In planning our trip to Australia, it didn’t take a lot of brain power to realize we were not going to be able to see everything in three weeks. Australia is huge. Imagine if someone asked you for a three-week itinerary for all the points of interest in the United States. Planning a visit to a continent is like that.

After much discussion, Oksana and I decided to constrict our movement to just two locations: Sydney and its surroundings and Cairns and the Great Barrier Reef. Of course, three weeks is barely enough to explore either spot in depth, never mind splitting our time between the two. It worked for us, however. I only wish we could have made the trip out to Uluru.

While in Sydney, we managed to plan a quick jaunt out to the Blue Mountains. While still pretty close to the city - a couple hours by train - it was far enough away to almost be considered a third stop on our trip. If nothing else, the rugged landscape would be a nice change of pace from the city and ocean.

Everything I knew about the Blue Mountains came from a book I’d read years before called In a Sunburned Country, by Bill Bryson. Two facts stood out in my memory. The first, that the “blue” in the Blue Mountains was actually a visible blue haze in the air from all the eucalyptus trees’ exuded oil. Second, that the mountain range was considered impassible by every explorer to make the attempt for the first 100 years or so after Australia’s colonization. I suppose the reason I remembered each was because I had trouble believing both.

As our train left the city behind and the Sydney suburbs gave way to forests, I found myself peering out the window, looking for a gap in the hillside large enough for a view to the horizon. Was the famous blue haze only visible when the weather was just right? Worse yet, could it be seasonal? I tried to convince myself that the tiny bit of haze I could see beyond the trees was actually blue.

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We’ve been back from Down Under for about a week and a half now, but I’ve been consistently busy catching up with work and friends.  I plan to write a lot about our experiences in the Southern hemisphere once I sort through the 2500 photos and six-and-a-half hours of video we took.  I’ve got a month off from work beginning next week, and I suspect I’ll devote some my time to that (as well as belatedly writing down any thoughts on the unnoted items in my 2007 timeline above.)  In the meantime, I’ve jotted down a few observations on our experiences in Australia:

New Words
Australia has a great collection of new words for familiar things.  Dangerous jellyfish are ’stingers;’ the Portuguese Man-o-War is a ‘Blue Bottle.’  Saltwater crocodiles are ‘Salties,’ which I think is a dangerously precocious name (like calling a grisly bear ‘Teddy.’)  I could probably sit down and think of a dozen more I picked up, but the only ones that come to mind right now are the decidedly British ‘rubbish bins,’ ‘fish and chips,’ and ‘lifts.’

How Ya Goin’, Mate?
“G’day, mate.  How ya goin’?” 

He’s a mate, she’s a mate, everyone can be a mate!  I knew that Aussies said ‘mate’ a lot.  What I didn’t realize was that mate is gender agnostic. Which makes sense, really.  My mate is a girl.

I got used to mate, but “How ya goin’?” always sounded like someone couldn’t decide between “How ya doin’?” and “How’s it goin’?”

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Well, we made it to Sydney.

The 14-hour flight from San Francisco wasn’t so bad. While the Qantas jet didn’t have any more legroom than the Alaska Airlines flights before it, they made up for it with many small amenities. We each had LCD monitors with movies, TV shows, and video games available. Thicker pillows and larger blankets were distributed alongside little pouches with a toothbrush, socks, and a card outlining our meal options.

Oksana struck up a conversation with the passenger next to her, Mary Lou, an Australian working in the travel industry. She gave us all sorts of tips on where to go, what to see, and how to get around. Very helpful.

Just before dinner, I took two Advil PM and then fought off sleep as long as I could. At around 12:30am, I flipped out the head rest’s “wings” and closed my eyes. Sleep with fitful, what with the occasional crying baby or bumped chair, but I essentially slept for the next 9.5 hours. A new Arlo record for in-flight rest!

We arrived at the airport on Sunday morning. Traveling overnight and crossing the International Date Line screwed me up so bad I had no idea what time it was back home.

We figured out the metro/train system, paid our $14 each, and caught the next ride into Sydney. Our stop was only two blocks away from the hotel.

Unfortunately, we were about five hours early for check-in. They offered to hold our bags for us, though, so after Oksana freshened up a bit, we hit the pavement.

Sydney is empty on Sundays – there’s hardly more people and cars than in Juneau, Alaska. It was a pleasant introduction to a big city. Our first stop was near our hotel, Hyde Park. The biggest structure there was a war memorial; we decided to walk through it. It was November 11th, Australia’s Veterans day, and “on the eleventh hour, of the eleventh day, of the eleventh month” they have a nationwide moment of silence. It was a little after 10am.

From the park, we headed west, to Darling Harbour. Darling Harbour is tourist central with its Imax theater, aquarium, naval museum, boat rides, art exhibitions, and parks. Everything was outrageously expensive, but the walk along the docks was quite pleasant. Oksana and I took a bunch of pictures, sat in the sun and the shade, and let the time pass us by. More than anything, we wanted to get back to our hotel at take a shower.

At around 2pm, we finally made it back. Our room turned out to be small, but full of niceties. A microwave and mini-fridge helped make up for the lack of internet access.

It was 3:30pm by the time we were done with our showers; we decided to take a nap. Oksana asked, “Should we set an alarm?” Nah. We’re on vacation!

Well… The first time I woke up was at 11:30pm. So much for dinner! We slept on, though by 3:30am, I was more than rested. We finally got up at 6:30am the next day – 15 hours later!

While flipping through a newspaper, I noticed the 5-day weather forecast. Two days of “Sunny” followed by three more days of “Mostly Fine.” That sums up our first day in Sydney quite well: Mostly fine.

On our last day in Moscow – but still three days from home, because, you know, Moscow is, like, on the other side of the planet – Oksana and I returned to Arbat to have our portraits painted.

Earlier on the trip we had walked the length of both streets known as Arbat – Old and New.  New Arbat was a four-lane highway bordered by loud neon, bright casinos, and TGI Friday’s.  Old Arbat was pleasantly pedestrian with souvenir stalls, outdoor restaurants, musicians with hat-pushing assistants, and dozens of portrait and caricature artists.  It was these artists’ work, photo-realistic and painted while you wait, that captured my attention and imagination.

While Oksana put her Russian to good use comparison shopping for prices, I wandered among the painters.  I stopped behind one woman who was painting a portrait of a young boy.  To my eye, the monochrome image was almost photorealistic.  Watching her perfectly recreate his eyes, I decided that if the price was right, she would be the one to paint us.

It seemed as though most of the artists on Arbat had agreed to set their prices uniformly: 700 rubles for one person, 1500 for two; doubled again for color.  You could either leave a favorite photograph and pick up your portrait later, or sit still for an hour while they painted from the source.  It seemed incredible to me that anyone could paint so well, so quickly, but on this street in Moscow, that particular talent was in abundance.

Oksana’s cousin, Vanya, was with us that day and because he was planning to wait around with us, I convinced her to ask our painter if it would be alright if we videotaped her process.  I could tell that our selected artist, Lena, thought it a rather strange request, but she was polite enough to rearrange her easel for the camera, anyway.  I set the camera on the ground, against a wall and out of the way of Arbat’s foot traffic, and started recording in LP mode.

We sat down and began our suspenseful hour-and-a-half wait.

(Don’t want to wade through more prose?  Here’s a link straight to the video.)

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My luck in photographing lightning seems to be improving.

While in Moscow, Oksana and I hooked up with Vika, an old friend of hers who used to be a fellow Russian exchange/international student in Juneau. She and her boyfriend, Vanya, took us out to a restaurant on the 22nd floor of a university building. As the sun set, all of Moscow was laid out before us.

Just before dinner arrived, at Vanya’s insistence, I attempted to capture a lightning strike from a fast-approaching thunderstorm. Only three shots into my attempt, Oksana called me back to the table; dinner had been served. “Last one,” I called, just before a bolt shot down.

During dinner, the storm built in intensity. As soon as I finished my meal, I excused myself for another attempt. The very next photo, the one pictured above with two almost-simultaneous strikes, was the result. Seconds later, the wind and rain chased us inside.

By the time we settled the check and made it downstairs, a good-sized pond had formed in the building’s courtyard and doorway. Vanya and Andrey bravely sacrificed their aridity (but not their shoes) in a mad dash out to the car for the umbrellas stashed within.

Canon Digital Rebel XT
Date: 15 July 2006
Focal Length: 18mm
Shutter: 25 seconds
Aperture: F/20
Photoshop: Minor color correction, minor cropping
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