The Great Ocean Road, and finally some bits about Rawson

In the company of Will and Helen and Keir and Jack, I have experienced the following:

RAWSON:
* Wallhalla, a tiny mining town, now mostly uninhabited except for a few happy campers and a smattering of holiday homes. Keir and I almost got lost on a walk that is apparently impossible to get wrong. Near fail.
* Feeding wild parrots by hand every morning, and befriending large flocks of cockatoos and galahs. Cockies are great, they are real clowns. Specially when they put their silly hats on.
* River swimming, rock diving and rope-swing spazzing into the water. Also a bit of snorkelling but I got the heebie jeebies doing it in murky river water (I was convinced there be monsters)
* Swatting shitloads of march flies.
* Spotting a tiger snake (they're nasty)
* 4WD riding through a river and down the bumpiest, steepest dirt track ever.

GREAT OCEAN ROAD:
* Kayaking in the surf. Almost being killed by kayak in the hands of Keir (he didnt mean to). Suffering several bumps and bruises as result of kayaking, including a smack to the head after falling out on a big wave.
* Bodyboarding with success. Resulting injuries included bruised ribs and friction burns, and a very nasty raw blister on my foot (damn surf shoes)
* Rockpool pokery. I found seastars in many colours and sizes, sea anenomes which I duly poked, and a luminous orange sea sponge, among other things.
* 'Fossicking' for shells. Beachcombing, in other words.
* Koala spotting in eucalypt forests. We saw loads. They are very cute, and slow and sleepy. They are my new favourite animal and I am determined to have snuggled one by the time I fly home.
* We saw an echidna crossing the road. Insert joke here.
* Walking through rainforest.
* A proper reet good barby with some of Will and Helens mates. There was steak, and king prawns, and baked bananas with chocolate and ice cream and beer and, and, and......
* Visiting the Twelve Aplostles. Well, the ones that are left anyway. It's a pretty sight, that bit of coast.
* (EVENTUALLY) learned how to play the card game 500, after much grumping and holding back of flappy girly emotion.
We are now back in Cheltenham, and off to Summers later today for a couple of nights. My cousin Adrian works at a bar near there so we are going to see him for a few bevvies, and the beach there is home to a pod of dolphins which, in the early morning or late evening and if we are very lucky, we might be able to swim with. There is a pier a bit further along the coast where we can go snorkelling for seahorses. Woop!
xx

Another recap

Finally it is time to recap.
I've been bored in Sydney, staying in Glebe village which is known as a 'bohemian travellers retreat'- of course, the minute the word 'bohemian' gets slapped in there, it conjures all sorts of disgusting images of tanned european backpackers languishing on beanbags in chai cafes. Not far off. Perhaps it is envy that causes my distain, those people clearly have a lot more money to chuck at that endless road of thai resteraunts and quirky cafes and eco shops and feminist secondhand bookstores, and actually it is a very nice place. Especially compared to the mental Sydney central, which could be mistaken for Beijing if you are going on the chinese to western faces ratio. which is about 100:1.
In Sydney I have:
* hand fed a turkeyheron (real name, sacred ibis)
* seen in New Year
* gawped at the opera house and harbour bridge
* visited the Rocks market and Glebe market
* done lots of swimming in a salty swimming pool
* been dashed against the sands at Coogee beach
* met a really bloody huge stick insect
* been round the wildlife centre and the aquarium, and met a Dugong (sea cow) and many other fishy things

The flight from Sydney to Melbourne was relatively pain free except for the HUNDREDS OF CHILDREN on board, who invariably all wanted food/drink/to get off/to see daddy/to generally piss me and Keir off by kicking seats and snapping seatbelts. We are not having kids. A puppy will do just fine, and be far less irritating.
We met Soph and Gem in Melbourne and blagged free entry to the melbourne museum, cos we're students innit. We learned about the human reproductive system by looking at actual dessicated preserved testicle tubes and penises and vaginas which made Keir very upset. The natural history bit was easier on the eye, with wonderful aquatic specimins including a picture of a blobfish, which looks like a sad old man with a bulbous nose.
Oh, and we went geocaching with the girls- it's fun! This one was stuck with a magnet under a statue thing in the park.

Melbourne is a twee/secondhand/indie haven. We came across little cafes and pubs decked out with old rock and roll pictures and higgledy piggledy furniture, advertising live bands despite the seemingly impossible size inside. Today we came across a secondhand bookshop that sold Playboy mags from the 70's. I've got one for the amusing articles and classy porn film reviews, as well as the manly manly cigarette adverts. We stumbled on the Lost and Found market too, during a hangover/geocahe fail day, a three floored building chock full of old stuff, relabeled 'vintage' and sold on at well above charity shop prices, much to my annoyance. Inside it looks like the mother of all jumble sales, except everything is desireable on one level or another. I spent far too long drooling over old bicycles, typewriters and cabinets full of costume jewellery and old cameras. I do love old things.

I will get around to posting about my adventures in the wilderness soon, tomorrow we are setting off on the great ocean road, and I will be off the radar for another week or so. I will finish this off when I return. x

Rawson

We have returned from the bushy mountains. I don't have time to recap as yet, but I will do so soon, prhaps while Keir and the gals explore the exciting world of Neighbours on friday. x

Hello! We got to Will and Helen's yesterday and today we have already been snorkelling before lunch. I had a bit of trouble making myself breath underwater, even with a tube, but got used to it eventually. I didnt realise how easily we float once the fear of getting face underwater is removed. Keir and I floated around some shallow rocks- I met a big jellyfish, a tiny jellyfish, and a.....fish. I tried to introduce the fish to keir, but somewhere between my bursting out of the water going 'Eeeeee! Fiiiiish!' and Keir's splashy arrival, it got away. Actually, I think our graceless arm/leg waving in general scared most of the interesting stuff away.
Nevermind.
Off to the bush in a bit for a few nights, theres a big river there and a lot of forest.

Chiao x

an education in birds

The brown and yellow birds are indian Myna birds- they can imitate other birds calls , sounds and human speech. They are an invasive species, not native to australia and they are considered a pest. The turkeyheron birds are Australian white ibises, and they are also considered a pest, as they like to pick at rubbish dumps, terrorize people's picnics and steal food, rather like seagulls, haha. Apparently feeding them makes them worse. Well, I had one nibbling cheese doritos out of my hand today, and found him to be impeccably well mannered and genteel. The magpie birds are...magpies. They are just nice. We like them.
xx

Happy New Year

Well it's time for a catch-up.
I've made it to Sydney, via many long hours of boredom and relative discomfort and DVT paranoia and two chinese men who for some inexplicable reason liked to take up as much space as possible, hawk plegm all the time and eat food by sucking it off their forks, making a noise not unlike the vacuum-flush toilet. Call me an imperialist but theres a lot to be said for British manners.

Keir had just rescued me from the airport and brought me to Rooty Hill- a suberb outside the centre of Sydney- when we were confronted by a man who looked like Bill Oddie and a huge swollen red faced woman, fighting over a tame bird. Apparently the bird belonged to him- when she picked it up off the street and went to walk off with it he went mental and grabbed her. She dropped the bird (a little greeny cockatiel) to swing at him and the two of them swore and shouted and wrestled until a security man pulled them apart- we had to move on at this point because I was worried that the woman was going to stomp on the poor thing, which was waddling dazed around their feet.

Apologies for the scatteryness of this blog, I am reeling stuff off as I remember it.

There are many birds here- all of them prettier and singier and stranger than the ones back home. So far there seem to be two main contenders for most common- pigeons, and brown birds the size of thrushes with yellow legs and beaks, we are calling them 'silly birds', that like to sing like mentals and walk around looking at things. I like them. There are also black and white birds that are very curious, look like little magpies and like to come right up to you to see what you are doing/eating. Oh, and big grey and white things that are bloody ugly and hang out at the park- I call them Turkeyherons. There are wild parakeets and really brightly coloured birds in the trees, but they are a bit more shy.

I met a stick insect this morning, it was hanging from the frame above the toilet door. It was seven inches long and looked very much like a stick.

I spent my first day of 2009 swimming in the sea at Coogee beach, smothered in factor 30 and happily being tossed around in the surf. The tide there is incredibly strong and if you decide to surf a wave to the shore using just your body, beware- being ploughed into the sand feels like being held against a Black & Decker circular sander. There was a bit of bikini slippage, and Keir and I got stuck in the surf; every time we tried to stand up another wave smacked us back down, hurling small children at our heads and shins. It was tremendous fun. :) Afterwards we went along the coast a little to the cove next door- Gordon's Bay, which was a huge contrast to the body-covered beach at Coogee- it was weedy and smelly and had a lot of little fishing boats tethered up on wooden slatting all around, and there were rocks and beautiful shells all over the beach. And lovely dogs. My kind of place. Apparently it's illegal to take shells from the beach, and one can be fined up to $5000 if caught....so I didn't sneak any into my hat.....

Tomorrow we are off to wander round The Rocks market, then we are going to a moonlight outdoor cinema to see Wall-E.

New Year's Resolutions:

1) No more will I drunkenly demand a cigarette.
2) Swimming and squash. Lots of it. Slim is the new squishy.
3) I will get through my degree with at least my sanity, if not a first (which looks unlikely now)
4) Post-graduation, I will learn to drive, if not for the benefit of living in the UK, then at least for the privilege of car-hire when travelling.
5) Jewellery making as a side-business, not just a break-even hobby. Will attempt to get into a few more galleries this year. Maybe try outside the UK.

Thatsitfornow. xx