To continue what I was saying earlier, Sydney was a great
kick off to start this trip. It was very interesting seeing different practices
that a big metropolitan city uses (sustainability speaking) versus now at a
communal small city.
Some of the events I loved in Sydney were going to the
botanical gardens. I have been very excited to see the different types of
animals and I got to see the world’s largest flying mammal….. the flying fox!
Aka the very large bats! Very fuzzy and very cute! I loved the story about the
tree that was thought to have gone extinct thousands and thousands of years ago
called the Wollemi Pine. Well this was what they thought until they found a row
of them growing and now the tree can be found in many places around the world.
The afternoon before going to the Opera House, Janet and I
took a lunch excursion and went to a café called Portabellas were I had the
first classy iced coffee drink. Here we sat and watched the boats sail by and
scoped out our ferry boat that we would travel on the next day to the Manly
Environmental Center. The Opera House was amazing and we got to sit in on some
of the bands building up the stage and doing sound checks.
At the Manly Environmental Center I was able to apply my
reading of Laboratory Earth to it. In this article the author argues the point
that it is better to focus global change for the Earth and says local is not as
important. My group believed that as environmental studies students, one needs
to take a look at each and every aspect when it comes to solving problems for
the environment. So we believe local focus on change is good which this group
is strongly about. Their penguin project was amazing to hear, and crazy to
think penguins can stand this heat! But they were very passionate about what
they do which I thought was very important.
The next day we walked the Sydney Harbor Bridge which was
nice to see even more views of the Circular Quay. After we went to a tour of
the Rocks, which our tour guide was a character. He gave us many fun facts of
the history of the Rocks which way back when was used as a place to put
convicts. And if they behaved and did their time, they could own property of
their own and have people working under them!
During our free day we thought we would use the day to tour
the markets that we missed out on from our past busy days. We went to the
market at the Rocks, an artist’s studio Ken Done, and then travelled over to
Manly market. The opera house’s market was unfortunately not open. But Janet
and I finished off our free day on the beach and then going out to see Sydney’s
night life.
And here we are today at Hunter Valley in Nulkaba. As we ate dinner we saw a type of parrot who blended in with the grass. And youth hostel’s are not as scary as I thought, it is actually a very
comfortable place to stay. I would come back to one if I had the choice. Today we went to a tour of an organic vineyard and was able to compare that to a non organic vineyard. I thought the organic vineyard was extremely cool because they went through each stage of their wine from growing to bottling and selling all at their vineyard, whereas the non organic just grew their grapes on their property. I loved the family aspect of the non organic farm and the historical photos from their different family generations were very neat! I learned a few cool facts from the organic winery that they use screw caps because corks cost 50 more cents than the caps and they put more preservatives in corked wines than screw lids. We were able to fit in a cheese tasting and a quick beer making factory which the art side of me thought was cool because they had huge kilns in their front yard that they used for making pottery. All of them were huge and circular made from brick. So that was pretty awesome too!!!
I am very excited for our next journey to the eco-village to now see a sustainable home lifestyle instead of just seeing city examples so far and taking a look at the wine industry, though my time so far couldn't have been more perfect! I am so thankful to be on this trip gaining these experiences. I will never forget this trip.
No comments:
Post a Comment