Chasing the Sunrise

The morning after our jaunt to Katoomba Falls Richie and I planned to “carpe diem” and wake up early to watch the sun rise over the Blue Mountains.  The girl at the information desk had pointed us to Sublime Point in the next town over, Leura, as a good outlook with easterly views.  The plan was to get a taxi there at 5:10 AM and then hike back along a cliff-side trail.  We woke up at 5 AM but we probably wouldn’t have gotten out of bed if we didn’t see a bright pink streak across the sky outside our window.

That sight mobilized us.  We got our taxi out there but the driver ripped us off—$20 for an eight-minute ride over to Leura.  And it turns out that Leura must be a couple hundred feet lower in elevation than Katoomba because we were firmly in the clouds and couldn’t really see anything.  Our hostel room was above the clouds, but Sublime Point not so much.  A couple times the clouds lifted for a moment so we could see into the valley, but that’s about it.

Peeking under clouds.

We decided to give up at about 6:10 AM and head back.  The experience reminded me of a family vacation to St. John a few years ago when my brothers and I woke up before light to hike out to a promontory named Ram’s Head to see the sunrise.  That attempt failed miserably as well, with a large cloud blocking the sun in front of us.  I don’t have any photos from that event, but here’s an artist’s depiction:

Facebook "graffiti" by Zack Nolan.

Back in the Blue Mountains, Richie and I couldn’t find the cliff-side trail that led back to Katoomba.  We tried bushwhacking for a little ways, but no dice.  We ended up running back along the roads, up the couple hundred feet of elevation.  When we made it to the hostel we passed out for an hour and a half but still managed to catch the 10:20 AM train back to Syndey for a great day/evening/night.

The road to Katoomba.

Later we both decided that it’s fruitless to chase the sunrise, and that you have to let the sunrise come to you.  Under a week later we (with two friends Tommy and Tina) were at a caravan park in Byron Bay, halfway through our road trip from Sydney to Brisbane (more on this later).  After a long night out on the town—I won’t go into details—we were sitting in camp chairs, discussing matters.  The sky slowly began to lighten and before we even realized it there was a sunrise in front of our eyes.

I guess you just can’t force these things.

Blue Mountains Escapade

Back on the morning of the 8^th I landed in Sydney with my friend Richie, a fellow American who lived down the hall from me at Ormond College.  We had a couple days to kill before our other friends arrived for our road trip to Brisbane so we decided to spend the night at the Blue Mountains.  We caught the train out of the city and arrived in Katoomba a little after 3 PM.  We lugged our bags to the cheapest hostel—Katoomba Mountain Lodge or something like that—got a couple beds, and walked up the street until we reached the Echo Point information centre.

After admiring the view from the outlook we entered the information centre.  It was about 4:30 PM so we had a few hours of daylight left to explore the area and the girl behind the desk gave us a map and highlighted a trail and we were on our way.  The trail first took us down a series of steps around a cliff then leveled off for a few km. 

We reached the base of the Katoomba Falls and a little area amid the subtropical rainforest with a few picnic tables called “Katoomba Falls Viewing Area.”  You could only catch a small glimpse of the waterfall through the dense foliage and I was supremely disappointed.  Richie warned me not to have expectations.  We continued up the trail and soon came across a path leading towards the Falls.  We kept getting better and better views and my faith in the Blue Mountains Par Service was restored.  Then we reached a spur that said “Under Falls Trail – 10 min” and promptly took it.

It was incredible.  If you’re ever going to visit the Katoomba Falls I seriously recommend doing it at around 6 PM.  You’ll miss out on the tram ride across the cliffs, but you’re lucky like us there will be no one there.  We had the Falls to ourselves so we could get really close up to them.  It was a pretty magical experience to be alone with something so powerful and impressive in nature.

The top of the Falls, up close.

My friend Richie at the bottom, for scale.

They had two tiers and we were out on the middle level rock platform with the Falls pounding down behind us and then dropping off below us, in front of beautiful views of the blue Mountains.  Amazing.

Where the Under Falls trail took us.

View from the platform.

It was getting pretty late, though, so we hiked out, walked back along the roads, and stopped at the grocery store to buy the supplies for our feast of sausages and salad.

Last Great Ocean Walk Post

I really have to catch up on what I've done the last two and a half weeks, but I'll have this last post as a place to collect my thoughts about the Great Ocean Walk.  It was the longest backpacking trip I’ve done at 6 days and 100 km.  Going into the hike I thought I could probably do it in 5 days, but now I would not recommend doing it in any less than 6 if you’re carrying all your gear and food.  The track is deceptively hilly and hiking on the beach is not as easy as it sounds.  Walking in the sand worked different leg muscles than normal terrain and really tired out the calves.  Plus on the shorter days (which were 14-15 km) we would just spend an hour or two lying on the beach.

I really enjoyed this hike and it’s nice to know it will only get better.  When I did it there was a fair amount of walking along roads, but Parks Victoria is working on a couple realignments that should be done soon, if not already.  The trail wasn’t crowded at all either.  I can almost count the number of groups we saw on one hand: the father and son team, the elderly crowd, the school group, the army patrol, and the four ladies.  There were a handful of tourists at the more accessible points as well, but for most of the time we had the trail to ourselves.  The campsites were mostly empty as well.  We didn’t reserve any sites and with the exception of Johanna Beach we didn’t have a problem showing up and claiming a spot.

At Cape Otway, Day 2 campsite

From outlook above Ryan's Den, Day 4 campsite

The hike also reaffirmed my belief that the best views don’t come from viewing platforms, but are off the beaten track.  And there’s no railing in front of you either.  In addition to great views we also saw a lot of wildlife.  Here’s my list of the animals we saw:

• 5 black wallabies
• 4 koalas (heard many more)
• 4 echidnas
• 2 pairs of hooded plovers
• 1 bird of prey (kestrel?)
• 1 heron
• Super Fairy Wrens
• Crimson Rosellas
• Yellowtail Black Cockatoos
• Galahs
• Many lizards (one big one)
• Scorpions (found in Sytske’s bag one morning)

And here are my journal entries for each day of the hike:

Great Ocean Walk Day 1

Great Ocean Walk Day 2

Great Ocean Walk Day 3

Great Ocean Walk Day 4

Great Ocean Walk Day 5

Great Ocean Walk Day 6

Great Ocean Walk Day 6

Journal Entry: Friday 3/12/2010

We woke up early today because we had to catch a 3 PM bus from the 12 Apostles.  We made it out of the campsite a little past 8:30 AM and bid farewell to the school group.  The morning was along dirt roads again—the realignments here were not complete either.  At ~11:30 AM we passed Princetown Camp Ground and made a side trip to the town centre.  We stopped at the Talk of the Town pub for a real meal.  I had a burger with the lot and a cold VB.  Delicious.

After lunch we continued down dirt roads with the sun beating down on us.  At this point the hike started to get tedious—toiling away under the hot sun—but soon the road turned to a path and then at the crest of a hill the 12 Apostles came into view, all in a row off in the distance.

Apostles ahead.

The image left me revitalized, and glimpses of the Apostles kept me going the rest of the way.  Before long we broke out onto a parking lot off the Great Ocean Road.  On a wooden post someone had scratched “End GOW.”  Not a very ceremonious end to the hike, but that’s okay because it was more about the sights along the way.

Black wallaby spotting.

We continued down the Great Ocean Road for about 2 kms, walking on the side of the road, until we reached the 12 Apostles car park, which was packed as usual.  As we headed down to the viewing platforms a sudden downpour started, sending all the tourists in search of cover.  We stuck it out with a couple other brave souls and got soaked, but we had the platform to ourselves.  Then as the rain stopped we headed out to the bus stop as everyone came streaming back.  It seemed a fitting end to the hike.

A little wet.

I’ll put up a post soon with a little debrief about the Great Ocean Walk and a list of the wildlife we spotted.  I’ve done so much since the Walk too that I have to catch up on.

Great Ocean Walk Day 5

Journal Entry: Thursday 2/12/10

“Today is gonna be a hot one.”  Sytske’s first words to me as she pokes her head in the tent.  She’s been up for an hour and she expected me to wake up too, but she didn’t know how deep a sleeper I am.  Today’s hike has been pretty usual (for the Great Ocean Walk).  At least in the morning.  Lots of ups and downs with outlooks scattered along the trail.  Eventually we broke out onto a road (dirt) and saw the school group’s van.  They were heading out early to skip ahead to the 12 Apostles, staying the night at the next campsite, then heading back to Brisbane.

Echidna petting.

Down the road a ways they caught up to us and gave us a ~5 minute lift to the next junction.  They’re hiking into the campsite tonight so we’ll see them one more time.  After continuing on dirt roads for a while we descended the 366 steps to Wreck Beach.  We arrived at low tide, which was the perfect time to see the anchors embedded in the sand.

After we hiked along the beach a while we got to the point where the trail veers inland, up to the campsite.  We stopped to eat lunch and I sit here now, roasting in the mid-afternoon sun.  Today has been the first really nice weather day—by normal standards, anyway.  Hot and sunny most of the day while the others have been overcast and cool.  Those days are better for hiking, though, because I have been sweating buckets today.  We’ve been on this beach for 1+ hour and haven’t seen another soul.

. . .

I took a quick dip in the ocean, basically just wading in and then diving under a wave—the beach wasn’t great for swimming because there were rocks everywhere and a strong rip.  From the beach it took about 30 minutes to hike up the gully to Devil’s Kitchen Campsite.  It was deserted.  There was a great outlook above the last campsite and from the camp toilet.

As I was sitting up there I noticed what I thought looked like smoke but I wasn’t sure.  Then, as Sytske and I were watching the sunset ash started to fall from the sky.  The school group hadn’t shown up either so I was starting to get a little worried.  In my mind I was planning a mad dash back down to the beach to escape the approaching flames.  But eventually the group arrived at 9 PM and reported that as they were driving they saw the smoke of a bush fire off in the distance.  They didn’t seem too worried about it so I forgot about the threat.  The skies cleared up and the stars that night were amazing—I even saw a few shooting stars.

Great Ocean Walk Day 4

Journal Entry: Wednesday 1/12/10

This morning was a much less glamorous section of the hike.  It started well, with pastoral hills dotted with cows that very much reminded me of Ireland.  The sun was peeking out through the clouds and I was sweating going up the first hill.  At the top I turned to Sytske and said, “I don’t want to jinx it, but if it’s this warm this early, it’s gonna be a hot one.”  Pretty soon the wind picked up, clouds descended, and the mist came in.  I was even more reminded of Ireland.

The trail ahead.

The entire walk before lunch (~10 km) was on dirt road past the occasional home.  One house left out water and had marmalade for sale.  Sytske bought a jar.  We finally made it down to the beach where we stopped for lunch. 

We saw them in real life, too.

As we were eating a group of four ladies walked by.  As we packed up and started walking further down the beach they were coming back towards us.  One of them, the short round one, was soaking wet.  “You can’t go that way,” they said.  “It’s too dangerous.”  We told them we would check it out and, yes, with the tide coming in we did have to scramble a bit, but we made it.

Past the scramble.

There was an extremely helpful rock formation that left round stones poking out of the rock face, providing perfect foot and hand holds and we may not have made it without those.  From the beach we ascended through short jungle-like scrub with magnificent views of the cliffs below.  The afternoon definitely made up for the dull morning.  I had to remind myself to enjoy the view not through my camera, but in person.  A few times we spotted a black wallaby bounding up the trail ahead of us.

Afternoon's views. 

A shorter day than the rest, we reached Ryan’s Den Campsite a little past 3 PM.  Deserted.  There was a great lookout at the top of the camp site that we sat and enjoyed for a while then we played cards until the school group showed up at maybe 4:30.  I beat Sytske at every card game we played: Spit, Speed, and an epic game of Egyptian Rat Screw.  After the school group no one else showed up at the campsite so we claimed a spot and set up.

We shared the shelter/kitchen with the school group and their leader and talked and told stories for a few hours.  They had just finished Year 12 and were from Brisbane.  It was fun to watch the banter between them.  We’re staying at the same campsite tomorrow too… 

Great Ocean Walk Day 3

Journal Entry: Tuesday 30/11/10

Another grueling day on the Great Ocean Walk. And unfortunately not as interesting as yesterday. During the night I got up to pee and the stars greeted me when I poked my head out of the tent. I’ve been yearning to see that many stars since I’ve been in Australia. It was too cold to stay out long, though, and I quickly reentered the warmth of my sleeping bag.

Not long after hitting the trail in the morning we found ourselves in the middle of an army patrol. They were hiking about the same speed as us so we trades places a few times. Apparently they were just out for a hike—a little training. If that’s what the army does, sign me up. When we hit the beach, however, we pretty much lost them for good.

It was a pristine beach—we were the first ones on it that day—and we took the obligatory footprints in the sand photos. It was fun to hike barefoot in the sand. From there we hiked some hilly sections, passing a grounds crew that was weedwhacking the trail. We dropped down near sea level again and crossed the Aire River by bridge, ~10 km into the day.

We ate lunch there but did not stay long because we still had to walk along Johanna Beach (there was no inland track) and high tide was coming up in the evening and we didn’t know how wide the beach was. From Aire River to Johanna Beach campsite was about 12.4 km and a lot of the hike was ups and downs and parts were hard to appreciate because we were so tired.

Eventually we descended to Johanna Beach where we stripped down for a quick swim. It was a beautiful beach, very wide and completely sandy with no rocks. The only thing was the current, which I could feel sucking me out as I dove under waves. The GOW campsite turned out to be ful so we had to hike back down to the campground and found a nice spot under some trees. Only it must have been the windiest spot for a mile in any direction. Inside the tent felt like Everest base camp. We also saw a couple pairs of hooded plovers today.

Great Ocean Walk Day 2

Journal Entry: Monday 29/11/10

We emerged from the tent pretty late this morning. Allen and Aiden were already up and we joined them in the shelter for brekkie. After packing up we left the campsite around 10:30. The hike before lunch was all inland through mostly open Eucalypt forest, with some patches that looked like temperate rain forest. Sytske and I swapped knowledge of the biota. We spotted a few birds but no large animals. We found out why when we caught up to a group of elderly hikers from Sydney tramping through the forest like the Elephant Brigade from the Jungle Book. Sytske got a chuckle out of that wisecrack. They said they saw a black wallaby a little ways back run off the trail. We made sure to pass them before they disturbed anymore of our wildlife.

After ~10 km we arrived at Blanket Bay, where we lunched. There were many dead birds on the beach and even a dead seal. I guess it must happen on more accessible beaches too, but on this remote one no one is there to clean it up. We stopped for a while and I took a short nap. At about 3 PM we pressed on, determined to make it to the Cape Otway campsite just past the lighthouse.

Not long after lunch we had to take our boots of to cross the 10-foot wide Parker Inlet. That was a little annoying. Then we had to climb Parker’s Hill. That was also a little annoying. Then when we got to the top I went to take a photo of the view and found that my lens cap was gone. I had to run all the way down the hill and found the cap where it fell out of my pocket as I was putting my boots back on then run all the way back up the 293 stone steps. That was really annoying.

But we continued on, needing to cover about 10 km of track just inland from the coast. One of the best parts of the hike so far is how the vegetation and environments change so dramatically so often. At one point we broke out onto a road and could see the lighthouse off in the distance, 4 km away. This was at about 5 PM. We pressed on and Sytske and I we re both getting cranky and tired. The trail continued just off to the side of a paved road and the flies were relentless, adding to our woes.

But then we spotted a koala, two black wallabies, and an echidna in short succession and those spotting definitely raised our spirits. We trudged on, past the lighthouse (which was already closed to the public because it was so late) and finally arrived at the campsite close to 7 PM. There was a group occupying the group site but that was it. We chose a site (we had 8 to choose from), set up the tent and made dinner, first 4-cheese pasta and then Mi Goreng.

For after-dinner entertainment a koala climbed right up a tree right in front of us, munching away on the tree’s few remaining leaves. As I write this now the stars are starting to come out. I’ll probably sit and enjoy them for a minute before I go to bed—it’s not too cold, although I realize I should have brought pants. We are now a third of the way through the hike, both in distance and time.

Great Ocean Walk Day 1

For the next six posts I am typing up the journal entries I wrote while on the Great Ocean Walk, with only minor edits.  I did the walk with one other person—Sytske, a fellow American—who I had met once before.  We had a mutual friend who was supposed to come with us but dropped out, leaving just her and me.  Here’s the first entry…

Journal Entry: Sunday 28/11/10

Woke up pretty early (~7:30 AM) to get to Southern Cross train station.  Met up with Sytske and took a train and a bus to Apollo Bay, and arrived around 12:45 PM.   After lunch we got on the trail (which was actually a sidewalk) and pretty soon lost the path, even though we were still in the town.  We eventually found we had gone down the wrong street and picked up the correct sidewalk again.  After walking through some developments we finally got onto the beach.

I should mention all the way down from Melbourne it was raining off and on but when we started hiking it cleared to party cloudy—I got to wear my new hat, even though it threatened to blow off multiple times.  The trail switched between beach and inland and at a few decision points we chose to walk inland because the tide was on its way in.  Then we got to Decision Point 4, where the trail either turned way inland or went along a stretch of rock shore.

Inland section of the track.

It was about 3:45 and high tide was at 4:30 PM.  The safe choice would have been to take the inland route, but we were adventurous and skipped across the rocks.  It got tricky at times and a wave washed into my boot at least once.  Another time I had to wade barefoot because the water had reached the rock wall and covered the footholds.

The camp shelter/kitchen. One at every site.

But we made it up to the Elliot Ridge campsite without too much trouble.  It was deserted except for about eight people in the group site and father and son Allen and Aiden.  As we were setting up our tent we started to hear something that sounded like the oinking of a pig.  I was expecting a wild boar to crash through the underbrush at any moment but it turned out to be a koala up in a tree making the racket.  He is up there doing it now (mating call?) as I write this.  After dinner we played cards with Allen and Aiden.  I lost pretty badly in a version of Kings.  Sytske won.  Time for bed because it’s gonna be a long day tomorrow.

Parents Visit 3/3 - Great Ocean Road

I'll keep this post short since the visit was a while ago (November 12th?) and I have a bunch of posts coming up about my recent expedition: the Great Ocean Walk.  In fact, it was so long ago that I can't really remember anything notable that happened.  It took well over three hours to get to the road—way longer than I envisioned—as we started at the 12 Apostles and worked our way back along the coast.  The day was overcast but the crowds still turned up.

Parents and Apostles.

We made it to Apollo Bay at dinnertime and stopped to eat at Cafe 153.  As I recall the maître d’ vaguely resembled Michael Caine.  My mom and I both had the fish special—perhaps it was grouper—which was fresh and simple.  To drink I had a local microbrew that used rainwater from the region.

A good beer, as far as I can remember.

After the sun set on our way back we decided to cut inland thinking the road would be less windy and shorter, but for the first 50 km it was probably worse.  We eventually made it back to the city pretty late.

I just got back from the 6-day Great Ocean Walk, so over the next week I will post my journal entries from each day along with some of the photos I took (there are over 400 but I’ve already selected the 114 best...).  For the rest of my time here in Australia my internet access will probably be spotty so bear with me if there are long breaks between posts.

Parents Visit Part 2/3

Now that my exams are over I have ample free time to produce the posts about my parents’ visit.  First, though, a note about the exams here.  Most of them are in the 19th century Royal Exhibition Building, about 15 minutes from the campus.  It’s a huge, ornate building that has basically one gigantic room inside.  Lined up in endless rows are thousands and thousands of desks and there are multiple exams going on in both the mornings and afternoons.

Both times I walked to the building for an exam I started out with one person next to me.  At every stoplight, however, we joined up with more and more people as we got closer to the REB.  About one block from the building I was in a group about 50 deep and more students joined until it turned into a steady stream entering the building.  It was kind of like the beginning of the Drew Carey show, but without the singing or dancing. Or happiness.

But exams are over now and I have time to write about the Yarra Valley Wine Country.  It was my third vineyard/wine tasting day in Australia so I’m basically a pro now.  We drove to three vineyards sampling all varieties of wine along the way.  My parents bought a few bottles, one of which we enjoyed during our picnic lunch.  At one winery I learned that sparkling wines like champagne get the sparkles in the bottle when they put more yeast in and a second fermentation occurs.  Then they turn the bottle upside down until the yeast settles, freeze the neck, pop the yeast ice cube out, then top off the bottle.

Dandenong Ranges after the jump...

Out of the city, into the Grampians

“I want to get out of the city.”  Words spoken by my mom, about four hours after my parents arrived in Melbourne.  Maybe she jumped the gun a little bit, but she does have a point.  Melbourne is a great city, but it really could be anywhere.  Much of Australia’s uniqueness comes from the natural landscape (which was reinforced in my Biology of Australian Flora and Fauna exam this morning).

It got a little tight.

So the next day, early in the morning, we got out of the city and headed to Grampians National Park.  Around midday we arrived at Halls Gap, a town near the middle of the park that sounds like it belongs in Middle Earth.  We consulted with the information desk attendant and she pointed us to a number of sights we should see.  First up was a short hike through volcanic-like rocks—unfortunately not as interesting as the ones I visited a couple months ago—to a vista of the surrounding area.

After eating a little lunch we hiked back and drove on to the MacKenzie Falls.  We hiked down a bunch of stairs to get to the waterfall, and it turned out to be a good one.  The day had just started to get nice as well.  I took over 40 pictures of the falls and, even though it was really hard to pick, I’ll include only the best one here.

From there we drove to a nature walk.  Before we even got there my dad spotted an echidna on the side of the road.  By the time we pulled over it had shuffled off the road and stuck its head inside a pile of sticks—a much tamer encounter with wildlife than I had at the beginning of the semester.  The echidna is a monotreme, which means its closest relative is the platypus.  They are the only egg-laying mammals in the world.  To those of you interested, the echidna has a four-headed penis, but only uses two of them during intercourse.  They also form mating trains, with one female in the front followed by several males.  You can pick up some funny facts while studying for exams.

Maybe you can't see me, but I can see you.

But the echidna was just the first course.  Hmm, poor choice of metaphor?  Anyway, at the nature walk we saw many more animals, including but not limited to...

Couldn't miss the Melbourne Cup

It seems like I update this blog in waves, and I think another one of those waves is coming.  My parents visited me in Melbourne for the past few days so I have plenty of activities to blog about.  First, though, I should write about the Melbourne Cup.

It’s described here as “The race that stops a nation” and it at least stops the Melbourne area because there is a public holiday on race day.  I wasn’t planning on going until the night before, but I figured that I shouldn’t miss such a spectacle.  I hopped on the computer and bought a ticket online for $58.

Front row standing room.

Sure enough it was quite a scene.  I think I arrived sometime between noon and one o’clock and the stands and grounds were packed.  The Australians I showed up with were all members of the track (there are some pretty well-off people at the residential college where I live) and I tried to get into the members section with them, but I couldn’t sneak in.  Rather than risk getting kicked out, I found some fellow Americans and took my place on the grass right next to the track with the rest of the plebs.  My account of the race is after the jump.

Strategy to Get My Blog Out There

So I'm still procrastinating.  In light of my last post, I thought I would try something to see if I could get more people to read my blog.  I googled "how to get more readers" and this web site called technorati came up.  I'm not exactly sure what it does, but I have to verify that this blog is mine, so I need to include this code in a post:
6CQVMHV4G5MG
We'll see how this little experiment goes.  I think people type in keywords to the technorati site and if they match with keywords that I use to describe my blog then they link to my blog?  Something like that maybe.  Just thought I'd give it a try.

Procrastination. And a Tale of Conflict Mitigation.

I have a final paper due on Tuesday so I’ve been procrastinating a lot lately.  One thing I stumbled on during my endless surfing of the Internet is the “stats” for this very blog.  As a reader of this blog, I thought you might be interested in these statistics so as a way to further procrastinate I will outline a couple of the more interesting numbers.

• 1,723: Total pageviews.  This number is probably skewed, however, because I just found out how to not track my own pageviews.  So the total should probably be halved.
• 639: Pageviews during my busiest month, August.  It only went down slightly to 617 in September, but then plummeted to 384 in October.
• 44: Number of referrals I have gotten from Edacious Eatings.  "Have gotten" must be terrible English.
• 26: Number of pageviews from South Korea, the most of any country besides Australia and the United States.  Russia is catching up, though, with 13 in the last month (24 all time).
• 104: Views of my most clicked-on post, “My First Blog Post. Ever.”  In second with 63 views is my first post about Australian Rules Football.  Looks like I peaked early.

Alright I should get back to writing.  My parents arrive in Melbourne on Tuesday, so I have to get a lot of work done before they get here.  I just signed up for Google Ads too, so when those go online feel free to click on a couple.  But don’t tell anyone I said that.

The story of the Gravy Fiasco is after the jump...

A Paying Gig

A few weeks ago at Ormond, my residential college, we had one of our college-wide events/parties.  For the first hour a jazz combo—half of which were Ormond students—played jazz standards for the slowly growing crowd.  A few drinks deep, I struck up a conversation with the clarinetist and told him I played the tenor sax back home.  He pointed to a case at the back of the stage and asked if I wanted to play a little.  “What the hell,” I said to myself and jumped onstage and grabbed the axe.

They were in the middle of a tune so I yelled back at the pianist “What key are we in?” and I think he said, “G.”  I wasn’t sure if I heard right or whether he was talking about concert pitch, so I just started playing.  For not touching the sax for about six months I think I sounded all right.  I played on a couple songs (don’t know what they were) and took a couple solos, and the next day I got a number of compliments, so it couldn’t been too bad.  And it was good enough for the clarinetist a couple days later to ask me to fill in on a gig for him.  He said there was $30 involved so I was in.

At least I look like I'm good, right?

The group was a full big band made up mostly of Uni students with some older players thrown in.  I made it to the last rehearsal before the concert/gig and sight-read through about half the charts and managed to keep up on most of them.  The show was last week, on Thursday, at the Penny Black, a bar with a small stage for live music that we all crammed onto.  My account of the performance after the jump...

Spring Break, Couple Extra Days

Uni Games officially ended on Friday night so most of the team left on Saturday.  The rest of us hung around Perth and watched the footy Grand Final replay (the week before the two teams tied at the end of regulation, so rather than go into overtime, the rules said they had to replay the game the next week).  After that—Collingwood demolished St. Kilda by the way—I read in a park and then ate fish and chips with a couple teammates.  We stayed the night in a hostel and then everyone left on Sunday morning.  Except me.

 To get the cheapest airfare I booked my flight home on Monday night at about 11 PM so I had some time to kill.  Luckily, a couple fellow Exchange students from Ormond who played on the baseball team at Uni Games had the same idea.  So on Saturday I met up with them—Tripp from Wisconsin and Augusto from Mexico—and we rode the train down to Cottesloe Beach and then rode the train further down to Fremantle.

Fremantle is the shipping port of Perth.  It’s right on the Pacific Ocean while Perth is about 10 miles up the Swan River.  All the tankers arrive at Fremantle, and all the business goes on in Perth.  You’d think they’d do it all in one city and save some trouble, but I guess that’s the way things happen sometimes.

This place was bustling. With people in their late 20s/early 30s.

Fremantle is a small city with lots of quaint brick buildings.  It’s looks kind of like a college town, like Cambridge or Princeton.  We went for the Little Creatures Brewery (/Bar/Restaurant).  Even for a Sunday night at about 6 PM this place was packed.  We enjoyed a pint of the Pale Ale—best I’ve had in Australia—but the price tag was so high ($9) it stayed at one pint.  Me and Tripp's island adventure after the jump...

Spring Break, Week 2

Now to the actual tournament.  Monday started out pretty slow—we only played one game—but over the course of the entire five days we played twelve total games that were almost an hour and a half long each.  It was a lot of Ultimate Frisbee.  I didn’t play as much as I wanted to, though, because I was injured on the second day when I landed with all my weight on one knee and hyper-extended it (maybe a minor ACL sprain?).  I had to sit out the rest of that day, but on Wednesday I got it checked out by the physio and he cleared me to play.  Just needed an entire roll of tape around the knee for the next three days.  The hairs are actually just starting to grow back.

Hammertime!

Nonetheless, I still made meaningful contributions.  Like when we played Newcastle, who ended up finishing fourth in the tournament.  The day before (Wednesday) was our game against Macquarie, who we needed to beat to keep our medal hopes alive.  We ended up losing on Universe point (next-point-wins) and handed Newcastle our would-be spot in the semifinals.  So on Thursday against Newcastle we played for pride and a little revenge.  After falling behind early and down a couple points at half we fought back to tie the game at ten.  Then the hard cap went off (the time limit was reached) so it turned into a game to one—next point wins—the same situation we were in the day before.

I took myself out of the game because I thought I was a defensive liability.  I couldn’t move very well because, on account of all the tape on my leg, I couldn’t bend it more than 70 degrees.  Not ideal for sticking with your man.  So for the beginning of the point I watched from the sidelines.  That changed when one of our guys took an elbow to the nose and I got the call.  The rest of the story after the jump...

Spring Break, Week 1

Time to start tending the blog again.  I’ve been back at school for two weeks now since my two-week spring break.  It’s been a pretty busy two weeks so I haven’t been able to write about the break, but I’ll take a few posts now to do that.  The vacation got off to a little of a slow start (see the last post) but really picked up when I left for Perth early on Wednesday morning.

The main reason for going over to Western Australian was for the 2010 Australian University Games as a member of the University of Melbourne Ultimate Frisbee team.  The competition was the second week of the break, but I headed over to Perth a little early to spend some extra time over there.

The city of Perth, from Kings Park 

Without having any real plans, the week actually worked out pretty well.  A couple teammates had flights over on Wednesday as well, and we spend the morning walking around the city before taking a bus south for three hours to the Margaret River region to stay for a couple nights with another teammate, Jimmy, in the little town of Cowaramup.  That was a lot of prepositional phrases.

Vineyards and house parties after the jump...

Strange Rocks

Spring break started on Saturday so the majority of the college has gone home or off traveling.  Since I don’t leave for Perth until Wednesday I spent the day watching movies and basically sitting around my room.  I didn’t want to repeat this on Sunday, so I checked out the Parks Victoria website for a natural place to visit.  With the criteria that this place be close to the city and near a bus or train station, I eventually settled on the Organ Pipes National Park.

After a healthy brunch Sunday morning I took a half-hour train ride out of Melbourne Central to Watergardens.  I saw a Safeway from the train station so I headed over for some trail mix and granola bars to eat on my hike.  The supermarket was at the end of a huge shopping mall called “Watergardens Town Centre.”  I’ll leave discussion of that name up to you.  It had to be almost a mile long, and absolutely full of people.  It took well over five minutes to walk the length of it, and the experience was overwhelming and a little disturbing, not to mention disorienting.  I don’t mean to be melodramatic or high and mighty, it’s just that walking through the mall was not at all what I envisioned for my nature walk.  (I checked the directory and it has two Safeways.)

This field didn't look as big on Google Maps.

Almost there.

I finally made it out of the mall and headed towards the Organ Pipes.  It turned out that the walk to the park was way longer than the actual hike.  It took over an hour to get there and I had to walk along railroad tracks, cut across fields, make it over a couple drainage ditches/streams, climb over barbed wire, climb under barbed wire, and cross the highway.  I think I trespassed three separate times, but I eventually made it to the park.

What I found there after the jump...