In the Fog in the Blue Mountains

Just west of Sydney is a place so celebrated it is on the World Heritage shortlist of natural wonders. It is so celebrated that this last week a seventh grader half a world away came to my reference desk wanting to write a report about it.

What is it? Named the Blue Mountains, it has no mountains and during our visit was more white than blue. The gorges, ravines, precipices, waterfalls are not the result of piled granite plates wearing down, but from the erosion of tipped table land, so that it seems more of a diminutive, greener Grand Canyon, and it is lovely.

Susie and I settled into a small town called Blackheath for a few days to explore the canyons. The first day we hiked the most famous trail at Echo Point, the one that loops around the Three Sisters, pillars of rusty rock.  There is an aboriginal tale about marriageable daughters and war that I didn't quite catch attached to it. It could be the Three Spinsters, or the Three Amazons.
The trail descends steeply into the canyon, runs the ravines for a few miles, then climbs sweatily back out. It is decent first day workout. We did the circuit, admired the views and the fact that we had any breath left, then went for beer.
The next day brought fog.  It was less fog than windjammers of cloud sailing down the road.  They sailed in midmorning, dropped anchor and stayed.   But a bit of murk wasn't going to change our plans.  We marched off briskly in the direction of a reportedly spectacular lookout called Govett's Leap and another called Pulpit Rock. (Where perhaps Govett's funeral sermon was delivered). We expected the clouds to lift at any time. They never did.

It was like pushing through cotton. The lookouts were all blank.  We would stand at the precipice, and look and look, and peer and squint. Nothing. Nothing but swirling white.  Directly below, a few hundred feet down, we see for a moment the outline of a tree clinging to the cliff, and nothing below. Nothing but slow swirling, almost palpable white.  We were in the clouds. It made the canyons before us more immense and surreal because we had to imagine them. It felt strange, like the waiting room to Heaven. We expected St. Peter to step out of the mist.

After hours of trails along the precipices with no views, we turned inland and came across a rocky waterfall with a pool below.  Since we had encountered no other hikers all day we knew we had the place to ourselves. Feeling in need of refreshment we decided to take a swim and damn the water snakes.  No sooner had we stripped to our undies and jumped in, than a party of Hollanders, an student and his prim parents, arrived at the pool, stopped and gawked.  We stuttered out an insincere welcome and exchanged talk about the weather. We may have invited them to join us.  They departed quickly.
That night back in the tiny rustic town of Blackheath we had Parisian dining experience, three courses of things I couldn't spell, pronounce or imagine. Spare yes in the inimitable French way, but gorgeously tasty.

We were served by a memorable waiter, 'Cyril', who uttered his words so deliberately, so carefully, he might have been confectioner squeezing out curls of frosting. As he spoke, he held his right arm behind him, like a half folded wing, and made us laugh.

The next day the clouds moved on. We headed back to the canyons to see what we could see.

Wine a Little. You'll Feel Better

North of Sydney are the rolling hills of the Hunter Valley.  It is a place known to the outside world for an odd pair economic engines, coal mines and wineries.  In my two and a half days in the area, I saw no mines, but waves and waves of vineyards and billboards calling us to sample the wares of the Three Blind Sheep or the Kalloonballa Hill winery.

Since it was close to our lodge at Elfin Hill Country Accommodation, we started the day at the McWilliams Mount Pleasant Winery, in the capable hands of cellar door master Brian Collins.  Because of his air of authority, we took him for the owner, stopping in for a little elbow rubbing with the customers. Generously, he offered us a tour of the facilities. I learned more about wine than I could remember for five minutes. However, I did learn that you age a merlot in an American oak cask for its courser flavor, whereas you would age a subtler wine, such as chardonnay, in French oak. Figures, doesn't it?
My ability to taste the differences in wine is right up there with my ability to conjugate Finnish verbs.  But I would be willing to study. Mr. Collins started us with the lightest, the verdelhos, and worked our way through the semillons, the chardonnays toward the coarsely aged shirazzes and merlots.  He was a generous and ready pourer, detailing as he went the wonders of each new bottle.
 My head fogged, my palate went to sleep, but my appreciation of his stories became more enthusiastic.  He was, not the owner, but almost as good, the retired principal of a local primary school with a taste for good vintages. He had run his school with a sense of fun, as we learned later from the testimonials of his former students.

A zealous fan of the Rabittohs, a Rugby League team his students had never heard of, he nonetheless put on rabbit ears and led the students in rugby Rabbitoh cheers at the school assemblies.  He described himself as a "Rabbitohs tragic".  I think that is Australian for dedication to a team that doesn't win very often.  We could use it in Michigan.
Warmed by the wine, I turned to our neighbors at the bar, who, it turned out, were from Finland and in the middle of a two year odyssey around the world, in particular Australia and New Zealand.  Joni is an environmental engineer and Heli is a physical therapist.  They support themselves with whatever work comes to hand, even harvesting grapes or zucchini, and thriftily tour the warmer parts of  the world while waiting out the recession in Finland.  They wonder how hard it will be to return to a country where in the winter you need a flashlight at noon to find your way.
We exchanged information and Susie invited them to stop by when they got to Sydney.

It was a lovely time, but we needed to head back to the Elf for a nap.

The National Character

Other than the habit of wearing shorts everywhere (I've seen them at the Opera), what distinguishes The Australian?  I intend to ask this question to a few Aussies and a few non-natives, but in the meantime, I have to share some comments from Blue Latitudes: Boldly Going Where Captain Cook has Gone Before by Tony Horwitz:

Australians mock almost everything, authority in particular and British authority most of all.  They have no national heroes in the American sense, only law-breaking folk heroes, like the horse thief and bank robber, Ned Kelly, an Irish convict's son who donned homemade body armour before battling police.  Or the drunken gold prospectors who erected a stockade called Eureka rather than pay mining taxes.  The Nation's best known song, "Waltzing Matilda", eulogized a sheep rustler.  

And again, when the author is crewing in a sailing race, and trying to understand a seeming contradiction in national character: 


As we motored to the starting line, I studied the competition...Even the largest boats bore raffish, self-deprecating names, befitting the Australian temper: Ragamuffin, Rapscallion, Occasional Coarse Language...
A gun sounded, and we quickly pulled ahead; Roger had timed the start perfectly.  "We've got them caned!" he shouted.  For all his jocular put-downs of himself and his crew, Roger was a skilled and cut-throat competitor.  It was part of the Australian sports mask - of the Australian personality really - never to seem to care too much or try too hard.


I'll let you know what I find out.  The shorts may remain a mystery.

Touring with Margaret

In the Sydney lifestyle, every decent day includes 'a coffee'. Which really means meeting with friends at a favorite coffee shop for a latte, a long black, or a flat white, accompanied by a cream stuffed or a chocolate draped pastry and a cheeky flirt with the wait staff.

Driving to Lane Cove to meet Margaret, one Susie's best friends, I was reminded how impossible it is for anyone but a very long time resident to find the way anywhere or survive the trip.  This being an older city, which pushed out from the center willy nilly  and on often steep hills, it has no straight roads.  Being a modern city, it is  laced with freeways which loom up unexpectedly and go God knows where.  In fact a ride to anywhere is a thrill seekers rollercoaster ride.  Your car plunges down a steeply pitched slope, flying past cars which are flying past yours in the opposite direction and ONTHE WRONG SIDE. Let me insert that these are NARROW streets where half a seconds inattention will mean mayhem, the police and the body shop. Half way down you suddenly veer left, then right, then left and up and right again, then you pitch about a roundabout, left, right, left.  Repeat all this several times until you arrive at you destination a mile away.
Margaret steered us first to the Cafe Provence for the obligatory coffee, considerately dropping me at the nearby Lane Cove Library so I could bring my blood pressure down with a quick browse of the stacks.  When I caught up we had a delicious coffee, decaf for me, and then off for a quick inspection of a fine little independent bookstore down the street.  You will begin to see why I like this woman so much.  She is either genuinely book mad or a gifted hostess with powerful intuitions.
( Sometime I have to go on about Australian bookshops and shops in general, but I digress, again).

Our goal for the day, at least one of them, was to go on the water to somewhere.  In Sydney this is wonderfully easy to do.  There are the speedy Rivercats to take you up the shallow rivers to the western suburbs, or the toylike ferries to run you to any of twenty little landings up and down and across the harbor.  Or, for that matter, the larger ferries (1100 capacity) that will take you, for a very small fee, about six bucks, on a nearly ocean voyage out to Manly Beach.  This is what we decided to do.  The day was brilliantly bright and tending to that hazy blue white of the really hot days. We were all accordingly hatted and smeared strategically with sunscreen.  Margaret is from families several generations deep in Australia, and she is a retentive sponge for information.  Since she knows not only Australian and local history, but also movies and actors, Civil War battles, classical and popular music, literature, everyone wants her on their bar Trivia team (another potential digression).  She points out the Swank digs of the Prime Minister, and the posh buildings and grounds of the Governor General next door. I can't help but notice that there is a lack of bristling security about in this dense but ritzy neighborhood of hedges and terraces, and in fact, there is a tiny pier at the base of the PM's residence with a few scruffy fishermen and perhaps a squatters sleeping gear.  Imagine the White House with an arrangement like that.
But we are on our way to Manly Beach, which Margaret explained comes from a comment made by Captain Cook or some other early visitor, that the naked aboriginals they could see on the beach were , er, "manly".

Today, judging from the small bikinis and speedos,  it is both womanly and manly, and also quite kidly.  This is not only a popular destination for tourists, it is a regular hangout for the inland Aussies (pronounced "ozzies") who need beachtime.
The Corso--an avenuse of shops for strolling--is packed, and redolent of sun tan lotion and beer cafes.   The blue rollers push salty, eye stinging waves over the bathers all in a group, like an ocean mosh pit.  This is explained to me.  You are free to swim anywhere on the beach, but if you want to be looked after by the lifeguards, you must swim between the flags.  The guards here are keenly attentive, riding their surfboards at the outer limits of safety and shooing straying bathers back.  We all wait for the biggest waves to catch a ride back to shore.

Only when I had finished my semi drowning, and rinsed off at the convenient beachside showers, did Susie point out the alert for blue stinging jellyfish was out.  Very unpleasant little creatures that, washed up on shore look like used condoms mating with a sandwich bag.  The thousands of swimmers in the water illustrates the casual attitude Australians take toward the painful and occasionally lethal critters that come with this lovely continent.

Blasted by the sun, we retreated by that magnificent ferry to the city's Circular Quay (Key, to Yanks).  This is  the central depot downtown for all ferries, and close to everything.  We were headed to the Royal Botanic Garden, a huge harborside sprawl of magnificent trees, and lawn.  I got to admire the massive and iconic Morton Bay Fig,  with trunks like a crowd of brontosaurus legs and brawny branches that extend over serious acreage. Think the biggest oak you've ever seen and double it.  But I was here to see the bats.

The Garden is a favorite hangout of the Flying Fox Bats, sized like a largish gull or a substantial hawk. They suspend themselves by the hundreds in the blazing summer sun, strange behavior for a bat, to my mind, and fan themselves languidly with a wing as if waiting for the porter to return with a mint julep. They are really waiting for evening and an eerie flight across the city to some hapless orchard. 

By this time I am wearying and footsore, and looking for my own julep.  But in this company, two gorgeous women, I can't complain.

We barefoot on the soft and merciful grass past large and Historic and no doubt Important buildings, but I am no longer able to absorb the facts.  I am grateful when when reach the stately and always surprising Opera House, and yes, the wharf, the bus and finally, home.

A Visit to to Neal and Kaitlyn, and Avalon Beach

Another day of blue cloudless skies, temperature in the high 80s.  What to do? It's Sunday and a perfect beach day.  In January it is almost always a perfect beach day. And Sydney has perfect beaches in abundance.  They stretch for many kilometers along the Pacific coast to the north and south-- Manly, Bondi, DeeWhy, Curl Curl, Freshwater (which is not), Bilgola, for instance--- and along the inlets within the harbor.  You might think that with so much sunny weather and the endless beaches, Australians would tire of frolicking in the surf and working on their tans, but you would be wrong,   The long lines of cars are the same long lines of cars that crowd the Michigan roads to Holland State Park on hot August weekends. 
This is holiday, that is, Holiday. It's serious. School is out, for two months. Businesses close:  "Closed for the holidays from December 19-January 24" .  Barbershops, bakeries, jewelry stores.  I have yet to see a closed pub or travel agent.  The travel agents are flying the vacationers to Bali or Thailand, the pubs are consoling those who can't make the trip.

But first we go to visit an old Grand Rapids friend, Neil Mercado, his lovely Australian wife, Kaitlyn and their three children, Kieran, Lauren and 5 month newbaby Indie, who live north along the coast in Mona Vale, where the ocean beach is only blocks away.  Neil was my son Brennan's best friend back in their elementary school years, and they have stayed in touch. I do have a few pictures which I will add just as soon as I figure out a few things with Susie's help. We toured the headlands which look out over a summery heaven of bays, islands and immense ocean with sailboats skimming and yachts parading across the turquoise water.
Then off to a large outdoor pub, the Newport Arms, where we and a thousand other dry and hungry vacationers were queuing for Coopers Ale and squid salad or hamburgers.  We had a grand time catching up, learning about the comparatively laid back life in Kaitlyn's Adelaide, and the difficulties in teaching an american husband to like lamb stew.
Then off to a little beach further north that Neil had recommended, which I will call Avalon Bay for lack of more precise memory: there are so many lovely  beaches they run together in my sun blasted brain.  We jumped into the surf with the other bathers and waded out to wait for the big wave so we could body surf back to the starting point.  It is a violent ride even with these mild waves.  I am hurtled in so fast I know I am going to knock some hapless swimmer flat or carry him in a tangle all the way to the beach.  Standing out in the water waiting for waves is a peculiar society. Here as everywhere, up to your neck in saltwater, thinking about sharks and strands of stinging jellyfish, you hear conversations in many languages: German is big, French, Turkish, broad Australian, which to my thick ear might as well be another language, and others I would not dare guess at.  All pleased as ducks to be bobbing in swells and blissfully unmindful of any lurking dangers like teeth, tentacles or rip currents that could make you vanish.  But the beach is well life guarded. The guards take their work seriously, intently scanning the horizons, counting the far out swimmers and occasionally roaring aroound the perimeters in their high powered rescue raft. While recovering on our towels, we get a call to the cell.  It's Susie's  son Trav and his girlfriend Lin.  "Where are you?"
"At Avalon Beach. Where are you?"
"At Avalon Beach. Where are you sitting?"
"Near the flags."
"So are we"
And sure enough there they were, a sandpail toss away.
Sydney at times feels like a small town.

The Taronga Zoo

Yesterday the weather, being beautiful, gave us too many options.  Bondi Beach was in the lead until Susie did the clock math and realized she might not make it back in time to attend her evening meeting. Another time to Bondi.

And so we pack for the Zoo.  It's an all day zoo so we pack sandwiches, apples, water bottles. But no eucalyptus leaves for the koalas, no leaves and branches for the  mountain gorillas, no carrots for the giraffes.  We arrive at 11to join a long line of prams,  families on holiday, and incipient sunburns.  It takes us half an hour to the ticket booth, giving Travis, Susan's son, and his girlfriend Lin, exactly the right amount of time to join us.
The next five hours are a blur of animals, micro habitats, nests, moats, screens, nose and finger imprinted glass. The zoo is built on prime headland, a large hill that rises just across the harbor  from downtown Sydney, so the view of zoo is regularly interrupted by views of a harbor with sailboats and ferries, opera house, city skyline.  The giraffes are appropriately backdropped by skyscrapers.
I never think of giraffes as cave animals, and it might be a surprise to them, so it takes an adjustment on all our parts to accept the sight of a giraffe swaying gracefully into a cave opening that is exactly giraffe tall and giraffe wide. A shy one, perhaps cave averse, hides from the crowds behind a rock that is just right to hide him or her.  I wait with my camera for what I think would be an interesting shot of a giraffe peeking out, but he is on to me and simply hides, no peeks.

The koalas are dopily cute, but are so worn out from niblling leaves that they are are all slumped in the crotches of trees in afternoon slumber, like teenagers on weekend mornings, arms and legs hanging limp as if they'd been draped there as tree decorations.
Wombats in similar fashion sleep in their burrows 16 hours a day. They are peaceful grazers of grass when awake, but asleep look like mink medicine balls.
The kangaroos don't so much bound around--who could blame them--as lie around, propped on kangaroo elbows like Romans on couches awaiting the bowl of grapes and figs.
Wallabies, the small kangaroos, however, are upright and adorable.  I suspect everyone has a brief fantasy about adding a wallaby to their menagerie at home. How pleasant it would be, how perfectly Austalian to take the wallaby out for walks in the evenings, bouncing gently through the neighborhoods.
Some cages have odd pairings. For instance, the Egyptian Goose shares an enclosure with the Pygmy Hippo. It's  a mystery to me how they figure out compatibilities between species without benefit of the Eharmony questionnaire.  But the hippo is bouyant in his little pool, the goose picks through leaf litter at the water's edge. They look content.

We took a break mid afternoon at the Seal Show, sitting in the blazing sun sucking on red popsicles (here called icypoles). the seals and their handlers gave an expertly timed show of comedy and grace. "Let me introduce Margie, a California Sea Lion.  She has something none the other seals have,"  ( He points to Margie, who has climbed to the top of a diving platform.  She barks enthusiastically with a nasal tone), "an American accent." the seals do triple flips, race like sprinters, leap 12 feet in the air, and finally bark and wave to the crowd.  We are all refreshed by the show.
But by now we are flagging fast.  Susie, sergeant at heart, squares up her squad and marches us to Wild Australia, an aviary or two, Nightime in the Bush, Sea Life, even the Kid Zoo.  At the end of the day, though, we are grateful, and are happier not to have missed the Pelicans, the gorillas or  the echidna amicably hanging out side by side with an unknown lizard the size of a riot stick.
We return home to collapse with a pair of gin and lemons.

Australian birds

This is going to be hopeless since I don't know the names or even the appearance of the birds who jolt us up in the morning and yell at us in the evening. They jump about in the trees and since the trees are in continuous leaf, all I can tell you is that there are blurred shapes that jump from branch to branch .About 6:30 AM the chorus begins:

There is the Michael Jackson bird, so named by Susie's sister, Pam, because its song sounds like " Ease on down, Ease on down, Ease on down," from The Wiz. It's quite melodic and could be easily worked into a pleasant waking dream
But then there is a bird--I presume it is a bird--who makes a sound like some being rudely opeated on without anaesthetic, a blend a tortured screech and a giant velcro patch being ripped open.  That one will bounce you from the soundest sleep into a panic of apprehension and have you looking for the phone to call 911.

I do recognize one bird, the kookaburra, from children's books and from my deck of Australian animal playing cards.  They are a large edition of the Kingfisher of american streams and rivers.  The head is overlarge in proportion to its body and it looks as if it should tip out of  trees and stick in the ground like a dropped dart, tail up.  but it is not the looks that are the most striking but the call, which is a manaical laugh, which can also can sound like a one bird jungle, or a crazed chimpanzee: oo-oo-oo-oo-oo-oo-oo-oo-ah-ah-ah-oo-oo-oo-oooo-oo-oo-oo-oo-oo-oo-oo-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah.
There is the bird that sounds like the crying baby Waaah , Waaah.. which may be the Indian Minor bird (pronounced MY-nah), or, again , may not.  There are birds reknowned for their flexible vocal talents , that cuckoo,  magpie, the crow, but I can't be sure who is responsible for what unlikely noise coming from the trees down the street or over the fence.
Now that I am emphatically up, I can look around for a bird book to solve these mysteries.  It won't be easy.

Lets not even begin to think about the sounds made by the large gliding bat, the flying fox.