Australia- 2004, 2009, 2014
We’ve taken three trips to Australia, also known as the Land of Oz - 2004, 2009 and 2014. Perhaps it’s every five years that we get the “Australian Itch.” We love the country and people, and it’s one of the few places in the world that I could live if I ever decided to become an expatriate.
The country is big, almost the size of the US, and getting around involves long flights, train rides and auto trips. Cities are far apart, and there are vast areas of undeveloped desert areas. Travel is easy because of good public transportation and excellent highways. And being able to speak English is a plus.
First Trip- 2004
Our first Australian adventure in 2004 took us to Sydney, the capital. From Sydney we took the newly opened Indian Pacific train to Adelaide, in South Australia, where we explored the Barossa Valley wine country. The Barossa is home to many first class Australian wineries and is reminiscent of the Napa Valley in the 1960’s, before the world discovered California wine. From Adelaide we rode the Ghan train nine hundred miles to Alice Springs, in the center of the country.
On both train rides we had expectations for seeing kangaroos and other exotic animals, but that didn’t happen. Perhaps the kangaroos long ago learned to stay away from man and his “iron monsters” and on this trip our animal sightings were mainly confined to the Sydney zoo.
We were disappointed with Alice Springs - Australians just call it “The Alice” - a very small and poor town in the southern part of the Northern Territories. Its main claim to fame is being a jumping off point for exploring Australia’s Red Centre outback and Ayers Rock (Uluru), but because of the distance and our limited time, we chose not to see “the Rock.” It’s a six hundred mile round trip and would have taken us three days of driving through barren desert; instead we rented a four-wheel drive SUV and explored the nearby MacDonnell Range ,where we saw giant lizards and snakes, but again no kangaroos.
Alice is the gathering place for Aborigines from all over the country. While they live in camps, on the outskirts of Alice, many gather downtown to use medical and other services. From what we observed, they were not being treated well by the local authorities, and are a testament to what appears to be Australia’s failed policy of dealing with their largest minority.
From Alice we flew approximately 1800 miles over mostly desert terrain to Brisbane, Australia’s third largest city, capital of Queensland and located on the South Pacific Ocean. Brisbane is a delightful, and seemingly very livable, city built along the Brisbane River, which facilitates efficient and inexpensive transportation using fast and inexpensive Water Cats. The Queensland Maritime Museum is, I believe, one of the finest maritime museums in the world.
After several days in Brisbane, we rented a car and took a week to drive six hundred miles back to Sydney, using both coast and inland roads, which allowed us to see more of the country. From Sydney, we flew United non-stop home, a short but excellent first Australian adventure.
Second Trip- 2009:
Our second trip to Australia, in 2009, was longer and covered areas we hadn’t seen on the first trip, including Darwin in the north and Perth on the West Coast. Misti looked online and planned a trip which included Queensland, Darwin, the Gibb River Road in Western Australia, a river boat down the Murray River and driving from Adelaide to Sydney; an ambitious itinerary which promised lots of adventure.
After a fifteen-hour flight from San Francisco to Sydney, we flew on to Townsville in Queensland, where we rented a car and spent the first night. From Townsville we drove north two hundred miles, on the Bruce Highway along the Cassowary Coast, to Cairns. The coast is named after a very odd looking bird, the Cassowary, found only in New Guinea and northeastern Australia. It’s flightless, is the second largest bird in the world (probably why it can’t fly) and is considered to be the most dangerous of all birds. It looks like an ostrich with a turkey’s head, and there are signs everywhere warning people not to go near them since they can tear a person apart. Welcome to Australia’s array of dangerous creatures.
Queensland, named after Queen Victoria, is the second largest state and is in the northeast corner of Australia. With its natural tropical beauty, many beaches, six World Heritage sites and the Great Barrier Reef, it’s a naturalist’s paradise. We headed north toward Port Douglas, the jumping off point for Great Barrier Reef tours, and spent a night there. Since we had planned only three days for Queensland, our sightseeing was limited to Daintree National Park, where we boated among huge crocodiles, the BirdWorld bird sanctuary in Kuranda, where we had breakfast with tropical birds sitting on our heads, and driving the scenic coast road. The rest of northern Queensland had to be saved for another trip.
We returned to Cairns and flew on to Darwin, capital city of the Northern Territories, also referred to as the “Top End.” We stayed in Darwin only one night since it was just a stopover on our way to Broome, on the west coast. From Broome, we planned to explore the Gibb River Road, a former cattle route in the Kimberly section of Western Australia that runs 400 miles from Kununurra to Derby.
We had learned online that the Gibb River Road is one of Australia’s greatest four-wheel drive adventures, with spectacular scenery in a remote and isolated part of Western Australia. The state of Western Australia comprises one-third of the entire country, is one million square miles and almost as large as all of Europe.
We rented a sturdy Land cruiser in Broome, equipped with dual gas tanks and a snorkel for fording creeks, and stocked up with food and water for our expedition into the outback. We set out on a three-day adventure which included encountering - and running over because I couldn’t avoid it - the biggest and nastiest looking snake we’ve ever seen outside a zoo, as well as some huge lizards. We stayed two nights at remote cattle stations, Mt. Hart and Mt. Elizabeth, where we shared travel experiences with other intrepid travelers. One night I went to use an outdoor bathroom and came upon an immense multi-colored frog the size of small dog; scared me and made me realize there are some very strange creatures in this neck of the woods.
Our next destination was Perth, in the southern part of Western Australia, a 1,300 mile drive through desert country, and we decided flying made the most sense. Misti was able to easily book a two and a half hour flight on Virgin Blue, at a cost not much more than renting a car. We wanted to see Perth because we had heard so many good things about it, it’s very far from San Francisco- more than 9,000 miles or half way around the world - and since we were already on Australia’s west coast this might be our only opportunity.
We rented a car and spent the day exploring Perth, situated on the Swan River where it runs into the Indian Ocean. Kings Park, overlooking the sea, is spectacular as is the Botanic Garden on a hillside looking down on the city. We read about Freemantle, a suburb very much like Sausalito, and spent the night there. Freemantle has a great Fish Market and we feasted on perhaps the best shellfish we’ve ever had. Being surrounded by water, Australia is big on Maritime museums, and the one in Freemantle goes to the head of the class, easily worth half a day. Lots of history here since, over the centuries, the area was a maritime crossroads for many Asian trade routes.
A highlight of the trip was still ahead of us. We had booked four nights on the PS Murray Princess which cruises the Murray River, Australia’s longest river which runs more than 1,500 miles from the Australian Alps to the Southern Ocean. Our journey was only one hundred or so miles, but sufficient to give us a feel for the river which, due to years of drought, was at an all time low. There were roughly one-hundred passengers and we were the only Americans, everyone else was either Australian or Kiwi (New Zealanders). They loved having us aboard, their “American cousins” - and with lots of drink and Anglo fellowship they “adopted” us. At the last dinner we were toasted - and with tears in our eyes as we all sang “Waltzing Matilda” - Misti and I realized how much we loved Australia and its people.
Our journey was coming to an end. We returned to Adelaide where we rented a car and took three days to drive the eight hundred miles back to Sydney, where we spent three nights before boarding a Quantas flight for the fourteen-hour trip home. Thus ended our second Australian adventure.
Third Trip- 2015:
Our third Australian trip was the final part of a South Pacific cruise from Tahiti to Sydney. It was winter and cold at home, Misti and I decided we wanted to be in a warmer climate, and found an eighteen day Oceania cruise, at a good price, from Tahiti to Sydney. Our granddaughter, Meg, was doing a one month course through Cal Poly in Adelaide, so we thought we’d use the cruise as a way of getting to Australia, without any jet lag, and visit Meg and her friend Rachel.
After leaving the ship we spent two nights in Sydney, with several visits to the Sydney Fish Market, feasting on Australia’s bountiful seafood, especially the oysters which seem so much better than what we get in California. We then left Sydney on Virgin Australia for the short ninety-minute flight to Adelaide, much easier than a two-day drive through almost half the country. What we didn’t take into account was the fact that Australia was in the midst of a severe heat wave, it was January which is their summer, and when we landed in Adelaide the temperature was 110 degrees. Thankfully it was a dry heat but, nevertheless, even with shorts and sandals, it felt like we had stepped into an oven.
We spent two days in Adelaide, with Meg and Rachel showing us around the city, including a day’s drive to the Clare Valley where we visited several wineries. The Clare Valley is smaller and less known than Adelaide’s other wine region, the Barossa Valley, it has older and smaller wineries and, because it’s not as well known, there are no tourist hordes. Meg was studying viticulture at Cal Poly so it was a thrill for her to get close-up to several Australian vineyards. We spent several hours in the National Wine Centre in Adelaide, Australia’s largest tasting room - in Australia, tasting rooms are called “cellar doors.” Called the “Wined Bar” it has innovative wine tasting dispensing machines which offer tastings for more than a hundred labels.
We said our goodbyes to Meg and Rachel and headed our rental car southeast for a ten-day drive back to Sydney along the Great Ocean Road, also called the Princes Highway, spending several nights in Melbourne along the way. Before leaving home we had read about the Great Ocean Highway, the southern route from Adelaide to Sydney, a 1,500 mile drive through the states of South Australia and Victoria. While the drive was scenic, and gave us an opportunity to visit many seaside towns, the jewel was Melbourne, Australia’s second largest city, which boasts amazing diversity including the largest Greek population outside of Greece.
Misti found a hotel on Bourke Street, in the city center, and we spent two days and nights enjoying the city’s attractions. Highlights were the Melbourne Museum, Victoria Market, the National Gallery of Victoria, Shrine of Remembrance and just walking the downtown streets window shopping and watching the people. It was Chinese New Year and Melbourne was booked with thousands of Chinese who came to celebrate. The air was filled with gunpowder and the sound of firecrackers exploding everywhere, like San Francisco but more colorful and exciting.
The Shrine of Remembrance was an especially moving experience. Perhaps because of their small population, Australians take their wars and military very seriously, and the shrine was built as a memorial to men and women who served their country in wars from WWI to present time. When we entered the memorial an older man, in military uniform, approached and asked if he could guide us through the shrine - at no charge of course. He gave us a memorable tour which had Misti and me crying and realizing, once again, the horror of war.
We left Melbourne and drove six-hundred miles on the Hume Highway to Sydney, stopping in two small towns to experience more of rural Australia. The Hume Highway is a four-lane “carriageway” straight as an arrow, very well signed, with messages every few miles reminding drivers not to fall asleep. Amazingly little traffic, considering it connects the country’s two largest cities.
We spent our two last days in Sydney at the five-star Pier One hotel, with views of Sydney Harbour and the Harbour Bridge. We bid farewell to Australia as we boarded United for a fourteen-hour non-stop flight home, first-class thanks to Misti’s skill in getting upgrades.
Some random thoughts about Australia: very friendly and polite people, small population of only twenty-three million people in a country almost as big as the US, hottest water and best toilet flushes in the world, hottest coffee, better use of the English language than the US, better signage than the US, everything in English and no signs in other languages, so many tattooed people, shortening of words like Macca for McDonalds and avo for avocado, everything is “gluten free,” perhaps the best seafood in the entire world, coldest beer, good wine everywhere, good drivers, excellent well-marked highways that are often empty, outside the cities. As I said after our first visit in 2004, Australia is the way the US used to be and the way it should be now.
Art Faibisch
December, 2016
