Kalgoorlie Day 3: Golden is thy mine

Sorry for taking so long. I know you've all been on the edge of your seats awaiting the arrival of the this post with much anticipation, but I've been incredibly busy with school work over the past week. But spring break is just 5 days away...

On the final day of the weekend, we packed up all our luggage, loaded it onto the bus, and left the camp school, headed for the National Mining Hall of Fame. Here we would learn a little bit about the history of gold mining in Kalgoorlie. Upon our arrival we were given hard hats and prepared to take a tour of one of the old mines. The mine we explored had 12 levels extending more than 120 feet underground. We only went down to the first level at around 30 feet below the surface. The mine shaft elevator was only large enough for five people so we waited in line and went down the tiny elevator in small groups. The elevator was extremely slow and in an emergency you would not want to be a miner stuck down in the mine waiting for a ride up on the lift. Luckily, the tour guide informed us that there had never been a single incident in all of the mine's history. There was also an emergency stairwell located in another part of the mine, which some of us took to get out just for fun. It wasn't fun though because it was a seemingly endless spiral staircase surrounded by rock wall, not for the claustrophobic. Neither was the rest of the mine either, as the ceilings in most of the tunnels were probably 5'5" or less. They make the tunnels just large enough for one man to push a cart through. The tour was interesting. They described to us how tunnels were made by drilling long holes into the rock wall, filling the holes with dynamite, blowing it all up, taking a lunch break while the poisonous fumes cleared, and then checking the newly formed tunnel with a long pole so that it didn't cave in on you. It sounded like a tough job, but apparently the money was outstanding. Below is a picture in the tunnels. That guy behind me is Nick, the tallest person I know. I imagine he wouldn't have made it as a miner.




After the tour down in the mines, we got to explore the rest of the Mining Hall of Fame. I'm not sure why it is called a Hall of Fame rather than a museum. I didn't see any of my favorite miners anywhere. The exhibits were pretty cool though. If you ever managed to make it out there don't miss the Mining Game. We also got to see how gold bars were made. They weren't actually making gold bars unfortunately, because they said anyone with a gun could easily rob them. Instead it was some kind of silver-nickel alloy. Interestingly enough one of the classes I'm in, Materials Engineering, deals a lot with the forming of metals and alloys and how they cool.

Upon leaving the Mining Hall of Fame, our bus headed for a sheep shearing station out in the middle of the outback. A station in Australia is the equivalent of a ranch in the US. The people who lived there were very nice for having 30 college students over for lunch. It was pretty cold while we were there but our hosts had prepared a bonfire, which we quickly huddled around. The food was excellent as well and we got to experience some Australian specific cuisine. They gave us three different kinds of meat on a kebab. The first was beef, a personal favorite. The second was goat. Goats are somewhat of a problem in Western Australia, as they are not indigenous but have thrived in the wild. What I didn't know is that goat is the most eaten meat in the world. The third meat was kangaroo! I'd heard a lot about kangaroo being a good meat but this was the first chance I had to try some since I'd arrived in Australia. Kangaroo is often eaten by tourists by rarely by Australians. I've heard two different reasons for this. One is that they can't get over the idea of eating their national animal. The other is that kangaroo is used for dog food, and no one wants to eat dog food. I don't think both can be true, as the second reason kind of throws the first one out the window. Either way, the kangaroo tasted pretty good. Like the goat meat, the kangaroo meat was very tender. Ultimately though, I found myself liking the beef best. But that's just probably because it's what I'm used to.

Speaking with some of the people on the station, I found out some interesting stuff. First, much of the work force for the stations and farms in Australia comes from people seeking to renew their visas. In order to renew an Australian visa, one must work for 3 months on a station or a farm. This is a strange law, but one that is rooted in the fact that Australia is vastly underpopulated. There simply isn't enough people in the country. Which is mind boggling really, when you consider how hard it is to actually be allowed to come to Australia. The government is extremely careful about who they let in, with applicants waiting months and years for a chance. You can't come in unless you already have a job. It is quite a far cry from the United States immigration management, but perhaps you can only have that kind of control when your country is completely surrounded by water. I met a Canadian at football practice who was trying to renew his visa (I briefly played with the notion of playing football here after discovering there was a league with nine or so teams in the Perth area, but after a few practices, I found out they charged $400 to play and decided my money could be put to better things while in Australia). Anyways the Canadian guy, whose visa would expire in a few weeks, said that he was looking for a farmer to lie for him about the three months so he could renew, and apparently that isn't an uncommon practice.

One issue that the station owner got pretty heated about was the camels. Camels were brought to Australia for use in the arid outback in the early days, but now they have grown to alarming numbers. The station owner believed that the best solution to the problem is to start rounding up the camels and sending them to Africa, where they would be in great demand. They can't do this, however, because animal rights groups won't allow them to put the camels on boats. If the camels could feed starving people in Africa, is it right to worry more about the camels' well-being? The station owner didn't think so at least. And as far as foreign animals go, dogs, cats, camels, foxes, rabbits, dingos, it doesn't matter where they came from or even when (dingo came 50,000 years ago with Aboriginals), they're considered evil by most Australian environmentalists. That is partly why this sheep shearing station we were visiting had barely any sheep. The government kept putting stricter limits on the amount of sheep you can have per acre that the station has decided to switch to another business (and I can't remember what that was).

It was time to go back to Perth after the station, but that wasn't the end of the trip. There was one more memorable part. After boarding the plane, I took my seat which was an aisle seat in the very back row of the plane. In the window seat across from me was Andrew, and a man we didn't know sat down in the aisle seat next to him. Andrew and the man soon began a friendly conversation. A few minutes later, they were interrupted by a woman who looked like she worked on the tarmac. She asked the man to get off the plane and get his luggage out of the baggage container, the pilot had asked that he be removed from the plane. The man was livid and the woman asked that he please not make a scene so he eventually got up and left, escorted by a few flight attendants. I was very confused, but here is what happened. Now the Kalgoorlie airport is small (1 gate), so you go out on the runway and board the plane by stairs. The plane was fueling as we were boarding, and they ask you very specifically not to use your cell phones or such devices when the plane is fueling. This man had been gabbing away on his cell phone as he was waiting in the line for the stairs, perhaps he didn't know the rule. When the pilot saw him, he opened his window and yelled at the man to get off his phone. Now there are a lot of ways to respond to the pilot in this situation. Personally my list of responses would not have included "flip the pilot the bird." Unfortunately, that was this man's decision and he learned the hard way that you don't mess around in airports and you don't mess around with the man flying your plane. How do I know all these details? There are benefits to sitting in the back row. You are right in front of the flight attendants' seats. The last news I heard was that the police had arrived and had handcuffs out and ready. The man's famous last words as he got up to leave the plane: "I'm gonna clobber that pilot." Oh and I almost forgot, while Andrew had been talking with the man he found out that he'd just quit his job that day.

Here are the last of the Kalgoorlie pictures. PICTURES!
Andrew's Pictures... don't miss the last picture, guess whose seat I'm sitting in.

Kalgoorlie Day 2: Let's Go Outback Tonight

***WARNING: This is an extremely long blog post, the longest yet. I advise taking it in chunks to avoid chronic back pain and eye problems caused by sitting in front of a computer screen for too long***

The first night staying at the camp school was rough. It wasn't a bad facility, about what you'd expect at a camp, but it was freezing cold that night. The building was not insulated at all and by nightfall the room was icy cold. I went to bed with all my clothes on, tucked under a bed sheet and three wool blankets and wearing a winter hat. Luckily that was enough.

In the morning, breakfast was served and tea was drinked (or drunk or drank or dranked or drunken?). Anyway I don't recall ever have any tea before this trip. I was completely surprised on my first taste about a month ago with just how awful and disgusting it tasted. What really gets me is that someone somewhere at some point in time made the first cup of tea. He tasted it. He realized that it was absolutely terrible. Yet, somehow more tea was made after that first cup, and now it's loved in every place the British ever colonized whose inhabitants didn't dump it in the Boston Harbor. Perhaps even more mind boggling is that me, a true patriot, someone who would've gladly led the charge on that tea ship back in 1773 if he'd only had the chance... how could I have ended up drinking nearly a dozen cups of tea in a weekend? Maybe it's all there was to drink at times or maybe the stuff just grows on you, I don't know. But I digress.



That's a picture of me in Menzies, our first stop of the day. I don't know how long the drive took to get there. I slept most of the way (looking at the outback gets redundant after I while), but it must have been at least an hour. Anyways Menzies was started as a mining town. It had gold for a while, but then it ran out. Most people left but a few still remain. The population is listed at 160 but the guy in charge of Menzies tourism that we spoke with said it was probably down in the 80s now. An interesting thing about Menzies is that it is basically the edge of Western Australia civilization. Head out to the east from Menzies and there's nothing but pure outback until you start to get close to the continent's east coast. While we were in town, Menzies was hosting the Grand Final (championship game) for womens netball. Apparently they have a league that includes all the small mining towns in the area. We watched some of the netball and cheered for the Menzies team who put on quite a show. I think the score was around 20-2 at halftime or something. I honestly don't think the players from the other town's team had ever played netball before. And for that matter you probably have never even heard of it before. It's like basketball except no backboard, players can only move within their positional zones (e.g. only two girls allowed inside the 3 point line), of course no 3 pointers because you're not allowed to shoot from outside that line, oh and did I mention you're not allowed to dribble or move with the ball. That probably wasn't easy to understand so I shot a short clip of the action. Menzies is in blue. (Ironically, they didn't have any nets on their rims while playing netball.)



My biggest gripe with the sport is that shots are only taken from about a foot away from the basket, and with contact being illegal, it becomes pretty boring when compared to basketball. Nonetheless, how many people can say they've watched a netball grand final between two nearly abandoned mining towns in the middle of the outback? Very few I imagine and that's what counts.

***Recommend taking a break at this time. Get a drink. Take a walk. Hug a child.***

After Menzies, we headed out for a picnic lunch in the outback near the special Lake Ballard. The lake is special because it houses an art installation called "Inside Australia". I'd also like to add, at the risk of sounding pessimistic, that the lake doesn't actually have any water in it. It was quite muddy while we were there so I guess maybe that's a lake half full. Anyways, the art featured in the lake is some 51 statues depicting people that were scanned in by computer and then had their massed reduced by two-thirds or something. I have no idea basically they look like skinny people and they all looked the same so I think computer scanning may have been overkill. Nonetheless, it was a really interesting place to explore, and I took the opportunity to try out art photography.



The rest of the "art" album is on picasa here.

Now because the lake was so muddy everyone took of their shoes so they wouldn't get dirty. I myself, wanting to avoid having muddy feet for the rest of the day, chose to keep my shiny white shoes on. I figured I could manage by walking slow and watching my step, and I actually did make it with my shiny white shoes intact! Now I wasn't able to go quite as far as the shoeless crowd, but like our bus driver/tour guide said when I got back, "Once you've seen one of those statues, you've seen them all." I took a video to give you a better idea of the surroundings than pictures could offer. I apologize in advance, the narrator is terrible.





In between Lake Ballard and dinner we went on a nature walk at an abandoned sheep shearing station (ranch). There's not much to say about that as it amounted to walking around in a circle in the outback looking for interesting stuff and finding nothing. So then we went to dinner.

We had dinner at the Broad Arrow Tavern. Supposedly, the tavern is located in a ghost town and is the only thing left in operation. We arrived after dark, however, and I couldn't see anything other than the restaurant so who knows if it really was a ghost town. I can tell you that there was no source of light in any direction other than the tavern and looking out into the blackness just beyond was a bit eerie. The food at the tavern was great. I ordered the "Broady", which is a hamburger topped with bacon and a fried egg. I've noticed that many many burger places feature this kind of burger (including the Tommy More dining hall) and I imagine it must be the staple Australian take on the burger. It was excellent. Another interesting attribute of Broad Arrow Tavern is it walls. Every inch of the walls are open for patrons to write on, and just about every inch of the place has been written on. We managed to find an open spot up high and after standing on some chairs we wrote ND '09, surrounded by each of our names and hometowns. As I was signing my name, I began to wonder. This tavern was on the fringe of civilization, surrounded by dirt roads for miles in the most isolated state on the most isolated continent in the world, not to mention being located on almost exactly the complete opposite side of the earth from my home. Would I ever be able to come back to this place again?

Here's pictures!
Day 2 album
Andrew's Day 2

Kalgoorlie Day 1: Cloudy with a chance of flight problems

So the first day of the weekend field trip started off with a little bit of trouble. We made it to our 6:15am flight out of Perth without any issues. The flight to Kalgoorlie went pretty smoothly, that is until we got to Kalgoorlie. Now I'm told that it rarely rains in Kalgoorlie, and that fog almost never occurs. On this day, however, both were out in full force. So as I was watching us pass through the thick clouds on our way down land, I was quite taken aback when the pilot abruptly gunned the engine and sent the plane swiftly back upwards into the sky. A few minutes later, the pilot informed everyone on board that it had been too risky to attempt a landing, given the weather conditions, and that he would "give it another go." After circling around again, the plane began its descent. The same thing happened. The plane bailed out and went back upwards again. Then the pilot announced that there would be a third attempt but that would be it. So after a third try which produced the exact same results, the plane headed to a different airport. That airport was, of course, Perth. We landed in Perth, and they refueled the plane while we waited patiently. Now having had to wake up so early in the morning for the flight, some of the members of our group had taken the opportunity to catch up on their sleep. Alex was one of them. Although, no one realized just how much sleeping Alex had been doing on the plane until after about 20 minutes of waiting, when he remarked, "This Kalgoorlie airport sure does look a lot like the Perth airport." He had slept through the entire flight, including the time spent circling Kalgoorlie and the extra 40 minutes to fly back to Perth! Nobody had told him that we'd come back to Perth! The whole group had a pretty good laugh.

Eventually, we got back on the plane and successfully landed in Kalgoorlie around noon. However, we were about 5 hours behind schedule. Worst of all, we missed the thing I was looking forward to the most, the Super Pit tour. It had been scheduled for that morning and our plane problem had caused us to miss it. Martin, one of the professors leading our trip, did inform me however, that even if we had landed the first time, the rain would have canceled the tour anyway. Bloody weather!

Fortunately, we did get to do all the other stuff that had been scheduled for the day. We visited the Departement of Ecology and Conservation (DEC), where we learned about the use of the land around Kalgoorlie. Interestingly, there are large quantities of government owned land which are not used for any purpose at all. There isn't really any use for this land, as it is all considered to be desert anyway. The government has set aside large areas within this land for the DEC, as a means to preserve the unique ecosystems in each area. There is one area, for example, that contains over 130 different species of eukalyptus trees. Although you wouldn't notice just driving by. Apparently, even the first British explorers fasliy categorized the region's vegetation as boring and unvaried. The eukalyptus is a thin, sad-looking tree with a lessthanaverage leaf count. You'll probably be able to pick it out in some of the pictures. Anyway, I learned that the Australians carry very much about the preservation of their land, ensuring that a sample of every single one of their ecosystems is set aside and maintained. The next perspective we got was from a group of Aboriginals who are trying to legally regain their ancestors land, thanks to a precedence which was recently set in the first case to award Aboriginals their former land. All you have to do is prove that your tribe lived in the area of question for more than a hundred years ago and that they've made good use of that land during all that time. Easy right? Well mostly, the Aboriginals gave us an insight into their struggles with the racist government growing up. They shared with us about the pride they took in "surviving" as a culture even though the government tried to "breed the black out of them", by putting the children in missionary schools. They also took us on a tour of a hill which was a former mine, but had been shut down when the Aboriginals determined it was a holy site for their ancestors. The mining company agreed to protect the land, but also built a tunnel underneath so they could access something near this hill, something big. I could first see it when I reached the top of the holy site hill. I could see the walls of dirt and rock that had been piled high, like mountains, along its edges. It was the Super Pit! And it was our next stop.

I was really excited to hear that we would at least be going to the tourist lookout because I'd heard even that might have been canceled. We did go, however, and nothing could have prepared me for the sight of it. As the bus pulled up to the top of the lookout, near the edge of the pit, you had to gasp. From the bus you could only see the walls of the pit, not the bottom yet, but it still looked like they were digging to the center of the earth. Someone in our group compared it to the Saurumon's giant industrial pit from The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (if you're into that sort of thing). It was quite an awesome thing to take in. Unfortunately, I imagine much of the awe is lost in the photographs I took of it. Nevertheless, the idea of these massive trucks carrying tons of rock out from the bottom of the pit, each truck containing maybe a few ounces of gold per load, is just insane.

Here's a picture of me at the lookout in front of just a portion of the Super Pit.


I'll talk about days two and three coming up.
For now I've uploaded my day one pictures.
And Andrew was again kind enough to supply me with some of his pictures.

Kalgoorlie Tomorrow

About to start packing. Leaving tomorrow morning (Friday) at 4:45am and won't be back until Sunday night. It should be an interesting trip. I was looking at the itinerary earlier we've got a pretty packed schedule, with lots more to see than just the gold mines. I'll have plenty of things to share when I get back. But for now it's...

Kalgoorlie Fast Facts:

• An Irishman was the first to discover gold there in 1893.
• Nicknamed the "Golden Mile", it became the richest piece of real estate in the world.
• The area continues to yield 850,000 ounces of gold a year.
  
• A 300 mile long pipeline carries water from Perth to Kalgoorlie (see: Mundaring Weir).
• Home of the Super Pit, a working goldmine of awe-inspiring proportions.

*From Insight Guides: Australia

Food for Thought

Last night at the Tommy More dining hall was the Global Dinner. Now I hadn't seen this event on the event calendar they gave us until just a few days ago. I certainly hadn't heard anything about it either, which is unusual because they keep us pretty well informed about upcoming college events. So when I noticed it again on the calendar earlier that day, I assumed that it must be some kind of dinner featuring foods from all over the world, and I began pondering what delicious new dish I would be sampling later that evening. About an hour before dinner, the student club president sent out a message asking everyone to be at dinner right when it started at 6:00, so that everything could be set up. I thought that was a little unusual, but I didn't deviate from my original theory about what the dinner would be like. When I approached the dining hall at 5:59 (I wanted to make sure and get there early), I noticed a few people handing out little slips of paper to everyone as they were filing into the dining hall. As I neared the dining hall doors, I could see that each table inside had a country's name on it, but I still couldn't figure out what was going on. Bobby, a fellow ND student and one of the paper passer outers, approached me with a few strips of paper left in his hand and simply asked whether I wanted to be rich or poor. I hadn't quite realized what he meant by that yet, but while he was talking I managed sneak a glimpse at one of the papers he was holding and saw my beloved country's name. "I want to be from the United States," I said more than once to make sure I got my point across, completely ignoring his rich or poor question. "Alright here you go," he said. I looked down at the strip of paper he had handed me. Philippines!?! What??? Then, in response to my obvious discontent, he said something which sounded like a moral lesson, but I had been too focused on getting stuck with the Philippines to pay him any attention. As I entered the dining hall, I looked around for the table labeled Philippines but didn't see one at first glance. That is when I began to notice something strange about the set-up of the tables and realized this dinner wasn't at all what I had thought it would be.

There were three tables on the left side of the room with full setting: placemats, plates, silverware, fancy folded napkins, wine glasses, a bottle of lemonade, a bottle of coke, and a bottle of wine. Moving on from those there were six more tables each completely bare except for a pitcher of water and a few cups. Each table was labeled with a country. The first three plentiful tables were the United States, Japan, and Australia. The other six were the likes of Brazil, China, and Argentina. I still hadn't spotted the Philippines table yet. That's when I noticed that the middle of the dining hall had been cleared out and all the tables pushed against the wall. Here on the floor with no sign of food or dinner was the Philippines, along with about eight other third world countries. Finally realizing what this Global Dinner was all about, I took my seat on the floor, stared longingly at the United States as they seemed prepared for a feast, and I prepared for the worst.

The dining hall had been broken down into proportions of wealth to represent the division of wealth in the world. Josh Boyle, the president, then stood up and read some information about each of the three groups. I remember sitting there thinking how unfair it was that I got stuck on the floor while some people just happened to end up at the rich tables. That, of course, was the entire point of the exercise. It made you realize how you are simply born into a place in the world. For the rich countries, there was no question of whether their children would graduate high school but rather how many additional years of schooling they would do. The major issue being obesity. For the country I was in, school was nothing but a dream to most children, as all efforts were spent trying to make enough money to survive. The major issue being starvation. Sometime during Josh Boyle's presentation dinner was served... to the wealthy tables. They were served some kind of steak wrapped in bacon with noodles and steamed vegetables on the side. I began to fear whether I would be getting any dinner at all. Then the game got more interesting. The strip of paper I was given had a gold star on it. I thought maybe it meant that I was king of the Philippines, but the guy sitting next to me questioned the existence of such a king. As it turns out, the gold star meant that some missionary workers had come to my village and educated me. I was allowed to get up from the Philippines and move up to the next tier of countries. I happily plopped down next to my friend Tim in Brazil, moving up in life! Unfortunately for Tim, some of the rich countries stopped buying Tim's coffee beans, and he had to move down to the floor. Eventually, my new country was served a bowl of rice and vegetables. The countries on the floor received their meal last, a couple tablespoons of rice. When everyone had eaten his specific meal, they announced that there was more food for those who were still hungry, which meant pretty much everyone but the three rich tables. The pasta everyone else was served was very good, and I remember sharing that observation with one of my fellow Brazilians. He speculated that maybe it just seemed that way because just a few moments ago we thought we weren't getting any food at all, an interesting observation.

Near the end of the meal, the United States, Japan, and Australia were each treated with dessert, a large slice of thick, creamy chocolate cake. No one else was given dessert. Everyone at my table watched longingly as the United States enjoyed their fine dessert. Eventually, we noticed that one girl in particular had left more than half of her cake untouched. We began to whisper amongst ourselves about the possibility of her leftovers. Finally, I mustered up the courage to ask the girl if she was going to finish her cake or if she would give the rest of it to our table. She obliged. We quickly divided the cake and devoured it.

The event wasn't at all what I expected, but it was very well done and very thought provoking. For the very briefest of time I got to experience what it is like to be on the outside looking in. It put a lot of things in perspective. In the end the image of myself asking for the leftover cake left me wondering one thing. What would happen if the starving people of the world weren't in some far off country but instead they were sitting at the table right next to ours?

Snorkeling Postponed

Due to poor weather conditions, a particularly busy homework weekend, and new information from Steve Mattix about an increase in deaths by shark attack, the Sunday snorkel adventure mentioned in the previous post has been postponed. The third reason listed has only been done so in jest.

Field Trips

We had a meeting today with one of the professors who is in charge of our 1 credit anthropology course called From the Desert to the Sea. The course is designed to give us Notre Dame students a quick but in-depth look at Western Australian culture and involves three field trips, one of which happened in the first week we were here (see post Kangaroos!). We will be embarking on the second field trip next weekend, a trip to the gold mines at Kalgoorlie. I will keep my eyes peeled for chunks of gold at all times, however, we were informed today that the Western Australia gold rush occurred in the 1850s, so I might be a few years late for finding gold. Much like San Francisco, the gold rush is responsible for the population boom that turned Perth into a major city.

It is about 370 miles to Kalgoorlie, so we'll be taking a flight there. No word yet on whether the inflight snack will be pretzels or peanuts. Unfortunately, they informed us today that we will have to leave college at 4:45am in the morning on Friday, so hopefully they won't leave without me. We were also told to bring warm clothes. Supposedly it gets pretty cold out in the desert at night. I've noticed even just from my room that the Australians aren't too keen on insulation.

Anyways, it should be a fun trip and I'll let you know all about it afterward and post some pictures. As for this weekend, the UWA campus priest has invited all of us to a dinner at his house Saturday. He was a graduate student and professor at Notre Dame for a while so it should be interesting to meet him. Also, the small group of us who bought snorkel gear have found a spot 15 minutes from Perth and we're planning on going out Sunday morning (don't worry the Catholics always hold their mass in the afternoon). The reef is supposed to be a good beginner spot for snorkeling, and although I've got way too much ego to consider myself a beginner snorkeler, I think it is best to start with the small stuff first since the big famous reefs will probably just spoil you.

Bad Dream

I had a nightmare last night that I woke up from in the middle of the night with a cold sweat. I let out a huge sigh of relief when I realized where I was and that my dream hadn't really happened. I'm not sure if I want to relive it now by describing it to you, but I took an oath when I started this blog, to inform no matter the cost. My horrible dream last night was that Notre Dame lost its season opener to Nevada. And I hope I never have to see that happen in real life.

Project Update

I described the possible research projects I could work on a few posts ago (maybe more than a few, sorry). Anyways I was assigned my part of the project last week. I will be working on the Lotus Elise as part of the REV Project (see link in links section --->). Basically, for those who don't already know, the project is to transform the Lotus Elise from a gas powered vehicle to an entirely battery powered vehicle. My specific task will be to redesign the structural support of the car in order to account for the added weight of the battery system. The batteries are extremely heavy. Now the goal of the project is to transform the car without compromising performance, while also keeping the changes as unnoticeable as possible. This means we have to add as many batteries as possible to maintain maximum performance (it's a sports car after all). However, since it is a very small car, there is little room for the batteries. The plan is to hang 32 of the batteries from two rear supports below the boot (trunk in Aussie). These supports were not designed to hold the weight and will most likely break under the load of the battery cage. So that's where I come in. I have to redesign these supports to hold the added weight, not too tough of a job at first.

But then the team realized that they needed to have easy access to the batteries for study and repair, making my job a lot harder. There is a control box that will sit directly above the rear battery cage. I have to figure out how to make this control box slide out from above the batteries so that they can be worked on. It will be a tough project, but it should also supply me with plenty of valuable engineering experience.

Here's a picture. Red arrows point to the beams I must redesign, and the location of the rear battery cage is drawn as a blue box. (click to enlarge)

Saturday Downtown

A couple of us went downtown today to shop for some things. We chose the Harbour Town outlet mall as our venue, hoping to get some good deals. Me and my friend Piyush went looking for football cleats, while Andrew came along hoping find some snorkeling gear. We found the mall fairly easily (we are getting better at this TransPerth stuff) and I was really impressed with the atmosphere of the place. It was a two story outdoor mall, and you just can't find those in a place like Michigan. One of the stores we found was the ultimate Australia paraphenalia giftshop. They had everything there. The shop would have any die hard cheesy tourist foaming at the mouth. I spent a great deal of time there looking for something really cool to buy, an outback hat, an Australian flag, a stuffed koala, but those had all been bought before by other Notre Dame students. Finally, I found the perfect item: a boomerang. I had completely forgotten that the boomerang was an Australian native until I saw the boomerang rack in the giftshop. I guess you don't really ever see them anywhere else in Australia anymore. Nonetheless, I had to have one.

Now I didn't know this but apparently there are two different kinds of boomerangs. The first ones were not quite as curved and on the back they said hunting boomerangs. These were actually the weapons the Aboriginals used to hunt animals with. They are supposed to be thrown low and parallel to the ground to take out an animal's legs. The other kind of boomerang was the throwing boomerang. I am not sure where this kind came from, but it is the kind that comes right back to you when you throw it. Seeing as I didn't expect to be hunting any animals anytime soon, I went with the throwing boomerang. They also had some nice hand-painted boomerangs, but those were pretty much the display only type, and being a wreckless young lad, I needed something I wouldn't be afraid to destroy. Unfortunately, I haven't had a chance to try out my new boomerang as it has been raining all day. That might be a good thing though, considering the directions appear to require multiple, well-calibrated engineering measurement tools. Here are the directions:

Hold the boomerang flat side to palm with the end about the middle of the palm. Face directly into the wind. Turn 45 degrees to the right of the wind. Raise boomerang above right shoulder and tilt 20 degrees off vertical. Throw boomerang at an angle of 30 degrees above horizontal. Release with a spinning motion as the boomerang leaves the hand.

Sounds simple enough right? I don't know if I'll be able to do all that or not, but for now it makes a great lively decoration in my entirely bare room.


Also Piyush and I managed to find a good deal on some football cleats (I'll explain what those are for later). Andrew found a great price for snorkeling gear and we all bought our own set so hopefully we'll be snorkeling soon. We also found a Gelato stand with some interesting flavours. Andrew had Red Bull flavor, and I tried the tiramisu flavour. Needless to say it was amazing. Overall, despite the rain, it was a pretty good day downtown.

About the Black Swan

The most interesting thing about the black swan, other than its color, is the reaction it produced in the English explorers who were probably the first Christians to lay eyes on it. The English believed, after having discovered and explored Australia, that the entire continent was one big separate creation from the rest of the world. They believed that Australia was God's first attempt at creation, a sort of practice creation or possibly a mistake. This conclusion was derived from all the bizarre animals and plants the first explorers encountered: the hopping kangaroos, the egg-laying mammals, the relatively deserted and uninhabitable outback, and most especially the black swans. It is quite an intriguing story and one which was told to us by a tour guide a few weeks ago. At this point I would've liked to have been able to point you in the direction of some references to support the tale, however all my efforts of searching the web for something even related to the topic were fruitless. So whether anyone really did think that about Australia at some point in time or not, it is still a pretty interesting story.

As for the black swan, the bird is an icon of Australia and more specifically the state of Western Australia. The black swan is featured on the state flag and in the UWA crest. It is also found in the St. Thomas More College crest, which is just the Thomas More family Coat of Arms but with a black swan replacing one of the moorcocks.

Close Encounters of the Marsupial Kind

So we went to Caversham on Saturday, and it was a really awesome time. We had to leave early in the morning, and it took quite a bit of work to get there (three different buses, including an hour and a half search for the stop which would get us onto bus three, a missed shuttle, and a little walking through the bush). It was definitely all well worth it though when we finally made it to the wildlife park and were able to get up close and personal with the animals.

The first animal we saw was a Tasmanian devil. You might remember the animal as the spinning tornado named Taz in the old Warner Bros cartoons. While I imagined that the cartoon representation was a complete misrepresentation of the animal, the little guy we met was actually running in circles nonstop, which I suppose for arguments sake isn't really that far off from spinning in cirlces like a tornado. Either way the whole thing was pretty silly as the Tasmanian devil kept running the same pattern over and over again for no apparent reason. He had done it so many times that there was actually a dirt path from where he'd stamped out the grass. We must have watched him for fifteen minutes, and he never stopped. I started taking some video of "Taz" and that's when he decided to throw a curveball at us.





Another famous animal that we'd all been dying to see since we arrived in Australia was the Koala. The Koala exhibit at Caversham was great. We were able to pet the animals and take pictures with them. It wasn't really a bother for the Koalas, since all they do, as you will see in the video, is sleep and eat. Perhaps the Australians derived their laid back lifestyle from that of the Koala.




The best part of Caversham, though, had to be the kangaroos. Not only were you able to walk into the kangaroo habitat, but you could also feed the kangaroos too. Although the kangaroos seemed to be a bit lazy (there isn't much reason to move when you can lay in the sun all day while people bring you food right up to your mouth), I was able to get a video of one hopping away. I'm guessing it's probably a little better than the Detroit Zoo's kangaroo exhibit, eh Drew?



I like the video of the hopping kangaroo because I think it is such a fascinating sight to watch and quite a peculiar way to get around. I took another video of Andrew feeding the kangaroo, which you can watch if you'd like by clicking here.

Well that does it for video, but of course, I took hundreds of pictures too. I added a few of the best pictures to the slideshow. Then I picked out the better ones and shaved the total down to 91 photos, which I added to my web album here. I thought it would be easier to talk about the photos while you're looking at them, so check out the captions below each picture.

Also, a quick word about the Tasmanian devil. It is actually the largest carnivorous marsupial in Australia. That means there isn't really any big, man-eating predator on land here. Obviously, you've got the sharks and the crocs to look out for in the water. But what exactly is the deadliest creature in Australia? I found some information about that in a book at the gift shop. The number one killer in Australia in the last 80 years is the box jellyfish (67 people). In second, not surprisingly it's the great white shark (40). But the number three killer in the treacherous land of Australia... bees (38). I'm not sure if that is because the bees here are worse or if that's just from bee allergies, but I thought it was quite surprising. Also, the dingo was near last place on the list with just 2.

Well that should be enough to keep everyone happy and occupied for now, and it should buy me enough time to come up with something for my next blog post.

***Update: I swapped pictures with Andrew so I put some of his in this album. Yes mom, there will finally be some pictures of your son.***

***New Update: I was informed that the Tasmanian devil video wasn't working because it was private. I have fixed the problem and made it public.***