After our New Zealand adventures up in Northland above Auckland, Hannah and I made for an early morning budget red eye flight (to become a recurring theme in our upcoming adventures) and skipped across the 1400-mile “puddle” to Australia (OZ).
The past two weeks have been a whirlwind tour of cities and villages in OZ, including eclectic/kitsch Melbourne, tropical/seedy Cairns, rain-forested/tourist-thick Kuranda, mountainous/breath-taking Katoomba (in the Blue Mountains) and cosmopolitan/historical Sydney. All in all, we traversed a distance the height of the continental United States (which is about the same size as Australia), sticking to the inhabitable (supposedly) Eastern Coast, where 75% of the Australian populace resides.
After a quick one-night stay and most gracious quick-tour of Sydney with my friend Mitchell (whom I met on the bike ride in Japan) we began our multi-city tour in Melbourne, in the southern state of Victoria, which was burning.
After ascertaining that we were definitely “safe” from the deadly bushfires rampaging through the state only 30 km outside the city (!?) we made our way to the home of our Servas hosts - Zofia and Martand. Whilst sharing an awesome dinner and a few glasses of wine with our gracious hosts, we watched as the casualty count from the fires continued to rise, and friends and family called on the phone to make sure they were ok. “Oh yes, we’re perfectly safe here” they assured them as Hannah and I caught wide-eyed glances from one another across the room.
The fires in Victoria this year are of unprecedented strength and voracity. Australia is the driest continent on the earth and each year bushfires tear through the driest areas, threatening homes and lives much like the fires that often rush through California. Usually, however (as ozzie after ozzie explained patiently) no more than 15 people die and one can usually stay in one’s home to fight the embers that fall inside (as homes burn from the inside out). This year, however, was different.
Australians who have lived in the bush their entire lives stayed to fight the fires and were burned alive in an awful carnage that claimed the lives of over 200 men, women and children. It was a terrible spectacle, and a potent reminder of Mother Nature in all her rampage. The president even appeared on television to make an announcement and was overcome with tears and emotion in the midst of his words of support.
We couldn’t travel out of Melbourne to the wine country just east, due to the fact that the majority was in flames, but instead stayed within the city confines of Melbourne to enjoy the hip, eclectic crowds that throng the city streets. We traveled to the top of the second-highest office building to view the fires (easily visible just above the northern suburbs!) and, later, enjoyed a beer while watching the busy pedestrians in spandex track suits file through Flinders street train station downtown.
After a sad three days, we made our way again to an early morning airport and headed north – far, far north almost 2,500 miles (about 4,000 km) - to Cairns in the state of Queensland, which was flooded.
We made sure that Cairns itself was not flooded (an assured voice on the other end of the youth hostel call was sure there was nothing to worry about, as the floods were almost 100 km away), and disembarked in the sticky and tropical late morning air.
We walked around Cairns for a few hours before realizing that we’d come to a tropical paradise completely devoid of swimmable beaches. Due to the threat of crocodiles, box jellyfish, stingrays, great white sharks and any other array of swimming things that might kill one quickly, it is highly inadvisable to swim in any of Cairns beaches. Instead, a large wading pool in the center of town fills up with locals and tourists alike, yearning to stay cool and feel “beachy.”
Later that evening, happy to get out of the seedy, tourist store-thick downtown in Cairns, we caught a bus headed up into the rain forested mountains above the town to meet with our Servas hosts, Graham and Terrie, who live in the small tourist village of Kuranda.
It was lovely in the mountains, and the forests around their home were full of papayas, mangoes, passionfruit and tropical plants and animals of all kinds. Every few minutes a huge “bang!” (not unlike a gunshot) could be heard on the roof as the rainforest birds disengaged fruits from their limbs and hurled them down to break open on the roof.
That evening and the next day we made sure to continually spray on insect repellant in the hopes of not contracting Dengue fever and joined the crowds of tourists by visiting the animal houses in town, seeing freshwater crocodiles and mini kangaroos and koalas up close and personal. Finally, we hiked down to see the most spectacular site in the village – the beautiful Barron Falls, from which flows most of the hydropower for the city of Cairns and local environs.
Upon returning to Cairns the next day, we booked a Great Barrier Reef tour and settled in to our clean, albeit mildewed hostel.
At which point, dear friends, I came face to face with my late 20’s. When asked whether I would like to pass out in the pool at 2 p.m. in the afternoon, I am likely to say “no.” And, given the choice of shooting back pineapple upside down cake shots till 3 a.m. or getting a good night’s sleep before an early morning dive, I am more likely to retire to my mildewed den and throw in my $1.99 ear plugs to drown out the vibrating beat from the bar downstairs.
When morning broke the day of our Great Barrier Reef dive, however, I was over my quarter-life crisis, was glad that I had gotten rest instead and we headed gleefully out into the drizzle for the most fun experience in Australia thus far.
I tell you most truly: the Great Barrier Reef is an amazing natural wonder. It’s approximately the size of Japan and is the largest living organism on earth. It can also supposedly be seen from space (although they say that about the Great Wall too, and it’s a load of baloney).
The feeling of life that is evident in the reef is awe-inspiring indeed and it takes only a moment to ponder the potential loss of this natural wonder to invoke a great sadness and anger at human behavior.
After our most bodacious day of diving, we headed back to the hostel to breathe the stale air a few nights longer and thank our lucky stars that Cairns was not flooded, until (at last!) we stumbled on to our 5 a.m. flight to Sydney.
Our next few days in Sydney included civilized coffee and scones overlooking the harbor and opera house, ferry rides to Manly beach to watch the surfers (real cute, but real hard to talk to), strolls through the royal botanical gardens, Sri Lankan cuisine in the artsy part of town, movies in the city theater and an amazing stay and great dinner conversation in the oldest area of Sydney with our friendly and laidback Servas hosts: Peter and his partner Eriko.
Our first night with them, over an organic chicken dish and a few glasses of dry Australian reds we stayed up late discussing the nature of Nationalism (comparing Australia, New Zealand, Japan, the United States and Bolivia), treatment of indigenous people in each of the countries and also our travels: past, present and future.
The topic of Nationalism was of great interest to me. As I imagined they would be, many New Zealanders and Australians have been pretty critical of the United States (both people and government), George Bush and American Nationalism. Much like the American people, they are both hopeful and skeptical that yes, Obama indeed “can.”
Some of my interactions with folks in New Zealand and Australia have surprised me a little.
When I tried to make conversation with an Australian fellow I met by asking if he had ever visited the states (as I was visiting OZ), he said he had no need to visit the states as he had all he needed right there in Australia (can't you imagine some hillbilly in the states saying this?). A young guy at a bar in New Zealand asked where I was from and said he didn’t want to guess the states in order not to offend me. And, an older woman whom I was dining with one night went on for about 15 minutes about how New Zealanders are not nationalistic and would never sing the national anthem the way the (provincial) Americans do (by the way, when we mentioned this in Australia, they laughed and laughed because in their minds New Zealanders always go on and on about New Zealand when they’re in OZ).
The best folks, however, have possessed the distinct intellectual ability to think about their country in relation to the U.S. from a holistic perspective. Interestingly, they are not always the people that have traveled the most, but are always the people who have been willing, for one reason or another, to re-evaluate their own cultural shortcomings and their own media portrayal of other countries.
I am consistently reminding myself to learn from the way these people have made me feel, rather than the way the former people made me feel. In this way, I hope I will learn how to receive hospitality, as well as to offer it.
To be fair, the United States has many shortcomings. From starting an ignorant and purposeless war to directly affecting the world economy through over-consumption and under-regulation, many of our actions have negatively affected people in other countries. Nevertheless, our actions have had many positive effects as well, including creation of overseas jobs to foreign aid to entertainment and media.
So this is what I have come to thus far – whether or not people I meet attack America because of justified truth, a tinge of jealousy, pride, nationalism or information (whether erroneous or true) from their media, it’s still rude, just as rude as some of the Americans I meet who go on and on extolling the value of our great nation and putting down others. Civil pride can quickly turn to overblown nationalism when empathy and self-reflection is not employed.
But enough of these ponderings. I am having an amazing time and time has, indeed, seemed to crawl by, as every day I learn something new about Australia, New Zealand and myself. This was indubitably the self-shock therapy I needed.
We’re back in New Zealand now and just heading in to Christchurch in the South Island (yes, where Lord of the Rings was filmed!) and the next two weeks will doubtless be filled with breathtaking vistas, wild animals, hiking, camping and more interesting characters.
Bring it on!
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