Our Last day in Australia

We sleep in a bit this morning but have the suitcases and gear out by 10:00. We have made a few phone calls home and in particular to Stratford, using up what’s left on our calling card, although we just seem to can’t get the total left below $5. We are downloading and offloading books and whatever we can before we leave

Our time here has been exciting, fun and inspiring. We have met so many great people and feel unable to thank them all properly. We have had a wonderful time here and we hope to return as soon as we can.

Look for Greg & John’s “Best of Australia” coming soon to a web site near you.

See you next in Singapore!

Through our drive from Cairns to Sydney, we had stopped in various places known for good diving, and had been frustrated in our desire because of the weather. We had booked dives upon arrival in Sydney, but these had been cancelled because the seas were too rough to dive. Today is our last chance in Australia, and we have booked to dive in Botany Bay with our friend Lynne.

To do this, we need to be on the train at 7:03, and 6:50 sees us sitting there reading the paper. An hour later and Lynne’s smiling face greets us at the station – she lives in Caringbah, near where we will dive. We head to the dive centre and gear up – this is a very different experience that up north. The water here is only 22 degrees, so thick wetsuits, hoods and gloves are the routine.

Then out to the boat for the short ride to the first dive site. We get there, and our captain, Don, decides it is too rough to dive here, so we go off to a more sheltered location. In we jump, and I immediately get claustrophobic – I hate the feel of the hood and the gloves and the wetsuit. I fight the feeling while I wait for the others to swim to the anchor line, and by the time they get there I’ve decided to bail and, swimming back to the boat, I lose one of my fins – different technology than I’d used before, and I hadn’t tightened it properly.

Greg and the others do their dive, and Don tries to cheer me up – tells me that you should never dive unless you are feeling totally right about it. He also tells me not to worry about the fin – that with today’s currents, it will wash up in front of the dive shop in the next day or so.

The other divers come back and tell me what I missed – cuttlefish tucked under one of the ledges, and huge groupers that swam with them and were rewarded by Dermot, the divemaster, who fed them urchin, a delicacy they can’t normally eat because they can’t manoeuvre past the spines.

We go out on the 2nd dive, which I’ve decided I’m doing but without hood and gloves. In we go, and it feels great. No anxiety or worry – the wonderful sense of freedom that comes floating underwater. This dive is at the manmade breakwater protecting Sydney’s huge container port, which houses an amazing diversity of aquatic life in its small caves.

We get back to the dive shop and are cleaning our gear when I hear from the staff that my lost fin has already made its way home – someone found it on the beach and brought it back just after we headed out for the 2nd dive.

Up early – we are heading to see the Blue Mountains, a 90 minute drive west of Sydney. Eric has lent us his car for the day, and he arrives at our place to drop it off just after 9, and of course there is a hamper for our morning coffee break sitting on the back seat. Again, his generosity leaves us speechless.

We head off, not needing maps to negotiate our way out of town – we feel like true Sydneysiders at this minor triumph. Traffic is easy this morning. We wonder whether the air will be blue today or not – the weather forecast for the mountains is a high of only 13, and the air is turned blue when the sun heats the eucalyptus trees and their oil evaporates.

Our guidebook tells us of a scenic back road, and we turn off onto it, catching glimpses of beauty. We stop at a lookout, and craning over the trees, see a beautiful vista of the valley and the mountains. We spend some lovely minutes here, alone with the view. We realize that we will indeed see the famed blue air today.

We continue our drive, and shortly after arrive at Echo Point, the main lookout, with spectacular views of the 3 Sisters and the canyon.


from left: The 3 Sisters; The Valley; At Echo Point

We continue our drive on the scenic road, eventually ending up in Katoomba, the main city of the Blue Mountains. We stop for lunch, and are just nicely seated in the restaurant when it starts to pour. It continues to pour through lunch, and we run back to the car through the rain. We vote to head back to Sydney.

We make our way to Eric’s place for a pre-dinner cocktail, then we all head out to a wonderful hole-in-the-wall Eric knows, serving Japanese food, and crammed to the rafters with Japanese students studying at the nearby university. Then home to an early bed – we have to be up early on Saturday.

We sleep in, enjoying our Mardi Gras Recovery. After Tuesday’s intense heat, the rest of the week is turning out to be what is known in Sydney as cool, fall weather – mid-to-high 20s in the days, high teens in the evenings. (Some, not knowing better, might call this perfect summer weather. This may include us.)

There are 2 museums we have been intending to go to but have not yet hit, so today is the day. We head off first to the Art Gallery of New South Wales, perfectly located in the Domain, overlooking Woolloomooloo. On Eric’s instructions, we ring him at work just as we walk by Parliament House, and he comes out with a picnic hamper full of lunch goodies for us. What a guy.

The Art Gallery proves disappointing – although many of the pieces are quite wonderful, the place is full of school children, and they are unruly. We are surprised that there aren’t proctors in each room – we see many close calls as they run and scream and pretend to deface the art. We beat a quick retreat.

We head to the Austrialian Museum of natural history, located about 1 block from our apartment. In particular there is a special exhibit we have been looking forward to – the 2003 Wildlife Photographer of the Year winning photographs, a competition sponsored by BBC Wildlife Magazine and the Natural History Museum, in London. There are over 100 photographs, including both winners and runners up, and we spend an enraptured 2 hours studying them. One in particular fascinates me – a Dalmation pelican, staring out over outstretched wing, its eye looking so human that you would swear it was a photo of a person in a feathered mask. A perfect Mardi Gras image.

Happy Birthday to Doug Lean on March 12th! And Congratulations to our nephew, Nimi, whose hockey team won its Divisional Championship in a hard won overtime sudden death climactic finale!

Also…we are looking for a nice cliff-side hotel in Santorini, Greece for our time there in May…anybody have any suggestions?

Our time in Sydney and indeed Australia is unfortunately, coming to an end. We find it hard to believe how quickly two months has flown by.

Our last couple of days have been easy going and relaxed. On Tuesday the temperature soared to 40 degrees so we headed for Bondi for the day. We grabbed the first bus that came along and unfortunately it was not air-conditioned. Everyone is dripping wet after 5 minutes of travel and is fanning themself with whatever they can grab. It is only Tuesday but the beach is really busy, mostly with tourists. John tells me that a Japanese tourist had drowned here 4 days earlier while body surfing. We have a leisurely beach read and some swimming and head back to the city about 4 pm. Not much is planned for tonight. Dinner in and some Australian TV (what there is of it). We have no air conditioning in the apartment and plan for a restless, hot night. Shortly after midnight, the wind shifts and things start to cool down a bit.

Wednesday breaks cloudy and 16 degrees cooler than yesterday. Ahhhh, Sydney. The weather forecasters have the toughest job here. They never get it right. Today looks to be an errand and cleanup day. We are finishing books that we will leave here. Cooking food that has been purchased. Organizing hotels and travel for phase three of our trip.
John is on the phone with Olympic Airways booking the Greece and Turkey part of our trip. We have a very tight schedule in Greece. Our tour of Turkey has had two days tacked onto the end and it is right in the middle of our time in Athens and the islands. We have checked out ferry schedules and find that we won’t be able to do as much island hopping as we had hoped and with the schedules the way they are, we opt for flying. The other consideration was to do a 22 hour bus ride from Athens to Istanbul to connect to the first day of our tour group. I said no to that.

We had ordered some t-shirts with our followsummer logo on them and they are ready. I head up to Surry Hills to pick them up while John heads down to Olympic in Darling Harbour to secure our airline tickets. Our guardian angel Eric has graciously offered us his car to head to the Blue Mountains on Friday and we arrive back to the apartment to a phone call from him organizing the car drop off.

We are both craving pizza tonight and grab a bottle of nice red and head around the corner to Uno Uno for a quick pizza. We consider take away to flop in front of the TV again but once we get there, we settle in and order.

As fate and weather go hand in hand, Monday morning breaks clear, sunny and warm after a weekend of heavy constant rains. The numbers are in from the attendance at the Mardi Gras Parade and they are disappointing. Rough estimates put the crowd at about 300,000. This is down from years past and entirely due to the weather. The locals stayed away so it was up to us crazy foreigners to do all the cheering and whooping.

We are scheduled to do the BridgeClimb adventure today which takes us to the top of the Sydney Harbour Bridge about 134 meters above sea level. We have seen the climbers scaling the bridge several times during our trips to the harbour and today is our day to conquer the bridge. Grant Wedge has decided to join us and we meet about 11:30 at Circular Quay to make our way up to the bridge for our pre-reserved 11:50 check in. We are in the “12:05” climb and have been told we will be at the Bridge for 3.5 hours in total.

We arrive to a very organized production line. We are quickly divided into our “team” and watch a quick video on the process. We are then ushered into our debriefing room, sign our waivers and do our breathalyser test (Yup!). We then move to the dressing rooms and are given grey polyester one piece suits to wear on the bridge. Not very flattering but then everyone looks the same, thank God! For liability issues, we cannot bring anything up on the Bridge with us—no cameras, wallets, watches, loose change etc. They want nothing to fall in to the traffic lanes of the bridge. Our sunglasses are fine but are attached, as are our baseball caps and pretty well everything else, to our suits by clipping them on our backs.


It causes a moment of concern that one of the guides called these things “jumpsuits”

We meet our diverse team, young and old alike, and watch as the two or three teams ahead of us go through their paces before disappearing out the door and up the Bridge. Our team leader, who will also be our guide for the climb, is Big Pete. Pete is true Aussie and a big guy (hence the name) and is jovial and full of knowledge. Next up is our safety harness that attaches us to the walking line and the bridge for the entire trip. This is an ingenious piece of simple design that allows us to squeeze through some cramped areas and around some tight corners while still being safe and attached. Our final gear up is our headsets and radios so that we can follow Big Pete’s scintillating commentary throughout the process. There is a simulator on site and they make us climb the ladders with our gear before we get on the bridge. Note: The simulator doesn’t even come close to the ladder climb we will do!

We receive our final debrief and off we go! Everyone was told to strip down to our underwear under our suits today for the climb because of the sun and we are glad for it. As some of you may be aware, polyester doesn’t breathe that well and walking ten feet, we break sweat.

The first part of the climb is getting to the pylon that will take us to the eastern arch. This is a very open walk and is a good warm up for what is to come. We are under the bridge right now on suspended catwalks and this is where, we discover, the waterfall effect fireworks on the bridge are let off. We continue across and over and get to our first ladder up. We must scale four 10-foot ladders. This is done alone as the climb rules state that only one person can be on a ladder at any time. Each ladder takes you up, up, up until you reach the top of the pylon, and there you are, at the bottom of the top arch of the bridge.

We are already quite high at this point and it is a beautiful afternoon with a lovely sea breeze blowing in from the North East to keep our “polyester” cool and comfortable. And we start up the arch. It is a very easy climb, the metal stairs spaced quite comfortably. We are heading north up the eastern arch and the views of the harbour and environs are spectacular.


Yeah! We made it to the top!

Big Pete has stopped us several times to take photos, which they try and sell to you at the end of the climb, and we stop at the top on the middle span and survey the world.


John and the City

We have now crossed over and are heading back down the Western Arch with views over the western harbours out to the Olympic site and the Anzac Bridge. It is interesting to see Sydney’s’ extensive harbour from up here. We get to the bottom of the Arch and have to deal with those ladders again – this time going down. Far below us is the commuter train that goes from Circular Quay to the north shore and I can hear and feel it rumble beneath me as I head down the ladder. This is the only difficult part of the climb for me. One more photo opportunity from Pete and it is just the final walk home and the de-gear.

It has been a more strenuous walk than we had imagined and we are thirsty and hungry for a late lunch. We end up at one of the local pub/ale house/hotels around the corner and give ourselves a congratulatory “cheers” for our hard work.


Well done!

Happy Birthday! Sabrina Gardin-Lawrence, mother of Benjamin Gregory and expectant mother of twins (today), the lovely Ms. Shannon George (March 7), and her long-suffering father, Gary (March 8)! Happy Birthday to You!

Mardi Gras! We wake to threatening skies.

Graham is having printer problems, so we go over to his place to try to resolve (success!) and then, Eric having arrived, we head to a local café for bacon and eggs: we haven’t indulged since we left North America.


Graham, Greg, Eric, John

By the time we finish brunch, the skies are no longer threatening – they have opened, and the rain is streaming down. We console ourselves that the parade doesn’t start till 8 p.m., and so the rain will stop.

In addition to sponsoring shopping sprees, the Bobby Goldsmith Foundation raises money for its HIV/AIDS work by selling reserved seats to the parade, which are at the very end of the parade route. We have bought these, not wanting to spend 3 hours jumping up and down to see over the heads of those parade-goers who lined the parade route starting at 8 a.m. to get good views. Grant and Bob, back from their road trip, have also bought seats, although we are sitting about 17 stands apart from each other. They arrive at our apartment about 5, sparking wine in hand, so that we can have a leisurely walk to the stands, about 2 kilometres away. Based on Pride Parades past in Toronto, we assume that if the parade starts at 8, it will be 10 by the time it gets to the stands, so after our champers, we wander at a leisurely pace, noting, with a bit of amazement, the number of people quite happily guarding their vantage point in the pouring rain.

We stop to ask a parade martial which side of the street we should be on – apparently once the barricades are closed, the only way to get to the other side is to go all the way past the end of the parade and double back. He tells us, but also tells us the parade actually starts at 7:30, and that it should reach the stands no more than 45 minutes later.

It continues to pour – we still are telling ourselves the sun will still come out before the parade starts. By the time we get to the stands, which are set in Moore Park, the evening is no longer simply wet, it is a mud-filled adventure as well. At the gates, the ticket-takers insist that each guest take a plastic poncho. These prove to be all the colours of the rainbow, and once donned render everyone into a democratic equality – there go the hours of primping and of choosing just the perfect outfit!

Despite the wet, everyone is determined to have a good time – Aussie spirits are clearly not going to be dampened by rain. I am disappointed only in that the rain means the camera will stay well hidden, and our readers will not be able to share in the visual treat of Mardi Gras.

We grab some food, and faster than expected, the parade is upon us. Every few stands there is a platform with 2 drag queens on it, who are entertaining us as we wait. It causes us to ask the question of how their faces have stayed on – surely they should have washed down the fronts of their costumes by now. The DQs will also do the colour commentary on the parade as it passes. The woman in front of us declares herself enforcer of the DQs’ request that umbrellas not be used in the stands, and we watch in Canadian horror as she proceeds to destroy a couple of umbrellas in furtherance of her quest. The rest of the spectators quickly understand the consequences of umbrella-up, and we enjoy an unobstructed view for the entire parade.

The parade is led by the Dykes on Bikes – a huge contingent, their headlights shining in the colours of the rainbow flag. The bikes are just gone, our enforcer is just telling us there will be a delay before the first float arrives when, in fact, the first float arrives (Toronto should hire Sydney’s Parade Marshalls!) and we have 2 ½ hours of sheer wonderful, sometimes pure, sometime propagandistic, entertainment – in which “W” is almost as big a villain as the current Aussie PM, John Howard. We watch in amazement at the costumes, some representing hundreds of hours of labour, the totality incalculable, and feel so sorry for the marchers, smiling and dancing their way through the downpour. We do miss out on another level of Mardi Gras as many of the lighting and other effects cannot be used because of all the water.

We wonder how the feathers on many of the costumes have avoided becoming bedraggled – we are covered in plastic and we have not avoided that fate. The rain stops literally as the marchers who spell out “THE END” walk by. The dance, at which 18,000 partiers are expected tonight, is just past the stands, and there are huge streams of people fighting through the mud in 2 directions – those going to the dance, and those leaving the stands. After much discussion, we had decided not to go to the dance – most Aussies told us that the dance shouldn’t be missed, but only because the sight of 18,000 people dancing in one room was worth seeing. Our reaction: “not at $150 each”. Bob, who suffers from a bit of agoraphobia, declares he’s had enough of the crowds, and goes searching for a taxi, no mean feat given the size of the no-car zone created for tonight – to administer himself a facial.

The street is a non-stop party as we head back towards Oxford Street. The casual Aussie attitude to alcohol in public places is very well displayed tonight – and we fully appreciate the oft-repeated advice to wear closed-toe shoes – there is a sea of broken glass. But the cleanup crews are out in full force, and by 2 a.m. things are mostly cleaned up.

About 2 a.m. the bars start kicking the patrons out – early by Aussie standards. We learn that they will reopen by 4 a.m., when the first dancers will start leaving the dance looking for places to “Recover”, and once reopened will not close until about 7 a.m. Monday morning – 27 hours away. Although many people seem content to stand and wait, we are not amongst them, and are at home sound asleep soon after.

Congratulations to Larry and Del, who are getting married today in San Francisco, after 31 years together!

I go to the internet café to post our journal entries for the last couple of days, and learn via email that Larry and Del, our hosts for the 1st 2 nights of our trip, are getting married in San Francisco today! We are so excited and happy for them, and raise our glasses of champagne – oops, sparking wine – to them! And we salute the courage of SF’s mayor, for doing the right thing!

Our social whirl continues unabated – Eric has arranged that Graham, Greg and I are lunching in the NSW Parliament Dining Room, where he is one of the chefs. Graham picks us up and off we go, in high style. Parking in the building has been organized, our names are on the right lists, and we are treated as though we were VIPs. Eric’s boss takes our orders, a bottle of wine appears, and we enjoy a fantastic meal. I try, finally, ‘roo meat. It looks like beef, but tastes a bit like venison. It is a very lean meat, and cannot be cooked to even a medium level – it will be like shoe leather, they tell us.

After 3 hours of lunch (no dinner tonight!), we are taken touring around the “public” areas of Parliament, including the kitchens and pantries. We end up in the parliamentary bottle shop, which is open to the public – or at least those members of the public who have been invited into the building. Wonderful wines stocked – we are assured that many of the wines being stocked are available only at the cellar door and the Parliament Bottle Shop! Although primarily to supply the bars and restaurants of Parliament, they are sold at cost to anyone with money to buy. Needless to say, we load up – we are here for another 10 days, after all.

The city is geared up for Mardi Gras – banners flying everywhere. The window displays in the big department stores downtown look more like Northbound Leather than Holt Renfrew. It seems like everyone feels that they are an honorary member of the “Gay and Lesbian Club” for the week: everyone everywhere is giving us helpful hints on how to enjoy the parade the most, and everyone everywhere says on parting “have a wonderful Mardi Gras!”

King Lear opens on Broadway tonight at 6:15. Merde, Lucy!
Happy Birthday to Jim Mountain (March 5)!

Graham has offered to take us up to the northern beaches today – an area that is very difficult to get to by public transit. We go under the harbour and head east, covering some the area we have walked to – Creemorne and Mossman. We drive past the Zoo, with its commanding position on the Harbour, past Obelisk Beach and across the Spit to Manly. We drive through to the North Head, which from this side we can see is much higher than the South Head, where we went last week.


From left: South Head and Tasman from North Head; Sydney and Manly Ferry from North Head

Manly is, of course, home of one of Australia’s most famous beaches. There are actually 2 beaches, one on the harbour side and, just a short distance away, the more famous beach on the Tasman. We pick up takeaway fish and chips for lunch, and sit on the beach wall watching the swimmers, the lifeguards and the tourists.

From Manly we continue on north, ending up in Palm Beach and Barrenjoey Head. I admit to having a good nap on the drive. Palm Beach was once a summer resort for the very affluent. It is now a far northern suburb for the very affluent.

Driving home we stop and meet Graham’s mother, who lives north of the city. At 79, she is still very lively, and a charming hostess. She offers us a cold drink 3 times, we decline 3 times, and she brings us our drinks. We note to Graham afterwards that she won’t take no for an answer, and he says she’s hard of hearing.

We get home in time for much-needed naps before the social whirl starts again. Lynne drops by on her way home from a job interview for a glass of champers. Then out at 7:30 to meet Graham, Jens, Jeroen, Simon and Christina at the Colombian for a quick drink before dinner. Jens and Jeroen are visiting from Amsterdam for Mardi Gras, Simon and Jens went to uni together back in the UK before Simon, originally from Wales, moved to Australia 4 years ago. Christina is a good friend of Graham’s who has flown in from Melbourne just to come out for dinner with Jens and Jeroen, who have visited Australia before and chummed around with Graham and Christina on their previous visit.

We move to the restaurant, and start with champagne – the real thing tonight, Veuve Cliquot – as Jens and Jeroen hand envelopes to Christina and Graham (Simon had already been given his). Inside are invitations to their wedding, next June in Amsterdam. Everyone cheers and cheers some more, and over a discussion of the wedding plans, dinner commences.

We are dining in RQ, another Thai restaurant, but of a very different quality than most. The menu is fixed, the quality superb, and the multitude of dishes with little tastings becomes very complicated, as we try to figure out what we’ve tasted and what we haven’t. Then the food stops coming, they clear, and we think it’s over; but they reset the table and start bringing out the mains. Absolutely delicious.

The gang head out for after-dinner drinks, but we are both beyond exhaustion and it is already close to midnight, so we head home to drop, marvelling at Graham’s stamina.

Another beautiful day – although most days you don’t know that it will be a beautiful day until midmorning, because you wake to a cloudy sky. By 10 the clouds have disappeared, and the weather is perfect.

Today we are doing another walking trip, this time to Balmain and Birchgrove. We take the train the 2 stops to Circular Quay and hop onto the ferry to Balmain East, which is literally a hop and a skip from Pyrmont, on the west side of Darling Harbour – although it feels like a million miles from the city.

This is not our first trip to Balmain – we were here a week ago for dinner and show at Café Tatu, but it is our first opportunity to explore. We walk past Victorian terrace after Victorian terrace, either recently renovated or in the process of being renovated, and in the process the working class neighbourhood is being altered beyond recognition.

As always in Sydney, the city’s unique geography means that we are amply rewarded in our little expeditions with amazing views everywhere we turn. Although we have been here long enough to know better, it still catches our breath when we turn a corner and there is the bridge, magnificently soaring out of the terrace rooftops.

The Birchgrove ferry stop is down a street bordered by beautiful old mansion, all renovated or in the process of being renovated. We aren’t sure why there are mansions on this street when the neighbourhood was obviously working class until recently, but as we walk, we realize that we are on a long peninsula, and the houses on both sides of the street back onto the harbour.

We get to the ferry stop just in time to see the ferry pulling out – and learn that the next ferry won’t come for about 1 hour – not enough time to walk back to Balmain. We are just nicely relaxed, lying on the grass enjoying the day, when the mobile rings: Graham wondering when to pick us up – we’re all dining at Eric’s tonight. We tell him where we are, after exclamations of wonder that we should have ended up in Birchgrove, Graham says he’ll pick us up in 15 minutes.

We stop at Graham’s place, which is actually quite close by, take a photo of the view, pick some wine to take to Eric’s – we pick up champagne – oops, sparking wine – at the corner bottle shop. Australians are all mad for sparkling wine, we’ve never seen so much champagne drunk as here.


The view from Graham’s balcony

Eric produces a bounty of information about Bali for us. Then Vicky and Ron arrive, and another feast is produced, with no visible effort by Eric.


From left: Eric and Vickie loading the dishwasher; Greg and Graham

Graham, Greg and I head off at about 10 – tonight is the Underwear Party, and that is our destination. We arrive and dance ourselves silly, enjoying the craziness. We meet some new friends, Robert and Mark. Mark turns out to be a talented DJ, and gives us his latest CD – our first new music since leaving home (we are carrying about 300 of our CDs, in MP3 format, on our laptop hard drive). We dance till the wee hours of the morning.

The weather this morning breaks cloudy with blue sky patches. It is days like this where we have to decide how to spend the day—beach, art gallery or walking tour. John has discovered a walking tour guide produced by Sydney Ferries that seems both reliable and interesting. This is our plan of action today.

Taking our cue from the Michael Jordans in Toronto, we have been trying to get back to the gym whenever one is available. Our building has a small but very serviceable gym that John has been actively engaged with. I had two days of easy treadmill and over-extended my left knee. This is what happens after 45, I guess. But I will get back at it. Gym time over, we head to Museum subway station and head down to Circular Quay for the ferry to Neutral Bay and Cremorne Point. This walk proclaims itself as one of the prettiest harbourside walks, with great harbour views, flora and fauna and lots of glimpses of history.


Neutral Bay and Cremorne

It also has some of the most expensive property in Sydney, beautiful Arts and Crafts mansions on the water with garages for their Rolls Royces. (One owner drove up in a RR Corniche (convertible) while another RR was parked in her driveway below).
Further on we head into the Cremorne Reserve on our way to Cremorne Point. There are a family about 20 paces ahead of us and I watch as the children flap their hands over their head and squeal with either horror or delight. As we approach we see huge spiders in large webs over the walkway, waiting. Further along, we watch in fascination as one devours what looks like a wasp for lunch.


Spiders, oh my!

We come out of the reserve at the Cremorne Wharf ferry dock just as the ferry arrives and we decide to continue our walk to Mossman Bay, which is another 40 minutes around. We immediately plunge into even bigger and more beautiful houses, priced in the millions of dollars with even bigger yachts moored in the bay. Our path winds its way between houses and apartments on one side and beautiful gardens and bush on the other. One garden in particular is the Lex and Ruby Graham Gardens. Lex and Ruby decided, in 1959, to clear up the public dumping ground that existed in from of their house—kitchen sinks, mattresses, refrigerators, whale bone corsets, you name it. It is now a beautiful, tranquil garden respite on the path to Mossman. (Bill Sumpton, you would love it).


Million dollar properties

We end our walk at the Mossman Ferry returning to Circular Quay and a quick train ride home to Oxford and College Streets. The next five nights out are booked for us. It is Mardi Gras after all. We spend a quiet evening infront of Australian TV again--Neighbours, Home and Away, old seasons of ER and CSI. Yawn…bedtime.

Everyone keeps talking about fall and indeed the temperature has dropped a few degrees. The high today is only 23 degrees and going down to a low of 15 tonight. The shops have all their fall and winter clothes out on display and in the afternoon we decide to go downtown and do some overdue shopping that we have be meaning to do. We head to David Jones--"Australia's most beautiful store" and buy---ok--my first pair of speedos. (John bought his earlier in the week with "Bondi" displayed on the bum). We buy our odds and sods and end up in the 380 bus back up Elizabeth street and off at our stop on Oxford street, head home and settle into the Oscars.

The Oscars start at 7:30 pm. and we plan to have a bottle of wine and a bowl of pasta at home tonight to get a dose of North America or more pointedly, America. We know all the winners, because the show actually started about 9 hours ago, but we watch it anyway. Yeah for Canada and the Foreign Film award. The entire Australian media is so caught up on Naomi Watts winning for best actress. They are really pro-Aussie here and the press and media was full of how Australia had been snubbed in the nominations...Nicole, Russell et al. As ususal, Billy Crystal saved the show.

.
In a week and a half we will be onto the next phase of our trip---Singapore, Bali, Thailand and India. This will be very different from our Aussie experiences. I am really looking forward to it.

Happy Leap Year!

The day starts spectacularly beautiful with clear blue skies and bright sunshine. John decides to take the train north across the Harbour Bridge and walk back to the city to experience the bridge up close and personal. We are planning to do the Bridge Climb hopefully this week but more on that to come. I choose to have a quiet day today because we had such a busy Saturday night with our friends Brian, Lynne and Peter. Brian and Lynne were the Sydneysiders we met in Cairns when we were diving. The weather turns cool and overcast quite quickly in the late afternoon with a strong wind picking up.

John: Bridges fascinate me – and this bridge in particular. It is only the 3rd longest of its type, but it is probably the largest in terms of weight-bearing capacity. It carries two train tracks, 8 lanes of traffic and pedestrian walkways. The engineers who designed it didn’t go with a suspension bridge because they wanted the bridge to be able to carry more weight than possible with a suspension bridge.


From left: entering the bridge; looking east from the bridge; the Opera House and Circular Quay from the bridge

It was built by building the two sides of the arch separately. To keep them from collapsing before completion, they were each anchored by huge steel ropes. When the two halves were completed, the two sides were, by design, about 1 metre apart, and the huge steel ropes were slowly relaxed, over a period of 8 days, until they connected.


From left: the bridge from the top of the south-east pylon; bridge climbers

The entire weight of the bridge rests on 4 huge hinges – these allow the bridge to rock back and forward as it expands and contracts – it apparently can lengthen by over 100 millimetres on a hot day.

The Spirit of Tasmania passing under the bridge

Although the height of the bridge allowed all ships to pass under it for many years, today’s huge cruise ships cannot get through. They now berth at Circular Quay, so their arrivals and departures are tightly scheduled, as only one can be accommodated at a time.

Greg: We are eating Thai in Newtown this evening with Eric and Graham who have basically adopted us while we have been here. Eric has travelled extensively in Bali and we will be picking his brain for the next leg of our journey (which starts in just two weeks!) We cab it over to Graham’s renovation war zone apartment for a drink on his balcony. And what a balcony! He has the most spectacular, unobstructed view of the Anzac and Harbour bridges with the entire city laid out before him. We savour the view and then head into Newtown after a brief tour of some of the surrounding neighbourhoods (again many million dollar Victorian Terraces) and have a wonderful unhurried meal at Thai Riffic. People are all ready starting to talk about the end of summer. Boo Hoo!

A beautiful day for the beach – we head to Bondi. We assume that it will be packed – it is a gorgeous weekend day, and that will make it more of the true experience of Bondi. When we get there, we see that it is beautiful. And not so packed as we had feared, although there are lots of people there.

The water is much cooler here than it was up north. There are lots of surfers in the water – all directed by signs to the south end of the beach; the north end is for body surfing. The body surfing is fun – because it is again today a very big sea, the body surfing is far more intense than it was on the northern beaches, and you need to be very aware of where others are and what they are doing – there are so many people in the water. If the wave breaks far enough ahead that the people farther out are riding the wave, you need to dive down to avoid a collision with them – but the swells are of such a size that you really need to either ride them or duck under them – you don’t want to have them hit you full force.


From left: Bondi; riding big waves

We get quickly waterlogged by the intensity of the waves, and after drying off we walk up to the esplanade for a bit to eat. Like in any good beach town, the esplanade is full of tacky souvenir shops, greasy takeaways and stalls offering junk. After lunch and some light window shopping, we grab the bus back to Darlinghurst.

The countdown to Mardi Gras has begun:
When we arrive back downtown, we find that it is the annual “Shop Yourself Silly” day, a Mardi Gras event where most of the shops in this area donate a portion of their day’s takings to the Bobby Goldsmith Foundation, which raises funds for people living in poverty with HIV/AIDS. The streets in the late afternoon are full of shoppers, carrying their treasures and cheering on the drag queens who have been installed on the backs of trucks up and down the street, and who, amidst the monologues and the songs, exhort the crowds to “spend, spend, spend!”

Keep on shopping!

We check email, and our friend Jacqueline has sent an ode that is coincidentally, but completely, appropriate for the moment.

Armani who art in Holts.
Hallowed be thy shoes.
Thy Prada come.
Thy shopping done.
On Bloor St. as it is in Paris.
Give us this day, our Visa Gold.
And forgive us our balance.
As we forgive those who charge us interest.
Lead us not into Wal-Mart.
And deliver us from Sears.
For thine is the Chanel, the Gaultier, and the Versace.
For Dolce and Gabbana
Amex.

The weather has turned beautiful again, and it is time to start getting to know parts of Sydney that are outside, and that are outside the downtown core. Today we head to Watsons Bay, a 15 minute ferry ride on a fast catamaran ferry. It is on the south side of the harbour, and is the last ferry stop still inside the harbour.

We find a quaint town, where the waterfront homes command spectacular views back to Sydney, and no doubt command equally spectacular prices in this overheated real estate market where the average price for a house is just under A$500,000. If the rundown Victorian terrace homes in the Paddington are truly going for about a mill, these homes will be going for much, much more.


View of Sydney from Watsons Bay

From the bay, we walk around the shore, climbing from sea level as we go up to the South Head and Hornby Lighthouse. As we go, we pass the local nude beach, but it is high tide and there is no beach right now. We get to the top of the head, to an excellent view of North Head, the end of land on the north side of the harbour. The sea is rough today, (we feel sorry for the ferry passengers who aren’t on a catamaran – we barely felt the swell, but watch the Manly ferry pitch to and fro) and standing up here you can see and hear the power of the ocean as it crashes onto the rocks way down below. We were told that the swells were so high that surfers were able to surf inside the harbour, although we see none today.


North Head

The weather breaks, and we head out walking into a new part of town. We walk along Stanley Street, right behind our apartment building and reminiscent of Crescent Street in Montreal. We continue on along William Street to King’s Cross, the Soho (London Soho, not New York Soho) of Sydney, and up to Potts Point, a beautiful residential area on a peninsula. Then around the bend to Woolloomooloo Bay, where the Navy docks are located, walking beside ship after ship.


Fleet’s in!

In Woolloomooloo is an old wharf that was the centre of heated controversy as to its future, and that is now luxury condos and the W Hotel. We walk through the lobby, which serves both the hotel and the apartments, and runs the length of the wharf, and it is striking! The integration of the mechanical apparatus of the wharf into the décor is fascinating.

From there we walk around the other side of the bay, into the Domain and the Royal Botanical Gardens, vast green spaces in Sydney’s heart. We stop at the Boy Charlton Pool, a saltwater pool set beside Woolloomooloo Bay, and tell ourselves that if we could, we’d live there.


Boy Charlton Pool in Woolloomooloo Bay, with Wharf and Naval Ship in background on left

We go round Mrs. Macquaries Point to find spectacular views of the Harbour Bridge and the Opera House awaiting us and, further around the point, of the CBD.


From left: the Opera House and Harbour Bridge from Mrs. Macquaries Point; Greg in front of Farm Cove and the Central Business District

We walk through the Royal Botanical Gardens, which are not laid out, for the most part, in formal garden style but are more naturalistic, in the style of Capability Brown. We stop and admire various borders, and when we get to the refreshment stand we are surprised to realize we’ve been walking for almost 3 hours straight. We take a well-deserved break, and as we head out again, our ears are assaulted. We look up and see hundreds of fruit bats – flying foxes – sleeping in the trees, although sleeping is a misnomer, given the talking and the wing-stretching that was going on. I am surprised by the bright red-orange fur that we can see on them.


Fruit bats sleeping

Sitting in our apartment around dusk over the days, we have noted that the sky fills with bats – it looks a bit like the flying monkeys scene in the Wizard of Oz – and we now know where at least some of them sleep. A sign informs us that the bats are migratory, but also that the RBG has been granted permission to try to convince the bats (in a non-harmful way) to move on, as they are damaging the trees in which they roost, and they don’t seem to be in any hurry to migrate onwards.

The RBG connects back up to the Domain, and in turn the Domain connects to Hyde Park. We walk on through, ending up back at home, just in time to avoid being caught in a brief shower. We get upstairs, and over in the west is a beautiful double rainbow.

We continue to be amazed by the generosity of the people of Sydney and generally of Australia. People are sincerely friendly and open here.

Graham O’Keefe has organized dinner and a show for us and 7 other people. The fact that none of us knows each other makes no difference to Australians. This is all part of the fun.

Graham picks us up (another extremely generous gesture) and we head through rush hour traffic over the Anzac Bridge into trendy Balmain which melds the working class, bourgeois renovators and the very well-heeled. Balmain is about a 20 minute drive from the city center and is tucked into the inner west’s harbour, and the main street is Darling Street. Dinner and a show ends up to be a raucous evening of food, wine, broken glasses (not just our table) and a drag show hosted by Miss Pastie deKlyne at the very popular Café Tatu. An all-inclusive evening in one venue that is quite small for the amount of people they pack in. And Miss deKlyne seems to be quite popular – many guests appeared to know her routines.

Over dinner we discover that another two of our ten are Canadians but that neither has lived in Canada for over 35 years. We find out later that there are 3 more Canadians having dinner in the restaurant. We’re everywhere!

The show rolls on in its typical saucy drag queen way with the usual innuendo and bad dirty jokes but it seems to fit the bill very well this evening. At one point, Pastie takes her show out the front door of the restaurant and into the street, literally stopping traffic on Darling Street. What would Mardi Gras be without at least one tragic drag queen?

The weather has turned – the sky is cloudy, there is a hint of rain, and the temperature has fallen to - 23°. Greg comments that it feels like fall, and I remind him that it feels more like summer in Toronto.

When we arrived in the apartment, we were both concerned that I would have trouble sleeping in all the brightness. In fact, I am sleeping well, and it is Greg who is not sleeping. He wakes this morning complaining of exhaustion.

We agree that given the weather, today is a perfect museum day, after we get through our chores – gym for me, internet café for Greg. When we meet back at the apartment just before noon, Greg is still not feeling great, and when I come out of the shower, he is sound asleep. I leave him to sleep, and head down to the Rocks, to the Museum of Contemporary Art, which has 2 special exhibits – Tracey Collins and Leigh Bowery, that look very interesting. Tracey Collins is an Australian photographer who we’ve not heard of, and Leigh Bowery was that larger-than-life 80’s club diva, anti-fashion fashionista and model for some of Lucian Freud’s best, or at least most provocative, paintings, who with his clothes challenged many of our most-accepted notions of what clothes are.

The Collins exhibit is challenging and hard: she uses her camera as a weapon, and there is such truth in what she has to say that I am completely overwhelmed – in particular by 2 series of photographs – scenes of childhood anguish caused by words said.

The Leigh Bowery exhibit, which is the one I really was more interested in, proves disappointing. The clothes are on mannequins, but they don’t hold the visual power they did when he wore them. The curator has sprinkled the exhibit with a few photos of Bowery in his clothes, which for me are the most compelling things in the exhibit. Far less successful are the many movies that are included to convey the world Bowery inhabited – most of which are self-indulgent. The impact of Bowery was the visual power of the person in the costume, or out of it in the case of the Freud portraits, and it is too bad that the curator has not focussed on these. Almost as an afterthought, there is 1 Freud portrait and a few Freud sketches of Bowery. I look forward to an exhibit of the photos and the paintings, and come away disappointed in the wrong choices of the curator

It is Fair Day today! Mardi Gras Fair Day to be more specific. The Mardi Gras parade doesn’t happen for another 2 weeks, but the street party is today. It takes places in Victoria Park, which is a good distance from Oxford St., but the transit people are running special buses that take you right there and right back.

We go over and it a lot like Church St. on Pride Day, except that they aren’t cramming all those people into one little street – there is a whole park. The Fair spreads over the entire park, and there are lots and lots of people.

We walk around for a few hours, talking to lots of people at the booths, getting lots of paper to dispose of when we get home, buying lots of raffle tickets to help support good causes. We find the divers group, have a good chat with them – find out that they have a group dive scheduled for next Sunday, which we are invited to join. We also discover something that will bring great relief to my mother – the sharks have all moved out of the Sydney waters at the moment – it is pupping season, and they are all far offshore at this time of year.

Then we sit on the grass and listen to the main concert for an hour, enjoying the day before returning home for naps.

Around 5:30, Grant and Bob arrive at the apartment to go out with us for the evening with Eric and his friends Graham and Larry. Eric is a Canadian (from Meaford) who moved here almost 30 years ago, and Bob and Bill have put us in touch with him. In chatting with me about things we’d been doing in Sydney, he had learned that Grant and Bob were also here from Canada, and invited them to come along tonight – the more the merrier! The plan is to go to Eric’s house for a drink, and then to head out for dinner. We drive in a convoy, too many people to fit in 1 car, to Eric’s home. From the outside it is typical Australian suburban house. Then you walk into a Balinese fantasy – that carries through the house and into the back garden. It is beautiful!

Drinks are served, and shortly after the doorbell rings – it is Julie and Christine – two friends from Victoria (the state, not the city) who are in Sydney at a huge gift show on at the Sydney Convention Centre, which is so large that it is also on at a 2nd site near the airport. Julie owns a candle manufacturer, which she proudly tells us is the largest employer in her small town, and Christine, who is Julie’s sister-in-law, has come to Sydney to help Julie sell. A wonderful cocktail party ensues.

Just as we are starting to think that it must be getting time to head out to dinner, out of nowhere a table and 9 chairs appear. We don’t know how, but Eric has whipped together a feast for 9. Beef and lamb done on the barby, with veg and salad, and wine from a friend of Graham’s vineyard. And this chocolate dessert that even the non-dessert eaters are having seconds of. And wonderful conversation the whole evening long.

No plans! Nothing we must do today! We luxuriate in the sense that there is nothing on our to-do list, and sleep late. It is surprising to me how seldom we’ve had this feeling of total freedom that we feel today. I thought that 1 ½ months into the trip, we’d have run out of things to do and would be looking for action. It is proving to be quite the opposite.

Greg wrote yesterday that the apartment is too stark for his tastes. I haven’t decided yet if I agree – it is certainly visually stunning. My concern is that it may not be very practical, although after 2 days it is proving to be more practical that I had originally expected. You walk in the door and the first thing that you see is the wall of glass – floor to ceiling, wall to wall – and the south-facing, 12th floor view over Darlinghurst and Surry Hills (unlike in the northern hemisphere, a south view here means that you don’t get direct sunlight, so the apartment stays relatively cool, a good thing given that it is not air-conditioned). The next thing you see is the whiteness – it is very white – the walls (no art), the ceiling, the dining room table, the chairs, the vases, the leather sofa and ottoman, the bed and the linens. The floor is neutral grey, and the only colour is the bright red carpet in the sitting area. Greg supplemented that yesterday with the flowers he gave me for my birthday – star lilies (and more white – tuberoses – the two scents together are beautiful). The bedroom is separated from the main part of the apartment by a frosted glass 3-panel door that pushes back into the wall to integrate the spaces if you wish. The bathroom is the only area that isn’t white – it is black tile, with white fixtures, and a sliding panel to separate it from the dressing room.


Greg in whiteness

After coffee, Greg goes off in search of a barber for a haircut while I go to the internet café (a different one than Thursday, right behind our apartment) and hope that whatever happened on Thursday proves to be a fluke. I am barely sitting down when our mobile rings and it is my mother, calling to wish me a happy birthday (it is still Friday back in Canada) and to find out if we’re alive – the silence on the web and email fronts has rattled her. It is wonderful to hear the sound of her voice, we chat and I learn that the bitter winter has turned to rain and that people think spring may be on the verge of arriving; and I marvel (yet again) at the technology that allows her to pick up the phone in Canada and reach me in an internet café on the other side of the world.

Everything goes swimmingly – I get into our site without any problem and post a week’s worth of updates successfully. The emails download properly – when I look, the outbox is empty and the sent file is full. Hurray! (Greg: Apologies to our adoring fans for the delay in the updating. Read on McDuff!)

We do a shop at the IGA that is across the street from the internet café, marvelling again at our luck in losing our first apartment and finding this one, far better located, at such short notice. Then it is back to the apartment for lunch and naps. At 4, I go to the apartment building’s gym – which turns out to be surprisingly well equipped – for a long-overdue workout, and to appease my guilt I do a triple workout – 2X my normal cardio of 40 minutes, and then my weights routine.

I come back to the apartment to find that a chicken is roasting in the oven. I make a salad, and we wash it down with a lovely white wine – a blend of semillon, sauvignon blanc and viognier.

We sit quietly after dinner – the dishwasher (the cutest – ½ size, perfect for 2 people, and absolutely silent) does its things while Greg reads and I write this.

Happy Birthday John!
And birthday wishes out to Catherine McIssac, too!

We settle into our apartment, home for the next month. We have lucked out with our location – we are (for those who know Sydney) on the south west corner of Hyde Park, literally across the street from the Anzac Memorial, and less than a 5 minute walk to the Museum rail stop, and the bottom end of the CBD, and 1 minute from the intersection of Liverpool and Oxford Streets. The apartment is ultra modern – stark for my personal tastes but it will certainly fit the bill while we are here. We are hoping that this part of the trip will give some normalcy back into our lives: develop a routine of, perhaps, grocery shopping, working out, and eating in. It’s amazing how much you miss those little things.

We meet up with some fellow Torontonians, Grant and Bob, and give them the quick tour of Sydney (we are such experts now). Sydney is gearing up for Mardi Gras and there is a real sense of anticipation in the air. Although our plan is to catch up when we lunch, it is clear that we are not following our plan – so we head to a café, and over coffees get all the latest from Canada – the Governor Generals problems, Paul Martin’s problems, Belinda Stronach’s leadership bid, heads rolling everywhere. After 30 minutes we decide that we were better off not knowing any of this, and head off for our tour. (We had expected to log on to the Globe and Mail and CBC websites fairly regularly, but the difficulty in finding web cafés has meant that we have not been doing that with any regularity, and when we do, we get frustrated because all the stories assume you read yesterday’s story. If you didn’t, you often don’t know what they’re talking about. So we’ve stopped reading them.)

Late in the afternoon of a lovely day (38° - but not humid and so not oppressive at all), Grant and Bob head back to the suburb (ferry to Manly Beach, then bus or taxi farther north) where they are visiting friends. We head to a bottle shop, pick up a bottle of champagne (oops! – sparking wine) from Domaine Chandon, which we toured in the Yarra Valley, and a spectacular South Australian shiraz/sangiovese blend, and then head to Yipiyiyo! to celebrate John’s birthday. This restaurant has been highly recommended by everyone we know who has been to Sydney recently, and the meal is magnificent – the food delicious, the service attentive and gentle (thanks, Tony!), and the conversation scintillating.

A frustrating day in all!

We rise early, pack up the campervan, and set off for the last final 35 kilometres of driving, copy of map highlighted showing exactly where we are to go to: 1) pick up keys to flat we've rented; 2) pick up bags we left at Sullivan's Hotel; 3) drop everything at flat; and 4) return campervan to Maui depot, near airport.

We negotiate our way to the M4 successfully, and the drive is easy. We sail past the Olympic Site, and, as the motorways tend to do here, the dual carriageway ends and we are driving on city streets, which are still marked as the M4. We hit congestion, the radio announces a bad accident about 5 kilometres further down the road, and it takes over 1 hour to get past it. We continue to follow the M4, as our maps tell us to do, and all of a sudden we are approaching the Anzac bridge, which we know enough to know means we are lost. We stop, check our maps, they all tell us to follow the M4, which the road signs tell us we're still on, but the maps show the M4 in a completely different part of town. We drive around in circles for an hour before we figure out how to get to where we need to be. We finally get within 1/2 kilometre of the rental agencies office when traffic again grinds to a halt. A crane ahead has dropped a load into the middle of the street, tying up traffic in all directions for another 30 minutes. When we finally get to the Fox Studios, where the rental agency is located, nobody can tell us where the building we're looking for is (contrary to the assurances we'd been given that "everyone will know the building once you're at the Fox Studios). This is where mobile phones come in handy, and we get the agency on the phone and they guide us as we drive to the building.

The rest of the day goes swimmingly - we get our bags, drop them off at our super deluxe apartment, head down to the airport to drop the campervan. We get back to the CBD by 1:45, grab a bite, and head to the internet cafe to update the web and check emails - we have not been able to do this since Coolum Beach, due to a lack of internet cafes on the road. We get all settled in and - something goes wrong. We cannot upload to the website, and we cannot pickup or send emails. We spend too long trying to figure it out, and, still frustrated, head home for a nap.

Today is our final big day of driving and I will admit publicly that I am ready to get out of this damn campervan.

We are up fairly early as is everyone around us. It is about 7:30 and John has been up puttering for about an hour. I pull open the shade and look down at Back Beach. There are a number of people, some with dogs, who are already making the trudge back from the point. They must have started out at about 6:00 am. God, such fortitude! John and I have come to realize that not only are we the only two men travelling alone that we have seen (in style, cocktails before dinner and wine with), but we are also the youngest people in the campervan parks. This suggests to us there may be an unrecognized target market of potential caravaners and campervanners waiting to be found.

We dump our grey water (we are experts at this now), fill up with fresh water, and head out on the road, saying goodbye to our 48 hour beach address. It is only about 400 km but the anticipation of this part of the trip finishing makes it feel a lot longer. Much of it proves to be dual carriageway, which makes the driving faster and smoother, but also increases the tension for John, especially as we get closer to Sydney and the drivers get that familiar big-city aggressiveness that we haven’t seen till now. (The joys of driving in a huge country/continent where there are only 20 million people, and about half of them live in 2 cities – Sydney and Melbourne. When you add Brisbane and Adelaide to the pot, with another 2 ½ million between them, you have an awful lot of space, as we’ve come to recognize over the last week, with very few people.)

We stop after about 45 minutes to visit the Billabong Nature Reserve because John just has to pat a Koala and they promise us, and a number of other tourists, a pat at 10:30. We stroll through the small park and see a number of Kangaroos (and a new baby albino wallaby) lounging in the shade and oblivious to us humans. That is unless you have purchased special kangaroo food – then they magically spring to life and love you. We, however, didn’t want to spend the exorbitant amount being asked on the tiny cup of ‘roo food; we are content to watch others delight in feeding baby kangaroos.


‘Roo with Cup

Our official petting starts and a nice young man entices Suzy down from her slumber, and the group of us are allowed to pat and say hello to her. Koala’s love to be held and hugged and Suzy is no exception. The handler explains that it is now illegal in NSW for anyone not employed at a zoo/reserve to hold koalas, so we can only pat her. As the 10 or so of us try not to crowd her, Suzy gets restless and clings to her handler. We are done in 15 minutes and head to the highway again.


John with one of his many friends

I keep counting down the mileage as we approach Sydney. Quite a familiar town appears on the map and has several exits and mileage signs indicating the fast approaching exit. It very obviously reminds us of home.


Ahhhhh…home!

Our plan is to stay just outside Sydney and then to drive into the city tomorrow morning to retrieve the keys to the flat we are renting, pick up our stored bags at Sullivan’s Hotel and drops the camper off near the airport. From the information we’ve found, there are only 3 campervan parks in the entire Sydney area, one conveniently north of the city. We are both ready to stop as we drive up to it – only to see a sign announcing that a new subdivision is being built on the site, and the park is being closed – in August 2003. We fight through Sydney traffic (the motorway mysteriously ends and scatters all those cars onto local streets for 8 kms before the next motorway starts again) to the 2nd best location, in the far western suburbs. After check-in, we hear some of the residents talking and come to understand that this caravan park is also about to be redeveloped – the neighbourhood has become a decidedly upscale suburb, and a developer is trying to buy the site. Indeed, our campervan backs onto the backyard of a nice, suburban home.

Today is the 13th anniversary of the day that we met. We were introduced by friends, Dan and Lisle, at a bar late on a Sunday afternoon. Who knew that 13 years later we’d still be talking to each other after 47 days on the road?

The view from the front door is spectacular and the sound of the waves braking on the shore is incredible. A lovely sea breeze blows through the campervan, saving us from turning the AC on. We are just on the periphery of one of the most interesting national parks we’ve come across—Hat Head National Park.


The view from the front door

Having spent a week in a campervan has brought back lots of memories for me. When I was younger, my family travelled across Canada, from the Atlantic via Hudson Bay to the Pacific, over 4 summers. For a couple of those years we travelled in a trailer hitched to the family station wagon. As I look around the campervan, and see the modern technology (electric pump, hot water heater, microwave oven, separate grey and black water systems, toilet cassette that you easily carry to the toilets for the black water), I think back to the trailer, and wonder how my mom and dad did it with 5 kids and a dog – only a hand pump to get water, boiling water on the stove to make hot water, hooking up the sewage with hoses every day. We have not had any kind of meltdown driving down the coast, but I wonder whether the same could be said if we’d been doing the primitive camping of 35 years ago. My parents must have been saints! (Or crazy – and if not before, then surely after 4 weeks of driving 5 kids and a dog across the country.)

We wake late, and despite the forecasts, the weather is spectacularly gorgeous – yet another perfect day in paradise! We go for a long walk – probably about 6 or 7 kilometres in all. We walk across a bridge over the estuary, and pass a number of people fly fishing. This reminds me of being on Vancouver Island with my family, trailering, all those years ago, and my brother and sister trying their hand at fly fishing. My sister, on her first try, hooked my mother, and we had to rush her to the emergency ward to have the hook removed. After crossing the estuary, we get to Back Beach, the beautiful beach we look at from our front door. We walk the entire length, to the mouth of another river, and then back again. It takes us about 2 ½ hours, start to finish.


The bridge over the estuary; Back Beach, with South West Rocks and Trial Bay in the background

Driving 2400 kilometres so far (400 to go to get to Sydney tomorrow), we have listened to a great deal of Aussie radio – it is just like being at home. There are lots of FM radio stations playing North American music – lots of Evanescence, Kylie, No Doubt, Outkast, Dido, Shania, Celine, Beyoncé, Brittany, Christina, Enrique, etc. Although the radio stations all announce that they proudly play Australian music, the only obviously Australian music they do play is the ubiquitous Kylie, and it is only obviously Australian because we know where Kylie comes from. Kylie appears to be a national hero – 2nd only to any number of cricket players, but ahead of anyone else. The alternative, which we listen to when we are not driving (the silent passages can’t be heard over the wind whistling through the cracks around the windows) is ABC, which is not what you think – it is the Australian Broadcasting Commission. And they have a wonderful classical network that makes us feel like we are listening to CBC Radio 2. We have been pulling up to our sites, hooking up electrical and water and turning on the radio to settle in, listening to David Daniels (quite regularly – there seems to be a fixation on countertenors right now in Australia) or Madama Butterfly.

After a wonderful nap, we hit the beach, and spend a couple of hours body surfing. The water is noticeably cooler than it was up at Coolum Beach, but the day is hot enough that the coolness of the water is refreshing. And although the waves don’t compare to Coolum, they are better for body surfing – we get some spectacularly long rides before becoming waterlogged.

We shower and shave, then sit outside and watch the sunset over Back Beach and the mountains behind it. What a gorgeous way to spend a day.

S30°
E153°

Today is an easy driving day – we do not have far to go to our next destination. We have chosen South West Rocks because it is reputed to have excellent diving – an underwater tunnel to an underwater cave, with hard corals and grey nurse sharks – we are planning to stop here for 2 days, in order to dive tomorrow.

Yesterday at the Clarence River Resort, Nicki, who checked us in (and checked us out –via our web site. By the time we got back from walking around to pick a campsite, she was talking about Utz and Sophia) was a goldmine of information about the area. She told us about all the local sites, and then gave us a booklet that she, or someone else at the campground, had put together with more detailed information: this area boasts, justifiably, of the cleanliness of its rivers and coasts.

Because we are only going a couple of hundred kilometres today, we spend some time this morning checking out a couple of the sights. In particular, we drive up to Angourie, which is famed for its surfing. Unfortunately for the crowd hanging in the water, today is not a good surfing day. However, as we wander around, we come face-to-face with a goanna, and have a good little stare-down.


Goanna

The driving is not as easy as predicted – we are no longer in a valley, but are in gently rolling countryside. There is a strong wind today, and we are driving a big box. It is a day to keep 2 hands on the steering wheel at all times.

We notice that the road signs have changed since leaving Queensland and entering New South Wales. Instead of promises of certain death, they demand that we stop every 2 hours to refresh ourselves and they smugly ask “How fast are you going now?”. Every time we pass one, Greg does his best whiney, indolent voice.

NSW has photo radar cameras everywhere. As far as we can tell, they give you lots of warning about where they are – at least 3 signs before the camera. But the signs tell us that the NSW government has instituted another kind of control – the cameras record big vehicles, and monitor how long it takes them to get from monitoring point to monitoring point. This is not for speeding – it is to make sure that the commercial drivers are actually stopping and taking their refreshment break every 2 hours. We don’t know if it is really enforced, but the signs promise sanctions such as loss of licence, a very real threat to someone who makes his or her livelihood by driving.

We get to South West Rocks and find a charming beach town. The woman at the campervan parks asks how we got here – it is not listed in the tourist guides, and all the tourists here are Aussies. Our camping space has a million dollar view (actually, these days, it is a $7.5 million view); yes, we have found another fantastic beach.

We drive to the dive centre to book our dive, to be told that the weather forecasts for tomorrow are so bad that they have decided not to dive tomorrow. Disappointed, we confer about what to do, and decide to stay here for our planned 2 nights. We feel sure that even if the weather is really rotten, there are few places we would enjoy as much. We will walk on the beach, whatever the weather.

S29°
E153°

Ahhh, the campervan life…who knew about grey water, or sullage, as they call it here. Or as they may call it in Canada too…I don’t know. We really aren’t campervan people. And the overview and walk-through they give you before you hit the road is not very comprehensive. Hmmmmm…..

We clean up our breakfast dishes this morning and are packing up the van to ready it for our departure when we detect a distinct odour from the van…or more importantly, from the shower stall/toilet. I immediately say “John!!” It smells of rotten eggs and we quickly realize that the smell is coming, in fact, from the shower/toilet. I open the door and see this putrid ooze coming up the shower drain. The grey water is at its capacity and is backing up in the van. I then spend a half hour trying to drain the thing. It’s not something that you just open up the valve and let drain on the lawn. Although you could, you’d be dealing with steely looks from your neighbouring campervans or caravans, or the knowing, judgemental looks of conservationists. It really comes down to a choice. You could choose to pollute the local wild and bird life at the animal sanctuary (where you are camping) or wait until you get to a city or town, and unceremoniously open your waste water drain locally at lunch, dumping your left over pasta and toothpaste into the city sewer system. (This is what the management of our rental company suggested.) There is a clandestine feeling of right and wrong here. The moment and the weather affect all of this.

Campervan or caravan life is really a big thing here in Oz. There are many caravan clubs that people join. There is an unofficial “hand wave” hello to all Maui or Britz campervans that pass you on the highway, which in most parts is similar to our TransCanada Highway—small and slow. Unlike the TransCanada (at least in Ontario), this is the major north/south route – it is Highway 1. There are some days that you get a wave, “I’m a campervan person too”; but if they don’t respond, I wonder if they have been properly debriefed before setting off. So I wave, being a good Canadian, to all campervans and work-a-day vehicles that look like campers that drive by, mostly to my embarrassment.

We arrive at the Clarence River Resort after some rural driving, and find a pristine, organized camp ground that speaks to you about not feeding the birds or other wildlife and to not disturb the comings and goings of wildlife in your camping area. This is by far the most beautiful caravan park we’ve stopped at.

We do our usual…hook up our electrical, make sure we have water and get down our camping chairs, which is where we have our first cocktail of the evening. I immediately see a group of kangaroos and I call to John, still inside, to get the camera. We spray ourselves with bug repellent and make our way, ever so cautiously over to where the ‘roos are feeding. They are catching the end of day feeding of succulent grasses before the sun goes down. One has her joey in her, his or her feet spilling out of her pouch. There is also another adult there, and farther off, there are 3 others, feeding. We don’t know whether we should move forward or back, but of course, John wants to move forward, the camera fast-clicking as we go.


Kangaroos feeding; note feet dangling from pouch in centre photo and size of pouch in photo on right
We don’t go far enough to make them move – I make sure of that. They acknowledge our presence, and we are respectful (we hope) of theirs. (We see the same mother the next morning, this time her joey is still in her pouch, but is facing out , and they are both munching on the grasses, happy as cla…kangaroos.)

We go walking, and see another mother and her joey feeding down near the Clarence River. The joey is not in-pouch, it is old enough to be out. Another couple (we peg them as Germans) is just ahead of us, video camera blazing, and they have no compunction about approaching the ‘roos. Time after time, the Germans get just inside their comfort zone and the kangaroos retreat another 10 metres. We watch with fascination – and with our zoom lens, I catch their retreats.


Mom and joey; Retreat!

Kangaroo tails are amazing things – they look (from as close as we get) to be as thick as a human leg, and they use them to support themselves when sitting. We learn from one of our neighbours that the males also use them as support when they fight each other – they stand on their tails, and kick at each other with their back feet. You wouldn’t want to get in the way of a kangaroo’s back feet – they have long, sharp nails and strong leg muscles. She said that when she lived in the outback she raised a number of orphan joeys from infancy, and that forever after they would come back to her house and announce their presence just before dawn by jumping up and down on her veranda.

Our evening closes with chicken brochette and coleslaw and another Wolf Blass Chardonnay (sorry Flick and Ruth—have asked for the silver label but to no avail!). We look at the Milky Way and the Southern Cross, and as the mosquitoes attack, we head for bed and a good night’s sleep.

Happy Valentine’s Day!

I wake early, Greg does not. I head to the beach at about 6:30, and there are more people on it than there were yesterday afternoon – which means there are no more than 30. They are walking, running, fishing.


Early morning on the beach

At this point, we have finally passed the southern end of the Great Barrier Reef. The reef starts north of the tip of Cape York, the northernmost point in Australia, and ends about 150 kilometres south of Rockhampton. There are two immediately obvious consequences from being south: there are surf beaches, and the water is cooler, so there are no stingers to paralyze you.

We have promised ourselves a beach day, and that is what we have. We spend the day gloriously, alternating between lying on the beach and body surfing. There is nothing, absolutely nothing, that is, in my view, as relaxing as lying on a beach on a hot, hot day, listening to the crashing waves. This could be a place to come back to again and again.


Body surfing the day away!

Greg is snoozing on the beach, and I go for a long walk, walking in the surf. All of a sudden I realize that I am surrounded by life. Crabs are scurrying sideways, and there are hundreds of clams rolling in the surf. I have never seen this before, and watch with amazement as the clams open their shells by just a fraction, stick out their foot, pull themselves upright and burrow into the sand. And after a few seconds, they start spitting, shooting little streams out of the sand. And then it happens again: a big wave exposes them, and the whole process is repeated, probably happening every 5 minutes or so. I ran back to Greg, and made him come and watch too. It only seems to work if the clams are uncovered by the wave – we used our feet to expose a few, and they just sat there on the beach, doing nothing. We then moved them down so they would be in the next wave that rolled up, and sure enough, out came the little foot, upright they went, and then they were gone.

We celebrate Valentine’s Day with another wonderful home cooked dinner and bottle of merlot. We are very much appreciating cooking for ourselves after almost a month of restaurant food. Then we go back to the beach and walk. Again there is no moon, but tonight the sky is partly cloudy; although some stars are visible through the clouds, it is not a night for stargazing. Being Valentine’s Day Night, the beach is full of couples strolling. This does not diminish our joy in walking in the surf, hand in hand.

S26°
E153°

I think you can tell a lot about a country by driving its roads. Based on the 1600 kilometres we’ve covered from Cairns to Coolum, I would say that Australians are polite, courteous and law-abiding – that last adjective is based on the fact that the fastest we’ve seen anybody go is 120 in a 110 kph zone. This may, or may not, be due to the fact that we’ve seen more speed traps in 3 days than I think I’ve seen in 31 years of driving in Ontario.

I would also say that there is a deep paternalistic streak to the Australian culture – even deeper than in Canada, at least as regards driving. In addition to the speed traps, every few kilometres there is a sign threatening us with death: “Stop! Revive! Survive!”; “Tired Drivers Die!”; “Every K[ilometre] Over Is A Killer!”; and Greg’s favourite: “Rest or R.I.P.!” And whether intended or not, the message is reinforced, at least in Northern Queensland, by part of the landscape: every 40 or 50 kilometres, we pass a wrecked automobile that has been allowed to stay where it landed to rust out. Some of these accidents were obviously quite gruesome.

The drive today is easier than the prior 2 were: despite heavy clouds, we do not hit a single rain storm. The road is very flat – there are 2 sets of mountains that run parallel to the road – 1 east, 1 west (we suspect that on the west is the Great Dividing Range, which forms the boundary between the Wet Tropics and the Outback, but our maps do not confirm this) – but on the road, we have few ups and few downs. We decide to go to a campground that is right on the beach, in the town of Coolum Beach, on the Sunshine Coast (north of Brisbane, in contrast to the Gold Coast, which is south of Brisbane), and, if it is OK, to stay there for 2 nights.

When we stop for lunch at a nice picnic spot on a brook, we are surprised when we open the doors by the intensity of the heat. But this is what we’re craving after 9 days of monsoon, and so our decision to keep driving until we escape the rain has been confirmed.

As we drive into town, we pass an IGA, pick up some groceries and beer, and then head to the Maroochybeach Caravan Park, which is run by the local shire. As promised, it is on the seaward side of the coast road, but looking pretty barren otherwise – the grass is burnt, and there are few trees for shade.


Greg at home

Despite this, we park, then immediately walk over the dune on the boardwalk, and think we’ve died and gone to heaven! A wide, white soft sand beach (Flick: You were absolutely right about the noise the sand makes as you walk on it!) that goes on forever AND HAS ALMOST NO PEOPLE ON IT! We are hooked. We walk on the shore, and promise ourselves a moonlit walk later in the evening.



Looking north, and south, along Coolum Beach

Bird life in Australia is quite amazing, and it is different in Coolum Beach only because the birds appear to have no fear of humans. There are about 7 different kinds that will come right up to us if they think we have something they want – including (we think) crows, who talk (caw! caw!) continuously, and magpies.


Some of the birds who’ve visited us – let us know if you can identify any of them
After supper (another classic summer special: steak and salad, with a full-bodied, fruity merlot), we fulfill our promise, except the moon has not risen. The stars are beautiful, and we put the lessons Ruth and Flick gave us to work, identifying the Southern Cross and the False Southern Cross. We are standing on the shore, our feet in the surf, and there is nobody about. We rip off our clothes and run joyously into the water. It is one of those perfect nights that we will remember forever!

S23°
E150°

We awake this morning after our first full night in our tidy but, sleeping-wise, cramped campervan to, wait…RAIN. I know it’s hard to believe. Our camper van island had been completely surrounded by water through the night and the drain unit that connects to our water and electricity hook up is completely covered with debris from the flood, trying to find somewhere to drain to.
We unhook and stow everything for the trip south. Despite a few rattles and rolls, things fit quite well in the space we are given and the trip is relatively hassle free.

However, the rain is not. It continues to pour. We have patches where we drive through perfectly dry but threatening skies, then all of a sudden, a wall of water. You can literally see it coming.


What it looks like from the passenger seat!

Today, we decide to do another big day of driving, by-passing famous Airlie Beach and the Whitsunday Islands. It is so miserable we wouldn’t want to be there anyway. The road is somewhat boring with only the occasional vista to catch our eye. Banana and suger cane plantations continue to fill the wet view. We see lots of flooding and pass over many gushing, over-laden rivers and creeks.

Soon the landscape starts to change and we are in low valleys, away from the sea, with bogs and marshes. While it is still tropical, it is less lush. John comments on how much it looks like Florida. Wildlife is scarce but we do, however, see lots of big, exotic birds posing in the bogs. At one point, a wallaby bounds across the road in front of us. John wants to pull over and adopt him/her but we are in the middle of nowhere and I suggest we keep going. We don’t have any room in the camper van for it anyway. The lack of decent radio in AU is somewhat frustrating as my finger continues to push the “seek” button, looking for the right song or beat to keep us going. More importantly, we are listening for every weather report we can hear.

I have picked a few Caravan sites for us and we decide on “The Rambler Caravan Park” in North Rockhampton (or Rocky as the locals call it.) Rockhampton is known as the Beef Capital of Australia. (How’s that for a beef fact, Scooter? It ain’t Alberta.) We pull in and set up for the evening. The park backs onto the highway and we are right across from a big mall so we head over to Woolworths and pick up some supplies for supper. I stroll back to the camper to start dinner and John heads over to the internet store to confirm our flat rental for Sydney in 6 days.
The evening is warm and the sun is setting making the sky a brilliant orange and red. “Red sun at night…” John is almost praying. We hope this bodes well for tomorrow.

We have a typical Canadian summer meal…vodka tonics to start in our camp chairs outside the van, corn on the cob, new potatoes, and grilled chicken breasts. For an Aussie touch, fresh avocado. We finish with some fresh strawberries over vanilla ice cream and wash it all down with a lovely Wolf Blass Chardonnay.

We have logged over 640 km today and driven a total of 1100 km in the last two days…all of which was to out-run the rain. Successfully, we hope.

John and Greg’s Excellent Campervan Adventure

S19°
E147°

The news this morning tells us that a cyclone has blown in from the Pacific, over the Great Barrier Reef and the Coral Sea, and has landed a couple of hundred kilometres up the coast from Cairns – so heavy rains are expected in our vicinity.

We are leaving Cairns today in our campervan, beginning our drive to Sydney, 2600 kilometres to the south. We have allowed ourselves 8 days to do the drive, but given the weather forecast, we decide to get out of Cairns as quickly as possible, and just drive till we can’t drive any further. Although there are sights to see on the way down the coast, the rain will be with us until we leave the “wet tropics” – and we have voted to keep on going until we get out of the rain – you can’t see much through the blowing monsoon. About the only thing we can see as we drive is that this is sugar cane and banana country – in fact, the only crops we see today are sugar cane and banana. We have been hearing about the sugar cane farmers’ anger at the Australia-U.S. free trade agreement reached last weekend, which excludes sugar, and we get a strong sense, as we drive by all these hundreds of kilometres of sugar cane plantations, of how important this crop is to Queensland.

The campervan we get is an “upgrade”, slightly bigger than the one we had rented. We silently say “thank you” to our lucky stars – we can stow the suitcases in the additional berth, which is over the front seats, and won’t have to keep moving them around every time we want to go anywhere inside the campervan.

By the time we return the rental car, deal with the paperwork of the rental, and hit Woolworth’s to pick up some groceries, it is 1:30. It takes us till 7:00 to drive the 450 kilometres to Ayr, going mainly through heavy downpours. We decide to stop for the night, and get organized before it is completely dark. We get to the campground, and lucky for us, the rain is very light while we get set up. We are just nicely inside the campervan, pouring ourselves a much deserved v&t, when the heavens open wide.

Australia does not have compulsory auto insurance, and we are told that if anything happens, whether we are at fault or not, the rental agency will ding us for $10,000 and we will only get it back when and if they recover from the at-fault driver. We opt to purchase the best insurance coverage, at $35/day, which covers not only accidents, but also tires (or tyres, as they say here) and windshields, and at about 4 pm we are quite happy we did, as a passing truck shoots a rock onto the windshield and sure enough, a lovely long crack is the result.

We arrive in Ayr to a selection of campgrounds, and decide on an in-town site called the Burdekin Cascades Caravan Park. The rain continues and soon we have rivers gushing and surrounding our little campervan island. Greg has made pasta and salad for supper, as I run back and forth to the onsite laundry and move all the clothes that have been damp for 10 days from washer to dryer. We have a nice bottle of Wolf Blass merlot and all seems well with the world.

Rain, rain, rain, rain, rain! And just when we thought the day might turn nice, yet more rain! Torrential, teaming, downpours of rain. This is not a complaint, simply an observation. It is warm, it is t-shirt and shorts weather. But it is wet. Very, very wet. We are 1/3 of the way through February, and Cairns is already over its normal February precipitation levels, well on the way to an all-time record.

We sleep late, work on the website, drive down the hill to town. After lunch and an hour at the internet café, we drive back up the hill for a lovely nap. After an hour, we drive back down the hill (the apartment we’ve rented in Sydney is, 1 week before arrival, no longer available and so we’re scrambling). The drive is relatively dry; then John shouts “Look!” and a literal wall of water appears and we drive into it. We push through torrential, cyclone like weather for the next 20 minutes. We have “white out” conditions with the rain.

We check the most recent email from the rental agency, pick a 1st and 2nd choice and email them back. We get a text message from Lynne and Brian – everyone texts here, rather than actually calling on their mobiles – and grab a quick bite of supper with them. Then it is back up the hill, our last trip up before we head down the coast towards Sydney tomorrow, and the damage from the downpour is everywhere in evidence, as John has to zig and zag around the downed branches and new rockslides. Over the last 10 days, as we’ve been driving this mountain, the road has been different every time – wet, dry, washouts, fog, rockslides, branches, frogs. The frogs freeze in the car’s headlights, and look right at you as you try to avoid running over them.

From left: Looking back at Cairns; Cairns airport control tower in front of the mountain we drive up and down regularly

Although it rains heavily again last night, the sun wakes us early – a good thing as we have booked dives for today, and we need to be on the pier by 8:00. We are diving from a different boat today than our other dives: while we appreciated everything that CDC and the Sunkist did for us, we want to expand our knowledge of the Reef and the company we are going with today with go to the northern outer reef. The sky stays clear for the 2 hour ride out; most of the people on the boat today are Japanese, and half the crew is also Japanese. We chat with a few people, and discover that we get along famously with two, Lynne and Brian, two friends from Sydney who have both bought condos in Cairns that they rent out, and who are up to inspect their properties. Lynne is diving, and will go out with Greg and me, while Brian will snorkel with some of the others.


Getting read to go!
Our first dive goes swimmingly, and we are both relieved that we don’t have to demonstrate our skills to anyone this time, and can focus on the dive itself. We see beautiful sights, the reef and the fish are so interesting and colourful – back up top, both Lynne and I comment on the same piece of coral – intense baby blue! We spend a few minutes as a group visiting with a big turtle, everyone just watching the turtle, and the turtle watching us, until he or she loses interest and swims away. Neither Greg nor I have yet mastered the art of not swimming, and we both run low on air about 30 minutes into our dive, surface and go back to the boat.


From left: everything OK; turtle; fish
Up top, one of Greg’s ears won’t equalize. In discussion with the crew, he decides not to do the afternoon dive, which will take place in a different part of Norman Reef. He and Brian go snorkelling, and Lynne and I and a German guy who lives in Nanjing, China, are buddies for the 2nd dive. We see some pink clownfish – Nemo’s cousins (Nemo is a false clownfish), and although I wish Greg were diving with me, I have a wonderful dive. Greg: The snorkel was just as wonderful, full of life and a warm, relaxing float for 40 minutes over the reef.


From left: Afternoon dive site; John with pink clownfish and anemones
Lynne, Brian, Greg and I drive to the CBD (downtown, except to Aussies) and find a touristy (is there anything else in Cairns?) restaurant on the Esplanade. We laugh through dinner, and agree that when we’re all back in Sydney we shall have to hang out together. Lynne talks about taking us diving with her gang near Sydney, and tells us that Sydney has the best shark diving in the world, and that we should really do it. Despite my fear, I am intrigued, and later that night dream of swimming with sharks, and realize in the morning that it was not a nightmare.

We wake to the surprising sound of absence of rain-if there is such a sound- for the first time in many days. Although still cloudy, the sun does make frequent appearances through the day, interspersed with a couple of intense, but brief, downpours. We drive down to Cairns – the radio is full of talk that a tropical depression is forming off the coast, which could bring on a cyclone mid-week – to meet Guy Hays for coffee. Guy is a native of Cairns – he must be one of very few who can claim this honour. Guy is a friend of my sister Ruth’s friend Veda, and Ruth and Guy have consequently become friends.

After a couple of hours of chat, learning about Cairns over the years and about what is going on at Liberty, our hotel (Guy worked there for a bit), we drive north to Port Douglas, a town about 45 kilometres north of Cairns, and generally reckoned as about as far as one can drive up the coast without a 4 wheel drive vehicle. All the way up, driving on the inside of the road, we pass beautiful beach after beautiful beach, and I am filled with longing to be in the water. When we get to Port Douglas, we find a town that is in the midst of a real estate boom – vacation villas and golf courses being built everywhere, taking with them much of the charm that would have made this area attractive.


Port Douglas Beach
After a stroll around the town and a drive up to the Lookout, we head down to the beach. It is hot, and I am looking forward to jumping in. But when we get there, we find the beach closed: in addition to the normal box jellyfish, which nets keep out, the waters are full of a 2nd type, much smaller, with long long tentacles that can come right through the nets, and which, if stung, can render you with permanent neurological damage, if not dead. The nets have even been pulled from the water, but the lifeguard is still there – we guess to enforce the no-swimming rule.

So we walk the beach and discover beach life: everywhere we see these interesting patterns made of little balls of sand. As we watch we realize that when we aren’t looking directly at them, they are full of life. We stand quietly, and these tiny little heads pop out of little holes in the sand. If you move, they go back down; if you don’t they will cautiously emerge and scurry around, disappearing again the minute you move. We can’t get close enough to know what they are, but they look a bit like miniature crabs.


From left: beach net lines; patterns in the sand
Driving back, we pass again the beautiful beaches, realizing now why they are so unpopulated, and wondering about the masochism of the few people who are actually sitting on the beach, knowing they can’t go near the water, not even to stick their toes in.

Looking south along the Queensland coast

We meet up with Guy again, and have Sunday night B-B-Q around the pool at one of the hotels in Cairns, gossiping and feeling as comfortable as old friends.

The morning starts with rain – it has been raining since we went to bed last night. The monsoon here comes normally during the nights. This year Queensland is getting more rain than normal, after 5 years of significantly lower rain than normal. Everything back at our room is damp - clothes don’t fully dry after getting them wet either from swimming or from the rain, and the covers of our books are all curling from the dampness they’ve absorbed. We have been wearing t-shirts and shorts almost exclusively: Cairns is not a fancy dress destination. We seem to fit right in with the budget travellers and backpackers and the locals with our thongs and surfer shorts.

There has been so much rain over the last few days that we go back to Barron Gorge to see what it looks like with water pouring over it. It is impressive, and the Aboriginal name, DinDin, is completely appropriate in English, even without translating its meaning. The area we are in is a UNESCO world heritage site – The Kuranda Range-the Wet Tropics, and much of the land we drive through going to and from Cairns is either national park or state forest.


Barron Gorge with water – compare to picture on Feb. 2

While we are up at Barron Gorge, the rain stops, and the sun peeks out from behind the clouds, as it will do all day. The temperature immediately jumps from 20° to 35° as we go down to Cairns to do some email and web updating. We stop at the Maui shop where we will be renting our campervan and check out the merchandise. Compact and efficient, it will suit our needs fine for our 8 day road trip to Sydney.

That evening we decide to drive the other direction for dinner, and after going down the mountain we turn left away from Cairns, and head to one of the many beach towns that line the coast, Trinity Beach. On the way, we stop and take a picture of our favourite road sign.


One of John’s favourite road signs

We have read in a couple of our guides about a trattoria, L’Unico, that is right on the beach, and this is our intended destination. We find it after a couple of wrong turns, walk in to discover that it is a very popular restaurant, and we are the newest people in a long line waiting for tables. But we are lucky: there are only two of us, everyone else is waiting for a bigger table, and a deuce comes up quickly. We have a wonderful meal, the best we’ve had in Queensland by a long shot, and probably the best we’ve had in Australia. We have wonderful service, which we have been in Australia long enough to appreciate is the exception and not the rule.

For his main, Greg has a risotto with scallops, with the pink meat still attached to the white. He pronounces it delicious. I try something new to us: Moreton Bay Bugs, a shellfish that looks like a prawn with a lobster tail. They have been steamed in white wine and garlic, and prove well worth the gamble. In the busy atmosphere of the evening, one of the owners, Aldo, finds a couple of minutes to sit and chat with us and offers us a drink on the house, a personal touch strikingly reminiscent of the attention we’ve had in restaurants in Italy.

After dinner, making wonderful noises of contentment, we drive back to our hotel. I decide on a late night swim, and walking back to the room I hear laughter coming from the tree behind me. I swear I thought it was my mother’s wonderful infectious laugh. I wheel around, realizing as I do that I must have just heard a kookaburra. Of course I can’t see it, in the dark, but the next morning we see a kookaburra in a tree near our room.

Just as we are getting ready for bed, the rain starts again, and the frogs begin their nocturnes, lulling us gently to sleep.

Happy Birthday to Foster Wattles on February 9!


Success! We are certified divers.

Well, that treading water for 10 minutes and swimming 200 metres on Tuesday, February 3rd was only the beginning of one of the most exciting and eventful parts of our journey so far. As of Friday, February 6th, 2004, John and I are PADI Certified Open Water Divers, but more of that later.

Some Filler detail: John booked with The Cairns Dive Center or CDC as they are known locally. They offered us a four day “budget” dive course on the Reef which involved two days of theory and pool work, followed by two days diving on the Reef, after which you are certified (if you pass the written tests and the open water skills tests.) as an Open Water Diver. This is a limited certification and does not allow you to dive on wrecks, in certain areas, or below 18 metres. Further certification is available, the more diving you do.
These tests are both physically and mentally challenging and I wasn’t so sure that I was up for the task. The class that started right after ours had a student drop out after one lap of the 200 metre pool swim! We find out later that most students do the 5 day course where, after 2 days of classroom and pool work, you go to the mother ship, which is stationed on the Reef for 1 month at a time, and you get two night’s accommodation and three days of diving. Anyone who did the 5 day course got 4 extra dives including a night dive. (Barbara Colley, you know how exciting that is!) We had already paid for our hotel, which wouldn’t refund us, so after the 2 days on land and pool, we were separated from our group and we did two day trips to the Great Barrier Reef for our open water skills tests.

You tend to bond with the other people in your class and your instructor, so it was difficult to say good-bye to the other six: Birgit and Pedro (Belgian), Johannes (German), J.J. (Danish), Craig (British), and Madoka (Japanese). (The United Nations should consider moving to Cairns – every nationality seems to be represented here, and unlike the other U.N., everyone seems to get along great here.)

Our instructor was a seasoned veteran with years of diving experience all around the world. She was professional, fun, serious about diving, and most importantly, had a wicked, wonderful sense of humour. She also seemed to love teaching new divers and took great pride in passing on her considerable expertise. She knew everyone’s names and idiosyncrasies immediately, and made a extremely strenuous process fun. THANKS, LEANNE! for giving us what we needed to get certified. We had a wonderful time. We are so sorry we couldn’t do the mother ship and especially the night dive with you. Thanks for finding us on the day boat and encouraging us and congratulating us after our last certification dive. We will always remember these four days. How did J.J. do???

John:
Our time in the pool was fairly easy. I was very worried about my ears popping because I have always had problems with my ears when diving into pools. But the way we were taught, this wasn’t a problem for me. After over 6 hours in the pool (which had a depth of 4 metres) over the 2 days, we were pretty confident about our open water testing. But the first day of open water skills testing dawned with no dawn – the monsoon was going full force when we woke up. We had to be at school by 7:15 (school, by the way, was a 40 minute drive down the mountain through the monsoon, on winding, 180° hairpin turn, narrow-wrong-side-roads) to do our written exam (we both passed with flying colours).

By the time we got to the dock, the rain had stopped but our view back over Cairns was of romantic rainforest clouds hovering over the tops of the Kuranda Range Mountains. The 90 minute boat ride out to the Outer Reef was turbulent, with swells of between 7 and 10 metres, and a couple of people got seasick. We both seemed immune to that particular malady.

We enter the water: OHMIGOD! (to quote Donna LaPointe). It is not like a pool. Greg tells me he panicked, because his snorkel kept filling with water. They tell you to breathe through your snorkel when you are on the surface, to conserve your air for the dive. They forgot to add that when the swells are big (not as big as on the ride out, because the effect of being on the reef is that the water is calmer, but still big), you should breathe through your regulator even on the surface because your snorkel will not work if you get swamped. As well, Greg was freaked out because with the buddy system that divers use, we were supposed to stay together at all times – but with 20 other people fighting their way into the water, he couldn’t see me – I was already 1 metre under the water, forced down the anchor line we were to hold by the crowds. Unlike Greg, I was ready for the crowd – what freaked me out were the noises – who knew that air bubbles from 20 people could be so loud? Water conducts sound much more efficiently than air – so sounds are intensified.

We separate from the crowd with our instructor for the day, J.P, and go through our first set of open water skills, which we’ve already done in the pool, and learn that when your instructor shakes your hand underwater, that means you’ve passed that particular skill. Then we get a swim through the reef – magnificent, six stories high and so alive that you don’t know where to look, although the brightness of everything is muted because there is still no sun today. Despite which, the neon-coloured reef fish darting here and there, are exquisite. This first dive went to a depth of 10 metres, and lasted for 23 minutes.

After lunch on the boat, we begin our second dive. We know what to expect, and it goes very smoothly. We go to about the same depth, but have a dive of 35 minutes this time. Again, it is beautiful down there, and this time we swim through an arch complex in the reef, called the Labyrinth, and see this time a Maori wrasse (a very big fish!), who takes no notice of us. We hold a sea cucumber, stick small star fish to our masks and are generally in awe of the spectacle of the Reef. The ride back to shore is one of exhilaration – we have completed half our underwater skills testing. We chat with one of the crew, Michael, who has moved from Ireland to Australia with his girlfriend, to get his advanced diving certifications. Although he studied law, his passion is cinematography, and he is hoping that he will be able to do underwater cinematography. He knows Canada well, having attended Lester Pearson College on Vancouver Island. We are back on land by about 4:30, quickly check emails and update the web, grab a quick dinner, then drive up the mountain and fall exhausted to sleep.

Friday starts again with the monsoon going full force. We get to sleep a little later this morning – we don’t have to be on the boat until 8:30. The drive down the mountain is worse today – it is far windier than yesterday, and it has been raining heavily since 10:30 the night before – there are lots of rockslides that we have to negotiate around. We are the first guests to the boat at 8:20, and the crew tell us that it will be an ugly trip out to the reef – the wind is blowing a steady 25 knots, much harder than yesterday, and we will be sailing into the rising tide. Sure enough, visibility is almost nil for the entire ride to the reef, and 7 or 8 people (but again not us) are seasick on the way. We chuckle to ourselves, having seen this same thing the day before. We are seasoned sailors! When we moor on the reef, it is far rougher than yesterday and even 45 kilometres offshore the rain is driving, but in we plunge with Chris, who is administering our final open water skill tests.

We immediately go down to the bottom – at 14 meters, 3 metres deeper than we got yesterday. Our first test today is to fill our masks half-way with water, then to expel the water – something you need to be able to do to unfog your mask if necessary. This is something we have practiced and practiced, both in the pool and yesterday in the open water. I go first, and don’t realize that when I put my mask back onto my face, the skirt on one side has folded under the lens. When I open my eyes (I do these things with my eyes closed because of my contact lens) my mask is full of water. I lift it away from my face again and blow, and again when I open my eyes my mask is full of water. This time, so is my nose, and I am swallowing salt water that has come through my nose. I try one more time, it doesn’t work again, and I can feel panic setting in. By this time, Chris has grabbed my BCD vest, and is holding the regulator in place in my mouth, and the only thing that keeps me from doing an emergency ascent is the fact that Chris is holding tight, and I trust that if this were a real emergency, we’d be on our way up already. He puts a finger on my mask, and I finally realize that the skirt is not sitting properly. So I adjust it, still on the verge of panic, and just sit calmly, catching my breath, letting the panic ebb away, all with my eyes still closed. Finally, I lift the bottom of the mask, blow for all it is worth, and my mask clears. Thank god! We sit quietly, Chris keeps asking (via hand gesture) if I’m OK, I keep saying I’m OK, although I’m not really feeling very OK. When I can convincingly gesture that I am really OK, he gets Greg to do this routine, and Greg of course does it flawlessly, first time. We do our other skills tests, and get through them with no problem, and then do our swim. I am still not totally happy to be underwater, and am glad when we finally surface after 30 minutes.

After lunch, we go down again. Our skill tests after lunch are full mask removal and hovering, and I am anxious to get them over – still concerned about this morning’s experience. Down we go, to 15 metres, and Chris makes me go first – he has no heart! But I do it, and do it perfectly the first time. The relief that floods over me is intense. Greg does his, getting it perfect, and then we hover. It is a bit like sitting on a flying carpet. At this point, Chris indicates we have passed all our skills, and are certified divers. We go for a swim, and it is the most wonderful swim I’ve ever taken. Pure relaxation and enjoyment and happiness that Greg and I have done this thing together.

When we get back to the boat, the monsoon has finally stopped, and although the sun is not out, the water is calm. JP announces to the crew and other divers that we are certified, and there are cheers and clapping. Michael from Ireland takes the picture of the two of us. We are so happy!

Greg and John are doing their scuba diving certification right now, on the Great Barrier Reef. No kidding, we're fishin' (or fish watching, anyway). Back Sunday, with stories.

Hi Joanne Weaver: Happy Birthday (February 4) from the Rain Forest – you would absolutely love it here!

I awake from a somewhat sleepless night of unfamiliar rainforest bird calls and various forms of cicada boisterously screeching in a constant crescendo and decrescendo, each species trying to outdo each other in noisy leg rubbing. I do need some reminding that we are living on top of a mountain in a rainforest. We have seen big white cockatoos, geckos, and tree frogs, and have heard many other unknown animals. The cockatoos will steal your food if you aren’t careful.

John has been up since seven and I keep the pillow pulled over my head until at least 9 o’clock. The tumultuous thunder and lightning storm from the night before has completely faded and the morning has broken with brilliant sunshine and a gentle breeze.

I pull on a pair of cotton shorts and a t-shirt and head up to the main building for breakfast. John has already had his cereal, juice and coffee and has sourced out a 4 day diving certification course run from Cairns. Two days of theory, then two days of diving on the “Reef”. We had talked about being certified (diving, that is) when we had begun laying plans for our trip and what better place to do it than the Great Barrier Reef. John makes the call and Trevor is helpful with details and expectations and we book the time. We both have to be able to swim 200 meters and tread water for 10 minutes. I plan to spend some time in the pool today seeing if I can actually do this.

Our day today is completely unplanned. The only thing we have to do is spend time by the pool. Which we do, at least until it is time for lunch. We head to Kuranda to post a letter, grab lunch, and do our usual scouting of an internet café that will let us use our laptop. This has been an unexpected hurdle so far, so when we find one, we try to strike up a relationship with the owner. In the car, we immediately break sweat and, the wusses that we are, crank the AC – although not as hot as yesterday (it is only 31°), the humidity makes the heat intense.

We spend a bit of time walking around Kuranda, sweating up a storm. After a couple of tries, we find an internet place that is willing to let us bring in our laptop.

After lunch, we walk around the shops – Kuranda is noted for its market – and note with interest the large number of Korean tourists whose dress (long sleeves and pants) strikes us as cute, given the intensity of the heat. Then up to Barron Gorge, where the Barron River used to tumble out and has created a wonderful cataract. We had hoped that, after yesterday evening’s rains, the waterfall would be interesting, but alas, the gorge is barren – with only a bridal veil of water. The river’s water is diverted above the gorge, and used to produce electricity. The locals tell us that the only time the gorge is alive is when the power authorities open the dam. We meet two charming Aboriginal women, Mavis and Glady, who are viewing the gorge (and spreading the Lord’s word). We offer to take their picture together in front of the gorge, and they offer us everlasting salvation.


Barron Gorge

There is a walk through the rain forest to the Barron Gorge train station (there are a train and a gondola (7.5 kilometres!) that go up the mountain and through the rain forest from Cairns to Kuranda) that is mainly on bridges, to avoid damaging the forest floor as much as possible. We enjoy exploring the rain forest – so different from a North American forest. One of the things we find fascinating are all the air roots that the trees have.


From left: John on bridge in rain forest, air roots

We get back to the resort and are ever so glad to jump into the pool. We spend the afternoon either in the pool or napping under the umbrellas, and on returning to our hut are surprised to see how pink we both are, despite having stayed covered except when in the pool.

Heavy thunderclouds started to gather in the sky just as we finished lunch, and just as we finish pouring ourselves a late afternoon vodka tonic, the heavens open, the lightning flashes and thunder roars – for about 20 minutes, bringing wonderful coolness when they are done.

At dinner (wonderful again) we discover that there are so few people here because it is monsoon season. They tell us that in another month the place will be hopping. Walking back, the tree frogs are singing up a storm – and apparently the fact that they are singing means there will be another rainstorm this evening. We see fruit bats hanging from the palms. They are quite amazing to watch – the most sensual consumption of food since Albert Finney played Tom Jones. And when they fly overhead, there is a gentle flapping noise and you can feel the movement of the air.

S16°
E145°

We blow out of Melbourne relatively easily today with many wonderful memories. We are completely impressed and enchanted with it, and leave wishing we could stay. Everywhere you look there are magnificent parks and sculptures and monuments. Even the freeways have interesting sculpture to look at as you drive along.

We make all our connections to the airport ahead of time, so have time to kill when we get there. We call John’s mom and have a nice chat with her. Virgin Blue didn’t hit us up for our overweight baggage on the flight from Adelaide to Melbourne, and they don’t again today. I guess they are having too much fun at their jobs. We have two flights today to reach Cairns - Melbourne to Brisbane (2 hours) and Brisbane to Cairns (2 ½ hours), all of which are easy and carefree. We buy two wraps, two Diet Cokes and a small can of Pringles on the plane for lunch - $19.50 Aus. We were starving and couldn’t grab food quickly enough between connections. Such is the future of air travel!

We deplane through the back of the plane, and are immediately hit with 38° humidity. We have left coolish and overcast 22° in Melbourne. It is a big change. We both immediately break sweat and are drenched. We are far north, much closer to the equator: we hadn’t really understood how far north we would be. Here are some locator comparisons: food for thought:

Cairns (pronounced either Kens or Cannes – you choose) is about the same latitude as Fiji.

In North America, Laguna Niguel, California is as far north of the equator as Sydney is south: both at 33°.

In Central America, Guatemala is as far north of the equator as Cairns is south of the equator.

In Africa, Senegal and Mali are as far north of the equator as Cairns is south of the equator.

(And for those of you who didn’t recognize these tidbits of information, they are John Mountain Facts ©).

We are staying at Liberty, a resort that is situated in the Kuranda rain forest reserve. Although only 7 kilometres as the crow flies, we drive out of Cairns for about 25 kilometres, up and further up over windy mountainous roads until we reach the resort.


Overlooking Cairns and the Coral Sea

John is driving – again it is on the wrong side. “Keep Left!” the dashboard in the rental car reminds us. It is Sunday at about 4 p.m. The resort encompasses about 1 square kilometre of land that is all rainforest. And there is nobody here!!! There are 50 (or that was the last number we could see) self-contained huts based on a Balinese A frame dwelling. Ours has two sleeping areas and the room we choose has an a/c unit – very nice indeed. There are also about 15 very nice “barracks” rooms with full porches closer to the main building. We check in, do the quick tour with Duran, unpack and head up to the pool which is situated just behind our “hut”. The pool is set in the most glamorous setting of natural rock and native palm and fern with two water falls - it is like swimming in your own lagoon. There seem to be only us and 4 women here, but while we are unpacking another couple checks in. Duran tells us that there are only 4 huts in use tonight.


From left: 2 views of the pool, the dining room

We don’t quite understand why there are so few people here – the huts are wonderful! We have two bedrooms, wonderful furniture, and our own Bang & Olufsen sound system.


Home Sweet Home, for 10 days anyway

We head up to a wonderful dinner at about 7:15, sitting poolside and outdoors but covered. We both have barramundi, grilled and caught within seeing distance, and salad, and watch an incredible thunderstorm start to develop over the Coral Sea, with glimpses of lightning through the palm trees heralding the thunderous booming of the rest of the storm. The rain starts gently, ever so, and then moves on to a warm, dancing torrent on the tin roof. North Queensland is tropical, and while it gets quite a lot of rain annually, most of it falls in the summer – and from the rain tonight, it would appear that “monsoon” is an appropriate description.

Sitting at the table, we listen as the afternoon cicadas sign off and the evening cicadas take over. When the rain starts the frogs join in, as Duran had earlier told us they would if it rained. John and I finish our dinner to this exquisite symphony, and head back to our hut so that we can watch the lightning and listen to the thunder rumble and the rain tumble on the roof at home. Before we leave, Duran asks if we want an umbrella. This rain is warm and gentle and inviting. It asks that you to come outside and play with it. Getting wet is the most important part – no umbrella necessary!

It is the rainforest, after all.

HAPPY EARLY BIRTHDAYS TO STEPHEN GELLER (January 31) and to MADELINE WATTLES (February 2)!!!

Our day starts with the headlines telling us about the rampant and devastating flooding that has hit Melbourne yesterday in the late afternoon and overnight. We are heading out to the Yarra Valley for a day of wine tasting today and our driver, David is delayed by the flooding. He tells us that when it rains like that, Mother Nature pours a big bucket of rain on certain sections of the city and they can’t handle it. The ancient and antiquated sewer system can’t handle the amount of rain that falls in such a short period of time. The damage is extensive and mostly in a neighbouring suburb next door to where we are staying – which we find interesting because our suburb, while wet, had absolutely no flooding.

We have booked our wine tour this time with a much smaller company -Victoria Winery Tours and they told me at the time of the booking that one bus was already booked and that it might just be the two of us on a 2nd bus. This is in fact what happens and we start out about 9:45 for our personalized tour. The Yarra Valley is less than 1 hour from Melbourne, and suburbia ends at the edge of the valley. The transition from city to wine country is immediate, and we wonder how long the Yarra will remain agricultural.

We start at Domaine Chandon, the Australian operation of the LVMH luxury house that produces Moet, Louis Vuitton and other high ticket items. A full glass of sparkling wine (champagne not being an acceptable designation any more), and we are off to the races. We visit 5 more wineries today: Tokar, Immerse (a beautiful setting, with spa), Fergusson’s, De Bortoli (which has won a number of international awards for its 1999 chardonnay) and Balgownie Estate. With the exception of Chandon, all are family owned. We taste over 25 wines, running the gamut from truly forgettable to truly wonderful. We buy a couple of bottles for BYO purposes (a 2001 Shiraz from Tokar, a 2000 Chardonnay from De Bortoli), but can’t indulge in more – no way to transport, and no place to ship to.

By the time we get home we are tired and emotional, and overdue for our naps, but highly impressed with both David and with the tour company. After longish snoozes, we head out for a light supper (lunch, at Fergusson’s, had been both delicious and substantial) at one of the many lovely cafes in our suburb.

Peter Connelly, who was just in Melbourne with Peter Duck and Brian Shackleton last December, advised us that they enjoyed the pub at the Laird Hotel in a suburb about 5 kilometres due north of ours – so off we go, arriving just before 10. Once there, we spend a bit of time outside in the courtyard, and watch with fascination as a possum ambles down the tree in the middle of the courtyard just as the place is getting quite busy, takes up a position on an exposed beam, and performs acrobatics in return for peanuts. By 10:30 the place is so packed you can barely move, the possum -no longer the centre of attention - has retired to his tree for the remainder of the evening, and we spend an enjoyable hour or so. Thanks for the recommendation, guys!



From left: Domaine Chandon; Greg and Friends at Badger Weir in Yarra Valley; The Valley

Raining and overcast, we decide to have a movie day. I must admit there is a little guilt attached to this but John points out that “if that’s what we want to do then we should do it.” After breakfast, I pore over the paper and decide on two options! We go with both – doing two movies in a row: “Love Actually” and “Cold Mountain”. We head downtown to the Crown Center (a huge, ugly Las Vegas style “entertainment” complex with a hotel, casino, shops, casino, food courts, casino, etc, casino, etc….). It is officially raining now (John: pouring is more like it) and Melbourne feels and looks a lot like London (UK) to us.

Hankies in tow from “Love Actually” we move on to “Cold Mountain”, and are impressed by Jude and Nicole’s angst driven Homeric (thanks, Michael Brady for the choice word) journey and Renee’s scrappy Annie Oakley.

Out side it is still raining and feeling generally like October as we leave the theatre at about 7 pm. We head back to the hotel and change our clothes for a lovely dinner at a restaurant just up the street from us called Red Orange. Excellent food and excellent wine (BYO!) primed with a starter martini. Yum!

We have evolved a Melbourne routine. We buy the newspaper at the 24/7 supermarket next door to the hotel, read the paper over breakfast in the hotel, then head out for the day. Today, despite predictions of rain and cool weather, when I go out to get the paper it is already hot.

After breakfast, we head to the National Gallery of Victoria, just outside the heart of downtown – with a stop for our tram, number 72, right at the front door. We go inside to find, behind a water wall, quite a beautiful glass-covered courtyard. The building was recently renovated, and it a very comfortable space, despite which it is visually interesting. There are a number exhibits available to us and we quickly split up to do the gallery. I head off to peruse the textile/fashion section and discover a treasure trove of amazing Parisian designer clothing – from Worth through Chanel (both Coco and Karl) and finishing with a Galliano 2003 couture dress and hat for the house of Dior that is the most eloquent statement of anti-fashion I’ve ever seen. I then move on to the European decorative arts section. Greg is quite content looking at the 17th and 18th Century painting galleries. The Gallery is really well presented with some lovely public spaces and several cafes and restaurants on different levels, and we are quite impressed with the depth of the collection.

After the rain ends, out comes warm sunshine and we decide to head to St. Kilda’s Beach to have some lunch and check out the sights. This is a very popular grand old sea side suburb boasting a true carnival atmosphere right down to a small Coney Island style Luna Park. We grab some food, do some window shopping and bump into the young German couple who had been on our Bourassa wine tour in Adelaide. We nod our heads to them and continue on our way. We had also run into another German couple from our Adelaide time at the Victoria Market a few days earlier. “Everyone seems to be on the same schedule,” I mention to Greg.

We stroll a couple of kilometres along the boardwalk, have an ice cream and then head back to town in time for a late afternoon nap. Tough life, I know. Threatening skies.


From left: Melbourne from St. Kilda's; Luna Park and St. Kilda's Beach

We are moving into our first full month of travel and I must admit that I am feeling a little down. The weather in Melbourne is unusually cool for January—23° and overcast. There is rain predicted for the rest of the week and I quickly blame the weather for my somewhat depressed state of mind. Nothing major, I put it down to travel fatigue or perhaps that it is just early days and I haven’t figured this entire process out yet.

We just set out the door when it starts to rain – not a downpour, more like a heavy scotch mist. Regardless of weather or state of mind, we grab the # 72 tram and head downtown. We travel through fashionable St. Kilda Street, pass the Kings Domain (a major park downtown) and get off the tram at Swanston and Collins Streets, right in the heart of Melbourne. We have some stamps to buy and some letters to post, and then we start our walk. Our plan is to head up to the Victoria Market for lunch and then walk back down to Southbank via Elizabeth Street. There are a number of Victorian Arcades that I would like to see and this area also has a number of interesting buildings and sights.


From left: The Royal Arcade and an Australia Day tribute
The market is not as impressive as Adelaide’s was, but we have also discovered another market close to our hotel called the Prahan Market. We grab a quick lunch with the office types and head back down towards theYarra River. The city is jammed with business professionals, back-packers, upscale and downscale shoppers, tourists and locals during lunch hour. This is the first day back for many after the holiday week-end. We head over to Federation Square and then down to the river before ending up in Southbank for a sit and a bottle of water, watching the day trippers stroll by. The sun has come out at this point and it is an entirely different day now—lovely and warm yet still a little crisp (by Australian standards!). The weather is so changeable here. It is tough to dress for the day.

Dinner tonight is a Gay-guide recommended restaurant called Gluttony- It’s a Sin in a rather seedy, drug dealer part of town called Collingwood. It has cooled right down and the weather looks quite threatening tonight but we head up town for dinner. We have a fabulous feed of buffalo meat balls in an Indian inspired stew with some lovely toasted Indian spiced home made bread. Well worth the trip and the perfect meal for a chilly, damp night.

S37°
E144°
Well, well, well. Melbourne is an entirely different city from Adelaide and that is evident firstly in its size. Melbourne has over 3.5 million people in it and reminds us of Toronto. The water, the beach proximity and their inner city transportation—it is all street cars or as they call them here, trams. The sound of the tram rolling down the street, its metal wheels catching the section breaks of tracks as it rolls over them, reminds us of home. The Australian Open tennis match is still playing out here, and there is a huge 3 week gay festival going on right now. Lovely tree lined avenues, lots of public space and art and monuments everywhere. It is a happening place.

Melbourne’s rapid growth was helped in the 1850’s by a huge influx of immigrants seeking their fortunes in the gold fields of the state of Victoria. This wealth led to the construction of the grand public buildings that predominate in Melbourne. In fact, it has the most elaborate Victorian architecture in all of Australia. And it is everywhere.

From left: Two views of Flinders Street Station and the city from SouthBank

We arrive late afternoon on Monday the 26th. It is Australia Day here (which is like our Canada Day) and the airport is busy with families heading home before school starts. We check into our hotel in area called South Yarra. We are about a 20- 25 minute tram ride from downtown and about 15 minutes from St. Kilda Beach, a popular beach area for Melbournians. We are also a block away from the fashionable Chapel Street shopping area. This is very much like Toronto’s Queen Street West area. We are staying at a more scaled down hotel in Melbourne than we did in Adelaide, but the difference is immediately evident in the service we receive. Here, they know our names, our key is always out when we arrive, and the staff is friendly and helpful. And we have a nice view of the city from our balcony.


Melbourne from our Hotel Balcony

We drop our bags and head up to Chapel Street for a bite of dinner. It is a holiday weekend so most places are closed. When we finish up, stop for a quick drink at a local watering hole and are in bed early.

We take today as a day off. Since Sunday last week, we have been on the move non-stop. As good North Americans, we aren’t used to walking long distances. And walking is what we’ve done since leaving Doubtless Bay. Our hips and our feet are not as well lubricated as when we were younger, and they are complaining…loudly. Despite which, we end up walking a good distance today.

We are gradually adjusting to living in hotels (although the first two weeks were actually not lived in hotels – they were lived with family and friends) – this is our life for the next 12 months. One of the biggest challenges is the lack of space – we are living in one room for the next year. The worst is early in the morning before Greg wakes. At home I could get up and make coffee. Here that is not an option, and so I read by flashlight. I am burning through the batteries.

I feel like Heloise, who lived in the Plaza Hotel, apparently without parents, but with unlimited access to maids and butlers and nannies. Whoever pays Heloise’s bills isn’t paying ours, unfortunately…so we have our first visit to the Launderette (Greg bought lots and lots of undies in LA). We aren’t about to make the mistake we made in Florence a couple of years ago, where we splurged and had our undies and jeans laundered for us at our hotel, for about $150. When we get to the launderette, however, we find that we have brought the wrong coins and that it is unattended – and so it takes quite awhile to get going: 2 walks to the LiquorMart, about ½ kilometre each way, before we get it right (make of that statement what you will).

Life has passed beyond the sense that we are on vacation – a vacation would have ended by now. And we are into a totally new experience for us, without any set routines. Every day we get up and we ask “what are we going to do today?” And the answer is unframed by either yesterday or tomorrow. Today is only about today. Our sense of time has begun to shift – the days feel longer than they have since we were kids. I wonder if this is because our days are so unstructured; but I also wonder whether some element of this feeling is because we have, in some ways, reverted to a type of 2nd childhood, without the normal adult responsibilities – no house, no car, no mortgage, no debts, no bills, and no jobs.

---

We have arrived in Adelaide too early for the Adelaide Festival, which looks like it will be amazing (this is the Festival State, after all, as all the licence plates all tell us), but the Tour Down Under is underway. This is a 5 day bicycle race modeled on the Tour de France, and sponsored by Jacob’s Creek. Walking around, we see the riders riding to the start of the fifth and final stage, which is happening in the parkland just outside downtown Adelaide.

Having covered the town, we have observed a huge number of parking lots. We think we now understand why there are so many – downtown Adelaide is about 1 square mile in size, and surrounded by beautiful parkland. To grow, this has meant that Adelaide has huge suburbs, which spread out forever for a city of 1 million people. To keep the downtown vibrant, the city has huge parking lots, and the suburbanites appear to use them readily.

33 days after we started the 24/7 thing, we have words, for the first time. We want to do different things this afternoon, I want to sit outside in the beautiful day, Greg wants to focus on getting the website updated. We’ve forgotten that making sure that we had some time apart was, in fact, Plan A. It takes about 15 minutes to figure out that that is what we need. When we meet again later in the afternoon, we are both in much better shape and happy to see each other.

We go back to the hotel where, despite pillow menus, and promises of service, our room has not been made up and the lights in the hall outside our room continue to be dark. “Housekeeping has gone home for the day, there’s nothing I can do” is all that Sarah can offer us. We ask for the manager, but of course she or he is out of town for the holiday weekend, so Sarah takes the brunt of our dissatisfaction.

Off to dinner – tonight is Argentinean. Without a reservation, we are offered table 11, right next to the kitchen. It is not a bad table, but our sense of humour wears thin after our waitress, Karen, “having an off day”, brings me the wrong entrée. This leads to a long delay in getting our mains – they don’t order them until the entrées are cleared. Sitting next t to the order and pick-up station, we quickly learn the process, and sit in wonderment at the lack of service but watching with fascination the goings-on in the kitchen, where there appear to be at least 9 people operating in a space smaller than our old master bathroom. Greg says “if we were sitting in any other area of the restaurant and didn’t identify with either the kitchen or Karen, we would be complaining.” And of course he is right. So we do complain, very politely (because we are Canadian). And the restaurant comps our bottle of wine.



left - Central Adelaide, right - heading off to start of 5th Stage of Tour Down Under

Ok, this is one of those days that Greg has been dreading. Up at 5:30!!!!! On the bus at 6:30 for the 2 hour ride to the ferry (45 minutes) that takes us across to Kangaroo Island, where there is a huge wildlife sanctuary, Flinders Chase National Park. This is a full day of travelling and we choose again to do the Gray Line thing. There are many options of travelling to KI, flying, driving or by bus and we choose the option that fits our timing and our budget. Some confusion ensues at the Bus Station concerning which bus everyone should be on. We hear a rumour that there are three buses going to the ferry and we won’t be on the same bus for the tour. We need a specific ticket to get us on the bus and then a special pass to get us on the ferry and then we need to check in again on the other side to determine which tour we are on…..and don’t forget it is 6:15 am!

KI is about 155 kilometres long, and about 55 kilometres wide. While some of it has been farmed for many years, about half of the island has never been cleared, and it is therefore an ecologically important area, with native bush predominating. Very few non-native animals have been introduced, with the result that the local animals have not become food for the interlopers.

First stop on Kangaroo Island is an Australian Sea Lion colony. Our driver, Dave, is full of all kinds of historical information, some helpful and interesting, some not so. I am not sure how interesting some of this information is to our fellow travellers – mainly Japanese, Korean and German. We walk onto the beach where the sea lions are sleeping – we are so close to them, just 5 metres away from us. The adults go out into the water for 3 days at a time, travelling hundreds of kilometres to their feeding ground. The waters are full of predators, so they don’t sleep for the 3 days, and when they get back to shore, they often use the waves to push them onland because they are so tired. That is how we are able to go so close without disturbing them – they are oblivious to everything except the sun, raising their flippers or rolling in the wet sand to cool down, going up into the grasses on the dunes to warm up in winter. This colony is one of the very few that has survived the oil and fur trade, mainly because the beach is protected by a reef just offshore that meant the sealers couldn’t get in to the beach. The reef not only helped the sea lions survive humans, but also their finned predators, because the predators won’t come into the lagoon. However, it also means that the water here is warm, and so the good feeding grounds are far away. (Greg: John crying at this point.)





Next stop was a eucalyptus forest to see koalas. Koalas are not indigenous to KI, but were introduced as a conservation measure because so much of their habitat on the mainland has disappeared, KI is covered in the right kind of eucalyptus, and thus they have thrived here. There are a number of bears easily visible, including a mother with her baby on her back.



Because the diet of the koalas (eucalyptus only) is so poor, they sleep for about 20 hours daily. And that is what they were doing when we were there. I am tremendously moved (Greg: John does even more crying): all my life I have dreamed of seeing koalas in the wild. The koalas are mainly grabbing the eucalyptus trees – Dave says that the trees shed their bark in order to present a white, reflective surface to the sun, meaning the trees stay cooler. The koalas in turn hug the trees as a way of keeping cool themselves. Having seen a steady stream of pictures of koalas hugging trees, we had always thought they were trying to keep from falling. Who knew it was a form of air conditioning?

We find it amazing that we can get so close to the animals without being in a zoo. In any national parks we’ve been in at home, the animals (except for deer that have become accustomed to handouts) have stayed well away.



We head off to the Remarkable Rocks, high on a cliff overlooking the Southern Ocean, formed by volcanic action and millennia of erosion. On this next part of the drive, we see a metre long goanna – which looks like it a type of iguana. Dave the driver jokes that it must be a local, because it sure isn’t moving very fast.





From here, it is a short hop to the Admiral’s Arch, where there is a huge colony of New Zealand Fur Seals. This colony survived because there were two islands just offshore that could not be approached by the sealers. Now that sealing is prohibited, the population is making a comeback. According to Dave, this didn’t stop some desperate sealers from trying to land on them when all the other seals in the area had been exterminated. Fortunately for the seals, the rocky terrain meant that the sealers drowned before they could kill any seals, and the government shortly afterwards declared the islands off limits.

The seals are far more active than the sea lions were – playing and fighting and vocalizing. We can’t go close – but as we well remember from Cape Foulwind, where we went on our first trip to New Zealand in 1992, seal colonies have quite a distinctive odour – so we’re not sure we would want to get much closer in any event. (Greg: John is cooing at the seals.)



So far we have not seen any kangaroos, despite hours spent on their namesake island – they sleep during the day to escape the heat. At our last stop, at a café in the park’s Visitor Centre, we finally see a number of kangaroos. Like the deer at home, they come looking for (verboten) handouts. Although we do not feed them, they come right up to us and we have little visits with them in the parking lot. (Greg: John is purring at the kangaroos.)



Finally, it is time for the ferry and bus ride home. With a beautiful sunset chasing us as we head home, we get back to the hotel about 10:30 – a long but fulfilling day behind us.

S34°
E138°

Greg has to wake me again (at 7:30), for the 2nd day in a row. We grab a coffee and then it’s off to the Barossa Valley, one of the world’s great wine regions. We are going on a bus – the typical Gray Line tour with your typical tourists from all over the world. The thought of driving us to some wonderful wine tasting is scary enough, let alone doing it on the wrong side of the road, so we take the option of the tour. And judging from the number of “kangaroo crossing” signs we see on the road, I’m not sure that I would want to be driving even if I were stone cold sober.

The day is warm in Barossa – probably 33 or 34°, but this is incredibly dry country, and there is absolutely no humidity in the air, so the heat is not oppressive. The entire day is a study in brown – except for the vines, which are green and lush, and the sky, which is a deep blue, cut by small wisps of white cloud. Many of the best vines are old – some are over 100 years (phylloxera has not been a problem in South Australia) – and these vines are green without irrigation, because their roots have gone so deep they have found water naturally.

We start big – Jacob’s Creek. They have built a beautiful tasting room and restaurant – the equal of anything we’ve seen in Napa or Sonoma. And they know what they’re doing. We are treated like royalty.



From there, we go on to the mid-size Kaesler Wines, where we have lunch in the restaurant. Our Gray Line compatriots have opted for dessert at this point but Greg and I choose more tasting. Great wines for a smaller, boutique style winery. Our server at Kaesler is a substitute teacher at one of the local high schools. She tells that the local high school has a course teaching about grape and wine production – the first such high school course in Australia. The wine is good enough that it is being shipped to the US where it is being distributed by a small, organic restaurant chain.


Then on to Kies, a small boutique winery that sells its complete production at the cellar door and to a couple of Sydney restaurants. Truly lovely wines! We enquire about shipping, and the cost to North America is prohibitive. Not so to Europe for some reason – maybe we should ship some ahead! We end up buying a lovely bottle of Merlot to take to a BYO restaurant one night.

When we get back to Adelaide about 5:30 and the day is still warm. We go exploring in the opposite direction from the day before and discover Central Market, a sort of St. Lawrence Market on steroids. The abundance of high summer in an agricultural region is apparent everywhere. We are both surprised and somewhat overwhelmed by the many shoppers there on a Friday evening at 7:30. And there are restaurants everywhere. We spend an hour reading menus and salivating, before deciding on one for dinner, Lime & Lemon Thai Café. The food is sublime, the service perfect and just enough bustle to keep you interested in what is going on in the room and on the street. All the restaurants, markets and malls are all fully open here with a lovely midsummer breeze blowing through. No curtains hung at the front door to stop the January cold wind. We walk back out onto the street, which is vibrating with energy and people enjoying themselves, and try to decide where we’ll eat next – all the restaurants look worthwhile.

The sun has gone down, and the temperature drops quickly in the dry air. We walk back to the hotel with a whole new perspective on Adelaide, as a vibrant and interesting city. Who knew?

And now for a quick word on followsummer.com usage: While we love and certainly appreciate all your kind and supportive comments on our travel escapades, please be advised that your thoughtful, insightful and colourful comments are available for world wide consumption. Thank you, Michael for discovering and pointing out this little aspect of the site to everyone. We have received so many comments on your posting.

If you would like to speak to us privately, just click on the upper right hand corner of the site “contact us”, then click on either email address and comment away. On the other hand, we are having a ball with the open dialogue everyone seems to be having with each other’s comments. Keep it up! Now back to your regularly scheduled programming…

John is sleeping in well past his normal 6 a.m. rise. Even so, we have an early rise and early breakfast. We have hot and muggy weather again and the good people of Sydney are complaining about it!! All we have to do is mention the temperature at home, including the wind chill. Silence quickly descends and all complaining stops.

We have completely repacked our suitcases to accommodate our next month on the road, and are leaving the two smaller suitcases at our hotel. They aren’t charging us for the storage! And we won’t be staying at Sullivans when we return! Crikey, nice people down under. (Actually, I haven’t heard one Australian use the word Crikey.)

We suffer bad ‘heavy baggage’ jokes from our driver, and head to the airport for an early afternoon flight to Adelaide aboard Virgin Blue. Despite leaving lots of baggage behind, we get charged ($10 each) for “excess luggage”.

“Good afternoon Ladies and Gentlemen, Boys and Girls” a cheeky Australian voice greets us as we get on the plane. John tells me at check-in that Virgin Blue has revolutionized the “low cost, no frills” airline industry in Australia. They seem to be having a lot of fun with the revolution.

After the 2 hour flight, we arrive in dreary, hick town Adelaide (the capitol of the State of South Australia) with hordes of end-of-summer-vacation-now-it’s-back-to-school whiney kids, with parents in tow. We expect little – all of the Australians we talked to in Sydney expressed surprise that anyone would go to Adelaide voluntarily.

We check into quite a glamorous new hotel that John found on the internet (a pillow menu, Jacqueline!) and head out for a dreary beer, anticipating an even drearier dinner. Thursday evening doesn’t seem to be a happening night in Ol’ Adelaide. John says “oh my God, it’s like London!” (Ontario).

We end up having quite a good feed of Greek food at, get this, (major trivia answer here) “The Original Barbecue Inn”. Fans of the great Australian TV Soap of the 1970’s “No. 96” often pay homage to the actress Chantal Contour (aka “the panty-hose murderer”) who owns the joint. We, unfortunately, don’t run into her.

After such a fortuitous introduction to Adelaide, we have nothing else to look forward to except bed. And we jump into it.

My Brother Jeffrey leaves on January 29 for Afghanistan, supporting Canadian Peacekeeping duties. Good luck Jeff and please, travel safely.

Downstairs with coffee and the papers by 8:20, we are up early today for breakfast…well, relatively early for the new us. The morning bustle on Oxford Street is persistent.

Sullivans Hotel is situated in Darlinghurst and on the border to our immediate east is Paddington. Oxford Street, as you move further north towards Liverpool Street and downtown, is somewhat seedier and run down. Paddington has charm, charm, charm. Ornate, wrought iron balustrades grace the second floor balconies of these small but graceful row houses. There is a feeling of New Orleans in the neighbourhood.

Breakfast done, we head out to try and figure out the Sydney public transit system. Buses, underground trains, a monorail system and harbour ferries that sometimes connect and sometimes do not make up the transit system. We buy a 10 fare bus pass and decide to walk the 20 minutes to Darling Harbour and The Rocks. It is a beautiful sunny day but very hot and muggy.

Darling Harbour looks a bit like Toronto’s Ontario Place but situated in downtown Sydney. The newness of the site tells us that this was more than likely built for the 2000 Olympics. We are too early for the many pubs and cafes and harbour shows that normally take place here but it is still a nice stroll nonetheless.


Darling Harbor

We walk over Pyrmont Bridge, a historic swing bridge that is now pedestrian and monorail only, head north and wind up in the area known as The Rocks. This quaint, historic area is essentially right under the Sydney Harbour Bridge and just west of Circular Quay. Named after its rough terrain, the area grew and survived as a mostly working-class area until the 1960’s when Sydney went through a wild and somewhat un-checked building process. The locals protested and the area claims its fame as one of the major tourist attractions in Sydney. (Take that as you will. The locals think of it as a tourist trap of commercialized history, but we had a pleasant lunch and stroll there.)


The Rocks

We head back to Circular Quay and wait for the number 380 bus to take us back to the hotel. This is the Bondi Beach bus and very quickly is full with all sorts of riders, many with their surf boards! Our day ends with a huge rolling thunder and lightning storm to break the muggy summer heat.

S33°
E151°

More Birthdays:
On January 21, Carmela Spencley and Ben Thomas
On January 22, Peggy Guest
Happy Birthday from Down Under!

We get up and start walking – no plan, just wherever we end up. It is a beautiful, clear sunny day and we wander through Hyde Park, a glorious green space in the middle of Sydney, through what seems to be never-ending park, ending up at the famous Sydney Opera House. This site has been photographed so many times that we wanted to get a sense of the building from a different perspective. The similarities between the Opera House and and Gehrey’s Disney Hall in LA are striking. Lots of tourists today, including us.

We have a quick lunch with the rest of the business types then stroll north, back through the heart of business Sydney.

Sydney is truly beautiful. The waterfront puts Toronto to shame, as does the parkland.

We wander and wander, but will be back in about 1 month, staying for 4 weeks, so we don’t try to do everything all at once. We will have plenty of time to get the lay of the land.



Views of Sydney Opera House and Harbour

© 2004 Tobeeco Corp., all rights reserved | design by Artifex Design | powered by b2