first days in Australia

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It’s the smell, the fragrance of a new continent that you catch first.
For Australia it’s a resiny, smoky, flowery background -- sun-burned eucalyptus -- at least in Victoria in springtime.

Jump in a cab, speed along freeways, with that “holy shit we’re actually here” feeling (and a touch of angst about driving on the left) then we’re on the street with a pile of luggage - the adventure begins. We are to meet our host at the university.

Melbourne means love at first sight. The Victorians called it Melbourne the magnificent and they got it right

Blad’s old school and climbing/caving chum (who he hadn’t seen for near fifty years)
Took us to a quick lunch then wisked us off on a walking tour of the city core.

So excited, free of jet lag, with this wondrous austral spring climate blowing on a breeze from the Tasman Sea we wandered narrow alleys, strolled wide boulevards, died and went to heaven in huge markets full of every fresh food imaginable, then dived into arcades of boutiques, bar, cafes and clubs. The architecture is a marvelous mix of styles and periods - neo classical Italian, high Victorian, gothic revival, art deco moderne.
It is striking to a North American that this is a culture of little shops not’ big box’.

We go to meet Dave’s wife Beth (the State Ombudsman for Health issues) her office is 30 stories up a tower with a fantastic view of the city, the distant hills and the vast gulf of Phillip’s Bay full of great ships and sail boats leaning to the wind.

Eventually we catch a tram then a train and ride to Dave’s place in St Kilda -
a leafy ‘burb’, with the beach and the sea a few blocks to the south.


Here the residential architecture is Australian Federal - elegant brick bungalows with complex multi-gabled roofs of red tile and everywhere tropical vines, flowers and trees in tight little gardens. Birds with sweet chiming calls - magpies indeed! Wattlebirds, parroquites and ordinary pigeons.

We run into neighbors, wander to a fab pizza place, dine and talk (talk, talk)
They offer us a cottage to stay next week out on the Great Ocean Road that winds along the southern coast.

Finally we roll into bed and drift away. And we’ve only just arrived…………….

¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬Next morn………….
It’s hard to stay in bed…………The sun is just up. It’s warm. The birds are singing in the garden that’s fragrant with flowering jasmine, orange and lime trees and lots of roses . .
We suck on sweet/sour loquats and squeeze fresh lime juice. Somehow it feels like a time warp back to some childhood spring morning when the world was fresh and young.
But a good cup of coffee wakes me from that reverie!
We drive to an open air Saturday market fair. Everyone is so exuberant - don’t know if it’s the changing season or just the way it is here in the land of Oz! We buy hats for the sun. Drink melon juice with fresh ginger. Then drive down to the shore and walk on white sand, dip feet in the southern ocean and wander on the St.Kilda Pier.
Back home we pack a salad then navigate out of town towards the south finally onto narrow country roads and into farmland then across rough grassland and granite hills called ‘ Beyond the You Yangs’, to Mount Rothwell conservation area.
As the sun goes down about twenty of us gather there and “cook up a barbie”
Then as darkness falls we set off with a biologist guide and flashlights.
We were hunting for the rarest animals in Australia.
These are the small, nocturnal macropods that have been easy prey to the introduced predators - cats, dogs and foxes.
Wandering the pathways through the kangaroo grasses beneath skeletons of great, hollow, box eucalyptus in the torchlight, we saw squirrel-sized Eastern Quoll with babies, Barred Bandicoots, a couple of dozen Rufous Bettongs, a long-nosed Potoroo and Rock Wallabies with young.
And slowly the Southern Cross rose from behind the hills.
And the Milky Way wound round the sky. And we drove back into the urban lights to sleep our second night.

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