The next morning we all wake up early as we are supposed to have a decently early start. We pack out stuff, get down stairs only to receive notice that our bus has been delayed. Joy! How much time do we have to kill? Lots! Several hours. We get breakfast...still have more time. We check email...still more time. Alex and I take off to do a few errands. I set out in search of a Vodaphone place and a cheap swimsuit, alex for some flight resolution. Vodaphone basically told me that I can't call out of NZ, joy...and eventually on the 3rd or 4th store, I found a swimsuit that was decent enough price and look wise to compensate for the loss of the other.
We finally departed around like 12 or 1pm. Jeez, if we had only kept that up for a few more hour it would have been infuriating as Tongariro Crossing was open that day.
The bus takes us around lake Taupo towards the three major volcanos of that crossing. We see the beautiful feilds of this golden flower on this bus which he informs us is called Broom(?) and is a major pest that is taking /has taken over much of NZ. Ah, the irony. We had a few changes in schedule with our late start. We were supposed to go up closer to the mountains and go see a waterfall there, but with time constraints we stopped for some quick picks and headed to a closer waterfall that you could jump off of (Rich inserted the standard cover-my-ass "you're doing it of your own free will" disclaimer). For the pics, I got an amazing picture of Mt. Doom (ask me about it later). For the waterfall, we headed down (I took my brand new bathing suit not sure if I was going to go in) and took a dip in the water. Rich informed us that it was a thermal area so the water should be somewhat warm, like 28 C. It...was...frigid!! He lies!!!
Caution/shame/bodily care to the wind, I decided I would never forgive myself if I don't embrace every oportunity to throw myself off cliffs in NZ. I join in the fun. I was pretty much last in line and when I got there only Frankie and Rich were still up top. Frankie was discussing how/what type of jump she should do with Rich to which they concluded some kind of flip. She does this weird kinda half flip, half dead body drop off the cliff and disappears beneath the churning surface. We wait a few seconds and don't see her resurface. Rich looks a bit worried and I comment "Is she dead?" (A comment that Rich will later recount to everyone on the bus for comedic effect). Rich was about 1/2 a sec from jumping in after her before we got word that she's on the other side of the river directly below us where we can't see...and she's safe. I resume my walk to the edge. With a few seconds of decision and hesitation, I do this half flying side-kick off the cliff and land, shockingly, in the water that clearly has antifreeze in it. Rich, as becomes his signature moves on many later jumps does a backward dive into the water. There was a round of second jumps and then we headed back to the bus for warmth and dryness.
On our way out from a restroom stop close to there, we had another fun event where Rich turned a corner too tight when trying to U-ey and hit a rock. Not huge rock, nor did it leave a big dent. The importance of this event was a wager that Rich had made with another bus driver. The bet was $100 against him not hitting anything on his first 3 or 5 (can't remember) trips (each which last about a month). After making the bet one of the observing bus drivers told him it was the easiest $100 the other guy had ever made as he was BOUND to hit something. He did... and on the first trip.
The rest of the ride was decently peaceful and a bit senic as we headed to the hilly fields around River Valley. We arrive at a small hostel where we have to walk down a windy road to get to the actual hostel as the bus won't make it. That kind of place... It was small and quaint and nice with some rooms with bunks or the infamous dorms (aka orgy pit, as they have become known) that are just a bunch of matresses side by side. I stayed in the bunks. The evening was nice and we had the Farm Dinner that the hostel was offering. We sat down at a table of 8 with drinks in hand and prepared for the feast.
We apparently were Ethiopian on the scale of hungry. Here's why...
They served us a plate of lamb, bowl of potatoes, some green beans, cauliflower with cheese, some other stuff, and gravy...most importantly gravy. We decimated this in about 10 min, maybe less. About this time, Hannah, who we discovered has a small black hole in her stomach because she is tiny and eats more than a small army and the hungry hungry hippos combined, steps up to the table and starts looking for other food. We turn our sites to the other tables seeing who looks somewhat finished and has food leftover. Hannah uses her cute factor and brings over a bowl of potatoes or something. Vaporized. The waitress comes around to collect dishes and we inform her to 1) leave our plates alone and 2) bring us all leftover food. Between hannah's efforts and the waitresses help, we destroyed all of our food, and about enough to feed another table. Twas fantastic. Some of our table tapped out during the final rounds but Hannah held us together. the only food left in the entire dining room was a small heap of green beans nobody wanted.
I realized later that that was indeed Thanksgiving night for us, and I'm fairly sure the spirit of Thanksgiving settled on our table (Imagine Pentecost...) and gave us the ability to devour.
In a slight food coma, we meandered around talking and playing some games. Somebody found a game of giant Jenga that I just had to play (it was bout 8 of us taking turns). We later had a small exchange of magic tricks and then more random conversation. It's funny walking into and between conversations. You can leave one about adventures in Asia and walk into one about drugs. Oh Nicolas and his Snooz(sp?)...not acutally a drug btw, just tabacco.
Hours passed, there was talk of going to a hot tub which we later discovered was a...the only color I can desiribe it as is "pee" and had stuff in it. The rest of the time was watching the conclustion of a poker match wiile participating in other conversation and watching Alex(b) and Axel try, and eventually successfully break into the bar. They succeeded in breaking the chain that connected two of the grates protecting the bar...they didn't actually take anything, but surprised by their own success decided to "leave it as a warning that we could have done it." There was no mention or question about it the next day.
Exit stage left for bed.
Sunday, December 7, 2008
Wade nearly dies on a Moped
So the second day in Taupo, since Tongariro crossing was closed, was open to all sorts of possibilities. Alex and Kim approached me thinking of exploring a bit and possibly renting the mopeds next door for some self guided fun. I had told Alex(g), Sarah and others that we should meet up for b-fast in the morning, so Alex(m) and Kim went off and I told them to come back at 11 to check if we were back from b-fast.
Breakfast time came and went. I check with the girls to see if they were ready. They basically were still in bed. Disheartened and hungry, I resigned myself to getting some quick b-fast (which wound up being McD's) and waiting for Alex and Kim. Luckily, they saw me on the walk there. So I shoveled some food and rented the other bike for incredibly cheap ($37 NZD for the whole day) and we planned our adventure.
First stop was food. Figured we should go and get some supplies for food and drink for the afternoon with lunch out by the falls/dam. So we took off toward Woolworths. We proceeded to the end of the street, put on blinker and "turned" right. I say "turned" because the girls did this flawlessly. I, on the otherhand, more vered...and vered right onto a sidewalk that ran diagonal from the intersection. Nearly taking out some pedestrian, I play it off so smoothly walking the bike up to the information center that it led to, contemplated the posters displayed, and conclusively walked back to the road as if this whole adventure was completely intentional. The girls were waiting down the road wondering where I had vaporized to. I explained that I had not mastered the art of "leaning into the turn" as it was my first time on a moped. Whoops...
Now a pro, we get to the store, make our purchases and head back out to the mopeds. The mopeds, I may add, were a little difficult to start. Mine took a certain finesse with the electric start and throtle whereas Alex's more often than not required a kick start. About this time, the owner of the bikes pulls up next to us, introduces himself as such and gives us a half condecending half helpful demeanor with the starting of the bikes. We proceed up this long country road with nothing but paddocks and mountains a kilometer or 2 away. The sensation was incredible. My bike could get up to (as I later determined) over 70 kph (42 mph?) Impressive considering that the max speed on the road we were on was 80kph. I was thrilled! Alex and Kim, on the same bike had less luck with speed as they had 2 ppl to carry and I was often limited to the intricate task of matching their speed.
We continued out to the Hukka falls (or some falls, I forget the name) where the dam was. The dam was open when we got there so we proceeded onward to a glass blowing factory slightly down the road. Cool place, lots of nifty glass structures, all expensive and daunting in their fagility. We watch their presentation and forgo buying anything.
Upon leaving, we took our left hand turn out on the major highway we had already been on (this one was 100kph limit with lots of big trucks...lots in relation to nothing). This time, I attempt to turn around the girls to get on the other side. Instead...I wind up on the other side of the road plowing through daisies and tottering on a small hill. Joy! I take a sec to steady myself and continue on my way unharmed. The girls get a kick out of this as well. We went back to the falls and had a little pic-nic lunch. We waited a bit longer and got to a good lookout to watch the dam open. It might not sound like a spectacular experience, but seeing these small pool with large rock transform into a raging river of might was pretty intense and captivating. We get our fill and hop on the bikes. We stop to get some gas for Alex's bike and continue on to this spa/resort/waterpark place on the other side of town. I told the girls that if the price was right and they had availability, they would get massages on me. Fortunately and unfortunately, they had no availability so we headed down to the lake front for a viscious game of put-put. Kim began by whooping our asses, followed by a slight comeback by myself with Alex struggling on some holes. Don't worry, we laughed our asses off at ourselves.
With hours to kill before we had to turn these bad boy bikes in, we headed first to a museum near our hostel but found out it was closing in <10 min. Instead we enjoyed the rose garden right next to it litterally "stopping to smell the roses." With few options left, we went up to a cheap internet/gaming center that the girls had found the day before. We walk into this simple computer lounge with a couple small kids deeply submerged in their game of World of Warcraft. I take some of this time to email and crank out some blogging before I forget some of the finer elements of great stories. The girls left before I did and the night wound up being rather uneventful night. Mostly spent the rest of the night blogging and then sleeping.
Breakfast time came and went. I check with the girls to see if they were ready. They basically were still in bed. Disheartened and hungry, I resigned myself to getting some quick b-fast (which wound up being McD's) and waiting for Alex and Kim. Luckily, they saw me on the walk there. So I shoveled some food and rented the other bike for incredibly cheap ($37 NZD for the whole day) and we planned our adventure.
First stop was food. Figured we should go and get some supplies for food and drink for the afternoon with lunch out by the falls/dam. So we took off toward Woolworths. We proceeded to the end of the street, put on blinker and "turned" right. I say "turned" because the girls did this flawlessly. I, on the otherhand, more vered...and vered right onto a sidewalk that ran diagonal from the intersection. Nearly taking out some pedestrian, I play it off so smoothly walking the bike up to the information center that it led to, contemplated the posters displayed, and conclusively walked back to the road as if this whole adventure was completely intentional. The girls were waiting down the road wondering where I had vaporized to. I explained that I had not mastered the art of "leaning into the turn" as it was my first time on a moped. Whoops...
Now a pro, we get to the store, make our purchases and head back out to the mopeds. The mopeds, I may add, were a little difficult to start. Mine took a certain finesse with the electric start and throtle whereas Alex's more often than not required a kick start. About this time, the owner of the bikes pulls up next to us, introduces himself as such and gives us a half condecending half helpful demeanor with the starting of the bikes. We proceed up this long country road with nothing but paddocks and mountains a kilometer or 2 away. The sensation was incredible. My bike could get up to (as I later determined) over 70 kph (42 mph?) Impressive considering that the max speed on the road we were on was 80kph. I was thrilled! Alex and Kim, on the same bike had less luck with speed as they had 2 ppl to carry and I was often limited to the intricate task of matching their speed.
We continued out to the Hukka falls (or some falls, I forget the name) where the dam was. The dam was open when we got there so we proceeded onward to a glass blowing factory slightly down the road. Cool place, lots of nifty glass structures, all expensive and daunting in their fagility. We watch their presentation and forgo buying anything.
Upon leaving, we took our left hand turn out on the major highway we had already been on (this one was 100kph limit with lots of big trucks...lots in relation to nothing). This time, I attempt to turn around the girls to get on the other side. Instead...I wind up on the other side of the road plowing through daisies and tottering on a small hill. Joy! I take a sec to steady myself and continue on my way unharmed. The girls get a kick out of this as well. We went back to the falls and had a little pic-nic lunch. We waited a bit longer and got to a good lookout to watch the dam open. It might not sound like a spectacular experience, but seeing these small pool with large rock transform into a raging river of might was pretty intense and captivating. We get our fill and hop on the bikes. We stop to get some gas for Alex's bike and continue on to this spa/resort/waterpark place on the other side of town. I told the girls that if the price was right and they had availability, they would get massages on me. Fortunately and unfortunately, they had no availability so we headed down to the lake front for a viscious game of put-put. Kim began by whooping our asses, followed by a slight comeback by myself with Alex struggling on some holes. Don't worry, we laughed our asses off at ourselves.
With hours to kill before we had to turn these bad boy bikes in, we headed first to a museum near our hostel but found out it was closing in <10 min. Instead we enjoyed the rose garden right next to it litterally "stopping to smell the roses." With few options left, we went up to a cheap internet/gaming center that the girls had found the day before. We walk into this simple computer lounge with a couple small kids deeply submerged in their game of World of Warcraft. I take some of this time to email and crank out some blogging before I forget some of the finer elements of great stories. The girls left before I did and the night wound up being rather uneventful night. Mostly spent the rest of the night blogging and then sleeping.
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
Wade almost gets in a fight
Today was a pretty chill day overall. I say day there for a very specific reason. So today we got picked up in the morning in Rotorua and made our way down to Waitomo. We stopped first at Te Puia, this really cool little park with geysers and such and some cool Maori stuff including some wood carvings and weavings that were pretty amazing. We stopped afterward to get my refund from the Maori dinner and then continued on. Next stop was Zorbing.
OMG!!!!
Zorbing was fantastic. Whoever thought it was a great idea to make a human hamster ball with water in it is a certified GENIUS. You try to stand as you are pushed down this zig zag path but it is impossible. Instead you just kinda surf around in a washer machine like fashion in the bottom of this ball. I apparently caught air. I say apparently because in the ball you have no idea which direction is which. I tried to take a video with a waterproof camera inside but failed. Do have a few interesting picture and videos to go with though. Alex and kim didn't want to do it so they went to this funny farm show instead. Lame if you ask me, but apparently it was good.
We continued on where we stopped at this random extreme adventures place where they had a few different things all in one such as bungy, swings, jet boating, simulated skydiving, etc. Didn't do any as I didn't find the appeal. Instead just ate the free sausages they gave us.
When we got to Waitomo we were dropped off immediately at the black water rafting place for the 8 of us that were doing the Abyss tour. It was a great group. We had team Sweden (Axel and Nickolas), Alex(g), Alex(b), Team UK (Josef and Adam) and Sarah. We got geared up which took a while. We wore: bathing suit, wet suit, booties, plastic boots over booties, wet suit jacket, shorts, helmet, harness, and harness accessories. Tad hard to move afterward. The took us to the spot where we practiced the rappel we were going to do and then went into it.
SAAAHHHWEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEET!!!!
Prolly one of the coolest things I have ever done. Period.
We started off with at 34 meter rappel on a sheer rock face after squeezing through a hole. Went down pretty fast too so that was even more fun. I went first on about every element to the trip so it made it more unpredictable and more crazy. Got down to the bottom and waited there with my light off looking up at a few glow worm in the top of this massive cavern. We then did intros and headed to the zip line. The hooked us in, turned out all the lights, and sent me zipping into the darkness with tons of glow worms overhead. Very cool. I was jerked to a halt and there were two huge bangs. Later discovered they were the result of the first guide trying to fuck with me. He didn't succeed. They gave us some hot tea and these really good honey oat bar things for snack and then distributed the tubes for the "rafting" bit. The entrance to the rafting bit was jumping off a 10ft+ cliff into the water below with the tube on your butt, landing on it so as not to break your legs or something awful. Whoooo! The rafting bit was more floating. We just pulled ourselves along on still water using a rope and looking up at the glow worms. Very cool. We discovered how to tow each other by hooking feet into rafts which made more fun chain. We doubled back and redeposited our tubes. From here on it was just trekking by foot. We ventured through the caves for over a kilometer (i think it was 1.5 or so) floating, climbing and exploring. Couple cool parts to go through including tight spaces and a headfirst slide. Later on they stopped and gave us hot tang and chocolate (tasted fantastic even though hot tang sounded weird at first). Past that was climbing up waterfalls (very very very cool, kinda difficult too) and also meeting Cecil the eel that has her own pond. She came right up when the guide summoned her over and just kinda chilled there looking at his finger in the water. I thought she would pounce, but she never did. She must have been at least a few feet long too. Over more waterfalls and out!
Hot showers and soup greeted us back at the base and we purchased a few photos since they were cheap and cool. Chilled out there then headed back to check into the hostel. Again, reception was closed but we got someone to check us in. I got a pretty sweet room with one of the Brits (Adam) that was this two story condo like thing with two beds, bathroom and closet on ground floor and two beds upstairs. I grabbed the free one downstairs, Adam the free one upstairs. Dropped our stuff and headed to the kitchen.
I volunteered to make food for the night since we missed dinner with the others. I prepared the Chicken Fettuccine Alfredo for the 8 of us, delicious! and then we went over to the bar for a while. Californication was on their way to drunkenness with this around the world challenge thing of 12 beers and you get a free mug afterward. We had our nice perch to the side and the rounds began. Later round 2am, Adam and I peaced for bed after escaping Alex(b)'s blockade of the door as we were supposed to stay with him and complete the challenge as well. We get back to our sweet room and one guy is in the bed next to mine gently snoring. We part and head to bed. At this time, Andrew, as I later discovered was his name (but hereafter referred to as "Kid") woke up and began to talk to me and introduce himself. Thus begins the night....
Disclaimer: most of this is on the lines of verbatim and thus uses strong language :D If this offends you or are worried that your son/brother/relative/friend is over abusive. I assure you it was all necessary/useful. (and it adds to the drama of the story)
He talked FOREVER!!!! My god this kid could just chat about anything. I'm face down in bed, eyes closed only talking on occasion to not be completely rude or asshole like figuring he would get the message, apparently not. I discovered he's from Oz in Brisbane off traveling on Contiki tours in NZ then off to Hawaii, he seems young. He's also been working at the Coles (grocery store back home). I'm guessing this kid is like 18-20 years old. Still he's friendly, but clueless.
I finally feign asleep (a skill mom and the sisters perfected in my younger years). He shuts up. Bout that time roomie 2 rocks up loud and drunk. He's Canadian and all about going to this party. He tries to convince Kid to go with him. He also realizes I'm there and goes "who the fuck is that?" I introduce. He also discover Adam is upstairs. This upsets him because "that is [his] bed" We tried to simply explain that there were two beds and he took the empty one as is normal hostel procedure. He's beyond reckoning at this point and just pissed and wanting to party. He leaves in frustration. Kid talks a bit more, i try to sleep. Canadian (his codename) returns about 30 min or so later, just enough to interrupt sleep right before you get there. Carbon copy earlier episode here. This time he tries to convince the other dude strongly to come with him. Kid is now getting afraid of Canadian and "doesn't like him any more" and says that "he's starting to scare me." Canadian leaves. He returns 30 min later, random girl comes in and leaves promptly. He assaults Kid again and is still pissed about his bed, I tell him to leave him the hell alone and go to bed. He has hissy fit over bed again saying that his stuff was up there and on that bed, he can't sleep in that bed, or something redic, Adam even clears off his bed (not kindly, I might add) and this dude still can't handle it. Dude leaves again. Round 4-ding ding ding!
This time Canadian return with two other drunk assholes. He and another proceed upstairs to hassle Adam. Third one remains downstairs to hassle me and Kid. Other asshole comes downstairs and both start into it with me saying that I shouldn't even be there. The start edging closer, getting a tad more aggressive. I tell them to back the fuck off. One even lightly grabbed my arm. They are tyring to egg me on saying "come on, hit me in the balls." What sane minded man would every say this I don't know. I turn over in bed and ignore them. This last all of a minute or two before they gathered renewed vigor and ripped my sheets off. Mother and sisters can attest to the fact that this never sits well with me. It is a personal pet peev and turns me from nice to raging asshole in .3 nanoseconds. Wade gets pissed (like legit pissed). Luckily about a min later Canadian dude came down and diffused the situation a bit. Apparently Adam had laid out the facts a few trickled through his thick skull. He tried to talk to me and explain that if I had told them that we were on Kiwi Exp or something then it would have been OK. He kept talking about shit. I cut him off and told him "hi, i'm on Kiwi, no go the fuck away". This did not sink in. I repeat the idea that I don't want to talk to him and that he needs to leave my bed stat. He eventually takes his pals with and vacates for the night. Kid in the mean time has been hiding under his covers. That's right...hiding under his covers. After this he emerges and tries to make some talk about the situation. The funniest of his statements was along the lines of "I wouldn't of let them hurt you guys. If they come back they will have to go through me before they can get to you" I laugh internally trying not to shatter this poor boys world. He's already voiced that he doesn't want to be here, shouldn't have gone on this tour and wants to go home. He then proceeds to talk to me more. I say one or two comments, and then go full play-dead. He shuts up. Some bad, short sleep and it's 6:45. I hear a bus outside start up. Kid has told me he has to get up at 6 something for his bus, I have to pee. I nicely wake him up, tell him the time. He proceeds to get ready and try to carry out a full conversation with me of Goodbye's even though my entrance to the bed was a full on flop. He talks at full voice and packs noisily. He turns goes to turn in his key. While he's gone a knock at the door. Contiki guide comes and asks me "Hey are there two of you from Kiwi staying in here?" yes "And reception put you in here" yes "and you have keys to this room" (clearly)...yes. He leaves. *Flop* Kid returns and says goodbye. I stupidly have already given him my email in the first hour of the night so he explains that he will email me on Dec 11th blah blah blah....my god what have i done. He proceeds upstairs to wake up Adam and say goodbye and hopefully swap emails. This kid has nerve. Adam deflects gracefully. He takes his wheely bag and leaves. Canadian returns and gathers his things silently, I hear him rummaging about the room and getting things. They both leave.
REJOICE!!!! Adam and I are just victoriously gloating that they are finally gone. My god!! Lemme also explain that our bus doesn't leave till 10am so our thought was go to the bar late, get a nice comfy nights sleep in our sweet place, wake up late, get a nice long hot shower, board bus....All completely ruined by these two. So we get about 1.5 hours of glorious uninterrupted sleep before my 2nd alarm (the "o shit" alarm) goes off to tell me the bus is leaving in 15. We gather and throw on clothes. I go to get my bathing suit off closet door handle where it has been drying and it is GONE! I'm like "surely no...no one steals a bathing suit" i look around thinking it has been misplaced. I look in trashcans thinking that he may have angrily thrown it somewhere else. It is nowhere to be found. The fucker STOLE my bathing suit!!!!
Raragh!!!
I proceed to tell this store about 12x over the next day in between glimpses of sleep on bus and on couches. Luckily while sorting the stuff the day before with Kiwi, they actually gave me a refund for that night too.
OMG!!!!
Zorbing was fantastic. Whoever thought it was a great idea to make a human hamster ball with water in it is a certified GENIUS. You try to stand as you are pushed down this zig zag path but it is impossible. Instead you just kinda surf around in a washer machine like fashion in the bottom of this ball. I apparently caught air. I say apparently because in the ball you have no idea which direction is which. I tried to take a video with a waterproof camera inside but failed. Do have a few interesting picture and videos to go with though. Alex and kim didn't want to do it so they went to this funny farm show instead. Lame if you ask me, but apparently it was good.
We continued on where we stopped at this random extreme adventures place where they had a few different things all in one such as bungy, swings, jet boating, simulated skydiving, etc. Didn't do any as I didn't find the appeal. Instead just ate the free sausages they gave us.
When we got to Waitomo we were dropped off immediately at the black water rafting place for the 8 of us that were doing the Abyss tour. It was a great group. We had team Sweden (Axel and Nickolas), Alex(g), Alex(b), Team UK (Josef and Adam) and Sarah. We got geared up which took a while. We wore: bathing suit, wet suit, booties, plastic boots over booties, wet suit jacket, shorts, helmet, harness, and harness accessories. Tad hard to move afterward. The took us to the spot where we practiced the rappel we were going to do and then went into it.
SAAAHHHWEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEET!!!!
Prolly one of the coolest things I have ever done. Period.
We started off with at 34 meter rappel on a sheer rock face after squeezing through a hole. Went down pretty fast too so that was even more fun. I went first on about every element to the trip so it made it more unpredictable and more crazy. Got down to the bottom and waited there with my light off looking up at a few glow worm in the top of this massive cavern. We then did intros and headed to the zip line. The hooked us in, turned out all the lights, and sent me zipping into the darkness with tons of glow worms overhead. Very cool. I was jerked to a halt and there were two huge bangs. Later discovered they were the result of the first guide trying to fuck with me. He didn't succeed. They gave us some hot tea and these really good honey oat bar things for snack and then distributed the tubes for the "rafting" bit. The entrance to the rafting bit was jumping off a 10ft+ cliff into the water below with the tube on your butt, landing on it so as not to break your legs or something awful. Whoooo! The rafting bit was more floating. We just pulled ourselves along on still water using a rope and looking up at the glow worms. Very cool. We discovered how to tow each other by hooking feet into rafts which made more fun chain. We doubled back and redeposited our tubes. From here on it was just trekking by foot. We ventured through the caves for over a kilometer (i think it was 1.5 or so) floating, climbing and exploring. Couple cool parts to go through including tight spaces and a headfirst slide. Later on they stopped and gave us hot tang and chocolate (tasted fantastic even though hot tang sounded weird at first). Past that was climbing up waterfalls (very very very cool, kinda difficult too) and also meeting Cecil the eel that has her own pond. She came right up when the guide summoned her over and just kinda chilled there looking at his finger in the water. I thought she would pounce, but she never did. She must have been at least a few feet long too. Over more waterfalls and out!
Hot showers and soup greeted us back at the base and we purchased a few photos since they were cheap and cool. Chilled out there then headed back to check into the hostel. Again, reception was closed but we got someone to check us in. I got a pretty sweet room with one of the Brits (Adam) that was this two story condo like thing with two beds, bathroom and closet on ground floor and two beds upstairs. I grabbed the free one downstairs, Adam the free one upstairs. Dropped our stuff and headed to the kitchen.
I volunteered to make food for the night since we missed dinner with the others. I prepared the Chicken Fettuccine Alfredo for the 8 of us, delicious! and then we went over to the bar for a while. Californication was on their way to drunkenness with this around the world challenge thing of 12 beers and you get a free mug afterward. We had our nice perch to the side and the rounds began. Later round 2am, Adam and I peaced for bed after escaping Alex(b)'s blockade of the door as we were supposed to stay with him and complete the challenge as well. We get back to our sweet room and one guy is in the bed next to mine gently snoring. We part and head to bed. At this time, Andrew, as I later discovered was his name (but hereafter referred to as "Kid") woke up and began to talk to me and introduce himself. Thus begins the night....
Disclaimer: most of this is on the lines of verbatim and thus uses strong language :D If this offends you or are worried that your son/brother/relative/friend is over abusive. I assure you it was all necessary/useful. (and it adds to the drama of the story)
He talked FOREVER!!!! My god this kid could just chat about anything. I'm face down in bed, eyes closed only talking on occasion to not be completely rude or asshole like figuring he would get the message, apparently not. I discovered he's from Oz in Brisbane off traveling on Contiki tours in NZ then off to Hawaii, he seems young. He's also been working at the Coles (grocery store back home). I'm guessing this kid is like 18-20 years old. Still he's friendly, but clueless.
I finally feign asleep (a skill mom and the sisters perfected in my younger years). He shuts up. Bout that time roomie 2 rocks up loud and drunk. He's Canadian and all about going to this party. He tries to convince Kid to go with him. He also realizes I'm there and goes "who the fuck is that?" I introduce. He also discover Adam is upstairs. This upsets him because "that is [his] bed" We tried to simply explain that there were two beds and he took the empty one as is normal hostel procedure. He's beyond reckoning at this point and just pissed and wanting to party. He leaves in frustration. Kid talks a bit more, i try to sleep. Canadian (his codename) returns about 30 min or so later, just enough to interrupt sleep right before you get there. Carbon copy earlier episode here. This time he tries to convince the other dude strongly to come with him. Kid is now getting afraid of Canadian and "doesn't like him any more" and says that "he's starting to scare me." Canadian leaves. He returns 30 min later, random girl comes in and leaves promptly. He assaults Kid again and is still pissed about his bed, I tell him to leave him the hell alone and go to bed. He has hissy fit over bed again saying that his stuff was up there and on that bed, he can't sleep in that bed, or something redic, Adam even clears off his bed (not kindly, I might add) and this dude still can't handle it. Dude leaves again. Round 4-ding ding ding!
This time Canadian return with two other drunk assholes. He and another proceed upstairs to hassle Adam. Third one remains downstairs to hassle me and Kid. Other asshole comes downstairs and both start into it with me saying that I shouldn't even be there. The start edging closer, getting a tad more aggressive. I tell them to back the fuck off. One even lightly grabbed my arm. They are tyring to egg me on saying "come on, hit me in the balls." What sane minded man would every say this I don't know. I turn over in bed and ignore them. This last all of a minute or two before they gathered renewed vigor and ripped my sheets off. Mother and sisters can attest to the fact that this never sits well with me. It is a personal pet peev and turns me from nice to raging asshole in .3 nanoseconds. Wade gets pissed (like legit pissed). Luckily about a min later Canadian dude came down and diffused the situation a bit. Apparently Adam had laid out the facts a few trickled through his thick skull. He tried to talk to me and explain that if I had told them that we were on Kiwi Exp or something then it would have been OK. He kept talking about shit. I cut him off and told him "hi, i'm on Kiwi, no go the fuck away". This did not sink in. I repeat the idea that I don't want to talk to him and that he needs to leave my bed stat. He eventually takes his pals with and vacates for the night. Kid in the mean time has been hiding under his covers. That's right...hiding under his covers. After this he emerges and tries to make some talk about the situation. The funniest of his statements was along the lines of "I wouldn't of let them hurt you guys. If they come back they will have to go through me before they can get to you" I laugh internally trying not to shatter this poor boys world. He's already voiced that he doesn't want to be here, shouldn't have gone on this tour and wants to go home. He then proceeds to talk to me more. I say one or two comments, and then go full play-dead. He shuts up. Some bad, short sleep and it's 6:45. I hear a bus outside start up. Kid has told me he has to get up at 6 something for his bus, I have to pee. I nicely wake him up, tell him the time. He proceeds to get ready and try to carry out a full conversation with me of Goodbye's even though my entrance to the bed was a full on flop. He talks at full voice and packs noisily. He turns goes to turn in his key. While he's gone a knock at the door. Contiki guide comes and asks me "Hey are there two of you from Kiwi staying in here?" yes "And reception put you in here" yes "and you have keys to this room" (clearly)...yes. He leaves. *Flop* Kid returns and says goodbye. I stupidly have already given him my email in the first hour of the night so he explains that he will email me on Dec 11th blah blah blah....my god what have i done. He proceeds upstairs to wake up Adam and say goodbye and hopefully swap emails. This kid has nerve. Adam deflects gracefully. He takes his wheely bag and leaves. Canadian returns and gathers his things silently, I hear him rummaging about the room and getting things. They both leave.
REJOICE!!!! Adam and I are just victoriously gloating that they are finally gone. My god!! Lemme also explain that our bus doesn't leave till 10am so our thought was go to the bar late, get a nice comfy nights sleep in our sweet place, wake up late, get a nice long hot shower, board bus....All completely ruined by these two. So we get about 1.5 hours of glorious uninterrupted sleep before my 2nd alarm (the "o shit" alarm) goes off to tell me the bus is leaving in 15. We gather and throw on clothes. I go to get my bathing suit off closet door handle where it has been drying and it is GONE! I'm like "surely no...no one steals a bathing suit" i look around thinking it has been misplaced. I look in trashcans thinking that he may have angrily thrown it somewhere else. It is nowhere to be found. The fucker STOLE my bathing suit!!!!
Raragh!!!
I proceed to tell this store about 12x over the next day in between glimpses of sleep on bus and on couches. Luckily while sorting the stuff the day before with Kiwi, they actually gave me a refund for that night too.
Wade gets abandoned at a BP station
Today we headed to Rotorua, one of my more optimistic stops with Zorbing, etc. But, as the story unfolds, was somewhat of a catastrophic failure. The day started off well. We stopped at this town called Matamata. It's the place where all of Hobbiton was filmed in the Lord of the Rings, and they kinda exploit that as a tourist attraction. They have a statue of Gollum on the main drag of this town, for example. Apparently when Peter Jackson was looking for a place to film it, he was flying over in a helicopter with little hope left then finally saw the place. They landed on this man's farm and knocked on his door. He told them to go away because Rugby was on. So they flew into town, grabbed a case of beer and flew back and asked the man if they could join him. Post game gave him the proposal and changed his reluctance with a nice figure on a piece of paper.
We headed on to Rotorua where we stopped at a cultural center. Here we gota cool little presentation, some native food and a quiz at the end of it all where they were giving out little Maori necklaces (kinda touristy but nice, not plastic). I actually got the last one right, so I now have cool spirally bone necklace. (don't judge, and try not to be jealous) We signed up for the cultural dinner for that night were they take you out give you food cooked on hot rocks in the earth and teach you the Haka, sweet! We dropped most of the people off at the Base hostel there (alex, kim and I decided to stay somewhere else) and I went directly from that bus to the bus taking us SLEDGING! (alex and kim took care of my backpack for me)
Sledging was cool. What is is basically going down white water with a glorified boogey board and short fins to propell yourself. Tiring, but fun. Had to do rolls, swim upstream to get where you wanted to go, and other cool maneuvers. The river was pretty cool with nice forrested cliff on each side. The cooler part was "surfing" where basically you paddled into the plunging part of a rapid where the recirculation was as well and basically kick and stay in that spot right on the falls. Very cool. Short trip though. So we headed back got out of those &^#*$ wet suits, played a little volleyball while waiting and headed back to the hostels. The story begins here....
Me and two other girls are signed up for the culutral dinner that night as well. The bus leaves at 7 from where we are supposed to catch it, it's already close to 7. The bus driver of the sledging takes us three to a BP station where the dinner bus is supposed to pick us up on it's way out. Now let me do some intros. The two other girls are from California, more specifically Orange county. They are the DEFINITION of OC. Completely brainless. They shall be collectively known as Californication for the rest of my travels (1 and 2 for distinction of individuals). For an example of the stupidity when I introduced myself to them and they asked which state I was from and I said the Carolinas, Californication 1 responded with (paraphrased) "oh cool, i don't really know where those are but yeah" ......................................WHAT?! SERIOUSLY?! maybe Miss Teen SC shoulda been from the OC. So here I am at this BP with these two bimbos (who, as seen from the music in the van, dance like a chickens on LSD after being severely electrocuted). 20 mins pass and I'm starting to think that with 10 min until the dinner starts, we are shit outta luck. I go and ask the BP workers if I can use their phone to call Kiwi since 1) my phone has no credit and no way of recharging it remotely in NZ and 2) Kiwi is the only number I have. Kala, as I've gotten to know her, answers and I explain our situation. She is pretty helpful and makes a few phone calls around and figures out that the bus waited as long as it could at the BP before leaving. So she tries to sort it out saying she's gonna call a cab for us. 10 min later she calls back and reaffirms some of this and says that she's gonna call the cab THEN when we though she had already called. She also informs us that we are going to have to pay for it and get reimbursed ...fine. I inform Californication and #1 is fairly composed about it. #2 goes TOTAL drama queen. We get a cab and this cool Maori woman is talking to us. We get into our current situation and cabbie actually knows a lot about the dinner thing and said that they used to just pay for cabs out there for people, apparently not anymore. Californication 2 decides to unpolitely take out her rage on the cabbie with the valley girl descirption/attutude on what happened..."like we've been sitting outside in the cold and rain for like an hour, and like they could have done something, like god, like we've been sitting outside cold and wet, and like it's cold...like and cold hour like like like...." Rargh!!! Wade KILL stupid girl!!! I maintain composure and try to dampen the conversation. We drop them off at the base and she takes me to my hostel. All the way we make fun of Californication 2 and identify her crazy attitude problem.
I arrive, home sweet home....wait, no...reception is closed and I haven't checked in. I knock on a random window and a girl comes to the door. I ask if reception is closed or if anyone who works there is around...bad news. So I'm homeless, still in a bathing suit smelling like wet suit and river, with only my day pack and no means of communication. So I make out for the Base hostel. I know generally where it is. I figured I can call Kiwi from there and get them to call Rich. What should have been a short 4 block walk was a 30 min wondering in the cold. I stop once for directions...not in english and incorrect...i stop again 10 min later at a hotel. Sweet, i know where I'm going. I head that way stopping at a random Japanese place that has something about terriaki chicken to go on a board outside. starving...i go "ug...that...now". Don't eat it as a place to stay is slightly more important. When I arrive...reception is closed, so I have to go to the bar next door to ask about hostel question. I get stopped by the security guy basically looking at me like I'm crazy trying to get into a bar with a swimsuit, sandals and a backpack. I tell him I need help. I get the phone from the bar. Kiwi is now closed! Joy! Bartender knows that the dinner bus gets back at 10:30, that's only oo....1 hr from now. Fine, I camp outside waiting shovel my food in and grab a beer to chill. I found a lot of others I knew from the bus and told them my wonderful story, even though I smell like shit right now. Time goes on, bus eventually comes back. I pounce on Rich and get him to call Kim. I coordinate with Kim to watch for me to get there and I finally return home. Get there take a REALLY hot LOOONG shower. Toasty and full I feel much better. We then find that this hostel doesn't provide sheets or a duvet. Sweet, top of the night with some cold sleeping. I was actually fine till about 6am where i just tossed my towel on top of me.
My luck runneth thin....
As an addendum, I did eventually get a refund for the dinner and the cab ride...well I'm still waiting on it, and it currently looks like the dinner is charging me twice..but we'll see.
We headed on to Rotorua where we stopped at a cultural center. Here we gota cool little presentation, some native food and a quiz at the end of it all where they were giving out little Maori necklaces (kinda touristy but nice, not plastic). I actually got the last one right, so I now have cool spirally bone necklace. (don't judge, and try not to be jealous) We signed up for the cultural dinner for that night were they take you out give you food cooked on hot rocks in the earth and teach you the Haka, sweet! We dropped most of the people off at the Base hostel there (alex, kim and I decided to stay somewhere else) and I went directly from that bus to the bus taking us SLEDGING! (alex and kim took care of my backpack for me)
Sledging was cool. What is is basically going down white water with a glorified boogey board and short fins to propell yourself. Tiring, but fun. Had to do rolls, swim upstream to get where you wanted to go, and other cool maneuvers. The river was pretty cool with nice forrested cliff on each side. The cooler part was "surfing" where basically you paddled into the plunging part of a rapid where the recirculation was as well and basically kick and stay in that spot right on the falls. Very cool. Short trip though. So we headed back got out of those &^#*$ wet suits, played a little volleyball while waiting and headed back to the hostels. The story begins here....
Me and two other girls are signed up for the culutral dinner that night as well. The bus leaves at 7 from where we are supposed to catch it, it's already close to 7. The bus driver of the sledging takes us three to a BP station where the dinner bus is supposed to pick us up on it's way out. Now let me do some intros. The two other girls are from California, more specifically Orange county. They are the DEFINITION of OC. Completely brainless. They shall be collectively known as Californication for the rest of my travels (1 and 2 for distinction of individuals). For an example of the stupidity when I introduced myself to them and they asked which state I was from and I said the Carolinas, Californication 1 responded with (paraphrased) "oh cool, i don't really know where those are but yeah" ......................................WHAT?! SERIOUSLY?! maybe Miss Teen SC shoulda been from the OC. So here I am at this BP with these two bimbos (who, as seen from the music in the van, dance like a chickens on LSD after being severely electrocuted). 20 mins pass and I'm starting to think that with 10 min until the dinner starts, we are shit outta luck. I go and ask the BP workers if I can use their phone to call Kiwi since 1) my phone has no credit and no way of recharging it remotely in NZ and 2) Kiwi is the only number I have. Kala, as I've gotten to know her, answers and I explain our situation. She is pretty helpful and makes a few phone calls around and figures out that the bus waited as long as it could at the BP before leaving. So she tries to sort it out saying she's gonna call a cab for us. 10 min later she calls back and reaffirms some of this and says that she's gonna call the cab THEN when we though she had already called. She also informs us that we are going to have to pay for it and get reimbursed ...fine. I inform Californication and #1 is fairly composed about it. #2 goes TOTAL drama queen. We get a cab and this cool Maori woman is talking to us. We get into our current situation and cabbie actually knows a lot about the dinner thing and said that they used to just pay for cabs out there for people, apparently not anymore. Californication 2 decides to unpolitely take out her rage on the cabbie with the valley girl descirption/attutude on what happened..."like we've been sitting outside in the cold and rain for like an hour, and like they could have done something, like god, like we've been sitting outside cold and wet, and like it's cold...like and cold hour like like like...." Rargh!!! Wade KILL stupid girl!!! I maintain composure and try to dampen the conversation. We drop them off at the base and she takes me to my hostel. All the way we make fun of Californication 2 and identify her crazy attitude problem.
I arrive, home sweet home....wait, no...reception is closed and I haven't checked in. I knock on a random window and a girl comes to the door. I ask if reception is closed or if anyone who works there is around...bad news. So I'm homeless, still in a bathing suit smelling like wet suit and river, with only my day pack and no means of communication. So I make out for the Base hostel. I know generally where it is. I figured I can call Kiwi from there and get them to call Rich. What should have been a short 4 block walk was a 30 min wondering in the cold. I stop once for directions...not in english and incorrect...i stop again 10 min later at a hotel. Sweet, i know where I'm going. I head that way stopping at a random Japanese place that has something about terriaki chicken to go on a board outside. starving...i go "ug...that...now". Don't eat it as a place to stay is slightly more important. When I arrive...reception is closed, so I have to go to the bar next door to ask about hostel question. I get stopped by the security guy basically looking at me like I'm crazy trying to get into a bar with a swimsuit, sandals and a backpack. I tell him I need help. I get the phone from the bar. Kiwi is now closed! Joy! Bartender knows that the dinner bus gets back at 10:30, that's only oo....1 hr from now. Fine, I camp outside waiting shovel my food in and grab a beer to chill. I found a lot of others I knew from the bus and told them my wonderful story, even though I smell like shit right now. Time goes on, bus eventually comes back. I pounce on Rich and get him to call Kim. I coordinate with Kim to watch for me to get there and I finally return home. Get there take a REALLY hot LOOONG shower. Toasty and full I feel much better. We then find that this hostel doesn't provide sheets or a duvet. Sweet, top of the night with some cold sleeping. I was actually fine till about 6am where i just tossed my towel on top of me.
My luck runneth thin....
As an addendum, I did eventually get a refund for the dinner and the cab ride...well I'm still waiting on it, and it currently looks like the dinner is charging me twice..but we'll see.
Wade sleeps in a comfy bed
Today we left for Mercury bay from Auckland and got a new Driver. Meet Rich, the brand spankin' new driver on his maiden voyage south. This was the definition of rough start. So I started the day very slightly hung over and it was magnified 10 fold by this. The music he played was too loud, the bus was too hot, the mic when it eventually worked had a LOT of feedback, the roads he took were curvy with many stops and starts. He spent an extra 30 min or so doing loops trying to figure out where the Kiwi office was. Even when my hangover did go away I was still feeling ill. Joy! (He got much better down the road though). When we did get to the office, we got everyone sorted, I got some much needed water and food.
We eventually got on the road on the way to Mercury bay. We stopped at this place that had an interesting hike over these hills to these really nice secluded beaches with lots of cool cliffs and rocks and a few waterfalls. Very scenic pictures. Cold water though. Not too much to say, the pictures are really where it's at.
We stopped at another spot slightly down the road that was a hike along this beautiful river on the cliff face that was where a lot of mining used to be done. We followed the old mining tracks through the mountain, posed in a mining car, and saw the foundation of where these large mining facilities were. We also had about 30 people on a swing bridge that said max of 10 ppl....and they were jumping...brilliant!
When we finally got to Mercury bay. Alex and Kim and I went to the grocery store to restock then headed to a nice Indian restaurant for dinner. Everyone stayed back and had food at the hostel there. We came back and joined them in a few card games. Learned how to play a game called shithead (similar to asshole in some of the dynamics). Early bed...REALLY REALLY comfy bed. The next morning it was incredibly difficult to get up as the bed was just that comfy, even though the room was like a shed with 2 bunk beds in it.
We eventually got on the road on the way to Mercury bay. We stopped at this place that had an interesting hike over these hills to these really nice secluded beaches with lots of cool cliffs and rocks and a few waterfalls. Very scenic pictures. Cold water though. Not too much to say, the pictures are really where it's at.
We stopped at another spot slightly down the road that was a hike along this beautiful river on the cliff face that was where a lot of mining used to be done. We followed the old mining tracks through the mountain, posed in a mining car, and saw the foundation of where these large mining facilities were. We also had about 30 people on a swing bridge that said max of 10 ppl....and they were jumping...brilliant!
When we finally got to Mercury bay. Alex and Kim and I went to the grocery store to restock then headed to a nice Indian restaurant for dinner. Everyone stayed back and had food at the hostel there. We came back and joined them in a few card games. Learned how to play a game called shithead (similar to asshole in some of the dynamics). Early bed...REALLY REALLY comfy bed. The next morning it was incredibly difficult to get up as the bed was just that comfy, even though the room was like a shed with 2 bunk beds in it.
Wade harvests his own food and gets a cowboy hat
Early morning after the bar. The some of the girls and I decided to go on this cannoing trip called Te Waka this morning. The girls, as they have become regulars are Sarah and Alex(g) (the g is for girl. there is a girl alex, boy alex and my alex...so i'll use g, b, and m to distinguish if in same situation). There were a few others, I think their names are Bambi and Laruen(?) totally wrong on those I'm sure...anyway...
So Te Waka was this trip where we went out on this large cannoe with an outrigger on the water in the Bay of Islands with this big Maori guy named Nick. I got front and was then the pace setter. Was pretty easy paddling with 6. We headed out to this one set of rocks where Sarah and I jumped out with a bucket, swam through the cold water over to them, and hand picked mussles off of the rocks. Kinda hard hanging there with the waves just pushing you around. Fell off a couple times and had a few small cuts, nothing that really mattered. From there we took our harvests over to a small perfect tiny beach. Nick set up a stove and started to cook them up for us while we set off exploring, sitting, and taking pictures. Pretty cool bunch. We had mussles on the half shell compliments of Nick. Very good. Little longer and we packed up and went to other islands. Nick sang a little bit, a few cool Maori songs. Also did a little info/cultural/personal stories about the area. Eg. there are 144 islands in that area, Russell was the first place where Europeans settled (russell was the town across the bay that has the oldest pub, post, bar, hotel, etc. in all of NZ) also used to be a hell hole full of prostitution etc. as that's where sailors went after long voyages. Apparently Nick and his cousin/brothers used to also take these wakas (cannoes) out when they were kids and do the trip we were doing. Fun. Moving along. We did a couple small walks on islands to really cool lookoutpoints with pictures, of course.
When we got back, most of the girls were hungry. I ate the lunch i prepared and headed with them to the cafe next to our hostel. THIS was the perfect end to this day. As we sat there in the semi-shade, there were 3-4 guys with guitars just sitting there having there own little jam session playing songs. They started to play a few others and got some of the local girls they knew to sing the songs instead of themselves. There were two girls that sang, the second had an AMAZING VOICE. the frist girl did give an amazing rendition of sweet home alabama, to give her some credit. It was just nice having some relax time with good music.
The bus left at 3 to go back to Auckland. Seemed like a much longer ride with only one stop. Dan the driver decided to put on a movie at one point and apparently there was a documentary about John Paul II in the player so he put that on for an inordinately long time (long enough for the "seriously?!" to wear off and to get settled into it) then he put on disc 2 of finding nemo which is useless, took that out and put on some NZ movie, the plot being about some stunt driver. Midly eneteraining movie, just annoying because the movie would skip about 10-20 mins occasionally with no filling in of the gaps. This often followed the sequence of drama leading to stunt, prep for stunt........gap.......person dead or disfigured at end of stunt. Fun!
Back in Auckland we check into the Base hostel again. Alex(b) and I grabbed a room together and met Team Canada (married couple named Melissa and Brandan) downstairs, grabbed some food and headed to the bar next to Base (there's always one attached). There was to be $1000 free tab for as long as it lasted...it was gone before we got there. So we had two beers there and decided to make this night a bar hoping night. We headed down to the harbor to some random Irish pub that had a live band on. Good music. I love the fact that Oz and NZ are stuck in the 80's and 90's. It guarantees good music or music you haven't heard in a while but enjoy. I will walk 500 miles is always on everywhere, also recently heard Brimful of Asha again...forgot that song. Anywho...2 beers there, Melissa spotted her roomie from back in College in Canada there with another girl celebrating other girl's b-day. Lemme underline that for you. She spotted a girl she knew really well and hadn't seen in YEARS halfway around the world. (singing) it's a small world afterall!
They join our escapade and we proceed to many more bars. One I got told to leave because I had on sandals, but they didn't really enforce it so we just finished our 1 beer and left. We tried to go next door but that was a fancier place that required collars...who wants to go there anyway?! Then we found the gold mine. Some random bar that had cowboy hats! Yeah, they had hats they were just letting people wear in the bar. We grabbed them, fitted them, grabbed a beer and chilled. That was until 1) Melissa thought it was a good idea to have Jager bombs and 2) there were random girls who were kissing us. Um, it's a shameful story that will be revealed on a nagged basis. There are pics, but they will not be posted. We did manage, however, to steal the cowboy hats with the cunning use of Melissa's jacket! so we wore them the rest of the night
More bars, interesting rejections, a fun walk home with me impersonating Alex(b) and other's English accents badly.
So Te Waka was this trip where we went out on this large cannoe with an outrigger on the water in the Bay of Islands with this big Maori guy named Nick. I got front and was then the pace setter. Was pretty easy paddling with 6. We headed out to this one set of rocks where Sarah and I jumped out with a bucket, swam through the cold water over to them, and hand picked mussles off of the rocks. Kinda hard hanging there with the waves just pushing you around. Fell off a couple times and had a few small cuts, nothing that really mattered. From there we took our harvests over to a small perfect tiny beach. Nick set up a stove and started to cook them up for us while we set off exploring, sitting, and taking pictures. Pretty cool bunch. We had mussles on the half shell compliments of Nick. Very good. Little longer and we packed up and went to other islands. Nick sang a little bit, a few cool Maori songs. Also did a little info/cultural/personal stories about the area. Eg. there are 144 islands in that area, Russell was the first place where Europeans settled (russell was the town across the bay that has the oldest pub, post, bar, hotel, etc. in all of NZ) also used to be a hell hole full of prostitution etc. as that's where sailors went after long voyages. Apparently Nick and his cousin/brothers used to also take these wakas (cannoes) out when they were kids and do the trip we were doing. Fun. Moving along. We did a couple small walks on islands to really cool lookoutpoints with pictures, of course.
When we got back, most of the girls were hungry. I ate the lunch i prepared and headed with them to the cafe next to our hostel. THIS was the perfect end to this day. As we sat there in the semi-shade, there were 3-4 guys with guitars just sitting there having there own little jam session playing songs. They started to play a few others and got some of the local girls they knew to sing the songs instead of themselves. There were two girls that sang, the second had an AMAZING VOICE. the frist girl did give an amazing rendition of sweet home alabama, to give her some credit. It was just nice having some relax time with good music.
The bus left at 3 to go back to Auckland. Seemed like a much longer ride with only one stop. Dan the driver decided to put on a movie at one point and apparently there was a documentary about John Paul II in the player so he put that on for an inordinately long time (long enough for the "seriously?!" to wear off and to get settled into it) then he put on disc 2 of finding nemo which is useless, took that out and put on some NZ movie, the plot being about some stunt driver. Midly eneteraining movie, just annoying because the movie would skip about 10-20 mins occasionally with no filling in of the gaps. This often followed the sequence of drama leading to stunt, prep for stunt........gap.......person dead or disfigured at end of stunt. Fun!
Back in Auckland we check into the Base hostel again. Alex(b) and I grabbed a room together and met Team Canada (married couple named Melissa and Brandan) downstairs, grabbed some food and headed to the bar next to Base (there's always one attached). There was to be $1000 free tab for as long as it lasted...it was gone before we got there. So we had two beers there and decided to make this night a bar hoping night. We headed down to the harbor to some random Irish pub that had a live band on. Good music. I love the fact that Oz and NZ are stuck in the 80's and 90's. It guarantees good music or music you haven't heard in a while but enjoy. I will walk 500 miles is always on everywhere, also recently heard Brimful of Asha again...forgot that song. Anywho...2 beers there, Melissa spotted her roomie from back in College in Canada there with another girl celebrating other girl's b-day. Lemme underline that for you. She spotted a girl she knew really well and hadn't seen in YEARS halfway around the world. (singing) it's a small world afterall!
They join our escapade and we proceed to many more bars. One I got told to leave because I had on sandals, but they didn't really enforce it so we just finished our 1 beer and left. We tried to go next door but that was a fancier place that required collars...who wants to go there anyway?! Then we found the gold mine. Some random bar that had cowboy hats! Yeah, they had hats they were just letting people wear in the bar. We grabbed them, fitted them, grabbed a beer and chilled. That was until 1) Melissa thought it was a good idea to have Jager bombs and 2) there were random girls who were kissing us. Um, it's a shameful story that will be revealed on a nagged basis. There are pics, but they will not be posted. We did manage, however, to steal the cowboy hats with the cunning use of Melissa's jacket! so we wore them the rest of the night
More bars, interesting rejections, a fun walk home with me impersonating Alex(b) and other's English accents badly.
Wade gets harrased by Kiwis
So the next morning we wake up and get on a bus at like 7am. Our driver is crazy. Certifiably crazy. He enjoys randomness, lude jokes, and odd humor. My kinda guy. Some of the jokes he decided to tell over the intercom were ones like "what did cinerella say when she got to the ball"...yeeeah. Cool guy though. pretty laid back. We made our way up north with a few stops including a place that had honey tastings. Random.
Pahia was beautiful. Lot of cool island with nice hillsides and mountainous terrain but with nice grass slopes and such. When we got there we signed up for a few activities and did a small walk around the tiny town. Walked with this young 18yr old Scottish dude that was on his gap year touring. Cool kid. We went on this high powered boat called the Excitor to this cool rock formation doing like 40 knots. The final destination was "the hole in the rock" creatively named because there is a large hole in a rock (actually 2 of them). Sped out there getting rocked a bit, went through it, came back. Exciting...kinda. We then headed on toward our hostel call the Pi Pi Patch (horrible name I know). Got our stuff settled and went down stairs for the bbq they were having and beers to follow. Got to know a couple Swedish guys and a couple brits and canadians a bit better as the beer flowed and rounds continued. The most interesting part was when me and the scotsman were just sitting at a table by ourselves because everyone else has trickled off at this point and 6 kiwis sit down.
These guys are like the loud obnoxious bar type. They do the loud, obnoxious, annoying chat to strange other guys at table with them thing for a while. They left eventually after some time but came back later only to join back in the conversation with strangeness. It's hard to capture them in words. There are pictures of them. One with the ring-leader and the scotsman says it all.
Pahia was beautiful. Lot of cool island with nice hillsides and mountainous terrain but with nice grass slopes and such. When we got there we signed up for a few activities and did a small walk around the tiny town. Walked with this young 18yr old Scottish dude that was on his gap year touring. Cool kid. We went on this high powered boat called the Excitor to this cool rock formation doing like 40 knots. The final destination was "the hole in the rock" creatively named because there is a large hole in a rock (actually 2 of them). Sped out there getting rocked a bit, went through it, came back. Exciting...kinda. We then headed on toward our hostel call the Pi Pi Patch (horrible name I know). Got our stuff settled and went down stairs for the bbq they were having and beers to follow. Got to know a couple Swedish guys and a couple brits and canadians a bit better as the beer flowed and rounds continued. The most interesting part was when me and the scotsman were just sitting at a table by ourselves because everyone else has trickled off at this point and 6 kiwis sit down.
These guys are like the loud obnoxious bar type. They do the loud, obnoxious, annoying chat to strange other guys at table with them thing for a while. They left eventually after some time but came back later only to join back in the conversation with strangeness. It's hard to capture them in words. There are pictures of them. One with the ring-leader and the scotsman says it all.
Wade is stared down by Thai women
Slept in a bit in the morning but decided to go and explore Auckland. Didn't really know what to do so I asked the reception ladies and they suggested going to one of the two islands in the harbor. There was the suggestion of going to one of the islands called Waiheke (kinda like Waikiki, but HEke) and doing a wine olive tour. Headed down to the ferries and grab some b-fast. The ferry was cool but the weather was kinda chilli and overcast. It was about a 30 min ride over and pretty nice surroundings. Nice to be on the water. We boarded this bus driven by one of the leftover hippies from the island and he took us on our wonderful tour.
The tour wasn't nearly as good as the one in Hunter Valley as it was only like two or three wines per place but they took us on a more walking tour of their vineyard which was cool. One called the Mudbrick had a really great lookout over the island. We also stopped at an olive oil place for a while. They showed us how they make the oil, let us taste some and then just let us explore their grounds.
Tour was fun, and took up the afternoon. I headed back and just walked around. Went to the Skytower but didn't go up as I've been in enough of those to last me a while. Decided to go to a Thai restaurant for dinner and made the mistake of doing sit down.
These ladies who ran the place were prolly fresh off the boat. Also sat me in a corner not facing a window only them. They proceed to basically stare me down or keep check on me. I try to make any sort of means of avoiding their stare, but there's only so much to look at as there is only one other couple in the restaurant. Awkward time passes and food comes. My water never reached below the inch mark. I never was able to finish my rice as they kept giving me more. I almost wanted to tip them to kinda back off or something, lol. But it was good. Called it an early night
The tour wasn't nearly as good as the one in Hunter Valley as it was only like two or three wines per place but they took us on a more walking tour of their vineyard which was cool. One called the Mudbrick had a really great lookout over the island. We also stopped at an olive oil place for a while. They showed us how they make the oil, let us taste some and then just let us explore their grounds.
Tour was fun, and took up the afternoon. I headed back and just walked around. Went to the Skytower but didn't go up as I've been in enough of those to last me a while. Decided to go to a Thai restaurant for dinner and made the mistake of doing sit down.
These ladies who ran the place were prolly fresh off the boat. Also sat me in a corner not facing a window only them. They proceed to basically stare me down or keep check on me. I try to make any sort of means of avoiding their stare, but there's only so much to look at as there is only one other couple in the restaurant. Awkward time passes and food comes. My water never reached below the inch mark. I never was able to finish my rice as they kept giving me more. I almost wanted to tip them to kinda back off or something, lol. But it was good. Called it an early night
Wade Goes to NZ
The day has arrived for Wade to go to New Zealand. Woke up and packed my stuff at Alex's place (promptly forgot my shoes as they informed me as I was in a cab heading to Coogee). Went to Coogee and helped Marlis move her and my stuff from her place to Alfreda. Was quite a bit of shit as she was storing my stuff her stuff and a bunch of other stuff she has accumulated from others. Wound up just ordering two cabs to move it all. So then I caught my cab to the airport round 4pm or so.
Got to the airport to stand in a large queue for check-in. When it opened and i got to the front...fun began. The lady asked me for my name and I gave it to her with my passport. She then asks me for my visa. I told her that it's electronic and attached to my passport. She says she needs a printout. I panic slightly, but we move on to point two...the return flight. "Do you have your return flight ticket" "not on me. can you look it up? I think it's with you" "not with us." shit...
I promptly start making a few phone calls to get people to check online for me which it is. Turns out it was jetstar so I head down to to that counter to get a printout. Also realized that Mom so conveniently tucked a copy of my visa in my passport holder. Again, mom knows what's she doing. Went back to counter. Finally got cleared after woman punched in a small novel into the computer. On to Customs!!!
Cleared that fairly quickly, then passed up duty free for the plane. Didn't have much time anymore before flight.
Sat next to this really interesting girl on the flight. She was from the US as I saw her passport as she was sitting down. Struck up a conversation. She currently lives in the OC and hates everything about it, although her alternative where her mother lives is Utah...not much better. She was really into swing dancing and was just coming back from some sort of swing thing in Sydney. Currently she's working as a live in nanny in Auckland so free accommodation and food for a chance to live in NZ. Pretty sweet deal. The conversation really began to pick up upon the conversation switching to movies. We truly connected on the realm of shitty movies. Conversation starter: her, "although i have to say my all time favorite shitty movies are the Tomb Raiders"......YES!!! Conversation follows about litany of movie collections and debates on shittiness or epicness of movies. Good convo overall.
We both wind up being on the same shuttle into the city. Auckland is officially suburbia on crack. It's just endless expanses of suburbia. I got to my hostel around 2am check in and did the whole quietly sneak into hostel room with 7 others sleeping to find that the only bed left is the top bunk and that there's no room on the ground for your stuff. Whatever, i passed out.
Got to the airport to stand in a large queue for check-in. When it opened and i got to the front...fun began. The lady asked me for my name and I gave it to her with my passport. She then asks me for my visa. I told her that it's electronic and attached to my passport. She says she needs a printout. I panic slightly, but we move on to point two...the return flight. "Do you have your return flight ticket" "not on me. can you look it up? I think it's with you" "not with us." shit...
I promptly start making a few phone calls to get people to check online for me which it is. Turns out it was jetstar so I head down to to that counter to get a printout. Also realized that Mom so conveniently tucked a copy of my visa in my passport holder. Again, mom knows what's she doing. Went back to counter. Finally got cleared after woman punched in a small novel into the computer. On to Customs!!!
Cleared that fairly quickly, then passed up duty free for the plane. Didn't have much time anymore before flight.
Sat next to this really interesting girl on the flight. She was from the US as I saw her passport as she was sitting down. Struck up a conversation. She currently lives in the OC and hates everything about it, although her alternative where her mother lives is Utah...not much better. She was really into swing dancing and was just coming back from some sort of swing thing in Sydney. Currently she's working as a live in nanny in Auckland so free accommodation and food for a chance to live in NZ. Pretty sweet deal. The conversation really began to pick up upon the conversation switching to movies. We truly connected on the realm of shitty movies. Conversation starter: her, "although i have to say my all time favorite shitty movies are the Tomb Raiders"......YES!!! Conversation follows about litany of movie collections and debates on shittiness or epicness of movies. Good convo overall.
We both wind up being on the same shuttle into the city. Auckland is officially suburbia on crack. It's just endless expanses of suburbia. I got to my hostel around 2am check in and did the whole quietly sneak into hostel room with 7 others sleeping to find that the only bed left is the top bunk and that there's no room on the ground for your stuff. Whatever, i passed out.
Sunday, November 2, 2008
Falls!
Today was another early start. 5am, but well worth it. We got up, packed and got into bathing suits for the day. Easy for me as I just slept in mine from the night before. Too damn hot to put on anything else. We fed and hoped in the truck to go to Twin Falls and Jim Jim Falls. We stopped at a bathroom spot before heading into the area with the falls and I switched to the front seat. Why? Because this was the 4WD portion. My god! It was like a 45min long roller coaster. There were bumps, insane turns, rocks, trenches, sand and everything. Puts southern mudding to shame, and could be a roller coaster ride if it just had one loop-de-loop. We headed to Twin Falls first hiking through some crazy rocks to get there after taking a short little ferry. The rocks opened up to this beautiful white beach at the plunge pool for what would have been the falls. But, being the dry season, the falls was only a small trickle. Speaking of trickle, by this point we had a large flow of sweat just rolling off our bodies. My god. Charleston has nothing on this combination of heat and humidity. It was stiffling. It was nice to get up early because we were the first group to Twin Falls so we got a few minutes to ourselves.
We walked back and 4WD more over to Jim Jim Falls. Here the rocks were bigger. It was 900 meters to the falls with the last 300 beging one big rock sramble. It was kinda crazy, but fun. After the long walk there and nearly being soaked from sweat, we were greeted by the massive plunge pool of the falls where we went swimming. Let me discribe this place. Imagine one big horseshoe of a
The one big problem with the weekend was not the heat but the FLIES. OMG!!! Picture (i know this is awful) but like ethiopian kids in comercials that have like 5 flys on their face. Yeah...worse. They were everywhere and on everything and constantly swarming your head. It was rediculous. Half of the energy you spent walk was just swatting.
(more to come later. Have to finish the outback trip posting...for now moving to NZ)
We walked back and 4WD more over to Jim Jim Falls. Here the rocks were bigger. It was 900 meters to the falls with the last 300 beging one big rock sramble. It was kinda crazy, but fun. After the long walk there and nearly being soaked from sweat, we were greeted by the massive plunge pool of the falls where we went swimming. Let me discribe this place. Imagine one big horseshoe of a
The one big problem with the weekend was not the heat but the FLIES. OMG!!! Picture (i know this is awful) but like ethiopian kids in comercials that have like 5 flys on their face. Yeah...worse. They were everywhere and on everything and constantly swarming your head. It was rediculous. Half of the energy you spent walk was just swatting.
(more to come later. Have to finish the outback trip posting...for now moving to NZ)
Kakadu
We woke up and grab some quick showers before heading across the street to where we were supposed to meet the tour group at 6:00am. We seemed to be the only ones that brought all our stuff but it seemed that most people had stored their long-term stuff elsewhere. Our guide Leah was pretty eccentric, funny but crazy...maybe it was the heat. We got into this crazy looking bus van thing and drove...and drove...and stopped in the middle of nowhere...and drove. Rinse wash repeat. Before we got to Kakadu we went on a boat tour around this billabong (typically a river in the wet season, but right now it's all segmented). Saw crocks, cool birds, wallabies, etc. Learned a lot of cool stuff about the land, flora, fauna. Really weird thing we saw along the drive was that most of the forest seemed to have char marks. Apparently the aboriginal people burn the country which helps to keep everything clear, and generally improves the land. Not entirely sure of all the specifics, but lots of cool examples on how it works and how the local wildlife has adapted to it. Also there are HUGE termite mounds everywhere. Stuff about how they help the land, dont hurt trees, make digeridos, grow 1 meter per 10 years, etc.
We got to Kakadu and and drove some more. We went to the visitor center first and watched part of a movie and wondered around. We eventually went to go see some of the rock art and climb up to the top of this lookout. The rock art was cool because of the history behind it. That and our guide told us a lot about the stories and history behind each of the places we saw the art. The lookout was spectacular. Pictures will be posted when I get a chance.
After that we pakced up and headed to our camp. Not much there besides getting settled and getting some food. Pasta! After dinner the girls and I decided to go for a dip as a sort of cleaning off of all the sweat. The campground we stayed at had a pool beside the bar. It was great to just float in the cool water and look up at the stars. Beautiful but I'm expecting better down in Uluru. Sleep...
We got to Kakadu and and drove some more. We went to the visitor center first and watched part of a movie and wondered around. We eventually went to go see some of the rock art and climb up to the top of this lookout. The rock art was cool because of the history behind it. That and our guide told us a lot about the stories and history behind each of the places we saw the art. The lookout was spectacular. Pictures will be posted when I get a chance.
After that we pakced up and headed to our camp. Not much there besides getting settled and getting some food. Pasta! After dinner the girls and I decided to go for a dip as a sort of cleaning off of all the sweat. The campground we stayed at had a pool beside the bar. It was great to just float in the cool water and look up at the stars. Beautiful but I'm expecting better down in Uluru. Sleep...
To Darwin!
So I woke up to call Mike and a few others before heading on a plane ride out to Darwin. Took a while to catch a cab in Coogee but wound up getting a really interesting cabby...very opinionated. Due to a random question about what was on the radio we wound up breaking into a full on discussion of politics and the state of the world. It was interesting and he even wound up giving me a few authors to read. Flight was delayed, as seems to be our luck with JetStar, so I called Sarah to see what her Halloween plans were.
Plane ride was long. Lasted longer than my sleeping desire, which is impressive. The clouds we went through in the last hour were pretty spectacular. Shoulda taken a pic but I didn't. While listening to music I did a small game of cloud shapes, twas fun. We arrived in Darwin only to experience the HELLISH heat. OMG!! More on this later. We checked into our hostel, headed out to see the city. Wound up going down to the Esplanade where we found a small path down to the "beach" (aka 2 feet of sand that was being overtaken by water). It was pretty cool, we wound up staying down there till sunset and it was beautiful! We found some food later at a asian restaurant of some sort and crashed that night. Wake up: 5:00am
Plane ride was long. Lasted longer than my sleeping desire, which is impressive. The clouds we went through in the last hour were pretty spectacular. Shoulda taken a pic but I didn't. While listening to music I did a small game of cloud shapes, twas fun. We arrived in Darwin only to experience the HELLISH heat. OMG!! More on this later. We checked into our hostel, headed out to see the city. Wound up going down to the Esplanade where we found a small path down to the "beach" (aka 2 feet of sand that was being overtaken by water). It was pretty cool, we wound up staying down there till sunset and it was beautiful! We found some food later at a asian restaurant of some sort and crashed that night. Wake up: 5:00am
Sunday, October 19, 2008
Aliza's B-day, part 1
Typical Tuesday. Class at 9am. Library afterward to do computer stuff for a while. etc.
What made this Tuesday a little better was big plans for Aliza's B-day. We had originally planned to have this be part 2 of her b-day by going to the Ice bar downtown called Minus 5, but they called and said that the bar wasn't ready by then and they rescheduled us for the next Saturday. So later that night we all gathered at Aliza's for b-day celebration, cake, and pre-game of Scruffy's. Side Note: there were 2 other people having birthdays today too, so most people were participating in something somewhere and heading to Scruffy's. So Caroline and Lindsey (aliza's roomies) got her a b-day pin and a really really good chocolate cake from Woolworths and we did the singing shindig. Others joined us before we headed out. Scruffy's was a mess as usual with all sorts of funny, incriminating, and wild tales/pictures. A good celbration and a good night. Welcome to the world of 21, Aliza!
What made this Tuesday a little better was big plans for Aliza's B-day. We had originally planned to have this be part 2 of her b-day by going to the Ice bar downtown called Minus 5, but they called and said that the bar wasn't ready by then and they rescheduled us for the next Saturday. So later that night we all gathered at Aliza's for b-day celebration, cake, and pre-game of Scruffy's. Side Note: there were 2 other people having birthdays today too, so most people were participating in something somewhere and heading to Scruffy's. So Caroline and Lindsey (aliza's roomies) got her a b-day pin and a really really good chocolate cake from Woolworths and we did the singing shindig. Others joined us before we headed out. Scruffy's was a mess as usual with all sorts of funny, incriminating, and wild tales/pictures. A good celbration and a good night. Welcome to the world of 21, Aliza!
The GRE...
Sunday was a lazy day after doing the zoo the day before. Woke up late and kind of chilled around the apartment. Think I watched a movie or something. Round 5pm that night I realized "hey....wait, I have the GRE tomorrow!"...whoops. Not really fearing it or anything I sit down and pull up the practice test they have on the GRE website and take it. It wasn't so much an effort to study as more to get in the mindset of taking this test. Finished that and went to be round 12-1am.
Next morining I got up at 6am to catch the bus at 7:15 (wanted to make sure I was there on time). I hoped on the X73 (express version of the 373 into the city) which i had never taken before. Supposed to be faster with less stops so it was a nice change, or so I thought. This bus took a turn into a tunnel that I hadn't been in before and I thought it was just a more expident way, but it popped up on a road that seemed to be heading away from the city. Started to sweat a little. It finally headed to a place right around the NSW library. Thinking it might just go directly to Circular Quay, I contemplated getting off and getting a different bus over there, but I stayed. Wound up that the last leg of the trip just goes the opposite direction. So I got off and walked over to get there about 30 min early. Made a few phone calls to the fam (I think I got Mom and Janice) and went in a bit early. They made me fill in a form and I practically started immediately (before 9am too). I took the test. Didn't take a break. I did well. Thought I did well ont the writing and it told me my scores for Verbal and Math afterward. I did alright on verbal and rocked...nay, aced the Math.
That behind me, I left, called mom, looked at some backpacked, grabbed some food, walked around a shopping center (not in a hurry to get home), and eventually got back on the bus. It was another BEAUTIFUL day in Sydney, so my mission was now to get to the beach asap. I got back home to find James just getting back from a run. I gather my shit as does he and we went to the beach for like 2.5 hrs till the sun went down. What a glorious end to a GRE day. By the end I had nearly forgotten I had taken it. The rest of the night was very chill. Not much going on, just a little R'n'R and a little work for the next day.
Next morining I got up at 6am to catch the bus at 7:15 (wanted to make sure I was there on time). I hoped on the X73 (express version of the 373 into the city) which i had never taken before. Supposed to be faster with less stops so it was a nice change, or so I thought. This bus took a turn into a tunnel that I hadn't been in before and I thought it was just a more expident way, but it popped up on a road that seemed to be heading away from the city. Started to sweat a little. It finally headed to a place right around the NSW library. Thinking it might just go directly to Circular Quay, I contemplated getting off and getting a different bus over there, but I stayed. Wound up that the last leg of the trip just goes the opposite direction. So I got off and walked over to get there about 30 min early. Made a few phone calls to the fam (I think I got Mom and Janice) and went in a bit early. They made me fill in a form and I practically started immediately (before 9am too). I took the test. Didn't take a break. I did well. Thought I did well ont the writing and it told me my scores for Verbal and Math afterward. I did alright on verbal and rocked...nay, aced the Math.
That behind me, I left, called mom, looked at some backpacked, grabbed some food, walked around a shopping center (not in a hurry to get home), and eventually got back on the bus. It was another BEAUTIFUL day in Sydney, so my mission was now to get to the beach asap. I got back home to find James just getting back from a run. I gather my shit as does he and we went to the beach for like 2.5 hrs till the sun went down. What a glorious end to a GRE day. By the end I had nearly forgotten I had taken it. The rest of the night was very chill. Not much going on, just a little R'n'R and a little work for the next day.
Taronga
Today Kim and I (and the rest of our Marine class) had our fieldtrip to the Sydney Aquarium. The weather was beautiful, and we had to get up bright and early to be there by 8:45. So I go and grab the 8am bus. Outside the bus is ALL of the americans living in Coogee that are in this class. Bus comes and we FILL the back of this buss, so much that when two Aussies got on board, one of which sat next to me, they made the comment "whoah, what's with all the americans." Being inquisitive folk, they ask me if I am American too and I tell them 1) yes and 2) why we are all on the bus. So this is a 30 min bus ride. I spent the entire time talking with this random guy about everything under the sun, mostly about American/Aussie stuff (similarities/differences).
We got downtown and went to the aquarium. I met with Kim and we waited for the place to open. Got our assignment and were two of the first people in. Having both been there before, we decided that we didn't need to see it all again and instead did the fastest scavenger hunt of all the info on our questionaire. We blew through the aquarium and the 20+ question in about 40-45 min thinking we could head on our way to meet with Aliza and Alex to go to the zoo. We got out and found none of our professors there. One group of girls eventually went back in and fetched them so we could hand in our stuff. So we turned it in and caught a bus up to Circular Quay. Aliza and Alex were on the way but a little behind so Kim and I sat down for a little b-fast before our outing. We scouted some cafes only to find the first one we check was the cheapest. I got a nice eggs/bacon thing while she had something a little lighter, yoghurt I think. Bout that time the other girls showed up and we boarded the ferry over to Taronga. Cool boat ride.
The zoo itself was pretty spectacular. It's located right along the water on the side of this massive hill. You get of the ferry and get on a gondala up to the top and then proceed around the park. Kinda nice on the way up because you could scout the exhibits and where you wanted to go. We planned this loong winding path to hit just about everything in the zoo (editing out a few uneventful parts). They had all manners of creatures in there from native Aussie animals to African animals etc. Couple cool things we saw were right out of the Planet Earth series. One was in this aviary. We looked to the side and found the bird that in one fo the episodes put on the display. It's the one thats black with the blue throat that spreads its wings and twitches its head back and forth. We saw it DOING THAT. I took video. I felt special. I could be a planet earth videographer. (well, it's a nice thought). They also had that one really rare snow leopard in one of the exhibits too.
Anyway...MASSIVE numbers of pictures were taken. We spent roughly from 11am to 4pm at this place exploring with necessary breaks for food and icecream of course. A very worthy day in my books. Boat ride back was also nice because we stood on the bow taking pics of ourselves, the water, and the harbor bridge/opera house. More postcard photos.
When we got back we decided to head to Sydney University (where alex goes) to check it out since I hadn't been yet. Alex gave us the grand tour and took us back to here place where the girls freshened up a bit. I napped a little and Alex, Kim and I semi-finalized out trip to the outback. We grabbed a bite at a place on King St. (really crazy street right near their campus with tons and tons of shops/restaurants/bars/crazy places) at an italian place that had $10 bowls of pasta. Great for cheap dinner and/or drunken munchies according to the USyd residents. The girls had their night planned to go out on the town, and not wanting to intrude I made my way back to Coogee via multiple busses. Late night busing long distances = crazy stuff. I get back to Coogee only to see a stretch hummer and hundreds of people at the palace in costume. No idea why. I don't ask. It's Australia, anything goes. Anyway, twas a long day so I jut crashed back home.
We got downtown and went to the aquarium. I met with Kim and we waited for the place to open. Got our assignment and were two of the first people in. Having both been there before, we decided that we didn't need to see it all again and instead did the fastest scavenger hunt of all the info on our questionaire. We blew through the aquarium and the 20+ question in about 40-45 min thinking we could head on our way to meet with Aliza and Alex to go to the zoo. We got out and found none of our professors there. One group of girls eventually went back in and fetched them so we could hand in our stuff. So we turned it in and caught a bus up to Circular Quay. Aliza and Alex were on the way but a little behind so Kim and I sat down for a little b-fast before our outing. We scouted some cafes only to find the first one we check was the cheapest. I got a nice eggs/bacon thing while she had something a little lighter, yoghurt I think. Bout that time the other girls showed up and we boarded the ferry over to Taronga. Cool boat ride.
The zoo itself was pretty spectacular. It's located right along the water on the side of this massive hill. You get of the ferry and get on a gondala up to the top and then proceed around the park. Kinda nice on the way up because you could scout the exhibits and where you wanted to go. We planned this loong winding path to hit just about everything in the zoo (editing out a few uneventful parts). They had all manners of creatures in there from native Aussie animals to African animals etc. Couple cool things we saw were right out of the Planet Earth series. One was in this aviary. We looked to the side and found the bird that in one fo the episodes put on the display. It's the one thats black with the blue throat that spreads its wings and twitches its head back and forth. We saw it DOING THAT. I took video. I felt special. I could be a planet earth videographer. (well, it's a nice thought). They also had that one really rare snow leopard in one of the exhibits too.
Anyway...MASSIVE numbers of pictures were taken. We spent roughly from 11am to 4pm at this place exploring with necessary breaks for food and icecream of course. A very worthy day in my books. Boat ride back was also nice because we stood on the bow taking pics of ourselves, the water, and the harbor bridge/opera house. More postcard photos.
When we got back we decided to head to Sydney University (where alex goes) to check it out since I hadn't been yet. Alex gave us the grand tour and took us back to here place where the girls freshened up a bit. I napped a little and Alex, Kim and I semi-finalized out trip to the outback. We grabbed a bite at a place on King St. (really crazy street right near their campus with tons and tons of shops/restaurants/bars/crazy places) at an italian place that had $10 bowls of pasta. Great for cheap dinner and/or drunken munchies according to the USyd residents. The girls had their night planned to go out on the town, and not wanting to intrude I made my way back to Coogee via multiple busses. Late night busing long distances = crazy stuff. I get back to Coogee only to see a stretch hummer and hundreds of people at the palace in costume. No idea why. I don't ask. It's Australia, anything goes. Anyway, twas a long day so I jut crashed back home.
Thursday, September 25, 2008
Friday
Friday I woke up early to finish this paper as it was due at 4. I worked on the paper a bit in my apartment then headed up to the library to work there and also meet Ashley to get a few directions on how they wanted sources done. I worked till about 3 on the paper reaching my word count and a satisfied level of completeness and revision and went to go turn it in around 3:30. Whooooo...done!
On my way back from turning it in I went and paid for my field trips for my Marine Environment class as the Aquarium trip was the next day. Also went by the book store to check if the 2nd reader was in for my class...no dice.
Walked home afterward. It was a beautiful day. As I got back to the beach I walked along the wall near the beach. Right behind me seemed to be the entire Randwick rugby club dressed in their rugby clothes. Not sure why, but they were just walking along the beach. Publicity stunt? I also saw some of the crew down by the beach. I found out later they were burying some ppl and shaped them into a mermaid being eaten by a shark.
I got back home and attempted to take a nap but was interrupted by Ashley and Aubrey coming in to see if I would cook them Fajitas that night. I obliged and told them what I would need. They and Charlie went shopping while I lounged around. Large crew came and we had massive amounts of really good guac and fajitas.
Being too early to do any sort of going out or whatnot, we played a few games to entertain ourselves. Classically had a few rounds of Mafia followed by a game of charades. Apparently we had some misunderstanding when it came to the nature of the game. Our teams topics were aimed at being challenging but funny if done right. The other team went for impossible. Half of their topics we hadn't heard of and others were things like 1776. You try acting out a year. I got that and just started going for clues. Not being able to do numbers I finally got my team to understand it was a number and actually got the clue with some long list of years and a lot of forward and back motion.
We wound up going to Aubrey's for the night. There we saw Aliza who had a terrible sunburn. She went out for an hour thinking she would get some sunscreen afterward and was burnt badly by the time she even got to the store. After chilling there for a while, we wound up going out to the cliffs to walk and just kinda sit and enjoy the surroundings. Fun, relaxing and a little on the mountain climber side. When we went back in, the girls promised us cookies as we sat out on the porch, but none were made.....bastards! Eh, se la vie. Still a good night.
On my way back from turning it in I went and paid for my field trips for my Marine Environment class as the Aquarium trip was the next day. Also went by the book store to check if the 2nd reader was in for my class...no dice.
Walked home afterward. It was a beautiful day. As I got back to the beach I walked along the wall near the beach. Right behind me seemed to be the entire Randwick rugby club dressed in their rugby clothes. Not sure why, but they were just walking along the beach. Publicity stunt? I also saw some of the crew down by the beach. I found out later they were burying some ppl and shaped them into a mermaid being eaten by a shark.
I got back home and attempted to take a nap but was interrupted by Ashley and Aubrey coming in to see if I would cook them Fajitas that night. I obliged and told them what I would need. They and Charlie went shopping while I lounged around. Large crew came and we had massive amounts of really good guac and fajitas.
Being too early to do any sort of going out or whatnot, we played a few games to entertain ourselves. Classically had a few rounds of Mafia followed by a game of charades. Apparently we had some misunderstanding when it came to the nature of the game. Our teams topics were aimed at being challenging but funny if done right. The other team went for impossible. Half of their topics we hadn't heard of and others were things like 1776. You try acting out a year. I got that and just started going for clues. Not being able to do numbers I finally got my team to understand it was a number and actually got the clue with some long list of years and a lot of forward and back motion.
We wound up going to Aubrey's for the night. There we saw Aliza who had a terrible sunburn. She went out for an hour thinking she would get some sunscreen afterward and was burnt badly by the time she even got to the store. After chilling there for a while, we wound up going out to the cliffs to walk and just kinda sit and enjoy the surroundings. Fun, relaxing and a little on the mountain climber side. When we went back in, the girls promised us cookies as we sat out on the porch, but none were made.....bastards! Eh, se la vie. Still a good night.
The small novel.
This week was really the work week. That weekend I spent all saturday and Sunday working on the two 2000 worders due on Monday. I finished them, barely edited them and was done. Successful handing in on Monday. Monday night was spent doing the weekly reading/response for Media. Tuesday was spent somewhat doing the readings for God Life, but most were put off until the next morning. At this point we've memorized the playlist for the Scuffy's band as they play the same songs every week, but no complaints because they are great party songs or ones that everyone knows the words to, although I tend to disagree with their redition of Walk 500 miles. More fun pictures. I swear people must steal my camera while we are there because I come back with like 50+ pictures and wonder when I took them all.
Wednesday morning was the finishing of the God Life response and running to class with it.
Thursday was the fun day. Ashley and I headed downtown bright and early to the NSW state library. Our teacher for Sport Law had told us that this library was great for gathering primary sources for our papers due on Friday...so we adventured.
This was the MOST intense library I have ever gone to. We walked in past the little security-like desk and they stopped us and told us we couldn't bring in our backpacks. Odd, but OK. We had to deposit them in these electronic, but free lockers down the hall. So we got our laptops, books and notebooks that we needed and left the bags there. We walked back in only to get stopped again. Ashely had brought books from the USNW library, so she had to fill out a form for every book she brought in, almost like a little manifest. Strange, but sure, don't wanna get confused, I understand. So we grab a table and get set up. Ashley goes to start looking for resources and I start looking at some sorces I had already gotten on my computer. I went to join her and found out that we have to register to even search for books. uhhh..ok, sure. filled out a form on a computer, went over to another desk, presented a photo ID, and they gave us a card with some registration number on it. Cool, off to find some books! .....nooooot quite. So you can look through a catalogue on the computer, but apparently you don't go find the books. You fill out a form for every book you want and give it to the guy at this desk. THEY go find it for you and bring it to a drop off point you're supposed to check in 10min or so to see if it's there. Luckily we were sitting right next to the drop point so that was easy. So we got our books, wrote, researched etc. I didn't bother trying to figure out how to setup the wireless as I'm sure it would take 15 more steps to "register" or something. We went out around 1 or 2 to go get some lunch. Found a little cafe on a corner that had some really good sandwhiches and such. I felt very metropolitan sitting at a corner cafe looking up at skyscrapers.
We got a bit more done at the library and then headed back for the night as she was pretty much done and I was pretty tired of working.
Almost done! Fun!
Wednesday morning was the finishing of the God Life response and running to class with it.
Thursday was the fun day. Ashley and I headed downtown bright and early to the NSW state library. Our teacher for Sport Law had told us that this library was great for gathering primary sources for our papers due on Friday...so we adventured.
This was the MOST intense library I have ever gone to. We walked in past the little security-like desk and they stopped us and told us we couldn't bring in our backpacks. Odd, but OK. We had to deposit them in these electronic, but free lockers down the hall. So we got our laptops, books and notebooks that we needed and left the bags there. We walked back in only to get stopped again. Ashely had brought books from the USNW library, so she had to fill out a form for every book she brought in, almost like a little manifest. Strange, but sure, don't wanna get confused, I understand. So we grab a table and get set up. Ashley goes to start looking for resources and I start looking at some sorces I had already gotten on my computer. I went to join her and found out that we have to register to even search for books. uhhh..ok, sure. filled out a form on a computer, went over to another desk, presented a photo ID, and they gave us a card with some registration number on it. Cool, off to find some books! .....nooooot quite. So you can look through a catalogue on the computer, but apparently you don't go find the books. You fill out a form for every book you want and give it to the guy at this desk. THEY go find it for you and bring it to a drop off point you're supposed to check in 10min or so to see if it's there. Luckily we were sitting right next to the drop point so that was easy. So we got our books, wrote, researched etc. I didn't bother trying to figure out how to setup the wireless as I'm sure it would take 15 more steps to "register" or something. We went out around 1 or 2 to go get some lunch. Found a little cafe on a corner that had some really good sandwhiches and such. I felt very metropolitan sitting at a corner cafe looking up at skyscrapers.
We got a bit more done at the library and then headed back for the night as she was pretty much done and I was pretty tired of working.
Almost done! Fun!
R, double O, S-T-E-R-S...ROOSTERS!
So on Friday of this week, had a bit of a special day. Took a small break from I guess what I was supposed to be doing (work) and had a bit of fun. The two instructors for my sport law class had scored some free tickets to a Sydney Roosters game through some of their contacts. Roosters are the Rugby League team (as opposed to the swans that are the AFL and the wallabies that are Rugby Union...try to keep up).
As most of the people I know aren't in my sport law class, it was a bit of a solo adventure but it was good. We met David and Tony (instructors) at the Olympic Hotel right next to the stadium where we all had a few beers before heading in. Got to know a few others in my class as well as some people studying abroad at a different exchange program (Tony taught over there once a week).
The night itself was rainy and a bit cold, but no worries. We went to the game and everything was wet, but we sat under the large awning so we didn't get soaked. The game was really low scoring, final score was 10-0, but no one scored till the second half. The highlight of the night was probably cold beer, warm chips and a picture with the mascot.
After the game ended we all disbanded and the Coogee residents tried to hail a cab back but MY GOD, ever cab was full. After about 30 min of trying to get a cab we decided to head to the bus stop. Adventures galore! So navigating to the nearest stop turned into a challenge. We headed over to where the bus road was but couldn't head down the road (no sidewalk), but almost did before we were stopped (totally could have walked down it). Instead we walked on the other side of the fence, but we eventually hit a dead end on the fence that either made us walk back through the stadium to get to it...oooor, we could hop the fence and head down that bus lane. Now, not the most climbing friendly fence in the world. I went second....
Picture if you will...wade standing on top of a small metal fence (more black metal bars, not chain linked) balancing precariously. The dismount was something you might imagine the 9yr old Chinese acrobatic team to do, just less graceful. That and I my landing was perfectly stuck right into a muddy puddle! I gave it a 10.
We got on the bus eventually after way to long walking, wandering, hoping fences and generally getting wet and made it safely home.
So we rushed down in the rain to take a picture with this rooster. We may or may not have punted some small children out of the way to get our picture. ....whoops. But it was fun. Don't remember any of these guys names though.
As most of the people I know aren't in my sport law class, it was a bit of a solo adventure but it was good. We met David and Tony (instructors) at the Olympic Hotel right next to the stadium where we all had a few beers before heading in. Got to know a few others in my class as well as some people studying abroad at a different exchange program (Tony taught over there once a week).
The night itself was rainy and a bit cold, but no worries. We went to the game and everything was wet, but we sat under the large awning so we didn't get soaked. The game was really low scoring, final score was 10-0, but no one scored till the second half. The highlight of the night was probably cold beer, warm chips and a picture with the mascot.
After the game ended we all disbanded and the Coogee residents tried to hail a cab back but MY GOD, ever cab was full. After about 30 min of trying to get a cab we decided to head to the bus stop. Adventures galore! So navigating to the nearest stop turned into a challenge. We headed over to where the bus road was but couldn't head down the road (no sidewalk), but almost did before we were stopped (totally could have walked down it). Instead we walked on the other side of the fence, but we eventually hit a dead end on the fence that either made us walk back through the stadium to get to it...oooor, we could hop the fence and head down that bus lane. Now, not the most climbing friendly fence in the world. I went second....
Picture if you will...wade standing on top of a small metal fence (more black metal bars, not chain linked) balancing precariously. The dismount was something you might imagine the 9yr old Chinese acrobatic team to do, just less graceful. That and I my landing was perfectly stuck right into a muddy puddle! I gave it a 10.
We got on the bus eventually after way to long walking, wandering, hoping fences and generally getting wet and made it safely home.
So we rushed down in the rain to take a picture with this rooster. We may or may not have punted some small children out of the way to get our picture. ....whoops. But it was fun. Don't remember any of these guys names though.
Work week starts...
This week was pretty average. Classes, scruffy's, steak night, last minute assignment work, etc.
However, this week there were a couple of noticeable differences. On Monday I signed up for the GRE! joy... I'm taking it on the 15th. I figured I could just take it sooner just because I know I won't study any more than if i took it a week later.
So on my to do list I have about 8000 words to type. Two weekly 1000 word assignements (as per usual) to comment on readings. One 2000 word take home test due on Monday for God, Life class. One 2000 word essay due Monday for my Media class on an examination of how I and others use media in everyday life and what trends I saw in logs I collected (thank you Mike and Cullen). And lastly I have a 2000 word essay due next Friday that tries to explain how the working class influenced the sporting culture of Australia for my Sport Law class. Oh the joy!!
Naturally, most of these won't get done until the weekend, but I'm trying to knock out some of the research and groundwork for them now.
This is the reason I got tired of writing blogs because typing after a while gets incredibly old, even when it is for fun!
A little picture of me and the girls at scruffy's. Sorry, janessa kinda got cut out. Arm length pictures are often inaccurate.
However, this week there were a couple of noticeable differences. On Monday I signed up for the GRE! joy... I'm taking it on the 15th. I figured I could just take it sooner just because I know I won't study any more than if i took it a week later.
So on my to do list I have about 8000 words to type. Two weekly 1000 word assignements (as per usual) to comment on readings. One 2000 word take home test due on Monday for God, Life class. One 2000 word essay due Monday for my Media class on an examination of how I and others use media in everyday life and what trends I saw in logs I collected (thank you Mike and Cullen). And lastly I have a 2000 word essay due next Friday that tries to explain how the working class influenced the sporting culture of Australia for my Sport Law class. Oh the joy!!
Naturally, most of these won't get done until the weekend, but I'm trying to knock out some of the research and groundwork for them now.
This is the reason I got tired of writing blogs because typing after a while gets incredibly old, even when it is for fun!
A little picture of me and the girls at scruffy's. Sorry, janessa kinda got cut out. Arm length pictures are often inaccurate.
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
Hold on guys
Sorry about the lack of posts on here, everyone. I'm currently in the middle of my work week and frankly haven't had the energy to type more than what I have to. I'm 3 for 5 on papers done this week and should finish them by Friday. Then I'm taking the GRE on monday! woo...
Moral of the story...gimme till monday and I'll start re-posting.
Hope you all are doing well. Trying to make the rounds by phone or IM.
Cheers, mates!
Wade
Moral of the story...gimme till monday and I'll start re-posting.
Hope you all are doing well. Trying to make the rounds by phone or IM.
Cheers, mates!
Wade
Monday, September 8, 2008
Brunch-Off, round 2
Charlie's turn! We all rolled out of bed at our own time. Charlie said that he would have it hot and ready at 11:30am. It wound up being more like 12-12:30, but I didn't mind. He wound up making eggs, sausage, inordinate amounts of pancakes and oranges. Many many many people came. I'd say at least 12. The official vote on who won the brunch-off was inconclusive more hoping that they might try again. ;)
After brunch there were a few games, mafia included (these guys really like this game) and some general chilling. The rest of the afternoon I don't really remember at this point. But I do remember it was a good day!
After brunch there were a few games, mafia included (these guys really like this game) and some general chilling. The rest of the afternoon I don't really remember at this point. But I do remember it was a good day!
Tuesday, September 2, 2008
Brunch-Off! & more AFL
This morning had been long awaited this week. Charlie and Ben had challenged each other to a brunch-off. Each was to cook meals that morning and we (the rest of the bystanders) were to judge and proclaim a winner. Charlie actually didn't participate this morning. Don't remember the reason, but basically said he would do it tomorrow. Fine for us, that meant we got 2 b-fast made for us in a row.
Ben made amazing food. It basically involved heavenly pancakes, French toast, a fruit salad (pear, kiwi and banana), and some Australian cake looking thing with strawberries. He cooked. We set off the fire alarm 6 times...the sign of a good meal (very temperamental fire alarms) and we all just talked and talked smack between the two chefs. In food coma, we sat down to play a nice vicious game of Mafia. I started out as all powerful narrator, but soon had no creativity and the title passed to drew (who decided to kill people with some sort of starfish-mutant breakfast invovling fiasco...we don't know).
It was a beautiful day. So later after brunch, we headed out to the beach to just kinda play around. Couple guys tossed around the football, others lie on the beach reading their books (they had esentially made lounge chairs carved outta the sand...interesting technique), I just lay their playing with cards and just thinking...it was nice. We lie out there for a hour or two eventually starting up a game of ERS. I had talked to Kim and Alex in the mean time and they were doing the Bondi-Coogee walk. I was hoping they might meet up with us before the game, but they went off to dinner after we headed in.
We did meet up (Kim, Alex, Aliza and others) to go to the IES free trip to an AFL game. Merlin, you're the man. He scored us pretty good tickets to the AFL game of Sydney versus Brisbane Lions at the Sydney Cricket grounds. Merlin, Mike and I traded off bying rounds for ourselves at the game. Merlin was actually pretty histerical that night for many reasons. The Swans DESTROYED the lions in the game. Their score was DOUBLE the lions. Something like 54 to 117 or soemthign crazy like that. Kinda shameful almost.
Most people headed back afterward. A couple of us were up for going out, but since the group diminished so much and we weren't necessarily dressed to impress, we wound up just going to a bar near Three Wise Monkeys (spanish bar of some sort) and just talking for a while.
We did however pass a guy on the street playing guitar while BALANCING another guitar on his head. Strange? yes.
Ben made amazing food. It basically involved heavenly pancakes, French toast, a fruit salad (pear, kiwi and banana), and some Australian cake looking thing with strawberries. He cooked. We set off the fire alarm 6 times...the sign of a good meal (very temperamental fire alarms) and we all just talked and talked smack between the two chefs. In food coma, we sat down to play a nice vicious game of Mafia. I started out as all powerful narrator, but soon had no creativity and the title passed to drew (who decided to kill people with some sort of starfish-mutant breakfast invovling fiasco...we don't know).
It was a beautiful day. So later after brunch, we headed out to the beach to just kinda play around. Couple guys tossed around the football, others lie on the beach reading their books (they had esentially made lounge chairs carved outta the sand...interesting technique), I just lay their playing with cards and just thinking...it was nice. We lie out there for a hour or two eventually starting up a game of ERS. I had talked to Kim and Alex in the mean time and they were doing the Bondi-Coogee walk. I was hoping they might meet up with us before the game, but they went off to dinner after we headed in.
We did meet up (Kim, Alex, Aliza and others) to go to the IES free trip to an AFL game. Merlin, you're the man. He scored us pretty good tickets to the AFL game of Sydney versus Brisbane Lions at the Sydney Cricket grounds. Merlin, Mike and I traded off bying rounds for ourselves at the game. Merlin was actually pretty histerical that night for many reasons. The Swans DESTROYED the lions in the game. Their score was DOUBLE the lions. Something like 54 to 117 or soemthign crazy like that. Kinda shameful almost.
Most people headed back afterward. A couple of us were up for going out, but since the group diminished so much and we weren't necessarily dressed to impress, we wound up just going to a bar near Three Wise Monkeys (spanish bar of some sort) and just talking for a while.
We did however pass a guy on the street playing guitar while BALANCING another guitar on his head. Strange? yes.
Sunday, August 31, 2008
Ridin' the EAC, dude...
Today was a fine Friday morning. The weather was warm with a nice cool wind. We woke up kinda late and hung around the apartment. The great plan for the day was at 12:30 we were going to Bondi to go Surfin!!! (Picture: us rockin' the wet suits)
Couple guys caught the bus before us and we caught a cab up to Bondi. The place we were renting the boards from was on the north side of Bondi. Board and wet suit for 2hrs was only $30, not bad really. I managed to get a MASSIVE board. You know how most people carry surf boards under their arms? Yeah...no...this one required two hands. We get down the the beach and head where the waves are decent and (naturally) the surf school people are there. But we made do with the space we were in. It was kinda hard just getting out into/past the surf. Being pummeled by waves is only so much fun. I tried a few times to catch a wave or two. It was hard enough just trying to keep my balance on this foam board. Didn't really have much success at first, "caught" a few in more or less like a boogy board. Right before we took a small break I did manage to get a few almost standings. We broke for a bit and sat on the beach just talking and headed back in. This time I stayed in shallower waters and got decnet at the "stand up, wobble, fall" routine. Did a few of those. Then I actually road a few in standing up.
.....I was a God. You know those moments in life where you feel like the King of the World (like Titanic just less chick flicky and corny), yeah...it was one of those. I rode standing up about 8 times during the last portion of the day, one of which i rode until the board just sank into the water. Very cool. Will probably try to go next weekend if possible.
Two hours ran up and we were all exhausted. We caught the buses back to Coogee and everyone dissapated to either go rest, eat, or other.
That night the girls at the "Haunted House" (it's what they called their house, i guess based on looks) were throwing a stoplight party (green = single, red = taken, yellow = complicated). Six of these girls were actually on the wine tour with us. Inordinate amounts of green were at this party with specs of red and yellow. It was a good time, nothing to special. Had an amazing schnitzel afterward and headed back home to crash. Surfing wore us out.
Couple guys caught the bus before us and we caught a cab up to Bondi. The place we were renting the boards from was on the north side of Bondi. Board and wet suit for 2hrs was only $30, not bad really. I managed to get a MASSIVE board. You know how most people carry surf boards under their arms? Yeah...no...this one required two hands. We get down the the beach and head where the waves are decent and (naturally) the surf school people are there. But we made do with the space we were in. It was kinda hard just getting out into/past the surf. Being pummeled by waves is only so much fun. I tried a few times to catch a wave or two. It was hard enough just trying to keep my balance on this foam board. Didn't really have much success at first, "caught" a few in more or less like a boogy board. Right before we took a small break I did manage to get a few almost standings. We broke for a bit and sat on the beach just talking and headed back in. This time I stayed in shallower waters and got decnet at the "stand up, wobble, fall" routine. Did a few of those. Then I actually road a few in standing up......I was a God. You know those moments in life where you feel like the King of the World (like Titanic just less chick flicky and corny), yeah...it was one of those. I rode standing up about 8 times during the last portion of the day, one of which i rode until the board just sank into the water. Very cool. Will probably try to go next weekend if possible.
Two hours ran up and we were all exhausted. We caught the buses back to Coogee and everyone dissapated to either go rest, eat, or other.
That night the girls at the "Haunted House" (it's what they called their house, i guess based on looks) were throwing a stoplight party (green = single, red = taken, yellow = complicated). Six of these girls were actually on the wine tour with us. Inordinate amounts of green were at this party with specs of red and yellow. It was a good time, nothing to special. Had an amazing schnitzel afterward and headed back home to crash. Surfing wore us out.
Friday, August 29, 2008
En Flambe!
Hmm...thursday.
Well the plan was to get up, get a hair cut and go to class. Never did get that haircut. Chilled around for a while around the apartment doing stuff. Went up to class. Lecture was about Port Hacking and sand movement...woo... Kim and I just entertained ourself. After class Kim and I hung out in her room thinking about adventures and travel plans during and after semester.
Heading back down to home. I'm really loving that walk.
It was a little late at this point, so the guys were thinking about food already. I kinda wanted to try this hole-in-the-wall pizza place farther up Coogee Bay Road. Everyone's been wanting to try it because it just remind us of some small place back home that has the potential to be really good.
Naturally, we ixnayed that and decided to go for Thai. One of the Thai places was just re-done and has a new name, we thought about there until we realized that there is one DIRECTLY across the street from our apartment building.
This place was pretty nice looking, complete with mood lighting and candles on the table. The guys, in the spirit of trying to equally compare all the thai restaurants, got Pad Tai. I did not. I wanted something different and I was really in the mood for seafood. Wound up getting this Mixed Seafood dish. The waitress comes out carrying a plate with this tin foil package. Looked like an overturned bowl with a square base of tin foil around it. But more imporantly, it was ON FIRE. (wish I had a camera) The blue flames were all around the base of the "bowl" part and through the opening in the top. Didn't really know what to do, so I waited for it to go out and tenatively pulled back the foil. It was really really good. What made the dinner better was that all main courses were 30% off mon-thurs. So it was pretty reasonable too.
The night was a hang out night. Some of the guys were just planning on hanging around. James and Charlie got some beer to just hang around with. Everyone else was writing papers that night. I mean everyone. I broke into a few glasses of the wine stash from Sunday but not too much. We three went over to Aubrey's to distract them from paper writing and just hang out. The guys wound up going through a little too much and were having much more fun than just about everyone. There was an intense game of Egyptian Rat Screw (card game, don't get hung up on the name if you don't know it...it's fun) that we battled at for a while before American Pie was sung and we left. The girls were kinda kicking us out b/c they had work to do, but whatever. Twas fun.
Well the plan was to get up, get a hair cut and go to class. Never did get that haircut. Chilled around for a while around the apartment doing stuff. Went up to class. Lecture was about Port Hacking and sand movement...woo... Kim and I just entertained ourself. After class Kim and I hung out in her room thinking about adventures and travel plans during and after semester.
Heading back down to home. I'm really loving that walk.
It was a little late at this point, so the guys were thinking about food already. I kinda wanted to try this hole-in-the-wall pizza place farther up Coogee Bay Road. Everyone's been wanting to try it because it just remind us of some small place back home that has the potential to be really good.
Naturally, we ixnayed that and decided to go for Thai. One of the Thai places was just re-done and has a new name, we thought about there until we realized that there is one DIRECTLY across the street from our apartment building.
This place was pretty nice looking, complete with mood lighting and candles on the table. The guys, in the spirit of trying to equally compare all the thai restaurants, got Pad Tai. I did not. I wanted something different and I was really in the mood for seafood. Wound up getting this Mixed Seafood dish. The waitress comes out carrying a plate with this tin foil package. Looked like an overturned bowl with a square base of tin foil around it. But more imporantly, it was ON FIRE. (wish I had a camera) The blue flames were all around the base of the "bowl" part and through the opening in the top. Didn't really know what to do, so I waited for it to go out and tenatively pulled back the foil. It was really really good. What made the dinner better was that all main courses were 30% off mon-thurs. So it was pretty reasonable too.
The night was a hang out night. Some of the guys were just planning on hanging around. James and Charlie got some beer to just hang around with. Everyone else was writing papers that night. I mean everyone. I broke into a few glasses of the wine stash from Sunday but not too much. We three went over to Aubrey's to distract them from paper writing and just hang out. The guys wound up going through a little too much and were having much more fun than just about everyone. There was an intense game of Egyptian Rat Screw (card game, don't get hung up on the name if you don't know it...it's fun) that we battled at for a while before American Pie was sung and we left. The girls were kinda kicking us out b/c they had work to do, but whatever. Twas fun.
blah, blah, steak, blah
Woke up round 9-10 and had some cereal while talking with Ashley. Within one hour I wrote the reading response of ~900 words for God Life class due in an hour, ran through the shower and hopped on a bus to campus for tutorial. God Life was...pretty off topic for the day. Conversation seemed to keep drifting. Grabbed a small bit of food afterward at the Fare.
Sport Law talked about...yeah who am I kidding I never fully pay attention in that class. The design of the class is such that lecture is COMPLETELY useless. Whatever learned in there has NO bearing whatsoever on your grade. It's more of a pass the time, and to make sure I go to tutorial. I do remember that what they were talking about at the time was somewhat intriguing, although obviously not memorable, and that David (my tut professor) had managed to get free tickets (13) to a Rugby class and that he was offering them to us. We had to email him at 7:30 that night, but I would of course be at steak night at that time. Oh well...if I do go tics are only about $22 anyway.
The hour between the parts of Sport Law is the most annoying hour, just want to get it over so I can go home. Today Chris had to go meet with some of his partners for a Civil Engineering project of some sort in the library. So I just went to the library to do stuff. Wound up just doing a little blogging, emailing, other just to pass the time. When class finally came around it wound up being a total waste of time. We got there, our professor has just gotten back from China that morning so he didn't have any time to put together pictures and such. We talked a little about the Olympics and what he had seen (Beach Volleyball, Athletics, diving, and 2 others I don't remember). He showed us his ticket and guide book. The tickets were intense. I'd say at least a 5x8 kinda index card size, thick paper, lots of hollograms, really cool designs and colors, bar codes, and later to find out that one side had a huge flat microchip under it just to identify it as real. Crazy Chinese...
Tut let out 30 min early. The only productive thing we did was think about the sections in our paper due soon. They really are emphasizing the structure of the paper. We caught the bus after a bit and headed to steak night. Chris stayed behind to do more work so I wound up eating dinner with one of the guys in my class, who I forget his name to this day. We went back to hang out and I think we may have just watched a movie for the night? Dont' really remember. Steakday nights tend to be uneventful because it's such a long day.
Sport Law talked about...yeah who am I kidding I never fully pay attention in that class. The design of the class is such that lecture is COMPLETELY useless. Whatever learned in there has NO bearing whatsoever on your grade. It's more of a pass the time, and to make sure I go to tutorial. I do remember that what they were talking about at the time was somewhat intriguing, although obviously not memorable, and that David (my tut professor) had managed to get free tickets (13) to a Rugby class and that he was offering them to us. We had to email him at 7:30 that night, but I would of course be at steak night at that time. Oh well...if I do go tics are only about $22 anyway.
The hour between the parts of Sport Law is the most annoying hour, just want to get it over so I can go home. Today Chris had to go meet with some of his partners for a Civil Engineering project of some sort in the library. So I just went to the library to do stuff. Wound up just doing a little blogging, emailing, other just to pass the time. When class finally came around it wound up being a total waste of time. We got there, our professor has just gotten back from China that morning so he didn't have any time to put together pictures and such. We talked a little about the Olympics and what he had seen (Beach Volleyball, Athletics, diving, and 2 others I don't remember). He showed us his ticket and guide book. The tickets were intense. I'd say at least a 5x8 kinda index card size, thick paper, lots of hollograms, really cool designs and colors, bar codes, and later to find out that one side had a huge flat microchip under it just to identify it as real. Crazy Chinese...
Tut let out 30 min early. The only productive thing we did was think about the sections in our paper due soon. They really are emphasizing the structure of the paper. We caught the bus after a bit and headed to steak night. Chris stayed behind to do more work so I wound up eating dinner with one of the guys in my class, who I forget his name to this day. We went back to hang out and I think we may have just watched a movie for the night? Dont' really remember. Steakday nights tend to be uneventful because it's such a long day.
Sam demanded an adventure...
Sam told me on Monday that she demanded an adventure for the day. I tried, actually turned out to be a fun day.
Class in the morning (too early) was a little surprising. Topic for the week was "space" when it came to media. The topic was a little boring overall, but we did talk about some sort of "game" i guess that I had never heard of. It's called Second Life. The YouTube videos are very crazy. Here's what it's about. It's a virtual world where you create a character (like yourself or not) and create things there...create your second life. So for any of you know the Sims, it's like that but you pick a character and "play" with others around the world (similar to WoW or other online games). Now here's the kicker....it uses real money. Real....like US dollars. The money in the game actually exchanges against the US dollar. So you go in there and pay for things (like a cell phone that doesn't work) or something else for your character. I don't get it. I can understand other games where it's creating another world more fantastical or more of a God type game where you create and control everything, but a game where it's basically where your life stops and this life starts in a world destroyed with a single stroke of a delete key....it's beyond me. So we discussed this for a bit.
I stayed on campus for a bit in the library trying to find a few articles for one of my papers. Afterward, I decided to try a new place for lunch. I went....to a roatating sushi bar right near campus! Even better, Tuesdays are a special day where every plate, no matter what it is is $2.50. So cheap, good, rotating sushi. Amazing. Never been to a rotating one before. Even tried octopus again.
Headed back home to get some work done. Did my readings for the next day, or at least tried to. Dinner was another concoction. I made Lemon pepper chicken, rice and corn for the roomies and myself. They enjoyed.
After, another week of Scruffy Murphy's. Hadn't been in two weeks. Both times before were heaps of fun. Other groups, alfreda house, other houses, ppl from the colleges came later. The people were loads of fun, the band was good. They seem to play the same thing each week but it's all great songs that everyone know. So when they come on for a bit, and everyone's a bit tipsy, much...much singing ensues. Actually took a lot of pictures that night, might post a few on here. It was a late night. We got back round 3:30-4am. Ashley was going to go back to Aubrey's but couldn't get in touch with her so she just crashed at our place. We acutally stayed up about an hour (made a little pasta) just talking. So it was a 5am bedtime. No idea how I had all the energy I did the next day.
So, Sam, it wasn't a massive adventure, but a very fun day. Does that count?
Class in the morning (too early) was a little surprising. Topic for the week was "space" when it came to media. The topic was a little boring overall, but we did talk about some sort of "game" i guess that I had never heard of. It's called Second Life. The YouTube videos are very crazy. Here's what it's about. It's a virtual world where you create a character (like yourself or not) and create things there...create your second life. So for any of you know the Sims, it's like that but you pick a character and "play" with others around the world (similar to WoW or other online games). Now here's the kicker....it uses real money. Real....like US dollars. The money in the game actually exchanges against the US dollar. So you go in there and pay for things (like a cell phone that doesn't work) or something else for your character. I don't get it. I can understand other games where it's creating another world more fantastical or more of a God type game where you create and control everything, but a game where it's basically where your life stops and this life starts in a world destroyed with a single stroke of a delete key....it's beyond me. So we discussed this for a bit.
I stayed on campus for a bit in the library trying to find a few articles for one of my papers. Afterward, I decided to try a new place for lunch. I went....to a roatating sushi bar right near campus! Even better, Tuesdays are a special day where every plate, no matter what it is is $2.50. So cheap, good, rotating sushi. Amazing. Never been to a rotating one before. Even tried octopus again.
Headed back home to get some work done. Did my readings for the next day, or at least tried to. Dinner was another concoction. I made Lemon pepper chicken, rice and corn for the roomies and myself. They enjoyed.
After, another week of Scruffy Murphy's. Hadn't been in two weeks. Both times before were heaps of fun. Other groups, alfreda house, other houses, ppl from the colleges came later. The people were loads of fun, the band was good. They seem to play the same thing each week but it's all great songs that everyone know. So when they come on for a bit, and everyone's a bit tipsy, much...much singing ensues. Actually took a lot of pictures that night, might post a few on here. It was a late night. We got back round 3:30-4am. Ashley was going to go back to Aubrey's but couldn't get in touch with her so she just crashed at our place. We acutally stayed up about an hour (made a little pasta) just talking. So it was a 5am bedtime. No idea how I had all the energy I did the next day.
So, Sam, it wasn't a massive adventure, but a very fun day. Does that count?
Movie day!
Monday was a slow day. The afternoon I just watch a few movies in between readings for class, all of which I have never seen before ( I think they were The Number 23 and The Butterfly effect). Lazy day overall. In the afternoon, the guys came back and they wanted to go see Taken that night. For any of you that have not seen the previews, the movie is basically Liam Neeson trying to get back his daughter who's been kidnapped while on a trip to Paris. The movie was, for lack of a better word, kick-ass. Liam Neeson just drops people, just #%^$*s them up. Very cool action flick. Kinda like the Bourne series in the style. The director is actually the one who did District B-13, the movie I was talking about before (only 2 movies he's directed). Anywho, good movie, acutally doesn't come out in the states till January (ha!), but see it when it does. Came back, stayed up a little longer writing the reading responses beore bed. Woo...
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
*singing* Red, Red wiiiiine....
The alarm goes off.
It's 6am...
Why am I up?!?!
Oh, that's right.....WINE TOUR!!!
Today was a glorious adventure. (Read: this will be a very long post) Alex C had arranged for Kim, Aliza, and myself to go on a Wine and Wildlife tour up to Hunter Valley. They were impatient. Bad news was that I had to get up early and be at the Macas (McDonalds' nickname) at 7am. Normally this would have been awful but with the proper motivation, I was there 20min early.
We waited a bit to find the right bus (several other wine tours were also starting from there...including one most of the Alfreda house was going on). Bus driver was a really nice guy, more on him later. We picked up Alex over near U Syd along with other passengers and made our way up to Hunter Valley.
This trip was pretty cool because instead of just stopping at a gas station half way up to hunter valley, we stopped at another Wildlife part, except this one was more reptile based, at least it seemed that way from the entrance. Wildlife park began with getting a bag of food for the kangaroos and heading down to the koalas. This place was much bigger than the other place we went to, much more open space. The koala area had a lot of them, with one particular fenced in area for petting/taking pics with koalas (no holding, apparently that's illegal in NSW and not in Queensland). As we stood there, a koala in one of the trees starts climbing down RIGHT next to me while others were taking their pics. The caretaker guy comes over to coral her and take both of them over to the other cage to put the female away. While dealing with the female, the guy failed to notice the male went for the getaway and made for a tree outside the cages. The guy tried to get him, but really...the koalas just better at climbing. Then, the guy JUMPS on the tree and starts climbing up after the male (this is a really thin tree), but the male just went higher than the guy could possibly go. Pictures continued.
We moved from the koalas, to the birds, to the kangaroos taking pictures while taking turn feeding/petting them. Passed by dingos, monitors, wombats, baby kangaroos feeding from mothers pouches (I have a video), on to the spider's section. They had some big ass spiders. They also had a showing where they milked a spider for venom research (cool to me, don't care what you think), but it wasn't too eventful. We then wen to the Platypusary (greatest name ever), saw a platypus and left. We were running low on time. Pit stop in the bathroom, snapped a couple of pics on a run through (literally) of the snake/reptile exhibit, and back to the bus.
First Wine Tasting:
So we arrive at this little place called Savannah Winery and are directed into this small cabin looking place. I personally don't really know how we do this all the bus driver said was "dive right on in." So we get a list of what wines are available and someone eventually starts requesting which to try. We all naturally say we want to try it as well. We started with the whites and moved, eventually at the reds (a trend that would continue for the rest of the day). The girls were very much into the whites. There was one in particular that was this sparkling pink something, I forget the name, that was actually pretty good and right up their alley. None of the girls like the reds as much, although they tried them. They were scrambling for cheese and crackers (this was the only place to have them). I was loving most of them, some were a little off for me. The dessert wines/sweet wines were enjoyed by everyone. I love port...
At the end, it was time to buy whatever we wanted and get back to the bus. We were told by the driver that if we wanted to get decent wine for cheap this was the winery to do it because you could get a case of clean skin reds or whites for $60 ($5 a bottle) whereas individually they were $10. I tried to round up people to split a case, may of them were not interested. Eventually got two other girls and the driver to split it with me. Joy! Wine!
Wine Tasting #2:
We boarded the bus, and headed on to the next vineyard. This one was called Tulloch.
Here a few of our group headed off on the Wobbly Wine tour where they went on bikes through the vineyard. We went downstairs to where they had our wine tasting set up. This guy was much more informative than the first. He tried to explain more about the valley, soil types, types of wines, how they were made, etc. He also tried to throw in a few anecdotes. We went through the normal list of wines. After the tasting, they invited us to go upstairs and try a few more of whatever else we wanted. The girls tried a few more whites and found one they like and got them. We took a few pictures with the vineyards in the background and went for lunch!
Food!:
Driver man set up reservations at a place called Oscars. Lots of options but I got this burger known as "the works". Basically as Australian as burgers go. Picture included. Let me preface by saying it was actually really good. Ingredients: burger, lettuce, tomato, beet root, egg, pineapple, bbq sauce, and some sort of bacon/ham. Strange, yes...but good. Probably not the most healthy thing in the world, but whatever.
We finished a little early and goofed off in the park taking a few more pictures.
Wine Tasting #3:
This place (I forget the name) was a little more laid back. The guy who served us just kinda served one and then walked away for a while letting us, I guess, taste at our own leisure. This was a much larger wine company with vineyards all over the place (I think they may have said even all over the world). The one thing they had that was interesting was "Early Harvest" wine (in a white and a Rose). Basically it's a wine that they pick the grapes early so they have less sugar. Less sugar means less alcohol and less calories so it's almost a "diet" wine of sorts. Not my type of wine though. This place did have some dipping sorts of stuff such as olive oil or vinaigrettes with bread which was nice for kinda taking that "edge" off from all the wine. By this winery, the girls has basically stopped tasting the reds. They just walked away, found the restroom and perused through the shop part.
Wine Tasting #3.5/Olive Store:
The last place wasn't quite ready for us yet so we had a stop over. There were two places at the stop we went to. One was an olive/olive oil store. They had lots of samples set up of dipping sauces/oils/others as well as some olives to try. Very good, tried the majority, but a little too expensive, so I didn't get anything. We still had a few more minutes, so we headed to the other building where we had a few more wines to try. A few red and a few sweeter wines. Me and this german guy that I kinda hung out with on the side went in and basically just asked for something "different." He gave us a spanish wine as well as a few others to try. Some were very "interesting", not really sure what made them like that, nor did I really dislike or like them. But we had to hurry back to the bus and basically ditch the guy mid wine tastings to get to our next one.
Wine Tasting #4: This one was pretty cool. This one was call the _____ Winery. We basically walked up to the bar and the man, who was very cool and Irish, got us all on the bar and basically flew right into it. He was the opposite of the last guy. Right as we finished one wine he'd bring on the next. And the next, and the next, and as you can see from the picture...we had a lot of different wines. Here was where most people bought some wine. Alex bought a really good white wine that she and the rest of us liked. I decided to get a small bottle of port to enjoy some special evening when the evening calls for it.
Cheese Shop:
The last stop on our tour was a cheese shop. In fact, it was called "The Smelly Cheese shop" as you can see from the sign. Wasn't really sure how this place worked, but it was acutally pretty similar. You just went up and said "can I try some of that." So we tried some blue, some parmasean, some others and a triple creamed brie that was REALLY good, but I still kinda like the single creamed better, dunno why. We saw some of the other wine tour groups and joined up with the wobbly wine tour guys. Not too long of a stop, so we just got back on our way round 4:30 in the afternoon.
So we got back to Coogee round 7 something when it was dark. I went back, took my wine and put it up for later consumption. The rest of the guys gotten back from the blue mountains at this point so we just exchanged a few stories from the weekend.
Food?
Sleep
(to be edited later with rest of night and some videos)
It's 6am...
Why am I up?!?!
Oh, that's right.....WINE TOUR!!!
Today was a glorious adventure. (Read: this will be a very long post) Alex C had arranged for Kim, Aliza, and myself to go on a Wine and Wildlife tour up to Hunter Valley. They were impatient. Bad news was that I had to get up early and be at the Macas (McDonalds' nickname) at 7am. Normally this would have been awful but with the proper motivation, I was there 20min early.
We waited a bit to find the right bus (several other wine tours were also starting from there...including one most of the Alfreda house was going on). Bus driver was a really nice guy, more on him later. We picked up Alex over near U Syd along with other passengers and made our way up to Hunter Valley.
This trip was pretty cool because instead of just stopping at a gas station half way up to hunter valley, we stopped at another Wildlife part, except this one was more reptile based, at least it seemed that way from the entrance. Wildlife park began with getting a bag of food for the kangaroos and heading down to the koalas. This place was much bigger than the other place we went to, much more open space. The koala area had a lot of them, with one particular fenced in area for petting/taking pics with koalas (no holding, apparently that's illegal in NSW and not in Queensland). As we stood there, a koala in one of the trees starts climbing down RIGHT next to me while others were taking their pics. The caretaker guy comes over to coral her and take both of them over to the other cage to put the female away. While dealing with the female, the guy failed to notice the male went for the getaway and made for a tree outside the cages. The guy tried to get him, but really...the koalas just better at climbing. Then, the guy JUMPS on the tree and starts climbing up after the male (this is a really thin tree), but the male just went higher than the guy could possibly go. Pictures continued.
We moved from the koalas, to the birds, to the kangaroos taking pictures while taking turn feeding/petting them. Passed by dingos, monitors, wombats, baby kangaroos feeding from mothers pouches (I have a video), on to the spider's section. They had some big ass spiders. They also had a showing where they milked a spider for venom research (cool to me, don't care what you think), but it wasn't too eventful. We then wen to the Platypusary (greatest name ever), saw a platypus and left. We were running low on time. Pit stop in the bathroom, snapped a couple of pics on a run through (literally) of the snake/reptile exhibit, and back to the bus.
First Wine Tasting:So we arrive at this little place called Savannah Winery and are directed into this small cabin looking place. I personally don't really know how we do this all the bus driver said was "dive right on in." So we get a list of what wines are available and someone eventually starts requesting which to try. We all naturally say we want to try it as well. We started with the whites and moved, eventually at the reds (a trend that would continue for the rest of the day). The girls were very much into the whites. There was one in particular that was this sparkling pink something, I forget the name, that was actually pretty good and right up their alley. None of the girls like the reds as much, although they tried them. They were scrambling for cheese and crackers (this was the only place to have them). I was loving most of them, some were a little off for me. The dessert wines/sweet wines were enjoyed by everyone. I love port...
At the end, it was time to buy whatever we wanted and get back to the bus. We were told by the driver that if we wanted to get decent wine for cheap this was the winery to do it because you could get a case of clean skin reds or whites for $60 ($5 a bottle) whereas individually they were $10. I tried to round up people to split a case, may of them were not interested. Eventually got two other girls and the driver to split it with me. Joy! Wine!
Wine Tasting #2:We boarded the bus, and headed on to the next vineyard. This one was called Tulloch.
Here a few of our group headed off on the Wobbly Wine tour where they went on bikes through the vineyard. We went downstairs to where they had our wine tasting set up. This guy was much more informative than the first. He tried to explain more about the valley, soil types, types of wines, how they were made, etc. He also tried to throw in a few anecdotes. We went through the normal list of wines. After the tasting, they invited us to go upstairs and try a few more of whatever else we wanted. The girls tried a few more whites and found one they like and got them. We took a few pictures with the vineyards in the background and went for lunch!
Food!:Driver man set up reservations at a place called Oscars. Lots of options but I got this burger known as "the works". Basically as Australian as burgers go. Picture included. Let me preface by saying it was actually really good. Ingredients: burger, lettuce, tomato, beet root, egg, pineapple, bbq sauce, and some sort of bacon/ham. Strange, yes...but good. Probably not the most healthy thing in the world, but whatever.
We finished a little early and goofed off in the park taking a few more pictures.
Wine Tasting #3:This place (I forget the name) was a little more laid back. The guy who served us just kinda served one and then walked away for a while letting us, I guess, taste at our own leisure. This was a much larger wine company with vineyards all over the place (I think they may have said even all over the world). The one thing they had that was interesting was "Early Harvest" wine (in a white and a Rose). Basically it's a wine that they pick the grapes early so they have less sugar. Less sugar means less alcohol and less calories so it's almost a "diet" wine of sorts. Not my type of wine though. This place did have some dipping sorts of stuff such as olive oil or vinaigrettes with bread which was nice for kinda taking that "edge" off from all the wine. By this winery, the girls has basically stopped tasting the reds. They just walked away, found the restroom and perused through the shop part.
Wine Tasting #3.5/Olive Store:The last place wasn't quite ready for us yet so we had a stop over. There were two places at the stop we went to. One was an olive/olive oil store. They had lots of samples set up of dipping sauces/oils/others as well as some olives to try. Very good, tried the majority, but a little too expensive, so I didn't get anything. We still had a few more minutes, so we headed to the other building where we had a few more wines to try. A few red and a few sweeter wines. Me and this german guy that I kinda hung out with on the side went in and basically just asked for something "different." He gave us a spanish wine as well as a few others to try. Some were very "interesting", not really sure what made them like that, nor did I really dislike or like them. But we had to hurry back to the bus and basically ditch the guy mid wine tastings to get to our next one.
Wine Tasting #4: This one was pretty cool. This one was call the _____ Winery. We basically walked up to the bar and the man, who was very cool and Irish, got us all on the bar and basically flew right into it. He was the opposite of the last guy. Right as we finished one wine he'd bring on the next. And the next, and the next, and as you can see from the picture...we had a lot of different wines. Here was where most people bought some wine. Alex bought a really good white wine that she and the rest of us liked. I decided to get a small bottle of port to enjoy some special evening when the evening calls for it.
Cheese Shop:The last stop on our tour was a cheese shop. In fact, it was called "The Smelly Cheese shop" as you can see from the sign. Wasn't really sure how this place worked, but it was acutally pretty similar. You just went up and said "can I try some of that." So we tried some blue, some parmasean, some others and a triple creamed brie that was REALLY good, but I still kinda like the single creamed better, dunno why. We saw some of the other wine tour groups and joined up with the wobbly wine tour guys. Not too long of a stop, so we just got back on our way round 4:30 in the afternoon.
So we got back to Coogee round 7 something when it was dark. I went back, took my wine and put it up for later consumption. The rest of the guys gotten back from the blue mountains at this point so we just exchanged a few stories from the weekend.
Food?
Sleep
(to be edited later with rest of night and some videos)
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