Mikhail’s All-Star World Tour 2006

Spent all of Wednesday on the beach, despite the mostly cloudy sky. We walked from A & B’s house through a small wetlands reserve (nice for a neighborhood park) down to the north end of Narrabeen beach. We walked all the way down that beach, past the Long Reef Point coastal ecosystem preserve area (they take the environment seriously here), across a golf course, and over to Dee Why beach. There, a quick lunch, then back up the way we came - about 10km total for the day.

We didn’t go into the water though, since the currents were strong and there were bluebottles everywhere. They’re like little blue jellyfish with long stringy tails that really hurt if they touch you. Discouraging. But walking on sand is good by itself too.

Along the way: schoolkids in uniforms on the beach for gym class, an oceanfront Shorin-Ryu karate dojo that could be the place if they make an Australian sequel for Karate Kid, some discussion of what it means to be cool vis a vis beach towels, smoked salmon.

Today was another eventful day. Early in the morning, I brushed against a tree while getting into the car and felt a sting. There were no spiders or snakes to be seen, but my arm kept burning and started getting yellow/red and swelling. Fortunately we were on our way to some friends’ house, and one of them is a nurse. She gave me some antihistamine and ointment and the swelling went away, it’s no more than a mosquito bite now. You never know with these things - maybe I’m allergic to the tree, or maybe some caterpillar touched me.

From there we went to Manly beach, took a ferry to the city (another chance to enjoy the harbor view), picked up Maiken’s visa at the Chinese consulate, and ferried right back.

This afternoon we went to Kurungai National Park with Bjørn and Agnes; it’s only half an hour away from their house. Right after getting off the ferry, we saw a kangaroo. We approached it slowly in a semicircle formation, shutters clicking with every step. While it was still, it looked like an overgrown squirrell-rat, but then it started hopping away and that was just like the cartoons. Then we saw another, and another - we were in the picnic area, and I guess they get food there sometimes. We also saw a huge alligator-sized lizard that’s apparently called some kind of dragon (not the Komodo, I think).

We celebrated our animal encounters with a picnic lunch, featuring Agnes’ great carrot salad, German rye bread, meat & cheese. Then we hiked up through the bush, saw aboriginal carvings, disappointed large spiders by avoiding their webs, came down to the beach and took a dip in the water.

We’re staying with Bjørn and Agnes and Cille in North Narrabeen. B & A are Maiken’s former Amazon.de coworkers, who just moved to Australia 5 weeks ago. North Narrabeen is a northern neighborhood of greater Sydney with a great beach of its own. Cille is a two-and-a-half-year-old girl with the energy of five speed-skaters and three languages on her mind: German, French, and Strine (Australian English).

We flew in on Monday. Tuesday we spent in Sydney. Wednesday we walked around the Northern Beaches all day. Today we went to Kurungai National Park. Tomorrow morning, it’s off to Cairns (last forecast said it’s the hottest part of the country).

For those of you impatient to see more updates (hi Dad!), you should also check out Maiken’s blog - she’s even taken time to post some pictures.

We spent Friday in Cairns - it’s a resort town pretty far north up Australia’s east coast. Even though we’re here in the “low season” - the crowds arrive June-September - it still seemed really touristy: lots of pubs, eateries, and souvenir shops. They do have a decent esplanade - nice view of the lagoon in high tide. In low tide it looks like a brown swamp. The cool thing about the esplanade are the playgrounds and the huge, crazy-shaped public pool. Pictures will come…

Funny story: we’re staying at the Caravella hostel and we stopped by the front desk to get advice on tomorrow’s trip to Kuranda. The woman there was hilarious: she was the most negative person I’ve met on this trip. She told us that all our plans were wrong, tried to sell us a more expensive trip with a “champagne breakfast” because it’s “more appropriate for our age group” (wtf?) and, by the way, told us that our van rental company is horrible, overpriced, and we’ll have a really uncomfortable time. I walked out of there laughing because it reminded me of someone I talked to on my last trip to Moscow. Of course, upon looking more closely we saw that our choices were actually better (price and quality), and she was just trying to make money because she’s also a travel agent (in addition to operating the hostel).

On Saturday we woke up early, picked up our van and took the SkyRail gondola to Kuranda, a small village in the rainforest. Originally, Kuranda was founded for mining (I forget what they were mining maybe gold), but now it’s all for tourists too. It was really fun to ride the gondola (and the historic railroad on the way back), but the best part was the koala gardens. I got my picture taken cuddling a koala, fed a wallaby from my hand, and saw crocodiles pretty close. It was a bit disturbing when we walked to the python area but couldn’t find the python, maybe it escaped.

Tonight we’re camping in Daintree with our Wicked camper van. Daintree is the oldest rainforest on earth (100 million years old, they say), and it’s full of insects, birds, and all kinds of other night sounds. Falling asleep was a challenge, since it’s about 30 Celsius and as humid as Iowa in July, but once I fell asleep I was out for good. It was raining all night, too - guess that’s why they call it the rainforest.

Not many people can say that they learned to drive stick in a rainforest. That’s what I’ve been doing with our van - a Mazda “Zum zum” e-series, the Wicked “deluxe” package with AC and power steering. Only the finest.

Driving stick isn’t that bad, except for all those cars waiting behind me while I try to accelerate, or just flat out stall. Shifting into reverse from fifth gear isn’t the zum-zum’s favorite trick either. But on long straight stretches of road, I am king. And thus I passed the time as we drove down from the Daintree to Airlie Beach for the last two days. Tomorrow morning we board the Condor for a 3-day sail tripo.

We went sailing for three days and two nights on the Condor. It’s a “maxi” yacht (keep your associations to yourself), and apparently it’s in the Guiness Book of Records for winning every major ocean race twice.

The crew was awesome, Australian, and sitcom-ready: skipper Kirk looks like Russel Crowe straight out of Master and Commander, but without the frilly uniform. Deck hands Judd (Orlando Bloom type with local accent) and Willow (no actor comparison, but very Scottish-looking). And Peaches, the girl in charge of the cabooze and the most important person on the ship when you’re hungry (always for me).

We get on board, the crew assembles all 14 passengers and the first thing they tell us is: bring more booze. We had brought 10 cans of mixed vodka drinks - an idea admirably perfected down here, you can get any mixed drink in a can, even prepackaged shots with names like Cowboy and Chocolate Eclair. But after the skipper’s warning, we ordered another sixpack for this last-minute liquor run, just in case, and Peaches brought us back six cans of Red Bear Vodka Pineapple. The last two cans were finished on the last hour of our last day of sailing - we planned it just right.

I kept hearing Sublime lyrics in my head as we sailed around the Whitsundays, taking breaks to snorkel the Great Barrier Reef. So what if the song is really about something else - it’s the only reef song I know and I’ve got singing on my mind. A list of encounters: endless schools of colorful fish, unimaginably diverse coral - from huge pale brains to forests of undulating orange tentacles and spiky alien trees, a squid (later several squid in a bucket on the deck, caught with a line, spraying ink at their captors), a fast-swimming sea turtle, a huge Maori wrasse named Elvis that swam close and let me pet it, and five reef sharks that swam next to the boat for several hours on the first night, using its floodlights to hunt for smaller fish. Amazing!

Every time we went in the water, we had to wear stinger suits that covered us head to toe. In the summer, the waters here are full of jellyfish, including lots of harmless floaters, the painfully poisonous Chironex and the excruciatingly lethal Irukandji. And by the way, the dangerous ones are invisible - if you see a jellyfish, then it’s OK. Going in the water without a suit is called the Irukandji challenge - you probably won’t get stung but if you do…a few days ago a skipper from another boat got stung and spent 4 days in a coma after the helicopter brought him to the hospital. Apparently it’s so painful that people’s hearts stop. Pretty convincing; I wore my suit most of the time.

Sailing is outrageously chill: the ocean is all around, the crew is fun, the other passengers are just as relaxed as you are, sunbathing everywhere in the breeze. The only distractions are walks on empty white beaches, snorkeling, meals, and fun sailing tasks like helping to put up sails (now I know what a spinnaker is, thought spelling it is still a challenge).

Just a quick shout-out to the other passengers we met on the Condor: Charles and Charlotte (a French couple doing work/travel in Australia), Charles’ parents Bruno (a former professional diver for oil companies) and Veronique, his brother Nicolas. All from Marseilles, I think. Also Scott from Toronto (with an IT background and a taste for Toohey’s beer, which he brought and generously shared), Amy from London (radio background, travelling the world), Heather from Ireland, Charlotte from Holland (gave me tips on where to go for a cheese trip from Amsterdam), J and Joshua from “a small town near Shanghai” that’s probably bigger than Seattle though I’ve never heard of it, and Jane from Laguna Niguel in California (small world!) who moved there from Vegas and is planning her saltwater aquarium.

If any of you come across this post: sorry if I butchered your name, and please leave a post to tell us what you’re up to. It was great meeting you all!