North Freo Beach and Rottnest Island

On Friday, the class that all of the Americans take together was composed of a historical walking tour of the area, and got out early. This left us with some extra time, and almost our entire dorm decided to check out a new beach. It is only one train stop away from us, but it is across of the opening of the Swan River.

North Fremantle Beach was amazing. The sand was pure white and soft, and the dunes were open and spacious, along with the fact that there were very few people. It did not have the commercialisation and buildup of pubs or cafes as some of the other cool beaches, but it did have a snack shop.

We all enjoyed this beach alot, especially the much larger and more heavily crashing waves that take place at this beach. Body surfing was great, and the waves pounded you into the shore. (Some were very tall, and as we played football in the water could drag you almost all the way in if you werent looking at them and were taken by surprise)

It was so much fun that we decided to stay for about 6 or 7 hours before coming back, and with temperatures of around 92 degrees, we all got plenty of color that day.

The color was enhanced by our activities the next day. Six of us decided to get up early take the ferry to Rottnest Island, or "Rotto" as it is known to the locals. It is very similar to Mackinac Island in Michigan. You have to take a ferry to the island and is about 8-10 miles off shore. There are a couple of ferry companies and it takes about 25-30 minutes to get there. Once there you rent bikes and ride around the island.

One of the girls in the group of 6 that went never learned how to ride a bike, which meant that she had to use the transport system around the island, but other than that we all got bikes. There are no cars allowed on the island. There is a small town at the dock side, and then state park and protected wildlife the rest of the way (very similar to Mackinac).

We stopped at a few of the outlooks over the ocean along the way, before heading to an early 19th century lighthouse. We went to the top of it, which was very cool, and in the amazingly strong wind were able to get a great view of the island.

Four of the group decided just to head for a great beach on the other side, while myself and Keaton decided we wanted to bike all the way around the perimeter. We hit every lookout and path, and in total rode about 15 miles.

The similarities to Mackinac are startling -- there is one nice resort on the island and many other lower quality restaurants. The town is rather "tourist trappy". There is a golf course on the island. There is a former military fortification towards the middle of the island (although in this case it was big guns from WWI and WWII). Bikes are very popular (although we actually had to wear helmets because it is Australian federal law that all bikers must wear helmets), and almost everyone on the island is a tourist.

We finally got to the beach that we had chosen to meet and it was spectacular. Almost the entire island is amazing Indian Ocean beaches, however, this in particular was a little hidden away beach with its own cove. The sand was great, there were great big sand dunes, and the snorkelling and swimming was great.

A reef off the coast had some colorful coral (mostly blue and some red) and we saw some pretty large fish, as well as a sting ray in our group. We snorkelled to another beach and then headed over the rock formations of limestone to get back. We then got to relax in paradise for awhile at the beach. It certainly did not hurt that it was again over 90 degrees.

We all got a lot of color, and a great work out by biking over the many hills on the island.

After the ferry ride back and a quick shower, we finished the night off in Perth, trying out a very cool but different Asian themed bar. We didn't go very hard due to being tired from the long day, but it was a good end to a great day.

King's Park

Last Sunday we headed to Perth via the train, and visited King's Park on Mount Eliza overlooking the city. There are great views of Perth sitting on the Swan River from up there and there are also many monuments.

The park is huge and maticulously manicured. It is a pretty big area, that includes gardens that are themed for the fauna of different regions of the country. There are streams, fountains, and a tree top walk. It is a pretty cool place.

It took us hours to see and appreciate the entire thing, and is very cool. It is much larger than Central Park is in NYC, but it is on the bluff overlooking the city.

St. Patrick's Day

Luckily, after kayaking Sunday, and all of Monday and Tuesday, I had enough done to go out and enjoy St. Patrick's Day. I have classes from 8:30-12:30 am on Wednesday, so unlike a large group of people who have Wednesday's off, I had to keep it reasonably under control.

I never realized how much of an American holiday that St. Patricks Day had become, before coming here. It really isn't a big deal here to Australians, but the Americans sure made it feel festive. There is one big Irish Pub in Freo, and the line to get it was two hours. Rather than wait it out to feel festive, we decided to go bar hopping.

We visited five different bars over the course of the evening. The best was the green beer served at Mad Monks, or the chili pepper beer at the Sail and Anchor. Each place we drank different kind of beer and had a good time.

Notre Dame people got into it a little bit with different cheers for the Irish, and that added some interesting moments to the evening. It was not the way I have ever celebrated St Patrick's Day in South Bend, but it was still a fun night out.

[Note: I posted two on the same day, so do not miss the posting about kayking below this]

Kayak Trip

Ok, so its been a week since my last post, and it is obvious that things have happened. But along with those things that happened, an 18 page paper on the post WWII immigration policies of Australia relative to labour and militaristic needs happened. Sorry I didnt blog- priorities!

Anyways, we did go sea kayaking last Sunday, and it was a great experience. We got picked up in a bus at 7:45 am and taken to a bay south of Freo by about an hour.

Our itinerary was to kayak to Seal Island, an island where people are not allowed to go, and pull up just short of the shore. Sea lions and seals naturally live there, and are right in front of your face. There were a few in the water just in front of our boat, much closer than you could get to tame ones in a zoo. Many stayed on land because the temperatures were over 100 degrees that day.

From there we kayaked to the next place- Penguin Island. It is an island that is home to a natural penguin population. We disembarked, and walked around the island. There are some great beaches there, and we also got to snorkel around some reefs off of the side of the place. There were exotic fish on a shelf, and though we didn't see a ton, the fish we saw were pretty cool. We explored on some large rock formations and caves before taking a break for lunch.

Afterwards there is a penguin building where they take care of injured and abandoned penguins. We got to see them swim around and be fed, which was pretty neat. The kayaking was a blast, a little painful by the end of it, but great. In total we went about 5 km, sometimes into ocean currents.

AQWA and unfortunately more...

Saturday morning we woke up early to take a trip to a nice area of Perth called Sorrento. It is on the nicest part of the ocean, and there are many multi-million dollar homes on the water. There is also the Aquarium of Western Australia - AQWA.

The Aquarium is one of the largest in the entire country and has exhibits based on the different areas of the coast associated with the state of Western Australia (half of the country). The coolest part is the giant shark and devil ray tank in which visitors walk through a tube that goes up, down, and around just above the bottom of the tank. The tube is all glass, so that you can see the marine life on all four sides.

It is very cool to see sharks charge at you, giant turtles, swim away from rays the size of two people. There is also a touch pool where you can pet rays, starfish, fish, and tiger sharks. Rays feel way different than you would think - not slimy at all, rather rough almost like wet sand paper. There is an exhibition area, croc area, and many others.

There is also a big shopping area completely built over the water in a little bay called Hillary's. There are some fun shops as well as places to eat and we spent some time there wandering around before we headed home.

Now for the bad news that we found out today... a member of the house was found to be infected with scabies. Now incase you do not know what that is, it is a bug, actually a mite, that gets in and burrows under your skin and then moves around under your skin. Your body has an allergic reaction to this and it becomes very painful and itchy. He went to the doctor today and was diagnosed, but you usually do not get symptoms until about 3 or 4 weeks after you contract it. Now for the worst part-- it is one of the most easily transmitted illnesses in existence and obviously it makes it very contageous. If you have any contact with a person whatsoever you are almost guarenteed to get it - and your body cannot fight it off. Only medication that you begin when symptoms show can do anything about it, and you must wash everything that you have.
One girl here said that an outbreak occured at her school, and the school had to throw out every desk and bed in the dorm because they could not stop the outbreak.

It is like a death watch here. All of us have had contact many times with this person, but we are not showing symptoms yet. We know it is almost 100% assured that we too will get the painful and itchy condition. The problem is that the RAs in the dorm are not taking the condition seriously, and think the doctor was wrong. Students are a little angry at the response to the problem (the only response is that he will not have dish duty any more).

Yay- I get to look forward to that in the next few weeks, and if it plays out right I just may be on spring break when it happens. We are all hoping against hope that the doctor was wrong and that it is not scabies. It takes about two weeks to get well if you do not get reinfected by not washing and scrubing everything, and if one person gets it again we may very well all get it again.

Lets hope it could be something else.

In the morning early is the kayaking trip that I have been planning for a group of 14, so I have to get up very early.

Friendship Cup

Today we had the first round of the "Friendship Cup" - a competition between American students and Australian students playing the different types of "football". Today we played "Gridiron" or American football. St. Johns/St. Bens and Notre Dame made the bulk of our roster and we had the horses. It was touch football, but there were unlimited blitzes so blocking was a key to the game.

We just destroyed them. The Aussies didn't totally understand the rules and were perplexed a few times why they couldn't do what they had just attempted to do. I got to play some quarterback and my stat line read 3 TDs 1 INT. To be fair. SJSB has 4 guys over the height of 6'6 and a few guys who are flat out athletic so all I had to do was advoid the rush and put a spiral on a high ball and they went up and got it. They made me look a lot better. It got so bad that the rule was implemented that the Americans had to play 4 girls at all times, and we still ran away in the second half.

In two weeks we are set to play Aussie rules football. This is where we may have a problem. We have the athletes, but no comprehension of what we are doing. We have two weeks to get our acts together and salt this thing away. If we lose that puts all of the emphasis on soccer, although there is a possibility of adding rugby to the list as the fourth game. I don't know what kind of soccer team we have, but it may come down to that.

For the first time since I arrived in this country, I broke down today and got fast food. I went to a McDonalds for lunch. I think its funny that they still call the burger the Quarter Pounder even though to people here it is just a fancy name and not the weight of the food. Aussie beef tastes really good and I liked the burger better than in the states. The fries taste different too- like they never switced to the healthier oil mandated in the US. Finally, all of the sodas here are much sweeter than the US counterparts of the same name (Patrick you should taste the Fanta here... not a ton of carbonation and way sweeter).

In other news, I have felt like a travel agent the last few days. If my future career does not work out in some way I figure I am now qualified to try my hand at travel. It started when I put together a kayaking trip for this Sunday. We are using a company that runs services, kayaking a few miles to Sea Lion Island, where we will see seals and sea lions in their natural habitat. Along the way, dolphins and sea lions rub up against your boat and jump over you.

Our next stop is Penguin Island where there are many penguins in their natural environment (after making a journey from nearby Antarctica). We will get to feed the penguins before having a nature hike around the island. We will have the opportunity to snorkel around the island before having a lunch and then paddling back. I had to work to get the trip set up, people signed up, and the money delivered.

At the same time, spring break dates were announced, and everyone in the dorm had the idea that -- Tom will figure it out. I have been working on that non -stop and are still in the progress of figuring that out.

School work is really picking up, so everything is a little hectic. I figure that is better though, because it means that I am busy and not wasting the time sitting around.

Pinnacles Desert

Saturday, six of us signed up for a day tour that covered an area north of Perth leading to the Pinnacles Desert.

We were picked up right outside our dorm at 7 am to begin. We started in Perth and traveled north east to the monastic town of New Norcia. New Norcia is the only monastic town in all of Australia, and at its peak also included a boys and girls school as well as a functioning orphanage.

In the 60s, the enitre operation fell apart and the schools and orphanage ceased operations. There are still Benedictian monks living there, and mass is still offered in the abbey. It is in such a remote and desolate area, however, that with the empty buildings and lack of life around it, it seems like a ghost town- although the exteriors are relatively well kept up.

Only the residence has any life, as well as the church- which was about to hold Mass when we arrived.

It is one of the very few instances of Spanish architecture in all of Australia, as the Spanish had very little contact or influence in the history of Australia.

We had "morning tea" in New Norcia, and then we proceeded to get back on the bus and proceed north-west towards the Pinnacles.

The next stop that we made as at the Western Wildflower Farm. It was there that we recieved a tour of the facilities, as well as lunch. The farm ships wildflowers all across the world, and is a very profitable enterprise. The only downside to it is the utter remoteness of the location- and therefore the inability to get much help. We were allowed to take pictures of some of the warehouse storage units. Unfortunately, wildflowers are not in bloom in the fields at the moment because it is the end of summer here, rather than the early spring. Lunch was a nice buffet spread, and was enjoyed while the six of us had a nice talk with our driver/guide.

Our next stop was the rock lobster fishing town of Cervantes. It is certainly not a big town, and is almost only populated by fisherman during the summer months when they are doing thier fishing. It was explained how during the cooler winter months, almost everyone is completely gone.

They have a nice white-sands beach and dunes there, and the water of the Indian Ocean glitters and shines. This is due to it being filled with the organisms that make coral, but the moving water prevents the coral from actually combining and forming.

Finally, our last stop was the Pinnacles Desert. The desert is a place that is completely unique and is the only place in the entire world like it. It is currently in the process of being recognised as one of the Natural Wonders of the World.

In the great expanse of the desert, large rock pinnacles protrude from the sands in every direction the eye can see. They completely cover the landscape- much in the way that stalacmites come from the floor of a cave.

From some of the pictures it is hard to tell how tall or short the pinnacles are. Most range in height from 6-15 feel high. It is often easier to tell when a person is in the picture.

The amazing thing is how they were formed. Epochs ago, the land used to be a swamp, that was wet and filled with trees, and the roots of these trees went deep into the ground. After many years and a climate shift, these roots fossilized and became limestone. The trees were gone, but the fossilized roots were far below the ground. Over a long time, the winds blew away the sandstone above the roots and the fossilized roots as limestone appeared. Each of the pinnacles are limestone- and are the fossilized remains of treeroots. It is very neat, because if you look closely at some of them you can see the root formations.

The sandstone above is what gives the desert its reddish color around the pinnacles. This differs greatly from the great white sand dunes near Cervantes that are visable from the higher points of the desert. It is amazing to me that such a dry and hot desert can be located so close to the great expanse of the ocean. From the higher elevations of the great expanse of desert, the ocean is clearly visable.

Kevin brought up a great point when he thought aloud how the first Dutch settlers must have reacted for the first time when they brought their ships in off of the Indian Ocean after a long voyage from the Netherlands, and in a search for water, wandered into this alien expanse.

The area is very taboo for Aboriginals, and they did not and do not journey to the place. It was very very hot, just under 110 in the desert and there were lots of flies. There was very little wind, but what wind there was had a very warm feel to it.

Kevin noted, but we all agreed, that the best part of the desert is the freedom allowed to visitors. In the United States, there most likely would have been a path with guard rails and a trail to follow and walk through a small amount of the area. Here, coversely, there was a welcome center for the fact that is is part of the Nambung National Park, and they asked you not to climb on the towers. Other than that- they said good luck and don't get lost over the great expanse.

The welcome center was great relief to us after we explored for about an hour, as it had airconditioning and sold ice cold water. We were all a little dehydrated and relished the opportunity for a cold drink.

The place is very eerie, and if you took away the little bit of green plant life that can be seen, it is exactly how I imagine the surface of Mars looking. It is very much like being transported to an alien world.

After the desert, we got back on the bus and prepared for our 300km trip back to Fremantle. We arived back at the dorm a little past 8pm. After getting back I tried to rally to go out with the rest of the people we met back up with, but I just could not. I even made it to the train station, but had to turn back out of sheer exhaustion. I ended up sleeping for about 13 hours, and drinking a lot of water.

It was a great day, and the Pinnacles Desert was completely worth it.

Labor Day!

Following the Coldplay concert on Friday and Caversham on Saturday, the rest of the weekend really wasn't too exciting.

A group of us got the information from South Bend that the new undergraduate business rankings have just come out for the year. Notre Dame has climbed the list again to #2! A lot of excited emails have been going around about the news that we attend a top two business school in the country, but the more exciting part is that we actually passed the Wharton School of Business at Penn. We still trail Virginia, but we're coming for them.

Sunday we went to a another big market, this one down in an old warehouse on the water, that is only open on the weekends. This one had more shops with souveniers and trinkets, as well as an international food court. After looking around for a while, we headed to the beach for a couple of hours before mass. Other than one of the nicer sunsets, not much exciting that evening.

Monday was Labor Day in Western Australia. Many shops and businesses were closed. For all of the Notre Dame students back in South Bend who always complain that we are practically the only school in the US that has school on Labor Day in September, be comforted in knowing that UNDA is alone in having school on Labor Day here (although I do not have classes on Monday so it did not affect me). The markets are open on Mondays of public holidays, so after getting some reading for classes done in the morning, I decided to go exploring. I went to the markets, which were jammed with people off of work, and there was a very festive atmosphere with music playing and dancing going on. I wandered around the Football Oval and prison, before deciding to go for a long walk.

I ended up going past Monument Hill, and tried to find the public golf course. When I did, I figured that I had walked over three miles to get there, I might as well hit some balls for my effort. I rented a club and a bucket of balls and hit 120 balls for an hour. It felt good to hit balls in the warm sun off of grass again (I know you are all jealous in Michigan). I started off a little weak but the last 60-70 balls I really was hitting it well. I intend on playing some golf while I am here.
I walked back the three miles and went to the beach for awhile before dinner.

Gary (the chef) was here for dinner because it was a Monday, even though it was Labor Day, and we had steak and potatoes to celebrate the holiday. I am not going to lie, I went to town on the food after all of the days activity. Following dinner, we actually hit the bars as a group pretty hard for a Monday- they stay open later because of the holiday. All in all, not a bad Labor Day- and I am really glad to hit golf balls again.

The trip for our dorm to the bar did highlight one point - this house is really and truly becoming the "Real World Fremantle" house. It is scary how similar to that it is. (If you do not get that reference, dont worry about it).

Finally, a quick shout out to Erica- Nicole is being mean.

Coldplay- Viva la Vida

So this is the story that I referenced in the previous post that chronologically should have come before the previous one.

Friday night we went to the Coldplay concert in Perth. There is a geat big luxory resort there that has a golf course, tennis facility, massage, casino, hotel etc. They also have a dome there- the Burswood Dome. It kinda looks like the old RCA dome in Indianapolis, but smaller and not as nice.

We had looked for tickets online, but were a little unsure when we saw that they were $150 for the tickets that we wanted in the standing section right in front of the stage (the best and most expensive tickets). A guy in our group took a shot and looked on Ebay for some tickets and it worked out - we got 10 tickets for $75 AUD each (works out to about $50 USD).

We left early and took the train to Perth where it was a change but then three quick stops away put us right at the dome. We were there very early, so we decided to head to the hotel for some food. After we ate, we decided to kill some time at the casino before we headed over because none of us were interested in the first band to play (some Australian punk band). Matt actually ended up for the evening, Kevin was up on blackjack but down some on roulette and slots to be slightly down, Raul was down more, another guy down a lot, and I ended up even (except for the 2.50 chip that I decided to keep as a souvenier). Not that bad of a performance overall.

Wine in the casino was 3 dollars a glass (it was terrible but strong) due to the casino wanting people to get drunk, so we sat down to relax and have a glass before heading over.

We got there in time for the second band, Mercury Rev, to play. None of us thought that they were that good, but they were not terrible and allowed us to settle into where we would be standing. We had a tremendous spot. We were dead center of the stage, about 10 people thick back- close enough to see the sweat on the faces of the performers, but not too close for it to be overpoweringly loud by the speakers.

Coldplay was awesome! They played every single hit they have ever had, everything off of their new album. They did some different stuff accustically, and also "technoed" a few of their normal songs. The special effects were also tremendous and always changing. They always fit the theme of the song that was being played.

Chris Martin actively engaged the crowd and really got into it at a few points. He always kept the crowd in it, and it was never like they were just playing at the crowd, but rather for the crowd. They even did a segment from up in the stands of the upper deck.

What I liked the most about the concert is that the music sounds like Coldplay. Sometimes when you see bands live they don't sound like they do on their albums, but this is not the case. I think my favorite song they played was Yellow, also my favorite song they have, as enourmous yellow ballons filled with confetti were dropped into the crowd, and bounced all over before they were popped sending the confetti everywhere.

The video screens, lights, and special effects were the best I have ever seen, and the music was great. The crowd was involved and loud the whole time and I really cannot say enough about the show- I loved it. Coldplay played for over two hours straight, and really it was absolutely worth every penny.

After the show we enjoyed free drinks back in the casino before taking the train back to Perth to meet up in a bar with people who had not gone to the show. We then took the train back home and called it a night. What a night.