Cape Otway Lighthouse

We had a big breakfast,then walked two blocks to the local information center. Once again, we found an incredibly friendly and helpful person, eager to give us local knowledge to help us plan our day. I’ve never been in a friendlier country.

Our first stop was about 15 miles down the road, the Cape Otway Lighthouse. Its keepers proudly proclaim it to be Australia’s most significant lighthouse.

The lighthouse really is important in Australia’s maritime history. We learned quite a bit about it from a staff member named Pam. A lifetime of work in the Australian sun made her skin look like a pair of my old Earth shoes; we guessed she was in her late 70’s. She’s actually in her early 60’s. Wear sunscreen, people.

One of my favorite cool facts about the lighthouse is that it’s an artificial boundary. Australia has decreed that the water to the west of the lighthouse is the Southern Ocean, a branch of the Indian Ocean. The water to the east of the lighthouse is called the Bass Strait, part of the Pacific Ocean. If this becomes part of a Final Jeopardy question and you miss it, you can’t blame me.

We ended our tour of Cape Otway by indulging ourselves with a cream tea in the cafe. The scone was warm and moist, the clotted cream sweet, and the strawberry jam delicious. The hot tea was a bit substandard; a tea bag and a paper cup instead of proper tea in a pot. But no matter.

We then drove about 45 minutes to Triplet Falls. The last few miles were over a bumpy gravel road. We had to drive it at about 15 mph. It was a 45 minute hike from the car park to the falls, and I’m sorry to report that the juice was not worth the squeeze. It hasn’t rained in more than a month in most of Australia; you may have heard something about triple digit temperatures and raging brush fires. Neither is a problem here, but the lack of rain has reduced the waterfall to mild splash.

Seeing that was enough to deter us from going to any of the other waterfalls that had been on our agenda. We instead went to a short loop through the rainforest called Mait’s Rest. It was cool and dark, with majestic trees and ferns spreading wider than a beach umbrella. We heard lots of birds, but only saw one. A tiny thing; I have no idea what it is.

Having splurged on dinner last night, we opted for fish and chips tonight. Walking to the restaurant, Roslyn noticed that one of two young fellows walking toward us dropped something.

“You dropped a piece of paper. Is it something you need?” Roslyn said. One of them ran back and picked up.

“My ticket! Gonna need that!” he said by way of thanks.

“Good on ya, miss!” said the other fellow.

And good on ya, Apollo Bay. We’ve enjoyed it here, but we’re off after breakfast tomorrow, when it will be February in Australia.

The Great Ocean Road

We said goodbye to Melbourne this morning. Roslyn found the bakery our friend Annette had told us about. She said it made an almond croissant that was the best ever. They were huge,so we each bought one and planned to eat it for lunch on the road. We picked up our rental car and made our way south and west for the Great Ocean Road. I thought we might be driving too far west, so we pulled into an information center. A gentleman named Stephen greeted us, gave us maps and made notes on them about places of interest. Cost: $0.

Stephen put our minds at ease and made sure we were headed straight for the Great Ocean Road. It runs along the southeast and southern coast of Australia for about 150 miles. It was built by World War I veterans and is dedicated to those who didn’t come home, making it the world’s largest war memorial. It hugs the coastline, twisting and turning like California’s Highway 1.

You can’t make great time on the Great Ocean Road, but why would you want to? The views are stunning.

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We stopped at Aireys Inlet to eat our croissants. They really are the best we’ve ever had. If you’re ever in Melbourne, find the Agathe bakery and get some croissants. Tell ‘em Annette sent you. We also saw the lighthouse at Aireys Inlet.

We arrived at our destination for the day, Apollo Bay, late in the afternoon. Checking in at Captains at the Bay, we encountered more warm, friendly and helpful people, of which Australia seems to have an endless supply. They helped us get settled and recommended some dinner spots. We chose La Bimba, where we enjoyed oysters and paella while looking out over the bay.

Lost in the Lanes & Penguin Parade

Tuesday was a long, wonderful day. After breakfast we took Melbourne’s free tram down into the heart of the CBD and started wandering. In addition to its busy main streets, Melbourne’s Central Business District has lots of sidestreets and alleys, filleLd with interesting shops. cafes and take-aways. They’re generally called lanes, and the driver who had picked us up at the airport had suggested spending some time getting lost in the lanes. We did and we loved it.

After a few hours, we went back to the hotel and get our gear together for the excursion to Phillip Island. It’s about 90 minutes from Melbourne,and it’s where people go to see the Penguin Parade. The island is home to a large colony of Little Penguins, so named because they’re the smallest of the 17 penguin species. They also have blue rather than black feathers on their backs.

A national trust controls this part of the island, and they’ve set up grandstands and a visitors center. The money goes to the conservation effort, and the place is packed every night during the breeding season. Parents take turns baby-sitting and going out to get food. So one parent and its babies spend the day sleeping in their burrow or box. The other parent is out at sea from before dawn to dusk catching fish to bring back. Soon after sunset, when predator birds have gone to roost, the penguins return from the sea en masse. You can hear the babies crying hungrily for their moms or dads, and the naturalists say the penguin parents can tell which kids are theirs. But some of the hungry babies will go up to any adult who comes on to the dunes, and we watched one baby penguin get pushed away several times by adults who weren’t his or her mom or dad.

My one regret: you’re not allowed to take pictures of the penguins coming ashore. A camera flash could seriously disorient or possibly even blind one of the penguins. That could have lethal repercussions for both that penguin and his family. But you can take pictures in the hour or so while you’re waiting for night to fall. I didn’t know that, so I had left my camera gear behind. I took the picture above with my phone.

If you go to the Penguin Parade, spring for the higher-priced “penguin plus” seating. You get to sit much closer to where they come on to the beach, and you see a lot more.

It was midnight when we got back to our hotel. We were whipped. But we’d had a great day!

Planes, trains and automobiles

We had the morning to enjoy Brisbane. Because Australia Day fell on a Saturday, today .was a public holiday. The result was downtown Brisbane was as dead as downtown Savannah, GA on a Sunday morning in 1962. We walked about 15 minutes to Roma Street Parkland, a gem of a park in the middle of the Central Business District. It has playgrounds, botanical gardens and open space. We were enchanted.

This was the end of our time in the state of Queensland. People here seem to pride themselves on being just a little different from other Australians. Geographically, it’s the northeast quadrant of this country, sort of like New England and the mid-Atlantic states combined. But Queensland is the only one of the three states in the Eastern half of Australia that doesn’t do daylight saving time. You know how so many news stories of weird events begin with the words, “A Florida man…”? Substitute Queensland for Florida, and you get the idea.

Anyway, it was time to say goodbye to Queensland, so we got into our rental car for a drive to the airport. I only missed one turn. We had allowed plenty of time, so we were still plenty early to the airport for our two-hour flight to Melbourne.

Melbourne is the capital of Victoria, in the southeast corner of Australia. If the U.S. didn’t have the Florida peninsula, Savannah would be about were Melbourne is for Australia.

Roslyn took this picture from the balcony of our hotel room. We took the free tram down to the Southbank area, a promenade along the river filled with restaurants and other attractions. Lots people, lots of energy. Very nice. The public transit seems to cover a healthy part of metro Melbourne, but riding it within the Central Business District is free. Atlanta, please take note.

Catching Up

Sorry I’ve been away for a few days! The wi-fi at our last stop wasn’t the best, which made blogging difficult. But no worries; let me catch you up.

Friday morning we went back to Sydney’s airport to catch a plane to Hervey Bay. Virgin Australia boarded the front half of the plane through the jetway to the front door, and sent those of us seated in the back half out on the tarmac and up a staircase to board through the back door. It probably took about the half as long to board as it would have taken in the U.S.

Flying from Sydney to Hervey Bay, in terms of distance, is about like flying from Atlanta to Washington, D.C. Keep in mind Australia is about the same size as the continental U.S. Hervey Bay’s airport, like the city itself, is tiny; two or three gates. And despite the spelling, Hervey Bay is pronounced “Harvey.” No, I don’t know why. Nobody in Hervey Bay seemed to know, either.

Soon after landing, we were on a ferry for the 50 minute ride over to Fraser Island. It’s a UNESCO World Heritage Site,and the world’s largest sand island. It’s about 75 miles long and no more than ten miles wide. Our home there would be the Kingfisher Bay Resort, an eco-lodge very popular among Australians,judging from the number of people there. I spent the last few hours before the sunset walking the grounds looking for birds. And I found some, too!

The next day, Saturday, was Australia Day, which Aussies love and celebrate very much the way Americans love and celebrate the 4th of July. January 26, 1788 was the date the first British ship filled with colonists arrived in Sydney Harbor. There is controversy here, now, because the Aboriginal people here call that anniversary “Invasion Day,” and there’s some talk about moving the national holiday.

We spent the day on a tour of the island. The first few stops were on the East side—the Pacific Ocean side—of the island. The wide, flat beach , and the 75-mile length of the island is open to cars. There were dozens of cars. trucks and tour buses, but they were mostly bunched at a handful of spots. One was our first stop, Eli Creek. It’s a freshwater creek that runs ankle to thigh deep for it’s last few hundred yards to the beach,and hundreds of people were there floating in the cool water. We walked along with them.

Our next stop was a shipwreck.

The Maheno was a WWI hospital ship sold for scrap to Japan in 1935. It was being towed to Japan when a cyclone hit, breaking the tow line. It washed up right where you see it. It’s pretty much rusted away in the 83 years it’s been sitting there. Eventually, it will all be gone. Eventually.

After lunch, we had a walk through the rain forest, and then a swim in Lake McKenzie. It’s a large, freshwater lake with beautiful soft white sand.

The Aboriginal people who lived here call the island K’gari. It means paradise. I believe it. My only disappointment was not seeing an azure kingfisher. But I did manage to get some nice shots of some other birds, which may be on a calendar next year!

We left Fraser Island this morning, picked up a rental car in Hervey Bay, and drove the 3 1/2 hours down to Brisbane. Brisbane is the largest city in the state of Queensland. What little we’ve seen of it is very nice. Roslyn found a sushi restaurant nearby thanks to Yelp, and it was both inexpensive and delicious. Back at the hotel, Roslyn found out the hard way that our shower wasn’t working properly. We’re now in a new room with a free upgrade thanks to the very nice staff here.

The Australian Open tennis tournament is ended tonight in Melbourne,and that’s where we’re going tomorrow.

The Bridge

Our last day in Sydney began where yesterday ended, at the Opera House. This time, we were there for the tour. It lasted about an hour, and it was fascinating. The story of the architect who designed it, how has design was chosen, and how the Opera House was built is a bittersweet and compelling tale. It’s well worth your time and money. I kept thinking about how much my friend Art would enjoy it. With his architecture background, he probably knows everything I learned today. But I know he’d love the tour, anyway.

On the way back to the hotel from the Opera House, we saw an oddity the distinguishes Sydney in my mind. Every big city (and a lot of small ones) I’ve ever visited has pigeons in the downtown area scrounging for food. Sydney has pigeons, too. But it also has these:

This is an Australian native known as a Rainbow Lorikeet. This one was at an outdoor cafe near the Opera House, hoping for a chance to grab a scrap of food. Roslyn took this picture with her phone from about two feet away, and the bird could not have cared less.

Next, we checked off the last item on Roslyn’s “Things I Really Want to Do in Sydney” list. We walked across the Harbor Bridge.

Some of our friends who’ve been here encouraged us climb the bridge, rather than just walk across it. That’s right, for the ridiculously low price of about $300, you can climb to the tippy top of the steel arch, up next to those flag poles. You can’t take a picture, because they won’t let you carry anything. You’ll be up there with the birds and helicopters, just 440 feet above the water. But there’s nothing to fear. You can’t fall off because you’re wearing a body harness. No one’s died yet!

No, thank you. We were quite content with the view from the pedestrian walkway.

Even on a cloudy day, it’s a great view. And it doesn’t cost a penny. Walking across the bridge and back took less than an hour.

Then Roslyn’s cousin Carol and her husband Victor picked us up so we could spend the afternoon together. We drove out to Manly, a suburb popular for it’s beautiful beach. We had a late lunch at an outdoor cafe and strolled down the beach crowded with surfers and sunbathers (it’s still summer vacation for the kids). But the best part was just having the chance to get better acquainted with family we really hadn’t known before this trip.

We leave Sydney tomorrow morning, and I’m sorry to go so soon. But I’m very excited for what’s to come!

A Night at the Opera

We woke up early after getting a solid night’s sleep, feeling human once again. After a big breakfast in the hotel,we were off to explore the Sydney Harbor area.

photo credit: Roslyn Konter

Sydney Harbor is enormous.It has almost 200 miles of shoreline, with 20 swimmable beaches and about 20,000 registered boats. There are several ferry services that shuttle people between the central business district and other communities along the harbor. We took one, and our first stop was the zoo. If you like zoos (not everyone does), you’ll enjoy this one very much. I was thrilled to see one animal that seemed free to come and go as it pleases: a kookaburra (see picture at bottom of post)

The kookaburra is native to Australia and New Guinea. It’s the largest member of the kingfisher family, but it doesn’t fish. It’s a carnivore, eating rodents and snakes. It’s call is a harsh cackle that must have reminded someone of laughter; hence the song about the laughing kookaburra.

After the zoo, we visited a beach community called Watsons Bay. We were waiting for the ferry there when Roslyn got a call from her cousin Warwick, who offered to pick us up at drive us around to show us some of the other beaches and other sights. And so we got a lovely guided tour of Bondi Beach, one of the largest and certainly most widely known of Sydney’s beaches; as well as half-a-dozen more. These beaches are all on the Pacific Ocean side of the city, and their waters are that beautiful mixture of deep blues and teal greens.

Back at the hotel, we washed up, and changed clothes for our evening’s entertainment. Roslyn’s cousin Victor had gotten us tickets to see La Boheme at the Sydney Opera House.

We figured, why just see the opera house, when you can see an opera performed in the opera house! It’s as beautiful inside as it is outside. I’m told the opera company is very good; but I confess here my knowledge of opera is such that I couldn’t tell good from bad. We enjoyed it thoroughly, except for the woman who seemed to have taken a shower in her perfume. See sat a row behind and a few seats down from us, sending Roslyn into respiratory distress. The opera house staff was magnificent, giving us different—and better—seats at intermission.

In the Good Old Summertime

I hate cold weather. It is one of my defining characteristics. So you can imagine my delight: when I walked into the airport it was 38 degrees on a Sunday afternoon in the middle of winter. When I walked out of the airport, it was 83 degrees on a Tuesday morning in the middle of summer. Hello, Sydney!

We spent our first few hours after getting settled in our hotel walking around the areas known as Circular Quay and The Rocks. But the jet lag hit us around noon and we needed to spend most of the afternoon chilling out in our room. We didn’t nap; the goal was to stay awake until regular bedtime.

We Ubered out to Roslyn’s cousin’s home for dinner. Roslyn thinks she had met Carol about 50 years ago, but she’s really not sure. Didn’t matter. The welcome could not have been warmer. Lots of food, drink, and cousins from ages 7 months to 72+ years. They were all such good company, I was sorry for the evening to end. But the children had to get to bed, their parents had to go to work today, and I was starting to fade. We were back at our hotel by about 9:30, and I’m pretty sure I was asleep by 10:00 (which explains why I couldn’t write this blog post last night).

Almost every Australian we’ve talked with so far has complained about the heat wave here. Our reply to each and every one of them has been, “We like hot. We came here for the hot.” The worst of the heat wave is occurring in the middle of Australia, and we’re spending all our time here on or very near the coast.