Australian Open and The Whitsunday Islands

(So, I’m actually the worst b/c I’m like a month behind real life with writing this and I have no excuse! So much idle time on my hands! UGH, procrastination is the ultimate disease!)

My Mum and I spent a few more days in Melbourne than originally planned. I wanted to see my friends Sarah and Pete, their 19 month old daughter Taylor who I hadn’t seen since she was about a month or 2 old, and Sarah’s Mom who was visiting from Ottawa, (I also really wanted to watch the Golden Globes and Tweet* them live, clearly) and we wanted to go the Australian Open to see a first round match.

(*You can follow me on Twitter @The_A_Mrk I will be live Tweeting the Oscars as well, and blogging about Awards season with my oldest brother Alex over at our other blog: amrkacademy.blogspot.ca)

Going to the Open was so cool, and definitely something I didn’t ever think I’d do. We bought tickets a day or 2 before they announced the schedule, keeping our fingers crossed that if we bought seats to see the evening matches at Rod Laver stadium, we would see someone big. And it turned out we got to see both Djokovic and Serena Williams play their first round matches. I haven’t been to a lot of live sporting events (with the exception of NHL games) and so it’s always a shock to watch something live when you have only ever seen it on TV. First off, it is sooooo quiet. Not only do you not hear the commentators (obviously) but the whole stadium is pretty much hushed while they play. It is so quiet that you hear the players’ sneakers squeak against the hard courts. Also, the stadium is so much smaller than it looks on TV.

Selfies with Susie Mrk!

Before the matches, we had a chance to see Federer practice (hard to see b/c there were so many fans surrounding the court hoping for an autograph).  There were so many psychotic Serbs there to support Djokovic. It was almost too much to handle. The flags, the eagle, the face painting—UGH. Don’t get me wrong, I’m at least 50% psychotic Serb, but this shit was leading me towards a rage blackout. Good thing Susie Mrk was around to give me a few pinches, b/c I was gonna get into with some people in the stadium. That wouldn’t have ended pretty!

Roger and his red shoes!

The Djokovic match, despite only being 3 sets, was pretty good. He played a Slovakian player, Lacko, and the second set went to a tiebreak which was exciting. The Williams match was not as exciting and was over very quickly, though she played a young Aussie girl, so the crowd was pretty into it. I don’t like Serena Williams (if you want to know why Google her + Steubenville rapes and you’ll understand why) but goddamn is that woman a powerhouse. You can feel her strength and competitiveness in the air when you watch her.

The next day, my Mum and I headed up to the Whitsundays, a group of 74 small islands off the coast of Queensland in the middle of the Great Barrier Reef (about 2/3’s of the way up the east coast of Aus). Everyone we spoke to recommended going there in order to take an overnight sailing trip. We arrived figuring that there were probably a million different trips to chose from at our leisure, only to discover that every single boat trip in the area was booked for days! We eventually managed to finagle the 2 last spots on a boat called the Waltzing Matilda (Australia’s national song I believe, and why Heath Ledger + Michelle Williams named their daughter Matilda-just some Hollywood gossip for you!) but the trip didn’t leave for 4 days, giving us a lot of time to kill in Airlie Beach, a small and somewhat shitty beach/backpacker town with not a ton to do.  The beaches aren’t very nice and you can’t swim (on account that it’s stinger season) but they do have a big salt water public pool called “The Lagoon,” a used book store (which my Mum and I frequented often enough that we started giving out fiction recommendations to other tourists—I made a Swedish girl buy Lisa Moore’s Alligator) and nightly trivia at our hostel where the winners get a free bottle of champagne.

Well, I don’t have to tell you that trivia is pretty much my favourite thing, might in fact be my true calling in life, and absolutely brings out every morsel of Serbian crazy within me. My Mum and I lead our team to victory the first night (and then won the next night with just the two of us--tie break question: who wrote Anna Karenina-come on, give us something challenging!!) But that was the end of our reign as trivia champions b/c we implemented a self-imposed ban (other people at the hostel started to groan when we would walk into the common room).

Eventually we killed enough time (and drank enough coffee) for our boat trip to arrive. The Waltzing Matilda was a small sailboat (maybe 20 feet long and 2 masts) and had a crew of 2: Captain Greg, who had been sailing for 40-some years all over the world and was an absolute laugh riot, and Rich, the most stereotypically young golden Aussie looking guy I’ve ever seen—God he couldn’t have been more than 22. He made me feel like such a lecherous old woman! There were 14 passengers-a good mix of people too: a Swedish couple with their 2 young daughters who were traveling Aus for 6 months, a trio of British pals about to turn 30, an Italian-French couple who were traveling around the world for 1 year, a funny Dutch dude (who accidently dropped the fridge door on my head-I had a bump on it for days), a 20-something American-Swede girl, and then a Norwegian girl (don’t forget her, this becomes important later on).

It was pretty early on that my Mum and I realized we had what I like to call a “competitive conversationalist” (or a “one-up-er”) on our hands re: the Norwegian girl. You know the type: you’ll say you climbed the highest mountain, and she’ll say she did it twice, and blindfolded.  At one point when we were all sharing a pretty magical moment on the boat at night under the light of the moon and Captain Greg was telling us crazy stories about some of the unexplainable stuff he’s seen out on the ocean, Norwegian girl piped up to let us know that science makes everything explainable. BUZZ KILL! 

Anyway, one of the things that all of the sailing trips do is take you to Whitehaven beach, which is apparently the second nicest beach in the world (the first one is in the Maldives, but who determines the criteria for the nicest beaches I don’t know!) I find that whenever I’m travelling, I’m always a bit sceptical of the places or experiences that are the most hyped up (is that the Debbie-downer in me?) even though most of the time, the places do live up to the expectations. Whitehaven beach was no exception. It is definitely the most beautiful beach I’ve been to (bumping off Paje in Zanzibar, and Maya beach in Thailand where “The Beach” was filmed). I don’t know if pictures do it justice, but just look:

The second day on the boat we went snorkelling twice, and b/c it’s stinger season, you have to wear a full body wet suit (whenever faced with a wetsuit, I always wonder how many strangers have peed in it, is that just me?) I don’t think I’d ever actually seen Coral before, and I was nervous b/c I know that so much of it is gone from pollution and environmental destruction, but it was incredible. I didn’t know that there are 2 types of coral, hard and soft, and that it’s the soft coral that usually has the bright florescent colours (and there is less of it than the hard coral). One of the coolest things I saw were these clams--Maxima Clam/Rock Clam, they are a bright blue gorgeous colour and imbed themselves in the coral and open and close (they close if you swim close to them). I obvs didn’t have an underwater camera, but this is what they look like:

I also saw 2 huge sea turtles (both the size of my torso). The first one I only saw for a split second, as he saw me and got the hell outta there! But the second one, I used my stealth skills and was able to swim with him for 10-15 minutes, keeping enough distance between us that he didn’t seem to be bothered. Ahh! Turtles are the best! Watching him swim was so cool, because it’s so graceful and slow, and their flippers actually look like wings flapping. I also saw this HUGE fish (the size of a hula-hoop) that apparently always hangs out in the same area and has been named Elvis. I saw his “girlfriend” fish too, but I forget her name (Tammy?)

Philip Island and the Penguin Parade

Philip Island is just south of Melbourne and is famous for its small penguins. The idea of penguins in their natural habitat obviously meant that my Mum and I did a day trip out there to see them, among other things.

I was in a shit mood the day we were headed out to Philip Island—who knew how bloody difficult it would be to find an apartment in Melbourne?!?! The cheapest places are $250/week to SHARE a bedroom with someone. UGH. (Although now, after spending another week in Melbourne and viewing some rather interesting places, I think I’ve found a place to live—and the place has 2 cats!) But there is nothing in this world that will turn my mood around quicker and make me boundlessly happy than the site of animals, so it was a very good day for me to be in the company of koalas, wallabies, kangaroos, and little penguins. 

First off though, there were these 2 totally mental (and somewhat terrifying) nuns on our tour. Wearing their habits, in 40-degree weather. They were originally from Beirut, but now live in Sydney. They both had iPhones and took pictures through the front of the bus of the highway the whole trip. Their ring tone was church bells. CHURCH BELLS. I still can’t get over this. The first time we heard the ringtone bells, we were out at a winery and weren’t sure where the sound was coming from, and my Mum made a joke that it was the nun’s ringtone—and sure enough, it was! One of the nuns (the scarier older one) pushed me out of the bathroom at a gas station to use it first. They yelled things the entire tour. It was actually insane. And so weird (Note: even my very nice and much more patient mother hated these nuns. They were straight up bat-shit crazy).

Anyway, the Nuns (oh and a group of French Canadians, clearly) made the bus ride and the day interesting to say the least. But Philip Island was amazing! Definitely a huge highlight of the trip thus far, and considering how expensive everything in Aus is, totally worth the money. We first hit up a hilarious chocolate factory, and being from Ottawa, and having visited the Smith Falls Hersey factory multiple times, I didn’t think I’d really care about seeing another chocolate factory, but I have to say, this place was worth the visit. First off, they had a life size chocolate recreation of Michelangelo’s David, which my Mum and I loved (especially b/c it really offended the old nun, who whizzed right by it in a huff). 

It also had these weird psychedelic chocolate displays, complete with acid trip inducing strobe lights, and an entire chocolate railway system with Canadian (CN) miniature trains. 

My favourite though was this chocolate waterfall/fountain type thing where liquid chocolate just rains down into a huge chocolate trough. I honestly wanted to just get into the chocolate trough and float away like the chocolate river in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. 

They also had chocolate covered frozen bananas a la Arrested Development, and yes, there is always money in the banana stand (sorry, couldn’t resist the bad joke!)

Next up we went to this small winery for a wine tasting (complete with glorious local cheeses which me and my Mum ate our weight in). I clearly sampled all the wines (the nuns were drinking it down as well!) and they were really good. They had this red wine that was the almost the colour of blood oranges, very bright and more see-through than a regular red wine. That one was my favourite, and so we picked up a bottle to give to my Canadian friends Sarah and Pete, who live in Melbourne, and who are very kindly storing my huge orange monster of a wheelie suitcase in their garage while I schlep around Aus and try to sort everything out!

Then we went to a Koala Conservation Park. And OMG, I just can’t even begin to explain how incredible it was to see real live koalas sleeping the hot day away in trees, doing an absolute balancing act. I have no clue how they wedge themselves in the crooks of trees and fully sleep without falling out. They hardly move either. They are just full on fluffy enjoyers, sleeping 20 hours a day (sounds a lot like 2 cats I know back home!) b/c apparently eucalyptus is really hard to digest, so they just sleep it off everyday. Koalas are seriously some of the cutest most ridiculous animals ever-their little hands and feet, and the way they curl up into a ball in a damn tree is just so absurd.

Clearly the park ranger dude in the conservation park could tell how excited and mental I was about seeing the koalas (good observation on his part), and so he came up to me and said that once all the other people had moved on, I could go under the barrier and look at one of the koalas (Harriet) more closely. I practically burst into tears when I saw her up close (happy, state of wonderment, loving tears). She looked so unreal to me, having only ever seen pictures and stuffed animals of koalas my whole life, and her being so still just sleeping away the hot day, she was incredible. I asked the dude who his favourite koala was in the area, and he said it was her, Harriet, b/c despite sleeping 20 hours a day, she gets real feisty and is kind of a badass. That’s my kind of koala.

This is Harriet!

On our way to the Nobbies (a pretty lookout on the ocean) we saw some kangaroos, which are the weirdest looking animals ever. Seeing them move and hop on their huge hind legs is really something. It looks like it shouldn’t be possible, and the hops are quite slow and deliberate, almost like they are moving in slow motion. Their tales are huge too, especially compared to their very skinny limbs, and when they sit upright they balance on their tales, kind of like sitting on a camp chair.

We made our way out to the southwestern tip of Philip Island to the Nobbies (I’m not sure if the rocks are called the Nobbies or the lookout point) and Seal Rocks, which is where Australia’s largest colony of fur seals are (though I didn’t see any during the short time we were there as I was more fixated on the beautiful sky and the baby penguins in their burrows). 

The view was spectacular, and we saw a few wallabies on our way there and back. 

They built a sort of boardwalk that zig-zags across the mount and when you’re on it you can just see some of the baby penguins in their burrows (some penguin made, and some human made that penguins willingly adopted) waiting anxiously for their parents to return from sea and feed them (the penguin parents won’t come until after the sun sets though, so as to be safe from predators)

Penguin made burrow

Human made burrow

Then it was on to the “Penguin Parade” itself, which was the whole reason we decided to do this day trip and obviously we upgraded to the Premium package so that we could have a front row seat on the beach to see the penguins emerge from the ocean. Going to the “Penguin Parade” enables you to go into this protected penguin colony and watch as hundreds, sometimes thousands, of little penguins (that is the type of penguin, little, they are only about a foot high) come out of the sea after sunset and trek up over the rocks and often up large hills and over roads, in order to feed their young. Sometimes the little penguins will have been out to sea for 24-48 hours and they’ve travelled huge distances. The chicks are starving b/c they haven’t been fed in a day or 2, and so when they see any adult penguin approach they will just straight up attack them wanting food b/c they can’t tell whom their parents are. Parents identify their young, not only by returning to the same burrow, on the same route from the ocean (and it’s amazing b/c you can see little penguin tracks that go through the tall grass etc.) but mostly through sound, as each penguin has a distinct call. They only leave the water to approach the rocks in groups; they won’t do it alone (again, safety in numbers). They are so small and must be so tired (though they are able to take really quick naps in the water like dolphins, and sometimes you saw them stop on their trail to their burrow and put their head down for some quick shut-eye), but they trek up these huge rocks that you wouldn’t think they’d be able to get up, and then on to their burrows. Watching this was one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen.  These kinds of penguins don’t necessarily mate for life like other breeds do. My favourite thing about them is that if a male penguin isn’t a good parent, or isn’t good at keeping the burrow neat and tidy and well taken care of, his female mate will kick him to the curb and find someone better!

You aren’t allowed to take pictures when you’re there b/c penguins have very sensitive eyes that make them able to see really well in the water and in both dark and light, but I bought 2 postcards that show (sort of) what it is like. 

I was tempted to buy a little stuffed animal penguin in a knitted sweater, but my Mum vetoed that decision (probably for the best but look at how damn cute they are!)

Tasmania Part 2

God, I am so far behind writing about all the stuff me and my Mum did (considering she has already been back in Canada for a couple of days after 3.5 weeks with me here, and I’m only just writing about our first week touring Australia). I choose to blame it on the shittiness of Australia’s Internet (quality and price) as well as the psychotic heat (+39 degrees in Melbourne today) and not on my own laziness!

Our third day out on the road in Tas, we went to Cradle Mountain for what was supposed to be a very nice 2 hour hike around Dove Lake at the bottom of the Mountain. Well, the day was a tiny bit of a disaster b/c about 8 minutes into our hike, it started pouring rain, and I mean pouring cold rain, and it never stopped! The walk was quite beautiful, but only for so long, because when you’re that wet and cold, it’s hard to give a shit about the views/landscape/plants around you. 

It sort of took me back to tree-planting in that you were soaking wet and really uncomfortable, but you had no choice but to keep moving, knowing that it was going to be a long time until you were dry again. Actually, a lot of Tasmania gave me tree-planting flashbacks b/c a big part of the island bush is re-planted trees due to the huge amounts of de-forestation that occurred in 18/1900’s. Seeing re-planted forests and tree saplings always gives me both a sickening nightmarish feeling of panic (at the thought of planting) and pride and happiness (at the thought of planting)—but that’s tree planter life for ya. We spent that night in Lanceston, the second biggest city in Tas and took ourselves out for an Indian dinner and a much needed (and deserved?) glass of vino. The one thing I say you can always rely on is that no matter what country you’re in, or how small a town is there will always be a good, reliable Indian restaurant to eat at. We saw a bad ass rainbow too!

The next day, we headed back to Hobart and then spent the afternoon at MONA (the Museum of Old and New Art) which was incredible. So here’s the deal with MONA: it is this wild art gallery built by an eccentric millionaire, David Walsh, in a really poor suburb of Hobart, one of the lowest socio-economic communities in Tasmania. This guy grew up there, pretty poor, but is some kind of genius--he has Asperger’s and is really good at counting cards (how he became a millionaire), so good in fact that he has now been banned from every major casino worldwide. Tassies refer to him as the “Great Gatsby of Hobart.” So, now that he has all this money, he built a huge elaborate art gallery with his private collection of art and opened it to the public. To get to the gallery, you take a camouflage-coloured ferryboat. 

The building itself is phenomenal—it looks like a huge bunker made of solid rock. It is actually built into the side of the cliff on the peninsula, and most of the gallery is underground with a glass spiral staircase taking you to the different floors. 

And the art collection inside is wild--they had one of Marina Abramovic’s--the Serbian “grandmother” of performance art--early video installations! I LOVE her! I wish that I could describe all the amazing installations and pieces in the gallery, but it’s so difficult to put into words b/c a lot of it is so conceptual. 

One of the coolest pieces was a water installation that rained down specific popular words taken from the news cycle. 

One room was full of 25 different television screens all with different people singing the entirety of Madonna’s “The Immaculate Collection” album. 

My favourite pieces were a room filled with 40 televisions and old couches with 40 different people all from the same small village talking about the best and worst things that have happened in their lives.  

I know that modern art installations aren’t everybody’s cup of tea b/c they usually don’t have the same aesthetic beauty that classic art does, but some pieces can be so moving and poignant and have such an intellectual impact on the observer, ugh, I just love it! Seriously, I could have spent days in that museum (especially since I realized once we were leaving that I had some how missed the room that had a number of working stomachs!) One of the coolest things about the space was that they gave you an iPod touch with all the installation/artist info on it and through the GPS on it, it would tell you what was near you and tell you all about it, and then at the end of your visit, the device would email you your own personal tour you did with all the info on the pieces that you had viewed. Such a great idea I think.

Our last full day in Tasmania, we ventured off to Wineglass Bay on the east coast, which is probably the most popular site/attraction in Tas. It is a beautiful bay at the foot of a range of mountains, and if you do a short climb up to one of the lower summits, you get a fantastic view of the crystal blue waters and white sand of the bay. 

Apparently it’s called wineglass bay b/c a long time ago, Euro settlers went about killing a whole bunch of whales in the bay and all the blood turned the water red, so the bay itself looked like a huge glass of red wine. I know, disgusting, and shameful. Don’t get me started on the fact that the Aus. Government lets Japanese whalers enter their water to murder whales. Repulsive. Sorry, rage attack side-track.

The walk up to the lookout point was full of huge round boulders, some of which were practically suspended in the air and looked like they were going to come crashing down on you (very Indiana Jones-esque) and were formed during the last ice age. 

Probably the best thing I saw though was this big ass boulder called “Sad faced rock man” which, you guessed it, looks like the face of a sad man. If you know anything about the weird sense of humour my best friend Norah and I have, you’ll know that I was immediately obsessed with this and had to document it and send it to her right away! Look at that sad faced man!

After Tas, Susie Mrk and I headed to Melbourne. Over the Christmas holidays when I was trying to pack and get everything organized, there was a part of me saying “why the hell am I doing this again?” referring to going overseas for 7 months and being away etc. (and my family probably wanted to punch me in the head). But arriving in Melbourne made all of those doubts melt away. Melbourne is such a cool city, and getting here brought me back to the feeling I got 3 years ago when I passed through this city, fell in love with it, and decided that I needed to figure out a way to come back and live here. I think my favourite thing about Melbourne is its mix of old and modern—such beautiful old architecture mixed with uber modern buildings and spaces. It is also a city of about 100 neighbourhoods, each with its own feel, which reminds me of Toronto. I love that. It was so nice to be able to show my Mum where I’m going to be spending the next few months of my life. We went to the Queen Victoria market, the State library, ate glorious food, drank amazing coffee (and went to the Australia Open and Philip Island-but that is for next post!)