This is going to be a quick update because we're in a McDonalds in Airlie Beach catching up on emails and stuff. I'll get right to the good stuff. We saw a platypus in the wild yesterday!! We went to a campground in Cape Hillsborough on Wednesday and Thursday and met a really nice couple named Gary and Louise who lived in the area and Thursday night Gary lent us a fire drum he made out of an old washing machine drum and an old car wheel so we could have a fire. We weren't allowed to burn anything directly on the ground there. We also met their 32 year old son Colin who hung out with us at the fire. He was going to the place we were planning on going to the following day so we followed him there. We stopped off at his house and had a nice shower and his friend Sully showed up and we drove off to Eungella Dam, its pronounced YOUNG-gulla. There were supposed to be some more of their friends there but we couldn't find them and it ended up being just the four of us. We had a great time, we just drank some beer and sat around the fire, they brought a slingshot with them and we had a bit of target practice at some cans. Somehow we ended up whittling, Sully was making a spoon, Colin decided to do a fork so that left me with the knife. Yes, I carved a wooden knife with a real knife, the irony was not lost on me. We made a roast with a camp oven and had some veggies and a stuffed pepper to go with it. Pretty good night overall. Then yesterday we split paths and went back to a place called Broken River on the way back is one of the best places to view wild platypus in the country. After a few hours waiting till dusk and another our after that our patience paid off and we saw one out in the river diving down to feed and coming back up a few times.
We are only about an 8 hour drive from our final destination now so it'll be pretty slow going from here. Hopefully we'll see a lot more cool stuff.
Some other recent highlights:
In Gherella State Forest we met a group of teenagers camping by us and we went cane toad hunting with them one night with slingshots. Cane toads are a big pest here. We shot a few of them and got chased by some cattle before heading back to the fire and making s'mores with them.
In Noosa North Shore we fed wild kangaroos who were hanging out right by our van for a couple days.
We are both covered with sand fly bites and can't stop itching.
There's more and hopefully next time I'll be able to flesh out a few more things. See you soon!
Saturday, April 3, 2010
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
Cape Conran
We’ve done quite a few things that we haven’t been able to write about yet so I’m going to fill you in. A few days ago we went to a great campsite called Banksia Bluffs Campground in the Cape Conran National Park. This was definitely one of the best campsites that we’ve been to. It is located on the south eastern part of Victoria and was suggested to us by a couple we had met when we stayed in Wilson’s Promontory.
We pulled in around 1 o’clock or so in the afternoon and paid for our campsite (in coins since we hadn’t stopped at the ATM in a few days) and the caretaker told us we could pick any site that was available. After a quick look around a couple of the loops we decided on a site and got out to check out the place. Within five minutes or so, Carly heard a rustling in one of the trees and we were surprised to discover a giant lizard crawling down out of the tree next to our van! When I say giant I mean this thing was 5 feet long from nose to tail! It was a lace monitor, more commonly known here as a goanna. I was pretty excited to see one in the wild since there was no glass plate between me and it like in the zoo. Carly didn’t want me to get too close to it but I was pretty fascinated by this thing. It looked like a dinosaur, and it had a funny walk, almost like a waddle.
After the goanna walked back into the bush (by that I mean the woods not an actual bush) we got our stuff and walked down to the beach for a bit before coming back and grilling some fish and potatoes and corn on the bbq we brought. A couple weeks before Christmas we bought a bbq we found for sale online from a couple that happened to be from New Mexico. The grill has its own carrying case and collapses down small enough to fit in the van under the bench and I can just hook it up to the propane tank for the stove and grill away. It’s a pretty nice little setup and we’ve quite enjoyed being able to grill wherever we are.
While we were sitting down to eat dinner one of the neighbors walked over to chat. He had arrived a little bit after us and was setting up his pop up trailer and the rest of the campsite all by himself and Carly had offered to help out but he said he had everything under control. After he had himself all situated he came by and introduced himself. James was from about an hour away and he had come before the rest of his group to pick out some sites. They had a bunch of people coming over, about 20 or so, between a few families. They had originally planned to go to another campground but it was really crowded for some reason so they came there instead. Coincidentally one of his cousins was getting married a little bit down the beach the next day which he said he’d rock up to in his board shorts with a beer in hand (jokingly). Somehow the conversation came around to s’mores, which they don’t know about in Australia, and Carly told James that we would have their kids over to our site to make them before we left. His people started to trickle in eventually and he excused himself and let us finish eating our dinner. That was about it for the first day.
The next morning we woke up and decided we were going to stay for another day since we had really enjoyed the site and hadn’t gotten a chance to appreciate it. First we had to pay for our second night. The office was about half a kilometer from the site so we decided to walk. I got out some more coinage and we set off down the road. The whole area is lined with banksia trees which give the campground its name. They are unique to Australia and produce some really cool flowers, just google banksia flowers to find out. On the way to the office Carly all of a sudden grabbed my arm and yanked me to a stop. She pointed to the ground a couple feet in front of me and when I looked down I saw my first Australian snake! It was dead though…run over by a car. I think it was a red bellied black snake (Australians are great at naming things). With our hearts beating a little faster we made it to the office and paid for our night and also bought some firewood for the night. They don’t let you collect any in the bush in the National Parks so the habitats for all the local critters don’t get disturbed. I lugged the 8-10 kilos or so of wood back on my shoulder and we got ready for the beach again.
When we checked in the caretaker had told us about some hikes in the area that we could do so we decided to try them. We got all ready to go which includes stocking up our hiking pack (a glorified fanny pack) with water and tissues and sunscreen and snacks and started off down the beach towards the boardwalk along the cape. We had to walk down the beach to get to the start and pretty much right away the sky didn’t look very promising. We made it as far as the picnic area at the end of the beach before the rain started falling. We aborted the first attempt and went back to the van and ate a quick lunch. By the time we had finished eating the rain was done and we started out again. We had a map of the area on a piece of paper that outlined the campground and surrounding areas. It said the walk was about 2 hours return to reach Salmon Rocks which are dyed orange by an algae that grows on them. The cape was very cool, right at the end of the beach there were some amazing tide pools that were filled with critters. There were lots of starfish and sea anemones, some were out of the water and they had pulled in all of their feelers. There were also a couple kinds of crab that were very skittish when we got close. We found some abalone shells but no live ones and lots of snails on the rocks.
There was a class of some sort, most likely university students, out climbing the rocks looking in the tide pools. I commented to Carly that I would have LOVED that field trip when I was in school to which she responded that I was a dork, I agreed. We walked along a boardwalk at the beginning of the hike which was put there to protect an Aboriginal midden. The Aborigines used to use the site as a gathering place and you could still see the shells from the abalones and other shellfish they ate. The boardwalk ended and this was where it started to get hairy. The map showed a connecting trail after the boardwalk but we didn’t see anything of the sort and everything inland was covered in high grass that put us off a bit after the snake discovery that morning so we climbed up an area that looked like it led somewhere and just kept on walking along the beach. Soon after, the beach ended and there was nothing but rocky outcrops in front of us, the ocean on one side and a tall cliff on the other side. We clearly weren’t going the right way but we looked at the map and decided that the Salmon Rocks must just be around the next bend so we kept on going.
Little did we know that the rocks were still a kilometer or two away over really crazy rocky cliffs. I forgot to mention we were both wearing flip flops at the time too, not the best rock climbing footwear. We picked our way along hopping from rock to rock, sometimes getting stuck with no way to move forward and having to backtrack to take another route. We are big fans of The Office and had been catching up on the current season on our computers, one of the episodes we watched had an opening sequence where some of the characters were running around attempting to do parkour and failing pretty miserably. If you don’t know what parkour is you should youtube it, as well as the scene from The Office (season 6 episode 1 should be available on hulu) in that order to get a sense of what I started doing next. As we were hopping along I started shouting “HARDCORE PARKOUR!” as I would make an exaggerated leap onto a completely flat rock that was separated from the one I had been on by at the most 4 or 5 inches. We were both cracking up for a while after that which was good since we had no idea where the heck we were.
After about an hour and a half or so climbing around we took a break to have a snack and try to figure out where we were in relation to the next beach on the map that had access from the road. We came to the conclusion that we had no idea but that we must be closer to where we were going than where we had come from. We did see some orange rocks as we were climbing through which we thought at first were the Salmon Rocks until realizing that there was no way to get where we were without going through the same ordeal we had gone through. We also saw lots more crabs, which were exciting at first but after seeing thirty or so skitter off when we approached one of us would just grunt “crab” when we heard another one in a crevice somewhere in the rocks. After another 45 minutes or so of “HARDCORE PARKOUR!” we made it to the next beach that had a staircase leading up to the road and out to the other side of the cape and to the great Salmon Rocks. We were a bit underwhelmed when we finally reached our destination since we had passed through and climbed over similar colored rocks and we were both pretty exhausted. We went down to the water and ran into the ocean to cool off before heading back.
The way back was much easier. We found the Nature Trail which was what we had intended to take on the way out. It was pretty steep in some sections but at least it was solid ground. We saw an echidna running into the trees at one point but that was about it for wildlife. There were lots of ants though, there are very big ants in Australia called bull ants which are about an inch or so long and have jaws that are visible from the ground while you are standing up. I was bitten by one of these buggers in Wilson’s Promontory a few days before and it was not an experience I’d like to revisit. We came out of the trail just past the boardwalk and passed the wedding on the beach as we walked back to our campsite. We congratulated the bride who was very happy and shouted that she was now Mrs. Somethingorother.
Six hours or so we made it back to camp and took cold showers outside in our bathing suits as they didn’t have any proper showers at this campground. We had used our solar showers the day before but they were a pain to set up and we were too tired to bother with them. After cleaning off Carly made us some dinner while and then we started the fire. Once it was going we cracked open a bottle of wine which was well deserved after the day’s events and had a glass before Carly went to invite the kids over for s’mores. She walked into the circle of 20 or so people and said they could come on over and we had a fire ready. All of them, kids and adults, came over and brought their chairs and in one case a motorized wheelchair, which was pretty incredible. We made introductions and Carly took some of the kids to find sticks while everyone else chatted. They were a super nice group of people and made us feel very welcome. We fed the kids s’mores with Honey Maid graham crackers, Hershey’s chocolate, and Jet Puffed marshmallows from the USA and they loved it! After a while the kids and some adults drifted back to their sites then the rest and we were by ourselves again feeling very good about our two nights in Cape Conran.
We pulled in around 1 o’clock or so in the afternoon and paid for our campsite (in coins since we hadn’t stopped at the ATM in a few days) and the caretaker told us we could pick any site that was available. After a quick look around a couple of the loops we decided on a site and got out to check out the place. Within five minutes or so, Carly heard a rustling in one of the trees and we were surprised to discover a giant lizard crawling down out of the tree next to our van! When I say giant I mean this thing was 5 feet long from nose to tail! It was a lace monitor, more commonly known here as a goanna. I was pretty excited to see one in the wild since there was no glass plate between me and it like in the zoo. Carly didn’t want me to get too close to it but I was pretty fascinated by this thing. It looked like a dinosaur, and it had a funny walk, almost like a waddle.
After the goanna walked back into the bush (by that I mean the woods not an actual bush) we got our stuff and walked down to the beach for a bit before coming back and grilling some fish and potatoes and corn on the bbq we brought. A couple weeks before Christmas we bought a bbq we found for sale online from a couple that happened to be from New Mexico. The grill has its own carrying case and collapses down small enough to fit in the van under the bench and I can just hook it up to the propane tank for the stove and grill away. It’s a pretty nice little setup and we’ve quite enjoyed being able to grill wherever we are.
While we were sitting down to eat dinner one of the neighbors walked over to chat. He had arrived a little bit after us and was setting up his pop up trailer and the rest of the campsite all by himself and Carly had offered to help out but he said he had everything under control. After he had himself all situated he came by and introduced himself. James was from about an hour away and he had come before the rest of his group to pick out some sites. They had a bunch of people coming over, about 20 or so, between a few families. They had originally planned to go to another campground but it was really crowded for some reason so they came there instead. Coincidentally one of his cousins was getting married a little bit down the beach the next day which he said he’d rock up to in his board shorts with a beer in hand (jokingly). Somehow the conversation came around to s’mores, which they don’t know about in Australia, and Carly told James that we would have their kids over to our site to make them before we left. His people started to trickle in eventually and he excused himself and let us finish eating our dinner. That was about it for the first day.
The next morning we woke up and decided we were going to stay for another day since we had really enjoyed the site and hadn’t gotten a chance to appreciate it. First we had to pay for our second night. The office was about half a kilometer from the site so we decided to walk. I got out some more coinage and we set off down the road. The whole area is lined with banksia trees which give the campground its name. They are unique to Australia and produce some really cool flowers, just google banksia flowers to find out. On the way to the office Carly all of a sudden grabbed my arm and yanked me to a stop. She pointed to the ground a couple feet in front of me and when I looked down I saw my first Australian snake! It was dead though…run over by a car. I think it was a red bellied black snake (Australians are great at naming things). With our hearts beating a little faster we made it to the office and paid for our night and also bought some firewood for the night. They don’t let you collect any in the bush in the National Parks so the habitats for all the local critters don’t get disturbed. I lugged the 8-10 kilos or so of wood back on my shoulder and we got ready for the beach again.
When we checked in the caretaker had told us about some hikes in the area that we could do so we decided to try them. We got all ready to go which includes stocking up our hiking pack (a glorified fanny pack) with water and tissues and sunscreen and snacks and started off down the beach towards the boardwalk along the cape. We had to walk down the beach to get to the start and pretty much right away the sky didn’t look very promising. We made it as far as the picnic area at the end of the beach before the rain started falling. We aborted the first attempt and went back to the van and ate a quick lunch. By the time we had finished eating the rain was done and we started out again. We had a map of the area on a piece of paper that outlined the campground and surrounding areas. It said the walk was about 2 hours return to reach Salmon Rocks which are dyed orange by an algae that grows on them. The cape was very cool, right at the end of the beach there were some amazing tide pools that were filled with critters. There were lots of starfish and sea anemones, some were out of the water and they had pulled in all of their feelers. There were also a couple kinds of crab that were very skittish when we got close. We found some abalone shells but no live ones and lots of snails on the rocks.
There was a class of some sort, most likely university students, out climbing the rocks looking in the tide pools. I commented to Carly that I would have LOVED that field trip when I was in school to which she responded that I was a dork, I agreed. We walked along a boardwalk at the beginning of the hike which was put there to protect an Aboriginal midden. The Aborigines used to use the site as a gathering place and you could still see the shells from the abalones and other shellfish they ate. The boardwalk ended and this was where it started to get hairy. The map showed a connecting trail after the boardwalk but we didn’t see anything of the sort and everything inland was covered in high grass that put us off a bit after the snake discovery that morning so we climbed up an area that looked like it led somewhere and just kept on walking along the beach. Soon after, the beach ended and there was nothing but rocky outcrops in front of us, the ocean on one side and a tall cliff on the other side. We clearly weren’t going the right way but we looked at the map and decided that the Salmon Rocks must just be around the next bend so we kept on going.
Little did we know that the rocks were still a kilometer or two away over really crazy rocky cliffs. I forgot to mention we were both wearing flip flops at the time too, not the best rock climbing footwear. We picked our way along hopping from rock to rock, sometimes getting stuck with no way to move forward and having to backtrack to take another route. We are big fans of The Office and had been catching up on the current season on our computers, one of the episodes we watched had an opening sequence where some of the characters were running around attempting to do parkour and failing pretty miserably. If you don’t know what parkour is you should youtube it, as well as the scene from The Office (season 6 episode 1 should be available on hulu) in that order to get a sense of what I started doing next. As we were hopping along I started shouting “HARDCORE PARKOUR!” as I would make an exaggerated leap onto a completely flat rock that was separated from the one I had been on by at the most 4 or 5 inches. We were both cracking up for a while after that which was good since we had no idea where the heck we were.
After about an hour and a half or so climbing around we took a break to have a snack and try to figure out where we were in relation to the next beach on the map that had access from the road. We came to the conclusion that we had no idea but that we must be closer to where we were going than where we had come from. We did see some orange rocks as we were climbing through which we thought at first were the Salmon Rocks until realizing that there was no way to get where we were without going through the same ordeal we had gone through. We also saw lots more crabs, which were exciting at first but after seeing thirty or so skitter off when we approached one of us would just grunt “crab” when we heard another one in a crevice somewhere in the rocks. After another 45 minutes or so of “HARDCORE PARKOUR!” we made it to the next beach that had a staircase leading up to the road and out to the other side of the cape and to the great Salmon Rocks. We were a bit underwhelmed when we finally reached our destination since we had passed through and climbed over similar colored rocks and we were both pretty exhausted. We went down to the water and ran into the ocean to cool off before heading back.
The way back was much easier. We found the Nature Trail which was what we had intended to take on the way out. It was pretty steep in some sections but at least it was solid ground. We saw an echidna running into the trees at one point but that was about it for wildlife. There were lots of ants though, there are very big ants in Australia called bull ants which are about an inch or so long and have jaws that are visible from the ground while you are standing up. I was bitten by one of these buggers in Wilson’s Promontory a few days before and it was not an experience I’d like to revisit. We came out of the trail just past the boardwalk and passed the wedding on the beach as we walked back to our campsite. We congratulated the bride who was very happy and shouted that she was now Mrs. Somethingorother.
Six hours or so we made it back to camp and took cold showers outside in our bathing suits as they didn’t have any proper showers at this campground. We had used our solar showers the day before but they were a pain to set up and we were too tired to bother with them. After cleaning off Carly made us some dinner while and then we started the fire. Once it was going we cracked open a bottle of wine which was well deserved after the day’s events and had a glass before Carly went to invite the kids over for s’mores. She walked into the circle of 20 or so people and said they could come on over and we had a fire ready. All of them, kids and adults, came over and brought their chairs and in one case a motorized wheelchair, which was pretty incredible. We made introductions and Carly took some of the kids to find sticks while everyone else chatted. They were a super nice group of people and made us feel very welcome. We fed the kids s’mores with Honey Maid graham crackers, Hershey’s chocolate, and Jet Puffed marshmallows from the USA and they loved it! After a while the kids and some adults drifted back to their sites then the rest and we were by ourselves again feeling very good about our two nights in Cape Conran.
Monday, March 15, 2010
Leeches Creep Me the Fudge Out!
We spent the last 2 nights in one of the Nymboi-Binderay National Park in New South Wales, it’s about a 65km drive from Coffs Harbor on the coast. I decided we had to go there when we stopped in the information center in Coffs, one of the brochures I was looking at said that there was a campsite in the park called Platypus Flat where one could glimpse one of the elusive critters in the wild at dawn or dusk along the banks of the Nymboida River. This has been a goal of mine since coming to the country and I couldn’t pass up the chance, especially since it was only $10 to camp there for the night. There was one other little note about Platypus Flat in the brochure, the road to get there is unsealed and has very steep sections and is not suitable during wet weather. It had been raining for 2 days already… I pointed this out to Carly and we both looked at each other and shrugged, how bad could it be?
The drive out to the park was pretty darn good. We drove through a little hippie outpost called Bellingen where the first building I saw was a motel called Rivendell (from Lord of the Rings). We stopped to fill up our propane tank there as we had not filled up to this point and thought we must be running on fumes. The gas station/auto dealership attendant/owner was pretty nice, ribbing Carly when she went up to ask if they refilled propane tanks (they call propane just “gas” and they call gas “petrol” or just “unleaded”). He said they did fill them but he had no way to measure how much he put in. He said “I’m not gonna argue with you” and Carly told him “We’re not arguers”. She came back and relayed this to me and I said what the heck. He guessed it was about a third full still, which was more than I figured so I agreed and he charged me for two thirds of a tank. We also passed a golf course that had a large sign saying “unlimited golf after 2pm - $12” which was pretty tempting.
From Bellingen we had a pretty steep section of highway up to Dorrigo where we passed a couple of nice waterfalls and had to stop a couple times as the road was one lane due to construction to fix massive holes on the cliff side of the road that would probably send your car rolling a few hundred meters down the sheer side of the mountain if you were the person unlucky enough to discover them. Eventually we made it to our turn off onto the Moonpar Forest Drive where I stopped the van to check the signs. They showed that it was 15km (9 miles) to the campsite and they repeated the warnings of the brochure saying very plainly that if it is wet do not pass go and do not collect $200. This time we looked at each other and said, well we’ve come this far, might as well see how we go. At first the road seemed pretty decent mainly because it was still private land but soon after we passed the sign marking the entry into the National Park and we came to our first obstacle. There was a tree in the road with a trunk about as big around as my thigh. Needless to say, we started to get a little uneasy about our adventure but we both hopped out of the van to assess the situation. We decided to try and move the tree to one side of the road so we could pass and as soon as we lifted it up it started to break on one side. After a couple of pushes we snapped it off and I was able to carry it off the road and on we went.
The next difficulty came a few kilometers down the road. We started a climb up the road that under the conditions was less than pleasant. I was in second gear and the van was chugging to get up the slope and I could feel the tires slip every so often on the soft muddy road. When we got to the top I thought “well that must have been the steep part and we’ll be alright if that’s the worst of it”. When we were about three quarters of the way there we turned a corner and I saw the last sign on earth that I wanted to see, a steep decent sign, for the next 700 meters. The fact that this was marked and the previous sections of road were not did not give me a warm fuzzy feeling to say the least. 700 meters never felt so long in my life, probably because I could have walked down faster than I drove it. When we reached the bottom we let out the breath that we had been holding without realizing it. Surely there can’t be anything worse than that.
I turned the corner and there was a river flowing across the road in front of us. Literally, there was water running across the top of the road. REALLY?!?!! At this point I was about fed up with Platypus Flat and we hadn’t even made it there yet. I got out of the van once again and stomped down to see whether we could get across. I walked out to the middle of the covered section and it was about ankle deep so I got back into the van and said “Let’s do it” and drove on through. Up a couple more hills and over a bridge, dry this time but only a couple feet at most over the river that was basically white water rapids, and we made it!
We thought there couldn’t possibly be anyone else stupid enough to try and drive this sorry excuse for a road that day but sure enough there was a 4WD SUV already at the campsite when we rolled down the hill. From the looks on their faces as we drove by they had thought the same thing and that we were doubly stupid for attempting it in our campervan. I can’t really disagree with them.
We pulled up and chatted with them for a few minutes, Carly got made fun of for saying Dorrigo like Dorito rather than Dorry-go which she was not happy about, then we went to the other end of the campground and decided we were not moving the van until the weather cleared.
After hugging each other for a few minutes just glad we didn’t kill ourselves trying to get to this place, I suggested we go on a hike to a nearby track I had read about in the aforementioned brochure. The description is as follows: “Red Cedar Track is an easy 300m circuit through some of the last remaining wild stands of red cedar on Dorrigo Plateau. Turns off one kilometre (that’s how they spell it here) east of Platypus Flat.” Sounds nice right? It’s not.
We started off and quickly realized that the one km from Platypus Flat was completely uphill. Similar to the 700m steep incline we came down earlier only opposite and walking, and it had started to rain again. We made it to the track eventually and started down the loop enjoying the large trees and solitude. It seemed as if nobody had been down this way for ages. About a third to halfway through the loop while I was reading a sign about King Orchids that grew on the trees here, I glanced down at my boots and noticed something crawling up my sock toward my exposed calf (I had brilliantly decided to wear shorts on this “easy” jaunt). It was very thin, no wider than a piece of angel hair pasta and about an inch long, and moving like a determined inchworm. I recognized it instantly as a leech, far nearer to my bare skin than I would like it to be. The reason I recognized it as such was because a week ago we had stayed at another campsite where a couple had come hiking out of the woods shortly after we arrived and the man (who had also been wearing shorts and hiking in the rain) had realized once he got back that there was one stuck to his leg having a nice meal. I was not about to let this one make a snack out of me so I flicked it off of my leg…and it stuck to my hand, now trying to snack on a finger. I shook it off and told Carly of my findings. She promptly tucked her jeans into her socks so there was no easy snacking on her. I meanwhile had spotted a few more moving up my legs and decided after flicking them off to move a bit quicker. At this point it started to rain a good bit harder and we quickened the pace even more. I felt something on my face and ran my hand across my forehead to discover that one of the buggers was on my eyebrow! At this point I was officially creeped the fudge out and began constantly checking my ankles and calves and Carly’s as well. She made me flick the ones that were on her off because she didn’t want to, while I had her checking my raincoat hood for more unseen hitch hikers. We made it out of the rain forest and both gave each other a good checking over to make sure we were clear of blood suckers at which point I discovered another one about 3 times bigger than the original making its way up my shoe. Great not only are there more of them, they’re getting bigger!
We left a bit quicker than we came in and after shaking off the last of the leeches headed down to the river to check for Platypi as it was almost dusk at this point. We didn’t see any after searching for a little bit, figuring that the current was too fast since the river was swelled a bit due to the rain. On the way back Carly noticed a red spot on the back of my sock and triple checked before informing me that I may not have gotten all of the leeches off. I peeled down the sock and sure enough there was a little cut that wouldn’t stop bleeding because the leech saliva has an anticoagulant that prevents the wound from clotting while they feed. There was no sign of the leech, just its handiwork, which I think I’m grateful for. After all of my vigilance one of them had gotten to me anyway. I was less than pleased.
We got back to the campsite to find that another car had arrived while we were out and set up shop basically right in front of us, taking the fire pit we had intended to use. This was initially pretty annoying but we made friends with Craig and Jill, a couple in their late 40s from Coffs Harbour, quickly and made the best of it. They come to Platypus Flat quite often and they had actually had an accident on the way in to the camp. Craig lost control and slid into the wall blowing out one of the tires and messing up the fender pretty good. They were determined to make it there though and after changing the tire continued to the campground where they were planning on staying for a few days. We hung out with them under the tarp they had over their tent and ended up staying up to 1:00 drinking their wine and beer with them. We contributed a bottle of wine that we had and some chocolate from the factory that we still are working through.
Yesterday it rained again for most of the morning so we figured we’d stay for another night. Carly did a bit of knitting and got some pointers from Jill and we played some Frisbee when it cleared up in the afternoon. We had a fire last night with Craig and Jill before going to bed a good deal earlier than the night before. The trip out this morning was less stressful than the one in except for the steep ascent up the hill. There was a horse in the road when we got almost to the end that startled us both. The horse took off down the road for about a hundred feet before scrambling up a hill.
We are now at a campervan park in Byron Bay recharging for the night and tomorrow it’ll be back to the beach for some sun and to watch some good surfing hopefully. Moral of the story: don’t go hiking in shorts in the rainforest while it’s raining.
The drive out to the park was pretty darn good. We drove through a little hippie outpost called Bellingen where the first building I saw was a motel called Rivendell (from Lord of the Rings). We stopped to fill up our propane tank there as we had not filled up to this point and thought we must be running on fumes. The gas station/auto dealership attendant/owner was pretty nice, ribbing Carly when she went up to ask if they refilled propane tanks (they call propane just “gas” and they call gas “petrol” or just “unleaded”). He said they did fill them but he had no way to measure how much he put in. He said “I’m not gonna argue with you” and Carly told him “We’re not arguers”. She came back and relayed this to me and I said what the heck. He guessed it was about a third full still, which was more than I figured so I agreed and he charged me for two thirds of a tank. We also passed a golf course that had a large sign saying “unlimited golf after 2pm - $12” which was pretty tempting.
From Bellingen we had a pretty steep section of highway up to Dorrigo where we passed a couple of nice waterfalls and had to stop a couple times as the road was one lane due to construction to fix massive holes on the cliff side of the road that would probably send your car rolling a few hundred meters down the sheer side of the mountain if you were the person unlucky enough to discover them. Eventually we made it to our turn off onto the Moonpar Forest Drive where I stopped the van to check the signs. They showed that it was 15km (9 miles) to the campsite and they repeated the warnings of the brochure saying very plainly that if it is wet do not pass go and do not collect $200. This time we looked at each other and said, well we’ve come this far, might as well see how we go. At first the road seemed pretty decent mainly because it was still private land but soon after we passed the sign marking the entry into the National Park and we came to our first obstacle. There was a tree in the road with a trunk about as big around as my thigh. Needless to say, we started to get a little uneasy about our adventure but we both hopped out of the van to assess the situation. We decided to try and move the tree to one side of the road so we could pass and as soon as we lifted it up it started to break on one side. After a couple of pushes we snapped it off and I was able to carry it off the road and on we went.
The next difficulty came a few kilometers down the road. We started a climb up the road that under the conditions was less than pleasant. I was in second gear and the van was chugging to get up the slope and I could feel the tires slip every so often on the soft muddy road. When we got to the top I thought “well that must have been the steep part and we’ll be alright if that’s the worst of it”. When we were about three quarters of the way there we turned a corner and I saw the last sign on earth that I wanted to see, a steep decent sign, for the next 700 meters. The fact that this was marked and the previous sections of road were not did not give me a warm fuzzy feeling to say the least. 700 meters never felt so long in my life, probably because I could have walked down faster than I drove it. When we reached the bottom we let out the breath that we had been holding without realizing it. Surely there can’t be anything worse than that.
I turned the corner and there was a river flowing across the road in front of us. Literally, there was water running across the top of the road. REALLY?!?!! At this point I was about fed up with Platypus Flat and we hadn’t even made it there yet. I got out of the van once again and stomped down to see whether we could get across. I walked out to the middle of the covered section and it was about ankle deep so I got back into the van and said “Let’s do it” and drove on through. Up a couple more hills and over a bridge, dry this time but only a couple feet at most over the river that was basically white water rapids, and we made it!
We thought there couldn’t possibly be anyone else stupid enough to try and drive this sorry excuse for a road that day but sure enough there was a 4WD SUV already at the campsite when we rolled down the hill. From the looks on their faces as we drove by they had thought the same thing and that we were doubly stupid for attempting it in our campervan. I can’t really disagree with them.
We pulled up and chatted with them for a few minutes, Carly got made fun of for saying Dorrigo like Dorito rather than Dorry-go which she was not happy about, then we went to the other end of the campground and decided we were not moving the van until the weather cleared.
After hugging each other for a few minutes just glad we didn’t kill ourselves trying to get to this place, I suggested we go on a hike to a nearby track I had read about in the aforementioned brochure. The description is as follows: “Red Cedar Track is an easy 300m circuit through some of the last remaining wild stands of red cedar on Dorrigo Plateau. Turns off one kilometre (that’s how they spell it here) east of Platypus Flat.” Sounds nice right? It’s not.
We started off and quickly realized that the one km from Platypus Flat was completely uphill. Similar to the 700m steep incline we came down earlier only opposite and walking, and it had started to rain again. We made it to the track eventually and started down the loop enjoying the large trees and solitude. It seemed as if nobody had been down this way for ages. About a third to halfway through the loop while I was reading a sign about King Orchids that grew on the trees here, I glanced down at my boots and noticed something crawling up my sock toward my exposed calf (I had brilliantly decided to wear shorts on this “easy” jaunt). It was very thin, no wider than a piece of angel hair pasta and about an inch long, and moving like a determined inchworm. I recognized it instantly as a leech, far nearer to my bare skin than I would like it to be. The reason I recognized it as such was because a week ago we had stayed at another campsite where a couple had come hiking out of the woods shortly after we arrived and the man (who had also been wearing shorts and hiking in the rain) had realized once he got back that there was one stuck to his leg having a nice meal. I was not about to let this one make a snack out of me so I flicked it off of my leg…and it stuck to my hand, now trying to snack on a finger. I shook it off and told Carly of my findings. She promptly tucked her jeans into her socks so there was no easy snacking on her. I meanwhile had spotted a few more moving up my legs and decided after flicking them off to move a bit quicker. At this point it started to rain a good bit harder and we quickened the pace even more. I felt something on my face and ran my hand across my forehead to discover that one of the buggers was on my eyebrow! At this point I was officially creeped the fudge out and began constantly checking my ankles and calves and Carly’s as well. She made me flick the ones that were on her off because she didn’t want to, while I had her checking my raincoat hood for more unseen hitch hikers. We made it out of the rain forest and both gave each other a good checking over to make sure we were clear of blood suckers at which point I discovered another one about 3 times bigger than the original making its way up my shoe. Great not only are there more of them, they’re getting bigger!
We left a bit quicker than we came in and after shaking off the last of the leeches headed down to the river to check for Platypi as it was almost dusk at this point. We didn’t see any after searching for a little bit, figuring that the current was too fast since the river was swelled a bit due to the rain. On the way back Carly noticed a red spot on the back of my sock and triple checked before informing me that I may not have gotten all of the leeches off. I peeled down the sock and sure enough there was a little cut that wouldn’t stop bleeding because the leech saliva has an anticoagulant that prevents the wound from clotting while they feed. There was no sign of the leech, just its handiwork, which I think I’m grateful for. After all of my vigilance one of them had gotten to me anyway. I was less than pleased.
We got back to the campsite to find that another car had arrived while we were out and set up shop basically right in front of us, taking the fire pit we had intended to use. This was initially pretty annoying but we made friends with Craig and Jill, a couple in their late 40s from Coffs Harbour, quickly and made the best of it. They come to Platypus Flat quite often and they had actually had an accident on the way in to the camp. Craig lost control and slid into the wall blowing out one of the tires and messing up the fender pretty good. They were determined to make it there though and after changing the tire continued to the campground where they were planning on staying for a few days. We hung out with them under the tarp they had over their tent and ended up staying up to 1:00 drinking their wine and beer with them. We contributed a bottle of wine that we had and some chocolate from the factory that we still are working through.
Yesterday it rained again for most of the morning so we figured we’d stay for another night. Carly did a bit of knitting and got some pointers from Jill and we played some Frisbee when it cleared up in the afternoon. We had a fire last night with Craig and Jill before going to bed a good deal earlier than the night before. The trip out this morning was less stressful than the one in except for the steep ascent up the hill. There was a horse in the road when we got almost to the end that startled us both. The horse took off down the road for about a hundred feet before scrambling up a hill.
We are now at a campervan park in Byron Bay recharging for the night and tomorrow it’ll be back to the beach for some sun and to watch some good surfing hopefully. Moral of the story: don’t go hiking in shorts in the rainforest while it’s raining.
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Day 19
powe
Day 19. Using free WiFi at Mc D's. We are in New South Wales in a city called Port Macquarie. It's gray and rainy. The only item on the list for today is a brewery that's here somewhere. Not a bad day. We will look for some free camping after that and park it for the night. Our battery will power the fridge and two lights for about 4 days without being charged. It charges up while driving and when we plug in the van at Campervan Parks.
Last night we stayed at a campground that had heaps of kangaroos only feet from us and our van. There was a Momma roo who had a joey in her pouch. We watched him get out and hop around a bit. It was pretty cute! When we were sitting at the campfire with some friends we met a roo came hopping by at full speed and we all jumped. I wouldn't want to be in it's way. We also saw some HUGE crazy looking spiders.
This picture is from the start of the trip in Wilsons Prom. There are lots more to come once I have a solid connection and the pics on my computer.
The van is treating us well. I swept it out and organized this morning. Makes a big difference to clean it up a bit. It gets messy very quickly. We have got the routine down of making the bed at night and packing it up in the mornings. We've done that every day since we started. Nate has been doing a great job of driving while I have been navigating the 2,300 or so miles up the coast. We are nearing the halfway point.
We have been cooking some tasty meals out of the van. We have a pretty sweet bbq that Nate has been setting up and taking down as we use it. I made an amazing curry when we were in the Blue Mountains free camping by a creek. While we were there we went to a beef tasting. That's right, a beef tasting. It was great fun! We had sausages, steak, and beef patties. The man who ran the farm was very hospitable. There was even live music and tea and coffee. Fancy. We bought some Wagyu steaks and tomato and onion sausages. Yum-o. The Blue Mountains got their name from the oil exuded by the Eucalyptus leaves. When it is viewed from afar with the surrounding haze it looks blue. The smell was also very strong!
We are off to sample some good craft beer. This will be brewery #3.
Day 19. Using free WiFi at Mc D's. We are in New South Wales in a city called Port Macquarie. It's gray and rainy. The only item on the list for today is a brewery that's here somewhere. Not a bad day. We will look for some free camping after that and park it for the night. Our battery will power the fridge and two lights for about 4 days without being charged. It charges up while driving and when we plug in the van at Campervan Parks.
Last night we stayed at a campground that had heaps of kangaroos only feet from us and our van. There was a Momma roo who had a joey in her pouch. We watched him get out and hop around a bit. It was pretty cute! When we were sitting at the campfire with some friends we met a roo came hopping by at full speed and we all jumped. I wouldn't want to be in it's way. We also saw some HUGE crazy looking spiders.
This picture is from the start of the trip in Wilsons Prom. There are lots more to come once I have a solid connection and the pics on my computer.
The van is treating us well. I swept it out and organized this morning. Makes a big difference to clean it up a bit. It gets messy very quickly. We have got the routine down of making the bed at night and packing it up in the mornings. We've done that every day since we started. Nate has been doing a great job of driving while I have been navigating the 2,300 or so miles up the coast. We are nearing the halfway point.
We have been cooking some tasty meals out of the van. We have a pretty sweet bbq that Nate has been setting up and taking down as we use it. I made an amazing curry when we were in the Blue Mountains free camping by a creek. While we were there we went to a beef tasting. That's right, a beef tasting. It was great fun! We had sausages, steak, and beef patties. The man who ran the farm was very hospitable. There was even live music and tea and coffee. Fancy. We bought some Wagyu steaks and tomato and onion sausages. Yum-o. The Blue Mountains got their name from the oil exuded by the Eucalyptus leaves. When it is viewed from afar with the surrounding haze it looks blue. The smell was also very strong!
We are off to sample some good craft beer. This will be brewery #3.
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
On the Road
We started our road trip! We are 5 days in to our 2 month road trip up the East Coast of Australia. This is just to let you all know that we are doing fine. We moved out of our apartment and drove out of the city a few hours last Sunday. Since then we have stayed two nights in the Yarra Valley where we visited some wineries and got the van organized. Then we spent two nights in Wilson's Promitory National Park in the very South of Australia not too far from Melbourne. It was beautiful! We did a hike yeseterday and watched the sunset. Right now we are stopped in a small town called Sale at the local library. We have a couple of things to take care of (internet cancellation and apartment stuff) while we are here, then back on the road. At this point we don't really have any plans, just to make it all the way up to Cairns by April 20 and to enjoy the ride. We've seen wombats, kangaroos, an echidna and lots of crazy insects. Our van is sweet as. It took us a good couple of hours to take everything out and get situated. We are using every inch of storage space available.
I'll update more about all the cool things we are doing and seeing when I can use my own computer to upload blogs. I'm just typing on the library's computer now.
Love you!
I'll update more about all the cool things we are doing and seeing when I can use my own computer to upload blogs. I'm just typing on the library's computer now.
Love you!
Monday, September 7, 2009
Funness
Highlights of the past two months:
- Carly turned 26 involving dinner at an EXCELLENT Mexican Restaurant called Los Amates in Fitzroy where we had Pastor and Mole....mmmmm Also good bar called Luck Coq on Chapel Street. Nate brought me a purple chocolate hippo from the factory.
- Nate turned 27 yesterday. We celebrated at the Melbourne zoo with some funny monkeys, an active koala, an excited baboon (hehe), some very cool giraffes and fun with the mono pod (an instrument to put on the camera to take pictures of ourselves, like a long arm)
- Nate's still plugging away at the chocolate factory bringing home lots of treats
- Carly is working at the day care Wed and Th. Doing subbing through a new agency the other days as an actual certified Australian accredited teacher (3 months later I have VIT)
- A package arrived from home (thanks Mom and Ken) containing some very exciting items: deodorant, mac n'chs, Frank's Red Hot, marshmallows, graham crackers, and JIF
- Fun times were had at the Mountain Goat Brewery in Richmond. Yummy Organic Steam Ale, Stouts and best pizza in AUS yet
- Trivia nights at the College Lawn
It's officially Spring (as of Sept 1)! We are anxiously awaiting summer and some fun times at the beach. I picked up a cooler at the Salvation Army (they call it Salvos here) and it's teasing me from the porch calling my name "Carly let's go to the beach. Use me, go ahead."
Things are pretty expensive as a whole in AUS I'd say. We are trying to save and starting to think about next year. We discussed maybe buying a van to travel around the country with in Feb. No decisions have been made yet.
Bye for now.
- Carly turned 26 involving dinner at an EXCELLENT Mexican Restaurant called Los Amates in Fitzroy where we had Pastor and Mole....mmmmm Also good bar called Luck Coq on Chapel Street. Nate brought me a purple chocolate hippo from the factory.
- Nate turned 27 yesterday. We celebrated at the Melbourne zoo with some funny monkeys, an active koala, an excited baboon (hehe), some very cool giraffes and fun with the mono pod (an instrument to put on the camera to take pictures of ourselves, like a long arm)
- Nate's still plugging away at the chocolate factory bringing home lots of treats
- Carly is working at the day care Wed and Th. Doing subbing through a new agency the other days as an actual certified Australian accredited teacher (3 months later I have VIT)
- A package arrived from home (thanks Mom and Ken) containing some very exciting items: deodorant, mac n'chs, Frank's Red Hot, marshmallows, graham crackers, and JIF
- Fun times were had at the Mountain Goat Brewery in Richmond. Yummy Organic Steam Ale, Stouts and best pizza in AUS yet
- Trivia nights at the College Lawn
It's officially Spring (as of Sept 1)! We are anxiously awaiting summer and some fun times at the beach. I picked up a cooler at the Salvation Army (they call it Salvos here) and it's teasing me from the porch calling my name "Carly let's go to the beach. Use me, go ahead."
Things are pretty expensive as a whole in AUS I'd say. We are trying to save and starting to think about next year. We discussed maybe buying a van to travel around the country with in Feb. No decisions have been made yet.
Bye for now.
Thursday, July 9, 2009
Change of Pace
As most of you know, I (Carly) have been working as a Casual Relief Teacher in Sunshine for about a month. The past week and this week I have been on holiday so I have not been working. The kids go to school almost year round so they have several small breaks here and there, like this one.
I've been doing some reflecting and thinking about what I want to do with my time here in Australia. I only have two more weeks left to my assignment in Sunshine taking me through July 24th. An option after that would be stay with the agency and see if I would get another assignment or not. That was not favored highly on my list since it took a while for me to get the assignment in Sunshine. Also because it's really far and a long commute. While I'm here I want to have fun and enjoy myself every day. I wasn't really feeling that so I decided to make a change.
I did some online searching and found a Child Care Center nearby in the St. Kilda community where we live. I sent an email and the next day got a phone call to come in for a "trial day". This concept was new to me. It basically involved me showing up at 9am this morning and staying until 3:00 bouncing between two classrooms and giving it a go as they would say here in Australia! I did paperwork and read policies for hours then got to play. It went well because they offered me a position to be a Casual Relief worker to start and the opportunity to take a full time position coming up. Even as a Casual Relif teacher since I would be availble all the time the Director, Andrea, said I should expect 4 days a week or more. I'm going in tomorrow for a full day 8:45-5:45.
I really liked this center when I found it online and continued to be impressed when I was there today. The center is 2 and a half years old and there are two others. The owner was a local mother looking for a center to send her son to years ago and found there was a lack of suitable centers, so she opened her own! She now has three kids and they all go to Treehouse. The center has a no plastic bag policy, no chemicals and has a very environmentally focused mentality and nature all around. They have a play based learning philosohpy and indoor/outdoor philosophy meaning the doors are always open for children to decide if they want to play in or out. They don't even use tissues or wet wipes. Instead they have hankies and burp cloths. I watched a class of 3 year olds scrape their plates of Moroccan Chicken into a composting bin to give to the worms! So cool. You can check out their website by clicking the title or use the link http://www.treehousechildcare.com.au/.
So, two more weeks in Sunshine then I hope to be starting at Treehouse. More to come.
I've been doing some reflecting and thinking about what I want to do with my time here in Australia. I only have two more weeks left to my assignment in Sunshine taking me through July 24th. An option after that would be stay with the agency and see if I would get another assignment or not. That was not favored highly on my list since it took a while for me to get the assignment in Sunshine. Also because it's really far and a long commute. While I'm here I want to have fun and enjoy myself every day. I wasn't really feeling that so I decided to make a change.
I did some online searching and found a Child Care Center nearby in the St. Kilda community where we live. I sent an email and the next day got a phone call to come in for a "trial day". This concept was new to me. It basically involved me showing up at 9am this morning and staying until 3:00 bouncing between two classrooms and giving it a go as they would say here in Australia! I did paperwork and read policies for hours then got to play. It went well because they offered me a position to be a Casual Relief worker to start and the opportunity to take a full time position coming up. Even as a Casual Relif teacher since I would be availble all the time the Director, Andrea, said I should expect 4 days a week or more. I'm going in tomorrow for a full day 8:45-5:45.
I really liked this center when I found it online and continued to be impressed when I was there today. The center is 2 and a half years old and there are two others. The owner was a local mother looking for a center to send her son to years ago and found there was a lack of suitable centers, so she opened her own! She now has three kids and they all go to Treehouse. The center has a no plastic bag policy, no chemicals and has a very environmentally focused mentality and nature all around. They have a play based learning philosohpy and indoor/outdoor philosophy meaning the doors are always open for children to decide if they want to play in or out. They don't even use tissues or wet wipes. Instead they have hankies and burp cloths. I watched a class of 3 year olds scrape their plates of Moroccan Chicken into a composting bin to give to the worms! So cool. You can check out their website by clicking the title or use the link http://www.treehousechildcare.com.au/.
So, two more weeks in Sunshine then I hope to be starting at Treehouse. More to come.
Saturday, July 4, 2009
Happy 4th of July!
For those of you who check our blog, sorry for not posting for a month! It's been pretty much business as usual, but I'll give a small update with the details.
We are in the worst of Winter now, which really isn't bad. It's been in the 50s sometimes falling below and reaching 60s. Rainy, windy, and gray. I can't wait for Spring and Summer to come. It's going to get really HOT.
Happy 4th of July! We went to a BBQ at the home of friends of Sam and Denise (who we stayed with when we first got here). They were from California and have a niece our age who was very nice. There were about 15 people there. Nate and I taught a group how to play Waterfall (card game involving drinking). It was fun. The French girls thought it was great. They were a little too good at it. I made an American Flag cake and we had BBQ ribs on the grill. Delicious.
Nate found some part time work doing Telemarketing. His schedule is not set, but it's around 3 days a week for 4 hours a shift. It's a small business operated out of a guys home, where Nate goes to make the calls. He's making some money so that's great. He is also playing volleyball on two teams and gets paid to referee games two nights a week.
I have been on holiday for a week and also have this week off. It's nice, but I could use all the hours/money I can get. I have two more weeks left of my assignment in Sunshine, then who knows. Hopefully I'll have my permission to teach from the Victorian Institute of Teaching so I can make more $ and have more opportunities available to me.
It feels like it was a while ago, but I went as a chaperone to year 7 camp at a YMCA camp called Lady Northcote in Bacchus Marsh. We spent 3 days and 2 nights there. They had nice new sleeping facilities. It was a lot of fun, exauhsting though. I taught 53 kids and the teachers how to make s'mores. They had never even heard of them. They don't have Grahm Crackers here though so we had to substitute. The marshmallows are not the same either. They kind of have a thick coating to them and they come in vanilla and raspberry mixed bags. Ew. I took the leftovers back to school and made them with the students I have been working with in the cooking room on the stove. They thought it was funny.
We went to the Star Wars exhibit at a museum called Science Works. They had costumes and props from all 6 movies. It was neat.
I have been doing Yoga and volunteering for a girl's after school group and with an elderly woman named Sophia. She has dimensia and is very isolated. I got visit her once every two weeks. We have only had 1 meeting so far. I'm not sure if she will remember me when I go back this week. I guess it doesn't really matter as long as she feels special for the time I'm there. Nate volunteers with the same kids group, but with the boys. We had our mixed Disco for the end of school term. It was at a community center with about 20 kids. I think they had fun.
We hope to rent a car and go see a National Park called Grampians this coming weekend. The weather hasn't been ideal for hiking, so we will wait and see. There is an eco-hostel there we can stay in for one night. I want to see some kangaroos! There are lots there.
I hope everyone is enjoying the summer and had a great 4th of July weekend! Love and hugs to all from down under. XOXO
We are in the worst of Winter now, which really isn't bad. It's been in the 50s sometimes falling below and reaching 60s. Rainy, windy, and gray. I can't wait for Spring and Summer to come. It's going to get really HOT.
Happy 4th of July! We went to a BBQ at the home of friends of Sam and Denise (who we stayed with when we first got here). They were from California and have a niece our age who was very nice. There were about 15 people there. Nate and I taught a group how to play Waterfall (card game involving drinking). It was fun. The French girls thought it was great. They were a little too good at it. I made an American Flag cake and we had BBQ ribs on the grill. Delicious.
Nate found some part time work doing Telemarketing. His schedule is not set, but it's around 3 days a week for 4 hours a shift. It's a small business operated out of a guys home, where Nate goes to make the calls. He's making some money so that's great. He is also playing volleyball on two teams and gets paid to referee games two nights a week.
I have been on holiday for a week and also have this week off. It's nice, but I could use all the hours/money I can get. I have two more weeks left of my assignment in Sunshine, then who knows. Hopefully I'll have my permission to teach from the Victorian Institute of Teaching so I can make more $ and have more opportunities available to me.
It feels like it was a while ago, but I went as a chaperone to year 7 camp at a YMCA camp called Lady Northcote in Bacchus Marsh. We spent 3 days and 2 nights there. They had nice new sleeping facilities. It was a lot of fun, exauhsting though. I taught 53 kids and the teachers how to make s'mores. They had never even heard of them. They don't have Grahm Crackers here though so we had to substitute. The marshmallows are not the same either. They kind of have a thick coating to them and they come in vanilla and raspberry mixed bags. Ew. I took the leftovers back to school and made them with the students I have been working with in the cooking room on the stove. They thought it was funny.
We went to the Star Wars exhibit at a museum called Science Works. They had costumes and props from all 6 movies. It was neat.
I have been doing Yoga and volunteering for a girl's after school group and with an elderly woman named Sophia. She has dimensia and is very isolated. I got visit her once every two weeks. We have only had 1 meeting so far. I'm not sure if she will remember me when I go back this week. I guess it doesn't really matter as long as she feels special for the time I'm there. Nate volunteers with the same kids group, but with the boys. We had our mixed Disco for the end of school term. It was at a community center with about 20 kids. I think they had fun.
We hope to rent a car and go see a National Park called Grampians this coming weekend. The weather hasn't been ideal for hiking, so we will wait and see. There is an eco-hostel there we can stay in for one night. I want to see some kangaroos! There are lots there.
I hope everyone is enjoying the summer and had a great 4th of July weekend! Love and hugs to all from down under. XOXO
Saturday, June 6, 2009
Hardrock. No not the restaurant!
Saturday we went rock climbing! During the first week we were here, while we were wandering around the city, we saw a rock climbing wall through the second floor window of a building downtown (there's a good picture on the website which is linked in the title of this post). We both thought this was very cool and decided we were going to go sometime. Jump forward to this week and our neighbor stopped by one night and asked if we wanted to go there as she had seen it herself and wanted some people to go with. We were happy to go and decided Saturday would be good.
We headed downtown around 1:00pm after waking up and recovering from the Good Food and Wine Show the day before. The 3 of us arrived at Hardrock and rented our shoes and harnesses and signed our lives away on the safety forms you would expect at a place like this. The shoes were really uncomfortable as they have to be really tight so your feet can grip the wall without sliding around inside. As none of us had ever done any climbing before we had to go through a brief safety course. Our instructor Yeisy, sounds like Stacy but with a "yay" instead of a "stay", taught us how to secure the climbing ropes to the harness and also how to belay for the person climbing. The person climbing has to put their carabiner through two loops on the rope and then tie another portion to their harness as a backup. The person belaying is in charge of keeping the rope taught so that if the climber slips or they won't fall to the ground.
Each of us had to climb up the wall a couple times and belay a climber a couple times before we were safety approved. The person belaying has to follow a 5 step procedure to keep the rope taught and locked at all times so the climber is safe, they are constantly pulling out the slack while the person is climbing. When the climber is ready to come down the belayer has to make sure the rope is tight so the person climbing can just sit back from the wall while they slowly lower them down the wall.
After a couple times up the short practice walls we moved on to the big walls. The practice walls were probably 25-30 feet up with lots of easy handholds and footholds to use. The rest of the walls went all the way up to the ceiling which is close to 60 feet tall. We looked around for a few minutes to find a wall that looked easy enough for us to climb up all the way. There were routes going up all the walls, they had "rocks" sticking out forming, some that were easy to grab or step on and some that weren't much more than little nubs on the wall. Some of the routes had overhangs that you had to climb up. There were some places on the wall that had holes and cracks to use rather than the protrusions everywhere else. Each route had a rope in front of it anchored to a belaying station and numbers on the walls to let you know how difficult it was to get to the top. They ranged from single digits up to the mid twenties.
There was a good number of people there so finding something we could handle took a little bit. We started on a route that had handholds from 11-18 or so, this was a medium one. Carly went first and she got about halfway up the wall before she couldn't figure out a place to go and had to come down. I went next and I made it about two thirds of the way and then started having trouble picking a spot to go next. I slipped a couple times but Carly was doing a good job belaying so I was able to hang on and keep going. After a bit of a struggle I made it up to the top! I was pretty proud of myself because it definitely wasn't easy to get up and it was the first time I tried. After I came down my arms felt a bit like jell-o so I needed a break.
After everyone took a turn we moved over to an easier wall, Carly made it all the way up this time and she was really happy. I took a turn going up and thought it was nice having good grips the whole time. Our neighbor tried a couple times but each time she was about half way up she would look down or couldn't find a place for her foot and then came down.
We tried a couple more walls before we were done, another easy one that Car and I both made it up without a problem and April made it nearly to the top so she felt better about it. The last one I attempted by myself, it had an overhang and there was no easy path to the top. By this time I had almost no strength left in my arms and only made it about 25 feet up before I lost my grip and fell off. That was kind of fun in itself since the overhang meant the rope wasn't right up against the wall all the way up so I was kind of swinging around like Tarzan when I fell off the wall. Carly wasn't amused as this meant I was flying over her head as she was letting me down! I tried it a couple times before I gave up and called it a day. We watched a couple people going up some crazy paths, going up corners and leaning on the wall while holding themselves up on a little nub. We definitely want to go back and give it another shot!
We headed downtown around 1:00pm after waking up and recovering from the Good Food and Wine Show the day before. The 3 of us arrived at Hardrock and rented our shoes and harnesses and signed our lives away on the safety forms you would expect at a place like this. The shoes were really uncomfortable as they have to be really tight so your feet can grip the wall without sliding around inside. As none of us had ever done any climbing before we had to go through a brief safety course. Our instructor Yeisy, sounds like Stacy but with a "yay" instead of a "stay", taught us how to secure the climbing ropes to the harness and also how to belay for the person climbing. The person climbing has to put their carabiner through two loops on the rope and then tie another portion to their harness as a backup. The person belaying is in charge of keeping the rope taught so that if the climber slips or they won't fall to the ground.
Each of us had to climb up the wall a couple times and belay a climber a couple times before we were safety approved. The person belaying has to follow a 5 step procedure to keep the rope taught and locked at all times so the climber is safe, they are constantly pulling out the slack while the person is climbing. When the climber is ready to come down the belayer has to make sure the rope is tight so the person climbing can just sit back from the wall while they slowly lower them down the wall.
After a couple times up the short practice walls we moved on to the big walls. The practice walls were probably 25-30 feet up with lots of easy handholds and footholds to use. The rest of the walls went all the way up to the ceiling which is close to 60 feet tall. We looked around for a few minutes to find a wall that looked easy enough for us to climb up all the way. There were routes going up all the walls, they had "rocks" sticking out forming, some that were easy to grab or step on and some that weren't much more than little nubs on the wall. Some of the routes had overhangs that you had to climb up. There were some places on the wall that had holes and cracks to use rather than the protrusions everywhere else. Each route had a rope in front of it anchored to a belaying station and numbers on the walls to let you know how difficult it was to get to the top. They ranged from single digits up to the mid twenties.
There was a good number of people there so finding something we could handle took a little bit. We started on a route that had handholds from 11-18 or so, this was a medium one. Carly went first and she got about halfway up the wall before she couldn't figure out a place to go and had to come down. I went next and I made it about two thirds of the way and then started having trouble picking a spot to go next. I slipped a couple times but Carly was doing a good job belaying so I was able to hang on and keep going. After a bit of a struggle I made it up to the top! I was pretty proud of myself because it definitely wasn't easy to get up and it was the first time I tried. After I came down my arms felt a bit like jell-o so I needed a break.
After everyone took a turn we moved over to an easier wall, Carly made it all the way up this time and she was really happy. I took a turn going up and thought it was nice having good grips the whole time. Our neighbor tried a couple times but each time she was about half way up she would look down or couldn't find a place for her foot and then came down.
We tried a couple more walls before we were done, another easy one that Car and I both made it up without a problem and April made it nearly to the top so she felt better about it. The last one I attempted by myself, it had an overhang and there was no easy path to the top. By this time I had almost no strength left in my arms and only made it about 25 feet up before I lost my grip and fell off. That was kind of fun in itself since the overhang meant the rope wasn't right up against the wall all the way up so I was kind of swinging around like Tarzan when I fell off the wall. Carly wasn't amused as this meant I was flying over her head as she was letting me down! I tried it a couple times before I gave up and called it a day. We watched a couple people going up some crazy paths, going up corners and leaning on the wall while holding themselves up on a little nub. We definitely want to go back and give it another shot!
Good Food and Wine Show....did I mention the wine?
Friday was a really fun day! Carly found out about the Good Food and Wine show at the Melbourne Exhibition Center a week or so ago and it is going on this weekend. On Friday we were kind of putzing around in the morning trying to figure out what to do and so Carly reminded me of the show and we went online to find out what was going on. There were multiple chefs performing shows throughout the weekend including Gordon Ramsay from Hell's Kitchen back home. We have mentioned before that we watch Master Chef Australia pretty much every night on our one good channel. Well, we saw that two of the judges, George and Gary, were going to be at the show and decided we had to go see them. We both got ready and headed over to the exhibition center.
Once we arrived we had to get tickets and figure out if we could still get in to see George and Gary. This was a bit of an ordeal as the right hand didn't know what the left was doing in terms of ticketing. The first booth we went to was for general admission tickets. We asked them if we could still get into the show we wanted to see and they looked at us like we were idiots. They sent us down to the Ticketek booth (Australian Ticket Master) and said we had to get our tickets down there. Well once we got to the Ticketek booth they said we had to go back to the general admission booth, but at least they knew that we could then get the show tickets inside for no additional charge.
Whew! Once we were in we headed straight over to the performance box office and got our tickets for the show. It was now about 1:30 and our show was at 4:30 so we had ample time to wander around the exhibition floor. There were over 300 booths set up on the floor with products ranging from food to appliances to exercise equipment. Our first stop was a guy demoing a shammy like the Shamwow! back home, he was pretty good and we almost ended up getting one when we saw its amazing capabilities in person. After that we wandered about for a while, at first we were kind of hesitant about going up to the booths and getting samples because we knew that we wouldn't be buying them, but that didn't last long! After a couple of booths we were pouncing on anyone walking around with a tray of toothpicks and bite size morsels of goodness. We had chocolates, tortellinis, meats, dips, chips, nougat, cheeses, pizzas, coffees, granola bars, and pretty much anything we could get our hands on.
After a little while Carly saw a book stand that had times that some of the chefs would be signing their books. I think Gordon Ramsay had about every other time slot since he has about a dozen different books out. Anyway, Car saw that George was going to be signing his book so she wanted to see if it looked any good. Well once she found out it was a Modern Greek recipe book she was sold!
After that she started getting really nervous about meeting a celebrity so we decided to head over to the wine portion of the floor and get a little liquid courage. We headed in and surveyed the situation. Most people were wandering around with glasses stopping at the various winery booths and tasting whatever they wanted. We quickly asked someone where they got the glasses and started our tour of Australian wines.
We started off at the first booth we found and tasted a few of their varieties. The people were very friendly at all the stops we made, giving us some info about their winery and where it was located. They would tell us things about the wines and most of it went over my head. I know relatively little about wine, I usually let Carly or someone else pick a good one but I thoroughly enjoy drinking them so I just smiled and nodded knowingly as they talked about the different aspects of the wine we were tasting at the time and generally tried not to look like an idiot when I swirled and sniffed the wine before drinking. We watched the movie Sideways a couple months ago which I am grateful for because it not only was a good flick but it taught me a few things about wine tasting that I used at this event, I highly recommend it.
After a few stops we were both more relaxed and it was almost time for the show so we headed over to the theater. George and Gary put on a good show, it was "British vs. Greek" cuisine with each one cooking a couple things from their respective backgrounds while cracking jokes and having a good time with each other. They were much more laid back than they are on the show as they didn't have to have their serious judging faces on. George cooked Avgolemono Soup and Souvlaki and Gary did Trout and Doughnuts. Everything looked really good of course. They handed what they made out to people in the audience but they never made it over to our area.
After the show Carly made a bee line for the book signing line as we figured it would be pretty long. It wasn't long in the end and she got up to him pretty quickly. She had planned out what she was going to say well ahead of time, a comment about something that happened on the show. I stayed on the outside so I could take a picture of them together being the good boyfriend that I am. They chatted for a minute while he signed her book and I took a couple pictures. Carly then came out to me and we looked at what he wrote "Dear Karly....". The rest didn't matter as we were both disappointed that he had misspelled Carly's name. After a few minutes of discussion about whether or not to go back and fix it or just take it as it was we decided it would be best to get it fixed. So Car went back in line and George was very apologetic and happy to correct his mistake. Carly also had him sign a canvas shopping bag we had picked up along the way and this time he got her name right the first time.
Once that ordeal was over with we had both worked up an appetite again so we went back to explore the areas we hadn't been to yet. We made our way through to the back of the show, sampling as we went of course, and once we were back there we saw that there was a wine tasting course going on inside the wine area. We walked over and asked the girl watching the entrance to the wine side about it. After she talked for about 10 seconds I asked "where are you from?" at the same time Carly said "are you from America?". This was the first person outside of our neighbor that we had talked to that had an American accent and we were both excited to talk to her. It turned out that she and her fiancee who was sitting next to her were from Minnesota and we chatted for a while about being here and jobs and things to do and everything else you talk about when you meet someone from your own country while in a foreign one.
After exchanging info and finding out when the next wine tasting was, we resumed our main mission of sampling wine from everywhere in Australia in one go. I was pleasantly surprised after a couple of stops that Carly found first one then several breweries sampling some of their beers and we headed over to them as I am much more interested in micro breweries than wineries myself. The brewers were all very friendly and I was discussing with them some of the beers I know and love from back home and they were explaining how the government taxes breweries out their ears which explains why beer is so expensive and why there are much fewer micro breweries than back home.
It was 7:45 now and time for the wine tasting, we headed back over there and walked in. Each seat was set up with small amounts of 6 different kinds of red wine and there were definitely fewer people attending than seats available. We sat down in the second row and were quickly bored by the presenter who was an older man clearly knowledgeable about wine but not a good presenter. We sat through his spiel and drank our wine trying to taste and smell the different things he was describing about each one. If you've never been to a wine tasting before you may not know that usually people will have a sip or two of each and maybe even spit out the wine rather than drink it all, not us. We were past the point of caring by now so we both polished off our glasses rather than sip and move on. Carly left one or two on the table but I was done with all of mine by the end. All in all it was no more than a glass and a half but we were chuckling about it to ourselves and felt pretty good about it in the end when we saw what came next.
After the tasting was over we were shocked and saddened to see some workers come in with big trash cans and trays for the glasses and start dumping out all of the leftover wine. There were probably 70-80 seats with 6 glasses each, and in our tasting the seats were less than half full. Over the course of the weekend I'm sure they'll dump out quite a few cases of pretty good wine!
The show was nearly over for the day so we just headed over to another brewery booth we had spotted in the corner during the wine tasting and as we were feeling pretty good by now we started chatting up the people running the booth and signed up for subscription to beer and brewer magazine and got a free t-shirt. We sampled their beers and had a good time.
By the end of the show we were both full and satisfied. It was well worth the price of admission which was only AU$27.50 each. We ate and drank a few times that amount over the course of the day I'm sure! We also bought a few things which were all discounted at the show so now we have some good stuff to eat at home. We even got some freebies including a few new shopping bags and an Italian beer from one of the brewers that Carly had told we have a recipe for a beer bread that calls for an Italian lager, Hooray for Foodies!
Once we arrived we had to get tickets and figure out if we could still get in to see George and Gary. This was a bit of an ordeal as the right hand didn't know what the left was doing in terms of ticketing. The first booth we went to was for general admission tickets. We asked them if we could still get into the show we wanted to see and they looked at us like we were idiots. They sent us down to the Ticketek booth (Australian Ticket Master) and said we had to get our tickets down there. Well once we got to the Ticketek booth they said we had to go back to the general admission booth, but at least they knew that we could then get the show tickets inside for no additional charge.
Whew! Once we were in we headed straight over to the performance box office and got our tickets for the show. It was now about 1:30 and our show was at 4:30 so we had ample time to wander around the exhibition floor. There were over 300 booths set up on the floor with products ranging from food to appliances to exercise equipment. Our first stop was a guy demoing a shammy like the Shamwow! back home, he was pretty good and we almost ended up getting one when we saw its amazing capabilities in person. After that we wandered about for a while, at first we were kind of hesitant about going up to the booths and getting samples because we knew that we wouldn't be buying them, but that didn't last long! After a couple of booths we were pouncing on anyone walking around with a tray of toothpicks and bite size morsels of goodness. We had chocolates, tortellinis, meats, dips, chips, nougat, cheeses, pizzas, coffees, granola bars, and pretty much anything we could get our hands on.
After a little while Carly saw a book stand that had times that some of the chefs would be signing their books. I think Gordon Ramsay had about every other time slot since he has about a dozen different books out. Anyway, Car saw that George was going to be signing his book so she wanted to see if it looked any good. Well once she found out it was a Modern Greek recipe book she was sold!
After that she started getting really nervous about meeting a celebrity so we decided to head over to the wine portion of the floor and get a little liquid courage. We headed in and surveyed the situation. Most people were wandering around with glasses stopping at the various winery booths and tasting whatever they wanted. We quickly asked someone where they got the glasses and started our tour of Australian wines.
We started off at the first booth we found and tasted a few of their varieties. The people were very friendly at all the stops we made, giving us some info about their winery and where it was located. They would tell us things about the wines and most of it went over my head. I know relatively little about wine, I usually let Carly or someone else pick a good one but I thoroughly enjoy drinking them so I just smiled and nodded knowingly as they talked about the different aspects of the wine we were tasting at the time and generally tried not to look like an idiot when I swirled and sniffed the wine before drinking. We watched the movie Sideways a couple months ago which I am grateful for because it not only was a good flick but it taught me a few things about wine tasting that I used at this event, I highly recommend it.
After a few stops we were both more relaxed and it was almost time for the show so we headed over to the theater. George and Gary put on a good show, it was "British vs. Greek" cuisine with each one cooking a couple things from their respective backgrounds while cracking jokes and having a good time with each other. They were much more laid back than they are on the show as they didn't have to have their serious judging faces on. George cooked Avgolemono Soup and Souvlaki and Gary did Trout and Doughnuts. Everything looked really good of course. They handed what they made out to people in the audience but they never made it over to our area.
After the show Carly made a bee line for the book signing line as we figured it would be pretty long. It wasn't long in the end and she got up to him pretty quickly. She had planned out what she was going to say well ahead of time, a comment about something that happened on the show. I stayed on the outside so I could take a picture of them together being the good boyfriend that I am. They chatted for a minute while he signed her book and I took a couple pictures. Carly then came out to me and we looked at what he wrote "Dear Karly....". The rest didn't matter as we were both disappointed that he had misspelled Carly's name. After a few minutes of discussion about whether or not to go back and fix it or just take it as it was we decided it would be best to get it fixed. So Car went back in line and George was very apologetic and happy to correct his mistake. Carly also had him sign a canvas shopping bag we had picked up along the way and this time he got her name right the first time.
Once that ordeal was over with we had both worked up an appetite again so we went back to explore the areas we hadn't been to yet. We made our way through to the back of the show, sampling as we went of course, and once we were back there we saw that there was a wine tasting course going on inside the wine area. We walked over and asked the girl watching the entrance to the wine side about it. After she talked for about 10 seconds I asked "where are you from?" at the same time Carly said "are you from America?". This was the first person outside of our neighbor that we had talked to that had an American accent and we were both excited to talk to her. It turned out that she and her fiancee who was sitting next to her were from Minnesota and we chatted for a while about being here and jobs and things to do and everything else you talk about when you meet someone from your own country while in a foreign one.
After exchanging info and finding out when the next wine tasting was, we resumed our main mission of sampling wine from everywhere in Australia in one go. I was pleasantly surprised after a couple of stops that Carly found first one then several breweries sampling some of their beers and we headed over to them as I am much more interested in micro breweries than wineries myself. The brewers were all very friendly and I was discussing with them some of the beers I know and love from back home and they were explaining how the government taxes breweries out their ears which explains why beer is so expensive and why there are much fewer micro breweries than back home.
It was 7:45 now and time for the wine tasting, we headed back over there and walked in. Each seat was set up with small amounts of 6 different kinds of red wine and there were definitely fewer people attending than seats available. We sat down in the second row and were quickly bored by the presenter who was an older man clearly knowledgeable about wine but not a good presenter. We sat through his spiel and drank our wine trying to taste and smell the different things he was describing about each one. If you've never been to a wine tasting before you may not know that usually people will have a sip or two of each and maybe even spit out the wine rather than drink it all, not us. We were past the point of caring by now so we both polished off our glasses rather than sip and move on. Carly left one or two on the table but I was done with all of mine by the end. All in all it was no more than a glass and a half but we were chuckling about it to ourselves and felt pretty good about it in the end when we saw what came next.
After the tasting was over we were shocked and saddened to see some workers come in with big trash cans and trays for the glasses and start dumping out all of the leftover wine. There were probably 70-80 seats with 6 glasses each, and in our tasting the seats were less than half full. Over the course of the weekend I'm sure they'll dump out quite a few cases of pretty good wine!
The show was nearly over for the day so we just headed over to another brewery booth we had spotted in the corner during the wine tasting and as we were feeling pretty good by now we started chatting up the people running the booth and signed up for subscription to beer and brewer magazine and got a free t-shirt. We sampled their beers and had a good time.
By the end of the show we were both full and satisfied. It was well worth the price of admission which was only AU$27.50 each. We ate and drank a few times that amount over the course of the day I'm sure! We also bought a few things which were all discounted at the show so now we have some good stuff to eat at home. We even got some freebies including a few new shopping bags and an Italian beer from one of the brewers that Carly had told we have a recipe for a beer bread that calls for an Italian lager, Hooray for Foodies!
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