Spectacular Australia
Monica's Australia Photos (109):
David's Coral Reef Photos (317):
Fifteen years ago, 3M sent me to Sydney, Australia to help with product scale up of an adhesive tape. I toured the Opera House, and became aware of its amazing architecture. Coworkers drove me down the Pacific coast to a "blow hole", a place where water pressure builds and then releases like a geyser. They also took me to the scenic Blue Mountains. I saw flying foxes near the observatory, where I viewed the Southern Cross and the Large and Small Magellan Clouds. Looking out the window, on my flight out of the country, I was dazzled by the neon colors of the Great Barrier Reef. There were downsides to Australia. Elevators seemed to never work. The Holden that I drove to the manufacturing plant was not a high performing car. It seemed like the economy lagged the United States. (The Australian dollar was worth $0.60 at the time.) But, I certainly wanted to come back some day, if for no other reason than to see the reef close up.
We have just returned from our two week holiday to Sydney, Cairns, Perth and Melbourne.
Our initial flight was from Kansas City to San Francisco, as flying Southwest seemed easier than dealing with the off-hour discounted flights of Northwest or Sun Country. Beau, our Bichon-Maltese, stayed with my sister, Donna, in Kansas City, and enjoyed the company of her German Shepherd. Joni's family and Donna's family all went to lunch with us at Joe's Crab Shack, the chain were Monica and I had our Groom's dinner. (They closed all of the Crab Shacks in Minnesota.)
In San Francisco, we spent a night at Union Square, and met Chong and the Burnhams at the Fisherman's Wharf Joe's Crab Shack. From there, we walked to the Pier 39 Sea Lions. It was a nice opportunity to visit with my relatives. I learned than Alan is no longer at Lawrence-Livermore and is instead working on shale technology for a start-up company. On our way to the Shack, Monica and I tasted tea.
We found the "How Weird Faire" on 2nd and Howard. Techno blared and people did their best to dress unusually. Monica picked up a few fashion tips. We ate at my favorite Korean Restaurant on O'Farrell before making our way to the airport.
Our flight was not crowded, so both us caught some sleep. I watched "There Will Be Blood" and "The Bucket List." As we waited for our bags, we were told about the rules against importing agricultural products. A lady asked specifically if we had any of the candy that Qantas had given us. Monica had not eaten her candy, so we knew that we did, though we could not find it in our carry-on bag. Monica was upset at me for losing it. As it turned out, the candy was in a fold in the bag, so Monica got her candy rather than customs. We also had some product in our luggage that we purchased at our San Francisco tea tasting that made us unsure.
We took the train to City Central, and found the Great Southern Hotel without difficulty. We dropped off our bags until check in time. Hostels and Internet Cafes were nearby, so we knew we were in a tourist neighborhood. We stopped for coffee and I tried to use my WiFi device. I was unsuccessful there, and everywhere in Australia. Once in a while, we saw a sign for free WiFi, but unlike our Saint Paul neighborhood, the ubiquitous WiFi signals were either pay services or locked.
Whether it was because we were tired, or because the tops of our maps pointed South, we had trouble locating Darling Harbor. Instead we found a neighborhood where billboards depict scantily dressed men. It was sort of like our visit to the "How Weird Faire." At Darling Harbor, we visited Sydney Wildlife World and we each held a large green walking stick insect. We saw a Wallaby and Joey and were surprised at how big the hole was that the Joey crawled into. There were butterflies, ostriches, and lots of snakes and reptiles.
We had Fish and Chips at the Hotel bar, checked in, and briefly napped. We had to get up quickly though for our 5 p.m. tour of the Opera House, which we got to by ferry.
The Opera House is an amazing building. The stairs to the Opera House are wide and tall, almost like climbing a pyramid. One area of the building feels like a ship. Another area feels like a church. There is a pipe organ with thousands of pipes. There is hardwood in the floor and ceiling to make world class sound.
After our tour, we shared a salad with sweet potatoes in it and made our way back to a performance featuring four ballets by Jerome Robbins. I could have chosen a better seat, as we had to stand up a lot to let people in from our spot at the very end of the row. The performances were comic, with skits Bugs Bunny would have done, and even as a non-follower of ballet, I could tell the performance was outstanding. Nonetheless, Monica had to elbow me often, as I was ready to sleep.
We met a tour bus on the second day, and were off to see autumn in the Blue Mountains. I had not planned this, but the $60 discounted tickets were too hard to pass up. The tour people describe it this way:
The koalas were not interested in being patted and the crocodile was hibernating or something, but we did pet a kangaroo, and I believe we saw penguins in the Wildlife Park. All else was as advertised.
Monica kept seeing billboards for Art After Hours. I was skeptical, and somewhat tired from our bus tour, but we were able to figure out that the NSW Art Gallery was the place to go, and that the train would get us there. As we walked to the building, I saw an Aquarid Meteor. The art was actually very good and we listened to jazz at the cafe.
Our third day brought us back past the Art Gallery to the Botanical Center, where we were looking for the orchid display. Though the orchids are brighter in Spring, omnivorous plants, though small, were interesting to see. We saw lots of flying foxes (bats) hanging from the tops of the trees of the park. We saw little white butterflies next to a sign which told us that these butterflies never venture farther than 20 meters, and are very rare.
We walked to Kings Cross for lunch, where the nightlife was supposed to be, and were disappointed by the two fidgeting prostitutes we saw. Not much was going on, as far as we could tell.
We took a bus to Bondi Beach, where I dipped a piece of paper into the water. Though this is the most popular beach, perhaps in Australia, it was quiet there. May is an off season in Australia, as summer has ended, but winter travel has not yet started. We listened to the Laughing Society laugh. We wrote in the sand. We waded in the water.
We took the bus back to Circular Quay for the Justice System and Pubs display, but it is only open on weekends. We took the ferry Harbourside, where we found a mall. Monica led me through Chinatown and we ate at a Korean restaurant.
We had breakfast at the Youth Hostel and made calls on our WiFi phones. I wished my father Happy Birthday. Then, we caught our plane to Cairns. The bus took us to the Novotel Oasis Hotel, which has 4 stars and was quite nice. (We got good deals on our hotels, including the one in San Francisco, from wotif.com). The area had lots of backpacker accommodations, but they were no cheaper than where we stayed. We wandered around past the beach and the piers, shopping for trips to the reef and the rain forest. We were advised to take the reef tour on Saturday and the rain forest tour on Sunday, based on the chance of rain. I "hired" an underwater camera so that Monica could take reef pictures. We ate, looked at more flying foxes over the half-full moon, visited the Internet, and called it a night.
We found our boat and were offered ginger tablets, which I took, and sea sickness pills, which we did not take, but should have, since Monica got seasick. I crawled into my lycra suit, putting both legs through one leg-hole, before getting it right. I entered the water, then soon heard the whistle directing me to follow the others. I swam next to Monica. My goggles were fogging and before I even noticed the reef, I bumped my knee on it. Monica went back to the boat and I followed for first aid and defogger. Monica was not feeling well, but encouraged me to do more snorkling. I went back with the hired camera and took 308 pictures of the reef and fish beneath the sea. Our first stop was "the Magic Wall" of the Saxon reef, where at times the coral almost reached the ocean surface. Here, fish were smaller, and most everything was bright. On our second stop, we visited "Twin Peaks" where I photographed three sharks, and some larger scale coral. (I only noticed one shark at the time.) I was exhausted from the four hours of snorking,but was the last one on the boat, since I wanted to see as much as I could. Monica felt better at Twin Peaks, so she also got to snorkle enough to understand the thrill. Scuba divers on our boat saw an impressive giant sea turtle. I recommend the Tusa tour, we took, which focused entirely on snorkling and scuba diving near the reef. They did not offer a fancy rich lunch, like some tours, but we felt more like like pasta anyway.
Our final day in Cairns, we got up early, checked out the hotel, and waited for our 7:15 tour bus to the rain forest. The bus was late, and we might as well have walked the two blocks to the Cape Tribulation Tour office where we parked until after 8:00. But, that is the only criticism I have of the tour. We drove past beaches, walked through a rain forest, stopped at a wildlife park where a giant male crocodile lunged teeth first at the zookeeper's stick and saw a cassowary eat fruit whole, ate a picnic lunch next to a 10 foot long monitor lizard, who also wanted our lunch, and took a boat down the Daintree River where we saw tree snakes, kingfishers, tree frogs, and five crocodiles. The diversity of species is what makes the rain forest so spectacular. Anywhere there is water, something grows. Some of the species have been around 500 million years. Surprisingly, the soil is actually terrible in the rain forest, and everything lives off of the sun and the debris. Nowhere is symbiosis more evident.
We went to the Night Market and I ordered kangaroo, which tasted like prime beef, crocodile, which tasted like moist chicken, and beef, which was not special at all. A taxi took us from the Novotel, to the airport, where we caught the 11 p.m. flight to Perth. Another taxi took us to the Indian Ocean Hotel, Perth, where we arrived just before 3 a.m.
We called Norman and Stevie, my mother's cousin and our host in Perth. Norman lives 5 km south of the Indian Ocean hotel. But, before he came by at 11 a.m., we walked to the beach where we saw giant waves and excellent surfing.
Norman and I discussed relatives for a while. We really are not that close-- his grandfather was my great-grandfather. I had met his sister two years ago at Aunt Ellie's funeral. My mother had a crush on him as a teenager, and Norman's first kiss was my mother. My mother's feelings about him were why I felt comfortable visiting.
Norman and Stevie are the nicest people in the world. I actually had to talk Norman out of picking us up at the airport in the middle of the night. Instead of his regular golf game or 50 km bike ride, Norman showed us Perth sites, such as an old jail, complete with stockade, Notre Dame (a branch of the University based in Indiana), yacht clubs and harbors. They live just a couple blocks from the Indian Ocean, by the nicest beach I have ever seen. Every day, Monica and I would visit the beach. Every day we saw giant waves. One day we saw wind surfing. I picked up a coddlefish. We saw green light before sunset.
Monica rang the bells at the bell tower, because Norman kidded to the volunteer that Monica was a professional musician. (Norman has the James Bond voice.) We saw Kings Park, which as far as we can tell might be the largest city park in the world. We photographed black swans. We climbed the DNA tower. We shopped at David Jones. We ate at nice restaurants at Norman's expense.
On Tuesday, Norman's kid's families came over. We met grandchildren, Noel and Vivienne, and ate birthday cake with ten year old Ryan. Kit and Pete brought Spring rolls, the kind that Monica craves. Jeff and Carol talked about how they had to move from Thailand because Ryan asked for his own maid when he was six. We played Chinese Whisperer. I took Norman's picture next to a chair made out of bullhorns (cows do not have horns) that my great-grandfather used to sit on. Norman explained how you calculate South from the Southern Cross. We also found Scorpius in a sky that switched from cloudy to clear to cloudy to clear to cloudy, all in two hours.
Norman said that Stevie had 100 tea pots. Stevie said she had 99. It seemed like the Chinatown tea we had smuggled into the country might make a good, though token, gift. "We heard you have 99 pots. We hope you enjoy it lots."
Stevie generously dropped us off at the airport, though a bus could have done that task, as Perth seems to be the only city in the world where Google Maps offers public transit directions. It was quite a contrast from the reef and the rain forest, but visiting Norman and Stevie in Perth was no less spectacular.
I should point out that Australia no longer seems like a poorer version of the United States. Quite the opposite, as we saw varied architecture, some based on Frank Lloyd Wright, rather than typical American tract houses, and the elevators, automatic doors and everything else functioned as designed. The Australian dollar was worth $0.96. Coca Cola cost $2.80 in the vending machines. The only reason one might not want to live in Australia was if one was bothered by a certain lack of cosmopolitan experience in many Australians that a few hours at LAX would fix. (As occurs in Minnesota, many people did not realize that other people were around and pedestrians would stop suddenly without signaling.)
Our trip is nearing its end. We have two more nights. We arrived at our hotel in Melbourne at around 9 p.m., and the door was locked. The airport bus had given us a comprehensive tour of the CBD, making us later than anticipated. Our room on the 13th floor of the Mayflower on Lonsdale was equipped with a kitchenette and extra bedroom. I ordered my favorite Thai/Cambodian fish meal at an unpretentious place. Monica ate yogurt and we called it a night.
We found Queen Victoria's market in the morning, and shopped for souvenirs. There was stall after stall of gift shop/farmers market for several city blocks. I ate lamb curry for lunch, while Monica enjoyed Coca Cola, with real sugar, which she finds much preferable to the American recipe. We took the free tourist tram, and walked to the harbor. Later that day, using a bus pass, Monica directed us to St. Kilda beach. At the end of a long pier, we found penguins behind rocks. We also saw swimming rats, which I confused with dolphins at first. We ate a nice meal at Beachcombers.
The Star bus picked us up at our hotel and got us to the airport in plenty of time for our 11:30 a.m. flight. Leaving Melbourne was simple. We transferred planes at Sydney, and went through customs, which was also simple, though we had a tight connection. The day was long, as we spent 14 hours on the plane over the Pacific Ocean, and the French man behind us never figured out how to turn off his light. Nonetheless, we got a little sleep. Our transfer to Southwest airlines was less tight than the Australian transfer, but the lines were long through the security points. We arrived at the Southwest airlines gate in time to get the last row of the plane to ourselves. We arrived in Kansas City at 8 p.m. where Donna met us. We kept her up until 11 p.m.showing her our reef pictures.
How was Australia? Spectacular
Where: Sydney, Cairns, Perth, Melbourne
Why: Holiday
Flights: Southwest and Qantas
Hotels: Wotif
David's Coral Reef Photos (317):
Fifteen years ago, 3M sent me to Sydney, Australia to help with product scale up of an adhesive tape. I toured the Opera House, and became aware of its amazing architecture. Coworkers drove me down the Pacific coast to a "blow hole", a place where water pressure builds and then releases like a geyser. They also took me to the scenic Blue Mountains. I saw flying foxes near the observatory, where I viewed the Southern Cross and the Large and Small Magellan Clouds. Looking out the window, on my flight out of the country, I was dazzled by the neon colors of the Great Barrier Reef. There were downsides to Australia. Elevators seemed to never work. The Holden that I drove to the manufacturing plant was not a high performing car. It seemed like the economy lagged the United States. (The Australian dollar was worth $0.60 at the time.) But, I certainly wanted to come back some day, if for no other reason than to see the reef close up.
We have just returned from our two week holiday to Sydney, Cairns, Perth and Melbourne.
Our initial flight was from Kansas City to San Francisco, as flying Southwest seemed easier than dealing with the off-hour discounted flights of Northwest or Sun Country. Beau, our Bichon-Maltese, stayed with my sister, Donna, in Kansas City, and enjoyed the company of her German Shepherd. Joni's family and Donna's family all went to lunch with us at Joe's Crab Shack, the chain were Monica and I had our Groom's dinner. (They closed all of the Crab Shacks in Minnesota.)
In San Francisco, we spent a night at Union Square, and met Chong and the Burnhams at the Fisherman's Wharf Joe's Crab Shack. From there, we walked to the Pier 39 Sea Lions. It was a nice opportunity to visit with my relatives. I learned than Alan is no longer at Lawrence-Livermore and is instead working on shale technology for a start-up company. On our way to the Shack, Monica and I tasted tea.
We found the "How Weird Faire" on 2nd and Howard. Techno blared and people did their best to dress unusually. Monica picked up a few fashion tips. We ate at my favorite Korean Restaurant on O'Farrell before making our way to the airport.
Our flight was not crowded, so both us caught some sleep. I watched "There Will Be Blood" and "The Bucket List." As we waited for our bags, we were told about the rules against importing agricultural products. A lady asked specifically if we had any of the candy that Qantas had given us. Monica had not eaten her candy, so we knew that we did, though we could not find it in our carry-on bag. Monica was upset at me for losing it. As it turned out, the candy was in a fold in the bag, so Monica got her candy rather than customs. We also had some product in our luggage that we purchased at our San Francisco tea tasting that made us unsure.
We took the train to City Central, and found the Great Southern Hotel without difficulty. We dropped off our bags until check in time. Hostels and Internet Cafes were nearby, so we knew we were in a tourist neighborhood. We stopped for coffee and I tried to use my WiFi device. I was unsuccessful there, and everywhere in Australia. Once in a while, we saw a sign for free WiFi, but unlike our Saint Paul neighborhood, the ubiquitous WiFi signals were either pay services or locked.
Whether it was because we were tired, or because the tops of our maps pointed South, we had trouble locating Darling Harbor. Instead we found a neighborhood where billboards depict scantily dressed men. It was sort of like our visit to the "How Weird Faire." At Darling Harbor, we visited Sydney Wildlife World and we each held a large green walking stick insect. We saw a Wallaby and Joey and were surprised at how big the hole was that the Joey crawled into. There were butterflies, ostriches, and lots of snakes and reptiles.
We had Fish and Chips at the Hotel bar, checked in, and briefly napped. We had to get up quickly though for our 5 p.m. tour of the Opera House, which we got to by ferry.
The Opera House is an amazing building. The stairs to the Opera House are wide and tall, almost like climbing a pyramid. One area of the building feels like a ship. Another area feels like a church. There is a pipe organ with thousands of pipes. There is hardwood in the floor and ceiling to make world class sound.
After our tour, we shared a salad with sweet potatoes in it and made our way back to a performance featuring four ballets by Jerome Robbins. I could have chosen a better seat, as we had to stand up a lot to let people in from our spot at the very end of the row. The performances were comic, with skits Bugs Bunny would have done, and even as a non-follower of ballet, I could tell the performance was outstanding. Nonetheless, Monica had to elbow me often, as I was ready to sleep.
We met a tour bus on the second day, and were off to see autumn in the Blue Mountains. I had not planned this, but the $60 discounted tickets were too hard to pass up. The tour people describe it this way:
Enjoy breathtaking cliff-top views, lush rainforest gullies and towering waterfalls in this amazing World Heritage area. Pat a koala at the Wildlife Park and end the day with a cruise.
• Visit the award-winning Featherdale Wildlife Park – pat a cuddly koala.
• See our amazing Australian animals including koalas, kangaroos, crocodiles.
• Enjoy fantastic photo opportunities and the chance to feed and interact with the animals!
• Relax on a gentle bushwalk at Govetts Leap – breathtaking views from the lookouts.
• See the historic township of Katoomba.
• Take in the spectacular scenery of Jamison and Megalong Valley.
• Take a ride on the world’s steepest railway – scenic railway, the Skyway Cable Car, or the new Sceniscender(own expense).
• See the Three Sisters rock formation.
• Discover the delightful village of Leura – explore the antique shops.
• Travel through the site of the 2000 Olympic Games.
• Finish the day with a relaxing cruise along the Parramatta River.
The koalas were not interested in being patted and the crocodile was hibernating or something, but we did pet a kangaroo, and I believe we saw penguins in the Wildlife Park. All else was as advertised.
Monica kept seeing billboards for Art After Hours. I was skeptical, and somewhat tired from our bus tour, but we were able to figure out that the NSW Art Gallery was the place to go, and that the train would get us there. As we walked to the building, I saw an Aquarid Meteor. The art was actually very good and we listened to jazz at the cafe.
Our third day brought us back past the Art Gallery to the Botanical Center, where we were looking for the orchid display. Though the orchids are brighter in Spring, omnivorous plants, though small, were interesting to see. We saw lots of flying foxes (bats) hanging from the tops of the trees of the park. We saw little white butterflies next to a sign which told us that these butterflies never venture farther than 20 meters, and are very rare.
We walked to Kings Cross for lunch, where the nightlife was supposed to be, and were disappointed by the two fidgeting prostitutes we saw. Not much was going on, as far as we could tell.
We took a bus to Bondi Beach, where I dipped a piece of paper into the water. Though this is the most popular beach, perhaps in Australia, it was quiet there. May is an off season in Australia, as summer has ended, but winter travel has not yet started. We listened to the Laughing Society laugh. We wrote in the sand. We waded in the water.
We took the bus back to Circular Quay for the Justice System and Pubs display, but it is only open on weekends. We took the ferry Harbourside, where we found a mall. Monica led me through Chinatown and we ate at a Korean restaurant.
We had breakfast at the Youth Hostel and made calls on our WiFi phones. I wished my father Happy Birthday. Then, we caught our plane to Cairns. The bus took us to the Novotel Oasis Hotel, which has 4 stars and was quite nice. (We got good deals on our hotels, including the one in San Francisco, from wotif.com). The area had lots of backpacker accommodations, but they were no cheaper than where we stayed. We wandered around past the beach and the piers, shopping for trips to the reef and the rain forest. We were advised to take the reef tour on Saturday and the rain forest tour on Sunday, based on the chance of rain. I "hired" an underwater camera so that Monica could take reef pictures. We ate, looked at more flying foxes over the half-full moon, visited the Internet, and called it a night.
We found our boat and were offered ginger tablets, which I took, and sea sickness pills, which we did not take, but should have, since Monica got seasick. I crawled into my lycra suit, putting both legs through one leg-hole, before getting it right. I entered the water, then soon heard the whistle directing me to follow the others. I swam next to Monica. My goggles were fogging and before I even noticed the reef, I bumped my knee on it. Monica went back to the boat and I followed for first aid and defogger. Monica was not feeling well, but encouraged me to do more snorkling. I went back with the hired camera and took 308 pictures of the reef and fish beneath the sea. Our first stop was "the Magic Wall" of the Saxon reef, where at times the coral almost reached the ocean surface. Here, fish were smaller, and most everything was bright. On our second stop, we visited "Twin Peaks" where I photographed three sharks, and some larger scale coral. (I only noticed one shark at the time.) I was exhausted from the four hours of snorking,but was the last one on the boat, since I wanted to see as much as I could. Monica felt better at Twin Peaks, so she also got to snorkle enough to understand the thrill. Scuba divers on our boat saw an impressive giant sea turtle. I recommend the Tusa tour, we took, which focused entirely on snorkling and scuba diving near the reef. They did not offer a fancy rich lunch, like some tours, but we felt more like like pasta anyway.
Our final day in Cairns, we got up early, checked out the hotel, and waited for our 7:15 tour bus to the rain forest. The bus was late, and we might as well have walked the two blocks to the Cape Tribulation Tour office where we parked until after 8:00. But, that is the only criticism I have of the tour. We drove past beaches, walked through a rain forest, stopped at a wildlife park where a giant male crocodile lunged teeth first at the zookeeper's stick and saw a cassowary eat fruit whole, ate a picnic lunch next to a 10 foot long monitor lizard, who also wanted our lunch, and took a boat down the Daintree River where we saw tree snakes, kingfishers, tree frogs, and five crocodiles. The diversity of species is what makes the rain forest so spectacular. Anywhere there is water, something grows. Some of the species have been around 500 million years. Surprisingly, the soil is actually terrible in the rain forest, and everything lives off of the sun and the debris. Nowhere is symbiosis more evident.
We went to the Night Market and I ordered kangaroo, which tasted like prime beef, crocodile, which tasted like moist chicken, and beef, which was not special at all. A taxi took us from the Novotel, to the airport, where we caught the 11 p.m. flight to Perth. Another taxi took us to the Indian Ocean Hotel, Perth, where we arrived just before 3 a.m.
We called Norman and Stevie, my mother's cousin and our host in Perth. Norman lives 5 km south of the Indian Ocean hotel. But, before he came by at 11 a.m., we walked to the beach where we saw giant waves and excellent surfing.
Norman and I discussed relatives for a while. We really are not that close-- his grandfather was my great-grandfather. I had met his sister two years ago at Aunt Ellie's funeral. My mother had a crush on him as a teenager, and Norman's first kiss was my mother. My mother's feelings about him were why I felt comfortable visiting.
Norman and Stevie are the nicest people in the world. I actually had to talk Norman out of picking us up at the airport in the middle of the night. Instead of his regular golf game or 50 km bike ride, Norman showed us Perth sites, such as an old jail, complete with stockade, Notre Dame (a branch of the University based in Indiana), yacht clubs and harbors. They live just a couple blocks from the Indian Ocean, by the nicest beach I have ever seen. Every day, Monica and I would visit the beach. Every day we saw giant waves. One day we saw wind surfing. I picked up a coddlefish. We saw green light before sunset.
Monica rang the bells at the bell tower, because Norman kidded to the volunteer that Monica was a professional musician. (Norman has the James Bond voice.) We saw Kings Park, which as far as we can tell might be the largest city park in the world. We photographed black swans. We climbed the DNA tower. We shopped at David Jones. We ate at nice restaurants at Norman's expense.
On Tuesday, Norman's kid's families came over. We met grandchildren, Noel and Vivienne, and ate birthday cake with ten year old Ryan. Kit and Pete brought Spring rolls, the kind that Monica craves. Jeff and Carol talked about how they had to move from Thailand because Ryan asked for his own maid when he was six. We played Chinese Whisperer. I took Norman's picture next to a chair made out of bullhorns (cows do not have horns) that my great-grandfather used to sit on. Norman explained how you calculate South from the Southern Cross. We also found Scorpius in a sky that switched from cloudy to clear to cloudy to clear to cloudy, all in two hours.
Norman said that Stevie had 100 tea pots. Stevie said she had 99. It seemed like the Chinatown tea we had smuggled into the country might make a good, though token, gift. "We heard you have 99 pots. We hope you enjoy it lots."
Stevie generously dropped us off at the airport, though a bus could have done that task, as Perth seems to be the only city in the world where Google Maps offers public transit directions. It was quite a contrast from the reef and the rain forest, but visiting Norman and Stevie in Perth was no less spectacular.
I should point out that Australia no longer seems like a poorer version of the United States. Quite the opposite, as we saw varied architecture, some based on Frank Lloyd Wright, rather than typical American tract houses, and the elevators, automatic doors and everything else functioned as designed. The Australian dollar was worth $0.96. Coca Cola cost $2.80 in the vending machines. The only reason one might not want to live in Australia was if one was bothered by a certain lack of cosmopolitan experience in many Australians that a few hours at LAX would fix. (As occurs in Minnesota, many people did not realize that other people were around and pedestrians would stop suddenly without signaling.)
Our trip is nearing its end. We have two more nights. We arrived at our hotel in Melbourne at around 9 p.m., and the door was locked. The airport bus had given us a comprehensive tour of the CBD, making us later than anticipated. Our room on the 13th floor of the Mayflower on Lonsdale was equipped with a kitchenette and extra bedroom. I ordered my favorite Thai/Cambodian fish meal at an unpretentious place. Monica ate yogurt and we called it a night.
We found Queen Victoria's market in the morning, and shopped for souvenirs. There was stall after stall of gift shop/farmers market for several city blocks. I ate lamb curry for lunch, while Monica enjoyed Coca Cola, with real sugar, which she finds much preferable to the American recipe. We took the free tourist tram, and walked to the harbor. Later that day, using a bus pass, Monica directed us to St. Kilda beach. At the end of a long pier, we found penguins behind rocks. We also saw swimming rats, which I confused with dolphins at first. We ate a nice meal at Beachcombers.
The Star bus picked us up at our hotel and got us to the airport in plenty of time for our 11:30 a.m. flight. Leaving Melbourne was simple. We transferred planes at Sydney, and went through customs, which was also simple, though we had a tight connection. The day was long, as we spent 14 hours on the plane over the Pacific Ocean, and the French man behind us never figured out how to turn off his light. Nonetheless, we got a little sleep. Our transfer to Southwest airlines was less tight than the Australian transfer, but the lines were long through the security points. We arrived at the Southwest airlines gate in time to get the last row of the plane to ourselves. We arrived in Kansas City at 8 p.m. where Donna met us. We kept her up until 11 p.m.showing her our reef pictures.
How was Australia? Spectacular
Where: Sydney, Cairns, Perth, Melbourne
Why: Holiday
Flights: Southwest and Qantas
Hotels: Wotif
posted by David Rasmussen at 10:06 AM
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