Mt. Manganui + Auckland Round Two

Friday we got picked up by the bus and went out to Mt. Manganui, which is on the east coast of the North Island. It is a beach town with a very amazing beach. We got there in the afternoon and walked around on the beach for a long time, about 3 hours I would guess, definitely was a long walk on the beach. And I liked it. Ha ha ha. I was hanging out with the German girl from before and a new Irish girl, as most of the other backpackers I had been chillen with had continued on to the South Island instead of heading back north. We were pretty tired from the hike still and had a quiet night of watching American Beauty and cooking the most lazy meal I can think of – instant noodles with crackers and cheese singles, and museli (granola) bars for dessert. Most everyone else around us was cooking this elaborate stuff, chopping vegetables and such, we were just like eh this is good, ready in 3 minutes!

Next day we headed back to Auckland. We got to stop at the harbor bridge and do a walk across it to see cool views of the city and watch someone do a bungy jump from the AJ Hackett Bunjy off the bridge. After that our driver dropped us off at the CBD and I went and walked around the Victoria markets before Alex picked me up in the afternoon. We chilled out at his house and had dinner and then went over to one of his mate’s places for a house party. It was a lot of fun, reminded me of hangouts back home. He has a good group of friends, they’re all really nice and fun to hang out with. They had a DJ rig set up at the house and one of the guys was showing me how to use it and switch up tracks, it was neat. The Australia vs. New Zealand rugby league championship game was on, and NZ was not favored to win but they did by over 10 points, everyone was really excited about it, especially since it is such a big rivalry. About 11, most everyone and us took off to this dance party/DJ event at Vector Arena called Deep Hard n Funky. It was sweet, there were a bunch of different guys spinning and they had three different areas set up with trance, house, drum n bass… was a lot of fun and a real good night, good way to finish off my trip down under, just danced a lot. We got home and slept til the afternoon and then got up and he dropped me off at the airport, which was another experience because I was there when the All Blacks came back from Australia. There was a huge crowd there to greet them all chanting ‘New Zealand!’ It was really neat to be there at the same time. I left Auckland at 7:30pm and got into San Francisco at 10:30am the same day. Time change is insane for that flight, I got to go back in time. This was for sure an amazing year, such good times and met such awesome people, doing an exchange year was pretty much the best decision ever. In conclusion, Australia and Australians are sweet as. And New Zealanders too. Just heaps good really, I will for sure be back!

Pix: Mt. Manganui beach, first pic is the Mt. Manganui, and the sign on the toilet at the AJ Hackett bunjy place

I guess this is the end of my Down Unda blog, it's been fun to write, hope you all enjoyed it whoever checked it out. I might try to keep something else up, it's pretty cool to look back on all this stuff, so I'll post the link if I ever get around to starting a new one.

Actually, here is the link if I get around to writing in it. I figured I would just reserve the address and see what happens. If I am struck with any genius thoughts, I will record them here. Peace1love.

http://slowerkarate.blogspot.com/

Taupo

Our next stop down the road was Taupo. It was beautiful. There was a huge lake and snow covered mountains and a waterfall and hot springs, it really had everything. It reminded me of Tahoe a lot, especially driving on the road around the lake seemed like the exact same road as the one around Lake Tahoe. We got in and I decided that I was going to go skydiving. Taupo is one of the most popular places to skydive, and they do the most dives out of anywhere else in the world, and its about $100 cheaper than anywhere else as well. And it is a very scenic place, so I figured this was the place to do it. I wasn’t one of those people that was super keen to go skydiving and have it on the top of their list as one of the things to do down under, but I was really happy that I went. I was a bit uneasy on the ground, but once the plane took off, I was allright. You get connected to a guy behind you that pretty much does everything and you don’t have to think about anything, and another guy jumps with you to film it on video and also has a trigger in his mouth to take photos with. I was second to last to go out and the guy scooted me up to the side of the plane and I was sitting on the edge and was pretty freaked out for a second, but then just got rocketed out and my brain went oh! Ok this is allright! And then it was just awesome. The freefall lasted 45 seconds (I jumped from 12,000 feet), and then you have a couple minutes of parachuting until you get to the ground. It was really a big rush, you feel all excited awhile after. The video is really funny too, they do a good job of editing it. The view was just amazing too, such a different perspective to see the world like that from above.

The skydive people were nice enough to drop us (me and some other backpacker friends from the Magic Bus) off at the Huka Falls, the waterfall on the outskirts of the city. We hung out there a bit and then walked back to our hostel, it took about an hour and a half and was a good walk. We went to this Irish pub for awhile and watched the rugby game, All Blacks vs. Munster (Ireland), and NZ won. We already knew this before we got there because the game was played that morning, but one girl with us is a diehard Munster fan and was still watching the game like maybe they would win. It was probably more entertaining watching her yell at the TV than watching a game were you already know the outcome. There is a lot of rugby going on right now, and NZ is cleaning up for sure. The All Blacks have two teams, one for Union and one for League, and they are just both dominating every other team they play.

The next day we got up really early and got bussed out to the base of these volcanoes to do the Tongariro Crossing hike. It is known as New Zealands best day hike and was pretty epic. It is 20 kilometers and you hike up this one volcano and then walk across the crater and then hike out of the crater and up the side of another one and then down a long way. It was a lot of fun, the views were amazing, and I got to play in the snow that was still up there. The Lord of the Rings was filmed on one of these mountains and I would think it would be quite a chore to get all that filming equipment out there, because it is definitely not a super easy hike. There are some pretty long climbs, ‘The Devil’s Staircase’ name of the first section might hint that it’s a bit rough going up. The group I was with was an interesting team to hike with. Two other girls, a German and a Scot, were pretty quick, but then we also had two Irish with us, and one had thrombosis which gave him blood clots in his legs, and I later found out the other slow girl has arthritis. So kudos to them for doing that trek, but wow, at some points you are just waiting for them and starting to get really cold when you stop for too long. It was all good though, we did get some longer times to check out the views, there were also some really beautiful lakes on the way down, really vibrant green color, and I got to meet some other people that you end up walking next to. At some points you could feel the ground and it would be warm, these volcanoes are still active and you can actually physically tell from the surface that there is some thermal action going on underneath you. One of the nearby mountains is the biggest skiing area in NZ, that's pretty sweet to be able to ski/board on a volcano. Some parts of the hike felt like being on Mars, especially when we were going through the crater. It definitely tired you out after trekking around for 6.5 hours, but was a very worthwhile hike, probably the best one I have done, just really amazing views and was a great way to spend the day. Had awesome canned spaghetti for dinner and hung out in the jacuzzi at the hostel. These New Zealand hostels really got it going on with these bonus additions I must say, I don't remember hardly any of the Aussie ones having such crazy stuff.

Pix: skydiving and Tongariro Crossing photos. The mountain in the last one was in Lord of the Rings at some point (not really sure, I haven't really seen the movies but some people were stoked on that), and the group one is when we just got to the top and feelin pretty accomplished. Note my clothes when compared to the others, yes I really did prepare well for this trip and totally packed such appropriate and insulated gear...

Rotorua: The City that Reeks of Sulfur, But is Still Pretty Sweet

We got into Rotorua about 6pm and got picked up pretty quickly after that to go to the Tamaki Village which was this Maori cultural presentation and traditional hangi dinner where the food is cooked from steam from heated volcanic rock put in a ditch dug in the ground. It was actually a much better event than I thought it would be, it started off with a challenge from the warriors to see if our group should enter the village, and then you get to walk around the village for a bit and go to different huts where you learn how they lived before Europeans invaded the place. They wore all the traditional clothes and face tattoos and everything, it was really well done. Then we went into a bigger hut and they did a singing and dancing presentation which was awesome. They don’t use any instruments except some drums, and they really do create some beautiful music. They have great harmony and make some awesome songs with lots of stamping, clapping, and singing. They also did the Haka, a traditional dance that is better known as the dance that the New Zealand All Blacks rugby team does before they play every match. Then we got to go eat a really good dinner, it was a buffet of everything you could want (chicken, fish, lamb, stuffing, salad, vegetables, cranberry sauce…), it was a bit like thanksgiving. They also had pavlova at the end for dessert and then a few more songs to end the night. I feel like the Maoris here are much better off than the Aboriginals in Australia, they seem to be much more a part of society and all seem to have jobs are not living in such poverty. You see the Maoris around the cities and they all seem to be pretty happy and doing fine, in Australia I hardly saw any Aboriginals, but I hear there are tons of them up north just living in really bad conditions with bad education and lots of alcoholism and not much being done about it. It was just interesting to me to see how different it is for at least the Maoris that I met or saw around the places I visited.

The next day I got picked up to go whitewater sledging on the Kaituna(?) river. It was sweet, it’s like whitewater rafting except you are on a boogie board type thing and you have fins and you go through all the rapids like that. It is definitely more scary than rafting through rapids, its just crazier, but it was so much fun. It was only an hour, I would have liked to go longer, but they can only do part of the river because there are huge waterfalls that you would die if you went down them on the river sledge. They also raft the river, and the highest rafted waterfall is on that trip, it’s 7 meters and we saw one of the boats go down it and flip over, it was pretty funny. People were stuck under it and floating away, it was chaotic. Ended up fine though, they were really quick in getting everyone back in. This rafting company looked like the coolest place ever to work, everyone was so chilled out, they hang out in this building and just blast reggae from these speakers with big subs and go rafting a few times a day. A lot of Maoris worked there along with other white guy Kiwis, they are just some of the chillest people ever, very ‘no worries’ attitude in New Zealand for sure. A lot of them got excited when I said I was from California, a lot of them go out there to work on the American River and really like it up near Sacramento. One of them has a wife out in California that is kayaking all over the States in training for the London Olympics. He said she may be the best female kayaker in the world, pretty neat stuff.

After sledging, I went with these two Irish girls that had been with me that morning and we went out to the Zorb on the outskirts of Rotorua. A Zorb is a big rubber ball with a smaller rubber ball inside it that is suspended all around with rubber strings that they stuff a few people inside with some water and throw the ball down a hill. I went Zorbing with the two girls and it was really fun, you fall all over each other on the way down and bounce down the track and its just hilarious. I feel like I should start a franchise of this at home, you could make a fortune. They charge way too much for what it is, and all you need is a ball and a hill and you’re set. It’s good times for sure.

On the way out of Rotorua, we went to Wai-O-Tapu, a park where there is lots of thermal volcanic activity that leads to the creation of hot springs, sulfur pools, and mud pools. We saw the Lady Knox geyser erupt and then walked around the park and saw lots of really neat colored pools. My favorite was Artist’s Palette, it was orange and yellow and red, and changed colors all throughout it because of different minerals. Many of the pools had names like ‘Devil’s Home’ or ‘Hell Hole’ or things like that, it was pretty satanic and hellish I guess. All of Rotorua and this place as well are known for the distinct smell of sulfur everywhere. You do get used to it pretty quick, but in the beginning it is a bit nasty. The joke of calling the place Roto-Rooter instead of Rotorua came up a few times, such clever clever people. There are also a lot of spas and health centers around the area, it’s known for mud baths and sulfur pools that are supposed to exfoliate and whatnot, even my hostel had this weird sulfur pool inside what seemed to be a closet. I was going to get in it, but then I saw a sign on the wall that said “Do not put your head under water – Prevent Amoebal Meningitis.” I didn’t feel the need to risk something that sounded that terrible, so I went outside where there was a pool (this hostel was really awesome, there weren’t even bunk beds!) that was actually really warm anyways and was really nice. Rotorua was cool for sure.

Pix: shot from the Maori cultural night (one of the warriors), zorb photos, and shots from the Wai-O-Tapu thermal pools with all the different colored photos and the geyser.

New Zealand Layover Trip: Auckland and Waitomo

I had a layover through Auckland on the way home so I decided to extend it and spend a bit of time visiting my friend Alex and also traveling around the North Island. I got into Auckland and went to the Nomads hostel where I was staying, and was pretty tired from everything from the week before so didn’t do very much but go to sleep after wandering around the city a bit. It’s not a very huge CBD, really easy to navigate and get around; it’s got a harbor and some parks and is known as the City of Sails because of all the boats. I got up the next day and got breakfast at the grocery store, then passed out on the couch watching the rugby league of NZ vs England. NZ won I found out later, I was just so tired and could not stay awake. My friend Alex picked me up at 1pm, he was my across the hall neighbor at Union the first semester I was there and it was really good to see him again especially after having to leave everyone from college the day before. We went around the city a bit, went to One Tree Hill and walked around. The hill is this really big park, there are sheep just wandering around everywhere and people hiking around or playing ball, its for sure a cool area to have in the city. We went back to Alex’s house and watched some Mighty Boosh episodes (amazing show, everyone check it out), and he even got me all 3 seasons on a jump drive he found at his uni, pretty excited about that. I got to meet his family, it was funny to be back in a family environment again with all the arguments and everything, reminded me of home. His two brothers are funny, you can definitely see the famlily resemblance, they're like different versions of Alex. His mom is so so nice, really cool woman, she did architecture, not sure what she’s doing now but is really into art and is a great cook. Had an awesome dinner of kebabs and sausages, potatoes, salad, and a pavlova with great fruit. It was amazing after coming from Union cafeteria that had been getting progressively worse while trying to use the rest of their leftover food in the back of the fridge as the end of the year was coming up. Two of Alex’s friends were also over for dinner, they were cool guys and we went and climbed up this hill near his house after dinner and watched the clouds and just chilled out. Went back home and watched some more Mighty Boosh, and then got dropped back to the hostel at 12:30 or so, passed out hard and got up at 6:20 the next day to start my trip south to a couple towns in the North Island.

I got a bus pass where you can get on and off the bus at different stops and stay as many nights as you want before getting back on the bus. It was called the Magic Bus, and it was quite magical. I got on in Auckland and mostly slept until we got to Waitomo, where we stopped for a couple hours to explore the caves that are in the area. You could do a wet option or dry option, and I chose the blackwater rafting trip where you go through the cave while sitting in these tiny inner tubes with helmets and headlamps and thankfully wetsuits because it was pretty cold. It was really awesome, at some points everyone had their headlamps off and you could see tons of glow worms on the walls. It looked so cool, they are neon green and glow brighter if you make a big noise, so the guides would smack the water hard with something and the worms would get really bright. The cave was really fun to explore, there is a section where you had to jump off a ledge back into the creek below and also a waterslide that descended into a black hole, it was a somewhat surprising when it ended partially at a wall. I slammed my leg into it a bit, it seemed like that was not the optimal end point for a waterslide but it was fun anyway. This was definitely not the way that a tour like this would be set up in the US, I could think of many lawsuits that could be filed against this place if it were at home. It was awesome though, the guides were neat too. They were both really country guys, one older white guy and a really big Maori guy with three teeth, and you couldn’t hardly understand anything they were saying because they had really strong accents. We got to the end and they gave us soup after we showered, which was really nice because it was a pretty cold and rainy day. I had already realized that my thin sweatshirt and many pairs of shorts were not the best choice of things to bring to NZ, it really is a much different climate from Australia. But I did survive with my thin sweatshirt and mostly board shorts the whole week, was pretty bad one night but didn't want to buy more stuff to carry around, so I pretty much just put up with the cold.

Pix: Auckland city, our rafting guide, me after jumping off one of the drops in the cave back into the creek, and the rafting train.

Last Week in Oz: Go Hard, Go Home

The week after I finished exams was amazing. I finished a week before most people and as others got done with their tests people were really keen to go out and have fun. I went to Family with a bunch of good friends on the Saturday that I finished my exams. We got out to the valley and the train had been delayed a bit so we were running down Brunswick Street to get to the door by 10pm to get the discount for the cover charge. It was a busy night and we were running in between people and jumping over homeless sleeping guys, it really was an obstacle course. We made it there in time and got stamped and then went on our ritual stop to the RG. Went back over to Family about 11:30 and after a brief hiccup at the door with security not being completely satisfied with my state of sobriety, I got in about 12. It was such a fun night, danced the whole time and everything was super good except having to deal with some slight wardrobe malfunctions with my shirt, but its all good haha. We got kicked out at 5am, they turned the lights on and it was pretty anti-climactic. We got a cab back and went and hung out on the oval some more til 6 or so. Most everyone passed out after that, but I went and hung out with Tom on my floor for awhile until breakfast. He had been up all night studying, we went down to breakfast together and then I went to sleep. Was a long night, definitely lots of fun.

I took Sunday and Monday night off, and then Tuesday was Dunder night! Really fun time, it was ladies night when they have a male stripper that comes in all dressed up like a firefighter. It's always hilarious, he just straight up humiliates all the girls he pulls up to dance with him. They were playing really great music after that too, all the good club tracks, Presets, that uptown/downtown song, all the good danceable ones. We had coordinated dance moves and were just having a great night. After we got home, I went up to the roof with Zara and Tom and hung out there for awhile. We saw a bird come up and sit on the ledge right in front of us, and it had a huge dead toad in its beak, it freaked us out and we thought it was a satanic omen. We also put on the salmon dance on my ipod and sang all the different parts a capella, I was way too amused by it, thought it was the funniest thing ever (check it out at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IVu2cX0jEYk if you dont know what I'm talking about). Zara was doing the dance and I just couldn’t stop laughing. Made it to bed around breakfast time again, really been having some late nights. Had a quiet night Wednesday and then the last Thursday out with college forever was at UJs! Was a really fun time, good way to finish off the nights of going out in massive groups and invading clubs/bars. I will definitely miss that.

The night before we all got kicked out of college we had an awesome time out on the oval. I had some Passion Pop, so classy, its like fake champagne mixed with sugar, $5 a bottle which is quite affordable. We ran around kicking the semi-flat soccer ball and just hung out. It was much better than going out, I was happy to just get to hang out with everyone for the last time. We went and get kebabs later on, and then we dragged all our mattresses into the hallway and everyone slept out there. Saying goodbye the next day was definitely not my favorite thing to do. Got a ride to the airport with some friends Cam and Lindsay, was really nice of him to drive. I got on the plane and was asleep instantly, never been so sleep deprived in my life. I didn’t even feel us take off, I was pretty much passed out until we landed. Such a great week though, definitely worth being sleepy for a couple days, was a good note to leave the country on.

Pix: first 3 are from Dunder/Down Under Bar, Tom and I being such high rollers at the bar, and the dancing coordination effort in the second one. Third is the stripper guy assaulting some poor girl. Last one is from Family with Mitch's mad camera skills from the upper level

Last Weeks of Uni

Well, the school year has been winding down, and with final exams quickly approaching, there has been quite a few last big nights out before SWOTVAC (study week, I don't know what the hell it stands for). The first one was ICC Ball where all the colleges get together and get bussed to some unknown location and drink lots of cheap wine and mid strength beer while wearing ridiculous costumes. The theme was Unpredicta-ball, so you go as something unexpected. One idea was for Union to collectively go as the theme 'sober', since that would be pretty unexpected, but nobody was really keen for that. My friend Laura and I went as the two unicorns from the Charlie Unicorn goes to Candy Mountain youtube video, here's the link to them if you don't know... what I'm talking about (theres 2 of them).





http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=charlie+unicorn&search_type=

It's unexpected because at the end of one of the videos, Charlie gets tricked and gets his kidney stole, which is pretty unexpected, yeah? We wore party hats and taped candy to ourselves, it was pretty cool. We also got to go around talking in obnoxious unicorn voices all night! (really, you have to watch the videos or it makes no sense). Some other costumes were, the 412 bus, a snake charmer, babies, iPods?, natives, Vegas brides, the Spanish inquisition, and my favorite, a coat hanger. I was going to go as pregnant as the other half of the coat hanger costume, but we decided that was too horrible and it would be too annoying to go around with a ball or pillow under my shirt all night anyway. It was a really fun night, they drove us to the stadium where the Reds play (a rugby team for Brissy), and we rock up and the Socceroos are practicing on the field there. They are the Australian national soccer team that was in town to play Qatar, and it must have been weird for them to see a bunch of crazy dressed up uni kids get off a bunch of buses and be dumped in the middle of their practice. Was a great night, hung out with everyone, some people went way too hard on the alcohol and got really sick and had to leave early (a couple of my friends were home by 8:30, it was pretty funny, but we did leave at 6, so it's not too too bad I guess). After that was over, you could either go home on the buses, or some other ones were going to the city for the kickon at a bar out there, but most people went home in anticipation of the next day, known as 'recovery'. I went home and went around to all the floors in college with Rob and talked to everyone that was still up, but when we came back to our floor, Rob also got pretty sick and ended up passing out in the shower with the water on. I was hanging out in my other friend Tom's room that is across the hall from the bathroom, and we kept trying to get him to come out because he was lying over the drain and flooding the place and that water was coming out into the hall, but he would just be like, no! I'm fine, I'll be fine just leave me alone! And we kept trying to explain to him to either turn off the water or get off the drain, but it took him awhile to get around to doing it. Crazy times.

The next morning, bright and early at 8am, everyone gets up and grabs some brekky and gets on the buses again to go to recovery. Some people really did need to recover and slept through their alarms and actually rested and slept, but the event of recovery was quite different. Probably crazier than the night before, we got dropped off outside this club in the Valley called Birdee Num Nums where they have a bar and on the weekends they open up their pool and jacuzzi as well. It's a sweet setup, there are all these high tables outside where you can hang out and then a bunch of people got in the water and it was just a ton of fun. We had a $10,000 bar tab, and amazingly went through it by 1pm. I think we got there at 9:30 or so and were kicked out by 2, so it was a fair bit of drinks to go through by then. Everyone brought sharpie pens and was writing on everyone else, and then the food dye came out too. People would put it in their mouths and just spit it all over and try to get as many people as they could, it was a very messy day. My favorite moment was when my friend Teiqua, who had been trying to keep her white shirt white all day and refusing to let us draw on her, got massively sprayed on by this guy with blue food dye in his mouth, and then she just turns around and whips out her makeup kit and starts messing with her face. Everyone else around looks just a total mess, and she is trying to touch up her concealer or something, it was hilarious. The Red Frogs peopel were also there, they come to events and hand out donuts and water, they are some Christian organization that helps drunk people. I'm not sure why, I feel like there are much more deserving groups of people to be helped, but hey whatever, I'll take the free food. They were making pancakes and it was great. A guy there was playing guitar too and everyone was singing along with it, people got really into the 'Waltzing Matilda' song too, good stuff. I found out there was a backpackers connected to Birdee's (I had no idea before and we've been there a bunch of times), so my friend Marnie and I tried to go make friends with them. However, the minute we walked in the door, the receptionist girl came over and physically turned us around and pushed us out the door, saying, you don't belong here! We tried to say that she was being excessively discriminatory, and how dare she imply we were part of the group outside (but we had pen and dye everywhere, so that didn't really work). When we all had to go, it was really funny walking through the Valley on a Saturday afternoon with a bunch of drunk messy people, others on the street would come up to us and ask what the hell was going on. We finally made it to the train and got home and showered for excessive amounts of time (this weekend was not kind for the water restrictions for sure). It was an awesome couple days, a might sound gross in writing but was a lot of fun.

Some other good things that have happened lately was getting to go make a slip n slide out of the cricket oval outside Union during a couple recent thunderstorms. These were insane storms, there were 'severe warnings' ahead of time telling people to move their cars and to avoid driving, and hail was predicted in some parts. The first one that happened was at night, and we went out to the oval and put detergent all over the tarp that covers the middle of the field (for the cricket, its a special part of the oval that they keep hard so the ball bounces), and got to run and slide on it. Everyone had a blast except the cricketers that were watching us distainfully from the cover of the building a ways away. I think they called security on us a couple times but we didn't stay long enough for them to show up. It happened again a few days later and we went out and played soccer in the rain and then did the slip n slide again. Made for a very sore body the next few days, but was worth it.

Also got to go on a biology field trip to the Australia Zoo, it's the one that you see on Animal Planet where Steve Irwin does all the stuff with the crocodiles in the 'crocaseum'. It was a really nice zoo, all the habitats were really well put together and lots of plants everywhere, probably the best zoo I've seen. They were really touchy-feely with the animals, it was strange to see one of the keepers wresting around with the wombats or another one just pick up the Tasmanian Devil like it was a cat or something, they are all really tame looking animals. There are a bunch of crocodiles there too, mostly ones that have gotten into trouble with being to aggressive in the wild with attacking people or things like that, so if they get lucky, they go to the Steve Irwin Zoo instead of being shot. It was a cool field trip, would have liked to have some more free time, but we got to hear some cool talks from the keepers and feed kangaroos, so I can't complain.

I also had another adventure in the valley on our last Thursday night out. We were out at Birdee's again strangely, and a lot of people from college were there, but I went to go use the bathroom at one point and when I came out I realized that everyone I knew had gone home. I was like oh, I knew this would happen at some point, because I tend to wander around among different groups when we go out. I usually make sure there is always someone from college there to get a cab home with, but I guess they left without me noticing. Anyways, I went around asking randoms if they were headed to St. Lucia, but sadly none were, and then it was pretty late so the club kicked everyone out. I was standing outside wondering what to do next when all these Maori/Kiwi guys were like, come hang out with us! I'd been talking to them inside and they were pretty funny and I wasn't really sure what to do so I went walking with them around the city. We ended up just talking forever walking around and ended up at the casino, where this other Maori woman came out and started talking to them. They figured out that she was one of their aunties, but they had never met because this guy had about 200 cousins or something, just a massive family, but they started hugging and she was crying and it was this big family reunion. She came walking with us too, and she saw this bruise I have on my back, and decided that I must be a victim of domestic abuse, and cornered me and got all up in my face asking who was beating up on me and saying she was going to kick their ass. I kept trying to assure her it was nothing, but she wasn't really listening, and then she took out her old lady spraycan perfume and sprayed me with it. It was strange. The rest of the guys rescued me and one of them made me take his earring for some reason. I told him that he should keep it, but he made me take it, so now I am stuck with 2 mismatched earrings and I look a bit funny, but I'll get a new pair soon enough. These guys told me I should hang out with their sisters when I go to New Zealand, they were all just so friendly. We then went back to the casino and all got a huge breakfast, it was really good food too, and after that it was about 7am and I took the bus home! The guys were pretty hardcore and actually went back to drinking because they knew a place down the street that started serving at 7am, what a nation of alcoholics. They said they didn't have work til 5pm, so had to do something in between. I personally would have chosen sleep, but I guess I'm just not as hard. Oh well.. Was a long night for sure, fun times and glad I got to get the bus home instead of paying for a taxi by myself, was about 20 times cheaper.

And now, it is study week and finals soon, I've already finished 2 classes that just had final assignment research papers, but got 2 more to go. Only 2 weeks left here, it's definitely strange that my time is almost up, the year has gone by pretty quick. Will definitley be sad to leave all the friends I've made here, they really are some of the most fun and just all around friendly and awesome people, and living at college is a pretty optimal situation with people around all the time to hang out with. BUT also looking forward to seeing all my homies in the bay and down in LA for sure, gonna be back home before all you people in the states know it, gotta get ready for a sweet winter break and last semester of college! Life definitely does go pretty fast.

Pix: ICC Ball, Aussie Zoo, oval in the thunderstorm

Cape Tribulation and Port Douglas

After coming back down the windy road from the tablelands into Cairns, we got a shuttle into Port Douglas and stayed there for the night. The next morning, we went on a trip into the Daintree Rainforest, which was pretty cool. We were on this tour with a family of three and a teacher who was on school holidays, and the family was apparently taken aback by my semi-excessive swearing in front of their daughter (I didn't even realize it but my mom said that the mother would cringe in the seat next to her because I accidentally let slip a few curse words.. I don't hang around kids enough anymore I guess I should clean up the language). Anyways, we saw a lot of cool things in the forest, it was a pretty surreal place. Definitely more tropical than the rainforests I have seen in the south, and there were all these crazy plants that kindof reminded me of a Dr. Seuss book. They had these mangroves that would grow up on the forest floor, and they were just these pokey roots that came up everywhere, it would have been impossible to walk if there had not been an elevated platform. We saw some water dragons (lizards in trees), lots of birds, and also went on a boat on the estuary and saw some crocodlies. They are everywhere up north, there was even a story going on in the news at the time about a guy that had been eaten by a croc when he was out hunting for sand crabs... pretty stupid guy for doing that I think. They were trying to figure out which croc had eaten him, and kept extracting them from the water (somehow..) and X-raying them to look for bones. (They since found the one that ate him and he is probably off to the Australia Zoo now). We also got to eat some green ants, which was actually pretty interesting. They taste extremely citrusy and have a strong citrus smell if you squish them too. The Aboriginals crushed them up and ate them as a drink, real bush tucker style.

Cape Tribulation is a special place because it is the only place in the world where a reef meets with a rainforest, and you could go off to the edge of the forest to these amazing beaches that were pretty much deserted. They were really pretty, the water was so warm and then you look behind you and there is this really thick forest. It would have been cool to spend more time at the beaches, but we didn't have much time and the group we were with moved pretty quick. We got to stop at this ice cream stand on the way out, this woman owns it as her own small business in the forest and makes ice cream with fruits and other flavors from things that come from the rainforest. You get a cup of four flavors, I can't exactly remember what we had, but it wasn't like any other ice cream I have tried before. It was very good, but very different, from some strange rainforest plants. After that, we drove out of the forest to Mossman Gorge, which was my favorite part of the day. It was this freshwater creek/waterfall area that you could go swimming in, and it was really refreshing and a lot of fun. You could swim up to where the current was coming down and jump into the stream and get pushed out into the river/creek. My mom and I were the only ones that went swimming, I don't know what was wrong with the others because they were really missing out. It was a good day, pretty relaxed and we got to see a bunch of cool things.

When we got back to Port Douglas we hung out on the beach there for awhile with some Bundy Dry n' Limes (a premix alcohol in a can drink from the fine Bundaberg Rum Company) until the sun went down. We went to this really good seafood place for dinner and had a great meal of shellfish, including the Morton Bay bugs! They have these crawdad-like shellfish that they cook up that are native to the area, and they are amazing. It's sortof like lobster, they were really good. We also had this seafood curry that was really spicy. The next morning we hung out for awhile and then had to catch the shuttle back to Cairns and fly back to Brisbane. It was definitely a full week of great stuff up north, it was probably my favorite part of Australia I have visited, along with the Whitsundays, which is pretty much the same type of area. My mom spent a few days in Brisbane, and we had a good time looking for bats and possums at my campus and just hanging around. We went to dinner one night at this place in the valley called Garuva, it was pretty cool, you sit on the floor on pillows and the tables are all separated by these white sheets that hang from the ceiling. My mom said it reminded her of a WWII hospital facility or something like that, but probly with better food. All in all, it was great getting to spend a week and a half with my mom exploring far north queensland, definitley was an awesome adventure.

Photos are: me with plant from the rainforest, mom and I at Cape Tribulation, stick insect in the Daintree, warning sign for stingers, and a possum in a tree outside where I live in Brisbane.

Atherton Tablelands and Yungaburra

After getting back from Green Island, we slept in Cairns and then were off the next morning with a bunch of backpackers on a trip up into the Atherton Tablelands. You drive up this really windy road up a mountain that kindof reminded me of 84 up to the coast, but even more windy. They have a lot of accidents there, I think he said one car goes off the road every week or so. We had a cool guide, a kiwi guy named Sam. He took us to some really neat strangler fig trees, definitely the biggest ones I have ever seen. These trees start out as a seed that germinates up in the canopy of another tree and then it puts down roots and grows around the host tree and eventually strangles it and kills it and it rots away so that the fig stands on its own. It looks really cool like something out of Lord of the Rings, this one was huge, as big as a 5 story building and had a really big base too. It's strange because the whole thing looks like it's made out of roots or vines, just stringy pieces of tree that make up the whole thing. We also went to some waterfalls and got to swim around in a lake after going on a walk through the rainforest. We learned about the stinging plant in the the rainforest that the Aboriginals called gympie gympie, which means 'really really bad'. It sounded terrible, it's this plant that will leave shards of silica in your skin if you brush up against it and it takes 9-12 months for them to come out. Everytime your pores change size (temperature change), it feels like someone is holding a blowtorch to your skin. Sounds really awful, Sam said that a hiker once fell into a whole patch of it and just died from the shock of the pain, and that another guy in the army tried to use it as toilet paper once and then shot himself the next day because he couldn't deal with it. Crazy stuff, so many thigns around this country that will try to kill you.

We also went to see this huge hole in the ground, its literally just a huge pit filled with water that nobody has been able to explore because it is just too deep and too cold to send people, and they haven't gotten around to sending robots or anything like that yet. They explored the top layers as much as they could awhile ago and found 2 new species just in that bit, so there might be all sorts of crazy stuff deeper in. We threw rocks down in it, and they really took a long time to get to the bottom, and it sounded like a gunshot when they finally hit the surface.

We went to a backpacker lodge out in Yungaburra after that where we were going to be staying for the night, it was a really nice place. Very homey and everyone working there was cool. Two Welsh girls and a Canadian were also staying from our group on the bus that day, and they were fun to hang out with. We went out to Lake Tinaroo that night with Sarah the Canadian and a guide from the hostel named Damien to go spotlighting from canoes for wildlife. It was really cool, Damien found a tree kangaroo up pretty high in this one tree, and was trying to point him out to us. He got out of the canoe and was shining his light from the land and the kangaroo suddenly fell out of the tree just a meter away from him and jumped away. It was hilarious, Damien said that he had never been that close to one of them and that he was really happy it hadn't landed on him, as they have huge claws and it could probably mess you up a bit on impact. It was really cool looking though, they're furrier than normal kangaroos. I'll put up a picture from Google so you know what I'm talking about. We also saw some pademelon kangaroos that are these little animals that are less than a foot high, and they hop around on the rocks on the shore. They were really cute, just mini kangaroos. There were also some wallabys around and possums. A platypus was also swimming around our boats, Damien said that had never really happened before either, and it even ran into Sarah's part of the canoe. We thought that maybe it had some vision problems.

The night got even more interesting when we got back to the hostel. I was hanging out with people downstairs and we kept hearing this car honking outside. One guy said he had heard it a couple hours ago and not really thought much about it but it was going off a lot now so we went outside to look around. It was a bizarre situation. We found this guy that was completely naked that had his hands taped to his steering wheel and was stuck in his car, hitting the horn with his face. He said he had been mugged by a guy threatening him with a syringe filled with blood that he said had HIV on it, and that the guy made him strip and then he stole his wallet and some other things. It was kinda freaky, the guy was really weird too, and nothing really made sense about the situation, but we got him freed up and he drove away pretty quick. The police came awhile later and filled out a report, and a bunch of us were downstairs thinking, this place doesn't even have locks on any of the doors (it's in a very small town in the middle of nowhere pretty much), what if the crazy needle guy comes after us?? These people that were camping outside decided to get a room. It was funny, the cop thought it couldn't be a true story because things like that just don't happen up there. But it was definitely a bizarre occurrance.

The next day we woke up and thanked god we had survived the night free of HIV needle guy attacks and went on a bike trip around the area. It was really fun, we got to go swimming in a lake at the end of it which was really great because it was quite hot out. When we were biking back to the van, my mom turned the wrong way and went up a huge hill the opposite direction and just kept going, so Damien had to go searching for her after she didn't show up at the end for awhile. I guess she just wanted some extra exercise and couldn't get enough of the biking. She said she saw a roadkill snake though, so it must not all have been a wasted extra trip.

We also went canoeing again in the day, I went swimming a lot because it was so hot out. We brought along these 2 French guys too that were really funny. They spoke a little English, enough to communicate, but it was hilarious some of the things they would say. One of the Welsh girls was trying to explain what 'cocky' meant to one of them, and he went, "mmm cookie I love them!" But then she said, no, COCKy, it's a different word, but he still didn't get it, he was like, "cockies are good!" and would rub his belly. It was really amusing. They also would try to sing along with the songs on the bus, but they only sortof knew the words. "I Kissed a Girl" came on, and they were rocking out to it. They knew the music, but not really the words, it was really amusing. When we were canoeing with them, they were both trying to splash our boat at the same time and ended up leaning too far to one side and flipped their boat. They kept trying to splash the Welsh girls too, and the one girl kept trying to say not to because she had her camera, but they didn't get it. She was like, just ignore them, maybe they'll leave us alone! It was an entertaining trip. We saw a possum and a kangaroo too, but nothing as good as it had been the night before. It was a really fun trip all around, I really liked the backpacker hostel and all the people there. They also had an awesome dog named Jeb that was really sweet that we got to hang out, he even came canoeing with us.

Pix are: canopy of giant strangler fig tree, mom and i with view on the way up to the tablelands, waterfall in the tablelands, the backpacker lodge, Jeb the dog from the lodge, and a baby tree kangaroo awwww

Cairns and Green Island

After my field trip, I had a night at home to do laundry and pack again to go off for the rest of my spring break. I flew up north to Cairns to meet my mom who came out for a couple weeks which was really cool. It was really good to see her, it had been about 6 months since I have seen any of my family and was definitely great that she could get time off work and come hang out over here for awhile. I got in at night and we didn't do very much because we had to get up early to go white water rafting the next day. The bus picked us up in the morning and we went to the Tully river that is a couple hours south and had an awesome time rafting the river. There are a lot lot lot of Japanese tourists in Cairns, so many of the guides are from Japan as well, and we got one of them named Yoshi, who kindof spoke English, which made it an interesting and probably more exciting trip, as you were sometimes not sure what he was instructing you to do. He was really enthusiastic though, and the other people in our boat were cool, there were some Germans and a couple from Dubai. We got to swim some rapids which was a lot of fun and they did a lot of tricks with the different rapids like doing 180s down the white water and flooding the raft. It was a sweet trip. They dropped us back off at Cairns that night and we got dinner at a sushi train place, it was like one of the sushi boat places, but on a train. Very awesome.

The next day we got up and took the ferry over to Green Island out on the great barrier reef. We stayed over there for 2 nights and it was great. You could snorkel whenever you wanted, and we got up early both mornings and went out before breakfast and got to see some awesome stuff like fish and turtles and sharks. They even fed the fish every afternoon off the jetty and tons of them would come and freak out over the fish food. One day we swam around the whole island and went to some places that were comepletely empty of people. My mom saw two shovelnose rays that freaked her out a bit, and we saw a ton of sea cucumbers too that are always good for entertainment. They look like deformed penises and when you pick them up they squirt out liquid from one side, what a ridiculous animal. We also got to go out to the outer reef on a boat that drove out about an hour to a platform in a part of the ocean where you couldn't see any land in any direction. It was really cool, you could snorkel off the platform or go in a semi-sub or even take a helicpoter flight over the reef. We snorkeled the whole time and had a good lunch there, and then snorkeled some more. I got a cool sunburn all over my back, it was pretty sunny out and the water wasn't even cold. I am really glad we were up there when it wasn't stinger season, because you can just go swimming anywhere without worrying about jellyfish or having to wear the 'stinger suits'. It was really neat, we saw a lot of fish and some sharks even, it was really beautiful.

They also had a crocodile farm/zoo thing on the island that was a bit random but it was neat. They had a bunch of crocs over there and we went over for one of the feedings where the guy got the big 5 meter croc to jump out of the water for a chicken. It was pretty impressive. We also got to hold a small crocodile that had its mouth taped shut. I was happy about that because they will aparently just go for anything and would take a bite out of you without really thinking at all. It's true though because a crocodile has the brain about the size of one of our fingernails, and everything it does is based on instinct and it doesn't really ever think about anything. Pretty weird, but it makes them predictable I guess.

The rest of the time we just chilled out at the beach and walked around the island. They had a free drinks hour at 5 every night and we took advantage of the free mimosas! Was pretty cool, really nice place, and we had good weather most of the time. It poured rain really hard for a few minutes at a time or a lot at night, but we were definitely lucky and had sunny days most of the time.

Pix are: sargent major fish at the fish feeding, the outer reef, snorkeling, mom with sea cucumber, and a turtle