Australia through a lens
By: Prashant Gupta
Tags: Melbourne, Sydney, Great Barrier Reef, Travel, Australia

30 Monday Jun 2014

As we first landed in Australia, though expected, what really struck me was the similarities with US. It seemed this is US with much fewer people — same brands, similar infrastructure, similar layouts, similar processes etc etc. Having traveled a lot in Asia, Europe and North America one can always find things which are similar but in general the pleasure of travel is to experience the unique things. I felt a bit sad to travel all the way and to find that we basically are in US.

But then as the trip shaped up, the spirit of Australia started to grow on us. For one, the people come across as full on an adventurous streak whether it was the boat crew in Cairns or Whale Watching trip or the Surfers on the beaches or our guide for the Blue Mountain trip — it was quite evident that Australians enjoy the thrill of risk taking. A typical experience was the sitting on the cliff of Blue Mountain valley with legs dangling down a steep steep fall. It was scary but the guide was encouraging all the tourists to do it and then take pictures. I cannot imagine something like this happening in US for instance. In addition to it, life does not seem too serious or problematic to folks in Australia. There seems to be a general sense of a relaxed approach to living life. Making jokes in almost any conversation was the norm, I do not think I met anyone who had any complaints from life. But this does not take away from the passion and hard work in whatever people were doing.

We made all our reservations ourselves — very easy to find your way around, very professional interactions and generally things were comfortable. Throughout the trip we had plenty of instances of wifi being much less reliable, closed receptions in late evenings, extra deposits for stays and generally things more expensive than US — but if you set your expectations and plan early, things are just fine. Currency exchanging was a little odd and for the most part we ended up using the credit card. Basically the direct USD to AUD conversion was much different from the INR to USD to AUD — to the tune of 7 to 8%.

From planning perspective, we decided to stay on the east side coastline — coming from India the Outback seemed not so attractive. As this was Australian winter — the plan was to do the water and beach stuff in Cairns and look for unique Australia experience in Gold Coast, Sydney and Melbourne. We used Singapore Airlines to fly into Brisbane — spent 5 days on Gold Coast; next 5 in Cairns and then 3 each in Sydney and Melbourne. This gave us sufficient down time in between activities to just relax. In between major cities we took flights (Jetstar worked just fine) and rented cars locally except in Sydney where you really do not need a car.

There are some really great things to do in Australia and depending on the age group and adventure streak one can plan several variety of things. But universally speaking some of the things which should not missed are as follows. The first striking thing for me was the Twelve Apostles — the sheer beauty and scale of these formations in South Australia is stunning. This a soft limestone coast and one can understand the formations process — but to see it is to believe it. The entire geography “coastal feature” chapters can be seen in action. The great ocean drive itself to get to this small town of Port Campbell is very nice and much talked about. But for me the inside drive through the farmlands, pastures and farm animals grazing was a surprise package.

Australia of course has a unique habitat of animals and plants which cannot be found in any other part of the world. The country is rich in its own variety of tropical forests. We all know it but when you see the unique aspects — it is some experience. Our children could not have enough of the Koalas and Kangaroo experiences — holding them, patting them, feeding them etc. I do not want to go into the long list of Wallabies, Dingoes, snake varieties etc. but I do want to mention the crocodile experience. There are enough crocodiles in India, Africa and we see them in other parts of the world also all the time. Initially in fact we did not plan to visit the Hartleys Crocodile Park — but when did go, i would say that the “Crocodile Attack show” there is something to be not missed.

While we are at it the sea animals cannot not be mentioned. The Humpback Whale migration on the eastern coast of Australia is a nice experience. But what took the breath away is the littlest Penguin parade on Phillip island near Melbourne. Hundreds of little penguin in small groups come to the shore at dusk and observing them come to shore in small groups, interacting with each other and finding their little resting places is something to be be cherished as an experience for animal lovers and even non animal lovers. It was like watching some animated movie. Cameras are not allowed to be used for this so we could not really capture this magical movement, but there are plenty of pictures on the web to get a perspective.

One cannot write about a tourist account of Australia without writing writing about the Great Barrier Reef. It is all worth the hype. We took the tour to the outer Reef from Port Douglas Marina — apparently the norther part of the reefs are better than the southern and so better to go from Port Douglas instead of Cairns. The sea water temperature was a nice 24–25 Celsius. when we headed out in the morning the sea was choppy and it was harder to snorkel at the first stop. But then the next two spots had the sea calm down and the tide was low and provided breathtaking view of the reef. I signed up for diving but from the first spot realized that snorkeling seem to provide a much better experience. The colors and formations of the corals, the variety of the fishes to see of different sizes is something to never forget. this was the first snorkel for my seven year old and what a place to start. We did see the clown fish but did not sea any turtles. But that got taken care of on our visit to the Palms Cove beach the next day — we got lucky to see two turtles very close to the shore. Cairns beaches are really nice village towns and wonderful to spend the afternoons in.

And then the cities of Australia. Australia has a population of 23mn with Sydney accounting for 5mn and Melbourne another 4mn. and even these are small in comparison to any of the mega cities in the world — especially India and China. Cities are laid out in the typical CBD and outward from there pattern. Given the relatively smaller sizes with good transport facilities, the cities are very easy to get around and enjoy the evening times with good restaurants and bars. Sydney harbor is one of those “symbol of your trip” locations which one must do. The best view though is from the cruises in the harbor. We managed to see a dance performance in the Sydney Opera House and loved it. Also, we were lucky to be in Melbourne during the ending of the winter festival as the city was alive with live performances and lots of people enjoying themselves. Weather was cool but nothing too uncomfortable.

Cairns and Gold Coast on the other hand were more laid back and yet very lively environments. The Cairns marina are had lot of very good restaurants and Gold Coast surfers Paradise is of course always a nice place to roam around. We did go to the different Gold Coast theme parks and family had an awesome time in all of them with different shows, rides and parades. We particularly enjoyed the Movie World rides and their new stunt show with bikes and cars.

Besides these tourist attractions, there were few other things I got fascinated by and cannot help but mention them. For one, I think the STOP sign on cross-ways is one of the simplest and most powerful traffic management solutions. But the disadvantage is the required stoppage and breaking of momentum for the vehicles. In a country like Australia with much thinner traffic, it is a true wastage. So the change to traffic roundabouts with simple right of way rules one gets the advantage of a stop sign and also the advantage of a thin traffic place. Another different thing was the quarantine rules for state to state movement of produce. Country to country custom regulations are there in other places but not state to state. In a situation where in Europe, these boundaries are being broken from country to country also, it was a different reality.

Another thing I noticed was a lot of emphasis on “Made in Australia” to counter the cheaper imports from China. One can see it in US, Europe, India etc also but not so apparent. This can be understood also in the context of the emphasis on preserving the aboriginal culture in the country. So in general pride for the nation and hanging onto the culture roots was quite evident. Australia with so few people also has the problem of lack of market for any business. One could go to small towns and see this US style malls, car lots, big farms etc and wonder who is buying these things and how can the economy sustain itself. My understanding (without much research admittedly) is the key is the rich mineral and rare metal deposits. Australia produces gold, diamond, precious stones like Opal and has large deposits of rare metals. Mining and exporting thus is the primary means of paying for the country’s bills — trade has been booming for example with China which is mineral hungry country due to all the manufacturing activity.

Let me close this write up with mentioning few interesting people we met. In Kuranda village (Cairns) we met Meg, a very affectionate lady whose passion is stones. As we are vegetarians one of our quick meal option was Subway — in Melbourne the Subway manager was a really nice person who started talking with us and made the day or our little one by giving her fresh out of oven cookies. then there was Marvin Young, an international celebrity hair stylist living in Palm Springs. It was our pleasure to have him as company for our day tour of Blue Mountain (Sydney). He is a charming personality with every happy positive attitude — something to learn from.

All in all a great trip with some unique and wonderful experiences.