Honey Bee, lets fight! Want that disc? Its ours tonight!

This last weekend, I went to the Australian Ultimate Championships in Perth (also known as nationals). The championships are a four day tournament, with two days of pool play, and two days of bracket play. There were 11 women's teams - including three from Victoria -Honey A, Honey Bee, and Team Box. The favorites for the women were Team Box and Wildcard (from Sidney). There were many more mens teams, but again three from Victoria - Heads of State A and B and Chilly.

Tournament logo on a disc. Black swans are native to Australia.

Honey Bee was the only "B" team at the womens tournament, and every team we played were impressed with both the fact that Honey had a development program, and by how hard we played. Honey Bee did, in fact, lose every single game we played, and our total points throughout the weekend would have won us one game. However, we were upbeat and positive every game - we knew going into this that we weren't going to do very well!

I missed the first day of the tournament - thursday- since I had tutorials I couldn't miss. I then managed to miss my flight (I never, ever want to go through that again); but I got into Perth at about 12:45 that night. One of my teammates drove to the airport to pick me up and bring me to the "villas" where we were staying. We stayed in Scarsborough, right off the beach. We had a full kitchen, two bedrooms, and a bath in our villa, and the other was just like it.

Honey Bee cheering before a game. Visible players are
(from left to right) Carolyn, Amanda, Annie, Pam, and Emma.

On Friday we played three games. One of them was against Honey A, and we scored twice against them. The first point we scored was a play-book perfect point - we did absolutely everything correctly. It was beautiful. One of the Honey A women - Mel Gange (who reminds me forcibly of Hart) told us that seeing us play that well brought a tear to her eye. Which, as corny as it may sound, was one of our biggest confidence boosters all weekend. We scored a grand total of three points that day, but we did (mostly) make the other teams fight for their points. We were in the "top" pool, and pretty much had no chance against any of the teams. (For all you stickies out there, it was like playing a pool made up of Luther, Carleton, and Madison). On Saturday, we played light-years better than Friday, scoring four points in a game, which was fantastic. Our flow was really good, and we looked like a different team. Bunker (a teammate) had a really bad ankle injury in our second game, and Mon got hit in the head, so while we were playing more aggressively, it was also much scarier - Bunker went to the hospital.

Honey Bee on the line in our game against Wildcard.
L-R: Annie, Me, Emma, and Jude (captain).

I was fresher than my teammates, since it was only my second day, and so I played a lot, particularly in the third game, when our rotations got messy, since we were down two players. I was really proud of myself on Saturday - I played really hard and really smart, which I don't always do. My throwing got a lot better, and I only threw five discs away all day (all time low). My defense was also some of the best I've played in a long time. I had several d's in zone defense, and didn't get broken once my mark was set, and kept up with the cutters. It was some of the best ultimate I've played, which was pretty awesome.

Me cutting in the game against Wildcard. Jude is in the corner.

On Sunday, Honey Bee didn't have any games, since we lost all eight of our games. We watched Honey Bee play Sugar Magnolias for 3-4, and they lost by one in hard cap, which was heart-breaking, particularly, since Honey had been ahead for most of the game, and had a turnover in the endzone in the last point. The women's final was between Team Box and Wildcard, and it was really, really close. The victorian teams were rooting for team box, the underdogs. Wildcard is composed of a lot of World's players - mixed, juniors, and womens. Team Box took the game to half, and then traded points with Wildcard, until Wildcard won in hard cap. It was really sad - Team Box played beautifully.

It was really amazing to watch ultimate of that caliber. With that many worlds players on the field, the game looks completely different from what I've come to expect. (For any frisbee players out there, both teams are of the caliber of Bella Donna). The mens championship was won by Chilly, the victorian men's team. It was a good game, but not as close as the women's game, and so not as interesting. Honey A won the spirit championship, and one of the Honey A women won MVP for the women's tournament, which was really cool. They also announced the worlds training team, and there is a Honey A woman on that as well.

Nationals was really, really fun. I finished the tournament wanting nothing more than to play more. I can't wait to get back to Stickies - I've said it before, but playing with another team makes me appreciate Stickies much, much more. I also have lots of new ideas for plays, as well as a new enthusiasm for Ultimate. The great thing about playing in Australia is that Nationals is smaller than regionals in the states, but it is still high quality Ultimate. To play at Nats was an experience I probably won't get again, and it was really amazing.

Tassie!

Wow. Its been a while since I posted anything. Not much other than school was going on until last week, which was my Easter holiday. I got a week and a day (Good Friday) off, and went on an IES sponsored trip to the Australian state of Tasmania, which they call Tassie here. We flew out midday on Tuesday. Our flight was delayed by several hours, so instead of having a nice sit-down meal, we ate at mackers (MacDonalds). We spent the night at the first of several hostels. That day we woke up to rain and decided we wouldn't let that deter us. We hiked to Wineglass Bay, which despite appearances is actually in the shape of a Wineglass.

It was a fantastic hike up and over the saddle of a mountain, and then down onto the beach. On the beach we saw a wallaby that was quite tame. It hopped up to us and sat around calmly while we took pictures and petted it. I was amazed at how calm it was, though I think it had been fed by tourists before.
We then drove to Tarana, where we checked in to the Fish Lips hostel, and had a fantastic dinner. We all then went on a ghost tour of Port Arthur, which was silly and fun. Port Arthur is the former prisoners colony for repeat offenders. Criminals who were transported to Autralia and then re-offended while in Australia were sent to Port Arthur. On the ghost tour we saw the church, the mortuary, a few of the houses, and the asylum.

The next morning we went to the Tasmanian Devil Conservation Park, which also had other Tassie animals. We saw a bird show and a devil feeding, which was intense. When people talk about the weird noises devils make, they aren't kidding! They're smaller than I expected, but apparently have almost the same force in their bite as a saltwater crocodile. They are scavengers and eat everything from what they scavange. They are also being wiped out by a cancer of the face which results in tumors that grow on their face, and they eventually starve to death. The conservation park has a completely healthy population, and the University of Tasmanina is hoping to come up with a test for the cancer soon.
From the devil park, we went back to Port Arthur for a "cruise" around the bay there. We got a tour of the Isle of the Dead, which was the burial grounds for all baptized members of the community, free or not. However, the island (which is really small) is split into two burial sites, separated on the north and south ends, for free and imprisioned, and then further split by class. Most of the prisioners who were buried there don't have headstones, and there isn't a full count of how many are buried on the island. They think its about 1,100 people. Our tour guide was a hoot, and gave all of us exchange students a hard time about not calling home often enough. I was glad I'd called home right before I left!

From Port Arthur we drove to Hobart, which is the capitol of Tassie. We stayed at a hostel called the Pickeled Frog right near the central buisness district (cbd). Hobart is a port city, and I had fish and chips several times, at Mako, which is (apparently) a famous floating fish and chips place in constitution dock.
The next day, we went on a tour of Cadbury, which has a huge factory just outside of Hobart. We watched a funny little movie all about how chocolate is made, and why Cadbury's is special. It was pretty fun and resulted in a lot of free chocolate, and cheap chocolate. From Cadbury we drove to an apple orchard, and picked apples and strawberries and had a picnic lunch, which was a fun, quiet few hours. From the orchard we went to a winery, and did a wine tasting, which pretty much reinforced the idea that I don't really like wine. But it was fun to do all the silly swirling and sniffing and checking the color. We then hung out at the winery for a while, and played a bunch of group games on the lawn, providing entertainment for the people at the restaurant. The winery was in one of Tassies wine regions, and was really beautiful.

After the wine tasting, we went back to Hobart and had free time. I went and got fish and chips and ice cream, which was the meal I had most often (3 times!) while in tassie. Olivia and I wandered around the cbd and other areas, and then pretty much went to bed early.

The next day we all got up and went to the Salamanca Market, which is sort of both on the docks and in the cbd. There were tons of booths with really cool, cute stuff - shirts, bags, scarves, hats, jewelry, art, and food booths, both fresh produce and hot food. I bought lunch there, as well as two pairs of earrings, a scarf, a hat, and some postcards. It was good shopping! Olivia and I wandered around the market together, and spent about three hours there. We then went looking for the Royal Botanical Gardens, but after walking probably 3 or 4 k, we didn't find them, so we wandered back to the hostel and rested until dinner. The whole group went out for Indian together, and it was a fantastic meal, and really fun to hang out with everyone.

The next day was our last in Tasmania, and we got up really early to go rafting. It was a level 2 rapids, which basically means nothing was very difficult and we got more wet from water fights with the other rafts than anything. It was really fun, though the water was really cold. After rafting we all piled into the bus to head back to the airport. Our flight was delayed several hours (seemed to be a theme!), so we arrived in Melbourne at 10:50, and got home just before midnight. It was a really great trip - I loved tassie, and Hobart especially. I do have a lot of work to catch up on, though!

Pictures:
The first is a group photo at the lookout to Wineglass Bay. The front row, left to right, is Philip, Cari, Sam, myself, Kayla, and Olivia. The next is Natalya, girl whos name I have never been able to remember (Stacey), and Chris. Next is Heather, Austin, Rachel, Arielle, and Mark. The back row is Ray, Laura, Kate, Cari, Emma, Suzanne, Nathan, and Alisha.
The second photo is of Wineglass Bay from the lookout.
The third is Kate, wallaby, and Ray.
The fourth is a Tassie devil.
The fifth is the Port Arthur penitentiary.
The sixth is the Isle of the Dead.
The seventh is my favorite fish and chips place, mako.
The eight is a view of the wine region from the winery.
The last is a view up the river from the landing point.