First of all, I have to start this one off with a Happy Birthday wish to Luke Florence, who turns 22 today (Oct. 11). Barring any application problems, Luke will be joining all of us at Ohio University once again and the ensuing fun is immeasurable at this point. Also, a birthday wish to Steve Young, one of my favorite players to watch growing up because he was a southpaw who could scramble as well as he could throw the ball.
Secondly, thanks to the Cincinnati Bengals for having a bye week so I could watch the Cleveland Browns-New England Patriots game via webcam. Also, thanks to Travis Henry for at least starting the game against San Diego – it’s the least he could do for his fantasy owners (like myself) who didn’t think a prior marijuana charge and a number of kids for which he has to pay child support were reason enough not to take him in the early rounds. Who says players’ personal problems don’t show up in fantasy sports??
A few things about the Cleveland Browns’ game against the New England Patriots. It started off much better than the last time Cleveland played New England. I was in the stands for the Bethel Johnson return for touchdown on the opening kickoff, taking only 14 seconds for the Pats to take the 7-0 lead. I remember this mainly because of the comment by Alex Lucius, who immediately said, “They’re gonna score a million points. Someone do the math!!” Trips to Cleveland for bad games are only saved by good stories and/or quotes, so we had that going for us early on. To further prove how much this organization has changed in 3 years -- it was 21-0 before Cleveland quarterback Luke McCown hit Antonio Bryant for a 16-yard score. The only thing that didn’t change was the end result – Browns lost that game 42-15.
The Browns defense held up its end of the bargain by holding New England to a field goal on the Pats’ first possession Sunday. A Josh Cribbs kickoff return set Cleveland up with pretty good field position and the Browns drove right down the field and had 1st and Goal on the 1. At this point I said, “Four downs to get one yard. Give it to Jamal Lewis.” When Jason Wright took the first handoff for no gain, my only thought was, “Jamal Lewis better be hurt if he’s not in this game.” It’s really not a good sign when you think this at any point in a game.
Turns out Lewis WAS hurt and Cleveland didn’t score on that drive after a pass intended for Steve Heiden was tipped and intercepted by Junior Seau. The linebacker is ancient by NFL standards – he turns 39 in January. To drive home this point further, it was Seau’s first pick since 2002. He would add another INT that ended the next Browns drive. Anderson killed three Cleveland drives by throwing picks.
Dan Dierdorf made a great comment at the 10:40 mark in the 4th quarter when he said, “Wes Welker is 5-9 on a REALLY good day.” Sounded like something I’ve said about myself more than once, except for me it goes “5-6.”
In the late stages of this game it was one where people might randomly tune in and think, “Wow, Cleveland actually has a chance to pull this one off.” Taking over with 6:44 to play, it took just two Derek Anderson passes to find the endzone, hitting Kellen Winslow for a 14-yard score, moving the Browns to within 10 points. But in typical Browns (and Patriots) fashion, New England picked up key first downs on a 5-minute drive that left Cleveland with just 52 seconds to drive 96 yards after the Pats turned it over on downs.
Instead of hope, Browns fans were left hopeless after just one play. Kellen Winslow turned upfield after grabbing a pass and fumbled the ball away at the 15. Randall Gay scooped and scored to put New England up by 17. Gay either had money on the game or simply hates me and others who picked Cleveland to cover the spread because this score kept the Browns from doing so. A few meaningless passes moved Cleveland down the field on the ensuing possession, but Winslow couldn’t haul in a ball in the back of the endzone on the game’s final play. Browns lose 34-17.
After reading this post you might wonder why I didn’t start with the Cleveland Indians – my team in the post-season and the one actually winning. To be honest, it’s because Game 3 of the ALDS came right after the Browns game.
I was extremely happy to see the Indians take both games in Cleveland – and what Indians fan wasn’t. A 1-1 tie (or even 0-2 hole) going to New York would have set up possible disaster. Instead the bats picked up C.C. Sabathia and Fausto Carmona was 2007 Fausto Carmona (as opposed to 2006 Fausto Carmona who went 1-10).
Game 1 didn’t hold too many thoughts from me, mostly smiles. Something I can’t figure out is the craze on this Indians team for the beard. I’m sure it goes along with the idea of team-building as well as not shaving ‘til you’re done. What concerns me is a possible return for Eric Wedge’s mustache.
Remember how it loomed in 2005, ever-so-obvious every time he was iso’ed on camera, twitching his nose?? Luke Florence, Matt Barnes and I begged for it to go (as most people did, I assume). After he shaved it that year, the team snapped out of a funk and played well until the last week of the season. Hopefully the loophole is that it cannot be a mustache alone. We’ll see.
Meanwhile beard brigade member and mountain man look-alike Casey Blake has just been sited carving a new set of bats out of some trees in rural northeast Ohio. Blake went just 2-for-17 in the ALDS with 2 RBIs in Game One, but chances are good that he’ll snap out of this funk. One must remember he had a 26-game hitting streak this season. (I was at the game with Matt Coleman, so typical result on my end.) Rounding out the beard brigade is Travis Hafner, who defied logic by finding a way to look like more of a huge ogre. An ogre that Tribe fans love – especially those in Pronkville.
Game 3 of the ALDS also brought to light exactly how money plays a part in what kind of jobs baseball general managers have. There were a few players that each team picked up at different points this year in hopes that they would help the team in a playoff situation. For the Yankees: Roger Clemens. For Cleveland: Trot Nixon and Kenny Lofton. A tip of the cap to Indians GM Mark Shapiro for the well-spent money in those two (to this point) because, if nothing else, they provide a “been there, done that” voice in the clubhouse for the younger players on the team. New York GM Brian Cashman’s choice to reach into the deepest pocket imaginable to grab The Rocket just looks ridiculous now. Those blaming injury in the Clemens situation have to remember an increased chance of getting hurt comes with age.
I fully agree with Luke Florence’s sentiment from a recent column when he said of Eric Wedge, “I’m still not a big fan of his, but I must admit, he’s a players manager. These guys enjoy playing for Wedge and it’s hard to argue with his results so far this season.” The fact that Indians players are on the Wedge Wagon has been no mystery throughout the year and it can even be seen in the dugout during these playoff games.
Maybe Ryan Garko is just a really happy dude, but even when discussing the current opposing pitcher with teammates in the dugout, he cracks a smile. Even with Jake Westbrook in trouble in Game 3, Carl Willis said something that made both men smile during a mound meeting. Westbrook didn’t exactly get out of trouble, but the point is that the atmosphere isn’t one of pressure, but one of “just another day at the office.” That, among other things, is why the measly Indians could beat down the Yankees, who were stoic in their dugout from beginning to end. Critics say Cleveland’s lax approach presents a lack of focus, but it’s more of the “Manny being Manny” theory in my mind.
Of course, you can’t get through a conversation with me on the ALDS without some mention of the broadcast itself, so here goes my rant. How bad did TBS want the Yankees to win Games 3 and 4?? Even when the Indians had one out in their at-bat, the comments from the broadcast team (namely Chip Caray, whom I really liked up until this series began) were about how New York had the 3-4-5 hitters coming up in the bottom half of the inning. I assume this was done to keep hope for the Bronx fan base watching TBS for as long as possible. Remember, the ALCS traveled to the FOX broadcast team, so the next Indians win took away that large viewing crowd from TBS.
My next complaint concerns the choice of the broadcast team. Chip Caray is the usual Atlanta Braves play-by-play man for TBS. Tony Gwynn played 20 seasons with the San Diego Padres. Ohio University alum Bob Brenly is part of the WGN broadcast team for Chicago Cubs games, spent four years managing the Arizona Diamondbacks and played about 8 ½ years playing for the San Francisco Giants. If you didn’t catch the common link, they’ve all spent their most recent careers in the National League, yet all join together to call an American League postseason match up. And it showed.
If I had a dollar for every time they mentioned how the viewers probably won’t see a bunt because the Indians-Yankees series was in the American League, I’d be able to beat out Mark Cuban for a share of the Cubs ownership. Then you have to add in the comments on how it’s harder to manage in the NL because of figuring out how long to throw your starting pitcher, how to pinch hit, etc. It’s one thing to mention it and another thing to beat it to death. Why wouldn’t you want a predominantly National League crew calling a National League series for reasons such as knowing the players better?? This crew has been pretty good overall, but these things bothered me. Next up: the ALCS with my beloved Tim McCarver, i.e. expect similar comments in the next blog.
I’ll finish by saying all people complaining about bugs affecting the New York Yankees in Game 2 need to stop. If this series had gone all five games, I would have begged for someone in attendance to have a sign that read, “Welcome to Cleveland – where smog doesn’t make our team lose like they did in New York.” Seriously, it’s along the same line. On a side note, thanks to TBS for getting as close as possible to the bugs on Joba’s neck, further driving home the idea that the bugs lost New York the game.
Congrats to Jeff Gordon on a win at Talladega, catapulting himself into the lead in the Chase for the Nextel Cup. Additional congrats to Notre Dame, who surprised a lot of people by beating UCLA on the road. Two more big tests in consecutive weeks against Boston College and USC will really show if that win over the Bruins was a true upset or just a bad performance by UCLA. Should be a great weekend of sports (yes, weekend, considering the Tribe starts it off at 8:30 Friday morning).
That’s all for now. Love you all in the states. Stay tuned for what should be a GREAT story when I try to cancel my application for permission to work (I’ll be starting that process tomorrow) as well as some thoughts on that weekend of sports.
From the other side of the globe, I’m Kevin Hunt.
If you want to see me soon, ask for more patience because the return is about three weeks away.
Wednesday, October 10, 2007
Sunday, October 7, 2007
Big Trip, Part Two
I really haven’t covered all that much of the trip, really. I’ll try to keep this quick and simple.
New Zealand was pretty sweet, especially our first stop, Auckland. Contrary to popular belief, New Zealand is an affordable place to be, in our minds. We found most of the things that we normally buy in Australia were much cheaper here. Plus Auckland had Burger King (not Hungry Jack’s) and I saw a Wendy’s restaurant for the first time in a long time. But still no Taco Bell.
Auckland is the only city in the world built on an active volcanic field. Why they chose to do this, I will never know. When we visited the museum in Auckland, there was an exhibit on volcanoes that included a display proving that basically no one who lives in the city is aware that there could be an eruption at any point. The last eruption in the area was in 1996. These people are crazy.
We got lucky enough that a volcano did NOT erupt while we were there because one of the bigger tourist attractions is to visit all the volcanoes. The first day we climbed Mt. Eden, on which the government allows people to graze their animals. Mt. Eden had cattle.
After Mt. Eden we hit up the Auckland War Memorial Museum. It was a pretty neat place, but probably would have been even more interesting if I had known ANYTHING about New Zealand history before we got there. We got to see some neat things built by the Maori people, New Zealand’s original inhabitants.
Then there was the aforementioned volcano exhibit. They had a little house where you were supposed to feel what it was like to be in your house during an eruption. The house didn’t shake around or anything, but it still makes you feel kinda weird seeing ash and dust fly in from miles away just to blanket everything around you and your home. Not something I would want to go through. Again, not sure why ANYONE lives on a volcanic field, but they probably wonder why I live in an area that has tornadoes all the time. We pick our poison I guess.
After the museum, we tried to keep working through our daily plans and went across town to One Tree Hill. This place inspired the song by the same title (which inspired the TV show). Keeping up with the apparent theme of the volcanoes, One Tree Hill was the home to grazing sheep.
On top of One Tree Hill is a monument erected to honor the Maori people who were pushed out of the area by original settlers. There’s also a grave of Sir John Logan Campbell, who actually owned the hill and the land immediately surrounding it. He wanted to protect the area as a memorial to the Maori people. So, I guess he deserves to be buried on the place that meant a lot to him. Though I wonder if he wanted a bunch of random people like us walking around on his grave site.
We were tired from a long day of walking up and down mountains as well as across town (since we hadn’t exactly grasped the public transport system yet), but we pressed on and finished the day at the Skytower. The tower is really neat at night when it gets all lit up and gives some great views of the city and surrounding area.
If a large city with decent landscape doesn’t have a huge tower, it’s missing out on some easy tourist dollars. When we go to a city with a huge tower, you can bet we’ll be getting there somehow. I mean, if you don’t want pictures, maybe you won’t – but we want those pics!!
The next day we walked up Rangitoto Island, the most recent volcano to erupt in the area and supposedly the most active of the volcanoes in the city. As opposed to the other ones we visited that had a lot of greenery that had grown up over the years, Rangitoto Island had a lot of volcanic rocks still left behind from the last eruption.
Another long walk up a mountain gave us more great views of the city, as well as some more historical parts of Auckland. Rangitoto Island is situated on its own in the Auckland harbor and used to be home to a military outlook post where enemy ships could be seen from miles away. We got some pictures in these posts, including a sweet one (the first one shown).
The following day was the best one we had on this trip. We decided awhile back to try something adventurous, so we signed up for canyoning. To be honest, we didn’t have an idea what the heck it entailed, but we wanted to give it a shot anyway. We actually hadn’t confirmed our booking yet (yeah, the night before, we are very smooth), so I called the company only to find out we were going to have to pay for a full-day trip because there were no other sign-ups for the half-day (our original selection). But we didn’t want to miss another tour, so we paid the extra $30 and went on our way.
Before hanging up the phone, I asked the guide on the other end of the line if any experience was necessary for canyoning. When he could only laugh and say, “Well, if you’re decently athletic, you’ll be OK,” I figured we were in for it. Instead it was a great experience.
If anyone is thinking about doing something crazy like this, don’t think about it, just do it. That is, as long as you have the physical capabilities – and some mental aspect. Though, if you’re trying to overcome the fear of heights, skydiving might just be the way to do it, depending on your mental status in that regard.
We left Auckland on a very high note, ready to tackle anything and everything in Christchurch, the next stop on our trip. The city is located on New Zealand’s South Island and is described as the country’s most English city. An Anglican cathedral is the center of the city (Cathedral Square) and a lot of the buildings look like old English ones as well. It was a bit different from the modern Auckland.
There wasn’t a whole lot to do in Christchurch, which wasn’t so bad at this point in our trip because this was our fourth city in nine days and we were a little burned out on the tourist stuff. Christchurch did have some neat little things though, namely the historic Tram and Gondola. The tram runs all day through the city and is nice to ride just to be in the old tram cars.
The gondola was an easy reminder of the Sky Ride at Cedar Point, but traveled uphill more than over a distance. Unfortunately we didn’t get a great view of the city once we reached the top because it was really foggy that day.
Our final day in Christchurch we were scheduled to take a tandem paragliding trip. After spending basically the entire day trying to reach the company in charge of our paragliding, I reached him just in time to find out it was too windy to do it that day. We got our money back, but it was tour #3 to be canceled on this trip. We still tackled just about everything Christchurch had to offer tourists and got a bit of rest in as well. Which was good because we were headed to the busy city of Melbourne next.
Melbourne is described as the most cosmopolitan city in Australia, which basically means there is a lot of shopping. We were greeted at the airport by the Customs officers, the same ones we encountered when we first entered Melbourne way back in the end of June (our flight was from Los Angeles to Melbourne, then connected immediately to Sydney, but we had to go through customs in Melbourne first). Last time went much smoother because, well, when you tell the truth on those immigration cards, it just puts you in position to be hassled.
The quarantine signs tell you to “Declare or Beware” when thinking about taking food and natural items into Australia. This made me think, “Well, as long as I write down what I’m brining in and show the officers those items, we can be on our way.” Why I even think things anymore, I have no idea. Apparently “Declare or Beware” should really be read as “Declare and wolf down all of your food once you get inside.”
In Christchurch, I thought about spending our remaining money in the casino, but I never got to it and wanted to be sure we had enough money for the cab we had to take the morning of our flight to Melbourne. When we arrived at the airport in Christchurch, we had about $12 in New Zealand currency left to use, which we weren’t going to exchange because the flat exchange fee would’ve taken about half of that amount. Instead we purchased a Powerade and a chicken baguette sandwich in the airport to have for lunch in Melbourne and saved $6 to buy muffins on board the plane.
I marked on my immigration card that we had food items and didn’t lie about one thing, thinking it was a better-safe-than-sorry situation. It was, to an extent, because I could have been charged $200 per food item that I DIDN’T claim. Instead, we had to mow down the baguette sandwich while standing at the Customs desk while our bags were being inspected. We weren’t even hungry, but when you have already committed money to something, you can’t just let it go out the window. On a side note, the baguette was pretty good for coming from a small stand at the airport.
The other stuff that was claimed included all of our dead coral we collected from the beach in Rockhampton. This was discouraging because the coral was going to serve as an easy (and cheap) reminder of the Great Barrier Reef, as well as being a gift for family and friends when we got back. The kicker is that Australian Customs had to confiscate their own freaking coral. When we entered into New Zealand, their Customs office didn’t seem to care and hardly searched anything (again, I answered the immigration card completely honestly). It was only when we got back into Australia that the coral (from their OWN COUNTRY) was taken away. What a joke. I received a paper stating that I could file for a permit to receive all of our things back, but chances are I won’t be able to get it. I’m still going to try because, if nothing else, it’ll surely make for another good story.
Once we got out of the airport, you’d think our day could only look up from there. We made it safely to the city on the airport shuttle with no problems, but after that point it gets crazy. We stopped at a Traveler’s Help station to ask about which trams or buses we needed to take to get to our hostel (which was located a little ways out of the city). After taking our first tram, we had to transfer to another one – our final one – to get to our place. What we didn’t anticipate was the giant protest by some union workers against Australian Prime Minister John Howard that was going down the street – the same street down which our tram was supposed to run.
Instead, we had to walk about 8 blocks with all of our bags and pick up the tram at a different point farther down the line. It wasn’t exactly the way we drew it up, but neither is any game-winning play in a sports contest – or life in general. When we finally arrived at our hostel, we found out the lady at the desk (and owner, I think) almost gave away our room because we hadn’t shown up yet – strange considering we were never informed about a time by which we had to check in. At any rate, we got our room at “The Beach” and were not disappointed with the view from our window.
The first thing we decided to do was to just dive right into the city and see what we could find to do. AFL World was along the way, so we grabbed a coupon and took our tour through what was really more of a kids’ center. It was a lot of fun trying to kick the ball and pass it (not throw it overhand, but “punch” it like an underhand volleyball serve) similar to how the AFL players do it. I also know that I could probably never play this sport.
The next day we decided to get up early and take a trip out of the city to ride Puffing Billy, the oldest steam-powered train in Australia. It was a nice little trip going through the wooded areas around Melbourne.
Following Puffing Billy was the Grand Final Parade down the streets of Melbourne. It was pretty interesting to see the weird things the Australians put in their parades because, as you can see from some of the pics below, it’s a little unclear as to what some of this stuff is.
(If you don't recognize these guys, visit http://youtube.com/watch?v=Mv5U0W8FDDk)
We finished off the week by visiting the Melbourne Cricket Ground, the annual site of the AFL Grand Final. This place has been around for years and serves as a multi-sport facility and a home field for a host of teams. It was also a home for U.S. soldiers during WWII. The place is huge as well, holding over 100,000 people at times. It doesn’t seem that big, but the only way I can justify it is by assuming it holds more people because it is shaped like an oval as opposed to being straight-edged on the boundaries like most stadiums in the U.S.
We ended our day at the Melbourne Observation Deck. Again, if you’re ever in charge of a big city, build a huge tower because, if your construction company is anything reliable, the tourist money will pay for the structure soon enough. And again, we got some great pictures.
Saturday we didn’t schedule a thing because it was the day of the Grand Final – the Port Adelaide Power against the Geelong Cats. We didn’t get tickets, but sat in Federation Square with a bunch of other random people to watch the game on a big screen. Sara had her Port scarf on, which drew a lot of comments from Geelong fans – the most common of which was, “Go the Catters!!” That is a direct quote. Off on a tangent now...
Sporting fans here have weird little sayings for their teams. The worst thing to hear someone say is the word “the” in front of the team name. For example, if this was the case in the U.S., I would be saying, “Go the Browns!!” instead of just “Go Browns!!” It doesn’t make any sense, but hey, they’re on the other side of the world, so I guess they can do what they want.
The Grand Final was awful to watch. To put it in perspective, I would have rather watched a replay of the Browns-Steelers game from Week One this season, and not because I like the Browns. Port Adelaide held a 2-1 lead over the Cats, but that was about as good as it got for the Power in a 163-44 loss. It was the biggest margin of victory in Grand Final history. In a related story, I’m very sad I didn’t bet on Geelong to cover (they were an 18 ½ point favorite). What made it worse was that we were fans from Adelaide among a sea of Geelong fans (Geelong is a city of its own that is very close to Melbourne). Fortunately we didn’t get heckled too much and made it back to our place in one piece with time to pack our bags and get ready for our final flight before the ones we’ll take in November to go back to the U.S.
Our flight from a regional airport (about an hour’s drive away from Melbourne, just a hassle and a lot of waiting around and traveling) was delayed a little bit, but we arrived safely at the Adelaide Airport around 10:45 p.m. A pick-up by our landlady and housemate, a quick drive back to 17C St. Bernard’s Road and we could breathe again.
Our 17-day trip came to an end at the same place where it started. Sara took a quick nap before the Browns game came on (2:30 a.m. our time) and we were greeted with a treat as the Brownies won a big game over the hated Ravens. A fitting end to a great vacation. Not to mention the Indians were going to be starting their first postseason since 2001 later in the week. Now they have a 2-0 lead in the series and Romeo Crennel thinks he could win in a game if he literally took on Bill Belichick. Even today, Notre Dame got its first win of the year by forcing 7 turnovers to beat UCLA on the road. Yup things are going well.
As I type, it is just 4 weeks from the day I’ll be back in the U.S. It’s been crazy how fast this time has gone. But don’t worry, I won’t quit blogging. I’m just hoping I can do it more often than the once-every-three-weeks pace found recently.
That’s all for now. Love you all in the states. Stay tuned for what should be a GREAT story when I try to cancel my application for permission to work and my thoughts on the Browns, Indians, Jeff Gordon and, yes, the Irish.
From the other side of the globe, I’m Kevin Hunt.
If you want to see me soon, ask for more patience because the return is about four weeks away.
New Zealand was pretty sweet, especially our first stop, Auckland. Contrary to popular belief, New Zealand is an affordable place to be, in our minds. We found most of the things that we normally buy in Australia were much cheaper here. Plus Auckland had Burger King (not Hungry Jack’s) and I saw a Wendy’s restaurant for the first time in a long time. But still no Taco Bell.
Auckland is the only city in the world built on an active volcanic field. Why they chose to do this, I will never know. When we visited the museum in Auckland, there was an exhibit on volcanoes that included a display proving that basically no one who lives in the city is aware that there could be an eruption at any point. The last eruption in the area was in 1996. These people are crazy.
We got lucky enough that a volcano did NOT erupt while we were there because one of the bigger tourist attractions is to visit all the volcanoes. The first day we climbed Mt. Eden, on which the government allows people to graze their animals. Mt. Eden had cattle.
After Mt. Eden we hit up the Auckland War Memorial Museum. It was a pretty neat place, but probably would have been even more interesting if I had known ANYTHING about New Zealand history before we got there. We got to see some neat things built by the Maori people, New Zealand’s original inhabitants.
Then there was the aforementioned volcano exhibit. They had a little house where you were supposed to feel what it was like to be in your house during an eruption. The house didn’t shake around or anything, but it still makes you feel kinda weird seeing ash and dust fly in from miles away just to blanket everything around you and your home. Not something I would want to go through. Again, not sure why ANYONE lives on a volcanic field, but they probably wonder why I live in an area that has tornadoes all the time. We pick our poison I guess.
After the museum, we tried to keep working through our daily plans and went across town to One Tree Hill. This place inspired the song by the same title (which inspired the TV show). Keeping up with the apparent theme of the volcanoes, One Tree Hill was the home to grazing sheep.
On top of One Tree Hill is a monument erected to honor the Maori people who were pushed out of the area by original settlers. There’s also a grave of Sir John Logan Campbell, who actually owned the hill and the land immediately surrounding it. He wanted to protect the area as a memorial to the Maori people. So, I guess he deserves to be buried on the place that meant a lot to him. Though I wonder if he wanted a bunch of random people like us walking around on his grave site.
We were tired from a long day of walking up and down mountains as well as across town (since we hadn’t exactly grasped the public transport system yet), but we pressed on and finished the day at the Skytower. The tower is really neat at night when it gets all lit up and gives some great views of the city and surrounding area.
If a large city with decent landscape doesn’t have a huge tower, it’s missing out on some easy tourist dollars. When we go to a city with a huge tower, you can bet we’ll be getting there somehow. I mean, if you don’t want pictures, maybe you won’t – but we want those pics!!
The next day we walked up Rangitoto Island, the most recent volcano to erupt in the area and supposedly the most active of the volcanoes in the city. As opposed to the other ones we visited that had a lot of greenery that had grown up over the years, Rangitoto Island had a lot of volcanic rocks still left behind from the last eruption.
Another long walk up a mountain gave us more great views of the city, as well as some more historical parts of Auckland. Rangitoto Island is situated on its own in the Auckland harbor and used to be home to a military outlook post where enemy ships could be seen from miles away. We got some pictures in these posts, including a sweet one (the first one shown).
The following day was the best one we had on this trip. We decided awhile back to try something adventurous, so we signed up for canyoning. To be honest, we didn’t have an idea what the heck it entailed, but we wanted to give it a shot anyway. We actually hadn’t confirmed our booking yet (yeah, the night before, we are very smooth), so I called the company only to find out we were going to have to pay for a full-day trip because there were no other sign-ups for the half-day (our original selection). But we didn’t want to miss another tour, so we paid the extra $30 and went on our way.
Before hanging up the phone, I asked the guide on the other end of the line if any experience was necessary for canyoning. When he could only laugh and say, “Well, if you’re decently athletic, you’ll be OK,” I figured we were in for it. Instead it was a great experience.
If anyone is thinking about doing something crazy like this, don’t think about it, just do it. That is, as long as you have the physical capabilities – and some mental aspect. Though, if you’re trying to overcome the fear of heights, skydiving might just be the way to do it, depending on your mental status in that regard.
We left Auckland on a very high note, ready to tackle anything and everything in Christchurch, the next stop on our trip. The city is located on New Zealand’s South Island and is described as the country’s most English city. An Anglican cathedral is the center of the city (Cathedral Square) and a lot of the buildings look like old English ones as well. It was a bit different from the modern Auckland.
There wasn’t a whole lot to do in Christchurch, which wasn’t so bad at this point in our trip because this was our fourth city in nine days and we were a little burned out on the tourist stuff. Christchurch did have some neat little things though, namely the historic Tram and Gondola. The tram runs all day through the city and is nice to ride just to be in the old tram cars.
The gondola was an easy reminder of the Sky Ride at Cedar Point, but traveled uphill more than over a distance. Unfortunately we didn’t get a great view of the city once we reached the top because it was really foggy that day.
Our final day in Christchurch we were scheduled to take a tandem paragliding trip. After spending basically the entire day trying to reach the company in charge of our paragliding, I reached him just in time to find out it was too windy to do it that day. We got our money back, but it was tour #3 to be canceled on this trip. We still tackled just about everything Christchurch had to offer tourists and got a bit of rest in as well. Which was good because we were headed to the busy city of Melbourne next.
Melbourne is described as the most cosmopolitan city in Australia, which basically means there is a lot of shopping. We were greeted at the airport by the Customs officers, the same ones we encountered when we first entered Melbourne way back in the end of June (our flight was from Los Angeles to Melbourne, then connected immediately to Sydney, but we had to go through customs in Melbourne first). Last time went much smoother because, well, when you tell the truth on those immigration cards, it just puts you in position to be hassled.
The quarantine signs tell you to “Declare or Beware” when thinking about taking food and natural items into Australia. This made me think, “Well, as long as I write down what I’m brining in and show the officers those items, we can be on our way.” Why I even think things anymore, I have no idea. Apparently “Declare or Beware” should really be read as “Declare and wolf down all of your food once you get inside.”
In Christchurch, I thought about spending our remaining money in the casino, but I never got to it and wanted to be sure we had enough money for the cab we had to take the morning of our flight to Melbourne. When we arrived at the airport in Christchurch, we had about $12 in New Zealand currency left to use, which we weren’t going to exchange because the flat exchange fee would’ve taken about half of that amount. Instead we purchased a Powerade and a chicken baguette sandwich in the airport to have for lunch in Melbourne and saved $6 to buy muffins on board the plane.
I marked on my immigration card that we had food items and didn’t lie about one thing, thinking it was a better-safe-than-sorry situation. It was, to an extent, because I could have been charged $200 per food item that I DIDN’T claim. Instead, we had to mow down the baguette sandwich while standing at the Customs desk while our bags were being inspected. We weren’t even hungry, but when you have already committed money to something, you can’t just let it go out the window. On a side note, the baguette was pretty good for coming from a small stand at the airport.
The other stuff that was claimed included all of our dead coral we collected from the beach in Rockhampton. This was discouraging because the coral was going to serve as an easy (and cheap) reminder of the Great Barrier Reef, as well as being a gift for family and friends when we got back. The kicker is that Australian Customs had to confiscate their own freaking coral. When we entered into New Zealand, their Customs office didn’t seem to care and hardly searched anything (again, I answered the immigration card completely honestly). It was only when we got back into Australia that the coral (from their OWN COUNTRY) was taken away. What a joke. I received a paper stating that I could file for a permit to receive all of our things back, but chances are I won’t be able to get it. I’m still going to try because, if nothing else, it’ll surely make for another good story.
Once we got out of the airport, you’d think our day could only look up from there. We made it safely to the city on the airport shuttle with no problems, but after that point it gets crazy. We stopped at a Traveler’s Help station to ask about which trams or buses we needed to take to get to our hostel (which was located a little ways out of the city). After taking our first tram, we had to transfer to another one – our final one – to get to our place. What we didn’t anticipate was the giant protest by some union workers against Australian Prime Minister John Howard that was going down the street – the same street down which our tram was supposed to run.
Instead, we had to walk about 8 blocks with all of our bags and pick up the tram at a different point farther down the line. It wasn’t exactly the way we drew it up, but neither is any game-winning play in a sports contest – or life in general. When we finally arrived at our hostel, we found out the lady at the desk (and owner, I think) almost gave away our room because we hadn’t shown up yet – strange considering we were never informed about a time by which we had to check in. At any rate, we got our room at “The Beach” and were not disappointed with the view from our window.
The first thing we decided to do was to just dive right into the city and see what we could find to do. AFL World was along the way, so we grabbed a coupon and took our tour through what was really more of a kids’ center. It was a lot of fun trying to kick the ball and pass it (not throw it overhand, but “punch” it like an underhand volleyball serve) similar to how the AFL players do it. I also know that I could probably never play this sport.
The next day we decided to get up early and take a trip out of the city to ride Puffing Billy, the oldest steam-powered train in Australia. It was a nice little trip going through the wooded areas around Melbourne.
Following Puffing Billy was the Grand Final Parade down the streets of Melbourne. It was pretty interesting to see the weird things the Australians put in their parades because, as you can see from some of the pics below, it’s a little unclear as to what some of this stuff is.
(If you don't recognize these guys, visit http://youtube.com/watch?v=Mv5U0W8FDDk)
We finished off the week by visiting the Melbourne Cricket Ground, the annual site of the AFL Grand Final. This place has been around for years and serves as a multi-sport facility and a home field for a host of teams. It was also a home for U.S. soldiers during WWII. The place is huge as well, holding over 100,000 people at times. It doesn’t seem that big, but the only way I can justify it is by assuming it holds more people because it is shaped like an oval as opposed to being straight-edged on the boundaries like most stadiums in the U.S.
We ended our day at the Melbourne Observation Deck. Again, if you’re ever in charge of a big city, build a huge tower because, if your construction company is anything reliable, the tourist money will pay for the structure soon enough. And again, we got some great pictures.
Saturday we didn’t schedule a thing because it was the day of the Grand Final – the Port Adelaide Power against the Geelong Cats. We didn’t get tickets, but sat in Federation Square with a bunch of other random people to watch the game on a big screen. Sara had her Port scarf on, which drew a lot of comments from Geelong fans – the most common of which was, “Go the Catters!!” That is a direct quote. Off on a tangent now...
Sporting fans here have weird little sayings for their teams. The worst thing to hear someone say is the word “the” in front of the team name. For example, if this was the case in the U.S., I would be saying, “Go the Browns!!” instead of just “Go Browns!!” It doesn’t make any sense, but hey, they’re on the other side of the world, so I guess they can do what they want.
The Grand Final was awful to watch. To put it in perspective, I would have rather watched a replay of the Browns-Steelers game from Week One this season, and not because I like the Browns. Port Adelaide held a 2-1 lead over the Cats, but that was about as good as it got for the Power in a 163-44 loss. It was the biggest margin of victory in Grand Final history. In a related story, I’m very sad I didn’t bet on Geelong to cover (they were an 18 ½ point favorite). What made it worse was that we were fans from Adelaide among a sea of Geelong fans (Geelong is a city of its own that is very close to Melbourne). Fortunately we didn’t get heckled too much and made it back to our place in one piece with time to pack our bags and get ready for our final flight before the ones we’ll take in November to go back to the U.S.
Our flight from a regional airport (about an hour’s drive away from Melbourne, just a hassle and a lot of waiting around and traveling) was delayed a little bit, but we arrived safely at the Adelaide Airport around 10:45 p.m. A pick-up by our landlady and housemate, a quick drive back to 17C St. Bernard’s Road and we could breathe again.
Our 17-day trip came to an end at the same place where it started. Sara took a quick nap before the Browns game came on (2:30 a.m. our time) and we were greeted with a treat as the Brownies won a big game over the hated Ravens. A fitting end to a great vacation. Not to mention the Indians were going to be starting their first postseason since 2001 later in the week. Now they have a 2-0 lead in the series and Romeo Crennel thinks he could win in a game if he literally took on Bill Belichick. Even today, Notre Dame got its first win of the year by forcing 7 turnovers to beat UCLA on the road. Yup things are going well.
As I type, it is just 4 weeks from the day I’ll be back in the U.S. It’s been crazy how fast this time has gone. But don’t worry, I won’t quit blogging. I’m just hoping I can do it more often than the once-every-three-weeks pace found recently.
That’s all for now. Love you all in the states. Stay tuned for what should be a GREAT story when I try to cancel my application for permission to work and my thoughts on the Browns, Indians, Jeff Gordon and, yes, the Irish.
From the other side of the globe, I’m Kevin Hunt.
If you want to see me soon, ask for more patience because the return is about four weeks away.
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