Australia

Back!

Back in beautiful Palmy.

Palmy! How I've missed you. 

We stepped off the plane at Wellington (luckily for us - as we came in to land there was terrifying low-lying cloud, so foggy that no one could see the runway until we were almost on top of it: the cloud was to the top of a 2-storey house. I say no-one - I assume the pilots were able to see it somehow, magically... - and as we passed through immigration we heard announcements that all flights going out of Wellington had been cancelled. Which led me to wonder: what happens if the plane just can't land? We circled a couple of times hoping visibility would get better - but what happens if it doesn't get better? you can't circle indefinitely! 

Pilots. I salute you.)

Anyway, I've lost the beginning of that sentence now. We'll start again.

As we stepped off the plane at Wellington, we stepped into 15 degrees of cool, wet, drizzle, and you can't imagine the relief after days of 34 degree heat in Oz. The cheery immigration dude stamped our passports and remarked, "there's nothing like coming home, is there?" which we thought very charitable of him given our stark British accents and our manner of clearly coming to his country and stealing his jobs and women etc. 

When we were in Australia, whenever other tourists asked us where we were from, a question that always requires too much hesitation (where are we from? I just don't know), and in stark defiance of accent we told them we were living in New Zealand, the universal reply was, "oh, well, isn't that just lovely? How lovely to be able to say you come from New Zealand." 

It is lovely.

Australia was very fun, the conference was exceeding fun, and I'd love to tell you all about it, but first I have to say this, because it has been weighing on me for a very long time.

No one in Australia or New Zealand knows how to drive.

NO ONE.

The standard of driving I have seen here in NZ is appalling, some of the worst driving I have ever seen, and I've lived in China. China! Where traffic lights have a mind of their own, cattle wander freely (or semi-freely - being yoked to a large wagon and having a small angry woman trying to rein it in has almost no effect on their wandering proclivities, but I suppose it isn't quite the same as freely), and the horn is used as an offensive weapon. And I've seen driving in India, where you can get a scooter licence (so they tell me) by bribing an examiner and riding in a figure-of-8 (if you can only ride in a straight line, that's ok too but you have to pay a bigger bribe). And Italy. We all know about Italy. And Guate, where occasionally there's the odd armed robbery aboard a bus, which usually sends traffic into a state of inconvenience. 

This is worse.

Ok, it's probably not worse, but it's really annoying.

Let's take NZ first. I can kind of forgive NZ, because there's so few people here. Wander out into the countryside, which you will do by accident as soon as you drive more than 10 minutes in one direction, anywhere, and there's barely a soul about, relatively speaking. This means you can do the following without dying instantly:

1) Pull out of intersections without looking

2) Overtake on the crest of a hill

3) Overtake on a bend

4) Overtake on a blind corner

5) Rapidly decelerate without any warning because New Zealand is so beautiful you just have to slow down for no apparent reason to appreciate it all.

6) Drink and drive

7) Smoke pot and drive

8) Go at 120mph while drunk and smoking pot

For a country with so few cars, we have a remarkable number of car accidents pitch up to hospital. I estimate that I've seen 1-2 car accidents a week - which I shouldn't do, being in general surgery (in my last job in general surgery in the UK, I saw no car accidents. None.)  On a weekend, usually 3 or 4 roll in. Some are repeat offenders (one 19 year old had crashed 4 times before, each time tanked up on a good amount of alcohol (I'm talking 22 beers and a litre of vodka): disappointingly not severely injuring himself because I think this moron needs to be taught a sharp short lesson about endangering himself and other folk. Not really sure how he is still able to drive given they should have taken his licence away after the first time, and if he is driving drunk and without a licence surely he should be in prison?)  A lot of families as well, hit by cars pulling out from a junction without looking (a classic in NZ - there are signs at lots of intersections saying, "spin, don't spin - it's your call". Can you imagine that? Who doesn't bloody look at an intersection?) And that's just my team seeing them - we get a car accident each time we're on take, more or less, which leads me to suspect everyone else is getting them too. Which would make a ridiculous number of accidents a week. 

Note that I haven't put 'undertaking on a whim' up there (ARGH!). This isn't because NZers are disciplined. This is because there is barely a dual carriageway in the country.

This is not the case in Australia.

In Australia, due to the plentiful nature of dual, and even 3- and 4- lane roads (I don't believe there is a single 4 lane road in NZ. I refuse to believe it. The 4th largest motorway in NZ has only 1 lane, and occasionally a large boulder in the middle of it. And some sheep), as well as doing the above, they also do the following

9) Undertake viciously for no apparent reason - when the right hand lane is clear

10) Weave across lanes without signalling

11) Sit in the middle and right hand lanes going about 20kmph below the speed limit, cheerily

12) Generally enrage British drivers

To be fair to Aussies and NZers, they are also some of the cheeriest drivers I've come across. No honking, no road rage. They're just blissed out by how awesome their countries are. And that is why, though you'll see people doing things that will probably earn you a good going show of road rage in Britain, the roads are remarkably quiet and unfilled with expletives and people giving each other the finger. By the end of our stay in Oz, as yet another car undertook us viciously and then swerved across our path for no apparent reason, with no signalling, Tim said to me, "you know, I don't even have the energy to get annoyed any more. I....I kind of feel calm."

Anyway, that is my rant over. I had to say it. It was awful. And I have to warn you, fresh British drivers who have not experienced the horror. 

 

Oh - and one last thing about Australia. Sometimes their left hand lane just disappears. On a whim. You're driving along in the left hand lane and suddenly it disappears and you have to make a sharpish entry into the right hand lane. Sometimes there's a little sign and some arrows about 100m before it sharply disappears. Sometimes there's just nothing, just an abrupt sound as your car hits the hard shoulder line because you weren't paying attention because you DIDN'T EXPECT THE BLOODY LEFT LANE TO JUST DISAPPEAR LIKE THAT. No WONDER everyone sits in the bloody middle and right lanes all the time! It's no use putting big old "STAY IN LEFT LANE UNLESS OVERTAKING, $130 FINE APPLIES" all over the bloody place if you KEEP REMOVING THE LEFT LANE ON A WHIM, IS THERE?? 

I'm done.

In Melbourne, the driving was especially fraught due to the trams, necessitating a right hand turn from a left hand lane (you heard me), something that destroyed me and Tim mentally when we had to do it. 

I'm really done now. 

The night before we were due to fly to Melbourne, Tim and I visited Auckland, where we met up with some friends of ours, who entertained us until the wee small hours of the morning with medical anecdotes. We then got up at 5am to catch our flight. And then we drove 3 hours from Melbourne Airport to get to Apollo Bay. I say we. Tim drove. I passed out in a state of coma in the car and was completely unrouseable. I am still amazed Tim didn't fall asleep and kill us both.

Well done, Tim!

We had intended to spend our first day doing exciting things, but I'd had only 8 hours sleep over the last 72 (those bloody long days!), and wasn't about to go anywhere but to bed. So we went to our hostel and we passed out for 2 hours. And then we got showered and dressed and looked about us for something to do.

Ice-cream!

We had to eat a lot of ice cream (a theme readily repeated, as you will soon come to realise) to wake ourselves up. 

 It didn't work, because we went to bed at 8:30pm (having only got up at 6pm from our nap) and could barely haul ourselves up the next day to go sea-kayaking, which we'd already booked and therefore were just too embarrassed to bail out on. Luckily for us, because it was amazing.

We kayaked out to a little fur seal colony. The smell was amazing - sort of, raw meat, fish, the worst public toilet you've ever smelt, fur, and BO. All mixed in one large pot and left to ferment for about 3 years.

And the seals were incredible. They came and swam all around us, looking at us with their big brown eyes sidelong, and diving up and under and jumping and waving their flippers in the air like they just didn't care. There were big ones and little ones and some as big as you or bigger.

Sea kayaking is incredible fun, so much more fun than lake kayaking. All those little waves! And the smell of the sea. On the way back, our guide suggested we catch some waves to shore. He gave us a load of good tips on exactly how to steer the boat when the wave broke, how to stop it capsizing, where to lean, and so forth. None of which we remembered because as soon as the wave broke, that was it. We went over straight away, Tim fell on top of me, and the boat fell on top of him and we capsized spectacularly.

It was so much fun!

Below is a picture of us not capsizing (for now.)

After kayaking, we had to make our way back up the Great Ocean Road, to Melbourne itself in time for my conference.  So we stopped at Kennett River, a little village famed for its wild koalas, which apparently lived just behind the road to the caravan park. We were assured by Lonely Planet that we would see 'little grey bundles' all over the trees, which assurance delighted us beyond belief. 

The day before, however, we had gone in search of kangaroos in Anglesea (I know. Anglesea! There is also a place named Torquay along the Great Ocean Road. I felt confused. It certainly wasn't Torquay as I remembered it) on the golf course (yes, Anglesea's golf course is populated by wild kangaroos), but failed to see any, though we did see a large sign warning us of the kangaroos, which wasn't as good as the kangaroos themselves. Not nearly.  So we were concerned re: the koalas. We peered up into trees, and every small round thing we saw we thought was a koala. We walked and walked, and were almost about to give up, when...

Someone crossed the road in front of us!

And instantly climbed a tree right in front of us!

I took about 20 photos of this little creature. 

We were in Australia!

And then on our way back, while looking at some brightly coloured cockatoos being fed crisps by some very eager Americans, we found another one! Fast asleep, as is their wont.

This excited us so much that we immediately became hungry and had to have some lunch to calm ourselves down.

And ice cream.

I told you the ice cream was a recurring theme. 

This picture was taken in Anglesea (or was it Torquay)? It was a beautiful day, but only about 18 degrees (the day before was 24) and we weren't quite brave enough to go into the water. Instead, we splashed about near Bells Beach (made 'famous' by Patrick Swayze and Keanu Reeves wearing double denim in Point Break - you've got to watch the trailer, it's as 90's as) and watched the surfers, none of whom seemed particularly keen on doing any surfing.

A race along the beach later and some very wet clothes further....and we got into our car and drove for Melbourne.

And now I have to get ready for my ED shift.

Till then!