Well this sucks

Such is the line from the movie Madagascar when the penguins finally reach antarctica. Made me laugh then.

That's pretty how I feel about Canberra too. The city is not laid out in a friendly way at all, and the area with all the museums and stuff is ridiculous. It's like the NCC planned it or something (and i don't mean it as a compliment). They have huge roads lined with trees, which are supposed to provide nice views i guess...

They have museums surrounded by parks, it feels so empty and of course a million car parks and cars around...

It must look good from the air but it sucks actually being in it. That being said, the tour of parliament was nice, though it looks ugly on the outside the inside was pretty impressive. It's quite modern having been opened only in 1988. Apprently it cost a billion dollars to build. Thats a hell of a bill!!

So i'm off to Sydney tomorrow which should be great fun, before i take off for New Zealand again.

In the Capital finally... busses, trains and more busses

Well I finally made it to Canberra. So far so good, off to see the parliament today as well as the art gallery and whatever else is free and downtown (which seems to be a lot)

It was quite a trip, I took an overnight bus to Melbourne from Adelaide, then spent a few hours, and realized the two things I wanted to see were closed, the Art gallery because it was a monday, and the MCG because they are preparing for the Commonwealth games. (i should have seen that coming)

Then i hoped on a train, which then became a bus to Canberra. So i was essentially travelling for most of 24.5 hours (the half hour being the time difference)

Anyways i feel better today and i'll report on Canberra tomorrow

In south australia

Well I am in Adelaide, capital of South Australia. Apprently home to the second biggest fringe festival in the world) Not much going on here really. Spending tomorrow checking this place out a bit more,and then off to Melbourne. Not sure how long i'll be there. I'm trying to get to Syndey for the 1st of March, so I may try and take another overnight to Canberra from melbourne, or I might stay in Melbourne for one night.

I want to go visit the MCG and check on the art gallery there.

thats all for now

A few more pics

Just for fun here are a few more pictures from our trip to King's canyon

Some pictures, of a desert adventurer

Hello to everyone. Watch your mailboxes as postcards are on the way!

I have some pics to post, including a before and after picture of a rainbow right in front of Uluru. That was our reward for 2 days of rain. Everyone was amazed, and rightly so. I wish my camera had a better zoom feature, because it was so far away, not a lot of th pics turned out all that well. It didn't help that the lighting wasn't great because of the rain and cloudiness.

I had a good time, although it was a bit more roguh than i had really expected. The food was great though as was the tour guide. Today is a rleaxing day, not much happening. I'm off to a reptile sancutary to check out some of the reptiles in this area of the world.

Hope all is well with everyone in Canada. I only have a short time left before I head back. Just over two weeks left. Enjoy the pics..
























Before...















After... ( about 5 minutes later)

In the outback..... i'm in the desert.. and it's raining

Well yes it's true, i am still alive! I am also in a desert, where beleive it or not it's rained each day. Howevre we did get a very very beautiful picture of ULuru(Ayer's rock) with a rainbow. SOmething that doesn't happen very often at all!!!

Im on a camping trip and meeting very nice people. A french couple, who are forcing me to speak French which is great, and a nice Danish family. In fact there are 6 Danish people out of 17. Weird eh? And of ourse the compulsory complement or Germans.

I'm the only non-european there in fact!

Hope everything is great where you are, and i'll try and post pics when i get back to Alice Springs.

Into the heat.

It's hot!

Very hot! So hot in fact that I also wish I had brought my swim trunks with me instead of shipping them off with my girlfriend.

Anyways I just arrived and realized there is a half hour time zone here. Take that Newfoundland! You're not the only ones!

I am tired today, and i have to get up very early, my ride arrives at 6:05. That's early!!

Should be fun though and i'm be sure to take as many pictures as I can..

And we're off

Well my girlfriend and I parted ways this morning. She's off to snow and ice (I mean... home.. ) and i'm heading to the heat and desert of Alice Springs.. I leave tomorrow morning.

I'm scared that i'll melt from the heat. It seems to get up to the 40 degree mark fairly easily there. Oh boy.. that kind of heat seems unbearable right now, it's only like 30 now in Sydney and it's pretty awful. Not that i expect any sympathy from you Canucks...

Did any of you watch the guy lose his skis at the olympics? That was nuts!!

I will be taking a whole heck of a lot of pictures once i get to Uluru(Ayer's rock) so i'll try and get around to posting some more in a few days. I am getting very excited about this part of the trip. They take us there at sunrise and sunset so we can try and get some of those really nice pictures.

I haven't been up to much lately, went out for dinner last night, spent today reading and relaxing. They had a really cool exhibit at the Australiam museum, it was a collection of the best wildlife photographs. They even had like a kids section, you should see the photos these 11-14 year olds were taking. Incredible!

I tend to be a museum person, i enjoy seeing museums wherever i go. My girlfriend isn't quite as interested as me to say the least. I've seen some pretty good ones here I have to say, though there are a few more I want to go and check out again when I am back in Melbourne. I am also looking forward to stopping in Canberra for a bit, check out parliament. Everyone here seems to dump on it, which means I have to check it out for myself.

Turning 23

Today is my birthday (in Australia, it'll be my birthday tomorrow in Canada.. that's kind of weird... but cool at the same time)

Anyways we've been up to a whole lot of nothing today really. We went on a harbour cruise which was pretty good, though they kept on talking about housing prices. (a bit American if you ask me.. i can picture all the american toursists asking about those kinds of things...)

A note on American tourists, now I know this is an over-generalization but I truly find that they are extremely conservative in their choices, and they like to stay in hotels with brand names. Hence the success of Hilton etc... My theory is that only rich americans travel, and thus they like their creature comforts.. A lot of them do cruises....

I bought (well i mean got as a present) a book about the transformation of Australia over the past 50 years, should prove interesting. I have been doing some thinking while travelling (some would consider this a sin I know) and i'm quite intrigued by the differences between NZ and OZ.

I also recommend that everyone read Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand, even if you disagree it makes you think. It's really interesting to see a philosophical statement made into a real world through the novel. I'm slowly realizing why I fundamentally disagree with her. It helps too if you think about when she wrote it and this puts it into context (hahahaha, she would argue likely that context is unimportant)

The one thing that seems to come through in her writing though is a distrust of intellectuals. I can see that for someone who seemed to have been a self-starter..

Anyways read that book, and if you finish by the time I get back, i'll argue with you about it!!! (i'm reading for the second time on my trip, shouldn't be much more than a week till i'm done.. yes i'm a fast reader and I know it!)

Post number 50

Hey guys, this is the 50th post of my blog. That is all

Ok just kidding. I'm gonna post some of the latest pics. Today is our last day in Melbourne (well we have a full day tour tomorrow.. so practically our last day) and it's starting to sink in that Jen is leaving..

Boo..

I don't have much else to say, except that I am personally getting excited about seeing Uluru (although I wish Jen could come see it with me). Ummmmmmm that's all i guess..

On to the pics....
In Cowes...

The southern Ocean.. I imagine it would be cold..


At a farm stop. A good picture of a sheep, then some ducks (or whatever they are)...

Penguins parading on the beach

I have seen a parade of penguins.. It was really really cool, the world's smallest penguins on parade... I will post pics tomorrow.

It was a long day and it was really fun. Got to see some more kangaroos we even got kanagroo feed. They liked that a lot I think, and then we saw some sheep. (It's funny I had to come to Australia to get a decent picture of a sheep) and then more koalas...

The highlight of the day was the penguin parade. These penguins actualyl sleep on shore so every night under the cover of darkness they parade along the beach to their burrows, and return to the ocean in the morning.

Well actually I won't post any pics of them tomorrow because you're not allowed. The flashes bother them so no pics, no video cameras etc. It was actually nice because most other places the tourists are just trying to line up their shots and not enjoy it as much.

That's all from down under...

Comments about Australia

So today we went and visited the shrine of remembrance. This is dedicated to all the veterans of WW1 in Victoria. What a militaristic culture they seem to have here. In part I think its related to all the sports. I was thinking today that there is also a connection between the military and the American influence in Australia.

In contrast to New Zealand (which kind of pissed the U.S off by not allowing nuclear subs into its territory in the 1980s..) Australia seems quite American.
American stores everywhere including Target and Kmart etc... But also all their TV shows are American spin offs... even the "abc" logo looks exactly like the American one.

I guess i shouldn't be surprised that almost every newscast also involves America in some way (though for NZ it seemed it was the Blair government alone that constituted foreign news content).

Australia is a strong ally of the U.S because of their common interests and institutions in their defence of South East Asia. I took a picture today of the plaque which was in place at the monument today (in the sort of Post WW2 area)which was for the IRAQ conflict. I also noticed that they fought in VIetnam as did New Zealand.

I was also thinking today about the contribution that wars can make to nationhood. For those so called 'dominions' it was WW1. For most of the third world their independence came as a result of their contributions during WW2 (as well as many other factors...)

I also thought today about Canada's wars and the contributions they made to our nationhood. I thought about how I want to go see the monument in Vimy.

After i thought about all those things, i then realized that in a lot of ways the commemorations celebrate the victorious. The 'righteous' side that won the war, always for the 'right' reasons. I wonder what the Germans or Japanese think about WW2 for example.

One last note, it's been interesting to see the way Aboriginal culture is presented in Australia. The myths and legends i was told on the bus were dismissed with a laugh by our bus driver. Not in a negative way but, i wonder if they tell the stories because they respect them or because tourists love hearing them. The

one really interesting part was in the museum of Melbourne where they had a really good exhibit which included a lot of input by the native groups themselves. I wonder whether they consider them different races here. In Canada we only use the term Aboriginal (well it's only correctly used) to talk about the three separate groups we have, inuit, first nations peoples and Metis. Here it seems to emcompass any Aboriginal.

They are the oldest living civilization on earth and made an incredible voyage at sea to get to Australia, and yet they don't seem to celebrate that here. They put on shows for the tourists but it doesn't seem like much else is done. It's interesting thinking about the differences between how New Zealand, Canada and Australia have treated their native peoples. The Maori in New Zealand were lucky, they were discovered last and were largely left alone for quite some time and were remarkably well able to adapt to western technology, as proven in their strong fighting skills in the musket wars in the 1860s... In the other two countries the story was different and largely negative.

I didn't mean this to focus too much on what i'll call indigenous issues. It's kind of funny though that they don't interest me much at home, but here i find them fascinating...

Petting Koalas among other animals

I got to pet a koala as well as a kangaroo and even a wombat...

I also took a picture of an emu for those who were with me in first year on 3rd lanark...

So here's a picture of those animals for you.. It was cool, we got to walk around and chill with the kangaroos, they hopped in front of us and everything..





Thats all for now from Melbourne... We're here for 6 nights now. We have some time to relax and enjoy the sights. We have a Great Ocean Road trip planned and a trip to see the penguins that come out at night too..

Looking forward to it

To the beach.....reluctantly

Well I went to the beach. FOr any of those who don't me that well, I really really don't like spending time at the beach. In fact most of the time I would rather be doing almost anything that sitting on the beach. However instead of going to the world renownwed (well according to Sydney tourism) Aquarium, the AUstralian museum, doing a tour of the Opera house or anything else of that kind, I went and spent 2 hours on the beach.

I complained today and I grumbled but I went. I have to admit I did grumble quite a bit, but in the end the promise I made to my girlfriend was kept and this meant I spent a few hours at the beach. It wasn't the greatest day, it was really really wind, sand flying in every part of everything I brought with me. But it did make her happy.

Other than that we didn't do anything special, tomorrow we have a daytrip to the Blue mountains planned, so that'll take up most of the day.

Oooo and I did get some nice pictures of the Opera House.. well at least they look nice on my little view screen thing on my camera. It actually is even cooler up close.

Sydney

Well we're here in Sydney and it's quite a bit warmer here.

Note much to report really, got up too early but we were lucky and got a place really close to the airport shuttle.

We had an uneventuful flight and got to our hostel fine.

We've been to the Sydney tower already, and it's nice because our plans are already paid for and organized....

Really not much going on, as you can tell i'm tired and my thought are muddled...

I will post again soon and maybe with pictures. I saw the video in the Sydney Tower of Uluru(formerly known as Ayer's Rock) and I am getting very excited....

Oh and it looks like i'll be playing a part in my friend's wedding. I'm excited about that too, even though it feels like it'll be ages from now.

On another note I have been reading a lot about "Rogernomics" and the whole revolution down in New Zealand. They basically turned things upside down and really really drove the commercialization and privatization agenda hard. It's pretty interesitng because they mistook process for results. They had some pretty ridiculous ideas, mostly from Americans who had no idea about the local implications or issues facing New Zealand.

As most expected they failed, but i'm reading a fairly balanced (well seeing as he was completely opposed to most of the reforms) account of their 'revolution' .

It's pretty interesting stuff and i don't think enough people know about it. I want to include something on it in my M.A thesis, but I haven't figured out how yet..

More about this in the future

Back in Christchurch

Well here I am, I was here just over a week ago flying to Auckland, and here I am doing it again.

I am really looking forward to Australia as I said the last time. In the last week, i'd already seen a lot of the places before. It was nice to visit them with my girlfriend but it's not the same as when you see it the first time.

We're having a great time though and it's been a blast.. But now it's on to the next adventure: AUSTRALIA

I'm not sure what to expect, the big difference is that we'll be in big cities rather than in smaller places.. Except when I go to Alice springs once my girlfriend leaves...

Out

I have NOT I repeat NOT seen the whales...

The whaling adventure was cancelled due to bad weather. It rained here all day..

So we did a whole lot of nothing.. Played scrabble a few times (whatever my girlfriend says i'm not addicted..)

Off tomorrow to Christchurch, we're hoping the weather will be better and that the sun will poke its head out. Since my gf arrived we haven't seen much of it. It is supposed to be the warmest month here too. i had a great January but I guess you can't be lucky like that all the time..

I can't wait to be in Australia, though i'll probably die in the heat

Kaikoura

Hey guys i'm here in Kaikoura, after a long day of travel yesterday and a short trip today we are finally here.

Tomorrow we go Whalewatching!!!!

I am able to post pics so here goes...

These are the caves...


And these are Jen's pics, one of them is from the wellington ferry, showing a logo similar to Hydro One's... and the other is from the gondola in Rotorua

Change of plans

Ok so there has been a change of plans. The plans involving overnight transport are no more. Reason: No space on the bus!

That measn tomorrow will be travel day instead of a day spent in Wellington. This sucks mostly for my girlfriend who won't be able to see the pretty good Te Papa. The national museum of New Zealand. I will still be able to go because i am heading to Wellington after Australia (that and i've already seen the museum) hahashahahah i say to her!

Anyways in other news today was good, we went to Te Puia and saw the Geysers, see pictures somewhere below. We got to see the Maori concert this time and it really was a concert, i imagined something more akin to a cuiltural pewrformance but this wsa a concert, singing songs and doing a few assorted maori specific activities too. very well done and well worth the price.

Not being able to see Wellington, just means we'll have to come back someday soon.

New plans involve a bus trip to wellington, one hour there, then an evening ferry to Picton. We arrange our accomodation for that night, and also for Kaikoura where we will go whale watching. Never done that before and i'm looking forward to it

One Final note, i can't beleive it but my friend leslie actually posted an entire entry in her blog on me

Quick Update

We're in Rotorua today and the weather hasn't been that great, lots of rain today. It looks like it should be better tomorrow.

We're here tomorrow and then off on an overnight bus to Wellington. It'll save us money on accomodation and should be alright, gives us time here tomorrow and some time in Wellington before we hop on the ferry.

Should be good, I wish we had more time spend in Wellington, but i'll get more time when i come back there after Australia, it sucks that my girlfriend won't get more time there.

After the ferry we'll be heading to the South Island.

I should be able to post pics then (and my girlfriend too) but i haven't taken many in the last few days