Katoomba: Land of the Fog

Coralie, Grace and I sat watching the rain tap, tap, tap against our window as the train rumbled beneath us. We each made a face, our eyes widening and our lips contorting into nervous grimaces. It had been raining for two days and was expected to continue for the majority of the week. We filled the time with light conversation, all the while glancing worriedly at the rain. After a surprisingly short, 2 hour journey, with just a couple train hops, we arrived in Katoomba. We clamoured off the train as the gods, afflicted with severe head colds, continued to sneeze on us. Shrugging on our hoods we squinted at the street signs and began to follow in the direction of our hostel.

The small accommodation was bright and cheerfully painted in, Grace's mind, according to the style of the Muppets 'Happiness Hotel.' The door panels were decorated with landscape paintings and the walls were coloured green, blue, yellow and salmon pink. Visitors lounged comfortably on plush couches by the small dutch oven.

After checking in, we set out to see the town. The quaint, little mountain village was filled with small cafes and oversized used-book stores in which we sought shelter. We spent much of the afternoon wandering through rows and rows of dusty tomes, inhaling the smell of the worn, old pages.

Coralie left in the evening to return to school while Grace and I stayed overnight. The next day, we pulled on old t-shirts and began a wet trek into the bush. Spectacular, white gum trees rose up into the sky above our heads and waves of ferns washed across path. We waded through the mud and swam through the seas of green ferns as we made our way towards the Three Sisters, only the first of which was visible through the fog. We glimpsed Honeymoon Falls and Leura Cascades before enjoying peanut butter sandwiches and trail mix under the protection of a rock overhang before turning back to escape the quickly flooding pathways. We finished our stay in Katoomba with a final visit to Chekov's Used Books and hopped back on the train to Sydney.

Scuba Diving on the Great Barrier Reef

The sun-darkened, roughly shaven man approached us followed by the blond, curly-haired behemoth, both grinning widely and clothed in slick, black wetsuits. We sat on the bench aligned with the oxygen tanks behind us. Our scuba instructors deftly strapped them to our backs and handed over our face masks as we struggled into our rubbery, squeaky flippers. The group of us waddled down to the water's edge and, making sure that our 'Darth Vader' ventilators were firmly between our teeth, the instructors slapped us on the back and pushed us into the water. The world of sky and sun and limits disappeared as I was dragged beneath the water's surface by the shaggy-haired Aussie. Metre by metre we descended into the world below. Arms linked with our instructors we kicked forward gently and before us in the murky water, appeared a giant sea turtle, knarly-shelled and rough-skinned, but graceful as he meandered across our path. We shifted to face down and looked upon partially beached reef. We kicked forward and the reef in front of us seemed to spring into life with unknown creatures of the deep. One of our instructors pointed at the sandy bottom. Barely visible, we saw the gray stingray shake the sand from her back and glide smoothly away, gently ruffling her wings in the current. We knelt on the bottom and our roughtly-cut guide reached out and plucked a large marble off the reef. He magicked the black and grey sphere from one hand to another before passing it off to us. He pointed down. Beneath the reef lounged a small, brown sand shark the length of a door. It stared languidly back at us as if we were no more important than the fish gunk surely left in his teeth by his latest meal.

The blond, dude-like bloke tapped me on the shoulder and motioned for me to follow. I let go of the others for the first time and felt a vast sense of loss. I was no longer grounded by the weight of other people. For the first time, I was swimming very much alone. Letting the ever-present vastness of the ocean fill be, I blinked a couple times and then, with a great kick, went in pursuit of my new guide. He waved me on with a 'Rock On' sign and reached into the reef, gently tugging at the orange and yellow anemones' bulbous tentacle-like fingers. My had followed. Intrigued by the slimy bubblesque consistency of the plant leaves, I looked closer. Blondie reached behind me and pushed me down by my pack and as the tentacles of the anemone swayed in the current, centemetres from my nose, the tiniest of all clown fish peered out at me like a shy child peering from behind their mother's knee. I felt a tug from behind as the gentle giant pulled me up from behind and we drifted away from the anemone. We kicked along further and I looked up from the bright and cheerful colours of the reef in time to see a roughly-hewn grey rock open its eyes and swim lazily past. Again, I felt tugging at my straps as my instructor pulled be back into the reef. This time, it was covered in marble-sized fluff balls of pink, blue, and purple hue. He reached his hand out toward one of the poufs and in an instant, it disappeared into tiny hole as if the lightly feathered peas had never existed. I reached out all five fingers and an entire section disappeared.

We puttered along touching bits of the reef as we went and slowly allowed ourselves to drift upwards. As the reef began to disappear from view we were met by serving platter-sized flat fish with brightly-coloured scales and tiny beady eyes. As we floated higher through the fish, the water began to rock and shake. We burst through the filmy surface and the silence of the deep dissipated. The crash of waves against the boat and the yelling of people returned. The peace was gone.

From Farmville to the Mountains

After shearing the sheep, the farmer led us out to a back field and made another sharp whistle. His hairy black and white companion took off, pink tongue lolling and disappeared over the crest of a hill. Again, we heard the loud stampede of sheep hooves and saw matching fluffy white bodies bounding haphazardly down the hillside followed by the snapping jaws of the sheep dog. We bent down, our hands filled with food pellets and giggled as the sheep's teeth and lips tickled our hands, their warm breath leaving our fingers hot and slimy.

We heard the crunch of gravel and turned to see the farmer's wife walking toward us. Beaming, she welcomed us into the house for tea. After washing the sheep slime from our hands we sat down at tables on the veranda to munch on scones topped with cream and jam. I looked over the vase of daffodils and beyond the veranda at the vibrant green rolling hills dotted with shrubs of a darker green. A backdrop of misty blue-green mountains reaching up into the blue sky decorated with white cotton candy clouds completed the scene.

Our little coach trundled up the hill and into the outer edges of the woods surrounding Lake Ohau. After dropping my bags on my bed, I skipped down the side of the hill and onto the small pebbled beach. The water lapped lazily at the stones. As the water drew back into itself it led to the mountains across the sky like cream on pudding studded with sugar crystals.

New Zealand: Farmville

I heard myself gasp as if from light years away, the exhaustion from two red-eye flights in as many days disappearing like a cloud parting to reveal a clear day. The rattling of the tour bus was hardly noticeable in comparison to the view opening before me. Glaciated, majestic mountains rose up out of rolling hills speckled with little curly-haired sheep. The foot of the mountains were clothed in deep green forest and strung with necklaces of silver-gray stone. A blanket of white was draped across the mountain-tops and glacial arms reached down and around the peaks like giants, hugging their children in the cold.

Our bus bumped and rocked along the endless road flanked by grassland, sheep and mountains for a couple hours before turning down a long dirt driveway. AS we pulled to a stop in front of the quaint brown farm house, a trellised veranda winding around its front, we were met by Michael. The small lamb clip-clopped up to the bus staring expectantly. He was clothed, ironically, in a white, woolen jacket and he seemed almost to be smiling at the prospect of visitors. He was joined by an older man and woman, smiling and waving. The woman bent down to pick up Michael, patted his head gently and handed him to one of the visitors. The air filled with gasps and squeals, 'Aws' and 'Ooos' as the fluffy, white creature was passed about, an instant celebrity who showed his love for his fans my nuzzling into their necks, munching on their hair and, when left to stand on his own feet, pulling at and teething on people's shoelaces.

Our hosts led us to the barn where they distributed little red shepherd's whistles.

'Different sounds indicate different messages to the dog,' the farmer said waving his hand at the black and white sheepdog as she bounded onto the worktable piled high with freshly sheared wool. Upon seeing my friend's face go red as she blew on the whistle, he continued, 'It's a tricky technique.' Try as she might, she only produced spitting noises. The ageing farmer made a sharp cry burst from this whistle with ease and the dog leapt off the table to disappear from view. We looked at him expectantly, waiting for something to happen. Soon the silence turned into a soft rumble which grew louder and louder until it sounded like a wild buffalo stampede. We looked around the small wooden building in search of the source of the small din as around the corner appeared 7 or 8 puffy looking sheep, their little snouts accentuating their wide girths. They stumbled about as the dog nipped at their ankles and herded them into a pen in the centre of the barn.

'These are the shears people used in the old days,' the farmer announced as he presented the rusty, scissor-like tool. 'It would leave behind several centimetres of the the best wool. Today, we prefer this electric one,' he said as he held out a many pronged instrument attached to a long power chord hanging from the ceiling. I immediately though of the Frankenstein-esque fingers of Edward Scissorhands and decided to be glad that electric shears are not popular in hair-dressing studios. The farmer opened the gate of the pen and grabbed a seemingly unlucky sheep by the legs. It kicked and squirmed and the farmer's shiny bald pate was revealed as he lost his wide-brimmed hat in the struggle. He straddled the fluffy, white beast and grabbed it by the scruff of its neck as he switched on the little hand machine. In a matter of minutes he had the struggling animal out of its woollen overcoat and back into the pen where it greeted its companions with a short bleat and a shake of the head.

Did You Know....?

Aboriginal Australian Art has many uses. It often has ceremonial purposes, stories, teaching purposes, and artistic value. Many times, art represents the community's situations or encounter. For instance, if the painting includes men with guns, it shows interactions with Europeans (and could be used to help date the piece). Similarly, the designs reflect times of plenty and times of scarcity. Art that depicts the inside of an animal, like an x-ray may show hard times because such paintings would be used to teach young hunters exactly how to kill a particular creature to ensure a clean and reliable kill. This type of art may also teach what are good parts of the animal to eat or otherwise use. Some simpler paintings teach lessons through associated stores.

One story tells of two sisters who loved to play tricks on people. One day, one sister snuck away and transformed into a crocodile to scare her sister. The second sister was terrified, believing that she would be eaten by the monter. The 1st sister played this trick several times before the second sister caught on and returned the favour with the exact same trick. Once both sisters knew that they had been tricking each other, they decided to play the same trick on their fellow villagers. An old wise man warned them that they should not play such pranks but they would not listen. Knowing that they had to be taught a lesson, the old man cast a spell on them so that they would be unable to reverse their transformation. The next day the two sisters went to the water to begin their prank, but they found that after they were finished, they could not become girls again. To this day, the humps behind the crocodile's eyes represent the two sisters watching you as you approach the water's edge.

Did You Know...?

Crocodiles have rules. As I cruised the Mary River Wetlands with my tour group, I witnissed a young, immature croc swimming along idly. Looking to his rear, we realised that they young reptilian creature was being stalked by an older, larger, more powerful crocodile. Each passenger gasped at the chance that we might witness the death of a young, seemingly headstrong crocodile. According to our guide, older crocs have the right to stalk younger crocs at will. They also have the right to attack if the younger croc does not surrender. However, they will typically disist the attack if the younger animal raises its head from the water in surrender. The astonishing aspect of the situation we witnessed is that, although the younger croc stupidly refused to surrender, the older croc let him go. I suppose all rules are broken sometimes. What I always wonder is...why?

To Be or Not To Be: American

While I had been attempting to write in chronological order, I thought I would take some time off to talk about the global nature of the Macquarie campus. So far, I have gotten to know far more international students than local students, though this makes sense now that I have talked to students from the local area. According to my Australian acquaintances, it is accepted that you live with your parents until you marry, or at least through your school years. Because of this, most Australian students commute to University while it is common for international students to live on or near campus. Living with other international students has been an amazing experience so far. At this point, I have met people from Australia (of course), Austria, Estonia, Malaysia, China, Chile, Britain, Germany, Switzerland, Denmark, Iran, France, South Africa, United States (it had not dawned on me how true it is that Americans seem to be taking over the world-we are everywhere), Fiji, Turkey, and Thailand. It is likely that I have forgotten someone, but I think this list shows how multi-cultural the campus is.
I have received various reactions from other international students when I tell people that I am from the United States. Those who know US geography ask what state or region I am from and then usually ask if it is cold there. Some shrug as if to say that I am "just another American" or, perhaps, "oh, great. Another annoying American." However, the response that makes me most uncomfortable is "Oh, if you're an American, that means that you will be able to do any occupation easily." What does this actually mean? I understand that I come from a comparatively wealthy country. Is it really easier for an American in any situation? What if I am trying to communicate with people who don't like Americans? Does being American mean that any hard work I do towards a career or place in society will not be the same as the hard work of other people? I suppose that there is no real answer to exactly what it means to be an American in a multicultural world. Maybe it is not important to think about my place as an American, or maybe it is. I think that the only answer is to work harder no matter what to always do good and not forget that we are not a world of individuals. We are part of a global community and must take care of each other in all circumstances. We are not alone.