Noosa

I just got back from a week at Noosa, a very posh little beach town about four hours north of Brisbane. The weather was chilly (it is the middle of winter here), but that didn’t stop me from taking some surf lessons. I’m proud (and surprised) to say that I managed to stand up on the board a couple of times! Most of my time was still spent being destroyed by waves and flailing about wildly in the water, so overall it was a humbling experience.

The town was right next to a national park, so when I wasn’t surfing, or standing under a hot shower trying to defrost from surfing, I was hiking around in the park, eating peanut butter sandwiches at various locations. All in all it was a successful week!

Tonight I’m leaving for my field trip in the outback to go around chasing kangaroos and wallabies. More later!



Come on Australia, drive-through liquor stores just can't be a good idea.














Playing with self-timers is fun.

The Past Month of My Life

Hi Everybody!

Well, it’s been way too long since I wrote on this blog-thingy. Since then, a lot of nothing has happened and also a lot of something has happened. I will start with a lot of nothing:

I wrote three very long research papers. I lounged around in my dorm. I ate lamingtons- a delicious Australian cake that is coated in chocolate and coconut. I took my finals. I found my long lost fleece on the laundry line and jumped up and down in celebration.

Happily, a lot of (more) exciting things also happened.

Right after classes ended, I went with the rest of the Wash U kids on a farm stay about four hours NW of Brisbane. It was on a ridiculously large cattle farm (about 7,500 acres). As it turned out, the most work we had to do was peel the bark off of one felled tree. The rest of the time was spent riding around in the back of our host, Ken’s, pick up truck checking water hole levels, and eating a lot of really good food. I was fine with this.

Since we didn’t have finals for two more weeks after classes ended, some of the American girls and I fit two more trips in before we had to go back to pretending to be students again. The first trip was a three-day stay on Fraser Island, which is an island off the coast of Queensland completely made of sand and famous for its beaches, lakes and rainforests. We signed up for a tour, since all of the driving on the island is intense, off-road driving. Unfortunately, the SE Queensland drought of five years decided to break when we got to the island and we spent the whole time hiking around in a cold rain. Of course, we weren’t going to let a little rain spoil our fun and ended up swimming in one of the lakes anyway. I think this is when I became mildly hypothermic. Luckily for us, we signed up for the “resort” tour and not the camping tour, so we had beds and a hot shower to come back to. And Mexican food. Mexican food was a big hit. Despite the rain, the island was beautiful and I think we all felt very accomplished to have conquered Fraser in the Great Storm of 2007.

Once we got back to Brisbane, we decided we needed another trip to thaw out, so two days later we hopped on a bus to Byron Bay. Best decision EVER. Byron Bay is a backpacker, surfer beach town. It has a cute downtown area with lots of shops, and a gorgeous beach. We spent our time sunning ourselves on the beach, watching people surf, and eating fish and chips. Then, (sadly) I had to leave to take a final.

Since then, I’ve been studying for finals and spending my last few days with all the Australians in my dorm. This past week, I did have one exciting escapade to the Australia Zoo with my friend Alli, an animal extraordinaire and Steve Irwin connoisseur. For those of you who are not aware, the Australia Zoo is the zoo founded by Steve Irwin, and the site of much of the filming of “The Crocodile Hunter.” So, it’s kind of a big deal. It is also the site of the “Crocoseum” where we watched the show Wildlife Warriors 101 (aka the Croc show) with about 500 kids under the age of 10. We also saw river otters, elephants, kangaroos, koalas, and my personal favorite, the echidnas. Possibly the most exciting part of the trip was finding out that tigers are lactose-intolerant, but still love milk. I feel that tigers and I share a special bond now. It was quite an exciting day.

Once I finish my last exam, I’m off to the beach for a week to learn how to surf. That is, if it stops being winter here. After that, I’m taking a field ecology class in the outback. Then, the family gets here for The Great Ratoff Australia Vacation. Hooray!

Hopefully more updates to come, provided I have an internet connection.

Cheers!


Possibly the best rest stop ever.




I think the picture says all that needs to be said.




Mandy, Caroline and Rosie the cow.




Moo.




In front of a tractor that puts the Avodah tractor to shame.




Doing farm work.




Posing with the Fourex man after the Fourex brewary tour. Fourex (XXXX) is the official beer of Queensland. For how much beer Australians drink, I think they could do a little better. The tour itself was fun, and included a Disneyland component (circa 1950) where the audience sits on a turning platform and animitronic people talk to them.




Dingo sighting on Fraser Island!





Ferocious close up. (I think it's yawning).





Lake Wabby: home of my brush with hypothermia.




We were a little sad about the weather...




but tried to stay positive.




Washed up shipwreck.




We were going for a Jack/Rose pose, but it didn't quite work because both Caroline and Alli wanted to be Rose.




Painted sand cliffs.




















Alli, our resident wildlife enthusiast, caught a skink, which is an almost legless lizard. This photo was taken right before the skink vomited something foamy and mysterious all over her hand. Her hand never ended up falling off, so in the end, picking up snake-like creatures still managed to stay in the good idea category.




Hiking in the rainforest.




Alli found an eel in the river.





All we could gather from this sign was that walking with a limp is not allowed on Fraser Island.




It was finally sunny!! (This picture taken an hour before we left). Even so, I decided swimming in Lake Birabeen was not going to be a good idea (it was freezing!).




Apparently picking up snakes was still a good idea though. Why?!




Byron Bay!













Otters at the Australia Zoo.



Tortoise that was brought to Australia in the 1800s from the Galapagos Islands! He was moving quickly for a tortoise that old!




Crocodile show at the "Crocoseum" at Croc-o-clock (11am, apparently).





Steve Irwin memorial.





More kangaroo petting.




I think this one had too much "roo-feed."








Echidna.





Creepy Emu.




Elephants on Parade.




Picture of my room one hour before it was torn apart by a packing frenzy.

Melbourne and the Great Ocean Road

Hello All,

Melbourne was great! And over a month ago… nevertheless, presenting Melbourne:

Melbourne was a last minute enterprise borne out of Easter Day ticket sales, spontaneity, and a final frantic internet scramble. Caroline and I bought the tickets, and then didn’t see each other again, due to different travel and field trip schedules, until four days before we left. It was going to be quite an adventure.
Melbourne is known as the multicultural city of Australia, which basically translated into (at least for Caroline and I) an opportunity to eat a lot. We gorged on Chinese, Italian, assorted cakes, and a LOT of gelato. We somehow missed the Greek “district,” though I would contend that it looked more like a block than a district on the map we had.
Melbourne is also, as we found, filled with a lot of weekend markets. There was the big Queen Victoria market that sold everything from fruit to clothes to Australian chatkes. I made an exciting purse purchase, which I “bargained” for. Actually, I asked what the price was and he told me the price, then lowered it before I even said anything. Nevertheless, I was very proud. There were also some fun crafts fairs on the other side of the city that we poked around at.
Of course, we had to see the Crown Casino, which is the biggest Casino in the southern hemisphere. This was the first time I could legally gamble, so of course I had to “give it a go.” I was only planning to gamble $2.50, but ended up gambling away $6. Worried that I was developing a problem, we decided I should cut my losses and run! We also met up with Zoe, a friend from New Trier studying at the University of Melbourne, and caught the last night of the International Comedy Festival. It was great to see Zoe, and the guy we saw was pretty funny, even though some of the local humor went over our heads. Other highlights in the city included meeting up with Caroline’s friend Chris, the botanic gardens, the Shrine of Remembrance and riding around in an old fashioned trolley.
Caroline and I also decided to take a day trip to the Great Ocean Road. The GOR runs from Melbourne to Adelaide along the south coast of Australia. When they built it, they were trying to create something like Route 1 along the California Coast. Not quite ready attempt left-side driving for the first time on a winding cliff road, we decided to join an all-day bus tour. The views were amazing, and I quickly overcame my annoyance at being herded like a sheep (By the end I was thinking “herd me more places, please!”). It was an entire day of looking at rocks and water, so I really couldn’t have been any happier.


Hooray!


Melbourne! (Complete with old train station and tram)




Caroline and I.








Morning tea at the Royal Gardens.




Cool tree.




Old observatory built outside of the gardens. The observatory was built for one night to observe the passing of Venus, in order to make some sort of important astrological calculation. Thankfully, it was done in time, otherwise that would have been a huge waste of effort!




As a side project, they also decided to build a magnetics house to study the Earth's magnetic field. Iron would throw off the instruments, so they built the entire house out of copper nails. Of course, less than a year after it was finished, (iron) electric tram tracks were laid right across the street from the building, generating more electromagentism than anyone had ever seen before and rendering the building useless. oops.




The Shrine of Remembrance was built to honor the fallen from WWI (the war Australia has lost by far the most troops in). I actually was there the day after ANZAC day, which is Australia's WWI memorial day, so the entire inside of the shrine was covered in flowers. (ANZAC stands for Australian and New Zealand Army Corp.)




One of the many neat little alley ways lined with cafes.








One of many gelatto runs we made. yum.




Caroline and her friend Chris, who was studying for the semester outside of Melbourne.




At the Queen Victoria Mall.




One of the many chalk drawings on the sidewalk. Melbourne's having a big problem with the drought.




Zoe and I after a successful night at the comedy festival.




Begin the Great Ocean Road. Stop 1: Bells Beach.








I think Bells Beach is in a famous movie, so I decided to take a picture of the sign as proof of my visit there.




Next stop, the lighthouse. First, I had to get a picture of myself infront of a particularly good rock.




The lighthouse.












A "wild" koala. I think it's chained to the tree so the tour buses can say they showed people a koala. Call me cynical.




In keeping with the great Andrew Ratoff tradition, I had to stick my feet in the body of water I was looking at. It was a little colder than expected...








The Twelve Apostles. Actually, in this picture, the 4.5 Apostles.




Big sky.








"London Bridge." There used to be a bridge connecting the remaining bridge to the mainland, and people used to be allowed to walk out there. Then, one day the bridge collapsed, stranding two people on the outside part of the bridge. Tour bus lore has it that when the people were being rescued, they were trying to hide their faces from the cameras because they were having an affair. I think the more exciting part of the story is that someone got to make a phone call saying "London Bridge has fallen down!"