SYDNEY!

Today we went into downtown Sydney, and I was very impressed. The city is absolutely gorgeous, for the most part clean, and pretty easy to get around. Jaimie lives a short train ride away, so we saved on petrol(gas) and parking by hopping on a mid-morning train. The train was pretty peaceful, I threw on my iPod and zoned out, although I did want to kill the guy on the other side of the train having a cell phone conversation. I'm sorry sir, but the rest of the car doesn't need to hear you doing business, that is what offices, cubicles, and phone booths are for.

Our first stop in the city was Darling Harbor. Darling is the smaller of Sydney's two main harbors, the other one being home to the bridge and Sydney Opera House. It reminds me a lot of Baltimore's Inner Harbor, very family oriented. They have an aquarium, a museum, some rides and arcades and a Chinese Garden. We spent a few minutes in the National Maritime Museum, I got bored pretty quickly. They have a photography/journal entry exhibit on the travels of a young American from NY to Fremantle, but there no danger or excitement to his trip. Just some rough seas and catching an Albatross. They also had the Endeavor on display here. It is the ship that Captain Cook sailed on to discover Australia hundreds of years ago. You could take tours of it for $15, I was fine just looking from the outside. The ship itself is beautiful, they don't make 'em like they used to. Everything from the rigging lines to port windows has been incredibly well cared for and restored by the government here. Imagine what it would be like to board one of Christopher Columbus' ships that he sailed on in 1492. The Endeavor doesn't hold quite the promise because I'm not Australian, but it is still a hugely important piece of history and art.


I also ate my first ever Meat Pie in Darling Harbor. Its much like Beef Stew inside a pie crust. Not bad, but pretty close to one of the most unhealthy foods ever. At least they bake and don't deep fry the crust.

From there we walked down George St, one of Sydney's main roads. It is full of office buildings, shops, and the sorts of things you would except from a city street. We stopped in a small cafe for lunch and some other smaller stores. One of the coolest ones was an Aboriginal art gallery. They had paintings, jewelry, boomerangs and even didgeridoos. One of the employees at the store played the didg a little- its a pretty cool instrument. Jon was looking at a pair of clap sticks for his Jazz band at home in Rhode Island, something to add a little flavor in the rhythm section.

We also stopped at another location of Jaimie's store to shop around a bit. I picked out a nice pair of black boots and a pair of jeans. We planned to stop by another location elsewhere in Sydney later that day so I put the clothes on hold.

From there we walked down to The Rocks, one of Sydney's cooler neighborhoods. It borders the harbor and is anchor to one end of the Sydney Harbor bridge. On Sunday nights there is an open air market that we may visit if we go back in to Sydney again. I bought a long sleeve shirt at Jaimie's store here.

By now we were only a few blocks from the Harbor Bridge, so we decided to visit that. It is absolutely massive. While the bridge is only the third largest steel span, because of its combination of width and weigh capacity it is often considered the world's largest steel bridge. As you walk out across it, the safety railing changes from tall stone walls to razor-wire topped chain-link. Its sad that they have to ruin the views and feeling of the bridge with intense safety measures. Partway across the bridge we arrived at the first pylon. I climbed the stairs here up to an observation deck on the top. The views of Sydney and the surrounding areas are absolutely incredible. Luckily the weather was dry and the sky was clear at this point, so you could see for miles.

At this point it was nearly 5PM and all the shops in Sydney close at 6 so we had to hurry back to the first R.M. Williams for me to pick up the boots and jeans I wanted to buy. I tried the shoes on again and decided I liked Chestnut more than Black. Jaimie got me a some leather conditioner and polish for me to take care of the boots with. If it sounds like I'm making a big deal about these boots, you should hear Jaimie and Jon talk about them. Jaimie is borderline obsessed and was pretty excited that I got a pair. I'm looking forward to wearing them around more, I needed some new work shoes.

With my boot purchase out of the way, we started walking down towards the Opera House. The most scenic way to get there is through Sydney's Botanic Garden. Much much larger than Brisbane's, we spent a few hours in here and only saw a tiny portion. I really wish Boston had a garden like this, its a great place to relax and just enjoy nature. We saw a small family of ducks just walking around, the three children in front followed by two parents at the rear. There was also this gorgeous tree with huge drooping flowers. The flowers were large, at least five or six inches long and hung down like bells.

The edge of the Botanic Gardens runs right along the Sydney Opera House. I'll say right up front that this is officially one of my favorite building ever. I'm pretty sure I could sit in front of it for hours, just looking at all the small details and watching the people walk by. I took probably 20 or 30 pictures of the building. I would hate to get home only to realize I didn't have any good shots of it. I really would have liked to take a tour of the building or see a show, but that wasn't really in the budget for this trip. The best view of the Harbor Bridge comes from the Opera House as well. I was pretty pumped when I noticed a building with a huge "Cisco Systems" logo visible just underneath the roadway of the bridge.


It was getting late now so we picked a restaurant on the harbor for dinner. Unfortunately they messed up my order pretty badly, but the food was still tasty. They brought wrong bottle of wine to start, that is the only item I have ever sent back at a restaurant. Then, I ordered the catch of the day which the waitress described as a "prawn fillet with gazpacho and asparagus". I had been wanting to try prawns since I arrive and this was a perfect opportunity. Even though Jon and I wondered what a prawn fillet was, this sounded good. Something was mixed up along the way because I ended up with kingfish fillet instead. I was a little cranky not to have gotten my taste of prawns yet. We got some coffee and hot chocolate for me to finish off the meal and then bought ice cream for dessert from a little stand down the road.

The trip home was pretty painful, we walked back across the city in the rain to the train city. The streets were full of drunk people, mostly dressed up Asians with cigarettes burning. Secondhand smoke is Gross. The train wasn't much better. An express back to Penrith wasn't coming for 45 minutes so we hopped on a slower train that we only had to wait 7 minutes for. Instead of taking 50 minutes to get home, it took almost an hour and a half- it probably would have been faster to wait. The urban assault on my nose continued from cigarettes on the street to awful BO on the train. I won't make any comments about a specific group's cleanliness, just to say that some have lower standards than others. I don't think just one person was responsible, I'm pretty sure that several people were responsible. I was looking at a customs page earlier in the week and found a whole essay on the "Great American Nose" that was pretty funny.

In all, I really like Sydney as a city. There are plenty of things to do- I could easily spend a whole week just visiting all the attractions. The people there are friendly and the entire place has a nice laid back vibe to it. Things are very expensive here, but that is a general trend among goods in Australia. Electronics especially have a 100%-200% markup over American prices. Add on the "city premium" to that and you get the idea. The only consolation is that despite its current weakness, one US dollar is still worth 1.12 Australian dollars. Thats almost a 10% discount on everything I buy. My favorite part of Sydney was definitely the Opera House. I really liked the Botanic Gardens too. Time and weather permitting we will hopefully get back down there on Sunday for one last look before I leave.

Penrith

After spending the last 10 days full of adventure and intrigue, it was time for a day off. Nothing big would be planned today, just some souvenir shopping in Penrith and a visit to Windsor. We started at a large shopping center in Penrith, this is where Jaimie works everyday. It was a pretty good sized mall, many of the clothing stores were familiar to me. They even had several grocery stores, a bunch of meat counters, and a liquor store firmly in the mall. I don't see how anyone would ever need to go somewhere else for their shopping. I bought a few things from Australian Geographic as gifts and also from a candy company here named Darrel Lea. They claim to have the world's softest licorice and I must admit, it is the softest licorice I have ever tasted.

Our next stop was the Olympic rowing venue. It's also in Penrith, but it was raining and not all that exciting. Basically it is a big man made lake with some rowing lanes down the middle. This area has gotten so much rain that the ramp out to the medal platform was almost totally submerged. As a side note, dam levels here are at their highest levels in 5 years. They are sitting around 60%, up from 35% when I arrived here. Much of the country is on very tough water restrictions, although this much needed rain probably will not do much to loosen things up.

From the lake we went on to Windsor, one of Australia's original towns. It's claim to fame is "Australia's Oldest Pub", the Macquarie Arms hotel. Jon and I ordered a beer here and got ourselves carded. That's pretty sad in a country where the drinking age is 18. The rest of Windsor is mixed between restaurants, little souvenir and crafts shops, and boarded up storefronts. Its saddening to see such a historic town like this dying, one of the many expenses of the Penrith shopping center.

The (Australian) Grand Canyon

Today was spent in the local Blue Mountains. They are most well known for The Three Sisters, a set of rocks that each stand several hundred meters tall. Its a popular tourist spot and by the time we showed up was already full of families and bus groups. Its really not much more than a picture, but one I had to take just to say , "I've been there. " From there we headed to somewhere a little more peaceful, The Grand Canyon. While not quite as big or impressive as the American version, it was gorgeous nonetheless. We parked at a lookout and enjoyed the view along with a small lunch. Our plan was to follow a path down to the bottom of the canyon and then back up to Neates Glen on the other side. We would get back to our car following a road that links the two parking areas. The canyon trip is about 5km and should take 3-4 hours. Somehow, the three of us finished it in just over two hours including a few stops for water.
The variety of terrain was incredible, we walked through bush, grassy meadows, and rainforest. Most of the walk was spent following a small river that ran through the canyon. There were some spots where it formed beautiful waterfalls falling into shallow pools. About 20 minutes in, Jaimie slipped on a rock and fell into a stream. She was fine, except for a few scratches and a bruise or two, but not very happy about the whole episode. Her shorts, socks, and shoes had gotten completely saturated. She wanted to turn around and wait in the car for us, but we wouldn't hear of it. It didn't take much convincing for her to keep going and honestly, she probably whined less than I would have if I fell in.
Along the way were more sights than I can mention, one of the things that struck me most was the signs of fire. A little research showed that a huge bush fire burned through the area a few years ago closing the trail and damaging some of the safety railings. It took almost a year for the trail to be reopened. Five years later there are still burnt logs and charred seedlings scattered along the path. At one point, you cross underneath a large waterfall. A bit later you need to duck through a small cave. I took a lot more pictures than what I had a chance to post. When I get back home I'll be putting up a gallery with all the ones I think are worthy of other people looking at. The differences between shady and sunny areas made it pretty difficult to get good pictures, hopefully a few come out well.
Not sure on plans tomorrow, maybe caving or spending the day around the local Penrith area.

Making our way home

I didn't get a chance to write an entry yesterday because I was too excited about the Giants winning the Superbowl! I wish that I could have been back in the US to see the game, although I imagine my excitement would be equally as alone in Boston as it was in Australia. The rains kept up and so did our our drive south. Around 4 o'clock or so we started looking for places to stop for the night. Despite the rain Jon and I really wanted to camp for the night. We drove by a few caravan parks but decided to pass on all of them- they were pretty crappy accommodations. Taking a look at the list of national parks we had picked up at the visitor center yesterday, we realized that we weren't far from Yuragir National Park- where we had wanted to camp earlier in the week before ending up at the first tourist park in Yamba. The only problem- access was through a 10km dirt unsealed road. The going was a bit rough at first, deep potholes had been filled with water and our trusty steed, the Daihatsu Charade, was no match for them. We plowed through however, until our way was blocked by a completely flooded road. We decided not to risk the crossing and headed back to the main road.
We ended up spending the night camped in a trailer park. I'll spare the description and leave you with just 2 words- shitty and wet. The only good part was its closeness to the beach. We were only a five minute walk from the water and could hear the crashing of the waves from our tent when the rain wasn't too loud.

We are now on the final leg of our drive back to Castlereagh. Tempers are a bit short, the car is filled with more than wet clothes and is more than a bit stinky. It will be good to be back at Jaimie's house- I should have some pictures up from our trip shortly. Unfortunately I will also have to start work on my current comp sci project due in only four days. In six, I'll return to the US. Until then we have plans to spend a few days in Sydney, visit some caves around the area and also do a short hike or two in the local Blue Mountains.

This rain is making me wet

Today is a nasty rainy day. The JJ's and I had been planning to drive down to Ballina or farther Soiuth and then camp at a National Park along the coast there. The weather quickly put a stop to that. We stopped by a visitor's center to get info on local campsites and were informed that severe weather was expected to continue for the next two days. Had Jaimie not been with us, Jon and I probably would have made the bad decision to camp out in the rain somwhere, but it wasn't really worth it to argue on this one. As I write this in my notebook, I am sitting in a motel room in Evan's Head a small coastal town with one grocery store, one pub, and more than their share of bare footed hicks.
The rain is still going strong, but that didn't stop us from taking a walk down to the beach for a swim. The waves were pretty rough and a few surfers were out trying to catch some breakers. The heavy surf had churned up the seas; coral and seaweed caught on my leg each time the water flowed back out. The first time it happened it scared the crap out of me, nearly causing me to jump out of the water. Jaimie thought this was pretty funny, but I was reminded of the large jellyfish we had seen earlier washed up on the beach. We stopped our walking to poke it with a stick a few times before losing interest. On the walk back to the motel, a good number of the blue bottle jellyfish lined the beach. After a shower, I'm writing this in front of a TV with the Australia v. India cricket match about to start. Luckily this is only a one day game, it will be over later tonight (Edit: The game was later rained out and declared a draw- what a terrible sport)

Eearlier in the day on the drive down to Evan's Head we crossed off one of the things on my "Things to do in Australia" List. Amy had suggested yesterday that we visit the Sirromet winery, about 40 minutes outside Brisbane. They offered hourly tours of the vineyard, but weren't running them today because of the rain. While we waited to see if the rain would let up we opted for a tasing of several fine vintages. Although Sirromet produces a wide variety of wines, our tasting stayed mostly to the red wines. I bought a few bottles of some of the above to bring back to the US. My parents will get one bottle, which one they get is a surprise.
Tomorrow morning at 10AM is the Superbowl here. Evan's Head only pub, the Hotel Illawong will have the game on. We will all be there watching. The Jusczyk's are both Patriot fans, Jaimie by marriage only. I am rooting for the underdogs, Eli Manning and the Cinderella story NY Giants. If the rain doesn't let up by the time the game is over, we may decide to cut the trip short and make the long drive back to Castlereagh. This will give us an extra day to do something cool around Sidney later in the week.

Brisbane, Day Two

Today Jaimie's high school friend Amy came in to Brisbane to show us around the city. She works in one of the skyscrapers downtown and lives only a half hour outside the side so she is pretty familiar with it. Our first stop was actually outside the city at Mt Coot-tha. It's a 15 minute drive from Bribane and is the prime lookout point over the city. It was mostly tourists and families while we were there, but at night it is rumored to turn into quite the lovers spot. The weather was a bit cloudy, you could just make out the Pacific coastline beyond the city. While we were watching, a rain storm started dumping on the downtown area. You could see the rain trails streaking down.


From there were drove to the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary. Finally, I would get to see of these infamous koalas. My entire trip, every had been calling them drop bears, a name used to scare tourists. The koalas would apparently drop out of trees and attack, preferring to claw at their victims thoats. This was usually followed by a descripion of a wombat and how they preferred to break people's kneecaps with their thick bony skulls. Lone Pine was also home to wombats, in addition to a host of other species, dingoes, kangaroos, emus are only a few. They even have a Tasmanian Devil, but it wasn't on display. The koalas are pretty cute animals, they mostly sit in trees and munch on eucaplytus. We saw a few of them jump around around from limb to limb and even two younger boys fighting with each other. They bit each other, trying to knock the other one onto the ground. After a few minutes, a larger Koala, probably the dad slothed over to stare at the two frisky ones. The fight ended quickly. We spent a few more hours at the animal park before the rains forced us back to the car.


We headed into the city for lunch, choosing a pub in the center of one of Brisbane's downtown malls. After an entirely massive meal (I had a double quarter pounder w/ bacon) we saw an RM Williams store acoss the street. This is the same chain Jaimie works at as an assistant manager. Seeing as how I had never been in one, we had to take a little trip. The clothes they sell are pretty nice, carry a western Texas cowboy-ish theme, but are extremely expensive. They had one pair of boots made with crocodile and kangaroo leather that retailed for 8000 dollars. I saw a pair of moleskin pants I liked that are pretty unique, I might buy them later if we have time to stop by Jaimie's store.

From there we walked over to Brisbane's Botanic Gardens. Its a large park like area with gardens ranging from a subtropical rainforest to water-dwelling mangroves. These trees are pretty cool, growing up straight out of the water. Even the branches have roots and I suspect that all the different trees are joined together as part of the same underwater organism. I couldn't help but be reminded of Harry Potter's screaming mandrake plants. There were plenty of people strolling around the park, including a game of soccer- something you would sadly never see in the US.

Sadly there isn't more much to do in Brisbane. The city doesn't really have an iconic tourist spot like Sydney's Opera House. at least none we could think of. The four of us spent a few more hours walking around the city before finishing the night off with some beers at a bar down the street from our hotel.