Ty's Choice: fishing above the crocs!

Ty chose to go fishing with us, and include his brothers and father. Ty is very inclusive and a great older brother.

The fishing place was outside of town. It was an old road tressle that has been replaced by a concrete bridge. The fishermen love this location, but it will probably be destroyed because it will be very expensive to maintain it in a safe conditon.

Jayne and I held our collective breath as the granchildren came perilously close to the edge. Below was a fast moving river. If one fell in I would have been right behind them, but the current would have carried us a half mile downstream, and there would have been no good place to get out. The problem would be the crocs!

Ty seemed to have a good time sharing his special day with everyone. He is very special, and is very good to his brothers.

Grandparents' Day with Maverick

The next day we made a few phone calls and found a lady named Bunny who took in stray Wallabies and hand raised them. People would bring them to her, often having found the still warm body of a dead Mother on the road. A tiny Joey would sometimes be found in the pouch. She has she can successully raise them if they have a weight of 180 grams or more. She has special formula for the Wallabies.

Bunny has a few hundred acres next to 3000 hectares (approx 2.5 acres per hectare) of park land. When the Wallabies are ready to go they just leave. Some return months or years later to say Hi. Her local phone is 4069-6012 if you are in Cooktown. She is on Cameron Reek Rd, out past the airport. Tell her we said Hello, and give her some money for her good, selfless work.

First, we picked up Mavie at his school. Her, Nama is helping him find his back pack at the outdoor storage area.

Mavie helped open the gate to Bunny's land. Note the No Dogs sign. Dogs are not generally welcome in most stores, and they would be dangerous for the baby Wallabies.

Here are three Wallabies resting in the pouches of baby's clothing on hangers. They are born very tiny, the size of your little finger, and grow to independence in their mother's pouch, suckling her milk.

Maverick was in heaven. He asked to come back the next day. He is great with animals, and would love to have a dog or some other pet. His brothers' allergies limit that possibility. Even a python has to receive mice for food. We have talked about a lzard as a pet.

Bunny is retired with great grandchildren, She has given her life to saving these Wallabies. She is an intersting lady, and has been featured on Japanese TV.

Here I am with a baby Wallaby.

It was great day.

Our day with Grandson Mason

We are back in Seattle now, coping with the darkness and the relative cold.

The flight back and the jet lag adjustment was much tougher than going to Australia. I am seriously considering limiting all future flights to 7 hours, and doing at least mult-day stopovers. Getting an around the world ticket, broken into 5 or more segments of less than 7 hours each has great appeal.

As our time in Cooktown was winding down, we offered each of the grandchildren a day that they could do whatever they wanted to with us. Mason chose golfing. Maverick chose seeing baby Wallabies. Ty chose fishing with everyone.

First, we went to downtown Cooktown and had a lunch on the wharf.

There are crocs everywhere, real and fake.

The road signs for watch out for kangaroos and the smaller wallabies, are frequently upgraded with items such as a back pack, hat and skate board. Nicely done, don't you think.

Mason is a natural athlete. He could dribble a basketball before age one. He caught on to golf quickly, and his score was better than his grandparents.

The fairways are narrow, and you don't want to search too long for your ball in the rough because of the possibility of snakes.

Golfing was one of our economic bargains. A round cost $15 for 9 holes, and $15 for the cart.

Masons favorite part was driving the cart.

Cemetery Visit

One of the things we enjoy doing when we travel is to visit the local cemetery. We do not have gruesome preoccupation with death, nor are we fixated on religious beliefs. We view the cemetery as an expression of culture. They very greatly from country to country.

The Cooktown cemetery dates back to around 1800. It is segregated by religion and ethnicity: Protestant, Catholic, Jewish and Chinese. About three thousand bodies are there, but only a few hundred markers.

There is one Jewish marker, though Jews have been prominent, including being mayor of Cooktown.

There is a Chinese marker, but almost all the Chinese dead have been returned to China. The Chinese were numerous during the 1870's when there was a gold rush.

The Catholic Church was always a presence in the town.

Aboriginal Tour

After our near disastrous Outback experience, we decided to try the local aboriginal tour with Willie at Guurbbi Tours. Do a search for Guurbbi tours and you will be directed to www.pigswillfly.com.au

The car, by the way, was repaired by attaching a clip that had come loose. It had not been attached properly when it was installed during some repair work.

We met our guide about 45 minutes North of Cooktown, just past where we had turned when we had our disaster. Easy driving!

We spent our two plus hours walking among some interesting lava formations, and visiting three caves that had drawing on their walls. Willie said he had grown up just among these formations. He as very erudite, and had visited the world, exploring the stories of creation and life. This, plus a little politics, is what we discussed during our time together.

One of the great things he showed us was how to get a lizard to drink water from a leaf we give him. This will impress the grandkids!

Our Last Few Days in Cooktown

It is now Thursday evening. On Saturday we catch a plane to Cairns, where we spend two nights and fly our for the States on Monday.

Our time in Cooktown has revolved around soaking in the essence of Norther Queensland and having family time with our daughter Sarah and her family. We have had some great moments with the grandkids.

Today we took Mason out of school early. We explored downtown Cooktown a bit, had a soda, and then headed out to the golf course.

The golfing was a real hit. Neither Jayne nor I have ever taken up the game, but Jayne did take a PE course in college! Mason actually scored better than we did for the four holes we played. Mason is a natural athlete and is good at any sport he tries.

An even bigger hit, was us letting him drive the golf cart. Both our daughters have fond memories of my parents taking them golfing and letting them drive the golf cart at their retirement home in Cherokee Village, AR. One of the favorite stories is when Sarah took off in the golf cart while my Mother was still standing, and Mom fell out! I don't think we heard that story until years after it happened.

We had a great day with Mason!

Exploring Brisbane

We spent the week exploring Brisbane, a city which we found very enjoyable.

Our home was in the Paddington neighborhood. On the edge of it was the city stadium. We weren't there on a Saturday night, when the playoffs for the Rugby League championship, was being held.

The first thing one learns about Australia is that, besides that it is surrounded by water, as Paul Hogan told us, it is very expensive. Everything is expensive. We can't compare it with Panama. We can barely compare it with Seattle.

Even after factoring in that tips are not necessary for meals, and that the sales tax is already included in the price, and that now $.90 buys $1 Australian, a simple meal costs about twice or more what we are used to paying.

The same applies to clothing and shoes.

Tourist attractions are routinely $40 or more for a one hour exposure. Somethings are worth it, since they are not available anywhere else. I would include our Great Barrier Reef snorkeling experience in that category. It was about $170 for an adult, a little less for a child. In Panama we are used to that buying a snorkeling tour for four.

The only bargain we have found so far is the public swim pool in Cooktown ($1.80 for Seniors) and the one day bus pass to get around Brisbane. The bus pass included two zones, which got us from our neighborhood to downtown, and the Metro Cat which goes up and down the Brisbane river.

We explored in both directions from downtown. One took us to the U. of Queensland, where we spent and enjoyablle afternoon. It is a beautiful campus.

Riding the cat the other direction, we ended up in Bulimba. We explored the neighborhood, a gluten free hamburger joint, a nice movie theatre, and some delightful shops. We bought a gift for our hosts and an anniversary present for Sarah and Paul at Thousand Island Dressing, which imorted crafts from islands near to Australia.

Directly across the river from downtown is the South Bank area, where the 1988 World Expo was held. There was nothing surrounding the area back then. Now it is a delightful strolling area along the beach, surrounded by a private University, an opera/symphony house, and multiple museums.

There was a dispaly of American Impressionist Painters that all the Brisbanites were quite proud of, and urged us to see. We had just been to DC, and preferred to see indiginous art and local artists in the GOMA (Gallery of Modern Art). The displays, other than the American dispaly, were free. We thorougly enjoyed them.

Arriving in Australia

We arrived in Australia on Sept. 9th, after leaving from Seattle on Sept. 9 and flying overnight. After our 13 hour second leg, preceded by our 3 hour flight to LA, we arrived in Brisbane. We cleared customs easily. We are always concerned about weather a customs agent is going to consider our vitamins and supllements worthy of his consideration. But no worries.

Customs seems to use more dogs here than in the states. No silly removal of shoes! I have always thought that police and customs should more dogs. Their noses are thousands of times more sensitive than the machinery they usually relay on.

We took a cab to our home away from home in the Paddington area of Brisbane. Robert and Katherine Norton, both PH.D.'s in areas related to business consulting, had stayed in our apartment in our home a few years ago. We did not know then just when we would be in Australia, but we knew we would someday. They stayed with us for a month, and we will use their home for about a week, so we will have some more time coming for our use, or perhaps our daughter Sarah and her family's use.




The home is very spacious, with two levels, a front and rear deck and a back yard with small pool. I tried swimming once, but the water was acually cold, even by my standards. The house had many fans, which we were used to from our time in Panama, and was very open to capture the breezes.

Robert and Katherine dropped by to say hello.

Shortly thereafter Graham picked us up for a pre-scheduled visit to his home. Graham was involved in the Rotary which sponsored Sarah's Senior Year of HS visit to Ayer, Queensland, back in 1988. Sarah and his daughter had gone to the Brisbane World's Expo together. She is recently married and has been living in London, but is relocating to near Brisbane. We also met Graham's wife, their son, and his wife and newest of three children.

We had a fabulous buffet lunch in their lovely new home. This lunch helped us to stay up for our first full day in a time zone 17 hours behind Seattle. We had gone through 7 zones and lost one day. We think that, plus our sleeping on the plane as much as possible, plus our use of some homeopathic travel pills, allowed us to avoid any serious jet lag. We were on schedule and alert from our first day.

Graham called today to say hello and see how we were doing.

Outback (near) Disaster

We have been in Australia for about a month now. I'll retrace our path in future entries, but yesterday's experience is fresh in my mind.

With a week to go before returning back to Seattle, we had decided to take a small outback adventure. We planned a three hour drive over non-all-weather roads to a roadside tavern, probably similar to the Lions Den, which we had visited. We left early (at least by our standards) and made several stops to photograph interesting places.

Not too far out of Cooktown I saw what looked like a Confederate flag. The photo reveals that it is a modified confederate flag with "The South will rise again" incorporated into the center. This may be someones idea of a joke, or it may be that Australia also attracts some Right Wing nuts to a land that is mostly empty.

The York Penninusula which is Northern Queensland has about 18,000 people and 45,000 square miles, or about 1 person for every three square miles.



The road had been smoothed by graters, but had a washboard texture that kept us at about 40 Kilometers per hour (25mph). This stretch of road had a very red color. Other stretches were green. Our grandson Ty's performance group is named The Red Dirt Players.




























The scenery was more or less like the photo with the warning sign for a crest of a hill. There were many small trees and a background of granite boulders. It reminded me of scenes from the early Westerns.





We would occasionally come to a compelling place to rest our backs from the vibrating caused by the washboard pattern of the road.

Our first major destination was to be a lake inside the Lakewood National Park. A good portion of the York Peninsula is National Park or Aboriginal Land. There seems to be a cooperative administration of these lands.

We crossed over the beginning and end of the Battlecamp Station (Ranch),

and then went no further.

Our daughter's Mitsubishi Pajero stopped. With no sign of impending doom, it just stopped running. We spent the next 2 1/2 hours waiting for a car to pass.

The first of the only two cars we saw was a truck driven by a Queensland Wild Life Ranger (I could tell by his uniform) and an aboriginal cohort (no uniform). They tried to figure out our problem, but could not. They let us use their satellite phone to call our daughter. She and her husband enlisted the aid of some friends and promissed that someone would be to us within another 2 1/2 hours.

While we waited in the heat, with very little shade, a second car passed us. It was occupied by a French couple. They asked if they could help, but we assured the we would be okay. If they had been the first car, we could have hitched a ride to a phone, another hour down the road. Cell phones don't work in the outback. One needs a satellite phone. We could easily have spent the night in the car. We had food and water, and the nights are still warm, and there are no aggressive preditors (just don't step on a Taipan going to the bathroom! It is the world's most poisonous snake, and we had seen one in Kuranda). Sarah and Paul would have organized a search for the next day.

In almost exactly 2 1/2 hours, Paul showed up driving Ray and Nanette's Mitsubishi Somethingoranother,that isn't sold in the states. Ray had helped us plan this trip. Nanette is a PA like Sarah, and Ray is a retired airline pilot, who is enjoying being a kept man. Paul had all the equipment he could need to tow his car back to town.

We dropped the car at the local repair station, where it sits no. On of Sarah's co-workers loaned her a car, so we will be able to get around. Today everyone was walking and bicycling to cricket, swimming, the market and the IGA (Independent Grocers of Australia). I had been coming down with a cold, which I nursed today with my 1000 units of C every hour.

It took us several hours, with many stops to reconnect the broken hose-like cord that we used to connect the cars. By the end, we had learned to coordinate the towing process so as to not break the connection.