Hanging Rock

"Oi! You walked all the way from the train station in Woodsend?" The ranger asked in astonishment.

"Yep" we replied.

"No one picked you up?"

"No! I put my hand out but no one stopped" I explained.

To take a step back to a friend of mine's room on Saturday night you will find three Trinity Exchange students and a quasi Australian discussing a day of touristing for Saturday. I had just been convinced at dinner that a road trip the Dandenong Ranges would be an adventure of the century, one that was worth calling in sick for work the next day. So I did. Yet to our dismay we soon found that one must be over the age of 21 to hire (we say hire over here) a car, and none of us were. Further at 10:00 pm the night before we couldn't find any 21 year olds available to drive. Thus we randomly choose the next best option, a tourist spot located an hour of the city by train.

We left college around 9:30am and hopped on a few trams in order to make our way to Southern Cross Station (which like many things in Melbourne seems to imitate London's Waterloo Station). From Southern Cross we took the first train departing to the small town of Woodsend and quickly fell asleep on the train.

Upon arrival we strolled through our first small Australian town to the information hut and as obvious tourists we scanned through all the brochures. Before leaving the town towards the supposed dormant volcano in the distance we stopped at the local bakery where one could find "Victoria's best Vanilla Slice." Rob, a fellow tourist from Trinity was taken by curiosity and purchased a slice and soon verified the store's advertisement. We then departed to our dormant volcano named "Hanging Rock," which we truthfully knew very little about (especially the distance it takes to walk there). It was voted (not in my favour) that we would walk to the volcano rather than cab. Well, ten cold, wet kilometers later we arrived to speak to the park ranger, who in shock of the distance we had walked offered us a lift back to town after our hike.

The mountain - as you can see below - was nothing less than beautiful and dramatic with proper Australian views of sheep, fields, and wallabies (we didn't actually see any wallabies, but we were supposed to). Ironically the volcano with its many interesting rocks and shapes is named after one in particular - the hanging rock (depicted above) - which really isn't all that interesting. The mountaneous rock formation is typical of Australian scenery, and is made infamous by the movie "The Hanging Rock" - a horror movie in which a few girls dissapear in the maze of rock formations at the top of the mountain. We too had fun trying to find our way back down.

Well it was a great trip... certainly the third Australian Experience, yet I don't know...I think Niagra Falls wins lol.

All Best,

Jordan

The Shogun

To commence this post I would first like to announce that the fraudulant waiter was successful. I have now worked three days and was somehow assigned to train a newbee today! While the first day of work was a virtual hell, I have subsequently caught on to the pace of hospitality.

But then what does this have to do with a bike...or more importantly "The Shogun?" Well, nothing, its just an update.















The story of the shogun begins last Sunday when I decided that it was necessary that I find a bike. Having called the cheapest (or so I was told) bike store in Melbourne, I was dissapointed to find out that their cheapest bike was over 150 Aus dollars. The owner however was kind enough to direct me towards "what I was looking for." I guess this was going to be the cheapest bike store in Melbourne.

Thus I hopped on a tram - and yes I have forgotten to mention this but Melbourne is a city of trams and environmentalism - north. With limited directions besides "Ceres Park," which no one seemed to recognize I found myself playing the tourist holding a map upside down yelling through the glass to the tram driver. It was certainly much farther than I had anticipated.

To make a long and confusing trip brief, I stumbled upon what appeared to be a forest in the middle of the city Melbourne. Outside the park was a gyspy van offering interesting services, and as I walked into the park one could find alternative energy sources (solar panel fields, wind turbines etc...) on one side, and environmentally friendly housing on the other. It kind of looked like hippies living in the shire - I think that evokes the right image.

In any case I eventually found the cheapest bike store. It was really more a dump with tools for reparation. The way it worked was that you choose a frame, you ask a price which depends on the time it will take to repair the bike into working condition, and then proceed to demantle surrounding bikes to try and make your own bike semi-road worthy. I chose the Shogun...and now I have a bike! She was a little pricy with her v-brakes and mostly sealed inner tubes, but she runs like a top - kinda. I did however forget to mount a chain guard and so I have already completely destroyed a pair of pants (even too bad for my infamous jean repair skills).

Thus I now have a bike, used primarily for arriving to class late and going to work. I'm quite impressed with myself - quite the find.

All best,

Miss you all,

Jordan