One month it has been

Since Marglish received my love

Haiku for lost time

From over the sea

A visitor to fair Oz

Time to show it off

Down to Jervis Bay

Whitest sand in the whole world

Water clear but cold

I have a new job

Which combines my passions for

Design and nature

Fall is coming now

Goodbye to sun soaked beaches

I’ll see you next year

You can see more photos from Jervis Bay on flickr.

It’s sound advice.  You don’t need to be pinned by a rock for 127 hours to have something bad happen to you while you are hiking alone.  The bushwalks through most reserve parks in central Sydney are fairly even paths, but there are no shortage of snakes, spiders, ticks and other animals that could do anything from give you a mild rash to cause paralysis.  Even walking face first into the web of a harmless arachnid, is no picnic.  And if you are anything like me, you are very likely to sprain your ankle on a tree root.

Most newbies to Australia heed every bit of advice and take every caution they can when venturing into the bush.  They wear close toed shoes, long pants, plenty of sunscreen, and bring enough water to last for days.  But once you have lived here for a while you realize that most sydneysiders treat a bushwalk like any other sidewalk, and will conduct them under any number of circumstances, occasionally even barefoot.

So when I left my apartment this afternoon, with nothing but my camera and my keys, I figured there was no harm in checking out a reserve in my neighborhood.  Wearing short pants and thongs (a.k.a. flip flops) only encouraged me to step lightly.  And though I did trip on a tree root, typical, I came out of the bush entirely unscathed.

The only real problem occurred once I had finally left the reserve, via an incredibly steep staircase, and found myself confronted with this view.

Lovely, but that bushy green island to the right had been my intended destination.  Somehow I had wandered myself to the opposite side of the bay, and now had a fairly sizable body of water between me and my apartment.  So what did I do?  I called a friend with an iphone and asked him to tell me where I was and how the hell to get back to where I had been.  Within minutes, my problem was solved and I was on my way back to a nice hot shower and cool glass of water.

So what did I learn from my sojourn into the wild today?  Don’t just hike with friends, hike with friends who have google maps on their phones.

You can see the rest of the photos from my journey on flickr.

You can see the rest of the photos from my adventures in pastoral Oz on Flickr.

As you fly from Oz’s tropical coast to its aptly named red center, you watch the landscape below slowly change from rolling hills covered in copious greenery, to long stretches of neatly divided farmland, and eventually to smooth, rust colored sand as far as you can see.  But the martian landscape at the red center was nowhere near as empty as I had expected it to be.  Thanks to a long rainy season this year, it was covered with scrubby bushes, sprinkled with desert oaks, the occasional gumtree (eucalyptus in the desert!) and even broken up by the a few lonely pools of water.  But it’s still empty enough that when Uluru (formerly Ayers Rock) sneaks up on you, you can’t help but think it was dropped there by aliens.  And contrary to popular belief it does not stand alone.

Yulara

From the plane you can also see the neighboring peaks of Kata Tjuta (formerly The Olgas) and a tiny sparkly dot in between, the resort town of Yulara.  As much as Upolu Cay was the coolest place I’ve ever been, Yulara resort was the weirdest place I’ve ever been.  This resort/town was built in the mid 80s specifically to service tourists to Uluru, a site which receives a steady flow of tourists year round.  Yet somehow this college campus-esque resort felt practically empty.  The only constant company you have during a walk around the resort is a multitude of beetles, stickbugs, crickets and a constant entourage of flies who seem more interested in the moisture in your eyes than in the resorts four pools, or the sprinklers that water its needless stretches of bright green lawn.  But empty or full, it’s the only place to stay within five hours of Uluru, and with it’s surcharge on all credit card purchases, additional charge for any bus transport to Uluru itself and rooms in need of renovation at over $400 a night, I think it must be the most brilliant tourists trap in the entire world.

Nonetheless, we took advantage of what it had to offer, starting with a self grill BBQ at the Outback Pioneer Hotel.  The menu offered such Aussie meats as croc and roo, but I opted for the emu sausages, which were quite delicious.  The Outback Pioneer also became my first introduction the Northern Territory’s tendency toward lack-luster service (although I won’t lump the tour bus drivers into the group) and one of its undeniably backward notions.  At the bar you could not order a drink without showing them your room key.  The lackadaisical bartender explained that the local aboriginal population was not allowed to drink, thus the policy.  I was shocked.  Never before have I truly understood what it must have been like to live in a pre-civil rights movement society.  It turned out she had dramatically oversimplified the law.  As I now understand it, the vast majority of the Northern Territory is dry with the exception of certain areas, chiefly resorts and hotels, that are allowed to sell alcohol, but none is to be sold or even consumed within a 2 kilometer radius of said areas.  The general belief is that this will discourage the aboriginal population from drinking, without having to enforce a blatantly racists law.  Of course, the Outback Pioneer’s policy (which doesn’t seem to be backed by any official law that I could find) would prevent anyone from the local population (mainly aboriginal) from having a drink.  Do feel free to bring this up with the management there, should you happen to be heading that direction.

Kata Tjuta

The next day we decided to head out and see one of the sites that had actually brought us out in the first place.  Kata Tjuta is a striking series of rock formations in the same area as Uluru but decidedly overshadowed by its fame.  It’s a testament to how vast the center of Oz is, that you can see both Kata Tjuta and Uluru from the resort, but it still takes at least 45 minutes to get to one of them.  With the heat desert sun only increasing exponentially throughout the day, you have to get an early start.  We stopped along the way to check out a closer view of the range of helmet-like peaks.  Once out in the open desert, you immediately befriend the flies, so many that the constant buzz around your head is like a special sound effect from a horror movie, and the fight against the urge to whack at every tickle on your arms becomes a matter of mind over fly.  But even a short hike around Kata Tjuta isn’t spoiled by your buzzing chaperons.  Between the mounds of conglomerate rock that look like bright red concrete, sits a pleasant gorge full of little pockets of fresh green growth and trickles of water containing tadpoles, lots of them.  Imagine that, frogs in the desert!  Life will always find a way.

Sounds of Silence

One of the better advertised and more deservedly praised events offered by one of the tourist companies at Yulara is the Sounds of Silence dinner.  This outdoor Aussie buffet starts with canapes and champagne at sunset overlooking Kata Tjuta (which the bus driver accurately observed looks like a sleeping Homer Simpson) followed by a dinner in the pleasant silence of the surrounding nothingness, and ending with a star talk during which you learn that it’s not at all easy to find south using the stars.  Through the telescopes they had set up nearby I saw Saturn, which looked just like a glow in the dark sticker, and the super bright moon which looks more like a slowly boiling potato soup than cheese to me.  I would have gladly stayed up to look at the stars until the moon dropped below the horizon, but we had to make a 5:15 am bus to Uluru the next day, so back to the 80′s era hotel we went.

Uluru, a.k.a. The Rock

The day started while it was basically still nighttime (4:30 am) and so dark that you couldn’t see a thing behind the headlights of the bus except the bright stars in the sky.  I didn’t realize until then that I had so well adjusted to the site of the southern cross that it looked rather odd upside down.  But I was very energized (which is hard to do on instant coffee) and ready for the world famous sunrise over Uluru.  We stationed ourselves on the sunrise platform . . . and so did everybody else.  As the light crept into the sky, tour bus after tour bus filled up the parking lot, and the entire sunrise viewing area slowly filled up with a colorful sea of T-shirts, hats and backpacks.  Cameras clicked and beeped all around us.  And the flies eventually figured out we were standing there, ready to be buzzed at.  Maybe I’ve seen one to many beautiful red mountains in my lifetime.  Maybe I’ve just seen too damn many postcards of Uluru since I moved here, but I simply didn’t get it.  The mountain didn’t look like it was on fire.  It didn’t seem to glow from within.  I wasn’t touched spiritually.  It was a beautiful sunrise in a beautiful place, and that’s all.

We started our base walk at the same point where the climbers were scrambling up the well worn path to the top.  Despite a few shallow patches, I can see why people tend to faint, vomit and otherwise experience general discomfort while trying to climb the rock.  It’s far from a gently sloping hill.  And even though a lot of people were starting the climb, it still seemed like less than half the people from the sunrise platform had come out for the up close and personal view, and less than half of them were doing the base walk.  So for the next few hours it was essentially us and the rock.

Uluru is not just an amazing shape, but an amazing combination of shapes, positive, negative and everywhere in between.  There are niches and little shady gorges all around the edge, strange holes resembling alien and monster faces carved into its surface, and flat little pockets with surprisingly lush trees growing right out of them.  The skin of the rock itself is not completely smooth, as the postcards would have you believe, but scaly flakes in a multitude of browns and reds.  And the environment around the rock changes with every kilometer, ranging from flat sandy nothingness to waist high grasses and sparse forests of twisty trees.  I couldn’t take pictures of the all of the beautiful places at the rock, because much of it was sacred ground and there were signs requesting that no photographs be taken.  I was a little disappointed that honoring the aboriginal culture in this way, meant not honoring our cultural tradition of photographing beautiful places we want to share with others, but maybe if I hadn’t seen so many pictures of the Uluru sunrise before I had gotten there, it might have maintained a bit more of it’s spirituality. Nonetheless, the base walk proved to be an even better experience than I had imagined.

Unfortunately, after you have spent 4 hours walking in the increasing heat of the day, the park around Uluru has one last hurdle to throw at you.  The bathrooms you’re so desperate to visit at that point (the only ones near the rock itself) are at least five minutes away from the road.  And the visitors center, which you need to get to in order to make the bus ride back, is another 2 kilometers away!  The parks planning people may have had to work around a lot of sacred ground when building the visitors facilities, but I still can’t forgive them for building the worst planned national park ever!  It’s no wonder the flies hitch a ride on all the tourists, they too are probably too tired to fly the distance they have to go for a simple bathroom break.

Don’t spend 4 days in Yulara

If you don’t have a car, or preferably a private jet, to get to any of the other destinations near Uluru (and by that I mean within a four hour drive) don’t spend more than two days in Yulara.  You can only go to the same resort restaurants, swim in the same pools with the other trapped tourists, and walk across the same nonsensical green lawns so many times before your life starts to feel like Groundhog Day.  But I was rather happy that I had stayed near Uluru much longer than the average tourist’s in and out in 20 hours visit.  The culture diversity that this one rock brings to the dead center of one of the more isolated countries in the world is astounding.  Even if most of them weren’t quite sure why they were there, they had been drawn there nonetheless.  We came from every corner of the globe.  We stood together and watched the sun rise and set over the blazing red desert.  We ate kangaroo just because we could.  We swatted at (and occasionally swallowed) the same flies.  And we all got stuck with the same surcharge on every credit card purchase.  And that, to me, was a spiritual experience.

And it’s in tropical North Queensland.  Now that’s a tourist slogan if I’ve ever heard one.  Of course, in order to get to said paradise, you have to fly to Cairns (call it Cannes or no Aussie will know what you’re talking about) acclimatize to the potent humidity, fight the urge to jump right into the ocean from the beach, lest you get stung by a jellyfish or eaten by a saltwater crocodile, and then take a boat at least an hour off shore through the fame-worthy Great Barrier Reef.  But once you’ve arrived, the postcard perfect beauty melts away any wear from the journey along with any of your concerns about all the things in the ocean that might kill you.   Hey, true beauty always comes at a price.

Cairns

The trip from Sydney (made shockingly easy by the non paranoia driven security procedures and continued belief in customer service) takes you over the coastal cities and then a long stretch of lush green emptiness before you arrive at Cairns, a tiny blip of a city in the center of a tropical wonderland.  Once at our ridiculously luxurious apartment in Bellevue at Trinity Beach we found managers Jim and Doreen as helpful as could be in planning out the next four days of our trip.  And despite the shocking omission of swimmers (bathing suits) from my packing, I was able to find a swimwear shop just a block away.  Cairns is a city clearly supported by tourism as much as by its surrounding hectares of sugar cane.  We couldn’t go rushing into the deep blue coral sea just a few steps away from our hotel due to an increase in Irukandji (a nasty little jellyfish that essentially gives you the flu) but our first day in Cairns, spent drinking a Bundy and Coke on the beach and watching the distant lightening from our hotel balcony, as the tree fogs chirped and the geckos laughed, was a great way to get into the tropical rhythm.

The Reef

The next day we took an all day ocean adventure on the Ocean Freedom, a cruise company that provided a truly pleasant day supported by a staff of sun bleached young Aussies, willing able and eager to get you swimming amongst the wonders of The Reef.  Our timing for the visit was perfect.  We had arrived on a crystal clear day at the tail end of Jellyfish season, making stinger suits unnecessary (which is good considering the one I tried on had several holes in it) but still during the tourist off-season, which meant our introductory dive, normally over $150, was only $20!  So after our trip through increasingly clear waters out to the first docking point, and an easy talk through the need-to-knows of diving, it was time to don our gear, duck walk to the edge of the boat and take a leap of faith off into the water.

For me as a first time diver, this was a surreal experience.  Not only are you breathing underwater, an odd sensation in and of itself, but you’re doing it through a curtain of bubbles with a Darth Vader-esque rasp to your every breath.  I had a little trouble adjusting, probably more than I realized since my instructor had to pry my hand off the security bar in order to get me swimming.  But once you start to swim around the reef you forget all the odd sensations of diving and get lost in the odd beauty of the reef itself.  There are fish representing every color in the rainbow and every shape suitable for swimming, some in schools so large they look like curtains of glitter in the water.  There are cartoonishly large giant clams, with alien insides that seem to glow in the sunlight.  The sandy bottom is littered with bright starfish and gelatinous sea slugs, which only move when your back is turned.  We even saw a huge spotty eel, winding his way between the points of coral.  And at the base of it all, is a huge forest of bright coral in every shape nature can conjure.  I did spot a jellyfish or two, but luckily they were harmless kind.  Gabe spotted a reef shark, which I was glad I didn’t see.

The dive was only a part of our adventures for the day.  We also snorkeled, an easy way to see just as many wonders as you can during a dive, took a glass bottom boat tour with an informative guide who confirmed my belief that every form of life in the ocean is just plain weird, and we took a trip out to Uplou Cay.  This little sand island, surrounded by nothing but bright blue reef waters, is officially the coolest place I have ever been.  The sand was as soft as sand can get before turning into vapor, the water, just lapping at the edge of the island, was clear for miles around and almost the same temperature as the air.  I would have been very happy to set up a hut in the middle of this tiny cay and content to share it with the flock of migrating terns running along the shoreline.  Alas, we had to return to the boat.  It seems tour companies have given up the habit of leaving people behind.  At least while we were on the trip back I could be grateful that I wasn’t among the tourists now bearing brightly sunburnt backs.

Daintree

The next day a long drive through a lot of sugar cane, and a car ferry across the most certainly croc infested Daintree river, got us to Daintree National Park, a stretch of rainforest surrounding the famous cape tribulation.  The time you spend in your comfortably air conditioned car, winding through the dense green tree cover, past all the signs warning of possible cassowary crossings (although we didn’t see any) and occasionally sighting a bright blue Ulysses Butterfly, leaves you ill prepared for the conditions you step out into.  To experience the humidity in Daintree is to experience what it must be like to hike through soup.  Even with a palpable layer of bug spray on, you’ll be quickly surrounded by a gang of mosquitoes.  And they were a minor concern compared to the acid spraying Green Ants, or the possibility of running into a Golden Orb Weaving Spider, a harmless but enormous bug.  I thought the spiders in Sydney were large until I saw these sombrero sized monsters.  Gah!

But the beauty of the rainforest quickly removes your concerns about its insect residents.  And though I could never live next to a beach you couldn’t use most of the year, jellyfish (stinger) infested waters make for a pristine coastline.  Instead of being inhabited by tourists the beach is a playground for sand crabs, whose little marble-like piles of sand remain undisturbed.   And even with a storm rolling in and booming it’s thunder across the mountains, Daintree was a truly magical place to visit.  Between the afternoon downpours, we managed to make one last stop at the Daintree Ice Cream factory for a little blueberry, banana, soursop and wattleseed ice cream.  I don’t know what the last two are either, but they were delicious.

Kuranda Railway

For our last day in Cairns we decided to let the tourist industry chaperon us around, by taking the Kuranda Scenic Railway and Sky Rail.  You start the journey at a historic train station with a small museum dedicated to the making of the railway during the areas gold rush.  A quick read about the difficulties they experienced while constructing it, makes you wonder why anyone ever wanted to build a railway in the first place.  Nonetheless, I’m glad it was there for us to take.  The journey winds up the mountains offering stunning view downs into the lush green valley and past some amazing waterfalls churning out iced coffee colored water.  The trip ends at Kuranda, an artsy little mountain town that somehow manages to remain quiet as can be, even with trainloads of tourists getting off at half hour intervals.  I wonder if that was a consequence of it being the “off season” or if such places simply encourage a hush in their visitors.

To get back to the base of the mountain we took the Skyrail, a series of sky buckets like the kind you might find in a zoo, but which soar you over the lush canopy of rainforest, and offer two view points to stop along the way and take a quick tour through the trees.  We may have gotten stuck at the second view point when some lightening forced them to stop the buckets for a while (lightening + steel cable = bad combination) but our holdover gave us some extra time to appreciate our surroundings.  And an informative ranger took the time to teach us why Cassowaries have bony helmets on their heads (scientists suspect it’s to pick up on low frequency noise) and that most of the fruits in the rainforest can kill you.  Yet somehow the aborigines in the area figured out how to cook and eat them anyway.  Who did they get to test those recipes?

There’s always room for Magic

Eventually we made it down the mountain, which included another beautiful view on the way, and were left to seek entertainment for our last night in Cairns.  We decided to hit up the one show that had its brochures stuffed into boxes in every tourist office, Extreme Illusions.  Our tickets included dinner in the Cairns casino, another surprisingly sleepy place.  Once again, I wondered if it was a consequence of the off season.  But the show attracted a decent audience, probably because of all those brochures.  Magician Sam Powers is a cute Aussie, whose 90′s era flame covered poster doesn’t do him justice.  He puts on a fun show full of classic illusions complete with a scantily clad assistant.  Very entertaining.  If he ever makes his way back to Sydney, I’ll happily be his volunteer from the audience.

The next leg of our journey took us from the Tropical North to the Red Center, a place vastly different from Cairns in more than just complimentary colors.  Stay tuned for Part II of the journey in my next entry.  Till then, just sit back and enjoy the view.

But do try to stay out of the water, for your own good.

The license plates don’t lie.  Tasmania really is Australia’s “Natural State.”  That’s not to say that a great deal of Australia isn’t untouched and hardly populated, but when you consider Tasmania’s size compared to the rest of the country, you realize just how beautifully empty it really is.  Its lengthy stretches of picturesque farmland, massive amounts of untouched forest and completely untainted coast line make it the perfect place for a couple of nature lovers to take a nice long holiday.

Launceston

Is where we started our trip.  When I heard we were flying into Tasmania’s second largest city, I certainly didn’t expect urban sprawl, but I also didn’t expect to see pastures full of fluffy sheep I could practically count as the plane was landing.  Nor did I expect to meet an actual retired sheep farmer on the plane, nor have him offer us a ride to our hotel.  Aussies say Tasmania is like one great big country town, and considering the lax security at the airport and the friendly locals, I could already see that was a pretty accurate assessment.

Launceston itself is an odd sprinkling of features you might find in a city, rather than a well planned urban environment.  There was certainly a charm to the historic style of the buildings and the town center, which included a practically empty seaport and was a short walk from our hotel, a rather lovely converted convent.  We decided to launch into our vacation by eating at the restaurant recommended by the friendly locals.  However delicious the fresh seafood (and I mean really fresh) was at the local gourmet selection Stillwater, the place was a tad too pricey, even for Oz.

Getting to the Mountain

After going through a painless car rental and obtaining our oh-so-essential Nav system, we set off early for Cradle Mountain, a famous peak near the center of the island.  Tasmanian weather was quick to remind us that we were significantly further south than Sydney, by giving us a cold sprinkling of rain and lots of moody mist throughout our drive.  But, if anything, I think it made the rolling green hills, acres of farmland dotted by sheep and cows hiding in the veil of mist, and artistically stripped gum trees (eucalyptus) look that much more like something you’ve only ever seen in a painting.

The mist was so thick in fact, that the mountain itself snuck up on us, suddenly appearing like a wall of rock.  Its jagged edge was the only thing that made it look more like a mountain than a rain cloud.  Then we found ourselves boxed in by the trees, tall straight gum trees lining either side of the road, with nothing visible beyond them.  The way up quickly became windy and the last 8 kilometers over unsealed (unpaved) road to the our lodge were probably the most fun.  Other travelers had reported the road to be much more of a challenge than it was.  They’ve probably never driven the 1 through Big Sur in California, but I’m still glad we got the full car insurance.

Our destination was well worth the journey.  The perfectly located Lemonthyme Lodge is a self proclaimed wilderness retreat, located deep in a forested portion of the mountain.  It boasts being the largest log cabin in the Southern Hemisphere, which I don’t doubt, has acres of private land with hiking trails and what turned out to be an excellent restaurant.  That’s a big plus considering that guests would have to face a steep drive for about an hour to get food anywhere else.  We took up residence in one of their “treetop” cabins (appropriately named the Wombat cabin), which had a raised balcony over the lush forest floor.

We spent the rest of that day and the next day hiking the trails around the lodge.  That’s where we learned a valuable lesson for the rest of our journey.  When Tasmanian maps say “medium” or “moderate” hike, they don’t mean the mildly aerobic, muscle warming hike you might find in a US park.  They mean you will climb up and down repeatedly, over rocks, tree roots, through mud and over whatever might have fallen across the path.  These particular trails (maintained by the same staff that worked in the restaurant) usually took us through forest so overgrown and so very untouched, that fallen trees were on top of fallen trees, moss was growing on every surface it could attach to, and Man Ferns (yes that’s really what they are called) provided good umbrellas from the mist.  If either of us had stopped paying attention to the occasional reflectors marking the designated path, we easily could have been lost deep in this ancient feeling forest.  That explains why you have to register before you go on a hike in Tassie.

As you can imagine, the area around the Lodge was also the perfect place to meet some local wildlife.  Our cabin was surrounded daily by Superb Fairy Wrens, a beautiful bird so tiny and so fast that it might by mistaken for an overgrown bug (I could never even find one in the aviaries at the zoo).  I saw one small Platypus for a split second before it swam under rock and disappeared into the mud.  Damn elusive monotreme!  And we were introduced to yet another marsupial that I had never heard of before, the Pademelon.  Australia certainly doesn’t run short of animals with pouches.  These pademelons, which are like wallabies but smaller (which basically means a really tiny kangaroo) would munch nightly on the kitchen scraps tossed out by the lodge staff.  We even got to pet the lodge’s tame adopted pademelon, Sniffy, a soft little fellow indeed.  And when night came we were introduced to the sound of a Tasmanian Devil shrieking, which is like something out of a horror movie.  Who knew such little animals could make so much noise?

Cradle Mountain

We also took a day to go up to “The Mountain” which is what everybody calls the state park at the peak of Cradle Mountain.  If the misty green forests halfway down the mountain are the kind of environment that inspires fairy tales, then the landscape near the peak would inspire gothic poetry and romance novels.  There is a sort of post apocalyptic feeling to the twisted naked trees surrounded by low bushes, and of course here too it was windy, cold and very misty.  Dove Lake, where we started our day, most certainly has a monster living deep within its reddish water.  But he probably only eats the tourists that don’t register their hikes before taking off.

After making the lengthy circuit around the lake and hopping over the various creeks running down the hiking path, we decided a nice level boardwalk hike along Ronny Creek was in order.  The sun had finally come out and we were treated to our first wild Wallaby sightings.  And since the distinctive square wombat poop was all over the boardwalk, and there were visible burrows everywhere, I kept my eyes peeled for more furry friends.  Unfortunately, no wombats, echidnas or other animals seemed to be around, despite the fact that we were surrounded by so much animal poop, that I decided the Tasmanian license plates should read “Tasmania, there’s poop everywhere.”

It wasn’t until we got onto the bus back to our car that I finally saw a nice fat wombat, looking like a big fuzzy rock as he munched his way through the grass.  And on the car ride back we saw two echidnas awkwardly waddling, as they do, along the side of the road.  Maybe these particular Aussie animals are only visible through windshield glass.

From the Mountains to the Coast

The next day we left the mountains for the East Coast of Tassie and the town of Bicheno.  Unsurprisingly, we passed a lot more farmland and many more sheep and even a group of dairy cows being escorted across the road.  The road itself was almost as empty as the landscape and motorcycling is clearly a big recreational sport in the area.  All you have to look out for is the possums, wallabies and other animals that evidently cross the road with some frequency.  Eventually farmland became vineyards, vineyards gave way to more gum trees, and finally we were at the sunny coast.

Our hotel, The Bicheno Hideaway, was no less than awesome.  Consisting of a few private chalets on a beach adjacent plot of land, you feel like the only creatures you’re sharing your stay with are their pet peacocks and the adorable family of Bantam chooks (chickens) running around the property.  We decided to head straight for the beach that was just a short walk away from the chalets which, like all hikes in Tassie, proved to be a bit more challenging than advertised.  But this totally private beach, with it’s beautiful tide pools and sand that was literally covered in seashells was worth the bushwhacking journey.

The town of Bicheno itself is very much a fishing and resort town, with not much more than the essentials to offer and endless places to stay which advertised ocean views.  The recommended place to get seafood was the local Sea Life Center, which seemed a slightly odd combination.  See it in tanks, then eat it off your plate!  But the food didn’t disappoint and it was the perfect place to buy some cheesy souvenirs.  After dinner we took a walk on the beach, which required keeping a sharp eye out for the washed up jellyfish all over the sand.  We also attempted to take in one of the tourist attractions, Fairy Penguins.  These miniaturized penguins come to Aussie shores during their breeding season.  Despite finding the burrows where they clearly lived, and left their notable fishy odor and messy white poops behind, it was still too early for them to be out and about.  Why must everything in Oz be nocturnal?

Freycinet Peninsula

The next day we went to the nearby Freycinet National Park to see the famous Wineglass Bay, voted one of the best beaches in the world.  It wasn’t until we started our hike up to the viewpoint that I finally felt we had found where all the other tourists had gone.  Nonetheless, after the steep hike of supposedly over 600 stairs both up to the viewpoint and then down to the beach, we found the white crescent of sand practically empty.  Unfortunately, the water is a tad frigid in Tassie, but the sand was still the perfect place for lunch and a nap.

We decided to take the long way out, which proved to involve a great deal more climbing than advertised and a lot of hopping mud puddles while crossing the boggy forest in the center of the peninsula.  But the hike took us to an even more beautiful destination, Hazard’s Beach facing the Great Oyster Bay.  This stretch of sand had probably no more than ten fellow hikers on it, and the huge bay it faced was shockingly empty, with not a boat in sight.  The bank of sand was also covered with muscle shells and oyster shells, which were probably not recently discarded, but most likely the remains of a massive Aboriginal shell midden that had once sat on the shore.  Being on this beach one could truly imagine what it must have been like to be an early explorer who set foot on an undiscovered foreign shore for the first time.

Despite the wobbly state of our legs after we came out of that five hour hike, we decided there was one more destination we had to explore.  Honeymoon Bay had advertised warmer temperatures in the afternoon because of it’s shallow water.  And despite the amazing views and the totally clear glassy water it had to offer, this rocky little bay was once again practically empty.  The water was warmer, yes, but still a temperature I would prefer for a drink rather than a swim, but I had to get in at least once.  It was probably good for icing my sore muscles anyway.

Back in Bicheno, we managed to stay up past the sunset (a big accomplishment after that day) and made one last attempt to see the Fairy Penguins.  Not only were we successful this time, but we got so close to them that I almost got pecked by one.  He made quite a loud squeak as he rocketed out of his burrow to get my foot of his front lawn.  We observed them for a while, listed to their odd little squawks as they called to each other and watched them plan each hop across the rocks with great care.  When you are that small, the crevices between the rocks must feel like canyons.  When one audibly squirted out a poop nearby, we decided that was an appropriate time to leave them to go about their business.  Seriously, there’s poop everywhere!

East Coast NatureWorld

We set off the next day for the capitol city of Hobart, but couldn’t leave all our furry friends without a quick visit to the nearby East Coast NatureWorld.  This sleepy little zoo seems to rely a great deal on the fact that visitors to Tassie must know a thing or two about the local wildlife, and how not to piss the animals off.  The Wallabies and Kangaroos roam free and they encourage visitors to buy $1 bags of food so you can get up close and personal with them (although you are instructed to keep the bags hidden if at all possible, to keep yourself from being rushed by a nice big roo).  Most of the “cages” are nothing but low walls, so the Tasmanian Devils (an animal with something like 3 times the jaw strength on an American Pit Bull) could take your fingers if you were silly enough to reach down to them.  The baby emu in the petting zoo tires to undo your shoelaces (and pecks you in the butt if you’re not paying attention).  And once again, there’s poop everywhere.

But being so up close and personal with the animals actually gave us the the rare opportunity to pet a cute little Tassie Devil.  This eight month old female, being held by a zoo keeper of course, was very soft, and so sleepy in fact, that she not only tried to fall asleep in his arms as we were petting her, but actually curled up and went to sleep right where he put her down.  Yes, everything is nocturnal.  In fact the one wombat we were able to find outside of a burrow, was not only asleep, but the gyrations of his paws lead us to believe that he must have been dreaming of digging. But the devils definitely woke up at feeding time, and we were treated to some of their characteristic squabbles over food, some nice bone crunching noises, and an odd little spitting noise they make as they eat, which I think means “Mine!”.

Hobart

The journey to Hobart consisted of, you’ll never guess, more farm land and more sheep (this time with amazing ocean views) a couple of sleepy coastal towns and then suddenly you find yourself in a city.  Hobart definitely feels like the “big city” in Tasmania, but we still found ourselves able to walk around the town center without completely wearing our legs out.  Once back in the urban grind, we thought we might have some civilized fun, but our timing seemed a bit off.  There was no cruise to the Cadbury factory that day, no Tall Ships doing lunch cruises until the weekend, no “Taste of Tasmania” festival until after Christmas, and even the famed Sydney to Hobart race (which the city seemed to be gearing up for) wasn’t due to end until well after Christmas.  Oh well.

So we opted to head to Mount Wellington, a peak which looks out over the Derwent river.  I was prepared to be unimpressed by this city adjacent natural wonder, but Tasmania hadn’t finished pulling out the stops.  The drive up the the peak is steeeeeeeeeeeep and what seemed like only mild cloud cover in the city below became a thick fog toward the peak.  The television transmitter right near the parking lot would disappear and reappear with the passing of the clouds.  At the top, the mountain is a lunar landscape.  Too windy for trees, all you see are oddly shaped rocks sticking out between low purplish bushes.  And the silence was so resounding that the loudest thing we could hear was the buzzing of the flies.

After walking through the clouds a bit, we decided to drive a ways down the peak so we could take a hike to a view point we might actually be able to see the city from.  And once again, through the windshield glass we spotted an echidna.  I didn’t know those little guys could climb so well.  I guess ALL Aussie animals are tough.  We took a short hike through a nice green, wet forest, an environment that was starting to feel very familiar.  And we made our way out to a rock shelf where we could just barely see the harbor below, and the clouds practically made a ceiling above us.

We returned to the city and after an hour long search for cheesecake (everything decided to close at 4pm that day) we went to see Avatar, a surprisingly appropriate movie to see after running around in the trees for a week.   We ended the night by eating some fish and chips and a taking walk on the docks between the fishing boats which, no doubt, had supplied our dinner.

And In Conclusion

I feel incredibly privileged to have seen the amazingly beautiful and, at times, very weird island of Tasmania.  Despite the fact that many Aussie’s can’t imagine what we reason we could possibly have to go back, or how we even managed to fill nine days there in the first place, I would jump at the opportunity to go back.  I still have the whole West coast to explore, fur seals to lounge on the beach with, and more elusive wild wombats to find.  And now I know the most valuable piece of information I think any traveler to Tassie should know: wear shoes that you don’t mind getting a little poop on.

The classic harbor view is always right outside my window (except when obscured by a large dust storm).  I walk under the Harbor Bridge and past bus loads of tourists taking photographs of the iconic Sydney Opera House almost every single day.  I watch bright rainbow lorikeets eat out of the neighborhood trees during the day, and then watch droves of massive gray headed flying foxes cross the harbor every night.  I have an almost 360 view of the city from my rooftop, and my choice of multiple beaches to go to every weekend.  So why then would I photograph something I see all the time?

But don’t think that I have started to take these things for granted.  Far from it.  With the Celsius rising here and the Fahrenheit dropping in good old NYC, I am more grateful every day for what changes this new hemisphere has brought to my life.  Now instead of angry (and occasionally very happy) drunks, the loudest things outside my window are the baby magpies on the front lawn and the flying foxes squabbling for fruit in the fig tree.  Although, the cruise ships do honk rather loudly when passing by, and the firework shows sound like the start of a war, but those both have a much more entertainment value than any 3am argument between your neighbors across the air shaft.

Within half an hour I can be anywhere I want in the heart of the city, or on a hiking path that seems miles away from any metropolis, marveling at the size of lizards and the spiders, which could probably hold their own against the lizards.  I commute by ferry at least once a week, which offers a far more pleasant view than the graffiti in the subway tunnels.  And every time I go to the beach, my favorite thing to do is just to sit back and take in the beauty of my surroundings.  It still amazes me that the water is so clear, and so full of life that I can watch fish swim underneath me and hermit crabs scuttle around me feet.

But you complainers are right.  The best way for me to share these amazing experiences with other people, is to photograph them.  So I hijacked the camera for a good portion of our hike our around the Bradley’s Head Reserve today.  I think the photographs pale in comparison to being able to hear the birds in the trees, smell the clean air and feel the ocean breeze cooling your skin against the powerful sunshine, but they are the next best thing.  So I pledge from this point forward to diligently document my daily appreciations.

You can see the rest of the photographs from today’s hike on my flickr set.  And I DO have other recent photographs on my photostream, so don’t forget to check those out.

On Saturday we took a recommendation from one of the well tanned Cobblers Beach goers and decided to head to a northern beach.  The general consensus of most Sydneysiders is that north is the way to go for the “nice” beaches.  They all seem pretty nice to me, but it is true that heading north gets you longer stretches of undisturbed sand, and beachside cliffs that aren’t built up with condos.  Even though it took one train and two buses to get there, Dee Why beach was worth the trip.  Yes, it’s called Dee Why, but that is not at all unusual when you consider the names of so many other things Australian.  It must mean something and it sure is easy to remember.

The lengthy stretch of sand was occupied by many sunbathers, surfers and even a rowing competition, but there was still plenty of room for us.  But what I enjoyed the most was not relaxing on the sand, or even watching the shirtless rowing teams, but walking through the tide pools that were just a few steps away from the rock pool full of boisterous children.  You wouldn’t think that on such an active beach, accessible tide pools would be teaming with life, but these were so full of countless clams, snails, crabs, urchins, anemones, fish and seaweeds of various shapes and sizes that it was practically an aquarium.

Today we went to Balmoral Beach, a beautiful family friendly beach in a posh part of the northern Sydney harbor.  We arrived early for our stand up paddle surfing lesson.  I first saw a paddle surfer in Hawaii, gliding gently through calm waters under a beautiful sunset.  Since I’ve always had what I call a healthy fear of water, this meditative form of surfing seemed like the perfect one for me.  It is somehow both easier and harder than it looks.

Paddling forward, turning and even standing up on the board is fairly easy, but within a few minutes you find your knees wobbling and feet cramping under the stress of constantly micro-adjusting against every twitch the board makes in the wind and waves.  You discover after a few dunks into the water (which was a very friendly temperature today) that you don’t actually need to do this.  Flotation devices are very good and staying afloat and human beings are actually quite good at balancing on two feet.  After all, we do it every day.

I now have odd cramps in my ankles, a bit of rash from belly crawling onto the board, my sinuses have been cleaned out a few times with fresh ocean water and I have one or two crispy spots where the sunscreen wore a little thin, but I do plan to go back and see if I can master a few more waves.

And like all Australian animals, the ticks are very tough.  Not only did the tick who produced this nice little rash nearly refuse to be pulled off, but doing so also produced a pain similar to that of being stabbed with a broom handle.  But after a few hours I experienced no loss of vision, numbness in any limbs, or trouble breathing, so I think I managed to avoid becoming a news story.  The ranger at Royal National Park, where we had otherwise taken a very lovely hike, seemed less than worried.

In fact, the tick bite has now reduced to a tiny red welt, while the sunburn on the one uncovered portion of my neck has become so clear that it looks like lobster bib (in a lovely shade of lobster red).  But I think the hike we took today was well worth the risks.  Through some beautiful, even if tick filled, bushland we came to a gorgeous coastal cliff from which we watched massive schools of fish swim around in the waves, and whales break through the clear blue ocean in the distance.  Hey, no pain no gain, right?

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.