Change In Plans

LOBSTER!

Greetings again from Fiordland National Park!

We have been generally enjoying our time on the good boat, Sea Finn, for two days now.

Technical notes on the boat: it is a 66-foot all-aluminum motor cruiser, with twin 600-horsepower engines.  The main living area is an enclosed cabin/bridge/galley room, about 8 meters long and 5 meters wide.  There are large windows on all sides. There are six cabins below deck, each with bunk beds.  In a pinch, the oat could sleep 18-20 passengers, but a normal group is about 12.  There is a large open aft deck, with two bathrooms (including showers).  Literally every external surface on the boat is made of brushed aluminum.

Last night we were exhausted, and in the very dark silence of the below-deck bunks, we all slept deeply.   I was woken up only once, by a booming noise that resonated through the aluminum hull of the boat.  It sounded like thunder, but came from underneath.  I found out this morning that it was, of course, an earthquake. 

Apparently this part of New Zealand has small ones nearly every day.

Slightly confused by the time zones and the lack of sunlight, we thought we had woken up before 8 am. 

Once we were on deck, we realized that somehow we had slept until nearly 10.  We had missed the tides that would have allowed us to go further up into Charles Sound, so instead Chris took us back to check the lobster trap.  He was visibly non-plussed, but assured us that the change in plans was OK.  We found six giants in the trap, each weighing 2-3 kilograms, and planned on having more lobster for lunch. 

As we motored back up the sound toward the Tasman Sea, we stopped several times to fish.  Who would have guessed that India, the human-rights mom, is a natural-born killer with a fishing rod?  She brought in the most fish, by far, including a blue cod nearly as long as Tallulah is tall.

DEER!

Chris spied three feral deer standing halfway an exposed hillside as we motored past.  Even with the binoculars they looked far away, about 400 meters.  Chris said that with his big gun, he would have shot one easily.  But he had left the big gun at home.  To Zola’s almost squealing excitement (Shhhh!) and Tallulah’s horror, Chris decided to shoot at them with the little .243 rifle he had bought.  He got off six shots, and got close at least once, but didn’t bring down a deer.  They ambled slowly into the deep forest, seemingly unaware that the loud bang! noise should have meant “run.”

We came out of Charles Sound and made another open-water crossing in the afternoon.  The sea was much rougher than it was yesterday: with swells running 3-4 meters.  Because she had slept through yesterday’s crossing, Tallulah was frightened to be bobbing and pitching in the open ocean like this.  She cried as the boat rose and fell, and waves crashed against the windows.  To distract Tallulah, we ended up singing loudly and badly together as a family.

  We stuck with camp-song favorites and studiously avoided the “Gilligan’s Island” theme song.  In all of our travels, this was the only time she has really been scared.  Throughout our singing, Chris did not smile and Queen continued to play loudly over the loudspeakers, the only time music was played on board.

In the late afternoon, we moored in Deas Cove, and took “the wee boat” ashore.

  There was a group of men filling scuba tanks from a compressor on the beach.  They were camping in a nearby government hut, and we spent 20 minutes talking to them.  They are the only people we have seen since we got on Sea Finn.  We went for a walk across a flat open area between the cove and the sound. 

It was perhaps twenty acres across, covered by sandy stone and a forest of ghostly trees.  This area was created by a huge landslide during the big earthquake of 2003, leaving an open 100-meter-wide scar on the side of the steep mountain. The sand flies were out in unbelievable force during our walk.  At one point, I clasped Tallulah’s head in both of my hands, and killed about 30 flies that were in her hair. 

Still, it was nice to stretch our legs, and the afternoon downpour waited until five minutes after we got back on the boat.

SHORE LEAVE!

Zola was very clever in asking Chris whether he could take a turn at the helm.  He said, “Chris, how old were your sons when you let them drive the boat?”  Chris looked over from the wheel and said, “About eight, I figure.”  Zola made the observation, “That’s interesting. 

I’m nine.”  There was a long, awkward silence before I said, “Yes, Zola, but you aren’t Chris’s son.”  He was unsuccessful, but I was impressed that he approached the question this way.

This evening we will have another meal of fish that we caught, and we are planning to  watch Chris’s only other movie: “The Patriot”, starring Mel Gibson.

On day two, so far, so good. 

We are all still sane, still enjoying ourselves, and still marveling at the spectacle of Doubtful Sound.

QUICK, BEFORE IT RAINS!

FISH!

Greetings from Fiordland National Park, on the southwest corner of New Zealand’s South Island!  We are aboard the mighty SeaFinn, finishing the first day of a four-day private boat tour around the Doubtful Sound area.

The trip down to the boat was a five-part adventure in itself.  A short taxi ride to a 2-hour ride on large bus (with unceasing driver monologue) to a 45-minute ride on smaller bus, to a 45-minute “fast ferry” ride across Lake Manapouri.  We left the large tour group at the far end of Lake Manapouri, met our captain and host, Chris.  He drove us on a moderately hairy 45-minute van trip on the dirt road over Wilmot Pass. 

The road was the most expensive to construct, per linear foot, in all of New Zealand. Finally, we walked down a slippery hill, across a gangplank, and boarded the SeaFinn.   All in, including waiting-around time, it took us nearly six hours to get from hotel to boat.

Based on what we know about our likes and dislikes, this boat trip through the fjords could be a disaster.  India is not able to run or walk or even spend any real time off the boat: the mountain terrain is pathless and too steep. 

It is cold outside, and intermittently pouring with rain.  The kids are cooped up on board, with no games, and with only us and Chris for company.  For the first time since we started traveling nine months ago, I am completely cut off from the outside world: no internet, no BlackBerry, no cell phone coverage.  There are no shops or other boats or people or any evidence of civilization.  There are clouds of vicious, biting sand flies everywhere.  We had arrived in Queenstown too late on Saturday evening to buy our own supplies, so there is no alcohol, juice, or even Diet Coke on board.   No chance to remedy the situation and no turning back.

Despite this avalanche of negative leading indicators, we have had a great time on the boat thus far, and I am not quite sure why.  I think it is some combination of the following:

1- having Chris here.  He is a very calm, competent, and experienced captain, defined by his precise movements and easy manner. 

It would be unthinkable for us to fight or be disagreeable in his presence.  On a boat this small, his “presence” should be prefixed with “omni.”

2- the magnificence of our surroundings.  Tree-studded hills shoot almost vertically out of the black water of the fjords, rising about 1,000 meters into the low clouds and mist.  Huge waterfalls gush and hiss down the hillsides.  There are literally no other people around, and the wildness is beautiful like nothing else we have seen.

FISHING!

3- we have been too busy to not have fun.  For a long time, as we motored up Doubtful Sound, we just gaped at the scenery.  The first time we stopped, Chris said, “Do you want to fish?”  I said, “I’m not sure I know how.”  He said, “It’s easy.”  He handed me a spinner rod, its big hook baited with a piece of sashimi.  I dropped the line in the water, let it sink 40 meters to the bottom, and reeled in an orange sea perch literally eight seconds later.  Among India, Zola, and me, we caught 30 fish in two hours, keeping a few perch for bait and blue cod for dinner, and throwing the rest back.  I think we were all OK with killing the fish, but we were slightly happier when we caught and released.

FIORDS!

We have been on continuous lookout for dolphins, for albatross, and for feral deer on the mountainsides. 

Tallulah has been fascinated with Chris’s cooking (he moves gracefully between the galley and the pilot’s bridge as we motor).

  Zola has been fascinated with the GPS, the fish finder, and the depth gauge.

  He also enjoyed helping Chris bait and set a trap for lobster.  At lunch, he served more lobster than four of us could possibly eat.  We have all had time to read.

Chris got our full attention as we motored out of the calm waters of Doubtful Sound, and crossed 20 kilometers of “Roaring 40s” open ocean (the Tasman Sea). The swell was “only” 1-2 meters, and 

the SeaFinn was absolutely designed to be stable in open water like this.

  Still, as we bobbed up and down in the waves, India, Zola and I held hands and stared out at the cold sea.

  Tallulah slept soundly in a bunk below.  We were all a little relieved when we motored into the calm waters of Charles Sound.

After eating dinner, blue cod that we had caught and venison that Chris had shot earlier in the week, Chris turned on the DVD player.  We watched an Anthony Hopkins movie called “The Fastest Indian.”  It is a true story about a likeable elderly motorcycle racer from New Zealand, who set a land-speed record on the salt flats in Utah in 1963.  It is the most popular movie ever made about New Zealand, and it was great.

We will see how the next three days go.  All of this good will and serenity may evaporate once the novelty of the trip wears off.  Four days without a glass of wine or the New York Times on line.  Who knows what may happen?  The enforced leisure and on-board austerity may also wear on our nerves, and we could end up bickering like kids in the back seat of a station wagon on a long drive. 

Or, we may be entering a new phase of the trip, where we are embracing travel instead of just experiencing it.  Time will tell, but we are off to a good start.

Greetings from Southland, New Zealand!

We are motoring south in a giant bus, headed toward our three-day boat cruise on Doubtful Sound. The sun has just risen over the mountains and sheep pastures. The tiny slice of New Zealand we have seen this morning has been at least as beautiful as we hoped it would be.

Aside from us, the average age of the passengers on board appears to be about 106. I’ve never actually been on a giant tour bus like this: the huge panorama windows and sky lights are pretty awesome. Like a filibustering Senator, our driver, Keith, has been giving non-stop commentary since we left Queenstown two hours ago. He just finished a detailed history of the New Zealand deer-farming industry.

Our time in Queenstown was too short to form much of an opinion about the place. As the “adventure travel capital of the world,” it has a ski-town feel. Lots of young athletic tourists, 110 pubs. From our hotel room, we heard laughing and shouting (and at least one fist fight) going late into the evening. It is definitely beautiful, with a dark lake surrounded by craggy, low mountains

We went for a walk last night, and saw a small, drunken troupe of fire jugglers performing in a pedestrian mall. Zola and Lu thought they were extremely cool. One performer fell down several times, as his flaming devil stick flew into the small crowd, and he laughed maniacally. A female fire eater walked the perimeter of the performance area, cracking a bull whip. Weird.

We will be back in Queenstown for several days, after the Doubtful Sound cruise. In the meantime, everyone has fallen asleep on board (despite Keith’s filibuster), and rain has started to pour down outside.

Adventure awaits in New Zealand.

PostScript- moments after I wrote this post, Keith stopped the bus and woke everyone up. Those of us going to Doubtful Sound (as opposed to Milford Sound) were herded in the rain onto a smaller bus. An elderly man slipped or collapsed, climbing the stairs into the new bus, and tumbled backwards out the door. Fortunately for him, he fell directly into India’s arms, and she saved him. Maybe he was flirting. This driver is silent, and both kids fell back asleep immediately. We just passed a deer farm, a branch of agriculture I now know more about than I would ever have expected.

Greetings from Queenstown, New Zealand!

We left our hotel before dawn, and raced out to Sydney airport for the final time.  Zola’s early wake-up routine is becoming very predictable.  He literally moans several times, then sits bolt upright, then cuts loose with an angry and loud tirade about airline schedules, about hating whatever place we are traveling to, and about how he did not sleep “even one wink, not even one wink.”   It is not particularly pleasant, but it is over in less than 60 seconds.  Then he is fine.  We need to get him to go to bed earlier.

We were sorry to be leaving Sydney, and could easily have spent another week exploring the city.  It feels as though there is a lot of Australia to see on future visits.

Even though Sydney-Queenstown is a very popular once-daily route, Qantas only services it with a small 737.  Apparently the runway is too short for a larger jet.  Also, as we were told, the approach to the airport is very tricky through the mountains.  

India, who is a very strong and brave person in every other dimension, has become an increasingly nervous flyer during our trip.  The facts about the runway length and the tricky approach were enough to set her on edge.

The flight to Queenstown is supposed to be about 2 hours and 20 minutes. About an hour into the trip, the pilot did a slow 180-degree turn.  To his credit, he immediately got on the PA system, and announced that we had a mechanical problem, and would be returning to Sydney.  He paused for a few long moments, and then specified the problem: cold air had created a small crack in the outer pane of the double-glazed windscreen in the cockpit.  ”Nothing to worry about, folks.  We just have to go back to Sydney because this is a problem they wouldn’t be able to repair in Queenstown.”

India was certain that we would be plunging to our deaths within seconds.  I moved to sit next to her, and proceeded to say many unhelpful things, like, “Your fear is totally irrational,” and “Qantas is the safest airline in the world.  Remember Rain Man? and “Why can’t you just stop being scared?”  I was comforted by the fact that the pilots maintained altitude at 38,000 feet, thinking that if they were worried about cabin pressure they would descend.  I explained my theory to India, and added, also unhelpfully, “You are the only one worried about crashing.”  She did not hit me at any point, but would have been justified if she had.

India summoned a flight attendant to get more details.  The flight attendant, also a mother of young kids, made a special effort to explain, and to alleviate India’s concerns.  Soon after, the chief flight attendant came over and said exactly the same things.  They must teach a technique in flight-attendant school, because both women locked their gazes on India’s eyes, and did not blink while speaking.  They gave us a bottle of champagne to drink, to “take the edge off.”

We landed safely in Sydney.  Across the aisle from us, passengers from the Czech Republic were talking and gesturing excitedly.  The Czech man closest to me leaned over and asked, “Where are we?  In what city have we landed?”  Speaking very slowly and loudly (American!!!), I explained that we we had landed in Sydney, and that we would take off again in two hours.  He asked, “Are we in Sydney?”  And I said, “I think so.  They are giving us each $20 to have lunch.”  He turned back to his countrymen, and explained in rapid-fire Czech.

As we disembarked, the pilots let Zola and me have a look at the crack.  It was as if someone had thrown a brick through the (outer pane) of the windscreen.  To tell the truth, I was more nervous after seeing it.

We had a brief discussion over our Qantas-comped lunch about just staying in Sydney, and canceling the New Zealand part of our trip.  In the end, of course, we walked back out to the plane and got on.

The landing in Queenstown came as advertised: low and fast through the mountains, and then down hard on a short runway.  India and I applauded as we rolled to the gate, but no one followed our lead.  Fortunately the flight had been without turbulence or other incident (except for the terrible “Quantum of Solace” being the in-flight movie), and she was completely relaxed.

New Zealand customs and quarantine was hard core.  They inspected my hiking boots carefully for fungus, x-rayed everything we brought into the country, and sprayed the wheels of our stroller with disinfectant.  Island country.

As we rode into Queenstown, my own anxieties started to rise a little.  We are basically at the end of the world here.  It is very beautiful, but places like this fuel my insecurities about isolation, lack of control, unstructured leisure time, and personal irrelevance.  Queenstown itself is the “adventure sports capital of the world,”so I figured we would be OK once we got into the bugee jumping and jet boating and luge.

My anxieties became more pronounced, though, after I called our tour company, to see whether we could push back tomorrow’s 6:30 am departure by a few hours.  There is a 2-hour time difference means we would need to be out of bed by 3:45 am Sydney time).  The nice woman on the phone explained at length that we had to leave early, because we need to take a taxi to a bus to a large boat to a 4×4 to get on the boat where we will be sleeping for the next four days.  Not sure what else there will be to do on the boat.  We have been told to expect “lots of relaxation time.”  We will be traveling for five hours tomorrow morning, starting from one of the most isolated places I have ever been.

Both India’s and my anxieties are probably tedious to read about.  Hers are more understandable, because dying in a plane crash is a normal thing to be afraid of.  My own anxieties feel more like emotional immaturity and spoiled brattishness.  They definitely put me in a foul mood, and drag down team morale a lot.  To be honest, these anxieties are probably wrapped up in larger life uncertainties: about where we will go when our trip ends, what we will do, who we will be.  There are a lot of decisions for us to make, and this is the last official stop on the NeverNever Land tour.  

We will be up early again tomorrow, bracing for Zola’s morning tirade.  Intellectually, I’m sure the Doubtful Sound cruise will be amazing, and my anxieties will “vanish like a billabong in a drought.”  That expression was a real headline in today’s Sydney paper, referring to a bankrupt businessman who has gone missing.  Under any circumstances, my guess is that this will be the last blog post for a few days.

Two short PostScripts:

1- Tallulah wore her pink Uggs all day again.  I think she wore them to bed as well.  Despite the long day, anxious parents, my foul mood, and general uncertainty and instability in their lives, they were terrific.  Tallulah asked, “Do you think Rosemary will go to New Zealand as well?”

2- When we were at Uluru, our guide told us that the last time the flies were so bad was when they were constructing the lodges five years ago.  Many of the construction workers got terrible eye infections, but it was never established whether the infections were transmitted by the flies directly, or caused by workers touching their eyes a lot more to brush them away.  Regardless of the cause, both of my eyes have been infected nastily since we left Uluru.  Fortunately, the first-aid kit that India packed in the Catskills last August has great antibiotic eyedrops.

Greetings from Sydney! When we arrived yesterday afternoon, we knew we only had one full day here.  Last night over dinner, we developed a detailed plan to pack in a long weekend’s worth of activity in the short time that we had. We are exhausted, but had a pretty tremendous day of sightseeing and resupply.  Sydney is really quite an awesome city.  We will be sad when we leave early tomorrow for New Zealand.

By skipping breakfast, we were out the door this morning as soon as India got back from her run. Zola and I discovered that having him do his on-line math work before he has had breakfast is more frustrating (for both of us) than it is worth. The good news on that front, though, is that he has completed the 3rd-grade math curriculum, and has started on 4th grade.  The EPGY program has been the saviour of our home-schooling efforts.

We took a taxi across Sydney to the western side of Darling Harbour, to the waterfront mall. Zola lost the battery charger to his Nintendo DS several weeks ago, and has been deprived of its electronic pleasures.  He has handled the deprivation relatively gracefully, but  under duress we promised that we would get a replacement charger as soon as we got back to Sydney.  We actually arrived at the Electronics Boutique before it opened, and went off to have breakfast.  At the stroke of 10 am, Zola charged into the store like a crazed December 26th bargain hunter.  At 10:02, mission accomplished. 

That particular mall seemed to be dominated by shops selling souvenirs and Australiana.  Under further duress, I agreed to get some souvenirs for family, and a pair of pink Ugg boots for Tallulah.  My resistance to boot acquisition notwithstanding, I have to admit that they are very cute.  She wore them out of the store, and has basically refused to take them off since.  The classiest souvenir we bought was a heavy bottle opener  -in a roughly triangular shape- made from a kangaroo’s scrotum.   It will make a nice gift for the Christmas Eve gift swop this year.  The souvenir-shop owner told me that it is the most popular item in his store by a long way.

Escaping from Souvenirland, we started to walk to the Sydney Aquarium.  We passed the Maritime Museum, and Zola got very excited about touring the submarine and Navy destroyer docked outside.  He is going through a “war is really cool” stage.  I just finished Antony Beevor’s book, “The Battle for Spain: The Spanish Civil War 1936-1939,” and am going through a “war is horrible and tremendously wasteful” stage.  Nevertheless, we decided to tour the old warships, as well as a replica of James Cook’s sailing vessel, the Endeavour.

The family-consensus takeaways from touring around the boats were:

1. it would be very unpleasant to live on a modern submarine or on an 18th-century warship
2. if you were only going to have one boat in your navy, you would want it to be a submarine
3. exploring the world with Captain Cook was probably pretty exciting, until they took on bad water in Batavia, and 40% of the people on board died of dysentery
4. we are incredibly spoiled and lucky

Good lessons from 90 minutes of stomping around on boats.  

A highlight for me was when our princess-obsessed 4-year old peeked into the Captain’s stateroom on the destroyer, saw a mid-1960s picture of the young Elizabeth II, sighed, and said, “Look Mummy, it’s the Queen!”

After searching all over Australia, we finally saw a duck-billed platypus.  The platypus siting was, unfortunately, in the Sydney Aquarium, but it was still cool.  They are weird-looking little fellows, and they spend a long time under water between breaths.  I understand better why it is difficult to see them in the wild.

Both kids loved the aquarium, and ran excitedly from tank to tank.  At least Zola did not shriek wildly when he saw a new fish, as he insisted on doing while we snorkeled on Lord Howe Island.  India and I were pleased to see that the Cape Town aquarium, which I helped a little in raising the money for in 1992-93, could hold its own against the famous Sydney version.  When we were planning Cape Town, it helped that we borrowed a lot of design ideas, and a technical advisor, from Sydney.

The best part of the Sydney Aquarium is its Oceanariums (Oceanaria?), which are glass walk-through tubes placed at the bottom of enormous fish tanks.  Standing in the tubes, looking up at 3-4 meters of water, and surrounded by huge sharks, is an amazing feeling.  There are signs which inform visitors that the glass distorts vision, and that the animals are actually about 33% larger than they appear.  This part of the aquarium is really well done.  Unfortunately, for some reason they pipe in very dippy sounding New Age music, which sort of diminishes the effect.  Fake scuba and breathing sounds, or silence, would have been better.

After lunch, we took a ride on Sydney’s famous monorail.  Because of its route, I thought the monorail was designed almost exclusively for tourists: it only makes a small, slow one-direction loop around the western part of the downtown area.  To my surprise, it was packed with real people using it for daily transport.  It was a good way for us to see part of the city.

The rest of the afternoon was consumed by our efforts to resupply shoes and clothes before we head off to rural New Zealand.  This allowed us to explore Sydney’s shopping district. I generally don’t like this kind of thing, but the Queen Victoria Building shopping center was good.  Zola and I spent most of our time looking at a huge cylindrical clock which hangs from the ceiling, and reflects important events in Australia’s history in diorama form.  One memorable scene is entitled “Arrival of Second Fleet of Prisoners”, and has two soldiers whipping a prisoner who is suspended from some kind of wooden rack on the beach.  The whippee’s shirt is ripped, and blood is pouring from his back.  History isn’t always pretty, but I’m not sure why they put that on a giant clock in a mall.

In a few short resupply hours, we bought:

• Our 5th and 6th pairs of Crocs for the kids
• A little black dress
• New Teva sandals (I disposed of my highly toxic old ones in a garbage can on the street)
• A pink princess dress
• New pajamas
• Running socks
• Lancome face cream
• Assorted jackets and sweaters, as everyone asks us whether we are “going to New Zealand for a ski holiday”

Midway through all of this, Citibank’s anti-fraud unit called me to check whether my credit card was in my possession, and whether I was aware of charges X, Y, and Z.  After much back and forth, and several periods of holding, the call-center person asked, “Are you in Australia?”  

Rosemary, our friend from Cape Town, and her husband, Francis, invited us to their house in the evening.  Our kids are so desperate to have some type of social interaction outside of Mom and Dad that they got very excited about this.  Tallulah kept talking about “the big party” and “all of the friends.”  She changed clothes three times, but kept the Pink Uggs on.   Zola was excited to play tennis and boxing on the Wii, and to tell Francis more about Pokemon.  Both kids rushed in, and appreciated Rosemary’s sparkling lights, candles, and special fairy drink.  What Zola really cared about was that Wii.  Francis gave Zola enthusiastic technical support, and exclusive use of his game while we were there.  Both kids were thrilled. 

Ashfield, their suburb, has a big Chinese population.  We walked up to the main drag, and had an excellent, truly authentic, Shanghainese dinner.  It was cool to see another part of Sydney life.  Lucky Francis still got to hear about Pokemon over dinner, while India, Rosemary and I talked about South Africa and her activist family.

On the taxi ride home, partying Sydney seems to have come to life on this Friday night.  For several successive traffic lights, we were next to a white stretch Hummer limousine, with house music blaring from the windows and sun roof.  A young woman was leaning out the window, champagne glass in hand, blowing kisses to pedestrians and motorists.  She shouted to India, “You have a beautiful son!”  We offered to toss him in through the sun roof, but they pulled away from the light.  Zola was embarrassed, but secretly thrilled.  Both reactions are sweet.

Everyone is sound asleep now.  It was a busy day.  Quality of life in Sydney is high.

THE LITTLEST HIKER - YESTERDAY IN THE SUNSHINE

Greetings from Lord Howe Island.  It is a(nother) rainy day, and we are waiting for our early-afternoon flight back to Sydney.  The kids are watching “Dr. Doolittle,”  (the Eddie Murphy version rather than the Rex Harrison version) and giggling and cackling away. India and I are packing and talking.

Since we left South Africa, the specialized vocabulary of the family has changed again.  Some of the phrases which have come into frequent usage are:

“A dingo stole my baby!”

- None of us has actually seen the old Meryl Streep movie, but the kids find it very amusing to say. When we were at the sheep station, Ian and Di gave us the details of the actual case, back in the early 1980s,  and talked about why it sort of traumatized Australia.  When we were in Tasmania, we all inserted the wilder marsupials (echidna, thalycine, pademelon) for the word dingo.  My favorite is “A wombat stole my baby!”

“Stop calling me mate!” - Tallulah quickly got tired of me imitating an Australian accent and addressing her with the universal Australian term of endearment.  I have stopped calling her mate.

“That’s one …” - We have tried to integrate a parenting technique, called (cheesily enough), 1-2-3 Magic!  Basically, instead of debating or discussing undesired behavior, it means just saying “That’s one…,” followed by two and three if necessary.  When you get to three, some agreed punishment, usually a lost privilege or time out, happens automatically.  It has worked amazingly well.

“Just another wombat”

- when we were in Tasmania, we were seeing so many animals that we all got a little blase about them.  We spent a lot of time trying to see a platypus and a Tasmanian Devil in the wild.  Whenever we saw something that got our hopes up, but turned out to be a wombat, pademelon, wallaby, kangaroo, or possum, the kids would say “Oh well, just another _______.”  It is amazing how quickly something becomes the new normal.

“I come from a land down under” - India bought a 5-CD “Greatest Hits from the 1980s” collection at a petrol station,  on the drive between Sydney and Melbourne.  This resulted in a lot of bad parental singing along, and a stream of recollections that our children found uninteresting.  Zola really liked the Men at Work Australian classic, and even had me look up the lyrics on Google as we drove.  He sings it over and over.  Tallulah is partial to The Proclaimers, “I Would Walk 500 Miles,” and insists that she and I will walk 500 miles over the summer, so she will get a special hiking patch from her day camp.

“Josh?  Josh, where are you?” - I made the mistake of describing the movie “Blair Witch Project” to Zola during a hike one day.  He loves to work himself into being scared of abstract dangers (which is also why we spend so much time talking about snakes, spiders, scorpions, etc.).  Now, every few days, usually when we are outside, he will goof around by getting a worried look on his face, and shouting for Josh.

“Are we leaving today?” - Tallulah has gotten in the habit of saying this every morning.  Regardless of the answer, she then says, “I want to stay here for six mornings!”  Always six mornings, even when we were at the roadside motel in Narooma.  She seems happy wherever she is.

Off to the air strip (one minute away), for the flight back to Sydney.

Greetings from Lord Howe Island!  

Today was our last full day here, so we wanted to get the kids out on a hike.  We had been told that the route up to a place called Kims Lookout was relatively easy, and that there were no leeches at the top.  The chef at the lodge made sandwiches for us, so we packed them in a day pack, and rode our bicycles to the trail.

Tallulah insisted on hiking in her new lime-green bikini, so we put on a lot of sun screen and started walking.  The trail was only about 2.5 kilometers each way, but it climbed over 200 meters in the first kilometer.  I worked that out to a 20% grade, which felt pretty steep.  In a fit of “I can do it BY MYSELF! Tallulah charged up the trail, leading the way for nearly the first 30 minutes.  Then she went up on my shoulders for most of the rest of the way.

the chronicles of narnia: the voyage of the dawn treader hd stream

I CAN DO IT BY MYSELF!

As expected, based on many previous hikes, Zola had to go through a bit of an emotional warm-up period before getting into the spirit of the walk.  This involves 20-30 minutes of lagging behind the rest of us, and complaining vociferously.  He must be learning at least a little bit in our home-schooling sessions, because his complaining style has become more articulate, and his vocabulary has improved.  Today’s shouted refrain was, “You don’t care if my exhaustion walks me into an early grave.”

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AFTER THE EMOTIONAL WARM-UP PERIOD

As always, at some point Zola snaps out of complaining mode, and becomes an enthusiastic hiker and good company on the trail.  Usually this happens when we see an interesting animal.  On this hike, the trigger was a series of huge Golden Orb spider webs built across the trail, at a height of about two meters.  Unfortunately, the height of the spider webs meant that Tallulah got a few in the face, and had a spider crawling on her for about 30 seconds.  They aren’t poisonous, but she ducked way down and insisted that I run when we came to more webs.

The hike was more difficult than we had expected, but eventually, we got to Kims Lookout, and ate our lunch.  A group of red-tailed sea gulls were surfing on the strong winds.  We looked down a sheer cliff at the royal blue ocean about 250 meters below us.  Again, India shouted “Kim Fennell!!!” in her friend’s honor, we took a picture, and headed back down the mountain.

Later in the afternoon, Zola and I went to the island’s lawn bowling club.  We had seen a sign on their football field  reading “Touch Footy at 4 pm Wednesday - All Welcome,” and we wanted to play.  Unfortunately, the only other people who showed up were kids about Zola’s age, and neither of them had a football.  There was a big lawn bowling tournament in progress, which Zola sat and watched with great interest for a while.  He remarked that it was the only sport he had ever seen people smoke while they played.  Then it started to pour with rain, so play was suspended, and Zola and I laughed as we pedaled back to Arajilla.

THE TURTLE IS ON THE LEFT

After the rain stopped, we all went down to the beach before dinner.  Tallulah and I went out about 200 meters into the very still bay and shallow bay.  As we swam back, with her on my back, she shouted “Turtle!”  A greenback sea turtle, nearly as big as Tallulah herself, swam right up to us.  When we continued toward shore, the turtle followed with curiosity, occasionally poking its little reptilian head out of the water to breathe.  Both kids thought this was cool.  As the turtle swam with us, a huge rainbow appeared over the mountains to the north of the beach.

Lord Howe Island has been great.  It is definitely quirky, but well worth the visit.  All of us have really enjoyed the hiking and the snorkeling and riding around on the lodge’s bikes.  This is a special and unspoilt place.  

We fly back to Sydney early tomorrow afternoon.

HALFWAY DOWN MOUNT GOWER

Greetings from Lord Howe Island!

This morning, India and I got up early and left the kids with a sitter from the hotel.  At 7 o’clock, we met our guide for the day, Dean Hiscox.  Under cloudy skies we started the 10-kilometer trek up Mount Gower, the 875-meter peak that towers over the west end of Lord Howe Island.  It turned out to be one of the great adventures of our trip thus far.

Dean offers group climbs up Mount Gower a few times each week, but each is scheduled to take 8-9 hours.  He told us that the group climbs attract participants of all fitness levels, which means a bit of waiting around.  We organized a private trip in the mistaken (and hubristic) belief that we would run up and down the mountain, and be back at the hotel within 3-4 hours max.

The hike started with a 200-meter scramble over big volcanic rocks on the beach.  The sheer cliff face of the mountain loomed above us in the mist.  Using safety ropes, we climbed 80 meters more or less straight up, and then walked along a narrow grassy ledge, with the waves crashing beneath us.  Dean listened quietly to India’s and my tough talk about our experiences hiking in South Africa, and Patagonia, and Tasmania (most recently).

For the next hour, we climbed gradually through dense rain forest.  Waterfalls splashed around us, and we crossed rushing streams.  The vegetation was soaked from last night’s rain, and soon we were too.

Before he started guiding, Dean was the forest ranger on Lord Howe Island for 16 years.  His knowledge of the mountain’s trees and bird life was staggering. One of Dean’s signature accomplishments as the ranger was to hunt down every single feral goat and pig on the island, helping to return the ecosystem to its natural “pre-mammalian” balance.

Finally, we broke out of the dense jungle about 500 meters above the ocean.  The clouds parted momentarily, and we could see down steep slopes on both sides to the water.  Dean pointed to a ridge, leading toward the summit, and said, “From here we start the steep part of the climb.”  I had already been struggling to keep up with Dean and India.  As we started climbing near-vertical pitches, pulling ourselves up hand over hand on the safety ropes, I fell far behind them.  I found it tough going, and many times I just trudged along in slow, tiny steps.

ONE OF THE STEEP SECTIONS

Nearly an hour later, we pulled ourselves up a final long pitch, and Dean said, “Congratulations, you are at the top.”  We were in a “mist forest” of tall grasses and densely clustered palm trees.  

As I struggled to catch my breath, and looked at my palms rubbed raw from the safety ropes, I said to Dean, “I have been absolutely humbled by Mount Gower.  I will never again make any claims to fitness or climbing expertise.”  Again, Dean just listened quietly, without a hint of an “I told you so.”  He even tried to make me feel better by saying, “This is quite a workout for me too, getting up here in 2 hours.”  Neither he nor India seemed very fatigued, though.

As we walked across the dense vegetation on the summit to a view point, Dean told us that last night’s rain would bring out the leeches.  Sure enough, all three of us found several small bloodsuckers on our legs almost immediately.  This was an unpleasant first for me.

By this time, the summit was completely covered in cloud, so getting to the viewing point was a bit anti-climactic.  I mentioned to India and Dean that I was “as wet as if I had jumped into a pond.  I couldn’t actually be any wetter.”   Just then, of course, it started to pour with rain, proving me wrong.  India went to the edge and yelled, “Kim Fennell!!!” in honor of her friend who is recovering from a kidney-pancreas transplant.  Dean dug his “summit book” out of a waterproof bag, and gave it to India to sign.  She scribbled a few words, and we started back down.

For most of the descent, we faced toward the mountain and sort of rappelled down, using the safety ropes to traverse the slippery rock faces.  We got incredibly dirty, banging into the rocks and slipping on roots and mud.  The ropes have been in place for about 20 years, and I honestly don’t know how anyone made it up or down without them.

As we descended, the rain stopped, and the clouds lifted.  We had a spectacular view of both sides of the island 2,000 feet below us: the calm, light-blue lagoon and sandy beaches to our left, and the rocky cliffs and black, crashing surf to our right.  It was very dramatic and beautiful.

700 METERS UP

It took us two and a half hours to get down, because we were pretty cautious, I guess.  Dean turned out to be great company: he, India and I had an interesting discussion about race relations in Australia, the socioeconomy of Lord Howe Island, and his experiences growing up in Australia and the Solomon Islands.  I think he and India had an equally interesting conversation on the way up, but I had been too far behind them to hear it or participate. 

It was a great hike.

INDIA AND DEAN ON THE ROPE LINE

Zola and Tallulah were not at the lodge when we got back.  Samantha, the young New Zealander who was watching them, had led an expedition to Ned’s beach to make sand castles and feed the fish.  The kids walked in about an hour after we returned, a little sunburnt, but very happy, and filled with exciting stories about Sam the Wonderful.  We were glad to have a a little time to shower and change.  India pulled three blood-filled leeches off of her body, one of which we saved in a glass for Zola to look at.

Sam is one of four young women who were high-school friends in New Zealand, and who seem to run everything at our lodge, Arajilla.  All four of them are amazingly competent, energetic, and friendly.  They have really made our stay at Arajilla special.

In the late afternoon, we took a “Glass-Bottom Four Stop Snorkel Tour” with our new friend, Dean.  Unlike our snorkeling trip with Anthony, earlier in the week, we went to the north end of the lagoon, in the shadow of Mount Gower.  I looked at its mist-shrouded cliffs with great respect.

The snorkeling was amazing.  Truly fantastic.  Tallulah (the littlest snorkeler) swam with me gamely for about 20 minutes at the first site, but then started really having trouble with her mask.  Dean handed us an ingeniously modified boogie board, with a big plastic window in it.  Tallulah floated around happily from then on, looking down gleefully at the fish and the coral.

The second dive site was on a reef where people have been feeding fish for many years.  The variety and number of fish was just unbelievable.  My favorite was called a “multi-spotted sweet lips.”  Zola was excited to see a group of big, ugly blue fish called doubleheaders (they have very pronounced foreheads, used to crush sea urchins) and even more excited to see a few Galapagos sharks cruising around malevolently.  Dean had warned us we would see them, and made sure we knew they were harmless.  It was still a little disconcerting to see these guys swimming near India and the kids. 

The last site was the most amazing.  We saw a nasty-looking moray eel poking out of the coral about 3 meters down, his toothy mouth biting at us impotently as we swam overhead.  We also saw the wildly poisonous lion fish (or butterfly cod) sitting placidly on the sand next to the base of the reef.  The old dangerous-animal expression “they are more afraid of you than you are of them” doesn’t seem to apply to these fish.

All of us really enjoyed the snorkeling, but it is tiring.  Before dinner, India was contemplating a run, while I was contemplating a nap.  Now everyone is watching a movie and getting ready for an early bed time.  What a day!

SNORKEL BABES

Greetings from Lord Howe Island!  We are roughly 600 kilometers northeast of Sydney, on a small volcanic rock in the Pacific Ocean.  Actually, we are told that LHI is seven volcanic peaks connected by sand dunes.  This seems like a lot of peaks, given that the island is so tiny; only 11 kilometers long and 1-2 kilometers wide.

Landing on Lord Howe Island was wild.  The turboprop descended into nothing but ocean for a long time, then we threaded the needle between two steep green mountains, and then landed on a runway on the only flat, grassy spot on the island.  The beach was about 10 meters from the port wingtip.

Lord Howe Island feels and looks as remote as it is:  kind of like Gilligan’s Island meets South Pacific with the emerald hills of Ireland and no betel nuts (as far as I can tell).  The beaches are all very beautiful white sand or black volcanic rock, and the shore line is protected by coral reefs.  There are palm trees along the beaches, and dense rain forests in the interior.  There are lots of dirt paths leading to hidden coves or single-story homes in the forest.  A few cows wandering around heightens the rural feel.  LHI is almost aggressively undeveloped and non-commercial.

Interestingly, as in New Zealand, there are no indigenous mammals here.  When the British first landed, in 1788, there were only birds, fish, and a few reptiles.

Except for birdsong and the very occasional car, it is quiet.  LHI is a World Heritage Site, which seems justifiable, in case anyone asks our opinion. 

LHI has only 350 residents, and the island council has limited the number of paying guests to 400 on any given night.  To stay out of the winter wind and spray, all of the lodges or residences have been built away from the water.  None of the buildings even have very good views.  We are staying at a small retreat called Arajilla (www.arajilla.com.au), where all 12 of the bungalows are hidden in the dense rain forest, about 30 meters from the beach.  Think “Mosquito Coast” rather than “From Here to Eternity.”

There are few cars, and only one main paved road.  Aside from the post office and two cafes, the island’s limited commerce (boat tours, fishing charters, surf-board rentals) is conducted from a half-dozen corrugated shacks on the beach front.  Most people seem to get around on bicycles, which are called “push bikes” for some unknown island reason.  Everyone wears helmets on the push-bikes, because LHI’s lone police officer enforces the helmet law very aggressively.  There is a primary school: we saw tan, barefoot children in their uniforms heading home this afternoon.

The island receives supplies every other week from a small freighter, which had just docked near the airstrip when we arrived.  Someone told us that the following day’s meals are always the best, but to be careful on the day that the freighter docks, because the restaurants “have to get rid of all their old stuff.”

The island’s small size, remoteness and affluence create a culture of trust-based innocence.  The bicycles are all left unlocked,  and we were not even given a key to our bungalow.  When we buy things, merchants say, “It’s OK if you don’t have any money. Just come back and pay me later.”  One of the beaches even has an honor system  (a cash box, like a roadside farm stall) for renting snorkeling equipment, wet suits and bodyboards.  Never seen that before.

After we got settled in yesterday morning, Zola and I walked down through the rainforest path and onto the beach.  We found two huge green sea turtles in the shallow water, and swam around with them for a while.  Amazing.  After lunch, we went on a “2 Snorkel Stop Glass-Bottom-Boat Cruise.”  The boat’s owner was a young and very friendly guy named Anthony.  He mentioned that his family had been on Lord Howe Island since 1853.  The ads for all of the tourist activities seem to emphasize how many generations the guide’s family has lived on the Island.  

Anthony’s ancestor moved here from the U.S., which leads me to speculate that he might have been in trouble with the law.  This would have been a good place to hide.  Anthony told us that LHI was a great place to grow up - the island is danger-free (no predators or snakes or “kidnappings and stuff”) - so kids can run wild and free.   That is, until they turn 12 and get sent to the mainland for boarding school.  Anthony stayed in Sydney for university and for a few years of work before moving home to LHI.  He is the only one of his primary-school classmates who has moved back.

The snorkeling trip was fun.  Both kids were wide-eyed when they saw colorful fish from the glass-bottom boat, as we cruised out over coral formations in the big lagoon on the island’s north side.  

At the first snorkeling site, Zola and I went in, and India and Tallulah stayed on the boat with Anthony.  We swam about 200 meters from the boat, into the breaking waves on the reef.  We saw an incredible amount of beautiful coral (called “blue staghorn” as I found out) and loads of fish.  Zola was brave and delighted, shrieking and grabbing me every time he saw an interesting fish.  India said she could hear him, even through his snorkel, from about 100 meters away.

THE MATE WAS MIGHTY SAILOR MAN

After about 40 minutes, we got back in the boat, and motored to the second snorkeling site.  India and Zola went in the water.  Then Tallulah, the littlest snorkeler, decided that she wanted to try as well.  Wearing a wetsuit one size too big, and clutching a pool noodle for extra buoyancy, she stayed in the water for about half an hour.  She kept her face in, and giggled as she looked at the fish.   A brave little girl!

We motored around looking for turtles for a while in the turquoise bay, and then Anthony took us back to shore.  It was the perfect amount of time on the water.  

From the cruise, we rode our bikes over to Ned’s Beach, where people feed bread crumbs to the fish every afternoon.  We got in the shallow water, and big fish were all around us.  Most were some type of blue fish, about 30-40 centimeters long, but there were also kingfish (looking a lot like yellowtail) which were a meter or more.   Much bigger than Tallulah.

After we got over the creepiness factor (fish brushing against our legs), it was fun to look at them.  A kind grandmother gave us some bread, and we set off multiple feeding frenzies.  Both kids thought this was just great.

Yesterday, the weather was perfect.  Today it turned overcast and windy, so we spent the morning watching movies and waiting for the rain.  Arajilla has a selection of 88 DVDs, and the kids picked “E.T.” and “Splash,” both classics.  Tallulah cried when she thought E.T. was dead, and spent a lot of the afternoon telling us “Be Good!” and calling Zola “Ell-ee-utt.”  

We went for a bike ride in the late afternoon, all the way down to the north end of the island.  We got off of the bikes, and walked for about a kilometer on a dirt track next to the ocean to the base of Mount Gower, the highest point on the island.  At this point, the long-threatened rain started to come down in buckets.  We all ran back to the bikes, laughing and shouting, then pedaled furiously back to our side of the island.  Since we were already wet, we went down to feed the fish at Ned’s Beach again.   

Despite the rain, we were all in good humor by the time we got back to Arajilla.   After hot showers we went to dinner.  In a rare move, Tallulah fell asleep at the table.  Now India, Zola, and I are huddled on the sofa.  A nice ending to a damp day in the Pacific.

LORD HOWE ISLAND

Good morning, and greetings from Sydney. It is 5:30 on Sunday morning, and we are headed to the airport, en route to Lord Howe Island. We have had a fun and eventful 13 hours back in the big city.

Our flight from Ayers Rock landed at about 5 o’clock yesterday afternoon. The highlight of the flight was watching “Four Holidays” (formerly “Four Christmases”) together on the plane. Except for the scene where Vince Vaughn tells his nephews that there is no Santa, it was great for kids in the sanitized airplane version. We have some explaining, backtracking, and reassuring to do with Zola on the whole “no Santa” thing.

We stayed at a hotel called Blue, which is a recently converted wool warehouse in the Wollomooloo district, right downtown. Blue is managed by the Taj Group, out of India, and has the best service of any Australian hotel we have stayed in.  (Kangaroo Island and Angorichina were better, but don’t really count as hotels).  The building sits on a pier, jutting out into Sydney Harbor.  Russell Crowe owns the best apartment in the warehouse (as at least a dozen people have told us).  The hotel and its bars are a bit of a scene, and on Saturday night they were packed with beautifully dressed, tanned, fit Sydneysiders.  When we were checking out this morning, there was a stream of hotel guests coming back in -wobbly legged and dazed- after a long night of fun.  Sydney is living up to its reputation.

In the early evening, I went for an iconic Sydney run: through the botanical gardens, along the harborfront, up the steps of the Sydney Opera House, and out to the base of the harbor bridge.  I passed at least a dozen engagement parties, bachelor parties and hen parties, mostly still in the “taking pictures” part of the evening.  There was a long line of cabs and limousines going into the Opera House, so there must have been a 7:00 performance of something.  The weather was perfect, and the streets and parks were thronged with people.  Sydney has high quality of life.

We met a friend from South Africa, and her new husband, for dinner at a Buddhist restaurant.  As we walked in, Tallulah sniffed the incense in the air, and said, “It smells like the Hindu gods.”  Perceptive child.  It was great to see Rosemary, who was one of India’s closest Cape Town friends and colleagues for years.  It is too bad that she left South Africa, but she seems to have a wonderful husband and  to be happy in Sydney. What’s not to like?  The Buddhist food was surprisingly good: even the kids went bak for seconds.

We feel like there is a lot for us to see and do in Sydney (I almost typed Cape Town).  We will be on Lord Howe Island for about four days, and then back here for a few days before we leave for New Zealand.  Both kids have been pleading with us in the taxi to cancel the flight and just stay put for a few days.  Maybe they are just tired from too many early mornings.

Lord Howe Island is usually described as “the most beautiful island in the Pacific,” which is a pretty big claim.  It is about 600 kilometers east of the Australian mainland, and is very small (11 kilometers long). Only 350 people live on the island, and only 400 guests (a strict limit) are allowed to stay each night.  We are planning to snorkel and scuba dive, to hike, and maybe to surf.  It will be different from anything we have seen to date on the trip, and should be fun.