G'Day From Down Under

(Right: On top of Harbour Bridge over Sydney at night; Opera House in the background.)

A late season snow storm over Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia reminded me that in life, it's easier to roll with Mother Nature than to challenge her. Roaming with the nomad herders of the Gobi Desert would have to wait for another moon. And there was plenty of ground still uncharted by my feet. Taste buds desiring of something other than Chinese food, ears wanton of the familiar sounds of English and lungs yearning to breathe fresh air, there was a new continent on my horizon. It was time to find out if there was really a shrimp on the "barbie" for me.

Deplaning from my Air China flight, my stomach was in dire need of something other than the camel stew camouflaged as a "beef" dish paired with oily fried egg rice served on the ten hour flight. While I am not a chef by any standards, I am confident that I could turn Air China's in-flight cuisine into a two star affair with the aid of some mean turkey tacos. Nevertheless, China was the past, and in the moment, I was standing on the land "down under".

Since Men At Work first belted the tune "Down Under" in 1982, my curiosity about the island continent stood atop the tallest of peaks. What is a vegemite sandwich anyway? And traveling for the past twenty years, it seems no matter what corner of the globe I found myself, there were Aussies to toast with the local ale. Who are these guys? And do they really say things like "G'day mate"? They sure do.

With no prior reading on the country or preparations for my visit, I was winging my entrance onto Sydney's stage. A train trip from the airport into the heart of the city was a breeze. And before I could study the local map picked up at the airport, two Aussies were asking me where I was going in an effort to give me direction. Arriving in Australia was akin to returning to Earth compared to my communication experiences in China. And while it was good to be on Earth, it was not the challenge for which I was searching.

But it would only be a few hours until I would find my next challenge, a climb on the Harbour Bridge. My late afternoon arrival to the base of the bridge, one and a half hours of prep time and an hour to the top meant that my climb would be at night. After a breathalyzer test, questionaire, disrobing and donning a jump suit, a utility belt, complete with grapple ball, rain bag, fleece bag, head lamp, ski hat, gloves and a communications headset placed next to my ears and attached to a walkie-talkie in my belt, I was ready for the climb. Drop me in Gotham City, attach a cape, and I might have even scored a role as Batman, or Robin at the very least.

Climbing behind my guide, Pete, we walked the narrow planks under the bridge as traffic zoomed past overhead. Emerging from the underneath the bridge, we walked up the stairwell winding our way up through the first stone pylon of the bridge. When we came to a door, Pete spoke into his headset, "Are you ready?"

"Of course," I replied with great anticipation. He opened the door and the elements blew in a chill. A storm moved in overhead during my preparation for the climb and now rain and wind were whipping me around like a rag doll. Harnassed into a cable on the bridge, we walked on the bridge's steel girders, the iconic Sydney Opera House and Darling Harbor off my right shoulder. The city scape was magnificiently lit as the harbor waters below dnaced in the glow of the city lights.

(Harbour Bridge)

At 67 meters above sea level, Pete informed me that we were now even with the top of the Opera House and only half-way to the top of the bridge. With the city lights illuminating the steel path before me, I turned my head east to avoid taking direct fire from the rain and followed Pete to the top. At 130 meters above the water, Sydney's luster sparkled in all directions. While I had yet to find a major metropolitan city that rivaled the beauty of San Francisco, Sydney might just be stiff competition.

A combination of the beaches of San Diego, the culture and cuisine of San Francisco and the waterways of Seattle, Sydney is truly a metropolitan marvel. To top it all off, the locals are some of the friendliest people I have encountered anywhere. Stop at a coffee shop, restaurant or ale house and you'll be received with smiles and asked, "how ya doin' mate?" or "are you enjoying yourself?". Planning my route in the country, there wasn't an Aussie I asked who didn't take the time to sit and write down their top picks, which led me to my biggest problem of all . . . where do I start?

From east to west, north to south, Australia offers something for everyone. Wine country in the southwest, beach life on the coast everywhere, diving at the Great Barrier Reef, camel trekking in the west, camping wherever you can park your car, european culture in the south, and bushwalks just about everywhere in between, it was a traveler's extravaganza. You could spend six months traveling in the country and see only a fraction of the national parks and heritage sights across this diverse land of 20+ million.

In all my queries, the only warning I received in my quest for independent travels has been, "to carry compression bandages with me when bushwalking."

"Do you mean like band-aids?" I asked the guy in the climbing gear shop.

"No, I mean like the kind you put on a snake bite," he clarified as he proceeded to demonstrate with his hands on a pretend bite. He explained further, "just make sure you use the bandage right, if it's too tight, your circulation will get cut off and that is bad, if it's too loose, well, the venom will get through."

By this point I had stopped listening, as I was busy entertaining visions of myself racing back on a dirt road in my rental camper in the pitch darkness of night all the while clamping a T-shirt over my bicep and sucking on the bite and spitting my own blood out the window. Inspired to inquire further, a quick search on the internet revealed that there are only about 3,000 bites per year. Of those, only 200 to 500 require treatment with the antivenom so the odds were decent, provided those 200 to 500 were not predominantly nimrod tourists. So I would be sure to sleep with my hands in the tent and not stick my hand down any "gopher" holes in the desert sand.

On a positive note, while Winter is fast approaching in the Southern Hemisphere, that is actually prime time for exploring the famed Outback (and I don't mean the steakhouse). Home to Aboriginal peoples for forty thousand years, the climate of Australia offers sunshine in many parts year round. During the Aussie winter, the national parks in the Northern Territory and the beaches of Queensland are perfect for exploration. So for the moment, my course is set, I'll snake my way up through the Northern Territory and slither down the East Coast.