Tuesday, February 04, 2014

Australia, January 27 – February 5, 2014.

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.

Rugged NSW coastline.  Here as seen from Crookhaven Heads.

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.

43 Marina, Culburra Beach, NSW.


I should start packing for my trip home soon.

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.

No comments: