What do Smurfs do at a football game? The Blue Wave!

Mams and I got up relatively early (5:30AM uggg)and caught the train towards the Blue Mountains National Park near the town of Katoomba. I kind of enjoy the train ride as a chance to see the city a bit and comfortable trip into the mountains as well as start my audio book 'The Count of Monte Christo'. We walked downhill from the train station through the town towards some of the hiking trails. We headed along the cliff side road to enjoy the views a bit and found the paths that lead us to the trails in the canyon. We headed down the Dardanelles Pass Walking trail that lead us down the 'Three Sisters' which is a well known rock formation. There were a lot of steps taking us all the way down, so the plan was to catch the giant Stairwell Trail on the bottom and head over to Katoomba scenic World, which is itself a popular tourist attraction. The walk along the rainforest floor was really nice and many of the views up the walls and across the valleys spectacular. I had intended on taking the steep, inclined railway back up to the Scenic World complex, however when we arrived it apparently was not operating. So after going around the walkways, we had to take the gondola (Scenic Skyway) back up the cliff. It was nice, but I really wanted a chance to experience the scenic railway that they had because of the different angle of ascent. The complex has at one time laid track for a roller coaster (much of which we could see when riding up), however it apparently was never used. Seeing it reminded me of pictures I have previously seen of abandoned amusement parks. The staff apparently are not used to people taking one-way trips up the valley floor (as most go down, walk around, and then ride back up) so they couldn't figure out how to sell a ticket, so eventually we were just allowed to pass through. We did, however, purchase a ticket for the Scenic Skyway which is a cable car that takes people across the valley over the beautiful Katoomba Falls. the unique aspect about this is that the floor turns from opaque to transparent during the trip so people can look down through the glass beneath their feet.

We walked back into town (uphill this time!) and grabbed a bit of food before doing some shopping. I tried my first ginger beer which tasted exactly like the ginger slices placed on sushi, only liquefied. When we go back to Sydney we walked around more of downtown, including many of the areas used for the Summer Olympics several years ago. We even ran into a couple of hashers when Mams recognized one of the Interhash shirts from China a couple of years ago. I really enjoyed walking around downtown and enjoying the food (several oyster stops), the beer (several bar/pub stops), and the sites. We stopped by one place called the 'Icecube' and since it was slow, the barkeep just started giving us a few of the light-up plastic ice cubes. Too cool. That place had the best oysters that we had yet experienced. We were a lot tired and decided to take a cab back to the hostel for the evening.

¿ɹǝpun uʍop puɐ1 ɐ ɯoɹɟ ǝɯoɔ noʎ op

After a quick plane change in Auckland, NZ, I landed in Sydney just after 8AM and was able to meet up with my travel buddy, Thanks for the Mammaries from Orlando fairly quickly. We'd been planning this trip for a while and I knew it was going to be a great time. We were picked up by the hostel van and driven to our place at the Original Backpacker's Hostel in Kings Cross. After quickly throwing our stuff into the room, we headed out to see the town. The first thing noticeable of course is the different traffic pattern. It must be a big issue for visiting citizens of the United States since many of the corners along major roads had painted signs to look right for oncoming traffic. Figuring I would be pretty embarrassed getting flattened by a car, I quickly got into the habit of checking the right direction before stepping out.

On the way to the waterfront near Woolloomooloo Bay after passing by Harry's Pie Shop, we strolled through the Royal Botanical Gardens and thoroughly enjoyed the area. One surprising thing was the massive number of bats hanging in the trees throughout the entire park. There were thousands of the around with several occasionally just flapping around to a new perch. Our biggest first stop was of course the famous Sydney Opera House. We walked outside for a while and then took one of the inside tours that have a long history of the site from the deign to construction. I got a bit more out of it than I had expected, however we were unfortunately not able to get into the main auditorium since there was a performance or rehearsal taking place.

We walking a bit towards Circular Quay and made the first of many oyster stops of this leg of the trip. I think at the end we hit ever little cafe and stand that had seafood that we saw. Throughout the morning, we could see groups of a dozen people or so doing the Sydney Harbour Bridge climb. While it seems like fun, the ripoff cost ($189AUD) and restrictions (personal cameras are not allowed, however they will of course sell you photos taken with their cameras) dissuaded us from participating. Instead, we walked the pedestrian sidewalk of the bridge to one of the main pylons where for a cost of $10AUD we could climb to the top as well as see some of the ironwork construction and interpretive displays. The top of the pylon ended up only being a hundred feet or so shorter then the top of the bridge span, so we still had sweeping views of the harbor and cityscape below. Unfortunately, which very much sucks, the camera lens for my Rebel XT stopped zooming. For this to happen at the start of the trip sucks beyond belief. I am seriously not in the mood to deal with this right now.

After our own climb, Mams and I did our own crawl to some of the more famous pubs in the area including the Harbour View Hotel, Palisade Hotel, Lord Nelson brewery, and Hero of Waterloo. The beef pie at the Lord Nelson pub was excellent and really hit the spot since the oysters we ate after doing the opera house were already burned off in the climbs and long walks. Throughout the trip we both enjoyed talking to the other patrons, bartenders, and even passers-by at time. One of the barkeeps ask if we had lost a bet when I said I was heading to New Zealand next. We snaked out way back to the hotel after checking out the Sydney Observatory, a section of town called 'The Rocks' and other random sites such that we arrived back just after dark. It was an exhausting day and the shower and bed were very, very welcome.

Just another wrinkle in the fabric of time and space.

Due to the International Dateline, March 9, 2008 does not exist for me. I left LAX at 8pm March 8th and landed in Sydney at 8:05 AM on March 10th. I hope nothing interesting happened in the world today since I would have missed it completely.

The plane ride was about what would expect for 12 hours. fortunately Air New Zealand is a great service and soon after take-off we were having our first full meal. Each seat had a entertainment system that had games, dozens of music channels, and a couple of dozen movies. I was able to get some sleep, but throughout the flight I watched 'Into the Wild' and 'Lions and Lambs'. When I tried to sleep, I found it hard to support my head. as may be typical of me, I did not figure out that the headrest was moldable until about two minutes before we landed. I was also able to get through a large stack of magazines that I brought from home that had been piling up for a while, so I was surprisingly able to productively use the time during the day that did not exist.

Californication

After sleeping in for a little bit and doing a final repack, I headed into downtown LA to visit another site that had interested me for a while, the La Brea Tar Pits. this is a collection of tar pits that have been seeping from the ground and is so sticky that many pre-historic animals (such as saber cats) were trapped and preserved from the asphalt-like material. I walked around the museum for a while to check out some of the recovered artifacts and interpretive displays. After walking around for a while I headed to Hollywood to briefly hit the Walk of Fame and grab a bite to eat. It was interesting to people watch for a bit including some guy dressed as a ninja/samurai concoction dragging a skateboard on a rope. I returned my rental car and went through security to prepare for my big adventure!

Leaving in a jet plane.

As per my habit, I really didn't start packing for the 6.5 week trip until just about the evening before I left. The front room was in complete disarray as I tried to categorize everything I needed while then continuously taking out extra stuff to get as light as possible. After Kristen dropped me off, I hit a fairly long security line, but was able to get through after about 30 minutes with time to spare. I was so tired that I was asleep even before the plane's safety briefing and didn't wake up until nearly over Texas.

After landing, I picked up my one-day rental car and did a little driving around. I passed by the Santa Monica Pier and drove the Pacific Coast Highway around Malibu. While RV's can definitely be a comfortable way to travel, I'm not so convinced that they are appropriate for some of the more hilly entrances to some locations when driving around California. I picked up a NPS stamp for the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area at the main office before they closed for the day and headed a bit further north. along the way I pulled over to change the tire for some lady who didn't seem to know the difference between a jack handle and lug wrench.

The coastal road was quite beautiful and I was able to get out in several places and get some decent pictures. I even came across a photo shoot along the roadway with a model stretching out over some old-time car on the side of the road. After getting a quick bite to eat and a beer, I headed into LA to meet up with my friend Lisa (Sponge) since she was graciously allowing me to crash at her place for the evening. I was too tired to really go out, so was just stayed in and chatted a while before I finally crashed.

Going to the lands down under!

I have been planning this trip for a long time. As of Friday, March 7th I will be on my way to Australia and New Zealand for a 6 week experience of a lifetime. I'm not taking a laptop, so I'm going to pretty much be out of touch for the duration of the trip until my return around April 23rd. This trip will involve 3 days of diving off a liveaboard out of Cairns, hitting the Milford and Routeburn tracks (two of the highest rated hikes in the world), bungee jumping from a 400' platform, river surfing, mountain biking, glacier hiking, kayaking a lake with mile high mountains on either side, and whatever else I can fit in.

Here is my schedule for those that care:

Los Angeles, CA - Mar 7-8
Due to international dateline, March 9 2008 does not exist for me as I take off at 8pm from LAX on March 8th and land at 8AM March 10th in Sydney.

Australia

• Sydney - Mar 10-12
• Hash bus tour out of Brisbane - Mar 12-20
• Gold Coast - Mar 13
• Currumbin, Minjungbal - Mar 14
• Byron Bay - Mar 15
• Mount Warning hike - Mar 16
• Night Cap National Park, Minyon falls - Mar 17
• Byron Bay - Mar 18
• Brisbane area - Mar 19-20
• Perth (Interhash 2008) - Mar 20 - 24
• Diving on the liveaboard Taka on the Great Barrier Reef out of Cairns) - Mar 25 - 28
• Cairns - Mar 29

New Zealand

• Christchurch to Te Anua Downs - Mar 29 - Apr 2
• Milford Track - Apr 2 - 5
• Milford Sound - Apr 5 - 7
• Routeburn track - Apr 8 - 11
• Traveling south island (maybe north island?) - Apr 11 - 23rd

LA, CA - April 23
Back to Tampa - April 24

If there is anything important, then send it to my Gmail account and I'll try to check it whenever I get near an Internet cafe or couchsurf. I'll be sure to try a Vegemite sandwich and see what that darn song really meant by it. It has been bugging me since the 80s, so now I can find out.

On - On

Life gets a lot more interesting when you use a cattle prod.

Both my roommate and my girlfriend each have a dog, so one of the top projects on my list these days was to get a fence built in the back yard to make it easier to let the dogs play outside. Most of my backyard is uneven terrain, so putting in a fence around most of it would be very labor and time intensive. I settled on a 20' x 30' of fairly even area directly behind the house that gives them plenty of room as well as being out of view.

Though it took more time than I thought when working on it a bit at a time, I finally finished this afternoon. When I started conceiving the project, I knew I wanted to put in some kind of doggie door to enable the dogs to go in and out whenever they need so we wouldn't have to always let them out. The problem was that my screened back porch is about 4-5 feet off of the ground whereas my old home with the egress door for my old dog Kinda was pretty much ground level. After playing with some ideas, I finally decided to build on an extra platform with a ramp that looks like a cattle chute to the fenced area. Both Kristen and my roommate helped when I need someone to steady something, hold something in place, or bring out a cool lemonade!

Before putting in the doggie door. I had to take out the screen, add in a support bar, and then do the installation. This picture was taken before I built the platform and ramp.

Pictures of the finished product! With this the dogs, once they learn how to use the door, can go in and out as they please!

Inside shot with the completed door.

Can't a werewolf simply AVOID the moon by staying inside and watching TV?!

I went outside tonight to enjoy the cool weather and watch the lunar eclipse for a while. One thing that sucks about the Earth's rotation is that it is darn inconsiderate of my needs. Ever time I set up the shot on the tripod with my 300mm lens and 1.4 multiplier so I could take a series of shots, the darn thing would move out of frame in about 5-10 minutes. Darn celestial bodies! I only watched the first half for a couple of hours before turning in as I figured it the second half would be pretty much the same, except in reverse.

Disney's Law - Children under 12 must be accompanied by money.

After hitting the Orlando RDR, Kristen and I took in EPCOT at Disney World for a day as a means to relax for a bit. It was relatively peaceful there with few lines and we had a pretty good time taking in the World Showcase and other attractions.

Claustrophobia: fear of white-bearded men in red suits.

After having a good time at the Tampa Red Dress Run last weekend, we decided to head to the Orlando event so I can see some of the folks I'll be missing from Run-A-Muck this year when I'll be in Australia/ New Zealand. Since we picked up passes a couple of weeks ago, Kristen and I decided to stay at her family's condo in Kissimmee so we could hit Disney the next day. We dropped off her dog and headed to the downtown area to the first bar. We drove around for a short bit and found a metered spot that was just a block away from start. It was nice to see some of the old friends (Peterphile, Lunar, Skinamax, et al). The trail was nice as it even had a pretty significant turkey/eagle split that had the eagles running (in high heels, bare feet, or hooker boots mind you) for at least two miles! We went around the park with the big pond and fountain and got a lot (as usual) of strange looks and questions of 'what kind of event is this?'.

On Sunday we headed to Epcot for the day and went around the World Showcase. Instead of going through the front entrance, we parked at Downtown Disney and took a bus to the Swam and Dolphin hotel where we caught one of the water taxis to the back entrance typically only used by hotel guests. While it didn't save any time, it was something different and enjoyable. The rest of the park was enjoyable, as usual and we hit most of the showcased countries and even made it as far forward as 'The Living Seas', but skipped Spaceship Earth and the other rides since it was getting late in the day.

On the way back my front tire literally blew apart. I pulled over to change it, only to find the spare nearly as flat. I slowly made my way to the next exit and just as I was pulling into the pump, the tire was coming off the rim. We called AAA, however I had a bright idea and rejacked up the truck so the weight was off the tire. Now that the tire could stretch out, it would now seal against the rim and hold air. We canceled the tow and cruised home, totally exhausted and worn out, but it was a fun weekend.

My Orlando RDR 2008 pics:
http://picasaweb.google.com/mblitch/OrlandoRDR2008