Things I have learned or realised while in Australia.
1- Bondi beach is actually a really cool place and no amount of drunk 18-year-olds can take that away (it helps if you have a chocolate ice-cream with Fiona).
Bondi beach, Sydney.
2- You should always wear your bathers underneath, just in case.
Yay! No crocodiles! Or strong currents! Or box jellyfish!
3- Australians (at least the ones who are in charge of making signs) care not an ounce about the placement of apostrophes and other grammatical details. It’s time I left because it’s starting to drive me crazy.
If you’re going to rip off a grammar book’s title, then at least try to make it make grammatical sense. Unless this sign is a satire?
4- Sometimes the most wonderous installation art is not human-made.
Untitled #1. Mixed media (boulder, desert, burnt trees)
Untitled #2. Mixed media (boulder, desert, burnt trees)
Untitled #3. Mixed media (boulder, desert, burnt trees)
5- Australia’s distances are ridiculous.
I don’t know what to say about this.
6- There are a lot of big things here, but my heart has been left with this tiny two-toned horse, Redman (6-month-old red kangaroo with a broken tail), and Albert, a little wallaby (his name may not be Albert, but he perked up when we suggested this name).
My lovely horse running through the field.
I would like a 6-month-old kangaroo (ideally Redman) to take home with me. One that never grows up, please and thank you.
Albert, you’re so cool the way you eat grass and are so small.
7- Turns out I am able to herd a massive steed through a gate all by myself. (Photo not available, obviously.)
8- The best theatre is often hidden in a small venue, far from the expensive festival lights. I’m talkin’ ’bout you, Rust & Bones!
9- You will be asked your age at least every other day and you are expected to be squarely between 19 and 26. You will be greeted with “you don’t look that old” and “why are you travelling now?” when they find out you are not 26 anymore. It may make you self-conscious.
Why? Don’t I seem mature?
10- You will become the type of person that takes pictures of birds. Lots and lots of pictures of birds.
Today I am not leaving the blasting air-conditioning of my hostel room, even if it means having to tolerate the rancid smell of old running shoes. Seems unlikely that they belong to pretty German girls, but smelly shoes happen to everyone in 80% humidity.
I have made it through the desert and am now at the top end of Australia, in Darwin. Although I haven’t found Darwin to be a particularly interesting place to be (it can be that I’m just tired and sick of the heat), there are very interesting things about it. Darwin has been destroyed twice- once in 1942 by Japanese bombs and then again in 1974 by Cyclone Tracy. I braved the heat and public bus system yesterday to go to the museum to see a fantastic and scary exhibit about the cyclone. I saw photos and movies of the devastation it caused (80% of Darwin was gone by Christmas morning) and stepped into a terrifying sound booth to hear what the cyclone sounded like.
Because Darwin really revolves around mining, the population is young and, when the mines are open and work is abundant, the male to female ratio can be up to 6 to 1. Darwin is also the city that consumes the most beer per capita. Apparently it evens out to 6 beers per person per day. With all those guys, so few girls, and all that beer, it might not surprise you that Darwin has the most broken jaws every year in Australia.
I am here waiting for my flight to Bali. I am happy to be leaving Australia and discover different places where different languages are spoken and delicious food is eaten. I’ve enjoyed my time here, but it’s time to step to more challenging places (baby steps to start- Bali isn’t exactly unchartered territory, just ask the thousands of Australians where they go to party each year).
The last few weeks have been particularly eye-opening. I feel like I’ve had a glimpse into the real Australia. Outback Australia with its potentially harmful emptiness and heat, beautiful red sand, aboriginal culture and landmarks, weird pubs… the Australia of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert.
From The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert
Rather reluctantly, I booked a bus tour from Alice Springs to Darwin. It ended up cheaper than doing it all myself. And it felt safer, what with the thousands of kilometers of nothingness and stories of murdered backpackers. And I’d get to sleep in the infamous Australian swag under the thousand desert stars. I got on the full Wayoutback mini-bus and joined the tour to Uluru (Ayers Rock). I of course never dreamed of being a cock in a frock on a rock like Guy Pearce, but it was stunning.
Uluru at sunset.
Sunset (Uluru is behind me)
Stunningly red, big, and hot. We walked around a bit, almost fainted, and were told stories that would be told to aboriginal children as cautionary tales. We got to watch the sunset hit the rock and witness the magical changing of its colour.
Our guide had good timing and was really good at taking jumping pictures.
So happy and unsuspecting in her swag and animal pillow case! Little did she know, inconsiderate chatterboxes would make this a less than pleasant night in the great outdoors.
Trees at sunrise the next day.
We slept a short night under the stars. The moon was so bright it work me up when it rose. We got up in the dark to go see the sunrise on Uluru and Kata Tjuta, another rock formation whose European name is the Olgas. We went for a stinking-hot walk on the red rocks. Beautiful and strange. I felt like I’d had a full day by 10 am. My favourite walk was the next day in King’s Canyon. Was it because it was a bit shadier and breezier? Perhaps.
In Priscilla’s Crack. Vulgar but awesome. King’s Canyon.
King’s Canyon.
After a day in Alice Springs where I had a coffee and fruit salad in a breezy cafe and did not much else, the bus picked us up for our 3-day drive up to Darwin. A lot of kilometers and not much to fill them with.
We stopped at every servo (gas station) and I ended up buying many ice-cream bars. I think that other than clean public bathrooms, the thing I will miss most about Australia is Weiss’ mango bars. It’s like eating a frozen mango! At one place, they had had a power outage so their ice-cream was all deformed and only $1. Oh happy day.
As we drove and drove and drove north, the landscape started to change from arid, red desert, to slightly greener grounds.
Trees started to appear.
Once in a while, there was something amazing, like the rock formations (something to do with a magma bubble cooling and breaking into pieces that were then smoothed into boulders by the elements) known as the Devil’s Marbles. Surprisingly, we were the only ones there and it felt a bit eerie.
Just doing the tourist thing at the Devil’s Marbles.
Our campsite had a little zoo in it and, break my heart, a little kangaroo whose mother had been killed by a truck. He was so cute and tame and light and snuggly.
Redman, a 6-month-old red kangaroo orphan, has stolen my heart away. Here he can be seen with his adoptive mother, a true Aussie outback man.
Ready for a baby kangaroo.
I had been warned not to go to the Top End during the wet season. A few roads were shut so that we didn’t have access to some amazing waterfalls, but we still got to go to Kakadu National Park, see some stunning rock art and scenery. And barely any other tourists, which was awesome.
Some rock art is estimated to be over 50,000 years old.
Crocodile Dundee territory.
We got to hear entertaining stories about people who didn’t know anything about driving through rivers and going on treks without water and almost being eaten by crocodiles.
Driving in the wet season in Kakadu National Park. We did not need air-lifting or any saving of any kind.
We still got to check out the amazingly vast and beautiful wetlands and see some crocodiles and worry a bit that we might die. There was a crocodile risk in the parking lot. That kind of thing.
Big male crocodile. Very close. Slightly unnerving.
I don’t know why, but I’ve always wanted to see massive termite mounds. And now I have! This is in Litchfield National Park.
And now I’m in Darwin, taking advantage of the air-conditioning, the fact that my computer fixed itself (maybe it was just a bit of heat exhaustion and not sizzling death after all), and a bit of quiet before I jump into my next adventure.
I am so happy to be in a city! And it’s pretty thrilling that that city is Sydney.
Even though it’s unbelievably hot today (43 degrees?!), I am enjoying every minute (except those minutes when hostel roommates decide to switch on lights in the middle of the night, but that can happen anywhere).
To celebrate being out of the woods and back in civilization, here is Sydney seen in yellow, the colour of sunny cheeriness.
There is art everywhere in Sydney.
There are weddings everywhere all the time because people love each other and want their photos taken in front of the opera house.
There is a duck, 5 stories high, in Darling Harbour.
Small version of the duck.
Stylin’!
Stylin’!
This place is full of tourists posing with stuffed animals.
Seeing a rocking Hawksley Workman show in an intimate venue made me so damn happy.
The Arts Festival started this week and I’ll be seeing a bunch of shows and filling you in so that this blog gets back to being at least slightly about theatre. Stay tuned!
At home, I usually usher in the New Year with a nice dinner with friends, a house party, or DVDs (and an inevitable cold) and sometimes I even stay up past midnight. So this year I didn’t miss spending $800 on a NYE ticket in Sydney (seriously), battling crowds at outdoor concerts or January 1st morning dodging vomit on city sidewalks.
This year I didn’t have a cold, my feet didn’t freeze, and I didn’t have to negotiate the public transit system after a night out (for some reason, sitting in a subway car alone in the middle of the night will always bring you down a bit).
Instead, we ate outisde and roasted marshmallows on the hottest bonfire known to man (hotter than the sun!).
Bonfire!
These marshmallows were too small to be roasted and pink/strawberry flavour, which is wrong.
We played catch with a glowstick, caught a frog, and took pictures of the ducks by torchlight.
Duck in the night.
Catching frogs by flashlight light.
I ate too many peanuts after too much rosé, watched 10 minutes of the Proms on TV, and went to bed.
Almost a full moon
The last couple of months of 2012 were slightly lonely and challenging, but maybe they were necessary in order for me to jump full-on into 2013 with all its promise. I am feeling ridiculously optimistic (13 is my lucky number sometimes) and hope you’re feeling the happy vibes and best wishes I’m sending your way.
This week was quite quiet, work-wise (the cynic in me thinks it’s because my employer didn’t want to shell out for the slightly increased holiday wages and cut down on my hours), so I spent my time reading and repacking.
While doing this, I realised I am very limited in the colour palette I am dragging around with me. Inside my bag, all my clothing are black or dark blue. And all the things that are not clothing are lime green.
I am obviously a bit bored and have no fun adventures to recount (only 5 more days of being stuck here, though!), so here are some pictures of my stuff to keep myself entertained:
How is it that all my things are lime green? (Pictured clockwise from top left: Backpack, luggage tag (which I think is meant to be a key chain), foldable day pack, iPod, headlamp, journal, scissors, toothbrush, novel)
Except for my scarf and bikini that randomly match in their orange, pink, blue, grey, and purple stripes.
Here in the middle of nowhere, Christmas day has come and gone without too much ceremony or heartache. See, it was 38 degrees on Christmas Eve, which makes it seem very much not at all like Christmas Eve to a Canadian. Being 40 km from the nearest town means that my surroundings are far from saturated with Christmas decorations and over-the-top shop windows. So it was surreal to wrap my head around it being December, let alone Christmas…
I worked in the morning, had a snack (mango!) and read Joyce’s Dubliners (taken from the hostel in Port Macquarie). Then it was time for Christmas lunch, which is the thing in Australia rather than a big evening meal.
Jessie-Dog relaxes on the veranda, waiting for her own Christmas lunch
John pops the bubbly
Delicious veggies
Prawns and smoked trout and sweet corn and potatoes and beetroot.
The alpacas, just sitting in the rain.
Raindrops keep falling
Foggy rain-hills
After lunch, I retreated to an empty cabin (lucky, because this place has been booked solid or a while) and watched 3 DVDs, which was a cosy and Christmassy thing to do.
I was a bit sad to be far from friends, family, tourtière and snow (though the happy emails from everyone did make my day!), but because it didn’t really feellike Christmas, it wasn’t bad at all. My Christmas two years ago, spent stuck in the Detroit airport, was far far more depressing.
And believe me- I plan on no longer dwelling on things that could be better and start celebrating something each and every day.
Today, I’ll celebrate this:
Just another galah, hanging out in front of the house.
As you may have been starting to gather from my posts, I’m a little sick of being stuck in the sticks of NSW.
I think it has to do with my travel bug being told to hold still, chill out, wait out the holiday craziness when all it wants to do is go and discover things! Or at least get to Sydney to bask in civilization, an arts festival, and a Hawksley Workman concert.
In an attempt to not let the bastards (the bastards being: loneliness and dependence on others for things as simple as going to a grocery store) get me down, I’m focussing on things that I’d never get to experience back home (in a city, surrounded by friends and delicious distractions).
For instance: alpaca shearing!
Alpaca, concernedly watching his friend being sheared for a safe distance.
After the trauma of the first shearing, the alpacas- fluffy and scraggly- ran towards each other and cuddled. It was heartbreaking. And I missed the moment. But here they are.
The second alpaca being sheared with his friend overseeing it (and the goats being meddlesome).
And then there’s the magic and mystery of life! Seven ducklings hatched- I hadn’t even seen that there were eggs. They were so cute and fluffy and yellow and black. I say “were” because there was only one left at the last count. And I haven’t seen in it a couple of days. Gulp. The magic and mystery of life.
Cuteness being herded by their mother.
Ack! So cute.
Can’t stand the cuteness. And now they’re all disappeared, presumed dead.
Other than that, I’ve seen a dead possum and cooked with fresh turmeric.
I really don’t like to be counting down the days when I’m on my big around-the-world adventure, but it turns out I don’t have the guts to let my employers down (so no leaving early) and that for once in my life, I have to try to make money my main motivator. It’s all about learning and challenges, right? And also the peaches are quite nice.
Last week, the sun was out in full force when it started to pour. The light was strange and the drops were heavy. I tried to capture what I could without leaving the covered veranda.
Working in hospitality means that the holidays are not your holidays. It gets busy. Very busy. Because everyone else is on holiday.
And after about a month (that felt like 4 months, honestly) of working in the middle of nowhere New South Wales, my boss suggested I go on a little trip and spend the night somewhere to get away before the rush.
I think they sensed my restlessness.
This is the middle of nowhere, with signs of civilization.
So a school bus then a train then rushing around in the heat trying to find the place the Greyhound bus stops in Taree, then a nice air-conditioned bus to Port Macquarie.
Waiting for the train. So excited, I got to the station 2 hours early.
A kookaburra joined me at the train station. A laughing, meat-eating Australian icon.
And then waiting for the bus.
And then Port Macquarie. Buildings! People! Ice cream parlours! A gallery! Cutest hostel ever! Turns out I like some civilization and meeting people once in a while.
Hostel with a pool and pool table. And people. Yes.
A walk along the harbour revealed the existence of a $10 sunset cruise into the National Park. Seeing dolphins and birds in a little boat was just what I needed. This is a white-bellied sea eagle, which I thought was pretty cool.
The sunset in said sunset cruise.
The next day, I explored the various beaches along Port Macquarie’s shoreline.
Thing with Australian beaches is that there are so many amazing ones that most aren’t that busy.
My view from the beach. I got freckles!
It was also really nice to make it there (even though the city itself isn’t actually anything special) because I’d seen a flyer for the koala hospital there. At the time, I’d dismissed it as something I wouldn’t see and was sad. But there you go- tell the universe you want to go to the koala hospital and it shall deliver.
This sign is not just for tourists looking for a photo opp.
Koala patient recovering at the hospital. Most koala injuries are caused by cars hitting them.
On my walk home from the hospital, I ran into Jamie who saved this koala from crossing a very busy street. You aren’t supposed to handle koalas (their claws are insane), but Jamie risked it and saved the day and this koala’s life.
After seeing so many cute and cuddly koalas with sad stories, I went back to the hostel and ate a kangaroo.
I was a bit afraid that a short break would only tease my travel bug and make is so alert and powerful that it would make another month of staying still and working frankly unbearable. But I think it just gave me some time to breathe and it reminded me that the road will still be there when I’m done and so will the beach.
When I was 7, I went to High Park snake camp (the arts and crafts camp was full) in Toronto. We’d wander around the park, looking for garter snakes. We found one or two, picked them up, put them back down again, and kept walking, looking for more.
Snakes in Australia are not High Park Day Camp style. Watch where you walk and wear closed shoes (fun when it’s 30 degrees and your Adidas sneakers are stupidly falling apart- Adidas, never again). Red-bellied black snakes are venomous but are scared and will slither away. They also apparently eat baby brown snakes, which is good because Brown snakes are venomous and aggressive and fuel nightmares. Pythons are nice (I mean, that link goes to a petting zoo’s website).
The normal reaction when seeing a python on your veranda, according to my boss, is to scream and then realise it’s “just a python” and carry on with hanging the laundry or whatever. But I was warned that should I pick up a python, not to put it around my neck because it will strangle me. I’m keeping that in mind for all those times I’m tempted to pick up a python (I estimate you could fit about 120 garter snakes in a typical python, mass-wise).
In 6 weeks, I’ve only seen two red-bellied black snakes and two pythons. But that doesn’t mean I don’t have vivid snake-attack dreams a few times a week (in the latest edition, my apartment was overrun by snakes and none of my friends seemed to notice- frustrating. I ended up killing a pregnant one with an antique printers’ letter tray). Doesn’t mean I don’t jump a few times a day, thinking there’s a snake ready to bite.
Things that are not snakes Wires and cables on the ground
Dried leaves
Creases at the bottom of swimming pools
Shadows cast by a branch
A branch
That other branch
A sound of rustling coming from a tree (usually a bird, not a snake)
Little mounds of sand
Lizards
Discarded guitar strings
Facecloths that have fallen from the laundry line
Bicycle tire marks in the dirt road
Update: Since writing this post a day an a half ago, I have seen a red-bellied black snake slithering a little too close to the front door and, more alarmingly, I maybe or nearly or did step on one as I went into the laundry room. I screamed like a little girl and bolted. Laundry will have to wait. Maybe until Syndey in a month.
