Down Under

Greetings from Western Australia - very cold greetings, if I may add. My hands feel rather numb. Temp's probably about 15 degrees inside my sister's house. Last night, it plummeted to eight degrees. Brr. So much for it being autumn. I've only worn my shorts once this whole trip. The rest of the time, I've been festering in faded track pants and jeans, and jackets are a permanent accessory. Even my sister and brother-in-law are remarking that they've pulled out their winter wear a lot earlier this year.

On the bright side, my sis has amazing bandwidth for her Internet. I kid you not when I say I can download stuff up to 151 kbps. I had one ep of The OC downloaded in two and a half hours! Okay, I realize I should stop announcing that, considering the piracy laws that I might be breaking. Haha. But then again, Australian TV is seriously lagging. According to the tv guide, Michael Scofield is just about to attempt his big escape for the first time, Marissa Cooper just got kicked out of Harbor, and Gil Grissom and Co are still stuck in season four. Uh huh.

Apart from the lack of heat in this state, it's been pretty fun. We did a road trip down south to Margaret River and Albany.

The most important thing I learnt on this road trip? Don't ever forget to pack music for the road. We were stuck listening to Corrinne May's two cds for two whole days. I may like her, but after listening to each cd twice consecutively, I wanted to toss it out the window. Thank goodness we managed to find a blank disc for me to burn an mp3 cd for the long ride home.

Anyways. Margaret River is home to several, several vineyards (ie a lot of wine tasting! grins) and fantabulously sinfully yummerdoodle-ly chocolate. Mmmmm. But since their chocs are at an exorbitant price, I only sampled (tons of) their chocolate drops.
Albany has some of the most spectacular scenery. They've got this rock formations called the natural bridge and the gap. I think their names are descriptive enough. They've also got this most amazing wind farm. Albany is along the coast, so the wind there is really strong. The wind farm harnesses the wind to provide for 75% of the town's electricity. And yes, I know I sound like a tour guide. I was rather fascinated by that fact. Check out this picture:


The windmills may not look that big here, but they are seriously ginormous! If I recall correctly, each of those blades you see there are 35m long, and they're about 65m tall. When the blades are turning, you can really hear the whoosh. My dad wanted to get a windmill for our house to provide for our electricity at first. Once we got up close and saw how ginormous they really were, my dad's eyes went wide and said something along the lines of: "If we got a windmill like that, one sweep of the blade would pull the entire house off the ground." Laughs.


This is the natural bridge of Albany. It's along the same coastline as the wind farm, so the wind here was pretty strong too. Blew my cap clean off my head twice before I wised up and tossed my cap back in the car.


Okay I was going to post a few more pictures, but I got too lazy. Haha. So I'll just end with this photo of our shadows on the opposite wall at the Gap.
Until next time :)