydney was in many ways the least appealing of all the ones we stayed at. The rooms were cramped and the plumbing was loud enough that your next-door neighbor's shower could serve as an effective wake-up call, whether you wanted it to or not. But the location was pretty hard to beat. We were right across from Darling Harbor (excuse me: Darling Harbour), and I could look out my window and see the back of the famous Sydney Aquarium.
Sydney is also where our luck with weather finally ran out. Every other place we'd been so far, the weather had been unutterably gorgeous, about as perfect as weather ever gets. But it rained off and on the entire time we were in Sydney. Not that I begrudge it; they really needed the rain, apparently. And we weren't about to let it stop us!
Although we didn't really do very much on that first night in Sydney, mostly just strolled around the Darling Harbo(u)r area a bit in the rain.
Day Ten:
The casino across from our hotel had an attraction called the "Wildlife Dome," which we got a free ticket for when we arrived in Cairns, so we decided to go and check it out before leaving the city. I wasn't expecting a whole heck of a lot, to be honest, but what we saw of it was surprisingly nice, although the only wildlife we actually manged to see there were birds. We walked into the bird enclosure, discovered we'd arrived just in time for the bird show and stopped to watch, but that ate up most of the limited time we had that morning. I think it was worth it, though. It featured a talk from one of the birds' keepers, showcased lots of native Australian birds, and was generally pretty interesting. It also featured some unintentional moments of comedy, such as when she tried to get the kookaburra -- the only bird that came out in a carrier instead of flying freely around the enclosure and coming when called -- to go back into its box. Apparently it needed to be enticed into doing this with a trail of food scraps leading back to the carrier, but some other bird kept swooping in and stealing them, upon which the kookaburra would promptly fly right back to its slightly flummoxed handler.
And I got to have a fun personal encounter with a lorikeet (a smallish, colorful parrot). These birds eat nectar and are attracted to brightly colored flowers, so two volunteers from the audience, yours truly included, got to hold up some large fake flowers which the keeper would dab with drops of nectar or sugar water, and the bird would fly back and forth between them, sucking up the food. It was very nifty to watch. But at one point it arrived back at my flower before she did, looked displeased at finding no more food, and settled itself on top of my head to wait for some to arrive. I don't know why having a bird on top of your head should be that much fun, but somehow it is.
My mother managed to miss getting a picture of me with the bird on my noggin, but here I am giving it its lunch. You can probably tell I'm enjoying myself.
Anyway, after our bird encounter, we said goodbye to Cairns and left on a plane bound for Syndey.
Our hotel in Sydney was in many ways the least appealing of all the ones we stayed at. The rooms were cramped and the plumbing was loud enough that your next-door neighbor's shower could serve as an effective wake-up call, whether you wanted it to or not. But the location was pretty hard to beat. We were right across from Darling Harbor (excuse me: Darling Harbour), and I could look out my window and see the back of the famous Sydney Aquarium.
Sydney is also where our luck with weather finally ran out. Every other place we'd been so far, the weather had been unutterably gorgeous, about as perfect as weather ever gets. But it rained off and on the entire time we were in Sydney. Not that I begrudge it; they really needed the rain, apparently. And we weren't about to let it stop us!
Although we didn't really do very much on that first night in Sydney, mostly just strolled around the Darling Harbo(u)r area a bit in the rain.
Thursday, June 05, 2008
What I Did On My Australian Vacation: Day Nine
I will finish this some time before I take my next vacation, I swear!
Day Nine:
This was our second day in the Cairns area, and I'd call it easily the fullest day of the entire trip. We started out on a scenic railroad tour through the mountains, which featured some pretty waterfalls. Here's a view looking out at the back of the train:
And a waterfall:
The railroad trip ended in the "village" of Kuranda, which is actually a tourist area featuring shops and wildlife parks and such. Unfortunately, we didn't get a whole lot of time to look around there, as it was scheduled to be a short stop, anyway, and the train got in late due to some brake trouble. But there was at least time for ice cream, and I also accidentally bought some mango wine. I'm honestly not at all sure how that happened. One minute I was walking past the wine vendor's stall happily minding my own business, the next I was overwhelmed with sales patter and found myself forking over money. According to the label, said wine won some sort of "tourism award." I can only assume that this honor was actually awarded in recognition of the hypnotic mind ray they were obviously employing. But, hey, I figured it might be a cool thing to bring home for my friends. If it was actually decent, we could enjoy it, and if it was terrible, we could have a laugh about it. (I did have a sample, but I am no judge of wine. All I can say is that it tasted like at least vaguely like mango, and that it clearly helped to chemically pave the way for the mind rays.) Unfortunately, the wine never did make it home. Since Australia doesn't have any regulations against liquids on domestic flights, I stuffed it into my carry on, figuring the bottle would be less likely to incur damage that way than in the checked luggage... and promptly forgot it was in there until it was confiscated by security when I went to fly home. Ah, well. Easy come, easy... mango. Or something.
Anyway, after that brief stop, we went on to a whole host of activities at the "Rainforestation." Which is, um, a station in the rain forest. First, we got a guided tour of a rather nice little zoo, where I finally got to see live kangaroos. Not quite as exciting as seeing them in the wild, but you could pet them, which was fun. We were introduced to lots of other native critters, too, including snakes and lizards, dingos, various marsupials, and crocodiles. Thanks to those last, I got to see the single most entertaining danger sign ever:
Speaking of crocodiles, I had my picture taken with a little one, as well as with a koala:
The cheesy hat in the first picture is one they gave me to pose with the croc in. The other, much cooler, hat is one I bought in Alice Springs.
Next up was a guided nature tour through a reforested section of rain forest on an old second-hand amphibious military vehicle called an "army duck." Vehicles that transform from cars into boats always look so cool in the movies... This one, by contrast, was kind of clunky and dorky, but nifty to ride on, anyway. We didn't see a whole lot of wildlife: giant butterflies, turtles in the lake, and a brief glimpse of a bird I believe the guide referred to as a "bush turkey." Oh, and a couple of huge spiders hanging in immense webs in the area where the vehicles were docked. But we did get introduced to lots and lots of plants, some of which were frankly kind of scary. (Spiders I'm not afraid of. Trees that grab your clothing and won't let you go... That kind of freaks me out.)
Somewhere in here, we had a nice buffet lunch, and then in the afternoon, there was a half-hour show featuring aboriginal dancers. This... was kind of cheesy, to be honest, and I had terrible mixed feelings about it, with half of me thinking it was a shameful exploitation of an ancient culture, and the other half countering with, "Hey, these guys have to eat, and they seem to be enjoying themselves, so go them." This internal debate, however, got completely short-circuited when they called for volunteers from the audience, and one of the guys from our tour group raised his hand. No matter what your political or philosophical stance, it is impossible not to find a giant pasty American in an orange polo shirt trying to do a kangaroo dance hysterically funny.
This was followed by a demonstration of various native skills and art forms. We were all given a brief lesson in boomerang throwing. My friend proved extremely good at it. Me, I couldn't even get the thing to go away from me, let alone making it come back. We were also introduced to the didgeridoo, which looks like it ought to be incredibly easy to play, an impression I'm sure is utterly deceptive.
And then we proceeded back down the mountain on the Skyrail cableway, a long, long, long tram line -- 7.5 km! -- that skims above the rain forest treetops, giving some of the most in-freaking-credible views I have ever seen in my life. Seriously, the entire Australia trip was probably worth it just for those views.
Day Nine:
This was our second day in the Cairns area, and I'd call it easily the fullest day of the entire trip. We started out on a scenic railroad tour through the mountains, which featured some pretty waterfalls. Here's a view looking out at the back of the train:
And a waterfall:
The railroad trip ended in the "village" of Kuranda, which is actually a tourist area featuring shops and wildlife parks and such. Unfortunately, we didn't get a whole lot of time to look around there, as it was scheduled to be a short stop, anyway, and the train got in late due to some brake trouble. But there was at least time for ice cream, and I also accidentally bought some mango wine. I'm honestly not at all sure how that happened. One minute I was walking past the wine vendor's stall happily minding my own business, the next I was overwhelmed with sales patter and found myself forking over money. According to the label, said wine won some sort of "tourism award." I can only assume that this honor was actually awarded in recognition of the hypnotic mind ray they were obviously employing. But, hey, I figured it might be a cool thing to bring home for my friends. If it was actually decent, we could enjoy it, and if it was terrible, we could have a laugh about it. (I did have a sample, but I am no judge of wine. All I can say is that it tasted like at least vaguely like mango, and that it clearly helped to chemically pave the way for the mind rays.) Unfortunately, the wine never did make it home. Since Australia doesn't have any regulations against liquids on domestic flights, I stuffed it into my carry on, figuring the bottle would be less likely to incur damage that way than in the checked luggage... and promptly forgot it was in there until it was confiscated by security when I went to fly home. Ah, well. Easy come, easy... mango. Or something.
Anyway, after that brief stop, we went on to a whole host of activities at the "Rainforestation." Which is, um, a station in the rain forest. First, we got a guided tour of a rather nice little zoo, where I finally got to see live kangaroos. Not quite as exciting as seeing them in the wild, but you could pet them, which was fun. We were introduced to lots of other native critters, too, including snakes and lizards, dingos, various marsupials, and crocodiles. Thanks to those last, I got to see the single most entertaining danger sign ever:
Speaking of crocodiles, I had my picture taken with a little one, as well as with a koala:
The cheesy hat in the first picture is one they gave me to pose with the croc in. The other, much cooler, hat is one I bought in Alice Springs.
Next up was a guided nature tour through a reforested section of rain forest on an old second-hand amphibious military vehicle called an "army duck." Vehicles that transform from cars into boats always look so cool in the movies... This one, by contrast, was kind of clunky and dorky, but nifty to ride on, anyway. We didn't see a whole lot of wildlife: giant butterflies, turtles in the lake, and a brief glimpse of a bird I believe the guide referred to as a "bush turkey." Oh, and a couple of huge spiders hanging in immense webs in the area where the vehicles were docked. But we did get introduced to lots and lots of plants, some of which were frankly kind of scary. (Spiders I'm not afraid of. Trees that grab your clothing and won't let you go... That kind of freaks me out.)
Somewhere in here, we had a nice buffet lunch, and then in the afternoon, there was a half-hour show featuring aboriginal dancers. This... was kind of cheesy, to be honest, and I had terrible mixed feelings about it, with half of me thinking it was a shameful exploitation of an ancient culture, and the other half countering with, "Hey, these guys have to eat, and they seem to be enjoying themselves, so go them." This internal debate, however, got completely short-circuited when they called for volunteers from the audience, and one of the guys from our tour group raised his hand. No matter what your political or philosophical stance, it is impossible not to find a giant pasty American in an orange polo shirt trying to do a kangaroo dance hysterically funny.
This was followed by a demonstration of various native skills and art forms. We were all given a brief lesson in boomerang throwing. My friend proved extremely good at it. Me, I couldn't even get the thing to go away from me, let alone making it come back. We were also introduced to the didgeridoo, which looks like it ought to be incredibly easy to play, an impression I'm sure is utterly deceptive.
And then we proceeded back down the mountain on the Skyrail cableway, a long, long, long tram line -- 7.5 km! -- that skims above the rain forest treetops, giving some of the most in-freaking-credible views I have ever seen in my life. Seriously, the entire Australia trip was probably worth it just for those views.
Sunday, May 25, 2008
What I Did On My Australian Vacation: Day Eight
Day Eight:
This was our first full day in Cairns, except we immediately left town on a boat bound for a section of the Great Barrier Reef. The trip out took over an hour, during which there were snacks and drinks and an environmental lecture over the PA available on the boat, but I spent most of my time standing in the stern basking in the wind and the sun and the salt spray. For some reason, I find this irresistibly pleasant, not to mention being the single best cure for seasickness I've ever found.
We docked at a pontoon platform which featured a roped-off area in which you could snorkel around the reef. Because this is Australia, they recommended renting a jellyfish-proof suit, which, being my cowardly self, I most assuredly did. Those things were highly amusing; they made us look like a group of the world's dorkiest superheroes.
Unfortunately, I didn't really spend quite as much time snorkeling as I might have liked. Even with a life jacket, I'm not exactly the world's greatest swimmer, and my mask, despite my best efforts, kept leaking water. Plus, my friend, who's less of a swimmer than I am, ended up spending most of the time clinging to the conveniently-provided flotation platform, and I eventually figured it might be a good idea to ditch the leaky mask and join her somewhere less wet and salty.
Despite not exactly staying out long enough to succumb to the rapture of the deep, I really did enjoy the experience. As advertised, even this tiny section of reef was packed with more fish than I've ever seen in my life, outside of an aquarium. Big fish, little fish, colorful fish, drab fish, fishy-looking fish, funny shaped fish... Lots of fish. Also coral. So now I know for sure that Jacques Cousteau and the Discovery Channel have not lied to me! (Well, OK, I'm sure the Discovery Channel has occasionally disseminated untruths, but it wasn't kidding about the fish.) I neither saw nor was stung by any jellyfish, although some other folks did report encountering them (although not their tentacles).
After the snorkeling, there was a nice buffet lunch on the pontoon, and then we took a ride in a semi-submersible boat to see more of the Reef in comfortable dryness. Well, OK, semi-comfortable drippiness, to be honest, but there was a very, very cool view. Which I would try to describe, but, really, you've all seen pictures of the Great Barrier Reef, and no words of mine are remotely going to do it justice.
Oh, wait, actually, I can supply some pictures... Note, though, that the colors are inevitably kind of dimmed by looking through that much water, though, and that the image quality isn't helped by the fact that these were taken through glass:
And then we got back on the boat, and I stood out on the deck getting wet and wind-blown again.
All in all, a really good day.
This was our first full day in Cairns, except we immediately left town on a boat bound for a section of the Great Barrier Reef. The trip out took over an hour, during which there were snacks and drinks and an environmental lecture over the PA available on the boat, but I spent most of my time standing in the stern basking in the wind and the sun and the salt spray. For some reason, I find this irresistibly pleasant, not to mention being the single best cure for seasickness I've ever found.
We docked at a pontoon platform which featured a roped-off area in which you could snorkel around the reef. Because this is Australia, they recommended renting a jellyfish-proof suit, which, being my cowardly self, I most assuredly did. Those things were highly amusing; they made us look like a group of the world's dorkiest superheroes.
Unfortunately, I didn't really spend quite as much time snorkeling as I might have liked. Even with a life jacket, I'm not exactly the world's greatest swimmer, and my mask, despite my best efforts, kept leaking water. Plus, my friend, who's less of a swimmer than I am, ended up spending most of the time clinging to the conveniently-provided flotation platform, and I eventually figured it might be a good idea to ditch the leaky mask and join her somewhere less wet and salty.
Despite not exactly staying out long enough to succumb to the rapture of the deep, I really did enjoy the experience. As advertised, even this tiny section of reef was packed with more fish than I've ever seen in my life, outside of an aquarium. Big fish, little fish, colorful fish, drab fish, fishy-looking fish, funny shaped fish... Lots of fish. Also coral. So now I know for sure that Jacques Cousteau and the Discovery Channel have not lied to me! (Well, OK, I'm sure the Discovery Channel has occasionally disseminated untruths, but it wasn't kidding about the fish.) I neither saw nor was stung by any jellyfish, although some other folks did report encountering them (although not their tentacles).
After the snorkeling, there was a nice buffet lunch on the pontoon, and then we took a ride in a semi-submersible boat to see more of the Reef in comfortable dryness. Well, OK, semi-comfortable drippiness, to be honest, but there was a very, very cool view. Which I would try to describe, but, really, you've all seen pictures of the Great Barrier Reef, and no words of mine are remotely going to do it justice.
Oh, wait, actually, I can supply some pictures... Note, though, that the colors are inevitably kind of dimmed by looking through that much water, though, and that the image quality isn't helped by the fact that these were taken through glass:
And then we got back on the boat, and I stood out on the deck getting wet and wind-blown again.
All in all, a really good day.
Monday, May 19, 2008
What I Did On My Australian Vacation: Day Seven
Before I start with Day 7, let me share a couple of photos of the moon over Kata Tjuta that I took around sunset on Day 6. Because I managed to miss them the first time, and I think they're worth sharing:
Right. On to...
Day 7:
On the morning of Day 7, we did a sightseeing flight over Uluru and Kata Tjuta in a small plane. Kata Tjuta, in particular, is extremely impressive from the air, but even just getting to see the bushland spread out below us from altitude was cool. (Less cool was what the flight did to my stomach, but at least none of us lost our breakfast. Which is more than could be said for the person who went up before us. Oops.)
After that, we had a little while to spend kicking back by the pool before our flight to Cairns on a significantly larger and less nausea-inducing plane. Lying on a deck chair in the shade reading Darwin was decidedly pleasant after the previous day's fast-paced desert trek, but no matter how often I expressed a desire for one, no cabana boys came by to serve me fruity drinks with umbrellas in them. Ah, well. I suppose even on vacation one can't have everything.
The hotel in Cairns may not have had any cabana boys, either, but it was impressive nonetheless. Hell, it's probably the poshest hotel I've ever set foot in, let alone stayed at. For those who may have missed the first of these travelogue posts, wherein I talked about hotels, here's the picture of our room in Cairns again. The shots I took of the lobby didn't really come out that well, so I won't post them here, but you can see a bit of it on the hotel's website.
We had the evening free in Cairns, which I spent happily exploring the immediate area, especially the night markets, a late-opening shopping area featuring lots of crowded, just-on-the-right-side-of-seedy shops selling all kinds of cheap goods and services. It was a lot of fun to wander around while eating ice cream.
(By the way, Australia is a great place for ice cream. Everywhere we went, there were little places serving delicious oddball flavors, some of them featuring tropical fruits I'd barely even heard of. I'm not saying that this in itself justifies the airfare, but it definitely helps make the trip feel entirely worth it once you're there.)
Right. On to...
Day 7:
On the morning of Day 7, we did a sightseeing flight over Uluru and Kata Tjuta in a small plane. Kata Tjuta, in particular, is extremely impressive from the air, but even just getting to see the bushland spread out below us from altitude was cool. (Less cool was what the flight did to my stomach, but at least none of us lost our breakfast. Which is more than could be said for the person who went up before us. Oops.)
After that, we had a little while to spend kicking back by the pool before our flight to Cairns on a significantly larger and less nausea-inducing plane. Lying on a deck chair in the shade reading Darwin was decidedly pleasant after the previous day's fast-paced desert trek, but no matter how often I expressed a desire for one, no cabana boys came by to serve me fruity drinks with umbrellas in them. Ah, well. I suppose even on vacation one can't have everything.
The hotel in Cairns may not have had any cabana boys, either, but it was impressive nonetheless. Hell, it's probably the poshest hotel I've ever set foot in, let alone stayed at. For those who may have missed the first of these travelogue posts, wherein I talked about hotels, here's the picture of our room in Cairns again. The shots I took of the lobby didn't really come out that well, so I won't post them here, but you can see a bit of it on the hotel's website.
We had the evening free in Cairns, which I spent happily exploring the immediate area, especially the night markets, a late-opening shopping area featuring lots of crowded, just-on-the-right-side-of-seedy shops selling all kinds of cheap goods and services. It was a lot of fun to wander around while eating ice cream.
(By the way, Australia is a great place for ice cream. Everywhere we went, there were little places serving delicious oddball flavors, some of them featuring tropical fruits I'd barely even heard of. I'm not saying that this in itself justifies the airfare, but it definitely helps make the trip feel entirely worth it once you're there.)
Friday, May 16, 2008
What I Did On My Australian Vacation: Day Six
I'm determined to finish this account... eventually. So, where was I? Oh, yes...
Day Six:
That was this day, for those of you keeping track. Here's what happened:
The previous day, we were told that this morning would feature a trip into the park to see Uluru in the sunrise, for anybody who wanted to get up early and come, and that at that point they'd drop off anybody who wanted to do the climb up the rock on a chain or to walk the trail around it. A couple of people opted for the climb (which ended up being canceled due to wind), but I was the only taker for the hike. Apparently a six-mile walk isn't most people's idea of fun... an attitude which I confess I find baffling. Me, I usually walk at least two miles per day (often a fair bit more), and after all that time in buses and airplanes and hotel rooms, I was feeling more than ready to get out and stretch my legs. (Actually, my friend would have loved to have done it, but, while she could probably have physically managed it, due to her health problems it would doubtless have left her exhausted, and she would never have managed it in the alloted time, so I regretfully talked her out of it. But her willing spirit earned her an exemption from the "What a bunch of wimps!" jokes I inevitably made afterward.)
Anyway, as you know if you read the post I made that day, things didn't exactly go according to plan, as the stupid hotel alarm clock failed to go off at the right time, and I woke up about five minutes before we were supposed to leave. Amazingly enough, I managed to throw on my clothes and grab my stuff (well, most of my stuff -- I had to go back for my water and managed to forget my park entry ticket entirely) and get to the bus before it took off. (This is a little trick I learned in college, where more than once I overslept and woke up mere minutes before I was supposed to be at my 8 AM class.)
Being as I was in an unwashed, under-caffeinated, generally groggy state, I was figuring on scrapping the walk idea entirely and just enjoying the sunrise and heading back to the hotel. But the weather was unutterably beautiful, there was coffee at the sunrise viewing, people were encouraging, and, well, the tour guide had already gone to the trouble of arranging a boxed breakfast for me. Plus, I'd had the presence of mind to grab my deodorant and toothbrush on the way out, so I could even clean up a little. So, what the hell, I went.
And I was glad I did. It was a really pleasant walk, among pleasant scenery, and I had long stretches of it all to myself, which was soothing to my introvert's soul. Unfortunately, thanks to first having to make a long trek to the distant restrooms and then taking a wrong (although very pretty) turn onto a side trail, I really had to push my pace to make sure I'd be there when the bus got back. I felt it later, let me tell you. Hell, I felt it during. But, still, definitely worth it.
Despite my need to book, I did take frequent stops for photographs, as I'd promised my friend I would do so she could at least live the experience vicariously. Unfortunately, it seemed like almost every time I did so, immediately after that I'd see the sign, a dozen feet or so along, forbidding photographs in that area. As I mentioned before, this is a hugely significant area for the native population, and there are many spots around the rock that are used for religious ceremonies. These sites are considered sacred, and not to be entered or viewed too closely, except by the appropriate people at the appropriate times, so they ask visitors to stay away from them and not photograph them. Now, I'm not great respecter of anybody's religion, but I figure any people who've been shit on as much as the aboriginal Australians certainly deserve to have their wishes honored when they're asking for something as simple as random tourists refraining from snapping pictures on their land and plastering the results all over the internet. So a lot of those pictures, you're not going to see. Here's a few that should be OK, though:
And here's a picture of the rock as a whole:
After the walk, we did a much, much shorter walk down into a gorge with some rock art:
Then we stopped at the aboriginal culture center, which had various shops and an interesting visitor's center/museum featuring information on various aspects of local aboriginal culture.
Then it was back to the hotel for a long, long, long shower, after which we clueless Americans spent a ridiculously long time trying to do laundry and having trouble figuring out why the washing machine wouldn't work. (Hint: The power switches located on all the wall outlets in Australia? It's kind of important to make sure they're on. D'oh!)
In the afternoon we went to Kata Tjuta (aka "The Olgas"), a lesser-known but almost equally impressive geological formation also located in the same national park. Here's Kata Tjuta:
The name means "many heads," and it's a pretty good description of a fascinating landscape.
We rounded off the (very, very full) day with a barbecue dinner under the stars. No kangaroo this time, but the chicken was pretty good.
Day Six:
That was this day, for those of you keeping track. Here's what happened:
The previous day, we were told that this morning would feature a trip into the park to see Uluru in the sunrise, for anybody who wanted to get up early and come, and that at that point they'd drop off anybody who wanted to do the climb up the rock on a chain or to walk the trail around it. A couple of people opted for the climb (which ended up being canceled due to wind), but I was the only taker for the hike. Apparently a six-mile walk isn't most people's idea of fun... an attitude which I confess I find baffling. Me, I usually walk at least two miles per day (often a fair bit more), and after all that time in buses and airplanes and hotel rooms, I was feeling more than ready to get out and stretch my legs. (Actually, my friend would have loved to have done it, but, while she could probably have physically managed it, due to her health problems it would doubtless have left her exhausted, and she would never have managed it in the alloted time, so I regretfully talked her out of it. But her willing spirit earned her an exemption from the "What a bunch of wimps!" jokes I inevitably made afterward.)
Anyway, as you know if you read the post I made that day, things didn't exactly go according to plan, as the stupid hotel alarm clock failed to go off at the right time, and I woke up about five minutes before we were supposed to leave. Amazingly enough, I managed to throw on my clothes and grab my stuff (well, most of my stuff -- I had to go back for my water and managed to forget my park entry ticket entirely) and get to the bus before it took off. (This is a little trick I learned in college, where more than once I overslept and woke up mere minutes before I was supposed to be at my 8 AM class.)
Being as I was in an unwashed, under-caffeinated, generally groggy state, I was figuring on scrapping the walk idea entirely and just enjoying the sunrise and heading back to the hotel. But the weather was unutterably beautiful, there was coffee at the sunrise viewing, people were encouraging, and, well, the tour guide had already gone to the trouble of arranging a boxed breakfast for me. Plus, I'd had the presence of mind to grab my deodorant and toothbrush on the way out, so I could even clean up a little. So, what the hell, I went.
And I was glad I did. It was a really pleasant walk, among pleasant scenery, and I had long stretches of it all to myself, which was soothing to my introvert's soul. Unfortunately, thanks to first having to make a long trek to the distant restrooms and then taking a wrong (although very pretty) turn onto a side trail, I really had to push my pace to make sure I'd be there when the bus got back. I felt it later, let me tell you. Hell, I felt it during. But, still, definitely worth it.
Despite my need to book, I did take frequent stops for photographs, as I'd promised my friend I would do so she could at least live the experience vicariously. Unfortunately, it seemed like almost every time I did so, immediately after that I'd see the sign, a dozen feet or so along, forbidding photographs in that area. As I mentioned before, this is a hugely significant area for the native population, and there are many spots around the rock that are used for religious ceremonies. These sites are considered sacred, and not to be entered or viewed too closely, except by the appropriate people at the appropriate times, so they ask visitors to stay away from them and not photograph them. Now, I'm not great respecter of anybody's religion, but I figure any people who've been shit on as much as the aboriginal Australians certainly deserve to have their wishes honored when they're asking for something as simple as random tourists refraining from snapping pictures on their land and plastering the results all over the internet. So a lot of those pictures, you're not going to see. Here's a few that should be OK, though:
And here's a picture of the rock as a whole:
After the walk, we did a much, much shorter walk down into a gorge with some rock art:
Then we stopped at the aboriginal culture center, which had various shops and an interesting visitor's center/museum featuring information on various aspects of local aboriginal culture.
Then it was back to the hotel for a long, long, long shower, after which we clueless Americans spent a ridiculously long time trying to do laundry and having trouble figuring out why the washing machine wouldn't work. (Hint: The power switches located on all the wall outlets in Australia? It's kind of important to make sure they're on. D'oh!)
In the afternoon we went to Kata Tjuta (aka "The Olgas"), a lesser-known but almost equally impressive geological formation also located in the same national park. Here's Kata Tjuta:
The name means "many heads," and it's a pretty good description of a fascinating landscape.
We rounded off the (very, very full) day with a barbecue dinner under the stars. No kangaroo this time, but the chicken was pretty good.
Tuesday, May 06, 2008
What I Did On My Australian Vacation: Day Five
As you might have noticed by now, this is more a collection of rambling things that I thought about while on this trip than an exciting and action-packed travelogue...
Day Five:
On Day Five, we drove out from Alice Springs to our next stopping place: the Ayers Rock Resort, just outside the national park that is home to the famous rock itself. A word about names here, by the way... I'm not sure exactly who Ayers was or how his name got attached to this particular geological formation, but of course it had a name long before anybody ever gave it his. The original inhabitants of the area called it Uluru, which means "meeting place," as it was (and still is) a place where various local groups would meet for important religious rituals. You still see "Ayers Rock" used in many contexts, such as the name of the resort town, but all the official signs and such use the original native names. As I understand it -- and I'm sure the politics were way more complicated than I'm making it sound -- the land containing the national park was ceded back to the aboriginal people a couple of decades ago, and they are now renting it back to the Australian government on a 99-year lease. (I'm told this extended lease is a common sort of arrangement in this part of Australia, though usually it's the Australian government leasing land to ranchers.)
When you're actually in the national park, by the way, there is a very strong sense of being constantly reminded that, yes, you are on aboriginal land, on the sacred site of an ancient culture, and that your presence, while tolerated, is something of an intrusion. On the other hand, while it's not remotely a tourist-trap kind of place, there are also, inevitably, many signals that scream "Welcome, tourist! Come and see everything! Spend money!" The resulting feeling of cognitive dissonance pretty much encapsulates the post-Imperialist world in a nutshell.
But I'm getting ahead of myself. I was going to talk about the trip from Alice Springs. This was a fairly long drive -- something like five hours, I think -- and I was prepared for a stretch of boredom, or at least for a chance to do some reading. (I had a paperback copy of The Origin of Species that I carried around with me for the duration of the trip. I thought it might be rather cool to finally get around to reading that book in a place with such an interesting evolutionary history. Which it was, but I didn't exactly end up having much reading time, so I didn't finish it until the flight home... by which point it had become rather badly battered, poor thing.) Turns out that boredom wasn't a problem, though. Partly this was due to Linda the tour guide, who would periodically chime in with information or jokes or music, partly due to the fact that a couple of stops broke the drive up nicely -- more on the one that wasn't a lunch break in a minute -- and partly because the view out the window held my attention remarkably well. The vegetation looked enough like what we have here on the New Mexican chaparral to feel pleasantly homey, but with the red sandy soil that said vegetation was growing in, the result was a sense that something very like my home desert had been transplanted onto Mars. It was weirdly fascinating.
I was also peering out the window hoping to see some wildlife... I realize that, when I talked about driving along the Great Ocean Road on Day Three, I neglected to mention that we did get a very, very brief glimpse of some wild koalas high in the trees. I was really hoping to see wild kangaroos somewhere other than on a plate, but, like most desert animals, they're mostly active at dusk, so our late-morning/afternoon drive was sadly kangaroo-less. Well, except for a couple of roadkill 'roos along the side of the highway. We did see lots of birds, though, including a couple of eagles munching away on aforementioned roadkill. Australia seems like a great place for birds... I knew they had wild parrots and cockatoos, but I didn't realize they had wild cockatoos hanging out in the middle of cities. I saw them pretty much everywhere, though. Well, everywhere except the outback, so apparently I'm digressing again.
Speaking of animals, the non-lunch stop we made was at a place that offered camel rides. For five bucks, you could climb up on one and they'd lead it around the yard for you. I didn't go for this, myself, as I don't even care for horseback riding, but several other members of our tour group did, and it was fairly entertaining to watch. Here, have a camel picture:
After the ride (the bus ride, that is, not the camel ride), we had some time to kick back at the hotel, then we drove into the park to view the eponymous rock in the setting sun. Very pretty and colorful. Not quite Grand Canyon-in-the-sunset levels of pretty and colorful, perhaps, but a beautiful sight nonetheless. Plus, there were snacks and wine.
And then it got dark. And I realize that I forgot to mention something about Day Four, too, which is that it marked the first day (or rather, night) in which I was able to get anything like a proper look at the stars of the southern hemisphere. Which, frankly, was one of the things I was most excited about on the whole trip. I had a southern star chart (which someone, rather wonderfully, slipped into my mailbox at work before I left), and I pleased myself enormously by discovering that I could identify Alpha Centauri (our nearest stellar neighbor!) and the famous Southern Cross quite easily. And then I stood there like an idiot for ages gaping at Orion, good old familiar Orion, which was upside down. I mean, I knew it would be, but seeing it like that was just bizarre. Orion's sword had become Orion's necktie! Actually, standing there gaping isn't precisely what I was doing. In fact, I was hopping around and pointing at things in the sky and exclaiming and twisting my head around to look at things upside down so I could identify them better, while passerby no doubt gave me a wide berth, and my friend stood there smiling in tolerant bemusement.
The reason that's relevant to Day Five is that there was supposed to be an optional star party thing the previous night, which turned out to be unavailable, a fact at which I expressed great disappointment to Linda. Well, she happened to stumble across a flyer somewhere at the resort advertising a "night sky show" at the tiny Ayers Rock Observatory and offered to book me in for it. So of course I went. It was basically just an astronomer giving a very, very basic-level talk, and letting people look through a telescope at various star clusters. (Also the moon, which really is an awesome sight through a reasonably-powered telescope, and Saturn, which is just pretty.) As basic-level astronomy talks go, it was pretty decent, although I give the guy points off for going on about astrology and pointing out everybody's star signs. I suppose it's considered a way to get people who know nothing about astronomy interested by relating it to something they are familiar with, but I can't help but disapprove on principle. Especially as the guy claimed he would "totally discredit" it later, and then apparently forgot to do so. Oops. Still it was enjoyable nonetheless, and I could tell that the people there were getting something out of it. One couple asked the astronomical guide to settle an argument: "The moon isn't visible in the daytime, right?" they said. "So when it looks like you can see the moon in the day, that's just a reflection, right? It can't be the actual moon? Or is it?" Oh, man, that level of... of not-looking-up-at-the-sky-ness, and not-understanding-the-universe-ness, it just makes me sad. Not mad at people for being ignorant, or contemptuous of them, or anything, just sad. How can you have an amazing, wonderful thing like the moon around and not even pay enough attention to it to know whether it's supposed to be there or not? At least they did get their explanation: yes, the moon is visible during the day. And I am re-confirmed in my belief that these kinds of public talks by scientists are useful and important.
For myself, I learned how to find south by the stars in the southern hemisphere, which is not nearly as easy as finding north around here. Something in the back of my brain is utterly convinced that this is vitally important knowledge to have, even though I'm honestly not sure I'm ever going to make it back to this side of the planet, let alone find myself in a position where I'm going to have to navigate by the stars. I suspect that's the same part of my brain that is convinced there's an actual chance of my ending up as a Doctor Who companion and that I need to know where the vulnerable spot is on a Dalek. (Aim for the eyepiece!)
Unfortunately, this night, and the few others we had under clear desert skies, were not in fact good nights for stargazing, as the moon was nearly full and completely washed out some of the more interesting objects visible in the southern hemisphere. Meaning I still have not seen the Magellenic Clouds. I'm thinking that just might be the thing that will eventually persuade me to go back...
Day Five:
On Day Five, we drove out from Alice Springs to our next stopping place: the Ayers Rock Resort, just outside the national park that is home to the famous rock itself. A word about names here, by the way... I'm not sure exactly who Ayers was or how his name got attached to this particular geological formation, but of course it had a name long before anybody ever gave it his. The original inhabitants of the area called it Uluru, which means "meeting place," as it was (and still is) a place where various local groups would meet for important religious rituals. You still see "Ayers Rock" used in many contexts, such as the name of the resort town, but all the official signs and such use the original native names. As I understand it -- and I'm sure the politics were way more complicated than I'm making it sound -- the land containing the national park was ceded back to the aboriginal people a couple of decades ago, and they are now renting it back to the Australian government on a 99-year lease. (I'm told this extended lease is a common sort of arrangement in this part of Australia, though usually it's the Australian government leasing land to ranchers.)
When you're actually in the national park, by the way, there is a very strong sense of being constantly reminded that, yes, you are on aboriginal land, on the sacred site of an ancient culture, and that your presence, while tolerated, is something of an intrusion. On the other hand, while it's not remotely a tourist-trap kind of place, there are also, inevitably, many signals that scream "Welcome, tourist! Come and see everything! Spend money!" The resulting feeling of cognitive dissonance pretty much encapsulates the post-Imperialist world in a nutshell.
But I'm getting ahead of myself. I was going to talk about the trip from Alice Springs. This was a fairly long drive -- something like five hours, I think -- and I was prepared for a stretch of boredom, or at least for a chance to do some reading. (I had a paperback copy of The Origin of Species that I carried around with me for the duration of the trip. I thought it might be rather cool to finally get around to reading that book in a place with such an interesting evolutionary history. Which it was, but I didn't exactly end up having much reading time, so I didn't finish it until the flight home... by which point it had become rather badly battered, poor thing.) Turns out that boredom wasn't a problem, though. Partly this was due to Linda the tour guide, who would periodically chime in with information or jokes or music, partly due to the fact that a couple of stops broke the drive up nicely -- more on the one that wasn't a lunch break in a minute -- and partly because the view out the window held my attention remarkably well. The vegetation looked enough like what we have here on the New Mexican chaparral to feel pleasantly homey, but with the red sandy soil that said vegetation was growing in, the result was a sense that something very like my home desert had been transplanted onto Mars. It was weirdly fascinating.
I was also peering out the window hoping to see some wildlife... I realize that, when I talked about driving along the Great Ocean Road on Day Three, I neglected to mention that we did get a very, very brief glimpse of some wild koalas high in the trees. I was really hoping to see wild kangaroos somewhere other than on a plate, but, like most desert animals, they're mostly active at dusk, so our late-morning/afternoon drive was sadly kangaroo-less. Well, except for a couple of roadkill 'roos along the side of the highway. We did see lots of birds, though, including a couple of eagles munching away on aforementioned roadkill. Australia seems like a great place for birds... I knew they had wild parrots and cockatoos, but I didn't realize they had wild cockatoos hanging out in the middle of cities. I saw them pretty much everywhere, though. Well, everywhere except the outback, so apparently I'm digressing again.
Speaking of animals, the non-lunch stop we made was at a place that offered camel rides. For five bucks, you could climb up on one and they'd lead it around the yard for you. I didn't go for this, myself, as I don't even care for horseback riding, but several other members of our tour group did, and it was fairly entertaining to watch. Here, have a camel picture:
After the ride (the bus ride, that is, not the camel ride), we had some time to kick back at the hotel, then we drove into the park to view the eponymous rock in the setting sun. Very pretty and colorful. Not quite Grand Canyon-in-the-sunset levels of pretty and colorful, perhaps, but a beautiful sight nonetheless. Plus, there were snacks and wine.
And then it got dark. And I realize that I forgot to mention something about Day Four, too, which is that it marked the first day (or rather, night) in which I was able to get anything like a proper look at the stars of the southern hemisphere. Which, frankly, was one of the things I was most excited about on the whole trip. I had a southern star chart (which someone, rather wonderfully, slipped into my mailbox at work before I left), and I pleased myself enormously by discovering that I could identify Alpha Centauri (our nearest stellar neighbor!) and the famous Southern Cross quite easily. And then I stood there like an idiot for ages gaping at Orion, good old familiar Orion, which was upside down. I mean, I knew it would be, but seeing it like that was just bizarre. Orion's sword had become Orion's necktie! Actually, standing there gaping isn't precisely what I was doing. In fact, I was hopping around and pointing at things in the sky and exclaiming and twisting my head around to look at things upside down so I could identify them better, while passerby no doubt gave me a wide berth, and my friend stood there smiling in tolerant bemusement.
The reason that's relevant to Day Five is that there was supposed to be an optional star party thing the previous night, which turned out to be unavailable, a fact at which I expressed great disappointment to Linda. Well, she happened to stumble across a flyer somewhere at the resort advertising a "night sky show" at the tiny Ayers Rock Observatory and offered to book me in for it. So of course I went. It was basically just an astronomer giving a very, very basic-level talk, and letting people look through a telescope at various star clusters. (Also the moon, which really is an awesome sight through a reasonably-powered telescope, and Saturn, which is just pretty.) As basic-level astronomy talks go, it was pretty decent, although I give the guy points off for going on about astrology and pointing out everybody's star signs. I suppose it's considered a way to get people who know nothing about astronomy interested by relating it to something they are familiar with, but I can't help but disapprove on principle. Especially as the guy claimed he would "totally discredit" it later, and then apparently forgot to do so. Oops. Still it was enjoyable nonetheless, and I could tell that the people there were getting something out of it. One couple asked the astronomical guide to settle an argument: "The moon isn't visible in the daytime, right?" they said. "So when it looks like you can see the moon in the day, that's just a reflection, right? It can't be the actual moon? Or is it?" Oh, man, that level of... of not-looking-up-at-the-sky-ness, and not-understanding-the-universe-ness, it just makes me sad. Not mad at people for being ignorant, or contemptuous of them, or anything, just sad. How can you have an amazing, wonderful thing like the moon around and not even pay enough attention to it to know whether it's supposed to be there or not? At least they did get their explanation: yes, the moon is visible during the day. And I am re-confirmed in my belief that these kinds of public talks by scientists are useful and important.
For myself, I learned how to find south by the stars in the southern hemisphere, which is not nearly as easy as finding north around here. Something in the back of my brain is utterly convinced that this is vitally important knowledge to have, even though I'm honestly not sure I'm ever going to make it back to this side of the planet, let alone find myself in a position where I'm going to have to navigate by the stars. I suspect that's the same part of my brain that is convinced there's an actual chance of my ending up as a Doctor Who companion and that I need to know where the vulnerable spot is on a Dalek. (Aim for the eyepiece!)
Unfortunately, this night, and the few others we had under clear desert skies, were not in fact good nights for stargazing, as the moon was nearly full and completely washed out some of the more interesting objects visible in the southern hemisphere. Meaning I still have not seen the Magellenic Clouds. I'm thinking that just might be the thing that will eventually persuade me to go back...
Friday, May 02, 2008
What I Did On My Australian Vacation: Day Four
Day Four:
On Day Four, we left Melbourne behind and flew out to Alice Springs, in the heart of the Australian Outback.
The fist place we stopped in "The Alice" was the old telegraph relay station which was the initial reason for the town's existence. There are some original frontier buildings still standing there, as well as a display of old telegraph equipment. I think I got more out of it than I otherwise would have by virtue of having read a couple of relevant books. Several years ago, I picked up The Dig Tree by Sarah Murgatoyd, which was about the exploration of Australia's interior by Europeans and which impressed me greatly with the fact that the Outback eats people, or at least certainly did in those days. So that helped me form at least some vague idea of what a truly boggling feat it must have been to put a telegraph line straight through the heart of this wilderness. And just a few weeks ago, I happened to read The Victorian Internet by Tom Standage, which really brought home the fact that telegraph technology was as marvelous and as world-changing in its day as the internet is in ours, in extremely and fascinatingly similar ways. So it was rather cool to see a little piece of that history preserved.
Next, we visited the headquarters of the Royal Flying Doctors service, which maintains a medical staff and a small fleet of airplanes that can be dispatched almost instantly to rural areas which otherwise have no access to doctors. They showed us a little film, which was really a thinly disguised extended plea for donations, but since they are doing impressive life-saving work, and since most of their calls these days come from tourists rather than locals, I cannot remotely begrudge them for taking the opportunity to try to milk a few dollars from said tourists. (Indeed, I happily let them milk a few out of me.)
We also visited the Alice Springs School of the Air, where we got another film/plea for donations, a little tour, and a brief Q&A session with a staff person. The School of the Air provides education for children who live in isolated locations, and has done so since 1951. It originally started out using radio communications, but has now moved onto the internet. Most of the tour/film/talk was about current practices, which I was a little disappointed by, as I was much more interested in the institution's history. Teaching via internet, while a worthy practice, is considerably less impressive to me than running a classroom over the radio. Heck, I have a friend who does internet math tutoring from her home, using what seem to be pretty much the same methods as the School of the Air teachers, but my imagination chokes at the thought of trying to teach fractions via shortwave.
By the way, Alice Springs, from what I saw of it, seemed like quite a nice little town. Of course, mostly what I saw of it, other than the tour stops, was the shopping area. But even that area, while definitely geared towards tourists, managed to seem pleasantly livable rather than touristy and tacky. Mind you, it's probably a much less hospitable place in the summer... I heartily recommend April as a time to visit this part of Australia, as the weather was as gorgeous as it is possible for weather on Earth to be.
That evening, most of my traveling companions chose to go to an outdoor feast/aboriginal dancing-and-storytelling show. I figured this was probably going to be tacky, not to mention exploitative, and opted out. Which turned out to be a good call, as the folks who went came back reporting that the food was bad, the show was lame, and there was some kind of transportation mix-up that left them stranded without a ride for an hour afterward. They did receive a visit from some wild kangaroos, though, which everybody seems to have regarded as the highlight of the evening. And, as recompense for their troubles, they liberated a number of unopened bottles of wine left over after the dinner, something Linda the tour guide -- who had nothing to do with the screw-ups, it should be noted -- praised as being "in the Australian spirit," or at least in the spirit of the country's convict origins. Heh. My mother, at least, seemed to regard the whole thing as a we'll-laugh-about-this-later sort of adventure than as something to be genuinely annoyed about, which is cool, but I certainly wasn't feeling as if I'd missed out.
My friend and I opted instead to head to the Overlander's Steakhouse for what was almost certainly the most expensive meal I've ever eaten in my life, but one that made up for it in sheer novelty value, if nothing else. (Erm, any vegetarians in the audience may want to look away now.) Here's the menu for the meal we ordered (click to see full-sized):
There are two things to note here. One is that that's a metric crapload of food. The other is the nature of the appetizers, which consist of samples of crocodile, kangaroo, emu, and camel. (Yeah, this is the kangaroo-eating I mentioned in my brief and cryptic posts from the trip.) The kangaroo, in my opinion, was utterly delicious, with the emu being very nearly as good. Both tasted quite a bit like very lean beef, or possibly venison, though it's been long enough since I've had venison that it's difficult to compare. Interestingly, kangaroo was also served at the disastrous meal the others went to, and several of them complained that it was tough and unpleasant. And as I recall, somebody else mentioned on a blog comment that they'd found emu too dry. All I can say is, you guys must not have had it cooked right! Admittedly, the meat was a fair bit rarer than I usually like it, but maybe that's what made the difference. I suspect that kangaroo may be one of those things, like prime rib, that you simply don't order well done. I noticed kangaroo steaks on a menu somewhere else later, too, with "(rare only)" in a note next to it, so apparently I'm not the only person who thinks that. All I know is that I'm sorry emu never caught on here, and I'm really sorry that kangaroo isn't something I'm ever going to find on the menu at my local diner, because I'd probably order it on a semi-regular basis if I had the opportunity.
My mother, by the way, made a face when I told her about this later and said she'd refused to eat the kangaroo because she didn't like the idea of eating anything "cuddly." To which I pointed out that she'd just ordered veal the night before, but it's a mistake to try to apply logic to people's food preferences, really. The reason I mention this is because my friend then responded, "Just think of them as bouncy cows!" and kangaroo meat thus will now always be "bouncy cow" in my mind. Heh. Emu, by the way, is "beef bird," which is what we immediately dubbed it upon tasting it.
The camel I thought was a bit stronger and gamier-tasting than the other red meats, although my friend pointed out that it was difficult to compare it properly, as it came in a plum sauce, which the others didn't. It's quite possible that the difference in palatability was to some degree psychological, as camels simply aren't tasty-looking animals. (Camels, by the way, live wild in the Australian outback, in herds descended from domestic camels initially brought in as riding animals. So camel really is an authentic Australian game meat! Who knew?)
The crocodile, while perfectly edible, was much less to my taste, having the consistency of slightly undercooked chicken and a mildly fishy taste. But it gives me an odd, triumphant feeling to chow down on something that normally regards itself as being higher than me on the food chain.
And I'm done talking about eating animals now, honest. I will, however, mention that pavlova, which is a desert whose description defies my ability with words, except to say that it was incredibly light and delicately fruity, needs to be imported into the United States right now, so that I may order it for dessert with every meal henceforward. Thank you.
On Day Four, we left Melbourne behind and flew out to Alice Springs, in the heart of the Australian Outback.
The fist place we stopped in "The Alice" was the old telegraph relay station which was the initial reason for the town's existence. There are some original frontier buildings still standing there, as well as a display of old telegraph equipment. I think I got more out of it than I otherwise would have by virtue of having read a couple of relevant books. Several years ago, I picked up The Dig Tree by Sarah Murgatoyd, which was about the exploration of Australia's interior by Europeans and which impressed me greatly with the fact that the Outback eats people, or at least certainly did in those days. So that helped me form at least some vague idea of what a truly boggling feat it must have been to put a telegraph line straight through the heart of this wilderness. And just a few weeks ago, I happened to read The Victorian Internet by Tom Standage, which really brought home the fact that telegraph technology was as marvelous and as world-changing in its day as the internet is in ours, in extremely and fascinatingly similar ways. So it was rather cool to see a little piece of that history preserved.
Next, we visited the headquarters of the Royal Flying Doctors service, which maintains a medical staff and a small fleet of airplanes that can be dispatched almost instantly to rural areas which otherwise have no access to doctors. They showed us a little film, which was really a thinly disguised extended plea for donations, but since they are doing impressive life-saving work, and since most of their calls these days come from tourists rather than locals, I cannot remotely begrudge them for taking the opportunity to try to milk a few dollars from said tourists. (Indeed, I happily let them milk a few out of me.)
We also visited the Alice Springs School of the Air, where we got another film/plea for donations, a little tour, and a brief Q&A session with a staff person. The School of the Air provides education for children who live in isolated locations, and has done so since 1951. It originally started out using radio communications, but has now moved onto the internet. Most of the tour/film/talk was about current practices, which I was a little disappointed by, as I was much more interested in the institution's history. Teaching via internet, while a worthy practice, is considerably less impressive to me than running a classroom over the radio. Heck, I have a friend who does internet math tutoring from her home, using what seem to be pretty much the same methods as the School of the Air teachers, but my imagination chokes at the thought of trying to teach fractions via shortwave.
By the way, Alice Springs, from what I saw of it, seemed like quite a nice little town. Of course, mostly what I saw of it, other than the tour stops, was the shopping area. But even that area, while definitely geared towards tourists, managed to seem pleasantly livable rather than touristy and tacky. Mind you, it's probably a much less hospitable place in the summer... I heartily recommend April as a time to visit this part of Australia, as the weather was as gorgeous as it is possible for weather on Earth to be.
That evening, most of my traveling companions chose to go to an outdoor feast/aboriginal dancing-and-storytelling show. I figured this was probably going to be tacky, not to mention exploitative, and opted out. Which turned out to be a good call, as the folks who went came back reporting that the food was bad, the show was lame, and there was some kind of transportation mix-up that left them stranded without a ride for an hour afterward. They did receive a visit from some wild kangaroos, though, which everybody seems to have regarded as the highlight of the evening. And, as recompense for their troubles, they liberated a number of unopened bottles of wine left over after the dinner, something Linda the tour guide -- who had nothing to do with the screw-ups, it should be noted -- praised as being "in the Australian spirit," or at least in the spirit of the country's convict origins. Heh. My mother, at least, seemed to regard the whole thing as a we'll-laugh-about-this-later sort of adventure than as something to be genuinely annoyed about, which is cool, but I certainly wasn't feeling as if I'd missed out.
My friend and I opted instead to head to the Overlander's Steakhouse for what was almost certainly the most expensive meal I've ever eaten in my life, but one that made up for it in sheer novelty value, if nothing else. (Erm, any vegetarians in the audience may want to look away now.) Here's the menu for the meal we ordered (click to see full-sized):
There are two things to note here. One is that that's a metric crapload of food. The other is the nature of the appetizers, which consist of samples of crocodile, kangaroo, emu, and camel. (Yeah, this is the kangaroo-eating I mentioned in my brief and cryptic posts from the trip.) The kangaroo, in my opinion, was utterly delicious, with the emu being very nearly as good. Both tasted quite a bit like very lean beef, or possibly venison, though it's been long enough since I've had venison that it's difficult to compare. Interestingly, kangaroo was also served at the disastrous meal the others went to, and several of them complained that it was tough and unpleasant. And as I recall, somebody else mentioned on a blog comment that they'd found emu too dry. All I can say is, you guys must not have had it cooked right! Admittedly, the meat was a fair bit rarer than I usually like it, but maybe that's what made the difference. I suspect that kangaroo may be one of those things, like prime rib, that you simply don't order well done. I noticed kangaroo steaks on a menu somewhere else later, too, with "(rare only)" in a note next to it, so apparently I'm not the only person who thinks that. All I know is that I'm sorry emu never caught on here, and I'm really sorry that kangaroo isn't something I'm ever going to find on the menu at my local diner, because I'd probably order it on a semi-regular basis if I had the opportunity.
My mother, by the way, made a face when I told her about this later and said she'd refused to eat the kangaroo because she didn't like the idea of eating anything "cuddly." To which I pointed out that she'd just ordered veal the night before, but it's a mistake to try to apply logic to people's food preferences, really. The reason I mention this is because my friend then responded, "Just think of them as bouncy cows!" and kangaroo meat thus will now always be "bouncy cow" in my mind. Heh. Emu, by the way, is "beef bird," which is what we immediately dubbed it upon tasting it.
The camel I thought was a bit stronger and gamier-tasting than the other red meats, although my friend pointed out that it was difficult to compare it properly, as it came in a plum sauce, which the others didn't. It's quite possible that the difference in palatability was to some degree psychological, as camels simply aren't tasty-looking animals. (Camels, by the way, live wild in the Australian outback, in herds descended from domestic camels initially brought in as riding animals. So camel really is an authentic Australian game meat! Who knew?)
The crocodile, while perfectly edible, was much less to my taste, having the consistency of slightly undercooked chicken and a mildly fishy taste. But it gives me an odd, triumphant feeling to chow down on something that normally regards itself as being higher than me on the food chain.
And I'm done talking about eating animals now, honest. I will, however, mention that pavlova, which is a desert whose description defies my ability with words, except to say that it was incredibly light and delicately fruity, needs to be imported into the United States right now, so that I may order it for dessert with every meal henceforward. Thank you.
Thursday, May 01, 2008
What I Did On My Australian Vacation: Day Three
Day Three:
On the third day, we did an all-day drive along the seacoast on the Great Ocean Road. As unhappy as I was about not having more time to spend in Melbourne, I do not regret electing to do this trip, as the scenery was spectacular, especially the famous rock formations known as the Twelve Apostles. (Even though there don't seem to actually be twelve of them.) Once again, the stops we made were too short to be entirely satisfying for me, but in this case I can't really complain, as there's no way we could have lingered longer and still made the entire drive before sunset.
Despite the briefness of the stops and the heaviness of the crowds -- Australia seems to be positively teeming with Japanese sightseers -- I did find a few lovely moments to stand off by myself, stare out across the sea and contemplate things like the vastness of geologic time and the incredible beauty of the planet Earth. Which, corny as it sounds, is something that just makes me feel... better, in a genuinely profound sort of way. Sadly, I seem to be the only one who bothers; I couldn't help but notice that I was pretty much the only person in all those crowds who stopped to look at things with human eyeballs rather than through the lens of a camera. The standard procedure seemed to be to run up, snap a picture here, snap a picture there, snap pictures of each other standing in front of the scenery, and then run immediately off to the next thing. I can't help but think that this must be related to another kind of behavior I've noticed in more than one person, both on this trip and on others, which is the tendency to obsess about buying souvenirs almost to the exclusion of paying attention to the places they're buying souvenirs of. It's like people care more about proving they've been somewhere than they do about actually being there. Which is a deeply strange attitude to me.
Now, don't get me wrong. I'm as happy as anybody to take home a few pretty pictures, and I have considerable respect for people who practice photography as a serious art form. And my inability to engage in any activity without acquiring a t-shirt relating to it is legendary; you could probably write a pretty detailed biography of me just based on the contents of my shirt drawers. But, ephemeral is it may be, I'd much rather have the experience than the keepsake.
All of which doesn't mean that I didn't take some decent photographs, or that I'm not going to share them with you! So, here you go:
On the third day, we did an all-day drive along the seacoast on the Great Ocean Road. As unhappy as I was about not having more time to spend in Melbourne, I do not regret electing to do this trip, as the scenery was spectacular, especially the famous rock formations known as the Twelve Apostles. (Even though there don't seem to actually be twelve of them.) Once again, the stops we made were too short to be entirely satisfying for me, but in this case I can't really complain, as there's no way we could have lingered longer and still made the entire drive before sunset.
Despite the briefness of the stops and the heaviness of the crowds -- Australia seems to be positively teeming with Japanese sightseers -- I did find a few lovely moments to stand off by myself, stare out across the sea and contemplate things like the vastness of geologic time and the incredible beauty of the planet Earth. Which, corny as it sounds, is something that just makes me feel... better, in a genuinely profound sort of way. Sadly, I seem to be the only one who bothers; I couldn't help but notice that I was pretty much the only person in all those crowds who stopped to look at things with human eyeballs rather than through the lens of a camera. The standard procedure seemed to be to run up, snap a picture here, snap a picture there, snap pictures of each other standing in front of the scenery, and then run immediately off to the next thing. I can't help but think that this must be related to another kind of behavior I've noticed in more than one person, both on this trip and on others, which is the tendency to obsess about buying souvenirs almost to the exclusion of paying attention to the places they're buying souvenirs of. It's like people care more about proving they've been somewhere than they do about actually being there. Which is a deeply strange attitude to me.
Now, don't get me wrong. I'm as happy as anybody to take home a few pretty pictures, and I have considerable respect for people who practice photography as a serious art form. And my inability to engage in any activity without acquiring a t-shirt relating to it is legendary; you could probably write a pretty detailed biography of me just based on the contents of my shirt drawers. But, ephemeral is it may be, I'd much rather have the experience than the keepsake.
All of which doesn't mean that I didn't take some decent photographs, or that I'm not going to share them with you! So, here you go:
What I Did On My Australian Vacation: Day Two
Hey, maybe I will finish this in less than the two weeks it took to do, after all! Anyway, were we go...
Day Two:
As alluded to in the last post, this is the point where I experienced some misgivings about the whole package tour deal. Because the activity for Day Two featured a sightseeing bus tour of Melbourne, which started in the morning and which I was expecting to be maybe a couple of hours. Instead, it didn't finish until 1 PM. Now, my biggest concern about doing the guided tour thing was that there'd be a lot of rushing around and looking at the world through the windows of buses and never really getting to see anything, so we deliberately chose this tour, in large part, because it offered up a reasonable amount of free time at the various stopping points. But we then went and signed up to do an optional drive along the sea coast during what would have been our free day in Melbourne, so the fact that I spent an entire morning and then some hearing "and over there's an interesting place you might want to go" and "we're only going to spend a few minutes here, but it would be a great place for you to come back to tomorrow" was pretty frustrating to me, especially as Melbourne seemed to me like a lovely, friendly interesting city that I could happily have spent several days exploring. I also had the vague notion of perhaps looking up an internet friend of mine who lives in the city for lunch, but given that we didn't get back until after lunchtime, that sort of went out the window, too. And then once the bus tour finished, we ended up spending a fair amount of time in the Aussie equivalent of Wal-Mart purchasing all the stuff that everybody had neglected to pack, and then ate something of a hurried lunch. (Although, Melbournean internet friend, if you're reading this, I will mention that I did have souvlaki, and even though it was just from some food court place, it was delicious. You were so right about it being easy to find good Greek food in Melbourne! Who knew?)
By the way, while I'm talking about shopping in Australia and while I'm already whining, I will add that, financially speaking, this was so not the time to visit the country. At an exchange rate of nearly one-to-one, things were definitely on the expensive side. It was like paying airport prices everywhere.
I really don't want to be too negative here, though, because despite these frustrations, it actually was an enjoyable day, and Melbourne did strike me as a wonderful city. If it didn't require that horrible, horrible plane flight, it would top my list of places to visit again. And once we left Melbourne, said frustrations melted away and I was extremely happy with the rest of the tour.
We did find time in the afternoon to visit the Melbourne Museum, even if we didn't get to see anything like all of it. And for dinner, we went to this Italian place where I had what I can safely say, with no hyperbole whatsoever, was the best lasagna I have ever eaten in my entire life. My mouth is watering just thinking about it now, and I'm not even hungry.
And then we went to bed early again, which was a good thing, because Day Three would require getting a very early start. But more on that later. In the meantime, have a picture of some local vegetation:
I did love the vegetation in Australia, by the way. There's something about the sight of eucalyptus trees and cycads everywhere that really kept bringing home to me the fact that I truly was on the far side of the planet.
Day Two:
As alluded to in the last post, this is the point where I experienced some misgivings about the whole package tour deal. Because the activity for Day Two featured a sightseeing bus tour of Melbourne, which started in the morning and which I was expecting to be maybe a couple of hours. Instead, it didn't finish until 1 PM. Now, my biggest concern about doing the guided tour thing was that there'd be a lot of rushing around and looking at the world through the windows of buses and never really getting to see anything, so we deliberately chose this tour, in large part, because it offered up a reasonable amount of free time at the various stopping points. But we then went and signed up to do an optional drive along the sea coast during what would have been our free day in Melbourne, so the fact that I spent an entire morning and then some hearing "and over there's an interesting place you might want to go" and "we're only going to spend a few minutes here, but it would be a great place for you to come back to tomorrow" was pretty frustrating to me, especially as Melbourne seemed to me like a lovely, friendly interesting city that I could happily have spent several days exploring. I also had the vague notion of perhaps looking up an internet friend of mine who lives in the city for lunch, but given that we didn't get back until after lunchtime, that sort of went out the window, too. And then once the bus tour finished, we ended up spending a fair amount of time in the Aussie equivalent of Wal-Mart purchasing all the stuff that everybody had neglected to pack, and then ate something of a hurried lunch. (Although, Melbournean internet friend, if you're reading this, I will mention that I did have souvlaki, and even though it was just from some food court place, it was delicious. You were so right about it being easy to find good Greek food in Melbourne! Who knew?)
By the way, while I'm talking about shopping in Australia and while I'm already whining, I will add that, financially speaking, this was so not the time to visit the country. At an exchange rate of nearly one-to-one, things were definitely on the expensive side. It was like paying airport prices everywhere.
I really don't want to be too negative here, though, because despite these frustrations, it actually was an enjoyable day, and Melbourne did strike me as a wonderful city. If it didn't require that horrible, horrible plane flight, it would top my list of places to visit again. And once we left Melbourne, said frustrations melted away and I was extremely happy with the rest of the tour.
We did find time in the afternoon to visit the Melbourne Museum, even if we didn't get to see anything like all of it. And for dinner, we went to this Italian place where I had what I can safely say, with no hyperbole whatsoever, was the best lasagna I have ever eaten in my entire life. My mouth is watering just thinking about it now, and I'm not even hungry.
And then we went to bed early again, which was a good thing, because Day Three would require getting a very early start. But more on that later. In the meantime, have a picture of some local vegetation:
I did love the vegetation in Australia, by the way. There's something about the sight of eucalyptus trees and cycads everywhere that really kept bringing home to me the fact that I truly was on the far side of the planet.
What I Did On My Australian Vacation: Day One
OK, I know multiple people have told me they're looking forward to hearing all about the Australia trip, and I'm finally starting to get a bit caught up with my life after getting back from said trip, so I might as well actually start talking about it. It was a very full two weeks, and I kind of like the idea of blogging about it in detail, so I think I'm going to offer up a day-by-day report here, as I find the time. Which probably means it'll take longer for me to blog about than it took to live, but hopefully it'll be sufficiently interesting. (And, hey, if it's not, you can always skip the travel reports and just read the Doctor Who posts.)
So, here we go, the first entry in the retrospective Aussie travelog!
Day One:
Well, this would really be something like "Day One-and-a-Half" or maybe "Days One, Two, and Three"; it's hard to know exactly what to call it, what with all the weird, disrupted sleeping patterns and the crossing of a zillion time zones and all. Day One will do, and it's probably the least interesting part of the trip, because most of it was spent on planes.
I've already bitched about the long plane trips here before, and I won't do that rant again. I will say that at least the flight out was better than the flight back, despite being longer, because a) I was fresh, headed for adventure and rarin' to go, and b) It was a late flight and I actually managed to get some sleep, once someone lent me a neck pillow. That turned out to be an absolute necessity, as there is no comfortable position in an airplane seat. You keep thinking that perhaps if you just turned your head or your body or rearranged your arms just a little, that might make it endurable and you might be able to finally get some sleep, but this always turns out to be an illusion. Like I said, it is the transport to Hell. (And I'm not even going to get into how a certain member of my family refused the ticket agent's offer to move her to a window seat because then she'd be away from the group, and then insisted that I trade my window seat for her middle one because if she didn't have a window she'd get motion sick... and then spent the entire flight staring at the television screen, anyway. Ahem.)
Anyway, we landed in Melbourne at something like 6AM and took forever to clear customs and get our bags and stuff, which turned out to be not really a bad thing, because by the time we got to the hotel, our room was ready and we were allowed to check in early and take badly, badly, badly needed showers and naps. (I have been grungier than I was after that plane flight, but only once, at the tail end of a five-day backpacking trip.)
Speaking of hotels, this tour package thing was expensive as hell, but I have to say that they gave us our money's worth, as the hotels they had us booked in were nice. Especially by my standards, because I'm generally a serious tightwad when it comes to hotels, and I tend to consider anyplace where they provide shampoo as upscale. Here's a picture of the room we had later, in Cairns, by way of illustration:
After the napping and showering, we met for a drink with our tour director, Linda, who was great. I admit to having some doubts about how happy I was going to be with the whole package tour thing -- more about that when I get to Day Two, probably -- but my feeling now is that how well this sort of thing works must depend a lot on the tour director: how helpful they are, how on the ball they are, how well they connect with people... And this woman was great. Fun, friendly, helpful... She arranged for smoking rooms for my mother after her travel agent failed to put the request through, located my friend's wallet for her when she accidentally left it in an airport, and a whole host of other things. It was kind of like being a little kid again and having a parent to take care of you, but a parent whose only concern is to make sure that you have fun, rather than bugging you to eat your vegetables. Which is something that might wear thin after a while, but as a two-week vacation from reality, especially one coming hard on the heels of a period where I was feeling overwhelmed by adult responsibilities, it was marvelous. And my friend, who suffers from multiple sclerosis and walks with a cane, was particularly grateful to her. Because she gets around OK, for the most part, but sometimes needs a little extra assistance and time. Apparently it's sadly rare for her to encounter someone who is able to help make things easier for her in a situation like this without being patronizing or discouraging her from doing things she's actually capable of doing. And Linda was a star on both fronts.
After the meeting and the drinking and the discussing of the itinerary, we went to bed very, very early. In fact, this was a case in which jet lag worked in our favor. Neither my roomie-for-the-duration nor I are normally anything remotely like morning people, but we were easily waking up at disgustingly early hours the entire time. And, wow, being a morning person is nice when you're traveling. I had no idea! Usually on vacation trips, either people are dragging my sorry ass out of bed in the morning and I'm stumbling around being blearily miserable for hours or else all the interesting attractions are closed before I've had enough time awake to see everything I'd like. This realization, of course, only makes me resent morning people all the more, but it was good to find myself among their ranks just this once, anyway.
And that was Day One! Not very interesting yet, I know. But stay tuned. Eventually there will be koalas.
So, here we go, the first entry in the retrospective Aussie travelog!
Day One:
Well, this would really be something like "Day One-and-a-Half" or maybe "Days One, Two, and Three"; it's hard to know exactly what to call it, what with all the weird, disrupted sleeping patterns and the crossing of a zillion time zones and all. Day One will do, and it's probably the least interesting part of the trip, because most of it was spent on planes.
I've already bitched about the long plane trips here before, and I won't do that rant again. I will say that at least the flight out was better than the flight back, despite being longer, because a) I was fresh, headed for adventure and rarin' to go, and b) It was a late flight and I actually managed to get some sleep, once someone lent me a neck pillow. That turned out to be an absolute necessity, as there is no comfortable position in an airplane seat. You keep thinking that perhaps if you just turned your head or your body or rearranged your arms just a little, that might make it endurable and you might be able to finally get some sleep, but this always turns out to be an illusion. Like I said, it is the transport to Hell. (And I'm not even going to get into how a certain member of my family refused the ticket agent's offer to move her to a window seat because then she'd be away from the group, and then insisted that I trade my window seat for her middle one because if she didn't have a window she'd get motion sick... and then spent the entire flight staring at the television screen, anyway. Ahem.)
Anyway, we landed in Melbourne at something like 6AM and took forever to clear customs and get our bags and stuff, which turned out to be not really a bad thing, because by the time we got to the hotel, our room was ready and we were allowed to check in early and take badly, badly, badly needed showers and naps. (I have been grungier than I was after that plane flight, but only once, at the tail end of a five-day backpacking trip.)
Speaking of hotels, this tour package thing was expensive as hell, but I have to say that they gave us our money's worth, as the hotels they had us booked in were nice. Especially by my standards, because I'm generally a serious tightwad when it comes to hotels, and I tend to consider anyplace where they provide shampoo as upscale. Here's a picture of the room we had later, in Cairns, by way of illustration:
After the napping and showering, we met for a drink with our tour director, Linda, who was great. I admit to having some doubts about how happy I was going to be with the whole package tour thing -- more about that when I get to Day Two, probably -- but my feeling now is that how well this sort of thing works must depend a lot on the tour director: how helpful they are, how on the ball they are, how well they connect with people... And this woman was great. Fun, friendly, helpful... She arranged for smoking rooms for my mother after her travel agent failed to put the request through, located my friend's wallet for her when she accidentally left it in an airport, and a whole host of other things. It was kind of like being a little kid again and having a parent to take care of you, but a parent whose only concern is to make sure that you have fun, rather than bugging you to eat your vegetables. Which is something that might wear thin after a while, but as a two-week vacation from reality, especially one coming hard on the heels of a period where I was feeling overwhelmed by adult responsibilities, it was marvelous. And my friend, who suffers from multiple sclerosis and walks with a cane, was particularly grateful to her. Because she gets around OK, for the most part, but sometimes needs a little extra assistance and time. Apparently it's sadly rare for her to encounter someone who is able to help make things easier for her in a situation like this without being patronizing or discouraging her from doing things she's actually capable of doing. And Linda was a star on both fronts.
After the meeting and the drinking and the discussing of the itinerary, we went to bed very, very early. In fact, this was a case in which jet lag worked in our favor. Neither my roomie-for-the-duration nor I are normally anything remotely like morning people, but we were easily waking up at disgustingly early hours the entire time. And, wow, being a morning person is nice when you're traveling. I had no idea! Usually on vacation trips, either people are dragging my sorry ass out of bed in the morning and I'm stumbling around being blearily miserable for hours or else all the interesting attractions are closed before I've had enough time awake to see everything I'd like. This realization, of course, only makes me resent morning people all the more, but it was good to find myself among their ranks just this once, anyway.
And that was Day One! Not very interesting yet, I know. But stay tuned. Eventually there will be koalas.
Friday, April 25, 2008
I Come From The Land Down Under
I am back safe and sound from Australia! And apparently the kitties did miss me. Awww.
The trip was an absolute blast. More about it later, possibly in too much detail. Certainly, there will be pictures, once I've sorted through them. Which may take a while, as I have tons and tons and tons of stuff that's piled up while I was gone, and I have been travelling since yesterday, or tomorrow, or something. I'm not actually sure, what with crossing enough timezones to technically arrive before I left, but it was a long, long, long time, and I am beyond fried.
Man, if only I could go places without all the tedious travelling. Because after the first six or seven hours on an airplane, I'm pretty much ready to confess to serial murder and high treason if it would just get them to make it stop. I have an entirely new perspective on Lost now, too... I am never going to be able to watch the first episode again without imagining that at least some of those people are standing in the burning wreckage thinking, "Hey, at least I'm not on that freaking plane any more!" I don't know why old Twilight Zone episodes and things always portray the transport to Hell as a train. If there is a transport to Hell, it's an airplane on which all the seats are coach, and every one is a middle seat. (Yeah, OK, it's a round airplane.)
But enough bitching about flying. Again: trip was awesome, more details when brain is rested. Eventually.
I've got about 166 unread e-mails in my box, by the way, so if you're expecting a reply to something, keep expecting...
The trip was an absolute blast. More about it later, possibly in too much detail. Certainly, there will be pictures, once I've sorted through them. Which may take a while, as I have tons and tons and tons of stuff that's piled up while I was gone, and I have been travelling since yesterday, or tomorrow, or something. I'm not actually sure, what with crossing enough timezones to technically arrive before I left, but it was a long, long, long time, and I am beyond fried.
Man, if only I could go places without all the tedious travelling. Because after the first six or seven hours on an airplane, I'm pretty much ready to confess to serial murder and high treason if it would just get them to make it stop. I have an entirely new perspective on Lost now, too... I am never going to be able to watch the first episode again without imagining that at least some of those people are standing in the burning wreckage thinking, "Hey, at least I'm not on that freaking plane any more!" I don't know why old Twilight Zone episodes and things always portray the transport to Hell as a train. If there is a transport to Hell, it's an airplane on which all the seats are coach, and every one is a middle seat. (Yeah, OK, it's a round airplane.)
But enough bitching about flying. Again: trip was awesome, more details when brain is rested. Eventually.
I've got about 166 unread e-mails in my box, by the way, so if you're expecting a reply to something, keep expecting...
Thursday, April 17, 2008
Another Brief Check-In
Hiked six miles around Uluru today, after waking up 5 minutes before the bus was supposed to leave at thirty minutes to sunrise. Am tired, blistered, and in desperate need of a shower. Am sitting at internet kiosk in hotel lobby instead, because they were making up our room when we got back.
Thus, another very, very brief hello!
Also, kangaroo is delicious.
Thus, another very, very brief hello!
Also, kangaroo is delicious.
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
Very, Very Brief Post From Australia
OK, look, I found a brief few minutes to access the internet! Another 1 minute and 47 seconds, in fact, according to this machine, so I'd better type very, very fast. So, greetings from Alice Springs! I'm off to eat some kangaroo in a minute. I'll let you know how it tastes.
Eep, 0:43. Better hit save. See ya!
Eep, 0:43. Better hit save. See ya!
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