Sasquatch 2010

After winning a trip to Sasquatch on the radio last year and meeting an amazing group of people, we decided to get together and do it again this year. Sasquatch is a music festival that happens at the Gorge every memorial day weekend (the weekend of the American holiday).

I'll start by giving you a little history on the Gorge since it is the ultimate location to see live music performances. The Gorge Outdoor Amphitheater is located on the Columbia River by George, Washington. I think it's funny... George Washington... get it. Anyway... It offers scenic views of the river, terrace like seating on the grassy hill, and since it is located in the desert, the weather is usually ideal for sitting outside and soaking in some rays.

The Gorge began in the early 1980s when Dr.Vince Bryan and his wife purchased the land for a vineyard. After seeing the spectacular view, he got the idea of holding outdoor concerts while serving wine. The winery was called Champs de Brionne Winery and the music theatre, which opened in 1985, was given the same name. The first major rock n’ roll event there was a 1988 show by legend Bob Dylan with Tracy Chapman as the opening act.

The Gorge was recently voted by Pollstar as North America's best outdoor amphitheater for the third year in a row. The venue was sold by the Bryans in 1993 to a promoter that would eventually become the House of Blues. Since that time, it has become a favorite summer venue of performers and even hosted a triple bill of Joni Mitchell, Van Morrison and Bob Dylan in May 1998. In 2004, the Dave Matthews Band released a live concert DVD/CD, The Gorge, which captured the last three days of the band's 2002 summer tour. In 2007, Pearl Jam released a seven disc box set titled Live at the Gorge 05/06.

Sasquatch Music Festival started in 2002 and focuses more on indie bands. This year's line up was thoroughly enjoyable with bands like MGMT, My Morning Jacket, Vampire Weekend, Ween, and Massive Attack headlining. There was a slurry of opening acts and some of my favorite included Band of Horses, The National, Drive By Truckers, She & Him, OK GO, Dirty Projectors, and Camera Obscura. The main things I love about this festival is the wide array of people in attendance and the fact that there is not a bad spot in the entire venue. You bring your blanket, claim a spot on the grass, and enjoy the day. All around you are teenagers new to the festival scene, families, and people who have been coming since the inception.

Even after the 14 hour drive each way, the hit and miss weather with periods of rain and high winds, and having to sleep with earplugs in for quiet and a toque on for warmth, I am looking forward to next year's journey back to the Gorge.

Coachella

At the end of March, I won a trip on the radio. It was a trip to the Coachella music festival in Indio, California which included airfare to LA, bus transportation, camping passes, and a three day festival pass. I actually won this time, not Rob... he usually wins everything.

I was at work, it was 8:30 in the morning, and the coveted song began to play. I dutifully picked up my telephone and dialed the magic number. Busy, hang up, repeat. After four tries, someone answered! I was in shock... I didn't know what to say. My coworkers, upon hearing my exclamation of "I can't believe it!", started jumping around me as I was trying to joke with three people on the other end of the line and stop my racing heart from bursting out of my chest. Friends started calling on the other line and the other phones. It was a short period of utter chaos. I managed to spit out my name and email address and we were on our way to California!

We stopped at the Super Walmart in Palm Springs to stock up on groceries and booze and I could not believe how cheap everything was! All our supplies for four days, including propane and $3.50 pillows, can to just over a hundred dollars. So that's how it feels to not be taxed out the wahoo.

The festival took place at the Empire Polo Club in Indio and we camped in the "International" campground. It included the rest of the people who flew in and didn't have vehicles. They had reserved a little corner for the group of us, I think there were 70 in total, which was quickly dubbed Little Canada. We were one of the early groups to arrive but by the end of the night it had really started to fill up.

We were with an amazing group of people, people we realized we will definitely remain friends with long after this event. The shows were amazing; the Dead Weather, Them Crooked Vultures, Faith No More, Band of Skulls, Perry Farrel, Pheonix, Muse, Gorillaz... and the list goes on. To be that close and see these bands live was truly a once in a lifetime experience, especially being from Calgary where a lot of these bands wouldn't think to perform. The hard part was picking and choosing which performances to see. If you wanted a good spot you have to get there early which might mean sacrificing another show. And it was difficult to get anywhere very quickly with 90,000 other people trying to go in all directions.

After three days of sun, music, beer, and laughs I was happily exhausted and looking forward to sleeping in my own bed. The memories and friendships will always remain...

The End... of this Adventure

I wrote this yesterday as I was waiting in the airport to catch my flight from Melbourne to LAX. As you cab guess, I made it home safely and only about 2 hours late. January 21st, 2010 was the longest day of my life... literally. With the flight home and crossing the International Date Line, it lasted 42 hours. It's good to be home.

My last few days in Melbourne were spent shopping and relaxing. Tuesday I headed to the Highpoint Mall, a three level atrocity of shops and department stores. I honestly don't know why I go to malls... unless I have something specific in mind, I rarely buy anything. After that I took the tram to Queen Victoria Market for one last look around. I was waiting at the tram stop and when it came, I realized I was on the wrong side of the road. It was the first time I had done it, but it was still pretty funny.

I wandered through the aisles of the market, checking out tacky tourist souvenirs, handmade clothing and jewelry, and strange electronics and games . This is where I actually bought stuff... some cool t-shirts, a pair of super comfy yet funky pants, some fruit for the next couple days, and fresh ahi tuna for dinner the next night. And my last skinny flat white.

For my birthday, Derek bought me a ticket to the Australia Open. If you go after 5:00, you can get a discounted grounds pass which lets you watch all the matches except the ones at the two main courts. It was really neat! I think there were 21 courts in total. There were a ton of people dressed in their country's colors. Swiss men with their faces painted red with the white cross, Australians wearing green and yellow sombreros, and lots of people wrapped in flags. I've never really watched tennis before but everything is more exciting live. There are grounds judges at every line as well as the main judge siting up on his perch, you can hear the players grunting as they hit the ball, even the ball boys have a very important job and take it very seriously. We watched a couple women's matches and a men's match between a swiss and an aussie. The crowd gets very involved, cheering loudly, but as soon as play is about to begin you could hear a pin drop.

Wednesday I took it easy... went into Altona so I could walk along the beach one last time and look at what I call the upside down trees, and relaxed. They call Altona Altuna because when the tide is out there is a stench from the seaweed baking in the sun. It was burning my nostrils that day. Derek picked up fresh oysters at the market so we had those and the tuna for dinner. So fabulous! We hung out and chatted, drinking some wine (surprise!). And right now I sit in the airport waiting to board my flight (it's delayed... surprise again!) because the previous flight was late arriving. I have my fingers crossed that the three hours in LA will give me time to make my connection. I'm ready to be home.

The Mountains are Smaller

Sunday it was early to rise for the 2.5 hour drive out to the Grampians. Australians are very serious about driving when you're tired... there a signs all along the freeway as well as power napping areas. The Grampians is a national park west of Melbourne and was listed on the National Heritage List for its outstanding natural beauty. We stopped at The Gap Vineyard for a quick wine tasting before heading to Wonderland to begin our hike. We walked up a beautiful mountainside which contained more steps within the rock than the trails I'm used to in the Rockies. There was a narrow alleyway called Silent Street to navigate and numerous rock faces to climb. The top had a fence all around a peak that juts out over the edge. I made it about halfway out before turning back; the wind was ridiculously strong and felt like it could throw me off balance. And my fear of heights didn't help.

After a quick lunch we stopped at Brambuk, an outdoor centre that offers extensive information on the area's aboriginal culture and history, and the natural environment. It was interesting to find out the aboriginal believed in six seasons and judged the changes in those seasons by the wildlife present and what they were hunting. We took a walk around Fyans Creek Loop and spotted a couple wild emu feeding on the side of the road. They are scary creatures when there is no fence. In the field close by was a large herd of wild kangaroo! One even had a joey in her pouch. The neatest part was they were feeding with three adult deer and a little spotted fawn.

We picked up some homemade fudge in Halls Gap and hit up three more wineries on the way home, Seppelt Great Western, Grampians Estate, and Best's Great Western. The area specializes in mostly whites; cab suav, chardonnay, and riesling, as well as shiraz. The shiraz is considered cool-climate which means that, because of the weather, the fruit doesn't ripen as fully so the taste is more subtle. Exhausted after a day of hiking, we ordered wood-fired pizza and called it a night.

Derek took the day off work today so we went out Port Melbourne and checked out some gourmet food shops... definitely my kind of shopping! We had some delicious thai curry and rice paper rolls for lunch and since it was windy and rainy, headed to the Melbourne Museum. There were some very cool exhibits! We started with the Mind exhibit which covered dreams, emotions, reactions, etc. It talked about how epilepsy used to be considered a mental disorder and how drugs affect neurotransmitters. Next was about the Body and included quite a few plastinated organs and cross sections of an actual human brain. The next exhibit was about the history of Melbourne and a famous horse named Phar Lap who won a lot of races during the 1930s depression and was considered a hero by the Australians. As much as I enjoyed learning about it, it was a little dry.

The Bunjilaka section held the history of the aboriginals and an awesome display called Menagerie that contained sculptures from aboriginal artists throughout Australia. Last but not least was the Science and Life Gallery that contained everything from dinosaur bones to insects to mammals. They had a room full of stuffed animals, and not the cute, fluffy kind. And a lot of spiders, but they were alive. It was a little creepy.

Wine and Water

My favorite part of Australia is the wine! Well, maybe not my absolute favorite... but the selection is pretty cool. Friday morning I was up early to meet my guide for the Yarra Valley wine tour I booked. All of the people on the tour were great. There were five friends from Brisbane, a mom and daughter from South Africa, a guy from Italy named Domingo, and a cool chick from Manchester, UK named Rachel.

We started at a fairly large vineyard called Domaine Chandon, they are sister companies with Moet. Since this was my first ever experience at a winery I was tres impressed at how eager they are to give you wine... for free! The basic rule is you start at the lightest and work through to the more full-bodied, white first and then red. You begin with the sparkling (as long as they're white), move through the whites (usually from reisling to sauvignon blanc to chardonnay), then to the reds (pinot noir to merlot to cabernet sauvignon) including any red sparkling. It all depends on what types of wines that winery produces and you can try one or you can try them all. Your choice.

From there we went to Medhurst, a smaller vineyard with a cute cafe called the Red Shed. They had a fabulous Rose that tasted like fresh strawberries! I'm not much of a white or pink wine drinker but was determined to try new and different things. Next vineyard was De Bortoli, again a slightly larger winery, for lunch. We ordered our lunches then meandered downstairs to pair wines with our meal. This cellar door also had a cheese bar and I had the most amazing meredith goat cheese! It was stored in olive oil with fresh herbs and garlic... so delectably creamy I had to buy some and hope it survives the journey back to Canada. I had the lamb fillet with fresh salsa verda and gnocchi for lunch paired with a Cabernet Sauvignon. The sous chef at this kitchen actually worked directly with Chef Gordon Ramsay! And the food was delicious.

Sticks was next on our list, which I was fairly excited about because I had purchased a bottle of their wine my first day in Australia. I actually bought their "sticky" wine that had been bottled the week previous. Sticky wines are similar to ice wines in their syrup consistency and sweetness but are more fruity and do not need to be served cold. The one I bought is marmalade/kumquat flavored and their first attempt at a sweet wine. Again... I hope it survives the trip. Last but not least was Coombes Farm. Our driver, who shared an overwhelming amount of knowledge about wine and the Yarra Valley with us, works part time at this vineyard. It was my favorite and I bought a bottle of chardonnay and cabernet merlot I plan to try and store for at least a year.

After saying goodbye to my new (and slightly tipsy) friends, Derek, Jodie, and I went for a fabulous Indian dinner in Williamstown. We wandered down the pier and indulged in gelato (pistachio is my weakness). The most exciting part of the evening was after we got back to the house. The dog would not stop freaking out at the wall in the bathroom upstairs and we came to realize there was a possum (we assume) in the ceiling between the first and second floors. After much banging, scratching, and investigating, we heard it scurry across the living room and depart for the evening. Needless to say, I slept with the window closed that night.

Saturday we drove down to Torquay and Bells Bay, home of the annual Rip Curl surf competition. The weather wasn't great but we hung out on the beach with the dog for a while. I debated doing a surf lesson but the waves weren't good that day, breaking very close to the shore. I say that like I'm pro... We had lunch on a patio (very interesting people watching), shopped at some of the outlet stores like Roxy, Quiksilver, Rip Curl, Reef, and Oakley, and headed home. After cooking steaks for dinner and renting a movie, I am happy to report there were no possum sightings.

Things I have learned about Australia:

- it's windy

- it's windy

- it's windy

Penguins... and more

The first tour I'd booked was for the Phillip Island Penguin Parade through Autopia Tours. I left the house at 10am and was picked up downtown. There were 11 of us in total and I spent most of the tour with an israeli lady named Marcella. It was nice because we were able to take pictures of each other. Another drawback to vacationing alone... lots of scenery pictures, but you're never in them.

We stopped for lunch in a little town and the guide brought salad rolls. I thought "Great! I love salad rolls. I hope they have peanut sauce." Yeah... not so much. Salad rolls are actually veggie sandwiches on long buns (some had ham). Who knew things could be so obvious? Next stop was the Maru Fauna Park, a wildlife zoo where most of the animals have been rescued. There were tasmanian devils, dingoes, koalas, wallabies, peacocks, and other random animals. You could feed the population of about 16 kangaroos which included a couple joeys that were born late last year. They would eat right out of your hand... so cool! I also found out it is illegal to touch or hold koalas in Victoria, but not in Queensland.

Woolamai Beach was next but the beach was closed to surfers and swimmers due to extreme conditions, huge waves and rip tides. The weather wasn't great so we walked up and down the huge beach and tried to determine what the clear gelatinous blobs on the beach were (they were not jellyfish but had weird purple organs). Then off to the Nobbies, a huge rock structure off the coast of Phillip Island. There is a boardwalk that twists along the side of the hill with spectacular views of the ocean and rocks, including a naturally made blowhole. All over the hill are penguin burrows and in a couple of them I actually saw chicks. The parent penguins were out in the ocean collecting food for the chicks and those were the ones we would see coming to shore tonight. There was another island called Seal Island where furry seals live. It is too far away to see them with the naked eye but there were binoculars along the boardwalk if you were so inclined to try and spot one.

We drove into the main town on the island, Cowes, for a pizza dinner on the beach. Phillip Island has a population of about 30,000 people but that almost triples during the summer months with tourists and residents with vacation property. It's a fun, little surf town... I imagine it would be a pretty cool place to live. And from there we were headed to the Penguin Parade! They post the time the first penguin was spotted (8:50pm) and the number of penguins (339) seen the night before so you have an idea of what time to expect them. After the typical tourist shop, photo op (pose in front of a screen and they superimpose penguins), cafe, and information area I walked down a boardwalk to the stadium-style seating area. There are no cameras allowed at all because people would use their flash and it would scare the penguins. Silly people.

The first fairy penguin appeared at about 9:05pm and they were so tiny! Only about 8-10 inches tall as opposed to the antarctic penguins I saw at the aquarium that were up to 3 feet tall. They come out in groups and need to avoid stalkers so it takes them a while to get up the courage. They come up on the beach a little then swim back out, come up a little further, stand there for a while, and swim back out. Finally, when they think it's safe, they scurry into the vegetation and wander up to their nests. It was so freakin' cute! Apparently the breeding season started early this year (August instead of October) so the number of penguins coming to shore is dwindling sooner than normal. They only come to shore if they are required to sit on the eggs or feed their chicks. If there are no babies, they stay out at sea where the food is.

I saw about 40 penguins before I had to head back to the tour bus but as I walked up the boardwalk there were three little penguins waddling along beside me the entire time. And when we walked out to the parking lot there were two standing right beside the walkway! Hence the signs to check under your car for hiding penguins before leaving. It was a 2 hour drive back to Melbourne and being the last dropped off, I didn't get back until after midnight. Long day......

Today has been spent relaxing, walking to the grocery store, and I'm making burgers and greek salad for dinner. The difference in prices from Canadian groceries varies. Some things are more expensive ($3.48 for one avocado... no thanks!), and some are cheaper ($1.69 for basil with the root bulb still attached). We might top it off with a trip to Costco... they have 1.5 litre bottles of Yellow Tail wine for $11.99 and orange cheese (an uncommon site in Australia).

Things I have learned about Australia:

- there aren't a lot of trucks, I'm assuming because of high gas prices and small driving lanes. Instead people drive Utes, the front half is a car and the back half is a truck bed.

- Tatts & Pokies is not an advertisement for a tattoo and piercing parlor, it's a casino. Tatts is the lottery or gambling, shortened from the Tattersalla Group Limited who runs the lottery, and Pokies are slot machines.

- penguins stink

Sydney Part II

Sydney is an amazing city. Even from the small portion I saw, I need to say if you ever get the chance definitely come and visit. It is so worth it. Day one of solo adventures started off with coffee and breakfast at Starbucks (it's easy and their flat whites rock). From there I wandered up George Street and checked out some of the shops which range from high end to crappy souvenir shops to grocery stores. Hyde Park was next on the agenda, I wanted to check out where they hold the huge outdoor concerts. I stopped by the Anzac Memorial, a building dedicated to all the soldiers who have fought in the Australian Army, and the Pool of Reflection. They ran out of money while the building was being erected so they sold plaster stars painted with real gold on the ceiling for $2.00 each until they raised enough to finish it. The effect is stunning.

After strolling through Hyde Park I ended up in the Royal Botanical Gardens. There are different areas dedicated to herbs, roses, tropical flowers, australian-based plants, etc. It was very cool until I realized there were bats in the treetops overhead. Not just a couple... I'm talking HUNDREDS of large bats in ALL the trees. Once I convinced myself that no, they were not going to swarm me, I tried to get some cool pics but they look like leaves in a lot of them. So crazy. At the end of the gardens was the Government House, a building of gorgeous stone architecture.

I ended up at the Sydney Opera House again, picked up a $5.00 prawn and avocado salad for lunch, and watched the digeridoo players. I was planning to take the ferry over to the Tarango Zoo but unfortunately Havaianas are not made for long treks and I needed to return to the hotel for bandaids and new shoes. I hopped on the free CBD (downtown) shuttle... seriously, every city should have these. Instead of the zoo, I explored Sydney Wildlife World which contains a huge variety of animals native to Australia. The exhibits started off with invertebrates; spiders, ants, and cicadas, and moved to reptiles; lizards, snakes, and an enormous crocodile (they called him Super Croc). I got to see baby crocodiles hatching out of their eggs... it was so rad! They had a speaker in so you could hear them squawking as well. Nocturnal animals were next; mice, possum, and wombats, then koalas and kangaroos. The koalas are honestly so cute you want to cuddle them and the kangaroos look super cool when they jump. I've never seen anything like it before, especially so close.

I tried to get tickets to a show that night but Sydney takes the night off on Mondays. There was nothing at the Opera House, Wicked and the Oz Circus both had the night off, Al Green was sold out... no luck. So, after another exhausting day of continuous walking, I stopped at a pasta bar to grab some ricotta ravioli, the bottle shop (liquor store) for some vino, and called it a day.

Day two wasn't nearly as exciting. I thought I had bought a ticket to walk over the Sydney Harbour Bridge but it turns out the "sky walk" I purchased was actually around the outside of the Sydney Tower. Not that it wasn't thrilling; I got to see the city of Sydney from 880 feet, double the height of the Harbour Bridge. The floor is glass-like in a couple spots and for someone who is scared of heights (me) it took a little while to get used to. I finished off my trip with lunch on the water at Darling Harbour and flew back to Melbourne.

Things I have learned about Australians:

- they are honestly and truly friendly

- even though they are speaking english, I have a harder time understanding them than most mexicans speaking spanish

- they kinda remind me of newfies (I mean that in the best way possible)