SCROLL DOWN!

All I can say is, scroll down a lot, and read bottom-up. I thought it more important to put as much up as possible than to do it thoroughly coherently. Hopefully, I'll have time to fix it later. In the meantime, start reading! I have yet to post today's edition, but this should give you a lot to start with! Click on any picture to see it larger.

But only Lyn really got into it! (And the fish was delicious.)

Dinner was a group effort; I contributed by taking pictures.

But only Chris had the beer.

On Saturday night, we hung out. Jarrah and Chris shared the floor.

and kangaroos!! (I actually have some great video footage of these guys, but I can't post that to the blog, so you'll have to wait until I get home!)

On the way home, we startled a flight of cockatoos (Sulphur-crested).

The lighthouse never squints.

and shut my eyes (here with Chris).

where I took a plethora of beach shots

After Erskine, Lyn forcibly dragged us to the beach.

Me, Lyn, and Chris at the falls...although you can't them!

And the waterfall.

We drove to Erskine for the forest...

This is me in the Angahook kitchen.

'Roos

13 November 2004

Kangaroos

For being so tired last night, I certainly didn’t sleep very well. I woke up several times in the middle of the night to find it absolutely pitch black and totally silent. When I say we’re secluded, I’m not kidding. In fact, it was a grim realization that I needed to go to the bathroom because therein began a five minute careful crawl to the bathroom, trying not to wake up Chris and the rest of the household by crashing into something…like the wall. Chris had climbed in bed when I went to brush my teeth, and she was sound asleep before I got out the door. She didn’t move again all night, and eventually slept twelve hours straight.

This morning, I got up shortly after 8 and found Dan sitting on the couch, reading. I wrote my postcards (yes, some of you are already getting postcards – once I find stamps and send them), and then set up my computer to surreptitiously run a few more stages of the N6 tutorial. Lyn and Tom arose around 9:30, and we all had toast for breakfast, accompanied by Lyn’s wonderful apricot jam, and multiple hot cups of tea. It was very windy and cold, and I happily scalded my mouth on the tea. For the rest of the morning, I mostly just hung out, reading, and sitting on the couch. Tom made another few pots of wonderful pressed coffee, and Chris stumbled in around 11:30. Dan and Tom did some yardwork and Chris and I talked qualitative research and coding. It’s so great to talk to people who know what I’m talking about when I begin to enthuse about NVivo. In fact, Chris gave me a tremendous idea of how else to use the search function.

A note here about my current companions: Chris is from England. She looks tremendously like someone I won’t name (no, not Voldemort), so I keep doing double takes, but after 48 hours, I’m thankfully starting to see her as herself instead of someone else. And every time she opens her mouth and has a tremendous British accent, I realize she’s Chris, so that’s good too. In any case, we’re sharing a room here at Angahook – two twin beds. Chris is 29 years old, and works for the CAQDAS (Computer Assisted Qualitative Data Analysis Software) which is funded by the government. She teaches and trains in multiple software packages including N6, NVivo, Atlas, etc., etc. So she has a great knowledge base. I look forward to the training week with her, and she has suggested we meet up on that Wednesday in Brisbane to sightsee.

Dan is from Florida, and, although he seems to know the Richards’ very well, he sometimes to ask a lot of obvious (to me) questions about Australia and life here! Still, he is very nice, as well.

We had odds and ends for lunch, then more coffee, then took off for the Erskine waterfall. This meant traveling a bit more along the Great Ocean Road, and it was beautiful. The weather was being weird, and had been all day – very windy, but alternating between bright sunshine and blue sky, and then, twenty minutes later, a tremendous downpour, then bright sun and blue again, then rain – but when we reached the forest, it was momentarily dry. We walked a path down to the falls through beautiful woods, with great straight eucalyptus trees and gigantic ferns. It smelled wonderfully botanical. “250 steps over steep terrain” (said the sign) later, our shoes were muddy, but we were at the base of the falls. After climbing back up, we drove to Lorne to get fish from the pier for dinner. Driving home, we saw a rainbow over the pier and into the ocean.

Then, we stopped at the real Airey’s Inlet and took a brief walk on the beach, again, in between rain sessions. I was starting to feel really tired, and Lyn and Chris determined it would do me good to be trekking outdoors for a bit.

On the way home, we found a mob of kangaroos grazing. (Tom says a group of kangaroos is a “mob”, although Lyn referred to them as a herd.) We pulled over and watched them for half an hour. There were about twenty of them, and we watched several of them box each other. It was great to see them and the light was beautiful. Unfortunately, I didn’t have my camera. Well, that’s a misstatement. I did have my camera. But I’d forgotten the battery which had been charging overnight. However, Chris did have hers, so the pictures that I will post from today are from her camera.

The weather is still iffy, and Lyn noted the “absence of auroras starting”. Apparently, the aurora is spectacular down here currently, and Tom says there’s a phenomenal place to see it, but if it’s cloudy… It doesn’t get dark until 8:30 or so here, either, which is so nice compared to 4:30 dusk in Boston!

Dinner is being prepared behind me. The fish we bought rubbed with herbs and olive oil and barbequed. Tomorrow, we head to Melbourne proper and I hope to get my computer talking to my camera again, and get some of this stuff posted on the blog where it belongs!

Salt and sand

Note: the pictures below go with this day, but you have to start bottom-up with the pics.

12 November 2004

Salt on our lips and sand in our hair

So here I am. The trip was relatively uneventful, except for absolutely packed flights. On the LA to Melbourne leg, there were ten empty seats. One of the stewardesses told me you could tell where the empty seats were because the people on either side were grinning. I was not grinning. I slept some in the depths of the night, but pretty much woke up at 4 AM (Melbourne time) and have been awake ever since, granted, with a headache. My sinuses are bothering me, so every time I hang my head down to rifle through my luggage, I come up with a whanging headache.

It took a while to get out of the Melbourne airport. We landed around 9:30 AM, and I breezed through Immigration, but there was a lot of baggage and then a hold up on the conveyor belt, so, half an hour later… And then Quarantine because, of course, I am carrying food (maple syrup, a granola bar, and some Lifesavers). I stumbled out into the airport lobby around 10:30, and was just getting my bearings and looking for the coffee shop where I was to meet Christina (hereafter referred to as Chris), when I heard Tom calling my name. He grabbed my duffel, and we met up with Chris and Dan (two other of the trainers) in the coffee shop. I made a quick stop at the ATM, and we headed for the car.

Dan gave us a quick geography lesson, reciting what he learned from Tom this morning, to show Chris and me the route we’d be taking, generally around the bay, and then south down the coast along Prince’s Highway and then on the Great Ocean Road. Tom gave us a history lesson and pointed out landmarks the entire way. I kept double taking at the “cars without drivers” I saw heading the opposite direction as us. (Of course, this is because Australians drive on the left.) The weather was beautiful, mid-60s, but with hot sun and a stiff breeze. Two hours later, Chris was nodding off – she’d arrived at 6 AM and had to wait for me – and we stopped at a strip mall type place to get groceries and supplies for lunch. Ten minutes later, we were unlocking a gate and four wheeling it to the Richards’ house at Airey’s Inlet. (Roads around here seem to be blacktopped very strangely – much of the time, the pavement just ends, and a dirt road continues.)

The house is lovely, very simple, and seems to be in the middle of nowhere. There’s one house you can see far off in the distance, but the rest of it is low woods and a valley. Gorgeous and secluded. The house itself has much wood, and is built like a beach house in that one look tells you it would never survive a New England winter! It didn’t survive the Ash Wednesday 1983 brush fire either, and has now been rebuilt.

Chris and I sat outside for a while, trying to recover from our flights. “It’s just nice to be somewhere that’s going to be home for a while,” Chris sighed, hitting the nail on the head. We ate outside for lunch, slicing thick slices of a fresh baked, hearty bread, three wonderful cheeses, tomato, and ham for the inclined (and unJewish). Over French pressed coffee, Tom offered options for the afternoon, and even though my body thought it could use a nap, I opted for anything involving a beach. To that end, we changed into swimsuits, lathered up with sunscreen, and headed for Sunny Meade beach. It was low tide, a tremendously low tide, in fact, and we walked along the rocks and sand, taking in gorgeous views, and remarking on the rock formations, sealife, and waves. It was spectacular. Already the long plane flight and my exhaustion were but memories. We meandered for an hour and a half or so to Sandy Gully beach, the vistas of Eagle Rock and the Airey’s lighthouse growing ever closer. We (Chris, Dan, and I) stripped down to our bathing suits, and headed for the surf. Chris and Dan more or less dove right in, whereas I opted for wade-in-to-knees-and-jump-waves. The salinity of the ocean was very high (later my hands felt thick with salt, and after a high splash, I couldn’t get the taste out of my mouth for hours), but the water was exceptionally clear, and cold. Within two minutes, I was unable to feel my feet. I stayed in for fifteen minutes or so, and then joined everyone else at our meeting rock higher up on the beach. Tom had taken pictures of the whole event; Chris and Dan huddled in towels. We brushed the sand off as best we were able, and climbed the stairs to the Cliff Walk, heading back to the car, pausing to take even more pictures around every bend while Tom showed off his expertise in history, ornithology, and dendrology (that would be the study of trees, Dan informs me).

On the way home, we stopped at the general store, and I bought my first round of postcards. Then we drove to the lighthouse and wandered around there for a few minutes. Tom then drove us to the actual inlet that is Airey’s Inlet. It was a cute little lagoon, quite protected from the sea. We also saw some kangaroos grazing – my first time seeing kangaroos in the wild.

When we got home, Chris and I headed straight for the shower. While I was showering, Lyn arrived with Jarrah, the Richards’ dog, 14 years old, one third dingo, and, according to Lyn, 100 percent deaf.

Lyn poured wine for everyone, said cheers, and we wandered outside to watch the weather roll in. Huge black clouds were headed down the valley, and soon the temperature had dropped a good ten degrees. That lasted all of ten minutes, and then we were forced inside. It is pouring rain right now. An absolute downpour, sheets of rain pounding the ground and the metal roof. Quite the thunderstorm. I’m sitting on the couch writing this, staring at the fire Lyn just started in the woodstove.

A lamb roast is planned for dinner, with fresh herbs stuffed in it, and Lyn keeps refilling my wine glass. I have a feeling tonight is going to be a tipsy and narcolepsy-prone evening. Lyn seems tremendously relaxed and pleased to be here, as opposed to her usual more high strung nature, and Tom said earlier that they absolutely love hosting people here.

This is going to be a great trip. And this weekend, a much much needed pause in the chaos that has been my life for the last few months. Maybe even a chance to breathe. Periodically, I “wake up” and have to remind myself that this is really happening. That I am really here and not dreaming.

I will add here that I am worried that you will all be concerned about me. I arrived here to Airey’s Inlet and was informed that there are no phones nor internet. So this means no posting until we get back to Melbourne on Sunday, which means nothing until then and then a deluge…

Worse, I attempted to connect my camera to my computer just now, and it’s asking for the Canon software CD, which, of course, I left in Boston. Hopefully I can find the file it needs on the web when I get online next.

---
The rest of the night was very nice. The lamb roast was very tasty with berry gravy and homemade savory jam. I understand that the Richards’ have a bit of an orchard in Melbourne. Dessert was fresh-picked cherries off their tree, and Belgian dark chocolate. After dinner, over too much wine, Lyn, Tom, Chris, and I “discussed” several issues surrounding the use of computers in qualitative research, coding, and objectivity for a couple hours. We went to bed around 11, Chris congratulating herself and me for staying up that long; she promptly passed out as soon as she hit the pillow. As tired as I was, I had trouble falling asleep and woke up several times during the night. I’m still nursing some sinus problems, and my back teeth are aching. I hope that goes away soon.

Getting it all down!! (and LAX)

I wrote several blog entries when I was internet-less. This is from Wednesday:

10/11 November 2004

LAX

It’s 1 AM. The airport people keep trying to tell me it’s 10 PM but I know better. I’ve been here an hour already. I have another hour to wait. I just finished “stage one” of the N6 tutorial, yet another one of my “to do”s that didn’t get “too done” before I left. There are four stages to the tutorial. I’m hoping to get through the rest of them this weekend, although I don’t know when or how. I don’t want to admit to Lyn and Tom that I’m clueless (again) about N6, but I also don’t want to show up unprepared on Monday, either. And time alone, to myself, may be hard to come by this weekend. And if I do come by it, will I want it? I’ll be in Australia! There’ll be other stuff to do.

I’m sitting on the floor. The only electrical outlet at this gate is against the windows and I’m freezing here. The computer has enough batteries but why waste them? And more importantly, my MP3 player needs all the charge it can get right now. Shortly, I need to peel off my contacts, wash my face, get ready for settle down for the looooong leg of this trip. I think the traveling is worse this time than last time. Maybe because I know what to expect and it’s not pretty. My flight to LA was completely full, but happily uneventful. I read, dozed, stared at the television screen, dozed again, read, stared, dozed... I kind of didn’t know whether to force myself awake (time was moving so slowly, though) in order to maximize my sleep on the way to Melbourne, or whether to get any sleep my body was ready to have. The woman next to me slept almost the entire way, but we chatted for the last hour. She works for Bank of America, was in Boston because of the recent Fleet merger, had never been in Boston before, has twins, 12 years old, a boy and a girl… She wished me a pleasant trip and said she hoped I had someone nice sitting next to me. No offense, I responded, but I hope I have no one at all sitting next to me. I desperately want to be able to stretch out.

I feel like I’ve been living in a daze since sometime last week. Maybe Thursday. This weekend flew by with the training and all. Monday was crazed at work. Tuesday, Advisory Board Meeting, and procrastinating on packing, and then today. I was in fatalistic “I’ll get there when I get there mode” from the moment I woke up. Luckily, the only thing I have botched so far is forgetting to pack a hat, and seriously short-shrifting Glen and me on the nice, leisurely breakfast I wanted to have.

Speaking of Glen, it was incredibly difficult to leave this morning. He’s been playing it very cool, but I choked up saying goodbye to him in Zathmary’s. It’s not that I’ve never gone on trips without him before, but this one was hard to do. Worse than ever before. Then again, this is for longer than ever before.

Glen had left me a funny voicemail when I landed here and turned my phone back on. “Welcome to Los Angeles International Airport. Local time is…really late. But call me anyway.” I called. Woke him up. I felt badly but I wanted to talk to him, so he mumbled at me in attempted conversation for three minutes, and then I let him go back to bed. More tearing up.

LAX is strange; the terminal at which we arrived was in a different building than the terminal from which I’ll be departing. I had to actually walk outside to go between buildings. And this, of course, meant going through security again.

In other news, Google Desktop Search finally proved useful for me. I realized, in-flight, that although Lyn had e-mailed me Tom’s cell phone and their home phone number, I hadn’t written them down anywhere. As soon as I booted up my computer, I searched “Lyn Richards phone” and up popped a cached version of that e-mail. Hooray. I wrote the numbers down on my itinerary-carrying envelope, just in case.

The woman sitting across from me is crocheting a sweater(?). She’s just started. It’s about two lines long. I wonder if she’ll have it done by the time we land?

Okay. Time to do on the ground bathroom things.

See you in Melbourne. Sleep well.

Back at Angahook (as they call their house), we watched the weather roll up the valley.

And had a better view of Eagle's Rock.

Then, we went to see the lighthouse.

But not before I took a few more pictures!

All too soon, we had to head back.

This is the quintessential postcard shot. These are landmarks for Airey's Inlet, Eagle's Rock and the Airey's lighthouse.

Every rock was covered with these baby mussels.

The tide was very low, and we alternated walking on sand and on rocks. You could see how the ocean worked to shape the sandstone.

So we took a long walk.

The beach was gorgeous.

Around one bend, we were teased with this view.

We drove to a turn-off near a cliff, parked the car, and walked down this path.

You know you've found the right car when...(Take a closer look at the license plate...)

Another side of the house shot, looking towards the valley.

This is Dan, who, incidentally, hates being photographed, with his mouth full, by the side of the house. (The picnic table is now behind me.)

Let me introduce my companions - Tom (left), Dan (center), and Christina (aka Chris, right). This is lunch, laid out within minutes of arriving at the Richards' house in Airey's Inlet. Chris hung out at the airport for three hours, Dan came in the day before. Tom picked us up at the airport and drove us here.

Two second post

Hello all,

Just wanted to let you know that I have indeed arrived safe and sound. Just had no phone or internet for the weekend. Just half an hour ago got to the Richards' home base in Eltham, and hooked up to their internet. Unfortunately, it's in another one of their guest's bedrooms so I won't be able to hang out in here long. I have a ton of pictures already and multiple huge long posts written, but I need to get my camera talking to my computer before I can get them up. I hope to do that tonight and then have regular posts throughout the rest of the week. I'm accumulating stories like crazy. That's it for now, but stay tuned. More is coming; I promise!

Love,
Jen