Happy Halloween

I've been in Adelaide for almost a week now but still haven't actually seen Adelaide. I have been seeing plenty and hanging out with two of my favorite people in the world, Myst and Maximus from camp, so I am not complaining. Plus it looks like I might be here for a while so I have plenty of time to see everything (which apparently isn't too much) in the city. I arrived in Adelaide last Thursday morning after flying all night from Perth so I spent most of my first day sleeping. When Myst and Max got home from work we began to catch up on everyting that had happened in the past year, since this was their first summer not at camp in 5 years. Friday I ended up lounging around their house again and then we all went out to dinner with Myst's parents and brother at the Chinese restaurant that they "always go to." The three of us arrived at a restaurant and waited a while before calling Myst's family to see why they were late. The conversation, which I heard one sided from Myst's cell phone, went a little like this. "umm, are you coming? What do you mean you're there, we're there. Where are you? Umm, that is not the Chinese restaurant we always go to, we've been there once and we've been here about 20 times. Fine, we'll see you soon." We quickly exited the almost Chinese restaurant we were at for the new restaurant that Myst's family "always eats at." Dinner was good and it was fun to meet relatives and afterwards Myst and I went out to a pub with her brother and his friends. Myst quickly discovered that she and I and the girls her brother was friends with shared a love of musicals and invited them all over for a sleepover. i should mention that Myst is the world's most fun drunk. The next morning we both woke up on the couch and had to get ready to go to Myst's godsister's engagement party. It was another day meeting friends and relatives and eating lots of barbeque and desserts. We also discovered from Myst's father that she had broken a toilet the night before. We were both very confused and decided that she must have broken one at the pub and forgotten it and that her brother had told her dad. It turned out she had broken one in her house in the middle of the night by slamming the lid down and then woken up Max to tell him. Oops. The next day we all went to lunch at one of Myst's friends' houses where I met a bunch of her high school friends. This was another full day of eating and drinking champagne. After the luncheon max and I dropped off Myst and her friend Vanessa at their house and then went on a spree to find an open grocery store (a difficult task in Australia on a Sunday evening since most stores close at 5) so that we could bake chocolate chip cookies. We got back home a little over an hour to find that Myst and Vanessa had already drank a bottle of champagne and had started on the next one and were having a concert. After eating cookies and more champagne the three girls decided to watch several movie musicals and sing along while Max went to bed. we stayed up until 4 in the morning when i finally went to bed and left Myst watching the Phantom of the Opera for the seocnd time that night. It was a sunday night so the next morning i woke up and joined Myst on the couch where she was calling in sick to work. She then proceeded to sleep until about 2 in the afternoon before we watched more movies together until Max came home from work. Yesterday Myst's mother, Pat, picked me up in the morning and brought me to see a pioneer village that she had been to about 10 years ago. The village was made up of a bunch of old buildings, cars, and artifacts from around South Australia. It had seen better days. Most of the buildings were full of cobwebs and birds's nests and it was obvious no one had touched the place in many years. Pat was dissapointed but there were some interesting things to see. Next we headed off to Hahndorf, a German village. It turns out that besides British convicts there was also a large number of German settlers who came to Australia. The town had a bunch of cute shops and art galleries and German restaurants. Back at Max and Msyt's we had cheese on toast for dinner and an hour long discussion/debate about Dumbledore being outed by J.K. Rowling. There is a great article at ew.com for anyone interested. Myst and I decided to watch Harry Potter at around midnight since she was not working in the morning the next day. Sadly, we both managed to sleep until 11 today and myst still had to be into work at 3 today so our plan of seeing a museum turned into going to the mall and buying dvds and looking at travel brochures. She dropped me off at the library before heading off to work and I picked up a few books and am finally updating this blog (happy mom and dad?)Adelaide is great but don't expect too many exciting blog posts that don't involve musicals and champagne as long as I am here.

Attack of the Quokkas

So since I have taken a week off from blogging my life I am going to do my best to remember what I have been up to this past week. Western Australia has been great, and reasonably cool which I've enjoyed after the tropics of Queensland and Darwin. I've been spending a lot of time just hanging out in my friend Sarah's flat and talking with college students studying abroad here. Sarah and I spent a day in Perth where we climbed to top of the Swan Bells. Its a glass bell tower that was built in 1988 to hold some old church bells from England that were going to get recast. It was a pretty building but not the most exciting tour and we didn't even get to hear the bells ring. We then went to King's Park, which is bigger than Central Park, and climbed about a million stairs to get there from the bus stop. We had lunch at a war memorial and it promptly began to rain on us. We ran to the gift shop and spent the next hour reading a book about experimental travel and waiting for the rain to stop. After that we decided to try one of the experimental travel gamesd where you pick a random person and follow them and see where you end up. We chose a middle aged couple with canadian flags on their bags and stalked them through the city until they turned into their hotel. Luckily they had led us to the center of Perth where we did some shopping (or looking in my case) before meeting up with some of Sarah's friends for dinner. We ate at an Indian restaurant where the food is cooked and served by volunteers and you pay whatever you feel like. It was good food and we ate a lot and did actually pay for it before heading out to Northbridge to check out the nightlife. One of the girls, Jacqui, had her heart set on going to a tiki bar she had read about so we spent about half an hour asking all the bouncers how to get to the Hula Bula bar. None of them had heard of it. During our trek I began to notice that the streets were full of Americans, especially American men. I had only met about 2 other Americans total elsewhere in Australia so I was a little confused. It turned out the US Navy was docked in Perth for a few days after touring Iraq. This meant the streets were soon full of loud drunken sailors. We finally gave up on finding the Hula Bula bar and settled a pretty cool place called the Brass Monkey which had a wine bar attached to it. We didn't stay too long, thanks to the sailors, before heading back home. The next day I was planning on spending in Fremantle again but broke my retainer off eating an apple and spent the day finding my way to a dentist instead.
Sarah had been saving up some of her Perth area tourits activities for when I arrived so she, Jacqui, and I spent Friday on a wine tour of the Swan Valley. Everything we had was very good but I don't think any of us learned anything except that we really like wine and cheese and chocolate. Of course we had Navy people on our tour but they were very civilised. After the tour ended and feeling pretty great Jacqui and I decided to try and find the Hula Bula bar again. We asked at about 10 places before we finally discovered it and were not disapointed. The drinks were really yummy and came in bowls and had plastic toys in them to play with. I think in total we spent over an hour trying to locate the one bar.
This weekend we went on a camping trip to Rottnest Island, a 30 minute ferry ride away. The island was named "Rat's Nest" by the Dutch explorers because it is full of quokkas, which lool like giant rats but are actually small wallabies. Apparently the Dutch used live quokkas as soccer balls because when kicked they rolled up into balls and didn't try and run away or defend themselves. We were about to learn that these are the dumbest animals around and it is a miracle they have survived evolution. Sarh, jacqui, Rachel and I got to the island mid afternoon and headed to our campsite to set up our borrowed tent. Our borrowed tent turned out to be bright green with flowers and the words "hippy hut" painted on the side. Also, it turned out to be made for two people instead of four. While putting it together we saw our first quokka and got very excited and took lots of pictures. We had broken the zipper of our tent door (oops) but thought we were good to go rent some bikes. When we returned we found two quokkas inside of our tent eating our food. We screamed and yelled and even threw a stick at them but just looked up at us and stood there unfazed. Quokkas were starting to lose their cuteness. We tied our food up in a tree and fixed the tent zipper before heading off on a 3 hour bike ride of the island. I have not really ridden a bike in 10 years but it is true that it come back to you. We rode up and down hills around the coast looking at beaches and cliffs and lighthouses. back at our campsite we cooked potatoes and fish on the grill and watched about a million quokkas come out as it got dark. We played cards for a while before trying to squeeze all of us into the hippy hut. It was maybe the most uncomfortable night's sleep I have ever gotten. Between having no space and no sleeping bag and dumb quokkas occasionally running into our tent I maybe got 3 hours sleep total. The next morning Sarah and I got up to go on a dive. We ended up being the only two people on the dive boat. maybe because the water was still freezing. We had full wetsuits on but after 45 minutes underwater were both turning purple when we got out. It was worth it since we saw a big fat stingray which came out of nowhere and almost gave us and our guide heart attacks. We got to swim inside of a cave and saw lots of pretty little blue fish and colorful seagrass. Sarah brought her underwater camera so I will actually have some pictures to show. After the dive we went and took a nap on a beach, grilled dinner, watched the sunset, and watched the movie Ratatouille before braving the quokka infested streets and attempting another night's sleep in the hippy hut. We took and early morning ferry before all falling asleep for a few hours in real beds. Tomorrow night I wil be leaving for Adelaide to hang out with Myst and Maximus, two of my favorite camp people! I'm off to help make tacos for dinner!

west coast

I got the shuttle bus from my hostel to the Darwin airport Sunday afternoon. When I got off I discovered that a giant grease stain had mysteriously appeared on the front of my shorts. NOt only was it somewhat embarrassing to walk through the airport but it also means that my one pair of shorts is now ruined and I still have no idea where the grease stain came from. When I checked into the airline the lasy asked me the standard question of if I wanted a window or an aisle seat. Then she asked me who I wanted to sit by. Did I want to sit next to a nice handsome man she asked? I laughed but she said the last guy she checked in wasn't bad and she would sit me next to him. When I got to Perth I got in trouble because a produce sniffing dog discovered that I had an apple in my bag that I had completely forgotten about. You are not allowed to bring fruits and vegetables across state lines. I got a small lecture about that but they seemed to believe that I was forgetful and wasn't deliberantly trying to sneak a lone apple into Western Australia from the Northern Territory.
I am staying in a suburb of Perth with Sarah (or Tiger) another camp friend. She is studying abroad here and has kindly offered me an air mattress and some floor space for as long as I would like. I would like to stay here a long time. She is about a 20 minute bus ride from the town of Fremantle, my favorite city so far in Australia. It is full of coffee shops, bookstores, Italian restaurants, and funky clothing stores. I want to move here. Our first night we went to a microbrewery called Little Creatures which according to my guidebook "offers the best beer in town and the trendiest set of Freo locals." It had some amazing ale and cider, great views of the harbor, and a very cool atmosphere. After that we moved to the Newport hotel for some delicious pizzas. We got back to Sarah's dorm room and decided to watch Finding Nemo. I have been wanting to watch this since Cairns so was very excited. However I ended up falling asleep after Nemo's mother gets eaten, basically 3 minutes in. I might try again tonight while Sarah's at the library.
Today I went back into Freo and walked around and fell more in love with the place. I had some fish and chips and sat in a coffee shop before going on a tour of the Fremantle prison. It was built by the convicts in the 1850's and closed down just 16 years ago. I saw where people were tortured and hung not too long ago. It was pretty interesting. Tonight after dinner I finally got to try the Tim Tam slam. Tim Tams are a delicous chocolate covered and filled cookie that is kind of like what Oreos are to America (although I think much better tasting.) For the Tim Tam slam yo ubite an edge of both ends of the cookie and then dip one end into a cup of coffee. YOu then suck on the other end and as soon as you feel liquid you drop the cookie into your mouth and it is all melted and mushy and wonderful. I also spent today starting to get my pictures online (yay!) It has been more difficult than I expected so I still don't have all of them online, but here are links to some of them!
Sydney http://colby.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2018864&l=fa2e8&id=15400598
Brisbane and the Whitsundays http://colby.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2018867&l=327ce&id=15400598
Queensland http://colby.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2018895&l=f5301&id=15400598

I will post pics of the Outback and the Top End as soon as possible!

Kakadu Dreams

On Tuesday I left behind the Great Barrier Reef and flew to Darwin, a small city at the top middle of Australia. It was bombed pretty badly by the Japanese during World War II and then destroyed again by a cyclone in the 70's. I arrived at my hostel around 9 pm and quickly realized that I would not ever be picking a hostel that was not in my guide book again. The place was pretty gross and my bed was a very thin mattress in a huge dorm room. I decided to spend the night doing laundry and going to bed early so that I would be well rested for my camping trip leaving the next morning. Sadly that was not to be the case. Around 11:30 just as I was about to fall asleep the very drunk Irishman in the top bunk next to mine rolled out of his bed and landed with a thud onto the floor. He let out a few whimpers but would not wake up when the person under his bed and tried to shake him. We decided to leaving him sleeping on the floor in between our beds, which meant that I had him snoring loudly practically next to my face. Eventually he rolled under my bed and got stuck there and kept kicking the bed. I tried shaking him again and considered kicking him in the head but it was still uselss. It was almost 2 am at this point and I was still not asleep and needed to be up at 6 for my trip. I decided that i couldn't take it anymore and called my friend Caitlin back home to complain. After that I found an empty room and brought my sheets there and got about 3 hours of sleep before checking out of the hostel. When I told the girl at the front desk what had happened she let me know that the room I had slept in was unoccupied because it was infested with bed bugs. I quickly booked a new hostel for when I returned from my trip and then hopped into a van to get taken to Kakadu National Park.
According to my guidebook kakadu is Australia's most famous national park. There were 9 people on my tour plus the tour guide. We all sat in the back of a 4 wheel drive on bench seats and bounced around throughout the wilderness for 3 days. Our first stop was a river cruise to see jumping crocs. Basically a lady tied some steaks to a big stick and held it out over the river and the crocodiles jumped a few times as she dangled it over there heads before letting them have it. Pretty cool. We then headed to the town of Humpty Doo (hehe) to pick up spme supplies (lots of beer) and then drove to our first hike. We climed up some boulders and such to a waterfall and for swimming in some springs. It was as hot as New Orleans in the summer and I don't think I have ever sweated so much. I jumped into the first sping expecting to hot some cool, refreshing water. The water was pretty much the same temperature as the air. We climbed up through a series of springs until we got to one that actually felt cool and then jumped from spring to spring back down. We arrived at our campsite and had some kangaroo for dinner and I fell asleep immediately upon hitting my sleeping bag about 3 hours before everyone else, thanks to the drunken Irishman.
The next morning we drove down some incredibly bumpy roads to see some wetlands and then another waterfall. Since the back of the 4 wheel drive did not have seatbelts we were all required to use one (or two) hands to hold on to the ceiling and try not to get thrown out of our seats. It was about 800 degrees plus humidity but we wnet another hike/boulder climb to see the falls. The falls turned out to be black streaks on a cliff where the water falls during the wet season. (Weather in the Top End is divided into two seasons, the wet and the dry, right now it is the end of the dry.) The scenery was still amazing though. We swam once again in pool the temperature of a hot tub and then climbed over some more rocks to a largher and actually kind of cold pool! However, to get there we climbed barefoot on boiling hot boulders. My feet still burn several days later. We spent maybe an hour swimming around before hopping and swearing back across the boiling rocks and then clmbing back down the trail. Most bodies of water are closed for swimming in kakadu thanks to crocodile infestation. At one point of the hike their were showers that pumped water out of the no swimming allowed river to cool you down and prevent people from choosing death by crocodile over death by heat and not being allowed to jump into the water. That night we camped out by a billabong where 5 years ago a tourist was eaten by a croc when her tour guide led their whole group for a swim. Also, we saw a wild boar on our drive in and were warned that snakes were everywhere in the grass so that you needed to bring a buddy with you anytime you went to the bathroom. Feeling very safe and secure we set up our camp, had dinner, and then went on a nature walk to look for wildlife (i.e. crocs and deadly snakes.) Not really wanting to go but not wanting to stay behind alone at the campsite I chose the walk. About 2 minutes into it a brown snake slithered in front of my feet. I was pretty excited to be the first one to spot anything and also not to have stepped on the snake and got bitten and died. It turned out to be the 3rd most poisonous snake in the world. We saw another one and then saw a snake lying very still in the road. It was the non-poisonous kind and it turned out it was dead because we had driven over its tail. Everyone posed for pictures with the dead snake and then began trying to finsih the beer. In the middle of the night the other girl in my tent and I woke up to pee thanks to the beer. We opened our tent and saw a snake lying right outside of it. Due to being half asleep and somehwat drunk we stared at it for about a full minute before realizing it was the dead snake that someone had kindly placed in front of our tent. Now too afraid to walk all the way to the bathroom we decided to just squat on the other side of the van and get back into our tent as quickly as possible. The next morning we drove away from the terrifying campsite and went to see some ancient aboriginal art painted on the sides of rocks and then to another croc free billabong for some swimming and canoeing.
We got back to Darwin and i checked into my new (much nicer and guidebook approved) hostel before heading out for dinner with my group. Darwin might not have a lot to do but it does have a very interesting nightlife. We were greeted at the place where were having dinner and drinks by a group of girls dressed in underwear and cowboy chaps and very little else. We competed in some interesting competions to win free drinks (sadly we were not winners.) The cowboy girls then began dancing on the bar and we decided to move on someplace else. I ended up at a gigantic nightclub called Discovery and danced the night away until 4 in the morning. I am not a nightclub fan but this place was amazing, and also had some hilarious people watching. The next day I did laundry again and then decided to walk around Darwin. I made it to the waterfront but then decided I was going to melt away so I spent the rest of the day finding air conditioned spots to read and write postcards in. In the evening I met up with Kerstin from my trip to go to the Deckchair Cinema. It's an open air movie theatre on the ocean where you sit in deckchairs and eat dinner and have some drinks and watch a double feature. We first saw the Simpsons movie and the lightning in the sky before it began to rain towards the end of the movie. We got wet but the rain passed pretty quickly and we then saw a movie called Black Sheep about killer sheep in New Zealand that was pretty terrible. I then went straight to bed. Today I tried walking around the city again but couldn't really find anythinig to do. I am off now to the famous (here at least) Mindil beach market to watch the sunset and have some dinner before flying off to Perth tonight. Hopefully it will be exciting!

who needs sleep?

Apparently not me because the world seems to be conspiring against me getting any. I was in bed at 9 the night before last only to hear the beginnings of a very loud concert. Two Australian bands, Silverchair and Powderfinger, were having a hige concert in Cairns pretty much next door to my hostel. So while I did not get to sleep I did get to hear the whole concert for free! I eventually did fall asleep only to be woken up not much later by a very drunk Frenchman who was making very loud kissing noises into his phone. Finally someone got up and told him to be quiet much more nicely than I would have and after replying that it was his best girlfriend in the world he did either hang up or move his converation elsewhere. I was again very excited to get lots of sleep last night since I had no tours or classes to be up for but around 7 one of the hostel's neighbors decided it was a really good time to play the drums. I might just have to wait until I get home to catch up on sleep.
Yesterday I went on a tour to the Atherton Tablelands, which I thought was going to be some good hiking to see some waterfalls. It ended up being just a few short walks to see the impressive Cathedral fig Tree and two waterfalls. sadly, i dropped my camera onto the cement at lunch and it would not work for the rest of the afternoon (it is working again now) so i have no pictures of the waterfalls. Nor do I have any pictures of the wild cassowary we saw, a huge, scary bird that is extremely endangered. Again the trip was nice but a little rushed and I wish i could have spent a few days exploring the tablelands. I am leaving Cairns this afternoon for Darwin, at the very top of Australia, to go on a three day tour of Kakadu national park, so I won't be writing for a few more days. I have decided to wait until I get to Perth in a bout a week where I will have free internet to post pictures.

never smile at a crocodile

So this is my second post in two days and I am feeling very productive! I just got back from my day trip to Cape Tribulation, where the Daintree rainforest meets the Great Barrier Reef. My plans for the rest of the evening include writing this blog, finding dinner, and going to bed. I have not gotten more than 5 or 6 hours of sleep any night this week and almost stayed in bed this morning deliberating whether or not going on the trip that I had already paid for was worth more than sleep. I met up with Yanni and some of his friends last night and watched the Australia vs. Englad rugby game at a casino. Apparently the game was a really big deal, but while watching it I began to wonder how any rugby players live past playing one game. It was another late night but I figured I would just sleep on the bus. Sadly that was not to be. The had to sit in the front next to the driver and didn't want to be rude and go to sleep while he was talking, so I just felt like I might die of tiredness throughout most of the morning. The trip was nice but nothing to amazing. We went on a river cruise and saw two crocs, a big one and a litle baby one, and lots of birds. We did a rainforest walk and saw a crazy looking lizard and the kind of ropes that Tarzan used to swing on. We went swimming at this gorgeous water hole that was croc free, and then went to Cape Tribulation to see the famous rainforest/reef meeting point. It was pretty but no prettier than any other beach. My favorite part of the trip was eating some crazy expotic tropical fruit and then having crazy exotic tropical fruit flavored ice cream. My favorite was chocolate pudding fruit, which looks and feels a lot like chocolate pudding (which I don't like) but tastes like a fig. I did befriend a couple from China who were pretending to be on their honeymoon so that they were able to get a visa. Also, I learned that it is very difficult to buy souvenirs when travelling from China internationally because all the cheap ones are Made in China. This was a problem that I think is kind of hilarious. I also talked to a German girl for a while whose non English speaking mom and aunt were visiting her and driving her crazy. Even with my limited German it was easy to see that she was not happy with anything they did. She seemed happy to vent to me aboutthem for a while. Tomorrow I have another day trip to go hike around some waterfalls but the next day I have no plans and am very excited about that. It's off to find some dinner!

Finding Nemo.. and other creatures of the Great Barrier Reef

I think I may have just found a way to spend even more money in Australia. Just what I needed, but diving is worth it. I just got back from my 2 days on the live aboard boat and am now a certified scuba diver. We spent two days in the classroom and the pool before getting taken out to the boat yesterday at 7 am. We were almost immediately thrown into the water to snorkel around a part of the reef called "The Whale" and immediately saw a turtle. Pretty soon after that we did our first dive and it was incredible. I did seven dives overall on the boat and saw more turtles, a shark, giant Maori Wrasse fish that can bite off your arm, stingrays, these cool slug like worms whose name I can't remember, giant clams, the beautiful but poisonous lionfish, and lots of little Nemo clownfish. Ever since my first dive I have really wanted to watch Finding Nemo and might try and see if my hostel has it (I know I am a loser). I did learn that the plot of the movie is very unrealistic because in the reef in Nemo's mom had died his dad would have soon changed sex and become his mom. I got to do a night dive which was kind of scray but very cool. I saw a fish eat another fish and saw these weird underwater creatures that you could only see when you shone the light on them. My guides had never seen it before. Sleeping on the boat was interesting and not very enjoyable. My roommate and I decided it was like being rocked in a cradle, which was nice until the person rocking the cradle went crazy and you went bouncing against the walls and almost fell out of the bed. I did not get very much sleep, especially since we got woken up at 5:30 am to do a sunrise dive and watch the coral and fishes wake up. I wish that I had more time in Cairns because I would have stayed on the boat and got my advanced diver certificate. I still really want to go to a shipwreck. My next two days are full of day trips to Cape Tribulation to see the rainforest and the Atherton Tablelands to go hiking to some waterfalls. I am excited for them but really just want a day to sleep! So now I am going to go read my guidebook and find all the other places that I can dive in Australia and spend my money even faster!

Tropic Days

Sorry, it's been a few days and this is going to be a quick post cause I am sleepy. I got into Cairns Monday night and have been staying at the cutest hostel, Tropic Days. My room is huge and only has three beds (no bunks, much more exciting than I ever would have thought) and has hammocks and a pool and a dog named Chil Pepper. I have also been taking a scuba diving certification class. There are only two other people in my class and we have two instructors so it has been pretty nice. Tomorrow I head out to the reef and spend the night and get to do 5 dives, including a night dive. I can't wait! I have also met up with my first camp friend and from here on out I think I get to see camp people all the time (yay!) Yanni and I went on a mini pub crawl and I learned that international drunk dialing doesn't really work (stupid time difference.) last night I got to watch some fine Australian tv and eat a delicious dinner made by chef Yanni. My roommates in the hostel were two fun British girls who kept me from going to bed last night and has resulted in me being very tired and ready to go to bed even though it is only 6 pm. There is a pizza party tonight at the hostel but I think I can make it to sleep by 9 if I am lucky. Also, I am very happy because this is the first time I have written on this blog and the directions have been in English. They are usually in Chinese (I think) which has been tricky to figure out, but I seem to have done an ok job at guessing what to do. I am still waiting to find a place where it costs under 4 dollars an hour to use the computer so that I can post photos, but until then Amy has put hers on facebook and tagged me in them, so you can see some there if you have an account.