Coffs Harbor, NSW, AU
The Australian East Coast Adventure continues!!
After recovering from the surfboard chafing…
…yes, chafing. From surfboards.
We decided to embark on our next genuine Aussie backpacker experience:
We went fruit picking.
It’s Intuitive (and the Aussie fascination with Ned Kelly…)
On the road, Victoria, AU
The Australian East Coast Adventure continues!!
So we’re supposed to be bonding and stuff right? That’s what we’ve been told us married people do whilst travelling together: we talk and whatnot…or get divorced. True fact – travel either glues couples together or tears them apart. Cabo San Lucas is well known as the sailing divorce capital of the West Coast.
Being as we are both more “in it for the long haul” types bonding is pretty much the order of the day. One could begin to wonder though – after so much time together do we ever run out of things to talk about?
Continue reading “It’s Intuitive (and the Aussie fascination with Ned Kelly…)”
London 2012 Olympics
London, England, UK
And now a brief interlude from our normally scheduled blogging.
Greg’s sister and her husband live in London and we had the good fortune to be able to join them for their 5th wedding anniversary.
It should be noted that we did not come to London for the games.
But come on, it’s right here. Right freaking here. Breathing down our necks…
How many times in life will we just happen to stumble across an Olympic games in progress?
And, the questions we were more interested in:
- What don’t the TV cameras show us?
- How do the locals experience the games?
Taming the Beast
Melbourne, Vic, AU
Leaving Melbourne we found ourselves with the same situation we faced in Auckland. How the heck do we get around? Additionally, Australia is a vast and for the most part barren place devoid of human habitation…much less hotels. Those hotels and hostels that are around charge exactly what you’d think they would when they are the only bed for the next 200 or so miles.
We found that, like New Zealand, long term travelers in Australia tend to purchase cheap cars or camper vans to get around and have a place to sleep at night. Wanting to have the genuine Australian backpacker adventure and having just come off a very positive used car experience in New Zealand, we decided this was for us.
Our Kiwi car never got a name. It just never seemed like it needed one. However, the second we saw the 1988 Mitsubishi Triton that would become our own wheels down under we both looked at each other and knew this “ute” (Aussie for “pickup truck”) had a name,
Say hello to ‘The Beast’
Continue reading “Taming the Beast”
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So, have you seen a kangaroo?
Melbourne, Vic, AU
Yes, yes we’ve seen a kangaroo…
As Americans, Australia is fascinating in a completely different way than any other country in the world. Because of all the other countries out there, Australia is the one where we can look at what they have done and say, “but for a few key choices, that could have been us.”
Our mainland is similar size, we have the same parent-nation and defacto common base language. Most of both of our neighbours are from a different culture (US is beside Latin / Spanish influence while Australia is right next to Asia.) Australians came, in large part, from prisoners while the US got started, at least in the eyes of England, as basically a bunch of armed insurrectionists. After declaring independence, we’ve both maintained close ties with the motherland, we both had to resolve conflict with a native population, we both face similar issues on fronts of economics and immigration…we could go on. Our two countries had a lot in common starting out and face many similar challenges to this day.
Like slurpee brain freezes
Which is why it’s so fascinating how we have both developed along slightly different paths.
Wow, Kentucky cricket…who knew!?
Unlike the other countries we’ve been to, the fascinating thing is not how massively different life here is from what we’re used to.
With Oz, the interesting things are in the details of living.
Chicks Dig Scars
Melbourne, VIC, AU
…just usually not so much on themselves.
While Greg spent the majority of his time feeding and mucking Tiffany got to “train” the horses.
At this point we should point out that Tiffany has a tendency to…smack things (Aside from Greg, that is). We’re not saying that Greg has ever been approached by a pastor at church but he has had to field a few worried glances from time to time from fellow parishioners. It came with the territory when he decided to marry a woman who gets her kicks zip lining over tropical rainforests and sailing through gale-force winds. As Tiffany puts it, “I don’t bruise easy. I just hit things hard.”
Now we’ve already gone over how these horses are half-ton hyperactive 2 year-olds that are fed nothing but sugar all day, every day, right? You put them together with Tiffany on a daily basis and well…
It keeps it interesting
A Hut Warden’s Life
French Ridge hut
Mt. Aspiring National Park, NZ
Notices posted on the kitchen wall of French Ridge hut:
Seriously, we freaking love these people.
By now we’ve mentioned it enough that you’re probably asking “Hey guys? What are these huts and wardens and whatnot you keep talking about?”
Continue reading “A Hut Warden’s Life”
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Regarding the Locals
Enroute Mt. Aspiring, NZ
We would be remiss to recount our many adventures in New Zealand and never once mention the Maori.
The “native” people of New Zealand are themselves settlers from a foreign land. Polynesian in origin, the Maori trace their roots back to the people of the South Pacific who used their…
“mind-bending supernatural powers of badass navigation so awesome it took the West hundreds of years and a satellite network to replicate what Polynesians could do in their heads around the time the rest of us were learning that fire was hot”
…to locate, land on and settle these islands a few hundred years before Europe came on the scene.
Massive authentic Maori war canoe : 75 feet long & able to carry 100 warriors to battle.
Eventually the West did show up and to make a long story short we colonized New Zealand and eventually claimed her for England. The nation retains its card-carrying status as a member of the “Empire on which the sun never sets” to this day as a member of the Commonwealth.
So where did this leave the natives?
Continue reading “Regarding the Locals”
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To simply be
Helensville, NZ
Despite rumors to the contrary, there’s a lot more out in the farms of New Zealand than Kiwis, possums and sheep:
Sometimes things fall into place and life moves on when we’re least expecting it. After about a month our battles with taxation came to an abrupt and, if annoying, at least vindicating conclusion, we got a job offer in Australia and received an invite for one last Kiwi adventure from an unexpected source.
Proximity
Whangarei, NZ
The sailing life leads to odd relationships. Not odd in the quality but more in the means employed in establishing and growing those interpersonal connections: the happenstance, randomness and good fortune involved in who we even have the opportunity to connect with.
People come in and out of our lives literally with the passing of each tide.
Some fellow sailors are friends for a meal or a few days in one port, remembered fondly but as fate and diverging cruising plans would have it, never to be rendezvoused with again.
Other people are friends for a longer time. Perhaps an overlapping prolonged stay in a Mexican port or a shared long-term rally provide ample opportunity to get to know each other over a longer period of time. The cruiser’s net, dinners aboard and joint shore excursions are the fabric with which we begin to weave our social tapestry. Radio comms and emails (yeah, you can get those via satellite uplink or over a HAM radio now…) allow us to fill in the gaps when we are mutually underway while Facebook and blogs can keep us connected while we’re in different ports.
In our case, there are those people who ask us onboard their vessels for anywhere from a few days to a few months. For that time we become roommates in a home that none of us can leave. Typically we share meals, time, adventures and our lives for however long we’re onboard. We, to a varying degree, become family. These people are, for the time we’re connected to them, a huge part of our world. Often we leave as good friends.
The downside to our situation is that, unlike most cruisers, we are unable to extend our time in places to form a relationship if our captain decides that they wish to depart. Friendships are created and maintained by a mixture of fortunate run-ins and dedicated effort placed into correspondence.
What we’re saying here is that interpersonal proximity is a variable, sometimes an obstacle and always a consideration in the formation and maintenance of friendships at sea.
Then there’s the case of Rod & Elisabeth.