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Email that Erin has sent... | |
| May 27 |
I am not dead (yet)
Okay, okay, okay. I know I haven't written in a while and maybe some of you thought (or hoped) that I was dead, but the world is still a perfect place because I am still in it!!! On our way to Adelaide we stopped in Hall's Gap where the cars transmission stopped working and we had to reverse (the only gear that worked) the car into the town's only petrol station. We got it towed to the next town and bought a brand new second hand transmission, 3 tires and some oil for $500 and headed on our way. We stayed overnight in Adelaide and then headed North up the Stuart highway into hell, I mean, the outback. Hot. Very hot and red, very red. And flat, very flat. That pretty much sums up the scenery for the next 3 days. Red flat earth and a blazing sun. It was quite beautiful all the same. The sunrises and sunsets were breathtaking and almost made you forget about the mindnumbing flatness and unwavering sun during the day. It was really something to travel through the centre and kind of scary. There are all kinds of stories (most of them true) about tourists going into the outback and never coming out. Tales of dehydrated bodies found miles away from their broken down vehicles carrying full bottles of water. Or the English couple who got 200km north of Alice Springs before being stopped by a guy in a Yute who abducted them, tied them up and took them away. The girl escaped but her boyfriend was probably killed (no one has seen him since). You also have plenty of time to think in the car and reflect that you don't know a bloody thing about 3 of the passengers travelling with you and it would take weeks before someone figured out if you were missing. But we had plenty of water, extra petrol, good tunes and faith in our fellow human beings and we are all here in Darwin. The trip was definately different from anything we had done so far. We often just pulled off the highway to sleep by the side of the road, cooked on an open fire and got used to not using toilets or showering (which isn't pleasant with 5 of you in a car with no airconditioning when its plus 35 outside). It was really neat though. At night you could hear the dingos howling across the outback and the 52 meter roadtrains thundering past on the highway. The sunrises and sunsets spread across the entire sky in the most amazing colours and swirls and turned the soil even a deeper red. By the end of the trip everything we owned was tinged the same reddish hue. Coober Pedy was our first big stop and is a very flat, red, dusty town. It is the 'opal mining capitol of the world' and the land for miles around it has been mined extensively. We headed out to the mounds of sand and did some noodling (mining for opals with a spade and strainer-thing). We stayed in an underground hostel which was pretty cool and took in the minimal sights of Coober Pedy. One night Erik and I went on a star gazing tour which was really cool and we are now 'experts' on the southern sky. I can find a few planets, my star sign (leo), the south pole and a bunch of other landmarks in the sky. One notable thing about Coober Pedy is that it has been used in a few movies because of the harshness of the land. Check out "Pitch Black", "Mad Max 3" and "Pricilla Queen of the Desert" if you are interested. "Pitch Black" is pretty good, but it is no "Aliens" so don't get your hopes up. Ofcourse we went to Uluru (Ayers Rock), Kata Tjuta (the Olgas) and Kings Canyon. These are all remarkable sights to see and anything I say can not possibly do them justice. I will just say that I went there thinking that they would be "pretty neat" and all that and went away awe-struck by the enormity of these structures, their beauty and sense of history. I did not climb Uluru because it is a very sacred place to the aboriginals and they urge you not to climb it. Instead Erik and I (and the others) did the 10km base walk around the rock. Uluru took my breath away -you really have to see it for yourself. At Kata Tjuta we did the 7 km walk through the valley and saw some lovely sights - and the biggest bumble bee I have ever seen. Kimmy told me that they have even bigger ones in Japan. Now I have to go to Japan to see these bees for myself. The walk along the ridge of Kings Canyon and into the valley of Eden was my favourite of the three and led to a natural water pool where you could swim. Lovely. Next we hit Alice Springs and spent a couple of days there. Checked out the market and downtown area. There isn't much to Alice. Just a big town, lots of Aboriginals so there was a lot of beautiful aboriginal artwork but not much else. From Alice we headed to the West MacDonnal ranges and spent a couple of days checking out some terrific gorges, a couple of short bushwalks and a watering hole or two. The next big stop was Katherine and the Katherine gorge is wonderful. We rented canoes for half a day and canoed though the gorges stopping for a swim here and there and took a look for freshwater crocs (didn't see any though). One of my favourite days in Australia - peaceful and beautiful and not weird bug in sight. That takes us up to Darwin. Erik and the English blokes took some clippers to their heads and now have very short hair. I didn't. Matt flew back to England and Duncan sold us his car for $300 and flew off to Perth. Kimmy is still with us and the three of us went to Kakadu and Litchfield together. This is already a very long email so I will tell you about Darwin and the area next time.
I hope everyone is doing great and having a marvelous spring. |
| March 30 |
Happy Easter Hi Everyone! I know this update is long overdue, but you will have to forgive me - I've just been too busy picking apples, all day, everyday. As most of you already know Erik and I have pursued our dreams of liberating apples. This is not as exciting or emotionally fulfilling as you all may think. It is actually back-breaking hard work, not to mention terribly tedious. Long hours in the blistering sun (after near-freezing mornings) struggling up and down tall metal ladders carrying about 25 kilos of apples and making $24 AUS per bin -which is then sold for $700-$1000 AUS by the company (sounds fair to me). Our record to date is 8 bins in 9hours. We also no longer have names - we are known as pickers #35 and #38. It could be worse though- I could fall off my ladder like Erik. We will probably be doing this for a couple of more weeks and then head off to Alice Springs, Ayers Rock and eventually Darwin. Aside from the apple picking Tasmania is amazing. Such a beautiful place and really overlooked. Statistically only about 3% of backpackers go to Tassie, most of the travellers we have met have been older Australians from the mainland. I feel very lucky that I got to come here and I recommend it to anyone planning on spending any time in Australia. About a quarter of the state (island) is a World Heritage area protected because of the amazing forests. The forests, mountains, lakes and rivers are breathtaking and virtually untouched. I imagine that Jasper and Banff would have been like this about 50 years ago before the tourists started running around. I hope Tasmania never gets like that, it would be a real shame. We flew into Hobart and spent 4 days getting aquainted with the city (which I must say is the prettiest city I have ever seen) and figuring out how we would tackle the island. We decided to rent a car for 14 days and tour around by ourselves. We proceded to rent a 1975 (great year) orange VW beetle. We named her Matilda and she was great (except for the amount of petrol that she consumed). It took us a few days to get used to driving on the left and shifting with the left hand. I hadn't driven a standard in years and neither had Erik so the driving wasn't always as smooth as we would have liked but now we are excellent lefthanded drivers (well, atleast we are still alive). We started off at MT Wellington which is just outside of Hobart and overlooks the city. The view was terrific and the wind was crazy. The mountain is quite high and gets the breeze off of the ocean straight from the antarctic so it was very, very cold. Next we headed along the south west coast enjoying the sights and stopping at the various attractions along the way (all built by convicts I might add). We ended off the day with a 1.5 hour hike to snug falls. This was a lovely walk to a cute waterfall- nothing too exciting but a great way to end off a day of (bad) driving. We were the only ones on the trail and you felt as though there was no one around for miles and miles - a nice experience. We spent the first night in Huonville in the premier apple growing district. The next day we started with a trip to the National tree reserve and tree airwalk. It was great. The trees here are so big (height and width) and lush as well. The tree reserve we went to had several short walks on the drive down to the airwalk and we stopped and did them all. The airwalk was similar to the one in WA, but different trees. The specialty here in Tasmania (and specifically the south west corner) is Huon pine. The huon pine is found only here in Tasmania. It is lovely wood ideal for building ships, atleast that's what I am told, but then what the hell do I know about trees, wood and boats? It could be used to make toothpicks for all I know. Anyways - it was a great walk and the forest was breathtaking, literally, I could not get enough of the fresh, clean air. After the forest reserve we continued our drive down to the the Southport which is down near the south west corner. Southport itself doesn't have much to offer, but we went to the thermal springs that had even less. The thermal springs were a huge rip off (and I only paid $4 to get in). I was expecting something along the lines of Miat or Radium and it was only a luke warm swimming pool Sketchy at best. We spent the night in Dover which had the best accomodation I have seen in 5 months and cost us $14 a piece we also had our first Devonshire tea at the Jam factory nearby. Devonshire tea is the best - I would have it everyday if I could. The next day we headed up the mid west through the valley in central Tasmania and into the Lake St. Clair area. This is a terrific park and is part of the 7 day Overland hike that is very popular (comparible to Canada's west coast trail.) We did a couple of walks in the park - one which was an aboriginal walk that had some info on the aboriginees in Tasmania. The last remaining Aboriginees were captured in this area before being removed from Tasmania. We saw a snake and some wallaby type creatures and a couple of echydnas which were pretty neat. We were hoping to catch a glimpse of a Platypus or Tasmanian Devil but no luck! We spent the night in Queenstown outside of the park. Queenstown is the ugliest place I have ever been. It used to be a mining town and all of the land for about 20 km surrounding it has been cleared for timber and mining. The town is now very poor and trying to get into the tourist trade. The result is a bunch of aluminium sheds with garbage all around and boarded up windows next to a lovely restored buildings. Erik and I were both awestruck by the ugliness of the place. Even the locals were strange - they kept staring at us "outsiders"and when we checked into the caravan park the police were there checking up on some crook who swindled something and took off. Personally I think that the town is an experiment on inbreeding. The next day we did the 3 hour steam engine tour through the forest to check out a couple of gemstone mines and a gold mine. It was pretty neat and the train was supercool. A real steam train chugging along with the whistle and everything. When we got to the last stop before we headed back I got to see them switch the train around and get ready for the return trip. I should have brought my dad's train hat - then I would have been extra cool. Strahn was our next stop and is a port town on the west coast. Really lovely area and we took a World Heritage boat cruise through the harbour to Hell's Gates, down the river to a rainforest walk and then to a penal island where we got a tour of an old island prison. The island prison tour was my favourite part - the guides were actors and did a really great job. All in all an enjoyable day. We then headed up to Tasmania's famous Cradle mountain (the other end of the Overland track). We stayed at the park there and did some more great bushwalks. We saw a bunch of wildlife (although still no tasmanian devil or platypus) and a lot of great scenery. That night as the bunk hostel we got a good look at all of the night wildlife including a huge moth. It was the biggest moth Erik and I had ever seen. HUGE. Trust me, Erik was a little nervous. I didn't freak out but I didn't go to the bathroom for the whole entire night - and most of you know that with my teeny-tiny bladder that is a huge thing. I would rather have wet the bed than gone into the dark alone with that thing. All righty then. After Cradle mountain we headed up to the north and west again to Stanley. Stanley's claim to fame is - surprise surprise - a big rock. I must admit, the rock was pretty cool. It is similar to Ayers rock but smaller, on the coast and not as big a deal. The highlight of my stay in Stanley was the bar where we spent the night (the hostel was full so we got a room at the old hotel). It started off with a beautiful steak (Erik and I treated ourselves to a good dinner). Then we went to the bar with some people we met who were on a tour of the island. I learnt how to play darts and wasn't too bad either. At the end of the night after Erik went to bed (lightweight) I stayed to finish a game of pool with this Aussie guy. The bartender locked up the bar came over to me and this guy and said that now was the time of night when he was finished bartending so if we wanted anymore drinks I had to get them. That's right! I got to be bartender dishing out free drinks for the three of us. Then the bartender took us into the cellar and showed us the building's foundation and store rooms (which were obviously built by convicts). We came back up and I bartended some more and then off to bed where I had to wake up Erik and tell him about my adventure and free drinking (he was really happy that I woke him up ofcourse). The next day we headed off east to Deloraine. We stayed here for a couple of days and went to a honey farm, a wet cave tour and a wildlife park where we finally saw tasmanian devils (but no platypus - I don't think they actually exist). The wildlife park was really neat and I took about 20 pictures. I even took a couple of more Koala pictures because I didn't have enough already. The best part of the wildlife park was that we got to pet a koala bear and hold a wombat. The wombat is now one of my favourite animals. On a side note - the wildlife park has koalas even though they are not native to Tasmania. This is because there is a huge chlamydia problem amoung the mainland koalas so they are breeding chlamydia free koalas to take to the mainland. Erik and I were the only two on the tour that thought the whole chlamydia-koala thing was a bit weird. The hostel we stayed in was pretty good because there was a walking club from Circular Head there to do one of the day walks. The club was all older peope (no one under 50 - but 50 isn't old dad, really it's not) and the ladies kept stuffing home made cookies down our throats. Very tasty. We picked up a girl from Dauphin (home of the infamous Ukranian festival) at the hostel and she came with us to Coles Bay. On our way we stopped at Ross - a heritage town and saw a bridge (built by convicts). We also went to a wool museum and I bought a new wooden crochet hook and some wool to start an afghan. Australian wool is very nice but their knitting patterns are nothing special - the same as the ones back home. I was hoping for something different to send home to my mom. On that note DMC floss is anywhere from $.93 to $1.27 AUS per unit- unbelievable! For the rest of the afternoon we wine-toured our way down to Coles Bay. I drove and Erik and Chantal (Dauphin girl) drank. I have yet to acquire a taste for wine, but I do really enjoy vegimite and will be bringing some back with me. Coles Bay was pretty terrific. We spent a couple of days there and did a couple of hikes to wineglass bay and MT Amos with Chantal and a couple of Australians we met (Carmel and Daniel who will make us dinner if we call them when we get back to Melbourne - can't say no to charity, can you?). Very beautiful hikes, the view from Mt. Amos was outstanding and one of the best I have ever seen. The whole stay there was quite relaxing. We finished off our island tour at Port Arthur on the Tasman pennisula. Port Arthur is Tasmania's (and maybe even Australia's) biggest convict attraction. Erik and I went there thinking "yeah, yeah another convict attraction blah, blah, blah" but really it was pretty amazing. The site was huge and most of the buildings intact. They had a terrific museum and a pretty spiffy harbour cruise that took you around the harbour and neighboring youth convict penninsula and cemetary island. I kind of wish we had had more time there. After Port Arthur we headed back to Hobart, dropped off Matilda and took the bus up to Devonport. So that's the end of this massive email and congrats to anyone (besides my mom and dad) who actually read the whole thing. We have regular email access here so hopefully I will hear from some of you and I promise that my next email will not be so long. Take care everyone and have a great Easter Weekend. Remember, every apple you eat was picked lovingly by hand by some poor, hungry, overworked, underpaid miserable picker. Enjoy! Erin |
| Febuary 8 |
Hello from Freemantle Hi everyone It has been quite a while since I last sent out a message to everyone, but email up the west coast was scarce and expensive. We are back in Freemantle now and will be here for a few more days before we head east. Freo is half an hour south of Perth - a lovely little suburb on the ocean with a couple of museums, art galleries, a free bus (I really like free public transport), an old jail, a whole bunch of little shops and a big market. Our hostel is really nice as well, it just opened up a few weeks ago and is really big, clean and so far there have been no moth sightings and just a couple of flying cockroaches (that seem to be increasing in size). We left Perth exactly a month ago today to head up the west coast. We took the Easyrider tour (or Sleazyrider/easy driver as everyone calls them). We stopped off in Lancelin for 4 nights. Lancelin is only an hour or so north of Perth and is a very small town that's main attraction in windsurfing. We got off the bus with a couple from Wales (Kris and Ben) and we were the only 4 people at the hostel not into wind surfing. Everyone was really nice there, but unless you talked about windsurfing they didn't really have much to say to you. The hostel had such a family like atmosphere that no one ever locked the doors - which is highly unusual and made me pretty nervous. No we didn't try windsurfing (too intimidated by the pros I suspect). We did go on a really great tour though. It was a big yellow school bus with wheels taller than me and is the largest 4 wheel drive in the world. We went out on the sand dunes and it was pretty crazy. Sketchy at best since the only safety measures were velcro seat belts. But we made it - although the bus got bogged and we had to get dug/pulled out. We also go the opportunity to go sandboarding which is, you guessed it - exactly like snowboarding only on sand. They also had sand sleds (which I must admit I excelled at - probably all of my experience at Pimple hill back in Indian Head). There was also the chance to play with boomerangs but alas, I did not do so well at that and wasn't even able to master the children's boomerang (stupid throwing thing in my opinion) Erik didn't have much luck either although he seems to think of himself as a boomerang ninja - ninja my ass... After Lancelin we headed north and stopped off at Geraldton - a large town on the coast. On our way we stopped at the Pinnacles. A very big tourist attraction in Western Australia (although I fail to see why). Basically, it is pretty neat, but it has so much hype that when you get there you can't help but be a little let down. To sum it up the Pinnacles is a very wide open space (sand) with a bunch of rocks sticking out of the sand. I think the rocks are special, but I don't remember why. Anyhow, it looks kind of like a graveyard of rocks. The rocks range is size from 3 feet to 10 feet and are scattered around about 3-6 feet apart. Pretty neat to look at, but I was glad it was included in the tour and we didn't spend $89 on a day tour like most people. We really, really liked Geraldton. The town was nice, friendly and cheap and the hostel was lovely. NO BUNKBEDS - which is a huge huge deal and the first time in 2 months we got to sleep in real beds. We shared a room with Kris and Ben and they had a cd player so we even had music (its the small things in life...). The hostel was right by the water and the windows were open and you could fall asleep to the sounds of waves crashing against the shore and then wake up to the sight of sea lions lounging on the breakwater. Ah - heaven. My favourite part of our stay in Geraldton was the free tour of the rock lobster (crayfish) factory. It was really neat. An hour tour to show you how it is all done, a video a watch. We were shown how to tell the sex of lobsters (will come in handy if I ever decide to breed them), how to sort them, kill them, pack them and love them (OK, maybe not love them, but I did love the tour). I even got to wear a hair net! Did you know that once a lobster leaves the factory it will arrive in Asia, Europe or North America within 30 hours and there is a 90% survival rate? I have a lot more information - email me if you would like to hear more. I also have photos. A close second to the lobster factory was the museum. The museum in Geraldton is the best museum I have ever encountered. It was interesting, interactive and not cluttered (and air conditioning which is always a bonus). The best part was the section on the Batavia - a Dutch ship that left the Netherlands in 1628 to sail to Batavia. It was carrying 300 passengers (sailers, soldiers, women and children). It hit Morning Reef and sunk in 1629. The captain, Paesart and the Master, Jacobsz (spelled something like this) took a few others in a small boat and headed to Batavia. The 250 survivors made it to a bunch of islands (with no fresh water). One of the crewmen, Corneliasz (or something like that) declared himself ruler of the people, sent a bunch of soldiers away to look for water and then slaughtered all of the women, children, sick, injured and unhappy people who were left (about 175 of them) and then attacked the soldiers he had sent away. They defeated him twice and captured Corneliasz. Hayes was the hero. When Paesart came back with a ship to rescue his gold and crew he was alerted to the mutineers by Hayes and apprehended them. He then cut off a bunch of their hands, including Corneliasz' and hung them. He then marooned two young men on the continent and they are believed to be the first white settlers in Australia (although they probably died very shortly). Great story, heh? We also saw the remains of the Batavia at the Freo Maritime museum - another really good museum with lots of boat stuff. The other thing about Geraldton was the old man who owned the used bookstore next to the hostel. Kris and I went in there one day and he blew up at Kris saying how he hated Backpackers, why did we always go to his shop and why don't we do something else why we are here. Kris left and Erik came in ( I hadn't been paying attention and thought that the man was just chatting to Kris). The man then said that he was closing (2pm) and kicked us out. The people at the hostel told us that he does that to all backpackers. Psychopath. We also met a barmaid at the pub who informed us that Pauline Hanson (a racist politician against immigrants) was a wonderful person speaking on behalf of all Austalians that "we don't want none of them orientals and blackies in our Country" She then made a comment about an aboriginal guy that she had been serving "good riddance to that lot" when he left. There are some lovely people here in Australia... After Geraldton we went up an hour and a half to Kalbarri and stayed there for a few days. Kalbarri is kind of like Waskesiu, or Clear Lake and I very much liked it (actually, it seems like I say that about every place we go to in Australia...). The first night in Kalbarri we had a huge fish barbie. There was so much food I could hardly believe it. Aside from Erik, the human garbage disposal, no one was able to even come close to finishing their meals. Erik had extra. A point of interest, Erik is so white that the Austalian cook asked him if he was a vegitarian. No one asked me because I am very tanned! I saw a cockroach at the barbie. It was big. I was brave and stayed to finish my beer. We went out the next morning to 'Nature's window', another one of Australia's many rock attractions. The view was breathtaking though. You look through a window-like opening in a rock and gaze into a gorge. It is the colours that make the view so spectacular - the red of the soil, spotted with green vegetation all underneath a clear blue sky. Very vibrant. We then went down to the gorge and did an hour hike down to the bottom and along the river bank. It was very beautiful, but very hot - over 40 degrees. Back in Kalbarri we went out with Kris and Ben and hired a two-man sailboat for an hour. Ben used to sail in the UK and took us each out and showed us how to steer and stuff. I think I may go professional. We also took a river cruise on this boat where we caught a little bit of the local history, saw some birds (a big bird - some kind of hawk like thing was eating a Pelican at one point. ). We had homemade muffins and instant coffee along the way and then on our way back we stopped on the shore and did a little hike up the hill which gave us a spectacular view of the surrounding area before heading back to the boat for a sausage BBQ. Then back to Kalbarri. A truly lovely day. After Kalbarri we headed off to Denham and spent the night there. On our way we stopped off to see the stromatolites. These aren't much to look at, just some brown rock like things in the ocean, but they are truly amazing. They are the oldest life forms on earth. They were what initially created oxygen so that other creatures could develop. Over 3 billion years old and can only be found at this World wildlife reserve and one other. It was quite humbling to actually see the source of all life. The next morning (very early I must add) we headed off to Monkey Mia to watch the dolphins. You are actually allowed into the water to stand with the dolphins (mainly a hundred or so excited girls). Erik and I just stayed on shore and watched. We made a lot of new friends when I casually mentioned that I thought it was odd how humans decide how to classify animals. Some we worship, some we eat and some are cute. I wondered aloud why we don't eat dolphins since they are so trusting they would be easy to catch. Everyone looked at me in horror. People can be so touchy sometimes. Next it was off to Coral Bay (also known as heaven on earth). This place was perfect. The town was tiny - no bank, just a couple of stores, a bar, caravan park and the hostel. The hostel was brand new and gorgeous with a huge open area and pool. We spent nine days at Coral Bay snorkelling, tanning on the beach, searching for sharks, snuba diving and just general relaxation (like we need it, eh?). The snorkelling was terrific. Ningaloo reef is huge and the closest to the shore. It is anywhere from 10 feet to 200 metres from the shore and stretches pretty much from Coral Bay to Exmouth. We saw, reef sharks, a sea turtle, sting rays, sea cucumbers and gagillions of fish. I can't say enough good things about the snorkelling and I won't even try. If you have never done it -do, if you have done it before-do it some more. We also tried out snuba diving which is like scuba diving but you only do down 6-7 metres and the air tank is in a raft on the water. The guy who took us down gave us sea cucumbers to hold and let us briefly touch some coral. It was lots and lots of fun. An honourable mention goes to the Coral Bay bakery which was fabulous and had great treats for cheap and loads of meat pies and pasties. Loved it. To top it off, this Scottish guy who sounded and even kind of looked like Sean Connery worked there. We ate there every day and are now fat. Thanks alot Sean Connery. It was hard to leave Coral Bay and I would love to go back there some day. Finally we headed up the last leg of our journey to Exmouth. Exmouth is another small town (about the size of Fort Qu'Appelle, I'd say). The main attraction at Exmouth is scuba diving. We haven't done any scuba diving and I don't know if we will. It is qite pricy- about $300 -$400 to certify and then dives usual cost $100 a piece. What do these people think I am- made of money? Exmouth was a nice enough place to stay. The people were friendly, maybe a little strange and sheltered, but nice enough. The one night at the bar, Mayke (a dutch girl) and I were dancing and the locals kept asking our group if we were 'real lesbians'. The group thought this was pretty funny and said yes. The sheltered people of Exmouth then started taking pictures. You can see us at girls!girls!girls!.com (just kidding mom). The hostel at Exmouth was pretty cool, it was actually a caravan park and we stayed in 4 person trailers which each had their own kitchens. Our days there were pretty relaxed - snorkelling, the beach, window shopping downtown (where Erik and I bought new swimmers), swimming in the hostel pool and a trip to the visitor centre where I spent the longest 18 minutes of my life watching this video on the area around Exmouth. The tour lady was so excited when our bus showed up that she practically begged us to watch the film (which I doubt has ever been shown before). No one else came in the half hour we were there. After 9 days in Exmouth we took an express tour back to Perth and scooted over to Freemantle to stay for a few days and get ready to leave the West Coast (very sad...). Whew! It has been a busy month and this was a very long email, I'll try to keep the rest shorter so you don't doze off (although I'm so fascinating that you probably had no trouble wading through this). Take care everyone and enjoy the rest of your winter hahahahahahaha..
Cheers |
| January 4 |
Happy New Year
Happy New Year Everyone! I hope everybody had a fantastic time and have been enjoying the first few days of 2002. Christmas turned out to be better than I thought it would be. Erik got me a tiny coffee maker (plunger pot style) and some coffee so I can survive the rest of the year in a delightful caffeine haze. I got Erik some chocolates and the Bill Bryson book about Australia (which I recommend you all read). Christmas day was spent at a BBQ and pool party at the hostel - a nice relaxed way to spend the day. Obviously, we went to the beach for boxing day. We went to Rottnest Island for a couple of days on the 29th and 30th with some friends from the hostel. We got single-speed bikes and pedalled around the island. The road is almost entirely on the coast and dips out to dozens of little beaches. The island is about 27Km around and took us a good part of the afternoon to cover. We saw a lot of neat wildlife including a few Quokkas, a brown snake, ugly lizard, HUGE winged bug, some circling birds and a lighthouse (yes, I realize that a lighthouse is not wildlife, but I really like lighthouses). Quokkas are pretty neat animals. They are about 30 cm high and have these tiny legs with huge paws. They really do look like rats, cute rats. They look pretty silly when they hop though. We stayed over night in a hostel that was an old army barraks and as soon as the sun went down hundreds of Quokkas came out to feast. I have a sneaking suspision that they are somehow related to vampires... The next day we spent doing a little bit of biking- Erik even tried out water bicycles, and sunning ourselves on the beach. Back in Perth to celebrate New Years. New Years was a blast. We started off with another BBQ at the hostel and then went out to some clubs and stopped by the street party. A lot of laughs were had and the hang over the next day was minimal. On January 1st me and the girls went to Freemantle for lunch and shopping while the guys lurked around the hostel sweating alcohol from their pores. Boys! Yesterday we went to Adventure World just outside of Freemantle. It is a giant outdoor amusement/water park with a pool, lots of grass and tons of rides (wet and dry). We were there from 10 am until 5pm and were the only people over the age of 15 (not counting parents). It was great! On a more serious note I have discovered that the giant (2 inch long) cockroaches in Perth (and our hostel) fly. Seriously. Fly. Fast. And for my head. They seem to have some sort of agreement with the enormous moths to torment me whenever possible. Last night as one of these cockroaches came swooping towards my exposed head I turned to flee, but in my panic I forgot to turn around fully and ended up falling over two chairs and landing on the floor. I swear I saw the cockroach smile when this happened. Tomorrow we head off to finish the rest of the West Coast. We are going to go up to Exmouth and then decide what to do from there, but we are going to take our time and stop off at a bunch of towns along the way. That's all for now. Take care. Erin |
| December 24 |
Merry Christmas Merry Christmas everyone. I just want to wish you all a very Merry Christmas and fabulous New Year. I guess I've gotten a little sentimental in my old age, but I hope everyone appreciates the time they are getting to spend with their family and friends - there's nothing like moving across the world to make you realize how great those times are. Erik and I are both finding this Christmas to be a little lonely, I guess we'll just have to drink a little (lot of) wine, lounge on the beach and enjoy a good BBQ...not too bad of a trade off! It has been a while since I last sent out a big email so this might be a little long. We've been on the West Coast now for about 20 days and it is fantastic. The people are very friendly and the pace is nice and relaxed. We will definately be spending some more time here before heading east. We arrived in Perth after a long, but interesting 30 hour train ride. I have never seen such flat, hot, dry land before in my life (it makes Saskatchewan look like a lush and vibrant rainforest in comparison). When you looked out the window there was absolutely nothing to see for ever and ever (or so it appeared). We didn't even see a road or power lines. We stopped off in a couple of basically nonexistant towns for water and stuff, and the towns themselves were eerily calm and deserted - kind of like the children of the corn. We spent 10 days in Perth just getting aquainted with the city and the hostel and relaxing and such. We did the typical touristy things like the museum and art gallery which were similar to those we had seen before (except for the enormous blue whale skeleton). We spent a couple of days at Cottslie (not sure how you spell it) beach, where I continued my unrelenting pursuit of the perfect tan and spent time frolicking in the ocean. We also spent a day at Freemantle checking out this small oceanside village and picking up fresh fruit and veggies from the market (oh how I love the fresh markets in this country). We have just gotten back from an eight day stint in the south west. I really enjoyed it down there and the weather was a little cooler so that was nice for a change. We went on the EasyRider tour and spent 4 nights in Dunsborough at a terrific little hostel right on the beach. We got to do some whale watching there which was spectacular. We took a boat tour out and the weather was perfect. We saw three blue whales and were very happy with the whole experience. You don't really realize what magnificant animals they are until you see them up close. Ofcourse, you can always look at it as paying $42 to watch an animal breathe for three hours, but that just doesn't sound as good. I spent some time walking around the area along the coastline and the beach and enjoying the swarm of flies that followed me in a haze hoping that I would drop dead on the spot so they could feast on my moist corpse. Erik was smart enou! gh to stay at the hostel. We then moved on to Margaret River stopping to do a little caving along the way -very neat. We spent 2 nights in Margaret River and it was a nice town. Erik went on a bycicle wine tour with a couple of girls he met. They did 5 wineries in 5 hours so they were quite a sight when they returned. I just did some walking around the town and the paths out in the winery areas - very lovely. Then we moved on to Albany. On our way we stopped at this forest to see the tingle trees and do a couple of walks. One through the tree tops on swaying bridge things and one along the bottom. These trees are huge and can get over 61 metres tall. I'm sure that there were Ewoks living in there but I didn't see any. The air is also supposed to be some of the purest in the world. We saw some rock formations, coves and stuff and were pleased with the whole thing. Albany was quite nice and we spent 2 nigh! ts there. We ended up going to some cheesy disco called Heaven the first night so that was good for a laugh. Then we headed back to Perth for Christmas. Basically, a terrific time was had by all. Well, I best be going to the bottle shop to pick up my Christmas supply of wine (yummy! Boxed wine, cheap and cheerful!) and I hope to hear from everyone soon.
Merry Christmas and take care,
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| December 4 |
The West Coast Hi there everyone. Thanks to everyone who has emailed me, its great to hear from you and find out what is going on in your lives and around Edmonton and Canada - we don't get much news here. I just thought I'd do a quick email before we headed off for Perth and the West Coast. We leave on the train at 6:30 tonight (Tuesday the 4th) and get there at 9:30am on Thursday the 6th. It will be a long 30 hours on the train, but I am looking forward to it. we are taking the infamous Indian Pacific...ooh ahhh.
If you've looked at the web page then you know that we have been to the museum and art gallery (I actually really enjoyed the art gallery. I don't think that I have ever been to a real one before. I definately preferred the early art works before the 1920s to todays modern art). We also went through the botanical gardens which were very nice, but not as good as Melbourne's. The Barossa Valley Wine tour was fabulous. We had an absolute blast (although drinking all of that wine probably helped). It was a lovely day and the valley is so wonderfully green and filled with green vines and old-style wineries. I have noticed that Australians tend to keep their buildings as they were and not try to modernize them and this makes everything much nicer. The wines were....okay. Although I'm sure that you more seasoned drunks, I mean wine drinkers, would have appreciated it more. I realize now that I will never! be a big wine drinker (sorry Kim), but I do enjoy the red wines a lot more than the whites. the bbq was huge and there were about 6 different kinds of meat (sausages, steak, kangaroo, and then some other meat patty type things - stop drooling Squat.), bbqed onions, bread and salads. It seems like all bbqs are like this and I love them. At home in the hostels we don't eat as well. We have discovered this universal backpackers meal (introduced to us by the Irish - bless them). This meal is quick, easy, cheap, healthy and tasty - or as the Irish call it "cheap and cheerful". We are talking about "Cheesy Beans" The recipe is simple and I will give it to you so that everyone can enjoy a good feed of Cheesy Beans. Take 3 pieces of toast and cover it with half a can of beans then sprinkle tasty cheese on top (tasty cheese is the universal cheese in Australia - it is kind of like white cheddar but doesn't taste as good. Ir! onically, it is always labelled and referred to as 'tasty cheese' like the Australians must convince themselves that it really is tasty.) Voila! Cheesy Beans. You can fiddle with it and add onion or potato or vegetables or whatnot and just add it to the name. For example, last night Erik and I had Cheesy Beans with onion. (Nancy, everytime I eat this I think of you and the time you made me Kraft dinner with no butter or milk or anything. I miss my little Dinky)
Anyhow, we have spent the last 5 days at Kangaroo Island which was fantastic. The Island is the 3rd largest in Australia (about 150km long and 50km wide) and filled with interesting wildlife. We went on a night tour and saw fairy penguins. They come up onto the land to sleep and breed at night when they can't be seen by predatory birds. They are adorable. We also saw New Zealand Fur Seals and walked on the beach with Australian Sea lions. The guide actually takes you on the beach and you weave in and out of the Sea lions keeping 6 metres away (or they turn and attack). There were some babies too. Very cute. And ofcourse we saw more koala bears (this time with babies) and I took a bunch of pictures. At lunch, which was another one of those huge bbqs, we saw two gooanas (lizard things) about half a metre long each. We fed them scraps. And there were some kangaroos too. In the National Park ! one came up and tried to eat my icecream so I got to pet it. We also saw a lot of the coast line and these remarkable rocks called...you guessed it "Remarkable Rocks". After the tours we stayed a couple of days in Penneshaw and just relaxed, walked around, went to the beach and such. There are only 4000 people on the entire island and Penneshaw has only a hundred or so so it was very restful. Yesterday was the only bad day with cold rainy weather and we had to wait 9 hours for the evening ferry in the cold and rain, but it was kind of funny in that bitter Bill Bryson sort of way (Stan, you should definately read some Bill Bryson, he's pretty funny. I read his "Neither here Nor there" about Europe and it cracked me up. By the way, Aztec was amazing). All in all we had a great time. Now we are just finishing up some odds and ends before we head off to Perth. We will probably be in Perth for a while and we can get! mail so if you would like to send me anything you can send it to: They collect mail for free, but we have to pay to have it forwarded or held. Don't feel any pressure to send anything, this is just a huge hint to KIM GODDARD to send me some of those great tuna snacks. Well, I had better get going. Take care everyone and I will email again from Perth.
Cheers |
| November 21 |
tanned in Australia Hi everyone. Well, I had hoped to email more frequently so that the messages wouldn't be too long, but I have been spending a lot of time doing stuff and not much time writing about it. Let's see, when I left off Erik and I were still in Melbourne and seeing the sights. Well, it is about three weeks later and we are in Adelaide with tans (well, Im kind of tanned and Erik is less white). We spent a total of ten days in Melbourne before we headed out to the Great Ocean Road. We saw pretty much everything there was to see in Melbourne and really enjoyed the city. I do like Adelaide better though. It is a more relaxed city and people don't seem to rush as much. The buildings are lovely, but not quite as striking as in Melbourne. We have only been in Adelaide for I think 3 days, but I have a hard time keeping track of the days and times and such, so we haven 't seen much of the city. Yesterday we went to the Haigh's Chocolate factory for a free tour and chocolate samples. Great chocolate - some of the best I have ever had. Tomorrow we are going on a tour of the Barossa Valley which is t! he premier wine making area in Australia. We visit a bunch of wineries and sample the wines and then there is a lunch BBQ. (and yes, I know I don't like wine, but who can pass up a tour like this). We went to the beach the other day. Glenelg is a beautiful beach that is pretty big but not too busy. I worked on my tan for a good 2 hours before I gave up. Ellen, one of the Dutch girls we have been spending time with took a picture of me, Erik, and these two Irish girls we met up with. She thought that we were so white that it was amusing and she wanted to take the picture back to show her family. I didn't have enough dignity left to explain to her that I was actually already a little tanned. I guess I should backtrack to the sights and such on our journey to Adelaide. We left Melbourn on Tuesday and toured along the Great Ocean Road which goes right along the coast and is the most scenic road I have ever been on. Lots of green hills on one side and the huge ocean on the other. We checked out a few beaches, but is was pretty chilly so we didn't go swimming. We stopped at Bell's beach, Cape Otway and Anglesea to get a feel for the coast line and check out some of the more authentic Australian towns and sights. We stayed at Bimbi Park in the heart of Cape Otway National Park. The next day we continued on, went for a walk in a rainforest (everything was so big and green and wet it was truly amazing) I would definately like to go on more authentic rainforest walk. We went Koala watching and got to see a few koalas in nature (we have seen more since then and I guess they are not too hard to come by but I! still think it is fascinating to see them up in the trees and not in a zoo). We continued on to Port Campbell National Park and checked out some rock formations and then some more and some more and still some more rock formations and ocean/beach caves. We stopped off in the Grampians National Park for a few days and stayed in a eco hostel in Halls Gap. The hostel was entirely powered by solar energy. We did a bunch of bushwalking in the "mountains" and saw Kangaroos, a brown snake (probably poisonous but Erik wouldn't touch it), some lizards and stuff and lots of flowers and waterfalls and streams. Breathtaking and my favourite stop off so far. After we left the Grampians we saw a very blue lake (not so exciting) a white lake (pretty cool) and a pink lake (super neat). We stayed at Mt Gambier the next stop in an old jail (old Gaol) which was used up until 1995 to house criminals. It was okay, but all cement and really depressin! g and kind of cold. Then we headed off to Adelaide adn that is pretty much all I have to say for now. My time is running out so I hope everyone is doing well and it is great to hear from everyone. If you haven't got the geek site address yet, it is www.oocities.org/erikinaustralia Take care and keep in touch. Erin
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| November 5 |
Hi from Australia Hi Everyone! Here is my first email from Australia, how exciting. I hope everything is going great with everyone, Erik and I are doing great down here. Erik and I got into Melbourne at about 9 something in the morning on Saturday the 3rd. After 52 hours in transit it was nice to finally be 'home'. Our flights all went well and Malaysian Airlines was wonderful with great service. Each seat had its own TV screen with choices of movies and nintendo games so time went pretty fast. We left LA at night and we didn't see daylight again until Kuala Lumpur. The hotel they put us up in was beautiful and it was nice to have a bath. Melbourne is very pretty. It is a mixture of old and new architecture (they will have a 2 hundred year old church beside a ten year old building) but they seem to all meld together and it makes for a lovely city. There are a bunch of parks and botanical gardens scattered around. We are staying at a hostel in downtown Melbourne and have done quite a bit of looking around and site-seeing. We have taken a tram tour of the city centre, gone to the Victoria Market which is a huge open market with everything from food to clothes ( kind of like the Forks in Winnipeg only bigger)Yesterday we went to the Melbourne Museum which was huge and interesting and gave us a better idea of Melbourne and Australias' history and such. I saw a display of huge moths and after talking to some guys in the hostel it is only a matter of time before I see one for real!!!!!! Right now is the big Toohey's Race. It is a horse race held in Melbourne. Apparently it is a very big deal and they actually declared it a national holiday and everything is pretty much closed. Erik and I have gotten out to an Australian pub with some of the Brits to try out the beer and it is pretty good - actually very similar to Canadian beer. We drank Tooheys New and Victoria Bitther. We haven't met many Australians to socialize with - mainly just other travellers - which is fun too. We still have a bit more to see in Melbourne (Zoo, Casino, the Botanical Gardens) and then we will be heading off to Adelaide with the Oz Experience Tours on the 13th and then a train to Perth when we are finished with Adelaide, then who knows what. We don't know how long it will take us, we can stop as much as we like along the way so we shouldn't miss anything. We have met some pretty cool people so far and it so easy to find stuff to do and people to do it with. Well, I better get going - this is costing me a pretty penny. Take care everyone Erin
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