We said goodbye to Hurley and the Fraser coast and are getting our epic Australia tour under way. We will miss the small-town feel of Hervey Bay, miss the 100 year old queenslander house and the tropical gardens with the resident birds and bats. And we will miss the laid back big dog – hurley. We managed to make it through our house sit without her licking any toads.
Tonight we landed in Sydney, then in a couple days, go to Tasmania by plane. Then back to Sydney and then to the center of Australia (by plane). From there we travel down to the bottom, camping and sweating (it will be ruthlessly hot), Eventually getting to Adelaide, then by way of a pretty coastline to Melbourne. We house sit in Melbourne. From there, we will fly to New Zealand. Too many flights for my taste, but this country is big and it’s an island, so there is no getting to and from except by plane. Some of our plans have been canceled already because of fires, and this itinerary still may have to be amended.
Fires here are catastrophic. The other day a navy ship was mobilized and with blackhawk helicopters, 500 people were evacuated to the ship. 1800 livestock animals have survived, but are being euthanized because of their burns. Half a billion wild animals lost and 100,000 beef and sheep. Over 2000 houses lost. And the fires, many of which have been burning since September are far from contained. This weekend is supposed to be very bad conditions so the Country is bracing for more fires.
I always like to pass on tips and discoveries and here’s a good one. Do they have coconut yogurt in the US? It’s the bomb. Non-dairy, made from coconut milk. Get it natural, it does not need to be sweetened and flavored. It tastes fresh, not much tartness and just a hint of coconut flavor. It is summer here and we are eating a lot of summer fruits: watermelon and strawberries in season, peaches,apricots and passion fruit. And of course kiwis.
It is amazing how easily people and wild animals coexist here. The animals don’t seem to mind the people, and the locals totally ignore the animals. We see kangaroos by the dozen. And they are big! The birds are in-your-face. Sulfur crested cockatoos (big white bird with the sulfur yellow crest on its head that people have as pets) are native and common, Galah, and rosellas and lorikeets are all parrots we see here daily. We have seen several dingo too. They look just like dogs and it is easy to see where there have been some human-dingo problems. They are red with white socks to their ankles and a white tip on their tail. Fox-like face. We have not seen a koala in the wild, but my eyes are always open; hopefully as we travel south we will see some.
Sydney takes first place for the most culturally diverse city we have been I think. Any type of food can be found here. It is a good city to start off our return to the tourist life. We hit the landmarks today and took all the obligatory pictures: opera house, bridge, westfield tower. We’ll catch fireworks under the bridge tomorrow. We ended up caught in a big demonstration on climate change. It was over a few blocks. Totally peaceful, luckily. But that is one of the pitfalls of being a tourist – we did not know to avoid the area today. Australians are pretty fed up with their government not taking climate change seriously. Given that they are very direct victims of climate change with these fires. They do seem to be caught on the back foot. In New South Wales alone (one of the Australian states), 4.9 mil hectares have burned this season so far. A hectare is 2.47 miles.