Gunnamatta Bay

It's Sunday morning, and since my room faces east I was unable to sleep in due to the intense sunlight pouring through the window. I decided to make the best of it and walked up to my favorite breakfast joint to grab a to-go bacon and egg roll plus a long black (same as an Americano). I bought the Sunday edition of the Daily Telegraph and walked up to Gunnamatta Bay, a really lovely park with naturally still water where people go to swim if they're not in the mood to get pummeled by waves at the main beach. There was an adult swim club of some kind meeting there this morning, so I ate my breakfast and watched all of the oldies race each other in the 100 freestyle.
I went for a long walk along the shoreline, which is great because it's lined with gorgeous homes, and it's so deserted that it feels like a private beach. If only I had a spare couple of million dollars lying around, I would totally buy a house here. Maybe it's not too late to become a doctor, or an oil tycoon, or... whatever you have to do to live here. The water stays really shallow for at least 100 feet; in the first photo you can see that there is a guy fishing way off in the distance in knee deep water!

I walked all the way to Darook Park, where there were lots of toddlers splashing around, and decided to head for home. I have to work tomorrow, but since it's Christmas Eve it should be a quiet day and I'll most likely get to take off early. Here's hoping that the weather stays great for my days off work!

Librarian Conference/Dork Convention

This past weekend my work hosted the Orchestra Librarians Summit, a meeting of all the major orchestra librarians in Australia and New Zealand. The library where I work is closed to the public, and we don't work directly with the performers, so I was really eager to learn a little more about the day to day challenges of working with all the performers and administrators. Of course, it didn't hurt that the conference was in Melbourne, a place I had been meaning to visit for ages!
It was really great to meet the people I have been constantly emailing for the past year. "You look about how I thought you would, but don't sound like I thought you would" was a common reaction when people met me. Except for the West Australian Symphony librarian, I was the only non-Australian or non-New Zealander there, which was really surprising. The meeting was really informative, and we actually got to discuss some practical applications of what I learned during my master's degree regarding copyright law (finally!) in an orchestral library setting. The Melbourne Symphony librarian was able to get us all free tickets to see the MSO perform in the beautifully remodeled Hamer Hall, so that night we all went to dinner and then saw Ian Bostridge sing some Schubert lieder and recitatives from Mozart's Idomeneo.
Everyone left the next day, but I paid for an extra night in the hotel so that I could explore Melbourne a bit. One highlight was the Grainger Museum at the University of Melbourne. I had no idea Percy Grainger was born in Melbourne, and that he donated his considerable collection of personal artifacts to the university when he died. In his will, he requested that the flesh be stripped from his body and his skeleton displayed in the museum, but the university politely declined. In case you were wondering, he was a bit of an eccentric. I got to see all of his letters to mother. I got to see the outfits he made for himself out of towels. And I got to see his collection of whips that he used for self flagellation. It was awesome!
That afternoon I just walked around the city a bit. The Yarra River runs right through the middle of Melbourne, and I was staying in Southbank so I had some lunch in a cafe there. I was glad to take a bit of time to see Melbourne. I came away with a few impressions of the city compared to Sydney: it is flatter, with less beaches, more outdoor cafes and Victorian architecture, and more angsty artist types.

This is Flinders Street Station, the busiest train station in Melbourne.

This is a view of the city from Southbank. You can see the clock tower on Flinders Street Station peeking out through the trees.

Hunter Valley Escape

This past weekend I decided to get out of the city and go to wine country. The Hunter Valley is about two hours north of Sydney, and is a popular weekend getaway for city people. Unfortunately, the weather forecast was for 40 degrees Celsius (also known as 104 Fahrenheit) on Saturday. I was feeling some serious regrets as I left my nice beachy suburb, but I decided to brave it anyways since the tour I booked was non refundable.

The bus picked us up from Central Station, and wound its way through the Northern Suburbs until we had left civilization behind. We stopped for coffee in a tiny town called Wollombi, and before I knew it we were at the cellar door of Lindeman’s. They were SUPER generous with the tastings, and I ended up buying a bottle of port here to drizzle on my ice cream this summer. We had lunch and more wine at Hunter Cellars (where I picked up a Shiraz), and finished the tour at McGuigan’s, where I bought a cheap red blend. While most of the group was heading back to Sydney, I was dropped off at the hostel in the middle of a vineyard/cow pasture a couple of kilometres outside of Cessnock. It was more like a cabin than anything else, with a wooden veranda surrounding the whole building. I was greeted by a five foot snake on the driveway (non poisonous according to the caretaker), who slowly slithered away under the porch fortunately not to be seen again during my stay. It was BOILING hot by this point so I went for a dip in the pool, had a shower, and sat in the shade drinking my red blend out on the deck. As night fell, there was an electrical storm from all the heat. I took a video of what it looked like-it’s not the best quality, but you can kind of tell how dramatic it was!

The next day was equally lazy. I walked into town and watched the early bird showing of Skyfall, and by the time I got back it was time to return to Sydney. Great weekend!