homeward bound

Our adventure in Oz is about to end. We will have flown over 24,000 miles on 11 different flights, driven 3300 miles in five rental cars, stayed in 18 different lodgings, and spent much to many dollars. We had no significant mishaps or illness, and only one nearly missed flight that we caught just as the gate was closing.

We visited Sydney, Darwin, Kakadu NP, Litchfield NP, Cairns, Port Douglas, Daintree NP, Alice Springs, Uluru, Hobart, Port Arthur, Freycinet NP, Balarat, Grampians NP and Melbourne. Sydney and Melbourne are beautiful cities. We loved Kakadu, Uluru and Tasmania. Most disappointing was probably the Daintree rain forest where we saw virtually no wildlife, and snorkeling at the Great Barrier Reef, which did have large,beautiful coral, but not nearly as many incredible, colorful fish as we’ve seen in the Caribbean.

 
 
 
 
Most memorable impressions include: seeing the magnificent Sydney Opera House from across the harbor; the billabongs in Kakadu with all their birds, and the boat trip on the South Alligator River with numerous lurking crocodiles, sea eagles, kites, kingfishers, and then a fabulous sunset; viewing the giant monolith at Uluru, while it is just a huge rock in the middle of the desert is quite spectacular and amazing; hiking in Tasmania over the Freycinet Mtns and then down to Wineglass Bay; viewing aboriginal art and learning about aborigine culture, and Australian history; and viewing a ton of wildlife including wallabies, wallaroos, kangaroos, emus, flying foxes (large bats), wombats ( 1 live, 1 dead), 2 echidnas, 3 snakes ( 1 venomous), 212 species of new birds including many kinds of parrots, cockatoos, rosellas and honeyeaters, fairy penguins, but no cassuarries, and no koalas, no stinging jellyfish or scorpions, and 7 bzillion flies.

The Australians themselves proved to be very friendly, polite, and occasionally willing to take an extraordinary amount of time to give us travel advice and tell us about Australia. For whatever reason, I was expecting to encounter some redneck, racist mentality (like one might encounter in Texas), but I never did. There are many, many immigrants here, especially in the cities and the service industry, both from Europe as well as all over Asia.

For the most part museums and national parks are free, and very well organized and maintained. The museums and national parks all have exhibits that inform one about aborigine culture and lifestyle. One gains great appreciation for a culture that dates back 50,000 years, was able to thrive in a very harsh environment, and which developed a reverence for the land and the wildlife, and was able to use the land for 1000s of generations without destroying it….something that our culture appears unable to do.

Of course the history of the treatment of aborigines by white Australia is truly appalling, and persisted through the middle of the 20th century. The practice of taking children into missions only ended in the 1960s, and aborigines didn’t receive citizenship until 1967. In the last few decades aborigines have been able to regain ownership and rights to royalties of some of the land they once occupied, through legal battles in the court, …but this appears to be a relative modest amount of land. Its hard for me to judge how successful they will be in this legal pursuit.

I started reading two books about aborigines. One was an anthropological account by an English explorer in central Australia written in 1903, who was a keen and sympathetic observer, and recorded aborigine life before it was destroyed. The other book is a collection of short personal statements by aborigines. The first 3 accounts I read were so painful and upsetting that I have not been able to return to the book.

For the most part aborigines are not seen. They don’t appear to have normal employment. We saw them mostly in Alice Springs selling art, or sitting in public parks. We also saw a few in national parks serving as tour guides. The few we did see in other cities appeared to be homeless people or alcoholics who may have been expelled from their communities. They are clearly not integrated into society, and we have been told they do not wish to be, but prefer to maintain their culture which they feel is superior.

We also learned a lot about white history in Australia, especially the prison system that transported 1000s of prisoners from England in the early 19th century , and resulted in building of the initial infrastructure, and then the early settlements.

Australia today is very prosperous. The recession was relatively mild and now appears to be over. Unemployment is about 5% and falling. The value of the US dollars has dropped about 15% since I began planning this trip in August, and as a result everything here seems very expensive. Sodas are $3-$4, beers $5-$7, and gas about $5/gallon. The minimum wage varies by job description, but seems to be in the $15-$20 range.

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Six weeks is a long time to be away.

We miss home, family, friends, and even our cat. We miss US news, the Globe, and easy Internet access. We don’t miss cooking, washing dishes, and I hate to think about the massive amount of leaves waiting to be raked, gardens to be tended to, and imminent cold weather.

I have to admit we are even looking forward to our 24 hour trip home ( 14 hrs to LA, 4 hr lay-over, and 6 hrs to Boston). At least the long flight will be on the very comfortable A-380. We have good books to read, and I do plan to use sleeping pills to ensure 6-8 hrs of sleep on the way.

See you soon.

...no more driving !!!

Our last 3 days are in Melbourne.

This morning we drove the 3 hours from Grampians to Melbourne, checked into our hotel in St. Kilda, an ocean-side suburb with lively street scene and many excellent restaurants, and then drove into downtown Melbourne to get rid of the rental car. It is an enormous relief to be done with driving in Australia.

We drove over 3300 miles on the wrong side of the road without killing a marsupial, hitting a human being, or inflicting any damage on any of the five rental vehicles. I only ended up on the wrong side of the road twice, and was never ticketed for unknowingly turning left on red, which it turns out is not allowed in Australia. I did drive across a sidewalk once in Ballarat when the road ended suddenly and inexplicably.

No doubt my successful driving was in large part due to the innumerable driving tips I received from my passenger. I am happy to report that while there was much whinging, there were only two loud gasps and no uncontrollable sobbing (as occurred in Costa Rica). My driving has definitely improved.

..more photos from Grampians

We hiked up to the Pinnacle, about 1000 feet above Halls Gap.

Emu seen in the valley.

Crimson Rosella

The laughing kookaburra is a very common bird in Australia, whcih we even saw in Sydney on the roof of a museum. It is a very large kingfisher, with a very loud raucous laugh. It is especially loud when several get going at once. For this photo the light was perfect, and the bird was extremely cooperative.

Grampians National Park

After arriving at Melbourne Airport, we drove about 3 hrs nw to Grampians National Park, where we had been told there was an abundance of wildlife. We were very concerned that we might travel 25,000 miles without actual seeing a live kangaroo, or an emu. The closest we had come was kangaroo road-kill near Alice Springs (which had actually been pretty exciting because a very large ( >1m) black wedge-tailed eagle had beed feasting on it).
Along the route to Grampians we passed these amazing fields, which we later learned were canola.

Grampians NP is the end of a mountain range that stretches across central Australia. We stayed in Halls Gap, a tiny town located in a beautiful mountain valley. The weather was fabulous, sunny, high 60s, no flies, no "mossies", and indeed there was an abundance of wildlife. Kangaroos grazed on the grounds among the cottages where we stayed. Large flocks of white cockatoos flew down the valley chattering away. Brilliant red-blue rosellas fed on the grass, and laughing kookaburras whooped it up in the trees, creating even more of a racket than the drunken Aussies next door.

We went for a stroll in the NP along a path which crossed a beautiful wooded meadow where there were dozens of kangaroos grazing and several emus feeding. When I went back the next day I saw a herd of about 50 kangaroos racing across the meadow into the woods, and the 10 minutes later racing back in the other direction. The grazing kangaroos, emus and I watched in astonishment.

Later I watched this large male for about 10 minutes follow the female, expecting some interesting activity to occur, but she had too many evasive moves and he eventually gave up.

tour of fairy penguins

We did an evening "flashlight" tour at a site 30 mi north of Freycinet where 1200 fairy penguins breed.

The penguins are about 12" tall. They spend their days feeding at sea and then at night they march up the beach in groups of 8-12 to reach their burrows. They are totally indifferent to flashlights or the presence of humans, and waddled right along side us. It was an amazing experience.

They return daily to the same site where they were born. After the eggs are laid, males and females take daily turns sitting on the eggs, one sits, the other feeds all day and returns at dusk.

After the chicks are born they regurgitate food to feed them.

We weren't allowed to take photos, but I found these shots on the Internet.

..some wildlife photos

Common road sign in Freycinet.

Very friendly Bennett's Wallaby greeting hikers in the parking lot.

Echindna, the other egg laying mammal, seen along the trail.

Superb Fairy Wren, but apparently more superb, but less splendid than the all-indigo, Splendid Fairy Wren, which we have not yet seen.

Freycinet National Park

We spent our last 3 nights in Tasmania at Freycinet National Park which is a 20 mile long peninsula extending into the Coral Sea. It reminds us a little of Arcadia NP but the pink granite mountains( 2000') are more rugged, the coastline has imposing cliffs and there are numerous long white sand beaches.

We did a great hike over the ridge to Wineglass Bay. Photo at left is view of the beach and bay from the ridge. Down on the beach we encountered friendly Wallabies looking for lunch, and little black Australians robins with brilliant scarlet breasts.

On the trail we encountered a venomous Tiger Snake..first venomous snake I've ever seen in the wild. As the snake bite kit was back in the cottage, it was fortunate that the snake slithered off the trail rather than attacking.
Our spacious cottage was perched on a high bluff with magnificent views of Oyster Bay and the beach below. The prices was only $US 140/nt !

The local cuisine in Freycinet was excellent, either fresh local seafood or lamb from local ranches. I had the best lamb ever..and it was one of the cheapest items on the menu.
View of Coral Sea from on of the lookouts in the park.

This is a magnificent vacation area..too bad its 9500 miles from Boston.

Thursday we fly to Melbourne and then drive northwest to Ballarat, which was center of 1850 Australian gold rush, and then on to another national park, Grampians, known for its abundance of wildlife.