Australia - all at once

  Cairns, Australia
Monday, April 14, 2008

Ah, Australia.  I haven't gotten around to making entries city-by-city, so I'll do it now all at once.  We leave for Vietnam tomorrow, so this seems like the last best chance for writing about our experiences in Australia.

We flew into Melbourne on March 18th and took a shuttle to our hostel in St. Kilda, which is a funky, up-n-coming area in southern Melbourne.  Much of Australia is suffering from sever drought, especially the south.  We found Melbourne to be quite dry.  The lawns are dead and there's much dust in the air.  We walked quite about around the city, although the tram system is very good.  We checked out the university, which has a good reputation.  The library in the city centre was our favorite part of Melbourne, which tells you a bit about the city's offerings.  It's a somewhat boring place.
 


We took an overnight train to Sydney and walked from the station to the cafe where  Andres' friend Jonathan works.  He gave us breakfast there and the keys to his house a couple blocks away.  For the next several days we stayed with Jonathan and his roommate Holly, who were very good hosts.  Holly was away at a Zen retreat during our first day at her house.  We spent mornings and evenings together like a family and went out with Jonathan some days and on our own others.  We especially enjoyed the Sydney Symphony performance of Shostakovich's 8th Symphony and a modern composition by Lentz "Monh for viola, electronics, and orchestra" at the Opera House.  



Jonathan took us to see the Blue Mountains about an hour outside Sydney by rail.  The area is very beautiful with good hiking.  


Our friend Audrey moved from Los Angeles to Sydney about a year ago.  She is a travel agent and did a lot of work on our trip through Australia.  She planned everything for us after Sydney, so we are very much indebted to her for this.  We also enjoyed spending some time with Audrey and her boyfriend and friends.  She invited us to go sailing on a yacht on which her friend works.  This coincided with Andres' birthday (27 March).  It was the last race of the season, and the great racing yacht Wild Oats took 1st place.  Our yacht, the Gnak Gnak (sp?) took after handicap consideration.  Hamish and Michelle, our hosts on the yacht, were quite wonderful to us and made the evening a highlight of our trip.  


Audrey joined us for surf camp at Crescent Head about 6 hours north of Sydney.  We joined a tour bus full of backpackers with surfing ambition driven by a surfer dude instructor.  We enjoyed a full day of surfing in the sun with Audrey before leaving on an overnight bus for Byron Bay.  We stayed only one day, but we enjoyed the beach town very much.  


From Byron Bay we went to Harvey Bay near Brisbane, again on the bus, for a trip to Fraser Island, the world's largest sand island.  We loaded a Toyota 4x4 with 10 people and enough camping gear and food for 3 days and drove onto the barge on Fraser Island.  After a 50 minute barge ride we arrived on this dingo preserve island, nearly uninhabited except by campers.  Unfortunately an arrogant brit in our group decided that he should do most of the driving, schedule making, and patronizing.  His friend, a british girl, provided all the requisite bitchiness with some to spare.  I couldn't have tolerated another day with them.  But we made several good friends in our group, among them an English girl named Anna, a German girl named Tina, a Swiss girl named Leonie, and a Canadian boy named Connor.  We camped at the beach for two nights, took turns cooking meals on our propane camping stove, 4-wheeled about on the treacherous roads, and spotted very many dingos.  The island has at least two beautiful lakes with huge sandy beaches and a good bit of rainforest.  


From Harvey Bay we took a bus to Airlie Beach from where we took a sailing tour of the Whitsunday Islands.  These islands are in the southern part of the Great Barrier Reef.  They contain the purest silicone sand on Whitehaven Beach; this sand was used by NASA for the Hubble Telescope.  We sailed on a maxi yacht, the Matador with about 30 other tourists and a crew of 4.  We were able to do one scuba dive with the on-board instructor and several scuba swims.  We ate and slept on board.  It was pretty cramped on board, but enjoyable.  


From Airlie Beach we took a bus to Cairns for the highlight of our trip to Australia, diving on the Great Barrier Reef.  Andres was already certified, so he relaxed in the hostel and toured the town while I did my two days of PADI Open Water Certification class in preparation for the open water dives on our 3 day boat trip on the Reef.  Unfortunately, the company Pro Dive was more interested in selling gear than educating.  Many of my fellow students bought $300-$2,000 worth of gear before even entering the ocean.  I am greatly disappointed that the instructors thought my safety was less important than their extra profit.  We skipped chapters so that we'd have more time at their local store.  I waited bored outside the store for an hour while the rest of my class eagerly bought up snorkels and fins, all of which were provided on the boat.  This all ate into our classroom time.  Our instructor Jason gave us answers on the test so that we'd pass in spite of skipping material.  We boarded the boat 11 April. Andres began his Advanced Certification and I began the applied portion of my Open Water Certification.  After 4 dives, we had both achieved our certifications and were ready to dive as a pair for the remaining 5 dives.  Andres had an extra couple of dives because of his advanced certification class. He did two night dives, whereas I did only one. We swam with turtles, sharks, stingrays, clownfish, tigerfish, cucumbers, and many, many other species.  It was fascinating and magical, rather like shrinking down and swiming in a dentist office aquarium. The Pro Dive boat was very comfortable.  The food was amazing, the best food I've had since Israel.  The crew was very good.  Our instructors were on the boat with us, finishing our training.  In spite of their sales zeal, they were good teachers and very entertaining.  Jason talked many students into signing up for Adventure Diver Certification.  Among the perks, swiming with a huge turtle on a special training dive.  He didn't mention that the $150 course would preclude its participants from taking part in one dive.  Again, manipulative sales tactics.


We returned from our diving trip yesterday and went directly to sleep.  Today is our last day in Australia.  We leave tomorrow for Vietnam.