Singapore

While Shikha's been at work (and realizing that one week of work in seven weeks is about right...) I've been wandering the streets, walking to Chinatown, Little India, Arab Street, Geylang (Malaysian) and a few other areas, adding my own sweat to the very strong smells of the markets in the various districts and food centres.

I also spent two afternoons at the Singapore Classic Tennis Championship at Kallang. The only Stanford woman I saw was Tami Whitlinger-Jones (she got beat), but Patty Fendick - Meredith McGrath won the doubles final. I watched them practicing together for a while the second day. (Admissions fees went from zero on Thursday to $20 on Friday, so I just watched the practice on Friday...).

The other major thing I did was to go to the Jurong Bird Park. This is the size of a good-sized zoo, filled only with birds! (Plus at least one mammal, the flying fox, which is actually a bat!). Highlights were the beautifully colored macaws, unusual hornbills, caricature-like toucans, huge pelicans, gigantic ostriches (and I thought emus 10 were big - they're the second biggest in the world but nowhere near the ostrich!), various birds of prey, and many many more. I also went to two bird shows - a birds of prey show demonstrating the abilities of kites, hawks, eagles, etc., and an "all-stars" show with lots of birds.

In the all-star show I volunteered to have a cockatoo take money from me! It landed on my arm, took the $2 bill (!) I was holding, and flew it back to the trainer. Fortunately, it later flew the money back to me... Also saw flamingos, cranes, mandarin ducks, and the talking humans, where birds sit in their cages with signs saying things like "I can say: 'Hello', 'Fred', 'Gung Hay Fat Choy', 'How are you?'" and watch the humans try to say those words. Interesting social experiments... And now my hand is completely exhausted, so I'll consider myself finally caught up!

Oz again

11

We got into Sydney in the wee hours of the morning after not much sleep on our flight from Singapore. Fortunately our hotel was open (and reasonably cheap - we had expected to be way over budget in Sydney but it was $30 for a two night stay - $2 under!) and they let us check in at 7 am, so we got in and went to sleep for a while.

In the afternoon, we went to the Powerhouse Museum, which is a very good and fun hands-on museum of just about everything. They had an exhibit called "Real Wild Child" about Australian rock music, where in addition to listening to music from different eras, you could play an electronic drum set, radio-controlled guitars, or mix your own music. We also went to an exhibit on the world of Beatrix Potter, complete with interactive Mac displays; a technology exhibit (with a remarkably-unchanged-from-the-70's Eliza program); and a good hands-on science exhibit with lots of experiments you could perform. Plenty of stuff for at least a full day, but we only had a few hours. Afterwards, we had a drink at the Pumphouse Brewery, then walked around Darling Harbour for a while before taking a monorail ride across the harbour and back home.

At about 10 pm, we called Janette Barber (daughter of a good friend of Oma's (my grandmother) from La Junta, CO) to arrange transportation to their sheep station where we planned to stay a few nights. We had originally planned to drive back with them from Sydney on Sunday evening, but as we looked at the calendar we realized that wouldn't give much time for the Great Barrier Reef. So after a few more phone calls and a late late night trip to the train station, we changed our plans to a 7 am train ride to Parkes, where we would get picked up, then return to Sydney with the Barbers the next night.

Emrose - sheep station near Parkes, NSW
After a five hour train ride and one hour bus ride, we arrived in Parkes, where we were met by Janette's mother-in-law, Myrtle. She took us to an ANZAC memorial, which provided a good lookout over the city, then we went to the Parkes radio telescope. This huge telescope was once the finest in the world, and is still among the best. They had a nice film that did a pretty good job of explaining how radio telescopes work and the importance of the Parkes telescope.

Then we went to their home, Myra lea (sp?), for tea (coffee for us Yanks) and cake. After this she took us to Emrose, the Barbers' sheep station, where we met Janette, Laurence, and their 6th grade son Zarin. We were greeted very warmly, and introduced to their menagerie of animals including the usual dogs, cat, sheep, horses, cows, and chickens as well as peacocks, many fish, a few birds, two hermit crabs (although one had escaped but was later found scurrying across the kitchen floor) and a kangaroo named Roobie!

Then we were driven around the station, with Zarin as our wildlife commentator. I don't remember how many thousands of acres they have, but it's pretty big. We saw quite a few wallabies, roos, and hares hopping around the place. After a great home-cooked meal, we went spotlighting for animals. This time we also saw a few foxes (vermin of the non-human variety; we took a shot at one but missed) 12 and got very close to a frogmouth (a big bird that has a very good tree limb-like camouflage; we saw them at Serendip Sanctuary and Janine let us look for a while in vain before pointing them out to us!). After this trip, we warmed up by the fire, then sat around talking to Janette and Laurence until 1 am or so. They had gone on a trip to visit Janette's sister in Egypt a few years ago, and had lots of stories to tell and pictures to show.

Laurence is a great story and joke teller with very strong opinions about the various types of vermin and mongrels who roam the streets and run the government, and how they should be dealt with. Watching or listening to the news with him is quite amusing, since he often adds commentary to the stories. One interesting conversation we had with him was about the baby Azaria, who (according to her mother) was dragged out of their tent at Ayers Rock by a dingo and killed [in the late '70's/early 80's?] The mother was eventually convicted of the murder on conclusive evidence that their car was virtually crawling with blood stains matching the baby's blood. She was sent to prison, but eventually the conviction was overturned when it was learned that the "blood" was in fact traces of antirust fluid left there by the car manufacturer, the tears in the baby's clothing that "could not have been made by a dingo" were in fact probably made by a dingo, etc. Laurence's reaction to all of this, of course, was that it's another example of the incompetent mongrels in government. The interesting thing about all this was that Shikha and I had just finished reading the book Azaria, which is a documentary of the case and the various inquests and trials and how public sentiment throughout Australia swayed as various evidence was revealed and then refuted. It was neat talking to someone who had been around while this was all happening - and he brought up the subject, not us, so it's still something that's talked about at least occasionally in Australia!

Compared to Laurence, Janette is positively mellow. Very friendly, an expatriate Yank, school teacher, and busy with lots of school things, mom things, and the many animals. Zarin is wild - very friendly and a good tour guide but also very much a rambunctious boy: exuberant, uninhibited, a bit on the unmannered and violent side, but fun. We also had a tour of the sheep shearing shed - no sheep to be shorn at the present time, but we saw a lot of the different types of wool and learned a bit about how to tell the good from the bad.

The next morning we got up, fed Roobie and played with the galah (cockatoo-like bird), then got dropped off by Laurence at the Western Plains Zoo in Dubbo. This is a pretty good open air type zoo - lots of moats and platforms separating the animals and humans, and not too many cages. Many of the birds, especially, are free-roaming - the Australian Pelicans posed for pictures then accompanied us across the bridge! We also saw some White-Handed Gibbons who were fantastic acrobats. One in particular was a great show-off - turning around to watch us before and after each of his jumps and somersaults to make sure we were watching. There were also a bunch of giant Galapagos Tortoises, two of which were in the midst of a nasty battle in slow motion. They were on opposite sides of a fence (which was actually a gate that had been swung open - if they walked eight feet to the end of the gate, they would have been face to face) and would each open their mouths, try to stick them through the openings of the fence, and snap. They would usually grab the metal links of the fence and clamp down on them, pulling them with a surprisingly strong grip. I was glad it wasn't my fingers they were after!

There were also lots of tropical birds flying around in the wild - white cockatoos, crimson rosella, parakeets, and many others. We had seen plenty of cockatoos and rosellas on the roads around Emrose as well - and a kookaburra on the fence outside the house in the morning!

After a long day at the zoo and a few other minor stops (including a stop for morning tea at Laurence's folks) we all piled into the car and headed for Sydney. The Barbers' daughter Amber is attending boarding school near there, and they were going for a family fix-up-the-campus weekend. After a dinner stop at Pizza Hut, we got dropped off at the Penrith train station near the edge of the Sydney Citylink train system, and the quick but nice and relaxing visit was over. We invited Laurence and Janette to visit us in Oregon, and they said we'll have to try Janette's father's homebrew wine when we're in La Junta in August!

We arrived back at the Excelsior Hotel near the Central Sydney station shortly after 11 pm, where our already paid for room was waiting for us. Since our original plans had been to stay three or four days in Sydney before heading to Emrose, we had paid for two nights then changed our plans. It was nice that this didn't cause problems with the hotel, and that they actually held our room! This wouldn't have been surprising in New Zealand, but the idea of reservations and bookings hasn't yet caught on too well at the places we've been staying thus far in Australia...

The next morning we got up; made our travel arrangements to fly to Proserpine, cruise the Whitsundays, and bus to Cairns; and then went to the Sydney Aquarium. It was very good - it's right on the water in Darling Harbour, and has a seal enclosure where the seals swim in relatively open water and can be viewed from a glass-bottomed viewing area on top of the pool. In addition to this, there are two glass tube walkthrough areas (like Kelly Tarleton's in Auckland) where you're essentially surrounded by the aquarium. The first contained miscellaneous ocean fish, and the other had sharks and rays! Needless to say, some of the rays were big, and the sharks were huge! One manta ray that glided over us had a body that was over four feet across - wouldn't want to see some of these guys too close in the ocean...

The "open ocean" area had many beautiful reef fish, most of which were also found in smaller tanks. Moon wrasse, Maori wrasse, anemonefish, clownfish, unicornfish, and many other unusual and colorful varieties. Others included a huge Murray River cod, bat shark, an unusual yellow eel ("Banana Peel the eel" - the coloring is a genetic mutation and it's very surprising that he lived to grow so large in the wild), big saltwater crocs (salties), and much smaller freshies, one of whom tried to snap at Shikha's finger, which was fortunately on the other side of the glass.

And of course, the sea horses. Always fun to watch, this time there were youngsters as well as mature ones. There were also what seemed to be hundreds of tiny just hatched babies swimming around, many of them tangled together and trying with various degrees of success to get separated. They looked like little sea monkeys, but had the shape of the sea horses. Anyway, the juveniles were having a feast on the babies. Whenever one would float by and catch the eye of a juvenile, or sometimes an adult, the big sea horse would suck them up in its snout, like a vacuum cleaner sucking up dust. Also, one of the juveniles, instead of wrapping its tail around a plant for stability, kept wrapping it around an already anchored adult, who seemed to get annoyed after a while, trying to shake the youngster off and chase him away. It was fun to watch!

We spent the next day, Sunday, walking around the historic Rocks section of Sydney, and taking an afternoon Harbour Cruise. This was a nice trip through the many inlets and bays of the harbour, past numerous beaches (including some frequented by poor people who couldn't afford bathing suits...) and lots of historic and expensive houses. The weather was perfect until the very end of the cruise, when the rain started coming down. We ate dinner outside at Doyles, a Sydney landmark with a gorgeous view of the Sydney Opera House, a building that has to be seen to be believed. Although the outside tables were covered by big umbrellas, they weren't a match for the combination of rain and wind, and for a while we weren't sure if we were going to be able to eat or not. We ended up moving to just outside the indoors part of the restaurant where we (and our food) stayed basically dry, and had a wonderful meal. I had a Tasmanian ocean trout, and Shikha had a half lobster mornay. Plus a bowl of chowder, some garlic bread, jumbo prawns stuffed with macadamia nuts, herbs, onion, and bacon, and plenty of wine - a big splurge, but well worth it. (A reward for getting back the $388 for the canceled Adelaide-Sydney flight!).

Whitsunday Islands

Fortunately, Reinhard, the skipper, said we could just take our packs with us. Unfortunately, they didn't take credit cards and we didn't have $390 cash to pay for the cruise. It was 9:00 am and the bank didn't open till 9:30 am, which is when the boat was supposed to leave. Not an auspicious start to the morning, but it all worked out ok - I got a hair cut while we were waiting (had planned to the previous afternoon, but it was Labour Day in Queensland and all the shops were closed!), and it turned out that the teller at the bank had the same birthday as Shikha! This was the morning of May 3, Shikha's birthday, and once we got back on the boat I think we all had a pretty wonderful day!

As we began the voyage, Monika, the hostess, set out tea, coffee, crackers, cheese, and vegetables, thus beginning what would become three full days of seemingly nonstop eating, combined with new friendships, fun on board the boat and in the water, and a few trips to the islands we visited.

First, the boat. The Mollo is a 40 foot catamaran. We ended up sailing about half the time and using the engines the other half. In addition to plenty of room on deck (including two hammock-like rope nets in the front which we had lots of fun in the second day), there was a covered area in the rear (fore and aft if you insist upon proper nautical terms; you can do your own translation from here on out, though) where the skipper steered and we mostly sat around talking, reading, gazing out at the stormy sea, or of course, eating our morning and afternoon tea (cake or cookies in the afternoon). There is a dining table for six in the main cabin; the kitchen is along the starboard side, and our cabin was just past the kitchen in the front of the boat. It wasn't terribly roomy, but we slept very soundly on the double bed thanks to the rocking of the boat, and the space we had was plenty for changing and storing our stuff (including our packs which we hadn't expected to have along with us), which was all we needed the room for anyway!

Besides the two of us, there were only three other passengers: Gerald and Helmy, from Canada (Ontario) and Holland, respectively; and Sylvia, also from Holland. We were fortunate - Gerald and Helmy had accidentally been double booked, so they weren't able to take another party of five that had wanted to come. The maximum they generally take is 10 or 11, but six is probably the best number, so the five that we had was pretty good. Any more than six and there wouldn't have been enough room to eat together at the same table, and it would have been awfully crowded.

After a few hours of sailing, we anchored for lunch at Stonehaven Inlet off Hook Island. Basic make-your-own sandwiches, but pretty good and lots of food. Once we were fattened up, we went snorkeling. The weather was cloudy with occasional periods of sun (and it's amazing how quickly the weather changes there), and it rained off and on as well so the visibility wasn't too great, but as we got past the deep water into the shallower waters of the reef, it didn't matter. One moment we were swimming through the murky blue waters, not able to see anything, the next moment we could start to make out some fish swimming by, and the next moment, we could see everything - an amazing array of colorful coral and beautiful fish!

Many of the fish were quite large, and we saw many varieties that we had seen in the aquarium in Sydney, including my favorite fish of three days, the Moon Wrasse! The other really neat thing we saw was giant clams! They would be sitting around with their shells opened up, and as we approached, they would close their shells either loosely or very tightly, depending on how much of a threat we seemed to pose. There were a lot of them around, and the lips of their shells looked like bright, deep blue velvet. They were very striking, and together with the other bright multicoloured fish and coral, it was a beautiful place. Little were we to know that that was the best snorkeling we were to get over the three days...

We sailed on, and anchored for the night. The five of us took a hike on the island to some old Aboriginal caves and to a nice waterfall. The trail was ok to follow getting there, but on our way back we got off the trail and had to do a fair amount of bushwalking (watching out for the many spiders, etc.) before we finally found the trail again.

From the boat in the evening and the next morning we saw big sea turtles! You could actually hear them before you'd see them in most cases - we'd be sitting around reading or talking and hear heavy breathing noises from the sea - the turtles were coming up for air. They were probably about 20 inches in diameter - pretty large! Once, Shikha heard similar breathing, looked around, and saw a couple of dolphins. They were swimming right by our boat showing us their bottle noses. Later on I went for a swim and as I went back to the boat Shikha saw a turtle right where I had been.

For dinner we had Schnitzel, with heaps of salad and potatoes (good German food). Plus free wine. We did a pretty good job of finishing off most of it, but Reinhard saw to it that we finished off the rest, shoveling it onto our plates whether we wanted it or not. We even had ice cream sundaes for dessert - but no candles for Shikha.

The next morning we got up early to go snorkeling. It wasn't as good a spot for it as the previous day, although we saw quite a few fish near the shore and some a bit further down in the reef about halfway between the shore and the boat. It started to rain again just as we reached the boat (it had rained much of the night as well), and the wind picked up. It was still pretty warm, but we stayed inside the covered area most of the day to avoid the rain. While there had been virtually no swells the previous day (½ meter max), today we motored through an open area with swells of about two metres!

Gerald and I were lying in the boom nets reading and relaxing in the little sun we were getting right then, and as the seas started getting choppier we put our books away and pretended we were on an amusement park ride. The nets generally hang about five or six feet above the water (I had climbed the anchor chain to hang on the nets and I don't think my feet were touching the water), but gradually as the boat rocked forwards and backwards we began to get splashed occasionally. Then we would get splashed a little more heavily, and finally, as we went through some really big waves, the boat dipped enough that we actually went into the water a little bit and got completely soaked! Shikha and Helmy, who were standing behind us, also got wet, as did Monika, who was way back in the rear (making sure we didn't get washed overboard, I think). It was a lot of fun, and while I think I could handle three meter swells, I wouldn't want to be around (at least in the net) in the six meter swells they sometimes get in the outer reef!

After another huge dinner (steak this time, with Reinhard piling on about as much food as we had already eaten, when we thought we were finished), we played cards for a few hours. We played one game for a beer, which I won, but that's the only game I was even close to winning. It's just 'cause I kept score - three different scorekeepers won every game they kept the score of - hmmm...

Day 3 on the boat started with me jumping into the water for a swim. Miserable (and uncharacteristic - it usually only rains like this in December and January!) weather most of the day, that did let up enough to visit one of the island resorts, where we spent an hour and a half relaxing in the spa, showering with fresh water, browsing through the shops and looking at the tropical birds. That afternoon, after last minute afternoon tea, we had to say goodbye to the Mollo and end the cruise. We put some of our wet clothes in the dryer at the marina (a few items had been hanging up "to dry" for most of the past three days, but as soon as they'd get halfway dry, the rain would start up again and they'd get drenched once more), and walked into town for a few hours.In anticipation of sunny days in Fiji and Tahiti, we bought some snorkeling equipment.

Then we caught the 6:30 pm bus to Proserpine, ate dinner and waited until 11 pm, when we caught the overnight bus to Cairns, where we arrived at 7 am. Fortunately, the bus was empty enough that we could spread out, so we had a pretty good night's sleep. We didn't really have enough time to do anything in Cairns, so we just had breakfast and Shikha walked around a bit. Next time we come to Australia we'll probably fly in to Cairns and make our way up and over to Darwin, then through the center and towards Adelaide.

We caught the plane at 11:30 am and arrived in Auckland, where we had left two months earlier (!), at 6 pm. We went to Parnell, where we stayed in our first YHA hostel (!) and went to a store that was selling a jacket Shikha had seen for twice the price in Christchurch. Unfortunately, the store was closed, but we had a nice Italian dinner, with wine from the local bottle shop. And at 5:40 the next morning, we got on the SuperShuttle to take us to the airport for our next adventure destination - Fiji!