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asterrocI've got a sabbatical coming up Fall 2010. I'm seriously considering spending 6 months in Australia. For professional reasons, really! I want to see the night sky south of the equator, and I could do astrophotography. (On the personal side I really want to live in a place where cockatoos will come to my birdfeeder.)
So, I know very little about Australia except what I've just said. Help me find out (a) where I should do this, (b) how much it will cost, and (c) whether I need a visa! This's currently a pipe dream, but every dream starts somewhere.
So, I know very little about Australia except what I've just said. Help me find out (a) where I should do this, (b) how much it will cost, and (c) whether I need a visa! This's currently a pipe dream, but every dream starts somewhere.
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OT: crossword help
Date: 2009-06-02 01:46 pm (UTC)"wolf of the night sky"? lupus/lupis/canis ?
Re: OT: crossword help
Date: 2009-06-02 01:50 pm (UTC)Re: OT: crossword help
Date: 2009-06-02 04:33 pm (UTC)Amusingly enough, it's not OT: it's a southern sky constellation. :)
Re: OT: crossword help
Date: 2009-06-02 04:51 pm (UTC)Sure thing..
Date: 2009-06-02 02:12 pm (UTC)Costwise, Qantas flies direct (sort of - you get off in LA for an hour or so) to Brisbane, Melbourne and Sydney from NYC for varying prices. Close to Xmas, with everyone coming home, it can be as much as $3000 US for a ticket (usually more like $2600, but yeah) but at this time of year its more like $1300 - $1600. If you keep an eye on it, sometimes there are return specials out of LA for as little as $800 or $900. United also fly to Australia (American doesn't, they just codeshare with Qantas), I've friends who'll fly them but I won't. Its a big, serious flight (13 - 16 hours) and I know one person who was on a United flight where they ran out of water halfway across the Pacific. Like nothing to flush toilets, drink, etc. Horrible. Qantas has older planes (though they're replacing with the huge airbuses, and if you fly the right days to Oz, you'll get a brand new plane!) but they're practiced at getting people through that flight still smiling at the other end. I love them. Working in your favor price-wise, Virgin is about to start offering service on the US - Australia leg, so the prices are probably about to drop on all airlines, and there'll be a third option. Oh, and Qantas also do an 'aussie air pass' that you can play with on their website that gets you to a few cities and back/forth from the US.
As for where to go.. well it depends on what you're interested in. I can tell you where I live the bloody cockys are bigger than my cat and are in such huge numbers we call them 'Canberra sheep'. Pink and grey galahs, magpies etc. are also really common. But that's true of most of the east coast. If you love birds of prey, you'll want to get into the center to see the wedge-tailed eagles. Its a shame you can't come right now, as one of the huge ephemeral inland lakes (Lake Eyre) is full (every 10 years or so this happens) and there's a huge bird-fest going on there now as a result. In the outback too, you'll see an impressive night sky!
Sydney (4.5 mil) and Melbourne (4.2 mil) are the biggest cities. The Australian population is the most suburban in the world, so most of the population is found here, and clinging fairly precariously to the east coast (the continent/country is about the same size as the continental US, remember - with about the population of Manhattan on a weekday). Both are temperate climates, Aussies will tell you Melbs is colder, but not by much. Canberra, 4 hours from Sydney, is the capital, and bit like DC, a planned city of about 300 000 bureaucrats and politicians. (cut for length..)
Re: Sure thing.. (part 2)
Date: 2009-06-02 02:13 pm (UTC)Brisbane, affectionately Brisvegas, in the north is tropical, perched on the southern edge of Queensland. Queensland contains the Great Barrier Reef and lots of resorts, casinos, holiday islands, and rainforest (think Crocodile Hunter territory). Then in the center there's Adelaide and South Australia in the south, and the Northern Territory up north. The territory contains Ayers rock (now Uluru, the aboriginal name) and is where dingos supposedly eat babies. It has spectacular wetlands in the north at a park called Kakadu, also known for birdlife. Almost the entire western half/third of the continent is Western Australia (we're a bit literal with naming here), which is mining, mining, mining, very isolated (think LAX to NYC distances Sydney - Perth, but with nothing in between them) and supposedly home of the south africans who didn't like the end of the apartheid and the white zimbabwean farmers kicked out by Mugabe. The huge mining boom here in the past few years has seen a bit of a western renaissance though, and I've never been there, so I should probably stop being mean :). Down south, beyond Melbourne is a little island called Tasmania that is Australia's 5th state (5 states, 2 territories - Canberra, again like DC, is its own territory). Tasmania is beautiful cool-temperate rainforests, almost half the island is world heritage wilderness. Its also Australia's launching point for Antarctica. Only just been there for the first time so no great read on its bird situation.. I'm afraid!
Hopefully that's an okay intro? Happy to answer more questions - I'm good at translating Oz to the US and vice versa, promise!
Re: Sure thing.. (part 2)
Date: 2009-06-02 02:25 pm (UTC)Some more practicalities: (I'm sure the answers to some of these will vary a LOT by location.)
1) How much does renting an apartment cost, and can it be done for 6-month stints?
2) How much does it cost to travel within the country?
3) Do people use cars to get around on a daily basis like most of the US does, and if so what can I do about that for a 6-month stint?
4) If I wanted to live in a fun hip urban-ish place (I like Greenwich Village and Soho in NYC, and currently live in a Massachusetts city reminiscent of them but more suburban/rural), but wanted to be able to find dark skies at night, anywhere you might recommend for me, and how far apart would be the urbanish/dark places?
5) Would I be likely to face much anti-US bias?
Re: Sure thing.. (part 2)
Date: 2009-06-02 02:51 pm (UTC)2) Depends. Trains aren't great for inter-city travel. Planes are pretty good, and you probably don't want to face buses if it can be avoided. Melbourne - Sydney is about 10 hours drive, for example. I'm doing it Canberra - Sydney on the weekend, but that's only 3 - 4 hours. Planes between Syd/Melbs can be as cheap as $35 thanks to a new asian airline that's entered the market. Depends on when you fly, where you fly, etc.
3) Yes, but you can fairly easily survive without a car in most major cities as long as you stay inner-city. There's a big backpacker scene here, you could pick up a bomb (old crappy car) and sell it on your departure if you really wanted to.
4) Melbourne and Sydney both have these sorts of neighbourhoods. In Melbourne, you want Richmond, Carlton, Fitzroy, Brunswick, Northcote. Sydney I know less well but I would guess Newtown, and a few others.. lemme check on a few. The thing about Australian cities is they might be suburban sprawl, but its remarkable how little you have to drive to have civilization drop away alarmingly. A couple hours out of Melbourne will get you to the little penguin parade, beautiful beaches and plenty of stars. Sydney's a bit more sprawling, but a quick escape to the 'mountains' (try not to laugh at our little hills) is pretty easy too. Oh and when I say 'suburban', the cities don't stop - they aren't interrupted like they are in, say, Westchester - if that was an Oz city, it would be continuous sprawl from Manhattan on and all called NYC..
5) I'd be very surprised. Remember we're your 'closest allies'. Australia has a very odd relationship with the US, there's been more disaffection from my generation over the Bush years, but prior to that it was pretty much idolatry and an attempt to be the next state (Puerto Rico you say? who are they?). In a way, we were in the process of replacing the UK with the US. Now, maybe a bit more distance. I guarantee you'll be asked 20 billion times if you're Canadian, but that's just because we generally can't tell the accents apart and have learnt that Canadians get offended when you mistake them for Americans (all of whom are affectionately 'yanks', no matter what part of the country you're from), but Americans don't seem to mind being asked if they're Canadian one bit. There's a bit of 'only in America' eye rolling about the Maury, and Jerry Springers, and obesity stories and all that insanity that gets through. There's a bit of (usually) good-natured ribbing about stupid/gulliable Americans and so on. You might be told a drop bear story or two, and people will assume you won't get 'our' humor (but I've found most New Yorkers generally do) but mostly, its a friendly country.
Having said that, our prime minister just got burnt in effigy in India. We're a bit proud of that, someone noticed us! Sadly, for a series of violent, racist attacks against Indian students studying in Australia. There's other racist undertones and rumblings that are disturbing. Riots in Sydney aimed at the Lebanese population, for example (a couple of years ago, and just horrifying - right wing shock jocks whipped it up over some gang rapes perpetrated by lebanese youth on 'australian' women). You'll get our 'redneck' equivalent out of the cities too, and there's ongoing race relation issues with the indigenous people that you might run into in the Territory, for example. For the most part though, this is a pretty happy corner of the world. Sure we have our problems and it isn't paradise, but its a usually friendly, welcoming sort of place to visit.
Oh - go get Bill Bryson's Sunburnt Country. Its a pretty perfect picture, and hilarious too.
no subject
Date: 2009-06-02 04:38 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-02 04:45 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-03 08:54 am (UTC)//bob
no subject
Date: 2009-06-04 04:55 pm (UTC)I hope you get to go and have a blast :)