The great journey begins
Hello all! Welcome to my travel blog for the next six or so months. I think the title Sarah Down Undah is quite clever, don't you? I was going to call it "Sarah Down Underwood", or "Sarah Down Under... Where?", but thought both were a bit too dorky, even for me! For those who are not members of Livejournal, feel free to leave comments on these entries by clicking "Post a Comment" at the bottom of the entry and selecting the anonymous option, but please do sign your name so I know who it is. When I have more than a few pictures to share (almost always), I'll usually post one and then there will be a cut, or link, below the image that will lead you to the rest of the entry. Now then -- off we go: I'll start off with an account of my trip and the first couple days here.
On the 22nd, my parents, dog, and I drove to the six hours to Cour d' Alene, Idaho, and stayed the night. We did some last minute organization in the morning, then drove to Spokane, Washington, where my flight was leaving from, to get some snacks for the trip and hopefully fit in a haircut. For the latter, we went to the first walk-in place we found, called "Fantastic Sam's". When I saw it, I said, "That doesn't sound sketchy AT ALL." But I didn't have much choice, so in I went -- and the girl did a nice job, even with my mum's encouraging words of, "Go as fast as you can... without butchering it." Haha!
We zipped off to the airport around 2:30pm and as soon as I said goodbye to my parents, I was pulled aside for a random search... I got wanded and everything since my knee brace, which I was wearing to save space, beeped when I went through the metal detectors of course. The flight from Spokane to Seattle was in a 20-seater propeller plane, and the mountains near Seattle were just gorgeous, especially Mt. Ranier, standing solitary on the horizon.
On the 2.5 hour flight from Seattle to LA, I sat next to a very interesting actress who was flying home from Copenhagen. The time... well, flew! -- and soon enough I had my short stopover in LA in preparation for the big 14 hour flight. On the flight to Sydney I sat next to a guy from Griffith, which is right about in the geographic middle of New South Wales. He works at a winery and had been on business in Fresno, California. I dozed til 4am and then took a sleeping pill, and passed right out. So much for my aspirations to read my guide book, watch shows on my lappy, and write my autobiography during the flight. I was awake for the last few hours of the flight, and overall, it wasn't bad at all.
Then, finally -- LAND! Oh sweet land.
We had to get off the plane and re-board in an hour to get to Melbourne. This flight was much more empty (I had the row to myself). When we arrived, I figured I might as well hang on to my snacks and declare them since I also had to check off that I had been on a farm or with farm animals in the last 30 days. WELL, the declaration line was literally two kilometers long.. aye yi yi. They started letting people go that had nothing to declare, and I asked if I could throw out my food and go, but they said they needed to inspect my shoes, etc. due to the farm thing. So I waited... and waited... and waited. Amazingly I still felt OK and did not get exasperated, considering it had been 24 hours since I left Spokane. Thank goodness I had a trolley to move my bags along! Poor Maggie and Al waited forever, and I couldn't call since I was in line already. It must have taken a good hour or two. Anyway, she spotted me right away when I came out, and we were quickly off to Cranbourne, a suburb of Melbourne, laughing and joking the whole way. I met their dogs (Pokie, a greyhound, and Kody, a chocolate lab) and had a little rest, and then we went out to hose her horse's (Danny's) legs, as he had foundered overnight! It was caught in the acute stage, though, so he should be OK. For those who don't know, I met Maggie via an equestrian community here on Livejournal and we have been online friends for about a year. It's one of those "Were we separated at birth?" things, seeing as we're both into horses, photography, and have a very similar sense of humour and views on life.
I was able to stay awake until 9pm other than a 20 minute lapse whereafter Maggie woke me up (knowing I didn't want to go to sleep yet) and I jumped and did an epic flail in her face. "Next time I'll use a stick!" she said. Haha. In total I was awake (or semi-awake) for about 34 hours... new record! I slept for 11 hours and have been on schedule ever since, with hardly any jet lag.
Cuddling with Pokie in the morning.
We took it easy on Sunday and visited a local mall and relaxed, and then went to Maggie's mum's place for tea/dinner. A feast was had and I got a tour of their lovely garden, plus met their adorable King Charles Spaniels and German Shepard (I'll take pics if we go over there again).
To end this entry, here are some differences of interest... I typically don't like it when people travel to another country and constantly compare things, but it's fun to do sometimes. For example:
-the cheddar, it is not orange! How do they tell it apart from mozza? HOW? The look on Maggie's face when I told her North American cheddar was orange was quite priceless, though.
-the Coke (and I assume other soft drinks), it is made with cane sugar! It is delicious and potentially more addictive. This is bad because even in the grocery stores it is a dollar a can.
-they say "to-mot-o", not "to-mate-to"... after I carefully trained myself to say the latter due to enduring ridicule in Canada (must be my British background).
-sorry kids, I can't tell you if the water goes the other way in the toilet... I think they got sick of us wondering that and just made the water kind of go... straight down. However, if it will please you, I shall report on the physical composition of the toilet: the toilet tanks are quite a bit smaller, and are often hidden well or up high instead of level with the lid. Exciting stuff, no?
Next entry is going to be about our trip to a native wildlife sanctuary... so many great pictures! 55 to be exact.
On the 22nd, my parents, dog, and I drove to the six hours to Cour d' Alene, Idaho, and stayed the night. We did some last minute organization in the morning, then drove to Spokane, Washington, where my flight was leaving from, to get some snacks for the trip and hopefully fit in a haircut. For the latter, we went to the first walk-in place we found, called "Fantastic Sam's". When I saw it, I said, "That doesn't sound sketchy AT ALL." But I didn't have much choice, so in I went -- and the girl did a nice job, even with my mum's encouraging words of, "Go as fast as you can... without butchering it." Haha!
We zipped off to the airport around 2:30pm and as soon as I said goodbye to my parents, I was pulled aside for a random search... I got wanded and everything since my knee brace, which I was wearing to save space, beeped when I went through the metal detectors of course. The flight from Spokane to Seattle was in a 20-seater propeller plane, and the mountains near Seattle were just gorgeous, especially Mt. Ranier, standing solitary on the horizon.
On the 2.5 hour flight from Seattle to LA, I sat next to a very interesting actress who was flying home from Copenhagen. The time... well, flew! -- and soon enough I had my short stopover in LA in preparation for the big 14 hour flight. On the flight to Sydney I sat next to a guy from Griffith, which is right about in the geographic middle of New South Wales. He works at a winery and had been on business in Fresno, California. I dozed til 4am and then took a sleeping pill, and passed right out. So much for my aspirations to read my guide book, watch shows on my lappy, and write my autobiography during the flight. I was awake for the last few hours of the flight, and overall, it wasn't bad at all.
Then, finally -- LAND! Oh sweet land.
We had to get off the plane and re-board in an hour to get to Melbourne. This flight was much more empty (I had the row to myself). When we arrived, I figured I might as well hang on to my snacks and declare them since I also had to check off that I had been on a farm or with farm animals in the last 30 days. WELL, the declaration line was literally two kilometers long.. aye yi yi. They started letting people go that had nothing to declare, and I asked if I could throw out my food and go, but they said they needed to inspect my shoes, etc. due to the farm thing. So I waited... and waited... and waited. Amazingly I still felt OK and did not get exasperated, considering it had been 24 hours since I left Spokane. Thank goodness I had a trolley to move my bags along! Poor Maggie and Al waited forever, and I couldn't call since I was in line already. It must have taken a good hour or two. Anyway, she spotted me right away when I came out, and we were quickly off to Cranbourne, a suburb of Melbourne, laughing and joking the whole way. I met their dogs (Pokie, a greyhound, and Kody, a chocolate lab) and had a little rest, and then we went out to hose her horse's (Danny's) legs, as he had foundered overnight! It was caught in the acute stage, though, so he should be OK. For those who don't know, I met Maggie via an equestrian community here on Livejournal and we have been online friends for about a year. It's one of those "Were we separated at birth?" things, seeing as we're both into horses, photography, and have a very similar sense of humour and views on life.
I was able to stay awake until 9pm other than a 20 minute lapse whereafter Maggie woke me up (knowing I didn't want to go to sleep yet) and I jumped and did an epic flail in her face. "Next time I'll use a stick!" she said. Haha. In total I was awake (or semi-awake) for about 34 hours... new record! I slept for 11 hours and have been on schedule ever since, with hardly any jet lag.
Cuddling with Pokie in the morning.
We took it easy on Sunday and visited a local mall and relaxed, and then went to Maggie's mum's place for tea/dinner. A feast was had and I got a tour of their lovely garden, plus met their adorable King Charles Spaniels and German Shepard (I'll take pics if we go over there again).
To end this entry, here are some differences of interest... I typically don't like it when people travel to another country and constantly compare things, but it's fun to do sometimes. For example:
-the cheddar, it is not orange! How do they tell it apart from mozza? HOW? The look on Maggie's face when I told her North American cheddar was orange was quite priceless, though.
-the Coke (and I assume other soft drinks), it is made with cane sugar! It is delicious and potentially more addictive. This is bad because even in the grocery stores it is a dollar a can.
-they say "to-mot-o", not "to-mate-to"... after I carefully trained myself to say the latter due to enduring ridicule in Canada (must be my British background).
-sorry kids, I can't tell you if the water goes the other way in the toilet... I think they got sick of us wondering that and just made the water kind of go... straight down. However, if it will please you, I shall report on the physical composition of the toilet: the toilet tanks are quite a bit smaller, and are often hidden well or up high instead of level with the lid. Exciting stuff, no?
Next entry is going to be about our trip to a native wildlife sanctuary... so many great pictures! 55 to be exact.