Wine Tour and Scuba Diving:

nommed by a giant face in Luna Park

On Friday September 10 Sheila, Noah, Katie and I went up to Sydney for the afternoon in preparation for a wine tour in Hunter Valley early Saturday morning.  We wandered around for a while, hitting the Luna Park, an epic amusement park similar to Kiddieland.  We made friends with some really nice clowns.  Then we went to dinner at an awesome vegetarian restaurant that we discovered during our last Sydney visit, and headed back to our hostel to go to bed early.  Unfortunately, our luck with hostels continued to amaze us.  At 2am, Scottish winners came back to our hostel room and decided it was time to have a conversation about hot girls for an hour.  Comfortable.  Then, they were convinced that I was farting in my sleep (unclear where this came from, I had been awake since they got back to the room).  One of the guys kept saying to his friend “she’s fucking farting…. Listen to the air!  The carbon dioxide!  You can’t hear it now dude, but listen, the airrr!”  It took so much effort to pretend I was still sleeping (and apparently farting) at this point.  I am actually proud at how well I held back my laughter.  After awhile, the action died down a bit and we dozed off temporarily.  Only to wake up again to the sound of top bunk Scottish boy peeing the bed in his sleep, which proceeded to seep through the mattress and start dripping on Scottish boy number two.  Of course.  So for the next hour the boy who got peed on screamed at the boy who peed/got him up and out of the room, obviously leaving his communal blanket soaking in pee (comforting).  At this point, it was about 4:30 am and we had to wake up at 6:30 for the wine tour.  Finally time for bed.

Darling Harbour - NO DIVING!

In the morning, I woke up to find that the boy who got peed on was sleeping under me.  It was really a shame that it took so much squeaking and shaking of my bed to get all of my sheets off, I was so sad to have “accidentally” woken him up.  I also found that my nose was rather stuffy, and obviously the only place to use a tissue was right next to his face.  We then said the nicest of goodbyes, and were on our way. 

We started our wine tour at a random national park in Hunter Valley.  I was kind of confused why we were there, we looked at one Aboriginal rock carving and some mangroves, but that was kind of it.  I think they weren’t really sure what to do with us, but sleeping a bit later would have been nice.  Then we went to three different wineries.  One was small and family run, and the other two were bigger. We all liked the family run one best.  We also stopped at an awesome cheese store. 

simulating a dinner party?  I have
cool friends.

On Sunday, I went scuba diving again at Shell Harbor with Karen and some other friends.  The first dive of the morning was similar to our refresher dive.  I got to hold a cuttlefish this time (well technically I cuddled the cuttlefish…).  In the afternoon, we got to ride around on a bunch of underwater scooters.  On this dive, we saw a massive cuttlefish and a weedy sea dragon with a bunch of baby eggs. 

FUN FACT:  Go watch Finding Nemo.  You’ll learn some valuable information.  Not all scuba divers are mean and scary like that dentist though. 

Aboriginal ghost carving.  You can't really see all if it, I'll look for a better photo.

Scuba Diving, Wodi Wodi Bushwalk, Tomerong

On September 3 Karen and I went to do a refresher scuba diving course in Shell Harbour.  Our dive instructor Mick had clearly been diving in the area forever, and all of the creatures knew him and want to play with us.  We got to feed a massive blue grouper, and see a bunch of eels, a ray, and even a cuttlefish ink! 

HOT BOD ALERT:  Karen and I definitely looked like Ralphie from A Christmas Story

On Saturday, we had another fieldtrip centered to the Wodi Wodi park, where we went on a bushwalk.  Wodi Wodi is a sacred indigenous site.  Along the way, we saw the affects of fire on local landscapes, and made friends with a bunch of leeches.  I was lucky enough to get the first leech of the trip, probably because I’m the best.  It rained for most of the day, which wasn’t ideal, but otherwise it was a cool trail.

Noah and I at the top of the Wodi Wodi trail.  Note my awesome geologizing outfit.

Sheila and I spent the rest of the weekend in Tomerong at my roommate Jake’s house.  Tomerong is near Jervis Bay, which is a big whale-watching place with lots of nice beaches.  Although Sunday’s weather was even worse (an epic low pressure system created an even more epic windstorm, the power was out between Tomerong and Wollongong, which is about an hour and a half by train) we still got to see all of the beaches, and explore the town a bit. 

FUN FACT:  Australian soils are super infertile because there hasn’t been any sweet geology in awhile.  The soils are as old as Squidney, formed from even older rocks, and have had a long time to become leached and degraded.

Squydney:

Noah and I at the top of the Harbor Bridge

I went to Sydney from August 27-29.  Laura, Noah, and I headed up Friday so that Noah and I could do the Harbor Bridge climb.  If I were to do one thing over again in Sydney, it would be the bridge climb.  We took the night hike because we missed our train earlier (and then almost our second train. fail.).  However, that turned out being wonderful because we got to see the sun set over the city. 

That night was yet another interesting hostel experience (we’re getting good at these).  Little did we know when we booked our hostel that it was located in strip club central.  Oops.  Don’t worry mom, I didn’t go into any, just pointed and laughed from the outside.  And got some business cards for Michelle….

Laura, Mark and I on the Harbor Cruise

On Saturday morning Laura and I went to an art museum, where we wandered around for a bit.  It was no Art Institute, but it was cool to see some aboriginal art.  Later, we got all fancy and went on the Harbor Cruise, which my dorm had rented out for the night.  Basically, everyone dressed up and got to ride the boat around the harbor.  After seeing the city from the top of the Harbor Bridge, it was cool floating around and seeing it all at eye level.  Furthermore, its always an experience seeing people dress up who typically look like bums (aka me). 

On Sunday morning, we went to a Jewish/Holocaust museum, where we learned about the Holocaust refugees that moved to Australia.  From there, we all went to the semifinal rugby league game (Sydney Roosters vs. Manly Sea Eagles).  Although I didn’t totally get what was happening the whole time, I followed most of it, which was exciting. Many years of soccer coaching must have helped team Sydney, because the Rooster’s won 30-14. 

Let's pretend this is a good picture.

FUN FACT:  There are many animals in Australia that can kill you, ranging from box jellyfish and blue ringed octapi to Hunstman spiders.  There’s also the cassowary, which is known for its ability and desire to disembowel its victims.  However, the most deadly of all is the drop bear, which will sit up in trees and jump down on you unexpectedly.