No shortage of things to do

I made it home, woo hoo!

Slowly I am working my brain back into Flagstaff mode. Bringing that little mental rolodex of people and places back online. And picking up the pieces of a life put on hold for 7 months. Funny, it seems like only yesterday...

It snowed here today.

The States are getting bigger

Well, they let me back in the country. I know it shouldn't be an issue or come as a suprise, but I am always thankful whenever they do that.

Hawaii is a nice transition. In most ways it is very much south pacific: palm trees, warm humid air, polynesian language, tropical fruits falling from tree tops and knocking people silly from time to time. On the other hand, it is most certainly American, in ways that you don't notice until you've been out of the country for awhile. For example, the cars we drive are HUGE! Compared with the rest of the world, we are rolling around in armored personel carriers. And gas is cheap, even in Hawaii, by world standards, we get the go-juice plenty cheap. And beer, thank heavens, is cheap to. Beer being such an integral part of Aussie society, you'd think it would be more affordable, but compared to the pennies we pay for cheap swill in these parts, theirs is quite dear indeed. I'm still walking on the wrong side of the road and thinking in kilometers rather than miles (they really are better!), but it is nice to be back in the States. Sort of, I mean the State farthest removed from all the other ones, that by no logical means should be part of the States. Yep, nice to be back.

I went to Volcanos National Park yesterday. To see lava. The red glowing molten kind. Now I'm used to the Park Service, heck I worked for 'em, so I was not expecting the freedom they give to people to wander up and play with the gooey red stuff. Well, let me explain. First, they warm you extensivly about the dangers of volcanos. Rightly so, given the number of buildings, roads, and national park service visitor centers buried under the lava in the last hundred years. And people killed. But after that they just kinda point across the older flows and say "yep, it's out there, good luck... and don't fall in." Thankfully for all involved it is a somewhat self selecting hazard, as it is a good 4 mile walk across trackless lava flows to reach the neighborhood of the hot stuff. But even then, I know first hand the extent and great lengths people will go to in order to do stupid things in nature, so I was suprised that you can in fact walk up until your shoes start to melt on the rocks. Instead of loosing rubber, I went to where the lava flow entered the sea, and proceeded to be amazed. I saw new land being born.

Now the fire fighter in me saw a fire burning, and a water supply, in fact a literal ocean of water, wash over the fire time and again and the fire never went out, even under water. I just looked uncomprehending back and forth between the pacific ocean, and this lava flow: water----fire, and it won't go out. My universe was out of alignment. But stare at flowing lava long enough and it doesn't matter anymore. Or maybe that was the fumes. Anyway, it was amazing.

King suit

I've always thought it wise to carry one reasonably nice outfit while traveling. You just never know when you might need to dress up and look like something other than a dusty vagrant. One overseas journalist described it as a king suit, what you carry with you in the off chance you are invited to tea with the king of some small island nation. Or, you know, what you wear when you are hitchhiking through the Australian outback and a car with two ladies pulls up and offers you a ride and then a few hours later invites you to dinner and the opera. I can't count how many times that has happened to me. Oh, wait, yes I can: once. And it was a lot of fun, we saw the musical "Kiss Me, Kate" at the World Theater in Charter's Towers, Australia, a town of about nine thousand people. Which made it the biggest town by far I had seen in the preceeding 800 kilometers. But the theater was amazing. It could have stood proudly in any major city in the world, seating 700 people and built in Classical architectural style. In a town about the size of Alliance, Nebraska. I thought it charmingly opptomistic to say the least, but it seemed to have worked: a traveling light opera company was doing a show here and these ladies were driving 4 hours each way to see it.

Anyway, now I'm in Townsville, or rather holed up on a little island off the coast waiting for the weather to clear and hopefully get in a dive or two on the Great Barrier Reef before flying out on Sunday. But even if it doesn't clear, it is a fine place to relax and unwind for my last three days down under. I have a hammock, so all it well. In a few days I'll land in Hawaii for a quick 4 days to see the volcanoes and perhaps climb Mauna Kea, the high point for Hawaii. Then home sweet home.


Me and Uluru/Ayer's Rock at sunrise.

Uluru. Not just a big rock, a really big rock with all sorts of interesting faces and aspects.

The outback. This, and lots of it for thousands of miles. But to be fair there are 2 emus just outside the camera's field of vision. Seemingly the only signs of life in any direction...

Noodling through the mullock

So Coober Pedy proved to be as advertised: a mining town in the middle of the outback desert, where people live mostly in old mine shafts and there is little to do but fossick, or if you are of lesser means, noodle through the mullock. These are respective forms of opal mining.

Now when I first heard about this place, years ago, it represented more like a fantasy, the farthest most remote, absurd, and harshest outpost of humanity on earth. And I thought boy, I'd like to go there some time. Fast forward a few years and I have already been to Antarctica, and I wind up in Coober Pedy. They have a tourist information center and pizzia joint now, and tourists such as myself actually show up. But after you wander through a few underground buisnesses, look at some opal, and noodle through the mullock yourself (I didn't have the faintest idea what I was looking for), there ain't alot else to see. It is still a harsh, and poor, mining camp at the ass end of no where, where water is nearly as dear as the rocks they mine. But it was worth a visit, because the place I slept that night was 20 feet underground in a huge old mine shaft and really quite cool.

From there it was Uluru, Ayer's Rock. Now all the pictures are mostly the same side, from a distance and you think, yeah, it's a big rock alright. But when you get closer, and go around it, you realize it is more than a big rock. It is a really really big rock and the prominent feature of an otherwise flat desert all around. It supports differant micro climates, and it has many faces that you don't see from the post card shot.

Now in my last post, I mentioned it was about 2000 km of long flat road through the outback until you hit the far side ocean. Well, since naturally I didn't think that was long enough, I decided to to take the long way back, turning east at Tenant Creek to add an additional 900 miles or so of outback highway. Actually it is because flights from Darwin are so dang expensive and I can get home cheaper from Townsville. So giant saltwater croc's will have to wait, I'm headed for the Great Barrier Reef.

Me and Winnie the Pooh

So I made it to Adelaide on saturday, but naturally the post office wasn't open on the weekend, so I found myself with time to spend and no real firm plans. When ever one finds one-self in such a predicament, I find checking the map to be a good first step. Hmmm... Aussie maps are silly things, with even sillier place names: Cocklebiddy, Wodonga, Myponga, Bindi Bindi, Wagga Wagga, and my personal favorite, Nar Nar Goon. Yep, I coulda' been a cartographer here... Why tommorow I'm off to Coober Pedy, the underground opal mining town. Not like underground as in only the coolest hip-cats now about it, but underground like excavated from old mine shafts to escape the blistering heat and desert sand storms.

Anyway, back to the original story: I was examining the map when I noticed Kangaroo Island. Hmm, sounds interesting. Further investigation showed that the island, which has been seperate from the OZ mainland for about 7,000 years, is a refuge for many species threatened or wiped out by feral cats, foxes, rabbitts, etc on the main land. What was more fascinating however is the fact that the island harbors the worlds last remining pure strain of Ligurian honey bees. Now truth be told I don't know a Ligurian honey bee from a hole in the ground (though I might luck out on a multiple choice test), but to sample the last of something, the only remaining place on earth to find that something, particularly if that something is honey flavored ice cream located on a remote pacific island and guarded by hordes of wallabies, well, that is a mission worth going after. Or a windmill worth tilting at, depending on where you stand.

So a bus ride, a ferry ride, a few thumbed rides, and a long walk through the forest found me where I wanted to be: surrounded by flying stinging insects. But more importantly, eating and drinking honey, honey water, honey wine, honey ice cream, and chocolate covered honey comb.
Reverse course, collect my mail, and head north.

Now I am poised at the edge of civilization, on the verge of the Stuart Highway, a narrow strip of pavement about 2000 miles long with not much on either side until you hit the ocean, far far away. Sweeeet!

Further evidence

Along the Great Ocean Road, between Melbourne and Adelaide. Now it was great, yes, but having seen a few roads, 89A between Flagstaff and Sedona, 395 from L.A. to Reno, and the west coast of New Zealand are all peers.

Summit shot on top of Mt. Koziusco, the highest peak in Australia at about 7,200 feet above sea level. Not much more than Flagstaff, really, but blowing better than 60 knots wind the day I climbed.

Monument and summit rocks on Koziusco, all covered in rime ice about 1/2 inch thick.