Friday, October 09, 2009
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
S.C.U.B.A.
Date: April 24th – 27th
Location: Byron Bay – Julian Rocks
Scuba Diving – Not for everyone. Definitely for me.
Brief overview:
We’re given the choice of four free trips that are included in our study abroad “package”. These consisted of scuba diving, Frasier Island, Surf Safari, and The Outback. I obviously chose the latter however I was very interested in the outback trip. I just decided I didn’t want to have to spend an additional 400$ for the plane ticket to the center of Oz. Surfing was something I figured I’d get a chance to do at any point during the trip, I could take lessons when needed and didn’t really need to spend a week learning the ropes. Our diving course consisted of two days of in class video orientation, quizzes, study guides, and basic scuba instructions along with confined diving in their small pool. The last two days we would make a total of four dives, two a day starting early in the morning(which I will later learn is an adequate amount of ocean time, diving exhausts you quite quickly). Breakfast and dinner were supplied, lunch we fended for ourselves. Subway fit the bill, cheap and filling. Our dive center was called Sundive which was conveniently located right next to our hostel, close enough to share a swimming pool. Sundive carried a great atmosphere, the instructors were extremely entertaining and made both the in class certification “lectures” and the actual Julian Rock dives enjoyable for everyone. Rob gave us most of our in class instructions along with Jon, Pete gave us most of our confined pool lessons and dove with us out at the Julian Rocks A fair few of the nights we ended up meeting up with them at one of the local pubs for a couple beers. I came out of this weekend PADI certified meaning I can dive anywhere in the world up to 18m/60ft deep without an instructor present.
Friday / Saturday –
I’m going to lump these days together because they primarily consisted of boring, uneventful, in class training with the exception of confined pool dives. The biggest hurdle with diving was wrapping my head around the concept that I’m physically capable of breathing underwater with the regulator in my mouth. Breathing in and dipping your head underwater was easy, its trying to convince yourself that you’re not going to drowned after you can no longer hold your breath. The first couple days, I can’t vouch for everyone, I went through the air in my tank pretty fast. The object is to relax your body, make slow, steady movements, and keep in mind that no matter if your mask gets filled with water or if you get tangled, you can still breathe if you have your regulator in. The first two pool sessions only made us more excited for the actual dives taking place Sunday/Monday. Our days started at 8:30am, broke for lunch around 11-noon, and then continued on until 3:30-4pm in the later afternoon. As I said before, diving isn’t for everyone, the first day we had two people end up dropping from the program. One due to equalization problems with his ears and the other due to unknown reasons. And then there was seven. Which leads us to our dive group. Our dive group consisted of a German couple studying at Tweed Heads (Anna and Kyril), a gent from Amsterdam who was also studying in Australia (Dave), and four of us from SCU. Team Europe and Team America. The first night we ate at The Rails pub/restaurant. Me and my dive partner Derek arrive a little early to grab a few beers with our dive instructors and then proceeded to scarf up a massive meal once everyone else arrived. I’d be surprised if any of us stayed up any later then 11pm any of the nights we were there. We’d be lucky if we made it past 10:30.
Sunday 26th –
Our First Two Dives.
Our first dive was at 8:30 but we had to arrive at 7:30 to prep all our gear, load up the boat, and discuss our dive plan. Our second was at 1:00 after a short break for lunch. The weather was beautiful but very windy when we launched the boat through the surf. The boat rides out/back easily took second place in the Most Enjoyable Part Of Scuba Diving category. Massive swells and gorgeous 360 view of Byron. Our first, and second, dive literally felt like they lasted 5 minutes tops. There was so much going through my head with equalizing my ears, telling myself that breathing underwater is normal, keeping myself neutrally buoyant so as not to hit the bottom nor float to the surface, making sure to be close to our dive buddy, keeping the instructor in view, trying to take in the sites, on top of practicing skills learned in class such as half mask flood, what happens if you run out of air, clearing your regulator if it gets knocked out etc etc. Did I mention continuously having to equalize my ears? I did well with that the first two dives, the second day equalizing got more difficult. I can’t really recall a whole lot about the first few dives. I remember seeing large amounts of Wobbegong sharks, they have this camo style skin that blends well into the coral on the bottom. Not to worry, they have a mouth the size of a golf ball and primarily eat algae. I believe our instructor said he counted 40+, I just assumed that everyone I saw was one I saw previously because to me it just seemed as if we were moving in circles. Overlapping the same area several times. Apparently we went in a figure 8 though. Shows how poor my senses were to begin with. The second dive we saw a sleeping sea turtle, several puffer fish, and a couple Cuddle Fish. The cuddle fish were quite interesting, when scared off the coral they looked like any other fish, solid in color, however once they descended toward the coral their skin color would change to match that of the coral. It was very interesting to watch. Our first dive lasted 32 minutes, our second one lasted 30 minutes. We only dove down a max depth of 12 meters on these first few, we’d later progress to 18m on our second day.
Sunday 27th –
Our Last Two Dives.
These dives are where all my picture come from. I borrowed Matt’s camera and his underwater housing he had for it. Thinking back it would have been nice to bring the camera on the first two dives as well, the sea turtle would have made for a good close up along with a couple of the Wobbegong Sharks. I managed to snag a few of both but it was far more difficult to get one of the sea turtle while it was moving. That was probably the biggest issue when taking pictures. The only way to get a decent photo was to put the camera on underwater macro settings and get as close to the fish as possible, hoping that the flash would illuminate it enough to not get a blurry photo. The fish can sense your anxiety level so you really had to make a conscience effort to relax yourself and calmly move toward your victim of choice. These dives lasted considerably longer. Most of the worries and thoughts skipping through my head during the first few dives came as second nature, everyone was able to conserve their oxygen longer, and I was much more alert to what was happening around me rather then concentrating on where I was. On this dive we got a chance to see a couple Leopard Sharks (one I got several good photos of) a couple massive eagle rays, another sea turtle, a couple lion fish, some yellow tailed kingfish, several more puffer fish, and Wobbegong’s everywhere. Our last couple dives lasted 36 minutes and 42 minutes respectively I if I remember right with a total of 140 minutes underwater that weekend.
Hope I didn’t hop around to much, it was just so much to take in its hard to put it all out in words with limited visuals. I’m not really sure if I covered everything either. Bellow you’ll find several photos from our dive I’ve uploaded along with a link to a site where I’ve hosted all of them. I got a little click happy with the digital camera so I’m unable to post all of them here.
On a related side note, Anna (from team Germany) was originally born in Croatia and she said that there’s several phenomenal diving locations around there. I believe Pam and Mary wanted to visit there, maybe I’ll have to tag along!
Until next time.
http://drop.io/scubajulianrocks
^^ Contains all 210 good, bad, and ugly photos taken in a .zip doc
[wont let me post pictures as of currently, will post asap]
Location: Byron Bay – Julian Rocks
Scuba Diving – Not for everyone. Definitely for me.
Brief overview:
We’re given the choice of four free trips that are included in our study abroad “package”. These consisted of scuba diving, Frasier Island, Surf Safari, and The Outback. I obviously chose the latter however I was very interested in the outback trip. I just decided I didn’t want to have to spend an additional 400$ for the plane ticket to the center of Oz. Surfing was something I figured I’d get a chance to do at any point during the trip, I could take lessons when needed and didn’t really need to spend a week learning the ropes. Our diving course consisted of two days of in class video orientation, quizzes, study guides, and basic scuba instructions along with confined diving in their small pool. The last two days we would make a total of four dives, two a day starting early in the morning(which I will later learn is an adequate amount of ocean time, diving exhausts you quite quickly). Breakfast and dinner were supplied, lunch we fended for ourselves. Subway fit the bill, cheap and filling. Our dive center was called Sundive which was conveniently located right next to our hostel, close enough to share a swimming pool. Sundive carried a great atmosphere, the instructors were extremely entertaining and made both the in class certification “lectures” and the actual Julian Rock dives enjoyable for everyone. Rob gave us most of our in class instructions along with Jon, Pete gave us most of our confined pool lessons and dove with us out at the Julian Rocks A fair few of the nights we ended up meeting up with them at one of the local pubs for a couple beers. I came out of this weekend PADI certified meaning I can dive anywhere in the world up to 18m/60ft deep without an instructor present.
Friday / Saturday –
I’m going to lump these days together because they primarily consisted of boring, uneventful, in class training with the exception of confined pool dives. The biggest hurdle with diving was wrapping my head around the concept that I’m physically capable of breathing underwater with the regulator in my mouth. Breathing in and dipping your head underwater was easy, its trying to convince yourself that you’re not going to drowned after you can no longer hold your breath. The first couple days, I can’t vouch for everyone, I went through the air in my tank pretty fast. The object is to relax your body, make slow, steady movements, and keep in mind that no matter if your mask gets filled with water or if you get tangled, you can still breathe if you have your regulator in. The first two pool sessions only made us more excited for the actual dives taking place Sunday/Monday. Our days started at 8:30am, broke for lunch around 11-noon, and then continued on until 3:30-4pm in the later afternoon. As I said before, diving isn’t for everyone, the first day we had two people end up dropping from the program. One due to equalization problems with his ears and the other due to unknown reasons. And then there was seven. Which leads us to our dive group. Our dive group consisted of a German couple studying at Tweed Heads (Anna and Kyril), a gent from Amsterdam who was also studying in Australia (Dave), and four of us from SCU. Team Europe and Team America. The first night we ate at The Rails pub/restaurant. Me and my dive partner Derek arrive a little early to grab a few beers with our dive instructors and then proceeded to scarf up a massive meal once everyone else arrived. I’d be surprised if any of us stayed up any later then 11pm any of the nights we were there. We’d be lucky if we made it past 10:30.
Sunday 26th –
Our First Two Dives.
Our first dive was at 8:30 but we had to arrive at 7:30 to prep all our gear, load up the boat, and discuss our dive plan. Our second was at 1:00 after a short break for lunch. The weather was beautiful but very windy when we launched the boat through the surf. The boat rides out/back easily took second place in the Most Enjoyable Part Of Scuba Diving category. Massive swells and gorgeous 360 view of Byron. Our first, and second, dive literally felt like they lasted 5 minutes tops. There was so much going through my head with equalizing my ears, telling myself that breathing underwater is normal, keeping myself neutrally buoyant so as not to hit the bottom nor float to the surface, making sure to be close to our dive buddy, keeping the instructor in view, trying to take in the sites, on top of practicing skills learned in class such as half mask flood, what happens if you run out of air, clearing your regulator if it gets knocked out etc etc. Did I mention continuously having to equalize my ears? I did well with that the first two dives, the second day equalizing got more difficult. I can’t really recall a whole lot about the first few dives. I remember seeing large amounts of Wobbegong sharks, they have this camo style skin that blends well into the coral on the bottom. Not to worry, they have a mouth the size of a golf ball and primarily eat algae. I believe our instructor said he counted 40+, I just assumed that everyone I saw was one I saw previously because to me it just seemed as if we were moving in circles. Overlapping the same area several times. Apparently we went in a figure 8 though. Shows how poor my senses were to begin with. The second dive we saw a sleeping sea turtle, several puffer fish, and a couple Cuddle Fish. The cuddle fish were quite interesting, when scared off the coral they looked like any other fish, solid in color, however once they descended toward the coral their skin color would change to match that of the coral. It was very interesting to watch. Our first dive lasted 32 minutes, our second one lasted 30 minutes. We only dove down a max depth of 12 meters on these first few, we’d later progress to 18m on our second day.
Sunday 27th –
Our Last Two Dives.
These dives are where all my picture come from. I borrowed Matt’s camera and his underwater housing he had for it. Thinking back it would have been nice to bring the camera on the first two dives as well, the sea turtle would have made for a good close up along with a couple of the Wobbegong Sharks. I managed to snag a few of both but it was far more difficult to get one of the sea turtle while it was moving. That was probably the biggest issue when taking pictures. The only way to get a decent photo was to put the camera on underwater macro settings and get as close to the fish as possible, hoping that the flash would illuminate it enough to not get a blurry photo. The fish can sense your anxiety level so you really had to make a conscience effort to relax yourself and calmly move toward your victim of choice. These dives lasted considerably longer. Most of the worries and thoughts skipping through my head during the first few dives came as second nature, everyone was able to conserve their oxygen longer, and I was much more alert to what was happening around me rather then concentrating on where I was. On this dive we got a chance to see a couple Leopard Sharks (one I got several good photos of) a couple massive eagle rays, another sea turtle, a couple lion fish, some yellow tailed kingfish, several more puffer fish, and Wobbegong’s everywhere. Our last couple dives lasted 36 minutes and 42 minutes respectively I if I remember right with a total of 140 minutes underwater that weekend.
Hope I didn’t hop around to much, it was just so much to take in its hard to put it all out in words with limited visuals. I’m not really sure if I covered everything either. Bellow you’ll find several photos from our dive I’ve uploaded along with a link to a site where I’ve hosted all of them. I got a little click happy with the digital camera so I’m unable to post all of them here.
On a related side note, Anna (from team Germany) was originally born in Croatia and she said that there’s several phenomenal diving locations around there. I believe Pam and Mary wanted to visit there, maybe I’ll have to tag along!
Until next time.
http://drop.io/scubajulianrocks
^^ Contains all 210 good, bad, and ugly photos taken in a .zip doc
[wont let me post pictures as of currently, will post asap]
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
Sean’s Friends, Vince, Brisbane, and Bluesfest.
Date: April 10th – 13th
Friday 10th –
A LITTLE BACKGROUND:
Sean’s friends were coming up from Sydney to Brisbane the weekend of the 10th, Easter weekend, which also happened to be the same weekend of Bluesfest. Bluesfest is a huge 5 day festival in Byron Bay and Sean and I had already purchased a ticket to Bluesfest for Monday. On top of which Vince had a week off break from studying in New Zealand and was flying into Brisbane on the 11th. Sean and I decided we would head to Brisbane Friday and Saturday to meet up with his friends and pick up Vince. We would then proceed to get a Sunday morning bus to Byron Bay, stay at Noah’s dad’s house Sunday night and attend Bluesfest Monday morning. You’ll quickly discover that not everything (very little in fact) went actually as planned.
MY WEEK WILL BEGIN WITH:
THERE WAS NO BUS.
After careful planning throughout the week we discovered we’d missed our bus to Brisbane. And by careful planning I actually mean we woke up Friday morning, the day we planned to leave, called around, and found out there were 3 buses. One left at 7am, one left at 11am, and our only option left at 6pm. The 6pm bus only had 1 seat on it. We were screwed!
UNTIL
I remembered the night before Tommy mentioned he was headed to Brisbane for Easter break. I called up Tommy, he said he had extra room and would be more then willing to drop us off at …
OUR EXTREMELY SEEDY HOSTEL
It happened to be the only one available. Sean called numerous hostels and they were all booked, we ened up getting stuck at this hostel I can even remember the name of. It was converted from a house into a 12 room, 2 to 8 beds per room, 2 toilet, 1 shower hostel ran by a really slow Asain lady.
The reception *desk was closed so we had to walk around until someone pointed us at the right person. We walked into the reception **room she sat down and then charged us the $28 for the room. She proceeded to tell us most of the sheets and pillow cases were wet because it had rained and handed us two semi damp sets of sheets and our key. When we unlocked our door and entered our room we were hit with the huge stench of BO. It smelled like a locker room. Our storage consisted of a 2 x 2 x 2 locker which thankfully I could fit my backpack into. The only other hostel experience I had was in Surfers Paradise where there were 4 of us, we got our own room, and bathroom. We got in pretty early so Sean and I decided to meet up with his friends and head into the Valley where all the pubs/clubs were.
*by desk I mean converted closet just barely big enough for a desk chair and computer.
** see desk
THE FAMILY/MONASTERY SITUATION.
Tommy used to work at a couple clubs in the Valley, we asked if he could get our names on a list so we wouldn’t have to pay. Low and behold he texted me saying we were on the list at the Family. The family is a well known club out in Brisbane and has apparently won several awards for best night club this best night club that. We were more excited about not having to pay the 20$ cover. Ouch. Me and Sean hopped in the VIP line as Sean’s friends stepped into the standard line. 5 min later Sean catches his friends being pulled out of the line by the bouncer. Apparently Sean’s friends were to overdressed to come in. They were wearing a button up, khakis, and nice Dockers type shoes. After a long talk, and a very disappointed Adam, we decided to try a different club. Tommy said he was in the Monastery so we b-lined it for that one. Again, same situation. Shot down because Sean’s friends were too overdressed. Striking out we chose the Mustang because they didn’t have any kind of dress code and we were sick of walking around.
WE GOT LOST
We really had no idea where our hostel was in comparison to the valley to begin with. But everyone had the great idea of walking off in the wrong direction. After a couple blocks of unfamiliarity we quickly hailed a taxi to ask for a ride. He quickly refused because there were 5 of us and only 4 seats but tried giving us directions anyway. We walked back to the valley, found some familiarity and was off in the correct direction. Only by this point it was raining. I’m still safe and sound, so it can only be assumed we found where we were staying. Haha.
SATURDAY 11th -
VINCE AND THE AIRPORT FIASCO
Vince called Ashley, she studied here last semester and knows Will and Noah. Noah and Will live in 14 (my “apartment” complex) and we hang out on a daily basis. Very coincidental. Ashley called Will and Noah for my number and ended up reaching me at 2:30 am (Sunday morning). At this point I decided I was going to wait until morning. The city trains stopped running and wouldn’t start up again until 5:30, and I wasn’t about to pay 50$ for cab to catch a ride there. It’s a good thing I waited too.
SUNDAY 12th -
SUNDAY MORNING
The next morning I woke up at 6:45. Me and Sean had previously booked a 9:15 bus to Byron Bay for Sunday morning in order to get back early enough in hopes to get to Bluesfest a day early. After packing all my things I walked 8 blocks or so to central station and bought myself a ticked on the train to the airport. About 10 minutes into the train ride I get a call from Vince. He’s staying at the Rendezvous hotel… right across the street from Central Station. Bummer! I quick hopped trains going the other direction and met up with Vince around 8:15 but still had a train ride to catch out bus.
STRANDED
The bus we were previously told was arriving at 9:15 actually left at 9:45. So in all our rush, we really had 30 more minutes then we thought. We arrived safely in Byron Bay (after a short hour half nap on the bus) around noon expecting Noah to be waiting for us with his car. We had previously agreed that Noah was going to drive 3 others from SCU to Byron for the concert and then he would take all our bags and drop them off at his Dad’s where we would be staying that night. Plans, for some reason, got jumbled and Noah left without the other three for a lunch with his Dad. When we arrive at noon we couldn’t reach Noah or anyone else so we walked down to the beach. We weren’t about to walk the shops carrying all our baggage from the past weekend and Vince had all his stuff for the week. We finally got a hold of Meghan around 2pm and she informed us that Noah was currently on his way BACK to Lismore to pick everyone up and then would meet us in Byron. Thankfully the weather was nice, it had previously been raining for the past week and a half. It was literally the first partly cloudy day I had seen in awhile. Noah arrived around 4pm and we all decided we were just going to walk the streets/shop instead of trying to get into Bluesfest that day. (I don’t think anyone realized the festival went till midnight, we were all thinking it would be to late). Walked the shops a little bit, went to a couple local bars at night and then headed back to Noah’s dads house so we could wake up early for Bluesfest!
MONDAY 13th -
FRESH COFFEE!
Noah’s got a beautiful house. Stuck in the middle of the rainforest he also had a trampoline and a pool. Just slightly disappointed I didn’t get the opportunity to use either. I think the most enjoyable part about Noah’s house was the freshly brewed coffee. First cup of REAL coffee since I left. I still have dreams about that cup. Ha. Just kidding. Aussie’s aren’t big into coffee, they’re more of a Tea culture which gets frustrating when you’re looking for a standard cup of coffee in the morning. I’m stuck with instant. And Instant coffee is gross. On top of that, Noah’s dad had a record player so we got to listen to The Beatles and the **Arctic Monkeys.
BLUESFEST
Skip ahead to later that day. We didn’t arrive at Bluesfest until late. We spent most of the afternoon trying to get everyone together and meet up with others that had come to Byron for BF. Today wasn’t like Sunday, it was cloudy and sprinkling almost the entire time. From time to time it would pour rain. Stuck with only my flip-flops (not wanting to get my fresh white Nike’s dirty) we walked our way to the festival. The fields, if you could even call them fields at this point, were caked in mud. Mud ankle high with puddles knee deep. It was quite enjoyable actually. Thankfully the stages were set up under giant circus like tents so you didn’t actually get wet unless you went outside. There were 5 stages in all but only 2 had bands we came to see. The first band we watched were the Blues Travelers. They put on a pretty good show but they weren’t who I was actually here for. I have to say though, he’s a master at the harmonica… In between Blues Travelers and Jason Mraz (the REAL reason I bought tickets to BF) we got some food and went to get a drink. They were sold out of beer (Laaaaaame [capitol L]) and only had pre-mixed spirit drinks in a can. Those cost 10$ a piece, what a rip. I still bought one, but only one! They weren’t going to take ALL my money. Jason Mraz kicked ASS (capitol everything). He put on such a good show. Around the end of his set everyone from the Blues Travelers got on stage and everyone was just jamming away. Again jamming away on his Harmonica. (Him being the lead singer, cant recall his name, my apologies). **Ben Harper was up next, yet again another stellar performance. He’s an amazing guitarist/soloist on top of which he ended his encore with “Under Pressure”. So perfect.
Noah drove everyone back that night, my ears rang for a day after, but it was well worth it.
**Both bands will be playing at Lollapalooza 2009 check out the lineup. http://2009.lollapalooza.com/ Anyone interested?
Although nothing really went smoothly, it was still one of the more enjoyable weekends here!
Friday 10th –
A LITTLE BACKGROUND:
Sean’s friends were coming up from Sydney to Brisbane the weekend of the 10th, Easter weekend, which also happened to be the same weekend of Bluesfest. Bluesfest is a huge 5 day festival in Byron Bay and Sean and I had already purchased a ticket to Bluesfest for Monday. On top of which Vince had a week off break from studying in New Zealand and was flying into Brisbane on the 11th. Sean and I decided we would head to Brisbane Friday and Saturday to meet up with his friends and pick up Vince. We would then proceed to get a Sunday morning bus to Byron Bay, stay at Noah’s dad’s house Sunday night and attend Bluesfest Monday morning. You’ll quickly discover that not everything (very little in fact) went actually as planned.
MY WEEK WILL BEGIN WITH:
THERE WAS NO BUS.
After careful planning throughout the week we discovered we’d missed our bus to Brisbane. And by careful planning I actually mean we woke up Friday morning, the day we planned to leave, called around, and found out there were 3 buses. One left at 7am, one left at 11am, and our only option left at 6pm. The 6pm bus only had 1 seat on it. We were screwed!
UNTIL
I remembered the night before Tommy mentioned he was headed to Brisbane for Easter break. I called up Tommy, he said he had extra room and would be more then willing to drop us off at …
OUR EXTREMELY SEEDY HOSTEL
It happened to be the only one available. Sean called numerous hostels and they were all booked, we ened up getting stuck at this hostel I can even remember the name of. It was converted from a house into a 12 room, 2 to 8 beds per room, 2 toilet, 1 shower hostel ran by a really slow Asain lady.
The reception *desk was closed so we had to walk around until someone pointed us at the right person. We walked into the reception **room she sat down and then charged us the $28 for the room. She proceeded to tell us most of the sheets and pillow cases were wet because it had rained and handed us two semi damp sets of sheets and our key. When we unlocked our door and entered our room we were hit with the huge stench of BO. It smelled like a locker room. Our storage consisted of a 2 x 2 x 2 locker which thankfully I could fit my backpack into. The only other hostel experience I had was in Surfers Paradise where there were 4 of us, we got our own room, and bathroom. We got in pretty early so Sean and I decided to meet up with his friends and head into the Valley where all the pubs/clubs were.
*by desk I mean converted closet just barely big enough for a desk chair and computer.
** see desk
THE FAMILY/MONASTERY SITUATION.
Tommy used to work at a couple clubs in the Valley, we asked if he could get our names on a list so we wouldn’t have to pay. Low and behold he texted me saying we were on the list at the Family. The family is a well known club out in Brisbane and has apparently won several awards for best night club this best night club that. We were more excited about not having to pay the 20$ cover. Ouch. Me and Sean hopped in the VIP line as Sean’s friends stepped into the standard line. 5 min later Sean catches his friends being pulled out of the line by the bouncer. Apparently Sean’s friends were to overdressed to come in. They were wearing a button up, khakis, and nice Dockers type shoes. After a long talk, and a very disappointed Adam, we decided to try a different club. Tommy said he was in the Monastery so we b-lined it for that one. Again, same situation. Shot down because Sean’s friends were too overdressed. Striking out we chose the Mustang because they didn’t have any kind of dress code and we were sick of walking around.
WE GOT LOST
We really had no idea where our hostel was in comparison to the valley to begin with. But everyone had the great idea of walking off in the wrong direction. After a couple blocks of unfamiliarity we quickly hailed a taxi to ask for a ride. He quickly refused because there were 5 of us and only 4 seats but tried giving us directions anyway. We walked back to the valley, found some familiarity and was off in the correct direction. Only by this point it was raining. I’m still safe and sound, so it can only be assumed we found where we were staying. Haha.
SATURDAY 11th -
VINCE AND THE AIRPORT FIASCO
Vince called Ashley, she studied here last semester and knows Will and Noah. Noah and Will live in 14 (my “apartment” complex) and we hang out on a daily basis. Very coincidental. Ashley called Will and Noah for my number and ended up reaching me at 2:30 am (Sunday morning). At this point I decided I was going to wait until morning. The city trains stopped running and wouldn’t start up again until 5:30, and I wasn’t about to pay 50$ for cab to catch a ride there. It’s a good thing I waited too.
SUNDAY 12th -
SUNDAY MORNING
The next morning I woke up at 6:45. Me and Sean had previously booked a 9:15 bus to Byron Bay for Sunday morning in order to get back early enough in hopes to get to Bluesfest a day early. After packing all my things I walked 8 blocks or so to central station and bought myself a ticked on the train to the airport. About 10 minutes into the train ride I get a call from Vince. He’s staying at the Rendezvous hotel… right across the street from Central Station. Bummer! I quick hopped trains going the other direction and met up with Vince around 8:15 but still had a train ride to catch out bus.
STRANDED
The bus we were previously told was arriving at 9:15 actually left at 9:45. So in all our rush, we really had 30 more minutes then we thought. We arrived safely in Byron Bay (after a short hour half nap on the bus) around noon expecting Noah to be waiting for us with his car. We had previously agreed that Noah was going to drive 3 others from SCU to Byron for the concert and then he would take all our bags and drop them off at his Dad’s where we would be staying that night. Plans, for some reason, got jumbled and Noah left without the other three for a lunch with his Dad. When we arrive at noon we couldn’t reach Noah or anyone else so we walked down to the beach. We weren’t about to walk the shops carrying all our baggage from the past weekend and Vince had all his stuff for the week. We finally got a hold of Meghan around 2pm and she informed us that Noah was currently on his way BACK to Lismore to pick everyone up and then would meet us in Byron. Thankfully the weather was nice, it had previously been raining for the past week and a half. It was literally the first partly cloudy day I had seen in awhile. Noah arrived around 4pm and we all decided we were just going to walk the streets/shop instead of trying to get into Bluesfest that day. (I don’t think anyone realized the festival went till midnight, we were all thinking it would be to late). Walked the shops a little bit, went to a couple local bars at night and then headed back to Noah’s dads house so we could wake up early for Bluesfest!
MONDAY 13th -
FRESH COFFEE!
Noah’s got a beautiful house. Stuck in the middle of the rainforest he also had a trampoline and a pool. Just slightly disappointed I didn’t get the opportunity to use either. I think the most enjoyable part about Noah’s house was the freshly brewed coffee. First cup of REAL coffee since I left. I still have dreams about that cup. Ha. Just kidding. Aussie’s aren’t big into coffee, they’re more of a Tea culture which gets frustrating when you’re looking for a standard cup of coffee in the morning. I’m stuck with instant. And Instant coffee is gross. On top of that, Noah’s dad had a record player so we got to listen to The Beatles and the **Arctic Monkeys.
BLUESFEST
Skip ahead to later that day. We didn’t arrive at Bluesfest until late. We spent most of the afternoon trying to get everyone together and meet up with others that had come to Byron for BF. Today wasn’t like Sunday, it was cloudy and sprinkling almost the entire time. From time to time it would pour rain. Stuck with only my flip-flops (not wanting to get my fresh white Nike’s dirty) we walked our way to the festival. The fields, if you could even call them fields at this point, were caked in mud. Mud ankle high with puddles knee deep. It was quite enjoyable actually. Thankfully the stages were set up under giant circus like tents so you didn’t actually get wet unless you went outside. There were 5 stages in all but only 2 had bands we came to see. The first band we watched were the Blues Travelers. They put on a pretty good show but they weren’t who I was actually here for. I have to say though, he’s a master at the harmonica… In between Blues Travelers and Jason Mraz (the REAL reason I bought tickets to BF) we got some food and went to get a drink. They were sold out of beer (Laaaaaame [capitol L]) and only had pre-mixed spirit drinks in a can. Those cost 10$ a piece, what a rip. I still bought one, but only one! They weren’t going to take ALL my money. Jason Mraz kicked ASS (capitol everything). He put on such a good show. Around the end of his set everyone from the Blues Travelers got on stage and everyone was just jamming away. Again jamming away on his Harmonica. (Him being the lead singer, cant recall his name, my apologies). **Ben Harper was up next, yet again another stellar performance. He’s an amazing guitarist/soloist on top of which he ended his encore with “Under Pressure”. So perfect.
Noah drove everyone back that night, my ears rang for a day after, but it was well worth it.
**Both bands will be playing at Lollapalooza 2009 check out the lineup. http://2009.lollapalooza.com/ Anyone interested?
Although nothing really went smoothly, it was still one of the more enjoyable weekends here!
Sunday, March 22, 2009
Meebunn - Bia
I just got back from my first outdoor ed field trip this week, it was extremely challenging but also very enjoyable as well. I’ll give the breakdown day by day as to not miss anything. Unfortunatly the pictures posted are compressed and the images come out being pretty lackluster. Just a quick fyi! I think you can click on each image for a full sized view.
Monday –
Departure! We had to be at the bus stop by 6:45am… ouch, but it was basically conditioning for the remaining three days. We really didn’t get much sleep, and the sleep that we did get wasn’t very peaceful. Bus ride took 2.5 hours, did my best to nap but the seats were stiff as a board and there was nothing to lean on making it all that more difficult. When we arrived we did a couple games to try and get to know our group better along with a couple team-building activities. After the activities we trekked up what some might consider the side of a mountain, it was pretty steep. This trip pushed my physical limits to their max, man was I out of shape. (You can kinda get the picture from picture 1, but it doesn’t really put it into perspective very well. You can see where the ground comes to a point, that’s where we climbed up but you can also see how steep it drops off [bottom left of the picture] and the view we got). We stopped and ate lunch at the top, took a little rest, and then continued on to our camping sight.
Later that day, once our tent/tarp contraptions were set up we did the zip-line they had there. Obviously with my background in disliking roller coasters I wasn’t overly thrilled, but I wasn’t going to let the opportunity pass me by. It was actually a little bit of a let down, wasn’t quite as long/fast/high as I had imagined, and wasn’t that bad after all. That’s about then when weather changed on a dime and it went from sunny to pouring rain. Thankfully we had moved all our packs under the shelter so nothing got wet… The first night! (Picture 2: you can see our shelter/tent-tarp “tents” in the background. This is also a camp where high school and middle schools come, so they have shelters set up to supply food and store the tents. Typically campers don’t carry their own food/shelter here but we had to in order to prep for our second trip.) Monday night came at went with very few interruptions. The rain didn’t last to long during the evening, it mainly only poured during dinner. We played a few more games (Mafia) to pass some of the time and told a couple ghost/scary stories. I lucked out and slept in the middle of the tent, but Derek said he woke up in the middle of the night to a small Kangaroo hoping around his face at the opening of the tent.
Tuesday –
Tuesday morning we woke up around 7am. We had to eat breakfast and pack our stuff up before the days activities. Our first one was wrapping our heads around navigation with a compass and a map. We talked about it in class, but in practice it’s far more complicated and difficult. We were given a series of points on a map that corresponded with painted buckets (can been seen in pictures, red and yellow striped) somewhere within a 2km radius. We were to follow either the map by using physical features, or follow a bearing on a compass in order to go from point to point. (A GPS would have been handy =)) It was quite difficult at first, our group confused ridges for valleys and valleys for ridges and we ended up going south when we needed to go north but we quickly remedied the problem. Easier now to read, but still a skill that will take far more time to master. I think the worst part about it were the spiders, not because they were all creepy like, but because they spun their webs between trees and we nearly walked into 100 of them. They’re MASSIVE too. But more on spiders later. I was pumped to catch a glimpse of a snake sometime on this trip, but I was disappointed. We didn’t see any. Australia is home to the top 10 deadliest snakes in the world, I just wanted to snap a picture of one, that’s all!
After navigation we at lunch and then did the high ropes course. We didn’t get the option of completing the whole thing because the rain the day before prevented some from doing the zip-line. These ones weren’t quite as high as I had expected, and I don’t have a tremendous fear of heights, so this was more of a challenge to myself to get across without using the support rope. For some (those who were afraid of heights) this was more challenging. Still fun nonetheless! (Some of the pictures make it look almost level with me, this is untrue, I just zoomed? Some will give a good perception of the actual height). The ropes course consisted of everything from a barrel you had to walk on top of, to a bridge where the wooden planks weren’t attached to the rope and shifted around.
Onward to probably the most difficult part of the trip, at least it was in my eyes.
Once everyone had completed the high ropes course we gathered our gear and set off back down to the base of this hill, where we first started. We also took what I’d claim to be a shortcut, why we didn’t take this the first time is beyond me. Haha, I guess it wouldn’t be quite as worth it if the journey wasn’t as hard as it was though right? At this point our group was running a little behind so we had to pick up the pace. The plan was to climb the other hill and catch the sunset (quick side note: The camp ground is set in a valley [where we got dropped off] on two farm plots donated to the camp. The first day we climbed the hill on the left of the road, the second day we visit the other side). This hill wasn’t quite as steep, but far more difficult. If the first hill pushed my physical limits, this one nearly killed me. We hiked for over 45 min uphill. And I mean uphill, if it ever got flat it was for no more then 20 feet. Keep in mind too we had pack weighting upwards of 20 pounds or so.
Camp was reached just as the sun was setting so we had little time to spare. We quick dropped our packs and climbed a smaller hill to get the best view. I felt completely rejuvenated after I had dropped my pack, literally a million pounds were lifted off my shoulder and I almost ran up the second hill. I wasn’t about to miss out on the reward for all my hard work, and the sun was setting fast. I leave you with the best view on Australia’s east coast. (According to my Outdoor Ed instructor Steve who lives and breathes the outdoors, someone who was able to sit with me and name each individual mountain in the background accompanied by his stories of each.) Take particular note of the horizon and the numerous mtns.
One of the more enjoyable moments on the trip came at dinner. (Libby and those with deep fears of spiders, if you wish to sleep tonight, you may wanna close your eyes) We witnessed a spider catch, bite, kill, wrap, and eat a praying mantis. I will not explain, I will merely show you the events that took place.
Wednesday -
Tuesday nights sleep didn’t go much in the same as Mondays. It POURED rain. From around 11pm to 1am. We were one of the few tent/tarp combo’s that didn’t get as wet as others, mainly because we did our best to water proof our tent before hand. There was one unlucky group who posted their tent perpendicular to ours in which the rain ran down our tarp right into theirs. They said they basically “slept” in a puddle. After the minimal sleep that everyone got, we woke up at 4:45am (yes ANOTHER early morning) to catch the sunrise on the same hill. Sadly I got one picture of the group, and then my camera died. It wasn’t quite as wonderful as the sunset though.
Wednesday’s events transpired as follows. Our first stop was another high ropes course, this one we were tethered to another person and had to complete the task as a group. This one was much more difficult this then first. We didn’t have anything to hold onto other then our partner and it was situated much further up then the first high ropes. The second stop was a free falling exercise. We climbed about 50 feet in the air, stood on a platform, and then stepped off plummeting to the ground. The catch was our camp leader was there holding us up with a rope. So we really only fell for about 20-30 feet before the ropes slack went out and we swung outwards over the ground. I imagine the start being very similar to bungee jumping, except instead of getting snapped back up, we swung out. I think I nearly peed my pants. Not something I would do had it not been for coming here. Deff feel more comfortable with dropping uncontrollably, who knows maybe I’ll actually enjoy rides now? Then off back down the hill to a debrief, kinda talk about the week, our expectations and what we got out of it, and then onto the bus. It made for a good last day.
That's all for now.
Monday –
Departure! We had to be at the bus stop by 6:45am… ouch, but it was basically conditioning for the remaining three days. We really didn’t get much sleep, and the sleep that we did get wasn’t very peaceful. Bus ride took 2.5 hours, did my best to nap but the seats were stiff as a board and there was nothing to lean on making it all that more difficult. When we arrived we did a couple games to try and get to know our group better along with a couple team-building activities. After the activities we trekked up what some might consider the side of a mountain, it was pretty steep. This trip pushed my physical limits to their max, man was I out of shape. (You can kinda get the picture from picture 1, but it doesn’t really put it into perspective very well. You can see where the ground comes to a point, that’s where we climbed up but you can also see how steep it drops off [bottom left of the picture] and the view we got). We stopped and ate lunch at the top, took a little rest, and then continued on to our camping sight.
Later that day, once our tent/tarp contraptions were set up we did the zip-line they had there. Obviously with my background in disliking roller coasters I wasn’t overly thrilled, but I wasn’t going to let the opportunity pass me by. It was actually a little bit of a let down, wasn’t quite as long/fast/high as I had imagined, and wasn’t that bad after all. That’s about then when weather changed on a dime and it went from sunny to pouring rain. Thankfully we had moved all our packs under the shelter so nothing got wet… The first night! (Picture 2: you can see our shelter/tent-tarp “tents” in the background. This is also a camp where high school and middle schools come, so they have shelters set up to supply food and store the tents. Typically campers don’t carry their own food/shelter here but we had to in order to prep for our second trip.) Monday night came at went with very few interruptions. The rain didn’t last to long during the evening, it mainly only poured during dinner. We played a few more games (Mafia) to pass some of the time and told a couple ghost/scary stories. I lucked out and slept in the middle of the tent, but Derek said he woke up in the middle of the night to a small Kangaroo hoping around his face at the opening of the tent.
Tuesday – Tuesday morning we woke up around 7am. We had to eat breakfast and pack our stuff up before the days activities. Our first one was wrapping our heads around navigation with a compass and a map. We talked about it in class, but in practice it’s far more complicated and difficult. We were given a series of points on a map that corresponded with painted buckets (can been seen in pictures, red and yellow striped) somewhere within a 2km radius. We were to follow either the map by using physical features, or follow a bearing on a compass in order to go from point to point. (A GPS would have been handy =)) It was quite difficult at first, our group confused ridges for valleys and valleys for ridges and we ended up going south when we needed to go north but we quickly remedied the problem. Easier now to read, but still a skill that will take far more time to master. I think the worst part about it were the spiders, not because they were all creepy like, but because they spun their webs between trees and we nearly walked into 100 of them. They’re MASSIVE too. But more on spiders later. I was pumped to catch a glimpse of a snake sometime on this trip, but I was disappointed. We didn’t see any. Australia is home to the top 10 deadliest snakes in the world, I just wanted to snap a picture of one, that’s all!
After navigation we at lunch and then did the high ropes course. We didn’t get the option of completing the whole thing because the rain the day before prevented some from doing the zip-line. These ones weren’t quite as high as I had expected, and I don’t have a tremendous fear of heights, so this was more of a challenge to myself to get across without using the support rope. For some (those who were afraid of heights) this was more challenging. Still fun nonetheless! (Some of the pictures make it look almost level with me, this is untrue, I just zoomed? Some will give a good perception of the actual height). The ropes course consisted of everything from a barrel you had to walk on top of, to a bridge where the wooden planks weren’t attached to the rope and shifted around.
Onward to probably the most difficult part of the trip, at least it was in my eyes.
Once everyone had completed the high ropes course we gathered our gear and set off back down to the base of this hill, where we first started. We also took what I’d claim to be a shortcut, why we didn’t take this the first time is beyond me. Haha, I guess it wouldn’t be quite as worth it if the journey wasn’t as hard as it was though right? At this point our group was running a little behind so we had to pick up the pace. The plan was to climb the other hill and catch the sunset (quick side note: The camp ground is set in a valley [where we got dropped off] on two farm plots donated to the camp. The first day we climbed the hill on the left of the road, the second day we visit the other side). This hill wasn’t quite as steep, but far more difficult. If the first hill pushed my physical limits, this one nearly killed me. We hiked for over 45 min uphill. And I mean uphill, if it ever got flat it was for no more then 20 feet. Keep in mind too we had pack weighting upwards of 20 pounds or so.
Camp was reached just as the sun was setting so we had little time to spare. We quick dropped our packs and climbed a smaller hill to get the best view. I felt completely rejuvenated after I had dropped my pack, literally a million pounds were lifted off my shoulder and I almost ran up the second hill. I wasn’t about to miss out on the reward for all my hard work, and the sun was setting fast. I leave you with the best view on Australia’s east coast. (According to my Outdoor Ed instructor Steve who lives and breathes the outdoors, someone who was able to sit with me and name each individual mountain in the background accompanied by his stories of each.) Take particular note of the horizon and the numerous mtns.
One of the more enjoyable moments on the trip came at dinner. (Libby and those with deep fears of spiders, if you wish to sleep tonight, you may wanna close your eyes) We witnessed a spider catch, bite, kill, wrap, and eat a praying mantis. I will not explain, I will merely show you the events that took place.
Wednesday -
Tuesday nights sleep didn’t go much in the same as Mondays. It POURED rain. From around 11pm to 1am. We were one of the few tent/tarp combo’s that didn’t get as wet as others, mainly because we did our best to water proof our tent before hand. There was one unlucky group who posted their tent perpendicular to ours in which the rain ran down our tarp right into theirs. They said they basically “slept” in a puddle. After the minimal sleep that everyone got, we woke up at 4:45am (yes ANOTHER early morning) to catch the sunrise on the same hill. Sadly I got one picture of the group, and then my camera died. It wasn’t quite as wonderful as the sunset though.
Wednesday’s events transpired as follows. Our first stop was another high ropes course, this one we were tethered to another person and had to complete the task as a group. This one was much more difficult this then first. We didn’t have anything to hold onto other then our partner and it was situated much further up then the first high ropes. The second stop was a free falling exercise. We climbed about 50 feet in the air, stood on a platform, and then stepped off plummeting to the ground. The catch was our camp leader was there holding us up with a rope. So we really only fell for about 20-30 feet before the ropes slack went out and we swung outwards over the ground. I imagine the start being very similar to bungee jumping, except instead of getting snapped back up, we swung out. I think I nearly peed my pants. Not something I would do had it not been for coming here. Deff feel more comfortable with dropping uncontrollably, who knows maybe I’ll actually enjoy rides now? Then off back down the hill to a debrief, kinda talk about the week, our expectations and what we got out of it, and then onto the bus. It made for a good last day.
That's all for now.
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