Classing it Up

Despite the fact that I will probably have to live off of rice and potatoes for the next month, I ended up springing for the swank motel room and $100 later I was standing outside a creamsicle-orange coloured complex with mixed feelings about what I might find. As it turned out, despite the retro exterior, my room had a full, comfy queen size bed, satellite tv, a full kitchenette and there was a hot tub out back (spa pool in kiwinese). As another antidote to my sniffles and doldrums, I took my mamma's advice and grabbed the ferry to the North Island for a change of scenery.

New Zealanders know how to run a ferry- the place had it's own movie theatre, playground for the kids, cafe, and best of all, a full bar. I skipped the movie and had a few beers on my crossing. As I entered the ferry terminal in Wellington, a man was standing at the base of the escalator holding a sign with my name on it. You wouldn't think that a place called Ezi-Hire Car Rentals would think of the finer touches but I have never had better customer service in my life. They are even letting me drop off the car in a city that they don't have an office in at no extra charge; "someone will come round and pick it up, no worries". I really am becoming fond of Kiwis.

To finish off the evening I went to see the new Wolverine movie at this really cool movie theatre downtown. All doric columns and Maori-carved crown mouldings, and even real curtains in front of the screen. I paid the extra $3 to sit in the leather seats in the middle- very swank- I even got to bring in my glass of wine from the little jazz bar in the lobby. Turns out that the whole place was refurbished for the Return of the King world premiere, which they held there. There were all these small plaques on the seats listing who sat where during the premiere. I sat where Frodo sat! A gal has to geek it up once in a while.

-A.

10000 Waterfalls and Stuffy Head

I went to Milford Sound the other day because everyone on the South Island said that it was the most gorgeous place in New Zealand. In the Fjordlands, it gets 7m of rain per year. SEVEN METERS! It also is chock full of wildlife. I booked a nature cruise for 10 am, but when I showed up the wind was blowing at gale force along with some rather drenching rain so the cruise was canceled and I was offered a spot on the 11:30 buffet cruise for no extra charge. When that one was also canceled I still got a free buffet which included mussels, chicken, fish, ice cream, and more vegetables than I have eaten in the last month. I stocked up, camel style, and maybe nicked a couple butter satchets in the process. The best part was that as I drove out of the valley, the sheer cliffs on either side were absolutely covered with waterfalls. There were a few when I drove in the day before, but this looked like the mountains were crying or something. It was the most beautiful thing I have ever seen, no shade of a lie.

After Milford Sound I headed to Queenstown where I heard it might not be raining, stopping to pick up two rather damp Ukrainian-Kiwi hikers in the process. They were so grateful they bought me a tank of fuel- yeay karma!

I didn't really like Queenstown, as it mostly reminded me of Banff on steroids and adrenalaine so I only hung around long enough to have the best hamburger I have ever eaten in my life and to get a boost from a helpful police officer after I left my lights on in the car. Dumbass.

I am currently in Haast, on the west coast and feel like absolute crap. I was going to check out some glaciers today but I can no longer breathe through my nose and my throat feels like sandpaper, so I am not sure how motivated I will be. I am sorely tempted to get a proper hotel room with a bath tonight but I really can't afford it so we'll see. Lets hope it's not swine flu! :P

-A.

PS: For those of you who might be worried that is actually swine flu, there have been no reported cases on the South Island so I shall endure

So Long and Thanks for the Fish

Back from my hike and didn't die or get eaten by cranky moa birds (perhaps because they are extinct). 36km later and my calves feel like they are about to explode. The conservation dudes put in boardwalks and stairs to preserve the environment and they really liked the stair part. Lots and lots of stairs, hundreds of stairs. I'm all for conserving the natural environment, but an occasional graded slope would have been nice.

The first hut I stayed in was pretty full- besides 6 hikers there were also a bunch of hunters which was a good thing and a bad thing. Good because they let us poor starving travelers have some of their freshly caught blue cod- the BEST fresh fish I have ever eaten. The downside was that there were at least three ear blasting snorers in the group. I probably slept for a total of 2 hours the whole night. Snoring is an absolute deal-breaker for me. If I have a husband who starts snoring later in life he will be forced to get an operation or a divorce.

At the second hut it was just us trampers- myself, a middle-aged dutch couple, a young french couple, and a solo hiker from Richmond, BC who was just finishing up the much longer North-West Circuit which took him 10 days. He was really cute but I failed to get his name before he left bright and early at 6 am. There was a shallow bay outside the hut where I found a bunch of mussels. I collected enough to share around and after some cooking advice from BC boy, I boiled up the lot of it. You don't get fresher than that. A hell of a step up from the noodles and salami I had brought along for sustenance.

I left at 6:30am and started my hike in the dark, which was rather cool because I could see the sunrise and hear the birds start chirping and all that good stuff. Hiking in the dark is not normally something I would recommend, but on Stewart Island there are no predators and no creepy murderers (that I know of) to freak me out or imagine I see in the shadows so I felt rather confident.

I got back into town around 10:30 and after a welcome shower I filled my belly with harbour-side fish and chips and undid all that awful calorie burning in a hurry. I spent the rest of the day being a lazy bum and trying to stretch out my suffering calf muscles. Tomorrow I take the ferry back to the real world and then on to the Fjordlands of the west coast. Huzzah!

-A.

One for the Road

I did a whole lot of nothing yesterday, with a nasty cold rearing it's ugly head and ruining my plans. I wanted to do a bunch of hiking but instead I just walked around the village a bit and talked to people on Skype.

Of course the best possible treatment for a cold is beer so as a curative measure I went to the pub down the road with a couple of British gals and proceeded to drink a bit of New Zealand's finest grog. I certainly can't tell if I have a cold this morning as the hangover is masking the symptoms nicely. This afternoon I am off for a three day hike so I will burn off the booze on my walk. I will let you know if I see any kiwi birds.

-A.

The Frozen South

The lady at the tourist information center cheerfully told me today that they have been having an unseasonably cold autumn. No shit. I woke up with ice on my tent this morning- not that I lasted the night in the tent. I made it until around 11pm wide awake wearing everything I could fit my arms through before hightailing it to the car. The insulation on Nissan sedans are woefully inadequate. I woke up every two hours and started the car (and the heater) for a few minutes to ward off hypothermia. I also had to make sure I didn't fall back to sleep while the car was running so as not to die of carbon monoxide poisoning. I was staying in a campground at Kaka Point- in my family kaka is slang for crap. Kaka indeed.

Okay I am done being grumpy, but I am still cold. A glutton for punishment, I took a ferry down to Stewart Island, which is this lovely little spot south of the South Island full of pristine forest and marine reserves. I am only 2500km from Antarctica! Madness.

-A.

Penguins! Mountains! Ancestors!

I left Christchurch intent on making it to Mt. Cook in time to get a hike in before dinner. Instead I went way out of my way to give a very attractive guy named Bruce a ride to Timaru. He was a conservation biologist and had been to China and had very nice blue eyes. Totally worth the extra 75km. When I finally got to Mt. Cook, it was too late and wet to start out so I crashed at the local hostel and enjoyed the roaring fireplace as it poured rain outside. In the morning things had cleared up and you could actually see the top of the mountain (the tallest in Australasia). I hiked out to the foot of the Hooker Glacier (no prostitute jokes, please) and drank some delicious glacier water. Since I had left at sunrise I didn't see anyone else until I was about half-way back, and then only about a dozen or so. That is one of the great things about travelling in the shoulder season- you may only see one or two tour buses in a day instead of a dozen, much better for that serious travel karma feeling.

After Mt. Cook I headed west, stopping in the tiny town of Twizel (unintentional aliteration!) and took a bit of a walk out on the flats, which passed as the Plains of Rohan in the Lord of the Rings movies; I had to geek it up at least once while I was here. On to Oamaru and a blue penguin colony (the smallest in the world). There were also yellow-eyed penguins (the rarest in the world) but from the cliffs they only looked like little black specks. There are signs all over town to watch for penguins crossing because when they come back to their nests from the sea at night, they don't really watch for passing vehicles. I love it!

Tonight I am staying in Dunedin, founded by my great great great grandfather, Capt. William Cargill who traveled to New Zealand all the way from Scotland in 1848. It is so bizarre to walk around and see all this stuff named after him- a street, monument, mountain and castle all bear his name. Tomorrow I am going to take a peak in the archives at the Settlers Museum and see if any of his daughters have the same flat face and round cheeks that I do. Today I saw the tunnel he dug (or more likely hired someone else to dig) through the sandstone cliffs so his girls could have access to a private beach. Sounds like a rather industrious fellow, maybe I better double check if we are actually related?

-A.

A Dip in the Pacific

Now lets see... what would be a good thing to keep me occupied on a Thursday afternoon in New Zealand? I know! How about swimming with the smallest, rarest dolphins in the world? That should do.

I have already posted the photos on Facebook for those interested. Turns out that doing uploads in little bits is much less arduous than large lumps of data. Also, New Zealand's extensive wireless internet network is most convenient.

Anyway, back to dolphins- I randomly signed up for this tour yesterday after stopping at the info center to ask about good hikes. It was only $125 which is pretty decent and well within my limited budget. I showed up at the wharf, not sure what to expect- the brochure said that you had to pay extra for a wetsuit, but since it was getting mighty late in the season, we got them for free (thank god). After a quick ecology lesson, we pushed off into Akaroa harbour. For a while it looked like we weren't going to see anything but all of a sudden someone spotted a fin. The skipper cut the engine and once it was determined that they weren't going to take off on us, we all piled out of the boat into the middle of the ocean. At least that is what it seemed like- we were probably only about a kilometer out to sea, but for a landlubber like myself, that may as well be 50km. The wetsuit helped my swimming skills considerably so I was able to ignore the fact that I had no idea how many fathoms of water flowed below me. The temperature distracted me anyway and I treaded water with gusto just to keep warm until the water in the wetsuit warmed up to body temperature.

The guide gave me to small rocks to use in the water. I thought it was going to be a calming technique or something because I had mentioned that I wasn't the strongest swimmer, but he said that the dolphins liked the sound it made when you hit them together underwater. Everyone else had fancy waterproof cameras so that was probably why I got the job. It ended up being the best job ever because the dolphins, whenever they swam by all hung around me. We would go several minutes, trying not to swallow the freezing ocean water that splashed by in the swells and then all of a sudden a few dolphins would swoop by, usually right past me. One tried a collision course and then dived below me at the last minute. The spot we stopped at wasn't really busy and everyone was getting tired so the guide called us all in. As we headed back, a bunch more were spotted- only half of us got back in, but this spot ended up being twice as awesome, with the dolphins leaping out of the water and swerving in between the 5 of us who chose to go back in. The BEST $125 I have ever spent, even considering I was probably borderline hypothermic by the time we got back to shore. Praise the lord for hot showers and cappuccino.

Across the Ditch

My flight was delayed last night and we didn't get to board until 8:30pm. Only two hours late, but that meant I wasn't on the ground in Christchurch until 2:30am local time. I found a little corner of the airport and laid out my sleeping bag and air mat for a nice little 6 hour nap. I slept quite well considering I was in the middle of an international terminal. I caught the 8am city bus downtown and randomly picked a hostel out of my Lonely Planet. You have to love random chance- not only was there room for me, but there was a couple of middle-aged ladies getting rid of their stuff as they left to go back to Perth. I snagged some good food, rum, some dishes, and some travel advice. I also met a guy from Edmonton who I have promised to share my rum with this evening. This is why I don't make plans. Things usually all work out in the end... and it's more fun!

-A.

To the Land of Middle Earth and Xena!

My flight to Christchurch, NZ leaves in 4 hours. Holy crap! I can't believe I am going to New Zealand! My Australian journeys were kind of a random thing that happened because I couldn't find work here, but I have planned ahead for New Zealand so it will be all vacation, with no stress about work. Volcanoes, and hot springs and glaciers- I may never leave.

I didn't do much sight-seeing in Sydney because it was pouring rain with insane traffic when I got here. All the folks go away for Easter long weekend because it is the last one before winter sets in. Kind of like Labour Day in Canada. I past the sign on the freeway saying 75km to Sydney, and I was only going 40kph. Lets just say I wasn't in a sight-seeing mood when I finally got here. On the bright side, I stayed at my friend, Amanda's house so that was a lovely change from hostels. Camping would have been out of the question anyway, considering the downpour. She is letting me stash my car at her place until I get back, as well. It is amazing how many people I know that I have ended up seeing down here. I think there is a secret tunnel between Canada and Australia that I haven't been told about. It would explain how so many of both nationalities ends up on the each other's continent.

-A.

Aftermath

I spent gobs of money in Melbourne on Saturday when I stumbled upon a street of outdoor stoors. The whole street! I could spend all the money I ever earn on outdoor stores and book stores. It's like crack.

On a less lighthearted note, I took the scenic route out of Melbourne, which turned out to also be the area burned by the bushfires. I should have figured it out when I looked at the map, but I wasn't looking at suburb names- just highway numbers. I drove through Whittlesea and West Kinglake. West Kinglake was missing half the buildings in the town and as you drove out toward the north along what you could tell used to be a really pretty drive, there were some driveways where the only thing standing at the end was the mailbox, and then next door a whole house and yard would be standing, still green even. I didn't take any pictures, for obvious reasons. Two months on and the only structure on many of the properties were outfitter tents and those big garbage boxes used by contractors when renovating a house. I made a donation to the red cross tin at the next gas station I stopped at and drove on, not stopping until I got to the border of New South Wales and then slept in the car.

I had plans to drive all the way to Sydney yesteday, but when I woke up I still wasn't feeling particularly travelish. At 11:30 I saw a sign for the road to Canberra (Australia's Capital), which was only another hour down the road to the south so I turned off the freeway and got to a cheap little B&B by 1:30. Instead of checking out the sights, I did my laundry and watched Law and Order all afternoon. It was nice to have a afternoon to veg out for once.

This morning I feel like I have my gogo juice back so I am going to check out the Australian Parliament House and hit the road to Sydney by noon. Tomorrow: New Zealand!

-A.

BABY KOALA!

Tonight I am in Melbourne, despite myself. When I was just about to leave the hostel at Warrnambool on Wednesday and managed to lock the keys in my car. An hour later I managed to pry the lock open through the sunroof. There is nothing more frustrating than trying to navigate a 4mm wide wire to a small latch at an angle a meter away. Luckily I am a stubborn bugger.

With my keys freed from their metal prison, I was off again down the Great Ocean Road. I may have accidentally locked my keys away because I was distracted from HOLDING A BABY KOALA!!!! In the morning, just when I was about to leave, I got to talking with an older fella who had been staying there. As it turned out, he was running a tour from Melbourne to Adelaide, and the night before, they were supposed to have a presentation from someone from the local wildlife park who didn't show. As compensation, the group was allowed to come to the wildlife park for free that morning. He invited me along, also free of charge, since they had to stop off at the hostel on the way back anyway. I saw emus and kangaroos and wallabies and possums and even a couple monkeys, but the crowning moment of the trip was when we all got to meet the new edition. Koalas are the softest thing in the entire world!!! If he were an adult his claws would be a bit of a problem but this little guy was just right. About the size and weight of a newborn baby, he was 9 months hold and about 1/3 the size of a full grown koala. I also got to hold Buster, the Carpet Python, who was also quite friendly but not nearly so soft.

I only drove about 250km between yesterday morning today but I was on the Great Ocean Road which is chock full of amazing scenery and limestone rock formations off the coast. I stayed in Apollo Bay last night and had beer and wine with 4 germans, 2 irishmen and a mexican. Sounds like the start of a bad joke. The hostel was really funny because it was basically someone's house where they converted the long shed in the back into a series of dorm rooms and called it a hostel. It was actually quite cozy and a nice change from the utilitarian approach you can get in the big cities. Speaking of which, I am currently in my own hotel room, since there is not a hostel dorm bed to be had on Good Friday. I really need to start planning ahead at some point.... nah. $100 does not get me a private bathroom or tv, but the room has a bed, and is clean and includes parking, which can run up to $25 in a place like Melbourne, which is about the same population as Toronto. I am really liking the city, despite the fact that everything was closed today. I went to the Botanical Gardens and watched an IMAX film... Monsters vs Aliens, but don't judge me- it was actually really funny, and in 3D! It was that or sit in my room and go to bed early.

Did I mention I held a baby koala yesterday? You are so jealous right now.

-A.

Police Cars and Wine

I rolled into Adelaide, and decided I was going to class it up a bit. I walked around the downtown for a while after indulging in the hostel's Free Pancake Day and ended up at the art gallery which was actually pretty cool because alongside the colonial portraits and a few Rodin sculptures were a few galleries of aboriginal art. The images are actually very complicated, telling long mythical stories of the Dreaming with what would to me look like just shapes and colours. Pretty neat actually. Keeping with the cultural theme, I also went to the museum which has the largest collection of Pacific Island artifacts in the world. My favorite, was, of course the mineral collection on the top floor. A gal can never get enough of hematite crystals or opalized calcite. Yeay! To finish the day I stopped off at the Central Market which was this wicked old warehouse full of different market stalls, all selling local fruits and vegetables and bread and honey and anything else you could possibly produce in South Australia. Buying local here is no great sacrifice.

I left the city, headed for McLaren Vale, which along with Barossa Valley is one of Australia's more famous wine regions. It was quite dark and I got a bit lost, but a friendly chap from the petrol station went out of his way to guide me with his own car to get me on the right road. I got to McLaren Vale at 8:30 and the RV park was already closed. I found the grocery store parking lot and pulled in near the back and snuggled up in my back seat for a sleep. I find that the best places to sleep in the car are in lots with other cars (perhaps with people on nightshift inside) so I don't look like a tempting target or too suspicious to police. Until that evening I was never quite sure what kind of grey area I was in, parking in public places overnight and having a snooze. Sometime in the middle of the night I was woken up by a car engine and voices outside. As my heart beat faster and I tried to remember whether I had locked all my doors, my closed eyes detected the brightness of a flashlight on my face. All I could hear was the voice of what I now assume to be a police officer saying "no worries, it's just a woman sleeping", and then I heard them drive off. My only guess is that someone on night shift recognized a strange car in the parking lot with fogged in windows and thought it was teenagers up to no good... rather reassuring when you think about it. If the police had nothing to do except check on suspicious vehicles in town, then I had little to worry about, crime-wise.

In the morning I stuck with the classy theme and did some wine tasting at a few wineries. I spent more on wine than I did on accommodation for the last three days, but it was damn good Shiraz. I'm staying in Warrnambool in a hostel and tomorrow will be off to the great city of Melbourne!

-A.

Cruising the Stewart Highway

I meant to write sooner, but the wireless service in the outback is somewhat lacking! For a change of pace, I headed north from Port Augusta. I thought the Nulabour was an empty place, but has nothing on northern South Australia. There are hours of literally nothing. Not a tree or creature in sight- the most ambitious plants I saw where ankle-high bushes with sharp spines to compensate for their small stature. The lack of vegetation is most likely the result of a complete lack of soil. The ground was covered in small red gravel and that was about it. It was 5 hours to get to Coober Pedy and I still had another 800km before reaching Uluru (Ayers Rock for you colonial types). I stayed at a hostel called Radeka's Underground Backpackers, which was built into an old opal mine and my room was literally a cave in a large catacomb below the main reception building. Sounds cool enough (pun!) but the bed was like sleeping on a railroad track, so I didn't enjoy the novelty as much as I might have.

My friend Alyce was in town doing some work for Barrick Gold and she took me out, along with her boss, for a proper meal with plates and everything (I mostly eat out of the pot I cooked with to reduce washing time). No jobs for me at Barrick but at least I got a free meal out of the company.

I got up bright and early the next day and made the drive up to Uluru. Yet another barren highway, but I was pleasantly surprised to see that once I crossed the border from South Australia into the Northern Territory the speed limit went up to 130 kph. I arrived around 3pm, which turned out to be 2pm since there is no daylight savings time in NT, and $25 later I was hiking around the base of the world's biggest rock. Australia really is a geologist's dream world. The hike was about 10km all the way around and took me about 3 hours, but it was the last journey for my hiking boots which were so warped from the heat back in the Pilbara that they gave me huge blisters. Granted they are 2 years old, which is like 75 in boot years, but I tend to form emotional bonds with inanimate objects and will be very sad to throw them in the rubbish bin after hiking through 4 countries with them. Alas.

At sunset all the tourists gather at a viewing spot and watch the sunset on the Rock and even though I felt a little lame doing such a super-touristy thing, it was absolutely worth it. The colours change about twenty times as the sun goes down, finishing with a spectacular purple before darkness sets in. It was so good I got up to see it all in reverse at sunrise. Part of me felt a little uncomfortable the whole time I was there though... it is a very sacred place to the Anangu aboriginal people and there are certain sites around the base you are not allowed to photograph or walk up to, and climbing it is taboo but they still allow it because of the worry that tourists would stop coming if they weren't allowed to. I equate it with Vatican City where there are all sorts of places that only the Pope and the cardinals can go to. Could you imagine if they opened up all the really holy bits for the tourist hordes? I am obviously a giant hypocrite, but at least some of my entry fee goes to the local community. It is all terribly complicated.

When I got back to Coober Pedy I went out again with Alyce, and maybe had a few too many Coopers Pale Ale and woke up feeling not too well at all. My plan was to head to Adelaide first thing in the morning, but I had a sneaking suspicion that I was still drunk so I went to sleep in my car for a few more hours and dragged myself back to consciousness with powerade and coffee at around 11am. Food was beyond me for the moment so I put on some soft music and suffered on until I started feeling a little more human a few hours later. I made it to Adelaide by 7pm and now I am in the big city again. After being in the outback it is a bit of a shock to the system, to be sure. I will let you know how it goes.

-A.

Solo Road Show

I arrived in Perth on the 30th with the intent off staying a few days, but most of the folks I knew there were out of town or moved. I stayed at my friend Melissa's place for the night and was gone again by noon, after grabbing a few groceries and deciding that I could make due without a new starter motor for the time being. I made it as far as Esperence on the south east coast of Western Australia before rain and darkness forced me to stop. It was a 25 degree drop in temperature from when I left Exmouth, not to mention the first rain I had seen in over a month. Very refreshing but not so comfortable for tenting, so I climbed in the backseat of the recession-mobile and set up my nest. Surpringly comfortable once I filled in the ergonomic butt grooves with towels and socks. In the morning I set out across the Nullarbour, which is basically this vast empty bit, 1400km wide, seperating Western Australia from the rest of the country. Everyone kept warning me about how boring and long the drive was, but to be honest, after driving to Yellowknife from High Prairie it actually wasn't that bad. After time change it was midnight by I got the first significant town on the eastern side (Ceduna) but the whole drive took just over 12 hours, and I got my first sightings of the Southern Ocean (aka Antarctic Ocean) as the sun set. Tres bien!

Upon crossing into South Australia (some of these state names are not very creative, are they?), I had to dispose of all fruits and vegetables because of a fruit fly quarantine zone, so at the last stop before the border I gave all my delicious nectarines I had bought off a farmer outside Perth to a couple of French dudes heading the other way. Alas. On the bright side, South Australia has free wireless internet in all of their public libraries, which is where I am corresponding from as we speak. I only drove for about 4 and a half hours today, stopping in the crossroads town of Port Augusta. To the north is the road to Alice Springs and Uluru (Ayers Rock); west is Sydney; south is Adelaide; and back west (way back west) is Perth. Tomorrow I am off to Cooper Pedy to the north- the opal mining capital of the world where no less than three of the hotels are in underground caves. Apparently it gets quite ridiculously hot in the summer (50+) so many of the old mining holes have been converted into homes and businesses. I just picture all these pale white haired creatures like the Morlocks in the old Time Machine movie only coming to the surface at night to steal away surface folk for nefarious purposes. Sounds like fun!

-A.

Kilometers Travelled from Auski: 5355

West Coast Trail: PART 2

After stromatolites, I decided to stay the night in Kalbarri, a little seaside delta town that is chock full of folks in the high season but was comfortably mellow when I got there. In need of a good shower and a bed that did not randomly deflate at 2am, I stayed in a hostel. The front desk lady must have thought I looked a little worse for wear and gave me a whole dorm room to myself, on the guarentee I wouldn't make a mess for her to clean up. While it was not the Hilton, the clean warm bed and shower next door were most welcome. On the recomendation of the hostel staff, I went to Farley's Outdoor BBQ for supper even though I had perfectly good canned chilli in my hatchback. Yum! I got a whole plate of deep-fried and grilled sea critters for $20- cheap for Australia -and I met a couple of old surfer dudes who I hung out with for the meal so I didn't have to resort to my book to avoid looking like a loser. In the morning I woke up early so I could see the pelicans who show up on the beach every morning. In the old days before resortification, the fishermen used to throw them fish guts, and after the fishermen left, the pelicans still showed up for food so now a conservation person comes out each morning to feed them. Well USUALLY; he didn't show that morning, maybe because of daylight savings time. It didn't really matter though, because I was sitting on the beach by myself when the pelicans arrived and I got to check them out all by myself, minus the tourist hordes (and yes I am aware of the fact that I am also technically a member of this group, but I make my best efforts to avoid them).

After grabbing a coffee I was off to Perth... or not. My car didn't start. Hmmm. Luckily I have a mechanic on speed dial by the name of Dad. After a few diagnostic questions, I was instructed to hit the starter moter with a hammer. No hammer. I improvised and grabbed a rock from the decorative pile sitting beside the parking lot. A few taps on the metal bit and VROOM! It is very handy to have a mechanic pappa. The solenoid was stuck and just needed a little coaxing- hurray! Off to Perth!

-A.