Australia - Day 1 - Melbourne/Corinella/The Prom

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ARRIVAL
I’m sure you’re thinking to yourself, “Finally, the part about Australia. Who gives a fuck what you did in LA?” To that, my dear reader, I say, “My bad, here’s the Australia part.”

After arriving at the Melbourne International Airport, we did the whole going-through-customs thing, wait-for-fucking-ever-because-your-bag-is-most-likely-going-to-the-very-last-bag-to-come-out thing, and went out to find our project leader and group. They were all right by the entrance of the airport. We met Marcus Cook, our project leader, and the 5 girls in our group: Adele, Becky, Morag, and Naomi, all from Great Britain, and Jenny, from Scotland. We walked a few hundred meters (I have to go by meters now, because we’re in Australia) from the airport, and met John, who was to drive us in this small bus from Melbourne (which is pronounced Mel-Bin, not how it looks like it should be pronounced) to Corinella, the small coastal town where we would be staying for the next two weeks to do our conservation thang. We drove through downtown Melbourne to check it out; it’s a beautiful downtown, and looked kind of similar to a European downtown, but without so many confusing signs in foreign languages. I had forgotten that they drive on the left side of the road in Australia. It was kind of unnerving at first to take a turn onto the left side of a road; it didn’t seem natural at first, but now it seems better. The drive was to take 2-3 hours, and we stopped by a shopping mall to pick up phone cards and to get some snacks. The mall was sort of like the mall I went to in Geneva, Switzerland, with a large grocery store connected to it. It was like Wal-Mart knocked up a South Plains Mall and had an Australian Mall baby with a European feel. If that was confusing, sorry; it doesn’t really make much sense now that I’m reading back over it either, but I don’t feel like deleting it. At the mall, we bought a $10 phone card, which deducted 4 cents a minute during your call. Not too bad; that’s a little over 4 hours of talk time. When I got there, I called Julie to let her know that I had made it, but my phone was dead, otherwise I could have gotten Jacky’s number off of it, which I haven’t memorized until just recently. I figured I would be able to call her once we got to Corinella...which wasn’t the case.

CORINELLA
We finally arrived at our accommodations for the next two weeks in Corinella, at a caravan (trailer) park next to the beach. I know what you’re thinking; “You’re staying in a trailer park? You’re a white trash piece of shit.” In reality, this caravan park is very nice, with brand new amenities and a fucking badass view of the bay. The caravans, for the most part, have a built-on extra annex, which serves as a sort of living room with a dining table. When we arrived, we all split into caravans; Morag and Becky were assigned to the two-person caravan, since they knew each other beforehand. Naomi, Adele, and Jenny got one of the three person caravans, and me, Marcus, and Danny were to get the other three person caravan. We got the baller caravan, because ours had 2 beds, a futon that rolled out into a bed, two dining tables (which we put together to make a big table for everyone to eat at), a TV, DVD player, kitchen (albeit small), and a toilet and shower. Plus, it was pretty cool that we would be sharing the caravan with Marcus, because we could chill with him and find out more about him and Australia.

Corinella is a beautiful little community, of probably no more than 400 people. It is mostly suburbs, with one general store/gas station and a community center in the middle of it. The community center seems like the center of activity for the town, where everyone meets to do whatever it is they do there.

CHARACTERS
Everyone seems to know everyone else, which is probably the case, being a small town. Everyone has been extremely nice and receptive of us foreigners being in town, especially since we are here to do work on the projects that the Foreshore Committee has made for us. Everyone that we’ve met have seemed like they love the coast, love the environment here, and do everything they can to preserve it and to keep it beautiful for future generations. It’s a very cool thing, to see so many people so passionate about their community and their land. It motivated me to do my best to work my ass off and make these people glad that we’re here.

Marcus, first off, is our project leader. He’s 26, with medium, shaggy, brown hair and glasses. He’s a very chill, slow-paced character, who absolutely loves his job, knows what he’s talking about, and just loves life in general. He seems to enjoy the finer things; the sun on your back, breathing fresh air, all that. Being rich isn’t on his list of things to do, and he’s quite content with his job, meeting new people, and partying. Pretty wise dude, in my opinion.

John, who met us at the Melbourne airport and drove us all back to Corinella, and Barbara, his wife, own the general store here. They are both very involved in the community, and especially on the Foreshore Committee, so they are very grateful that we are all here to help them out with their projects. John is a tall, hardy looking Australian dude with graying hair and a beard, but he’s as nice as they come, and loves talking to us about anything. Barbara is short, animated, and very charming; she seems to run around everywhere and get everything organized and worked out for us. She’s a sweet lady, always laughing about something, and she seems to have the American always-on-the-run mentality. They have been the nicest people ever; Barbara has, in particular, been a lifesaver; she seems to always drive by and pick us up whenever we need a lift somewhere.

Kath works and lives in Melbourne, but comes to Corinella to work…actually, I’m not sure exactly what she does for a living, but she has been helping us out a lot with our work. She is a very cool lady that likes to smoke and drink, and cusses as much as me and Danny do. She’s awesome. We haven’t been throwing our cigarette butts everywhere, because we’re here for conservation, so every time we were done with a cigarette, Danny and I would put it out and look for a trashcan, which was a bitch. Kath went out and bought us two little butt bins, which are green, ass-shaped bins that you can clip to your pocket and throw out cigarette butts in. Greatest. Invention. Ever.

If there was to be an antagonist on this trip, it would have to be Anwyn. She is a short, old lady with short hair and big glasses, one of those who wear their pants halfway up their chest. The only thing she’s missing is a bigass fanny pack, seriously. She’s nice and all, but she is self-admittedly not a people person, and just doesn’t know how to deal with people. In the first few days of working, she pops up out of nowhere, and starts grilling us about why we don’t know the names of the weeds we are pulling or the plants we are planting, and comes across as very rude and unappreciative of what we are doing, although I’m sure she does appreciate our hard work. Her and Marcus have actually gotten into it a couple of times, because she gets onto him for us not knowing what the plants are and for not working a full 8 hours a day; Marcus stuck up for us, reminding her that we are here on our own accord to help out with their projects here, and to appreciate what we are doing. Anwyn is actually not that bad of a person, seriously; she just seems to be a hater.

Keith and Denise live right on the coast, and are also on the Corinella Foreshore Committee. Extremely nice people; cooked and brought us soup for lunch on multiple occasions.

THE PROM
After settling into our caravans for a bit, we all met back up to go to Wilsons Promontory National Park, or the Prom, as the locals like to call it. We all got back onto the van, not knowing exactly what to expect, but it was a good 45 minute drive there. We ate lunch in the van, ham and cheese sandwiches with chips (which are called crisps here) and water. Often, sandwiches and burgers here have a thing called beetroot, which looks a helluvalot like sliced cranberry. It tastes kind of sweet, and it’s actually not that bad; I probably wouldn’t prefer it on a sandwich, though.

We finally arrived at the Prom, and most of it is a scenic drive through, where you can pretty much stop the car and get out anywhere to explore or do whatever. The Prom is famous for its spectacular landscapes and views, and for its wildlife. The first animal we ran into was a wallaby, which are like smaller, darker kangaroos that don’t hang out in packs. It was pretty wild to see, and not even 10 meters from it was a wombat. Wombats are like pig-sized guinea pigs, but are in the marsupial family, like kangaroos and wallabies. They are very cute, but are said to ram things if they feel threatened. We weren’t close enough to get rammed or anything; even if we were, I probably would’ve just kicked its ass anyway. Silly little wombats.

We drove along a little further and finally ran into a pack of kangaroos (I’m not sure exactly what the official word for a group of kangaroos is). It was pretty sweet, we got some good action shots of them jumping around and interacting with each other. A lot of times, they do this funny thing where they stand on their hind legs and use their arms to scratch their chest real fast, and as they are doing it they bend their back backwards. It’s the funniest fucking thing; I’ve got a good video of one doing it on my camera.

We finally got out of the van at a beach called “Squeaky Beach”, because the sand was so fine that, when you stepped on it, it made a squeaking noise. It was pretty kickass, and the beach was unreal; it was way more beautiful than Huntington Beach. It was cold, of course, because we were in Southern Australia, and its winter here. The waves were pretty fierce, so if I had trouble in Huntington Beach, I would have gotten slaughtered here. It was also secluded; there was only one or two other people there, taking pictures and soaking up the scene. I really wish that I could have captured on film what I was looking at through my eyes. Amazing.

We stopped at another beach that was the southernmost tip of Australia’s mainland. It was cool to know that I was standing there, and of course, the beach was just as beautiful as Squeaky Beach.

We drove a little further down, and Marcus showed us this badass pond. It was wide in certain areas and long, almost like a river, and on one bank of the pond, there were trees and boulders, and on the other side, sand. The water was brown, but not dirty; it gets its color from the plants around the stream. The water was perfectly still, and perfectly reflected everything; I’ve got some pictures that you’ve just got to see to believe. The trees and boulders were huge and incredible reflecting off the water; it totally looked like something off of Lord of the Rings, just without Frodo’s pussy ass running around. I could have stayed there looking at the water for days; it was serenity and harmony at its best. We followed the pond down a hundred or so meters around a bend, and all of the trees just opened up onto another badass beach. It was incredible; I swear when I’m rich, I’m going to build a little hut in the middle of the Prom…unless the Australian Government has a problem with that.

As we were leaving the Prom, Marcus recommended one more beach to check out, so we parked the van and a few of us made a 10 minute walk to another beach. The sun was setting (the sun usually sets at around 5:30-6:00 pm here), and it was a badass view. As we were soaking that up, we noticed a sand colored wombat just chilling near the beach! Sand colored wombats are pretty rare I guess, and it just sat there and let us get right up to it to take pictures. Silly little sand-colored wombats.

After the sun went down, we stopped the van on the side of the road, and we all got out to look at the stars. They were incredible; I don’t think I’ve ever seen the stars so clearly before in my life. It was as if there was absolutely 0 light pollution coming from anywhere; you could actually see the Milky Way up there. The closest thing I’ve ever seen to that was at Palo Duro.

PIZZA
On the way back from the Prom, we stopped at a pizza place for dinner. We ordered 4 pizzas, with garlic bread and fries. Australians (and even the girls from the UK) like to dip their fries (which they call chips) in sour cream, and refer to ketchup as “tomato sauce” (pronounced “to-MAH-to sauce”). Crazy assholes. Anyway, the pizza here is pretty thick, and the tomato sauce (the one they use on the pizza, not ketchup) was pretty weak, so it was pretty bland. They don’t normally eat their pizzas with pepperoni, but they DO eat it with egg. That actually sounds pretty damned good; you can’t go wrong with eggs on anything.

BEER
After pizza, we dropped by a beer store to buy some drinks. They biggest pack is a 24 pack (which are called slabs), and they don’t carry Bud Light or Red Stripe, my two beverages of choice. But, when in Rome, drink like the Romans, right? We took Marcus’ recommendation and bought some Victoria Bitter (or VB) and some Carlton Draught. Victoria Bitter is immensely popular in Australia, particularly in the state of Victoria, where it is brewed (obviously). It’s kind of like Lone Star here in Texas, except it doesn’t suck and people actually like it. So really, it’s nothing like Lone Star at all. They are both actually very tasty beers, I enjoyed VB a lot. They’re both a bit stronger than the beers I usually drink too, so that was a plus. If I were to ever see VB at the Strip, I would most definitely buy it. In fact, I now consider VB to be on the same level as Red Stripe and Bud Light. Congratulations, VB, you’ve done me proud.

Guess what - Fosters is NOT Australian for beer. I asked Marcus if Fosters was a popular beer in Australia, and he said “No, don’t get caught drinking Fosters, they’ll deport you guys for it.”
“Deport us?”
“Yea, so don’t get caught with any Fosters.”
“That’s fucked up, why’s that?”
“Because it’s illegal to drink such a shitty beer.” (Rim shot)

So, yea, Australians don’t like Fosters at all.

FOOTY
We all got back and everyone went back to their caravans. Danny, Marcus, and I cracked open a few VBs and turned on the TV, and lo and behold, there was an Australian rules football match on, or a “Footy” match, as the Aussies say. It’s a pretty wild game, definitely something unique to Aussie culture. At first glance, it just looks like a bunch of dudes running around after an oversized, yellow football, beating the shit out of each other. The rules are completely different; if you’re interested, here is a good description of the rules: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_rules_football . Here is a link to the Australian Football League website: http://afl.com.au/ . We caught the last quarter of the match on TV, and in ithe waning minutes of the game, a dude accidentally got kicked right in the face, and was knocked out cold. It was pretty sweet.

Since everybody was worn out from a long day of travelling, we all passed out way early; I’m talkin’ like 9:00 pm early. That’s basically a full night’s sleep earlier than my normal bedtime.

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Comments

[Jacky]

WOW
I loved your journal entries!! You remembered everything perfectly and wrote it very well. I really was smiling and laughing the whole time i was reading it! But baby, you do say "fuck" a lot, but that's okay. It adds character... No, really, it was all good and I can tell you put a lot of work into it which is really cute! Anyways, I thought it was great and I can't wait for more! Miss ya!