Better Late than Never!

So....I'm a little behind in blogging. But let me tell you about Canberra:

The last couple of weeks I've been in Canberra for work. Canberra is the capital city of Australia so it houses Parliament and all the other government offices that are necessary to run a country. I'm always interested in government so being surrounded by it and it's workers, and I promise there's no avoiding political discussions here, has been interesting. I'd also like the quickly add that anything you hear from Senator Fielding, especially relating to climate change, should be quickly disregarded. I have a tip from an extremely good source that the man is an absolute nincompoop.

There's only a few hundred thousand residents in Canberra and most of them are either white collar public servants, students, or support workers (hotels, restaurants, etc). This makes Canberra have a feeling of affluence. Also, since the entire city is planned, it has a very clean and extremely roomy feel to it. Roads are wide and lots are quite large. The cycling in Canberra is EXCELLENT! In fact, the rural areas surrounding Canberra are very good for cycling as well. I went for a nice ride last weekend and saw kangaroos and wallabies!

But the best aspect for this mid sized city is the availability of cultural institutions. What other city in the world with only a few hundred thousand residents houses national museums, national libraries, national galleries, or an impressive war memorial? Kat and I took the time to visit them all and they were very impressive.

One of my favorite things about Australia, and so far Canberra has been the best place for it, are the birds. There huge flocks of sulfer-crested cockatoos and gallahs here, and I've also seen black cockatoos, swamp hens, black swans, native ducks, cormorants, and more than half a dozen varieties of lorikeets, rozellas, and parrots. These colorful birds seem so out of place here in Canberra where there's sometimes frost in the morning, but the cockatoos are still there every morning, rolling in the frosty grass.

You may have heard negative things about Canberra so you may be wondering why I'm so positive about it, but it's because it really is a nice place. Many people will snub their noses at Canberra in favor of Sydney and it's beaches and harbor, but in my opinion Sydney is sometimes overrated while Canberra is even further underrated. Perhaps if you visit Australia you may not take the time to make it out to Canberra, but let it be known that this is a nice city indeed!

I don't have pictures of Canberra online yet, but here's some pictures from my last trip into the Blue Mountains. It was a great trip with spectacular waterfalls and I even spotted a dingo!

Attempt at the Blue Gums

I'm used to an 'attempt' being that I couldn't climb high enough due to weather or some other unforeseeable obstacle. This was my first abort due to not being able to descend low enough.

This last weekend I tried to walk out to a grove or very large eucalypts known as the Blue Gum Forest. It's an incredible scenic area that's only a 2 hour train ride from Sydney. I checked the weather before I left but the weatherman failed me miserably - when I arrived in Blackheath I was greeted with torrential rain.

Not being one to walk away from the wet I made my way down the canyon and was greeted by a very spectacular waterfall: Bridal Veil Falls. It was amazing to see the water gushing over the cliff top but seeing it as the base was truly epic. The water was smashing down with so much force as the bottom that is was creating extremely heavy winds and blowing water sideways. Trees that were 50 meters from the base were being blown sideways!

But this is where my problems began. I had to cross the river near the base and managed to do so but not without getting fairly wet. I continued on until I came to the first of 4 river crossing my map showed and decided I could go no further without taking serious (and stupid) risk. So I found a nicely hidden campsite to wait until the morning. The weather never did improve and while the water level did subside a bit I decided it was still too dangerous to consider crossing and made my way back to Blackheath to head home.

But the best thing about failures is that they almost always teach you a lot more than when you succeed. First, I learned that a homemade tuna-can stove works really well and it doesn't matter if it gets wet. Second, I learned that one should be very cautious around rivers in Australia. What if I was on the other side of that river before the rain started coming down? I'd be stuck for sure. Since the trees here are almost entirely Eucalypts, there's not the option of a tree bridge. So always remember to bring extra food and your ten essentials!

Kristin and Mike visit - and so can you!

Kristin and Mike came to Australia for vacation for the past week and a half or so. They were lucky enough to make it up to Cairns, but they also spent some time with Kat and I here in Sydney and out in the Blue Mountains. We had an awesome time and it was great to show someone around Sydney and to share some pie eating experiences.

The first weekend we went around Sydney and saw the best sites. The ladies did a lot of catching up which left plenty of time for Mike and I to bond over the ancient sport of beer pong.

This last weekend we took an overnight trip out in the Blue Mountains. We started in Katoomba after we enjoyed a delicious mushroom-ginger-soy-rice pie (sounds weird, but was maybe my favorite pie to date). We hiked out to what's called the Ruined Castle and enjoyed wonderful Eucalyptus forests and superb views as you can see in the photos. The cockatoos teased us the entire time by staying within earshot but out of sight in the treetops. Luckily a gorgeous sulfur-crested landed in our backyard the day we got back :)

We also took an entire day to visit the Taronga Zoo. It's the major zoo here in Sydney and I really have to say my favorite tourist attraction in this city. I didn't include many photos because I want people to get a chance to see the zoo for themselves, but the ferry ride to the zoo and the zoo itself has about the best views of Sydney around. And on top of that the variety of animals is very impressive. I highly recommend the bird show, but I'll stop there because I feel as if I'd be spoiling the ending of movie by saying more.

But overall a fantastic couple of weeks. I'd like to give a big thanks for Kristin and Mike for visiting us! It was great to have you both!!!

Click on the Koala to see more pictures:

Mike and Kristin Visit Us!

She Said Yes!!!

I'm very excited to say that Kat and I are engaged! I proposed to Kat right here in Sydney on Observatory Hill overlooking Sydney Harbour. I was pretty hopeful that she would say yes but that didn't stop me from being nervous. But I'm very happy that she said yes and that she likes the ring! Kat's dad, Fred, made me promise not to get married in Australia. But I definitely agree with him and we plan to have our ceremony when we get back home. We want all our friends and family to be able to come to our wedding!

We've both been incredibly excited about being engaged but everything else is going quite well here in Sydney. Kat and doing very well in school (as always) and I've started working with an environmental company doing environmental auditing. So far it's been a great job and I really enjoy opportunity to be doing work for the environment.

As some of you know, Kat and I managed to get evicted from our last house. We're still not exactly sure how it happened but I think it's easiest to just say that our house-mate was a bit strange and doesn't know how to deal with people very well. But as luck would have it we found a much nicer house with three great kiwi guys that's closer to school for Kat and closer to work for me! Plus the guys have a foosball table and there's a pond in the backyard that we've already populated with goldfish. We've yet to name them but I'm leaning towards Tim and Tam. Feel free to give suggestions.

This last weekend we were very happy to have Kristin and Mike stay with us. We all had a really great time hanging out together and it was fun to have friends from back home to see. Plus I had an excuse to show them all the great beers and meat pies that Sydney has to offer! But they left for Cairns today and should be enjoying some great sights right about now.

So Kat and I are both very happy and having a great time in Sydney. But now we have even more incentive to get back to Seattle and have a WEDDING!!!