Note 1: I’ve tried without success in Sydney and Ayer’s Rock to connect to the Internet. I’ll send this and any follow-on messages as soon as I can get Internet access….

Note 2: Let me also apologize for the lack of humorous content in this email….I can normally find humor in adversity (preferably someone else’s adversity, but mine too on occasion), but on this trip so far nothing has gone wrong…..nothing at all….no lost bags, no missed flights, no noticeable hardships. If I’m lucky this will continue for the rest of the trip and you’ll get a couple more boring emails…..if you’re lucky then the trip will turn ugly at some point and the email will be a bit more interesting.

13 March (Dallas time) through 15 March (Sydney time):

The trip to the land of Oz starts well; the ticket agent in Dallas checks our bags through to Sydney so we don’t have to claim them and re-check them in Los Angeles, she also gives us our LAX to Sydney seat assignments. For the trip from Dallas to LAX it is a full flight….and I am in a middle seat…..this is not a good sign. But who finally sits down next to me??  Is it a sumo wrestler with poor personal hygiene? Is it a mother with a squalling baby? NO! Instead a slender, young, blonde who has more than a passing resemblance to Cameron Diaz nestles herself by my side. But it gets better; not only is she a babe, but she is a babe who does not want to talk incessantly during the flight. She sits quietly and reads for the whole trip…..a silent babe….the absolute best kind. It’s a great start to a long travel day.

So, you ask, “How long of a travel day is it?” Well, if all goes well, it will be a little over 24 hours from the time I leave home until I get to the hotel in Sydney. But the Travel Gods continue to smile on us; our seats on the long (14+ hour) flight from LAX to Sydney are the best we could hope for (given that we are traveling ‘economy class’)….we are at the back of the 747 where the fuselage starts to narrow and so we are in a section with 2 seats (aisle and window) instead of 3 seats. No flight of this length is going to be fun (even in the expensive seats in the front of the cabin), but this one was very tolerable. A light meal, a glass of wine and a little pill called Ambien produced, if not sleep, then at least stupor for 5 hours. Then a succession of movies interspersed with some reading started to nibble away at the remaining 9 hours of flight time. Time passed slowly, but it passed. As late, dark, night became early, dark morning over the South Pacific; I noticed on the In-Flight monitor that we were flying directly over New Caledonia….where my father was stationed in World War II. But, try as I might, I could see no sign of the island through the dark.

But after traveling a little more than 8700 miles we were in the landing approach for Sydney.

We landed without incident, wound our way through a very long Aussie customs line……where they x-ray every bag and have trained dogs sniffing you and your bags for……not cocaine…..not heroin…..but food. Drugs are, of course, frowned upon, but try to bring a banana into the country and you’ll be in big trouble. True Story: walking from the arrival gate to the customs inspection area I saw one sign advising that importing guns, explosives or certain drugs was illegal……at the same time there must have been at least 6 signs warning of the dire consequences that would befall you if you attempted to bring in a fruit, vegetable or nut into Australia……and those 6 signs did not count the video shown on the plane that starred Steve Irwin (Crocodile Hunter) where he also told us about the fate that awaited those attempted to pass a banana through this protective net.

But, somehow we made it. We are at the Rydges-Jamison Hotel and have managed to take a quick walk around the harbor and are trying to stay awake until 6pm when we have a meeting with our tour group. 

16 March Sydney:

Sydney is a very fine place. I won’t bore you with a lot of travelogue natterings…..we did a city tour and got to see all the things you are supposed to see in Sydney (photos to follow at some point). Once we were off the tour we went on our own to Circular Quay and took a ferry ride around Sydney Harbor stopping at Cockle Bay for a short walk, a monorail ride around the downtown area and a little refreshment before getting back on the ferry and returning to Circular Quay and our hotel. Prices in Sydney are a bit high…..fish and chips for lunch at Doyle’s Restaurant costs about what dinner at The Mansion on Turtle Creek costs (for those of you not familiar with The Mansion, just accept that the prices are really high).

Cultural Notes: Aussie’s have a fine sense of humor. There was a recent ad campaign by the Australian Tourist Board that had as it’s tag line: “Where the bloody hell are you?” As in: Australia has all this neat stuff to see and do so, where the bloody hell are you, you should be here. This caused a little uproar among some folks, but most Aussies liked it. It got so popular that one of the Sydney churches started putting “Where the bloody hell were you last Sunday” on a sign outside the church and there are TV commercials for record stores that use the same tag line. So for now you can’t get through the day without someone asking you: “Where the bloody hell are you?”

17 March Sydney to Ayer’s Rock:

Cultural Note: The Commonwealth Games have opened in Melbourne; so much of the newspaper space is devoted to covering the games and associated events. Among the pickings from today’s Daily Telegraph:

During the opening ceremonies one of the female athletes from Losotho marched in the opening parade wearing a short grass skirt, a grass hat and nothing else. A photo was included in the sports section of the paper.

Also, there was some concern about the Scots. It seems that they had made it into the finals in the men’s bicycle race and there is a custom among the Scottish cyclists that if they make it into the final competition that they will wear kilts during the race……but nothing under the kilts. So as one official was quoted as saying: “there was serious concern the Scots may show a basket of Scottish short breads” to the audience during the race. 

 In other news from down under: The question about whether it is dangerous to hunt kangaroos in the middle of the night with the aid of a hand gun, a spot light and several 6-packs of beer has been resolved: It Is Dangerous.  There was a story about a couple of guys who recently attempted such a feat and the shooter managed to shoot his buddy who was holding the spotlight…..it seems that after sufficient liquid refreshment and no kangaroos in sight you have an irresistible urge to shoot at bright lights.

We had an early morning flight from Sydney to Ayer’s Rock, a distance of about 1350 miles.  We checked-in at Sails in the Desert hotel and did a tour of the Uluru Park ending up at the sunset viewing area to watch the colors change on Ayer’s Rock. At this point champagne and canapés were produced from the storage area of the bus. This was a very nice touch. I should, however, point out that my ‘sticker shock’ about Sydney has completely disappeared. Compared to Ayer’s Rock, Sydney was priced like Wal-Mart. But, it turned out that my best investment of the trip (maybe the best investment I’ve ever made) was at the General Store here at the Ayer’s Rock Resort…..it was a cheap cloth hat with a built-in fly net (think of a veil).  After just a few minutes on the ground I would have paid anything they asked. The flies here are phenomenal. They exist in such numbers and are so aggressive that they are a force of nature. Thankfully, they don’t bite. But they do attempt to swarm into ears, noses, mouths, eyes and onto any exposed skin. Without the fly net they would drive you insane. With the net they are hardly noticeable…..well, OK, maybe they are still noticeable, but they are bearable. 

Regards,

Rick Longbrake

rick.longbrake@gte.net