Manly Beach

Surfing Manly Beach

On our last day, we decided to take the Ferry to Manly Beach. This little town is on the peninsula between Sydney Harbor and the Tasman Sea. The beach here is famed for surfing. While Mary relaxed near the beach, I took a quick hike along the seashore to Sydney National Park. There were quite a few scenic views of the beach and the rock cliffs as well as flowers blooming in the bushes along the path. I had a pleasant one hour hike, but you could have made a good 4-5 hour hike of it. We had a great lunch at the Jellyfish Restaurant along the beach and continued to watch the surfers and beach volleyball players. The weather continued to be beautiful in the low 70s, but as it started to cool late in the afternoon, we returned across the harbor to Sydney. A nice, relaxed day.

Hiking Sydney National Park

How would I summarize the trip? As you’ll recall, the weather was interesting, while it was fairly cold in Tasmania with some rain and snow and we had a fierce rain storm in Adelaide, about everywhere else, the weather was quite pleasant. Only two weeks earlier, it would have been quite hot (80’s-90’s) in Alice Springs and Port Douglas. I think we got a good feel for the variety of Australia. Everyone here was quite friendly, we had quite a few conversations with the Aussies as we toured around. The highlights had to be Cradle Mountain in Tasmania, Alice Springs and Uluru, and the Great Barrier Reef and Rainforest around Port Douglas. We also enjoyed every encounter we had with the animals, plants, and birds, particularly how marsupials predominate here. Not surprising, given that we prefer nature to big cities. It was quite interesting hearing the stories and history of the Aboriginals and the early colonization of the country. As usual, we appreciated Wayne our guide from OAT, he’s been doing this for over 20 years and his knowledge and humor were appreciated. In particular, going to an Aussie Rules Football game was fun! We also enjoyed meeting our small group of travelers, those of us who went to Tasmania together seemed to bond together particularly. A good trip – now we just need to see Western and Northern Australia. Lastly, I’ve never eaten so much fish and chips in such a short time.

If you'd like to see more pictures and videos, there is a 22 minute video available on youtube. 

The Blue Mountains

The group left for home or New Zealand today, but we stayed on and did the Grey Line Tour to the Blue Mountains. Why Blue Mountains? Because the evaporated oil from the Eucalyptus tree makes the mountains look blue from a distance. It took a little over an hour and a half to drive into the mountains.  Our first stop was Scenic World, which has three rides to provide views of the scenery. First we took a skyway tram across the Jamison Valley getting a picturesque view of Katoomba Falls. From there we took the scenic incline railway down a 52 degree plunge into the valley. This used to be the passageway to reach the coal mines on the valley floor. Because this valley is protected, the valley has rain forest vegetation. Here we spotted a Lyre Bird. It was busy digging in the soil to uncover worms and grubs which it fed to its youngster. Then up to the top on a cable car. The other interesting formation is called the Three Sisters, which has a legend about 3 sisters being turned into stone.

Lyre Bird

After lunch, we had a 25 minute Waradah Aborigine Culture show. Here we heard some of the stories about the totem animals of this region as well as dances celebrating these animals. We also learned about some more about the didgeridoo and how you can play it to represent the various animals during the various ceremonies. From here we walked to Echo point to get a close up view of the Three Sisters and an expanded view of the valley below.

Cassowary

Next we went to Featherdale Wildlife Park, which had a large collection of Australian birds and animals. We saw quite a variety of kangaroos and wallabies, koalas, and the best collection of birds we had seen. Some of the highlights were the owls, the Little Penguins, various parrots and cockatoos, and several varieties of eagles.

White Breasted Wood Swallows

As darkness approached, we headed back to Sydney, but instead of having to drive through all the rush hour traffic, we stopped near the Olympic Center and took a cruise down the Parramatta River to Circular Quay. This was an expensive tour ($199), but worth every penny!

Botanical Gardens, Sydney

Interior of Queen Victoria Building

Wayne gave us a short tour of some of the interesting shopping areas. The highlight was the Queen Victoria Building built in 1890. Built as a shopping center, it has served other purposes, but now is restored as a shopping center. Then we visited the Strand Arcade and Martin’s place, where the 1883 post office has now been turned into a Westin hotel, preserving the original façade, but with a completely new interior. We then spent most of the day in the Botanical Garden, a huge park on the peninsula that eventually leads to the Circle Quay. It was nice to feel far away from the city while in its midst. On the way home, we passed St. Mary’s Cathedral, St. Mary is the only Australian saint. 

After a quick nap, I visited the Australian museum, it had a good exhibit on the sea coast Aboriginal culture, and different exhibit of animal skeletons. Our day concluded with a dinner at a pub in the Rocks area, followed by a walk across Harbor Bridge. Okay, so we didn’t climb the Harbor Bridge (at a cost of $260), but we did cross it!

Australian Museum exhibit

City Tour of Sydney

Sydney Opera House and Harbor Bridge

Yesterday, we had a relaxing morning, slept in till 7:30, breakfast, a walk along the shoreline, and then headed to the airport for a 1:00 flight. We had a great lunch on our Quantas flight, chicken salad, chocolate, and an ice cream bar. Arriving about 5:00, we had a pub dinner at a nearby restaurant to our hotel, the Sydney Boulevard Hotel.

Today, we packed in a full day during our city tour. The bus took us to a great viewpoint of the Sydney Opera House and Harbor Bridge. We walked to Mrs. Macquarie’s chair, where it is rumored the first governor’s wife would observe the harbor. Then we started tour around Sydney harbor by bus: Rose Bay, Watson’s Bay, the entrance to the harbor, and Bondi beach, learning the history of Sydney as we toured. The tour ended at the Circular Quay (pronounced kee) where the ferries leave for all points around the harbor. In January, 1788 Captain Phillip and his 11 ships and convicts arrived in Botany Bay. This Bay had been recommended by Joseph Banks, the botanist on the Endeavor under James Cook. But lack of water, had him move to Sydney harbor nearby. This is also where the first settlement was created. Over time, 22000 prisoners were transported here in 806 ships. After almost starving because of lack of good soil near the shore, the colony began to flourish. Governor Macquarie (1810-21) took it upon himself to turn Sydney from a prison colony into an attractive community with churches, hospitals, and barracks. Free settlers began arriving as good farm land was found closer to the Blue Mountains while the convicts provided free labor. Today the city has over 5 million inhabitants.

The Endeavor

After lunch we took the Sydney Harbor cruise, getting a view from the water of many of the bays we had seen earlier that day. Of course, the Opera house and Harbor Bridge were quite recognizable. But we also saw Kirribilli House, where the prime minister lives, the Admiralty House the official residence of the Governor General and a replica of the Endeavor. After our cruise, we visited the Opera House. Jorn Utzon won the 1957 design competition, but it took until 1973 to complete the building. Part of the problem was that he hadn’t worked with an engineer to determine whether his design could actually be built. They eventually found that by making the shells a section of a sphere, it could be built, but it took over 10,000 laborers to complete. Inside our 5 theaters and underneath is a 13 story car park. The main auditorium was quite spectacular and we got to hear part of the orchestra’s practice for a concert of David Bowie music coming next week at part of the Vivid Sydney celebration. The highlight of the day, however, was exiting the auditorium with a Princess ship exiting the harbor in a gorgeous sunset. 

Sunset in Sydney

Daintree Rain Forest

We headed north from our hotel through lots of sugar cane fields. In the 1800’s, the settlers cut down the red cedar trees to plant sugar cane. Sugar cane harvesting was a labor intensive activity, until they invented a machine that cuts off the grassy tops and then cuts the cane into 3 foot long sections.

After 45 minutes, we arrived at the Mossman Gorge part of the Daintree Rain Forest National Park. This is home to the last of the Cassowaries, an ancient bird that looks somewhat like an Emu. The region receives 12-45 feet of rain per year and over 400 different species of plants live in each 100 square meter area. We had an aboriginal guide who helped us understand the ancient ways in the forest. We started by walking through the smoke from a paperbark fire for cleansing. The first plant she showed us was a Waitawhile, which has barbs on it can be used to trap animals since it takes a while to release yourself from them. The vine can be used as fishing hooks. The base roots from the Red Cedar was used to fashion shields and killer boomerangs, which hooked the legs of small animals.  Further along, she pointed out the stinging tree which has fine hairs that irritate your skin, the more you scratch the worse off you are as the hairs dig further into the skin. The solution – pee on it, your urine is acidic and shrinks the hairs. Sarsaparilla grass can be crushed and it makes a good soap (which also helps with insect bites) and the stem when crushed helps provide deep heat, like Ben-Gay does. Along the banks of the river, we learned that a reason we’ve seen so many pictures of aboriginal men with white clay on them is that the clay helps hide the human scent when the men are hunting. Jenny then demonstrated how an aboriginal from this region would paint themselves. Each tribe had a different set of symbols to help communicate where they were from when trading.   We then learned about the different nuts and fruits in the rain forest. The Pandani fruit tastes like pineapple. The Daintree has a nut that tastes like coconut. They Cycad tree is from the time of the dinosaurs, it has a poisonous fruit, but when soaked in the stream for several days, the poison is removed and you have a fruit which can be turned into flour for a bread.

Jenny with tribal markings

We also learned some about life in the past and present for an aboriginal. Women are initiated when they reach puberty, they go into the bush to learn women’s traditions and skills for collecting and cooking. They use a shell to cut a brand on their skin which indicates that they are now a woman. Men historically married 5 women: the first would be in their 50’s past menopause to teach the man the family ways, and then others would be younger to produce children. Today, they only have one wife, but before marriage, he must visit the woman’s grandparents, who will provide the entire family tree. This is done to prevent accidentally marrying a close relation, quite possible because of the lost generation. We ended our walk with an example of an aboriginal hut. In this region, several generations would live in close proximity and live in an area for 2-3 months before moving to another area of the forest.

Fruit from our lunch

We had our best lunch of the trip at the Daintree Forest Tea House. On our plate beside our chicken, fish, or steak, was 8-10 different varieties of fruit, all of which grow in this forest: passion fruit, star fruit, dragon fruit, etc. Our host explained each of the fruits we were eating and how they were similar to or different from similar fruits in Asia, or the Americas.

Saltwater Crocodile

After lunch, we went on a crocodile cruise on the Daintree river. We did see quite a few crocodiles, even a one month old. We learned that the saltwater crocs lay about 55 eggs, because of predators, only 20 will hatch and most likely only one will survive to adulthood. But we also had quite a few other discoveries:  a sacred kingfisher, several rainbow bee eaters, an azure Kingfisher, and a python coiled in the tree, quite a trip!

Rainbow Bee Eaters

The Great Barrier Reef

Coral on Great Barrier Reef

We sailed from Port Douglas on a 350 passenger catamaran, the Quick Silver 5 out to the Great Barrier Reef. Thankfully, the ship was only about half full. The seas were pretty choppy, so they encouraged everyone to have a couple of ginger tablets. It took an hour and a half to power out to the platform anchored to the Agincourt Ribbon Reef about 1/3 down along the 2300 mile set of 2900 reefs. The facility there was quite sophisticated. We had a choice of activities: snorkeling and semi-submersible boat rides were included. You could also scuba dive or take a helicopter flight above the reefs. I did 3 separate snorkel trips and a trip on the submersible. The blue staghorn coral and some of the yellow mushroom coral was spectacular. I also saw more varieties of fish, then I’ve ever seen: lots of parrot fish, butterflyfish, surgeon fish and a 4 foot long Maori Wrasse. 

Maori Wrasse

Just before leaving, Wayne took us out to see some of the clownfish he had spotted earlier in the day. I also saw a reef shark and 3 green sea turtles. It was a great day! Unfortunately, the only pictures I took were from the submersible and the colors just didn’t come out well. Fortunately, Wayne also took some pictures. 

Clown Fish

Uluru

Sunrise at Uluru

We woke up in time to see sunrise on Uluru, of course, at this time of the year, that isn’t too bad – sunrise was at 7:15 AM. No champagne, this morning, instead we had tea (or in my case, hot chocolate) and biscuits. The sunrise wasn’t as spectacular as sunset, probably because at this time of the year, only part of the face of the rock lit up. We had breakfast at our hotel before heading back to the rock.

Our four climbers with the chains behind us

Four of us, decided to climb Uluru. This was a controversial decision, since the Aboriginals consider this to be a sacred site. In fact, there are places as you walk around, where you are not allowed to enter or take pictures. Most of these restricted areas have to do with men’s or women’s business. Only those who have been properly initiated and the right sex, know what the meaning is for these sites and are allowed to visit them. Now what about climbing? Well, the governor of the Northern Territories is an aboriginal man and he says it’s okay, yet there were signs saying please don’t climb, but yet again there is a chain installed on the trail to help you climb up the trail. So who knows? Anyway, four of us started out. Two quit initially, when they saw how steep it was (30 degrees?) then tried again and made it to the first summit at the top of the chain. Dale and I continued on and at least on the way up, we utilized the chain, because it almost became a steep climb. It took us ½ hour to get to the top of the chain. At this point, Dale said go ahead. The top of the chain turned out to be one of three false summits. But at least the trail wasn’t as steep after the chain. There were portions where I had to scramble up and down little valleys with hands and feet, occasionally resorting to a spider walk. But the scenery was fantastic. Dark streaks from the rain, numerous holes carved by wind or rain. And then about 2/3rds of the way up, the view was like waves of sandstone. 

Water holes and wave formations in background

At the top, was the required geological marker. It had taken me an hour to reach the top. From there it was a 360 degree view with Mt. Connor on one side and in the other direction, Kata Kjuta. When I came down to the top of the chains, Katy, Dale, and Ashley were waiting. Upon reaching the bottom, we still had time to see some of the wave caves, these caves look like they are waves made of stone. I’ll probably be sore tomorrow after today’s climb

Wave Cave

Our flight to Cairns left Uluru at 3:15 in the afternoon. We got to our hotel, the Reef House in Palm Cove about 7 PM and had a great dinner of steak, sausage, and about 5 varieties of salad. 

To Uluru (Ayers Rock)

Original Curtin Springs Station

The road from Alice Springs to Ayers Rock takes about 5 hours of driving. Most of this land (as is ¼ of Australia) is covered with Spinifex grass and Acadia Trees. Spinifex is indigestible for most animals, but is eaten by termites which then provide food for other animals, particularly reptiles which are better adapted to this desert environment. We passed the Finke River on our way out of town, and Wayne remarked that this was only the second time in his 20 years of tours, that he has seen water in the riverbed. We stopped a few times along our route: for bathrooms, a camel ride, tea time, and just before lunch. Here we saw Mount Connor which Wayne fooled us into believing was Ayers Rock and a salt lake. But our most interesting was our lunch stop at Curtin Springs Station (Ranch). This is a family ranch which was started in 1956. They moved into temporary quarters (just a reed roof with no walls) and they started their cattle ranch. For the first week, it rained all week. However, it didn’t rain again for 9 years. That is the problem with this area, there is a 7-10 year cycle of dry, then rain, making it difficult to ranch. Thus every ranch needs a secondary source of income, and these folks chose to build accommodations, a bar and restaurant for tourists. Of course, this took a while to establish. The first year here, only 6 people passed by the road (dirt at that time) and two of those were relatives checking whether they were okay? In the 60’s it rained most of the decade so they got up to 1600 cattle on their 1600 square mile ranch. Eventually, a tour bus started running between Alice Springs and Ayers Rock, it took 2 days to get here and another day to get to the rock. As cars started driving through the area, they always needed gas, so the family established a ‘petro station’ that eventually grew to their current operation. While they had cattle, there was no licensed slaughter house, so they established that here and began flying slaughtered beef throughout Australia. Eventually they shut this down, but a few years later, learned that they could make paper from the spinifex grass, so the slaughter house was repurposed for this and they sell the paper to tourists. The water for the cattle always has to be pumped from underground, originally by windmills, then by diesel, and now by solar power. They position the wells along their fence lines, so that the cattle can easily be moved from one paddock (field) to another. The cattle enter by a one directional gate to the water trough and then leave by another. If they need to work the cows they lock the out gate. Today, they employ 17 people to staff the place, only one of which is a cowhand. Because of the safety rules and limited hours for employees, most of the cattle operations are actually run by the 4 family members.

Kata Tjuta

Later that afternoon, we visited Kata Tjuta, a rock formation, we never heard of, but which is quite famous as a complement to Uhulu or Ayers Rock. The flies were everywhere, so we wore nets over our faces to avoid them. The formation is made of sandstone conglomerate and was quite picturesque. The Petersen Range formed here 500 Million years ago, before plant life. Eventually, an alluvial plain was formed as the range was eroded. The plain sank below the sea and the pressure of the numerous rocks formed sedimentary rock, which rose out of the sea some 300 million years ago.

The highlight of the day was sunset at Uluru rock. We had Champaign and hor d’ouerves while we watch the sun gradually set. It was a beautiful sight, and we are eager to get a closer look tomorrow. 

Alice Springs - plants, animals, school of the air

We started our day at the Alice Springs Desert Park, which displays many of the animals and birds of Central Australia. Our Aboriginal guide started our tour by explaining the traditional life in this region. He started by demonstrating many of the traditional tools: the digging stick made from ironhead wood – which took a week to carve with stone tools, smoothed with a rock and then covered with emu oil. This stick could last a hundred years to dig for water. Similarly, a spear thrower would have a catch for the spear made from kangaroo tendon which was cemented together with the resin from Spinefex Grass. The boomerang was used for hunting kangaroo while a thin wooden shield would be used to protect yourself during wars between tribes.

Aboriginal Tools and Fruits

The desert provided many forms of food: millet seeds were ground into a flour for bread, bush plums, bush coconut, and bush bananas were common fruits. Honey ants would be found to provide honey, other trees provided a kind of passion fruit.  The desert also provided wild tobacco which produced a slight high.

We had a bird show which highlighted the local birds: Australian Magpies, Barn Owls (whose face focuses sounds and which soured above us in complete silence), the white-faced heron, and the quick moves of the Australian Hobby, a falcon. Nearby we visited various lizards and insects. In the afternoon, we visited a reptile place, the presenter was a little late, because he had just come from a home where he removed a Suitor Snake. He showed us a Bearded Dragon, which has soft spikes around his body. He can change color to help regulate his temperature. Then we saw a blue tongued skink with its smooth, dry skin. It uses its tongue to smell. Our guide also explained that while Australia has the 10 most poisonous snakes in the world, none can detect the heat of your body and all have fangs of ¼ inch or less. Thus as long as you wear shoes and loose fitting pants, you probably won’t be bitten. Even if you are bitten, only 1 out of 10 times will they use venom on a human. Only 2 people a year die from snake bites here, while if you lived in Sri Lanka (about the same population), 20,000 die per year. Finally he showed us an Olive Python weighting about 20 kilos. He demonstrated how to hold this snake and four of us proceeded to hold it. In bright sunlight the skin shines like a rainbow, perhaps the origin of the Aboriginal story about rainbow snakes. Outside we saw a number of lizards: the Thorny Devil, Mertens’ Water Monitor, and the Australian Saltwater Crocodile. He was completely silent under the water, they can stay under for 2-3 hours and move without disturbing the surface. But when the surface is disturbed quickly move as we saw in a demonstration when he threw a buoy in the water.

Thorny Devil

Our last stop of the day was the Alice Springs School of the Air. Started in 1951, the school used radio to teach courses from pre-school to grade 9 through sparsely populated central Australia. Most of the coursework was correspondence work with additional instruction via radio. Today, most of the work is done using satellite provided internet. Each grade has ½ to 2 ½ hours of on-line content. You must have a home teacher, usually a parent, to assist. Currently they have 141 students who live 80 to 1000 km from Alice Springs. You can attend if you don’t have a school within 50 km. have a home teacher, and speak adequate English. While we were there, the classes were actually in Alice Springs, one of the three times they get together each year for classes, national tests, group activities and sports.

In the evening, we had a barbie out on the lawn of our hotel. While Wayne was cooking the meat we had Digeridoo lessons from Andy, who has been playing around the world for over 20 years. He attempted to show us how to do it correctly by vibrating our lips with our air coming from the diaphragm. Well, none of us were very good but it was an entertaining time as he demonstrated how to properly play the instrument. One of the more interesting aspects was that the instrument is traditionally taken from a tree, where the termites have eaten through the inner part of the tree. The length of the narrow part of the wood determines the instruments basic pitch, while a flare out at the end helps amplify the sound. Our barbeque consisted of beef steak, lamb chops, and a honey infused beef sausage, with salads provided by the hotel. It was a fun evening.

Alice Springs - telegraph and railroad town

Royal Flying Doctor Service - live map

We had a 2 hour flight from Adelaide to Alice Springs arriving at our hotel a little after 1 PM. After lunch and a little shopping, we visited the Royal Flying Doctor Service Museum. This service provides medical services for most of the center of Australia. A lot of the service is provided by radio or telephone to the remote areas of the country. But the planes are used to provide both routine and emergency services. There are 21 bases with 63 aircraft serving 295,000 patients a year, covering 80% of the country.  The museum had an excellent film providing the history behind the service which started in 1928 as well as examples of the service they provide. The service began in 1928 using DeHavilon QH-50 aircraft and the service used pedal-powered radios to communicate from the remote areas to the bases. Today, they are using Pilatus PC-12’s which cost about 6 million each. 80% of the funding comes from the government and the rest from charitable donations.

Alice Springs exists because it was a telegraph relay station for the transcontinental telegraph. The European history of central Australia start with John McDouall Stuart who after 3 attempts, crossed from South to North across the continent in 1861-62. At the time, it would take four to eight months for a letter to get to London from Australia. Telegraph lines had been strung from London to India. Stuart’s maps were used to lay a telegraph cable from Adelaide to Darwin from 1870 to 1872. Five hundred men were formed into 3 teams (north, south and central) to lay 36,000 telegraph poles at the rate of 30 poles/day. Every 300 km. they needed a telegraph relay station, where they would listen to the message from one side and repeat down the next portion of the line. The lines were extended from India through SE Asia and then a cable was laid under the sea from Java to Darwin. Now a letter could be sent in 3 hours to London, not 3-6 months. Of course, the cost was high $18.75 for 20 words, about 7 weeks of a typical laborer’s pay. The telegraph was powered by 3 sets of 80 copper sulfate batteries, one active, one recharging, and one on standby.

Alice Springs Telegraph Office

In 1932, the train tracks were laid from Adelaide to Alice Springs, or rather 4 miles short of the telegraph office. So the town and the telegraph office were moved to the end of the tracks, where the town is today. The barracks here became home to 130 of the lost generation for the next 10 years. While here, we saw another species of Kangaroo, the Euro, not to be confused with the currency. Since we’re in Central Australia, the birds are different too: we easily Spotted Galahs and Ringnecks.

Spotted Galahs

At the end of the day, we got a chance to throw boomerangs.

Aboriginal Culture and Adelaide

Aboriginal Culture

Lindsey joined us this morning to talk about Aborigine culture. Aboriginal's have the oldest remaining culture in the world, over 60,000 years. Lindsey was born south of here, but also lived several decades in Alice Springs. They moved back here when their son won a scholarship to High School. As parents, they worried that he would get home sick if he was sent here alone. Lindsey showed us pictures of various family members including his father, who is very black. Lindsey is much lighter in color with blue eyes and his sons are lighter still. Apparently, the white skin gene is dominant and future generations will become lighter. He has seven sons from six different wives. You must marry, you must marry the correct “skin group”. The tribe in divided into 2, 4, 6,or 8 skin groups depending upon its size. A person is born into one of these groups, so in addition to his personal name he has a skin group name. His father belongs to a different skin group and his mother to another and his wife must come from the proper skin group (different than any of these). This prevents inbreeding. 

Lindsey explained that until 1967, Aborigines weren’t even considered human according to Australian law. As a child he could not live within 10 miles of a town. There have been times, when children were removed from their families, in order to be educated. He related the story of one girl, who was picked up by a school bus one morning, and didn’t see her family until 15 years later. Many worked for free, but after 1967, when they others would have to pay them, they became unemployed.

The tribe/family is everything to an aborigine. After a boy has completed bush camp to become a man, he is a provider – a provider to the entire tribe, not just his wife and children. Lindsey has had 20 people staying with him and provided for them all.  There are only 30 members remaining in his tribe, and he is the eldest. Today, the government does provide them with money and food, but the food is often the left-overs from elsewhere. Alcohol and suicides are a major problem – 48% of men aged 18-25 commit suicide. The average life expectancy of an Aborigine is 17 years shorter than other Australians.

Traditions, from the story of creation to the methods to hunt and fish, are passed down through stories, songs, and dances. Becoming a man in his tribe involves an 8 week bush camp experience. To begin everything including their clothes is taken away from them. They undergo circumcision and various rites and need to provide for themselves from the bush.

Adelaide

Big Red Kangaroo

In the afternoon, we visited the Cleland Wildlife Park in the hills above the city. This was a wonderful experience of being with the animals. We walked from section to section and most of the time you were in the fields with the animals: potaroos, wallabys, kangaroos, and birds. We had a chance to pet a Koala again, and feed many of the animals. We met quite a variety of kangaroos, the most common Eastern Grey Kangaroo, the Big Red Kangaroo, and the Kangaroo Island Kangaroo. We saw a few in their mothers pouches and young ones just starting to hop around and explore the world. 

We also saw a variety of birds: Australian Pelicans, Black Swans, Emu, Magpies, Kookaburras, and the Rainbow Lorikeet. Everyone really enjoyed the park.

Kookaburra

After we returned I took a tour around town: the TandanyaAboriginal Art Center, the National Wine Center, the botanical gardens and the Art Museum. I was somewhat disappointed, nothing really stood out as a must see in my mind. We finished the day by having a delicious Italian dinner just down the street from the hotel followed by Swiss ice cream. 

Melbourne to Adelaide

Burial Totems

Today was a challenge. The rain was pouring down and the wind gusts were up to 60 mph. The Melbourne airport was down to one runway, so our flight ended up being more than an hour late. When we arrived in Adelaide, the Cleland Wild Life Park we were supposed to visit wasn’t letting anyone outside the visitor center. So we quickly changed plans and had a free afternoon in Adelaide. We decided to visit the South Australian Museum. We concentrated on the Aborigine culture and were surprised that almost every area of Australia had tribes – good land and desert both. When Europeans arrived over 230 languages were spoken throughout Australia. As we walked through the exhibit, one appreciated the importance of finding water (water holes, digging for water, or from the plants), carrying water (baskets and animal skins), spears and clubs for hunting, and tools for making fire. Yet, these people also created artwork.

Aboriginal Bark Paintings

We had a family dinner that night with John and Kristy. John had been a farmer and Kristy was in advertising. Dinner included chicken thighs (one of Mary’s favorites) with couscous. We had a free-ranging conversation from travel to US and Australian politics. The Australian government had just called for an election two days ago, and they were starting their 55 day long campaign.

Adelaide was not a convict destination, instead it was the brainchild of an English convict to make his fortune. His scheme was to sell land to investors and with the money send laborers to work the land. They arrived in March, 1837. Unfortunately, the plan didn’t work out well. Many investors were just speculating on the land and didn’t want to put in the work to turn the farms into success. Governor Grey turned things around in 1842. He persuaded the land owners to work the land, and the subsequent discover of copper and silver helped. Today the city has more than one million people and is the center of the wine industry. 

Great Ocean Road

Memorial on Great Ocean Road

Today, we took in the countryside by riding the Great Ocean Road, along the Bass Strait between Australia and Tasmania. The road began near Anglesea where there is a memorial to the 3000 World War I veterans, who constructed the road between 1919 and 1932. Before lunch, the coast reminded us of Great Breton in Nova Scotia. The road went up and down, climbing cliffs and then descending to the shore line. Along the way we passed a section that had a bush fire last December, caused by a lightning strike. The Eucalyptus encourage fire to take over an area. The bark is loose and easily burned. The leaves produce an oil that vaporizes above the trees, easily causing fireballs. After the fire, lots of leaves sprout from the trunks, which will in time become new branches. We stopped several times for short walks and photos. Lunch was in Apollo Bay – we made the mistake of stopping at George’s to get a substantial lunch (since we probably would miss dinner). The place was packed with people in this quick serve restaurant. The food was good, but the place was crowded and noisy. We should have stopped in one of the small cafes instead, which despite the numerous buses, never got too crowded. 

The Apostle Islands

The highlight of the trip was in the afternoon: the Apostle Islands. We were on top of a tall cliff and the islands were just off the coast. The waves pounded the area, making for quite the picturesque scene. Further along, we came to Loch Ard Gorge. The Loch Ard was a ship that sank here killing 52 of the 54 aboard. The Captain spotted headlands that he thought was Apollo Bay, but instead the ship hit land as he approached the shore. This stretch of coast had over 200 shipwrecks between 1850 and 1900. This was an absolutely fabulous coastline while on the trail I bumped into a potaroo, a marsupial about the size of rabbit. It was a long day, we got back to the hotel at about 8:30 PM. 

Potaroo on the trail

Mebourne City

Old Melbourne Jail

We traveled through the city by bus this morning. We passed a lot of historic buildings from the center of the city out to the beaches. Along the way we made a couple of stops. First was the Royal Exhibition Hall which was built for an 1880 international exhibition Our most interesting stop, however, was the Old Melbourne jail built in 1854 and closed in 1924, though it was used as a military prison during World War II. The bottom floor was used for the worst offenders. Here everyone had solitary cells and silence was observed. They wore a silence mask when out of their cell which prevented other prisoners from knowing who they were. They exercised outside for an hour a day, but even then they were separated from other prisoners. The upper floors had communal cells and here you participated in some form of labor. Men would pound rocks to gravel and women would work in the laundry. The ratio of prisoners here was 60% men and 40% women. Why such a large population of women? Largely because orphans had to exist by stealing or prostitution, ending up in jail. Corporate punishment for infractions was caning for the woman and children, and flogging with a cat of nine tails on the lashing triangle form men.

Ned's armor modeled by John

The most famous occupant of the jail was Ned Kelly. Kelly was originally jailed for three years for stealing horses. He fled to the bush in 1878 after he and his brother shot three policemen. When Kelly’s attempt to derail and ambush a police train failed, Ned and his gang dressed in homemade suits of armor. All but Kelly were killed, but he was severely wounded with 28 bullets in his exposed arms. He was captured nursed to health, put on trial, and then hung in the prison. His last words are reported as “such is life”. The gallows were right in the prison, and the trap door was rigged to bang into the walls, making it clear to all the inmates that a prisoner had been hung.

We toured St. Patrick’s Cathedral, the largest church in Melbourne. The Catholics, who were mostly Irish, often built larger churches than the Church of England throughout Australia. Our final stop was the Shrine of Remembrance, originally built as the State of Victoria’s World War I memorial. Over 300,000 Australians volunteered to fight in World War I, and over 200,000 never returned. The big battle served by Australians and New Zealanders was Gallipoli in Turkey, an attempt to open up supply lines to Russia. The memorial is designed to light the word “love” in No greater love hath a man… at 11 AM on November 11^th, Armistice day.

Shrine of Remembrance

In the afternoon we had a cultural experience: we attended “Aussie Rules Football”. The game was played in the Melbourne Cricket stadium, it’s designed to keep cricket players in shape out of season. Most of the rules are pretty simple. The primary methods to move the ball are running (but you have to dribble the ball every 10 steps), hand-balling (like a volleyball hit) or kicking. You cannot throw the ball or get caught holding the ball. The key play, called the mark, is to kick the ball to another player, if he catches it without it hitting the ground, he gets a free kick. This allows you to approach the goal posts. A kick through the center posts is worth 6 points and on either side 1 point. We had such fun, we stayed for almost the entire game between Carlton and Collingwood.

On to Melbourne

Shot Gun Tower, Melbourne

We flew from Launceston to Melbourne. Melbourne was founded in 1835 by John Batman who ‘purchased’ land from the Aborigines for a village. The town grew tremendously after gold was discovered in the 1850s. The city has the most Victorian buildings in the world, next to London. Melbourne became the Australia's major financial center. Today, Melbourne has a population of about 4 million. For the last 5 years, Melbourne was voted the world’s most livable city. It’s easy to understand with lots of parks, sports complexes and trams running everywhere through town.

After lunch we took a brief walking tour around our hotel, the Somerset, right in the heart of downtown. The Somerset has an apartment style room including a washer/dryer for laundry. The city is an interesting mixture of historic buildings and brand new towers. For example, the Shot Gun Tower (now a museum) is housed inside a shopping center. The tower was used to turn led to musket shot by dropping the lead from the 50 foot tower. We toured the Victoria library with its LaTrobe reading room. Then headed down to Federation Square with the 1910 Railway station across the street. Our group expanded to 15 today, 5 men and 11 women. Wayne hosted a wine and cheese party in his room and then we headed to dinner. I had kangaroo for dinner – it tasted like sweet beef. 

Flinders Railway Station

Launceston

We woke to intermittent rain, but that didn’t stop us from taking a 2.5 mile walk through Launceston to Cataract Gorge. The trail we took was originally built in 1890. The portion we took was relatively flat but the walls of the canyon rose above us with the trees in their fall colors. We stopped at a nice park area with wallabies and peacocks and peahens in the gardens, then across the suspension bridge to find the bus. 

Cataract Gorge

We headed off to Platypus house which is a research facility for monotremes, the two marsupials that lay eggs. Platypus must be the strangest animal in the world, webbed feet, fur, duck bill, lays eggs, and the males have venomous spurs. The venom won’t kill an adult human, but they will be in pain for almost a year, with no relief from pain-killers like morphine. The platypus eats worms and cray-fish which they detect by electroreceptors on their bill (when they dive they close their ears, eyes and nostrils). They typically dive a thousand times a day. The females lay 1-3 eggs in a nest burrow. After the eggs hatch the young drink milk which is secreted from the mother. Then she will continue to feed them for another 2-4 months in the nest after which they are pretty independent. The young need to ensure that they get far away (10 km) from their father, who might kill them as competititors.

The other monotreme is an Echidna, which looks like a cross between an ant-eater, and a porcupine, but is not related to either. These animals wandered around our feet as they were fed, their tongue is quite long to carry their food through their snout. The animal likes to climb and swim. On our way back we stopped at Brady’s lookout, where a pirate used to target ships on the Tamar River. 

Echidna

Then Mary and I went to the Queen Victoria Museum. This is a small museum with a variety of exhibits. Most interesting was their historic bike collection from the original bike, a bone shaker, to the modern variants with multiple gears and brakes. The other key collection was of the variety of unique animals to Tasmania and Australia. Most of the mammals are marsupials with a few exceptions, there are also a lot of birds unique to this area, like the Kookaburra, a form of Kingfisher. 

Cradle Mountain National Park

Along the Enchanted Walk

We woke up a dusting of snow next to our hotel in Cradle Mountain National Park. We started the day by walking the Enchanted Walk through a Myrtle Beech tree forest. It follows a stream bank with a variety of trees and mosses everywhere. A better name might be the Emerald walk since everything was so green – ferns, mosses, lichens everywhere. Then we took the short walk to the Pencil Pine Creek falls. We continued along the walk to discover a wide variety of plants, most of which only exist in Tasmania: Pandani, Pencil Pines, Celery top pine, pink mountain berries, and button grass. Most of us then hiked the Cradle Valley Boardwalk. The highlight of the hike was spotting a pair of Wedge Tailed Eagles, one perched on a nearby tree and the other soaring above us.

Wedge Tailed Eagle

We caught our first glimpse of Cradle Mountain along this trail. The mountain came in and out of the clouds as we walked. We drove on to Dove Lake just below Cradle Mountain. Finally, we stopped at the Gustav Waldheim Cottage. He was one of the key leaders to create this National Park and lived in this cabin year around, guiding visitors to the area.

Cradle Mountain Lake

As we left the park, we traveled a road to Wilhelm, here the tourist draw was mail boxes – a variety of them from a yellow submarine, to cows, plows, and wind mills. We ate lunch in Devenport along the coast and then headed to Launceston. We hosted a party in our room with cheese, crackers, beer, and wine, and then went out for pizza in a nearby restaurant.

Hobart to Cradle Mountain National Park

We spent most of the day on the road, but that was fine – it was windy and raining most of the day. Wayne told us about the slaughter of the aborigines on Tasmania. Even though the island supports over 500,000 people today, when Hobart was founded in 18—only about 5000 Aborigines were on the island, and most of them died soon after of European diseases. There is some speculation that the population may have been higher in the 18^th century, but whalers and sealers accidentally introduced the European diseases. Some of the early settlers actually helped feed the aborigines since they were taking away their land. But as more settlers came, they would kill the natives. Finally, the last 150 were rounded up and sent to a nearby island where the state took care of them, but most died anyway. There are no pure blood aborigines left on Tasmania. We stopped in Ross for some coffee. Here we saw the third oldest bridge in Australia. This town like all Australian towns has a World War I memorial, with a list of the people who died in that war. Remember that World War I was mostly a European war, but the Aussies volunteered to help fight with the British.

Railton World War I Memorial with topiaries

We’re on our way to Cradle Mountain National Park. Each small town along the way tries to attract tourists. For example, in Railton, many of the yards have topiaries: dragons, giraffes, lions, etc. Even the World War I memorial in this town has the usual stone monument, but soldier topiaries next to it.

Reflections of Time mural

Lunch was in Sheffield, a town with murals on the buildings or the best mounted in parks. I particularly enjoyed the park with the theme: Reflections of Time. We arrived at Cradle Mountain about 3 PM. We had planned to take a hike on the Enchanted Walk, but the rain was pouring and the wind blowing, so we cancelled to try tomorrow morning. We still did the animal night tour. It was still raining and it took a while for us to spot anything.  We eventually discovered several wombats, followed by two types of kangaroo like marsupials: the Bennett;s wallaby and Pademelons. It was fun to see them, particularly the little ones hopping away from our spotting lights. 

Pademelon

Tasman Island Cruise and Port Arthur

Wayne did not recommend the OAT tour because it was too expensive compared to what we could arrange locally, due to the strength of the dollar. We chose to do the Tasman Island Cruise and Port Arthur. After yesterday’s rain, today was partly cloudy, good weather for our boat cruise. At the start, we had cliffs of mudstone, and the wave action created numerous sea caves with names like the Tasman Arch, and the Devil’s Kitchen. As the boat approached some of these formations, the seas gave the illusion that we were going uphill. Tasmania has been dry, so dry that the waterfall we saw today hadn’t flowed in over 12 months. As we headed down the coast, we saw numerous birds: a white bellied Sea Eagle, Albatross, and Australian Gannet. The coast changed from the horizontal formations of mudstone to the vertical volcanic formations of Dolomite. Here we saw the 70 m tall totem pole and candlestick spires and then the  1000 foot Cape Pillar cliffs right next to Tasman island. Tasman Island itself has 3 light houses, but no real landing for ships, so they used a cable system to load people and cargo off the ship, and then a steep track up the mountain. The wildest part of the trip was the return trip to the harbor, the wind was strong, and our boat slammed down between the waves.

1000 foot high Cape Pillar Cliffs

Then the bus took us to Port Arthur, where a British prison was built in the 1820’s. Remember that Australia was already a prison colony. Most people have been sent here because they were banished from England, but hadn’t committed a hanging offense (at the time there were 200 hanging offensesThe people sent to Port Arthur committed another offense while already a convict. The prison was considered a machine to “grind these men back to society”. But British justice during this period was being reformed. Historically, most people had either died in prison or the ones who were released were so hardened that they ended up back in prison. This prison was based on 4 principles: 1) Discipline and punishment. Port Arthur was the first British prison to stop flogging as a punishment, instead they used isolation in the “separate prison” as punishment which was similar to today’s maximum security prison. Prisoners were isolated and lived under rules of silence. 2) Separate and Classify – people with trades or who were literate were put into jobs that could use their skills. Also prisoners would get better or worse accommodations based on their behaviors from cells where they carried 20kg of chains to those where they were in a large common area with lots of sunshine. 3) Industry and training: most were loggers, hauling trees from the forest to the port, but they could be promoted to work in the workshops, learning a trade that could be useful in society and finally 4) Religious coercion. You had to go to the non-denominational services. What was interesting is that even though this was the bottom 20% of convicts sent to Australia, 7 of 9 never returned to Port Arthur. The prison looks more like a park today with remains of many of the prison buildings, But on higher ground, were many of the staff’s houses: the doctor’s the commandant’s, and the reverend’s quarters. While these were good paying jobs, the fancy houses were there to persuade the wives that this was a good place to live. 

The Penitentiary Cell Block