The Stabs are a Melbourne band that’s kind of fuzzy and swaggeringly punky. I listened to the title song from their new album, Dead Wood, and thought it sounded okay. The few tracks from previous albums were a mixed bag: some meh, some good.
Then I heard another new track from that album: “No Hoper”. And oh my god, it rocks. I definitely need to listen to more of the new stuff.
I just stumbled across The In Sound From Way Out, which is a music blog by folks at EMI Australia. It looks enjoyably wacky to me, and I’m going to give it a thorough read.
TISFWO was – according to them, and granted by Wired in an article – the first blog done anywhere by one of the major labels, back in early 2009. It’s a bold name choice, given that it was originally the name of the first mainstream electronic album, and later a Beastie Boys album. But it seems full of Aussie fun and brashness and isn’t overly commercial, so I’ll add it to my feed for a while.
The ABC has wrapped up the year’s big science news from Down Under. The antipodean view of science highlights in 2009 includes:
Sydney radio station triple j is a well-known rock and indie radio station here. They claim to have done their part in breaking new artists.
The whole month of November they’re focusing – on a website and digital radio station called triple j Unearthed – on these new and unsigned artists. It’s my new one-stop shop for up-and-coming Aussie acts!
I leave London in a couple of hours; my wife and I are emigrating to Australia. Blog posts for the next few days will be scheduled ones I’ve recently written. I don’t know how quickly I’ll get myself sorted out and blogging again in Sydney, but I expect it won’t be too long. There’s all sorts of upside-down music and science Down Under, you know.
In the last couple of weeks I’ve noticed several mentions of Skeptics In The Pub, a collection of UK pub gatherings of, well, skeptics. They seem interesting. I’m especially intrigued by the planned topic for the next London meet, by Jennifer Rohn of Nature Network:
Scientists as a group call up very specific images in the public imagination, typically not very flattering ones. This distorted view is reflected in depictions of scientists in fiction, but also tends to spill over into how they are portrayed in more factual accounts, such as documentaries and in the news media. In a world growing increasingly reliant on the latest scientific, medical and technological advances, possibly for its very survival, the expert accounts of scientists are nevertheless often simply disbelieved, which could be due in part to the unease and distrust that the prevailing stereotypes engender. The meme of scientists as out-of-touch/cold/arrogant/mad meddlers has ancient roots and has evolved in interesting ways to the present day. But whose fault is all this – are scientists themselves partially to blame? If people knew the truth about what modern scientists are really like and really do, would science as a whole be a more sympathetic, persuasive profession? And if so, how we can turn it around – and is it even possible?
It’s a shame I’m leaving London just as I’ve found out about this.
It’s not much of a surprise, though, that the Australian Skeptics also have regular pub meetings. That’s me sorted, then.
The honeymoon, I can go on about at greater length. We went to Australia. As I blogged before, this was partly because we needed to validate the Australian resident visas we’d recently been granted. But we also like Oz a lot, so we made sure we did it properly honeymoon-style.
The trip was sort of split into three parts: the first was five days spent at a luxury resort in tropical north Queensland, the second was about a week spent doing various activities in the same area, and the third was just a couple days in two cities – Sydney and Seoul – on the way home.
Mon 24Sep. Wedding over, we leave Château de Lartigolle, get to Tolouse airport (just), and back to London. Pack like mad. Six hours after we arrive, we’re off again, to Heathrow. Fly out for our honeymoon on Asiana, a South Korean carrier. Good service, lots of room, I’d recommend them.
Tue 25Sep. Arrive in Seoul. Kill a few hours in airport. Fly out to Sydney.
Wed 26Sep. Arrive in Sydney. Transfer to domestic terminal. Fly to Cairns. Transfer to the Thala Beach Lodge where we’re going to spend the next 4 nights. It’s incredible: luxury, but secluded, alone in the rain forest, with its own beach, our own bungalow, great service, no other resorts for miles. It was seriously lush. I can’t recommend this place enough: it’s not satin-and-crystal nice, it’s top-service-in-the-jungle-and-here’s-your-own-beach nice. Still, we need to nap. Dinner at the lodge – huge barramundi (Aussie reef fish), great steak.
Thu 27Sep. Breakfast, then down to beach. It’s empty. Lie out. Sun, surf, sand. Tim scorches back. SWMNBN scorches eyelids. Into Port Douglas for dinner at The Living Room: excellent lamb.
Fri 28Sep. Repeat, at pool. Into Port Douglas that evening for the Court House Hotel pub and dinner at 2Fish: excellent. We’re hissed at by a coiled snake on path back to bungalow: maybe it’s harmless, but in Oz it’s better to be safe, so we step lively.
Sat 29Sep. Repeat, at pool. Into Port Douglas for sunset wine at the point park, then drinks and dinner by the water at local hangout the yacht club.
Sun 30Sep. Breakfast, checked out, transfer to Cairns airport for rental car. Into city for lunch and shopping. Drive up to higher-altitude Atherton Tablelands and arrive in Yungaburra. Hike around Lake Barrine. Pub, then platypus viewing in creek: aww, they’re cute.
Mon 01Oct. DIY breakfast in Williams Lodge B&B. Drove to huge curtain fig tree, then Millaa Millaa falls circuit. Then Millaa Millaa lookout, and Hypipammee Crater walk. Great lunch in Atherton. Drive to Mareeba for Coffee Works and de Brueys boutique fruit winery, buy some. Arrive at wacky camping park at Kuranda, get the “honeymoon suite” cabin. Watch TV, go for night nature walk (see flying fox, wallabies, frogs, bugs, etc),
eat wicked takeaway curry.
Tue 02Oct. It rains on and off all day. Into Kuranda for brekkie. Barron Gorge falls walk and nearby lookout. Drove to Mossman, had quick lunch, and aboriginal walk of Mossman rainforest. Rosie was a nutty guide. Finished with tea and dijeridoo. Ferry across the Daintree River and settle in at Daintree Wilderness Lodge, an excellent, hard-core rainforest eco-lodge.
Wed 03Oct. Great pancakes at the eco-lodge, then join Cooper Creek river tour. We see crocodiles, mangroves, kingfishers. Drive up to Cape Tribulation, do some jungle boardwalks. Stop at Café on Sea for good lunch, and Daintree Ice Cream Company for dessert. Drive back to Port Douglas and a cheaper hotel and we find – with some difficulty – a boat to the reef for tomorrow. We eat at Salsa (the local’s fave) that night, and it’s very good.
Thu 04Oct. Up early and onto the rand Banks schooner-modelled Malaita. We eschew the large catamarans that hold hundreds of tourists and sail out to the reef on a boat that holds up to 22, but today only has 5 other people. It’s a nice sail both ways, the boat’s not crowded, no kids, very nice. At the reef we snorkel and paddle and glass-bottom boat and see the Low Isles and the reefs off them. Coral and turtles and fish and giant clams. It’s super. That night we eat at funky Watergate.
Fri 05Oct. Up early, big brekky, and drive up to the hike at Mossman Gorge, very nice. Drive back towards Cairns, but stop at beautiful Ellis Beach for a few hours of sun and lunch. A quick drive into Cairns to see the esplanade, then to the airport for car drop and
away. Short delay but we arrive in Sydney and train it to Kings Cross and the boutique Kirketon hotel: modern minimalism. We find a south Indian restaurant open late, then sleep.
Sat 06Oct. Brekky at a cafe around the corner, then walk to Paddington Markets. Walk to the city thru Hyde Park – see a Burma demo and a strange moth infestation. Beer at Circular Quay, then browse the Rocks Market. Take a ferry over to Manly, but it’s very cold and windy. Have a snack, see some surfers, then ferry back. Off to hot restaurant Pier in Rose Bay, which was superb.
Sun 07Oct. Early cab to airport, full flight 9 hours to Seoul. Overnight here, but at Asiana’s expense since they don’t have a London connecting flight every day. They transfer us an hour to the Seoul Royal Hotel downtown (which is OK) and meals there. We eat and go for a short walk: it’s a big shopping area.
Mon 08Oct. It’s nice being able to sleep and eat and shower and walk between legs on this flight. Cleaned up and down for breakfast. Short walk, then transfer to airport, lunch and away. I must’ve eaten something dodgy, because I’m quite ill for much of the 11-hour flight back; it’s really the only thing that goes wrong on the trip. We get back to London late on Monday.
We relaxed Tuesday, and returned to work Wednesday. It was a super honeymoon: rest, but also a bit of adventure. When we left, all we’d had booked was our return flights to Sydney, our flight up to Cairns, and our first 4 days at the Thala Beach Lodge. The rest we made up on the fly, armed with our guide books and pamphlets helpfully supplied by Brisbabe (who’d recently holidayed up that way with her man). ‘Cause that’s how we roll.
Well, we’re just waiting to depart Sydney. It’s been some kind of honeymoon. Overnight in Seoul, then back to Blighty.
We’re chilling at Ellis Beach, just north of Cairns, for a bit. In a couple of hours we fly back to Sydney for a day. Then it’s a day in Seoul before arriving back in London on Monday night. It has been a wonderful honeymoon.
We’ve seen crocodiles today, and been as far north as we can get without a 4×4. We slept in the rain forest last night. Tomorrow, sailing out to the reef. Fingers crossed for the weather.
We left the fab resort today. We headed inland and south to Yungaburra and found a nice B&B. We’ve just done two nature walks, and saw wild platypus on the second.
The weather continues to be calm and sunny and hot. The resort continues to be relaxed and fun. Perfect. We’re going in to Port Douglas most nights for dinner.
Our only wrinkle in the peacefulness came last night when we were hissed at by a coiled snake that we nearly stepped on as we walked the path to our bungalow. Maybe it was harmless, but in Oz I defer to all snakes.
Most of you know I’m getting married in September. To She Who Must Not Be Named, of course.
Some of you also know that we’ve been looking into the possibility of moving to Australia some day. Not immediately, but sometime. We’ve been applying for visas to do so for nearly two years: it seems they don’t just let anyone into Oz anymore. Anyway, last week we were finally granted those visas. Like I said, we’re not going to move there right away – life is good here at the moment – but we do have to make a trip down under before November 7th to get our visas validated.
Our plan was to kill two birds with one stone, and take our honeymoon somewhere in southeast Asia with part of it in Australia, since we need to head that way around the globe anyhow this autumn. We’ve been doing lots of looking, but it was hard to find a decently-priced flight that stopped somewhere nice and that could also go on to Australia. The only feasible possibility was Bali, and there are renewed terror concerns there.
In the end, we’ve decided to just spend our honeymoon in Australia. I guess that’s not the end of the world. We’ll be going there for a couple of weeks right after our wedding. It’ll still be spring there, but I’m sure we can find a warm spot up north for at least part of our stay.
I’m sure that Brisbabe is very excited.
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