Melbourne, where you're encouraged to walk down dark alleys

I don’t know if any of you had heard about the Chile volcano eruption, because it wasn’t really affecting the US, but 2 days before we were supposed to fly to Melbourne a bunch of flights were being cancelled. The ash cloud from the volcano had drifted all the way over to Australia and it was causing a bunch of problems. Luckily, our flight to Melbourne wasn’t cancelled and everything went according to plan.

The flight over was pretty brutal, a kid in the row in front of me was screaming the whole time. That’s not even the worst part though. The mom of the screaming child decided to breast feed him…and I’m guessing he was at least 3 years old. Gross.

We got into Melbourne around 7 PM on the 23^rd and promptly decided to go walk around the city because we only had 4 days there. We stopped at this little Korean restaurant and I had some delicious kimchi and beef. I can’t remember the name of it because there were literally hundreds of Asian restaurants in Melbourne. One block will have at least 5, but there were some blocks that were genuinely all Asian restaurants. They all pretty much look the same and serve the same stuff…so the trick is finding the one that’s better than the rest.

We did some more walking after dinner by the shopping mall. One thing I noticed was that everyone was very dressed up and fashionable, apparently that’s how most people in Melbourne are. The city definitely had a metropolitan/Sex and the City vibe. We also found our first Starbucks and discovered that Burger King is called Hungry Jack’s here. Oh, and the McDonald’s have legitimate cafés inside them. With pastries. Even their fast food is classy.

The next day, which was the 24^th, we had a field trip to Rod Laver Arena, which is where the Australian Open is held. We were supposed to actually go down onto the arena floor, but Miley Cyrus was having a concert there that night, so we weren’t allowed. Thanks, Miley. Besides that setback, it was actually really cool and we still got to go on Margaret Court, one of the outdoor courts within the complex. The guide said that last year 650,000 people went to the Australian Open, which is pretty amazing. They’re redeveloping the area, and once it’s finished it will be one of the largest sports complexes in the world.

 Miley Cyrus and Dolly Parton...quite the line up.

 

Margaret Court holds about 6000 people. 

 

Me in the area where they do interviews after matches. I obviously won my match.

 That's Nadal's signature right in the middle.

Our next tour was at the Convention and Exhibition Center, which was on the other side of town. We walked along the Yarra River, which runs right through Melbourne. The Convention Center was neat simply because it was rated 6 green stars for how energy efficient it was. Otherwise, it was just a convention center. After the tour we rode a cable car(they have cable cars all over the city) to the Queen Victoria Markets, where they had a lot of fresh fruits and vegetables as well as souvenir type things.

The river was a lovely shade of brown.

And now, an introductory course to the nightlife of Melbourne.

Before we left the hostel, I went to the front desk to ask where the best places to go were. She told me to just walk down alleys and we would find plenty of good bars. She was completely right. We would just listen for music/people talking, and sure enough we would stumble on a crowded bar. Our first stop was Section 8, a small outdoor bar, where we met this kid who kept talking to us about basketball. He said that Kobe Bryant was the next Michael Jordan. Haha, that’s a good joke. The next bar we found, we were just walking down the street and there was a door open with stairs leading down. We decided to look and see if anything was down there, and it turned out to be a bar called Seamstress. It seemed really neat, but the crowd was a little bit older, so we moved on.

Our next find was Ding Dong Lounge (yes, I know it sounds ridiculous) and it was down an alley in Chinatown. It turned out to be a rock bar, and there was a concert with 3 bands playing that night. As I was standing in this bar, listening to the band, I kind of had an ‘aha’ moment. I kind of always had this idea that I would like to be involved in the music industry, but never thought it was really feasible. But, it just felt right being at this club, listening to this band I’d never heard of. It renewed my drive to pursue a job in the music industry. So, thank you Melbourne and the Ding Dong Lounge for that.

Fun Story: After the show was over we decided to head back to the hostel, and on the way back we decided to go down one more alley. This one was different than the rest because the alley had several twists and turns…looking back, it was pretty sketchy. At the end of this grafitti covered alley though was The Croft Institute. We didn’t go in, but made a mental note to try and go back. The boys went back the next night and said it was themed like an old hospital with beakers, hospital beds to sit on, etc. Pretty crazy find.

At the time, we thought this looked like Will Smith. Now, not so much.

We stopped at one last bar that night that was close to our hostel. We didn’t stay long, but once again, it was unmarked except for a few people standing outside. Some of these places you would never know existed if it weren’t for the faint sound of music coming from a doorway.

In short, the nightlife of Melbourne is excellent.

Ok, so I know I promised this post would contain pictures/commentary on Phillip Island and the Great Ocean Road, but this post is already pretty lengthy, so the next one will be about those two places.

-Haley

Kakadu, Day 3 and Rosie the Hermit Crab

I wish I had some spectacular story to tell you about day 3, but it was pretty tame. This was our last day, and we just visited a couple of cultural centers and saw some more rock culture AKA rock art. Honestly, when it comes to rock art, when you’ve seen one, you’ve seen it all.

The most exciting part of the day was when we were getting ready to leave a culture site we spotted a rock walleroo. I’m going to take a wild guess and say that it’s a cross between a wallaby and a kangaroo…and seeing a wallaby and a kangaroo all at once is a pretty good deal.

Cute little fella.

We got back to Darwin around 5, and our tour guide Darren got us a table and some VIP wristbands at Monsoons where they had a deal on pitchers of sangria, so we went there. The VIP wristbands didn’t really get us anything…but at least we were VIPs. We all decided to call it an early night, since we were so tired from camping. Never has a foam and plastic mattress felt so good.

The next day we went on a walking tour around town with Robert Mills, an aboriginal guide. He showed us different plants, fruits and insects that his people would use and still use in everyday life. He told us an interesting story about how the Australian Navy built a base on one of their sacred sites. The site was used as a ceremony spot for men. Now, to honor the Aboriginals, no women are allowed at the base.

Fun Story: Later that night, we went to the big casino in town, just to check it out. I put 3 dollars in a penny slot machine, and promptly lost it all in about 15 minutes. I’m taking that as a sign that I should probably never gamble again. I should’ve known it was going to go badly…the Teske family has horrible luck when it comes to gambling.

Our last day in Darwin was the 22^nd. We had class from 1-5, and then around 7 we went to Hot Potato (yes, that’s the name of the club), where they had food and drink specials. I think I may have told you this before, but at Hot Potato, you have to buy a drink and then you get ‘free’ food. Yes, it’s kind of sketchy, but oh well. We ended up staying there most of the night, partly because our hermit crab made it to the finals. I know that doesn’t really make sense…so I’ll explain. At this club, they have hermit crab racing, where they number the crabs, put them in the middle of a ring, and the first one to make it to the outside of the ring wins. No joke. Anyways, our crab, “Freakin’ Rosie” (except it might have been slightly more explicit) made it to the finals, where she just sat in the middle and didn’t move at all. Way to go, Rosie.

(Sidenote: Remember our new roommate, Rosie, who showed up the day before we left for Kakadu? Well, she was in a different room when we came back, but that night, she keyed into our room at 4 AM, with a guy, wanting to sleep there. I told her that she needed to go sleep in her own room, and she left. We obviously went down to the front desk in the morning and told them about it. They said that she was being blacklisted, because she had apparently been causing problems while we were gone. So now, when something goes wrong, we use the phrase “Freakin’ Rosie,” but in the more expletive form.)

That about wraps it up for the city of Darwin. I had a great time there, Kakadu was amazing, along with all of the other little adventures we went on, but I was definitely ready for a change. Good thing we were flying to Melbourne the next day.

I’m leaving Melbourne for Sydney tomorrow morning (the 27^th), but look for my post on Melbourne and the Great Ocean Road soon…here’s a teaser.

-Haley

Kakadu, Day 2

You know, I will never understand people who love to go camping. There is nothing fun about waking up at 6:30 AM to the sounds of birds chirping. Especially when they’re giant parrots and their chirp is more of a squawk. Also, what’s so appealing about sleeping on the ground? And don’t even get me started on the lack of personal hygiene.

Besides the whole camping part, this was probably my favorite day in Australia so far. We woke up bright and early Sunday morning so we could head to our destination of Gunlom Falls. After a rocky start (the car we were taking wouldn’t start, so the boys had to get out and push to get it going), our journey to the falls was going great…that is until we turned off the paved road onto an unpaved road. We were on this stretch of unpaved road for a good, 40 minutes or so. This wouldn’t have been bad if us three girls weren’t crammed in the back of a Land Cruiser, but we were, so it ended up being the car ride from hell.

All was made up for though once we got there. Off in the distance we could see the falls, and I couldn’t wait to get to the top. Once everyone was situated, a guide led us to the top, which involved a pretty intense hike where we were climbing up sandstone rocks. Don’t get me wrong, the views were amazing up there, but I was focused solely on jumping into the freshwater pools at the top of the waterfall. The water was chilly and the rocks a bit slippery, but I don’t think this experience could be created anywhere else except Australia. I could try to describe it to you, but a picture speaks a thousand words.

 

 Fun fact: They shot part of Crocodile Dundee at this waterfall. 

 

Here we are swimming by one of the waterfalls. From left to right: Hannah, Amanda, me, Jacob, Matt and Jared

After swimming around for about 2 hours, we trekked back down the mountain to eat and explore the base of the waterfall. You could go swimming down at the bottom, but with the possibility of freshwater crocodiles. Aussies say that they don’t bother you, but I decided not to take any chances.

At the base of Gunlom Falls.

 These lizards were all over the place.

Fun Story: We almost ran out of gas on the way back to the campsite, so we pulled over to the side of the road and sat for half an hour, waiting for another bus to come by just in case. We ended up not running out; it was a camping miracle.

We watched the sunset that night at Yellow Waters, which should’ve been named Yellow Fever, judging by the amount of mosquitoes that were present.

I love how it looks like there are two suns.

Fun Story #2: Later that night, around 11, when we (Hannah, Amanda, and myself) went to the bathroom there was a commotion and it turned out there was a frog just chilling in one of the toilets. 5 minutes after the discovery, someone accidentally flushed it. Let that be a lesson to all frogs…toilets are a bad place to hang out.

That’s about it for Day 2, I’m currently in Melbourne, so look for Day 3 of Kakadu and my Melbourne adventures soon!

-Haley

Kakadu, Day 1

I'm going to break up these Kakadu National Park posts into days because we did so much.

We left for Kakadu at 7 AM Saturday morning. Our guide, Darren, pulled up in a Toyota Land Cruiser, and I wrongly assumed that there was a bigger car parked somewhere else for us to take. Apparently, the van we were supposed to take got in an accident with a water buffalo. So the 7 of us climbed into the 8 seater car, with all of the girls in the back. It was a less than comfortable ride.


We drove for about 2 hours until we got to our first stop, Jumping Crocodile Cruises. We boarded the boat and were warmly welcomed by the captain who informed us that if we fell in the river, we would die. I carefully approached the edge when the first croc was spotted. One of the guides dropped in some ribs tied to a string and when the croc got near she would lift it up to make them "jump."

You'll notice that this one doesn't have front legs because crocs tend to be cannibalistic.

After the cruise we had the opportunity to hold an olive python, and it was one of those things where you pretty much have to do it. I mean, when else are you going to be in Australia holding a python?

 That's most definitely a nervous smile.

We all piled back into the car to head to the next stop, which was Ubirr. But before I go over that, I'm going to rattle off some of the wildlife we saw that morning. Crocs (obviously), 2 wallabies (yes, they are adorable), Asian water buffaloes, a jacana bird with its babies (they live on top of the lily pads), kites (another type of bird) and tons of bats (they call them flying foxes here).

Like I said, the next stop was Ubirr, where there was a lot of ancient rock art, or rock culture as our guide Darren would say. It was pretty cool to be in the presence of something that has been around for thousands of years. The reason it's still there is because the Aboriginals painted on sandstone, which is pretty soft, and the pigments seeped into the rocks.

 This is one of their Creation Ancestors, someone they would tell stories about.

We also hiked up to the top of one of the many sandstone outcroppings that dot what is called 'stone country.' The views were amazing, you could see where the stone country stopped and the wetlands began. You could also see into Arnhemland, which is a self-governed Aboriginal territory, where the Australian government has no jurisdiction.

 

 Here I am thinking about how insignificant humans are compared to the vast wilderness...or wondering what's for dinner. 

After our long day we went to our campsite and had a dinner of water buffalo and kangaroo. The kangaroo was surprisingly good, I'm thinking I'll have to find some way to get it back in the states. 

Fun Story: To try and make all of us Americans feel at home at the campground, our summer school director bought supplies for s'mores. However, in Australia they don't have graham crackers or jet-puffed marshmallows. So instead we used two chocolate chip cookies, small marshmallows that are sold as candy, and Cadbury chocolate. The marshmallows didn't toast, so I just ended up eating the chocolate, which is so much better than Hershey's, it's unbelievable. 

It was a valiant effort Aussies, but leave the s'mores making to the Americans.

That pretty much sums up Day 1 in Kakadu. Day 2 coming soon!

-Haley

  

Sunsets and Mad Max 2

So I'm a little behind in postings...but I'll try to catch up.

Last Thursday, we had class at the Northern Territory Museum. It had a large collection of Aboriginal and Australian art, as well as displays of native animals and plants. The biggest draw to the museum is probably Sweetheart the crocodile. They caught him in the 70's because he had become too aggressive towards people...or that's what they say. I mean, I wouldn't want a 20 foot croc near me either, but he ended up dying in the relocation process, which is kind of a bummer. I'd put up a picture of him, but it doesn't do him justice. Just let your imagination run wild.


After class we headed over to the Mindil Beach Sunset Markets. They have them every Thursday and Sunday in the winters in Darwin (really harsh winters here...80 degrees and sunny everyday). There are food stalls, arts and crafts and live performers. It seemed like the whole town showed up, we had to weave our way in and out of people. I stopped at a Japanese food stand and got two giant tempura prawns. I usually don't like seafood, so this was a step on the wild side for me, but they were really good. I also got some homemade dragonfruit, passionfruit and lemon sorbet and bought a bracelet from an arts and crafts vendor. 


Besides the food and art, the main attraction of the markets is the sunset. This was the first time I had been on a sandy beach here in Australia, and for lack of a better word, it was awesome. The sand was superfine and white and the sunset was unbelievable. The sailboats out on the water were a nice touch too. It was kind of like a scene from one of those cheesy motivational posters, except 10 times better because I was actually seeing it.

 There were a ton of people at the beach.

My attempt at being artsy.

We had a free day the next day, so on the walk back to the hostel from the beach we talked about what we were going to do that night. Being college students, the only logical thing seemed to be going out to the clubs. We ended up at Monsoons, where it was ladies night. This apparently means that the emcee is a cross dressing man. It was a fun night, and we all had some good laughs, so no worries.

Friday was kind of a lazy day. We (the Tourism group) were the only ones around, as everyone else either had class or had already left for the camping trip. We decided to walk down the Wharf Precinct, where they had a wave pool that we chilled out in for a couple hours. It was actually a really intense wave pool...they should be more like that in the States. We had dinner out on the pier, I got locally caught barramundi, which is a specialty in Darwin. It was delicious. We also were convinced that we saw a crocodile swimming in the ocean, and that's the story we're sticking with. Don't try to tell us it was a log. After dinner we slowly walked back to the hostel, stopping in gift shops along the way.

Fun Story: In one of the gift shops, an old man told us how to throw a boomerang, and then proceeded to tell us about Mad Max 2, where a feral kid (his words) has a boomerang with razor blades on it and it chops off some guys hand. Just kind of random, but those kinds of interactions make the day ten times better. Aussies aren't shy about starting up a conversation.

When we got back to the hostel we had a new roommate, Rosie from Britain. Apparently, she was not supposed to be in our room, but the hostel messed up. It didn't matter anyway, as we were leaving Saturday morning for Kakadu, but it still kind of caught us off guard. She'll make a reprise in a later blog post, perhaps in the Fun Story section.

My next post will be about our first day in Kakadu National Park, hopefully I'll get it up here later tonight, after we come back from the casino. I'm definitely not going to be gambling, it'll just be fun to finally be allowed into one.

-Haley

P.S. The McDonald's here don't have a dollar menu. And I think they call the value meals, mates meals...but I could be wrong on that one. 

Intro to Darwin

It's the night before my camping trip to Kakadu National Park, and I should probably be packing for that instead of writing a blog post. You win some, you lose some.

It dawned on me the other day that I had yet to describe the place I'm staying at or tell you about the people in my group. First, I'll start with the city. Darwin is on the north shore of the Northern Territory in Australia. It's relatively small, with only about 100,000 people living here. Right now is really the only time you can visit because its the Dry season. Most areas become inaccessible during the spring and summer. I'm staying at a hostel that's on Mitchell Street, which is basically Darwin's main drag. The hostel is nice, it has a pool, a bar and wonderful bunk beds to sleep in. (Ok, so the bunk beds aren't that great, but anything looks nice after a 15+ hour plane ride.) There are 7 people in my Tourism group, including me. We're the smallest group, but I like it that way. We've had some quality bonding time these past few days, but more about that later. There are 4 guys (Jared, Pat, Matt and Jacob) and 3 girls (Hannah, Amanda and me). We all get along really well, so I'm really looking forward to exploring other cities with everyone.

Alright, now on to what I've been doing for the past couple of days. Wednesday was our first day of class and we got out early, so we decided to go to this fish feeding place that was advertised in a brochure I had picked up. I know fish feeding sounds lame, but this was actually really cool. You got to go into the water and the fish would eat the bread right out of your hands.

Here I am feeding the fish.

 

Here I am being grossed out when the fish touched my hand.

I tried to remember the types of fish, and there were milkfish, catfish, barramundi (which I ate today by the wharf), stingrays and a crocodilian something...there was also this crab that entertained all of us college kids for a solid 10 minutes. It was just the funniest thing to watch it try to catch the food. It's the simple pleasures in life. This was also our first group outing all together, so that's kind of cute.

Wednesday also happened to be the night of a big rugby game called the State of Origin. It's a best of 3 series between Queensland and New South Wales. We all walked down to Lizards to watch the game and our team won! (we were cheering for New South Wales because we go to University of New South Wales) I don't think I really understood any of it...I just cheered when everyone else did. It was fun nevertheless.

I've decided that each time I post I'm going to have a "Fun Story" section. Here's the story for this post. We discovered that we could see Crocosaurus Cove (a tourist trap along the strip) from our window and we could see crocodiles swimming around in their cage. This was our first croc sighting...so pretty anticlimactic. We also got to watch Aboriginal people perform for some group that was at Crocosaurus Cove. In short, we have the best room when it comes to creeping on people from the window. 

This has become kind of a marathon of a post, so I'll leave it here. In my next post I'll talk about my trip to the Mindil Beach Markets, and of course, my trip to Kakadu National Park! Guess I should start that packing now.

-Haley

Welcome to Oz

 After 2 days of air travel (Sunday was completely lost in the air...left on a Saturday and got to Brisbane on Monday) I finally made it to Australia! I don't know if the fact that I'm halfway around the world has completely hit me yet...but there are some things that keep reminding me that I am.

1. People drive on the other side of the road. Its a lot harder to cross the street than you think it would be. The rule is: Look Right, Then Left. It's a mantra, really.
2. The language. I love the Australian accent, it just kind of fits so well with the laid-back vibe that every local seems to give off.
3. It's expensive. To compare, an 18 pack of Diet Coke costs 14 dollars. Even better, at the grocery store we saw a 6-pack of Miller Chill for 45 dollars. A SIX PACK.

Anyways, I'm going to be in Darwin for about 10 days, in which I will be going camping in Kakadu National Park. We're going on a crocodile cruise, hiking to a waterfall where you can swim at the top, and going to see ancient Aboriginal rock art. I'll probably have a pretty long post after that trip.

In the meantime, I've just been hanging out at the hostel with the other kids in the program, getting to know everyone, etc. Fun story: The other day some of us girls decided to go on a walk down to a local park. It was a national holiday (Queen's Birthday Weekend), and we walked by a huge group of guys celebrating. As we passed them they started chanting USA and Go Bears (as in the Chicago Bears...yeah, I don't get it either). Turns out they weren't even Australian...they were Canadian and Irish, so go figure.

I"ll leave you with one more interesting fact about Darwin...and possibly Australia. They have very creative bar names. There's Hog's Breath, Ducks Nuts, Lizards, Pokies...I'm sure I'll find some more good ones. I think I should keep a running list. Perhaps I could open up a Ducks Nuts in West Lafayette? Anyone want in?

-Haley

P.S. I tried Vegemite. It's not good. At all.

15,649 Miles

Yep, that's how many miles it is from Carmel, Indiana to Sydney, Australia. Fun fact: if you were to drive there it would take 55 days and 23 hours (that includes kayaking across the Pacific Ocean). In just 5 short days I will be hopping on a plane to travel to the Outback. The REAL Outback...not the American steakhouse...although that bloomin' onion thing is pretty good. But, I digress, I will be using this blog to chronicle my adventures in the land of Oz. I will try to update as regularly as I can, but if it's been a few days since my last update just assume that I'm busy boxing a kangaroo or wrestling a croc.

I'll keep this first post short and sweet and leave you with a classic commercial for Vegemite, an Australian yeast spread and the inspiration for my blog title.

I love 50's TV commercials.

Stay tuned for my next post, most likely from LAX where I have a 5 hour layover. It'll be the best people watching ever.

-Haley