Last post

These are a few warning signs we have encountered in our jouney.  This is my final post from Down Under. Thanks to all of you who read my blog. Although my Spring Term trips are over, I'll be adding other cool stuff to this blog from time to time. Sava out (for now).

Australia vs. America, and last day

Australian words are sometimes different from American words.  They also like to shorten everything.  Here are a few examples of words we have learned the hard way.

G'day mate.                                          bush.                             Tassie                           Footie
Hello.                                                   woods.                          Tasmania.                     Football

Good on you.                                       brekkie.                          Aussie.                        Snags
good luck.                                            breakfast                        Australia.                     Sausages

prawns.                                                 sunnies.                         Overtaking.                  Heaps                  
shrimp.                                                 sun glasses.                    passing on a freeway.  lots

shrimp.                                                 busking.                         Barbie
a little fresh water crodad.                   playing on the street.     Barbecue

One thing that is confused between Americans and Australians is the phrase "shrimp on a barbie".  First of all, shrimp would be a fresh water crodad, and second, they would never even barbecue prawns.

Now, today was our last day in our nine week adventure.  We started out finishing our gist shopping, in Cairns, until 2:00 P.M.  Then, we swam in the ocean, and had lunch.  Lastly, we relaxed, and we are about to have dinner.  By the way, we will fly to Aukland, New Zeland, then get a plane to Sanfransisco, which will be 13 hours, and lastly fly into Boston.

A funny looking crab

My brother and I at the beach

Who knew the life gaurd could catch so much air!

Relaxation

Today, we really took it easy.  My brother, mom, and I got massages while my dad got a haircut.  My massage was really relaxing.  Next, we had lunch and swam in the ocean with my dad while my mom checked out the few shops in Palm Cove.  The water at the beach was just as warm as it was yesterday at the reef ... 78 degrees F.  The waves were just big enough to body surf.  I wished I had had my boogie board.  Then, we did a little school work and played a few games.  Lastly, we went out to dinner at a restaurant that commemorated the Queensland lifeguards.

Do I really need a caption? C'mon!

Finding Nemo Q and A

Now, back to those clams we saw yesterday.  I said they were the size of a car tire, and here is my proof. Check out this photo, with Dacha's hand (just before it got pinched off).  Just kidding.  Giant clams actually cannot close completely, but they do filter about a swimming pool's worth of water each day, so the reef needs them.

My brother's hand next to a giant clam.

Today was our third and final day at the Great Barrier Reef, and I have learned some interesting facts about clown fish.  So far, we have been in Sydney Harbor where Nemo (of "Finding Nemo" fame) ended up.  Today, we have seen the drop off where Nemo went to touch the ''butt", which is called the Continental Shelf.  So, we've kind of retraced Nemo's path backwards.  We have seen a barracuda, which may have eaten Coral, Nemo's mom.  Enough film trivia.  Let's do some real clown fish Q&A.

This is me snorkeling, and looking at a clown fish.

Q #1: Are clownfish funny??
A #1: I have no idea.

Q #2: Are there more then 95 species of clownfish??
A #2: Yes, there are 100 species of clownfish.

Q #3: Is there an bivalve called a sea squirt??
A #3: Yes, and frankly, it is my favorite animal, because it has the word "squirt" in its name.

Q #4: Does it make sense that after Coral was eaten, Marlin searched for Nemo?
A #4: It made for a fun movie, but actually, the largest male clownfish turns into a female if the dominant female (of which there is only one per group) is eaten or leaves the school.  So, actually, Marlin would have become Marlina or something and then searched for Nemo after that.

GBR Quiz: Where is the fish? Can you find more than one?

Great Barrier Reef: Day 2

Photo-bomb on the GBR. It was fun to swim upside down.

Snorkeling on the reef today. I was able to dive to about 5m.

Today, we did ... the same thing we did yesterday, except we went to three different sites!  We snorkeled/SCUBAed at the Great Barrier Reef.  We again saw a rainbow of flamboyant, radiant, and fluorescent, as well as drab-colored, gill-using aquatic craniates that furtively hid behind the kaleidoscope of differently-colored coral as we dramatically made our approach ... and then there was the sea cucumber. (Went a little nuts with the thesaurus again.)  Did you know that the Great Barrier Reef is the largest living thing visible from outer space?

There are about 10 species of coral in this photo.

One of the most intriguing fish I saw were Blue Green Chromis.  They were, at first, radiantly blue and schooling around stag-horn coral.  When I approached them and waved my hand (like the dive master suggested), they turned bright green!  About 10 seconds later, when they calmed down, they turned back to blue.  That was really cool, especially for a fish the size of your thumb.

A few other neat things we saw were Cristmas-Tree Worms, and Giant Clams.  The "worms" were blue, and looked like a Christmas Tree, hence the name.  (Not very worm-like at all, really.)  When you waved your hand at one, it would suck its little tentacles back into the coral where it was growing.  It was something I have never seen before, but it reminded me of the movie Avatar, which also featured disappearing, spiral plants of some sort.

My dad said I looked like a Smurf in my stinger suit.

We also saw giant clams.  Some were even the size of a car tire!  One of the clams was dead, lying in a patch of sand and it was open all the way. It didn't look like there was much going on inside of it, but it reminded my mom of two enormous Ruffles Potato chips.  Guess what?  When you wave your hand by a live giant clam, it sucks in its "lips".  These fleshy parts of the clam had bright blue dots and looked really cool.  Who knew a clam could be so interesting?

Scissor-tail sergeants schooling near the reef.

The whole reef is alive when you look down. Amazing!

Snorkeling at the Great Barrier Reef

After the shallow reef is the Continental Shelf "drop off."

Today, we did something that we have planned for over a year.

My brother and I, about to get back into the water.

You can even see the Great Barrier Reef from outer space!

We snorkeled at the Great Barrier Reef.  Well, my dad SCUBAed, but my brother, mother and I snorkeled.  The boat took us to three parts of the outer reef, all about 30 minutes apart.  The first place they took us to was called the Three Sisters, due to its three islands.  The second place was called Phil's.  I have no idea why.  The third place we went to was called Barracuda Bombie, which had the most beautiful scenery of them all.  We got to see barracudas swim in schools, as well as big parrot fish eat the coral... and of coarse multiple nemos.   We got to see a kaleidoscope of flamboyant, as well as drab colored gill using aquatic craniates that furtively hid behind the rainbow colored coral as we dramatically made our approach.  Man, that was worse then the sunset blog.  #thesaurus LOL  It was actually really fun, and we are going to do the same thing for the next few days.
   

Cairns, and the forest

Me next to a King Fern.  I am holding one of its dead branches.

Today, we woke up at 6:00 A.M., and hopped in our Holden, the Aussie-made rental car, and drove to a place where a tour guide in 4-wheel-drive picked us up.  We were the only ones in the car, and the driver/tour guide was really nice!  His name was George and he was from Portugal.  He took is into the Gondwana rain forest, which happens to be the oldest rain forest in the world.  George said it was about 180 million years old.  He explained that he ground was originally under water, but was pushed up all those millions of years ago when the continent of Australia bumped up against the Asian tectonic plate.  The rain forest had huge ferns called King Ferns.  They are taller then me, as you can see in the picture.

On the trip, George also brought us too a humongous fig tree.  This 550-year-old tree started out growing on other trees, sort of like a vine.  Then, the fig tree started taking over the "host tree," and started to hog all the sunlight.  Eventually, this killed the original tree.  The hole you can see in the center of the tree is from where the old tree used to be.  All the little strings you can see are its roots.

The giant fig tree

The tour went until about 12:30, when we had lunch.  Then, from about 1:30 to 7:00, we shopped our brains out.  I got myself some fun little Australian road signs on the way.

Fun in Kuranda

The train to Kuranda.

Me trying a didgeridoo.

Today, we woke up at 6:50am and cought a bus at the entrance of our little hotel.  The bus brought us to a train station that was built more than 100 years ago to get to the top of a mountain where someone found gold (go figure!).  The train ride was about two hours, counting stops.  From the train, we could see beautiful views of waterfalls, cliffs, and places where the first tries at building tunnels and passages collapsed.  (Not very comforting.)  After the train to the tiny town of Kuranda, we shopped at the heritage makets.  My brother and I bought a didgeridoo, a traditional Indigenous (Aboriginal) Australian instrument.  It may be the oldest musical instrument in the world, besides clapping sticks, which are also Aboriginal.  I learned from Jimmy, our teacher, how to circular breathe and make various "animal noises."  It was a very interesting experience.

To get back to our hotel, we took a sky rail, which is like a gondola, from Kuranda.  We got to see beautiful views of the rain forest from the perspective of a bird.  It was amazing!  After writing this blog, I'll practice the didgeridoo a bit more, go for a quick swim, and then go to bed.

One of the sky rail capsules over the rain forest.

Rockhampton Grammar School

Today, we had breakfast at the Rockhampton Grammer School, and my brother, mother and I went to a zoo.  The zoo was small, and some places blocked off, due to the cyclone (the Southern Hemisphere hurricane) that hit Queensland about six weeks ago.  Then, we started a 8 hour drive to Townsville, more then half way from Rockhampton to Cairns.  Cairns is still in Queensland.

Mt. St. Bernard and Goodbye Caravan

Note: The current words that you are reading is a note that regards blogging.  This blog is a combine between yesterday, and the day before that.  Here we go.

My brother and I with some aboriginal children

Today, we visited a boarding school called Mt. St. Bernard Collage.  This school is very nice, and I love its background.  It all started when a person found gold in Cookstown, and people started mining it.  Some of the gold miners were bringing their families to the site.  Five nuns from Ireland started teaching the children, and long story short, that became a full on school.  We had the pleasure of meeting the principle, who seemed extremely nice.  When my brother and I showed some of the students the violin, in return, the students, and one of the teachers tought us an original dance.  That would be a fun school to go to. Alas, today was the final day in our caravan.

 It took about 3 hours to collect all our luggage from all the cabinets, and all the various compartments.  We drove a whopping 70 hours in three weeks!!!!!  WOW!!  It was a little promotional for my family because we had so many cool memories.  Thankfully, we got a rental car, where I didn't have to hold on to everything when we turned.😜

Us eating outside of our caravan.

Ferries and a nice hairdo

Today, we went on a few more ferries, all across Sydney Harbor.  In between two ferry rides, we played our violins by the Sydney Opera House.  This required getting a "busking permit," or a permission to perform on the street, in Sydney Town Hall.  Now we can add Sydney to the list of cities we have played in.  Here is the list so far: Paris, London, Boston, Belgrade, Hobart, Prague, Portsmouth, Leipzig, San Diego, and Sydney.  This was fun.  We took a break to take a ferry across the Sydney Harbor to a restaurant called Doyle's.  There, we had wonderful fish and chips, overlooking the Waterfront.

A picture from the ferry

On the ferry

Today, we also visited a zoo.  It was cool seeing some of the native spices of Australia.  These include kangaroo, which I fed, some of the natives snakes, some birds, and Tassie Devils.  Tassie Devils are like black cats that eat dead birds (or any other dead animals), feathers and bones included. They are like nature's garbage disposals.    They make a shrill sound that is kind of creepy.  They are endangered, because they compete for food with some of the animals introduced by the European settlers, such as foxes.  I fed the kangaroo with its version of chocolate:  sweet potatoes and carrots.  One of the native birds has the bottom part of its legs bent forward, which is amazing, because the legs are shaped like kangaroo's. Today was really fun.

Us busking in front of the Sydney Opera House

Brisbane

Today, we drove 6 hours to complete our trip from Sydney to Brisbane.  At lunch time, we pulled up at a park in a town called Sandy Beach to practice violin for about four hours.  When we arrived at the caravan park, it was about 10:30pm, so we washed up and went to bed.  

The next day, we woke up around 9am.  For breakfast, my brother and I made animal-shaped pancakes.  We made 2 Emus, 6 Wombats, 1 Echidna, 1 Platypus, 2 Kangaroos, and a Dingo that we had to give plastic surgery to. 

At lunchtime, we recorded our auditions for Boston Youth Symphony Orchestra's premiere ensembles.  After trying various backgrounds, and settings on my dad's camera, we finally had a good take for each of us.  We will upload those when we have some high speed internet connections.  (Most of the wifi in caravan parks is pretty weak.)

For dinner, we drove into downtown Brisbane.  We parked our big-rig next to a Ferrari dealership, which is where we spent the next 15 minutes gawking.  Then, we went to one of the most famous places in Brisbane; the Story Bridge.  Ay night, the bridge was lit up in beautiful blue lights.  From "The Coffee Club," the restaurant we went to, there was a beautiful view of the bridge.  Today was a great day.  Tomorrow, we will begin our drive up to Rockhampton, where my dad is going to visit with some boarding school headmasters.

One of the supporters snapped, so I stepped in!

Close Encounters of the Koala Kind

"So that is what they look like up close!!"

Me (left) with a Koala (right)

ZZZZZZZZZZ

We are currently driving north of Brisbane toward Rockham- oh, wait, whoops, let me start that again.  Today, we are driving north from from Brisbane, toward Rockhampton.  On our way we stopped at yet ANOTHER zoo that had the same familiar Australian animals, except for the wombats being to the left of the koalas, and with the echidna being across from the wombats, as opposed to having the echidna next to the koalas, and the wombats on the other side of the zoo by the dingoes.  All kidding aside, this is a legendary zoo founded by Steve Irwin, The Crocodile Hunter, and is now run by his family.  The animals are in their natural settings, and have a lot of room to roam.  We saw the same animals as before, but in this zoo, I got to hold a koala, which is more interesting than watching one eat or sleep.  Koala is basically like a giant fuzzy warm football that has a heartbeat, two opposing thumbs on each hand, and smells like eucalyptus.   We also got to see a crocodile show, where a staff member made it jump out of the water.  One thing is for sure, Australian wildlife is very different than North American wildlife.  

Today, we (yes, I got it right) also visited the Glass House Mountains that were originally named by Captain Cook (who mapped the east coast of Australia in 1770s).  He thought they looked like the furnaces you melt glass in, hence he named them the Glass House Mountains.  These mountains are volcano plugs, formed by lava cooling.  The original sandstone mountains surrounding the lava plugs eroded over millions of years, leaving the extremely pointy, and jagged formations (plugs).  They were fascinatingly beautiful.

I still can't decide whether I like the wombats next to the echidnas or on the other side of the zoo.

Barbie at Rockhampton

A traditional Aussie meal: snags on a barbie

Today, we visited a school in Rockhampton, 650 kilometers north of Brisbane, called the Rockhampton Grammar School.  My dad will do a workshop here in the morning.  For now, we are visiting the director of boys' boarding, a teacher named Stewart Norford.  My brother and I played a little on the soccer field with some of the other children.  It was heaps of fun!  (As they say in Australia.)

Earlier this morning, we went to a beach on the Coral Sea, and it was surprisingly warm, compared to Hampton Beach!  The sand was made up of tiny seashells, with a few bigger ones mixed in.  It was amazing!

My brother and I playing 500 in the Coral Sea at the Tropic Of Capricorn

Aussie Wildlife

Today, we went to the "Australian Reptile Park" north of Sydney.  We saw many reptiles (alligators, snakes and lizards) as well as some obscure wildlife native to Australia, including cassowaries, platypuses, dingoes, tortoise, wombats and Tassie devils.  They were very interesting to see, especially the platypus.  He was swimming around happily, not seeming to notice that it was encaged in a zoo.  It was fascinating to see a real life platypus, and it was nothing like I expected.  It wasn't much longer than my forearm, and it's webbed feet are really big.  Platypus is a mammal with a beak, whose females lay eggs.  Platypus can spend minutes swimming underneath the water.   While swimming, it keeps its eyes and nostrils closed, and uses radio wave sensitivity of its beak to find its way around. It was amazing.

Cassowaries are the third largest birds, after ostriches and emus.  They are flightless, and their head looks like a combination of a turkey and a crested dinosaur, with a beautiful blue head.  They are endangered, because their rainforest habitat is being depleted by humans, and they are often ran over by cars.

We also started a 12 hour drive to Brisbane, and we plan to get halfway there today.  We have a long way to go.

More pictures In Sydney.

Here we are standing at the top of the stairs in the Sydney opera house. 

Today, we went into downtown Sydney.  Our first stop was the Sydney Opera House.  It was truly amazing at first site, with all of its seashell looking domes.  Some of the beige tiles on its roof made it look not as white as in the pictures, but that does't matter.  The House is actually made of three structures, two that are side-by-side, one of which is bigger.  The side that is bigger is home to the biggest stage, which seats 2,500 people.  The two sides share 3 other stages, not nearly as big.  The smaller side also has a big stage, but only about half as big as the biggest one.  On most nights, all five venues have performances of some kind. 

My mother really enjoyed the theaters not because of the looks, or the fact that we were in the Sydney Opera House, not because we were on vacation, but because the seats had good lumbar support!

Now, um, where's the Opera House?

After exiting the house, we took what seemed like millions of pictures from various angles and fiddling with the white balance with the bright sun reflecting off the tiles of the house.  Then when I thought it was over, we decided that we should start taking pictures for our CHRISTMAS CARD!!!!!  Fifty minutes later, we decide to take a selfie (without a selfie stick, which was pretty tough) with my dad's long arms, then my mom's shorter arms.  That turned out well.

THEN, we decided to go to the Sydney Harbor Bridge, the second largest single span bridge in the world.  Guess what we did there?......You guessed it, we took MORE pictures of the OPERA HOUSE!!!!  (Go figure!!!!)  For some reason, my dad found a super-duper view that was the exactly the same, but with the sun to the LEFT of us.  Then, we had another photo booth THERE, which was surprising to me because our camera battery hadn't run out!

Yup, it's the Opera House again!

After THAT, we went to a restaurant with a view of--wait for it...wait for it--the Opera House.  It goes without saying that we took more photographs there too.  At one point, my mom were so eager, that we had to ask the poor waiter to take our picture.  Now that is desperate!  

On our way back to our caravan park, we tried to sneak a--sorry, my MOM tried to sneak a--few more pictures.  Now I am suffering from serious lip crams, due to smiling so much.  But there was a lot to smile about today!

Going East

Today, we continued our drive up the Eastern coast of Australia.  Today, will end up in Sydney.  This is one of the major cities in Australia, and one of its most famous landmarks is the Sydney Oprah House.  This building has a funny background.  To build, it cost 14 times more than planned.  It ended up being $100,000,000.  That is a lot to mess up, thus the architect, a Danish man, Jørn Utzon, was fired.  Cha-ching Cha-ching Cha-ching.  The project was so complex, that the architect was hired back, in a consulting way, from his home in Denmark.  He died before being able to return to Sydney to see the completed work.  Learning that made me feel a little sad. 

On our way Sydney, we stopped at a winery.  From the front, it looked small, but when we went around back, there were 18 acres of grape vines.  This was fascinating to me, because I guess I expected it to be a lot smaller, even for a tiny, local vineyard.  We even got to meet the owner, a man named Kim.  He let us go in the distillery, which was amazing because there were 2-3 large tanks that were about 15 feet tall, followed by a bunch of 6-foot ones.  There were also oak barrels that lined the walls.  Some of the wines are aged in oak (from the U.S.!) to give them a toasty flavor.  My dad was in heaven, because he really likes learning about different wines.

Quick! What's the Capital of Australia?

My brother and I standing in front of an old Holden.

Today, we drove to Canberra, the capital of Australia.  Canberra is a planned city that is built to look open and symmetrical.  There, we went to the National Museum of Australia were we saw Aboriginal art.  We learned a lot about the history of Australia.  The museum displayed everything from the native people, plants and animals, to the effect the newly-introduced species of plants and animals had on Australian wildlife.  I learned how Australia was discovered by European explorers, settled by Europeans, and how the industry grew from gold rush, to farming and the car industry.  Here is a picture of me and my brother in front of one of the first Holdens, an Australian automobile. 

We also saw a 2008 video of the Prime Minister give an apology speech for the way the Australian government and the European settlers had treated the Aboriginal people.  That speech was probably one of the most important speeches in all of Australian history.  I really enjoyed this museum because it was interactive, and it gave me a really good taste of Australia.

The Australian Parliament (similar to the British one)

Also in Canberra, we visited the Australian Houses of Parliament.  It was beautifully decorated, with various flower displays and fountains here and there.  Sadly, we got there five minutes before it closed, but we got to take a peek at the actual room where the Parliament makes laws.  It was interesting how there were pews in which citizens could sit in, and watch the Parliament make laws.  I wanted to sit there for one of the sessions, but alas, we had to keep going on our adventure.  This is me in the House Chambers.