My takeaway from the three weeks I spent in Australia

First of all, takeaway in the title is not used in the Australian vernacular, where it means carry out for restaurant food. 😁 The Land of Oz is much more British than I had realized before I got the chance to spend the better part of a month Down Under. There are of course the linguistic similarities between British and Australian English (passing lanes are called overtaking lanes, the stuff that is used to propel vehicles is petrol, and being drunk is simply being pissed, which for any good American denotes the state of being very angry). The pronunciation is definitely rather British, and of course there are a gazillion Aussie-specific words that are foreign to the visitor from the US. Brekkie? Oh, you can have breakfast here. Stubbies? Forget about short fingers or legs and rather think of a can of beer. Barbie? Well, we all know that's not the chick from the movie but the BBQ grill.

Language is clearly a big part of culture, and while it can appear amusing to those of us who are not used to a particular vernacular it is generally a good mirror of a people's history. Australia is a very young country (it wasn't until 1770 that Lt. James Cook claimed it for England, and even today the King of the UK [until very recently the Queen] is still the monarch of the continent), and change comes slowly. In comparison, the United States is near ancient, with the first permanent colony established in 1607. Of course, the Aboriginal People had lived on the continent for millenia, and their heritage is reflected in many town names and countless other ways. Visiting the Parliament Building in Canberra gave me small glimpse into the complex relationship that white Australians continue to have with the Aboriginal population.

While criss-crossing by bike the three major cities that I visited (Sydney, Melbourne, and Canberra) I continued to think of England and all its parks and public gardens. All three cities have ample green space, and Aussies are a people who like to be outside. In the cities that means walking in the parks, having a picnic, sitting or just meandering, playing a match of cricket or rugby with mates. Parks are everywhere, and their layout is definitely English. Even some of the names reminded me of London as I saw two Hyde parks, for example.

Some of the architecture is clearly derived from the Victorian era, as train stations or Episcopal churches could have been plucked straight out of a British movie set. Storefronts are reminiscent of what you'd see in one of the main shopping arteries of, say, Reading or Swindon, and pubs (sorry, hotels) have the same separation into the mates' bar area and a more family-friendly area where one can get food as well as drinks. Heck, the Aussies never re-learned how to properly pilot a car and are still following the Brits in driving on the wrong side of the road!

Apart from these similarities there are also some distinct differences between the two people. From what I experienced, I would say that Aussies are much easier to approach and more willing, even eager, to open up to a stranger than the British. Both cultures are very polite, but I found the Australians to be extremely friendly and always willing to help with an extra step or two while Brits often display a certain stiffness in their politeness. No wonder that Aussies have a reputation of welcoming strangers—they really do, with open arms. As I had said in my last blog entry, chatting with fellow campers was a real joy.

I drove the campervan just shy of 2,300 kilometers, or about 1,430 miles. Add to that another 817 kilometers (exactly 508 miles) of bike riding, and that totals quite a bit of time looking at the general landscape—beaches, bush, hills, rolling plains, small towns and large cities. My route initially followed the eastern coast southward from Sydney toward Melbourne, and then on the return I swung northwest for a day from Melbourne before heading on the inland route toward Canberra and finally back to Sydney. Most of the coastal route stays well away from the sea so that generally one does not get great views of the ocean; for that, one has to leave the main highway and follow much smaller byways toward the various small towns that dot the coast. However, in a few places the main highway skirts the water, and I stayed in places like Kioloa, Merimbula, and Lakes Entrance, which are all more or less on the water.

Much of the often hilly drive south went through what is generally called bush; I'd simply call it eucalyptus forests. For miles and miles one is in the midst of large stretches of uninhabited woodlands, and it is easy to see how the wildfires of recent years were so difficult to bring under control. Most of the time I drove with my windows rolled down, and the smell of the eucalyptus trees was almost overpowering. Ride your bike through this kind of terrain, as I did when I did some true bush riding on a deserted dirt road on the day that I stayed in Kioloa, and that night you will dream of the noise of the birds and the smell of the trees. On that tough gravel ride a kangaroo crossed my path just a few yards ahead of me, and I really felt pretty vulnerable being out by myself in such wild terrain. On another ride, several roos hopped across the road right in front of me. I suppose I now know the origin of the word bushwhacking.

Speaking of kangaroos: In three campgrounds, aka holiday parks, these odd creatures, which reminded me a bit of half-deer, came out in the evening to munch on the grass among the caravans and campervans. We're all familiar with roos from pictures and television shows and may have seen them in zoos, but seeing a wild one (or several) in real life is quite an experience. Stories about kangaroos being aggressive toward humans abound, so I kept my distance, but watching them nibble on the grass was definitely one of the many memorable moments of the trip. While out on the roads one will see countless signs warning of kangaroos crossing, and I saw countless carcasses of dead animals that had been hit by vehicles.

Fresh roo poo

Aside from kangaroos I didn't see too many ground-based animals. On one ride I happened to catch a glimpse of a short-beaked echidna, an egg-laying mammal that carries its "puggle" (such the name of the solitary young one) in a pouch until its growing spines mean it's time to leave mom. Talk about bizarre! Rabbits were everywhere in Canberra but I didn't see them too often elsewhere even though they are an imported plague that is difficult to control. Domestic animals such as cattle and sheep were quite common on the inland drive from Melbourne back to Canberra. That entire area, much drier than the coastal landscape, reminded me of some parts of Texas and the Midwest.

Birds were another story. It was impossible to miss the raucous galahs and the equally noisy corellas, both part of the cockatoo family. Once dawn broke, they would screech and whistle and yodel and make all kinds of strange noises (similar to our grackles) while terrorizing other birds, flying in flocks of 20 or so around the holiday parks. Magpies were all over, and the large black-and-white hooded crows lent their Wiradjuri name to the town of Wagga Wagga, which means "place of many crows." On the beaches there were seagulls and other shore birds that I don't know, and in city parks I'd often see white ibis wandering around and feeding while carefully scanning their immediate surroundings. During my rides along the inland lakes I'd often see various types of egrets, darters, cormorants, and what looked like black swans. It seemed there were birds everywhere.

White-breasted cormorant

Australasian darter

Hooded crow

Corella

Galahs

Black swan

White ibis

Of course, not all animals were of the natural variety. 😅

Many of the parks that I rode through (they all feature excellent bike paths) were chock-full of art displays, memorial plaques, and interpretive signage. Many of the artists have Aboriginal roots, and the oneness of man and countryside is a prevalent theme. There are installations in so many public spaces that it often seems as if one were in a living museum. Many towns have official Tourist Information Centers where one can pick up free maps and brochures as well as purchase books and local mementos.

There are historical markers by the roadside, and other signage directs the itinerant tourist to places of historic significance, like for example the Bega Cheese Heritage Center, which gave me a glimpse into the days of the early settlers. Other memorable stops were Tilba Tilba and Central Tilba, the latter with a nice hotel (The Dromedary Hotel, which served locally brewed beer), as well as Twofold Bay just outside of Eden. I didn't get a chance to visit the Killer Whale Museum, but I took time to go to the outlook over the bay and read the various commemorative plaques immortalizing the role that the Aborigines played in working with the white whalers as late as the late 1920s.

I lucked out on my first day in Melbourne, a Saturday. It was the perfect day, with nothing but sunshine, a temperature in the low 80°s after flirting for a week with almost reaching 70° F but hardly ever getting there, and seemingly the entire town was out and about. That day I rode from my caravan park on the outskirts in Coburg via the extensive bike trail system all the way to the ocean and the downtown area and then back up to my camping spot. It was one of my longest rides of the trip, at 34 miles, and it couldn't have been more satisfying and enjoyable.

Melbourne has a different vibe from Sydney. Maybe it was the weather, maybe the fact that it was Saturday had something to do with it: People appeared happy, mellow, in party mode, totally relaxed. When I made it down to the beach promenade, after miles and miles of riding the bike trail along the Yarra river, I was greeted by dozens of beach volleyball courts where men and women were in full action, runners and cyclists, windsurfers and dog walkers. It was just so lively. I slowly rode along the seafront and finally ended up in the built-up, modern area around the Melbourne Aquarium and the Melbourne Skydeck. Thousands of people were milling around, with many of them sitting by the Yarra and enjoying some refreshments. Once I started heading north back toward my part of the world in Coburg, I found an open brewery, The Foreigner Brewing Company, where I had a long and entertaining chat with the older fellow who poured the beers. The owner, the "foreigner," was from Prague, and the entire brewery, set in an inexpensive industrial part of Brunswick, featured photos and mementos of the Old World, among them well-known marionettes.

On this trip I had ample opportunity to sample Australia's craft beers. I am sure I added 15 or so brewpubs, microbreweries, or taprooms to my list, and overall the impression was quite favorable. There were a few beers that really hit a sweet spot with me, but of course we all realize that tastes differ vastly. I am an IPA guy, as most readers know, and so what I generally order. One thing that was not so favorable were the prices: Thanks to exorbitant taxes, I paid as much as $11 for a pint of beer! There were a few places where a quaff seemed like a bargain, in line with average prices in the US, and that made me wonder whether there was something else going on with the beer prices than just taxes. Oh well, we all have our hobbies, and mine happens to be to collect beer establishments.

To start wrapping things up, let me just touch on two traffic-related items. The first one concerns motorized vehicles, no, not all those recreational vehicles but rather the 26+ wheelers (some of them, those with two trailers, have even more) as well as the utes. Thanks to my FB buddies I learned that those odd El Camino-like vehicles fall under the moniker ute and used to be pretty hot shit in some places (and apparently still are). I somehow missed that movement. In Australia you'll see them on the highways and in the cities, and there's something quite raw and appealing about them.

From one of my FB buddies I also heard about the various provisional drivers' permits, and after Googling a little more I learned that, depending on which Australian state you hail from, there are different types of these "P" permits, giving you different rights (and mostly responsibilities) based on age and all kinds of other factors. One doesn't see very many cops out on the motorways, highways, and byways, and when I mentioned that in a conversation one night I was educated about the camera enforcement of traffic laws. There are hidden (and mobile) speed cameras, red light cameras, and cameras that measure the distance between vehicles as well as driver fatigue and even cell phone and seatbelt compliance. No wonder people strictly adhere to the 110 km/h speed limit on the motorways, the equivalent of our interstates, and the 80 km/h to 100 km/h variable limits on regular highways as well as the in-town limits varying from 25 to 60 km/h. I saw exactly ONE car recklessly speeding on the entire trip! Get caught, and during the Christmas season an infraction will earn you double demerits, a form of going after your driver's license similar to the dreaded points system in Germany. So, no wonder that people hit the brakes hard to comply with all those speed limit signs.

The country is riddled with roundabouts, with the vehicle inside of the circle having the right of way. And that includes bikes! I have to say, in situations like that, drivers gave me all the courtesy you could ask for, but when passing me out on the highway they wouldn't take prisoners and hardly ever abandoned hugging the the right side of the white line, even if there was no oncoming traffic—and the shoulder on the left side of the line quite often was unnervingly narrow. Holy shit, it was like a Jekyll and Hyde scenario with how one is treated in town and out on the road. BTW, in most places cyclists are allowed on the interstate-like motorways—why any sane person would choose to ride out there is beyond me.

There's so much more I could write about, but this post is already quite long. I'd love to write about the smallish 450,000-inhabitant capital of the country, Canberra. Imagine a city that didn't exist until about a century ago and was planned by an American architect. And I would like to spend much more time gushing about the amazing bike infrastructure throughout all the cities that makes us in the US look like transportation Neanderthals. What about spending about US $17 million in 2024 on improving already excellent bike facilities, in Canberra alone? I'd like to write about (but wouldn't share photos) of those incredibly fit-looking women that I saw everywhere in Australia. And what about those amazing cemeteries in Sydney with ginormous sections for various ethnic groups, tidy and clean? 

I'd like to write about the beautiful beaches that I saw, the strange (and to me exotic plants) that caught my eye, those wonderfully hard miles on the bike followed by memorable happy hours at camp, the tasty meals I prepared, and all of those other great experiences that I was privileged to live through.

I hope that you got a little bit of an idea of what this trip was like. It took me several days after my return to wrap my head around all those impressions and experiences, and at night the harddrive in my head is still trying to defrag and clear some space for the next overseas trip, next week. Alas, here a few last pics from the most-excellent First Class flight back home.

Jürgen

After queries from several friends as to how much such a trip costs, I'd like to add this post scriptum. By far the biggest expense was the campervan rental, which ran (with full insurance) $3,420 for the 19-day rental. I spent another approximately $1,460 on everything else, ranging from the cost of fuel ($273) and all the holiday parks to food, booze, and all other incidentals (e.g., Opera House tour). As I had mentioned here, I booked my flight with miles and the four nights in the airport hotel with Marriott points. Had I flown in Economy, the flight would have cost around $1,500, in Business around $6,500; I saved almost $25,000 over the cost of a revenue First Class ticket, the class I actually flew. The hotel would have come to about $600. My actual expense for the flight was about $120 for taxes and fees, and zero for the hotel (and they never even charged me for the airport shuttle!) So, I got out of this paying in actual dollars just shy of five grand, $4,950.