Recently in Flight Plan Category

Another gratuitous post about the inherent conflict of the expatriate’s condition.

I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve gone across the Tasman in the 9 years I’ve lived in Sydney (it might just about have got to double figures) and even in having done it so many times I still find myself scoping out the atmosphere when I arrive as if to test the waters before leaping in.

It has been hard to define how to describe the nature of that inquiry. Is it just a scan for a homing signal that’s starting to ping a lot louder saying, please come back?

I hadn’t been able to qualify it until a friend neatly summed it up last week at lunch.

She said that after 6 years of living in the UK she only moved back to New Zealand when she stopped feeling like a visitor on Kiwi soil; it wasn’t until then that she knew that it was time to move home.

Here’s me, 9 years later and I still feel like a visitor. Not, I’m quick to point out in the midst of my family, we’re still as connected as ever we were, even more so now with video conferencing and the like… but in terms of having a life here… there’s a part of me that wonders if, having lived in Oz now for so long, I haven’t passed the point of no return.

Is that wrong? I was born here, did the best part of my growing up here, I identify so strongly with the Kiwi identity, my blood still runs black for my rugby heroes. Kiwi is the greatest part of my national identity, even though I have a cast iron association with Australia in the form of a naturalization certificate… It really does feel as though you can take the girl out of New Zealand but you can’t take New Zealand out of the girl.

I’ve never ruled out the possibility of moving back some time. Truth to tell I wish I could feel a definite ease on the state of play in Australia, a winding down, a tailing off that would release me to come back to NZ feeling as though my time there was done. Skeet has got it. Her feeling is moving her on to the UK, but me?

I’m resolutely still in Sydney even though right now I’m physically in New Zealand; and on Tuesday, as I was driving away from Sis’ place watching one of her little tackers cry as I was leaving (more because he wasn’t getting to come too than because I was on my way) I wished it was an easy decision to drop everything and come back to NZ.

Because bloody hell, the constant leaving is really (really, really) hard.

And so this travelogue comes to a close.

Day Eight, which was Thursday January 3rd was the highlight for me. A trip to see the iconic sandstone monoliths, 'The 12 Apostles' just out of Port Campbell at the most eastern end of the Great Ocean Road.

Of course, we didn't go straight there. There's no point being in a new part of the country (IMHO) unless you're prepared to do a bit of exploring... So, we.did.

We actually left fairly late in the afternoon with a hope of catching pretty views of the Apostles with a sunset feel about them... or behind them. But as I wasn't keen to waste the whole day away waiting for sunset we left a little earlier in anticipation of finding other things to see on the way.

The most notable diversionwas the Cape Otway Lightstation (actually this links to a quite comprehensive website all about it so I won't bore you too much...)

Apart from the fact we had another close koala encounter on the way down to Cape Otway there was at the end of the road quite a delightful attraction which is focused around the Lightstation and the Radar Station based there in WW2. Cape Otway actually marks the point where Bass Straight (the body of water between the Australian mainland and Tasmania) meet and which was significant in the development of communication between Tassie and the mainland in the early years of the telegraph. It was a great spot to spend an hour or so, and would have only been improved by the café being open and serving lattes...

You may not be surprised to learn that this is the Cape Otway Lighthouse...

This is looking back at the Lightstationmaster's house right up on the cliff top. Incredible views!

Here we are... another new year under way! After the previous day's 40+ temperatures the weather settled down a little and we decided it was time to do a bit of exploring.

I'd had the happy accident of a conversation with Mal Austin, a well respected photographer from the area, and had cheekily asked for the inside track on where to go to find good pictures off and on the Great Ocean Road. Mal sent us on a little side tour to the Sequoia park on the (gravel!) road that winds from the GOR cross country to Beech Forest

It was quite some time before we got there... and while the drive was picturesque we were beginning to wonder if we'd missed it before we finally went around the corner find it well signposted and well patronized by picnickers and campers.

It was a lovely (and thankfully cool) half an hour under these majestic trees. They're still young by comparison with the redwood forests in California where you can find trees that are ENORMOUS and many years old. But this was a lovely diversion and very restful. I was wishing I had all sorts of wide angle gear to be able to fit the trees in...

We'd gone so far up the gravel road that we figured it was prudent to keep going up the short end so that we didn't have to drive it all the way back to the main road and ended up coming out the other end very near the Otway Fly, an aerial walk through the Otway rainforest.

We went in and paid our entry fee and followed the bush path down to the walkway structure. In typical tourist provider fashion there were 'prehistoric' attractions for the kids and a dinosaur path that one 'shouldn't miss'... hmmm... but the bush walk was lovely and would only have been bettered if we'd seen a few wallabies or possums on the way down!

We went got to the aerial walk and followed it's paths through the tree tops. It was a lovely way to see the area and get a close up on the gums. Again, a bit more action from the wild life would have made it 'magic' but it was a great way to spend a couple of hours and I thoroughly recommend it!

The shadow cast by the tower at the top of the Fly a walk up a narrow spiral staircase... my poor out of condition legs got a bit wobbly... not to self get back on the treadmill...

You'd think I'd have more pictures of what we'd seen there!! They were unremarkable... more because of poor skills than what was available to shoot... you'll just have to go there and check them out for yourselves...

The next day was another exploring day and we made our way down to Kennett River because we'd heard there was a wild koala colony (is that the right collective noun?) down there. It was a short trip along the GOR which was lovely in itself, we parked the car at the Kennett River store (which was basically the sum total of Kennett River's commercial district) and wandered up the road - darn, can't remember what it's called - to see the koalas.

Sure enough the brown sleeping lumps in the trees were easy enough to spot.

Koalas are well known for the amount of sleeping they do... 22 hours a day.

So, they were pretty high in the trees and not especially active so we walked along spotted as many as we could (5 or so) jumped in the car and headed back toward Apollo Bay.

But not far out of Kennett River we spotted a number of cars lined up just off the road obviously having a sticky at something interesting.

Not ones to buck a trend we pulled up too and got out with our cameras... sure enough there were more koalas only this time there was one putting on a bit of a show...

I don't know how many times I've seen koalas in a zoo... seriously!! But I have to say there's something magic about seeing them do their thing in the wild... It was a trip highlighted... eclipsed only by a similar sight the next day at a different colony.

We drove home and stopped for a Devonshire tea at a guest house which has an incredible view of the GOR and the ocean, got into a loooong conversation with the proprietress who obviously enjoys a good chat!!! It was beautifully accompanied by homemade scones and jam... A fitting end to another great couple of days!

Looking along the road heading east.

Looking west back towards Apollo Bay.

When you arrive at your chosen destination after dark it's a little tricky to get a feel for just how unutterably beautiful a place is.

Of course, beauty is in the eye of the beholder and relative to having spent the previous day with your butt ensconced in a car-seat for hours at a time.

Apollo Bay IS lovely. Our motel unit (one bedroom - 2 beds... can't remember the last time I shared a room - I think it went well...) was only about 30m from the beach.

Looking at the sea from our room... This is from knee height... I rather liked the look over the leaves... who said blue and green should never be seen?? Wasn't me...

(embiggen)

This is Apollo Bay. You can see the township in the distance, we were a few km out of town, which suited us well! The town falls midway along the Great Ocean Road. It's name goes back as far as 1845 when a ship (called the Apollo, of course) sheltered there in the harbour... The road itself runs from Torquay, just out of Geelong to Warnambool. It's probably as romantic as travelling the Californian Pacific Coast Highway with less 'America' and probably a whole lot less lanes, but some of the scenery would give California a run for its money I'd suggest...

The township has all the appeal of any holiday town, a carnival, fish and chip shops and ghastly souvenir shops... actually it had a bit of a feel of an English seaside town, probably only in that its shops all stretch along the road front, the carnival on the green, oh and what looked very much like a Punch and Judy stage there on one occasion!!!

Anyway, for these two days we did little more than venture from the unit to the beach or to town...

Sigh... bliss!

It was wonderful to see the sun set over the ocean again too... as I live on the east coast it's a but unusual... but we got to look to the west of an evening and we'd catch God with his paintbrush out...

So you don't have to download all these pix at once... the rest are below... give your browser a chance to breathe!!! (and there are fireworks photos... don't miss those...!)

I don't know how it started but it is not uncommon here in Australia for one to hear the expression 'he/she's a Mexican' when you know full well that the object of the discussion is in full possession of an Australian accent and an appetite for VB rather than Coronas... (or tequila...).

Having said that, I could then be mistaken for being a Mexican on drinks preference... However, for the purposes of this discussion I am resolutely not a Mexican.

Unless you're from Queensland.

Let me explain...

As a New South Welsh woman anyone to whom I would refer as a Mexican would be from Victoria. That is to say they're from 'South of the Border'.

I know. It's a Dad joke...

So Day Three was all about the driving. We took the scenic and most direct route through the Alpine Way which is not a road you'd take in inclement weather. Long, windy and unsealed in parts if memory serves me correctly. Certainly wouldn't be in favour of it in the snow.

In the picture below you can see red posts marking the side of the road. You see a lot of these in the alpine roads and they vary in size from knee height to shoulder, or even head height... if that's 6feet or so...(not my head height, that's for sure!!). The variable height is relative to potential snow depth... this stretch is lower down the mountain.. The posts in Thredbo were at the higher end of the spectrum.

We left the Goodtimes in the morning and got on the road around 8.30, given that there were 770km to travel that day seemed prudent to get on the road early... The following photos really only document the earlier part of the day. There was little to capture once we got on the Hume Freeway.

This is one way to do it... if you're of the energetic persuasion...

Our first stop on the road was at Scammell's Ridge lookout - no question that it's gorgeous...(It's another Pano... embiggen).

(yep... another one... embiggen)
I'm no big fan of hiking but it was so lovely it would have been totally tempting... If you're interested there's more information about the alpine way here... Alpine Way or Scammells Lookout

Heading out of the alpine way on the way to the Murray River and the Victorian/NSW border I loved these English looking trees all lined up... A marked contrast to the ubiquitous gum trees.

So once we'd got through the mountains and back down into less bumpy territory we made our way towards the Hume Freeway which would take us all the way to Melbourne. Before we got there though we had to get across the border into Victoria... over the Mighty Murray River

The river looked reasonably unimpressive, there is water in it, the levels, due to the drought are lower than usual but as I've never seen it before I had no basis for comparison!!

I did get impressed once we got to Lake Hume just out of Albury Wodonga...

How amazing are these????

The Dead Trees in the middle of the lake are River Red Gums and as Lake Hume was a man made creation they all drowned when the lake went in... they make for a totally eerie view. I'd love to get shots at lake level in the early morning mist... TOTALLY freaky!

We got in to Apollo Bay around 7pm after a stop in Wangaratta for a McDonald's lunch. It's been great getting to see a few country towns in our travels. Reminds me of home. They don't look much the same but the atmosphere is similar.

Anyway, I know you're hanging out for Great Ocean Road photos... promise I'll dish them up for the next post!

It isn't customary for me to take shots from the car while I'm driving, so, though it can be a bit challenging for me to not be the driver especially from a carsick point of view, it was good to have the camera to keep my focus outside the vehicle. I managed to turn out one or two driving shots that are interesting enough to make it onto flickr. This place looks cute... don't imagine you'd see much of it in a snowstorm though...

The bulk of day two of the trip was spent checking out Thredbo the only field with a chair that runs in the summer time. They appear to get a fair bit of traffic even at this time of the year, most of them are tourists checking out the mountains, you can see from the image below a bit of the lay of the land. The lift we went up on Kocsiuskzo Express Chairlift and many of these photos were taken from there or on the lovely walk across the top of the mountains. Next time I go I'll go a bit better prepared with bug spray the flies were REVOLTING and swarmed on us... really ewww... oh and I'll take warmer gear and water, and most importantly allow a bit more time up my sleeve for exploring. I'd like to get a look at Mt Kozciuskzo sometime. To see the detail you really need to open the pic in flickr and check it out in the large view.

We rode the lift up (like duh) and the light got a bit weird at one point (or my camera did.. who knows?) and this image was the result... I think it looks like a reasonable set for a horror flick, don't you?

As noted in the previous post Australia has an 'alpine' (ish) region... ok, so our
Alps aren't really alps, too short and flat if Yay's impeccable recall of relevant school facts are to be believed (I have no doubt that they are). So the Australian alps are nothing to rival Ms Mac's rampant Swiss variety, but they are clearly enough to produce a 14 week ski season at the appointed times (all going well). Truth is if you're totally mad keen to ski a LOT then you'd go to NZ or to the US (yes, or Europe) but to scratch that itch without having to pay screeds of dollars and spend ridiculous amounts of time traveling you really can get reasonable relief here...

However, let's not dwell on the white cold stuff of which I'm not exactly enamoured...

I think you'll agree it's pretty darn pretty in the summertime too!

This is a stitched pano from the lift terminus. You really need to embiggen it to get its full effect...

This is looking back towards the chairlift terminus that grey square in the middle.

Assorted Rocks

Alpine flora

Summer Use of the Mountain

Jindabyne services 4 principal ski areas. Thredbo, Perisher Valley, Blue Cow and Charlotte Pass. Perisher and Blue Cow are run by a single outfit primarily owned by the infamous Packer family and are usually known as 'Perisher Blue', Thredbo is run by another outfit and Charlotte Pass by a third. (Like you care really)... anyway, the Goodtime crowd have a long-standing arrangement with Charlotte Pass so we got a first hand look at a ski resort in the summer time... enough of an incentive to want to see it in winter. The photos of the place under a cover of snow are like a fairy story... still... it's pretty attractive in the summer time too!!!

Charlotte Pass. The large building in the front is the main lodge. Just like a bought one, old fashioned wood fires huge high ceilings, a bar and a nite club and 5 star meals. Looking forward to heading back there in winter some time.

Random Lake - on the road out of Charlotte Pass. Another of my 'taken from the car shots'

It was a cracker of a day, we slept well our 2nd night of the Goodtime experience. It didn't hurt, that as I was travelling with the blender we turned out a respectable margarita or 2 to go with our nachos for dinner... Can anyone say 'Olé'?

There's quite some distance between Sydney and Melbourne not exactly one you'd
want to drive in a day… So it behooves one to find a place to stop on the way.

We did.

Shoe has relatives at Jindabyne, an alpine town that was reborn during the building the Snowy River project. Do you know the Snowy River? It's a rather ambitions hydro electric power project based in Australia's only alpine region (I know, alps, in Australia, who'd have thought?!).

It is ironic that even getting to Jindabyne was not without its stories. The drive to Jindabyne from Sydney takes in Goulburn and then Canberra and in all probably took around 5 hours to complete.

Goulburn is a country town and hub or much of the rural populace of that area. It reminds me a little of some of the towns in NZ in terms of what's available and the feel of the place. One of the icons of road travel is lunch at the Paragon Café. "Here you go luv. pie and chips" and who are we to balk at such a trend…

The pie and chips filled the gap as did a visit to the local Sanity record store where we did what we could to augment our listening pleasure for the long stretches of driving and to bolster the local economy with our hard earned cash.

Goulburn's other claim to fame is the 'Big Merino' a nod to the prosperity gained at that great breed's indignity (well, have you ever seen a shorn sheep? Poor nekkid wee things…) as you can see, he's a little shy and takes advantage of road furniture to preserve his identity.

On the way out of town we hit a rather impressive hailstorm. (A hailstorm – welcome to summer in Australia…) and so we had to park the car on the side of the road and ride it out there was certainly no driving through it. Visibility was dreadful and actually, the hailstones weren't exactly small… it wasn't until we stopped in Jindabyne that we could check that there wasn't any damage done to the car. Bit of a relief as the Golf is new and damage so early in its tenure would have been rather upsetting to its ever-loving owner.

At the mercy of the weather gods...

Ground Cover.

As we got higher in altitude on the road between Canberra (we didn't stop there… seen it… got the t-shirt) much of the pasture took on a purple hue… that swathe in the middle of the picture is actually purple… sorry dodgy camera phone shot!!! I had to ask once we reached our destination what it was… apparently it's called Patterson's Curse and is safe pasture for cows but does horses a terrible disservice… Good to know for when I'm ever grazing horses…

Anyway, we finally made it to Jindabyne in the early evening and our hosts couldn't have been more hospitable. For their blog-safety let's just call them Mr. and Mrs. Goodtime… Barbeque dinner on the balcony overlooking lake Jindabyne… didn't I mention Jindabyne had a lake?? Oh… it's all part of that Snowy River Scheme apparently the town got flooded out when the lake 'went in' mad crazy things these power schemes do…

The view from the Goodtime Estate…

I'm enjoying a coffee and a tidy up of the last minute online things that need doing before I go away into 'internet-access unknown' territory for 10 days!!! In that time comments will be moderated (as they have been for a week... I'm still having trouble getting MT to recognize those I trust not to write spam in the comments) so, sorry you've had to wait to see your comment love published!!

Christmas day was a lovely one starting with a traditional midnight service at a wee local anglican church... It think it's the first non-'wave your hands and clap for Jesus' service I've been to in [eep] at least 5 years. There's something about the traditional quiet reverent service that was just lovely, and something we miss in the rampant celebratory type parties I've been used to of late!

The day itself was spent with Kirk and the family, Kirk's little fellow is known around here as my little squire and he and his cheeky monkey sister had a fabulous day and kept us entertained. It was the first day I've had in I don't know how long when there was absolutely nothing I HAD to do. No client jobs hanging over my head, no papers to write... so there was absolutely no reason I couldn't spend much of the day playing 'Grim Fandango' I played it for the first time in 2000 so 7 years later there are still lots of surprises!! I'm not even halfway through and as it's more simple than MYST and some if its counterparts I'm loving not having to play with a walk-through close at hand!!! Needless to say, the Mac and the games are coming on hols, even if there is no internet access there is still digital fun to be had!!

So, if our motel room doesn't have internet (yeah, likely) I'll see you in a week or two!!! (If I haven't been to an internet cafe for a fix before then!!). Happy New Year!