detour

When I was figuring out how to get from Perth back to Sydney to catch my flight home, I decided to take a side trip to Indonesia.  Despite my plan to be in Australia for my entire time in the southern hemisphere, the possibility of curing my yoga withdrawal and learning how to surf better proved to be too tempting!  I've been in Bali for the last two weeks and I'm sad to say that I'm leaving here tonight.  This is the first step in my journey home, which will take me to Sydney and then Chicago for a few days each before getting back to Toronto mid-December.

Bali is truly enchanting!  This place has everything - great food, sun, sand, surf, shopping, interesting culture, beautiful scenery, amazing yoga, kind people - and I've really enjoyed it all.  After just a few days here, you can barely remember what you were doing before you arrived.  (Yes, it actually was hard for me to remember that I've been on vacation for the last six months... this place is that chilled!!)  I've definitely taken my relaxation to the next level here, and had the opportunity to do some things that are a bit out of the ordinary, including visiting a Balinese healer for massage therapy and reflexology (sooo good!!), learning budi suci (breathing and movement techniques that are kinda tai chi-ish) and running into a fortune teller on the street.  It's been quite an experience!  One that I won't forget.

west side stories

A few experiences from the last Australian state I had left to visit... 

I started exploring Western Australia with a trip to the Kimberley.  The first day after driving for a few hours from Broome, our group stopped at Fitzroy Crossing to have lunch.  The local pub was across the street from where we were sitting and I ventured in to check it out.  Most of the outback bars I’ve been to have been pretty empty, but this one was different: It was packed full of drunk people - all Aboriginals - and this was at 1 pm on a Tuesday afternoon!  After learning about some of their history, I understand why they drink.  A sign on the wall read: If you hit a member of staff, the bar will close immediately.  A glassy-eyed man who identified himself as Joker came up to me and started chatting.  He asked where I was from and proceeded to tell me what a beautiful country Canada was, even though he’s never left the Kimberley region.  He welcomed me to his country, warned me about how dangerous it can be if you're not prepared for it and told me a story about rescuing lost German tourists on the land, who'd become delusional from dehydration after being in the bush for three days.  I was thankful I'd decided to see the area via a group tour :)  


A couple of days later we arrived at Bungle Bungles in Purnululu National Park.  Australia is full of seemingly random natural formations that are really interesting to see, and this place definitely falls into that category!  Bungle Bungles is a range of sandstone domes that have alternating orange and grey bands of colour - they almost look like giant beehives.  Although they’ve been around for an estimated 360 million years, only locals knew of their existence until the 1980s.  And they’re only expected to last another 20 millions years, which, relatively speaking, isn’t all that long.

Another stop on the Kimberley tour was at Tunnel Creek.  Here we went along the creek through a long cave to where it emerged on the other side.  We took sandbanks along the sides at parts and we had to wade through standing water at others.  At one point we stopped - our guide Cheryl had just noticed a sparkle as the light from her torch (a.k.a. flashlight) hit something up ahead....  Turned out it was the twinkle in a freshwater crocodile’s eye!  Our group stood there for a few minutes, mesmerized.  After the croc disappeared underwater - and, after Cheryl’s reassurance that it wouldn’t bother us if we didn’t bother it - we continued on our journey and waded through the same section of water the croc was in!  

The next day, back in Broome, I went to Cable Beach.  As soon as I got into the water to cool off the volunteer lifeguards evacuated the ocean... because of crocodiles!  Turns out saltwater crocs don’t abide by the same mutual avoidance philosophy.  Humans are part of their food chain!

Also in Broome, I got up early one morning to catch sunrise at Town Beach.  Tourists are advised not to travel alone in this city and I couldn’t find anyone else crazy enough to get out of bed at 4:30 am, so I opted to take a taxi rather than doing the 20-minute walk by myself.  Sunrise was beautiful - especially with the boab tree in the picture!  I was at the beach until after 6 am, when I started walking back to the hostel by myself.  About halfway back, I ran into an Aboriginal man wearing a striped button-down shirt and black jeans with no shoes who was walking in the opposite direction.  Our paths crossed and I said hello.  He stopped me to ask for directions, pointing towards where I'd come from: “I know my family lives that way, but do they live that way and then that way [gesturing a turn] or just that way?”  He didn’t seem drunk, but was extremely disoriented.  He nodded when I asked him if he would recognize it when he saw it.  “Just keep going then,” I told him.  And after a few more random questions, he did.

Along the west coast, the highlight for me was definitely Ningaloo Reef.  At Coral Bay, I decided to spend a day on a boat snorkeling with manta rays.  I have to say, this day trip was by far my best snorkeling experience ever!  In addition to the manta rays, I saw turtles, whales, dolphins, and sharks on top of a huge variety of tropical fish and coral - way more than what I saw at the Great Barrier Reef!  As I was watching the beautiful, brightly-coloured water creatures interact with each other, I couldn’t help but wonder if they judge or treat each other differently based on the colour of their scales.  My guess is that they don’t.  They all seem very supportive of each other.

On the way down to Perth, I left Australia briefly to visit the Principality of Hutt River.  Hutt River is an independent sovereign state about the size of Hong Kong that seceded from Australia 40 years ago because the man who owned the land didn’t want to abide by the farming laws the Australian government had just imposed.  This place has its own currency, postage, national anthem... I even got my passport stamped!  I also got to meet the royalty here - the creator of Hutt River, H.R.H. Prince Leonard, and his wife, H.R.H. Princess Shirley.  I didn’t have to go through Australian customs and immigration when I left Hutt River and re-entered Australia... in case you were wondering :)

you live, you learn 5

- There are as many ways to wash dishes as there are people.  

- Microbreweries are a lot smaller than non-micro ones.
- Honeybees dance to communicate.
- In some parts of Australia, young men think it's still fashionable to wear their pants so that the belt falls below the ass.
- Cultured pearls are formed within an oyster's gonad.
- Highways in Tasmania switch between being divided and undivided frequently.  In both sections, the lanes are marked by a dotted white line.
- Pizza seems to be more likely to get stolen out of a communal hostel fridge than any other food.
- It's hard, but not impossible, to find dinosaur footprints.
- There are no traffic lights between Geraldton and Darwin.
- Aboriginal husbands only speak to their mother-in-law via a third party.
- Most animals are camera shy unless you have food.

- Some messages are not meant to be communicated by certain channels.

- Mangoes are the most consumed fresh fruit in the world.

- You don't need a license for marine fishing in Tasmania with a rod and line, but if you fish in the same way on water inland you do need a license.
- Some boarding passes look like receipts.
- BBQ sauce enhances the taste of camp-cooked spaghetti bolognese.
- Kangaroos actually do box each other.
- Coffee and other warm beverages seem to be served at cooler temperatures here than back home.  I can drink it right away rather than having to wait for it to cool down.
- Guinness tastes sooo much better on tap :)
- Life is subject to interpretation.  Perspective is everything.

and i quote 5

"Hopefully the people getting out of the car are paleontologists!" - Helen, a friend I met along the way, to me, at Gantheaume Point in Broome, being optimistic about the profession of the people who'd just pulled up into the parking lot.  On a whim, we'd decided to look for dinosaur footprints that are hard and dangerous to find and we weren't really prepared.

"Sorry about the view!  I know it's not my best angle." - Gaylene to me.  We'd walked into a narrow hallway at her work and she was bent over in front of me, rummaging for keys in her bag to unlock the next door.

"F*#$, he could have a seizure right now!" - What I was thinking to myself as I was going up the scenic chairlift at The Nut in Tasmania (a volcanic formation) with Craig, an epileptic friend of a friend.  Craig doesn't have the same type of warning signs that some other epileptics do, which means he could have a seizure with zero notice.  He's a pretty big guy too and the safety bar was pretty unsubstantial...  Thankfully nothing happened, except for me reaching a new level of appreciation for Craig's ability to not live in fear.

"You're Canadian." - A glassy-eyed Aboriginal man to me at Town Beach in Broome at sunset, after I'd answered his question about what I was doing there.  Based on just a sentence or two, he was able to successfully guess where I'm from even though he's never left the Kimberley region.

"... pretty good visibility for crocs, ...." - Roger, my tour guide for Cape Leveque, listing out the highlights of the beach we'd just pulled up to for a swim.  I think he was kidding but made sure I had people around me as much as possible while I was in the water... just in case.

"And what, you couldn't manage to get a tan in that amount of time?" - A loud Australian tourist who described himself as fat, balding and middle-aged, to me after finding out that I'd been in the country for almost 5 months.  A tan is one of those funny things that sometimes only you know you have.  I didn't bother letting him in on my little secret...

"Save our planet, it's the only one with beer!" - A Wicked camper van in Broome, trying to spark a new wave of environmentalists.  (Wicked is the name of the company, not an adjective on my part.  They're known for having graffiti-covered vehicles.)

"You've got to look after your health, don't you?" - Lorna, one of my tourmates, to the group of us standing around eating frozen treats at the rest stop.  She'd just informed us that the bar she'd chosen was equivalent to drinking one glass of milk.  It was her second treat of the day (mine too) and she was trying to justify it...  I didn't need to, mine was made of frozen mango so it counted as fruit :)

"I'm not very good at counting." - One of the tour employees to her co-worker as we were on our way out to the jetty to catch a boat for a day trip snorkeling on Ningaloo Reef.  She was trying to figure out how many passengers were on the bus and was having some difficulties, as people were moving around.  It turned out the co-worker wasn't very good at counting either - he did the headcount after the first site, where we ended up accidentally leaving someone behind...  Luckily that individual was still there when we went back to pick her up (and hadn't even noticed that the boat had left!).

And now, for a few from my time in Adelaide that get a bit lost in translation...

"Sa oled kodus siin. [You're at home here.]" - Endel, a 91-year-old Estonian Australian, to me, after I arrived to stay with him for a few days.  Although we'd never met before, he was waiting to welcome me on his driveway with open arms.

"Ega sa seda hullemaks ei tee. [You're not going to make it any worse.]" - Endel to me as we were eating dessert.  He'd found a can of fruit salad to open up and wasn't too impressed with the quality, so he was encouraging me to put sugar on it in the hope that additional sweetness would make it taste better...

"Üks, kaks, kolm, neli... [One, two, three, four...]" - After just two days of being immersed in the language of my childhood, I found myself thinking in Estonian, while counting out the number of potatoes we needed at the grocery store.

"See oli kaua aega tagasi - umbes viisteist aastat... [It was a long time ago - about 15 years....]" - Me to Endel.  He'd just asked me if I could write in Estonian and I'd answered that the last time I did it regularly was when I was still in Estonian school, which I finished a number of years ago.  I trailed off as I realized who I was talking to, and that it really is all relative...

two roads diverged in the west

After Melbourne, I enjoyed some lovely visits with long-lost and new friends in Tasmania and then Adelaide (both of which ended with some very difficult goodbyes!) before getting to Western Australia.  Penelope and I arrived in Broome a couple weeks ago, and headed our separate ways the following day.  Back when we were in Melbourne, it became clear to me that Penelope and I needed to split up.  We had different timelines and priorities for the last part of our trip.  I wanted to incorporate time to do absolutely nothing into my schedule - this was very important to me, and not something I was willing to negotiate on!  On top of that, I felt the need to spend some time by myself, so I suggested we each do our own thing on the west coast.  (There’s little space to have your own day when you’re on the same tour or sharing the same rental car.  Despite my best efforts, my dreams of having separate days in Melbourne didn’t really materialize as our similar interests got in the way.)  I even suggested a transition strategy of staying in separate places in Adelaide to help us adjust from constant togetherness to complete independence.  The four and a half months we travelled together were great - I’ve been grateful to have someone to share the ride with - but I really felt the need to be on my own... and so far I’m really enjoying it :)

After getting to the west, I spent a few days camping in the Kimberley and have been back in Broome for a week now.  It's hot here - the kind of heat that leaves you with elbow sweat if you leave your arm bent for just a couple of seconds, and makes finding shelter from the sun make you feel like you've hit the jackpot.  I've seen some pretty amazing things though, and that makes it all worthwhile.

It's hard to believe I arrived in Australia exactly 5 months ago today.  I wouldn't say the whole thing has gone by quickly, but the days certainly seem to have piled up.  Travel is a roller coaster of emotions, finances and circumstances.  (Side note: I say finances because my credit card keeps getting put on hold due to "suspicious foreign activity" despite the fact that I've informed them on five separate occasions of my travel plans.  I keep finding out that the card is not usable at the most inopportune times - like when I'm trying to book a multi-day tour that I need to pay for and have already exhausted my bank card's cash withdrawal limit.  Customer service is not an optional thing for me, so I'm going to have to switch banks when I get home... right after I figure out what to do with my PC points... :) )  It's also like therapy - there's this instantaneous level of conversational intimacy that you automatically have with fellow travelers.  Typical conversation starters like name and occupation are not important and seldom used.  The focus instead is on where you've been and where you're going - both geographically and in life.  Geographically, I still have a lot of Western Australia to explore before I leave the country.  And in life?  I'm still figuring that one out - luckily I have another month and a half of total freedom to think about it... :)

on the road again

Moving on from Melbourne began with a bit of a false start.  The airport shuttle was over an hour late for our scheduled pick-up, so I began to wonder if Penelope and I would make our check-in cutoff time.  We had the kind of ticket where you forfeit the fare if you miss your flight, so I was pretty happy and relieved when I inquired about getting a taxi to the airport and managed to find out that our airline's computer system had crashed, resulting in stranded passengers, delayed flights and utter confusion at the airport.

When we finally got to the airport, we got to personally experience the chaos...  There were people everywhere - you couldn’t even identify what was a line and what wasn’t!  We arrived half an hour before our scheduled departure time - exactly at our check-in cutoff time - and our flight wasn’t on the departures board.  I asked an airline staff member what was happening with our flight.  He managed to find out that it would be leaving at some point that day, but that was about all the info we could get.  Standing in the airport, watching masses of people waiting around with their baggage, listening for flight numbers to be yelled out by airline staff so that would-be passengers could raise their hands to identify themselves, I couldn’t help but find the whole thing pretty entertaining - the airport was humming more than the Melbourne casino had been on a recent Friday night!  There was excitement in the crowd when one of the self-check-in kiosks started functioning :)  An hour and a half after we were supposed to take off, our flight number was called...  It was our turn!  We raised our hands... got ushered towards the check-in counters and put into one line... then another line... then yet another... only to find out that there were no seats left on our flight!  It had been oversold and filled with passengers stranded from the previous day, so we were re-booked for a flight the following night.  

I've been meaning to go to the tulip festival in Ottawa for years.  It's funny, but every year I seem to think of it a month or two after it's finished.  When Penelope and I were on the east coast, a retired Dutch couple who'd been living near Melbourne for over 20 years informed us that the city also had a tulip festival, and it was going to coincide with the time we were going to be in town.  They even offered to take us there!  But the month in Melbourne went by quickly - we ran out of time and didn't manage to take them up on their generous offer.  One of my first thoughts when I found out that we were going to be delayed by a day was that we could go to the tulip festival.  Dianne - who graciously offered to save us from the travel chaos with food and shelter - had the same idea.  The extra day in Melbourne gave us the perfect opportunity to go, so we did!  The tulips were lovely although I have to admit, the festival aspect of it was lacking.  Even though it was raining off and on, I enjoyed it.

The next day, we managed to confirm our flight out in the evening before going to the airport.  When we finally boarded the plane, I had an aisle seat.  The guy across the aisle one row up was reading a newspaper that had a big article about the airline fiasco I'd just experienced.  I skimmed the first paragraph over his shoulder.  My eyes grew wide and I almost started laughing.  I leaned forward in disbelief, trying to get a better look and had to ask the guy if I could borrow his paper when he was done with it.  He was kind enough to oblige and when he did, closer inspection confirmed what I thought I'd read: The airline's statement claimed that a technology giant was responsible for what had happened, because its contracts should have guaranteed back-up systems kicked in when the airline's boarding systems crashed - and that technology giant just happened to be the same company I'm on a leave of absence from!  This might just be the first time ever that a work-related glitch has provided me with the opportunity to stop and smell the roses see the tulips :)

The day we were supposed to leave...

...and the exact same spot 24 hours later.

What a difference a day can make! 

you live, you learn 4

- Reciprocity is a beautiful thing.  And minimum requirement.
- It's easier to ice a cake before cutting it.
- It costs $2.20 to mail a regular letter from Australia to Canada.  In comparison, mailing a card costs only $1.45 and involves writing "card only" in the bottom left hand corner of the envelope to identify that no letter is enclosed.
- Paw paw is what Australians call papaya...  This one took several months to figure out!  And I can't even take the credit for it :)
- Some movie theatres here have reserved seating.  And use bean bags as seats.
- When you go with the flow, it's easy to get caught up in the current.
- It takes approximately 20 hours of labour to handcraft a ukulele.
- Frozen peas taste better frozen.
- The swipe on my emergency replacement credit card finally worked somewhere!... at one of those vending machines that you can rent movies from.  The only form of payment accepted is a credit card so that they can charge you for the full amount in case you don't return it.  (The swipe on my card still doesn't work anywhere else.)
- Even though the temperature is higher here, Melbourne winter can feel colder than Canadian winter because a lot of places don't have central heating.
- You can make a drink that tastes like a Snickers bar using beer.

- In Michael Jackson's song Smooth Criminal, the name repeated over and over in the song is Annie.  (All these years I thought it was Eddie, but was confused because the rest of the lyrics sound like they reference a woman...  Now it all makes sense :) )

- For some species of turtles, the temperature of the sand around the nest determines whether the egg develops into a male or a female.
- Some bank cards have weekly cash withdrawal limits that are less than 7 times the daily limit.
- Today's my 3rd consecutive day at McDonald's because they have free wifi for customers :)
- An air freight copy of O, the Oprah magazine, costs $21.50 AUD.  The sea freight one is a month out-of-date and costs $13.50 AUD.

- You can never see too many sunsets.
- Timing is everything in life.