So keep in mind that sign, and the information contained thereupon, as we go though our entertainment options on Thursday Island for the month we were there.

First option was to check out the new Torres Straight Islander cultural center (neat and educational)

…or just skip the middle man and make like the natives by going swimming.

Now, to get the full experience you really need to go spearfishing spearfishing in the crocodile infested waters– they have to get the manatee and turtle meat somehow!

Also, if swimming is just a little too close to the relative safety of dry land for your sense of adventure to be quenched – you can always join the annual island to island raft race

And no, we didn’t crew for these guys.
As a rule of thumb, We prefer just a little more freeboard between us and the things that would make us lunch

To be fair, we aren’t much to talk, considering we abandoned ship 800 miles from shore to swim the equator and meet a shark.

And where did those zombie mangoes come from?  Well, a Japanese graveyard of course!

Because when Northern Australia was first getting started they had a pearl industry that the Japanese participated in…as divers.

not surprisingly, some of them died.

Mostly of old age, which actually was surprising.

There’s also an old fort here

and though you might think it was built to beat back the island’s giant mutant termite population…

Tiffany is 5ft 9in and their colony is taller than her!

or to protect Australia in WW 2 – being as that’s a thing here…

neither is accurate.  The base was built to check the potential Russian invasion…

Back when they were worried about Russia  invading…

In 1892!?

So, basically it’s the cold war base from back when before the cold war was cool.

And while dodging crocodiles, fighting off mutant termites, eating zombie mangoes and keeping a watchful eye out for the freaking Russian invasion (!?!) be sure to notice the flowers.  The flowers are really great:

Or if all that seems like too much, just grab some grog at the highest pub in Australia and call it a day -

We are beginning to understand why Aussies take the lethality of their homeland as a point of national pride.

About the authors

Greg and Tiffany are traveling around the world on sailing yachts and keep a video blog of their (mis)adventures.  If sailing to Tahiti on a 44 ft sailboat, 3-day delays for wine tastings, getting pooped on by seagulls, opening coconuts with dull machetes, sailing past tornadoes and ukulele Christmas carols are for you, then check them out at www.CoastGuardCouple.com!

Thursday Island really excited us because it was, we were told, a really rare opportunity to spend some time with the native people of Australia.

Which is, in case you’re wondering, a really, really hard thing to do.

We also came to find out that the “Aborigines” are not the only native people of Australia.  The “Torres Straight Islanders” are a completely different native people than the people of mainland Australia.  So we actually spent some time visiting Aboriginal sites in mainland Australia but while we spent time in an area where there were “natives” these natives were not “Aborigines”…kind of confusing at first.

In a previous post, we talked about our experiences with racism and sexism in Australia.

But we would not be fair in our reporting unless we explained both sides of the coin here.

Because the natives do not make this easy.

The reason for this is that some aspects of the culture and traditions of the native peoples are radically different from those of the Western world from which the settlers of Australia hail.

And while this is all well and good and people can share ideas and learn from each other -

(challenging personal cultural assumptions is one of the great benefits of meeting new people)

- the core issue comes from the fact that in a few key areas, the culture of the native people of Australia are, for very justifiable reasons mind you, actually hindering relations rather than aiding it.

Allow us to elaborate:

(Now we are forced here to again paint with a very, very broad brush that is also heavily influenced by our own totally subjective experience.  Just like every white Australian is not racist and sexist, not every indigenous Australian fits into these molds and in fact some oppose them.  From elected officials to surgeons to Olympic gold medal athletes, Indigenous Australians have notably contributed in many areas to their home country.  To even only use the 2 designations of “Aborigine” and “Torres straight islander” is a rather limited way to view the peoples who had over 200 distinct languages when the British arrived to colonize.  We are talking at the macro level here because there is where we saw the largest disconnect between the different peoples of Australia.)

1^st Cultural Difference – Dissemination of Information

The Aboriginals would never have invented the internet and it has nothing to do with technological competence.

It has to do with how their culture approaches the right of people to have access to information.

This, for us, was the biggest source of frustration when attempting to learn more about the native people of Australia because it was something that was not only contrary to our own cultural norms, it also by its very nature prevented us from completely understanding it.

We of the West are pretty firmly in the camp of “information sharing.”  From storytellers to scribes to printing presses to typewriters to radio to television to the modern day where we experience all forms of media bombardment, over the last several hundred years the West has almost relentlessly pursued the ability to disseminate the most amount of information to the largest number of people as quickly as possible.

For us, there is too much information available for our consumption and we have been forced to find ways to filter some of the overload.

We’ve come to understand that this concept of freedom to access information is, and we’re not exaggerating here, the exact opposite of the culture of many indigenous Australians.

This was highlighted by a story we heard about one of the first encounters with the Aboriginals by Westerners.  The Aboriginal leaders identified the leaders of the expedition of explorers and, as they were the leaders, told them all the information on the area.  Water holes, animal migration patterns, what grows well, what wild fruit can be eaten and where to find it …that kind of stuff.

Then the explorers did what explorers do when they learn new stuff: they wrote it down and showed it to everyone – which was completely HORRIFYING to the leaders of the natives and basically convinced them that these new people were just not responsible enough to be trusted with important information…while the explorers scratched their heads and attempted to figure out why the Aboriginal leaders were keeping important information from their own people.

And we get it, it makes sense.  The native peoples of Australia eked out an existence for centuries in a barren wasteland that would make most post-apocalyptic movies hang their heads in shame.  Conservation of the available natural resources was not a good political tag line over in Australia back in the day – it was a matter of human survival.

Because in a situation like the ones the Aborigines lived in, telling every idiot with a spear where the only local flock of emus bed down for the night is a recipe for over-hunting and eventual death by starvation for their entire tribe – which is bad.

But when holding back information becomes so systemic to the culture that there are signs around Uluru pretty much saying “please don’t take pictures to the left of this sign because – well there’s a good reason but we can’t tell you”

…It makes it hard for a Westerner to understand.

And when we want to learn more about their beliefs and people and we constantly run up against walls of “we can’t tell you” it’s a little frustrating – and quite frankly?  Excluding.  We understand that’s not what they are intending, but emotionally it’s difficult to not feel intentionally left out.

But then, here we are recreating the reason for the exclusion in the first place by posting information on the internet where anyone can access it.  This post itself is THE REASON why we aren’t allowed access to even minor important information.  Because we’ll just go out and tell everyone – and that’s bad in their minds.

Greg put it well when he began to understand that they have completely as a people embraced the ideas of “classified information” and “information security” but instead of, like in the West, pushing to declassify everything, the natives of Australia believe in moving information in the opposite direction – of classifying as much information as highly as possible.

Which makes it really hard to understand anything when you don’t have the clearance.

2^nd Cultural Difference – Self-Isolation

This is one where, as Americans, we can at least begin to relate.  More than once we have been asked “Why do all Americans want to own grenade launchers?” or “Why do you all like going to war all the time?”  To which we often answer, “That’s not all of us, you’re just seeing one small subgroup, and a rather unflattering one at that, of a much larger group of people who just tend to keep to themselves.”

“Since Americans tend to stay in their own country almost all the time,” we explain, “whenever you  see an isolated example that paints us in a bad light it’s important to remember that the  painting is magnified by the fact that you don’t see the rest of us who likely are a lot more like you than you may think.”

Like Americans in relation to the rest of the world, the native peoples of Australia tend self-isolate.  Some groups go so far as to live on their own in their native lands and follow their native ways of life.  Others live in modern towns but those towns are of mostly made up of natives and again are isolated from others.

In some ways this sounds noble and desirable: preserving history for future generations and allowing people to maintain their unique culture.  And we get it, it makes sense.  They want to ensure their way of life continues on and the best way to do that is to keep their society’s members together in one place.  Also as we will mention below, the immigrants to the natives’ land have done some pretty harsh things to the natives in the past so there is some serious cultural mistrust there as well alongside some real racism that even we encountered.  Fair enough.

Unfortunately keeping themselves separate also has the unintended consequence of leaving the only natives we see as the ones who are not allowed to live with their own tribes.  This is usually due to the fact that they have been thrown out.  As in: the criminals, the drunks, the vagrants.

So it is the outcasts that are the most often seen ambassadors of the native Australians to the world – and they aren’t doing a very good job.

For example, it is not an uncommon sight in the outback towns to see a line of “aborigines” waiting for the pub to open so they can go drink and gamble.  While this might not be indicative of the typical indigenous Australian, it becomes difficult to remember when that is the majority of what we see.

3^rd Cultural Difference – Reverse Racism

Racism does go both ways in Australia.  From simple prejudice to segregation to outright violence, predisposition about people due to the color of their skin is mutual.

And we get it, it makes sense.  The white people did some seriously, horribly messed up stuff to the Aboriginal people.

Slavery, state sanctioned kidnapping of children, forced reeducation camps, attempts at extermination, that stuff was freaking sick.

But when we as travelers get lumped into the same group as the people who did those horrible things just because our skin pigmentation happens to be similar…  When doctors volunteering in the outback get death threats from their patients just because of the color of their skin…well… isn’t that pretty much the same thing?

Racism is inexcusable in all its forms and no matter who is being prejudiced against.

So not only does Australia have to deal with racism, even after surmounting that there is still a massive cultural divide that must be navigated before any real work can be accomplished.

It’s a hard road, fraught with setbacks and both sides struggle with it time and again.

However they continue to struggle and despite it all make progress.  While we would say that they don’t have it figured out yet and that progress can be slow, they also as a country have made some massive strides.

The Australian government famously and publicly apologized for their history of abuse to their native population.  That’s not a solution and it’s a heck of a step in the right direction.

And in the face of such difficulty, of prejudice of the people on both sides and the inherent conflicts in both groups’ cultural norms, to keep struggling, while it does not excuse the need for more progress on both sides, does speak well for the people of Australia.  All of them.

For more on our experiences with the racism and the effects in Australia you can check out our article from the opposite perspective in the imperfect mirror.

About the authors

Greg and Tiffany are traveling around the world on sailing yachts and keep a video blog of their (mis)adventures.  If sailing to Tahiti on a 44 ft sailboat, 3-day delays for wine tastings, getting pooped on by seagulls, opening coconuts with dull machetes, sailing past tornadoes and ukulele Christmas carols are for you, then check them out at www.CoastGuardCouple.com!

Queensland, AU

 Greg has a long-standing belief that tropical climates produce some of the best wine.  His logic comes from visiting wineries in Florida.

Yes, Florida has wineries.  We’ll get to that later.

The short of it is that the environment does not lend itself well to heavy wines.  The climate of the tropics in general inspires beverages that are a little lighter, a little sweeter with fruit flavors often at the forefront and best served well-chilled.

Where, yes, you can actually make use of a personal wineglass cozy.

So the tropics pretty much inspire the exact kinds of wine we enjoy and the single winery we found up here did not disappoint.

It should be noted that you are reading the grog files of a pair of people who actually enjoyed wine created from bananas.

So take that into account as you reference our opinions.

Queensland is also the home of Bundaberg – Where Australia creates some of its most famous alcoholic and non-alcoholic libations.

Murdering Point Winery

Type: Winery

Rating: 4 sheets to the wind

Website: http://www.murderingpointwinery.com.au/

Notes:

Like we said, this is another one of those weird wineries that don’t actually use grapes so much…or at all.  This is either really fun and novel, or pure heresy, depending on your adherence to the “rules” about wine.

But this would not be the first occasion we’ve flirted with ideas that might be considered heresy in our home country so we weren’t fazed.

They have dry wines – yeah we didn’t taste that.

Their fruity sweet wines were awesome! – Lots of good light sweet wine ideal for drinking with friends on a hot tropical day – Mango wine, mulberry wine, passion fruit wine, lychee wine, and some Brazilian fruit we don’t remember but was really good!

Ports – Pineapple port (Greg’s fav) and choco-mulberry (which should have been Greg’s fav but the pineapple port was that good) among others.

Cream – Slightly different take on after dinner drink and similar idea to a port: Mocha Cream (we bought some – it didn’t last long) and mint chocolate chip cream (Chris’ fav).

Simply put – for the novelty of the ingredients it’s worth pulling off the motorway and checking it out.  For the quality of the taste it’s worth buying something.

Bundaberg

Type: Soft Drinks & Rum

Rating: 2 sheets to the wind

Website: http://www.bundaberg.com

Notes: We’re not huge rum fans and that’s what Bundaberg is best known for around the world.  We didn’t  particularly like or dislike the stuff but that’s an accurate description of rum in general (One notable exception to that, reference below.)

We did, however, vastly prefer their non-alcoholic drinks.

Sarsaparilla is something that Greg thought existed only in old spaghetti western movies but apparently it does in fact exist.  Bundaberg does a good job with theirs. (on its own this rates a 3)

The Ginger beer isn’t much to talk about except when used to make one of Tiffany’s favorite sailor’s drinks – the dark and stormy.  Combined with Captain Morgan’s Spiced rum, the Bundaberg ginger beer does quite well.

XXXX

Type: Beer

Rating: 2.5 Sheets to the wind (what the heck does 2.5 even mean?)

Website: http://www.xxxx.com.au/

Notes:  Pronounced “4-X” this is the regional beer of Queensland and one of the major beers in Australia.  For an Australian beer, it’s decent (Note the qualifier) however that could also be due to the fact that XXXX was how we were introduced to the idea of the “shandy.”  Yes ladies and gents this beer was our introduction to the concept of adding sprite to your beer to make it taste better.  Some use “a splash” others use up to 25% of the glass for the sprite but no matter how you cut it, soda and beer should not mix.  That being said it was one of the better beers you could actually get in Australia.

The XXXX Bitter is a stronger beer that is, well, really bitter.

The Summer larger is probably the best of the group and by that we mean it taste borders on “good” without the addition of any cola product.

Great Northern Brewing Company

Type: Beer

Rating: 2 Sheets to the wind

Website: http://www.fostersgroup.com/ (Yes, it’s owned by the people who make fosters and no Australians willingly drink Fosters…so that’s not a great sign.)

Notes:  Meh.  XXXX is better.

Return to Australia Grog files

Return to Grog files home

More tropical wineries

Australian Friend: It’s called “two-up.”

US: Ok…so what’s the deal here?

Australian Friend: You flip two coins at once and bet on how many will come up heads.

1)      Something that is everywhere in Australia.

2)      Something that we haven’t overly enjoyed

3)      Something we are forced to deal with every day working in pubs

*****

US: That is a dumb gambling game.  Why would you even play that?

Australian Friend:  Well, we really only play it on this one day each year because, you know, they did…

US: oh dammit, we’re sorry, we’re ugly Americans.

We as Americans simply have no idea the sacrifices that have been made for us.

Not only by those of us who are, as we have previously pointed out, the servants.

But also by those who suffer and fall in far off lands and do so having never known what it means to so much as stand on American soil.

Because they were not American.

These people who fight, who bleed, who to this very day die for us and our freedom without even so much as the ability to vote for our decision makers are known by a simple name

They are called “allies”

And in Australia specifically, they are called “Diggers.”

A nick-name earned for a very specific skill set:

Back in World War 1, the ANZACs were known for being better than anyone else for,

while being machine gunned,

mortared,

and gassed,

to completely ignore the living hell raining down on their heads

and dig trenches

through minefields

towards the enemy line!

For this they were rewarded by breaking though to the enemy-occupied trenches with a shovel in their hands.

We reiterate that they were so good at this that BOTH sides called them “Diggers”

• Their enemies meant it as an insult
• Their allies meant it as a joke
• And the Australians were too busy digging trenches through minefields and taking on machine guns at point blank range armed only with shovels to much care either way.

The name stuck though and to this day Australian soldiers are called “Diggers”

It’s a name we as Americans would do well to know.

Because the Aussies may not bring the shovels anymore but what they have always brought was that same spirit: The willingness to fight, to die.

And when the lives of their mates’ are on the line, to dig deep and make the impossible happen.

April 25^th is ANZAC day.  Which is something that we did not understand, as evidenced by this video we made:

(side note – ANZAC biscuits are amazing.  Seriously.  Imagine buying girl scout cookies & supporting the troops all at once!  And yes, the analogy is accurate – ANZAC biscuits are THAT good.)

We plead ignorance – despite the very high level of education both of us received, despite the fact that both of us received degrees from a federal military Academy, we simply were not told.

We were not told what it REALLY means when the words “coalition forces” are used.

So Australians,

The Bombing of Darwin                      (Thanks to wikipedia

You thank the USA for helping you in WW 2?

Please.

thanks to wikipedia

Thank you for Gallipoli… for taking on one of THE WORST battles of WW 1, the one none of the rest of us wanted and in fact pawned off on you because we knew it was a suicide mission from the get go.  Thanks for taking it head on and paying in blood for every inch of beach you earned a few decades before “D-Day” was even a word.

thanks to wikipedia

Thank you for WW 2.  For sending your sons and daughters to the slaughter a second time because we all couldn’t sort it out properly the first time.

thanks to wikipedia

Thank you for the Cold War.  As the missile flies, you were a heck of a lot closer to the other side than the rest of us, you were completely isolated down there and yet you still threw in with our side and more than pulled your weight.

thanks to wikipedia

Thank you for Korea, for using your blood to help us draw a line that stands to this day.

thanks to wikipedia

Thank you for lying, crippled and wounded, in the jungles of Vietnam alongside us.

thanks to wikipedia

Thank you for Gulf War 1, for backing us when we backed our ally.

thanks to wikipedia

Thank you for Afghanistan, for over a decade of constant battle at our side.

thanks to wikipedia

Thank you for Iraq, for backing our play even when we ourselves weren’t sure it was the right one.

For the dirt, the trenches, the grime, the bullets, the bombs, the snipers, the IEDs, the disease, the gas, the chemicals,

The death.

For the massive toll of human lives that you have willingly paid, again and again, to call yourselves allies to a country that, quite frankly, by far and large doesn’t even realize you’re fighting alongside us day by day.

Thank us?

Australia, thank you.

Thank God for the Diggers.

Lest we forget.

This article is about the Australian part of the ANZAC.  We would be remiss not to mention the other half of the equation – the Kiwis who have also helped us hold the line, time and again, with little notice or thanks.  For more on the country that sacrificed the largest part of their population to “The War to end all wars” and also continues to stand at our side to this day, check out last year’s ANZAC day article.

About the authors

Greg and Tiffany are traveling around the world on sailing yachts and keep a video blog of their (mis)adventures.  If sailing to Tahiti on a 44 ft sailboat, 3-day delays for wine tastings, getting pooped on by seagulls, opening coconuts with dull machetes, sailing past tornadoes and ukulele Christmas carols are for you, then check them out at www.CoastGuardCouple.com!

One of the things that we love about Australia is that it is, as Greg describes it, “like looking at a imperfect mirror at ourselves.”

Or, yes ok it has been a while since we made a nautical reference so yes, like a reflection in a pool of water.  The point is that reflection is not perfect and there are many differences between our countries but of all the places we have visited Australia is the most like home:

• We both started off as colonies founded by the same country
• We are both a country of immigrants
• We’re both, as countries go, large.  Really large.  As in “Europeans don’t get it” large.
• We both managed to butcher the same source language – granted each with our own special flair
• We both have to deal with issues revolving around lethal weapons

We could go on and we assume you get the point: As countries go, our two have a lot in common.  This is what makes Australia so very interesting: how they took a set of similar circumstances and ended up in a different place.  The choices we both made, as a people, and the results those different decisions had on where we both are now.

We didn’t want to bring this up until now because we really didn’t want it to taint our overall reporting, or our memories, of our experiences working in Australia.

At the same time it has happened at almost every place we worked and is especially prevalent at our most recent place of employment so it’s important we document it.  It’s not our best video; we recorded it for the audio so we could get our thoughts in the moment.

This article is about our experiences with sexism and racism in Australia.

It is important to note that this article is not about the native peoples (yep – more than one) of Australia, as we want to keep that a separate concept from this.  What we are talking about here is solely the prejudice we have encountered while living and working in Australia.

So right off the bat, we disagree on the scope of this issue in Australian society.

Greg is of the opinion that, due to the fact we are working minimum wage jobs and are effectively the Australian version of an “immigrant worker” (we’re legal though, don’t worry) that we are being exposed to thoughts, opinions and actions that may not be tolerated in other parts of the social / economic ladder.

Tiffany disagrees and thinks the issue is prevalent throughout the country.

What we can both attest to is that it is real.  Greg was not allowed to work at a gift shop or a reception job because he was a male.  Tiffany was not allowed certain fruit picking opportunities because she was a female. We were both told this point blank.

Greg had an easier time securing extra hours when he wanted them…he also had to sit in a car and listen in detail as his new boss described the “blacks” (native peoples) in far less than flattering terms.  If we didn’t like it, we could quit or speak up and get fired…and who were we to argue?  Two foreigners working minimum wage jobs out in the middle of nowhere, easy enough to replace and who would really care?  What were we going to do?

Is there a workplace prejudice hotline in Australia?

It was…difficult.  Extremely difficult living alongside prejudice every day.  Our reaction was mostly shock,

“Seriously?  Did they just SAY that?  Out loud!?  Did they literally tell me I was not fit for this job due to my gender!?  Who even does that anymore?!!?”

Followed by impotent anger alongside gratitude that the job we were working was a temporary one and that we would soon move on.

Also, this is not to say that every Australian is a racist and a sexist – that would be wildly incorrect and we have many Australian friends who shared our shock and outrage.  The counter to this though is that we repeatedly encountered blatant, obvious and unrepentant prejudice on the part of senior people on multiple occasions.

And this was one of the gifts Australia gave us because it forced us, in our fuming and huffing and righteous anger to pause a moment and take a hard look at ourselves, at our own country, though the imperfect reflection that Australia was providing us.  Because really, who are we as Americans to cast stones when it comes to modern prejudice?

As of this writing our own country has issues paying minorities, women and men the same amount for the same jobs.  Right now before our own supreme court is a case about equal rights and recognition under the law for a minority group.  Just because our prejudice is harder to see, just because we do a better job hiding it in polite society, does that make it any less reprehensible?

In the end, does it just make Australia more honest about the whole thing?

To learn more about how different cultures coexist and even integrate in nearby New Zealand, check out our article about our experiences with the Maori.

About the authors

Greg and Tiffany are traveling around the world on sailing yachts and keep a video blog of their (mis)adventures.  If sailing to Tahiti on a 44 ft sailboat, 3-day delays for wine tastings, getting pooped on by seagulls, opening coconuts with dull machetes, sailing past tornadoes and ukulele Christmas carols are for you, then check them out at www.CoastGuardCouple.com!

After the arduous process of “studying” for our Responsible Service of Alcohol test we passed our course and became certified Australian bartenders!

About 48 hours later came our first outback pub job over at Thursday Island, Australia.

One hitch – where the heck is Thursday Island?

Now we know what you’re thinking –

Right between Wednesday and Friday Islands!

…and you’d be pretty much right about that

but for those not familiar with the area, it’s right here

Well what about the rest of the days?  Saturday doesn’t get an island but Sunday got 2 so it kind of makes up for it.  ‘East Sunday Island’ is kind of Saturday, right?

Also, Monday only got a rock but that pretty much serves it right.

Though no one is really sure exactly where the names come from, the most commonly told story is that they were given by Captain Bligh (the guy who was the captain of the HMS BOUNTY before that whole unfortunate mutiny business…).  On his voyage back to civilization he passed several islands and named them according to the days of the week on which he discovered them.  Thus was born Thursday Island.

So we find ourselves at the northernmost town in Australia tending a pub

But it’s what we leaned we learned when we weren’t pouring beer that was really interesting…

This isn’t our first experience with pubs – the Mexi-British pubs of La Cruz will always bring back good memories.

About the authors

Greg and Tiffany are traveling around the world on sailing yachts and keep a video blog of their (mis)adventures.  If sailing to Tahiti on a 44 ft sailboat, 3-day delays for wine tastings, getting pooped on by seagulls, opening coconuts with dull machetes, sailing past tornadoes and ukulele Christmas carols are for you, then check them out at www.CoastGuardCouple.com!

That question took us a bit by surprise because, well, we hadn’t really put a lot of thought into it…

And we would be dramatically understating things to say that shocked our Australian friends.

Travel is an interesting thing and one of the most interesting things, in fact the very reason Greg states for wanting to travel in the first place, is to discover and challenge one’s own unknown assumptions.

What do we assume is “normal” without even realizing that we’ve made an assumption in the first place because everyone around us makes the same one?

For example, in an urban culture (like the one we were raised in) 10PM is an early bedtime for a young professional.  Whereas in an agrarian culture…

(or a sailing one – “sailors midnight” is 9PM)

…10PM is an extremely late bedtime when you are accustomed to waking up at 6AM and 8AM is “sleeping in.”

(and no, we never got used to that… )

But what does this have to do with Easter?

Well, let us ask you this:

How important is Easter, as a holiday?  

Because, honestly now, we suspect to the average American the observance of Easter as an event falls somewhere below Memorial day (3 day weekend!) and is really more equivalent to Valentine’s day.  Easter is ‘celebrated’ by possibly going to church for an hour, eating some chocolate and maybe…MAYBE eating a ham.

If there are kids involved there might be an hour spent decorating eggs and another hour spent finding them.

But really?  What else is there?  In the practical sense Easter is basically a Hallmark holiday with a few extra traditions wrapped around it.  It is not at all common for an American to spend a lot of time preparing for the day.  We mean, come on, it’s a religious thing right but it’s not like its Christmas or anything.

It is, for example, not at all considered ‘normal’ for someone to say they are taking some vacation just because it’s Easter.

Because, in America, Easter isn’t seen as such a big deal.

But in Australia Easter is not a 3 day weekend…

as a nation they take 4 days off!

 That’s right, the Aussies take off the Monday after Easter and they also take off Good Friday!

When was the last time you knew of ANYONE doing something special for Good Friday, let alone the Monday AFTER Easter?

Let alone the whole nation?

Now, don’t get us wrong here, we are NOT endeavoring to paint Australia as the real “Christian nation” and the US as a blustering poser.

Because Aussies are freaking famous for their desire to have a day off.  They make commercials about it.

(it’s cool Kiwis, they’re just jealous of your beer)

We are talking about a people here who have raised the act of scamming a day off work by calling in sick to an art form – they even have a term for it in their national lexicon, “taking a sicky.”  We are also talking about a people that have a national holiday celebrating the birthday of the Queen of England.

Ok, well as a card-carrying member of the “commonwealth of countries upon which the sun never sets” technically she’s Australia’s Queen too but it should be noted that this holiday does not coincide with the actual birthday of the Queen of England…it’s about 2 months off but hey, there’s a time difference right?

It should also be noted that ENGLAND does not take a day off to celebrate the birthday of the Queen of England.  On her birthday or any other day.

Thanks to www.freakingnews.com

At least the Aussies love the Queen

(which is more than a little ironic when you stop to think about it…

 So the Aussies have a talent for getting and great love of having the day off…and we think they’re a better people for it.

But for whatever reason it actually exists, the fact that Australia celebrates Easter with a 4-day holiday really gave us some insight into our own national identity and the assumptions that come along with being American.  In Australia people plan for Easter, they travel and no one is surprised when Easter comes around because people talk about it for weeks beforehand – it’s a major national holiday after all!

And we can’t help but notice that Easter is also the major and central holiday of the Christian calendar.  The time we, as Christians, celebrate the events that established the basic tenants of our faith.

And as Christians from the United States, both of us have been exposed, time and again, to the claim that the US is a “Christian nation”.

We are a “Christian nation” that has for centuries now made no major official national notice of Easter.

But before we are too quick to blame the past and present governments – we are also a “Christian nation” where, despite their ability to do so of their own free will, the overwhelming majority of citizens who are also Christians will not even take a single day off work in order to travel to family, have some sort of major celebration or remembrance of this most important, and sacred, days of the year.

And that is fascinating.

Thanks to ABC…the Australian one.

 It comes back to a simple question.  A question so basic in its assumptions that it caused us to stop and reevaluate the very way we perceive our actions and what they say about our faith:

So how are you spending your
Easter holiday?

 (Hopefully, it’s with bacon!)

About the authors

Greg and Tiffany are traveling around the world on sailing yachts and keep a video blog of their (mis)adventures.  If sailing to Tahiti on a 44 ft sailboat, 3-day delays for wine tastings, getting pooped on by seagulls, opening coconuts with dull machetes, sailing past tornadoes and ukulele Christmas carols are for you, then check them out at www.CoastGuardCouple.com!

Well since we’re going over adventures in outback bar tending, it’s probably about time we started updating the grog files to keep us with us.

We’ll be doing a new grog files for each state we visited in Australia but this week is all about our overall experience, which can be summed up this way:

Australia has a great libations industry –

It’s just not where you’d expect to find it.

What this pretty much means is that as long as you avoid the beer, Australia has a lot to offer.

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Because when you pronounce the “R” in “Cairns” the locals genuinely have no idea what you’re talking about.

Seriously people, it’s a word.  In our common language.  You can look it up.

Who uses a silent “R”!?!?!

They have this giant outside pool right next to the ocean that anyone can use and the fish sculptures are a symbol of the city.

Oh, and just in case you’re asking. “Guys? Why do they have a giant public pool right next to the ocean?  Can’t people just swim in the ocean?”

Why yes, yes they could.  Right up to the moment where the giant crocodiles that are all over the place ate them.

Which would of course lead you to then ask “Guys, didn’t you just go diving in that water?”

Yeah, well the dive company said the crocs don’t go out to the reef.  It’s far away and stuff.

So this is what a few days in Cairns is like when we weren’t on the boat

Cairns is also where we part ways with Chris.  After 3 months of professional ski-bumming, a few days pushing cars, FAUX-luru, the Great Barrier Reef and one heck of a long roadtrip mostly spent eating “lentils of unique taste” and swerving to avoid suicidal kangaroos and random wildfires – well, needless to say good times were had by all.

After Chris took off we got down to business.  Because remember when we talked about tending a bar out in the outback?  Well, with only a few months left on our visas we were on our last chance to make that happen.

But first, In order to get a job at a bar we needed to get certified in “Responsible service of Alcohol.”  There’s a course and a test and everything!  Being as it was an online class with a test and the notes would not be accessible, Greg asked Tiffany where his notepad was so he could take notes.

Her response –

…two days later we off to serve beers, responsibly mind you, to the parched inhabitants of the remote corners of tropical Australia.

About the authors

Greg and Tiffany are traveling around the world on sailing yachts and keep a video blog of their (mis)adventures.  If sailing to Tahiti on a 44 ft sailboat, 3-day delays for wine tastings, getting pooped on by seagulls, opening coconuts with dull machetes, sailing past tornadoes and ukulele Christmas carols are for you, then check them out at www.CoastGuardCouple.com!

Life Achievement Unlocked-

Found Nemo!

We all knew the Nemo reference had to be made right?

We took a 3 day, 2 night “sleep on the reef” excursion.

And this time we rented an underwater camera to make sure we caught everything.

Especially the sea turtle…

What the Great Barrier reef taught us was that our friends we sailed to Tahiti with were right:

Learning to dive in the South Pacific Islands is a really great way to set yourself up to be underwhelmed by just about anything else.

Don’t get us wrong, the Great Barrier Reef was amazing!  We spent days exploring exotic corals and had about 20 minutes alone with a sea turtle who was very gracious and let us take all the pictures we wanted.

But a storm had just blown through so the water was a little murky and people are right in that parts of the reef are suffering from “bleaching.”  Also the Great Barrier Reef is firmly on the traveled tourist trail and we took a packaged tour that went to well traversed standard dive sites instead of wandering off on a private yacht like we did in the South Pacific.  When thousands of people per year for over a decade dive the exact same spot it’s going to have an effect.

And come on – Greg’s barometer for a “good dive” falls somewhere between-

Swimming with a baby humpback whale,

Diving under an island,

Watching 250 sharks school in front his face,

And having butterfly fish poke him in the nose.

It’s kind of a high bar.

What we’re saying here is that the Great Barrier Reef didn’t get a fair comparison to the other places we dove and despite that, it still delivered a high value experience.

In 3 days with 3 dives per day you do get a lot of opportunity to explore and we were actually really pleasantly surprised by what we got on film.  While the reef wasn’t as clear as Niue and the coral in Rangiroa just popped a little brighter, the Great Barrier Reef did have the major advantage of being quite shallow which translated into two very important benefits:

1- Even when it’s overcast, there’s still enough light to get good pictures and see stuff.

2- You didn’t have to dive deep in order to get into the thick of the action.  Shallow dives translated to a lot more dives per day in total.

Which means a lot more cool stuff to show you:

Feel free to double check us and we’re pretty sure we count 8 characters from the movie.

So we spent 3 days doing nothing but frolicking with sea turtles and chasing clown fish.  While we recommend you check out the Great Barrier Reef might we also recommend the Islands of French Polynesia for a dive?

You know, because it’s important to have the correct perspective.

About the authors

Greg and Tiffany are traveling around the world on sailing yachts and keep a video blog of their (mis)adventures.  If sailing to Tahiti on a 44 ft sailboat, 3-day delays for wine tastings, getting pooped on by seagulls, opening coconuts with dull machetes, sailing past tornadoes and ukulele Christmas carols are for you, then check them out at www.CoastGuardCouple.com!