I also checked out the Immigration Museum, a small but good way
to be introduced to the history of the Australians. Of the one
million Adelaidies and Adegentlemen, about 1.000 are of
Norwegian descent. Quite understandable, a lot of Norwegian
sailors just left their ships and stayed here to start a new
life late in the 19th century.
A section of the museum was dedicated to international food, and inspired by this I went to Pizza Hut and paid only AU$6,50 for infinite amounts of pizza, fruits, garlic bread, chocolate pudding and ice cream. Another good reason for leaving Norway for Adelaide. Pizza Hut became a once-a-week treat for me while I traveled in Australia. Good value for money, as opposed to some of the tourist activities there are to participate in. I suspect that the reason most activities are very expensive are the huge advertisement budgets they must have, with colourful hand-outs and brochures available everywhere.
I managed to get to The Oval, the main cricket ground in Adelaide, just as a THREE DAY cricket match was about to finish. I didn't even figure out who won the match. Having missed one opportunity to see something I could not quite understand, I just found another; I went to church, or to be specific, Saint Peter's Cathedral. This was my first encounter with the Anglican church, where an evening song was taking place. It was interesting to see that the Norwegian Lutheran Church is not the only one able to make a service be an utterly boring performance. The choir's singing was ok, thanks to the great acoustics of the church, but the sermon delivered was not. It was about something about a bird of passage and how important it is to stay on the ground and treasure it, especially the ground in England, and then particularly the ground that the Queen Mother walks on. There were few people in the church, so after the cermon, we all had to walk past the priests and shake their hands before they would let us out.
My best experience in Adelaide was an AU$19 halfday trip to the
Cleland Wildlife Park. Not because it was the best wildlife park
I've been to, but because it was the first Australian one I
ever visited. There were plenty of opportunities for
encounters of the third degree with koalas, emus, kangaroos,
pelicans, dingos, wombats, the Tasmanian devil and wallabies,
which are kangaroos with feet shorter than 35cm. Near the park
is a viewpoint over Adelaide, at Mount Lofty. You have to see
Adelaide from there to be able to believe that the city has
more than a million citizens. When you're IN Adelaide it seems
like a much smaller city. Anyway, I recommend a visit to the park.
During a 30 minutes AU$5 session at an Internet cafe I discovered that a friend from school in Norway, who was now studying in Sydney, happened to be in Adelaide for a few days. I tracked Olav down at his hostel and we had dinner together. He drank red wine at AU$1.80 per glass, while I had orange juice at AU$2.50... These prices will NEVER happen in Norway. The owner of the place we had dinner at treated us almost like old friends, as he had seen the movie "Wikings" with Kirk Douglas and Tony Curtis, from 1956, which supposedly was filmed on location in Norway. I think he was a bit disappointed by us, as we neither pillaged his establishment nor did we even come close to rape his barmaids whatsoever at all.
During my last day in Adelaide I went to the State Library which was really nice and had good Internet access. To my great joy I found the Sydney Morning Herald edition with an article in it concerning my travel sickness bag collection. May 7 1996. The Art Gallery of South Australia is not very interesting, consisting mainly of works by, to me, totally unfamiliar British artists. Encouraged by the memories of my discovery at the WWII museum in Kanchanaburi, I discovered that the pregnant cleaning woman (a piece of art, not a real one) in the department for contemporary art, actually wore a pair of really, really worn out red panties. Someone had put a lot of work into the hidden details of their art. From this we have learned two things: 1. Life is in the details. 2. Museums are more fun when you are left undisturbed in them, whether you are alone or not!
The "city beach" of Adelaide can be found just a tram ride away from the city centre, at Glenelg. I'm sure it's nice on summer days when the thunderstorms are kept at a minimum. It is a fairly long beach, and there are many restaurants at the seaside. Still, the weather was against me, so I went back to the city and bought some fruit at Central Market (the first market I'd been to for months where haggling was not compulsory. Actually, it was not even an option. And full of fruit I left for Victoria and Melbourne.
The bus ride was a tough one, by non-Asian standards. The just over nine hours bus ride started off with "King Ralph" on video, and after that I spent the night fighting for my rightful space with a tall, weird surfer with lots of hair (the people behind our seat probably never noticed the video) and legs everywhere. At 6 in the morning I started my search for shelter, trying first at YHA. Nobody had warned me about this annual tennis tournament which was going on, the Australian Open. On the good side it meant possibilities for experiencing something new, and there were lots of events going on in Melbourne because of this. But on the downside, it meant that ALL the hostels of Melbourne and basically all the hotels as well, had no beds available, apparently mainly because of an incredible number of Swedish tennis fans, wearing Viking helmets, carrying beer and generally making themselves very visible in the streets and pubs.
So I just started "doing" Melbourne, thinking that in the worst case I'd just travel on the same night, there were lots of available seats on all buses OUT of Melbourne that week. I found UNI Travel, which is Kilroy's partner in Australia, and modified my ticket home a little bit and booked myself onto a bus tour of South Island, New Zealand. The people there are very helpful, and they let you use the Internet for free!
There are almost three and a half million people in Melbourne, so it is a big city. It does not feel "too" big, though, and I felt quite comfortable walking around in it, not really knowing where I were at all times. There are lots of things to see, thanks to the many small, ethnic communities with their many different cultures. China Town is nice, although it is really just a "China Street", just next to the Parliament of Victoria buildings, which is built in a VERY British style. The Parliament is generously equipped with beautiful details everywhere, as it was built in a city gripped by gold fever and with a seemingly infinitely bright future ahead of it.
The climate in Melbourne (like back home in Norway, like in Reykjavik, like in Seattle and I bet a thousand other cities), is rather unstable. (Like the other places, they use the saying "If you don't like the weather here, just wait 15 minutes" frequently here.) While the day started out very nicely with warm, sunny weather, it had turned into a chilly rain by the time I went outside after the Parliament tour. Having left my extra clothes in the bag back at the hostel, I decided to take a walk to develop some heat for myself. I went down to Memorial Shrine, which is an impressive monument built in memory of those who gave their lives for Australia (or Great Britain, really) in war. There is an eternal flame and big words describing heroic deeds and all other things you would expect at such a place. And like all other such places, you'll leave it with a very, very sad feeling inside, despite its beauty.
I walked back to the city centre along the river Yarra. Yarra, with its banks is the "Central Park" of Melbourne, with hundreds of joggers on the trails and about as many people rowing boats up and down the river. I found a small, Swedish restaurant serving köttbullar, meat balls, and was quite happy about that.
By now it was getting late in the afternoon, and I still had not found a place to stay. You may remember that back on Java, at Mount Bromo, I met up with an Australian family, the Smiths, who had been careless enough to give me their phone number and address, so I decided to try calling them. Nicky and Rod were very nice, and invited me to come spend a few nights in their home. They are both teachers, and the summer vacation was still going on, so they were not too busy. Lucky me!
So that was how I got to sleep in clean sheets for the first time in uhm... well, a long time. I think maybe I should not tell you exactly how long, since Nicky and Rod may actually be reading this. #8O) Anyway, they told me to take the local train to Metcham, where they picked me up and took me to their home in Vermouth South.
Melbourne is stretched out quite a bit, but it is easy to get around by public transportation. An AU$7 day pass became my choice. With this I travelled from Metcham into the city, and took the trams around for a while, to get to know the city better. Vanessa, the daughter of Nicky and Rod, worked as a volunteer at the Australian Open, and she and Steve, her brother, showed me around a bit, before leaving me to go see the interesting matches. The one I wanted to see was probably not very interesting, but at least it had a Norwegian in it, Christian Ruud. He won against a rather bad player from India or Indonesia, so I was happy. A day pass at Australian Open cost AU$15, which gave me access to all courts, except Centre Court, where the very best players play. I had never seen tennis before, so I could not tell a good match from a bad match anyway. It was easy to find a seat at my match, as there were only a few, fat Norwegian sports journalists and even fewer skinny backpackers present. But we cheered, and were joined by some of the Swedish Vikings with yellow and blue painted faces after a while.
After the one match I saw all of, I wandered around. There was a nice atmosphere, with loud, joint gasps from the about 20 courts around, as dramatic moments took place. The sponsors of the tournament arranged activities for the spectators, and I managed to win an IBM drinking bottle with my rather poor ability to answer tennis trivia questions. I filled it with complimentary Pepsi, and walked to the bothanical gardens nearby. These gardens are possibly the nicest ones I have seen anywhere. I would say it is a definite must-see if you ever go to Melbourne. There were many kinds of plants I had never seen before, and I walked around for quite a while. I also happened upon an action theatre version of "The Wind In the Willows" which was being played in the park. All in all it was a quite nice, relaxing day in the courts and in the park, and I ended it by watching the Melbourne Triathlon Team work out like mad, while I wrote in my diary. And the perfect end was to talk about my experiences with the Smiths, and slide in between the clean sheets for another good night's sleep.
Having spent a couple of days in the city, I decided to spend my third Victorian day in the woods. I got on the Belgrave line and took it as far east as it goes, and found myself in errr... right, Belgrave. There is a tiny tourist office there, which provided me with a map of the Sherbrooke Forest Park, part of the Dandenongs. The park is a fairly small one, so the map was pretty much showing the park in its actual size. I managed to see more or less all of it in a few hours of walking. It is quite beautiful, with huge eucalyptuses, reminding me a bit of the redwood forests of California, surrounded by some ferns whose ancestors probably came from some Magic Forest. A minor disappointment, though, were the Sherbrooke Falls, which turned out to be a waterfall measuring about 20 x 10 x 3 cm. (Even if you're not into the metric system, you can probably figure out that these are not very impressive dimensions.) Still, it was water and it fell, so I guess it can be defended as being "falls" by a particularly eager lawyer.
There was not a lot of wildlife to be seen, just some kookaburras and lorrikets (birds). Oh, and there was plenty of animal meat to be seen in the picnic/BBQ areas. But the whole scenery and the plants growing in that forest is worth a visit, as long as the weather is nice. The whole forest reportedly burned down just a few days after I left, so ask the locals before you go up there. Also, the reason for the lush forest is the fact that this area gets an awful lot of rain, so do check the weather forecast if you decide you want to go there.
If you are not too eager about walking, there is an option for you in the Dandenongs as well; Puffing Billy. AU$15 gives you a seat on an old, restored steam-train that runs through the forests on a 13-km track. Very picturesque. I, on the other hand, got on another train, back towards Melbourne, and got off at Ringwood. The Smiths had told me it might be an interesting stop if I really (they seemed a bit doubtful about this) was interested in seeing a typical Australian suburb. It was very much like the US suburbs, so I did not really learn much new, except exactly that. I checked out Eastland, a large shopping mall there, and yet again found Internet access and was able to send some e-mail back home.
When I tried to get back on the train to go "home" to the Smiths, there was a bit of a problem; The electricity was missing. All the railway employees were running about looking for it, even the tame gorilla that normally sells tickets to the passengers at the station wandered back and forth looking gloomily at us, the passengers. After 30 minutes they found the problem, and adviced us that it would take exactly 4 hours to fix, so we had to get on buses instead. I did, and got back just a little bit after my hosts had started getting worried. We celebrated my return from the great unknown with a delicious barbeque meal in their backyard; shish kebab, corn, French fries, ice cream and fruit salad. *Mmmm* Australian favourite food may not be the most advanced in the world, but it sure is tasty!
I spent the rest of the evening talking to the Smiths. Being a truly very well traveled family themselves, they were able to give me many new ideas for places I might enjoy visiting. Vanessa came home, a little bit disappointed from having been ordered out of a very good seat in Centre Court, after having spent a lot of time managing to sneak into it. Steve showed me his room, a kingdom full of eternal treasures, such as cow skulls, aeroplane models et cetera. I had to go to bed early, though, because the next day would be a busy one.
I am not sure if it was because Nicky and Rod were tired of having me around, but they both got up at 6am to make sure I would get to the train station in time for an early train into the city. We said goodbye, and I hope I can "pay" them back by hosting all or some of them in my home someday.
The reason I had to get up this early was that I was to go on a bus tour to the Great Ocean Road, which started from the YHA in North Melbourne. The Great Ocean Road is a particularly scenic 300km long part of the coastal road from Geelong near Melbourne towards Adelaide. I only saw part of it, but during that day we drove about 600km, and that was enough for me, really. It reminded me a lot about the roads along the fjords back home in Norway, except here the speed limit is a whopping theoretical 100km/h. This road was not built out of necessity, but more as a memorial to the Australian soldiers who died in the first World War. There are many beautiful sandstone cliffs diving straight into the icy ocean, with nothing between there and the Antarctic. The water eats away 2cm off the cliffs each year, and millions of rabbits eat lots of grass and destroy the fields all the time.
The road itself is well worth seeing, but unless you're a trained driver, you might want to go on a tour and not drive yourself, as the roads are narrow with many curves, and with lots of professional drivers who are very willing to become mad at you for going slow and being in their way.
The most memorable event of the day for me, though, was when at a short stop I took off my t-shirt to put some sunscreen on my shoulders. Before I had gotten to taking the lid off the bottle, a Japanese girl on my tour came running up to me and asked very politely "May I please rub your behind?". I suppose she meant to ask whether I could need some assistance in applying sunscreen onto my back and shoulders, but for a moment there I was very tempted to pull down my pants, hand her the bottle and say "Go ahead, baby!". #8D) But I did not. Instead I declined her offer, and said "Thanks for offering".
On our way back to Melbourne we took the inland route, which is considerably shorter. It is also very nice, with farmland and a little bit of that Outback feeling. Stop at one of the village pubs and play pool with locals to see what I mean.
We arrived back in town just in time for me to catch the Canberra bus. On this route, and other major routes, Greyhound run very comfortable two-floor buses, with very comfortable sleeping seats, and the distance takes just about one night to cover, so it is a very good and fairly decent-priced way to get from A to B while at the same time saving you one night of accommodation. So, after a night side by side with a guy from Hell's Angels with a one meter beard and slightly scary upper arm, whose bike had been stolen recently, I was in the Australian Capital Territory.