Travels

I’m sitting at the desk in our bungalow looking out through the open windows. A bunch of bananas is nearly ready to cut, and orchids are hanging down from the trees trunks. I can hear the waves breaking on Radha Nagar Beach, a leisurely two-minute walk away. If I could see through the trees, I would hardly see a soul on the beach, but there might be an elephant or two lumbering along the high-water mark, stopping to grab a trunkful of coarse grass when the mahout wasn’t looking. The air is filled with birdcalls. Asian Koels are chattering to one other, Myna birds are mewing like cats, Red-breasted Parakeets squawk and squabble while, somewhere off deeper into the forest, an endemic Andaman Woodpecker hammers away at a dead tree trunk. Cathy is sitting outside enjoying the cool breeze and reading a murder mystery she picked up at the book exchange. A rooster and his two hens are scratching around in the dried leaves looking for food.

We arrived on Havelock Island in the Andaman Islands on Sunday. It’s as hard to believe that we’ve only been here three days as it is to believe that we left Australia only three weeks ago. We’ve seen and done a lot since we arrived in India, but that’s a story for another entry.

We left Santiago the evening of December 23, crossed the Date Line, and arrived in Auckland at 4 a.m. on Christmas morning. After two months in South America, what a pleasure it was to understand the overhead announcements, and to be able to read the newspapers without a dictionary in hand! After a brief stopover in Auckland we flew to Melbourne, arriving at our hotel in St. Kilda about midday.

Within two hours we were in the Sapore restaurant, wearing paper hats and sipping on bubbly while attacking a tableful of food. It was an auspicious start to our Australian visit. We ate and drank our way across the country while enjoying the company of friends.

On Boxing Day we flew to Portland, Victoria to visit our friend Ann. Until Ann moved to Australia she was the pharmacist at the Pincher Creek Hospital, and is a fellow wine and whisky lover. Ann treated us royally, and we enjoyed touring around the Portland area and meeting a number of Ann’s friends and colleagues. We also enjoyed the company of Ann’s corgi, Harry.

 

 Anne and Harry

 

We waved goodbye to Ann at the Mt. Gambier airport as we boarded the Saab commuter aircraft for the short flight to Adelaide. She was heading home after our weekend of wine tasting in the Coonawarra, and we were off to catch the Indian Pacific train.

At the Adelaide train station we met Lisa, Geoff, Bruce, Donna, and Louise. We had previously travelled with Geoff and Lisa and knew them well. On our last visit to Sydney, we had joined Geoff and Lisa for a most enjoyable dinner at Donna and Bruce’s, so we knew them as well. Louise was the only person we hadn’t met before but, by the end of the evening, she felt like an old friend.

The Indian Pacific is a most civilized way to travel across Australia. From the comfort of our berth, or from the club car, cold beer in hand, we watched endless miles of the red Australian outback roll by. Every once in a while we saw kangaroos, emus, or a wedge-tailed eagle but, except for the track itself, there were few signs of humans from a couple of hours past Adelaide until a couple of hours before Perth. Perhaps to make sure we didn’t get too comfortable in the air-conditioned confines of the train we stopped in tiny Cook and in Kalgourlie. Stepping from the train into the heat and the flies quickly reminded us what the outback is really like.

Sign at the “Almost” Ghost Town of Cook on the Indian Pacific Line 

 

Midnight on New Year’s Eve saw us sipping champagne while the desert slipped by, unseen, in the darkness beyond the train’s windows.

We had a brief stop in Kalgoorlie. New Year’s Eve 2007. 

 

 

Louise, Donna, Bruce, Lisa, Cathy, Gord, Geoff

New Year’s Eve 2007 on the Indian Pacific 

 

We stayed a few days in Perth enjoying the Hopman Cup tennis tournament, doing some wine tasting up the Swan River, and taking a brief excursion to Fremantle.

From Perth we headed down to Albany and then up through the Denmark, Pemberton, and Mt. Barker wine regions to Margaret River. All along the way our long-suffering friends waited while, especially, Bruce, Cathy, and I swirled, sipped and spit our way through as many tasting rooms as we could.

 

Geoff, Bruce, Cathy, Lisa

On the Suspended Walkway High in the Karri Forest near Pemberton

 

Cathy and Lisa doing the “Cape Leeuwin Shuffle.  

 

Things didn’t change much once we reached Margaret River, one of Australia’s premier winemaking regions. We managed to get to a goodly number of wineries and tasted some of Australia’s best from the likes of Pierro, Cullen, Woodland, and Leeuwin Estates. When we weren’t tasting wine, there was a blue ocean to lay beside, a swimming pool to cool off in, trails that snaked high around the headland of Cape Naturaliste to walk along and, of course, food to be eaten.

 

 Eating and Drinking Again! Bruce’s Parents John and Jan joined us for a Meal.

Sorry about the eyes Jan!

 

Enjoying the Sunset, Cape Naturaliste 

And eat we did. By the time we left Australia, my clothes seemed to have shrunk a size. (But, with our almost exclusively vegetarian diet in India, our clothes are fitting a lot better again.)

 

 

P.S.  This blog entry has been sitting in the computer for almost three weeks waiting to be posted. Between a busy touring schedule, and scant internet access, we’ve fallen far behind! We’re off to Namibia in a couple of days, and internet access might be scantier yet, but we will get something from India up as soon as we can. 

Cheers!