Nothing all that interesting to share from the last two weeks. Michelle and her mom got back from Queensland and the outback, spent a day and a half back in Sydney and then jetted off to Thailand where they still are for another week. So I’ve been flying solo once again. I’ve included a couple videos below from old things since I don’t have anything else exciting to share right now.
Two videos from Tasmania of a bunch of Tasmanian Devils at feeding time. I think it was a delicious wallaby carcass they were fighting over. I particularly like the one who keeps scratching at the other dude’s face:
And this is from sometime in October when we went to an Australia vs. New Zealand rugby match. The Haka is a traditional Maori dance and I have to say I don’t know much else about it, except that its kind of scary. These are some New Zealand supporters outside the stadium before the match:
And this is the New Zealand team right before the start of the match doing the Haka with the Aussies looking on. I think its kind of silly that the aussies just stand there watching…they should pull out their diggery doos and play a tune or something as a rebuttal.
Saturday, February 21, 2009
Saturday, February 7, 2009
Weeks ending 08-Feb: Great Ocean Road
Monday, January 26th was Australia Day down here (which commemorates the day the first settlers arrived) so we had a three day weekend. We were supposed to fly Friday morning to Melbourne and I was going to work from there for the day but our flight was cancelled so we got on an afternoon flight which got us in in the early evening. Friday night we went to see the Australian Open…we saw Jelena Dokic play in the first match (she's an adopted aussie so the crowd was really into it…she ended up winning) and then saw Federer play Marat Safin in the second match. Federer won pretty easily but the third set went to a tie breaker and there was some good action so it was a good match to see.
Saturday we got up early and rented our car and drove south and west of the city down to the coast. Some really nice beaches along the drive during the day but the real highlight of the road is the "12 Apostles." The 12 apostles are rock formations out in the ocean right along the coast…really a pretty scene, especially at sunset when we were there.
Sunday we kept driving west (it was a cracker of a day as the aussies would say!) along the coast. The water was a pretty striking blue. We ended the night across the state line in south australia (melbs is in victoria) and stayed in a dumpy little town called Mount Gambier. Monday we drove back to Melbs via the inland route…it entailed a lot of driving in the middle of nowhere. I kind of like that and australia has a lot of it out on the open road. You pass a tiny little town every once in a while and when you go through these towns you kind of feel like you've gone back in time to the 1950s or something. Anyways, we stopped off in Geelong (which is a neighboring city to Melbourne and the second largest city in Victoria) before getting to the airport and saw their Australia day festivities on the waterfront…kind of a fun scene. Got our flight back to Sydney and made it in record time from wheels down in Sydney to the head hitting the pillow at home (something like 40 minutes…couldn’t get that kind of time coming back from newark!)
Some more pics from the Great Ocean Road:
And a map of our approximate route:
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The week sped by pretty quickly and we went the following weekend up to the Blue Mountains, about 2 hours west of Sydney. We’d gone to the area before, way back in August, but this time we stayed at this cute out of the way spa type place. It was a fantastic setting, you felt like there was nothing around. We did a few short hikes and took the “zig-zag” railroad, which was an old railroad that literally zig-zagged its way up and down the mountain back in the day. We spent most of the day hanging out at our cabin though where there was a pool and tennis court. And in the evening we BBQed and sat out on the deck…it was the perfect way to end a hot summer day…I really couldn’t imagine a more relaxing spot.
Sunday we hung out in the morning and headed back towards the city in the afternoon stopping at a few lookouts and viewpoints. We saw a bit of the Chinese new years parade that evening which was kind of fun. Monday, Michelle’s mom arrived in town. I managed to get out of work at reasonable times for most of the week so Monday night we saw an opera in the opera house (while it was cool to do, it confirms the fact that I don’t really care that much about opera). Tuesday night we ended up going back to the open air cinema and saw Vicki Christina Barcelona which was fun. And Wednesday night we went out for dinner at Philip’s Foote which is the grill your own steak place we’d been to before. It was quite a fun week! Michelle and Suzy left on Thursday up to Queensland so I was pretty low key for the rest of the week and the weekend.
Weeks ending 18-Jan: Mt. Kozzie
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Coming back to work from vacation in New zealand was extremely painful but thankfully we came back mid-week so the next weekend came pretty quickly. We went up to the only alpine area in Australia, Kosciuszko (my phonetic spelling: kozzie-osco) national park in the "snowy mountains." Mt. Kosciuszko (referred to by everyone as kozzie) is 7300 feet high which is the highest point on the Australian continent...its one of the seven summits so many of the best mountain climbers in the world have summitted it to complete the highest peaks on all seven continents. To summit kozzie, however, you follow a well maintained path to the top of the mountain. I'm guessing it’s a tad easier than everest. We drove most of the way there friday night then saturday went into the park and did the hike up kozzie. It was a beautiful sunny day and you could look out and see a long ways. The views were very pretty, but i imagine its even prettier in the winter when there's more snow on the ground. We stayed that night in Thredbo village, which is the main ski area in Australia. I think the skiing would be pretty weak, but the village itself was great...it was a gorgeous sunny evening and we enjoyed a few drinks out on some sunny patios. Sunday we frolicked in a park for a while, threw a frisbee around, but had to get on the road (it was a little over 5 hour drive back to sydney). A fun place to go, but kind of a long drive for a short weekend.
During the week on wednesday night we went to the "open air cinema" at mrs. macquarie's point in the domain. During the summer each night, they play a different movie on this screen they have set up in the harbour with views of the city, bridge and opera house behind. Its a spectacular spot, literally probably the very best spot in Sydney. We had a perfect warm evening and saw "Role Models" with Paul Rudd which we were both highly entertained by. Friday night we had a big night out and hit some of the iconic bars in Sydney. We started at the opera bar which is right in front of the opera house on the water. From there went to the ivy (anyone here will tell you that any night out in sydney usually includes a stop at the ivy) and then to cargo bar (which is the bar they always went to in the real world). It was a fun night and kind of nice to be in the city on a weekend for a change. Sunday we made it out to the beach for a bit…went to a beach a little further out from the city (Cronulla) to try something new. And for dinner we went to a burger place that had REALLY good burgers, like I haven’t had a good burger since I’ve come to Australia but this was a good American burger. It was really exciting for me (gotta take pleasure in the little things).
A few more pics from Kozzie:
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