Blue Mountains to Footscray - Oct. 15 


Hello again!  We're currently in Kathmandu after going through Tibet and visiting Everest Base Camp.  Our plans for volunteering here fell through only a week before we got here (grrrr....) but we're here safe and sound.  We'll try to use local sources to find .volunteer work and get some trekking and rafting in as well.  We're on a waiting list for our planned African trip, so our final 2 months have yet to come together.  Maybe we'll even get more of this published....

Saturday. –  Oct. 15  Hiking the Upper Rim -Blue Mountains, Day 2

We had breakfast with another group of German travellers and the big debate was whether the weather would waver. We checked out the rock formation close to town, the visibility extended to the “Three Sisters”, but beyond them all was lost in pea soup fog. We decided to chance it on an easy trail at Leura Falls that we could abandon quickly if there was nothing to see. We hiked down a well-blazed trail for about 10 minutes to get to the falls, which were just visible through the mist but quite audible. The view was pleasant, with two areas where the stream fell and then it descended into the valley below, which was still shrouded in mist. We hiked along the upper rim of the valley and the mist started lifting as we continued. Soon we could see across the valley to the cliffs beyond and it finally all made sense. The view was really something and it was interesting to gradually see what we were hiking through. The trail went through some rocky overhangs. It was again well laid out and we were appreciative of the solid guard rails keeping us from falling a fair distance to the bottom.

Waiting for the mist to lift over the valley.

We then got on the highway to Canberra and Meg napped. We had forgotten to program Sean (the GPS) to avoid toll roads, so we got sucked onto one for a short period of time. It said that you could pay your toll online (not! ha, ha) and I took note of the website. Of course, the website took about 10 minutes extracting information before advising you that it had a permanent server error. After trying three times, I figured that this was a permanent thing and my 48 hours were over. The rental company had a nasty surcharge for incurred tolls and fines, but the e-mails I sent just got me generic replies. Lesson: never take a toll road in a strange country and never allow your politicians to privatize roads, as these companies have no customer service.

Craving Culture in Canberra

We made it to the very new YHA Hostel in downtown Canberra (population 339,500). I had to park a few blocks away but the place looked worth it. Meg was still tired so I took a stroll through the neighbourhood. Most places were closed but I was able to check out the Canberra Museum. It had a famous series of Ned Kelly (the romanticised robber who wore a bucket on his head) pictures which were simple enough to had been illustrations in a children's book. There were a few modern pieces, including some nice patterns on the floor made by placing coloured pens in rows. They also had someone's motorcycle collection, and the early ones looked solid but scary to ride. The rest of the downtown was set up as an octagon but nothing much was going on except a half-hearted protester shouting to a small crowd.

We had dinner downstairs in the large, modern kitchen with a surprisingly small kitchen space for a building meant for two hundred people. They had plenty of most things but had only about 4 glasses. Dinner was easily prepared and we augmented it with a selection of the gourmet extras we got from the Hunter Valley. We worked on some planning in the evening and Meg reported when she went outside that the locals were swarming and the kitchen and patio were full of clusters of beer-drinking drongos. We watched RockWiz on the TV in our room (a great music trivia show with a very flippant and quick-thinking host) and then tried to sleep. This was difficult, as in spite of Canberra's reputation of being boring we heard the local yobbos driving by and yelling incoherently over loud Bon Jovi music. Our hostel-mates responded by gathering out front, under our window, to sing loud, tuneless songs and drunkenly challenge each other to fights. They did not endear themselves to us and a good sleep was not had that evening.

Sunday. – Rooting for Rotoruan Rugby

We grumpily got up and had some breakfast. We then headed out to the Australia Museum, a short drive away on the fake lake Canberra was built around. It was a wildly modern building with irregular shapes, colourful poles and a huge courtyard full of bent maps in the centre for kids to run around in. Admission was free (Australians and New Zealanders are very progressive that way) except for a Chinese exhibit which we didn't need to (or were too cheap) see. We first headed to the Aboriginal Exhibit, Canberra being the home of the Ngunnawal Aboriginals, which was quite large and varied. There were lots of videos and music examples as well as a room full of people telling their stories (on video). One exhibit focussed on the Aboriginal struggle for gaining rights with displays on several of the slaughters that were carried out against them. Other areas covered the challenges of settling different parts of the country, the convict history and lastly the history of animal species being wiped out by hunting, or by invasive species (like rats and rabbits) taking over the whole country. On this last point, this was, our first exposure to the mystery of the Thylacine, better known as the “Tasmanian Tiger”, a stripy dog-like marsupial, which was exterminated by humans in the middle of the last century (not to be confused with the Tasmanian Devil, which is threatened but still exists). The museum had an example of bad taxidermy with a moth-eaten, one-eyed, mangy Tiger on display dating from the 1900s. (We become fascinated with the story of the “Tiger” even before we went to Tasmania).

After the museum and a pot of tea, Meg was spent, so we went back so she could nap. I was intending to visit the modern art museum but traffic was strangely congested for a Sunday afternoon. When the police closed off the unmoving ramp I was trying to merge onto, I gave up and went to look at a museum on our side of the fake lake. Someone said the film archives were open to the public including a screening room showing a sentimental history of Canberra and one large room set up with viewing booths. The booths were more interesting but mainly focused on great Australian moments in TV and film. The viewing was generous and you could have spent hours there if that was your thing.

I drove back and the traffic was still locked up so I parked the car and stayed locally. The Rugby World Cup semi-final was due to play that day so I scouted a likely pub to watch it. Sadly, I didn't find out until after I ordered my beer that they were only showing a rugby league rules game between the same two countries. (There are about 5 different rugby variations played here). Not wanting to waste a beer, I watched the first half of the game which combined rugby with a system of 5 downs but never stopping the continual play. It was entertaining enough but not what I was looking for, so I went back to the room to type until the real game started.

Meg and I had a quick dinner and went out to see the real game. The pub I was in that afternoon was now packed, but I had seen others close by. The largest one was closed on Sundays (yes, the whole day!) and the small one with good beer didn't have a television. Defeated, we went back to the hostel only to find that the staff were wrong, we didn't need a cable TV to watch it (hurray!). We tuned into the game our TV common room and were joined by two older gentleman and one of their wives. We were worried that our support for the Kiwis might ruffle a few feathers so we carefully inquired who they were supporting. It turned out that our couch-sharers were all from New Zealand, so we were cheering for the same side! The All-Blacks won easily, and really, they deserved to. In New Zealand, everyone was talking about the Rugby World Cup;. Whereas the Australians were talking about their local leagues and weren't that interested in the Cup (or they were feigning disinterest because they lost- but I'm half Australian so I can say that).

Monday – Family Secrets (the Cousin we don't talk about...)

We dashed to eat and pack the car before our parking would expire. Our last stop would be the new parliament building which we headed towards until poor signage detoured us onto a side road. We could see the “hill” clearly and figured we could walk there. We asked instructions from an Australian-Indian civil servant, who gave us a rather (what we later discovered to be common in South-East Asia) traditional response, not knowing the answer, but still wanting to be helpful – he directed us to cross an impassible 6 lane ring highway to get there. After several near death experiences, we managed to return to our car and somehow manouvered our way to the underground parking safely. We just missed the 9 am tour and so hung around and looked at the rooms and artwork. They have a copy of the Magna Carta (for some reason) as well as an Inuit sculpture donated at the time of the building's completion. We saw that Midnight Oil's lead singer, Peter Garrett, is now a cabinet minister for Labour and Meg got all sorts of information about James Scullin, the Labour Leader whom she was related to. (He was grandmother's cousin, and he was only PM for a couple of years. He was vilified over his harsh response to a strike. But another relative, great-uncle Jack was one of the founders of the Australian Communist Party and a giant in the labour movement). While Meg shopped (they had tea towels of all the Prime Ministers!) I went up top where they had lawns (environ-friendly architecture) and a nice view of this very geometric city.

When the 45 minute-tour started our group was fairly large but the woman leading it was a real pro and handled the group deftly. We learned that both the senate and parliament had viewing galleries behind Plexiglas so that school children could visit without disrupting anything. Since voting is mandatory, all school visits are subsidized based on how far they have to travel to Canberra (makes me proud to be half Australian). The seats in these halls were coloured on a gradient to create an illusion of space. Meg asked for James Scullin's portrait to be pointed out and the guide helped, but without a lot of enthusiasm. He was the last one in the new building, the older ones had been moved to the old parliament hall as space required (sadly by the time my niece and nephew get to Australia his portrait will be removed).

We left on that high note, but no fond farewell to Canberra, a pretty soulless place (like most capital cities, to be fair). We drove towards Wangaratta, chosen mainly for its being a halfway point on the way to Melbourne. An hour and a half out of the city we stopped for lunch and found that we had left our cooler (or Eski as they call them down here) in the freezer at Canberra, both of us assuming that the other had brought it. It was full of our pasta sauce and gourmet delights and was a huge loss, but not enough to retrace our steps for.

Meg with the portrait of her unspeakable relative in the unspeakable city of  Canberra.

Being without provisions, we pulled over for lunch at the next food place named after the dog on the tackle box song, a weird song whose lyrics held little charm for me (the dog apparently lays on the tackle box to stop other animals getting in- or maybe he widdles on it, something like that.)

Chatting with TAZ in Charmless Chiltern/Wacky Wangaratta

Just before we got to Wangaratta we stopped off in Chiltern. Our guide book mentioned it as being an authentic mining town that was used as a setting for several films. We pulled in and saw a sleepy, dusty place where most businesses had closed by 4pm. We walked around the main strip and saw “closed” and “for sale” signs as well as a few shops that were open but customer-free. We tried to order a coffee, but the cafe was closing so sent us to the saloon. It was open but also devoid of customers. While they put a pot on to brew, we talked to the lone man in the place, an old codger named Taz (so-named as he was from Tasmania) and he could recall some obscure film a long time ago that was shot in town and lamented its current stagnant state. He made a point of telling us that his ancestors came to Tasmania as the widow of a soldier, differentiating himself from the country's criminal heritage. He had done a lot of travelling around Australia, and was really interesting to talk to, but we had to get going. When we paid for the coffees a local was talking to the woman behind the counter and Meg gave suggestions they could use to rejuvenate the town (historical tours). She listened politely and we got on our way.

Wangaratta was big and thriving after Chiltern but we had to circle a block a few times as our GPS was unable to navigate us right to our motel. The Miller's Cottage was a budget place that at first reminded us an old 1950s style motel. The manager who eventually opened the squeaky screen door was friendly, and talked to us at length of what to do in town and in the south of Victoria state. .

We headed to dinner to find that the the two places the manager recommended weren't open so we took a gamble on Cafe Martini, a large restaurant with several customers and a good-looking menu. They served local wines we hadn't heard of, but a random choice of Brown Brothers was really tasty paired with a antipasto plate. I made the mistake of ordering risotto, which turned out to be rice stew. When we asked if the rice was meant to be mushy, our server said of course (okay, we are food snobs, but who wants to pay risotto prices for microwaved mush?). As we left, we saw the kitchen staff were all under 18, which would have impacted our food choices had we known.

Wangaratta was pretty much asleep now, (9:30pm) so we headed back to our room and before long joined them.

Tuesday – Ned Kelly- Doggie Biscuits- and Golliwogs

We made a quick breakfast in our room and then moved on. The closest tourist town was Beechworth, which was supposed to have a Ned Kelly tour (a perfect way of rejuvenating the town and attracting tourists) to satisfy our curiosity as to why the old bandit has captured the imagination of Australia. By the time we got there the early tour had left and the next Ned Kelly tour wasn't for several hours, which we didn't have. We looked at the old historic buildings ourselves, which didn't take long. Amazingly, their telegraph office was still active! It was apparently the busiest in the world and would send telegrams wherever you wanted. They also had the old Chinese office, to deal with the immigrants who were simultaneously needed and resented during the gold rush.

Offensive or cute?  You decide.

We walked through the rest of the town, which was the opposite to Chiltern. The old buildings were well-preserved but were thriving, with tour buses parked everywhere and lots of people wandering the streets. We hit the Salvo (Australian for Salvation Army Store) and got some books and things we didn't really need. We then strolled around town and found a large window display stuffed with Golliwogs in various outfits (what other racist goodies are they selling children? Licorice “Little Black Sambos”?) At another store Meg picked up some treats for the dog we would be staying with in Melbourne. They had tons of toys and food marked “not human grade”. The dog treats at the counter looked like gourmet chocolates and the owner told of high school students who were buying them to feed to friends as a joke, apparently the friends found them tasty. Meg chose a weird-looking toy that Jack Russels were supposed to love.

Time was a wasting, so we drove down some pretty country roads towards the so-called gourmet region. On the way there we stopped in at an olive grove, and got an interesting “Olives 101” lecture from a guy dressed like he had been working on trees all morning. We heard about the regulations around extra-virgin old and heard that uniformly coloured olives are bleached or chemically coloured in some way which causes them to become soft. We tasted some nice olives and dips and bought jars of yummy spiced olives to replenish our food supply.

We then hit the main town in the area and stopped for lunch at the Milawa Cheese shop which seemed to be at the centre of the action. We had a rather leisurely lunch and tasted some excellent cheese, going back to buy some for later. The place was a mecca for tour buses, one whose minimum age had to be 85 as it took most of our meal for the bus occupants to make their way up to the balcony (when we are 85 let's hope we get to go on wine tours too!).

Next we stopped at Brown Brothers winery, that of the tasty wine but crappy risotto, meal. They had an elegant tasting area with a rolling wooden wall between parts of the bar to accommodate a private group. As in Hunter Valley, they poured generously, and I had to turn down many offered wines if I were going to drive. We bought two delicious bottles and had a nice chat with a couple who came from Christchurch (mainly about the earthquake and NZ cheese).

Family, Fun, and Food in Footscray

It was time to head out so we drove towards Melbourne. There is something about the city that messes up Sean (and probably most GPS systems), so we took longer getting there as the satellite kept cutting out just as we had to decide on exits. Eventually, we made it to Peter and Brian's home in Footscray (10 minutes from the downtown but 45 minutes the way Sean directs us). Despite arriving later than we had anticipated, we were made welcome, had a great chat and Lucy immediately attacked her toy and had disabled the squeaking function within minutes. We were tired and felt immediately welcome as we unwound and got to meet Peter (Meg's second cousin). We then went out to one of their favourite haunts, a proper Italian restaurant which was small and with everything cooked by Mama. The food and atmosphere were wonderful and Meg was doing her usual bill-wrestling with Peter but both were thwarted by Brian who informed us that he had paid for it all on his last trip to the washroom.

Week 6 (not quite a full week,but ready to post!)

`` Hunter Valley Zoo to Blue Mountains

Thurs. Oct. 13 – singing “Pat-the-Wombat to the tune of “Rock-the-Casaba”

Finally patting the wombat.

We had breakfast, packed, and Skyped (telephoned via internet)a few people before we had to go. We couldn't leave the Hunter Valley without visiting the zoo we passed on our way to our runs, hoping it wouldn't be too grim. (after seeing a poster about the zoo where we could feed the kangas and pat wombats, I was eager to go! I was so excited I kept singing the above song (which wasn't more than “we're gonna pat-the-wombat” in the car until Owen threatened to cancel the zoo trip unless I stopped, ed.) An auspicious sign that this would be a good visit was the peacock proudly strutting its' stuff and flaring its' tail in the parking lot. We went in and Meg bought 4 ice cream cones full of kangaroo and bird food for the animals. We had a quick look around, were whistled at and told “hello, darling” by some cheeky cockatoos very interested in our food, and then headed over for scheduled wombat-petting. These are large burrowing animals which were given a nice plate of vegetables to eat, whole cobs of corn and heads of cauliflower. The male was shy but the female came out and ate and let the keeper pick her up and carry her around so that everyone could stroke her back. They have heavy bone-plates on their backside, apparently strong enough to crush a dingo's head against the top of a burrow hole.(The crowd around the wombats were us, some parents with their children, and some adults from a community living centre with their caregivers, we all waited our turn for what proved to be a rather anti-climactic experience, for me at least).

Meg, re-enacting her favourite scene from 'The Birds".

Next we went to Meg's favourite, the cage where you lock yourselves in with the birds and fed them. They soon were swarming over her and she spent a long time trying to train them how to eat properly. They were more interested in the ice cream-cones than the seed, and enjoyed crunching the bits up. I found them a bit much and dropped the cone when their munching got a little too close to my fingers. They landed on your arms, in your hair, wherever they could perch close to the beloved cone.

Getting close to an Australian icon, Russel Crowe!

We then got to pet a koala, (but only on the back and only while its mouth was full of eucalyptus leaves). Meg said its' fur felt curly and was surprised. We then fed some kangaroos, who again preferred the cone in spite of Meg's nutritional lectures. (We wondered whether all that sugar didn't make the animals hyperactive! ed) There were the usual suspects at the zoo as well- lizards, snakes, emus, dingos, sheep and goats (bo-o-ring). The Tasmanian Devil kept running around its small pen on the same route and seemed to be demented (or just in too small a space). Other than that they seemed pretty content and well cared for.

The wayward ways of pickpocket wallobies.

I managed to drag Meg away and we headed to Wyndham Estates for our final tasting. On our way there we passed a distressed turtle on the road. Meg ran out and picked it up to get it off the road and it promptly peed with fright. Some ladies inn a car passed and ave us advice as to what to do with it, and Meg got it to the other side. Not before a nasty driver honked at us for blocking the road, but the ladies gave him the finger. The ladies and meg congratulated themselves on having saved the turtle until we realised we didn't know which side of the road he had been heading for. No one was there but eventually a woman from the next room came and filled our glasses. She knew about the turtle situation and said they have a lot of turtle accidents in the vicinity. She was a French immigrant and her accent, mixed with Australian, was hard to decipher. She was overly generous and we really had to limit her pouring if we were going to do any driving at all. The wines that were local were excellent and it was the one place where the $60 aged Shiraz really was twice as good as the $30 one. We picked up some sparkling Shiraz and red port and then sat to have lunch and sober Meg up a bit (I can't drink wine before lunch like that). The grounds were being set up for an upcoming concert by Dame Kiri Te Kanawa and there was much busy-ness happening.

Meg saves the world, one turtle at a time.

The drive to the Blue Mountains was long and pretty but was the twistiest road we had dealt with since New Zealand. Meg was only able to drive at low speed, pulling over to let the locals pass by. At least the weather was decent, and we pulled into Katoomba well before dark. We stayed at a hostel called No. 14, which was one of the nicest (our whole trip through the antipodes). It was an old house and felt like you were visiting a friend. The common room was cosy with a fire and everyone hung out there in the small place. Our room was located on the second floor, right under the roof gables and a very interesting shape, lots of triangles and lots of space (of course it wasn't en-suite, so we had to trip downstairs in the middle of the night, but we couldn't afford that luxury on our budget). The woman who ran it (Mandy) spent lots of time going over possible hikes with us and kindly gave us our choice of the rooms that were available.

We walked into town to shop and found that being in the hills meant the place got very cold very quickly, so we kept up a brisk pace to keep warm. We made dinner in the very crowded kitchen, dodging people as they went by and trying to keep the narrow walking spaces clear. The fridge and dry food areas were all numbered so that each room had equal space, but we had so much stuff we used the numbers of rooms that we knew were empty.

We ate in the common area and had interesting discussion with Aida, a Bosnian woman who was travelling for months and Kasia, who was a doctor from Adelaide (who had interned in Alice Springs and had good stories but was a total right-winger. Both were women travelling independently and were impressive, gutsy chicks, ed). We got lots of hiking and travel advice and then went to bed and slept well.

Fri. – Mastering the Mysterious, Misty Mountains...

Intrepid hiker in the misty canyon.

We got up and had breakfast with a friendly group of Germans. The weather was all fog and mist so we followed Mandy's advice and went to the Grand Canyon (as it would still be a good hike in mist). This one was slightly different from the Arizona one, but much more accessible from Katoomba (ha ha). The mist kept getting thicker as we drove to the trail-head and we were one of only a few cars in a lot meant to hold dozens. There was drizzle all around us, making the footing quite slippery. The steps were huge slabs of stone, occasionally carved out of rock-face but more often brought from elsewhere and set down. There was also a doorway which apparently was shut when they worked on the trail. We benefited greatly from their work (improving the trail) and soon descended to the bottom of the canyon. A stream met us there and would follow us for most of the trail. The hike was at the bottom of a gorge carved by this stream and had high sides and a very narrow hiking area. The trail took us along carved rock (with guard rails!) through a cave, under a waterfall but mainly through widened cave areas with a rock wall on one side and a crack in the ground with a stream at the bottom of it on the other. The rain came and went but never got too bad and the plant life was lush, amazing considering how many plants were just clinging precariously to wet rock. Towards the end of the hike we crossed the stream several times and had trouble finding the trail again. We only met one other hiker until our final ascent, so really felt on our own down there.

On our way up we met another couple wearing Tilley hats so we bonded and took each others' photos (yes, it may be lame but that's who we are). We then went by one of the crews working on the trail having their lunch. We talked to them about how they did it and found out that the huge bags of construction materials were dropped by helicopter for them. We finally came back to the starting point and took a side trail to check out a scenic lookout, which was like staring into a glass of milk due to the fog.

We rewarded ourselves by going to a pizza place that had a chef in the window but found that they weren't open for lunch. While walking back we bumped into three of the British guys with whom we had shared our Whitsunday Yacht trip. They were on a Blue Mountain tour bus waiting for pickup, quite a coincidence to bump into them again, what fun!(When you are on the road, people you spent two days with are like old friends if you meet them again).

Meg got a fantasy novel (Part 2 of a book that I read but didn't know had a sequel,yay!) from a used book store and we headed back for lunch at our hostel. Aida was sick and other people weren't feeling well, luckily we didn't pick anything up. She complained that she was going to Cairns, which is usually pretty sunny but had rain forecast for her trip there. She said bad weather had followed her throughout the country. It was true that the day after we met her was the first day on our Australia trip that we needed raincoats. Coincidence?

We also spoke to a Welsh guy (Brian)who had been travelling for a long time and had spent time in Cambodia helping to build a school. He was very laid back and seasoned and had spent most of his time in Australia tenting for free on public land. Some German hikers reported that you couldn't see anything on the trails in the town, so we hunkered down for an indoor afternoon of typing and napping (guess who did what).

Could we be deported for breaking this law? Please don't turn us in..

For dinner we went to the pizza place which was inexpensive and very generous with their toppings(anchovies and shrimp-yum). The crust was pretty average but overall the best pizza we'd had in Australia. They let us take our leftover pizza with us, which is against the law in Australia apparently because if people don't store the leftovers properly and contract botulism, they can sue the restaurant. We found that most places would bend the rules for us, thankfully.

We headed back and had a laid back evening comparing notes with the other people there and hanging out in the cosy common area. Hostels close to natural areas seemed to attract people of a different ilk than the cities, where many backpackers are of the “drink yourself blind and howl” type. Tea was had, work was done on the internet and we slept to the sound of pouring rain on the roof .    

Slippery stone steps stifle celebratory salute.

Australia - Week 5 Coff's Harbour down to Wine Country

 March 14 - We'll get this thing finished, we've just been so busy...
We've just entered Thailand and are hunkered down in a heavy storm in Chaing Rai.  Laos was wonderfully mellow, Vietnam was exhausting and so far Thailand is wonderful.  We've had to completely change our Africa trip plans as our passports are getting dangerously full and it's very difficult to renew them overseas.  All is well and look for more posts soon!

Coff's Harbour South...

Thursday Oct. 6 continued...

Dull Dinner, Delicious Dessert, and Abundant Australian Alcohol

The drive to Coff's Harbour was uneventful and we successfully arrived in the mid-sized town at a posh, modern hostel. Everything was new and it was the first time we had a plastic passkey to our room. Only once we got there did we realize that oops- we left our cooler bag at Mike and Megan's, leaving us with few food options for dinner (this was not the first and won't be the last time we leave our chilli bin behind). We chilled out in our room and Meg took a swim in the cold, small pool before dinner time. With no chilly bin, we decided to dine on the town.

The main street was a short walk from the hostel and Meg became fixated on me choosing our eating place (because I usually end up being the chooser,ed.) . I went for a place that had a varied menu and a good deal on wine for people eating early, (and being on a tight budget) like us. The wine was tasty and we split a yummy seafood chowder before the mains eventually came with agonizingly slow and completely unmotivated service. My steak was near tasteless and Meg's salmon tortellini pasta was good, but small (it turned out I had ordered an appetizer from the “specials”). Meg decided that the place sucked and tried to warn people off through the window (with appropriate chocking motions) as they were standing on the street looking at the menu, but they unwisely ignored her and came in anyway.

We decided that this obviously wasn't the place for dessert and wandered down the street to a place that offered coffee and cake for $5(cheap,cheap,cheap). The main attraction at this place was they would take your choice of about 20 different candies/chocolate bars and mash them into your ice cream in front of you on their frozen stone. We watched half a dozen kids excitedly go through this process before we got to order and were pleasantly surprised that we also got ice cream with our cake (cheap,cheap,bonus!). It was surprising good and unsurprisingly filling and Meg gave them a tip in their jar as with the smashing and everything they were the hardest working servers we'd seen in Australia.

On the way back we picked up some wine (which was actually a drive through place- in Australia you don't have to get out of your car to get booze) as a gift for Meg's next cousins and were treated to an impromptu lecture on price and wineries by the staff, along with an invitation to tomorrow's tasting. (It just goes to show, appearances at a drive-through win shop can be deceptive). We declined as we had to take off early and breakfast wine was not our thing. Back at the hostel the kids were noisy outside our window in their beer-induced haze but they weren't doing anything we couldn't sleep through.

Friday – No Worries at Port Macquarrie...

Meg needed extra sleep this morning but I went for a run along the Coff's Harbour beach. There were several coves to run along as well as a spit that provided a nice view of the area. A few other people were out jogging or strolling but again the water was considered too cold for swimming. After that we had breakfast, packed and wondered about how the Ontario election turned out, as polls had not closed when we checked out of the hotel.

We made the short drive to Port Macquarrie and after some GPS confusion arrived at the home of Meg's other cousin John Scullin, brother of Megan. He gave us a hearty welcome and we headed out to lunch at a little spot with an ocean view. The service was slow but the view was splendid. We then headed to the nearby lighthouse which looked exactly like a little Greek church but afforded views of the long beach and some offshore rock formations.

John then took us on a tour of the town which had an abundance of beaches, some for surfing, swimming, or even weddings. We also took a look at the river that emptied into the port and some of the downtown areas. We headed over to the Koala Hospital to get an afternoon tour of the place. The tour host was very animated and was able to convey the personalities of the animals through her stories and analogies. The talk was planned around the feeding times for the marsupials so they were actually moving. Normally they sleep most of the day and all you can see are grey tufts of fur up in trees. The ones in hospital had been injured by cars or dogs mostly, plus a few young ones orphaned through similar reasons. We got some cute pictures and Meg wanted to adopt one (more like sponsoring, sadly you don't get to take your adopted one home). One young koala, Ely,went on a hunger strike rather than eat eucalyptus leaves , it was milk or nothing, even though she was much too old to be bottle fed. The koalas had a choice of over 60 different varieties of leaves but they each have their favourite. The staff have to get up at “sparrow fart” every day to pick enough fresh ones for them all. One little guy was burned so badly he couldn’t open his eyes. They nursed him back to health but he died of heart attack a few years later. Many of the koalas suffered from “wet bottom”, horrible disease that means they drip all the time, rust coloured bum and very uncomfortable.

Back at the house we had drinks and met Jan, who volunteers at the koala hospital. We were able to get online and learn Tim Hudak had lost the provincial election, which was heartening news. Meg got a look through John's notes and pictures of the family. We drank some wine, John made a fine Thai curry, and after our late dinner we all sleepily retired.

Meg consoles a wounded giant koala.

Saturday – Spotting Wild turkey and cooking curried chicken 

We woke up and had breakfast then John took us to a to return some useless electronics we had bought in Brisbane, and do some basic shopping. We were cooking dinner that night so we had to buy some food to get that together. John showed us a few other parts of town, including some nice areas by the river that almost felt like mangroves.

We returned to the house, got dinner marinading and Meg napped while everyone else relaxed. Once she got up we went for a hike along the shore line which took us along the breakwater where people have been encouraged to decorate the rocks, some artistically and some just scrawling their names across them. We hiked across several beaches which mainly had strong currents and were full of surfers sitting in the water waiting for their moment. Several of them were quite good and could ride a wave back and forth right into shore. We bypassed a wedding in a park and hiked around a few rocky points. Eventually we ended up at the dogs off- leash beach closest to John and Jan's place and spotted a colourful wild turkey which Meg had trouble identifying.

Back at the house we cooked a fine dinner (curried chicken with avocado sauce and brown rice), had some more wine and Meg learned more about the Scullin side of her family.

With cousin John.

Sunday – Newcastle Dune-Driving Counter-Culture

We got up, had breakfast and packed. Meg tried to go to church but found that the website had the wrong time listed. One lady told her she was “off the hook” but she had looked forward to attending the service... We took advantage of the extra time by watching some movies made by John and Jan about their old family house in Melbourne and some of the places they've traveled to in Australia.

We said goodbye to them and made plans to try coinciding with their upcoming trip to Melbourne (plans which were later thwarted). We drove towards Newcastle and turned off to take a look at Stockton Bight, famous for having the longest moving sand dunes in the southern hemisphere. We followed a pitted dirt road to a parking lot compulsory for all non 4-wheel-drive vehicles. We then had to walk down a dirt road for about 15 minutes where vehicles were pulled over to let air out of their tires (better traction for driving on sand). There were a large number of drivers there and it felt like we were witnessing a Newcastle counterculture devoted to dune driving.

The road ended as the dunes started; the ones close to the road covered with plastic fences, to lessen erosion. We walked up the nearest dune and saw a trailer covered with 4 wheeled utility vehicles and a tent where a family was hanging out. The guy with the trailer was driving golf balls off the top of the dune and waiting for customers. We walked across them and saw some steep far off areas that had tire tracks on them and wondered if the vehicles flipped over when they tried those routes. We made it past a few muddy oases and Meg was photographed as the desperate stranded desert dweller. We avoided the trucks and made our way to the sandy beach from which we could see the city and trucks nipping in and out of the dunes. We walked back and saw a couple and their son who knew to park closer to the dunes.

We got back to the car and drove into Newcastle. The hostel was in a nice old building with huge posh common areas. The windows had been open and as our room was right above the garbage bins, we spent a fair bit of time clearing out the cloud of flies that wanted to spend the night with us. We did some basic shopping at a smaller local grocer and then walked to dinner. One sidewalk was blocked leading us a few blocks away meaning that our path went up over one of the largest hills in the city. The views were pretty but Meg was pretty much out of energy by the time we got to our Indian restaurant. They had a pick and choose special and I had the huge small plate and Meg had the enormous large plate and everything was tasty.

Refueled, we headed back to take advantage of the DVD player in our room. The selection was kind of lame and we saw I Am Legend, decent but not completely satisfying as a post-apocalyptic movie. We then tried to sleep but the door separating us from the room was paper-thin and we were subjected to hearing loud British girls read Hallmark card platitudes to each other until well after midnight.

A desperate Meg gets water after weeks of being stranded in the Sahara.

Monday – Heading to Hunter Valley, the birthplace of Australian wine...and still cranking out dome of the best in the world..

We had a quick breakfast and removed ourselves from the hostel. We then went to Europcar to get a proper power pack for our GPS and did some food shopping. We had a pleasant drive to our next destination, the Hunter Valley wine region where we planned to sample the local wines, a la “Sideways”.

Our hostel was tiny compared to the Newcastle one but it was ranked 5^th out of all the YHAs in Australia. It was situated just off a sleepy road, on a grassy lawn, complete with a sauna and pool (that were sadly closed for the entire time). The room was spare, but clean and large enough to spread out (nowhere to keep our stuff except in backpacks and the trunk of the car).The common area, which included a nice wrap around porch, was comfortable and large. We settled and got some advice from the very friendly Carolyn working there. It turns out that her brother Nigel and his Ozzie wife own it and she came from England to help out. We got some advice on what to do and learned that the wine tour out of the hostel wasn't going anytime soon. We then headed to the posh Hunter Valley Information Centre where we went over our options and decided on one of the more economical tours. The Centre staff indicated it was a satisfactory tour but others warned we'd be led to the larger, less personal wineries and abandoned by our guide. The Centre had a tasting area for two wines that were projects of all the best vintners in the area. They tasted fine but not good enough to buy ...

On the way back we checked out the national park where we were thinking of going for a run. The parking spot was about a 10 minute drive down a narrow, pitted dirt road. The map at the picnic ground showed an 8 km loop, which was perfect for us. On the way back we stopped at the winery (Ernest Hill) closest to the hostel,which may have turned out to be the best wine tasting we had.. We were the only ones tasting there so the couple running the place were quite casual and relaxed. We did the tasting on their porch over a leisurely hour with him, while she sat in the next room and caught up on finances. All of their wines were available exclusively there and we learned that this was normal for Hunter Valley. The big wineries there also get grapes from huge South Australia vineyards, which apparently are the ones who gave Chardonnay a bad name by over - oaking it (naughty S.A.!). We slowly worked our way through about a dozen wines while he told us about the family history of the area. He also went through our HV brochure and made recommendations about which other wineries we should head to. We picked up two excellent bottles (one a tawny or port which was a new taste sensation for me) and tottered back to the hostel.

Sub-heading: Lost in the Outback...a scary run to nowhere...

After a bit of a rest we headed out for our run in the park. We easily parked in the picnic area and studied the map to figure out where we were going. We run at different paces but figured that since all of the other trails we'd been on were well blazed that this one would be as well. Hah!- No such luck! We followed an old dirt road into the woods, passing several areas used to dump garbage by the locals. The road went by the back of a few farms and got very wet and muddy in a few places. At one point I went straight on an intersection and noticed that Meg wasn't behind me. The intersection was a 4-way one and I couldn't see footprints, so I followed the trail back, hoping that she did the same thing if she couldn't find me. She didn't. There was no one else in the park and it was only about 30 minutes from sundown when I got back to the car. I rode it to the end of our loop just in time to see Meg emerge from the woods. Nervousness about the legitimacy of the trail she'd chosen made her make excellent time, and it turned out she had chosen correctly. (I normally have an awful sense of direction and the sun was setting- I was starting to panic, and I wasn't sure if I had just gone in a big circle, I was pretty sure they'd find my dead body in the woods...when I saw Owen coming towards me in the car- hooray-that was quite the reunion!)

Reunited we went back to the hostel to prepare an elaborate meal. Many of our hostel-mates were around by now, back from working on garlic and fruit farms. They were pretty low key, just wanting to eat and check their e-mail before going to bed early. We watched a reality show about a CEO who acts as a trainee to see how his company was doing. It was mindless but exactly what we needed and we were ready for bed.

Tues, - A day to rival any in Sideways...

We got up, had breakfast, and got ready for our wine tour. We were psyched as neither of us had to be the designated driver, yet apprehensive as a few people had suggested that it might be a b-grade tour... The pick-up was right there on time (which boded well) and we went around until everyone was picked up, 17 of us all told. Brian, our driver/guide, had loads of information about every place we passed which the older people up front listened to and the younger people at the back ignored and talked over (dare I say, natch?). We were heartened when Brian said that none of the wineries we were going to had wines in the bottle shops, all were exclusive and he said he wanted us to taste the “real” Hunter Valley (which boded better). We learned from Brian that fourteen years ago there were 82 vineyards, there are 152 now- so which ones to visit? You won't find most of these wines outside the region as they are not for export, they focus on award winning wines as they have a small, quality focused-yield. The region was known for its' dairy farming and coal (it still produces 70% of NSW's coal ).Our first stop on the tour, Kevin Sobels, gave us a taste of about 15 wines, with Brian getting behind the counter and helping with the proceedings (he used to work at an HV winery). There was a sleepy Saint Bernard behind the counter who seemed to be the manager. The wines were good but not outstanding and with the prices being between $20-35 we couldn't afford to buy anything that was simply satisfactory. It came at the end, as Meg had never been a fan of port before (until Ernest Hill Wines) but they had a white port which hit the spot, that was our first purchase of the day. They suggested we serve it over ice cubes with a squeeze of lime juice (oops forgot to do that but it tasted fine as it was..).

Brian, our guide (and bestest friend by the end of the tour),choices were smart, alternating drinking with eating...so we next visited a winery that had burned down but still maintained a gourmet olive shop, . There we sampled lots of preserves and oils and dubbah (a delicious Australian nut mixture that you dip your bread into after soaking it in olive oil). We also picked up some tasty tapenade. The next winery, Audrey Wilkinson, was one of the ones recommended to us primarily as it was on a great location at the top of a hill with 260 degree views of the valley. The story of this vineyard was that Audrey took over the vineyard at 15 after his father's death. He solemnly vowed to his father he would never touch a drop of wine, and our host says he just spat a lot. It is now owned by a rich Sydney lawyer. We had a private tasting room with an animated woman handling the tasting but sadly nothing really stood out. It often felt that the stuff that makes the connoisseurs swoon had no effect on us and the cheap stuff was what made us rave. We learned things that we'll never need to know again, such as:

Their renowned Shiraz comes from a section of the vineyard that isn't irrigated so the fruit has to work harder, the vines get a little stressed,and the grapes taste better. So in fact it wasn't that we didn't buy wine because we were cheap, but because we were protesting the treatment of the grapes..Here we also learned that Shiraz is from the Persian Syrah grape which is pronounced Shyrah (at this rate we'll be experts..)

After this we were dropped off for lunch at the “Hunter Valley Gardens Village” -yes, it's as bad as it sounds- a Disney-style tourist centre which consisted of generic “quaint” houses full of overpriced shops selling fudge and ceramic fairies, bordering onto elaborate botanical gardens We had simple pies and sandwiches and I had an overpriced cookie. Meg was full of wine and so disenchanted with the place that she ignored the fudge and chocolate shop (blech).

Our next winery was another recommended one, Ivanhoe, (which had the best name- of any winery ever conceived- so noble and chivalrous, it almost makes one want to joust or something) and we had our tasting on the back porch with an enthusiastic young man. We also chatted with some of our tour mates who had just taken the African tour by Gap (that we were considering) and had decided to stay together as a group and see Australia. The wines were again nice but not amazing but we decided to get a bottle of their Shiraz anyway. Meg will tell about the tragedy at the winery. (My notes indicate that the family was stricken with bad luck. Steve Dreyton's parents were killed in a plane crash, and his brother Trevor was drowned in a vat of wine- I think).

At Ivanhoe all the reds are hand picked. We learned that 70% of all grapes are machine picked which “shakes the hell out of the vines”. (Grape cruelty abounds in Hunter Valley).After the last tragedy they let the vineyard go..but man who is running Ivanhoe now only started in 1999 and by 2000 he won an award, not bad for a thirty-year old. They say their Shiraz goes well with chocolate or mud cake (yum!).

For a break from sipping wine, we visited the Smelly Cheese Store, which had a decent selection and we couldn't resist a blue and a triple cream brie. Meg also got some sweets from the shop next door that reminded her of her childhood (chocolate lady fingers). Our last winery was Mistletoe, whose large yard was covered with whimsical sculptures from a competition they had each year, including a group of tall, coloured poles that were called “Talking Heads” that won the prize in 2010. Other huge structures included giant stiletto heels and gargantuan insects. The wines here were superior, with the best white and an excellent cab sauv and Brian heartily agreed that our choices were fine ones. (Unfortunately at this point I was no longer sober enough to take notes and forgot to write what we bought, but I'm sure it was good. The only thing I noted was that Nick Patterson was considered the best young winemaker in Australia, ed.)

After four wineries we were dropped off at a place that had some more wine, a beer tasting area and a cheese shop, Binori, across the road. We crossed the road and turned to see almost the entirety of our group following us (as we had all reached or excelled our alcoholic intake for the year). This place had the best cheese, with an aged cheddar and some labna (yoghurt balls marinaded in oil and spice), which we ended up buying. (Truly, if you've never tasted labna on a cracker you haven't lived, it is rich and creamy, tart and unforgettable. Or at least Binori Labna was..) The place did very well by our group, as they were generous with their tasting and their Labna was exquisite (and no, we know what you are thinking, but our lack of sobriety did not impair our judgment here).

We crossed the road and some of our group grabbed a beer on the outdoor patio, and the rest of us settled down soaking in the afternoon sun until it was time to go. We spoke to some of the older guests who spoke well of Tasmania and some other places we were going. Back on the bus, we were dropping most people off where they came from except for two young Irish women from our hostel, who were dropped off at Hannigan's Pub. Four wineries and a beer stop, and they were able to saunter in for another round! The rest of the bus was open-mouthed in admiration (those of us who weren't unconscious). We said a fond goodbye to our tour-mates and bestest friend Brian and were dropped back “home”as the sun was setting. Unable to eat much, we made a simple dinner with leftovers, and I did some typing and went to sleep while Meg stayed up late for some reason.

Be glad we weren't driving!

Weds. The Hangover...

A Meg-demanded downtime day (actually by some miracle, WE weren't hung over, but the Irish girls were...). Meg slept in after her late night and then proceeded to watch the two Matrix sequels on the DVD player. I did some shopping, organizing, researching, laundry, typing and hanging out. We spoke to the cleaners, one of which was the owner's wife who taught part time and helped out at the hostel for the other part. Her mom was also there (it's a family business) helping to clean, and babysitting the kids. Meg ratted out some guys who had neglected to clean their breakfast dishes and the owner knew exactly who they were, two British boys. They sheepishly came in to clean them, neither of them calling Meg a rat (I was in witness protection by that point). Later, when their room was cleaned out it was found to be filthy, with thawed frozen pizzas in the room, neglected after they found out that the hostel didn't have a proper oven. The biggest excitement of the day was when we got locked out of our room due to our extending our stay after our key card was programmed. We went for a second run in the same place but this one was much more successful as no one got lost (not that we're naming names here). Since our first run, some construction machines had been busy putting piles of dirt across the road to keep the locals from filling their trucks up with garbage and dumping it in the woods. Also, they had smoothed the dirt road out, which we appreciated.

We made another elaborate dinner with our gourmet acquisitions and finished off the 3^rd and final Matrix movie. Meg had to keep adjusting the volume as the dialogue was very quiet and the chase scenes were super loud but this being a laid-back hostel, no one complained. We went to bed with dreams of Keanu (aka Neo).

Erotic kangaroo statues make more sense after  large amounts of wine.

Australia - Week 4 Brisbane and beyond

Jan. 16 - The blog is way behind, quelle surprise.  In real time, we are in Cambodia right now after having spent a full month in China and 5 days in Hong Kong.  We are about to rent an apartment for a month and help out at a local school for street kids.  By about mid-February we'll explore SE Asia and then head back to China for the month of April.  Back inAustralia, however...

Sunday Oct. 2– Spirituality, Street Markets, and the best Ginger Beer ...

It was Meg’s B-Day, so we were greeted by a chorus of kookaburras serenading her on the verandah and an entourage of dancing wombats were tumbling about for her pleasure (huh?ed.). After that performance, she could only top it by attending service at the Uniting Church, which she went to after we packed up. I headed up to a farmers’ market which ended up being a nice walk to a park only to be advised by a park attendant that the market had moved to a location far across town. There was nothing to do but sit on the hostel patio and read my book, which I avidly did.

Upon Meg’s return from her spiritual enlightenment we headed downtown along the main commercial street, which was closed for a Sunday street market. There were the usual accessory stalls and food places but a lot more alternative healing kiosks than we’d see in Canada, where you could watch a client having her aura caressed by an earnest-looking expert. We waded through fairly thick crowds and passed a man who droned into a didgeridoo, simultaneously playing blues guitar. At the end of the market was a well stocked used-book store where we had a good browse and Meg found a Gerald Durell book (My family and other Animals) that she had started in Vancouver and desperately wanted to finish...

Back through the market, we hunted down lunch which consisted of a mediocre burrito and an excellent bottle of homemade ginger beer, a product they produce with gusto in Australia (in contrast to their alcoholic beer, which has rarely turned out to be anything interesting). Full of food, we headed off to Brisbane on an uneventful drive (I can't remember a single thing as I am writing this a solid two weeks later). We found our Bed and Breakfast (B & B), Annie's Inn, and were given a large room in a charming old house close to downtown.

Brisbane Birthday Dinner Delights Dynamic Duo

We strolled downtown, which was less than ten minutes away and all downhill. The centre of Brisbane is a busy pedestrian street with mall and shops as well as music and big screen television for people who just want to hang out. We had a mission to see a movie at the city cheapie theatre, so we blazed through the commercial area, across a brown river on a pedestrian bridge and down the main arts street. Brisbane is very well set up for tourists, with the major museums and art centres all connected together along the river beside a green park with floral gardens and multiple swimming areas. At the theatre we discovered the reason they can charge such good prices is that it has a solid 15 minutes of obnoxious commercials mixed with 2 or 3 movie trailers before the actual movie starts. This made us nervous that we’d be late for our dinner reservation, fortunately the website’s running times for the films took the commercials into account. We checked out Crazy, Stupid Love which we had zero expectations for but turned out to have a few laughs. The reason seemed to be that it was written by the same fellow as Thank You for Smoking, a really funny movie. We popped up out of our seats as soon as the credits started and speed-walked to our restaurant in the nick of time.

We were the last seating of the night at Tukka, which specializes in taking bush cuisine and tarting it up for the gourmand scene. The service was very attentive, with the Scottish maître d' /co-owner being very helpful. We wanted to try as many different things as possible, but the tasting platter was for two people and Meg worried that it was mostly red meat and therefore left little for her. Our Scottish friend overheard this and said that he'd ask if the chef could alter the platter to be for one, allowing Meg to order a plate of “bugs”. These were not insects but a charming name for a creature in the scampi/shrimp/crayfish family. They arrived cooked with lemon myrtle, a fragrant local tree.

My platter (which we shared) included bread based upon Australia bannock served with dukka, a nut mixture that you dip your oil-soaked bread into. There were also homemade preserved meats, with smoked and dried kangaroo, sliced emu and marinated alligator. There were also vegetable chutneys and sauces and a selection of berry-sized apples to eat. Everything was excellent and Meg still waxes poetic about her beloved bugs (have since had none to match them). To go with this we had a local wine with an irreverent label paying homage to skate-punks. The mains were barramundi for Meg and grilled emu for me. Emu is a very strange bird, as you would swear that the meat was a grilled beefsteak in smell, taste and texture. For dessert we had a beautifully presented tasting plate with tiny servings half a dozen desserts which were all wonderful.

Fine dining, Brisbane style.

At the end of meal there were just two tables occupied and the chef came out of the kitchen to chat with them, then us. When we started asking questions about the ingredients he invited us to the garden behind the kitchen where he grew many of the plants he used in the dishes. There was the lemon myrtle bush as well as an anise and cinnamon one, several other trees and bushy herbs. Tukka was one of the best restaurants we have ever been to;a great place to visit if you are a “foodie”.

Monday – Street Art, Serious Art,and Trashy Television...

An example of the common museum ibis.

We got up and had a simple but fine breakfast talking with the very chatty caretaker,Wayne. Several other guests were eating as well but kept to themselves, which we weren't used to in a B&B setting. We walked through town to the Europcar rental office to do some paperwork. Along the way we walked along nice streets with some quirky public art, dalek-like copper structures (think Dr. Who) and a leopard dressed as a human, with a hole in his stomach,hailing a bus. Meg went to the post office and while I waited outside some people were handing out free samples of fruit juice, so I picked some up. It was mango nectar and tasted pretty good, but when I read the bottle I saw that one serving of the stuff contained 2/3 of my daily sugar intake. Nasty. After being so diligent with getting our chores done, we headed over to the arts area to check out a gallery. The Museum of Modern Art was supposed to be the best but it had started to pour rain so we went in to the Queensland Art Gallery to hold us over. It turned out to be the superior gallery, with a huge collection of Aboriginal Art, a nice space with lots of water pools, an artist -curated area, some excellent 1930s photos of Indian fakirs sitting on beds of nails,etc. The big draw was a retrospective of the photography of Henri Cartier- Bresson. We didn’t actually see the show, but we saw documentary films about his work and looked through some large books of his prints, nice. We lingered at the Museum café and had coffees; but all of the inside seats were taken so we huddled outside under an umbrella in the rain watching ibises and lizards scour the area for morsels.

We headed back to our room in the drizzle and wondered how we would cook pasta for dinner without a proper kitchen. The internet provided the answer and the managers (Wayne and Trudy) had a microwave steamer. It was an experiment that worked and we had our beloved pasta puttanesca with wine. After that we watched some trashy television, called people overseas using Skype and then headed off to bed.

Tuesday – The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly: Buddha Trees, Hollywood Trash, and Barbie-Meets-Edward Scissor-hands Decor...

Brisbane's riverside gardens.

Meg needed some downtime so after breakfast I headed off downtown on my own. I wandered into music stores and checked out the riverside walk. Rivers in cities are nice, but brown ones aren’t inspiring so I headed over to the artsy side. There they had impressive gardens with bougainvillea growing on frames which curved over the walking trail. These trails led through gardens and by several swimming lagoons that were well laid out and well used..

I arrived at the Museum of Modern Art an hour early for meeting Meg so decided to case the joint. They had just finished a huge surrealist show and were still taking it down so there was only one floor and a few rooms open. I went to the media room as I figured I could watch some movies to pass the time. Their media room had one film showing people’s reactions when they were asked in China if they knew what day it was on the anniversary of Tienanmen Square. Another film had various people addressing the camera saying, “I will die.” A third had films of sacred places, including the crucifixion table (where people press their ears to hear the hammers) and the devil’s footprint. One wall had a display of pictures of the artist’s mother with stories about their lives and relationships written on them.

Meg was also early and I caught her stalking me in the gift shop (I almost surprised him, but he's too quick for me-ed.). We had the picnic lunch she brought and then joined a museum overview tour. There was just us and a Chinese woman with the guide, so the ratio was excellent. She started by going over a tree on the grounds that was taken from a cutting from a tree cut from the original tree that Buddha sat under, which was interesting. She pointed out the unusual neon motel sign in front of the museum (people often walked in to the building looking for rooms) and had a nice explanation for the antique table with a log jammed through it that sat in the main lobby. There were some modern headpieces from the Torres Straight Islands and some new takes on textiles and she spoke engagingly about them. She covered most of the remaining galleries in the museum, so after she left us there were only a few galleries left to browse through. After about half an hour we headed back to the B & B.

We went for a late afternoon run in the nearby Botanical Gardens, which was nice enough but was in an extremely hilly area of the city (hard work!). We then headed downtown to the expensive movie theatre to see Horrible Bosses, a film we had tried to see many times but it was always on the wrong day or time. The movie was disappointing, a few laughs but too many bathroom jokes aimed at 13 year olds.

Meg battles with a local dalek-like statue.

After the movie we grabbed a couple of slices for dinner and then walked over the bridge to the Lychee Lounge for cocktails, which we were originally supposed to do for Meg’s birthday but postponed. The place had Turkish pillow niches and chandeliers decorated with light- up barbie doll heads as well as goth-style black and wire decor The drinks list was almost 30 pages long but we managed to pick some. We each had an alcoholic beverage but Meg also ordered a non-alcoholic one so she didn’t get sozzled. Everything was excellent and Meg went up to the bar to admire the bartender completing complicated rituals involved in creating our beverages. I don’t know how he felt about audiences, as he answered all of Meg’s questions but when the girls next to us asked him to burn the orange peel a second time so that they could take pictures, he refused. (Good for him!ed.)

Weds. – Rendez-Vous at Rainforest Mountain

Today we were meeting the first of Meg's cousins, (also a Megan) and her husband Michael. They lived in a fairly remote hard to get to place, near Coolangatta so we were getting escorted there by Michael this afternoon. We had lots of time after we got up, so we went through the Botanical Gardens for another run, this time looping through little labyrinths meant for strolling and heading across a large training field that was part of the park. We then packed and hung out at the B& B for awhile. As we sat there, Wayne made a good point that we were going to New South Wales which was now on Daylight Savings Time, so was our meeting time was an hour earlier than we originally thought. We decided to head out early, but not until we went downtown and tried to get Meg’s cellphone working. The people at Vodaphone verified that Meg’s Solo phone had no removable Simcard, so we quickly recycled the piece of junk. We then went to Harvey Norman and found a bin of cheap unlocked phones for $30. Back at Vodaphone we got a pay-as-you-go account that ended up serving her well.

We had a quick lunch before leaving and drove off to the gas station rendezvous, which was easy to find. The time change still had us worried, as we were about 15 minutes late for the new time but 45 minutes early for the old time time. Unable to get Michael, who was to guide us the rest of the way, on the phone, we waited in the glamorous parking lot. Of course, we didn’t even know if the new cellphone was working properly which further added to the uncertainty.

Michael then pulled up in his white truck, gave us a big hello, and all was fine (he explained that because they live on the border they use Queensland time). He led us on a half hour ride where the roads kept getting narrower and twistier until the final 10 minutes were along a pitted dirt road that we had to slow down to a crawl to navigate. We made sure to honk around tight corners to avoid potential head-on collisions. Finally we were at their house, which was a stone cottage tucked into the mountain rainforest. (There Megan, whom my mum always called the beauty of the family, waited to meet us with open arms. It was amazing to finally meet her after all these years,and she still is a great beauty with awesome Farrah Fawcett hair, the kind I always wanted to have but alas I inherited my stringy hair from my dad's side,darn-ed.). It was a lovely place, very homey with high ceilings and big rooms downstairs and cosy bedrooms upstairs. We got a tour of the grounds, with one of every kind of tree imaginable, including an avocado tree heavy with fruit. We tasted a coffee fruit from which the bean is made(surprisingly nice) and smelled many aromatic plants. We heard of plans to create a small lake on the property and build a bungalow for people to have a private retreat. Meg and Megan got caught up with family talk and were disappointed that a misty day meant that the usual view wasn’t there. We changed into warmer clothes, as the mountains were quite a bit cooler than Queensland. Over beer and wine we heard about how their daughter Freia was doing well studying film and Michael shared some ideas on how the Australian/International political world is structured. They seemed very happy and enthusiastic, and living in this area seemed a great choice for them. Their neighbours were an eccentric mix of people living off the land, many on state assistance, as well as some wealthy types, both from legitimate and more shady sources. Apparently the CIA decided that this area was one of the most survivable places in the world after a global military attack and then picked up some land here. If you could handle the isolation, this was an awfully nice place to spend time.

Dinner was an excellent lasagna with more wine and chatting about movies. Michael has a high belt in Kung Fu (or was it Karate? ed.) and so extolled the virtues of The Last Samurai, which we were skeptical of due to it starring Tom Cruise. We watched the movie and weren’t convinced of its greatness but still found it to be better than we expected. After that we curled up in our bed at the crook of the a-frame and slept very well.

Thursday – Bananas, Avocados, and Fond Goodbyes

We woke up to a drizzly mountain morning and went down to a hearty breakfast and more good conversation. Megan apparently always gets up early so she was ready to go and we were well fed as a result. After that I went for a ride with Micheal to meet one of the neighbours. We drove further along his local road and I definitely saw that it was far too rough for our little 2 wheel drive rental car to deal with. We headed down to a rough-looking building, propped up with a great view of the valley. We met a friendly fellow with an equally friendly pit bull. He apparently was living off disability after a bike accident and had a noticeable limp. He had wanted some help harvesting bananas, but in the end didn't really need it. He cut a large plastic bag-covered bunch off of a tree with a machete and took them down, startling a few large, black, spiders away. We did a tour of the property and it was interesting how similar his approach to land- use was to Micheal’s. He had about one of each type of tree on his property, most of them tiny and a few of them probably not going to make it. He also had a small vegetable patch that was doing quite well and a fair bit of the the weed flourishing around the house. Michael said that it was always the same thing when he went there and he probably wanted company more than help, but we all enjoyed the visit.

Before we said goodbye to Cousin Megan and her hubby, they insisted on picking a bunch of avocados for us to take. It was fun watching Michael get the picker and pluck these lovely fruit (technically they are) from the tree- talk about freshly picked! Loaded up with avocados, we said goodbye to the perfect little cottage in the mountainous rainforest and started on the road back to modern civilization. We retraced our path from dirt to paved roads with little difficulty and were soon back on the Bruce Highway.

Two Meghans at a lovely cottage.

The drive to Coff's Harbour was uneventful and we successfully arrived in the mid-sized town at a posh, modern hostel.