Road Trip

I started this one by looking at all the photos from this last weekend, trying to pick out the best ones. I decided none of the photos do our trip any justice and you'll have to take my word when I say the scenery we took in this weekend was amazing.

Amanda, Nikki (HWS student), and I took a car south for the weekend, stopping at the infamous Nimbin, Byron Bay, and several national parks (some of which are world heritage sites). The trip was about 1000 km or 700 miles and took us through heath land, grassland, coastal agriculture, the Dividing Mountain Range, coastal dune structures, wet sclerophyll forest, rain forest, and eucalypt woodlands. Just an immense diversity of natural wonders. We'll actually be headed down to Lamington National Park this coming weekend to take a look at the rain forest there (no internet, which is why I am getting a couple blogs done this week).

The car was pretty cheap - about $100 per person for "petrol" and four days rental. We would have spent well over that and seen far less if we had tried to use public transportation. Amanda and I only had one argument as to who would drive; Amanda won. If Nikki hadn't been there, I would have left without her. Test me again, dAmanda... Driving on the wrong side of the road is pretty thrilling, especially in a foreign city with 1.6 million people, during rush hour. Australians generally don't speed - there speed limit is ridiculously, dangerously high, though. I generally go about 10 percent above the speed limit, but I am a grandpa driver in Australia, going well below the speed limit pretty frequently.

Nimbin

The first stop was Nimbin - a hippy town buried in New South Wales. They are anti-Uranium, pro-marijuana, and anti-US from what I saw posted around the town. Australia's "pot problems" are, apparently, a direct consequence of the US' anti-drug campaign on "natural medication." I didn't figure out exactly why, but it is likely the Howard-Bush connection, although Australians seem a lot more conservative about pot (outside Nimbin, at least). It was a nice stop, but I had the feeling it was evolving into a commercialized town, rather than the quaint village from which it grew.

That's all I have to say about that.



Byron Bay

Byron Bay rocked. Some of the best surf in Australia and a pretty good night life. I don't think I would go a second time, because it was kind of a tourist hot spot, but the beaches were beautiful. Byron Bay also sports the eastern most point in Australia and a light house that is worth the forty-five minute walk to see.






Yamba

We stayed in Yamba's main hotel, right on the beach. We were pretty lame, though. Amanda fell asleep at like 7:30 PM and Nikki and I watched movies (we had a film comparison project due the day we got back). In our defense, most of the other people on this term abroad stayed in for the weekend.

Outside Yamba we took a coastal walk along the beach, which was less amazing than some of the other national parks we saw, but the beach at the end was beautiful. All along the trip we ran into these desolate, white sand beaches and were the only ones there. Yamba is reportedly the best surfing spot on the east coast of Australia - probably because of the huge waves (for very experienced surfers) and its relative isolation from the tourist spots of Byron Bay and the Gold Coast.

Other Stuff

We visited three or four national parks along the way, which I don't remember the names of, but if someone really wants to know I can find them. All along the trip it was striking to see how lush it was along the mountain range (orographical rainfall) and how much agriculture they had in a place that is 70 percent arid or semi-arid.

One of the highlights was seeing this huge waterfall 100 metres high and the wet-sclerophyll rainforest around it. Wet sclerophyll rainforest has a eucalyp canopy with a rainforest undergrowth and is controlled by frequent (<300 years) fire.

Okay, time to stop procrastinating. We've had a lot the last week or so - two mid terms and a film comparison with a short paper and a long laboratory report due in the next couple days.

It's Liz's birthday Thursday.