21-25 March: Brisbane to Bargara

21-25 March: Brisbane to Bargara

“Madder than cut snakes”, “Looney, but in an endearing, laid back, down to Earth kind of way”, these are just a couple of descriptions of Queenslanders to be found. They have a rep for individualism and thinking outside the box. It might have to do with the largest concentration of the deadly critters living in this state giving people a higher sense of mortality.

For example: The only safe beaches have a containment area surrounded by a Teflon/Kevlar mesh “Stinger Net”, usually about 100-150 feet square. Stingers is the group description of the 4 or 5 types of jellyfish that can injure you in a horribly painful and nasty way, sometimes even kill you…in less than 20 minutes. All of which float the coastal waters of Queensland from October to May, all summer and most of the fall. The contained areas allow a person to risk a swim without a “Stinger Suit”. Anyone swimming outside a protected area during Stinger season will most often be wearing full body lycra dive skin type garment: Infants, kids, teens, adults, everyone. The beaches all have vinegar stations for immediate aid. Imagine every beach from Maryland to Florida being swarmed by mindless yet deadly sea creatures every single summer. For your average Queenslander, a family trip to the beach is the most common holiday. Not all beaches have nets, or lifeguards. Queensland was also the home of the late Steve Irwin (“Steve-O”, The Crocodile Hunter- Crikey!), who by all accounts was considered pretty normal for the region.

Queensland, like Arizona, does not participate in Daylight Savings Time. This alone is not weird; it’s a political choice. What does give it a quirky spin is a primary reason given for not changing clocks is: “The cows wouldn’t know when to eat” if the time is changed… Gotta love Queensland!

The state of Queensland itself is pretty large. It is the northeastern state in Oz. It equals the area of the NE quadrant of the U.S.: All of New England, NY, NJ, PA, TN, KY, WV, VA, MD, DE, NC, SC, OH, and part of IL. (If you need to look up the state abbreviations: www.usps.com) Almost all of it falls in the tropics, north of the Tropic of Capricorn to be exact. The coastal region is a strong combo of Hawaii and Florida. Big resort areas, little unknown seaside villages, and 1,000’s of kilometers of sugar cane, pineapple, banana, and a variety of other tropical fruits. It has two seasons, The Wet and The Dry. It is outlined by the Great Barrier Reef along almost its entire coast.

Brisbane, the state capital, is in the southeast corner of the state, a few dozen kilometers inland from the coast. It is built along the curves of a nice lowland river. Lots of bridges define its neighborhoods.

We are here between “seasons”; it should be the start of The Dry. QLD has the same drought issues as the rest of Oz. Similar to Seattle; they expect a certain quantity of rain. When it is only half, it is still a lot of moisture, but not enough for what the flora, fauna and people need to thrive. Southern QLD is in worse shape than the Tropical North.

Our arrival in Brisbane coincided with rush hour. Our skilled cabbie managed to get us to a car rental well before the office closed… Budget gets the double thumbs up! We not only received a free upgrade to a full size car, the rental itself will only cost a $1 more per day than the Tassie rental POS! We are cruising around in a nice Toyota Avalon, manufactured in this decade. V6, air, power windows, an actual stereo, and a really huge boot. JD maneuvers effectively through downtown traffic to our lodging. It’s mostly clean and has a pool. It works for a night.

The original plan was to blast out of Brissie that first night. As with all plans allowances must be made for change. There were significant unanswered questions about our Thai visa options. Thailand has recently begun to actually enforce its foreign traveler laws in an attempt to oust a few ex-pats. For decades you could wander in and out as often as you please, provided you wandered out for at least one minute every thirty days. Literally step over the border into Laos, Cambodia, Myanmar, Malaysia, wherever. Turn around, fresh Visa on Arrival stamp, and poof! You have another thirty days. The law actually states you must have an outgoing airline ticket dated within 30 days. The Sydney consulate was not very helpful. An ex-pat club website from Thailand did a decent job of clarifying the real visa rules, and also suggested if you can’t get help at one consulate, just go to another. We did. The Brisbane Thai consulate ROCKS! After we outlined our plans, the ladies told us exactly how to work the system… We applied for, and each received, a double-entry tourist visa. This allows for two sixty-day periods in the next six months, no outgoing air tix required. It is soooo much cheaper to buy tickets in Thailand to fly almost anywhere and we didn’t want to have to commit to time and destination just yet. After we use these visas, it is just a matter of having outgoing tickets each time we re-enter Thailand. This gives huge time flexibility as far as planning our Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Indonesia and Malaysia jaunts, as well as leaving plenty of time to meet up with family and friends taking holiday in Thailand this year.

Back to the Tropical North: Pleased with our morning accomplishment, we head north. The first stop will be in the happily named town of Beerwah, home of the Australia Zoo. This is the zoo Steve-O took over from his parents and turned it into a zoologist’s wet dream. Many zoos are depressing places. You can always tell when the animals are not thriving. The same passionate zeal the Irwin’s presented on TV has been physically reproduced in the presence of this zoo. The zoos residents are almost all Ozzie, some indigenous, some feral, and have habitats that truly let them be what they are. The habitats are also clever enough in design that patrons can actually observe without annoying the critters. A variety of lizards just wander around the place, posing for snaps and keeping the crawlies under control. Zoo staff also regularly walk about with cheetah, wombat, snakes, and other fauna to interact with people, especially kids. The primary mission of the facility is to reinforce the ideas of stewardship and conservation. Don’t fear animals- respect them.

It is impossible to walk the zoo without saying “Crikey!” over and over. There are a number of interactive habitats you can actually walk through. If the residents are in the mood, you can even touch them. (Roos, Echidnas, Koalas, and a few of the not-really-poisonous reptiles). There is the “Crocoseum” for large-scale demonstrations, as well as a memorial section were fans have sent a variety of well-wishing Khaki tokens. We enjoyed a snake-bird-croc show. It’s all good fun, however it is obvious the croc handlers do take their jobs very seriously- double gates, three constant watchers, two secondary handlers, and the primary handler. Crocs really do consider anything they can catch as food, and have had a few hundred million years to perfect the techniques.

I have set up a specific link for the Aussie Zoo photos. Fun stuff!

A quick aside: Political correctness has the same ridiculousness factor here in Oz. The morning news was discussing a dilemma faced by a primary school volunteer:

Poppa is a WW2 vet and grandfather to a six year old. His kids, the extended family, and of course, the grandkids, all call him Poppa. He decided to volunteer at his grandson’s primary school (approx K-3). There, all the kids, teachers and aides all call him Poppa. He even gets a vanity plate for his car- POPPA-6. All is good the first year. Kids and staff adore him, and he gives a more wizened spin to the school population. This year he returns to volunteer again. The school principle tells him there is a problem. A parent has made a complaint against him… She is upset that he is called Poppa. Her fear is that with her child calling a non-relative Poppa, some stranger might approach the munchkin and say ‘I’m Poppa, its ok, you can come with me”. The school policy dictates he can no longer be called Poppa on school grounds. All adults must be addressed by their legal names. His grandson freaked out, thinking he was no longer allowed to call Poppa Poppa. A lot of parents are pissed! A few are highly vocal about the total nonsense of this rule. One parent had just been so happy for her children to have a grandfather figure, as theirs had passed away before they were born. Doesn’t matter. Just one displeased parent dictates the policy for the entire school. I’m really not sure why the dozens of newly displeased parents don’t outweigh the original complainant, but I’m not a nervous school official.

Queensland smells and sounds just like Hawaii. Some of the same birds, the volcanic red dirt, similar foliage. It can be a bit disorienting first thing in the morning, hearing the infamous “car-alarm” bird, and then realizing we are not in Maui. We find ourselves in the seaside village of Bargara, home of the Mon Repos turtle rookery and conservatory. Our timing has been impeccable. It is the third to last day of the hatching season. For a very reasonable fee you have evening access to the Mon Repos National Park and a guided walk to the rookery.

Science Notes: Here is where assorted doctorates in Zoology, Biology, Animal Husbandry, Ecological studies, etc all become rangers in the Ozzie national park system. Dr Col Limpus has been studying, tagging, and tracking turtles from this same beach for over fifty years. His research is the foundation for almost all that is known about the breeding cycle of 6 of the 7 surviving sea turtle species. Here is the summary:

• 1 in 1,000 baby turtles make it to sexual maturity.
  It takes 35 to 40 years for a turtle to be old enough to breed.
  The temperature of the sand that the eggs are buried in determines males and females.
  Males- cooler sands of the outer islands
  Females- Warmer sands of the mainland
  Females will lay 4 to 7 clutches of 125 to 175 eggs each over the course of a month. (Yes, statistically entire breeding seasons for some females will result in no breeding offspring- negative amortization…)
  The hatchlings dig their way out exactly 8 weeks after laying.
  The waddle to the water sets an inner compass/GPS point. They will return to this, or a nearby beach when its time to nest.
  They will move towards the brightest light source. Urban light pollution, even dozens of miles away, has a strong pull.
  The hatchlings drift the south pacific between Oz and South America for the entire 30 plus years to maturity.
  Once of breeding age, the stay within a few hundred kilometers of the birth beach.
  They don’t lay every year. They repeat a personal breeding cycle over a decade: Year three, Year five, Year ten, repeat, or some other variant that they individually choose.

Turtles are another ancient species. They are essentially unchanged for at least 200 million years. They cannot think outside the box. If something is not part of their hardwired programming, they are stopped. A missing beach, bright lights near the nesting area, condos, retaining walls, jetties, and any other number of man-made (and sometimes nature-made: earthquakes, tsunamis, storms) changes to the breeding areas will eliminate successive generations as they return. The mixed blessing of the maturation and inter-breeding time windows is repairs can be made to the changed area. (A female will continue to return each time she is ready to lay, even if there is no place to lay. It’s the programming.)

During the breeding season, a large team of researchers patrols the beach every night, keeping wayward tourists off, and cataloging each nest. Visitors are allowed in controlled groups at specific times. Light pollution, even from camera flashes, is strictly monitored, and allowed only at certain times in the laying and hatching cycles.

We are in group two. Nature rarely considers the human clock as important, so some groups can wait for hours, or minutes. The baby turtles will hatch between dusk and dawn. Dark is dark. The first group was out at 7:30. The facility has a DVD presentation on turtle life cycles, marine trivia and geological history of the region to occupy the queued groups. We head out about 10:00. Light is VERBOTEN. The group follows the guide across the beach to whichever nest is showing activity. The ranger/biologists light the nest is very specific ways. Initially the sand moves a bit. Not to dissimilar to the start of a water boil. A tiny flipper, then head appear. A few more work their way out. These pioneers are encouraged to walk towards a waiting chicken wire enclosure by a ground level flashlight. Within minutes the ground is a seething mass of flippers, heads and shells. All steadfastly dry paddling towards the light. We witness about a 115 hatchlings make it from this nest.

Light is encouraged after hatching in one form: The Tunnel of Light. Volunteers from the visitors group stand in a line, legs spread, from the nest to the sea. Each person shines his/her torch on the ground between the legs of the person in front. The wire enclosure is lifted. The hundred plus group of hatchlings dry paddle their way to the sea, through the legs of the volunteers.

It was a moving experience. In the northwest we regularly experience the salmon cycle, but fish are not near as cute as little baby turtles…

We gave ourselves a couple of days in Bargara. The beach was excellent, and did not require stinger suits (that happens just a tad further north) and the water was bathtub warm, clear, and easy access. Crab balls cover it from end to end. Crab balls you ask? Yes- crab balls. Sand crabs need to dig their burrows out after each tidal cycle. The sand is formed into a ball and rolled away from the burrow entrance. Lots of crabs= lots of balls! Pretty neat to walk on. Nature’s reflexology session on the beach.

The larger town near Bargara is Bundaberg (Yep- “Bunddie” to the locals…), Home of Bundaberg Rum and Bundaberg Brewed Ginger Beer. The ginger beer (Non-alcoholic) brewery has a visitor’s center and tour in a Big Beer Barrel. It was very well done, complete with a 15-minute holographic video presentation. We skipped the rum distillery tour, they require closed shoes, and we were in sandals.

Dinner was snags cooked on the Barbie, accompanied by some really bad box wine. Tomorrow we hang on the beach for the morning, then head north to “Rocky” (Rockhampton), about 340 kilometers. Cattle country. Home of really good steak, and the mid point to our next true destination: The Whitsunday Islands.

15-21 March 2007: Tasmania

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.

Fortunately, 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!

9-14 March: Adelaide to Tassie

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 night 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 Feb to 8 Mar Melbourne to Adelaide

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 has 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.