Bundanoon

I’m very fortunate to have the Royal National Park within 15 minutes of my house, but last Monday I decided to take the day off work and venture a bit further south to Morton National Park. I drove about an hour and a half down the Hume Highway (which leads to Canberra and eventually Melbourne) to the tiny town of Bundanoon in the Southern Highlands. In April they have a Highland fling to celebrate the Scottish heritage of the town, but I found it to be very quiet this time of year. Bundanoon reminds me a bit of Vashon Island; there are no chain stores but plenty of antique/tchotchke shops, a cafe that hires bicycles by the hour, a Chinese restaurant, and a bottle shop called the “Pioneer Flask”, which boasts the only ATM in town. There is a train station that links Bundanoon to Sydney, with service once every hour.

This freight train was flying through the town, probably on its way to Melbourne.

The entrance to the national park is just outside of town, and as I parked I spotted two kangaroos hanging out in the picnic area. I found the trail head and began to walk to my final destination: Fairy Bower Falls.

The foliage was thick and green, and at times there were clearings where I could see for miles out into the valley. During my hike I heard a rustling sound to the left, and looked over to see a wombat ten feet away, chewing something and looking at me very casually. I was too startled to even take a photo, which I realize makes me sound a bit timid, but if you can picture a rat about the size of a corgi you might understand why I was eager to get away from it.

I made my way down a steep incline to the top half of a small waterfall. To the side of the falls I could see a mossy, damp staircase carved into the side of the rocks - this must have been the old trail to the falls. Fortunately the current trail is easy to negotiate.

I can see why the place is named Fairy Bower. There are tiny gnats circling the falls, and it’s not difficult to picture them as tiny fairies. Hopefully I can make it down to the park again soon - it feels very remote, but it’s a quick drive from home and definitely worth the trip.

Too soon

I came back from my lunch break today to find a Christmas tree installed in the lobby a full six weeks before Christmas:

Maybe it's because Australians don't have Thanksgiving, and they don't do much for Halloween, but they approach Christmas celebrations with an enthusiasm I haven't experienced since I still believed in Santa. What made it feel even more wrong was today was sunny and about 90 degrees - or maybe the heat is just making me grumpy.

Crazytown, New South Wales

We have had a cold snap here in Sydney over the last couple of days, and since I didn’t have any leftovers from last night’s dinner to eat for lunch, I decided to go up the street to Saigon Queen for some pho on my lunch break. After I ordered I sat down to read my book (The Awakening by Kate Chopin - very steamy for the late 19^th century!) while waiting for my food to come out.

There was a middle-aged lady drinking a diet coke a couple of tables over, and after a minute or so I became vaguely aware of her mumbling something to herself. It started to sound more like a hissing noise, and became loud enough that I realized what she was saying: “Sssssslut! Sssssssslut!”  After a few more seconds I couldn’t ignore it any longer, and I looked up to see  her leaning towards me, maintaining direct eye contact, all while hissing the word slut. I didn’t know what to do - as a rule I tend not to escalate situations involving people with questionable sanity. I made the split second decision to bury my eyeballs right back into the book and ignore her. After a minute of this she went up to the counter to pay before leaving, and I was left to eat my soup in confusion.

For reference, my outfit consisted of a knee-length grey skirt, a button-up shirt with a Peter Pan collar, and a cardigan. People are strange.

Jibbon Head/Dharawal Aboriginal Engravings

It’s officially spring in Australia, and I decided to take advantage of the warm weather to check out Jibbon Beach in Bundeena, a small town that can only be accessed via ferry or by driving through the Royal National Park. I’ve taken the ferry before, so I decided to take the drive through the park down a winding two lane road until I reached the beach access point.

Trailhead

Jibbon Beach - the water is so calm and blue.

My ultimate destination was the Aboriginal rock engravings at the far end of Jibbon Beach. It was fairly deserted except for a couple of people on kayaks, and as I reached the end of the beach I came upon a grass clearing, where a group of about 20 people were gathered around a man who was burning incense and rhythmically hitting two sticks together; I decided my best course of action was to walk quickly past them avoiding all eye contact. I continued a few hundred meters more to Little Jibbon Beach. My guide had warned that many people treat this as a nude beach (which it isn’t), and advised me to call the police hotline if I came across anyone in their birthday suit. Fortunately the beach was deserted, and I was treated to views across Port Hacking to Cronulla.

Little Jibbon

I was disappointed to find a construction zone all around the engraving site. A lone tradesman was working on the viewing platform being constructed at the side, and he was blasting Top 40 radio from a boom box next to his lunch pail. It was interesting to see the engravings, estimated to be about 2000 years old, but the ambience was definitely compromised. 

Entrance to the engraving site

A whale I think?

Wallaby or kangaroo?

Fortunately I continued walking a little bit farther and the views up and down the coastline were spectacular.  

View of the coast

Byron Bay

Last week I took a couple of days off work so that we could take a little road trip up the coast of New South Wales to Byron Bay. It's about a 10 hour drive, and my poor little '98 Paseo handled it beautifully! One of the things on my agenda was The Big Banana in Coffs Harbour. Australia has a number of "Big Things", which are essentially tourist traps on the side of the road. This one happens to be a banana, but there is a Big Prawn, Big Guitar, etc. depending on the local economy. I got a picture with the banana and then we got out of there because there really wasn't much else to see.

The Big Banana

As we made the trip up the coast, the scenery changed gradually from sandstone rock formations and gum trees near Sydney, to sugarcane fields and banana plantations the closer we got to Queensland. Just when I thought we would never get there, we started the descent into Byron Bay and finally arrived at the Beachcomber, a small resort just a short walk out of town.

Byron is known for it's hippie culture (although I would say Portland would give it a run for it's money), and I saw plenty of white people with dreadlocks, people carrying guitars but not playing them, Birkenstocks, and tie dye. Fortunately, it also has amazing food and about 10 pubs within a few minutes walking distance to each other. We happened upon a fun place called "The Rails" that had live country/rockabilly music and had a few beers there on Saturday night.

The main reason I wanted to go to Byron Bay was to check out the lighthouse. This is situated on the easternmost point of the Australian mainland, and it was truly spectacular. We went on Sunday morning and nearly had the place to ourselves while everyone else nursed a hangover.

 Path up to the lighthouse

View of Byron Bay from the lighthouse. There is still a shipwreck in the bay from the 1920s that is now a popular surfing spot.

When it was time to head back home, we stopped overnight at Port Macquarie, a quiet town about halfway back down the coast to Sydney. I was able to try a couple of Australian beers there that were inspired by Northwest hops - this beer from Little Creatures brewery was about the closest I've tasted to a pale ale back in Seattle.

Yum!

The waterfront in Port Macquarie

Griffiths Teas

My desk at work is one of the few in our office without a window, but our lucky photocopier has sweeping views of Surry Hills from the back window. Whenever I need to copy and bind some practice parts or perusal scores, my attention is drawn to a really interesting building across the road with “Griffiths Teas” painted in fading white letters on the outside. It has been vacant ever since I started 3 years ago, and I always wondered what the story was behind the building and why it is no longer in use. A quick internet search turned up a surprising amount of information about the place.

Apparently Griffiths Teas was started by an Englishman who immigrated to Melbourne in the early 20^th century, and he opened a location in Sydney to cater to thirsty commuters arriving and departing from Central Station. The business had closed by the 1960s, and from there the building was leased to a variety of tenants; when I walked by the building today there were old signs for a furniture business, as well as posters for various brands of power tools (in addition to the original signage advertising tea and cocoa). The windows and doors are all boarded up, and it seems that the only tenants now are pigeons.

 View from street level

It looks like some sort of hardware store might have been here

The loading dock area is no longer in use, so now it's a scooter parking zone

A bit more research indicated that the owners of the Griffiths Teas building are a reclusive elderly couple named Isaac and Susan Wakil, who own several properties in Sydney valued around $75 million. Rather than develop them, they prefer to keep the buildings vacant and watch the value increase over the years. At least that’s what the public suspects is the reason for keeping the buildings vacant; the Wakils have never replied to requests for information about it and are almost never seen in public. However, their Rolls Royce can frequently be seen parked outside the offices of their business, Citilease. 

Damn Skippy!

Every now and then I’ll wake up in the middle of the night and have some trouble falling back asleep. When that happens I usually go out to the couch to watch some TV until I feel tired, and there is one Aussie classic that is on almost without fail: Skippy the Bush Kangaroo.

Last night happened to be one of those nights, so I get to spend my Monday with the theme song firmly stuck in my head. You can check it out by following the link if you want, but consider yourself warned that it’s equal parts annoying and catchy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_agtNKbgSfI