First encounters with animals in the wild are one of the great joys of travel, especially when travel involves getting out of the cities and into the parks and reserves. Australia has provided more than its share of beasts, like gray kangaroos, echidnas and koalas, just to name a few. Here is a very brief example of such an episode.

On the first day in Port Fairy we decided to stroll around the nearby Griffith's Island. There was a slight drizzle, which left us nearly alone on the track. A few minutes into the walk, the trail bent inland and it was here that we met a new (to us) animal.

It saw us and made a weak attempt to hide behind some convenient shrubbery:

Then, it pretended we weren't there and casually (read: awkwardly) reached backwards to graze:

Since this didn't work, it took on a serious look:

Then, after consenting to have several more pictures taken, it hopped off the trail.

It was a wallaby--a sort of small kangaroo, I learned later from the tourist information office. I returned to the island the next day and saw a few more. And, took this picture, which I have instructed Leah to show me if I'm ever feeling down:

The end.

Posted by David | Permalink

Plenty of noises can be worrisome when you camp in the wilderness. Trees sway and creak; leaves flutter and rustle; lizards scamp and skitter; insects chirp and buzz; and birds, I've learned, can make every conceivable noise. On a dark night from inside the tent, these noises swirl in the imagination and seem more ominous than they would be in the full light of day. In Swaziland our first night, Leah and I were unsettled by the noises of what turned out to be the camp's pet ostrich walking around and inspecting our tent, but it sounded much scarier at two in the morning. So, as years pass, I've learned the best way to deal with odd sounds is to ignore them. If I can't ignore them, I wear ear plugs or pull over my ears my fleece cap, which muffles sound well. Then I comfort myself with the thought that small critters can't get through the mesh of the tent and big ones aren't interested.

I was reminded of all this on the last night of our Great South West Walk when Leah woke me up and said, "I hear an animal outside...close to the tent...I can smell it."

"What does it smell like?"

"Like an animal...who doesn't bathe very often."

"Is it me?"

Thoughtful pause. "No."

I rolled over, put my glasses on and pushed a flashlight to the front of the tent's mesh door. The rainfly door was unzipped and neatly rolled to one side. The light projected far into the clearing. The trees, picnic table and shrubbery were all revealed. Much closer, only about two feet from the mesh door, which would be under the vestibule were the rainfly to be closed, was a football-sized bump. It has no front or back and was bristling with spikes.

"It's an echidna," I said softly, charmed by the appearance of the gentle ant-eater, who, when frightened, hides under a cloak of spines.

"Where?" Apparently, Leah was looking beyond the lump and into the clearing. Maybe, she thought that we accidentally parked the tent behind a swell in the ground. Clearly, Leah was tired. Then she saw it, and we talked about how many we had seen (three) and how adorable they were.

The echidna sighed visibly.

So, we turned off the light and lay still. After a few minutes, there was a little noise, some crunching of dead leaves and some skittering noises. A few minutes more and now with the light on, we confirmed the echidna had made his escape.

I listened to the sounds of the forest for a few more minutes before drifting back into a deep sleep.

Posted by David | Permalink | Comments (1)

As you might imagine, David and I spend lots of time together. And I do mean lots. Traveling together means that not only are we the other's only conversational partners for 99% of the time, we also have only each other to rely on each other when the inevitable difficulties of travel arise. Plus, we've mentioned we camp, right? So imagine spending all of your time with one person in a mesh enclosure 7x4.5 feet, at it's largest points. And then imagine spending all of your time with one person in a small mesh enclosure, while hiking for several days where not only are you together all of the time, but you don't even see other people. But we're extremely compatible, in most ways, so it really doesn't matter. And when it does, we take a break.

About six months ago, in Madagascar, we realized that there is such a thing as too much togetherness, even for us, so we took a half day apart. An it was such a nice change, that we've taken to repeating the day off every 4 to 6 weeks. Sometimes it happens naturally, like in KL, when I sat in a Borders for hours, reading guide books about New Zealand and David ran around exploring countless electronics stores comparing prices for our just-about-to-be-purchased camera. But today, after the 6-day circuit on the GSWW, we decided to formally take a break. And now I just don't know what to do with my day. I might go to (yet another) Borders and shamelessly read brand new books I have no intention of purchasing; I might go to the movies and see Juno; or, I might go to a cafe and order something decadently chocolate and feel vaguely guilty when I'm not able to finish it, wishing David were with me so we could have split it. There are just so many possibilities.

Posted by Leah | Permalink

You thought we'd abandoned you, didn't you? No such luck. Instead, we've been trying to get some long-distance hiking in. But this time it was our luck that wasn't so good.

The Grampians were, indeed, beautiful, and the fact that the campsite serves as a feeding ground for at least a dozen kangaroos (plus babies!), habituated to humans, was a huge plus. David got lots and lots of photos, and not a few videos, which may even be uploaded, sometime we find a decent connection. (We've been relying on that almost-perfect institution, the public library, for our internet access, which works well, but has the disadvantage of time limitations and more security conscious systems.) The only downside to the Grampians is that having survived an enormous bushfire two years ago, the part of the park where you're normally allowed to go bushcamping is currently not open to the public. Sigh. But we did get some very nice day hikes in.

Through the vagaries of travel, we ended up in Port Fairy for a few days. It's a charming little coastal town that reminded us more of England than anything else, especially the little island that is protected because it's a bird habitat, which is very reminiscent of Farne islands off England's northern coast. But the birds were nothing, really, to the six wallabies who live there and let us take their pictures.

Dragging ourselves away from the wallabies, we eventually made it to Portland, home of the Great South West Walk, which we were interested in. We did a six-day circuit, not the whole 250 kms, along the coast, and discovered two things: one, we both have a latent, but powerful hatred for flies; and two, while coast lines are all very nice to look at for short periods, walking along them for several days in a row, with fierce sea breezes blowing and no trees or bushes to hide behind for cover, they're not actually our favorite walking terrain. But it was quite nice, really, and we saw two koalas up close, so who are we to complain.

Posted by Leah | Permalink

The other weekend I saw two films; 27 Dresses and In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale. I have no particular affinity for Katherine Heigl as I've never been a fan of Grey's Anatomy or of Roswell, her first television series. Though if you wanted to be somewhat amused and disturbed on a couple of different levels, I'd suggest that you rent My Father the Hero, which was one of her first film credits. She plays the teenage daughter of Gerard Depardieu's character whom she tells everyone at their vacation resort is her lover. Or you might want to rent it just to hear Emma Thompson's voice. She has an uncredited role. Or rather her voice does, briefly. Emma Thompson doesn't actually physically appear in the film.
Anyway, I saw 27 Dresses primarily because the trailers and ads for it looked cute. And it was. In "my-everyone's-so-pretty-but-wait-aren't-there-people-in-New-York-City-other-than-these-white-and-oh-so-pretty-people" kind of way. Leah has seen it as well and put in a request that I write something about how the romantic comedies of today do not hold up under comparison with romantic comedies of yesteryear. Which is absolutely true. I agree with her completely. And I might even write about it one of these days. But not today.

Continue reading "some dresses and one big mess" »

Posted by Irene | Permalink

We had a terrible time deciding what to do in Australia, before we got here. I don't know if you've noticed, but it's a rather large country, being only slightly smaller than the US mainland. And there's an enormous desert in the middle. Plus, it has only about 20 million people, and public transport isn't especially good. So we fretted and debated and changed our minds endlessly, before we decided we would just see Victoria, the smallest of the continental states (they only have six, can you believe it?), which is densely enough populated to have decent public transport between towns, and has the added advantage of being the former home of David's grandmother, and therefore the perfect spot for some light genealogy. If you call trolling through ships logs light, but to each his own. Or something.

So, for the last week we've been in Ballarat, a smallish town in the Goldfields, the site of Victoria's 30-odd year goldrush. David's been busy making friends with the "gene-ies" in the Australiana research room, and I've been working my way through the library's new mystery collection. We've also spent entirely too much money on some movies, and I finally consented to see a doctor after enduring intestinal pain for a week. Of course it's a traveller's bug, which makes me feel silly for going, but better safe then sorry, right?

All of which is to say that we're now off to one of the other activities we did manage to plan before arriving: seeing the Grampians. Were we plan to do lots more bushwalking, and lots less reading.

Posted by Leah | Permalink

Rise early and wonder why our neighbors bother to camp at all.

Make cereal and milk in the campground kitchen.

Walk 45 minutes to the central district, Australia's phrase for "downtown."

Continue reading "picture a day: ballarat, victoria, australia" »

Posted by David | Permalink

Leah calls them her admirers. They swarm us everywhere and mostly in groups. They are troublesome. They are flies. But, not normal flies. They may look like normal flies, but they're not. In Australia, there is something wrong with their tiny brains.

Often, it starts when a fly buzzes toward me quickly and lands on my lip or cheek or inside my ear or up a nostril or on an eyelash, or in some other delicate place. I swat at it. But, unlike flies with which I've previously had experience, when I wave it away, it adeptly flies over my hand and lands exactly where it was moments before. And, it's not alone. There are several in a group and slowly my swatting crescendos. Before I realize it, I'm flailing my arms in a fury, which can only end when I accidentally smack myself or slap my sunglasses askew. And, then the flies resettle to their decided place, tickling me with small movements. I curse and fume.

But not Leah, who must have a higher tolerance for these sorts of things. She manages to wave at the pests occasionally until they settle somewhere tolerable, and then ignores them.

It is a skill that I wish I could develop and one which in Leah I admire.

Posted by David | Permalink

People we meet often have interesting ideas about what the US is like: Africans generally seem to think it's a land where streets are literally paved with gold and you're handed a car, house and a job once you arrive; Europeans comment on the apparent humorlessness of Americans and our tendency to only care about work; but Australians seem to think it's a very dangerous place.

We checked in to a BIG4 park (specifically, this one) and the very nice woman at the desk told us they'd had the CEO of KOA in two weeks previously, and then said he'd shocked them by bragging about how secure the KOA campgrounds are because they have security guards with guns and are surrounded by barbed wire whereas they (they park we had just come to) doesn't even have a boom gate. After a moment of stunned silence, I said it was much nicer to be in a place where you don't have to worry about how secure the park is, and then we moved on to payment details.

And then, apparently to confirm that Australians think the US is a scary, scary place to live, this morning I chatted with a 10 year old who's in town to play in some pee-wee tennis matches, or whatever the equivalent is, and her first question on learning that I'm from the US was, "Is it cool?," but her second question was, "Is it scary?" I answered "parts of it" to both, and so satisfied neither question, really.

It's always nice to know that American media so accurately portrays life in the US.

Posted by Leah | Permalink | Comments (2)

It was six in the morning when they came thumping through the gum tree forest--quickly crunching over dead leaves and branches. Because of the speed, my first thought was wolves were running toward us. (I was tired.) I was re-packing, sitting cross-legged inside the tent and Leah was standing by the mesh door. Before I could react, four large, gray kangaroos jumped into view about 20 feet from the tent. We must have surprised them too, since a smaller one glanced toward us and veered into another (mama and baby?) before they all corrected their course, and just as fast, they were gone. We smiled to each other, speechless for a moment. Now we were definitely in Australia.

Before this encounter it was difficult to remember we were on the other side of the world. Melbourne was flattish, hot, dry, and overtly Western--it reminded me of home, not just the US, but Vegas. Hidden in a few Melbourne streets there are even casinos! We spent a few days readjusting from Asia and rediscovering clean public spaces, gardens, museums, clean public toilets (with hot water, soap and paper!) and massive supermarkets. Then, we went for a hike in the woods--specifically, along the Lerderderg river in a state park of the same name. And, here's the thing, until we saw the kangaroos, we could have been in any arid forest in the western US. Although, in fairness, there were plenty of new animals to discover.

In addition to the large gray kangaroos, there were smaller, dark brown kangaroos. And early on, we starting seeing stocky, white birds flying over, but couldn't identify them. On the second day I finally saw one close-up, perched on a branch. It was a cockatoo. I wouldn't have been more surprised to see a pack of wild poodles run by us. I had naively thought that cockatoos were only pets. Turns out, they're found in the wild in large flocks and extremely noisy. It was beautiful to see them free. There were other parrots and bugs and a monotreme called an echidna, basically a spiked football-shaped mammal.

I could go on, but wouldn't it be more fun to just look at our latest pictures:

Oz

Posted by David | Permalink

People sometimes express surprise that we're able to travel together for so long. It can be hard: we have just each other to talk to, all day, every day. But we manage. Actually, we more than manage: we're quite compatible, all things considered, and when we're not so compatible, well, like most couples we've figured out how to bicker with the best of them. One of the ways in which we are compatible is that we're not terribly sentimental people, so it wasn't until we'd been separated while I was living in Morocco that we came up with "our song." David played it for me when he came to visit one time, and of course I loved it. It just fits us so well. In honor of our 11 years together today (I know, we can't believe it, either!), I highly recommend you find the song online to listen to. But if you can't, the lyrics are below.

Happy anniversary to us!

Since you been gone--Weird Al
(sung a cappella, in the style of a barbershop quartet)

Since you've been gone
Well, I feel like I've been chewing on tinfoil
Since you've been gone
It's like I got a great big mouthful of cod liver oil
Oh well, I'm feelin like I stuck my hand
Inside a blender and turned it on
You know, I've been in a buttload of pain
Since you've been gone

(Since you've been gone)
I couldn't feel any worse if you dropped
A two-ton bowling ball on my toes
(Since you've been gone)
It couldn't hurt any more if you shoved
A red-hot cactus up my nose

Since you've been gone
Well, it feels like I'm getting tetanus shots every day
Since you've been gone
It's like I've got an ice cream headache that won't go away
Ever since that day you left me
I've been so miserable, my dear
I feel almost as bad as I did
When you were still here

Posted by Leah | Permalink

I hope you all had lovely holidays. We did. Mostly.

The "mostly" comes about because we arrived in Melbourne on Christmas Eve at about 8:30 pm. Not the best time to drop into a new place, what with everything closed, or closing, for the following day of inactivity. But Melbourne, a very nice city, has excellent transportation, so we were able to get the tram we needed out to the campsite and check in before they closed. It's such a relief, having some place to stay.

We spent the following day wandering around the informative and picturesque Royal Botanic Gardens, along with half of Melbourne's population, all of us there for a picnic Christmas lunch. It was lovely. And surprisingly cool. I'd been having visions of revelers passing out from heatstroke over their plum pudding, but it was probably only about 72, and I even needed my fleece in the shade.

New Years was completely different. We'd just hiked along the Lerderderg river, in the state park, back country camping (which is LOTS of fun, by the way), and, after four days of complete solititude broken only by worries about outsized spiders and marveling at nifty wildlife like kangaroos and numerous parrot species we'll tell you all about later, we emerged at O'Brien's Crossing campground at noon on New Year's Eve to the sounds people gearing up for their celebrations. We were so tired we were asleep by 10, so we missed the whole thing, but it was a fine way to spend the New Year.

We're now wandering around the goldfields, which is also fun, but we'll tell you more about that later, too.

Posted by Leah | Permalink

For the past few months, a friend and I have been getting together during the week and inevitably we see a movie. While we aren't able to meet every single week, we recently met twice in a row, ate some food and saw a film. The first film, Beowful, was awful. The second film, Juno, was awesome. The viewing experiences, however, were reversed. The viewing of Beowulf was fairly pleasurable--I added the fairly because since it's in 3D and I wear glasses, having to adjust to wearing an additional pair is not exactly a thrill a minute. The viewing experience of Juno, sadly, was not that great--in large part because we did not follow my rules for watching films in the theater.

Continue reading "awful to awesome and back again" »

Posted by Irene | Permalink