My Great Ocean Road Adventure

“Kilometers are shorter than miles. Save gas, take your next trip in kilometers.”

-George Carlin

What an adventure it was! As I did research in preparation for my trip, I noticed that every travel site recommended seeing the Great Ocean Road if one was in the area. Which I was. The only problem? The best way to see the Great Ocean Road is, unsurprisingly, to drive it.

I should make it clear, I don't like driving under the best of circumstances. And, planning to drive in an unfamiliar place on the LEFT side of the road by myself, having lived in China sans car for a 2 and a half years, is definitely not the best of circumstances. Still, I knew I could do it, and I knew it would be amazing.

Turns out, I was right on both counts.

For four (five? I'm already forgetting) days, I and my driving companion (a little GPS unit) drove a sparkly little gold car along the magnificent Great Ocean Road. It was like living in a postcard. Large stretches of the Road are literally right along the ocean. One needs to be careful not to admire the scenery too much for fear of driving off a cliff. Everywhere I stopped though, I found pristine beaches with made-for-photography vistas.

I was so happy to have rented a car. It meant I had total freedom. I could stop anywhere I liked, go see whatever caught my fancy. I saw the famous 12 Apostles rock formation:

The Split Point Lighthouse at Airey's Inlet:

And so on. It wasn't all beach though, actually. I saw quite a bit of bush too, and even some rainforest. Little known fact: despite being the most arid continent on Earth, Australia is home to tropical rainforests. I did a bit of hiking in the rainforest that was nearby, but I'd love to go back and explore further.

The Great Ocean Road itself, despite its name, often vears into idyllic bush, and that was where I stayed. I rented an adorable little cabin about a 30 minute drive from the beach, with impressive views of its own:

One evening I took a stroll and got some beautiful sunset photos. I really love the silhouettes of Australian trees.

All in all, it was a fantastic trip. I'd never really done a road trip before, but I'd totally do it again. Although, given the choice, I still prefer driving on the right.

Melbourne, Street Art Showcase

A city with an appreciation for art and an Aussie sense of humor - an unbeatable combination.

My last time through Australia in 2007, I missed Melbourne. I’ve always heard nothing but the most positive comments about the city, so I decided this was the time to visit.

(photo from the Royal Botanical Gardens)

Well, popular opinion was right. Melbourne is awesome. Beautiful, artsy, and easy to navigate. I’d add other attributes like “clean, full of sparklingly well-maintained public bathrooms, with – get this - a blue sky above. Everyday.”, but I think these are true of a great many major cities outside of the east coast of China. I could also add friendly, but from my experience that’s a given in Australia.

One of the most distinctive features of Melbourne is its street art scene. There is street art everywhere, and lots of maps, apps, and tours to help you seek out the most distinctive pieces. I even saw many street art pieces on the walls of alleyways which incorporated material beyond just paint. Though I adored creations like wide-eyed owls made out of recycled tin cans, nothing beat the overt power of “Materials”:

While I was there, a “Yard Bombing" project was just beginning. It's a whimsical, non-permanent form of street art.

Melbourne, being a coastal city, also has some nice beaches, but – as you’ll see from my next post – they’re rather boring compared to the coast just south of the city.

Some tennis fans among you may have figured out that I was probably in Melbourne for the Australia Open. I was, but not being a tennis fan, this didn’t mean much for me except that hotel rooms were pricier and harder to come by. The final men's singles match was meant to be incredible though, and if I hadn’t been in mid-air/clearing customs at the time, I may have actually watched an hour or two of the marathon match.

Next stop, the Great Ocean Road.

Aussie Summer

Well, two weeks of summer anyway, which was still a lovely break from Shanghai's damp, grey winter. For my Chinese New Year holiday, I hopped a flight to Australia to explore places I hadn't been before, and visit places I had and now miss.

I was traveling alone, so I was able to plan my trip however I liked. In this case, that meant 3 things:

A new city, a road trip, a second home.

In that order, I'll write 3 different blog posts about each part.

Melbourne:

My Great Ocean Road Adventure:

Canberra:

Rapporteur's Report

This is my final blog about Canberra. I have a few final photos to share, along with further details of my internship.

Final thoughts about my internship:

I think I have neglected to write enough about my internship, especially considering it’s the whole reason I came to Australia, not to mention I’ve been working there full time since I got here.

I’ve been interning at the Australian Institute of International Affairs (a lot to say when I answer the telephone!) Most people immediately ask: What does the AIIA do?

Good question. The stated goal of the AIIA is to “increase awareness of international affairs in Australia.” They do all sorts of things to achieve this goal. They publish an academic journal (the Australian Journal of International Afffairs) and a book series chronicling Australia’s foreign policy over 5 year periods, organize conferences such as the National President’s Forum I attended in Brisbane, hold lectures and other events for their members, and lots more.

But what do I do? Like the Institute, all sorts of things! I open and sort the mail, answer the telephone, and other administrative (intern-y) tasks. I also get to do really important projects, like copy-editing and writing the abstracts and keywords for a special issue of the International Journal of Global Energy Issues, drafting the Strategy Day papers, etc.

My last project was planning a new publication for the AIIA – the Emerging Scholars series. The National Office hosts many interns who are writing papers for academic credit, like me. Now these papers will be published! This is one of my favorite projects, as I think it’s a great development, and I have control over every aspect of the series. Not to mention, there’s also a good chance that my paper will be published by the series (once it’s finished, of course.)

Here are Martha and I. We were dressed to go out for a function at the US Embassy. I am going to miss Martha; we had a lot of fun together. My last afternoon at work we used GoogleEarth to find maps of our hometowns. Charlotte is not in 3D yet, but Groningen, Holland was (it was lovely!) She also showed me where she lived during her gap year in London, and true to form, as we took a virtual stroll down the streets, we got lost!

I’m not sure how I let this happen, but I didn’t get a picture of myself with my host family until the night before I left. (Please pardon the fact that I am in my pajamas.) They were so wonderful, and I really hope (and believe) that the feeling was mutual. I look forward to going back to visit. Perhaps in the summer next time…

This blog post had a relatively large number of pictures that included me. The picture above explains why: this is what I looked like every day commuting to work, and it’s not a pretty picture. The brown boots with the black “tracky-daks” (track pants) are not as obvious in the picture as they are in real life, but trust me, it was not pretty. I was warm though, and that’s about all I cared about.

Next post: Sydney!

Australian Cuisine

In reality, Australian food is very similar to American food, albeit with a more British influence. Morning Tea and Afternoon Tea are official meals, which I love. I have fallen in love with scones with jam and cream. Scones here are a bit similar to a Southern biscuit, but without the heavy salt and grease.

Crumpets, another "tea" food, are also fabulous. They're like a cross between pancakes and English muffins - extremely good toasted with butter and peanut butter.

Bangers and mash, a very British dish, is also a popular Australian dinner. (It's sausages and mashed potatoes.) Even more Australian, I think, though is a lamb barbecue or roast. It would be roughly analogous to an American Sunday pot roast - a classic.

Below is one of my favorite Australian foods - the Lamington. It's sponge cake dipped in chocolate and coconut. It's so fantastic!

Sometime they have cream in the middle: yum-o! (As an Aussie would say.)


Those are meat pies. Pies in Australia, much like in the UK, are generally savory. The only sweet pie they really eat is apple pie.


The quintessential Australian product: Vegemite. It's concentrated yeast extract, and it tastes about how you might expect concentrated yeast extract to taste. I can't say that I enjoyed it very much, unfortunately. It's a bit of an acquired taste, I think. Australians enjoy Vegemite sandwiches, and it functions much like peanut butter in the US.


I am going to miss these. Tim Tams are fantastic - they're a bit like chocolate covered oreos, so as you can imagine, they're wickedly delicious.


I know this isn't Australian, but I had to post proof of Krispy Kreme's transpacific move. As far as I knew, Krispy Kreme was just now making it in to the northern part of the US, so I was floored when I heard they have it here. It's extremely popular, needless to say.

The only food I have heard of that is not available in Australia is the graham cracker, which means they don't make s'mores! It's a tragedy, really. Roasting marshmallows just isn't the same.

Many foods are the same but are called different things. For example, raisins are called sultanas and bell peppers are called capiscums. Lots of brand names are different as well - Rice Krispies become Rice Bubbles, etc. And people might look at you funny if you ask for a Peanut Butter & Jelly sandwich, as Jelly is Jello here. (You'd have to ask for Peanut Butter & Jam.)

Adventure in Embassyland

Martha (pronounced Marta) and I decided to go to an Egyptian National Day reception at the Egyptian Embassy. The AIIA gets invited to lots of different events, lectures, and receptions, and it’s considered one of the perks of the internship to be able to go to them.

We took the bus as close as we could get, and then we had to walk the rest of the way. We’ve been on outings before, notably to a couple of lectures at Parliament House, and we should have known that if we made wrong turns with a map (as we did walking home from Parliament House) that we shouldn’t go anywhere without a map. Unfortunately, we forgot!

Luckily it was a beautiful, sunny day, probably the warmest it’s been since I’ve been to Canberra (it got up to 15 degrees Celsius!) We walked past lots of embassies, which was interesting. They are all in the same suburb of Canberra. After realizing we were not heading the right place, we ended up at the Lodge, the Prime Minister’s residence (the Aussie equivalent to the White House.) There was a number on our invitation, and we thought the Lodge would be a good landmark to start from to get directions. While I was calling the Egyptian Embassy though, a security guard from the Lodge came out, and while I was afraid we were going to be told off for loitering, he was very friendly, and when he heard we were lost he promptly disappeared back inside to get a map to show us the route.

He gave very good directions, and we ended up at the Embassy only about 40 minutes late. On our way, we also saw the American Embassy. Martha saw it first, pointing ahead, “I think that’s the American Embassy.” I looked, and replied, “Oh, the one with all the cars?”

Yes, it was the one with all the cars.

It was an absolute compound actually! Most embassies are just one building, but the US Embassy had enormous grounds with multiple buildings, all in red brick colonial style (they would have been at home on the Chapel Hill campus.)

The reception itself was fine, if a bit dull. Martha and I were mostly just curious about as it would be like and hoping for a free lunch. We didn’t get lunch, but we did get to try lots of little bites of Egyptian food. A lovely little pastry that tasted like baklava, falafel, and mahshi - grapevine leaves stuffed with a rice mixture.

Next week we’re going to an event at the US Embassy. Perhaps we’ll remember to bring a map this time!

Below are a few of the embassies that we saw. I would put up a picture of the Lodge, but it was surrounded by a wall, so we didn't get to see what it looks like.

The Turkish Embassy

This is the French Embassy; I was surprised by how unattractive it was. I believe Martha described it as an "ugly bunker." Maybe they were going for a bastille theme. ;)

Here is the Indonesian Embassy, which I enjoyed seeing, as I met the Indonesian ambassador at the conference in Brisbane.

Here is the American Embassy. This picture doesn't nearly capture the scope of it. There were lots of parking lots out front, with a ton of buildings surrounded by the fence.

Bateman's Bay

All along I have thought to myself that for all the pictures I post, I probably should have just skipped the blog and put my pictures up on a website like Photo Bucket or Flickr. This post makes that all the more clear.

I had a really hard time choosing which pictures to use. They are all so beautiful! I just loved the coast. It was very different from the coast in North Carolina. I think the beach we went to might aptly be described as rugged, an overused term perhaps, but I can come up with no better word.

We could hear Kookaburras where we were. If you click on the name, it should be a link to an audio clip. It's a familiar sound, but I always thought it was a monkey call! (Kookaburras are birds. They look a bit like woodpeckers.)

The girls built sand castles. They have quite good designs, as they lived in Scotland for a year when they were younger, and visited many real castles.


I couldn't get over the view! It was just incredible. I really wish I could have gone swimming and explored by way of the water.


I won't discose exactly how long, or how many failed pictures, it took to capture the surf spray like this. I do think it was worth it though.


A beautiful little cave that we had to walk past to get around to the main beach. It was so cool!


Seagulls are rather universal, but they provide good perspective here. I was rather enamored with the island, and it appears in quite a few more picture I haven't included. During the summer, Dafydd said you can swim out to it.


As you can see, the bush comes right up to the waterfront.


Isn't it gorgeous? Apparently, on the other side of this strip of land is a house owned by Nicole Kidman's family. They said the town turns into quite a circus when she comes to visit.


Here's the house we stayed in. Dafydd's family has owned this plot of land for a few decades now.



Pelicans - this harbor scene remined my a lot of Finding Nemo. The pelicans were here to catch scraps from the fish and chips shop.

This was the amazing fish and chips shop. It was so good! The fish was lovely, white and tender, with amazing saltly greasy batter. It beat a Friday night fish fry anyday, I must say.

Bush Block

Friends of the Gwynn-Joneses own a plot of land out in the bush (what we would call the country.) We went out there for the day this Saturday. It was incredibly beautiful - I wish I was a better photographer, because I haven't really captured the epic nature of the landscape. It was a great day though, despite the not so great weather.

This is taken from the car on the way up, but it actually turned out quite well, despite being taken through the windshield.


Sian standing by a wombat hole - they're humongous! I saw quite a few holes, but sadly no wombats.


This is a real Aussie dunny (outhouse.) They call it the "Loo with a View," as it looks out onto the river (see next picture.)


I would love to come back in the summer. They hang out by the river, go canoing and tubing, and all other sorts of activities. It's so gorgeous!


Dafydd is barbecuing our snags (sausages) over the fire. At one point, when we'd gotten back from our hike in the light rain, our clothes were steaming as we stood by the fire.



Sian and Caitlin with the dog of one of the neighbors - note the adorable sweater!


This is on our hike up to see their waterfall. Since their friends have owned the property, the drought has been so bad that they've never seen water in the creek bed. We hiked up to see their waterfall, actually flowing for the first time in years.


Caitlin and I in the ravine. (also Paul and Sue, the owners of the property.) It was so beautiful there! None of my pictures did it justice. They own 600 acres, and it sounds an awful lot like paradise being able to just explore the bush at will. There are no trails, just whatever paths you make/find. Real bush-whacking!


Sian and Sue by the waterfall. You can see Lenny, Sue's dog in the pool. The dogs didn't seem to mind the freezing cold!