Tumultuous trip to Australia - March 2014

In a Word.......but there is no single word to describe this experience!

Monday March 4, 2014.

Well, much to my surprise, Bill had to work all day today and wonder of wonders, he had actually packed a suitcase, albeit a carry on, but none the less, he had packed a suitcase the day before we were to leave.  Historic, to say the least.  Mostly, when we are to go anywhere, he does not pack until we have to leave and then in a panic, he spends the 15 minutes tearing from one place to another to cobble together his belongings that he wishes to take.  So, under the immediacy of the proverbial 8 ball, he was not ready when our neighbor Sharon came to get us to take us to the shuttle - we got there with one minute to spare.

When we got to the Phoenix airport, we found a restaurant that did not mind that we brought our own food and sat in their establishment to eat.  On our way to the security gate, we stopped in a "Purely Arizona" store to get something for our friends in Australia.  I chose the "insect candy" - i.e. it contained a small Scorpion - yes that is purely Arizona.  So I wonder how many of these little creatures have given their lives for the tourist trade and been entombed in sweet candy.  Of course we have a seemingly limitless supply of these arachnids (they are not insects) and I am very happy that the candy makers did not choose to put Cockroaches in the candies.  In any case, these candies are peculiar to Arizona, as far as I know, and they make good conversation pieces but eating one of them is still a question in my mind.  One thing I did not think about was whether I could take such items into Australia - so I just had them in my purse and if the customs official found them, then I would surrender them but if not, then I would give them to my friends in Australia - for them to keep as a memento of Arizona. 

We arrived in Los Angeles feeling relieved that our baggage - read that one suitcase - was checked through to Brisbane, Australia.   I was amazed that we were ushered through all the rigmarole you have to pass through these days just to get on a plane.  We also found that we did not have to take a shuttle around the LA airport to go from domestic to international - we just had to walk about 300 yards and we were in the terminal where we were to be processed to board the Qantas plane for Australia.  I was also surprised to learn that my passport has a chip in it that they put into a reader and the gates opened and we were admitted to the "holy of holies", the inner sanctum that ushered our tired bodies to the waiting area for the Qantas flight to Brisbane....and off we went - on our way to a whirlwind tour in Australia.

In the LA airport waiting area, there were many Australians who had been here for a vacation.  I talked to one man and found out that he had been in LA for a week.  I was interested to know what he had seen - Hollywood?  Rodeo Drive? perhaps a Casino? but no - he had done the whole week as a pub crawl - from one bar to the next! 

My last act before boarding the plane was to take a picture of it and send it over the phone to Sara, David and Andrea.  Little did I know that this was to be the last time I could use my I-phone on this trip.  We were under the impression that we could use our phone in Australia but our attempts were futile.  In fact, we discovered that our batteries were drained after 4 hours if we left the phone on.  I wonder what was the "power sucker" that was in effect that drained our batteries and we were not using the phone?

Wednesday March 5, 2014

Sometime during the night, we passed over the International Date Line and lost an entire day.  About an hour before landing in Brisbane, the staff brought around our breakfast.  We dined delicately on the dainty morsel they served.  They also served a dainty morsel an hour out of Los Angeles - so this was the fare for our Sardine Class travel - it made me wonder what was served in First Class and if the extra $$ were worth the effort.

During the night I wandered to the back of the plane - it was impossible to sleep because the flight was so bumpy due to the turbulence.  They had a kind of self serve snack vending machine that had very small 'delicious' apples, some shortbread cookies and some Tamari flavored almonds.  I ate two packs of the almonds - came to about 20 almonds all told.  They do not supply peanuts due to allergies.  On the trip back from New Zealand in 1988, David bothered the purser so much over the packs of peanuts, that in total frustration, the purser brought a complete pack (about 50 individual servings) of peanuts and said, "here kid, Knock yourself out!".

In Brisbane, we were to meet Katrina (Eiser) Hollywood.  Katrina and I had met on the internet but not in person.  In an email, she had said she would hold a sign "Bosspossum" so that we would know her at the airport, but we became worried when we did not see the promised sign.  However, a lady came up to us and introduced herself as Katrina and we were very happy to make her acquaintance.  Katrina is my second cousin once removed.  Her great grandfather, Hermann Heinrich Eiser is brother to my grandfather, Frederick Phillip Eiser.

We took a nap and later I shared with her the genealogy that I had put together for her and my other relatives.  It covered 215 years - from 1750 to 1965.  Most of it was new research since the 2001 Eiser reunion we had in Drayton.  Katrina took us to a lake nearby and we walked around the perimeter.  It was a really nice place and we were very pleased to see so much beautiful landscaping and hear the birds in the trees and water fowl as well.  She took us home and we had dinner of lamb chops and salad.  We were really tired so we went to bed and slept - much easier sleeping in a bed instead of trying to catch some sleep in a plane.....14 hours of it from Los Angeles to Brisbane.

Thursday, March 6, 2014

We were awake way too early - still functioning on Arizona time.  The kookaburras woke us up.

After breakfast, Katrina took us to Graham Waghorn's house at Springfield Lakes, which is between Brisbane and Ipswich.  Katrina's house is up the Bruce Highway, headed for the Sunshine Coast.  She and her husband are about to build a new house on Bribie Island.  When I was young, Bribie Island was pretty much uninhabited, but developers are making it the upscale place to be.

We arrived at Graham's house about mid morning, just in time for Morning Tea.  Katrina left to go to attend to some business that she had nearby.  We are very grateful for her hospitality and I am especially happy to have met her.

Graham's wife, Michelle, had been called out to work unexpectedly, but she had made some Lamingtons and I was very surprised and happy to see them.  She is a good cook and had made some lemon and date slices and also some Anzac Biscuits.  She had also prepared some crackers and cheeses and the three of us sat on the back porch and ate, talked and listened to the birds.  In particular a couple of Willy Wagtails visited the back yard and it was refreshing to see them again.  When we arrived there were a couple of Peewits on the front lawn, and some magpies were arguing supremacy in a nearby tree.  After lunch, Graham took us to Mount Cootha, up around the TV stations that broadcast to the Brisbane area.  They have a grand look out area there and we could see all over Brisbane - even watched the planes land and take off at Eagle Farm Airport.  We could see Moreton Bay in the distance - this is the first place my ancestors landed when they came from Germany.  The ship used to anchor off the coast in Moreton Bay and a smaller boat used to shuttle the immigrants to the landing on the banks of the Brisbane River.

While we were at Mt. Cootha, we found a tourist trap where we bought postcards.  Sara had asked that we send postcards to  the children, so now the problem exists to find a post office to buy stamps.

When we got back to Graham's house, Michelle was home and we were glad to meet her.  She works part time for a physiotherapy office nearby.  We had Lamb stew and vegetables for 'tea' (evening meal), and bread and butter pudding for dessert.  We watched the news, and just as in the USA, the news was not good and rather scary.  A plane has crashed off the coast of China and locally, a man was arrested in the murder of his wife.  He buried her vehicle in the back yard of his home.  No wonder the police could not find the vehicle.  They yet have to find her body.  Another story was of a police commissioner who siphoned off thousands of dollars to pay for some sort of community study in which his educator wife was involved.  Conflict of interest they said.

Jet lag is starting to catch up with us.

Friday, March 8, 2014

We awoke to the sound of the Kookaburra's in the trees and the Magpies were still arguing in the trees as well.  A Peewit sang to us from the fence outside our bedroom window.

After breakfast, we loaded up our bags and off we went on our way to Toowoomba.  Graham stopped at a post office for us to get stamps for the cards to send to the Friest Children.  Imagine our surprise when they charged us $2.50 to mail a post card to Lincoln, Nebraska, USA.  At that instant, I decided that we were not mailing any other postcards to anyone anywhere.....the cards only cost 40cents each to start with.

We drove up to Toowoomba, and there is a lot of road construction.  Due to the flood in Toowoomba last year, they have had to gouge out the range area where the water spilled over into Lockyer Valley, and this is an effort to thwart further erosion of the area they tell me.  Graham told us that the persons who hold the little signs that read "stop" on one side and "slow" on the other, have to go to school for certification so that they can spin the sign appropriately to control the traffic.  We wondered if part of their training was "how to grimace threateningly at people who do not slow down sufficiently" and heaven forbid that they refuse to stop!

We drove to Newtown to Graham's house , on Vacy  Street, where he was raised and he was surprised to see how much overgrowth of plants there was and that someone had planted a Norfolk Pine next to his house.  We proceeded further up Vacy Street to Papa Lockyer's home (my mother's father and mother had lived in this house at #36).  I was sad to see how run down and unkempt the house was.  I took pictures of the house and Graham and I talked about Steve Kruger's house next door (Steve had been our teacher at Newtown School), and that the Middleton house across the road was also run down.  However, we did note the new buildings etc. that had been added to Glennie School for girls, across the street from my grandparents home.  We then proceeded up Vacy street to #46 where my Aunt Edna and Uncle George Gatfield had lived.  It has changed a lot - people have added a lot to this house but it still looks run down.  Next door to my grandparents, is a traditional Queenslander and it is in pristine condition.  I took pictures of it.  Dr. Shelshire first lived there with his family and I used to play with their children when I visited my grandparents and then the Vidgin family bought the house.  They sold it to Mrs. Van Kerkwick, a Dutch lady.

We drove up around the corner to Princess Street, to my childhood home.  It is also very run down and the changes to the house are remarkable.  As I was taking pictures, some ladies down the street were eyeing my activities suspiciously, so I went to talk to them to help allay their fears.  Across from 12 Princess Street is an exercise place and upscale sport facility and adjacent to that is Clifford Gardens shopping center.

We then drove over to Desley Dornbush Connelly's home for lunch.  I thought that it was just going to be Graham, Michelle, Bill, myself and Desley for lunch, but to my surprise, Neil Redpath was there and then Bevan Bishop showed up.  The five of us, all 70 years of age, had a lot of catching up to do.  I was impressed that Neil would ride his motorbike up from Surfers Paradise where he lives, to Toowoomba just for the occasion and he drove back that evening.  Bevan Bishop has become a master gardener and has been helping Desley keep her garden looking nice.  If I could describe the atmosphere in the room, the word raucous comes to mind.  Add to that, affirming, uplifting, happy, gregarious, supportive and a total boost to the body, mind and spirit.  I did not know that five 70 yr old former school mates would laugh and tease so much and the memories flooded back with each comment made. Both Desley and Bevan are widowed but all of us have children and grand children and stories to tell.  I was overjoyed at the  whole meeting together of us former Newtown School kids.  Bevan brought some photo's of us at Newtown that he gave me, along with the names of the students written underneath.  This was very special and endearing.  It was during this meeting that I mentioned the people I was to meet with and at the mention of Bevon Walton, Graham's interest peaked and we discovered that he and I are related to the same people.  Ruth Winter Walton McGarry (Bevon's mother), is first cousin once removed to Graham through Ernie Winter, her father.  I am Ruth's first cousin once removed through Alvina Schultz, Ernie Winter's wife (and she is sister to my grandmother, Olga Emma Schultz Eiser).  The world just became appreciably smaller that instant.

We took photo's of the Newtown Gang, and then Graham took Bill and I over to Pam's.  I was surprised to learn that Pam has a Mercedes Benz to drive and Andrew has a Volvo - the car he takes to work.  He told us that his best car (The one he keeps for better occasions) was in the garage - a Jaguar, then he opened the garage and sure enough, there sits a Jaguar.

We went with Andrew to get some Hot pies for dinner and after watching TV with Pam, we went to bed.

I did manage to talk to Andrew about Genealogy.

Saturday, March 7, 2014

Went with Bill over to the shopping center to see if we could get on WiFi.  found a coffee shop that had free WiFi (this was the first, last and only  place we were able to get free WiFi the whole trip in Australia).  Some little kids were engrossed in their electronic games and they told us the password.  Managed to send a couple of messages to David and Sara and Andrea.  Found a "hot Shop" where I bought a Sausage Roll - Aaaahhhhh! Nirvana never was so good.  I love Sausage Rolls.

when we got back, Peter Sheridan and his wife Betty were there at Pam's house, so I sat with him and talked to him about the genealogy.    As soon as he left, John Weis came over and I went through the genealogy with him also.  Right after lunch, Bevon and Ruth Walton came over and spent the whole afternoon.  I did not give genealogy to Bevon because he is from the Schultz side of the family and not the Eiser genealogy that I was sharing with my Eiser relatives.  After Bevon left, Andrew went over to the fish and chips shop and brought back some fish, chips and the biggest Calamari that I have ever seen.

Sunday March 8, 2014

We got up early and went to Toowoomba Ward.  I sat next to Diana Cameron and her daughter Christine.  I was surprised to see Diana, who is now 91 years old and spry and lively beyond belief.  Her husband, Cliff Cameron, has passed away some time ago.  He is related to me, somehow, and he was my first Bishop when I joined the church.

Andrew was outside the church with Pam when the Sacrament meeting was over and we drove off to Fiona and Lenie Passier's for a party for Pam.  Stewart and his family came over from Caboolture for the party as well.  Fiona and Stewart are Pam's children by her first marriage.  This party was really raucous.  Lenie is one of the funniest men I know.  Travis, their second son plays volleyball for the Australian Team and he is presently in Finland playing Volleyball and his hope is that he will be on the team when the games take place in Rio, South America.  He played for Australia in the London games.  Lenie says that Travis has terrible problems with his knees and shoulders and elbows as a result of constant volleyball playing......cortisone keeps him moving. Jaek Benn, eldest son of Fiona and Lenie came up from Murphy's Creek with his girlfriend.  Jaek works for the Toowoomba regional council.  Although Pam said she did not want a party in her honor for the 80th birthday, she got one anyway and I noticed that she thoroughly enjoyed it.  There was lots of catching up and lots of laughter and it was wonderful. Andrew got sick and Jaek had to drive him home. 

We left Fiona's home for Laurel Bank Park to be with the Eiser family for that family reunion.  That also was lots of laughter and catching up.  I lost my camera case at this outing....it just disappeared.  My aunt Esther and Aunt Alwine were there.  Aunt Beryl is in a nursing home, she has Alzheimers.  Uncle Ivan was at the hospital with Aunty Jean - she has had a bad fall and has bleeding into her brain.  I had forgotten to take Lynnette's Genealogy to her at the Eiser reunion, so took it with me to St. Vincents.  My cousin Roslyn picked Bill and I up at Pam's and took us to St. Vincents and lucky for me, Lynnette was there so I gave her the information as well as gave it to Uncle Ivan.  We took pictures and then Roslyn took us back to Pam's

Pam insisted that I take the Crystal Water Set back to the USA with me.  I really have no use for it - it belongs to a different generation than mine.  I would rather take my mother's fine bone china cup saucer and plate sets, but I have no real use for them either.  Just like Mom Belnap said to me years ago, it is only STUFF and the memories are of more value than the items themselves.

We packed up our stuff and went to bed.  The bus comes for us at 4.30am tomorrow.

Monday 6 March, 2014

Managed to not sleep but stayed in bed till 3.30am.  Had my cell phone timer set for 3.45am but found that although the cell phone was fully charged last night, that it was completely drained this morning so it is just as well that I got up by myself.  Bill did not believe that the bus would come at 4.30 but it did and he was barely ready to go.  Pam got up as well, and the cat wanted to eat and Andrew got up also to see us off.  Their cat is nothing but a stomach on legs.

The Airport Flyer - name of the shuttle company that operates between Toowoomba and Brisbane, collected lots of other people on the way there and off we went to Brisbane Airport, we are off to Perth.

International travel is always an adventure - and the TSA makes it almost hazardous to our health.  At Brisbane Airport, they said that Bill had a weapon of destruction in his carry on.  I was floored.  My husband have a "weapon of destruction"?  Well, they sorted through his stuff and found a pair of 3inch scissors in his manicure set and they took them from him.  Yep!  It certainly was a weapon of destruction!  I am very glad I did not take my quilting scissors - they are 3 1/2 inches long and made of tungsten - and those babies can really inflict wounds on hands etc. if I am not careful when clipping threads etc.  They also cost a small fortune to purchase and I would certainly cry buckets if they took them from me.  Bill, on the other hand, looked forlornly at the offending scissors and made a courageous decision to let the TSA official put them in the trash.   They said that for $30 we could put the Red Carry on and keep the scissors in that and the carry on would go to Perth.  The scissors were not worth $30......Way to go Bill!

I often find myself in deep thought about the people who man the TSA.  They wield uncompromising power and their persona seems to feed  on the "power accorded them by the Government".

I found a "hot shop" at the airport and bought myself another sausage roll - AAHHH Nirvana! I am glad I did because the airline food was terrible.  Last night Pam gave us $500 to buy stuff for the Friest Kids.  I was very surprised but happy to be able to buy something for the kids other than what we had planned for.  Bill did visit an ATM to get Australian Money, but he only took out $20 because he said we would be using the credit card to buy stuff in Australia.  the $20 did not go far..................

As we drove through the streets of Brisbane the names of the various suburbs brought back memories for me - stops on the rail line on the way to Caloundra, names on the map of Brisbane and one, Nudgee Road, brought memories of Aunt Gloria.  She did not come to the reunion.  She is not talking to the rest of the family....and I do not know why.

When we got to Perth, we were told to go out to the curb and take a certain bus.  We were wandering around when a uniformed lady scooped  us up, and then said "I'm here to take you to the hotel" and off we went.  We checked in and over in the corner is the obligatory display of pamphlets of "what to see in Perth" and this is a magnet for Bill.  We now have at least one of each of these in our room - even though we have a tour booked for each day here.

My cousin Shirley Nichol Roper picked us up at exactly 4.45pm and took us around Perth.  We drove along the road that runs by the Swan River.  Saw people wind surfing - they have this large piece of fabric that acts like a spinnaker and they have what looks like a slalom water ski board on their feet and the wind in the spinnaker allows them to whip across the waves and slalom ski on the surface of the river or ocean.  We saw some doing this wind surfing on the ocean when we got to Cottesloe Beach.  There are a lot of Marina's filled with large boats along the way.  It was a very windy day and there were white caps on the waves - it must have been cold as well because all the wind surfers were wearing wet suits.  I wondered if the surfers ever got their lines tangled - there were many young people doing wind surfing and they are attached to the spinnakers by long ropes.  Shirley took us to Cottesloe Beach to see the sand sculptures that were there.   I collected some sand in a baggie from Cottesloe Beach.   One particular installation looked like Casto on Steroids.  The wind was extremely strong and when I got back to the motel, I discovered that I had sand in my hair.  Some people were swimming in the water and Bill took his shoes off and went down to the water's edge and paddled.  He wanted to say that he had touched the Indian Ocean.  Shirley took us around to see some of the homes around Cottesloe Beach and she was telling us that some of the houses are valued at around $15 million.  Her own home is small and it cost $1million.  The real estate in this area is the most expensive in Australia - she is in the building industry and knows this kind of stuff.

When we got home, her husband had most of the dinner cooked - we had lamb chops and veggies and salad.  It was very elegant and I noticed that she used Corelle ware - I have Corelle Ware as well.  Shirley and her husband are about to take a trip to Japan - a hiking trip on the western end of Honshu.  I talked to her about the genealogy of the family.  I will send her the rest of the family genealogy when I get home, because she does not have a copy of the stuff I took to Australia in 2001 for the Eiser reunion.  On the way back to the motel, Shirley and her husband took us to a vantage lookout over Perth and we saw the city by night.  that was spectacular.

Tuesday, 11 March, 2014

We got up really early and went down for breakfast.  It was truly a feast - American motels could easily take a lesson from what was served here.  I ate fruit, potato cakes, scrambled eggs and one slice of bacon with the rind on (no rind on bacon in the USA). Bill ate rolled oats, cold cereals, toast, butter and hot chocolate for both of us from the dispenser that also served 4 kinds of coffee and some different tea's.

Adams tours picked us up and took us to the main drop off place where we boarded a bus to take us to Wave rock.  We made a few stops on the way and in the town of York, we found an IGA that had all the candies my heart desired.

Our first stop was at the Hippo's mouth cave.  It was a rock formation that was adjacent to Wave Rock.  It was a large opening that did look like a Hippopotamus mouth but no teeth.

Wave rock is spectacular to say the least, but the climb up to the top was a real challenge for me.  Bill went to the top, or so he thought, and he found that there was more "top" after that.  On the way there we stopped at a Dog Cemetery - out in the middle of nowhere.  Lots of people take their dogs there to be buried.  On the way there we stopped at "Mulka's Cave".  It is supposed to have Aboriginal hand prints etc. but I think that they are fake markings.  They are supposed to have been there for centuries but the driver of the bus claimed that these markings were made of Ochre (mud).  They looked more like paint to me.  The hand prints just over our heads were said to have been made my Mulka himself, who was  said to have been very tall - well if you know your physiology, the left hand print just overhead would take a contortionist to put up there because it was upside down.  (the fingers were pointing to the floor, where one making such a print even standing on a few rocks etc. would have to bend his/her hand backwards to accommodate the upwards slope of the roof above us) The person making the print would have to be at least double jointed to make the print and the ceiling was at least 15 feet over our heads, so a ladder would have to be used and more than that, a scaffold would have to be employed so that the person could lie horizontally with the ceiling to make this left hand print.  However, tourism is what it is and so we saw Mulka's cave replete with hand prints and a rather fishy looking fish portrayed on the ceiling.

Legend of Mulka:  The legend says that Mulka was the child of a clandestine relationship between two people of opposing tribes.  As a result of this, Mulka was born with Strabismus and so when it came to the time of transition from childhood to manhood, he could not pass the test of spear throwing - could not see straight or throw straight.  This made him the laughing stock of the community and so he became an outcast.  He was not very well accepted even before that due to the illicit liaison of his parents.  He went off by himself and began to raid camps for food and was even accused of stealing and eating children.  He was chased by the tribe and he ran away but they caught and killed him and left his body to be eaten by ants rather than given a burial.  This ignominious end to Mulka was a warning to others against illicit liaisons and the end that can come to such resulting individuals.  to not be buried was the ultimate punishment and to be eaten by ants was ignominious.

After Mulka's cave, we stopped to eat lunch.  This was a disaster.  They carved up a chicken, broiled it in soy sauce and when it was doled out, I managed to be served the spine area with lots of little shards of bone.  this was topped off with rice and coleslaw.  do not know who the nutritionist was for this meal but they need to take lessons.

The driver had told us that at this stop they had a "Lice Museum", a toy soldier museum and a wildlife park and flower pavilion.  I was intrigued about the "Lice Museum" and wondered what size the Lice were, and why a museum for that?  When we got there, we found that it was a "Lace Museum", a miniature set up of miniature soldiers in war array, a rather ratty wild life park with two kinds of kangaroos and no Koala display (the eucalyptus leaves were there but no Koala), various wild parrots and some swans on a pond and loads of flies that crawled all over us.  They had an interesting array of dried flower arrangements in the form of butterflies on the ceiling and walls and  a sparsely stocked tourist trap of stuff made in Japan/China.

Flies are an integral part of Australia.  When the bus was open to allow people to leave and enter, a bunch of flies also entered (and did not seem to leave the next time the door was opened.).  However, for the first 30 minutes after loading up, the flies were bothersome and then they seemed to disappear.  I do not know where they went to , I just know that they seemed to fade away and not bother anyone.

On the way home we stopped in a small town called Babakin to have what was cross between afternoon tea and dinner (cookies, cakes and sandwiches with mystery fillings).  This spread was put on by the local CWA.  CWA stands for Country Women's Association.  Our driver dubbed it "Chatty Women's Association", but my father used to call it the Cow Whoppers Association.  My mother was the handcrafts demonstrator for the State of Queensland.  Our driver said that the Bus tour company that we were traveling with, had its start in Babakin and so the tradition stands, the bus tour goes Babakin for the CWA to make the refreshments and to garner some $$ for their association.  Their membership is dwindling due to no new members and a shrinking population in Babakin.  I bought a small cook book from there - do not know if I can make the stuff in the States but will try.  I am taking some Golden Syrup home with me when I go.  As we left Babakin, I noticed an Agave in full bloom - not that far removed from Arizona - a desert plant, in a desert environment in Western Australia.

This tour was very long.  Started at 7.30am and ended at 9pm.  This whole trip to Australia should be dubbed "Topped out Tumult".

Wednesday March 12, 2014

They have a Large Screen TV in the Breakfast area in which various 'talking heads'  blurt out the latest headlines and endless opinions on the news.  I decided that these newscasters are trying to emulate those of the US newscasters and they sound just as empty headed and fake.  The wreck of the plane from Malaysia to Beijing is still in the headlines and the minutiae about the two men traveling on stolen passports and wondering if this was a terrorist attack occupied the whole breakfast time.

We went out to take our shuttle to the drop off point and it looked for all the world like a converted Garbage truck and was difficult to get up into it.  It rode as harsh as a garbage truck.  I was horrified to find that this vehicle was taking a busload of people to Wave Rock - imagine a whole day riding in this vehicle to Wave Rock and back - yesterday was hard enough and that was in a bus and not in this vehicle.  This travel company does not cater to anyone with mobility problems.

Our bus today took us on a tour of Perth and then headed off for Fremantle.  The tour today stopped at the National War memorial park for us to overlook Perth.  We stopped in Fremantle and went shopping for stuff to take home.  We caught the Ferry back to Perth and that was wonderful to ride on the Swan River.  The Ferry passed in front of the above mentioned park and we saw the walkway in the tops of the trees.  This was one of the attractions advertised in the pamphlet about the tours by the Adams company, and I was surprised to see this walkway in the treetops from the comfort of the ferry.

We left the dock and walked to the Hay Street Mall.  found a shopping area that looked for all the world like Diagon Alley from Harry Potter.  In this alley we wandered into a little Chocolate Shop and the air was thick with the aroma of chocolate - one did not have to eat the stuff to be under its spell.  In a word, "Heady".

We were looking for a place to eat.  Seems like most places for food close around 5pm - that is when the workers leave the city for home - after all , we are in the central business district of Perth.  So we ended up eating at the restaurant at the motel.  I chose the sampler plate because it promised skewers of Kangaroo meat among other things.  I wanted Bill to have the opportunity to eat Kangaroo while he was in Australia.  Bill was more careful and chose the Porterhouse steak which was served with French Fries and nothing else.  Eating out in Australia is quite different from eating out in the USA.  Bill really liked the Turkish bread roll that was on my plate.

We were so tired that we went to bed around 8pm.

Thursday 13, March, 2014.

Today was our last day in Perth, Western Australia.  This vacation in Australia certainly has been an Adventure.

There is still sand from Cottesloe Beach in the bedside table - yes the maids are diligent to be sure.  We had a big red sign on our bed when we first came to this motel , that read "Please help us to keep the planet green and stop waste of water and energy.  If you are to be here more than one day, please hang up your towels and reuse them, just as you would at home.  Thank you,  The Management".  Ok, so we hung up our towels and that night when we got home, our hung up towels were gone and fresh clean towels were on the bed with the same big red notice on them.  So we hung up these towels and the next night when we returned to our rooms, the hung towels were gone and fresh new ones were on the bed with the same BIG RED SIGN.  Either we cannot read or the maid does not know the rules outlined on the big red sign.  Diligent maids - made sure the big red sign was in place each day, and the sand remained on the bedside table.  I was wondering how long it would take for them to wipe it off.

Our bus came early this morning and took us over to the drop/OFF/pick/ Up site at the head office.  We did get a garbage truck to ride in, but it was a small one.

Off we went on our adventure.  Our first stop was a wildlife zoo and park  (Cavershams), and we got to have our pictures taken with a Wombat, feed Kangaroos (don't step in the small round pebbles on the foot path), and get up and close and personal with the Koalas.

The next stop was a potty stop, and then on to the Lobster Shack.  They sell rock lobster all over the world and they process them very carefully.  They have these large tanks with tons of lobsters in them and the water is recycled from the plant that draws it clean from the ocean nearby.  They said that when it is time to process the lobsters, that the lobsters are not fed for a couple of days to help them purge their alimentary canals, then they are stunned in really cold water so that they can be handled safely by the workers (read that, not be latched onto by the Lobster Claws.)  They are then taken and weighed, sorted into size and weight and whether they are missing too many claws/legs.  Those bereft of a certain number of appendages are put in one area of the holding bins for processing as Lobster Meat, while the others are put into appropriate bins (wire baskets) and fed when they are put back into the salt water to keep them alive.  When they are first caught, the lobsters are measured to be the allowable size, and if they are females with eggs, they also are put back into the water with the small ones.  Certain countries like big lobsters, other countries prefer smaller ones and so on.  The lobsters are packed and shipped live to the country of destination. 

Lunch time at the Lobster Shack found us with a prepared lunch from the tour company of Chicken breast and salad and an odd looking and odd tasting pasta side dish and a piece of fruit and a drink.  We ordered a lobster type basket from the little cookery place just to taste it, but I think that it was mostly fish with a little bit of lobster so that they could call it a lobster platter.  Yes, we are spoiled from eating Maine Lobster.  We ate from both offerings and it was pretty good.  I will say that the fries they sold are superb.

I collect sand in places that have sand, and on this stop I collected my first sample of sand for the day.  It was lovely, clean and white, much like the sand at Tulum, Yucatan peninsula . We climbed onto the bus and stopped along the road to the Pinnacles Park to let the air out of the tires so that we could go sand duning in the bus! Yeah! We drove over the dunes in this converted garbage truck vehicle.  At the place where we stopped, I noticed a number of homes made of Fibro - an asbestos product used extensively in home building in earlier days in Australia.

The bus first went to the Pinnacles for us to see these wonders of nature.  these pinnacles are actually calcified trees - buried in the sand for years and the silica of the sand has calcified them.  Then the bus drove over the dunes - crazy angles and all - finally he stopped then announced the sand boarding adventure for the participants.  He grabbed a number of what looked like snow boards and the younger crowd all grabbed them, waxed them down and then ascended this super high dune and slid down to the bottom.  Bill decided he would try it and I video'd him doing it.  The driver started the on-board compressor and re-inflated the tires on the bus.  That was amazing to see.  We made one more stop for toilets before we started off home.

Along the road I noticed that certain plants grew in certain areas - just like Saguaro only grow in certain parts of Arizona and not in others.  I noticed this with the grass trees.  When I was a child, these were called black boys, but now in our politically correct environment, the name has been changed.  These plants have a thick bare trunk and growing out of the top of them is a mass of what looks like long grass and coming out of the middle of the top is usually a single spike of some sort.  In some areas there were lots of Banksia trees but not in others.  There was an absence of Eucalyptus Gums in a lot of areas as well.

I noticed that a number of homes were being built and that the struts seemed to be of Blue Steel but as we got closer, I could see that it was blue wood.   When Shirley called tonight to wish us bon voyage, I asked her about it.  She is in the building business and she said that the wood had been treated against termites (white ants and borer's in Australian).

We met a girl on the bus who is from Osaka Japan.  She is a midwife and decided to take a holiday to Australia and she is staying with a friend in Perth.  She really was surprised to hear Japanese spoken so we continued to talk in Japanese and it was wonderful.

We have to find a place that sells Lithium batteries.  Bill decided to buy regular batteries, he said they were just as good, and then proceeded to take lots of video's of the activities and places we visited, and of course the batteries ran out in one day.  We tried to find Lithium batteries at places we stopped, but we were not in luck.

I went down to the conference room to use the public internet link there to see if David Savage had answered my email from Tuesday, only to discover that I had wrongly addressed the email to him.  That is what I get for not a) checking the email address and b) not having the correct glasses on my face to see the screen.  I wonder if he will remember to pick us up at the airport in Brisbane.

Friday 14 March, 2014

I asked the desk to call us at 4.15am so that I could shower and rearrange the suitcase and get Bill up and moving.  He showered last night and all he had to do was shave and dress and be ready for the bus to pick us up at 5.35am. - and he still was not ready in time.  Anyhow, the front desk called and we got downstairs about 10 minutes late and off we went tearing through the pre-dawn traffic of Perth to the airport.  It was the same lady who picked us up the first day we were in Perth.  At the Perth airport, I purchased some Lithium batteries - we still had pictures to take before we left for home. We only had a short time before the plane loaded and we were on our way to Brisbane.

We had to pay $75 to check our big blue suitcase because the airfare we paid did not include taking a checked bag but was for carry on only - what a shock that was.

At the Brisbane airport Bill wanted to call David Savage's land line to tell him we were here.  I told him that it would not do any good to call the land line if David was in his car on his way to the airport but that  idea did not compute with Bill.  He still tried and tried to make a call on the cell phone, but the cell phone has not worked since we set foot on Australian soil.  Our baggage had not even arrived at the carousel, so we had time.  While Bill was stressing over the phone the baggage came down and Bill did not recognize the bag, and it was in front of him.  I tried to get it off the carousel, but it was too heavy for me and a kind man nearby pulled it off for me.  At that moment David Savage and his wife Kerry came through the door and Bill wanted who the man was I was talking to.  I introduced them.  Bill was all set to go to the Brisbane Temple, and it took a lot of explaining to him that this was not going to happen on this trip.  The plan was for us to go to see Mum Savage in the nursing home.  It took a long time to get there due to traffic etc.  She was very surprised to see me - we have not seen each other for over 30 years.  She fell a few days ago and has a black eye and a very sore head.  She is 94 years old and suffering some dementia and kept telling me that the bus she catches every day goes past my home on Princess Street.

It was a wonderful visit with Mum Savage.  We left the nursing home and went to David's home.  Over dinner we talked and laughed over our visits to Caloundra.  they used to visit Caloundra for holidays and so did my family when I was growing up. 

finally we went to bed around 8.30pm.

Saturday 15 March, 2014

We woke up to the calls of the Peewits and the Magpies and galahs in the trees.  After breakfast we left for the airport.  David and Kerry left us there and went on their way to go see their grandson play football.

the lines were very long at the airport - apparently there were 5 flights going to 5 different countries all slated to leave about the same time.  We checked our bags and as I was passing through the Australian version of TSA, my bag was tagged as containing a "weapon of serious nature".  It turned out to be a 2inchlong - cannot -even -cut- butter -pair -of -scissors in a small travel case (2inches by 3 inches).  they let me keep them, but only when the Supervisor decided that they were not dangerous.  Do Tell!

The flight left at 10am and we flew across the date line and arrived in Los Angeles at 6.30am the same morning.

going through customs in Los Angeles, I got stopped because I reported that I had a soil sample.  It amounted to two tablespoons of red Toowoomba volcanic soil.  After causing such a stir and flurry of questions to higher ups, they let me keep the sample.

We walked over to domestic and got on the plane to Phoenix, then the shuttle bus to Prescott.

Yep, it was an eventful trip, and jet lag is just that, JET LAG.