Greetings from Melbourne,
Melbourne is a beautiful city. Mixture of old and new buildings. Lots of green space (the botanical garden is amazing!). It's a great place to wander around.
However, let's talk penguins.
Every night after the sun sets, the little blue penguins climb out of the Tasmin Sea and head back to their burroughs to rest, mate, or just hang with their neighbors. Last night I watched several groups of them perform this nightly ritual. They assemble in the surf, and when they have a sufficient critical mass, they walk out of the sea, over the sand, pass the on-lookers, and into the grass. It takes them several attempts to make this crossing as they are paranoid about birds swooping down to grab them as they leave the water. (they are only 8 to 12 inches tall!) And they get scared at the slightest movements. When scared, they turn and run back into the surf. But eventually they make it across. It's a wonderful to watch them frantically waddle their way to safety.
Once they arrive in the grassy area, you can watch them waddle to their burroughs. They are noisey buggers! And there are some squabbles along the way. But they are TOO CUTE in their white and blueness. It was worth braving the freezing winds off the Tasman Sea to watch them.
And I finally saw the South Cross. It was a clear night with a million stars. Had an Aussie point out the South Cross Constellation. Doesn't look like much of a cross to me.
cheers,
Stacey
Friday, June 15, 2007
Tuesday, June 12, 2007
Melbourne
Greetings from Melbourne,
Arrived in Melbourne this afternoon. It's hard to believe that my travels will over in 16 days. After 6 days in Melbourne, I'll spend 10 days in Scotland, and then it's back to Syracuse. It will have been six months and three weeks since I left home. Times flies when you're having an adventure.
When last I wrote, I had just arrived in Adelaide. Adelaide is a pleasant city. And just what did I do in Adelaide?
Visited the Barossa Valley. The Barossa Valley has beautiful scenery, and is famous for its vineyards. They make excellent shiraz, cabernet sauvignon, merlot, and port. En route to the valley, we stopped at a town famous for making wooden toys. And as a form of advertisement, they have huge rocking horse -- 60 feet tall -- on display in town. It seems towns in Australia and New Zealand like to create huge statues of things for which they are famous. You could climb to the top of the rocking horse for a view of..... who knows cuz I didn't feel like climbing up a metal horse in the pooring rain.
Next to the horse was a small zoo. There was a cage full of parrots of various types, including a fat pink trouble maker who would suddenly scream for no reason, causing the other twenty parrots to scream, puff their feathers, spead their wings and fly around the cage. Twenty odd screaming parrots make a terrifying and deafening noise. Then just as suddenly, they'd go silent, and the white ones would say "hello".
On the way home we visited the "whispering wall", which is really the curved wall of a reservoir. But sure enough, it sounds like the people at the other end are whispering in your ear despite the fact that they are really all the way over there on the other side. Takes five minutes to walk to the other side of the damn wall.
Kangaroo Island was nice. It's an island that his half farmers and half nature reserve. The island is full of koalas, kangaroos, wombats, possums, animals that look like porcupines but are not, penguins, seals, pelicans. You can see all these animals in the wild living their lives. And there are some beautiful secluded beaches as well.
Visited the port town of Glenelg. This is where the ships first landed when then came down to South Australia. Now-a-days, it's shops and restaurants and beautiful public beaches.
And there are several interesting museums in Adelaide, as well as a gorgeous botanical garden.
Over the weekend there was a Cabaret Festival. I saw a couple of performances.
The first was 6'5" Australian man, mid to late 40's, who pretended to be an 80 year old, uppper class, English woman. His character is a singer who has now incorporated hiphop music and lyrics to her songs. This was hilarious in a bizarre way (picture Queen Elizabeth rapping about her frustrations, but not using any foul language). Equally entertaining was the audience: white, middle-aged australians. At the end of the performance, the audience was required to engage in a hiphop version of the Hokey Pokey. Very, very strange.
The second show was a performance of two young women, dressed in corsets and striped socks, who performed and sang about topics that reflected concerns of women -- sex, their hair, finding love. They were very good. For their encore they did a song about why they hate Americans. It was very funny.
The hotel where I stayed was beautiful! It was a five star hotel that I gave me an incredible deal. The decore was 1920's, but in subtle colors and designs. And the concierge was a riot. He worked his fanny off.
And that was Adelaide.
cheers,
Stacey
Arrived in Melbourne this afternoon. It's hard to believe that my travels will over in 16 days. After 6 days in Melbourne, I'll spend 10 days in Scotland, and then it's back to Syracuse. It will have been six months and three weeks since I left home. Times flies when you're having an adventure.
When last I wrote, I had just arrived in Adelaide. Adelaide is a pleasant city. And just what did I do in Adelaide?
Visited the Barossa Valley. The Barossa Valley has beautiful scenery, and is famous for its vineyards. They make excellent shiraz, cabernet sauvignon, merlot, and port. En route to the valley, we stopped at a town famous for making wooden toys. And as a form of advertisement, they have huge rocking horse -- 60 feet tall -- on display in town. It seems towns in Australia and New Zealand like to create huge statues of things for which they are famous. You could climb to the top of the rocking horse for a view of..... who knows cuz I didn't feel like climbing up a metal horse in the pooring rain.
Next to the horse was a small zoo. There was a cage full of parrots of various types, including a fat pink trouble maker who would suddenly scream for no reason, causing the other twenty parrots to scream, puff their feathers, spead their wings and fly around the cage. Twenty odd screaming parrots make a terrifying and deafening noise. Then just as suddenly, they'd go silent, and the white ones would say "hello".
On the way home we visited the "whispering wall", which is really the curved wall of a reservoir. But sure enough, it sounds like the people at the other end are whispering in your ear despite the fact that they are really all the way over there on the other side. Takes five minutes to walk to the other side of the damn wall.
Kangaroo Island was nice. It's an island that his half farmers and half nature reserve. The island is full of koalas, kangaroos, wombats, possums, animals that look like porcupines but are not, penguins, seals, pelicans. You can see all these animals in the wild living their lives. And there are some beautiful secluded beaches as well.
Visited the port town of Glenelg. This is where the ships first landed when then came down to South Australia. Now-a-days, it's shops and restaurants and beautiful public beaches.
And there are several interesting museums in Adelaide, as well as a gorgeous botanical garden.
Over the weekend there was a Cabaret Festival. I saw a couple of performances.
The first was 6'5" Australian man, mid to late 40's, who pretended to be an 80 year old, uppper class, English woman. His character is a singer who has now incorporated hiphop music and lyrics to her songs. This was hilarious in a bizarre way (picture Queen Elizabeth rapping about her frustrations, but not using any foul language). Equally entertaining was the audience: white, middle-aged australians. At the end of the performance, the audience was required to engage in a hiphop version of the Hokey Pokey. Very, very strange.
The second show was a performance of two young women, dressed in corsets and striped socks, who performed and sang about topics that reflected concerns of women -- sex, their hair, finding love. They were very good. For their encore they did a song about why they hate Americans. It was very funny.
The hotel where I stayed was beautiful! It was a five star hotel that I gave me an incredible deal. The decore was 1920's, but in subtle colors and designs. And the concierge was a riot. He worked his fanny off.
And that was Adelaide.
cheers,
Stacey
Tuesday, June 5, 2007
Simply Spectacular
G'Day,
If it's Tuesday, I must be in Adelaide. Arrived this morning. And I woke up way too early to catch the flight here from Cairns. Tonight will be an early night.
After Brisbane, I spent several days in Cairns. Cairns itself is not so interesting, but it's a place from which you can do many things: Kuranda, Port Douglas, the Great Barrier Reef, Cape Tribulation, just to name a few places.
Too me, the Great Barrier Reef was the best thing I saw during my stay in Cairns. And that's not to say that the rest of the sites were disappointing. The Reef is incredibly beautiful.
I joined an all day dive and snork cruise out to three sites in the Reef. It was a spectacular day, which Uncle Fluffy (our marine biology specialist and snorkel supervisor) explained is rare in the winter. Once it becomes winter, the winds pick up (20+ knots), and the sites diving and snorkeling sites are limited, assuming we survive the boat ride. But that day the winds were calm, which meant we were able to visit three prime summer dive and snorkel sites.
We spent an hour at each site. The water was a beautiful shades of blue and not too cold. Uncle Fluffy snorkeled with us and made sure we saw gorgeous coral reefs and various rare fish and animal life. I saw two white tipped sharks (these are vegetarians), several gigantic clams, a lion fish, and Nemo (the orange and white clown fish). And the coral was simply amazing. The shapes and colors!!!! I was simply content to swim and look at the pretty fish and coral. Three hours of snorkeling is exhausting. And I don't think I missed anything by not diving. The reefs were close to the surface.
My next favorite place was Paronella Park. The history of the place is incredible. Paronella Park with created on a piece of land purchased by a Catalonian Spaniard at the beginning of the 1900s. He was a baker in Spain who decided to come to Australia to make his fortune as so many people did at that time. He was fortunate enough to save enough money over 11 years to purchase a large piece of land that had a small waterfall. Unfortunately, his fiancee, whom he left 11 years earlier, chose not to wait for him and married another man. So he married her sister and brought her to Australia. He then built a house in which the lived, and a spanish mansion and resort park for people in the area to enjoy. He build his house, the mansion, the fountains, the tables -- almost every structure on the premises himself, using stones from the river below and cement. He carried rocks and water up a whole lot of steps (that he also built). There were tennis courts, a bowling green, a ballroom, a refreshment stand, and a lovers' walk. He and a few friends built this incredible resort.
Over the years the place was distroyed by natural disasters and a fire. The current owners have been slowly rennovating the place. So what you see are ruins of the splendor that used to exist. Crumbling, moss covered structures. And even in this state it's a tranquil and inspiring place to visit.
The rest of my time was spent on various tours visiting different portions of the rain forest covered area. The area is green and peaceful. I also took a boat ride where I saw three large people eating crocodiles in the wild. Fortunately, it is winter, and crocs don't eat in the winter because they don't digest food when it's cold outside. Phew! These were big SOB's.
The drive up to Port Douglas and Cape Tribulation, also the coastal road is gorgeous. Spectacular views of the Pacific Ocean with sandy, rocky or tree lined coasts. On one drive up the coast, we passed the scene of an accident. Turns out a tourist fell down the cliff after he got out his car to take photos of the coast line. He didn't get hurt.
I also had a chance to see several demonstrations of local aboriginal dancing, dirigidoo playing, spear and boomerang throwing. The dancing is very energetic; I got tired just watching them. I tried my hand at throwing a boomerang. It's harder than it looks, but not impossible. My boomerang partially returned to me. Passed on the spear throwing and the digeridoo.
We also visited another native animal park. There were koalas, crocodiles, lots of colorful birds, a pair of black swans, and two huge pelicans. We were able to walk among the kangaroos. I saw several kangaroos with joeys. They are adorable! I was able to hold a koala. They are so sweek and soft, although their claws tickle and prick a bit.
And that summarizes Cairns. Cairns is my favorite set of experiences thus far in Australia.
cheers,
Stacey
If it's Tuesday, I must be in Adelaide. Arrived this morning. And I woke up way too early to catch the flight here from Cairns. Tonight will be an early night.
After Brisbane, I spent several days in Cairns. Cairns itself is not so interesting, but it's a place from which you can do many things: Kuranda, Port Douglas, the Great Barrier Reef, Cape Tribulation, just to name a few places.
Too me, the Great Barrier Reef was the best thing I saw during my stay in Cairns. And that's not to say that the rest of the sites were disappointing. The Reef is incredibly beautiful.
I joined an all day dive and snork cruise out to three sites in the Reef. It was a spectacular day, which Uncle Fluffy (our marine biology specialist and snorkel supervisor) explained is rare in the winter. Once it becomes winter, the winds pick up (20+ knots), and the sites diving and snorkeling sites are limited, assuming we survive the boat ride. But that day the winds were calm, which meant we were able to visit three prime summer dive and snorkel sites.
We spent an hour at each site. The water was a beautiful shades of blue and not too cold. Uncle Fluffy snorkeled with us and made sure we saw gorgeous coral reefs and various rare fish and animal life. I saw two white tipped sharks (these are vegetarians), several gigantic clams, a lion fish, and Nemo (the orange and white clown fish). And the coral was simply amazing. The shapes and colors!!!! I was simply content to swim and look at the pretty fish and coral. Three hours of snorkeling is exhausting. And I don't think I missed anything by not diving. The reefs were close to the surface.
My next favorite place was Paronella Park. The history of the place is incredible. Paronella Park with created on a piece of land purchased by a Catalonian Spaniard at the beginning of the 1900s. He was a baker in Spain who decided to come to Australia to make his fortune as so many people did at that time. He was fortunate enough to save enough money over 11 years to purchase a large piece of land that had a small waterfall. Unfortunately, his fiancee, whom he left 11 years earlier, chose not to wait for him and married another man. So he married her sister and brought her to Australia. He then built a house in which the lived, and a spanish mansion and resort park for people in the area to enjoy. He build his house, the mansion, the fountains, the tables -- almost every structure on the premises himself, using stones from the river below and cement. He carried rocks and water up a whole lot of steps (that he also built). There were tennis courts, a bowling green, a ballroom, a refreshment stand, and a lovers' walk. He and a few friends built this incredible resort.
Over the years the place was distroyed by natural disasters and a fire. The current owners have been slowly rennovating the place. So what you see are ruins of the splendor that used to exist. Crumbling, moss covered structures. And even in this state it's a tranquil and inspiring place to visit.
The rest of my time was spent on various tours visiting different portions of the rain forest covered area. The area is green and peaceful. I also took a boat ride where I saw three large people eating crocodiles in the wild. Fortunately, it is winter, and crocs don't eat in the winter because they don't digest food when it's cold outside. Phew! These were big SOB's.
The drive up to Port Douglas and Cape Tribulation, also the coastal road is gorgeous. Spectacular views of the Pacific Ocean with sandy, rocky or tree lined coasts. On one drive up the coast, we passed the scene of an accident. Turns out a tourist fell down the cliff after he got out his car to take photos of the coast line. He didn't get hurt.
I also had a chance to see several demonstrations of local aboriginal dancing, dirigidoo playing, spear and boomerang throwing. The dancing is very energetic; I got tired just watching them. I tried my hand at throwing a boomerang. It's harder than it looks, but not impossible. My boomerang partially returned to me. Passed on the spear throwing and the digeridoo.
We also visited another native animal park. There were koalas, crocodiles, lots of colorful birds, a pair of black swans, and two huge pelicans. We were able to walk among the kangaroos. I saw several kangaroos with joeys. They are adorable! I was able to hold a koala. They are so sweek and soft, although their claws tickle and prick a bit.
And that summarizes Cairns. Cairns is my favorite set of experiences thus far in Australia.
cheers,
Stacey
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