Update: Terra Australis Incognita

 

Bula!

 

                That’s a greeting in Fijian. Recent travels have been in the South Pacific: Australia, New Zealand, Fiji, French Polynesia, and Easter Island (starting in Mexico and ending in Denver). In case you don’t know what Easter Island is, it has those large headed statues. Instead of sending periodic updates as I did during previous travels, I decided to just create  this one travelogue. Unlike my previous updates, this one is a bit more detailed, and includes pictures. Hopefully it will serve as a “free upgrade” to my book, 101 Countries. With that in mind, this update has allusions that assume you have read the book. If anyone can hook me up with a major publishing deal, then I could come out with an updated version of the text (106 Countries?).

 

Enjoy the stories!

P.J!

Notes: for other travels click here

A lso, the comparisons of the price of bread have been updated with entries from Australia, NZ, Fiji and Tahiti.

 

Th304 Caught a 22 hour bus from Mazatlan, Mexico to the border town of Nogales. As a note to recent Philmonters, I did not run into Poncho Villa while crossing the Mexican desert. The Mexican bus was actually nicer than a Greyhound, and curiously empty.

 

Fr305 Caught another bus from Nogales to Tucson, met with Joe S., Ryan H., and Luke F. Joe is one who I traveled with in parts of Europe and Asia, and Luke is the world sailor turned avionics engineer who I once met on the Caribbean island of St. Martin. Rode with Luke from Tucson to Phoenix, and met with Matt L., and Joe L.

 

Sa306 Drove with Joe L. to Los Angeles, met with Dave G. and Emily S.

 

Su 307 Ran the LA Marathon with Dave. Actually Dave ran most of it, while I walked a bit at the end. At 92 F, it was the hottest marathon I ever did, and definitely the one where I saw the most people being carried off in ambulances. Met with Rogge H., then found Clay Folk at LAX, and together with Clay, flew to Fiji.

 

Tu 309 Notice that there is no Mo 308. The plane crossed the International Date Line around midnight, meaning that Monday March 8 did not exist in my life. One less Monday can’t be a bad thing. My legs were tired from the run, and the flight was so long, that it felt like an extra day anyway. Clay and I had a 3 hour layover at the airport in Nadi, Fiji, and then we continued to Auckland, New Zealand. We rented a small Honda from an agency strangely named Arf, and then roamed the city for a bit.

 

Auckland is considered by some to be the capital of the South Pacific, with numerous Polynesian, Melanesian, and East Asian immigrants. However, most of the people are white, and the culture is western. This means that the place feels a lot like America. Sure the driving is on the left side, the people use strange phrases like “Good On Ya,” and school kids wear uniforms, but overall, if you are looking for a truly different culture, you should go somewhere like Pakistan or Bolivia. By night we reached just south of the city, and found a hilly farm to sleep in.

 

We310 We awoke to a full moon setting, our sleeping bags soaked with dew, and a crop duster almost landing on us. At the same time a happy sheep farmer drove up and asked us to move so that he could get by to meet the landing plane. He didn’t seem to care that we were sleeping on his land, just that we were in his way. We spent the morning driving south along the majority of the length of the North Island, stopping en route to see geysers, fumaroles, river rapids, and volcanoes. Although the North Island of NZ has its share of natural wonders, it is the South Island that is touted for its beauty. Most North Islanders talk about the South Island in a wishful manner, as if it is a land far away that they visit only on vacations, or that they dream of retiring on.

Much of the North Island is farmland, including large parts used as pasture for sheep. NZ has something like fifty million sheep, which something like ten times as many humans.

Much of NZ looks like this, with the most interesting thing being the practice of cutting fenceline trees in a square manner, as if they were landscape shrubbery.

 

We spent the afternoon passing through farmland, and getting lost in the city of Palmerston North. We then crossed over some low mountains, drove through miles of hilly green sheep pasture, and arrived at an acquaintance’s place near Ektahuna. Daniel (friend of Martha) and his helper Steve, are sheep farmers in the heart of NZ’s sheep country. They live a couple hours from major cities, and spend their days managing thousands of sheep. This means that they are the NZ equivalent of rednecks, which resulted in them having plenty to talk about with Clay, such as guns and hunting.

 

Th311 After a night on real beds, Daniel took us on his morning task. This involved sitting on the back of his ATV while heading up and down steep hills to a location where he had to move sheep. Specifically, his mission was to move a couple thousand sheep from one, overgrazed pasture into the next, ungrazed one. Although this was a routine task to him, it was quite fascinating to Clay and me. Daniel had a half dozen dogs who responded to whistles: each dog had a different whistle for running forward, right, and left. With nothing more than a whistle, and without moving more than a few feet from the ATV, Daniel managed to have the dogs herd the couple thousand sheep and a few dozen cows from one hillside to the next, and through the fence, all within fifteen minutes.

 

The sheep are in front of Daniel, and the gate they need to get through is behind him.

 

We spent the afternoon heading to the capital city of Wellington--located at the southern tip of the N. Island--and then taking a ferry to Picton, which is on Queen Charlotte Sound (on the northern tip of the S. Island across the Cook Straits from Wellington). The ferry was quite comfortable, with a lounge and a movie room, but came with the unfortunate stench of truckloads of sheep sitting in the cargo hold. Upon reaching Picton, we headed south through the Blenheim winery region, and along the coast to Kaikoura. Below is a picture of the Arf Honda and the east coast of the S. Island of NZ. The coastal drive was broken by a couple stops to play with fur seals, and to watch surfers. We slept outside, next to the car, on a cliff overlooking the sea.

 

 

Fr312 Sat in rush hour into Christchurch, roamed town for a bit, and then headed inland through rolling yellow hills. Near Lake Tekapu we entered the mountainous region where Lord of the Rings was filmed. This means that every restaurant, Bed and Breakfast and trinket shop has some claim on the movie (“official _____ of LOTR”), or at least has some pictures of the production crew in town. We picked up a Japanese hitchhiking tourist for part of the drive. When we asked what he did in Japan, he excitedly replied, “I AM A TEMPORARY WORKER!!!!!!!” He then proceeded to excitedly tell us how hard it is to put the same part on Toyotas in an assembly line for months on end: “SO BORING.” We took the hitchhiker to Mt. Cook, spent a few hours enjoying the scenery, and then headed on to Queenstown.

 

Queenstown is the South Pacific backpacking equivalent of Cuzco (Peru), Antigua (Guatemala), Kathmandu (Nepal), and Bangkok (Thailand). It is also the adrenaline sport equivalent of the Victoria Falls region on the Zambia/Zimbabwe border. Most of the activities involve hurtling through the air in some fashion, although there are also options with names such as helirafting. We took advantage of the plethora of cheap internet cafes (curiously offering first 5 minutes free), and then headed south of town to sleep on the side of a nearby lake:

 

Actually, this is the sort of sleeping we did on almost every night we were in the South Pacific.

 

Sa313 Drove south then west towards Milford Sound. This is where things got quite scenic:

The first picture is of Milford Sound, and the second picture is of busses waiting to go through a one-way tunnel. The busses, full of Japanese, German or American package tour groups, constitute the majority of traffic in the region. Other visitors come to hike; many specifically to hike the Milford Track, considered by some to be the greatest hike in the world. Let me translate some NZ (and Australian) hiking terms into American English: tramping = hiking, track = trail, outback = anywhere other than city, bush = anywhere with vegetation. Once we had those terms straight we decided to go for a few hour tramp. Actually Clay decided to, and I slowly followed, since my legs were still hurting from the marathon a few days ago. The track was nothing like I had seen before, and consisted of something between tropical jungle, mangrove swamp, and rocky mountain. I sunk up to my knee a couple of times, and even had my shoe pulled off of my foot once. I was able to wash part of the mud off in a freezing cold river, and the rest was washed off me by a steady cold rain. Luckily we had a heated car to return to. Actually, the heat in our Arf was on most of the time so that Clay could cook cans of food by placing them on the defrosting vents. Our eating style was similar to that which I employed in Europe: shop at large suburban grocery. We spent the evening retracing our steps back east then north to the same lakeside sleeping spot south of Queenstown where he had spent the previous night.

 

Su314 Used some Internet in Queenstown, and then headed north and west over mountains and to the scenic west coast. We continued up the west coast to the Fox and Franz Josef Glaciers, apparently the only place in the world where glacier (permanent ice field) meets rainforest.

 

 

The first picture is of a caution sign at the front face of the Franz Josef Glacier. The next picture is nowhere near a glacier, but shows the sign making prowess of Kiwis. It is of a bridge on the road that plies the west coast of the South Island: perhaps to save construction costs, the bridge is so narrow that there is only one lane, which includes tracks for a train. Traffic from both directions are expected to “Give Way” when a train needs the bridge. (Yes that is left side driving.) The picture also shows some vegetation on the roadside. Much of the region consists of such thick “bush,” which is inhabited largely by the black possum. This raccoon-like furry creature can be seen plastered on pavement as roadkill throughout NZ, especially on the South Island. This creature is notorious for terrorizing other fauna, including native birds. Actually, NZ has no native mammals, and before man arrived, was a paradise of birds. So although NZ is touted for the beauty of its natural landscape, the story of its wildlife is today quite depressing; almost enough to say that NZ is an environmental disaster with regards to its fauna. We turned off the road, and made our way into the bush to find a sleeping spot for the night. This involved trying to sleep while listening to possums make strange shrieking noises.

 

Mo315 Continued up the West Coast to Hokitika (a town known for its jade jewelry), Greystone (where we picked up an Israeli backpacker), and Westport. We continued east through rainforest turning to pine plantations, then north through Nelson and back to Queen Charlotte Sound. We made a stop at a curious steam engine museum before finding a seaside cliff to sleep on for the night.

 

Tu316 Caught the morning ferry back across the Cook Straits to Wellington, checked out the trendy Queen Street area, and toured the Te Papa national museum.

 

We came out the wrong elevator at the right time, and ended at a meet-and-greet with England’s Prince Edward. Actually the story was much more interesting, involving traditional Maori (native New Zealander) singing, and Clay and I smelling from a lack of hygiene. We spent the evening roaming the local University, and driving north then east to Masterton.

 

We317 Continued north through sheep country to the east coast city of Napier, apparently the world’s only entirely art deco city. Headed along the coast to Gisborne, situated in an area with a heavy Maori population. The Maori are the people who lived on the islands of NZ before European settlers, and the story of their oppression by whites is similar to treatment of indigenous peoples elsewhere around the world. Today they live on the margins of society, either struggling to make ends meet in rural areas, or drunk and homeless in the cities. Although the situation of the Maori’s is quite sad, the government is somewhat progressive in trying to better their situation, at least moreso than the U.S. government’s continued ignoring of Native American issues. The South Island seemed to have hardly any Maori’s (or any diversity for that matter) compared to the North Island, and those on the North are mostly concentrated on the northeastern part of the island. This means that, in addition to seeing Maori (darker skinned) people, we started picking up Maori radio: talk shows, music, and even Maori rap.

               

In Gisborne we stopped at a Maori meeting house, and then came upon a woodcarver’s workshop. The woodcarver had his face entirely tattooed in the traditional Maori manner. He saw us approaching and addressed us as if he was expecting us. He demonstrated some of his technique, and told us about his work. At first his talk seemed quite deep, as he described how Maori art is related to the ancestors, but then things turned strange. He said that his pupil woodcarvers may only learn by watching him, and that “class starts whenever I arrive.” In addition to works in progress, his workshop contained a washing machine, two punching bags, and a guitar. It also had an air thick with the smell of marijuana smoke. When I asked if I could take his picture he simply laughed, and when I asked how long a certain elaborate carving took to make, he replied, “if you have a lot of money, it took years.” After departing Gisborne, we continued north over hills, and found a beach on the Bay of Plenty to sleep on.

 

Th318 Continued west to Auckland, roamed the world famous harbor, and happened upon a lecture at the Royal New Zealand Yacht Club on common routes for sailing around the world. Luke F. could have given the talk. I learned new things about cyclone season in the Tuamotos, carrying guns on board to fend off high seas piracy, and how to properly stopover on islands such as the Chagos or Diego Garcia. Although this was all fascinating, my propensity for seasickness prevented me from getting too excited. Clay, meanwhile, took copious notes. We found a waterfront just north of the Auckland Bridge to sleep on, with views of the city lights.

 

Fr319 Returned the Arf at the airport, dealt with extremely inefficient immigrations and security lines, and caught an empty flight with Air Tahiti Nui to Tahiti.

 

Th318 Notice that this is one day previous. This is because we crossed the dateline to the east. Arrived in Tahiti in the evening and slept at the airport.

 

Fr319 The interesting thing about crossing the dateline to the east was that we got to experience this Friday twice. This means we effectively traded a Monday (308) for a Friday (319). Two Fridays in a row. How nice is that?

 

Anyway, about South Pacific Islands. I wanted to island hop among a bunch of them, like I had done in the Caribbean for cheap. The only problem is that the islands in the S. Pacific are spread out over extreme distances. This means that travel is expensive. The goal was to get to Easter Island, and luckily this included a free stopover in Tahiti. Tahiti is actually the name of the largest island of the “country” named French Polynesia, which in turn is an overseas dependency of France. French is spoken (along with Tahitian), and the Pacific Franc (CFP) is used for currency. The major problem for travelers is that costs are among the highest in the world. A meal is considered cheap if it is under CFP1400 (US$15). Luckily we found one food that was cheap everywhere: French baguettes. The US$0.43 price was the exact same everywhere, and the bread seemed to be the staple food, leading me to believe that there must be some sort of government price fixing on French bread.

 

We spent much of the day roaming the capital city of Papeete. That rhymes with Tahiti. The tropical climate meant that we sweated buckets even when we were sitting still in the shade.

The central market in Papeete

 

Many tourists come to French Polynesia to honeymoon on the outer island of Bora Bora, or to scuba dive in the elsewhere in the Marquesas or Tuamoto Island groups. These locations would have cost us a lot to get to, but we discovered that we could take a ferry to the neighboring island of Moorea for ten bucks. We took the slow one-hour boat, as opposed to the more expensive fast boat, and we arrived on Moorea at dusk. We then caught a bus to the town of Huaru on the other side of the island. The bus was built like a U.S. school bus, and some of the other passengers were drunk locals trying to sing Bob Marley songs. We roamed Huaru for a bit, and quickly realized our situation: the island is desolate and slow paced. It was Friday night, and there was not a soul on the street. In fact, there were only a few businesses on what was considered one of the island’s tourist strips. Lacking options, we paid US$32 for a place to put a tent. $32! Wow. $32 to put a tent on some grass!?

 

Sa320 With daylight we were able to see that we were on a property that fronted a narrow beach. The other campers, all “backpackers” (I put that in quotes because $32 for camping is not budget travel) seemed to have taken to the island life. Describing it as slow paced would be too generous. Absolutely nothing was going on. It made life at a Mexican beach timeshare seem hectic. Of course this boredom was unacceptable to us, so we started on our quest to get back around the island to the docks. Within a few minutes of walking we realized that #1. The island bus only makes a lap of the island when a boat comes in, and #2. Hitchhiking is next to impossible. After walking about 6 miles in murderous heat and humidity we came upon a luxury hotel, so we helped ourselves to the swimming pool. Refreshed, we walked a few more miles, and were then picked up by a generous local with a pickup truck. We were taken into a gated and heavily guarded luxury hotel, which happened to be the destination of the driver. Having gotten through security, we couldn’t waste the opportunity to use the hotel’s beachfront property to go for a proper ocean swim. Once again refreshed, we finished walking the couple miles around the island to the dock, and caught the slow boat to Tahiti. (Poetic, no?)

 

                Back in Papeete, we roamed town for a bit, then took a seat near the waterfront. The docks are the life of Papeete, and as we sat we observed a cargo ship from Germany, a cruise ship full of white people, and locals (brown people) fishing for dinner off the piers. We also observed what is considered one of the most interesting cultural occurrences of the South Pacific. At 5:30 p.m. sharp every day large vans roll into an area near the port, open their sides, and set up shop as mobile restaurants. The scene looks like this:

 

Notice the sun setting over the island of Moorea in the background. You can’t see the prices on the sign, but the average dish costs the equivalent of US$10. This evening restaurant routine has become such an affair that the city government has provided well-maintained cleaning facilities, and public washrooms. We took a seat near the bathroom and watched the patrons: white cruise ship passengers and brown or French expat locals eating Chinese and French cuisine. (There was definitely an unfilled niche for Indian or Mexican food, in case anyone reading this is business minded.) Our position next to the bathroom allowed us to see (and hear and smell) a steady stream of people vomiting, making us wonder as to the sanitation of the cooking operations. Nearby was a grandstand with a band playing Polynesian music, which I found culturally interesting until I looked closer, and realized that the performers were just pretending to play the music with their instruments, while prerecorded music was broadcast. We had no intention of paying $32 to pitch a tent again, so to sleep, we simply walked to the end of a pier and laid down our sleeping bags. Plenty of cops came by, but perhaps they had never seen anything of the sort, so they didn’t bother us.

 

Su321 Another day sweating in Papeete and watching the evening mobile restaurants at the docks. Just after dark we needed to get to the airport to catch our next flight, so we decided to walk. The airport is located in the nearby suburb of Faaa, which was not very Faaa.

 

Mo322 Caught the 1am flight to Easter Island. Easter Island is the most remotely inhabited place in the world. That means it is the place where people live that is furthest from where anyone else lives: Chile and Tahiti are both over 2,000 miles away, to the east and west respectively. The closest inhabited island is Pitcairn Island (home of the descendents of the mutineers of the Bounty), at 1,200 miles away. The consensus is that the Easter Island was settled from the west, by seagoing Polynesians, although there is some archaeological evidence of ancient influences from the east. The island is known locally as Rapa Nui, the ethnicity is known as Rapa Nui, and the native language is Rapa Nui. Anyway, during the middle part of the last millennium (from about 1400 to 1600 AD), the Rapa Nui decided that life was all about carving large headed statues known as Moai. Esplorers saw standing statues in the 1770s, but by a century later, all had been toppled. Apparently there was fighting among those who carved the statues. In the late nineteenth century, Chile laid claim to the island. Easter Island is now part of Chile, and Spanish is spoken and Chilean pesos are used.

                The island itself is only 5-10 miles across, and is shaped like a triangle, with a volcano at each corner. The main sites are all along the coast, and the perimeter is about 25 miles. We had three days to see the place, so we decided that we should walk around the island. We arrived at noon (central time zone), walked out of the airport and directly into the islands one main town: Hanga Roa. The airport runway, which occupies a significant portion of one side of the island, was improved by NASA to function as an emergency landing for space shuttles. After buying some food in town, we headed to the first site, which did not contain big heads. It was a site were people lived, and included a place where a competition was held.

 

The objective is to scale down the vertical cliff in front of you, swim to those small islands, find the egg of some specific bird, swim back and climb the vertical rock face without breaking the egg, and return to the starting point. The first man to do so gets the respect of the gods and a harem of girls.

                That ritual seemed about as strange as carving large heads. As we started our circumnavigation of the island, we discovered the problem in our plan: it started raining. Within minutes we were soaking wet, despite our raingear. Nevertheless, we kept walking. This may make more sense if I inform you that Clay just finished his service as a Marine Corps Officer. I had no excuse for continuing to walk in the rain, except that it seemed like a novel idea. So through the rain we saw moai.

 

The moai that are standing are those that have been recreated by archaeologists. All had been toppled by the warfare, and most are still in face-plant formation. Or on their side or back;

 

 

We finished the day by arriving at what was noted as a campsite, run by the Chilean national parks organization. Actually it was a stone hut and a few picnic tables, and no one was around. We made ourselves at home by sleeping on the tables. Since it was raining hard, we slept early. The excess sleep combined with jetlag to make me wake up multiple times. A couple times I saw lights from a ship at sea, and once I was hungry. I reached down to a bag of sopapillas that we had bought in Hanga Roa, and ate one. I couldn’t see it, and it tasted fine, but in the morning when I looked at the bag, I noticed that it was covered with a swarm of tiny ants. I can only assume I had eaten a bunch of them. The real problem was that ants had gotten into all of our food, and we still had a lot of walking in the rain to do.

 

Tu323 The rain paused at about 10am, and we headed to the crater quarry where the moai were carved from. Many heads are still half carved in place, often still in the ground, but some have been reconstructed.

 

 

 

About lunchtime, the area became full of tourists in large vans. We kept walking. First to Ahu Tongariki, where the Japanese are funding reconstruction of some moai.

 

 

Then to Ahu Tetanga, where reconstruction is complete. The things on the head are called topknots, and are separate pieces of rock. They complete the moai as intended.  By evening it had rained on us all day, and we were a pathetic sight. A Rapa Nui woman named Gladys selling drinks at one of the sites offered that we could camp on her lawn, back in Hanga Roa. We hitched a ride back to town on the other side of the island, found her house, and set up camp. Gladys invited us in for café (coffee), but the moment we entered, she declared that we stank, and she demanded that we get in the shower immediately. Apparently the constant wetness had caused various growth to occur on our persons. I spoke to Gladys with my broken Spanish, and was able to learn that she was 100% Rapa Nuian. She was taking care of her granddaughter Manaji:

We324 We bid farewell to Gladys, checked out a couple more sites near Hanga Roa, and headed back to the airport. There is something to be said about the airport on Easter Island. There is one plane that services the place, a Lan Chile flight from Santiago, Chile to Papeete, Tahiti. The plane calls twice a week in each direction. This means that there are four flights a week on this island. The airport is open only at flight time, and everyone on the island knows when a flight has arrived. We caught the evening flight back to Papeete, Tahiti, and spent another night sleeping on the floor at the airport in Faaa.

 

Th325 caught the morning flight from Tahiti back to Auckland, New Zealand. This involved crossing the dateline, so we only had part of Thursday….

 

Fr326…and were pushed into Friday. Arrived at noon in Auckland, and changed for a flight to Sydney, Australia on Thai Airlines. We had picked Thai because it was the cheapest flight, but the Thai passengers, stewards and food added to the cultural curiosity of having spent time in areas that were French, Latino and Western. We arrived in Sydney in the afternoon, and were picked up by Dogu, a friend of my roommate Gurkan, who I had originally met in Ankara, Turkay. Gurkan and Dogu knew each other from college in Ankara. Clay and I planned to stay with Dogu for a few nights until our friend Strom arrived, after which point we would head out to see other parts of the continent.

                A few words about Australia. Early explorers were sent from Europe in search of a great unknown southern continent that was certainly needed to offset the continental mass in the northern hemisphere. The place was thus called Terra Australis Incognita. The first whites to settle were the Brits, who used it as a penal colony. That is, the Brits decided that it was so far away that they should send all their criminals there as a form of punishment. Even petty thieves were sent. Some prisoners escaped, and some were set free, but most didn’t have the money to get back home. So they populated the continent and formed their own society. Nevermind the hundreds of Aboriginal groups, with separate languages and customs, that were already there.

                Australia today is a mix of western culture and curious social policies. The laws are rooted in historical attempts to populate the continent with people of good British stock. This means that Aboriginals are effectively given less access to society than Native Americans in the U.S. The apartheid is worse than South Africa. For the most part, Aboriginals either live in the outback as hunter-gatherers, or in the cities as drunken bums. It is a sad sight; one that is mostly ignored by the government. But this is the same government that ignores asylum-seeking immigrants, holding them in inhumane facilities on remote Pacific Islands while their papers are slowly processed. On paper, the immigration laws treat everyone equally. In reality, only westerners are guaranteed safe passage. Ironically, the largest group of people overstaying their visas is backpacking kids from Europe, not immigrants from developing countries. Another curious set of policies involves the welfare system. There are plenty of economic disincentives that keep poor people from not working, not the least of which is Australia’s famous “dole.”

                Geographically, Australia is almost as big as the continental U.S., and for the most part is entirely empty. On the eastern edge of the continent is the Great Dividing Range, and in the narrow coastal strip to the east of it, lives the large majority of the population.

 

Sa327 Dogu took us on a tour of Sydney, including to the waterfront Opera House and Harbour Bridge. The culture was western, which was quite unexciting to me after a week spent in Tahiti and Easter Island. In fact, the most fascinating thing I found was the phone cards. Kiosks and convenient stores in major cities around Australia sell prepaid calling cards that allow one to call the U.S. for less than one U.S. cent per minute. One can even call some places, like Hong Kong, for free during certain times. I found these inexpensive rates both perplexing and useful. I bought a card, and proceeded to make calls to the U.S. for less than it costs to make calls within the U.S. This all made me wonder why, in the U.S. where capitalistic competition is king, do we not have such cheap calling options?

 

Su328 After an evening in the seedy Kings Cross district, and another night at Dogus we headed to the airport to collect Strom, a friend who I had travelled with in Europe and Asia. His last adventure was driving with my brother Pammi to Tierra del Fuego in South America in Pammi’s beat up 1986 Olds station wagon.

 

“Walked in Kings Cross for a while, gave the junky girl a smile…” -Indigo Girls, “Gone Again”

 

Mo329 Strom, Clay and I roamed Sydney some more (including Strom’s requisite stop at the Sydney Stock Exchange), then we found the best rental car deal in town: a two door Hyundai Getz for about US$24 a day. With gas costing about US$3 per gallon, and the car getting 32 mpg, we decided that we could put some serious distance on the car in an attempt to see the continent. We started by heading south to the college town of Wollongong, then southwest over the Blue Mountains to the Australian capital city of Canberra. Canberra is about as exciting as watching paint dry: a bunch of government buildings and a planned city that is too organized. We made our way into the hills south of Canberra before finding a field to sleep in for the night.

 

Tu330 We continued south, and arrived in Melbourne at about noon. Because of the multicultural population, the city was instantly my favorite on the continent. On one street we sighted a Greek restaurant, a Turkish donor kebab stand, an Islamic mosque, a place with Indian clothing, a Japanese and Chinese grocery store, and a place that specialized in hairstyles for Africans. We even found a radio station that touted itself as Melbourne’s first “Gay and Lesbian Radio Station.” (Apparently there is more than one.) We spent some time at the Queen Victoria Market, where the produce stands were closing down, allowing us to fill the trunk of the Getz with the bounty of southwestern Australia for only a few dollars: peaches, pineapple, tomatos, capisicum (what they call red peppers), pears, nectarines, etc. Even more interesting was a nearby game of what the Australians call bowling:

 

Most interesting was the parking ticket that we returned to find on the Getz, for not paying the meter. We headed straight to city hall to pay the A$50 (US$37) fine, then spent some time roaming downtown. This included a visit to a garden tribute to Captain Cook, the explorer that is credited with exploring and charting much of the South Pacific. By night we had made our way south of the city, and to a beach sleeping spot just south of the city of Geelong.

 

We331 Drove the “Great Ocean Road” along the southwestern coast of Australia, an area that includes decent views of the sea on one side, and walks to waterfalls on the other. We stopped in a small town called Millicent, where the public library had free Internet and we were offered leftover hors’douvres from the weekly town meeting that had just concluded. We spent the evening driving along and playing in large tidal salt flats en route to the city of Adelaide, and looking for a sleeping spot by some railroad tracks just south of town.

 

Th401 We spent the morning roaming Adelaide and learning about the state of South Australia. The government of SA has a near future goal of doubling the population in the state. I had never been in another place in the world that currently has such a goal of increasing population. This pointed to the fact that much of Australia is still unsettled. To contrast this, we came across an immigration museum, where the displays exposed the Australian government’s backward policies towards non-white immigrants.  Next door was a natural history museum, which included displays on Aboriginal culture, including recent footage of Aboriginals in the outback performing their hunting and gathering activities. Across the street was a park full of drunken Aboriginals, showing the other current state of affairs of this population. We stopped at a cheap produce stand on the north side of town, and then headed into the area known as the outback.

 

                The vast majority of Australia is absolutely empty. Much of it looks like this. The only reason we took this picture was to capture the birds running across the road. Apparently there are sporadic populations of Aboriginals, but unless you get off the paved roads, you are unlikely to see them. Speaking of paved roads, aside from the city areas and the east coast, the country has two paved roads: one that circles the perimeter of the continent, and one that goes up the middle of the continent. Known as the Stuart Highway, the two-lane paved road stretched some 1,900 miles from Adelaide to Darwin, and has only recently been supplemented by a rail line. In fact the passenger rail service along this route only began two months ago, in February of 2004. This means that most goods need to be carried by truck, and Australia has some serious trucking.

 

Full length tractor trailer loads are hooked four-long to each other, creating was is called a road train. These things are no joke. They stop for nothing. When the front shimmies to one side, the rest of the train waves like a snake’s tail. The only thing they are missing is a caboose. They also have massive ‘roo bars on the front to deflect any wayward marsupials. Actually, the roads in the outback are littered with kangaroo roadkill. Aside from looking at the guts of kangaroos, the only entertainment is stopping every few hours at roadhouses. These are places that are shown on the map with a font and dot size that are reserved for small cities on maps of the U.S. But on the empty map of Australia, they are simply a gas station, and sometimes a restaurant or bar.

                We made our way a bit north of Port Augusta before finding a roadside area to sleep for the night. Distances in the outback are so great that it is acceptable practice for you to pull to the side of the road, lay your sleeping bag next to the car, and sleep. Of course this was our standard style of sleeping, but we now had company: there were two other cars with the same idea at the same pulloff. The other neat thing about sleeping in the outback is the beauty: in an area that is hot and boring by day, one is guaranteed a magnificent sunset, sunrise and moonrise, and a sky full of stars. I took these nights to become intimately familiar with the movements of the Southern Cross across the night sky of the southern hemisphere.

 

Fr402 Actually there are a couple interesting sites in the outback, each a half day drive apart. We stopped at the small town of Woomera, a place that exists solely to support the Australian missile and rocket testing activities in the desert. The town is past its heyday, and now is full of empty government-built apartment blocks. There are also some tributes to this history:

 

 

A few more hours north is the town of Coober Pedy, an opal mining area that has resulted in this booming metropolis:

 

Sa 403 In the middle of the continent is the most famous break in the monotony of the outback: Uluru. Also called Ayers Rock, this large rock protrusion is sacred ground for the Aboriginals, but is run as a sort of national park.

 

It is an icon of Australia, and people come from all over to see it. The Aboriginals beg that you don’t climb it, but plenty of people ignore this plea. We chose instead to walk around it. The only downside was that, given the time of year, the place had an impressive number of flies. Nearby was some other red rocks known as Kata Tjuta (The Olgas). I was humored that we had driven days to see a large red rock, and I felt lucky that I can drive five minutes from my place in Denver to see Red Rocks. One difference is that Colorado’s red rocks don’t have aboriginal art like this:

 

Just out of the Uluru area we came to some impressive road signs. Notice that one says no gas for 815km, and the other says the next major city is 1,620km. That’s about a thousand miles. Of course the signs are on the left because driving is on the left.

 

Su404 To break up the drive, Clay decided to chase some feral camels. The north central portion of the continent is an area known as the Northern Territory. It is the one part of the country that is not a state. Since it is a territory, some things are different; for example, there is no speed limit. We picked up a hitchhiker for part of the way; an Australian farm worker who crudely explained at length the lore behind the Northern Territory. Apparently it is where the real men can be found.

We stopped at a weekend market in the large town of Alice Springs, where Aboriginal art was available direct from the artists, and where a row of Thai vendors was selling authentic Thai food with Australian accents. Asian immigration into northern Australia has resulted in such pockets of diversity. North of Alice Springs the landscape started to change. At first there appeared grass, then green grass, then increased vegetation until, after spending a night north of Tenant Creek, we were in an all out tropical jungle.

 

Mo405 We had crossed the Tropic of Capricorn, and the heat and humidity was again stifling. Here is Strom doing the eggbeater tread in a swimming hole north of Katherine:

 

Along with the tropical landscape came a Serengeti-like collection of immense termite mounds:

By evening we had made it north to Darwin, and spent a few hours roaming the city. The place was not as culturally diverse as I had hoped, but some Asian influences were evident. Most evident were constant memorial reminders of the Japanese attacks on Darwin during WWII. We spent the evening at an MGM Grand casino, and then found a place to sleep in an area labeled as, “Nude Beach.”

 

Tu406 Our sleeping spot proved to be a bad idea when a morning patron showed up in his thong underwear. We roamed Darwin some more, then headed east towards Kakadu National Park. We made a brief stop for Strom to join a crocodile tour (his goal was to see the Crocodile Hunter), and then checked out some more aboriginal rock art. By night we had made it to an area just south of Kakadu, where our options were to sleep outside and get eaten by mosquitos, or to sleep in the tent or car and roll in sweat.

 

“Think I’ll bag that trip for two, pack it up to Kakadu” -Indigo Girls, “Gone Again”

 

We407 headed south to Daly Waters and then decided to get off of the Stuart Highway. There are very few paved roads in the outback, but we noticed that we could take one through the Barkley Tablelands. It was a few hundred miles to the first gas station, and we managed to see only one other car during that time. Even more interesting was the road itself: routes off of the main road in the outback are only single lane, yet vehicles, including road trains, still drive at breakneck speeds. This means you may come over a hill and see a road train coming head long at you on a one-lane road.

The gas station we came to after a few hours was called the Heartbreak Hotel, and still had pictures up from the gas station’s 1987 Heartbreak Ball. I think it was the only event the region had seen in 20 years. As we headed south from the roadhouse the tropics gave way to dryness, and the sun set. As the sun set thousands of yellow grasshoppers and hundreds of gray birds decided to sit on the road. Apparently they are not used to cars on those roads, because for an hour straight, we had grasshoppers and birds hitting the car like a driving hailstorm. The front of the Getz was a bloodbath. We made it just east of a town (i.e. gas station) called the Barkley Roadhouse before finding a piece of roadside to sleep on. Being out of the tropics, the mosquitoes were gone, and sleeping conditions were once again enjoyable.

 

Th408 continued east across the outback, through the small mining city of Mount Isa (a place diverse with Asian immigrant labor), and into the state of Queensland. We again turned off the main road and onto a one-lane, grasshopper- and bird-infested backroad, and headed north then east towards the coast. Found a fallow field to sleep in near an area known as Mount Surprise.

 

Fr409 Did a small hike in the hills of the Great Dividing Range (spotted wild ‘roos), and then continued east towards the coastal city of Cairns. That is apparently pronounced Caaaaaans, with a nasal a. The city is the backpacker hub of Australia, with scores of Internet cafes and organized tour services. The tours are mostly to the Great Barrier Reef, which sits just offshore from the northeastern coast of Australia. We signed up for a daytrip to the Reef, then slept in a city park.

 

Sa410 The daytrip included a seasickness-inducing 1.5 hour boat ride each way, and a couple hours of snorkeling at two sites on the Great Barrier Reef. Slept back in Cairns in the TV-watching lobby of a backpackers hostel.

 

Su411 Headed south along the east coast of Australia. One area had this sign. The Cassowary, a blue flightless bird, really is that large. Made it to a rest stop near Mackay, where a group of Scouts were serving coffee to keep Easter weekend drivers alert. Australia has an intense program aimed at keeping drivers alive, with signs sporting phrases such as, “Survive this Drive,” and gas stations and volunteers offering “Free Driver Reviver” (coffee) every few minutes. I had the Scouts explain to me navigating by the Southern Cross, and we slept in a field near their coffee stand.

 

Mo412 Continued south to Brisbane, a city that is rapidly becoming Australia’s trendiest place to live. We spent the evening at a beautiful park/public pool, and on the Charlotte Street pedestrian mall, and then found a city sports field to sleep in.

 

Tu413 Headed just south of Brisbane to a town with a name that explains its function: Surfers Paradise. The town is a stretch of high rise vacation apartments and sand that rivals strips from the Algarve to Miami Beach. Headed inland a bit to the small, rural hill town of Burringer, where we stayed with Wendy and Kevin (relatives of my friend Beth F. at Red Rocks College). Their house is a meeting place for all the local kids; this means we spent the evening playing “Australian Rules” Ghosts in the Graveyard. Clay Folk got a little too excited about the game, and was able to use the “cover and concealment” tactics he learned in the Marines.

 

We414 Stopped at the nearby surfers town of Byrons Bay, and then headed south along the coast to near Sydney.

 

Th415 Strom dropped Clay and I off at the Sydney airport, and picked up his girlfriend for their continued travels on the continent. Clay and I caught a flight out to Fiji.

 

Seated in the heart of Melanesia, Fiji is one of the more prominent countries in the South Pacific. The country is seen as a cultural hub of the Pacific islands, and consists of dozens of island. Our plan was to visit the main island of Viti Levu for a couple days. The word Fiji came from Captain Cook’s understanding of other islander’s mispronunciation of the name of the island, “Viti”. To pronounce it like the locals do today, the accent is apparently on the second syllable, i.e. fi-JEE. The country is historically notorious for being one of the region’s centers of headhunting and cannibalism. Cannibalism was practiced to show complete dominance over one’s defeated war enemy; some chiefs are recorded to have eaten hundreds of their victims.

About a century ago, the British colonists imported a significant population from India as indentured labor (i.e., slaves). The result today is that the island is half Melanesian and half Indian. I found this interestingly similar to the current situation of half African and half Indian on Trinidad. The Fiji-Indo culture that has evolved has many similarities to modern Indian culture, but also a few differences. For example, one can find street vendors hawking fried snacks and sweets such as pakora, jalebi, lassis, burfee and ladoo, next to those peddling more meaty Polynesian fare.

Our plane landed on the west side of the island in the city of Nadi, and we found a hostel to sleep in. The place was questionable in cleanliness, but better than many places I had been in the world. The downside was the persistent tropical heat and humidity, causing us to roll in our own sweat for the night. The place cost 8.8 Fiji dollars (US$5), which was much better value than the US$16 each we paid for a camping spot in Tahiti, the only other time we paid to sleep during the trip. This comparison makes clear the extremes of the economies of the South Pacific, with Tahiti being at the expensive end, and Fiji being closer to the cheaper end.

 

Fr416 Caught a bus from Nadi, taking the Queens Road around the south end of the island to the capital city of Suva, located on the east side of the island. Recent heavy rains had resulted in much destruction of homes and infrastructure, forcing the bus to make a couple detours to avoid waterlogged or muddy sections of road. The bus was billed as the express route (compared to the standard third world, stop-and-go bus), but it still took five hours to get around the island.

We spent the afternoon and evening roaming Suva, including stopping at the Fiji National Museum (displaying cannibal forks, part of the rudder of the HMS Bounty, and pictures of Hindu gods), eating plenty of vegetarian Indian street food, and watching the multicultural people of Fiji enjoy their Friday night. In addition to dark skinned Melanisians and Indians, Fiji also has a significant population of Chinese. We spent an hour in a Chinese restaurant, watching the overworked owner contend with a belligerent crowd of drunken Melanian men. We also came upon the shady night scene at the waterfront fish market, where the stinky concrete fish selling tables had been cleared for some sort of dice-rolling betting. As we watched we were offered marijuana and unidentifiable pills from no less then five different men. We spent the night at another cheap hostel.

 

Sa417 Roamed the weekend Suva street market, then caught the bus back around to Nadi, stopping en route at the town of Navua, where another market was underway. Notice the Indian woman.

 

Checked out a Hindu temple in Nadi, then returned to the airport for our flight back to LAX. The flight left at 10pm and arrived in LA at 1pm on the same day, Saturday. Crossing the dateline this time meant we got an extra Saturday, not a bad deal. We met with Rogge H. at the airport, who took Clay home. I caught a domestic flight back to Denver.

 

Next adventures:

May-August; Philmont CD Miners (again)

August: begin studying medicine at U. of Colorado