Moving toward a life unplanned: Speaking Australian, Lesson #1 "Howrya Goin?"

Many people think about learning to speak Australian, but think that it is too different or too difficult to do in their free time. But don't worry, although Australian can sound like a challenging language at times, it actually shares many common elements with English. For example, many Australian words are rooted in everyday English words. Repeat after me:

Brekkers ("breakfast)
Spekkie ("spectacular")
Sunnies ("sunglasses")
Goodonya ("Well done")
Bathers ("bathing suit")
Bikkies ("biscuits", or "cookies")
Mozzies ("mosquitoes")
Tassie ("Tasmania")
Howrya going? ("How are you?")

Now add in some local pronunciation by elongating your vowels and you'll be speaking Australian in no time. Let's put it all together, shall we?

"Howrya going? This sunset is really spekkie, but these bloody mozzies are eatin me up. Howbout we go round the pub instead? Goodonya!"

See? Australian is not such a difficult language at all! To be sure, there are certain cultural elements of Australia that are completely incomprehensible (see: Vegemite, Cricket), but with these quick tips, you'll be enjoying your Australian vacation like a local. Enjoy!

Sunset from the plane. Leaving Bali and heading to Australia!

Magnetic termite mounds in Litchfield National Park, in the Northern Territory. I know they look like gravestones, but they're really termite mounds

There were LOTS of waterfalls in Top End in the monsoon season. This one is in Litchfield

(OK, I kid, but I did enjoy listening to the Aussies take almost any word with more than two syllables, chop it in half, and add "-ie" or "-er" to the end.) So I'm finally getting caught up in photos and posts after nearly 5 weeks in Australia. 5 weeks, by the way, is completely insufficient to see any reasonable chunk of Australia, as I was told on a daily basis by the locals, as well as Europeans who were working or studying there. Here's a quick size comparison just to set the scale.

I started my time in Darwin in the Northern Territory, or "Top End" as it's known, mostly to see Kakadu National Park and the saltwater crocodiles that live there. It was the middle of the monsoon season when I arrived, but I barely saw any rain for the 10 days I was there. Instead it was in the high 90s and about as humid as DC in August... perfect for a camping trip into the swamps, right? Well, generally it was great, although the night in a tent without electricity was a little rough, and the group I toured with was a lot of fun. We celebrated New Year's Eve with wallabies, mozzies, and sparklers, and then promptly went to bed since we had to be up at 5:30am.

A blue-winged Kookaburra

Despite all the warnings, I never saw a snake in Australia, but I did see a lot of very large spiders

But like with scorpions, you don't have to worry about the large ones

Saltwater crocodiles ("salties", of course) were a little hard to find, but we did see a few on a beautiful river cruise, and downstream from one rock pool we were swimming in (oops), so I was able to check off another animal on my world tour. In addition to it's natural beauty, Kakadu National Park is known for its Aboriginal cultural heritage, so we also stopped at several archaeological sites with rock wall art, and a few cultural heritage centers, which was interesting. Just to give the experience a little authenticity, I also tried some "bush tucker", traditional forage food, by eating a few green ants, which have a zingy citrus flavor. But I didn't try grubs, kangaroo, croc, snake, wallaby, or emu - and I saw all but the grubs on menus, so it was an option.

Kakadu rock art of fish good for eating

This rock art contains an early picture of one of the white settlers, in the lower right corner with this hands in his pockets

Rock art of a long-necked turtle, also apparently good to eat

From Darwin, I was planning to go west along the coast to Perth... until I actually worked out how far and expensive that would be. When I found out that it would take me two 24 hour bus rides just to get to the beach town I wanted to visit - only two-thirds of the way to Perth - I decided to reevaluate and head all the way south to Hobart, the capital city of Tasmania (my plane ticket was less than those two bus rides would have been), and it proved to be one of the best decisions of the trip. I'm going to separate Tassie into another post since I have the most photos from there, and it's worth it's own entry. So far, out of everywhere I've been, there are only two places I absolutely, 100%, definitely plan on going back to, and they are Iceland and Tasmania.

Above the rock art, there was an incredible panorama of northern Kakadu

While sitting in an little alcove to hide from the sun, I realized I could get some really interesting photos of the rock overhang. Stone above sky!

Look at this absolutely adorable water bird from Kakadu (a comb crested Jacana). Check out those feet! Great for walking on lilies

After leaving Tassie, I went to Sydney to meet up with my parents, who apparently wanted to see their son badly enough to travel two days straight to get to Australia... or they wanted to see Australia badly enough to spend 11 days with their son. Either is fine with me. After letting them recover from the jet lag, we spent a great few days exploring Sydney, eating a lot of good food, and catching up. I know a lot of Aussies disagree, but I thought Sydney is a great city with a lot to see. It is expensive, but no more so that NYC or San Francisco. That being said, I think the best experience we had was taking a full-day tour out of the city to the Blue Mountains and some of the scenic areas outside the city.

The biggest (non-stuffed) saltie I saw in Australia

He came right up to the boat in Kakadu and checked us out

At about 5 meters, it was good advice to keep all hands and arms inside the craft at all times

Our major side trip from Sydney was back up north to Port Douglas, where we could go into the last remaining pockets of prehistoric Aussie rainforest, and go out to the Great Barrier Reef. It's hard to say which is the more impressive experience; the Great Barrier Reef is an incredible amount of coral and sea life and it stretches for over 1500 miles, but the Daintree forest is also a magical place where you feel like a dinosaur might walk out of the foliage at any minute. What I find really amazing is that we went almost as far north as you can go without a 4x4 vehicle, and there is still about another 600 miles of coastline until you'd hit the northernmost point, with the Great Barrier Reef hugging it the whole way. Tropical far north Queensland should definitely be on everyone's Australia travel checklist.

Sunset in Kakadu, on a very peaceful monsoon season day

And no mozzies... yet

I had to have at least one photo of the Opera House, even from a gray day

Since the GBR is so far off shore, there are really only two ways to get to the main sections of the reef: liveaboard dive boats that stay out for a week, and enormous high-speed catamarans that go out with 100+ people. The catamaran was so large and stable that I barely noticed we were moving along, and they do a pretty good job of spoiling you with morning and afternoon tea and a serious buffet lunch. As someone who doesn't like to be on dive boats with more than 8 people if I can avoid it, it was amazing to see the crew process 50 snorkelers, 20 experienced divers, and at least 40 divers who had never been in the water before, at yet somehow make it seem pretty smooth. Once we got into the water, the guides tried to keep the groups out of each other's way, but with that many people in the water, I saw way more people than fish on my two dives.

One of the many, MANY warning signs I saw in Australia. I particularly enjoy the way the Aussies call something that can kill people "stingers". It sounds much milder that way.

Panorama of Tropical Far North Queensland, near the Daintree Forest

World famous Bondi Beach, the only wifi-enabled beach I've ever been to

A very small portion of the Great Barrier Reef

I was scheduled to do three dives, but after the first two and seeing how shallow the coral was, I decided to skip the heavy equipment and just snorkel, which was the right decision. The sheer quantity of coral there is amazing. I've been on some really impressive dives lately where I've seen more healthy coral than I ever have before, but the mountains of coral on the GBR dwarfed the all. Some of the coral mounds were size of houses and it seemed to be in pretty healthy shape, despite the number of divers that get dropped off there daily. However, as several people remarked, there were hardly any fish in sight. I don't know if that was just because of all of the hubbub from the boat, divers, and snorkelers, or if that's normal for the area, but I have had much better dives in terms of variety and quantity of fish.

I got to feed kangaroos and wallabies at several sanctuaries. This is the typical look they give you when you have food

Misty waterfalls in the Blue Mountains

And here's what the blue mountains look like when the mist finally lifts

I love the statement about safety being our concern, but your responsibility - very un-American

After a couple of days back in Sydney taking it easy and getting our quota of fish and chips, meat pies, and ice cream, my parents headed back to the States, and I started planning my next continental stop, Ecuador. But before I start posting pictures of the Andes, quaint traditional villages, and Amazonian rainforests, there will be one last entry from the Eastern hemisphere on Tasmania.