Last Adventure Down Under: New Zealand

So it's taken me awhile to get to this post because New Zealand was the last place that I visited before heading back to the States. And therefore, it's the last post of this blog. And I've been putting it off because anything that makes Australia feel far away makes me sad. But since I'm back in St. Louis and classes start in a couple of days I thought that it was about time to sit down and write this beast.

So New Zealand. I traveled around the north island of New Zealand with my family, my parents and younger sister. It was really great to travel with them, first of all because I hadn't seen them in 6 months, and second of all because we DID NOT travel like backpackers, which was a welcome change after 3 weeks of backpacking. Gourmet food and amazing hotels, very very nice :P. Anyway, my mom worked really hard planning this trip so that we could see as much of the north island as possible. We started our trip in Aukland, the biggest city in the country. The first thing that we noticed when we got off the plane was the air. It just smelled cleaner and fresher. We drove through the city and got some spectacular sunset views (above), and I've got to say with the glittering bays, and the vast parklands this city feels very incorporated into nature. We were literally only in Aukland one night, and then we headed to our next stop. The Waitomo Glowworm Caves!!! This was the one thing I told my family we had to make sure we saw. My sister does not like, bugs, boats and the dark but she was a good sport and went anyway. I thought it was amazing!!!! The glowworms look like stars in the darkness and reflect into the water so it feels like you're floating through space. We also visited another set of caves with amazing limestone formations (below left). There we slaw more of the glowworms. The glow you see is actually the worms anus, and worms sit on the ceilings of the caves, they have as many as 10 silk threads that they use to "fish" for flying insects in the caves. When you shine light on them the glow can't be seen but the threads look like beads of silk (below right). It was so cool to see these amazing insects, they're only found in Australia and New Zealand so I wanted to make sure I saw them when I was Down Under!!

After the Waitomo caves we went to Lake Taurpo, where we stayed at an amazing lodge. It felt like something out of a fairytale! I don't know if you remember the black swan story I learned about in class, but swans in the southern hemisphere are black instead of white, and our first morning at the lodge we woke up to a black swan bathing in the river, there was mist everywhere and it was gorgeous (below), yet another example of the general natural beauty of this country. There is so much greenery everywhere, partly because of all the farms and partly due to the natural parks we visited. Everything looks surreal. I was actually really glad we visited in the winter because it has it's own unique beauty.

That day we headed to Tongariro National Park. We did not hike the famous mountain crossing since we were there in winter. Instead we went on a wonderful hike that gave us amazing views of the mountains, which are actually cone volcanoes. The mountain below might look familiar to you, it's Mt/ Ngauruhoe which was Mt. Doom in Lord of the Rings!! We got amazing views of it on this beautiful winter day. Some other amazing things we saw on out hike was frozen soil that froze in these interesting vertical crystals (below bottom left). Also my sister spotted a native New Zealand owl the Morpork (below bottom right)! They are rare and we came across this little guy taking a nap in a tree.

After Tarupo, we headed to Hawke's Bay and Napier. This is a famous wine region on the North Island, they're known for their reds, and I went to a wine tasting with my family. It was really fun to do that with my parents, they both love wine and I'm starting to learn more about it. There is a ton of since to making wine so it was interesting to me to learn about how weather and soil type affects the grapes, which in turn impact the wine. Besides the wine, the region itself is absolutely gorgeous (below). We stayed at another lodge and the day after the wine tour was my favorite! I went on an amazing horseback ride in the morning. First of all, I love riding. I used to do it when I was little, but rarely get to these days. The combination of riding up and down the mountains to get sweeping views of the bay, learning a new style of riding with a hackmore bridle (no bit), and just being on horseback agin put me in the best of moods. Then that afternoon I went on a small hike with my parents, where we got to see more of the property. 

After Hawke's Bay, headed back inland to Rotorua. This city is set on the biggest geothermal hot springs in the country. And it's still super active!! The entire city smells like sulfur from the volcanism under the ground. When we went to the Waimangu geothermal fields we saw a ton of different interesting geothermal pools. One of them was this beautiful but deadly Inferno Crater (below top). It has an extremely low pH and is superheated. But it's so cool because it is a cyclical lake! The water level changes with a predictable cycle, this is the only known lake that does this. Besides this feature we saw many small geothermal sprouts (below left), and bubbling pools (below right). It's so interesting because while there are similarities to the other volcanically active places I've visited (Yellowstone and Hawai'i), New Zealand is still incredibly unique. 

While in Rotorua, we got to spend some time with a Kiwi friend of my sister's and her family. We had such a nice time with them and it really made that part of our trip unique. Our last day we stopped in Hobbiton on our way to the airport. This is the permanent set from the Lord of the Rings movie. It was incredibly cool to see all the hobbit holes. Since they used camera angles to make the actors appear smaller than they were some of the hobbit holes were huge and some were really tiny!! It was a great way to end the trip. 

We flew back in Sydney and stayed there for one more night before the long long trip back to the U.S. I was so happy that I got to end my time Down Under by spending it with my family exploring New Zealand. By the time we were heading home I felt ready to go back in a way that I didn't feel at the end of the semester. A month never sleeping in the same bed for more that 2 nights will do that to you, haha. Really though, now that I've been back in the states for about a month I'm missing Australia terribly. There is really nothing like living in another country on your own (however briefly), and experiencing a new culture, new cities, new animals and plants, and, of course, meeting heaps of amazing people. This semester taught me so much about myself, and I will always cherish the past six months. Here's hoping I make it back someday!!!!

Reunion in Sydney!

All things must come full circle and my experience in Australia is no exception. I ended my time in this country in the same city I began it in: Sydney. My family came to Australia to meet up with me before we all went to New Zealand for a week. I hadn't seen them in 6 months with is the longest ever I've gone without at least a weekend visit, so I was so excited to see them. I arrived in Sydney the night before they did and they got in the next day at 7a, so I got to wake up to them arriving which was wonderful! We then spend our first day exploring Sydney. We did a couple of things that I hadn't gotten to my first time there. We went to the Torranga Zoo so that my sister could see some Australian animals. My sister's favorite is the kookaburra, so we were determined to find one. We spent a long time looking at a very puffy kookaburra in one of the exhibits. However, on our way out, a wild kookaburra landed on a branch right above me. He had a large piece of what looked like pizza in his mouth (below) and attempted to smack it against the tree trunk to break it into smaller pieces. It was so funny to watch! 

That afternoon I took my family to get some pies, so they could try some typical Australian food. We then walked around the Rocks, and we ended up in the oldest pub in Sydney. My dad wanted to get a beer at an aussie pub, so we did so. It was actually my first legal (American legal) drink with them, so it was really cool. 

                      

The next day, we went to the Opera House, the Botanical Gardens and Bondi Beach (above). This was interesting because they were all things I had done but in the summer rather than the winter. Bondi was empty, rather than over crowded, but it was fun to go with my family and experience the sights I most enjoyed last time I was in Sydney. I liked experiencing Australia with them, though I was a little sad we didn't have time to make it to Brisbane. 

Making the Most of Melbourne

I had 2 days between when my bus trip ended and when I was meeting up with my family in Sydney, so flew to Melbourne for about 36 hours to make sure to see Australia's second biggest city during my time Down Under. Basically, I had very little time to see a very large city. And I got to see and experience a on of it! This was thanks to a family friend of mine that lives in Melbourne, she was kind enough to show me around some of her favorite parts of the city. I saw so much more than what I would have seen doing it on my own, and had a wonderful time with her and her fiancé during those two days.

The city has this amazing feel of old and new meeting each other. Many of the buildings are heritage listed, with older beautiful architecture (below right), but huge sky scrapers dominate the CBD (top). There are many small arcades with stores, coffee shops, and restaurants. And the city sets aside certain arcades and alleyways for graffiti artists, so people have a place to express themselves without defacing property. They say that Melbourne experiences all four seasons in a day, and this was definitely true of my time there! I experienced 20 C and sun, 5 C, and 10 C and rain, all in one day, it was so weird, but the drastic weather changes reminded me a little of St. Louis :P

                                     

It's also a city of neighborhoods. I got to explore the CBD and South Melbourne with my friend, the first day I was there, and then checked out the Queen Victoria Markets (below left), Fitzroy (below right), and Carlton my second day. Melbourne is a city of food and coffee and I got the chance to shop and sample some of these treats, for a more detailed account check out the links above!

I really, really liked this city. I was extremely sad that I had so little time there, because I would have definitely wanted to explore more areas of the city and also take a drive out to the Great Ocean Road. But, sometimes things don't work out, so now I have a reason to come back to Australia so I can do some of the things that I missed. Even living there for 6 months and traveling heaps, I still didn't get to everything I wanted to do. This is in part because Oz is enormous, and also because when you travel anywhere it really is impossible to do everything. You just have to make the most of the time that you have, and I definitely did that both in Melbourne and in Australia as a whole!

The Rock and the Red Centre

Besides the Great Barrier Reef and the Sydney Opera House, there is another iconic Australian wonder, and that is Ayers Rock, or Uluru. Now the second half of the bus trip was us traveling from the Top End to Alice Springs and then continuing on to the Red Centre and Uluru. First of all, it took us two days of straight driving to get from Kakadu to Alice Springs, and there is nothing in between besides roadhouses and a couple of very small, very sketchy towns. Australia is around the same size as the US (maybe a bit bigger), but unlike the states, 90% of the population lives within 100 mi of the coast. That means the middle of the country is largely empty. In fact, some of the cattle stations are bigger than european countries! Driving through the middle of the country is an excellent way to get this perspective. Another really cool thing about this type of travel is that I could really see how the landscape and ecosystem changed as we got further south. Slowly the trees became shorter and fewer and the soil became rockier and redder (below), as the landscape changed from savanna to desert.

There were a couple of really cool geologic features on the way, like the Devils Marbles, huge eroded granite boulders (see below for a sense of scale, I'm 5'2"). For such an empty part of the country the outback certainly has its own stark dessert beauty. Also it's a geologist's dream :) We had one day to recover in Alice Springs before heading back out into the Red Centre. Myself and the other people on my trip spent the day walking around the town and doing laundry. We also enjoyed the hot desert sun at our hotel's pool. I decided to go in the pool which was a horrible idea. You see, it's winter in Australia right now, and since the desert actually gets really cold, the only thing that causes it to heat up during the day is direct sunlight. As soon as the sun falls, it drops into the single digits Celsius. Well, this pool had an awning over it so never received any direct sunlight, and was not artificially heated. So when I jumped in, my heart stopped. Actually, I've never been in water this cold in my life (and remember I've been swimming in cold waterfall pools and diving 20m under the ocean) and I immediately had to get out. 

When we left Alice, we headed to the southwest. And finally we got to Uluru!!! The Rock is absolutely amazing because it is so isolated. There really is nothing but sand dunes surrounding it. You can see why the native people consider it a sacred site. In fact an entire side of the rock is considered sacred and you are not supposed to take pictures of it. That's way all the pictures you see of the rock are taken from only 3 angles. Also, while people are still technically allowed to climb the rock it is culturally disrespectful. I wouldn't have climbed it anyway, since I don't like heights, but it makes me sad that given this people still choose to climb it anyway :(

Another really interesting thing about Uluru is that it changes color depending on the sun's position in the sky. Sunrise, midday and sunset all have a different distinct color (see below). This is because the iron in the rock reflects the sun rays differently depending on it's angle. It's also incredibly beautiful to see, and sunset was one of my favorite parts of the trip! After Uluru we also went to the Olgas, or Kata Tjuta, which is a series of boulder like formations in the same national park as Uluru. We went on a wonderful hike there! Our last hike of the trip was the King's Canyon Rim Walk. It had some drop off parts, which made me a little nervous because of my fear of heights. But the views were amazing, and there were some really cool ripple marks in the stone so I'm so glad I did it!

Another great thing about being in the Outback is that the stars were amazing!!! We could see the milky way and, of course, the Southern Cross! Our last night was spent in swag… which is traditional bush camping. Basically, it's a tent with enough room for a sleeping bag and that's it. I was really excited to camp in the Outback, but unfortunately it did not live up to my expectations. You see, it gets outrageously cold at night, and anywhere the swag touches the sleeping bag all of your body heat is lost, so I spent a pretty miserable cold night in my swag :( The upside, the stars were beautiful, we got to hear dingoes howling in the distance which was crazy cool, and it was a great last night with the friends I had made on the trip!

Besides the fact that this is a totally unique and iconic part of the country, one of my favorite parts of this trip was meeting and traveling with so many different and fabulous people! Most of the bus was 20 somethings traveling on their own and it was so cool getting to know everyone and sharing these fantastic experiences together. At this point I have travelled on my own, with school groups, with friends, and now with tour groups. Each is incredibly different, but all have been fun and rewarding in their own way!

Traveling at the Top End

After an incredibly long hiatus, I figured it was time to start synthesizing my last month of travel down under! At the beginning of July I flew to Darwin in true backpacker fashion (see below left), to go on a 10 day bus trip through the Top End and the Outback. The First 6 days of the trip included traveling through the Litchfield and Kakadu National Parks, as well as driving on the Stewart Highway on our way to Alice Springs. 

The Top End of Australia is monsoonal, so there are two seasons: a wet and a dry. The winter (when I was there) is the dry season. This means that there is essentially no humidity and no rain, but temperatures are still in the 20s C. This makes in an ideal time to travel to this part of the country. In fact, in the wet many areas are completely inaccessible by road because they are flooded. Regardless of it being the dry, one of the highlights of Litchfield national park was all of the waterfalls. There are heaps of them that end in these gorgeous clear pools. Went spent a lot of the time the first couple of days swimming in these breathtaking waters. In the wet season many of these areas are inaccessible because crocs have access to them, but in the dry the crocs are cut off and they become safe to swim in. 

After spending a day in Litchfield we drove to Kakadu national park (top photo). This park is huge (larger than switzerland!!) and extremely beautiful. The landscape is mulga woodland dotted with billibongs (below top). I didn't realize it but, Billibongs are actually oxbow lakes, something I'm extremely familiar with. Oxbow lakes form when a bend in a river becomes cut off from the main river channel. There are a bunch very close to St. Louis, and the lake core samples I have been doing paleoenvrionmental research on are from one of these lakes! So I've unknowingly been working on billibong samples :) Not only was this a really cool discovery, but the lakes themselves are beautiful, hundreds of birds take refuge here and you can hear them all singing. This area of the country (like most of Australia) is interlinked with seasonal burning. It's natural here, and mosaic burning is used to keep fires from getting out of control, and to ensure the natural growth cycle of the native vegetation. The landscape is dotted with small smothering bush fires, its really otherworldly and incredibly cool (below bottom).

We hiked through several areas of the park, but one of the highlights of this part of the trip was going for a crocodile river cruise on the South Alligator River (there are no alligators in Oz this is a total misnomer) with a local aboriginal guide. Our guide was so great, he really helped us connect to the natural and cultural history of the land. And we saw at least 12 huge Salties, or Esturine crocodiles (below)!!! These are the man-eaters and it was amazing to see them in the wild, but obviously not be in the water with them. They are actually beautiful animals with amazing dappled scales. 

Our last stop on Top was Katherine Gorge, which we got to kayak through!!!! Now you may have noticed from previous posts, but I love kayaking, so I was so excited to be able to do this in the Top End. We kayaked through a magnificent gorge, on an extremely calm river. And we sawFreshwater Crocodiles while we were kayaking!!! These are much less aggressive and much smaller than the Salties, so it's safe to kayak in areas where they are. 

I had originally been on a different bus tour that wouldn't have included the top end, but due to not enough people signing up, I ended up on this one instead. I'm so glad that it worked out this way! The Top End is really unlike any other. It reminds me of the African Savanna, but is still incredibly unique. I loved spending the days hiking and swimming, and it was great to get a bit of summer in the winter before heading south for the rest of the trip!

Flinders Reef: My Last Dive in Australia

I apologize that I don't really have any pictures of this dive, so you'll just have to rely on me to describe it for you! On Sunday, I dove for the last time in Australia. While this was bittersweet I couldn't have asked for a better day or dive experience to do so! We were diving Flinders which is just North of Moreton Island, one of the sand islands along Moreton Bay, and is the Southern most tip of the GBR. This reef is actually considered one of the top dive sites in Australia, despite its far southern location. Because of this when I found out there was a Unidive trip going the day after my 4th final I jumped at the chance! 

A signed up with a friend of mine also in Unidive so we were able to buddy together for the day. We left Brisbane at 6a so it was an early morning, but the day was gorgeous. Blue skies and the water was as smooth as glass! No seasickness for anyone today! On our way out to the dive site we saw humpback whales, and they were right along side of the boat. We watched them play and breach and it was fantastic!

Our first dive site was a swim through called Eldon's Cave. We were navigating on our own in small groups and because I got some experience in Cairns I felt confident that we would be fine. And we were. We missed the cave… but that was because it really wasn't a cave and most of the divers swam right past it. But we found something better. We continued on and came to this valley with high walls of coral. On top of the walls there were heaps of large turtles hanging over the walls, and batfish hanging around the turtles. We were surrounded by a wall of turtles and it was amazing!!!! It was incredibly surreal. We headed back and our group split up because one of the divers was low on air. My buddy and I continued on, and I was so glad we did. Minutes later, a sizable octopus swam past me. It settled on the bottom right in front of me and flashed colors for about a minute before deciding it was going to blend into it's surrounding. I watched in awe as it rearranged its arms to take on the exact shape of the corals around it and turn the exact color of the corals. If I didn't know it was an octopus I would not have spotted it. 

So obviously our first dive was excellent. Then for our second dive we were at a site called the turtle cleaning station. Already I was excited!!!!! Basically, this site is a enormous staghorn coral that turtles have been coming to for centuries, they've been coming there so long that they've made these flattened plates of dead spots on the corals. They sit here and damsel fish clean them. The turtles that come here are hundreds of years old, the one that we were chilling with was around 5 ft long!!! They hang in the water totally unbothered by the divers and get clean. It's absolutely amazing being apart of their world in this way. Flinders is such a diverse reef with multitudes of different coral landscapes and animals interacting freely with each other, it was such an excellent example of what makes coral reefs truly special.

As sad as I am to be ending my diving experiences in Australia, I'm so lucky that I got to dive as much as I did while I was here. I dove a total of 20 times since I got here, previously I had 5 dives under my belt, so I quadrupled my diving experience! I got better with my air and buoyancy, learned how to navigate, and generally because a better diver. I have a lot to learn still, but this was such a great way to get experience. Also going to a university with a DIVING CLUB has been so cool, it's made it incredibly easy to get a chance to do something that I love and I've meet some great people along the way. I'm going to miss being around the ocean, and being able to dive so frequently. But I know this for sure, next time I travel I want to go somewhere I can dive, and I'll try to take advantage of as many dive opportunities as I can get. Diving is unique, there is nothing else like the sensation of moving around 60 ft beneath the waves, and being an observer of some of the most wonderful animals on Earth. I love it with all my heart and can't wait until I can get back under the water again!!!

Little Things Matter: Saying Goodbye to Brissy

So this past month of living in Brisbane, I've gotten into the habit of going for morning or late afternoon runs along the Brisbane River. I've had time to kill, which for me means I can exercise without stressing out about things that I need to be doing instead. At home I usually head to the gym to do weights or swim laps, or hop on my bike. Here I take advantage of the free method of exercise: running along a path. I put on my organic molecule running shorts (they're neon yellow and have sparkly organic molecule patterns on them; yes I'm a nerd), pop in my headphones and work out playlist, and jog on the John Oxley Path along the Brisbane River through UQ's campus. The path is actually beautiful. It's lined by Eucalypts and there is a great view of the river. It's actually been really healthy and rejuvenating for me to be able to run along this path, take in the scenery, and get some exercise. There's also a really cool bridge, and next to it here is this awesome measuring stick, that shows how high the water was during the Brisbane Floods (see below).

Yesterday during my run, it occurred to me that I have a week left in Brisbane before I begin my last month of travel and then head back to the states. While I won't have to say goodbye to Australia just yet, I will be soon saying goodbye to my adoptive home for the last 6 months: Brisbane. I realize that there are things here that I found starkly different when I first arrived that have become things I love and will sorely miss. I'll miss the sounds of the lorikeets in the morning and at night, that are so loud they drown out every other noise. I'll miss the way it pours rain and then is sunny immediately after. I'll miss the smell of eucalyptus is general, but especially after it rains. I'll miss the city cat ferry, and how it makes getting around the city into a beautiful journey rather than a chore (below). I'll miss South Bank and Streets Beach. I'll miss the thrill of seeing Tim Tams are on sale at the grocery store. I'M GOING TO MISS TIM TAMS IN GENERAL. And my Just Right cereal and Boost Bars and Pies and Milo and Ice Coffee and scones-which-are-biscuts with clotted cream and jam. And also surprisingly Vegemite, which I acquired a taste for here. I'm going to miss not being able to go scuba diving or hiking on the weekends. To go to the beach on a whim. To pick up everything and go backpacking in a new city. Those are privileges that I cherish from my time here. I'm going to miss the kookaburras, bats, lorikeets, geckos, goannas, even those dumb bush turkeys that are EVERYWHERE. I'm going to miss looking for kangaroos when we are on a coach bus, or sharks when we ride the ferry. I'm going to miss walking along the road and thinking 'acacia', 'banksia', 'eucalyptus'. And DO NOT get me started on how much I'm going to miss all the wonderful friends that I've made during my time here, because then I think I might start crying here and now, and I still have a week before I have to say goodbye.

I will need to readjust to walking on the right side of the side walk instead of the left. I will have to remember that common words and phrases here like "takeaway", "queue", "keen", "no worries" "too easy" "capsicum" and "pie" are not used or mean different things back in the states. 

My life has been really different here this last half a year. And when I return home I'll be coming back to familiar things. But I'm the one that's changed. I've found that I've explored Brisbane (and let's be honest Australia) more than I ever did in St. Louis, and by doing so become a much more independent person. I feel more confident about my ability to operate in new surroundings without support. I have discovered this longing to go, and see, and do, that thinking back, I think I lacked (or had never tasted) before I came here. I've discovered that I have both the will and ability to try new things and go new places on my own. If people around me don't want to go somewhere or try something I won't let it stop me. I've realized that people from all different places have different backgrounds and experiences to share. I've learned from some of them that I know very little and have a lot to learn, and also that in some ways I'm a lot more mature and then some of them as well. 

I've had some long inner discussions with myself about the difference between cultural norms and what is hands-down unacceptable to say. I've had to come to terms (still this always makes me uncomfortable) with how the minute I open my mouth I'm a foreigner here. And then I have to answer the inevitable 'where are you from?' And what I respond will 50% of the time end in ridicule. Saying 'America', 'the States' or 'The US' are all fully loaded. If I say America, the I risk the joking response "North or South, that's a continent you know", if I say 'The States', I risk "We have states here too", If I say 'the US' people sometimes say, "you mean you're an American?" Literally, whatever I say gives an opening to 'screw with the American'. Honestly, why doesn't our country have a simpler name? Then even if I get past the saying I'm actually from the US, half the time people want to start an argument with me about politics, about how stupid we are, about how much they love/hate Obama. It's simultaneously really cool that everyone knows a bit about my country and frustrating, because they immediately have a strong opinion about it. I think that a part of this is something every traveler experiences. You are a sentinel for your country and culture, and it's important to represent it will when you are abroad, so that too has been a valuable experience. These occurrences have challenged the way I think and interact with people, and I really hope that they've helped me become a more open person, a more thoughtful person, someone who is less judgmental.

I know that I'm going to miss Brisbane and Australia… and I think I'll yearn to go back for a long time after I return how. But I think the way I can make it stay with me, is to use what I've learned in my life back in the US, to remember and savor what I did when I was here, and let that remind me of my own personal growth. 

So here I am, being really melancholy and feeling a lot sadder than I thought I'd be at the prospect of finally going home. I think this has been really helpful for me to self-reflect, and I think this next week will be the hardest. Because the lead up to leaving Brisbane, the packing and the prep, will be constantly reminding me that I'm leaving. But then I have 2 weeks of traveling, of meeting new people and seeing new places to keep me occupied. And after that I look forward to the excitement (I'm actually already excited!) of seeing my family, sharing Australia with them, and then finally getting to travel around New Zealand! And I think by the end of that month I'll be exhausted and just ready to go home and eat some of my mom's blueberry pie (American fruit pie, I have really missed thee). This is the best possible way for me to end my time in Australia, so I'm going to try and look forward to the new adventures instead of focusing on my sadness that the Brisbane one is ending!