Bribie Island

We settled into our new home exchange after a day of travel. It is so delightful to see how others express and organize themselves through their homes. Shag carpeted car, Miami blue floral furniture, and personal mementos that tell of many years of travel around the world.

Sierra is handling transitions easier every move, as evidenced by her short-lived protest about sleeping on a thin foamy in an office. Savannah lost the coin toss for the best room in Coffs House so they are switching it up here.

This morning I ran to the southern tip of Bribie and hung out in the bird hide over the lagoon. Australia amazes me every day. There were large black swan like birds with red beaks. Every day I see new species of birds...today was no exception...new kinds of egrets, herons, spoonbills, ducks.

Yesterday we all walked the beach, getting local tips on whether we could safely pass the blobs of jellyfish everywhere: "O yah, they're alright! As long as you don't handle them a lot. They'll "sting ya but they won't kill ya!" Sierra asked if there are sharks..."tons of them. Just don't go swimming at night time!"
(ahem) As If!!!!

Unfortunately, Sierra who is ever viligant about dangers lurking around the next corner, is in the bedroom reading Harry Potter, hoping to escape kayaking today in the "shark infested waters" where she most certainly would be eaten!!!

More soon,
Catherine and Hersh

"Yep, that would be a strike pose..."

Savannah and Sierra, Boogie Boarding

Here are some higlights from Coff's Harbour, Australia...

Sierra played catch with a sea lion and petted a dolphin...




Rainforest walking up high in Dorrigo National Park, almost stepping on a huge carpet snake in the forest. We found a ranger who guided us back to take another look at the snake ("yep, that would be a strike pose", he said with total ease as we stood peering a foot away from it)

horseback riding in the hills and forest of Moonee

Our friends, Shannon and Ashe joined us in Coffs for some great visits, cycling and market shopping.

They also brought Australia Trivial Pursuit (Chocolate edition) along. Hersh was the hands down trivia champion. How many of you know "which soulful Shefield singer was backed by the Grease Band?"

Town walking (from our house, you can walk to town on the beach or forest path: It takes 2 and a half hours. Ask Savannah because we enjoyed finding our way there together but she didn't appreciate me dragging her most of the way back (which was not our deal -- Savannah), and beach bumming today (boogie boarding, watching the surfers, lazing in the sun, playing badminton and sticky ball).

Countryside around Dorrigo National Park with green and yellow fields backed by blue green hills.

Fabulous headlands with crashing surf, beaches with long foamy breakers... the sounds of pebbles tumbling on the beach...

The girls learning bridge

Sierra reading her way through almost 4 Harry Potter books

Daily pots of homemade chai tea

Time, Time and more time... in family, in sun and in a lovely home.

Two more days in Coffs Harbour and we are off to Bribie Island and Brisbane area for the next week. We think the plan for the next week may not be all that we are looking for, so we've decided to evaluate when we get there, and if we want to change things up, we will. Possibilities include: overnighting in the Glasshouse Mountains; heading up the coast to Noosa Head and Frazer Island; bumming around Brisbane.

Catherine and Hersh

Early Days in Oz

Darwin

Day 1.
7 am. Sun's up. The first walk out of our rental apartment. A deep breath of clean air, vista of brilliant blue sky and turquoise sparkling ocean bordered by a reddish hued sand. It is so beautiful and welcoming.

I cross the road and immediately find an inviting walking/cycling path into a coastal nature reserve--pure exotic expansiveness. It is my favorite beach on our trip thus far.... and there is miles and miles and miles of it. I say to myself that even if is is humid and buggy in the wet, even if the town is uninspiring, that beach stretch is beguiling; I would live here.

Most of Darwin's foreshore is park, path or wild. No side by side megaresorts with guards stopping outsiders from walking on their prime oceanfront land (as in Jimbaran, Bali). It feels freeing.

Birds are everywhere...Within an hour I saw common flocks of black and white ibis, sulphur crested cockatoos, rainbow lorikeets, galahs (like big pink and grey budgies), various sandpipers, kites. Everyday we see two or three "new to us" birds. We're delighted.

We'd read our Darwin nature books and were well armed for all kinds of nasty critters like venomous spiders, python snakes and crocs (salties and freshies) "that than jump the length of their body!!!" So when we heard that a crocodile was spotted a few days ago around the beach area, we felt guarded about swimming. Teens, however, seem to disregard the warnings to not swim and were back in the ocean as soon as the partrol guy left the area. We chose to swim at the protected lake (with schools and schools of fish at our feet) and waited another day before ocean swimming-- after talking to reassuring locals -- and then, very close to shore!

Our biggest Darwin adventure was a daytrip to Litchfield National Park.
http://www.nt.gov.au/nreta/parks/find/litchfield.html
http://en.travelnt.com/explore/darwin/litchfield-national-park.aspx
After driving through an hour-and-a-half of nondescript eucalytus shrub land (I am sure the ecosystem has a more exalted name) we got a look at 8 foot high magnetic termite mounds. They create these massive east west structures through their saliva, the purpose being to create the exact temperature needed to survive -- internal warmth at night, and cooling in the day. Primordial aircon. From there we found our way to Florence Falls. We swam under the falls and back--exhilerating! We then tromped along a parched trail in "Savannah woodland," delightfully ending at a series of cascading deep blue-green plunge pools. Alongside the pools were monitor lizards and in the pools, very big fish.

Off to Coff's Harbour... !
We spent the first couple of days finding our bearings and checking out the local area. Yesterday we unsuccessfully went Koala Bear spotting, but we enjoyed Muttonbird Lookout and saw some very big pelicans.

- Catherine


Sierra's Post
HHHHHHHHHHHeyyyyyy everyone!
We've decided that we will each write a paragraph or two for a family blog entry! Australia is beautiful! Since my mom wrote about Darwin I'll write about Coffs Harbour. It's a small little city with the basic things like Target (American Zellers) , food stores, movie theaters, excetera....And it is surrounded by a Beach/Harbour with ginormous waves! (today we might go boogie boarding).
My parents insist on at least one hour of walking in a park each day, so we did that, went shopping, saw a movie, and most exciting of all- in my opinion -saw wild kangaroos in local's back and front yards with either tails or heads sticking out of their pouches! They were sooooooo cute and we got very close with at least 50 pictures to prove it! BOING, BOING, BOING!.....ha, ha, ha

Love, Sierra

-- Savannah's Post --

Darwin Australia was full of long, sandy beaches where you could walk for hours and hours, national parks studded with aboriginal-significant outcrops and artifacts, and lit by gorgeous sunny weather every day. Also, we had the beaches almost to ourselves during our morning walks -- well, speedwalks, because Mom came -- considering Australia only has 18 million people and Darwin has less than usual. Darwin is full of the "real outback" Aussie's -- not the cityfolk down south -- and full of all 300 of them, it seemed. But I didn't mind, because it meant for clean, beautiful parks.

The weirdest thing about Australia so far is a particular species of Australian male -- about 35-50, grizzled, looks like he's seen a lot of things in life, girlfriendless or wifeless or companionless, tatooed, and possibly drunken mid-flight, on 100 ml plastic bottles obtained from the exasperated but polite stewardess. (She: "Can I get you anything to drink?" He: "Sure, I'll have anything with whiskey in it.") We have had a few run-ins with this kind: the first was flying to Australia from Bali -- the man who sat in front of me, told the stewardess he'd been flying on this airline "For 7 years!" and proffered her a gift for another stewardess he knew well. This smacked intuitively of prosititution and drugs to me (the 7 years flying to Bali alone, that is). He then proceeded to get really drunk and show the defining characteristic of this species of Australian male -- a unexplainable and shocking hatred of children. He made several extremely rude comments into the air in front of him about Sierra, in the jist of "Shut up little girl! Why didn't you leave her at home if she can't sit there like a mummy and be perfectly silent and allow me to pretend children don't exist in this world?". (This was accompanied by his holding his hands over his ears, and quietly intoning "shut up! shut up! shut up!") My impression was later reinforced by a grizzled taxi driver who told us that when asked by children the question "How long until we get there?" he liked to respond in a menacing tone with "Get out of the car!"

To be perfectly fair however, this type of human composed 1% of the Australians we have encountered, and the other 99% have been perfectly humorous, kind, welcoming, chatty, hospitable, and helpful, showing a sense of strange but funny humour and a stranger taste for food. In the market in Darwin we passed a stall in the food row -- "Roadkill cafe: You kill 'em, we grill 'em". Proud providers of 'roo meat, crocodile meat, wallabee (sp?), etc etc so on and so forth. I suppose if you are a Darwinian "true" outbacker yet living in the city like one of those soft city folk, you must make up appearances by eating the tough, wild, burnt meat of the predators and prey you are so nicely protected from while inhabiting the city environs. Perhaps nastiness to children is another way of convincing yourself you are still a tough, indomitable Crocodile Dundee man.

.

Hersh says:

Love the lingo! Too right!

Day One in Oz:

We needed to do a bit of grocery shopping, so we pulled in to a strip mall where they had several stores including a Woolworth's. Thinking it was like the Canadian version (a Zeller's variant) we asked a bloke in the carpark if he knew where there was a grocery store. He looked at us in a rather gape-jawed manner, and said "Wot?!?!" Repeating our plea, he said "wellllll..... there's a Woolies right there," and of course being the rather thick-heading Canucks that we are, we asked (Again!) "but does it sell groceries? Cuz that what we need!" And he said "yaaahhhhh... it's what we call a 'grocery store'." Of course, we explained that we were clueless Canadian's being used to Woolworth's as a drygoods. He came to, and we got our tucker. (not bad lingo, huh?!?)Anyways, we were all quite amused.

Driving:

Fortunately Singapore and Bali exposed me to right-hand driving... I must be getting a bit used to driving on the left, no glaring headlights coming at me, and -- it requires a high degree of focus.

Winter:

It's winter here. Solstice in 2 days. The sun sets at 5pm. Weird.

Kangaroos: Very very cute...

for pix to accompany this post, click here:

http://s122.photobucket.com/albums/o274/hersh_album/Australia%20Pics/

cheers

Hersh

Bali North, Bali South... Catherine's post

Tejakula and Jimbaran

I didn’t mention that we switched accommodation 2 times in Ubud to avoid musty rooms and stagnant pools of water (risk of dengue fever via mosquitoes). In Northern Bali-- Tejakula we arrived at our villa after a long and stunning drive through the eastern volcanic mountains. We enjoyed the view of Mt. Agung and the ground covering of volcanic ash.

We were suppose to spend a week there but the villa was not as advertised so Hersh negotiated to leave half way through. Small things that added up, like -- they provide snorkeling equipment…not…have cable… disconnected…has air con… is broken… is well appointed…has a 60’s styled kitchen with a few shelves and a hotplate , dim lights, broken this and that. The kicker was 3 frayed lampcords with bare wire exposed, and not enough power for basic electrical needs. Essentially, glorified camping with a beautiful lawn and view. All that would be fine, except this was advertised as a luxury villa. Night 2, and we were in the dark from 5 pm on because the whole northern region had a power outage. While this isn’t as rural as Bali gets, it isn’t far off. Poverty is everywhere, and yet, most everyone seems content.

…. And (switching tenses) despite my gripes with the villa, I am in love with Tejukula. There is a simple vibe, it is quieter and on the ocean. Yesterday I joined a Tibetan healing yoga class at the neighboring Bali Mandala Center(the only western center in the town) for yoga and meditation group retreats… finding some inner calm to match the surrounds.

The ocean is warmer to swim in than the kid pool at Oak Bay Rec. We went snorkeling today (a first for Sierra and me) and saw eels, blue starfish, clownfish, iridescent bluefish, and numerous other fish and creatures. While this isn’t the season for jellyfish there was one washed up on the beach so we are a tad tentative in the water. A jellyfish sting we do not need.

This morning we visited a local school. Sierra must have felt famous, and with a swarm of eager kids around her, she played Frisbee and ball toss with them. They loved it. We left the Victoria High School frisbee, motivational school stickers, books, wristbands and as many Canada pens and pencils we could find before we left Victoria, with them.

Everyone is eager to talk to us. Everyone smiles and says hello (Salamat Pagi! which is good morning in Balinese). While we ruefully don’t speak much Balinese (like almost none) it certainly isn’t hard to remember their names. They all have a name based on their birth order. It can change depending on the region of Bali you are in. So here, as a first born my name is Putu. Down south it was Wayan. But it could also be Gede. So is our gardener, our neighbor and a couple of the kids that hang around the edge of our villa watching us when Sierra isn’t playing with them. There are no last names. At most I might be Putu Catherine. http://www.klubkokos.com/guidebook/names.htm

Before our school visit this morning we ventured along local dusty paths (it is their dry season in an already dry region of Bali). Paths are peppered with chickens, dry pond fronds, smiling kids and garbage. One can see how destructive plastic has been to our world, as any walk we took there was past plastic garbage strewn over the land…a lot of the land. Locals say it is because they can’t afford taxes that would collect their garbage. It’s amazing how something produced for often only a few minutes of use will last for hundreds of years.

One 19 year old asked if we would please visit his house so we did. There his mother sat on a rock on the dusty ground, chopping greens to cook over the coals for breakfast. They would have greatly liked it if we stayed for breakfast but we politely declined. Instead, Savannah offered to go back tomorrow to give the 19 year old a lesson in English (as requested).

On our last day we were guests at the local school for Saraswati, a celebration of the goddess of knowledge and wisdom. Wow! Imagine that anywhere in the village you could hear the beckoning of Hindu music (they use loudspeakers) at dawn, quickly get ready and then arrive to see a few hundred kids dressed up in beautiful sarongs, sitting cross legged on their sandals on the ground, They are devotedly praying and chanting en masse. Incense burns, kids perform nerve awakening gamelan music, dancers dance and teachers bless every single kid with sacred water. This is the beginning of their graduation celebration. I think of all the poor dusty housing compounds that most of these kids live in and here they are celebrating with such richness.

….

Jimbaran

We said goodbye to Tejakula later that day and went to Jimbaran in the South. Sierra made a friend but she doesn’t have a home address and certainly doesn’t have email. Perhaps we’ll send her a note via the school.

In Jimbaran we learn that the morning after Saraswati, everyone heads to the water for another sacred holiday that blesses the 4 elements. Not knowing this, I arrive at the beach at 630am and to my surprise there are miles of offerings and kids playing in the water. It feels like every day is sacred here. Every day a chance to spiritually bless, smile, offer acts of kindness, and welcome good karma. There is a soft feeling in the air.

I walk to the end of the beach and into the crowd welcoming back the fishermen. The feeling changes and it’s pretty clear that I am not welcome. I leave. It’s okay.

A few more days of boogie boarding, waterslide park, long beach walks, Italian food on a terrace overlooking the bay at sunset and swimming in warm water… there were many lovely moments.

Next stop, Darwin Australia!

Pix of Tejakula and Jimbaran

Ubud, Bali -- Catherine's post...

Hey Folks, here is Catherine's post with accompanying flickr pix. They are under the "Bali" set.

http://flickr.com/photos/65515862@N00/sets/72157605324315837/

Also, here is Sierra's latest blog entry...

www.circlepacific-sierra.blogspot.com

best,

Hersh

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Ubud was an interesting mix of great and less than great (but all worthwhile to have) experiences.

Great—rice field paddy walks along meandering broken cement and mud trails, past villas and local shacks made from simple fronds, wood and thatch. Less than great—the busy buzzing roads, often with no sidewalks or cracked sidewalks.

Great-- because we found a healthy restaurant named Bali Buddha that, while it took an hour-and-a-half to get our order, gratefully served some home comfort food like walnut spelt pancakes. Less than great-- a highly regarded restaurant set in a lush garden that took 2 hours to deliver food and put bacon in our salads (after fervently underlining our vegetarian moral imperative) not once, but upon rounds of clear understood feedback, another two times! The topper was the free dessert peace offering that contained a live beetle. Savannah swore off restaurant food after that.

Great –sounds of beautiful songbirds in the morning (after the ever popular 430-6 am rooster)…

Great—watching Batik painting. Not so great, seeing a police officer kick a beggar on the street inches away from us (whom we later did give money to). In Bali you can walk past a high-end coffee shop and within a block there are people with very few possessions, cooking on the street using a small pot over coals. It is dusty and cars and bikes are whipping past them every few seconds. Only the higher class can afford to shop in grocery stores. Everyone else goes to the market or makes do with what they can grow.

Great— shrines everywhere. Offerings are placed daily in front of every home and business. There are the offerings on the ground for their animistic spirits and on the shrines above for the Hindu gods. Incense burns and fragrant flower petals are everywhere, in offerings and on the streets.

Great—the girls and I take in the Ubud spa experience. I had a Balinese massage and intoxicating scrub and Sierra, a honey scrub, followed by flower baths and ginger tea and fruit. All this while listening to new age music, the sound of trickling water, and birds in the adjacent rice paddy. All this while smelling incense and the scrub of sandlewood and tumeric. Sierra and Savannah went back for manicures and pedicures. A spa treatment like the one I had costs 12 dollars and lasts one and a half hours.

Great—a trip to the Bedugal area for a rainforest walk, canoe paddle and waterfall experience. It was enlightening to see coffee growing and participate in their basic and simple processing techniques. The bumpy road to the rainforest goes over the top of the mountain with not a lot between you and the valley 1800 meters below. We saw papaya, cocoa, avocado, banana, tumeric, cloves, and every tropical plant you ever see at in our home stores, growing in the wild. Not so great, the drive back over the mountain in the thick fog with 2 feet of visibility, dark (because it is near the equator Bali gets dark by 630 pm) and zipping by motorcycles and drivers in our lane at times. We were ever so grateful that we had a careful and competent driver, Yudi, with us. This was the trip that confirmed that Sierra gets motion sick…

Great, the warm smiles, lovely, gracious, happy and kind people. There is no “not great” that could ever cancel this experience out. It will stay with me forever.

Savannah's Post

After a harrowing escape from Singapore after graduation, (following a great look around with my parents for a week prior to graduation) I am more than happy to be in Bali. And when I find myself comparing Bali with other places I've been in Southeast Asia, it most often comes out on top.

So what does Bali have...

Natural beauty, preserved -- check.
Extremely friendly people -- that too.
Great geographical diversity for a small place -- yes again. (Beach, rice paddies, mountains, etc)

In Bali, nearly every building is a temple. I can honestly say I've never seen anything quite like it. Many homes have elaborate stone carvings to guard their front gate, as well as more stone and wood carvings, banners, and beautiful gardens of Frangipani and Bird of Paradise in some. Possibly because I spent my first very happy week in Bali with Marius, in addition to just having left an extremely polluted and crowded city, Bali seems pretty much like paradise -- if you've got the money, that is. Food is cheap, but amazing accommodation is not -- if you want to stay in a Villa, you pay for every polished piece of silverware. However, I'm sure there's great budget accommodation too, probably with a free drug basket instead of fruit basket if you lodge in the dingy corridor of Poppies Lane (in the surfer district) that is so popular with backpackers.

So in comparison to other places I've been, I have to say:

The men stare less than in India (but still a considerable amount, despite all attempts to dress conservatively)

The people are friendlier than in Cambodia (and those Cambodians were happy people). I think Vietnamese people get a tie.

The cost of living is cheaper than Thailand, with cheap shopping to boot.

Food is better than in Singapore.

Spirituality, Religion, and outright Paganism is in evidence in greater levels than any Asian country I've visited.

And finally... making Balinese friends is fun. I think you'd have to actively try not to -- cultivate a grinchly scowl or something. The cook will bring you a picture of his newborn baby. The cleaner at the resort across the road will come and play guitar with you in the evenings at your house. Someone will chase after you on foot and then on motorbike to invite you to their village home, offer you breakfast (and then practice their English). The fourteen year old next door, who looked like she was about nine, made best friends with my sister while we stayed in Tejakula. I got the impression that if you wanted, you could choose to always have company in Bali -- I have never met such effusively and sincerely friendly locals.

So, bottom line, I like Bali! I definitely want to come back.

Next! Australia. Western culture! Yea!! Finally!!! It's been a while.