MARCH 2 - 22, 2002: We start in Melbourne, and on the plane about an hour before we land, Heather notices a small note in one of the airplane magazines: “Melbourne Grand Prix, March 3.”  Grand Prix is probably the biggest spectator sport (outside of soccer) in much of the rest of the world, and this, as we later see, is a bit like a note saying “Hello Cleveland: Super Bowl Tonight!”

This would also explain why we had so much trouble finding a hotel, and sure enough, ours is a vertical gray cinder block of a structure, in a suburb of the city prominent only for car dealerships.  We get in late, and decide to pop out for a quick bite.  The Hotel person points us to a fairly nearby neighborhood of little Italy.  When we get there, it is as if we have entered a Ferrari Convention.  Red Ferrari hats and shirts and banners; Grand Prix everywhere.  Still, we find a table and have pretty marvelous pizza, watching the throngs get geared up.

The next morning there is a light drizzle, which soon stops.  We head to Victoria market and then stroll around the city.  It is empty: the locals have fled town and the tourists are all at the race.  Sunday, and most of the shops are closed.  We head to a Museum that details the gold rush and history of Melbourne.  The doyen is quite surprised to see us; although it is the afternoon we are the first guests.  We are probably the only guests.  Later in the evening, Ferrari victorious on the day, we bypass little Italy and go to Fitzroy, a “bohemian” neighborhood.  Initially this just seems to mean that everyone has a second-hand couch on their porch, but soon we find the main drag and it is charming, buzzing with life and friendly, and not a Ferrari shirt in sight.

Having discovered that there is neither cheap nor easy transport between Melbourne and Sydney, we decide to rent a car, first to explore the Great Ocean Road west of Melbourne and then backtrack and head up to Sydney, partly on the suggestion of an Aussie friend.  The Ocean Road is quite striking: enormous cliffs of red rock over a restless, churning sea.  We stop for a late lunch at Lorne, a charming and low-key beach town.  On we drive to the 12 Apostles, tall figures of rock rising from the ocean alone from the red rocks of the cliff.  The sun is falling, and the evening lights up the crevices and pools formed by the crashing waves.  It is as if the rock formations and caverns of Utah were dropped into the ocean.  On to Port Fairy, originally named Belfast as it was settled by the Irish years ago.  It is delightful, and in the morning we walk around a nature reserve on the coast, complete with a small lighthouse.  Then a slight backtrack and the drive up to Sydney, roughly 600 miles.  We quickly review the guidebook on places to go between Melbourne and Sydney.  They don’t mention a single town.  Two days later the reason is obvious: there are none of any distinction.  And when we see my Aussie friend we inquire casually about the last time he drove from Melbourne to Sydney.  Surprise surprise, he never has.

Sydney makes up for all ills: it is an amazing city.  To us, in our desire to frame the rest of the world by what we know in the US, it is a combination of Los Angeles (beaches, weather, very spread out) and San Francisco (great neighborhoods, pedestrian friendly, financial center, and hey, a really cool bridge).  We’ve also moved a little (okay, a lot) up budget and check into the “W” hotel for our first two nights.  It’s excellent: set in an old warehouse it is modern and industrial while remaining friendly.  Our friend Dale meets us here and gives us a quick tour of some neighborhoods: Paddington, King’s Cross, Darlinghurst. Then there is wine. There is food.  There are drinks.  There are more drinks.   Dale ends up crashing in the extra queen size bed in our room: Our first (and last?) honeymoon sleepover guest.

We eat about as well in Sydney as we ever have.  Our friends Lee and Sarah have, from a distance, bought us dinner at McLeay Street Bistro.  It is charming and delicious.  We also have a great Chinese-Malay meal, and some pretty solid Italian.  The highlight, however, is a restaurant called Tetsuyas (???).  Due to some minor confusion and good luck, our concierge actually manages to procure a reservation despite the usual three-month waiting list. Going in is a little like entering the Japanese embassy: the gates part and what look like plainclothes security walk us in.   But it is, flat out, the most amazing culinary experience of my life.  All four and one-half hours and eight courses of it, and not a second wasted.  We eat the freshest of oysters with ginger and rice vinegar.  We devour lobster ravioli with scallops, lemongrass and basil aioli.  We swoon over venison carpaccio drizzled with fois gras. We go on like this for hours.  This meal – spontaneous, scrumptious, and worth every penny – reminds Heather of her late Gamma Dot, and we toast her memory while Heather tells me more about her vivacious and compassionate personality.

Our final two nights in Sydney we face budget reality and move to The Rocks area.  And still have a great time.  Trips to Bondi and Manley beach (the latter with the side benefit of a tour of the immense harbor) dinner and a stroll around Newtown.  Also, our friends Marisa and Dale give us as a wedding gift the Harbor Bridge Climb, where, after getting hitching yourself to an elaborate restraining system,  you follow the arch of the bridge’s span to it’s highest point.  Luckily on this bridge, as we know we are not jumping off, we enjoy it a bit more.  The view from the peak is exceptional, as is its history.  And finally, we go to the Opera House to hear some Beethoven piano sonatas.  These are good, but surprisingly, the building itself -- which one thinks one has seen many time -- is awesome up close; much more fragile and ethereal looking, sort of discarded eggshells that have fallen in the most interesting shapes. 

Leaving, we have a long travel day: planes, cars, buses and ferries.  We take an early flight from Sydney to Brisbane, and rent a car, driving north.  We stop in for a brief look at Australia’s Zoo, started by Steve Irwin, who went on to fame as the Crocodile Hunter.  It is both a little cheesy and loads of fun.  We see Kuala Bears sleeping in the boughs of trees, a variety of snakes, crocodiles and alligators sunning themselves in pools of shallow water, some dingos, a wombat, kangaroos, and a Tasmanian devil.  We even get a little sappy and have our picture taken with a 10-foot Burmese python.  Onward to Naussa, a slightly more upscale beach town where we turn the car in, take a walk on the beach, and hop on a bus to Hervey Bay, a few hours and then the last ferry over to Frasier Island. By this time it is nearly 11 and there is almost no one on the ferry – we purchase some beers and head to the upper deck where, in the sea breeze, we gaze upwards at the endless stretch of sky.

In the country now, we start to discover the other Australia: the one full of things that can kill you.  Australia has the most dangerous wildlife on the planet, including both the highest variety and most venomous snakes, and the dreaded box jellyfish, apparently the most toxic creature known to man.  The rest of our time in Australia all starts with an arrival, followed quickly by the brief lecture about what in the local vicinity will kill you.

Starting with Frasier Island, a nature preserve, and the world’s biggest all-sand island.  Also home to wild Dingos, best known for eating babies, but they actually killed a nine-year-old here as recently as two years ago. We have signed up for a tour, and find to our dismay that we are joined by a group of perhaps 45 people, about 40 of whom appear to be over 70.  I think if a pack of Dingos strikes I’m pretty sure I could outrun at least of few members of the tour group.  Frasier is pretty neat: a wide, 75-mile beach, where we hike a few hundred yards into the interior then ride a cold stream that runs from the center of the island to the ocean; a wreck of an old cruise boat, and the impressive Lake McKinsey, clear fresh water and white sand as fine as sifted flour.  The lodge is also great, a simple wooden structure, but comfortable.

After two nights we return to Hervey Bay and hop on a 10-seat airplane to Lady Eliot Island.  We are the only passengers.  After about a 45-minute flight, we see, in the middle of an empty ocean, a little postage-stamp of an island, about one-third of it the grass runway where we land. Lady Eliot is unique in that it is on the southern tip of the Great Barrier Reef.  We are here to do some diving, but it’s also a pleasant spot, that is before we get the lecture about stonefish and conch shell inhabitants (enough poison to kill 10 men).  The resort is very simple, with about 80 guests total, most like us in small set of linked cottages a few feet from the sand.  There is a soothing echo to the ocean: the ongoing rush of waves turning to whitecaps on the reef about 75 feet out from shore, and then the gentle hush seconds later as they break onto the sand.

We SCUBA: three dives total, after a brief training session in the pool.  I have never dived before and am quite unprepared for it all.  I expect it to be a bit like an underwater museum, as we stroll from one sight to another; instead I am suddenly in the middle of an aquatic midtown rush hour.  Schools of fish go by; some others in smaller groups, or pairs or singles, all sizes and colors.  The coral itself is exquisite; flecks and splashes of red and blue and pink; starfish a velvet, plush blue.  Giant Green and Loggerhead Turtles swim by, or perch in the sand.  Following our instructor we go up and scratch one on his shell.  And so it goes for three days.  Fish everywhere, hundreds of them, maybe a dozen turtles, two Bullrays, amazingly impressive, the first sits on the floor of the ocean, maybe five feet across with a tail stretching to eight, his blinking eye the size of my head.  Following our instructor we take turns cautiously stroking the plush shag of its wing.  From a distance we see a Shovelnose Shark; up closer an octopus.  The solitary nature of diving, the rhythmic mantra of breathing, is wonderful.  Although I am a newbie, Heather has been diving in the Caribbean and Mexico and yet is stunned by the perfection of the reef and the marine life..    

On then, to the Whitsunday islands for three days of sailing.  The distances between activities are immense; once again it takes us two nondescript days to get there.  We have booked a place on a 68-foot Ketch, with up to 12 total passengers.  When we get to Airlie Beach we find our companions, a very eclectic mix -- two Germans, three Brits, two Swedes, an Aussie and a Belgian – all speaking fairly fluent English.  The sailing itself is up and down.  The boat is 20 years old, the captain 50 and a salty old codger, and both are pretty worn and set in their ways.  We barely sail the first two days, partly due to unfavorable winds, partly due to the boat, which sails poorly with the wind behind it.  The deadly animals here are jellyfish, with one 25 centimeters big but with enough poison to guarantee a screaming and painful medvac to a hospital with three days of morphine before it calms down (this happened to someone last year).  So we each have stinger suits, kind of a cross between a wetsuit and a hefty bag, which seem to work pretty well but make one feel damn silly and take a little of the refreshing, spontaneous nature out of any swimming.   The snorkeling is good, but the seas are so rough the second day we don’t get out to the outer reef.  We still have fun, play pictionary (more fun when 50% of the participants have English as a second or third language), and backgammon and stay in some beautiful harbors.  The last day we even have a wonderful sail, all three sails out and speeds of about 9 knots. 

We are back down in Sydney for a few hours, see Dale again for dinner and drinks.  Heather heads up to the room early; Dale and I stay out and suddenly find ourselves locked out of the hotel.  So we scale an interior wall (since he is 6’5” guess who does the scaling) and manage to let ourselves in.  After goodbyes, he heads off and we catch a few hours sleep before leaving for Bali.

on to bali...