That's Our Plane

Yeeahy we are off,

Um, well actually, not, well actually, we are, but what a stumbling start to the whole day.

First thing this morning I called the airline (Qantas) to confirm everything was alright based upon the fact our flight to Bangkok might have been a bit of a problem due to the fact planes actually have to land somewhere to let people get off! OK so Bangkok was not going to be our first port of call. Singapore it was, OK good-times.

We decided not to book a hotel due to the fact we had already paid for a hotel in Pattaya where of course we would not be for a while. But we did not want to prebook another one as the way things were going we could never be sure of where we would actually be tomorrow.

So, the final bit of house clearance was done with a quick trip to the recycling centre, charity shops and a friend to take the last few bits and bobs.

And, what’s that?

A missed call, yes the airline was trying to contact us. I called them back however the line was busy for a long time, wow I hate hold music and information systems. It seems our flight was actually cancelled and that we had to contact them if we wanted to go on their flight to Singapore – It only took about 40 minutes of waiting on the phone to get confirmation. So, finally we really were on our way, except of course we live in England where any road accident means the roads become blocked for at least half a day.

Yep the bloody motor-way was nothing more than a rolling traffic jam and a normally two hour drive took closer to four. Finally though we got to the airport and were up, up and away!

Next stop Singapore.

The first problem I have realized is with my luggage – Not my main check in baggage that’s just fine, a good size, easy to maneuver  and for somebody like me who has a bit of a luggage fetish, it looks OK.

No the problem is my hand luggage or more importantly what it contains.

The breakdown is a bit over the top;

Three Magazines, Top Gear and two travel magazines. The following books:

Next by Michael Crichton a book the size of a small house, Hey Joe by Ted Lerner, Tony Wheelers Bad Lands, May on Motors by James May, The Rough Guide to Malaysia, Singapore and Brunei, DK Eyewitness Travel Malaysia and Singapore and The Rough Guide First-Time Around the World.

That little lot weighs enough, add to that my Mac Book and a Maxtor 250GB portable drive, assorted leads and a Belkin Laptop Cooling Stand, A camera, a couple of Mp3 Players, a wind-up torch, two packs of cards (from the MGM Grand Las Vegas), Two Dice from the Flamingo Las Vegas and a Casino Chip, a spare watch, a couple of pens, A 2009 Calender from the Sunday Times Travel Magazine and all the details of our itinerary and our travel insurance policy documents.

Add in a small package for my Son who we are hopefully going to be seeing in a few days in Pattaya. The package consists of a Book – Diver by Tony Groom, (My Son is in Thailand on a Dive Internship) his i-Pod and lead, His Dive Insurance Document and a new bank card to replace the one he lost (stolen or just plain misplaced).

I am resembling a mule weighed down to excess.

My Son aged 12 is actually struggling with an even heavier bag!  We can sort his problem out though by getting him a new main luggage bag as his was full yet well within the weight allowance.

Na heel veel stress op woensdag uitgezwaaid op Schiphol door mijn ouders en Patrick, Cindy, Yuana, Kwok en Sammar.
Na een sprintje was ik dus bij het vliegtuig dat me naar Luton zou brengen. De stad waar ik dus een semester gestudeerd heb.

Daar aangekomen ben ik naar Annie haar huis gegaan, ik mocht haar kamer lenen en zij ging naar haar vriend toe. Enige voorwaarde was dat ik haar katten eten moest geven. Geen probleem!
Die woensdag en donderdagavond oude vrienden gezien en al een boel nieuwe vrienden gemaakt! En een heleboel informatie van Annie gekregen die uit Bangkok komt. Was echt top!
Vrijdag vertrokken naar Londen en daar Renai en Jimmy gezien, was ook heel gezellig. En aan het einde van de middag moest ik naar Heathrow om mijn vlucht naar Thailand te pakken. De Londense metro tijdens spits met een backpack en een kleine rugtas is niet leuk.
Op Heathrow ingecheckt, en op het vliegtuig gestapt. Was echt een goede vlucht (Quantas), 500 days of Summer gekeken (aanrader) nog een film geprobeerd te kijken maar later viel ik in slaap. Tijdens de vlucht ook kennisgemaakt met een Engels meisje die een korte trip maak met een reisgezelschap.

En nu dus in Bangkok, het is hier druk, lekker warm en heel gemoedelijk.
Zit in een hotel aan Khao San Road (Karin: dit is echt cool!) ga zo even wat eten halen, en de pub in met Kate.

Foto’s komen spoedig! Beloofd.

PS.
Mijn macbook heeft opstartproblemen, dus hij werkt niet meer, dit internetcafe helpt nu wel. Maar weet iemand wat het kan zijn? Hij deed het, toen heb ik hem gerestart en nu blijft ie hangen bij het Apple logo + mac zandloper… Help anders is de trip voor hem al klaar!

Air France reçoit son premier Airbus A380, sur le site Airbus d’Hambourg en Allemagne, qui se trouve être le centre de livraison de l’ensemble des compagnies aériennes pour l’Europe et le Moyen Orient devenant ainsi la première compagnie européenne à posséder le très gros porteur, dont elle espère des économies bienvenues en ces temps de crise du transport aérien.

C’est entre Paris et New York que le vol commercial inaugural est prévu pour le 20 novembre 2009. Les compagnies Singapore Airlines ainsi qu’Emirates et la compagnie autralienne Quantas ont déjà un A380. Un A380 coûte au prix catologue environ 330 millions de dollars. Le gros porteur A380  peut reçevoir 538  passagers dont 9 en première classe, 80 en classe affaires et 449 en classe économique.

Quantas is definitely the BEST airline I have ever flown with. The service was great (2 guys per cart which means the meals were delivered HOT and fresh) and there were lots of little extras like hot chocolate going around in addition to the typical tea and coffee (and apparently on the Bangkok to Sydney portion of the flight, they serve ice cream!) I thoroughly enjoyed my flight and I look forward to booking with Quantas again in the future.

I arrived in Bangkok with the lessons I learned in Egypt at the forefront of my mind… but this time I had also done my research and I knew where to go for a taxi and how much I should expect to pay (so I didn’t get ripped off). I got off the flight and proceeded through a security check only to realize after the fact that I didn’t need to because I wasn’t transferring to another flight… ba ha ha. I went through passport control (a breeze!), picked up my luggage and found the taxi stand. I was on my way to the hotel within about 30 minutes of landing!

The taxi was really fun.. it had a DVD player and TV in it so the driver put on a video for me.. I have NO IDEA what it was though. We arrived at the hotel and I was very impressed.. quite POSH! I checked in and then went to my room to meet my roommate. She was from England and also traveling alone. We chatted for a bit and then went down to meet our tour leader and group. When we got downstairs though… there was no one else there. Strange…. Then our tour leader called us over and told us that we were it.. there was only two people booked for the tour. My heart sank a little bit at this news because I was really looking forward to meeting some new people and I know how much the group dynamic can affect the tour. Also, sometimes you want to do things and only some people in the group want to join you.. but when there is only one person, your choice is pretty limited for companions on various activities. It also ups the cost for us when we do optional things because often those prices are divided amongst the group (more people = cheaper for everyone) Anywho.. I figured it would be fine, just 9 days after all! We paid our local payment and then talked a bit about local culture and customs and our tour guide gave us a little booklet with words and phrases in it in Thai. Very helpful.

After this my fellow tour-er and I went and found dinner in a local restaurant and then stopped by the ubiquitous 7-11 to break our large bills and get some snacks for the train journey in the morning. 7-11 is like Starbucks here.. sometimes they are right across the street from eachother!

(October 6, 2009)

* fyi – my camera card is messed up so I have no photos from the first week I was there.

Endlich war es soweit: Mit 3 riesigen und mehreren kleinen Koffern und Taschen, Rucksäcken und Handgepäck ging es dann mit dem vorbestellten Taxi zum Flughafen. Unser Freund Sebastian wollte uns von dort aus noch verabschieden. Welch ein Glück, konnte ja niemand ahnen, dass Quantas mit MasterCard Probleme hatte und keine EC-Karten akzeptieren. Also VISA und Sebastian sei Dank, dass wir unser Übergepäck (ca. 700 GBP) mitnehmen durften. Für das Geld hätte er dich glatt mitfliegen können!!

Als wir endlich im Flugzeug saßen, konnten wir es kaum fassen, dass es nun nach Neuseeland ging. Daniel hat die meiste Zeit geschlafen und Brenzen hatte einen Film nach dem anderen verschlungen, wenn sie nicht gerade mal wieder auf die Toilette musste, zum Leidwesen des Sitznachbarns am Gang. Naja, es heißt ja man soll beim Fliegen viel Flüssigkeit aufnehmen. Abgeshen davon hatte sie kaum noch Stimme  und da trinkt man auch gerne viel Tee

Von London ging es also erstmals nach Bangkok, dann nach Sydney und von dort aus nach Wellington. Insgesamt ca. 30h Reisedauer.

Das tun wir uns so schnell nicht mehr an!

Sunrise at Sydney airport

Skyline of Sydney early in the morning

The big day had come: A preordered cab took us to the airport with 3 huge and several smaller suitcases, backpacks and cabin bags. There we met our friend Sebastian who wanted to say farewell. How lucky he was there, ’cause who knew that Quantas can’t read MasterCards and than they don’t accept debit cards either. Thanks to VISA und Sebastian, we were able to check in our excess luggage (approx. 700 GBP). With that amount he could have come with us!!

We couldn’t really grasp it that we were actually sitting on a plane to New Zealand. Daniel was sleeping most of the time and Brenzen was dispatching several movies, besides going to the loo which was quite annoying for the person at the aisle. Well, you are supposed to drink a lot of liquids when flying. Apart from that she had a sore throat and almost no voice anymore, so she was supposed to drink a lot of tea too

Our route took us from London to Bangkok, from there to Sydney and than finally to Wellington. Total time of travel: 30h.

Well, we won’t do that again too soon!

The day after I arrived at Shannon International Airport, Ireland back at the beginning of June, Sky News reported an Air France flight had gone missing off the coast of South America.  This was great considering my international flights were on Delta.  The two airlines have interlocked their flight plans together so closely, it can be difficult to tell if the operator of the plane and the logo splashed above the tail wings are the same company.  My tour group thankfully drove around in our motor coach while waiting to hear what happened to the 200+ people missing in flight and to see if our flights home would arrive on the tarmac  in one piece, or in pieces across an American beach.

Just this summer there have been over a dozen plane accidents, and in the past week three alone.  This morning a plane skidded off the airstrip in Thailand.  I was planning on going to Thailand to visit my friend Sarah doing missionary work there in November, now  I’ll make sure not to fly Merpati Nusantara Airlines.  I’ll also make sure to postpone my trip to Indonesia (plane missing since Sunday morning) and not fly light aircraft when traveling through Kenya.  Clearly looking through the list of “100 Worst” on www.planecrashinfo.com is not helping my nerves. Luckily, nothing came up when I searched for Quantas, the airline taking me to New Zealand, or JetBlue, my American carrier of choice, on this site.  Hopefully, the most I have to worry about in September would be my backpack being stuck in Brisbane while I’m jetting across to North Island.

One of the interns I work with has never flown.  I flew for the first time at age 8, while moving from Boston to Phoenix.  We took a decent sized plane to somewhere in Pennsylvania/Ohio then a prop plane to St. Louis to visit my childhood friend Renee.  The worst part of the trip was discovering I was not tall enough to ride the new Batman roller coaster at Six Flags.

I told intern Michael about my layover in Brisbane and the hassle I was already anticipating two months out from my flight.  “What’s so bad about a layover? Can’t you just leave?” he asked.

This is an interesting question.  I’ve been in a lot of airports, and I’d have to say most of them are not traveler-friendly when you have hours to kill.  The Dallas airport has a full-sized Disney store that I enjoyed during the layover from Phoenix to Washington-Dulles when I was 10.  Charles de Gaulle in Paris is so confusing my group found our way out of security without even realizing it when I was 16.  Palm Beach International has a putt-putt course in the waiting area, but not by the terminal.  In Athens, all of the gift shops are before the  American security checkpoint, so even if you wanted to bring home 0.8% acidity olive oil that you couldn’t find in the grocery shop like I did two years ago, sorry but no such luck.  JetBlue’s T5 at JFK is probably my favorite, since they do have a platform in the middle where yoga classes are held, and even though I hate flying in and out of New York, it does leave my home base Dulles with something to aspire to.

So yes, Michael, layovers are a pain.  They are even worse than finding out you have to pay an extra $50 to check your bag because it’s 57 pounds and you can’t bring that bottle of wine you bought in Napa Valley in your hand luggage.  Maybe if TSA lightened up on liquids, gels and aerosols, I could pass the bottle around the plane so we all wouldn’t have to worry about the runway tires not retracting or the turbulence that will keep your headache from check-in going.  When you fly for the first time Michael, don’t call me while you’re waiting at the terminal.  Can someone pass me a Dramamine so I can pass out for this flight already?!

Você trabalha com regime de folha de ponto? A maioria dos empregos privados sim. Daí a pergunta que quase todo dia me vinha à cabeça era:

Nossa, como é vou saber que horas vou sair hoje?

Aí eu contava nos dedos, umas horas pra cá, uns minutos pra lá… caramba, contar horas é complicado eim? E quase todos os dias em que eu não tinha muitos afazeres e dava pra cumprir todas as demandas direitinho eu precisava repetir tal cálculo. Opa! Está na hora dessa coisa mudar, vou criar o “QUE HORAS EU SAIO?” !

Chegou finalmente a hora você cumprir seu horário!

• Acesse agora

On This Date In History: It wasn’t supposed to be able to happen. Modern ships. Modern communications. Modern radar. A huge Atlantic Ocean. Yet, two ships managed to run into one another on

Doria Sunk

the high seas off the coast of Nantucket on this date in 1956 and what resulted was “the greatest rescue of all time.” At 11:10 pm the Swedish liner Stockholm and Italian Liner Andrea Doria collided in heavy fog. The Italians(over 1700 passengers) were coming from Europe to New York while the Swedes(just under 750 passengers) were headed home from the New World. The Stockholm was traveling a bit north of its recommended route in an effort to save time. Fog was thick. The Doria had a much more sophisticated radar and picked up the Stockholm at a distance of 17 miles. The Stockholm radar operator picked up the Doria at 12 miles. Like the Stockholm, the Doria was trying to keep its schedule and only slightly reduced speed in spite of the reduced visibility. So, both Captains seemed to have sacrificed safety in the name of speed.

Apparently, the normal procedure for ships passing was port to port. But for some reason, the Italian Captain

Stockholm Damage

decided to turn port and make an unconventional starboard to starboard passage. It is thought the Italian Captain thought that the Swede was doing the same thing. Why these guys didn’t get on the radio and talk about it is a mystery. Or maybe they did and there was a language barrier. Whatever the case, the two slammed into each other. The Stockholm had a reinforced, ice breaker bow and just sliced the Doria.   The Stockholm sustained damage and a handful of crew members died.   Nearly 50 passengers and crew died on the Doria as the ice-breaker bow cut into passenger quarters. One man watched in horror as his wife was dragged out of the Doria never to be seen again. But one story caught the attention of the press and forever dubbed 14 year-old Linda Morgan as the “the miracle girl.” Morgan was taken from her bunk on the Doria as the two ships separated.   She was found on board the Stockholm. I do not think she was charged with being a stow away.

The Doria listed badly so only half of her lifeboats were available for evacuation. The Stockholm though lowered its boats and other liners in the area quickly answered the doomed Doria’s mayday call. It is the greatest maritime rescue in the annals of history with 1660 souls plucked from the sea.

Moral to this story: You can have the most sophisticated top-shelf equipment and technology in the world. But if you’ve got a doofus operating that stuff, its worthless.

A Uniique way to lose your luggage

On This Date in 2008: Remember in Rain Man when Raymond wanted to fly Quantas because it was the only airline in the world that had never had a crash? Well, I’m not sure if that is still true but the Australian airline avoided one on July 25 2008 when for unknown reasons, a chunk of fuselage ripped away or it broke open at 29,000 feet. That’s about the altitude of Mt. Everest. The plane expereience rapid decompression causing the air masks to drop in the passenger section and the plane descended rapidly. The pilot managed to make an emergency landing. Here is the story from the AP via the NYTimes’ International Herald Tribune followed by video from MSNBC. The first video does have the MSNBC anchors jibbering on and its not that exciting but it does show what it’s like in a plane full of over 300 people when an emergency occurs. It also has a nice shot of the hole in the plane. The next story is a fuller, MSNBC report and it looks pretty lame to me…but you can decide for yourself.

Global Edition of New York Times-”Big Hole”

Video From Inside Plane after air masks deployed

Lame MSNBC Story

On This Date in 2000 The Concorde made its final flight. The supersonic passenger jet was taking off from Charles De Gaulle Airport in Paris en-route to New York where it would take its 100 passengers to a cruise ship headed to South America. However, the plane hit a tiny piece of titanium debris, dropped on the runway by a previous plane, that punctured a tire. A piece of the tire hit and ruptured a fuel tank. Leaking fuel then ignited by a spark from the landing gear. The engine was soon engulfed and the engine failed. With only three engines, it was impossible to gain altitude or maintain control. The plane crashed and all 109 passengers and crew were killed along with 4 people on the ground. The Concorde went back into service in November 2001 but a few minor mishaps caused the public to lose confidence in the aircraft and the planes were taken out of service in October 2003. The Bob Symon/Ward Cleaver moral of this story is to clean up your mess.

Here is some video (click here for video) with still photos of the Concorde in flames on its fateful flight.

On This Date in 1832: The first railroad disaster took place. A group of 4 people were invited to see the new marvel of technology. The Granite Railway near Quincy, Massachusetts. The four visitors were put in an empty car for a ride. A cable snapped on the car in which they were riding and the visitors were tossed off a 34 foot cliff, killing one and seriously injuring the others. The Bob Symon/Ward Cleaver moral to this story is you can’t make an omelet without breaking a few eggs. Twenty-Eight years later, just prior to the Civil War, over 30,000 miles of railroad track criss-crossed the nation. OR…if you don’t like that moral, how about this? Don’t ride on strange trains.

Maybe the biggest moral to these stories is not to travel on July 25.

SPC Convective Outlook Sat 8am to Sun 8am

Tornado Risk

Weather Bottom Line:  I don’t think anyone got this right.  Last night the forecast said it would be dry until this afternoon.  I was awakened by rain and t’storms this morning.  My guess is that a line formed overnight after the late newscast because I can’t imagine that the line that was way up in Illinois got down here that fast, but perhaps it did.  I don’t have the time to look and see.  But, we can deal with what is in store.  We still have a cold front to our northwest moving down our way.  Initially, it was to come through this evening or overnight.  It would appear to have picked up a little more forward momentum and will now get here either late this afternoon or this evening. 

Now, this stuff we got this morning has robbed the local atmosphere of some of its energy and it needs time to reload.  But, by mid-morning there were still showers trying to come through.  The SPC has extended the severe risk all through our area

Severe Wind Risk

with the idea that perhaps afternoon heating will destablize the atmosphere sufficiently to allow for the development of a strong line of storms late in the day.  I think its a bit up in the air whether or not that will actually happen given the clouds we have left over from the morning storms.  So, if late in the day and into the evening, t’storms are coming, then keep an eye to the sky for the potential for strong storms.  But, before you panic, check out the National Weather Service to see if there is any severity involved.  The front will serve to reinforce the cooler than average conditions and almost make it a certainty that we will not get to 90 this July.

DAY 1 CONVECTIVE OUTLOOK 
   NWS STORM PREDICTION CENTER NORMAN OK
   0753 AM CDT SAT JUL 25 2009
   
  

Severe Hail Risk

 VALID 251300Z – 261200Z
  
   …THERE IS A SLGT RISK OF SVR TSTMS OVER PARTS OF THE OH VLY AND
   LWR GRT LKS…
  
   …THERE IS A SLGT RISK OF SVR TSTMS OVER PARTS OF THE NRN RCKYS…
  
   …SYNOPSIS…
   LITTLE CHANGE IN LARGE SCALE PATTERN EXPECTED THIS PERIOD.  RIDGE
   WILL HOLD FIRM SOUTH OF THE FOUR CORNERS AS LK SUPERIOR UPR LOW
   DRIFTS SLOWLY E TO NEAR SSM AND COMPACT LOW PERSISTS OVER ERN WA.
  
   IMPULSES MOVING SEWD ON SW SIDE OF THE LK SUPERIOR SYSTEM WILL
   MAINTAIN AT LEAST WEAK LARGE SCALE FORCING FOR ASCENT ACROSS THE OH
   VLY AND LWR GRT LKS.  FARTHER SW…SATELLITE AND ECMWF/GFS DATA SHOW
   A SERIES OF WEAK IMPULSES TOPPING WRN RDG THAT WILL MOVE FROM THE
   CNTRL/NRN RCKYS SE INTO THE CNTRL PLNS.
  
   COLD FRONT NOW EXTENDING FROM NRN MI INTO THE MID MS VLY SHOULD
   CONTINUE STEADILY ESE…BUT MAY LOSE SOME IDENTITY AS UPR SYSTEM
   LINGERS OVER LK SUPERIOR AND A SECONDARY FRONTAL SURGE EVOLVES OVER
   WI/IL.  WRN PART OF THE ORIGINAL FRONT SHOULD MOVE S INTO OK AND THE
   TX PANHANDLE…WHERE IT LIKELY WILL STALL TONIGHT/EARLY SUN.
  
   …MID MS VLY/OH VLY TO LWR GRT LKS…
   MESO HIGH WITH PRE-FRONTAL MCS NOW OVER OH/KY HAS WEAKENED
   CONSIDERABLY SINCE EARLIER TODAY…SUGGESTING THAT CONVECTIVE SYSTEM
   IS CLOSE TO DISSIPATION.  NEVERTHELESS…VWP DATA AND MOMENTUM
   CONSIDERATIONS INDICATE THAT REMAINING CONVECTIVE BAND SHOULD
   CONTINUE E/ESE ACROSS ERN OH/ERN KY AND INTO PARTS OF PA/WV BEFORE
   COMPLETELY DISINTEGRATING.  ASSOCIATED CLOUDS AND DISRUPTED LOW LVL
   CONVERGENCE PATTERN WILL COMPLICATE CONVECTIVE EVOLUTION OVER THE
   REGION THROUGH THE DAY.  BUT IT SEEMS PROBABLE THAT ATTENDANT MCV
   AND REMNANT OUTFLOW BOUNDARY WILL SERVE TO FOCUS RENEWED STORM
   DEVELOPMENT BY EARLY AFTN OVER PARTS OF NY/PA AND WV.  ADDITIONAL
   STORMS…MEANWHILE…LIKELY WILL FORM AS SFC HEATING DESTABILIZES
   AREA INVOF COLD FRONT UPSTREAM ACROSS WRN OH…SRN IND…AND SRN IL.
  
   RELATIVELY RICH LOW LVL MOISTURE NOW OVER THE MID MS/LWR OH VLY
   REGION WILL SPREAD ENE WITH WSWLY LLJ INTO THE UPR OH VLY…BOOSTING
   SBCAPE TO AROUND 2000 J/KG FROM WRN OH SW INTO PARTS OF IND/KY.
   SOMEWHAT WEAKER DESTABILIZATION SHOULD OCCUR OVER PARTS OF WV/PA/NY.
    COUPLED WITH 30-40 KT DEEP WSWLY SHEAR…SETUP LIKELY WILL SUPPORT
   A COMPLEX ARRAY OF STORMS…WITH SEVERAL LOOSELY ORGANIZED BANDS AND
   CLUSTERS.  THESE MAY INCLUDE A FEW SUPERCELLS IN ADDITION TO LEWPS
   WITH BOWING SEGMENTS.  DMGG WIND SHOULD BE THE PRIMARY SVR THREAT.
   HOWEVER…0-1 KM SHEAR AND MOISTURE AVAILABILITY ALONG THE LLJ AXIS
   WILL BE SUFFICIENT FOR ISOLD TORNADOES WITH ANY SUSTAINED
   SUPERCELLS.
  
   ALTHOUGH A FEW STRONG STORMS MAY CONTINUE INTO THE OVERNIGHT…MOST
   OF THE CONVECTION SHOULD DIMINISH BY MID/LATE EVE.
  
   …ERN CO/NE NM INTO SRN KS/NRN OK…
   MODERATE INSTABILITY WILL DEVELOP TODAY INVOF CNTRL/SRN PLNS COLD
   FRONT…WITH 1000-1500 J/KG SBCAPE POSSIBLE WHERE EML PLUME
   OVERSPREADS MOIST AXIS.  STRONG CAP…SHALLOW/WEAK FRONTAL
   CONVERGENCE…AND WEAK FORCING FOR ASCENT /ASSOCIATED WITH
   AFOREMENTIONED UPR IMPULSES/ TOGETHER SUGGEST ANY STORMS THAT DO
   FORM OVER SRN KS/NRN OK WILL REMAIN ISOLATED.  MORE CONCENTRATED
   ACTIVITY SHOULD OCCUR IN WEAK UPSLOPE FLOW OVER ERN CO/NE NM.  30+
   KT DEEP WNW SHEAR ACROSS THE REGION MAY SUPPORT A FEW
   ROTATING/SUSTAINED STORMS WITH ISOLD LARGE AND LOCALLY DMGG WINDS.
   OVERALL SVR THREAT SHOULD…HOWEVER…BE LIMITED BY WEAKNESS OF LOW
   LVL FLOW IN THE HI PLNS…AND BY STRENGTH OF CAP OVER THE LWR PLNS.
  
   …WRN MT…
   A SIMILAR SETUP TO FRIDAYS WILL PREVAIL OVER WRN MT…ON ERN SIDE OF
   PERSISTENT WA UPR LO.  MODEST ELY UPSLOPE FLOW AND DEWPOINTS IN THE
   40S TO AROUND 50 BENEATH STEEP MID LVL LAPSE RATES WILL SUPPORT
   MARGINAL INSTABILITY /500-1000 J PER KG MLCAPE/.
   HOWEVER…SATELLITE SUGGESTS THAT HEIGHTS WILL RISE SOMEWHAT OVER
   THE REGION AS FOUR CORNERS RIDGE TEMPORARILY BUILDS NWD.
   NEVERTHELESS…SCTD DIURNALLY-ENHANCED STORMS SHOULD ONCE AGAIN
   FORM…MAINLY OVER THE HIGHER TERRAIN.  30+ KT MID LVL FLOW ON SE
   SIDE OF UPR LOW WILL MAINTAIN SUFFICIENT SHEAR FOR SOME STORMS TO
   POSE A THREAT FOR HAIL AND LOCALLY DMGG WIND.
  
   ..CORFIDI/GRAMS.. 07/25/2009

Day 1 – Monday 15th June

So the first post for the Budget Flashpackers as we head off on our three-month trip across the world and back again.  Our aim is to backpack in comfort, without bankrupting ourselves in the process. We’ve both travelled before and have spent more than our fair share of time in flea-ridden hostels. This time, we’re looking for places that don’t smell, aren’t dirty and have clean bed linen. Will we manage without spending a fortune? The challenge kicks off here!

The Budget Flashpackers set off from Heathrow terminal 4 – possibly the blandest airport out there.  Fancy something to eat, well if you fancy something hot, Heathrow T4 offers  just 2 establishments – Weatherspoons (food – microwaved and greasy) and Garfunkles (overpriced, microwaved and greasy). We settled for the former and with Jem’s egg, ham and chips, we bid farewell to Britain’s finest cuisine and set off on our travels.

We flew Quantas, the airline, the air hostess helpfully reassured us, with one of the best, if not the best, safety records out there. Never had a crash, apparently! Perfect for scaredy cats like me.   The economy seats were absolutely teeny-tiny, but the entertainment options were amazing – video and TV on demand, radio, music, all the movies from blockbusters to classics.

I watched an Aussie animated movie called Mary and Max – which I totally recommend – although I slightly embarrassingly sobbed, I should say, wailed my way through the last half hour. Not good when you’re sat next to an Aussie working in marketing for a broadcaster who you’re hoping to score a job from in Sydney! As she doled out the tissues, she noted, “you’re obviously very sensitive”, I blamed it on the jet lag.  Also watched “He’s just not that into you” – awesome. I’ve read the book, and enjoyed the movie just as much.

The Quantas food was pretty good – sea bass with red peppers and  rhubarb for pudding – plus loads of snacks – dairy milk, raisons and mints- to keep us going during the journey. Yuuuuuuuummy.  I’d definitely fly with Quantas again.

Just in this morning, a Qantas flight was grounded in Melbourn because four snakes had gotten loose from their container.
The snakes were four in a shipment of twelve non-venomous baby Stimson pythons, the snakes were packaged properly in a calico styrofoam bay with air holes. Their disappearance was discovered when Australia Air Express noticed that four of the snakes were missing from their container.

The aircraft was later fumigated, two flights were cancelled while Qantas staff searched for the snakes and passengers were put onto other flights.
It is still not known how the snakes managed to escape their containers as they were placed in appropriate packaging, there will be no investigations as to how the snakes escaped.

The plane was returned to service the following morning.

Sourced from News.com.au
Link

Greetings From Australia!
March 14

Hi all-

Nancy and I have arrived safely in Melbourne. We left very early on Weds am from the Laconia Savings Bank center across from Kitchen Cravings. One of our number was late (and irate), having been pulled over by a cop for running a stop sign en route. We did not have the nerve to ask if perchance it was Officer Carsen.

Had a daylong layover in LA. Mom and I had dinner with Eric and she got to see his place, meet his staff, and bond with his tiny cat. And then get returned to the Westin LAX. Upon handing out the hotel room keys, Val Drouin handed me mine and noted, “Now there’s a waste of a bed.”

Our “silver bullet” suitcases, incidentally, have been the talk of the tour, drawing admiring comments from fellow travelers and airline staff alike.

The flight to Melbourne was long (15-16 hours) but not too bad, all things considered. My working theory is that even if you don’t sleep all that well, you have a lot of time to keep at it. The food was pretty good (curry chicken! Printed menus! Cadbury hot chocolate!) and the in-flight entertainment was the best I’ve ever seen—individual TV screens for everyone and dozens of on-demand movies (many still in theaters) and TV shows. Kath & Kim, US version? Dreadful. Kath & Kim, original Australian version? Quite funny.

A harried Aussie mom was sitting two rows behind us with her antsy preschool sons, clearly at the end of her rope with the whole journey before it even started. We heard a lot of comments like, “Mummy is a person, too, with needs of her own. Mummy is going to sleep now and not talk to you anymore for a while. I am warning you: Stop bothering Mummy.” The pilot was quite laissez-faire with the seatbelt sign at both ends of the trip—I imagine that Lufthansa runs a tighter ship than Quantas does.

We landed in Melbourne to torrential downpours. Apparently they’ve been in a severe drought here for ages, so the rain was welcome, but it made for a soggy transfer to the bus. They use beagles at the airport here to sniff out contraband—they’re so cute! By general consensus, harried Aussie mummy and her two boys (who, upon release from the sealed cylinder of the plane, were caroming around the immigration area like pinballs) were allowed to cut the line. Due to the miracle of the international date line, we missed Friday the 13th completely. On the way back we make up for it with the world’s longest Tuesday—I think we get back before we leave, which is a neat trick.

We had a free afternoon in Melbourne. Maybe it’s just the rain, or the fact that we’re staying in a very touristy/studenty area, but it’s different than we expected. The city looks very English in a lot of ways, but also has a lot of American chains sprinkled through it (I hadn’t expected Krispy Kremes and 7-11 down under). There are opal shops everywhere. Our guide has warned the group to hold off on our opal purchases until Sydney, until we’re trained on what to look for. The general fear seems to be that right now we don’t know a good opal from a piece of rock candy. We saw a wedding party walking around with their dresses lifted around their knees. I felt bad for the bride—I think she got the first rainy day here in several months. She was, however, wearing a fantastic pair of red heels under her white dress (a fashion decision I respect greatly but will not be emulating this summer).

Last night at dinner we sat at a table of folks who all had property in Florida—Pompano, Sarasota, etc. Roy, our “Punta Gorda Boy,” would have felt right at home.

Today we do a city tour and then go to Phillips Island, where the draw is thousands of little penguins that emerge every night at dusk and scurry around in an apparently adorable manner. I wonder if, from the penguin perspective, they come out every night and say, “Larry, you’re not going to believe this—all those people are STILL here! What the hell? Mabel, come get a look at this.”

Fun with Penguins
March 15

The LL Bean rain slicker is proving to be the most vital of the pre-trip purchases—Melbourne has been a lovely but extremely wet experience.

Yesterday we had a full English-y sort of breakfast complete with beans, mushrooms, roasted tomatoes, and excellent bacon. It was fun watching everyone sample—and gag on—the Vegemite (a salty paste made of yeast that tastes like a beef bouillon cube and is meant to be spread on toast. I think you need to be a child of the Empire in order to fully appreciate its charms).

Our city tour took us to a cathedral, a park/conservatory, the Victoria war memorial (very moving), and a huge, cheesy marketplace—if a koala or kangaroo could be slapped on it, shaped like it, or otherwise appended to it, it was there. Our guide cannily informed us that Melbourne is the best place for merchandise that says “Melbourne,” a fact that struck us as somewhat obvious, but I guess it’s best to assume nothing.

Our driver (a witty Englishman who moved here 40 years ago) was amused no end by one of our group’s confusing a didgeridoo (aboriginal horn) with a billabong (water hole in the ground). “If you’re planning on bringing a billabong onto the bus, mate, I certainly hope it’s empty.” Mom and I got a bit hung up on the proper way to order a coffee (long black is apparently different than short black, which is different again than flat white), but a friendly local helped us get it sorted out.

En route to the penguins, our driver begged us not to ask him either of the dumb questions he regularly gets: 1. Do the penguins still come out even if it rains? (Yes) and 2. How do the penguins know what time to emerge from the sea? (They wear tiny wristwatches on their flippers.)

The penguins involved a two-hour drive through very soggy outback (we saw a lot of wet sheep and beef cattle) to a small seaside resort town. The penguin viewing is on a nearby island where they’ve constructed a series of wooden boardwalks and concrete bleachers—there’s even an enclosed skybox, presumably reserved for the penguins’ family members and business associates. We saw a wallaby (like a small kangaroo) while we were waiting, which was fun. (We have no photos from the penguin adventure; the little guys dislike the flashes and the penguin rangers break your fingers if you whip out a camera.)

A little after eight pm, the penguins (formerly known as Fairy Penguins but now officially called Little Penguins; did the gay community complain?) started surfing in with the tide in groups known as rafts. They waddled up to the shore in various stages of expediency and disappeared into their little burrows. They also started making these loud chirruping, cooing, squawking noises, like a gaggle of pissed-off loons. Setting aside the absurdity of hundreds of grown people driving hours out of their way to stand in the rain and watch a bunch of dimly lit penguins come home after a day of eating fish, it was a lot of fun.

No See ’Ums
March 17

They have something similar here, except that you do see ’um and we’ve been seeing ’um everywhere.

Yesterday we left Melbourne and took a short flight to Alice Springs—in the middle, sparsely populated, outbacky portion of the country. (A quick shout-out to Quantas here—best airline ever. I may start flying them all the time, even if I need to connect through Canberra to get to Chicago). Just to keep things interesting, Alice Springs is a 1.5-hour time difference from Melbourne and Sydney. I’ve lost track of “ahead” and “behind,” but I do know we are now even further out of sync with the States.

We’ve been besieged by the bugs pretty much ever since we landed. They don’t bite or sting; they just drive you bonkers. They scoffed at the Deep Woods Off we brought from home and even seem impervious to the local stuff our guide recommended (en route to the airport, while doing a demo with his preferred cream, he dropped an enormous glop of it onto his crotch. So he’s probably bug-free for the next several days. Parts of him, anyway.)

The favored solution seems to be what looks like netted yarmulkes—you drop them over your bare head or your hat and they keep the bugs out. Mom and I initially thought them too silly to even contemplate, but we’ve since crossed over to desperate and will be joining the ranks of the netheads later today.

Last night we had a BBQ dinner in the Outback, which was a lot of fun. Mom and I are both finally starting to nail down the names of everyone in our group—it’s tough because everyone is middle-aged and named Bob, Jim, Priscilla, or Nancy (obviously, I’ve got one of the Nancys squared away, but that still leaves two others).

The guide made a dessert called spotted dog, using his bare hands to mix up the batter and incorporating a substantial number of flies in the process (horrifying the Pompano Beach contingent). After dinner they shut off the lights and pointed out some constellations for us. It was amazing—more stars than I’ve ever seen anywhere (we even saw a few smudgy galaxies). We saw the Southern Cross, which looks like a kite. This may be astronomy 101, but mom and I were unaware that the Big Dipper is not visible from this hemisphere, just as we can’t see the Southern Cross up north. The guide pointed out the constellations using a special (and illegal) laser pointer with a range of 2.5 kilometers, bringing new gravity to the concept of “careful with that thing or you’ll lose an eye.”

This morning we had our outback balloon ride, which was great. The basket was enormous and was divided into 4 quadrants of 5 people each. We were told to ignore our instincts to help the less able-bodied aboard first; instead, the youngest and fittest were to clamber in first and serve as ballast.

The balloon was manned by a personable yet slightly ripe German named Franz. Franz’s only instructions, despite some of us being mere inches from the flaming burners, were “don’t touch the ropes.” He also mentioned in passing that the basket can sometimes tip over upon landing, but didn’t seem all that concerned about it. (The country as a whole seems refreshingly untouched by the lawsuit mania currently gripping the US.)

The day was perfect and we saw three kangaroos hopping around before we landed (good news particularly for Bob Bolduc, who earlier had announced in no uncertain terms that he would not be leaving the country until he saw one).

The post-balloon ride breakfast was good but odd: chicken legs, mini-quiche lorraines, fruit, cheese & crackers, and bottomless guava mimosas. No one was complaining, particularly after a few mimosas. The atmosphere was festive on the ride back. I never imagined I’d one day be riding around the Australian outback with my tenth-grade chemistry teacher and hearing her say, “Nothing loosens people up like alcohol.”

In The Bush
March 18

Yesterday we returned to the site of our bush dinner for an aboriginal culture lesson/art sale. We came straight from the balloon ride (where, as you may recall, the group consumed numerous guava mimosas).

It took a while for us to shift gears, but the guide’s talk was interesting. He said there are only 8 women’s names and 8 men’s names in the whole culture, yet when someone calls “Nabajaba” or “Chumbawumba” (you get the idea) out the window, everyone somehow knows which specific person is being summoned. I’m trying this technique out with the various Priscillas in the group.

After a brief break (we snacked on the “spotted dog” cake left over from the night before), we looked at the art some of the aboriginal people had brought. I bought a colorful painting of women picking bush tomatoes from a woman named Marjorie (the western influence seems to have crept in with the names, expanding the roster beyond 8). Mom then got a photo of me and Marjorie holding the painting, which seemed to be an expected part of the process.

You have to wonder what all of these native people really think about the white folks who blow in every week, swatting flies and buying art. (I can imagine Marjorie saying to herself, “Damn—is tomorrow Tuesday already? I need to crank out 6 paintings tonight so I have something to sell.”)

After a brief round of experimental boomerang throwing at a foam rubber kangaroo (I missed by a mile; Miss York told me that I throw like a girl), we had a review/tasting of bush foodstuffs.

There were god-awful, sour dried tomato berry things, and a kangaroo tail (tasted like pulled pork), and a 3-inch witchetty grub who had to be coaxed from his home in a piece of witchetty branch. The grub is apparently an aboriginal delicacy that allegedly tastes like scrambled eggs or buttery potatoes. The group wasn’t buying it, and the grub was allowed to return home to his branch instead of becoming a snack.

Mom and I passed on the “take a camel to dinner” option and went into town for a late lunch instead—we went to the Ocher Grill, where everything seems to come with hard-boiled eggs. We bought our mosquito nets (not a moment too soon) and went into one of the local pubs. Mom received an incredulous stare when she asked the bartender for a glass of cabernet but quickly got on the beer bandwagon instead.

Today was Ayers Rock/Uluru, a huge red rock in the middle of the outback. It is enormous—about 1 km wide and 2 km long, I think our guide said—and looks something like a big red loaf of bread (or, from certain angles, a lazy manatee). It’s just a very massive, impressive thing. People regularly scrabble up it, even though the hike is both treacherous and disrespectful to the native people (sort of like scaling the side of Notre Dame, I guess).

We were able to view it at sunset, which is what people do, and we all really enjoyed it. There’s a certain Emperor’s New Clothes aspect to the proceedings, however—the sun goes down and the rock gets dark. The rapidity with which everyone scooted back to the bus led me to believe that maybe others, too, had missed the point to some extent. But we do have about 15 progressively dimmer photos of a big red rock, if anyone would like to see them.

Bali Ha’i
March 19

We have gone from the hot, dusty red center of the country to the tropics. (We’ve also gained back just 30 minutes of the 1.5 hours we shifted when we went west, despite the fact that we’re back on the east coast, but I think they’re just messing with us now).

This morning we toured the Olgas, another lumpy rock formation near Uluru. The Olgas are apparently not quite as sacred as Uluru, so we were welcome to climb on them, which we did for about 40 minutes. We saw another wallaby in our travels, which was fun. I personally might have allotted a little less time to the Big Red Rocks in the middle of the country, but seeing as I am the daughter of the man who perfected the “Louvre in 10 minutes or less” tour, perhaps I am not the best judge of these things.

We took a short flight from Ayers Rock to Cairns, which everyone is telling us is pronounced “cans.” I don’t know if this is really the correct way to say it, or just the correct way if you have an Australian accent. (It’s like bringing a group of tourists to Boston and telling them about the midnight ride of Paul Re-VEE-ah.)

We have a delightful older couple on the trip—she keeps misplacing her husband, and he keeps absconding with other people’s carry-on bags. He was chastised upon arrival in Cairns for removing the orange “group” tags from their luggage, but it turns out that an overzealous ticket agent back at Ayers Rock was the culprit. Apologies were issued.

Cairns definitely has more “pulse” than other places we’ve been—it’s got kind of a sultry Miami Beach feel to it. Tonight the group had dinner at a local restaurant featuring kangaroo (tastes like steak), an Australian fish called barramundi, and some unidentifiable seedy bits served with bread and peanut oil that had an Indian flavor to them.

We miss you! Please do let us know what’s going on at home if you’re so inclined. I mentioned to Eric that we hadn’t gotten much news from your end; his theory was that “when you’ve got the correspondent stationed in Baghdad, he doesn’t get on the air to find out what’s happening in Omaha.”

A Day at the Beach
March 20

This morning we had a truly extraordinary buffet breakfast at the hotel—little bowls of muesli, individual shot glasses of yogurt (fruited and not), eggs and quiche squares, various meats and fruits, and a wide variety of pastries. There was also a Japanese breakfast option, with chopsticks (there seem to be a lot of Japanese tourists in Cairns), as well as a Kuerig-like coffee maker that makes individual cups of coffee (the milk option was flagged by the word “hot” over a graphic of a cow—and we’ve now mastered the various Australian coffee options, which is exciting).

We got the morning paper along with breakfast, which has the widest pages of any newspaper I’ve ever seen—it’s nearly two feet across.

There’s an election here tomorrow, and it appears that Australia has its very own version of Joe the Plumber. Carpenter Neil Starkey is “no fan of the lady” (the female incumbent). He reports that she “buggered up” a local auto race so “it’s really hard now to get a few drinks … [and] she just runs around in a hard hat all the time.”

After breakfast we took a big catamaran out to Green Island, which is on the inner portion of the Great Barrier Reef. Our guide really pushed an outer reef option, telling us that Green Island “is like Gilligan’s Island,” but he definitely sold it short—there’s a resort, several beaches and walking trails, a snack bar, a helipad, a full bar, a souvenir shop, a spa, and even some sort of crocodile farm.

We took a glass-bottomed boat tour from the island, which was a lot of fun—it took us over a lot of interesting coral and several types of fish (including one with a big suction plate on the top of his head who likes to attach himself to larger fish and, apparently, glass-bottomed boats). The guide threw some fish treats over the side; all the fish shot over and gobbled them up instantly, like Tashas of the sea.

The guide casually mentioned that a friend of hers recently got stung by one of the area jellyfish: “You don’t feel anything for 15 or 20 minutes, but then it’s like someone’s stabbing you in the stomach and twisting the knife round,” she said, cheerily. “They’ll take you to the hospital, but all they can really do is pump you full of painkillers until the poison passes. Not the best day of your holiday, of course, but it doesn’t happen too often.”

A lunch buffet on the island was included. It seemed to have been meant to appeal to both the American and Japanese tourists but designed by someone who’d never actually eaten in either country. There were roast potatoes and swollen sausages and rice in a rice cooker; gelatinous chilled chicken legs; a completely unidentifiable soup; meaty slabs of something in a thick brown gravy; parker house rolls; peel-your-own shrimp with the heads still on; and something that resembled massaman curry. Very strange. The lunch area was also full of these little green birds who would boldly swoop in and start noshing on your shrimp whenever you turned your back.

Mom was much better with her sunscreen application than I was; I have a blotchy burn in random places (we saw one Japanese tourist roasting himself to a veritable crisp on the beach). The sun is incredibly strong here. It was quite windy on the way back—they made an announcement on the catamaran to the effect that we should not move around any more than necessary, and that all stray children should be lashed to something sturdy.

When we got back, we took a walk around the town (there’s a beautiful boardwalk here) and went to a little Greek restaurant for dinner. The large carafe of house white was rather more than we bargained for, but we muddled through.

Right now we’re watching a South African cricket match on TV. We have no idea what’s going on, and I don’t think it’s just because of all the wine. Someone is trailing by 93 runs, yet there’s no indication that this is considered an insurmountable lead in the cricket world.

Spiders and Sydney
March 20

Well, “the lady” so disliked by the Aussie carpenter won today’s election. There was a photo of her in this morning’s paper—she was cuddling a koala who was gazing at her with a look of utter trust and devotion. Maybe it all hinged on the marsupial vote.

Today we left Cairns for Sydney, but not before taking a gondola ride through the rainforest. It was really interesting; lots of fascinating plants and sweeping vistas. The signs explained how each species had its own way of fighting for the limited available skylight. The strangler fig’s tactics seemed self-explanatory. And the “lawyer cane”… [sorry; just can’t bring myself to do it—insert your own bad lawyer joke here.]

Everyone was quite freewheeling at the gondola ride—I believe it’s the first time mom and I have ever been greeted with “hey there, chickie babes” at a tourist attraction (or anywhere else, for that matter). Another guide casually pointed up before we entered the gondola and asked “did you see the spider?” The spider in question was the size of a small mailbox, with a web at least 3 feet across. And he was inside, in the gondola shed—I don’t even want to think about who was lurking outside among the lawyer cane.

We headed to the airport after the rainforest. Mark, our guide, was wearing the remnants of some wayward meal on the front of his shirt. This is the same guy who tipped an open jar of bug cream into his crotch a few days ago. He also sat on a piece of bubble gum before the LAX-Melbourne flight. The man is human flypaper.

I realized today that the reason security moves so fast at the airports here is that they just let everything through. Shoes need not be removed; large bottles of water and soda are waved ahead; our group’s various bionic shoulders and titanium hips don’t even set off the metal detector. They haven’t even asked to see photo ID on any of our domestic flights. I think they just give everyone a quick visual once-over and conclude, “He seems a good sort—go on with you, then.”

The party just never stops on Quantas. On today’s under-3-hour flight we had a full hot lunch (choice of lemongrass fish or beef roulade) and a movie. About 20 minutes before landing they came around with ice cream bars. The group was delighted—one of our elder members politely said, “Thank you for the ice cream” to every flight attendant he passed upon disembarkation, as if we’d spent the afternoon at a child’s birthday party.

Sydney is breathtaking—we saw the opera house and the harbor bridge out the airplane window as we were landing, along with hundreds of boats cruising around the harbor. The whole city is just as bright and clean and sparkly in person as it seems in photos.

We checked in to the hotel and mom and I went for a walk up by the bridge and the opera house. We passed no fewer than 3 wedding parties jockeying for position to get their photos taken in front of the landmarks. We had dinner at a pub and dessert at “Max Brenner’s Chocolate Bar,” where the motto is “Chocolate by the Bald Guy.” It’s a very fun city.

A Day in Sydney
March 22

Yesterday we had a whole day to explore the city. It’s really an amazing place—we had perfect weather, and the city has a lot of the charm of, say, London with the added allure of water and palm trees. Our bus driver mentioned that big segments of the Matrix movies were filmed here.

We took a tour of the opera house in the morning. It sounds like the project was a nightmare from the get-go—they had a design competition for it, and the winning entry had already been tossed aside before Eero Saarinen came aboard and rescued this Danish architect from obscurity (relative obscurity—I actually can’t recall his name at the moment). The project was supposed to take 3 years and cost $7 million. It wound up taking 16 years and costing $102 million. The main issue was the big sails on top—seems they were visually appealing but not really structurally viable until someone came up with a new way of putting them together. Mom and I noted that the opera house definitely has some angles that are better than others—from one vantage point the famed sails (also dubbed “nuns in a scrum”) looked like Coneheads. I guess everyone has a better side.

Our guide told us that 2 of every 3 people worldwide recognize the opera house, and that it houses both the largest pipe organ in the world AND the site of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s final world bodybuilding championship. There are two main concert halls—the smaller one is where we’ll be seeing Madame Butterfly tonight. They told us (and we were able to see for ourselves) that there is almost no wing space in the smaller concert hall—a problem since that hall is designed for voice and ballet performances: “Ballerinas—well, they like to leap around a bit, don’t they?” For a while they were actually hiring bodybuilders—I don’t think Schwarzenegger was among them—to catch the ballerinas as they jumped offstage.

He also pointed out the netting over the orchestra pit, which was installed after a performance featuring live chickens, of all things. The chickens got loose, panicked, and fluttered down into the pit, onto the heads and laps of the musicians. He assured us that the current net is plenty strong enough to support one grown person or several chickens.

On our way out we passed Francesca, one of the people on the other bus (there is a mysterious second bus sort of traveling with us but sort of not—we’ve not been officially introduced to anyone on it, but they keep turning up at meals and beating us to attractions by about 15 minutes every day). Francesca is an older woman who, unfortunately, turned her ankle at one of the Big Red Rocks a few days ago—the sprain turned out to be a fracture, and she’s being sent home. It’s unclear if this is her preference or if Quantas is reluctant to let her continue to fly around the country in her current condition (I guess even the party-time airline has its limits). Our guide, Mark-of-food-wearing-fame, noted that, sadly, Pancetta would not be joining us for the rest of the trip—he did not mention that she was also salty and delicious with melon. Uncle Bill has nothing on Mark.

Later in the day mom and I went to an outdoors market and then to a combined aquarium/dinner tour called “The Taste of Australia” (which Mark, unsurprisingly, called “The Taste of Aquarium”). It’s a nice aquarium—the Australians seem to be very literal with some of their fish names—we saw a pineapple fish, and a “weedy sea dragon” (it looks like a piece of milfoil) and stripey fish that are called, natch, “stripeys.” We also saw a fish that had orange Mick Jagger lips, a tiny platypus—apparently they’re smaller than everyone expects—a dugong, which is like a manatee but cuter, and a turtle with a buoyancy problem. Apparently she’d been hit by a boat and could no longer get her tail end down—she kept trying to wedge her head under various rocks to gain some leverage. I know this is probably a fairly substantial tragedy in the turtle world, but mom and I had a good giggle over it.

Koalas and Climbing the “Coat Hanger”
March 23

We had an amazing day. In the morning we got the trip’s first glimpse of koalas, at a nature preserve a little ways outside the city. Our first stop, however, was a wombat named Matilda, whom we were warned not to underestimate—apparently she chomped a tourist on a past tour, who then required 11 stitches. Matilda is nocturnal and was happily asleep in a barrel before she was dragged out to see us. The wombats are very cute—sort of a cross between a koala and a hairy pig. We got to pet her (keeping out hands well clear of her mouth); her fur was dark and bristly.

We then moved on to the koalas—about 8 of them were curled up in their branches, looking like a bunch of chubby pussy willows. They’re a bit smaller than we expected (not much bigger than Sarge-sized). The guide plucked one named Princess out of its perch for us; Princess gradually woke up and took a stroll around the railing of the enclosure, where we were allowed to pet her. She seemed to really groove on all the attention. When she grew tired of us, Princess was returned to her branch and swapped out with Berri, a slightly smaller, younger model.

It’s hard to explain why they’re so appealing, but they just have so much personality. I took many more pictures of koalas than probably anyone would want to see—one of them was all folded up like a little fuzzy Buddha. The guide told us that, contrary to popular opinion, there isn’t any sort of drug in the eucalyptus leaves the koalas eat; rather, the leaves offer so little nutrition that the koalas need to conserve their energy by eating for 4 hours every day and sleeping the rest of the time. Which doesn’t seem like a great system from an evolutionary standpoint, but there you have it.

The seven of us climbing the Sydney Harbor Bridge (aka the coat hanger) were dropped off after the koala outing. They’d warned us that we’d need to be 100% sober for the trip, which didn’t strike us as a problem, as the bridge climb was scheduled before noon. A few of our group were even afraid to drink any wine with dinner the previous evening, which struck me and mom as excessively cautious (it takes a lot to keep us from our wine), so we had one glass each, figuring 12+ hours was surely enough to clear it from our systems.

After signing our waivers, we were all given a breathalyzer test—we had to say a 5-count into a machine. Everyone was then shuffled into a second room so we could be fitted for our incredibly unflattering jumpsuits. Except Nancy. “Nancy, could we see you back here for a minute?” The door closed ominously behind her. The guide in the second room then told the rest of us to gather round in a circle: “Look around—these 11 people will be your family for the next three hours,” the guide says. “Um,” I ventured, “will my mom be rejoining us?” “Yes, I believe so.” A few minutes later, Nancy was released on her own recognizance. The culprit had been—so she claims, anyway—her final pre-bridge-climb shot of Binaca. After a different test, she was cleared to join us. (It’s fortunate we’re with this group for only another week—nobody is letting her live this one down!)

The bridge climb was amazing. They suit you up in the aforementioned grey-and-blue Star Trek jumpsuit, strip you of all jewelry, cameras, watches, and anything else that could rain down on a passing car, and pass you through a metal detector. They give you a belt through which you hook a heavy latch that looks like a menacing, toothy chair caster on a lanyard. The latch hooks you to a continuous cable that runs the entire length of the bridge climb, preventing both falls and panicked jumps. The guide told us that it was helpful to “love your latch,” as it would be following us around for the better part of the afternoon, but to not love it too much—one man recently lost both his wedding ring and his ring finger when he got them mangled in his latch; they plummeted to the water below and were devoured by a shark. In true Aussie fashion, the gruesome incident was relayed as an amusing little anecdote.

The climb itself consisted of three steep metal ladders (kind of like you’d see on a ship), followed by a series of steps across the top arch of the bridge. The views were magnificent, and the guide communicated with us via headphones and walkie-talkies. The headphones were interesting—they worked via conduction through our cheekbones, so they sat just in front of our ears rather than on top of them (leading all of us to initially wonder why it was so difficult to get the damn things to sit on our ears). Mom and I aren’t spooked by heights as some others in our group were—I think our fears are more existential—but we all felt we’d really accomplished something special at the end of the climb.

Tonight we saw Madame Butterfly at the Opera House—the staging was beautiful. Our group was a bit more phlegmy and snarfly than I’d previously given them credit for, but everyone seemed to enjoy it. Plot in a nutshell: Charming yet irritatingly naive Japanese girl named Butterfly marries navy lieutenant. Things quickly head south, and by the start of the second act he’s knocked her up, taken off for three years, and married a “real American wife.” Several people try to explain to Butterfly with varying degrees of tact that she needs to move on, but the light goes on only when navy man returns to Japan (having just realized what a total sleazeball he is) with the real American wife in tow. At that point Butterfly hands off her son to be raised by the sleazeball and the real American wife and does herself in. The show could just as easily have been called “Butterfly, Get A Clue.”

March 24
Meeting the Kiwis

Today we left Sydney (our final Australia stop) very early and flew to New Zealand. A few manic shoppers in our group were snapping up some final duty-free bargains at the Sydney airport; mom and I were able to restrain ourselves (Dan, I must inform you that, sadly, there is no didgeridoo in your immediate future).

We’re now two hours closer to US time than we were in Sydney, though the pilot was an hour off on the time he told us when we landed—and the video screen on the plane was an hour off in the other direction. I swear, nobody knows or cares what time it is here except the tourists.

New Zealand has a zero-tolerance policy on bringing verboten agricultural items into the country. Our guide mentioned that even if you accidentally forget, say, an apple in your bag and forget to declare it, you could be slapped with a thousand-dollar fine. Needless to say, we all thought long and hard before passing by the “amnesty bins”—your last chance to declare it or dump it. They had signs in both English and Japanese that seemed primarily targeted to the Japanese tourists—I don’t think anyone in our group was packing any “meat lollies.”

The immigration people were more thorough than I’ve seen anywhere else. Mom and I got stuck in line behind an Asian tourist who seemed to be having some language and/or visa issues, but they finally let him through. There was a big sign in the welcome area that noted that Christchurch has 6 sister cities throughout the world, which struck me as a bit excessive—you’re not supposed to just start collecting them, like baseball cards. Unlike Melbourne, which employed contraband-sniffing beagles, Christchurch had a lovely black lab who eagerly checked out everyone’s crotch.

We’ve only seen a bit of Christchurch so far, but it’s beautiful. It’s near the Southern Alps, so we saw some magnificent craggy peaks before the plane landed, but parts of the town are very flat and looked surprisingly like suburban Chicago on the drive in from the airport. The heart of the town is very English, with a big cathedral and a park modeled after Hyde Park in London. It’s fall here, and we saw our first foliage this afternoon.

This evening they planned dinner with local families for us—mainly retired couples who host tourists for dinner on a regular basis. Before we left NH, they suggested we bring maple syrup as a hostess gift. They failed to mention the relentless scrutiny to which the syrup (an agricultural product) would be subjected at the airport. The customs guy seemed amused that I had declared it as both a food and a plant product (which it is, right?), but faced with the prospect of a thousand-dollar fine and a take-no-prisoners black lab, I was taking no chances.

They also failed to mention that we’d be sent to dinner not just in pairs, but in groups of four to six. So now Andrea and Barry, our host couple, are in possession of not just one bottle of maple syrup, but four. I certainly hope Andrea and Barry aren’t diabetics.

Earlier in the trip, one of the women had asked if she could opt out of the hosted dinner—she’d heard some (likely apocryphal) horror story about someone on a past tour who’d been sent to dine “with a bunch of smelly Aboriginals who didn’t even have a real toilet.” Mark told her in no uncertain terms that a) she could not opt out; b) there would be no smelly Aboriginals; and c) she would be served lamb for dinner and she’d better get on board with it.

As it turns out, we had a lovely evening with Andrea, Barry, and their Japanese exchange student, Asahi. When we were introduced, I thought, “Asahi—just like the Japanese beer.” As I was pondering whether or not to mention this, Barry said, “Asahi’s a Japanese beer, yeah? Imagine that—it would be like you or me being called Canterbury Ale.”

Dinner was a lot of fun, and delicious. Somehow mom and I wound up in the group with Miss York, Mrs. Parker, and their traveling companions. I got the sense it was like a wedding seating chart, where everyone is matched up for one plausible reason or another and the leftovers wind up at their own table. I think we were the leftovers.

For dinner they served two kinds of kumara—sweet potatoes (one like ours and one paler one that tasted like a cross between a sweet potato and a regular potato); regular potatoes and carrots from their garden; baked cauliflower; and real NZ lamb with gravy and mint sauce (made with mint from their garden).

They told us that most of what’s billed as “NZ lamb” in the states is actually something called hoggart—older lamb that’s well on its way to becoming mutton. I’d be happy to take a “no hoggart” stand going forward (what we had tonight was amazing), but I’m guessing that most of the butchers in the states have never heard of hoggart (and/or have no idea how to avoid it in favor of the really good stuff). For dessert we had a pavlova—a kind of meringue jellyroll filled with pineapple cream that is apparently a traditional NZ dessert.

Our hosts told us they are actually required by the hosting program to serve us both lamb and pavlova. I guess they don’t want them getting lazy and setting out a couple of pizzas and a bag of Chips Ahoy.

Lamb on the Run
March 25

It was fun comparing notes on everyone else’s home-hosted dinners in Christchurch last night. One family reportedly served unsatisfactorily small, silver-dollar-sized slivers of lamb and held out on offering seconds of pavlova. Another was arm-twisted into participating in the program by a friend and seemed acutely uncomfortable. And still another is in the middle of sewing costumes for a touring production of Miss Saigon and hosts visiting families for dinner an average of two or three times every week. That’s one hell of a lot of lamb.

Marilyn Bolduc apparently had both too much wine and some difficulty understanding her hosts’ speedy Kiwi speech patterns and was under the misapprehension that we were spending the night in Cross Stitch (the Bolducs, as you may have gathered, are a hoot).

Today we took a 2-hour train ride from Christchurch followed by a long bus ride to the Franz Josef glacier (here pronounced glass-SEER—the NZ accents are very cute) region. Kelly, one of the LSB hosts, has either officially or unofficially been designated the wrangler of the charming yet slightly befuddled older couple. Mom and I sense that she’s looking to break free to some extent (they are delightful but exhausting, particularly in large doses), and we wound up sitting with them on the train. Mark came over soon after departure to let them know that the staff at last night’s hotel had located the husband’s $3000 hearing aid; it’s the second time he’s left it behind and he’s not even convinced it works (we wouldn’t know from our end; the man says almost nothing anyway and just nods a lot when his wife talks).

The area is beautiful—sort of like a rainforest crossed with Switzerland—and we passed countless grazing sheep and cows en route (including black cows with white bands around their middles that our driver told us were colloquially called “Oreos”). They were obviously spooked by the train and scattered as we went by, which is odd—you’d think they’d be used to it by now. The air here smells like honey—it’s wonderful.

Today we briefly lost track of Sarkis, an entertaining Armenian who tends to wander. For the past two weeks we’ve all heard his wife, Dorina, ask at some point, “Have you seen Sarkis?” Every day is like a live-action version of Where’s Waldo.

Today he made an unscheduled (and undisclosed) sojourn for water a bit too far from the bus during a pee break, incurring the brief yet fierce wrath of both Dorina (“Avert your eyes, everyone—I kill him when he comes back”) and Mark (“I hope you have your camera with you next time, Sarkis, so you can take a picture of the back of the bus as we drive away.”) Sarkis offered profuse apologies, claiming his chest cold was to blame: “I need antibiotics. I need sympathy. I need my Mama.”

On the Road Again
March 26

Today was the second of three days on the bus. As of this morning, the group was growing somewhat restless with the relentless pace. “Is just too much!” Dorina exclaimed at breakfast, as Sarkis poured himself a generous shot of Robitussin.

The lulling motion of the bus calmed everyone down somewhat. Our lunch stop was at a charming little roadside spot that looked like something in a movie—wood-paneled walls, a panoply of US license plates, a full bar, and an array of soups and meat pies.

Unfortunately, there was a timing snafu with the mysterious second bus, which had not yet departed when we arrived (both buses showing up in the same place at the same time is just not done; it’s like crossing the beams). The supply of meat pies was pretty well depleted when a short but determined member of our party stealthily crept up in line and snapped up the last one. Fortunately, there was an ice cream cart, and we are traveling with a pack of gelato hounds, so mutiny was averted. I’ve been meaning to try the “hoky-poky” (a local ice cream flavor featuring butterscotch chips and swirls of some sort) but haven’t gotten around to it yet—and I remain on the hunt for the delicious yet elusive Lamington cakes Katherine told us about.

The scenery is amazing here—today was full of breathtaking mountain passes, waterfalls, lakes, and gorges. We’ve been told that tomorrow will be even better. There are a number of venison farms in this area, so it was interesting to see packs of deer grazing in fields like sheep and cattle.

We were delayed a short ways out from the hotel due to roadwork—the pass was open only intermittently due to roadwork necessitated by a recent “slip” (the nonchalant local term for an avalanche of boulders crashing onto the road), so we stopped at a little fruit stand to kill some time. There we met the Martina Howe of the southern hemisphere; we were told in no uncertain terms that fruit samples were one per person and watched with eagle eyes. I shudder to think what would have happened had we peeled back a corn husk. There was a plum variety I’d never seen before called a “Black Doris”—do I have a Black Doris for them.

Tonight we checked into our hotel in Queenstown, which is a beautiful city situated next to mountains (“The Remarkables,” the range is called) and a beautiful glacial lake a bit bigger than Winnipesaukee. The whole thing has a an outdoorsy, affluent, Sundance sort of feel.

Dinner tonight was at a restaurant overlooking the mountains and the city; we took another gondola ride to get there. We’re surprised by how many people in our group are afraid of heights. I guess it’s something that doesn’t come up too often in real life, but is harder to conceal when people keep trying to send you up the sides of mountains in gondolas.

The views from the restaurant were wonderful, as was the food (I am frankly amazed—and impressed—by how much food some of these older people can put away), and people began to settle down and relax again.

There was a two-man guitar duo playing various hits from the ’60s; one was drinking a glass of water and the other had what looked like Riesling—you don’t often see a guy in a band with a chilled glass of white wine by his side. He strongly resembled the guy in Sideways who says everything “tastes pretty good to me.”

We’re A Sorry Bunch
March 27

The group, though in good spirits, is succumbing to all manner of ailments. Sarkis has some sort of bronchial infection. Another person has a middle ear infection and has been told by a local doc not to fly for ten days (a directive she’s going to have to ignore if she wants to join the group on the flight home). And I have a minor cold, which I thought was a relatively isolated thing until people started asking me if I had “The Cold”—apparently it’s steadily making its way around the bus. Mom, knock on wood, has so far avoided joining the ranks of the sickies.

Mark urged us to keep our various germs to ourselves as much as possible: “If you have to cough, please cough into your hand…your sleeve…your spouse’s neck…”

Yesterday we (minus the sick Sarkis and caregiving Mrs. Sarkis) took a bus ride to Milford Sound, a very pretty region of glacial-carved gorges and waterfalls. The fact that it’s glacier-created rather than river-created makes it technically a fjord rather than a sound, our driver reports, but I can see how trying to nail the correct spelling and pronunciation of “fjord” could get old after a while.

Our driver told us that the locals say, “You haven’t seen Milford Sound until you’ve seen it in the rain.” We thought he was just trying to make us feel better about the fact that we were embarking on a 4-hour drive in a torrential downpour to see something we could barely make out through the clouds and fog—many of us with hacking coughs and runny noses.

But as it turns out, many of the waterfalls come out only during a hard rain or immediately afterward, and we saw all of them through the clouds and the mist. The group was delighted—our driver had succeeded in turning a negative into a positive, and I think the driving rain heightened everyone’s sense of “I’m on a real adventure here.”

At one of the rest stops we found a little pharmacy and headed for the cold and flu section. They have a lot of remedies for “chesty coughs,” which amused me; maybe they also treat “sexy sneezes.”

I bought—over the counter—a killer cold remedy called Codral labeled “controlled substance” in big letters. It features both codeine, the increasingly-difficult-to-find-in-the-states pseudoephedrine, and two other drugs I’ve never heard of.

The pills are enormous; you take 4 during the day and 2 at night. They seem to have knocked out both my cold and other things I didn’t even know I had; I feel better than I have in years. Thank goodness the states are stricter with their controlled substances, or I could have the beginnings of a real problem here.

Free Day in Queenstown
March 28

Today, for the first time on the trip, mom and I had a completely unscheduled day. There were three optional excursions—a “Lord of the Rings” SUV tour; a harrowing-looking thrill ride on a cigarette boat; and a dinner cruise on Queenstown’s version of the Mt. Washington—but none of them really grabbed us.

We felt disoriented having no schedule, and at breakfast it was clear that others in the group were having issues as well (dropping hot toast, spilling coffee, bumping into walls, and so forth). As Mark put it yesterday, for the better part of three weeks he’s told us when to get up, when to eat, and even when to pee. The sudden freedom was thrilling but a bit terrifying.

Mark was eating breakfast with the capable yet cranky Liz DeStefano, the guide in charge of the mysterious second bus. We will be handed off to Liz in a few days for the trip home, when half our group splits off for the optional three-day “Fiji Extension”—an option mom and I are not taking (and one which always puts “Rainbow Connection” in my head). Mark is going with the Fiji group, and Liz is LA-bound with the rest of us.

Part of Liz’s ill temper may be attributable to the fact—revealed yesterday—that she is *not* in fact pregnant, as all of us have mistakenly believed since the start of the trip. It’s unclear how the rumor got started, but a random comment made during the bush BBQ seems to be the likeliest scenario. Liz apparently received about a dozen sincere yet misguided congratulations from the folks on our bus yesterday, which seems to have pushed her over the edge. Given her age, her build, and her fondness for peasant blouses, pregnancy certainly didn’t seem a far-fetched possibility.

Today mom went to the airport to look into the possibility of flying for an hour or so, but unfortunately it was not meant to be—the person at the desk told her there were no instructors on duty today, and they are understandably reluctant to turn the plane over to a complete stranger without an instructor present. It was a bummer, as she’d been looking forward to trying to fly over here and had been trying to coordinate it (with Mark’s assistance) for a while now.

So, instead, we went to Kiwi Land (it’s not really called that, but it may as well have been), where we got to see NZ’s famed flightless birds in action. They’re different than we expected—about chicken-sized, very round, with sleek brown feathers and long stick-like beaks that they rap on the ground like canes. They move with an awkward hopping motion, as if they’re hampered by an old football injury.

Kiwis are nocturnal, but they flip their day around in captivity so we can see them out and about—they’re in a glassed-in enclosure lit by red darkroom lights. They feed them ox hearts mixed with cat treats and sultanas (golden raisins). I don’t imagine that’s what the wild kiwis eat.

The guide told us that people used to hunt them, but they “don’t taste very flash,” as our guide put it—one early explorer likened them to “fatty pork boiled in an old coffin.” Despite their lack of menu appeal, kiwis are still endangered here—mainly because animals (like opossums and ferrets) brought into NZ to eradicate other pests preferred snacking on the kiwis instead.

After kiwi time, we went to an Indian restaurant for lunch and walked around the city a bit. There are a lot of woollens on offer. The possums are considered a huge pest here (they are bad for more than just the kiwis, it seems), so nobody seems to feel shy about selling their pelts—possum rug, anyone?—or weaving their fur into gloves, hats, and sweaters. We also went to a movie theater (surely one of the world’s smallest) and saw Gran Torino. I think some of the nuances of Clint Eastwood’s character’s uniquely American brand of bigotry may have gone over the heads of the other four people in the theater, but we liked it a lot.

We had dinner at a very nice Italian restaurant and caught the end of a bizarre yet captivating street performance on the way back. Scott from Melbourne hoisted himself onto a small platform covered in nails; the platform was on top of a ten-foot pole held aloft by a lively German named Gunter. Scott’s big finale was to level himself belly-down on the nails and juggle five flaming torches. At the end of the show, he urged us to do our part to support street theater: “If you were to give me $20, it would make my night. For $50, I’ll make your night. And for $100, I’ll bring Gunter along.”

In the Shadow of Mt. Cook
March 29

Today we left Queenstown and took the bus to Mt. Cook, aka “Aoraki”—which means “cloud-piercer” in Maori. It’s New Zealand’s highest mountain and looks like a great big Alp looming over everything around it. The weather has been perfectly clear and it’s an amazing thing to see—fortunately, nobody has tried to tell us that Mt. Cook is better in the rain.

On the way here, we stopped at Arrowtown, a small mining town that somewhat resembles the ghost town the Bradys got stranded in on their big road trip (remember when Alice tried to pump the well and came up with a cloud of dust?) Anyway, our shoppers did remarkably well there, particularly in light of the fact that we arrived before 10 on a Sunday morning. People came away with various woollens, jade, toy sheep, and candies from the sweet shop. One woman even successfully managed to beg a shopkeeper to delay his planned trip to the dump so that he could open early and sell her a particularly enticing lavender windbreaker she spotted in the window.

Later on the drive, we learned about a famous local sheep named Shrek. Shrek apparently dodged the annual shearing for 6 years running (he was ultimately found hiding in a cave). By the time they located him, he looked like a gigantic snowball and couldn’t even see because his wool had grown so far over his eyes. He was shorn for charity and even given a special coat to wear afterwards; people were understandably concerned he might be chilly after losing the equivalent of a dozen sweaters off his body. A children’s book has been written about him, which several people bought for their grandchildren.

Sir Edmund Hillary is a native New Zealander, and he made use of Mt. Cook to prep for his historic Everest climb. Accordingly, there is an Edmund Hillary museum downstairs here at the hotel. After viewing the movie at the museum, I came to the conclusion that Sir Ed, to use a British expression, was a total wanker.

The evidence seems pretty clear that his sherpa, Tenzing Norgay, was the first person to summit Everest, yet Ed basically accused poor Tenzing of lying and claimed the honor for himself (even as Tenzing lay dying years later, saying that he wished he’d never made the climb at all, the best Ed could come up with was something to the effect that Tenzing was a jolly good chap).

A few years after Everest, on an expedition to the South Pole, Ed feigned ignorance that another branch of the expedition was trying to achieve the “first to the South Pole” record and beat them to the punch. He was afraid to propose to his wife and let his mom do it for him. He ignored his children for long stretches while he traipsed around the Himalayas. After both his wife and his best friend passed away in separate plane crashes, he wasted no time in starting things up with his friend’s widow.

Wanker.

Before dinner, we had a group photo in front of Mt. Cook. About 38 of the 44 of us showed up sporting the spiffy new LSB sweaters. Mom has a similarly toned yellow sweater that blends well. I’m wearing pink but am hiding in the back behind Miss York. And Danny Webster, bless his heart, who is turning 80 next month and has homes in both Gilmanton and Maui, is wearing a brightly patterned Hawaiian shirt in a lurid shade of orange. Another member of the group sacrifices his sweater for the sake of covering Danny up. And a good time was had by all.

Homeward Bound
March 30

Today we left Mount Cook very early—it’s a good thing we were able to see it yesterday afternoon since it was just barely getting light out as we headed off. Australia is getting ready to end Daylight Savings Time next weekend, so the mornings have been very dark.

We stopped in a nondescript town called Geraldine for lunch, and then made a second stop at a working sheep farm. We’re not quite sure how these folks hooked up with Collette Tours, but the farm is run by a very enterprising guy in his late 20s (Charles), along with his wife (Amelia) and their 4 young children. They give tours of the farm that include a sheep-herding demo, a sheep-shearing demo, and a tour of their historic home complete with juice and homemade cookies. We did not get to meet Amelia; Charles told us that she was holed up upstairs frantically working on their taxes.

For the sheep-herding demo, they gathered a few hundred sheep in the corner of a huge field and turned two of their dogs loose on them (the dogs were getting lots of belly-rubs and attention from the group, so it took a few minutes for them to shift gears). Essentially how it works is that the dogs charge at the sheep and bark at them a lot, which the sheep find unnerving, so they do everything they can to get away from the dogs. The dogs successfully chased the sheep around the far edge of the field and right towards us, leading to a closer sheep encounter than many in our group anticipated or wanted; they wound up just inches from us. Amazing how much noise a few hundred sheep feet can make. It sounded like a small stampede.

Charles told us that all farmers know in theory how to shear a sheep, but that he knows no farmers who actually shear their own sheep; it’s specialized work that is always outsourced to professional sheep shearers. It takes about 5 years to really master the skill, he said. A good shearer eventually builds up to around 350-400 sheep per day, earning around $1.50-$2.00 per sheep. Considering that time is money for sheep shearers, anything that slows down the process (not feeding the sheep into the holding pen quickly enough, making loud noises that spook the sheep, etc.) “makes them cross,” Charles said. “Quite a lot of things make them cross, actually.”

Charles put on his sheep shearing shoes (all leather; they looked like moccasins—he said rubber soles don’t give good traction once you’ve got a lot of wool and lanolin flying around) and selected one unwilling candidate for the shearing demo. It was this particular sheep’s first haircut ever, and he put up a bit of a fight.

Charles used the “New Zealand method” to shear the sheep—it was developed by a kiwi named Godfrey Bowen and designed for maximum speed, leverage, wool yield, and ergonomic safety (for the shearer, that is—the sheep’s comfort is decidedly secondary). The current world record for sheep shearing, held by a master of the NZ method, is 17 seconds. Charles said they’ve done studies concluding that a day of shearing sheep is physically as taxing as running a marathon.

For anyone who’s ever seen Mrs. Lacroix shear a sheep at her farm in Gilford, this was nothing remotely like that. I think it’s safe to say she was *not* employing the NZ method, which seems to require an awful lot of close contact with the sheep, and the sheep’s head between one’s upper thighs for a good portion of the process.

After the sheep shearing, we retired to the house for juice and cookies. Charles was selling signed copies of a children’s book he wrote about the family’s sheep-herding dogs; the book will also soon be available at www.whatadog.com (I told you he was enterprising).

After the farm, we continued on to Christchurch, returning to the same hotel we stayed at our first night in NZ. Tonight’s farewell dinner was held at a nearby restored mansion.

Our tour guide was an earnest yet annoying woman who seemed to forget that we didn’t have the intimate knowledge of (or interest in) the house’s history and numerous occupants that she did, so the tour was peppered with out-of-context comments like, “Poor Julia died in this room” and “You may recall, when Henry first came to Christchurch, that Dora stayed behind in England.” Many of the people she mentioned seemed to have met a gristly, premature end (one lived to be 94 but lost a leg somewhere along the line). She also managed to deftly insult New Yorkers, lawyers, and members of town government in one fell swoop—it was actually rather impressive.

Mom had opted against a pre-dinner snack, and we hadn’t realized the house tour would be so extensive. She was getting ready to gnaw on the hand-turned balusters by the time the guide released us. Dinner was fun, and we said our goodbyes to our NZ driver and those continuing on the Fiji extension. The rest of us head to Auckland tomorrow, where we fly to LA and land eight hours earlier than we departed. It will be just like Groundhog Day.

Sunday brought us back to the airport – a task in itself when we had to catch two separate cabs – to head on over to the Northern Territory.

We arrive at Alice Springs, and the minute we step off the plane onto the stairs down to the tarmac, the heat hits the face like a brick wall. Crossing that tarmac in jeans and a sweatshirt was less than ideal. Dry head and flies. Lots of flies. They start looking for any cranny of shade that’s to be found on my face – in my ears, under my nose, and in the corners of my eyes. They tend to go for the eyes. That’s were they can find protein from our tears.

And that’s central Australia in a nutshell.

We – Rachel, Xu, Lisa, Becky, and myself – catch the shuttle to Toddy’s, our hostel. After dropping the bags off, we take the longest flat walk of my life into the center of town. Okay, it was only a fifteen minute walk on concrete sidewalk. But the temperature was HOT. And the sun was right overhead. Not fun.

The first stop on the journey is at The Rock Tour office. We have to check in with our tour provider, pay a fee for entering the National Park, and grab some rubber bracelets for us to wear. The girls there are super nice, and we’re just glad to sit somewhere air conditioned. Among the other stories about what to expect on our tour and the expected weather forecast, the girl tells us not to walk alone in Alice Springs at night. Case in point, she tells us, was that one of their guys was locking up outside behind their office building and got assaulted. Punched in the face. Black eye.

Alice is a small town if there ever was one. Next order of business is lunch, so we catch a bite at a artsy little cafe in a side alleyway. Attempts at some shopping were done, but since it was a lazy Sunday afternoon, most places were closed. Except for the occasional walker-by and the Aboriginals sitting outside under the shade of trees, there wasn’t much activity.

The mall provided some refuge. Feeling better after some souvenir shopping and a ice cream cone, we headed to grab some fly nets from an outdoor shop just before it closed. Best $7.50 I spent in my life. You’ll see.

Time for some of the local tourist attractions. Though we didn’t catch the Telegraph Station, we did stop by the Royal Flying Doctor Service museum. The RFDS is a aero-medical support service that started attending to those in remote areas of Queensland in 1928. Today, it’s expanded into providing medical support for people all across the country. (A fun fact learned at the museum – QANTAS stands for Queensland and Northern Territory Aerial Services.)

After the RFDS (and some giddy chatting on the floor of the museum entryway), we took a look at the National Pioneer Women’s Hall of Fame, in the old Alice Springs gaol. In addition to talking about some of the local nuns and the history of their work in the jail, one building had a great exhibit about the various females pioneering in their respective fields, from film to archetecture to medicine to athletics. Plus there were displays about how women lived in the desolate and dry Australian outback. However, the biggest hit was probably the gift shop – which sold a bunch of crafty and kitchy items you would find at a Cracker Barrel.

Dinner was the next item to tick off the list. This consisted of picking up snacks at the local convenience store and checking out the local Kentucky Fried Chicken.

Rachel and I headed to the bar/restaurant at Toddy’s for food while the others jumped in the pool. While Rachel chowed down on some wedges and sweet chili sauce, I used her sour cream to garnish my Kangaroo Salad. Yes, the meat was kangaroo. Tough, but good. A flavor I’ve never quite tasted before. I could do some roo again.

After our meal (and being entertained by Australian’s Border Security – quality reality television), we joined the rest of the gang at the pool. Here, Rachel thought the drain on the pool’s side wall was a wallet. Long story.

Needless to say, an exhausting day. Shower and bed were welcome, especially in preparation for what lay ahead.

]]> http://thisissightline.wordpress.com/2009/02/12/qantas-launch-a380/ Thu, 12 Feb 2009 14:46:57 +0000 artboyuk http://thisissightline.wordpress.com/2009/02/12/qantas-launch-a380/

Brr it’s cold. Standing on another platform at a train station in Surrey heading up to London. This time to photograph the launch video of a new plane for Qantas.

We worked with Liquid ( www.theliquidway.com ) to edit and produce footage showing how the new A380 has been designed and built with Australian principles running through everything from the seats and uniforms to the hand prepared food.

Visit our website from Friday for more information ( www.Sightline.co.uk )

Dottern har nu varit nästan en vecka i Australien. Jag hade inte trott att en 13-åring får sån jetlag Hon var vimmelkantig i ett par dagar. Hennes flyg var en bra rutt Helsingfors-Hong Kong -Sydney. Men i HK var det bara 1 h 15 min tid för byte! Så man fick rappa på och ta några springsteg. Ibland är det personal som möter en och visar vart man ska ta vägen för nästa flyg. Men inte denna gång. Den sträckan tog ‘bara’ dryga 9 timmar och samma med nästa, HK- Sydney. Så det är inte så farligt. Först var det Finnair sedan Quantas och hem blir det Cathay Pacific. Sistnämda okänd för mig men deras plan har klassats som en av världens finaste.

Vädret har dom senaste dagarna varit lagooooom varmt, 35 i lördags  Så hon har badat och badat lite till även bastat!!! Önk? Basta i den värmen? Ok, hon hade hoppat in i poolen efteråt. Är man finne så är man ( fast jag tror hon gjorde det för att dom andra skulle göra det).

I recently changed employers. I put it that way because it sounds better than saying “I chucked in my job”.
My main motivation for “changing employers” was money, money, money! I have to say I was quite happy at my last job. I liked the boss, I liked the work and while the pay rate wasn’t fantastic it was in line with other drivers doing the same job for other companies.
The new job is a Fly In/Fly Out (FIFO) driving position for a crane hire company. Still driving roadtrains but carting all of the crane associated equipment such as counter wieghts and lifting gear. It’s a real change of pace, believe me!
At first I couldn’t adjust to the change of pace. Twenty years of working for frieght orientated companies is hard to override when I start working for a crane company and the trucks are a minor part of the operation – not the focus.
Hanging around the yard for 10hrs straight isn’t much fun. Even after the truck has been washed, polished, Armorall’d, greased, etc, etc. (How much can you do to keep busy?)
The upside is the pay for sitting/waiting. A lot of jobs come in with short notice. To mobilise a crane takes a support crew and to recall the crew from off-duty usually presents problems. If they want to pay me to sit around playing with my…um, yeah – just waiting, I’m cool with that. I just have to develop strategies to deal with doing bugger all, to keep me sane.
On a slightly different note : my last flight back from Newman. I really feel sorry for the young bloke sitting next to me on the Quantas Boeing 717 last trip. The poor fella started getting a bit flustered even before we began to taxi onto the strip. I wasn’t wearing my Sunday best but I didn’t fancy getting puked on, let alone having to travel the whole way home smelling of someone else’s puke. Luckily he he did the right thing and kept it to himself.
At the moment I am enjoying a week of R & R. Catching up with family and friends, getting a good supply of books to take back out with me. I lashed out and bought a iPod Touch and I’m loving it! My 4yr old 30Gb iPod classic is starting to fail (it’s had a hard life) and I’m stocking the Touch up with plenty of content before I fly back out to work.
Got to go and fire up the BBQ now so I’ll catch you later.

Cheers, Mike.

Você se lembra de quando era um adolescênte, sem experiência alguam e doido pra beijar alguma garota por que todos os seus amigos falavam que já tinham beijado várias e você nenhuma?

Se não se lembra ou é uma mulher tente imaginar por que dá pra tirar uma lição disto.

Muitos garotos no desespero de encontrar uma doída que aceitasse suas boqueiras atiravam para todos os lados, isto é, só não tentavam beijar a professora pois esta já era casada, e uns até tentavam.

Você se lembram o que aconteciam com estes garotos? Ou ao menos pode imaginar? Os infelizes eram colocados de lado pelo sexo feminino, pois as garotas é que não queriam um garoto desesperado que já havia tentado beijar até o poodle delas. A professora menos ainda (que bom). O pooble é que dava umas mordidas neles mas estas não tinham nem mais graça.

Estórias a parte o que estou tentando dizer que assim como na adolescência, no mundo dos negócios a polivalência não é boa, só lhe tras prejuíso.

Primeiramente, a polivalência contraria o post anterior onde eu disse que você só deve apostar quantias que lhe deem retorno. Sinceramente, acho difícil seres humanos normais como eu e você terem tanto dinheiro disponível assim para que ao dividir seu dinheiro em várias ações ou investimentos, o mesmo se mantenha numa quantia relevante.

Digamos que você tenha este dinheiro e está doido para comprar umas dez ações na bolsa, em cada uma você gasta uns 5000 reais. Aí você me diz: Eu dividí meu dinheiro, mas mesmo assim tenho quantias boas em cada ação.

Realmente amigo, você tem.

Porém analise comigo:

Manter o dinheiro na bolsa ou em qualquer outro investimento não é tão fácil quanto muitos pensam não, você tem de acompanhar as taxas diárias, manter-se invormado, fazer as contas sobre as taxas de juros e impostos, observar o mercado de uma forma geral para saber quando vender e quando comprar, resumindo, é quase outro emprego. Um emprego muito prazeroso eu confesso, e com o tempo você pega uma certa experiência e todas as tarefas acima se tornam mais automáticas (como com as garotas).

Por isto eu lhe aconselho ter no máximo dois investimentos. Mais que isto você vai acabar metendo os pés pelas mãos assim como você fazia quando adolescênte e venhamos e convenhamos amigo, o sonho de todo homem é ter duas ou mais mulheres mas imagine o trabalho que elas não devem dar.

A cada dia que passa vejo menos diferênca entre amor e negócios.

Obrigado pela atenção de todos

Last week an Airbus A330 belonging to the australian airline Quantas suddenly lost height during the flight because of a computer failure. Wrong data were sent to the flight control computer, said the Australian Transport Safety Board yesterday. The flight control Computer turned off the autopilot.

The plane had 303 passengers and ten crew members; 46 pasengers were injured. The pilot landed at the nearby military airport in Exmouth.

I just finished re-reading a few chapters of Anthony Bourdain’s book, Kitchen Confidential, while sitting outside of my nearby Starbucks, sipping a large coffee with cream and three raw sugars, enjoying the feeling of the warm sun, dressed in shorts, a loose buttoned tropical shirt, and flip flops. I am happy.

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For the last half dozen years, I have golfed in an annual tournament called the Wine Country Golf Invitational. The charity that is supported by the tournament is a ridiculously wasteful exercise in vanity on the part of the charity’s creators, the money could be used to achieve the same purpose more effectively; but any good is better than no good, and hey, I’m really just about the golf anyway.

Yesterday, feeling tightness in my back, as I ventured from my warm house into cold and drizzle, I thought about the tournament. When my back seized, I dismissed thoughts of golfing.

Today, feeling great, I received a call from my business partner, asking, pleading, cajoling, and finally convincing me to golf in the tournament next week.

I am among the world’s worst golfers; I don’t have a golf swing so much as a baseball swing tilted to a more vertical plane. I have seen my swing on video once, something I vow never to see again. Stephen King’s clown Pennywise from the book IT is less disturbing than my swing.

In spite of my swing, the little team we field each year for the tournament has taken second place three of the years we’ve competed.

We could come in last, and I would still love the day. We are treated to a terrific lunch, there are kegs of Sonoma County’s best micro brewed ales conveniently situated on the course, different holes have different snacks waiting from fresh baked cookies to BBQ oysters, and after the golf there is both a wine tasting and buffet put on by local restaurants and wineries AND a sit down multi-course meal. Oh, and we golf. And the kids win, it’s all about the charity.

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I was looking at a Qantas sale on flights to Australia. I really wanted to go, but I passed on the opportunity.

Today, I found that United is running the same sale; the big difference: I fly United and can use the frequent flyer miles, and United is offering an additional 10,000 flight miles for this special.

After my last booked holiday art and craft show of the year, in December, I am looking to fly from San Francisco to Melbourne and return just before Christmas.

Melbourne is Australia’s destination for “foodies”, I have friends in Melbourne, and I have extended family in Melbourne.

In a year when I have decided that I deserve to gift myself without justification, this may be among my best gifts I give myself.

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My son’s mom asked me today to help her create a resume. I am thrilled to do anything I can that will help her find gainful employment. It may seem small, but this is a good thing.

My son and his mom will get to spend some time together this weekend as they will visit with her parents, my son’s grandparents, in Sonoma County for the mother’s day weekend.

I will be taking a solo holiday, not leaving my home, but enjoying some alone time to read and nap.

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I called Charlie’s mom at her boyfriend’s house to tell her how to score some “mom of the year” points with her son. She is buying movie tickets for the premiere screening of the new Star Trek movie here in Ukiah.

Charlie will get to stay up super late on a school night, then spoil the plot for his schoolmates at school tomorrow. 12 year old boy Heaven.

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I am bemused that my blog has readers. I write because I have to write. I am doing it for me.

I read someone else’s blog entries. I look forward to each new entry. She lives a very different life than the one I live. She lives in a foreign, but not too foreign, country. She is fantastically talented, but questions her self worth; I wish I could express how much I care about her and her life. Her writing is the only connection we will ever have. She is young, I am old. She eats veggies, I love meat. She lives there, I live here. We will never meet; but her writing is so good, so revealing, so honest, so brave – it is as if I know her. I definitely look forward to each new posted entry she writes.

It is because her writing is so good that I try to be a more thoughtful writer, to be a better craftsman.

Re-reading Bourdain’s Kitchen Confidential, I am again confronted with superior word-smithery. Another goad, I have to strive to be better at this writing thing.

The last four words of Bourdain’s that I read: “Shut the fuck up.”

With that, I will for today.

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Edited to Add:

I just returned from the new Star Trek movie and logged on to say I thought it was really enjoyable.

It was also great to see my high school friend Ron Pipes’ name in the credits at the end of the movie. Hurray for Ron!

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Golfing, we came in second again, good for 36 teams.