Basketball in the bush and driving Rusty

Aussie phrase of the day: Bloody oath! = Damn straight!, Seriously!, I swear!, or It's the truth! There sure are a lot of expressions for convincing someone of the truth.

I went to a basketball game last weekend. A NBA sort of basketball game between the Perth Wildcats and the Wollongong somethings... This was a very interesting event that began by parking in the bush outside the arena. This involved walking through tall grass, weeds and trees on a sand track that opened into a grassy parking area. Only in Australia! Just before halftime I helped myself to a dinner of nachos which were actually very nice, they were a little more like restaurant nachos than the fake liquid cheese ones we have at our sporting events. They actually had meat, sour cream, cheese, salsa and ... peas? Yes, peas. I don't exactly know why they were in the mix, but Australians obviously think Mexican's make nachos with peas or that for some reason they are really good on nachos or maybe they just needed to round out the four food groups by adding something green to the mix. Anyway, different... in a good way!

The basketball game was an experience that sadly resembled more of a college level of basketball. It was held in a small gym that was only a little bigger than my high school gym and was joined with a regular fitness facility where people were pumping weights while a pro-basketball game was going on essentially in the other room. The dancers I would admit were pretty good and had all the makings of L.A. Lakers girls, but there were no cheerleaders on the sidelines, hell, there was no room on the sidelines for cheerleaders! There was an MC/ commentator guy that also served as the cheerleader, waving his arms up and down periodically while chanting a cheer to get the crowd pumped up. Amazingly it worked! Every so often they would play a tiger-like growl over the loudspeaker, the very same tiger growl played at my high school sporting events, and the same "Eye of the Tiger" anthem so commonly used at high school and college sporting events whose mascot is a wild cat. It makes me happy to think these people have no idea how we do it in the States, otherwise, they might be all but a little disappointed that their beloved sport doesn't have quite the showy makings of a pro basketball game in the States in our giant sized sports arenas. I was humored and touched at the same time by the quaintness of it. Of course, I am told the basketball was much more popular up until the 1990's as it was nearly the only professional sport in Western Australia. Then with the introduction of other more popular sports, such as Aussie rules football came the demise of the once popular sport of basketball. They even had to change season's from winter to summer because they couldn't compete with the popularity of the AFL.



I also had the opportunity to drive again last weekend. I haven't driven in months and didn't realize how much I missed it until I got behind the wheel of my friend's '84 Ford. It was a $400 car and showing every bit of it's age, including some major rust going on all over it! Thus, the car has been dubbed Rusty... also named after the popular brand of surf apparel. Rusty has no power stearing and sometimes she doesn't go into gear like she should, but Rusty and I became friends quickly and we took to the streets of Perth without a hitch. I was a natural at driving on the "wrong" side of the road. I couldn't believe how well I did considering how badly I had attempted driving in Oz in previous years. Anyway, it really made me want a Rusty of my own when I get back to Australia in January.



Now I must go study for my exam tomorrow and I will be seeing some of you very soon!

Perfectly Busy

Aussie phrase of the day: spat the dummy = yelled, "He spat the dummy."

I must have so much energy to write lately because I am free! Free of the odious tasks of writing uni papers. Not so much free in terms of time, though. So what have I been doing since returning from my trip last weekend, since I have talked of little else since I have been back. Besides uploading photos and blogging every night, I'm actually quite busy with work. Everyone seems to be really interested in my job, so I will try to elaborate. I work about 20 hours a week (the max I am allowed on my student visa) over a period of three days as a receptionist at Ford & Doonan Air Conditioning, a fairly large company with various branches around Perth. I work in the back office of a showroom with several cheery salesmen. The showroom consists of several models of ducted air conditioning systems. The air-cons in Australia are a little different to those we have at home. The don't just have a large box with a fan outside their houses, but they also consist of a wall-mounted unit inside the house as well. At this point it all gets a little complicated to explain why there is an indoor unit as well as the outdoor unit, but it has something to do with recycling of air. The job is pretty unglamorous and consists mainly of clerical duties such as answering and directing phone calls, collecting and sorting the mail, ordering office supplies, and entering data.


As mundane as it sounds, I actually really enjoy what I am doing and the people I work with. Maybe it's merely the fact that I am making money and it feels good to know that I am going to be able to stave off my mounting debts, but I look forward to going to work and I always feel good when I am there. Every time I go in it is busier than the time before and the spirits are high among my colleagues. There's a happy comraderie that I miss from the early days at Baby Banz. I am perfectly busy.



I am also beginning to pack up my room. It's only two weeks until I am home! I can't believe how fast these few months have gone. This weekend I went to the beach and got my first sunburn, but only a little here and there and on my eyelids. Never in my life have I gotten sunburned on my eyelids! It's been around 100 degrees the last few days and I'm trying to get by without a fan until I get back in January. I don't know how I'm going to bear this kind of heat for the next few months! I hope the next place I live has an A/C! I'm going to be really happy to get back to some cooler weather.

Monkey Mia take 3 and 4

Aussie phrase of the day: stuff it up = screw it up, "I hope she doesn't stuff it up," or on a not-so-nice note you could tell someone to "get stuffed."

The morning of the third day was much anticipated by everyone. Monkey Mia was the ultimate part of the trip, the climax of the story, the reason for coming in the first place. It was all about the dolphins! The famous dolphin feeding was done several times each morning at Monkey Mia, the first one at 7:30am. You can't touch or swim with the dolphins and much to the dismay and disappointment of several people, especially one little girl who cried and cried when the dolphins swam away after the feeding, only a select few people, chosen at random from the crowd, were allowed to feed one of the five dolphins. I was NOT one of the chosen ones, but being so close to them was pretty special in itself. The dolphins were very friendly and playful and had names like Nicky, Shock, and Piccolo. They were identifiable by the markings on their fins, which weren't so easy to find if you didn't know what to look for. One of them was noticeably pregnant and looking quite bulgey. For a half an hour you stand up to your knees in the water hoping that you will be lucky enough to get brushed by a curious swimming dolphin or will be one of the chosen ones to feed them. It was a good 30 minutes that I am very happy to have had despite the fact that I didn't get to feed the dolphin. When else in my life would I get the chance to get so close to a dolphin?

We had a few hours to burn before heading off for another day of adventure in the outback, so I joined my Swiss German friends and my favorite Frenchmen to share some scones with cream and jam and a cappuccino at the seaside restuarant. We finally packed into the Beach Bus again and were off to Ocean Park of Shark Bay where we saw some fantastic marine life up close and personal. We toured a series of aquatic tanks where Loggerhead sea turtles, sting rays, crayfish (rock lobster) and other varieties of fish swam. Of course, the highlight of the tour was the shark lagoon, which was really an inground pool/ pond that is built to resemble a natural ocean setting containing ocean water that is pumped in by a windmill from the nearby bay. The sharks were small, reasonably harmless reef sharks. The largest and most dangerous shark in the tank was the Tiger Shark, given it's name for the dark stripes along it's gray body. Despite the sign warning of danger as you enter the lagoon area, the tour guide calmly assured us if you fell into the water, the sharks would cower in a corner of the lagoon until you had made it safely out of their environment. I don't know about you, but I have a hard time imagining a shark cowering in a corner. That's like saying a lion would hide behind a rock if you were standing in the desert of Africa. I think not. Well, I wouldn't want to try it anyway and why would you post a danger sign if there wasn't really any danger? Hmmm.

We made our way out of Shark Bay and back to the Great Northern Highway, which isn't so great as it is only two lanes most of the way and surrounded by bush and desert. However, we were headed toward a truly amazing sight; the oldest living organism on the planet, the reason for life - literally. I had a great appreciation for this creation because if it weren't for the stromatolites, as they are called, the world, essentially, would never have existed. They don't look too spectacular, but again I couldn't help but feel grateful for these bulbous gray forms that were growing in clumps along the shore. The stromatolites formed 3.5 billions years ago and for 2 billions years they were the only sign of life on earth; these large, lumpy, asphalt-looking rocks. During their first 2 billions years on earth the stomatolites created lots of oxygen via algaelike microorganisms that live on their surface and raised the oxygen level by 20 percent, allowing for the creation of other lifeforms, such as you and me! Pretty major stuff for such mediocre looking things and pretty amazing that they still exist today!

After the stromatolite experience we walked down a sandy path to an old telegraph station and museum. I read about this place in my Bill Bryson book, In a Sunburned Country, and was eager to explore it. I didn't actually get to go into the telegraph station, but it bears a legendary story of a linesman who once fixed a telegraph line naked... and there's a picture to prove it in the museum. Instead, I opted to visit the neighboring cafe/ gift shop, which boasted, on a rustic sign hanging outside, that it was air-conditioned and that appealled to me more at that moment than a photo of a naked linesman. But I was lucky enough to enjoy the photo anyway, in postcard form. Several slots in the postcard rack inside the gift shop were reserved for the image of the naked linesman standing at the top of his ladder. It's only a discreet shot of his backside, but very exciting to see what Bryson described in his book. I had to buy one.

We were on the road again after a quick lunch at a picnic area near the telegraph station. We travelled back toward the coast to find our humble abode for the evening. The scenery had changed slightly as we drove further south toward Perth. It was oddly reminiscent of... home. It was America's midwest! It was almost like I had gone to sleep and woken up back in Missouri during a dry season. There were rolling hillsides, tree-lined wheat fields and grazing cattle. There were windmills and country homes every couple of miles. WA or MO, I wasn't sure anymore. Then we reached the coast. Oh, no... we're definitely not in Kansas anymore. We were staying at a hostel overlooking the ocean. Another dip in the ocean, another glorious sunset, even better than the last. Then stargazing!

Cleggy took us down to the beach after dinner to show us some constellations. He explained the star signs or zodiacs and where they were in the sky. Scorpio sits just on the horizon as it is the sign for October to November, thus the sun sets into Scorpio until mid-November when the star sign changes to Sagittarius. Cleggy pointed out Capricorn - that's me! - Aries and Pisces, the Milky Way, and two much smaller galaxies that looked like little smudges in the clear night sky. It was a very fun and memorable astronomy lesson.

The next day started with the usual bowl of corn flakes, toast with jam, and cup of coffee. We didn't linger long before we were back on the road to Perth. The last day and it would be bound to go just as fast as the other three had. It was a fairly uneventful rest of the way home, with short stops for lunch in Geraldton and a leg stretch and ice cream at the Billabong roadhouse again. We pulled into Perth with daylight to spare. You can see by my many musings over the 4 Day Monkey Mia Safari - as it was called in the brochure - it was a relaxing, yet... colorful trip. From the sunsets and sandy beaches to the personalities of the people I met, I thoroughly enjoyed myself and hope you enjoyed the ride, via my blog, as well. This small bit of travel has left me with the travel itch to see more of Australia. I can't wait for Sydney in December!

Monkey Mia Part 2

Aussie phrase of the day: pulling the piss = teasing or giving a hard time, "I'm just pulling the piss, mate."

Every day begins with a healthy slathering of sunblock to all exposed areas of the body. Surprisingly everyone on the tour was very conscientious of wearing ample amounts of the gooey white stuff, thus encouraging me to do the same. Even if we were going to be cooped up for the better part of the day in the tour bus, everyone put it on, first thing in the morning. And so that was how we started day numero dos to Monkey Mia. I'm sure by now you are wondering if and when we are going to actually get to this desert oasis with the funny name. All in good time, my friends, all in good time. As our tour guide liked to remind us throughout this mini adventure, we were now on Western Australian time, that is that WA also stands for Wait Awhile.

First stop on this day's drive was the picturesque rocky coastline of WA and Nature's Bridge, another rock formed bridge similar to the one I saw in Albany, but not as close up or spectacular. Then it was on to Kalbarri National Park's Murchison Gorge, where we visited Nature's Window. We drove for miles across a rutted, sandy, washboard road before coming to our destination. The flies were out in force again, but this time everyone was protected with fly nets... except for two Chinese girls who complained the most out of everyone about the flies, but didn't want the fly nets because it would mess up their pictures. "Stupeed, girls!" The Belgian guy exclaimed in the best French accent I've ever heard. The Belgian managed to complain about most things, yet I liked him right away. He was everything you would expect of a typical Frenchmen, whiney and arrogant, always looking smug and displeased with a furrowed brow and curled lip, like he just smelled something really bad. He was always ready and willing to let you know what he thought, even if it was only to say, "Speak English, you Swiss Germans. So f-ing rude!" He would even tell off inanimate objects, like the window screen that fell out at the beach resort. Even his laugh was on the maniacal side and the way he pronounced kangaroo sounded like he was saying Congo. For a whole day I kept wondering why he was so excited about eating Congo meat... and what the hell was Congo meat anyway?

We arrived to the Nature's Window area, which reminded me of a much shallower version of the Grand Canyon, and trekked through the dusty, rocky terrain in flip flops and fly nets to see yet another natural rock wonder. As you can see in the photo, Nature's Window is a rock formation carefully situated on a clifftop overlooking a dried up river bed. Pretty exciting stuff, eh? It's pretty enough to take a picture, but as to whether anyone really cared how it got there, I doubt. It was a whole 10 minutes to walk to the rock structure, take a photo, and walk back to the picnic area on the summit where we started. Lunch was sandwiches which were to be prepared expeditiously before the flies could eat all the lunch meat, lettuce and tomatoes. Cleggy cleverly and strategically placed a piece of ham at the end of the picnic table to divert the flies away from the rest of the food for ease of the sandwich making process. Sure enough, within seconds, sixty or so flies had covered the piece of ham in a crawling black mass. As soon as your sandwich was made, you wrapped it in a brown paper bag - TO GO.

From there we drove for several more hours until we reached Shell Beach, which is exactly that, a beach made up of millions of tiny white shells, not a drop of sand could be found. The most amazing part of it was how far the beach extended. There was probably two-thirds of a mile of beach spreading out into the water. After a stroll across the shallow shell shorline and a few photos, we were on our way again. Finally, we arrived at the cozy and welcoming Monkey Mia Beach Resort just hours before a sunset that would be too beautiful to miss. We settled into the charming resort with hours to spare. We enjoyed a swim in the ocean, then watched as the sun settled over Shark Bay (photo). It was the first sunset we got to watch, but it wouldn't be the last. As evening quickly wrapped us in it's blanket of stars everyone was reluctant to leave the peacful beach. There are more stars in the southern skies over Australia than I have ever seen in any sky before. I could've fallen asleep right there on the beach watching the shooting stars while the warm ocean breeze blew over me, b t eventually I crept off to bed because the best part was yet to come...

Monkey Mia Day 1

Aussie word of the day: bickie, short for biscuit = cookie, "Eating bickie's for brekky can make you sick."

As you may be catching on, Aussie slang is one of a kind. I've never known anything quite like it and before you know it, you end up with sentences like this one: "In the arvo last Chrissy the relos rocked up for a barbie, some bevvies and a few snags. After a bit of a Bex and a lie down we opened the pressies, scoffed all the chockies, bickies and lollies. Then we drained a few tinnies and Mum did her block after Dad and Steve had a barney and a bit of biffo." Ask me to interpret and it may take a few minutes, but the whole point is, Aussie slang is clearly it's own language and the poor folks learning to speak English in this country... well, good luck to 'em is all I can say. It's a bit of a mystery even for us native English speakers. I actually had lengthy conversations with some Swiss Germans, a Spaniard, and a Belgian last weekend on my tour to Monkey Mia about how hard they are finding it to learn English in Australia. I told them they should have learned English in America, at least we speak slower than Australians. But then again, I am biased.

We headed off on the first day of our little jaunt up the coast of Western Australia into the northern countryside and then the outback in a little blue bus called the Beach Bus. Fourteen foreigners, mostly Swiss German, and myself, the only American and native English speaker other than the tour guide, would be smushed together in this cozy little bus for four days. We were guided by the amiable, but sometimes strange tour guide, Cleggy, who turned out to be as equally knowledgable about astronomy as he was about the bush country of WA. His knowledge of astronomy lead to a wonderful lesson in stargazing on the final night of the trip, but more on that later. Cleggy is a self-proclaimed free-spirited nomad who simply loves to travel. He has been working as a tour guide for 8 years, but admitted that coming on 32 it's getting time to settle down a bit and plant some roots. Yeah, right, is all I could think. Hasn't anyone told him free birds don't like to be caged?

We were off to the Pinnacles to get lost in the desert. After a few hours of driving we stopped at a roadhouse called Billabong to stretch our legs and grab some nibbly's for the road. Stepping outside the bus, you could already feel the temperature had risen 10 or more degrees in only a few short hours. This was the same thing that happened driving south to Albany in September. Only a few hours outside the city and the temps had drastically changed. Soon we would be baking in the sweltering sun of the Pinnacles desert and infested with black flies.

We didn't actually get lost in the desert, but that's kind of how you feel when you turn off the highway onto a vast, sandy track that you can barely tell is supposed to be a path for tourists to drive on. It was definitely off-roading in the most literal sense and a dune buggy would have been more appropriate. The Pinnacles, as you can see in the photo above, are a natural wonder. Their creation began like all things natural and wonderful; during prehistoric times. Also, like many natural wonders they were formed by an aging process involving layers of stone being built up over time then eroded by water until you have the limestone pillars you see today. Some are pointy like mountains and others a little more phallic looking, but all are astonishing to look at.

After the Pinnacles, we took a brief lunch break at Jurien Bay (photo), where the black flies were aggressive, as one tour member described and relentless. It gives me goose bumps just thinking of the way they swarmed us, landing anywhere and everywhere on a person's body. The tour guide tried persuading everyone to take a dip in the beautiful blue waters of the bay, but, unfortunately, everyone was so miserable and distracted by the flies that they just wanted to get back in the protection of the bus and go. By day two, nearly everyone had purchased fly nets before going insane. Having your face protected from the flies seemed to make them landing on the rest of your body okay and the tour was a little more enjoyable. We loaded onto the bus and continued travelling on to a farm where we would be staying for the night in a 6 bedroom bungalow. We were fed a hearty homestyle meal and settled into the relaxing evening.

At some point in the middle of the night I woke up to go to the bathroom, which meant I had to go outside... in the dark... on an unfamiliar farm in bush country where wild things like giant poisonous snakes and rabid dingoes are hunting for stray animals and whatever else might be lurking around.. like me! Lions and tigers and bears, oh my! This was all of a sudden reminiscent of a time at girl scout camp when I had the same fear of walking to the latrine in the middle of the night by myself. However, I'm pretty sure the dangers in the woods of Missouri aren't quite comprable to those of the outback in Australia. But I had no choice, it was risk my life or wet myself. I'm glad I decided to go with the first option. As I opened the door to walk into the dark abyss what to my wondering eyes should appear peeking just above the horizon directly in front of me was the Southern Cross, the star formation found on the Australian flag. Until this very trip I didn't even know it was an actual constellation in the sky, so I was, at once, astounded and thrilled and feeling quite lucky to witness this, especially because I am no expert in astronomy and it is usually not so easy to discern one star configuration from another. But there it was, a magical moment indeed. That magical moment was short-lived, however, as my astonishment quickly dissolved into fear because the Southern Cross actually sits upside down in the sky at this time of year and you know upside down crosses usually equate with evil, boogeymen, demons and such. Here I go again. So I quickly turned and scurried toward the toilets and then back to bed without so much as a hoot owl beckoning in the dark.