Lest We Forget

(steve)

Beware! Serious history lesson below. Proceed with caution.

April 25th was ANZAC day here in Australia. A day to remember and honour the past and present members of Australia's armed forces. The original ANZACs (Australia and New Zealand Army Corps) were a combined force of Aussies and Kiwis put together to fight in World War I against the Ottomans. The force landed at Gallipoli along the portion of present day Turkey known as the Dardanelles. Unfortunately, the Turks were prepared and a seige resulted. After a brutal 8 months, the ANZACs were evacuated after losing over 8000 soldiers. Even though defeated, the ANZAC action was significant to Australia since the country had only had an independent federal government for 14 days prior to departure (previously directly ruled from the UK). Naturally, the Aussies took immense pride in their first serious entry into world politics. A good movie called Gallipoli (starring an '80s pre-nutjob Mel Gibson) tells the story beautifully, including a powerful Private Ryan-esqe ending.



Naturally, ANZAC day is a national holiday, so we took the day off. Our commemoration consisted of walking downtown to watch the ANZAC parade. The parade marchers were made up of representatives of active or retired military units with a liberal dose of local marching bands in between. We saw WWII, Korea, Vietnam, various UN missions, Afgan, and Gulf War I and II vets marching proudly together. Before the parade, organizers gave out Aussie flags to everyone along the route, and we were offered sprigs of rosemary by a nice man standing next to us. Upon inquiry, no one provided a satisfactory explanation for the rosemary, offering only "it's tradition." A quick internet search found that rosemary is traditionally known as a symbol of remembrance and, of direct significance to ANZACs, found to grow all over the Gallipoli peninsula. Two prominent parade members were riderless horses ("Lone Chargers") with boots reversed in stirrups to honor Boer War and WWI vets posthumously. Within the band ranks were a large number of bagpipes, and the boys from Homebush Boys High (still makes us laugh). We must have heard Waltzing Matilda played 10 times. The parade route ended at the ANZAC memorial in Hyde Park.



We watched the parade for more than 3 hours, and finally left when we couldn't feel our feet (yet before the marching was complete). There were other significant events, held nationwide, like wreath ceremonies and services. To cap off our ANZAC day commemoration we walked to a pub like all good Aussies to watch rugby and drink beer.

Wandering Around Sydney

(steve)

We spent the weekend wandering around Syndey some more. Two of the best stops were the Sydney Aquarium and Hyde Park. At the Aquarium we got a chance to see one of the creatures we couldn't find in Tasmania, the wily platypus.



We both think that the platypus is about the cutest animal ever. Only about 12 inches long, they were great to watch swimming around the logs, stopping for a scratch every chance they got. They blow bubbles for fun too. Luckily, we'll get the chance to look for them again later in a National Park by Brisbane.



There were plenty of other interesting animals including the Saltwater crocs (Salties) and Leafy Sea Dragons (only found in Oz and New Zealand). There was also an introduction to the Great Barrier Reef with a huge tank of assorted colorful fish and corals. Looking at the display made me pretty excited to strap on the tanks and go for a swim.



After the Aquarium, we took a walk through Hyde Park. Hyde Park is the oldest municipal park in Sydney located just adjacent to the Botanical Gardens. The park is home to a really nice fountain and the ANZAC memorial. Inside the park, there was an exhibition of photos from the Sydney Herald highlighting significant events of the past 175 years of publication. There were some amazing photos, including some world famous pics, like the Munich Olympics hostage crisis.



During our visit, there happened to be a flock of lorikeets (zoom the photo, they're difficult to photo since they're small and don't sit still long) buzzing around the trees. They are beautifully colored birds that look like small parrots and are just as loud. They fly around the city all day, although most of the time you can hear them but not see them. Also in the park that day was an example of an Australian White Ibis. These water birds are very common in the parks, where they beg for food next to pigeons and gulls (curiously spending very little time in the water). The other noticable birds around town are the sulpur-crested cockatoos. We watched a flock of them tear apart a tree to eat the berries. It's much easier to tear off the entire limb than individual berries after all. They are pretty to look at, but boy are they obnoxious to listen to. They seem to fly around in the late afternoon (sometimes in flocks of 20-30). Sydney's bird life (and bats!) is pretty different than the standard bluejay, robin, sparrow assortment found in most US cities.

For the boys out there: I have to say that I have been decidedly disappointed by Aussie beer. So far I've tasted a lot of Budwieser-esqe grog (Boags, Cascade, Toohey's New, VB, etc.) that I'm not going to routinely pay $6/pint for. Not much in the way of micro-brew here either. I did find a Belgian bar serving nice imported beer, but $9/pint is also unacceptable. Luckily, we have a local bar (the world famous Glasgow Arms) that provides $2.5 pints for residents of our building, so I'm not completely on the wagon. I might just have to drink wine for the rest of the trip. New Zealand is winning this competition hands down.

Back in the Saddle Again

(karen)
We've been in Sydney now for over two weeks, which is the longest we've been anywhere since leaving our old house in Los Angeles. In a way I'm finally fulfilling my dream of being a foreign exchange student (except for all the ways in which I'm obviously not). Travelling to Australia / New Zealand has not been very different at all from being at home in the USA. There are superficial differences like the accent and the wildlife, but apart from that it seems like we ex-colonial folk are all peas in a big pod. I wouldn't have minded being challenged culturally, to think outside the proverbial box, but we will save that for another trip. South America, perhaps? Thailand? In the meantime we are dutifully exploring our home away from home for the next six weeks, as well as finding our new routine for daily life in the city.

Before I left I wrote to a few people at the University of Sydney asking if I could help out in their labs for a few weeks while I was in town. The Australian Center for Field Robotic (ACFR) took pity on a wandering engineer and agreed to let me work with them on their picosatellite project. This is a really interesting project for the students to work on since it will be a full working satellite with all the fixins'. And they do mean pico: it has to fit within a 10cm cube and weigh less than a kilogram. For perspective, it's essentially the size of a coffee mug. I've been busy trying to relearn all the things I forgot during my University schooling 5 years ago, like how to read an electrical circuit diagram, calculating radiative heat transfer, remembering how the attitude determination and control subsytem works, etc. It's all so daunting. I've fallen into my old habits and started setting up a schedule and budget for the project. Curse you Boeing, you've turned me into a bureaucrat. If you are interested in learning a little more about the project go to the CASsat website.

We've been feeling a little lazy after four months of gluttony and little exercise so one of the first things we did in Sydney was get a membership at the Victoria Park Pool, right by the University. The water tastes funny and there are clumps of hair floating like portuguese man-o-war, but at least we're getting the blood flowing again. That's good because it justifies going out and eating all the wonderful food Sydney has to offer. We're making an effort to enjoy as many restaurants as we can in the time we have. So far we've had divine Chinese Noodles in China Town, fish'n'chips at Manly Beach, Thai food in Newtown, and a delightful Sunday brunch in Surry Hills. Pub-wise it's been pretty tame. All the people in the Sleeping with the Enemy housing program get cheap drinks at a place down the street called the Glasgow Arms, which has Budweiser-esque selection but at least it's good company. We've made friends with our housemates and are starting to get introduced to the crowd. Everyone seems to be from Ireland or towns in Northern England, which means they love their pints, are passionate about soccer, and at times are completely unintelligable. Pretty fun so far.

That's our life in general thus far. More anecdotes to follow in the coming weeks. Happy ANZAC Day, everyone!

Welcome to Sydney

(steve)

After long last, we can relax and unpack the bags for more than a night. We have arrived in Sydney. After a crazy drive from the airport to our hostel (our insane driver sent us both looking desparately for non-existent seatbelts in the rickety van), we dropped our bags and looked at each other with a "now what" expression. Used to having a tight schedule with loads of preparation, we were faced with 6 weeks of undefined time. This was a trifle unsettling since we hadn't stayed for more than 4 days in one place since leaving.



First up, place to live. We ended up using a service called Sleeping with the Enemy that provides long-term hostel stays. We pay weekly for our own room and share kitchen and bath facilities with 6 others. The building is in a part of town called Ultimo, which is convenient to the city (~20 min walk) and the Uni (~20 min walk) as well as loads of pubs and restaurants.



After making contact with our University of Sydney counterparts, we found ourselves with places to sit and think (for me) and work on pico-satellite design (for Karen). With the essentials taken care of it was time to hit the town. Wouldn't you know it, two days after we arrived brought us to the Easter holidays, meaning we get a 4 day weekend (since everyone else was off, why not us too!). Might as well use them to get familiar with the city.



We toured around the city, visiting spots like Darling Harbour, Chinatown, the Botanical Gardens, the Rocks, the Harbour Bridge, the Opera House, and Glebe. Within the Botanical Gardens we found an unexpected treat, a huge colony of grey-headed flying foxes (to us they were great big hairy bats!). They were hanging in all the treetops, chittering at each other. Every once in a while one would fly around, showing off just how big they really are. Don't want to meet up with one in a dark alley some night. The rest of the Garden was nice, showing good views of the surrounding harbour. We also visited a couple of weekend markets where we found some cheap clothes (Glebe) and a lot of touristy knick-knacks (the Rocks).



On the last day we took the ferry to the beach town of Manly. This is the north bay version of the famous Bondi beach, where we had to do a little body surfing and tan (locals call it sunbaking) with the rest of the crowd. The water was warmer than LA, colder than Florida, but nice and refreshing. Didn't see any evidence of nasty sharks either.



Now that Easter is past, we grudgingly head to the Uni to start our psuedo-work. Our Sydney stay is off to a good start and soon we'll know our way around just like locals.

Tassie Strikes Back

(steve)

Tasmania has a reputation for beautiful wilderness, loads of wild life, and wacky weather (as well as a few jokes about locals reminiscent of those told about West Virginians). We found it all to be true (except the jokes). After surviving our travel day from hell, we found the city of Launceston to be charming. Coming from New Zealand, the eucalyptus forest was very different and reminded us a bit of southern California. The people were extremely friendly and we received plenty of helpful advice about our upcoming walk. For instance, we walked into the local weather service office and received a forecast from the local weatherman directly at his desk (more about weather later). Strangely, a walk through the city park led us to find an enclosure full of Japanese monkeys. The signage stated plainly, "these animals were found to be easy to care for and survive the climate of Tasmania." Ok.



After two days wandering, we hopped the bus to Cradle Mountain to start our final planned walk, the Overland Track. This walk is celebrated as one of the best in Australia. Located in the heart of a World Heritage Listed National Park, the track wound through a variety of forest climates with numerous mountain lakes and lots of wildlife. Highlights for us included meeting wallabies, wombats, paddymelons, currawongs, green rosellas, kookaburras, and a number of Aussies to play with. We did not get any glimpses of platypus, echidnas, or Tassie devils due to bad luck, and more importantly to the other major factor on this walk, the weather.

More about the weather: Our visit to the weatherman in Launceston provided our first hint of the uncontrollable beast that is Tassie weather. His prediction showed a series of cold fronts (direct from Antarctica) hitting the island throughout our entire scheduled walking time. With a small smile he said, "as long as you are below 800 metres elevation you should be ok." Later verficiation showed the entire track is above 800 metres with a max over 1200. We decided to go for it anyways and rely on our New Zealand training to bring us through.



The first two days ended being all right, with small rain showers late in the day when our serious walking was complete. The last four days were a different story. We ended up with a series of snow and rain storms that lasted throughout the day. We wore just about all of our clothing during those walks and managed to stay warm enough, but not really dry (remember Karen's jacket). The afternoons and evenings were filled with arriving in the huts to hang up sopping socks and coats. With the people and fire burning the temp reached a balmy 10 C (~50 F) inside. The huts were claustrophobic since most were built to house 20 uncomfortably and we walked with at least that many every day. There were plenty of camp sites and people carrying tents (including us), but no one seemed very keen on sleeping out in the snowstorm. Inside the hut, nothing ever got completely dry, so the next morning meant cold, wet socks to go inside cold, wet boots. By the end of the trip, we got used to seeing each others breath inside and never being truly warm. Due to the inclement weather, we didn't see much wildlife after the first two days (other than the occasional miserable looking wallaby or paddymelon in the rain/snow). In fact, we didn't get to see much in general since the clouds were low and we spent most of our walking time looking down to avoid falling on slippery roots/rocks or falling in bogs (not always successful). There weren't many photos either, since that required finger dexterity. Our conclusion on the bus to Hobart was that we are much tougher than before we started this adventure and all future walks will have to be compared to this one for weather difficulty.



Hobart made us feel much better. Funny enough, the weather cleared as soon as we got on the bus. We spent three wonderful days in Hobart and came away with a really good feeling. More wine and cheese tasting, a nice drive through the countryside, and a great night out with a local couple we met on the walk cure all. Tassie struck back, but we still loved it and would really like to go back for some more.

Ever have one of those days?

(karen)
G'day kids. Just like to share with you what has probably been our most frustrating travel day ever. You know, one of those experiences that sucks at the time but in restrospect makes great blog fodder. It goes a little something like this:

1] Wake up at 4:30 and drive to the airport. Drop me off with all the luggage while Steve goes to the rental company to return the car. But of course the courtesy shuttle don't run this early in the morning so Steve has to run over 2km back to the airport

2] Get in the check-in line behind 100 Koreans on a tour group. Shuffle slowly toward the counter.

3] Get told at the counter that they don't offer plastic bags for our backpacks, but if we'd like, the store across the terminal will do it for $8 a bag. We go, they charge us $10 a bag.

4] Get on the plane, all is well. Get to watch Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.

5] As we approach Sydney, are told by the flight staff that local time is 9:30am. Which is really funny because according to our flight itinerary, we were supposed to land at 8:30am (thus allowing us plenty of time to catch our connection to Tasmania). We find out later that due to the Commonwealth games, which were held in Australia this year, they have postponed daylight savings time by a couple of weeks. Splendid.

6] We arrive at the gate and everyone gets up but no one gets off. Flight staff announces that due to a power outage in the Internation terminal they are unable to fully extend the gangway to the plane. Apparently there is a 6" gap.

7] Power comes back on, 6" gap is bridged and we disembark.

8] Power is off again and the Customs computers are down. Any hopes of catching our connecting flight are dwindling.

9] Customs computers back on; wait in line behind 100 Koreans on a tour group.

10] Baggage system is down. Wait an hour before getting our plastic wrapped bags. We have officially missed our connection.

11] Try to get the shuttle bus to the Domestic Terminal, are told that is costs $4.50 per person. You are #$%&@$* kidding me. Have to go back inside and get some money out to pay for the damned shuttle.

12] Nice people at the Virgin Blue counter are sympathetic to our plight and don't charge us to get on a new flight. Of course, we first have to wait seven hours, then fly to Melbourne, and then fly to Launceston, Tasmania.

13] Wait seven hours. Are told that the plane will be delayed at least half an hour. We have only 15 minutes between connections.

14] Are assured that it is actually the same flight from Sydney to Melbourne, then from Melbourne to Tasmania so no worries about missing another connection. But it's still delayed.

15] Flight finally leaves, and we arrive in Tasmania at 11:30pm (which feels like 2:30am since we're on Auckland time). My eyes feel like they have sand in them.

16] Nice lady from the hostel picks us up at the airport, 10 hours late, and drives us to our home for the next three nights. And we slept, oh, how we slept!

Northland in a Blur

(steve)

Got to catch up, got to catch up... We've been on the go with little time to spend on the computer in the past two weeks. It seems our little April Fool's post was warmly received though.

Our last week in New Zealand was spent in a whirlwind tour of the Northland peninsula and a few days in Auckland. First stop: the resort town of Bay of Islands & Whaitangi. This is the area where the Maori and English settlers ended up signing the controversial Treaty of Whaitangi that provided the basis for modern relations between the groups. Now, the town serves as a popular holiday spot for weary Aucklanders. Our weather luck came to an end with our arrival in Northland. The remnants of a tropical depression set in and proceeded to douse us with continual rain for the duration. The most interesting part of this visit was the Treaty house, that detailed the history of Maori/English relations during the Treaty signing. The rain also drove us to do more local wine and chocolate tasting. We survived somehow...




The second stop was Cape Reinga and the Kauri coast. We drove up to the Cape Reinga lighthouse at the tip of the North Island. This spot is sacred in Maori legend as the place where dead souls depart. We were treated to our only bit of sunshine the entire drive here. The sea was spectacular. Pacific meets Tasman, creating lots of turbulent waves.



The ride back down the coast included a stop at the large sand dunes near ninety mile beach. We were treated to a free session of "micro-dermabrasion" by the gentle ocean breeze (~30 mph). I think I still have sand stuck a few places.




Continuing down the coast, we stopped to visit the largest Kauri tree in the country known as Tane Mahuta. Think giant sequoia (that there General Sherman tree for instance) for scale comparison. It was majestic to behold with loads of smaller plants growing along the limbs.



The final night on the drive, at a small town called Dargaville, was highlighted by a cute doggie named Jack that loved to retrieve rocks.



Our final days in New Zealand were spent in Auckland. It was nice to see the city with some life after our first visit coincided with New Years (i.e. public hangover recovery day). Shops were open, people were walking around, traffic on the streets. Much better than the seeming ghosttown we saw the first time. We went to some new places like Waiheke Island and the Sky Tower to round out our experience.



Our day at Waiheke Island was eventful. Short synopsis follows. Steve buys day passes for bus system after being told they work on the island. Uneventful ferry ride. Bus passes not valid on island. Decide to walk to town for lunch. Lunch on beautiful beach. Decide to walk to wineries for tasting. Walk 7 km to wineries. Find out tasting costs $15 for 3 wines. Snort outrageously. Walk 20 minutes to next winery. Tasting costs $20 for 3 wines. Laugh at poor girl. Ask if all Waiheke wineries try to discourage people from tasting. Response: yes. Walk 7 km back to town. Officially tab Waiheke Island, "Wine Scam." The day was salvaged by a tasty meal of fish n'chips and kebabs. Our last meal in New Zealand.





Tomorrow it's off to the airport for our trip to Tasmania. Three months have whipped by and we have seen a lot of good stuff. Final drive tally: over 2000 km. Final walking tally: over 450 km. It's safe to say we've gotten our monies worth and feel like we have a true appreciation for Kiwi culture and landscape. We loved every minute and would do it again.