Around Australia

Sydney-Good to be safe with family!

We arrived in Sydney and the bombs went off in Afganistan. Good time to leave India! I saw a GP who saw the pics of my rash and immediately said: allergic reaction. He called an allergist who I saw a week later and together they put me on a cocktail of steroids and antihistimines along with lotions to heal the skin.

We did have a lovely celebration for Peter's birthday. Tess, who is a designer and amazingly creative cake maker, created a 3-d re-enactment of Peter in all his climbing gear putting up a route on confectionary chocolate balls. Hannah and Lewis made a wonderful card with an illustration of Peter ice climbing in his let-us-all-not-forget mango suit.

In the meantime it was difficult to rest with so much to do and see in Sydney, but we took a few days to rest while we moved into the guest quarters at the Evans Estate in Balgowlah Heights (outside of the Northern Sydney suburb of Manly). Tess, Rich and their two children Lewis and Hannah are the most perfect hosts! It was first world bliss with fantastic company, clean ammenities, and great food ! After 3 days of 'rest' we explored Manely and Sydney via foot, bus, ferries and trains. One weekend we took off into Sydney and stayed at the Victoria Court Hotel in King's Cross (where we would later purchase our van: Gus the Bus). We should explain that most of King's Cross is known as the red light district and the area of Sydney that is cheap enough for backpackers to hang out and live in Sydney for a while. We did see lots of pretty sad looking young women who were drug addict hookers, they looked their worst in the mornings. The first night in King's Cross we headed a tiny bit out of town to see the theatrical performance of the 'Puppetry of the Penis.' (www.puppertyofthepenis.com if you don't believe us). Basically it was one hour of two men, naked, except for a cape and running shoes, who warped their penises into various shapes such as animals and national monuments. It played to a sold out audience. We sat next to a couple who were originally from a part of New Jersey very close to where Peter's dad grew up. The left the states in 1970 to teach at a then new university in Wollongong and have not been back since. I could still detect a bit of the new york accent but they were very gung ho Australlian.

The next evening we headed to a much more serious play at the Sydney Opera House (a most gorgeous venue--you can see peter's pic of it in the photos section). The play was a truly multi-media shadow puppet production called 'The Theft of Sita'. It told the tale of the Ramayana, but more than that it was a political/social/environmental commentary of the destruction of Indonesia at the hands of the 'white' men and their tourists. The play used shadow puppets (the type I've been dying to buy in Indonesia), LIVE music with a 12-piece 'band'. There was even the use of fire in the opening ritual to introduce the play. I believe it has headed to NYC about now.

Go to: Theft of Sita

Purchasing Gus the Bus

Back to the Evans home where Tess had just celebrated her 40th B-day (yay Tess!!!). Peter and I decided that we wanted to buy a campervan and tour the country. We called to a few dealers and then Rich suggested a few websites where we were able to do some research on what we wanted. Then, we headed back down to King's Cross Car Park to have a look. This place is well-known among backpackers as a place to get a vehicle for a pretty good price that runs pretty well for the amount of time and money one would need to travel around australia. Among all other people it's the place NOT to buy a car. So we decided to just go look. On one floor there are the cars, the next floor is the mobile mechanic that checks the cars out to make sure they are road safe, then there is the floor with the auto insurance and car wash. It has an internationally culture. Once a car is sold the tradition among the car owners is that the seller has to buy a case of beer and share it with the rest of the car sellers who are eagerly awaiting buyers. Vehicles range in price from $1500AUS-7000. Long of the short, we found Gus, fell in love with 'him' and bought him from a danish couple about our age who had been traveling around australia for 3 months, but are doing a pretty similar trip to peter and I. We are the 4th owners. The first owners had Gus for 15 years and the next owner for 3 months, the next for 3months, then us. So the reconditioned engine only had 88K on it with new brakes. We've taken lots of pics of gus, but we don't have any up yet. You might still be able to see a pic at carsales.com.au and click for Nissan Urvan 1986. It's tricked out with sink, refrigerator, 2 burner gas stove with grill, wardrobe, and the couch pulls out to a double bed once you remove the table. The ceiling is decorated with a glow in the dark conselltion system. It's wonderfully cozy at night. We've decided that we're gettin' one when we get back home!

We took the next few days to learn to drive the Gus. Not only do we have to drive on the left side, but we shift on the column with our left hands. Peter was awesome getting us out of Sydney and back up to Manley. After a few days, I finally learned to drive it and now (a month later), I'm sooo comfortable with it. We spent the last weekend in Sydney finalizing everthing for our trip and even took a short break to the zoo and Bondi Beach.

The Waratah Park Zoo has Aussie animals. So we took Hannah and Lewis with Christine (the au pair ) and her friend to feed kangaroos, freek out at the emus (they are sooo huge and weird), tazmanian devil, crocodiles, wandering peacocks and some other birds. See pic of Sharon petting a roo.

My friend Mike McGraw from Nashville days, moved to Austrailia a year and a half ago. He had wanted to do that for a while. I even remember seeing him in a park in Nashville in 1998 or 9 and he had just visited there and expressed an interest to move there one day and I remember thinking, I'm going to go there one day. Well, now here we were, driving around his new home town of Bondi Beach. He's become a surfing addict. I think the coast of Australia would do that to most people. The ocean is a beautiful blue-green punctuated by white surf, the sun shines, the beach is almost white. Lovely. Mike gave us the tour and we parted.

Start of the Journey

We had a slow start, but we finally left Sydney. About an hour or so after we left we smelled something bad. It was like sulfer. It was late and we looked for a caravan park, but it was closed. We drove for literally hours looking for a side road to sleep on. New to popping the top and sleeping anywhere on the side of the road we sucked it up and slept restlessly for the night. Next day in Penrith we ended up getting a new battery for the refrigerator (known as the auxilliary battery).

Onward to the Blue Mountains. Hairpin turns overlooking greenery, blue and red gum trees and signs for kangaroos. We ended up at a National Park and had our first unsealed road driving experience. Australia is still in developement, so not all roads are suitable for all cars, which is why 4wd is not just a sport. Bitamin is the terms for asphalt which is usually a sealed road and we thought we'd check out a campsite on a 29km unsealed road. Well, it's bumpy but not boucey. Everything vibrated in the bus, but we made it. We set up camp in an area called Perry's Lookdown. We hiked down into this valley where we saw amazing blue gum trees and we had an encounter with a snake. So we get to the bottom of the trail, climbed on a big rock by the side of a stream and ate our lunch. It was sunny and lovely. Just across the stream I noticed something moving, something black and slithery about 4 feet long and upon further examination it had a red underbelly. I freaked and wanted to get off the rock and head back onto shore before getting eaten alive. Peter was very calm and said, it's like a garden snake, it won't hurt you. So we stayed and watch the snake look for things to eat. It was like national geographic. It's head lifted rocks (really!) to look for insects and then it edged into the water and then back to shore. After a calm moment it was nice to observe this snake in the bush. Then I stood up and the snake moved across the water. I jumped to shore and peter gathered our stuff. We had a nice steep climb back up the trail and ran into some other hikers who said that the snake we saw: a Redbellied Black Snake is one of the most poisonous snakes in Australia and you certainly don't want to get bit by one. So much for garden snakes!

We left Perry's Lookout and headed for Jenolan Caves, the most decorated and most expensive caves in Australia. Really, it was worth it. We took two days to take guided tours of three different caves. It was really amazing to see stalagmites, stalagtites, soda straws and other pieces of white-watered down rock cleverly illuminted with light bulbs. In the old days, it the decorations (as they are called ) were illuminted with candles. We've contemplated taking an adventure tour into the caves (to go in the unlit caves on rope), but we'll have to see how much time we have left here.

Capitol of Australia

Next morning we started the car and our NEW battery is dead. No fridge, lights are low, and we are bummed! Thank god it's not the actual car battery, so we head for Canberra, the Capitol of Australia. Driving out of the mountains, Gus decides that shifting into 3rd or 4th would be an inconvenience. Then, he changes his mind and it's all okay again. This intermittent problem continues so our first stop in Camberra is a reliable mechanic.

While the mechanic checks out the car, we become tourists. We head to the National Portrait Gallery located in the Old Parliment. We saw a great exhibit by 50 or so young adults who created their self-portraits out of anything from magic marker to clay. Then, they wrote about the experience. Some of these kids are extremely talented!!! Across the way, we checked out the National Gallery. Finally, some aboriginal art. We saw a wonderful installation of about 100 poles decorated with aboriginal style animals and lines in deep ochre colors. Also bark paintings by some well-known artists. (we hope to buy some aboriginal art in Alice Springs.)

Go to: National Galleries

The next exhibit was by multi-media performance artist Wenda Gu. I first saw his work in SF in april 1999. Now, a few years later I 'm standing in the gallery with Peter, very tearful because this man's work meant a lot to me when I first saw it and now I could share it with the love of my life. This chinese born and trained chinese calligrapher uses hair collected from barber shops to create monuments of peace. He was has created over 25 so far. To see his work, go to: Wenda Gu and click on slide show. (needing to write a bit more quickly now, have to leave soon).

Snow and Spirits

Back at the mechanic we learn that nothing is wrong with the gear box and the battery just needed to be recharged. Off to Mount Kosciousko. (This not related to Kosciousko, MS where the Nashville photographer, Jack Spencer is from --whose incredible work I proudly own and the place where Oprah was born). We plan to go hiking, except that it is under 8-9 feet of snow. Boy, we are sooo prepared. Instead of hiking, we camp out with the kangaroos at a nearby park. At about two in the morning we are awakened by Gus who is squeaking and shaking side to side very rapidly and very uncontrollably. At first, I'm thinking it's a Kangaroo, pushing on the van, but when Peter looks out the window he doesn't see anything and besides, it's not strong enough. Then we think earthquake and then we think angry aboringal spirits coming back from the dead pissed off at the British and taking it out on us. In the daylight morning, Peter takes a survey of the other campers and no one experienced any shaking. Okay, evil spirits it is. One Swiss-German couple came back to us and had talked to a ranger who said that WOMBATS like to RUB THEIR BUTTS AGAINST TIRES OF CARS. All I can say is that they are really strong, so stong that Peter and I tried pushing on Gus and he didn't even squeak! I still say evil spirits.

We cruised down the great Alpine Way and over to Port Albert. Not too eventful except that the bus decides not to start. So after Peter tries and tries, I start the Gus...with the choke out. Another new thing to learn about. We drive to Wilson's Promontory (or the Prom, as it is called). 40,000 Hectares (about 100,000 acres) of forest, ocean, rainforest AND on this holiday weekend (it was the Melbourne Cup--a national holiday for horse racing) 2500 campers filled sites and 200 backcountry campers slept deep in the woods or at the lighthouse. Luckily we are foreigners and the park service saved a space for us. (really!). We decide to do an overnight. The trail took us through woods and on the ocean! It was nice, but cold and windy and then it started to rain. (Actually, it had been raining off and on for a week now). We car camp. The auxialliary battery is low on juice again. We leave the Prom while taking in the sights of emus.

Our Man Graham and his wife Pam

On the way to Philip Island, our next stop, we decide to visit a winery. Windy River Winery (see message board with pic), a small boutique winery treated us to their lovely reds, port and play with the boarder collie! Apon their suggestion we visit the Philip Island Winery as we wind into town. The vineyard is under a net to protect the grapes from the wind and hungry birds. The estate wine was a bit 'edgy' but we liked some of their non-estate wines and bought a bottle. Touring around the beautiful beaches of Philip Island, we came upon the Nobbies, tip of the Island where we saw hundreds of seals, a penguin and plenty of attacking gulls. Wind and rain. We decide not to pay the $13AUS each to see hundreds of penguins swim onto the beach at sunset. But we hear it's pretty amazing, though a bit touristy.

Next morning we look for a mechanic and we find Graham, our saviour rocket scientist mechanic who, with his magical digital battery tester, tests and retests his theories as to the problem with Gus. We have our answer: the alternator and regulator are not giving enough juice to the battery. Uh, an answer. But the parts don't arrive from Melbourne, so we spend the weekend touring Philip Island, drinking wine and writing in cafes as the cold rain whips through Vicotoria.

In town, we continuously run into Pam who carts us around and have pleansant conversations with. We meet Jules and Nikki and thier dog at the Caravan Park and spend hours chatting. We learn that the word 'Dorrie' which Peter and I have both become, means nosy neighbor. It's based on a character (named Dorrie) of an Australian TV show. It's so hard not to mind one's business when the pepole in the caravan in the next parking space are coming and going. But, no worries, mate, because we have caught other people 'dorrie-ing' us too. It's an epidemic!

Like Boston, almost

The car parts have come in. Our car is fixed!!!! On the road again, to Melbourne. Peter's friend Prof. Tim Van Gelder at the Univ. of Melbourne, Trinity College, treats us to a wonderful Italian meal with he and his most beautiful wife, Theresa. We spend the next few days touring around Melbourne, hanging out on the ever so hip and fashion boutique-ed Brunswick street. We visit the Parliment House, Immigration Museum, Rialto Tower to get a most excellent veiw of Melbourne (like we did at the AMP tower in Sydney--see photo of Sydney lit up on photo page). Tim and Theresa make us dinner, the next day we go to the opera house and see an photo exhibit of dancers in mid air, we lunch at Speigletent, walk through the Botanical Gardens, train it up to the Jewish Museum and tour the Orthodox Synagogue. Jews in Australia began in the 1800's with a jewish convict woman who married and had 8 children and only one married a Jew! Other non-convict jews arrived and peddled, got involved with government and ripened communities, you know the usual diaspora story.

Back through the Botanical Gardens where we saw 19,000, YES! 19,000 flying foxes (I call them BATS), hanging from trees, cleaning themselves, chatting, sleeping and eeek, flying!!!! Peter took some pics that you'll see..one day. They are being removed as we speak because they are killing the trees in the Gardens. Not good... Visited the Institute for Contemporary Art--loved Pipilotti Rist's video intallation (have seen other works by her either at MIT or SF, anyway...) Angered by the 'Stacked' video. It was useless video watching a couple enter a hotel room and pack it up for like 90 minutes!!! stupid, non-art.

For more, Go to: Rist

Walked along the Yarra River which is so much like the Charles river with tons of rowers (yay!) and a Melbourne skyline that remembles boston. Had dinner in the trendy Brunswick streek at a very hoppin veggie restaurant, then desert at and Italian restaurant that had a back area with couches and a TV!!!! Yes, TV, because it was WED. NITE ie SURVIVOR NIGHT! Yes, I'm addicted, again. We sat and ate Tirramassu drinking local port, yummmm. I must say Clarence (ie Two Cherries) suprised Peter and I. I really didn't think he was that smart, but we are so happy that Silus, (Billy Ray) is gone. (Rich, we really hope to be back to watch the final episode with you and the crew!). Today is also wed. so we are looking for the Caravan Park with the TV to see what happens next.

Okay, next morning goodbye b-fast with Tim and Theresa--boo. Tim gives us a tour of Trinity College (very old school, very prep school, Harvard vibe). He gives us a load of cellared white wine that the university was clearing out. (Tim the bottle of Chardonnay was great!). Then he showed us his new/old house in Parkvale, the college neighborhood with houses that look like they could be in New Orleans with all of the iron work.

Great Ocean Road

Next area: Great Ocean Road. What can we say: beautiful, blue water, rocks, australian ocean at it's best. with lots of rolling hills opposite the ocean! Here we are driving down this great road with lush green fields filled with cows and sheep and greenery and the ocean crashing against the rocks on the other side. We make camp in Apollo Bay (similar to Big Sur but facing the sourhtern Ocean with Antarctica 'right over there.'). Lots of rain and wind, well, because we are still in Victoria. People say it's unseasonably rainy, but others say it's always like that. OH well, we are lookin for some heat and the red center is only a week away! We continue up shore to the 12 apostles, high on the cliff and our Gus begins to huff and puff and stutter, and then die. Then, start again! Quick find a mechanic!!!! We decide to refill the gas tank because we think we got 'crook' gas. That seemed to help. We end up at 4:45 on a Friday at our next mechanic (also named Graham). He replaces our feul filter. So far, so good. Then we decide to replace our interiour lights so that we can really see what we are cooking.

Speaking of cooking, we are eating sooo well. Thank you Tess for the Laksa recipe and the Donna Hay cookbook. Here's some of our meals, ifyou want the recipe just let me know.

Polenta with Rocket and Blue Cheese and Soup (Rocket,, our most favourite leafy green, similar to arugula, but seems more bitter--very trendy australian food).

Grilled Vegetables: Eggplant, Parsnips, red onion, carrot, garlic, red and yellow peppers

Laksa - A Thai noodle soup coconut base with vegetables and tofu

Risotto

Pasta with a collection of Mushrooms in a lovely fettucine sauce

Vegetable Masala Curry with Basmati Rice

Tea and crumpets with every b-fast.

Biscuits anytime we can get em

Nutello-jus cuz

Back Inland, BAAAAA

Back to the journey....we spent the night at Mt. Eccles National Park. In the middle of the night about 2:30am, we heard the most horrible cow/donkey screems that we have ever heard in our lives! It was as if they were being killed, it was awful. The next morning Peter asked the farmer who couldn't tell him what it was, but later that day someone said it was probably koalas. Oh yeah, when we were at the prom, peter thought that he was a geographic photographer and he tracked a koala thru the woods. The sound coming from the koala was something of a tiger. We understand that it was mating season, but I don't think that Peter looks like a koala, do you?

Onto Hamilton tourist center. We love and hate these places because they give us so much stuff to do it's difficult to choose. This particular weekend we happened upon a sheep sheering competition, dog show and equestrian show all in one showground. We met Wendy, whose husbands was one of the sheep sheering judges. Bascially, these big men sheer as many sheep as possible, they get points off for mess work such as bloody cuts (there were lots) and missing plots of hair. When the sheep is shorn, most of the 'hair' comes off in one piece as the shape of the sheep, a rouseabout--mostly women, throw the piece of sheep on the table and pull out all the 'bad' pieces with gets sold as cheaper wool. These sheeps were merino sheeps. Once their hair is gone, they are called white, then in another 12 months they get shorn again. Wendy was great taking us thru the whole process and encouraging us to get up close and showing us the sheep after they were shorn. It was enough to make me contemplate eating my most favorite: lamb. Who knows, I might even end up vegetarian---and wouldn't Peter love that! The dog show was compelling in that not all owners looked like their dogs, but their temperment seemed to be the same. The horse show looked like a 4-H club, but it was fun to watch young girls trying to switch leads on their ponies. (made us think of our friends Eve and Anna--the horsie girls).

Grampions

After many hours of voyeurism, we decided to leave. Oh, but Gus wouldn't have any of that! He decided not to start. Good thing Peter knows something about cars! He jump started our car battery with our auxilliary battery and away we went! It's another saturday at 4:30, shops will close and we need a new car battery. We set up for the night at a caravan park, Peter calls our mechanic on Philip Island who walk him thru a 'battery' of tests with Peter's new digital battery tester. Yup, another new battery. Oh well. We buy one and so far, so good! Finally off to the Grampions, for real! This is climbing land. The mountains rise sbruptly from the plains. We decide to take a day hike, there are lovely views of rock and farmland but no climbers. We lunch by a waterfall and no snakes....phew!

We must find climbers, and we do, at Mt. Arapiles. One of Peter's favorite pictures is of a crazy man free climbing many feet above the ground, hanging onto an overhang with a spectaular view in the background. This is Austrailia's major climbing destination. It's 1 mile long and 400-700 feet hight with lots of side walls. The campsite at the base has almost 50 tents, all climbers, like what we imagine Camp 4 in Yosemite to feel like. We are jonesin' to climb, but we have no gear (and little time), but plan on returning someday.

Moving closer to wine and heat

We leave the state of Victoria with all of it's rain and wind and enter a warmer climate in the state of South Australia. The info office in Bordertown reccomends the Padthaway for wine tastings before hitting the well-known Barossa Valley wine region (Wolf Blass, Jacob's Creek, Peter Lehmann, Penfold's are all here and you can get them in the states). The merlot is lovely so we buy a bottle. Now we are here, in Murray River getting free internet access.

Next update: who knows....

Love to you all and a happy Thanksgiving, (turkey-free of course, says the resident vegetarian).

Sharon and Peter, outside Adelaide, South Australia

And back towards Sydney

Well we left you all in Murray River, outside Adelaide. We had found the library and secured some free internet access, then gone and done a good thing for Gus: we got his oil changed. We get him back, fresh from his toiletries, and park him around the corner. It is about quarter to five in the afternoon, and it’s Wednesday, which, you all know, means Survivor Night! I call a handful of caravan parks up the road, in the Barossa Valley, our next destination for sleeping and wine tasting, renowned for Wolf Blass, Orlando (makers of Jacob’s Creek), and tons of others. Not much luck finding one with a tv, but one place says they’ll see what they can find, and we’re off. However, much to our chagrin, Gus has apparently decided he likes this little hamlet and refuses to start. Yep, that’s right, Gus won’t go. Again. And, once more, it’s 5 PM and all garages are closed. Dammit. I test the fuses, the fusable links, both batteries, and find nothing amiss. We resist the very strong urge to throw a HUGE whining crying fit in the street, and instead walk up the hill to get a hotel room. At least this way, we’re guaranteed good reception for Survivor!

On our way out to dinner, we stop at the police station to ask them to look after the car. Gus is in a safe place and they don’t see any problem or threat. The guy behind the thick glass, however, is quite a character. His appearance is your basic jarhead, clean cut, self-important cop, but we get talking about motorcycles somehow and he’s not only a motorcycle nut (he owns three or four), but he’s also fascinated both by law enforcement in the US and by historical motorcycle gangs in the US. He apparently has a sizeable collection of books written by and about US motorcycle gangs up to the 1960s or 70s (including some rare and collectable ones), and he has just finished Sonny Barger’s (head of the Hell’s Angels in California through that period) autobiography. We discuss Hunter S. Thompson’s book *Hell’s Angels*, but you can’t get it here due (he says) to censorship laws. Knowing that Gus is in good hands should any Harley riding scofflaws come into town, we retire to our meal.

In the morning, the garage sends someone over and he determines that our battery cables are corroded and not making sufficient contact. With a broken bit of hacksaw, he files them down to reveal clean metal, and Gus starts right up. It took him 5 minutes and he didn’t even bother charging us. More Gus hassles, but at least it didn’t cost us much. We finally make our way to the Barossa Valley, discussing what to do next and how to make the most of this vast country with our fickle Gus.

Our Australia leg of this grand journey is running out. We’re barely 30% of the way through our mileage, and 5 weeks into our 8 weeks. That’s not a very hopeful set of numbers. Furthermore, we’re both feeling that the writing is on the wall with Gus. We simply don’t feel we can trust him to get us through the Red Centre, where gas stations, mechanics, and even people are at a great distance from one another. We explore a bit around the Barossa, sampling the Wolf Blass, Orlando, Penfolds, and Seppelts. All of these make great wines, but don’t export the really good ones, so we end up buying a few bottles for Gus. Sharon comes down with a cold, so we decide it’s a good time to sit for a day or two and think about what we should do next, both in time and with gus.

We decide to turn around.

The trip we’ve taken has involved running South from Sydney, cruising the coast West, and then running back North to where we are now. This means that there’s a more direct route heading East towards Sydney that covers all new territory, and that’s what we decide on. First things first, however, is to get to Adelaide, both to see the city, and to get Sharon to a doctor, since she’s still getting sicker three or four days into this cold.

Adelaide is a lovely city, perhaps the one I enjoyed the most (Sharon votes for Melbourne). Sydney is much bigger, and therefore more cosmopolitan, but Adelaide is more manageable. If you look at a map of Adelaide, you see outlying areas and you see Adelaide proper perched in the middle. Know what a chess pawn looks like in profile? Roughly like a circle atop a square. Well, that’s what Adelaide proper is shaped like, only the outline of the circle and the square are very thick, and they’re all park. That’s right, the entire city is wrapped in a quarter mile of parkland. No matter how you approach this city, you are treated to a thick veneer of green space before plunging into the urban heart.

We found our way downtown, and to a traveller’s clinic, where Sharon is diagnosed with tonsilitis. Since her immune system took such a beating with the allergies in India and the weeks and weeks of steroids to recover from that, she’s been susceptible to other stuff, and now one got in. Tonsilitis is essentially a variation on strep throat. Yuck, but easily treatable with 10 days of penicillin. We get a camping spot just on the outside of the green fringe and settle in. Sharon has been told that she’ll feel awful for another two days and then she’ll feel fine (which she does). Whaddya know, but this caravan park actually rents small televisions at US$3 per day! We rent one to get us through Wednesday night, which, of course, is Survivor Night!

I spend a few days wandering downtown (our caravan park is close enough to walk downtown in about 20 minutes), and explore the public library, where I do some research, the casino, where I do some research, and a bar or two, where I do some research. When Sharon is feeling better, we head in town together and explore some museums, including an amazing and massive collection of Aboriginal historical and artistic artifacts, of which we get a tour.

The Aborigines here have a similar history to the Native American insofar as they were run off their land by the settlers and then, more recently, granted reservations to live on. And the same problems crop up with a culture that has been denuded, but not replaced by Western-style living, leaving tons of people to fall through the cracks, not really belonging to either culture. From the earliest part of the 20th century to the late 70s/early 80s, there was an official government policy that removed from 10 to 30% of indigenous children from their parents no later than age 2 or 4 so that they could be ‘assimilated’ into white society. These are now called the Stolen Generation. Today the white-to-native relations here seems akin to those in the US 30 or 40 years ago…. Getting my hair cut in Canberra, I overheard a barber telling the guy in the chair that ‘the stolen generation should be thanking us’ for taking them out of their presumed misery. This museum we went and saw holds the largest collection of Aboriginal artefacts in the world. From what our guide told us, they are seen not as white collectors, but as caretakers for the future, and many Aboriginal elders who still live in the outback keep their cultural items here and only fetch them for ceremonies. The Aboriginal culture, by the way, dates back some 50,000 years. There are some animals like the Whooly Mammoth which still have names in the current language, used in their ‘dreamings,’ which are a combination of morality tale, history, and knowledge of the world. It’s all fascinating and we didn’t get nearly enough time to really explore it.

Finally, we spend part of Friday at the brand new National Wine Centre, including taking a short course on tasting Australian wines. It’s a fabulous place, and the first *national* wine centre in the world. Very ambitious and very well done.

Since we decided not to run up the Red Centre of Australia, we will miss Alice Springs and Uluru, the former a classic outback town, the latter that massive red rock that sits all alone in the middle of the desert (also known as Ayer’s Rock). We have seen lots of this country, but the outback still eludes us, and we’re, honestly, not convinced that Gus can take it. Nevertheless, we decide to visit Broken Hill, which sits 6 hours Northwest of here in the state of New South Wales. We set out for it, but we get a late start and end up deciding to stop in the Clare Valley for the night, and, while we’re at it, sample some of the numerous wineries here.

The next day, we set off for the Broken Hill, still some 6 hours away. The outback in Australia is a funny thing. It’s all desert, but it’s not JUST desert. We’ve passed through bits of desert in Victoria that don’t qualify. Outback, it seems, is as much a mental state as it is a landscape. It implies being thoroughly OUT THERE. It implies being far from others. It implies being all but stranded in a landscape humans really weren’t built for. A couple of hours along, the land turns from irrigated farmland to sparse grazing land, and from there it plummets off into the flat, desolate void of the outback. I suppose what surprises me is that it’s not just sand dunes as far as the eye can see. It’s actually very colorful, with deep reds and browns in the earth and the sparse but hearty scrub plants, most of which don’t exceed knee-high. It’s a beautiful landscape, but an inhospital one. It’s also about as boring as it gets. It remains absolutely static, the road straight for 5-10 miles at a stretch, no hills, and nothing but the white dashes whipping by and the barbed wire fence on either side. No changes. No alterations. Nothing.

Then we find a roadhouse. This is, quite simply, a gas station in the middle of nowhere, with a home off behind it. Sometimes they serve food or beer. Sometimes there are other people there. Sometimes it’s just a caretaker. In this case, it’s a lonely older woman with a For Sale sign out front so she can retire to the coast of Victoria. When I ask if there’s a town here somewhere, she grunts a barely audible “nope. Just us.” Okay… I back away slowly, strains of The Shining running through my head…..

Then we get to Broken Hill. This town is all about mining. It was created by mining, and remains a mining town. There is a hill probably 500 feet high that the town centre butts right up to, that dominates the town. It’s shadow covers the town, it’s museum on top dedicated to dead miners. It’s a monument to mining, and it is built out of discarded stone from the local strip mining. It is about the only hill we saw in this part of the outback.

On our way into town, we stopped to look at the town graveyard. We have not seen many graveyards in Australia, maybe 5 or 6 in the entire time we’ve been driving around. This one, however, makes up for the apparent dearth of dead people. It’s massive. Many of the graves are covered by a small chainlink-fence structures, guarding against some unknown threat. There is no grass in this grave yard, it’s all gravel. We learn that in 1991 the population of this graveyard outstripped the population of the town it’s drawn from.

Then we noticed that there’s a Jewish section, as well as a Muslim one. This is probably the last thing either of us had expected. It’s only got about 10 or a dozen stones, the most recent of which is in the early 1960’s. Australia, we know, has a decent Jewish population, dating back to the First Fleet, which were the first settlers who came here in the late 18th century. But a Jewish population here?!? Just goes to prove, I suppose, that the Diaspora is truly a wide-spread phenomena.

In town the next day, we visit the tourist information centre and inquire about the local synagogue we’d heard about. They make some calls and find the person with the key, who agrees to give us a tour in 20 minutes, so off we race. The synagogue is a small building, decommissioned decades ago. There is, apparently, one Jewish person left in town, but there was a whole community from the 1850’s to the 1950’s. The synagogue is small and has quarters on the right hand side for the rabbi to live in. The main chamber is mostly untouched, except that the scroll and other religious artefacts have been moved to a synagogue in Melbourne. The building is now used by the local Historical Society for storage and for meetings. In one of the rooms, they have a display of every house of worship in town, and when I ask which of those are still in use (the town’s population has been dropping for years), she counts off almost half that are either gone, or decommissioned, generally rebuilt, it seems, as housing.

That same day, we drive South to reenter the Murray River Valley, which we will follow East toward Sydney. Just as we get out of the outback, we find a National Park to camp in. This one, oddly enough, is a series of sand dunes. We spend the night, interrupted briefly by locals looking for a place to hang out. The next number of days consist of travel along this river valley. We visit wineries, we see National Parks. We get to Glenrowan and visit Ned’s Last Stand.

Ned Kelly is an Australian National Hero, in the same way that Al Capone and Butch Cassidy are American heroes, only much much more so. Ned Kelly, to quote Bill Bryson, “was a murderous thug who deserved to be hanged and was.” He was a ne’er-do-well who robbed, murdered, and then tried to hide from the law in what was then the wilds of Victoria. When the police finally found him, his gang had a Last Stand here in Glenrowan, during which Ned emerged wearing a homemade suit of armor. The helmet consisted of what appears to be a cooking pot with a slit cut in it, and the chest plates are heavy iron. Unfortunately, Ned, in his infinite wisdom, neglected to protect his legs, so one of the cops shot him there, and they dragged him off to Melbourne, where he was tried and hanged without further ado. Here in Glenrowan, however, it’s as if he never left. He’s High Priest of Nedness here, and every store front in this tiny, one street town, pays homage in name: Kelly This and Ned’s That, and right smack in the middle is Ned’s Last Stand, an animatronic recreation of the events that led up to his hanging. Bryson speaks highly of this wonder in his book Down Under, which both of us read on the road here. Not highly in class or in ‘wow, that’s well done!’, but highly in camp value. According to Bryson, it’s sooooo bad that he seriously considered paying $14 to see it AGAIN, but decided it was just too much money. With that sort of introduction, how can you miss it?

Ned’s Last Stand was, for us, beyond terrible. Camp Value is good for a laugh, but only when the stuff works. When we saw it, mid-day, mid-week, off-season, there was only one guy working, and he seemed recently trained. When we walked in, there was a queue to enter the room and no one at the ticket counter, so we just got on line, figuring we’d pay afterwards. Thank god for the little favors in life. The sound track was a mess, with the background sounds (wind, rain, goblins, train station noise) completely washing out the voices, and the lights were a mess too. The actual action consists of dummies, made up to look like period people, with blank white faces. A video projects the face of each dummy so the face looks real. A room full of these has terrific camp potential, but with so many problems it was painfully loud and we still couldn’t make out the voices. The first room is barely manageable, and we move into the second room, which is a cowboy-era barroom scene, complete with an eerie band in the back, moving back and forth with their instruments. There’s Ned himself, from what I gather, behind the bar, telling us why he was so awfully misunderstood, but I can’t really make out more than the gist of what he’s saying since the background noise. This is primarily of a baby wailing -- screeching even -- in a pram that sits off to one side next to a table with a boy and a stuffed wolf playing cards. There’s a kid swinging from what seems to be a trapeze from the roof, inexplicably enough, and an animatronic dog that will, at some point, jump up on the bar, but we can’t make out the dialogue and that damn baby is TOO LOUD. ARGHHHHH.

Back outside, we tell ourselves that Bryson got there on a day when everything was working. Frustrated and all but deaf, we go find a local winery for a sample to help us feel better, and then we head off East again.

We make it almost to the Victoria border before finding a camping spot about 20 miles shy of Kosciusko National Park. In the morning, we do some shopping, stop at the info centre, and head on into the park. This is the same park we came through on our way West two months ago, and we have unfinished business with the namesake mountain. If you recall (we do), we were stymied by 20 centimetres of fresh snow when we came to climb it last time, so we figured we’d hit it on the way back. This is, after all, one of the original 7 Summits.

As we make our way through the park, we pass the Snowy Mountains hydroelectric plant with an info centre in it and decide to stop. These mountains, called the Great Dividing Range, run right up the coast of SE Australia, dividing the coast from the interior. While you can get through them, they are a watershed divider, with a desert on the back side. Some years ago, some brilliant engineer had the brilliant idea that, hey, if there’s lots of water on one side and desert on the other, why not just divert the rivers? So that’s what they did.

This is one of the largest hydro projects around. They have taken much of the water from the Eastern side and diverted it through 30 foot pipes running through the mountains to the Western side, generating plenty of electricity on the way and irrigating untold thousands of acres of farmland in the process. It really is amazing. They’ve got maps of all the tunnels and the various hydro plants and all the diversions and new rivers etc. The tourist info centre is full of helpful maps, explanations, and interpretative diagrams and displays to show the whole project. Australia, I must say, is full of these tremendously helpful info centres for everything from hydro plants to wine making to geology and erosion.

After a few minutes in the info centre, we step into the Main Event: the generator plant. This consists of 10 massive generators, each probably about 30 feet across, and all fed by a series of these 30 foot tubes running down the mountain side behind us. The building looks like something straight out of the 50s tv show Lost in Space, except that the warning on the front door is for pacemakers, since the electromagnetic fields generated aren’t exactly friendly to them. However, we’re not inside for 5 minutes before both of us feel this awful feeling. It begins with a sort of nervous energy in the chest, which becomes a tighness, like having had too much coffee on an empty stomach, only stronger. Then add in a strong shortness of breath and an overwhelming sensation of a body crying out “YO this is NOT right! Get out of here NOW” and you sort of get the idea. We both felt better once we’d been outside 10 minutes.

On through the park, we find a campspot and settle in. In the morning, we set out for the summit. Mt. Kosciusko is 2228 metres high (about 7350 feet) and it’s one of the 7 Summits, which is the highest mountain on each continent. The trick is how you define a continent: Australia is, clearly, a large land mass and, as such, has been counted as a continent for a long time. However, geologic understanding over the last decades has shown Australia to be part of a larger landmass that includes New Zealand and Indonesia, the latter of which contains a mountain, the Carstenz Pyramid, that rises more that twice the height of Kosciusko. Therefore, there are now two definitions of the 7 Summits.

But no matter, we’re here to climb Kosciusko! In the morning, we head to Thredbo, to begin our voyage. We are a bit overwhelmed by all the mountain bikers, here for a big competition. We get our tickets and, after standing on line with bikes, we ride the chairlift to the top. Off to the left of the bar/restaurant up there, we find the trailhead. This is mountaineering! The trial begins with concrete bricks, but that disappears at the first stream crossing, which has an iron mesh bridge over it. After that, the trail is made of iron mesh suspended a few inches above the delicate alpine flora. That’s right, this mountain has a suspended iron trail running up its side for about, oh, I’d guess, 4 miles, to just below the summit! There are lots of people here, some in shorts and t-shirts. On the summit, there are lunkheads talking on mobile phones and a few 10 year-olds with their parents. Now THIS is mountaineering, eh!?!

We spend another night locally before heading to Canberra. Sharon’s penicillin has finished and three days later, her throat symptoms have returned. We visit a clinic and she is tested for various things and then put on another course of penicillin. Then we head straight back to Sydney.

In Sydney, we are welcomed back to the Evans household, which is wonderful. One of the things that this sort of long trip means is never having a home, never having a place to come back and drop the bags and relax, never being able to share what’s going on with other people other than the one you’re travelling with. Having family in a foreign land is a marvelous luxury.

We begin by placing a “please please please buy our car!” ad in the Sydney Morning Herald for Gus, and then we move on quickly to dealing with Sharon’s medical stuff. A visit to the local doctor to read the Canberra test results reveals that Sharon had, in fact, mono. It’s gone now, but it explains her tiredness and worn-out feelings over the last weeks. A visit to a travel clinic raises the idea of doxycycline as an anti-malarial option, and a visit to the allergist proves she’s allergic to this one too. Within seconds of a skin test (injecting a small, diluted amount just under the forearm skin), her forearm turns bright red, she is in terrible pain and it gets worse and spreads up her arm until the doc puts her back on steroids and antihistamines. He calls a heap of colleagues to confer and comes across a different anti-malarial drug, primaquine, used primarily for treatment of malaria. At home, some research shows that there have been pretty much NO studies of long-term use, only short-term treatment use. In the final analysis, we decide that the writing on the wall says not to go to any malarial areas.

We spend a few days in Sydney selling Gus in the same car market where we bought him. Luckily, we sell him in 2.5 days for an amount of money that covers what we bought him for PLUS all the work we did on him. So there’s one good thing to come from Gus, right!?!

We spend a week of family Christmas and Boxing Day events and we’re exhausted. We have decided that China is too cold in January and February, and therefore, we’ve completely rerouted our plans. We go to Qantas to change our tickets and here we are, the day before New Year’s, ready to hit the road again. Our new route involves New Zealand for 4-6 weeks, a quick stop in Fiji, a stop in San Francisco to visit friends and my brother, Sam, who has just moved to Yosemite to teach outdoor skills to school children, a quick stop in Boston to repack, shower, and change our shoes, and then Southern Europe for 2 months. The way this all looks now, we should return home to Maine in May. But then, if there’s one thing this trip has taught us, it’s that there’s no sure thing…..

So there we are. Today is New Year’s Day and we leave in an hour for New Zealand. Last night we went downtown to see one last museum, get some dinner, and enjoy the early fireworks (they have two sets: 9 for the kids and midnight for everyone) before returning to pack. On the ferry over, we notice a sign stating that, because of the fireworks, the ferries will not run between 6:30 PM and 12:30 AM. Arghhh. Now we have to find a new way home. We go to the Art Gallery of New South Wales and take in the excellent and quite large Buddha exhibit. This is a wonderful look at Buddhas historically and from different cultures. In one room is a montage video of local Buddhas, including one large sample perched right in the middle of a restaurant!

After the exhibit, we walk around a bit and check out all the activities in Darling Harbour. There are tons and tons of families out and lots of entertainers and it’s a wonderful atmosphere. We figure we won’t find a restaurant with room mid-evening, so we go find one to eat early and beat the rush. There is a lovely Asian place in Darling Harbour that we’d noticed when we were here in October, but it had been closed. We find it, and discover that it opens at 6 (in 10 minutes) and there is already a line of 30 people waiting. THAT is a good sign! We jump on line and discover inside that Chanta Ria (‘Temple of Love’) is the restaurant with the 8 foot laughing Buddha from the museum video! They also serve excellent food and afterwards, we wander over to hold a spot on the walking bridge that bisects Darling Harbour. From here we have one of the best seats in the house for the fireworks, and they’re great.

Then home to finish packing (via a bus) before watching the midnight fireworks on tv. Sydney does fireworks RIGHT. The Sydney Harbour Bridge is loaded with incendiary that fires off all along it’s lengthy arch. Then four barges spread over probably a mile and half of the Harbour start shooting off their own. Later, the bridge gets back into the action by shooting heaps of white sparkling fireworks DOWN off the lower bit of the bridge, resembling water rushing off and into the Harbour. The best view in the house is from a helicopter…. It’s an awesome display and we’re a little remiss that we’re not standing down there, but of course, with fireworks that big, you see more on tv....

Well that about does this update. We wish you all a super splendid New Year’s (even if I’m not around to cook for all’y’all) and a wonderful New Year. May it bring many wonderful surprises and great good fortune. Furthermore, we wish a huge and hearty congratulations to Erik Steele for his recent engagement, and to Sammy for landing a job that suits him (and no suits involved!) in California!

We do have a ton of photos, but we have to find a scanner first.... We’ll let you know when they’re up.

Cheers for the final time this trip from Down Under!

Peter and Sharon 1 January 2002, Sydney

RTW Honeymoon Home | Travelogue | Why do this? | Mailing List | Message Board | Photos | Contact