Hello friend and welcome to my travel blog. This blog was created in the summer of 2009 to document my semester abroad at the University of Western Australia in the city of Perth.
Please feel free to stay awhile, explore, reminisce, and be annoyed by the reverse-chronological order of blog postings (I know I am!). My hope is at the very least it will make you smile or perhaps even laugh, and if it doesn't then please click here and a virus will be downloaded to your computer. Thanks and have a pleasant day!
Tuesday, June 26, 2012
Thursday, December 10, 2009
The Lucky Layover
Way back in July I made a blog post about the top 5 things I looked forward to doing in Australia. While I obviously wasn't able to fight a kangaroo, I was a little disappointed that my trip home would not feature a visit to the wondrous rock formation known as Ayers Rock. There simply wasn't enough time to squeeze another destination into an already fully loaded travel agenda. My family and I decided to forego a trip to Ayers Rock in order to spend more time in our other, probably more worthwhile destinations. So we booked a flight from Perth to Cairns.
Now Australia is bigger than most people think, so a flight from Perth to Cairns is quite a long way. Australia's main airline Qantas doesn't fly the route directly, as far as I know, and almost any flight plan from Perth to Cairns stops in Brisbane first. Sometimes, though, the route involves a layover not in Brisbane, but in a little single gate airport in the center of the outback. Our flight plan was the one that included the stop at this little airport, which is known as the Ayers Rock airport.
I was really excited to hear that this would be our layover. I wasn't sure to what extent we would be able to see the giant rock, since our layover lasted a very quick 2 hours, but I figured since it was so massive and in the middle of nowhere, it must be visible from the plane at least. And that is why my sister I fixed ourselves to the airplane window as we prepared to land, near the end of the flight. My dad, against everything I'd ever learned from riding in planes all my life, insisted we take some pictures with his camera, an electronic device no less. We did end up getting some good pictures from the air though because just as we were about to land, we spotted the rock, quite close to the airport and looking massive amongst a flat and barren outback. I fully expected to be able to see it from the ground.
I eagerly made my way off the airplane, but was immediately caught off guard by something quite sudden and unexpected. The moment I stepped out of the plane and onto the stairs outside, I was hit with a hot wind like nothing I'd felt before. It felt like someone had just opened an oven door. I soon found out that the temperature was 109 degrees. I'm pretty sure I'd never been in that kind of heat before. It was a dry heat though, and I think I finally found out what the heck that meant because even though it felt like a sauna outside, it wasn't too unbearable.
The second thing I discovered upon disembarking the aircraft was more of a disappointment. The landscape which had looked completely flat from the air was actually relatively hilly, blocking any possible view of the only reason anyone would think about coming to this airport in the first place. Obviously anyone who really wanted to see the rock, took a car from the airport and drove to the resort nearby. I was disappointed, but I wasn't ready to give up. I tracked down a bloke in a bright yellow vest who appeared to be an airport employee and simply asked if there was any way I could see Ayers Rock from the airport. He responded by saying that most people just hiked about five minutes up the road and over the hill to get a pretty good view of the thing. I relayed the message to my family and grabbed my camera. Unfortunately, due to extreme heat and extreme flies, not all members of my family were able to make the trip, but someone had to watch the bags too. The hike wasn't bad, and after pausing for a brief while to convince myself that the local deadly snakes would be too afraid of me to stick around the area, i was able to reach the top of the hill. And there was my reward, a giant rock formation, one solid piece rising out from the ground and dominating an otherwise vast and barren landscape.
Ayers Rock was quite a sight to behold, even if it was still quite a ways off in the distance. The pictures I took won't do it justice. It is one of those things you have to see with your own eyes to truly appreciate. Either way here are my pictures. I don't have the ones from the plane cause they were taken with my dads camera, but if I do get a copy of the photos, I'll be sure to post them. After taking an ample load of pictures, we made our way back to the airport and waited for our connecting flight to Cairns, which would prove to be a much different destination than the hot, arid desert outback of Ayers Rock.
Now Australia is bigger than most people think, so a flight from Perth to Cairns is quite a long way. Australia's main airline Qantas doesn't fly the route directly, as far as I know, and almost any flight plan from Perth to Cairns stops in Brisbane first. Sometimes, though, the route involves a layover not in Brisbane, but in a little single gate airport in the center of the outback. Our flight plan was the one that included the stop at this little airport, which is known as the Ayers Rock airport.
I was really excited to hear that this would be our layover. I wasn't sure to what extent we would be able to see the giant rock, since our layover lasted a very quick 2 hours, but I figured since it was so massive and in the middle of nowhere, it must be visible from the plane at least. And that is why my sister I fixed ourselves to the airplane window as we prepared to land, near the end of the flight. My dad, against everything I'd ever learned from riding in planes all my life, insisted we take some pictures with his camera, an electronic device no less. We did end up getting some good pictures from the air though because just as we were about to land, we spotted the rock, quite close to the airport and looking massive amongst a flat and barren outback. I fully expected to be able to see it from the ground.
I eagerly made my way off the airplane, but was immediately caught off guard by something quite sudden and unexpected. The moment I stepped out of the plane and onto the stairs outside, I was hit with a hot wind like nothing I'd felt before. It felt like someone had just opened an oven door. I soon found out that the temperature was 109 degrees. I'm pretty sure I'd never been in that kind of heat before. It was a dry heat though, and I think I finally found out what the heck that meant because even though it felt like a sauna outside, it wasn't too unbearable.
The second thing I discovered upon disembarking the aircraft was more of a disappointment. The landscape which had looked completely flat from the air was actually relatively hilly, blocking any possible view of the only reason anyone would think about coming to this airport in the first place. Obviously anyone who really wanted to see the rock, took a car from the airport and drove to the resort nearby. I was disappointed, but I wasn't ready to give up. I tracked down a bloke in a bright yellow vest who appeared to be an airport employee and simply asked if there was any way I could see Ayers Rock from the airport. He responded by saying that most people just hiked about five minutes up the road and over the hill to get a pretty good view of the thing. I relayed the message to my family and grabbed my camera. Unfortunately, due to extreme heat and extreme flies, not all members of my family were able to make the trip, but someone had to watch the bags too. The hike wasn't bad, and after pausing for a brief while to convince myself that the local deadly snakes would be too afraid of me to stick around the area, i was able to reach the top of the hill. And there was my reward, a giant rock formation, one solid piece rising out from the ground and dominating an otherwise vast and barren landscape.
Ayers Rock was quite a sight to behold, even if it was still quite a ways off in the distance. The pictures I took won't do it justice. It is one of those things you have to see with your own eyes to truly appreciate. Either way here are my pictures. I don't have the ones from the plane cause they were taken with my dads camera, but if I do get a copy of the photos, I'll be sure to post them. After taking an ample load of pictures, we made our way back to the airport and waited for our connecting flight to Cairns, which would prove to be a much different destination than the hot, arid desert outback of Ayers Rock.
Perth: The Last Days
Perth (Nov 15-17)
After most of my Notre Dame classmates had left Perth to begin their own travels across Australia and ultimately back home, I was still hanging around Tommy More eagerly awaiting the arrival of my parents and my sister. I was excited to have the opportunity to show them around UWA's campus and Perth. Playing tour guide, however, was a much more stressful job than I had originally imagined, and I found myself relieved when we were at last on the plane out of Perth and onto new adventures that were out of my hands.
I won't take up too much space on this stuff, since essentially I showed my family around the places I've been talking about and showing pictures of all semester. Basically, they arrived on Sunday afternoon, and I met up with them at their hotel shortly after. A good son probably would've been there to pick them up at the airport. In my defense, I had no reasonable means of getting to the airport. They also booked the flight that landed in Perth around the same time as the start of the fourth quarter of the Notre Dame vs Pittsburgh football game. Regrettably, I chose watching the game over picking up my family. Well, no, I regret nothing, not even firmly believing that Notre Dame would go BCS bowling this year at the start of the season. I don't want to have my faithfulness tainted when they win the national championship next year with their new coach. But I digress. In short, I met my parents and sister at their hotel and their was much rejoicing. It was great to see them after so long, but my brain was having trouble comprehending that they were actually in Australia with me.
To start off, I showed them around the University of Western Australia's campus. Then we went across the street to St Thomas More college, and I showed them were I'd been living for four months. They couldn't get over how strange the coed bathrooms were. Another thing that was very strange to them but all too familiar to me was the Australian Crow. Upon hearing the bird for the first time, my sister stopped and looked at me and said "What is that?!" The Australian Crow is one of the most annoying birds in all the world. They sound like a cross between a crying baby and a sick cat, and they are all over Perth. They never shut up either. But don't take my word for it, this video will help you understand (I got this from youtube. I did shoot my own video, but this one is much better).
Yeah, crazy right? Believe I know all too well. They start at about 5am and go all day. But I won't dwell on those birds anymore because I'm free of them now. Anyway, back to the trip. After leaving Tommy More, I took them to Fremantle for dinner. We went down to the beach so they could all touch the Indian Ocean. We had dinner at Little Creatures, a popular local brewery. By the time dinner was over, my party was beginning to feel the affects of some 30+ hours of traveling without a good nights rest, so we all went straight to bed after that.
The next morning I took them to Kings Park. Unfortunately, the season of spring was ending and the wonderful flowers of the botanical gardens that I took pictures of a month earlier were no longer in bloom. We did get to experience the spectacular views of the city that Kings Park has to offer. After Kings Park, we went into downtown Perth and had lunch in the Hay Street and Murray Street Malls, the main place to shop in downtown Perth. After lunch we got ready for the part of the day that I was most excited for, a bus tour. I'd spent a lot of time after finals researching tours around Perth, trying to find the right one. I wanted to go back to Caversham Wildlife Park so that my family would have a chance to see kangaroos and koalas while in Australia (cause who goes to Australia without seeing kangaroos and koalas?), but I also knew that they were interested in visited a winery to taste some fine Australian wines. I only had one afternoon to fit in two completely different activities. Luckily I finally found a tour bus that combined a trip to Caversham with a trip to the Sandalford winery.
I was really impressed with the tour too. The driver was very informative, and I was surprised at how much more I learned that I hadn't already discovered in my semester there. Even at Caversham, where I'd already been once before, I realized there were a lot of things I'd missed the first time around. The best part was being able to finally sit back and just be a tourist again. I had my day and a half run as tour guide, and it just wasn't for me. But my family seems to think I did a good job.
That night I moved out of my room in Tommy More at last. I was the last Notre Dame student to leave. There were still a few Australians left, but for the most part the place was empty. It was sad walking down the steps out of Tommy for the last time, with all my bags in tow, but we had an early flight to catch in the morning, and a new day meant exciting new places and exciting new adventures.
Here are all the pictures.
After most of my Notre Dame classmates had left Perth to begin their own travels across Australia and ultimately back home, I was still hanging around Tommy More eagerly awaiting the arrival of my parents and my sister. I was excited to have the opportunity to show them around UWA's campus and Perth. Playing tour guide, however, was a much more stressful job than I had originally imagined, and I found myself relieved when we were at last on the plane out of Perth and onto new adventures that were out of my hands.
I won't take up too much space on this stuff, since essentially I showed my family around the places I've been talking about and showing pictures of all semester. Basically, they arrived on Sunday afternoon, and I met up with them at their hotel shortly after. A good son probably would've been there to pick them up at the airport. In my defense, I had no reasonable means of getting to the airport. They also booked the flight that landed in Perth around the same time as the start of the fourth quarter of the Notre Dame vs Pittsburgh football game. Regrettably, I chose watching the game over picking up my family. Well, no, I regret nothing, not even firmly believing that Notre Dame would go BCS bowling this year at the start of the season. I don't want to have my faithfulness tainted when they win the national championship next year with their new coach. But I digress. In short, I met my parents and sister at their hotel and their was much rejoicing. It was great to see them after so long, but my brain was having trouble comprehending that they were actually in Australia with me.
To start off, I showed them around the University of Western Australia's campus. Then we went across the street to St Thomas More college, and I showed them were I'd been living for four months. They couldn't get over how strange the coed bathrooms were. Another thing that was very strange to them but all too familiar to me was the Australian Crow. Upon hearing the bird for the first time, my sister stopped and looked at me and said "What is that?!" The Australian Crow is one of the most annoying birds in all the world. They sound like a cross between a crying baby and a sick cat, and they are all over Perth. They never shut up either. But don't take my word for it, this video will help you understand (I got this from youtube. I did shoot my own video, but this one is much better).
Yeah, crazy right? Believe I know all too well. They start at about 5am and go all day. But I won't dwell on those birds anymore because I'm free of them now. Anyway, back to the trip. After leaving Tommy More, I took them to Fremantle for dinner. We went down to the beach so they could all touch the Indian Ocean. We had dinner at Little Creatures, a popular local brewery. By the time dinner was over, my party was beginning to feel the affects of some 30+ hours of traveling without a good nights rest, so we all went straight to bed after that.
The next morning I took them to Kings Park. Unfortunately, the season of spring was ending and the wonderful flowers of the botanical gardens that I took pictures of a month earlier were no longer in bloom. We did get to experience the spectacular views of the city that Kings Park has to offer. After Kings Park, we went into downtown Perth and had lunch in the Hay Street and Murray Street Malls, the main place to shop in downtown Perth. After lunch we got ready for the part of the day that I was most excited for, a bus tour. I'd spent a lot of time after finals researching tours around Perth, trying to find the right one. I wanted to go back to Caversham Wildlife Park so that my family would have a chance to see kangaroos and koalas while in Australia (cause who goes to Australia without seeing kangaroos and koalas?), but I also knew that they were interested in visited a winery to taste some fine Australian wines. I only had one afternoon to fit in two completely different activities. Luckily I finally found a tour bus that combined a trip to Caversham with a trip to the Sandalford winery.
I was really impressed with the tour too. The driver was very informative, and I was surprised at how much more I learned that I hadn't already discovered in my semester there. Even at Caversham, where I'd already been once before, I realized there were a lot of things I'd missed the first time around. The best part was being able to finally sit back and just be a tourist again. I had my day and a half run as tour guide, and it just wasn't for me. But my family seems to think I did a good job.
That night I moved out of my room in Tommy More at last. I was the last Notre Dame student to leave. There were still a few Australians left, but for the most part the place was empty. It was sad walking down the steps out of Tommy for the last time, with all my bags in tow, but we had an early flight to catch in the morning, and a new day meant exciting new places and exciting new adventures.
Here are all the pictures.
Saturday, December 5, 2009
The Long Way Home
Okay so to start off, I've been home for a little over one week now. I definitely should have started posting some stuff about the trip home on here sooner, but I took a little time off, a vacation from vacation I suppose. Anyway I'm finally ready to upload all the pictures and stories from my travels on the way back home with my family. We covered a lot of ground. In just under two weeks we visited places in 4 different Australian states (which are much bigger than our states), and we explored New Zealand's south island as well. Just to give you an idea of all the traveling we did in the short amount of time, here is a list of all the airports I visited in just 11 days:
- Perth
- Ayers Rock
- Cairns
- Sydney
- Christchurch
- Queensland
- Auckland
- Los Angeles
- Detroit
Thursday, November 19, 2009
Greetings from Cairns
Hi. I've just paid for a bit of internet in Cairns. I've been traveling around Australia with my parents and sister since Sunday. It has been awesome, but there has been little time for blogging. I'm about out of internet time so I'll have to write all about it when I get back home in Michigan. Cya!
ps Cairns is pronounced CANS!!!
ps Cairns is pronounced CANS!!!
Friday, November 13, 2009
AQWA
Today Vanessa and I went to the Aquarium of Western Australia (AQWA). The aquarium is a collection of fish and sea creatures from Western Australia's 12,000 km of coastline. AQWA is located at Hillary's Boat Harbour, which is about a 20 minute train ride from Perth. Hillary's Boat Harbour turned out to be a pretty cool place so we stuck around for dinner as well. I honestly wished I had discovered the place sooner, but I suppose its distance from Perth explains why it took me until my last few days here to venutre that far by train.
The aquarium was pretty cool, especially because it exclusively featured fish from Western Australia. The best part by far was the underwater observation tunnel, which is pictured below:
I also took some video in the tunnel, and managed to capture a pretty funny moment having to do with a certain disoriented sea turtle.
After the aquarium, Vanessa and I walked around the boat harbour a bit to check it out. It wasn't long before the smells of the all the cafes, kebab stands, and gelato shops had us, well at least had me, getting pretty hungry. The choice for dinner was easy. Last week for my birthday, Vanessa took me to a place called Australia's Finest Burgers a.k.a. FAB (I guess they liked FAB better than AFB). As it turns out, not only was it Australia's finest burger, it was the finest burger I had ever had in all my life. The apparent secret was location. All the ingredients in the burger were from local sources. The beef was from the Swan Valley. The bread was baked fresh. Even the lettuce tasted amazing. In fact, even all the pictures on the walls were taken locally at locations around Perth (many of which I had been to). So naturally my choice at Hillary's Boat Harbour was the second and only other location of FAB in Australia. I ordered the exact same thing and again it amazed me. I only wish I had discovered the restaurant before my last two weeks in Perth. I snapped a picture of the super sandwich along with all the fish in the aquarium and put it in an album right here. Enjoy.
The aquarium was pretty cool, especially because it exclusively featured fish from Western Australia. The best part by far was the underwater observation tunnel, which is pictured below:
I also took some video in the tunnel, and managed to capture a pretty funny moment having to do with a certain disoriented sea turtle.
After the aquarium, Vanessa and I walked around the boat harbour a bit to check it out. It wasn't long before the smells of the all the cafes, kebab stands, and gelato shops had us, well at least had me, getting pretty hungry. The choice for dinner was easy. Last week for my birthday, Vanessa took me to a place called Australia's Finest Burgers a.k.a. FAB (I guess they liked FAB better than AFB). As it turns out, not only was it Australia's finest burger, it was the finest burger I had ever had in all my life. The apparent secret was location. All the ingredients in the burger were from local sources. The beef was from the Swan Valley. The bread was baked fresh. Even the lettuce tasted amazing. In fact, even all the pictures on the walls were taken locally at locations around Perth (many of which I had been to). So naturally my choice at Hillary's Boat Harbour was the second and only other location of FAB in Australia. I ordered the exact same thing and again it amazed me. I only wish I had discovered the restaurant before my last two weeks in Perth. I snapped a picture of the super sandwich along with all the fish in the aquarium and put it in an album right here. Enjoy.
And the school part comes to an end
I finally finished up with all my finals. Well I finished up with all my finals two days ago, but I've been at the beach since then so I really couldn't get anything up here until now. It has felt great to be without the burden of studies on my shoulders, but it is also a little sad too as everyone is starting to leave Tommy More. Indeed a few Notre Dame students have already left and begun their traveling experience throughout the rest of Australia and beyond. Luckily, Andrew was able to get our whole group together one last time for a photo:
Only Mike, who was still in the hospital (though finally out today), and Kelsey are missing from the picture. Also, the two other exchange students in Tommy More this semester, Alice (Nebraska) and Jonathan (Italy), are in the picture too.
Now that I'm done with school, I'll be spending the next few days packing, buying souvenirs, preparing for my family's arrival, and trying to squeeze in any last minute adventures that I can find.
Only Mike, who was still in the hospital (though finally out today), and Kelsey are missing from the picture. Also, the two other exchange students in Tommy More this semester, Alice (Nebraska) and Jonathan (Italy), are in the picture too.
Now that I'm done with school, I'll be spending the next few days packing, buying souvenirs, preparing for my family's arrival, and trying to squeeze in any last minute adventures that I can find.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
