ＨＥＡＤＩＮＧ ＨＯＭＥ

Soooooo I am in Tokyo right now with 8 hours to kill until my flight home. I like the relaxation but the horrible synthesizer versions of classic rock songs like 'Let it be' and 'desperado' are about to make me go postal. Okay, seriously Japan. This version of 'we are the champions' that sounds like it's coming from a music box just doesn't work. And what's up with this keyboard? Writing this is probably going to take a while. 銃hfじぇ　名sでぇj。Yeah.

So apart from trying to tear my ears off rather than listening to this music, what have I been up to?

Shanna and I went to New Zealand for a week of just driving around the South Island, which was INCREDIBLE. The whole thing is just gorgeous. But coｌｄ．We slept in the car and woke up with ice on the inside of the windows. Yes、てゃt個ld．That cold. We drove from Christchurch up to the North end of the island　アンd．アンd　アンd　、I which is apparently Japanese for and looked at Marlborough Sound and Abel TasMan National Park. We hiked along the gorgeous coastline, with big boulders, clean white beaches and clear green-blue water.　We stayed in hostels after the first couple nights, especially because it got pretty first couple nights, especially because it got pretty rainy.　Down the West　Coast we found tropical-looking beaches with jungle growing right down to the rocky coastline. I felt　Like I was in Swiss Family Robinson. If you I was in Swiss Family Robinson. If youre wondering what's with the random capital letters, it Seems TO BE THE ONLY　wAY TO STOP THE KEYBOARD FROM LAPSING INTO ITS NATIVE LANGUAGE. アンDのWi:M STUCK IN CAPS. ANYWAYS, JUST A FEW KILOMETRES SOUTH OF THE JUNGLE WE FOUND THE FRANZ JOSEF AND FOX GLACIERS. IT WASNT EVEN THAT COLD BUT THEY WERE HUGE AND AMAZING. SHANNA AND I FOUND OUT THAT THEY ARE VERY SLIPPERY UNLESS YOU HAVE SPIKY BOOTS. WE VERY SLIPPERY UNLESS YOU HAVE SPIKY BOOTS. AFTER THE SLIPPERY UNLESS YOU HAVE SPIKY BOOTS. AFTER THE GLACIERS WE WENT TO THE BEACH, WHICH SEEMED STRANGE TO ME ．ｂＵＴ　ＴＨＥＲＥ　ＷＥＲＥ　ＳＴＩＬＬ　ＳＮＯＷＹ　ＭＯＵＮＴＡＩＮＳ　ＶＩＳＩＢＬＥ　ＯＶＥＲ　ＴＨＥ　ＤＵＮＥ．ｗｅ　ｈＥＡＤＥＤ　ＩＮＬＡＮＤ　ＴＯ　ＱＵＥＥＮＳＴＯＷＮ　ＯＮＣＥ　ＩＴ　ＷＡＳ　ＤＡＲＫ．

ｔＨＥ　ＰＬＡＣＥ　ＷＥ　ＳＴＡＹＥＤ　ＡＴ　ＴＨＡＴ　ＮＩＧＨＴ　ＷＡＳ　ＯＬＤ　ＡＮＤ　ＤＥＳＥＲＴＥＤ　ＡＮＤ　ＩＴ　ＲＥＭＩＮＤＥＤ　ＭＥ　ＯＦ　ＴＨＥ　ＭＯＶＩＥ　ＴＨＥ　ＳＨＩＮＩＮＧ．ｉＮ　ＴＨＥ　ＭＯＲＮＩＮＧ　ＩＴ　ＷＡＳ　ＲＡＩＮＩＮＧ，　ＴＨＥＮ　ＩＴ　ＳＴＡＲＴＥＤ　ＳＬＥＥＴＩＮＧ，　アンＤ　ウェＮ　ｉ　ＷＡＳ　ＣＯＯＫＩＮＧ　ＴＯＡＳＴ　ＳＨＡＮＮＡ　ＲＡＮ　ＩＮ　ＳＡＹＩＮＧ　’ＩＴ’Ｓ　ＳＮＯＷＩＮＧ！’ＡＮＤ　ＷＥ　ＷＥＲＥ　ＢＯＴＨ　ＲＥＡＬＬＹ　ＥＸＣＩＴＥＤ．ｓＯ　ＷＥ　ＤＲＯＶＥ　ＴＨＲＯＵＧＨ　ＴＨＥ　ＳＮＯＷ　ＴＯ　ＱＵＥＥＮＳＴＯＷＮ，　ＷＨＥＲＥ　Ｉ　ＳＡＷ　ＡＮ　ＡＭＥＲＩＣＡＮ　ＦＲＩＥＮＤ　ＯＦ　ＭＩＮＥ　ＷＡＬＫＩＮＧ　ＤＯＷＮ　ＴＨＥ　ＳＴＲＥＥＴ　ＳＯ　ＷＥ　ＳＴＯＰＰＥＤ　ＴＯ　ＳＡＹ　ＨＩ．　　ｗＥ　ＷＥＮＴ　ＴＯ　ＭＩＬＦＯＲＤ　ＳＯＵＮＤ　ＴＨＡＴ　ＡＲＶＯ　ＡＮＤ　ＳＡＷ　ＯＮＥ　ＯＦ　ＴＨＥ　ＭＯＳＴ　ＧＯＲＧＥＯＵＳ　ＰＬＡＣＥＳ　Ｉ　ＨＡＶＥ　ＥＶＥＲ　ＢＥＥＮ．　ｉＴ　ＷＡＳ　ＩＮＣＲＥＤＩＢＬＥ　ＴＯ　ＳＥＥ　ＴＨＥ　ＳＴＥＥＰ　ＭＯＵＮＴＡＩＮＳ　ＲＩＳＩＮＧ　ＯＵＴ　ＯＦ　ＴＨＥ　ＳＯＵＮＤ　ＡＳ　ＴＨＥ　ＳＵＮ　ＳＥＴ　ＢＥＨＩＮＤ　ＴＨＥＭ．　ＩＴ　ＷＡＳＮ’Ｔ　ＳＯ　ＩＮＣＲＥＤＩＢＬＥ　ＴＯ　ＦＩＮＤ　ＴＨＡＴ　ＴＨＥ　ＲＯＡＤ　ＷＡＳ　ＣＬＯＳＥＤ　ＷＨＥＮ　ＷＥ　ＴＲＩＥＤ　ＴＯ　ＬＥＡＶＥ　ＡＮＤ　ＷＥ　ＷＥＲＥ　ＦＯＲＣＥＤ　ＴＯ　ＳＴＡＹ　ＩＮ　ＴＨＥ　ＯＮＬＹ　ＬＯＤＧＥ　ＷＩＴＨ　ＢＡＣＫＰＡＣＫＥＲ　ＡＣＣＯＭＯＤＡＴＩＯＮ．

ＡＮＤ　ＴＨＥ　ＲＯＡＤ　ＷＡＳ　ＣＬＯＳＥＤ　ＷＩＴＨ　ＧＯＯＤ　ＲＥＡＳＯＮ　ＴＯＯ，　ＡＳ　ＩＴ　ＳＮＯＷＥＤ　４０　ＣＭ　ＩＮ　ＴＨＥ　ＰＡＳＳ　ＴＨＡＴ　ＮＩＧＨＴ　ＡＮＤ　ＴＨＥ　ＮＥＸＴ　ＤＡＹ．　ＩＴ　ＷＡＳ　ＲＡＩＮＩＮＧ　ＤＯＷＮ　ＷＨＥＲＥ　ＷＥ　ＷＥＲＥ　ＢＵＴ　ＷＥ　ＨＡＤ　ＦＵＮ　ＢＥＩＮＧ　ＬＡＺＹ　ＡＮＤ　ＥＡＴＩＮＧ　ＷＨＡＴ　ＦＯＯＤ　ＷＥ　ＨＡＤ．

ＡＦＴＥＲ　ＢＥＩＮＧ　ＳＮＯＷＥＤ　ＩＮ　ＦＯＲ　４０　ＨＯＵＲＳ　ＯＲ　ＳＯ，　ＷＥ　ＦＩＮＡＬＬＹ　ＧＯＴ　ＴＯ　ＤＲＩＶＥ　ＵＰ　ＴＨＲＯＵＧＨ　ＴＨＥ　ＰＡＳＳ　ＡＮＤ　ＰＬＡＹ　ＩＮ　ＴＨＥ　ＳＮＯＷ．　　ＳＩＮＣＥ　ＷＥ　ＨＡＤ　ＬＯＳＴ　Ａ　ＤＡＹ　ＡＮＤ　Ａ　ＨＡＬＦ　ＯＦ　ＴＲＡＶＥＬ，　ＷＥ　ＨＡＤ　ＴＯ　ＳＴＡＲＴ　ＨＥＡＤＩＮＧ　ＢＡＣＫ　ＴＯＷＡＲＤ　ＣＨＲＩＳＴＣＨＵＲＣＨ．ｔＨＥ　ＬＡＳＴ　ＭＯＲＮＩＮＧ　ＷＥ　ＷＥＮＴ　ＴＯ　Ａ　ＮＡＴＩＯＮＡＬ　ＰＡＲＫ　ＷＨＥＲＥ　ＴＨＥＲＥ　ＷＥＲＥ　ＳＯＭＥ　ＰＥＲＦＥＣＴＬＹ　ＲＯＵＮＤ　ＢＯＵＬＤＥＲＳ　ＯＮ　ＴＨＥ　ＢＥＡＣＨ　ＴＨＡＴ　ＷＥＲＥ　ＲＥＡＬＬＹ　ＣＯＯＬ．ｗＨＥＮ　ＷＥ　ＧＯＴ　ＢＡＣＫ　ＴＯ　ＳＹＤＮＥＹ，　ＷＥ　ＳＰＥＮＴ　Ａ　ＤＡＹ　ＡＴ　ＴＨＥ　ＺＯＯ　ＷＨＩＣＨ　ＷＡＳ　ＡＷＥＳＯＭＥ　ＡＮＤ　ＴＨＥＮ　ＷＥＮＴ　ＴＯ　ＨＩＬＬＳＯＮＧ　ＯＮ　ＳＵＮＤＡＹ．ｓＨＡＮＮＡ　ＬＥＦＴ　ＯＮ　ＭＯＮＤＡＹ　ＡＮＤ　Ｉ　ＨＵＮＧ　ＯＵＴ　ＷＩＴＨ　ＭＹ　ＦＲＩＥＮＤ　ＫＩＳＳ　ＵＮＴＩＬ　Ｉ　ＬＥＦＴ　ＳＹＤＮＥＹ　ＬＡＳＴ　ＮＩＧＨＴ．

ａＬＳＯ，　ＢＥＦＯＲＥ　ＧＯＩＮＧ　ＴＯ　ＮＥＷ　ＺＥＡＬＡＮＤ，　ＤＡＲＣＹ　ＡＮＤ　Ｉ　ＷＥＮＴ　ＳＵＲＦＩＮＧ　ＩＮ　ＷＥＳＴ　ＯＺ　ＦＯＲ　Ａ　ＦＥＷ　ＤＡＹＳ．　　Ｉ　ＤＩＤＮ’Ｔ　ＧＥＴ　ＴＯ　ＳＵＲＦ　ＮＯＲＴＨ　ＰＯＩＮＴ，　ＷＨＩＣＨ　ＷＡＳ　ＷＨＡＴ　Ｉ　ＷＡＳ　ＡＩＭＩＮＧ　ＦＯＲ，　ＢＵＴ　Ｉ　ＤＩＤ　ＣＡＴＣＨ　ＳＯＵＴＨ　ＰＯＩＮＴ　ＢＲＥＡＫＩＮＧ　ＲＩＧＨＴ　ＯＮ　ＴＨＥ　ＲＯＣＫＳ　ＡＴ　ＡＢＯＵＴ　４　ＦＴ　ＷＩＴＨ　ＤＯＵＢＬＥ　ＯＶＥＲＨＥＡＤ　ＳＥＴＳ．ＤＲＹ　ＲＯＣＫＳ　ＦＡＺＥ　ＭＥ　ＶＥＲＹ　ＬＩＴＴＬＥ　ＴＨＥＳＥ　ＤＡＹＳ．　ＴＨＥ　ＳＭＡＬＬＥＳＴ　ＤＡＹ，　ＷＨＥＮ　ＴＨＥ　ＬＯＣＡＬＳ　ＳＡＩＤ　ＩＴ　ＷＡＳ　ＦＬＡＴ，　ＴＨＥＲＥ　ＷＥＲＥ　５　ＦＴ．　ＳＥＴＳ　ＯＮ　ＴＨＥ　ＲＥＥＦＳ　ＳＯＵＴＨ　ＯＦ　ＴＯＷＮ．　ｉ　ＤＩＤＮ’Ｔ　ＧＥＴ　ＴＨＥ　ＢＡＲＲＥＬＳ　ＴＨＡＴ　ｉ　ＷＡＮＴＥＤ，　ＢＵＴ　ｉ　ＭＵＳＴ　ＡＤＭＩＴ　ＴＨＡＴ　ＭＹ　ＣＵＴＢＡＣＫＳ　ＡＮＤ　ＨＡＣＫＳ　ＨＡＶＥ　ＢＥＣＯＭＥ　ＭＵＣＨ　ＭＥＡＮＥＲ　ＯＦ　ＬＡＴＥ．

ｎＯ　ＬＯＮＧＥＲ　ＡＢＬＥ　ＴＯ　ＳＴＡＮＤ　ＴＨＥ　ＣＯＮＦＵＳＩＯＮ　ＯＦ　ＴＨＩＳ　ＳＴＲＡＮＧＥ　ＫＥＹＢＯＡＲＤ，　ｉ’ＬＬ　ＳＡＹ　ＧＯＯＤＢＹＥ　ＦＲＯＭ　ＪＡＰＡＮ　ＡＮＤ　ＳＥＥ　ＹＯＵ　ＡＬＬ　ＩＮ　ＴＨＥ　ＳＴＡＴＥＳ　ＤＵＲＩＮＧ　ＴＨＥ　ＣＯＭＩＮＧ　ＦＥＷ　ＷＥＥＫＳ．　　ｉＴ　ＨＡＳ　ＢＥＥＮ　ＡＮ　ＡＷＥＳＯＭＥ　ＴＲＩＰ　ＡＮＤ　Ｉ’ＶＥ　ＧＲＯＷＮ　Ａ　ＬＯＴ　ＳＩＮＣＥ　ＬＥＡＶＩＮＧ　ＨＯＭＥ ＩＮ　ＪＡＮＵＡＲＹ．　ＬＯＯＫＩＮＧ　ＦＯＲＷＡＲＤ　ＴＯ　ＣＡＴＣＨＩＮＧ　ＵＰ　ＷＩＴＨ　ＥＶＥＲＹＢＯＤＹ．

Last Week of the Semester!

The close of the semester has brought with it loads of work on final assignments and hours of studying for exams.  Since my trip to Wilson's prom, I've had several decent days of surf, one nearly 30-hour straight writing/study session, and the best food of the semester, among other things.

The week after our Wilson's Promontory adventure, I studied hard to catch up on the reading for the whole second half of my logic class.  With that done, I headed down to Bells Beach for the last weekend in may.  I took along an American friend, Steve and we surfed Bells and Winki Pop a couple feet overhead and perfect.  Super fun waves.  The water was freezing.  Steve is from Santa Cruz, California, and even he got cold out there.  So while he slept in the car, I surfed for 7 hours straight with one quick break to grab a pbj, a banana, and some cookies.

My Aussie friend Darcy showed up as the swell was dying so we got to spend the night at his house in Bellbrae again.  The next day we drove south and surfed my favorite wave again, the little a-frame slab dumping onto barely submerged rocks.  Always an adrenaline rush.

Faker's mom showed up from Singapore the beginning of last week and had a few of us over for dinner at her apartment a couple nights.  It was without a doubt the best food I've had since leaving home.  One night we had pasta and then crepes for dessert.  The next night I think I had the best hamburger I've ever tasted.  No lie.  I looked over at Abhi and he looked like he had reached nirvana or something, just sitting there with his eyes closed and a peaceful smile across his face.  That food was something else.

I had a bioethics exam on Thursday so a couple days of studying proved helpful in writing two essays examining the ethical implications of xenotransplantation and nuclear-cytoplasmic chimeric embryo research.  I decided that the risk of xenozoonosis, if it is not eliminated, rules out xenotransplantation as an ethical practice.  Whatever that means.

I signed up for the scuba club at the beginning of the semester but I've surfed instead of diving every weekend.  I still get the emails though, and when I got one from some guy who I had never met about diving some springs in South Australia, I decided to respond.  So 4:30 am Saturday morning saw me out of bed after three hours of sleep.  5:00 saw me at Aran's house loading up Cal's car and trailer with dive gear, having just met Aran when I arrived that morning and Cal the day before when we filled up tanks.  I passed out in the car for a while on the drive, and every once in a while we would stop so Cal could try to photograph birds of prey we saw along the way.  Even after you sneak toward them and they don't mind, they always fly away as soon as you lift your camera.  I think I heard one or two laughing mischievously as they took off, 'humans are suckers'.

We got to Ewen's Ponds, our dive site, a little after noon.  When we pulled into the parking lot there were like three cars there, but as we put on our dive gear a convoy of about four more pulled up with a bunch of PADI divers.  'All right guys, everybody got their buddy?  Warm enough in those 20 millimeters of neoprene? Those drysuits working alright?  Let's go then!'

So when Cal, Aran, and I got in the previously crystal-clear water was full of silt from people jumping in and kicking their fins too close to the bottom.  It was alright though.  Still pretty. We followed the group through the canal to the second pond and then doubled back and swam through the first pond again when it had cleared up.  The water was freezing but beautifully clear, a lot like the springs back home, but with more fish and big crayfish.  The little creek that ran between the ponds was like an underwater garden.

We were underwater for a couple hours before hypothermia passed the first stage and we got out of the third pond shaking uncontrollably and walked back to the car to warm up.  As soon as we had finished warming up the sun was setting so we put the cold wetsuits right back on and got ready for our night dive.  When I jumped in, I could see the sliver moon perfectly through the clear water, and it gradually grew dark so that by the time I reached the bottom of the first pond about ten metres down, I could look up and start to see stars.  We cruised through the ponds as it got darker and darker, looking at big freshwater eels, and lots of fish and crayfish.  At the bottom of the third pond, the three of us turned off our lights and just sat there and looked at the stars for a while.  When I held my breath long enough for the surface to calm down, I could see the milky way perfectly, along with several constellations.

Then another group came into the pond shining their bright lights everywhere and stirring up silt.  I didn't mind so much though - it was kind of like a laser light show with their lights bouncing off the surface and shining through our streams of bubbles.

We had permits to snorkel Piccaninnie Pond the next morning, where the bottom of the little pond drops from 1 metre to 100 metres.  Straight down.  The visibility was once again a little stirred up in the first chasm from two divers who were there, but the crevices were really cool.  We weren't allowed to dive since none of us are cave certified, and we couldn't wear weight belts either due to restrictions.  Let me tell you, it is hard to freedive with 8.5 mm of neoprene on.  You float like a balloon.  I was kicking hard just to get 5 or 6 metres down into the second crevice, where I could see the bottom 20 metres below.  I found one cave to swim down into but every time I came out from underneath the ledge my wetsuit would buoy me up into the rocks and I would stir up a bunch of silt.

In the arvo, we drove down to Portland on the way home, in hope of seeing one of the right whales that come through this time of year.  None had been sighted that day, but we did get to snorkel with some seals and a giant stingray.  Seals are amazingly graceful and fast underwater, and also a little aggressive when you approach them while they are feeding.  Some things have to be found out firsthand.  It wasn't until we got out of the water that we saw the sign that told us we could be fined or go to jail for swimming with those particular seals.  I think they're slightly dangerous or something.  Oh well.

Now I have to study for my last exam on Wednesday.  Right after the exam, I leave for a few days surfing at Margaret River, WA with Darcy.  Should be fun surfing the heavy waves breaking over shallow reefs out there.  I didn't want to hear about people breaking their necks at North Point, where we are staying, but Darcy told me anyways.  It doesn't look like it'll be that big when we get there though.  Maybe double overhead plus?  I'll let you know when I get back.

"The traffic is stuck, and you're not moving anywhere"

Bono's words blared from the stereo right as I slowed to a stop behind three other cars and saw the traffic on the other side of the construction zone begin to move toward us down the road, which was narrowed to one lane.  I just started laughing along with Doc, who had chosen the song on my ipod before we turned the corner and saw the construction zone.  I love it when coincidences like that happen. In the two hours since leaving Melbourne, we had only had to stop at one light in Cranbourne. There was no traffic... I guess not many people were keen to leave their beds like we had at 6:45 am when it was literally freezing outside.

It was still dark when we left school and started driving southeast to Wilson's Prom.  The sunrise through the fog was amazing. Faker had never seen frost before - I guess they don't get it too often in Singapore, seeing as it's right by the equator - so I stopped the car when we found a good patch and Doc and I took her frost skiing.  We wound our way from Melbourne down the highway to Cranbourne, between fields and over hills to Leongatha as day broke, and finally arrived at Wilson's Promontory National Park.  My buddy K-Train at school had recommended the Sealer's Cove hike, so the three of us went for it, all 10 kilometres there and 10 more back.  

We had such a blast!  I still hadn't seen a wombat, so I was pretty stoked when about 3 k's into the hike, we found one of the fat little bear-looking things waddling around on one of the saddles between two mountains.  The trail went along the side of one mountain and then around another one, and in every fold of the mountain the air grew humid and the path was muddy.  The sun doesn't hit that side of the mountain in winter, I guess.  It was perfect hiking weather, with a perfectly blue sky and a high temperature around 15 (60 fahrenheit).  After a couple hours we got down to sea level, where a boardwalk ran for FOREVER (like between 2 and 3 ks) over swampy ground, over a couple little billabongs, and to the beach.  When we finally got there, the view was stunning.  The water was a clear green, the beach ran for hundreds of metres either way, and at either end a rocky headland rose up where the bay opened into the ocean.  The northern headland was more like a mountain.  At the south end of the bay the beach became a bunch of boulders sticking out in the water, so we decided to go have our lunch out on a rock in the water.  To get there, we crossed the tidal river where the Billabong we had crossed ran into the bay and then we had to rock-hop our way from the beach out to the boulder with a flat top.  We were aware that the tide was coming in, but went for it anyways.  We called Faker a little mountain goat because whereas Doc and I could easily step from rock to rock in most cases, Faker-Goat had to jump to reach them.

What a view!  From the rock, we could see the mountains all around the bay and the whole beach.  I had brought bread, peanut butter and jam in my backpack, so Doc had his first pbj for lunch (they don't usually eat pbjs in Oz.  It's an American thing).  We just sat on the rock and ate (we were famished and tired after the 10 k hike with only one stop) and talked.  When we decided that we had better head back if we wanted to see the sunset from the other side of the Prom, we discovered that the tide had come in faster than we thought.  The water was a good foot higher than when we had started.  I took my shoes off and rolled my jeans up, but Doc and Faker both made the mistake of getting their shoes wet.  I just tore the soles of my feet up on the sharp rocks.  Faker-Goat and I soaked our jeans up to the knees (Faker up to mid-thigh), even though we rolled them up. So with wet jeans, we hiked 10 ks as fast as we could to beat the sunset.  It still took about 2 1/2 hours.  Faker also made a pretty solid effort of rolling her ankle but hung in there and we got back to the car and drove down to the beach on the west side of the Prom, barely in time to see a gorgeous sunset over the coast and strait.

I don't know what the kangaroo was thinking standing right in the middle of the bridge on the way back, but seeing one of those massive things in your headlights does a good job of waking you up.  I clocked him hopping down the road at pushing 50 km/h, and he looked like he was going easy.  We stopped for KFC when we finally reached a town, then continued the drive back up to school.  When we needed a break, we braved the freezing cold to step out of the car and look at the stars and the milky way for a little bit.  Faker said she doesn't really get to see the milky way or sunsets in singapore, which made me really thankful for being able to see them back home.  Getting up a little after 6, hiking over 20 kilometres, and not having gotten enough sleep sure does wear you out, so I think we all slept really well last night.

Other than that, I was mainly studying and writing papers this week.  One of my Canadian friends had her boyfriend here for a few weeks, and last weekend she had to go on a camping trip so I took James surfing with me.  He said he surfed some back home and could handle cold water, so we headed down to Phillip Island.  James said he hadn't even seen waves that big before.  Express was probably about 6 ft.  He rented a board at Smith's Beach and we went to surf the smallest beachbreak I could find at YCWs, which was still about 3 ft.  I caught some good 3-4 ft. waves on the beachbreak left and then paddled out to a little right point breaking off the rocks at the south end of the bay.  It was a little sketchy sitting about 10 ft. from the dry rocks and waiting for the 4 ft. set waves.  The drop-in was fun - 3 ft. overhead waves ledging onto some shallow rocks - but there wasn't much ride because the wave broke into deep water.  Being out there by myself surfing a shallow break surrounded by deep water still kinda throws me off, so I went back in to where James was waiting on the beach and we went down to Summerlands, the little right point on the beach with the penguins.  I wish I had my quad here because even though that wave was overhead, it is pretty soft except for a couple barrel sections.  James struggled a little bit getting out in the crashing waves and the currents, but I was really glad he had a go and he was stoked just to be there.

I'm down to the final week of class with two final assignments due next Tuesday.  It's hard to believe that I'm going to be leaving so soon.  I've gotta work really hard during the week so I can take advantage of my last bits of free time in Melbourne.  And I'm dying to surf Bells again.

Out here in the fields... I fight for my meals.

Doc and I drove for a long time through the countryside on Friday evening before we got to his hometown of Boort.  His 17-year-old brother Jason was in a debutante ball, so we parked at Doc's grandma's house, dressed up nice and walked across the street to where the ball was being held.  We were pretty late, but we still got there in time for some snacks, which was good enough for me.

After leaving the ball, we walked across the street to the local pub to shoot a little pool.  We played one guy who had apparently been drinking since 7 a.m., so I don't know how he was still insanely good.  The pub was pretty much a family place - little kids were running around under the bar stools and there were some 10- or 12-year-old kids shooting pool, and they were pretty impressive so they must practice a lot.  One of them told me that he has a table at home and he plays every day.  I guess it's the same with most tiny country towns, but everybody in the pub knew everybody else, so I was definitely the odd man out.  Doc introduced me to some people, but some of the old guys just stared at me like "who the heck are you?"  Actually, a couple of them asked me almost that exact question and when they found I was an American, they were like "and what are you doing in Boort?"  I had to explain several times that I was Andre Henry's friend from uni and we were up from Melbourne for the weekend.

We got challenged to pool by a couple of rough-looking farm workers who were brothers.  One had a shiny bald head, a black mustache, and ring earrings in each ear.  The other one had gray hair, was a little burly, and had some sweet tats all over his arms.  I was a little sus about the whole thing because they seemed a little aggro, but the bald dude said "we may look scary, but we're not that bad," so we played.  And they won.  Twice.  I was hoping Doc and I would have the sober advantage, but they weren't drunk enough apparently.

After we finished playing, I had a very interesting discussion with the gray-haired one about American foreign policy and the history of conflict in the middle east.  I told him I thought the whole thing was just messed up from the beginning anyways, because colonial rule had created countries that incorporated incompatible religious and ethnic groups so in general a strong centralized government, often in the form of totalitarianism, was required to hold the countries together along their current borders.  Then we talked about how cold war dynamics and the creation of the state of Israel had pulled the US into too much involvement in the region, and how the US has spent far too much money on aiding nations like Iraq and Iran in pursuit of its oil interests rather than seeking alternative energy sources.  Finally, we ended on Bush's movement from a war on terrorism to bringing down the Ba'athist regime in Iraq and we considered how the diverse religious and ethnic groups within Iraq have reacted to the absence of an oppressive government, and whether the Kurds, Shi'as and Sunnis would be able to coexist under a centralized government or whether peace would require the division of Iraq. Both of us concluded that it was too much of a mess over there and Bush had gotten in too deep by not understanding the dynamics of the region when making speeches about bringing democracy to Iraq.

Overall, a fascinating conversation with a drunk guy in a country pub.  The dude said "Hey, you're all right for a bloody seppo," and I said thanks.  I appreciate being referred to as a septic tank just because I'm American.  He said he didn't like most Americans he met and I told him he should meet a few more southern kids.  It's mainly big-city blokes that aren't as nice, I reckon.  I'm glad I made a good impression.

We spent the night at Doc's grandma's house and in the morning she showed me all kinds of old photos and told me stories about life in the country back toward the middle of the century.  Northern Victoria has been in horrible drought for years, but she showed me pictures of times when the roads were flooded and they had to travel by a 4x4 with a snorkel in order to get to the farms.

After breakfast, we drove to where Doc's dad, Tony (Nugget) works, in the largest olive grove in the southern hemisphere.  The three of us drove around in the ute (pickup) and Nugget gave me a tour of the place.  We saw the massive colossus harvesters working their way down the rows of olive trees.  The machine is hollow through the middle, maybe pushing 20 feet high.  Trees go through the middle of the harvester as someone sitting in the cab drives it down the row.  Inside the harvester, mechanical arms work in and out, controlled by a second crewman, and beat the olives off the tree.  The olives fall onto conveyor belts in the bottom of the colossus and are taken up a chute and spit out the front of the harvester into a trailer hauled by a tractor.  There are some powerlines that cross the fields, and Nugget said that recently a whole team almost died of electrocution when the colossus knocked over a pole.  The lines fell and electrocuted the machine as the crew jumped out, and when the lines finished bouncing on the machine and sparking, they stopped a mere 3 inches above the metal roof of the machine.  3 inches further down, Nugget said, would have meant that the machine's tires blew and the ground around the colossus would have been electrocuted, killing the surrounding trees and people.

After the olive groves, we drove back through Boort and across some more fields, to where Doc's farm is about 30 minutes outside of town.  Doc's brother Jas greeted us, eager to start the eating competition he had been anticipating ever since he heard my reputation.  He was smiling mischievously, and I laughed when I saw what he was smiling about.  In an attempt to throw me off of my appetite, he had dyed the pancake batter a bright slime green.  I said I didn't mind what colour they were as long as they tasted all right.

Doc told me that Jas might give me a run for my money, and he was right as far as the short-term goes.  After eating several massive pancakes that resembled slightly toasted lilly pads, we ran out of batter and moved on to toast while Doc watched.  Jas asked if I was up for vegemite, and Doc started groaning, which I took for not such a good sign.  When I said all right, Doc was like "You should see how much vegemite he puts on his toast, mate.  It's like having a little toast with your vegemite."  Most people spread it on really thin, and as I have pointed out before, only Aussies seem to like it at all, but Jas spread it on nice and thick like peanut butter.  I forced a smile to intimidate him as I took a massive bite and felt the saltiness seep into my gums.  He got scared for a minute but when I hit a big chunk of vegemite and couldn't help but grimace, he got his confidence back.

So after vegemite we piled more peanut butter than I have ever eaten at once on a piece of toast and downed that, then some orange juice, then ate an apple each, then another big piece of vegemite toast, then another apple.  Eventually we got bored, even though I could have eaten more.  I didn't want to ruin my day by making myself lazy, so we agreed to scull a massive glass of milk and see who finished first.  He beat me by less than a second and started celebrating.  But he wasn't celebrating later that day when I was eating seconds at dinner and he was full after one plate, or the next day when I had to help him finish his lunch.  Take that!  I'm a marathon eater!

Doc showed me the Barramundi and Murray Cod they were raising in tanks in their fish farm, and then we had a kick of the footy with Jas.  We also got the orange cannon working (kind of) and were firing tennis balls out of the contraption to Jas, who stood with a tennis racquet about 70 metres away.  It was firing pretty inconsistently so we let Jas have a go.  Doc and I were kicking the footy when Jas finally got a shot off.  I turned in time to see a massive flame shoot out of the barrel of the cannon, and another flame shoot out the sides where Jas's hands were.  He jumped back as fast as he could and started laughing really hard as a flaming tennis ball landed halfway across the field in front of the house.  I guess that proved our suspicions that the cannon had a leak and that's why it wasn't working properly.

When Nugget got home that night, he drove us around while Doc and I stood in the back of the ute with a spotlight and shot rabbits.  Doc was telling me that the population of rabbits introduced by the English nearly wiped out many of the native species of rodents.  He said that if the number of rabbits got too high, they sometimes had rabbit plagues, swarms of the long-eared creatures devouring fields of crops.  They were everywhere, but it was hard to get one to stand still long enough to get a good shot off.  It didn't help that the scope on the .22 I was shooting was broken, so I had to figure out that it was shooting about a foot off the crosshairs, high and to the right, before I finally got a couple.  Then I tried out a .22 with a laser sight, which was pretty fun.  Doc and I took turns spotlighting and shooting.

Mothers day meant lunch with Doc's mum and grandma, which was really good.  Like I said, I had to finish Jas's meat and potatoes off because he was still pretty full from the previous day.  Doc's grandma told me more stories about life in the country.  I learned quite a bit about the history of Australian rural medicine.  After lunch, Doc, Jas, and I went out to the field behind the house and attempted to shoot clays with the .410.  Wow.  I'll tell you something, sure I can break clays with a 12- or 20-guage, but a 410 is a different story.  I think we each broke two or three, but we were definitely struggling.  Jas said he's going to try to get a 12-guage for next time.

We headed back to Clayton that night, a rather uneventful drive.  Everybody was glad to see us back in time for tea, which seems to be getting later and later these days.  We decided to shoot some pool so next time we play drunk guys we can beat them.  We've been playing the past few nights and we're definitely getting better.

What am I up to this week, you ask?  Well as the semester winds down I have put off doing a paper for my politics in the Middle East class to the last date of the rolling deadline.  So I have a paper worth 50% of my grade due Tuesday.  Hoo-ray.  I might manage to have at least one adventure this weekend though... If I hurry up and get my paper done before then.

They Say I'm Crazy but I have a good time... (Life's been good to me so far)

At home I have enough of a hard time balancing school and play, but here it has been a true challenge for me because I want to see and experience as much as I can before I leave.  It's a continual realization for me that I should take advantage of everything back home just as much as I do here.  I mean, there's no reason why I couldn't just go sleep in the back of my car and travel for a few days back home too.  My system of trying to take one weekend to hang out in Melbourne and get all of my work done and then traveling the next weekend has worked pretty well so far.  Life's not about just getting things done, but about doing things.  Actually living.  But now and then we are forced to just get things done, and the faster you do them and the less you procrastinate, the more time you have to do fun things.

I had a paper due for Bioethics today and I had chosen the topic of discussing whether or not the reproductive technologies developed since the 1960s empower women.  It was pretty interesting actually.  I read a bunch of chapters from feminist books that talked about how reproductive technology was developed by male scientists and is just another way for men to express control over women and I  realized that a lot of the stuff they said was true, at least in part, about men trying to control the future of the human species.  Or at least the future of those humans who can afford the technology.  I think it's kind of sad to discuss pre-implantation genetic diagnosis anyways.  People want what's best for their child, but who wants the expectation of being the "best child possible"?  Really.  My lecturer handed out these handouts a couple weeks ago asking us what traits we would choose for our ideal child if we were going to take advantage of in-vitro fertilization and PGD.  All these kids were like "well, I'd have a girl, brown hair, blue eyes..." I'm like dang man, I'd be pretty stoked to have a kid with a couple eyes and a mouth and nose and  legs and arms and maybe a little hair and stuff like that.  Whatever God wants to create.  You don't have to be the perfect child to have a good life, and you don't have to have the perfect child to have a good life as a parent.  Get over it.  No matter what you do, your kid is always going to be messed up.  Otherwise they wouldn't be a person.  Sorry, I just get a little mad about people wanting to control everything, these parents who picture themselves having a little angel child who never does anything wrong because they have been genetically selected to be nice and easygoing.

So I got all my research for my paper done this weekend but I couldn't seem to get what I wanted to say down on paper, so I resorted to the best known cure for paper writing (or basically any malady, in my book): Surfing, of course.  I reckon sleep doesn't really matter that much these days, so I finished organizing all of my research on Monday night until like 1 a.m., then got up at 6 and drove to Phillip Island.  Google Earth told me it would take me 1 hour 48 minutes to get there. As usual, I was really excited and made the trip in a little over an hour.  It makes me feel so efficient when I'm driving away from the city in the morning and the traffic going into the city is backed up forever on the freeway, and then vice versa on the way back in the afternoon.

Well, I got down to Phillip Island and parked on top of this cliff at Surf Beach.  That's a cool name for a town.  The Town is called Surf Beach and the beach is called Woolamai.  I got out of the car to look at the surf down at Surfies Point, a nice right breaking in front of a rock shelf, pretty typical of the area around Melbourne.  There was one guy out, it was about 3-4 ft (7-10 for all you floridians), and the wind was howling northwest and freezing cold.  Outside of the car, I started shivering uncontrollably and I figured it would probably be a good time to don the wetsuit and go take a swim in equally cold water.  I caught a few good waves that lined up all the way across the point, and the wave was a little bit fat but fairly rippable.  When the other guy left I was just sitting out the back by myself in the dark water and the helicopter that looks for sharks flew over.  I pictured myself in a picture in the newspaper: an aerial shot of me on my surfboard as a great white swam right behind me without me even noticing it.  I think my shark-wary mentality from living so close to the shark attack capital of the world has influenced me a little too much.  I just tried not to let myself think about it and kept surfing.  I guess on the bright side, if I got attacked at home I'd have to pay a hospital bill.  If I get attacked here, I probably won't ever have to pay for anything again.  The biggest white shark caught in Australia was apparently brought in just off the tip of Phillip Island, about 4 miles from Surfies point.

Even when I got out of the water toward midday, the wind was freezing cold.  With the tide coming up, I decided to head over to Express Point, the best wave on the island.  It was the most fun surf I've had in a long time but come to find out, access isn't as easy as most spots.  I think there is another way in along the cliff tops, but I parked forever away at Smith's Beach and made a little hike.  Here are the directions, in case you ever want to go there: walk a couple hundred metres down Smith beach, wait for the waves to stop crashing against the rocks at the end of the beach for a few seconds and climb over them, climb down to the next beach, kill your feet on the cobblestones for another 100 metres, climb up some really slippery rocks and down to the next beach, walk another couple hundred metres through really soft sand with rocks hidden in it, climb up onto the top of a little headland at the end, slide on your butt down the slippery mud to the rocks at the edge of the headland (don't slip cause it's a long way down), rock-hop down to about 12 feet above where the powerful waves are crashing against the little rock cliff and spraying you in the face with salt water, and wait for a set to come into the reef.  As soon as the set breaks on the reef, get ready to go.  Just before the whitewater from the last wave of the set crashes into the rocks beneath you, climb down to one of the rocks about 6 feet above the water and as the wave comes, dive in on top of it and paddle really hard to avoid getting swept back against the rocks.  When waves come there will be two rocks sticking out of the water right in front of you.  Paddle between them and try not to get sucked onto them by the current, paddle as fast as you can to make it out before the next set comes, and after another 70 metres of paddling you're there.  On the way back, get washed up on the rocks beside the little cliff and reverse directions to the car park.  By the time you get to the car, you should probably be bleeding from at least 8 places on your feet, have several bruises from getting washed up on the rocks, have numb fingers so you can barely turn the key to open the car, and not be able to feel your arms from all the paddling you've done.

Or at least that's how I got there.  Express is the heaviest wave I've ever surfed and I definitely have a lot to learn about barrel riding in waves like that.  Right in front of where the wave breaks there are a bunch of sharp rocks sticking up out of the water so you don't want to wipe out on the drop in or you'll probably be hurting pretty bad.  Almost as soon as I paddled out, I caught my first wave.  It was basically a free-fall down the face, and as I made my bottom turn I could see the individual rocks beneath my board as they made boils in the water around me.  I caught a couple waves just to practice the steep drop, then I paddled deeper on the reef to try for the barrel.

There were two older locals sitting outside with me, and when they both caught waves I knew my time had come.  A set approached and the perfect wave started bowling up on the reef.  I paddled out to meet the wave as it walled up, and spun to take off.  The 6 or 7 locals sitting on the inside section hooted, and when people hoot at you, you just have to go for it.  I paddled hard, trying not to look at the boils from the rocks only a couple feet underwater in front of me as I felt the wave begin to push me.  I stood up and set my line down the face of the wave, basically free-falling over the ledge, and did a quick bottom turn into the barrel section over one particularly shallow rock.  I pulled into the best barrel of my life for about two seconds before the heaviest wipeout I've had so far in Australia (except for maybe that time I lost my board at Snapper Rocks and had to swim 150 metres for it while being crushed by massive waves).  As I pulled up under the second section of the ledging barrel, the tube pinched at the end and the lip of the wave, probably a foot and a half thick, clipped me in the head.

When I say clipped me in the head, I mean like Jeremy Morrison or somebody putting on one of those big goofy boxing gloves that we used to have at youth group and punching me in the head as hard as he could.  Basically, as it hit my head, my feet flew up in the air inside the barrel and my whole body just did a flip with the wave as it rolled over and tossed me across the reef like a little rag doll.  I got lucky and didn't hit any rocks (I could feel them just beneath me), and when I came up, all of the locals started cheering.  It was a little embarrassing to take a wipeout that bad, but nobody else had gotten in the barrel like that, at least that I had seen, so everybody told me how sick the wipeout was, but they were all stoked that I had gone for the tube.  I guess they were glad for a little entertainment.

After a few more waves, the tide started dropping out and Express got too dangerous to surf, so I washed up on the rocks and took the hike back to the car and drove down to one last surf spot, a little right point at Summerlands, where there is a penguin parade every evening.  The wave was a little wedge like Ponce Inlet, but over really shallow rocks.  As the tide dropped, I had to stop surfing it because it was getting too shallow.  Then I drove back to Melbourne, which took me quite a while due to the fact that it started raining so hard that I couldn't see the road 50 feet in front of me.  When I got back in the evening I had a nice 7-page paper to write, but after surfing it was pretty much a breeze.  I didn't even need red bull to keep me up until 4 am.  That being said, I hope I get a decent grade from my super liberal teacher.

We've been playing inter-halls sports competitions for the past few weeks.  My team from Roberts did decently in Volleyball, but we didn't play so well in the round last week so we're playing for third place on Sunday.  On Monday I went out and played some 6 v 6 soccer for Roberts.  Tons of people came out to play, So I didn't get to play the whole game, but I was happy that I was able to do a pretty solid job playing defense and only one goal was scored while I was in (and that was because somebody obstructed our goal keeper so it shouldn't have counted anyway).

School's been pretty tough, but I did really really well on my English assignment (maybe the best grade in my tutorial?) and I think my bioethics paper is pretty good.  It better be, because it's 35% of my grade.  I have a paper to write for my political science class next week, but this weekend I'm headed up to Doc's house to experience rural Australian life on his farm.  Sounds like a good time.  I have a reputation for eating the most out of everybody here, and apparently Doc's 17-year-old brother has challenged me to an eating competition.  I think he's in a growth spurt or something, to be willing to challenge me like that.  Apparently Doc and I are going to his brother's deb ball on Friday night as well.  I thought that was just a southern thing that we did for the girls back in South Carolina, but apparently it's a big thing here, though not as formal.

I was really sad I missed Rachel's wedding.  Thanks you guys who have told me about it.  I really wish I could have been there and it's great to hear about everything going on back home.

Oh yeah, I should mention that the highlight of the week of school was definitely our cultural night.  Every two weeks or so, one of the stairways provides dessert from a specific country and does a skit about that culture.  My stairway chose to do Scotland, so I led the skit by dressing up as William Wallace, full on with a massive wig and the braveheart blue facepaint, plus an improvised kilt.  I did the freedom speech in the skit and everybody got a kick out of it (probably also out of the improvised kilt almost falling off when we danced around at the end of the skit).

Meditations On Wallabies, Wind-Caves, Marshmallows, and Mountaintops

I'm not quite sure whether to begin my tale of the past couple weeks with befriending wallabies, surfing, running over kangaroos, climbing through caves, or sleeping on the ground.  But I guess I'll just go chronologically.  

The Great Ocean Road never ceases to amaze me.  I was down at my buddy Darcy's house in Bells Beach a couple weeks ago and the waves were absolutely flat.  A little over an hour down the road, north of Apollo Bay, we found a solid overhead right barreling across some really shallow rocks.  There were just the two of us out getting some sick waves.  A wipeout involved bouncing over the rocks (I'm very thankful for the cushioning kelp) and getting pounded by about four more waves before making it back out to the lineup.  The wave was super rippable though.  It's just a little scary to see the rocks just under the surface as you free-fall back down the face after a vertical turn. We also surfed Bell's Beach southside when the swell came in, a sick little left that runs right up to the cliff.  I definitely have to go back down and get some more barrels at Apollo Bay.

Darcy's family was great.  Instead of a lawnmower they have a few sheep and they were all just really nice and relaxed.  Every time I go to visit somebody's house they tell me to come back any time I want.  I'm gonna have to talk to Darcy cause I think I might take them up on that soon.

I worked really hard for a week to get a couple of assignments done, then last Monday Shanna came back down from Sydney for part of her winter break.  We had a great time playing frisbee with everybody and hanging out in Abhi's (My RA) room watching a few movies.  Shanna and Faker got to be really good friends, which doesn't surprise me because they're definitely two of the coolest girls I've ever met.

So after I got out of class on Wednesday, Shanna and I packed up some warm clothes, food, ad lots of water bottles, hopped in rexy (my car, which roars like a t-rex when you turn because the power steering is almost all the way gone) and headed up through Melbourne and Ballarat to the Grampians, a mountain range in western vic.  We got into the national park in time for the sunset through the smoky haze that was hanging over the mountains.  Despite the limited visibility, the views were amazing.

We drove to Stapylton Campground, in the Northern Grampians, found a spot to make a fire, and cooked some dinner.  I'd say we're definitely getting to be pretty decent campfire cooks.  After eating, we roasted some marshmallows and ate them between chocolate chip cookies, which is great.  Go try it right now and come back and finish reading once you've experienced it. Oh yeah, the cookies should be "heavenly chocolate hazelnut" for best results. It's our aussie version of a s'more because there are no graham crackers here.

Soon after dinner, a few wallabies and little kangaroos hopping around our campfire.  At this point we discovered that wallabies are crazy about heavenly chocolate hazelnut cookies, and probably just as in love with marshmallows.  We named the one who came up to eat out of our hands Chester.  He tried to climb up in the back of my car to grab the loaf of bread.  He was an eating machine!  Somehow he even managed to make a loud munching sound when eating a soft uncooked marshmallow.  How he could crunch a marshmallow is beyond me.

When the fire started going out, Shanna and I grabbed our sleeping bags and cowboy-camped on a little hill, just beyond the "no camping beyond this point" sign.  Do they always put those right in front of the best spots to camp or what?  The hill was covered with little pine needles, so the ground was really comfortable.  I woke up every once in a while to the sound of a wallaby or a 'roo hopping close by.

Thursday morning we drove to the start of the Mt. Stapylton trail and started to hike.  As we walked up the massive rock face, there were some black wallabies that hopped away in front of us.  We hiked beneath a massive red cliff and up the mountain, which looked like a sinking ship from far away.  We made it to the top after a couple kilometres.  Right beneath the top, there was an awesome wind cave in the sandstone.  Apparently these caves are made by salts that wear away at the rock when it rains.  From the summit, we had an incredible panorama of the surrounding mountains and countryside.  We ate a couple pbj's and some lamingtons (my new addiction) and just enjoyed the scenery for a while before starting back down.  We were the only ones on the whole mountain until we were almost back to the car park, where we passed a few other hikers just starting out.

We saw our first wild Emu when we were driving down a really long dirt road.  It reminded me of a giant turkey and I bet it would taste as good as a turkey too.  Mt. Stapylton was just a 4 1/2 k hike so we decided to go for a little more of a challenge.  Mt. Difficult sounded good: 9 k's and over 450 meters elevation change.  It was a really fun climb that involved lots of rock-hopping and steep climbs.  After nearly two hours of solid climbing, we reached the top, where we were alone with a 360-degree view of the mountains and Lake Wartook, which sits on a plateau in the middle of the range.  Looked like a good place to eat a couple more sandwiches and a pineapple that I had brought along.  It was absolutely gorgeous up there.  The air was a lot clearer than it had been the day before.  I kept thinking of Walt Whitman's "I sound my barbaric yawp over the rooftops of the world".

We reached the bottom late in the afternoon and headed back up to the foot of Mt. Stapylton, where we climbed up to the top of the first section of the mountain and watched an incredible sunset light the sky on fire.  We cooked dinner right at the foot of the mountain in a little fire pit and then drove down to the southern part of the grampians, where we planned to hike on Friday.

Friday morning we got up early and drove to Mt. William to watch the sunrise.  We were a little late (I'll blame it on the kangaroos that were standing in the middle of the road), but we got there just after the sun had cleared the horizon and the morning light on the mountains was incredible.  Again, no other hikers were up on the mountain that early, despite the fact that it was Anzac Day, so we sat beside some rocks to block the frigid wind and watched the light creep down the mountainsides into the valley.  Four eagles were soaring on the currents blowing up from the valley, and one came and flew right over us--about 15 feet over our heads!

We decided to stop and check out wonderland, where we saw sights such as the "grand canyon" and echo cave, where a signed asked us to "please yell".  We complied without hesitation.  A narrow canyon in the rocks, known as silent street, was really cool as well.  At the end a stairway climbed through a really narrow gap in the rocks.  When we were going back down this older man who was climbing up was like "Good thing we're all thin.  You'd never make it through there if you were a fatty."  Good call dude.

After the pinnacles we went back up north to Hollow Mountain, where we found the coolest wind caves.  The biggest one is a cave about 3 or 4 levels high that cuts right through the middle of a solid rock.  Shanna and I had a blast climbing up through the levels with their ceilings full of holes where the rock was eroding away.  The cave opened up to the top of the rock, where another level of the cave was starting to form.

On Saturday we drove down some really long dirt roads to get to an aboriginal art site.  There were kangaroos everywhere so I wasn't all that astonished at the fact that one jumped out in front of my car, but it still was pretty surprising to see it hop right in front of me and disappear beneath the car with a loud bang.  I braked about as fast as I could without skidding to a stop and as soon as the car stopped moving the 'roo jumped right out from underneath the front of the car, which had been dragging him along, and hopped off into the woods.  I got out to make sure he was all right and he stopped to look back at me and then hopped away.  So we were cool.  The front of my car wasn't damaged at all.

The aboriginal site was pretty cool.  Apparently the aborigines ground up ochre, put it in their mouths, placed their hands against the rock and spit the ochre out over their hand so it left a handprint surrounded by red on the wall.  Primitive airbrush and masking technique!  I guess I don't really need to get a new compressor after all.  There were also some stick figures and kangaroo and emu tracks.

After we left the aboriginal shelter the sky to the west was getting pretty dark.  The day was already cloudy but a big cold front was on its way up from the antarctic so we started heading back to Melbourne.  Shanna drove on the wrong side of the road for the first time.  It definitely throws you off the first time but now I reckon by the time I get back to the US I'll be thrown off driving on the right.

So we got back to Melbourne ahead of the rain and were definitely glad to be able to sleep indoors as the temperature dropped to a humid low-40's fahrenheit.  I have to say though, it's a good break from Miami weather.  I'm pretty content with the high constantly between 55 and 65.  It's good frisbee weather.  I went into the city with Shanna and Faker yesterday for a little bit to have a lunch at the pancake parlor and explore the State Library of Victoria, which is really cool.  There are all these sweet old aussie paintings.

This arvo Faker and I were back to practicing our frisbee and pool skills.  Over the course of my camping adventures I have acquired a massive collection of water bottles so when I go on road trips I have enough to drink for a few days.  I'm up to about 10 drink bottles, ranging from 600 ml to 4 Litres.  Just thought I'd let you know.  It saves me from buying a lot of drinks, I reckon.

Frisbee Craze!

Since Easter, it has been back to school big time.  I think I left the mathematical side of my brain behind in Calc II, which makes symbolic logic a little difficult.  I have tons of reading for my other classes as well, so sitting there just staring at a logic problem for half an hour trying to figure out what "and-introductions" and "or-eliminations" are required tends to work against my studies for other subjects.  But I still get the job done.

One nice thing is that whenever I need a break from staring at logic problems or reading articles such as "Geopolitical Determinism:  The Origins of the Iran-Iraq War", there is always somebody to throw the frisbee with.  My friends here are great, all of them are very laid-back and friendly, which is definitely the Aussie way.  It's generally a friendlier environment than Miami:  People are always willing to stop to help if you need anything, or just talk if you're stuck on the bus or train together.  I make new friends every day!

At halls, we're like family--My group has still been cooking together every day, and we all share out kitchen lockers so that you never know where your stuff is going to end up.  Faker and I have played frisbee for a couple hours a day throughout the past week (during study breaks and when we're waiting for dinner), and now we're both pros at forehand, backhand, and less common throws such as the hammer and the "faker flick," which she made up (and it's a brilliant throw if you can get it right, which takes some practice). When we are outside, people always stop by to say hi and we teach them to throw the frisbee too, so last night at 1 o'clock we had a group of about 15 of us outside having a toss by "the mound", a small hill in between Roberts Hall and Richo, the next dorm over.

The Western Bulldogs played the St. Kilda Saints at the Telstra Dome last friday, and as McIvor is a huge 'dogs fan and Tim goes for the Saints, we had to go watch.  Doc, Faker, Stoner and I went with them into the city and we all sat up in the upper level with a great view of the whole field.  It's pretty nice to be able to get into a professional sporting event for only $11.50.  Something that doesn't really happen in the states.  I have been watching footy on T.V. for the past few weeks since the season started, but it was something else to go to a real game.  Everybody was going crazy and the atmosphere was terrific.  Despite the 2:1 odds in favor of St. Kilda, the 'dogs pulled off a victory by a decent margin, so it was quite a show.  Tim was pretty disappointed after having trash-talked to McIvor so much before the game.  McIvor didn't let him hear the end of it for a few days.

I also went down to Flinders with my buddy K-Train for a little bit.  It's where he's from, about an hour south of uni.  I went for a surf while I was down there on Friday and it was decent but a little bumpy.  Last Wednesday we had a huge storm with like 80 mph gusts.  The sky was brown with dust and there were trees blowing over and they had to evacuate the Menzies, the biggest building on campus, because it was shaking in the wind.  Anyways, Timmy K's power was still out four days later when we went by his house in Flinders.  Reminded me of home during hurricane season.

I surfed a spot called "Big Left" the other day that was about double overhead and 150 metres long.  It was like Monster Hole but without Sebastian Inlet's current to suck you out to the break, so I had to paddle for like 15 minutes straight to get out to it.  The paddle over deep water was a little creepy, especially after K-Train was telling me about how the biggest shark ever caught in Oz was brought in right across the bay.  He also had some stories about great whites swimming around while he was surfing, but I have yet to see one.  It's on the list.  I told him I see sharks about every time I surf in April back home and one time we had 7 bites in one week within an hour from my house, which is pretty impressive, but you don't swim away from a great white attack.  The sharks back home just nibble compared with the ones here.

We had a function last night where everybody from our hall dressed up as a musical artist or genre.  Gash, Tim, McIvor, and I went as the Wiggles (and Doc as Captain Feathersword). I was the yellow one.  Abhi, my R.A., went as Jimi Hendrix and looked JUST LIKE HIM!  I was dying laughing when I saw him.  We danced around for a while in goofy outfits.  The midnight frisbee toss followed, of course.

Nightmares and Dream Waves

There has been a request that I say something about school in my blog, so I just want to say this for now: For the record, I do go to all of my lectures and I do a lot of reading.  My class on politics in the middle east is fascinating.  I'll say more about school later because it's great, but what happens on the weekends is just so much more interesting.  

Only two months down under and I've already been on the national news, but I would much rather have made headlines in a different way.

I was back down at Tim's house for Easter weekend, fishing, surfing, and playing extreme bocce and frisbee.  I love the drone of a 130-hp Yamaha outboard and the salt air blasting my face as we zip around in the Smiths' boat; it reminds me of home.  The difference is that the fish I catch when I'm down at Tim's are really small compared to what dad's catching off Canaveral these days.  But at least I can catch some fish, and Tim's dad Steve is always keen to go out on the bay. Being down at Tim's also means the best hot dogs in the world are right around the corner.  On Friday before fishing, Tim, Emma (his 13-year-old sister) and I had to down to the Koonya store for a delicious lunch.  Tell Willy that he hasn't tasted a hot dog until he's tried one of these.  I also had the best dinner I've had since leaving home at Tim's grandma's house on Friday evening.  I won't go into detail because I could probably write a couple pages on this meal, but let's just say it was incredible and leave it at that.

I guess there's something to say for a variety of experiences.  It's been nonstop fun since I got here, but things change quickly.  I wasn't going to write about this, but I was told that I should. I won't go into much detail, but I think the Saturday before Easter was the hardest day of my life.  That morning Tim and I joked and laughed on the way down to check the surf, having no idea what was about to happen.  We were about to go back and get our boards and wetsuits when we saw three guys paddle out on one board.  The board got away from them and was sucked out to sea by the rip that runs out from the beach in between the two reefs at centrals.  The three men were caught in the rip and we ran down to the beach and dove into the water after them.  Tim and I stuck together, swimming out to the furthest guy first.  I got him in rescue position and started pulling him sideways toward the breaking waves, out of the rip.  Tim reached us after a few seconds and he helped me pull the guy out of the current.  Then he swam for the other two while I swam the guy toward shore.

After making sure he reached the beach safely, I turned back for the other two.  Tim was swimming against the rip and I reached them before he did.  One was already dead.  The other pushed his body to me and swam to shore.  I dragged the body out onto the beach and Tim helped me after making sure the other guy made it to land.  Tim and two girls who were pool lifeguards and happened to be on the beach performed CPR until the paramedics arrived, but there was nothing we could do.  I collapsed on the beach from exhaustion after swimming so hard, and when I recovered I talked to the other two, who were in major shock after the incident.  A helicopter lifted Emyr's body off the remote beach over an hour later.  Tim and I spent the arvo in the Rosebud Police Station filing official reports on what had happened.  I feel terrible for the two guys who lost their friend, and for Emyr's family back in Wales, where he was from.  We did an interview with some news stations the next day to warn people about the dangers of surfing without experience and advise swimmers to stay at public patrolled beaches rather than the remote back beaches.  People keep telling us we did a great job to save the two guys, but the whole thing was just really depressing.  I guess you just never think that any day you could drag a dead guy out of the surf.

So that really put a damper on my whole Easter.  It was really good to be with Tim's family for the weekend- I got chocolate eggs and Emma and Alice both wrote their names in the dust on my car windows, like Doogie and Willy would do back home.  I surfed centrals on Sunday, hardly able to believe that the very place I was riding waves was the site of such a dramatic scene the day before.  Someone had put candles and flowers up on the beach where we had tried so hard to resuscitate Em the day before.  On Monday, we were out in the boat and Tim and I dove in and swam with a pod of dolphins, which was amazing.  One swam circles around Tim and me, playing with us for a few minutes, swimming straight at us and swerving at the last minute.

On Tuesday morning, I headed down to Bells Beach to see the Rip Curl Pro competition and do some surfing.  I talked to Dane Reynolds, Andy Irons, C.J. and Damo Hobgood, and said hi to Kelly Slater.  After the competition ended for the day, I surfed perfect rincon (the reef section of Bells) at head high to a few feet overhead.  The best wave I've ever seen, I think.  The place is legendary, considered one of the best rights in the world when it goes.  Just a year ago, it was one place that I never dreamed I would be surfing.  Bells is something off a poster, a picture in a surf magazine, a video.  It was just so rippable and perfect.  The bowl was perfect, giving me absolutely incredible amounts of speed with plenty of open face for turns.  The high tide pushed the wave all the way up so the inside section was just under the cliff, breaking on the shallow rocks.  The scenery was amazing, and what's more, Aussie superstar Joel Parkinson paddled out right next to me.  I considered dropping in on him just so I could say I snaked Parko, but decided against it.

I spent the night in my car on Point Addis, just south of Bells.  The next morning I woke to an incredible sunrise and headed back to Bells.  This time they had moved the contest to Winki Pop, the next pointbreak, so I paddled out to the Bells Bowl for some 4-5-foot (pushing double overhead) walls with only a couple other guys out.  The wind was offshore and the surf was perfect, and from the lineup I listened to the commentators announcing the surf contest over the loud speakers so I could follow what was happening while I was surfing myself.  The wind turned in the early arvo, so I drove down the coast to Cathedral Rock, a more sheltered point break, where I caught some more amazing waves with only 3 other guys out.  The exit was a little hazardous, dodging rocks sticking out of the water as I wove my way on my surfboard in to the beach.  I slept in my car on Point Addis again on Wednesday night.

Thursday the surf contest was on, and Kelly, Andy, Mick, Taj, Bede, Bobby, and Dane were all in it (I think a few of you actually know who all of those people are).  I witnessed a heat of one of surfing's greatest rivalries: Andy vs. Kelly.  Kelly came out on top in the heat and in the competition.  The day was very cold and windy, typical victorian fall day.  Everybody on the beach was in jackets and beanies with their hands in their pockets until the sun finally came out around noon.

So that's my Easter break.  I'm really glad to have Tim's family to spend some time with but I really miss you guys back home.  Anybody's welcome to come over for a surfing road trip!

Our Swimming, Surfing, Sheep-Chasing, Twelve Apostles-Sleeping on the Beach Weekend Adventure

I had pretty much the best weekend ever, which seems to be a pattern lately.  They just keep getting better!  Another week of school and long nights of studying to catch up done with, I left school on Thursday evening and watched the sun set over Melbourne as I drove to Avalon airport, between Melbourne and Geelong.  A little over an hour after leaving my dorm, I picked up Shanna, who is from Ormond Beach but is at uni in Sydney for the semester and decided to come down and go on a road trip with me.

It was already dark when we headed south from Avalon through Geelong and Torquay, down the Great Ocean road to Lorne, and up into the hills to where I had camped before.  After scaring a massive kangaroo out of our campsite, we cooked some stir-fry over our campfire and talked for a while.  Then I set up the tent for Shanna and climbed in the back of my car to go to sleep.

Because I'm like a fish, happier in the water, the first beach we drove by on Friday morning had us going for a wake-up swim in the freezing cold water and body-surfing the little waves. Farther south, just above Apollo Bay, I again had to pull over into the little dirt parking lot when we saw waves... two small right reef breaks close to the rocks and another a-framing slab down the beach.  The slab was calling my name, so I made the long paddle to join the one guy who was out at the wave.  When the water dredged out in front of the foot-to-two overhead set waves, the seaweed from the rocks just beneath the surface stuck out into the air, meaning it was perfectly safe and I had nothing to fear:  If the wave slammed me onto the rocks, the seaweed would cushion the blow so it would probably just hurt a lot instead of a ton. I watched some cool yellow fish swim beneath me, threw down a few turns on the right and headed back in to join Shanna on the beach, where she was taking some amazing photos of the waves, tide pools, and beautiful scenery, which I should mention was incredible... huge hills with forests and farms on the sides fell right down to the rocky beach, where the water was perfectly blue.

We drove all the way south to Cape Otway, where the Great Ocean Road turns West along the south coast of Australia Toward Port Campbell.  The views were amazing, the lighthouse grounds were fun to see, and the guy who worked in the lighthouse was... well, let's just say I had a short awkward conversation about how lame it was that the lighthouse wasn't functional anymore (at Shanna's prompting) and got a strange look.  To change the subject, he told us "Take a look up there!" and we climbed up and looked through up at the huge light and the reflectors that used to shine it out to sea. On the way back to the Great Ocean Road, we stopped because some people had gotten out of their cars and were pointing up into the trees, and lo and behold, we spotted our first wild koalas!  The furry lard-balls were lazing in the treetops in very uncomfortable-looking positions, their arms and legs hanging down from the branches they lay across.  I have to say, though, they were slightly more energetic than the sloths we saw in Costa Rica.

Further down the road, I spotted the sign for Johanna beach, the backup surf spot for the Rip Curl pro surf contest at Bells (which, by the way, starts this week.  Check the videos from the surfing each day at the Rip-Curl website to see what the waves are like down here).  A few k's off the highway, we climbed up into the tall sand dunes and ran straight down them and across the beach into the ice-cold water, where we got washed back up onto the beach by the swells.  Johanna is basically right on the roaring 40's, the band of water that circles the globe just north of Antarctica, so the water, even in the summer and with the heat we've had lately, is the ice-cream headache kind of cold.

As the afternoon grew later, Shanna and I headed up the winding dirt-and-gravel track back to the Great Ocean Road, and west toward Port Campbell, where some of the most amazing ocean scenery in the world is found.  It started at Gibson Steps, where we climbed the steep stair down the cliff to the beach,  feeling dwarfed by the huge sandstone walls above us, the massive rock columns rising from the water just offshore, and the waves crashing on the sandbar beyond.  We found a tiny penguin hiding under one of the rocks!

Then it was back up the cliff and west down the road.  We decided to pass the world-famous Twelve Apostles at first in favor of Loch-Ard Gorge.  We watched from the top of the cliff as waves crashed through a pass in the cliffs and up into the appropriately named Thunder Cave.  We saw the blowhole, where waves run through an underground cave into a pool in the middle of the headland.  Then we went to the gorge, a beautiful cliff-lined beach, which we foun deserving of a swim while the other tourists were content just to take pictures.

With the sun headed for the horizon, we parked the wagon at the large Twelve Apostles carpark and walked down the path to the cliffs overlooking the ocean.  After the posters, postcards, and photos I've seen of the Twelve Apostles, it was incredible to see it firsthand.  The scene was breathtaking, the sun low on the horizon burning the sky a pale orange through the salt mist, and the monolithic sandstone towers rising a couple hundred feet out of the water, isolated from the cliffs that lined the beach.

After sundown, Shanna and I looked for a campsite and ended up back at Johanna.  We made a fire up between some rocks on the beach and cooked the leftover stir-fry from the night before, which ended up a little... well, sandy.  But I was hungry.  The night was perfectly clear, so we put out the fire, saving the big burn-log we had found to make another fire the next night and pulled out our sleeping bags.  The milky way stretched across the sky, interrupted by brilliant shooting stars.  The crashing waves lulled me to sleep as I gazed up at the incredible sky.

Throughout the early morning hours on Saturday, I woke up freezing cold because of the broken zipper on my sleeping bag.  A while after sunrise, I got up and washed the dishes in the surf.  When Shanna woke up, we packed up the car and got ready to leave.  But when I turned the key, it wouldn't start!  There were some people camping in the campground nearby, so I borrowed some leads off some old dude with a cool accent and we went about jumping the wagon.  But then I found out that the only problem was that it was stuck in between reverse and park.  I simply forced the stick into park and it started right up.  I just let the guy who gave me the jump think that I had really needed it, and we left.

On the road back to the Twelve Apostles, we suddenly encountered lightning, the fastest sheep I have ever seen.  It was just standing in the road, so I pulled over as quickly as I could and got out.  I've always wanted to tackle a sheep (or at least I had a sudden impulse to tackle one when I saw this one in the road), so I got out and began chasing lightning, who of course evaded me the first time.  My second try was a little more successful.  I didn't get a tackle, but I dove at lightning and managed to push the scared sheep off his course.  He kept running for several kilometers down the road before disappearing into the woods, never to be seen again.

We saw the Twelve Apostles by day, which was spectacular, and the Arch, another rock formation, and London Bridge, which were both incredible.  We needed more adjectives and decided to use superfluous because everything was "extravagantly created and much more than necessary but definitely not in a wasteful or unwanted way because everything we saw was amazing" (thanks Shanna!).  After stopping  we drove up into the Otways to see some of the mountains.

We hiked through the woods to a couple of waterfalls.  One had a perfect pool for swimming in, so of course we dove into the chilly water and swam up under the waterfall.  The column of water was so cold and falling so hard it was really painful when we stood beneath the main fall, but it was really cool to sit against the wall behind the falls and watch the water drop over the cliff above us.  It felt terrific to swim in fresh water too.

After our swim, we drove down a dirt/gravel track for almost an hour toward Apollo bay.  Then it was back up another road into the mountains, where once more we found ourselves on a dirt track looking for a place to camp.  The sign said "Grey River Picnic Area - 10 k," which is a really long way on a bumpy track full of potholes, but we did it and were rewarded with a picnic area by a little creek, complete with barbecues to light a fire under and cook on.  We had this beautiful spot in the middle of the woods all to ourselves.

All to ourselves, that is, for about twenty minutes.  After hard dark, people suddenly started driving up and parking at our picnic area.  And heading up toward the toilet!  So we're in the middle of the woods fifteen kilometers down a dirt track from the highway and twenty people show up and head to the toilet at the same time?

Our riddle was solved when a girl came up to us as we ate and asked us where the glow-worms were.  "Nope" was the quick answer, but as soon as we said it Shanna and I just looked at each other.  "Glow worms?"

Once the last car left, we decided to go check it out.  So we walked over by the toilet, and sure enough, sprawled across the side of the hill right by the picnic area was a colony of thousands of glow-worms.  It was like the stars started at the ground and just continued up into the sky.  The night was pitch-dark since the moon had already set and we just stood there in the dark and looked at the constellations on the hillside.  On closer inspection we found the worms were tiny, about a quarter-inch at most, and crawled along strands of thread in little cracks in the hillside with their rear ends glowing.  It reminded me of my bioethics class where my professor always talks about wanting to have a child genetically engineered so he would glow. Anyway, we found a stunning population of glow-worms near our randomly chosen camp site way back in the forest down a long winding dirt track.  You never know what you might come across.

Sunday morning we rented Shanna a board and went surfing at a beachbreak north of Apollo bay.  The waves were a little small, about chest to head high peaks with waist to chest high lines, but super clean and fun.  My first wave I dropped in late, stuck my hand deep into the wall of the wave, and got in the barrel before coming out and racing down the line.  My second wave I did the same thing.  My third wave was a really steep vertical drop, followed by a bottom turn back into the pocket.  I did a little stall turn low on the face to get into position, ducked, stuck my hand in the wave to slow down, and got the best barrel I've had in a long time. Shanna and I were both stoked to be in the water and surf such fun waves on such a gorgeous day (though next time we'll have to find her a little smaller and better board - she was riding an 8-foot foam top).  I surfed the reefbreak again, this time all alone.  Then we headed north to see Bells Beach, where they were setting up for the surf contest, and then on to Melbourne.

Sunday arvo we got to Monash and hung out with some of my Aussie mates for a bit.  Tim took us to go get pizza, since we hadn't told the cooking group in time that we would be back for dinner.  I introduced Shanna to about a billion people, all with crazy nicknames, and I'm sure she remembers every single one of them.

Monday morning, Shanna's last day in Victoria (for now at least), we got up and drove down to the Mornington Peninsula, on the East side of the bay and Melbourne, opposite the coast we had traveled all weekend.  We went swimming and exploring in the tide pools at Mushroom reef in Flinders.  The hot sun made the cold water feel extremely refreshing.

Next we drove over to Cape Schanck.  The lighthouse is on the cliff overlooking Bass Strait, between Mainland Australia and Tasmania (Bass Strait is basically the ocean - whenever we surf down here the body of water is actually the strait), and it has an amazing view of the Mornington Peninsula down toward Gunnamatta surf beach, Rye, Blairgowrie (where I stayed at Tim's house), and Portsea.  Sadly, we set our spending limit at 7 dollars and the lighthouse cost 14 to get into, so we opted to walk down the long boardwalk to the rocks along Bushranger bay.  The tide was low, so we climbed across the rocks out to the tip of the cape, which consists of a rock shelf beneath a cliff.  The shelf is about 6 feet above the water and is full of tide pools and covered in parts with seaweed.  A couple of the tide pools were over 8 feet deep, and the water was crystal clear, so of course we had to go for a swim.  The scenery was gorgeous:  The swells crashed up onto the rocks all around, the tide pools were perfectly clear and the surfaces were slick in contrast to the raging ocean only feet away, and the Mornington Peninsula stretched into the distance to the northwest.

At the very tip, a channel ran through the rocks, separating a bommie (rock island) from the rocks of the mainland, where we were.  Though only about 15-20 feet wide, the channel was deep and swells ran through it, crashing against the rocks on either side and creating a current sucking back and forth along the sharp rock shelves jutting out of the water on either side.  The rock pinnacle that rose in the middle of the bommie was just too inviting to allow the crashing waves and slippery rocks we would have to climb up deter us, so I dove in, followed closely by Shanna.  I found a place where I could grip and pulled myself up out of the water with my arms on the other side, with a little help from a passing wave.  I helped Shanna up and we walked over to the pinnacle.

Climbing vertical rocky faces barefoot is a great idea, especially when your feet are already as torn up as mine, with cuts and bruises all over them from previous adventures (My foot was still bleeding when I woke up this morning!).  So I might have gotten a few more scratches.  But I made it halfway up the pinnacle, which was a challenge due to the perfectly vertical nature of it and the crumbling rock that falls away as you put your weight on it.  So about 5 metres up the column, I found a shelf to that had a great view and decided to stop there, because the next part looked a little too steep to climb barefoot, plus the cuts on my feet from a couple days before hurt pretty badly.  We climbed down and paddled back across the channel.  On the other side I had to use a strand of kelp like a rope to pull myself up onto the rocks.

I took Shanna down to the Koonyah store, near Tim's house in Blairgowrie.  I had been there for a hot dog with Tim last weekend, so I decided I'd show off a little of my local knowledge.  Cream cheese and mustard might not sound like the best combination of things to put on a hot dog, but I assure you, the Koonyah dog is truly scrumptious.  Shanna was sooo stoked on it she went back inside to tell the lady running the store that it was the best hot dog she'd ever had and she was gonna tell everybody in America about it.  I laughed.

We went back to school and then I drove Shanna to the airport for her flight back to Sydney.  But schmeriously, we had a terrific weekend together.  Quite an adventure.  However, I need to catch up on sleep tonight as I found myself yawning a little too often in lecture this morning.  So it's back to studying, and a whole two days until Easter Break.

I do go to school too, but this is so much more interesting...

This week has gone by so quickly and I've done so much, it's hard to know where to begin and what to tell.  Last weekend Faker, Stoner, Abhi, Doc, and I went into the city for tea (dinner).  We did a little bit of exploring and found a delicious Italian place that turned out not to be too expensive (the owner gave us a 25% off coupon!) and ate our fill of all types of different pasta. Even though that's what we mostly eat at school (Coles Spaghetti for 59 cents a pack!), it was great to try some different sauces and not have to cook it ourselves.

Monday I went back down to surf at Gunamatta.  Again, it was pretty "small", meaning solid two feet overhead and offshore.  I surfed a perfect left for a while with only 4 other guys out, allowing me to practice going vertical backside.  I'm definitely improving, throwing my board up through the lip, pushing my fins loose, losing control, free falling back to the bottom of the wave, sticking it, and immediately going for another turn.  As the tide went down, I moved over to a little right point break for a while.  It gets smaller when the tide drops, so it was only about head high, but a perfect little 3-turn right, and only 5 others out.  Again, the water was like a pool, the wave faces a pure dark blue.  It looks deceptively warm from shore.

Tuesday I attended my first toga party!  There was a free pasta dinner and then everybody from Roberts hall headed down to the common room in their togas and danced under the black lights.

Wednesday and Thursday were filled with school and cooking (we can put together some awesome tacos!), and Friday night I headed down with Smithstress to his house in Portsea, about an hour south, near the tip of the Mornington Peninsula.

We got up on Saturday and walked down the path through the woods from Tim's house to the beach.  Right behind his house there is a good left and a good right that break across rock shelves onto the beach.  The swell was a little messy, so we drove down to Portsea surf beach, where we paddled out to clean 8-ft. surf with a lot of close-outs.  Some pretty big sets came through, and I caught some good waves.

Tim had to work at 4, and when he left, Steve (Tim's dad) took me out on the boat for a little fishing.  Steve builds houses, and one guy he built a house for has a dock spot at the Blairgowrie harbor, on Port Phillip Bay.  It's about a 5-minute drive from the house.  The guy who owns the berth only has his boat down for about a week out of the year, and the rest of the time the Smiths get to keep their boat there.  The 18-foot boat is kept out of the water on a lift that floats.  When you want to put the boat in, you open the valves, the pontoons on the lift fill up with water and sink, and you drive the boat off.  When you bring the boat back, you plug in the pump and pump air back into the pontoons, lifting the boat out.  Pretty handy.

We went just a little bit out into the bay, where there are grassbeds about 3 meters down.  Put on some squid and clam for bait, and once we located the right spot, we were into the king george whiting.  It was cast out, hold the rod until you get the bump, and set the hook.  We caught 12 in about an hour, all about 13-16 inches long.  Small, but as long as I get to fish, I'll take it.

Tim's parents went to a party for a while and I ate dinner with Tim's 13-year old sister Emma and two of her friends, who drilled me with questions about America.  Nobody has guns in Oz, there are virtually no gangs and very little violence, and there are no cheerleaders or marching bands, so I got asked questions like "do you have a gun?", "have you ever shot anybody?",  "are you in a gang?", "are the cheerleaders really the popular girls like in the movies?", etc.

I watched my first footy match, the St. Kilda Saints vs. Adelaide for the nab cup (national australian bank), a pre-season match.  A very entertaining game, it's like a cross between rugby and soccer.  Footy is played on an oval, and to pass you either have to punch the ball out of your hand (almost like an underhand volleyball serve), or kick it to your teammate.  The players are spread out like in soccer, and when you carry the ball apparently you have to bounce it every once in a while.  Most of the rules still escape me.  The goal is to kick it through some upright posts.  Between the two center ones is 6 points, through the outside ones is less.

Sunday I went for a surf on the left behind Tim's house.  He was a little sick, so he just rested for the morning.  Fatty, you gotta come check this place out.  The left was like a cross between lower trestles and Playa Escondida.  It's a sand bottom on top of the rocks, and the wave wedges into a perfect peak and bowls down the line.  It wasn't hollow like Escon, but it was bowly and steep.  Because of the long weekend (Labor Day is today, though uni students don't get the day off), it was pretty crowded, with about 10 other guys out on a concentrated peak.  The waves were generally about chest to head high, but every once in a while bigger ones came through.  It was pretty tough to catch a wave under the locals, but I got lucky for the first one and paddled out to a set that swung a little wide and caught everybody else inside.  I air-dropped with the lip into a solid overhead bowl and threw a huge snap and a big carving cutback.  After that I got a little more respect and caught more waves.

When the onshore wind came in the arvo, Tim and I went out in the boat to some rocks out in the bay and did a little snorkeling.  The water is clear, but apparently nowhere near as clear as it was before they began to dredge the channel through the bay, a work that is in progress, and which all of the locals are very upset about.  There was a fur seal lazing on the surface of the water, just sitting there, and then turning upside down so just his feet were on the surface and spinning around for fun.  We swam right up to it and mimicked it, putting our feet out of the water and our heads toward the bottom and spinning around.  Apparently the seal thought we were making fun of it because after about 5 minutes, he climbed up on the rocks, barking his seal bark and scratching himself with his back flipper.  So that was the first time I swam with a seal.

Tim said that to become an honorary local, I had to jump off one of the channel markers.  So he drove me over to marker 6, where I jumped off the boat and climbed the ladder to the top of the 30-foot high structure.  Though it had "no climbing" signs posted, there was nothing blocking the ladder, so the marker was just asking to be jumped off of.  I reached the top and looked down at the boat below.  Unlike that rock we jumped off in El Salvador, the water was actually deep here so I didn't have to wait for a wave to jump on top of to ensure that I didn't hit the bottom.  The only sketchy thing was the sheet metal that surrounded the buoy on all sides didn't feel very sturdy to stand on.  I put one foot up, then the other, and tried to catch my balance as the flimsy metal railing I was perched on top of tried to wriggle out from under my feet.  Unable to get balanced, I gave up, lifted my hands from the railing I was perched on, and jumped.  I guess now I can be an honorary Portsea local.

Road Trips, Hippies, and Vegemite

I was just sitting in my room talking to some American friends last Friday and we randomly decided to go on a little road trip.  Everybody raced to their rooms to pack up and 15 minutes later we met downstairs and loaded up the wagon.  Talk about short notice.  So Ciara, Jimmy, Adam and I set off for Torquay, almost two hours away with the traffic.  There we bought groceries and gas and started down the Great Ocean Road.

I finally got to see the legendary Bells Beach, one of the best surf spots in the world and home of the epic Rip Curl surfing contest (which is coming up in three weeks!).  The surf wasn't too hot, so I took a few pictures and kept driving, looking for a spot to camp for the night.  We made it down to Lorne and found a random dirt road outside of town.  About 3 k's down the road there was a clearing where we parked the car, managed to start a fire with wet wood and a few pages of my Australia road atlas (pages from the northern territory, which I don't plan on visiting), and heated up the leftover stir-fry I had cooked the day before.

The rain started a little before we got to the campsite and was on and off all night.  I didn't have a tarp for my tent, plus it was freezing outside, so we ended up with all four of us sleeping in the back of the wagon.  I was comfortable and slept like a baby in my warm sleeping bag, but my friends were pretty uncomfortable and didn't sleep too well that night.

We got up and ate a couple pbj's for breakfast, cleaned up and drove to the nearby Erskine falls for a little hike.  Not content to stand on the viewing platform, we jumped down and climbed across the slippery rocks to stand beneath the 38-meter fall.  I brushed my teeth in the waterfall to get ready for the day.

We then set off down the ravine through the gorgeous forest, following the stream past stands of huge fern trees and through dense dark rainforest.  Several hundred meters down the ravine from the waterfall, there were two people sitting up in a cleft in the rocks above the path.  They beckoned for us to climb up there, so we went.  It turned out to be an Israeli guy and his Australian girlfriend who had decided the ravine would be a good place to trip... soooo they had brought along their drugs and were peacefully enjoying the serenity of the forest.  The guy, forgetting our names no matter how many times we introduced ourselves, resorted to calling us "geniuses".  They were pretty cool hippies, and gave Adam and Jimmy some stickers with Indian symbols.  They also drew us a picture.  Awesome.

We hiked different trails throughout the day, finding some stunning views of waterfalls, small canyons, and of course, the ocean.  That night I slept comfortably in a sleeping back inside my tiny tent while Ciara, Jimmy, and Adam piled in the back of the car for another fitful night's rest.  The next day we headed back to Melbourne.

Classes started for me on Tuesday, which meant sitting in lectures from 9 AM until 1.  My tutorials and workshops were spread out over Wednesday and Thursday, which meant I had a little time to get my reading done between classes.  I'm really excited to have the professors I do, because they are all excellent.

I showed my Aussie mates the movie "Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure", which no one had seen before.  We've been hanging out, cooking, playing soccer, basketball, and pool, and just having a good time.  Tim has given everybody a nickname, so there are the two girls: Faker (from Singapore) and Stoner (she doesn't smoke); and the guys:  Lash the Gash, Doc, Smithstress, McIvor, Abhi, and of course, Danger (that's me.  Thanks to Tim the Smithstress, a lot of people don't even know me by my real name).  We all live in Roberts hall, and so all it requires is a short walk to either McIvor's room, the common room, or the kitchen to locate everybody else.

I already have a lot of reading and writing to do for my classes, so today is a bit of a study day, followed by a trip into the city tonight.  This morning Amy (Stoner) introduced me to the classic Aussie breakfast of vegemite spread on toast, which was... salty.  I'm not quite used to vegemite yet, but the Aussies love it and Amy figures that by the time the end of the semester comes, I'll want it all the time.  I guess we'll see!

O-Weeeeeek!!!!

What a crazy week!  The Aussies got here last weekend and I immediately made several best friends.  I went to a day of orientation and then decided that I needed a break so I went surfing instead of orienting the next day.  I drove down to Gunnamatta, on the Mornington Peninsula, and tried to pass myself off as a local by putting on an Australian accent and saying things like "g'day, mate." and "howya goin' mate?"  I think it worked, but probably only because that's all I said to the other surfers.

The surf was pretty flat, like a couple feet overhead with offshore winds (in other words, it would have been one of the best days of the year back home).  The water was really cold but extremely clear.  When I got out I drove down the peninsula to some cliffs overlooking the ocean, where there are some good-looking diving spots.  Now I joined the scuba club, and with $25.00 a week full-gear rental, I'll definitely be going back there.

I got pretty sick for a couple days there, which wasn't much fun, but I had a couple pretty trippy dreams when I had a solid fever and that always makes it more interesting.

Sooo I hung out, shooting pool, watching movies, and making friends around the halls until I started getting better.  I met my best Aussie mates by cooking a good dinner: they said I could join their cooking club for first years, and what's more, they said I could cook every meal for the club.  There are just seven of us in it.  So I promised them a good American meal of steak and potatoes as long as they buy the food.

We have fun trying to mimic each others' accents.  They get a kick out of me talking about putting on a "jumpa and trackies", and I get a kick out of Lash saying with his best American accent:  "Hey, y'all gimme a hot dawg with ketchup" (which makes absolutely no sense to an Australian, seeing as they have "sausages" rather than hot dogs and "tomato sauce" rather than ketchup.

Last night we had a black-light party and a very random thing happened.  I met a girl named Cindy who said she was from Greenville, SC.  I said "oh, my sister goes to Furman" and she said "Hey, I went to Furman too."  So it turns out that she is friends with Carolyn and the crew.  I think I'm starting to believe in the six degrees of separation theory when I come all the way to the other side of the world and randomly meet somebody who knows my sister.

Today I went to orientation for a while, then we had a huge food fight back at the halls.  What started out as a somewhat organized though messy activity which involved a food version of the game twister and a blindfolded ice-cream feeding competition soon devolved into a wild mess which left all of us covered head to toe in cottage cheese, shaving cream, ice cream, sprinkles, chocolate syrup, tomato sauce, barbecue sauce, coke, and orange juice residue.  My R.A., Abhi, a guy Tim who lives below me, and I led the charge down the hill into the lake to clean up.  Which is ironic considering that had we been in any other state of cleanliness the lake would be considered more of a cesspool than an actual body of water.  But by our best estimates, the water was cleaner than we were, so we went for a swim.  Then everybody went and took showers and put antibiotic cream on whatever skin lesions they had.  Tim reckons we'll all die of some weird disease, but I feel okay right now.

Aside from a sore throat, that is, which I obtained by screaming my lungs out on the most unthrilling roller coaster rides I've experienced in a long time.  Let me take that back.  The thrilling part was that the rides felt like they would fall apart at every turn and send us plummeting to the pavement 15 metres below.  Screaming just makes it more fun.  Luna Park, the small theme park we visited, resembles the St. Theresa's fair without the cotton candy or the prize booths.  But Monash rented it out for us, so at least it was free.  And I had fun with my mates.

I've been working on my footie as well so expect me to be a pro Aussie-rules player by the end of the semester.  Between kicking the footie, jumping for frisbees, and late-night bush diving and possum chasing, I think we might destroy every bush in the grass area below my dorm by the end of the semester.  Jimmy and I plan on catching a possum by the time we leave Australia.