Lessons Learned

I read a travel writing book a while ago that noted that smell was the one thing you could not capture on film about a foreign destination. The scent of eucalyptus as we drove through the coastal mountains of Australia was fabulous, like a free worldwide menthol air freshener.

In many places, we noticed signs in the toilet showing a sketch of a person sitting on the toilet as intended and then a person standing on the rim and squatting with a red X over it. Some nationalities are only used to squatting when going to the bathroom.

Air New Zealand does one thing the old fashioned way: they board planes from the last rows first. It saved so much time a trouble. And on Virgin Australia flights, they exit out the back door as well as the front. Although, on every flight, there was someone who was in the wrong row. And some were not even close like sitting in row 20 when their row was row 9. I mean, every country uses Arabic numerals, so it’s not like a language barrier. What gives?

Tasmanian devils’ ears turn red when they are in a confrontation, at a carcass, etc. Mary says it’s so they don’t eat each other in a feeding frenzy in the dark. Europeans saw the red ears and the eyes that reflected lamps in the dark and thought it was “the devil.”

The echidna we saw in the wild is, along with the platypus, one of only two monotremes: They lay eggs but nurse their young with milk like mammals. A Google search showed that they broke off from other animals species longest ago in history. It may be that this was how most animals were at one point?

A nice young woman from Brazil that we met at the Bonorong sanctuary pointed out what we had noticed, too: “In most other countries, the birds sing. Here, they scream.” We’ve heard so many interesting and loud and varied birdcalls here. One sounds like a crying baby. Another sounds like a mocking laugh. The top of the sulphur-crested cockatoo looks like the part of the green onion that you don’t eat.

When we saw the fairy penguin parade, one of the best things was all of the noises they made calling to their families. The guide said that, while most birds make about 6 sound, fairy penguins can make 17 different noises.

In Sydney, on our first day in Australia, we passed huge black and white birds in the trees on the front lawn. They startled us they were so big and menacing. At breakfast the next morning, someone explained that they were Australian Magpies. “They’ll poke your eyes out.” “Oh,” scoffed another person, “Australians love to scare visitors with stories of the local animals,” and we felt relieved until that person added, “They only poke out about five people’s eyes a year.”

Only in Australia could a snake be described as, “poisonous? Yes. Deadly? Yes. but not bad.” This was told to us by Alan, who had an old man’s schnozz, bristly ear hair, but kind eyes and a gentle demeanor. He had gone hiking in the Blue Mountains the day before and seen a red-bellied black snake. It slithered away. Apparently, it is not “bad” because it chooses flight not fight.

Wallabies like to have their chin and chest rubbed. Mary pointed out what I think to be an astute observation. Their arms are so short and their legs are so powerful they can’t scratch their own neck or chest. So when you do it for them they are very thankful.

Wombat poop is shaped like a cube. The people who tell us this usually follow up with, “I don’t wanna think about how that is possible.” Wombats balance their poop on sticking it on ledges and branches to mark their territory.

And we were asked in Uluru if we had heard about “drop bears.” We had not, but most every other tourist in our group had. It’s a legend the locals tell visitors that bears will drop out of the trees and attack them. Likely it was based on dozey koalas falling out of the tree on their naps.

We learned a bit about Aboriginals by stopping first at the culture center for the Anangu (Anna-NU), the traditional “owners” (inhabitants) of Uluru. We were told the three creation stories that children first learn in their culture. They view us as children because we are not schooled in their ways, which are passed down via stories. There was an old man from one tribe who knew stories that no one else in his tribe knew. But because the young people had not been initiated he chose not to tell anyone and to let the legends die with him.

They looked after the land. They had practiced patch burning for years, knowing that fires are inevitable in such a landscape. When a fire would reach the previously burned patches, they would burn themselves out for lack of fuel. There was a big fire in Uluru in 1976 and after that the Aṉangu were invited back to manage the area. Still, the government planted buffel grass brought in from South Africa. It not only ran rampant, it burns four times as hot as the local grasses. Eucalyptus trees are designed to stand fires—but not at that temperature. The Aṉangu people, like the Native Americans, view themselves as stewards of the land, not conquerors of it.

Mary said that Australians seemed to her very chatty, like Brits. Britain (for whom Australia and New Zealand [both island nations] are part of the Commonwealth) is an island nation. Maybe that is where it all started. Someone in New Zealand said that they are “parochial, in a good way.” (He also said that his parents travel like Mary and I are and that they call them “ski” vacations: spending our kid’s inheritance.) Our first stop was Hawaii, where they said they were farther from the nearest land mass than any other nation/state. I imagined that they were so friendly because visitors brought news from the rest of the world. Mary noticed a woman in Auckland from Britain used the phrase, “I was born in the northern hemisphere.” I also learned a useful construct: the water hemisphere. If you hold the globe the right way, most of the water can fill one hemisphere by itself. New Zealand is right in the center of it.

We were told in Australia that their penchant for calling each other “mate” was because they could go so long without seeing their neighbors that they would forget their names. “Mate” was a friendly fill-in.

When you check into a room in Australia, there is always cream waiting for you in the refrigerator.

They have these great electrical outlets that can turn on or off. It’s so much more convenient than having to unplug something.

We were breezed through the Auckland airport in New Zealand. So we were surprised when we got to Sydney that EVERYONE had to go through a second line where they were tested for explosives. But I was taken aside a third time. There was another man who was as put-out as I was about this, only he had dark skin. His three white female friends were sitting waiting for him and laughing at the situation. The man being checked said, “What did I do to deserve this?” and I had to bite my tongue not to blurt out “You were born with dark skin.” The young security guard, also dark-skinned, snickered, “Tell me about it.”

The Sydney metro has a system every modern city should adopt. You can tap on and tap off with a credit card for the same price as locals. And there’s a limit on how much you can be charged in one day, so it works the same as a one-day or longer pass but without having to make another purchase.

Melbourne looks like an architecture book threw up. The style and era of building changes one by one: an Art Deco beside a Brutalist, etc.

There are weird TV commercials, A woman has a ham that stays whole whenever she carves a slice off. She feeds various people in various settings, but a mean neighbor lady grabs the ham and throws it off a cliff into the sea. The crowd gasps and goes to look–only to find it was caught by a man in a boat. ??

Everyone insists that you go see their local favorite places. They seem disappointed if you don’t. The directions they give are often confusing or incomplete. For example, the hostess here told us about a restaurant. She described vaguely how to get there on the roads. Just go up the windy road and take a right and then you’ll see a bigger road that goes up to the mountain. Follow that windy road and take a right and you go to the restaurant. When I asked the name of the roads to take, she did not know. When I asked the name of the restaurant, she did not know.

There is a white gum tree whose bark is a natural sunscreen. If you pat the bark, a fine white powder coats your hand. You can use that powder to protect your skin from the sun. Everything in a particular place is adapted to that place.