We returned to Sydney to wait for our flight to Los Angeles. Time to go home. It’s fitting we finish our journey in Australia in the place where it began, in one of the world’s most beautiful cities, a place with so many assets that we couldn’t begin to visit or appreciate them all.

One of Sydney’s landmarks is a great Romanesque Revival pile of dun-colored stone—the Queen Victoria Building. It was completed in 1898.

Sydneysiders call it the QVB. Ugly, brooding and impressive, its massive façade was intended to intimidate, to emphasize the might and permanence of the British Empire. We’re big, we’re here, and we aren’t going anywhere.

At the end of the Nineteenth Century, the QVB housed a market. A century later, the restored version continues as a market, providing space for establishments far more upscale than the tailors, hairdressers and coffee houses that were the original tenants. Today you’d have no difficulty shopping for a $10,000 rare print or a $5,000 black opal pendant.

The Queen Victoria Building was a decaying wreck in the mid-’50s. You’d never know it today. Over $100 milliion has been poured into restoration work, resulting in an interior that is fresh and exciting—modern colors emphasizing 19th-century details.

A stained glass window rivals those of many cathedrals. This one depicts the Ancient Arms of the City of Sydney, an appellation I find odd. I mean, nothing in America is ancient, and America is twice as old as Australia.

The QVB houses the Great Australian Clock, a spectacular treat for my inner engineer. In my opinion, providing space for this incredible machine is reason enough for the existence of the entire building.

This melding of art and mechanics is more than thirty feet high and weighs four tons. It tells the local time on four great faces, and overseas times on smaller ones. It gives the day and date as well, although I doubt anyone consults it for that information anymore.

What turns the Great Australian Clock into an object of considerable interest and beauty is a set of 33 scenes from Australia’s history. Only eight of them are visible at any one time. The diorama below shows Captain Cook landing in 1770, wearing a powdered wig and holding a tricorn hat in his hand. As a schoolboy, I saw uniforms like his while studying the American Revolution, an event that occurred more or less contemporaneously with Cook’s voyage.

Another scene illustrates the landing of the Second Fleet at Sydney Cove in 1789. Having lost America as a convenient dumping ground for unwanted persons, England began sending prisoners and other undesirables to Australia. The voyage of the Second Fleet remains a blot on the history of Australia and Great Britain. The poor wretches being transported were starved; most suffered from disease and some were tortured. A quarter of them failed to survive the voyage because of neglect and abuse. This illustration shows a man being flogged.

An even more shameful episode from Australia’s past is dramatized in a diorama called “The Taking of the Children.” For purportedly beneficent reasons, in the years from 1869 all the way up to 1969, aboriginal children were forcibly removed from their parents and sent to live in orphanages. The idea was that living under white masters would break them of their “aboriginal-ness.” This practice resulted in the creation of what is called the Lost Generation. Today, most of Australia’s aboriginal people live without roots. They are not incorporated into white society nor are they members of aboriginal clans. They don’t even know who their parents are.

I think it’s commendable that some white Australians are willing to face past wrongs done by their society but I’m not sure modern Australians really get it. To wit: a recently installed diorama called “Unity” shows blackfellas and whitefellas picnicking together in a scene of amity and happiness. Certainly no such event has never taken place. The aboriginals I see are poor, marginalized, and almost invisible to the European descendants that now dominate their land. Many are embittered and angry.

One other engaging feature of this marvelous instrument: a model of the Endeavor circles the clock, sailing past marine views of the places Cook visited. In this view, the ship passes before Kiama in New South Wales, a few miles south of Sydney.

So many historic and significant buildings have fallen to the wrecker’s ball. The Queen Victoria Building almost suffered this fate. I was told that public outcry was instrumental in saving it. Had the building fallen, I’m certain that the Great Australian Clock would have been saved, but it would have been diminished by no longer hanging in a place with all that Victorian gravitas.

—§—

And with that, goodbye Australia, hello Mexico. I am home as I make this final post of our journey, happy to have been there and happy to be back in San Miguel de Allende again.

Driving through the Australian countryside, we frequently see termite mounds. I’ve never seen one in the Americas, but they are common here.

A pamphlet explains that termite mounds “are built from soil brought from beneath the ground. The soil is cemented together with the insects' saliva and excreta.” (Take note 3M—Possible new adhesive: termite spit and poop.)

In the far north of the country, near Darwin, we saw the extraordinary thin slab-shaped mounds of magnetic termites.

In this hot, seasonally wet part of the continent, termites need protection from high temperatures and flooding. They avoid the latter by living in mounds above ground, but in so doing, they lose the ability to control temperatures that underground living would provide.

The tropical sun bakes termite mounds. Thin-skinned white termites cannot survive temperatures above 30º C, so these insects have come up with a high-tech solution. They build thin mounds with large flat sides aligned north-south to avoid heat buildup from solar energy.

(Maybe my notebook wouldn’t cook my lap had Apple engineers consulted with magnetic termites.)

Side and end views below illustrate the shape. The mounds in the photograph are about eight feet high.

To test the hypothesis that flat mound design enables termites to avoid high temperatures, experimenters rotated one of them a few degrees. A small angular misalignment caused temperatures inside the mound to rise to lethal levels. A north-south orientation was shown to be crucial.^*

But how do termites know where north is? The answer is they can sense the earth’s magnetic field, probably by storing magnetite in their bodies. Existence of their magnetic sensitivity was demonstrated by inserting strong magnets into an existing mound, whereupon the termites began rebuilding it in a different alignment.

Scientists found all this out and published it for my enlightenment and yours. But I suspect termites wish scientists would stop messing with their mounds and just leave them alone. If termites can wish, that is.

Different, less sophisticated termites built this really big mound. Brawn over brains.

Using my body as a measuring instrument (engineers like to measure things), I put the height at about three Smoots, or 16” 9”. Unlike the mounds we saw along the highway in more temperate regions, this one has fins. I wonder if the fins are involved in heat control as well?

So many mysteries, so little time.

* Note: Termite mound thermal management is actually way more complicated than the explanation I give here. If you are geeky enough to want the full story, check out this link.

Laura stands here on the edge of a cliff. See how close her feet are to the drop-off?

Where she’s perched is a bad, bad place. Here’s a view of the same cliff from another perspective.

You won’t see me anywhere near where Laura was standing. I get vertigo. Edges scare me. Tourist guides advise timorous hikers that in certain places around here, they’ll want to scoot along the trail on their butts.

In high school I was a rock climber. At the time, I made a great effort to overcome my fear of heights. Even though I eventually became good at scaling rock faces, fear lurked in the back of my mind.

It’s been decades since I’ve been on belay. Over that time I lost the capacity for tolerating great heights, and today I am as fearful of them as I ever was.

—§—

We’re walking along the lip of King’s Canyon in Watarrka National Park, a place full of interesting features to examine. These trees are varieties of eucalypts, a genus endemic to Australia. I’m guessing they are either ghost gums or white gums.

I’m struck by the many different forms eucalypts take. They comprise some seven hundred species, and only a handful grow naturally outside of Australia. To me, they are exotic and beautiful.

This sandstone has tales to tell. The layers were deposited at different angles, a phenomenon called cross-bedding, which occurs in rocks that started out as sand dunes. As winds shift directions, the sand they carry piles up on one face or another of the dunes, creating layers that tilt. The tilted layers become visible when the rock so formed erodes.

A couple of kilometers away, rocks formed from the same sand carry marks from water. These were deposited in a shallow sea or estuary. Ripples impressed by water on the sand have been captured in stone.

Watarrka National Park management built rugged wooden stairways to provide routes to otherwise inaccessible places in King’s Canyon.

One such place is called the Garden of Eden, a spring-fed pond surrounded by ferns, cycads and abundant wildlife.

Water attracts types of desert-dwelling birds that I haven’t seen before. Their coloring is attractive. Walking on a new continent, I’ve encountered so many new plants and animals. I can now appreciate the thrill Charles Darwin must have felt each time he disembarked from the Beagle into a new ecosystem.

The scale of the canyon walls is hard to capture in photographs. I took this one to try to convey some idea of the dimensions of the place. If you look closely along the upper lip, you can just make out two human figures.

Even in this telephoto shot, cliff heights are impressive. Just watching that guy sit right on the edge gave me stomach butterflies.

Australia’s Red Center has features rivaling those in the Four Corners area of the American Southwest. The Australian formations may not be as well known, but they’re every bit as scenic. Moreover, they’re blessedly free of crowds.

Initially I resisted suggestions to visit Ayers Rock (Uluru). I thought, “What’s out there anyway? Just a big rock. A famous one, to be sure, but once I’ve seen it, then what?”

I should know better. Deserts are fascinating places. I’ve spent lots of time in the Mojave, Death Valley, Saguaro National Park. Giving such places close looks always pays off.

Ayers Rock is located in Uluru - Kata Tjuta National Park. The name is hyphenated to include mention not only of Ayers Rock, but of yet another major feature of the place: a formation that surveyor Ernest Giles called the Olgas.

Kata Tjuta—the Olgas—is situated on an Aboriginal Reserve, recognizing certain rights belonging to the traditional (aboriginal) owners of the land. A wordy highway sign informs motorists that “it is an offence” to introduce alcoholic beverages or pornography into this place. No booze because, among other reasons, alcoholism is a big problem for aboriginals. As for porno, the need to post such proscription on a highway sign baffles me.

In coming here, our intention is to walk the Valley of the Winds, a 7.4 KM track that leads through spectacular rock formations.

Portions of the trail are steep. At one point, we have to scramble up a bulging sandstone face—typical of such tracks in the Red Center. I find it satisfying that Australian National Parks don’t feel a need to install stairs and handrails. Plentiful signs describe the difficulty of the various trails, leaving hikers to take responsibility for matching their personal capabilities to the terrain.

Along the trail grow hummocks of spinifex, a grass important to aboriginals. Before intrusion of European influences, these people gathered spinifex seeds and ground them to make a kind of bread. In an aboriginal cultural center, I saw spears and spear throwers that incorporated spinifex resin as glue.

A lavender banksia (above, right) is new to me. Banksias usually grow near the coast; finding one in the desert is surprising. This native Australian genus usually bears yellow blossoms, or sometimes orange or red ones. Violet flowers are unusual. Banksias are an important part of the food chain, providing nectar for birds and seeds for small mammals. I find some kind of comfort, seeing these sweet plants in this harsh, dry place.

Along the trail, we come across this notice. Thousands of square kilometers of trackless desert, and someone finds it necessary to restrict access to this one part of it. Why?

Steep ascents and descents, rock-hopping, boulder-scrambling make finding the occasional thatch roof shelter a welcome event.

In The Songlines, Bruce Chatwin proposes that humans descended from earlier hominids in response to jungles drying up. As forest became savannah, and savannah became desert, humans developed upright posture and better brains to cope with the stresses of scarce food and water. So deserts may have been our first home; the environment we evolved to survive in. Maybe an ancient racial memory explains why dry, open places call to me.

In junior high I learned to call it Ayers Rock. Today, in acknowledgement of the original inhabitants, it is officially known both by the English name and by the traditional name the Anangu gave it: Uluru. After our long drive through the desert, we fortuitously came upon it just before sunset, when it put on an amazing light show.

Uluru is composed of layers of coarse sandstone laid down by some ancient sea. Back in geological time, the whole was turned on its side, so that the visible layers of rock are vertical, like slices in a loaf of bread. What we see is a tiny fraction of the formation; it extends below the surface of the earth for kilometers.

We arose at five the next morning hoping to see similar coloring on the west side of the rock at sunrise. Alas, the sky was overcast.

The sunrise was disappointing, but we had a more important objective for the day: the ten kilometer walk around the rock. The track is flat and would require about four hours to complete.

I always thought Ayers Rock was loaf shaped, but the map shows it to have the form of an arrowhead. The five black, angular areas abutting the outline of the rock, as well as the one surrounding the smaller rock labelled Toputji, are sites sacred to aboriginals. Visitors are asked not to enter nor photograph them.

Looking closer, the rock looks rotten. Erosion scars its face. The area receives twelve inches of rain a year: not much, but enough to wash away soft sandstone.

Some erosion is by spalling—the peeling away of layers of rock. I speculate that exposure to wide swings in temperature causes expansion and contraction of the surface, breaking it free from underlying layers. Daytime temperatures can exceed 110º F and can fall well below freezing at night.

The spalling is fractal, occurring at scales ranging from huge slabs to tiny flakes.

Sporadic waterfalls leave tracks and depressions on the surface. I saw a photograph of Uluru with several good-sized waterfalls pouring off it.

The rock contains internal flaws that admit lots of water. Eventually erosion leads to formation of eerie cave mouths.

Even in this dry land, water collects. This, the Mutitjulu Waterhole, is a reliable source of water for wildlife.

In places, the trail closely skirts the side of the rock, permitting a close look at its structure.

The overcast weather was a blessing of sorts. The noon temperature probably did not reach 70º F. Because of high heat and the force of the sun, the National Park provides shade and benches for walkers. I needed an occasional rest, even in the cool weather.

Visitors can get in trouble: dehydration, heat stroke, a twisted or broken ankle, a bite from something nasty. Emergency radios provide means of summoning help.

I saw two new birds. (I am NOT a birder. Honest.) The trio on the left are Crested Pigeons. I can’t identify the fellow on the right, but he’s perched on the arm of a bench, jamming me for a handout.

Ancient Anangu, the traditional owners of this land, left rock art behind. No one knows the significance of these sketches. They’re thought to be a sort of journal.

Visitors are given many reasons why they should not climb the rock:

• The climb is physically demanding, especially on hot days. Thirty-five people have died attempting it.
• The Anangu are deeply saddened when people are injured or killed on their land.
• The climb has great spiritual significance for the Anangu and prefer visitors respect this.
• The traditional owners explicitly request people refrain from climbing.

Nevertheless, climbers scale the rock every day, except on days when park management closes access because of heat, rain or wind, or because of conflict with an Anangu ceremony.

I tried to respect the wishes of the aboriginals with regard to entering and photographing sacred sites, and climbing. I was disturbed watching the climbers on the rock this morning.

William Gosse, a surveyor, is believed to be the first European to see the rock, during an expedition in 1873. Tourists visited for the first time in 1936, and a vehicle track was graded in 1948. The first tour bus arrived in 1950, carrying twenty-two students and four masters from Knox Grammar School in Sydney.

I would have loved to have been among them.

The 1958 season saw 2,300 tourists come here. Today the rock receives over five million per year. Visiting Ayers Rock has become almost mundane.

Uluru dominates the plain. Ancestral Anangu must have had a profound spiritual experience when they discovered it. I sensed a pervasive energy as I viewed and walked around it. There’s something more here than just a rock in the desert.

(About the sunset sequence photograph: What you see is exactly what the camera saw. I did no color tweaking. I used Photoshop only to crop and stack the individual images. The idea for the sequence is not original. I’ve seen it on postcards.)

From the Great Ocean Road, we drove to Adalaide to visit a friend. From there we flew to Alice Springs, a small town that really has no reason for being except that, in this desolate location there once was a repeater station for the telegraph line that connected the Australian Continent from south to north. A bustling town has since grown up here to service tourists who visit Australia’s Red Center.

We rented a car and took off for the desert, driving south on the Stuart Highway.

There’s really nothing out here. Every hundred kilometers or so, the highway passes a roadhouse. These places can best be described as utilitarian. Most offer minimalist lodgings and very basic meals. Some offer home grown entertainment.

More importantly, the roadhouses are communications posts from which help can be summoned for those whose cars break down in the desert. Last month a friend struck a kangaroo, damaging his radiator. (And the kangaroo.) He hailed a passing road train (a semi with three or more trailers) that stopped at the next roadhouse where the driver called a tow. Distances are such that our friend spent most of a day on the roadside before help arrived.

Roadhouses display old photos of desert pioneers on their walls, or collections of license plates, or old vehicles rusting away. Trucks get used hard here. This 1939 Dodge dragged many early tracks, making the interior accessible.

The first tour bus in these parts was built on a 4WD truck frame, modified to accept tires from a Boeing 727. That’s how bad the roads were.

Sometimes we feel like we’re in Arizona. This monument is called Mt. Connor. In the American Southwest, it would be called Connor Mesa. But there’s no Spanish influence in Australian place names, so they make mountains out of mesas.

The government provides occasional roadside rests. Many are provisioned with water, which could be a matter of life or death in certain circumstances. We heeded advice that we should bring a spare gallon of water in our car in case we became stranded.

The car rental company made it clear we were not permitted to drive our 2WD Nissan on unsealed (dirt) roads, a reasonable restriction given how easily it is to get stuck in loose sand or a creek bed. Suitable 4WD vehicles are available for rent, but for novices, going into the bush in one of them is a bad idea unless in caravan with another vehicle.

An alternative is to sign up for a small tour group. This rig is carrying seven tourists and their guide deep into the outback. The trailer behind the Toyota Land Cruiser is the chuck wagon.

This unsealed road is not some nameless track. It’s a major arterial leading to the Western Australia border. Many Australian roads are like this one. Australia is too big, too new, and too thinly populated to yet have connected all of its towns with highways. Major road or not, this one shouldn’t be attempted in a regular passenger vehicle.

A string of footprints of a type I haven’s seen before runs alongside Docker River Road.

They were made by camels, descendants of those brought to Australia in the Nineteenth Century for transport in the western deserts.

I saw these melons growing wild. I broke one open with a rock to expose green flesh, like a honeydew. Without thinking, I stuck my finger into it, then into my mouth. It had an incredibly bitter taste, like alum, impossible to clear from my tongue by spitting. At that point it dawned on me that I had just tasted an unknown plant on a continent that has more deadly plants and animals than any other. I began to speculate about the latency time of any alkaloids I might have ingested.

Later I learned these were paddy-melons, introduced by Afghan camel drivers as fodder for their animals. This plant has become naturalized, as have the camels that eat them. Paddy-melons are not tasty, but much to my relief they’re harmless.

Driving on, the land becomes more like the Sonoran Desert near Tucson. It’s still desert, but thick with sturdy plants that survive the aridity.

In the distance—mountains: our destination. Out here, it takes a long time to get anywhere. By now we’re thankful to be reaching a place where we can get Cokes, a hot meal and a place to sleep.

We’re becoming accustomed to Australianisms. Whenever we ask anyone for something, they respond “No worries.” When apologizing for jostling someone, I get “Yer all right, mate.” Australians use the word “whilst” as in “fasten your seat belt whilst driving.” Speaking of driving, highways have lanes for “overtaking,” not for passing.

Some expressions are quirky. What Mexicans call topes (speed bumps) are here called “sleeping policemen.” When I told an Aussie friend I wanted to take high tea at the Windsor Hotel, she said, “That’ll cost you a bowl.”

At the Kaos Kafe on the Great Ocean Road, a sign reads: “Any child left unattended will be given an espresso and a free puppy.” (I have found variants of this notice all over the world, so it’s not exactly an Australianism.)

—§—

Australians are light, cheerful and engaging. Also, they’re sexy.

Unlike puritanical American advertisers, Australian companies seem to delight in suggestive slogans. A brand of toilet tissue offers the slogan, “Quilton loves your bum.”

A billboard promoting a restaurant says “Get Stuffed!” Streets ice cream employs a similar theme.

I notice sex shops everywhere. Not the US or European kind, those secretive places that you can’t see inside. Australian sex shops have cheery display windows featuring mannequins attired in naughty nighties and fur-lined handcuffs. A large sign on a Melbourne awning announces “Marital Toys.” (But not “Extra-Marital Toys. The Australian sense of decency requires some sort of limits, after all.)

In Australia, sex has a more public presence than I’m used to: more direct, less circumspect. At the cashier’s booth in a gas station there’s a large display of condoms with colorful wrappers depicting naked people embracing: not pornographic, but highly suggestive. “Yes, I’ll have thirty liters of petrol, a flavored condom, and a Snickers bar, please.”

A newspaper for the Northern Territory features lurid stories on the front page of every issue.

Once past the headlines, I can see it is a legitimate paper, with thoughtful pieces on the swine flu pandemic and the economic difficulties. I also see there is a robust classified advertising section. One classification, headed “Services,” is for prostitutes. Not ingenuous ads for “escorts” or “massage—outcalls,” but ads by real upfront hookers, with detailed descriptions of what exactly is on offer.

The content of the ads doesn’t shock me. What surprises me is that the ads are published at all. Is there anywhere else in the world where the general media carry ads selling outright sex?

Australians acknowledge sex without any fuss. They are playful about it. They’re not ashamed of it. It all seems pretty healthy to me.

Continuing our exploration of the Great Coast Road, we encounter a region of vertical limestone cliffs that plunge into the sea. These are the formations that people drive this windy road to see.

Tourists from all over the world congregate here—yet another world-class Australian destination. Most people we encounter speak languages other than English. Among them: two Korean businessmen, uncomfortably hiking headland tracks in silk suits.

The tablelands formed when a sea covered the area. Sediments accumulated, the sea level dropped and these rocks became part of a land bridge connecting mainland Australia and Tasmania.

(Some scientists propose that a similar land bridge connected New Guinea with Australia. This would explain how aboriginals came to this continent before humankind possessed seaworthy boats.)

Waves and weather cut into the sedimentary limestones, producing spectacular coastal formations. These four are called the Apostles.

This is a view of two more of the Apostles. They once were called the Twelve Apostles, but over the last century, six have fallen to waves and rain.

A natural bridge can form when hard capstone keeps harmful rains off soft limestone, and the sea wears a hole through. There are several such bridges here. One, called London Bridge, collapsed some years ago. Its location on official maps is marked thus: “London Bridge (broken).” Australians are careful about false advertising.

The formations are impermanent. This seems a little strange to me. The granite features of Yosemite Valley look the same today as when I first saw them fifty years ago. The Great Ocean Road limestone formations visibly change within the span of a lifetime. That rapid erosion is at work is plainly evident in the worn surfaces of the headlands.

Surf attacks the headlands’ flanks even in relatively calm weather.

Rain water enters cracks, percolating through and dissolving the limestone.

This formation looks like it won’t last long. Surf undercutting the base will topple it before rains finish dissolving it from the top.

Old formations disappear. The sea carves out new ones. The process will continue for millennia, so there’s no need to hurry over here. There’ll always be something special to see.

I realize I’ve become attached to places. I miss low-rise San Francisco in the ’50s, Mendocino on the North Coast before yuppies found it, the drive-through tree along Yosemite’s north entrance before it blew over in a storm. This part of Australia’s coast shows me that impermanence is OK. Nothing is ever lost: only changed.

We’ve rented a car in Melbourne and set out for Adelaide, on our way to visit another Australian friend. Around seven hundred kilometers, we should be able to cover the distance in one day on the M1 if we fudge a little on the speed limit. But we’re going to take the scenic route, so we’re taking two days.

One of Australia’s most beautiful stretches of highway is the Great Ocean Road. Equivalent in my mind to California’s Highway 1 along the Big Sur Coast, it twists along headlands and over creeks, clinging to mountains that plunge into the sea.

Along the way beautiful vistas of hilly pasture and forests open up. Cows graze in meadows with million dollar views.

But the coast is what we’re here to see. Infrequent villages string out along the highway. Isolation and difficult roads keep this part of Australia’s south coast relatively undeveloped.

Oddly, this road sign frequently pops up. Until driving the winding part of the Great Ocean Road, I never encountered it.

It would seem that in order to get to the location of the first of these signs, motorists must successfully drive on the left for hours. Presumably, even the slowest learner has by now mastered British-style driving. So why, at this point, are such signs needed?

Our trip began at the southeast end of the highway, where sandy beaches and good waves attract surfers. We saw plenty of these on the New South Wales coast, so we hurried on through. We are seeking dramatic waves breaking on rocky shores.

Gently sloping strands are mostly gone now. Here we see land with fangs. We can see how erosion pockmarks rocks, how lowly lichens create beauty.

An occasional pocket beach offers a soft haven among the rocks, a place to walk beside the breaking waves. Most beaches here are devoid of people—surprising given the absence of sharks and stingers. What a difference from the congestion of Broad Beach.

The Great Ocean Road winds along Australia’s Shipwreck Coast. Here, Laura takes photographs at the site of a tragedy.

In 1891, the Barque W. B. Godfrey lost sight of the coast due to dense smoke from bush fires. It struck these rocks and sank. Everyone aboard made it safely to land, but later several people died in attempts to salvage the wreck. During very low tides, the ship’s steel frame, winch and anchor become visible.

The story of the coast along the Great Ocean Road is about scores of such shipwrecks. Commemorative plaques denote locations at lookouts along the way.

We spent the night in a sweet coastal village, Port Campbell, at the Daisy Hill Country Cottages. Dinner was at an excellent restaurant called The Waves. Our hippie surfer dude waiter took Laura’s order: “I’ll have the vegetable curry.”

“Awesome.”

I said, “I’ll have the grilled John Dory.”

“Super.”

“I don’t need a straw in my coke.”

“Excellent.”

“I think we’ll have dessert.”

“Wicked.”

The Bee Gees played softly in the background.

Our room had a glass front woodstove. We slept in the red glow of a red gum fire, the smell of the sea drifting in the window.

(About those “Drive on Left” signs: A friend points out that after long stretches on two lane roads with little oncoming traffic to act as reminders, tired American and Continental European drivers sometimes revert instinctively to right hand mode. He’s right—it happened to me.)

I complained to the owner of the Kookaburra Inn that I’d not seen any kangaroos after spending six weeks in Australia. I mean, the country was supposed to be crawling with them. Or I should say, jumping with them.

We’d driven more than a thousand miles of highways and seen scores of yellow warning signs showing the silhouette of a leaping ‘roo. So where were they all? We’d seen a few dead ones along the highway. Road kill. “Look, Laura! Isn’t that pile of steaming guts a kangaroo?”

The motel owner told us, “Tell you what. If you don’t see a kangaroo in that meadow in back of the inn, you can stay for free. But if you do, you pay double.” I knew better than to take that bet.

Early next morning we awakened and looked out the back.

There must have been fifty kangaroos, all grazing the way deer do. Perhaps they fill the ecological niche occupied by deer in Europe and the Americas.

Mostly they crouched and chewed on the grass. Occasionally one would rise up on its hind legs and hop to someplace where the grass was presumably greener.

They rest their tails on the ground. In order to move forward a foot or two, they raise both hind feet into the air and scoot themselves forward on their huge tails.

Kangaroos have no natural enemies so they’re not skittish. I was able to approach one closely.

One of our Australian friends told us people become close to kangaroos, especially injured animals they’ve rescued. They become semi-tame, as do deer.

But of course feeding wild animals harms them, making them dependent on unnatural foods and turning them into pests.

We’re told a startled or threatened kangaroo can inflict serious wounds by lashing out with the huge toes on their hind feet. Another good reason for not approaching them to feed them.

I didn’t see any joeys in their mama’s pouches. But we have a little more time left in the country. Maybe we’ll get lucky.

Residents of Melbourne have wonderful weekend getaway options. For example, about three hours away by car lies a mountainous region called the Grampians.

It’s fall in Australia, and we’re visiting the Grampians as the trees are coloring up. The weather is crisp, the sky is bright. I’ve rarely experienced a climate like this since moving to California from New Jersey in 1958.

The Grampians are a range of limestone mountains. They remain largely unexploited, probably because there is so much good land for farming and grazing elsewhere in Australia. By the time developers’ interests awakened, conservation had become a priority in Australia, and the Grampians were protected as a national park.

The usual signs abound inside the park, warning that vertical terrain can be dangerous.

A member of our party defiantly ignores the warnings. If that ledge were to break, a fall of hundreds of feet await him.

We’ve been reading about terrible wildfires in the State of Victoria caused in part by a drought of several years’ duration coupled with an extremely hot summer and high winds. But fire is a part of the ecosystem here. Four years ago (more or less) a large part of the eucalypt forest in the Grampians burned. We walked a track through blackened tree trunks.

The usual fire prevention efforts take place here, just as in US forests. I suspect though that fire management is a thorny problem for foresters. Too much suppression causes buildup of undergrowth and fuels resulting in intense fires that reach the canopy, killing the trees. Too little, and public pressure forces stepped up suppression efforts.

Ground fires burn away small wood and brush. Larger trees, although their trunks are blackened, put out new leaf and branch growth. I found this burned-over forest to be bursting with life, a green and pleasant place.

The two foreground plants, the ones that look like yuccas, won’t even bloom until a fire has burned through, improving the competitive picture for their offspring. Fire is essential to the environment.

Lake Bellfield is a reservoir completed in 1969. Impounded waters irrigate farmland valleys. It’s quite beautiful, and is open to the public for swimming, boating,and fishing. Motorboats do not disturb the placid scene: they’re not allowed.

But all is not well at Lake Bellfield. The water’s surface has sunk to about forty feet below normal levels. It should be lapping at the walkway visible on the left.

These are times of drought and high fire danger. Water use restrictions are in place. Everyone is conserving. Reminds me of California in the 90s, when a green lawn meant you were a water hog. Is this just a drought that will end in good time? Or is it an artifact of global warming? If the latter, Australians are in trouble.

Communities dependent on visitors and tourists were hit hard by the fires four years ago. Nobody wanted to come here to view the smoking ruins. The town of Halls Gap (pop. 300) holds an annual wine festival (pop. 6,000) designed to encourage Melburnians to return to the Grampians. For us, the festival proved to be a good place to get lunch.

We stayed at a motel called the Kookaburra Inn, so called because the eponymous birds congregate there. We heard their distinctive calls in the mornings and evenings, but managed to see only one, during a walk high in the Grampians.

That sound that used to be a staple of jungle movies—HOO HOO HOO HOO HA HA HA—that’s the call of the Kookaburra. Hearing one was another lifetime dream come true.

Small patios extend off the back side of our motel rooms, each separated from the next by a thin hedge. From the patio next to ours, I heard the noise of chairs scraping and the flicks of Bics followed by the smell of cigarette smoke. Then a voice screeched, “Shut ya cake hole, Ma!”

The rasping calls of the cockatoos were, by comparison, mellifluous.

Evening fell as we sat there. Ma and the cigarette smokers drifted away. One by one, cockatoos arrived. I was transfixed by the proximity of wildlife until one of our party offered a piece of pretzel. A cockatoo eagerly gobbled it up.

Yes, the birds come there for a handout. They’ve clearly lost all sense of pride, milking tourists for all they can get. “Spare change? Got any spare change?” Bums.

When traveling, I never know where I’ll find clues to the culture of the place I’m exploring. Recently I found some hints about Australian culture in public men’s rooms.

Some years ago the American media was full of controversy over needle exchange programs for intravenous drug users. Proponents were trying to slow the spread of diseases like AIDS. Opponents were concerned about enabling drug addiction.

I didn’t see any mention of a related health issue: Janitorial workers becoming infected by sticks from needles left in trash bins. To counter this threat, some Australian restrooms have safes into which people can discard hypodermic needles. The small, steel boxes are padlocked to keep innocent—and not-so-innocent—fingers out.

Australian authorities have a refreshing directness about such things. More so than their American counterparts, they seem to do the right thing with minimal partisan fuss.

—§—

When I was a kid, I was fascinated by the condom machines I encountered in the mens’ rooms of diners and roadhouses. There was something naughty and mysterious about them, hinting the existence of a world about which I knew nothing.

I haven’s seen this type of vending machine in decades. Finding them in Australia sent me straight back to the ’50s.

Today, the idea that a young man out on a date would stop in the restroom to buy a condom seems almost quaint. Back then, all we were concerned about was getting “knocked up.” In recent years, the grim reality is the risk of contracting terrible diseases.

Regrettably, my innocence about such matters is long gone.

(Note to fellow bloggers: People look at you funny when you take photographs in rest rooms.)

Melburnians, when they’re off work, have many places to play. One such is the beach suburb of St. Kilda. We knew something was odd about the place when we looked at the tram schedule posted on a street corner in Richmond (where we are staying). The direct tram to St. Kilda didn’t begin running until 6:00 PM and stopped at 2:00 AM. What kind of schedule is that?

We pieced together our journey using transfers. On alighting from the last tram, we were greeted by this face.

Urban beaches seem to be good locations for amusement parks. I think back to when I was a teenager at Coney Island or the Boardwalk at Santa Cruz, California. St. Kilda is famous for its amusement park, Luna Park. An old fashioned wooden roller coaster is the main attraction here. Luna Park was closed when we visited so we didn’t get to ride it. I love the lurch and sway of the old coasters.

A row of elegant old houses overlooks Port Phillip Bay. Homes like this are fast disappearing. Developers scrape them off the valuable land they sit on in order to replace them with ugly high rises.

A sign on a building not far from the community organic garden proposes reducing a planned St. Kilda Triangle development project by two thirds. Apparently, someone has big plans for the area. Good luck to those who are trying to stop them.

We’re grateful we’re visiting this place while it still retains some of its charm. From the St. Kilda Pier, we spotted a couple of black swans. Their neck bands attest that they’re important enough to be tracked.

Cockatoos roost in hollowed-out spaces in palm trees. Their characteristic jarring screeches somehow blend into the scene.

But St. Kilda really comes into its own after dark. We watch the sun set behind the tea house on the pier, and head out for café-lined Acland Street, with its hundreds of sidewalk tables.

There, we discover the reason for the odd tram schedule. Few people bother to come during the day. There’s no need to run many trams out here until after dark.

Shop owners push the limits of propriety in their attempts to attract nighttime visitors.

Giant figures of partygoers perch on rooftops.

Acland Street is famous for its continental bakeries. We snacked twice at the Monarch Bakery, reputed to be the best in St. Kilda. But the Le Bon Cake Shop has the most photogenic window.

We dined with friends at Clay Pots, a seafood restaurant that specializes in simple preparation of whole fish, in large dishes intended for sharing. We ordered platters heaped with blue crab, mussels, giant prawns, Moreton Bay bugs, whole squid, stingray and more. Shellfish and crustaceans came in their shells, making for messy eating. We had to eat everything with our hands. Our meal seemed like an orgy—appropriate in earthy St. Kilda.

We’ve been enjoying warm weather in Cairns. But now we’ve flown south to our third Australian State—Victoria. We’ve come to the city of Melbourne to visit family members.

Climate-wise, this is a big deal. It’s like flying from Cancún to Baltimore. In November. (May is Australia’s November.) We’ve traded bathing suits for sweaters. We carry ponchos and umbrellas. Suddenly we’re cold. What happened to the balmy tropics? What were we thinking?

But climate in May (November) isn’t everything. The Economist ranks Melbourne as the world’s second most livable city. I’m finding that to be true.

Tourists often begin exploring of Melbourne at Federation Square (which I found difficult to photograph and even more difficult to love) right across from the wonderful Victorian-era Flinders Street Station.

Trains from the ‘burbs bring commuters to Flinders Street Station. Beats driving.

So freeways are fewer and less congested than expected for a city of four million. Residents would disagree with me about the congestion thing, but they haven’t driven in LA or the San Francisco Bay Area.

This photo was taken from a pedestrian bridge that links two parks. Speakers on the bridge play sounds of aborigines chanting. The sounds are utterly charming.

Once in the city, an extensive tram system makes getting around easy. I like the old pre-war bone rattlers. The modern ones are more comfortable, but they’re eyesores. Trams are our main mode of transport. Except for being chauffeured by Laura’s brother-in-law, that is.

Red- and yellow-brick Victorian buildings share space comfortably with steel and glass skyscrapers. Melbourne is a visual treat.

Arcades and alleys offer intriguing contrasts: the city is simultaneously glitzy and grungy.

I prefer grungy. Even garbage and graffiti looks kind of cool.

Some garbage goes in bins. Other kinds remain “on premises.” Brass plaques warn the innocent. I like the frankness of this one at a place called Showgirls.

Many Victorian residences have been restored with the same loving care they have in San Francisco. I prefer them to modern Australian architecture. An upper middle class family can afford to live in one of these...

...but not in this bluestone mansion. I saw four or five in a row, each with a Land Rover parked out in front.

The Yarra River bisects Melbourne. Parklands line the banks. Rowers enjoy the placid waters.

A playful Ferris wheel softens the feel of this business-oriented city. Few seem to use it: I saw only one person ask for a ride, but the operator cheerfully fired it up anyway. ”No worries.”

Imagine, having a Ferris wheel all to yourself.

One of those mega-Ferris wheels was built farther upriver. Erecting really big wheels seems to be a trend: you’re not a serious city unless you have one.

A year ago last summer (February), Melbourne’s melted. They had to shut it down. Today it’s a monument to the demise of some poor engineer’s career.

—§—

Melbourne is a most multicultural city. Greeks, Italians, Chinese, Thais, Indians—the list is far too long to enumerate. A result is a multitude of dining options. We’re enjoying exotic food every night. One night, Nepalese. Another, Ethiopian.

Public parks and spaces abound. You can walk across this “City of Gardens” on lawns. No need to go on the roads (except to cross them).

Melbourne is strong culturally—arts, music, theater. Short excursions outside of the city lead to spectacular mountains, beaches, and rivers. And for all my complaints about climate, Melbourne’s in May reminds me of San Francisco in November: mild, sometimes brisk. People who live here have it very, very good.

Australian officialdom apparently thinks citizens have little capability for maintaining their own personal safety. Never have I seen so many warning signs. By contrast, the Mexican government appears to feel we can take care of ourselves.

Uneven surfaces are the norm in San Miguel de Allende. Our little Mexican community could never post enough signs to warn of all the potholes, broken pavement, pieces of rebar sticking out of sidewalks...

Australia is full of pleasant swimming holes where people can relax on a Sunday afternoon.

But swimmers are warned there’s mortal danger in creeks. Signs like this one discourage me from going in the water.

As a kid, I somehow managed to survive swimming holes. Slippery rocks looked slippery and I simply avoided walking on them. I didn’t have to be told about it.

I was surprised to discover that even the Royal Botanic Gardens contain deadly threats. At the entrance, we’re advised to “be aware of the unpredictable way in which branches may fall and land.”

A sign at the edge of a decorative pond warns that water is present. Yep. It’s true. Ponds contain water. Perhaps some Australians cannot identify water in its natural state.

In a place where a fence is under construction, we’re told we must hold our children’s hands at all times.

I think bee warnings are silly.

The hectoring reaches a crescendo at the beach. You have to set aside fifteen minutes to fully comprehend all of the warnings and rules before venturing onto the sand. What next? A manual?

Some signs simply shouldn’t be needed. At a Greyhound bus depot, passengers are notified that their right to be violent is here suspended. Aggressive behavior simply will not be tolerated, and as punishment, the violent may be refused service. Ooooh. Greyhound is counting on the deterrent effect.

Other postings deal with violence, which must be prevalent if authorities go to so much effort. Signs in pubs state that it is illegal to serve persons who are drunk, violent, or quarrelsome. I’m often quarrelsome, so I guess there’s a possibility I won’t be served.

Hotel smoke alarms keep us safe throughout the civilized world. Apparently, Australian ones are hypersensitive, in keeping with the policy ubiquitous overprotectiveness. Makes it risky to stay clean, though.

You may have to pay a $400 fee if mist from your shower triggers a visit from the fire brigade.

I originally thought that all the hypercaution derived from the real and significant dangers posed by a country with so much frontier, with deadly deserts, violent seas and poisonous creatures. But I’ve seen this kind of caution in Great Britain as well. And Australian culture derives so much from the UK. I think there’s something fundamental in the modern British psyche that’s causes so much worry and fear.

Traveling in Florida years ago, I saw a strangler fig for the first time. The notion made me a little queasy: a plant that wraps itself around a tree and smothers it.

Australia has so many examples of the struggle for existence: “nature, red in tooth and claw.” There’s sharks, crocodiles, venomous snakes, deadly jellyfish, and poisonous spiders. Bad news for humans. The bad news for trees is, the country is full of strangler figs.

A strangler fig begins life as a seed sprouting high up in the crotch of a tree. Roots grow downward, wrapping themselves around the host tree until they reach the ground. Branches grow upward, reaching for sunlight. In this way, the fig gets all the benefits enjoyed by tall rainforest trees without investing energy into making a trunk.

Ultimately, the fig shades out the host tree, killing it. The host tree rots away, and all that remains is the parasite.

Up on the Atherton Tablelands behind Cairns, on the road between Malanda and Yungaburra, I ran across one of the largest strangler figs in the world. It’s called the Curtain Fig.

A thousand years ago, this strangler fig colonized a tree which died and rotted away. Having lost its support, the fig tipped over, falling onto another large tree that it colonized and ultimately killed as well.

What you see in the photos are the aerial roots and large limbs of the Curtain Fig. No trace of the original trees are visible.

The plant is a monster. A visitor standing on the right gives a sense of scale. Less than a quarter of the Curtain Fig is visible in the frame.

Many large trees were cut down when the Atherton Tablelands were cleared for agriculture. This fig survives because it grows in a patch of boulders.

Cairns sits on a narrow coastal plain. To the West rears a mountain range. A couple of sinuous highways climb almost a thousand meters to a plain called the Atherton Tablelands. Driving through this region of agricultural and natural lands is a relief from the restaurant—bar—tour scene down in the city.

Comfy old hotels pop up along the road. I would have liked to have stayed in one.

Houses look comfy, too. This place sort of conforms to the type known a Queenslander. Its first floor has been constructed well off the ground (Because of floods? Termites?) Steep pitched corrugated iron roofs and long rows of small windows are part of the look.

A place that bills itself as a mining museum (but really is much more than that) consists of a score of nineteenth-century buildings transported to the site from all over the tablelands. Of them all, this one is off limits to visitors—probably the residence of the museum owners.

A rusting “Jaques face shovel” once used for gold mining sprouts a healthy plant. In this climate, the old iron wreck could be covered in vegetation in just a few years.

A compression ignition engine (diesel?) once pumped water in one of the tableland municipalities. It has been lovingly restored. I think this kind of thing is beautiful.

Down the highway, a 4-4-0 steam locomotive quietly rusts on a siding. In service as recently as four years ago, the tourist excursion trains it pulled stopped operating owing to failing finances. A crude sign on the engineer’s cab asks for volunteers to help restore it.

National parks dot the tablelands. In one, a pair of rare Australian pines, bull kauris, have been saved from the lumberman’s saws. They are a hundred and fifty feet tall and twenty in circumference—as large as many California coast redwoods or sequoias..

Vulcanism during human times created the Crater Lakes. The fresh water tortise, amethyst pythons, brush turkeys, water dragons, ducks, eels, pelicans and “the occasional platypus” can be found here.

Australian national parks are not always rustic. Lake Barrine boasts an inn and restaurant, and exquisite gardens on the lakeshore.

I could have easily spent a week in the Atherton Tablelands, sampling locally grown coffee, hiking to waterfalls, ogling antiques, tramping through yet another UNESCO World Heritage rainforest. But I only had a day.

Cairns is a modern city. We didn’t come here to tour old buildings or to view historic sites. But when we got away from the tourist madness at the harbor and the esplanade, we found a pleasant, almost ordinary community. Residents can find a few hours of diversion in places like Flecker Botanic Gardens.

The gardens were created in 1886. Plantings are mature. Narrow paths wind through clumps of exotic plants.

Some specimens are Australia natives. Other rare species were imported from tropics around the world. Many are in bloom.

Some shade-loving plants live in this building. I’m tickled by the term, fernery. Sounds very British.

The cylindrical roof consists of shade cloth encrusted with growing green gunk. Inside, it feels like being in deep jungle. Mozzies (mosquitoes) are thick here. Laura ran back to the car for repellant.

Orchids bloom inside the fernery.

Pitcher plants top the list of the unusual, at least to me. They’re an adaptation to infertile soils. For nutrients, they trap insects on the yummy but sticky underside of the lid, which then closes. Bugs ultimately drop down into a reservoir of digestive fluid.

Many gardeners keep up the gardens. I envy guys whose jobs consist of riding a mower.

In Australia you can get away with wearing a bush hat, even if you’re a gardener working in an urban park.

Australia is safety conscious, more so than most countries. For example, here we have a worker on a machine moving at maybe two miles per hour. For precautions, he’s wearing a reflective yellow vest and his mower sports a flashing amber lamp. To alert the clueless, no doubt.

—§—

Adjacent to Flecker Botanic Gardens, tracks lead through some of the last remaining bush in Cairns, leading to Centenary Lakes. On the way, we passed through something I’ve never seen before: a municipal swamp.

Strange things grow in the swamp, like these grapefruit-sized fruit.

Water lilies offset mud and decay. Out of corruption, beauty.

Flecker Botanic Gardens is the most tropical garden I have ever seen. The specimens are unusual; many I’ve never seen before. They bloom year-round in vibrant colors. Their shapes are other-worldly.

When I lived near San Francisco I would visit the Conservatory of Flowers in Golden Gate Park, a large Victorian glass building that houses a couple thousand tropical plants. These plants are maintained with considerable effort: providing heat and humidity, suppressing greenhouse diseases, managing overcrowding in limited space. The effect is highly artificial.

In contrast, the Cairns gardens appear natural—plants thriving in their natural habitat.

Businesses in tourist zones know travelers want to take their experiences home with them.

In Australia this can mean, among other things, crocodile belts or oilskins or bush hats. I tried on bush hats.

They looked nice on the shelf, but believe me, they don’t look good on me. Maybe if I got sunburned and ditched my bifocals...

I found no end of other choices, though. How about kangaroo jerky? Crocodile? Emu?

Mmmm—probably not.

Boomerangs are big in tourist shops. Hand painted with Australia scenes. Authentic.

These were made in China.

Then there’s didgeridoos: aboriginal musicals instrument made from eucalyptus limbs that have been hollowed out by termites. Genuine ones are made that way. Some sellers place great emphasis on that fact.

They’re tempting, but c’mon—they’re musical instruments. You can’t just pick one up and play it, any more than you could a clarinet. You have to practice, practice, practice. You have to take lessons. Which are available for those impulsive enough to buy a didgeridoo.

Maybe you haven’t heard a didgeridoo. I hadn’t. The sound they make is unique: a sort of low throbbing drone. Expert players generate overtones causing the sound to shift. Proper playing produces a continuous note—no breaks for intake of breath. The technique is called circular breathing; something oboe players, among others, learn to do.

This link will take you to a video clip of an expert aboriginal didgeridoo player making lots of overtones and practicing circular breathing. He’s pretty special. Give it a listen. It’s only 1:40 long.

Meanwhile, I’m going to take another look at that emu jerky.

For my once-in-a-lifetime shot at seeing the Great Barrier Reef, I departed with a group of about thirty people on a boat similar to this one. We, like most visitors to the reef, went out there on a fast, shallow-draft catamaran.

The Coral Sea was choppy, stirred up by a fresh breeze. To extend our time on the reef, our skipper maxed his throttles. The boat bounced through the water, throwing spray higher than the cabin windows.

Several passengers were looking seasick. A crew member said “Just in case you want to share your breakfast with us,” and passed out barf bags. They got used. I had to look away.

Unaffected by motion sickness, I viewed my buff-looking companions with smug disdain. Buncha wusses...

We were an international group. Two Germans, two Swiss, four Japanese, several English, four Chinese, two Chileans... For their polyglot client base, the dive company provided foreign language aids like this hand signal review chart written in Japanese and Chinese characters.

Note that “OK” written in kanji is “OK.” Some parts of language are universal.

—§—

A defibrillator implanted in my chest prevented me from obtaining medical clearance for scuba diving. Laura loves to dive, so she went with another company on a three-day expedition. I had to settle for snorkeling. (Pout.)

I was surprised to see Laura’s boat at one of the dive sites on our itinerary. What were the odds of us meeting up in this huge place?

Upon boarding we were handed questionnaires about our medical condition. I declined to fill mine out so as to avoid restrictions on my activities. Later, as I stood on the dive deck in my bathing suit, a snorkel instructor took one look at my bare chest—at the bulge of the implanted defibrillator—and said, “How’s the old ticker then?”

Busted.

He made me wear a life jacket over my stinger suit, and a red nylon belt around my waist so lifeguards could quickly recognize me as the group’s problem case. Humiliating.

In general, we swam independently, but on one occasion a dive instructor led us on a snorkel tour (pictured below), pointing out rays, turtles, giant clams and myriad colorful fish. We were disappointed not to see any sharks.

The swimmers in the photograph are wearing full-bore stinger suits, complete with booties, gloves and hoods. Virtually no skin was exposed to stinger tentacles.

Stinger suits look—and feel—kind of sexy. Just thought I’d let you know.

By afternoon, the chop had become so strong that all but one of us wore life jackets. The extra buoyancy provided another inch of freeboard, helping keep water out of our snorkels.

Our dive sites were on the outer reef. You can see dark masses of coral interspersed with turquoise areas where light reflects off sandy patches of bottom. A line of breakers marks the outer edge of the reef, with the open sea beyond.

I didn’t rent an underwater camera. It was all I could do to blow water out of my snorkel. Despite liberally applying Vaseline to my mustache, water leaked into my face mask forcing me to clear it frequently. Despite the difficulties, my view into reef life was far more spectacular than any I had seen at Akumal or Cozumel.

The panoply of undersea life on the Great Barrier Reef overwhelms. When underwater, so many details crowd my senses, it’s hard to focus on any one or two. Parrotfish crunch coral with their beaks. They rain sandy poop. (Is the beautiful white sand in Cancún parrotfish poop?)

Darting wrasses nibble parasites from the scales of a spaced-out fish. He looks the way I feel when I’m getting a full-body massage.

Thin-snouted angelfish suck polyps from their coral dens. A disembodied mouth of a borer clam gives a coral mound an eerie smile—undulant lips spotted with luminescent blue-green eyes. Giant clams suck water in one large obscene orifice, squirt it out another.

There are so many coral designs: plates, fans, elkhorns, cacti, mounds, trees, laces, tentacles. The reef rears up from the bottom: towers and caves of calcium carbonate. Each organism is so tiny, so delicate. Together they are massive. The reef may be the largest living thing on earth.

When we were driving north to the Daintree Rainforest, we passed through Cairns—a medium sized city, a touristy city. On our return from Cape Tribulation, we stopped in for a little while.

People who visit Cairns tend to be young and athletic. (I’m an anomaly.) They come from all over the world. I hear most of the European languages spoken. I see Asians from China, Japan, Thailand, Korea, India and the Philippines. I even run into an occasional American.

Affluent people come here, yes. But the majority are backpackers traveling on a budget, sleeping in $15 dormitory rooms. Many are in Australia on work or student visas. We met a young Korean woman studying English at a language school, working as a part-time server in a Thai restaurant. She was surprised we knew how to use chopsticks.

The focal point of Cairns is the Esplanade, a mile-long park and walking path that runs along the water’s edge. Everybody goes there.

A grassy park popular with sunbathers anchors the south end of the Esplanade. By two in the afternoon, the place is full of tanning bodies. This in a country that tracks UV levels in weather reports.

Cairns lies too far north for swimming beaches to be safe from stinging jellyfish. Bathers cool off in the city’s huge artificial lagoon. In this photograph you can see a false horizon formed by the edge of the lagoon, and above that, the true horizon on the Coral Sea.

The Esplanade is a busy place. A reggae band entertains a gathering on a Sunday afternoon.

An old hippie, a few of his neurons still firing, volunteers to augment the band’s rhythm section. Nobody pays him any attention.

Note his long, braided beard. He’s been flying for a long, long time. In Cairns, he somehow fits right in.

Many Australian parks have humongous permanent barbies provided for use by anyone. On this evening, an large family cooks chicken and fish for themselves and for anyone else who shows up looking hungry.

Parks, hostels, clothing boutiques, restaurants, cafés—they’re what make up the tourist zone. All catering to travelers: backpacker farming. But all these businesses are of secondary interest to visitors. The real reason anyone comes to Cairns is to visit the Great Barrier Reef. Scores of tour companies offer transportation out there: by sailboat, by excursion boat, by helicopter, by seaplane. A fast boat can make it to dive sites on the reef in about an hour.

Maybe you’re going to view the Great Barrier Reef from the air or from a glass bottom boat. Perhaps you’re going to snorkel the reef, or if you’re PADI certified, dive it. Maybe you’re going to fish it for black marlin. Maybe you just want to photograph it. Whatever your interests, these companies, exist for the sole purpose of making sure you get out there into the middle of all that coral, all those beautiful fish, so you can experience one of the natural wonders of the world.

Coastal waters in Far North Queensland are warm, the surf is gentle. White, sandy beaches slope gently into a turquoise sea. The urge to jump in the ocean is overpowering.

But we musn’t. For several months each year, jellyfish inhabit these waters. Not just any jellyfish, but the deadly box jellyfish.

The toxin present on box jellyfish tentacles is so strong that people who manage to survive say stings feel like powerful electric shocks. More than half of those stung have died. The pain has been described as so excruciating that victims go into shock and drown. In Australia, about seventy people have died: more than from snakes, saltwater crocodiles, and sharks combined.

Photo: ePedia

Tentacle filaments are long, up to six feet long. Victims pulled from the water have stringy fragments of jelly wrapped around limbs, torsos or faces. Immediate dousing with vinegar prevents additional toxin-bearing sacs from firing. Immediate use of vinegar is so important that many beaches, even remote, unpopulated ones, have bottles available.

Attempting to remove tentacles by rubbing causes more of them to fire.

Why anyone would chance getting in the water around here is beyond me.

Some communities rig nets on sections of beach so swimmers can enjoy the water, free from fear of jellyfish stings.

Surfers, snorkelers and scuba divers can’t be restricted to net enclosures. They wear stinger suits. Amazingly, just a thin Lycra membrane is sufficient to block stings.

(The man’s red swim suit is known in Australian slang as a budgie smuggler.)

So if you arm yourself with a stinger suit and a bottle of vinegar, is it then safe to swim on North Queensland beaches? No it’s not—if your patch of beach is near an estuary.

Estuarine crocodiles can grow up to twenty feet long. People have been eaten. Better you should order a crocodile steak in a Cairns restaurant than become a crocodile meal yourself.

Photo: animalpicturesarchive.com

Then we have great white sharks and cone shells and redback spiders. In Australia, there’s an awful lot of stuff that can kill you. Australians seem to get a certain satisfaction from recounting all the dangers to visitors.

Box jellyfish lethality and the agonizing deaths they induce are more than enough to keep me on the sand. But I do so long to dive into those warm, clear waters.

The Daintree River was discovered in 1873. Attempts to develop the region began relatively late. Loggers were the first arrivals. They cut cedar trees and floated them down to the sea. By the early Twentieth Century, farmers had acquired title to some tracts and cleared land for pasture and cropping.

In 1983, a track was bulldozed from Cape Tribulation to the Bloomfield River. Public outrage sparked by destruction of the rainforest ultimately led to UNESCO World Heritage Site status in 1988. Since then there have been buybacks of many freeholds, and severe restrictions placed on land use and development.

The region is home to somewhere between six and nine hundred residents. Some operate hostelries, others work as wilderness guides. A few engage in agriculture, although the growers don’t appear to be particularly prosperous.

A few cattle ranching operations cling to existence, although I doubt there are even a thousand head remaining in the area. Pineapple and banana growers enjoyed little success, probably because of poor transportation links to markets. A new generation of producers grow exotic fruits: guavas, rambutans, custard apples. One farm offers visitors a tour and fruit tasting for $20 AUD per head. Agriculture repackaged as tourism.

Another operator grows tea. Hard to imagine competing with Indian tea growers. Boutique tea, maybe?

Everyone drives four wheel drive vehicles. These look worn out, but they’re still in service. Not weekenders’ toys by any means. Hard daily use leaves them battered; constant maintenance keeps them running. Function, not appearance, is paramount.

Here’s one source of employment for Daintree inhabitants: Four-wheel-drive luxury buses have just begun to carry tourists up the Bloomfield track to Cooktown, the northernmost real town on the Cape York Peninsula. This dirt road was once the province of rusty bush trucks piloted by hairy, corcodile-wrestling men. Today tour operators have discovered how to penetrate the bush in air-conditioned comfort.

I suspect a requirement for residency in the Daintree is committing to memory the official ferry charge table. Visitors need several minutes to absorb the payment schedule posted at the river bank, causing backups.

A bureaucrat in Cairns came up with the system. Why he made it so complex is anyone’s guess. Maybe he wanted his boss to think he’d put some effort into it.

Ninety-five percent of ferry users drive passenger cars. Fare: $10.50 one way, $19.00 round trip. But that’s not easy to make out. I had to read through details about the fare for buses with 16 to 20 seats, or for those with 21 to 25 seats, before encountering the entry for a simple car fare.

I’m particularly intrigued by the fee for “rigid trucks over five meters carrying primary produce” ($3.50) vs. “rigid trucks over five meters not carrying primary produce” ($7.00). Drive anything other than an ordinary car, and you need an accountant to interpret your fare.

This kind of thing seems to crop up in countries that remained part of the British Empire into the Twentieth Century. Administration of the Empire stimulated development of supremely obfuscatory bureaucracy. In India it continues unabated. The bureaucracy in Australia is tamer but you can still trip over it in unexpected places.

Daintree society is limited by low population and poor transportation. Culture is non-existent. Entertainment consists of a night at the local pub. There’s only one gas station. Selection in the food market is thin and what’s available is expensive. Employment opportunities are few.

The Daintree is a magnificent place for visitors to experience exotic fauna and flora. But as a way of life?

Daintree Rainforest is yet another UNESCO World Heritage Site. (Seems like Australia is full of them.)

There’s no question this place should receive such recognition. The largest rainforest in Australia, it contains a huge fraction of the country’s plant and animal species. It is the oldest in the world—135 million years—and for this reason contains living markers of the evolutionary history of life on earth.

It almost didn’t happen. UNESCO recognition was fiercely opposed by the local council and by the Queensland government as antithetical to economic development.

The road from the Daintree ferry continues through the rainforest for another 25 miles before ending at Cape Tribulation, the place where Captain Cook beached his ship after colliding with the Great Barrier Reef. (He thus became the first person in history to damage the reef’s coral.)

For most of its length, the road snakes through thick jungle.

The Alexandra Range Lookout Point offers a rare vista: this one of Cape Kimberley and the mouth of the Daintree River. Almost everywhere else, thick forest obscures the horizon.

Riotous growth confirms every fantasy I’ve ever had of what a jungle is like. These are the “wet tropics.” Annual rainfall is just over 2000 mm (around 80 inches), typically falling in short torrential downpours. There have been occasions where a foot of rain has fallen in an hour.

Competition for sunlight and nutrients is intense. Look at how plants grow on other plants: vines crawl up tree trunks, epiphyte fur covers limbs.

The jungle ends abruptly at the sea where mangroves provide nurseries for marine life. Nowhere else do coral reefs adjoin rainforest.

Our lodgings are in a cabin deep in the Daintree Rainforest. Oddly, the place where we’re staying calls itself a resort—I guess becuase it has a restaurant, a swimming pool and a spa. But while we were there no one used the spa. People don’t come here to be pampered: they come to experience the world as it was a hundred million years ago.

Inside our rattan-furnished cabin, extensive screened windows allow us to live within the jungle while protecting us from a plethora of poisonous insects, spiders and snakes.

A short walk from our cabin, we come to a beach where we can walk without clawing through undergrowth. We’re almost within wading distance of the Great Barrier Reef. In the early morning, we have this patch of the Coral Sea to ourselves.

I imagine there are only a handful of places in the world where you can live in a rainforest. I suspect that many of these involve going upriver in a dugout canoe while avoiding anacondas and headhunters. I’m not sure Daintree Rainforest is particularly safe, but I bet it’s a lot safer than, say, the Orinoco River.

We’re in a jungle in a first world country that is culturally much like the USA. No squat toilets, no language barrier. Here we can drink the water. Our cabin contains a shower, a refrigerator and a stove. We can walk two hundred yards and order cappuccinos.

Yet we are in one of the oldest, wildest places on earth. We’re told Daintree doesn’t look much different than it has for millions of years before humans appeared. No place is more primeval.

From Fraser Island, our intention was to drive 1,500 kilometers to Cape Tribulation, up on the Cape York Peninsula. We’d be deep in the tropics, well away from developments, nearer to Port Moresby in Papua New Guinea than to Brisbane. Hopefully we’d leave most tourists behind (although tourism is Queensland’s biggest industry, so fat chance of outrunning them all).

We’ve been warned about distances. A friend said, “You want to drive? You must be mad as cut snakes!” But we did want to see a stretch of the Queensland Coast, even if only from a speeding car.

At Fraser Island, we’re just south of the Tropic of Capricorn. The climate is moderate. The coastal plains make good pasture. We drive through cattle country.

People here listen to country music. On the radio, I hear Heather Myles’ “Who did you call darling last night.” She sings, “You come in wearing your half-assed grin...” That kind of sass plays well in Austrtalia.

Farther north, small coastal towns attract little attention from international travelers. For residents, quality of life seems better than in the tourist centers. Locals moor their boats in an uncrowded estuary.

Some of them work at a local smelter. I never thought I would be glad to see signs of heavy industry, but today I find it refreshing to escape tour promoters.

At Cairns, the highway forks. Highway 44, the Cook Highway is the road that follows the shoreline. A plaster statue of Captain James Cook marks the beginning of the road to the Daintree.

Australians seem to have a predilection for large plaster sculptures. Muddy’s restaurant sports a large mud crab.

They’re a great delicacy, mud crabs. You can enjoy a meal of mud crab for $75 AUD ($50 US). That’s for one crab. In San Francisco, you can still get Dungeness crab (the finest crab in the world, for my money) for under $15. I think I’ll wait for the next time I visit the kids.

The Cook Highway is becoming uglified with billboards—surprising given how hard Queenslanders work to protect their environment. They need someone like Ladybird Johnson to give advertisers a good hiding.

For miles, billboards announce the impending appearance of the Giant Mango.

A much-promoted roadside snack hereabouts is the frozen mango. Unable to imagine how it would be satisfying in any way, I didn’t try one.

We’ve made it into the tropics now. Plantations grow pineapples, bananas, and most of all, sugarcane. Endless cane fields evoke the monotony of Iowa cornfields.

As it winds northward, the Cook Highway becomes a sleepy two-lane road. Having left Cairns behind, no major cities lie ahead, and traffic volume drops accordingly. We stop for a picnic on the beach. No high rises, no parking meters; just trees, flowers, sand and water.

Suddenly, the road gives out. We have reached the Daintree River. No bridge. The river crossing is by cable ferry.

For $10 AUD, we roll our car aboard and pass into thinly inhabited tropical rain forest. Ahead—only forty more kilometers of paved road. Beyond, the road becomes an unpaved track suitable only for four wheel drive—beyond the capability of our rented Nissan hatchback.

Last Saturday was ANZAC Day, Australia’s most hallowed occasion. Citizens gather for dawn services, parades, and speeches honoring those fallen in conflicts from the Boer War to Afghanistan.

This holiday is taken far more seriously than our Memorial Day. Every village I drove through had closed its center and was holding ceremonies.

Here, a vicar intones a paean full of stock phrases: “...shall not have died in vain...” After a half hour of this, he wound up proceedings by leading singing: five verses of Abide with Me.

Crocodile Dundee is Hollywood’s image of an outback character, but he looks way too polished compared with the real thing. Here a hirsute Aussie father in a bush hat looks after his baby boy playing in a fountain.

His appearance is not typical, but it is iconic. And he demonstrates that agreeable Australian quality of deep caring for family and friends. Rough exterior, gentle heart.

—§—

Australians talk funny. They flatten vowels. Half the time I can’t understand what they’re saying. The common salutation mate is often pronounced mite. The cappuccino-like beverage called a flat white sounds like flet wyte. A man explained to me that during Transportation, the great majority of immigrants were English prisoners from the lower classes. Thus Australian speech derives more from Cockney than Oxbridge.

(The man also explained the history and rules of cricket to me. I can only characterize them as opaque.)

Expressions such as good on you, mate (g’danyer mite) are beginning to trickle off my lips. When last month I arrived at immigration control, I said to the inspector, “G’day mate.”

She said, “What?”

“I just had to say it. G’day mate, I mean.”

She replied, “You don’t say it very well.”

Australians are fully aware their expressions tickle other English speakers. Post cards and posters explain the meanings of fair dinkum and shiela. A friend described an indolent acquaintance as a dole blodger (one who is too lazy to work for his living, instead receiving welfare payments). What a wonderful expression.

—§—

One of these two gentlemen is Theo; the other, his employee. Theo doesn’t prune or trim trees—he lops them. He’s a treelopper.

Not living in the tropics, I initially was flummoxed by the need for coconut removal. Why can’t you just pick them up and throw them in the compost? I later realized that the coconuts lying on the ground aren’t the problem.

Australia has more creatures that can kill you than any other country: sharks, jellyfish, spiders, and snakes—the most venomous snakes in the world. So of course, there is need for a service to remove them.

Frogs can kill you, too. The infamous cane toad somehow came here from South America and flourishes today because it poisons anything that tries to eat it. Just touching one can make you sick. Australians hate cane toads. They run over them on the roads and stomp those they encounter on walkabouts.

I’m beginning to think no one sings Australia’s informal anthem Waltzing Mathilda anymore. Over the last month, I haven’t heard it sung once. But then, I don’t hang around in outback bars.

I wonder why people would revere a song about a man who drowns himself in a pond rather than face capture for stealing a sheep, but there you go. Some things Australian are inexplicable.

While spending the night in the home of a friend, our hostess served dinner on place mats depicting a swagman camped by a billabong underneath a coolibah tree, watching his billy boil. So the story isn’t completely forgotten. Her place mats date from another time. I doubt many young people know the words to the song, much less understand them.

But there’s something catchy about Waltzing Mathilda. Having seen her place mats, I can’t get the tune out of my mind. I apologize if this happens to you, too.

Australia overflows with beautiful birds. I’m finding it easy to sight interesting ones. I don’t seek them out, they just cross my path.

Bush turkeys are common, large birds, about the size of a small domestic turkey. They’re not afraid of humans, nor are they particularly interested in us. They just go about their business, wherever I find them.

I found this aggressive creature near the shore. We had gotten too close to its chicks, so it fluffed its wings out to look big and scary, and opened its beak to take a bite if needed. Check out the nasty yellow claws, one on each wing.

I carefully wrote down the identity of this fierce fellow, and then lost my note. I guess I get an “F” in birding. Anybody know this one?

I promise this is the last time I’ll mention ibis. Apparently in Australia they’re not so much exotic as pesty. They like to hang out in places where food is sold, and while they’re not pushy, they’re ready to jump on outdoor tables whenever diners leave.

This of course is not good for them, eating foods not part of their natural diet. So in some parks and malls, an advocacy group has placed stickers on outdoor tables.

I don’t know if this is an egret or a heron or if the name even matters. But I’ve noticed they have an affinity for cattle. They hang out in pasture, about one egret per steer. Usually they’re foraging in the pasture grass, but sometimes they roost on top of a cud-chewing animal.

One of the most spectacularly colored birds is the rainbow lorikeet. They seem to be everywhere. From my hotel balcony, squawking flocks of thousands of these birds swoop and circle at sunrise and sunset.

When the flock circles past in low evening light, a large patch of sky flashes green. The racket they make in nearby Moreton Bay fig trees sounds like a cocktail party.

Up close, we see the spectacular coloring in the lorikeet’s paint job.

I would love to see a Cassowary. I know they’re around because people make plaster statues of them. Australians like to make plaster statues of all kinds of stuff. Like giant shrimp, for example.

Highway signs warn of the presence of cassowaries so we won’t run over them. They’re big: they grow as tall as I am. They have terrible claws and if approached, can muster a ferocious attack, inflicting severe injuries.

I haven’t seen one in the wild yet. I’m not giving up, though it may require trekking with a guide—a lot more effort than I’m accustomed to. For now, I offer this photograph of a cassowary taken by a member of a bird watching organization.

Photo: Daintree Birdwatching

Weeks ago, when we were driving through the rain on the Lincoln Highway, I saw a wet, bedraggled bird with long tail feathers skitter across the highway, right in front of the car. Thankfully, I didn’t hit it. But I knew that I had seen the legendary lyrebird—specifically, a superb lyrebird. I didn’t take this photograph, but I actually saw one. So if, like a proper birder, I had a bird sighting checklist, it would count.

Photo: Khancoban Lakeside Caravan Resort

Lyrebirds are incredible mimics. They copy the calls of other birds and any other sounds they hear, including human-made ones. This David Attenborough BBC Wildlife clip will astound you. It’s worth following the link just to hear a lyrebird mimic a chain saw.

We reached Fraser Island by ferryboat, the way most people do. Once there, though, the question was how to get around. The island is more than 75 miles long and there are no paved roads—just sandy tracks. You’d need three or four days to walk it end to end. You can’t drive it, not in an ordinary passenger car anyway.

We signed up with a tour company that provided us with meals, lodging, and transportation in the form of 36-passenger busses—four-wheel drive busses piloted by drivers who know how to navigate in deep sand.

I generally don’t like traveling with tour groups. While tour leaders are informative, sometimes their spiels become tedious. And it’s fun to get to know some fellow tour members, but others can be bothersome. On this trip, four young Danish women sung lustily while walking the trails, effectively eliminating wildlife sightings.

The busses were uncomfortable on smooth tracks and painful on rough ones. Most tracks were the rutted, potholed kind. After loading onto our bus at the ferry, we were treated to an additional (unnecessary to me) hour of rockin’ and rollin’ while we rode across the island to pick up a second contingent of travelers.

I complain about the bus, but other modes of island transport are expensive and can be dangerous. By taking the bus, we obtained access to places we could not have reached on our own.

—§—

During one visit to the beach, I was startled to see a small plane coming at me. Turns out, the beach is a landing strip.

In a remarkable coincidence, the plane landed right beside our group where the generous pilot offered us an opportunity to view the island from the air. $75 AUD per person, credit cards accepted. The propeller didn’t appear too badly sand pitted, so we signed on for a twenty minute flight.

Our host was a real bush pilot, a “kick the tires and light the fires” kind of guy. Seven of us clambered into his plane. He jammed the throttle in and we rolled down a flat stretch of sand. I was surprised at how effortless the takeoff was.

Our plane was equipped with a gps display, set to a scale that displayed the entire island. Just in case our pilot became confused as to where he was, I suppose.

The instrument panel included a rear view mirror (look upper left) enabling the pilot to monitor passengers for any hanky-panky. So we behaved ourselves. Except for some Danish folk song singing.

Looking out at the wing, I noticed salt air had not been kind to the hinges and actuator for the ailerons. They seemed pretty rusty to me.

In general, the tour operator seemed to be deferring maintenance. Our driver opened a hatch on our bus to admit luggage. The rusty hinges broke, the falling door barely missed the toe of one of our travel companions. That door was heavy: two men were needed to pick it up and haul it away. Lucky toe.

Minor but nonetheless telling are the rust streaks trailing from the front side window. I get uncomfortable when any public conveyance I’m traveling in shows signs of deterioration.

—§—

Most of the vehicles on Fraser Island are four wheel drive SUVs and trucks. They come over on the ferry. And they all use the best road on the island: 75-mile Beach, which is designated an Australia Gazetted Highway. In other words, it’s an official road. The speed limit is 80 kilometers per hour (50 mph). Drivers exceed it.

On the weekend we were here, nine people in a rented Toyota Land Cruiser were involved in a rollover, caused when the inexperienced driver swerved to miss an incoming wave. Two were killed; the others suffered serious injuries.

A newspaper article quoted the rental car agent defending his company’s practices. He said that all drivers were shown a half-hour video on safe four-wheeling practices before being allowed to drive their vehicles.

Four wheel drive cars and trucks are common in Australia because often the only connection between places is via unpaved roads. Creeks lack bridges and have to be forded. Aspirating water can be fatal to internal combustion engines, so most fwd vehicles are fitted with snorkels. In this picture, the snorkels are the black tubes rising beside the windshields.

I find snorkels incredibly cool.

The fwd Toyota pictured below is a real man toy. The businesslike brush guard, the snorkel, the electric winch—all say, “Don’t mess with me, Matey. I’m a real outback bushwhacker.” He even has four rod holders welded to the bush guard, signaling that he’s a member of that class of fisherman so avid that he modifies his car to accommodate his gear.

I idly speculated whether he might be a chartered accountant in Brisbane.

On the ferry back to the mainland, a host of invisible bugs were infesting the passenger deck carpet. Panicked passengers wrapped their legs in beach towels. We scrambled for the insect repellant in our backpacks. Before we got the stuff slathered on, we had received hundreds of bites.

A fellow member of our tour group warned us we would be itching for days.

—§—

Sand tracks through rain forests or on beaches aren’t reliable. A number of places couldn’t be reached because cyclonic activity had cut the 75 Mile Beach Road. We would not get to see Indian Head, Coloured Sands or Hammerstone Sandblow—all promised by the tour operator, Fraser Explorer.

I particularly would have liked to visit the Maheno Shipwreck.

Photo: The Best Beaches of the World

I can’t hold Fraser Explorer responsible for natural conditions, but they in fact had known about the road closure for some time, yet didn’t feel the need to inform us that half the island features they purported to show us would be struck from our itinerary.

Even truncated, our visit to Fraser Island was worthwhile—a welcome change from the urban landscapes we have been seeing.

From the balcony of our room in Hervey Bay (pronounced Harvey), the sun comes up early—around 5:30. Something to do with goofy Australian time zones, I guess. We’re up early because we’re going to be picked up for an overnight expedition to Fraser Island.

Fraser Island is a huge sand dune that became separated from mainland Australa when the sea level rose some eight hundred million years ago. Sand islands are not all that uncommon, But Fraser Island is. It’s the largest in the world: 129 kilometers long by about 15 kilometers wide. Way bigger than Manhattan.

Did I mention that it’s made of sand? There’s very little soil or rock. The place is 99% sand, although over many millennia, plant and animal life have become established, so that today, much of the place is covered with grasses and forest.

Parts of the interior are Sahara-like. The dune pictured below is more than a hundred feet high, and it’s a little one. The highest dunes measure around 700 feet. I climbed a much smaller one and found the effort exhausting. I don’t see how people on foot survive in sandy deserts.

Desert or not, all kinds of things grow here. These red mushrooms found purchase in a bed of Casaurina needles, just a hundred meters from that tall dune.

Other ecosystems thrive here, among them wet tropical rain forests. There’s a vast amount of fresh water here. We hiked for a couple of miles along a creek running silently in a bed of white sand. There’s no rocks to make the brooks babble. All this water nourishes countless varieties of ferns, palms, lianas, and trees.

Some of the trees were monsters. The turpentine tree in the upper left photo evoked California coastal redwood forests.

Today, the island is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and how it got to be one is interesting. For more than a century, Fraser Island’s ancient forests were logged. Environmentalists formed a group to protect it, but little came from their efforts. It was the loggers themselves that gave logging the fatal blow. As a publicity stunt in 1989 they posed twenty-three children on top of the stump of a recently felled tree. The photo was picked up by the press and widely distributed, provoking public outrage. A investigatory commission including some UNESCO representatives visited the island. Everyone was overwhelmed by its beauty and uniqueness. Shortly afterward, the site received World Heritage status. One condition though: no more logging.

—§—

We were provided with a naturalist guide, Chris. Here he’s explaining the life cycle of the staghorn fern. I’ve never seen one anywhere near this big.

While Chris was lecturing about epiphyte reproduction by spores, a gowanna skittered across the clearing. End of audience, end of lecture.

Fraser Island has rain forests and dry land forests full of countless eucalypts, turpentines, pines, figs and palms. The diversity is incredible.

—§—

With more than a hundred miles of coast, Fraser Island should be good for swimming and surfing. But it’s not. The surf is very rough with powerful undertow and rip tides. Moreover these waters are infested with sharks.

And the beach poses another danger—dingoes. This photo was taken from the safety of a vehicle. Looks just like a dog, doesn’t it?

That’s because dingoes are dogs. Brought to Australia thousands of years ago by Malay fishermen, today they are wild. They usually live as solitary creatures—not in packs—hunting for small game. Recently, though, they have become a menace, brought into unhealthy dependent contact with tourists who hand feed them. A dingo killed a boy on the island in 2001. Since then, visitors are warned to keep their distance.

Since the arrival of white men, dingoes have interbred with European dogs. The animals on Fraser Island are the purest remaining strain.

Smaller creatures provide some interest. This wasp (I forgot its name) is digging a den. It will capture a spider and stuff it down the hole, then lay its eggs on it. Wasp larvae will feed on the paralyzed, living spider (thus keeping their larder fresh). Nature is cruel and gross.

The beach is covered with patterns created by tiny bubbler crabs. The crabs put sand into their mouth parts and chew it for a while, extracting nutritious microorganisms and organic detritus. They spit out balls of sand when they’re done with them. They crab can make patterns like this in a few hours.

Native to these parts is the pandanus tree, used by indigenous Australians for both fiber and food. Today, baskets woven from pandanus leaves are a big tourist item.

Aerial roots give them a unique aspect. The fruit is unusual looking and not particularly nutritious, but nevertheless an important component of the early aboriginal diet.

Pandanus trees are common on Fraser Island and elsewhere; they’re also often used in gardens as specimen trees, as are the iconic Australian banksia plants, with their signature bottlebrush flowers.

Banksia employs fire to help it propagate. The bristles of the inflorescence die back leaving a knobby cone. Seeds remain encapsulated in the cone for up to seven years, until a ground fire burns under the branches. Heat is the signal that causes the cone to release its seeds, which then fall on ground enriched with ashes.

—§—

Fraser Island contains around forty lakes and numerous creeks. This creek, near the beach, has a deep amber color.

The stain comes from tea trees (melaleuca, not Camellia sinensis from which we get black tea). Oils from decaying melaleuca branches and roots readily dissolve in water. Tea tree oil is a natural antiseptic and appears to have a significant role in natural medicines and cosmetics. We all waded in the creek to heal our bug bites.

Perhaps the finest of Fraser Island’s lakes is turquoise Lake McKenzie. Called a “perched” lake because it sits high above the water table upon an old impermeable layer of decayed organic matter, it is fed only by rain water. Mildly acidic with dissolved alum, the waters leave skin soft and hair silky. Not my hair, of course. I don’t have any. But my skin felt good after I swam in it.

Melaleucas and eucalypts fringe the lake. Reeds grow along the edges, reminding me of ponds where I swam as a child.

Delicate pink rosettes grow in the powdered sugar sand. Can there be any nutrients in this soil?

These photographs don’t tell the whole story. This incredibly beautiful place is not Eden. Even now, in low season, we were just two of many visitors. Swing the camera around, and another aspect of Fraser Island comes into focus.

I enjoyed swimming at Lake McKenzie. So did a couple hundred other people.

North Queensland is full of spectacular places. Three UNESCO World Heritage Sites lie within a day’s travel of each other, and we all want to visit them. So we share them with others, often many others.

North, north, north.

We’re driving north, away from the population centers of Sydney and Brisbane. Before we’re done, we hope to reach the Daintree, where paved roads end. Our ultimate objective is Cape York Peninsula, a point of land that nearly touches Papua New Guinea.

We’re searching for Australia’s great outdoors: primeval jungles, misty waterfalls, deserted beaches. Given low population density, finding them should be a snap. (Australia has only 3 people per square kilometer. The US has 31; Mexico has 53.)

An hour or two north of Brisbane, we arrived in Noosa Heads and headed out to the beach for a swim.

Hmmm. Not paradise yet.

Admittedly we arrived during school holidays, but even in the off season, it’s clear that Noosa is popular—a quick weekend getaway for city-weary Brisbane workers.

High-end clothing boutiques line Hastings Street just off Main Beach. Crowded sidewalk cafés provide innovative and healthy snacks (if you don’t mind waiting). I had trouble finding a place to park. in Noosa Heads, business is booming.

All this commerce relies on the presence of the beach. Like Cancún, if the sand goes, the businesses go. Unfortunately, the beach at Noosa Heads is going—north.

Sand is uncooperative stuff. You build a nice little resort community. A few decades later, the beach starts drifting away. To hold it in place, you built a jetty, stabilizing the coastline in one part of town. The jetty in turn causes sand starvation elsewhere. Oops. Tourism suffers. Business owners complain. Politicians, eyeing their seats, take note.

I walked north along the beach to Noosa Spit, where I found the local council’s solution to the drifting sand problem.

This is a sand pump. In some ways it’s very cool. It sucks sand from a buildup against a jetty and pumps it through a 14” mile-long plastic pipe back to Main Beach—to where it’s needed—recycling in the purest sense of the word. Ocean currents drive sand north, the pump circulates it back where it came from—a never-ending whirlpool of sand grains.

Think about the air conditioner in your car. You can set it to admit fresh outside air, or you can slide a lever to recirculate old, stale passenger compartment air. The latter is what Noosa is doing—but with sand.

I’m generally in favor of employing engineering to make lives and communities better. But this seems a little strained. A beach ought to be a living thing, moving about in response to currents and storms, clinging to places where mangroves grow, yielding a little land here, building new land there.

Noosa’s efforts to maintain the status quo undoubtedly is vital to the businesses that depend on all those visitors. But the place feels contrived. Certianly not as extreme as this artificial beach in Japan, but then, where do you draw the line?

Photo: koolbluez, Frihost Forums

Don’t get me wrong. Noosa is a nice vacation spot. The water is warm, the breezes gentle, the community neat and quite attractive. In my Silicon Valley years, I was grateful for the presence of Santa Cruz—with its tacky Beach Boardwalk—just an hour’s drive away. But at this point in our Australian journey, we’re looking for unalloyed nature. This isn’t it.

Brisbane’s South Bank Park is located in the center of the city. As in most cities, finding a place to park can be tough. On my visit, all the spaces along the street were taken, so I had to use a nearby underground lot.

They’re not free. I drove down a ramp, stopping at a gate to push a button and receive a ticket which I would be required to produce upon leaving.

The semi-automated exit procedure began with pushing my ticket into a slot at a pay station. The machine read my ticket and calculated my parking fee.

My charges for four hours came to $21 AUD—$14. US. Not cheap.

I paid by credit card. The machine encoded that fact on the ticket and returned it to me. Then I had to drive up to yet another machine and insert the ticket there to raise the exit barrier.

Seems like a reasonably organized system, albeit one that requires a lot of effort from the customer. The norm in most of the urban Australian parking lots I used, it works properly for people who are going to work or shopping or to see a movie. But at South Bank Park, people swim. When they do, a problem arises not foreseen by the system designers.

A warning has been taped to the payment machine. Unfortunately, it won’t be seen until after swimming. Alert drivers will recognize the dilemma when they fish their soggy tickets out of their cozzies (bathing costumes). They’ll take their them to the cashier who presumably uses a special device capable of reading them. Or perhaps he simply asks how long they were parked: honor system parking.

But of course there’s always those who blunder ahead. In a hurry or perhaps befuddled by a few too many at one of the park’s pubs, I imagine them jamming damp tickets into the reader slot. The machine gamely sucking them inside, they become reduced to gummy paste. Parking charges are no longer readable, and the ticket machine ceases to be usable by subsequent patrons.

I love it when stuff like this happens—to other designers. It happened to me often enough when I did that kind of work.

The people of New South Wales, the state where Sydney is located, view Queenslanders as unclutured, unsophisticated, crude. Queenslanders wear flip-flops instead of shoes. They’re hicks—barely emerged from the unmannered outback. They are called (unkindly) Banana Benders. Even the government of Queensland is a little quirky. They’ll give you Betty Boop license plates if you want.

Brisbane (locals call it Dizzy Brizzie) is the capitol of the state of Queensland. Of Australia’s half-dozen major cities, it is the fastest growing. Nearly fifty people move there every day.

Subtropical climate, robust communications links, booming growth and a relaxed lifestyle attract new residents. To contain them all, the city sprawls into endless suburbs and high rises sprout along the Brisbane River.

We arrived for our quick visit on yet another rainy day. In one of the Boomerang Coast’s wettest years, the weather just won’t ease up. I find it hard to grasp that Brisbane currently struggles with a drought-induced water shortage.

In the city center, Queen Street has been made over into a pedestrian mall—a vibrant, activity-filled space.

Ibis know: on a rainy day, it’s time to go shopping.

Some original downtown buildings escaped the designs of high-rise developers. The ground floor of this lovely edifice now houses a hamburger place—Hungry Jack’s. Looks like a Burger King—and in fact it is. However, another hamburger shop in Queensland already owns the Burger King name, so the franchise had to change. Looks to me like somebody muffed a chance at a nice big settlement.

The South Bank of the Brisbane River is home to a large, lovely park.

Besides the signature ferris wheel, the park offers swimming lagoons with imported sand and lifeguards—a beach amidst high rises!

A kilometer-long trellis composed of hundreds of massive free-form uprights supports a huge planting of bougainvillea. It follows a serpentine path used by joggers, strollers, and skaters. Each upright is unique—some taller, others shorter or curved differently.

This thing must have been expensive. Whatever it cost, I think it it’s worth it.

A Nepalese temple built by craftsmen from Katmandu symbolizes Australia’s Asian orientation. It creates a quiet space in the otherwise busy park.

We are blessed that we have so many friends and acquaintances in Australia. They have guided us in our travels, and have opened their homes to us. This nighttime view of Brisbane was taken from the balcony of an apartment belonging to one of them.

Except for visiting our friends, we had no real agenda in Brisbane. Rather, the city is our jumping off point for travels in Northern Queensland. There we hope to leave civilization behind and enter the untamed tropics.

Australians gamble. They gamble at least as much as Americans do, and possibly more. Here we see two young men enjoying breakfast while playing keno.

They are not unusual. Whenever I bother to look, I see people gambling—at any hour of the day.

Most bars and pubs have gambling facilities. I found the sign below in the dining room of a golf course clubhouse.

Most gamblers play pokies—slot machines. After extensively observing people sitting at the machines, I have concluded that they’re called pokies because that’s how you use them. You sit at them and poke buttons over and over again for hours on end. Poke, poke, pokka, pokka, poke...

Most pubs offer at least a few pokies, but for the big time, punters visit casinos where machines can be found in ranks of hundreds. Conrad Jupiters in Broad Beach is a large facility that includes a conference center, hundreds of hotel rooms, a half dozen restaurants, high-end retail shops, and a casino.

We went to Conrad Jupiters to check out the gambling and to try one of the hotel restaurants. Winding our way through extensive lobbies, bars, and malls, we came to the casino. Two steely-eyed security guards flanked the entrance. They looked like Secret Service Agents, coiled black cords climbing up their necks to earpieces.

One guard stopped the couple in front of us, cautioning a visitor that he couldn’t take his camera inside. I surreptitiously dropped my small Olympus into my shoulder bag and passed through, giving him an innocent smile. No cameras here, Mate.

The interior looks like casinos you see anywhere in the world. Texas Hold ‘Em tables crowded with savvy outback types, businessmen and über-sophisticated females in cocktail dresses playing blackjack, Chinese people playing roulette. And hundreds of gray-faced pensioners grimly poking buttons on slot machines. Poke, pokka, poke...

Conrad Jupiters was jammed. Long lines of hungry people waited for admission to the hotel restaurants. Unwilling to wait, we looked for the café located inside the casino.

Casino operators know not to allow hunger to cause gamblers to step outside. They make sure drinks and foods and restrooms are just steps away from tables and machines. Moreover, they keep food and drink cheap to sweeten the deal. We got our least expenxive dinner since arriving in Australia—at the casino café. Great food, too.

A day later we were in Brisbane. One of the sights I didn’t want to miss was the old Treasury Building, a classical pile of sandstone. The solid architecture reeks probity and sobriety and the substance of the former British Empire.

Today it’s a casino. You know Australians take their gambling seriously when they allow a major historical building to be converted into a gambling hall.

Gambling may be a problem in this country. Several people mentioned to me they had gambling addictions. Some spoke about belonging to Gamblers Anonymous. The path to addiction seems a little too easy. Pokies are everywhere. You can play one for as little as one cent a throw. Ten dollars can last an evening. For some, mindlessly pushing buttons becomes an obsession. I saw it in the faces of the gamblers: none were enjoying themselves. They looked haunted.

Pokka, pokka, poke, poke...

A couple hours’ drive north of idyllic Byron Bay—a region of pristine, thinly populated beaches—we came to this.

Bit of a shock. I mistook the skyline for Australia’s third-largest city, Brisbane. We were in fact looking at a beach resort town—Surfer’s Paradise.

Not long ago this was a sleepy stretch of sand with some nice waves. In the ’60s, a small hotel provided accommodations for young people with surfboards. The hotel was called Surfer’s Paradise.

Local boosters saw that the name was more attractive than, say, Akron, so they adopted it for the town itself. A little promotion, a little construction, and voila! Instant Miami.

The boom started maybe forty years ago, and continues today without pause. Blocks of old two-story motels are being razed and thirty-story high rises sprout in their places. All new buildings are condominiums, not hotels. Looks like they sell for something like $450,000 AUD ($300,000 US). That’s the price for a small flat.

Realtors’ pitches emphasize returns: 4%, 5%, 6%. I guess people buy these places for investment purposes, rather than as places to live. We rented a one-bedroom place in the suburb of Broad Beach for the price of a hotel room. There were plenty of vacancies, so I think potential investors shouldn’t count too heavily on that 5%.

This image, looking down one of the main streets of Broad Beach, could have been shot in Cleveland. Except for the palm tree. For a beach resort town, it is decidedly urban.

Small businesses cater more to visitors than to residents. One offers “genuine massage.”

I always prefer genuine massages. Much more satisfying than the fake kind.

You can get your bikini at a factory outlet. Buy with confidence: you’ll get both parts for your $25.

I arrived in Surfer’s Paradise not knowing how to surf; an oversight. Providentially, local instructors stand at the ready to provide instruction.

Oh. Right. I almost forgot. This is a beach town. I made a thorough search and discovered one. A miles-long, wide stretch of sand with a nice break—no wonder surfers come here.

Along Australia’s East Coast, the surf can be dangerous. Rip tides and undertows are the norm. Surfers, who are at home in rough water, have been followed by vacationing families. Children, old guys like me, and unskilled swimmers are at risk.

Australia counters with the finest, most professional lifesaving teams in the world. They are stationed at intervals along the beaches in kiosks. To receive their protection you have to swim between the yellow and red flags, an ocean frontage of maybe fifty feet. Outside the flags, you’re on your own.

So looking out along Broad Beach, we are faced with the prospect of scores of swimmers all jammed together in one spot, while on either side stretch miles of deserted sand.

People who like South Florida cities will love Surfer’s Paradise. Plenty of high rise accommodations with splendid views, a vibrant street scene chockablock with restaurants and cafés, pristine sand, and warm (if rough) water. There’s even a casino.

We came to Byron Bay for the sea: miles of sandy beaches that slope so gently that we can stand in waist-deep water fifty yards from the tide line. Water so warm we can swim in it all day. We could have spent weeks in our coastal cottage.

But our friends told us our visit wouldn’t be complete without a drive through what they call the hinterlands. A mile or two inland, and everything changes.

The first thing that changed was road conditions. While much of Australia is suffering major droughts (with accompanying wildfires), here on the East coast we’re getting record rains dumped on us. Floodwaters cover roads and fields.

Climb into the coastal mountains and the roads are clear. Everything else is wet though, including us. Our friends describe this region as rain forest. How can it be anything else?

Mysterious driveways lead off through ferns and palms. People live somewhere back there.

Epiphytes cling profusely to trees. When I think about how hard I tried to get a stag horn fern to grow on my lime tree...

Children live here too. A rustic shed protects them from the elements while they wait for the school bus.

Dropping down out of the mountains, we come to rolling pastureland and lonely houses nestled in folds of the land. This one has a creek running through the front yard.

And it has more. Look closer. The back yard boasts a fifty-foot waterfall!

Along the road, small villages appear unexpectedly: here the town of Uki. We found the name humorous: the ooky café, the ooky grocery store... Turns out it’s pronounced YOOK-eye.

Uki by all rights should be a farm town with a grain elevator and a general store. But it’s actually a sophisticated community with new age touches. Our lunch at the Uki café included a pumpkin, avocado and macademia nut salad. (Macademia nuts are grown here and are cheap.) Laura is here enjoying a flat white (that’s what Australians call a coffee drink much like a cappuccino).

So where’s the best part of the Byron Shire for living? Mountains or coast?

It’s all so pleasing, so scenic, so inviting. There’s country life, jungle life, or beach life. And Australia’s third largest city, Brisbane, is less than an hour to the North.

I couldn’t possibly choose. Fortunately, I don’t have to.

After traversing two days of inland highway to the north, we broke through to the coast at the Shire of Byron. There we got to watch yet more rain. But we got some intermittent sunshine, too. Temperatures were in the high 70s. The Coral Sea waters were warm, so we went swimming as soon as we arrived, notwithstanding the dangerous storm surge.

Byron Shire is home to several competing elements: developers (kept at bay by a “green” city council), hordes of surfers and backpackers (and the businesses that serve them), and a community of new agers. In fact, Byron may be the New Age capitol of the world. For starters, hundreds of health practitioners provide: energy healing, lymphatic drainage, sacred esoteric healing, crystal resonance healing, detoxification, aura-som, theta dna, chakra therapy, clairaudient channeling, angel/ascended master guidance, kinesiology, soul midwifery, and quantum bio-energetics healing. (I wonder what Werner Heisenberg would think about that last one.)

With all these healers, I was in the right place. My ears had become plugged up—I couldn’t hear very well. I needed some kind of therapy, but what kind? Iridology? Sacrocranial balancing? How does one choose from all the options?

A friend led me into a single story clinic decorated with mandalas and statues of Buddha. Soft, eastern music was playing somewhere. A secretary whose office chair consisted of an exercise ball admitted me. Shortly, a barefoot man wearing shorts appeared: Dr. Peter O’Brien—now going by the name Arpana Geeta. He quickly and professionally diagnosed my problem as a bacterial infection of the middle ear and told me apologetically that he was going to prescribe antibiotics. I think he was somewhat disappointed he couldn’t offer an effective herbal remedy instead.

—§—

We’re staying in Suffolk Park, a small community just south of Byron Bay, to avoid crowds and traffic jams. The upcoming blues festival held in Byron Bay every Easter weekend is sure to fill the town to overflowing, so we seek obscurity.

Our end-of-the-road cottage is separated from the ocean by a row of vegetation-covered dunes. A short walk puts us on the beach, something we’re doing a couple of times a day.

The place has everything we need: bedroom, bath, a kitchen-dining-sitting area, a hammock, and a barbie. Our Vodafone chips don’t work here, but we get wifi if we sit out on the porch.

A friend arranged lunch at her home on the highlands near Cape Byron. Her veranda overlooks the entire sweep of the bay. Tropical birds fly overhead. Gentle, warm breezes blow in from the sea.

Miles of walks run through coastal vegetation, some of it rain forest. One day we walked south from our house to Broken Head.

Our objective was a secluded pocket beach, one that offers a sense of containment, unlike the open, kilometers-long, broad expanse of Suffolk Beach.

We never see truly gentle water here. Storms coming in off the Coral Sea keep wave action vigorous. We often feel the tug of rip currents.

To the west of Byron Bay lies hilly country that the locals call the hinterlands. Much of the hinterlands consists of farms and grazing land. Looking over them, we see Cape Byron rising in the distance.

A spit of land pokes into the ocean from Cape Byron. Stand on it and you are closer to America than at any other place in Australia.

Cape Byron has a lighthouse—the most powerful one in Australia. Light from an incandescent bulb, concentrated by two large rotating Fresnel lenses, casts brilliant beams out to sea (and over our cottage) three or four times a minute.

Today the light is automated. But a century ago, lighthouse keepers kept the beacon running. The red-roofed building to the right of the lighthouse used to be home to the men whose lonely job was to keep the warning signal operating.

Today, their quarters are available for rental by vacationers who want to experience the lighthouse keepers’ solitude.

Seems like a charming idea. But lines of tourists peer through the picket fences all day long, snapping pictures of tenants trying to enjoy their backyard barbecue.

—§—

Byron Bay and vicinity must be the most alluring, benign, temperate, and beautiful place in the world. Laura and I began discussing immigration to Australia within hours of getting here. It’s bucolic and peaceful, full of breathtaking vistas. People who live here live in the outdoors. Their active lifestyle produces good conditioning (along, presumably, with alternative health practices). For culture, Brisbane, Australia’s third largest city, is an hour’s drive up the coast. Sydney is just a hundred-dollar Virgin Blue flight to the south.

Potential immigrants face onerous restrictions. Basically you have to be rich or useful to come here. And even if you meet one or the other of those requirements, only 30,000 get chosen each year. So don’t sell your place in San MIguel or Indianapolis just yet.

We intended next to visit idyllic Byron Bay, a thousand kilometers up the coast. The Coast Highway north of Sydney had been cut by torrential rains and attendant flooding. No traffic was getting through at Coffs Harbour.

We selected a more inland route north, the Putty Road. We stopped for lunch in Singleton, where I photographed the town hall, a building emblematic of Australian architecture gone slightly wrong.

We continued onward via the New England Highway, which led us through Grafton Range and Washpool National Parks. This region has been designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site, owing to the presence of an ancient rain forest, home to some of the oldest plants on earth.

Grafton Range is a primeval place, where a twining vine embedded in the bark of a coachwood tree exemplifies the struggle for existence.

We walked a short trail to Boundary Falls, swollen from the recent rains.

This place is really wet. Well, it is a rain forest. Fungus grows in profusion, as do epiphytic plants, vines, palms, trees and mosses.

So does something else. When we switched driving duties a few hours down the road, we noticed three well-fed leeches had fallen to the floor of the car. Apparently they attached themselves to our ankles as we pushed through streamside grasses, angling for a good shot of Boundary Falls. They bit us through our socks. Laura won the leech popularity contest, two to one.

North of Grafton Range, we left the rain forest, cutting through a sweet region of mixed forest and grasslands.

I think of New England as being particularly American, as if trademarked by us. But of course, New England was named by the British when they owned most of North America. Upon losing the original, they apparently lost no time creating another in Australia.

Someone in the Roads and Traffic Authority is deeply concerned about motorcycle safety. I saw scores of signs instructing motorcyclists. The curves seem hazardous for any type of vehicle, but for some reason, warnings are directed at the two-wheeled variety.

The sign on the right informs us we’re in a “motorcycle safety enforcement area.” Apparently you will be safe—or else.

You think you have termite problems? Termite mounds dot the Australian landscape, some as tall as I am. I get the impression you don’t mess with them. Best to just leave them alone.

I read that Australia is full of creatures that can annoy, sting, wound, or kill you. Between leeches and termites on steroids, I’m starting to get the picture.

Tired and punchy from the strain of hours of driving on the left, we looked for coffee. We pulled into the New Italy Museum Complex, a sort of roadside café grown out of control. A tribute to pioneering Italian immigrants, the museum includes this statue. I like the dog.

Billed as a “driver reviver,” the café closed the minute we arrived we arrived, so we continued on, unrevived.

At last we regained the coast (más o menos) at Ballina, a half-hour short of Byron Bay. We knew we had reached the ocean when we saw a giant shrimp atop a strip mall building.

Giant shrimp notwithstanding, Australia is proving to be extraordinarily beautiful. Beaches, rain forests, savanna, mountains, bucolic farms, I’m realizing that Australians truly do live in Oz. I suspect they’re keeping it a secret, how good life is here. Even when it’s raining.

Stuck in a hotel room while a continuous deluge progressed outside left me scratching for something of interest, prevented as I was by inclement weather from viewing the Hanging Gardens of Blackheath or the Colossus of Katoomba, I found myself closely observing the minutiae of life within the walls of the Red Leaf Resort.

When we arrived, we were among no more than a half dozen guests, but the desk clerk informed us “a bus” would be arriving that evening, with “another bus” due tomorrow. Today’s bus pulled up shortly, all seats taken by Australian pensioners: median age—78.

They were an active, happy bunch, obviously enjoying their tour. I suspect they derived satisfaction more from companionship than from scenery, given that any views were obscured by sheets of falling water.

We joined them the next morning for what apparently was a high point in their day. The dining room opened for breakfast at 7:30 sharp. At 7:28, every single member of their tour group was lined up in front of the door, ready for the rush to the buffet. Prudently, Laura and I stood well out of the way as practiced, bony hands snatched at poached eggs and fruit cocktail, elbows flailing. These people were pros at the breakfast scramble.

Breakfast was pretty much the same affair as in the States, except for grilled tomatoes and oddly cut bacon. Those and a bread spread called Vegemite. We knew about Vegemite because expat Aussie friends of ours would plead with travelers to bring some back from their trips back to the homeland.

Just what is this comestible so beloved of people who live Down Under?

The package says it consists of barley extract. And preservatives. Yum. The appearance is like macadam; the consistency, axle grease. It tastes like... well... barley.

In college, I brewed beer using sugar, water, and a can of hop flavored malt extract. The beer tasted terrible, but the malt extract tasted just like Vegemite.

It’s an acquired taste, that’s for sure.

—§—

Major cabin fever: we put on foul weather gear and drove to a restaurant for lunch. It occupied what once was the lobby of an old-fashioned, art deco movie theater. The interior was decorated with old movie posters. Two pictured George Sand and one promoted Elvis Presley in Jailhouse Rock. The lone example from the Australian film industry was “When the Kellys Rode.” Billed as “an action-packed romance of early Australia,” a blurb breathlessly extolled, “They defied the LAW...... But the Law PREVAILED!”

Now, Ned Kelly and his murderous gang were a vicious and bumbling bunch that made the Symbionese Liberation Army look sophisticated. After a career of robbery and murder, a posse finally cornered them in a farmhouse. Ned Kelly eventually emerged wearing a ridiculous suit of homemade armor. A policeman cirvumvented the armor by shooting him in the leg. Ned was captured, convicted and hanged. End of story.

Somehow, his pathetic exploits caught the Australian imagination, like Billy the Kid. Hence this film. I’m surprised the writers found enough in the Kellys’ exploits to create a screenplay.

But that poster is a hoot.

—§—

Another breakfast. Experienced, we waited until 7:45 before approaching the dining room. It was hold back or don shin guards. When we arrived, the pensioners, their number swollen by yet another busload, were all happily munching toast and Vegemite. We approached the sorry remains of the buffet, managing to find a few scraps to sustain us until lunch.

—§—

Rain continued to make outings impractical. I longed to see the Australian countryside. As I sat looking gloomily out of the hotel window, this fellow appeared.

A red and blue parrot—what a beauty!

Later I asked the hotel manager what kind of bird he was, assuming he wouldn’t know the name of a creature so exotic. He responded, “It’s a Crimson Rosella, mate. Common in these parts.”

Our Crimson Rosella was to be the last natural feature of the Blue Mountains we would see. In fact, except for The Three Sisters, he was to be the only natural feature we would see. Friends awaited us up the coast. We were to leave in the morning, rain or shine.

The Blue Mountains lie a couple of hours’ drive from Sydney along the great Western Highway. Rugged and free of development, they are described as “Sydney’s Back Yard.”

The area is named for the blue haze formed by droplets of oil evaporating from the eucalyptus forest that carpets the hills.

For city dwellers, the Blue Mountains offer the advantage of nearby wilderness. The disadvantage for the Blue Mountains is that they are close to Sydney. Buses carry Asian tour groups and troops of Australian pensioners into the region. At popular lookouts, the place seems more like Disneyland than a National Forest.

Picturesque and eminently photographable, views often are obscured by people posing for “I was here” pictures. Spectacular nature gets reduced to mere backdrop.

A lookout platform hangs out over a 1,000’ cliff. Steps away from the tour bus parking area, it’s the most popular spot within the hundreds of square miles that make up the Blue Mountains. Everyone eventually winds up here.

Even the Queen, who stood on this spot shortly after she ascended to the monarchy.

The whole point of this particular lookout is a rock formation called The Three Sisters. Those of us who have been to Yosemite might not be particularly impressed by these stones, but then again, Yosemite isn’t a day trip from anywhere. Proximity to civilization is the big plus here.

Tired from a busy week in Sydney, Laura and I completed our appreciation of The Three Sisters and returned to our lodgings at Redleaf Resort in Blackheath, near Katoomba. After a nap, we took a short walk around the neighborhood, planning to make some serious day hikes into the canyonlands the next day.

As we walked, a light rain—no more than a heavy mist—began to fall, producing a beautiful rainbow. We remarked that truly we were in Oz.

What we didn’t realize was that this rainbow presaged a huge storm that would last for several days. Floodwaters would isolate some towns with and would cut our intended route up the coast highway. In the end, we were to be imprisoned in our hotel room for three days.

Oz, indeed.

For close-in public transportation, Sydneysiders rely on an extensive bus network. Laura and I bought ten-ride tickets for the blue line buses that allowed us to travel from our Glebe neighborhood to the harbor and business center for about one U. S. dollar per ride.

For travel to and from the far suburbs, there’s the train. The rail network gives the city a European feel. Electrified light rail terminates in centrally located stations, reducing auto traffic and attendant congestion. This commuter train is running over a brickwork viaduct that looks like it dates back to prewar machine-age times.

As a nerdy kid in the ’50s, I enthusiastically read articles in Popular Mechanics about future modes of transportation. I could hardly wait for personal aircraft or trains that ran under the oceans in pneumatic tubes. Prominent among these notions, and far more realizable, was the monorail.

Sydney has one!

Making a loop through the city center, this vehicle looks exactly as pictured in mid-century speculative fiction. To see it is to fulfill another boyhood dream, like visiting the moon or sci-fi author Arthur C. Clarke’s imaginative invention, the geosynchronous communications satellite.

In Grebe, our neighborhood in Sydney, I spotted this can in a store window.

It says on the can that it’s microwaveable. Just in case you wanted to know.

Regrettably, time constraints prevent us from strolling across the Sydney Harbour Bridge. The views from the pedestrian walkway at the edge of the deck just have to be spectacular.

The other day I noticed the arch of the bridge appeared to have grown bristles. A look through the Nikkor 200mm zoom lens revealed that the bristles were people.

Later I read that one of Sydney’s tourist entertainments is something called BridgeClimb. For $189 Australian Dollars, you can make a guided ascent on top of the arch, safely tethered against an accidental fall.

Climbers are not permitted to carry loose objects, presumably so they won’t drop things on commuter traffic below. Unfortunately, the proscription includes cameras—a deal killer for me. That, and the $189.

Before making the BridgeClimb, participants are given a BridgeSuit. (Cleverly coined compound words with interior capital letters are so ’80s.) Protected thus from the elements, everyone then has to pass a breathalyzer test (for protection from each other) before they can set off in tow behind the ClimbLeader. (OK. I made that last one up.)

The climb takes 3½ hours and doesn’t seem to be particularly strenuous. I’m sure that people thoroughly enjoy it.

Personally, I dislike group tours. I become impatient waiting for the inevitable group member who causes delays for everyone else. Nor do I like canned patter from tour guides. And I’m generally suspicious of heavily promoted attractions. Like BridgeClimb.

Probably I should loosen up and have a little fun. But I’ll be 68 this month. Set in my ways. So I probably won’t.