Holiday! Part 3: Western Australia

OK, this has obviously taken too long, and I apologize for that. But, since I'm here to study...eh...no excuse... Anyway, here's the final part of a holiday that is already in the history books.

After a couple of days in Perth it was time to explore a bit more of Western Australia, so we decided to go on a combined ‘camping’ and surf safari. We borrowed Hugh’s dad’s 4x4 (firehjulstrekker), tied four surfboards to the roof, put on some ‘Rage against the Machine’ (even though we had a representative from the main ‘Machine’ in the car – Tom, sorry about this bad IR joke. Tom is American if you didn't get it) and headed south. After about 3-4 hours we reached a small town called Yullingup. Yes, it sounds really Danish, but we were still in Australia. After ‘checking in’ and unrolling the sleeping bags in our own private little caravan (in other words, no hard core camping) we were off to meet King Ocean. The conditions for surfing were not the best, but a sunset surf was too appealing to turn back.

Tempted to go for a surf...?

...Oh yes!

The following days were spent on different beaches, surfing, playing poker with cardboard chips, playing the same songs on guitar over and over again, discussing the relations between Realism and Thucydides’ Peloponnesian War (!), and basically enjoying time away from Canberra. We also went further south to a lighthouse where we got some wind in our hair.

The area around Margaret River is famous for two things, surfing and wineries; a nice combo some would say… Let’s start with the surfing. The area has something for everybody, beach breaks, reef breaks, nice round waves as well as choppy, mad waves. All this combined with magnificent sceneries is all you can ask for. One of the more interesting incidents was when Francesco managed to break a massive soft board in two… Enjoy the pictures! (sorry Fra)

Me trying to drop into a wave

Hugh is cruising on a nice little wave

Game over for Fra. We came to the conclusion that it was
better with a broken board than a broken neck...

On the last day it was time for some wine ‘tasting’ around Margaret River. Our designated driver was Hugh and he did a good job showing us around five different and very beautiful wineries. It cannot really compete with South African wineries, but close enough. We also manage to stop by a liqueur factory and a coffee ‘distillery’. In other words, a good end to a perfect expedition.

The group and a red flower...

The days went by too fast and we were, unfortunately, a bit unlucky with the weather. But as we say in Norway, “there are no bad weather, only bad clothing”, and what clothing is better than a wet suit when it rains?

As in Melbourne it was really convenient to have a local guide. Thanks Steve and Hugh for showing Tom, Francesco and me around!!

This is it for now. In a couple of weeks I'll return to the social-democratic Utopia for a little while. I hope to see ya'll there! Take care till then!

Some people might wonder how it is in Canberra as well. The next post will be about life in Australia's 'bustling' capital...

Holiday! Part 2: Perth

After spending a few good days in Melbourne our holiday continued two time-zones further west. Perth with its 1.5 million people is the most isolated ‘big’ city in the world. For those who don’t know Australia that well, Perth is situated on the west coast. For instance, between my current home in Canberra and Perth are four days of driving through sand and bush. I believe the Beatles wrote a song about it called ‘Kangaroo Fields Forever’. We chose to fly...

Downtown Perth is rather small and peaceful (not compared to Norwegian standards, obviously), with a couple of nice pedestrian streets, hot dog stands and surf shops. We also had time to visit the infamous micro brewery in Freemantle called Little Creatures, which beer is a lovely odyssey in citrus flavored beer…eh… whatever…

The city of Perth seen from Kings Park

I've grown pretty tall down here... Tom & me, and Steve lurking in the background.

In Perth we met up with our good friend Hugh (another ‘Oslo student’). We stayed at his father’s place; a big house from 1910 in the nice suburb of Clairemont. The house has a big garden, numerous surfboards and two small, but loud dogs; Missy & Bill. Both Hugh and his dad are former local surf celebrities (right Hugh?). We even saw a picture of a young, blond Hugh posing for the newspaper revealing his dream about surfing in the 2000 Sydney Olympics. I think the only reason why Hugh never got an Olympic gold medal is that surfing never became an Olympic sport….

Our temporary residence. Francesco, Tom, me & Hugh.

Around Perth there are some superb beaches (especially in Cottesloe) and the water temperature was pretty comfortable (around 22-23 ’C). Living in Canberra, which is an inland city, makes you really enjoy having sand in your hair, the smell of salt water and even the odour of dead fish and sun dried seaweed. I'm not sure whether it was something in the water or just the feeling of freedom, but being at the beach transformed us all into wild teenagers again... and, of course, it ended with a nice cut right in between my eyes.

Some action shots from our beach days.

As the sun set in into the Indian Ocean we all became very sentimental...

In a few days I'll publish the last part of this Holiday Trilogy, Holiday! Part 3: Western Australia, so keep your eyes open!! Surfing, camping and a nice flower are some of the treats coming up...

Holiday! Part 1: Melbourne

Hey folks!!

Since you’re reading this it means that I’ve finally found some time in between work, work, holiday and work to write my blog again! I just handed in an essay last night, which means that I only have three big ones left before escaping the Australian winter and going back to my lovely fiancé for the summer. As you read this you might notice that something is different; yes, it has to do with language. Somebody told me that Norwegian is not a ‘world language’ (what!!), and after intense research I have come to the conclusion that English is spoken by slightly more people than Norwegian. This shift means that even more people can enjoy or hate my self-centric, non-political blog… To those of you that don’t like or understand English, well, what can I say…

Since I last updated the blog there has been some good days of traveling, surfing and laziness, but also a whole lot of long and stressful days of essay writing. I’ll concentrate on the fun part. On Friday 11 April a two week teaching-break finally started. The teaching-break is supposed to be a time for students for self-study, reflection and catching up with essay writing, yeah right… After class on that Friday Tom, Steve and me packed up Steve’s lovely Holden (weird Australian car brand) and headed south towards Melbourne, a trip that normally takes 7-8 hours. In our case a snapped fan belt in the middle of nowhere, very inefficient road service and an incredibly grumpy, chain-smoking tow-truck man and his not-so-lovely wife, made our trip last for almost 12 hours.

The next morning, after royal treatment in casa de família de Steve and a good night sleep, we headed downtown to watch an Australian football match, also known as ‘footy’. What is it with people using the term ‘football’ for every game where people run around with an oddly shaped ball, and then on top of it all they ignorantly refer to proper football as ‘soccer’!! Anyway the stadium, MCG (Melbourne Cricket Ground), is one of the nicest stadiums I have ever seen. It can accommodate more than 100.000 people; unfortunately there were only about 25.000 this day.

Melbourne is a fairly big city (approx. 3.8 million people), but it still has a nice, calm and cool atmosphere. The downtown area is a mix between modern, high rise buildings and old stone buildings and churches. The river Yarra which runs through the city adds a nice dimension to the asphalt jungle Melbourne also proudly presents itself as the home of the highest observation deck in the southern hemisphere, and we obviously had to check out the view from there.

Melbourne is not just tall buildings, you can also go fishing in the Tasman sea

Some of the Melbourne suburbs have lots of trendy cafés, bars and clubs, and the architecture looks like a modern version of the Wild West. In these areas you’ll find a lot of colorful street art (graffiti) and ‘alternative’ shops, something you’ll really learn to appreciate after living in the well polished city of Canberra.

The days in Melbourne were spent walking around the city, visiting Steve’s church, having a lively dinner-party with Eleanor’s family (Eleanor was in our Oslo class last semester), hanging out with Steve’s friend Bec, and eating good food at Steve’s place. As you probably have figured out already, Steve was our local guide. On Monday morning our Italian friend Francesco entered the party. Exhausted after a long night on the bus and pissed off at the people that stole his bike in Canberra, he really needed a good vacation.

Stay tune for Holiday! Part 2: Perth, to be released on 30 April 2008

Husker dere Skippy the bush kangaroo?

I Canberra koker det for øyeblikket. Jeg snakker ikke om ekstasen over at byen fylte hele 95 år på mandag, men det faktum at gradestokken endelig ser ut til å ha satt seg fast på godt over 30 grader. Men opp i all denne gleden over godt sommervær må jeg nok innse at det bare er en siste liten sommerflørt før vi blir lullet inn i Australias kalde vinter... Det kan kanskje høres ut som en spøk, men vi snakker faktisk minusgrader... på natta i alle fall... Det gjelder med andre ord å benytte seg av siste rest av varme.

Jeg må innrømme at det er litt vanskelig å bo i innlandet, særlig når man vet hvor lang og deilig kyst dette landet har. En vis mann sa en gang ”havet kommer ikke til deg, du må gå til havet”. Han la senere til ”...og husk solkrem og speedo”. Jeg tar denne mannen på ordet, med en liten ”rettelse” naturligvis; til ergrelse for noen, men til glede for de aller fleste har jeg byttet ut speedoen med shorts.

Den nærmeste kystbyen heter Batemans Bay (ca. 16 000 aussier) og ligger ca. 2 timer unna med bil eller annet lignende transportmiddel. Utenfor denne byen ligger det milevis med deilige, folketomme strender. Forrige helg reiste vi dit uten surfebrett og det var masse flotte bølger. Denne helgen reiste vi dit igjen, denne gangen med surfebrettet mitt skvist inn i en liten Mitsubishi, og det var naturligvis ikke en eneste bølge...

Hva gjør man når man ikke kan leke seg i bølgene? Man går da selvfølgelig på kangaroo jakt!! Det var ikke lenge vi trengte å lete før vi fant en fin gjeng oppi krattet. Jeg brant meg forøvrig på en brennesle mitt oppi kangaroo hysteriet, men det går greit meg altså. Bare litt kjipt å assosiere søte dyr med umenneskelig smerte... Husker dere Skippy, eller dyreverdenens svar på McGyver som jeg liker å kalle han (eller er det kanskje en hun?). Her nede synes alle det er veldig gøy at de faktisk viser Skippy på norsk tv fortsatt. Serien ble tross alt produsert i perioden 1966-1968. Etter å ha fremført Skippy-sangen i ulike (utallige) anledninger har jeg etterhvert også opparbeidet meg kallenavnet Skippy hos enkelte... Uansett, her kommer noen bilder av starnd og rare dyr.

En av mange strender utenfor Batemans Bay

På tide å revurdere Darwins evolusjonsteori?

Kangaroos i sitt naturlige habitat

Kangaroos i noe mer unaturlige omgivelser...

Down Under & Into the Bush...

G'day Mates

Javel der, da var det vel på tide å gi litt lyd fra seg... Mye har skjedd siden sist jeg snakket med mange av dere. De fleste har vel fått med seg at jeg i desember 2007 forlovet meg med verdens beste og flotteste jente!! Hurra! Men det er nok ikke alle som har fått med seg at jeg også har reist fra denne jenta og flyttet meg litt sør-vestover på vår lille jord; nærmere sagt til Australia og hennes noe merkverdige hovedstad Canberra. Canberra har i underkant av 350 000 innbyggere og er typisk den eneste australske byen av en viss størrelse og betydning som ikke ligger ved kysten... Så, hvorfor velger en urban, metroseksuell (tja) kystelsker å flytte til the 'bush capital'? Vel, nå har det seg slik disse aussiene faktisk har klart å stable sammen et av verdens beste utdanningstilbud innenfor International Relations nettopp her. De færreste av dere vet vel egentlig hva jeg studerer så her er det en gang for alle: Master in International Affairs med spesialisering i Peace and Conflict Studies. Ikke spør meg hva jeg blir...
Det er et meget internasjonalt program med studenter fra over 30 land. Studentenes bakgrunn er naturligvis veldig variert og jeg kan nevne alt fra en sørlending med en ussel bachelorgrad fra HIO (meg) til Indonesias ambassadør i Australia.

Hvis alt går etter planen så skal jeg tilbringe de neste 10-11 månedene her, men i slutten av juni kommer jeg på en liten 3-ukers turné til Norge. Jeg håper å treffe så mange som mulig da før jeg reiser ned igjen i midten av juli. I slutten av august flytter Katrine også ned hit. Vi skal da bo i Canberra frem til desember for derette å legge ut på to måneders backpacking i Indonesia Fillippinene og sørøst Asia.

De siste par ukene har jeg sovet på gulvet i little Italy og Chinatown, d.v.s. leiligheten til to italienere og ei kinesisk/kanadisk jente. Det er nesten som å være hjemme hos mamma igjen, de vasker klærene mine og lager mat til meg... Men på fredag (29.02) må jeg klare meg selv, da flytter jeg endelig inn i egen leilighet sammen med min amerikanske venn Tom. Regner med at italiensk og kinesisk mat da blir byttet ut med peanutsmør og pannekaker!

Fra venstre: Miki, Francesco, Chen, meg og Tom. Legg spesielt merke til det store hodet mitt!

Utover dagliglivet og skolarbeidet i Canberra så håper jeg på litt reising rundt i Australia. Forrige helg var jeg og tre kompiser på roadtrip til Sydney, som ligger ca. 3 timers biltur unna. Sydney er en utrolig deilig by, og det var godt å komme tilbake dit nesten 4 år etter forrige besøk. Høyepunktene var naturligvis Sydney Harbour Bridge, Sydney Opera House og Bondi Beach. Bondi Beach er på en måte som bystranda i Kristiansand, bare litt annerledes... Det var utrolig deilig å få surfet litt igjen. På søndagen dro vi til Blue Mountains som ligger vest for Sydney. Stikkordet for Blue Mountains er Natur.

Det berømte operahuset i Sydney


Harbour Bridge og Circus Norway on Tour


Surfing på Bondi Beach


Fra venstre: meg, Tom, Steve og Francesco


'The Three Sisters' i Blue Mountains og litt regnskog

Dette får være nok for denne gang. Jeg kommer tilbake med flere bilder senere. Skal se om ikke jeg klarer å ta et par fine bilder fra Canberra også.... Håper alt er bra med alle og hvis noen skulle befinne seg i nærheten av Canberra så er det bare å ta kontakt. Leiligheten vi flytter inn har tre toalett, så er man trengt så er det bare å komme!

Mitt nummer er +6145 045 5731, men husk at det er natt her når det er dag i Norge....

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