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.

Saturday in Hobart and Richmond

Early Saturday morning I went birding at the Hobart Water Reserve and saw a few Tasmanian endemics (birds only found in Tasmania). After that we had a very hearty "English" breakfast in the hotel. Then Nan went shopping at the very vibrant Saturday outdoor market in Hobart and snagged a beautiful hand knit sweater for Ivy and several other brilliant purchases. (The beast is getting very full...I doubt that it will make the 25 kilo limit for the trip home.) While Nan shopped, I went to the Royal Botanic Garden in search of more birds.

My earlier description of Tasmania as similar to New England is completely wrong. While Hobart is 42 degrees south, the climate is nothing like Boston. The average summer high is in the 70s and winter low in the high 30s, so there is an abundance of palms and other tropical plants, and parrots and lorikeets abound. The trees in the Botanic included both massive oaks and massive palms 3' in diameter.

In the afternoon we drove about 15 miles out of town to Richmond, which was the adminstrative center of Tasmanian in the 1820s when it ws a penal colony. Many of the orginal stone buildings remain and today Richmond is a very beautiful village with stone houses and beautiful gardens. The surrounding countryside is beautiful rolling hills, pastures, and vineyards.

The bridge was built by prisoners in 1823.

We spotted our first echinda as it was crossing the street, and it then posed for us in a nearby garden. It and the platypus are the only two egg-laying mammals (monotremes). Also spotted brilliant green red-faced parrot and another type of lorikeet.

Just one example of beautiful trees now in bloom in Tasmania. Nan is accumulating a great collection of amazing flower photos.

Tasmanian Aborigines

Tasmanian aborigones were treated brutally by early settlers, murdered and driven off their land. The sorry and horrific history we read in the museum today is the same as we have read in many other museums in Australia. There are about 300,000 aborgines in Australia today, including many of mixed blood. They do not appear to be integrated into white society except as tour guides to aboriginal sites and culture, artists, and now as owners of some of the national park lands we have visited ( eg Kakadu, Uluru). The aborigines have been mostly invisible to us, except in Alice Springs where we saw many selling art, and many that appeared to be homeless. In addition to the shocking treatment during the 19th century, through much of the 20th century there was an national policy to remove aborigine children from their families, the Stolen Generation, and raise them in Christian missionaries and foster homes. This policy continued into the 1960's.
Over the last 20 years many aborgine groups have fought within the legal system to regain ownership of their tribal lands, with some limited successes. There are several sites in Tasmania that have be regained, but this amounts to less than 1% of the land. In the Northern Terrority the national park areas of Kakadu and Uluru are now owned by the local aborigine groups (and much other land), and the parks are jointly managed by them and the NP service.

Needless to say this is all very disturbing. It m,any respects it may be no worse than the way the US has treated native Americans and blacks. One thing that makes it more shocking is to see that these brutal policies continued into the 1960s.

It is especially disturbing to realize that cultures that evolved and survived over 50,000 years in a very harsh and unforgiving climate have largely been destroyed by European colonization in less than 200 years. Of course given that we seem to be inevitably moving to destruction of our climate, maybe in another 10,000 years it will only be aborigines that survive.

drizzly day in Hobart

It drizzled on and off today. The photo is a view of the harbor with cloud -covered Mt. Wellington in the background. We took in the Tasmanian Museum, which had a bit of everything, history of Tasmanian prisons, exhibit on Tasmanian aborigones including their brutal treatment by whites, as well as the aboriginal culture and recent history of regaining some small bits of land, Tasmanian fauna including stuffed wombat (looks like hairy 100lb pig), an interesting exhibit on Antarctica, and some Tasmania art, everything very well explained.

Tasmania was first settled as a prison colony begining around 1803. Prisoners included both petty theives convicted of minor crimes and dangerous criminals. It gained a reputations as being the worst of the Australian prisons. We will visit one or two of the prison sites in the next few days.

Much of the early city was built by prison labor including the granite wharf and many of the granite buildings which still line the harbor
Prisoners in transition from England to Tasmania were kept for months on the "hulks", shown on the left, before being put into prisons on Tasmania. Prisoners were treated brutally, many died, a few were rehabilitated and went on to be successful settlers.

driving in Australia....and marsupials

We have now logged about 2000 miles on the left-hand side of the road. I think I have adapted reasonably well to this ( except I did end up on the wrong-side of the road at the Hobart airport due to lack of signage). Mostly we have been in somewhat or very sparsely populated areas with very little traffic making the driving easy. There were very few traffic lights in the areas we've been in, instead there are many roundabouts, and even major intersections have "Yield" rather than "Stop" signs.

Gas prices range from $A 1.30 to $A 1.60/liter, which I think translates to $4.20- $5.20/gallon, but we have been driving small compacts which seem to get very good mileage.

Driving with Nan and me could be very entertaining or nerve-wracking experience, depending on your perspective. Nan is constantly on the lookout for driving hazards, the most serious of course, frequently ends up being my driving techniques. When we were in the outback with long, straight, but narrow roads with no shoulders, I was frequently reminded that I was about to drive off the edge of the road (never happened), so I solved this by driving with the right wheel, smack on the center-line, which worked quite well as there was rarely any oncoming vehicle.

In the Cairns' area we encountered some very winding coastal and mountain roads, all of which were very well posted with speed limits and big yellow arrows warning of sharp curves. I was probably the slowest vehicle on the road, and took advantage of pull-outs to left frustrated Aussie drivers pass. I also greatly limited my technique of crossing over the center double-line on curves when clear visibility. I occasionally won praise for "being a good driver", and would reciprocate with praise for Nan being a "good passenger". In spite of this there were still occasional gasps and moans. ( This of course was like a walk in the park compared to drving in Costa Rica,when Nan was occasionally sobbing...well, I couldn't be behind a bus going 20 mph for hours..I don't think she will ever drive with me in Costa Rica again.)

Another issue is car insurance, which I always decline, given that it would add about $25/day to the car rental. My theory is that between my credit card insurance and my own auto insurance I will be covered. But at each rental I am swept by doubt when the rental agents informs me that I am responsible for the first $5000 in damages.

My anxiety has greatly increased since our flight attendant ( very, very nice young woman from Melbourne) told us she had recently totaled her car on the freeway when she hit a kangaroo. The previous part of the conversation was about places to go on the south coast to see marsupials. Although we have seen a few wallabies and wallaroos, and dead kangaroos, the fact that we haven't seen more animals has been a disappointment. The same flight attendant told us where to go to see lots of marsupials which when in the right areas can be done by driving slowly at dusk. Apparently these animals love to leap out of the woods onto the road to terrorize motorists. Of special danger is the wombat, which we haven't seen yet, which as far as I can tell is like a medium-size hairy pig, very low and solid, which can cause an oncoming vehicle to become airborne.

So given that seeing more marsupials has become a priority for the next few weeks, you can understand why I have been obsessing a little about whether I need additional car insurance. I wonder if you can get a rider covering marsupial-inflicted damages?

42 degrees south

Hobart is 42 degrees south latitude, farthest south I've ever been, and has a climate not unlike New England, except much less snow. Tasmania or "Tassie" as the Aussies call it, is about 250 mi south of Melbourne and 200 miles end-to-end. The center and west are mountainous and mostly uninhabited, the east and south has some farmland.

They have been having a very wet spring and indeed it is raining this morning, but forecasts for the next few days is partly cloudy , highs around 60, nightly lows in the 40s. We do have lots of warm cloths, and Nan is welcoming the change.

The original plan was to spend 2 nights in Hobart and then spend 3 nights in a very nice mountain lodge in the NW (Cradle Mt. National Park), but yesterday I realized this would involve a 6 hr drive each way, and given the dubious weather, and the fact that we have seen lots of Mts in recent travels, we decided to cancel, which to my surprise I was able to do so without incurring any penalty...making me very happy.

Now we have 3 "free" days with no plan except to explore the area around Hobart. The architecture looks to be quite interesting, much from the 19th century, which is very unusual for Australia. Many of the buildings in Hobart are built of granite blocks, which reminds me of Scandanavia, including the outdoor cafes along the waterfront, with outdoor heaters, and people sitting around in their winter jackets.

We will spend some time learning about Tasmania's history as a penal colony, and of course I will be looking for birds unique to Tasmania. As some of you may know, I have become somewhat addicted to birding..is there a Birder's Anonymous? If it wasn't raining and cold this morning I would be out at the Hobart Water Treatment facility, which is known as the best birding sites in the area, offering up a handful of Tassie endemics. So far I've seen 176 new birds in Australia, which is a fair fraction of their 850 species. On the Internet I did see where one of the well-known bird tour groups had seen 500 species !! in only 2 weeks.

Caio!

some faces from Sydney

 
 
 
 

more Aussies with hats.