Report 24: Australia3

Continuing north we stopped at the Coffs Harbour Zoo to fulfill one of Susie’s Aussie goals – to pet a Koala. Also fed the kangaroos. Earlier, on our inland loop, we had seen a ‘roo in the wild, hopping along the roadside. The dyna-max film told us earlier that the kangaroo is the most efficient animal there is in terms of locomotive ability, measured, I guess, in something like furlongs per fortnight per kilogram per calorie.

After about a half-day’s drive we stopped in Byron Bay, found a nice motel overlooking the Bay, and stayed there two nights. This is quite an active resort town, popular with surfers, less than two hours south of Brisbane. Byron Point is the most “easterling” point on the Australian mainland, so it was quite an appropriate stop for us. This is humpback whale migration season and we went up to the lighthouse on the point, hoping to see the whales. Saw a couple of far-off splashes that other observers said were whale-caused, but that’s all. When we got back to Auckland, a tragic story in the news was of a whale off the NZ coast whose tail was tangled in fishing lines. A local diver went in to try to free the whale. Apparently this man, also a commercial fisherman and in whose lines the whale was tangled, had successfully pulled off such a rescue in an earlier year. This time the whale thrashed its tail and unfortunately killed the diver.

Which makes me think of the movie, Whale Rider. I may have mentioned it before, but I believe it is now playing in US. We highly recommend it – will give you a feel for the NZ Maori culture and is a beautiful film.

Our guidebook had recommended visiting some of the nearby inland areas so on Saturday we took a very pleasant drive in some NZ-like bright green rolling, partially-wooded hills. Then, on Sunday on our way to Brisbane we took another side-trip and made one of those really serendipitous discoveries. We followed the charming Tweed River valley (there’s really a very impressive series of major rivers cutting from the highlands to the coast the whole way from Sydney to Brisbane) to what we knew only was a “quaint village.” Uki turned out to be a 60s-style hippy village, sort of like Madrid, NM before it became SantaFe-ized. There was a festival going on; you could buy crystals, get a therapeutic massage, have your fortune read, buy ‘natural’ clothes, etc. But the highlight was the entertainment, the Perch Creek Family Jug Band. Dad played the guitar and harmonica and ‘sang.’ One daughter danced and sang. The little boy next to Dad got down on the kazoo. The daughter on the right played xylophone, but really excelled on the keyboard. Another boy was the tin can and cymbals percussionist and the best musician, probably a brother-in-law, played the clarinet. It was great entertainment! One properly attired lady, laughing so hard she was crying, turned away and said, “I’ve NEVER seen anything like it.” Nothing like some down-home music to prepare us for the trip home.

After this we drove on in to Brisbane, found a motel near the airport, took a haphazard drive around what is another very attractive city, dined on Subway take-away sandwiches, slept, went to the airport early, and flew back to Auckland. Customs agent found some date inconsistencies on my passport, but after supervisor determined that I was leaving NZ on 30June, all was OK. (Susie: The inconsistency was that Rob had two dates on his passport. One read “1 July” and the other read “31 July”….I guess they thought he had put the 3 in on his own to add to his time here. Little did they know that his wife has set 30 June as the ABSOLUTE departure date for us. While Rob was being made to feel like a criminal, his wife, the lovely Mrs. Easterling, had gone to get our luggage only to be sniffed down by a dog and his very eager security guard trainer. The guard insisted that I probably had fruit in my bag or had been putting fruit in my bag within the last week. I. too, was feeling guilty although I KNEW I was clean. When the dog pounced on another unsuspecting traveler, the guard’s attention was diverted and I was set free. Actually, I’m not making light of this having two children who work for the airlines, but, truly, even if you are not guilty you almost would confess to anything.) Earlier, when leaving Auckland, we had just assumed travel between NZ and Australia was pretty routine, but found out that Aussie visa was necessary. Fortunately, that could be quickly obtained at the airport. (Susie: Here, again, we felt like the stupid ugly American when the airline agent (with an exotic accent) reprimanded us by saying, “Of course, you have to have a visa. People in America just don’t realize that Australia and New Zealand are two separate places. ‘Oh, come on, lady, people in the United States don’t know that New Mexico and Mexico are two separate places either, but we New Mexicans have learned to say, “Que sera, sera.” At any rate, after Customs cleared me, we picked up our car and moved into the Devonport B&B where we will live these last two NZ weeks. We moved out of our townhouse before leaving for Australia in order to save some rent money and because the owner thought he had a renter ready to move in. That fell through, but we went ahead with our move. Things have worked out well for the owner, though, because I sent a notice to the Maths and Stats departments about the available townhouse and this led to a German visiting professor renting it for the next year.

Will see many of you soon!

Love,

Rob and Susie

T OF C