"Crocodile
Sundee"
Sunday Patterson, one of our instructors, is on a six-month world tour,
researching how Lindy Hop is done throughout the world and bring back what she
learns to Austin. On the first leg of her tour, she will be traveling with
her friend, Jill, but then she will travel by herself (and as a part of a tour)
through Africa before meeting up with friends and then ending her world tour in
Hawaii with her brother.
She is sending periodic correspondence, the relevant portions of which we
will post here as we receive them. Sunday did not provide the photos,
though: we retrieved the photos from various websites. They are accurate,
though, and do portray what she describes in her letters.
August 10, 2002
Ok, here's the skinny on NZ so far. In
four days, Jill and I have white water rafted, caved, and zorbed.
I didn't really know until we got here that NZ is the "Adventure
Capital of the World." And so it is. There's so much to do it's ridiculous.
And the whole time you feel like you are in the Sound of music.
Everything is so green and lush and it's still their winter.
The farther south we go, the colder it gets, so I may need to buy a scarf
soon. In Auckland it was about 55
during the day and now in Taupo it is maybe 40.
Auckland stinks. It's a big,
generic city with lots of exhaust. But
once you get out, there is nothing but green hills and mountains as far as the
eye can see.
We didn't end up sea kayaking because it was raining that day and it wouldn't
have been much fun. But the rafting
was cool - well, freezing actually. The
wetsuits didn't help much, but it was worth it. We went over a 21ft. waterfall,
which they claim is the tallest commercially rafted waterfall in the world.
I think. It didn't really
seem that tall though.
We also went zorbing, which was a hoot.
Check it out at www.zorb.com.
Jill and I did a double wet. Check
the website for explanation. It was
really bizarre. You go up in the
mountains in the middle of nowhere and there are sheep and cows all around and
they put you in this human-size hamster ball, throw some water in and roll you
down a big hill. I have it on
video.
The caving was the best so far though. We
put on these wetsuits and helmets with lights and these big rubber boots and
took off across the hills, dodging sheep to get to the cave.
I'm sure we looked like we were in a bad Devo video.
So once inside the cave, we trekked a little, then got into some
innertubes and turned out our lights and were guided through the pools in the
cave while looking at the glowworms. They
are phosphorecent blue and were on the ceiling, so it was kind of like watching
the stars while floating around on the lake at night....... except we were in a
cave. Then we got to swim around a
little in the absolutely freezing water. But
the caves were amazing.
Everything is soooo cheap here. The
prices in NZ dollars are about what they would be at home in US dollars but it's
2 NZ to 1 US. I don't think I've
spent more than 4$ US on a meal yet. And
usually it's less.
Back to the scenery - I can't describe exactly what NZ looks like.
If you
took Switzerland, Scotland, rainforests and farmland and mashed them all
together and added more hills, then you get New Zealand.
And add a lot of giant ferns.
I
keep falling asleep on the bus, but I feel bad because it's hard to take your
eyes off the countryside.
[Editor's note: check out www.vnz.co.nz
for photos of New Zealand.]
So that's about it for now. Tomorrow I fall 12,000 ft. the sky.
Woohoo!
Sunday
PS - I forgot to tell you - there are a lot of thermal pools here.
[Click on the two pictures to the right for bigger view.] They are so hot but feel so good! Oh
yeah, and we also visited a Maori Village where they had a performance of the
traditional tribal dances and stuff. And
we saw some kiwis. they are big
suckers!
PPS - please send only personal email. (My
mailbox can't hold all the extra stuff since I don't get to check it often.)
August 26, 2002
Hello all,
Since I last sent out a mass emailing much has happened. Finished up in New Zealand.
Even though the weather was never very good, we had a great time.
Jumped off a bridge, bunjee jump at 80 meters which I think is about 260
feet? Not nearly the highest, but
most are 45 meters, so it was high enough for me.
Was not able to skydive due to the weather either.
I spent my birthday in the middle of nowhere mountains in a cute lodge called
River Valley. It was awesome.
Not much to do but enjoy the beautiful surroundings and go horse
trekking. It was so muddy I thought
the horses were going to slide off and take us all with them.
We literally trekked up and down mountains.
Our one night in Sydney was great fun, but the Contiki tour was torture, so
we ditched it several days ago and got on a bus similar to the one we took in
New Zealand. So far it has been a
blast.
We stayed a few nights at Fraser Island, which is a completely sand island
(http://dkd.net/fraser/beaches.html)
[the world's largest sand island (http://dkd.net/fraser/sand.html)]
,
but is covered in forest and rainforest (http://dkd.net/fraser/forest.html), and has 42 fresh water lakes.
We went swimming in one lake called Lake Mackenzie, about the temp of Barton
Springs, but clear all the way through.
Last
night we stayed in Dingo. There
really is a town called Dingo.
I
saw a dingo just the other night...
...stopped by a few zoos and was able to hold
a koala.
Oh yes, while in Dingo we stayed at a working cattle station.
They took us all on a cattle truck for a tour and we learned how to crack
a whip and use a boomerang. Watch
out....I'm really dangerous now!
[Editor's note: Believe
it or not, we found some photos on the Web from another guy who did the same
thing at the exact same camp, pictured to the left. Click
here for his pictures. He even has a boomerang photo.]
We are now in the Whitsundays Islands, about to leave in the morning for a
three day sailing trip. There
are all these 20 million dollar yachts that were/are built for the America's cup
and they use them for tours the rest of the time.
It rained, stormed, poured the whole first week in Australia, but now it
is beautiful and sunny and the stars are so bright at night.
Next
stop is Cairns, then heading to the outback.
Hope everybody is doing well! I'll
let you know how the sailing/diving goes.
Sunday
September 6, 2002
Hello all,
Where did I last leave off? I
think it was at the Whitsundays islands. (http://www.whitsundays.com.au/welcome.html)
. [The Whitsunday Islands are a cluster of 74 islands off the Northeastern
Coast of Australia, bordering the Great Barrier Reef. (Click
here for an Interactive map with photos) ]
Airlie
Beach [on the Australian mainland] is the gateway, so we stayed there one night before the sailing trip and a
couple nights afterwards.
We were
on a 40 ft. yacht with a skipper and a cook and only two other Irish kids.
It was very peaceful and beautiful.
All the islands are completely tree-covered, but there is one beach on the
main island, Whitehaven Beach [pictured above and below]. It's
unlike any beach I've ever seen in person or pictures. Super-fine white sand that extends into the water a ways and
looks like strung out cotton candy, it swirls in and out of the water and makes
these little pools.
The water was pure aquamarine and very cold.
We did some snorkelling [like these guys did below] but could only stay in the water for about 10
minutes at a time. The wind was
chilly too, but we still got a pretty good tan.
The next couple of nights we stayed out until 4:30 am. There
is only one small strip in Airlie Beach and you see all the same people at all
the same places, which actually makes it fun because you know somebody
everywhere.
The next morning was hell.
[Editor's Note: Yeah, right.] Got
on the bus and drove most of the day to Mission Beach [Look at that
picture of Mission Beach!! I feel SOOOO
sorry for her!].
We were going to stop over before that at Magnetic Island, but decided
not to because we stayed at Airlie longer than planned. The gateway to Magnetic is Townsville, capital of the state Queensland. It
looked really cool, so I'm sorry we didn't get to stay, but we took a long lunch
break there and had some great fish and chips by the waterfront.
It's very warm now, but not too warm. I
had to go buy some shorts and a tank top because I have all this long-sleeved
stuff still. Good excuse to shop
though!
Not much there in Mission Beach. Just
a beach. So we powered it up to
Cairns early. People we've talked
to along the way have given all sorts of advice, many of them didn't necessarily
like Cairns, but I thought it was really nice.
It's sort of an overgrown beach town.
We stayed one night and went a few hours north to Cape Tribulation.
This is one of the northernmost points and basically the end of the Great
Barrier Reef. There are some
massive rainforests there too, and at the exact tip, which is the cape, the
rainforest and reef touch. Kinda cool. We
stayed at a cute hostel in the middle of the rainforest, only ten feet from the
beach. Yeah, I could get used to
this....
We took a day trip out to snorkel at Mackay
reef. It was really awesome. Saw
all kinds of fish, eels, rays, turtles, giant clams. You can stick your hand in the clams and they close up on
you. An interesting feeling.
They are anywhere from 2-5 feet wide.
They are so meaty that they can't really close all the way, so you can't
lose fingers or anything.
We soaked up some sun and went back to Cairns for a few days.
Had a blast. Many more late nights. We
ran into every single person we have met to date at this one pub one night.
Had a hard time keeping them all straight.
We even ran into some people from our bus in New Zealand. And
as I speak, sitting here in Alice Springs, a bunch of contiki people just walked
in.... So that was a crazy crazy
night. And they don't know what
real pizza is here, but they make mean kebabs.
I will miss them. Good late
night food. And lunch food.
And dinner food. Did I mention they are really good?
So we arrived in Alice Springs today and will leave to do a 2 day camping
trip at Ayers rock tomorrow morning and heading north towards Darwin after that.
I've left out so much, let's see.... Canadians
are all insane. i'm
allergic to rainforests. The
newest slang words are "sweet as" and "mingin."
If something is really good, it's sweet as bro and if it's way nasty,
it's mingin.
Oh yeah, we took a wildlife river cruise and saw a bunch of crocodiles.
They are so ugly. They abandon the babies as soon as they hatch.
I can understand why.
When we were walking around in Cairns one day we saw this photo booth that
prints out little stickers, except the instructions were in Japanese.
So the only English slogan we could choose was poorly translated.
it says "get you." Maybe
it was supposed to mean miss you? Couldn't
tell. But I nearly wet my pants
trying to figure it out. We then
realized we were in Chinatown, which came out as Little China. Guess you had to be there.
Miss you all. Please update me
on any news, local and national, Labor Day fun,
Friday, October 18, 2002
I haven't bumped you from the list, I just haven't had the
opportunity or time to send out anymore updates yet.
But I swear they are coming in
the next 24 hours.
Don't stop, don't pass go, just get your ass to Thailand. This place is paradise. I've only been on Ko Phi Phi
for two days now,but I could easily
stay forever....
I have taken day 1 of my diving course.
It is raining a lot today, but there's
plenty of cheap shopping to do and all
the cafes show movies all day.
It's funny - out here
on a remote island and all the
conveniences you need. Even a 7-11. That sounds awful, but it was
a sight for sore eyes after Africa.
Africa was an amazing experience, but I was ready to get the hell out.
You can never fully relax there, even
on the beach in Zanizibar.
I think
theemail I have for Xoch is working, but in
case she never hears from me, tell her hello and big hug.
Damn this keyboard - keeps sticking.
I'm not this bad
of atypist, really.
ok, more soon I promise.
over and out,scrippy scrappy, roger ranger, commando- s
Saturday, October 19, 2002
I know you have all been anxiously awaiting more updates
from me, yes? Or maybe not... but
here you go anyway.
I just arrived in Ko Phi Phi, southern Thailand a few days
ago and spent the last month in Kenya and Tanzania.
But I never finished telling about my last week in Australia, so I'll
start there.
After Cape Tribulation, Jill and I caught a flight to Alice
Springs. I hate to admit it, but I
had a Burger King meal at the airport and it was really good.
The chocolate there is much better too.
Quality control? Don't know.
I had not heard many good things about Alice Springs, but at first sight
it didn't seem so bad. After a few
days I concurred that it was in deed a dump.
It's not dirty, just a little back-country.
There are lots of alcoholic Aboriginals and whatnot.
They wander around the streets barefoot, talking and singing to
themselves and yelling randomly. At
first I thought it might be a weird, mental cultural thing, but the next day I
saw plenty of normal families and other Aborigines walking around.
Hardly any of them wear shoes. Guess
they don't need them.
There are millions of art galleries.
I actually bought a few paintings. I
thought about buying a digeridoo (these long instruments you blow into that are
made of hollow tree branches) but I figured it might be hard to get a band
together back home.
We left the next day for a 2-day Ayers Rock tour.
It took at least 7 hours in a very uncomfortable bus to see a big rock.
We had to get up at 5am or some god awful hour to see the sunrise and the
rock "change color". It
started out dark red and "changed" to red.
I could have been sleeping peacefully in my swag.
The tourists there were insane. Buses
and cars all over the place and people nudging their way up to the barrier,
trying to get in front to take a million pictures of this big, uninspiring rock.
The trip was not worth it to see Ayers Rock.
It was worth it to see King's Canyon, which we hiked in for
4 hours. The rock formations are
really beautiful, even though it was really hot.
We also saw the Devil's marbles, which are these big, round
granite rocks that formed from millions of years of erosion.
On our way to the second campsite, it was dark and most of
us were asleep when the driver slammed on the brakes and yelled, "camel
camel camel!!!!" No kidding.
We almost hit a camel in the middle of the road.
Apparently north Australia has a feral camel problem of about 2-300,000.
They just wander around in the brush and like to stand in the middle of
the road. He said that a bus a few
months before actually did hit one and it went through the windshield.
We arrived back in Alice Springs the next day and had a
group dinner at one of the hostels. It
was a pizza buffet, and they kept bringing pizzas with pineapple, and it wasn't
good. They also like pineapple and
beets on their sandwiches. They
also like vegemite. There's a
general aura of quirkiness: like everybody and everything is just not quite
right.
We had one more night in Alice Springs before heading up to
Darwin. We shared a room with this
college kid Dan from Chicago, who was also on the same bus.
He was a lot of fun. When he
left to do his laundry, Jill and I took a video of us rolling around in his
stuff and trying on his clothes. One
day he will see it and laugh. Hopefully.
That night we checked out a local bar with a bad cover
band. It was outback. Dodgy old men with snaggle teeth and grizzly beards and all.
The locals here come from a very shallow gene pool.
The next morning we headed out. First stop was lunch at
this picnic area/motel/gas station that dedicated itself to UFO's.
There were plaster statues of green monsters, newspaper clippings and
other strange paraphernalia. We
toured a recreation of a gold mine and passed the tropic of Capricorn.
The next day we stopped for lunch at a pub called the Daily
Waters. Every available surface was
covered with pictures, id's, underwear, dollar bills from all over, caps, old
tools, etc. We even found an i.d.
stapled to a post from one of the kids on the tour we ditched.
He must have passed through recently.
It is starting to get hot at this point, and you can't
sleep well because you are sweating all night.
So if you have to sweat, may as well go for a 4-hour canoe trip, right?
Next morning we canoed down Catherine gorge.
It was one of the highlights. We
stopped halfway and just swam around. The water is clear, fresh river water.
Later on we stopped at Mataranka thermal pool, which is a fresh water
pool that flows into a river. It
was a hidden paradise. Palm trees,
lush greenery. We ran over and
jumped in the river. It was
perfectly safe, they say, but I felt like I was in the middle of the movie,
“Romancing the Stone,” and would be eaten by a crocodile at any moment.
Even though most of the time is spent driving, the bus was
comfortable and big enough to have a double seat.
Our guides were excellent and the group all got along well.
The last day into Darwin, we stopped at Edith falls, another unexpected
paradise. It was a fair-sized
lagoon with a small waterfall at the end. All
these hidden tropical nooks in the middle of lots of red dirt.
Oh yes, I almost forgot about the 6-10 foot termite mounds
dotting the landscape. That's a lot
of termites.
Darwin was a nice town.
A little bigger than Alice and much more to do.
Not backwards either. Another
group dinner at a local pub, where afterwards the whole place went crazy and
hundreds of people were dancing all over the tables.
Jill and I had to catch a 1 a.m. flight out the next night
and parted in Sydney. I had to fly
to Melbourne, had a 12 hour layover which I spent walking around the city
center, and then continued on to Nairobi via Singapore and Dubai. With all the layovers and flights I estimate it took 42 hours
for me to get from Darwin to Nairobi.
And that's the end of Oz. Africa
is an epic story, so that will be in another email.
Enjoy,
S
Monday, October 28, 2002
Using the Internet when traveling out here very
frustrating, because when I find an Internet connection, it's very slow or I
don't have enough time to write my updates.
But, in a nutshell, here's Thailand and Vietnam.
Thai beaches are awesome, very relaxing, great food, cheap
clothing and massages. My sister,
Jamie, is with me. When we went to Bangkok, we hired a tuk tuk to take us
to the different temples.
went to see a particular Buddha called "lucky Buddha" where we ran
into an American guy from LA that told us about buying sapphires to export and
make 180% profit in the U.S.. The
Thai govt. has a one week promotion where tourists can buy gems and we hit it on
the last day. So we went to buy
$15,000 in sapphires and the owner assigned his secretary to show us around the
rest of the day with a car and driver. And
promised if we come back next year to put us up free in a 5 star hotel with
transport and all.
So we went to see the palace and then went to a tailors and
ordered custom leather jackets and pants, then went to a local fav, a German
brewery with amazing Thai food and live band. The
girl Tuk Ta had some of her friends join us and we had a crazy good time.
We are now in Vietnam.
Hanoi is fun, but have to be careful or will get stampeded by mopeds.
Everything outside the major few cities is very remote and
I am laughing at my sister who still expects toilets, hot water and air
conditioning.
It's raining a lot, but amazingly beautiful.
te some interesting foods -
unidentifiable bird, cow stomach, noodle beef soup for breakfast, rice all the
time.
I’m pretty good with the chopsticks now.
I
received some emails from Keeley [a former resident Swing Dancer in Austin,
whose new husband is stationed in Hawaii] and will probably stay with her or
another swing dancer for a few nights when I get into Hawaii in a few weeks.
Will definitely do some dancing there.
The break has been nice, but I do miss it now.
Sunday
