Great Ocean Road - Part II

With sandy shorts and heavy hearts we loaded up the van and pulled reluctantly out of Lorne. Would we ever spend four such glorious days on the beach again? This had been the stuff of family legend and we were sure that the halcyon days spent guiltily soaking up the sun and surf might never be repeated, ever. The stars have aligned themselves in many strange and wondrous ways in Oz, and perhaps nowhere did we feel the vibes of luck and good fortune more than on the gentle shores of Lorne.

But that was yesterday and today we had some major mileage to make up. We were going to save the really scenic stuff for our drive home, so this leg of the journey would take us away from the ocean but hopefully a little faster to Adelaide. From the golden shores of Lorne we climbed inland over a beautifully twisty road that again forced us to engage the rating system and after a "below 7" urging from Alex we spent a dusty few minutes at the side of the road trying to catch our breath and balance. Thankfully, only a few more turns separated us from flatter and straighter highways and soon we left the seclusion of the secondary roads to join one of the three major roads between Melbourne and Adelaide. Our eventual destination would be Mt. Gambier, the second largest city in South Australia, but before we got there we would enjoy a rainy lunch in Warranambool, a seaside town famous for its shipwrecks and killer playground. The boys and I had a fantastic time flinging oursleves down the best flying foxes I have ever seen. Australia, I must say, does parks right!

Needing to get another few hundred kms under the wheels of our trusty Toyota Tarango, we scarfed down our picnic lunch in the foggy confines of the van and then headed onto the open highway like Kerouac's Sal Paradise, not knowing what we would see or where we would stop next but certain that we were headed in the right direction. In fact, this particular trip was really our own version of a classic "road movie". There were the seedy motels, strange characters, and always the road pulling us on. Of course, there were not the endless parties, bizarre drug use, ,and way cool soundtrack of an Easy Rider or even National Lampoons Family Vacation but in the same way that the road movie captures life through the collective journey, our drive to Adelaide neatly captured the four of us living within whatever the road presented to us every day. Upon reflection, the freedom of not knowing where you would eat, what you might see, or who you might meet as you pull into the outer limits of the next, new and dusty town must be part of what Sal and Jack were so desperately addicted to. And though many of these places seemed so remote and faceless, the thrill of what the next place just might hold had become quite enchanting.

And it was with such a mind that we rolled into Mt. Gambier - pronounced Gam-bee-err - not with the obviously french influenced Gam-bee-ey that we consistently wanted to use and had all of the locals giving us the "You're-not-from-around-these-parts-are-yuh" hairy eyeball. Our first stop tends to always be the "i" which is the local tourist info booth and is always good for a few brochures, a pee, and at times a cool thing to climb on. In this case we discovered that Mt. Gambier was actually settled on top of a series of ancient rivers, caves and caverns and beside an old, very extinct volcano. Way cool! This was something new and different from the now very "boring" coastline and beach vistas and we all oohed and aahed at the size of the crater that formed Blue Lake at the top of Mt. Gambier.

After checking in to our hotel and checking out a few more caves and sinkholes, we had a passable Thai meal at the Banana Leaf cafe on mainstreet Mt. Gambier. Something a little less awe-inspiring than the caves, or the food for that matter, was our Best Western hotel room. Linton thinks I am becoming a bit of a hotel snob, and I will admit to a growing need for a firm mattress, thick walls, a clean bedspread and furniture that evokes a time period other than 1930's Oklahoma. If that's what makes me a hotel snob then so be it. Suffice to say, on our budget, we have experienced a very wide variety of what Australia has to offer in terms of budget accommodation.

In the morning, we faced our longest drive yet as we needed to get to Adelaide by 6:00 to meet my parents. Before we got underway we visited Englebrecht Cave which had been a special promise to a very disappointed Alex who had shed a tear the night before when the cave had been closed. Again working inland we soon made our way through one of the most famous wine regions in Australia - Coonawara - stopping briefly at Wynns vineyard to sample a bit and buy a welcome-to-Australia bottle for my dad. Blasting our way past endless cattle stations, windfarms, and the odd secluded vineyard we stopped for lunch in Keith, South Australia where we were again welcomed by a very friendly and playable park. They boys were in heaven on a gravity-propelled train-like thing that would never see the light of day in Canada for fear of the 27 different types of potential for litigation. Here in Australia however, we were relaxed enough to see that it was perfect and safe enough for our kids.

With a "take away"long black precariously perched in the cup holder in order to fend off the inevitable post-lunch head-bobs, we pounded the pedal for Adelaide needing only a pee and petrol stop in strangely named Tailem Bend in order to finally make Adelaide. Crossing the Murray River and descending into Adelaide was nicely familiar and more than a touch exciting both for the sense of conquering another large chunk of the Australian continent and knowing that this journey had actually brought us within reach of family from home. Our dinner and reunion at Stanley's seafood restaurant on Gouger street was one of the most satisfying meals I have had in years.

Feb 3 - Another lucky fan buys a souvenir!

What is it about travel that seems to demand a souvenir? From the earliest days of “My parents went to Florida and all they bought me was this lousy t-shirt” t-shirts, there seems to be a need to mark one’s success at actually living and breathing in another country, with the purchase of some sort of trinket or doo-dad in order to more fully remember the experience. The pictures in the photo album are never enough, the beaded hair eventually needs to be washed, and the "unforgettable" memories of the mind are hardly reliable over the long term. And so, we need that t-shirt, sculpture, rare faux-crocodile lampshade or simple fridge magnet stuffed precariously in our luggage to reappear somewhere in our rec room announcing to the world that “I have been here. I have travelled. See my stuff. Hear me roar.”

I’m asking these questions because unquestionably I, too, suffer from the need for a travel status marked by the accumulation of unique indigenous material possessions. To start, I am trying to blog my experiences into a sort of permanent online record as a way of perhaps validating and then remembering years later the thoughts and emotions we felt at the time. I love it and, at times, it seems like all I really need to “take away” from this year. But then, I have been as equally obsessive about capturing our year in pictures. In fact, the family has posed so much in front of so many supposedly important landmarks that I think they could all do it blindfolded in the dark. And if the blog and the digital picture library are not enough, I have taken to making a very comprehensive scrapbook for all of our brochures, billets, and bits of flotsam that seems to gather in our wallets and back pockets after every trip. The scrapbook began as an activity with the boys – but, like Michael Phelps caught with bong to lips, I do not deny that I have claimed it as my own.

All of that activity might arguably represent legit examples of logging a once in a lifetime adventure – and yet there are so many, many more examples of souvenir excess; for one, my fridge magnet collection. I did not land on the shores of Australia thinking I needed a new fridge magnet. Let alone a collection. But as we began to frequent more and more gift stores and tourist traps, I began to notice that for no more than five or six bucks, some lucky tourist (or me) could depart with their very own replica picture of the rock, building, or venomous animal that they (or me) just paid good money to see in person. What’s more, as a magnet, that same lucky tourist (me) could go home and plant his purchase on the nearest fridge for all (my family) to see. Needless to say, I have managed to “collect” a few magnets over the past few months with the constant rationalization that they are cheaper than a t-shirt and will last twice as long. If I had in fact purchased a magnet at every possible store that was selling one, we could conceivably have 40-50 such prizes adorning the front of our lucky fridge. As it is, I have shown some admirable restraint with our tally currently coming in at 18…and counting.

Another reason for why I think the magnet collection is not bigger, is that I have discovered the next great collector’s item – beer coolers! If there is a fridge magnet at every gift shop, there will undoubtedly be a beer cooler placed right beside it. And while magnets at least retain some sort of dignity in terms of their relative usefulness and ability to convey a sense of place, beer coolers adopt a slightly more bizarre but funky trinket status when they are sold to market something so unrelated to beer. I have seen beer coolers promoting lighthouses, penguins, museums, and everything in between. In fact, we just visited the Old Melbourne Jail the other day, the site of many hangings and the execution of the infamous Ned Kelly, and I decided I needed a Ned Kelly beer cooler. ..A Ned Kelly beer cooler!! I bought it like I was buying a fine piece of art. It was perfect. It made sense. And I knew where I would display it…maybe I needed to start thinking about a display case. The current beer cooler count is three…and counting.

Fortunately, at least for our bank account, Linton does not share my need to mark visits with material gain. Well, unless you count the slow, methodical, and calculated collection of beach wear that seems to appear just before every holiday. The same can’t be said for the boys. Understandably, more for a six and nine year-old than a 42 year-old, the guys are always keen to pick up their own trinket or momento, perhaps as a kind of reward or medal for enduring the hot slog and forced march their parents’ have just subjected them to. In the early days of Australia we had some major blow ups in the back of a few gift shops when the clash between budget, good taste, trunk space and useless plastic toys all mixed together into one huge, ugly domestic dust-up. Usually, the kids won, though the victories and dust ups for that matter have been far less frequent of late. Maybe, just maybe, they’re getting enough joy out of dad’s magnets?

There have been still yet other moments of touristy materialism, though not all in such bad taste as a beer cooler or with such shouting as the incident at the Aquarium. In Alice Springs we splurged on a small original piece of indigenous art. In Byron Bay we bought a black and white photograph for a picture wall back home. We’ve purchased wine in Coonawara and t-shirts at Uluru all in the interest of bringing them and their memories back to Canada. Indeed, the wish list goes on and with no end in sight. Lint is eyeing a fancy purse made by a unique Aussie designer. I’m thinking seriously about a laptop bag from a very trendy bag maker. And Colin is still bugging us about getting a footy Guernsey from his favourite team – Hawthorn. Though we celebrated at the start of this adventure about how much crap we were able to rid from our lives – it would seem some of us are back to crap collecting in a big way!

Well, maybe not crap. But certainly more stuff. And maybe the difference between the crap I hurriedly dropped off at Goodwill last June and the beer coolers I am planning to bring home this July is the fact that there was not one emotional or significant memory tied to the those old toasters and broken toys. Whereas, each of the magnets and every one of the coolers has a moment, an event, or a venomous animal inextricably linked to it. So that when we do buy the odd tea towel or puka bead necklace on vacation we are not so much as adding needlessly to the future garage sale boxes we all have in our basements; rather, we are trying to buy symbols, cheesey as they may be, for those moments in our lives that mattered. And if any of that’s true, at our current rate of momentous moments, the fridge on Harwood should start to get nervous. Now, I just need to find that perfect digeridoo…

The Great Ocean Road - Part I

As I write this I am watching the men’s semi-final of the Aussie Open between Nadal and Verdasco. It’s a five set, five hour thriller and is the best tennis I have ever seen. The commentators are talking about it as the longest match in tournament history and it would seem fitting that on a day of record breaking heat there would be this, a record breaking tennis match. It’s 1:00 am, I have a nice cold glass of white wine and I am glued.

For our third major trip we had planned to drive to Adelaide and back along the iconic Great Ocean Road. Recognized as one of the great coastal drives anywhere in the world, the Great Ocean Road is home to the 12 Apostles, the start of Aussie professional surfing and innumerable vacation properties and communities dotting an endless array of picturesque bays, points and inlets. This would also be the trip where we would finally see family, in the flesh, for the first time in six and some odd months. My parents, Jane and Peter, were meeting us in Adelaide after having done some of their own trekking and traveling across this great country.

But before Adelaide there were many klicks of beautiful, and at times desolate, country to cross. With our first mini-van of the year packed to the gills with cricket bats, boogie boards and more stuff than we really needed we headed west across the Bolte and Westgate bridges. Our destination for the first leg of the trip was a relatively short three hour drive to a seaside paradise called Lorne. On our way there we would drive by the Avalon airport, Melbourne’s Mirabel, then down through Geelong and past the grammar school where Charles attended for a term or two. After Geelong you head due south to the coast and soon into Torquay the home of the longest running pro surf competition anywhere, the Rip Curl classic at Bells Beach. With time on our hands we decided to check out the Australian Surfing Museum and were impressed with the amount of history surrounding the sport. Having surfed for a couple of hours a few days later, my appreciation for the guts and athleticism of surfers has increased tenfold.

After setting the boys up with a new pair of crocs from one of the many surf shops along the Torquay strip we boarded our bus and set sail for Lorne. This was to be the same road Allie had lost his lunch on a few months back so we were in constant contact with the back seat asking both boys to update us on their rating – a scale from 1-10 – that is set to determine one’s nausea levels. A report of perfect ten is good news to the driver and co-pilot. A report of 7-9 is fine but indicates a need to open windows or reduce speed. Below seven is cause for more major concern and may entail an emergency roadside stop or the immediate need to disengage from all distractions and to stare straight at the horizon. Below 5 is a very dangerous rating and to hit a “two” would mean that all passengers should immediately duck for cover. Thankfully, with the rating system firmly engaged we coasted into Lorne with nary a dizzy thought or a scary burp to be had.

Lorne for us was paradise. We were booked into quite a nice place - the Mantra Erskine Beach Resort - which in a way reminded me of a newer Hermitage Club, at least in terms of the grounds. With the beach on our doorstep and the town at our back door we settled into 4 days of surfside fun and sun. Lots of sun. Days were spent boogie boarding, building sand castles, playing cricket, frisbee and soccer on the beach and being about as lazy as humanly possible. In fact, losing track of time and the date wasn't the half of it. There were times in these few glorious days where we laughed at ourselves and the relative "nothingness"of it all. I think we came to a point in Lorne where the sheer absurdity of the fortunate and fabulous situation that we found ourselves in finally came home to roost. Our stress levels involved administering enough sunscreen or whether the tide would wipeout the latest sandcastle. Lunch was food eaten anytime between the time when breakfast ended and dinner began. In fact, dinner reservations and store hours became an irritation and interruption to our slow, sloth-like existence. Were we finally heaving off the burden of the anal, stressed-out Canadian and adopting a bit more of the Aussie "no worries" culture? I'm not sure.

But another thing that occurred to me in the sun soaked stupor that Lorne had us in, was that the beach life is perhaps passing me by. No longer does lying in the sun have the appeal it once did. I need a lot of shade to make a full day of sitting in the sand bearable. As well, not that this boy's ever had rock hard abs, the prospect of baring all on the beach has also reached a new low in appeal. I find a sunshirt is now a convenient way of avoiding a burn as well as a misplaced jiggle or three. Additionally, my two hours wallowing in the waves, more off than on the surfboard showed me that surfing is a very young man's game. Wandering around the surf shops only reaffirmed that niggling notion. The piercings, tatts, haircuts, and fashion are so clearly beyond anything I would consider. I must so obviously look like I must be buying something for my son. Am I now destined for more golf and tennis and less in the way of surfing or wakeboarding? Certainly, I will never experience the joy of landing a reverse olly 540 mcTwist. And that kinda sucks.

These are the types of thoughts and experiences that troubled our beached out brains along the Great Ocean Road. Relaxed and reflective, the fortunate frolic on the sands of Lorne finally brought us to the realization that these could truly be the best, most relaxing days of our lives.

Jan 29 - Some Like it Hot!

To say that I've been too hot to blog recently would seem to be a bit pathetic sounding. On the other hand, we've just been through the two hottest days of our lives and anything more than cold showers, shade-seeking, and water-gulping have seemed frivolous and life-threatening! Man, is it hot!!!! The weather office has forecast 5 days in a row with 40 plus heat and today was the third hottest day on record - 44.1 at 3:30 this afternoon. It hasn't been this hot for this long in a century and yesterday at the Australian Open they said it was 50 Celsius at court level during the Serena Williams match! With all due respect to the Canadians who are up to their ying-yangs in snow and cold - today, I would trade you. These are the days where seatbelts can permanently brand you and nights are spent starfished and naked praying for an hour or two of greasy sleep.

Now, I've never been much of a sauna person. That shortness of breath you can get sitting on the top bench when some hero puts more water on the rocks has never been one of my favourite sensations. Today, I had that feeling every second of every minute that we were outside. Most normal people would avoid going out on a day like this but we had tickets to the women's semi-finals of the tennis. Thankfully, and very sanely, the officials had closed the roof for today's matches and so we were seated in relative comfort as we watched Williams eventually overcome a very determined Elena Dementieva.

The tennis was great and we were so impressed with the size and scope of the tournament. We watched a men's doubles semi-final that included Daniel Nestor's old partner Mark Knowles. Then after shopping out in the blast furnace for a few "souvies" - as my friend Neil Morgan likes to call them - we went back inside for a fun legends match that featured Henri Leconte, Mark Phillipoussis and some guy by the name of Bharmani who was professional tennis' version of Meadowlark Lemon. The guy's trick shots were unbelievable - and he was easily 55 years young! We then watched Serena calmly dismantle her Russian opponent, who looked for awhile like she had some game. Eventually too many errors and Williams' power overwhelmed her and she lost in straight sets. We had hoped for a minute that we were getting the Federer/Roddick semi but that dream was not to be.

Regrettably, (because we don't have a/c at home), we needed to get back for the babysitter, so we left Rod Laver Arena and entered the oven for the commute back up town. As I noted in an earlier blog, the city has been having all kinds of trouble with their trains and trams in the heat. Still, it's incredible what some Melburnians can deal with when it gets this hot. The only way I can cope with such an onslaught of discomfort is to go into some sort of semi-comatose zone where I think of my breathing and little else. If I start obsessing about the beads of sweat dripping off my nose, or the smell of the person beside me or perhaps even my own robust odour or the why the damn tram won't go any faster, I'm likely to explode into some form of anxiety-ridden, sweat-stained, homicidal crazy man! I'm serious. In this heat, I'm on the knife's edge. Given that easy-going disposition I was blown away to see people out jogging, walking around in tie and jacket, sunbathing and generally carrying on as if being scalded alive was an acceptable past time. I was starting to appreciate how lobsters must feel and these people are out getting exercise! As we made our way home, I was secinds away from bolting from the tram and running into the nearest store for a 5 minute cool down period. Linton was just able to "talk me down".

Apparently, the heat comes in on a north-easterly wind, flowing out of the outback and all of that desert. It hits Adelaide first and yesterday in Adelaide was 45.7. An all time high. Interestingly, there are similar concerns here as we have at home - that the power grid cannot sustain demand- and there have been power outages across the city. To make matters worse they are in a 12 year drought in this part of Australia and this kind of heat drives up personal water use significantly. More dangerously, the threat of bush fires is very real and while fires burn "safely" in some distant forest in Canada, the bush lingers close by the furthest suburbs of Melbourne.

While we were at the tennis, the boys hung out amidst the fans at home with a new babysitter. We had brought them down yesterday and as "members" of the tournament, they had a chance to check out a match and wander the grounds. They seemed to have a good time and we were happy to have them at home, out of the heat and fully hydrated. A few hours later we bravely or foolishly ventured out for dinner with my parents at the local pizza joint and remarkably it felt like it had cooled down a few degrees. Say, maybe 37? 38? Pure, cool, bliss it was. Rejuvenated by a slight breeze and a setting sun we strolled down Rathdowne St. feeling like we had actually "survived" something significant. That was a good feeling and somewhat reassuring, because with 43 forecast again for Friday, we're going to have to do it all again tomorrow!

PS - Hopefully, when we get a break from this heat I will be able to stop sweating enough to chronicle our latest travels up and down the Great Ocean Road.

Jan 17 - An entry from the English teacher in me

It’s Saturday morning. In fact, it’s almost noon, and the kids and I are still clinging to our jammies. We go on “holiday” tomorrow and there’s lots to do to get ready. Linton is busy with laundry and packing and has already been for a 6 k run. And yet, here I sit clinging stubbornly to a cold coffee and a computer screen. Unable to get up and contribute until I get this blog just right…

I’ve recently been reading the early memoirs of Clive James. They came as a recommendation from my uncle Mike. James is an ex-pat Aussie who made a name for himself as a journalist with the BBC among other things though I had never heard of him until my uncle’s suggestion. Not that that means squat. He is often funny, at times irreverent, impressively well read, and has an eye for how people ”work” that is completely spot on. He is also extremely self-deprecating to the point of making his reader loathe versus like him – though the constant humour and moralizing deemed necessary as a result of years of failure and sloth are so pathetic that they must be part of his ultimate plan. It's as if, he might reason, that “when the reader sees or hears nothing but my own ridiculous failings, then maybe they will actually believe me when I really do have something serious or meaningful to impart" - just 'cause I'm so darn likeable. And human, I might add.

I find James rather Canadian in this regard. Not that I think we share all of the same neuroses or create humour and believability in the same way. But I think that we feel the same need to put our audience at ease before we try to tell them what we think they need to know. Perhaps that is something of a quirk that us “folk” from the colonies share. In our respective need to weigh in against the big boys (aka the US/UK) we both feel the need to spend a moment clarifying that we are not actually trying to be like them, because given our size and history and culture, that would be presumptuous, impossible and undesirable. In doing this sort of tacit declaration of our qualification to pontificate invariably reveals both Canadian and Aussie alike as a people who could achieve much if they would just stop worrying about offending the many. And though James’ memoirs recount the troubles and tribulations of finding his way in London, Cambridge and all points in between, it could as easily be the tale of a similar bloke, or rather Canuck from say, Toronto, trolling and tripping up in the hallowed halls of Harvard.

I raise this issue in light of my increasingly addictive need to blog and provide cyberspace with my very own, Canadian-made reflections about Oz. As I craft, edit, and suffer over just how to describe a uniquely Australian moment, I wonder at how my audience of…(none?)...will read the line and read into the experience. Controlling that concern is another very Canadian thought that is prone to ask – why do I think anyone really might care what I think or how I write it? This is where the words and sizeable experience of James come rushing back into play. In the introduction to his memoirs , James spends almost too much time fretting over concerns that to write one’s memoirs at an early age is both egotistical and asinine. On the subject he writes variously:

“Nobody except an egomaniac expects to find his life interesting…It can be safely assumed that any writer who gives you a record of his own life is nuts about himself…Writers would not go on writing unless they thought they were unique. Their humility consists in, and is exhausted by, their recognition that others are more gifted… But to think themselves unique, they need their conceit. If they recognize this fact, they can write memoirs that evince a delightful and seemingly genuine self-deprecation, as they balance their necessary self-esteem with an awareness of their own failings…But it is remarkable how few writers can do even that much, and somehow those who can’t are the very ones most concerned to write memoirs.”

James certainly offers enough honest and embarrassing insight into his own life and all its failings to qualify as someone who is humble and so I believe him when he says that “All I can claim…is a hope – the hope that what has always been a burden to me will lighten the spirits of someone else”. But I also think that as our own Leonard Cohen, himself something of an expatriate, said recently about his own poetry, that we write because “a poet is deeply conflicted, and that it’s in his work that he reconciles those deep conflicts. That place is the harbour. It doesn’t set the world in order…and it doesn’t really change anything. But it is a kind of harbour; a place of reconciliation…[it’s (the writing)] the kiss of peace.”

I like that. While I fret and fumble with the ongoing need to blog and the equally insistent concern over why I need to blog, the words and insight of Cohen and James console. One reminds me that a writer writes simply because they need to and the other reassures me that the conceit I feel when writing about our lives abroad is a necessary part of the creative process shared by anyone who has ever tried to describe something for another by placing their own words upon a page.

Now that I’ve finally done both today, I’m off to pack a bag.

Jan 14 - Riding and walking the rails of Melbourne

The beauty of living in a big city is that, if you make the effort, you are quite often able to see and experience many different things in a relative short amount of time and small amount of space. Often things you could never plan for. Yesterday was one of those days that offered several new and memorable moments.

Because the weather office was calling for 37 plus heat, we decided we would pack up our bathers and boogie boards and head for the Brighton Beach area - a very photographed but yet-to-be-seen-by-us area south of the CBD. Having done our research online, we knew to take the tram down to Flinders and then catch the Sandringham train almost out to the end of the line. It was all rather smooth and convenient and as we sped through neighbourhood after tree-lined neighbourhood, I dreamed of such a train line doing a similar route up to and through Leaside on its way to Don Mills and beyond. Without wanting to sound too "us and them", Toronto's public transit really is the pits by comparison.

Upon reaching Brighton Beach we disembarked with the rest of the train and noticed we were the youngest by several years. It would seem we were heading for the teen beach - or maybe they were in their thirties and we're just old. Anyway, we scurried across the hot street and the hotter sand and set up shop in front of the calm, gorgeous ocean. With no surf to play in, the boys took to castles and shell collecting along with a few dips in the surprisingly chilly ocean. One of the public service campaigns in Oz is called "Slip, Slop, Slap" and is geared toward safe sun management. This was a day where we would be employing a triple-slop on all sides! One of the other things we decided one cannot live without is a shelter/umbrella of some sort. For anyone other than Lint, who at some point needs to retreat to the shade, the umbrella is an essential beach-going item and is now on the list for next week's holiday in Lorne.

After a warm, beachy lunch where the iced tea was more like soup, we picked up our stuff and moved down the beach to a cooler spot on a point where the boys had great fun searching some tidal pools for shells, crabs, and starfish. It is perhaps our favourite thing in the world to do - sit and watch as the boys explore their world together. Wanting to move once more to an area beside some funky painted beach houses we walked a little further and plunked our gear down in an area that was decidedly more family. Another great play in the sand and water was capped off with an icey pole that forced Colin and I to deal with heat on the soles of our feet that I have never before had to endure. This was seriously "could fry an egg on that" territory!

Having maxed out on our sun quota for the day, we walked toward where we thought the next train station would be and did a fairly good job of finding it - only needing directions from one kind local and a final 50 metre sprint to catch the train just pulling in. We plunked ourselves down in the air-conditioned comfort and settled in for what should have been the 15 minute commute back to Flinders Station. That's when the fun began. About 3 stations into our journey the train stopped and the driver came on the PA saying there was a delay ahead and we would be waiting for a few minutes. Fifteen minutes later he announced that there was a police situation on the tracks and we would be waiting for at least 10 minutes more. That turned into 10 more minutes and then ten minutes more and then we were waiting indefinitely. That's when the teenagers began to jump.

We had been sharing a car with about 40 people, mostly teens, and as the delay got longer and longer, their patience got shorter and shorter. What a fascinating study in human behaviour as each person and group of teens displayed their ability or inability to cope with the situation. Their conversations got louder. The swearing became more frequent. They began to pace the car. Their outrage was of course more pronounced than anyone else's - as if their appointments or destinations ranked above all others. Out came the cell phones and the diatribes continued as they parlayed the conspiracy to ever sympathetic friends. Then they began to consider the idea of simply getting off the train. Those of us - older, maybe wiser, with kids, or simply with caution - watched and shook our heads as one by one the teens jumped from the train and slid down the side of the tracks. Like lemmings, once one went they all did, dragging a few willing older passengers along to freedom. We watched with interest and growing jealousy as we began to realize that they were now free and we were still trapped on the train.

Eventually, an announcement came on informing the remaining passengers that we could either get off the train or stay on and take our chances that it would start up eventually. Mostly because we thought we might be the only ones left, we decided to get off and join the throng of people shuffling along the tracks and back to the station we had departed 45 minutes prior. Apparently, a poor soul ahead had been contemplating ending it all with a jump from a bridge to in front of our train and the police had been spending all this time trying to "talk him down". Knowing this seemed to take the "irateness" out of our discontent though the stifling heat only served to crank it back up again. Though with nothing we really had to do and nowhere we really had to be, the heat and humanity were in fact about as stress free as could be. We imagined how we would have both been popping a gasket if at home on the TTC trying to pick up the kids...and speaking of the kids, they were heroic.

And so we sandwiched ourselves into an impossibly crowded tram, gritted our teeth, held our noses and wound our way back home arriving a mere three hours after we had left the beach. Definitely a different kind of Aussie adventure, but still an amazing memory to have when the suntans begin to fade.

Jan 10 - Come sail away!

I'm going to see if I can blog briefly. I'm not sure if it's possible, but here goes.

Today's adventure was all about sailing - both by wind and motor. We received a most welcome and wonderful invitation to join a family we have met through Colin's class for a day of sailing at the Port Melbourne Yacht Club. At the same time, we were waiting to see if we might hear from Mary and Stan Neal (Peter's parents) who are on a cruise and scheduled to dock in Melbourne on the very same day. As luck would have it, we did make contact with the Neals, and the cruise ship dock and the yacht club are practically side by each. Thus we were off to Station Pier to sail with friends and to see friends who were sailing!

The yacht club is right at the foot of the city and is nestled in a very pretty part of Melbourne we had yet to discover. We drove down with our host and his son and were very soon at work unloading their boat and setting up an umbrella on the beach. First up to sail were the two dads along with Colin and his friend. We had a wonderful sail tacking out into Phillip Bay. Colin took his turn hiking out over the rail as the wind began to pick up. We skirted the jetty where the Neal's boat was tied up and then turned for home with the wind at our backs. After a beer and a bit of a lunch the dads returned to the sea for a really wild sail with big surf, big wind and unbelievably, a playful seal as a companion. What an amazing few hours on the ocean and literally minutes from downtown.

After few more nibblies and a bit of boogie boarding we thanked our gracious hosts and headed down the boardwalk to rendezvous with the Neals at 3:30. After no more than ten minutes of walking we stumbled upon them at the foot of Station Pier. What a neat feeling to turn the corner and see familiar faces from back home. They looked relaxed and well and no different than the last time we saw them for the August firework show back on Lake of Bays a few years ago. We found a dockside cafe beside the pier and spent an hour or so catching up and trading impressions about Australia and hearing about their amazing cruise. Like our hook up with the Blairs last month, it was again fun to speak about things from the same perspective and use the same "language" to describe what we were seeing. By all accounts they are having a wonderful trip and we dreamed of climbing aboard their impressive ship for a few days of leisure and great eating/drinking.

Their ship was setting sail for Hobart, Tasmania at six so once we had drained our lattes and the boys had downed a Margherita pizza - just because - we exchanged hugs and handshakes and headed for home. This was a great day for many reasons, but mostly because we were spending time with friends, from near and far.