3 days, 333 pictures

So blog installment 2 of the night is now underway, there was just so much in the past day I can't really wait to do my typical two day blog or else it would be an epic novel.  So I'll try to keep it short and sweet and let the pictures do the talking.

Bird friend.

 This morning after a lovely skype session with many of my loved ones back home, we headed up to the rain forest for some quality bird time.  This was obviously quite a success, and I will refer you to facebook for all the pictures since I find them most amusing.

Before feeding the birds, we had another animal encounter with some delightful alpacas.  The friendliest and the one we were actually allowed to meet was Roy, the stud (all the females were pregnant and not in the best mood). The view from the back porch of the alpaca farm was amazing, as were the alpaca wool products in the gift shop, though very much out of my souvenir price range.  I wasn't expecting to find Australian alpacas and a gift shop filled with Peruvian made alpaca goods in a rain forest on a mountain, but hey, life's full of surprises.

           

Roy, such a stud

         

From the place where we fed the bird you could walk through the rain forest, and while one high alert for leeches, we trecked out into the trees.  In the forest there was a treetop walk on suspension bridges with a spot in the middle where you could climb up to the actual tree top and see out.  

You were so high and the trees were so thick you could barely find the ground below.  All these huge trees in the area had been taken over by strangler figs that germinated over a hundred years ago up in the branches and have slowly wrapped their way around the original host tree and killing it.  They look incredibly cool though because they are trees made out of huge vines and 

The inside of what used to be a tree but is now just the shell of strangler fig vines

Tomorrow we head to the zoo, so more animal pictures soon.

The art of chatting up bearded men with sailboats

Bear with me folks, I'm going to try to break this up into two posts since the past three days have been pretty jam packed, and i'm afraid you would all give up on me if it was just one endless blabber.  And I promise, there will be more exciting pictures!

Said "exciting" picture

We went camping up at Lake Coothabara, about a 2 hour drive from Brisbane and first went to one camp site but it was crowded and the care taker was creepy and had lots of rules so we relocated about 5k up the road to Elanda Point.  This site was beautiful, grassy, and though the wind was crazy strong the first day and we had rain both mornings the sun came out plenty to burn us all to a crisp.  To the right you will notice my humble little abode.  A damn fine tent that sprung up with ease and kept me dry all through a night of rain.  Though I couldn't sleep under the stars as I am wont to do when the weather is good, being dry and not blinded by the sun when it starts to get light here at FOUR IN THE MORNING were definitely well worth it.  Interestingly, with a group of Australians who have been rained on basically non stop for the past 2 months I was the only one who brought any sort of rain gear or a book (good Rasch upbringing I'm sure).  Not wanting to struggle against the onshore breezes (by breezes I mean winds upwards of 20 knots) or be pelted by the constant sand storm on the beech I set up one of the kayaks in the sun as a nice little lounge station and caught up on my Jack Vance.

The greatest part of the camping trip came the next day, after a swim out--i say swim, but i went out quite a ways and it never got over my head, so more of a water walk--and plopping down on the beach for awhile (the product of which is this accursed sunburn, the back of my hands! who burns the back of their hands?)

(I do)

Anyway, back to the run-on sentence I was in the middle of before I jumped to a pictorial interlude-- Jake, the woebegone kite boarder and I made a mission to go sailing.  A family in the campground had a catamaran pretty similar to our hobie and we went to befriend the large very bearded man (he had a fearsome red beard, this is important) who seemed in charge (again, probably the beard).  He also had a funny hat and walked around in a wet suit all day even though the water and air were warm and even when he was out of the water for periods of time.  But that's just how Bondi is, the bearded sailor man, but we did talk him into it, in fact it took very little convincing since there was a good amount of wind and he wanted someone to crew.  I spent most of the ride on the trapeze, my favorite spot, but the bungee was too loose and I ended up dunked a number of times and harassed by many waves. All in good fun, what's a little water up the nose?

So the other really cool thing about the camping trip was the birds.  And I mean birds. At first when arriving in Sydney I thought that maybe it's just the pigeons that seemed to not be scared of people...nope.  That age old  parent's reassurance when a kid sees a crab or a spider of "don't worry, they are more scared of you than you are of them" is just not true Down Under.  This was our favorite ducky friend who spent most of the trip under the tarp with us hoping for treats.  But he was not the only one, kookaburras, magpies, noisey miners, currawongs, brush turkeys, quail, and cormorants were all very interested and not at all shy.  at one point we were so surrounded it felt like any moment could be a scene from Hitchcock's sequel Birds II: Australia.  

I swear I sing the kookaburra song every time I see one of these little guys, especially in a gumtree. Merry, merry king of the bush is he.
laugh, kookaburra, laugh.

gay your life must be.

I can't stop...

Other than birds that drove nursery rhymes into your head and would not let them out for hours on end, we saw the Australian monster lizards, goannas, which are basically the bad guy's pet from rescuers down under. and the seem just as evil if you ask me.  He kept creeping up to camp, and I really mean he embodied the word "creep" like only a skinny middle aged man with a moustache and fanny pack sitting alone near a playground can.  I was just waiting for him to try to kidnap a small child or steal an eagle's egg. either way, I'm not a fan.

  

Kangaroos are an animal I can really get behind, they are great fans of lounging and naps.  When they scratch their ears they do it just like a dog, which when they have feet that size I must say is just adorable.  These were about 10 feet away from our campsite and well within the campground.  They didn't seem very bothered by us, though a large one did snort at Murray. They lounge I tell you, all this hopping is just rumor.

Oh, the places you'll go!

.... and be exhausted.
but in a very good way mind you, though exhausted none the less.  With a migraine from travel and not yet the ability to sleep I sit down to blog for you, and now with fancy-dancy new-fangled techni-color pictures!

Those little rocky do-da's are the lovely Three Sisters of the Blue Mountains, blue because in the heat the gum trees give off something that makes the haze blue, I could google it to get specifics, but so could you.

So before heading up to the blue mountains, we celebrated a holiday I am now quite fond of: Australia Day.  Kind of like the 4th of July where not much is celebrated but summer through cook outs, going out on the lake, the flag printed on things that it doesn't really belong on, and drinking.  We spent the day out on the river (salt water, it flows right in from the ocean) and it was fantastic.  The boat had no seats because well, they tore out the seats. to make room for dive gear, so when we were going fast, and over decently sized waves and wake you stood at the front holding onto the windscreen and trying not to crack your chin open on it.  It was of course incredible and felt like you were riding a dolphin when you got your knees bending on the right intervals.  We had lunch, swam, saw some giant lizard beasts, and generally soaked up some much needed vitamin d.

It's amazing how you can be swimming above seaweed and clear water just inland of the Australian coast and when sitting in the boat with your book it feels just like a summer day on the Tennessee River.  The distances are bigger, the trees are of the gum variety and the cliffs are sandstone, but the atmosphere and the feel, the water color and the trees definitely share some similarities.  As most of you know, this is one of my favorite ways to spend a summer day so I was quite pleased.  We spent the rest of Australia day in the one air conditioned room in the house watching Harry Potter and vegging on hummus and cheese.

Unfortunately the evening kind of marred the day for me with a bout of food poisoning, but I felt fine by the next morning, though the lack of sleep did lead me to leave for the "Blueies" (i have no idea how you would spell that but Australians seem bent on making everything sound adorable. "breakkie" "sunnies" "barbie") a little later than planned, but it still ended up being a beautiful day in the mountains.

The mountain view was beautiful, and again reminiscent of our own blue tinged Smokey Mountains, but very, very hot.  The Blue Mountains are the closest thing Australia really has to mountains, Katoomba (the town I was in) actually gets snow during the winter! gasp! So they were not prepared for the heat wave that was reaching well into the 90s the day I was visiting.  I spent some time walking to and from the overlook, walking around the shops and cafes, and most of all I spent time sweating. It was lovely.  Katoomba is a lot like Asheville, a mixture of poor dirty hippies and rich retirees summering in the mountains, with lots of second hand clothing stores, antique shops, and lots and lots of high priced cafes selling excellent coffee and staggering prices.  On the ride home I was accompanied by a nice young man who was completely wasted from the bag of red wine he had liberated from its box and brought along for the trip.  This being my last night in Sydney we went out for Vietnamese and upon my father's reccomendation I had his favorite bun thit nun and it was fabulous. though anything with fish sauce and barbeque pork would be hard pressed to taste bad.

 This morning I left Sydney and headed north (where weirdly for me, it got hotter) to Brisbane.  We went to a look out, walked around the city a bit, and I got to get settled in.  Tomorrow morning I am headed out to go camping for 2 days one night at a lake about 2 hours away, so I had better get my beauty sleep, I must look my best to sweat, swim, hike, and kayak all day!

Everything is dead.

Camera? dead.

phone? dead.

ipod? dead.

headphones? dead.

computer? dead.

feet? dead.

This is what happens the zitty teenager at Best Buy sells you a converter that doesn't actually work for the countries you're visiting.  But now, thanks to my many years of experience with malls I have a working converter and all my electronics are recharging, which I too am about to do after two very long days.  Unfortunately, because of said obstacle and unknown battery-zapping plane travel properties I have all of four or five pictures in Sydney before my camera conked out (and yes mother, I made sure it was fully charged before I left).  So even though I swear it to be true, there is no photographic proof of me being on the other side of the world, except that otherwise there would be no way I would be awake at 8am.  So in leiu of far more interesting and easy to peruse picture I must instead give you a thousand words...

Saturday January 22nd: death by plane

Sunday January 23rd: nonexistent 20 and three-quarters birthday

Monday January 24th:  Arrive in Sydney, commandeer a handicap bathroom to take a quick birdbath, change into summer suitable clothes, and apply sunscreen.  After spending about an hour trying to get rid of my luggage for the day, arguing with a wall of lockers, and cajoling some hostel employees I actually ended up keeping it all safe for free.  I spent the rest of the day walking through Chinatown, Darling Harbour, and going to the Sydney Aquarium.  Though the sharks were spectacular, the view of the water beautiful, the fountains for wading were refreshing, my favorite activity was reading the t-shirts with English writing worn by Asians.  My two favorites by the end of the day were “who would want marry butterfly but she would love butterfly” and “the secent of an rose.”  While the day was great the jet lag and inability to feel settled in because I was still lugging around all my luggage made me if not homesick then travelsick and ready to collapse, which I readily did at 9pm and fell asleep more quickly than I have in years.  Stephanie and James are both fantastic, and after a late dinner we all headed to bed early (they had been up quite early, taking a flight at 5am back from Brisbane where they had been helping flooded friends).

Tuesday Januart 25^th: After a glass of wine, 13 hours sleep, and finally being able to camp out and open up my bags, I felt infinitely better this morning (not that jesterday was bad, just groggy and occasionally cranky).  I as already mentioned went to find a converter as well as a couple other essentials (of course one of the wheels broke off my bag, luckily it was as we were walking up to the house so I have time to fix it before it must once again travel)  Then I took the train into the city to enjoy a view of the bridge and the Sydney Opera House, really wishing I had a functioning camera battery.  I managed to squeeze into the Museum of Contemporary Art for the last hour before closing and saw an Annie Leibovits exibit, funny to come all the way to Australia for an American photographer, but it’s apparently one of the best museums in the city and free. No way could I turn that down.  After I took the ferry over to Manly island and took advantage of the view along the way, cheapest harbor cruise you could get with my public transit day pass.  I spent the afternoon lounging in the sun and wading in the surf.  After grabbing some quick dinner I found the most delicious thing ever, some bald man sells chocolate (apparently the fact that he’s bald is important) and I got a cup of fantastic melted chocolate with beautiful strawberries to dip in it.  Tired, feet sore, ready to relax and not looking forward to the train ride ahead and walking home in the dark all disappeared when this chocolately haven arrived, and no that’s not a typo, I would crawl inside that chocolate as a shelter and be shielded from everything bad in the world, though I’m sure it’s pretty close to what heaven is like too.  I’m sure you have all grown bored or tired and I am surely the latter, so hopefully the internet connection lasts long enough for me to post this for all of you who I’m sure are waiting with bated breath!

Happy Australia Day! Google is celebrating it, so should you!

planes, trains, and automobiles....

So when do I stop moving?
Right now for a little bit at least, I figure if they made me pay for an hour of internet I might as well get my fill.
Disadvantages to traveling by yourself:
no one to help lug your giant bags off the baggage claim
no one to watch your bags when you have to pee 8 times because you keep drinking water
no one you can sleep on comfortably
no one to tell you when your fly has been completely undone in the San Fransisco airport for an hour or two

Spotted:
Tom Selleck look-alike

...that's really the only important thing spotted...

Now I am off for food and adventure, there's a rumble in my belly and the only question is, did I come all the way from Winston-Salem to Sydney to eat krispy kreme for breakfast?

3:09am... at least i'm done packing

Good evening...err morning, kitty cats.  this is the first blog in what is hopefully a series of many.  This shan't be too exciting since I still have to clean up the disaster relief zone that is my bedroom before heading to bed.  Tomorrow afternoon I take my first flight and by midnight I (should) be out of the country. there will soon be more to come, but for now i bid you good evening, and hope you all get more sleep than I do.