Australia 2005
A travelogue by John Arlington Grein (JAG himself!)
Australia! The land down under. So distant, yet so much like our own country. I had been drawn to Australia since my youth. It’s the reason I met my wife (a friend knew I had a thing for Australia, Angela, who is from Perth, lived next to her in a duplex, we were invited to a barbecue, and 7 years later!)
I’ve been fortunate enough to visit there twice now, and I’m sure I’ll go back again.
I promised I’d share a bit about my journey to the land of Oz when I returned, as well as some photos. You’ll find some links to interesting sites about Australia as you read along with me.
Preparing for the journey. If you hate flying, Australia is not your dream destination. If you leave from Denver and travel to Perth as I did, you’ll spend approximately 20 hours or more on a plane. Be sure to allow a couple of hours between flights as in most cases you’ll have to gather your luggage and make it from the Domestic to the International Terminal (and vice versa on the other end). You’ll also need a passport, a visa (you can do an electronic visa online), and you’ll have to pass through customs at both ends.
Total travel time for me from Denver to Perth was around 26 hours…not to mention that you lose a day going to Australia (don’t worry, you get it back when you return!). What’s cool about that is that you will be traveling into the FUTURE. Here in the United States it will be Friday, but there in Australia, it will be Saturday. Use this power with extreme care, because you will have to come back to the past when you return!
Depending on how you travel, you’ll likely be going on the Boeing 747-400 Long Reach. If you can afford first class or business class (a mere $10,212.00, have fun and check it out here), you should do it. How do I know this? Because when you get on and off the plane, they make you walk past the first class and business class seats, the seats YOU won’t be sitting in, the sits that look oh so comfy with so much room that it makes YOUR seat feel like a folding chair at your child’s play in elementary school. After 14 hours in that seat, you’ll be SO ready to get off the plane. Also, if you are in First Class or Business, you can get on and off the plane first, so you can relax and look all comfy and rested as we economy class people walk past you to our folding chairs in the back. Be sure to check out the ‘SkyBed’. Now that’s traveling!
Travel tip #1: Get something to put your passport and flight arrangements in, then hang it around your neck. You’ll have it where you can find it easily. That’s important when you’ve been on a plane for a total of 15 hours, had 6 hours of sleep, and it’s now 6:00 in the morning and you are getting on a bus to go from the International to the Domestic terminal, and the driver ask you what airline you flew in on and you answer ‘Sydney’. The correct answer I should have given was ‘Qantas’.
Travel tip #2: Exchange some money BEFORE you get on the bus or in a cab.
Travel tip #3: You are allowed 2 pieces of luggage, one carry on bag and a personal item (such as a purse or laptop). If you can fit everything you need into one bag, divide it into 2 or plan on purchasing another bag when you are in Australia to carry back all the souvenirs and trinkets you will be buying for the folks back home!
Australia has been described to me as a lot like America, but how America was in the fifties. The reason is that Australia’s pace of life is a little slower, the people are very friendly, and if the exchange rate is right, you feel like Paris Hilton on holiday. Add to that there are only about 20 million people in the whole country, most of them living at the edges because the interior can be a rough go.
Jet lag! What a wonderful thing. You get to be awake (wide-awake!) at 2:00 in the morning, even though you were dead tired just 4 hours ago when you went to bed. If you are fortunate enough to recover quickly, your body will adjust in about 3 to 4 days, and you’ll be able to function normally in 1 to 2. I was able to sleep on the flight over (about 6 hours) and was on track in a couple of days.
The flight back, however, I couldn’t sleep. We got back to Denver on Friday afternoon, slept about 6 hours that night, about 2 hours Saturday night, forced myself to stay awake until 10:00 on Sunday night and slept like a baby. By Monday I was able to function and by the end of the week I was back to Colorado time.
A quick comment about jet lag, there are lot’s of methods and pills and natural remedies that are out there. I can’t recommend any of them. I did try a homeopathic pill on the way back to the United States, but as you’ll note, I had a worse time coming back then going. I think the key is to make sure you have enough time on either end to get back to normal so you aren’t pushing yourself the next day after you arrive. On the flight back, I was able to read William Gibson’s novel, ‘Pattern Recognition’. (If you are a tech-head like me, then William Gibson is definitely on your list. ‘Neuromancer’ and ‘Virtual Light’ are excellent books, and ‘All Tomorrow’s Parties’ is a good read as well). In the book the main character has to fly to different places around the globe, and describes jet lag as your body waiting for your soul to catch up to it. Soul’s cannot travel at the speed of an airliner, hence it’s tethered out behind you, trying to catch up. This seems to me an apt description of jet lag, an eerie out of place feeling, your body and mind trying to get back in sync, into a rhythm with the world around you.
Friday, June 24th, my friend Brian drops me off at DIA around 3:00. My flight to Los Angeles leaves at 5:50. If you fly out of DIA and can do it, take Frontier. You can walk to the gate and you don’t have to go through the main security area. (Note that my wife and step-daughter Jessica had left for Perth two weeks earlier). The flight to LA is uneventful, I collect my luggage and head to the international terminal. I note that about 10,000 kids from a youth group are also going to Australia. Fortunately I get through the line at Qantas before they come in. Unfortunately I am seated in the very last row of the plane, row 75. It was not comfortable, but I was able to sleep!
During the trip you are treated to movies, movies, movies. You can play video games, you get to eat dinner and breakfast with a snack in between If you have your laptop you can watch movies or listen to music, but if you are in Economy class, that’s really not an option unless you like your face 6” away from the screen! After a nice dinner, a movie, I fall asleep. (Note, Qantas hands you out a nice little nighty night bag with socks and an eye covering Makes you yearn for those sleeper beds instead of your folding chair). Sometime during the night I feel something on my arm. I think it’s the youth group kid next to me putting his bag on my arm, but when I awake I discover it’s my SNACK! Although nice, the bottled water and the crackers are about all I can stomach from it. Breakfast comes, the lights in the plane go on and we are approaching Sydney Australia.
Sydney Australia, 6:05 in the morning, SUNDAY morning. You’ll recall I started this little adventure on Friday afternoon. As previously promised, I have now gone into the future. I collect my luggage, desperately walk through the terminal trying to find someone to tell me how to get to the Domestic terminal. I find an airport phone and call for help. A nice woman swears I’m not far and tells me to find the McDonald’s, go out that entrance and to the right will be the bus to the Domestic terminal. I wander around, eventually find McDonald’s and make my way to the bus. Here is where I give my famous ‘Sydney’ answer to what airline did I arrive on, and since I had neglected to change money, the driver agrees to take my US money for the fare.
9:45, Virgin Blue. I board my plane for the trip to Perth, the most REMOTE city in the world. (Open letter to Sir Richard Branson: Just as you’ve given Qantas competition domestically in Australia, so it is your destiny to give them competition in the international air as well! If you bring it, I will fly it!). To give you a scope of things, Australia is a tad bit larger than the continental United States. Flying from Sydney to Perth is a lot like flying from New York to Los Angeles. The flight is smooth, I doze sometimes, eat some food that they sell you on the flight (no frills on the Virgin Blue flights!) and enjoy the scenery out the window.
Perth, Western Australia, Australia. 1:05 PM. I arrive to a beautiful day and the greetings of family and friends. I will spend the next 9 days with my wife and daughter, catching up with friends and family and settling into a home away from home. It’s a balmy 70 degrees as we stroll out to head to Reg’s house. It’s winter here in Australia, and what a shock we have waiting when we return to 100+ degree days in Colorado. We are here to celebrate Reg Robertson’s 60th birthday. Many more to ya Reg!
I have my laptop and check my mail once or twice daily, but my cell phone is not usable here (and I did not find out how it could be!). I have left my customers in the safe hands of my business alliance partners, Computerworx and Bona Fide Networks. As it turns out, they handily fill in for me during my absence (thanks Jay and Gary!).
There is much to see and do around Perth, we visit King’s Park (larger than New York’s Central Park) home of many memorials to Australia’s dedicated men and women who joined the rest of the world in so many world wars. There is the whispering wall, a curved memorial that you can sit at one end, have a person sit at the other, and whisper something. The curvature of the wall carries your whisper. We visit Cohunu park to see kangaroos and koala’s (should I mention that Michael Jackson has been there?). We spend time with family and friends, the trip this time has less ‘touristy’ business and more personal business.
Before we know it, it’s July 4th, time to head back to Sydney for our 4 day stay there before heading back to the United States on the 8th. Of course, we miss the fireworks and celebration being held back at home. July 4th is just another day in Australia. Tearful goodbyes and good memories are with us as we board another Virgin Blue flight.
Before moving on to Sydney, let me just give you a flavor for Australia. Things ARE different, and it’s a little surprising the first time because you think that a country that people describe as 1950’s US would still have everything we have, just be more friendly.
Australia owes more to England and Europe than to the US. It’s sports are Soccer (as someone from the United States, I remember it as a game I played in elementary school and am surprised that the rest of the world follows it with a ferociousness that Denver Broncos fans would envy! Click on the link, see, even the web page is confusing!), Cricket (one night in Perth watching a One Dayer cricket match I almost got it. Almost!) and of course Football (the Footie. But not the football we know!).
Shopping in the grocery store is interesting. Some brands are the same, but many are not. Strange breakfast cereals such as Weetabix and Nutrigrain and Rice Bubbles. Different and good! Bacon is like ham. Chicken’s have the Five Freedoms in order to lay better eggs. Beer is fuller and richer (and Foster’s is NOT Australian for beer). My two favorites were Crown Lager and Cooper’s. I can get Cooper’s here in my home town of Brighton, Colorado. The amazing thing is that I pay LESS for it here than I did in Australia, even with the exchange rate.
Meat pies and chips (French fries, or is it freedom fries?) seem to be the primary diet!
Soda is different. Mountain Dew is there, but it doesn’t taste like Mountain Dew (I can only guess it’s the water or formulation or both, but it was dissimilar enough that I didn’t want to drink it!). I found that I rather liked Schweppes Lemonade (a bit like Sprite).
Candy is not the same, Cadbury is the major chocolate maker there (unlike Nestle or Hersheys in the United States) and they serve up such items such as Freddo Frogs, my personal favorite, and Cherry Ripes. What Australian could be without Tim Tams. Jaffa’s, for checking out the picture show.
In our snack bag on the back to the US there were the best mints I’ve ever had – Jila Mints! Almost forgot, it’s not candy, it’s LOLLIES!
Tea, coffee and crumpets. Barbecue’s and sea food. All of it great food.
They drive on the left side of the road, and the steering wheel is on the right side of the car. It’s unnerving! There are roundabouts everywhere! Gas costs a staggering 6.00 a gallon (that’s converted to US dollars!)
Pharmacies are called Chemists. Liquor stores are Bottleshops. Burger King is Hungry Jacks. Subway is Subway(!). Most stores close at 6:00 in the evening, and late night shopping is on Thursday night until the grand old hour of 9:00 PM!
One item of note, while visiting articles in the paper and on news programs mentioned the ‘Americanization’ of Australia, and how some of their traditions and lingo of their culture are being lost to the influence of the United States. Wal-Mart is even trying to break into the Australian market. All I have to say is, Australia, watch this first before deciding to let them in!
To keep up on the news happenings in Western Australia, visit the Sunday Times.
Sydney is the touristy part of the trip. We visit Taronga Zoo and the Aquarium (fortunately, THIS did not happen to us, although you can swim with the sharks on purpose if you want). If you only have time to visit one, choose the aquarium. We take a harbor tour around Sydney and see the famed Sydney Opera House.
As luck would have it, the US Navy is in town, and we get to see the USS Kitty Hawk and support ships (from a distance, that is!).
It’s been a grand and restful vacation, and we depart on Friday the 8th of July, 9:45 AM, headed once again on a 747 to Los Angeles California. Those 10,000 kids are also on our plane, but surprisingly a DIFFERENT 10,000 kids. We are sad to leave this wonderful place, but anxious to return home. During our stay in Sydney we witnessed the bombings in London (flipping around the channels while getting ready for dinner we caught the news coverage at the time they were thought to be electrical malfunctions of some kind. (Note to US news agencies, watch the BBC sometime to see how it’s done! Everything does not have to be the sensationalized to get us to pay attention) and were awakened on the morning of July 5th to the sad news that our dog Skippy had died.
It was bittersweet, but all vacations must end, and at 6:05 AM on Friday, July 8th, we touched down in Los Angeles, having once again returned to the United States and to our waiting past.
I hope you’ve enjoyed this little travelogue, and if it’s piqued your interest in traveling to Australia, I encourage you to book your vacation now for a little time with our friends Down Under! They’ll welcome you with broad smiles and a hearty ‘How ya going!’.
As I put this together for you, I realized just how great a force the internet has become in our lives. By clicking on the links throughout the story, you can see and find out more about the things that I’ve mentioned. The world at your fingertips, all you have to do is pull up Google, enter in what you want to find, and instantly hundreds if not thousands of web sites are within your reach. For more cool fun, visit Google Earth. You can see your house from there. We found Reg’s house from there. It’s cool.
Click here to view pictures of the 2005 trip.
Click here to view pictures of the 2001 trip.
Click here to return to JAG Computer Service