Apinun! That means “good afternoon” (“happy noon”) in Tok Pisin (which is literally, “pidgin talk”), the common language of Papua New Guinea (PNG). We had a great continuation and finale of our grand adventure in the Australasian lands of PNG, Australia, and New Zealand. After our time in New Zealand, we’re now back in the States! We’re having a bit of a hard time grasping that our amazing trip is over. However, it continued to be a wonderful time to explore and adventure even in the denouement of our traveling.
As sad as we were to leave our delightful escape in Phuket, we were excited to see some old friends in Singapore that we have known since Jim’s time at Dartmouth. Anna, who is married to Adrian - a native Singaporean, was kind enough to pick us up from the airport in Singapore.
The front of the Singapore Parliament.
We attended Anna and Adrian’s wedding about seven years ago in a chapel on campus, and I hadn’t seen them since then, as they moved back to Adrian’s home country. They now have three very engaging children (Ben, John, and Cate) and it was really great to see their life in Singapore! Anna showed us their nice downtown apartment (granted, most all of Singapore is “downtown”) and then we headed over to the Botanic Gardens and wandered around.
Here we are under a pretty little waterfall at the botanic gardens.
It’s been neat to see the flora of so many places as we’ve passed through them, and Singapore has some especially nifty plants since it’s so close to the equator.
This snake attacked and devoured a poor little lizard as we watched... savage but fascinating.
We hung out with Anna and the kids for the morning, and then she dropped us off at a nearby restaurant so we could have lunch with Chris, another good friend from Singapore. Chris brought along his fiancée and soon-to-be-bride, Gladys, whom we hadn’t met yet, and we had a delightful lunch catching up with Chris and getting to know Gladys a little bit. They get married in less than a month and we thought it was too bad that the timing of our trip didn’t match up so that we could attend their wedding. It would have been fun to see the alliance of two such great people! Unfortunately, their lunch break from work only lasted so long, and they soon had to return to work. James and I wandered through a bunch of the city (and thereby a bunch of the country) as we headed back towards Anna and Adrian’s home. We strolled along the waterfront, got some ice cream, and admired Singapore’s very modern architecture before getting back to the apartment. Adrian wasn’t home from work yet, so Anna took us to the local market to pick up some local fare for dinner. The food was tasty - definitely Asian but with its own Singaporean flair. Adrian got home from work for dinner and we got to catch up with him for a little while before it was time to go to the airport. Although he had just gotten home not long before, Adrian very kindly drove us to the airport so we could jet off to our next country after receiving a most gracious hosting in Singapore.
We got to take a portrait with the whole family!
We walked up to the check-in desk to get our boarding passes for our flight to Australia, but the attendant informed us that it would not be possible to grant us boarding passes without an Australian visa. Now, we had looked up all the countries we were going to visit to see if we needed to apply early for a visa to enter, and Australia was not on the list. The only countries that we obtained visas for ahead of time were Russia and China. Several of the other countries we had already visited did require a visa, but to that point all could be purchased upon arrival in the country, so the attendant’s statement threw us into a rather severe confusion. We both had grim mental pictures of being denied entry into Australia and all the rest of our flights and plans going terribly wrong. We stared at her in shock for probably a full minute before she motioned to a desk just across the way and told us that we could get a visa right there. I don’t think that lady knew the internal panic she caused us! Anyway, our hearts resumed their normal pace and we got on our flight to Brisbane without any further incident. We flew through the night to Brisbane, where we caught our connecting flight to Cairns in the morning. A very kind staff member actually upgraded our tickets for us without us even asking and we were able to take an earlier and much nicer flight to Cairns than we had reserved. How nice!
Cairns (or as the Aussies pronounce it, “cans”) is on the northeastern coast of Australia and is the main departure point for anyone headed to the Great Barrier Reef, which we were. One of our splurges on this terrific trip was a stay on a live-aboard dive boat that moored out on the reef overnight... how cool, right?! But we didn’t leave for that until the next morning, so Jim and I each enjoyed the amenities of Cairns in our own way - Jim took an amble round the city and through a nearby park while I conked out in our hostel. I was just so tired! And I knew the next day would be full of adventure so I wanted to be well-rested, too. We woke up early for our pick-up by the dive company, picked up a few other people on the way, went to the office to pay for our trip (very important, of course), and then we set out for the open ocean! The dive company has figured out a very efficient system of being able to provide both day trips as well as overnight stays by using the day-trip boat as a shuttle for the overnighters. So we boarded the day boat and headed towards the reef, stopping twice along the way for dives.
On the pier heading to the dive boat!
I’ve finally dived the Great Barrier Reef! Despite the fact that I’m pretty sure we were in the regularly touristed part of the reef, we still found the ocean life spectacular. I’ve been very blessed to dive a fair amount in the Caribbean, and the GBR, as they call it, has a totally different feel. It was some incredible diving and really cool, especially as the first thing we saw when we jumped into the water was a huuuge fish called Wally. Wally is quite a smart fish and he has picked up on the fact that if he hangs around when the dive boat comes, the awkward, bubble-exuding creatures that toss themselves in the water will often bring food with them. So Wally, astutely, has taken up a near-permanent residence around the site of the dive boat mooring. He will let people pet him and even pose for pictures if you’re not too demanding! Wally was a swell start to the dive, but we had lots more to see.
We didn’t have the underwater case for our camera, so we sadly don’t have any underwater pictures, but these are some fish that came to feed at the surface.
We saw lots of beautiful fish flashing their bright colors as they darted by, many gorgeous corals, steep and dramatic rock formations, and on the first dive we even saw a grey reef shark relaxing on the ocean floor. He was dozing, meditating, or doing something equally inactive, so we didn’t get much pep out of him, but it was still fabulous to see a shark. We are big shark fans and are thrilled to see a happy healthy shark whenever we can. He was quite docile and I was actually more intimidated by the large school of silvery barracuda that seemed to be eyeing us as if to judge whether or not they could make a meal of us. Fortunately, though, they lost interest and went away to terrorize some other poor swimmers, human or not. And last but not least, we saw the oh-so-famous clown anemone fish! Of course, many fewer people know them by that name than by their cinematic namesake, Nemo. Even the dive staff told us we were going “to go see Nemo” and exclusively referred to them as Nemos, which I found a bit odd. Either way, though, Disney-Pixar did choose a delightful little fish off of which to base their movie. I got to see several cute little clown fish wrapping themselves in anemone as if the venomous stinging strands were feather boas. How excellent!
A self-portrait on the top deck of the boat.
We went on two more dives after that first one, and the most notable addition to the animal-sighting repertoire was several giant clams. They were so enormous that they almost looked fake, but the hulking purple flesh housed in the jumbo clam shells was definitely not fake, as a gentle poke or a soft current of water waved in their direction caused them to protectively contract their tubby tissue. We saw several of varying sizes, but the biggest two or three of the group were a good meter wide, if not more. This was quite novel for us, so I confess that we poked them just to enjoy their reaction - probably not very nice, but I was so happy to see them I couldn’t quite help myself. The other super-awesome creature that we saw were several nudibranchs. They are like flamboyantly-colored flat slugs... I know that doesn’t sound appealing, but they way they ripple through the water is quite alluring. They are pretty little critters!
Some fellow divers pore over fish charts to identify what they had seen. The interior of the boat was pretty cozy!
By that time we had transferred to the overnight boat where we had our own cabin, which was quite nice as boat cabins go. Shortly before dinner, we went on our fourth and final dive of the day - the night dive. This dive would more aptly be called a “dusk dive” because we were getting into the water just as the sunshine was sinking behind the horizon, when, just like humans, lots of fish eat dinner as the sun is going to bed. Despite the fact that we each had bright waterproof flashlights, getting into the dark water was downright eerie. It’s one thing to hop into bright turquoise water and gaze eagerly right down to the innocuous sandy bottom; it’s another to jump into black water and stare down into murky depths where the bottom, as well as any lurking monster, is completely invisible. I experienced a bit of primal panic on first plunging in, despite the fact that I would have been exhilarated to see any kind of exotic marine leviathan, and I was even hoping for several. I think some things are just hard-wired to create a thrill of terror, even if you know better than to be a fraidy cat. Anyway, I soon got over being scared (mostly) and we went on our way. We saw tons of tiny gleaming red eyes reflecting in our flashlight beams, which were itty-bitty shrimp and crustaceans peering out of their crevices. Most of the small fish were hiding, as well, and with good reason, as we were accompanied by some terrifically fast big fish that have learned to hunt by the light of the torches. They would whiz past us, almost over our shoulders, coming out of the dark nothingness (which could be quite startling!) in hopes of catching some poor cute fishy in the danger zone of our light beams. Thus, I tried to be mindful of where I shone my light so I wasn’t responsible for the death of any new little friends. The dive was one of the better night dives I’ve been on, but the real coup of the whole dive trip came right at the end. As our bars (of oxygen) got lower, we headed back to our dive boat. The dive boat had a great big spotlight turned on at the rear of the boat, which attracted lots of little creatures, which in turn attracted slightly bigger creatures, and so on, right on up to the big kahunas - sharks. As we swam closer, coming up towards the boat, we saw that utterly distinctive profile illuminated from above. The sight was truly breathtaking! The water around the boat was full of sharks who were swimming around the fringes of light in hopes of catching an easy meal. They were above, below, and to the side of us. It was downright electrifying! And despite my previous alarm with not a shark in sight, I was not scared a bit at coming into such a scene - I was too full of thrilled awe. It’s probably good that my air was getting low so that I actually had to get out of the water, because I didn’t want to! What an incredible dive... we were just pleased as punch!
The boat crew put out quite a spread for our dinner.
When we finally dragged ourselves out of the water and cleaned up a bit, it was time for dinner. The food was delicious and we happened to sit across from another couple whose company we really enjoyed. We sat and talked with Kelly and his fiancée Claire for a good long time after the meal was over, just chatting and laughing. All in all, it was a delightful evening. We eventually bid each other good night, as we had an early morning dive to wake up for, and then another two before lunch. However, when I woke up by my phone’s alarm to find out if I had somehow missed the crew’s wake-up knock, I found the boat’s engine running at full speed as we hightailed it back to Cairns. One of the crew members had become quite ill during the night and those in charge had deemed it urgent enough to abort the rest of the trip to take her back to port for medical care. It was unclear exactly what was wrong, but she was writhing around due to a great deal of pain and seemed to be almost delirious. They even pulled out an oxygen mask for her. The crew members were very apologetic, but we assured them that we were glad for her sake that they were going back to Cairns... poor girl. The company offered for us to go back out on the day boat to get the rest of our dives in, but after already making the two-hour journey back to Cairns and due to the fact that we had an early flight the next morning, we declined. We had been cutting it a little close with the original dive schedule, but the revised one simply wouldn’t work to be sure that we wouldn’t contract (literally) the bends as we rose to altitude in the plane the next morning. The dive company was quite understanding and compensated us with a refund that was more than fair. We were very impressed with how they handled the affair and told them so. So we were presented, unexpectedly, with a full day in Cairns. Our new friends Kelly and Claire had made the same decision to stay in Cairns as us, so we decided to all go for a hike together to continue enjoying each other’s company. There is a delightful hiking trail just outside Cairns and so the four of us set off and almost immediately found ourselves immersed in an incredible tropical rainforest. Kelly is an avid and very skilled birdwatcher, and we all had fun pointing out birds in order to help him try to add to his life list of bird species that he’s seen in the wild.
This is called a bush turkey and there are tons of them running through the woods. Funky little fowl they are.
We trekked through amazing scenery, some of it positively primordial-looking - gargantuan trees with huge knotty roots, thick dramatic vines hanging from the sky, giant spider webs inhabited by elephantine arachnids, the wild hooting call of the kookaburra echoing through the trees... What a place.
The crazy vines.
The funkadelic spider.
We hiked a long ways, and after some time turned back to find lunch. We went back to town and tucked into a tasty Mexican meal. Kelly and Claire had to depart for their next destination at that point, unfortunately, but Jim and I continued exploring the flora by visiting the botanic gardens.
Inside the gardens.
They had some splendid plants: orchids, cycads, palms, flowering vines, and predatory plants, including one plant that smells like death, I think to attract bugs. Ugh. It was quite late in the afternoon by the time we got back to the downtown. We strolled along the waterfront for a while and eventually turned in for yet another early-morning flight. This time we were off to Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea.
A glimpse of coastal PNG from the air.
Papua New Guinea, or PNG for short, is very decidedly not a tourist hotspot. It’s a beautiful country, as much as we can tell from the restricted glimpse we got, but it’s not really designed to accommodate the casual traveler. This means that there is no easily-usable public transportation systems, no budget lodgings at all, and very little tourist-friendly sight-seeing available. We knew that not many people went there, but we didn’t know much else before arriving. We probably should have done a bit more research, but there wasn’t much time for that and the unknown is part of the adventure, right? Anyway, we landed in PNG fairly early in the morning. We knew where we were going, but we didn’t really know how to get there. We thought we’d try walking there by using the map that Jim had downloaded onto his phone, though, to get a taste of local culture on the way through, so we set off on foot. We got confused almost as soon as we left the airport and asked directions of a local who was passing by. The woman supplied us with some orientation and then gave us a big smile. We couldn’t help but stare a little bit at her bright red teeth and bright red lips and the bright red powdery crust around her mouth. It was quite odd, but we couldn’t very well ask her about it, so we continued on our way. After a few minutes of tramping along, a van pulled up beside us with two men inside. They asked where we were going and advised us that it’s not necessarily safe to walk there, as we stood out like a sore thumb... or maybe like a very white thumb on a very dark hand (of course, they didn’t say that; it was just obvious). They offered us a ride, which we accepted. We had a nice chat with them, and it turns out that the guys actually work for a company that’s in a similar line of work as my job back home and we had each heard of each other’s companies. It apparently really is a small world after all, even in Papua New Guinea! They very graciously brought us all the way to our home for the next two nights and then bid us farewell. We thanked them and walked into the Mapang Missionary House, which was started as lodgings for missionaries in transit between the airport and their more remote missions bases. Of course, we’re not missionaries, but fortunately for us, Mapang lets out rooms to non-missionaries when they’re not booked by the more deserving.
In the driveway.
It was a nice little place and it was actually the least expensive place around (though still by no means cheap). While waiting for our room to be ready, we struck up a conversation with a man who was in the main area, as well. His name was Amos, and he’s a pastor who is originally from PNG and who is now church-planting and building in two different places - one city and one jungle-hacked-into-a-village. He and his family had actually lived in the USA for ten years in West Virginia and he was very pleased to meet us. He introduced us to his wife, Merlyn, and his youngest daughter, Karen. Since they had a free weekend while in Port Moresby on business and we were looking for things to do, we all decided to go sight-seeing together.
Me, Jim, Amos, Karen, and Merlyn.
We first went to the Port Moresby Botanic Gardens, which was just great. They had wallabies (tiny kangaroo-like creatures) and cassowaries (huge dinosaur-like birds), both of which captivate the interest, and a walk-in aviary.
This is me feeding a giant cassowary... not something I’d want to get nipped by!
The special thing about this aviary is that they have a bird of paradise, which is PNG’s national symbol and a quite a marvelous creature. When we got there, we were told that they had had a bird of paradise until very recently, but it had just escaped a little while ago. What a bummer! We were quite disappointed, but went into the aviary to visit the other beautiful parrots and birds. One of the parrots deigned to sit on our shoulders for a minute before flapping back into the trees, which we quite enjoyed.
This parrot would make an excellent pirate accessory.
We reached the end of the aviary and were about to turn back when we noticed a small, one-bird commotion going on just outside the aviary. It was none other than the bird of paradise, who had decided that freedom wasn’t so desirable without his mate, who was still inside the giant open-air cage with us. He was quite perturbed that he was unable to get to her to be with her and determined to keep her attention from outside. The result was a delightful spectacle of dancing, squawking, and jumping on the part of the bird of paradise, whose flowing and woolly peach-colored tail feathers provided a luxurious costume for the birdie ballerina.
'Paradise lost.'
This show was quite out of the ordinary and was something that David Attenborough would have been happy to have in his documentary The Lives of Birds - and we got to watch it in person! What fun! The rest of the park was very nice, but nothing was quite so noteworthy as that. After the botanic park, we drove by the Parliament House, which was built in quite a neat Polynesian style, and then went to find some lunch. One thing that I think I can say with some authority about Port Moresby is that the dining options are severely limited to fried chicken and french fries. That combination seems to be the PNG’s capital’s staple meal and literally every restaurant I remember seeing had to do with fried chicken, including the one we went to - Big Rooster. Haha, that name just cracks me up. :)
Go left for Big Rooster.
After lunch, we went for a drive to get a better sense of the city. We went down to a nice beach to snap some pictures and then to the main downtown with the expensive hotels. I’m pretty sure that those hotels are frequented by those who are coming to PNG to develop the rich oil and gas fields, including the fuel giant Exxon who just signed a contract with PNG and is starting a big project there. It was neat to get a little bit of a tour from people who are actually from PNG, but who lived in the US and so were able to give comparisons and explanations within our cultural reference. One of the explanations they provided was regarding the lady with the bright red mouth as well as the large red blotches that we had seen staining the streets and sidewalks all over Port Moresby. That is the result of a widespread addiction to the betel nut (also called buai). A very large percent of the people of Port Moresby buy these nuts, which are about the size of a golf ball when the husk is still on. The husk is torn off with the teeth and the inner fruit (which looks a lot like a tiny reticulated brain!) is dipped into some substance and then chewed almost like tobacco. The powder that they dip the nut meat into contains lyme (the powder, not the fruit), which somehow turns the chewer’s spittle into the bright red color that we had seen all over, and the mixture provides a mild stimulant. And in keeping with the tobacco similarity, people spit jets of fluorescent red saliva as they chew. However, they don’t care where they spit, and this makes the public spaces of Port Moresby rather foul.
Nasty betel juice spit.
Anyway, there’s a previously unknown cultural tidbit for you. After getting to know the city sights a bit better, we went back to Mapang for dinner. After dinner, we watched a bit of the olympics and had a giggle at the peculiar gait of the race-walkers. The next morning was Sunday, and we visited a local church with another of the missionaries we had met there. It was neat to see a PNG church service, and they were so excited to see us that they announced our presence to the congregation. It’s a bit odd to be such, well, an oddity! After church, Jim and I went for a wander to find lunch. The options were chicken and fries or chicken and fries, so we of course had the second choice. We toured the local grocery store, which is something that we enjoy doing when we visit places - you can learn a lot! - and then, because we had seen so much betel nut, we decided it was time to try it. We wouldn’t really have experienced PNG culture without it, we supposed, so we bought a betel nut.
Tearing off the tough outer husk of the nut.
The nut is definitely a direct plant product, so we were okay with that. We opted out of the powder, though, because we weren’t (and still aren’t) really sure what exactly it contains. Plus, of all the colors available for teeth, we both prefer white to red. In the end, however, after all the build-up, neither of us could comprehend the betel nut craze, as the nut has a sour, bitter, yucky taste. As far as we could tell, the only attractive thing must be the chemical compounds that accompany betel nuts. Oh, well. No betel juice for us.
Anyway, the evening was pretty relaxed. We ate dinner and just enjoyed chatting with our fellow guests. The Mapang Missionary House seems to contain some pretty interesting people on average. We talked for a little while with two girls from New Zealand who were about to go work at a rural hospital as part of their medical school experience. What an experience that will be for them!
The next morning, we departed PNG to go back to Australia. This time we were off to Ayers Rock in the Australian outback. The trend to call places by their native names is coming into style, so it is also known now as Uluru, which is its aboriginal name. For anyone not familiar with its reputation, Uluru is a giant rock in the middle of Australia. No, really... We set aside several days and flew hours into the middle of the mostly empty Australian wilderness to see a rock. It sounds rather silly as a concept, but, then again, Uluru is no ordinary rock. First of all, it’s massive. The surrounding outback is flat as a pancake, but Uluru erupts out of the ground and forms its own bouldery mountain in complete incongruity to its setting. Its color is that rich rusty red that so deeply characterizes the outback’s palette. It is also a sacred site to the native residents of the area - those aborigines who call themselves the people of the rufus-headed wallaby - and has lots of history stored in the various caves and crevices around the prominence. It has become a symbol for both the outback and the aborigines and has thus attracted lots of people to view this impressive emblem of wild Australia. Unfortunately for the people of the rufus-headed wallaby, their giant rock has become such a tourist attraction that they can no longer comfortably practice their religious and cultural rites there. What’s more, as a tourist attraction, people have started climbing it. This is not desirable to the aborigines, but so far they have not prohibited it. Instead, they ask people to make the respectful choice and not climb, a request which some people honor and some disregard.
So, as you can see, there’s a lot more to it than simply being a rock, which is why Jim and I decided to go see what it’s all about. We made our connection from PNG in Cairns, where we had flown out of, then flew to Alice Springs - one of the few towns in the outback, and from there to Ayers Rock Airport, which was even smaller than Alice Springs. The area is so lightly populated that instead of sprinkling the various lodging options throughout the miniscule nearby town of Yulara, developers deemed it most prudent to clump the hotels all together into “Ayers Rock Resort” and connect them by a single loop road.
Ayers Rock Resort entry sign.
Thus, despite having ‘options,’ the resort complex has a monopoly on goods and services and the pricing of these things reflects their advantage. Oh, well, what are you going to do? We did stay at the hostel option, though, and bought food at the supermarket to make our own dinner more cheaply. Anyway, that first night we went to a look-out point where we could see Uluru in the distance for the sunset.
A dusky sunset hitting the rock.
It looked big from a distance, but the next morning when we went up close, we could see just how gargantuan it really was. We arrived there in time for sunrise, and watching the sun come up over the outback and Ayers Rock was really beautiful (and also freezing cold!).
Sunrise over the outback.
Right after the sun came up, we decided to climb it. Unfortunately for our respectful choice-making, we were informed by someone we thought would know that the local aborigines don’t mind if you climb it; they just don’t want you to get hurt. So, we did end up climbing Uluru (sorry, aborigines!). I feel kind of badly that we did, but it was also pretty neat to climb it and see the incredible panorama view of the outback from such a height.
A view from the top of Uluru.
As soon as we got down, we joined a walking tour with a park ranger who explained a lot of the local history, customs, and native wildlife. She argued very fervently against climbing Uluru, which made us feel bad and wonder why the other person, who had no vested interest that we could see, thought it was no problem. We were confused. Anyway, after that interesting tour, we decided to do the full walk around Uluru.
We’re doing a walk-about!
This took a few hours and it was pleasant to trek through the red desert and see an ecology so vastly different than what we’re used to. After a full day at that big red rock, we headed back to the little hotel commune for dinner and bed. The next morning we relaxed a bit, as our flight wasn’t until the early afternoon. I went up to one of the lookout places as the morning was still coming into its own just to look at the view, but as I sat quietly, the desert, which had looked so lifeless the day before, revealed that it was actually quite full of life at the right time of day. There were tons of birds, mostly small birds, but at one point I heard a great big squawking behind me. When I turned, there were a pair of gorgeous parrots just sitting there. Their fluffy little bodies were a beautiful dusty rose color, with white heads and grey wings that darkened into a deep grey tail. What a special moment to see them so close! They flew off, but the bunnies running around took over the show with their efforts to find the perfect meal. I saw one of them actually jump up and into the middle of a bush, perching precariously on thin twigs as it nibbled the tender leaves in a most determined manner.
We left Ayers Rock in the late morning to catch our flight to Sydney, where our friend Dave was picking us up. We first met Dave and his wife Rachel in Chile three years ago. They were on their honeymoon and Jim was visiting me while I lived in Chile. The four of us hit it off in Chile and Rachel and I have kept in touch since then, so when I wrote to her that we would be in Australia and were wondering if we could visit them, she graciously and enthusiastically offered to host us. It was so fun to see them again after all that time! It was even more fun because they now have a little daughter, Neave, who is one of the most adorable little cuties I’ve ever had the pleasure to spend a few days with. Dave picked us up after he got out of work and the four of us went out for a delectable Indian meal while Neave stayed with the grandparents for a night. Rachel had to go to work the next morning, but Dave had actually taken the next day off from work to show us around Sydney, which was incredibly kind of him, and so the three of us set off for the downtown. We first went to the Sydney Harbor Bridge. That is one big hunk of metal! We went up into one of the four pylons at the corners and got some fabulous views of Sydney.
A view from the top of the pylon looking down on the Opera House.
In my opinion, the harbor and the rivers that flow into it are a big part of what makes Sydney a really pretty city - water just adds so much to the view! And of course, since it’s right on the coast, it’s got some beautiful beaches to add to the charm. It was great to get the aerial perspective. We then continued on towards the Sydney Opera House. This is the ultimate symbol of Sydney with it characteristic layered curving peaks. It’s a very pretty and of course very distinctive building in a really prominent spot in the harbor and I have no trouble seeing why it became the city’s most famous emblem.
From right near the Opera House looking back at the Sydney Harbor Bridge.
We walked up close to Opera House, grabbed a few pictures around it, and then took the ferry across the harbor to get the full range of city views as we headed towards Manly.
The Manly Wharf.
That’s actually the name of a part of city, which cracks us up. Everything there promotes itself as being a model of masculinity - Manly beach, Manly shopping center, Manly restaurant, Manly nail salon, etc. Isn’t that funny?
Jim enjoyed the Manliness.
So we got some Manly fish and chips and went down to Manly beach, where some Manly seagulls got a bit feisty and actually swooped in and nabbed a Manly french fry or two out of our hands. It was comic, although rather startling.
Mine! Mine! Mine!
After we left Hitchcock’s little minions at the beach, we went back to Dave and Rachel’s house to relax, eat dinner, and catch up some more. The next morning, it was Dave who had to go to work and Rachel who had started her vacation early in order to spend time with us. And because we had not yet seen a real kangaroo while in Australia, we decided to go to the zoo.
Walking into the zoo, Neave seems to be contemplating how much of her snack she can rub through Jim’s hair.
Jim and I were almost as excited as Neave was for the zoo (although I think she won) and we had greatly enjoyed seeing all the iconic Australian animals: koalas, kangaroos, wallabies, wombats, emu, platypuses, and Tasmanian devils, as well as a few not so iconic ones such as bilbies, bush-tailed possums, and quokkas. What fun!
An adorable and sleepy-looking little rock wallaby.
We also experienced some other Aussie wildlife at the zoo a bit more directly during lunch. Like the seagulls at the beach, the wild parrots who live around the zoo have learned that where people and food mix, there is often great opportunity for them. So these gorgeous colorful birds, which Australians ignore as if they were common crows or sparrows, hang around in hopes of getting a meal. Fortunately for them, Jim did not disappoint and they reciprocated the favor by getting up close and personal.
Jim kept his new buddy happy with some bread.
I don’t think it was the zoo’s preferred way of interfacing with animals, but it certainly was effective for getting to know the birds! However, the zoo also offered some interaction in an enclosure where some kangaroos and wallabies and even a quokka hopped around at their leisure. We fed them raisins (or “sultanas” as the Aussies call them) and patted them and enjoyed getting to see them up close. I love good zoos!
Here’s Miss Neavey feeding a raisin to a delightful little macropod.
After the zoo, we set out on a couple hour drive towards the Port Stephens area where Dave’s parents have a holiday house in Hawks Nest. We met Dave up there after he was done with his work and enjoyed another great home-cooked meal (of which there have not been many on this trip!) and watched some rugby. Now, I’m not a sports fan and I don’t understand either rugby or American football, but to my inexperienced eyes, rugby looks like a much more honest version of football but with the same basic principle of smashing whoever has the ball into the ground. The next morning, Dave’s parents, JB and Susie, joined us at The Blue House, as their vacation home is known. We all had a nice relaxing day despite some rather blustery weather. After a nice lunch on the deck outside (during which two handsome kookaburras kept us company), Rachel and Neave took us for a driving tour of the area, after which Jim and I went for a bike ride and took a nice walk along the gorgeous beach.
The kookaburra posed on the fence behind us so we could snap a picture with him.
The soft white sand was full of beauteous seashells and the water was a clear spectrum of lovely blues. If it hadn’t been so chilly and windy, it would have been great to enjoy the beach, but even in winter, Australia is pleasant compared to the freezing cold temperatures and snow and sleet that we get during New England winters. That evening Susie made us all a delicious feast that included Australian lamb for the main dish and then topped it off with a traditional Aussie dessert of Pavlova, which is basically a light meringue cake topped with a thick whipped cream and fruit - so yummy! We sat around talking for a while with the Pavlova and some wine and had a really nice chat before heading to bed. The next morning, Jim and I woke up early to go to the beach for the sunrise, which was very cold but very pretty.
The sunlight turned the water into molten gold.
We paid special attention to the water, as it’s well-known to be a breeding ground for great white sharks. Dolphins also frolic there regularly, but unfortunately we didn’t catch a glimpse of either of them. Sadly for us, our great time with our other-side-of-the-world friends came to an end that morning, as we had to head to the train station to catch the train back to Sydney so we could get on our next flight. We are so thankful to have had such gracious hosts, and it was so cool to meet up again after 3 years! We bid adieu at the train station and made it to Sydney airport without a problem.
Saying goodbye at the train station.
We flew to Auckland, New Zealand, and arrived rather late. We had rented a car and, given the late hour and the lack of a hotel, we decided to pull the sleep-in-the car stunt again. We explored backroads until we found a promising pull off on an unused side lane that went to a fenced off field. We drove into it and only then realized quite how muddy it was. We attempted to pull out and the wheels started spinning out on the slippery grass and mud. ... Oops. Well, what are you going to do at one or two in the morning? Not much. So we decided to figure it out in the morning and went to sleep. We woke up to the sound of someone laughing at us. It was a farmer named Earl who had been driving by on his tractor when he spotted what he thought was a stolen car. He was laughing at us because we had decided to sleep in the car and gotten stuck. He was very friendly and offered to pull us out with his tractor, which we accepted gratefully. As I write about this situation, I begin to realize just how absurd it all sounds, even though at the time I completely took it in stride. How farcical! Anyway, after Farmer Earl pulled us out with his tractor, we thanked him and got on our way. We drove to Matamata, which used to be just another town until Peter Jackson came along and decided that one particular tree/lake/meadow combination was just perfect for the setting of Hobbiton. One family’s farm in particular became a major Lord of the Rings filming site as the home of the hobbits Bilbo and Frodo Baggins, Samwise, Merry, and Pippin. We took a tour of the film site and it was so fun to see it in real life!
Hobbiton!
Most of the little hobbit doors are simply façades, but some of the doors actually opened enough that someone could open them and walk in during the filming so they could go “inside.”
Hello? Anybody home?
We greatly enjoyed getting to visit such a recognizable spot from such a epic movie and we agreed that we need to watch the trilogy again so that we can recognize where we were on the filming site.
We stopped by the Baggins’ house to say hi.
After the tour, we got back on the road and navigated to Rotorua. Rotorua is famous for the crazy geothermal outlets that have made their way to the surface from deep underground. Geysers, hot springs, steaming mineral ponds and rivers, and boiling mud pits are all over the Rotorua area. It gets dark quite early in New Zealand at this time of year (the middle of winter down there) and so all we had time for was a walk in the public gardens in the middle of town. However, these gardens have a ton of (fenced-off) caved-in pits full of burning-hot water, which kept us quite interested.
Us at one of the bigger pools at town gardens in Rotorua.
The town has actually channeled some of the water into low tanks so people can sit and soak their feet. After our mosey through the gardens, we went to the grocery store and then back to the hostel we were staying at, where we assembled and ate a big, scrumptious greek salad for dinner. We still remember the food we ate in Greece quite fondly and wanted to emulate it. The next morning, we drove off and roamed through various sites in and around Rotorua. Our first stop was a forest of redwoods.
In the redwood forest.
These trees were imported and planted in New Zealand, along with many other kinds of trees, about a hundred years ago as part of an effort to see which trees grow easily here in order to enhance the lumber industry. The redwoods are tree-mendous (get it?) in size.
Treehugger!
I’ve never seen the giant redwoods in California so I was really impressed with walking through the forest and trying to glimpse the tippy-top of the trees. What a cool environment! Something that made it even cooler was a thermal spring with crystal blue water surrounded by giant ferns and cycads.
Evolution Stream.
I dubbed it Evolution Stream, because it looked exactly like a place where some aquatic creature would have dared to place a stubby fin on dry ground for the first time. It truly looked like a science textbook’s imaginings of the beginning of time. Plus, I’ve come to the conclusion that giant fern trees make any scenery look positively Cretaceous. After that excursion, we continued on towards the south. We saw a sign that said “mud pits” so we definitely had to stop for that. It was a large pond of simmering silt with big pockets of boiling mud.
A big pond of boiling mud!
Let me just say that I love boiling mud. It’s so fun to watch!
Smiling through the stinky sulphur smell.
The unpredictable blurps and blops of mud gobbing and sputtering every which way, along with the funny little belches that accompany them, just make me laugh.
Kersplobtch!
We enjoyed the mud pits for a while and then kept driving until we found a piping hot river under a bridge that someone had told us about.
Jim at the steamy river.
It’s really wild to see what looks like a cold creek steaming and bubbling away. It joins another, slightly less hot river just past the bridge where we accidentally surprised some skinny dippers, so we didn’t stick around long. We also stopped real quick at Huka Falls to see the pretty and powerful waterfall, too. After that, we decided we really needed to press ahead towards Tongariro National Park if we wanted to see any of it during daylight. On the way, we passed Lake Taupo, which is another beautiful product of a violent volcanic eruption in the distant past. The scenery of New Zealand is gorgeous all over, and particularly so in that region. It’s almost suspiciously pretty, as if it’s too good to be true. We got to see even more of the breath-catching landscape because one of the highways that we needed to take was closed off due to an accident, which meant that we had to circle the lake the other way. We enjoyed the drive around the lake and into the national park, which is home to three major mountains. One of the mountains is actually what drew us there in the first place because it is none other than Mount Doom from Lord of the Rings!
Mount Doom!
The real name of Mount Doom is Mount Ngauruhoe and it is a stunning snow-covered crater flanked by its impressive companions Mount Tongariro and Mount Ruapehu. Within the past several weeks, there has been a lot of volcanic activity and half-hearted attempts at an eruptions, so many of the hiking trails were actually closed off. No magma for us! We drove the length of the park as the sun was going down, passing kiwi crossing signs, but unfortunately not spotting any of the flightless little birds. The next morning we donned all the warmer clothing we have with us and went for a short hike up the icy Mount Doom.
Jim had to pretend to be Gollum on the slopes of Mount Doom... it was only fitting.
We tramped for a couple hours, making it as far as a pretty waterfall carving its way through a rock cliff before turning down another path to bring us back to our car.
Us at the graceful Taranaki Falls.
Despite the name of the mountain we were climbing around, the trek was not at ill-fated and we quite enjoyed trying to pick out spots where various scenes from Frodo’s journey may have occurred. Once back at the car, we hopped in and headed north. We needed to get back toward Auckland, as our flight left very early the next morning. As this was our last full day in a foreign country, though, we wanted to make the most of it, so we made another stop in a place called Waitomo. In Maori, “waitomo” means something along the lines of “watery holes in the earth,” which is quite appropriate for an area containing 300 caves! Many of the caves are either full of water or have rivers running through them. Having that many caves would be enough of a tourist attraction for most places, but Waitomo has additional special attraction - glowworms! The caves in that region are teeming with glowworms. We knew that we wanted to go see the glowworms, but we weren’t sure how we were going to see them. As it happens, we came across a company advertising a full cave adventure. It was a bit pricy, but we said “it’s our last chance to do something big!” and went for it, and we are so glad we did. It was outstanding! It was a five-part adventure: abseiling, glowworms, tubing, caving, and rock climbing. I had never heard of abseiling, but it’s basically rappelling without any rocks to push off of, which means that you just lower yourself down into an abyss, dangling way up high in the air. We were the only people signed up for that particular time slot, so it was just us and our guide, Raynor. Raynor drove us out of town and into the hilly countryside to the company’s gear shed. We suited up in wetsuits, “gum boots” (galoshes), and harnesses and then went to the cave entrance. It was wet, so sadly we had to forego the camera. It was pretty incredible to walk through a sheep field and down a little path and then encounter the mouth of a huge cave that is pretty much invisible except if you’re right in front of it! I abseiled into the enormous gully first, and it was so neat to be suspended above a secret world of dripping, mossy rock faces cradling a babbling river that faded away into the darkness. When I had lowered myself down, I disengaged the climbing ropes so Jim and Raynor could come down, too. Once they were down, we grabbed some big inner tubes and started walking upriver. The water was quite cold, which made us grateful for our wetsuits, and the current was reasonably strong, so you had to be careful where and how you stepped. We went deeper and deeper into the cave, and finally came to a small pebble beach at a curve in the river. We plopped down on our inner tubes, shut off the headlamps on our helmets, and waited for our eyes to adjust to the darkness. However, the more our eyes calibrated to what had been utter blackness, the lighter it became and the more glowworms we could see. They were everywhere! Tiny bluish-white lights studded the ceiling of the cave and you could almost pretend you were outside looking at the brightest stars you had ever seen. It was truly a sight to behold. The luminous little worms were so radiant that I could even see Jim’s profile. After we sat for several minutes basking in the glow, we turned on our lights again to examine the glowworms up close. We saw several clutches of eggs, which looked like patches of miniscule gold lichens. Next we saw what looked to be small strips of microscopic strands of silver beaded with translucent pearls. These were the glowworms’ “webs.” The opaque beads were tiny drops of glowworm spittle, which is very, very sticky, designed to catch anything that might flutter into them. Finally, on a shiny thread up at the top of their dangling webs, were the glowworms, and despite all the strange beauty created by them, they are downright ugly and nasty. They look like, if you will excuse the repulsive mental image, living mucus - little bits of animate snot with a gleaming bit of blue light glimmering from the rear end. It’s quite safe to say that they are much more attractive with the lights off than with the lights on. However, despite their repugnance, they do create a lovely atmosphere in the cave. The next portion of our underground escapade was the tubing section, and as I referenced before, this was no lazy river. Once we sat in the inner tubes, we were off like a shot. It was quite exciting, and when we hit a section in which it was safe enough to turn off our headlamps, it was positively thrilling. It was like the Space Mountain roller coaster turned into a water ride with no guarantee of safety on the way down. The glowworms were twinkling away overhead and we were rushing downstream, turning and dipping and splashing and bumping off of giant rock formations in the dark. It was so much fun! After we reached the end of our tubing racecourse, Raynor pointed us towards a particular crevice in the rock and told us to go on through. It looked pretty darn small, but we managed to squeeze our way through. We went a bit further downstream and Raynor indicated a small gap between the water and a little hollow in the rock above the water. Seriously? It didn’t look like it could be a real option, but we were up for the challenge. Jim chivalrously let me go first so he could see if I survived it. It is a freaky thing to submerge your body and your head in water and stick your feet through a small hole and then wiggle your way through while you keep your face barely above water so that you can continue to breathe. At one point, part of my gear got stuck on a rock and I couldn’t really go forward. I by no means panicked, but I began to gain a deeper understanding of claustrophobia after being tucked in solid rock in a compromising position. Yup. We squashed our wet-suit clad bodies through several more squeezes before carefully picking our way upriver. Once we were back up there, it was time to end our spelunking adventure and get out of the cave, and the only way to do that was climb out. So we harnessed up and one by one climbed up the steep rock wall that we had abseiled down a while back. We had a safety rope attached to us just in case, but it was basically a free climb. I was actually kind of proud of myself for getting to the top of a precipitous cliff without falling backwards. And what a way to top off our last full day abroad! So fun and so memorable. We were pretty tired, so it was nice to just sit and relax in the car as we drove to Auckland. We got a late dinner in downtown Auckland at a great restaurant serving Chilean and Argentinian food and then headed to the airport. It was a fabulous way to close our time in New Zealand. Our flight was not until early the next morning, but we decided to wait at the airport because we were attempting not to sleep very much so that we’d be able to sleep on the plane ride home. It was an attempt to nip jet-lag in the bud, as we’d be crossing the International Date Line in the middle of the Pacific. We kind of zoned out through the night and finally boarded our flight nice and early. After a brief layover in Sydney, we boarded the jumbo jet that was taking us back to the US. It was a very long flight, but Qantas is a excellent airline and did a good job of making sure everyone was comfortable and well-fed. Jim slept for almost all of the flight, but I did not sleep as much. Fortunately, I had movies to watch in between my naps. We made it to Los Angeles earlier than we left Sydney on the same day, so I think I can safely claim that we are now both world *and* time travelers. It’s a skill I didn’t know I had! Anyway, it was pretty weird to get back into the United States, but not a bad feeling, especially since I was very excited to visit my sister Laura in Kansas. I didn’t get to see her until the next day, though, as we had to wait around in LAX until our afternoon flight into Dallas/Fort Worth. We stayed overnight at a hotel near the DFW airport and flew to Garden City, Kansas, the next day. It’s been so fun to visit my sister Laura and her husband Jared, whom I haven’t seen since Christmas, and see their life out here in flat and beautiful Kansas. Getting to visit them was the cherry on top of our traveling sundae and we’ve been joking that we’ve been trying to get to Kansas this whole time, but accidentally took a wrong turn out of Boston. :)
We kind of can’t believe it’s all over, but we are so satisfied with how successful our adventure was! I mean, to have traveled literally around the globe without any major mishaps (and very few minor mishaps, for that matter) and to have experienced 32 different countries in 3 months feels like, and I dare say is, a triumph! We will definitely remember this trip for the rest of our life and the memories are already precious to us. Just for fun, I wrote out all the countries we went to in the order we went to them, so I thought I’d include that just for the heck of it. Iceland seems like years ago!
Iceland
Scotland
England
Wales
Turkey
Egypt
Jordan
Israel
Greece
Italy
Vatican City
Germany
Belgium
Netherlands
Luxembourg
France
Switzerland
Liechtenstein
Austria
Czech Republic
Poland
Russia
Mongolia
China
Malaysia
Brunei
Cambodia
Thailand
Singapore
Australia
Papua New Guinea
New Zealand
Thank you so much for following along as we adventured around the world! I hope you had fun, because we sure did!
~Sarah and Jim
