The Blue Mountains

Near Sydney are the Blue Mountains,  a national park named as such reportedly because of the blue haze created by the sun interacting  with the the oils in the eucalyptus trees. I've read conflicting  accounts of whether  or not that's actually  why they're  blue,  but really, who cares, nature is beautiful and awesome .

To kick things off, here's Jim modeling his face biscuit. To be clear, this is a cookie, but here you can have a sweet biscuit  (cookie), or a savory biscuit  (cracker).

Here's the view  from the top of our trek down Wentworth falls. It was cloudy, but that's better than rain, and really, it's still quite beautiful. See  the blue?

At the top of the falls

The trek leads you through some pretty awesome paths under these rock shelves

Small falls

Peeling eucalyptus bark. Like snakes, these trees actually shed their outer coat. I have no idea why, and neither did our guide.

Looking up at Wentworth falls

This formation is called the 3 sisters.  A sacred holy site  for the native Aboriginal  peoples.

Byron Bay

We left Queensland for Byron Bay in New South Wales (I have a way better sense of Australian geography at this point than probably anywhere else we've been) but the scenery was still much the same.  That is gorgeous beaches and beautiful sunny landscapes.  It's supposed to have the best surf in Australia and Chrissy took a surfing lesson here.

Looking down the beach.

There's a cool lighthouse in Byron Bay that is a really nice walk from the center of town.

We didn't get any shots of them really, but there are lots of turtles and dolphins swimming around the coast.  In a few months all the whales will be easily visible migrating.

Byron Bay is also the most Easterly point in Australia so here is the requisite shot.

Chrissy enjoying the landscape.

I totally forget the name of this mountain, but this is a nice shot.

A shot of the beach where we spent most of our time hanging out.  You can also see the lighthouse in the distance on the right.  The beach really was awesome with good, fun, surf and soft sand.  Oh yeah, and topless sunbathing was not an uncommon sight.  So, it all adds up to one of the best (if not the best) beaches of the trip.  Chrissy (who is basically a fish) already misses it.

Brizzie

Brisbane, aka Brizzie, capital of the state of Queensland. It pretty much rained the whole time we were in the city with the exception of the time we were at the rugby game. Still, we managed to get out, even if we did get wet.

Fun with public art

Jim, sporting his hipster lumberjack look

More fun with statues

When it rains, you go to museums. On display at the Queensland Maritime Museum (which is huge btw, several ships, a naval frigate in dry dock, the stained glass windows from the Maheno  wreck on Fraser Island), several fresnel lighthouse lanterns.

The retired naval frigate, the HMAS Diamantia,  is in permanent  dry dock and as part of your museum experience you can explore the ship, and you can touch everything, crawl on the furniture, even reposition the guns on deck. We decided the officers lounge made an excellent location  for a cribbage game. Jim won.

Here's  Jim, sporting his pirate look.

How to Speak Australian

While they speak English here in Australia there are a few phrases that you probably won't hear back in the States:

"How you going?" - This doesn't mean "How are you transporting yourself?" but rather "How's it going?" or "How are you doing?"  It's really confusing the first few times you hear it.  "How am I going? I just got here!"

"Heaps" - This is more simple, Australians don't use the word "lots" to describe something.  So, if you are enjoying yourself you are having heaps of fun.

"No worries" - The response you will almost certainly get to saying "Thank You."

"_______ as" - This is my favorite, probably.  Australians will put the word as after an adjective but then nothing else.  Examples:

"The store is having a sale, everything is cheap as."

"Did you send the end of that game?  It was sweet as!"

It's funny because at first you think they are saying "ass" then you realize they aren't and your head wants to add an expletive after the as because that seems like it would make more sense.

Happy Easter!

Fraser Island

One of our many excursions off the Queensland coast included an adventure  to Fraser Island. The island is made completely  of sand, and vegetation only grows because of a type of fungus that allows the sand to hold nutrients. In addition,  there are  several  perched lakes, lakes of freshwater fed by an underground aquifer, pushed up by the different density  of the surrounding sea water. Makes for some pretty fun territory to explore.

Here at Lake McKenzie, the pH of the water is slightly  acidic  which means not much lives in or grows in the lake, so it's incredibly  clear for several meters 

Lake Wabby, another perched lake, is in danger of being completely  filled in by this sand blow, a massive moving dune.

This stretch of beach, called 75 mile beach, is designated as a national highway.  You can drive on the island with 4wd  vehicles  only. Beach speed limit is 80kph 

The is the shipwreck of the Maheno. At least another 10 meters of boat is underneath the sand. She was a retired navy vessel being towed to Japan when a cyclone hit and blew her ashore. All salvage efforts  failed, and so here she still lies.

Check out the Champagne pools, essentially  tide pools big enough for swimming.

Ohh, and Fraser Island is home to one of the only beach runways in the world.  Whén else would we have the opportunity  to fly in a Cesna,  while taking off from, and landing on the beach. BTW,the runway is that highway I mentioned earlier, so sometimes the pilots have to swing around twice to avoid oncoming 4WDS.  This was our pilot  Fabian, doesn't  he have the best socks?

View of 75 mile beach from the air

Lastly, we ended our Fraser tour with a relaxing float down Eli creek.  Fraser was one of the trip's highlights  for Jim,  you know, all derivations  of beach potato,  lake potato and creek potato. 

Live Sports Abroad Part V: The National Rugby League

Welcome back to Live Sports Abroad!  There was a gap of a few months because it is not easy to find sporting events to go to in Turkey and Southeast Asia but there is plenty going on this time of year in Australia.  With that in mind we arrived in Brisbane and overheard that there was a rugby match that evening.  Better yet, it was at the stadium that happened to be literally right next to our hostel.

So, rugby, that's pretty popular there right?

Officially Australian rules football is the most popular sport in Australia, but rugby is probably second and it's more popular in the state of Queensland (where we were) than it is further south or west.  There are actually two different types of rugby: union and league.  They split up in the late 1800's and developed slightly different rule sets.  We were watching league which is supposedly the faster paced less complicated version which is better because we didn't know much going in.  We were in by far the largest stadium we've been to so far.  See the picture below.

What's that hold?  About 55,000?

Dead on, yes.  The actual attendance was about 40,000.

OK, tell us about the game.

Well, it was the Brisbane Broncos (the local team) vs. the North Queensland Cowboys (they're from Townsville, which is right next to Magnetic Island which is where we held all the animals).  It was a little hard to root for the home team when their logo looked a lot like the Denver Broncos.  Anyway, we started off with a little pyro before the match got underway.

The basic goal is to score a "try" which is basically a touchdown.  You get one by running the ball into the end zone (if it's called that which it probably isn't).  You accomplish this by passing the ball laterally a lot and running into the opposing team who try to tackle you, but once they bring you to the ground you get up again and can keep running.  If your team gets tackled five times you have to kick the ball away (a fact we didn't realize until the second half when the people next to us told us).  It's kind of like downs in American football.  Apparently in union there are way more rules about tackling and possesion, but I don't know what they are.  Anyway, you always see people piled on top of each other in rugby.

There's got to be a little more to it than people just running into people, right?

It's mostly just people running into people, but breakaways can be pretty exciting because of that.  There are some brutal hits.  Also, when a team kicks it away they can run and try to catch the ball they've kicked to keep moving forward.  That can lead to some pretty crazy jump ball collisions.  If you score a try (which is worth 4 points) you then get to try to kick the ball through the uprights (like a field goal) for another 2 points.  I think you kick the ball from about the 20 meter point but also lined up with where it was run in so there were kicks from the edge of the field and some right down the middle.  It is unclear to me if you could just try to kick the ball the through the uprights and get points without going for a try.  At no point did that happen in the game we watched.

A scrum, that's a thing right?  Did you see one?

I believe a scrum happens after a foul or maybe some other stoppage of play.  My understanding is that a bunch of the players from each team line up across from each other leaning in and it looks like a big pile (rugby always with the piles of people) and the referee rolls the ball in the middle of the pile and they fight for it.  We didn't see a single one during the game. Apparently, they are more common in union.

So, how was the game you saw?

Brisbane was ahead basically the whole way.  There were some exciting moments usually surrounding breakaways and collisions.  The Australian fans really get into it and were shouting things constantly.  The girl next to me was super critical even when the game was well in hand.  Broncos won easily 44-22.

Any cool Jumbotron action?

Not a ton.  Graphics for when a team scored but nothing wicked interesting.  Below is from team introductions.

Mascots?

Take your pick:

I have no idea what this guy is.  The band behind him played before the game started.  At one point they covered No Scrubs by TLC because who hell the knows.

This is Buck who came out when the Broncos scored.

This guy looks pig like to me.

This is more like a bronco.

Halftime show?

Two things: first this game sponsored by XXXX beer (which is mediocre, i think you pronounce it four x).  Players dressed like beer bottles had to throw beer ingredients into the beer glass.  An entertaining enough diversion.

And of course, cheerleaders.  Notice that is says Hog's Breath across their chests.  Hog's Breath Cafe is actually a chain restaurant here in Australia, so it's just an ad, but still pretty unfortunate.

Anything else of note?

Players uniform numbers in rugby are just 1 through 17 (thirteen on the field, four subs) which seems refreshingly straightforward.  Also, they limit you to four beers per person per visit to the concession stand, so that's something you could never get away with back home.

They even offer this convenient carrying tray.  It cost 80 cents extra but you can actually pretty easily carry four beers with it with one hand.

And of course when the Broncos win you have to sing their song.

Are you going to try for part VI before you leave Australia?

We're going to try and catch an Aussie rules football match in Melbourne, so hopefully, yes.

Australia Quick Hits

You hear more German in hostels in Australia than you do in Germany or basically anywhere else we've been.  Germans apparently love Australia.

The clouds here are the coolest looking clouds I've ever seen.  They keep layering themselves over one another.  It's crazy.

Whitehaven Beach on Whitsunday Island is an awesome place with 98% silica sand that is so white it doesn't hold heat and is so fine and soft it will polish jewelry but really mess up your camera so we have no pictures of it (it was also raining a bit).  You could hang out there for a long time if it wasn't so hard to get to without a tour. 

The same goes for the perched lakes on Fraser Island.  I love lakes and these were amazing.  We'll eventually put up a full Fraser Island post.  Lake MacKenzie is one of the nicest lakes I've ever seen.

Kangaroo is delicious. It's a lean red meat with a distinct flavor different from beef. Really good.  Crocodile and emu were less exciting.

The main long distance bus service here is Greyhound Australia.  It has nothing to do with Greyhound in the US and is way nicer.  The wifi usually works on it which is surprising for bus travel especially since wifi in Australia is crappy.

The big Australian cities (Sydney and Melbourne) are next, but we'll try to update on some of our other Australian adventures soon.