After a smashing week at Tom’s, it was time to get moving. This time, onto Austin to visit an old friend Dash, who was kind enough to let us crash at his house for a week. Our first introduction to Texas was a friendly fellow who worked as a janitor at a rest stop just after the Texan border. He introduced himself as NAME, which turned out wasn`t actually his name. He was however a very nice and very talkative guy. He liked his job, because he liked to talk, and working at a rest stop, he said people never got sick of him talking, or telling the same storied again and again.
Compared to the size of an Australian city, Austin is small. But boy does it punch above its weight! There are bars and clubs galore, restaurants and all manner of taco and tex mex shacks. Luckily we arrived on a Friday night, so got the chance to wander down 6th (hipsterville) and onto dirty 6th (trashville) and see what a night out in Austin was all about. I could spend years in Austin, and not get sick of the bars on 6th street. Good, local beer was cheap, and they looked like they knew how to make a cocktail. The White Horse was a bar where couples, under the age of 50 actually got together and danced a couple’s dance. LIKE IN THE 1950s! Apparently it’s called the Texas Two Step, and is quite popular in the area. I never thought I’d ever go somewhere where people of my generation actually knew how to dance a couples dance.
Dirty 6th (the continuation of 6th Street) was all about short skirts, loud music and drinking to excess. A quick trip round on a friendly roomie’s bicycle taxi was a good end to the night. The rest of the week was spent eating delicious Tex Mex, playing Peter Pan Mini Golf, and visiting Longhorn Cavern, an hour out of Austin.
Other than lots to eat and drink, Austin also has THE best outdoor pool I have ever seen. Fed by natural springs (keeping the water a steady temperature all year round) the long thin pool has sloped grass banks on each side perfect for relaxing in summer. The water isn’t salty, or chlorinated and the bottom of the pool is made of rocks and seaweed. Like the beach, only without the salt, sand or sharks.
It was also our last chance to pick up any supplies we needed before leaving the USA. Our errands sent us to Cabela's for canvas weather proofing spray. While this doesn’t seem like a particularly fun trip…. IT WAS AWESOME! Turns out it’s an enormous camping and outdoors shop, that stocks a vast selection of guns and ammo (obviously) bows, arrows and arrow tips, hunting blinds, remote control decoy ducks, animal calls of all varieties and all the fancy camping gear that any outdoors neard could ever dream of. Just to get your hunting juices going (so you buy more arrow tips, turkey callers etc) they had shot and stuffed a full display of any animal you might want to hunt. An African Safari display showed off stuffed elephants, lions, warthog etc. In the centre of the store they had built a mountain to display North American animals; mountain goats, beavers, bears, moose etc. They even had an aquarium complete with (live, not stuffed) cat fish and eels.
Compared to the size of an Australian city, Austin is small. But boy does it punch above its weight! There are bars and clubs galore, restaurants and all manner of taco and tex mex shacks. Luckily we arrived on a Friday night, so got the chance to wander down 6th (hipsterville) and onto dirty 6th (trashville) and see what a night out in Austin was all about. I could spend years in Austin, and not get sick of the bars on 6th street. Good, local beer was cheap, and they looked like they knew how to make a cocktail. The White Horse was a bar where couples, under the age of 50 actually got together and danced a couple’s dance. LIKE IN THE 1950s! Apparently it’s called the Texas Two Step, and is quite popular in the area. I never thought I’d ever go somewhere where people of my generation actually knew how to dance a couples dance.
Dirty 6th (the continuation of 6th Street) was all about short skirts, loud music and drinking to excess. A quick trip round on a friendly roomie’s bicycle taxi was a good end to the night. The rest of the week was spent eating delicious Tex Mex, playing Peter Pan Mini Golf, and visiting Longhorn Cavern, an hour out of Austin.
Other than lots to eat and drink, Austin also has THE best outdoor pool I have ever seen. Fed by natural springs (keeping the water a steady temperature all year round) the long thin pool has sloped grass banks on each side perfect for relaxing in summer. The water isn’t salty, or chlorinated and the bottom of the pool is made of rocks and seaweed. Like the beach, only without the salt, sand or sharks.
It was also our last chance to pick up any supplies we needed before leaving the USA. Our errands sent us to Cabela's for canvas weather proofing spray. While this doesn’t seem like a particularly fun trip…. IT WAS AWESOME! Turns out it’s an enormous camping and outdoors shop, that stocks a vast selection of guns and ammo (obviously) bows, arrows and arrow tips, hunting blinds, remote control decoy ducks, animal calls of all varieties and all the fancy camping gear that any outdoors neard could ever dream of. Just to get your hunting juices going (so you buy more arrow tips, turkey callers etc) they had shot and stuffed a full display of any animal you might want to hunt. An African Safari display showed off stuffed elephants, lions, warthog etc. In the centre of the store they had built a mountain to display North American animals; mountain goats, beavers, bears, moose etc. They even had an aquarium complete with (live, not stuffed) cat fish and eels.