Melbourne

These are the Wonders of Down Under. This is the story of my trip to Australia.

I believe I left off in Sydney, as I had just finished hiking the Blue Mountains, and I was preparing for my trip to Melbourne.

We'll start with some boring backpacker transportation info.

Transportation as a backpacker can be done in one of several ways, not all of which I describe here. Obviously a plane is easiest, but it is also the most expensive and can go up in cost quickly when you also need to check a couple bags. Another option is taking a greyhound bus (they call them carriages). Carriages allow more luggage and are about 35-50% cheaper. Further, you can use ride-sharing websites such as coseats.com or post ads on classifieds sites like gumtree.com (basically craigslist for Aussies and the UK) in order to meet up with other travelers who ask for some gas money in exchange for a ride. The issue with rideshares is that you have to adhere to the driver's schedule. Additionally, the price of fuel (closer to $4/gallon here) causes people to ask for gas contributions that are usually less than carriages, but not as low as you would think. Other options include buying your own car (which is fairly common based on the backpackers I have talked to) and relocating camper vans for camper rental companies. This last option sounded great to me, as you would receive free use of a camper van for a set number of days, be allowed to sleep in it as well. However, further analysis shows that after paying for your own gas, the costs of this option can get out of control, on top of all the liability taken and scheduling/mileage requirements imposed on you by the camper company can make this a much less lucrative option. Although I haven't ruled out any of these options for future use, I chose to take a carriage based on ease of schedule, comparative costs, reduced overall risk, and the fact that overnight travel allows me to pay for one less night of accommodation.

Additionally, I have found that if you are going to backpack through a country, you only need the one backpack. Bringing one additional duffel bag is too much, let alone a second one. Plane travel is more expensive, and walking a mile or so while carrying all that weight will put some wear and tear on your shoulders. However, I am just too much of a mothafucking diva to reduce my pack load now, so I will just deal with it.

Okay Corey, so you took a bus and packed too much shit. Cool story bro.

I arrived in Melbourne. I have still been using Airbnb for a place to stay, and I was pleasantly surprised when arrived. The room was on the 27th floor of one of the high-rises in the CBD (central business district) and had a great view of the surrounding city. I slept on a futon in the living room, but for approximately $35 a night it was a good deal.

The trapdoor is hard to see, but it is directly beneath the rope

For my first touristy destination, I visited the Old Melbourne Gaol. "Gaol" is apparently how the english spelled "jail" back in the day, as weird as that sounds. Built in 1842, it served as the location for 133 hangings including the infamous Ned Kelly. Although it may be hard to see, the white beam supported by the walls would hold the rope, and a trap door was placed beneath the beam. The scaffold shown in the picture had hung 51 people and was located inside the jail. Other scaffolds were placed throughout the site. As crude as capital punishment was back in those days, the executioner had many quality control steps to make the process as easy as possible. For example, the rope lengths  and drops were all based on body height, weight, neck size, etc. An execution plan for a criminal who was approximately 150 lbs specified exactly 9 feet of drop from heel to heel. Any more and the neck was torn, any less and the neck doesn't break. Pretty morbid right?

Later that night, I went on a moonlit kayak tour of Melbourne's Victoria Harbour and Yarra River. We started out in an area called the docklands, which is essentially the Pearl District of Melbourne. The surrounding bay had some awesome views, and we were treated to fish and chips for dinner. (Sidenote: I'm sure that many of you know that "chips" are french fries, but did you know that what we call chips, as in tortilla chips or doritos, are referred to as "crisps"?) After dinner we paddled upriver to see Melbourne's city lights, as well as some riverside pyrotechnics. I had forgotten how cool kayaking can be, so I recommend some of you try some kayak trips this summer!

I had noticed a couple interesting things on the sidewalk by this point. A motorcyclist informed me that it is perfectly legal (and free) to park your motorbike on the side of the sidewalk.Also, they have troughs with drinking water for horses all over the place. I figured they were as antiquated as the horse rings that you will still find being installed in new sidewalks around Portland, but a passerby told me that there are a ton of horses in the downtown area, and that they are very much necessary.

I see this as a good time to point out that "Melbourne" is pronounced the way it sounds. I mentioned to a local that I was told Melbournians pronounced it like "Mebbin", to which I was scoffed at and corrected.

A Ute

Additonally, the concept of a pickup truck doesn't really exist here. Lifting your truck seems to be pretty American. Instead of pickups, Aussies use "utes". After a quick description from a local, I found out this is short for "utility". See the picture for a typical one, I imagine them to be more like a modern El Camino. You may see some typical American trucks here, but they are far and few between. As stupid as utes look, I think I want one.

The room in the hostel, shared with 11 other people

After two nights on the 27th floor futon, I moved to a hostel. Unfortunately, most hostels have turned out to be about the same cost as Airbnb places. The one I stayed at cost about $30/night. The night I arrived they had a pub crawl for everyone to join in on, which was awesome. We all toured around the little suburb of Melbourne called St Kilda, and visited four different bars. We all shared some goon, and had a great night. Goon is a slang term for cheap boxed wine. Alcohol is extremely expensive here, and so most people turn to goon for a cheap way to get drunk. Apparently the name came from the aboriginal word for pillow, as once you drink the whole box you can blow the bag up and use it as a pillow.

Most of the people staying in the hostel seemed to either be from the UK, Germany, or Australia. Others I met came from Canada, France, New Zealand, or other places. What I was surprised by though, is I did not meet anyone else who was American while in the hostel. Overall, everyone spoke English and were all really friendly.

The next day I went on city tour of Melbourne. Melbournians are extreme sports fans and have stadiums all over the place. While I have been here, the Australian Open of tennis has been held. They also have a Formula 1 race held here each year. One of the last stops on the tour was at the ANZAC Shrine of Remembrance (Australian and New Zealand Army Corps). This is a huge structure devoted primarily to the losses during WWI, which amounted to 19,000 soldiers lost for ANZAC out of the total 27,000 from all wars combined. The building was an incredible sight, and also had a great view of downtown Melbourne.







I also threw in a quick hike in the Dandenong Ranges National Park. It was called "1000 Steps" as a remembrance of a trek that the ANZAC took to try to defend Port Moresby in Papua New Guinea in WWII. I liked this picture.

Historical beer bottles

Melbourne contains one of the biggest breweries in Australia, in the Carlton Brewhouse. As an avid beer fan, I went in for a tour. The overall production process was not completely different from what I have done at home, although the scale was massive. I was not allowed to take pictures of the inside due to employee privacy rules, but the place was pretty massive. The tanks used to produce wort (the pre-fermented beer) were over two stories tall and more than ten feet in diameter. An interesting fact mentioned was that yeast was re-used in up to ten batches of beer. Afterwards, it was sold to Kraft foods for the production of vegemite, which I still haven't tried since I have arrived. They showed us the bottling plant which was cool to see how much faster the automated process was (900 bottles/min) compared to my manual bottling rate (uhh 2 bottles/min maybe?). An additional aspect of the mass production process was the pasteurization of the beer. This is done after the bottling process is completed, by heating the bottles to 60deg celsius (140f) then rapidly cooled. The pasteurization process can increase shelf life from 3 months to 9 months, although it does have a small impact on the flavor of the beer. The tour ended as all great tours do; with some beer tasting. They gave us small glasses of about 8 different beers and a cider, all of which were delicious. You probably guessed that I left in a pretty good mood.

Lastly, January 26th was the celebration of Australia Day. It celebrates the first landing of Europeans on Australian shores back in 1788. Although the holiday is somewhat controversial in the same way that Columbus day is controversial in the US, the whole nation seems to love the holiday and celebrate similarly to our July 4th holiday. I started the day by visiting the Australia Day Parade. Australia a nation of immigrants just like the US, and so the variety of different cultures involved in the parade was really fascinating. Later on, I visited a concert featuring several Melbourne bands and a firework show over Victoria Harbour. Fireworks are awesome.

It looks like I will be off to Adelaide next, and maybe up to Brisbane or Cairns after that. The great barrier reef needs to happen eventually! Thanks for reading everyone!

Sydney

Hello everyone!

The Wonders of Down Under. This is the story of my trip to Australia.

I had sought something new. Living in Portland, I had loved my job, my friends, and where I lived. However, I still felt like I wanted something new, exotic, and different from what I had experienced before. So I decided that I would attempt a trip to Australia. My plan would be to show up, do some touristy stuff, get a job, enjoy a year abroad, and return home. This is where I am at so far:

4900 Slavin

My story starts at 4900 Slavin Rd. After having lived here for over two years, it was hard to say goodbye to that place. This was the last time I saw the front door.

Sunset from Little Mountain Park

Once the nightmare of getting all my stuff moved out was over, we finally got on the road. My aunt Janice and my mother Deborah were kind enough to drive me to Vancouver B.C., where my flight was to depart. Our friend Cassie was nice enough to let us stay at her house in Mt Vernon, so that we didn't have to make the 6 hour drive all in one day. We visited Little Mountain park the night in Mt Vernon, and were treated to an incredible sunset.



I had been super nervous before the flight for several reasons:

1. This was my first international flight
2. I have a very short 1 hour layover in a country who's primary language is not English.
3. I am moving to a new flippin country!

Route from Vancouver-Guangzhou

Once I was on the flight however, I felt pretty good. The jitters were gone and I was able to enjoy flying. I thought our route to china was somewhat weird though, as we passed way up near the Bering Sea before coming back down to Guangzhou (near Hong Kong) where the connecting flight was located. The initial flight ended up taking just over 12 hours, down from the estimated 13.5 hours, and so I was able to not only make the connecting flight but have dinner and a beer as well!

Cockroach (finger for scale)

The bunk bed

Due to jet lag, the first day in Sydney was pretty uneventful. I basically napped, set up my bank account, and ate candy. Yay for vacation! I did meet a young aussie named nick though, he taught me a bit about Cricket, the Australian Football League (AFL, Aussie-rules Football), and Rugby, which are apparently some of the biggest sports in Australia. I stayed in a hostel (although it was on airbnb, therefore untaxed and not legally a hostel) and had a pretty sweet bunk bed actually. The first night in Sydney was also my first encounter with an aussie bug. The picture does not do justice for how big this cockroach really was. And for you observant folks thinking "is it dead? is it in your bed sheets?" I say yes, and yes.



Day two was more interesting. I was able to head downtown to see Darling Harbour, Circular Quay (pronounced Circular "key") and the Sydney Opera House. It turns out that finding your way in a new city without data on your cell phone can be difficult, so I spent a lot of time wandering around looking for free wifi to figure out where to go next. I did take a tour of the opera house which was interesting. Some interesting facts are:

1. Jorn Utzen, the architect, did not consult an engineer before submitting his design to the international competition to determine the design of the structure. This played a factor in later cost overruns as the foundation had begun construction before a building design was finalized.
2.  The initial project cost estimation was 7 million, but in the end cost 102 million and was delivered 10 years late.
3. Jorn Utzen was eventually fired (due to cost/scheduling overruns, as well as the election of a new Premier in New South Wales) and never saw the finished building in his lifetime.

The Harbour Bridge was also pretty cool, although i did not get a chance to do the walking tour to the top. Maybe another time though! Also, it is worth noting that if any of you Oregonians visit Sydney, dont make the classic mistake as I did in the bottom picture of wearing a black t shirt with jeans and no sunscreen. No bueno. 

Day three included a trip to the Taronga Zoo. I met a couple of girls at the airbnb house who were on vacation from the states and decided to join me (they wanted to cuddle a koala, which sadly didn't happen). The Taronga Zoo has a sweet gondola that carries you over the zoo which we were able to ride for free. I was mostly excited about seeing the kangaroos, but they had loads of really cool animals there, including Platypus and Crocodiles to name a few. It ended up raining partway through our zoo trip, which is weird since it is summer here but apparently that is normal. Ironically, I had finally bought sunscreen earlier that morning. 

Be jealous

Day four turned out to be a struggle to figure out phone service, which is not worth describing. However, I did end up walking down a pretty sweet alleyway on my way to the phone store with a ton of cool graffiti. Later on, I ended up going to a pizza place with an English guy who described in detail how much different the English accent is from the Australian accent. They had an interesting selection of pizza, so i decided to go with a half crocodile/half kangaroo pie. Kangaroo tastes way better. (kangaroo is the dark meat, crocodile is the lighter meat).

Manly Beach (I forgot to take pics at Bondi)

Day five included a tour of Bondi Beach. Bondi Beach is one of the more expensive places in Sydney, with apartment values reaching up to 20 million. One of the interesting stories the tour guide told was of the origination of the name "kangaroo". Apparently Captain James Cook (the guy who discovered Australia) asked the Aboriginals what this strange animal (a kangaroo) was, and they responded with a word that sounded like "gangrou", so Captain Cook named the animal a kangaroo since that is what he thought he heard. Years later, when the Aboriginal language had been translated to English, they found that the word "gangrou" actually meant "I dont understand what you're saying". 

Day six included a trip to the Powerhouse Museum, which contains a ton of steam engines. Apparently steam powered literally everything in the 1800s from trains to carousels. The industrial revolution may not have been possible without it. The museum also included things like surgical equipment of the 1800s, australian-produced planes, trains, and cars, as well as an exhibit on political activism throughout the world. Pretty cool stuff. Lastly I checked out Sydney's other popular beach, Manly Beach. It was stacked with tons of beautiful and affluent people, and was much cooler than any beach in Oregon. While there, I noticed the nutrition facts on my candy bar listed the energy content in kilojoules rather than calories. The metric system is everywhere!

My last full day spent in Sydney was spent in the Blue Mountains just to the west of the city. I had gone up there to do some bushwalking (hiking). The landscape was beautiful, and really reminded me a lot of trails you would see in the northwest. The cliffs create a barrier from the elements for the rainforest below, and the rich clay layer allows for all kinds of plants to thrive. I saw a couple pretty cool waterfalls and took a picture I plan to submit to "wear in the world". It was probably my favorite of all the Australian places I have been so far

So that is a pretty basic summary of what I have done in Australia in my first week. I have just arrived in Melbourne, and plan to be here for a couple days at least. No real job prospects quite yet, but I am still applying. I hope to keep this little blog thing going on for a couple weeks, but we will see if I will continue to have time. My little tablet is not the best for blogging ;) Thanks for reading!