Australia (II)

Richard W. Frank

Australia (II)

Sydney was a nice break from the road and gave me an opportunity to meet up with some good friends again. We were also able to see David Helfgott give a brilliant recital at the Town Hall. Did some tramping in the Blue Mountains and then headed up the East Coast. Imagine Spring break in Mazatlan and spread it over a month and you have an idea of what it was like. I sheared a sheep in the outback, tried to surf in Byron Bay, learned how to give a raspberry into a didge for minutes on end, tried to avoid getting into fights with the hostile locals of the most out of it outback town of Bingara, hung out in the myriad islands off the coast, and dove the Great Barrier Reef in Cairns. I made some awesome new friends and have some new addresses of couches to crash on.

Whew!!

It was a sense of regret mingled with relief that I boarded a plane to the Red Centre. I arrived in Alice Springs one of the most bleak and isolated places I have ever seen. Went on a mission to Uluru (Ayers Rock) and slept in a swag under a billion stars. And no...a dingo did not steal my baby. Woke up at an uncivilized hour and dragged my way up to the top to watch the sun rise spectacularly over the surrounding desert in a thousand red hues. Another dream realized!

I landed solidly back in the tropics upon exiting the Ansett flight in Darwin. The humidity and heat are ever-present forces that I have come to terms with. Shoes are seldom used as are most clothing. One has to slow down to the pace and lounge and get used to being perpetually moist. I leave early tomorrow for a quick trip to Kakadu Park before flying on Wednesday afternoon. There are a million little things to think of before I leave: travelers checks, malaria pills, Aussie Pepto, and sun block to buy, last minute movies to see, etc. I really enjoyed getting your poste restante mail and got all my Christmas cards in a bunch in Cairns. Wahoo!!

Back to World Trip #1 Back to Australia (I)

Nikki and I in Melbourne when I was in my unfortunate tucked-in white shirt phase

Episode 5: The Reef, the Rock, The Rainforest, & the Recovery

The backspace key is sure getting a workout as I vainly try to think of a pithy way of summing up the last seven weeks in particular and the last six months in general. I mean, I have been wandering with a purpose all over hill and dale in Australia and New Zealand for the last six months without spending one hour in gainful employment; I have spent every waking hour indulging in the ego—the various whims and dreams that have occupied the last 182 days some I did not even know about until confronted with them. You would think I would have found some grand way of summing up, a Cliff Notes of sorts for my trip. Instead I am focusing on next Wednesday the 8th when an hour's flight takes me from the first world to the third. A Technicolor dream of old villagers in batik sarongs, wooden boats floating down jungle streams, lying on endless tropical beaches sipping tuak, the bustling markets smelling of clove cigarettes and dead animals straight from my Indonesia guidebooks fills me with a sense of beginning again, starting over. The last seven weeks have been a blissful, busy, at times overwhelming experience. The last time I wrote in Melbourne seems a life time and thousands of kilometers away. What follows is a brief and hopelessly inadequate synopsis of what I have been up and down to (edited ever so slightly since I have a rather wide audience with disparate views on different things). But to begin:

Darwin will undoubtedly be the last time I will be able to get to a phone or e-mail before I get to Bali. So "Thanks!" y'all for keeping in touch and keeping me laughing-it means a lot on the road when you answer the same questions hundreds of times (where are you from? where are you going?, etc). Now I must be off to perfect my tan and my Swedish pickup lines. It's hell on the road ;) I mean hey, I am going to miss the last episode of Seinfeld. It's rough.

Melbourne was by far my favorite town in Australia. This bias might have something to do with the excellent tour guides I had (Jennie, Nikki, and Duncan you guys are stars!!). The city was a buzz of gardens, museums, theater, movies, and most importantly footy! I was taken to my first Aussie rules football match at the same park where I saw U2. We went diving (41 meters and my first experience of Nitrogen Narcosis—whoopee!!) and cruised in Jen's MG to a bit of Victoria's wine country. It was with great difficulty that I set off north to avoid the madness of the Grand Prix. Stopped off in the mountains to climb the lowest of the Seven Summits-Mt Kosciusko at 2,228m had a wind chill of -19C and made me work for it-cursing all the way for wearing shorts. We made it into Canberra for their annual festival replete with fireworks overlooking the Parliament house.

Freezing atop Mt. Kosciusko