This trip was planned for January 27 to February 11
originally, and Anne was supposed to come along as well. As with last year, we are expecting a
(second) grandchild; Anne therefore decided to stay in NJ, and I would cut the
trip short by several days. We decided I
should still make the annual trek to do a family reunion, and to visit my
mother who is in a nursing home.
January 27, Monday. Anne dropped me off at the airport. Terminal C now has TSA pre-check at all their
three checkpoints. Two of them were
quite busy, but the third one had only a couple of people waiting. The process took all of 5 minutes, so I even
had time to get a quarter pounder at McDonalds before I boarded for the 4 pm
flight. The flight was not crowded, and
there was an empty middle seat. It took
a bit more than six hours as the headwinds were quite bad. I had a choice of a later flight that would
give me less than an hour of connection time, and that would have been a bit
tight; so I was glad to have made the decision for an earlier flight.
After dinner at Fung Lam, I went to the United Club was
also relatively quiet. On UA418 I was
organizing photos on my computer, so the battery was a bit low. The longer layover gave the devices sometime
to get recharged.
UA863 was more crowded than I expected, I was therefore
glad to have an empty seat next to me. These
older 747s have no power outlets, and very rudimentary entertainment
systems. I did enjoy the classical music
channel, which had a nice selection of well-known and more obscure
compositions. Too bad there is no
announcement before or after to identify the pieces. I was eventually bored enough that I decided
to sign on for internet, which this old 747 offers. The price was a reasonable $16.99 for the
entire flight, especially considering most of the time the plane is above the
Pacific Ocean. Even though the speed
wasn’t blazingly fast, it was adequate for the light-duty stuff I was doing. My PC eventually ran out of battery (it
didn’t fully charge up at the Club in any case,) and switching the service over
to my tablet was quite straightforward.
All in all a pleasant surprise.
The downside was I didn’t get that much sleep during the
14 hour flight, although I did nod off a few times.
January 29, Wednesday. Immigration and customs are always problems
entering Australia. With immigration it
is simply a matter of too many arrivals at around 8 am that the system is
overwhelmed. The Australians are close
to paranoid about letting the “wrong” stuff in – perhaps no one wants to be
responsible for another case of rabbits, camels, or cane toads – and anyone
declaring anything is subject to a thorough search – at least it felt that
way. The new twist for this time was
these holding lanes that people and their luggage line up and they bring along
a “biosecurity” dog to sniff through the crowd and their belongings.
After I got through, I went to Vodafone to buy a
telephone card, and Steven and Ruth got there just as I was wrapping things up.
I didn’t do much the rest of the day. Lunch was at Eastgardens; dinner at Jennings
Street consisted of steak that Ruth prepared and a takeout dish (preserved
vegetables and pork) from this restaurant that is quite far away. The takeout dish was quite delicious.
I walked around the block a couple of times after dinner.
Accommodation (3 nights): Jennings Street
January 30, Thursday. After breakfast I jogged the 1.5 miles to
Botany Cemetery to visit father’s grave.
I felt I had the energy to do quite a bit more, so I planned to run up
Little Bay Road, then Anzac Parade, then down Franklin to get back to
Matraville. This would make the entire
trip about 4 miles. My recent exercises
have been on an elliptical, and I was simply exhausted by the time I reach
Little Bay. I couldn’t quite restart the
jogging, so ended up walking back to Matraville, which took a while, and got
Ruth a bit concerned.
Lunch was in Chinatown, dim sum at The Eight. Pretty good food.
After lunch I said goodbye to Ruth and Steven, and bought
a day pass from a pharmacy, and took the bus to the Circular Quay. The ride to Manly was a pleasant 30 minutes,
although the seas got a little rough as we got to the Head, with waves splashing
quite a few people at the bow of the ship.
(And it was a large ship.) I took
another long walk from the pier: Corso, Shelley Beach, and up and down the
entire length of Manly Beach. That
turned out to be much longer than I expected: 4 miles, mostly level ground
though. A total of eight miles for the
day was a bit much. I was very stiff
when I was ready to get out of the bus at Matraville, and my calves are still
aching more than six hours after the walk.
The Opera House as viewed from ferry to Manly. Still looks good after 40 years (construction started much earlier in 1958.)
Skyline of City, Opera House, and Harbour Bridge. Viewed from ferry to Manly.
Dinner was at a Singapore style restaurant (Kreta Ayer) around
University of New South Wales.
January 31, Friday. Tim and Alyson got in from Hong Kong Tim and
Alyson got in from Hong Kong this morning.
There was a crying baby in their cabin so neither of them got any sleep. After a short nap for them, the five of us
went off to Fairlea to visit mother. She
hasn’t changed much; a case could even be made that she showed some improvement
during the year. It was lunch time, and
for Chinese New Year a vegetarian meal was served: she clearly didn’t like that
very much.
After the visit we had lunch at East Garden again. This time I had a rather spicy Beef Vindaloo.
Dinner was early at 6 pm as we had an opera to see at
7:30 pm. Ling and Wally, who are
visiting from Brisbane, joined us for both events. I had not seen them for quite a while, so it
was nice to catch up. Ling had some
dental work done and couldn’t eat much as her mouth is still numb from the
surgery. The restaurant, SuperExtra, is
located under the tracks at Circular Quay and we could hear and feel the trains
as they rumble by.
Seven of us then went to see Rossini’s A Turk in
Italy. I had some misgivings about the
show at first, but ended up liking it somewhat.
At intermission of A Turk in Italy by Rossini. Sydney Opera House.
It was about 11:30 pm when we got back to Jennings
Street.
February 1, Saturday. At around 11 am we started our drive to
Culburra Beach, a coastal town south of Sydney, where we rented a house for 3
nights. The drive was basically
uneventful, but was over some stretches of A1 that had considerable stop-and-go
traffic. When I first started coming to
Australia in the late 1970s, even roads between Sydney and Canberra – the
largest city and the capital district – were on the primitive side; now it is all
limited-access freeway. So there is hope
for these sleepy little towns yet.
Sleepy the town is:
We were expecting limited services in the town, but weren’t quite
prepared for how limited they are. The
two restaurants we saw were just one step better than a take-away, and there
was no grocery store in sight. For our
(late) lunch and food shopping for the next few days we backtracked about 12
miles to the town of Nowra which had a small shopping center where we managed
to get something to eat (Oporto for me again) and to do some shopping
(Woolworth’s is the name of the grocery store.)
Alyson, Tim and I went on a 3+ mile walk on the beach
while Ruth prepared dinner. We didn’t
eat until about 8 pm. Given the sparse
population around here, we decided to go out to the deck to look for
stars. The Southern Sky is quite
different from the Northern one, but I still managed to identify The Orion,
Jupiter, and Gemini. The absolute surprise
was that I could see the Milky Way. When
I was in Arizona I was told we couldn’t see it this time of the year, and I am
quite sure there is not much difference between the Northern and the Southern
hemisphere …
Day Break (5:50 am, February 2) of Culburra Beach as viewed from house.
Tim and Alyson enjoying the surf and sand, Culburra Beach.
Accommodations: 43 Marina, Culburra Beach, Queensland
February 2, Sunday. It is quite easy to while away the time doing
nothing around here. And I managed
that. Around three in the afternoon, Tim
and Alyson wanted to play in the surf, so I went along to guard their
belongings as they frolicked in the water.
After they were done, I walked the length of the beach which resulted in
a 4.75 mile walk (roundtrip). It was
quite cool and breezy. I did put on some
sunscreen but was a bit worried that it wasn’t enough.
At around 6:30 pm, we drove to Hockissin, a town about 40
minutes away. They run dolphin watch and
fishing cruises from the pier, a possibility for tomorrow.
By the time we got back, and Ruth finished the cooking,
it was about 9 pm.
February 3, Monday. Went back out to Nowra for lunch and
groceries. Drove around the area a bit,
including Wollumboula Lake, and to the headlands north (Crookhaven Heads
Lighthouse) and south (Penguin Head) of Culburra Beach. Rather rugged coast line with strong waves to
match; it is the Pacific Ocean after all.
Hiked for 3.6 miles (roundtrip) from house to Lighthouse. Lighthouse’s lantern is missing. According to a web entry, “aside from the
keepers cottage at South Solitary Island, this is probably the most endangered
lighthouse in New South Wales.”
The Crookhaven Heads Lighthouse was last renovated in 1999. It is now missing a lantern.
This is what it looked like after a recent renovation. A lighthouse was first erected around this location in 1882.
February 4, Tuesday. We left the Culburra Beach house at around
11:00 am, and drove to Fairlea, with Tim and I sharing the driving, each
providing the rest of the group with some excitement (Tim with speed, and I
with crowding the left side of the lane.)
After a short visit with mother, who was more alert than usual, we had
lunch at Taste of Shanghai in Hurstville.
Then it was off to Bondi Junction for Tim and Alyson to check into
Meriton – they got a high floor room with a great view of the harbor, the
Harbor Bridge, and the Opera House.
Ruth, Stephen, and I had dinner at Kam Lun (Golden Unicorn) Restaurant
in Maroubra.
I should start packing for my trip home soon.
Anne cancelled her class to pick me up.
February 5, Wednesday. My second grandchild, Baby Garsson was born
this morning at about 7 am (3 pm Feb 4, NJ time.) Anne sent along a few photos, and he is cute
– I realize I am biased here. By the
way, just like last year, Anne didn’t make this trip in anticipation of a
birth. In any case, we feel blessed.
Ruth and Stephen had to be in North Sydney by 3 pm, so
they dropped me off at SYD at around 1:30 pm.
Immigration was quite straightforward.
We left on time. I snagged a
first class seat (award ticket) and at this point (6 ½ hours into the flight)
seem to be the only one still awake.
I am now in the LAX United lounge. I ended up sleeping a couple of hours in the
plane. Evidently how spacious the seat
is doesn’t always correlate with how much sleep one gets, at least not this
time. Most of the flights from the New
York area to LAX have been cancelled due to the bad weather conditions out
east, UA703 uses a plane coming in from Las Vegas and right now shows on time
departure. We shall see.
Plane left a few minutes early even though it was
packed. There was strong tail wind (as
high as 180 mph) so the trip took only 4 ½ hours. We did have to wait about 15 minutes after we
landed at EWR for a gate to open up.
Internet on this shorter flight still costs $14.99. Since I had nothing urgent to get to, I
passed.
Anne cancelled her class to pick me up.
