Jul 2009

I've made my way to several unique Aussie festivals over the past year: electronic Parklife, all-Aussie Homebake, summer favorite Big Day Out, Sound Relief to raise funds for the Victoria bushfires, and last weekend, I attended what has been referred to as "Australia's best festival of the year": Splendour in the Grass.

The festival took place over two days in Byron Bay, located a solid 12 hour drive from Sydney just below the NSW/Queensland border. The little beachside Berkeley-esque tourist town is quite sweet, with its yummy wraps and coffee stands next to boho boutiques and open air bars that pump with music at midday.

On Thursday morning, Paddy and I packed the car (his younger brother, bless his heart, had loaned us his car for the weekend), then started the grueling drive up the coast. I've done this drive a couple times - on the Greyhound bus back from Brisbane in October, and up towards the Gold Coast with Bonnie and her family in November - so I was relatively acquainted with the scenery: turnoffs to the beach, crowded cities bustling with activity, other sleepy towns with not much more than a few restaurants and a petrol station, and of course, The Big Banana at Coffs Harbour (the banana plantations town.)

One unique stop we did make was in Frederickson just outside Kempsey at Fredo's Pies. The roadside sign advertised its 50 pie variations, including kangaroo, chili and pasta, ostrich, and its "famous" crocodile pie, so we turned off to sample the reptilian pastry. It wasn't bad, actually - the skin was about as tough as chicken, but I thought it tasted like fish.

We had a 10-person house waiting for us just outside Byron, but a few of Paddy's friends go to uni in Lismore (30 minutes west of Byron), so we stopped to hang out with them at their uni bar for the night.

The next morning, being that it was Friday, we lazed around the residences for a bit, then hopped back in the car and drove to Lennox Heads, where a yummy fish and chips shop overlooking the beach caught our attention for the next couple hours. The water was freezing, being that it is winter here, but the weather was absolutely beautiful.

The night was pretty uneventful: a few drinks and some munchies with the folks staying at the house (it was basically a Batemans Bay reunion) as we prepared for what was going to be a hectic next couple days.

The festival featured a mix of national and overseas talents, ranging from the Aussie hip-hop and hard rock to dance, acoustic, electronic and DJ sets over five stages on a massive muddy field:
- Hilltop Hoods (who put on a fantastic show Sunday night)
- Bloc Party (fun English dance music)
- Gutter Twins (Aussie acoustic guys; I’d never heard them, but we popped in for a few songs and they’re great)
- the Beautiful Girls (laid-back, reggae-style; awesome)
- Brooklyn duo MGMT (who was actually pretty crap – much too quiet and they seemed to have stage fright)
- Friendly Fires (a great electro party on the dance floor)
- Sarah Blasko (I actually didn’t see her, but apparently she’s amazing on stage)
- Grinspoon (Aussie rock, reminded me of AC/DC)
- Flaming Lips (didn’t see them either, but they’re headlining a tour on Treasure Island in October with MGMT)
- White Lies (young Aussie rock)
- Dananananakroyd (from Glasgow, Scotland – their name combines the Batman theme song with actor Dan Akroyd’s name, haha. I missed their set, but I heard on the radio that they’d split the crowd down the middle, then had everyone hug as many people as they could during the song.)

Since there was a decent size group of us, we set up a meeting spot at the big shows (Hilltop, Bloc Party, Friendly Fires, etc.) at the front left pillar, and then just wandered to check out the different stages. It was a great festival and I really enjoyed a lot of the music, but

Monday was recovery day at the beach just near our Suffolk Park (Byron) house, and then we grabbed lunch in downtown Byron before starting the long trek home. On the way, we stopped at The Entrance on the Central Coast (where the channel enters the Tuggerah Lakes) and chilled out for a bit before continuing back to Sydney.

Now that I’m in my last week in Australia, I’m planning to spend my time at the beach (the weather’s on my side at the moment), at weekend markets with friends, going to one last AFL game, surfing (yeah, I’ve been here for over a year and STILL have not been on a surfboard. Lame) and hopefully having a shrimp on the barbie before I depart my year on holiday and return to my busy American life.

It’s been quite an adventure.

At 6:30 a.m., I trekked out towards Darling Harbour to finally check out the Sydney Fish Markets - something that's been on my to-do list since...oh I don't know, September?

The Sydney Fish Markets are the world's second "best" fish market in the world; the title belongs to Tokyo, Japan. The comparison is mind boggling: Sydney sells 100 crates of seafood every hour, but the amount they sell in two weeks is about equivalent to what Tokyo sells in ONE DAY. That's a lot of sushi! The Japanese are quite particular too: a good tuna, fitting specific length and quality guidelines, can go for as much as $40,000 per fish, so it's usually flown in by helicopter immediately after it's caught. Holy cow.

The tour was quite cool: our guide, Greg, took us out onto the auction floor, where we were able to see wholesalers bidding on the crates of fish via a keypad and a Dutch-made auction clock. They could purchase several kilos of fish with the simple push of a button - no yelling necessary - so it was much less noisy than I was expecting. It was also much better smelling: because they're so careful when it comes to caring for the fish they're looking to sell, they made sure the fishes' bad bacteria (aka, the icky fish smell) was kept at a minimum. Makes me wonder why other fish markets don't smell as nice....

The market prides itself on its sustainability. Bycatch - unwanted fish that get caught in the nets when they're fishing - are sent off to be made into fertilizer and other products. Since my Sustainable Enterprise business class spent weeks working on slideshows and holding debates about the future of sustainable fishing in Australia, I was much more engaged in what Greg was talking about (and I've learned a lot from Paddy and Dylan, who are both studying marine biology.) What a great education I've gotten here.

Saturday, 11 July

We left Kingston bright and early to discover a fun surprise at the petrol station: Larry the Lobster! There are tons of huge creatures scattered all over Australia (the Big Banana at Coffs Harbour, Uluru at a rest stop in the central coast, etc.) Grabbing a coffee (for me), we hit the road for Adelaide.

It rained for a good portion of the drive, but luckily Paddy had burned 11 cds for the journey, so we just rocked out through the small towns, over the Murray Bridge, and into Adelaide. I had toured the city on a bus with Miriam during our train's two hour stopover on our way to Perth, but hadn't had much time to walk around it at all. The city is lovely: it's only about a mile wide, but packs in enough bars, cafes and churches to satisfy its million residents. The layout, as I mentioned before, is ideal: all grids and right angles, but what's annoying is how often the street names change: halfway through the city, Franklin St. disappears and turns into Flinders St., and suddenly you have no idea where you are. Other than that, it's fairly easy to get around.

We arrived int he city with time to spare, so we checked into a hostel called My Place (the first backpackers accomo I've seen that has a sauna!) and dumped our stuff so we could clean out the van and take it back to the depot. A pair of English girls staying at the hostel with us has just done the ocean road in a Wicked van too, so they went with us. I must admit, I was happy to get rid of that leaky, expensive gas guzzler by this point.

Since we were starving, Paddy and I walked into town to explore the Central Markets: another maze of food stalls selling produce, fresh bread, coffee, etc. We grabbed cheap loaves of bread and a container of yummy basil-parmesan yogurt sauce and almost devoured the entire thing before grabbing a few fruits and veggies to last us the few days we'd be in the hostel.

Being that it was Friday, we spent that night checking out the bar scene, starting with the Grace Emily just across from our hostel for schooners of Cooper's beer (South Australia's signature beer; each state has one) and to listen to a folksy guy sing with an acoustic guitar. We then proceeded to Rundle and Henley streets where the action was just heating up, but when exhaustion kicked in early, we returned to the hostel after just a few beers.

Sunday, 12 July

A chalkboard near the hostel's reception suggested renting free bikes from a shop on Franklin St., so Paddy and I decided to take advantage of the sunny day and this awesome opportunity. We pedaled around the city, through some of the parks, and make our way out into a nice suburb called Belair, where the town was very Danville-like and the houses were straight out of Diablo. We pedaled across the city, through the Rundle Street Market to smell the handmade soaps and sample the kettle corn, then into the Botanical Gardens before returning our wheels and hopping on the tram to Glenelg.

Adelaide's only a few kilometers from the water, and Glenelg is its prime seaside town. We walked out on the jetty to watch the waves roll in (at this point Paddy was craving a surf, but he said the Southern Ocean is full of great white sharks, so he wasn't going to be doing it here!), hit up a bar for schooners of James Squire's new Sundown lager (it actually tastes lie sunshine, mmm), then split a couple scoops of ice cream at Baskin Robbins (to which Paddy had never been) before grabbing the tram back to Adelaide.

Monday, 13 July

Movies seemed to be a couple bucks cheaper in Adelaide, so we caught an 11:30 screening of Sacha Baron Cohen's latest, Bruno. I had expected it to be pretty dumb with some good laughs, but I watched most of the movie through my fingers: some scenes were ridiculously outrageous and uncomfortable, and others, (particularly the one involving the baby photo shoot in LA), I pray were scripted. It wasn't really worth the $12.

Yesterday, we'd biked past the National Wine Centre of Australia in a corner of the Botanical Gardens, and I was keen to get back (since we were out of time and money to check out the prime wine regions: Clare Valley, Barossa Valley, and McLaren Vale), so that was our next stop. We walked through the different rooms to learn about the different grapes, where they grew best and what they usually smelled like as a wine, then had the opportunity to blend our own computerized wines. it was tough: we had to choose the temperature we'd keep our wine at, the type of barrel we'd use, how long we'd keep the wine in those barrels, when we'd ferment it, etc. etc. I ended up with "average" and "terrible" blends, while Paddy's won silver medals. Hrmmph.

After grabbing a couple sandwiches, we headed back to the hostel to grab our bags and wait for the bus to come pick us up and take us to the airport. It had been a fantastic trip, but I wish we'd thought to grab blankets for the oceanside portion!

Monday, 6 July

After breakfast, we headed off to pick up our Wicked camper van, where we'd be eating and sleeping on the road for the next five days. There, we hit a hurdle: since neither Paddy nor I are too confident driving manual (I've never left Park n' Ride and and we figured trying to learn over the phone with friends would prove fruitless), we had to pay a bit extra for an automatic off-roader. It looked cool - the sides were painted with Southpark-style Kiss musicians (Wicked's known for its bizarre, often inappropriately painted vans.)

On our way to Torquay, a little surf town at the beginning of the Great Ocean Road, we stopped to walk around Deakin University. Paddy had applied to this uni, and had I not chosen to attend UTS, Deakin also has a bilateral exchange with SF State. The campus was HUGE and even had its own little "lake" (pond) and a lakehouse restaurant.

Back on the road, we stopped for dinner at a little Italian place in Torquay, then drove around the town to find the perfect sleep spot for our first night. The result? A lookout over the beach and rolling waves. Perfect.

Tuesday, 7 July

We awoke early (well, early-ish - this far south, the sun doesn't rise until about 7:30) to watch the sun rise over the ocean, capturing every stage of the colorful sky while running around the parking lot in attempt to stay warm in the four degree cold.

After a quick stop to buy groceries (the van was equipped with cooking supplies, a gas stove and a pump sink), we drove to check out the Surfworld Museum. There, we saw the first surfboard ridden into Australia's coast (a wooden door - from a shipwreck I think?), the Bells Beach surf competition trophy, bits of surf documentaries in the movie room, and several pros' old boards (I got a photo with Kelly Slater's from 1996) in different rooms spanning the different decades of surfing all over the world.

Afterwards, we hit up the surf shops: Quiksilver, Roxy, Rusty (whose headquarters, I believe, are in Torquay), and Ripcurl all had stores next to the museum. As we drove out, we stopped by the famed Bells Beach to dip our toes in the ocean, but it was much too cold out to go surfing.

Driving along the Great Ocean Road is in an experience within itself: you can literally see the ocean the entire time, and every cliffside rest stop offers even more spectacular views than the last. We stopped for a bit in Lorne, a little town just a couple hours' drive in, to check out the shops and look out over the windy road from Teddy's Lookout before setting off for Apollo Bay, a small fishing village where we stopped for fish n' chips and some sleep.

Wednesday, 8 July

By now it had been two days since our last shower, so after watching another sunrise in the chilly morning, we stopped by the nearby YHA (youth hostel) to get clean and defrost our toes (I had to start sleeping in my Ugg boots.) It was one of the longest, most luxurious showers I've ever taken.

With a quick bowl of cereal, we drove to explore Mait's Rest, a trail that weaves through the rainforest. All around were myrtle beech trees and humongous ferns, but unfortunately (or fortunately), I haven't really seen any feared Aussie snakes or spiders yet.

Next up was the Cape Otway Lighthouse, but on our way there, the road was blocked by...cows! There must have been 30 of them just wandering across the road. Quite funny, but I was petrified that I was going to hit one, so I crept by at 10 k/hr. At Cape Otway, we walked around the old lightkeeper's house/shipwreck museum (we'd left the Surf Coast and entered the Shipwreck Coast sector of the ocean road) and took in the view from the lighthouse deck. To the left was Bass Strait (which separates Australia from Tasmania), and to the right, the Southern Ocean. We really lucked out with daytime weather - it was absolutely clear out. Wish we could've seen some whales though!

Even though we're both afraid of heights, we decided to go to the Otway Fly Tree Top Walk. It was similar to the one I did with Miriam in Western Australia, but this one overlooked myrtle beech trees (which seem shorter and less impressive than the tingle and karri trees we saw at the other tree top walk) and had a very high lookout tower that swayed in the wind. It was terrifying, but we both made it to the top!

Continuing along the road, we stopped in a tiny hilltop town called Princetown and would have like to stay overnight on their waterfront campgrounds, but because our van was a petrol-guzzling machine that required diesel fuel and Princetown was too small to have a diesel pump, we had to continue to Pt. Campbell.

We watched a breathtaking sunset over the Twelve Apostles that night.

Thursday, 9 July

Today we drove, but stopped to see tons of lookout points along the way:

- Loch Ard, the site of an American bound shipwreck where the only two survivors were two 18 year olds.
- London Bridge, which partially collapsed between January 14-15, 1990.
- The Arch, which looked like an intact London Bridge.
- The Grotto, a beautiful lookout where we saw...HUMPBACK WHALES!! Paddy reckons it was a mom and her calf, as we saw two whales berth together every so often.
- Bay of Islands Coastal Park, a series of rock islands and a gorgeous sapphire-blue bay.
- Gibson Steps, atop a cliff with stairs leading to the beach.
- Logan's Beach, a whale nursery where we saw a whale tail!

We stopped for food in Warnnambool, a decent-size town that marks the end of the Great Ocean Road, and perused the shops to stretch our legs before setting off for a town called Portland, where we parked on a quiet residential street and watched The Castle (a classic Aussie flick) before falling asleep.

Friday, 10 July

Today we awoke to overcast skies, so we drove into the Cape Nelson National Park to have breakfast before setting off for South Australia, specifically Mt. Gambier. Despite the on-and-off rain, we took in the beautiful lookouts:

- Blue Lake, a crater-made lake containing enough water to fill 8,500 Olympic-size swimming pools. Too bad it was cloudy, as the water is supposed to appear sapphire-like.
- Valley Lake, which isn't nearly as blue, funnily enough.
- Centenary Tower, located up a slippery, gargantuan hill but that provided incredible views that reminded us both of the English countryside.

We left as the rain worsened, but since Adelaide was still 450 or so kilometers away, we drove to Kingston instead and settled into a caravan park. There, we discovered an inconvenient problem: because our sunroof hadn't been secured properly (something we discovered later was actually done by the guy who rented us the van - no wonder we couldn't get the sunroof open during the trip!), water began dripping through the ceiling, soaking one of our mattresses. With 300 kilometers to tackle in the morning (our van was due at the Adelaide depot by noon the following day), we placed our esky under the leak, and rented a trailer room for the night. Finally, a real bed and a heater! It felt like a five star hotel next to what we'd been sleeping in for the week.

I was off to Victoria for a second look at Australia's "most cultural" city, Melbourne. This time though, I was going with an Aussie who knew the city well and loved it immensely: Paddy.

Upon hearing that Melbourne was going to be around 16 degrees Celsius during the day and near three at night (keep in mind zero is freezing), Paddy and I packed two duffel bags and my monstrous suitcase full of jackets, Uggs, trackies, thermals and scarves in hopes we'd be able to cover every inch of our skin in at least three layers.

Thursday, 2 July

The early morning flight was pretty uneventful until we boarded. As we were settling into our seats, I noticed a group of well-built guys wearing identical polo shirts walking down the aisle. Frat boys? Nope - they were rugby league players from the Balmain Tigers. And no one was even looking up as they made their way to the back of the plane. Astonished, I fired questions at Paddy: Why didn't they have their own airplane, or at least seats in first class? Why didn't anyone on board make a fuss about their presence? Were they really the same athletes I'd seen running across the TV screen? All I got was an eye rolling and a smiley "You're so American" response from Paddy before he fell asleep for the duration of the hour and a half long flight. Had those been 49ers boarding the plane in San Francisco, I believe the reaction would have been quite different.

After landing and collecting our luggage, we caught a Skybus to the waterside Docklands to catch a train to our hostel, and I was immediately stoked to discover that, FINALLY, I'd found a ticket system just like San Francisco's (where your ticket is good for two or so hours with unlimited train rides, rather than Sydney's inconvenient system of buying a ticket every time you board.) Our place, the the Greenhouse Backpackers on Flinders Lane, was one of the nicest backpackers I'd ever seen: situated just off busy Swanston Street, the hostel was above a travel office and had four levels, an elevator, free towels, and great music playing at all hours in the common areas. Oh, and free toast in the morning and pancakes on Sundays. Can't get much better! It's won backpacker awards for being awesome, and I know a student who lived there for a month.

First stop was breakfast. Since Paddy had put us on a $40 a day budget, we headed down one of Melbourne's famous laneways (which are literally the alleyways between buildings - they're chock full of cafes! A very cool sight to behold, and so convenient since there were a couple laneways right next to our hostel.) He had to drag me away from a delicious looking eggs florentine at one place, but we settled on yummy chicken wraps and coffee from another place.

Next up was the Sofitel Hotel on Collins Street, where their 35th level restaurant, Cafe La, offers spectacular (and free!) views of the city through its floor-to-ceiling windows. My guidebook, the 2007 Let's Go Australia, has been my travel bible for supplying advice such as this.

After grabbing mochas to warm our hands against the cold and rain (Paddy hated coffee until he met me, haha), we wandered past the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG) and Ron Laver Arena (Australian Open tennis) and then stumbled upon the coolest graffiti art I'd ever seen. The street, Hosier Lane, was absolutely covered in block writing and pictures - even the trash bins. The street wrapped its way around a square building, and upon closer inspection, we found a small art gallery at the top of the stairs. This is a prime example of the beauty of Melbourne: by simply walking around with no map or sense of direction (on my part), you can find incredible hidden gems. This was further proven by our next find: a great lounge called the Purple Emerald, where we stopped for glasses of wine and a rest on one of the comfy couches.

We returned back to the hostel to shower and change for...Wicked! For our three month anniversary, after my incessant hints at how much I wanted to see the pre-Wizard of Oz musical, Paddy had sweetly bought us tickets (the funniest part though, was that he didn't realize it was a musical until we got there. Hehe.) It was absolutely fantastic, and I was particularly taken by Elphaba (the green wicked witch of the west). She was the misunderstood but actually kindhearted character with an incredible voice, and she made Glinda the Good Witch just seem dim and fake. What a different take! I'm curious to watch the Wizard of Oz again.

We left the Regent Theatre starving, but since everything we walked past was already closed, we ended up walking clear across the city to Carlton, aka "Little Italy", for a takeaway pizza.

Friday, 3 July

We started the morning early at the Victoria Markets - a maze of stalls selling everything from clothing and shoes to fresh produce, incense, wine and...pigeons. We picked up some cheese, crackers and a bottle of Sav Blanc to have for lunch, then made our way up the street to check out the University of Melbourne. The buildings were quite cool - the economics department was housed in an art deco-style, while the law building was all stone and heavy wooden doors. Walking back across the city to the water, we found a bench at the Docklands and settled down to enjoy our lunch and good conversation overlooking the Yarra River. We ducked into a nearby cafe (with a fireplace! Such a rarity in this country) for hot chocolate once it started raining, then headed back to the hostel for a quick nap before dinner.

My family and I had stumbled upon this British pub, the Elephant & Wheelbarrow on Exhibition Street, back in December, so we decided to head there for their fantastic shepherd's pie and pints of Old Speckled Hen. After dinner, we met up with our friend Albert, who was taking a year hiatus from UTS to complete a yearlong architecture apprenticeship (similar to an internship) in Melbourne. We met him at a bar called Ondegrounds just around the corner from our hostel, then proceeded to pub crawl our way around the city. Every bar was different: the Lounge was like a trendy version of our Lansdowne Hotel pub, and Albert's favorite, a tiny place tucked behind a couple laneways, looked like we'd stumbled into someone's living room. It was very San Francisco-esque with its vintage wallpaper and laid back atmosphere, and when I asked for a cocktail list, I thought the grungy bartender was going to throw me out, so I quickly changed my request to a Melbourne Bitter, one of the four bottled beers (nothing on tap) they served.

Halfway through the night, we stopped into a Japanese restaurant for a quick bite, and I knocked the boys' socks off by introducing them to sake bombing (something we do constantly in SF). Essentially, you fill a glass 1/3 full of beer (choose a Japanese one - Asahi is good), balance a shot of warm sake on two chopsticks over the top of the glass, say the chant (Sake bomb! Ichi bomb! 1, 2, 3!), then hit the table with your fists so that the chopsticks fly off and your shot falls in, then chug. Repeat as necessary.

Saturday, 4 July

Happy Independence Day, America! I figured no one would recognize this holiday in UK-controlled Australia, but I was mistaken: just near Federation Square, a line of American flags flew along the street (Paddy had a hilarious hissy fit over it.) A store near our hostel was also having a sale on all American products.

Paddy's friend Greg and Greg's siblings Jeff and Mel arrived in the a.m. for a weekend of AFL (Australian Football League - it's more like rugby than our NFL) and shopping, but first on the list was food. Paddy and Greg had been in town for the AFL season kickoff in late March and had been talking about Grill'd, this burger place in bohemian St. Kilda ever since, so we boarded a tram and made our way towards the water. A round of Tuscan burgers and herbed chips (fries) later, we walked down the main strip to find dessert at one of the many desirable cake shops that line Acland street, then walked along the Esplanade to grab a tram back to the city.

The boys headed off to catch an afternoon footy game, so Mel and I hopped on a tram to go shopping on Bridge Street. It was a mix of Australian boutiques and vintage stores, cheap spots and a Body Shop outlet, and we happily spent a couple hours browsing the sale racks.

We all reunited at night to hit a pub called Waterside for a few jugs (pitchers) of beer before making our way to the footy stadium to watch the Western Bulldogs vs. Hawthorne Hawks (who I saw vs. the Sydney Swans with Paddy a couple months ago. By now, I have a decent understanding of the game.) Our seats were up in the nosebleed section, but it was fun to watch the game in the midst of thousands of Aussie Rules footy fans. Victoria is the footy state, and Melbourne is the sport's epicenter. (NSW and Queensland are more rugby league-oriented and there are three State of Origin games held between the two states three times during the season.)

Sunday, 5 July

Paddy and I awoke early, so we hit a bakery in a nearby laneway for muffins and coffee before returning to the hostel for a lazy morning of pancakes and emails. Once Greg and his crew were awake, we prepped for the big game that afternoon: the Geelong Cats vs. St. Kilda Saints. Both teams were undefeated, and being that today was the 14th game of the season, this was a first in AFL history. Greg's family are all diehard Saints fans, so this was a BFD.

We settled into jugs of beer to get pumped for the game, then made our way back to the stadium. Somehow, for $35, Mel had scored us SIXTH ROW SEATS, so we were right in the action. The crowd was largely made up of Saints fans and the Saints team dominated most of the game, but everyone was biting their nails in the final minutes when the score was tied. In the end, the Saints made victorious history with a 91-85 win, making Melbourne's bars overcrowded with happy fans for the rest of the night.

The next day was a big one - we were off to pick up our camper van just outside the city and begin our Great Ocean Roadtrip! Of course, things don't always (as in they rarely) go as planned...