15 March – 21 March: Tasmania
Tassie lives up to expectations! Tassie is an island, a small teardrop of the lower right bulge of the
upside down kidney bean. It contains a sample of all the geological and environmental climates present across the mainland in one manageable package: Lush rain forest, high plateau, a few rugged peaks, bush, angry shoreline, rivers, placid beaches and pastureland.
Tasmania was originally known as Van Diemen’s Land. Occasionally it would land bridge with the Oz mainland during particularly strong ice ages. The best current guesstimates have it separated form the mainland for at least the last 10,000 years. This isolation allowed for the survival of a number of species that didn’t make the cut on the mainland. The most famous of course is the Tasmanian Devil. Unlike our beloved cartoon Tazzie, the Tassie devil is a nocturnal opportunist, eating anything from eggs to roadkill. The latter often leads to a similar fate for the feaster… Tassie Devils do have a rep for poor social behavior when it comes to food or breeding. Think of your basic mid-twenties roadhouse drinking, El Camino driving, Marlborough smokin’ tattooed redneck mullet boy (or girl…) late Friday night when they think someone has looked at their partner, or worse, given them “The Eye”…
Aboriginals had been living there for millennia before the Europeans arrived. One of the darkest spots in the Empires history was the total intentional eradication of Aboriginals from Tassie. It was, sadly, successful. On the mainland, similar policies had been in place regionally, however the sheer size of the continent allowed some tribes to hastily relocate and survive to some extent. It is still a dark mark in the minds of the current citizens, and is a topic not openly discussed.
Enough depressing stuff. We have decided to focus on the east coast, and north central interior. The east coast contains the Freycinet Peninsula, home of the national park of the same name. A world-class destination trek is to Wineglass Bay, regularly ranked as the most beautiful unspoiled beach in the world by assorted travel writers and programs. We manage to nurse our rental POS to Cole's Bay, our home for the next couple of days. Cole's Bay is the oh-so-small village at the border of the national park. We stay in a well-maintained holiday park/ backpackers with an attached pub, store and ice cream place. It’s right across the street from a beach, and just a few kilometers from the park entrance.
The rental POS has no air con. Surprise! We should be happy it has an engine and doors and windows that work…Ooops. Not quite three out of three. The back windows had been opened an inch or so for circulation while driving. Evening showers are predicted so its time to roll ‘em up (Power accessories are for wimps after all…). Turning the handle for the rear passenger window resulted in the window becoming hopelessly depressed and leaping form its track, into the depths of the door. The front passenger window tried the same trick, but apparently got its foot stuck or something and couldn’t completely leave its track.
F
ortunately, not only is JD mechanically minded, he spent all his college years driving the Datsun, and then later Nissan, cousins of this exact car. There is no repair job that cannot be handled with the right amount of cursing, duct tape, and a Leatherman tool. Our Leatherman travels everywhere with us. Affectionately 
referred to as “The Tool”, it has all manner of heavy-duty blades and bits. If it can’t fix something, you can certainly use it to hack the offending bit of machinery to pieces. JD disassembles the door panel to get to the window, reseats it into its track, and closes it. It stays closed for the duration of the trip. Time for a beer.
The trek to Wineglass we choose to take will be an eleven kilometer round trip, with a few hundred meters of elevation change. It will bring us east to the beach, then loop around the isthmus and up the west coast of the peninsula (named “The Hazards”) back to the carpark.
Trail maintenance here is a true art! They must have brought in 
stonemasons to lay the steps. The rockwork is incredible, and the rest stops are highly functional. The upper 
viewpoint gives a commanding panorama of the entire bay. The beach is a rounded white pebble, easy on the feet. We kick back, absorb some rays, and enjoy our lunch. A dolphin was lazily playing along the length of the 
shoreline, and a local wallaby successfully works the tourists under the “don’t feed the wildlife” sign. An easy place to spend a lot of time.
The trek is a good work out, and well worth the park admission of $20/car. There were minimal flies and other nasties, and the weather was perfect. A quick shower, and off to the pub for a 
refreshing beverage.
In Oz Big Brother rules. It is an odd dichotomy with the pioneering tame-the-land, your-responsible-
if you-are-an-adventurer attitude. Lets say you are in a national park and decide to scale a nearby cliff and get stuck. You are an idiot, will be told as much, and will need to foot the bill for your rescue. If you are successful, well Good On’ya mate that was impressive. Want to hop on one foot across the Outback to Perth? Good On’ya, and be sure to bring some extra water. Wrestle some crocs for sport or cash? Remember any croc that ain’t dead will be happy to tuck into you at its first 
opportunity…On the other hand; speed cameras are everywhere, even in the bush. You can loose you license on the spot, forever, for going 20kph over (About 14mph). We take ten over for granted on the interstates in the U.S. Burning rubber, squealing tires, “Lighting ‘em up”, whatever you want to call it, here it is called “Hooning”. Hooning is slang for being stupid or goofy. There are laws against hooning. (Yes, technically an actual law against stupidity… Unfortunately it is just one specific application of stupidity, and not even an important one at that.) If an officer sees you spin tires, your car is impounded immediately for up to thirty days. If someone reports you have hooned, without an officer witnessing, you get a $200 fine. In Tassie alone almost 600 vehicles have been impounded since the law went into effect last July. You can choose to swim with Stingers, Blueys, Rip tides, Pointers (Great Whites) and walk amongst tai pan, tiger, and brown snakes, even live with funnel web spiders under your front porch, with no official warnings, pressures or governance. If you chirp your tires, even by accident (not sure how it would be accidental, but it could be…) you lose your car! Maybe it traces back to Oz’s original penal colony roots…
Tassie has a few destination motorcycle roads. Just like in NZ, lots of rhythmic twisties. JD again misses his bike, tempered by the fact that 30 bikes on the island have been impounded for hooning. We make it to Launceston (Lawn-cess-ton) for St Patrick’s Day. An Irish hotel/pub chain 
called Irish Murphy’s has a place in town. We stop in for a bite and a pint or two. We are in time for the live music, yet ahead of the queue. Kimberly makes friends with the Guinness Drinking Team during dinner… When we get back into the pub proper it is already packed, and the floor feels like 
Velcro, we hope from spilled beer. The band is local and has more than a few fans in attendance. It is supposed to be a U2 tribute band, but we seem to miss both Bono, and the tribute aspect… Good fun nonetheless. As we are old people now we are out by 10:30. The queue outside is halfway up the block. The hostel we are in has gourmet gelato… ‘nuf said.
North of town is a wine-growing region. This part of Tassie is a bit arid with the current drought. There is also a great climbing crag called Hillwood. Mostly bolted for sport climbing, one of the few 
in the entire country. A school group was using the wall within JD’s pay grade, so we watched a bit before finding a winery to visit. We stopped at a beach in the far north to check the water. As has been the case here in the southern portion of the country it was brisk. Must be the proximity to Antarctica… Back to town and the gelato. Wild Hogs is playing at the local theater. JD was curious if it would be subtitled. It wasn’t.
On the trip back to Hobart we find the very dry central plateau. It greens up about 45k north of Hobart. A distinct rain line runs across the land. Cadbury has a factory here as well. We figure we could skip the tour and just hit the company store (just like in Dunedin). No go: No tour, No cheap candy. We really didn’t want the tour again. Our home until we fly out is Montgomery’s Private Hotel and Backpackers. As said in Ozzie: “Monty’s”. It’s clean and the staff is helpful. It is a block from the waterfront, which happens to have a plethora of dining options: Floating take-away fish stands, seafood cafes, and posh dining establishments.
A consideration when booking in an older building: street noise. When we checked our room before booking, it wasn’t exceptionally loud. At midnight we might as well have been on the infield at a Formula One race course. Hooning, trucks, pub patrons, and crosswalk signals blending into a non-harmonious audio sludge that oozed around the cracks of our foam earplugs. It was not a perfect relaxation environment. It was also the last double or twin in the building. It was paid two days in advance. It was just another part of the adventure. It must be said that the room was large and clean. The clean part is always top of our want list in a room. We prefer places that we have no fear of the showers. This met the bill in cleanliness.
The last day with the rental POS was a trip to some thermal springs two hours south. Thermal, by 
the way, is not the same as Hot, or Mineral. Thermal springs in Tassie mean warmer than normal spring water. In this case 27 C (about 81F). It was set in a nice fern laden temperate rain forest, not unlike the greater Seattle area. As Oz hasn’t had an active volcanic system in the last million years or so, these springs are heated by deep earth pressure rather than cooling magma systems. It was a nice pool, just not conducive to long soaks.
The warning lights in the rental POS were becoming more and more insistent. The Love Bubble was engaged at full strength. We made it back to Hobart without incident. JD brought the POS back to the rental place. The gal was pleasant, and asked how the car held up. JD gave her the laundry list: Stroboscopic warning lights, dodgy brakes, stalls at stoplights, burning oil, stuck gauges and serious alignment issues. He forgot to mention the windows, and the less than 10k/liter performance. (The gerbil powered car in NZ got 15-17k/liter). She smiled and twittered something about older cars. JD is done with rent-a-wrecks for the foreseeable future.
Our parting dinner was at a wonderful waterfront café/restaurant called Fish Frenzy: A bottle of Four Sisters white wine, scallops, chips, barramundi, squid, and prawn. Mmmm Mmmmm good. Our airport shuttle will be picking us up at 8:50, about a block away from the hotel… In and of itself not too early, however we anticipate another evening of airport runway sound effects. Lots of time to sleep on the plane.
We reassessed our timeline during our Tassie exploration. Originally we had planned to rejoin Christine and visit more of Victoria and then on to Queensland in a week or so. Maybe we haven’t learned our lesson about believing everything you read, but then again maybe we have. We found some intriguing four-color glossy brochures in Cole’s Bay: They have affordable live-aboard sailing trips into the Whitsunday Islands and the Great Barrier Reef. After consulting our Lonely Planet guidebook we discover that the Whitsunday Sailing experience is virtually mandatory for all backpackers and travelers passing through Oz. To add a sailing trip we need to hit Queensland a week earlier than planned. Virgin Blue (Our carrier from Melbourne to QLD) was very accommodating with the ticket changes. Done online it was only a $60 (total) change fee. Our flights to Brisbane are still less than the ferry to Kangaroo Island…
Kimberly does a masterful job of stuff distribution. Our checked bags are only 0.4 kilo over. No extra charges. Thank goodness no one asked to weigh our carry-ons. They do that if the carry-on “looks” heavy. In Melbourne Virgin is at the opposite end of the airport from Jetstar. This was the scenario that makes the little push trolley worth every penny of the $4 rental. Virgin Blue has the same weight restrictions, however they give everyone a 5-kilo grace. Much more civilized. Our car for the next three weeks is NOT a POS. JD found a deal from Budget for AU$40 a day for a mid-size auto w/ air, unlimited kilometers, and includes the one-way fee. No matter what, it has to be made in this millennium. Here we come Queensland!
9 March - 14 March: Adelaide to Tassie
Imagine for a moment you are traveling through the whoop-whoop (another term for the deep bush…). It is late, the roo’s are starting to cluster on the roadsides for the evenings game of dodge-car. You have driven for 6 or 7 hours. A dot on the map is actually a small town with a holiday park and a couple of chain motels. One of the motels is the namesake of the large carved bandicoot at the head of its carpark. It looks clean and inviting, the price is also right.
A warm shower before you eat sounds like an invitation to nirvana itself. The motel has graciously provided towels, little shampoos, and little sealed packages of soap. Somewhat bleary from the road you step into the shower and open your little soap packet. The soap is smaller than you would have thought, and contrary to previous experience, there is no embossed logo or name. Again, you are somewhat bleary from the road, thinking about food. As you begin to lather up your hands a non-soap like texture is felt. (You have very sensitive hands; after all, you are a chiropractor…) As you inspect the soap you notice wiry black strands imbedded throughout one side… Your brain begins to engage. Neurological pattern recognition runs through possible matches. A spark forms. You have not yet washed the nether regions of you own body, therefore the wiry strands are definitely SOMEONE ELSES! Some dodgy bastard pubed up the soap and snuck it back into the package!
Somehow I forgot to add that little tidbit about our journey to Adelaide in the last blog. How? I don’t knooeew…
If you can picture Oz as a kidney bean with the rounded part as the north coast, South Australia is the small inner curve at the bottom. South Australia suffers from the same weather issues as its easterly neighbor Victoria. Somehow Adelaide manages to have a lot more greenery surviving. It’s an orderly city, set up in a manageable grid pattern. It is surrounded by low hills containing the ‘burbs. A bit farther out are the small agricultural and niche towns. Straight north is the Flinders Range. Real bush where men can be men, and women can be men too. Past that is the true Outback, 10’s of 1,000’s of square kilometers of real hot and real nasty. There is a road that can take you to Alice Springs, gateway to Uluru (The Rock). There are a few “last petrol fro 350 kilometer” signs… We are saving the west, north and interior for our next trip.
Christine’s cousin’s family lives in the hills south of city proper. They have a great house that is 
along a koala migration route. Susanne’s daughter, Christen, works as a veterinary assistant and brings home the occasional unwanted critter, bird, cat, lizard, etc. Susanne’s husband, Rob, is particularly fond of birds. At the moment they have a lorikeet (who is a real wimp) and a cool red and blue parrot/cockatoo beastie who has too much personality for one little birdie body. A mostly bald Pomeranian named Skeeter tops off the bird and cat menagerie. He was bald because the had shaved him three years ago for the summer, and his coat never grew back…
Adelaide is the festival and alternative ideas center for Oz. This particular weekend begins a citywide fringe festival that will last the rest of the month. Buskers, comedy acts, musicians, late n
ight adult themed entertainment, and a variety of other stimulating activities are on tap. It is also the weekend for WOMADelaide (World of Music Adelaide), a Woodstock/Lollapalooza music festival with regional, national, and international bands on multiple stages. Needless to say, we will not be trying to find a parking space downtown. Hello public transport.
Susanne and Rob treated us to a good ol’ fashioned Ozzie Barbie for dinner. We had steak, chicken wings, roo snags, chicken snags, tinnies, box wine, and bottle wine. (Snags, for those who really want to know, are sausages… Tinnies are canned beer) Rob looks and sounds just like Red Forman from “That 70’s Show”. JD spent the whole night trying not to call him Red, which became harder and harder as more empty bottles were created. Susanne is a rabid footie fan. (Aussie Rules Football, a cross between rugby and American football)
Red recently installed a hot tub. They keep it around 36 C (98-99F) for the warmer months. Adelaide got into the mid 40’s (mid 100’s) just a couple of weeks ago. He dislikes chemistry, not unlike us, so he installed an ozonator and diatomaceous earth filter system. The impressive part being they are designed for an in ground swimming pool. It smells like a lightening storm when you lift the tub lid.
The public transport system is not well mapped or marked. It is great if you already know where you are trying to go, but it is not real user friendly if you haven’t been on it before. We still manage to find our way into the city. Adelaide is tenser than we had expected. Could be the volume of visitors for the assorted festivals. We wander about for the afternoon, checking 
into some of the entertainment options. The comedians we were interested in are sold out. Bummer that. Susanne meets us when she gets off work. She leads us to the city market, a fantastic collection of food and fun. A pub in the market has a happy hour 
special- half dozen oysters and a beer for AU$8. She splits an order with KK. We have been introduced to a lollie called “Chicos Choco Babies”. In essence it’s a chocolate gummie bear shaped like a baby. These things are yummy! There is a confectioner in the market that has them for AU$5 for 450 grams (more or less a pound), about half the price elsewhere.
Saturday we head to the botanical gardens. WOMADelaide takes over the northern portion. The band we can hear on our way through intrigues us, so we camp out for a bit and enjoy. Dinner includes a bit of wine. After dinner we decide to have some more wine. One thing leads to another and next thing you know we have had a lot of wine. Good wine. Tasty wine. Unfortunately for JD, later in the morning it became cheeky bugger wine. This makes packing up and leaving for the Kangaroo Island ferry at O’ dark thirty an entertaining adventure.
JD grew up in a tourist area. You learn to read between the lines of the travel snippet, and see between the colors in the fold out brochures. Kangaroo Island is touted as a must-do in South 
Australia: Overrun with lush verdant bush and more wildlife than you could shake a stick at. Roos, wallabies, koalas, heath goanna, seals, penguins, birds, birds, and more birds. Doctor Dolittles own piece of paradise. Caves, treks, fine dining, wineries, scenic drives, scenic views, all this can be yours- Just a short ferry ride away! We had heard over and over we had to see Kangaroo Island. We had scrambled to find literally the last available room on the island. SeaLink is the sole ferry. They know it. The 45 minute ferry for three people and a car cost over AU$300. The earthly vision of Eden painted by the guidebooks should more than justify the expense…
The only living roo was in the eucalyptus distillery. The rest decorated the roadsides. 
There were a few koalas along a private koala walk. Kimberly and Christine went on the guided seal walk, and did get to see seals. Kangaroo Island was in the same drought as the rest of the country. The only green was what had previously been kangaroos along the side of the road. 
There are ten penguins in the rookery, which can only be seen at night, on a paid tour. The scenic drive was 157 kilometers of what we had been looking at for 900+ kilometers from Melbourne to Adelaide: dry brown scrub with the occasional eucalypt.
We did find a delicious dinner. It was the only restaurant open Sunday evening, but it was still delicious. Kimberly admits she did get to see things, and we did have a brisk walk along the coast.
This would normally be acceptable, except for the so incredibly over hyped expectation build-up and extortionist ferry charges.
We will be traveling the Great Ocean Road for our trip back to Melbourne. We catch a plane to Tasmania (Tassie) early Wednesday afternoon. We get off the ferry from KI at 5:30 Monday afternoon. We have some driving to do. We push our luck during the “dodge-car” opening salvo (dusk) and into the early night: Us-0 Roos-0 good score both ways. We end up in Kingston, crayfish capital of the south coast. Home of the Big Lobster. JD is intrigued. Apparently there are 
dozens of these ‘Big …” throughout the country. The Big Pineapple, The Big Banana, The Big Bullock (with real swinging bollocks!), and the Big Rocking Horse are but a few. Similar to the themed roadside café’s of the fifties (teapots, boots, etc), they are big resin and fiberglass sculptures that exist solely for tourists to come and admire. Almost all are located in Queensland. Yet another reason to visit the tropical northeast.
The Great Ocean Road was originally built as a tribute to Ozzie casualties of WW1. It is now 
considered a memorial highway for all war casualties. Started in 1918, it took over 14 years to complete. It runs along the south coast of Victoria, directly exposed to the wrath of the Southern Ocean. The designers had not realized that the south coast gives up 15cm a year to erosion. Those kinds of studies just weren’t done then. The sea is actively eating the soft limestone coastline at lightning pace, geologically. During the last 70 years more than a few of the formations in and along the coast have modified themselves. One when people were on it… (More on that in a moment)
Spectacular rock formations and scenic lookouts abound all along the highway. Shipwrecks were common through the late 1800’s and early 1900’s. Dozens of wrecks are documented. Blowhole and Thundercave have a part in the shipwreck history. Blowhole is a sinkhole connected to the sea 
by a hydraulically powerful underwater cavern. A few hundred meters away is Thundercave. Thundercave started just like Blowhole, with the cavern collapsing at some point leaving an open channel to the sea. In the late 1800’s a particularly nasty storm dashed a ship on the rocks near Blowhole. 50 sailors were sucked into Blowhole. They were all dead. Two people were sucked into Thundercave. They both lived and were rescued a few days later. Kimberly enjoys saying “Blowhole and Thundercave.” Repeatedly. Then laughing. JD enjoys ignoring her.
Further down the coast is London Bridge Arch. Until 1998 it was London Bridge. At that time there was a well used official trail that led over a pair of thick, solid limestone arches to a viewpoint. One
very normal sunny day, while two people were standing admiring the view, the first arch collapsed into the sea. No one was hurt, and the trapped tourists were lifted off the rock by helicopter. Needless to say, that particular trail is now closed…
The Twelve Apostles formation originally had 13 seastacks, and also had been know as the Sow and the Piglets. No one is sure why the name was changed, but it happened in the thirties. Currently there are nine left that can be seen, with one 
collapsing spectacularly just a few years ago.
As humans we tend to view the planet as static. Geology is something that happened a long time ago. Volcanoes and earthquakes make sense, mostly because of the expectation of change following a major cataclysmic event. Coastlines are supposed to stay put. We can’t be changing maps every few years after all… The continent of Oz disagrees.
After an uneventful overnighter in a small coast town we make the dash for Melbourne. There is 
time to stop at a beach or two, including Bells Beach to watch some of the Rip Curl surf challenge. Kimberly and Christine got to enjoy a few surfer dude muffin tops. JD vows to think about doing a few ab crunches… An early lunch in Geelong and a short jaunt along the waterfront prepares us for the Melbourne Airport challenge.
Domestic airlines in Oz limit the total weight of luggage per passenger to 20 kilos. More than that and you pay $7 per kilo to a max allowable of 32 kilo. The carry on is still capped at 7 kilos. At our best we have 70 kilo between us, more often 75… We are ecstatic when we can get the two main packs under 20 kilo each, without the rope bag, climbing pack and JD’s technology bag. We did not know about the draconian weight requirements before we got to the ticket counter. With some fancy maneuvering, cajoling, and fancy footwork, we get away with only 4 kilos over. It helped significantly that JD’s tech bag didn’t get weighed… It is at least 15 kilos by itself. It just doesn’t look big and heavy.
Jetstar is the no-frills domestic arm of Qantas. The crews are nice, but the planes are set up to move the maximum number of bodies in the smallest amount of space. Classic cattle car setup. It is only an hour in the air. We arrive on time and catch the shuttle into Hobart.
We have rented another el-cheapo car from a company called AAA rentals. The shuttle drops us about a block and a half away: “Too much traffic” to drop us near the entrance… right. We see a large self-store building labeled AAA, but do not see any car rental signs. We wander up and down the block, with our 70 kilos worth of stuff, wondering if we had been dropped in the wrong place. JD checked inside the AAA storage. Sure enough there was a rental car office inside. A closed rental office. When we made the reservation we said we’d be there at 5:30. We were there at 5:30. The office supposedly had closed at 5:00. (Kimberly had called form the airport around 4:30 and left a message to let them know we were getting on the shuttle…) JD called the after hours number. The owner, Paul, was mildly apologetic and said someone would be in tomorrow morning. He said our hostel was about five blocks away and hoped we didn’t have a lot of baggage. We were less than impressed. Royally pissed off for a brief moment, then we chalked it up to adventure. 2 kilometers and a partial incline later we were less keen on adventure.
Our hostel was a small step up from the Sydney hostel. We were only mildly afraid of the showers. Our roommates didn’t snore and an elderly German man complemented Kimberly’s legs, confirming her German ancestry is still genetically strong.
We walked to AAA the next morning to get our car. It didn’t matter we had a confirming email with times, nor that we slogged our stuff halfway across town. No apologies for inconvenience or hassle. At times the thought of getting ugly American on someone’s ass is enticing. Somehow we managed to suppress the urge. The icing on the cake was the car itself: A 1989 Nissan sentra (whatever the Ozzie equivalent of the sentra is anyway) with 225,000 kilometers. A 15-year old threadbare sheepskin seat cover with a scent that would embarrass any sheep covered the driver’s seat. The seat springs long since sprung by the weight of thousands of different ass shapes over the decades. It did have a spacious boot. For the privilege of driving this one of a kind classic automobile we were paying AU$35 a day. Sadly still $20 a day cheaper than any other car rental company was charging. We drove back to the hostel and loaded up the bags. We were crossing the main bridge out of town when the dash lights started flashing like a disco ball. Alternator light, brake light, parking brake light all flashing to their own beats. The car was still running. They all went out. Car was still running. So were we. Off to Coles Bay and the Freycinet Peninsula 200 k north.
Our main job is to keep the “Love Bubble” engaged around the car and have a good laugh. The car will definitely keep us laughing…and at times gasping for air.
23 February – 8 March, Melbourne and Mornington Peninsula to Adelaide
The early train: Car B, row 5, seats A and B. The only apparent difference between first class and coach is the price of the ticket… It’s a full train with regular stops along the route. It’s 900 kilometers to Melbourne and the trip will take just over 10 hours. Wonga Wonga is on the way, as is Murrumburra, Cootamundra, Wodonga, and Wangaratta. The landscape is rolling brown hills. As far as the eye can see, the arid scrub grass h
as been bikini waxed by sheep and rabbits. There is the occasional small copse of gum trees. The train is smooth and quiet, with a rhythmic sway that leads to an unavoidable deep REM state. The biggest challenge is avoiding drooling while being wrapped in this motion-induced coma. We reach the mandatory suburban skirting en route to Melbourne’s Southern Cross station. Population density quickly increases, as do the number of roads, shopping centers, and the like. From the condition of the landscape it is very apparent that the entire state has been dry for quite some time.
We had originally met Christine on the sailing cruise we took a couple of years ago, and are now more than happy to enjoy her hospitality… She picks us up at the station and we head off to a small group birthday dinner across town. It is a fun bunch, and despite our travel weariness, we manage to enjoy both the food (good Thai) and the company. We had noticed the drivers in the group carefully tracking their drinks. Despite the (deserved) Ozzie rep as hard partiers, the drink-driving laws are strict and inflexible. .05 is the limit. No exceptions. All alcoholic beverages have a “drinks equivalent” number on the side, based on a percentage alcohol and body mass baseline formula. Men apply the formula differently than women, and overall it turns out to be surprisingly accurate. On the way home we get waived through a DD (meaning Drink Driving here) check-station. Point made.
Christine lives about an hours drive south, around Port Phillip Bay from Melbourne proper in the 
small bayside town of Mornington. Port Phillip Bay was the original commercial harbour for the country. It still handles the lion’s share of container shipping. This is, of course, shared with a harbour that contains a variety of unique indigenous sea life. The harbour itself is, for all intents and purposes, a flooded lowland river basin: circular in shape, more or less 35 miles in diameter, with an average depth of 10 meters. Warm and shallow. Lots and lots of marine recreation: Sailing, jet skis, diving, fishing (commercial and recreational), swimming, etc. Commercial and recreational ventures inevitably clash with environmental ideals.
The most current Hotpoint issue is the dredging of the shipping lanes. Those for the dredging use logic, scientific studies, and demonstrable economic analysis to provide information for people to make a decision on the issue. So far, those against have used incredibly faulty math and highly emotional positioning. One of the strongest arguments against: Digging up the mud from the channels and piling it anywhere else in the harbour will raise the water level high enough to flood the beaches and homes along the perimeter. This incredible display of disconnected logic pains me to no end.
We have had the pleasure of meeting Hans and Rose. Hans is from Germany, Rose is from Turkey. Both had immigrated to Oz back in the 60’s, before they met. While everyone has a story, Hans’ is one you don’t hear about much nowadays: Hans was a 20-year-old policeman in Berlin the day the Wall was erected. He had been living in communist East Berlin for almost a decade before the Wall, and to this day has a less than positive opinion of forced socialism. He was fortunate to have been staying with relatives on the west side, though he had actually lived in the east. His fiancé lived in the east. When they finished visiting the prior evening they had no idea they would never see each other again.
He and a number of other young policemen were assigned to the “border” that first day. The wall started as a swath of cleared land with a continuous strand of coiled barbed wire. These confused young men were standing in a line, facing East Berlin, as Russian tanks took position along the opposite side. Hans still recalls the rumble of the Allied tanks taking position behind him to face their counterparts. He described the smells and sounds as if it were yesterday, and the gut dropping awareness that the Russian tank barrels had lowered. They were pointed directly at him, as he and his fellows were between them and the Allied tanks. It was then he realized the Allied tanks had responded in kind. A number of policemen choose to take a hasty and unrequited leave of absence at that particular moment. He held his position. Ideologically he agreed with the Allied position and was willing to support its actions. After a few years of living in a divided city he moved on to Oz. He still has a very high opinion of the US and the Allies, regularly arguing the better points of the US with his friends and co-workers. He was delighted to meet us.
We had a quick tour of Melbourne proper. They have a great central market. It’s a chaotic blend of Sunday flea market, discount shopping, things that have “fallen of the truck”, food stalls and butcher shops. JD finds a replacement for his “Gilligan” hat; a nice vented leather “drovers” hat. Much better UV coverage. Dashingly enhanced image, outback rugged even.
Smart individuals may occasionally people local governments, but collectively they create an entity with the intelligence of the average garden snail. A prime local example: The state of Victoria (as most of the southern part of the county) has been in an extended and devastating 5-year drought. Some locations have not had any rainfall in almost ten years. Watering restrictions have been place: 1 hour of watering on Saturdays only, short showers, car washes only at approved facilities that recycle the water, etc. If you have a hot tub/spa, you can only top it up with hand carried buckets (So you won’t leave the hose running accidentally…). Some locations, like the area Christine lives, do get rain. Not a lot, but enough to prevent complete devastation of the plants. One would think- Rain Cistern for outdoor water? Solar panels for hot water and home heating? Nope… It costs AU$30,000 in permits and fees to get solar panels approved. Cisterns are also heavily regulated with fees and restrictions. The local council feels that the loss of water and electrical revenue from these conservatory actions is worse for the economy than the need to actually conserve the resource.
We had an opportunity to sail! We love to sail! The local yacht club has a social sail Thursday regatta. It’s a casual evening race. The price to be “rail meat” is a six-pack of stubbies (cans ‘o beer) and some snacks. Rail meat, for the sailing uninitiated, are the passengers who get to sit on the high rail to allow the skipper to take more wind in the sail without heeling over, or specifically positioned around the boat to change bow or stern angles to change speed. Noel Hayes, a retired importer/exporter, captained our boat: the Room2Roam. It was a 30 footer with a swing keel and carried Christine, an older bloke Garry, us and Noel’s normal “crew” of Scott. Scott has been crewing for Noel since October in the weekend sails. (Those are the ones that count…). Noel’s entire family sails, and his son was the tactician on the winning Sydney to Hobart race yacht. There were about 70+ boats, of all layouts and configurations. The Thursday race doesn’t allow spinnakers, as the boats tend to be full of inexperienced “crew”. We had been in the middle of the pack for the first turn, and Noel decided to try a wide swing on the downwind leg to push us through the second turn with more oomph. He didn’t time it quite perfectly… we crossed the finish second to last. As we were all getting on well, he decided continued our little cruise to watch the moonrise and sunset. A favorite Ozzie pastime, next to drinking and having fun, is discussing politics. Theirs, ours, anyone’s. Noel and Garry where on opposite sides of the local political spectrum. After realizing they wouldn’t agree, the talk shifted to entertaining past Prime Ministers. Apparently the shortest time serving PM, Bob Hawk, also holds the Guinness world record for quantity of beer consumed in the shortest period of time essentially making him the world’s fastest beer chugger. The interesting thing about his departure was his ability to be ousted by his own party within weeks of taking office.
Mornington is not a protected harbour so all boats are hauled out every evening, and put back in when the owner wants to sail. They have been trying to get council approval to build a breakwater for just over 100 years… The members are all confident it will happen eventually.
We’ve had a good week and a half of decompressing. Casual trips to the local wineries, markets 
and hedge mazes kept things very low key. The whirlwind of NZ and changing addresses daily was more tiring than we had realized. We ended up taking this extra time so we could join Christine on a visit to her cousin in Adelaide, South Australia.
Some Observations of our cousins Down Under:
Since almost everything that lives here can kill you just by looking at it, Ozzies have shortened as many words as they can. This is so they can be sure to say as much as possible during this short journey we call life. I’m going to list a number of Ozzie words, the interpretations will posted further on. See how many you can guess…
Brekkie...... Bickie...... Bikkie
Parma........ Tassie..... Ozzie
Chrissie...... Tram ........Pram
Trolley......... Nappy .......Bluey
Footie......... Thong .......Stinger
Ta .................Tuck .........Poppet
Pokie.......... Lollie.......... Sunnies
Roo’s .........Cray’s........ Nippers
Ambo
The Bush is any wild area not considered yard. “How’r ya goin’?” is much more common than “G’Day”. Milo is a malt chocolate mix, similar to Ovaltine, and flavors many many things chocolate. Ozzies claim responsibility for the Pie Floater: any meat pie, floating in a bowl of pea(?) soup (Though I think it’s really British).
If you ask a question to which the answer is unknown (here or NZ), the response will almost always be “I don’t knoooeew” with a drawn out rising inflection on the “know”. It creates an idea that the person not only feels that they should know, but that they are incredibly confused as to why they don’t. Embarrassed even. Accompanied by a facial expression that implies the whole thought will be meditated upon, pondered, and otherwise given over to every spare brain cell available.
A poached egg can, and does, appear on almost any dish: Sandwiches, burgers, Caesar salad, pizza, just about anywhere. Bacon too (What we consider Canadian style, only fattier- “middle shoulder” is the cut).
Speaking of our northern neighbor, both KK and JD are almost always taken to be Canadian. It seems that our accents are very “soft”, and are easily confused with the top third of our continent. Surprisingly enough, the only people to recognize our accent right away, always, are Germans. We have actually been thanked a few times for being understandable. The Germans tend to have a harder time with Ozzie English than American English. Why? I don’t knooeew…
We get to travel through the bush on our way to Adelaide. Western Victoria is normally the most lush and verdant region of the state. At the moment it is brown. Dry and brown. Tens of thousands of acres of pastureland are scrub and dust. Many of the ranchers and farmers have had to give up their livelihood. Interestingly enough the indigenous flora and fauna seem to be getting along well enough. Most of the local wildlife have adapted to these cyclical drought conditions. Hibernation, conditional birthing, dietary modifications and opportunism are the native survival traits. Staying off pavement when traffic is present hasn’t worked into the formula yet. The gum trees look like life-size bonsai.
We stopped off at Narrapumelap. It is the old estate of a Scottish-Polish rancher of the late 1800’s
. 
The current family has owned the land since the 1950’s. Vandals had worked the place over good until the 1980’s.The son of the current owners, Kevin, has spent the last fifteen years restoring the original building. It has been his “hobby”, working weekends and such. Kimberly has reworked her vision of our next house. Stone walls, seasonal ivy and a tower are now the prime design elements…
A day was spent in the Grampians. They are an old mountain range that was hit by some devastating wildfires about a year and a half ago. A medium intensity 10 kilometer round trip hike took us to a nice peak. Four or five school field trips also made the trek. Even in Oz chaperones should be nominated for sainthood. 
Ozzie flies are as equally annoying as their NZ brethren, just without the teeth. As persistent as they are, they don’t bite. They may spend fifteen minutes landing and taking off one specific spot on your eyeball, inside your nostril, or inside your ear, but hey, they don’t bite…. The reward was some great views from the ridges. The rock climbing was all trad, and above our pay grade. We did get to see wild ‘roos, and thankfully not with the front of our car.
There are koala and roo warning signs posted along the highways. Dusk to dawn is quite the obstacle course, and the roadsides are littered with the losers. An adult roo can easily total a smaller car, and they are not the brightest critters out there. (Think deer that hop on two feet…) We never did see any koala along the road, live or otherwise. JD thinks the signs are there to keep kids busy on long drives: “Oi, poppets, keep an eye to the gums an’ let mum know if you see any koala’s…” (“Children, watch the eucalyptus trees and tell 
your mother if you spot any koala’s…”) You can easily tell the cars of the natives. Floridians all have large plastic bug deflectors; folks who live in the bush have steel roll-bar front-end cages. When (not if…) they collide with a large marsupial there is minimal damage to their vehicle. Sort of like the cattle/buffalo guard on old steam locomotives.
The posted speed limits have no grace. You can be, and many are, ticketed for even one over. The limits in the bush are a somewhat reasonable 110kph, and you don’t travel faster than that after dusk anyway. Distances are vast. It is easy to travel 80 or 100 kilometers without the hint of people, and this is the main road between Melbourne and Adelaide.
OK. Here are your Ozzie English answers:
Brekkie (Breakfast)
Bickie (pronounced Bye-key: Motorcycle- as in Hells Angels bickie club)
Bikkie (Biscuit, cookie)
Parma (Chicken Parmesan)
Tassie (Tasmania)
Ozzie (Australian)
Chrissie (Christmas)
Tram (Local in-city surface train)
Pram (Baby carriage)
Trolley (Shopping cart)
Nappy (Diaper)
Bluey (Portuguese Man ‘O War)
Footie (Australian rules football- Considered a religion in South Australia)
Thong (Flip-flops, sandals- “No Thongs” signs do not refer to undergarments…)
Stinger (Box jellyfish- can be deadly, and often is)
Ta (Thanks, good bye, have a nice day)
Tuck (to Eat- “Tuck into that pie floater”, tucker is food: “Ice cream is good tucker”)
Poppet (Munchkin, younger child)
Pokie (Video gambling machines, similar to video slots)
Lollie (Any kind of hard or soft candies)
Sunnies (Sunglasses)
Roo’s (Kangaroos, young ones are Joeys)
Cray’s (Australian spiny lobster, good tucker, runs about AU$52/Kilo)
Nipper (teenage surfer, lifeguard trainee)
Ambo (Ambulance)
We roll into Adelaide in the late afternoon. We are here in time for both the Adelaide Fringe Festival and WOMADelaide. It should be a highly entertaining weekend. We are staying with Christine’s cousin Suzanne, her hubby Rob and the kids: Christen and Kane.
20-22 February, Sydney Australia
We left the hostel just before 5am. Our shuttle driver was looking forward to a trip to the states next fall. He was going to spend our winter in Colorado driving for Mountain Express. He figures five months work in the states will equal about a year and a half’s salary in NZ.
Our three and a half hour flight was a virtual hour and a half with the time change. Leave Kiwi-land 7am, arrive Sydney 8:30am. Oz customs has a when-in-doubt-declare-it policy. If you have a prohibited substance, food or such, and declare it, they look at it and let you know. Worst case they keep it. If, on the other hand, you forget you might have something and they find it, its two to four hundred dollar fine on the spot. Incarceration can also be an option if the customs people feel it was intentional… We check “yes” on a bunch of boxes on the visitor form: yes we have food, yes we have nuts, yes we have been in rural areas in the last thirty days, yes we have been on or near farms in the last thirty days. We get to queue up in the “Something to declare” line. Kimberly has to give up her Turkish dates, other than that we are golden.
We grabbed a shuttle to our hostel. Traffic was insane. The twenty-minute trip took over ninety. Local temperature: 28C (83F+/-). We are staying in Kings Cross, an infamous red-light district 
near the harbor. As it turns out in Sydney everywhere is near the harbor. It’s a really big harbor, with lots of nooks and crannies. We discover that the insane volume of traffic is due to the historic arrival of the Queen Mary 2. The QM2 is so big it has to dock at the naval quay, just down the hill from Kings Cross. A huge number of Sydneysiders are trying to get close to the waterfront to see the spectacle.
Our hostel is a dump, however the staff is excellent. We are provided with a detailed map and there is a great self guided walking tour down to, and along, the harbor. It meanders through the 
botanical gardens, past the Opera House and over to Circular Quay and the Rocks, then into the CBD (Central Business District, it took a while to work that out in NZ, downtown road signs, buses, and trains are all labeled “CBD”, or more familiar to us, “City Centre”)
Sydney is built into the local topography. It is hilly, but not as up and down as Seattle or San Francisco. A short walk down the hill brings us to Woolloomoolloo Bay and the naval quay. Vehicles are moving at less than a crawl near and along the waterfront. The QM2 is an imposing bit of steelwork. Before we could see the actual boat, the top of the superstructure was visible over the treetops. Kimberly couldn’t figure out why someone would top a building with such an odd design… It is indeed a floating city. The military actually moved both a destroyer and a sub tender off the quay to let her tie up. For all the technicla stuff here is the Cunard site: QM 2
We slowly work our way through the photo taking throngs to get up to the botanical gardens. In 
addition to all the curious, there are the normal everyday masses of joggers, strollers, lunch-takers and the horticulturally observant. This is a busy place today.
As we have mentioned (over and over it seems…) the Brits know how to put together a garden. This is by far the most spectacular specimen of botanical gardens we have seen yet. We head out to Mrs. Macquarie’s Chair, a point at the end of this particular promontory. Back in the day, the original governor built a special chair for his wife here, so she could sit and watch the arriving ships. The original chair is long gone, but 
some newer seats have been added, and the views remain. Form this vantage you can see across, up, down and back 
along three of the primary waterways. Sailboats, jet boats, the Harbour Bridge, the Opera House, commercial ships, cruise ships, skylines, and neighborhoods are all seen from this point. A very pleasant walk indeed. We head ‘round towards the Opera House, officially the most photographed icon in the southern hemisphere. This is understandable, as the gardens set up numerous vantage points. Even the most unconfident of photographers can still achieve some stellar shots along here. The Opera House itself is a marvel of architectural engineering.
When the building engineers need to use theoretical physics to figure out how to build your design, and then still manage to do it, you know you’ve accomplished something: “Oi, Mick, ‘ow you reckon this’ll hold up?” “I don’t ‘neeoow… If we have enough speed behind the rivets, the resultant energy should have mild anti-gravitonic properties maybe?” “ Ay, good on’ya mate, we’ll giv ‘er a go. I have that speed-of-light rivet gun warming up as we speak”. Contrary to popular belief, the curves are not representative of sails, but rather are semi-spherical to produce an idea of nested globes.
No matter. The building is really quite the sight. Sydneysiders are justifiably proud of this little treasure. We continue on around circular quay: Lots of open cafés, ferries and buskers prancing 
about. We end up in the Rocks. The Rocks are the original sleazy part of town, back when the majority of the population had been criminals working off their sentence. Narrow alleyways and buildings are blended into the sandstone cliff sides. The area was saved from re-development back in the seventies and is now home to boutique shops and small restaurants. An essence of its tawdry past lingers still, however the modern criminal sleazebag would much rather set up shop in Kings Cross. (More on that momentarily…)
After a delicious and affordable seafood lunch in the Rocks, we head back through a different section of the gardens. An unusual screechy warbling is emanating from the trees. Its not an unpleasant sound, familiar, yet not. Dry conditions have left many treetops with thinner leaf than normal. Hanging bundles of dry leaf debris, maybe some kind of nests, are silhouetted in the 
treetops. Organic smells, not strong, but noticeable, linger in the background. After a few meters 
we see a nest move… then a few more… The nests have wings! Flying Foxes! (Fruit bats) Just like the ones in the second Crocodile Dundee movie. (Apologies to our Ozzie friends for having to use that as a reference…) You can tell the tourists here in the gardens; we are staring up into the trees, mesmerized by the activities of these large flying vegetarians. Sadly, almost the entire natural bat habitat has been destroyed throughout this region, as well as in most of New South Wales, over the last century or so. The bats found the gardens on their own, and have been living and breeding here for decades. They feed on fruits and nectar in the “native” trees throughout the gardens. It is a living testament to the quality of the gardens that it can support this many creatures, while at the same time being unfortunate that they have to live here in order to thrive.
The QM2’s sister ship, the QE2, is due in port about 6:00 (18:00 local time…). There are fireworks scheduled for 9:00 (21:00) to mark this unprecedented occasion: Two really big cruise ships, neither of which most Sydneysiders would want, or will, ever embark upon, docked together in the 
southern hemisphere. However, everyone likes a party, and fireworks… We wander a few blocks from the hostel at the appointed time and find a good spot along the wrought iron fenceworks. As JD is securing his camera to the iron, a bloke sidles up next to KK and says “How ‘bout a kiss love?” KK obligingly leans over to give him a peck on the cheek. It is at this moment the poor fellow realizes he doesn’t know KK… In classic Ozzie fashion he quickly runs with the situation: Some pleasant banter, an apology or two and we are all good mates. JD is precariously wedged into the fence in order to take timed exposures. The bloke politely points out the incredibly large spider that is slowly stalking JD’s ear… Knowing we are in the country that provides 8 of the top 10 most deadly creatures on the planet we pay attention. (Sydney is home to 
a particularly nasty variety of funnel-web spider. It packs enough punch to take out ten or so normal sized people…) Our not-so-little new companion is a Huntsman Spider. A palm-sized arachnid that is, supposedly, non-poisonous. Dobermans are non-poisonous, and I wouldn’t want to be bit by one of those either… JD gives the critter room. It turns out it just wants to see the fireworks as well. After the show KK is ready to turn in. JD decides to try and find a pub recommended by the hostel.
Kings Cross in reminiscent of Times Square circa 1975-1985, only in miniature: Five or six strip clubs, a few dozen hookers, one crack dealer, two pot dealers, a sprinkling of upscale cafes and restaurants, a McD’s and a police headquarters. JD gets to observe a blend of families, sailors on leave, locals looking for action, and backpackers having a laugh. Three hookers and two dealers approach him as well as all of the strip club touts. Highly entertaining. He never did get into the pub he was looking for. The local entertainment guide in the hostel mentioned you should always haggle for the strip club entry…
The next day we got to try out the local public transport system. Sydney has an extensive, accessible and affordable subway/bus system in place. There is, of course, a Kings Cross station. We buy a couple of train/bus combo tickets to get us to Bondi Beach: The beach to see and be 
seen at. A popular cliff-walk path is in place that runs about 10 k down the coast. We walk about 3.5k to Bronte Beach and back. The water is magnificent, as are the views. We decide to absorb some UV on Bondi. Breasts are not taboo here, and many of the ladies choose to avoid tan lines. JD, ever the gentleman, keeps his camera in the bag, picks a point 30 degrees above the horizon, and never once moves his head for three hours… Yeah, that is exactly how KK remembers it… JD feels that is his story; he’s sticking to it.
Gelateria’s abound. No TipTop, but gelato is much preferred anyway, less fat, more flavor. We find a gelato stand called Wild Thingz. JD orders a double scoop, expecting the normal, delicate, tiny golf-ball size rounds one gets in most gelato places. This particular place is recently opened, and trying to make a name for itself. That name is Oh-My-God… It was too big to fit in, on, or around the cone. “Two Scoops” was more than half a pint, precariously perched on top of a waffle cone. Turbo licking was required to catch the immediate heat induced liquid cream cascade from running all down the arm in the ambient 40 degree C temperature. Life is good.
We hop the bus back to the train, then on to Central Station. We are picking up train tickets to get us to Melbourne on Friday. The Sydney subway system is amazingly clean, well marked, and runs at nowhere near capacity. There a five inner city lines, with most having extensions into the inner ‘burbs. Central Station is the congregation point for the city lines and the lines that serve the outer ‘burbs and the other states. Central Station is HUGE. We walk about a kilometer to get to the interstate train platforms 1 through 3 (vs. platform 9 ¾ …) and the ticket booth. Sadly, the only seats left re in first class. Near as we can tell, the difference between first class and coach is solely which car the seats are in.
The train will be leaving at 7:03am in the morning on Friday (12:03pm Thursday in Seattle). We’ll be getting up at O’dark thirty to catch the subway train to central… Oof. Happily we can haul our checked bags down tomorrow night. We received a “deal” book from our hostel that includes ten free drinks at ten different pubs around Sydney. Two are near Central, so we decide to check on out after picking up our tickets. The Scubar is famous for its Monday Night Crab Races. It’s Wednesday. ‘Nuf said.
Thursday is Aquarium Day! The Sydney Aquarium is supposed to contain all Oz based sea life. We pick up the special “city hopper” subway ticket. Unlimited on/off in all the inner city stops- $5 Oz. JD is really enjoying himself, maneuvering between the different subway lines.
On the walk to the aquarium we find Dymocks Booksellers. Three stories tall and a quarter of a city block in area. It appears to be the Ozzie answer to Barnes & Noble and Borders. Lonely Planet guide books are published here in Oz (Melbourne is their corporate headquarters), There are three full rows of guide books, including smaller ones like: “Guide to the three blocks of South Central LA non-residents can visit” and “Tampa- a city on the move”. OK, I’m making those up. However, it turns out here are a lot of niche books published by Lonely Planet. (“Somalia on less than 5 cents a day”…).
Something we truly do not appreciate in the states is the availability and affordability of books. Forget the absolute discounting of Amazon.com. Full retail in B&N, Waldenbooks, Borders, etc is still fully one-third to one-quarter of the price here or in NZ (and from the sounds of it, the UK). Second-hand booksellers charge more for a dog-eared copy of a non-descript bodice-ripper (Harlequin novel) than a brand-new copy would ever cost in the states. That being said, it has been tough for voracious readers like us to buy books, even used ones. No matter, we wander the store for well over an hour. It is one of the best-stocked bookstores we have ever been in. All it needs is a café and wireless…
Down to the waterfront of Darling Harbour and the aquarium. We have very high standards with
aquariums. Seattle and Baltimore are the current tops on our list. Variety of life, viability of tanks, and realistic presentation are the markers for our experiences. Sydney has bumped its way to the 
top. Well-marked and appropriately lighted displays and tanks, approachable docents, and the shear volume of critters that is almost overwhelming score it major points. There is a walk through, and under, seal habitat. A walk under fully stocked shark habitat. A walk-through Great Barrier Reef habitat, and assorted other over-under-through displays that cover all that Ozzie fresh and salt water have to offer. Touch tanks. For the poppets there is a “Find Nemo” 
challenge with a check-card to find all of the characters from the movie. We held out until the verge of starvation before we hunted down lunch on the harbour. (Be sure to link over to Sydney Photos as there is no way for me to post but a small portion of the aquarium shots here)
During lunch we asked about a peculiar (to us anyway) long-beaked bird. The server didn’t know what it was called; however she referred to it as long-beaked garbage eating chicken bird”. Now we know.
We had been told by a variety of Oz veterans we needed to visit the Minus 5 Degree Bar. It is a vodka bar with an ice room. For a nominal fee you can don a winter coat and 
sip frozen Russian vodka on an ice table. Since we do that regularly in Vegas at Red Square (Mandalay Bay, South Strip) we pass on the ice room and instead enjoy some of their in-house infusions. KK has a cinnamon flavor while JD works on a pepper-spice concoction. Both are quite tasty and lead us to make a variety of infusion plans upon our eventual return to the states.
JD has specifically been carrying his “long-lens” all day. He wants some better shots of the flying foxes. While we were getting liquored up it has become quite overcast. As we head to the gardens it begins to rain. Not a monsoon or anything, just enough to make it unpleasant to walk in. We hurry through the gardens to the nearest subway entrance and opt instead to return to Bondi Beach for more gelato. Yum.
We have the option of bringing our checkable bags to the station tonight. Since we’d rather not have to haul everything in the early AM (bleary-eyed and crabby…) we do just that. After dropping our bags, we try another free-drink place. This one is definitely livelier. Some Ozzie techno-rock fusion videos and a number of younger 20-somethings doing what 20-somethings do: Drink, try to Hook-Up, drink some more, repeat… We have a good laugh realizing we could actually be, in theory, the parents of some/all of the crowd. We imagined a few looking our way and thinking “Ohmygawd- they look my mum’s friends! Whyaretheyhere? Ithoughtthisplacewascoolerthanthis!” JD had to have a second beer just to terrorize the little whippersnappers. We dragged our Royal & Ancient bones back to the hostel to prepare for the long day on the train. Tomorrow evening we’ll be in Melbourne, visiting with our friend Christine.
upside down kidney bean. It contains a sample of all the geological and environmental climates present across the mainland in one manageable package: Lush rain forest, high plateau, a few rugged peaks, bush, angry shoreline, rivers, placid beaches and pastureland.
Enough depressing stuff. We have decided to focus on the east coast, and north central interior. The east coast contains the Freycinet Peninsula, home of the national park of the same name. A world-class destination trek is to Wineglass Bay, regularly ranked as the most beautiful unspoiled beach in the world by assorted travel writers and programs. We manage to nurse our rental POS to Cole's Bay, our home for the next couple of days. Cole's Bay is the oh-so-small village at the border of the national park. We stay in a well-maintained holiday park/ backpackers with an attached pub, store and ice cream place. It’s right across the street from a beach, and just a few kilometers from the park entrance.
ortunately, not only is JD mechanically minded, he spent all his college years driving the Datsun, and then later Nissan, cousins of this exact car. There is no repair job that cannot be handled with the right amount of cursing, duct tape, and a Leatherman tool. Our Leatherman travels everywhere with us. Affectionately 
referred to as “The Tool”, it has all manner of heavy-duty blades and bits. If it can’t fix something, you can certainly use it to hack the offending bit of machinery to pieces. JD disassembles the door panel to get to the window, reseats it into its track, and closes it. It stays closed for the duration of the trip. Time for a beer.
The trek to Wineglass we choose to take will be an eleven kilometer round trip, with a few hundred meters of elevation change. It will bring us east to the beach, then loop around the isthmus and up the west coast of the peninsula (named “The Hazards”) back to the carpark.
stonemasons to lay the steps. The rockwork is incredible, and the rest stops are highly functional. The upper 
viewpoint gives a commanding panorama of the entire bay. The beach is a rounded white pebble, easy on the feet. We kick back, absorb some rays, and enjoy our lunch. A dolphin was lazily playing along the length of the 
shoreline, and a local wallaby successfully works the tourists under the “don’t feed the wildlife” sign. An easy place to spend a lot of time.
refreshing beverage.
if you-are-an-adventurer attitude. Lets say you are in a national park and decide to scale a nearby cliff and get stuck. You are an idiot, will be told as much, and will need to foot the bill for your rescue. If you are successful, well Good On’ya mate that was impressive. Want to hop on one foot across the Outback to Perth? Good On’ya, and be sure to bring some extra water. Wrestle some crocs for sport or cash? Remember any croc that ain’t dead will be happy to tuck into you at its first 
opportunity…On the other hand; speed cameras are everywhere, even in the bush. You can loose you license on the spot, forever, for going 20kph over (About 14mph). We take ten over for granted on the interstates in the U.S. Burning rubber, squealing tires, “Lighting ‘em up”, whatever you want to call it, here it is called “Hooning”. Hooning is slang for being stupid or goofy. There are laws against hooning. (Yes, technically an actual law against stupidity… Unfortunately it is just one specific application of stupidity, and not even an important one at that.) If an officer sees you spin tires, your car is impounded immediately for up to thirty days. If someone reports you have hooned, without an officer witnessing, you get a $200 fine. In Tassie alone almost 600 vehicles have been impounded since the law went into effect last July. You can choose to swim with Stingers, Blueys, Rip tides, Pointers (Great Whites) and walk amongst tai pan, tiger, and brown snakes, even live with funnel web spiders under your front porch, with no official warnings, pressures or governance. If you chirp your tires, even by accident (not sure how it would be accidental, but it could be…) you lose your car! Maybe it traces back to Oz’s original penal colony roots…
called Irish Murphy’s has a place in town. We stop in for a bite and a pint or two. We are in time for the live music, yet ahead of the queue. Kimberly makes friends with the Guinness Drinking Team during dinner… When we get back into the pub proper it is already packed, and the floor feels like 
Velcro, we hope from spilled beer. The band is local and has more than a few fans in attendance. It is supposed to be a U2 tribute band, but we seem to miss both Bono, and the tribute aspect… Good fun nonetheless. As we are old people now we are out by 10:30. The queue outside is halfway up the block. The hostel we are in has gourmet gelato… ‘nuf said.
in the entire country. A school group was using the wall within JD’s pay grade, so we watched a bit before finding a winery to visit. We stopped at a beach in the far north to check the water. As has been the case here in the southern portion of the country it was brisk. Must be the proximity to Antarctica… Back to town and the gelato. Wild Hogs is playing at the local theater. JD was curious if it would be subtitled. It wasn’t.
the way, is not the same as Hot, or Mineral. Thermal springs in Tassie mean warmer than normal spring water. In this case 27 C (about 81F). It was set in a nice fern laden temperate rain forest, not unlike the greater Seattle area. As Oz hasn’t had an active volcanic system in the last million years or so, these springs are heated by deep earth pressure rather than cooling magma systems. It was a nice pool, just not conducive to long soaks.
