Week 11- Tasmania!

Port Arthur

Week one of Spring break is over. With IES, the program I’m here with, my group went to Tasmania. We had such a fun time (except for the crazy bus driver who made me car sick every time we drove). 

Day 1 included getting picked up by a bus at 6:15am. When you consider the fact that I was working on a lab report until 3, that’s REALLY early. We flew from Melbourne to Hobart and hit the ground running. We briefly stopped at our Hostel before going to the Salamanca market. It was an open air street fair that takes place every Saturday by the harbor. There were crafts, food, art, and lots of acts. It was really fun to peruse the street looking for treasure. After a few hours of market going, my friends and I decided to go to the museum. There were several cool exhibits, unfortunately sleep deprivation fogs my memory slightly. We saw a skeleton of a Thylacine, the Tasmanian dog/tiger that has been thought to be extinct since the 1930s. We stopped by a movie exhibit and began to watch penguins march around. Pretty soon after we were all asleep (probably 15 of us) lying on top of each other. We were woken up by an usher type person (security?) who thought it was funny.  We got up and looked at another exhibit, only to be drawn into another movie where we fell asleep. This time the man didn’t find it so funny. We decided to take our leave. After a two hour nap at the market it was time for a very tasty sushi dinner. That night we decided to wander around and found a 24 hour bakery. I had an amazing chocolate cake. We made several local friends.

Day 2 was an amazing white water rafting trip down the Tahune river. Half way through the trip we got to a deep, open area where we played king of the hill. Two people stood on the top of a raft and wrestled until someone (or both people) fell in. I played with my friend Chelsea. We were really evenly matched so we both ended up in the 2 degree Celsius water (about 34 F). We also had raft wars where each raft attempted to sabotage all of the others. This included pushing people out of the boat, splashing each other, and occasionally kidnapping people. That night we went to a tasty pizza place.

Day 3 had the most amazing start ever. We went to the Cadbury Chocolate Factory! We got to learn about their processes to make the chocolate. They also have a store that sells the reject chocolate. I ended up with 4 kilos (8 lbs) for under $30. That’s probably the best investment I’ve made while here. We then drove to Port Arthur which was an old jail. It’s almost all completely in ruins and is so incredibly beautiful. The stories about it are horrifying, only the most horrible people were sent there from England. They were treated harshly. We went on a cruise around the bay and took a tour on the Isle of the Dead, their cemetery island. I heard several really interesting stories. I also found a headstone with my name on it. Creepy! Half of our group decided to walk home together along the edge of the bay. My friends and I were fast hikers so we quickly got ahead. We landed on a beach and weren’t sure wether to take the road or the beach so after waiting for the rest of the group for ten minutes we decided to take the road. After walking for about 10 minutes we hadn’t seen any signs letting us know if we were going the right way or not. I attempted to flag down a police officer but he thought I was waving at him and waved back and drove by. Eventually we reached our camp site (not before the same police officer had passed us twice) to be greeted by the bus driver who laughed at us because we had taken a route twice as long as the one going on the beach. We were worried that our “guides” would be worried about us but they hadn’t noticed we were missing. That night we had Kangaroo spaghetti and then went back to Port Arthur for a ghost tour. SO creepy! We walked through the roofless church that would have held 1000 people, the doctors house, the autopsy room (where there was a story about a woman with really long hair, and having the longest hair I was used as the subject of the story), we also went into asylum where they kept people in solitude and silence for 23 hours a day. At one point we were ushered into the dark cell. The walls were each a meter thick with one window. Prisoners who were badly behaved were punished with a month in the dark cell. Our guide closed the door on us for 30 seconds and we were all so glad to get out. I put my fingers an inch from my eyes but I couldn’t see them.

Day 4 we went to the Tasmanian Devil Conservation Park. We saw the devils tear apart a wallaby skull and absolutely demolish it. Their jaws have 2000 lbs of force. They’re really cute. Unfortunately 80% of wild devils have a mysterious tumor that has become known as devil cancer. It deforms their face and mouth over the course of 8 months until they die from starvation. The pictures of it are horrifying. The Tasmin Peninsula is the only place that has wild devils unaffected by it. At the devil park they also had a kangaroo and wallaby petting zoo style thing. I got to feed a joey that was in its mama’s pouch! They were all so cute! That afternoon we were supposed to go on a hike but it was pouring cats and dogs and there was no sign of it showing up. A few of us didn’t want to be stuck inside all day so we decided to go for a polar bear swim. We drove to a nearby beach, went for a walk, went back to the bus to strip into bathing suits, and sprinted into the water. It was FREEZING! My breath was immediately taken away. There was a strong rip tide so we didn’t go in very deep. Mean while, there’s a storm raging around us. After a few minutes of splashing we quickly drove back to the hostel and took nice hot showers. That night we introduced the group to the game Mafia. It got to be very intense. We played from 10pm till about 2am (the rain was still pounding down). Several fights broke out.

Day 5 dawned bright and sunny. We did the hike we had missed on day 4. It was up to the saddle of a mountain range, to a beautiful look out, down the other side, and to Wineglass Bay. The waves were 10-15 feet tall! It was so beautiful. We all played in the water for a while and had to hike back home with soaked jeans. While I was putting on my shoes, a wild wallaby came over to me, sniffed me several times, and inserted itself onto my lap. I didn’t know what to do but scratch him behind the ears. He was really sweet. Sadly, no one got photos of him on my lap. We went for a wine tasting at Velo winery, run by Micheal Wilson a former Tour de France and Olympic competitor. His wife gave us a talk and was absolutely hillarious. That night I tried a classic australian dessert, which of course I can’t remember the name of..... I’ll get back to you on that one. We wandered around Launceston, one of Tasmania’s “big” cities, for the rest of the evening. 

Day 6 we did a walk to Cataract Gorge. It’s a beautiful peace of scenery in the middle of the city. The rocks there used to be quarried. Now there is a chairlift that spans the gorge. It was a really fun 10 minute ride. After the gorge it was time to go home!

Tomorrow (in 5 hours, at 3am) I leave for Sydney. I’ll be there for two days and then will travel to Airlie Beach for five days! The weather in Sydney is supposed to be 71 tomorrow and 66 on Sunday. The entire time I’m in the Whitsunday Islands the weather will be above 80! I’m really excited about this because of how rainy it has been in Melbourne (and Tassie). I’m sure people have probably heard about the sand storm in Sydney but don’t be alarmed, it’s over now and normality has been returned.

Week 10- Mt. Hotham

This weekend two friends and I went skiing at Mt. Hotham. It’s a resort off of the “Great Alpine Road” (notice the similarity to the naming of the Great Ocean Road) five hours north of Melbourne in the Victorian Alps. I had such an incredible time. My friend Mike is a snow boarder; he’s done it a number of times and is pretty decent at it. My other friend Brian is a skier on his college team and works for a ski resort in California, meaning he’s really good at it. I haven’t been skiing since I was maybe 11 years old. The gap in skill levels made for hilarity. 

The trip begun on Friday on our drive up to the snow. Everyone was a bit brain dead due to studying for midterms this week. Victoria has a really huge safe driving campaign going on. There are huge signs on the freeway telling you that drinking and driving is dangerous, that drugs and driving are dangerous, that being sleepy and driving is dangerous, that speeding and driving is dangerous. Mike kept reading the signs and not understanding what they meant. One sign we saw frequently said, “Slowing down won’t kill you” implying that speeding will. It wasn’t until the third or fourth time that we saw the sign that he says, “Ooooh! I get it!” Both Brian and I were very confused because we couldn’t understand what he finally understood (we had immediately understood the point of the advertisement). Again and again on the drive we all had revelations about the meaning of the signs. At long last we reached our destination, The Alpine Trailer Park (we would have camped but it was too cold). I immediately claimed the queen bed and sent the boys to the bunk beds. We settled in, made dinner, and went to bed. 

At 5:45 am the next morning we wake up to Mike’s alarm clock, “It’s 5:45 and time for you to get up. Beep. It’s 5:45 and time for you to get up. Beep.” We quickly got up and started the drive to the resort, about an hour away. We arrived and rented our equipment. The boys agreed to stay with me until I got my skis under me properly and give me a few pointers so I decided not to have a lesson (which probably wasn’t the best idea). We go up the first green lift and start going down the hill. I fall, we keep going, I fall, we keep going.... It takes a while to get down the hill. Of course I never get quite enough practice stopping the proper way, so when we get to the bottom of the hill I can’t actually slow down enough and crash into the nets in front of everyone taking lessons. Whoops. Turns out my shoes were a little too small (I had no circulation in my feet) and I had to switch. After doing one more run the boys decided it was time to try a blue run. This was the second bad idea of the day. We started going, it got steep and I freaked out. I went down, fell, and took of my skis. The boys were both further down than me and were yelling at me to put them back on and I kept refusing to. Finally a woman who worked there came over to me and very kindly told me that it was more dangerous for me to attempt to walk down than it would be to ski down. She helped me put my skis back on and sent me on my way. It took a really long time for me to get down to the lift (I kept falling). Unfortunately, due to the gale force winds at the top of the mountain, the lift was closed, meaning I had to keep going down a long blue run. I was not happy at this point (fear adding to my altitude sickness made for some unpleasantness). The boys had also promised not to put me in an area that had weird terrain and unfortunately the area that we were going down had mini moguls. I began to relax a little bit but managed to epically wipe out which disrupted my calm. At long last we got on a lift up the hill and had lunch. Deciding that I was too slow, Brian changed to a snowboard (his second time on one). We went down the green run a few more times until I began to actually feel comfortable. I made it down without stopping or wiping out! It also made me feel better because both Brian and Mike had started falling. With my new found confidence I agreed to try another blue run. Of course this didn’t work out as perfectly as I had hoped. It was steep and scary and I almost immediately wiped out into the direct path of the tow lift. I couldn’t get up again with my skis on and there was someone coming toward me, so I did the obvious thing, I took of my skis. Brian was at the bottom of the run and so Mike was left with the task of making me put my skis back on. I of course refused to do it and attempted to scoot down on my butt. Finally Brian came back up to us and bullied me into skiing down the rest of it. It ended up just fine (except for the difficulty I had learning how to use the two rope). We went down the other side of the tow rope (another blue run) and I did ok. I only fell once and didn’t take of my skis! Excited by my new found vertical position, I did the run a few more times, mastering it (and the tow rope)! We went back to the green run and I told the boys the could leave me. They went to do the terrain park (jumps, half pipes, poles) and I did the green run. I was so excited by my success of going fast, turning, and not falling that I didn’t wait for them at the bottom like I told them I would but jumped on the chair lift and did it again! It got really exciting. I refused to try the first blue run again (I told them to go off and do it by themselves so they could actually go at a normal persons speed) but decided that I enjoyed skiing. I want to try it again when I can ski for several days in a row (hopefully with someone who is close to my skill level) because I feel like I would improve enormously with more time. Both of the boys were afraid I hadn’t had fun but their fears were for naught. I liked being challenged by something I was uncomfortable with and triumphing!

On Sunday we went for several hikes to waterfalls and to a reservoir where Platypus’ live. Of course we went to the reservoir in the middle of the day and had no hope of seeing the platypus’ but we kept trying to convince each other we had seen one. We were going to go on a hike to and through an underground river but there was a sign with 12 things required to do the hike and we only filled one of them (sort of... The sign is in the photo album). It began to rain and we saw it as a sign to leave. The ride home was similarly hilarious to the drive to the snow. All in all it was an amazing trip. Everyone had different highlights. Mine was feeling good about skiing. Mike’s was hearing a cow moo for the first time. Brian’s was eating Cincinnati Chili. 

I may have mentioned previously that I’ve been learning to drive a stick shift (Brian’s Land Rover is a manuel). When we were approaching the city Brian pulled over and told me that I was going to drive for the last ten or so minutes. I was really nervous about stalling at a light or something else cliche that I’ve heard about beginners doing in the city because I had only driven on back roads before. I didn’t stall once while driving through the city (only once when I was about to get onto the main road and once again when parking)! I was really excited! I think I did pretty well! 

This week is midterms. I have a biochem exam on Friday and a Cognitive Psychology lab report due the week after but I will be on spring break so I have to finish it by Friday. For spring break I am going to Tasmania, Sydney, and the Whitsunday Islands. I will be out of contact for those two weeks, so know that I love you and that I’ll have much to write about when I get home!

Week 9- Wilson's Promentory- Take 2!

Elaine, Me, Brian, Mike, and Dawit!

 This weekend I took a trip with a carful of people to Wilson’s Prom: Elaine, Mike, Dawit, Brian and me. It was the first time Elaine and Dawit had ever been camping and was a very eventful trip. We drove down on Friday night, arriving about 7 pm which was after dark. The entire 3.5 hour drive it had been pouring rain which made the camping newbies a little nervous about the trip, especially when it came to light that one of them didn’t have a sleeping bag (just blankets) and the other only had a sleeping bag but not mattress pad. Everyone got a little more excited when we entered the park’s gates and began to see wildlife. We saw about 10 kangaroos on the side of the road, including one that wouldn’t get out our way in the middle of the road, and a half million wombats. Unfortunately the rain didn’t stop to let us set up our tents and since we had never put up one of the tents before (and it was a really odd tent) we ended up quite wet by the time we finished. Leaving the tents behind we drove to the site where we though the BBQ was. Somehow in the dark we completely managed to miss it and had to find another BBQ across the camp site (it should be noted that this is a huge camp ground, it holds about 300 spots). The rain lightened up enough for us to get our cooking supplies out of the car and under the shelter. We began to cook a tasty dinner of BBQ chicken, roast potatoes, and fresh veggies. After dinner we drove back to our camp site. The rain had stopped and everyone quickly realized that we weren’t ready for bed. The moon was incredibly bright and we all admired it for a while and several people attempted to take photos of it. Everyone quickly realized that it didn’t work with a normal camera so Brian took out his fancy camera and took several amazing photos of the moon that allowed us to see the craters on it and everything. We then did several long exposure photos of the sky that allowed us to see the stars and made the dark night sky look like day light. After that we began to have fun with long exposure or multiple flash photos that captured us moving around or haunting one another (I’ll post a few so you understand). At last we were tired and went to bed.

    The next morning we went to Squeaky Beach, Pillar Point, and Tidal Overlook. We had expected some serious rain but got only one light shower. We climbed a ton of rocks and took a huge number of photos. After a brief rest at camp we went to Lilly Pilly Gully which was supposed to have amazing native Australian Flora (Mike and Elaine are taking a course on Australian Flora and Fauna and wanted to put their knowledge to the test). Mike guaranteed that we would see several special types of plants. Unfortunately there was a fire that took place in February and had  destroyed a good section of the area which made it next to impossible for Mike to spot anything. For the rest of the trip it became a joke that when Mike guaranteed anything, it was sure not to happen. That night we had BBQ’d kangaroo, corn, and broccoli. I was a little grossed out by the kangaroo for several reasons; firstly I don’t particularly like eating red meat and kangaroo is about as red as it comes. Secondly, you take it out of the package and it drips blood, you put it on the grill and blood sizzles out. You can’t cook it too much or else it gets incredibly smokey and way too chewy to eat. This was probably the first time I’d ever eaten medium-rare meat and I’m not entirely sure how I feel about the experience. It tasted like stake but wasn’t quite as tough. It didn’t melt in my mouth but it wasn’t as “meaty” as I expected. We talked to some Aussie’s who were using the other grill and gave them tips for their upcoming trip to the US. When we were getting ready for bed we happened to notice a large hole in the side of our tent. After puzzling over it for a while we realized that a wombat had just charged through the side of our tent in order to put footprints on my pillow. After a long day of hiking, we tucked in early. Everyone was in their sleeping bags before 9 pm. At about 9:15 we hear loud snarling right outside of our tent. We think it was the wombat, angry that we had re-inhabited our tent. I almost jumped out of my skin.

    The next morning dawned bright blue and sunny. We decided to climb Mount Oberon, the highest peak in Wilson’s Prom with an amazing 360 degree view. It took about an hour of uphill climbing on a fire road, then another 10 minutes of walking up stairs cute from stone before rising above the tree tops and seeing the ocean on three sides. It couldn’t have been more of an amazing view. We took lots of pictures and ate snacks while marveling at how blue the water was and what an incredible place Wilson’s Prom is. We hiked back down the trail and went to Tidal Beach for lunch. We had a flock of sea gulls standing near by, waiting to see if we would throw anything to them. Everyone was pretty disconcerted by them because their eyes were light blue and ringed with a red circle (they also had bright red beaks and feet with black wings). There were also two larger sea gulls that had black wings and bright red beaks and feet who seemed to be in charge of their smaller companions. We were all tired so we decided to do a short hike to another beach, Cooper’s Beach, where Mike one again made the fatal mistake of guaranteeing that we would see kangaroos and emus. I swore that I wouldn’t speak to him on our return journey if we didn’t see an emu (probably the last epically Australian animal that I hadn’t seen yet).  We had an easy walk to the beach in which we saw kangaroos and wombats. The beach was beautiful with large waves and a very slight breeze. Everyone took of their shoes and splashed in the water. I was taught to skip stones! We made a game of attempting to skip a stone right into a wave crashing, causing the stone to jump 5- 10 feet in the air. It was pretty awesome. We walked back and I started to threaten Mike about breaking promises. We got back into the car and I stopped speaking to Mike. After about a minute of driving down the dirt road which was to lead us back to the main road, I start shrieking. On the side of the road is an emu! Brian breaks sharply, having no idea what was going on, and I jump out of the car. Everyone else follows me out quickly, figuring out what I must have seen but the emu finally notices us and runs away before everyone saw it. They are so HUGE! It’s like a giant ostrich. I couldn’t believe it. It didn’t seem like the right size in comparison to anything else in the world. It was amazing how well it blended in with the environment considering how large it was. We got back in the car (I was told not to shriek again, to instead calmly alert everyone to the presence of emus if I saw any more) and kept driving and a few moments later I let out another squeal that was probably too loud and this time everyone saw the two emus that were just slightly hidden in the woods. As we continued our drive we saw another 5 emus. Needless to say, I apologized to Mike and we had excited conversation all the way home.

    One interesting thing about the drive home was a brief history lesson from Dawit. He goes to UC Berkeley and lived for  the last ten years in Santa Rosa, but before that had grown up in Ethiopia. Even so, he considered himself to be Eritrean. I learned a lot about the conflict between Ethiopia and Eritrea, a conflict that I hadn’t known even existed. He taught us a lot about the culture and religion and how the older generation and the younger generations deal with the conflict and the politics of the country. It was also fascinating to hear the story of his family fleeing Ethiopia. As Eritrean citizens living in Ethiopia they would have been arrested and deported back to Eritrea, however they missed the officers by 12 hours and came to the US (his father and brother were caught but were able to come to the US soon after going back to Eritrea). It was a lot to think over and made me very thankful for the peaceful life I’ve lived.