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Australia: Final Days 18 & 19:

Fany Savina — Sat, 23 Jul 2011 11:09:14 +0000

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As to be expected, the planes back to Ireland were exhausting, and now jetlag is still dominating my life, including symptoms such as huge fatigue at four in the afternoon, incredible energy and refusal to sleep at three in the morning, and general lack of knowledge about when we are and what time it is.
My impression of Australia is that it is so vast you could find any type of environment, although the stereotype is the heat, red sand, and kangaroos running amuck in this desert. The only towns are just a wooden pub with stuffed crocodiles as decorations and a few other stores, also tattered and made of wooden slates. Also with the tumble weeds drifting through the town, and great dirty pick-up trucks. This couldn't be further from what I saw. There were no tumble weeds, no tattered wooden shops or pubs (although there were pubs, just not tattered), no stuffed crocodile decorations that I could see, and there wasn't red sand or kangaroos in a vast desert. Well, I guess this is the power of stereotyping. But on a more serious note, I enjoyed Australia, although it is very littered, plastic bags and beer cans seen both in the city, in smaller areas, and even along the side of the road, and in mountain ranges. Litter is everywhere. Apart from that, Australia is a continent full of wonder and very weird things.

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Australia: Day 17:

Fany Savina — Sat, 23 Jul 2011 10:34:08 +0000

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Inland Taipan

Today was our last and final day in Australia. We packed the bags for good in the morning and went out to Darling Harbour again. This time for the Wildlife Center, right next to the Aquarium. The Wildlife Center is basically like a park for native animals of Australia. So, we saw plenty of crazy looking creatures. The first section was insects. The decorations were creepy. There was a huge ant bursting out of a pipe (fake of course) and projectors portraying moving spider webs on the walls. It was also very dark. There was a bee hive and an information box next to the hive told us that the bees actually had a tube that went outside, allowing them to come and go as they pleased, and to actually go get nectar from real plants in the outside world. I also learned that bees have their very own coordinates and map system, called the Wiggle Dance by the folks down in the Wildlife Center. The Wiggle Dance can be described as the bees' sign language. They 'wiggle' their abdomens and circle around, sometimes wiggling faster, sometimes for shorter periods of time. This is all in order to tell the other bees where the good flowers can be found in relation to the sun. The circling around gives the position in accordance to the sun, and the wiggle after it gives the distance from the hive. The longer the wiggle, the further away.

Koala

The speed of the wiggling determines the quality. If the bee is shaking that abdomen like crazy, she's found something very good.

We also saw many spiders, and I couldn't help but think about how Spiderman came into existence. In one of the displays, none of us could find the spider, and when we saw a crack in the glass wall, near the bottom, large enough for a spider to fit through, we all kind of panicked, especially me. I was both hoping I'd get bitten and transform, but also dreading it, because with great power comes great responsibility. It is now a few days after that and my muscles haven't miraculously toned, my hearing isn't much different, I already have 20/20 vision, and no spidey web has come from my hand. I also have zero bite marks. I guess it's safe to say I won't become Spiderwoman. Unfortunately.
After insects came the reptiles, and there I saw the most venomous snake in the entire world: the Inland Taipan. It was actually pretty cute. It was small, jet black, and one of the few energetic snakes who wasn't sleeping in a ball but was actually moving around. There were also snakes like the third and second-most venomous snakes in the world, but they don't really matter when you can see the number one. We saw a saltwater crocodile named Rex, but we had seen so many before, so that wasn't anything new. There was also a frilled necked lizard, but we didn't see the frill. Honestly, I was a bit scared, after seeing what the one in Jurassic Park did to Dennis (the fat guy). I know that a frilled necked lizard isn't the same as a Dilophosaurus, but they sure do look alike. I was ok afterwards because next thing to see was the koalas.

Kangaroos

Have you ever just been filled with warm fluffy feelings and wanted to hug something so tightly that you might choke it? I believe it is called Puppy Cradle Death Syndrome. I believe even a cold-blooded psychopathic serial killer will melt inside when he/she sees a koala. They are that level of cute. Fortunately for the koalas, there are keepers minding them at all times. Koalas just lay there, balancing on and in between branches. Some people think they look drunk just because they are, on eucalyptus oils, but in fact, they are just lazy. Their whole purpose in life is to eat, and spend the next week digesting. The ones we saw were immobile, until finally one moved. Every one held their breath as he scratched his ear slowly, on scratch with his hind paw every second, like a constant rhythm. Then after about a minute, he went back to his previous posture, snuggling himself into a ball. Finally we all started breathing again. Koalas are just too cute to be true. There must be a catch. I bet they're secretly plotting to take over the world.
After the koalas, we saw kangaroos, and boy were they something. One laid down on his back, his front paws scratching his stomach. Then another one got down, and another one. Three of them were just sprawled on the floor, and the final two were hopping around. They were pretty funny to look at, especially when one kangaroo kept moving around, probably scratching his back in the sand, but somehow he sat on another kangaroo, and there was one kangaroo with it's face right in between the other's butt. Eventually the victim got annoyed and he pawed at the other one. The victim gave a little slap, and the aggressor got up and moved away. The kangaroos really were the cherry on top at the Wildlife Center. After them came a few birds and wallabys, and then the center was over. We walked around some more around Darling Harbour because we had a lot of time to kill before going to the airport, so we figured we could go to the IMAX, one of the largest cinemas in the world. When we got in, there was literally a queue starting from the front door. Some had Hogwarts cloaks on and were carrying wands, so my guess is that they were there to see HP and the Deathly Hallows Part 2. We looked at the ticket prices none the less, and it came to 20$, equivalent to about 15€, without the 3D glasses. So yeah, movie was out of the picture (see what I did there). In the end we just drove around aimlessly through Sydney until finally going to the airport.

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Australia: Day 16:

Fany Savina — Thu, 21 Jul 2011 17:34:00 +0000

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Long necked turtle

Today was such a splendid day that we should have reversed our plans, and gone to the
mountains today and the Sydney Aquarium the day before. But it was too late, so we continued on to the
aquarium. We parked the car and walked into Darling Harbour, passing in front of the monorail. We got day
passes for it, planning to return to it later. We got to the Aquarium and after buying tickets, we started our tour. The exhibits started with reptiles and the such, where we saw long-necked turtles, various lizards, and many fish to fill up the tanks. After the reptiles came the saltwater fishes, and then the freshwater exhibition. There are so many fishes in the world! Some are extremely colourful. In between two areas, we came across the first of two huge tanks, the kind where you can walk through a tunnel underneath the water. This tank had some sting rays, various fish of which it would probably be impossible to remember all their names, and a dugong, said to be the animal on which the legend of mermaids began. It is said mermaids are based on them because sailors supposedly confused them for elegant swimmers, with graceful tails (which they are and have), but add to that weeks, even months of seclusion, rum and loneliness, and sailors started imagining things. Mostly imagining beautiful women's faces on Dugongs.

We're gonna need a bigger camera...

Anyway, after that first tank we got back to the flow of the tour, and we came across a special on sharks. The first thing I noticed was a huge Great White Shark model. Except that it wasn't huge and Great Whites are actually that size, and that one was apparently smaller than what some can reach. The model was about five meters long. On a wall beside the shark was what happened to the sharks over the decades, starting with the 60's.
In that time, people didn't really know much about the animal kingdom, and until recently, if you said you had seen a shark, people would have thought you were crazy and were seeing imaginary monsters. So very few people knew that sharks existed. Then in the 70's came panic. Steven Spielberg released Jaws. People freaked out so much that sharks were beginning to be hunted just because they were all man-eating monsters. Then in the 80's, a use was found for all the sharks being exterminated: Shark Fin Soup. People still feared sharks and they were still killed in huge quantities, but that didn't stop them from eating the only thing edible in a shark. Then move on to the 90's, and people with common sense realised that sharks are very endangered and they need to be protected. In the 2000's, actual action is taken and laws forbid hunting of sharks in certain waters. The posters stopped there, but main conclusion, the death of hundreds of thousands of sharks, not just Great Whites, but also tiny harmless (to humans) sharks such as reef sharks, is all because of Steven Spielberg. Steven, you make great movies, but you are an indirect mass murderer. Nobody really cares if the movie was an adaptation of a book.

Star Power!

As part of the shark area, there was the last of the tanks, appropriately called the shark tank. It was, as the name suggests, filled so many different species of shark, although none of them surpassed the two meters long. Even if they weren't the biggest or fiercest, they were still scary. Especially when they passed overhead and you could see just how many teeth they have. There were also a lot more sting rays than in the previous tank, and also quite a few small fish. There were also janitor scuba divers cleaning the tank along with the sharks around them. Now that must be an exciting job. Imagine saying to people your a janitor at the Sydney Aquarium. Then you tell them you specialise in cleaning the shark tank. With sharks still in it.
After the sharks, it was a coral exhibition, and in there I was allowed to touch a blue starfish. It just feels like the dead coral you can find washed up on the beach. The aquarium was over after that, but our day wasn't. We got on the Monorail and stopped into Chinatown, which really isn't all that after we have seen San Francisco's chinatown, one of the largest in the world. We stopped in the food court, and out of all the Asian stalls there were, we picked a Japanese food one, and out of all the shops we saw, we entered in a Japanese animation one. Some Chinatown that was.

Darling Harbour

We also saw an ice-cream shop and couldn't resist the 'Death by Chocolate' posters everywhere outside, so we went in. There sixteen different variations on chocolate, as well as sixteen other non-chocolate flavours. The vendor was nice and saw that we were overwhelmed by the choice, so he allowed us to taste samples. We all tasted the chili chocolate, because let's face it, chili chocolate is the most unusual flavour ever. It was so delicious! So delicious in fact that when I made my final choice, I picked chili chocolate and pistachio in a cone. It really is an unusual flavour. When you first put it in your mouth, it tastes like normal chocolate ice-cream, but a few seconds after, the cool chocolate fades away and you feel like you have just biten into a raw chili. The ice-cream was very mild now mind you, hardly passed the two out of five rating on the rating of hotness (one being a slight tingle and five being OMG! *pour ice cold water on my head*). The pistachio was also very nice, with actual real pistachios in it. The ice-cream shop's name was Gelatissimo.
We got back on the monorail and went back to Darling Harbour. We walked around there for a while, but it was getting dark, and it even started raining, so we went back to the parking lot and went home.

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Australia: Day 15:

Fany Savina — Tue, 19 Jul 2011 21:55:38 +0000

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Foggy Echo Point

We left the hotel and went to the Blue Mountains, quite some time away. When we left the road was foggy, and the sky was a dark grey. All the way to the border of the mountains it was foggy. And when we got to Echo Point, where the most iconic part of the Blue Mountains can be spotted, the Three Sisters, it was even foggier. We could hardly see a few meters past ourselves, let alone a majestic view of a mountainous countryside, with protruding rocks, or even a waterfall. We still parked the car (and paid the parking) and we walked around a little. We wandered through the shops, and we went to the view point, regardless of a lack of view. We went down one level, to a view point further down, and there we spotted a wet muddy path that led around a mountain cliff. There is also a more common path that leads to the bottom of the mountain on which we were, and when on the bottom, we would circle to the waterfalls, and finally we could take a funicular to come back up. This path was closed however, possibly due to the weather.
The path we took was partially flooded, so we stepped with care, and no one fell bum first into a puddle. We went through some nice scenery, but the fog prevented us from seeing much of it. The path led to another viewpoint, supposedly of the waterfall, but the fog had not budged. We went back to the parking, and our hour of parking had somehow been used, so we left the Blue Mountains.
They are called the Blue Mountains because it is an entire forest composed of eucalyptus trees. We tried spotting koalas, but with no luck. These eucalyptus trees emit volatile terpenoids in large quantities, which causes mie theory, add to all this ultraviolet radiation from the sun, and you get a blue-ish haze above the forest, when viewed from a distance. And so the Blue Mountains replaced the Carmarthen Hills.

Botanical Garden

We left Echo Point, but we continued through the forest, and slowly we saw the fog lift, and once in awhile we caught glimpses of the forest. We came across a botanical garden, so we decided to take a look. It was still pretty bleak, but at least the fog was gone.
We stayed inside the information center a while, looked at the exhibition on the Blue Mountains. Apparently, there are over two hundred species of eucalyptus, all of them forming the Blue Mountains. There was absolutely no information on koalas, which is disappointing, because we still haven't seen a single one. A nine minute movie was about to start so we settled in the cinema room and waited until the start. We all sort of dozed off, but once the movie started we were awake. The 'movie' wasn't at all a short documentary or anything of the sort. In fact, it was just a slideshow with music. We all dozed off during the movie, but when it was over, we went outside into the gardens.
It is winter in Australia, and so not many of the flowers were in bloom. We walked around, admiriring the strange flowers, the pond filled with koi fish, the bog with carnivorous plants. We arrived in the wooded part of the garden, and we took a little path through the forest. It was another sub-tropical area, with the same Strangling Figs, although these ones were obviously in control, because no tree was actually covered. The walk brought us all the way out of the garden, and we had to walk back in the way we drove in.
We were tired so we got in the car and drove back to the hotel, me slipping into the arms of sleep. When we got home, we wanted a meal different to the usual sandwich we had been having, so we went for some indian food in a restaurant.

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Australia: Day 13 & 14:

Fany Savina — Sun, 17 Jul 2011 08:13:15 +0000

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Rainbow Lorikeets

We started the day by going back to the Big Banana. We got tickets for the tobogan (there were five of us, with two goes each), and we each got on a sled. The ride was exhilarating, so much so that we ended up buying for four goes each. My sister was going so fast at one point that she slid of the sled and her bum dragged behind the sled until she picked herself up again and gathered the speed she had lost.
After all the fun of the tobogan, we went to a barbecue with my sister's girlfriend's parents. After, we went to a small wooded area in Coffs Harbour to see parrots. They were particular parrots, and they were very loud. I looked them up later on the web, and they are called Rainbow Lorikeets. We tried to feed them bread, but they didn't take it. However, there was a garden very near in which palms trees could be seen, and the birds all gathered there, squeaking and cawing like crazy. They were all gathered around a birdfeeder, and we saw some excellent very close shots. They really are very colourful.

The Big Golden Guitar

We had already packed in the morning, so after seeing the parrots, we got on the road for Sydney, but more closely, we aimed for Armidale. The country side on the way is very peculiar, and it seems Australia has dozens of different climates. It was yellow with fields of green here and there, with lots of cows and a few sheep. We got to Armidale and spent the night there.
The next morning, we left Armidale at nine, the goal to reach Sydney by the night. The countryside was the same as the day before. However, this time we passed in front of the Big Chicken, which was hardly two times larger than a normal chicken, and we also passed in front of the Big Golden Guitar in Tamworth. We stopped for the guitar, took our pictures and entered into a little shop beside the guitar. Tamworth is the capital of country music in Australia, and the Big Golden Guitar was modeled on the award musicians are given in a Tamworth country music festival. There wasn't much in the shop except overpriced country music CDs and t-shirts. There was also a wax museum of country artists, but I'm not very knowledgeable in that domain, so the expensive entry fee would have been a waste.
We left Tamworth and continued to Scone, where we planned to stop for scones. But we were slightly disappointed when the main thing of the town wasn't scones but race horses. Indeed, there were horses on every side, in paddocks every where. We took little country roads and saw plenty of actual wild kangaroos, grazing amongst the cows, some hopping, some just staying immobile.
After some time around Tamworth, we got back on the highway and went more directly to Sydney. I succombed to sleep and woke up when it was dark, still on the highway. After I woke up, it wasn't long before we arrived to our booked hotel on the outskirts of Sydney.
We went to sleep after briefly planning our trip to the Blue Mountains, scheduled for the next day.

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Australia: Day 12:

Fany Savina — Fri, 15 Jul 2011 23:09:30 +0000

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The Big Prawn in Ballina

We had another big day trip today, so we left early. We went up north, following the coast to reach Byron Bay. On the way, we saw more pelicans, and also the Big Prawn. The Big Prawn is part of a tourist franchise small towns adopt in order to attract tourists. It is known as the Big Things of Australia and it includes such things as the Big Banana, or the Big Axe (which we briefly saw as we drove past in Macquaries Point). The prawn was on top of a gas station, and was thoroughly creepy.
I didn't see much of the road, but what I did see in between sleep was very green, sometimes yellow-ish, with lots of farms and cows. When we could see the sea, there were waves and surfers. We got to Byron Bay after a three-hour drive, and we first headed for the lighthouse and Cape Byron, which is the most easterly point of the entire continent that is Australia. We followed the signs that said lighthouse, and we found it quick enough. We walked around a little, enjoying the beautiful colours and contrasts we had. We went on the little walk that borders the cliffs and followed it for a while, occasionally stopping for photos. As we were looking out at the sea, we spotted several dolphins, as well as multiple humpback whales migrating back north. I didn't recognise them as humpbacks, but I was told that's what they were. I have seen humpbacks much closer when on my trip to Cape Cod, Massachusetts.

The most easterly point

We reached a sign fixed on the fence bordering the cliff which told us we were at the most easterly point that there could ever be in Australia, so we toke pictures and turned around on the trail, heading back to where we had started. We checked out the museum in the lighthouse, and also the special exhibits in a small house next to the lighthouse. There was plenty of information on whales, general sailing, what exactly a lighthouse keeper does, and also the aboriginal side of the land, and how they are still to this day trying to get back rights to the land. From what I heard, they were getting there, some aboriginals managing to get seats in committees taking important decisions about the land, but they still have quite a bit to go before getting their rights. We had yummy ice-creams before leaving, and after our special treat, it was starting to become grey and cold again, hardly ideal for pictures. With the now grey sky, the sea looked a sickly ash colour instead of the splendid blue/green we had had a few minutes before.

A sugar cane broken in half

We left the lighthouse and continued along the beaches, in search of something else we wanted to see in Byron Bay. We wanted to see 'the Wreck', basically a ship which had shipwrecked on the beach some years ago and has been left there on the beach, visible and accessible to all. We parked and tried to find it, but unfortunately for us, it was high tide, and all that was visible was the top of a mast. The sun was also in the worst possible position for pictures, so we gave up on the Wreck. We didn't really want to look at the actual town of Byron Bay, so we headed back to Coffs Harbour. On the way back, we actually stopped to get pictures of the Big Prawn, which was still as creepy, and we also stopped when surrounded by sugar cane fields. I felt them, and also tried to taste some, but I don't think I could taste much. To get actual sugar, the canes must be boiled or something similar. I wanted to take a cane with me, but I wasn't allowed .
After the canes it is mostly a blank for me, with me sleeping and all. I woke up and the next thing I knew it was time to go to bed in the hotel.

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Australia: Day 11:

Fany Savina — Fri, 15 Jul 2011 11:24:14 +0000

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A host almost completely covered with Strangling Fig

We got up early and picked up my sister to go to Dorrigo National Park. It was a two hour drive, but we got there by ten. There is a walk that does a nice long tour of the park, and that was what we had come for. We set out with our backpacks containing, for me, lamp, swiss knife, first aid kit, food, camera and camera stands. Also water. It is really cold here down south, so in the high-ish altitude we were at, plus the fact that we were going in a shady sub-tropical forest, I was wearing my jumper plus my big coat. And sometimes I was still really cold.
Where is all the hot weather I was promised? All the sand, all the kangaroos? Where are all the basic essences of Australia when I want to enjoy them?!
As soon as we started the walk, we were greeted by 'bush turkeys'. They resemble turkeys only smaller and black. We saw many different birds and plants, and we certainly heard a lot of shuffling and moving about in the forest. The walk was very enjoyable, although it was a bit long and steep. Also cold. We crossed a few people on the walk. We saw three water falls, around the middle of the loop. The first one was small and unimpressive, although pretty, and the second one was much larger. There was a wooden suspension bridge passing over the river at the bottom of the waterfall, and the bridge gave us great views of water splashing down. The next waterfall we came to had another bridge in front of it, but this one also had a pathway going behind the water.

The second waterfall we saw

It was very muddy and wet back there, but it was still beautiful. In order to get to these waterfalls, the walk went down quite a lot, and the second half going up was exhausting. While continuing on our way to the end of the trail, we noticed a mouse, scratching through the earth. They were probably everywhere, as you could hear them on both sides, but they were so blended in it was luck to see one of them. We also noticed what we later found out to be called 'Strangling Fig'. The Strangling Fig is a beautiful murderous plant who thrives on strangling and wrapping thick vine like branches around a host tree until said host is completely covered. Eventually, the host is squeezed until it dies and rots away, leaving the Strangling Fig with a long hollow middle. We saw plenty of trees in the process of dying, with the figs half wrapped around trunks. We also saw trees completely covered with vines, the vines starting to grow into each other. However, the cherry on top was when we spotted a Strangling Fig with a completely empty middle. A tunnel stretched up and up, with holes throughout the winding vines allowing light in. That was truly amazing.
We finally reached the top and looked a little through the giftshop before getting back into the car to drive away. We got back to my sister's current accommodation, where we were invited to dinner, after which point we left and had a very good night's sleep.

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Australia: Day 10:

Fany Savina — Fri, 15 Jul 2011 10:57:35 +0000

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The Big Banana

We left from the motel and continued on our journey to Coffs Harbour. We stayed mainly on the Pacific Highway. Once or twice we pulled over to get pictures of the coast and the sea view we had. During one stop, we saw a school of dolphins playing in the huge waves. During another stop alongside a river, we saw a flock of pelicans. They are actually big birds, and the way they fly off and land on the water is quite strange. To take off, they pound their wings on the water, taking some speed by advancing forward. Eventually they fly into the air. To land, they sort of ski with their feet on the water to slow down before finally sitting down. Their flight really resembles a plane. They take speed horizontally and then land on their feet (alternatively wheels for a plane), and they brake until they can properly land.
We got back on the road and we finally arrived in Coffs around 3 o'clock. We found the house we were looking for and had cuppas with my sister, her girlfriend, and the girlfriend's sister. After a short reunion, we all headed out to see the Big Banana, which is the only thing to see at Coffs, really, apart from beaches and the sea. The Big Banana is really just a big plastic yellow banana, amidst a gift shop, a tobogan, a fake ice-rink, and a few other bits and baubles shops, all of these surrounded by a *real* banana plantation. It was already half five, so all of the shops were closed. We just had our pictures in front of the plastic banana, and in front of real bananas, still hard and green on the trees.
We headed for a little walk on the boardwalk at the beach before finally going out to dinner. After a hearty dinner, we got back to our hotel, flipped on the tv and waited for sleep. Eventually it came.

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