Watch Out For Roos!!!

First of all, I’ve finally put up the last of my Tibet photos.  I’ve also added Thailand and a few from New Zealand and Australia.  Check them out!

I’m now in the Blue Mountains, which rise to the west of Sydney.  All I can say is that Australia is a BIG country.  I already knew that intellectually, but now I have physically seen it.  Tim and I spent the last 4 days in a spirited little Thrifty Car Rental Hyundai called a “Getz” travelling across the vast breadth of Western Victoria and Southern New South Wales.  Our route covered nearly 1,700 km from Melbourne, down the Great Ocean Road, up to the Grampians, on to Bendigo, Echuca, Deniliquin, Bathurst, and Katoomba all the way to Sydney.  Mind you, this is probably more driving than I have done in the past 3 years combined… and it was all on the wrong side of the road!

No worries though.  All the roads were 2 lanes wide, and Aussie drivers are only minorly insane when it comes to passing you with very little space.  Truth be told, much of the trip was pretty easy-going.  Once you get outside the cities, there ain’t much out there.  We went as far out as Echuca and Deniliquin — breezing through tiny 4-house towns (which were the biggest thing for endless miles around) and big empty sheep stations — and we weren’t even in the “outback” or “the big empty”.  This is a big place.

"ute on a pole"

It’s all very scenic, and the Aussies are good fun.  After partying our socks off in Melbourne, we hit the Great Ocean Road, which is rather like California’s Pacific Coast Highway but with eucalyptus trees.  It’s equally stunning!  Then we went hiking in the Grampians, which are some REALLY OLD mountains.  The weathering on them makes it almost look like a big pile of rocks.  From there, it was through old gold mining towns, sheep stations, and truck stops.  We saw the “ute on a pole”, and a ton of spots that were robbed by the famous Ned Kelly.  It’s all very Old-West like, as much of this country was settled during the Gold Rush of 1851.

And in all this, we only covered a teeny tiny corner of this vast continent.  In all that driving, we definitely heard a lot of our CD’s several times.  Even the Meatloaf one…

Aside from driving on the wrong side of the road (and hence having the manual transmission to my left side), driving in Australia is fairly easy-going.  The one thing you have to watch out for, of course, is kangaroos!  At night they have a tendency to jump in front of cars, rather like deer in the Northeastern US.  The roads are littered with ‘roo roadkill.  You also gotta watch out for emus too, though they seem smart enough to give cars a wide berth.  Fortunately, at the end of a long drive, Tim and I could hit our local supermarket and check the meat case for some kangaroo.  Throw it on the barbie, and it’s actually quite nice.

Tomorrow we head into Sydney, the final destination down here.  Oh, and we hope to find some koala on the way!

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I’m Batman

OK, not really.  But I am in Batman’s town right now.  John Batman, that is.  He sort of started the city of Melbourne, so there are street named after him all over the place.  And yes, it’s pronounced the same as the superhero.  I still think the idea of "Batman Avenue" is pretty cool.

Right, progress report.  Been here in the Antipodean epicenter for Swine Flu for a few days now.  Haven’t contracted a cough yet.  The city is really nice, and rated as one of the most liveable in the world.  Tim and I have met up with our buddy Sophia, who is a native.  She’s given us the full list of things to see and do, and properly scolded us for being… well, us.  We’ve toured the Victoria Parliament, Botanic Gardens (it’s actually exciting when the plants here are SO WEIRD), markets, shops, old buildings, cafes, bar etc.  We’ve even been to Luna Park, which is the Australian equivalent of Coney Island — complete with a giant clown head that wants to eat you.  We also found one of the best concept restaurants ever: totally devoted to:

1. veal/chicken/eggplant parmagiana

2. local microbrews

As the New Zealanders would say, "sweet as".

We left the bright lights of the city for the coast yesterday.  We hit up Tourquay, "the home of Australian surfing".  I showed Tim some basics, and we hit the waves, which were perfect for we beginners – long, rolling, about 4 feet high, and just the right frequency.  It was sunny and gorgeous – truly awesome.

Timmy swallowed a lot of saltwater.

Now we’re back in Melb for the weekend, we’ll see what adventure awaits!  Apparently, we might be able to crash an American themed costume party.  I’m going to go wearing my accent and see if that counts.

In the meantime, Timmy continues to urge me to "take the vegemite challenge" at breakfast.  I think this is a bad idea.

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The National Religion

Rugby.

Last night, Tim and I finally got to see the major focus of the NZ national Religion: we went to a pub to watch the All Blacks play.  The All Blacks are the NZ national rugby team.  The entire nation worships them.  There are “All Blacks” shops in every town in the country.  I’ve seen ads for an All Blacks themed Monopoly game that sells for $80 NZD (that’s about $50 USD).  I’m sure it gets snapped right  up.  The international rugby union games are a national event.  On Saturday they played France.  I had to go see this.

You could tell it was game day, because suddenly the people of Auckland were wearing a lot more black. A LOT of black.  Black obviously being the team color.  Tim and I link up with a large crew of French people staying in the same hostel, and roll on don to the local pub.  The place is PACKED wall to wall.  And everyone is wearing black.  The game starts, and you can see the crowd in the stadium… all in black.  It’s as if the king has died and the whole country’s in mourning, there’s so much black.

But this is a festive event.  The pub cheers, the beer flows.  The Frenchmen with us sing proudly to La Marseillaise.  I begin to feel a little nervous standing next to them…

And then the haka starts.  The All Blacks doing the haka is clearly the most badass event in international sport.  It’s the traditional Maori greeting dance that is intended to scare the piss out of any opponent.  There’s loads of shouting, stomping, glaring, and slapping.  And then the game starts.

I’ve always thought rugby was one of the best spectator sports.  It’s 80 minutes of play where thy only stop for halftime and to remove bodies from the field.  There is blood.  There are rough tackles, surprise turnovers, and near-misses galore.  And, unlike football, the last 10 minute don’t take 3 hours to play: the clock doesn’t stop for out-of-bounds.  It really should be televised in the States at a reasonable hour (most games are European, so in the afternoon).

In a rough showing, the French won.  The nation was saddened, but not bitter.  There were probably a few overturned cars down in Dunedin, but they’re apparently nuts down there and do that every Saturday.  The Frenchmen in our presence were safe in Auckland.  People are very friendly in NZ, after all.

I think the most amusing place that you can see this is at rock shows.  I’ve seen a few, including one on Friday.  Every band’s stage presence is a bit amusing.  They’re all very very polite, and a bit shy.  It’s almost cute, really.  It’s certainly pleasant.

Anyhow, the time has come to leave.  I fly tomorrow for Melbourne, a town which, by all accounts, I will apparently really love.  We’ll then be driving up to Sydney, and hopefully not getting bitten by anything that will kill us.  In Australia, approximately all the animals have the ability to kill you, so this is no small feat.  Wish us luck!

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Grab a Shovel!

So, New Zealand is an odd place.  It’s a bit like Hawaii if the British invented it.  Yes, the reputation is true, there are a LOT of sheep around here.  Millions of ’em.  They cover the rolling hills, leaving the hills grassy and green, resembling the nicer areas of rural England or France.  On top of that, the European settlers of the past 160 years did a lot of work (both accidentally anddeliberately) importing new flora and fauna.  There are large awathes of the country filled with European (and occaisional American, Australian and Asian) species… which creates European-like landscapes.  Dutch painters could have made pictures of some of the countryside here.

But then there are the Pacific-island aspects, which sometimes shine through.  These include the enormous ancient Kauri trees… whcih are freakin’ huge!!!  They also have no branches at levels below about 20 feet – this was likely a defense mechanism against the Moa – a now-extinct breed of flightless bird that was the size of a mid-size sedan.  They also include the Maori people.  They came to New Zealand sometime around 1000 or 1200 AD.  They are a Polynesian people, meaning they are related to Hawaiians.  You can see quite a bit of resemblance in the traditional dress, music, and dances, as well as the language.  The most badass thing about these guys is that they somehow got here by canoe.  Yup, they crossed enormous expanses of the Pacific Ocean in canoes.  Nice.  They also do this really awesome thing with their tongues and eyeballs to intimidate and greet visitors.  They also carve it into all their buildings.  I’m practicing it now, because I think people around the world will appreciate it.

The other day, though, we saw one of the coolest things about being on the Ring of Fire: Hot Water Beach (pictured).  This beach is wicked cool.  Basically, for 2 hours on either side of low tide, you can go down to the beach with a shovel and start digging.  Just below the surface of the sand, a volcanic hot spring bubbles through the fine beach sand.  So, when you dig, the hole fills with hot water – and you have your own private spa!

So, despite the chill wind, Timmy and I braved it the other day.  It was pretty awesome.  Since then, we’ve headed up to the “far north” of New Zealand – which is pretty far north indeed.  It’s almost warm up here!  Unfortunately, it has been raining nearly nonstop, so we can’t really enjoy it much 😦  I hope it clears up soon.

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Rotorua: Where Nature Does Its Business

In Space, nobody can here you scream.  Well, in Rotorua, nobody can smell you fart.

This is the place where nature exhudes interesting smells, colored waters, and a whole lotta heat.  The entire town smells like rotten eggs… or worse.  It makes having a garlic dinner much more socially acceptable, though, so I’m 100% in favor.  The reason is because of high volcanic-type activity.  New Zealand sits on a fault line, and so has a lot of that.  Rotorua in particular has even more.  This morning we got to watch this geyser blow up.  They dump some soap in there, and withing minutes a hot jet of water shoots as high as 40 feet into the air.  Then there are all manner of rock pools and funky steaming lakes.  There are also bubbling molten mud flats and sulphur-crystal stalactites.  The steam coming off the lakes and streams is so intense that you walk around in a cloud all day.  Once you leave the hot springs area, there isn’t a cloud in the sky.

Of course, one can’t then pass up the chance to boil oneself aline in one of these pools.  Hot springs rule!

Timmy and I arrived here yesterday, journeying up from Tongariro National Park.  There we went hiking on the barren pumice plains where they shot the Mordor scenes in Lord of The Rings.  It was some great trekking in beautiful country.

It was also bloody cold.  This is the start of the NZ wintertime, so I was expecting it to be a bit chilly outside, sure.  The problem is the NZ indoors.  You see, for some reason, most New Zealand houses have no insulation.  None.  Zip.  That seems strange, since much of NZ is about as far south as Maine is north.  So, the average kiwi house spends the winter well below the WHO recommended minimum of 16 degrees C.  I have spent days in my thermal underwear.

I know it’s not just me, because all the papers are talking about it too.  The government here just produced its annual budget.  What with the international economic situation and all (NZ is not immune), they cut all over the place, with many papers calling it “slash and burn”.  The one spending item they added?  Insulating houses.  I read one editorial the other day where the author advocated doing some serious research into whoever lied to earlier generations of kiwi immigrants and told them this was a warm, tropical country.  Their ancestors should be found and made to pay for their crimes.

Thaty being said, Timmy and I are still having a ball.  We’ll be heading further north though, since in this part of the world, north is warmer.  The leaves on the trees all die in May and June.  The southern hemisphere is weird.

Time for some dinner.  Beans, perhaps?

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Jumping Out Of Planes…

So, contrary to vicious rumors being spread about how “Tadhog’s not really in New Zealand, but working for Lenscrafters as a male model” (see photo), I’m here in Taupo, NZ.

This morning, Timmy and I jumped out of an airplane.

This may seem like a bad idea, however, the guy who’s harnessed to my back has a parachute on, and does this about a dozen times every day.  Lake Taupo NZ is probably the world’s busiest drop zone, with many companies offering thrilling skydiving experiences.  They took 4 of us up (plus 4 instructors and a camera guy) in a tiny plane to 12,000 feet, then shoved us out the door.  At that point, my heart lept into my throat as my guy decided it would be awesome to do a little barrel roll with me…  Yeah.  You drop a good 8,000 feet in about 45 seconds – the longest 45 seconds of my life.  It’s cold.  The wind is insane (I have very clear nostrils now!).  The views are also spectacular.  We could gaze all the way over to Mt. Taranaki on the coast – a perfect snowcapped volcanic cone (it was a stand-in for Fuji in The Last Samurai).  Below me, approaching my falling body rather faster than I care to repeat, was Lake Taupo, NZ’s largest lake.  It’s actually a gigantic volcanic caldera, which had the what is probably the largest volcanic eruption in recorded history, noted by the Chinese and Romans back in the 2nd century AD.  NZ topography doesn’t mess around.

After 45 seconds of free-fall, the chute opened, and we cruised around, doing some steep and slightly scary turns.  We landed without incident and were soaking in the bath by 1pm.  Not a bad day.

The previous couple days we sampled products of some different topography.  Down in Napier, Timmy and I spent a full day riding bikes around town and sampling the local vino.  In NZ, winery tastings are often totally free, and one place even let us take home the half filled bottles at the end!  Nice!

Napier, meanwhile, was once “the world’s most modern city”.  See, back in 1931, the entire city was entirely flattened by an earthquake.  So, they decided to rebuild it in the brand new Art Deco and Spanish Mission styles.  It’s pretty cool to walk around an entire town that seems to belong in the opening sequence of a 20th Century Fox movie.

The next stop is Tongariro National Park.  We really really wanted to do the Alpine Crossing, which has spectacular views.  You also apparently get to walk amongst loads of volcanic steam vents and stuff.  Unfortunately, it is extremely cold right now down here.  Downtown Wellington just got its first snowfall in 17 years yesterday.  Sooooo… anything “alpine” requires ice crampons and mountaineering experience.  We have neither.  But we will be able to do some lower altitude trekking, which should still be pretty awesome.  Hopefully I’ll get to see some really weird fauna (they’ve got a lot of that here).

As for what mountains we’ll see in Tongariro, they include Mt. Ngauruhoe and Mt. Ruapehu.  You might recognize Ngauruhoe from some recent films:

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