A new adventure begins as this enormous silver bird carries us across the ocean towards the Land of Oz. Never flown Qantas before and, after the first hour or so, I can’t say I am over-impressed. The entertainment system is not very friendly, and the seats are as cramped as any we’ve ever been squashed into. I’ve managed to create a music playlist and now have no idea how to control it; it’s on ‘shuffle’, so I guess I’ll just let it carry on till dinner arrives; the smell of food is making us both hungry . . .
Eleven hours later, and I’m sorry to say that my opinion of Qantas, at least on this flight, has only improved slightly – we found that the movie selection was pretty good, and the food, though crassly served, was quite edible – even tasty! Celine experimented with Dramamil and slept surprisingly well, while I dozed on and off; perhaps I should get onto the drugs myself on the way home.
“So what is the idea of going to Australia?” you may well be asking if you have been following our travels over the previous twelve months. The call of family is the main draw plus our ongoing curiosity. No nest hunting intended here, though who knows . . . !!
My sister, Cescy, with her husband, Richard, and their young family, arrived in Australia about fifty years ago, taking the Ten Pound Sterling offer that attracted so many migrants to the country in the fifties and sixties. They started out living near Sydney and over the years, while their family grew larger and older, and eventually moved out from the happy homestead, they have slowly migrated northwards, finally arriving in Bli Bli on the Sunshine Coast north of Brisbane, our starting point for this “Tour Down-Under”.
Celine has never been to “the world’s largest island”, and I only paid a fleeting visit when I took my own young family there as part of a business trip to New Zealand about twenty-five years ago, staying with Cescy and Richard who were then living near Mooloolabah. I gather that the region has changed a lot since then, with development all over the place, so any past memories are probably pretty irrelevant; Cescy tells me that even the totally crazy Ettamogah Pub, where the boys and I enjoyed beers and something pretty tasty off the “barbi”, has lost much of its outrageous Aussie appeal. Oh well, time changes everything, and not always for the best it seems.
As a Canadian, I tend to think of Australia as a rather brash, slightly less capitalistic version of America. After two weeks in New Zealand, a country where people seemed very relaxed and slightly old-fashioned in their ways, its comparison with Australia was similar to that between my adopted homeland in Niagara-on-the-Lake and everything American just across the border. After five years living rather too close to Los Angeles and witnessing the hedonistic lifestyle of many of the wealthier residents of Southern California, I am hoping that my assumptions about Oz are misplaced. I guess we’ll find out in the next few days as we get ourselves acclimatised and prepare for our road trip.
It is now Sunday afternoon, and we are preparing for a big family party with two of my nephews, David, who is also my godson, and Giles, coming round with their families. Cescy and Richard’s house has a large shaded patio where, Mediterranean style, we will all be sitting round a long wooden table, this one being made from three planks of eucalyptus, many different species of which make up more than 70% of the trees in the country.
This morning we walked to the local Fishermans Road Sunday market in Dilillibah, a rather pleasant two-plus kilometre stroll in the morning cool. We had fun chatting to the locals who were selling everything from bric-a-brac to freshly squeezed fruit-juice slushies, bought a few essential groceries, and then started the walk home. By then the sun was high in a nearly cloudless sky, the temperature had risen to the low thirties, and even the dog decided the walk home was not going to be anywhere near as enjoyable as the stroll there. We are just south of the Tropic of Capricorn here, so six or seven weeks ago the sun was right overhead at midday, and today’s heat is hardly a surprise; but it still takes it out of you when you experience it after such a long time in slightly more temperate climes.
Yesterday, as we determinedly ignored the effects of jetlag and losing Thursday the fifteenth of February altogether, we strolled along the local beach at the mouth of the Maroochydore River, where “unrestrained dogs” are allowed to run free. Six-month old Suzi certainly has no self-restraint and had great fun meeting other local canines; meanwhile, the sight and sound of the storm-tossed waves pounding against the shore with its wild green backdrop of reeds and small trees, totally reinvigorated Celine and me.
That ‘yesterday’ was in fact three days ago, as it is now Wednesday and it is a whole week since we left home, if you ignore the day we lost on the way over here. We have toured a bit further in the last couple of days, first going on a glorious drive through the countryside inland from Bli Bli, to the sub-tropical rain forest of Kondalilla State Park. There Celine had her first snake encounter, narrowly avoiding stepping onto a black snake, probably an Eastern Small-eyed, that was basking on the footpath in a small patch of sunlight that filtered through the thick forest ceiling; it shot away into the undergrowth as Celine yelped while doing a neat pirouette that brought all of us to a sudden halt. Other local fauna was happier to see us!
We walked down the steep path among the grass trees and the stag horn ferns, to the pool at the bottom of the small upper falls, but decided that another hundred metres descent, followed by the climb all the way back up to the car park was a bit more than any of us wanted to do on such a hot sweaty day.
So, once back at the car, we continued our drive along a ridge road among the rolling green hills, stopped off at a cafe in Montville with beautiful views towards the coast, and then cheekily turned into the driveway of C & R’s old house in the woods above Mooloolah, rekindling memories of my family’s stay there all those years ago.
Then – the real – yesterday, Celine and I drove down the coast, stopping in Maroochydore for groceries at Woolworths – no relation of the Woolworths of my English childhood – and a couple of tasty ginger latte coffees at a very green-minded cafe called Elixiba. Further on we arrived at Point Cartwright where my boys had their first taste of surfing as young Canadians in their early teens; the recent stormy weather was still kicking up the waves and we had a healthy, blustery walk along the steeply shelving beach of clean golden sand, till we got to the steps and footpath up to the lighthouse on the point. Two kookaburras very obligingly posed on the top of a sign beside the path to have their photos taken, as some less photogenic brush turkeys scrabbled around in the undergrowth.
We had some specific shopping to do and found the what we wanted in BigW, a KMart style store in Kawana Shopping World, where we also chanced upon Jamaica Blue, a local restaurant chain named after the eponymous coffee from said island’s Blue Mountains. Their salads were delicious and fortified us well to as we continued our drive to Caloundra; there, in spite of the cool damp breeze, we enjoyed the spectacular antics of the kitesurfers braving the wild winds and waves across the bar at the mouth of the shallow estuary, our only fellow spectator being a young woman with a very oversized backside sporting a very undersized bikini, not a pleasant sight at all!
It seems that seaside Australia is much like coastal Southern California in having persons of all shapes and sizes, of whom many more than we had expected are overweight .
So, one week gone and our acclimatisation process is proceeding well. Today we woke up to the beating of heavy rain on the indigenous, “colourised,” corrugated tin roof and, as I looked out of the patio window, I could see the water being blown horizontally off the roof of the garden shed. This was a delightful sight to a couple of drought-worn Californians and, apparently, quite a surprise even to the locals. A few more days and we start our travels proper as we drive south into New South Wales on our way to Sydney. So, as the saying goes, “Watch this space . . .!!”