Clim(b)actic Things

I'm extremely angry right now because blogger just ate my entire post that took me longer to write than i'd like to admit. I knew I thought of blogs as brown, blobby glutinous creatures for a reason (see post 1). I'm going to try to remember most of what I wrote but it was much probably much more detailed before.

I just got back a little while ago from climbing the Sydney Harbour Bridge, which will probably be one of the more surreal experiences I'll ever have in my life. I went in with very high expectations and by the end, they were not only met but exceeded tenfold.

Pumping up Pre-Climb

At first I was a little worried that I was going to be disappointed. For one, right as we were about to leave the Bridge Climb Office where we'd endured an hour of tedious preparations - including a breathalizer test (which made me wonder who the heck would be stupid enough to try to climb an 100 meter bridge drunk and confirmed the rumor that Australia is a "land of functioning alcoholics"), info session, gear fitting, and portion where we practiced walking up and down stairs (because none of us had ever done that before...)- we were alerted that rain was eminent. Having checked the weather diligently for days and picked sunday specifically for its good forecast, i was devastated. Second, all of the pre-climb drilling bored me so much that when i finally did clip my harness onto the real bridge (as opposed to the practice staircase in the office) I was not as exhilarated as I hoped I would be.


Don't get me wrong, the views of the Opera House were stunning but it just wasn't the earth shaking, epiphanic experience I had in mind.

Then I reached the top of the bridge, and after turning around to face the city, realized that every direction I looked was experiencing a very distinct type of weather. On one side of the bridge North Sydney was enjoying some golden late-afternoon sunlight, while Sydney Business District on the other side of the Bridge was quickly becoming enveloped by a jet black, mushroom-shaped storm cloud. To the west towards the Anzac bridge the sky was an inky purple with orange streaks, while to the east towards the opera house, it was perfectly blue and cloudless. Suddenly, a rainbow column appeared just to the east of the city as if an aboriginal god had launched a rainbow spear from the heavens and it had landed with its point pointing straight down into the city. Not only was it perfectly erect, but the rainbow was also the most vivid i've ever seen - with the R perfectly distinct from the O which was totally separate from the Y-G-BIV.





Watching the storm approach from our perch 100 meters off the ground, and away from the city was extremely cinematic. Especially because the sky above our heads was perfectly clear and blue - it felt as though there were two completely separate worlds: ours, which was dry and happy and the city's, which was tempestuous and dangerous. In my mind, it seemed like the two worlds could never collide. And then a giant rain blob fell on my head and shattered my illusions. As the storm cloud encased us I realized that we were no longer mere spectators, and were very much a part of the show.



Unfortunately I wasn't allowed to bring up my own camera and there were only so many times i felt comfortable demanding Joe, our trusty guide, to snap photos of the spectacle before feeling like my mother who takes pictures of every occasion (and non-occasion) imaginable when traveling. By now she probably has a good bazillion photos of me and my brothers begrudgingly standing in front of a street cat that she thought was cute, or more embarrassingly forcedly petting someone's pet dog she also thought was cute. Maybe some day I'll thank her for photo-documenting every pizza I ate in Italy, or the cornflake shaped like Texas that I found in my bowl of cereal in Mexico but I'm not ready to be at her level quite yet.

But i digress, essentially what i meant to say was that these pictures in no way do justice to the wonder of what Dan, Nina and I saw today but hopefully my descriptions helped a little.

Though by the end I was glad to get down and out of the rain, the weather we experienced earlier in the climb made it one incredible experiences I've ever had, and probably will ever have.

To quickly recap the rest of the weekend:

Saturday morning I made a quick jaunt to Paddington Markets where I found a pop-up pinnochio doll for one of my best friends who collects them (creepy, i know) and also eyed these sweet onesies but suppressed my urge to purchase one as I already own one onesie, and one onesie is one onesie too many. Try saying that 10 times fast.

Onesies!

Saturday night I joined up with Nina and Julia and her friend Tenny and head to Wine Odyssey, a wine restaurant on the Rocks that offers "flights" that consist of 3 glasses of wine paired perfectly with with small portions of food. Having always been the girl drinking Merlot with Fish and Sauvignon Blanc with Steak (and also the girl who spelled Sauvignon, "Savion" before looking it up on wikipedia...) I was excited to see how a good pairing is supposed to taste. I ordered the Sparkling Wine flight, mainly because the sparkling shiraz was paired with kangaroo which i figured I had to try before leaving Australia. Turns out its delicious but doesn't taste very different from beef.

Unfortunately, being sort of scatterbrained and having the tendency to bolt my food and drink, i think the experience was a little lost of me. What you were supposed to do was take a teensy bite of food and then a eensy swig of wine and swish them both around in your mouth. For the first couple of bites i was successful but as time went on I caught myself wolfing down a bite of kangaroo or king prawn and thinking "Yum! This is delicious! nom nom nom... Oh shit! The Wine!"

Needless to say, i emerged from Wine Odyssey no more educated on what a good pairing should taste like but truth be told I'm not devastated about it. I've always felt like wine gurus come off as a little affected. Maybe I'm just bitter because my taste buds can't taste the difference between a bitter high-tannin wine, and a lower-tannin one (are high tannin and low tannin even wine terms?). But I can assure you, that even if I do become more wine savvy one day (and i hope i will) you will never catch me talking about the "fierceness of the bouquet or pretending to be able to taste the soil the grapes were grown in. And i will probably never learn how to spell Sauvignon without looking it up.

Team Awesome at Wine Odyssey

Nina sad about eating the 'roo

After partaking in the wine and food wedding, it was on to another novel drinking spot - the Minus 5 Ice Bar on the other side of Circular Quay. There, we donned heavy jackets, ugg boots, and gloves and spent exactly 30 minutes in a bar made entirely out of ice where we drank cocktails in glasses made entirely out of ice (which I guess would be called ices, not glasses. har, har). It was hilarious how lame the entire experience was. The bar was lauded in my guidebook as as being one of the coolest (pun intended) in the city, so we were very surprised to find that we were 4 of 10 people total. I guess after the Victoria Barracks fiasco I should have learned that Lonely Planet is not the most credible, but oh well...

Despite the novelty of drinking drinks on the rocks, in a bar completely made of rocks, in the rocks neighborhood of Sydney the ice lounge itself seemed very much an afterthought. The management didn't even bother to cover the windows that allowed Ice bar patrons to see storage rooms filled with empty bottles and into another bar next door that cruelly had a movie screen of a fireplace (remember its -14 degrees C, or about 6 degrees F in the ice bar). We joked that it was though the owners of the associated, thawed bar downstairs were like "hmm...we have this extra room upstairs...lets fill it with ice and watch through the window and laugh as silly tourists pay money to be uncomfortable for 30 minutes! Ha! What a splendid idea!"

Chillin' in the Ice Bar

Polar Bear giving an eager Nina the cold snout

I still have one weekend left to explore Sydney as well as the mornings and evenings before and after classes. That being said I should probably address the sizable amount of work I have to get done before the end of the program, but if I'm savvy and productive I think i can squeeze everything in that i want to. This trip is flying by!

S'mo Sydney

Sorry for the lack of posting for the past few days but i figured nobody would be that interested in our 6 hour classroom sessions. Although - i will say that I highly recommend anyone interested in D.H. Lawrence watch the movie Kangaroo, a film based on the auto-biographical novel he wrote about his time in Australia. Its one of the only cases I can think of where I've enjoyed a movie better than the book it was based on. Of course that might be because I HATED the book but in any case...

Back to more exciting things - I spent today exploring some new neighborhoods in Sydney as well as revisiting some I'd already been to. First I cruised up and down Crown Street in Surrey Hills - an area recognized for its cool vintage shops and cafes. It is also baby central! I can't even tell you how many stores I wandered into only to find a hipster mom trying on a Furry leopard jacket while her son or daughter (in baby Ray Bans, of course) hid amongst the moth eaten tye-died t-shirts.

After about an hour, I decided I'd smelt enough mustiness for one day and made my way to Padington to see Pieter Hugo's exhibition on Nollywood, the Nigerian Film Industry, at the Padington Center for Photography. Here's the snippit on the exhibit from the website which articulates what i saw far better than i could:

"In the Nollywood series, Hugo explores the multilayered reality of the Nigerian film industry. Photographs from the series were included on the exhibitionDisguise: The art of attracting and deflecting attention at Michael Stevenson in May 2008. Hugo has subsequently returned to Nigeria to extend and deepen this body of work, and the series will be published in book form by Prestel in October 2009.

Nollywood is the third largest film industry in the world, releasing between 500 and 1 000 movies each year. It produces movies on its own terms, telling stories that appeal to and reflect the lives of its public: it is a rare instance of self-representation on such a scale in Africa. The continent has a rich tradition of story-telling that has been expressed abundantly through oral and written fiction, but has never been conveyed through the popular media before. Stars are local actors; plots confront the public with familiar situations of romance, comedy, witchcraft, bribery, prostitution. The narrative is overdramatic, deprived of happy endings, tragic. The aesthetic is loud, violent, excessive; nothing is said, everything is shouted.

In his travels through West Africa, Hugo became increasingly intrigued by this hyperactive industry, in constant production. He compiled a list of the iconic images and scenes that had attracted his attention, and imagined photographing in these settings. Initial attempts to photograph on actual film sets however failed, in Hugo's mind, to capture the intensity of the situations. He decided to take his interpretation of these staged realities into another realm by assembling a team of actors and assistants. He asked them to recreate the stereotypical myths and symbols that characterise Nollywood productions, reproducing the dynamic of movie sets.

The tableaux of the series confront us with a verisimilar world: the situations are clearly surreal, although they could be real on a set; furthermore, they are rooted in the local symbolic imaginary. The boundaries between documentary and fiction become very fluid, and we are left wondering whether our perceptions of the real world are indeed real."

To put it in simpler, more concise terms: this was one of the most haunting, bizarre set of photographs I've ever seen. Here are some highlights:

 

Chris Nkulo and Patience Umeh. Enugu, Nigeria, 2008 

(This one is by far my favorite. It almost makes me think of the Devil and God)

 

Thompson. Asaba, Nigeria, 2008

 

Escort Kama, Enugo Nigeria, 2008

This one is actually Hugo himself - a fact that he didn't draw attention to in any way. I almost didn't realize and then i saw the name plaque. Very sneaky Mr. Hugo, very sneaky.

After I'd gotten my fill of zombies, ax murderers and crazy colored contacts I hopped on the express bus to Circular Quay - the area on the harbor around the bridge and the opera house. Having exited the bus i noticed a small crowd forming around the boardwalk and decided to see what the fuss was about. It turned out to be these aboriginal musicians, whose digeridoing (probably not the right way to spell that...) I loved so much that i bought their CD "Koomurri Dreaming". I just listened to a few tracks and have determined that they sound like a fusion between traditional native american music and techno (an absurd but surprisingly catchy mix).

But back to the purchasing of it - I was a little unnerved when i went to pay for it and a man in a business suit took my $10. That along with the man on the left's exaggerated performance (whenever i pointed my camera at him he would wave and hop around wildly) made me feel like maybe the suited man was exploiting them in some way. In any case, i didn't have much time to wonder about it because after one song they packed up and went home for the arvo (you guessed it, Australian for afternoon). 

Aboriginal Musicians

Abandoned by my Aboriginal pals, I made my way to the Opera House which I find increasingly stunning every time I see it. Not only did it force me to remember where I am (the english-speaking, accents aside, makes it very easy to feel like I'm back in the states) but getting to see the the detail close up and tracing the curves of the structure made me appreciate it the Opera house's architectural complexity even more.  

Harbour Bridge

Proof that I was there!

Curvature of the Opera House

Details of the Opera House

After the mobs of screaming school kids became to much to bear, i sought refuge in the Royal Botanical Gardens that abut Circular Quay. Stumbling on this sign at the entrance, i decided to take it up on its invitation to walk on the grass, smell the roses, hug the trees, talk to the birds, and picnic on the lawn. 

Don't mind if i do...

Tree Huggin'

Walkin' on the grass, NBD. I noticed that passerby looked very confused as to why i was taking a picture of the top of my head.

Picnicing on the Lawn

Smellin' Some Roses

This little sucker (i have NO idea what kind of bird this was. I would dub it Pinnochio for obvious reasons) was too fast for me to get in a picture with but I assure you we did chat. 

After i completed my tasks (flowers were oddly hard to find for it being a botanical garden...), I ambled around  (walking solely on the grass of course) until my feet got tired and I camped out on a bench to wait for the flying foxes to make their mass exodus which they do every night at dawn. But since it was 4 and I'd been out since 10 am, my non-academic ADD got the better of me and I hopped on the bus home, leaving the foxes (which are more similar to bats than foxes) for another day.

I'm excited its the weekend and look forward to getting to poke around more. Things that i (tentatively) hope to get up to this weekend:

1) Padington and Glebe Markets

2) Bridge Climb

3) Luna Park: a coney island-esque preserved amusement park

4) The Art Gallery of New South Wales. I sat in front of it today but by then my feet were so sore from all the walking I'd done, the thought of compounding my pain by strolling around a gallery was not appealing.

5) Coggee to Bondi Costal Walk: a scenic walk along the cliffs overlooking the Pacific. 

6)The Puppet Shop at the Rocks: supposedly a thoroughly creepy shop filled to the brim with puppets of every type. I'm hoping this specialty shop will live up to my expectations where the cuckoo clock shop in Omeo failed. 

We'll see how much I get to! I'm hoping a lot of it but I have to start writing my pieces for class too....

Sashays (and face-plants) through Sydney

Whew! Today was a very full day but made me so happy to be back in Sydney. I spent the morning talking to travel agents, booking activities and accommodations for our two upcoming weekend trips to Melbourne and Cairns. Now that we've finalized everything both trips are much more real, and much more exciting. In Melbourne, the only planned activity is a day excursion to Phillip Island, an island home to the "Penguin Parade" in which "little" penguins, otherwise known as fairy penguins, flock out of the water and onto the shore. Apparently a trip to a petting zoo is also included in the Penguin Package where we'll hopefully get to pet a Koala. 

Quick side note about Koalas and Federalism (not a common combination I'm guessing): apparently rules on what you can do with Koalas vary by state. Wait a second, that sounded really dirty. What i mean, is in some states you can't even touch them, in some you can pet them but not hold them, and in Queensland you can hold them. I find these different koala-fications (har har) very humorous.  

Simply because Cairns is more of a gateway to cool activities than a destination in and of itself going over what we'll be doing there was even more exciting than the prospect of petting a Koala (once again, NOT dirty). Friday we're booked for a jaunt to Cape Tribulation and the Daintree Rainforest where we'll get to hike, do a canopy walk, and laze on beautiful beaches. Saturday it's off to the Great Barrier Reef to chill with Nemo and his brethren. Everyone else in my group is doing the snorkeling option but I opted for diving since I took lessons this spring and just got a nifty waterproof camera that I'm keen to try out. Sunday will be quite the opposite of a day of rest as we booked an "X-Treme" White Water Rafting package. I've never white water rafted before but the lady at the travel agency assured me that i should be fine, although people are "tossed from the boats all the time" and sometimes the instructors try to tip the rafts "just for a more extreme experience." Great. Since we're flying back Monday we didn't book any activities and will probably just lounge around at our Hostel's pool which is supposedly pretty nice.

After talking travel, I met my friend Dan for lunch in the David Jones food hall - an upmarket gourmet haven that offers everything you could ever want to eat (besides normal iced coffee which i'm sad to report was not available).  We're talking anything from Sushi to prepared Pastas, to Oysters and Chocolate Covered Fruit. Dan and I settled on the Noodle Bar where we had some delicious Asian fare while sitting atop fun swivelly stools.

Post-swivelling I walked from Central Sydney, through Darlinghurst - a funky area widely known as being the center of Sydney's gay community. Based on store names like the "pleasure chest" and "lick-her shop" instead of Liquor shop I definitely got the sense that it was sort of seamier than some of the other area's  I'd visited.

I pretty much just strolled through Darlinghurst, stopping only for an american Iced Coffee (finally!) at Gloria Jeans, an american coffee chain that seems to be much more prevalent in Australia than anywhere in the states. Since Australia has such incredible coffee, I felt almost like an American seeking out a McDonalds in Italy. But the day was warm, and I was a girl with a hankering for some good ol' coffee over ice with milk, hold the ice cream, whipped cream, cream, and chocolate please. 

Iced beverage in hand, I continued my stroll down Oxford street to Padington, periodically wandering into little shops and galleries. I spotted this sign above a pharmacy and realized that with my passion for rhyming and silly sounding names, I'm pretty sure I should just move here permanently.

After having a chuckle at Maddo from Paddo's creation, I spotted a huge guard booth surrounded by walls that i recognized from my guide book as Victoria Barracks. Here's what the first page in my lonely planet Sydney guide says about the Barracks: 

"There are free tours of these stately Georgian barrakcs (built 1841-1845) that include a performance by the military band (weather permitting). It's a large complex, brought alive by the old soldiers of the Corps of Guides; expect good yarn. the museum is jam-packed with military paraphernalia. Disabled access is good." 

"Sweet!" I thought. "Ill just take a quick peek around the barracks, maybe wander into a few old rooms. No big deal." Having seen three boys with matching backpacks stroll past the guard without being stopped, i thought he must be there merely as a resource for questions or directions. Consequently, i marched right in as if I owned the place, or at least was descended from someone who did. 

"Um, mam?" He said as i started walking into the compound.

"Yes?"

"May i see some ID?"

"Sure," I said, thinking it was weird but he would ID little ol' me but not he boys with the backpacks that might have very well been holding bombs, or grenades or live snakes. I handed over my International Student ID.

"Um, may i see some military ID?"

Apparently the barracks were still in use, a fact that I would have realized had i looked at the 2nd entry for Victoria Barracks 4 pages later which helpfully reads :

This place is still an active Army base, so you'll have to catch a view of the impressive Georgian sandstone structure from the guarded gate."

Thanks lonely planet, thanks a bundle. Maybe you should consider switching those entries, eh?

Keen to get away from the guard house as quick as possible, i bid adieu to my dignity and the guard who clearly thought i was a total bimbo and hopped a bus to Bondi beach. Even though its only a few miles from Sydney's Business center, Bondi is a completely different world. The beach was teeming with runners, surfers, frisbee players and dog walkers all enjoying the late afternoon dusk. I stopped for a while at the Skate Park where i watched boarders shred some serious...umm...what do boarders shred again? 

Bondi from the Golf Course

Bondi

Somewhere near the end of the boardwalk I tripped over a loose dog and fell flat on my face, subsequently becoming a victim of its enthusiastic licks. After i peeled the pup off of me, and myself off the ground I tried to identify what kind of dog it was (one of my favorite pastimes since I used to avidly study dog breed books in 6th grade in hopes that my parents would let me have one. I probably shouldn't tell people that...) I guessed it was a Puggle but the owner corrected me rather disdainfully as if to say, "Puggles are so passe."

"Actually, he's a pug-a-lier. A pug crossed with a king charles cavalier spaniel." I guess the designer hybrid dog craze has hit Oz as well. 

After saying goodbye to my friend (the dog, not the owner. I didn't like him.) I climbed up the hill to Bondi Golf Course - a course overlooking Bondi with views of the city as well. At first I was a little bit worried about walking around in non-golf shoes, knowing that a lot of golf clubs tend to be quite stuffy. Not wanting to risk getting kicked off before i got to see the sunset, I booked it to a stone fort I spotted that turned out to be tee 5. Thankfully no one saw me, or if they did, said anything to me and i was able to snap some great shots of the sun setting over the harbor bridge.

My Golf Club Inappropriate Footwear

Sunset over the Bridge

I needn't have been worried about getting caught as i realized when I saw golfers strolling around in flip-flops and jorts (jean shorts for all you ignorant folk), cells to their ears with their dogs running amok (and defecating amok. I almost sat it some dog poo in the fort). In addition to being laid back, members apparently have grand senses of humor as evidenced by this sign:

Very Helpful

I wish all American golf clubs could be more like Bondi Golf Club. 

All in all it was a great day and I look forward to exploring more areas of Sydney this weekend and heading back to Padington for the markets on Saturday. 

Farewell to the Platypus

This morning we shoved off from our motel bright and early in order to catch all of the animal feedings at Mogo Zoo. We made the 10:30 feeding of the Sumatran Tigers by the skin of our fangs before moving on to the 10:45 feeding of the Otters, the 11 o'clock feeding of the Meercats and 11:30 feeding of the stunning White Lions (not to be confused with Albino Lions). 

While the Tigers were absolutely breathtaking (I think they're the most beautiful big cat by far) watching the White Lions was the most interesting. Instead of the normal raw meat fare usually fed to Zoo animals, the keeper fed these felines eggs to demonstrate how gentle they can be. It was quite remarkable to see such a huge animal (probably 200kgs at the lightest) delicately crack open eggs with their teeth, taking care not to eat any of the shell, and suck out the contents. It was also really fascinating to hear about how difficult it is to breed White Lions on account of there being so few left (and they can't go breeding family members for obvious reasons). One tactic breeders are trying is to breed white lions with tigers (LIGERS!) to produce cubs with the recessive gene (oy oy oy I'm having deja vu to Ms. Niles' 9th grade Bio class. Not something i have fond memories of) that they subsequently mate with another white lion resulting in a 25% chance of delivering a White Lion. 

Other than the Lions, my favorite animal by far was the uber distinguished Emperor Tamarin monkey so named for its uncanny resemblance to pretty much any Medieval Chinese Emperor.

 

Emperor Tamarin

Empress Tamarin

 I was also really intrigued by the fact that the Zoo was maintained totally on private donations - quite a feat for such an extensive collection in such a random location. In terms of possibly story topics - I am tempted to write an article about the zoo's Keeper for a Day program where guests who pay the hefty $550 price tag are invited to shadow Zookeepers for a full day of feeding, caring for, and playing with the animals. 

After a quick, unremarkable lunch stop in the town of Mogo, we made the long haul back to Sydney - stopping at a McDonalds en route where I concluded once and for all that the notion of cold coffee over ice exists only in America. I can make this deduction based on the fact that in almost every other place that I've travelled to recently (Croatia, Ghana, Nepal, England) Iced Coffee = Coffee with a big ol' scoop of ice cream plopped in. This non-american version is certainly delicious, but I'm guessing not really part of a wholesome breakfast. 

Arriving back at Unilodge we said a tearful goodbye to Jenny (our lovely driver, otherwise known as Sharon's BFFAEAEAEA) and the HMS Platypus. May she ever be in our hearts.

Having settled down back in Sydney I started thinking about the main take-way points from the trip. Here is what i came up with:

1) The journey around the South Eastern Coast completely deconstructed the image (or stereotype) that I had previously associated with Australia. Yes, a lot of Australia consists of Red Rock Desert - but there is also rolling farmland and many snowcapped mountains covered in Pine trees rather than bush. 

2) My favorite towns were the working towns - namely Eden. Because most of the town was involved in one of two industries - logging or fishing - the town had a much more distinct personality and I felt I was able to understand it better than the others.

3) Similarly, my favorite towns had interesting and haunting histories. Again Eden was the best example of this with its whaling background as well as the lore about the Killer Whales. 

4) This might be pretty obvious by now but Eden was by far my favorite town

5) Inhabitants in small town Australia are at a loss for why foreigners would ever want to visit. I base this hypothesis on the number of  "What the hell are you Yanks doing here?" (not in an accusatory or hostile way but purely out of curiosity and disbelief that anyone could find their home interesting)

6) Hard as i tried, I just don't like pies.

7) I HATE mazes.

8) I love road trips and think i want to do a similar type of road trip focused on small towns in another place (preferably english speaking which limits me to America, England, and Ireland). If i did it through America which is the most likely because i don't trust myself to drive on the "wrong" side of the road and not end up as road kill, I would LOVE to tour some of the bizarre attractions our country has to offer (ie. the World's Largest Twine Ball in Darwin Minnesota, the Toy Robots Museum in Adamstown, PA etc. etc.) and write about how they came to be.

9) I find cemeteries boring and don't recognize their historical import. Sorry Sharon!

I know there's more but seeing as my clothes smell worse than wet Emperor Tamarins, I should probably go do laundry. 

Penultimate Larks

Last night after a traditional Aussie Barbie we headed to Bermagui Country Club where a man named Mike, whom we'd met the night before at the 1 other pub in town, was DJ-ing. Having scene a fair few clubs on this road trip i can testify that there seems to be a standard formula: Slot Machines + Aluminum Chairs and Plastic Tables + Old People + GOD-UGLY Carpet = Australian Country/Golf/Fishermen's Club in Small Towns. In any case we had a hilarious time dancing with the locals to such throwbacks as Mambo #5, Cotton Eyed Joe and the Macarena. Unfortunately however, they weren't able to grant our request for Beyonce's Single Ladies and based on the list of available songs they gave me I'm pretty sure they didn't have any music less than 10 years old.

This morning I woke up with the rest of the girls (Brendan didn't make it...) to see the sunrise over the Blue Pool - quite a hairy feat after last nights antics. As sleepy as I was later in the day, it was absolutely worth it. Not only was the sun rise over the ocean beautiful but the contrast between the reflection of the sun on the rough ocean and the smooth pool was stunning. It was slightly cloudy but instead of muting the splendor it actually served to increase it because the edges of the clouds took on a gilded effect and the sun rays radiated out of the tops like an upward facing spotlight.

Sunrise Over the Blue Pool

At a more reasonable hour, we shoved off for Cobargo - an artisan town about 30 minutes inland where we wandered in and out of shops hawking leather, Akubra hats (the traditional "Australian" hat that looks suspiciously like any american cowboy hat...) and pottery. There was also a surprising number of stores selling south asian goods. There is a large asian influence in Australia left over from when many Asians immigrated during the latter 19th century in hopes of finding Gold but nevertheless I'm always surprised to find Budha Sculptures and Nepali Pajama Pants like the ones I so happily donned this March sold in such rural Australian towns. 

I also had a flat white (Australian for latte) in an ADORABLE cafe that was actually a converted train car. 

Train Car Cafe

Train Car Cafe

After caffeinating (sidenote: just realized after struggling to type caffeinate that it breaks the i before e except after t rule that has otherwise served me dutifully since 2nd grade) we drove to Central Tilba - a beatifully preserved little town whose buildings date from 1895. It was one of the smallest towns we visited and since we only had about an hour I wasn't able to find any story leads. Similar to Cobargo, the town consisted mainly of a few quaint cafes, a leather shop, a wood shop and two boutiques selling south asian wares (again!). 

Central Tilba

After missing out on a tour of a Gold Mine because of some oddly cryptic directions on where to meet the guide the directions ( I'm not sure exactly what they were but it was something like "Meet us in the ____ Trailer Park, 5 steps behind the Mobil Sign, 87 degrees to the left, you'll hear a cockatoo caw. Walk 5 steps towards it and 6 back...) (From what i gathered they didn't want to reveal the whereabouts of the Mine. Though I'm pretty sure there isn't still gold in them there hills so it still doesn't make much sense...) (So many parentheticals, sorry! Bad habit!) we made our final stop of the afternoon at Camel Rock - a giant boulder that looks like a Blue Footed Booby. KIDDING! It looks like a camel. Gotcha!

Walking Like an Egyptian in front of Camel Rock

Finally, it was back to the Motel for a MUCH needed nap before heading out to our final dinner at the incongruously upmarket Morrison's on Lamont. 

Its going to be an early morning tomorrow because we have to leave in time to make it to Mogo Zoo by feeding time but I'm super excited and am thinking I may want to write a story on it. Then, back to Sydney! I don't know if its because we've been moving so much or because i've been having a blast but this trip has zoomed by. I'm sorry that its ending and wish that we could keep exploring new areas but its probably for the better that we're going back because i have many a story to write!

Tata for now!

Bermagui Ballin' Continues 6/19

Today we awoke bright and early to catch the S.S. Dreamtime, the boat we would be taking to Montagu Island Nature Reserve. 

After donning our uber-sexy life preservers (unfortunately i don't have photographic record of their stylishness) we set out to try to catch a pod of Humpback Whales that we'd heard were in the area. After a tense chase reminiscent of the chase after OJ in '94 (except that to my knowledge the whales haven't committed any felonies...), we finally caught up to them and excitedly watched as they blew water out of their blow wholes and slapped their tails. On a side note, listening to people whale watching is almost as entertaining as whale watching itself. 

"C'mon. Be a good whale and show us your tail," I heard one woman plead. Or my personal favorite,

"Excuse me, but Whale, do you know how much we're paying for this boat ride?"(I can answer this one: Um, no, because its a Whale. ) "If we can't get a leap can't we at least get a little tail flap?" 

Another tangential observation I made today is that whale breath REEKS. At one point the whale got close enough to our boat that we could smell it and all i can say is that somebody needs to introduce the Megaptera novaeangliae species (thanks wiki!) to some listerineus extremus. 

Then it was on to Montague Island, a nature reserve located about 9KM from Narooma port. Montague was absolutely stunning - green grass, crags sparkling with mica and even a rainbow at one point.

Montague Island Lighthouse

Rainbow, WEEEEEE

Mark, our faithful guide, led us up to the Reserve's lighthouse and around its hills and brushes, all the while lecturing us on the islands ecology and history. Unfortunately, we didn't see any of the fairy penguins that reportedly live on the island but we did run into some very friendly seals who waved enthusiastically at us.

Seal Salutations

After docking in Narooma, it was on to the Blue Pool - an ocean water swimming pool cut into a crag 5 minutes out of Bermagui. In addition to enjoying a beautiful view, i really enjoyed this beautiful sign.

Bermagui Ballin' 6/18

After a full morning of driving, we arrived in Bermagui at around 1 where I spent the afternoon poking around town - essentially a single block consisting of 1 pub, 2 butchers, 1 grocer, 1 news agent, and 2 clothing boutiques. I was struggling to find anything that piqued my interest until i spotted a mannequin sporting ripped skinny jeans and a fitted leather bomber jacket. I wasn't even thinking about travel writing when i walked through the arcade occupied by a butcher and a grungy internet cafe to "Soulique" boutique. With its minimalist chic layout and high-fashion duds, Soulique looks like it belongs in New York's SoHo or Sydney's Padington rather than Bermangui - a working town far more concerned with fishing lines than fashion lines. 

Soulique 

While Soulique's incongruity with its environment would be enough to make an interesting story in and of itself, Ellis herself is really what sold me on profiling the shop. As i've mentioned many a time, I am normally very skeptical about doing reviews of businesses and especially clothing stores. It seems cheap and superficial. However, Ellis - who sells her own designs as well as those of others - changed my mind with her philosophy on clothes. 

"Fashion doesn't need to be shallow," she assured me. "I know it sounds out there, but I believe i can educate and even heal people through my garments."

I have to admit that at first I was skeptical. Heal people? With clothes? Dubious...

Sensing my doubt, she whipped out a very rock-and roll black velvet vest. 

"See here," she said pointing to the label that read "Love is always in your pocket" and subsequently fishing a small heart charm on a chain out of the inner breast pocket, "I put little messages in my clothes. Tidbits of life philosophy that radiate good energy."

"Love is in my pocket!"

Heart Chain

The store itself was designed with the same focus on positive energy in mind. Half of the space functions as a gallery that displays maritime paintings by local artists as well as colorful home decorations and the other half as a clothing boutique. 

Regardless of whether or not I write on Soulique, I really enjoyed talking to Simone and left her store happy and energized. Maybe I shouldn't be so skeptical of New Age energy theories after all...

PICTURES

Pictures are finally up for previous posts! Check 'em out!

Garden (and Wharf and Cemetery) of Eden

June 16th

We began today with a breakfast of champions. No not Wheatties, a cemetery! Thankfully, we did not have an interlocutor to the underworld and were allowed to quickly walk through instead of having to hear about the stonemasonry of each and every gravestone.

 Then it was on to Eden’s Killer Whale Museum: a beautiful museum that boasts a stocky lighthouse and permanent exhibitions on orcas and whaling. There was also a temporary exhibition commemorating the 10 year anniversary of the closure of Eden’s cannery: an event that put a vast number of locals out of work.

Eden Killer Whale Museum

Part of the Cannery Commemoration in the Museum

Part of the Cannery Commemoration in the Museum

 The display sparked me to poke around town after lunch looking for ex-cannery workers to see if they thought Eden had recovered since the closure. I tracked down few ex-workers that would talk to me but their responses were somewhat mixed. Some said the town had fully recovered and some said you only had to look at all the vacant shops on Main Street (and I can attest that there are many) to see that Eden was obviously still struggling.

Ex-Cannery Workers and current Bi-Lo employees Sheryl and Nicole

After talking to the ex-cannery workers I made my way down to the Wharf to talk to the fishermen about whether fishing as an industry was indeed in decline as many townspeople had claimed. 

Butch and Rob, fishermen

Their answers were more definitive with all of them agreeing that the fishing industry in Eden is floundering (sorry, I had to). I’m trying to hone in on a sharper angle or perhaps divide what I learned today into two separate articles: one on the ex-cannery workers and how they personally have recovered after the cannery closing and the second on why the government has rescinded almost 60% of fishing licenses in Eden over the past few years. They government claims its for conservation purposes but one burly old bloke I talked to, appropriately named Butch says “fishsticks!” Well actually he didn’t say that, but he could have. In any case, it might make an interesting piece to figure out whether the scaling back (jeeez, I just can’t stop) of fishing in the area was at all related to the closure of the cannery. The contemporaneity would suggest that the two events were in fact connected and that perhaps the repealing of the fishing licenses was an attempt to prevent the re-opening of the cannery by depriving it of stock. Very fishy…

In addition to being an interesting journalistic endeavor, walking around the Wharf was a pretty uncanny experience. First of all, I was the only female on the entire Wharf – a fact that immediately aroused curiosity and a whole ton of confusion. I amusedly watched the mystified fishermen watch me and I could almost see their thought bubbles “What the hell is that sheila upto? Must be bonkers.”

After I finished talking to the fishermen and tugboat operators I lingered on the dock snapping photos. There is something very mystical about winter sunlight in Australia and the effect was heightened by the bay and presence of a light fog. The way the golden rays bathed the boats lent the dock a romantic air. Suddenly, the stank odor of fish was no longer vomit-inducing but invigorating in its raw authenticity. The light transformed the horrifying sight of the fishermen beheading their catches into a scene of artists skillfully practicing their trade. The Wharf seemed an industrial paradise: totally peaceful but all the while efficient.

Wharf

Tug Boat on Wharf

Another Tug Boat on the Wharf

Then the sun set and the wretched stench of fish guts nearly bowled me over so I said my goodbyes to my new pals and made the long trek up the hill to “Eagle Heights” the motel units where we’re staying.

June 17^th

^{This morning it was off to Ben Boyd national park where we visited Boyd’s tower and Davidson’s Whaling Station. As I looked up at Boyd’s dilapidated tower, I was reminded of “Ozymandius” the poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley that goes:}

“I met a traveler from an antique land

Who said: ‘Two vast and trunkless legs of stone

Stand in the desert…Near them, on the sand,

Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,

And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command

Tell that its sculptor well those passions read

Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things

The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed;

And on the pedestal these words appear:

My name is Ozymandius, King of Kings,

Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!

Nothing beside remains. Round the decay

Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare

The lone and level sands stretch far away.”

 

Boyd's Tower

Here was the tower at Ben Boyd had intended to serve as the center of Boydtown – a development he believed would eventually surpass Sydney in importance. In reality, Boydtown never grew to be more than a small village with a Hotel, Church and a few cottages. Now all that remains of Boyd’s grand vision is the crumbling tower he built for his crew of whalers to keep watch for the prized Baleen whales they hunted.

No Thriving City Here  (Beautiful Beach Though)

Next we visited Davidson’s Whaling station – the longest running of all Australian shore based whaling stations. From the 1860s through the Depression years of the 1930’s, successive generations of the Davidson family used the station to slice the blubber off of the whales and eventually boil it down to oil. The Davidson’s were also renowned for having especially good relationships with the Killer Whales in the area. The orcas reportedly forced passing Baleen whales into the bay, harassing them unitl the whaling crews arrived. They were then rewarded with the lips and tongue after the whalers had successfully killed their prey.

After lunching at the Seahorse Inn, a boutique hotel in Boydtown that began as part of Boyd’s development before it was abandoned, I spent the remainder of the afternoon on the Wharf  searching for more information that might help me develop the article I intended to write on the closure of the wharf and its possible connection with the rescinding of fishing licenses. However, after talking to a few fishermen who informed me that the fish they caught around the bay (mostly breem and flatheads) were not the types they used in the cannery (Bluefin tuna and salmon) and therefore there could be no connection. With that story shot, I poked around for a new one and found it in the form of an outlandishly swanky café located on the end of the Wharf.

Sandwiched between two take-out clam shacks, the “Wharfside Café” is oddly cosmopolitan. The interior design is stunning. Rich navy walls and ceilings, complemented by pop art paintings of fish and lights shaped like portholes create an ambiance of retro-maritime chic.  In addition to cheaper Eden standards like fried shrimp and fish and chips, the menu also offers higher-end fare such as fresh mussels and grilled fish topped with coconut shrimp.

 

Wharfside Cafe

Lights shaped like Portholes

 Bar at Wharfside Cafe

Intrigued by how such a sophisticated eatery ended up on Eden’s utterly untouristy Wharf I sat down with the Wharfside café’s owner and chef, Diana Stojanovic. Diana explained that the café owes its fashionable décor to her husband, an interior designer who helped her refurbish the space when she opened “Wharfside Café” 9 years ago. Though she insists that her café offers something for everyone, she founded Wharfside with the  intention of attracting tourists (including drivers passing by Eden as few people actually stay overnight in the town except en route to go elsewhere). In any case I think I have enough info from her to do a fluffy restaurant profile/review. As I mentioned before reviewing is the form of travel writing that I’m least interested in but as far as reviews go I think this one will be fairly engaging to write just because of how incongruous the café is with its environment.

The more people I talk to and the more towns I visit, the more I become convinced that I want to pursue travel journalism in some form. Increasingly I feel like I’m able to connect with the places I travel to, and get the inhabitants to open up. What form of travel journalism I aspire to (writing, broadcast or a combination of the two) remains to be seen but I’m becoming ever more resolved to do it in some manner. I’m drawn towards writing because I love to write and I think that people are more articulate and open without cameras and a camera crew around but by the same token, video captures things that writing can’t and allows people to see exactly what the travel journalist is experiencing. Ideally I’d love to do both but they’re both such difficult fields to break into that I may have to become more realistic at some point. But for now, a girl can dream.