Australian Time Delay

My apologies; I wrote this in Australia with the intent of posting it once I was back in Shanghai. Then I arrived in Shanghai to discover that blogger (and facebook, twitter, and youtube) was still blocked. So now, a few weeks late: here's an update on my Australian adventure:

I’m again in a place with no cell phone reception, very little internet, and infrequent transportation. Where am I?, you may ask. Am I in the middle of a desert? In a black hole? Took a trip to outer-space? Nope; I’m still in Australia. I’m on Heron Island off the coast of Gladstone, which is north of Brisbane. In all fairness, Heron Island is about 85km off the Queensland coast in the middle of the Great Barrier Reef. Why would have have internet in the ocean? And the Island is actually part of the Reef. Literally, the island is composed of thousands of year old reef bits. It’s pretty incredible. My room looks out onto the beach, which itself is inside of a Reef bed. I take it back; this is undeniably incredible. Who needs internet/reception when you've got this? Not I!

When our helicopter landed on the island today (yes, helicopter), we walked out onto the docks to survey the scene, and what did I spy with my little eye? A black tipped reef shark. How do I know for sure that’s what it was? Because I saw it four days ago in the Sydney Aquarium. And today I saw it swimming around the Great Barrier Reef. Luckily, a group of high school students that they’re friendly sharks (I’m thinking, Finding Nemo-style friendly? That didn’t last all that long!) and you can swim with them. I’m going to double check on that one before I dive in. Maybe triple check. Swimming with the dolphins is supposed to be a memorable experience, but fewer people say the same thing about swimming with sharks…probably because they aren’t around to remember.

Previous to Heron Island I was on Phillips Island, which is about 140km from Melbourne. Not to sound repetitive, but it was also fantastic -- albeit in a completely different fashion. Where Heron Island is warm with sharks swimming in the crystal waters and people walking in sarongs, Phillips Island was cold with crystal blue skies and lush green hills that were spotted with cows and sheep. And there was the odd wallaby in the bush as well. Seriously, wallabies in the bush!

On Phillips Island we stayed at a Bed and Breakfast run by two wonderful people, John and Robyn. John gave a tour of his farm, and pointed out black dots on a far hill that were his cattle. He also took us to his brother’s dairy farm just over the hill where we watched and helped with the evening milking of 230 cows. Robyn cooked us wonderful food with the eggs we collected daily, including a traditional Australian (or perhaps New Zealand, depending on who you ask) dessert called Pavlova. On our final night she copied the recipe for me and encouraged me not to be discouraged if my first Pavlova doesn’t turn out correctly. I’m going to give it a few tries and see what comes out of the oven…fingers crossed it’s something delicious!

Also on Phillips Island is a wild animal reserve with animals including emus, wallabies, koalas, Tasmanian devils, dingoes (no babies were eaten while we were there), swans and kangaroos. And some, although understandably not all (ahem, Tasmanian devils, ahem, dingoes), were left to roam the expansive park on their own. The park gave each person one back of pellet food to feed the animals roaming the park at will. Everyone was having a great time with this, having cute little wallabies gently eat food from your hand, not quite so gently swans peck the food out of your hand, and larger kangaroos slobber all over your hand to get the pellets.

And it was all well and good until one kangaroo walked up to me, stood high on his legs till he was almost eye to eye with me and kicked me! That roo was looking for food, and I wasn’t giving it up fast enough, so he lashed out. I jumped back in surprise, but when I regained my senses, I looked down at the marsupial and said, “That is not how we behave.” I’m pretty sure he was ashamed of his behavior and learned an important lesson that day. And so did I, don't carry the food bag.