Rabbit Rabbit!
It has been a long long time since my last post! I'm not even going to recap every day for you because its all melded together a bit.
My last couple days in Adelaide were a lot of fun. I spent one evening working at the theater for almost 8 hours, so I finally really got to know the other people working there (of course on my last shift!). My last night in Adelaide I was supposed to be volunteering but I skipped it in favor of Sunday Roast by Paul. Sunday Roast seems to consist mostly of meat and potatoes, and of course Yorkshire Pudding which I got to try for the first time. I didn't know what it was, so I assume some of you don't either- basically its fried batter. Mmmm... After dinner we played poker (I lost one round and tied for winner of another!). We also simultaneously played a game that Dennis started where you have to name 10 movies that an actor has been in. Sounds easy, well its really really hard! As a group we did Tom Cruise, and we almost got Julie Roberts- but no one else came close. After about 5-7 you really start to struggle. Just try it.
On March 26th I left on a two day tour of Kangaroo Island. KI is off the coast of Adelaide and is largely undeveloped thanks to two farmers in the 1920's who refused to cut down any more trees despite being ordered to by the government. The deforestation was turning the island into a desert, and the farmers eventually had to buy the land after losing their case against the government in court. The funny thing is that in the 1970s their descendents gave all the land back to the government to turn it into a national park- just shows how much priorities have changed. I was travelling with an interesting group: four Catalonian (sp?) firemen, four Austrian med students, one other Austrian guy, a German girl, and an Indonesian girl who took photos of literally everything including the scenery out of the bus window as we drove out of Adelaide toward KI, plus our guide Simon who I ended up talking to a lot after I decided to be social and sit in the front seat. Simon was telling me about various trips he'd taken, most of which involved driving a 4WD out into the most desolate places possible, and he says that he'd like to visit NY just to say he's been there, but he probably never will because the U.S. is basically on the bottom of his list of places to go. And I'm thinking, yeah if your idea of paradise is being 100's of miles from another human being, then you might as well skip NY. He even told me that his 60 year old parents drove from Alice Springs to Broome (go look at that on google maps and you might notice the lack of buildings, roads, or anything but sand!). Well, to each his own...
On KI we stayed at a great little campground. You could either sleep outside or in the "house" where they had some dorms (I considered outside but when the time came I was just too tired to bother). Along the driveway there were trees with koalas sleeping in them, and at night we sat around a big fire and watched wallabys and possums crawl past. Around the fire we also played a hilarious game which I feel compelled to bring home. You get a cardboard box, like from a case of beer, and you have to pick it up with your teeth, without your feet leaving the groung and without any other body part touching the ground. If you pick it up, then you rip off a piece of the box, and so on until people are doing near splits to try and get at the remains of the box. Its a lot of fun, trust me. The tour also provided food- veggie burgers for lunch, and chicken satay with rice for dinner- served from a ginormous pot that made me so homesick for the coop!
While driving around the island we saw tons of wildlife- of course wallabys, possums, and an echidna (Australian hedgehog type thing), penguins, kangaroos, and even a goana (lizard). We went to two different beaches where we saw seals and sea lions. We went to a pelican feeding which was hilarious- and was at least half a seagull feeling as well. The weather wasn't great, but we did stop at a few beaches and I went in the water once. It was sorta like Fire Island in October- warm water and cold windy air. We also got to go sandboarding, or rather sandsledding for me. I didn't attempt standing on a board since I had a premonition of doom about my ankles plus sliding down a sand dune on a board. Instead I sat down on a sled with another girl and went down the hill three times- one time successfully steering at the back, one time unsuccessfully steering and almost crushing the girl in front of me when we both toppled over, and one time sitting in the front and letting the other girl steer. A bit of advice- don't scream as you rocket down a sand dune unless you want the sand dune to relocate to your mouth! Finally, we went to KI's main landmark, The Remarkable Rocks. I have to say that they are the best weird rock formation I've seen so far in Australia (and I've seen quite a few). I think maybe they are the best because you can climb all over them- or maybe I was just there with good people and so enjoyed it more.
On the way back from KI I sat in the front with Simon again. The city is surrounded by the Adelaide hills, and as we came close to the city, he enthusiastically told me to look out at the lights of his city. And I couldn't help thinking that it reminded me an awful lot of coming down the highway into Troy, NY. But I didn't say that to him. We got back to Adelaide around 11pm on Tuesday the 27th and I sat around talking to Paul for a while before going to sleep. In the morning he woke up to say goodbye to me (awww!) as I got on my Great Ocean Road tour and I was actually sad to leave Adelaide! Who would've thought?
So as I said, I got on a tour going down the Great Ocean Road between Adelaide and Melbourne. It was a strange tour- a more diverse crowd then I'd experienced before. The group consisted of two American women and their two 20-something sons, a young British guy, two young Danish girls, a honeymooning Indian couple, an older French Canadian couple, a young Japanese girl, an old Welsh man, myself- and most amazingly a guy named Bill Donahue who went to high school with my parents!!! That's right, all the way in Australia and I bumb into a Bay Shore High School graduate, class of 73. When I said my mom was Susan Barbash, he just made this face like I've never seen- it was like in his mind "Sue" was still a 17 year old hottie that he didn't have a chance with- not someone who could be anyone's mom, certainly not mine! This was partially confirmed for me when he told me later that my mom had been part of the popular crowd (although she would definitely deny that!) and that he was a weird kid who "managed" the football and basketball teams. He said she wouldn't remember him- and I haven't been able to catch her at home to talk to her about it, so mom feel free to comment on this issue online!
Anyhow... the tour... well, the theme of the tour first invented by our hokey guide Dave and later adopted ironically by the rest of us, was "Rocks in Water". Sometimes we saw rocks in water, sometimes stones in water, other times there was water interspersed with a few boulders. Get the idea? It also had finally started to be fall or autumn as they say. It was windy and cold and sometimes wet. So there were almost as many stops for tea, coffee, and chocolate cake as there were stops for rocks in water. We didn't DO that much on the tour, but it wasn't a total waste because we did bond a lot in our boredom. Also having older people around meant that we ate out more often so I didn't have to microwave any dinners. One of the highlights of the trip was staying at the Lakeside Manor YHA in Robe- by far the nicest hostel I have ever seen. It was a former mansion and had high ceilings, woodworking, a gorgeous library, fireplaces, wide hallways, and a single bathroom the size of my bedroom at home. It also had real spring mattresses, unlike the foam beds in Adelaide, which was so so nice after 3 weeks of lousy back support. In general the evenings were the best part of the tour. We'd eat out then go to the local pub and hang out drinking and playing pool.
The only other highlight of the Great Ocean Road tour was Loch Ard Gorge. We got out there and walked down to this incredible beach surrounded by cliffs. In the cliffs are caves, and Dave decided that it would be fun to lead any of us that were stupid enough to go, into a cave under a cliff that was partially out in the ocean. He said, you just have to dodge the waves- first you run from the beach to a rocky outcrop, then you wait till the waves recede and you run from the rocks to the cave. Another thing Dave was fond of saying was, "Trust me, I'm your guide!". As in, "Oh, those rocks are only a 5 minute walk away in the rain. Trust me...!" or "Its totally safe and easy to get to the cave. Trust me...!" Well, this was day 3 and by this time most of us knew that Dave was barely keeping a straight face when he said these things. However, one of the young Americans, the young Brit, the Canadian, and the old Welsh guy all followed Dave into the cave- every single one of the getting various degrees of soaked. The Welsh guy, whose name is Clive and who was pretty short and reminded me so much of Bilbo Baggins in the LotR movies- he got the worst of the trip. Not only did he get the wettest, he lost his shoes, and he banged his head on the rocks and came back bleeding. Back on the bus he said, "There's no fool like an old fool." But they all made it to the cave and back alive. And it was pretty funny to watch.
Whew... well that abridged version pretty much brings me up to date. I got back to Melbourne yesterday and felt very much like I was back "home" or as Andrew said, "your Australian home". Today I went down to Balaclava and bought supplies for Passover. I'm missing a few things, but I think I can do without them. I have matzo butter and salt, so I won't starve! Andrew left this morning for Canberra but will be back on Wednesday or Thursday- and Norva has been shut up in her office preparing her lectures for the week, so I'm pretty much on my own. Oh, and I just realized that I've spend nearly 4 hours on the computer, so I better end this. I'll try to report back on Australian Passover soon! Hopefully I can pull of my Grandma's matzo balls without her guidance!
Love,
Emma
