Red Rocks

Red Rock Canyon is located in Nevada, only a few miles from the Las Vegas strip. Last year I spent my spring break climbing there, and it was a great way to get to know a lot of people in the Dartmouth Mountaineering Club. This year, even though I have graduated, I decided to go on the trip again. It was a little different because may of the participants were freshmen, but I had a great time anyway. Red Rocks is a great place to go climbing, with beautiful sandstone cliffs that provide a variety of options for both trad and sport climbing.

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Red Rocks

3/16

A nice day; my first time climbing for quite awhile.

Calico Basin, Cannibal Crag:

• A Man in Every Pot, 5.8+ TR
• Ma and Pa Kettle, 5.7 TR
• Caliban, 5.8+ TR

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3/17

More people had arrived by today; not an intense day of climbing, but fun.

Calico Hills First Pullout, Panty Wall

• The Last Panty, 5.7 TR
• Boxer Rebellion, 5.7 TR
• Sacred Undergarment Squeeze Job, 5.8 TR
• Brief Encounter, 5.8 TR

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At our campground

3/18

Today was not really what I expected or could have reasonably predicted. Last night, around the campfire Mike, a ’12 (sophomore), asked if anyone wanted to go do an easy trad climb the next morning. Because there are few trad leaders on the trip this year, I quickly snapped up the opportunity. That very day Mike and Vish, a ’10, had been out until after dark because they had had multiple problems with gear and ropes getting stuck on a trad climb. In the end they had left their ropes on the climb and it was Mike’s and my mission to retrieve them first, and then do a climb of our own.

We woke at 5 am, typical for a trad day, and were at the loop road on which the climbing crags are situated at 6 am. The road opens at six, and our timing could not have been more perfect; as we approached the gate a man came forward to open it for the day. We were the first on the loop road, and it was dark was we drove ¾ of the way around the 13-mile loop to Juniper Canyon, our destination for the day. Mertens, Julie, and Alice went too, to do a 5.8+ climb, Crimson Chrysalis. We parted ways a short distance along the approach hike, and Mike and I headed up to Geronimo to get the ropes that had been left behind.  When we got to the bottom of the climb we found a pair of climbing shoes, too big a size for me and much too small for mike, but we decided to pick them up. The rope recovery mission took longer than we expected. Mike climbed the first pitch, looked at the ropes and moved them a bit to make them easier to pull down, then rapped down and we pulled the ropes, with some difficulty. By this time it was 9:30 a, which sounds pretty early but wasn’t considering we were hoping to do a 7-pitch climb and had to get back to the car by 6 p.m. We decided on Peanut Brittle one of the few climbs in our difficulty range in that canyon, which looked, form the guidebook, to not be too far away.

We started walking, but were thrown off by numerous feint tracks that meandered through shrubs and occasionally petered out. We jumped between these paths before sort of just plowing our way through bushes or up rocky washes. Time was ticking on, and we were definitely running out of time to do Peanut Brittle, but we decided to just keep going and see what time it was when we reached the base of the climb. When the sort-of trail that we had been following dead-ended in a cave, we made the call that we wouldn’t have time for 7 pitches and began reassessing our options. In our guidebook we saw a 2-pitch 5.6 trad climb that looked like it would suit our purposes well, but from where we were (near the back of the canyon) to the approach was a long, steep, slightly scary slab. The walking itself wasn’t very hard, but it was in full sun and our packs were heavy (we had a trad rack and three ropes between us, plus all our personal stuff). Also, some parts were quite exposed such that a trip or slip might realistically end in a long painful slide and then a deadly fall. We made it up this, depositing the spare rope and the shoes we had found along the way for collection on the way back down. Upon reaching the bottom of the short trad route we had identified, we ate lunch and then started preparing to climb.

As I unpacked my stuff, however, I had the sickening realization that I didn’t have my shoes. I remembered that I had been carrying them in my hands in a stuff sack because they wouldn’t fit in my pack, and had probably set them down while doing some scrambling. We thought of trying to use the ones we had found at the base of Geronimo, but they sat several hundred feet below us along the slab. We ate and then, with no other option readily available to us, we went back the way we had come. By this time it was maybe 1pm, obviously too late to try to do a whole, full-length climb, plus I was still missing my shoes. We decided to make our way back to Geronimo and look for my shoes along the way. Of course, we took a pretty stupid way in, so we didn’t exactly retrace our steps. We didn’t find my shoes, and when we got back to Geronimo I went for a brief excursion to look for the, to no avail.

It was a little after 2 and I tried on the shoes we had found at that very spot some hours ago. They fit – not well, but well enough. We decided to do Geronimo, at least as much as we had time for. It’s a four pitch climb, and we did the first two, mostly without incident. Geronimo is a rap-down, not a walk-off, so it was no problem to do half the climb. On the first rap I hurt both hands; my right index finger got a nasty rope burn, and the webbing between my left thumb and forefinger got caught in my belay device requiring a quick, skin-ripping tug to free it. On a day of only two pitches of climbing my hands got more destroyed than they had on the other days, with significantly more climbing. This is not to mention the three large cactus spines that became lodged in my fingertips when I accidentally steadied myself on the wrong plant.

We hiked back to the car, reaching it at about 6:15. The rangers who ticket cards along the loop road hadn’t come by yet, which was good, but the other trad climbing group, Mertens, Julie, and Alice, still weren’t back. Their climb should have been doable in the amount of time that had elapsed, but things can go wrong, such s a getting a rope or piece of gear stuck. I wouldn’t have been worried about them except that we had agreed to text each other from the tops of our respective climbs and I had heard nothing from their group despite sending them four or five messages over the course of the day. In addition, as Mike and I had walked back to the car, a few drops of rain had fallen and the wind had picked up. A storm appeared eminent, or at least potentially so. Mertens had the keys to the car, so we hitch-hiked easily back to the campground.

When we arrived the camp was in a bit of a frenzy. The wind had become even stronger, reminiscent of the sand storm I experienced last year at Red Rocks. People were dashing to and fro, putting loose items into the vans and weighing down the tents with rocks. Sand was everywhere, including our sleeping bags and our dinner, and as it got dark I couldn’t help but  keep worrying about the climbers who were still on the mountain. Nancy was very concerned, I think, in her capacity both as trip coordinator and Mertens’s girlfriend. She insisted that we all focus on other things and that they would be alright. Because we had been in the car with them and had intended to communicate with them during the day, I think Mike and I felt more concerned than some others and probably unnecessarily, but between the weather, approaching darkness, and lack of communication I couldn’t help it. Eventually we got word that they were okay and were heading to get dinner in town. I went to bed, relieved that everything was okay but with a knot in my stomach over feeling nervous and continuing to talk about it after Nancy had tried to stifle that topic of conversation.

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Belaying

3/19

Calico Basin, Kraft Mountain, Conundrum Crags, Sunny and Steep

• Family Affair, 5.8 TR
• Family Circus, 5.9 TR
• Wayward Son, 5.9 TR
• Edward Silverhands, 5.10a TR (cheated)

The next morning Mike and I shared the story or our moderately unsuccessful day and heard about the other group, including the trad group we had been worried about. They had run into another party of climbers who didn’t have the requisite ropes to rappel down the route, so they had fall rapped together, greatly extending the whole process. Today I wanted to get in some climbing and relaxing. We went to Calico Basin, a crag off the loop road, to two crags behind Kraft Mountain.

The first, Conundrum Crag, had two 5.9s and a 5.8.  We were in a group of seven people, which worked well to climb all three. I sent one of the 5.9s, which I haven’t done that many times. Granted, I was on top rope, but I was still pretty happy with myself. Once we had exhausted Conundrum Crag, we moved on to Sunny and Steep, where another group of Dartmouth folks had been climbing all morning. We watched other climbers work on really hard, impressive climbs (12as and cs), and some of the freshmen (who are really really good and some of them had climbed before coming to Dartmouth) made their way up a 12a as well! I climbed a 10a in the area, which was one of only a  handful of 10s I’ve done to date. Overall, I felt it was a productive and pleasant day of climbing. Then, on the way back, we made a wrong turn and ended up walking for an hour and a half down a boulder-filled gully that was definitely not the route we were supposed to take.

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3/20

Haha today was a fun day, but not exactly much in the way of climbing. It was cool to climb with Vegas literally in the background, though, and route-finding instructions such as “start just above the graffiti ‘M’ on the left of the wall”. After spending some time at the crag, we decided to go for ice cream and ended up discovering a really great frozen yogurt place called u-swirl where you get to choose your flavors (and how much you want) and toppings, then pay per ounce (much better than Dartmouth Food Court’s froyo and cheaper).

Urban Crag, Limestone

• 5.7 TR
• 5.7 TR

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Beautiful rock

3/21

Calico Hills Second Pullout, Magic Bus, Gallery

• Electric Koolaid, 5.9+ send (TR)
• Neon Sunset, 5.8 flash
• Technicolor Sunrise, 5.8 send (TR)
• flailed on Gelatin Pooch, 5.10a (TR)
• flailed on Pump First Pay Later, 5.10b (TR)

Today was great, climbing-wise. I hopped in a van this morning with Julie, Nancy, Vish, Maya, and a few others who ended up climbing elsewhere. We headed to Magic Bus, a moderate wall on the second pullout of the loop road. In the parking lot we ran into a few groups of people from the Red Rocks Rendezvous, a festival of sorts for climbers that attracts some of the best climbers in the world and also a bunch of other people who crowd climbs and make independent folks like us a little impatient. The people we encountered were very nice, and not too numerous in the areas we were climbing.

We were the first party to arrive at Magic Bus, and put up a couple of really nice 5.8 routes. I led one of them, and completed what I think was my first 5.8 send on lead. I then top-roped the other 5.8, which was perhaps a little easier. We waited for awhile to get on another nearby route, a 5.9+, and in the meantime I led the same 5.8 again, and successfully sent it again, which was nice; it wasn’t a fluke. Eventually we got on the 5.9, and I sent it on top-rope, which pleased me greatly.

We moved on to the Gallery, a huge wall with numerous climbs that progress conveniently from easier to harder left to right across the wall.  My climbing day went precipitously downhill at this point, consisting of flailing on a 10a and a 10b, making little progress on either. I felt pretty good about the day overall, though.  After hanging around the Gallery for awhile we returned to the car. So far the day had gone on without a hitch, but upon checking her phone Nancy discovered a message that Tom, a freshmen who had been trad climbing with Mertens and Mike (the ’12 who I climbed with the other day), had torqued his knee pretty badly and was having a hard time walking. Fortunately he was able to walk back down, although with difficulty. We weren’t exactly sure what was happening, but were pretty certain that bringing a bunch of people to the area wouldn’t be particularly helpful, so we stopped by the grocery store to get ice for his knee and some other groceries for the group.

We returned to the camp and enjoyed a delicious dinner made by some of the freshmen, consisting of fish tacos with all the fixin’s (refried beans, avocado, lettuce, yay).  Now there’s talk of the wine game, which I’m not really feeling like doing, but I might be convinced.

A Climbing Glossary

The next couple of posts (long in coming) deal with the time I spent in Red Rocks, Nevada, just outside Las Vegas, rock climbing. This trip was a good way to ease myself out of being on vacation halfway around the world, although part of me definitely longed to just go home and relax in a very familiar environment and see my parents. In any case, since I think the people who have been reading this may not be familiar with much climbing terminology, I’m including a brief glossary to hopefully help you make sense of the posts to follow.

• 5.6, 5.7, etc: the American rating system for climb difficulty ranges from 5.0 (no climbs are really rated 5.0, though) through 5.15 (climbed by the most accomplished professional climbers); ratings 5.10-5.15 have sub-ratings of a, b, c, and d such that a 5.10a is easier than a 5.10b, which is easier than a 10c, etc.
• Belay: the process by which a person keeps the rope to which the climber is attached as short as possible in order to minimize the distance the climber will fall if they come off the rock
• Follow: usually used in reference to Trad climbing, following is essential top-roping a climb after the leader has done it; on a multi-pitch trad climb, this means that the leader belays the follower from above, and then both climbers begin to climb the next pitch from the top of the previous one
• Gear / Protection: objects that are placed into cracks or other features of the rock by trad climbers; examples of types of gear include nuts and cams
• Leading / Lead Climbing: climbing during which the climber’s rope is trailing behind them and is periodically attached to a fixed bolt (as in Sport Climbing) or a piece of gear (as in Trad Climbing); when between these attachment points, the climber is subject to a longer fall if they come off the rock
• Pitch: the distance that a climber covers in one climb, usually restrained by the height of the rock wall or the length of the rope; a climber is belayed up one pitch of climbing before they are lowered or attach themselves to an anchor at the top
• Rappel (Rapp): a maneuver during which a climber lowers themselves down a pitch
• Send: a climber is said to have “sent” a climb if they complete the entire pitch without falling or asking their belayer to take the rope tight so they can rest
• Sport: climbing in which climbers attach carabiners to fixed bolts in the rock wall and thread their rope though the carabiners to arrest themselves if they fall; usually this sort of climbing is only one “pitch”
• Top Rope (TR): refers to a climb on which the climber’s rope is threaded through anchors at the top of the pitch; if the climber comes off the rock they really fall no distance at all, because the rope is kept fairly taught the entire way up (the alternative is lead climbing)
• Trad: stands for “traditional,” a style of climbing in which climbers place gear at intervals to arrest themselves if they fall; trad is the alternative to “sport” climbing; often “multi-pitch”

Medical Marijuana, Anyone?

An LA street near Venice Beach

Sunday the 14th I spent in Los Angeles, more specifically at Venice Beach. It was, overall, quite an odd experience, although one that I’m glad I had. As I’ve mentioned, I had never really been to California before, except for in airports, which hardly count. I only had one full day in LA, but wanted to at least see something of the real thing as opposed to just the neighborhood around my hotel.

Venice Beach

Hollywood seemed a bit far and involved to try to get to, but Venice beach was only a 15-minute-or-so bus ride away, and it was someplace I had at least heard the name of before, so I decided to go for it. I had no idea what to expect, really, but I think it’s safe to say that what I encountered was very much a surprise and a new experience. As is the case with some touristy beaches, the walkway that ran along the beach was filled with small shops selling souvenirs and renting bikes.

Some features set Venice Beach apart, however, namely the medical marijuana shops. California is a state in which medical marijuana is legal. (In looking up information to see how many other states have a similar policy, I discovered the Maine actually also allows medical marijuana possession. ) At Venice Beach this has led to the development of shops explicitly in the business of providing “prescriptions.”

Walk in Medical Clinic... hm.

Employees stand on the street with signs advertising that “the doctor is in” and trying to encourage passers by to come in and claim a condition for which medical marijuana could be considered helpful (“sports injuries, auto accidents, stress, anxiety, insomnia, asthma, cancer, aids, or any illness for which marijuana provides relief,” according to the business card I was handed by one guy with a lei made of plastic pot leaves around his neck). It definitely was a world apart.

Further down the beach was a drum circle of people pounding randomly on various instruments and dancing. This group, I took it, had been recent patrons of the “Walk in Medical Clinic,” and several also sported wine and prescription pill bottles.

Muscle Beach, Venice Beach, CA

In another area was Muscle Beach, the famous outdoor gym where Arnold and Gold (of Gold’s Gym) famously trained back in the day. There were few people there actually using the weights when I passed by, but it was funny to see the landmark nonetheless.

There was, of course, also the beach. It was very pretty, but nothing special compared to the places on the Australian coast where I had recently visited. The phenomenon that was the surrounding town was much more captivating to me. I spent some time overlooking the skate park, where kids, some of them still probably only 12 or 13 years old, skateboarded fearlessly over the lips of deep bowls and around the curved edges of the course. This was quite an entertaining spectacle; the local skate park in Portland, Maine, doesn’t really have such a crowd of both skaters and spectators on a given Sunday. Of interest, too, were the roller skaters. A group of men and women, mostly in their middle ages, skated around to loud rhythmic music, doing dance moves and spins on their skates with surprising and impressive grace.

Skaters

The entire scene appeared rather as if the late 70′s had been paused and then suddenly resumed again, forty years later, with few changes except for the ages of the skaters and the pot-heads.

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On the morning of Monday the 15^th, I was stressed out about having too much stuff.  In general, I dislike having too much stuff, and occasionally I actually have, legitimately, too much stuff for a given situation. At my hotel in LA I received a package from my parents containing some things I needed for Red Rocks, which meant that all together I had way too much, including gear, clothes for every possible occasion, two sleeping bags, books, and miscellaneous other things. I planned to send a package or two of extraneous stuff back, but still hadn’t figured out exactly how I was going to manage that between postal services opening at 8 am and getting to my 10:50 flight.

I ate breakfast at 7 at the lovely diner near my hotel, then hemmed and hawed about whether to send the packages from the post office at the airport (requiring me to deal with all my stuff at once and navigate the airport with it in tow) or try to make it to the UPS store and back in time to catch a shuttle from the hotel to the airport. Looking online again to try to find out exactly where in the airport the post office was, I discovered that there wasn’t actually one inside the airport, just reasonably nearby. I decided to go to UPS but now had only about a half hour to get there, send the stuff, and return. I called my mom, as I am wont to do when I’m freaking out about such things, and she advised me to take a taxi to the store instead of the bus, since I didn’t know how long I would have to wait for a bus or how long it would take me to walk form the closest stop to the store. I realized that I’ve only taken a few taxis in my life, and balked at the price, but the UPS ended up being a less expensive way of sending the parcels anyway. With a decent window of time at my disposal and no desire to call a cab, wait for it to arrive, and then pay $10, I walked along the street toward the intersection where I could catch the bus. As I did so, a bus passed me and prepared to turn left onto the street I was approaching. I quickly realized this was the bus I wanted to catch, and sprinted to the corner, through the intersection, and into the short line of people queuing to get on board. I made it! This small victory of having sent my packages and caught a bus back to my hotel made my day.

The lines for check in, passport-checking, and security screening were long, but the flight itself, from LA to Vegas, was incredibly short.

Top 10 Differences; 4-5

4. My Kingdom for a Cup of Coffee

My first day in Australia, I arrived into the Sydney airport at 6 am after being on a 15-hour flight from Los Angeles. Kaptain picked me up, and on the drive home he told me that there was  nothing on my agenda, as far as he was concerned, except for relaxing and recuperating. “We’ll get you a shower and have you sorted in no time”, he said. “Is there anything else you need?”

“A cup of coffee,” I rasped, eyes closed.

“Oh, I’m sorry, I’m afraid Betsy and I don’t drink coffee… but we’ll stop. There’s a coffee shop on the way home.”

“Thanks,” I said. “Anything will do. Just a gas station would be fine.”

“No, we’ll stop at the coffee shop. No worries.”

A few minutes later we pulled into a plaza and walked into Gloria Jean’s, the local coffee chain. It looked familiar; I think there might be some in the States too, somewhere.

“Just a large coffee, please,” I requested.

“What kind?”

“Just a coffee. Large.”

Kaptain helpfully interjected, smiling at the barista to apologize for my stupidity. “Pinky, do you want a cappuccino, or a latte, or a mocha or…”

“Oh, ohhh,” I said. “Umm… I’ll take a skim cappuccino, I guess.”  I scanned the menu through the airplane-induced film covering my eyes, still confused. As she tapped and foamed, I noticed that the menu was filled with every type of espresso drink a girl could want, but no “normal” drip or brewed coffee. $4.80 into my budget later, I climbed back into Kaptain’s car, still not exactly understanding the full implications of my experience.

Coffee in Australia comes in two varieties: expensive and instant. Of course, within the expensive category there are numerous sub-types, including latte, cappuccino, macchiato, flat white, short black, long black, and then the mochas. It didn’t take me long to realize that outside the home you have only espresso drinks at your disposal. There is no such thing as a big-ass hot cuppa, no unremarkable but drinkable regular brew. There are only thimble-sized, three-dollar cappuccinos or four-dollar, slightly larger long blacks (essentially, a long black is an americano, one or two shots of espresso, made more voluminous with hot water).

Now, I like coffee, and I would be a pretty poor, typical-American specimen of a coffee-lover if I didn’t have a taste for good coffee. I am no sommelier of coffees, but I like a deep, woodsy french pressed or espresso coffee with a hit of citrus as much as the next person. My love of coffee began in Italy in 7^th grade, when I woke up to a superlative full-fat cappuccino and a pastry every morning. Italy had good coffee, and so did Vienna. Australia has pretty good coffee too, and on several occasions I heard the locals bashing American coffee and praising their own; fair enough.

Sometimes, though (many times, in fact), a person just wants some caffeine in coffee-tasting form, splashed with low-fat milk to take the edge off, and a packet of splenda if one is to be found. I don’t always want to savor every fifty-cent sip. Over a leisurely breakfast or after a good meal, perhaps, but every morning to take with me and get me going? No.  A few Sydney Starbucks offered, sequestered to a dark corner of their menu board, brewed coffee for a reasonable 2-3 dollars for a large (which at Starbucks is a heart-racingly, hand-shakingly true large). Everywhere else, however, it was espresso or nothing (or occasionally one of those automatic cocoa/latte machines at a 7/11 or some such store).

I turned to instant, and whoever might be judging me right now for usually drinking brewed coffee, you would think more highly of it if you drank instant coffee every day for two months. Amazingly, some people in Australia do. Some have espresso machines in their houses, but even they usually have instant on a normal morning. Has a society that is so advanced in so many ways failed to recognize the invention of the coffee machine? So it seems.

This particular contrast between the United States and Australia could not have been better driven home than by the diner where I ate breakfast for the past two mornings. I will talk elsewhere about my short time in LA in general, but while on the subject of coffee, I have to share my wonderful diner dining experience. When I woke up my first morning in LA, I went down to check out the restaurant in the hotel, but it looked awfully pricey for just a normal breakfast (about the same prices as I would have paid in Australia, but there’s a reason I almost never ate out there). I remembered that on the shuttle from the airport the day before I had noticed a diner just a few doors down, on the others side of the very conveniently located supermarket. I wandered over there and before even looking at a menu I could tell that this was more my kind of place – financially and atmospherically.

“Two eggs over easy, dry wheat toast, sliced tomato instead of home fries, coffee.” As my order was passed through the window to the kitchen staff I heard one person say “Que tipo de carne?” and my waiter turned to ask me. “No carne,” I replied, before he could translate.

This brings me to the first thing I liked about the place: Spanish. I hadn’t heard it at all in Australia except for a tourist or two speaking it in passing. Never has my foreign language training felt so useless. Los Angeles was the perfect antidote to that feeling. Granted, I could no longer exactly feel like a Latina (as my mom put it) – I could almost have passed by Australian standards, but I’m about as close to being Norwegian or Korean as I am to being Latina in this crowd, despite my solid ¼ hispanic heritage and halfway decent language skills. Anyway, it was nice to hear some chatter in Spanish, and all the staff at the place were incredibly nice. This brings me to the coffee, the other big selling point of the place, as far as I’m concerned. To be fair, the service was not particularly different than one would find in any decent American diner, but it stood in such stark contrast to my experience of Australian cafes and diners that it felt miraculous. Moments after I sat down, a steaming cup was plopped before me, and it never got more than half empty for the remainder of my time at the diner. I’m not sure exactly how many times it was filled, but at least 3 different employees came around to me at different times, gave me a knowing smile, and kept the piping hot goodness coming. For the money I would have spent in Australia for two small cups of coffee, I got a two egg breakfast and a bottomless mug. Life is good.

5. The Hours

Related to the observation that Australians approach work and compensation differently than we tend to do in the United States is the matter of business hours. In the US it is not uncommon for shops of various types – malls, clothing shops, book stores, food vendors, etc. – to be open from perhaps 8 am to 6 or 7 pm. Business hours depend on the store, of course, as well as where it’s located, but if you are looking for something in particular on a weekday evening you are likely to be able to find it in any small city.

In Australia, on the other hand, the stereotype of the “nine-to-five” job still has some meaning. Even in central Sydney, if you walk around after 5 or 5:30 you will find food courts shutting down and shops and pharmacies (“chemists”) closing, as if on a bank or post office schedule. Kaptain explained to me that more than anything this is a matter of economics. There are government-regulated policies on work and compensation that provide incentive to business owners to have relatively short and consistent hours.

Whereas in the U.S. jobs with hours that nobody wants pay more because of the pressures of supply and demand, in Australia it is mandated that people who work outside regular business hours must be compensated significantly more generously. As a result, there is a strong economic disincentive for businesses to remain open into the evening or to open early. There are exceptions to this rule of course, such as the early-morning coffee shop or the 24-hours Maccas or 7-11, but in general it is amazing how much commercial business shuts down, Australia-wide, at around 5 pm. Friday, Saturday, and to some extent Thursday nights are a bit different, with bars and clubs staying open of course and a slightly wider variety of other businesses extending their hours to accommodate increased night-time traffic. By and large, though, it is a different attitude and approach to store hours. How, I wonder, do stores make any money? Isn’t everybody working at exactly the same time? When do locals find the time to shop?

March 13th, 2010

March 13th was the longest day of my life – literally. I am aware of how trite it is to talk about time changes and date-line crossings, but I’m going to do so briefly anyway. Saturday, March 13th, lasted 43 hours. That’s pretty long, I daresay. My first March 13th happened in Forestville, Australia, and consisted of waking up in my room at Kaptain’s house, finishing my packing, and going for a lovely bushwalk.

The walk started at the end of the street with a path that leads to a nearby national park. From there it hugs the shore of Botany Bay with beautiful views of the water and the bush on the far side. I jogged part of the way, as much of the track was quite flat and I wanted to get in some sort of workout before spending 14 hours in an airplane. After returning to the house, showering, and having an early dinner with Kaptain, Betsy, and Charlotte, Kaptain drove me to the airport. I knew I would see Kaptain again before too long, probably within the year, but after seeing him so frequently over the past couple of months it definitely stung to say goodbye. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I appreciate being able to stay with Kaptain and Betsy so much. It’s a favor that I cannot possibly repay (except for maybe taking Charlotte off their hands at some point when she starts being a rebellious teenager).

The airport and flight weren’t too exciting. Everything went smoothly and I was able to sleep on the plane for perhaps 5 or 6 hours en route to Los Angeles. Upon arrival, I received a harsh reminder of the American security and customs ordeal. First, everyone was shuffled through a line that checked passports.  For me, this was quick and easy; the guy didn’t even ask me any questions, just glanced at my paperwork and waved me through. The line was long, though, so the process took awhile.  Then, because it was such a large flight (I’m not sure exactly how many passengers there were, but the plane sat 10 across and there must have been well over 50 rows), it took quite awhile for my bags to appear. Once they did, the line to go through customs (where you must declare consumer goods for resale, agricultural products, etc) was at least as long as the first queue had been. Fortunately, I was once again ushered through quickly; it was a good reminder of the benefits of being a young, white, American female.

My parents, in a characteristic act of not quite spoiling me but definitely helping me out and treating me like their darling little girl even though I’m 23 and have just been traveling independently for 10 weeks, had reserved a room for me (and paid for it – thanks guys) at a hotel near the airport. The hotel offered free pickup, too, so I called, and before I knew it was sitting in my very own hotel room. It certainly wasn’t luxury accommodations, but it felt like it. After staying in a tent or hostel, the idea of even having your own bathroom is tantalizing. I was thrilled to be able to watch TV, prance around naked, use free wireless internet on my laptop, and sprawl on a double (no, I actually think it was a queen) bed. This is exactly how I spent the evening of my second round of March 13th.  Finally, I was somewhere in California besides an airport!

Top 10 Differences; 1-3

Here they are: big differences between Australia and the United States. There might not end up being 10, but it seems like a good number to aim for. Some will be pretty superficial, others more important and far-reaching.

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1. Uni

Education: the Australian System vs. the American System

Well, first of all there’s the fact that they call it Uni. If you refer to tertiary school as “college” or “school” in Australia, no one will have any idea what you’re talking about, or they’ll be confused because these terms apply to secondary and primary school, respectively. I’ve grown quite accustomed to calling Dartmouth “uni,” as in, “I just finished uni in December, which is why I’m on holiday now” (they also call vacation “holiday”).

Terminology is hardly the extent of the difference, however. I have found that the educational system in Australia and its approach to higher education is really different than the system we have in the States, and affects many facets of Australians’ lives. In some parts of Australia there have been changes to the education system in the direction of making it more like the American system, but for the purposes of this discussion, the most important thing is that the norm for higher education in Australia is a system of students applying to a particular “course” at the end of high school.

Like in the United States, high school students in Australia are required to take some core subjects and have increasing choice about which classes to take as they get older. Australian students are more likely to start specializing in high school, though,. In year 12, students will take mostly classes relevant to what they want to go on to study in uni.  Also like American high school students, Australian high schoolers take standardized tests that help dictate their futures in education. At the end of year 12, students will take exams in the classes they took that year (e.g. physics, advanced English, world history, calculus, or whatever). Their marks on these exams will serve as one of the primary factors in determining whether they are accepted into the uni course they apply for.

Here we come to perhaps the biggest difference between American-style and Australian-style higher education. Some American students know from a young age what their educational and occupational goals are, but it is probably safe to say that a majority don’t, or at least aren’t sure. This is alright, since most colleges and universities don’t expect students to declare an area of focus, a major, until the end of their second year. Even once a major is chosen, it is common for students to switch majors during the course of college or to end up in a career unrelated to the subject in which they specialized in college.

For Australian students, there is a strong pressure to choose a career much earlier in life.  Students apply not to a general liberal arts college program, but to a particular course, which will prepare them intensively for their future occupation. In order to get accepted to their desired course, students must study the prerequisite subjects during high school and take the year-12 exams in those areas, so realistically it is necessary for students to have thought hard about subjects and career paths by the time they are about 16 or 17. As a 23-year-old who stumbled upon her major halfway though college and is still unsure whether her career will ultimately be in her major subject, psychology, I am overwhelmed by the very thought of having to pick an occupation at age 16.

This, however, is a reality for every young person in Australia. It all sounds like a tremendous amount of pressure, but this is offset by some of the other characteristics of the Australian system, namely the fact that all universities in Australia are public universities and the huge differences in reputation and perceived value of education that exist between American universities don’t appear between Australian ones – a degree from any of Australia’s universities is roughly equivalent in terms of how it is viewed by others or its ability to get you a job.  For this reason, the entire college application process is infinitely less stressful, since most students “with half a brain” (as Kaptain put it) will get into a uni, and which one you go to doesn’t really matter.

The scores you achieve on your year-12 subject exams are submitted, as an important part of your application, to the university course you want to attend. Depending on the number of spots available in that course (e.g. engineering, medicine, languages, biology), a cutoff score will be set, and if you are above it, you are admitted into that course at that university. If you aren’t admitted, you might be accepted by another uni (with lower supply or higher demand) or in a related course.

Then, of course, there is the uni education itself. Instead of four years, two of which are pretty generalized with increasing specificity towards the end, the Australian uni education consists of three years of specialized and intensive study in, and only in, the subject you have selected and applied for. After uni, depending on your field and career goals, a masters degree might be necessary, or some kind of certification course (a shorter course that provides you with a license in some area). People who do not go to uni often do these types of courses (in, say, hair and beauty), which isn’t that different from the United States.

Overall, this system seems very foreign and strange to me. It also strikes me as something that affects Australians throughout their life. Starting as teenagers, there’s a very real and imminent pressure to chose an occupation. During uni, this subject, whatever it may be, is essentially all that you study. You are being prepared to do a specific job, and that is the point of the education. As Kaptain put it, “American uni teaches you how to learn, Australian uni teaches you a specific skill.” Neither of us could say exactly which we thought was “better.” In today’s world, like it or not, it is skills and money-making ability that matter more than general intellectual well-roundedness. Sometimes I wish that all the time and money spent on my education resulted in a degree that could actually get me a job. In Australia, this is almost always the case. Part of me is saddened, however, that such a premium is put on production in the first world, production of goods and services merely for the sake of their consumption. This is, however, the world we live in, and in many ways the Australian system represents a more efficient and logical approach to the task of education.

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2.“They’re Socialist, I tell you!”

Health care, minimum wage, work benefits, and welfare in Australia

Putting health care on the list makes me realize, horrified, how little I know about the current state of affairs (in terms of health care and otherwise) in the United States. There will be plenty of time for that, however, when I get back and am unemployed. I do know this much: Australia, like all industrialized countries besides the United States, has public health care. This is to go along with their generous public services including youth and student pensions, unemployment benefits and a livable minimum wage. In the US, the minimum wage is $7.25/hr (USD), while in Australia it is $14.31/hr (AUD), equivalent to $13.09 USD. Hard to believe, right?
There are other differences between working conditions in the United States and Australia, too. A standard work week is 37.5 hours per week, not 40.  Each year, a full time employee will accrue 4 weeks of paid vacation time. Maternity leave is always an option, and employers and they must offer a woman who has taken maternity leave her old position back when her period of leave is over.

Far from being socialist, Australia takes what I consider to be a thoughtful and logical approach to taking care if its citizens. Kaptain told me that a government that didn’t provide these benefits simply would not have a chance of election. A party whose platform consisted of minimizing the role of government (read, the American Republican Party) would never exist because Australians generally believe that one of government’s primary purposes is to serve the people, and this necessarily involves making laws and providing services.

There is some disagreement among Australians about how the government “handles” Aboriginal people. Although I think most white Australians acknowledge that treatment of Aborigines has been historically horrifying, I have gotten the sense from talking to a variety of people that they are not sure that the government hand-outs to Aboriginal people (which are, I am led to believe, more generous than those to unemployed or otherwise needy white Australians) are inappropriate, misguided as attempts to help Aboriginals, and/or unfair, given the outcomes. Aboriginal people cannot maintain their traditional way of life, and this change was not by choice. Now, however, it is unclear that being largely supported by the government is doing Aboriginal people themselves, or the larger Australian community, any good.  Payments are available to Aboriginal people who are “a parent or guardian, looking for work, studying or training, a farmer, self-employed, a rural Australian, needing help in a crisis, ill, injured, or have a disability, caring for someone, about to retire or in retirement, or needing help after someone has died.”  What other kinds of people are there, I wonder?

I have not done enough research to develop an informed opinion of my own, and I certainly do not think that the Australian government should “forget” Aboriginal people and the wrongs that have been done to them. I tend to agree, however, based on my limited knowledge, that the extent of the welfare available to Aboriginal people probably does not particularly encourage them to seek education and gainful employment, choices that would probably help in the development of a stronger Aboriginal culture within the perhaps less-than-ideal framework of modern Australia.

Anyway, that was a bit of a tangent, but in any case living and working in Australia seems to be a pretty sweet deal. The idea of someone working more than 40 hours a week and still having no medical insurance and not being able to support themselves (as is sadly the case for many under-educated fast food workers in the United States) is horrifying to Australians; it should be to Americans as well.

Yes. I’m a liberal. Sorry for shoving it down your throat.

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3. Kilometers, Liters, Kilograms

Measuring stuff.

The Metric System took some getting used to, and I can’t pretend to be perfectly fluent in it yet. No doubt, though, it makes sense. There’s nothing profound about this particular difference, although I suppose I could go into some tirade about how the United States insists on maintaining our system when the rest of the world uses Metric, and for good reason. I don’t really feel that strongly about it, though.

Mostly I just think that it’s nice to be able to think about distances, for example, in percentages. The relationships between different quantities are a lot simpler in metric. Estimating kilometers and meters is a lot easier than estimating feet/yards/miles, even if you are used to the latter. One thing that threw me off somewhat in terms of the different systems (not to mention the money exchange rate confusion) was how it led to some things seeming expensive while other things seemed cheap. For instance, seeing $1.29 at a petrol (gas) station looked miraculous, but that’s for a liter, not gallon. Conversely, I would balk at $4.50 apples, but that was for a kilogram, not a pound.

Temperatures are much harder to calculate than distances, weights and volumes, but I got used to what Celsius temperatures felt “cold” and which felt “hot” and I guess that’s what matters most. Nothing more to say, just an obvious observation: Australia uses Metric.

Forestville, revisited + BRIDGECLIMB

On the morning of Tuesday, March 9th, I rolled into Sydney’s Central Station at about 7 a.m. after a night on the train. My first, and basically only, order of the day was to get myself to Kaptain and Betsy’s house in Forestville and relax. I accomplished this task, and happily spent the rest of the day watching TV, reading, doing sit-ups, stretching, doing laundry, and otherwise unwinding from being away from anyplace I could call “home” for about 3 weeks.

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Wednesday was, honestly, much the same.

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Thursday I ventured into the city briefly, just to wander around. I got sort of got nostalgic about it. I like Sydney a lot.

In the suiting-up room at BridgeClimb

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Yesterday, Friday the 12th, was amazing. I went into the city again, this time with a plan. I was booked for the 11:15 Bridge Climb, and it was incredible. Bridge Climb opened in 1998 and now has seen more than 2 million visitors climb up along the arch to the apex of the Sydney Harbor Bridge. The experience is 3.5 hours long, although only perhaps half of that is spent on the bridge. The remainder is used to prepare climbers, suit them up, and wrap things up after the climb.

The whole thing is very 2001, a Space Odyssey, or StarTrek. You are led through a door into a circular room with benches lining the walls. You sit and fill out an information and waiver form while a man in a gray and blue jumpsuit comes around and breathalyzes you (if you register higher than .05  BAC, you are not allowed to climb). This done, you proceed through another door to a room with shelves of gray and blue jumpsuits in every size. You stand on a yellow dot in a circle with your fellow climbers, and are looked over by the man, who is startling good at guessing which size suit will be appropriate. You are given your suit and led through yet another door to a room where a series of changing curtains are set up for you to put on the stylish garment.

Changing area

Once everyone is in their matching jumpsuits, the man who first gave you the breathalyzers and sized you up passes you off to someone else. He, too, is wearing a jumpsuit, but on top of it are a variety of other items: a harness, a radio transmitter, a large black pouch, several carabiners, a water bottle. He assures you that you will not have quite as much stuff yourself, but it is necessary to go gear up.  Yet another room is involved, and a metal detector is in place to ensure that you are not carrying any “contraband” (don’t ask me exactly what this means, cameras, I guess, or weapons?). You are also not allowed to have anythign around your wrists (including watches), any big jewelry or hair clips, or any loose objects, which I guess makes sense because of the strong wind on top of the bridge and the long fall that any object would have.

Galaxy Quest?

In this next room there is a circular railing around which the climbers stand. On hooks around the railing hang belts, and your walk leader, the guy with all the stuff, tells you how to put it on. Attached to one side of the belt is what looks more or less like the wheel on the bottom of an office chair. The purpose of this thing is to attach your belt (with you in it) to a cable that runs the length of the climb.

In order to assure that everyone can handle what is to come, a practice area is set up, consisting of two ladders leading up to a platform and two leading back down to the ground. They are rather steep, but not at all scary. It is probably a good idea that they do this practice, however; the ladders do seem to be something that some very unfit people might not be able to get up or that might scare people very afraid of heights (don’t ask me why these people would sign up to do the bridge climb in the first place), plus it accustoms you to guiding your tether along the cable.

You then collect the rest of the stuff that will be attached to the belt for the climb: a black pouch containing a fleece in case you get cold (which is sewn into the pouch that clips onto your belt so that it cannot be blown away), a baseball cap or beanie, a handkerchief on an elastic band that you keep secured around your wrist, a lanyard for sunnies (sunglasses), if you have them, and a radio box and headsets so that we could hear our guide while up on the bridge. Finally, after all this, you approach the tunnel leading from the building to the underside of the bridge.

3/4 of the way up the Sydney Harbor Bridge, overlooking the Opera House

You walk under the bridge for some distance, still over land. This part is actually the scariest (although none of it is really scary), because the surface you are walking on is essentially just a narrow wooden platform, like scaffolding. You are securely strapped in via your tether and there are solid barriers on either side of you, but if any part of the walk seems likely to break, it is this part. You hear cars and trains trundling along over you, only a couple of meters above your head. All the while your guide chit-chats to you about the process of painting the bridge, which is ongoing, and a little bit about its construction and how it is held up (making sure to make jokes about the bridge being structurally unsound).

At last, you reach the ladders.  These, a series of three or four ladders perhaps 8 or 10 meters long each, ascend up into a median between two lanes of traffic on the bridge, and then continue up to the arch.  Here, the group begins marching, ant-like, along the arch over steel stairs.  There are several groups visible, only perhaps 10 minutes ahead, but the timing is down to a science and their presence never interferes with your experience. A couple of times, the group stops to take pictures; each pair or group that came to do the climb together gets their own shot. Then up, up, up, a long climb that would be strenuous if you were not used to walking and climbing stairs.

The stairs get progressively less steep as you approach the apex of the arch. The view gets progressively better. You are not sure how long you have been on the bridge, but time neither drags nor races. You have enough time to look around at the view from every angle without getting bored. It is a warm day, but the wind, which whistles between your headphones and your ears, cools you off, and stops just short of chilling you. Then you reach the top.

It doesn’t feel like a monumental accomplishment, but it is absolutely a cool place to be. You stand above a fair number of Sydney’s skyscrapers, although lower than others. You tower over the people on top of the Harbor Bridge Pylon who are taking in the view from there, thinking that they are probably getting as good a view for a twentieth of the price. The view is not as good, though, and the experience is incomparable. You stand exactly twice the height of the tallest point of the tallest sail of the Sydney Opera House; it was designed to be exactly half the height of bridge as part of the effort to make the two fit together pleasingly into the view of the harbor.

In my stylish jumpsuit, on the Bridge

You cross over the width of the bridge at its highest point, over eight lanes of traffic and two sets of train tracks. You then descend the other side, this time the stairs becoming gradually steeper as you go. The descent is slightly quicker than the climb was, at least until you come to the ladders, which bring you down between traffic and trains. You go back the way you came, except now on the western side of the bridge. You reenter the tunnel and the building, detach your belt from the line, and, piece by piece, return your gear. You change out of your jumpsuit, which by this time has begun to feel disturbingly comfortable, and bid farewell to your fellow climbers and your guide, with whom you have shared a pleasant few hours and the awe of being in such an unusual place.

I’m not sure exactly what made me slip into second person writing there, but I definitely think that the Bridge Climb is a must-do for any visitor of Sydney who can afford it. At $198, it’s pricey, and I wouldn’t have had the chance (or wouldn’t have made the decision to make it a financial priority) if I hadn’t received the ticket as a very generous and undeserved Christmas/birthday gift. It, however, along with my New Years Eve experience, was an absolute highlight, and I’m extremely grateful that I got to do it.

Beer on the roof, post-climb

After my climb, on Kaptain’s orders, I took myself out for a beer at a place called the Glenmore Hotel, which had a beautiful rooftop beer garden. I was quite content there, with my book, but then I saw the two young guys who had been on my climb, and went over to say hello. They were sitting with their mother, who had bought them the climb for Christmas, and she invited me to sit with them. Happy to have some companions, I agreed, and even allowed them to buy me a second beer when my first ran out (although, as my head nodded on the bus back to Forestville, I questioned the wisdom of having two pints in under an hour after having only a light lunch). After all, it was my last full day in Australia (or so I thought; it turns out my flight is at 9:05 p.m. tonight instead of 10:30 a.m., which I had thought, for some reason).

That night, Kaptain, Betsy, Charlotte and I went to the local Thai restaurant to eat out. Charlotte had had a long day and was tired, but overall we had a nice evening.

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Today, March 13th, is actually my last day in Australia. I packed today, and went for a bushwalk from the house down to near the water, along it for while, through a park, and then eventually back to the house on a road. It was very nice to get out, stretch my legs (before my 14+ hour plane trip), and see some last Australian bush before I leave. Then I came back to the house and have been hanging around.

Just a few minutes ago, as I sat typing, Charlotte came in. We played together a bit, I read her two books, became a crab (featured in one of the books) and pinched her toes and bottom, and made her laugh. It felt really good, and when I told her I’d miss her when I left, she said she’d miss me too. Considering that when I arrived she wouldn’t talk to me or look me in the face, it feels wonderful that she now knows I’m Pinky and looks forward to seeing me again (or at least says she does). I hope that over the coming years I can repay Kaptain for some of the kindnesses he has shown me which I still feel I haven’t fully reciprocated. If being a role model and loving, fun adult figure in Charlotte’s life is a way I can contribute, I would be honored. He has said that he hopes that she will, at least in some ways, grow up to be like me and that I can be a positive influence on her. Even though I am still at a stage in my life when having kids of my own sounds positively frightening, I appreciate her important role in Kaptain’s life, and she’s generally just a lovely girl.

It’s time to put the finishing touches on my packing. Goodbye, Australia. It’s been good.

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post script: FYI, there will be more, namely a link to a complete collection of the pictures I have taken in Australia and some thoughts about the experience (including a list of the top 10 (more or less) biggest differences between Australia and the US)

Coffs and the Big Banana

3/8

Market in Coffs Harbour

Yesterday, wen I arrived at Coffs Harbour at 12:30 after being on a bus and train since 5:45 am, I liked it at once. I had decided to stay at the local YHA hostel, which was only $2 more expensive than the other hostels, but significantly closer to the station and beach. I had never stayed at a YHA (Youth Hostel Association) hostel before, as they are usually on the more expensive end of the spectrum, but arriving at the hostel made me wish I had discovered them sooner. This hostel is just about the exact opposite of the place I stayed in Surfers Paradise, and Coffs Harbour, similarly, is starkly different than Surfers. The small strip between the station and the hostel, called Coffs Harbour Jetty, was cute and lined with cafes and bookstores. A Sunday market was wrapping up across from the hostel and i walked down towards the beach to visit another market, this one a perfect example of a cute town market that had produce, prepared foods, locally made hand cremes, and live folk music.

The hostel was clean and had a calm, relaxing vibe. Everything was in good repair and signs clearly indicated that guests should keep noise levels down after 10pm for the sake of those who want to sleep. People chatted in the tidy kitchen. This was how and where I wanted to spend my second-to-last night before returning to Forestville.

View of the Coffs Harbour coast

After dropping my stuff in my room, I decided to try to walk to the info center in downtown Coffs Harbour, which was perhaps 1.5 or 2km away. Essentially, the Jetty area with its small cluster of stores and the transit station is on the coast, and then a short distance inland is the town center. With its shopping center, greater selection of restaurants, and, apparently, info center. The route there was easy, consisting only of following one road, and I looked at a map posted on the wall of the hostel to get my bearings. I couldn’t find a map of Coffs Harbour in any of the pamphlets available in the hostel, so this, along with wanting to get a little exercise, was my motivation to walk to the info center. I made it to the square and shopping plaza alright, but didn’t see the info center anywhere, so I returned to Coffs Harbour and walked in the opposite direction o the beach and then past it out to a small island (called Muttonbird Island, I think) connected to the Jetty by a breakwater with a walkway. It was a short but pretty walk to the island and back, and I returned to the hostel for a brief swim in the pool.

Path to Muttonbird Island

Overall, I was in a better mood than I had been for a couple of days; Coffs Harbour really suited me and I would be back in Sydney the day after next. After cooking myself dinner I walked to Maccas, about 2 km in a different direction than the town center (I knew where I was going, though, because I had since acquired a map by asking at the hostel reception desk) to use the internet. The walk back shortly after 8:00 was quite dark, but I didn’t feel nervous at all and it was a pleasant temperature (it had been hot all day).

Back at the hostel I noticed that some people were midway though watching Slumdog Millionaire, so I joined them. Then bed. I slept really well.

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The Big Banana

The next morning (this morning, the 8th), I rented a bike from the hostel and went for an adventure (of sorts). I biked to Maccas (whee! exciting!), used the internet, and then biked beyond it to the Big Banana. The Big Banana is, honestly, not that big. I mean, it was absolutely the biggest banana I’ve ever seen, but after seeing the Big Merino, it looked rather like a medium-sized banana. Anyway, it was the original Big Thing and therefore deserves some modicum of respect, I think. Attached is a cafe (with a variety of things, including banana muffins, banana bread, and banana milkshakes) and a gift shop, which has a bunch of things with pictures of the Big Banana and knick-knacks such as a 5″ tall statue of a banana.

Me with the Big Banana

I was glad I had rented the bike, because it would have been a fairly far and ugly walk. Taking advantage of wheeled transport, I biked to the Coffs Harbour town center (the Maccas/Big Banana, town center, and Jetty form roughly an equilateral triangle) and then back to the Jetty, where I hung out at the hostel for awhile, reading and watching TV.

Then I returned to Muttonbird Island for a workout. Once you cross the breakwater to the island, an incredibly steep path leads up to its apex, then down the other side to a viewing platform. The island is shaped loaf-shaped, with a fairly flat top and sides that slope down to the water. I did several repetitions of jogging up the very steep path (it could easily have been stairs, but it was a smooth ramp style instead), across the flattish top, and down the other side, and back. It was a lovely backdrop for a run, and quite challenging. I felt better having done a strenuous workout. After returning to the hostel, showering, and having dinner, I just hung around until it was time to go to the train station to catch my 10:10 p.m. overnight train to Sydney.

Harbour from the to of Muttonbird Island

I had been on an overnight train once before, from Sydney to Melbourne. On that occasion I had made the mistake of checking my backpack, so I was cold and had nothing resembling a pillow for the whole night; I slept pretty badly. This time I made sure to get out a bag of clothes and my scarf to make myself more comfortable. On an overnight train you miss the scenery, but on the other hand it costs the same as a day trip and saves you the cost of a night’s accommodation. It’s a trade-off, but in this case I felt happy with my decision to spend the day in Coffs Harbour and the night on a train back “home”.

Babe in Paradise?

Pretty flower in the Roma Street Parklands

Today, Friday, I woke up at 8, surprised that I slept in so late. Going from Alice Springs to Brisbane was a total of 2.5 hours time change (they have half-hour time zones here and Queensland is on daylight savings time while New South Wales isn’t, even though they occupy similar latitudes), so it messed with my sense of time somewhat, and I had been waking quite early in the past week or so. After breakfast, I walked to the Roma Street Parklands, an extravagant park that was only recently created, started in 2001. I caught the 10am free highlights tour, which wasn’t bad. I learned a few new plants and some things I didn’t know I wanted to know about the construction and management of the park.

I returned to the hostel to make lunch and then headed out again, this time through the Botanic Gardens  to a pedestrian bridge that led to the opposite end of South Bank from where I had accessed it the day before. I forgot to mention that on the walk back form the Roma Street Parkland to the hostel it began pissing down with rain. Fortunately, it hadn’t rained a drop as I had been taking the leisurely stroll though the Parkland, but since it was my intention to spend the afternoon on the South Bank, walking around and swimming at the “beach,” I was rather dismayed by the downpour. By the time I had finished eating lunch, however, all that was left of the storm was stifling humidity and a light drizzle. My only alternative being to waste a half-day in a hostel, I set off, and only experienced a small amount of light rain as I walked through the Botanic Garden, over the bridge, and to South Bank.

Going for a swim at Streets Beach

By the time I reached Streets Beach, the sun was making occasional appearances through the clouds and I put on my swimmers and went for a dip. Despite it not being the most beautiful of days, it was warm and sticky enough out to make a swim feel wonderful and refreshing. I returned to my hostel via the shopping district along Queen Street in the CBD, encountering another bout of heavy rain along the way. Then I hopped on a train towards Paradise.

Surfer’s Paradise, that is.

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3/6

I arrived yesterday evening at about 6:45 pm at Surfers Paradise, which I would describe as a sort of Gattlinburg, TN on the ocean. I immediately disliked it, an impression that I was in no way improved by my hostel when I arrived. It was, obviously, a party hostel, which has also described the majority of places i have stayed, but the vibe was somehow different here and more aggressively party-pushing. I had read online that a Friday night Arts and Crafts market was on in the area from 5:30-10pm, so I set off to try to find it. My hostel is actually quite close to the beach and town center, but I had an even more dismal map than usual so I wandered along an unexciting road flanked by hotels that runs parallel to the beach for what seems like an eternity.

It was early, maybe only 7:30 pm, and nothing about the area felt seedy, but still I felt uncomfortable. This was a world to which I did not belong, in my admittedly none-too-flattering yoga capris, un-straightened hair, and unlined eyes. I never ended up finding the market, but I did end up at a pedestrian mall that was clearly the center of activity. By then it was after 8, so people were out and about and a few buskers (including an extremely talented male guitarist/female vocalist duo to whom I sat and listened for probably a half hour) performed at intervals. This lifted my mood, at least somewhat.

Perhaps the larger problem is that I’m “so over” backpacking. That sounds weird, because I am so not over backpacking as I know it, just as European working holiday visa holders know it. I am very sad, in one way, that my Australian adventure is drawing to a close. One week from today I will be in a plane over the Pacific. It has been a while since I’ve been at Kaptain’s though, and I miss having a home, having like-minded people around, and friendly faces. I think that I might just be slow to warm up to people, so when I am in a setting where I’m with new people every day, I can handle it, but I tend to choose to do so by being solitary. This is all well and good if one is exploring Sydney alone or walking the Great Ocean Walk. When you go to a place, though, where what is expected of you is partying and bar-hopping and becoming “best friends” with the 15 strangers sharing your dorm or else be “that weirdo” who goes to bed at 10pm, I feel lonely and dysfunctional.

I enjoy alcohol. I usually use it only occasionally and without going overboard, especially in the past year or so, but I do think that alcohol can be a fun and, if used with an iota of sense, safe drug. What really dictates whether the idea of drinking alcohol in a particular case appeals to me, however, is who I am with. I don’t like drinking with strangers, particularly if my surroundings are also foreign to me. Drunk men I don’t know scare me (and yet I managed to survive Dartmouth, haha), or at least some of them do. When I walk around and see girls in their clubbing outfits that consist of a corset, short shorts, fishnets and heels or a minidress, I like to think that I don’t so much judge their character (well, sometimes I do, especially if they are also pushing a pram; what?!) as imagine how uncomfortable I would be if I were dressed that way; it is a reminder of my aversion to being looked at in that way by any men other than the few I might specifically choose. These feelings are not insignificant; they undoubtedly affect my behavior and the course my life has taken. I sometimes question whether they border on pathology or have contributed to or stemmed from other blemishes in my mental health.  But I’m flirting with melodrama here, so I’ll go back back, briefly, to the subject of hostel alcohol culture.

Basically, my point is that it takes me a certain amount of time (not a long time, but longer than 5 minutes), to feel comfortable enough with someone that drinking alcohol with them seems like an enjoyable idea. Signing up for a “night out” organized by a backpackers hostel just really doesn’t appeal to me at all. Unfortunately, in this setting this makes me feel like a mutant. I probably would ave fun if I went, but I’m just in a mindset where I’d rather be slightly bored and feel like myself than go out and have that kind of fun.

Surfers Paradise Beach

This morning I woke up, had breakfast, watched some random guy smoke a joint on the porch outside my room, and set out to try to find another of the markets I had seen mentioned on some website or in some pamphlet. I walked along the beach for a couple of kilometers, then took a nice path that ran along the foreshore, just inland of the edge of the beach, for another 2 km or so. This brought me to a shoping center where a farmers market was underway. It was a very average farmers market, but the walk had been quite wonderful. It was warm and humid, but I walked barefoot through beautiful, soft sand and the edge of the surf and got the feeling of moving my body in a meaningful way, which I quite enjoyed.  I returned as I had come, but reversing the beach and sidewalk sections. I then hopped onto the bus to the Carrara Markets, an immense permanent network of ramshackle stalls that opens on the weekends. It was a little like the most massive flea market ever, except that most of the stuff was new. It was a strange assortment of stuff, and I didn’t buy anything but some sub-supermarket-priced produce, but it wasn’t a bad way to spend an hour.

I hadn’t yet been to the beach properly, and this seemed an alarming omission when one visits a place called Surfers Paradise, so I returned to the hostel to put on my swimmers and made my way to my nearest beach.  I believe I have mentioned them before, but in case I haven’t, a word on the Australian Surf Lifesaving Clubs. Wearing red and yellow and little silly caps that look roughly like water polo caps without any padding, these lifeguards patrol the most popular beaches in Australia, where they set up yellow and red flags to indicate the boundaries of the patrolled area. Swimmers are to stay between the flags, and the Surf Lifesavers are poised at any moment to jump on their special surfboards and go save your life.

Today the surf was rough, and a yellow flag between the two red and yellow ones indicated to “swim with caution.”  Even without the yellow flags I would have known to be careful; I am a bit of a landlubber, and the waves were crashing fiercely and consistently. In addition to the three or so Surf Lifesaving Club members watching attentively from the beach, another on a Jet Ski circled the swimming area and a helicopter did occasional passovers as it flew along the long coastline. These guys were serious, and for good reason. I actually witnessed two saves, one of which was quite routine (as much as any ocean rescue can be routine), and the other of which unfolded into a little drama before my eyes, worthy of Bondi Rescue (an Australian “reality show” following the Surf Livesavers of Bondi Beach in Sydney, their heroic saves, and their hot bods).  A man, tethered to a beginner’s surfboard and quite clearly not an experienced surfer but not part of a surfing course, was messing about in the waves. He wasn’t terribly far from me when I was in the water, and I didn’t actually see what happened, but next thing I knew he was being brought in on one of the lifeguards’ surfboards, escorted by the Jet Ski. He lay on the beach with an oxygen mask on for some time; Surf Lifesavers scampered to and fro, police and medics showed up, and after some time he walked up the beach with an entourage of official people, apparently fine. I’m not sure exactly what happened, but it was quite clearly a scary event with some genuine risk, not a case of someone just getting a little freaked out, as the previous rescue had probably been.

By the time I saw this rescue I had gotten out of the water and was on the beach.  It was enough to convince me to call it a day, and the sign warning of “marine stingers” didn’t hurt in this regard, either. I had spent perhaps 45 minutes in the wonderful ocean, jumping through the warm waves, diving under them, and letting my body be carried by them. The water felt cold for only the first few moments, after which point it seemed the perfect temperature. I played in the surf like a child and thought that perhaps Surfers Paradise wasn’t such a bad place after all. The rest of my day in Surfers consisted of walking around the pedestrian mall area looking at attractions that I didn’t want to spend $30 on and using the slow but free internet at Maccas.  I decided I would go straight on to Coffs Harbour instead of spending a night in Byron Bay or visiting the Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary on the way, options I had considered.

I made an early night of it; my plan was to be on a bus that departed Surfers Paradise at 5:40 a.m. the next morning. Not a moment too soon.

(March 1-4)

Kings Canyon

3/1

This morning, the first day of March (wow!), we woke up at the Kings Canyon campground and after breakfast drove for perhaps 10 minutes to the canyon as the world became light. Here we did a walk of perhaps 7 kilometers as a group. We sent slowly and stopped often, but Leslie provided informative tidbits about the plant life as we went. It really was spectacularly beautiful. After climbing up some distance onto the top of the plateau, we walked around the rim of the canyon (which is actually technically a gorge, I think).

Me, sitting in the water hole at Kings Canyon

Along the way we stopped at a water hole, which usually has water but was a bit fuller than usual because of all the rain the area has gotten recently. We were gold we could go for a swim if we chose, and I was surprised, when I dipped my toe in, to find that the water was not very cold at all even though the air was a bit chillier than is probably normal for the area. The tour guide from another group that was there had jumped in, and he was followed by a couple of other people form that group and then Robby from ours. At that point, even though I didn’t have my swimmers, I decided to go in and took off my shorts and leapt in. The water felt a little cooler than it had when I was dry on land and just dipping my toe in, but it really wasn’t bad at all. I floated and swam around a bit, sat beside a small cascade, and then got out. At that point it did indeed feel quite cold, with the breeze and the air temperature raising goosebumps on my skin and making me shiver a bit. I quickly got warm though, as it really wasn’t that cold out.

Walls of the canyon above where the water hole was

We proceeded from the water hole and walked around the canyon’s edge to the car park where we had started. Along the way the sun came out  and we realized that this was the first time that the full sun had shone since we had left Alice springs. It was a bit of a tease, but we were still glad to have some sun, even if it came in our last hour being outside in the outback. We returned to the Kings Canyon campground for lunch, and then set of for the long drive back to Alice Springs.

The drive was largely uneventful, which I guess is a good thing. We made a couple of stops to go to the toilet and buy overpriced sodas, and also Leslie gave us a quiz about Australia, based in part on the information she had told us but with quite a few questions covering other topics as well. My partner, a quiet Swiss-German guy named Matt, and I tied with the team containing Aruvi (no fair, she’s from Australia!) to win, which meant we would get a free beer that night. We all decided to have dinner together at the cafe/pub at Annie’s Place that night, where they have a $5 special for tour groups who go for dinner after their tour.

Tour group photo at Kings Canyon

that’s all I wrote for 3/1… I’m not going to try to recreate any more. there isn’t much to tell.

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3/2 (I hung around Alice Springs, doing nothing useful or interesting)

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3/3

On the morning of Wednesday, March 3, after spending a day in Alice Springs wondering about and making travel plans (semi-successfully) on the internet, I took the hostel shuttle to the Alice Springs airport to catch a flight to Brisbane, via Sydney. Because of the timing of the shuttle, I had a few hours at the airport. The Alice Springs airport is not particularly the kind of airport you want to spend extra time at, but I had no choice. My flight to Sydney was quite nice, actually. When I flew from Melbourne to Alice Springs, I flew on a budge airline for only $89 plus tax and fees, and I got what I paid for. The plane was small and uncomfortable, and the drink service wasn’t free. There wasn’t even a magazine advertising useless gadgets in the seat pocket in front of me, just a safety information card which read: “cutting corners is our policy – we go down, you die” (sure, I’ve taken a little poetic license, but you get the picture). The Alice to Sydney flight, on the other hand, was a Qantas flight in a Boeing 737, featuring free apples and sodas and an in-flight movie, Up In the Air, an average-quality romantic dramocomedy starring George Clooney.

At the Sydney airport I again had a wait of several hours. Here, at least, there were a variety of shops to browse through (I always feel like they think I’m a shop-lifter when I browse because I never buy anything, but does anybody really buy things at these airport shops?), some cafes, and internet (all for a cost, of course).  The second leg of the flight was as good as the first (this time they gave us free wine because it was an evening flight), and shorter. I had emailed a bunch of people on CouchSurfing.com about whether they were available to host me in my various stops from Brisbane to Sydney, and one of the people from Brisbane, a guy named Karl, said he could host me, but only for one night. When I arrived at the Brisbane airport I took a ($14!) shuttle to the central transit center and then hopped on a train to Karl’s suburb. It wasn’t until about 10:15 that I arrived, but the walk to Karl’s house (he had given me directions) was only about .5 km from the station, so it was no problem. Our interaction was brief, as he had to do a bit more work and then go to bed (in order to get up early and go to med school), but he seemed very nice and offered to give me a lift into the city when he went the next morning, which I accepted.

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3/4, Thursday

Random building in Brisbane

I woke up at about 7 am in order to be ready to drive with Karl into Brisbane. He dropped me off near QueenStreet Mall, where there is an info center, and, after balking at the prices of hostels ($25-35 instead of the $19-22 I had paid so far) I decided on a fairly far away one called The Bunk. The day was warm and humid, and I had developed a sweaty sheen by the time I finished the invigorating walk to the hostel. Just as well, since my exercise level has been incredibly slack – my laxity towards my workout regime surprises even me, although I did go for a short run on the morning of my flight. I checked into the hostel, which seemed nice enough and was huge. Then i set off, crappy map in hand (it’s really hard to get a decent free map; I guess that makes sense since map companies would go out of business if you could), towards downtown.

Brisbane is, overall a distinctly unremarkable city. That is not to say that it has no redeeming features – it does, namely the South Bank, which I shall discuss later – but it has none of the grandeur of Sydney or personality of Melbourne. Early in my day I visited the Museum. It was overwhelmingly underwhelming, reminiscent, I imagine, of the sorts of museums that I probably visited as a child. It was an early-90s museum with tags printed on white paper standing beside stuffed birds to indicate their common and scientific names. The small area dedicated to Aborigines added nothing to the impressions I had drawn from other exhibitions in other museums, and approached the subject with the impersonality one might expect of a somewhat conventional white male curator in the 1990s.  Having trotted though the (thankfully free) museum in a half hour or so, I set off to the Queensland State Library, which occupies an adjacent plot on the south side of the Brisbane River.

Stuffed Cane Toad in the museum; they're huge!

Brisbane, unlike most Australian cities, is not directly on the coast.  It isn’t far, mind you, but it is not a coastal city the way Sydney or Melbourne is. Instead, it is situated on the Brisbane River, which snakes its way through, bisecting the city. On the north bank is the CBD, the Botanic Gardens (pretty), the Roma Street Parkland (really pretty!), and the small Chinatown area (where my hostel was located).  Opposite, along one section of the south side of the river, is the aptly named South Bank, a beautiful and inspired amalgamation of eateries, water features, cultural sites, and family-friendly green spaces.

Queensland State Library

The museum and State Library stand at one end in what is called the Cultural Centre, which also contains a couple of art galleries. The library was one of my favorites of Australia so far. An open atrium four stories tall stood at the center, with glass and shiny white walls.  On one side was a public access area with (free) wireless internet and some public computers. Opposite was the entrance to the main parts of the library, where you had to relinquish large bags to enter the stacks. The interior was pretty ordinary, but very clean and in good condition, and the architecture and general feel of the place was wonderful in a new, modern sort of way (as opposed to a Vassar College Library/Hogwarts castle-like way).

After visiting the library I strolled down past the Exhibition Centre, which had an exhibition on called “Sexpo.” I thought of going in, but at $25 for something of which I didn’t really know the content (perhaps it was minimally cerebral and educationally eye-opening, perhaps lewd and degrading), I kept walking. Passing a large cinema complex, I remembered that it was the opening day of Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland (in 3D). The movie was a bit pricey, but no more so than I would have expected for comfortable seats, an extra-large screen, and 3D. My first experience with 3D was awesome! At first I didn’t really get it. The first few frames seemed little different than a normal movie, but then one shot demonstrated the effect particularly vividly and I was hooked. This movie, unlike the Melbourne Museum, was proudly and whole-heartedly up-to-date. The story and script were engaging enough; it has been a long time since I’ve read the book. The 3D was amazing, and the CGI blended more seamlessly with the live-action than I think any movie I have ever seen.

Walkway

When the movie let out, I wandered through a bit more of the South Bank, this time taking the path that meandered under an archway of climbing vines sporting fuschia flowers. I passed Brisbane’s famous (although not that famous because I hadn’t heard of it until I was reading up about Brisbane in preparation for going) mid-city beach. Essentially, only a few meters from the muddy fiver on the South Bank sits a man-made pond (as clear, and I believe chlorinated as a pool) surrounded by a sand beach. The lot is flanked by palm trees and features a lifeguard in one of those tall red chairs. People bask on the sand beach or run into the water and dive into the gradually deepening water that is surprisingly reminiscent of a real beach (minus the salt and waves, of course). After I had given most of the South Bank a cursory lap I headed back to the library, where I spent an annoyingly long time trying to figure out what I would do for my last week in Australia.

I then returned to the hostel, where it seemed like the whole population of the hostel (and a significant number of locals) were crowded into the small bar. I retired to my room after fixing myself dinner, and managed to fall asleep through the noise of three or four conversations. When I get back to Kaptain’s it will be wonderful (among many things) to have my own room for a night.