Australia Day 3: Politics, Waterfalls and Deserted Towns

Today we got sort of a late start but still managed to get quite a bit of exploring in!

In the morning I learned more about Australia's political system (voting is compulsory) and about the controversial move to increase required student loan payments for uni (university/college). Watched some morning news show that described this move and sighed at the bs that the politicians were spitting out.

They were asked one question and instead of answering it, they proceeded to regurgitate their talking points and statistics. Great, thanks for the stats, the question still isn't answered and the problem still hasn't been addressed.
Not sure if Australian politicians took a page from American politicians' notebooks re: the non-answering of questions or whether human nature just doesn't permit rational and non-corrupt politics to exist.

Contemplated this for a while, often reflecting back to Hannah Arendt's 'Human Condition' and to random other things I've learned from my Anthropology and American Studies courses at Cal.
I actually used to be very into politics... until I realized that all it does is make me upset and frustrated. So I don't care too much about it anymore.
I'm also quite interested in the notion of compulsory voting in America. So far all I've heard about it in Australia is that it's quite good. Yes it results in ignorant people casting ignorant votes, but it also motivates far more people to actually care about policies and to follow the news. Not so in America where I find that most people my age are too frustrated with their voices not being heard that they don't even bother to put in the energy to be properly educated about various points on the ballot. But is it feasible to force 312 million people to vote? (Australia only has a population of 23 million). Probably not.
Still fleshing out educated thoughts on the matter - will probably return to it in a later blog post. Definitely curious to hear other people's opinions regarding this. 

Made a 'boat' out of trash. Pretty sure Picasso
was my ancestor. Clearly his blood runs through
my veins. 

After the morning news we (Aaron, Fane and I) went to Crystal Cascades where we climbed over waterfalls and then swam beneath them. The water was a perfectly refreshing temperature and I had the lovely pleasure of meeting and hanging out with 3 German exchange students (on a medical program here) and some more Aussie friends.

Afterwards we went out to Grilled, a restaurant near the Esplanade. Man, food is absurdly expensive in Australia but the mushroom burger there was really quite splendid (I gatta figure out what they put in it - want to replicate haha).

We went home, changed and then drove to Kuranda and psuedo-hiked to see Baron Falls. Met up with another Aussie friend (same one from Day 1 beer night) who had just won silver at this insane bike race (out of 428 people). Had a jolly good time walking through the utterly deserted Kuranda. Apparently everything closes pre-3pm in Kuranda so nothing was open. Nothing except for this random pub called Kuranda Hotel ... I think that was it's name. Insane bike race guy (Tim) shouted us some beers.

What does "shouted us" mean? In the strange land of Australia that is rife with bizarre slang, 'shouted' means to 'treat someone'. Ie; 'I'll shout you this burger' means 'I'll buy this burger for you'. 

At Kuranda Hotel I shared a plate of the best calamari I've ever had in my life with Aaron (okay, he bought it and I stole some...so sorta shared haha). The night was filled with jokes that were a cringe-worthy level of corny but nonetheless thoroughly entertaining.

Went home, ate some more paw paw and proceeded to catch up a bit on real life (replying to emails and such).







Tomorrow I will attempt a 12km run!