Beck and Forest in Australia April 12th to April 25th, 2003
Over Easter Break, Forest Gouin visited me in Australia. The first two weeks of his vacation, we took a road trip through Victoria and Tasmania.
Downtown Melbourne
For those who know nothing about Australian geography, Victoria and Tasmania are the two southern-most states in Australia. Victoria is on the mainland, best known for its capital city - Melbourne (pronounced "MEL-buhn" not "MEL-born"). Tasmania is an island state off the southern coast of Victoria. I was going to school in Hobart, the capital city of Tasmania.
I took an 5am flight out of Hobart, and met Forest at the Melbourne airport. After checking into a very nice hotel in the middle of the city called the Victoria Hotel, we set out to explore. Melbourne is a little bigger than Seattle or Vancouver, with narrow streets and lots of sidewalk cafes and bars. However, like every other Australian city I've been in, once the sun sets almost everything shuts down and the sidewalks empty. Where do they all go?
Orchid at the Botanical Gardens (More...)
Forest and I wandered around Melbourne for a few days, during which we saw all the normal touristy things. I found the highly-touted Victoria Market to be a disappointment; most of the vendors seemed to be selling cheap souvenier crap like imitation digeridoos, plastic boomarangs, and sweatshop t-shirts with pictures of kangaroo on them.
The Botanical Gardens, however, were beautiful. The acres of carefully tended gardens were set near the middle of the city, with representative plants from all the different ecosystems in Australia. The tropical orchids from Queensland were protected in glasshouses, but the other "ecosystems" were connected by wide paths that winded around massive eucalypus trees, including the cool rainforest ferns of Tasmania and Darwin's cacti.
Back in downtown Melbourne, we walked through Federation Square, still in the process of being built. It was a monstrosity. I think it was supposed to resemble desert hills, at least that's what it looked like to me; a vast expanse of gentle sloping hills of pink and yellow bricks with no trees planted anywhere. If it had been left at that, it could have been pretty in a barren sort of way. However, someone turned loose an insane architect to design the buildings facing into the Square. Every surface of the buildings were a different style and in a different material. The pictures don't even do justice to how unpleasent the overall effect was. (Note: when I returned three years later, Federation Square was planted with trees and filled with little booths and stands, which made it less bleak and more appealing.)
We also visited the Melbourne Aquarium. The aquarium featured mainly coral reef fish, with an amazing dark room surounded by tanks filled with jellyfish, illuminated by blacklight so that they glowed. It was mesmerizing. The aquarium also had several tanks of sea horses and sea dragons; the plants in the tanks were all fake and I found it tragic to see the sea horses nibble hopefully on the plastic plants.
While walking to Melbourne University, we got lost in a cemetary that seemed to strech for miles. Some of the graves were very poorly maintained, especially in the oldest sections; the crumbling headstones and rusted gates were very creepy.
After Forest and I had finished exploring Melbourne, we took a train from the Flinders Street station to Geelong, a suburb of Melbourne.
Beck on the train
Geelong (pronouned "Jill-ONG") is known for being the site of the Australian Ford factory and for their footy team, the Geelong Wildcats. (Footy is slang for Aussie Rules Football, sort of a cross between soccer, rugby, and American football. However, instead of any sort of padding, the players wear tiny little shorts. This makes it much more interesting to watch.)
In Geelong, we stayed the night in a beautiful Bed & Breakfast called the Pevensey House. The next day, we rented a car, and Forest had to adjust quickly to driving on the right-hand side of the road. We left Geelong and got onto the Great Ocean Road. It was a slow, scenic route because the road closely matched the curves of the coastline of southern Australia.
We took a detour to go through Anglesea, where we saw the tribes of kangaroo that hop around the golf courses. This was my first time seeing kangaroo since arriving in Australia, since they don't live in Tasmania. The kangaroo were awkward when moving slowly; it turns out that kangaroo are actually more efficient the faster they move, since they store kinetic energy in their giant spring-like tails.
Forest and I also stopped to wander on the rocky beaches, peering into tidepools - I was hoping to see a blue-ringed octopus, but we never saw any.
Just as the sun was setting, we arrived at the Twelve Apostles, a majestic rock formation on the southern coast of Victoria.
Beck at the Twelve Apostles
That night, we stayed in an unremarkable hotel in the small town of Warrambool. The next morning, Forest and I drove up to the Grampians National Forest in central Victoria. On the drive to the forest, lined by huge silver gum trees, there were kangaroo, emu, and koala crossing signs everywhere - but the only marsupials we saw were dead by the side of the road. I think it may have been too crowded and too early for the animals to show themselves.
Forest in the Grampian National Park
The Grampians park was impressively well maintained, with wide paths made easy to transverse by stone steps and handrails. We did a few short day hikes, including a 13-story stair climb to the bottom of a waterfall.
On the way back from the national forest, we toured the wineries outside the park and bought a couple of bottles of Shiraz to drink back at our hotel in Ballarat.
When we woke up the next morning, we circled back to Melbourne (taking the quick, non-scenic route this time), and met Forest's friend Min in a Vietnamese noodle bar downtown. This was my first time trying pho, and I made the mistake of putting in all the tiny red peppers piled on my plate. While we ate (and I tried to put out the fire in my mouth with glass after glass of water), I learned that Min and Forest had met online through EverQuest.
Beck, Forest, and Min at the Spleen in Melbourne
After we finished eating, the three of us walked around Melbourne, stopping off at several bars. Forest got to try many Australian beers, including Victoria Bitter (VB), a locally produced beer. The final bar we ended up at, called Spleen, served absinthe with slotted spoons and sugar cubes.
When Forest and I returned to our hotel, we had to drunkenly pack - we had an early flight back to Hobart the next day. I helped by eating some of our chocolately excess baggage.
NEXT: Back to Hobart, Tasmania.