Bitten!

Well it finally happened. I got bit by one of Australia’s creepy crawlies. The thing is I dont know which one. I haven’t fallen over in agony and my flesh isn’t necrotising so that rules out the nastier ones but I do have a painful, swollen, itchy red blotch on the back of my hip (right above where my low rise yoga pants hit), and a swollen, tender lymphnode  and am generally feeling a little wimpy. Maybe I’ll post a pick of it

UPDATE: Here’s the pict! (lens  cap used for size referrence)

Mystery Bite

Grampians National Park

Grampion National Park

Lookout

In 1788 Captain Arthur Phillip arrived in Sydney Bay with the first 11 ships of convicts to plant the Union Jack and begin the occupation of Australia by Great Britain. This day has since been celebrated as Australia Day, filled with barbecues, lamingtons, beer, citizenship ceremonies and cricket. Since it is also a long weekend Pete took me camping at Grampians National Park.

It is remarkably close to Melbourne, only about a 2.5 hour drive. Of course we are in Victoria so we cannot drive a reasonable speed, the freeways here max out at 110 k/h = 68 m/h and you can only go 3k/h over before you lose a point off your license AND they have speed cameras all over the place! Sorry, had to get that off my chest.

We got in and setup camp late Friday evening but that meant we had a full day Saturday to explore and play. We drove every 4×4 track that caught our interest. Visited lookouts, scrambled up granite piles, hiked to view waterfalls (some of which actually had water) went swimming and even got in a cycle at the end of the weekend. To top it all off I saw wild Emu with her littles! It was a lovely weekend and I regretted having to leave.

Lookout

Grampion National Park

Grampian National Park

Rock Scrambling

Pete & I after a walk

King of the Hill

MacKenzie Waterfall

Getting Ready to Cycle

Reshearing

I got a few comments that my hair really didn’t look all that different. What you couldn’t see was the back which was much shorter than I had ever had it. I tried to leave the longer bits up front but it was terrible, just not working for me. So I went back in and kindly asked Renee if she could fix it. My hair is now officially short. Really short.

Crappy Phone Camera Pict

In the yard

Short Hair

Deliciously Warm reaches Searing Hot

Melbourne has been enjoying a week or so of wonderfully warm days in the mid to upper 20s and even a day of 34 but today it was so hot that breathing through your mouth turned your tongue into parched leather in two inhales. Your lips wrinkle and crack and your skin, even though you know you are sweating, is bone dry. The only place that the sweat is not instantly evaporated from is the shaded valley between your breasts and the dip at the top of your ass.  Today, according to The Age weather page, it got to 41 degrees Celsius, 105.8 degrees Fahrenheit.

The temp itself isn’t enough to cause the instant dehydration of living tissue, it’s the North wind coming off of the vast desert that forms the heart of Australia. The northerlies have only just started to blow here and even the sounds they make is dry. Rustling of shed reptile skin, grains of sand rubbing across flat tables of stone and over the tops of dunes,  dry leaves tumbling across the ground, all of these can be heard in the sound of the north wind through a eucalypt tree. And the smell….warm dust with a hint of Vic’s vapo rub.

I love every second of it.

Being a Social Scaredy Cat and a Sheared Sheep

Looking back on the week I am having a hard time having a clear recollection of any particular day. Each one blurs into the next, all of them spent sitting long hours in front of my PC at work trying not to cuss at it too loudly and trying to keep some kind of upbeat attitude. I have had a hard time as a PhD student keeping myself feeling like I can do it. I compare myself to other students and I wonder if I have the drive it takes to do this. Now that I am a few years in (Sept 2008 would be the beginning of year 3 I think) I feel like I have to finish. And it’s not just the time investment but proving to myself that I can. I never feel smart enough but I know I am. I just need to find the drive that I had for my undergrad work. I will complete my course work in the 2009-2010 year and then spend the next year writing my thesis, hopefully from Australia. So I try to keep my chin up, not beat myself up too terribly, cry when I can’t take feeling stupid, and try to get some good work done while I am here.

A few days do stand out. Tuesday was my first 39 degree day. The wind was from the north, off of the desert, so dry it smelled of eucalyptus from the leaves that were being dehydrated as it blew over them. I loved every second of it. Thursday I rode up to Bendigo with Matt, Graeme, Anne and Michelle to talk to the DSE office up there about a program to encourage farmers to care better for their native grasslands. I saw a pair of zebra finches, a brown falcon and a distant sighting of a little eagle.

Socially this week has presented it’s own special hell for me. Firstly I had to bite the bullet and meet the thoroughly intimidating Jane Elith. She is an amazingly intelligent woman with a hugely busy schedule and yet is still willing to teach me her boosted regression tree technique. God, please let me not look like an idiot.  That went over pretty well though beyond arranging when I would come to her office (Thursdays and Fridays for the rest of my stay) and what I wanted to do most of the meeting was her, Matt and Graeme chatting (Hurray, they were my heroes for taking me over there though hopefully they didn’t realize how terrified I was). So I survived that encounter and followed it up with dinner at Matt’s house with Peter. While I know and like Matt I haven’t really spent much time in a social situation with him and I would be meeting his partner, Deb, and their family and a friend. So all in all I was feeling a bit nervous. I was relieved to discover that Deb was a beautiful and lovely person, friendly and very comfortable as was their friend Owen (say owen and that’s exactly what my name sounds like from an aussie). It wound up being one of the best evenings I’ve had in Australia.

New Hair Cut

As for being a sheared sheep…. I couldn’t hack it anymore. I had to get my haircut. I was hoping to make it the entire time but it just wasn’t going to work, my hair was driving me mad! I made an appointment at a rather posh looking salon right downtown in Melbourne, Geisha. It was a very nice establishment and everyone there seemed qualified. Renee, my stylist, was very professional and she really did do a good job but there wasn’t the instant rapport that I have with Alex at Wack in Portland. Alex has an amazing ability to understand my desire for elegant but edgy, feminine but not girly. Sadly Renee just got the edgy bit I think. It is really short in the back. Really really really short Fortunately my hair grows quickly so it will be long enough for Alex to salvage when I get home. First stop after Portland airport…Wack Salon!

Lane

Before and after my appointment I walked around Downtown a bit and just enjoyed the people. The area is riddled with these little lanes, packed with cafes and boutiques. Every alley and dumpster is covered with wonderful graffiti and stencil work that the city finally gave up trying to get rid of and now embraces.

I do find that shopping by yourself isn’t really that much fun. I need to find a girlfriend or a guyfriend that is into shopping. I love the clothes and the style here though they are a bit fussy for the laid back vibe of the northwest. Women here dress up (by our standards) every night and they love their high hells heels.

Today (sunday) I am returning to cycling. My ass bones have finally healed enough that I can sit without feeling like it’s torture and I am really craving a ride. (This is very strange for me but I am not going to question it) I love cycling, who knew? Going to ride to the boat house and rent a kayak and paddle for an hour then ride home. What a perfect day.

Love you all!

What’s in a name?

As many of you know I have been in Australia since November 1 and will continue here until the middle of March. While my experience as a whole has been amazing there has been one experience cropping up over and over that I am a bit tired of: Trying to explain and get people to accept my name. While this is not new by any means, even people in the states tend to double take on hearing it, the Australians seem particularly bothered and sometime completely unable to accept it. Sometimes this is amusing, most times it is a pain, and once it resulted in my figuratively being invisible because their brain couldn’t wrap around actually addressing me.

I had thought that after a life time of listening to nursery rhymes and being called little star I was impervious but this trip has been the straw. Another consideration is that I will start publishing soon and beginning my professional life and if I am going to change I should do so now. I have also been warned that “Twinkle” could be seen as unprofessional and may cause minor, but irritating, issues later. I have loved being Twinkle and am sure that for many that is what I will continue to be called (especially since it isn’t that strange in the corner of earth I am from, Oregon).

So I will be using the first of my two first names, Arwen, from now on. While I dont expect family and long time friends to bother themselves too much about adopting this it would be nice if you were to use Arwen when introducing me or when in a less formal setting. In return I will try valiantly to answer to it For those of you that are curious: I have two first names ,Arwen Twinkle, and one middle name, Elizabeth.

UPDATE: I have had many varied reactions to this but most commonly I hear, “Do I have to call you Arwen now?” No, no one is being forced to retrain themselves. If you really dont want to call me Arwen you dont have to but it would be nice if you felt up to it.
UPDATE 2:  Many people ask what Arwen means (if they didn’t recognize it from Tolkein) and an email from Michael Slater tipped me off that it might have meaning outside the world of fantasy fiction. I looked it up and sure enough Michael was correct. Arwen is welsh, it is a variation on  Arwenna (if female)  and means “muse” or a variation of Arwyn (if male) and means fair or fine. Both of these are perfectly acceptable meanings to me. I find I am quite happy with a name that means muse.

Life: the Novel, part 2

I left out of the last Life entry that on our way to Canberra we decided to take the scenic route, in other words we went by 4×4 track….through a thunder storm….that was dumping buckets. As a result of those and other factors (like Peter giving it the stick a bit) we lost a camping box off of the rack on the back of the Toureg. Sadly this box contained vital equipment for sleeping, cooking and light. Our time in Canberra was spent in a lovely little hotel room that looked like it had been decorated by my Grandmother Lettkeman, fake flowers, porcelain dolls and all. It was quite homey in a sad kind of way and I probably shed a tear or to while lolling in the bathtub admiring the little lacy toilet roll covers.

Baby Koala

Koala Mum and little

Part 2 of my vacation was spent in Beechworth at Peter’s property.  I love Beechworth.  I have been there 3 or 4 times both for a relaxing weekend and also for field work in the area. It is a lovely quaint little town with boutiques and cafes galore. It even has a wonderful little craft brewery, Bridge Road Brewers, Ben makes the beer, delicious, and Maria makes the food, awesome.

I had been fussing about the fact that I hadn’t seen a koala yet even though I had spent quite a bit of time in the bush. Then as I was eating breakfast on the porch I saw this strange and rather fightening creature walking across the paddock next door. I was sure that my eyes were playing tricks on me, I absolutely could not figure out what it was. It looked rather like a hyena or a low budget werewolf. “Peter, what the hell is that thing? Oh, it’s a koala!”. Once she had started climbing the tree I could identify her. Who knew that koalas, with babies on their backs, looked so bizarre!. I grabbed my camera and hopped the barbedwire fence snapping away gleefully with my camera. The two of them were remarkably unimpressed by my photographic genius until I turned the flash on, that earned my a couple of dirty looks.

Just as a random cute photo, here is an echidna I came acrossed while in the field. They are quite silly and bury their heads when they feel endagered. (An effective ploy given how spiny they are). However, if you hold still enough they will eventually uncurl and continue rooting for ants and other yummy bugs. This one was only about a meter away and was very adorable. I learned from this little fellow that echidnas can blow snot bubbles. Sadly I was unable to capture one on film.

Terrors for Twinkle

So as many (if not all) of you are aware I am terrified of spiders. My unprofessional opinion would be that I am arachnophobic. the very though of them send my hands flying checking that there are none or my head, neck or shoulders. I know that many of you have actually seen this and maybe even had a chuckle over it.

Upon the idea of going to Australia my second though (after OMG YES!) was oh fuck, they have really big poisonous spiders there. Everything there is poisonous actually, and immediately my hands flew to do my spider check.

Well, it’s true. There are freaky huge spiders here. I have had one complete hysterical meltdown when one jumped out at me. Well, really it just crawl from behind something but it felt like it jumped at me! Mostly I have been trying really hard to work on it by spending a little bit of time looking at them and trying to see that they aren’t that bad. As a measure of my improvement I was able to photograph one, with Peter’s hand as size reference, to share with all of you at home the particular terror I am fighting to overcome. Enjoy!

Huntsman Spider next to Peter's hand (p.s. This one isn't posionous)

Life: the Novel, part 1

Yet again I have fallen behind in my posts. Le sigh. I will attempt to catch to the present and then valiantly try to keep a bit more current. The thing is, I am having too much fun living life to stop and document it. It’s hard enough to get a few pictures of it. Here goes:

Upon returning from the field I began to pack for my camping extravaganza. My guide, Peter, did most of the hard packing I just had to have appropriate clothing, swimwear and a smile. The goal was to see some of Australia, do some snorkeling and be on the beach for Christmas.

Pete and I

We started out heading North (actually inland) and then cut over the Snowy Mountains to the coast. By taking this route I got to see a huge variety of climates/ ecosystems. The picture shows a reservoir (minus most of it’s water since there has been a 7 year drought) with the trunks of the trees that were there before it. Just like the bathing scene in Priscilla Queen of the Desert. This first leg took 8  hours but it was really beautiful.  the first two nights were spent at a camp site in Dalmeny right on the beach.  Peter’s tent, affectionately dubbed “The Taj”, is a ginormous two roomer with enough space to stand upright in. It was running joke the entire trip. We had to park the car as a wind break and trying to get the rain fly up almost ended up with having a flying lesson.

We then headed up the coast and stopped at Pebbly Beach for a look around, it was so beautiful we decided to stay two nights there before heading up further. This is where I met a whole cast of adorable creatures.

King Parrot

We got out back from the beach and a young family had been trying to have their lunch on a bench. It was like watching “The Birds: Acid Technicolour”. A king parrot landed on my shoulder and then a nice man gave me part of his sandwich for the lorikeets. I still haven’t gotten used to seeing these beautiful birds everywhere. Seeing one fly by is like experiencing a little bit a magic, tiny jewels through the forest. So much more colourful than at home.

Lorikeet Luncheon

Brush Tailed Possum

That evening when we got camp setup and had taken our freezing cold showers (no hot water at this site) I walked out of the tent and jumped. There was some creature in the camp! Peter laughed at me (he did that a lot btw) then told me it was a possum. The possums here are the most adorable things in the world. I was so enamored that I lured it to eat out of my hands. That was a mistake since then we had 3 or 4 of them. One even snuck into the tent and stole a carrot. After we had gone to sleep I woke to hear a rustling. “Peter, there’s something in the tent!” It was rummaging through our produce but in trying to get it out the poor little thing freaked and started climbing the walls of the tent. All in all very funny. The next night I quit feeding them because they were becoming pests. One got right up on my lap in order to get himself a treat.

Christmas Goanna

Christmas breakfast was interrupted by the partially excited, partially scared squealed from the the young boys and their mother next door. Instead of Santa or other more traditional Christmas morning visitors we got a goanna. He was quite lovely to look at but his speed when we tossed him a prawn head (from our xmas eve feast) was a little scary. As a matter of fact later in the day when I went to take the trash to the bin he charged me. I freely admit to screaming like a little girl and making Pete handle garbage duty.

Jervis Bay Fisherman

Australian Parliament

We left Pebbly beach and headed even further north (more north = warmer water) .  The water along the coast here is the most lovely colour. The part we were traveling in is called the Sapphire coast and you can see why in this picture. The best part was how warm it is. I just can’t get used to swimming with no neoprene on.   Did two days of snorkeling here before heading inland towards the capital, Canberra. There isn’t much to say about Canberra aside from Parliament building is cool and the city has no soul.

So that is most of my vacation. I have a few more pictures and such to share but my family has been screaming for an update so I will just this as is and try to be better about updating.

I love and miss you all!

Guardian Roo

Found another great photo, this was the day after xmas and this roo hung around our camp all day.