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Example 1: Booderee National Park
Evan and I started off in the official government capital, Canberra, located in ACT (Australia Capitol Territory) which is a small landlocked area in the middle of New South Wales, about 500 miles north of Melbourne and 200 miles southwest of Sydney. Canberra was developed about 50 years ago to become the governing capital of Australia when there was a battle of prominence between Melbourne and Sydney occuring. To keep both cities from feeling sleighted, they just created a new territory in between the two, based similarly on the United States' District of Columbia/Washington DC. The city is super empty and has a weird vibe. It's like a giant park filled with pockets of suburban areas, but somehow still maintains a population of a little less than a half a million people. We stayed in a "serviced apartment" in the city center and kept sane mostly by using the fancy gym in the mall and going out to crappy dinners. I can't say Australia really has much in the way of good food. We went to the National Portrait Gallery, which was cool because it had the Sheperd Fairey "Hope" posters, made famous by the Obama illustration he got in so much trouble for. I hadn't seen this exhibit in Boston, so it was cool to catch it on the other side of the friggin' world. There was a really nice black and white photography exhibit in there as well, although it was a portrait gallery and I can't say I'm familiar with many of Australia's finest historical figures. One thing I did learn is that it might be the only country with less western/european/civilized history than the United States.
After our week in Canberra, we jetted down the coast on the 1 (AKA Princes Highway) to check out some of Australia's famous remote beaches. The southeast coast of the country has some of the most famous surf swells and is home to a ton of well known riders. There was actually a surf competition and event in Manly Beach on Sunday, which we came across in the rain, but unfortunately didn't stay long. . First leg of the trip, however, was to Jervis Bay, about 250km's south of Sydney. We grabbed a motel room in a town called Huskisson, which had one big pub, a beautiful beach and a real nice sunset cliff walk that Evan and I tramped along with a couple 22oz local beers from the drive thru bottle shop. The night ended up being way more lively than I would've expected. The pub got busy (can't say enough about zero competition for venues in town) and I woke up feeling not well enough to jump on a board, so we hit Booderee national park the next morning(questionable) and passed out on some white sand.
That night we busted up to Sydney and spent the next 24 hours in Bondi Beach. Finding little accomodation available on the waterfront, especially with parking, we went up the hill a bit and found an interesting little bed and breakfast run by a sweet, older couple. It was basically like putting up in someone's house, a nice break from living out of hotels and "serviced apartments" for the past few weeks. We went out to dinner for Evan's birthday, had a few drinks at some uber trendy cocktail lounges and then hit the beach the next day to dodge rain and clouds. Bondi is an interesting place. I had only been to Sydney CBD previously, seen the Opera House and the Sydney Harbor Bridge, but this was a totally different vibe, which reminded me a lot of my days living in Manhattan Beach. We skirted over to Manly Beach, on the other side of the harbor, which was a way cooler, down-to-earth, heady vibe beach, with tons of surf shops, cafes and breakfast joints. Manly is a super cool part of Sydney to say the least.
South Coast, NSW
Oh, somewhere along this trip I bought a pink, hannah montana beach towel.
sex, drugs, rnr
Anyway, splitting up with Evan and heading off to Darwin and Perth on my own to finish off the November survey quarter. Will update with some new photos in a week or so.
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