Monthly Archives: September 2009

Do not attempt to adjust your computer monitors

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Window View

Window view with dust

The top image is what the view from our livingroom window would look like on an average sunny Sydney day.  The bottom image, is the view we woke up to on Wednesday September 23rd, 2009, the day an epic dust storm blew over the city.  This dust came all the way from the arid west, and blanketed most of the state.  Keep in mind that the continental land mass of Australia, is nearly the same size as the US, but has only six states.  That would be like the entire midwest getting lost in a cloud.  It’s no wonder they saw this dust from space!

The dust took over 12 hours to clear out, slowly becoming a grayish vale before the sun started to peak through.  So Sydney went from looking like the Mars landscape in Total Recall (minus Schwarzenegger) to Could City (without Billy Dee) and back to normal again.  Though the high winds proved very helpful in clearing the dust out to sea (actually up to Brisbane before heading over the ocean, sorry Brizzie) they also blew the dust into every nook and cranny capable of containing particulates.  So, trips outside required interesting headgear . . .

Gabe Bandana

And my apartment, which I had just cleaned last week, is now a dusty mess.  What you see here is a bookcase where an alarm clock and two pairs of binoculars were sitting during the storm.

Dusty Bookcase

News reports of this record breaking event yesterday, ranged from discussion about how well the car washing businesses were going to do, to the environmental implications of acres of missing top soil.  With raging fires and massive floods in the US, earthquakes in Southeast Asia, and a martian haze clouding Sydney, I can’t help but wonder if the Mayans were right.  So what do you think?  Is this a sign of things to come?

Bedroom window dust

Pink Marshmallows Taste Like Cough Syrup

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Happy Campers

Which is probably why they don’t eat smores in Australia.  We did not attempt to makes smores with the pink ones (supposedly raspberry flavored) but even the white marshmallows were vanilla flavored.  Odd, I was under the impression that marshmallow was already a flavor.  But the Arnott’s Nice Biscuits, made a suitable replacement for Graham Crackers, and the Lindt 70% Cocoa Bar was almost too good to be combined with those highly flammable excuses for marshmallows.  Perhaps smores are best left for American camping excursions.

Our campsite, in lovely Royal National Park, like the rest of the country, was dominated by the birds.  An afternoon of pleasant twittering becomes an evening of cockatoos screeching, in dinosaur like tones, as they eat off the picnic tables and try to steal your bag of trail mix.  Be wary, their beaks are powerful enough to break the plastic within seconds.  And with the first light of dawn, what begins as one or two birds chanting their characteristic calls, quickly became what sounded like every bird in the park trying to out call  every other.  It was as if someone in master control had decided to play every track at once, while amping the volume to eleven.  Good thing I’m a heavy sleeper.

In addition to the birds, our weekend of camping introduced us to one large ring tailed possum, which I wouldn’ t have seen if he hadn’t made an audible thump as he dropped from the tree behind me in the dark, a semaphore crab, whose little red pinchers made it clear how crabby he really was, tiny little bugs that attempted to dig into my beach towel, several ants large enough to tote away whole grains of rice, and a purple stinger jellyfish which was most certainly not the harmless kind.  It’s a good thing the water is so clear here.  One particularly cheeky spider even made the journey back in my pack, and survived six sneaker stomps before the fatal seventh.  Seriously . . . tough country.

Perhaps the best part of our short lived camping adventure, in addition to the beautiful beach and clear water of Simpsons Bay, were the happy campers we shared the site with.  One man, from a large family group with lots of hyperactive kids, loaned us chairs for the night, which proved essential.  Our tiny double tent and otherwise empty plot, did seem rather pathetic compared to their multiple dining tables and Taj Mahal of tents.  It was very nice of them to share the wealth.  And the generosity did not stop there.  We decided to leave a day early, a decision which confirmed my faith in my good instincts, as a rain storm struck while we were half way to the ferry stop.  While waiting for the deluge to subside in the portico of a local gas station, and by that I mean THE local gas station, a woman materialized from the pumps next to us, and offered us a ride.  Her serendipitous offer got us to the ferry just in time to discover that it had been delayed long enough for us to pile in with all the other soggy beach goers.

Once back in Sydney, we decided to polish off our wilderness weekend with a little tour of some slightly more contained bits of it, in the Sydney Aquarium and Sydney Wildlife World.  The aquarium was great reminder of the amazing beauty just off of Australian shores, as well as a great refresher course in what can and can’t kill you.  Okay, so jellyfish stings should be flushed with vinegar, and blue bottle stings should be flushed with hot water.  Check.  And I didn’t even know what a dugong was, until I met “Pig” the dugong.   In case you were wondering, they aren’t manatees, but are also called sea cows.  I hope they don’t find that offensive.

Wildlife world offered the opportunity to pet stick bugs, snakes, blue tongue lizards, and to hold the butterflies.  It does, however, cost extra to pet the sleepy little koalas.  But perhaps that’s best, since I now know that their young have to eat their mothers droppings, to gain a resistance to the poisonous eucalyptus plants that leave them in their life long stupor.  It’s a good thing eucalyptus is breath cleansing.

Take a look at my flickr photos to see more from our weekend of close encounters.

Active Leisure

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Floating

I never thought I would be this calm, floating in water which was not only a temperature suitable for a Polar Bear Club get together, but also obviously home to many species of jellyfish.  Though I was correct in identifying the jellyfish near the dock as the harmless moon jellies (Thank you Coney Island Aquarium) I’m quite sure that the pinkish ones, which were large enough to see from the train windows, would have produced quite a bit of pain with their lengthy, funnel cake like tentacles.  But Australia is the kind of place where you say to yourself, well, I don’t see any of those big jellies right here, so I think I’ll go for a swim.  Which is immediately followed by a splash and a few expletives inspired by the refreshing water.

About an hour on the train toward the Central Coast of New South Whales, will get you to a lovely series of inlets like this, and several isolated train stations like this.

Wondabyne

This one in particular, was conveniently located next to an equally pint sized (0.47 Liter sized) public dock, which served as our camp out spot for an afternoon of wake boarding.  Though the Aussie boarders made the sport look like second nature, the attempts made by the American and Danish ex-pats in our group made it clear to me that I didn’t need to try it.  Gabe’s short review of his several tries at getting up on the board was “ow.”  Floating and sunning were sport enough for me.

Besides, I was saving my energy for our upcoming evening of lawn bowls.  Why the Aussies call the sport lawn bowls, instead of lawn bowling, is yet another one of those language mysteries, which I think has to do with brevity.  No matter what you call it, the seemingly lackadaisical sport is deceptively hard, especially after a cocktail or two.  But considering the bustle around the bar at the Paddo Bowls Club, I gather that drinking is as important as the well manicured grass.  Though our visit was brief, since the fairly young crowd had to be ushered off the lawn for the sake of bowls club’s not so young neighbors, It’s something I would definitely like to try again.   I think a few more gin and tonics would have helped me understand the physics of the sport better.

Even after a busy Saturday, Australia refused to let us spend Sunday at home, calling to us through the windows with the first hints of summer weather.  And we certainly weren’t the only ones who felt the pull of the sparkling sunshine.  There were sunning people all over the coastline, the harbor was full of sailboats, and unbeknownst to us, the Admiralty House, official home of the governor general, had been opened to the public for tours.  So, our usually tranquil dock was packed full of octogenarian couples, and camera toting families, dragging colorfully dressed children behind them.  A special ferry, called the Royale (no cheese), had even been sent out to trek them over to our peninsula the for the occasion.

But even though we had to share the ferry, the Botanic Gardens, and the line for afternoon cappuccinos, with all the other Sydneysiders celebrating the turn of seasons,  I was happy to get a taste of things to come.  It was so warm, in fact, that the hoards of fruit bats normally resting comfortably in the tops of the Botanic Garden’s trees, had to constantly fan themselves with their wings.  And I thought New York summer nights without air conditioning were hard.  At least I don’t sleep upside down.