3.27.2004
KOOKABURRA
(a round)
Kookaburra sits in the old gum tree
merry merry king of the bush is he
laugh, kookaburra, laugh, kookaburra
save some gum for me.
Did anyone else out there learn this in elementary school?
Erik has forbade me to sing it around him anymore, as it's one of those evil tunes that once sung, digs its way deep into your mind, playing over and over for the rest of the day.
-----
We're in Sydney now -- took the bus here for 13 hours and $45 each, after renting a car (burgundy Ford Falcon Statonwagon) for one week in Melbourne.
Driving felt good, even on the wrong side of the road. Freedom from the city at last! We drove West out of Melbourne, toward the Grampians National Park on Western Highway 8. Perfect weather, a teeny chill in the air, bright sun. Took the scenic route for a ways, past wind generators: huge moving sculptures interrupting vast plains and scattered eucaluyptus. The air smelled crisp and clean, dry like Colorado, but with hints of eucalyptus.
The birds are quite different here (than anywhere I've been), and when I forget I'm not in America, their odd calls remind me. The kookaburra sounds like the stereotypical "jungle sound" (monkey-like ooh-ooh ahh-ahh-ing). There are a variety of parrot-like birds, some red and green, some white with huge yellow plumes that puff up when angered. Another bird sounds just like Erik's cat, and has him homesick.
Of course, we've seen the requisite kangaroos and koalas (but no wombats yet). We got a tip to go to a golf course in Angelsea on the Great Ocean Drive near sunset, and saw hundreds of kangaroos nibbling on the green like huge rats balancing on their tails. Bizarre.
Spent a few days in Wilson's Promontory, a beautiful ("the country's most beloved") national park to the west of Melbourne. We backpacked through eucalypt and fern forests to emerald green Refuge Cove, where we camped by the calm waters under a canopy of buzzing bees.
----
A journal entry from my last night in Melbourne, at a photo exhibit in a bar called "Kent Street" :
"Kent. St. on Smith St. and Erik got the Berlin Pencil on his fingers. Drum-n-bass with female vocal overtones. Drinking Carlton Draught from a can: hipster's choice. "Ciao!" is the photo exhibit: a bike-courier takes photos of cute girls on his bike. Here and in the photos: eclectic outfits, relaxed postures, youth, relative wealth, just past angst. Tons of bikes piled one on top of the other here on the sidewalk where we sit and watch. Neighborhood has some rough edges: not all blonde wood and wheeled carts here. Green rainbows on black in a white sky stripes echo aboriginal influence."
-----
It was 90 degrees and humid yesterday here in Sydney. Our first real summer weather since last August. We're in a youth hostel in the seedy (like Times Square before Giuliani) Kings Cross district.
Yesterday we walked to the Sydney Opera House through the botanical gardens, and came across hundreds of yapping, leathery-wing flapping large fruit bats (the flying fox) hanging in the trees.
The opera house was smaller up close than I imagined, and covered with sparkling twinkling tiles -- like watching water in the sun. It's a beautiful piece of architecture, and not surprisingly, the construction was filled with controversy because of its radical design, and the difficulties of finding the correct materials and methods for construction. It was designed in the late 1950s, and building was not complete until 1971 (the architect, Jorn Utzon, quit before its completion).
Today we're planning on riding a ferry around the harbor, which will afford interesting views of the city, and hopefully a cool breeze.
(a round)
Kookaburra sits in the old gum tree
merry merry king of the bush is he
laugh, kookaburra, laugh, kookaburra
save some gum for me.
Did anyone else out there learn this in elementary school?
Erik has forbade me to sing it around him anymore, as it's one of those evil tunes that once sung, digs its way deep into your mind, playing over and over for the rest of the day.
-----
We're in Sydney now -- took the bus here for 13 hours and $45 each, after renting a car (burgundy Ford Falcon Statonwagon) for one week in Melbourne.
Driving felt good, even on the wrong side of the road. Freedom from the city at last! We drove West out of Melbourne, toward the Grampians National Park on Western Highway 8. Perfect weather, a teeny chill in the air, bright sun. Took the scenic route for a ways, past wind generators: huge moving sculptures interrupting vast plains and scattered eucaluyptus. The air smelled crisp and clean, dry like Colorado, but with hints of eucalyptus.
The birds are quite different here (than anywhere I've been), and when I forget I'm not in America, their odd calls remind me. The kookaburra sounds like the stereotypical "jungle sound" (monkey-like ooh-ooh ahh-ahh-ing). There are a variety of parrot-like birds, some red and green, some white with huge yellow plumes that puff up when angered. Another bird sounds just like Erik's cat, and has him homesick.
Of course, we've seen the requisite kangaroos and koalas (but no wombats yet). We got a tip to go to a golf course in Angelsea on the Great Ocean Drive near sunset, and saw hundreds of kangaroos nibbling on the green like huge rats balancing on their tails. Bizarre.
Spent a few days in Wilson's Promontory, a beautiful ("the country's most beloved") national park to the west of Melbourne. We backpacked through eucalypt and fern forests to emerald green Refuge Cove, where we camped by the calm waters under a canopy of buzzing bees.
----
A journal entry from my last night in Melbourne, at a photo exhibit in a bar called "Kent Street" :
"Kent. St. on Smith St. and Erik got the Berlin Pencil on his fingers. Drum-n-bass with female vocal overtones. Drinking Carlton Draught from a can: hipster's choice. "Ciao!" is the photo exhibit: a bike-courier takes photos of cute girls on his bike. Here and in the photos: eclectic outfits, relaxed postures, youth, relative wealth, just past angst. Tons of bikes piled one on top of the other here on the sidewalk where we sit and watch. Neighborhood has some rough edges: not all blonde wood and wheeled carts here. Green rainbows on black in a white sky stripes echo aboriginal influence."
-----
It was 90 degrees and humid yesterday here in Sydney. Our first real summer weather since last August. We're in a youth hostel in the seedy (like Times Square before Giuliani) Kings Cross district.
Yesterday we walked to the Sydney Opera House through the botanical gardens, and came across hundreds of yapping, leathery-wing flapping large fruit bats (the flying fox) hanging in the trees.
The opera house was smaller up close than I imagined, and covered with sparkling twinkling tiles -- like watching water in the sun. It's a beautiful piece of architecture, and not surprisingly, the construction was filled with controversy because of its radical design, and the difficulties of finding the correct materials and methods for construction. It was designed in the late 1950s, and building was not complete until 1971 (the architect, Jorn Utzon, quit before its completion).
Today we're planning on riding a ferry around the harbor, which will afford interesting views of the city, and hopefully a cool breeze.
3.14.2004
PLEASE BE EATED AND KEEP NOSE
TO A MINIMUM WHILST ENJOYING YOUR ELF.
Sign hanging in a beer garden in the Fitzroy district of Melbourne.
We relaxed with a couple beers after wandering around an arts market and taking pictures of graffiti. There's a lot of attention to American/world politics here (and everywhere we've been so far). The stencilled graffiti on one wall included a 7-11 logo with a 9 where the large orange 7 would be. Also grenades made out of stars and stripes, and a world map made out of the word, "fear."
One of the artists at the market asked if we were Canadian, and said the Canadians get really mad if she asks the other way around.
We've been in Australia for about 4 days now, wandering around Melbourne. I have to keep reminding myself we're down under, the city reminds me of a few American ones: New York a little in the busy cosmopolitan downtown with skyscrapers and treelined streets; Denver upon arrival over a bridge with the skyline straight ahead and the sports complex where Coors field would be; LA in the trendy St. Kilda area on the beach with its muscle beach, old-time amusement park and palm trees.
We've been walking heaps (in the Aussie glossary) and taking the trams, lounging over cheap breakfasts, getting a feel for the city, and trying to piece together our plan for the next five weeks here. We're thinking of skipping Tasmania (the former plan) -- as we've heard it's a lot like New Zealand. We'll try to get a 'drive-away' car instead, which would just require us to pay for the gas to get it back to the rental company's (and our) desired location (which at the moment for us is Sydney, after some day trips around here). Then up the coast towards Brisbane where our plane leaves.
So far my favorite part of the city has been Chinatown, which makes me think I'll love Asia.
Our last couple of weeks in New Zealand was like living in a fairy-tale fantasy (without the scary parts, except if you consider the evil sand flies). We lucked out in our hitchhiking, and met some really cool people, including a couple of twenty-something Israelis (there are a preponderance of just-out-of-the-army young Isrealis in New Zealand) who took us to the Mt. Cook area of the Southern Alps. We hiked up up up 4 hours and camped above treeline in the snow with views of the highest peaks in New Zealand. Woke up early for spectacular pink sunrise while watching thundering avalanche nearby.
They dropped us off in the Lake Wanaka area, where we hiked up the Rob Roy trail, through fern forests with views of plunging waterfalls and hanging glaciers. At the top, while we were trying to avoid being attached by the aggressive forest parrots, the Kea, we realized we were being stalked by Naked Jon and Phil -- two friends from "the ice."
Since the weather had turned sour in the south, we changed our plans of going to the fjordlands, and took off north with them. We spent the last week with them, up the west coast, camping on beaches, hiking through fern forests to an alpine hot springs, wandering through limestone caves (once following a below-ground river), and watching huge swells crash into the "pancake rocks" at Punakaiki and up through blowholes -- which made the mountain seem to be breathing.
TO A MINIMUM WHILST ENJOYING YOUR ELF.
Sign hanging in a beer garden in the Fitzroy district of Melbourne.
We relaxed with a couple beers after wandering around an arts market and taking pictures of graffiti. There's a lot of attention to American/world politics here (and everywhere we've been so far). The stencilled graffiti on one wall included a 7-11 logo with a 9 where the large orange 7 would be. Also grenades made out of stars and stripes, and a world map made out of the word, "fear."
One of the artists at the market asked if we were Canadian, and said the Canadians get really mad if she asks the other way around.
We've been in Australia for about 4 days now, wandering around Melbourne. I have to keep reminding myself we're down under, the city reminds me of a few American ones: New York a little in the busy cosmopolitan downtown with skyscrapers and treelined streets; Denver upon arrival over a bridge with the skyline straight ahead and the sports complex where Coors field would be; LA in the trendy St. Kilda area on the beach with its muscle beach, old-time amusement park and palm trees.
We've been walking heaps (in the Aussie glossary) and taking the trams, lounging over cheap breakfasts, getting a feel for the city, and trying to piece together our plan for the next five weeks here. We're thinking of skipping Tasmania (the former plan) -- as we've heard it's a lot like New Zealand. We'll try to get a 'drive-away' car instead, which would just require us to pay for the gas to get it back to the rental company's (and our) desired location (which at the moment for us is Sydney, after some day trips around here). Then up the coast towards Brisbane where our plane leaves.
So far my favorite part of the city has been Chinatown, which makes me think I'll love Asia.
Our last couple of weeks in New Zealand was like living in a fairy-tale fantasy (without the scary parts, except if you consider the evil sand flies). We lucked out in our hitchhiking, and met some really cool people, including a couple of twenty-something Israelis (there are a preponderance of just-out-of-the-army young Isrealis in New Zealand) who took us to the Mt. Cook area of the Southern Alps. We hiked up up up 4 hours and camped above treeline in the snow with views of the highest peaks in New Zealand. Woke up early for spectacular pink sunrise while watching thundering avalanche nearby.
They dropped us off in the Lake Wanaka area, where we hiked up the Rob Roy trail, through fern forests with views of plunging waterfalls and hanging glaciers. At the top, while we were trying to avoid being attached by the aggressive forest parrots, the Kea, we realized we were being stalked by Naked Jon and Phil -- two friends from "the ice."
Since the weather had turned sour in the south, we changed our plans of going to the fjordlands, and took off north with them. We spent the last week with them, up the west coast, camping on beaches, hiking through fern forests to an alpine hot springs, wandering through limestone caves (once following a below-ground river), and watching huge swells crash into the "pancake rocks" at Punakaiki and up through blowholes -- which made the mountain seem to be breathing.
