Australia--Downunder and Outback

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SUBTITLE: Australia: Home of the 1/2-Hour Time Change!

Dear Family and Friends,

It is hard to believe that our summer adventure is nearly over. As we write this blog on our travels downunder and outback, we are already in Hawaii with just a one day left before our return home. Very sad.

We spent 2 weeks in Australia, flying from Bangkok to Sydney. The kids were torn between 1) excitement that everyone would speak English (first time since England, back in early June) and they could safely drink the water and 2) sadness that this was our last country. Just for fun, we stayed 2 nights in Sydney, in the Rocks district, just 3 blocks from the main harbor where the opera house is. We loved the brick buildings and walkways in this historical section. Although we arrived completely exhausted from our long, over-night flight and minimal sleep, we dropped our bags at the B&B (9am) and tried to stay awake a little longer. After breakfast, we walked around the waterfront and took a speed boat tour of the nearby harbors. Back to the B&B for a 90-minute nap to get us through the rest of the day, then a guided tour of the opera house. It was incredible! It was to take 3 years and AUS $11 million to build, but ended up taking 20 years and over $100 million! There are 1 million triple-glazed, self-cleaning tiles covering the roofs. The winning design was #218, so who knows how many there were in all! The original design was a very vague sketch which defied any building's engineering to that time. The second day, we went to the Powerhouse Museum of design and science, which the kids loved so much, they didn't want to go to lunch! Then, we walked to a gorgeous Chinese Garden, an oasis in the center of the city. After, we took a monorail (remnant of the 2000 Olympics), partly to see the city from that vantage point and partly to add another form of transportation to our growing list!

On day 3, we flew to Alice Springs, in the heart of the Australian outback where we were surprised to discover that we had to turn our watches back 30 minutes! We had never heard of anything other than one-hour time changes....anyway, our accomodation that night was a large, private home with an in-ground pool, at the edge of Alice Springs Telegraph Station Historcial Reserve. There was the potential of other guests, but we had it to ourselves. Unfortunately, it was too cold to swim, but we took a nice hike in the Reserve and enjoyed having a kitchen to cook in. Alice Springs is home to the Assa Abloy Henley-on-Todd Regatta (Christine, before you get any ideas, Todd is the name of a river!), the world's only dry river bed boat race. It is an annual event which requires a dry river bed (easy, since it is rarely wet), bottomless boats, and plenty of human horsepower.

It was a 5-hour drive to Uluru (Ayers Rock), during which we passed through the Town of Stuart's Mill (consisting of only a gas station, store, and campground), which advertised that it is "grassed," quite the thrill in the barren, dry outback. Ayers Rock is the largest monolith in the world, standing about 1000 feet tall, but, like an iceburg, most of its bulk is below the surface. It is esimated to be 500 million years old and the surface, once we got close, looked like corroded metal, blotchy and with lots of holes and caves. Aboriginal people have lived in the area for at least 22,000 years. The rock is considered sacred and the "traditional owners," the Anangu people, prefer that visitors not climb it. The one route to the top, which has metal poles and ropes along a spine of the rock, is the traditional route taken by ancestral men upon their arrival at Uluru. Unfortunately, there are conflicting messages. The park entrance posts a sign daily indicating whether the weather (mostly, the wind) necessitates closure of the route to hikers, suggesting that climbing is otherwise permitted. But, the printed materials contain pleas to respect law and culture by not climbing. Apparently, at least 35 people have died climbing and many more injured. In the end, it was closed both days we were in the park, due to high winds, so the decision did not need to be made, nor the risk taken.

On our first day in the park, we took the 5.7 mile Base Walk, which, as the name implies, simply circuvents the rock, all the way around. Much of the way, you are forbidden to walk on or even take photos of the area/rock, for various sacred reasons. We stayed in a pre-fab cabin that night, eating in a tiny kitchen. The next day, we drove a bit farther into the park to Kata Tjuta ("Karta-choo-ta"), also known as the Olgas, where we took a 4-1/2-mile hike around some of the 36 domes. It was gorgeous, varied, and sunny. The weather in the outback was as big a surprise to us, as was the weather in Tanzania - much cooler in the day than we had expected and quite cold at night. The clothing layers went on and off all day, as you went in and out of shade and in and out of the car. The outback reminded us of the Serengeti, however, with the endless yellow grasses and few stubby trees. That afternoon, we drove 3 hours back towards Alice Springs to stay at the Erldunda Station B&B - just down the road of the junction called Erldunda (not enough to really call it a town). We had our own house on a working beef cattle ranch and took advantage of the wood stove to keep warm. Over breakfast, we learned that the owners' two children (14 and 17) were off at boarding school. They had been home-schooled by the School of the Air (online satelite link TV), as most outback kids are, but they reached a point where they needed /wanted a traditional school, so boarding school is the only option, in this case, about 800 miles away.

On Friday, the 15th, we drove the final two hours back to Alice Springs (in all, we drove just over 600 miles during the 3 days we were there and the only kangaroos we saw were, sadly, dead on the side of the road). We flew to Melbourne, giving back the 30 minutes we had gained in coming, to spend a week with Kate's brother, Steve, and his family. It was one of the 2 most relaxing weeks on the entire trip (the other was the cruise), since we didn't have to make many decisions and could stay in one place long enough to justify unpacking our bags. Oh, and we had access to a washing machine, for only the second time on the trip. Luxury is basic now: western-style toilets with a supply of toilet paper (we have been needing to carry our own for many weeks!), beds up off the floor, a warm shower, and a washing machine. Separate rooms for parents and children are a bonus (we didn't have that on this trip until Egypt - week 6).

One highlight of Melbourne was the result of an incredible coincidence. The orphanage we had volunteered at in Tanzania is sponsored by a newly-formed organization in Australia. We had been communicating with its founder for the past 2 years, shortly after it was created. By pure chance, the annual fundraising dinner in Melbourne was the night after we arrived, which meant many things to us: Kate's brother and his wife, Anne, plus some dear longtime family friends, Peter and Lesley, could have a most elegant dinner out and time to visit, we could finally meet the founder, John O'Reilly (who seated himself at our table!), and some of his 6 siblings who are also involved in the mission of the group, fun dancing to classic rock songs, and we loved the ongoing slide show and video of the children with whom we had so recently spent a week. We also got to see the drawings for the new center on the newly-purchased land. Remember that we didn't bring a stitch of nice clothing, but we managed to pull together nice clothes for both of us. Kate found a gorgeous silk dress in Thailand for $7.50, wore the jewerly she had bought from an orphanage in Chiang Mai, draped a shawl she bought in Tanzania, and then borrowed shoes from her niece. Ken wore the custom suit and shirt he had made in Chiang Mai, the silk tie Sam had bought, and then borrowed shoes first from Kate's nephew, and then from our friend, Peter. Wow! If only we had had these items on the cruise ship (but, then Joe, you wouldn't have had such a laugh!). The best part was being able to support a cause we so deeply believe in. While the adults attended the dinner, the kids went to the circus. Kids got home after midnight and the adults at 1:00 a.m.! Our wildest night in many months...

During the rest of our week outside Melbourne, we explored the city, everyone (except Kate and her brother) went in the Edge (see photo), visited many family and friends for both morning and afternoon tea (Gay and Rob, Marie and Paul, Lesley and Peter, and Joan and Clive), and spent the day at Soveriegn Hill, a living museum representing the first decade following the discovery of gold in 1851. It was so well done and we all loved it. You could go down into a mine, watch gold be melted and poured (the resulting brick was worth about $80,000!), bowl in an 1860 bowling alley, visit a school, pan for gold, visit trade and craft stores, and see cottages. We also had an overnight on Phillip Island, south of Melbourne, where we stayed in a gorgeous beach house, walked to incredible coastal view points, and then watched the penguin parade - every evening around 6:15, the smallest penguins in the world (1 foot high, weighing 2.2 lbs), come out of the ocean and walk to their dens. Some have been in as long as a month and then come out for only 2-3 days, before returning to the water. They are absolutely adorable. On our second day, we went to a place called Amaze'n Things - with bizarre, puzzling and mid-boggling activities, with optical illusions, mind games and puzzles. A big hit was the drop slide, where you are dropped off from a high bar and and convinced you will be seriously injured, but the curve of a back board catches you just in time to bring you safely to the bottom. Kate, feeling confident after surviving so many daring activities already on this trip, is sorry she tried it. Sam and Lauren could have gone all day. We did all agree that it did not qualify as a form of transportation to add to our list...

AS PROMISED:

THINGS WE ARE GLAD WE BROUGHT:

quick-dry clothes, especially zip-off pants - all worked great (Kate even has a shirt she never wore - still has the tags on it!)
extra camera battery
2 types of hats (baseball and wide-brimmed)
small bottles of concentrated liquid detergent ($1 each at Target) to handwash clothes and discard bottles as used
US $1 bills - great for tipping in countries that like US currency
clothes line
large envelopes for organizing paperwork by country (including one for each kid's scrapbook)
carry-on luggage only - if you have more, then you have too much!
sewing kits

THINGS WE WISH WE HAD BROUGHT:

box of thank-you notes for various hosts and guides
more books (if we had the space) - Lauren had read all of hers about 2 weeks into the trip
an empty suitcase for purchases (but wouldn't have wanted it until later in the trip)
more items for the orphanage (if we had the space)
small, inexpensive computer notebook so blogs could be composed off-line, as convenient

THINGS WE BROUGHT AND NEVER USED:

insect repellant (who would have guessed?)
mosquito net hats
2 small travel umbrellas (very little rain and then we had full rain gear)
rain covers for packs (ok, we used them for about 10 minutes in the jungles of Thailand)
waist belts for valuables (zip-off pants had all the deep, zippered pockets you would need, without the hassle, discomfort, and sweating of belts)
plates and bowls
Nalgene bottles (although great for storing breakable jewelry purchased later in the trip)
one-time use camera (to give to stranger taking our photo, but we never felt any risk of someone running off with our digital camera)
majority of bags of first aid and medicine which filled half of Lauren's large backpack (just a few bandaids, some ointments, and Advil is all we used)
camping towel - useless
Traveller's checks - we did end up using them, but won't get them in the future - vendors did not want or would take only with fee


NEXT: Hawaii, then home...

K4

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Photos

Chinese Gardens, Sydney
Peaceful gardens in Sydney City Center

Kata Tjuta - west of Uluru
Valley of the Winds Hike around 36 steep-sided domes with two viewpoints

Valley of the Winds
Striking Tree with red wind-blown rock

The Edge, Melbourne
glass box slides out of the 88th floor of a skyscraper, accompanied by the sounds of rumbling and shattering glass!

Phillip Island
South of Melbourne

Creative Construction Company
Do you get it? :) Lyle, this one's for you.