Life in Australia

Currently on Kangaroo Island, off the coast of Southern Australia. The island is the 2nd largest off the coast of Australia and takes about 2 hours to drive from one end to the other. The East coast has 3 small (very small) towns where the majority of its inhabitants live. The South and West coasts are more of what I'm interested in, where Flinder's Chase National Park and other landscapes and wildlife flourish. Unfortunately down in this area, there are 2 places to get food within roughly an hour to an hour and a half's distance. One of those places closes the kitchen at 3pm, the other at 6pm! Good thing I had the insight to buy a cooler to bring with me. First night I grabbed some potato and spinach gnocchi on the East coast and the 2nd night I scored up a salami sandwich at the national park... both placed in the cooler for later.

The house I'm staying in, in Vivonne Bay on the South coast, is an old stone and log cabin with tons of character. Stovepipe fireplace, separate compost toilet/bathroom inside, etc. But the crazy irony is that I'm watching Comedy Central while typing on my laptop. I drove down a bumpy-ass dirt road to get here, it's tough to find dinner, and there are signs all over the cabin to save water, but they've got Comedy Central?! ...It's very homey which is nice. Somewhat intimidating when first arriving in the pitch-black darkness, on the dirt road and tucked back into the brush, but now it's cool.

Today I drove down from Adelaide (almost 2 hrs), caught the ferry (w/ my car), and then saw the East Coast, including Peddington Bay and Kingscote, and then headed down here. So far it's been beautiful! Tomorrow I'm going to do the South Coast and Flinder's Chase.

What a trip, what an incredible island. Definitely gave Kauai a run for its money, but I'd say Kauai's Waimea Canyon still takes the cake.

Sunday I saw more koalas, more kangaroos, and the rest. Stopped at Hanson Bay and met a local fisherman from Adelaide. Checked out the lighthouse at Cape du Couedic on the Southwest corner. Then down and out to Admiral's Arch and a ton of New Zealand fur seals sunning and bathing themselves down on the rocks. There were great to watch, the way the youngsters would wrestle and play fight in the mini-pools that formed on the rocks. Really funny! Others just slept off their day's work out in the ocean catching fish. Around the bend, at the naturally carved (huge!) arch, more relaxed, awaiting sunset. Once the few other people had left and I also awaited the sunset, I began talking to the seals. Not much for conversationalists, but they were funny and certainly communicated back with me by rolling over and shooting me funny "look at me" faces. I also discovered that playing the stomach drums (come'on you all play them from time to time) really gets them up and going! Judge if you want, but I had fun and that's all that matters! Yea. (Too much time alone on a desolate island... be happy I'm not talking to the pavement!) ...Then it was off to the Remarkable Rocks, a few miles down the road. These rocks surely were remarkable. The 'stage' they are on as well is quite incredible... just the fact that these natural things are literally placed in the middle of nowhere for people to visit... it looks too perfect. On one side is forest and the other side is the ocean. Standing around taking photos, I found myself literally 5 feet from the edge of the rock 'stage', with a several hundred foot drop to the ocean. Again, no one to be seen. It's a good thing it wasn't too windy out there. Oh wait, that's right, it was!

Monday I awoke to the same cloudy skies of the last 2 days. Many mornings around here are very cloudy and the sun breaks through at around noon. So I decided to head back and see the koalas (and get my sunglasses that I dropped the day before somewhere in a field while shooting kangaroos). Did both and both were great. Then it was a drag-race up to the Northwest Coast and Cape Borda Lighthouse. The trip was about 1.5 hrs due partly to the dirt roads up north. The Cape was cool and I saw more kangaroos off in the wild. It's amazing how comfortable they are with people. I equate them to deer b/c of their horrible street smarts and how they get blinded by the light, but they're certainly more tolerable of people. Two different pairs just chilled out and sat and ate as I stood within like 10 feet taking photos of them. Pretty incredible. ... Following the Cape, on the way back to the ferry, I stopped by Little Sahara. This was just plain wierd. Basically in the middle (slightly south) of the island is this monstrous amount of sand! It's hard to guess at how much sand was out there but I'd say easily 10 football fields, all surrounded by trees. And the sand was formed by nature, similar to the desert, with mounds and the striations of the wind (I'm assuming). Really cool. ...And on to the ferry and back to the mainland.

Similar to the mainland, everyone was very friendly, which was nice. At times on other islands, I've found that natives can be quite territorial and resistant to visitors (which is often times stupid b/c their economy is fed by the visitors as we all know, but whatever). I especially dug the fact that many of the natives wave when driving by them. In the Northeast (well except for the friendly parts like VT, NH, & parts of ME), I can't get people I know to even say hi when passing them in the hallway or on the street!

Koalas are not native to the island like the other animals now there. I believe the statistic I was told was that 18 koalas were dropped off on the island from the mainland in 1936... and there are now some 25-30,000 koalas inhabiting the island! They seem to do pretty well for themselves considering they sleep for 19 hours a day! They sleep so much due to the eucalyptus trees they solely feed on which don't provide much energy. They are also becoming a real problem due to their population and how they kill the eucalyptus trees that other life depends on. Different groups have been fighting for, and against, the killing of the koalas to save the trees and simply monitor their out of control population. Needless to say, animal rights organizations are fighting hard against the law and are campaigning to remove the koalas and provide them to little girls in the United States as pets. How nice! ...Yea sure Jessie, keep dreaming babe! ; )

Driving back and forth from Port Jervis where I caught the ferry to KI, I saw many interesting signs. Here they are an my thoughts...

Overtaking - When you pass someone in the US, it's called 'passing'. When you pass someone in Australia, it's called 'overtaking'. SO much cooler.

'Drowsy drivers die' - What else can I say about this one?! Not 'drunk drivers', but just 'drowsy'. If this sign doesn't send shivers down your spine when you're cruising around thinking "boy, I could really use a nap right about now"... well I just don't know what will. Maybe a bloody, fatal crash on the side of the road, but all in all, I think this sign does a pretty damn good job.

'High winds, drivers take care' - WTF?! Am I gonna get blown off the road? 'Take care'? They couldn't say 'Use caution' or something else that doesn't sound so... uh, FINAL?

As for driving on the island... where to start?! (Mom, might want to skip the next 3 paragraphs.)

First off, I've seen more roadkill in the past 2 days than I've seen in RI in the last 4+ years... hell probably more than I've seen since I've been driving myself (that's 10 years!). It makes it hard to drive down the road while eating a chicken sandwich to drive by bloody mess after bloody mess. Yummy! And well I was just happy to not kill anything myself. There were certainly some SUPER close calls, ya know the ones where you see the animal at the last second just before driving over it and you just hope that within in the next half second that you don't feel the speed-bump! During the day the roads were fairly clear (at least concerning the live stuff), but at night they became scattered with kangaroos, wallabies, possums, and other rat-like creatures. At one point I saw 2 kangaroos on the side of the road so I pulled up slowly and stopped. Rolled down the window and began talking to the one who was about 10 - 15 feet away. He didn't seem to mind my presence and just hung out. Becoming more curious he began to approach the car, it was very strange, esp when it's complete darkness and there's probably no one within 30 miles. I waited it out as he approached but eventually rolled the window back up as he was a few feet away and slowly pulled away. Kangaroos have a reputation for being quite nasty and I didn't feel like 1) getting attacked because I didn't have food or 2) running him over as I pulled away frantically to avoid #1.

And that brings us onto the next island driving matter... speed limits (or lack there-of). Driving on KI is, let's just say, a dream come true! This is when I was truly happy that I went with the 5-speed even after people repeatedly asked me "WHY?! You're already driving on the other side of the road!" On the East Coast of the island there were speed limits of an acceptable speed and other cars on the road to help regulate those limits. Good thing I stayed on the West Coast. Basically, as I explained, the West and South Coasts were pretty sparse and very lightly populated. This makes for good speeding, I mean driving. The limits out there were between 80 and 110 km/h, which translates to around 50 - 70 mph. Only there aren't any police (or at least any I saw) and any cars, which are seen about every 20 minutes or so, are easily OVERTAKEN. So let's just say that my Toyota Corrola starts shaking a bit at 140 km/h (85 mph), but holds it pretty well. ; ) Any faster than that would be bordering the line that exists between stupid and suicidal, considering the roads and wildlife. ...These (lack of) speed limits do 2 things... 1) make it easier to smear defenseless animals all over the road and 2) make it difficult to drive like a responsible, law-abiding citizen, after docking back on the mainland.

Continued from the speeding fun... well most of the roads are also without center diving lines, which of course means drive right down the center. This is mostly so you have more time to react to the crazy animals jumping onto the road... but it sucks when back on the mainland and not only are you speeding but you're doing it right down the center-line! ...Other roads were not paved. Correction, MANY other roads were not paved. I found that driving on unpaved roads was similar to driving on snow-covered roads... You take it slow at first and gradually speed up as you feel more comfortable. Until you find yourself speeding... again. It's ok though. Until you experience, "sliding". Sliding on dirt, like snow, is not good for anyone unless you're doing a reasonable 20 mph. But not at 65 mph. Slow down son! At least until you feel comfortable again. ; )

All in all, my poor Corolla. Gotta love rental cars. But after this weekend, I would recommend to Hertz to change their name to 'Hurts' as she surely got the beating of her life!

Looking forward to going back to KI in the future. At the moment they're fighting the proposed development of the island to start bringing in more homes. I signed a petition to keep them out which sparked some good debate at the Vivonne Bay General Store. Once it starts though... where's it to end?!

And before heading to bed, the carnival across the street is quite an eyesore upon returning from the quiet, beautiful, solitude of the island! Blinds closed for now...

And the rubbing alcohol saga continues! I believe my last thought was that it could be special ordered from a local pharmacy. Well first I tried another chain of that pharmacy and was told they had it in stock! Awesome. I headed down later that day, and well... I was misinformed... they also had the 65% lotion solution. The pharmacist's assistant provided me with the number of a medical supply company that should be able to help out. Yea sure, tried, but no luck. Ok, back to the last plan, special order. On Monday I called the pharmacy back to place the order and believe it or not, I was told that... I was misinformed. No shit?! What WAS interesting though was that I was finally told that 100% isopropyl alcohol is a RESTRICTED item in Australia!!! Yea, no kidding. I also found out last week that Sudafed is restricted b/c kids and labs make it into Speed. The kids around here must have some serious drug problems, or else they just don't have access to the good stuff that American kids do! ... Next came an internet search and a co-worker happened to find a dental supply company in the area. I tried them, and SCORE!!! Imagine that, it's a couple from Brooklyn! That's how it's done in the US obviously, it's taken me weeks and roughly 10 different sources to finally find it with an American! ; ) They have a 20 liter vat that they use to mix with other solutions and they'd be happy to accommodate me. First the plan was to just pick up a liter bottle outside their place of business and leave $10, the wonderful honor system. I was so excited I was considering even leaving more. What, who does that?! (It reminds me of when you're a kid and trick-or-treating and you hit the house that leaves the candy outside with the 'Please take one' note... and you and your friends empty the bucket out!) She then called me back and said I could just meet her husband down the street on Monday. Even better! Until next Monday...

And for the first Fringe event, last night I saw the Omar Sosa Trio - Cuban jazz. They were good, but I was slightly disappointed as each time they got a good danceable groove going, the song abruptly ended. Met a woman from the Ukraine though who we (Rick and I) then spent the night with, in a host of different bars.

So last night was the Fringe festival official kick-off parade and party. 100,000 people were expected, and I wouldn't doubt it if they were all there! The parade and its representative groups of actors, actresses, artists, and other misc supporting groups were quite interesting. And as you would imagine, a parade at 8:30pm, geared towards adults (who are aimlessly wandering the closed-down streets with drink in hand) is a bit more racy and captivating than say, a Memorial Day parade at 10am. It's also way too convenient that the parade and pre-/post-parties are within 2 blocks of my apartment...

The rest of the night gave way for street performers, one of which put on quite the impressive balancing and juggling act, roughly 10 feet in the air, while on a small Huffy bicycle. Check him out...

Continuing on, from one fine establishment to another (Mom, 'fine establishment' sounds so much better than 'bar' huh?! ; )), we met a range of people, from 'Uni' (Univ of Adelaide), to what makes me think of the statement "were you brought up in a barn?", to a WOMADelaide intern visiting from France. ... The barn girl, well as I was waiting in line for a beer (outside post-parade-party), she came stumbling up and from out of the corner of my eye, she went down, hard. It was funny, of course, but I managed to hold in the laughter. I don't know what it is about watching people fall that's so funny, but it just is, as you all (or at least most of you) know! So anyway, she popped up and was looking for a drink to put it behind her as she commented. Naturally, I bought her and her barn-yard mouth one following her offer to actually buy me a beer... nice manners considering the events of the last minute or two. After laughing at her fall I guess I felt obliged to help her out in forgetting what had just happened. Either that or I was just attracted to the soar on her upper lip (that she kept mentioning to not worry about)! Gross. ; ) So after a few minutes of hanging out with her, I was about to stab myself in the foot, but she had friends and Rick was about to turn in, so I went with. Her friends were an interesting mix of characters to say the least... a bit older and the actor type... weird basically. I decided, after a really strange interaction with the woman who lounged in the chair to the left as if she were half-dead, to start a conversation with the attractive, quiet girl to my right. It went something like this...

Me: Hi, I'm Seth, how are you?
Her: Good, thank you. I'm from France. (or so it sounded to me)
Me: That's cool, I'm from America, what's your name?
Her: France. (again, or so it sounds)
Me: Yea, that's cool. What's your name?
Her: France. (again...)
IM (my inner monologue): hmmm, I must be missing something here
Me: So your name is France?
Her: Close, it's Florence (with an obvious accent)
Me: Ohhhhh, ok, France?
Her: Florence
Me: Florence
Her: Yes! (cracking a small smile)
IM: well this is going to be an interesting conversation
And after a bit of bs, etc, etc... - I found out she's working for the WOMADelaide festival and is actually the person who sent me out my media pass
confirmation letter so she was familiar with my name... cool.
Me: So have you ever been to the states?
Her: No (with a confused inflection). Wait, you mean the United States?
Me: Yep
Her: Yea, I've been to Chicago. I don't like Americans though.
IM: this chick isn't too bright huh? and she seems to be completely sober.
Me: Uh, you know I'M an American right? So you don't like me?
Her: (with face turning red) Oh, oh, I'm so sorry, I didn't ..., uh...
So I did what any mature and responsible adult would do, I kicked her in the shin and ran away!!! ... Ha, just kidding, I took the other route...
Me: Don't worry about it, Americans don't like the French either, it's a mutual thing. ; )

You can get a good flavor of how the rest of the conversation went, but I'll leave you there... The beach is calling my name.

Today Rick and I went to our first game of 'footy' with one of our bosses, Dave Liebing. It was a pre-season grudge match, the Adelaide Crows vs Port Adelaide Power. Dave's a big Power fan. The Power weren't so powerful today, they got stomped by 72 points I believe, which is huge in the sport. Dave took it like a man though... no tears.

Footy is a great sport to watch, putting both Australian cricket and American soccer to shame... both pretty boring, at least in my eyes. There are no stoppages in footy, just straight play for roughly 24 minutes each quarter. To get both information and water to the players, they have runners who run either the information or water out to the players on the field. With a combination of players, referees, and runners, it's quite the mess of people on the field at once!

Looking forward to the regular season when these teams meet again. Just hope it's a closer match-up!

The emotions continue to run wild... until now I was much against the festival due to its shear loudness and annoyances... quite the old man. Well tonight I stopped in late night, after an already very full night of being out, and I heard/witnessed one of the best show around!!! It was something like you've never seen before... a rock/burlesque band playing to a crowd of artists/actors/actresses... who were going wild. The entire place was going wild, the band was a circus, and the smoke (part of the act, not cigarettes!) filling the tent was engaging... I loved it!

And since I've been trying to explain it to people around here for a week now without avail, here's the description from their website... it does better than I could ever expect to...

"Some say it's like elevator music, but your actually caught in an elevator with someone you really hate. Some say it's like circus music when Eye-ball Sam is hanging from the rafters channeling Shostakovitch and the Bison is dressed like house maid dancing with someones father. It's music that lives in cheap motels, songs that run away from home without the pension, songs that bury themselves in your backyard to help the flowers grow, it's prison music for children, it's sex with your best friend, it's a home loan without a home, it's bedlam in a bath tub, it's boarder line tourettes, a bull-horn and a bowler hat, it's a bald man dancing in car park in Croxton, it's a million dollar baby in a two dollar shop, it's John Howard crackling bacon in his undies, it's Martin Martini and The Bone Palace Orchestra."

Tonight I attended my first meeting with the Adelaide Camera Club. I believe it's the 2nd oldest established club in all of Australia, dating back to 1898. I first heard of it just last week, when a member responded to a forum I had posted seeking out local photographers. It was a good night of meeting other photographers, young and old, beginner to near-professional. We met on the lawn of the 'Uni' and shot models dressed up in all sorts of costumes (mostly old, revolutionary style garb). The setting was amazing and the costumes couldn't have meshed better with the old school buildings. The club meets every other Tuesday and holds competitions, trips, etc... should be fun. Glad I made it out tonight after last night's 3 hours of sleep. Somehow I rocked at work today too, wide-awake and super productive all the day long! (Yes, believe it or not, I DO work!)

Rick left this morning. I'm all alone. ; ( Time to actually put some effort into meeting more people. Also time to try and piece my life back together...

Checked out Martin Martini again last night.

Oh, and a final wrap-up of the rubbing alcohol saga! I'm sure you'll all quite enthralled and wouldn't want to leave you hanging in suspense...

So on Monday I met up with my "connection". As I waited outside for him to emerge from the building in which he was studying, I pulled $10 out of my wallet... getting ready for a quick exchange. A few moments passed and then he arrived, with a clear liter jug marked "Seth's 100% isopropyl alcohol" on its side in black magic marker. After a brief exchange of how-do-ya-do, and his refusal of my $10 (after all, this small jug barely dented his 20 liter vat), I was on my way. Sketchy drug deal complete! Walking back to the car, I felt an overwhelming sense of happiness come over me... I was wearing a huge smile and singing as I passed other students enjoying the afternoon sun. ...Who would've thunk?! Rubbing alcohol able to inspire such happiness and good feeling?! Crazy...

OH, and I don't think I ever mentioned the reason for my overwhelming desire for this alcohol. Due to the previous month's drinking, I've become fairly immune to the normal 80 proof stuff. Figured the rubbing alcohol would serve as a good 'warm-up shot' before heading out... ; ) ...Well either that, or I need it to clean the sensors on my digital cameras. Unfortunately they're getting pretty filthy so I get dark spots all over the images that I need to spend time Photoshopping out. Quite the pain in the ass. I can either pay $100+ for a cleaning kit as some people do, or spend a dollar or two on alcohol and Q-tips. You pick.

This weekend I felt like I was in college again... party til 3-4am, sleep til 1 or 2pm, take a nap at 5pm, wake up at 7pm ready to eat (if time permitted) and start partying again. It's a rough life I tell you, ROUGH.

Last night I was serenaded to sleep by Martin Martini who was playing his usual 1:30-3:00am slot in the Spiegeltent across the way. I saw him and his band 3 times last week. I'm gonna stalk the violin player when I go to Melbourne in a few weeks. She's just dandy. ; )

Burgers are funny over here. Well the burgers themselves aren't but the people who make them are. The "big" burgers over here have a fried egg on top, and many also have a thick chunk of beetroot. The egg I can deal with, the beet not. Last night I ordered something referred to as a 'big beef burger'. When I received this burnt toast burger I decided to take a closer peak at this 'big beef'. Low and behold, the damn burger made a McDonald's burger look like a 'BIG BURGER'! I truly couldn't believe my eyes! It wasn't even cooked, or at least I should say by the color of it, it didn't look like it was cooked... it was one of those gray colored burgers that just never look right. It looked as though the chef instead cooked the roll and tossed the burger on that top rack many grills have, to give it a little warming. ...So I sent it back and got a marinated chicken and spit foccacia sandwich. (It's too bad I can't figure out for the life of me how to spell foccacia). Guess I can't guarantee the spit part but it's surely a possibility...

On the topic of food, there's not much fish either unfortunately. And french fries (a.k.a. chips) are served with just about everything, including chicken parmesan, instead of pasta (as Rick found out - the waiter was quite confused by the idea of even having pasta with chicken parm). And the restaurant on the corner serves one free pancake as dessert after you finish your dinner. Yea, like a real breakfast pancake... which will follow a beer and steak or pasta dish or whatever you order... interesting...

... 9:00pm - So I've been down at PJ O'Briens now for a bit writing and eating and just realized, MY KEYS! I don't have them! UH OH!

... 9:09pm - Went back next door and saw a sign left on my mailbox. Some guy, Victor, has my keys! As I was calling Victor, he came down and got me my keys. Now it's back to my pint of Guinness and editing my journal entry... Doesn't get much easier than that!