Before Dolphins - Wollongong and Beyond

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Wollongong & My First Roo

I made it out of Sydney feeling satisfied. I saw the major sites and experienced some of what the city has to offer. In other words, I'm not much of a city person. In contrast, Wollongong (~1.5 hour train ride south of Sydney) is a town of about 250,000 right along the coast that is much more to my liking. Still enough to do without the hecticness of a big city.

I'm staying with my friend Kim here whom I was a resident adviser with at UVic in my second year. She's in medical school here but it was a long weekend in Australia for the Queen's birthday (we think Elizabeth?) so she had 3 days off. On Saturday afternoon we went up Mount Keira on the edge of town to do some rock climbing with a couple of her Aussie friends. I hadn't been climbing for about 5 months and have only gone outdoors on a number of occasions, so it took awhile to get back into the swing of things. Beautiful views though. We were forced to stop at about 5 pm as it was starting to get dark...when I left Prince Rupert a month ago it wasn't dark until 10 or so. Now its basically pitch black by 6, but I'll take that over the 40 degree heat of the summer any day.

I also had a chance to learn how to talk "Aussie". Top words include:

Heaps (adv.) - very
Reckon (verb) - suppose
Cruisy (adj) - easy
Boot (n) - trunk
Flogged (adj) - drunk or tired or both...I'm still a little unclear on this one
Beanie (n) - toque (Americans use this one too. I feel like toque needs to spread more worldwide. A beanie just reminds me of a little colourful cap with one of those twirling propellers on it)

There's heaps more words to mention, but I reckon I'll stop there so you don't get too flogged....eh?

On Sunday, Kim and I toured around Wollongong. We walked along the beach, to the lighthouse, stopped in for some ice cream (despite it only being about 16 degrees), and then made it to the stadium. One of my goals of the trip was to attend a sporting event here in this sport mad country. There happened to be a soccer match in the New South Wales (state I'm in) league in Wollongong between the South Coast Wolves (home team) and the Bankstown City Lions. For $6 we sat on the hill seats in the sun and watched the match with roughly 200 or others. Not exactly the raucous sporting event I was going for, but decent soccer nonetheless. After scoring on a penalty in the early first half the home team looked primed for their first home win of the season (they kinda suck). The crowd was getting a bit more into it, yelling obscenities at the refs, taunting the other team's goalie etc. Unfortunately, with 6 minutes remaining they let in a devastating goal. The game ended in a 1-1 draw. I'm definitely going to try to make it to a rugby or Aussie rules game at some point to experience the real Aussie sports scene.

That night we headed to the pub with a few of Kim's med school friends a lot of whom happened to be from Canada. The next morning we woke up super early to go to Nowra (about an hour drive southwest) for some more climbing. Luckily I didn't wake up at 4:30 am to watch the socceroos get demolished by Germany 4-0 in the world cup. People here were none too pleased about that.

Just as we were about to get to the climbing spot I spotted a group of about 6 large furry creatures by the side of the road. They were the most quintessential of Australian wildlife, the kangaroo. Screw the opera house...I finally feel like I'm in Australia! The climbing itself was great despite the fact the rock was freezing cold and numbed your fingers to the point where it was difficult to tell what you were grabbing onto. We had to head back in the early afternoon right as it was warming up a bit.

Oh I forgot to mention...its also Kim's birthday today! We got back and after went down to the Stuart Park by the beach for a mini-picnic with her med school friends before heading out to dinner and a movie. Not a bad way to spend a couple of days and Kim's couch is remarkably comfortable. I'll say I much prefer to stay with friends than in hostels although both have their upsides and downsides. Until next time...

-Josh

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