Hi, everyone!

Okay, here is the first mass email from my trip to Australia. Sadly, unlike my trip to South Africa, there are no drunken escapades and no dancing on tables. But give me time, please!

It's kind of long-winded but should only take you 3 minutes to read.

I arrived last Monday and spent the first day in Sydney getting my bearings. Last time I was here (on business), I stayed in the trendy neighborhood called "The Rocks". This time, since I was paying for it myself, I stayed in King's Cross. For those of you unfamiliar with Sydney, King's Cross is sort of the Times Square (pre-Rudy) of the area: the place to go when you want drugs or hookers or (in my case) cheap hotels. Sadly, there are no stories involving hookers.

Tuesday it rained so I went to a few museums (the Australian Museum, which is basically a natural history museum, and the Art Gallery of New South Wales) and then walked around The Rocks and tried out a few pubs before ending up in a German beer hall. How Australian of me. At 6:00 I realized I was already a bit drunk so I called it a night early. There was definite drunken escapade potential here but I backed out.

Wednesday I departed Sydney for a four-day tour of the Blue Mountains. Remember all of those fires they were having in Australia? Well, this is where that all happened. Even though the fires did very little damage to areas where tourists go, the media attention really has put a black cloud over that area, and a tour guide told me that they expect tourism to be down 60% this year.

We started the day with a drive through the mountains and then they dropped us off at our hostel. That night I saw a film at the IMAX theater that showed the mountains and some of the crazy activities that people do there. Specifically, they do this thing called "canyoning" which involves hiking through river gorges and abseiling (rappelling) down big waterfalls. Uh, no thanks.

Thursday we did a hike in the morning and then went to Jenolan Caves. Unlike Cango Caves in South Africa, which were a bit of a disappointment, these were really wonderful. There was lots of good hiking even outside the caves, and the caves themselves were very cool.

Friday I was signed up for a full-day abseiling class. This seems a bit crazy but I figured it wouldn't be all that bad. When I got there, they told me that I was the only one signed up for that day, but that three other guys were signed up for... canyoning. They offered me to do that trip instead. What could I say, "no"? So I went.

We started off with a half-day of learning how to abseil. We skipped the wimpy 4m cliff and went straight to the 15m cliff. I volunteered to go first. It was actually pretty easy and a lot of fun. There was a bit of an adrenalin rush but nothing compared to bungee jumping. After we each did 15m three times, we moved to 30m. At first this didn't seem so bad, but the thing was that even though the part we abseiled down was only 30m, the cliff itself was about 100m above the valley. So when you're going down you can see the ledge (where you're trying to land) just below you, but if you miss that ledge you have another 70m to go. And the rope ain't that long! So it was a bit scary.

After lunch we had about a 30 min hike and then we came to the river. We changed into our wetsuits (seriously! me in a wetsuit!) and hopped in. At times the river was only ankle deep but sometimes we had to jump about 1m-2m into a pool below us. It was really cool but at the time a little crazy. The grande finale of this expedition was the 35m abseil down the waterfall. Somehow I ended up going last (even though I volunteered to be first!) and I admit I didn't display the most beautiful technique, but it was a real rush. I don't think there are any photos of ME doing it but I did take photos of the other guys.

Saturday we headed back to Sydney, but first stopped off at Featherdale Wildlife Park, which is basically a zoo but some of the animals do walk around outside of cages. Specifically, the kangaroos. So I got to pet a 'roo and have my picture taken with it. That night I went to a sports bar to watch the big South Africa-New Zealand cricket match. After having spent so much time in South Africa and now in Australia, I can name more South African cricket players than I can Boston Bruins. I'm not even kidding.

Sunday I took the bus from Sydney to Melbourne. 12 1/2 hours. I'm not sure why I did that, but I did meet some cool people.

Monday and Tuesday it rained in Melbourne so I didn't do too much except for walking around and checking out some of the historic buildings and such. Monday night I found a great wine bar and spent quite a lot of time (and money) there. Tuesday night I watched cricket. =)

Today I took a bus tour of the Great Ocean Road, which goes along the southern coast and offers some beautiful views. Tomorrow I am doing a wine tour, which should be great, and then Friday I am heading back to Sydney. I'll probably be there for the next two weeks or so.

See, that wasn't that bad, now was it? And now you are caught up.

A few other tidbits I learned:
* No real Australian actually drinks Foster's. I hate that stuff anyway so I haven't even tried it here.
* They also hate Steve Irwin (the Crocodile Hunter).
* "Koala" is an Aboriginal word meaning "no water", because koalas don't drink water, they get the moisture from the eucalyptus leaves. "Kangaroo" is Aboriginal word meaning "big feet", because kangaroos have big feet.

Okay, that's it!! I hope everyone is enjoying the snow and the cold. I am still not sure when I will be back but most likely it will be at the end of February. See you then!!

Chris