Wrapping Up My Second Trip Down Under

And in what seemed like the blink of eye, this trip down under is over. Another superb trip!

Unknowingly I booked my return flight on the same day as the Melbourne Cup horse race - which is celebrated on Karragarra Island with a community picnic/fund raiser organized by Gary and Sonia.  So, the day before I departed they were involved in preparing for the event including lots of finger foods.  I followed their suggestion to take the ferry to the mainland and drive about an hour away to the beautiful Tamborine Mountain — home to several National Parks, a Botanical Garden, a Heritage Center (history museum), and hiking destination.  I enjoyed a fun, beautiful day of hiking and enjoying the solitude of the parks and gardens and included a lunch stop at a local brewery.

I returned to the Island in time for yet another delicious dinner with Gary and Sonia — now great friends who I hope to visit again in 2018.  Even as I write this, I am amazed and pleased that Gary encouraged this stop in this beautiful part of Australia.  And, I’m super pleased that I took a chance on assessing his genuineness.  

I booked a motel near the airport for the day before my return flights — so I could get the rental car returned early and have a relaxed departure.  It worked our perfectly. Little did I know when I booked the motel that it would be walking distance from the Brisbane cruise terminal — which now has new meaning knowing Gary/Sonia and their son run the port operations.  

As you might imagine, I’m already watching for cheap fares to return to dive Fiji, to revisit my cousin in Melbourne, to visit friends and do another live-aboard in Cairns and, of course, to return to Gary/Sonia’s island home - perhaps to include Melbourne Cup next year.  Another great trip — wrapped — with more lined up.

New Friends

One of the many fun things about traveling is meeting people.  Sometimes they are just people I get to know for a brief part of the trip and don't get contact information, and sometimes they are people who I will stay in touch with, follow on Facebook, and/or visit again.  This trip has been no exception: I'll definitely try to stay in touch with some of the folks on the scuba diving adventure and I've enjoyed getting to know my accommodation's host in Cairns who took me out to a pub on two of the nights to "join" her trivia teams (I'm terrible at trivia, but enjoyed the evenings).

But this story is about the continuation of a contact that started in Bali last March -- with typical "traveler" connection kind of conversation.

It's always a bit of a "dance" to discern the seriousness of the "come see me," or "let's stay in touch" invitations I've gotten during my travels -- but for many reasons, including his assertive way of making sure I had his email, I felt the invitation by "Gary" during a short poolside conversation was genuine.  And with my usual "what's the worst that can happen" attitude, I followed up the meeting with email exchange that probed his seriousness.  Of course the emails gave him lots of opportunity to shut down, or defer, the invitation -- but that didn't happen and I embarked upon the trip with tentative plans to visit him.  Tentative?  Yes, of course.  After all, I knew about as much about him as he did me.  And in this case, it wasn't an easy -- pop by and visit.  He lives on an island about an hour south of the Brisbane airport.

On Halloween, I flew from Cairns to Brisbane, picked up a rental car -- and following his guidance, proceeded to a small motel in the town of Redland Bay (here) he arranged.  He had encouraged me to say hello to the owner -- who also owns a villa in Bali (made another "friend") -- and after that proceed to a nearby locals' restaurant.  All went smoothly.

The next morning I proceeded to a nearby residence with gated parking (he had left a gate remote at the motel for me) -- where I met up with Gary and his wife Sonia, who was visiting the residence (home of one of their 4 children) to pick up their newest grandchild, a four month old, for the day.  All prearranged by Gary, who had to proceed to a business meeting, I accompanied his wife on a ferry ride

to their home on Karagarra Island (here).  It's worth remembering that until arrival on island, I just thought I would be staying in a unit/room near or in Gary's home.  I quickly learned that I was staying in a second, waterside guest home about 1/2 mile away from their residence.  After showing me around, Sonia gave me the keys to their SUV and I arrived at my accommodations - a fully equipped home. And this was the place:

And this was my view from the rear: 

And that night I returned to their place for a delicious lamb shank dinner:

As you might imagine, all my trepidation about the genuineness of the connection from the brief Bali-poolside conversation 7 months ago, vanished as I got to know Gary and Sonia -- owners of several successful businesses including all the port operations services for the very busy Brisbane cruise terminal, and learned about their family (4 children in their 30's and grandchilden).

Gary and Sonia are like me -- haven't met too many "strangers" except those who want to remain strangers -- and conversation flowed easily such that I was happy to agree to join Gary on a two day - 22 hour road trip to near-Sydney and back, including an overnight stay at another relative's house, to pick up a vintage jet boat he had purchased.  Here we are returning on the ferry with the boat -- one just like Gary owned as a young man.

  

Of course I was with him for its maiden voyage of his ownership:

 

I'm staying a total of 6 nights -- enjoying more outings and meals with Gary/Sonia -- and learning all about Aussie island life and their businesses, their lives, their families.  It's been delightful.  It was definitely another lucky day for me to have crossed paths with Gary last March in Bali.  I'm already thinking of when I can return and continue to enjoy their friendship in this beautiful piece of the world.

Another Lucky Personal Connection

So here comes another unusual "lucky personal connection" story:  This last March I met an Aussie poolside in Bali - chatted with him about an hour or so -- and yesterday I was driving his SUV, moving into his "guest" house - a fully furnished, waterside home, and sitting down to a lamb dinner with him and his wife at his primary residence, also waterside just down the road.  Where: On Karragarra Island (mapped here) only accessible by ferry south of Brisbane.

Before I tell the details story in my next posting (don't have time tonight to write it all), its been fun for me to reflect on several such unusual and lucky personal connections I've experienced in my travels, including:

1. Adding a Dutch "daughter" to my life from a chance meeting on a flight to Amsterdam (told here) - leading to knowing her mom and brother and staying with them in The Netherlands and hosting them in Portland and on a road trip to San Francisco.

2. Adding a Chinese "son" to my life from a chance meeting with the adult son of his host family in the USA (told here) and traveling with him to the home of his parents in rural China (told here).

3. Adding a Chinese businessman friend to my life and having dinner with his wife and family from a chance meeting on an intra-China flight (told here).

4. Adding entire Balinese families to my life by (a) making a personal connection with my Balinese driver (told here), (b) taking a chance on asking a Balinese fisherman if I might go fishing with him (told here); and, (c) taking a chance on alternate path on my route (told here).

Of course, those are just a few that come to mind.  This most recent story -- in my next posting.

Diving The Great Barrier Reef

So, in keeping with my sometimes-blogged-about observation: people generally more enjoy hearing about what went wrong on a trip rather than the "I loved this and that."  Truthfully, I even enjoy telling the travel-hassle stories more than the "I went here and saw this and that..." (well, except for Facebook which I consider to be mostly "bragging" anyway -- and I use it that way as well).

And, this diving experience did serve up a few of those stories that I'll lead with:

1.  On one of the dives, I led my buddy back to the wrong boat!  Humbled by the error, thereafter I relied more heavily on the superb underwater navigation skills of my diving "buddy" for the 11 dives - a 30 year old dentist from Argentina.

She sweetly shared in the miscalculations -- and the experience could not have been better in being reminded that sometimes we learn best from failure!  Of course we enjoyed many laughs about it -- including the reactions of the divers on the other boat who were also just coming in from a dive.  When one asked how we got there -- I just told 'em we swam in from Cairns (3 hours away)!  Also, we didn't hold the record for getting lost on our boat -- others had to be picked up more than once -- and we had some solid excuses as the boats were identical from the same company -- with the same name ScubaPro.  Ours just happened to be ScubaPro III instead of ScubaPro I and there had been some challenging current that affected other divers as well.  I couldn't help but think about all the platitudes about only seeing what you are looking for!

2.  I failed to realize that unlike Bali diving, this company did not provide "booties" to wear inside your fins -- and I ended up the 11 dives with toes that looked like they could be good shark bait. No long term damage -- and really quite minor in the big scheme of things -- but irritating nonetheless.  I won't be making that mistake twice -- but I may well end up on the wrong boat again someday!

That's it -- nothing else to add to the fun of difficult travel stories.  The rest was AMAZING!  Great people (24 divers from around the world), great staff (fun and talented), great training, great food, comfortable bunks (I was bunked with a mid-20's guy from Santiago), calm seas (no one got sea sick), and wonderful dives.  And I learned a ton -- not only because I decided to take the Advanced Open Water certification and the Enriched Air certification training -- but also because most the dives were not guided.  Don't get me wrong -- I greatly prefer guided as it eliminates much of the underwater worries regarding time and place, and makes for a MUCH more relaxing dive, but being totally responsible for ourselves (buddy and I) and all our own gear preparation took my diving capability to a new level.

These photos don't do the trip any justice -- but there was little time for photos anyway and it's an experience, like diving itself, that no photo can explain.

And yes we saw sharks (2) and many turtles of all sizes -- and lots of beautiful fish.  I even experienced my first ever night diving (did two of them).  But please don't ask me to compare diving here and in Bali -- every dive is amazing and like life itself, sometimes the "experience" depends on so many variables -- weather, mood, attitude, people you're with, comfort with gear.  I truly believe I could go diving in the exact same spot every day and have a truly unique and wonderful experience each time.  As I have gotten more comfortable in the water, I truly love the feeling of weightlessness -- and I love just taking a relaxed pace.  I do think it's a little like motorcycling in this way:  some people treat it as a search, and speed along looking for the next thing -- others enjoy the ride in the moment.  Every fish, every school of fish, every clam (and we saw some giants), every coral, is fascinating when viewed from the weightless state of diving.  I'm convinced that there is no "one best place."  The Great Barrier Reef did not disappoint and I'm happy to make this bucket list check mark -- and I will be delighted if I should have the opportunity to return!

Signs

Those who read my blogs know that I enjoy the unusual signs I see - and Cairns served up a few on my walk around the town.

And I saw another wickedcamper.com van like the one above -- but it was moving too fast to get a photo.  Liked the saying though: "Love is like a fart...if you have to force it, it's probably shit."

Another Lucky Choice - Cairns Accommodations

Arrival in Cairns went super smooth as the host of the guesthouse met me curbside at the airport and transported me to her place where I had booked two nights before and two nights after the live-aboard diving experience.

I quickly learned that this host, in addition to the private room that I rented (booking.com), provides longer term student housing for international students who come to Cairns to study English - arranged through the school.  She provides "host mom" type of connections for these students including breakfast and dinner.  She invited me to breakfast (included) and dinner (for a tiny fee), and I had great fun getting to meet and visit with these 17 to 25 year olds from Columbia, Japan, and France.  Once again I felt like I'd made a lucky choice in accommodations -- as it was clearly the best of what I enjoy: my own private room with great wifi, but in a hostel-like environment where my mind gets expanded and humbled by interacting with young people motivated to change their lives and future by both study and travel.  The second night she even invited me to go to a local pub where she -- and on this week, her one student from France, participate in a trivia game night.  We had great fun with lots of laughs -- as another Australian joined our "team."  I wasn't much help to the "team" on the questions -- but had a fun time learning about everyone.

The place was also a perfect spot to walk to the retail diving store where I needed to check in for my live-aboard -- and walk around Cairns picking up some last minute necessities.

Another lucky choice - indeed!

Wake Up America!

Waited for and rode on the rental car shuttle back to the airport with a couple who had flown to Australia from New Zealand just to attend the MotoGP motorcycle races.  As you might imagine, motorcycles and my booking in January to go to New Zealand made it easy to forge ahead with as much conversation as time allowed.  But the interesting tidbit that prompts this posting is a comment the young woman made about having learned from a friend who moved from San Diego to New Zealand: most Americans only get a couple or three weeks holiday time each year, not the 5+ weeks Kiwi's get.  I acknowledged, that, sadly, Americans continue to fall behind other nations in so many areas including holiday time.

The brief conversation prompted some reflection as I settled into my seat: Here I am enjoying the privileges that a career in Federal public employment allowed me, reflecting on how the USA could be so much better than it has become.  Short holiday time for most American workers even seems minor when compared to our other challenges: no single payer health care system (except for those over 65), costly college education, out-of-control gun ownership, religious intolerance, wall-building bigotry, increasing homelessness especially for the mentally impaired, inadequate/challenging child care funding, distant, meaningless wars that go on and on, as well as war words with North Korea -- just to name a few.  And embarrassingly, we Americans currently have a completely dishonest clown as President -- still supported by some 36+% of our electorate because of their ignorant bigotry, misinformed beliefs about immigration, abortion, gun rights, religious freedom, just to name a few.

Oh wait!  From the people I know who follow my blog -- I'm preaching to the choir!

Time to select Van Morrison's "Bright Side of the Road," lean back and let my earbuds coast me into taking a nap, and wake up in a better mood.  After all, I'm a lucky bloke -- headed to Cairns to accomplish yet another "bucket list" item - scuba diving the Great Barrier Reef.

So, I wrote all of the above before I learned that my seatmates -- Canadian citizens in their early 30's from Quebec are making a year-long world tour with their now 7 month old -- had sold their home and put everything in storage because the accountant mom gets a year off - half paid at 93% of her full salary - upon the birth of a child and the police officer dad gets a full year off at 50% of his salary.  Exactly the kind of benefit where Americans lag on the world stage - that I had just written about.  Of course I learned their blog site (all in French) and contact information and we snapped this photo as the conversation continued all the way to baggage claim. Oh America!  We could be so much better.