This essentially will take the place of any blogging I have to do about the trip, as most details are in there or the previous posts. However, there are some things that are too long to fit in the map (or span multiple days)...
The Story of the Batty Birds
Indhu and her father, Chandra, came to Sydney and we were going to meet them in Hyde Park. Christina and I were wandering around looking for the landmark that Indhu said they would be near. It was dusk and we looked up to see many flying creatures going in and out of the trees. Their outline looked clearly like bats - as if looking at the Batman symbol in the sky. There were so many, I said, "Wow, look at those bats!" Christina looked up in doubt and said, "Those aren't bats." She explained that despite the bat-like outline of the wings, that they were too big to be bats - and in fact, that they were birds. Batty birds to be exact. I scoffed at her theory, and we decided to ask someone - but there wasn't anyone available.
Shortly after, we found Indhu and her father - we asked them about the bats, and I believe Indhu thought they were bats, but her father may have agreed with Christina. Christina would not budge.
Several days later, while in the middle of our road trip, we stopped to see The Caves. Unfortunately the price was out of our budget, so we didn't stick around for the hour long tour. However, we walked through the information center where they had an exhibit on bats. This included a picture of a bat at full wing span next to a person at full arm span - and the bat was bigger! I quickly found Christina and showed her - "See! Bats can be big!" She nodded me off.
At the end of our trip in Cairns, we spotted more "batty birds" on the tree lined street sky. We were discussing it openly on the corner, arguing about their bat/bird status. We agreed to ask someone, and before we could, someone who had been listening in came over and declared, "Your friend is right. Those aren't bats." I looked at him with curiosity. "They're parrots. Yes, they're red, green and blue parrots. There's hundreds of them. This area is known for them. I've lived here over 10 years and see them all the time." I thought he was pulling a mean joke on Christina and was waiting for him to break the straight face. Time passed and nothing happened and I began to wonder despite him looking normal, that maybe he was crazy. Christina looked at me with that "I told you so" look. I refused to believe. These creatures did not look like ANY parrot I knew (I even considered the fact that the world contains so many creatures I have not seen, and maybe Australia has some different varieties...but even that was too much of a stretch to say they were PARROTS instead of BATS).
We continued on our walk to the car, still arguing the point, and me now trying to convince her we talked to a crazy man in addition to them being bats (He was batty, haha...grumble). Crossing the road, we saw a guy working on some utility wires. I stopped him and asked about the flying creatures - bats or birds. He quickly responded, "Oh those are bats! Flying foxes, actually. This area has parrots as well that are red, green and blue, but they're only out during the day. The bats come out at night."
Mystery solved - so the other guy wasn't completely crazy - there are at least some parrots around. It's like the famous old saying...if it looks like a bat and flies like a bat (at bat-time), it ain't no "batty bird"!
Kangaroo Sightings
Being in Australia for the first time, of course I was looking forward to seeing kangaroos in the wild. The first opportunity was in the Blue Mountains, but unfortunately, just as road kill. It was quite sad. Later, just past Coff Harbour, there was a field of 20 roos sleeping in a field. Unfortunately, I was driving, and missed it. ("Couldn't you have turned your head and seen them?", you may be wondering. But remember, driving on the LEFT, when you're used to driving on the right, is sort of a big deal. Each time the driver took her eyes off the road, the car would drift out of line, usually towards the curb, but sometimes towards other cars. This meant we tried NOT to take our eyes off the road, for anything. By the end of the trip, we were a lot better. But this close to the beginning, I made the decision to value our lives more than glancing at dozens of k's in the wild. Plus, Christina didn't point them out to me in time. Little did I know it would be the only opportunity to see so many.) Another day, at 7:39 pm, I spotted two eating on the right hand side and another one on the left standing very close to the road. Evening time seemed the best to see live kangaroos.
Car Music
We got a rental car with a CD player and Christina had burnt 2 CD's for us to listen to. In this day of iPods, being limited to 40 songs for a 2 week road trip ends up being quite painful. Radio availability in remote parts of Australia is non-existent, so we put these cds on repeat a bit more than we could handle. We had the pleasure of Nelly Furtado, Gnarls Barkley, Justin Timberlake, Who's Who, Modest Mouse, Sierra, Police, Strokes, Tom Petty, Gorillaz, THe Roots, Erasure, Franz Ferdinand, Jack Johnson, Weezer singing to us.
Fruit Stops
Another common activity for us was to stop at fruit markets and fruit farms. We had loads of mangoes at any given time, and also bananas and lychees. I was happy to be in the thick of Australian mango season and enjoying varieties I'd never had before (the US limits imports of mangoes, though rumor has it some bans on Indian varieties will be lifted soon). The most impressive was the R2E2 variety - which is ginormous and has lots of sweet juicy flesh and a very small thin seed. They're big enough to be a meal in their own right.
Australian Big
Australia has a lot of BIG things. We saw a few of them, either on purpose or by accident. The Big Pineapple and the Big Mango were most impressive. We also saw some other things that may or may not have been the official BIG versions: Prawn, Banana (this one was really medium), Avocado, Cow, Lawn Mower, another pineapple, and a Golf Ball.
Car Talk
A 2 week trip, most of which is spent in a car driving up the coast of Australia gives a lot of time to talk. I learned more about Christina in a few car hours than I had ever known in my 7 years of knowing her. We met at Wellesley, having started with the Whiptails the same season. We'd spent time together as teammates for the most part, including a car trip down to Savannah one year. She also visited me in Seattle, after which we did a road trip to Vancouver (where I got in my first car accident), having to take the train back home together. Anyways, we discussed our quarter-life crises, growing up as chinese-americans, blogging experiences, relationships, pancakes, pets, body images, scary night driving stories, travel experiences and plans, family, among dozens of other topics.
Moments of Delirium
During our drive through the Atherton Tablelands, I had a moment of delirium on top of Platypus Rock, where I spontaneously decided to sing a song about Platypi. Christina had her moment of delirium while sitting on Upolu Cay and having the smallest of waves crash into her body and rolling out of control, getting splashed in the face. These were moments where we each personally got immense joy out of the moment, while the other person looked on in wonder thinking that maybe she's gone crazy.
Memorable Quotes
- "Right now let's just sing!" We were in the car trying to discuss our plans for the night.
- "How do I turn on the big super light? What is that called? ... High beams."
- Conversations with hostel front desk people - the first one at Next BP in Hervey Bay. We thought she didn't know how to conjugate verbs correctly. "The doors will be locked at 10." You mean, the door should have been locked at 10. "No, they will close at 10." Umm, what time do you think it is now? "It's 9:30." We looked at our watches which said 10:30...hmmm. That's when she explained that in crossing over to Queensland, not only were we in a new state, but a new time zone. Oops. The other hostel desk girl we talked a bit with was Paisy* in Cairns. She seemed pleasant enough at first, but later on, things changed (this is the sort of thing I won't blog publicly in case she reads it. Even this is probably saying too much. In fact, I'm going to change her name right now.*)
- "More pineapple in my curry please." This was a request that Christina made at a Thai restaurant in Cairns. We ordered dishes according to the ingredients listed for each dish. When it came, there weren't the promised vegetables or pineapple. Christina had really been looking forward to the fruit. The waitress explained that they had run out and only had 3 pieces left, which is why they hadn't bothered to put it in the first place. Christina asked for it anyways and they brought it over on a plate. (Sidenote: You also don't tip in Oz - which means service is very different than in America - no one rushes you out to fill the table with new customers - so you can end up sitting around for quite a long time - this is similar to Vietnam).
- "It's going to be f*ing awesome!" This was commonly said on the approach to a lookout or waterfall - building up expectation a bit more than I was comfortable with. On occasion, it was actually true.
- "A butchery!!!" I think I was so excited to see every fruit farm and every bakery, that Christina decided she should be excited about something. Poking fun at me, she chose Butcheries, which actually are everywhere. Even funnier because she is vegetarian and never would actually be that excited to see an establishment dedicated to meat.
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