Sealed with a Kiss: 36 hours in Kaikoura

In the march of "active vacation destinations," there are those that set Gold Standard-- offering cheap and plentiful activities-- and then there are that group's lesser brethren, either offering only a smattering of cheap adventures or an abundance of expensive ones. Kaikoura, two hours up the coast from Christchurch, fell into the last category. Almost everything to do in the town was way above my price range. So when, the morning after Waitangi Day, I hopped a bus 2 hours up the (stunning) New Zealand coast to Kaikoura, I knew I couldn't spend very much time there. I had already decided that I would only take advantage of one of the panoply of exciting opportunities available, from kayaking trips to dolphin swimming to whale watching, and I knew that if I stayed longer than a night or two I would be tempted to keep spending.

View from the bus en route to Kaikoura

If the above activity roster didn't give it away, Kaikoura is famous for its marine life-- I had the tectonic complexities spelled out for me a couple of times, but suffice it to say that the way the mountains plunge directly into the sea creates an incredibly rich and diverse ecosystem. Out of all the expensive ways to experience this diversity I had chosen seal swimming. Although it has been something of a dream of mine to swim with dolphins, I figured there would be many other places and opportunities for this dream to come true. Swimming with seals, on the other hand, struck me as less common, especially outside New Zealand. So to Kaikoura I came, ready to shell out for a magical experience and maybe bumble over another adventure in the meantime.

I arrived at my hostel mid-morning and just had time to cram down a "Salisbury steak sandwich" (i.e. new Zealand hamburger) at a flea market happening nearby before heading for the seals. At the company's headquarters in little downtown Kaikoura, we were provided with wet suits and snorkels and advised on basic seal behavior, a briefing that basically boiled down to: don't challenge their territory, don't touch unless they touch you, don't get between a mother and her pup.

At the swim point we were motored out about 1000 meters from shore to a large rock where a colony of seals lived. The deep green water was still a little choppy from the morning's wind but calming by the second. This was where it occurred to me that I should have bought an underwater camera in Australia and used in on the Great Barrier Reef and then here. But alas, it was not to be.

Unfortunately this is the best seal shot I can offer you. After this I jumped into the water...

The bay was so cold it left me gasping for breath in my wet suit. After the bathwater temperatures of Australian Ocean, I wasn't expecting such cold water. But after a few minutes my body adjusted and I started to admire my surroundings. We were swimming above a thick forest of kelp, a view almost exactly like an IMAX movie I saw once, the fronds swaying languidly in the current. Although they were nothing but playful and curious, being at such close proximity to so many seals was scary at first. I remembered the guide saying that seals are extremely adept in the water, and I couldn't help but think how un-adept I was in comparison. And all the time the waves were constantly pushing me toward the large rock, which we had been warned not to approach to closely in order not to infringe on the bull seals' territory.

After awhile I was able to maintain a constant position against most of the waves, and that's when I realized that the seals swimming around, under, across me were just curious, just playing. Several of them seemed to like to shoot at incredible speed through the kelp several feet below me, breaking rapidly to change directions and nose to the surface. Another watched me upside down from not far away, hanging in the water with it's tail just breaking the surface. And then there was a family around me, a bull and a mother and a pup, and they were surrounding me on all sides swimming and twisting, their big liquid eyes searching me out. The pup put its tail in its mouth and started propelling itself around in circles in a little ball, bubbles fizzing to the surface, looking at me as if to say "Can you do that?" Of course I couldn't, and it wasn't until I almost opened my mouth to say so that I realized, with shear joy, that they weren't just playing. They were playing WITH me. I swam in a circle; the pup swam in a circle. I did a somersault, the pup dove backwards, and then with a splash they were gone.

The entire experience was exhilarating.

After showering and changing clothes at my hostel, I spent the night wandering the little main street, which mostly featured overpriced meals angled at tour groups. I looked into a few stores full of tacky souvenirs, then went into a"trash fashion" show in an art gallery, featuring clothing made from found/recycled items. My favorite:

A dress made out of a waiter's apron and menus
I finally found a reasonable fish and chips joint (which is where I drank the Lemon & Paeroa featured in the last entry) and had taken my food outside to eat in the waning light when I heard singing. The sounds were foreign but slightly familiar, and at length I was able to identify where I had heard it before--the day before at the Waitangi celebration.

Night had fallen and I was cold, so I bought a cup of tea at the restaurant next door and settled in to enjoy a kapahaka or traditional Maori song/dance performance, this one also celebrating Waitangi Day. There were something like 10 or 15 performers, mostly female, swaying their hips and arms and singing strong and plain melodies interwoven with surprisingly sweet harmony. At one point they pulled out their poi, pairs of soft balls attached by string and swung in intricate patterns that those of you familiar with fire twirling practices will recognize.

From one of the tacky souvenir shops: the exoticized Maori, sold to promote tourism and make money

Real Maori, practicing their own traditions in their own ways

The night was only getting colder, so I moved farther inside the open cafe and ended up sharing a table with Tiffany, an exchange student from Georgia Tech. We shared our admiration and curiousity about the performance. Tiffany was not as shy or self conscious as I was, and before long she was at the head table asking the performers all sorts of questions about Maori culture. Some part of me, the part that is a trained anthropologist, was embarassed, feeling that she was crossing some sort of invisible line. But in the end we were sitting at that table with the leader of the kapahaka and her parents, talking about America and New Zealand, Maori life and traditions, the things we had in common.

Tiffany and our two new Maori friends

The night wore on and we all got more comfortable with each other, chatting and laughing, the akwardness of before erased by time and cold beer. Instead, there was a wonderfully horrible Maori karaoke session with a singer from Christchurch performing over prerecorded tracks, there was dancing, and then somehow I found myself teaching a good 5 or 6 Maori to do the electric slide. Not a bad way to finish of my Kaikoura adventure-- the next morning I caught a bus to Blenheim, and then on to Nelson, for fear that if I stayed any longer either the whales or dolphins would have won me over to another day in the ocean.

The scenery heading out of town was just as good as coming in

We can't forget Wally

Thinking ahead as to what there is left to cover on this blog before I can be "caught up" I realized that I made an unfortunate mistake and left off something super cool that happened aboard the Rum Runner in Cairns. So I will add this post script before moving on to NZ:

On the second morning as we were finishing our breakfast, floating over the reef with most of us still dripping salt water, wet suits draped around our waists, Jason (the skipper) looked over the back of the boat-- if I was more of a boat buff I'd know what that's called, but I don't-- gave a start and yelled, "BEVERLY!" which is the full name of Bev, the lovely, salty British girl who cooks and cleans aboard the Rum Runner. Before we could ask him what was happened he had skipped below deck, barely hitting the stairs. Aboard the Rum Runner, Jason often looked like he was barely touching the ground at all.

Beverly came running up above deck with a bowl of cut up watermelon. We all exchanged puzzled glances, but then someone looking out the back of the boat yelled, and we were all introduced to Wally.

Wally is a Maori wrasse, a rainbow colored fish (literally, like a pride flag on a fish but in more iridescent colors) about the size of a coffee table. He has gotten to know Bev, Jason, and the rest of the Rum Runner crew over the past several months. He likes the vibrations of the boat and especially likes watermelon. And so over the next fifteen minutes we watched the two of them feed him watermelon and stroke him off the dive platform, where he lazed on the surface, clearly appreciating the attention. He was enormous, his coloring unbelievable. And when he swam away we still had a stop at the giant clams and purple starfish of the lagoon to look forward to.

Wouldn't want to forget something like that!

Reef Dreams: Cairns, 2

Usually when I have to get up early it's a struggle, a mental argument with myself, but the next day it wasn't hard at all. All I had to do was remember where I was headed, and out the door I went.

I had signed up for two days and a night aboard the Rum Runner, a little yacht with room for 15 passengers. There were 10 of us on the trip, all English speaking (which, given the number of German girls traveling Australia, was pretty remarkable), including two other American girls who had just graduated from Cornell. The Skipper was Jason, a seasoned sailor who started life as a druggie from Brisbane and came up to Cairns to try to make something of himself. He worked at the Woolshed as a dishwasher, did an intro dive once with a friend, and said "That's it, I'm going to be a professional diver."

The Woolshed staff said "Yeah right, see you in two weeks," but he got his PADI (open water license), worked himself up to a Dive Master, and then bought into Rum Runner. He was completely comfortable on her, jumping in the rigging and below deck like a monkey, barefoot and barechested, singing along loudly with the speaker systems hooked up to his iPod.

The other crew included Masa, a Japanese dive guide who'd been in Australia 13 years but had been guiding only for other Japanese for 12 so his English was still pretty poor (but he was very, very knowledgable); Beverly, a British "hostie" who did the cooking and cleaning and made amazing food for us out of tiny kitchen; and Matt, a dive master in training. The boat was not a big boat at all, with just room for some beds, two little bathrooms, and the kitchen below deck and then a sitting area open to the water upstairs. Note that I made the mistake of not buying an underwater camera, so there will unfortunately be no cool snorkeling pictures here.

Our schedule


The Rum Runner herself


The big disappointment of the day came at me fast, as soon as I boarded. I had hoped to scuba dive for the first time on the Rum Runner: you can do introductory dives with an instructor even if you haven't completed a course. But I'd made the mistake (or, some would say, the smart choice) of divulging that I have mildish asthma to one of the crew. Jason informed me that I needed an AU$55 medical appointment to okay me for diving, as Queensland has the most stringent diving regulations in the world. I was very disappointed at first but after about an hour I got over it. There was still snorkeling (which is one of my favorite things to do in the world), and, I reasoned, I was saving money this way.

The water was very, very choppy on way out. We were all a bit sick, but some more than others--I narrowly avoided vomiting, although a couple of the others weren't so lucky. In particular I felt bad for Chantal, a five-months-pregnant Brit who was very ill and couldn't take any motion sickness medicine. She and her husband had been traveling for 5 months already and only found out in India that she was pregnant, which drastically altered their plans, as you might imagine.

Things flattened out once we get to the reef. It wasn't very nice weather, overcast, but as I said I was lucky not to have been caught in the deluges to come. Our first snorkel wasn't wonderful, as I wasn't used to open water snorkeling, the current/waves were pretty intense, my mask kept filling up, and my snorkel came apart a couple times.

But things improved dramatically from there. At our second location, I found a mask that fit, which helped tremendously. The coral was gorgeous, all sorts, all sizes, and extending in either direction as far as I could see. I saw every kind of tropical fish I could think of-- clownfish, angelfish, parrotfish, so many more--in amazing colors. Just as I was about to go in for a rest, I heard Matt, an Aussie also on the boat, raise his head above the water and yell "Oi! Turtle!"

It was like a moment out of Lord of the Rings, or some similarly epic movie: everything slowed down and I could just hear the water moving around me, pounding dully against the coral heads. I could see the turtle almost directly below me, lit as if from below by the reflection of the pearly, cloudy-day light off the bottom. It was barely moving its flippers, just flying smoothly through the water. I couldn't tell how far away it was from me, as perspective in the water is so skewed. Slowly slowly I recognized that it was getting bigger, coming up to the surface to breathe. I saw it come to take a breath at the surface several feet away and took my head out of the water. By the time I'd put my head back in the water it had dived back into the deep and was almost out of sight. Magical.

The third snorkel that night was one of the best of my life. Everything came together. I found flippers that fit better and didn't give me blisters; my masked stopped leaking altogether; the reef was gorgeous. I saw a huge school of navy blue fish with yellow strips along their tails, and couldn't stop watching then flit from coral head to coral head. Three electric purple squid the size of sneakers looked like nothing so much as aliens as they swam around and around me and I realized they were just as curious about me as I was about them. A reef shark swam by and I was temporarily afraid until it became clear it wasn't at all interested in me. I relished hovering a few feet above the fish as they went about their business. If you think about it, it's really the only time you can get that close to wild animals and peek into their world.

As the light faded we had dinner, then later ate biscuits and drank wine as the sun went down over the reef. The cloudy weather meant no sunset, but it' was still lovely and serene. The wind died down, and the dark came surprisingly quickly. The clouds parted for a brief hour and I went out to lie on deck and look at an amazing display of stars. When it started to sprinkle, I braved my tiny, hot bunk. It was very, very sticky and I couldn't use the air conditioner because the boat was not on and the generator thus not working, but I reminded myself every time I woke up soaked that the first thing I'd do in the morning would be jump into the ocean. It was the right decision: a huge rain squall came in the night, and those brave souls who had tried to sleep on deck were soaked.

It is a wonderful thing to get up, put on your bathing suit, and jump into coral reefs before you've even eaten breakfast. Besides a digestive biscuit, the first thing in my mouth was salt water. It was beautiful again, of course. I saw a huge parrotfish school and lots of fish waking up to a watery world. After a refreshing breakfast, we went to our last dive/snorkel location, what they call "the lagoon." The sun came out there for the first time, illuminating everything into a brilliant, deep emerald . This snorkel site boasted violently purple starfish and enormous giant clams. Watching carefully, I could see them breathe, move minutely in their shells. I swam through a school of tiny jellyfish, feeling little stings against my hands (I was wearing a wetsuit, which protected most of me) that didn't last for long, although the discoloration continued for a few days; I watched clownfish fight to protect their anemone homes. For an hour and a half I swam and explored, relishing this endless aquatic fairy world, this last part of my dream.

You can't tell, but underneath this is "the lagoon"

Dry land brought a shower at Tessha's and Australian Mexican food, which wasn't bad but wasn't anything to get excited about. Then it was back to the Woolshed for a post-boat celebration with the rest of the Rum Runner occupants. Jason treated us all to pizza and beer (although I was pretty full already) and we socialized, played pool. But I was exhausted, feeling pretty pessimistic about the fleeting nature of connections during travel, and preoccupied with my return to Sydney the next day. I got a taxi back to Tessha's for the night, and the next day a different taxi came to take me away from the reef and on to my last chance for Australian adventure.

The Rum Runner 10, trying to eat our weight in pizza

Oh, here she comes, she's an ant eater: Cairns, 1

The bus ride to Cairns was long. Really long. Ten hours long. But in the end it wasn't as bad as I expected. They showed a couple of movies, "In Good Company" and "Ghost Busters" (I know!) and I saw a herd of kangaroos out the window and it rained and rained on the sugar cane fields. A few weeks after I left Cairns the road we drove on was completely underwater, deluged by flash floods, and the buses were canceled for 10 days straight. So really, for the rainy season I got pretty lucky.

I could not believe the humidity in Cairns. I got off the best and looked at a map, and by the time I had gotten my bearings I was soaked with sweat. Walking to find my couch surfing host, Tessha, was even worse. I got lost (as is my tendency) and was hot and overwhelmed, but eventually found my way and there was a lovely pool waiting. Tessha and I floated and chatted, and I made plans for my stay in the city.

Welcome to Cairns!

The next day was Australia Day, a holiday like America's July 4 that commemorates the day the first fleet of ships from England made landing in Sydney. There's often a lot of tension among Aborigines on Australia Day (I've heard some refer to it as 'Invasion Day') and sometimes there are protests, but in Cairns it was all barbecue all the time. Tessha and I met her friend Becky and several other sundry Aussies/Brits/Scots at the Esplanade by the ocean to have our own barbie.

The environment was very festive--small children swam in the lagoon, people played pick up games of cricket, and everywhere there were Australian flag hats, flags as capes, face paint, and stick-on tattoos. I learned that the proper way to celebrate Australia day is with damper, a fluffy white bread made traditionally in the Australian bush, and cane syrup (which is way sweeter than maple syrup). Also sausages with fatty bacon and sauteed onions, followed by Lamingtons, which are bits of pound cake covered in chocolate frosting and coconut.

A very festive cricket game


Toward the end of our feast

Needless to say, it was not a healthy day-- but it was totally delicious. We ate and chatted and put on our temporary tattoos, braved a rain shower, watched the revelry, and at one point I ate an ant raw.

... What's that you say, one of those things doesn't sound normal to you? Welcome to Queensland, where ants don't ruin the picnic-- in fact, just the opposite! Green ants are everywhere in Cairns, and I was goaded into trying one. You pinch off the thorax, which is twice the size of the rest of the ant, and after screwing up your eyes and nose you find that it's actually tasty. Apparently this is a custom that children in Queensland learn quite young, and they keep at it as they grow. I have to say I never thought I'd find a raw ant tangy and delicious.

My temporary tattoo: loyal to my (temporarily adopted) country



I started to feel a little antsy (ha, pun), like I needed to "do" something-- I knew I wouldn't be in Cairns long, and the call of a tourist activity to somehow prove I'd used my time well was strong (this idea that you have to "do" things, and usually spend money doing those things, to use your time well traveling is not something I'm proud of, but it is a phenomenon I'm interested in in the sociological sense.) So I went to the Wildlife Dome, which is a sort of open air rain forest zoo on top of a casino in downtown Cairns. They had all sorts of creatures in mini versions of their natural habitat and birds making the rounds in the dome's top, high above, calling endlessly. Tiny kangaroo rats hid in little groves of trees; Papuan birds that looked exactly tree stumps stood frozen outside of their enclosures. A guide showed me where a Bettong, an adorable marsupial, was hiding under a rock.

Bettongs are so cute!

Some of the friendlier, bigger birds followed me around, curious-- one, an enormous black cockatoo was happy to hang out on my arm. She sat with me and watched the 1500 kilo crocodile being fed. I'd come at almost closing time, so while the staff finished the day up around me I sat and enjoyed the sounds of the manufactured, but entirely functioning, jungle. I watched as the zoo keeper chased one escapee from the bird show around and around the dome. The bird was flightless, as many birds are in Australia, with very long legs, so it was just running as fast as it could from away from her, in circles around and around the footpaths. It looked like something out of a cartoon.

This cockatoo was every bit as heavy as she looks when she decided to have a ride on my shoulder

Picture the zoo keeper running as fast as she could after this bird, who was sprinting away on its funny too-long legs
I know this photo is totally unnecessary, but how weird is it that this is how that bird sits down?
After I left the dome I stopped at the Cairns Aboriginal art gallery, one of the largest in Australia. I find Aboriginal art., which is instantly recognizable in its vocabulary of dots, swirls, and patterns, very interesting. Looking at it feels like trying to read braille or Thai script: I know it has a complex deeper meaning, but it's just lost on me. A lot of it resembles abstract art, which I don't enjoy, but I like this more because I know it is based on a deep and long-running system that I just don't have the tools to decode. From reading I know that a lot of it is about mapping the landscape of inner Australia, telling stories of migration and journeys and family. Mostly I enjoy the vibrations some of the designs produce, optical illusions that create movement where there is none. You aren't allowed to take photos of the art (it's both a spiritual and a copyright issue, I think) so I can't offer you pictures, but it's certainly worth looking up if you have time.

The gallery had bios of all the artists near the paintings, explaining where they grew up, which people the belonged to, their training, the themes of their art. I found these bios really helpful and interesting-- I love people's stories, and the bios also helped me to understand the art a little bit more. Although I hadn't planned to make a purchase, I did buy a painted boomerang as a small souvenir of Australia. I think this was a worthy cause to support. The fight for equal treatment, respect, and social integration for Aborigines is far from over-- although that discussion is for another entry, I think.

I spent the rest of the evening wandering the Cairns Night Market and then drinking and socializing at a popular bar called the Woolshed. I replaced my daypack, which was coming apart, with a (very loudly decorated) cheap backpack, and then, at long last, I tried kangaroo-- I found it chewy but flavorful and filling. The Woolshed, a few blocks away, was festive, and I drank cider (of course) and chatted with Scott and Sonali, a Brit and a Canadian I'd met at the Australia day festivities that morning. But I couldn't stay out too late, because the next morning I was getting a super early start to fulfill a lifelong dream. It was time to take on the Great Barrier Reef.

Kangaroo skins at the Cairns night market

Sea Turtles and School Teachers: Bundaberg, part 2

I spent my unexpected extra day in Bundaberg wandering the town and waiting for the train, which was not without its charms. I had breakfast at a cute little cafe (my favorite kind) called Fresh On Earls recommended to me by some people on the street, then in my shortsless panic bought two pairs, one overpriced and one very cheap, because I couldn't decide between them. I Skyped with my parents; I looked in a craft shop. In the afternoon I went to a teeny zoo near the down-at-the-heels hostel. There were wallabies there, which are essentially mini kangaroos, many varieties of exotic birds, plus baby emus (cute!) and an ostrich named Olly. Olly was very, very large.

Wallaby!

As I looked at the bird display, an affable older Aussie who was also wandering about introduced himself and told me he knew one of the parrots from before it was taken away from its owners by the authorities. He claimed that if you asked the bird to walk with you it would follow you along the confines of its cage, speaking to the parrot in a very silly high voice--but, sure enough, it responded. Later he was shat on by a pigeon as we watched the wallabies. I was amused then, but little did I know that I, too, was destined to be shat on by a pigeon, albeit a month later and several hundred miles away.

After he cleaned himself up, Gus invited me to his house to see his birds. I didn't have anything better to do, so I agreed. When we reached his house, in the outskirts of Bundaberg, he introduced me one at a time to all of the birds in his garden (in cages)--there were 10 of them at least--and let me hold them. All of their wings were clipped , and when they, half-lame, tried to fly away he laughed at them, which struck me as oddly barbaric.

It got weirder when we went inside. The house was basically carpeted with bird art. Murals, sketches, paintings (he was careful to point out the originals), and limited-edition prints, of probably 50 different bird species. He also showed me his collection of trophies from his shooting club, about which I said vague, appreciative things. As we admired the trophies, he told me that his wife is second-generation Dutch and doesn't tolerate the Queensland heat well. She spends much of her time during the summer in her air conditioned bedroom, watching movies. As she was that day, which was about 35 C and quite humid.

I asked why they didn't move if she became so ill in the heat and needed to be on so many medications. "Well, I grew up here, I have my shooting club and my work," he said, adding that his wife is thinking about going to live with relatives in Melbourne 4 months out of the year. Or, he added in an oddly detached tone, "perhaps we'll part company forever, after 16 years of marriage." He insisted that we barge into the bedroom to say hello, and I wondered why he brought me back to his house. Maybe they had had a bad argument that morning. Maybe he was thinking of leaving her.

Gus with one of his birds


He dropped me back at the backpackers and I checked my luggage, fighting anxiety about whether I should have opted for a sleeper car. Feeling decidedly scattered, worried about plans for Airlie Beach and Cairns, I boarded the train, and things immediately improved. I celebrated my single seat, a window and aisle in one, and was happy to find that the chair itself was quite roomy and comfortable.

I spent the dwindling evening exploring the saloon and diner cars. I had just sat down with an overpriced beer (to make up for the lack of horizontal sleeping surface) and opened my computer to do some writing when I heard gasps of "Cool!" and looked up to see two dark-skinned boys grinning at me.

"Is that little thing really a computer?" one wanted to know. Then he heard my accent and demanded to know where I was from.

"Well, America," I admitted. His eyes lit up, reflecting off his dark face. He punced his friend lightly."Hey, let's talk to the American!"

Their names were Masi and PJ; Masi was a Fiji Islander and PJ a Torres Straight Islander, which means he comes from the area between Australia's northernmost point (Cape York) and Papua New Guinea. They had met on the train earlier in the day coming up from Brisbane and were really, really excited to meet me-- again, I was surprised to encounter such fascination with America and American culture. They asked me if I brought anything from America with me, went through my outfit-- singlet? earrings? bag? shoes?-- Yes, I said, everything was from America.

They wanted to see American money, and I gave PJ a nickel, dime, and quarter to keep. "What's it like to have an American dollar?" he asked. I said that it's about like having an Australian dollar, but I think he meant a bill instead of a coin-- Australian money includes $1 and $2 coins and starts bills at $5. "We like your Obama," he told me solemnly, with little transition. "We want to be like him."

We filled the next half hour with me sipping my beer and them telling me scary stories, some from "Ghost Hunters," which they saw on TV, some of crime on the streets of Townsville (which is near Cairns) and elsewhere. PJ told me his cousin was raped and talked graphically of other crimes. He also claimed that in the Torres Strait Islands when people who are from outside come, his family and relatives paint themselves, dance around, give the visitors necklaces, and then when the visitors aren't looking a witch woman beats them over the head and then slices them up to eat. Well... maybe, I guess. I'm sure these stories are embellished the way 11 year old boys embellish the world over. It's a nice story and it probably has some basis in truth in a distant past. Or who knows? Maybe there are cannibals in Torres Strait.

The train had stopped for some unknown reason, and rain was running down the black windows. PJ offered to escort me back to my seat in car H.

When I had gotten comfortable and opened my computer again, I put in my earphones and toggled iTunes to random. "Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?" filled my ears and I almost laughed. Tell me where in the world, tell me where can she be...

Traveling up the coast of Australia at 75 kph to a new place with crystal clear waters, maybe?

As I typed Masi and PJ passed me, back to their train car. They tapped me on the shoulder and grinned as they passed.

Sea Turtles and School Teachers: Bundaberg, part 1

One of my favorite things about train travel is the act of simultaneously typing on my netbook and looking out the window. Because I am an accomplished typist, this is a lovely possibility. There might be an occasional typo to go back and correct. But really my fingers can do the thinking. They gamely record my thoughts while my eyes enjoy the landscape outside the train, which in many cases is some of my favorite landscape, snatches of the life lived in tis village or on that farm, fleeting and intriguing.

The ride from Brisbane to Bundaberg was no different. I drowsed, exhausted from my long night, and watched a young girl waving at the train from her family's dinner outside in their yard; glimpsed an old freight car in a backyard; saw cows and horses cantering, rolling, and sleeping over endless, empty green hills. Taking a train through Australia makes it's hard to believe in the world's overpopulation problems.

My Bundaberg host, Pat, met me at the train station. He was an interesting character and had worked all sorts of jobs, from commercial fishing to dishwashing to hunting for feral pigs. He lives in what is called a "caravan park" in Australia, what Americans know as a trailer park but minus most of the social stigma. Ths caravan park was called Elliott Heads, and it marked the first time I'd ever stayed in a trailer. Well, technically I slept in the Annex, a tent contraption attached to the caravan. There were showers and toilets in a building nearby.

Elliott Heads Beach

The weather was finnicky, and it changed abruptly to rain from bright sunshine as Pat and I had dinner outside the comfortable, tiny Elliott Heads general store. We had just enough time to finish before making our way toward the reason I had come here, so far off the East Coast tourist track: sea turtles.

Mon Repos, 15 km outside Bundaberg, is one of the best known sea turtle preserves in the world. I had gotten the idea to come here from a book I read in Sydney that belonged to James (remember him, my Sydney host?) The book included travel ideas for every day of the year, and when I read that it was possible to see both laying mothers and hatchlings during January and then confirmed that Bundaberg was very much on my way up the coast I was convinced.

The night was long. We showed up, as instructed, at 6:30 PM to register. As we had only made reservations the day before, we were placed in the last group, meaning we would be the last to get called if the staff patrolling the beach discovered hatchlings or a mother coming to lay her eggs. There were a few educational films to watch about turtles and a little museum to browse through, but those small entertainments quickly dwindled. At 10:30 PM Pat repaired to his truck to get some sleep, as he had his first day of teaching the next day (I felt terrible, but he had assured me it wouldn't be a problem.) After he left I sat, restless and frustrated. I missed the comfort of Brisbane; I was bored and still exhausted. All in all I waited 4.5 hours, sometimes making small talk with the dwindling group (some people gave up and went home) and other times just quietly stewing. More than 15 years before I had been in a similar situation in Costa Rica with my parents; we had sat on a star-filled beach for hours waiting for sea turtles that never came. It was a very cool night, regardless, but my young self had been deeply disappointed, and this situation wasn't shaping up to be any different.

Finally, just after midnight, our group was called. The rangers apologized; Nothing is happening tonight, they said. They hadn't seen a single nest or hatchling, so they'd been taking the groups out to watch nest processing for nests from other nights, where a ranger counts numbers of hatched eggs. I felt furious and disappointed, slogging through the sand for no reason at midnight, but then--

Our guide stopped short. "Don't move," she said in a hushed voice. "I thought that was a boulder, but there isn't a boulder on this part of the beach."

I leaned into the blackness in front of me and, as she approached, could just make out a female sea turtle the size of a laundry basket working slowly up the beach. She was beautiful; I didn't know why, but the sight of her slow path toward the dunes brought tears to my eyes (and I don't cry easily.) We, the last, forgotten group of the night, were lucky: this female couldn't decide whether she wanted to lay, so we were allowed to see her more fully as the ranger used a flashlight to help her find her way up past the high tide mark to the dunes. Again and again she turned back to the ocean, in her slow but stately way, and finally the ranger gave up. Then and only then were we allowed to use cameras. Turtles are very sensitive to light, so they are usually prohibited to keep the turtles from leaving their laying point too early.

The ambivalent mother


All of that alone would have been enough to make the night magical, but there was more to come. We went to watch the ranger process the nest we had been on our way to see, and as he went through the empty egg shells, he found three live hatchlings that had been left behind! They were teeny and incredibly cute. We were allowed to touch them and take pictures of them, and when that was finished we helped them find their way to the dark ocean. We led them down the gently sloping sand with a flashlight, watching as they struggled over pebbles, seaweed, and the guide's feet toward the water. Apparently, picking up young turtles and bringing them to the ocean yourself does more harm than good, because during that trip they orient themselves to the magnetic impulses of the earth, impulses which will bring them back to the same beach to lay eggs/breed (if they are the one individual out of a huge number to survive.)

On the walk back the former rain had cleared, and the stars were incredible. Incandescent is the word I'd like to use.

Unfortunately, despite all that, my time at the beach was tainted. Pat had been texting me from his car for at least half an hour. It's 1 am, where are you? he asked. He had to get up for work, he wrote. He needed to sleep. It was so late, and I felt terrible. But I wasn't allowed to leave the beach without the rangers.

Hatched eggs

Hatchlings!


Pat left early for school, and I slept in, creeping into the caravan when it got too hot and sleeping the last half of morning wedged under the "kitchen" table. I spent the afternoon chatting with two Aussies next door and floating in the water at Elliott Heads Beach. When I walked back, however, I found that the situation was more complicated than I had thought.

To start out, I found that to get to Airlie Beach (my next destination) on Greyhound that night would cost twice the price of a train, but there was no train until the next night for reasons that did not become clear until later. Then my cell phone ran out of minutes; when I tried to use Pat's, his did the same. By the time I found a phone to use, the Greyhound office had closed and Pat had started to stress out, as well. Although he had said previously that my presence would be no problem, he felt very behind on work and exhausted from the previous night. He clearly wanted me out.

I didn't know what to do. I had nowhere to stay and no way to get to Airlie until the next day; Pat encouraged me to try to get a seat on the Greyhound bus that night at 2 AM, but I certainly wasn't up for staying on a bus bench if it didn't work out. Finally, barely keeping a lid on my anxiety, I agreed to stay in a hostel and take the train the next day. After having trouble finding the correct hostel, I ended up at a no-frills down-at-the-heels place that was particularly unwelcoming, but I sucked it up and reminded myself that it was only 24 hours. Once I settled into the hostel, I wandered down to the attached bar and had a Bundaberg rum and cola-- Bundaberg rum is incredibly popular in Australia, and it felt like a fitting thing to do and a good way to celebrate what was hopefully the resolution of an ordeal.

A few hours later, I sat in my sweaty bun, with three German girls asleep around me. Maybe I'll go to the zoo tomorrow, I thought. I woke just as sweaty, remembering with a groan that I was in a nasty hostel and that I had lost my one pair of shorts at Elliott Heads. But the day had better things in store.

Port Macquarie Magic

The trains that traverse the east coast of Australia are quite slow: as I rode six hours up the coast toward Port Macquarie, I reflected more than once that we could have been easily outstripped by a car. Nevertheless, I napped, read the Bryson book, wrote a bit, and chatted with a British traveler named Ian who was heading to the same destination. Once, on the shuttle bus that took us from the train station to the coast, I thought I saw a group of grazing kangaroo.

I was met at the station by my couch surfing host, Chris, an ex-part Brit whose voice sounded exactly like Alan Rickman's (aka Snape in the Harry Potter films.) They must hail from the same area of the UK, and the timber was remarkably similar. Chris was barefoot when he hopped out of his car to help me load my things. That's how I knew this would be an experience.

There's something miraculous about arriving at a train station in a place you have never been and having someone there to call your name and take you away. And things only got better from there-- dedicated readers of this blog will recall the next bits, as I wrote about them in real time a few weeks back. On the way to his house, Chris ran me out to "The Lighthouse," a local landmark on the coast, to give me an idea of "where I was"--which, as it turned out, was a sunlit headland drenched in light mist and beaches stretching out below.


What a view

But before I could even register the beauty fully I was whisked back to the house, a lovely rambling one-level decorated with photos and artifacts from Chris' extensive travels in Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam, and Cambodia. There were three girls waiting there with half-made dinner, two Germans from Munich, Tine and Lora, and a British girl. They plied me with wine and within a few minutes there was an incredibly delicious Malaysian-inspired stir fry on the table. We all ate ravenously. I couldn't remember when I had last eaten such a wholesome, solidly good meal--certainly before my week of meat pies and sausage rolls in Sydney. And vegetables! I was overcome with vegetables.

The feast

I was already in a state of surreal shock, a mix of red wine, benadryl (I was worried I might be allergic to Chris' cat, although it turned out I wasn't) and awe at the situation. Here I was, presented with an immediate place to stay and belong in a foreign city, complete with a dinner with people from the world over. And it was only to get better.

There were two more German girls arriving that night. Chris has his visitors coming by car meet him at the Lighthouse, so we went to wait and meet them. We brought a bottle of champagne and plastic flutes, and the breeze was just refreshing enough to require a sweatshirt as we watched the almost full moon come up over the vast Tasman Sea. The waves crashed on the rocks below and the moon danced behind the clouds, its light bouncing off the water. I kept laughing without meaning to. How does this kind of thing just... happen? I could only marvel.

I hadn't previously been sure how long I was to be in Port Macquarie. I knew I wanted to go to the Koala hospital, but that was about the extent of my To Do list. That night I found out that Tine and Lora were moving up the coast the next day in a rented van and I could save some money by going with them. It would mean sacrificing some time in this lovely house and exploring the beaches near the house, but I decided I was willing to do so, feeling a little reluctant but very money-conscious.

I had planned to wake up to listen to the birds waking up in the glen near Chris' house, an event he promised was worth the early start. As it turns out, I wasn't given a choice-- at 5 am, the sound of crazed laughter invaded my dreams. I woke thinking that the sound must have been a product of nightmare, that it couldn't be real, but then... there it was again. Kookaburras, which sound truly deranged, are always the first to start the bird symphony (or so said Chris), and they were soon joined by catbirds that sounded like they were purring or meowing, as well as a wide selection of clear whistles and caws. Following the bird chorus, I had a lovely breakfast and went with the British girl to collect eggs from the hens that live across the road, belonging to an Aussie professor who mostly works in US. Another sweetly surreal activity to add to the roster.

Collecting eggs

When we got back, however, things had taken a turn for the worse. Lora had been bitten by something, and her ankle was red and swollen. We called Chris, who hypothesized that the culprit was a painful but harmless black ant. But as a tourist you're told everything in Australia will kill you (and much of it will), and so I understood when they decided to go to the hospital.

One of the lessons I've started to learn from this trip is that regardless of what unexpected twist life throws at your when you're traveling, there is always the potential for something good to come of it. This time, for example, I was at first frustrated about the delay and worried about how it would affect the next few days, which were tightly planned (a selfish reaction to someone else being injured, but I'm trying to be honest here.) But I used the unexpected time to go on the first of a series of cliff walks leading into town through gorgeous, wild beaches, and it was wonderful. I walked with the other two German girls, and on the way we saw the morning culprit (a kookaburra), as well as some lime green lorikeets and a wild turkey. The beach was filled with mist, enormous boulders, and greenery. I sat under a large rock (the only shade), read a few chapters of Bryson, and relished the scene. The way back was even better, as I chanced upon a koala in a tree. It wasn't that interesting, as they sleep most of the day (and I couldn't get any good pictures of it), but it was suitably fuzzy and cute and I was gratified with another Australian Animal Sighting.

Kookaburra sits on the ol' telephone pole/merry merry king of the... I guess that doesn't work


The untamed beauty of Port Macquarie Beaches



The hospital had declared Lora to be perfectly fine, and so we got underway, first for a daytime stop at The Lighthouse and then to the koala hospital, where they rehabilitate sick animals from up and down the coast and house those whose habitat has been destroyed. There we were gratified to see a very awake (and incredibly adorable) group of koalas and to learn about what makes such a place possible. It was lovely.

Views from The Lighthouse



The rest of the day was taken driving. It was long, of course, but not so bad. I chatted with Tine and Lora about Germany, they asked about the US, we talked about our experiences so far in Australia. They laughed about the chain Bavarian Bier Cafe which is very popular in New South Wales, and often has a picture of a German man in "traditional" get-up with a falcon on his arm on their signs. "After a long day of falconry, I like to drink a nice Bavarian Bier!" he is depicted as saying. They reported to me that they had never participated in falconry, nor had they ever heard of anyone or anyone's ancestors, practicing falconry. They found this hilarious.

We stopped at a few places to look around-- one town was built around an estuary, where a river was busy mixing with the sea; in another, the home almost exclusively of Indian immigrants, featured a beautiful Hindu temple and women walking the streets in saris; in the last a flock of birds with bright red bellies filled the palm trees and made the most deafening noise I have ever heard birds make.

From our stops along the way

We arrived in Byron Bay, major pot and folk music mecca, shortly after dark. It was the kind of place I might have liked to stay a day to explore, but I had made other plans. I met Johnny, a very nice and quite shy Filipino Australian, at the Byron Bay supermarket. He had driven down from the Gold Coast to pick me up and take me to my next destination.

SO CUTE

A Wild Life

Made it to the Gold Coast. Long, long day-- one of the German girls who gave me a ride was bitten by a spider just as we were preparing to leave. All you hear when you come to Australia is how the top 20 most venomous creatures in the world live here, so she was understandably terrified even though our host, Chris, insisted it was just a black ant bite. It was, but she went to the emergency room anyway to get it checked out. I walked down to the (gorgeous, incredible) beach via a beautiful cliff walk while I waited for the girls to return from the hospital. We got underway several hours late and I had to get my host for tonight to give me a ride from Byron Bay, which he luckily was willing to do. (I am his first surfer and he is cutely eager to do right by me.) Anyway, the point of this post is to tell you how awesome today was, despite the dely, because I saw the following Iconic Australian Animals:

Koala in the wild: Check
Koala up close in a hospital: Check
Kookaburra: Check
Wild kangaroo: Check check (yes!)

For the record, I also saw:
Wild parrot
Wild turkey
Gecko

Still waiting on the platypus and dingo, but you can't have everything. Especially not within a 24 hour period.