Barack the vote!

We are so excited about Obama's victory. I was interviewed by some Australian media sources.

If you want to see a video, go to this link: http://www.abc.net.au/local/videos/2008/11/05/2411264.htm?site=melbourne

I don't know how long it'll be up. I probably should have put on a nicer shirt, in retrospect...

Around the bay in a day - really! (well, sort of)

I finally did it. I rode around Port Phillip Bay in a day, all 140 sweaty kilometres of it. The actual Around the Bay in a Day ride is 210 kilometres, but we stopped in the northern Geelong suburbs and took the train back to Melbourne. My riding companion and I had been riding for a solid 8 1/2 hours at that point (with an hour's break as we took a ferry) and had had enough.

I had been saying I'd do the ride for a while, then decided it sounded too daunting and stopped talking about it in the hopes that people would forget that I'd made such an outlandish claim. But my friend Greta kept pushing the idea, and when I admitted I'd sort of given up, she declared she would do it with me in order to motivate me to to the ride. She was a great sport, true to her word, and we did the ride on Saturday.

The first 20km or so outside of Melbourne were marked by what seemed like thousands upon thousands of cyclists with fancy racer bikes. The rest of the journey was marked by what seemed like thousands upon thousands of flies. It is difficult to say which was more annoying. On the one hand, the cyclists didn't seem hell-bent upon entering my every exposed orifice (although maybe I just wasn't their type). On the other, I had no real fears that the flies were going to knock me over and trample me to death in a stampede of fluro Lycra. The insects crashed into me, certainly, and although a horsefly to the forehead as you're flying downhill has enough force behind it to raise a welt, it isn't enough to knock you from your perch. The same cannot be said for a middle manager in a Melbourne bank pretending to cycle the Tour de France on a Saturday morning.

What I don't understand about the Lycra Pack, as these riders are known, is why they wear matching outfits covered in advertisements. I know why Lance Armstrong was covered in adverts for the US Postal service, but no one is paying the Lycra Pack to bomb around Melbourne on their $3000 bikes. The most unfortunate sartorial choice I saw was a woman sporting an advertisement for some sort of food. I don't know what the food was, but I can hazard a guess as to its texture: across her tuchus were the words "MOIST AND CHEWY." It was revolting.

Although the day was forecasted to be disgustingly hot, we were lucky in that the first 95km was along the coast, and the morning coolness did not burn off until midday. It was the most beautiful part of the ride, all along the beach and sea cliffs. There were some serious hills, some that seemed like they would never end, but it was (almost) worth it soaring down the other side. We stopped once at the 40km mark to stretch our legs, but for the rest we rode straight through, excepting stops while still in the saddle to take a swig of Gatorade or eat energy-giving snacks like peanut-butter cracker sandwiches. While on the subject of Gatorade, let me tell you, that stuff works. When my legs were feeling the strain and were complaining about the hardships I was subjecting them to, I had a few sips of Gatorade and instantly felt better. The exahaustion and even muscle soreness were gone. I wouldn't have believed it, but a marathoner friend recommended sports drinks in addition to water, as he found it really helped. It does. My whole body ached at times, but after Gatorade and a cracker, I was right to tackle another hill. Gatorade is not a proud sponsor of LesandCassinOz, but if they want to kick in a few bucks for this endorsement, I wouldn't say no. I'm just saying. If you are doing a serious athletic activity (we're talking marathon or multi-hour bike ride, not just a jog to the shops), I recommend it. But stay away from the red one - it tastes like pulverised red sweets of an indeterminate type.

We were feeling pretty proud of ourselves by the time we got to the ferry at the end of the peninsula. We'd gone beyond the Lycra Pack, who for all their customised bike shorts and stupid clip-on shoes didn't venture more than a few suburbs from the city centre. We were chuffed, that is, until we got on the ferry and met a couple in their late 50s who were 8 weeks into a yearlong bike trip around Australia. The woman said she'd only started cycling this year, and they'd decided to rent out their house for a year and see the whole country by bicycle. Greta and I no longer felt like such athletes - now this was a bike trip worth writing home about. I hope that they are keeping a blog so that their friends and families can marvel at their accomplishment.

The second leg of the journey was by far the inferior. For one, we were no longer on the coast, riding instead on a hilly and dusty highway. It was now mid-afternoon, and the sun was merciless. Fortunately Leslie had bought me a gel-filled seat cover and had lent me his iPod to make the journey as comfortable as possible, and I was exceedingly glad of both during this leg of our travels.

When we finally managed to get to Geelong, we went into a shopping centre to freshen up a little. There never were two girls who looked less likely to pop into high-end department store Myer and pick out an outfit and extravagant hat for the Melbourne Cup. I looked slightly more civilised once I'd washed most of the dead flies off my face.

We toddled around in the northern suburbs of Geelong for a while, then caught a train back to Melbourne. And there ended our journey. There had been no trouble with cars the entire trip, until I was across the street from our apartment again about to cross to home. A car full of hooligans (I didn't see them, but they must be hooligans) threw water on me, then took off at top speed, weaving in and out of traffic and driving in the tram tracks to avoid pursuit. I like to think I would have caught them if I weren't the other side of a 140km bike trip.

Anyway, it all ended well. I slept 12 hours that night and felt I'd richly deserved every one.

Some of you are saying, "That's all very well, Cass, but what is Leslie up to? You're ignoring his exploits!" Leslie is up to his eyeballs in his final folio preparation, but it's coming along well. He has very ambitious ideas, but they're coming to fruition admirably. He's doing a Greek mythology theme to some of his shots and a magical creatures theme to some of the rest. He will no doubt post the final images and tell you all what he's been doing.

We're MIFFed

The Melbourne International Film Festival finished up last week. It's our second film festival. An American friend said it was strange when you come to your second Melbourne something, like your second Melbourne Cup or your second Melbourne Film Festival. This was our second film festival, and it makes me feel more at home here to have the continuity, to compare this year's film festival with last year's.

We each got 10-movie passes for the two weeks, and we had very different opinions on them. Ten movies in two weeks was a lot, but Leslie really likes movies. Strangely, I liked almost everything we saw more than he did. For someone with so many movies, he's very picky. But he says he sees so many in the hopes that he'll come across one that will punch him in the guts. None of these did that, but I found most of them fairly enjoyable. With the very notable exception of an exceedingly violent campy Japanese Western, which I found so vile I had to close my eyes for most of the duration. But overall, the calibre was pretty good.

A few weeks ago we went hiking in the nearby Dandenong Mountains. Although winter is a rainy season in Melbourne, it never gets that cold, and the snakes are not active in winter, so we think it's probably the best time to go hiking. Leslie brought his big camera bag and lugged 15kg of equipment up and down a mountain for three hours, but he didn't feel "inspired" to take any pictures. So this will have to be a text-only blog. Artists, you know.

Over Christmas this year we're tossing around the idea of going to Tasmania (or Tassie, as the Aussies say - there is nothing they won't abbreviate) and hiking and camping for three days. The website about the trek says it can be done in two days, but a lot of it is along the coast, and a lot of people like to take longer to play at the beach. I know I just said that winter was the best time to be in the woods because of the snakes, and that is true. But Tassie has only three common types of poisonous snakes, and only two of them will kill you. This is far better than Victoria, where there are 27 common types of snakes, and 21 of them are "dangerous" or "potentially fatal." Actually, I should clarify. The white-lipped snake is highly venomous, but there has never been a recorded incident of it killing anyone. The other two, well, they have track records. But I still like our odds in Tasmania over those here in Victoria.

This is also our second winter, and it seems like it's going on forever. We haven't been here long enough to know what months bring what season - we're just hoping for winter to end. I remember it being pleasant on my birthday last year - we went canoeing in the park - so I'm hoping that in the next few weeks it warms up.

Honey, we're home!

We are home from our trip to Ireland (in Leslie's case) and Ireland and New York (in mine). Being back in Ireland was nice for me, although hectic. It was the week of my brother's wedding, and there was lots and lots to do. The wedding was beautiful, everyone seemed happy, and a good time was had by all.

After the wedding Les stayed in Ireland, but I took off the next morning for New York. I had been warned that three continents in two weeks was a lot, and it truly was. I was pretty exhausted by the time I got there, but it was wonderful to be home. I didn't do anything really touristy, except walk over the Brooklyn Bridge and back and go to Junior's for cheesecake. If you have never been to Junior's, you don't know what good cheesecake is. I had mine for breakfast. It was fantastic.

Seeing my friends was a wonderful homecoming experience. We're all doing a diverse range of things and have all moved on to new jobs, schools and opportunities, but our friendships have endured. We just hung out in diners as always, except instead of talking about the SATs, we now talk about our apartments and jobs. It's weird to see people you've known for so long but who are now in a new context.

Being back in New York made me somewhat homesick, which is a feeling I have not experienced since I've been in Melbourne. At first the city felt dirty, sometimes disgusting and very difficult to live in and get by in. But after a day, I realised that of course New York is those things, but it's completely worth it all. It's not just the subways, or the sheer size of it, or that I can go to a hole-in-the-wall creperie and have dark chocolate and raspberry crepes in the Bowery one day and then to a Ukranian diner (but not the really authentic Ukranian diner, that's on the next block) for pierogis on the Lower East Side the next, and it's not just the people and the atmosphere and that there's always something going on somewhere. The city is alive and full of buzz, and it made me yearn to be part of it again. The life in the city is changing, and not always for the better, but it's not dead. Living in New York City isn't like living anywhere else in the world. So maybe we'll get back there someday. I'm not done with New York yet. I'm not ready to have fully moved away.

But for now, I do love Melbourne. It's not dirty, disgusting or difficult, and it is a vibrant city unto itself. It ain't New York, but what is?

Getting back to Melbourne proved difficult. My travel difficulties started when I tried to fly from New York back to Ireland. I hadn't written down my flight number, and I couldn't find my flight on any of the screens at Newark airport, in New Jersey, where I was supposed to fly out. I panicked, but fortunately I called a friend and he checked my e-mail for me and confirmed that I was indeed in the right place. I found the correct check-in desk, but my flight was delayed by an hour. I was supposed to connect in Atlanta for a flight to Ireland, and I would have missed my connection. The check-in clerk said there was nothing else going to Ireland that night out of Newark, but he could get me onto a flight out of Kennedy, an airport in Queens about an hour away. He said I'd have to get myself to Kennedy, but it was a direct flight. I said OK, so I had to rush to get the bus to JFK. But the seat Delta gave me on this new flight was in business class, so all was forgiven. I felt like a 16-year-old in a liquor store and that the authorities were going to swoop at any moment, as I clearly did not belong among the suits in business class. The flight attendants were obsequious, always checking to see if I needed things. The glassware and silverware were real glass and real metal. I ordered steak (you actually order from a menu), and although post-911 regulations mean that airlines can't give business class passengers steak knives, the butter knife they gave me was plenty to cut it, it was so tender.

So that turned out to be a change much for the better. The rest of our travel snaggles were not nearly as fortuitous. I arrived in Ireland on Friday morning, and Les and I were due to fly out at 7pm for London, where we were to change to a Qantas flight to Melbourne at 10pm. Dublin Airport was having radar trouble, and flights were running half an hour late. We only had two hours to connect in Heathrow, which is barely enough time, and if we were half an hour late we would miss our Qantas flight. So we decided to buy another earlier flight, a 6pm, figuring it would get us to Heathrow at 7.30 and we would have two and a half hours. We needn't have bothered. The 6pm flight was three hours late, and we didn't arrive in London until 10.30.

After a fruitless trip to the international terminal to try to talk to a Qantas or BA person (the Aer Lingus people had told us to do that in Dublin) and back, we joined a 3-hour queue to talk to Aer Lingus. At 3am we finally got to to talk to an agent, who said that because my flight was booked as two separate tickets (Dublin-London and London-Melbourne), there was nothing she could do for me. "We said we'd get you to London, and we got you to London." I don't believe that this was true, as Aer Lingus and Qantas are in the same alliance. But she'd had a rough night.

Leslie's ticket was booked as a single ticket, so she said she could get him a standby ticket for a noon flight out the next day. She said all flights were coming up as full, and standby was the best she could do. She got us a hotel for a few hours and told us to come back to the airport at 8 and throw ourselves on Qantas' mercy, although they would not have to honour my ticket if they didn't want to.

We slept for three hours and came back to see Qantas, and here our luck changed. We encountered a lovely Qantas agent, who gave me no trouble about having two separate tickets. He booked us both standby tickets for the noon flight (despite her word, the Aer Lingus woman had not, in fact, booked Leslie a standby ticket at all), although he warned us that it was running three hours delayed and was oversold by 15 people. There was a possibility he could get us as far as Hong Kong, and then we'd be stuck there. He said that we should come back to him when the flight closed at noon and he would do what he could.

At noon, he had blessed news. We had flights all the way to Melbourne, in adjacent seats. We checked through our luggage, and he didn't give Leslie any difficulty about his being 8kg overweight other than ribbing him a little about having a heavier suitcase than his girlfriend, when it's usually women who try to carry to much. We got home about a day later than we were supposed to, but we got home.

It's good to be home.

It's the eye of the tiger

Keen LesandCassinOz readers will recall that in March we decided to cycle three-quarters of the way around Port Phillip Bay in three days. We based our route off a bike ride called Around the Bay in a Day, which I declared "crazy" people here in Melbourne did once a year. We took it fairly easy, averaging maybe four or five hours a day, and although we were tired, it was nothing too strenuous. Well, we have decided to become crazy people.

Yes, Les and I are going to cycle all the way around Port Phillip Bay, a distance of some 210 km, in a day. Actually, the true Around the Bay in a Day ride is 250 km, but all 2000 places available for the ride are sold out. So we are going on a slightly shorter version, which has a shortcut (unfortunately, the shortcut cuts out easy breezy flat coastal riding and none of the hills). There are three versions of the 210-km ride, and one of those has already sold out as well. So that is at least 4000 riders in Melbourne who know they have what it takes to tackle this mammoth task, and the ride isn't until October. The ride costs $125 per rider (given to charity), so as soon as we have the money we are going to sign up for one of the 210-km options, provided that thousands more deranged Aussies haven't snapped up all the places by then.

This is quite a task, given that while we both cycle every day, neither of us goes very far. We've started going on long rides at weekends, two hours or more, to get used to long distances. Bicycle Victoria, which operates the ride, seems to think it is possible at this stage for people like us to train for this ride. If only we could just play some inspirational 80s music and do a few seconds of various exercises, and then it would be October and we'd be fit and ready.

The other big piece of news in our lives is that we are coming home for a visit. Leslie flies out tonight for Ireland, and I will be joining him on Saturday. He'll stay through July 11th, but I'm leaving on the 6th for New York and will be there for four days. We're very excited to see many of you soon. And I have learnt my lesson and will not wear every piece of clothing I own on the plane. It was not a smart way to fly. This time I will take as little luggage as possible and bring books and magazines on the plane, not more socks and boots. That is, if either of us actually gets to fly, given the current Qantas strikes.

It will be especially good for Leslie to have a vacation, I think. He's been working insanely hard this semester - up late most nights, working all weekend. He's come up with some fantastic photos for his assignments, and I'm going to put some of them up on the blog so you can see what he's been up to. But it'll be good for him to have a bit of a break - he only has to do three assignments while in Ireland. You all will see him much more than I have in the past few months.

Pop quiz, hot shot

I'm afraid we're not adventuring as much as we used to, so I apologise for the slowdown in blog posts. We haven't forgotten you, it's just that, well, how much do you really want to hear about Guitar Hero? And the new episode of House?

But I have been working on something for the past few weeks. We decided to have a pub quiz for Democrats Abroad Victoria. I was in charge of doing everything - booking the microphone from the pub, writing the questions, buying the prizes. Because I was the one to get the prizes, I got what I thought was most appropriate and best for the situation - $220 worth of American candy. It was awesome. I got Butterfingers, Mike and Ikes, Jolly Ranchers, Now and Laters, taffy, Baby Ruths, 3 Musketeers, Jelly Bellys, the list went on and on. The shop woman looked at me a little strangely as I went to pay for it all. It may not sound like much to you who have access to this stuff all the time, but over here in Oz these things are hard to come by. There's a candy shop in one of the malls in the city that carries it, so I took two of just about everything they had. The first prize was an enormous bag of candy, the second prize was a slightly smaller bag of candy, and the third prize was just a jug of beer.

I spent weeks working on the questions. My picture round was pictures of presidential pets, and teams had to identify which president owned which pet. I had originally cropped the pictures so that just the pet was in them, but Leslie said that was too hard. So I expanded them out again, so in some pictures the president or a member of the president's family was visible in the picture. I think this made it too easy, as many of the teams got all the questions right.

The trivia was due to start at 8pm, and by 7.45 no one was there except me and another committee member. I was really nervous that no one was going to come, and I'd have been so disappointed if no one had because I'd spent so much time (and money) preparing for the night. But it all worked out in the end - we had six teams, about 30 people. Everyone seemed to have a good time, and I think the questions were not too hard nor too easy. We'll probably do another trivia night sometime soon.

It was a relief to have it over with, and a lot of fun on the night. It made me feel a great sense of accomplishment to have seen the entire project through.

In other news, we bought a car. It's a red Mitsubishi Lancer, and it seems fine. We bought it from some friends of ours who bought it 10 years ago, and a mechanic has recently replaced the clutch and declared it to be in perfect working order. Leslie drove it home from our friends' house today, and it seemed to drive fine. I was against having a car, as I fear that it will mean that we won't cycle as much, but it was getting ridiculous to expect Leslie to schlep all his gear on the tram.

He's very busy at the moment with school projects. He has a major fashion shoot assignment due soon, and he's shooting some of the images for that tomorrow. I think he likes the creativity of planning these big photo shoots, but it stresses him to have so much work to do. Still, it's good practice for the big bad world.

We also saw the latest Indiana Jones movie last night. I really liked it, I thought it was a rip-roaring good time. But Leslie said it was a disaster, it shouldn't have been made, it lost the heart of the original three. Take from that what you will.

From zero to hero in no time flat

A few weeks ago Les and I met up with some friends and went to an exhibition at the Australian Centre for the Moving Image. It sounds la-dee-dah, spending many hours at a museum, but it wasn't, quite.

The exhibition was called Game On, and it was an exhibition about the history of the video game. The bulk of it was made up of hundreds of playable free video games. The exhibition had everything from Pong and Frogger through Nintendo games like Donkey Kong and Mario World to arcade games like Pacman up to modern online role-playing games and the latest games for the Wii. It was a very crowded exhibition so it was hard to get at a lot of the games, but if you were patient, you could play whatever you wanted. We spent hours playing various arcade and video games. Neither Leslie nor I had TV or video games growing up, so while the exhibition didn't trigger feelings of nostalgia from our youths, it sparked a feeling of "Ha! Now we can play what the cool kids have always been playing!" Video games are still something of a novelty to both of us, so we were thrilled to be let loose in a giant centre filled with all the games we weren't allowed to have as children.

When we got hungry we left and went to a chocolate cafe. It's not a cafe that has prepackaged chocolate - it's a cafe that only serves chocolate. Chocolate bagels, chocolate pizza, chocolate fondue, chocolate cake, chocolate waffles and of course, seven or eight different kids of hot chocolate. Leslie got a bit of chocolate overload, but I was in choco-heaven.

I love being a grown-up. You can play video games and eat chocolate all day and no one can tell you not to.

The next day, inspired by the Game On exhibition, we bought a second-hand Play Station 2 and Guitar Hero. Guitar Hero is a video game where you play a plastic guitar (with buttons where the frets are and a plastic toggle instead of the soundboard to strum) along with popular rock songs on the screen. Each fret button is a different colour, and you the screen shows you what buttons are coming up.

Winter is coming up, so we figured now was a good time to invest in video games. Leslie brought out his Tomb Raider 1 game from Ireland and beat the game, and I'm having lots of fun rocking out to Guitar Hero. I'm not very good yet and still get booed off the stage sometimes, but it's a lot of fun.

It turns out that if you don't let your kids have TV or video games when they're children, they don't grow up to be adults who don't like TV or video games. We're getting really into both. We're reliving other people's childhoods.

Sorry that this post isn't about leaping off cliffs or going on exotic trips, but life can't be all action. Sometimes you just need to sit on the couch and pretend to play the guitar.

Around the bay (as far as Geelong) in three days

There is a 250km bike ride for crazy people in Melbourne called Around the Bay in a Day. It does exactly what it says on the tin - riders leave Melbourne at 5:30 am and cycle the entire way around Port Phillip Bay (the bay that Melbourne is on) in a single day.

We aren't as crazy or nearly as fit as those people, but we liked their style. The ride is mostly along the coast, and we figured the scenery would be beautiful. We thought we might be able to do the ride in four days, so we set out on Friday about noon for parts unknown.



That's the route the Round the Bay in a Day people follow, and we figured we would follow it, as people who are that serious about cycling are likely to suss out which roads are bike-friendly and avoid those that are sealed in mud.

We took it slow and steady the whole way, nothing crazy. The first day was definitely the hardest. Although we had been told the route was "pretty flat", that turned out to be untrue. Firstly, the difference between "pretty flat" and "absolutely as flat as a North Dubliner's accent" matters a great deal to a cyclist. The first 40 kms or so could accurately be described as "pretty flat," but there were some hills in there. The last bit was the hardest. There were two mountains - Mt Eliza and Mt Martha - that could not qualify as "pretty flat" in anyone's book. I put my bike in almost its lowest gear and crawled up the hills at a snail's pace. It was a consistent snail's pace, and I got a bit of rhythm going, but it was slow going. Leslie's muscles seized up on him halfway up both hills, and he had to stop and stretch before continuing. Coming down Mt Martha was exhilarating, though - the panorama of distant mountains and fields and streams was laid out in front of us as we flew down. When we got to our destination for the day, I was too exhausted to face the possibility of hopping on my bike for the 2kms or so into town for supper, happy instead to ring for a pizza to be delivered to our motel.

We faced a headwind for most of the first day as well, adding to the difficulty. The second day was fine and calm, though, and the route was much flatter. It was along the coast for most of the journey, and we got to take the ferry from Sorrento to Queenscliff, which provided a picturesque and pleasant break from cycling.

The only fly in the ointment was that Leslie got a flat tyre outside Sorrento, and he had to walk it into town and find a hardware shop to sell him a bicycle repair kit. I cycled ahead to try to get help, but the taxi company said it wouldn't take bikes. The guy at the hardware store said that if I could bring Leslie's wheel to him, he'd fix it. I cycled back out to get the wheel from Leslie, thinking to bring it into town, get it fixed and bring it back to him. But he'd already walked most of the way into town at that point, and I missed him somehow on the road. I ended up cycling all the way back to the previous town, then calling, finding out he was in Sorrento, and cycling all the way back. Oh well. It was a glorious day for a ride - sunny, warm but not hot, calm - and a beautiful route, and I didn't have to go too far in this mishap. Les was able to patch his tyre, and we were back on the road.

The tyres proved to be a problem after that, though. His were in rag order, covered in bald patches and very fragile. On the third day his back tyre got two more punctures, and it wasn't fit to cycle the 100 km or so back to Melbourne. To tell the truth, I wasn't fit for it either. We had cycled as far as Geelong, a suburb town about 70km from Melbourne, and the rest of the route was on a freeway. Freeways are not ideal for cycling anyway, and our muscles and bums were sore from three days in the saddle. We were happy enough to hop on a train in Geelong back to Melbourne.

But it was a great trip. Our second night we stayed in a grand old hotel from 1877 (called, in fact, The Grand Hotel) in a sleepy seaside town called Portarlington. How sleepy? We tried to get supper at 8:15 pm on a Saturday night and even the town's takeaway was closed. One restaurant gave us some food to take away, but it was closing in 15 minutes and would not let us eat in. A girl on a mobile phone asking her interlocutor to pick her up seemed to be dismayed by the town's lack of nightlife, too: "I'm stranded in Portarlington. I can't think of anything worse. Seriously, I cannot think of anything worse."

Either the girl lacked imagination or had led a charmed existence up until this point, because while Portarlington was no great shakes from a late-night culinary point of view, it had beautiful sea views and was a lovely and charming spot. And the bakery in town made lovely hot cross buns the following morning, for Easter.

Favourite road sign of the trip: Eel Race Road. I'm imagining someone taking bets on a bunch of eels swimming around a tank.

Most exploitative church sign of the trip: "It's good to say SORRY: Confess your sins and ye shall be healed." This was on an Aboriginal flag, clearly trying to cash in on the Rudd Government's recent historic apology to indigenous Australians and make people go to church.

While the scenery was lovely and the views often superb, you're going to have to take my word on it, for the most part. Leslie hauled around a heavy camera all around the bay, but he wasn't "inspired" to take pictures. Artists.

Just ticking along

Nothing to report really but we are planning on doing our cycle around the bay this Easter weekend, so should have some news when we get back.

Pop Goes The Question

Cassidy and I have become formally engaged. In a move befitting her independent nature Cassidy was the one who did the asking and I was the one who had the honour of accepting.

We went to Sydney last weekend to visit a friend of mine, Emma, and her husband, Damien. It was a brief visit. We were only in town for 36 hours or so and so we thought we should take in a few of the must-see sights including the Opera House. Our friends had a cooking class for 4 hours and so we were left to our own devices to walk through the city. We wandered down through the Botanic Gardens to the harbour and walked out along the peninsula of the park that lies opposite the Sydney Harbour Bridge and the Opera House in front of it. Although overcast, it was a beautifully warm day and we lay about on the grass taking in the view. Because of some typical Melbourne-Sydney rivalry we had only ever heard negative things about Sydney from our Melbournian neighbours but the reports were very misleading for Sydney is far from the bland corporate ghost town that had been described.

Having oh-so-casually worked an apparently hypothetical "what would you say if I asked you to marry me?" question into a conversation 20 minutes earlier and received an encouraging reply, Cassidy took the plunge and asked me if I would marry her. Of course I didn't have to think twice.

Cass was appalled to learn that her unorthodox proposal was not as iconoclastic as she'd thought when she learned that there was a sexist loophole in proposal etiquette "allowing" a woman to propose to a man during a leap year. She has gone to great lengths to research this tradition and is at pains to point out that this custom is only applicable on the leap year day, i.e. February 29.

Damien took a photograph of us shortly after in front of the Opera House, so I guess this is officially our engagement picture.

We're thrilled to make official what we've both known for a long time, that we want to spend the rest of our lives together.

FAQ

But aren't you guys married already?
No, that's just Dave being an idiot. However we did toy with this idea over a year ago so you could be excused for experiencing a slight sensation of deja vu.

Did Cassidy get down on one knee to propose?
No she did not. We were standing on some precarious rocks at the water's edge so to have knelt down would have been an unnecessary extension of the risk she was already taking. She did stand on a rock slightly lower than mine though.

When are you getting married?
We haven't thought that far ahead yet. We're still just excited to be engaged.

Was a ring given?
Neither party received a ring but that will be remedied later.

Is Cassidy merely getting engaged because she is in silent competition with her brother?
No she is not. We are very much in love and she is just happy that Brendan is happy.

I heart Melbourne

Tomorrow marks our one-year anniversary in Melbourne. It's been a busy year, an adventurous year, a very good year. I am, I would say, much happier and more secure than I was a year ago. Leslie's unwilling to compare years but says he's happy now.

I truly love Melbourne. I love the trees, the buildings, the people, the atmosphere, the diversity, the buzz, the location, the weather. I love my job, I'm making some good friends, and I love our apartment.

Here are some things I have learned in the last year:

What a huntsman spider looks like (big and ugly, and pretty scary when they're in your apartment block

What the words "arvo," "fair dinkum," "grouse" and "crook" mean ("afternoon", "genuine", "decent and hardworking" and "ill or sickly" in order)

When an Aussie asks you how you're traveling, he doesn't want to know the details of your commute. He's asking how you are

Complaining about the weather and real-estate prices is a human trait, even if you live in a place (like Melbourne) that has beautiful weather and prices that are not exorbitant

The MCG, Melbourne Cricket Ground, is where they play Aussie rules football. Go figure

Speaking of cricket, I have learned it is a looong game. But I now know the rules

Everything Americans say about Canadians and the Irish say about the Welsh, the Aussies say about the Kiwis

"He doesn't know me from a bar of soap" is a way better expression than "He doesn't know me from Adam"

One does not "root" for a team in Australia. This is a rude expression. One "barracks" for a team

George Bush isn't good enough to lick Kevin Rudd's boots, if Kevin Rudd wore boots, which I don't think he does

We're going to celebrate our one-year Melbourne anniversary by going to Sydney, funnily enough. We're going up there to visit Leslie's friend Emma for the weekend. We haven't yet made it to Sydney, so this will be a good chance to see the opera house and all those iconic images of Australia that we haven't visited. It should be a nice little break, but not nearly as adventurous as what we did a few weekends ago.

On Australia Day weekend (a three-day weekend) we went camping with a group of friends about 100km from Melbourne. Driving down (I had somehow managed to be the one driving) I was more than wary. My friends kept making allusions to horror movies, and I'm not good in the countryside at the best of times. I was fairly convinced, as we drove into the mountains in the pitch-black , that some sort of murderer was lurking in the darkness. We came upon a car with its bonnet up, clearly a car with some sort of car trouble. I sped by them. "I am not stopping this car for anyone or anything," I declared. I feel bad about it now, because they clearly needed help, but I was far too freaked out to stop, fearing it was a trap of some kind. I just have to think the RACV helped them out.

Once we got there I calmed a bit, though my role in the tent-pitching and fire-starting was mostly to hold a torch so my friends could see what they were doing as they worked. We sat around the campfire and chatted, and I was no longer afraid. Half a dozen curious kangaroos hopped around us, getting within a few feet and grazing on the grass in the clearing where our tents were pitched. We also saw two wombats, or maybe it was the same one - they're slow.

There were LOTS of bugs - tons of flies, some mosquitoes, and lots of huntsman spiders. On the third night, one climbed our friend Ruth's leg (she dealt with it really well, in my estimation - squinching up her eyes and kicking feebly. I would have passed out and fallen in the fire. Our friend Ryan came to her rescue and brushed it off her).

Despite the bugs, though, it was actually tons of fun. We built fires and roasted hot dogs and marshmallows and played campfire games. During the day we went swimming in a nearby lake and chilled out and read and played frisbee and cards and games, and at night we cooked our food and sat around the fire and laughed.

The end of a holiday

Okay, we'll get on with telling you how the rest of our New Zealand holiday went. But it's only because Faith posted a comment. The only way I know that anyone has been reading the blog is if they leave comments. If there's no comments, I figure no one is reading it or cares if there's a new entry.

Anyway, back in New Zealand, the next day was our day of white water rafting. We'd decided to raft the Wairoa River, which has grade 5 rapids. Five is the most extreme rapids you can commercially raft; after that you need a special license. The rights to the Wairoa were bought by the power company that wanted to use it for hydroelectric power. They wanted to dam it up to harness its power, but the kayakers and rafters were very upset that they would lose such a great river for rafting. So they came to an agreement: every Sunday in summer, or about 26 days a year, the power company would allow the river to flow its natural course. The rest of the time, it would be dammed and the riverbed would be dry. Rafters and kayakers want to make the absolute most of those 26 days, and they go out on the Wairoa every one of those Sundays. Our tour guide (who has been rafting the Wairoa for more than 20 years, since before the arrangement was reached) says it's like church - no one misses a day if they can help it, and all those who go out on the river get to know all the others on water craft on the river.

I wanted to bring my camera on the trip (it has a waterproof housing), but the guides said it would be too big and would get in the way. They were right; it turned out we needed our hands free at all times. There were a few commands we needed to know: "Forwards" and "backwards" are self-explanatory. "Left back" meant the left side of the raft (there were 6 of us in each raft) paddled backwards while the right side paddled forwards, useful for turning. "Hold on" was used for rapids - we were to stop paddling and grip onto ropes on the side of the raft. "Get down" was for fiercer rapids still - for that command we were to all go into the bottom of the boat and hold on for dear life. "Hold on" and "get down" were commands we learned to follow quickly, and they came up a lot.

We were wearing wetsuits, which was a very good thing because we got absolutely soaked. But it was an absolute blast. Going down the rapids was like being on a water ride at a theme park, only more fun, and we were allowed to jump out of the boat and swim in some of the calm pools. The scenery was beautiful, and going down waterfalls was very exciting.

But after the second or third set of rapids, we got stuck on a rock. Our raft hit it at the wrong angle and became lodged, and with water rushing into the bottom of the boat we couldn't get it unstuck. We all held on as tightly as we could to the rope on the side of the raft while our guide and a nearby kayaker tried to figure out how to get us unstuck. Leslie was behind me, so I turned to see how he was doing. He was in the bottom of the boat, struggling to hold on. The water of the river kept rushing over his nose and mouth, and he was unable to hang on. He says he didn't almost drown, but it sure looked like that from where I was. He was carried by the force of the river a few feet, but the guide grabbed his life jacket and sat him on the rock we were stuck on. The kayaker, who had by this point gone to the shore, threw him a rope. Les held onto it and was pulled to shore. We then all had to repeat this procedure. We were completely submerged during this mid-river rescue, but we had wetsuits, helmets and boots to protect us from the river's many rocks. Once we were all safe on shore, we tried to dislodge the raft by tying the rope to it and pulling, but it was still stuck. The water rushing into it weighted it down, and it was really tough to budge. But the guide, who stayed on the rock, managed to dislodge it a bit, and we all pulled it free. We walked through the bush on the shore downstream to get out of the rapids and re-embark in calmer waters.

Our boat encountered no other unexpected difficulties throughout the rest of the journey, but one of the other rafts in our group tipped over at the bottom of one of the waterfalls. It was nicknamed "tipping point, " and it was easy to see why. But I have to say, the mid-river rescue was probably the most fun thing about the whole trip. It was so adventurous and real. The white-water rafting trip was the highlight of the whole vacation for both of us. It went on for several hours of adrenaline and excitement, then calm and serene sailing, then more exciting rapids.

Two sets of goats along the route apparently did not realise that it was a Sunday during summer. They had been cavorting (or whatever it is goats do) in the dry riverbed when the water was released. They must have been terrified to see a huge wall of water rushing at them. They climbed to the highest rocks they could find, which luckily for both pairs, was above the water line. But then they were stuck in the middle of the river. This was their plight when we came across them - stuck on a rock in the middle of the river looking confused and helpless. They probably also didn't know that the water would be shut off at 4pm, so they wouldn't be stuck for too long. When they got out, they probably would be more wary of dried-up riverbeds in the future.

Not having had our fill of water sports, when we got back to Rotorua we rented a couple of kayaks ourselves and paddled around Lake Rotorua. It was calm and beautiful and stank of sulfur. Leslie managed to tip his kayak over and got poured into the lake. He was out beyond the boundary of where we were supposed to be, so I wasn't with him when it happened and thus can't say exactly how he managed it. But he has so far found no sympathy for it, from me or the kayak rental people. He had to lay out all his money all over our room after that to try to dry it out.

The next day we went on a boat trip to go swim with dolphins. I couldn't make my camera work properly, and it was running out of batteries, so we don't have any underwater pictures of that, sorry. But it was really cool to be in the water with them. You could hear their shrieks and clicks and cries everywhere, even underwater. And they seemed to be swooping and gliding all around us. We didn't get too much time with them before they swam off, but it was pretty amazing. We were snorkeling with them, so we could keep our faces in the water the whole time and see them cavorting around. If you ever get the chance to swim with dolphins, take it.

In the afternoon we went to Ohope Beach, near the town where the dolphin swimming was. The beach was a surfing beach, so the waves were intense. I sunbathed for a while, but Leslie convinced me to come in eventually. He really likes being knocked down and battered around by waves, so he was out where they were breaking. I thought he was just messing around when he yelped "Ah! My pants! The ocean is taking my swimming togs!" But it turned out he wasn't kidding - as he was knocked over by a wave, it managed to rip his swimming trunks off him. He was then left naked and fighting with the waves. I went to get his boxers from shore, but he was being carried further and further down to a more populated area of the beach. He's lucky I was the one swimming with him - I'm pretty sure a male friend would have just returned to the towel and read a book for a while and left him stranded. But I did bring him back his boxers and he got out of the ocean with his modesty and dignity still intact.

That night was New Year's Eve, so we bought some strawberry champagne and had dinner at an Indian restaurant. Partway through the meal a Scottish bagpipe band parked itself outside the restaurant and played "Amazing Grace." It was an odd mixture of cultures - Scottish and Indian in New Zealand. For New Year's Eve we sat on our balcony outside our hotel room and watched the fireworks over Lake Rotorua. It was a peaceful, beautiful setting for it, and strawberry champagne was delicious, or as delicious as $6 champagne can be.

And that's all, folks. The next day we flew back to Melbourne and resumed our regular lives here at home.

Rollin', rollin', rollin'

The next day we kept our feet firmly on the ground, in a manner of speaking. They were either on the ground or inside a giant beach ball, which was on the ground. We went Zorbing.

A Zorb is a giant soft rubber ball that you are put into, and then the Zorb is rolled down a hill. It's sort of life a giant hamster ball, but softer, and you don't generally strap the poor hamster in so he rolls tail-over-toes-over-tail-over-toes all the way down a hill. And hamster owners (kind hamster owners, anyway), usually don't throw a bucket of water in with said hamster when they don't strap him in so he sloshes and slides all the way down. But these are the choices for humans who Zorb.

You could choose to do one or the other, or do it three times for the price of twice. We went for this option. The first time was the strapped in version, which we did in separate Zorbs. To get into the Zorb you have to dive through an opening on its side, which is zipped up once you're in place. For the first Zorb trip I had straps holding my arms, waist, chest and legs in place. They then zipped up the opening and gave my Zorb a gentle push down the hill. I bounced upside down, then right side up, then upside down. What I could see was sky ... grass ... sky ... grass .. . sky grass sky grassskygrassskygrasssky until the ball came to the flat part at the bottom of the hill and rolled to a stop. It was somewhat dizzying, but a lot of fun. When they poured me out of the Zorb (they really do pour you - they open the flap, turn the Zorb opening-down, and you fall out through the opening), I was a little dizzy, but from the Zorbers' offer of help to walk me the few feet back to the building, I gather some people fare worse and might be genuinely disoriented.

But I thought it was good fun. I was eager to go down the hill our second time, which was in a water-filled Zorb. Leslie and I could go in the same Zorb this time, and they threw in the bucket of water before we dove in. I was glad to find it was pleasantly lukewarm water. They didn't push our Zorb this time; we were to stand in the Zorb and walk forward. Which we did, but of course as soon as the Zorb started to roll we fell and slipped and slid the rest of the way down. It was fantastic fun. They describe it as "a combination of a waterslide and a rollercoaster," and that's kind of accurate. You slosh around up the sides of the Zorb, tumble upside down and round and round generally have an absolute blast. The water Zorb (which they call the Zydro) wasn't dizzying at all, just terrific fun.

Do remember Slip 'n' Slides? A Slip 'n' Slide was a big plastic runway that you put out on your lawn and turned your garden hose on (Slip 'n' Slides must have gone the way of the dodo in Stage 3a Water Restriction Australia). You took a run at it and then slid on your knees or behind on the wet plastic with water flowing all around. I never had one, but I had a friend who did, and it's the closest sort of feeling I can think of to a Zydro. Except that instead of just slipping on the ground, you're slipping in all directions. It's like a 3-D Slip 'n' Slide.

The third Zorb was another Zydro, but this time we went separately and the ball was pushed down a zig-zag track. This was the slippiest and slidiest of all, and it was an absolute blast. I laughed and shrieked all the way down (on all three Zorb trips). Leslie kept trying to stand up in his Zorb with absolutely no success. But he enjoyed the falling process. In mine I gave up on standing and just enjoyed the ride.

After we dried off, we drove to Tongariro National Park, which was a bit south of Taupo, to go hiking. Tongariro starred as Mount Doom in the Lord of the Rings movies, and it was imposing, barren and beautiful.

The first part of the four-hour hike was through a temperate forest. It looked sort of like a rainforest, with tall, lush green trees and muddy ground. We encountered a very large group of hikers, who seemed to be part of a giant tour group, coming the other way. When they spoke to us, they invariably asked us the same question: "How far to the car park?" The first ones we met were pleased as Punch when we said "Not far at all, maybe five minutes." But as we went on, our news got less and less good, and the reactions were less and less happy. "Ten minutes? OK, I can make it that far." "Twenty minutes? Really? Whew, all right, that's not too bad." "Thirty five more minutes? You're sure?! That's a long way." "A whole other hour?! Oh my god."

The path was wide and gently sloping upwards. It was well-maintained, and the going was easy. Convenient bridges were built over some of the ravines and streams, and it was a pleasant walk. That was until we got to the steps.

The steps started while we were still in the rainforest area, and they made a steep climb indeed. And they seemed to go on forever. The mud, which hadn't seemed like a problem on the easy slope, was suddenly far more treacherous. All we could see was trees, and the mountain seemed to go on forever. We met some more of the hiking group, who responded to our unpleasant news with some of their own: "There's a lot more stairs that way."

Eventually we came out of the forest. We were high up, and I'd say the view was breathtaking, but in reality it was the stairs that were breathtaking. But the view was amazing. We could see several lakes nestled in valleys, and there were mountains as far as the eye could see. New Zealand is a very mountainous country.

But that was not the end of the hike. That was probably the halfway mark of the ascent. The rest of the path cut a gravel swath through scrub land and rocks. It was considerably drier, and the going was a little less steep. But there were still many, many stairs.

We were hiking towards a geothermal hot spring, where huge billowing clouds of steam were erupting out of the mountain. I empathised with Sam and Frodo, as we too were trudging towards Mt Doom. It was a good choice to play the villain's lair - they wouldn't even have needed a smoke machine. The scrubs were low and rough and prickly - it wasn't difficult to imagine orcs and goblins lumbering through the countryside and teeming around the gushing steam.

There were treats for cheerful hikers - or churlish hikers, if it came to it, because the food and water was in my pack. I carried four bottles of water, two bread rolls, a hunk of cheese and a bag of sweets. Leslie carried a camera, two lenses and a tripod. Our packs weighed about the same when we left the car, but mine was considerably lighter when we got back.

The hot springs were not actually a good place to rest and eat, it turned out, as dramatic a vista as they provided. Like all the hot springs we encountered, they stank. The stench made the meal at the top of the mountain somewhat less enjoyable. But then, Mordor isn't usually on people's top 10 picnic spots.

Rack 'n' ruin

We woke up the next day and decided that we just hadn't had enough of heights and fear. Or rather, one of us decided that and the other decided that nothing could be worse than bungy jumping, so any other high-flying activity (except skydiving, which was ruled out due to expense, to the great disappointment of one and the great relief of the other) should be a cakewalk. Such was the theory.

So we slapped on the sunscreen (something we neglected to do the previous day, and we both got mildly sunburned) and hit the road to Taupo again, heading for a high-ropes course called Rock'n'Ropes. Perhaps I should have been offput by one of the testimonials on their brochure, which said something like: "I've done skydiving and bungy jumping before; this challenged me more." But I disregarded this caveat, thinking that it couldn't possibly be harder and scarier, as we weren't nearly as high off the ground, and the goal was in this case to stay put and not to fall off something high.

The instructor and owner of the place, Glenn, was fantastic. He was very nice and funny ("I'm going to have to talk slowly, there's an Irishman here" and "Well, what do you expect from an American?" comments were frequent), but he takes safety seriously. We were given harnesses and helmets. He taught us to belay each other and how to "lock off" the belaying rope so our partners wouldn't fall. He then asked who was afraid of heights. Thinking of the previous day's bungy jumping, I half-raised my hand. "You two, over to the rickety bridge then!"

The rickety bridge was exactly what it sounds like - a rickety wooden bridge suspended between two poles about 35 feet off the ground. The bridge isn't called rickety for nothing - it wibbles and wobbles all over the shop. And there's no handrails. Oh, and you have to go over it twice - once forwards, then a second time - backwards.

Leslie decided I should go first, which made Glenn decide Leslie should go first. He climbed the poll, which is about the size of a telephone poll but has small iron handles in it to be used as handholds and footholds. You climb it as you would a ladder. He didn't seem to have any trouble getting onto the bridge itself, but once he got onto it it began shaking and wobbling. He stayed focused, though, and crossed to the other side, then backwards back to the first pole. I lowered him to the ground then, and it all didn't seem too taxing for him.

When he got back down he said it was a frightening experience since he'd been shaking all over the place, but he recommended keeping your head up, looking at the opposite pole and not looking down at the bridge. "Your feet will find the bridge," he said.

I climbed the pole. It was a lot harder than I thought, just climbing. The first few feet were fine, but when I started getting high my breath started coming shorter, and I felt the fear of being up high. I climbed until I was below the bridge, but the next handhold was over it and I couldn't reach it to pull myself up. Glenn was underneath me and counseled that I should push myself off on my legs without holding onto anything in order to get high enough to reach the next handhold.

That didn't seem possible. I decided I lacked the armstrength and legstrength required for such a task. "I can't," I said. "I'm coming back down." I lowered myself to the next peg down, but the rope Leslie was holding was taught and I couldn't go down any further.

"Oh, no, you're not," Glenn said. "No one climbs down on my ropes course. You can fall off, or you can be lowered, but once you're up there those are your only options." I decided to take one of those. "I'm going to fall," I said. "I'm going to let go. I can't do this." I was trembling.

"Yes, you bloody well can," he said, and hooking his harness to the pegs as he climbed, he came up after me. He climbed up the pole until he was directly below me, then pointed to what I needed to do. It was the same advice he'd given from the ground, but having him up there with me made me feel safer. And braver - I couldn't very well let go with him standing right there. So I did what he suggested, and I didn't fall. I got on the bridge.

Crossing the bridge was actually not nearly as difficult as getting onto it. It was scary, and it did shake and wobble, but I managed to cross it by keeping my eyes fixed in place on a single knot on the wood opposite me. I baulked again when it came to doing it backwards, but with Glenn still standing on the pole behind me I couldn't very well say I wasn't doing it. And actually, going backwards proved to be easier than going forwards.

When I got back to the ground, I was shaking, but I hadn't fallen. Neither of us fell all day, in fact, and Glenn said it was very rare for people to fall. It did happen, but it was rare. The bridge proved to be the hardest activity, and Glenn said that was the case for almost everyone - the first activity was the hardest, no matter what it was.

The next activity we went to was the easiest, as you got to hold onto something. You stood on a wire, held another wire at about chest-level, and walked sidewise to the opposite pole. Climbing the pole itself was probably harder, as I wasn't sure if my arms, now trembling from my bridge experience, could hold me. But they did, and going across the wire, while scary, wasn't as completely terrifying as the bridge had been.

We then went across a three-wire bridge, where you held onto two wires at waist level and walked across one. Leslie found this one to be the hardest, as the wire shook and swayed wildly as you walked, and if you didn't keep your arms straight out to your sides the modicum of stability provided by the two handrail wires would collapse. I had done an activity like this before at camp, part of a school or chorus bonding exercise. In that case I panicked and brought in my arms, and I fell (not far, as then, like in New Zealand, we were held up with harnesses). I felt vindicated this time, as I kept my arms out and my eyes forward, and I got across the wire without mishap.

The penultimate activity involved climbing a pole slightly taller than the others, then standing on it. From there you had to leap to a trapeeze a few feet away. Standing up on the pole was the most difficult part of this, as you had nothing to old onto or steady yourself with as you stood on the pole. I went first, and when I got to the top, my resolve not to be a sissy wavered. It seemed very high indeed, and standing up on top of a pole with no support seemed ludicrous. "I..."

"If you say you can't, I'm cutting your ropes," barked Glenn from the ground. "Put your weight on your left leg and straighten your right." Having no choice, I did as he said. I did stand, and I was supposed to count to three and leap for the trapeeze. I counted to three and jumped, but I was just jumping off. I wasn't aiming for the trapeeze and it was no surprise I wasn't even close to it. I knew I was safe in my support harness, and I mostly just wanted to be off the pole.

Leslie, however, caught the bar with no problem. When I had stood up on the pole, Glenn had allowed me to hold onto the ropes attached to my safety harness. They didn't provide any stability or make it less likely I would fall, as they were attached to me and would fall with me. But it made me feel better to hold onto something. Leslie got no such coddling.



"Hands off those ropes! Hey, hey, none of that!" Glenn knew Les wasn't as scared as I was, and he was going to make him do it the hard way. But he managed stand up even without holding onto anything, and his leap to the trapeze was graceful. He caught it easily and swung there for a while before being lowered to the ground.

The final activity was jumping off a platform on what they called the "Giant Swing." Your harness was attached to a high point, and you jumped and swung back and forth in your harness. This was slightly uncomfortable, as the harness cuts into your legs after a while, but it wasn't as scary as the rest of the activities, as you weren't relying on your own strength to get you anywhere. It was all out of your hands, which I found reassuring.




After all that clambering around and shaking and sweating, I decided we should take advantage of the area's natural hot springs to relax. It was wonderful to have a nice, hot soak after all that testing of muscles. It stank, of course, as all the hot springs did. But it was worth it, and I think we certainly earned it.