THE story for the Australia trip

So ... the story of Australia is the story of two star-eyed travelers by the name of Nick and Colleen, or Colleen and Nick if you are listing in alphabetical order or in order of physical attractiveness. Colleen had always been obsessed with Australia and Nick had always been obsessed with pleasing Colleen, so it was just a matter of time before they made this trip together. This is their story. Below there is a map that shows where we were and what days.



Traveling to Australia
I guess any story concerning a trip across the world would begin with the actual means of travel to get to the destination. Well, since Colleen and I are both broke grad students you would assume we would hitchhike as that would be the only form of travel we could afford ... but you would be wrong cause Australia is an island. Don't you feel stupid. Anyway, we flew. I know this has been covered before by other people, but I have to mention how strange it is to fly backwards across the International Date Line ... because you basically have just lost a day of your life. We had a connection in San Francisco that left on the 29th. We arrived in Australia on the 31st. Colleen and I never experienced December 30th ... at all. Even freakier is on the return trip we left Sydney at 3 p.m. and arrived in San Francisco at 9 a.m. that same day ... and all without the help of 1.21 jiggawatts being fed into the Flux Capacitor.

Day 1 (Sydney - New Years Eve)
So ... after the marathon of movies on the flight that I can proudly say were never going to make the cut for our Netflix queue, we arrived in Sydney. I once saw a game show bloopers show that went something like this,
Host: What is the capital of Australia ... and it is not Sydney.
Contestant: Hmmm ... Sydney

That blooper, the opera house, and a random Chinese restaurant that Colleen wouldn't stop talking about was the extent of what I knew about Sydney before the trip. Ironically enough, all I knew about Australia was that the above mentioned stuff I knew about Sydney and that there were some people that knew how to throw boomerangs and actually make them return ... oh, and everything I could remember about the Crocodile Dundee movies.

Anyway, we arrived in Sydney the morning of New Years Eve pretty darn jet lagged but running on adrenaline. Sydney is about 16 hours ahead of EST, so we were kind of out of it. This didn't stop Colleen from taking me on a 24 km (notice the switch to metric) hike around the city to show me everything she had done the last time she was in Australia. This included highlights such as the corner of the street where she first blew here nose in Australia, the museum that she walked by three years ago and thought about going in but didn't, and other highlights of her previous trip. For those that have ever went on a trip with Colleen, you will understand that she abhors public transportation and must walk everywhere and anyone that knows Nick knows that this is fine with him as long as there is a pub every few blocks to break up the trip. Well, by the end of the day a revved up Colleen and a serious lack of pubs on the walking path left Nick exhausted and my thighs pretty chaffed. Colleen had the bright idea that if I put on panty hose that my chaffing would magically disappear and I would look delicious in one of the new skirts she had brought. That plan didn't get too far ... mainly because my fat ass couldn't fit into the biggest panty hose sold at 7-11. Anyway, we went down to the harbor (Darling Harbor) that night and watched the fireworks show which was pretty money. It was pretty nice that we got to celebrate the new year a good chunk of time before everyone in the U.S. and gave me a 16-hour head start on remembering to put 2006 when I signed my checks.

Christmas in the middle of summer ... dat ain't right.

Day 2 (Sydney - New Years Day)
So ... the next day we got up bright and early determined to change my inner thighs from their current medium rare steak consistency to something more resembling a steak tartar, I'm not much into suspense so I'll let you know up front, mission accomplished. But enough about my chaffing, back to the trip details. It was 44 degrees Celsius our second day. It's really easy to do the Celsius to Fahrenheit conversion and we got quite good at it, it's simply 1.8 times the Celsius temp and then you add 32 ... which means that 44 Celsius is ... yes ... hotter than the sun. Despite the heat we still spent all day walking around and hit up the opera house, the botanical gardens, Hyde Park, and the zoo. Lets chat about the zoo shall we? It's actually pretty crazy cause you take a ferry there and then once you get off the ferry you take a ski lift type thing up this cliff, and then once you get to the top of a cliff you have to ride a yak to the zoo. All right, I was kidding about the yak but everything else was true. So ... we were walking around the zoo and there was all these loudspeakers saying to make sure to stay hydrated but there wasn't one f'in water fountain in the place ... so I bitch slapped a gorilla and took his water. That'll learn him. When we got home I finally had proved myself hard-core enough to go to Colleen's favorite Australian restaurant ... the Chinese place that had the salt and pepper prawns that epic ballads are written about. The place is on the Circular Quay, which is the little water inlet where all the ferries leave from that is right next to the Harbour Bridge and the Opera House. We had the 'fore mentioned prawns and a funky kangaroo dish. I must say that it was very good, but from the way Colleen built this place up I was kind of expecting a happy ending.

Colleen and I with the Opera House and Harbour Bridge in the background

Day 3 (More Sydney)
It rained all day so we kind of took it easy this day. We went to an Irish Pub that was in the middle of Chinatown that I found kind of amusing. Quick tip for anyone going to Australia ... if you want food at a pub you have to go to the bar to order. If you sit and wait for a waitress you look pretty dumb, though I must admit that if you are walking up to the bar all bow legged from being chaffed then you look pretty dumb too. Since this was a pretty slow day I am going to take a sec to talk about cricket. It's not much of an aside since I did watch cricket while I was eating lunch at the bar (and pretty much every bar I went to while I was there). So ... cricket is kind of like baseball if everyone on the baseball field looks like they came straight from and Abercrombie photo shoot, and if baseball took a week to play one game. I'd explain the rules, but I don't really know them. However, I did notice their pitcher (called a bowler) could actually take a running start to throw the ball. Also, if it rains in the slightest bit or if any of the players sneeze and not cover their mouth ... any kind of moisture on the field and they cancel play for the day. It's cause when they bowl (pitch the ball) they bounce it ... and now you know about cricket.
Another side note, some street performer who had the strongest New York City accent I've ever heard did an act and said he was from Canada at the end when he asked for money. I'm guessing that he said he was from Canada so anti-American sentiment wouldn't affect his tips ... I think he could have just said he voted for Kerry and been fine.

My attempt at an artistic shot of the Opera House.

Day 4 (Sydney - Bondi Beach)
It was a nice day so we decided to go to the famous Bondi Beach. We got there in the morning and I had Colleen slather some lotion on my back (this tidbit of information will become important later). We went swimming for a bit but Colleen almost killed me so we stopped. Basically what would happen was a big wave would come and Colleen would chestbut it, and she would subsequently be thrown backwards. Not wanting to die alone, she would aim all her momentum my way to take me down with her. If she didn't get me on a direct hit, she would make sure to grab an ankle or something to make sure I went down and ingested at least as much salt water as her. This went on for a half an hour or so until I spit up a flounder and decided I had suffered enough.

After laying out on the beach, Colleen decided we should go on the "Great Ocean Walk" which is a few kilometer hike along the cliffs overlooking the ocean on the way to another beach. It was going quite well until a few kilometers in we noticed the path ended at a bunch of big rocks lining the ocean. We could see that the rocks went for a kilometer or so and could also see what appeared to be the path at the end of the rocks. We thought we could handle them so we went ahead and started our rock climbing excursion. About half way through Colleen had a panic attack and told me to leave her and go on without her and gave me a letter to give to her mother in case she didn't make it. I gave her a pep talk and we successfully completed our trek across the rocks. When we got to the end, we noticed a stairway that led up to a paved path that went along the cliffs above the rocks we had just spent a couple hours traversing. Yeah, we made a wrong turn somewhere but no big deal. We were pretty much at the end of the path so we went to a bar and grabbed a couple beers. It was a this time I noticed that my sides were burned ... and I mean well done. I had thought Colleen had put sunblock on my sides but and I quote, "I didn't cause who lies on their side on the beach." Well, apparently this kid does. I was reading on the beach and when I read I do it on my side.

The rocks that we climbed across ... notice the path above them.

Day 5 (Even MORE Sydney)
Okay, this was the last day in Sydney so since anyone reading this is probably getting tired of reading about that city, I'm going to have to talk about the greatest Australian TV show ever made ... Humphrey the Bear! We were introduced to Humphrey the morning of the 4th day and we fell in love. In fact, we almost cancelled the rest of the trip because we were unsure whether other Australian cities would carry him. Humphrey is about the size of Barney only he can't talk and he's a bear, not a dinosaur. He also hangs out with adults and when there's kids around the adults are there too so he doesn't give off that Michael Jackson vibe that Barney does. There's also this crazy song about a clock that words can't describe ... here's a small sample of the magic of the clock.

Anyway, after hanging out for a day and nursing our sunburns (Polish flag below) we had to take an overnight train to Melbourne. We found out when we got to the train station that there was actually a derailment half way there (from another train, not our train), so at about 3 a.m. they woke us up and made us get on a bus for the rest of the trip. No punch line, it just kind of sucked.

Ouch!

Day 6 (Melbourne)
Melbourne was a pretty chill city. It's kind of like the pissed off younger brother of Sydney that is mad cause Sydney gets all the attention and hot girlfriends and it's stuck home watching MacGyver with Mom and Dad. I actually kind of preferred it to Sydney though. There was this crazy market that took up a few blocks where you could buy cheese, bread, and denim skirts. Well, there was other stuff there too I think, but those were the items that Colleen happened to have been all about that particular day. We got some bread and cheese and went to a park and had lunch and then went to the aquarium and saw a giant squid in a block of ice. This is actually a big deal. Seriously. Only place in the world where you can see a squid. Booyah. After the squid, we went to a casino and we actually caught the end of the Rose Bowl in their sports betting area. It totally made my day cause Texas won ... not cause I like Texas, but because I hate USC. We then went shopping and ended the day with the worst pizza I've ever had.

Oh, Melbourne was also the city where our camera freaked out on us. We would turn it on and the lens would stay extended and the display would tell us to turn it off/on, but nothing would work. This kind of sucked because it meant we couldn't take any pictures with a full two weeks left in our trip. Crazy geeks that we were we disassembled the camera with a tweezers (not joking), and tried the time honored method of blowing in it. Amazingly, it worked. We felt pretty cool. Then we went nappy time.

The giant squid trapped in a block of ice ... I call him Blinky.

Day 7 (Great Ocean Road)
Colleen had one of those day-by-day calendars last year of 1000 places to see before you die (wait, how did that work with only 365 days). Anyway, one of the entries, a Tuesday if I recall, was the Great Ocean Road. It's this couple hundred kilometer stretch between Melbourne and Adelaide that had some pretty crazy scenery. If you have a spare week, I recommend you check out the Snapfish photos of the trip, especially the ones for the Great Ocean Road. Look for a series of about 200 pictures with lots of blue. My descriptions really wouldn't do the scenery much justice.

Anyway, to do the road we first needed to get a car. This meant driving on the wrong side of the road. I had got used to the toilet water going the opposite way so I was pretty sure I could also adjust to driving on the left. We got the car (in the middle of downtown Melbourne) and driving on the left wasn't too bad ... until I had to turn. Those madmen switched up the windshield wipers and the turn signals on me. Every time it started raining I turned right and every time I wanted to turn, the wipers would go on. This seriously took me a couple days to get used to. Oh, everything is in kilometers too so driving 100 is totally legit down there.

Once we got on the road we hit up most of the scenic points along the way, check the pics for more details. One of the beaches had this little cove that I told Colleen to stand in and pretend she was Atlas and act like she was holding the above rock up. She got over there and got attacked by about 1000 flies and tripped over her purse in front of a local. I think we made her day. We aim to please. At the end of the day we went and saw the "12 Apostles," a group of rock formations that's claim to fame is their photographic presence in almost every inspirational calendar you can buy.

We ended up spending the night in a little town on the road. A couple things of note about this town. When we checked in to our hotel, they handed us a pint of milk. No explanation, just handed it to us with our key and sent us on our way. There is another thing we noticed about this town, and for that matter Australia in general. They are about 20 years behind us in pop culture which is why we were not at all surprised when we heard New Kids on the Block come on the radio in the local grocery store. Now, this wasn't "Hangin' Tough" or "The Right Stuff," this was obscure New Kids on the Block ... it may have even been from the infamous NKOTB stage of their career. After dinner, we went back to our hotel and thought about drinking our milk but decided we wanted to live so went to sleep without it.

Colleen and I in front of 2 of the 12 apostles

Day 8 (Great Ocean Road, Day 2)
We actually finished up the "Great Ocean Road" around noonish, but then had to drive another few hundred kilometers to Adelaide. There are quite a few things of interest on that road that we stopped at. We stopped at a cheese shop, a really, really blue lake, and went by this really large lobster on the side of the road. We also went wine tasting and bough a couple bottles of wine. When we finally arrived in Adelaide, we yuppied out and had the wine and cheese we had bought earlier that day for dinner. Good times.

Purty.

Day 9 (Adelaide)
Adelaide is right in the middle of Australia's largest wine producing region and is home of the National Wine Centre. We went there after we hit up the City Gardens, and did some wine tastings and grabbed some lunch. I ordered a cheeseburger. Now, normally I don't remember what I order, but I remember this cheeseburger cause it was really good and Colleen shot me puppy dog eyes the entire time because she was pissed she didn't order the burger. She had a bite and trumpeted that it was the best burger she had ever had. Colleen is not one to name things best ever unless she means it ... although she did have two best wine ever awards go out on the prior two days successively. We spent the rest of the day shopping (FABULOUS!!!) and drinking at a pub. I learned that in Australia pitchers are called jugs so I would always send up Colleen to order so I could comment on the size of her jugs when she returned. Just kidding about that, I'm not that cheesy, though pitchers really are named jugs, at least at this one bar in Adelaide, I can't speak for the rest of the country.

FYI ... 6 feet 5 inches equals 1.98 meters

Day 10 (Uluru/Ayers Rock)
The next day we flew to Uluru, which is a big rock in the middle of the outback. I swear, it's cool, but it's hard to describe. Take my word for it or google it or something. Uluru is the original Aboriginal name, which they are trying to get everyone to use again so that's why there are two names. Anyway, it really is out in the middle of nowhere so there is only one place to stay if you want to go there. There is actually like 3 hotels in the same resort, but the same people own them all so it's not like there are price wars or something, but I digress. Anyway, we got there in the afternoon and that night we went on a camel ride to see Uluru at sunset. Our camel was named Willy. That camel was the bomb. Colleen was all about him cause he had long eyelashes. After the camel ride they took us back to the camel station for a cold beer and ... I'm not kidding ... camel meat. There was chips and salsa too, but I was just shocked that they would have us form these bonds with the camels and then serve up their departed siblings on a plate. It's like reading Charlotte's Web while devouring a nice plate of bacon. Mmmm ... some pig.

Nick, Colleen, and Willy with Uluru as a backdrop

Day 11(Uluru or the geographical mass formerly known as Ayers Rock)
We woke up early in the morning to take a van out to Uluru so we could see it up close. There is this big issue on whether you should climb Uluru since the Aborigines think it's sacred. They strongly encourage you not too, but it's not forbidden. We decided not to cause we're chill like that. It is quite the controversy though, in the hotel gift shop there are t-shirts right next to each other, one saying "I climbed Uluru" and another saying "I didn't climb Uluru." While we were on a free walking tour we started to get attacked by flies. We had noticed people the day before with those little safari hats with nets on them and we kind of laughed at them, but we had gotten to Uluru in late afternoon so we didn't really get the mid-day fly action. The sun was really starting to come up though and the flies were pissed at us about something. Australian flies aren't like U.S. flies. U.S. flies have ADD. You brush them aside and they go on their merry way. Australian flies are all on Ritalin. They are extremely focused on you and only you, specifically your inner nose and ear. If they can get in your mouth they're particularly psyched. They literally follow you around so even if you only have a couple it feels like you're being swarmed, but lucky for us we didn't have to just feel like we were being swarmed since we were in fact, being swarmed in the truest sense. We ended up walking a couple miles to the visitor center to buy a couple of those stupid ass face net things we had been just been mocking less than 24 hours earlier. By the way, those fly net things are the bomb. I know I said our camel was the bomb, but these things were really the bomb. With our new fly defense system we went back to walk around Uluru for a bit and then went back to the hotel.

Part of Uluru.

Day 12 (Cairns - Arrive)
So, we said goodbye to Uluru and headed to Cairns, a city on the upper northeastern coast of Australia. Because it is in the tropics, right off the Great Barrier Reef, and in the middle of a rainforest there is quite the draw for tourists. While planning the trip, we figured we would get some beach days in at Cairns since it's got a tropical climate. We didn't take into account the fact that it is in the middle of a rainforest and we were going during the wet season. Even if we did go on a day with lots of sunshine we wouldn't be able to go swimming because of the deadly jellyfish. When I say deadly, I don't mean the cute and cuddly jellyfish that sting you, cause some pain, and then you and the jellyfish make up and go have coffee together. These jellyfish really do kill you so the beaches are completely abandoned for a few months a year when they are around, which happened to coincide with our trip. The first day, we actually didn't arrive in town until around dinner time, so we just went out to dinner and called it a day.

Day 13 (Cairns - Rainforest)
The first actual day there we went on a rainforest tour. We got picked up at our hostel by this four-wheel drive looking contraption that makes a Hummer look like a mini-Cooper. It drove us around in the rainforest for a bit and then we went on a pontoon ride along this river in the middle of the rainforest. During the entire drive and the boat ride it was pouring rain, big shocker since we were in the rainforest. If you've seen the pictures where Colleen and I are in our ponchos, it was this day. Anyway, after the rain died down and the water level on the road we were driving on dropped below three feet (wish I was joking) we went deeper into the rainforest and walked around a little bit on what they call "board walks" meaning walking trails that aren't dirt, but boards. When Colleen and I read the pamphlet we thought the boardwalks would be similar to beach boardwalks where we could win stuffed animals from carnies by throwing some darts or something. Not so much.

Raindrops keep fallin' on our heads ...

Day 14 (Cairns – Great Barrier Reef)
The second day we went on a ferry in the morning to Fitzroy Island, which is on the reef. It was down pouring again, but we were just going to go snorkeling so the rain didn't really matter too much. The island was far enough off the coast that we were informed the deadly jellyfish didn't hang out there, only the cuddly ones. We wore wet suits anyway when we went. We snorkeled all morning until Colleen and I both had huge open sores on our feet from coral that was lodged in our flippers. This beach wasn't a traditional sand beach, but was made up of centuries of old coral that had washed up along the coast that's rather sharp. Some of it had gotten into our flippers so that wasn't too cool, but the snorkeling was good times. After snorkeling the sun had come out so we hiked to the nudey beach. I'm not making that up, the beach was actually called "Nudey Beach" and it was clothing optional. We weren't really expecting a huge crowd at the beach since it was off-peak season for tourists and it had been raining all day so there was literally fifty people or so on this entire island, and it was a mile hike to get to the nudey beach. Sure enough, there was this one random dude chilling on a log in the middle of the beach (with clothes on) when we arrived. I'm a practicing nudist so I ran to the end of the beach and jumped on in with my trunks left behind on the beach. After some coaxing I got Colleen to join me and then the random dude joined in the fun. We all splashed around naked and sang Kumbaya and had a grand time, until some random tourist couple showed up to the beach with a camcorder and was filming everything ... so if you see my white ass on the Internet it's all legit. I was on a nude beach so it's cool.

Wish I could be, part of your world ...

A real life nudey beach!!!

Day 15 (Cairns – Animal Parks)
The third day we rented a car again because we wanted to drive up and go to the crocodile farm. On the way we stopped in this village called Kuranda, which is like Vermont squeezed into a village. There are all these hippy artists that have stands and sell their stuff. It is also the home to the Koala Gardens, BirdWorld, and the Butterfly Sanctuary. We got the value pack and hit up all three. We couldn't go to the koala gardens without dropping a few extra bucks and actually holding a koala, so we did that. Koalas sleep like 20 hours a day so they basically just pluck one off a tree and hand it to you, and the koala is groggy and looking like pissed at you for waking it up, but I thought the pictures turned out cool. You can be the judge. After Kuranda, we went to the crocodile farm, which was outstanding. They take you out on this raft where crocodiles are swimming around you and if you put your arm out the window they'll bite it off so they tell you not to do that. After the raft ride, we went to a crocodile show where this guy (no, not Steve Irwin) messes around with a crocodile and hand feeds him minnows and does other stuff. Good times.

Nick, Colleen, and Kuddles the Koala

Day 16 (Cairns – Tablelands)
For our last day in Cairns, we went driving around again in the surrounding area south of Cairns called the "Tablelands." While on this little drive we saw such things as the world's largest fig tree and drove around on this waterfall circuit, which had some pretty nice waterfalls. I also got stung by a bee. I was all worried cause everything else in Australia is deadly, so I figured the bee bite was going to kill me so that kind of worried me for a bit. After an hour I was still conscious so I figured I would be all right. At the end of our little road trip, we stopped at a cheese shop in the middle of nowhere fittingly called "Out of the Whey." It was on this road that was seriously five feet across at its widest point. We had some tea and crumpets, stopped by one last waterfall, and then headed home.

That's a big tree.

Day 17 (Sydney)
We had an early morning flight to Sydney that sucked. First, it was at like six in the morning. Second, it was in the International terminal which was seriously a mile away from the domestic terminal and we didn't find out about it until we had got to the front of the domestic line. When we finally made the hike to the other terminal and eventually made it to the security checkpoint they got all pissy with us because our carry on (which was stuffed with souvenirs) was too heavy and that my eucalyptus pool cue I had bought as a souvenir was a potential weapon. Being from the Midwest, I've been in plenty of bar fights and I can say that pool cues are not very effective weapons, now darts, those are some nice weapons. Anyway, we had to check one of our carry-ons and the cue and we finally made it on our flight. Then, then, to add insult to injury we had to go through customs when we got to Sydney. Not good times.

That night in Sydney we went on a pub tour in this area called the Rocks. The Rocks was an area of old buildings that is right by the quay that the government kept trying to knock down, but eventually just focused on revitalizing the neighborhood so it has a really chill feel to it. Because this area has most of the oldest buildings in Sydney (and Australia) there were lots of interesting stories that our guide told us (like Australia's first orgy), and because it was a pub tour there was booze. We went back to Colleen's favorite Chinese restaurant that night and then walked around and messed around with the settings on our digital camera for nighttime shots. If you looked through our pictures and saw like 20 of the opera house and the harbour bridge that is why.

Harbour Bridge at night

Day 18 (Sydney)
This was our last day in Australia so we kind of just took it easy. We walked around and went to the Maritime Museum. That night we went to a play called Tristan and Isolde. I recommend it for anyone that thinks they'll never be loved. We walked around for a bit after that and came to terms with the fact that we had to go home the next day. We went home and packed and I noticed that I had one Victoria Bitter beer left that I had bought in Sydney the first day and had been riding stowaway in my shoe. I decided do keep that beer unopened as a token of the trip.

Day 19 and Epilogue (Leavin on a Jet Plane)
We went to the airport the next morning and flew back to Washington with no real drama. Same ole crappy movies on the flight back, but that is all balanced out with the free booze they give you on international flights. When we got back, we were pretty jet lagged. The first few days back we were going to bed at 5 a.m. and waking up at 3 p.m. the following afternoon. Colleen also got an infection in her foot from the snorkeling incident, so when we got home she went to the doctor and got pumped up with plenty of antibiotics. That about concludes the story. I recommend Australia to anyone that has some time to kill and enough frequent flyer miles to get the tickets for free like us. I don't think anyone is still reading this though so I'm not going to think of anything witty to say to conclude.

Enjoying some hot chocolate as we get set to fly home.