Blue Mountains: Snakes, Caves and Platypus

January 25th

The last few days in the mountains have been extraordinary. Even the pictures can’t do justice to the things we have done. However, I will try to do my best to give you some of the highlights. Let me start by saying that right now as I begin to write, I am sitting outside in the Australian Bush (WHAT!) at our Blue Mountain accommodations called Jemby Rinjah. We are all staying in a eco-lodge, which means that everything from electricity to water use is sustainable. The toilets are compostable, meaning that they don’t use any water and they don’t flush… They are kind of like a really fancy honey bucket. We have been eating our meals in the restaurant in the main lodge and the food has been sooo good. We have been told that this is the nicest place that we will stay on the whole trip.

Jemby Rinjah (I have been walking around saying it with an Aussie accent) is in the middle of a Eucalypt forest. Eucalyptus trees are the most common type of tree here and are well adapted to the Australian environment. The leaves carry toxins in them that are poisonous in high doses for most animals. Koalas are the main marsupials that can eat the leaves. The trees also thrive on fire. The oil that Eucalypt produce is highly flammable so bush fires, which are necessary, can easily travel through the oily air. Some Eucalypt also produce little fruits called gum fruits, which is where the song comes from: “Kookaburra sits in the old gum tree…” Also the tree oil produces a blue haze that covers the forest, which is why the mountains have the name Blue Mountains. Speaking of mountains, the Blue Mountains are not really mountains. They are made of many plateaus that are dissected by gorges that are hundreds of feet deep. The highest point is only 1,190 meters above sea level. The mountains look Grand Canyon ish.

On our way to Jemby Rinjah on Saturday we stopped at Scenic World, which is a tourist attraction that sits on the side of a cliff overlooking a huge valley. We took a trolly on railroad tracks down the cliff to the forest floor. The train had a peak descent angle of 57 degrees, or so steep that it felt vertical. I must say it was pretty fun. We walked in the forest for a while and then took a gondola back up the cliff. The next day we got up and drove to the Jenolan Caves. We then proceeded to spend two hours walking through the most amazing system of caves. We were 200 meters below the earth’s surface at some points.

This is the trolly, It felt like it was going vertically down the cliff

Shot of inside the caves
*sorry that the pics are sidewise, if you click on them they get bigger.

Now the coolest thing that happened was after the cave walk while we were swimming in a nearby swimming hole and eating our lunch. We simultaneously saw our first poisonous snake and at the same time a platypus in the wild. Our leader Nat, who is a native Aussie, had never seen a wild platypus before. Also they are nocturnal animals so it was very strange to see one in the middle of the day. I was surprised by how small they are, only about a foot long but sooooo cute. We also saw a Red Bellied Black snake, which is one of the top ten most poisonous. However, I am getting the feeling that they are all the most poisonous.

That night we all sat around a fire at our accommodations talking and drinking grog (beer here is called grog) with our teacher!! Strange. I learned that you can smoke Eucalyptus bark. It doesn’t do anything but taste good. We also did some stargazing. We found the Southern Cross and Orion’s Belt (which you can also see from the Southern Hemisphere). No more Big Dipper and North Star!

On the last day we woke up and got to feed the wild birds, parrots to be exact. They all congregate in one spot each morning to be fed. It was cool to watch them pick up a sunflower seed and de-shell it and eat it in less than a second. After the bird feeding, we went on a Bush Walk and by bush walk I mean the coolest hike I have ever been on. We hiked down into the rainforest to the top of a waterfall and sat and ate lunch. The rainforest is amazingly beautiful. The hike back out kicked all of out butts. It was 1,002 steps up and up, we counted.

Feeding Birds

We ate lunch here on our Bush Walk

It was a fantastic weekend and I didn’t want to leave at all. Here are some other random observations about Australia:

-It is the law to vote in elections. If you reach 18 and don’t vote you get fined a lot of money. It seems like a really simple fix to our voting problems but I don’t think people in the States would be up for it.

-Australia seems a lot more environmentally aware than the US. Every single bathroom that I have been in has been dual flush. Also because of drought here, kids from a young age are taught to use very little water.

-Read our group blog at http://lcaustraliaprogram2011.blogspot.com/ its great!

ZOO

January 21st

Today my school day consisted of going to the zoo, which was fantastic. The trip to the zoo was also an adventure by itself. We took a bus from Arundel to Circular Quay (remember that its pronounced key) and then caught a ferry across the harbor. The ride gave us a great view of all of Sydney and also reminded me of Puget Sound, which made me happy. Once at the other side we took a short gondola ride over and up to the top of the zoo so we could walk down. We then had a few hours to explore the zoo and the whole time was spent in the Oz (Australia) specific exhibit. I started with koalas and worked my way through emus, wombats, platypuses, kangaroos, wallabies and many interesting birds. It is times like these that I am amazed that I am here going to school because my class today was effectively a day at the zoo! After the zoo we took a ferry back over the harbor and a bus to Arundel. In the evening we went to the last Sydney Festival story performance and then out to Japanese food. Anywhere you go you can find tons of cheap Asian, Indian and African food. I actually think I saw four Thai restaurants on one block.

Anyway I should probably stop writing and go to bed because tomorrow we are getting out of Sydney for the first time. We are going to the Blue Mountains for the weekend, which are two (ish) hours west of Sydney. When Nat was telling us what to bring she reminded us to take our Ace Bandage in case of a snake bite. Almost all species of snakes in Oz are highly venomous. AAAAHHH! Still, I am really looking forward to seeing the mountains and getting out of Sydney. In one of our lectures we learned that the tallest mountain in Oz is 3x shorter than the tallest one in the US. I expect that they will look a lot different than the ones that I am used to. I also can’t wait to see more of Oz. Sometimes it does not even feel like I am in a different county with all the European/American neighborhoods, English speakers and loads of Asian tourists in the city.

I will be away from technology for the next three days so don’t be alarmed if I don’t respond. I will also add zoo and other pictures in a few days!

A Day At The Beach

Today we had a free day and a few of us took an hour bus ride to a beach called Coogee. It’s on the coast a little bit south of downtown Sydney. The weather was not great and it sprinkled for most of the day but that meant that we got almost the whole beach to ourselves. We climbed over some rocks to some tide pools and found an awesome swimming hole along the side of the beach. It was un-real, huge waves were crashing over the rocks. The water here is so clear and fresh, nothing like Puget Sound.

Another interesting thing that I have noticed about Australia is that, of course, the cars drive on the wrong side of the road. However, this means that while walking on the sidewalk people also walk on the wrong side of the path because that’s how cars do it. Am I making sense? I have been trying to train myself to walk to the left so as not to walk into the nice Aussie’s on the street…

Birthday

January 18th

I had quite an incredible and unique birthday. It all started at 9:00am with two lectures about Aboriginal migration to Australia and culture. It was a pretty interesting set of lectures; in the middle we walked over to a small museum and saw some exact replicas of the first Homo erectus to come to Australia. After the lecture I made a sandwich and ate it on our beautiful roof. Following a short Friends break (which, by the way, is the only reason I am getting through all of this. Props to Laura) a few of us walked down the street to get some bubble tea. It turns out that Bubble tea in Australia is not quite the same as it is in Seattle. I ordered milk tea with Taro and I was given tea with cut-up peaces of Taro root at the bottom. It was still vary tasty. Other peoples drinks were also very strange and interesting for example, who would have thought that salty cheese would be good in a drink!? We walked back to Arundel via a romp in the park nearby. The playground was awesome; we have been back many times since then.

At around 6:00 the whole group went to see a Vietnamese-Australian comedian named Anh Do tell his live story. The show was part of the Sydney Festival, which is an art, and culture festival that runs throughout January. It was by far the best stand up that I have ever seen and it was also very interesting. I think that Anh Do is actually quite famous in Australia.

We then all walked from the show to a restaurant across town for a birthday dinner. Even Andy and Philip (Andy’s Partner) came with. It was great fun and Andy and Philip paid for my dinner and drink, which was such a treat! The whole group also gave me a b-day card, which was sweet. After dinner we walked to a bowling ally close by in Darling Harbor. I have never ever seen a bowling ally that is as swanky and fashionable as the one we were at. I had a very expensive but delicious fruity cocktail! After bowling, which I completely failed, we all did karaoke together until the place closed. It was a hoot! After a long walk through the city I am back at Arundel and as soon as we walked in, it started pouring rain… sound familiar? It was a fantastic and exhausting birthday, one that I will never forget!

First day!

January 15th and 16th

I survived my first day in Sydney! After traveling for 24 hours (with only one 2 hour delay) all I wanted to do was take a shower and sleep…  At the airport we all met up with Andy, our LC Professor, and Nat, who is our Australian leader from Global Education Design (GED) the company that has organized our trip. When we arrived at our Sydney accommodations we had an orientation to the academic program, which I found to be very overwhelming. With all the planning and packing that went into this trip I forgot that I have to go to school. While in Sydney I will be staying in a dorm like situation at a place called the Arundel House, which is located next to the University of Sydney (which is where we will have lectures during our stay here). At Arundel I have my own room and I share a porch with three other girls on my trip. The porch has a great view of the Sydney skyline, as well as a view of the squatters who live next door… There is also a beautiful view of the city on the roof where we often eat dinner.

After our orientation a group of us walked to the mall, which is just a few blocks away. The malls here are different than they are in the States because they have absolutely everything, i.e. we went to the supermarket in the mall. Most of the time GED will give us a stipend and we have to buy and cook our own meals, its about $100 per week. That night all 16 of us went out to Thai food near Arundel on Glebe Point Road, which is a street that is a bit like the Ave. After I was so unbelievably exhausted and went to bed!

This morning I woke up at 6:00 with lots of energy, which if you know me as you all do, is very strange. I suppose its going to take some time to adjust to the 5 hour time difference. Today we went on a bus tour of the city. We started at Circular Quay (pronounced key), which is where the Sydney opera house and the Harbor Bridge are. We then made our way through the many Sydney neighborhoods and ended at Bondi beach, a huge and very popular public beach, the water felt great!

Here are some things that I have learned/observed about Australia:

• In the late afternoon and evening small bats come out and fill up the sky.
• In the morning the birds that I wake up to sound like nothing that I have ever heard before.
• Bundanoon is a small city south of Sydney that is the first city in the world to completely ban plastic water bottles.
• It is not customary to tip in Australia. It can sometimes be seen as rude to give someone your loose change. There is no tipping because every Aussi makes a minimum wage of 15 dollars an hour and 25 dollars an hour on the weekends!
• Another result of the high minimum wage is that there are very few homeless people in Sydney. (however I am not sure about other cities)
• Most domestic flights in Australia are between 30 and 90 dollars.
• Internet is very rare to have here and always very expensive. (I will learn more about why and let you know)
• Dish rags/napkins (what the Goldov’s keep in that drawer by the sink) are called tea towels.
• And garbage is called rubbish!


Make sure to also check out our group blog at http://lcaustraliaprogram2011.blogspot.com/

Snow!

Today is my last day at home and it is snowing! I think its a nice send-off before summer starts in a few days... My travel time will take two (ish) days and approximately 19 of those hours will be spent in the air. AAAAHHH!