Trip Appendix - As of Jan. 29/09
the trip so far.
HEREIN LIE THE CONTENTS
1. Places
2. Lessons
3. Lingo
4. Music
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1. Places
Sydney: Our daily lives were basically: surfing, then being touristy, then collapsing from exhaustion at crazy early hours. (We eventually adjusted).
Go to: Manly beach (classic surftown boardwalk), freshwater beach (location of our first surf…kind of), Bondi beach
(adjacent to an amazing Cliffside jogging route), Sydney harbour (the opera house), The Rocks (like the Distillery, but bigger, plus almost as good theatre).
Buy: Amazing $2 sushi. Little else (their shopping is woefully inferior to ours. Though apparently I didn’t check out the good spots).
There’s a lot more cool stuff that we didn’t get to, quoth Laura. I found out that I am very impressed by cities wherein ferries are as common as buses.
I could probably live here.
Hunter valley: My first wine tour(s). Turns out that people do them to get afternoons full of free drinks. Who knew. Also, mind-blowing selection of cheese.
Mind-blowing.
Diamondhead Campsite: where we lived with the kangaroos.
My first public camping experience (representative image: medieval gypsy caravans, in the key of a roving encampment). Our crippling lack of preparation (no lantern, no soap, no peanut butter to go with Jelly as a result of Cam’s shopping abilities – seriously, he can understand the scaffolding of computer programs but he forgets the peanut butter after buying the bread and the jam? Baffling) redeemed only by the shocking, unsolicited generosity of Australian camper families. Also got our first official surf lesson from a wandering surf vagabond.
(before:)
(after:)
Port Macquarie: good hostel, fun kayak, it’s like a slightly bigger Windermere. Don’t go here. Though the koalas were kind of fantastic.
Byron is beautiful…
…but it can get kind of hot.
Byron Bay: Best waves of trip, thus far – first place I ever caught a wave, for real. Nights are: wine on the beach, then the Beach House (because you’re sophisticated, you aren’t going to Cheeky Monkey’s), then Cheeky Monkey’s. I could live here. for a while.
Nimbin: hippies.
So sweet.
Murwullumbuhgata (or something): Like Port Macquarie…but smaller. Only stopped for survival reasons, post-Mt Warning fiasco.
nice hike:
and demon hike
what’s that phrase, somthing about when you look into the abyss…
Surfer’s Paradise: Grungy party capital. Beaches plus skyrises. Sydney minus the class. We surf, then pubcrawl. Two days is probably enough.
2. Lessons
- Before climbing a mountain, always research: A) rain conditions, B) leech populations, C) the likelihood of thunderstorms, D) the time of nightfall, E) your flashlight’s battery life. Learned via Mount Warning, en route from Byron Bay.
- Always get the student/youth price at theatres. Via: Me ripping myself off for $30 at the Sydney showing of War of the Roses.
- If day tripping to the chronic capital of a country, always spring an extra $20 for the bus trip so as to have a bunch of young tourists with which to balance out the horde of grimy hippies. Via our Nimbin trip.
3. Lingo
- ‘How ya goin’’ – Strange tense-shift variant universally preferred, in Australia, to our ‘how ya doin’’. Via everyone we’ve talked to.
- ‘Jude Lawing It’ – A maneuver designed for use in the particular constraints of dorm-style hostel sleeping arrangements. See: that scene in ‘Enemy at the Gates.’
- ‘Laundry’ – Really a nice idea that actually might happen, one day.
- ‘Smokeo’ – the Australian word for it. Note: a verb, not a noun.
- ‘Herb’ – the noun.
- ‘Rippin’’ – excellent. Also: synonym for surfing
4. Music
- The Waifs
- Eddie Vedder’s Into The Wild stuff, ESP ‘Hard Sun’
- MGMT
- Beach Boys: Pet Sounds
- Also David Cooke. whom I unabashedly enjoy.
