Photo Journey

Murwillumbah & Mt. Warning

Murwillumbah is a beautiful mountain town at the base of Mt. Warning, the 2nd highest crater mountain in the southern hemisphere. Here in Murwillumbah, I met Tassie, the YHA hostel owner and one of the most incredible people in the world. He's one of those rare people gifted with a way of understanding others. One who you talk can unaffectedly, one who listens and relates. Tassie's gift is people.

Views of Mt. Warning

The Murwillumbah countryside

The YHA

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Nimbin

Nimbin is the marijuana center of Australia. Originally a dedicated hippy community, Nimbin is now more touristy. Still, anyone who walks down the street is sure to get offered "Cookies?" "Dope?" etc. The police turn a blind eye -- some say that the government tolerates it because it would rather all the pot consumption be concentrated in this one small area than spread elsewhere in the state/country. As long as marijuana can be controlled here, there'll be less dealings and disruptions in the larger cities.

The atmosphere is super vibrant and friendly. Everyone is happy and relaxed. The colors here place are gorgeous.

Some cool signs

An old hippy bus

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Dubbo Zoo

Dubbo, the Australia's Missouri City into the Outback, is famous for its Western Plains Zoo. I attended a volunteer run morning walk with the animals at 6:45am.

The tour guide naturally asked me "Where are you from?" After learning that I was from California, he said that after taking a trip of over 30 famous world zoos, the San Diego Zoo stood out as the best and most professional zoo of all. Wow! It rightly claims its title, the World Famous San Diego Zoo.

I guess it's no wonder it's harder and harder to be amazed as my standards continue increasing, especially in regards to zoos. I grew up with the World Famous San Diego Zoo and the equally amazing San Diego Wild Animal Park. To top that off, Sea World was also next door. Growing up, I watched polar bears plunged into water pools from behind glass windows, I reached out to African gazelles, giraffes, elephants and rhinos roaming together from the monorail train, I strolled under sharks swimming above me from underwater walkways.

If I were ignorant, then everything would be fascinating and I would find the Dubbo zoo incredible. But as Socrates said, "it is better to be a human dissatisfied than a pig satisfied." I agree to an extent.

The Dubbo Zoo does have some cool Australian animals including the wombat and the echidna. This wombat prefers cotton to its usual roots.

The echidna is porcupine looking monotreme, a mammal that lays eggs and feeds its young milk like the platypus! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monotreme

Also here are some African meerkats standing sentinel. They always wear a goofy looking grin!

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National Parks

I visited some amazing national parks through this trip.

Bald Rocks is one of the largest exposed granite rock in the world.

Dunns Swamp in Wollemi NP is just stunningly gorgeous

Swan Rocks looks like a giant pipe organ.

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Bathurst

This town is a midsized industrial town that is home to the V8 stock car racing competition. I did my 2 loops around the 6km Mt. Panorama track, a couple hundred short of the 1000kms the racers do here every October.

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Blue Mountains

The Blue Mountains is a national park retreat 1.5hr west of Sydney. The mountains here appear blue in the light and are so aptly named. The most famous site is that of the Three Sisters, the rock formation shown here.

I went on a walkabout, an aboriginal pilgrimage, through sacred sites of the native Drunj people. This is a rock carving warning against family feuds. The young wallaby (right) is being attacked by a rainbow serpent because he failed to listen (facing away) to the mother wallaby (left).

Here is an aboriginal bark painting that I made using ochre paints.

Below is a picture of an Italian in my walkabout group using the ochre paints. He came to Sydney for World Youth Day, the HUGE Catholic celebration conference this week. Over 200,000 "pilgrims" have come from around the world to Sydney. Not an hour goes by without a reference to the WYD on the radio -- I can only imagine what it's like in Sydney.