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Quick Notes on 'Study' Week
2006-10-29 08:00:00
As is the norm, we had a week off to study for exams after classes. Usually not much studying is done during this week (took off to Queensland last semester), and being on an exchange was twice the excuse to not open a single book again.The break was off to a good start with the trip to Mt. Kosciuszko and some more rest was needed after this so Beck and I took off to her condo on Philip Island for a few days. This was my third trip to the island and was again different from the others. I like that I made three visits, it started to feel like I had been making visits all my life.It was a very low key and relaxing few days. We visited the Nobbies which was cool because it was so windy and the waves were nice and violent and the blowhole was blowing more than I have ever seen before.Since it was still spring, the weather could be hit and miss. I would say we had a little of both - it was sunny, but not very warm. Still, we hung out at the beach for a bit, but the only wave I rode was t...
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Conquering Mt. Kosciuszko: Part 2 - Bagging the Summit
2006-10-23 10:00:00
There was a sense that we were a bit behind schedule as we pulled up to Charlotte Pass, where we parked the car. This is the highest point you can drive to in Australia at an elevation of 1830m. (If you know that the mountain itself is 2228m, you'll see that we weren't looking at a ridiculous climb). There is a road that leads just about to the summit, but it has been closed for environmental reasons. It is now an 18km return hike going the short way, but I figured it would suck to be tired and walk down the mountain looking at the same stuff we saw on the way up, so we picked the longer, 23km round trip up one trail that passes by a few lakes, and then down the road for the walk back.We had been told that the weather is very unpredictable and to be prepared etc... The summit is where the coldest temperature in Australia was recorded in 1994: -23 Celcius... would have needed a toque if you were going up that day.We had lots of layers with us anyway, and about 5 minutes into the w...
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Conquering Mt. Kosciuszko: Part 1 - Getting There
2006-10-22 12:00:00
Reaching the highest point in Australia, Mt. Kosciuszko , was high on my list of things to do, and time and money was running out. We had a week long study break and I had Tara fully committed so the planning began, which wasn't much in the end; drive there, camp somewhere, climb the mountain and come home again.The car I had acquired earlier in the semester seemed to not be having any problems so it would hopefully get us there and back, but we had no guarantees and would dump the car and figure something out if we had to.We recruited Tracy and Jakob the Bad Ass Viking to keep the costs down and because we were sure they understood that this trip may not even get out of the city and they would be cool with this.It was a very reckless idea, but 'reckless' = 'adventure' so we loaded the car right up, so much that Jakob had to sit on his blankets and headed out.Once we found the right highway, everything was very uneventful. We were still nervous about the car just not working, a...
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Beach Club Trip to Wilsons Promontory
2006-10-16 10:00:00
My 6th and final Beach Club trip is finnished. A lot has changed since the first trip to Torquay but the fun level has only gone up.The destination this time around was Wilsons Prom ontory, a peninsula sticking south from the mainland about 3 hours to the east of Melbourne. Travel agents I have talked to love this place and go back every year. You can see what the scenery is like in the first picture. They are the same mountains and rocks formations as in Tasmania, formed by the same mountain building event. It was pretty stunning to rock up to the Prom with the masses of rock and blue water showing themselves in grand views here and there. The mountain in the photo is Mt. Oberon which is 558 metres tall. We climbed it on Saturday in about 2 hours, and were rewarded with 360 degree views of the park around around us.The second photo is me on the top of the mountain, it was very windy, almost dangerously windy. In the background is Tidal River, the main town of the National Park, and ...
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Sydney: Part 2 - Harbour and Beach
2006-10-02 10:00:00
Originally we had the plan to have a spare day to do whatever else might happen to arise. It turned out that we had seen so little of the city the day before that we set off walking the city again. It was a bit less impressive, maybe because we had been there for 3 days already and were getting used to things.We walked all the way down to George St. to Paddys Market. It was nothing special at all with all the same crap that can be found at the Queen Victoria market here in Melbourne.We then walked up to Darling Harbour which is another hub of activity that we were told to see. It was impressive to see well the whole area had been planned and built around the water to make the most use of it.We found the maritime museum which is no small place and walked through it since it was free. Came across the sail boat used by Kay Cottee to sail unassisted around the world. It was set up the same as it was when she was rounding Cape Horn. Interesting to see the difference between a regular boa...
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Sydney: Part 1 - Mountains and City
2006-09-28 10:00:00
We left Canberra at about 2:30pm for the relatively short drive over to Sydney . The drive happened to work out really well seeing as we didn't have a map. We followed the signs right to the city and went on a feeling from there. I knew we were staying just north of Kings Cross so followed those signs and I hoped I would see a familiar street name. Instead I saw the hostel itself so that was handy. We stayed at the Blue Parrot hostel in Potts Point. I loved this hostel because it did have that homey feeling. We rocked up and met up with Fredrik who was there since the previous week for a concert and enjoyed some dinner and bevvos on the patio where a lot of people joined us. The small size of the hostel and the good communal areas are what made it great. We ended up going out for a German girls birthday.I have to say something about Kings Cross since I heard so many bad things before we went there. I loved it. The nightlife is great and there are tons of people out and about. There ...
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"Canberra - The Nations Capital"
2006-09-25 10:00:00
I have to confess that the title to this post isn't very original; it is the slogan on the all the licence plates in Australian Capital Territory, just like one of my first posts "Victoria - The Place to Be".This past week was the big Sydney road trip via Canberra. Why Canberra? Because it happens to be on the way and noone else I know who is travelling here has been there so its also unique for us.On Monday morning after the Beach Club trip we went and picked up our spanking new Subaru Outback and loaded up. In the end we didnt recruit the numbers we wanted to it was me and the Americans in one car and Niclas and Veronika in the other. We made our way North and out of the city only 1 hour behind our non-existent schedule. There were lots of speed cameras on the Hume Freeway, they kept catching me off guard even though they were so obvious. There was 4 occasions on the trip where we thought we were busted, but we never heard about it from the rental company so that's good. The gui...
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Beach Club Trip to Apollo Bay
2006-09-24 10:00:00
Another stereotypical Beach Club trip is in the books and this one was to the most gorgeous destination yet: Apollo Bay on the Great Ocean Road where the hills of the Otway National Park meet the ocean. The first photo is a great example of what the scenery was like. The town of Apollo Bay is a tourism based town but is not as busy as Lorne.The trip started with the usual drinks on the 3 hour bus ride down the first half of the Great Ocean Road; always a good time and no police this time around. We stayed in a small hostel owned by a 62 year old lady named Annie. The place obviously used to be a house and was expanded with three 5 bed rooms in the back. I would pick this type of accomodation over a really nice place like the Eco YHA in town any day because it is much more homey and accomodating. We hung out in the small kitchen and living room inside a lot and also had the whole place to ourselved pretty much.When we arrived I took up my spot at the grill (with my pants on this time...
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The Great Ocean Road
2006-09-17 22:00:00
Last week I went to a wildlife park which wasn't too thrilling but I got my picture taken with a wombat and a koala.This past weekend I went on one of the big trips I have been waiting for since I got here 7 months ago. I could write an entire book on the things I learned on the Great Ocean Road , but that would take too long. It is a very photogenic road and I took heaps of great photos but I guess I'll have to put up only the more interesting ones here.We took off friday morning from Melbourne and headed cross country to the city of Warrnambool which as at the opposite end of the road. This town is known for harbouring whales in one of its bays at this time of year. I was a bit sceptical but sure enough we rocked up to the beach and just 100 metres off shore there were a few southern right whales waving back at us. More interesting that this though was a guy sitting in his parachute floating back and forth along the beach in the wind that blows up the cliff from the ocean.From he...
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Beach Club Trip to Queenscliff
2006-09-10 09:09:00
Last week I was skiing in mountains north of Melbourne, and this past weekend was the first Beach Club trip of the term to Queen scliff about an hour from Melbourne. I guess Victoria can be compared to British Columbia with its vast range of seasonal activities all offered at the same time.We stayed in a huge guesthouse named Whitehall that is in the process of being converted from an old age home. We had the entire house to ourselves and there was no lack of space. Many of us had our own queen size beds in one of the dozen plus rooms. There was a great patio outside where I BBQ'd dinner for everyone on the first night and where we chilled out a lot. The first night we didn't do much other than be loud and get reacquainted with each other. Ashleigh celebrated her birthday at midnight which included some entertainment from Fredrik which was nice... I guess.On saturday morning we all gathered ourselves by around noon and headed out to a beach in Ocean Grove. We rustled up a few wets...
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Mt. Buller Ski Trip
2006-08-11 10:00:00
The student association has been putting on trips that I have gone on in the past and this one was a ski trip to Mt Bull er, about 3 hours north of Melbourne. I thought it would be such a novel idea to go skiing in August so I signed up. The not so novel part was getting up at 3am to be at the bus by 3:30 to start driving. We stopped in Mansfield, a town near the mountain, for a buffet breakfeast and to rent equipment. So far, not a sign of snow and I was still very sceptical that there would be snow at all. We rocked up to the mountain at about 9am and there was indeed snow on most of the hills. The conditions were what I expected them to be like at their best, but it was actually one of the worst seasons in the past years. I paired up with the other experienced skiers. It was a weird feeling to be a Canadian skiing in Australia because I found myself assuming that I was automatically so much better than everyone else. I didn't let my country down though thats for sure. I fanged d...
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New Semester Antics
2006-08-05 06:08:00
Now that I had seen so much of Australia, I was almost at a loss of what to do for the last week we had off before classes resumed. The day after we got back from Central Australia, the new roommates showed up, and later the next week the first photo was taken when the whole house went together for the first time. 4 girls moved out and 4 new ones have moved in, 3 from the US and 1 from Slovakia. A few of use went to Niclas' aunts house over night on Saturday, a sort of house orientation trip. It was interesting to be there 5 months later than the first time because everything was such a brilliant green unlike the yellow shades before.On Monday, the 3 Americans and Marcus left on the 2nd semester orientation trip to Lorne. The house was a bit lonely so I recruited Hayden and Fredrik and we left on our own trip which happened to be in Lorne as well. We hung out with all the new international students, but mostly did our own thing. We were in the Otways National Park where there are s...
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Central Australia Part 3: Kings Canyon and Alice Springs
2006-07-07 10:00:00
Now that the big items on the list of things to see had been checked off, we headed to ends of other roads in the desert. The next 2 nights were spent in Watarrka National Park where Kings Canyon is located, among other things. We stopped at Kathleen Spring s on the way for a walk and lunch. There is a permanent pool of water here and it used to be a big stop for cattle, emus and camels, but we saw none of that. This is another area of Australia that I had no idea about before the trip but it was also very unique. This is another one of the few spots in the outback where there is water all year round. This, and the fact that the bottom of the canyon is sheltered from strong sun, means that vegetation can grow, so there are lots of trees and thick bush in the bottom. This oasis is know as the Garden of Eden. The canyon wall in the photo is flat and lined the way it is because in the past few years, huge pieces have fallen off. In the background you can see domes everywhere. These are ...
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Central Australia Part 2: The Olgas and Uluru
2006-06-30 10:00:00
After some good times at the little bar in a resort nearby, we went to visit the Olgas. This geological formation was so impressive that it is weird to think that more people don't know about it. I think I didn't know about it until I arrived in Australia and looked into this trip. We went on a cool hike that took us in between some of the huge hills or spires or whatever they should be called. During the whole walk I amused people by telling them how it was all formed and why there were big chunks of rock all cemented together. All the rock that makes up the Olgas is really unique and unlike pretty anything I had seen or heard about in school before. For such prominent geological features, I found it hard to find websites discussing their origins or giving more than an elementary level explanation. I ended up buying a think book that went into depth about them both which made visiting the area way cooler by knowing how it all got there.Seeing as this was our first real day of vis...
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Central Australia Part 1: Melbourne to Yulara
2006-06-27 10:00:00
I finally have a chance to jot down a little something about the Cent ral Australia trip. So much was seen and done over the 12 days that this is almost difficult, but I'll try and give it a good run down even though I will leave out a lot. I could really go and write a book about this all.We left campus at about 4am on June 25th. I didn't bother sleeping the night before so the bus ride went by pretty smoothly that day. We entered South Australia, and weirdly enough, we changed time zones and went back not 1 hour, but half an hour. We drove to Port Augusta which is past Adelaide where the road veers north into the desert. We set up our tents in the dark and slept in the cold, and then we woke up in the dark and took our tents down in the cold. The next day on the bus was more interesting because we actually got out into the desert where it is flat and barren in all directions. It became so obvious why this type of area is referred to as 'the land of the big sky'. We reached Coo...
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Queensland Part 5: Afterthoughts
2006-06-24 13:26:00
Travelling this chunk of Australia has been heaps of fun. It was relatively easy to do with only one road going north and south. The majority of travellers hit up the same area, such as Fraser Island and the Whitsundays, which makes striking up a conversation pretty easy.The various costs sure added up though. I kept track of pretty much all my expenses and the grand total was AUD $1550. This included 250$ for the flights, 300$ for the package deal from Peter Pans, all transportation and nights out. This works out to 86$ per day, which I dont think is too bad a price when it includes room and board as well as nights out and $100+ day trips.Overall I think money wise I did really well, though I didn't expect it to add up to that much.I am totally okay with these expenses because I feel I saw a lot more of the Brisbane to Cairns coast than I originally planned or thought I ever would.Also, I ended up taking 290 photos over the 18 days, and I still think a huge regret is not taking en...
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Queensland Part 4: Cairns and Great Barrier Reef
2006-06-21 10:00:00
After the sailing trip there was an after party that included lots of dancing on tables among other things. This is where I had to work my magic and score a ride north again. I was introduced to an Israeli dude named Nadav who had a camper van and he agreed to take me to Townsville. I have to say, all the Israeli people I met on the trip have been real characters, tons of fun. My favourite quote from Nadav was 'Ryan, prepare your belly, we are going to have a stop at Subway!'. It wasn't too far to Townsville and I checked into a hostel, watched a movie and crashed. Next morning, Nadav came over to bring my camera which I left in his van, and we decided to drive to the top of Castle Hill that domintates the 'skyline' of townsville. Pretty cool, reminded me a lot of Mt. McKay in Thunder Bay. Similar height and similar sights from the top, that is to say, the water, the entire town and even the airport. Next we checked out the Sunday morning market downtown, where there was even a...
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Queensland Part 3: Airlie Beach and the Whitsundays
2006-06-17 10:00:00
Before arriving in Airlie Beach , I called to reconfirm my spot on the sailboat for Monday. I was told that the boat had been out of the water for the past 2 weeks getting repaired so I was kind of screwed. I called up Peter Pans (the company I booked everything with), and they put me and Julia (friend from school here) on another boat leaving Tuesday instead. So on Monday afternoon Julia and I went to pay our extras for the trip (reef tax and stuff like that), and they said well that boat has been out of commission for a few days ever since it got beaten up in heavy winds the other day. So we were stressing a bit at this point and we went over to Peter Pans where cut a deal for another boat now leaving Wednesday instead. The funniest part was the trip advisor advising us NOT to go on this boat because it's known as the biggest piece of shit boat in all of the Whitsundays. The Tallarook III was the name of the boat, and the fact that it was so poorly looked upon by so many people wh...
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Queensland Part 2: The Road to Airlie Beach
2006-06-11 10:00:00
The drive from Rainbow Beach to Airlie Beach (the jump off point for the Whitsundays) is about 12 hours I think. Fortuneately, I met a Paul on the Fraser Island trip and he agreed to take me and 2 others in his car for the trip north. This is by far the way to travel. You can see and do heaps more when you aren't on a bus that needs to keep a schedule. Another fantastic thing the state of Queen sland has started is the Driver Reviver stations placed about 2 hours apart on the highway. There is not much along these highways so people become fatigued and these stations, run by local volunteer groups, offer free coffee and biscuits in order to encourage people to stop and take a break. I think we hit up about 4 of these on our way. They are the closest thing to a Tim Hortons stop that Australia has.We read about a place called the Town of 1770 which is about an hour off the main highway and decided to make our way there for the first night. It was supposed to be an up and coming holida...
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Queensland Part 1: Brisbane to Fraser Island
2006-06-09 10:00:00
The past 2.5 weeks were full of ego-boosting good fortune. Everything came together as good or better than I could have hoped.Niclas drove me to the airport for the 2 hour flight north to Brisbane. It still seems wild me to me that a 26 hour car trip can be done in 2 hours by plane. I took a shuttle bus down to Surfers Paradise and had the driver leave me at Melbas; one of the top night clubs on the east coast. I looked like an idiot with my backpack on there, so I stuffed it in a bush and went in to find Jeff or Owen so I could get the keys to their apartment. They showed up at 6am after work as the sun was coming up. Later on we hit the beach and got some meat for a BBQ later on. It was a good way to see Surfers Paradise since I would never want to stay there for too long. I took a bus to Rainbow Beach the next morning at 8:35am. This would be the jump off point for 3 days and 2 nights on Fraser Island .Rainbow Beach is pretty quiet. There are 2 hostels, a strip of stores and some...
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Queensland Bound!
2006-06-03 07:47:00
I leave for the airport in 45 minutes, I havent packed, I don't know where I'm going when I get there but I am, of course, absolutely confident.Weather forecast looks fantastic, the water will be warm. Sunday I am hitting up Surfers Paradise to have a BBQ with some high school buddies who are there for the summer. After that I need to get myself 6 hours north to Fraser Island where I am until Friday. Then I need to get 17 MORE hours north to Airlie Beach where the boats leave to sail the Whitsundays. There I will be joined by a girl from school who happened to be planning a trip sailing at the same time as me.After a week in the legendary Airlie Beach I will head north to Cairns at 17 degrees south of the equator. As far south as Jamaica is north. I will probably take a day trip maybe to the Daintree River and also, depending on the scubadiving in the Whitsundays, I may make another day trip out to the reef.Perhaps Ill have a chance to throw up some pictures or whip up a little up...
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Beach Club Trip to Philip Island
2006-05-22 15:21:00
Another classic beach club trip is over. They have all been so good I can't really even rank them from best to worst. This time we were in Philip Island where I have been before. We had a house rented for about 20 of us and another one rented nearby for the other 9 or 10. This meant there were much fewer rules for us to follow since we weren't in a hostel, and we took full advantage of this lack of rules.On friday we didn't get up to too much. Our house was only a 5 minute walk to Surfies Point (the first picture, and latest addition to those worthy of a desktop background). A few of us had a go at surfing but we lost daylight pretty fast. It's dark out by 6pm now; again, not what I signed up for.We made pizzas for supper and enjoyed some beverages and games until pretty late at night since there was noone telling us to be quiet.The next morning I had big plans of getting up early and hitting up the beach again, but that never happens once morning actually comes around. It was a...
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Yacht Racing and Footy Weekend
2006-05-15 10:30:00
I didn't stray too far from home again this weekend. Since the Deakin Masters Challenge last Sunday, I have been in touch with a guy at the Royal Brighton Yacht Club who has been keeping me informed and found me a boat to sail on for Saturday. So that's what I did, I met up with the skipper and 3 other crew members and we went out onto the bay for the race. It wasn't too intense at all with wind speeds around 10 knots. This made it a great way to get familiar with the routines on keel boats since I am used to only sailing on dinghys. Theres not a lot more to it, but there is a lot of fine tuning of the sails that can be done to get a bit more speed. Since there are speedometres on board the boats, you can instantly see what difference your adjustments have done to your speed. Simply tightening the boomvang or moving the traveller can show an increase of .2 knots, so that was kind of neat. I didn't take any pictures because there was not a lot to see, and because I know I'll be ...
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Deakin Masters Challenge
2006-05-07 16:40:00
Waking up at 630am to pouring rain is not how you would want to start a day of sailing, but that was the scene this morning. Some guys from school organized a regatta as a school project so we travelled about an hour by tram and train to the Royal Brighton Yacht Club. This place sure beat the pants of the Fanshawe yacht Club in London, it was in a pretty upper class neighbourhood and not a cottage on a dinky lake.We all met up in a fucntion room to be given the bad news: it was TOO windy to go out and there was a chance of heavy rain coming through, not that the picture (worthy of a desktop background) gives any evidence of it. (The rain did come, much later in the day).We ended up all going down to the boats we would have sailed on to check them out and chat with the skippers. The guy I hung with was big into racing and has placed first in the Melbourne to Hobart race among others. It was really good to get some time with these skippers especialy since I've been reading books abo...
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Beach Club Trip to Sorrento
2006-05-01 14:50:00
In February, I figured that if I join the Beach Club , it would not only mean a chance surf and party a few times, but also to travel to different places and learn things. This past weekend we travelled to Sorrento , on the Mornington Peninsula. I have made trips here before for a beach day and to swim with the dolphins and seals, but there is a lot more to it.Fall weather is upon us here, so when we arrived on Friday, no one was eager to get the beach so we just chilled out. A few of us walked down to the water front on the bay to harrass some pelicans, which I don't remember ever seeing in person before. They are big, and funny looking. We went to what was pretty much the only bar in town that night which is always a good time. Always a really chill crowd at these seaside bars and easy to make conversation with etc...On Saturday we went right to the very tip of the Mornington Peninsula which has a surprising amount of history in it. In the first picture, the opening to Port Philip ...
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