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australia Report 17 Top End We just arrived, were sitting in Shenanagans bar having our first glass of Australian wine when a guy standing at the bar fell over. Immediately three bouncers rushed over, took him outside together with another guy and they started to spar in the street. We asked the server at our table if this sort of thing happened often and she replied "oh no....well no not this early" Welcome to Darwin, Northern Territory, Australia, locally known as Top End. Actually it is an absolutally delightful little city, a true garrison town with many of the qualities of Vancouver. It is a take off point into the bush, Arnhem Land and a host of National parks of which Kakadu is the largest, a world heritage site. We debated hard as to whether we would visit the parks but elected to spend our time in the city. Kakadu, it appears is owned by aboriginal people as a landclaim settlement [yes, it is happenning here as well] big fees to get in and quite a production to get there, means a tour and being rainy season travel is a bit tough. Get the feeling that bush means effort. The city is cared for, lots of parks, every piece of space is maintained [apparently the mayor is the ex parks dept manager, shades of Montreal] bike paths and many museums where we spent a lot of time discovering that Darwin was bombed in the 2nd WW with 240 odd killed and 300 injured and endured Cyclone Tracy in the 70s. Because of the war experience where the Aussies were caught off guard and fearing an invasion put a lot of army, navy and airforce types up here which meant bases, and housing which was reminiscent for me of CMHC housing. At this time there was no overland connection of any cosequence south and one gets the feeling that that was when Darwin emerged from being just a frontier town. All of this was blown away in the cyclone on Christmas Day in the late 70s. The noise of corrugated iron sheets being blown over the ground at 250 kph was described as terrifying. Folks were evacuated until they could get some sense of normalcy. This meant more mass housing based on more standard plans. What is of interest to me is that in the 30s [I think] a scottish architect by the name of Burnett who was raised in China, Malaya and India was commissioned to design some housing in Darwin and based them on hill station housing for the tropics. There are still a number left which are now National Trust places. They are usually built off the ground by one storey with corrugated asbestos roofs, asbestos louvered walls and screened windows. Very airy to live in and away from the bugs. What is of interest is that these houses became generic for what was to follow. The suburbs here have variants of the Burnett house all surrounded by the most dense of tropical vegetation. So Darwin architecture is a response to the climate, sheet roofing material, wide eaves, sunshades over windows, and parking under buildings including the shopping centres or expansive sail awnings to keep cars cool. All tends to be colourful. Of course they have had lots of opportunity to get it right with cyclones and wars. We are now hostel members, spent the last two nights in the YHA which cuts our sleeping cost by half. Very enjoyable it was too, the place is set up for travellers and the word hostel does not carry with it the stigma that it does in North America. We go on to Perth today and after two days in the hostel there [all booked ahead by the Darwin hostel] we have booked a camper van to try that. Gives us mobility, can cook lamb and drink wine without paying corkage. Looking forward to it and Mary, who now has a new swim costume is anticipating more beach swimming. My stay in Darwin has been spent at three trips to the doctor to fix up "swimmers ear" a common complaint of the tropics I am assured. I will be swimming with caution. P.S. the evening before we left Darwin we had dinner with some friends we had met in Lombok. Had the chance to see at first hand a Darwin house post cyclone. Interesting place, one of those inside outside places but tied to the ground with steel ties, louvred windows and of course, a pool. Even had a barbie with a few snags, steak and a stubby from the eskie. A very enjoyable evening. At the air port the next day saw many many U.N. soldiers and police from all over the world with numerous flights to Dili in East Timor. This accounted for the big high speed ferry painted grey in the harbour and the U.N. office in town. The U.N. seems to be big business and is an extension of Darwins role of th e garrison town. Gary
Report 18 Adelaide I better start by letting you all know that we are still having a great time, no not longing for home. I know that I have not written as much as Gary, who has diligently been sending his emails to Mark, but I have been religiously writing my diary and when I return hope to be as famous as Frances Mayes or someone like that for my memoirs. I love Australia, or at least Darwin and Perth. Cannot think why we chose Canada when there is a city like Perth with an average of 8 hours of sunshine a day, miles of bike trails, recreation facilities better than we have seen, wineries nearby... so far seems great. We had a good time there, rented bikes (found out where my pelvic floor is) and explored the city from a non tourist point of view. We find Australia very expensive..... may have to come home early for that reason. We have resorted to staying in YHAs and cooking in their kitchens when we can. Paperback books are expensive too which disappoints me as I had intended to become an aauthority on Australian literatture when here. Instead I'm into the Lonely Planet and tour guides and the usual pot boilers in the YHA 'library'. Rented a mini camper out of Perth and went off happily playing house, to the Margaret River wine area.... (our first time cooking since Italy) wine costs on an average of 28-20 bucks a bottle, Australian wine costs the same here as at home. Taxes are high here too. The Jacobs Creek (winery) international bike race is on here in Adelaide this week, been oggling the bikes (and riders). I did buy a copy of Bill Brysons newest Australian book... something about Sunburnt Land (Austrralia has a different title) Well, its spot on with some of the observations... down to earth people in a stunning environment. It seems ages since we were in the third world (which was cheaper). Gary's 100 day cold has been promoted to the 200 day one as he hacks and coughs away. Perhaps its the early stages of Malaria.. or something even worse. So to those of you who were worried about us, sorry. I'll try to be a better correspondent from now on. Thank you for persevering and sending emails. I love them. We will be around here for a few days, will sup some Wolf Blass, Penfold, Coonewara and other familiar wines at the wineries, take off for Australia Day in Melbourne with some 'Explore' Rajisthan friends (happy 100th birthday - one nation one people) before trying 'Tassie'. Life is fun. Actually, each day you get up and know that there will be something special happening... I like it! Mary
Report 19 Perth We have just left the "Top End"and are now near Freo WA [thats Western Australia not Washington State] picked up our ute with roobar, a few tinnies for me and a stubby or two for Mary from the bottle shop, with some snags in the eskie for our first barbie in the reserve. I thought that it would be easier here to understand folks than in Asia because I spoke the same language, but .....with good all round weather here perhaps this is the new destination for me to learn the second language. Must say that Perth is quite a wonderful place, just like West Van except that the sun shines all day long throughout the year. This of course would mean that I could wear my shorts all year rather than having to get into longs from November to May or whenever. The other thing that reminds us of home are all of the BMWs and the Sloan Rangers except that the Japanese versions have exhaust pipes that extend to the top of the cab. I guess that the vehicles here are real recreation vehicles but I cant imagine travelling underwater in one of them. The Aussies do nothing by half it seems, if it needs to go in water then do it properly. But this is quite an extraordinary city not only because of its setting by the Swan river but because it seems so well organized. Mary and I rented bikes this past week and for three days cycled about 60 ks each day on designated bikeways. The first to the Swan valley wine area [had a great lunch cooked by a very accomplished young chef with a fine glass of chenin blanc] the second to Freemantle along the Swan river in the opposite direction and the third north of here to the Sunset Beaches. Recreation seems to be the name of the game cos on all three days we saw folks either playing cricket [boy do they take that seriously here, they even have practice nets in the parks and we even saw two games being played on the same pitch or it seemed like it. Lots of unmanly hugging and rubbing the ball in the crotch] or bowls [yes I know the grey hairs] sailing in races during the afternoons or wind surfing at high speed in big numbers of all ages. This was all in the middle of the day and the middle of the week. The city has a large park, a 1000 acres perhaps the size of Stanley Park if not larger. And folks seem to be pickniking or walking the dog or taking the kids out or whatever in the host of other open spaces at all times of the day. The transit system is well integrated over all of the region, buses, light rail transit, ferries and wonderful bike routes that makes me breath heavily in admiration. How do they do it when West Van Council has such a hard time in even acknowledging that money should be spent on "bikes" This seems to be a well managed city, about the same size of Van. If only they would speak in English it would be enough to have me thinking about moving [if they would have me, but our prowess at cycling might do the trick] We are staying at the hostel downtown in an area just on the northern edge of downtown known as Northbridge, not quite as commodious as Darwin but next to a restaurant area that just hums [activity that is] The US navy is in town with 5000 sailors at loose ends which might make a bit of difference but we were here before them and can attest to the fact that it is a pretty busy and interesting place. As you can tell I am impressed, it must be all of the trees and sun and so on. Have been going to the museums diligently, they seem to be so informative and give you a bit of an easy, quick leg up on understanding the place. Exhibits on the aboriginals of course including a section on the forced removal of kids of mixed relationships. The theory was that in a few generations the "black" would be bred out so that a white society would ensue. The First WW is also a big deal of course and also the migration story. At my speed of reading the stuff in the museums, Mary usually ends up reading her book or the paper in the garden outside whilst I plod along taking in every word. For our last three days here we rented a camper van. This was a little stressful having to sign off on a $5000 bond in addition to the insurance covered by our credit card. We reserved the smallest version of camper but when we arrived at the camper place discovered that our vehicle had not been returned. We were upgraded to a four berth version, the guy thought he was doing me a favour. All I could think of was the size of the vehicle, the fact that we could not see out of the rear window and were dependant upon side mirrors and of course that folks drive on the left here. My theory of cutting our costs by incorporating our bed, kitchen and wheels started to diminish somewhat. In any event we started off on our way to the Margaret River which is code for wine country, found a great site on a working farm about five hours from Perth, set ourselves up and started to cook our first meal since we left Cortona. Gosh it was great, with a bottle from the Olive Farm Winery. Then Mary said she thought that the lamb tasted a little strong which took the edge off it a little. The question was, does all Aussie lamb taste this way or was it, well you know. The next night after a hard day visiting the wineries we tried the "scotch fillet" steak that is and we agreed that was rather nice. The next day we visitted some beaches, lots of surf with Aussie youth having a good time, wandered around the country lanes and then back for another try at the lamb. It tasted the same as that from Saltspring Island so we have our answer. We drove back to Perth at that point kings of the highway code, got our bond back and readied ourselves for the trip to Adelade. We will see what awaits us there.
Report 20 Adelaide and Melbourne "Life is a cabernet".....saw that on a road sign in the Barossa Valley just outside of Adelaide, quite good I thought [how about you Derek] We arrived in Adelaide after a packed flight from Perth with a two and a half hour time difference, an equally high local temperature [average of 35 celcius] with a little less humidity. Checked in at the centreal YHA, a brand new building open about 3 weeks and went out for a walk to explore the city centre. Adelaide is a Victorian city with many of the buildings from that period still being used including an extrordinary shopping arcade that has been gussied up. Apparently when it was first built it had retail on the ground floor and each shop had its own stair up to a work space above, the sort of thing we planned at Granville Island but never got around to doing. These work spaces have now been converted to office or retail of course including some interesting design offices. However what is perhaps more interesting from a city planners point of view is the layout of the centre of the city. The commercial piece is located south of the Torrens River, with five parks, [memories of New Haven, Connetticut] all surrounded by a massive park belt which now contains a host of recreational spaces. On the north side of the Torrens River at a higher elevation is a residential area with some charming workers villas with cast iron tracery around wide balconies to give shade from the sun as well as more grand two storey houses also all surrounded by its own park belt. This gives the centre of the city a wonderful park setting. Adelaide is the home of Donald Bradman of cricket fame and the cricket ground with its immaculate field, stands and score board sits in the park area in the centre of the city. It is called the Oval and perhaps has as many memories as its namesake in Kensington. Brits of my age may recall that Bradman in his last test got a duck which resulted in his average test score of 99.7 runs, just short of a century. We did our usual trick of renting bikes for a day, cycled down the Torrens River to the sea, up to Port Adelaide the Perth equivalent of Freemantle and around the centre of the city of Adelaide. We also came across the dedicated bus track apparently copied from the East Germans which permits buses to travel at high speed out to the suburbs without the bus driver having to steer. A smart idea I think because when the bus leaves the track it reverts to its normal use on the city streets. Much more flexible than trains. As you can tell Aussie is a bit of town planning primer for me. Our third day we went on a Barossa Valley wine tour which included Penfolds and Wolf Blass. I associate both exclusively with reds, particularly shiraz but discovered that old man Blass initially produced whites as all Germans usually do including bubbly and only learned to produce reds much later. The area around Adelaide has produced wine for a long time with other wine areas, the Clare Valley and Coonawarra as well as some stone fruit as they call it here and grain, and market gardens. Quite incredible since this is the driest state in Aussie, apparently 12 inches of rain a year in the wine area. It was interesting to compare the Barossa Valley with the Margaret River in Western Australia where all of the wineries had excellent restaurants which does not seem to be the case here where more effort is spent on turning wine into port or distilling it to make spirits. It is perhaps due to the scale of the wineries which seem to be getting bigger as major companies are expanding and expanding. Even Blass is now a public company with Fosters the lager company now holding the major number of shares. On our way out to the Barossa valley we passed Elizabeth, a new town built in the 50s to accomodate immigrants who were encouraged into the area essentially to populate the place. Very modest housing, another reminder of standard CMHC houses and similarities with Canada. We were able to get more information on migration through an excellent piece in the museum. Much that we liked Adelaide we both felt that it had an air or conservatism about it...not the drive of Perth we thought. We travelled to Melbourne by car via the ocean road, memories of Oregon except that there is less strip development, the British planning thing seems to have had more effect. Continued our YHA experiment in a delightful village, Port Fairy an old whaling port that has found new life providing hospitality to Aussies on their summer holidays and the next day in Queenscliffe at the mouth of the big bay toward Melbourne. Before checking into the Melbourne hostel we vissited some folks in a small town out of Melbourne by an hour and a half by my rate of travel. We met the wife during our Rajahstan trip [one of the four Aussies who were driving the local merchants crazy by their adept bargaining ability] My sense is that they are rebuilding their life in rural Victoria having just bought a property with a b&b on it as well as a pottery studio planning to set up a gallery. Will probably do well, it is quite charming and they are wonderful hosts. Drank lots of wine and celebrated a birthday. Also went to an extrordinary small winery where a young couple started from scratch and are producing some nice wine. Being a little south, the chardonnay was reminiscent of New Zealand Cloudy Bay and the shiraz like the northern Rhone wines, a little light and not like the shiraz I associate with Aus. There are perhaps hundreds of wineries in this area and I read in the paper that there are over 7500 in Aus and that there is a glut. Cut backs in production are coming I suspect. In Melbourne we discovered that the hostel provides restaurant food which at the price and quality has detered our enthusiasm to cook for ourselves, somewhat. How about steak and oven fries for $7.50 and a glass of cab for $2.00. The market here is impressive and I saw with my own eyes a packet of fifteen, yes 15 new york steaks for $10 [ Aussie dollars that is] How do they do it? Melbourne is another of those well organized cities, transit of all sorts everywhere and great waterfront development, modest victorian housing "that has potential" as the realtors say. Could go on but......but wont! Our final couple of days in Melbourne were spent with the other three women we met on the Rajahstan trip. Some wonderful hospitality before flying of to Tasmania.
Report 21 Leaving Australia I know that Gary has written wonderful reports to the web site
(www.hiscox.net ) about our time in Australia and the different
language spoken here. I have been reading Bill Brysons ' Sunburned
Land' and find that he has described the country wonderfully,
full of expressions and observations that I would have written
down.
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