Friday, October 31, 2008
Happy Halloween from Down Under!
Actually my least favourite holiday of all... But other people like it I guess. So HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!
Saturday, October 18, 2008
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...
Friendly Mutton Chops
The Fu Manchu
And this one here is for Dad...
The Beard
Friendly Mutton Chops
The Fu Manchu
And this one here is for Dad...The Mustache
Freedom!
I also ended up with a bit of a beard tanline, but maybe it's not as obvious.
Freedom!
I also ended up with a bit of a beard tanline, but maybe it's not as obvious.Monday, October 13, 2008
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.
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.
Sunday, October 5, 2008
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
Backpacking Pictures
Wednesday, October 1, 2008
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!
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!
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