Day 6 (Part I): More Mountains than you can 'magine.

Sunday, September 7th~

(*Just a heads up, this is when my journal entries started getting really verbose. I’ll try to break them up into multiple entries. There was just so much going on! Ok, keep reading now!)

BIG DAY! We kicked it off with a great hot breakfast buffet at the hotel, then hit the road. Our first stop was at Mrs. Jones’ fruit stand. There were so many delicious things! I deliberated for some time, then picked up a couple of plums to munch on. Wouldn’t you know it, I come all the way around the world and go to a real salt-of-the-earth fruit stand and wind up with plums grown in the US of A! I also had some yummy real fruit ice cream (hokey pokey ice cream with banana), which was 100% New Zealand, so that made up for it. During the drive, Chelsea and Scotty were sitting up front playing “Horse and Tractor.” The game is simple: when you see a horse or a tractor, say “horse” or “tractor” (depending on which it is, of course), and get a point. I think this is going to be the next big Motha’ Van hit.

We stopped for lunch in Te Anau, the township on the shore of the lake of the same name. I know you’re probably already getting tired of hearing it, but it was just gorgeous there! The sky was steely with clouds, but the water was bright turquoise, and framed, as ever, by the Southern Alps. As we continued on the road, we pulled over for photo opps at Eglington Valley, the Chasm, and the Mirror Lakes, each more beautiful than the other. I can’t imagine ever getting tired of the utter splendor at every turn. It is simply magnificent. I find myself fighting back tears at the sheer beauty of it. Since we were on the road all day, there was no opportunity to get to Mass this Sunday, but it is so easy to experience communion with God when you are witnessing such awesome wonders.

Our destination for the day was Milford Sound, only accessible by a long winding road through the mountains, including the Homer Tunnel. Truly a marvel; the tunnel was simply carved out of the rock and it remains roughly hewn today, some 50 years after its opening. I am ashamed to admit to my siblings that I tried to hold my breath, but it was in vain. The tunnel took several minutes to get through and Roxanne (our tour bus) could only go so fast. After we came through the tunnel, we made it to Milford Sound in no time and boarded the Milford Mariner, our accommodations for the night.

The ship was beautiful! Our group got upgraded from the normal ship the tour goes on (dorm style quads and shared bathrooms), to en suite doubles. Very swanky. Our rooms rocked, complete with portholes and super comfy beds.

A word about Milford Sound: it is not a sound. It is a fiord, the northern-most fiord in New Zealand's Fiordland, which includes 14 fiords of all different shapes and sizes. There is a story that the Maori people tell about the creation of the Fiords. (Bear with me; I might get some of the terminology wrong, so I apologize in advance). The seas were controlled by a sort of grumpy goddess who would send the waters into sudden tumult with powerful and ferocious storms. A benevolent god, the patron of the Maori people, wanted to protect them, so he picked up his shovel and dug out a fiord; it provided some protection from the winds, but he accidentally formed islands which made it dangerous for the Maori sailors. He tried again and again to dig a perfect fiord, but he found fault with each one until he dug his 14th fiord. It was wide and deep and long, but not easily seen from sea and with lots of bays to provide the sea-farers with plenty of protection from the ferocious seas.

So, we cruised around the fiord for a while, admiring the steep walls of the mountains lining the water, carved out millenia ago by countless glaciers. We moored in Harrison's Bay for the night, and lo! then the fun began!

Riding around in my automobile

While it is terribly exciting that I am going to be travelling around Greater Australia and, in only two weeks, New Zealand, it is becoming ever more apparent that there is a lot to see and do around the Alice. On a recent day off, I got in Toby-car and just started driving around, taking roads I hadn't yet taken and venturing out of the city limits. Every time I passed a sign for a roadside attraction, I slammed on my brakes and skidded into the parking area. It was fantastic! Totally the way to travel!

My first stop was at the grave of John Flynn. Now, when I stopped, I had no idea who John Flynn was, but given the size of the sign, I figured he had to be someone important. What an incredible man! A religious minister and doctor, he saw that there was serious need in the remote stretches of the Outback for healthcare and communication, and single-handedly started reaching out to all of the people who lived "out bush" as they call it. What began as one man's ministry grew into the Royal Flying Doctors Service, an internationally renowned and very active program that gives care to remote inhabitants and, if necessary, provides transportation for those people to get to a hospital. You cannot concieve how big the outback is until you're here. Actually, I am here and I still can't wrap my head around it. Thousands and thousands of square miles of desert fill the interior of Australia and you might be more than a 20 hour drive from the nearest city and hospital. Crazy. John Flynn made incredible strides in connecting the interior of Australia. Quite remarkable.



My next stop was at the highest point on the Stuart Highway. That might sound boring, but not when you consider that the highway runs the entire height of the country, from Adelaide straight up to Darwin, around 3000 kilometres, I believe. It's especially hard to believe that it's the highest point when you look around and all you can see is flat desert except for the soaring MacDonnell Ranges to the south. But there was a sign that proved it, and a weird lookin' kind of monument, so I'll trust their word.




The next attraction was one that I was actually on the lookout for. Ladies and gentlemen, I stood on the Tropic of Capricorn! How cool is that? Aside from the fact that I myself am a Capricorn, it really put in perspective how far away I am from home. And how close I am to the tropics. It was a pretty special moment. And Australia really knows how to do weird lookin' monuments, eh?






My last stop for the day was the Warburton Memorial. Another weird one. This one is in memory of a Mr. Peter Egerton-Warburton, who, with his plucky family, travelled across the nigh on endless desert from 100 kilometres north of Alice Springs to Roebourne in West Australia, from April 18, 1873 to January 26, 1874. Well done there!

So the moral of the story is, when you're driving around the Red Centre, make sure you stop and check stuff out! It's a pretty cool place.

A mark, a yen, a buck, or a pound

Isn't foreign money fascinating?

I mean, American money is so familiar, that I forget that there are other ways to do it, you know? People here have openly laughed at me when I tell them we have a 25cent piece, but isn't it equally bizarre to have a 20cent piece? And what's all this about dollar and two-dollar coins? I mean, I've seen the odd Sacajewea, but I wouldn't say that it's common.

So here are their coins! Starting at the top left, they are: $.05, $.10, $.20, $.50, $1.00, $2.00. (Interestingly, they don't have any pennies; instead, they just round the total to the nearest 5 cents. I think it's a great plan, too. Stupid pennies.) To the left are what I would consider the "tails" of the coins. You can't see them too clearly, and for that I apologize, but I did my best with the equipment at hand. Now, in true tricky Australian-ness, the tails on the dollar coin changes pretty regularly, and possibly on other coins, too, but I just can't be sure. This particular one features kangaroos, but I've seen other images as well. I guess it's similar to the state quarters back in the states.

To the right, I took a picture of the heads of all the coins, and lo! it's all the same person! "Then, Jo, why did you bother to take a picture of all of them? Isn't that rather silly?" No, dear readers! While it is true that every coin features your friend and mine, Queen Elizabeth II, they are each subtly different. Once again, I apologize for the poor quality of the pictures, but if you look very closely, you will see that the Queen's image is different based on her age at the mint of the coin. For example, the center 50 cent piece (in the middle) features a young and elegant queen, while the 20 cent piece (top right), portrays the queen much closer to her present age. Fascinating, no?

The paper money is equally intriguing. Their bills fall into the same categories as ours, excluding the $1 bill, as it is unnecessary thanks to thier advancement in coinage. The first thing that you notice is the color (colour). I have been told by many people on many occasions that US money is boring because it's all the same color (colour); I try to assure them that we are branching out and that the new $10 bill is quite exciting, but they're just not buying it. And who can blame them? They have money shot in Technicolor (Technicolour?) for crying out loud!

Once your eyes adjust to the vivid color (colour) scheme, I would like to draw your attention to the size difference between bills. I had a really hard time with this at first. Each bill is its own length, so that when you have wads of cash, you can easily discern the $100s, or "greenies" as they're called, from the far inferior $5s. Ok, correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't part of the fun of money that you can hide $1s in a stack of $20s? Exhibit A: My Cousin Vinny; where would the comedy have been if, when J.T. tried to hustle Mona Lisa and Vinny, they could easily discern the different bills by size from a distance? But I digress...

I just had a thought: Is there a concern about getting the bills sizes confused when they are all drastically different colors (colours)? I think I need to investigate this further. Perhaps there's more to it.

I wish that I could tell you fun things about all of the people featured on these notes, but I have no idea who they are. Most of them don't even have names on them, which I think is pretty silly. I wouldn't be surprised if most Australians didn't know who they were, either. They all look pretty important, though. I mean, they made it onto money, which is more than most people can say.

And finally, here is the coveted 100 dollar bill, the elusive "greenie". "Jo, you're loaded! Why do you have all this cash lying around?" Well, friends, that is because, while the hotel insists on direct deposit, the steakhouse just hands me an envelope of cash each week. Classy. Anyway, check out the little plastic window in the bottom left-hand corner. They all have them, all different shapes. Quirky, no? Such funny money.

A Town Called Alice

I mentioned a little bit ago that I went to the Telegraph Station for Liam's birthday party, but really, it warrants a little bit more than a side note in a post about kangaroos. (Really, I think I need to stop posting about kangaroos so much, but they are so darn fascinating!!!)

Now, as some of my more dedicated readers may have caught in the aforementioned side note, the town of Alice Springs was born at the Telegraph Station. It was established in 1872 as a stop along the Overland Telegraph line from Adelaide to Darwin. Stops on the line existed solely to boost the strength of the signal as it travelled along the line, so the operators would sit in the station and listen to the messages coming from Darwin and Adelaide and resend them along to the next stop. It was a boring life.

The Telegraph Station sits right on the shore of the mighty Todd River, or rather, the occasionally mighty Todd River. It is bone dry most of the time, just an expanse of flat sandy river bed, but when European explorers came to establish the station, they happened upon the river shortly after several days of rain.

Now here's the good part:

The men saw a particularly turbulent bend in the river and assumed it to be a spring; in actuality, there was an underwater cave that filled and emptied about once every 5 minutes, not a spring at all. So, in an attempt to suck up to their boss back in Adelaide, they named the spot after his wife, Alice. After years of good intentions, Alice passed away before she ever made it to the town named for her.

So Alice Springs is named after someone who never went there, and for a spring that doesn't exist.

(Cue Linda Richman: Discuss)

Only in Australia, friends.