Outback Adventures Part #1

Sorry for the long break, but I have a lot of info to share on the last month or so. Passover already seems like it was weeks ago, oh wait, it was, but it is still worth writing about. Thanks to my mom and our friends the Paley's, I was set up with a nice family called the Schmerlings for the first Seder. Lane, her husband, and her three children, one of whom is already a doctor were all excellent hosts. They live in Carleton, and upper middle class suburb of Melbourne with a significant Jewish population. Their Seder was traditional but did not fixate on the order as much as Seders I am used to. This proved to be my downfall when I had finished eating dinner and realized I hadn't had any Charoset. It was embarrassing to realize it had already been cleared from the table. No one had told me it was served. Another plus for the Schmerling's Seder was it came in at a cool 4 hours, a perfect amount of time for a Seder. The second night of Seder was spent with the Schmerling's closest friends. They were wonderful hosts as well. Following the Seders, I had my week long Easter break to look forward to. My friend Kev and I organized a week long road trip to Alice Springs. The group ended up being 13 people traveling in three rental cars. My car included Kev, myself, our friend Joe from Rutgers, our friend Ali from Minnesota, and Dave, the frenchman. The second car was composed of Colleen and Ann Marie, both from Minnesota, Zsoka, a Hungarian from Budapest, and Latrisha, a German living in Ibiza, Spain. The last car had Kenny from Ireland, and Etan, Jonatan, and Edy, all Mexican Jews from Mexico City. Instead of going the fastest route from Melbourne to Alice Springs, we decide to go via the great ocean road and Adelaide. The trip ended up being a total of 1,403 miles, or the equivalent of driving from New York City to New Orleans and then driving another 100 miles into the Gulf of Mexico. The reason we took this out of the way route was because the great ocean road is one of the most scenic roads in the world. Highlights of the road include spectacular Southern Australia Coastline, and amazing natural land formations like the 12 Apostles and "The Gorge." The first day of the road trip was spent driving from Melbourne, along the great ocean road, to the small town of Warnambool. Along the way we stopped at the delightful seaside town of Lorne, where we took a beautiful hike that led us to an outlook overlooking the town and the coast. The highlight of the first day was seeing the 12 apostles. The 12 apostles are freestanding limestone rock formations off the coast of Australia. There aren't exactly 12, the ocean continues to destroy them, but they are still incredibly impressive. By the time we got to Warnambool, it was very late, and we were all very hungry. We found a place called Pinky's Pizza where we able to order two giant pizzas that sated everyone. The next morning, we began the long eight hour drive from Warnambool to Adelaide, the capital of Southern Australia and the "city of churches." We arrived in Adelaide in the late afternoon and immediately took a short walk through the city. I got to see Adelaide's university which was very pretty. It is located right on the River Torrens and is much greener than the University of Melbourne. That night we stayed at Cannon's Backpackers, a fairly nice hostel located in the center of the city. For dinner, my friends ordered "floaters," meat pies drenched in pea soup. Needless to say, I did not partake in this Southern Australian tradition. That night we experienced the night life in Adelaide. Unfortunately, some of my friends were foolish enough to wear flip flops. The bouncers rejected them at every bar until we finally found one desperate enough to let us all in. It was a fun night. The next morning, I woke up at 11:00 and immediately freaked out because check out was at 10. Lucky for me, it was daylight savings time, on top of that, Adelaide is in a timezone a half hour earlier than Melbourne, so I was fine. Our next stop in the trip was Flinders Ranges, north of Adelaide, and the southern region of the outback. On the way to Hawker, the town in Flinders Ranges where we would camp that night, we stopped in Woomera. Woomera is where the Australian army tests their missile and weapons system, when you arrive there, you understand why. It is small and dusty and has one store. It does however have old weapons systems that compose a very interesting outdoor museum. Once we arrived in Hawker, we took a short walk out of the campsite to see the sunset and were introduced to outback flies. They fly around your face and don't even try to bite you. They just attempt to enter your mouth, nose, and eyes. Very annoying part of otherwise gorgeous scenery. More to come tomorrow....