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  • melbourne olympic stadium

    [Melbourne Olympic Stadium]
    with an apparent genetic predisposition to sneaking into sports venues, the lady sparkler and I talked our way into the Melbourne Olympic Stadium today.

    being an Olympiphile (sounds dirty, huh?) I wasn’t going to pass up an opportunity to checkout a venue, and so I led us on a walk around the city that “conveniently” went past the stadium.

    unfortunately, it’s now a private training venue.

    not to be denied, I marched right up to the security gate and proceeded to barrage the (60+, toothless) lady with how honored i was to be at the Stadium, how incredible the 1956 games were, how I reveared Australian national icon (and three time Melbourne gold medalist) Betty Cuthbert, and how important the games became when they were the first to allow all the atheletes enter the closing ceremonies together (as opposed to marching in by country).

    needless-to-say, she was confused by my knowledge and excitement which it became obvious that, as she stammered to keep up, she didn’t share.

    (what I neglected to tell her was that I had watched a two hour documentary on the Melbourne Olympics on the flight over … details, details.)

    finally, I assume out of boredom or desparation, she waved us through and asked us not to wander too far.

    and while the stadium itself doesn’t look too different from the track at my college, seeing the same venue from the documentary (only less scratchy, and less black-and-white) was incredible.

    not that i need an excuse to Become more obsessed with the Olympics, but it’s nice to have one regardless.

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    melbourne olympic stadium

  • Travel: Last bits of the Great Ocean Road

    [Photo]
    IMG_0330, originally uploaded by [ecpark].
    Austalia (Day Nine) — It was a pretty lazy day today, our last on the road before Melbourne. We backtracked a bit to Triplet Falls, which Lizzie (our host from the previous night) had recommended.

    Once we got back on the road from Otway to Melbourne, there was much to see, but not a lot to photograph. The last day of the Great Ocean Road — which is actually the first day for most as it is closest to Melbourne — was a series of small beach towns with some scenic surfing beaches in between. Lovely, but not unlike coastal America.

    Driving the last little bit into the big city more than a little tedious … lots of one way streets, a omnipresent tram system, flocks of asian tourists, no serviceable map, and rush hour traffic. There will be more on all things Melbourne a little later.

    Explore the Photo Set:
    Cape Otway, Australia

  • Travel: Cape Otway Centre for Conservation Ecology (a.k.a. Cape Otway School for Orphaned ‘Roos)

    [Photo]
    IMG_0209, originally uploaded by [ecpark].
    Austalia (Day Eight) — Perhaps the place that the lady sparkler and I were the most psyched to stay during our trip was the Great Ocean Ecolodge, which is a small bed & breakfast type accommodation (5 rooms) attached to the Cape Otway Center for Conservation Ecology. The lodging came ridiculously highly recommended — especalially by TNCers — and the experience was even better.

    Shortly after arrival they took us on a “dusk” walk around the properties, and within the first 20 minutes we had seen three koalas, were explained the entire regional ecosystem and were firmly behind their site management plan. On our way back it was all down hill, only tripping on three parrots, two dozen kangaroos, two wallabies and a magpie that enjoyed attacking human’s shoes.

    The owners are a zoologist and a natural resources manager in their mid-twenties, who have overcome some pretty long odds to launch this, their dream project. Besides using the property to test a range of ecological hypotheses — including the best ways to revegetate portions of Australia that have been over-cleared — they take in injured / abandoned animals such as a baby kangeroo who flopped around the house while we ate dinner that night. If you have the chance, we highly recommend making the trip.

    We had quite a great crew of fellow quests, including a retired couple from Sheffield, England and a couple of small business owners from somewhere along the Gold Coast of Australia. Much of the convesation that night was predictable (“how in &^%$ sake did *he* get elected?!?) but everyone was most generous to keep it amicable and gave us the widest possible recognizing that the lady sparkler and I weren’t unilaterally responsible for the current geo-political situation.

    Ah, imagine that … two cultures who don’t assume the worst about their contemporaries.

    Explore the Photo Set:
    Cape Otway Center for Conservation Ecology, Australia

  • Travel: Discovery Bay National Park, Victoria

    [Photo]
    IMG_9584, originally uploaded by [ecpark].
    Austalia (Day Seven) — Today we had two of the best hikes of the trip so far, both through Discovery Bay National Park, which runs along the Southern Ocean on the western edge of Victoria.

    On our way back from the second, we ran into three billy goats (“gruff” presumably) in the middle of the path. Don’t know where they came from — they weren’t anywhere to be seen on the way out — but they were sure enough there on the way back. Initially, things didn’t look particularly good … the biggest one of the bunch approached slowly, dipped its head, and started pawing the ground.

    Perhaps, now is a good time to pause for some back-story:

    Last year when the lady sparkler and I were in Tucson, we mis-timed one of our hikes and found ourselves out in the desert after dark. As we were scurrying back, we had not one but two rattlesnakes try and kill us. The second of the two actually rattled across the path between the lady sparkler (who stopped) and myself (who sped up).

    Yesterday, we were hiking around Mount Richmond in the middle of the day, when I noticed a large tree branch that was down across the path began to move. We’d find out later that it was actually a copperhead, one of the 14 breeds of snakes in Australia that can kill you. Now, when you think copperhead, you think of a normal-sized snake that just happens to be poisonous. This, however, was the size of the basilisk from that Harry Potter movie. It looked like it had recently eaten a moose. Or an auto.

    Anyway, back to the goats. The only thing that kept me from running around like a blithering idiot around the snakes — other than the whole “being paralyzed with fear” thing — was that I keep being told that they are just as scared of us as we are of them. The goats? Not afraid of us, though, this turned out to be a good thing.

    Momma goat DID dip her head, and pawed the ground, but was just looking to soften up the dirt before she laid down to completely block the path. Her two chil’en quickly followed suit. We gingerly chose about a 6 inch path between the goats and the 200-foot cliff, and resisted the urge to pet the (now) cute little goats. Didn’t want to open ourselves up to *that* conversation with Customs.

    Turns out that not everything in Australia is trying to kill you.

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    Travel: Discovery Bay National Park, Victoria, Australia

  • travel: on the road to robe

    [Photo]
    IMG_8887, originally uploaded by [ecpark].
    [Photo]
    IMG_9088, originally uploaded by [ecpark].
    Austalia (Day Six) — Today was really expected to be a “throw-away” day, in that we wanted to drive from Robe to Melbourne (which is the pretty part) but still had to get from Adelaide to Robe (apparently the “beaming” technology advertised by Star Trek geeks hasn’t advanced quite as far as they have implied).With that in mind, we were a bit surprised (“Shocked, I say, shocked!”) that we ended the day debating over which landmark was the most beautiful thing we had ever seen in our lives.

    My favourite (notice the “cheeky” Anglo spelling) was a place called The Granites (above, top). We tripped on it purely by accident (we saw a small brown sign with a distance, but no description) and went on a lark. We got a set of exquisite pink granite boulders in an amazing blue-green sea.

    The lady sparkler’s favourite was Cape Dombey (above, bottom) which is part of a “recreational reserve” in the port town of Robe where we are spending the night. Also an accident, we had set off for the town’s lighthouse (modernist, hideous) when we tripped on the Dombey obelisk that sat on a set of breathtaking cliffs.

    We have had such incredible luck this trip off recommendations, but even better luck with serendipity.

    Explore the Photo Set:
    Travel: On the Road to Robe, Australia

  • Travel: Adelaide, My Adelaide

    [Photo]
    IMG_8615, originally uploaded by [ecpark].
    Austalia (Days Four & Five) — We are back on the mainland, and the local baggage sprites are obviously trying to make amends for their Californian cousins as all three of our bags come out of the conveyor together, and were among first twenty off the plane.Yesterday we lazed around the city, wandering through the city’s botanic gardens. (You wouldn’t believe how much of this city is devoted to parkland, and they take their open spaces very seriously.) Today we took the car out and hit some of the wineries to the East and South of town.

    Now, leaving Tasmania, we were more than a little concerned that the mainland would be just as beautiful, and it turns out that’s the case (how much beauty can a couple stand?!?) The views through wine country were really unbelievable, and some of the beaches on the way back into town were as spectacular as they were empty. (Near as we can figure, school started back up this week.)

    In other news … Adelaide has taken our time confusion and kicked it up another notch — BAM! — as it turns out the town elders decided that adhering to time zones was a silly notion. Apparently being a half hour off sounded like a laugh, so we are now (temporarily) 16 hours and 30 minutes ahead of D.C. time. Oh, and we haven’t figured out how to adjust the clock in our car, so we have just stopped even trying to care what time it is.

    Tomorrow, we start our four day drive along the Southern Ocean into Melbourne, in what is supposed to be the prettiest portion of our trip. My “shutter” finger is just aching in anticipation …

    Explore the Photo Set:
    Travel: Adelaide, Australia

  • Travel: More reasons to hate Californians, and everything is NOT bigger in Texas

    [Photo]
    IMG_8562, originally uploaded by [ecpark].
    AUSTRALIA (DAY THREE) — Well, my luggage mysteriously appeared in our hotel room last night, and the sudden appearance (which occurred without any apparent human intervention) gave the lady sparkler quite a start when she got up to use the ‘loo.’

    Still no word on her bag though, other than the knowledge that it never made it through LAX. Interestingly, when we were talking to one of the Qantas baggage service people about what happened, she rolled her eyes and said, ‘LAX happened.’ Not that we needed another reason to dislike Californians, but apparently their baggage handling skills are world renowned for all the wrong reasons.

    We spend the day driving 200 kilometers south through what is widely considered as the most beautiful portions of Tasmania. We knew we were in trouble when I had taken over a hundred pictures *before* we even entered the first of three national parks for the day. (The final tally included two full memory cards for over 350 images.)

    Today was less about rainforests, and more about landscapes. We passed though mountain ranges, savannah grasslands, scrubland/hill country, reeded marshlands, both rocky and sandy beaches, before finishing up in rolling prairie-land. All this in little more than one hundred miles driven.

    Which brings us to our first conclusion of the trip: everything is decidedly *not* bigger in Texas.

    The roads here never end. We could spend four weeks on an island the size of West Virginia, and never see the same thing twice. The trees here would take half a dozen adults to surround holding hands. The animals are bigger (they even have longhorns). The land is more diverse. The mountains are higher. The beer is larger. So are the hats. Even the hubris is bigger (they have routed an entire river through pipes for use in hydro-electric plants.)

    And we haven’t even reached the mainland.

    Near the end of today, we were wincing as we drove around corners because the impossibly beautiful just kept getting more beautiful … it was actually more than a bit overwhelming. Words honestly can’t describe this place. The photos we posted do a pretty good job of showing the beauty, but really can’t give a hint to the scale … so, while you are looking think ‘vast’ and then triple it.

    UPDATE: the lady sparkler’s luggage was waiting for us at the hotel in Hobart, which is great as we fly back to the mainland tomorrow morning. t.l.s. has never been so excited about the possibility of shaving her legs.

    Explore the Photo Set:
    Travel: Lake St. Claire National Park, Tasmania

  • Travel: It’s a mad, mad, mad world …

    [Photo]
    IMG_7976, originally uploaded by [ecpark].
    AUSTRALIA (DAY TWO) — I woke up this morning, and the world was on its head. I’m 12,000 miles from home. People drive on the wrong side of the road. The land is impossibly beautiful. People are nice. Water flows around the drain the other way. Internet access costs $26 for 2 hours. Tottenham Hotspur actually won something. The sky is down, and the ground is up. the lady sparkler doesn’t mind if I wear the same clothes day after day. 

    About that: I should have mentioned that while we made landfall yesterday, our luggage didn’t. the lady sparkler being a smart girl has two changes of clothes and four pair of underwear in her carry-on. I have 10 pounds of camera equipment. The most beguiling thing about this parallel universe we find ourselves in is that neither of us seem to care about the state of our baggage.

     

    About that: Tasmania is just devastatingly beautiful. Since Australia is the original continent — and there hasn’t been much in the way of earthquakes, volcanoes or glaciers to stir up the ground — much of what you see has been that way for the last billion or so years (give or take).

     

    The place we stayed last night was at the entrance to Cradle Mountain National Park, and so we began the morning hiking through the temperate rainforest at the mountain’s base. The youngest trees looked 500-years old, and there was a *thick* carpet of moss on anything that wasn’t moving.

     

    After our morning in Eden, we bustled ourselves off to Strahan (the ‘ha’ is silent) on the western coast of Tasmania. The last quarter of the pictures are from the city’s “park,” which seems a mild understatement as it is big enough to house a 40-minute walk through rainforest to a trio of stunning waterfalls.

     

    It’s a mad, mad world.

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    Travel: Cradle Mountain National Park, Tasmania

  • Travel: Trowunna Wildlife Park, Tasmania

    [Photo]
    IMG_7813, originally uploaded by [ecpark].
    AUSTRALIA (DAY ONE) — We arrived this morning in Australia this morning, after somewhere about a 31-hour journey. We would consider being jet-lagged, but we are so confused about the time shift that we are thoroughly unable to figure out if we should be tired or not.

    The moment the lady sparkler bought tickets to Australia, she started a list of animals that she wanted to see: kangaroos, wallabies, koalas, tassie devils, platypus-es (platypi?) and wombats. Fortunately, in the run up to our trip we saw something on the Travel Channel about the Trowunna Wildlife Park outside of Launceston (the ‘ce’ is silent) which rehabilitates wounded animals.

    Now, if you haven’t been lucky enough to be on the lady sparkler’s Blackberry distribution list to announce her animal sightings, then (a) let me know and I will try and pull some strings for you, and (b) she saw ALL of the above in one afternoon sans the platypus. She even got to hold a baby wombat.

    I’m not positive, but I’m pretty sure her life is complete now.

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    Travel: Trowunna Wildlife Park, Tasmania, Australia

  • Travel: Landfall on Australia

    [Photo]
    IMG_7750, originally uploaded by [ecpark].