Leaving Alice Springs after our epic (at least in terms of amount of driving) Outback tour, we had what was hands down our easiest flight experience ever. There was no one in line ahead of us to check in (where they didn't even ask for I.D.), nor in security; we boarded about 20 minutes after that and got our bags minutes after touching down in Cairns.
Cairns (pronounced locally like the French film festival town "Cannes") is the most popular town from which to visit the Great Barrier Reef. When we stepped off the plane the humidity was 85%, so although the temperature was almost 20 degrees F cooler than temperatures we'd had in the Outback desert, it felt much hotter. Dowtown Cairns isn't much, sort of like a miniature version of Cancun.
The next day we toured the Great Barrier Reef. When we were in Mexico, we met an
Australian woman who said that much of the reef could be gone in as little as 10 years time if current levels of coral destruction continue. Despite requiring an extra flight and our limited time here, this uncertain future was one of the reasons we felt we needed to see the reef on this trip. We were lucky with the weather--after getting rain in the desert, today in the rainy season of the Queensland tropics was bright and sunny.
Our experience definitely didn't disappoint: outfitted with wetsuits to protect against poisonous jellyfish and sting rays (famed Australian "Crocodile Hunter" Steve Irwin's killer) but more importantly against the intensity of the sun, we snorkeled first at Michaelmas Cay, which was inhabitated by what seemed to be thouands of birds. After a great lunch on the boat, our second snorkeling stop was Paradise Reef. While we saw a few brightly colored fish (not as many as snorkeling in Mexico), the main attraction was definitely the coral, which was present in an incredible variety of shapes (including sponges, spiky trees, and all kinds of curvy, wavy-lined shapes) and colors (mostly brown, yellow, and orange but also splotches of brilliant blues, purples, and greens. We saw a ray and a little shark. The sea floor below was littered with dead coral, which we hope is not the future for the rest of this amazing environment.
After seeing the reef we're feeling ready to say goodbye to Australia and eagerly awaiting meeting up with Allan and Sally in New Zealand!
Wednesday, January 24, 2007
Monday, January 22, 2007
Adelaide to Alice: The Outback
We arrived in Adelaide,a beautiful city ringed by parks, on Sunday, January 14, although couldn't return our rental car since the office had closed at 4pm. Luckily, we met up with our Servas hosts Brian and Chris at the office and were able to return the car the next morning; they said that the typical response to the office being closed then would be "that's Adelaide," with its reputation as a sleepy backwater city in comparison with Melbourne and Sydney.
Brian and Chris continued our experience of having great Servas hosts. Brian was a child in London during WWII, which he said wasn't scary to him but actually fun and exciting, with explosions and bomb shelters seeming like an adventure. He was sent to the countryside later in the war, and as a teenager became one of the "ten pound immigrants," those, many of them English but also many Greek and Italian, who paid a mere ten pounds for the weeks-long sea voyage to begin a new life in Australia. Referred to as "history's most successful voluntary migration scheme," it more than doubled Australia's population, which it felt was necessary after nearly being taken over by Japan in WWII.
The next day was the 6th anniversary of our first date, and we celebrated by seeing 2 movies (Little Miss Sunshine and Volver) and having a great fancy Greek lunch, as well as strolling through the botanical garden. It was nice to take a break from the usual tourist site routine and rest up for the start of our big tour: 7 days in the Outback from Adelaide to Alice Springs, with 18 passengers and 1 guide (a friendly, laid-back native of the Torres Strait Islands [off Cape York in Northeast Australia] named Kevin) in a big bus/van.
Leaving Adelaide on the first day of our tour, we drove through Australia's wheat belt. Farmers there don't use irrigation and so rely entirely on rainfall; because of the record drought this year most of their wheat crops yielded almost no grain and were harvested stalks and all as cattle feed instead. In less than a day's drive from the southern coast of Australia, we passed the "Goyden Line," the farthest point north that a 19th century surveyor declared wheat could be grown. North of the line is only suitable for sheep and cattle grazing. Later that day we also visited the Aboriginal Yourambulla Cave paintings. We spent the night in a hostel located smack dab in the middle of the Parachilna Gorge of the Flinders Ranges Mountains, which despite their relatively small size now (1100? m) used to be taller than the Himalayas. Going even farther back in geologic time, most of inland Australia was once a giant inland sea, and after that a dense forest, both of which are hard to imagine given the current vast, mostly flat arid plains.
On our second day, we made multiple stops to break up the driving: an ochre pit, a coal mine, a local eccentric named Talc Alf (for his talcstone carvings), the ghost town of Farina (Italian for "flour," the town was planned to grow wheat but never produced a single grain) and last but not least some giant "hippie sculptures" out of materials such as a windmill, small plane, and a bus. The ochre pit was the source of paint colors for Aborigines; those who collected and traded the ochre lived in the Northern Territory near Darwin and would walk over 2,000 km to reach this pit, and then carry back over 60 pounds of ochre on each of their heads for the return journey. That afternoon we saw a dingo cross the road, a dog-like animal that originally came to Australia from Thailand thousands of years ago.
Much of our drive on the second day (almost all on unpaved roads called "tracks") followed the route of the explorer John Stuart, who in 1862 became the first European to cross the interior of Australia, laying the way for the Overland Telegraph Line and then the steam engine train. The only reason that Stuart's expedition succeeded was the vast source of ground water, known as the Great Artesian Basin (which also provided the water necessary for the steam train). And the only reason he found this water is that the Aborigines (who of course, like with the ochre trade example, had likely been crossing the interior for thousands of years) showed it to him.
We spent the second night in the "town" of William Creek, population 6. It's the base for the William Creek Cattle Station, which with an area of over 22,000 square km is bigger than Belgium. It normally has around 20,000 cattle, but with the drought this year is down to just 1,000. No romantic images of cowboys on horseback here: the station is operated mostly by computer, and ranchers use planes instead of horses to cover the huge distances. Despite the high technology for ranching, a few of the locals at the pub proved to be slightly more stereotypical Outback residents, including one extremely intoxicated guy about my age who worked in a coal mine and had driven *6 hours* to come to the pub that night. Another interesting part of local culture given the Outback isolation is a one night "ball" held once a year where young people who may rarely see people their age where they live come from huge distances in the hope of finding a partner (or, as we guessed, just to have a good time). We drove past the grounds for one of these balls, which of course was now completely empty.
The rain began during the night at William Creek. A storm system had come down from tropical northern Australia and was pounding the outback in various places; it looked like the places we were heading were next to be hit. So the next morning, with our destination of Coober Pedy just 150 km away, we were forced to turn completely around to the next available paved road to avoid getting stuck. On our way, we passed (and actually nicked with our trailer) a rival tour company bus stuck in the mud. They were eventually able to get out by using the rail ties (called "sleepers") that are scattered next to the dirt road, remnants of the famous Ghan railway. The Ghan was named for the Afghans who brought camels to use for transport in the Outback desert after horses had failed. Australia currently has the world's largest population of wild camels, which we spotted several times as well as wild horses.
The rest of day three consisted of slightly scary, difficult driving over soft mud and flooded roads, (with some incredible views of ponds forming all over the desert), but Kevin successfully navigated us and the bus onto the paved road and to our stop in the town of Quorn that night. After a 4:30 wake up call the next morning, we were back on the road and by the middle of day 4 had reached Coober Pedy, the "Opal Mining Capital of the World": a day late and after 1,200 km of extra driving. The rain was still falling heavily, so much so that some of the hillside next to our "underground" hostel crumbled away. Because of its extreme desert environment, much of the town of Coober Pedy is built into the hillsides, where the opal mines were dug.
That night we went to an "underground" pub/club, and while Rachel and I were happy to go to bed early, unfortunately some of our group had other plans and managed to wake up not only our group but most of the other tour groups staying there by dragging one guy's bed into the hallway sometime around 3am, then staying up talking and laughing for an hour. (They also spent the whole next day laughing about it and refused to acknowledge that it might have been just a wee bit inconsiderate...). As I type this it sounds much funnier than it did at the time, and unfortunately this incident (and probably moreover the absurd amount of driving we were doing) led to a major rift in tour group dynamics.
On day 5, after driving most of the day, we arrived at Yulara, the accomodation area for Uluru (formerly Ayers Rock). Uluru is a huge monolith (all one rock, formed by the rest of the rock around it eroding) in the middle of nowhere, and a very sacred site for the Aborigines. The last few days of our tour unfortunately highlighted our leader Kevin's biggest weakness, timing (although again I'm sure he was exhausted from driving). After setting up camp we barely made it to Uluru in time for sunset, as we hiked past regular tour buses (first time we've seen them in the Outback!) to the lookout point. The sunset and Uluru's change of color with the light were impressive, but perhaps even better were the spectacular stars in the night sky, and the fact that we saw a comet that's even rarer than Haley's.
Day 6 was supposed to begin with a sunrise hike, but since Kevin and most of the group overslept we missed that. It was cool to walk around Uluru and see all the different formations in the rock, and learn a little about some of the ways parts of it were used in Aboriginal ceremonies/rituals. We definitely didn't want to climb it, which the Aborignals strongly urge people not to do but we saw several people doing anyway. When the Australian government finally "gave back" (in the form of a 99 year lease) Uluru to the Aboriginals in 1986, one of the conditions they required is that it remain open to climbing by tourists. In the cultural center, we saw the "sorry book" filled with letters from tourists who mailed back pieces of rock they took from Uluru, also forbidden by Aboriginal culture and supposed to bring very bad luck.
In the afternoon we were looking forward to hiking the Valley of the Winds in Kata Tjuta, another Aboriginal sacred site made up of a canyon and mountain formation near
Uluru. However, Kevin said it was too late and too hot, so instead we did a short hike, which wasn't great. After that we drove on to
Watarka (King's Canyon), a short day of driving at only 4 hours. That night the mood in the campground was a little better.
On our 7th and last day, we hiked through Watarka (albeit at an extremely slow pace for much of the way), which is formed by sand being pressed together so we could see the many layers of rock, some formed into beehive domes. There were also sides of the canyon that looked completely smooth from stone falling away. I swam in a pool in the Garden of Eden spot on the canyon floor, where giant cycads (ferns) from the time of the dinosaurs grew. Another of the amazing desert plants Kev pointed out was the ghost gum, a white-barked eucalyptus tree with the ability to cut off the water supply to one of it's branches if necessary in a dry time for the good of the rest of the tree.
Just as we've been reflecting more on political and cultural elements of the U.S. during this trip, on our trip through the Outback we found ourselves comparing the landscape to the West of the U.S.; despite the many wonders of the Outback, to us it just couldn't stand up to the majestic mountains and deserts we have at home.
Brian and Chris continued our experience of having great Servas hosts. Brian was a child in London during WWII, which he said wasn't scary to him but actually fun and exciting, with explosions and bomb shelters seeming like an adventure. He was sent to the countryside later in the war, and as a teenager became one of the "ten pound immigrants," those, many of them English but also many Greek and Italian, who paid a mere ten pounds for the weeks-long sea voyage to begin a new life in Australia. Referred to as "history's most successful voluntary migration scheme," it more than doubled Australia's population, which it felt was necessary after nearly being taken over by Japan in WWII.
The next day was the 6th anniversary of our first date, and we celebrated by seeing 2 movies (Little Miss Sunshine and Volver) and having a great fancy Greek lunch, as well as strolling through the botanical garden. It was nice to take a break from the usual tourist site routine and rest up for the start of our big tour: 7 days in the Outback from Adelaide to Alice Springs, with 18 passengers and 1 guide (a friendly, laid-back native of the Torres Strait Islands [off Cape York in Northeast Australia] named Kevin) in a big bus/van.
Leaving Adelaide on the first day of our tour, we drove through Australia's wheat belt. Farmers there don't use irrigation and so rely entirely on rainfall; because of the record drought this year most of their wheat crops yielded almost no grain and were harvested stalks and all as cattle feed instead. In less than a day's drive from the southern coast of Australia, we passed the "Goyden Line," the farthest point north that a 19th century surveyor declared wheat could be grown. North of the line is only suitable for sheep and cattle grazing. Later that day we also visited the Aboriginal Yourambulla Cave paintings. We spent the night in a hostel located smack dab in the middle of the Parachilna Gorge of the Flinders Ranges Mountains, which despite their relatively small size now (1100? m) used to be taller than the Himalayas. Going even farther back in geologic time, most of inland Australia was once a giant inland sea, and after that a dense forest, both of which are hard to imagine given the current vast, mostly flat arid plains.
On our second day, we made multiple stops to break up the driving: an ochre pit, a coal mine, a local eccentric named Talc Alf (for his talcstone carvings), the ghost town of Farina (Italian for "flour," the town was planned to grow wheat but never produced a single grain) and last but not least some giant "hippie sculptures" out of materials such as a windmill, small plane, and a bus. The ochre pit was the source of paint colors for Aborigines; those who collected and traded the ochre lived in the Northern Territory near Darwin and would walk over 2,000 km to reach this pit, and then carry back over 60 pounds of ochre on each of their heads for the return journey. That afternoon we saw a dingo cross the road, a dog-like animal that originally came to Australia from Thailand thousands of years ago.
Much of our drive on the second day (almost all on unpaved roads called "tracks") followed the route of the explorer John Stuart, who in 1862 became the first European to cross the interior of Australia, laying the way for the Overland Telegraph Line and then the steam engine train. The only reason that Stuart's expedition succeeded was the vast source of ground water, known as the Great Artesian Basin (which also provided the water necessary for the steam train). And the only reason he found this water is that the Aborigines (who of course, like with the ochre trade example, had likely been crossing the interior for thousands of years) showed it to him.
We spent the second night in the "town" of William Creek, population 6. It's the base for the William Creek Cattle Station, which with an area of over 22,000 square km is bigger than Belgium. It normally has around 20,000 cattle, but with the drought this year is down to just 1,000. No romantic images of cowboys on horseback here: the station is operated mostly by computer, and ranchers use planes instead of horses to cover the huge distances. Despite the high technology for ranching, a few of the locals at the pub proved to be slightly more stereotypical Outback residents, including one extremely intoxicated guy about my age who worked in a coal mine and had driven *6 hours* to come to the pub that night. Another interesting part of local culture given the Outback isolation is a one night "ball" held once a year where young people who may rarely see people their age where they live come from huge distances in the hope of finding a partner (or, as we guessed, just to have a good time). We drove past the grounds for one of these balls, which of course was now completely empty.
The rain began during the night at William Creek. A storm system had come down from tropical northern Australia and was pounding the outback in various places; it looked like the places we were heading were next to be hit. So the next morning, with our destination of Coober Pedy just 150 km away, we were forced to turn completely around to the next available paved road to avoid getting stuck. On our way, we passed (and actually nicked with our trailer) a rival tour company bus stuck in the mud. They were eventually able to get out by using the rail ties (called "sleepers") that are scattered next to the dirt road, remnants of the famous Ghan railway. The Ghan was named for the Afghans who brought camels to use for transport in the Outback desert after horses had failed. Australia currently has the world's largest population of wild camels, which we spotted several times as well as wild horses.
The rest of day three consisted of slightly scary, difficult driving over soft mud and flooded roads, (with some incredible views of ponds forming all over the desert), but Kevin successfully navigated us and the bus onto the paved road and to our stop in the town of Quorn that night. After a 4:30 wake up call the next morning, we were back on the road and by the middle of day 4 had reached Coober Pedy, the "Opal Mining Capital of the World": a day late and after 1,200 km of extra driving. The rain was still falling heavily, so much so that some of the hillside next to our "underground" hostel crumbled away. Because of its extreme desert environment, much of the town of Coober Pedy is built into the hillsides, where the opal mines were dug.
That night we went to an "underground" pub/club, and while Rachel and I were happy to go to bed early, unfortunately some of our group had other plans and managed to wake up not only our group but most of the other tour groups staying there by dragging one guy's bed into the hallway sometime around 3am, then staying up talking and laughing for an hour. (They also spent the whole next day laughing about it and refused to acknowledge that it might have been just a wee bit inconsiderate...). As I type this it sounds much funnier than it did at the time, and unfortunately this incident (and probably moreover the absurd amount of driving we were doing) led to a major rift in tour group dynamics.
On day 5, after driving most of the day, we arrived at Yulara, the accomodation area for Uluru (formerly Ayers Rock). Uluru is a huge monolith (all one rock, formed by the rest of the rock around it eroding) in the middle of nowhere, and a very sacred site for the Aborigines. The last few days of our tour unfortunately highlighted our leader Kevin's biggest weakness, timing (although again I'm sure he was exhausted from driving). After setting up camp we barely made it to Uluru in time for sunset, as we hiked past regular tour buses (first time we've seen them in the Outback!) to the lookout point. The sunset and Uluru's change of color with the light were impressive, but perhaps even better were the spectacular stars in the night sky, and the fact that we saw a comet that's even rarer than Haley's.
Day 6 was supposed to begin with a sunrise hike, but since Kevin and most of the group overslept we missed that. It was cool to walk around Uluru and see all the different formations in the rock, and learn a little about some of the ways parts of it were used in Aboriginal ceremonies/rituals. We definitely didn't want to climb it, which the Aborignals strongly urge people not to do but we saw several people doing anyway. When the Australian government finally "gave back" (in the form of a 99 year lease) Uluru to the Aboriginals in 1986, one of the conditions they required is that it remain open to climbing by tourists. In the cultural center, we saw the "sorry book" filled with letters from tourists who mailed back pieces of rock they took from Uluru, also forbidden by Aboriginal culture and supposed to bring very bad luck.
In the afternoon we were looking forward to hiking the Valley of the Winds in Kata Tjuta, another Aboriginal sacred site made up of a canyon and mountain formation near
Uluru. However, Kevin said it was too late and too hot, so instead we did a short hike, which wasn't great. After that we drove on to
Watarka (King's Canyon), a short day of driving at only 4 hours. That night the mood in the campground was a little better.
On our 7th and last day, we hiked through Watarka (albeit at an extremely slow pace for much of the way), which is formed by sand being pressed together so we could see the many layers of rock, some formed into beehive domes. There were also sides of the canyon that looked completely smooth from stone falling away. I swam in a pool in the Garden of Eden spot on the canyon floor, where giant cycads (ferns) from the time of the dinosaurs grew. Another of the amazing desert plants Kev pointed out was the ghost gum, a white-barked eucalyptus tree with the ability to cut off the water supply to one of it's branches if necessary in a dry time for the good of the rest of the tree.
Just as we've been reflecting more on political and cultural elements of the U.S. during this trip, on our trip through the Outback we found ourselves comparing the landscape to the West of the U.S.; despite the many wonders of the Outback, to us it just couldn't stand up to the majestic mountains and deserts we have at home.
Sunday, January 14, 2007
Melbourne and the Great Ocean Road
We had heard a lot about Melbourne as a city of artsy and culturally diverse character, and in our few days there we got a yummy taste of both of those. We stayed with Jane, a SERVAS host who is a teacher and a psychologist, working mainly with the large Indian and Bangladeshi student population in Melbourne. On vacation now, she likes to spend some part of her mornings at cafes reading the newspaper and people watching, and on our first day in the city she took us to a neighboring suburb to hers, where we sat at an Ethiopian-owned cafe and then walked through the maze of small shops filling the blocks: Indian grocery stores, with shelf after shelf of different chutneys; Sudanese variety shops, displaying long, colorful cotton robes of the type we saw in Upper Egypt; general South Asian stores selling everything from fake-bamboo mats to plastic buckets to decorative figurines. Our favorite was a large Vietnamese supermarkets, that was in reality a collection of separate stands, all of them brimming with a fresh, colorful variety of fruits and vegetables, and dotted with vendors shouting out the prices and quality of their wares in Vietnamese. While we couldn't understand what they were saying, we could understand the sticky plates of free samples that were found on each stand, and helped ourselves more than once. There was also a fish section of the market, with some still-flopping half-dead fish lying on ice, while others swam in small tanks helplessly awaiting the rubber mallet-wielding butchers who pulled them out for customers. We also walked through Chinatown, in the center of the city, and visited the Museum of Chinese-Australian History, an impressive small place with lots of information about the Chinese experience here, as well as an interactive multimedia exhibit that took us as "migrants" from Hong Kong harbor in 1857 to the hot, dusty goldfields of Australia. The story of Chinese migrants in Australia is quite similar to that of Chinese migrants to the western U.S.: numbers were very high in the late 19th century as they did extremely difficult and dangerous work, but as that work faded and the Chinese began to establish themselves more culturally and economically, both countries established harsh anti-Chinese measures (in the U.S. they couldn't own land or other property, and in 1905 they became the only group ever to be banned from immigrating to America; in Australia, the families of migrants were not allowed to come over, and the 1901 "White Australia" policy cut immigration from China and elsewhere in Asia until the mid-1960's). Somehow, the communities in both countries persevered, and have firm and important places in present society.
As for art, we got to see quite a lot of it in Melbourne, in both more and less traditional forms. In the two buildings of the National Gallery of Victoria, we wandered through galleries of 19th and 20th century Australian paintings, some of which resembled the romantic, adventurous nature scenes of the Hudson River School. The collection of Aboriginal artwork was astounding; beautiful to look at, it was also incredible to grapple with the way of thinking the paintings represented. I am only beginning to learn about Aboriginal beliefs and not even close to beginning to understand them, but what I think I can understand is that it is a worldview that is truly, thoroughly different from the one I'm used to-- and the fact that worldviews can be so different is pretty amazing in itself. The galleries also had a few quirky exhibits, some of which pushed the definition of art and culture in an interesting way: there was a stunning collection of mid-century hats by Melbourne's foremost milliner, a gallery of mint-condition sneakers analyzing their manifestations of form and function, and an interactive playing area tracing the development of video game effects and graphics! The feel of much of the city, with several funky-looking pedestrian bridges spanning the central river, a plaza with live-music containing several museums right near the downtown businesses, art deco buildings near the beach, and buzzing outdoor cafes absolutely everywhere seemed to encourage the art-viewing, art-making vibe.
Leaving Jane, her two cats, and the city, we took the plunge and rented a car for a drive along the coast. The disconcerting scariness of our first time driving on the left was certainly compounded by the fact that we hadn't driven on either side of the road in six months; but, once we got out of the city and away from the most crowded parts of the twisty-turny Great Ocean Road, we were actually able to relax and enjoy our two days of driving. The part of the road that was right on the coast, which lasted for several hours the first day, was quite beautiful, although I couldn't say it has anything over Rte. 101 on the Oregon Coast. One highlight was the statuesque limestone rocks called the Twelve Apostles, and another was leaving the crowds behind once we passed that landmark. The coolest thing was seeing koalas in the wild-- we pulled over in a spot where we saw a few other cars pulled over, and there they were, sleeping in the crooks of the trees! Toward dusk, as we drove through a long stretch of extremely dry fields, we came to a road sign warning of kangaroos in the next 30 kilometers-- and indeed, as we drove, we saw 20 or more in small groups along the edge of the forest (and, sadly, several that had been run over by the side of the road). They were super skittish and jumbed into the trees whenever we pulled over, but the thrill of seeing them lasted even if photos didn't. We spent the night in a room in a pub, an Aussie tradition (we've been told) that we enjoyed a lot, even though we were too tired to take advantage of the proximity of the bar. After a quick stop in the Coonawarra Valley wine region the following day (tasting at 9:30 in the morning really doesn't appeal), we drove on through more fields all the way to Adelaide.
As for art, we got to see quite a lot of it in Melbourne, in both more and less traditional forms. In the two buildings of the National Gallery of Victoria, we wandered through galleries of 19th and 20th century Australian paintings, some of which resembled the romantic, adventurous nature scenes of the Hudson River School. The collection of Aboriginal artwork was astounding; beautiful to look at, it was also incredible to grapple with the way of thinking the paintings represented. I am only beginning to learn about Aboriginal beliefs and not even close to beginning to understand them, but what I think I can understand is that it is a worldview that is truly, thoroughly different from the one I'm used to-- and the fact that worldviews can be so different is pretty amazing in itself. The galleries also had a few quirky exhibits, some of which pushed the definition of art and culture in an interesting way: there was a stunning collection of mid-century hats by Melbourne's foremost milliner, a gallery of mint-condition sneakers analyzing their manifestations of form and function, and an interactive playing area tracing the development of video game effects and graphics! The feel of much of the city, with several funky-looking pedestrian bridges spanning the central river, a plaza with live-music containing several museums right near the downtown businesses, art deco buildings near the beach, and buzzing outdoor cafes absolutely everywhere seemed to encourage the art-viewing, art-making vibe.
Leaving Jane, her two cats, and the city, we took the plunge and rented a car for a drive along the coast. The disconcerting scariness of our first time driving on the left was certainly compounded by the fact that we hadn't driven on either side of the road in six months; but, once we got out of the city and away from the most crowded parts of the twisty-turny Great Ocean Road, we were actually able to relax and enjoy our two days of driving. The part of the road that was right on the coast, which lasted for several hours the first day, was quite beautiful, although I couldn't say it has anything over Rte. 101 on the Oregon Coast. One highlight was the statuesque limestone rocks called the Twelve Apostles, and another was leaving the crowds behind once we passed that landmark. The coolest thing was seeing koalas in the wild-- we pulled over in a spot where we saw a few other cars pulled over, and there they were, sleeping in the crooks of the trees! Toward dusk, as we drove through a long stretch of extremely dry fields, we came to a road sign warning of kangaroos in the next 30 kilometers-- and indeed, as we drove, we saw 20 or more in small groups along the edge of the forest (and, sadly, several that had been run over by the side of the road). They were super skittish and jumbed into the trees whenever we pulled over, but the thrill of seeing them lasted even if photos didn't. We spent the night in a room in a pub, an Aussie tradition (we've been told) that we enjoyed a lot, even though we were too tired to take advantage of the proximity of the bar. After a quick stop in the Coonawarra Valley wine region the following day (tasting at 9:30 in the morning really doesn't appeal), we drove on through more fields all the way to Adelaide.
"Kin's Kin" on Beach Rd.
Flying from Mauritius to Sydney, Australia we got to gaze at the full moon lighting up the night sky as we moved 7 hours into the future. So, after leaving on Thursday afternoon, we arrived at 6 on Friday morning, January 5. My second cousin (my dad's cousin's son; our grandmas were sisters) Toby Monson, while not from the Beach side of the family lives on Beach Rd., and although neither of us could remember having met before (possibly at a family reunion long ago), he and his friend and housemate Shannon were super generous and friendly during the time we stayed with them. When we thanked him for hosting us he quoted a Michael J. Fox movie line "Kin's kin." Plus, since Toby works for a travel company called Let's Trek Australia, affiliated with Trek America (and knows our Backroads leader Allison!, for those readers from the Alaska trip), he was able to give us tons of great suggestions and set us up with tours for the rest of our time in Australia.
After sleeping a few hours, we set off to explore downtown Sydney. I was surprised by the look of Toby's neighborhood: most of the houses were brick, many in Victorian style with beautiful ironwork trim. Toby's had an added organic feature of at least 4 to 5 huge spiders that built webs every night on the front porch and sidewalk, so that we had to duck going out. Mysteriously, by morning the webs were gone (we said maybe the spiders took them down). Sydney (and later Melbourne) felt very different from the large cities in South Africa: very clean, totally safe feeling, and good public transportation.
Getting off the train at the Circle Quay stop downtown, we walked around the harbor, took photos of the Opera House and walked across the Harborside Bridge, where we saw groups of people strapped on with safety equipment doing the 4-hour climb to the top of the bridge. That night Toby showed us the family history research he's done on the computer program "Family Tree Maker," and we added Rachel's vital stats to my entry.
The next day (Saturday), Toby drove us to the nearby Blue Mountains, where we saw the 3 Sisters rock formation, and took a short walk down and "the world's steepest train" (like a roller coaster) back up the mountain. Getting on the train was difficult as we had to physically restrain a group of Chinese tourists from taking our seat from us! That night we enjoyed Rachel's birthday present from her parents- tickets to The Marriage of Figaro at the Opera House. It was a beautiful production in an amazing building--at night it looks a little like a cathedral with the lights from inside.
On Sunday we went to the Bondi Beach market, with all the latest in retro clothes fashions, and Rachel found a great red, white, and black dress. That afternoon Toby fired up the barbecue and we hung out with his friend Dennis, who's part Aboriginal and owns a dijeridu and art making company near Darwin, in the Northern Territory of Australia. We tried kangaroo steak: red meat which has a sweet taste a little like ostrich--I liked it, Rachel not so much.
On Monday we visited the Hyde Park Barracks, a very good museum in a building which housed first the convicts transported to Australia from Britain, and later immigrant and poor women. We walked through Hyde Park and the row of giant fig trees, as well as through the Strand arcade--while suburban malls and shopping centers are becoming more popular here, we were surprised to see so much shopping downtown. For our last night in Sydney we (mostly Rachel) made a delicious dinner of shrimp curry, salad and peach pie.
The next day we visited the Powerhouse Museum, a combined science/natural history/children's museum, on our last morning in Sydney before heading to the airport for our flight to Melbourne; we'd planned to take the bus but the flights were $50 (Australian) cheaper! Getting around in Australia is similar to back home; it dwarfs even the distances between places in South Africa, which were probably the longest we've had on the trip otherwise.
After sleeping a few hours, we set off to explore downtown Sydney. I was surprised by the look of Toby's neighborhood: most of the houses were brick, many in Victorian style with beautiful ironwork trim. Toby's had an added organic feature of at least 4 to 5 huge spiders that built webs every night on the front porch and sidewalk, so that we had to duck going out. Mysteriously, by morning the webs were gone (we said maybe the spiders took them down). Sydney (and later Melbourne) felt very different from the large cities in South Africa: very clean, totally safe feeling, and good public transportation.
Getting off the train at the Circle Quay stop downtown, we walked around the harbor, took photos of the Opera House and walked across the Harborside Bridge, where we saw groups of people strapped on with safety equipment doing the 4-hour climb to the top of the bridge. That night Toby showed us the family history research he's done on the computer program "Family Tree Maker," and we added Rachel's vital stats to my entry.
The next day (Saturday), Toby drove us to the nearby Blue Mountains, where we saw the 3 Sisters rock formation, and took a short walk down and "the world's steepest train" (like a roller coaster) back up the mountain. Getting on the train was difficult as we had to physically restrain a group of Chinese tourists from taking our seat from us! That night we enjoyed Rachel's birthday present from her parents- tickets to The Marriage of Figaro at the Opera House. It was a beautiful production in an amazing building--at night it looks a little like a cathedral with the lights from inside.
On Sunday we went to the Bondi Beach market, with all the latest in retro clothes fashions, and Rachel found a great red, white, and black dress. That afternoon Toby fired up the barbecue and we hung out with his friend Dennis, who's part Aboriginal and owns a dijeridu and art making company near Darwin, in the Northern Territory of Australia. We tried kangaroo steak: red meat which has a sweet taste a little like ostrich--I liked it, Rachel not so much.
On Monday we visited the Hyde Park Barracks, a very good museum in a building which housed first the convicts transported to Australia from Britain, and later immigrant and poor women. We walked through Hyde Park and the row of giant fig trees, as well as through the Strand arcade--while suburban malls and shopping centers are becoming more popular here, we were surprised to see so much shopping downtown. For our last night in Sydney we (mostly Rachel) made a delicious dinner of shrimp curry, salad and peach pie.
The next day we visited the Powerhouse Museum, a combined science/natural history/children's museum, on our last morning in Sydney before heading to the airport for our flight to Melbourne; we'd planned to take the bus but the flights were $50 (Australian) cheaper! Getting around in Australia is similar to back home; it dwarfs even the distances between places in South Africa, which were probably the longest we've had on the trip otherwise.
Wednesday, January 03, 2007
More Mauritius: Philately, Pamplemousses, 2007...
Departing Mahebourg, we made the slow, jerky bus ride to Port Louis, Mauritius's capital city. We stayed 4 nights there with our Servas hosts Mineswar and Rambah. (As well as our final night (Jan. 3) in Mauritius, having had to return to collect our Indian visa: they were generous enough to host us despite the day falling smack in the middle of their exhausting-sounding New Year's social calendar, where they said everyone is visiting and inviting friends over from Dec. 31- Jan. 8!)
Mineswar works as the assistant to the Deputy Prime Minister; it was interesting to talk with him about the politics of Mauritius. He was very proud of the fact that Mauritians are literate, well-educated people, and told us the story of how, after gaining independence in 1968, Mauritius introduced free and compulsory education in 1977, which he attributed to causing the grip that a mere 7 families held on the economy of Mauritius to be peacefully broken in 1982. To me, Mauritius has an interesting in-between feel: there are still some very visible examples of poverty (shacks, things being older/broken, litter), while also having a good amount of wealthier tourist infrastructure and a high standard of living for the local population.
Our first full day in Port Louis, we headed for the tourist-friendly waterfront, recently renovated into shops and restaurants. We visited the Blue Penny museum, where we learned the meaning of the word "philately" (stamp collecting) in reference to the museum's name, as it houses the "world-famous" 1 and 2 penny red and blue stamps from the 1850s: aside from the ones in the museum, there are only a few others in existence, a pair of which recently sold for $5 million! More interesting to us than the stamps and postal history exhibit of Mauritius were the rooms of old maps (including the first globe, circa 1493?) and model ships, and the colonial history both of the country and the city of Port Louis.
Having acquired a bit of a taste for Bollywood movies after watching "Bunty and Bably" at Henrik's apartment in Cairo (a song from which was playing on the radio at our Servas family's house; they said it was the "song of the year" for 2006), we prepared ourselves for another 3 hours worth, seeing "Bhagam Bhag" in a waterfront cinema. We were surprised that it didn't seem to feature as many song and dance numbers, but still enjoyed the antics of a story that had an Indian dance troupe performing in London searching to replace its heroine.
The next day we set out for the nearby town of Pamplemousses, visting first a sugar museum and then the botanical gardens. Entitled "the Sugar Adventure," the museum was housed in a sugar producing factory that closed in 1999. Across the landscape of Mauritius you see old stone towers, which we learned there were smokestacks for sugar factories: like cheese factories in Monroe, WI, a landscape that used to be dotted with factories has seen their number dwindle with increased consolidation and "efficiency." We learned more about the history of Mauritius, and quickly walked through the exhibits of the science of sugar making to the tasting of 8 special kinds of sugar (the molasses sugar was our favorite) and 2 kinds of rum at the end. The gardens were lovely, a 65-acre area of shade filled with palms of all types, some of them exceedingly skinny and reaching to the sky, others short and bottle-shaped, others in the shape of massive Japanese fans. There were also a variety of kinds of water lilies, including some in the center of the garden that had diameters of 2 feet or more-- a funny-colored duck walking from one to the other looked very small in comparison.
Our final full day in Port Louis we visited the nearby Eureka mansion, a beautiful 19th century home with a "natural air-conditioning" architecture, including 109 doors! It also had a "Chinese room", which the guide there said was de rigour for a wealthy family of the time "to show how rich they were." In the afternoon we followed our travel guide's suggested walking tour for Port Louis, and enjoyed seeing the variety of architecture and cultural influences in the city. We trekked up the hillside to the Citadel for a view of the city, and walked by the stunning white-sand castle with green accents Jummah mosque (a good example of the city's mix of diverse cultures, the mosque is located right next to the Chinatown gate).
The following day we left Port Louis for Grand Baie, our third location in Mauritius and where we planned to spend most of our time on the beach (with the weather mostly cooperating despite a few spatterings of rain). We were pleasantly surprised at the atmosphere of the beach: while more touristy than the beach in Mahebourg, there were often a majority of Mauritians on the beach. Our pre-conception (especially based on the look that people gave us when we told them we were going there!) of tourism in Mauritius was that it was a much richer and ritzier atmosphere; we're sure some of that exists also but everywhere we've been has been pretty laid back.
On New Year's Eve we went out to a super-rich meal (which included lobster bisque, foie-gras, heart of palm, and veal) and then watched the fireworks on the beach. There were more fireworks in one place than I've ever seen: lots of big ones in the sky but also small ones (some incredibly loud) being set off by people all around us. The next day there were big piles of red firecracker wrappers so thick in the streets that looked like piles of leaves in the fall! And of course the holidays means a time to watch football: while we wanted to watch the Wisconsin Badgers in the Capital One Bowl on Jan. 1, unfortunately the closest we could come was watching an English "football" game between Manchester United and Newcastle.
Our last full day in Grand Baie, I (Rachel) had my first adventure of the new year: parasailing! The parachute was, at times, up as high as 60 or 70 meters above the water-- with the wind buffeting me around, the rope holding me to the boat looked pretty wavery, and I had to close my eyes to not think about snapping off and flying away, or crashing down into the water (and also just not to get sick). But it was also exhilarating and beatiful; looking out (which I did when the wind was quieter or I was lower down), I could see all the gradations in color and texture in the water, and the green of the sugarcane fields stretching inland. We also savored the finer side of beachfront fast food: small pineapples held by the stem and carved so they looked a little like a lolly-pop (see photo), roti/dhal puri (Indian tortillas filled with beans and hot pepper sauce), and delicious homemade ice-cream pops with flavors like coconut-vanilla and almond-pistachio. Back in Port Louis, we picked up our passports from the Indian High Commission, happily replete with Indian visas, and got ready to fly east to Australia.
Mineswar works as the assistant to the Deputy Prime Minister; it was interesting to talk with him about the politics of Mauritius. He was very proud of the fact that Mauritians are literate, well-educated people, and told us the story of how, after gaining independence in 1968, Mauritius introduced free and compulsory education in 1977, which he attributed to causing the grip that a mere 7 families held on the economy of Mauritius to be peacefully broken in 1982. To me, Mauritius has an interesting in-between feel: there are still some very visible examples of poverty (shacks, things being older/broken, litter), while also having a good amount of wealthier tourist infrastructure and a high standard of living for the local population.
Our first full day in Port Louis, we headed for the tourist-friendly waterfront, recently renovated into shops and restaurants. We visited the Blue Penny museum, where we learned the meaning of the word "philately" (stamp collecting) in reference to the museum's name, as it houses the "world-famous" 1 and 2 penny red and blue stamps from the 1850s: aside from the ones in the museum, there are only a few others in existence, a pair of which recently sold for $5 million! More interesting to us than the stamps and postal history exhibit of Mauritius were the rooms of old maps (including the first globe, circa 1493?) and model ships, and the colonial history both of the country and the city of Port Louis.
Having acquired a bit of a taste for Bollywood movies after watching "Bunty and Bably" at Henrik's apartment in Cairo (a song from which was playing on the radio at our Servas family's house; they said it was the "song of the year" for 2006), we prepared ourselves for another 3 hours worth, seeing "Bhagam Bhag" in a waterfront cinema. We were surprised that it didn't seem to feature as many song and dance numbers, but still enjoyed the antics of a story that had an Indian dance troupe performing in London searching to replace its heroine.
The next day we set out for the nearby town of Pamplemousses, visting first a sugar museum and then the botanical gardens. Entitled "the Sugar Adventure," the museum was housed in a sugar producing factory that closed in 1999. Across the landscape of Mauritius you see old stone towers, which we learned there were smokestacks for sugar factories: like cheese factories in Monroe, WI, a landscape that used to be dotted with factories has seen their number dwindle with increased consolidation and "efficiency." We learned more about the history of Mauritius, and quickly walked through the exhibits of the science of sugar making to the tasting of 8 special kinds of sugar (the molasses sugar was our favorite) and 2 kinds of rum at the end. The gardens were lovely, a 65-acre area of shade filled with palms of all types, some of them exceedingly skinny and reaching to the sky, others short and bottle-shaped, others in the shape of massive Japanese fans. There were also a variety of kinds of water lilies, including some in the center of the garden that had diameters of 2 feet or more-- a funny-colored duck walking from one to the other looked very small in comparison.
Our final full day in Port Louis we visited the nearby Eureka mansion, a beautiful 19th century home with a "natural air-conditioning" architecture, including 109 doors! It also had a "Chinese room", which the guide there said was de rigour for a wealthy family of the time "to show how rich they were." In the afternoon we followed our travel guide's suggested walking tour for Port Louis, and enjoyed seeing the variety of architecture and cultural influences in the city. We trekked up the hillside to the Citadel for a view of the city, and walked by the stunning white-sand castle with green accents Jummah mosque (a good example of the city's mix of diverse cultures, the mosque is located right next to the Chinatown gate).
The following day we left Port Louis for Grand Baie, our third location in Mauritius and where we planned to spend most of our time on the beach (with the weather mostly cooperating despite a few spatterings of rain). We were pleasantly surprised at the atmosphere of the beach: while more touristy than the beach in Mahebourg, there were often a majority of Mauritians on the beach. Our pre-conception (especially based on the look that people gave us when we told them we were going there!) of tourism in Mauritius was that it was a much richer and ritzier atmosphere; we're sure some of that exists also but everywhere we've been has been pretty laid back.
On New Year's Eve we went out to a super-rich meal (which included lobster bisque, foie-gras, heart of palm, and veal) and then watched the fireworks on the beach. There were more fireworks in one place than I've ever seen: lots of big ones in the sky but also small ones (some incredibly loud) being set off by people all around us. The next day there were big piles of red firecracker wrappers so thick in the streets that looked like piles of leaves in the fall! And of course the holidays means a time to watch football: while we wanted to watch the Wisconsin Badgers in the Capital One Bowl on Jan. 1, unfortunately the closest we could come was watching an English "football" game between Manchester United and Newcastle.
Our last full day in Grand Baie, I (Rachel) had my first adventure of the new year: parasailing! The parachute was, at times, up as high as 60 or 70 meters above the water-- with the wind buffeting me around, the rope holding me to the boat looked pretty wavery, and I had to close my eyes to not think about snapping off and flying away, or crashing down into the water (and also just not to get sick). But it was also exhilarating and beatiful; looking out (which I did when the wind was quieter or I was lower down), I could see all the gradations in color and texture in the water, and the green of the sugarcane fields stretching inland. We also savored the finer side of beachfront fast food: small pineapples held by the stem and carved so they looked a little like a lolly-pop (see photo), roti/dhal puri (Indian tortillas filled with beans and hot pepper sauce), and delicious homemade ice-cream pops with flavors like coconut-vanilla and almond-pistachio. Back in Port Louis, we picked up our passports from the Indian High Commission, happily replete with Indian visas, and got ready to fly east to Australia.
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