Good On Ya, Grampians!

feet are back on the ground, for now.

So, we're back from a Sunday to Wednesday extreme camping trip to the Grampians National Park! Lead by the "Outdoor Guru" who is actually the most amazing, informative, knowledgeable, active, intense, nice, jokes, everything good you can think of 60 year old man who knows this rock scape like the back of his hand, and an actual pirate.

So camping, right? Easy, peasy. Until they tell us that they don't use tents. This is what we slept in... and yeah it does get cold in Australia... two pairs of leggings, sweatpants, t-shirt, two sweaters, two pairs of socks on my feet and one on my hands, scarf, headband, sleeping bag completely covering my face, spoon train. We survived somehow...

So other than sleeping outside, we climbed, abseiled, belayed and lowered each other up and down cilffs from 20 to 42 metres high and climbed walls from grade 5 to grade 18 levels (by Australian standards) ...if that means anything to anyone!

I'm running short on time so here are some pictures to get a bit of a feel of what we did!

 Just so you know.. this is school. This was a field lab for practical evaluation for our Theory and Application of Rock Climbing class. It was probably the coolest thing I've done thus far and the people in our class are all really cool too. I also think my calling might be rock climbing and after our next "field lab" I might have to start getting serious about this sport....

Anyways, it was a great week and a reallly great experience although I'm so pooped I feel like a bus ran over me. I'm off the rocks for now and back on the ground at home to get a couple short hours of sleep because in the morning I'll be back off in the air on my way to Thailand until April 5!

Sincerely,
AUS

how you going, P. Sherman?

Sydney.

A couple more 4am wake-ups and another city, state and a couple landmarks crossed off the list after this weekend!

After chasing Joe around the world with DK Multimedia's: My First Amazing World Explorer and sending postcards home to the computer game characters for the greater part of my childhood, I finally got to send my own postcard home from the real place! Before going to Sydney, the only knowledge I had about the city (thanks to Joe) consisted of what is explained in that picture on the right.

I gotta say, seeing it in real life rrrrreally was something!

We checked into our hostel. Despite the fact that it was called "Asylum", was located in Sydney's red light district at the end of a sketchy alley that smelled strongly of urine and was inhabited by people like "Cheffy" the toothless, former Olympic swimmer with a strict diet of oranges, who couldn't wrap their heads around the fact that we would only be staying for a couple days and not live there permanently... it provided us with free cornflakes, white bread and marmalade breakfasts every morning, was walking distance from the Harbour, and had a fantastic view of the city! 

So once we arrived we headed to Bondi Beach. As usual we lay on the beautiful beach, played in the surf, and took a nice scenic walk along the coast.

The next morning I greeted the day early with a nice walk to Paddy's Market in Chinatown along with a stroll through and around Darling Harbour with Steph and Erin!

Of course, this was all before 10am... because then we had to head over to the Harbour Bridge for our climb!!! Yes, I know it was expensive but luckily we swung a sweet half price deal through a couple trusty connections. The sights from up there were spectacular! We got a nice work-out, a great view of the Opera House and the entire Harbour from the 134m peak, and and interesting history lesson. If you notice the stone structures on either side of the iron bridge you'd be interested to know they do absolutely nothing by means of supporting the bridge. The bridge was designed so thoroughly that every single block of granite in those structures were designed to be a different size and were cut so perfectly that it was put together neatly like a puzzle with no adjustments needed. There are no cameras or anything allowed up there so we had to pay $26 for this beaut of a picture...

Once we got our feet back on the ground Liza, Amy and I hopped on a ferry and headed over to Manly Beach.

Yet another early morning for Steph, Erin and I as we hopped on a bus and drove about an hour and a half outside the city to see the Blue Mountains! I was excited to find that they really are blue, thanks to the abundance of eucalyptus trees that make up the major vegetation of the cool temperate rainforest throughout the gorge. The trees release their oils and moisture into the air which creates a blue haze when UV light passes through it. Neat. We went to a couple different look-outs, saw the famous Three Sisters mountains, and climbed ventured into the rainforest down the Furber Steps and stood under the Katoomba Falls.

Well, that was beauuuuutiful! After a full day of taking that in, we drove back to the city with a quick detour through the Olympic Village! Then my last stop was a tour of the Rocks. This is a neat old area of Sydney that was established after the colonization in 1788. The city has done great work to preserve parts of old buildings and keep a great historic feel to the area.

That pretty much sums up the trip! Since I was my usual self and decided last minute on the Blue Mountains tour I didn't end up getting to see the Royal Botanical Garden, which is unfortunate and slightly disappointing... but not as disappointing as the fact that Nemo was no where to be found!

Our last night finished up with a grrrreat fireworks display over the Opera House which we viewed from our hostel window, then it was up again at 4am to catch our plane home.

Still wishing Wallaby Way was real,

Sincerely,

AUS

P.S. The rest of March is about to get crazy for me! On the morning of the 17th I'm headed off the the Grampians National Park to camp and climb rocks until the 20th for my rock climbing class, and then on the morning of the 21st I'm headed to Thailand until April 4th! Soooo if you don't hear from me, try not to worry and I'll post as soon as I can! In the meantime, Happy Easter... I'll be missing my fave dinner of the year and the fam on Good Friday!!