Friday, June 4, 2010
Planes, Trains, Automobiles
Sorry it’s been a while!! I just arrived on the Gold Coast yesterday which is an hour and a half train ride outside of Brisbane. Yes, I took my first train ride ever! It was pretty uneventful but whatever, I can cross it off the list. The night before last, Sarah and I went out with Sarah’s cousin Fran. We went to the Regatta and Uber two popular clubs in Brisbane. It was interesting and fun! Last night we went over to Mary’s friend Julie’s house for dinner and that was fun as well. Today I think we’re just going to lounge around. The Gold Coast is so beautiful and the views from our condo are spectacular. I can’t believe I only have a week and a half left…it’s gone by so fast!! Internet is hard to find here but I’m going to journey downtown and see if they have a wireless Gloria Jeans (equivalent to our Starbucks) somewhere. More to come later, thanks for reading!
The Lost Blogs
Hi. Here are my blogs from Ayer's Rock and such when I didn't have internet. Enjoy!
Saturday May 29, 2010
Today we left Sydney at 9:30 am and arrived in Alice Springs/Ayer’s Rock, the red “centre” of Australia. We literally landed in the middle of the desert…like actually. It was very interesting. The airport was a little bit bigger than the Pullman airport and the buses bused us for free to our hotels. We got to our hotel and checked in to our room and then went to the restaurant bar where we had the best chicken wraps I’ve ever had in my entire life. They were AMAZING. We then headed off to our tour of the Ogre (?) mountains where we took a bus. We stopped to take a 4-mile hike towards the inside of one of a huge Ogre mountain gully. It literally felt like we were in either a Lord of the Rings movie or Jurassic Park movie…I seriously thought Aragon or a T-Rex was going to pop over the gully, it was surreal. The hike took about an hour there and back to the bus. The weather was extremely sunny but not hot at all…it kind of reminded me of a sunny May Seattle day…crisp but sunny. However, I could feel myself getting thirsty and knew that I had to keep hydrated because the environment was so dry but I couldn’t necessarily feel it. We were in the heart of where the Aboriginals live and the men do many of their initiation rituals in the gullies and so there are only 2 of about 11 gully’s we could travel through as the Aboriginals use the other ones for ritual needs. After visiting the Ogre Mountains and taking our hike, we ran into some wild camels and so our bus driver stopped to let us take pictures. The camels were so funny…they bounced up and down like they were skipping; I feel like they knew pictures were being taken of them and they wanted to entertain! We then traveled toward Ayers Rock for sunset and wine and Sarah and I were taking pictures literally every 2 minuets of the rock at sunset…though it was hard to see the difference by the naked eye, it was cool to see how much the rock changed through pictures that we took. The bus took us to the market where we bought groceries for the duration of our trip. Tomorrow we’re looking at a 545 am start so we can watch the sunrise of Ayers Rock, take another hike, and visit the Aboriginal Center where we can learn all about the first natives of Australia. I miss Sydney a lot but it’s very interesting here in the heart of the outback, nothing like the cities I’m used to. Thanks for reading!!!
Saturday May 30, 2010
Today we got up at 5:30 am so we could watch the sun rise with tea and cookies on Uluru. I didn’t think that it was a good as the sunset one but that’s ok it was still interesting. We then drove closer to Uluru and we took two tours around the base. We learned a lot of the aboriginals who live around Uluru and their beliefs and stories that to them explain the formation of the rock. They have only told “white fellows” some of their children’s stories because their men stories and women stories are too private to tell. I took lots of pictures so I’ll be sure to explain what is what according to the stories then. There were many places along both hikes that were so beautiful and peaceful that my pictures don’t even give them justice. This word is greatly overused but it was an awesome experience, I was in awe. We finished both tours around noon and got lunch at a little pub. After lunch we took naps and then went out to dinner at this place where you buy your meat and then BBQ it yourself, outback style. I’m literally in the outback people, like actually. We listened to this live singer and who made us dance, which was embarrassing, but it’s fine, we’ll never see him again. We are now back at our room and have camels to ride tomorrow woo hoo!
Monday May 31
I rode a camel today!! We went out to this camel farm and Sarah and I were put on a camel together. Our camel’s name was Trevor. We probably rode for about and hour and it wasn’t as scary as you might think it would be…it was a bit like riding a horse but taller and more bumpy. As we were riding we got great views of the Olgas and Uluru and took many pics. It was definitely a once in a lifetime experience!! We came back to the hotel and just relaxed…this was the first day in the trip that we got to do that. We got dressed and went out to a fancy dinner and then Sarah and I went to the Outback Bar and it really was an bar in the outback. There wasn’t many people there and it got around to the live band that we were from Seattle so the singer dedicated a lot of songs to the “Seattle girls” or the “Sarahs”. It was fun. We even met a woman who was from Seattle and whose mom was Australian so they moved back and she got a job in Uluru she went to Western and everything so it was fun to talk to her. Tomorrow’s a travel day, we fly at 1:00 to Sydney and then off to Brisabane. More later!
Saturday May 29, 2010
Today we left Sydney at 9:30 am and arrived in Alice Springs/Ayer’s Rock, the red “centre” of Australia. We literally landed in the middle of the desert…like actually. It was very interesting. The airport was a little bit bigger than the Pullman airport and the buses bused us for free to our hotels. We got to our hotel and checked in to our room and then went to the restaurant bar where we had the best chicken wraps I’ve ever had in my entire life. They were AMAZING. We then headed off to our tour of the Ogre (?) mountains where we took a bus. We stopped to take a 4-mile hike towards the inside of one of a huge Ogre mountain gully. It literally felt like we were in either a Lord of the Rings movie or Jurassic Park movie…I seriously thought Aragon or a T-Rex was going to pop over the gully, it was surreal. The hike took about an hour there and back to the bus. The weather was extremely sunny but not hot at all…it kind of reminded me of a sunny May Seattle day…crisp but sunny. However, I could feel myself getting thirsty and knew that I had to keep hydrated because the environment was so dry but I couldn’t necessarily feel it. We were in the heart of where the Aboriginals live and the men do many of their initiation rituals in the gullies and so there are only 2 of about 11 gully’s we could travel through as the Aboriginals use the other ones for ritual needs. After visiting the Ogre Mountains and taking our hike, we ran into some wild camels and so our bus driver stopped to let us take pictures. The camels were so funny…they bounced up and down like they were skipping; I feel like they knew pictures were being taken of them and they wanted to entertain! We then traveled toward Ayers Rock for sunset and wine and Sarah and I were taking pictures literally every 2 minuets of the rock at sunset…though it was hard to see the difference by the naked eye, it was cool to see how much the rock changed through pictures that we took. The bus took us to the market where we bought groceries for the duration of our trip. Tomorrow we’re looking at a 545 am start so we can watch the sunrise of Ayers Rock, take another hike, and visit the Aboriginal Center where we can learn all about the first natives of Australia. I miss Sydney a lot but it’s very interesting here in the heart of the outback, nothing like the cities I’m used to. Thanks for reading!!!
Saturday May 30, 2010
Today we got up at 5:30 am so we could watch the sun rise with tea and cookies on Uluru. I didn’t think that it was a good as the sunset one but that’s ok it was still interesting. We then drove closer to Uluru and we took two tours around the base. We learned a lot of the aboriginals who live around Uluru and their beliefs and stories that to them explain the formation of the rock. They have only told “white fellows” some of their children’s stories because their men stories and women stories are too private to tell. I took lots of pictures so I’ll be sure to explain what is what according to the stories then. There were many places along both hikes that were so beautiful and peaceful that my pictures don’t even give them justice. This word is greatly overused but it was an awesome experience, I was in awe. We finished both tours around noon and got lunch at a little pub. After lunch we took naps and then went out to dinner at this place where you buy your meat and then BBQ it yourself, outback style. I’m literally in the outback people, like actually. We listened to this live singer and who made us dance, which was embarrassing, but it’s fine, we’ll never see him again. We are now back at our room and have camels to ride tomorrow woo hoo!
Monday May 31
I rode a camel today!! We went out to this camel farm and Sarah and I were put on a camel together. Our camel’s name was Trevor. We probably rode for about and hour and it wasn’t as scary as you might think it would be…it was a bit like riding a horse but taller and more bumpy. As we were riding we got great views of the Olgas and Uluru and took many pics. It was definitely a once in a lifetime experience!! We came back to the hotel and just relaxed…this was the first day in the trip that we got to do that. We got dressed and went out to a fancy dinner and then Sarah and I went to the Outback Bar and it really was an bar in the outback. There wasn’t many people there and it got around to the live band that we were from Seattle so the singer dedicated a lot of songs to the “Seattle girls” or the “Sarahs”. It was fun. We even met a woman who was from Seattle and whose mom was Australian so they moved back and she got a job in Uluru she went to Western and everything so it was fun to talk to her. Tomorrow’s a travel day, we fly at 1:00 to Sydney and then off to Brisabane. More later!
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