Sydney, Melbourne and Parkes

I'm back again at Parkes and finally finding time to do something about my blog (at 4am). Since the last posting Anna and I went to see the Magic Flute at the Opera House. It was great. The arias were all in German, but the dialogue was "translated" in Australian! Papageno went around drinking beers and cooking on BBQs!

Last Friday I flew down to Melbourne to have a bit of a holiday, to visit my new PhD student and to give a presentation at the university. The holiday was great. I met up with Ms. M. Mao and we went all over the place. We first went on a walk in the Dandenongs National Park. It's so beautiful. We decided to walk the "Kokoda track walk" which consisted of 1000 steps! It commemorated the Australian versus Japanese second world war battle in Papua New Guinea. The walk went up a gully covered in tree ferns. We spotted heaps of birds (including some gorgeous parrots), turtles and a brush-turkey. Wonderful.

Afterwards we decided to celebrate by having lunch in an "old-English-style" tea shop in Sassafras. We went into the packed "Miss Marples tea room" which served the largest ice-cream sundaes that I've ever seen! I also bought (from the shop next door) some tea bags that you put in the bath. Don't ask! We then found an "English-style" lolly shop and bought a walnut whip.

Melbourne is cold! I was so silly and only bought some T-shirts. It was only about 15C. Anyway, this is simply to remind me to bring some jumpers for my next trip in a few days.

On Sunday, we had an amazing trip. We drove (actually, Ms. Mao drove, I navigated and she ignored my navigation and got us lost) through the City and out to the "Organ Pipes" in the Organ Pipes National Park. "The park’s important geological heritage includes the basalt 'organ pipes', formed about a million years ago when a massive lava flow spread over the plains from nearby volcanic hills. At this point it filled an ancient creek valley so some 20 metres deep. A surface crust formed and the lava beneath cooled very slowly and shrank. Vertical cracks developed, and as the lava continued to harden the cracks lengthened until the basaltic mass was divided into columns. Jacksons Creek then cut a deep valley through the basalt, exposing the ‘pipes'." They were impressive. But not as impressive as "Hanging Rock" another 30 minutes, or so, drive.

Hanging Rock in the "Hanging Rock Reserve" is really spectacular. We walked up to the top of the rocks where the views of the surrounding area were superb. It's amazingly eerie up on the rocks - there are huge drops, narrow passages, it seemed so easy to get lost ... We stopped for our picnic in the branches of a tree and spent the time feeding loads of lizards that came running up to bite us. We had a dramatic trip back down the rock as we decided not to take the path. We ended up dropping 10 or so metres almost vertically down as we "clambered" (more correctly "uncontrollably slid" down the rocks).

Then we had an icecream and bought the DVD of "picnic at hanging rock". The story goes that a bunch of school girls went for a picnic at Hanging Rock on St. Valentines Day 1900. Four of the girls went up on the rock. Only one came back down and couldn't say what happened. A teacher went up and also never came back down. Later, one of the school girls was found alive, but also had no recollection of what had happened. The teacher and the other girls were never found. It's a very evocative film. Good grief, one "user comment" on the film is that it is "Eerie, beautiful romance porn ... The repressed Victorian schoolgirls, whose burgeoning sexual longings are channeled into torrid, purple verse and close romantic friendships". I thought that it was about people disappearing on a rock. Maybe I'd better watch it again.

On Monday we spent the morning at the Melbourne aquarium and then I went to give my presentation at the University in the afternoon. The aquarium was fun. They had a new exhibit with heaps of penguins from Antarctica (with lots of snow). They had the big king penguins and some smaller Gentoo penguins. The aquarium also had a huge display of very odd looking fish - including angler fish and other creatures that looked exactly like rocks.

In the evening we went dancing. I can't believe that I got enough courage to go, but in the end I really enjoyed it. I was pretty useless, but had fun. We "attempted" various Latin dances that all seemed to involve fast feet movements that everyone else found easy. Anyway, there were about 3 guys and 20 ladies and they all seemed willing to help! It was fun! :) I'm going to have to find a "complete beginners" course in Sydney somewhere and learn to count up to 4.

Tuesday was my birthday. BTW ... thanks to everyone that left messages on my facebook account or sent me an email. I'm so sorry that I haven't had time to reply yet. Ms M. Mao and I went to the zoo. The highlight was seeing the Snow Leopard cubs. We also found an ill mouse that we picked up and took to the information desk. They probably fed it to a lion.

On Wednesday morning I flew back to Sydney (my flight was cancelled and so I was rather later) and tried to get some work done. On Thursday evening I had a whole crowd of people around at my house. Luckily one of my guests turned up with lots of food and wine and cooked us a great dinner. Then on Friday Jonathan, Stefan (my new student) and I drove to Parkes. As it was Stefan's first time in the Sydney region we stopped off in the Blue Mountains (and probably had the longest drive ever to Parkes). Anyway, after driving through swarms of locusts we did safely get to Parkes where we almost immediately started observing. I'm tired! We return tomorrow morning back to Sydney.