It's All Over

So I know that the posting ended on a very anti-climactic note, but I've been kind of busy with stuff like school and watching Heroes--season 2 is awful, by the way. Breana and I went to Rottnest Island just off the coast with all of the other Notre Dame kids in early November, but apart from that there's not much to report on besides nice days at the beach.

Now I'm heading off to New Zealand for 8 days where Breana and I will be swimming with dolphins, hiking glaciers, skydiving, kayaking around some fiords and driving all over frantically to get to each new adventure. Then we'll be hanging out in Fiji for another 4 days before coming home on Dec. 5th. It'll be really nice to be home after all of that and I'll be ready for Christmas.

I guess this is it. Thanks to any of you who actually took the time to read this and maybe if you're lucky I'll teach you how to surf or jump out of airplanes one day... Enjoy the picture! Later dudes.

Happy Halloween from Down Under!

Actually my least favourite holiday of all... But other people like it I guess. So HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!

Beard Today, Gone Tomorrow

This is the progression of the deterioration of my beard over a 12 hour period... And don't tell me you've never shaved your face to see how you'd look. As it turns out I just look like a huge redneck, but it's cool...

The Beard

Friendly Mutton ChopsThe Fu ManchuAnd this one here is for Dad...

The MustacheFreedom!I also ended up with a bit of a beard tanline, but maybe it's not as obvious.

Sittin' On Top of the World

Caught a wave, and I sat on top of the world. I tell you what, there are only a few things as exciting as surfing in this world.This past weekend on our last trip we found ourselves down in Margaret River. We left early Friday morning for Margaret River. On the way down we stopped at a mine of sorts and learned about what they do. Apparently they mine or something... I don't actually remember what kind of mine it was, but it consisted of a lot of holes in the ground, crushing up of ore, and picking it up out of the other rock by a gigantic magnet. Then we continued on to Margaret River to meet the town planner who told us all about Margaret River. Just so you know how exciting this was, he talked to us about the parking problems they are having... It was actually minimally interesting and I came away with a feeling of what Margaret River people are like.

We started off Saturday with a canoe guide up Margaret River beginning at the river mouth. Chris was our guide and he was definitely your stereotypical Australian. He was grayt. Canoeing is always a good bit of fun and we learned some history, heard some stories and went crawling through a little crawl space in a small cave. The guide gave us some bushtucker-food native Aboriginals would eat for sustenance-to eat before going for a swim in the refreshing river water. At the end of the tour we had a little bit of a race between all the canoes for a bottle of wine. With the help of another canoe, we were able to paddle to victory for the 2007 Redgate Chardonnay. As you can see there was one group that paddled in the Tippecanoe...

Then we left the river to go see a sweet cave. It was big, beautiful, and the water was some of the purest in the world. It was delicious...
Saturday also marked presentation day. In order to get our 1 credit for these trips, we had to give a group presentation in regards to a given theme and how it related across the three destinations. An aside: I didn't actually make a post for the second one because I was busy doing the backpacking ones. It was back down to Denmark and Albany right where we were hiking, so there wasn't too much new anyway. Back to Saturday: We gave our talk on nature and then we went to bed.

Sunday was awesome. We had to get up at six, but it was totally worth it for the surfing. The guy taught us how to get up and surf, but when it actually came to the water I just forgot everything he said and hopped up my own way. It worked wonderfully and before I knew it I was riding some 4 m swells... Unfortunately the waves weren't actually that big, so I mainly stuck to the white wash waves because that's all there were for the most part. The real waves weren't very big and I could actually get up on those just fine as long as they weren't crashing right on top of me as I tried to get up... The falls feel pretty good. I highly recommend surfing to you all. Maybe we can all take on the mighty Atlantic together...
Then from surfing we went on to wine tasting at Vasse Felix. It all tasted really good as far as I'm concerned. We tried three whites and three reds. Unfortunately they do not give tours of the facility on Sundays so we were left with only the wine tasting and a light lunch before getting back on the bus and heading home. We stopped at an Aboriginal heritage center along the way and made it home by 9 30. And so ends the trip to Margaret River, by far the best of the three trips.

Packbacking IV: A New Hope

As promised, here are a bunch of pictures for all of you to look at from the hiking trip. They are in chronological order and mostly pretty sweet. Enjoi.

Backpacking Pictures

Packbacking III

Setting out from Peaceful Bay, it was our shortest day so far. After about an hour of hiking we came to Conspicuous Cliff and Conspicuous Beach, neither of which were very hard to find... Sorry, I couldn't pass it up... Both of these were very nice and we took a multitude of pictures just so that you can see how nice it was.

After climbing some stairs away from the beach, we lost the trail markings and ended up having to choose which direction to go. The way to the left looked ok, but the road to the right had a kangaroo. So, as any half-way intelligent person would do, we followed the kangaroo. And it continued to just bounce ahead around the bend, so we continued to follow it. I mean, it was clearly trying to lead us to some place good. Just look at that innocent face... After awhile he hopped off the track and we lost him. So we kept walking until we came across a road sign that showed us we had clearly chosen the wrong direction and we had to go back about 1.5 km. Stupid, good-for-nothing kangaroos... Luckily we found the Bibbulmun signs again and continued on. We probably saw another snake or two, but yet again we all cheated death.

Actually, this snake in particular gets a paragraph to itself, mostly to demonstrate our collective stupidity... So the snakes, as you might imagine, love to come out onto the track because it's clear and the sun can beat down on them really well. This snake was situated to the left side of the track and wasn't going anywhere. It was also a rather narrow section. Additionally, the snake was not sleeping, but instead watching us rather intently. So, we thought it might be best to try and scare it away by throwing some branches near it to startle it away... I do not recommend this tactic because a) the snake did not move and b) as you probably know yourselves, snakes generally will not attack unless provoked. So, with stick in hand, Jeff and I passed by the snake without too much trouble. That is, until it began hissing at us, leaving Mary and Arthur on the other side of the snake. But being the brave and courageous people that they were not phased. They carefully walked around the snake and we continued on.

We ended up in a hut on top of a hill/mountain overlooking the ocean and forest. It was a nice view and a good night. Being in the middle of nowhere again, we decided to just shout everything we said over dinner. I highly recommend trying this out. It's way more fun than it actually sounds. Or maybe it's just the little things that amuse you when you've been hiking for three days...

Now, in the interest of time-and laziness-I will end the general narrative of the day-to-day occurrences because, at this point, it was all generally the same. We woke up at six, ate breakfast, hiked, took pictures, ate lunch, more pictures and hiking, arrive at hut, eat dinner, go to bed at 8. In fact, I might have even gotten some days switched around already... For instance, I'm actually pretty sure that Conspicuous Cliff occurred on the fourth day, but since it is written already, I'll leave it be.

There were some other cool things we did like the tree-top walk. I will just post a link to all the pictures in actual chronological order in a little bit once I get them all up. Also, my birthday was pretty solid. I had a snickers bar with 20 matches in it as my birthday cake, got free left-over pizza at a hostel, and got to sleep in a bed--it was our last day of hiking. Anyway, enjoy all of the pictures. It was a really fun time and absolutely beautiful. If you look close enough, you may even be able to spot Antarctica... I know I did. Enjoy!

GO IRISH! BEAT CARDINAL!

Packbacking II

Alrighty, I suppose that I shall continue where I left off with a little video to show you what we woke up to the next morning (Sunday). Keep in mind that this is no overdramatization...

Sweet.

Anyway, I guess I should have you know that today was also the longest of them all and actually included a brief canoeing section. It was tough getting through the first day, but it was much worse getting through the second. The winds were stronger, the rain was harder, the shoes were wet from the beginning, the entire body was sore, and there were 25 km to hike. We woke up with the sun, had an oatmeal breakfast, as we did every morning, and set off at about 8 00. Today was exceptionally difficult to walk straight as we were walking along the tops of ridges with wind swiping across our bodies. If it weren't for the pack, I'm pretty sure Mary would have had a little trouble staying grounded... seriously. For the brief moments that the wind was at our backs, it was actually awesome because it was like an extra little boost. There's not much to say, we walked for a long time, did a little more beach hiking and then ate lunch in the middle of the bush after about 18 km. Oh, and we saw some more snakes, bringing the number of times I have cheated death up to 4. There were some kangaroos too. And the cliff picture is actually from the previous day.
After lunch we hiked for about 2 or 3 km before coming across the Canoe crossing. Thankfully, our canoe shed was up wind from the other. Unfortunately, there were only two canoes, and proper etiquette is to leave at least one at each. So Jeff and I set out in one of the canoes with our packs for the other side. The wind was brutal and the waves were ginormous... in comparison to the canoe anyway. We made it across successfully, but then we had to turn right back around with each of us in one canoe. Not surprisingly, the other boat shed actually had 6 canoes. Anyway, this time we were down wind and had to fight back up. The wind won. With all the weight in the back of the canoe, the wind just turned us right around when we tried to paddle up stream. So the best I could do was paddle across as quickly as I could and see where I ended up. We both ended up about 200 m away from the shed. So I proceeded to get out of the canoe and I towed the two canoes and Jeff up to the shed in waist deep water. It was, and please excuse me for this, refreshing... Then we paddled back across to the other side without a hitch and continued on. As it turned out, we actually only left a single paddle and a single canoe to go with a single life jacket for the next people that come by. The other side, however, was just stocked with stuff. Also, the lowest picture in this coming series shows the inlet right at the beginning. We could have just walked across... kind of... if the track went there.
So we continued on and everything was going oh so well, until we came upon a bunch of bogs with only about 1 km to Peaceful Bay, our next stop. We tried to get around it or build a bridge for about 30 minutes before we surrendered our finally dry shoes to the bog.In Peaceful Bay, there wasn't a hut for backpackers, which was kind of lame. So we found our way to a backpacker's place where Tom hooked us up with a room for $55. It was marvelous. It had a heater, beds, stove, tv, and showers. That was a good night. In this room, though, I found a gigundous spider. Probably poisonous, because everything here is... and it just makes for a better story. I squashed it with a pan, as you can see in the picture below. I believe the cheating death count is up to 5, maybe even 6.We showered, ate dinner, watched a little of the boob tube and went to bed for a good night's sleep.

Also, I'm working on just putting up an album online with more pictures from the trip. Keep an eye out for that. I'll post a link or something. More scenery and other shenanigans will be there.