Goodbye Australia

I guess this is it for Australia.
We spent a day at the beach on Saturday, but it was very windy and we didn’t stay long - too cold for swimming. It wasn’t far out of Melbourne on the tram, so it was easy enough to get there and home again in pretty short order. We dropped into the Royal Melbourne Yachting Squadron for a drink which was pretty spiffy. We waved our Lake Diefenbaker Yacht Club cards and that opened the door for us! We went down to Chinatown for supper and had a pretty good meal - much better than the absolutely dreadful Chinese meal we had in Chinatown in Sydney - almost the worst meal, Chinese or anything else, that either of us has ever had! Melbourne is absolutely crammed with restaurants and we have had some amazing meals. You can get almost anything you want here - we saw sushi burgers the other day!
It was tennis day on Monday - we lined up to get tickets and then lined up again to get inside and then lined up again to get onto one of the show courts - and it rained a lot! We watched a bit of Mardy Fish playing some guy from Europe with an “-ov” name! Mardy lost the first set and they had just started the second when the heavens opened. We sat under our umbrellas for a while, but it looked pretty set it, so we gave up and came home where we could watch the match at the Rod Laver Arena on TV! We didn’t feel too bad about the lost day as we had seen such amazing tennis on Sunday at the Hit for Haiti event (see previous blog).
Today is Tuesday and the weather is much better, but we didn’t want to do the wait-in-line thing again, so we went up to the Queen Victoria Market which is the most amazing place. It covers a couple of city blocks and is mainly food stalls - lots and lots of food - but also almost anything you could imagine - scanty lingerie, “opals”, leather jackets, back scratchers and on and on. I had warned John that he wasn’t to buy ANYTHING as we are packing up to leave and we already have too much stuff, and then it was me that kept seeing things that I just couldn’t do without! We hauled all our booty down to the Royal Botanic Gardens for lunch - a lovely, tranquil place with (amazingly!) lots of gorgeous trees and flowers, lake, birds and little unexpected treats like a tiny cottage we came upon where a group of artists make paper, baskets etc out of natural fibres.
Since we are at the end of the Australian leg of our trip, I thought I would do a top ten list of the good and the bad. As I started making the list, there were so many good things that I could easily have doubled the list, but here we go …
Top 10 good things , not necessarily in this order -
1. The weather! This is why we came - and I have to admit that we have felt rather smug sometimes when we see what the temperature is back in Saskatoon! (However, when the mercury hit 44 the day we arrived in Melbourne and there was no air conditioning in our hostel, we did begin to wonder what we had wished for ….)
2. Reg and Ruby’s hospitality over Christmas when John was sick as a dog. They were such good hosts under rather trying circumstances (sitting in the doctor’s office rather than driving us to the mountains!). In fact, Reg and Ruby, you were SUCH amazing hosts that we will pass on your phone number and address to ALL our friends and relatives …. (just joking!)
3. The Thai Tanic restaurant in Sydney (and the owner, Nicky). He was very friendly and served the most amazing, cheap, delicious curries.
4. Hit for Haiti - the tennis fund raiser spear-headed by Roger Federer which was organized in 24 hours - fantastic tennis from some of the top names in the game (see previous blog).
5. Desert Park in Alice Springs - I wrote about it when we were there, but it really was one of the highlights of our Australian stay.
6. Sleeping under the stars on our trip to Uluru.,
7. Waking up to the kookaburras laughing all the way down the east coast.
8. Boogie boarding at Hawk’s Nest beach.
9. Christmas carols at the Sydney Opera House.
10. “Jersey Boys” musical in Melbourne - the Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons story.
Top 10 bad things - again, not necessarily in this order -
1. John being really knocked sideways by a vicious sinus infection (he’s almost better now after nearly a month, but still has a really dry, hacking cough which is driving us both crazy).
2. The flies ……..
3. Telstra - Australia’s telecommunications network is NOT world class!
4. Not being able to swim in the ocean because of the jelly fish (those of you who read John’s blog about our snorkeling trip can substitute that for #4!)
5. The road south from Cairns which we assumed would be good, being the major southern access route - but it was dreadful - roadworks every few miles, and only one lane each way which made the truckers REALLY growly so they would sit on your back bumper as you toddled along at the speed limit.
6. Sydney toll roads. I never wrote the full story of our drama with the toll roads, but we were seriously mis-led about how to go about paying the tolls and ended up with a $75 fine. I took it up with the campervan company as it was their information that had led us astray and they did take care of the fine, but it was extremely irritating.
7. Burning a perfect iron-print on the front of my new pants (trousers, for my British readers!). I didn’t have my glasses on and turned the heat knobby-thing the wrong way, with the above result - just as we were about to leave for the theatre.
8. The dreadful Chinese meal in Chinatown in Sydney - it shouldn’t have been allowed!
9. Learning the hard way that if you put dryer sheets in the same drawer as your tea bags, your tea will taste like dryer sheets …..
10. Sharing hostel kitchens and bathrooms with people who believe that their mothers are going to clean up after them.
So that was Australia. We really enjoyed our time here, but we’re ready to taste New Zealand …….