So I just returned last night from our 3 day/2 night trek into the bush of Kakadu. Good times indeed - even with GTers scared of mozzys (mosquitos) and giant spiders in tents (well, more understandable, but, really screaming wasn't necessary.)
Friday: Got up too early, packed (very little as i basically wore the same outfit just adding or removing a sweater as needed) and piled into one of two 15 passenger vans. It's a goodly drive out to Kakadu - about 1.5 hrs south and east of Darwin. First stop was for a Jumping Crocodile Cruise on the Adelaide River. Before boarding I got to hold a 6 ft. python... should be a good picture. Then onto the cruise where we traveled down the river baiting the crocs with chunks of beef dangled into the water causing them to attack/even jump a bit. Let me just insert here that this caused me to be even more upset that they did not tell us right when we arrived that salties (the agressive ones) were occassionally pulled out of the water at Mindil beach - the place where we went wading on day 2. good lord these things are huge, ranging from 3-20ft long, and really scary up close i would just like to say. plus there are tons of them - 1 every 100m or so it's estimated. Anyway, a further hour drive into the park to stop at Ubirr. This is a site with some of the most ancient known aboriginal rock art. Incredible to think that people were living there and painting 60,000-40,000 yrs ago. Most of the park is open woodland - lots of eucalyptis trees and dry, dry ground cover of spiky grass. This is the season for controled burns too, so much of the brush was on fire when we climbed to a lookout point at Ubirr. In one direction lay the plain of woodlands ending in the escarpment - a huge plateau covering hundreds of acres, and in the other direction lay 'stone country' rocky, rough, unkown land. We drove off and watched the sunset at a billabong near one of the uranium reserves in the park - saved only by civil disobedience in the 1980's. On to our campsite, where another group awaited our arrival to start dinner. Tents were all set up - even with bedrolls provided. We huddled around the fire and enjoyed kangaroo stir fry. Kangaroo is really good as a matter of fact, a bit like venison - dark, very juicy, lean. Then I wandered off with the wildlife and conservation class that was there on a spotlighting hike. Found a few birds in trees, lots of spiders, then went down to the billabong to hunt for crocs. None were found, unfortunately, although I was freaked enough by the Barramundi (fish) eyes that we found reflected. Unfortunately caine toads have migrated this far north and we found a couple of them. The bathrooms were by far the best place for wildlife though: huntsmen spiders, wolf spiders (these are both big, hairy, and very scary), lizards of all sorts, and tree frogs. always an adventure in australia!
saturday: an early start, and we all packed up into 4WD toyota landcruisers for the journey out to Twin falls and Jim-Jim falls. An hour on unsealed roads before a quick stop to turn on 4WD. Then it was nearly off-roading it - a very bumpy, yet fun ride through the bush. Spotted some brumbies (wild horses) right off and later some water buffalo. Crossed a river higher then my waist which was a new experience, as cars at home seem to falter at a few inches of water... Arrived at Twin falls and we were taken down the gorge in a boat. Used to be that everyone would swim down the gorge to the base of the falls, but as salties have been sited and doing this eventually creates a film of sunscreen on the water, the boats are more environmentally friendly. There we enjoyed the falls - 2 falling more then 300m to a plunge pool with a white sandy beach. I sat in the shade with Bruce and Raylein (finally figured out they are in fact married and teaching the course with their daughter along for the trip) Both were very concerned about my sunburn and have been near adopting me to prevent further sun injury. Good times in all. Clambered back over the rocks, back to the boat, back to the landcruisers, and backtracked to a picnic site for lunch. The guides in my car were "traditional owners" Darren and Johnnie - definitely characters, loved to tell stories, and were amazing at spotting things like frilly lizards while doing 40mph on a bumpy track. Next stop was Jim-Jim falls. This required more of a hike to get to - 1 km. May not sound like much, but more then half of it was not a path, but simply clambering over huge rocks some of which were loose. Definitely a work out and I am proud that I had only 1 good fall and that was on the way out! At any rate, poor Darren had to keep reminding us to 'think like rock wallabies' especially the poor city kids (only a couple were bad) that did not enjoy the communing with nature. At Jim-Jim we were allowed to go swimming. The falls here were even higher - maybe 400m. And the plunge pool was harder to get to. Again, the gorgeous white sandy beach followed by a pool of water about 50 degrees F. A shallow layer of rocks separated it from a smaller pool about 30m across where one had to scramble across another rock barrier to get to the plunge pool. We all started out on this trek - despite the cold water. The scarriest part initially was that 30m across pool - the first place where you HAD to swim to get further. The water was incredibly clear and cold. When I first jumped in I was positive my heart would stop or I would hyperventilate 1/2way across. Just had to keep swimming and keep calm. Then on the rock barrier we found a black whip snake - dangerous - necessary detour. And then the last step to reaching the waterfall and standing beneath it - the plunge pool itself. It was about 200m in diameter, at least 30m deep - so deep it was black, and even colder - about 40 degrees. Basically no where to stop and take a rest if you got cold or tired. About 5 of our group made it to the falls and stood on a ledge beneath it as I arrived on the edge of the rock barrier. In the process 2 more had turned back halfway (GT boys!) and 1 had got scared and swam to the side. Well of course I couldnt not go, so I dove in and headed off. Eventually went a bit numb - but as long as you dont panic, it wasnt a hard swim at all. Just so gorgeous to look up at the sandstone cliffs surrounding the pool. Made it to the falls where I stood on a little ledge and let the freezing cold water pound down.. incredible let it be known - one of the best things i've ever done i think. At any rate, the rest of the day was making our way back to camp where dinner was crocodile and kangaroo. croc is actually a bit like chicken. honestly! even looks like it!!
sunday: now for driving back to darwin, the long way. An hour long stop at Noulangie rock - a place where art was being done by aborgines from 5,000 yrs ago up until the 1960s. Clearer and more colorful then Ubirr with another view of the escarpment. Many bushfires that day. The aborigines use the fire-stick method of farming - burning this time of year rather then waiting until the wet season when lightening strikes with ignite out of control fires. The eucalyptis trees WANT to burn - and produce oil and dry stringy bark to do so, this kindling is added to with the grasses that grow high and are incredibly dry by the end of the winter. The whole sky was hazy with smoke. Then the bus took us further to Gunlom falls where we had lunch, then hiked up to the top of the falls (another work out! specially being sore from the day before) where there were some lovely pools to swim in and a great view looking into the valley. Then 3 hours of driving - I finished my 2nd hand book "Down Under" by Bill Bryson which was entertaining and I reckon relatively close to fact. A stop at the Adelaide River Historic War Cemetary - our one history assignment of the trip and then another 1.5 hrs to Darwin. Today and tomorrow are free days which will probably involve lots of sitting, maybe a bit in the sun, wandering the town in the morning and evening, and going to the gym in the middle. Wed and Thurs I'll have the first classes of my elective - Australia Environmental History. Good times!!
Monday, June 28, 2004
Wednesday, June 23, 2004
Darwin
Lots of catching up to do:
Saturday night, ate out and hanging out till semi-late.
Sunday: woke up, went to the beach for a bit, orientation session from 2-4pm. they gave all 130 of us a brief overview of what to expect living in Darwin, including a 25 minute summary of Australian language/culture/history. Also our guides in Kakadu gave us a bit of an itinerary as each group is rotating in and out of the park. My "Australian History" program leaves early friday morning and comes back late on Sunday. Finished up the evening watching the sunset and wandering around down at the Mindil beach markets.
Monday: first day of class. bright and early at 9am too! Our classroom is a not so convenient 20 min walk away from the apartments. Ah well, at least I'll stay in shape! Class was actually really fun. Bruce (the prof) and Peter (the TA) are both from the University of New South Wales. We started out with a lot of role-playing/acting and interactive exercises. Ended with a movie and the 4 hour class was over. Managed to find the gym which was marked incorrectly on the map they gave us. so might actually get a bit more in shape this summer. That evening was a reception at the government house with "his honour" ted egan. It was great - free beer, champagne, mingling with random others, and tons of "nibbles" - sandwiches to spring rolls. And waiters to bring everything around on trays to groups of people. Then the governor spoke to us, sang a song as well since apparently he has about 20-30 albums, a nervous american coordinator added something, and some poor engineering student butchered a thank you speech. Then a night out on the town. After meeting a million new people at the reception - including Emily Essig, the Purdue girl I'm traveling with afterwards - I decided to quasi-detach myself from the georgetown-ites and hang out with the nerds for an evening. I must admit it just reminds me of being at purdue and going out. I'm somewhat more at ease just cause I atomatically fit in better with that sort of crowd. Not that I'm complaining about the History kids - plenty of good people and I do get along pretty well, just can't always deal correctly with the preppiness. So somehow was in bed by midnight anyway! We've had such early nights here so far. I at least have the excuse of English training.
tuesday: class again. This time with Raylein (female prof) about Aboriginal culture and women convicts. Not as exciting as the day before. Excursion in the afternoon to the Chinese museum where we did a few exercises describing how the Chinese have been important in Darwin since the 1870s or so. A stop by the library to be a nerd, get brownie pts, and ostensibly research my role-play for wed. - governor arthur phillip. That evening, our group had yet another excursion - this time for a sunset cruise out on the ocean. We took an historic pearl lugger out to the site where the US ship Pearly was sunk during WWII. Apparently we had quite a bit of navy stationed here, and Darwin was hit with several times the amount of bombs that Pearl Harbour was. Over the site where the ship sunk and 91 American sailors were trapped inside, we had a bit of a ceremony. Bruce talked about the bombings, Peter read Australia's "Ode" which they read at all services of this type, we each took turns reading the names of the fallen, and then threw roses into the water. Afterwards, in true Aussie style, we all had several glasses of complimentary champagne. The sunset around 7:20 or a bit before - it was the winter solstice afterall!! and it was incredible. hung out on the water for awhile before heading back to the dock, and dinner.
wed: well, that would be today for me. tomorrow for all of you at home ;) more class today. 10% of our grade done with now. We held a mock 'Royal Commission' to investigate the causes/means of prevention of the racial tension and violence that occured when the country was first being colonized. I was the first Governor - Arthur Phillip and had to speak as him during the investigation. Apparently we all got 10/10. again, its a rough class... haha. Then, we were supposed to watch a documentary but apparently Raylein's daughter had taped over it with Charmed. So we got out early, I hit the gym, then we had yet another excursion. We went to the Esplanade in Darwin to see the statues commemerating a German explorer, the US Pearly, and ANZAC soldiers. Also went to the telegraph house, did exercises about the pictures there, talked to the oldest morse code/telegraph guy in Australia - 96 yrs old! Then on to the Supreme Court, a cemetery, and finally the Northern Territory museum with everything from aboriginal art to natural history stuff to a NASA exhibit. Admittedly, pretty tired now but headed to the $5 BBQ!
Saturday night, ate out and hanging out till semi-late.
Sunday: woke up, went to the beach for a bit, orientation session from 2-4pm. they gave all 130 of us a brief overview of what to expect living in Darwin, including a 25 minute summary of Australian language/culture/history. Also our guides in Kakadu gave us a bit of an itinerary as each group is rotating in and out of the park. My "Australian History" program leaves early friday morning and comes back late on Sunday. Finished up the evening watching the sunset and wandering around down at the Mindil beach markets.
Monday: first day of class. bright and early at 9am too! Our classroom is a not so convenient 20 min walk away from the apartments. Ah well, at least I'll stay in shape! Class was actually really fun. Bruce (the prof) and Peter (the TA) are both from the University of New South Wales. We started out with a lot of role-playing/acting and interactive exercises. Ended with a movie and the 4 hour class was over. Managed to find the gym which was marked incorrectly on the map they gave us. so might actually get a bit more in shape this summer. That evening was a reception at the government house with "his honour" ted egan. It was great - free beer, champagne, mingling with random others, and tons of "nibbles" - sandwiches to spring rolls. And waiters to bring everything around on trays to groups of people. Then the governor spoke to us, sang a song as well since apparently he has about 20-30 albums, a nervous american coordinator added something, and some poor engineering student butchered a thank you speech. Then a night out on the town. After meeting a million new people at the reception - including Emily Essig, the Purdue girl I'm traveling with afterwards - I decided to quasi-detach myself from the georgetown-ites and hang out with the nerds for an evening. I must admit it just reminds me of being at purdue and going out. I'm somewhat more at ease just cause I atomatically fit in better with that sort of crowd. Not that I'm complaining about the History kids - plenty of good people and I do get along pretty well, just can't always deal correctly with the preppiness. So somehow was in bed by midnight anyway! We've had such early nights here so far. I at least have the excuse of English training.
tuesday: class again. This time with Raylein (female prof) about Aboriginal culture and women convicts. Not as exciting as the day before. Excursion in the afternoon to the Chinese museum where we did a few exercises describing how the Chinese have been important in Darwin since the 1870s or so. A stop by the library to be a nerd, get brownie pts, and ostensibly research my role-play for wed. - governor arthur phillip. That evening, our group had yet another excursion - this time for a sunset cruise out on the ocean. We took an historic pearl lugger out to the site where the US ship Pearly was sunk during WWII. Apparently we had quite a bit of navy stationed here, and Darwin was hit with several times the amount of bombs that Pearl Harbour was. Over the site where the ship sunk and 91 American sailors were trapped inside, we had a bit of a ceremony. Bruce talked about the bombings, Peter read Australia's "Ode" which they read at all services of this type, we each took turns reading the names of the fallen, and then threw roses into the water. Afterwards, in true Aussie style, we all had several glasses of complimentary champagne. The sunset around 7:20 or a bit before - it was the winter solstice afterall!! and it was incredible. hung out on the water for awhile before heading back to the dock, and dinner.
wed: well, that would be today for me. tomorrow for all of you at home ;) more class today. 10% of our grade done with now. We held a mock 'Royal Commission' to investigate the causes/means of prevention of the racial tension and violence that occured when the country was first being colonized. I was the first Governor - Arthur Phillip and had to speak as him during the investigation. Apparently we all got 10/10. again, its a rough class... haha. Then, we were supposed to watch a documentary but apparently Raylein's daughter had taped over it with Charmed. So we got out early, I hit the gym, then we had yet another excursion. We went to the Esplanade in Darwin to see the statues commemerating a German explorer, the US Pearly, and ANZAC soldiers. Also went to the telegraph house, did exercises about the pictures there, talked to the oldest morse code/telegraph guy in Australia - 96 yrs old! Then on to the Supreme Court, a cemetery, and finally the Northern Territory museum with everything from aboriginal art to natural history stuff to a NASA exhibit. Admittedly, pretty tired now but headed to the $5 BBQ!
Saturday, June 19, 2004
arrival australia
So i traveled for 36 hours straight to get here - plenty of time to calculate that on the 24 hours spent on planes. it actually wasnt all THAT bad. watched several movies, got some sleep, started meeting people from the program in LAX - waiting in an absolutely hellish line to check in for the Qantas flight to Brisbane. And on the flight from brisbane to darwin over half the plane was made up of study abroad students. Almost everyone in the history program is from georgetown university with the exception being myself and other single random students from pitt, university of penn., drexel, george washington, western michigan, etc... the other group arriving with us was culture and media of australia students - almost all of which are from michigan state. at any rate, its been good times thus far. settled in at the apartments we're staying at - 3 other girls in the 2 bedroom, living room/kitchen, 1 bathroom apart. not bad really theres even a pool in the middle of the complex. went grocery shopping and got communal food. we get along quite well i think. even though i occassionally get sick of georgetown gossip... we went out last night to 'shenanigans' a bar on the main street. darwin is a pretty small town, but the territory capitol. australians at the bar were really friendly, plenty of free drinks - although i believe that would probably be due to the blonde/sorority types that i am now hanging out with as well as the fact that everyone at the bar seemed a bit, well, old... that wrapped up for us at 10 - i absolutely crashed when we got back to the apartment. this morning we were all up by 9 or 10 and decided to head to the beach - Mondil beach. We stayed out there for several hours as more of the group made it. couldnt really go swimming unfortunately as the water felt great. apparently its invested with jellyfish from oct-may, and even now you have to watch out for salt water crocodiles... we waded out pretty far - only up to mid-thigh - before psyching ourselves out and heading out of the somewhat murkey aqua water. so of course, i am now sunburnt, in record time. we walked back, ate, hung out at the pool for awhile and jogged over to this internet cafe. its about as hot here as at home, but less humid. so actually probably hotter. at any rate, orientation is tomorrow and class starts monday. what a holiday!
Monday, June 07, 2004
Saturday, June 05, 2004
Oxford and more work avoidances
So Thursday morning, I decided to head to Oxford for a day trip. Unheard of for English people who would only consider the 1hr+ one trip for a longer amount of time - a weekend or a week! Walked into town and hit up the Ashmolean museum first - a free activity. I think it may well rank among the most random museums I have ever been to, containing statues from Egypt and Greece, printings from China and Japan, old English table settings, Italian rennisance art, coins, an exhibit of contemporary sculptures made from prosthetic legs, and 4 Stradivarius instruments. I spent some time wandering around the silent, musty, mostly devoid of visitors rooms. The music room was actually closed and I had to beg a nearby curator to open it up for me to see the Stradivarius violin 'Le Messie.' So the 10 min tour of a small room packed with instruments and 2 stradivarius violins, 1 guitar, and 1 sitar before being escourted out and told to hide the paper from the room so that no one else would know the curator opened it. Out again on the streets of Oxford, headed down by Carfax tower and then to Christ church College. Having so many separate universities reminds me a bit of Yale where everyone lived in "colleges." I must admit that I couldn't bring myself to pay to get into any of them. I mean, really, it is a school still! But I really enjoyed wandering the small back allies, peeking inside some of the less well known colleges, following people who looked like they might actually be students. I of course made sure as well to see the famous New College and Magdalen College. I got a kick out of just walking along a street and looking up to see a plaque that read something along the lines of "while living here, Sir Alfred Boyle discovered Boyle's Law and some other guy who i can't remember at the moment but know of made a microscope and identified a living cell for the first time." So, yeah, cool! Oxford reminded me a bit of Bath with more architectural diversity. After wandering for several hrs, I called it a day and hopped the train back to Bath.
So in other recent news, two of the Americans have now left: Les on Wed. and Dan today. We all keep going out the night before and our numbers are already dwindling. It's very odd to sit around a table with the people you've hung out with most the past 4 months and say that you'll never all be together again. I suppose that this is just a preview for graduation next year. I guess one of the consequences of spreading your friends out and around the world is that you'll be lucky to see them once every 5-10 yrs. At any rate, I haven't studied for the past 2 days. I know I can't totally blow off these exams... so I guess I'll go attempt to do some work now.
So in other recent news, two of the Americans have now left: Les on Wed. and Dan today. We all keep going out the night before and our numbers are already dwindling. It's very odd to sit around a table with the people you've hung out with most the past 4 months and say that you'll never all be together again. I suppose that this is just a preview for graduation next year. I guess one of the consequences of spreading your friends out and around the world is that you'll be lucky to see them once every 5-10 yrs. At any rate, I haven't studied for the past 2 days. I know I can't totally blow off these exams... so I guess I'll go attempt to do some work now.
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