may 2 2005 : sydney, new south wales, australia
The past couple of days were tough on us. Two nights ago promised to be our last night of the passage. We were motoring along in variable winds, but for the most part they were light and on the nose. Not a big deal as we had enough diesel and if we just kept plugging along we would be in to Sydney by noon. Then at two a.m., when we were only 30 miles away, the wind began to pick up quickly. By three o’clock it was holding at 30+ knots and was coming directly out of Sydney.

Our forecast hadn’t said anything about this, so initially we thought it wouldn’t last long. We raised some sail and headed northwest, Sydney was straight west. Eight hours later the wind had not let up once and we were suddenly closing in on land, now 30 miles north of Sydney. We kept thinking that we would get into the lee of the land and the wind and waves wouldn’t be so bad. Of course as we got closer and closer the wind began to shift to the south. The new direction we needed to go. It was unbelievable to us that it could just follow us around like that.

We got to land around noon and began tacking back out to sea. I was pretty sure at this point that we wouldn’t have enough diesel to get us into Sydney, but after an hour of sailing back out to sea we decided to screw it and just pound south and see when we ran out. I had two gallons in a jerry jug just in case. We were motoring slowly because of the waves and it was beginning to look like we wouldn’t make it in before 10:30 p.m. which is when the customs guys went home for the night. Eventually we caught a small break and the wind shifted just enough to allow us to motorsail and pick up our speed a little bit. And at 9:00 we steered the boat through the Heads and into Sydney Harbour. With two miles to go to get to the bay it started to rain. Hard rain, like you can’t see 100 yards in front of you rain. We followed the charts into the bay and called customs on the radio. They couldn’t see us so they began flashing lights and we followed it to them. They were soaked and presumably not happy about having to come out to see us late at night in the rain, but they were nice enough and by ten we were cleared in and ready for bed.

This morning we woke up and headed straight for Rushcutters Bay where we could fill up with diesel and check on getting a mooring at one of the marinas. The diesel prices were like nothing I have ever seen before. $1.70 AU per liter, or roughly $6 USD per gallon! We put in about $400 worth and then went in to see the marina manager. He didn’t have anything for us, but suggested a spot that had free mooring balls and a marina nearby whose facilities we would be able to use. Sounded good to us, so we headed over there. It was on the other side of the Harbour Bridge so we got to sail by the Opera House and under the bridge and it was absolutely beautiful. The whole point of sailing to Sydney is to see this harbor.

We found the bay they had told us about but didn’t find any mooring balls. We stopped at the marina and they told us that they were only for super yachts, of which we apparently do not qualify, and they wouldn’t be able to help us out. We could anchor in the area, but we were hoping more for a place to shower and do laundry, so we went back to Rushcutters Bay to talk to another marina and see if they had any advice. They were very helpful and told us about a place in Middle Harbour a few miles away that had all the facilities we could want. We called them up and they said to come on over.

So back in the boat and another hour and a half trip later we pulled into the marina. The area was beautiful, with steep hills completely covered with modern homes from top to bottom, and the waters filled with boats. We paid for a week and then set out to find ourselves a pub to grab some dinner and celebratory drinks. We took the dinghy about two miles away to a strip of marinas and shops. There were a total of eight restaurants there. Six were closed, one wasn’t serving food, and the other was a $40 a plate oysters and wine sort of place. Dejected we went back to the boat and ate the last of our mince pies from New Zealand and went to bed.

may 3 2005 : sydney
Today we woke up determined to find a great place in downtown Sydney. We went back into the marina office to get a refund for the rest of the week that we had paid for, and told them, very politely, that this just wasn’t the kind of place we were looking for, it was a little too secluded and we wanted to head into the city instead. The owner got all in a huff about it and said, “In 40 years I’ve never had anybody say that this place was too secluded for them.” I was nice enough to not mention that the other reason was that their showers hadn’t been updated in 40 years either and we got our money and left.

Back to Rushcutters Bay we went. Rushcutters Bay is just around the corner from the Opera House and is right in the Kings Cross neighborhood and just a mile or so from the CBD (central business district). There was one more marina in the Bay (actually this one is officially in Elizabeth Harbour), and we decided to try there. We motored in towards the marina office and yelled over to the manager who was working out on the dock to see if he had any moorings available. He was a young guy, about 24, and said, “Are you Yanks? Sure I can find you a spot,” he said. Elizabeth Harbour Marina is normally just for permanent moorings, but he told us he always keeps one or two open for overseas yachts. So now we are in exactly the kind of spot that we had hoped to be in, right downtown in the heart of the city.

It was about eleven o’clock and we asked him if he wanted to go have a few beers and celebrate with us. It took him about five seconds to hang up the “Gone to Lunch” sign and off we went. He showed us around the Kings Cross neighborhood a little bit. It’s a great place, exactly the type of neighborhood we would live in if we were in Sydney. A typical street went like this: pub, convenience store, strip club, McDonald’s, massage parlor, internet café, restaurant, pub, XXX bookshop, regular bookshop, pub, Blockbuster Video. Lonely Planet says this about it, “It attracts an odd mix of highlife, lowlife, sailors, tourists and suburbanites.”

Anyway, probably not what the typical cruiser is looking for, but perfect for the two of us. We spent the afternoon getting “pissed” on VB (Victoria Bitter), gorging on Big Mac’s, and on the way home stopped in and rented some movies at Blockbuster. Good stuff. So we’re settled in for a couple of weeks and have tons of stuff we want to see and do.

may 6 2005 : sydney
A couple of days ago Ali and I hopped the train into the city. We just spent the day walking around the downtown, shopping, eating, and playing tourist. We walked over to Darling Harbour which is a nice touristy area of shops and restaurants. It was a pretty run down area just a few years ago, but for the Olympics they cleaned it all up. Now the Maritime Museum and the Aquarium are there as well. For those of you that have been to Chicago, it is basically the spitting image of Navy Pier. After that we walked up to Hyde Park and just sat around people watching for a couple of hours. Nothing too exciting, but it was nice to get out and walk around.

Yesterday, a new friend of ours, Lynn (a Bum reader), took us for a little tour. First we went up to the park that overlook The Heads where we sailed through the other night when we arrived in the dark. Then we drove around and checked out a couple of the famous beaches in the area such as Bondi. It’s winter here now so the beaches are pretty quiet but were still exactly what I had pictured when I thought of an Australian surf beach. Perfect little rollers coming in one after the other with a handful of surfers just bobbing around waiting for their wave. It was cool to see kids out there during school, presumably for their Phys Ed class, boogie boarding and surfing. Sure beats what we did for gym class.

We then drove down to Botany Bay and the landing site of Captain Cook. There was a little museum there that was kind of interesting and then we walked down to the statue that marks the exact spot that they came ashore (there is even a buoy out in the water marking where they anchored the Endeavour). There was a class of school kids there and the park ranger was dressing them up and having them do a reenactment. It was pretty funny to watch.

The ranger took this very seriously and would snap at the kids if they didn’t stand in perfect formation. He then had the Aborigines thrust their spears at the Europeans until Cook and his men had had enough at which point he had them begin shooting at the Aborigines. This of course really got the group of kids excited and they all began blasting away with their imaginary machine guns (which of course angered the ranger since the Europeans almost certainly weren’t carrying machine guns at the time) until the Aborigines finally conceded to sell all of their land for the three plastic pearl necklaces that had been offered as as payment. Thus bringing to a close a very important period in the history of Australia. I hope the kids that participated in the reenactment learned as much as I did.

After that it was time to do some real Sydney touring, we proceeded to have a pub crawl from one end of Sydney to the other. We learned a lot on this portion of the tour, such as, a pint is just a little bigger than a schooner, which is just a bit bigger than a middi. There is also another size in the middle somewhere that seems to be called a schmiddi. And I’m sure there is at least one other size that we haven’t figured out yet. I didn’t say we have mastered the art of ordering beer in Australia, but with a little more hands on learning we should get it.

We’re also having a fun time learning the slang here. For example, McDonald’s is “Macca’s” and eating a Big Mac is “fangin on a macca.” We promise to continue to immerse ourselves in this ancient Australian culture until we have learned all of their habits and can speak their language.

may 8 2005 : sydney
We have been a couple of hardcore tourists the last couple of days. Yesterday we headed over to The Rocks neighborhood for the street market there. It was pretty decent and had quite a bit of locally handmade stuff available, though we did see some of the stuff later on in a nearby tourist shop. Overall though a nice market and we picked up a couple of cool things. After that we hiked across town to Paddy’s Market. This one was horrendous. There were probably 100 stalls, each representing a different hijacked truck. One had nothing but ten year old portable cd players and clock radios, while another would have nothing but knockoff plastic Gucci handbags. Definitely worth a miss if you find yourself in Sydney looking for the Saturday markets. The upside of the market is that it was located near Chinatown, which was an interesting place to walk through. Lots of restaurants with carcasses of all descriptions hanging in the front windows, apparently with the aim of drawing in customers. Didn’t work on us though, and we wandered back up to The Rocks for some bangers and mash washed down with a local lager.

Today we hopped the train back into the city again, this time headed for the Fish Market. Yes, another market. This one was different though, no cheap t-shirts for sale, just fresh fish and vegetables. We wandered around admiring the displays of dozens of fish we’d never heard of before and then settled down for lunch which was a lobster tail with some sort of cheesy mashed potato baked on top of it, some fries and a salad. Not the easiest meal to eat with a plastic fork, but pretty good nonetheless.

After that we walked back up to the Opera House to have a look around. The area around there is called Circular Quay and it is set up really nice to take in views of the Harbour Bridge and the Opera House. There were thousands of tourists milling about and taking pictures. It was so nice that we joined right in. Walking up closer to the Opera House though I’d have to say that it is best viewed from a distance, preferably from the water. It’s a beautiful building, but up close you can see all the chipped tiles and the office cubicles behind the glass, all the things you can’t see from a little farther back.

may 10 2005 : sydney
The last couple of days have been dedicated to the beaches. First up was Manly. We took the train downtown and then hopped the ferry across the harbor to Manly which is right at the entrance to the harbor near where we came in on the first night. We were pleasantly surprised by what a nice little town it is. There was tons of shops, restaurants, and surf shops. I’m on the hunt right now for a new surfboard so we checked them all out.

Then today we went to Bondi Beach which has got to be one of the most famous beaches in the world. I guess in the summers it is so ridiculously busy that you can hardly find a spot to lay a beach towel down, but right now it’s perfect. The town itself was similar to Manly, lots of shops and restaurants, typical beach town pretty much wherever you go I think.

One thing that struck me today was how everything is named here in Australia. The British came here and immediately began naming everything after their homeland. I guess I can understand the original city names, but why even now a brand new road has to get these unimaginative and boring names. We caught the train on Victoria Street, got off and grabbed the bus on Oxford Road, which deposited us onto Queen Elizabeth Drive next to Bondi Beach. Off the top of my head I think Bondi was Queen Elizabeth’s pet name for King George the 47th, but I could be wrong about that.

may 11 2005 : sydney
Went on the grand-daddy of all Sydney tours today, the Bridge Climb. Once again we were dressed up like idiots, talked to like children, and forced to introduce ourselves with quirky little side notes about why we were climbing the bridge. Once we got past all that nonsense though the climb itself was really nice. The view was incredible and the walk itself was simple, despite all the warnings beforehand.

The guide was an interesting enough fellow who filled us, through our dorky headphones, with lots of facts about the city. None of which I can remember sitting here just four hours later. The only thing I didn’t like about the climb was the fact that they don’t allow you to bring a camera. They say it is for safety, since if you were to drop a camera from the top of the bridge and it landed on somebody’s head it would leave a hole about 6 inches deep in their brain. My explanation is that it is so they can fleece people for a couple of dorky pictures. We ended up buying two, which cost us $40 AU ($32 USD). And that was just burned onto a cd, not even printed out. All this after you have already paid $160 AU per person to climb the bridge. And don’t even think about trying to sneak your camera along, they actually use a metal detector on you before you go. You get a breathalyzer test beforehand too. No lie.

Luckily it was far to early in the morning for drinking. But I don’t want to complain too much because it really was a cool little trip. It’s just that they let you wear your sunglasses as long as you put on their special little strap that clips onto your suit, the same strap which could very easily be used to clip onto your camera. All right, I’ve droned on and on about the expensive pictures to Ali all day long so I’ll stop now.

After the climb we walked across the bridge, stopping along the way at the Pylon Lookout, which is one of the big pylons toward the end of the bridge. The Bridge Climb people give you complimentary passes, and it is well worth a stop as they let you bring your camera along despite the fact that you can lean right out ten stories above the speeding traffic below.

On the other side of the bridge we walked around Luna Park, which is sort of a small Coney Island wannabe type amusement park. It was built on top of the area that had been used for the previous eight years as the steel cutting area for the bridge construction. Oh wait, I guess I do remember something that the guide told us. His little joke was that the city built it to thank the local residents for putting up with all that noise for all that time. But within just a short time the local residents wanted the park shut down because of all of its noise. And they actually did shut it down off and on through the years, usually whenever somebody died on one of the rickety old rides, but it’s open now. It’s kind of a cool spot, located right on the waterfront next to the bridge, and it’s free to walk around. But best of all was what we found right up the street. A Pizza Hut with a beautiful park next to it where you could sit and eat pizza while gazing out across the harbor at the Opera House and the bridge. Good stuff.

may 13 2005 : sydney
Last night started out normal enough, we went to a local pub with Chris, the marina manager, and a friend of his. Eight hours later we were attempting to “skurf” behind the dinghy in the middle of Sydney Harbour. Skurfing is similar to wakeboarding except the board is narrower and thicker. It should be noted here that we simply cannot condone the practice of skurfing at 2 a.m. in Sydney Harbour. The dinghy motor wasn’t quite strong enough to get us up, and so now I have begun to pester Ali about buying a 25 horsepower motor on the off chance that we find ourselves attempting to skurf again (at a more suitable hour of course). After the three of us guys had each been dragged through the water, Ali is far to smart to subject herself to that sort of nonsense but perfectly willing to laugh at us while we do, we dinghied over to Harry’s Café de Wheels.

Harry’s is a famous pie cart that opened in 1945 and had pictures of all the famous people that have visited them on the walls, though I honestly didn’t recognize one of them. The pies were excellent, they come with a big slop of mashed potatoes, gravy, and peas plopped on top. And they had these monstrous hot dogs that had so much crap on them that I could hardly finish it, definitely a close second to a Chicago-style dog. But the most interesting thing about Harry’s was the location. It is on the sidewalk right next to a big Navy wharf. Probably should have noticed those big yellow buoys warning us to KEEP OUT, but we didn’t, and instead motored right alongside a couple of Australian Navy Warships.

About the time we ordered our food we got company, in the form of a Navy Patrol Boat. There were three guys onboard and they just idled about twenty feet behind the dinghy while we sat up on the sidewalk devouring Harry’s pies. The guy at Harry’s told us we were the first people that had ever shown up to the pie cart in a boat, I guess for good reason. Hey, maybe we can get our pictures on the wall?

After eating we climbed back in the dinghy and began to pull away. That’s when the Navy boys pulled up alongside and told us to shut her down. They tied us up and invited us aboard. Well maybe invited isn’t the right word, ordered is probably more like it. They asked us a few questions about what the hell we were doing and then received orders to bring us back to the dock to have a chat with their Commanding Officer. He was pretty nice about the whole thing and just asked us for identification, which of course we didn’t have, so he settled for our name, rank, and serial number. Then he told the guys to tow us back outside their waters and drop us off.

Along the way one of the officers said, with a hint of attitude, “You’re lucky you didn’t pull this in the U.S.” I asked, “What’s that supposed to mean?” And he said, “They probably wouldn’t be so nice.” To which I said, “No, they would have spotted a dinghy with four people in it, three with wetsuits on, moving slowly towards their warships, shined a spotlight on us when were still 50 meters away, demanded we stopped at 40 meters, fired warning shots at 30 meters, and blown us up at 20 meters.” I didn’t really say that, actually I just nodded and agreed with him since they were pretty good sports about the whole thing. Hope the guy who was supposed to be on watch didn’t get in any trouble.

We also met our first Australian that has actually been to Uluru (or Ayer’s Rock), which is basically as big a symbol of Australia as the kangaroo. We had asked a few people we met if they had been there and nobody had, so now it has sort of become a game with us to ask them, and last night we were genuinely shocked when we found somebody who had. He was 22 years old when he finally made it by there for a look.

A pack of cigarettes cost $9 USD here, which we’ve noticed seems to be helping the homeless population of Sydney live a much longer and healthier life.

Walking out of the grocery store today I noticed the sign painted on the door. It lists the hours of operation as 7 a.m. to 12 p.m. every day. Yet it’s 3 p.m. as I push through the door. I can’t possibly be the first person to notice this. Can I?

may 16 2005 : sydney
Pretty uneventful few days. On Friday, after lounging around all day getting nothing accomplished but an afternoon trip to Macca’s, a couple Bum readers picked us up and took us out to a great Thai restaurant. We were Thai food virgins, but these two were clearly veterans and ordered up all kinds of great food and wine. Good food and good company, nice combination.

The next day we took off for the Paddington Market. Ali has promised me this is the last market we will go to in Sydney. It was about a 45 minute walk from the marina but it was worth it. The street it is on is lined for miles with shops selling everything imaginable, and then you get to the market and it has loads more. Lots of homemade stuff, funky clothing, jewelry, and food stands. Ali managed to find herself another purse, some clothes, and a chalkboard which I got to hang up so that she can list my to do list more prominently. Then we sat down for a snack. The Aussies have their hot dogs/sausages figured out, that’s for sure. Every one I have had so far has been about a foot long, piled high with onions, and on a big fresh roll. That’s the kind of food I can respect a country for making. After the market we met our friend Lynn for a drink. She brought us a gift, two-for-one coupons for McDonald’s, Pizza Hut, and Domino’s, showing what a keen understanding she has of who we are. Thank you, thank you.

Sunday we woke up and had a hankering for some breakfast. Ali took a look at our selection of fine foods and came up with a can of chili and a bag of potato chips. At 8 a.m. Hey, some people eat eggs for dinner. After that hearty breakfast we finally got some work done on the boat. Not much, mind you, but some. I changed the oil on the engines and took a look at the port engine charging problem. I had suspected that it had to do with this solenoid that is wired into the charging system. I’ve never fully understood how the whole thing works, but the basic idea seems to be that it isolates the house batteries from the starter battery. So I removed the cover to have a look at the solenoid and found two fuses wired into it. Well I figured replacing a couple of 5 amp fuses would be a good place to start my troubleshooting. So I put the new ones in and fired up the engines. It seemed to work perfectly, but the real test was to see if once the batteries were fully charged the smart charger would keep them from overcharging. After two hours it was still charging perfectly, so I shut it down. Problem solved I hope.

The new engine is running great, but now we seem to have a new knock in the other engine. It sounds okay when it is running, maybe the slightest hint of a grinding type noise, but it may just be in my head, because no matter how close I put my head to the various areas of the engine I can’t seem to isolate it. But the real noise is when we shut down the engine. I turn off the engine and as it shuts down the last noise it makes is this fairly loud clunk, clunk.

After having a banana, jelly beans, and some M&M’s for breakfast we headed downtown for a movie. Today was the fourth day in a row of crappy cold, windy weather and it seemed like a good time to catch a flick. I honestly cannot imagine that movie theatres will be around much longer. Movie tickets here were the world’s highest so far at $15 AU ($12 USD) a ticket. I understand they are probably more than that in New York, but they’ve still got Chicago beat by a buck or two. Meanwhile you can buy the movie on DVD two months after it comes out for $15 and it comes with hours of extras and behind the scenes stuff that you don’t get to see at the theatre. I just don’t get it. But we had to go because I was anxious to see how their popcorn was. In New Zealand we went to a few movies and were universally appalled at how horrible their popcorn was. Seems like a hard food to get wrong, but they managed. It was this dry, flaky, crumbly concoction that hardly even looked like popcorn. But here, in Oz, they make a pretty mean popcorn. Moist, but yet still crunchy and full of flavor. Australia, good on ya.

We just had to have another go at Harry’s. Pictured here is the oh so delicious Hot Dog de Wheels featuring a dog, chili, onions, cheese, chili sauce, and yes, peas. Also pictured is the friendly neighborhood Navy yard. Right down along the side of those ships is where we pulled in on the dinghy the other night.

may 19 2005 : southern australia road trip
On the road again. We took off yesterday morning on our first Australian road trip. We are heading south along the coast to Melbourne about 600 miles away. The weather has sucked for a week now and we have had a total of about seven minutes of no rain since leaving the boat. Yesterday we headed out of Sydney and down the coast. The strange thing was how hard it was to actually get near the coast. Highway 1 looks like it runs right along the water when you are looking at the map but you have to take pretty long detours to actually get anywhere near it. Because of that we ended up only making about 200 miles our first day, which turned out to be perfect because we ended up at Pebbly Beach right at dusk.

We had read that kangaroos can be found on the beach here and went to take a look. We drove down a muddy dirt road for a few miles and pulled into the parking lot of the national park, where we found we were the only people there, and standing there in the middle of the road staring at us was our first kangaroo. He stood and posed for some pictures and then hopped off towards the beach. We walked down there after him and found about 20 of them milling about eating grass and having contests to see who could jump the farthest. The setting was incredible, with a nice grassy area above the beach where huge waves were crashing into the shore. There had been a dangerous surf conditions report on the radio all day and it was definitely huge out there. The kangaroos were cool. They would stand around and let us walk up pretty close to them before hopping off and regrouping 20 yards away.

We usually like to stop driving and find a place to stay before it gets dark, since choosing a motel in the dark can be a little tricky. We drove through the town of Bateman’s Bay a couple of times before deciding on the Bridge Motel. We chose it because it had such an original name and was located right next to the bridge. We figured an owner who put that much thought into the naming of his establishment must take great pride in his rooms. We chose a room on the second floor and I was struck by something as being a little strange. All the rooms on the first floor had bars over the windows and doors, but on the second floor which is accessed by at least three sets of stairways leading up from the parking lot, there were no bars. Is it really that much more dangerous on the first floor? Well then, we’re taking the second floor from now on.

Today we took off by seven and drove back to Pebbly Beach hoping that the kangaroos would be out in the early morning as well. They weren’t, the little bastards. So we headed south again with no real destination. The rain continued to pound down on us all day, which we really enjoyed as it kept the car nice and clean. Driving along Highway 1 there are countless signs that point off on side roads that say things like Tourist Drive, Waterfalls, World’s Largest Ant Farm, etc. etc.. We always manage to steer the car off towards something that is completely unremarkable. This time it was the Bolaga Dam. Once again we got to beat the car up on a rutted mud road for a few miles before coming to another park in which we were the only ones there. The cool thing was that we could drive right out onto the dam, throw rocks off the top, and drive off. No big long hikes involved here. There were no signs or anything giving any information on the importance of the dam, so we drove off again without a clue as to why we are supposed to go and admire this particular dam. Damn!

Later in the afternoon, between sweeps of the windshield wipers, we saw a sign for the Killer Whale Museum. It’s a nice little low budget style museum that was originally built to house the remains of Big Tom. Big Tom was a killer whale who lived in the area around the early 1900s. The interesting thing about him was that he was the leader of a group of killer whales who actually cooperated with the local whalers to help capture and kill other whales. The story goes that Big Tom would come into the bay and make a big fuss, jumping and splashing around, until the whalers loaded into their boats and rushed out to follow him. He would lead the whalers to a whale that Big Tom’s group of killer whales had trapped. The whalers would then do their thing and kill the whale, then as a reward for their help, the whalers would feed the killer whales the tongue and lips of the dead whale (which can apparently weigh up to 4 tons).

In 1930 Big Tom was found floating upside down in the bay where he had apparently come home to die. The next year no killer whales came to the bay, which made whaling very hard since the whalers had to spot the whales themselves now, and by the next year the whaling industry was completely shut down. This is the only known case of whales helping humans to hunt other whales and this museum was built simply to tell that story. Good stuff.

may 22 2005 : road trip
Man what a weekend. We pulled into Melbourne around four on Friday. We had no map and no clue where we were going to stay for the night. On our way into the city we ended up on the toll highway, fully expecting that we would just pull up to a tollbooth and pay the toll. Turns out instead that we were supposed to have our toll pass arranged beforehand. There are no tollbooths, just signs that tell you that you are about to be photographed and a $100 fine will be mailed to you. In our case this means that they will send the fine to the car rental agency who will then tack on another $100 before charging our credit card. Not to mention the fact that we aren’t even supposed to have left New South Wales with the car (we are now well into Victoria). When we rented the car and the guy asked us if we were going to be staying in NSW you could just tell that if you answered no to the question that you would be paying at least double what we were. So instead of answering we just bent over and pretended to tie our shoes. This confused him enough that he forgot about the question and moved on. Upon exiting the toll road we saw a sign with a phone number that we could conveniently call and explain our ignorance and be charged just $10 instead.

We got into Melbourne right at the height of Friday rush hour traffic with no clue where we were or where we were going. So I pulled over in a bus lane and broke out the Lonely Planet to try and figure things out. I looked up in the rearview mirror a minute later and saw a cop getting out of a car with his lights flashing. I immediately gunned the car, but saw him raise his hands in a calming gesture, so I stayed put. He came up and said, “You guys look lost.” He then proceeded to give us a recommendation on a place to stay and then told us to follow him. We drove through the city for about five minutes following him in his cop car until we got to the hotel. Now that’s good service, and a good first impression of the city for us. Unfortunately the hotel was booked, as were a couple of others nearby, and since it was getting dark and we had plans to meet some website friends in the morning we figured we’d just head out to the ‘burbs and find a motel out there. After a long frustrating drive through suburbia we finally found a place and called it a night.

The next day we met up with Stephen and Lisa who had both tickets for the footy game that afternoon as well as a beautiful home for us to spend the weekend in. The game was at the MCG, which is a famous stadium right on the edge of the city, and was between the first place West Coast Eagles and the hometown Collingwood Magpies who were in dead last. This was Australian Rules Football which we had never seen before, but it was surprisingly easy to figure out, with very few rules as far as I could tell, which made it very fast paced and exciting. The field was oval shaped and was at least 175 yards long, so I was pretty impressed watching these guys run back and forth the whole game while kicking 50 yard goals on the run. Long story short, Collingwood came through with a big upset and the crowd went nuts. Blue skies, mince pies, and large beers always make for a good afternoon.

Sunday morning Stephen took us out for a fly around Melbourne. We’d never flown in a little 4-seater before and were pretty excited about it. The weather was perfect, no wind and hardly a cloud in the sky. We had the plane fueled up and were in the air within just a few minutes. We flew out along the coast just 400 feet off the ground checking out the people walking along the beach and the houses on the cliffs. I was able to take over the controls most of the time and flew us through a couple of clouds which was a lot of fun. All in all a pretty exhilarating experience. By the end of the day I found myself asking a lot of questions about getting a pilots license.

Later on we headed downtown to do a little more sightseeing. We checked out a big art exhibit at Federation Square which was really good. There was some really disturbing Aboriginal artwork that really made you think about what the Aboriginal people have gone through. We checked out a big open air market, stumbled across a fashion show where they were serving loads of good food so we made ourselves at home and ate lunch for free, and we checked out the Old Melbourne Gaol (jail).

It was built in the 1850s and closed in 1924 but feels so well preserved that you’d think it could still house prisoners. It’s big claim to fame is that it is where Ned Kelly was hung. Ned Kelly is Australia’s biggest folk hero. He was a criminal who despised government and the cops, which put him in the majority of Aussies at the time. At one point he and his gang were surrounded by the police, but they had made themselves homemade armor out of the metal from plows, and came out blazing. They could hardly walk in the stuff but it worked for a while. They stood there taking bullet after bullet and managed to kill three policeman themselves. But eventually Ned was caught and hung. The museum had one of the gangs armor suits, but the best part of the museum for me was looking at the pictures hanging up in one display. All the pictures were colored by children aged from about 3-10 and showed Ned Kelly in his armor with guns firing and policeman falling to the ground. Now that’s good stuff, glorifying criminals to children. I love it.

may 23 2005 : road trip
Good day on the road today. We left Melbourne in the morning and drove off towards the Great Ocean Road. The weather was perfect and the scenery was beautiful. We stopped and watched the surfers at Bells Beach for a little while. Then continued on down the coast enjoying the view. Once again we found one of those wind turbine areas and spent a little time driving around looking at those. In the afternoon we came across the Otway National Park. Our guidebook mentioned a road that runs through the park to a lighthouse and said to look out for koalas in the trees. So we detoured down that road in search of the koalas, not really expecting to see any. A couple of miles in I spotted one sitting in a tree directly above the road. We got out of the car and I saw another one further back in the woods, but the one right above us was perfect. He seemed to be interested in Ali’s voice and just sat there scratching and stretching occasionally before finally cuddling back up into a ball for a nap. That really made our day.

Shortly after getting back on the Great Ocean Road we saw something in the grass along the edge of the road. We both only caught a quick glimpse of it and weren’t sure what it was, so I went to make a U-turn and have a look. The road was pretty narrow so I drove pretty far over into the ditch before making the turn. Turns out I went too far and the car slid down the small bank and into the mud. I gunned the car, which luckily was front wheel drive, and kept slamming through the mud trying to get the car to make it back up the slope onto the road. Mud was flying everywhere and cars were stopping on the road, presumably to point and laugh at us. After about 50 yards it leveled out a little bit and we were able to jerk the car back up onto the road and everyone drove off disappointed that we made it out.

After that it was a race to get to the Twelve Apostles before the dark and the rain. These are just big rock stacks in the ocean right offshore. You can’t go anywhere without seeing pictures of these things. It’s a pretty dramatic view.

may 24 2005 : road trip
This morning we started the long drive back to Sydney. We drove a little farther along the coast in the morning and checked out a few more rock formations before turning inland. The Arch, London Bridge, and a cliff face. Interesting story about London Bridge is that those two pieces of land were connected just back in 1990 and you could walk out on it. When it suddenly collapsed there was a couple people stranded out there who had to be lifted off by helicopter. Nobody collapsed with it into the ocean.

In the afternoon we were driving through Ballarat, one of the early gold mining towns of Australia, and decided to stop in at Sovereign Hill and give panning for gold a try. Actually we had a two for one coupon otherwise it’s probably the kind of place we’d drive right past. The place was actually pretty neat, it is a reconstructed gold mining town, which you would normally expect to be totally fake looking but in this case was really well done and you could get a pretty good feel for what it would have been like to live around that time. We had a beer at the towns tavern and panned for gold in a little stream in which at least a million schoolchildren had previously panned and not surprisingly came up with nothing but rocks.

may 25 2005 : road trip
Today we were up early with a lot of ground to cover. Every day I look at the map and try to figure out where we will end up that night, and every day we only seem to make it about half that distance. There is no doubt that Australia is a huge country. This road trip alone will cover over 1800 miles and is only a small little corner of it. Anyway, we drove and drove and drove today.

At one point we stopped at a Repco Auto Parts store in a small country town. We’d been looking for oil filters for the boat and this place finally had the right ones. The guy behind the counter was more than a little confused at what a couple of Americans were doing in his store buying a dozen oil filters. The scenery along the road was awesome. I actually thought it was more interesting looking than the coast road. We had sun, blue skies, red dirt, dry wheat fields, green hills, big green rocks, and wild kangaroos hopping around. Ali was the pro kangaroo spotter today and it seemed like every time I would finally pass that slow moving truck she would spot the ‘roos and we would pull over to watch them and ten minutes later I would be stuck behind the truck again. We pulled into Bathurst right at dark, found a motel, grabbed some Chinese take-away and called it a night.

may 26 2005 : road trip
Back in Sydney at last. We were up early this morning and were shocked by how cold it was, 45 degrees! We were going to head straight out of Bathurst and into the Blue Mountains, but the manager of the motel was so adamant that we check out the town’s race track that we decided to give it a drive through. Mount Panorama is the name of the track and it is right at the edge of town. The cool thing about it is that when there is no race it is a public road, so you get to drive around the 6.2 km race track at 60 km/hr and pretend like you are really going 250. Ali made the mistake of getting out of the car to take a picture which left me all alone to drive around the corner and do a little racing. Our poor little rental car took a pretty good thrashing on this trip.

Despite the managers equally enthusiastic recommendation of the town’s caves, we gave them a miss and headed for the mountains. Previous cave experiences have left us a little more than disappointed and they have been put on our “do not do again” list. The manager also asked us if we were going to go see the kangaroos which come out in the morning and feed at some little park in town. We told him we had seen enough kangaroos the day before and he looked at us like we were crazy. He asked, “Are you sure they weren’t sheep?” And I thought, “Not unless you’ve taught your sheep to jump ten feet in the air and run at 40 miles an hour.” We have been told over and over again that the only kangaroos we will see will be dead at the side of the road or in a zoo. Same thing for koala bears. Yet we had no problem seeing both on this trip. Maybe they just aren’t looking close enough.

The Blue Mountains were next and they were pretty nice. Certainly not the kind of mountains that you would need a sherpa in order to climb up, they are more like large hills that rise up to about 3500 feet. We stopped at Hassan Walls, which is the highest scenic lookout in the mountains, and it was great. I love these places that would never be allowed to exist in the States. This place had a road right up to it and then you could walk right out on the rocky cliffs which dropped straight off hundreds of feet to the valley below. I was climbing and jumping all over the place while Ali yelled at me to be careful. The scenery was great and we had perfect weather to be able to see forever.

We finally rolled into Sydney in the afternoon after fighting through heavy traffic at two p.m. to cross the bridge back into the city. Amazingly we didn’t make one wrong turn, the marina manager wasn’t at lunch, and the boat was still floating. All good. We had a great trip, and after three weeks in Australia can see why everybody loves this place so much.

may 27 2005 : sydney, new south wales, australia
When driving through Australia there is a lot of time to sit quietly with your thoughts. No matter how dumb those thoughts may be.

One day we were driving through the woods and suddenly five cars in a row flashed their headlights at us. It was only two o’clock but it was pretty dark in the woods so I turned on our headlights. Then the next five cars all flashed their headlights at us as well. That’s when it dawned on us that there must be a cop up ahead. We slowed down and sure enough, around the next corner was a cop standing against his car with a radar gun pointed at us. Between this and the adoration shown Ned Kelly I have to say that these Australians don’t seem to think much of authority. Or maybe they are just being nice because their speeding tickets are so expensive. We saw one sign that showed a speedometer at 130 (in a 100 zone), and said, “Is it worth it? $538” that seems a little excessive for going 72 mph, don’t you think?

Remember back in the 80s or maybe early 90s when all those tourists in Florida were getting pulled over by gangs and robbed. It finally dawned on authorities that the gangs knew these people were tourists because their rental cars had giant stickers on them proclaiming them to be from Avis, or National, or whoever. After that the rental car companies took all the markings off their cars so you would look just like every other joe schmo on the road. Well they still haven’t thought of that over here. Maybe their gang members just haven’t put two and two together yet. But I’ve got to tell you, I hated driving around all week in a car covered in stickers advertising the rental car company.

I think Australia may have even more road construction workers than back in the U.S. One day we were driving along and ended up on yet another one of our dirt road scenic drives. We had been driving for about 20 miles without seeing another car when suddenly we came round the corner and found a guy standing in the middle of the road with a stop sign. We stopped and waited a couple of minutes when finally a big truck came into view. It was spraying water onto the dirt. That’s all it was doing, spraying water. We finally got to pass and drive along the now muddy road.

may 29 2005 : sydney
Had a pretty fun day yesterday. We got an email the other day from one of our friendly website followers who offered to hook us up with pit passes for the V8 Supercar Series here in Sydney. We of course jumped on that and yesterday morning we rented a car and drove out to the races. When we got there we met up with one of the team owners, Tony, who gave us our passes and walked us around the pits. We got to hang out right in the garage while they prepared the car for the race and checked out the half dozen computer screens they had set up to monitor everything about the car and the race. Once race time came around we went upstairs where we got to stand directly above pit lane and straight across from the start/finish line.

By the way, the V8 Supercar Series is about the equivalent to NASCAR in the U.S. There were at least 50,000 spectators lined up all around the track, which was a road course, not an oval. In the first race, Tony’s car wouldn’t start when they got out on the track and they had to push it back into the pits, where they got it started but ended up starting in last place because of it. They finished a disappointing 25th in that one. In the second race of the day, after starting in 25th place they managed to move up and finish 16th. The team seemed pretty disappointed, but we had a great time. Thanks Garry and Tony.

may 30 2005 : sydney
Woke up this morning and decided it was time to get moving again. So we spent the day running around getting ready to leave tomorrow. Made a couple of trips to the grocery store which is called Woolworths but the locals call Wooly’s. Like everything else in Australia they just chop the full name in half and add a y or ie to the end of it. Sunglasses, sunnies; wetsuit, wetty; breakfast, brekky; barbeque, barbie; you get the idea. Anyway, we also found time for a skurf. This time in daylight hours and on a different skurfboard. This board was more like a big sheet of plywood but it worked great behind the little 15 hp dinghy engine. And for lunch we made one last trip over to Harry de Wheels for a tiger pie and a hot dog with the works.