My friend Shu Yiing came down from Adelaide with her boyfriend Andy today. I was graced by their presence just now, along with Derrick, who is Shu Yiing's cousin, also from Sibu and lives in Richardson Hall. The weird thing is Richardson Hall is very close to Roberts Hall and yet we've never seen each other before. Also here was Selina, Andy's sister who is doing law in Monash University. Note that all of us are from Sibu. Represent!
From left: Selina, Derrick, Andy, Shu Yiing, Huai Bin
I'm feeling pretty bushed now. I was in uni the whole day from 8 am in the morning till 6 pm and I only got a couple of hours of sleep last night. I did manage to catch up on my sleep today though. I had no classes from 10 am - 12 pm and went to the library to take a nap. =D It's pretty convenient to sleep in one of those tables with privacy screens in the silent area of the library. I fell into such a deep sleep, I actually dreamt! It was a pretty weird dream, all jumbled up. The characters seem to be people I saw on the way into the library but I've forgotten about the dream by now. It was quite interesting though. Oh, and I drooled all over my arm while I slept and woke up with a wet patch on my long sleeved shirt.
The best place to sleep on campus
Anyway, I also found one of the best places to take a dump on campus. I've always favored the S block toilets because they are some of the newest on campus. However, I've found an even better one. The N block second floor toilets are really something. Even though it's rather old, it has a nice ambience to it, courtesy of the clouded glass windows on one side of the toilet. Furthermore, the furthest toilet even has a ledge on the side to put your bag on. Nice indeed. Every time I need to take a dump while on campus, I'll be heading to the N block toilets.
Well, by the time I got back to Clayton, I was pretty much dead from lack of sleep. However, I managed to spy the elusive security bus and got onto it. Heh. It's a bus that loops around the campus every half hour and it stops right at the halls of residence. It actually takes longer to use the bus than walk, so I've never bothered to get onto it, but I was so tired today I appreciated not having to walk back even if it meant it takes longer.
Anyway, it turns out that the book sale isn't today after all. It's on Thursday. My bad.
I missed the shuttle again today and thus was forced to take the Huntingdale bus to connect with the Flinder's Street Station train. The thing is, the 12:40 pm bus gives you exactly 5 minutes to walk from the Huntingdale bus stop to the train station. Normally this is more than enough, but today the bus was delayed by this long ass truck who was trying to back into a plaster factory right off the highway. The trailer was so long, the truck actually had to go over the road divider to back into the driveway of the factory. Thus, all four lanes of the northbound traffic was down to a standstill to accommodate the truck. The truck took a good 5 minutes to completely back into the driveway and thus, by the time the bus got to the train station, the train was already pulling in. I had to sprint to get to the train platform and the doors started closing just as I ran noisily into the train, startling a poor old lady who was about to doze off. Heh. I think only 3 of the 15 people on the bus managed to get on that train. The next train is a good 20 minutes away and that would make me late for my tutorial so that's why I wanted to get on this one.
A router in action
Anyway, I had my Network Administration lab today and there was this movie being shown to explain the concept of the Internet. I've seen this one countless times before, the movie is Warriors of the Net [warriorsofthe.net] and it's made by Ericsson for internal purposes but seems to have spread far and wide because, truth to be told, it actually is a very good movie that explains networking concepts in easy to understand terms.
A$5.00 per bag
Well, as I was heading back I saw that the bookshop is having a sale tomorrow. It's not your normal, run of the mill sale, but one where you can fill a bag with as many books as you can for only A$5! Basically, they provide you with a bag and you go around stuffing books into the bag until you can't fit anymore in and you pay A$5 at the counter. I'm not sure what books will be available and what the size of the bag actually is, but it's a pretty good deal nevertheless. If you're interested, that's the bookshop of the Caulfield campus of Monash University.
I've just had a discussion with my Industrial Experience supervisor regarding the Christmas vacation period and it seems that going back will be out of the question for most people because the workload will be pretty hefty right around then. I'm aware that Industrial Experience does not follow uni holidays since it's supposed to provide a one year working experience in software development and project management. Oh well, we'll see how it goes. I've just noticed that half the semester is gone and there will be a lot of assignments due soon. Bummer.
Anyway, I was taking the train back at around 9 pm today after working on the IE project in the labs. Interestingly, I saw three policemen (one of them was female but for the sake of being politically correct) board the train at Caulfield and get off at Clayton. I've never seen police use public transport before. They were still in their uniform and obviously is still on the job since they were questioning a druggie at Clayton station. I wonder why they don't use cruisers and have to take public transport.
Well, as I was reading the Herald Sun today, I saw this advert regarding Southgate's [southgate-melbourne.com.au] 10th birthday. There will be a fireworks show and other entertainment as well. I might head down if I've nothing better to do on Saturday night.
Well, as you all know, I went with MONSU trips to the Grampians yesterday. I managed to wake up about 30 minutes before the bus was scheduled to depart and made haste to the pick-up point, which is a convenient two minutes walk from my place. There were a whole bunch of people already there and one of the MONSU volunteers handed out the itinerary for the day. The bus arrived from Monash University in Peninsula with a couple of people already in the bus and we headed to Caulfield to pick up the rest of the people in the trip. The first stop after that was in Ararat, not Beaufort as scheduled. We were supposed to stop at Beaufort for a toilet break but that didn't happen because Ararat was just a while away. After using the toilets, we passed by Halls Gap and arrived at Grampians National Park about 3 1/2 hours after we departed.
The Grampians National Park trail marker
We did the Grand Canyon walk, which is a 900 meters walk up rocky terrain. It was quite strenuous because there was an ascension of 280 meters, which doesn't sound like much, but it involves large steps over rocks. I'm having trouble being descriptive today. =D
Grand Canyon (The Aussie version)
Steps are mounted to allow navigation through the steeper portions
The walls of the Grand Canyon behind me
There was a strange outcropping of rock at the furthest point of the loop. It was a two rock formation which looks scalable so I tried going on the first one and pulling myself to the other rock. Pretty fun, as I needed to support my body weight with my hands at one point.
A little bit of climbing required to get to that vantage point
Me and Jimmy at the Grand Canyon v.Australia.Melbourne
It is interesting to see so many large boulders, I've never seen them in this size before. The loop was supposed to take 30 minutes and we went back to the picnic area for lunch.
Lunch at the Wonderland picnic area
There were several crows in the picnic area and I tried to see how close the crows would come if I fed them bits of ham. The crows were pretty bold and would snatch up bits of food from in front of you. There was even some cawing and staring down involved. Heh.
Stand down soldier
Anyway, we were scheduled to depart at 1 pm but there was a group who wasn't back yet. After a one hour wait, they finally emerged all sweaty and tired from the path. It seems that one of the volunteers had taken a group to the Pinnacle Lookout, which is a 4.2 km walk from the picnic area. Naturally, the rest of the people who were waiting for them wasn't too pleased at their waywardness and the volunteer in question got a rather deserved admonishment from the bus driver. Due to the fact that we're running late, we had to miss one of the scheduled stops - Jaws of Death. Too bad, I had wanted to see that one.
Anyway, we headed down to MacKenzie Falls after that. I've noticed that we went on the Grand Canyon Walk instead of going to Boroka Lookout, but that's just as well coz the Grand Canyon Walk is pretty nice too. As we arrived at MacKenzie Falls, there was a wallaby wondering wild. A wallaby is a native animal of Australia which is related to the kangaroos and for all non-scientific purposes, is a kangaroo, albeit a smaller one. It got spooked pretty easily though and won't let me get close to it, even though I tried approaching slowly and crouched down a bit. I had wanted to put myself into it's pouch to try and see if I fit or put my arms around it at least.
Don't hop away...I'm also a wallaby, only slightly bigger and uglier and without fur.
At the MacKenzie Falls trail there was two options - one which went to MacKenzie Falls Lookout with is a view of the falls from above and one which went to MacKenzie Falls Base which is the view of the falls from below. Me and Jimmy decided to do both, and started off to the lookout in a very brisk walk. There was only a couple of people with us as most of them decided to go to the base. The lookout was pretty high up and since I have a fear of heights, I thought it would be fun to stand right at the edge.
View of MacKenzie Falls from the top
I scaled the fence and started down the side of the lookout outpost and got myself right to the edge of the cliff. Dear God in heaven that was scary indeed. I didn't actually think about it before I went and done it (I have an impulsive personality) so the fact that there wasn't anything that is separating me from a long, long drop to the base of the falls didn't hit me until I was right at the edge. Now that I think about it, it would be a waste if I slipped and fell down. I don't think people are meant to survive 100 meter falls into rock. There wasn't anything to stop you from falling. That was meant to be the fence, which I climbed over to get to the edge. I got some pretty good photos from up there though.
I won't be typing this today if I leaned backwards in this picture
Heh. Perhaps next time I would do a cliffhanger from the edge while someone took a photo of me from below. It's best not to tempt fate though. :)
For reference, here was where I stood in the previous picture. This view is from the bottom.
Well, after all that, we walked back to the staging point and started to the base of the falls. There was even more photo opportunities there as you can see MacKenzie Falls up close. It's interesting that there is no bridge to go across the river but large stepping stones instead. I have to say that MacKenzie Falls isn't much to write home about though. I've seen larger waterfalls in Sarawak. But MacKenzie Falls does have an appealing flow.
MacKenzie Falls close up
Another view of MacKenzie Falls
It's very relaxing to look at it. I imagine people would enjoy taking some psychedelics while sitting in front of the falls. Which reminds me, I saw what I think is Gymnopilus spectabilis growing on a couple of dead tree stumps. I cannot be certain though, for my knowledge of psychedelic fungi is limited to pictures I saw in a book about magic mushrooms species in Australia. I did not trust my visual memory enough to pick it, because it would be unfortunate to accidentally ingest a poisonous strain. Heh.
Me and Jimmy at MacKenzie Falls
If you happen to be visiting MacKenzie Falls, there is some damn good homemade ice cream in the small booth selling snacks outside. It goes for A$1.80 per cup and has to be heated up in the microwave for a while to soften it. The owner of the stall was kind enough to give us two spoons because he said the ice cream is hard enough to break the plastic spoons. Sure enough, I broke my spoon about halfway through. Heh. It's very good ice cream though, loved it.
Anyway, after visiting the falls, we headed to our next destination - Zumstein. There was nothing much to see in Zumstein though. There is supposed to be a lot of kangaroos in that area, but I didn't see any. This place is so dismal, I took it upon myself to jump into MacKenzie River.
Seriously though, I nearly fell down coz the bridge is a suspension bridge and did not like me swinging over the rail.
That's about the only interesting thing in Zumstein. MacKenzie River starts here and ends at MacKenzie Falls. 20 minutes later, we departed again for Ararat, where we had dinner. Ararat is a pretty nice place, and there was a Target Country there that looks pretty spiffy. Then it was back to Melbourne and I arrived in Clayton at around 9 pm. The highlight of the day was the Grand Canyon Walk and MacKenzie Falls. Too bad we couldn't go to Boroka Lookout because it's closed from June-November 2002 for renovations. That can't be avoided, but the Pinnacle Lookout fiasco which made all of us miss out on Jaws of Death could. That was poor judgment from one of the volunteers. He did apologize at the end of the day though, so all is well.
I can't keep my eyes open. I was supposed to write up the Grampians trip right after I got home but I was caught up with something else and now I'm too sleepy to write the trip up. =D I shall leave you with this teaser photo and I'll write up the trip right after I wake up tomorrow afternoon.
Grampians Rocks
