Change In Plans

Greetings from Sydney! I have completed the first air leg (Wellington - Sydney) of the long trip that will take me from Abel Tasman National Park in New Zealand to the Hotel Eden in Chamonix, France. More Old Testament references than I had realized. p>

This is the first time that I have been away from India and the kids for more than a few hours since July of last year. It is definitely the first time I have traveled alone since then.

Actually, with the exception of my week-long trip to Turkey in July, we have all been together 24/7 pretty much since late May 2008.

It feels very strange to be traveling alone, and with essentially no luggage. I keep looking around for more things to carry. As I read a book on the flight from Wellington, I was half expecting to be interrupted by a question about World War II, or to look at a picture of a hairy-nosed wombat.

It feels strange to go to the bathroom without accompanying a cheerful small person, usually Tallulah.

As we were landing, the flaps were positioned funny, and the whole plane vibrated loudly for 90 seconds. I missed holding India’s hand and telling her, unhelpfully, that it was absolutely normal, and nothing to worry about.

The irony, of course, is that I used to travel like this - in lowered-head, hand-luggage-only, Economist-reading, silent isolation- every week of my working life. The new normal is always only a few repeated experiences away

The flight from Sydney to London, via Bangkok, is boarding in a few minutes. It is a really, really long way. Initially, I had been frustrated by having to backtrack from London to Geneva, but that is a rounding error in the overall scheme of these vast distances.

News flash: traveler discovers that world is big.

I may not feel so chipper on the other end. In the meantime, I am thinking about all of the fun we have had, traveling as a family for the last year. I miss them.

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.

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.”

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.

SUNSET DINNER AT ULURU

Greetings from Uluru!

After the hike yesterday, we had a nice afternoon. Zola got his Pokemon book - a 212-page “first annual” compilation of all facts relating to the world of Pokemon. After an hour, he said, “I thought I knew everything about Pokemon, but I don’t know anything. This is awesome!” Tallulah got the wooden echidna puzzle (an echidna is like an Australian porcupine, but cuddlier). She assembled the puzzle 20 times or so, before returning her attention to her Little Pet Shop.

In the evening, we bent a “no kids under 10 rule” a little, and signed up for an outdoor dinner in the desert. We had iconic sunset views of Uluru and of Kata Tjuta as we drank champagne on a sand dune. Once the sun set, even the flies went away.

For dinner, we seated ourselves at a table of people who seemed least likely to mind that we had kids. India made friends with a young interior designer from Omaha. The two of them swapped ideas on boutique hotels, post-modern architecture, and clean lines for two hours.

The rest of the people at our table were awesome: travelers from Australia and all over the world. We had a swirling discussion about economic development, India (the place), the nature of corruption, the human condition, the appropriate role of religion in society. It was my idea of a wonderful dinner-party conversation.

Late in the evening, the staff turned out all of the lights, and we marveled at the night sky. They had an astronomer with a bright flashlight point out the constellations and planets. It was magical.

Both kids fell asleep at the table, and had to be rolled into bed when after the bus ride back to the hotel. It was a very nice end to our day at Uluru.

We are packing now, and heading to the airport in an hour. Tallulah and I are hoping to go for a swim once Zola finishes his on-line math lesson.

Overall, I don’t think we would recommend the Uluru trip to another family, at least not during the Australian summer. Apparently there are no flies in the winter months.

Flies notwithstanding, a number of other factors made this a relatively low value-for-money experience:

• The extortionate prices of the hotel group that has a monopoly on accommodation, transport, and attractions (eg, $45 for a 10-minute shuttle bus ride out to the rock),
• The multiple ant infestations in our hotel room, as well as in the restaurants, and in other public spaces
• Complete lack of control over our time and movement, driven by assembly-line procesing of the tourist hordes. There are no taxis, and practically no one drives here.  Anyone who has been to Disney World knows exactly what I mean
• Basically competent, but impersonal and inflexible service at the hotels, restaurants, attractions, etc.  See “Disney World” comment above.

We were very spoiled by our experiences on Kangaroo Island and at Angorichina Station.  That said, the numbers of people coming to Uluru has declined year after year during the last decade.  I don’t think we are the only people to come away thinking it wasn’t so great.  Maybe I am just not in touch with my spiritual side, and I never felt the magic.

We booked the Uluru part of our Australia trip at my insistence, and despite India’s significant reservations. Smart woman, good travel instincts.  Live and learn.

More adventure awaits: Sydney, Lord Howe Island, New Zealand.  Onward.

Greetings from Uluru, formerly known as Ayers Rock, in the hot heart of the Australian Outback.

This morning we did a guided sunrise walk around the base of Uluru.  Climbing on the rock itself is technically legal, but considered very insensitive to Aboriginal beliefs.  So the done thing is to walk around the base; about 11 kilometers on a well trodden footpath.

Seeing the colors of the rock change at sunrise is quite spectacular, and that alone may be worth the trip.  That said, this morning’s walk was a character-building experience of the first order.

We had gotten off to a good start.  I had a conference call scheduled for 4:30 am, local time.  The call was canceled at the last minute, and we all got to sleep in until about 5:15.  The cancellation also meant that I wasn’t trying to juggle a phone and sound professional while carrying Tallulah and finding Zola’s shoes.  

When our group of 13 stepped off  the bus, at the base of the rock, the weather was relatively cool (about 28 degrees, or 83 Fahrenheit), and a strong breeze was blowing.  The breeze kept the flies off.  We hoisted Tallulah onto my shoulders, and set off on the path.  Immediately, the breeze died and the character building began.  

Rather than whining (explicitly) about the experience, I thought it would be better to count our blessings, and enumerate the ways that the walk could have been worse.  For example, it would have been worse if:

The flies had been biting insects - they appear to be just common small houseflies.  Slow, and pretty easy to swat, and non-biting.  There were just a lot of them -a Biblical amount of them- and they seek moisture.  They congregate, disgustingly, around the eyes, lips and nostrils.

We had lost all four of the mesh-net hats, instead of two of them - the little mesh-net hats work pretty well in keeping the flies off the skin.  Fortunately at least Tallulah and Zola had the benefit of them.  We have no idea how the other two family mesh-nets got lost between last night and this morning.

The ranger’s fly repellent cream had been toxic instead of just ineffective- we slathered this on liberally when he saw that India and I were covered in flies.  It was irritating, particularly when sweat dripped it into my eyes, and it was completely ineffective, but it does not appear to have any harmful physical effects

There had been more flies - actually, I don’t think there could have been more.  There is something missing in the Uluru ecosystem -birds, or bats, or frogs- that should be keeping the fly population.  None of these predators survive here, so the lack of moisture is the only check.  After heavy rains in November and December, the population is at record levels.

You are probably gathering that there were a lot of flies on the Uluru base walk.  And there were.  The hike could also have been worse if:

Our guide had stretched the 2.5 hour walk into 6 hours  - He only stretched it to 5.5 hours.  Between frequent (and very long-winded) stops to tell us about Aboriginal myth and legend, and a leisurely, fly-covered Continental breakfast from our backpacks, we were out there for a long time.  Dozens of other groups passed us on the trail.  It was difficult to read the other people in our group, so I didn’t feel comfortable asking, quietly, if we could race around the path and have the interpretive discussion in the bus.

It had gotten really hot - Once the sun came up, the temperature soared from about 28 degrees to about 40 (or just over 100 Fahrenheit).  As they say, though, it is a dry heat.  Also, apparently, it gets much hotter sometimes, even in the early mornings. 

Both kids weren’t happy playing in the dirt - As the guide’s soliloquies got longer and weirder, Zola and Tallulah just dropped to the ground and pretended they were at the beach.  The red sand caked on their arms and legs, adhered by sunscreen and bug repellent.  Someone remarked that they looked as though they had been at the spray-tanning booth.  They were happy, though.

Any of us had had a major sense-of-humor failure - India and I both expressed some frustration early on, but agreed to revel in the absurdity of the situation.  To keep the kids happy and upbeat, we used the old-fashioned parenting technique of bribery.  The promise of a coveted Pokemon book for Zola, and a new echidna puzzle for Lu was enough to maintain reasonably high morale for the duration.  Actually, both kids were total troopers.  It would have been much worse iof they hadn’t been.

Having traveled for so many months, we have learned when to pull the ripcord on a bad tour.  About 9 kilometers, and 4 hours, into the hike, India and I decided to take control over our destinies a little.  We told the guide that the kids were melting.  Rather than finish the walk with the group (another 90 minutes for 2 kilometers!), we would walk 1.5 kilometers to the Cultural Center, and wait for them there.  He agreed, grudgingly, to pick us up in the parking lot.  

20 very hot minutes later we were drinking cold water and looking at Aboriginal art, in an air-conditioned and fly-free gallery.  To a certain extent we felt badly about abandoning the walk and the group.  Back at the hotel, we spoke to two Scottish couples who had stayed with the guide for the duration.  They said, “The moment you left, we all realized that we should have done the same thing.  Glory, that man could talk!”

We are glad that we did the Uluru walk, and we are proud of how our kids handled it.  We are also glad to have seen the cultural center, trying to figure out some more about the baffling Aboriginal culture.

Tomorrow we fly back to Sydney for a night, and then off to more adventures in Australia.

Greetings from Uluru (formerly known as Ayer’s Rock), in the heart of Australia.  We left Di and Ian down at the sheep station just after dawn, and flew up here early, in a semi-successful attempt to avoid turbulence.

The flight was quite beautiful.  The landscape was so hot, dry and harsh that all of us were happy (with the possible exception of India, during the bumps) to be cruising over it at 8,500 feet and not driving through it.  Australia is big.

Last night, Ian put “Top Gun” on for Zola to watch while the adults were having dinner. To be honest, Ian and I both excused ourselves several times during the meal, “to make sure Zola was doing OK.”

Despite a heavy dose of fighter-pilot culture, Zola made no machine-gun or missile noises in the plane with Felicity this morning, Maybe if she had done a few power dives or barrel rolls or something.

We flew over a few interesting places:

• Roxby Downs, where uranium is mined.  Average age of residents is 28, and the average income is about $275k.  Men move there for about five years, make money, and get out.
• Lake Torrens, a huge (6,000 square kilometer) lake that has had water in it only once in the last 150 years.  You would think they would have to come up with a new name for it.
• Anna Creek Cattle Station, the largest cattle ranch in the world.  It is larger than Israel.  Because of the drought, it is no longer possible to keep cattle there.  In November the last head were sold, and they have more or less shut down.  It sounds as though the owner has had some personal problems as well

We refueled in Coober Pedi, the Opal Capital of the World.  Most of the opal mines appear as small (10-foot diameter) holes in the earth, with piles of white sand next to them.  From 8,000 feet, the sand piles look like little pimples against the red desert floor.  As parents, India and I immediately worried about kids falling down the open holes, which are scattered everywhere across the landscape.  Probably not a lot of kids running around in the desert.

Coober Pedi is also famous as Australia’s “underground town,” where a lot of the buildings were built subterranean, to escape the heat.  Unfortunately, we didn’t have time to explore town.  Our objective was to be at Uluru before the turbulence really got bad, so no dillydallying.

While we were at Coober Pedi airport, a Royal Australian Flying Doctors plane came in and parked next to us. We expected to see the door spring open, and a white-coated doctor jump to the tarmac, bag in hand. It turned out that they were only refuelling as well: no Medevac from Coober Pedi today. This service is uniquely and deeply Australian, as central to the culture as kangaroos, billabongs, and Australian (ie, “no”) Rules Football.

We crossed into Northern Territory state, and landed just before noon.  We had an amazing fly by of Ayer’s Rock and the Olgas (a big neighboring rock formation) before we landed.  It will be fun to explore them tomorrow.

At the airport, and at the hotel, Zola and I laughed when we saw many of the guests wearing mesh screens over their faces.  They looked like confused beekeepers.  Once we realized how unbelievably bad the flies are, we ran to buy mesh screens for all four of us.  The flies don’t seem to bite, but they seek moisture from your eyes, mouth and nose.  I haven’t taken mine off since 2 o’clock this afternoon.  Also, it is very hot: 45 degrees Celsius in the late afternoon.  Local kids had the day off from school, so I think this heat is unusual.

We ran into Sir Richard Branson, of all people, at the airport.  He was sweaty, but did not have a fly-protecting mesh over his face.  Maybe the flies don’t bother him. 

We were wildly spoiled by the fantastic time we had at Kangaroo Island, and then with Di and Ian. Brutally hot, covered in flies, we are not feeling the magic here at Uluru yet.  We will suspend judgment until we really have a chance to look around tomorrow.