12/31/07

It’s hard to believe that we have been in Oz for almost two weeks already. The first leg of our travels in Australia is comprised of a 2000 km trip from Adelaide to Sydney, through Melbourne and Canberra. Visiting Southern Australia is very much about seeing its big cities. Each one has its own distinct character, and a wealth of heritage buildings, statues and parks. Each city has an area of bush or a beach community within an hour’s drive where the locals go for week-end getaways to cool off. Australia is currently experiencing what they are calling a “sea swell,” in which city folk are moving out to smaller communities to escape the traffic, congestion and other city issues. Real estate prices have skyrocketed. The small communities are struggling with infrastructure and water supply issues. Between the cities there is, well, not much – vast areas of dry grassland, punctuated by the occasional eucalyptus grove, some rolling hills and gullies, slow-moving caramel-coloured rivers, dry creek beds with bits of billabong, salt flats and rocky outcroppings. The landscape is beautiful in its own way – but there is just so much of it! Roadside signs remind drivers of the presence of koalas, wombats and kangaroos. The major dangers for drivers are the risk of hitting kangaroos and of falling asleep at the wheel.

Our first stop in Adelaide was a pleasure. The city is compact and well laid out with wide tree-lined boulevards and attractive Victorian and Georgian buildings. We visited the zoo where we were introduced to the exotic Australian species such as Tasmanian devils (which really do run around in circles), hopping mice, gliders, bilbies and blue-tongued skinks. We spent a day in the Cultural precinct of  North Terrace where there is the University,  art gallery, aboriginal cultural center, museum, legislature and archival library. We also took excursions to the famous wine-producing Barossa valley with its enormous vineyards, the seaside town of Glenelg, and the German settlement of Handorf. We have become quite fond of the South Australian architectural style of stone buildings with large tin-roofed verandahs decorated with ornate wrought iron embellishments (kind of  Gothic New Orleansesque).

From Adelaide we drove the Great Ocean Road, a tourist route that follows the coast of the Southern Ocean. The flat land just drops off into limestone cliffs, with areas of dramatic limestone formations, blowholes, caves and pillars, the most famous of which are the Twelve Apostles.  The sea is wild here and has claimed many ships. The history of “the shipwreck coast” is well presented in a reproduction of a historical maritime village in Warnambool. With stopovers in the pretty coastal towns of Robe, Mt. Gambier and Port Fairy, and a visit to Otway National Park where there is a stand of eucalypt rainforest, we found this section of our drive to be scenic and interesting. In Mt. Gambier we strolled through a nature preserve amongst kangaroos, wallabies, emus, koalas, turtles and kookaburas. In Otway we spied the spot-tailed Qualla which is so rare that you are supposed to report any sightings to a ranger.

Melbourne is a sprawling city confounded by tram lines running every which way. There is a unique traffic rule called the “hook turn” which requires pulling left in order to make a right turn across the tram tracks – weird. We left the car parked, and walked the streets and watched the people, from the frenzied Victoria market where vendors sell everything from ethnic foods to hardware; to Federation Square where art shows and festivals take place (there was an African Beat festival while we were there), to the South Bank of the Yarra River, where posh cafes abound (there was a Chinese New Year Fair while we were there).  Jordan visited the Old Gaol where he learned about Victorian crime and punishment and saw a dramatization of the life of Ned Kelly, a notorious bank robber who evaded police by wearing a suit of armour made of plough parts. We visited the Melbourne zoo in pursuit of the elusive platypus and spent a day “going bush,” exploring the Dandenong mountains (hills, actually.) 

Canberra is an attractive invented city, designed to serve as the capital in a compromise location between Melbourne and Sydney, with a man-made lake and streets contrived in a circular pattern. Both the Parliament Buildings (completed in only 1988) and the National Museum are creative stunning architectural wonders. We toured the Parliament Buildings and sat in on the House of Representatives where the politicians were debating the control of the prescription for the “abortion pill.” We drove through the embassy area, where most of buildings were delightfully designed to reflect the architecture and character of the home countries – Japanese pagoda, Dutch mill, Papua-New Guinea meeting house, etc. The American embassy was on a hill, well-fortified and imposing; the Canadian embassy was a non-descript white box.

Sydney is called the Paris of the Southern Hemisphere. Its lifeblood is its beautiful harbour which is surrounded by high rise offices and apartment buildings, communities of million-dollar waterfront homes, and parkland. The first day we were there, a storm the previous night had carried thousands of jellyfish into the harbour. We walked all over, through Darling Harbour, the Rocks colonial district and Circular Quay. We visited the Maritime Museum, and the Outback Center where we were given didjeridoo lessons. We criss-crossed the harbour on a series of ferries out to Manly, a beach community at the harbour mouth, and up the Paramatta River to the site of the Sydney Olympics. We passed hundreds of sailboats and yachts, and viewed the iconic Harbour Bridge and the Opera House from the water.

We were so taken with Manly that we have decided to go back again tomorrow to spend the day on its wide golden beaches, before packing up to fly to Cairns. It has been a bit frenetic, trying to see so much in such a short time. We hope that when we tackle our next 2500 kilometer leg along the tropical Queensland coast, we will be able to slow down a bit – as if….....

Sending our greetings,

Erich, Carol and Jordan