Just a quick note on planning, tomorrow at noon I sign up for my Advanced Open Water SCUBA course and SS Yongala liveaboard dive trip. I get two days, two nights on a boat to dive the mid-GBR (Davies Reef, Wheeler Reef) on Saturday and the SS Yongala on Sunday. Depending on who I pay and go with, I can do 6 dives (2 Yongala wreck) for $600 - $700 or 7 dives (3 Yongala wreck) for $850 - $950. Either way, I sign up for September 12th - 14th as my dive trip. I'll be trying for the first, cheaper option.
Also, after signing up on Thursday, I ride out to pick up another car from the airport (just like I did for last weekend, blog post coming on that trip!) in preparation of a trip to Fraser Island with four other girls (that'll suck). We'll leave after returning to campus and packing the vehicle up, then it's a 14 hour drive to Hervey Bay and a short ferry ride over to this island of sand (the world's largest, and a World Heritage Site). A 75 mile beach is really the only place to drive - the fun point of renting a 4WD for the island, which is also planned. The only hard surface, it doubles as a runway for small visiting planes. There are also many clear, low nutrient inland lakes on the island - although I'm unsure if there are any fish there. I'll bring my camera housing anyhow. Also, it is advised to not swim off of the island due to high occurrence of rip tides and high tiger shark population densities. (Sweet...) This trip will also be one weekend only and will cost a maximum of $400. On the way down we pass Brisbane - Queensland's capital - and Bundaberg, home of the country's rum company, Bundaberg Rum.
Still to plan: Whitsundays sailing, Mission Beach skydiving, Longer liveaboard trip to Cod Hole & Ribbon Reefs, & major trip outside the country... (possible trips to Uluru [Ayers Rock], Darwin or Kakadu, Melbourne & Sydney, WA Perth, Tasmania).
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
Monday, August 25, 2008
Outback Adventures: The Great Hughenden Camel Endurance Race & Porcupine Gorge
I've been trying to find space on my computer for more pictures. I've filled my hard drive (the laptop only has 80 gb). Before returning the AWD car, I had to go out and buy an external hard drive for pictures. The weekend's outback trip was awesome, and well worth the $149.43 that I had to pay for it. I'll lead you through the events, from the 4 AM departure Saturday morning, through the 400 km of early outback territory, the side roads leading to more adventures, the camel races, the outback folk rock jam session, the camping debate, the gorge and hiking, the incredible spider incident, and finally the 10:30 PM arrival home Sunday night.
Since we wanted to maximize our time, and we read that four and a half hours was about how long it would take to get to Hughenden, QLD, we decided to leave early - four am.
Now Hughenden is in the Flinders Shire (county) region of Queensland, about 400 km inland from the coast. This is outback territory as we tourists call it, but the ozzies just say "out west." Most coastal ozzies are confused as to why we wanted to go out west, as there was "nothing there." Surely they were overlooking the 1500 souls of Hughenden, the major part of the 2000-besouled county of Flinders. The last 500 persons are spread for dozens of kilometers in many directions...
Regardless of the area's population, and the fact that they (the one man camel race planning committee) failed to return calls of ours for days inquiring about the event's start and end times, number of visitors, boredom factor, e.g., we were able to find fun things to do in the area. Since we did not really know when the races were to begin, and we arrived in this godforsak- er, wholesome and fascinating land at the ripe time of 8 AM, we found ourselves easily distracted by any dirt road leading away - many labeled "tourist drive." Most of these had extensive cattle farm operations - low managed industry where cattle are free to roam and be chased by American youths with cameras...
While fascinated with the dusty, dry, vast landscape, a quick comment by one of the group likening the surroundings to any we could find in Kansas sort of demystified the situation... A little fascination returned with the discovery of some wild emu in the same cattle field...
Wallabies were everywhere too, but despite our multiple attempts to chase them down over cracked earth and dried cow poo with our all wheel drive Toyota Rav4, we could not get close enough to shoot even a massive foot.
Anyhow, we finally made it into town, and just in time for the Great Camel Endurance race! Such excitement!
Er, well... I mean it's an endurance race, they gotta eat, right? It would have been fun to watch a track race, where the camels sprint in awkward gaunt-legged flying spittle frolics, but alas, this would not be the case. The endurance race was two days of several dozen kilometers a day; the day we showed up, day two, left the camels (the large flock of nine...) with 49 km of race left - seven laps of seven kilometers each... yipes!
Not all camels felt entirely up to the challenge...
...But those brave camel drivers led them along anyhow - making the whole event more of a human endurance race. In fact, every lap each camel was allowed a 10 minute break anyhow - optional, but no time was removed for up to ten minutes... I'm sure the camels used this rest time to bemoan their existence in this somewhat fiendish position...
Though, to be honest, I speak very little camel - its immediacy and lowness of pitch certainly alerts you to its presence - the best way it could be described is perhaps as a much larger and deeper-voiced goat bleating, or even the whale sounds that Dory speaks in Finding Nemo. Anyhow, you know it's from a big animal, possibly attributable to a bunyip if you heard it in the night. In any case, I did get over my terror and managed to stroke one of these massive creatures...
Don't be deceived; its head from a side shot would show you how much bigger it really is. I think No. 10 here could probably have fit my head in his mouth.
To pass time between the teriffically entertaining 7 km walking laps, we took pictures of the dry river bed that made up part of the track. Really its quite impressive; the wet and dry seasons in northeast Australia are highly bipartisan; this river bed filled to like six to eight feet of water in the wet season, and was almost one hundred feet wide... And it was 100% bone dry when we were in it.
Our fascination with this massive hydrologic feature was not lasting and our numerous pictures of sand (not pictured) were our way of ridding ourselves of all our excess excitement from the suspense-laced sauntering of the day's dashing desert dromedaries.
While discussing the dynamics and strategies of camel endurance racing, we were suddenly awoken by humans falling from the sky.
OK - so they had parachutes. But we weren't expecting them. And it was strange that they didn't shout anything before landing about twenty feet from where we were discussing/sleeping. In any case, it was interesting; perhaps a half dozen more skywalkers descended upon us that afternoon. The camels were not affected.
So there was more going on that weekend in Hughenden; the camel races were just the equivalent of the supermodel girl on a nightclub's advertisement. Those sexy camels dragged us in to the Arid Lands Festival, a summit for discussing life in the Outback (out west) and how to manage it and bring in more tourists, and how dirt is really cool, etc. In any case, the planned party was still quite up to par, sarcasm free - a concert would occur at night with four of Australia's traditional country music artists, including the two performing brothers of a more famous Australian singer!!!! No but seriously, there would be drinking. Everyone we spoke with that day asked if we would be going to the party that night, to join the masses (<2000, I remind you) of the Flinders Shire at their "biggest party in six years," quoth the toothy grinning hag from the one fuel station in town. No but seriously, they know how to drink:
I really did want to stay; there were young people, and, well, um... I wanted to exchange stories, and hear about the Outback way of life (which I must continue to instruct you is more of an invented term - ozzies call it "out west"). But, my vote didn' really count; some guys would have rather slept in the gorge that night. Oh well.
We still explored the few entertaining sights and sounds at this one cul-de-sac sized festival, including stopping to ask this local ozzie entertainer to play "Waltzing Matilda." He said he would, and recruited us to join in; which we did, and he presently made us play about 30 minutes worth of music with him before fulfilling our request. It was fun, I learned to play the "bush bass," while Pat and John shook their lager poles/sticks to the beat.
My fingers throbbed afterwards from plucking a nylon rope at high speed for the edification of the six or seven ears (singular, not pairs) that were out there in the crowd listening. Afterwards, "Pete" also invited us to the party and expressed disdain at our non-unanimous decision not to go (for which I still hold a grudge against my lame peers). I would have certainly enjoyed a VB and some good stories from Pete, and, well, there were going to be young people!!
Anyhow, I've included a bit of the later story - at this point in time, after the jam session, the group hadn't actually decided not to leave town yet. So we explored more locally, including another "tourist drive" just a few kilometers out of town that extended for 93 km more. We weren't sure what we'd find, but surely adventure lurked. Our hunch paid off with our first sighting - an abandoned and rusted vehicle. Perhaps a celebratory gesture by the local high schoolers, it lay decomposing on flat cow poop ridden fields (as all non-town areas out west seem to be plagued by). Why there were bones of questionable origin surrounding it was anybody's guess -
...But we said fuck it, and had a great time anyhow, wondering how the last owner of the vehicle came to lose it, and if that event was associated with the twisted and demolished state of the vehicle, and the many bones in a curious radius around the metal heap...
Look at me! I'm an ozzie driver!! VRRRMMMMM! In any case, the paint-free (washed by time) front license plate of this car now hangs with pride on my dorm room wall.
Along the tourist drive we continued, not a single moving car or truck come across for the entire three hour round trip. With no other autos, police, or civilization around, we were entertained by all hanging out the window while driving - it felt very much like a safari, except without as many cool animals.
The few animals we did see, such as the elusive wallabies/kangaroos, were entertaining. There were cows, black/red parrots of some sort, cows, emus, some other strange birds - maybe large bush-curlews (google it), and cows. The massive swarm of locusts that engulfed us randomly were also pretty cool...
Man, even driving slow, when they smacked the windshield or flew in a window and nearly killed one of us, it was funny, funny shit.
The perceived end of the tourist drive, or at least when we lost interest, was a big open space perfect for photography. Once again, it could have been Kansas - but, well - it wasn't.
That's John, my other Miami co-academic, sauntering off into the vast unknown... Pretty big red open space out there.
Well, the next part of our adventure was fraught with me being a bastard. The group was still not unanimous about deciding where to go; three out of five guys insisted the party would be weak and boring small town bullcrap, and wanted to sleep in the gorge - Kevin (asian dude) and I insisted that it would be a necessary part of the trip's value, getting to know Australia's out west culture. We were continuously rebuffed, and all "compromised" by going back to the town to eat at it's only open night restaurant, strangely a Chinese place, and then check out the "party" and see if anyone was inspired to check it out.
I thought it looked and sounded great, and I was all for hopping the fence and avoiding the $30 concert fee in order to meet the local young people - to examine the mannerisms and structure of the outback's girls, and guys, and girls. But, well, courageousness was lacking in my group and I angrily agreed to drive up to the gorge that night instead and camp there (for $5, whereas it would have been free in town, where buses were carting the few people to and from the free campground in town until 2:00 am... yes, they take their alcohol seriously).
Enough anger. We made it to the gorge, set up tent in an area that looked like it could have been Kenya - three foot tall dry grass and red dirt. With no lions to worry about, we set up in the dark and slept the night away. I poured about four shots of vodka that Kevin had brought into the rest of our milk and chugged it before hitting the sack - my one man salute to the foregone party, the largest Flinders Shire had seen in six years. Party on, cow-persons.
We awoke, ready to face the day's geological wonder - Porcupine Gorge. We packed the tents, ate PB&Js, packed some with us, and drove about 100 feet to park next to the track that goes down into the gorge. 1.2 km descent in and another few hundred meters at the bottom took us to the base of Pyramid Rock:
It was very tall, and I'm sorry I can't put it into perspective for you. Just can't. In that picture, I'm probably still about a thousand feet from the base of the pyramid.
Wet season's absence was felt even more strongly here - the water level normally about 10 to 15 feet higher here - evidenced by the erosion lines and basin structure. Very few areas had any flowing water at all now in the dry season, and most of it was bone dry. Of course, any water was an excuse to explore for aquatic life, which I did at every opportunity.
This little guy could be found under many of the rocks along a more creek-y little stretch of the gorge much later on. We entered the gorge at around 10:30 AM, and didn't make it back to the car until perhaps 5:00 PM. It was a long walk; we trekked several kilometers down this "little grand canyon," rewarded with crazy sights the whole way. I wasn't fast enough to get a picture, but at one point while tripping over rocks on one particular length of the gorge base, I uncovered a six inch long red centipede, bright red, with black stripes, and bright green legs and pincers. It was probably half an inch across and capable of making a 21 year old American man scream like a 12 year old Chinese girl. It reiterated my desire to depart the gorge before Australia's native nocturnal beasties came out to play and dismember all other life.
Instead of trekking back to the entrance, we decided to climb out as far down as we were, off the beaten path, and just walk back in the direction of camp. The absence of any trail would have made this more difficult if it had been the wet season, but it was dry enough to find our way and see any of Australia's venomous snakes before we stepped on them (we didn't see any though; just cow poop and elusive wallabies). Here's a shot taken from the top part of the gorge after climbing out of it:
We made it back to the car somewhat exhausted, and glad for the water and peanut butter present at that location. Now on our way home, we decided to stop at the gorge "lookout" before leaving - and I'm glad we did.
This is the sign we saw before actually getting up to the edge of the lookout, and therefore knew we were in for a trip (hopefully no pun intended). I wish I could put the following pictures into perspective, but again, I cannot...
It was about a couple hundred foot drop; the greenery visible on the edges are trees, not bushes. It was a really fascinating sight, especially if you haven't been to the Grand Canyon. We thought it would be fun to take some zany shots of us fooling around...
...Although this one did not quite come out as fun as it might have been due to the self-imposed safe edge distance I declared necessary in the case of an accidental actual toss. But I could still smell the lack of ground about five feet in front of me.
We headed back, satisfied with the trip - though I still wish we could have stayed for the locals' party. It was saddening how each and every one of them we met inquired if we'd be at the party/concert that night - I feel a good time was missed.
We all took turns driving home, same story as driving there, but this time were much more prone to drifting off to sleep - especially since it was pitch black. A particular visitor changed this sleepiness - making my earlier 12-year-old-Chinese-girl sounds seem like those of the boldest viking. You see, Kevin suddenly realized in the passenger seat that he had a visitor on his lap, and, well, when the rest of us figured out what he was saying as we stirred from our exhaustive stupor, and with the aid of a flashlight... Let's just say that the shout of "stop/everybody out of the car!" was wordlessly and unanimouosly agreed upon. This thing ran off Kevin, out the car and around the front, and stalled on the back door for a photo shoot...
It's the size of my palm, by the way. Promptly post picture, it dove into the trunk through a crack in the door, where all our massive amounts of nook-laden stuff was. John, being allergic to arachnids, and us, being terrified, drove an instinct to find it, politely ask it to leave, and gun the accelerator away. Luckily, it had only run to the inside edge of the door, permitting us to brush it away and sloppily latch on to the vehicle as it roared away from the ground where the beast landed. The one vehicle that passed us during this ordeal must have thought it quite intriguing.
It took us another three hours to get sleepy again, at which point we had arrived back at University Hall without further incident. It had been a hell of an adventure, certainly worth the final cost of $149.43 AUD. Even I might remember it for years to come.
Since we wanted to maximize our time, and we read that four and a half hours was about how long it would take to get to Hughenden, QLD, we decided to leave early - four am.
Now Hughenden is in the Flinders Shire (county) region of Queensland, about 400 km inland from the coast. This is outback territory as we tourists call it, but the ozzies just say "out west." Most coastal ozzies are confused as to why we wanted to go out west, as there was "nothing there." Surely they were overlooking the 1500 souls of Hughenden, the major part of the 2000-besouled county of Flinders. The last 500 persons are spread for dozens of kilometers in many directions...
Regardless of the area's population, and the fact that they (the one man camel race planning committee) failed to return calls of ours for days inquiring about the event's start and end times, number of visitors, boredom factor, e.g., we were able to find fun things to do in the area. Since we did not really know when the races were to begin, and we arrived in this godforsak- er, wholesome and fascinating land at the ripe time of 8 AM, we found ourselves easily distracted by any dirt road leading away - many labeled "tourist drive." Most of these had extensive cattle farm operations - low managed industry where cattle are free to roam and be chased by American youths with cameras...
While fascinated with the dusty, dry, vast landscape, a quick comment by one of the group likening the surroundings to any we could find in Kansas sort of demystified the situation... A little fascination returned with the discovery of some wild emu in the same cattle field...
Wallabies were everywhere too, but despite our multiple attempts to chase them down over cracked earth and dried cow poo with our all wheel drive Toyota Rav4, we could not get close enough to shoot even a massive foot.
Anyhow, we finally made it into town, and just in time for the Great Camel Endurance race! Such excitement!
Er, well... I mean it's an endurance race, they gotta eat, right? It would have been fun to watch a track race, where the camels sprint in awkward gaunt-legged flying spittle frolics, but alas, this would not be the case. The endurance race was two days of several dozen kilometers a day; the day we showed up, day two, left the camels (the large flock of nine...) with 49 km of race left - seven laps of seven kilometers each... yipes!
Not all camels felt entirely up to the challenge...
...But those brave camel drivers led them along anyhow - making the whole event more of a human endurance race. In fact, every lap each camel was allowed a 10 minute break anyhow - optional, but no time was removed for up to ten minutes... I'm sure the camels used this rest time to bemoan their existence in this somewhat fiendish position...
Though, to be honest, I speak very little camel - its immediacy and lowness of pitch certainly alerts you to its presence - the best way it could be described is perhaps as a much larger and deeper-voiced goat bleating, or even the whale sounds that Dory speaks in Finding Nemo. Anyhow, you know it's from a big animal, possibly attributable to a bunyip if you heard it in the night. In any case, I did get over my terror and managed to stroke one of these massive creatures...
Don't be deceived; its head from a side shot would show you how much bigger it really is. I think No. 10 here could probably have fit my head in his mouth.
To pass time between the teriffically entertaining 7 km walking laps, we took pictures of the dry river bed that made up part of the track. Really its quite impressive; the wet and dry seasons in northeast Australia are highly bipartisan; this river bed filled to like six to eight feet of water in the wet season, and was almost one hundred feet wide... And it was 100% bone dry when we were in it.
Our fascination with this massive hydrologic feature was not lasting and our numerous pictures of sand (not pictured) were our way of ridding ourselves of all our excess excitement from the suspense-laced sauntering of the day's dashing desert dromedaries.
While discussing the dynamics and strategies of camel endurance racing, we were suddenly awoken by humans falling from the sky.
OK - so they had parachutes. But we weren't expecting them. And it was strange that they didn't shout anything before landing about twenty feet from where we were discussing/sleeping. In any case, it was interesting; perhaps a half dozen more skywalkers descended upon us that afternoon. The camels were not affected.
So there was more going on that weekend in Hughenden; the camel races were just the equivalent of the supermodel girl on a nightclub's advertisement. Those sexy camels dragged us in to the Arid Lands Festival, a summit for discussing life in the Outback (out west) and how to manage it and bring in more tourists, and how dirt is really cool, etc. In any case, the planned party was still quite up to par, sarcasm free - a concert would occur at night with four of Australia's traditional country music artists, including the two performing brothers of a more famous Australian singer!!!! No but seriously, there would be drinking. Everyone we spoke with that day asked if we would be going to the party that night, to join the masses (<2000, I remind you) of the Flinders Shire at their "biggest party in six years," quoth the toothy grinning hag from the one fuel station in town. No but seriously, they know how to drink:
I really did want to stay; there were young people, and, well, um... I wanted to exchange stories, and hear about the Outback way of life (which I must continue to instruct you is more of an invented term - ozzies call it "out west"). But, my vote didn' really count; some guys would have rather slept in the gorge that night. Oh well.
We still explored the few entertaining sights and sounds at this one cul-de-sac sized festival, including stopping to ask this local ozzie entertainer to play "Waltzing Matilda." He said he would, and recruited us to join in; which we did, and he presently made us play about 30 minutes worth of music with him before fulfilling our request. It was fun, I learned to play the "bush bass," while Pat and John shook their lager poles/sticks to the beat.
My fingers throbbed afterwards from plucking a nylon rope at high speed for the edification of the six or seven ears (singular, not pairs) that were out there in the crowd listening. Afterwards, "Pete" also invited us to the party and expressed disdain at our non-unanimous decision not to go (for which I still hold a grudge against my lame peers). I would have certainly enjoyed a VB and some good stories from Pete, and, well, there were going to be young people!!
Anyhow, I've included a bit of the later story - at this point in time, after the jam session, the group hadn't actually decided not to leave town yet. So we explored more locally, including another "tourist drive" just a few kilometers out of town that extended for 93 km more. We weren't sure what we'd find, but surely adventure lurked. Our hunch paid off with our first sighting - an abandoned and rusted vehicle. Perhaps a celebratory gesture by the local high schoolers, it lay decomposing on flat cow poop ridden fields (as all non-town areas out west seem to be plagued by). Why there were bones of questionable origin surrounding it was anybody's guess -
...But we said fuck it, and had a great time anyhow, wondering how the last owner of the vehicle came to lose it, and if that event was associated with the twisted and demolished state of the vehicle, and the many bones in a curious radius around the metal heap...
Look at me! I'm an ozzie driver!! VRRRMMMMM! In any case, the paint-free (washed by time) front license plate of this car now hangs with pride on my dorm room wall.
Along the tourist drive we continued, not a single moving car or truck come across for the entire three hour round trip. With no other autos, police, or civilization around, we were entertained by all hanging out the window while driving - it felt very much like a safari, except without as many cool animals.
The few animals we did see, such as the elusive wallabies/kangaroos, were entertaining. There were cows, black/red parrots of some sort, cows, emus, some other strange birds - maybe large bush-curlews (google it), and cows. The massive swarm of locusts that engulfed us randomly were also pretty cool...
Man, even driving slow, when they smacked the windshield or flew in a window and nearly killed one of us, it was funny, funny shit.
The perceived end of the tourist drive, or at least when we lost interest, was a big open space perfect for photography. Once again, it could have been Kansas - but, well - it wasn't.
That's John, my other Miami co-academic, sauntering off into the vast unknown... Pretty big red open space out there.
Well, the next part of our adventure was fraught with me being a bastard. The group was still not unanimous about deciding where to go; three out of five guys insisted the party would be weak and boring small town bullcrap, and wanted to sleep in the gorge - Kevin (asian dude) and I insisted that it would be a necessary part of the trip's value, getting to know Australia's out west culture. We were continuously rebuffed, and all "compromised" by going back to the town to eat at it's only open night restaurant, strangely a Chinese place, and then check out the "party" and see if anyone was inspired to check it out.
I thought it looked and sounded great, and I was all for hopping the fence and avoiding the $30 concert fee in order to meet the local young people - to examine the mannerisms and structure of the outback's girls, and guys, and girls. But, well, courageousness was lacking in my group and I angrily agreed to drive up to the gorge that night instead and camp there (for $5, whereas it would have been free in town, where buses were carting the few people to and from the free campground in town until 2:00 am... yes, they take their alcohol seriously).
Enough anger. We made it to the gorge, set up tent in an area that looked like it could have been Kenya - three foot tall dry grass and red dirt. With no lions to worry about, we set up in the dark and slept the night away. I poured about four shots of vodka that Kevin had brought into the rest of our milk and chugged it before hitting the sack - my one man salute to the foregone party, the largest Flinders Shire had seen in six years. Party on, cow-persons.
We awoke, ready to face the day's geological wonder - Porcupine Gorge. We packed the tents, ate PB&Js, packed some with us, and drove about 100 feet to park next to the track that goes down into the gorge. 1.2 km descent in and another few hundred meters at the bottom took us to the base of Pyramid Rock:
It was very tall, and I'm sorry I can't put it into perspective for you. Just can't. In that picture, I'm probably still about a thousand feet from the base of the pyramid.
Wet season's absence was felt even more strongly here - the water level normally about 10 to 15 feet higher here - evidenced by the erosion lines and basin structure. Very few areas had any flowing water at all now in the dry season, and most of it was bone dry. Of course, any water was an excuse to explore for aquatic life, which I did at every opportunity.
This little guy could be found under many of the rocks along a more creek-y little stretch of the gorge much later on. We entered the gorge at around 10:30 AM, and didn't make it back to the car until perhaps 5:00 PM. It was a long walk; we trekked several kilometers down this "little grand canyon," rewarded with crazy sights the whole way. I wasn't fast enough to get a picture, but at one point while tripping over rocks on one particular length of the gorge base, I uncovered a six inch long red centipede, bright red, with black stripes, and bright green legs and pincers. It was probably half an inch across and capable of making a 21 year old American man scream like a 12 year old Chinese girl. It reiterated my desire to depart the gorge before Australia's native nocturnal beasties came out to play and dismember all other life.
Instead of trekking back to the entrance, we decided to climb out as far down as we were, off the beaten path, and just walk back in the direction of camp. The absence of any trail would have made this more difficult if it had been the wet season, but it was dry enough to find our way and see any of Australia's venomous snakes before we stepped on them (we didn't see any though; just cow poop and elusive wallabies). Here's a shot taken from the top part of the gorge after climbing out of it:
We made it back to the car somewhat exhausted, and glad for the water and peanut butter present at that location. Now on our way home, we decided to stop at the gorge "lookout" before leaving - and I'm glad we did.
This is the sign we saw before actually getting up to the edge of the lookout, and therefore knew we were in for a trip (hopefully no pun intended). I wish I could put the following pictures into perspective, but again, I cannot...
It was about a couple hundred foot drop; the greenery visible on the edges are trees, not bushes. It was a really fascinating sight, especially if you haven't been to the Grand Canyon. We thought it would be fun to take some zany shots of us fooling around...
...Although this one did not quite come out as fun as it might have been due to the self-imposed safe edge distance I declared necessary in the case of an accidental actual toss. But I could still smell the lack of ground about five feet in front of me.
We headed back, satisfied with the trip - though I still wish we could have stayed for the locals' party. It was saddening how each and every one of them we met inquired if we'd be at the party/concert that night - I feel a good time was missed.
We all took turns driving home, same story as driving there, but this time were much more prone to drifting off to sleep - especially since it was pitch black. A particular visitor changed this sleepiness - making my earlier 12-year-old-Chinese-girl sounds seem like those of the boldest viking. You see, Kevin suddenly realized in the passenger seat that he had a visitor on his lap, and, well, when the rest of us figured out what he was saying as we stirred from our exhaustive stupor, and with the aid of a flashlight... Let's just say that the shout of "stop/everybody out of the car!" was wordlessly and unanimouosly agreed upon. This thing ran off Kevin, out the car and around the front, and stalled on the back door for a photo shoot...
It's the size of my palm, by the way. Promptly post picture, it dove into the trunk through a crack in the door, where all our massive amounts of nook-laden stuff was. John, being allergic to arachnids, and us, being terrified, drove an instinct to find it, politely ask it to leave, and gun the accelerator away. Luckily, it had only run to the inside edge of the door, permitting us to brush it away and sloppily latch on to the vehicle as it roared away from the ground where the beast landed. The one vehicle that passed us during this ordeal must have thought it quite intriguing.
It took us another three hours to get sleepy again, at which point we had arrived back at University Hall without further incident. It had been a hell of an adventure, certainly worth the final cost of $149.43 AUD. Even I might remember it for years to come.
Thursday, August 21, 2008
"What Do You Do For Fun?"
I have to share something real quick. I'm actually in class right now; a practical or "lab" session for marine conservation biology. Back to the story. The room quickly filled for this computer-oriented lab. Today's lesson is about data collection and review. I sat in one corner, and next to me sat a forty-something Asian man. Some of my other friends are in the class, but I'm busy doing the work and planning a bunch of things so I didn't try to sit with them. The clock struck noon and class started.
Now, being a forty-something man, I had stereotypical American feelings of empathetic estrangement - why was an 'old man' at university? But this quickly wore off as I have learned over the past few months that in Australia, university really is seen as special training - not just the next step to a job. Jobs are available after high school, good jobs; university is seen as specific training for a field. So there are many older people studying here. But, the man being older, and we being in a computer-oriented laboratory/research session, I assumed that he would hit some road blocks, possibly. At least with the language barrier?
Thankfully I had read the pre-lab and done some of the work before the session started so that I could be somewhat ahead. This allowed me to answer my neighbor's frequent questions about what was going on, in his broken but suitable English. I was happy to help out, especially because I'm supposed to be learning about other cultures when I'm here...
At the termination of our friendly peer computer session, I was thrilled to hear that he was a talker. This is great! I found out that his name is James. He's taking aquaculture courses, and this one marine biology course is his only one. He told me he lives in Phnom Penh, in Cambodia. And he sounded just like any American student, with his heavily-accented laments towards excessive reading and coursework! Of course this was mainly tongue-in-cheek jibber jabber considering his wise and wizened of-age status - he wasn't expecting anything else out of the higher education experience. In any case, when he told me he was from Cambodia, I was curious to learn more. More culture! Excellent! From a person, and not a tour guide! I pressed for details, saying that I was possibly planning a trip to Thailand or Cambodia (which I am...)
So, James went on a happy tirade with Google Images to show off popular places of Cambodia - 95% of which were photos from a shrine in Angkor Wat. Much to my chagrin, his excitement for Angkor Wat somehow decreased his ability to understand English, as multiple inquiries of mine were unheard or brushed out of the way in favor of another picture. I could only smile and nod at the amazing Bayon temple, made entirely out of rock and pieces of rocks without any other supports... and smile some more... and more. When the torrent of images slowed to a trickle, he began to hear me again. One of the things I'm curious about in my global ignorance are what real life in these countries is like, not just what the tourists see... Let me illuminate:
Bayon temple, in Angkor Wat. Tourist location built in 9th century that attracts about ~1 million people a year, according to James.
I feel that what's in a travel guide is not reflective of daily living. I feel that travel guides do not reflect nuances in language and culture that make us different at the core. I feel that there is some reason that we are different, that after years of documentaries and stories of others' experiences that yes, there are amazing things between cultures that separate us, not exclusively, but culturally. That these people have unique ways of seeing, thinking, and acting. Isn't that what we're always shown? So when I visit a country, I want to not see Bayon temple (well, not exclusively). I want to know how they think. What jokes are funny? What do they do on a Friday night? Is Friday night a typical activity time? Is there an equivalent of a Friday night, or even just a Friday? What sports do they watch? Do they have a sport? What do they drink to get silly drunk, and who gets the butt of jokes when they're drunk? Do they get drunk? Are there butts of jokes? Do they criticize government? Do they like to write? These are things I want to know. Not just a picture that says "hey ma! I'm in Phnom Penh!!! wooO!!"
So, back to James. In order to learn something, I asked James, "so, what do you do at home?" and he showed me pictures of Bayon temple. I asked James "when a friend comes to visit, where do you go? what do you do?" and he smiled. I asked "do you play cards, do you tell stories," and made hand gestures. He told me about how you can go into the city and find a child who will show you all the tourist places and tell you about them in English - you just can't talk back to him in English because he just knows how to say things about those places in English, he doesn't actually understand the language! This was a cool story, but not my point. James just seemed like another guy happy to show off pictures of the "tourist" part of his country.
As far as I've seen for now, my in depth questions about society are once again somewhat mystically inspired. What do they do for fun? They're people. James was connecting with me on a human level throughout class, and he's never been to the states. He's just in Australia for the first time now! Yet he's a person, and we have so much in common already. In one sense I am disappointed, that we are all more similar than we pretend with our PBS documentaries and travel guides. Perhaps that's how they make their money, convincing us that people are unrectifiably foreign from each other. From what I've seen so far, culture to culture, we all laugh and cry and find faulty computer programs hilariously annoying.
James invited me to Cambodia, or rather, he said he'd show me around and I'd have a place to stay. Awesome, though I'm not sure if I'll be able to go. Maybe then I'll be able to tell you that there are nuances to discover - but I think that whatever the day/night's activities are chosen for entertainment, we'll still be laughing for the same reasons.
Now, being a forty-something man, I had stereotypical American feelings of empathetic estrangement - why was an 'old man' at university? But this quickly wore off as I have learned over the past few months that in Australia, university really is seen as special training - not just the next step to a job. Jobs are available after high school, good jobs; university is seen as specific training for a field. So there are many older people studying here. But, the man being older, and we being in a computer-oriented laboratory/research session, I assumed that he would hit some road blocks, possibly. At least with the language barrier?
Thankfully I had read the pre-lab and done some of the work before the session started so that I could be somewhat ahead. This allowed me to answer my neighbor's frequent questions about what was going on, in his broken but suitable English. I was happy to help out, especially because I'm supposed to be learning about other cultures when I'm here...
At the termination of our friendly peer computer session, I was thrilled to hear that he was a talker. This is great! I found out that his name is James. He's taking aquaculture courses, and this one marine biology course is his only one. He told me he lives in Phnom Penh, in Cambodia. And he sounded just like any American student, with his heavily-accented laments towards excessive reading and coursework! Of course this was mainly tongue-in-cheek jibber jabber considering his wise and wizened of-age status - he wasn't expecting anything else out of the higher education experience. In any case, when he told me he was from Cambodia, I was curious to learn more. More culture! Excellent! From a person, and not a tour guide! I pressed for details, saying that I was possibly planning a trip to Thailand or Cambodia (which I am...)
So, James went on a happy tirade with Google Images to show off popular places of Cambodia - 95% of which were photos from a shrine in Angkor Wat. Much to my chagrin, his excitement for Angkor Wat somehow decreased his ability to understand English, as multiple inquiries of mine were unheard or brushed out of the way in favor of another picture. I could only smile and nod at the amazing Bayon temple, made entirely out of rock and pieces of rocks without any other supports... and smile some more... and more. When the torrent of images slowed to a trickle, he began to hear me again. One of the things I'm curious about in my global ignorance are what real life in these countries is like, not just what the tourists see... Let me illuminate:
Bayon temple, in Angkor Wat. Tourist location built in 9th century that attracts about ~1 million people a year, according to James.
I feel that what's in a travel guide is not reflective of daily living. I feel that travel guides do not reflect nuances in language and culture that make us different at the core. I feel that there is some reason that we are different, that after years of documentaries and stories of others' experiences that yes, there are amazing things between cultures that separate us, not exclusively, but culturally. That these people have unique ways of seeing, thinking, and acting. Isn't that what we're always shown? So when I visit a country, I want to not see Bayon temple (well, not exclusively). I want to know how they think. What jokes are funny? What do they do on a Friday night? Is Friday night a typical activity time? Is there an equivalent of a Friday night, or even just a Friday? What sports do they watch? Do they have a sport? What do they drink to get silly drunk, and who gets the butt of jokes when they're drunk? Do they get drunk? Are there butts of jokes? Do they criticize government? Do they like to write? These are things I want to know. Not just a picture that says "hey ma! I'm in Phnom Penh!!! wooO!!"
So, back to James. In order to learn something, I asked James, "so, what do you do at home?" and he showed me pictures of Bayon temple. I asked James "when a friend comes to visit, where do you go? what do you do?" and he smiled. I asked "do you play cards, do you tell stories," and made hand gestures. He told me about how you can go into the city and find a child who will show you all the tourist places and tell you about them in English - you just can't talk back to him in English because he just knows how to say things about those places in English, he doesn't actually understand the language! This was a cool story, but not my point. James just seemed like another guy happy to show off pictures of the "tourist" part of his country.
As far as I've seen for now, my in depth questions about society are once again somewhat mystically inspired. What do they do for fun? They're people. James was connecting with me on a human level throughout class, and he's never been to the states. He's just in Australia for the first time now! Yet he's a person, and we have so much in common already. In one sense I am disappointed, that we are all more similar than we pretend with our PBS documentaries and travel guides. Perhaps that's how they make their money, convincing us that people are unrectifiably foreign from each other. From what I've seen so far, culture to culture, we all laugh and cry and find faulty computer programs hilariously annoying.
James invited me to Cambodia, or rather, he said he'd show me around and I'd have a place to stay. Awesome, though I'm not sure if I'll be able to go. Maybe then I'll be able to tell you that there are nuances to discover - but I think that whatever the day/night's activities are chosen for entertainment, we'll still be laughing for the same reasons.
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
AOW Certification & The SS Yongala Trip, Outback Trip, Fraser Island Trip
Today I spent my post-lecture leisure avoiding responsibility and hammering out my dive trip to the SS Yongala. So many dive options, so little time! I should be working on homework for class, grad school hunting, GRE preparation, and especially data entry for my summer's research so that I can yield a crop out of the seeds I'd sown. I'm not going into detail about the Yongala; I'll do that after the trip. For now I'll tell you I've settled on a plan through one company (out of five options, yikes) - and got the most satisfying rate; the best dives for the money. The trip is a two day two night live-aboard trip to one of the world's best wrecks. Food, lodging/transport (boat, duh), gear - all included for the price. Seven dives are to be completed, five of which are training for Advanced Open Water certification that allows me access to more dives around the world. Three dives are on the wreck (and it's humpback season so they may swim by for a visit), and four are on lower reefs of the Great Barrier Reef. The price comes out to $850. The cheapest option to get the Advanced Open Water certification (needed to dive the Yongala wreck) on the Yongala wreck would be $500, for five dives, with only one on the wreck, without food or gear provided (an extra $150), and dives inshore not on the barrier reef. Good deal for the $850!
Dive Company Info!
(I'll tell you about the history of the Yongala later in all my loquacity, but there are some pages on this site that summarize the ship's history, too)
(Editor's note: I may have just recently found a nearly identical trip for $200 cheaper and one less dive on the wreck.)
Also, some friends and I are speaking about hiring a 4WD and driving 14 hrs south to Fraser Island, a big sand island with a wreck to explore and tons of other stuff to do, more details when I get them but I want to go - it works out to like $200 for the weekend for each of us. Check Google maps for where Fraser Island is. We'd also drive past Bundaberg, the location for the country's rum company - Bundaberg Rum, or "Bundy." And there's a lot of places along the way too, like Airlie Beach and Mackay.
Fraser Island Info!
Finally, I'm working hard tonight to hammer out the details for this weekend's trip - going out five hours to the Outback - Hughenden, Queensland (Google map it!). There is an "Arid Lands Festival" this weekend, with the $50,000 grand prize camel race as the main event on saturday. Sunday we'll drive further North to explore Porcupine Gorge, known (for tourism's sake, perhaps) as the Little Grand Canyon. I'm working hard because the logistics of this trip are tricky, and the whole area may be more of a tourist trap. We'll see... details upon completion of adventures.
Camel Races Info!
Porcupine Gorge Info!
Dive Company Info!
(I'll tell you about the history of the Yongala later in all my loquacity, but there are some pages on this site that summarize the ship's history, too)
(Editor's note: I may have just recently found a nearly identical trip for $200 cheaper and one less dive on the wreck.)
Also, some friends and I are speaking about hiring a 4WD and driving 14 hrs south to Fraser Island, a big sand island with a wreck to explore and tons of other stuff to do, more details when I get them but I want to go - it works out to like $200 for the weekend for each of us. Check Google maps for where Fraser Island is. We'd also drive past Bundaberg, the location for the country's rum company - Bundaberg Rum, or "Bundy." And there's a lot of places along the way too, like Airlie Beach and Mackay.
Fraser Island Info!
Finally, I'm working hard tonight to hammer out the details for this weekend's trip - going out five hours to the Outback - Hughenden, Queensland (Google map it!). There is an "Arid Lands Festival" this weekend, with the $50,000 grand prize camel race as the main event on saturday. Sunday we'll drive further North to explore Porcupine Gorge, known (for tourism's sake, perhaps) as the Little Grand Canyon. I'm working hard because the logistics of this trip are tricky, and the whole area may be more of a tourist trap. We'll see... details upon completion of adventures.
Camel Races Info!
Porcupine Gorge Info!
Monday, August 18, 2008
Short Reflection on Confounders of Aussie Observations
Making claims about how a whole country operates based on a few months of stay in one region is somewhat ridiculous. Stated that way, this concept is rather clear. How could I infer trends and mindsets about this similar modernized country from my experiences in one of its areas? And why is it that I (we) am (are) so inspired to do so? Here's just a quick reminder to readers that should hopefully cut back on mysticism and bring Australia to your mind as a simple developed country, or at least understand my adventure better.
In the United States, we speak of regions. We have the American South, the Northeast, the Midwest, the West Coast... Derogatory terms and stereotypes spring from these, our own subdivisions of our own country. Notice that modest Christian values and landlocked isolation often lead to portrayals of those from the Midwest as simple and unprepared for a busy world; so too a stereotype of the ignorant Southerner, or a West Coast surfer... So, how could you sum up an American? Beyond the ever popular discussion of our fitness you might actually try explaining our regions, as I have to Australians and students here from Germany, Norway, and France (to name a few). Each Australian state is large enough to act as a region as we think of them in the U.S. And I live in only one region, Queensland. I understand Americans a bit better after living in Massachusetts and Florida; my understanding of Australia must therefore be weakened by the fact that I've only experienced Queensland. This is certainly one reason why I've requested extra funds for this Australian adventure!
Lack of exposure notwithstanding, what else is it that hinders my true ability to describe Australia? One vague point which I can try to clarify is that expecting discoveries is a bit of a "search for the bunyip.*" When I learned I'd actually be going to Australia, it hadn't "hit me." In fact, a common question received was "has it hit you yet?" No doubt my interrogators were referring to the impact I would surely feel when I finally realized on some deeper level that I would be living in a foreign country, for several months, half way across the world, etc, etc. I ask - why is it that we collectively think this deeper level of feeling from international experiences exists? I first pondered this at age 16, during a one week trip to London to visit my sister. After a few days in the city, the lack of life changing surprises caused me to step back and consider what I had been expecting. If there is a deeper level of feeling, which occasionally one can notice on a particularly different cultural experience (or any travel guide where the author is enthralled to find a particular work of art, etc), why is it that it seems restricted to foreign travel? We have a massive country as well. How many of us have spent extended time outside "the Northeast?" One thing I continue to notice as culture shock wears off and regularity sets in is that Australians are quite like us. Imagine you are in my shoes - another country, across the world, for several months, etc - now turn that feeling around and pretend you are an Australian experiencing the feeling about visiting the United States. No doubt the feeling is there for them too. Why is it that you and I don't have that feeling for our own country? Ponder this last paragraph. My point here is that sometimes we may go looking for truths and adventures and experiences that are not there; otherwise, we would be searching for them in our own backyards.
1935 black and white watercolor of a bunyip interpretation.
Or, if you would rather be an optimist about my second (and more verbose) paragraph, you could instead interpret us as culturally dead when in the States - awakened when enlightened by foreign travel and inspired anew to find amazing experiences never explored on return to our home country. If you prefer this latter point, then, well, exploring Australia and looking for life experiences is going to kick ass!
*Bunyips, which I still have not fully detailed, are Australian beasts of lore believed to exist on first arrival to the country which were slowly reduced to fable due to exploration and development of the country. Thus, the spawning of the phrase "why search for the bunyip," a rhetorical question "indicating that a proposed course of action is fruitless or impossible," (Wikipedia.org).
In the United States, we speak of regions. We have the American South, the Northeast, the Midwest, the West Coast... Derogatory terms and stereotypes spring from these, our own subdivisions of our own country. Notice that modest Christian values and landlocked isolation often lead to portrayals of those from the Midwest as simple and unprepared for a busy world; so too a stereotype of the ignorant Southerner, or a West Coast surfer... So, how could you sum up an American? Beyond the ever popular discussion of our fitness you might actually try explaining our regions, as I have to Australians and students here from Germany, Norway, and France (to name a few). Each Australian state is large enough to act as a region as we think of them in the U.S. And I live in only one region, Queensland. I understand Americans a bit better after living in Massachusetts and Florida; my understanding of Australia must therefore be weakened by the fact that I've only experienced Queensland. This is certainly one reason why I've requested extra funds for this Australian adventure!
Lack of exposure notwithstanding, what else is it that hinders my true ability to describe Australia? One vague point which I can try to clarify is that expecting discoveries is a bit of a "search for the bunyip.*" When I learned I'd actually be going to Australia, it hadn't "hit me." In fact, a common question received was "has it hit you yet?" No doubt my interrogators were referring to the impact I would surely feel when I finally realized on some deeper level that I would be living in a foreign country, for several months, half way across the world, etc, etc. I ask - why is it that we collectively think this deeper level of feeling from international experiences exists? I first pondered this at age 16, during a one week trip to London to visit my sister. After a few days in the city, the lack of life changing surprises caused me to step back and consider what I had been expecting. If there is a deeper level of feeling, which occasionally one can notice on a particularly different cultural experience (or any travel guide where the author is enthralled to find a particular work of art, etc), why is it that it seems restricted to foreign travel? We have a massive country as well. How many of us have spent extended time outside "the Northeast?" One thing I continue to notice as culture shock wears off and regularity sets in is that Australians are quite like us. Imagine you are in my shoes - another country, across the world, for several months, etc - now turn that feeling around and pretend you are an Australian experiencing the feeling about visiting the United States. No doubt the feeling is there for them too. Why is it that you and I don't have that feeling for our own country? Ponder this last paragraph. My point here is that sometimes we may go looking for truths and adventures and experiences that are not there; otherwise, we would be searching for them in our own backyards.
1935 black and white watercolor of a bunyip interpretation.
Or, if you would rather be an optimist about my second (and more verbose) paragraph, you could instead interpret us as culturally dead when in the States - awakened when enlightened by foreign travel and inspired anew to find amazing experiences never explored on return to our home country. If you prefer this latter point, then, well, exploring Australia and looking for life experiences is going to kick ass!
*Bunyips, which I still have not fully detailed, are Australian beasts of lore believed to exist on first arrival to the country which were slowly reduced to fable due to exploration and development of the country. Thus, the spawning of the phrase "why search for the bunyip," a rhetorical question "indicating that a proposed course of action is fruitless or impossible," (Wikipedia.org).
Thursday, August 14, 2008
Meet Australia: A Mere Exercise in Rhetoric
Unfortunately, I have not had many adventures as of late and am more recently concerned with graduate schools, James Cook subjects and scheduling, and small nagging "to-do's" that remain undone. Since I am concerned for my writing skills with regards to the upcoming graduate level examinations (GREs), I will instead enlighten you about the general geography and background history of this wonderful country, for your edification and my practice. At the post's end, I'll zoom in on Queensland for smaller locations and possible adventures. Cheers!
For my American readers, Australia can be considered similar to our home country in many ways. It's about 80% of the size of the U.S., area wise - a number that rises to 95% if we exclude Alaska. Australia's slightly closer to the equator than the USA, in a range from 10 degrees latitude to 40 degrees latitude compared to the USA's 24 degrees to 50 degrees. Of course, they are in different hemispheres and thereby exhibit opposite seasons, but the range of latitudes within each country represents somewhat similar internal seasonal differences. Both countries' eastern coasts experience similar climates due to similar oceanographic features - each country's east coast is moderated by large ocean gyre currents headed poleward after traversing the equator. Both countries were settled by Europeans between the 17th and 18th centuries.
But Australia and the U.S.A. are not the same country. Australia's population is 1/15th that of the United States, a mere 20 million Aussies as compared to 305 million Americans. While I've noticed this large difference, manifested as a greater sense of space, its effects are mediated by the fact that much of Australia's inner region is a gigantic uninhabitable desert - pushing most people to the coasts. For example, a comparison of each country's largest city's population density reveals that the 1/15th value for overall population does not hold. New York City has a population density only about five times that of Sydney (which is also not the country's capital), not fifteen. Sydney also holds almost 25% of Australia's entire population. This point is pretty erroneous, but worth thinking about.
The country itself is divided into seven states - most of which are on the east coast along with the country's population. Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria, and Tasmania are the easterly states. The geographic locations of the rest are quite self-explanatory: South Australia, Western Australia, and the Northern Territories. A small within state area, known as the Australian Capital Territories, houses the country's capital of Canberra - similar to Washington D.C. in the District of Columbia.
The history of colonization, while similar to the United States in its mistreatment, disrespect, and neglect of native peoples, is also vastly more prominent in the country's awareness. Consider that Native Americans were living in their lands for around 20,000 years before European disturbances (Vikings the earliest visitors?) and colonizations (for America, 1600's in Virginia). Australia is much more profound - Aboriginal peoples were alone in their lands for at least 40,000 years, and European visits began much later - 1500's before Australia was even "discovered," and even then only settled in 1788. Think of it this way - temporally, Native Americans would be as foreign to Aboriginals as American settlers were to Native Americans. Australia's history also recalls abusive treatments to its indigenous peoples, including a particularly well known injustice referred to as the "stolen generations." This term refers to a governmental plan to integrate Aboriginal peoples into European culture by removing Aboriginal children and raising them into white Australian culture. The idea was that after years of mixing and marriage to Europeans (now Australians), the skin color would be washed out over time in future generations. My summary of this (and most of this Australia post) is highly erratic, and you're best to look up the details yourselves.
This mention of indigenous peoples and events concerning multi-cultural interactions illustrates that native culture here is even more foreign and separate than clashes we are familiar with when we speak of Native Americans. To get a sense of this more mystical and distant cultural gap, one only has to try to understand Aboriginal beliefs. Many of the peoples refer to "the Dreaming," an event without reference to time which merely preceded the presence of the Aboriginal peoples. They tell of how gods, who were just like people, wandered the land creating the laws by which people live before departing the world. The Dreamers' influence and spirits are left behind at sacred sites - locations to which they are believed to have been - and in "totems" or "Dreamings," objects or organisms representative of their qualities. Aboriginal individuals are assigned these "totems," objects of the Dreamers that give courage, strength, wisdom, and other characters - a figure symbolizing a way of living.
Eventually I'd like to delve into modern culture as well, and tell you about Australia's transit (they drive on the left side of the road as well), their commodities and trade items (lots of sugar, aluminum, zinc), mythologies (bunyips and dropbears), and biology (marsupials, bark-shedding trees). Maybe on another free day.
For my American readers, Australia can be considered similar to our home country in many ways. It's about 80% of the size of the U.S., area wise - a number that rises to 95% if we exclude Alaska. Australia's slightly closer to the equator than the USA, in a range from 10 degrees latitude to 40 degrees latitude compared to the USA's 24 degrees to 50 degrees. Of course, they are in different hemispheres and thereby exhibit opposite seasons, but the range of latitudes within each country represents somewhat similar internal seasonal differences. Both countries' eastern coasts experience similar climates due to similar oceanographic features - each country's east coast is moderated by large ocean gyre currents headed poleward after traversing the equator. Both countries were settled by Europeans between the 17th and 18th centuries.
But Australia and the U.S.A. are not the same country. Australia's population is 1/15th that of the United States, a mere 20 million Aussies as compared to 305 million Americans. While I've noticed this large difference, manifested as a greater sense of space, its effects are mediated by the fact that much of Australia's inner region is a gigantic uninhabitable desert - pushing most people to the coasts. For example, a comparison of each country's largest city's population density reveals that the 1/15th value for overall population does not hold. New York City has a population density only about five times that of Sydney (which is also not the country's capital), not fifteen. Sydney also holds almost 25% of Australia's entire population. This point is pretty erroneous, but worth thinking about.
The country itself is divided into seven states - most of which are on the east coast along with the country's population. Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria, and Tasmania are the easterly states. The geographic locations of the rest are quite self-explanatory: South Australia, Western Australia, and the Northern Territories. A small within state area, known as the Australian Capital Territories, houses the country's capital of Canberra - similar to Washington D.C. in the District of Columbia.
The history of colonization, while similar to the United States in its mistreatment, disrespect, and neglect of native peoples, is also vastly more prominent in the country's awareness. Consider that Native Americans were living in their lands for around 20,000 years before European disturbances (Vikings the earliest visitors?) and colonizations (for America, 1600's in Virginia). Australia is much more profound - Aboriginal peoples were alone in their lands for at least 40,000 years, and European visits began much later - 1500's before Australia was even "discovered," and even then only settled in 1788. Think of it this way - temporally, Native Americans would be as foreign to Aboriginals as American settlers were to Native Americans. Australia's history also recalls abusive treatments to its indigenous peoples, including a particularly well known injustice referred to as the "stolen generations." This term refers to a governmental plan to integrate Aboriginal peoples into European culture by removing Aboriginal children and raising them into white Australian culture. The idea was that after years of mixing and marriage to Europeans (now Australians), the skin color would be washed out over time in future generations. My summary of this (and most of this Australia post) is highly erratic, and you're best to look up the details yourselves.
This mention of indigenous peoples and events concerning multi-cultural interactions illustrates that native culture here is even more foreign and separate than clashes we are familiar with when we speak of Native Americans. To get a sense of this more mystical and distant cultural gap, one only has to try to understand Aboriginal beliefs. Many of the peoples refer to "the Dreaming," an event without reference to time which merely preceded the presence of the Aboriginal peoples. They tell of how gods, who were just like people, wandered the land creating the laws by which people live before departing the world. The Dreamers' influence and spirits are left behind at sacred sites - locations to which they are believed to have been - and in "totems" or "Dreamings," objects or organisms representative of their qualities. Aboriginal individuals are assigned these "totems," objects of the Dreamers that give courage, strength, wisdom, and other characters - a figure symbolizing a way of living.
Eventually I'd like to delve into modern culture as well, and tell you about Australia's transit (they drive on the left side of the road as well), their commodities and trade items (lots of sugar, aluminum, zinc), mythologies (bunyips and dropbears), and biology (marsupials, bark-shedding trees). Maybe on another free day.
Thursday, August 7, 2008
Australian Wildlife by the Dormside
A quick story for you that transpired a few days ago...
I woke up one morning, woozy and somewhat apprehensive for the start of the day. To get in the spirit, I figured I'd toss the window shutters open with great vigor in order to celebrate the sun's cheerful rays. Resisting the pounding desire to slide into an alarm-abhorring coma once more, I lowered to the floor and unlatched the balcony doors doubling as shutters. With a mighty shove they spread wide, alerting me to not only a beautiful morning view, but an awkard and light sounding "splap" as well.
Directing my eyes to the source of the splap, I spied a small dead gecko. I was first stricken by grief at its obvious dead nature, embodied in the form of a short shriek from my throat. Yet, it was very simple to recover when considering the hilarity of his (or her; while many are hermaphrodites, sexual equality ought still apply in the reptilian realm) morbid end - it seemed that the little one had been flattened to pancake status after being forced to occupy the space between the door/shutter and its frame. Apparently and unfortunately I had not noticed this terrible forced compression in action the night before when closing the doors on the poor bastard. Shame. Still, I laughed all the harder (and sorrier) when I noticed that there was a small cross within a circle imprinted very clearly in the lizard's back; no, not some epidermic cry for a medic, but rather the imprint left by the head of quite a large screw sharing the "pancake zone" of the doorframe.
In an attempt to clean my soul and respect the lizard's, I planned to give it a modest fueneral by flicking it off of the balcony. What I learned was astounding - though long dead, Mr. (or Mrs.) Gecko would nut budge.
Science of Standing Your Ground
"Every square millimetre of a gecko's footpad contains about 14,000 hair-like setae. Each seta has a diameter of 5 micrometres. Human hair varies from 18 to 180 micrometre, so the thinnest human hair could hold at least 12 setae. Each seta is in turn tipped with between 100 and 1,000 spatulae. Each spatula is 0.2 micrometres long (200 billionths of a metre), or just below the wavelength of visible light."
This quote from Wikipedia's entry for "Gecko" shares some facts on a very well-studied research topic, as any Google Scholar search for "gecko feet" will prove. I had known vaguely about this before, and sure there were geckos in Miami, but never had I been afforded the chance to observe in such a direct (and morticious) way. If you read more, you will learn that weak molecular attraction forces, called Van der Waals forces, perpetuate the super strength. While these relatively weak intermolecular forces are not usually very powerful, their multiplication to the quantity mentioned in the above quote can maxmize an average gecko's feet surface area (FSA) weight-holding capacity at 290 pounds. This depends on many things - humidity, quality of the surface gripped, e.g... but astounding none the less considering the "average gecko" weights around 2.5 ounces. That means they have the potential to support nearly 2,000 times their own weight.
Goofy Gecko Games
Returning to the pancake-gecko, I found the only way to honor said lizard in my chosen way was to first lift him straight upwards with the help of a butter knife slid underneath his vertically depressed body - much like a spatula Aunt Jemima might use for her own syrupy flapjacks. I had not actually done the above research yet, I was merely curious as I'd seen vague mentions of the pads' effectiveness before. Thus, before allowing the animal the eternal slumber, I decided to make some observations. The animal was dead, and I wasn't yet sure that the pad technology was entirely due to its mechanical structure; perhaps some muscle action or goo were needed. Would it hold more weight now that it was after the rapture? To test, I gently lifted the lizard from the knife and pressed its frail feet against outside brick wall adjacent to my balcony, and lo!
(Note the unnatural and comical mark left by the doorjamb's screw head.) I returned inside to grab my camera. What I found on my return was also surprising; a waiting customer for the hanging diner I had just created:
This bird, known as a Kookaburra, is responsible for the loud monkey-like hollers heard from Australia's treetops. Onomatopoeic representation of said call might look like this: ooh ooh ooOOHH OOHOH AHHH AHHHHHH AHHHHH AHHHHH! This terrifying battle cry, accompanied by the animal's formidable beak (if one were to compare to a sparrow) made me freeze. I was standing between this animal and it's possible breakfast. But, aha, do Kookaburra eat small lizards of the bush? Another learning experience loomed!
Aviary Avariciousness
I found that the bird was not interested in hunting the gecko down while I stood nearby - it glanced at the gecko, then away at the trees; personifying itself as a human trying to whistle itself into the image of a casual visitor instead of a starving hunter eager for a free lunch. I decided to peel the lizard off, and back away... extending the offer to the animal at a distance.
You can perhaps see the lizard body on the cement balcony as the bird waits on the steel railing.
Before I could say "ooh Ooh OOH HHAAA AAAHHH AAHHHAAHHH," the bird dove, retrieved, and was off to enjoy its catered dish on a nearby tree branch.
Oh the adventures one has in the Australian "bush!*"
*Note: in this situation, the use of "bush" would actually be like referring to an American suburb as the Wild West.
I woke up one morning, woozy and somewhat apprehensive for the start of the day. To get in the spirit, I figured I'd toss the window shutters open with great vigor in order to celebrate the sun's cheerful rays. Resisting the pounding desire to slide into an alarm-abhorring coma once more, I lowered to the floor and unlatched the balcony doors doubling as shutters. With a mighty shove they spread wide, alerting me to not only a beautiful morning view, but an awkard and light sounding "splap" as well.
Directing my eyes to the source of the splap, I spied a small dead gecko. I was first stricken by grief at its obvious dead nature, embodied in the form of a short shriek from my throat. Yet, it was very simple to recover when considering the hilarity of his (or her; while many are hermaphrodites, sexual equality ought still apply in the reptilian realm) morbid end - it seemed that the little one had been flattened to pancake status after being forced to occupy the space between the door/shutter and its frame. Apparently and unfortunately I had not noticed this terrible forced compression in action the night before when closing the doors on the poor bastard. Shame. Still, I laughed all the harder (and sorrier) when I noticed that there was a small cross within a circle imprinted very clearly in the lizard's back; no, not some epidermic cry for a medic, but rather the imprint left by the head of quite a large screw sharing the "pancake zone" of the doorframe.
In an attempt to clean my soul and respect the lizard's, I planned to give it a modest fueneral by flicking it off of the balcony. What I learned was astounding - though long dead, Mr. (or Mrs.) Gecko would nut budge.
Science of Standing Your Ground
"Every square millimetre of a gecko's footpad contains about 14,000 hair-like setae. Each seta has a diameter of 5 micrometres. Human hair varies from 18 to 180 micrometre, so the thinnest human hair could hold at least 12 setae. Each seta is in turn tipped with between 100 and 1,000 spatulae. Each spatula is 0.2 micrometres long (200 billionths of a metre), or just below the wavelength of visible light."
This quote from Wikipedia's entry for "Gecko" shares some facts on a very well-studied research topic, as any Google Scholar search for "gecko feet" will prove. I had known vaguely about this before, and sure there were geckos in Miami, but never had I been afforded the chance to observe in such a direct (and morticious) way. If you read more, you will learn that weak molecular attraction forces, called Van der Waals forces, perpetuate the super strength. While these relatively weak intermolecular forces are not usually very powerful, their multiplication to the quantity mentioned in the above quote can maxmize an average gecko's feet surface area (FSA) weight-holding capacity at 290 pounds. This depends on many things - humidity, quality of the surface gripped, e.g... but astounding none the less considering the "average gecko" weights around 2.5 ounces. That means they have the potential to support nearly 2,000 times their own weight.
Goofy Gecko Games
Returning to the pancake-gecko, I found the only way to honor said lizard in my chosen way was to first lift him straight upwards with the help of a butter knife slid underneath his vertically depressed body - much like a spatula Aunt Jemima might use for her own syrupy flapjacks. I had not actually done the above research yet, I was merely curious as I'd seen vague mentions of the pads' effectiveness before. Thus, before allowing the animal the eternal slumber, I decided to make some observations. The animal was dead, and I wasn't yet sure that the pad technology was entirely due to its mechanical structure; perhaps some muscle action or goo were needed. Would it hold more weight now that it was after the rapture? To test, I gently lifted the lizard from the knife and pressed its frail feet against outside brick wall adjacent to my balcony, and lo!
(Note the unnatural and comical mark left by the doorjamb's screw head.) I returned inside to grab my camera. What I found on my return was also surprising; a waiting customer for the hanging diner I had just created:
This bird, known as a Kookaburra, is responsible for the loud monkey-like hollers heard from Australia's treetops. Onomatopoeic representation of said call might look like this: ooh ooh ooOOHH OOHOH AHHH AHHHHHH AHHHHH AHHHHH! This terrifying battle cry, accompanied by the animal's formidable beak (if one were to compare to a sparrow) made me freeze. I was standing between this animal and it's possible breakfast. But, aha, do Kookaburra eat small lizards of the bush? Another learning experience loomed!
Aviary Avariciousness
I found that the bird was not interested in hunting the gecko down while I stood nearby - it glanced at the gecko, then away at the trees; personifying itself as a human trying to whistle itself into the image of a casual visitor instead of a starving hunter eager for a free lunch. I decided to peel the lizard off, and back away... extending the offer to the animal at a distance.
You can perhaps see the lizard body on the cement balcony as the bird waits on the steel railing.
Before I could say "ooh Ooh OOH HHAAA AAAHHH AAHHHAAHHH," the bird dove, retrieved, and was off to enjoy its catered dish on a nearby tree branch.
Oh the adventures one has in the Australian "bush!*"
*Note: in this situation, the use of "bush" would actually be like referring to an American suburb as the Wild West.
Sunday, August 3, 2008
Since we last spoke...
So, since we last spoke, I told you of Monday night, the 28th.
Quick overview:
- Tuesday 29th - Cheap night at Townsville bars & clubs - super drunken partying; not bad enough for spew/hangover.
- Wednesday - Bus tour of Townsville, lots of orientation programs about how to use JCU and plan a schedule, finalized some scheduling, returned to Stockland for a prepaid cell phone
- Thursday - Trip to the local public aquarium, the world's largest living reef exhibit, where I bought an annual pass to return often; trivia night at the on campus club, "The Club," where my team won over the hundreds of other students and therefore each of us received mini-ping pong tables, then returned to the dorms to find most of our friends already drunk early and therefore went to bed somewhat early
- Friday - Trip to the Billabong Sanctuary 17 km out of Townsville to see some Australian local wildlife, including multiple snakes, crocodiles, koalas, wombats, and cassowaries. As soon as I returned Friday, I threw things together to try to meet up with a group of new friends on the island about 2 miles offshore, Magnetic Island ("Maggie"). Confusing, because poor phone service there prevented me from making verbal contact with those I was about to venture about 15 miles away from campus to see, at night, alone - somehow, I made it - arrived just at dinnertime and was actually grillman for the night's burgers. Oh yeah, then we went out and got shitfaced at the island's only "late" (midnight) bar, the backpackers hostel "X Base."
- Saturday - up early (7 am) with two of the guys to clamber all the way down one of Maggie's bay's beaches (Nelly Beach), clamber over massive rocks all the way at the end, climb a path into a hill over down to the trail of a larger hill that led us perhaps five hundred feet off the ground, where we could see Townsville's entire downtown and most of Maggie. Clambered back down in time for breakfast with everyone else, then returned to the beach for some hanging out, music, vigorous games of ultimate frisbee and soccer, and then snorkeled off the beach to find the most coral I've ever seen in my life, with 100% bottom area covered for several football fields worth of area. I'll document this better when I go back with my underwater housing (otherwise I'd drag on here in writing for pages and pages). Then, of course, we came back to make a huge pasta dinner and dance to the local radio while drinking litres upon litres of the cheapest supply of alcohol out here - boxed wine, or as it is nicknamed, "goon." Then, we went to X Base and got shitfaced.
- Sunday - 7 AM, up early, hiked inland this time with a few of the guys, explored the central rainforest-y (dry season now) hills of Maggie, where we also took more pictures... Tried to copy a shot my friend Er-rational took when she was here. Returned in time for lunch, ran into our other house group and a massive dead tarantula on the way back, grabbed beach gear and took a bus over to one of Maggie's other beaches in Arcadia... Stayed there at low tide flipping over rocks and chasing stingrays and blacktip sharks in one foot of water until it was time to run back and grab the stuff from the houses to get on the ferry back to Townsville, where I ate a hearty meal and wrote this post.
I am very tired right now.
Instead of elucidating on all of those adventures, because there were other beer sessions and good people met and stories exchanged and deeper friendships made and other marine animals seen, just take a look through the following pictures, in chronological order from Friday, to get your own idea... Love you all!
Wednesday -
Below, check out Castle Hill in the background, overlooking all of downtown Townsville. I have not yet climbed it, but it is just an open hill at all hours and free to climb. The larger rock behind campus, Mt. Stuart (Spencer?), which is not shown here, is barricaded off for military use (see earlier post!).
Thursday -
Below, check out a three second shutter exposure of an aquarium of myctophid fishes, "lanternfishes." Below each eye they have a sac of bioluminescent bacteria that they can use for... well, many ecological purposes - perhaps recognition, signaling, predator evasion, confusion, prey detection... Anyhow, you can see one fish that had paused for just long enough to define the two bean shaped pouches in the lower left of the picture. The fish are from cold, deep water and therefore the tank is kept dark and cold (the need for a three second exposure).
Thursday Night...
Friday -
Saturday...Sunday... -
Quick overview:
- Tuesday 29th - Cheap night at Townsville bars & clubs - super drunken partying; not bad enough for spew/hangover.
- Wednesday - Bus tour of Townsville, lots of orientation programs about how to use JCU and plan a schedule, finalized some scheduling, returned to Stockland for a prepaid cell phone
- Thursday - Trip to the local public aquarium, the world's largest living reef exhibit, where I bought an annual pass to return often; trivia night at the on campus club, "The Club," where my team won over the hundreds of other students and therefore each of us received mini-ping pong tables, then returned to the dorms to find most of our friends already drunk early and therefore went to bed somewhat early
- Friday - Trip to the Billabong Sanctuary 17 km out of Townsville to see some Australian local wildlife, including multiple snakes, crocodiles, koalas, wombats, and cassowaries. As soon as I returned Friday, I threw things together to try to meet up with a group of new friends on the island about 2 miles offshore, Magnetic Island ("Maggie"). Confusing, because poor phone service there prevented me from making verbal contact with those I was about to venture about 15 miles away from campus to see, at night, alone - somehow, I made it - arrived just at dinnertime and was actually grillman for the night's burgers. Oh yeah, then we went out and got shitfaced at the island's only "late" (midnight) bar, the backpackers hostel "X Base."
- Saturday - up early (7 am) with two of the guys to clamber all the way down one of Maggie's bay's beaches (Nelly Beach), clamber over massive rocks all the way at the end, climb a path into a hill over down to the trail of a larger hill that led us perhaps five hundred feet off the ground, where we could see Townsville's entire downtown and most of Maggie. Clambered back down in time for breakfast with everyone else, then returned to the beach for some hanging out, music, vigorous games of ultimate frisbee and soccer, and then snorkeled off the beach to find the most coral I've ever seen in my life, with 100% bottom area covered for several football fields worth of area. I'll document this better when I go back with my underwater housing (otherwise I'd drag on here in writing for pages and pages). Then, of course, we came back to make a huge pasta dinner and dance to the local radio while drinking litres upon litres of the cheapest supply of alcohol out here - boxed wine, or as it is nicknamed, "goon." Then, we went to X Base and got shitfaced.
- Sunday - 7 AM, up early, hiked inland this time with a few of the guys, explored the central rainforest-y (dry season now) hills of Maggie, where we also took more pictures... Tried to copy a shot my friend Er-rational took when she was here. Returned in time for lunch, ran into our other house group and a massive dead tarantula on the way back, grabbed beach gear and took a bus over to one of Maggie's other beaches in Arcadia... Stayed there at low tide flipping over rocks and chasing stingrays and blacktip sharks in one foot of water until it was time to run back and grab the stuff from the houses to get on the ferry back to Townsville, where I ate a hearty meal and wrote this post.
I am very tired right now.
Instead of elucidating on all of those adventures, because there were other beer sessions and good people met and stories exchanged and deeper friendships made and other marine animals seen, just take a look through the following pictures, in chronological order from Friday, to get your own idea... Love you all!
Wednesday -
Below, check out Castle Hill in the background, overlooking all of downtown Townsville. I have not yet climbed it, but it is just an open hill at all hours and free to climb. The larger rock behind campus, Mt. Stuart (Spencer?), which is not shown here, is barricaded off for military use (see earlier post!).
Thursday -
Below, check out a three second shutter exposure of an aquarium of myctophid fishes, "lanternfishes." Below each eye they have a sac of bioluminescent bacteria that they can use for... well, many ecological purposes - perhaps recognition, signaling, predator evasion, confusion, prey detection... Anyhow, you can see one fish that had paused for just long enough to define the two bean shaped pouches in the lower left of the picture. The fish are from cold, deep water and therefore the tank is kept dark and cold (the need for a three second exposure).
Thursday Night...
Friday -
Saturday...Sunday... -
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