Mar 2006

Today about 20 of us headed down to Portsea to meet up with the cleverly named company Sea All Dolphin Swims. If you check out the pictures on their website, it was pretty much the exact same thing today. We started out by heading to where the dolphins were last spotted. There are extremely strict rules in place since there are only 80 dolphins in the entire bay and they are all wild. This meant that we had to hold on to "mermaid" lines from behind the boat as it towed us around. Dolphins are pretty curious by nature and they swam right underneath us several times, clicking and whistling as they went. It was tough to get a picture of them, but check out this video I took of them surfing off the bow of the boat. They loved this and did it for our boar, a catamaran near by, and the huge ferry that passed by a few times. Tons of fun.
Next we headed over to the seals' bachelor pad. This group of seals is made up of all juvenile males who were kicked out of their colony by the dominant males. They will beef up here for awhile before they go back to stake their claim. The current was really strong, but a bunch of us went at it anyways. We jumped in and caused a ruckus to make the seals come and in play with us. Sure enough about 20 or so jumped in and swam around with us. It was heaps of fun to dive under water and chase them and as be chased by them. They were really impressive to, since some were longer than me and weighing I think up to 300kg, and there was even a baby one. The guides said they are in the same family as dogs and coyotes, and it showed in their puppy like eyes and huge fangs.
Next we headed back to the pier which happened to have a reef next to it. This tiny reef alone has more weed species than the whole of the Japanese archaepeligo and more fish species than the bottom portion of the great barrier reef. It sounds like a big deal, but there wasn't a heck of a lot to see. A real treat though was finding sea dragons which are native only to the states of Victoria and South Australia. Here is a link with pictures, they have much longer bodies than sea horses. We also found and held sea stars and puffer fish and I swam alongside the resident stingray which was as long as me.
The seals and the reef were a huge bonus seeing as I though we would only be swimming with the dolphins. So there are another few items checked off the non-existent yet ever growing list of things to do while in Australia.
This weekend I make my way to Torquay with the Beach Club for even more sun, sand and surf.
It's all good downunder.
To view photos from the trip, visit www.ryandownunder.blogspot.com

If you've ever played a Tiger Woods golf game and played on an Australian course in the game, you will have noticed kangaroos grazing in the fairways. We went to Yarrambat Park Community Golf Course and it wasn't quite like that today, but there were indeed kangaroos lazing around under the trees off to the side, totally oblivious to the people nearby. They are also really well camouflaged (there are kangaroos in that first picture in case you couldn't see them).I have a feeling this isn't as common as I might think since we were playing on a golf course about 40 minutes from here which is just to the north of the city. I'm not sure what's normal around here, but green fees here are heaps cheaper than at home. 18 holes today was $25 and it's actually only $10.50 on weekdays for students and seniors.
There was also a flock of female cockatoos causing quite a racket as well. I don't know what the sound they were making means, but it sounded like some were about to drop dead out of the tree. At least the posed nicely for a picture for me while they were digging in the dirt.
Another great thing about Australia is that you can golf all year round. It might be a bit cool in the winter, but the grass probably greens up nicely. It is the end of summer now, so a lot of the grass was really burned up.
Before we went to the golf course, we stopped by Niclas' relatives house to get his cousin and some clubs for me. They live about 5 minutes from the golf course and the scenery from their house is awesome; a real typcial hilly Australian landscape. It's actually pretty impressive and this picture I took will be my desktop background for the time being. I have some other great trips lined up and I'm sure another picture will take over then.
On a side note, last night was St. Patricks Day. We went to an Irish pub on Chapel Street. I was disappointed because other than people wearing green, it wasn't Irish at all. It wasn't like a pub at all, more just like any other club, with a DJ playing the usual music from any other night. There was also no green beer like in Canada. There is always next year...
When I go places, I follow our route on a map, and when I look at where I've been compared to the entire country it's pretty insignificant even though it has seemed like it's been a lot and been heaps of fun. I think I will constantly be reminded how massive Australia is, and be glad that I still have until December to get to as much as possible.
To view photos from this trip, visit www.ryandownunder.blogspot.com

Last night was the opening ceremonies of the Commonwealth Games here in Melbourne. I heard that they are getting a whole lot of coverage at home, but this is a HUGE deal for the city of Melbourne. I didn't have plans last night but then it struck me that I really had to do something since it is happening down the street. Shortly after 8pm I took a tram into the middle of the (free) action. Tickets for the event in the stadium started at like 400$ so that wasn't really an option.
The ceremonies were actually pretty impressive, maybe moreso for me since I knew it was all going down on the other side of the river. Her Majesty the Queen was in attendance to decalre the games open. I don't know exactly what bits of news get to you, but there was a big controversy about not singing God Save the Queen this time around. The compromise was to sing like a half a verse. Some kid went up and mentioned that since the Queens 80th birthday was coming up, they would sing for her. Then some kids choir and a lady sang happy birthday and threw in the half a verse of God Save the Queen after that. Very well done. But man, they kept showing her on TV and that Prince Philip beside her never seemed too happy. He seems old and bitter, probably because noone knows him and his spotlight has been stolen by the Queen for the past 54 years of her reign.
The Queens Baton was also kind of neat. It travelled to everyone of the 71 Commonwealth countries, over 186 000km, with a message from the Queen in it, which she read to open the games. There was green on it to represent the Garden State that is Victoria. and gold on it to represent the goldfields of Victoria, as well as 71 flashing lights on it representing all the countries.
I have to say though, the most impressive part of the night was the fireworks. We were fortunate enough to have the big screen showing the fireworks in front of us, and then the actualy fireworks happening right behind us. There was actually 3 venues of fireworks, we were looking at the ones on the skyscrapers and could see some on the river and then there were more above the stadium. Check out this link to a video I took, it should give a good idea of the atmosphere.
The last picture is Flinders Street Station. It is pretty much an icon of Melbourne and a pretty impressive building as well being the gold colour that it is. There was masses of people piling out of everywhere after the ceremonies. The tram home was completely packed and just when you thought noone else would fit, some foreigners would squeeze their way in and make it tighter. Unreal how many people were everywhere last night, a real party atmosphere. Hopefully I will make out to some events next week, should be interesting.
That's all for now. I have to say, I have a busy and interesting month ahead with several trips planned.
Cheers!

On Saturday I experienced a whole new type of beach, at least I can't remember being at this type of ocean beach in the past. Often people assume a beach to be sand then water and not much else. We went to Sorrento Beach on the Mornington Peninsula, just over an hours drive from Melbourne. This beach had sand, water and tons more. Heres a geomorphology lesson for you: check out the picture of Marcus doing a backflip into a tidal pool. Now look at the cliffs behind him. These cliffs are actually fossilized sand dunes formed about 5000 - 10000 years ago from lime derived from sea shells. This made for a lot of interesting rock structures and some impressive tidal pools which a lot of people were snorkelling in, some I think were even spear fishing. A sign posted said you could find sea horses and octopii (?) in the tidal pools, among other things.
Check out the picture of me standing on some rocks. That is on the other side of a 4 metre deep tidal pool, beyond that is the open ocean. After seeing the ocean floor at low tide, I can see why its dangerous to surf in these places. You would just get annihilated on these rocks or stuck under ledges. Speaking of ledges, me and those kids in the picture hid under the rock ledge in front me and when the waves swept over it was like being behind a waterfall. Man, I was in a good mood and easily amused there.
Here is a picture of half of the beach. If you look carefully you can see the rock and tidal pool from the first picture. (Straight above the yellow tent). The picture of me is from around the corner. In a way it isn't the most practical beach since there are rocks everywhere, but to the left in the picture it is all sand and people were body boarding in the waves. I borrowed a kids board and caught some good waves and just flew, plowing over all the other kids, it was funny. Then I think the kids mom made him come and take the beard away from me.
Here's another fun trick I've learned: click on this link for a video panorama of the beach! I figured out how to upload short videos, so that should be fun.
I did some good learning, swimming and tanning on Saturday, so I hope I get back to Sorrento beach, or others like it, again soon.
Cheers!
To view photos from this trip, visit www.ryandownunder.blogspot.com

When you visit Australia there is a list of things that simply have to be done. This past weekend I managed to check a bunch of things off on Philip Island.
Philip Island is about 140km to the south of Melbourne. We left here at about 7pm in a car belonging to swedish Niclas' aunt. We punched in the address of the caravan park in the GPS and off we went. I would say Philip Island is a cross between Prince Edward Island in Canada and Cocoa Beach in Florida. For one thing, you can cross the island in all direction within half an hour and there is lots of rolling farmland and the whole south coast is full of surf beaches and the whole "surfing desitnation" atmosphere persists throughout the island. Most cars you see are carrying a surfboard. We stayed at Amaroo Park in the town Cowes (pronounced cows) in a caravan park where we had a little cottage.
After a BBQ friday night, a few of us were up at 8:30am to go and rent boards and wetties (wetsuits are worn by everyone since the water isn't quite warm enough to stay in for 2.5 hours at once). I have to say that people working in surf shops are super cool. I don't want to say we talked him into giving us a deal, because we barely asked. We ended up getting our boards and wetties for 35$ (normally it's 50$) for the day and then we asked to have that day extended so we didn't have to give the equipment back at 5pm so we could catch the tide on its way in later on and then again in the morning. We went to the first beach and the swells were breaking very neatly but were not huge. This and the fact that my board was huge made it very easy for me to get going and I rode the second wave I attempted and most after that. Being "stoked" is the word that best describes that morning in the surf. No signs of sharks either which is good because I've read that great whites have been spotted not far from where we were.
That afternoon we headed for the Nobbies, which is basically a set of islands at the tip of Philip Island. What I was most surprised to see was penguins. I knew they were in the area, but I thought they were all out fishing for the day and that I would have to pay 17$ to watch them parade back in at night. But nope, there were a few that stayed behind; I guess they love the camera as much as I do. They all live in little holes in the cliffs and some of these burrows are really high up so it's really impressive that they walk all the way up every day.
Later in the afternoon we checked out Wollomai beach, which signs posted said is a world famous surf beach. It was big and the surf was pumping so we went at it. The current was a bit stronger here and the waves were a bit bigger which made using my boardwalk of a board difficult to use. No worries though, our time ran out as a huge squall passed over us. It was some of the most intense rain I've ever been in. We could barely even see the beach if we could even manage to look up with the rain driving into us. The lightning was a bit worrisome to, but none of the locals seemed to be in any rush, and hey, "when in Rome" right? We wrapped up surfing for the day since some people we were with got absolutely soaked.
After another BBQ that night we were up at 7:30am to get back to the beach while the tide was coming in. The waves were much "dirtier", less consistent and less pwerful but we stuck it out for a while and made the most of it. It was a refreshing way to wake up being the first ones on the beach, on a cool morning in the salt water. After we returned our gear we set off for a nature reserve of sorts. For 11$ we could wander the park and see and feed all the animals. There were wallabies (like a kangaroo but smaller, 3rd picture), koalas, wombats, emus, echidnas, kangaroos, tasmanian devils, dingos, birds and reptiles. The kangaroos and wallabies were free range and they had a huge area to roam and there were tons of them. The kangaroos were super friendly and fun and contrary to what the picture makes you think, they aren't boxers. The emus were the scariest, they have crazy eyes and can't take food from your hand without plucking it so hard it hurts. I asked the lady at the desk if she ever had an emu steak thinking she would be offended since they have them in the park, but she responded without a wink that she hasn't but has eaten heaps of kangaroo before. I wasn't going to take it to the next level and ask if she had ever eaten a koala. So the wildlife park was heaps of fun and so was the whole
weekend. It was really a perfect island to spend a weekend at.
School starts this week for me so we'll see what thats all about since it's been over almost 3 months since I've been to a class.
Now I'm going to go and figure out how to acquire a pet Kangaroo from the black market!
Cheers!
To view photos from this trip, visit www.ryandownunder.blogspot.com