The Sydney Harbour Bridge.
Thursday, December 30, 2004
Why doesn't Sydney look like it does in The Matrix?
That was my first thought of this city as we drove across the Sydney Harbor Bridge to the south side. Yesterday, I spent the day wandering around a Brisbane that was finally open for business after the Christmas holiday. It's a very nice clean city with tons of trees and parklands (as is Sydney, for that matter). I also visited the Queensland Museum in Brisbane, as Brisbane is the state capital. I finally saw the dreaded "Box Jellyfish" that is in the beachwaters this time of year. It's huge (about the size of your head, except with tentacles), and it's shaped like a box. Go figure. The most interesting thing I saw and read about was a "camel spider". Yes, this is the internet mail that has been going around for the past two years. The museum actually had a printed copy of the internet email and the photo with the American servicemen in the background. Verdict? Totally debunked. The photo is a play on perspective. The camel spider (which also lives in the States) only grows to the size of a child's palm and is in no way dangerous. Go tell your friends all about it. I also walked through the Art Gallery, which mostly had modern art pieces. It was sort of comical. They had video art pieces. One was called "60 second sculptures". It was an hour long video showing a person (head out of frame) doing stupid stuff and holding that pose for about a minute. I saw him go behind a chalkboard and grip eitherside of the chalkboard so that only his fingers were showing, and then he lifted his legs off the ground. He managed to hold that pose for about five seconds. Another one was where he took a chair and set it so that the legs were against the wall, and he pretended to sit in it, facing the floor, but he tried to support himself with his hands on the floor, of course, out of frame. That lasted about half a second. Art, I am not worthy!
Basically yesterday was an attempt to kill time before my 7pm bus to Sydney. The ride was 18.5 hours long. Can you say it with me? "Awwwwwwwwesome." It was freezing at night wherever it was we stopped. I was warned that the weather would get cooler as I went south; they weren't kidding. I was freezing on the bus all night long. I met a nice German girl (whose name I couldn't understand); we chatted about our travels along the way. I swear, I have met more people here just off the street than anywhere else. I only had a last minute reservation for a room tonight, and I was going to wing it for the rest of my time here in Sydney. My attempts at finding additional nightstay in Sydney were at places that were either too expensive or required an hour trainride. I didn't really worry about it, because you know, ya just gotta wing it. Plus, I knew my friend Fineberg would come through for me in the end.
Well, as it turns out, the place I'm staying at DOES hold rooms off the record, for people who want to stay longer, so I've got four nights in Sydney. So, no sleeping on park benches like I had planned. Who lives a charmed life?
As I left Queensland, I noticed that most Australians wear SHOES in New South Wales. All my observations of Australians prior will have to be directed towards Queenslanders. My apologies to any who were offended.
Happy New Year's everyone! We'll be celebrating it 16-19 hours ahead most of you in the States, two hours ahead of my relatives in Taiwan, and 10 hours ahead of you in the UK.
Basically yesterday was an attempt to kill time before my 7pm bus to Sydney. The ride was 18.5 hours long. Can you say it with me? "Awwwwwwwwesome." It was freezing at night wherever it was we stopped. I was warned that the weather would get cooler as I went south; they weren't kidding. I was freezing on the bus all night long. I met a nice German girl (whose name I couldn't understand); we chatted about our travels along the way. I swear, I have met more people here just off the street than anywhere else. I only had a last minute reservation for a room tonight, and I was going to wing it for the rest of my time here in Sydney. My attempts at finding additional nightstay in Sydney were at places that were either too expensive or required an hour trainride. I didn't really worry about it, because you know, ya just gotta wing it. Plus, I knew my friend Fineberg would come through for me in the end.
Well, as it turns out, the place I'm staying at DOES hold rooms off the record, for people who want to stay longer, so I've got four nights in Sydney. So, no sleeping on park benches like I had planned. Who lives a charmed life?
As I left Queensland, I noticed that most Australians wear SHOES in New South Wales. All my observations of Australians prior will have to be directed towards Queenslanders. My apologies to any who were offended.
Happy New Year's everyone! We'll be celebrating it 16-19 hours ahead most of you in the States, two hours ahead of my relatives in Taiwan, and 10 hours ahead of you in the UK.
Tuesday, December 28, 2004
Hanging out with Koalas and Kangaroos in Brisbane
Hope you all had a great holidays! I have been completely unaffected by the tsunamis in the Indian Ocean. I'm currently in Brisbane, which will be my last stop in Queensland, before heading to New South Wales. I leave tomorrow.
Fraser Island was awesome. I met was grouped with some awesome folks at the hostel; in alphabetical order: Anna (Germany), Anne (Germany), Anna (Sweden), Johanna (Sweden), Dwayne (Canada), Grant (New Zealand), Malin (Sweden), and Vicki (UK). There was nine of us in a Toyota Landcruiser. It was a diesel model, with a air intake/exhaust off the right side of the windshield. The back had two rows of benches along the length of the vehicle like a troop transport vehicle. We did some awesome driving along the beach. It was tricky in some places, but our two drivers (I opted to stay in the back) kicked ass and got us through the soft stuff.
Fraser Island is covered with sand and jungles and has lots of small freshwater lakes; these lakes are amazing. The photos will blow you away when I get them uploaded (maybe next week...) We camped on the beach, swam in the surf (with the sharks), chased dingos (Fraser Island is the only place with purebreed wild dingos), ate like royalty, drank loads, and shared two tents. It was funny to go bodysurfing, keeping one eye for any sharks. One time we were driving along the beach, we had to stop to watch a shark feeding frenzy. There were a bunch of seagulls flocked over some baitfish, but in all the splashing, you could definitely see about 10 shark fins flopping around, going crazy. This was about 70 yards off the beach. It was awesome. Later in that day, we were bodysurfing at our campsite, we all jumped out when someone sighted a dorsal fin about 70 yards off. I didn't have my glasses, so I just took their words for it.
The Swedes celebrate Christmas on December 24, so we had two Christmases! We had party whistles and candy and fruit cake. It was great tooting away under the stars on the beach. It was a very cool vibe. Lake Mackenzie has powder white sand that goes into a aquamarine blue freshwater lake. The temperature is perfect. We had great fun swimming, slinging sand balls at each other, and racing and diving into the water. Lake Wabby is next to an enormous mini desert. It is about a mile of sandy desert that comes to a 45 degree slope which leads 70 meters down into the lake. It was fun racing down that hill and jumping into perfect water. And then, racing back up. (ouch, my thighs!) Indian Head was rock outcropping about 100 meters up. You could see giant manta rays and huge sharks patrolling the waters below. No swimming there. We had a blast for the three days and two nights on the island and all gathered back for lots of drinking the third night in Rainbow Beach. Dwayne and Vicki were kind enough to give my hungover-almost-puking-ass a ride to Brisbane the next day. Thanks, guys!
Brisbane has been mostly closed for the past couple of days. I guess Australians have the 25th to the 28th off. It has a nice lagoon at the site of Expo '88 where we hung out for most of the afternoon. Today I went to the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary and played with koalas and kangaroos. It's a cool place where they have a huge grassy pen where lots of kangroos are lazying around or hopping away from annoying kids. They're tame, so you can come right up to them and pet them and feed them. They also have about 130 koalas so you can pet them too. Did you know...koalas sleep about 20 hours a day (which sort of makes them like ferrets). This is because they spend so much of their energy detoxifying the eucalyptus tree leaves they eat.
Tomorrow I am headed to...I don't know where. But I am going to meet up with Fineberg in Sydney for some partying and no sleep during New Years Eve. I don't have any accommodations booked, so we'll see if I can get lucky!
Fraser Island was awesome. I met was grouped with some awesome folks at the hostel; in alphabetical order: Anna (Germany), Anne (Germany), Anna (Sweden), Johanna (Sweden), Dwayne (Canada), Grant (New Zealand), Malin (Sweden), and Vicki (UK). There was nine of us in a Toyota Landcruiser. It was a diesel model, with a air intake/exhaust off the right side of the windshield. The back had two rows of benches along the length of the vehicle like a troop transport vehicle. We did some awesome driving along the beach. It was tricky in some places, but our two drivers (I opted to stay in the back) kicked ass and got us through the soft stuff.
Fraser Island is covered with sand and jungles and has lots of small freshwater lakes; these lakes are amazing. The photos will blow you away when I get them uploaded (maybe next week...) We camped on the beach, swam in the surf (with the sharks), chased dingos (Fraser Island is the only place with purebreed wild dingos), ate like royalty, drank loads, and shared two tents. It was funny to go bodysurfing, keeping one eye for any sharks. One time we were driving along the beach, we had to stop to watch a shark feeding frenzy. There were a bunch of seagulls flocked over some baitfish, but in all the splashing, you could definitely see about 10 shark fins flopping around, going crazy. This was about 70 yards off the beach. It was awesome. Later in that day, we were bodysurfing at our campsite, we all jumped out when someone sighted a dorsal fin about 70 yards off. I didn't have my glasses, so I just took their words for it.
The Swedes celebrate Christmas on December 24, so we had two Christmases! We had party whistles and candy and fruit cake. It was great tooting away under the stars on the beach. It was a very cool vibe. Lake Mackenzie has powder white sand that goes into a aquamarine blue freshwater lake. The temperature is perfect. We had great fun swimming, slinging sand balls at each other, and racing and diving into the water. Lake Wabby is next to an enormous mini desert. It is about a mile of sandy desert that comes to a 45 degree slope which leads 70 meters down into the lake. It was fun racing down that hill and jumping into perfect water. And then, racing back up. (ouch, my thighs!) Indian Head was rock outcropping about 100 meters up. You could see giant manta rays and huge sharks patrolling the waters below. No swimming there. We had a blast for the three days and two nights on the island and all gathered back for lots of drinking the third night in Rainbow Beach. Dwayne and Vicki were kind enough to give my hungover-almost-puking-ass a ride to Brisbane the next day. Thanks, guys!
Brisbane has been mostly closed for the past couple of days. I guess Australians have the 25th to the 28th off. It has a nice lagoon at the site of Expo '88 where we hung out for most of the afternoon. Today I went to the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary and played with koalas and kangaroos. It's a cool place where they have a huge grassy pen where lots of kangroos are lazying around or hopping away from annoying kids. They're tame, so you can come right up to them and pet them and feed them. They also have about 130 koalas so you can pet them too. Did you know...koalas sleep about 20 hours a day (which sort of makes them like ferrets). This is because they spend so much of their energy detoxifying the eucalyptus tree leaves they eat.
Tomorrow I am headed to...I don't know where. But I am going to meet up with Fineberg in Sydney for some partying and no sleep during New Years Eve. I don't have any accommodations booked, so we'll see if I can get lucky!
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