Tiger Tiger Woods Y'all

No-Shave-November 14-16

On Sunday, I awoke at 6 AM after a night out with the boys. The reason? The Australian JBWere Masters golf tourney. I do enjoy whacking a golf ball around a course, I must say, but I had never been to a tournament or watched anyone really really good play the game. I would soon find that in the case of the pros, it was not so much playing a game as making repeated, precise calculations to battle a course. Like what missile attacks must've been like before smart bombs that can put a warhead on a fire hydrant from across an ocean. Anyway, we threw on our preppiest gear, got down to Flinders Station and hopped on a train filled with dudes with visors and umbrellas. Luckily, it didn't rain a drop on us even though a downpour was predicted - must be Portland weathermen. When we arrived, a bunch of Australians we had never heard of were teeing off. Soon enough, we got to watch Sergio step up to the tee box and send a ball screaming through the sky into the abyss. That was about when my jaw started dropping. I have to say watching golf on TV can be incredibly boring, and it's probably because the cameras do not do the game justice. When guys like this tee off, your heart races. They swing so hard but make it look effortless and its a wonder the ball doesn't just explode.

So then Tiger steps up. We had been watching putt balls around the practice green, knocking multiple balls at different holes in no real pattern, like a kid at a mini-golf course. We ran to the first green to watch the ball fly down the hill to a drivable par-4 green. All we could see was his Sunday red polo and then a ping that echoed off the gum trees. The ball came sailing in and landed on the lip of a bunker in some nasty rough. Great, so the first shot I ever see Tiger play looks about like my average. Then what happened was extraordinary, even to a normal golf fanatic. Tiger intentionally punches the ball out into the sand trap, completely away from the green. His caddy, the calf guy, nonchalantly hands him the sand wedge and Tiger hops in, not worried one bit. He proceeds to loft the ball to within a couple feet of the hole. Ridiculous.

We followed Tiger through most of his round, watching him drain another incredible shot off the beach and drive the ball further then I could shoot it out of a pistol. At one point, I positioned myself right along the path from one hole to the next and was close enough to touch him as he walked by. Standing in his presence was like waking up to catch Santa Claus in your living room on Christmas Eve. Like standing with a God among men. Tiger was real, not some mythical hero athlete that was some kind of computer projection the golf channel had created to make people watch (the mistress scandals must have been created because people were becoming to attached to a fictitious superstar). There was an astonishingly competitive cloud surrounding him. It was as if nobody, including the number of private security guards and VIPs who were following him, was actually there and he was playing alone with his caddy, against himself. It was also really cool to know I was one of very few Americans there, and Tiger was our player in the tournament. It got annoying battling with the Australian fans for spots and listening to them yelling "Go Tigah" when his damn name is Tiger, or Mr. Woods to them.

Tiger didn't end up winning, although he had a really good Sunday round. Stuart Appleby, who I do like even though he was one of the endless number of Aussie players, took the title and we watched the middle of his round as he crept up on the lead. Also got to watch two little kids run onto the course and start playing in a sand(box)trap behind a couple pros on the green. Pretty funny.

I realize I'm way too close to the camera on this one. My friends aren't actually on Little People, Big World. But that is Tiger in the background warming up the putterooski.
"Goodbye fried rice, hello fried chicken!" -Dave Chappelle

I spent the entirety of Sunday night and Monday studying for my first final, which was quite interesting. I discovered that my class was about four times bigger than I thought, once everyone had to show up in the same place at the same time. That made me realize why my final had to be at the Royal Exhibition Center instead of....well, our school....It went well, although there was one question where the actual answer, which I knew very well, was not an option and the closest choice was only 20 million years off the date. No big deal I guess. One down, two to go, then USA bound! After I finished, I followed my final with a kebab from Lamb's on Lygon and "Rock and Roll Ain't Noise Pollution." Felt great.

Tuesday Rant

So there's a few things on my mind on this fine Tuesday, besides the fact I missed the $12 pot n' parma night at Turf's.

1. Grocery shopping. So at my favorite local grocer here in the heart of Melbourne, I've found some very annoying patterns. One of them is that nobody who works in the store has any idea where things are. The last three times I have asked where an item was, I found it on my own and went on my way as they wandered through the aisles trying to show it to me. I have a feeling they turnover employees faster than Taco Bell, or else the employees only work like once a month so understandably don't really know their store whatsoever. The other thing is that if you don't go through the self check-out, it is not only a slower process to have someone scan and bag your items but they give you as many bags as possible with the groceries you buy. It's bad enough they don't even offer paper bags, but instead of trying to conserve some of the endless stacks of plastic (and therefore our world's resources) they have lying behind the counter, they put a maximum of three or four items in each one. My checker-outer today had no idea what I meant when I kindly asked her to consolidate.

2. Basketball. I was lucky enough to find a rec basketball team that I've been playing with the last couple weeks. It's been very fun considering how little I was getting to play bball here. However, on Sunday, we played and I admit we lost to a team of old men. I take full accountability for our loss and they did play much better team basketball than us. But, it was a joke. By the end of the game we had just three players left on the court who hadn't fouled out. Next time we play a team of 40 and 50 year olds, I am going to request a referee of a neutral age. Our 50 year old official just couldn't bare to see his peers engaged in a contact sport against us youngsters and the game quickly switched to a netball-esque match where both boxing out and posting up was questionable. Blocking shots was right out.

3. Strangers and the USA. After a night out at a nearby, multistory club called Cookie, a couple of girls we have known for months left just after us to head home. A complete stranger and his friend began to talk to them outside and upon learning they were American, quickly brought up 9/11 and how it was an inside job and that whole conspiracy theory. Are you kidding me? The first thing you're gonna bring up to a Yank when you meet drunk on the street is 9/11, one of the biggest tragedies in modern history? Then to go on about how Bush and his boys were behind it and all that crap (I'm not defending George W. but still) is ridiculous. Like who are you and what did you do with the arguably normal soul that hopefully used to inhabit your physical being? Woulda been like going up to Prince Paris after Troy gets thrashed and burned and being like, "Hey, I know you guys are blaming the Greeks but we all know who really built that horse." Of course, back then Poseidon would have then swept that a-hole away in a tidal wave, that is if Zeus didn't toss a lightning bolt through his head first. But who knows, maybe that dude's taxi driver robbed him on the way home or he got hit by a bicyclist or something.

4. Final exams. Yeah everyone hates finals; I don't need to get at that. But, here at the University of Melbourne, they came up with this brilliant system of sending us to the fairgrounds or some shit for our finals. Apparently they don't have room for all the finals on campus (even though they had room for all the classes on campus all semester...) and have to ship us out to God-knows-where to take finals in groups. So, now as I sit down to take my plant biodiversity final I'll be with a mix of a few other classes taking their own respective finals. I'll probably end up next to some metaphysics genius who will look deep into my mind to try to cheat on his exam and finding nothing but crassulacean acid metabolism and creeping rhizomes.

Tasmania

October 28-31

On Thursday the 28th, it came time to leave for Tassie. Now the things I had heard about Tasmanians were quite interesting. They mostly consisted of a whole nother breed of people (many of the Aussies suggested at inbreeding...) who were simply different. The rest I had heard was about the fauna: it has a number of unique and weird species of animals running around. The most famous was the Tasmanian devil, a large, carnivorous rodent that looks and acts like it wants to rip your face off. However, this was a species in a lot of trouble because of a mysterious cancer. Anyway, Thursday afternoon three of us grabbed a taxi to head to the airport. It was not the normal taxi ride. For one, our driver was making all these racists comments against the young Indian taxi driver, and how they cannot drive. Then, he had to drop off a package to some woman on the way to the airport and ended up cursing up a storm at her in front of us. We finally arrived at the airport, with just 5 minutes before boarding, and hurried to catch the flight. As soon as we had reached cruising altitude we were on our way back down. The flight was maybe an hour. After getting off the plane, we walked into the airport to find a quarantine test (they do not allow any food, plants, seeds, etc. into Tasmania to keep out diseases that have ruined some Australian crops and other stuff like that). A hound dog sniffed everybody's carry-on and checked bags as they came through. What was incredible was that we watched as the dog sniffed out a huge suitcase, sat down to signal a problem, and the lady produced a small, unopened bag of gardening seeds. Impressive. We headed into Launceston, the second biggest town in Tasmania, to find hardly anything. For those at home, it was maybe like Eugene. If that. We found a backpackers on the edge and the lady in reception straight up laughed when I asked whether they had room for us three on such late notice. Dumb question. We found an Irish bar that night, enjoyed a couple beers, noticed every woman in the bar had a tattoo, and called it an early night. The next day we wandered into town and quickly redirected to the gorge:

No, there are no wild peacocks in Tasmania, but at the end of a gorge was some old British cafe and landing, complete with a number of these exotic birds, a swimming pool and a chairlift across the gorge. The one creature we wanted to see most, an echidna, was nowhere to be found, despite everyone insisting there would be one there. Later in the day, we met up with the Arcadia crew and started driving for Cradle Mtn. National Park. We traveled through tiny towns separated by miles of farmland. Eventually we hit the subalpine zone. I knew because it was suddenly freezing, the trees were starting to disappear, and almost everything was covered by small, basketball sized shrubs. About the same time, we started seeing wombats everywhere. We almost ran over two or three, then would stop the van, jump out and run after them to take pictures. Or at least, everyone else did. I did not take any pictures, just observed these goody looking creatures running around. That night, we stayed in a few cabins in a caravan park, where possums and wallabies shared the camp with us. In the morning, we drove up to Dove Lake in the park and started hiking. We climbed through alpine slopes and pouring rain up to Crater Lake (nothing like the one in Oregon, but very nice) and then further up the ridge towards Cradle Mountain (the one behind the lake that looks like...well, Cradle Mtn). The place was exactly like I expected. Something comparable to the alpine regions of Alaska. Definitely could have been in Middle Earth even though that is New Zealand.


We went out of our way to find a patch of snow (I don't know why, it was already freezing), but it was pretty cool to play in the snow in Australia.



At midday we went back down to the visitor center to dry off and warm off, and this is who I found on the way in (a pademalon, related to kangaroos and wallabies):

In the afternoon, we went back to walk around the lake on a boarded trail. The fog had set in strong and created a beautiful and erie scene. It was time to head through the mines of Moria, the mountains were becoming impassable.







Saruman even sent spies after us:

Later in the evening, after seeing the wallaby below in our camp,

we went to Devils at Cradle. It was a Tasmanian devil sanctuary, a place where devils were raised in captivity to keep healthy individuals around and try to keep a strong gene pool. The problem with these animals is DFTD, or devil facial tumor disease. It is a cancer transferred from devil to devil through skin grafts swapped during aggressive behavior, where two devils will snarl and clash snouts/jaws. It has wiped out a majority of the population and left such a small number that inbreeding depression is taking over (maybe this is where the inbreed jokes about the Tasmanians come from). Anyway, these animals are incredible, mean and worth saving.

We found out a few crazy things. One is that their normal heart rate is 200 bpm. Two is that they are called devils because as they fight and get angry, they cannot pant efficiently enough to give off heat. Instead, blood rushes to their ears and turns them bright red. Three is that Taz from the Looney Tunes is depicted spinning all the time because when devils get pissed, they pace in circles. As they get more agitated, the circle becomes tighter and tighter until they are almost spinning. Four, a devil will eat about half of its body weight in a 5 minute sitting. We got to watch these devils feed, as a trainer took out wallaby legs and let them go at it. We also saw its closest relative, the Spotted Coal, which drops out of trees to attack its prey below. Really sick.

That was about the end of our trip. On Sunday, we did a couple short walks in the rain before heading back to Launceston. The weather finally shaped up, but all we did was return to the gorge we had been at before. We got back to Melbourne that night to find that all of our friends had celebrated Halloween the night before since Saturday night was more fun. First Halloween I've ever missed, but worth it.

Spring Break Installment 7

October 1-4

After an extensive clean-up sesh, we ditched the van and lugged our bags to the train station. We immediately went all the way back down to Surfer's Paradise and found this where the connecting bus dropped us off:

A shuttle bus from our hostel brought us from the bus stop near city center to our beachside hostel, where we moved into a room with two girls (who we weren't told we'd be living with). Long story short, one of the girls moved out after the first night. The other was a trooper and stuck it out, even coming out with us one of the ensuing nights. The next morning, we went out to the beach to find no surfers and hardly a paradise. The rain was pouring, the ocean was choppy, etc. etc. We abandoned our beach tendencies and wandered into town to find an interesting scene. I had been told Surfer's was a beachside city, and I'd seen it from a distance. What I did not know was that it would be lined with Guccis, Louis Vattons and Starbucks. This was hardly what I imagined a surfer would consider paradise. For those of you at home, this was Bridgeport Village on the beach. We also found the first Wendy's we'd seen in Australia, only it wasn't Wendy's (notice the rain coats):
After killing the morning, we found a large bar showing the (second) footy grand final on a bunch of flat screens and settled in. Collingwood smoked St. Kilda. I mean not even close. I bet on the line, with St. Kilda +35 points or something like that. Well, they didn't even cover the spread. I couldn't believe in a professional sport, the theoretically two best teams that tied their first championship game could be so unequal just a week later. I got screwed. That day as well as the next, which was as equally miserable, I found myslef either in a giant arcade called TimeZone, sitting at a random bar watching college football, or going out to one of the many student-filled clubs and meeting some awesome - and also rather interesting - people.
On the last day of our stay in Surfer's (and our adventure), the sun finally came out. Surfer's Paradise at least turned into somewhat of a paradise, even though there were still zero to few surfers on the waves. The beach was packed at intermittent swim zones where lifeguards barked orders through megaphones at the swimmers (us). Seeing as it was our last day of break and the first nice day in Surfer's, I figured I would get some sun before heading back to the rain in Melbourne. Dumb, I got burned. Not as bad as Hughesy and Gregg at the beginning in Cairns (I thought they had immediately contracted skin cancer), but still pretty bad.

The trip had come and gone in a blink of an eye, but it felt like it was time to head home to Melbourne. I was ready to stop living out of my backpack, but the trip had been absolutely amazing. It felt like we had really seen Australia, the kind on all of the adventure and tourist brochures (minus the yachts, cruises, and obviously the Outback). We got home by about midnight, and lucky for us we had to go surfing for a class (no joke) at 730 in the morning. After all, who needs sleep.

Spring Break Installment 6

September 28-30th

After listening to the strangest animals I've ever heard from inside the tent all night, we got up early to head over to Tin Can Bay, a short drive from Rainbow Beach. Every morning, a couple of volunteers feed two local dolphins, which return almost every morning to the boat ramp for a few kilos of fish before starting their daily feeding out in the ocean. We arrived just in time to catch a glimpse for a few minutes, and I got just this one picture before they left.

We loaded up and drove back over to Rainbow Beach to hang for a few hours, where we found bigger waves than anywhere before. After bodysurfing for awhile, we packed up and headed south towards Byron Bay.
We stopped in a town called Nimbin in the hills, a place everyone had told us to see. Turns out it is a tiny town but a huge hippie spot. The buildings were almost all painted like the magic bus or something, most stores sold rasta apparel and Che shirts, and the following business hours sign probably gives you an idea.

Anyway, the town was in a beautiful location in the hills that reminded me a lot of the farmlands of coastal Oregon. Feeling like I was at home somehow (the furthest I've ever been from home) was a great feeling.
When we got to Byron Bay, it was nearly impossible to find a place to stay. Apparently during school holidays, this was to place to go. We ended up in a caravan park down the road a few miles hanging with this guy:
He must've followed us all the way down from Crystal Cascades where we saw him in the rainforest. Anyway, Byron Bay proved to be a great spot. Except that someone stole my towel and board shorts (which were hidden inside the rolled towel) from in front of a coffee shop. Who steals a towel? Nice one ass hole. Good thing I had a backup pair. We got in some surfing on rental boards, although the waves were above and beyond what we could handle. It was a battle to run the gauntlet of waves just to get out and try to catch one. We also learned that there was a shark out past where we were surfing for most of the time, which was a spectacle for the people on the shore but apparently not really a concern for everyone surfing...?
Later on we drove up a small, winding road to the lighthouse to do something touristy. It was a good decision and provided a great lookout point to the surrounding area and the perfect spot for a group photo before heading back to Brisbane the next day.




The van got dropped off in Brisbane, Sam went his way into the city and the four of us remaining hopped on the train and went right back down to Surfer's Paradise, a seaside city complete with highrises, Starbucks and a looooooong beach.

The next blog will detail our time in Surfer's, but there was one thing I wanted to mention about Brisbane. The main motorway/highway is a toll road, but rather than using simple tollbooths or EZ passes like in the states (where we know how to do tolls, apparently), you have to call a hotline, give them your credit card information, and a complete, thorough description of your vehicle. In our case, that included where we had rented the campervan, where we were going, etc. The whole process must have taken ten minutes on the phone. Worst system ever.

Spring Break Installment 5

September 25-27

When I woke up about midday in Airlie Beach, disoriented as to exactly where we were and what was going on, I looked out the back of the old beater to see resorts and vacation homes sprouting from green hills and a full marina sitting over opal waters. We were in the Whitsundays, known as one of the most beautiful places in Australia. It definitely was. We drove around town, finding that there was actually no beach on the mainland (only on the boat-accessible islands nearby). After securing a campsite, we rolled back into town to find a bar to watch the AFL (Australian Rules Football League) grand final (championship). There were a couple of bars filled with loyal fans to either St. Kilda or Collingwood (boo...) and we picked one on the sole basis that it was closest to the van and had a bartender who was throwing bottles around like nobody's business. Anyway, the 4th quarter ended with the two teams tied. We figured we would grab another beer for overtime when people started to leave. There's no overtime in footy. The two teams would play, again, the next Saturday. Great.

The next day, after realizing we had missed any shot at getting out to the islands and the famous Whitehaven Beach, we screwed around for most of the day and I managed to do a half hour or so of fishing. Caught a handful of fish that aren't worth mentioning, and this was my last one:
Very interesting coloring, but what was crazy was that while reeling it in, a bigger garfish attacked it and just wouldn't let go. This is a garfish (obviously not my picture):

It eventually did loosen its clamp when the two fish were almost at my feet, and slowly swam off on the water's surface.

For the afternoon, we drove up a dirt road to a local swimming hole/water fall, kicked back with a couple brews and enjoyed the sun (probably too much - imagine in Billy Madison when he "falls asleep" by the pool for a few hours before dinner with all his dad's clients).

We headed over to Conway Beach before sunset and found a mucky, mussel-covered river mouth at low tide. I tiptoed through a colony of thousands of little crabs, can't tell you what they were, and took a few casts with the fishing rod. I didn't catch anything and couldn't see much because the water was so muddy. However, about fifteen feet out from me, something fairly large and incredibly creepy poked a set of nostrils and eyes out of the water to look at me twice, quickly submerging again when it realized I was looking right at it. I still have no idea what it was, but my best guess was a dugong, the Australian sea cow/manatee (also obviously not my picture):

That night I had some more incredible fish and chips and a lovely chat with a random Australian couple on vacation. That night, we set out on our all-night, 8 hour drive down to Agnus Water & 1770. Hughesy and I took the first shift, or I took the wheel with Hughesy "spotting" (falling asleep) in the front seat. Hughesy took a quick shift, I passed out in the back and didn't wake up until midway through Chris and Gregg's shift. They got lucky and had so much fog you could only see a car length or two in front of the van. I didn't wake up again until we were in Agnus Water, parked by the beach with Chris and Gregg sleeping on the beach. Must've been a beautiful sight for the morning beach goers and surfers. We only spent the morning there, since there was nothing to be seen but the ocean and the sun (which was fine, but didn't offer a whole lot past swimming and tanning). We spent the rest of the day driving towards Rainbow Beach, which looks like its just down the coast a few hours. It's not. We drove all afternoon through what looked like the Great Plains (no longer 'Nam) and made a nice stop in the po-dunk town of Rosedale, which I think is where Deliverance was filmed, and later 8 mile road, which I think is where 8 Mile Road was filmed.. We also realized the van was absolutely guzzling gas. I mean making a Hummer look like a Prius. That evening the oil light came on as well. Great, so we are driving hours and hours to a place that might not even exist and the van is breaking down. Well we made it after almost running out of gas a couple times. The next day we figured out the van was sucking because the O/D Off light was on. We were driving on nothing but 100-110 km/hr highways without our top gear. No wonder.