As told by me

So then, six months later…here we are again.

In preparation for the next instalment of this ongoing adventure, here is a very brief summary of the last six months.

After a few days by the beach, I headed down to Sydney, on to Canberra, back to Sydney and up to Copacabana to visit my friend Jim.  Yes, there really is a town in Australia named after a famous beach in Rio.  It has a very fine beach of its own, but it’s about there that any comparisons must come to an abrupt halt as there really isn’t much else in common between Rio de Janeiro and the Central Coast of NSW (aka the Western Suburbs by the Sea).

Copacabana beach (NSW)

At the end of February, I jumped on a plane to Melbourne, my final destination on this leg.  Victoria was at this point still pretty shell-shocked from what is now known as  Black Saturday, the day it got to 47 degrees (that’s about 117 in the old money) and firestorms ripped across the state.  Many words have been said and written about what happened on that day (7th Feb) when 173 lost their lives.  The ones that resonated most with me were uttered at the subsequent Royal Commission: “it was so hot that the dirt was on fire.”

Burnt trees near Mt Buffalo

A couple of weeks after my arrival, I’d had a couple of job interviews and was successful on the second attempt, no mean feat in a rapidly deteriorating economy.  I then found myself a great little house in North Melbourne (many thanks to Alex & Kate for putting me up in the interim).

The Yarra River

A photo of the city from near my new house

At easter, I flew up to Canberra to pick up the little red Subaru Forester I’d agreed to buy off my brother-in-law’s parents.  They live overseas and it had been sitting outside my sister’s house slowly rusting and providing shelter for all sorts of insects for some time, so it was a mutually beneficial arrangement.

I took the scenic route back to Melbourne, stopping at Thredbo for a quick walk up Mt Kosciusko, Australia’s highest point (2228 metres) before continuing on to the little town of Tallangatta, just over the Victorian border.

Mount Kościuszko

Tallangatta is one of those towns whose only real claim to fame is the fact that it had to move in the 1950s when the original town was flooded under the rising waters of Hume Weir.  In one of many glaring examples of the new climate reality in this part of the world, those waters no longer exist.

This used to be a lake

The next day I rose early and drove up to the Buffalo plateau, a beautiful alpine area that I have wanted to visit for a long time.

The view towards Mt Feathertop from Mt Buffalo

In May I returned to Sydney for a beautifully sunny day sailing on Sydney Harbour as a long overdue birthday present for Dad.

Sailing – Sydney Harbour

In June, I had the pleasure of a visit from my cousin Chaz and his lovely girlfriend AnnaKarin. We went, with Alex, to watch the Socceroos play Japan at the MCG in the final World Cup qualifier, which the Aussies won 2-1. The highlight for me was this classic flare, unleashed seconds after our first goal.

Socceroos v Japan – MCG

I also took my visitors up to Healesville and a few Yarra Valley wineries.

Domaine Chandon vines

My friend Francesco came to visit a couple of weeks later, though I don’t seem to have any photos of his visit, which is a little careless. I shall ensure I rectify that situation when I see him in Slovenia in a few weeks.

In late July, I had a wonderful (though very windy) week of skiing at Perisher with my three sisters, and my cousins who were out from the US. Here’s a photo of the first people about to ride up the Olympic T-bar for the season. That’s my six-year old cousin Alex up the front with his Dad and his nine-year old brother Charlie right behind him with his Mum. They’re an impressive couple of young skiers.

Olympic T-bar

Finally, on Saturday, I went up to Mount Buller for a daytrip with an old mate and some friends of hers. It was glorious weather but the snow was, quite simply, rubbish. We had a really fun day though, interspersed with a number of truly random experiences. Here’s a photo from the access chairlift.

Mt Buller access chairlift

There’s your update then. Next stop, Beijing!

More photos

Woolgoolga – February 2009

Canberra – February 09

Copacabana – February 2009

Merri Creek and the Yarra River – February 2009

Mt Buffalo – April 2009

Mt Kościuszko – April 09

Sailing on Sydney Harbour – May 2009

Australia v Japan – MCG, 17th June 2009

Healesville & Yarra Valley – June 2009

Royal Park – July 2009

Skiing – Perisher Valley – July 2009

Mount Buller – August 2009

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Australia - August 2009

Another beautiful south-eastern Queensland day greeted me, unlike the north-east which is under two metres of water.

The highlight of today was the bus trip I’d booked south to meet up with my Dad. Annoyingly, this cost more than the Qantas flight down to Sydney I’ll be catching next week. There appears to be something of a lack of competition on this particular bus route.

I met a friendly young kiwi girl, Jade, while waiting for the bus. This was her first trip to the west island and she was heading for Canberra (poor girl). She asked me if I knew Canberra and if it was a cool place. I tried to let her down gently…

Off we went, crossing the border two minutes later in a suburban street, just north of the river (I would have thought the river itself would make a better border) and the clock jumped forward an hour. Queensland is a funny place in many ways, not least because of their attitude to daylight savings. I’ve actually met people from there that believe that daylight savings is bad because the extra sunlight fades the curtains and the cows get confused about what time to come in to be milked. There are undoubtedly some good reasons for not doing daylight savings, especially as you get up north, but it is a bit ridiculous to have houses across the street from each other being on different timezones (there has been an as yet unsuccessful campaign for some years to get south-east Queensland (ie Brisbane and the Gold Coast, onto daylight savings).

Anyway, the surprisingly comfortable bus pulled onto highway 1 and we made our way down the excellent new section of road that cuts out the old diversion inland to Murwillimbah, and arrived in Byron Bay in no time. After the bus emptied itself of european backpackers and then refilled with another load, we headed down the coast road to Ballina, where we had our dinner break at that internationally-renowned tourist attraction, The Big Prawn. I had crumbed Barramundi and chips, which was not as good as I’d hoped but it filled the hole.

We continued on south, getting back onto the good old single carriageway highway that has claimed so many lives (hey it’s only the busiest highway in the country, after all), and were making such good time that I thought we were going to get in about an hour early. That was until we took the forty minute detour out to Yamba and back (I vaguely remember this stupidity from the last time I caught this bus). Anyway, we continued on and stopped for a driver change at South Grafton, then forty minutes later, we pulled over on the highway at Woolgoolga for me to get out. Dad turned up just as we pulled in (we were in fact, pretty much bang on schedule), and we headed out on the headland to the beachhouse where he’d arranged an excellent curry for dinner.

Looking north from Woolgoolga

Woolgoolga punches well above its weight in terms of indian cuisine as it has the largest Sikh population in regional Australia, with not one, but two temples – not bad for a town of 4,000 people. The Sikhs arrived in the late 19th century (just before the White Australia policy was brought in after Federation, in 1901) and came to Woolgoolga to run the banana plantations. According to Wikipedia, some 10% of the town still speak Punjabi at home. This seems to be a pretty harmonious situation, though I do remember a story about the local RSL club refusing entry to some local Sikhs because they would not remove their turbans. I believe this was resolved when it became clear that at least some of these gentlemen had fought under the British Army in World War II.

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Australia - February 2009

Well, let me just say that Air Asia X carries the dubious honour of having the most uncomfortable aircraft cabins ever designed (and I believe they are a special, customised design). Not only did they squeeze in an extra seat in every row, making each seat that much narrower, they have also managed to come up with a truly insane seat design that doesn’t actually recline! They claim it does, but in fact it simply slides you forward thus cutting your already insufficient leg room in half. Suffice to say that next time I will be happily spending the extra few hundred dollars to fly in a plane that I can actually sit down in for a prolonged period without causing myself permanent injury.

Anyway, despite that, it was great to be finally back in the magical land of oz. Coolangatta airport (aka Gold Coast airport) is still a pretty small affair and the passport control and customs operations were a little bit toy-town-esque, but I finally managed to convince the customs official with the broad northern english accent that I was legitimate and headed out into the sunshine to meet my mate Guy for the first time in about 12 years.

I spent a lovely day with Guy and Nicolle and their gorgeous 18 month old blonde & blue-eyed bombshell, Josie, topped off by a swim and a bbq at the hotel that Guy’s folks were staying at. It was great to catch up with Guy & Nicolle after so much time and it was a genuine pleasure to meet Josie. All in, a very pleasant first day back in the country.

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Australia - February 2009