The Land of Sheep and Hobbits

This post is massively delayed, but between returning to the States, dealing with jet lag, and working to get out of debt, I just haven't had the chance to sit down and write this (no matter, how amazing it was). Anyway, during the exam period at the end of the semester (in mid-June) I managed to steal 9 days in New Zealand (only on the South Island unfortunately) between my last of three final papers and my one and only final. I went it alone because most of my housemates had already been and the timing was very specific to my schedule. I found a great, hop-on hop-off bus tour however, which ended up working out perfectly because I met lots of other single travellers and didn't have to worry about driving or finding hostels.

I crammed so many things into those 9 days it would be impossible to talk about all of them here - and you'd probably get sick of reading after about page 5 - so I present the highlights below.

Literally my second whole day in New Zealand, I climbed on a glacier. Yes, New Zealand has glaciers...three actually. I walked on Franz Josef Glacier, took pictures of Fox Glacier, and was told of Tasman Glacier. It was a bit rainy all day, but that's what makes the glacier so I couldn't complain too much. We were on the ice for 6 hours and saw both white ice (more air) and blue ice; particularly gorgeous were the ice caves, formed from water running through the ice. Our guides also decided to make us crawl through a claustrophobia-inducing tunnel - photographic evidence below. It was one of the most awesome experiences ever.

Franz Josef glacier; blue ice cave; claustrophobia tunnel; view from glacier toward valley



Although I did spend many hours on the bus driving from place to place at a (surprisingly) rapid pace, we stopped frequently to go on walks and take pictures of various scenery. While just about everything was absolutely breathtaking and pratically untouched, after a certain point it is difficult to come up with better tags than "Mountains," "Mountains 2," "Mountains 3," "View from (blank)," and "View from (blank) 2." Check out my flickr, you'll see.

Mountain reflected in lake; "Gates of Haast" (so very LOTR); wiggly bridge; ski cabin hostel in the middle of nowhere; beautiful scenery




The big stop on the South Island is Queenstown...also known as the adventure capital of the world. On the way we stopped in Wanaka and visited Puzzling World; it's a hard to describe - interactive quasi-museum - with a gigantic person sized labyrinth, optical illusion rooms, and plenty of puzzles to mess around with (and probably fail at). I stayed in a hostel with most of my friends from the bus, which was great. Aside from the adventure activities, more on that later, I also ate a few huge burgers from a great joint called Fergburger. The picture below includes my Australian cellphone (which is fairly standard in size) for scale. Seriously, one of the best burgers I've ever had if not the best.

Labyrinth; moon over mountains; Fergburger



My first day in Queenstown I bungy jumped for the second time from the 3rd highest bungy in the world (134 meters compared to my 50 meter original jump). It's called Nevis and is a suspended pod in the middle of a gorge. The fall to the end of the bungy extension can take up to 8.5 seconds...aka it's intense. And amazing! I will brag about this for the rest of my life. Perhaps one of the scariest parts was the ride over to the pod in the cable car; it was entirely open on the sides and, though we were firmly attached to a safety line, it was still unnerving.

Suspended pod and cable car; mid-jump (somewhere around the 4 second mark?)


After the bungy, I did a jetboat through a very small canyon. It was also fun, as expected, though very, very, very cold. The boats were capable of doing 360 degree spins - both thrilling and different (though nothing compared to the adrenalin rush of my earlier jump).

I said goodbye to most of my Stray bus friends that night as they were heading off to do the most southern parts of the island that I didn't have time for. Instead, I had a day tour of Milford Sound planned. Funnily enough, the bus I was on followed the Stray bus (which goes to Milford on the first day of the southern loop) all the way to the Sound and was actually on the same boat, so I got to defect from my new tourmates in favor of more time with my Stray friends. It was rather hazy, which was a cool effect but I would have been happy for it to raise and let some sun in. It was definitely awe inspiring in person, but the pictures do it much less justice than usual because you can't see the mountain peaks.

My busmates; Milford Sound


After a full day in Milford Sound, I spent the next day on the bus back up to Christchurch. I visited the International Antarctic Center and putzed (is there a correct way to spell that word?) around town for the day, then headed slightly out of "town center" - if you can call it that - to go to an All Blacks game. For those out of the loop, the All Blacks are New Zealand's national rugby union team. They were playing England, which was especially exciting because NZ is a big destination for the British, so there were plenty of opposition fans. The All Blacks creamed England, and it didn't rain so all in all it was a good night (though it was ridiculously cold - stupid wind).

Christchurch cathedral; All Blacks game


After the game, I returned to the airport where I spent my time before my 6am flight. This meant being locked out of the terminals and sleeping on a very uncomfortable chair in the International Arrivals area. Thankfully, I wasn't kicked out into the cold Christchurch night, as I have no idea where I would have stayed or what I would have done for about four hours at midnight in New Zealand.

These photos definitely don't do the place justice (neither do any of the 200 or so I took) but feel free to peruse my flickr; the pictures there were uploaded and tagged with care, so many of them have additional information on them.

One more post to come as a general wrap-up, thoughts, etc. especially about reverse culture shock (wait...I'm supposed to look left first?! since when?).

"Everything I say today seems to come out sounding sexual"

So, the second to last weekend in May, Ellen, Jess (a fellow Cornell student), and I took a holiday to the Blue Mountains. Yes, it was a long time ago...trust me, you want to see the pictures. (Also, to clarify now, the title quote comes from our guide. We manage to keep our minds and speech out of the gutter occassionally.)

Though it's fairly easy to get to the Blue Mountains via a train from Sydney, we opted to book a tour because that way we didn't have to plan everything. The less work I have to do and the more fun I have, the better. We booked through Oz Experience, so we did all the touristy sites on Friday, stayed overnight in a hostel in Katoomba (the main town) on Friday and Saturday nights, and had 2 free days. Day one, our bus driver/tour guide was Adam...who showed up at the meet-up point with overbite dentures and a mullet wig. Ellen and Jess were a little bit taken in (mostly because it was 7am), but I knew from the get-go they were fake. On our way to the mountains we stopped at a campsite and found some wild kangaroos snacking on freshly cut grass (apparently a favorite dish).

Eastern Gray Kangaroos and me; kangaroos listening to something


We did two walks on Friday; the first was along the cliff edge and involved more stairs going up than going down (not a good ratio). The other took us down the Furber stairs, past the Three Sisters, and finally back up the mountainside with a ride on the world's steepest railway. It was built to carry coal from mines, not people, up the hillside and clocks in at 52 degrees - aka you stand and hope you don't tumble forward to the bottom of the train.

Cliff lookout; Three Sisters; many stairs (Furber Stairs); attempt to show steepest railway



I had been told by my house manager- Justin, if you've forgotten - that the Jenolan Caves were not to be missed, so that's what we did with our entirely free day on Saturday. On our way back, we stopped and saw more wild kangaroos. The last group had been about 6 or 7, but there were at least 10 in this clearing.

Clouds sitting in a valley; feeding kangaroos


Jenolan has heaps of what they call "show" caves of which we toured two. The first, the Lucas cave, is known for it's huge caverns and acoustics. The second, the Orient cave, is known for its decoration; the walls were practically covered in crystal from floor to ceiling. So gorgeous! After touring two caves (each tour takes a little over an hour) Ellen and Jess were done for the day, but I could have visited all of them if we had had the time. The pictures don't even come close to doing the caves justice, but it's the best I could do...

Lucas cave; "The Bishop," formation in the Lucas cave; "Indian Headdress," formation in the Orient cave; crystals



Sunday, we planned a walk of our own. Unfortunately, our planned route was closed for repair, so we made the best of it and set off in another direction. We lucked out and stumbled across a great lookout from the cliff wall in the Leura Cascades area.

Leura Cascades


As always, this is no where near all of my photos, so look at my flickr to see the rest (including a few that look like I was photoshopped into pictures of the Three Sisters - I was there, I promise!). In general, it was a great weekend; I got some exercise, saw some beautiful things, and didn't think about homework once.

Quickie

I'm in New Zealand and it's absolutely gorgeous!

Pictures and more information to come when I'm not paying for internet.

To Thine Own Self Be True

One of the greatest quotes from a classic teen movie seems appropriate to open this post...
Heather: It's just like Hamlet said, "To thine own self be true."
Cher: Hamlet didn't say that.
Heather: I think I remember Hamlet accurately.
Cher: Well I remember Mel Gibson accurately, and he didn't say that. That Polonius guy did.
(Clueless)

Last night, I finally got to see a show at the Opera House...Hamlet. I chose it for a couple of reasons: 1. I could get $30 tickets because I'm under 27 (yay! for encouraging theater for us younger folk), 2. although I am enamored with the Bard, I have yet to see many of his plays live, 3. I read Hamlet in senior year and realized then that it would probably make much more sense on stage, and 4. it's Hamlet! Unfortunately, I couldn't convince anyone to go along with me because no one I asked shares my love of 3 1/2 hour tragedies set in Denmark.

In short, the show was fantastic. Though they spoke the lines as written by Shakespeare, the costumes and set were given a modern spin - i.e. the actors wore suits, button down shirts, and dresses - though the climactic fight scene was still fought with swords. I forgot just how many iconic Shakespearean quotes/scenes come from this play; there's the obvious "To be or not to be" speech, the scene involving a skull (which doesn't occur, contrary to popular belief, during the aforementioned speech), "to thine own self be true," and the oft misquoted "the lady protests too much" (often stated as "the lady doth protest too much"). All of the actors were superb, and it was clear they had studied the material and understood what they were saying.

Unsurprisingly, the actor that really stood out to me was Brendan Cowell - aka Hamlet. I did a little research when I got home, and found out that he is a bit of a theater Renaissance man in that he acts in all the major mediums (film, tv, and theater), writes critically acclaimed plays, and occasionally directs. He has also never had formal acting classes and has had roles on some hit Australian shows. I enjoyed this interview I stumbled across in which he talks specifically about this role: "You only get one shot at Hamlet."

There were a few groups of secondary school students in attendance and, unfortunately for all of us, one of the teachers got ill in the final act and the show had to be stopped to attend to her...wait for it...during Hamlet's death speech. Yes, you read that correctly and yes, it was a little devastating. There were a couple of good things that came out of it. First, it showed the Brendan Cowell doesn't have a monstrous ego, as it was actually he who reacted to the commotion in the audience and had the stage manager stop the show. When she had been taken care of, he preceeded to rewind and re-perform the final speech, even though he had already done so. Also, not to make light of the situation, but *spoiler* in the last act of Hamlet pretty much everyone dies. Thus, when the show was stopped, quite a few dead bodies re-animated to keep track of what was going on. Once the show recommenced one actress (Heather Mitchell playing Gertrude, Hamlet's mother) milked her return to death for all it was worth and got an appreciative laugh from the audience. In the end, though some of the mood was lost, the finale still brought tears to my eyes in the good way.

On a totally unrelated note, I closed my Commonwealth bank account on Tuesday (aka my Australian bank). This was really the first step toward my leaving and my final days - after completing three final papers in the last week and a half. It's definitely starting to set in that soon, I'll be leaving Australia for the States. I'm betting now that it will be bittersweet; I'll certainly be glad to be home and see friends and family I haven't seen in 4 or 5 months, but I'm definitely going to miss this place. Especially the not working part...

I will leave you with some night shots of Circular Quay I took before the play:


ps - I'm still behind on one post, my Blue Mountains trip with Ellen, but I'm headed off to New Zealand for 9 days tomorrow, so don't be expecting that before I get back. After I take my final, I'll try to spend a day getting caught up on everything (which will be heaps after all the adventures I plan to have in New Zealand). And with that, I'm off to pack.

Sipping Wine in the Hunter Valley

Napa Valley : California :: Hunter Valley : Sydney/New South Wales
For those far removed from the SATs, that is an analogy. As an early 21st birthday present (and a rather fitting one at that), my parents funded a day of wine, chocolate, and cheese tasting. I've been selling wine at The Tombs for over a year now, but I can't say I ever understood the wine jargon. Thus, part of my mission was to learn what the hell I was talking about. The Hunter Valley is located about one hour Northwest of Sydney. The tour visited two boutique wineries - self-contained, small, family run wineries - and up to two other more commercial ones.

Our first stop was Iron Gate Estate. It was a gorgeous day and the Hunter Valley is a really pretty area of Sydney. The first tasting was at 10am (a great time for wine I think) and Roger, the owner, was amusing and informative. The Hunter Valley is known for two particular white wines: Semeillions and Verdehlos (from Portugeuse grapes). I really liked most of the Semeillions, though I wasn't a big fan of the Verdehlos. Unsurprisingly, I enjoyed all of the sweet wines I tried. In the end, I bought a somewhat aged Oaked Semeillion from Iron State. I also really enjoyed the Sweet Shiraz (it was designed to go with chocolate) and almost bought chocolates infused with it, but decided against it.

Rodger


Iron Gate vinyards; wine barrels


The next stop was lunch, chocolates, cheese, and up to two tastings - quite a lot to cover in an hour and a half. After lunch I headed to the chocolates, but restrained myself and only bought a little fudge. Then I headed off the the cheese shop; I really had no idea where to start. After tasting everything available, I bought a marinated fromage bleu (which was fabulous and gone in three days) and an Irish cheddar that was protected by green wax. I ended up having a little extra time, so I did the closer of the two tastings; this one was a pick and taste, i.e. here's a list - pick what you want to try. I tried a couple of unrelated wines, but settled on a Riesling.

McGuigan Cellars near the cheese shop


Our final stop was another boutique winery, Ernest Hill Winery. They name many of their wines after one of two things: location in the vinyard (e.g. "Chicken Shack" Chardonnay) or after a dead relative. My favorites were the two "girly" wines; I bought the Sparkling Semeillion (Luna Spark) and only barely resisted the Sweet Semeillion (Silver Moon).

Ernest Hill Winery


I also bought an authentic, Aboriginal-made boomerang. I really wanted a didgeridoo because it seems like an exotic, typically "Australian" souvenir. I changed my mind though because boomerangs are native to New South Wales (the state in which Sydney is located), while didgeridoos are native to the Northern Territory. Were I to buy a didgeridoo outside of the Northern Territory, it would be imported culture; after having spent the semester learning about Indigenous cultures, I appreciate the authenticity and meaning of the boomerang more than I would appreciate the didgeridoo. I will have a great story and explanation, even if the boomerang is a little cliche.

12 Apostles in Melbourne

The first weekend in May, I took a holiday to Melbourne. For those curious, Australians don't pronounce their "r"s and Melbourne is pronounced "mel-bin" or, if you feel like being a bit more articulate, "mel-bun." This started with an overnight bus ride (something I'm great at after the one during break) that was, as all long bus rides are, slightly uncomfortable. I did get some sleep though, and in general it could have been worse.

We did a walking tour of the city the first day. Skylines in Australia are really different than those in the States; it's not all about how many skyscrapers can we fit on a block and who has a building with more stories. Though that sounds negative, I definitely have a soft spot skylines like New York's, so the big cities tend to seem sort of small and undeveloped here. Melbourne is a big rival of Sydney; it's a little more cultural and "artsy." We saw tons of little cafes and interesting architecture. One of my favorite aspects were these little alleys full of cafes and stores. It was nice to get away from the crowded streets and have lunch there. For me at least, it was kind of like discovering a spot that only non-tourists know about.

Some of the Melbourne skyline; back alley


Day 2 (aka Saturday) was spent on a daylong trip to the Great Ocean Road. This is one of Australia's most visited sites. It was built by soldiers returning from World War II as a way to create jobs. It follows the coastline about an hour outside of Melbourne. There are some gorgeous rock formations that are created by erosion of the coastline by a somewhat complicated process I won't go into here. The most famous is the 12 Apostles, which is a group of freestanding rocks, though there are only 9 left standing (the other 3 have fallen). We lucked out and got gorgeous 3pm lighting on the rocks, so I have about a million pictures of the same view. There's two kinds of people: those who look at this stuff and recognize it's beauty and those who look at it an think "That's it?!" I'm definitely one of the former, so it was great to spend the day with beautiful views. Too bad the photos are nothing in comparison to the real thing.

12 Apostles; London Bridge


Sunday morning was spent strolling in St. Kilda, a beach suburb of Melbourne (which also happens to be known for it's prostitutes...but as we were there in daylight it wasn't a problem). I had amazing pancakes at a cafe and drooled over treats in bakery windows. St. Kilda's is home to the original Luna Park, an amusment park also located in Sydney. They had what looked like an awesome wooden roller coaster, but it was closed for repairs and I couldn't ride it. That afternoon, we attended my first AFL game - Aussie Rules. Aussie Rules is a ridiculous amalgamation of a ton of different sports. There's a little bit of rugby, basketball, soccer, and volleyball with some unidentifiable bits thrown in. Nonetheless, it was a great game that looked hopeless for the home team at half time (26 to 75) but resulted in a huge come from behind victory in the second half (final score: 119 Melbourne to 113 Freemantle).

Fans celebrate a goal at the AFL game


This was followed by another overnight bus ride back to Sydney. I arrived back at the house at 5:30 am, promptly fell into bed, and didn't wake up until about 1 pm. All in all, it was a fun weekend away but I definitely prefer Sydney to Melbourne. When I got back, it was nice to be "home" (although don't tell my mom I said that or she'll be even more nervous that I want to relocate here).

Posts on a day trip to the Hunter Valley (for a wine tour) and a weekend in the Blue Mountains are on the way. Unfortunately, my house managed to use up our "unlimited" bandwidth for the month (because in Australia, you pay for everything), so the internet is really only tolerable after midnight which has become my bedtime as of late. I promise to get them up as soon as possible and without wanting to throw my laptop out a window.

Nature Walk

First, I want to apologize (again) for the long awaited new post. I've been wrapped up in travelling and uni work has finally kicked in; I guess I should probably at least turn my assignments in, even though the grades won't count toward my transcript. (And any one who actually knows me knows this is a vast understatement of how I feel about anything that is graded, so suffice to say that everything has been in on time and at least decently written.) I have done heaps of things since my last post, so expect a few rapid fire starting with this post.

With apologies out of the way, onto the Royal Botanical Gardens. I've been wanting to go to the Gardens for awhile, but just never seemed to make it there. One Saturday a few weeks ago, I finally got myself into the city to wander around for a few hours. Located in the city, much like central park, the Botanical Gardens are a nice, peaceful reprieve from the hustle and bustle of Sydney. As evidenced from the picture below, they are no more than a 5 minute walk from the Opera House. As it was a Saturday, I lucked out and the Governor's House (i.e. the official residence of the Governor of New South Wales, not to be confused with the Governor General) was open for touring. The Governor no longer permanently resides in the house and only uses it for special functions; the house was gorgeous but, unfortunately, we weren't allowed to take pictures inside.

Outside of Governor's House; Governor's gardens; view from the Botanical Gardens into the City



While the Gardens, as expected, had plenty of interesting flora and fauna (more on that later), there are some especially unique animals to be found around the garden. As I noticed in Canberra, there are wild cockatoos in Australia. The ones I saw in the Gardens were much more pretty than the grey ones I found in the capital; they were white with yellow plumage on the top of their heads (I'm sure this has a name, but I definitely don't know it). There was a whole flock of them wandering around, which was amazing to me because I'd only been that close to a handful of cockatoos before that in my life - we weren't big on pets in my house when I was growing up with the exception of the occasional guppies and my "free" hermit crab named Herbert who promptly died about a week after I brought him home. Besides, my sister was enough of a pet anyway...just kidding. Anyway, they were really beautiful to see flying around. The other really interesting animal was the, get ready for it, bats that were all over the place in one section of the Gardens. Apparently, these bats moved-in when their natural habitat was destructed; as I, unsurprisingly, went to the Gardens when they were open - aka during the day - there were literally hundreds of them sleeping in the trees above the path. Honestly, though I know that's what they do, I couldn't help but be nervous one was going to fall on my head as I walked down the path underneath them. Luckily, I am not afraid of bats as this is not the first time I've seen them either. We have quite a few in our neighbourhood, and there have been a handful of times that I've been coming home for the night and saw what I initially think is a bird until I realize it's a bat coasting through the air.

Wild cockatoo; many, many bats in a tree


Finally, there were some plants to look at. I kept my eye out for a waratah, the state flower of New South Wales, but couldn't be bothered to actually search for it. I did, however, see the Wollemi Pine (pronounced "wall-em-eye"), which is a tree that was was thought to be extinct (and has an ancient lineage) until they found one somewhere in the middle of nowhere. They have one planted in the park, and you can even buy a baby one in the gift shop so you can have an almost extinct pine of your very own (which I didn't because I didn't want to get arrested by US customs when I come back to the States). There were also some gigantic trees; one in particular, a fig tree, was massive. Most of them were guarded by fences meant to keep visitors away from their root structures and/or hollow trunks.

Wollemi pine; huge fig tree


All in all, it was a well spent sunny afternoon. Look soon for a recap of my long weekend in Melbourne, followed by a post on my Hunter Valley wine tour. I can't believe I've only got a little more than a month left here, but I've got plenty of travelling left to do in that time (New Zealand here I come).