As planned, I tossed out my ticket from Melbourne to Sydney and set out to hitchhike from Melbourne to Adelaide. I made it to the highway enterance at the Melbourne airport and was a bit overwealmed by the security (fences and signs etc. Keep in mind I just came from Mexico) and totally thrown off by the left-hand-side driving which I had completely forgotten about. What is more, almost all of the vehicles were buses and taxies. I couldn't find public transport or people driving their cars anywhere. After trudging around in opressive heat for a while without a clear plan of how to get clear of the city I finally gave in and took a shuttle bus... 16 dollars later, thats over 160 pesos to me, I was in the city centre. There I caught a train to the end of payment zone two and got in some good people-watching. What struck me was how scantily clad and self'confident all the beach-culture girls were and how awesome the Aussie accent is. The buildings were flashy and the cars were modern and without dents or scratches or clowds of blue smoke. Everything was clean and expensive. As you can tell my observations are relative to Mexico not necessarily Canada.
I got off the train in a town called Ballarat and started walking in an arbitrary direction since I had no map of the town. I stopped in at a grocery store and was happy to find that you could get beens and chickpees for even cheeper than in the US, though other items were excruciatingly expensive and there was no 100% peanut, peanut butter, Arr!
While I was inside the grocery store the roof started making a strange, intense noise. It was a flash torrential downpour. I waited under the awning of the store with a bunch of bewhildered locals. I asked them about it and they said that this never happens. It had been ridiculously dry and there was a fairly serious water shortage going on.
The rain eased off (and soon stopped) and I set out again aimlessly. I asked at the first gas station I found and then was able to make my way to the highway.
The residential area looked like a cross between Canada and England, although I'm not sure why.
I set up my pose on the side of the highway. It was quite wet after the downpoor even though the rain had stopped. As I watched the cars merge at an onramp 500m away, I saw, to my horror, a truck the size of a moving van fishtale out of control on the wet pavement after a bad merge and end up in the ditch. He had almost collided with a small SUV. The SUV pulled over after the instant of danger, still 100m away from me, and the occupants went back to see if the truck driver in the ditch was ok. I jogged over too, to see if they needed any help, but thankfully the driver was fine. The truck was too big to push out of the median and was spinning its tires in the grass. The truck driver had a cellphone and a motor league membership so he was going to be fine.
"Well we can't help him, but maybe we can help you" said the slightly intoxicated passenger of the SUV. "Where are you off to?"
"Well Adelaide eventually, but anywhere along the way there would be fine"
"Adelaide? You're going the wrong way mate, this road leads to Melbourne. We can take you to Melbourne."
It turned out that somewhere between taking into account the left hand driving and everything being upside down on this side of the world I had gotten my directions muddled.
I was offered a beer, which I accepted, and they convinced me that not only was I on the wrong side of the highway, but I had set out on the wrong road. According to them this road was painfully boreing and the coastal road was spectacular. They offered to drive me back into Melbourne and then well out of their way to the start of the Great Ocean Road (on the coast) just beyond Geelong. I was hesitant at first because although the alternate rout was far more scenic, it was a lot less direct and it would probably eat up the extra days I had saved with my flight to Melbourne instead of Sydney.
In the end I decided to take them up on it (only the passenger was drinking, not the driver), and schedule dangerously. If I got low on time, I told myself, I could splurge and take a bus.
After they had established that I wasn't from the USA, they were enthusiastic about showing me that Australians are extremely friendly and generous. Besides another beer, they took me for a fish and chips dinner and drove to the filming location of some of the scenes from Point Break (early Keaneau Reeves, surfing, dressing up like presidents and robbing banks in California). They then drove me back to the propper road and were concerned about where I would sleep.
The friendly drunken man was orriginally from the UK, but his wife (the sober driver) was a native Australian and they made for a hilarious charactor foil as they discussed Australian identity from a foreign and native perspective, partially for my benefit, but partly just for fun. It was one of the rare opportunities that the two of them had overlapping vacations and that they were able to get away from the kids.
I was picked up fairly quickly despight the dim dusk light by a pickup truck (yuk yuk). I almost jumped in the back as is the custom in Mexico, but remembered that I was back in the Health and Safety-concious world now. I was invited into the cab.
I was only driven about three minutes down the road and the driver was as surprised as I was. "Oh, I thought I was further from home than that, sorry"
"Oh no, every little helps, thanks a lot"
I walked out of the small town and set up camp in a eucalyptus forest, wondering what insect pests awaited me in this part of the world.
I slept well, because I had taken the sleep deprevation approch to jetlag where you stay up for the whole flight and until the next dusk and then are happy to get sleep no matter what time your body thinks it is.
The forest gave off a heavy eucalyptus smell and the floor was covered in shedded bark and dead eucalyptus leaves. There were mosquitos here, which rang alarm bells until I remembered that there is no malaria in Australia.
In the morning I walked further along the road to find that I had not totally left the town, I had camped in the nomansland between the edge of a park and the highway.
I was picked up before I had chosen a spot to wait by a cute Australian girl my age in a small, worn, standard shift car. She told me about her experiences travelling in Europe and drove me past where she should have turned for work, listening to my stories. She appologised for not driving me further out of her way and said that it was because she would be late for work. I told her that her appology was clearly unnecesary.
She let me off at a pull-off with a good view of oncoming traffic, and before I had settled I was picked up by another guy on his way to work. He was in his thirties and was a cook at a hotel a few towns down. He had driven all the way from Geelong, which was an unfortunate distance, but a beautiful drive. It was very much like the Northern Californian coast, but much, much warmer. Granted I was in California in October and Victoria, Aus in the middle of their summer, so it is an unfair comparison.
By coincidence it was Australia Day, and a long weekend, so I was asking everyone what people normally do on Australia day. Lots of people said nothing in particular, but others said either drink or have a barbi (que). Some said they surf, but my ride, a chef, had to work.
My next ride came from a couple of Indian Australians. They were also very friendly, but they were listening to the worst soft rock imaginable. As we wound our way along the scenic road, taking in outcroppings and perfect beaches dotted with sunbathers and surfers, another Australia Day Great Ocean Road frequenter made it's presence known: a convoy of at least twenty croch-rocket style motor cyclists blew past us, passing on blind corners and taking the hairpin bends at speed. Every now and then they would pause to regroop and we would pass them again. This went on for most of the ride. They wernīt however to be confused with the black-leather-and-īmom tatooīed Harly Davidson riders of North America. They were sport bikers (not that there arenīt sport bikers in North America).
At one point my ride pulled over in a small tourist town at an information place because they wernīt sure which park was the one they were looking for. Their destination turned out to be further along and so they picked me back up again. We drove past the Twelve Apostles, but I donīt think they are visible from the highway. The Twelve Apostles are tall, narrow rock formations, standing level with the cliffs of the coast, but offshore. I did however see another bit of rock jutting spectacularly out of the ocean and I suppose that could have been one of them.
I was dropped off in another small tourist town and this time it was my turn to go to the tourist information place. It was in the afternoon and I had barely made it a third of the way to Adelaide. It was serious that I was a little behind schedule because missing the train that I had booked from Adelaide to Perth would mean hitchhiking a really, really serious desert or waiting at least three days and shelling out another 200 dollars for another train ticket. I asked about bus prices at the information place and the only service was a $100 touristy bus that didnīt come until tomorrow and was itself a long leisurely ride that would barely get me to Adelaide on time. I decided to hitchhike to the next stop on the bus's path tonight and then bite the bullet tomorrow and pay the bus fare from there. After all, a pricey bus ticket was part of the risk I had chanced, taking the scenic route instead of the direct rout. Besides, it had already been a spectacular journey.
Back on the road, I had about a fifteen minute wait before being picked up by a Dutch travelor who had rented a car. He didnīt recognise the name of the place that I told him I wanted to go to, but he was following the Great Ocean Road to its end. In the car I explained that I ultimately wanted to make it to Adelaide by tomorrow (keeping the next morning before my train left as leeway). He said "Great Iīm going to Adelaide too." Jackpot. No tourist-bus fare!
Down the road we pulled in to a viewpoint and saw another geological phenomenon called the London Bridge. Twenty years ago it had been a double land bridge, but in 1990 the first bridge collapsed and fell into the sea. The funny thing was that at the time there were two tourists on the farthest part of the land bridge and they were marooned there. I canīt remember for how long but they were eventually rescued by helicopter.
It was really beautiful, clear and sunny outside and too hot for long pants or black clothing, but the flies took away from it. I vaguely remember in Canada saying once for some reason that I had no problem standing non-biteing flies, no matter how bad they got, so long as they wernīt eating me. I take that back. These flies would zip arround a couple of milimeters away from your open eyes, ears, nose and mouth so that you regularly get them behind your sunglasses and would almost inhale them. Part of the problme is that they are ten times as fast as Canadian flies. So as you brush them away from your face they are already on the other side of your hand, back in your face. Apparently it is because of the dry climate. The flies go crazy for the slightest bit of moisture.
We got back into the air-conditioned car and gradually sucked the flies out of the cab one by one through the window. My Dutch friendīs ipod had some really awesome cheezy 80s music and some super sweet techno. We pumped it and cruised along, out of Victoria State and into the state of Southern Australia on the dry sun-scorched inland rout toward Adelaide. There were lots of vinyards and sheep farms. The sheep were huddled under the shade of huge spectacular free standing trees although it was well past the hottest part of the day.
I had been told by each ride along the coast to keep an eye out for Koalas, but I didnīt see any and now we were well away from the propper eucalyptus forests. I was also constantly on the look-out for Kangaroos, but although there was lots of Kangaroo road kill, I didnīt see any living ones. Pine tree farms lined the road in many places, growing in all stages from cleer cut, to sapling, to mature and ready for harvest.
The journey was more or less uneventful the rest of the way inland to Adelaide, except when we stopped to pee and were punched in the face by the obnoxious dry heat. It was like inhaling into a blow dryer.
My Dutch friend was complaining about how dangerous women are. He had just falen in love in Melbourne and after living with his lady for months she wouldnīt come and live with him in the Netherlands. He had been travelling in Australia for a year and had spent 20,000 although 3,000 of that came in one series of five days when all but the most expensive hotels were booked up and he had gone to see the Australian open tennis competiton and taken his lady for a really fancy night out and given her a ritzy present.
When we made it to the suburbs of Adelaide he asked me if I had booked a hostel. He hadnīt either, but his GPS system had a directory in it and it took us right to the door of one. It wasn't the cheepest but it included breakfast and a free shuttle ride to the train station or airport. It cost $21AUS.
That night I watched Australian lads and ladetts get leary and sing patriotic songs over numerous pints. (Remember it was still Austraia Day)
call: Ozzy, Ozzy, Ozzy!
answer: Oi, Oi, Oi!
Ozzy!
Oi!
Ozzy!
Oi!
Ozzy, Ozzy, Ozzy!
Oi, Oi, Oi!
(followed by increased beer drinking)
With my spare day I visited Adelaideīs Museum, Art Gallery, Botanical Gardens and Don Bradmen collection. All free! The art gallery was very good and very diverse, the museum was spectacular, with everything from exhibits about deep sea life to traditional lifestyles of Australian indigenous peoples, indigenous peoples of Papua New Guinney and other Polenesian regions. There were exhibits about weird Australian animals and early colonial life and some others. The Botanical Gardens were beautiful as well, even though the water restrictions keep the fountains dry. I got a kick out of the Don Bradmen gallery, he is totally the Wayn Gretzky of Cricket and of Australia, except that he was a better roll model and didnīt sell out to McDonalds and Ford and move to the Southern United States and coach a second rate NHL teem.
It turned out that the Tour Down Under, Australiaīs big cycling race was going on in Adelaide that day as well, so I watched them whizz by a loop closed off near downtown a few times.
Next I hurried back to the hostal in time to catch the shuttle to my train. The train ride was long: an afternoon, night, full day, second night and a morning in length. Also, I had cheeped-out and not bought a sleeping cabin. It became an exercise in sleep deprevation, but it was still a beautiful journey. I saw the huge wedge tailed eagle perched on some dead standing wood and some wild cammels, decendants of ones that the settlers had released in the early colonial days, but that was the only wildlife. The desert sunsets and sunrises were majical, but other than that the train ride highlighted just how increadibly big Australia is. For the fealing of vast openness, it was even more striking than the drive accross the Canadian Prairies and a much more intense fealing of isolation than the Mojave desert. As you cruise along the dead straight tracks the trees become more and more stunted, turn to shrubs, then to sparse grasses and slowly, so slowly that you donīt directly notice it happening, the grass turns back into shrubs and then there are a few taller shrubs. The tall shrubs start to outnumber the short ones and then you realise that you are in an arid forest again.
We did a couple of stops, one was in a town that was all but deserted after the railway was privatized and the government stopped supporting the little railway pitstop. There are now three residents in this town and two of them were working the souvenir shop as the hundreds of train-goers flooded out into the heat. We stretched our legs, browsed the little store, and wandered around aimlessly. The town has a school house and a bunch of amenities and buildings, but they have all been shut down and abandoned. I walked in an arbitrary direction away from the town into the desert to get an idea of what it looked like in the context of the desert and it was spooky. It felt like the zoom feature on a computer simulation. The desert and background and hundreds of kilometers of ruler strait train track stayed the same but the town grew smaller and smaller as I walked away. When the horn blew, everyone made sure they wen't left there and bustled back onto the train.
As we travelled along in the Nullarbole (no trees), I met a couple of Canadians from Fort St. John. They had the board game: Settlers of Catan, and we played it a few times, once with two Koreans our age and once with a German. Almost everyone in the carriage was a younger, low-budget traveller. In conversation with the board game players, I made some tongue-in-cheek comment about Calgarians, but then the only other person in the carriage said "Hey! Iīm from Calgary!" I explained to her that I was from Edmonton and then explained to our German friend that our cities have a couple sports rivaleries and we like to keep up appearances of disliking each other although we are very similar, and I have lots of friends in Calgary that I love. But Edmonton is better.
Fancy going half way around the world and then getting caught by a Calgarian for Calgary bashing. It sort of made sense because after Germans, Canadians seemed to be the most common on the bus, followed by South Koreans and a mix and match of other tourists with only the odd Aussie.
In Perth I phoned my cosin and he gave me instructions to catch the buss to a town called Bunbery. I did so and Joly and Reem Picked me up from the Bus station after the two hour trip. It was another hour to their small town called Bridgetown, but I got to see my first emu at the side of the road.
I spent a couple of days working with Joly who is a tree surgeon and got to visit some random towns at the bottom of the eastern hemisphere. Down there they grow just about every fruit you can think of and buy it local and organic. Its not cheep though.
One day, after still having seen no living kangaroos at all, Joly took me to a tree plantation that his friend runs. We went in the dusk when the kangaroos become active, after a day of hideing from the heat. The reason that the plantation was a good guess to find 'roos was because most farmers shoot them and so they become timid and scarse, but not his friend. On the drive there I caught a glimpse of one disappearing into the bush, but there was more to come. Once we got there we saw about six of them, just chilling out, on either side of a fence. I had wondered how kangaroos get in and out of fields like this one that are often guarded by fences at least five feet high. But as I watched I got to see a kangaroo approach the fence casually and make a tremendous leap over the fence with no apparent effort. We watched the group turn and hop into the forest. This wasnīt my last kangaroo sighting however, on a shortcut road out towards the coast, we saw a little wallaby in the middle of the day, and then almost hit another, regular kangaroo. This kangaroo was hopping in the same direction as we were driving, but slightly into us at an amasing speed, just a little bit slower than the truck, which was moving at about 50km/h. As we slowed to avoid it, it changed course back into the forest and we got a good view of it. But the amasing thing was that it didnīt slow down to navigat the undergorath in the forest. It somehow managed to just keep on bounding off through the trees, logs and bushes at the same temendous pace.
On that trip to the beach we did some snorkling and I saw some neat fish and almost every fish was of a different species. More exciting than my fish though was what Joly saw. A blueish, greenish octopus. He got a full view of it before it slipped into a hole. The beach there, midway between Perth and the Southeastmost point of Australia, is a fine, soft, brilliant white and the Indian Ocean compliaments it with surreal shades of green and blue. Joly and Reem had taken me to a more or less empty beach, only accessable by all-wheel-drive and we went for a nice walk along it with the dogs.
We took a different rout on the way back and stopped by one of the limestone caves in the area and did the self-guided tour. Signs explained about the small, fragile, bizarre ecosystem and encouraged us to turn off our headlamps and look and listen. We did so and it was pretty creepy. Not a trace of light made it to the end of the cave where we were sitting and the only sound was the eary dripping of stalagmites. The cave was really cool.
Another special thing about the south west corner of Australia is the trees. Joly is an arborist I think it is called: tree surgeon. So I got to see him climb some huge beautiful trees, but nothing like the ones we travelled to see. There was the king Jarrah, an enormous tree that would have been tremendously big even 400 years ago when the settlers of Australia would have discovered it. I think it was 700 years old or something ridiculous. The other magnificent trees we visited were Karri trees. These are the second biggest deciduous trees in the world. In one old groath forest we saw the famous four aces. These four trees are between 300 and 400 years old and stand in a perfect row. The reason for this is that they all grew out of another falen old groath karri tree centuries ago, so with the combined ages of the trees, the feeling of history was thick in the air, but a different kind of history than that of mayan or roman ruins, this is an organic, living, growing, vital sort of history.
The other giant Karri tree that we visited was a forestfire lookout for wardens. The top had been lopped off this monster and a lookout hutt had been attached. There were metal spikes driven in around the tree to be used as stairs and we got to climb all the way to the top above the lofty canopy where we took in a sea of forest. Despite all of the attachments, this tree is alive and well, which is important because living trees are a lot more stable than dead ones. The lookout had been used for most of the last century, starting in the 1900s, but now they use airplanes. The climb up was something in itself, with a good vertigo rush. Apparently two people have died climbing the tree, although they both died of heard attack. One of them died at the top and the other after he had made it back down to ground. Probably from the exershion.
Another trip that we made was to visit the lighthouse out the southeasternmost point of Australia where the Antarctic Ocean mees the Indian Ocean. Apparently whales can be seen there. I didnīt see any, but there were lots of vicious rocks around water level kicking up waves and plumes of surf into the air. Also there were lots of cuttlefish shells and neat beach fare.
I was taken to see tree grasses which look prehistoric and only grow one foot every century, but some of them were at least 7 feet tall. Their bark is impervious to fire and their sap can be picked off and chewed like tangy chewing gum.
The last night Joly, Reem and I stayed outside for the sunset and sat in their garden to watch the stars. I wanted to get a good look at the southern cross before I went back to urban Australia and light pollution.
My journey back eastward accross Australia wasnīt as exciting, although a busride through Perth provided good people watching. Unfortunately, however that busride caused me to miss my plane. I caught the overnight flight instead. After trying unsuccesfully to warn my Dad that I was not on my flight and that he should not try to meet me in Sydney, I sat down with a cup of overpriced, but delicious coffee and watched the parrots swarm and squawk the last minutes of daylight away. They were back and forth chasing each other in a row of trees along the side of the airport parking lot.
The next morning in Sydney I mannaged to contact my Dad and commute to where he was staying with an old friend. The train ride took me accross the harbour bridge where I got my first partially obscured view of the Sydney Opera House.
The next day my Dadīs friend Peter Butt, took us on a hike through a park with views of the enterance of Sydney harbour. We stopped to watch a group of cruisers race to a windward mark. It was crazy that there was racing in the middle of the day on a regular weekday, and they wernīt professionals training for the olympics either, it was just a regular race because their tacks wernīt polished and the guys at the back were making some ugly mistakes. As we sat and watched, we eat some apples we had brought along and we were eyed by a goana (very similar to an iguana). It eat one of Peterīs apple crumbs and then made a run for my apple... which I happened to be holding, about to take another bite. I had been sitting with my legs slightly appart on the ground with the apple in my left hand and the goana had run at me, stepped on my right leg and then jumped from my leg accross my body toward my apple, which I pulled away, and then it scampered unsuccesfully off with its momentum (though not very far).
We made it to a beautiful, windy beach and eat lunch. Then we caught the next ferry across the harbour to downtown and got a great view of the Sydney Opera House and the rest of the scenic skyline and harbour front.
While we were at Peterīs house, we got to see the Australian Governmentīs formal appology to their Aboriginal peoples. The shameful histories of Australian and Canadian aboriginal affairs are sickeningly similar. Both countries tried to forcefully destroy Aboriginal culture by separating families and forcing children to attend christian residential schools which only ended within the last few decades. The parallels donīt end there, but I donīt feel like getting into it and I wouldnīt do it justice. Besides there sinister similarities, I found that Australia was very similar to Canada. Both countries have vast uninhabited deserts (althogh one is hot and one is cold). Both have adopted extreme tempereture into their culture. We are both characteristically friendly and enjoy outdoor lifestyles. We are both rich in resourses and were obviously colonized by the Brits. We love our sports and beer, be it hockey, Canadian-football, cricket, rugby etc. I found that most of the areas where Australia and Canada had differences, they have analogies.
I wonīt talk about the regatta that my trip was really about, other than to say that on the last day there were 5 meters swells. It was actually as though small hills were mooving around under the competitors.
Once, when the regatta was delayed and we were waiting for better wind, I got to see a stingray in the harbour. A local volunteer saw me unsuccesfully taking pictures of its faint shadow under the glare of the sun. He came over and threw some old figh scales into the water and told me that it was a hawk ray not a stingray. Seagulls and pelicans imediately pounced on the scales, assuming it was something tasty. The hawk ray was well out of sight and I thought it was too late, but maybe 30 seconds later it came over and sniffed around the spot where the scales had been thrown and I got a good look at it. The volunteer told me that hawk rays are quite dangerous. I asked im if they could kill you. He said "Oh ya mate!" My other wildlife encounter during the regatta was less glamerous. I got a blue bottle jellyfigh on my leg while lifting out a mark anchor. At first it stung pretty badly, but it was bearable, what got me was when a couple of seconds later my inner thigh began to ache, which was really wierd because it had only toughed my knee. Fortunately my driver knew that although painfull, they arenīt serious. Otherwise I would have been really scared. I imagined blue venom running up my leg, soon to reach my heart, or getting some sort of nerve dammage, but the aching eased off slowly and left, and so did the stinging.
I had one more day with my Dad before I flew back to Mexico, and we decided to spend it hiking and checking out the Australian Reptile Park. We saw lots of cool snakes and lizards and a big old crocodile, but also some Koalas, flying foxes, petting Kangaroos and a whole bunch of pretty, though sadly captive, birds. The craziest of the birds was a flightless bird like an emu, but much much bigger and with a bright crest. Apparently they are really mean and they can kill you with a kick of their vicious feet. We saw a wambat, which was almost exactly like a humungous guinnie pig, and the two members of the not-mammal, not-marsupial family of monotremes: the platipus and the ichinda.
After having oogled to our hearts content my Dad and I set off to do a small portion of the Great North Walk. We saw a beautiful waterfall pour off some fine slabs of rock into a pool below and I imagined finding this place 60 000 years ago as one of the first Aboriginal people in Australia. Although I couldnīt imagine how the indigenous people had navigated the endless rolling hills with steep gullies and cliffs. Little by little I suppose, living off the rich land. As we walked, I caught sight of another kangaroo darting off into the bush and Dad let me leed the way because big fat black and yellow spiders had closed off the path with impossibly ambitious web networks. I felt a bit like the dwarves in The Hobbit, being gradually rapped in a cucoon af webs by big spiders that occasionally appeared to have giant fangs! Oh no, that was just a moth in itīs mouth.
Besides the three or four nice views out over the hills and valleys the neatest thing about the hike was just getting a fealing for the different characteristics of a forest on the other side of the world: eucalyptus instead of pine, fancy rock formations instead of brittle sandstone etc.
My flight home was uneventful and less fancy than the flight out. Back in Mexico City, i took the metro from the airport back to the same hostel I had used before and I was befriended by a fellow commuter. He was from Chiapas and told me that he had been robbed earlier that day by a taxi driver and his cohort. It was unsettling to have a knife pulled on him, but the real tragedy was that they stole his computer with months of research about indigenous language on it.
I made contact with Chris by email and decided not to take a full day to catch up on slep, but just so set straight out for Chris and Costa Rica.
Australia's Flag
Map of Australia