Mexicowoods—An Expatriate Life

The Olgas

Initially I resisted suggestions to visit Ayers Rock (Uluru). I thought, “What’s out there anyway? Just a big rock. A famous one, to be sure, but once I’ve seen it, then what?”

I should know better. Deserts are fascinating places. I’ve spent lots of time in the Mojave, Death Valley, Saguaro National Park. Giving such places close looks always pays off.

Ayers Rock is located in Uluru - Kata Tjuta National Park. The name is hyphenated to include mention not only of Ayers Rock, but of yet another major feature of the place: a formation that surveyor Ernest Giles called the Olgas.

Kata Tjuta—the Olgas—is situated on an Aboriginal Reserve, recognizing certain rights belonging to the traditional (aboriginal) owners of the land. A wordy highway sign informs motorists that “it is an offence” to introduce alcoholic beverages or pornography into this place. No booze because, among other reasons, alcoholism is a big problem for aboriginals. As for porno, the need to post such proscription on a highway sign baffles me.

In coming here, our intention is to walk the Valley of the Winds, a 7.4 KM track that leads through spectacular rock formations.

Portions of the trail are steep. At one point, we have to scramble up a bulging sandstone face—typical of such tracks in the Red Center. I find it satisfying that Australian National Parks don’t feel a need to install stairs and handrails. Plentiful signs describe the difficulty of the various trails, leaving hikers to take responsibility for matching their personal capabilities to the terrain.

Along the trail grow hummocks of spinifex, a grass important to aboriginals. Before intrusion of European influences, these people gathered spinifex seeds and ground them to make a kind of bread. In an aboriginal cultural center, I saw spears and spear throwers that incorporated spinifex resin as glue.

A lavender banksia (above, right) is new to me. Banksias usually grow near the coast; finding one in the desert is surprising. This native Australian genus usually bears yellow blossoms, or sometimes orange or red ones. Violet flowers are unusual. Banksias are an important part of the food chain, providing nectar for birds and seeds for small mammals. I find some kind of comfort, seeing these sweet plants in this harsh, dry place.

Along the trail, we come across this notice. Thousands of square kilometers of trackless desert, and someone finds it necessary to restrict access to this one part of it. Why?

Steep ascents and descents, rock-hopping, boulder-scrambling make finding the occasional thatch roof shelter a welcome event.

In The Songlines, Bruce Chatwin proposes that humans descended from earlier hominids in response to jungles drying up. As forest became savannah, and savannah became desert, humans developed upright posture and better brains to cope with the stresses of scarce food and water. So deserts may have been our first home; the environment we evolved to survive in. Maybe an ancient racial memory explains why dry, open places call to me.

Uluru

In junior high I learned to call it Ayers Rock. Today, in acknowledgement of the original inhabitants, it is officially known both by the English name and by the traditional name the Anangu gave it: Uluru. After our long drive through the desert, we fortuitously came upon it just before sunset, when it put on an amazing light show.

Uluru is composed of layers of coarse sandstone laid down by some ancient sea. Back in geological time, the whole was turned on its side, so that the visible layers of rock are vertical, like slices in a loaf of bread. What we see is a tiny fraction of the formation; it extends below the surface of the earth for kilometers.

We arose at five the next morning hoping to see similar coloring on the west side of the rock at sunrise. Alas, the sky was overcast.

The sunrise was disappointing, but we had a more important objective for the day: the ten kilometer walk around the rock. The track is flat and would require about four hours to complete.

I always thought Ayers Rock was loaf shaped, but the map shows it to have the form of an arrowhead. The five black, angular areas abutting the outline of the rock, as well as the one surrounding the smaller rock labelled Toputji, are sites sacred to aboriginals. Visitors are asked not to enter nor photograph them.

Looking closer, the rock looks rotten. Erosion scars its face. The area receives twelve inches of rain a year: not much, but enough to wash away soft sandstone.

Some erosion is by spalling—the peeling away of layers of rock. I speculate that exposure to wide swings in temperature causes expansion and contraction of the surface, breaking it free from underlying layers. Daytime temperatures can exceed 110º F and can fall well below freezing at night.

The spalling is fractal, occurring at scales ranging from huge slabs to tiny flakes.

Sporadic waterfalls leave tracks and depressions on the surface. I saw a photograph of Uluru with several good-sized waterfalls pouring off it.

The rock contains internal flaws that admit lots of water. Eventually erosion leads to formation of eerie cave mouths.

Even in this dry land, water collects. This, the Mutitjulu Waterhole, is a reliable source of water for wildlife.

In places, the trail closely skirts the side of the rock, permitting a close look at its structure.

The overcast weather was a blessing of sorts. The noon temperature probably did not reach 70º F. Because of high heat and the force of the sun, the National Park provides shade and benches for walkers. I needed an occasional rest, even in the cool weather.

Visitors can get in trouble: dehydration, heat stroke, a twisted or broken ankle, a bite from something nasty. Emergency radios provide means of summoning help.

I saw two new birds. (I am NOT a birder. Honest.) The trio on the left are Crested Pigeons. I can’t identify the fellow on the right, but he’s perched on the arm of a bench, jamming me for a handout.

Ancient Anangu, the traditional owners of this land, left rock art behind. No one knows the significance of these sketches. They’re thought to be a sort of journal.

Visitors are given many reasons why they should not climb the rock:

• The climb is physically demanding, especially on hot days. Thirty-five people have died attempting it.
• The Anangu are deeply saddened when people are injured or killed on their land.
• The climb has great spiritual significance for the Anangu and prefer visitors respect this.
• The traditional owners explicitly request people refrain from climbing.

Nevertheless, climbers scale the rock every day, except on days when park management closes access because of heat, rain or wind, or because of conflict with an Anangu ceremony.

I tried to respect the wishes of the aboriginals with regard to entering and photographing sacred sites, and climbing. I was disturbed watching the climbers on the rock this morning.

William Gosse, a surveyor, is believed to be the first European to see the rock, during an expedition in 1873. Tourists visited for the first time in 1936, and a vehicle track was graded in 1948. The first tour bus arrived in 1950, carrying twenty-two students and four masters from Knox Grammar School in Sydney.

I would have loved to have been among them.

The 1958 season saw 2,300 tourists come here. Today the rock receives over five million per year. Visiting Ayers Rock has become almost mundane.

Uluru dominates the plain. Ancestral Anangu must have had a profound spiritual experience when they discovered it. I sensed a pervasive energy as I viewed and walked around it. There’s something more here than just a rock in the desert.

(About the sunset sequence photograph: What you see is exactly what the camera saw. I did no color tweaking. I used Photoshop only to crop and stack the individual images. The idea for the sequence is not original. I’ve seen it on postcards.)

Driving to the Red Center

From the Great Ocean Road, we drove to Adalaide to visit a friend. From there we flew to Alice Springs, a small town that really has no reason for being except that, in this desolate location there once was a repeater station for the telegraph line that connected the Australian Continent from south to north. A bustling town has since grown up here to service tourists who visit Australia’s Red Center.

We rented a car and took off for the desert, driving south on the Stuart Highway.

There’s really nothing out here. Every hundred kilometers or so, the highway passes a roadhouse. These places can best be described as utilitarian. Most offer minimalist lodgings and very basic meals. Some offer home grown entertainment.

More importantly, the roadhouses are communications posts from which help can be summoned for those whose cars break down in the desert. Last month a friend struck a kangaroo, damaging his radiator. (And the kangaroo.) He hailed a passing road train (a semi with three or more trailers) that stopped at the next roadhouse where the driver called a tow. Distances are such that our friend spent most of a day on the roadside before help arrived.

Roadhouses display old photos of desert pioneers on their walls, or collections of license plates, or old vehicles rusting away. Trucks get used hard here. This 1939 Dodge dragged many early tracks, making the interior accessible.

The first tour bus in these parts was built on a 4WD truck frame, modified to accept tires from a Boeing 727. That’s how bad the roads were.

Sometimes we feel like we’re in Arizona. This monument is called Mt. Connor. In the American Southwest, it would be called Connor Mesa. But there’s no Spanish influence in Australian place names, so they make mountains out of mesas.

The government provides occasional roadside rests. Many are provisioned with water, which could be a matter of life or death in certain circumstances. We heeded advice that we should bring a spare gallon of water in our car in case we became stranded.

The car rental company made it clear we were not permitted to drive our 2WD Nissan on unsealed (dirt) roads, a reasonable restriction given how easily it is to get stuck in loose sand or a creek bed. Suitable 4WD vehicles are available for rent, but for novices, going into the bush in one of them is a bad idea unless in caravan with another vehicle.

An alternative is to sign up for a small tour group. This rig is carrying seven tourists and their guide deep into the outback. The trailer behind the Toyota Land Cruiser is the chuck wagon.

This unsealed road is not some nameless track. It’s a major arterial leading to the Western Australia border. Many Australian roads are like this one. Australia is too big, too new, and too thinly populated to yet have connected all of its towns with highways. Major road or not, this one shouldn’t be attempted in a regular passenger vehicle.

A string of footprints of a type I haven’s seen before runs alongside Docker River Road.

They were made by camels, descendants of those brought to Australia in the Nineteenth Century for transport in the western deserts.

I saw these melons growing wild. I broke one open with a rock to expose green flesh, like a honeydew. Without thinking, I stuck my finger into it, then into my mouth. It had an incredibly bitter taste, like alum, impossible to clear from my tongue by spitting. At that point it dawned on me that I had just tasted an unknown plant on a continent that has more deadly plants and animals than any other. I began to speculate about the latency time of any alkaloids I might have ingested.

Later I learned these were paddy-melons, introduced by Afghan camel drivers as fodder for their animals. This plant has become naturalized, as have the camels that eat them. Paddy-melons are not tasty, but much to my relief they’re harmless.

Driving on, the land becomes more like the Sonoran Desert near Tucson. It’s still desert, but thick with sturdy plants that survive the aridity.

In the distance—mountains: our destination. Out here, it takes a long time to get anywhere. By now we’re thankful to be reaching a place where we can get Cokes, a hot meal and a place to sleep.

Cheeky Aussies

We’re becoming accustomed to Australianisms. Whenever we ask anyone for something, they respond “No worries.” When apologizing for jostling someone, I get “Yer all right, mate.” Australians use the word “whilst” as in “fasten your seat belt whilst driving.” Speaking of driving, highways have lanes for “overtaking,” not for passing.

Some expressions are quirky. What Mexicans call topes (speed bumps) are here called “sleeping policemen.” When I told an Aussie friend I wanted to take high tea at the Windsor Hotel, she said, “That’ll cost you a bowl.”

At the Kaos Kafe on the Great Ocean Road, a sign reads: “Any child left unattended will be given an espresso and a free puppy.” (I have found variants of this notice all over the world, so it’s not exactly an Australianism.)

—§—

Australians are light, cheerful and engaging. Also, they’re sexy.

Unlike puritanical American advertisers, Australian companies seem to delight in suggestive slogans. A brand of toilet tissue offers the slogan, “Quilton loves your bum.”

A billboard promoting a restaurant says “Get Stuffed!” Streets ice cream employs a similar theme.

I notice sex shops everywhere. Not the US or European kind, those secretive places that you can’t see inside. Australian sex shops have cheery display windows featuring mannequins attired in naughty nighties and fur-lined handcuffs. A large sign on a Melbourne awning announces “Marital Toys.” (But not “Extra-Marital Toys. The Australian sense of decency requires some sort of limits, after all.)

In Australia, sex has a more public presence than I’m used to: more direct, less circumspect. At the cashier’s booth in a gas station there’s a large display of condoms with colorful wrappers depicting naked people embracing: not pornographic, but highly suggestive. “Yes, I’ll have thirty liters of petrol, a flavored condom, and a Snickers bar, please.”

A newspaper for the Northern Territory features lurid stories on the front page of every issue.

Once past the headlines, I can see it is a legitimate paper, with thoughtful pieces on the swine flu pandemic and the economic difficulties. I also see there is a robust classified advertising section. One classification, headed “Services,” is for prostitutes. Not ingenuous ads for “escorts” or “massage—outcalls,” but ads by real upfront hookers, with detailed descriptions of what exactly is on offer.

The content of the ads doesn’t shock me. What surprises me is that the ads are published at all. Is there anywhere else in the world where the general media carry ads selling outright sex?

Australians acknowledge sex without any fuss. They are playful about it. They’re not ashamed of it. It all seems pretty healthy to me.

Ocean Tablelands

Continuing our exploration of the Great Coast Road, we encounter a region of vertical limestone cliffs that plunge into the sea. These are the formations that people drive this windy road to see.

Tourists from all over the world congregate here—yet another world-class Australian destination. Most people we encounter speak languages other than English. Among them: two Korean businessmen, uncomfortably hiking headland tracks in silk suits.

The tablelands formed when a sea covered the area. Sediments accumulated, the sea level dropped and these rocks became part of a land bridge connecting mainland Australia and Tasmania.

(Some scientists propose that a similar land bridge connected New Guinea with Australia. This would explain how aboriginals came to this continent before humankind possessed seaworthy boats.)

Waves and weather cut into the sedimentary limestones, producing spectacular coastal formations. These four are called the Apostles.

This is a view of two more of the Apostles. They once were called the Twelve Apostles, but over the last century, six have fallen to waves and rain.

A natural bridge can form when hard capstone keeps harmful rains off soft limestone, and the sea wears a hole through. There are several such bridges here. One, called London Bridge, collapsed some years ago. Its location on official maps is marked thus: “London Bridge (broken).” Australians are careful about false advertising.

The formations are impermanent. This seems a little strange to me. The granite features of Yosemite Valley look the same today as when I first saw them fifty years ago. The Great Ocean Road limestone formations visibly change within the span of a lifetime. That rapid erosion is at work is plainly evident in the worn surfaces of the headlands.

Surf attacks the headlands’ flanks even in relatively calm weather.

Rain water enters cracks, percolating through and dissolving the limestone.

This formation looks like it won’t last long. Surf undercutting the base will topple it before rains finish dissolving it from the top.

Old formations disappear. The sea carves out new ones. The process will continue for millennia, so there’s no need to hurry over here. There’ll always be something special to see.

I realize I’ve become attached to places. I miss low-rise San Francisco in the ’50s, Mendocino on the North Coast before yuppies found it, the drive-through tree along Yosemite’s north entrance before it blew over in a storm. This part of Australia’s coast shows me that impermanence is OK. Nothing is ever lost: only changed.

We Set Out on the Great Ocean Road

We’ve rented a car in Melbourne and set out for Adelaide, on our way to visit another Australian friend. Around seven hundred kilometers, we should be able to cover the distance in one day on the M1 if we fudge a little on the speed limit. But we’re going to take the scenic route, so we’re taking two days.

One of Australia’s most beautiful stretches of highway is the Great Ocean Road. Equivalent in my mind to California’s Highway 1 along the Big Sur Coast, it twists along headlands and over creeks, clinging to mountains that plunge into the sea.

Along the way beautiful vistas of hilly pasture and forests open up. Cows graze in meadows with million dollar views.

But the coast is what we’re here to see. Infrequent villages string out along the highway. Isolation and difficult roads keep this part of Australia’s south coast relatively undeveloped.

Oddly, this road sign frequently pops up. Until driving the winding part of the Great Ocean Road, I never encountered it.

It would seem that in order to get to the location of the first of these signs, motorists must successfully drive on the left for hours. Presumably, even the slowest learner has by now mastered British-style driving. So why, at this point, are such signs needed?

Our trip began at the southeast end of the highway, where sandy beaches and good waves attract surfers. We saw plenty of these on the New South Wales coast, so we hurried on through. We are seeking dramatic waves breaking on rocky shores.

Gently sloping strands are mostly gone now. Here we see land with fangs. We can see how erosion pockmarks rocks, how lowly lichens create beauty.

An occasional pocket beach offers a soft haven among the rocks, a place to walk beside the breaking waves. Most beaches here are devoid of people—surprising given the absence of sharks and stingers. What a difference from the congestion of Broad Beach.

The Great Ocean Road winds along Australia’s Shipwreck Coast. Here, Laura takes photographs at the site of a tragedy.

In 1891, the Barque W. B. Godfrey lost sight of the coast due to dense smoke from bush fires. It struck these rocks and sank. Everyone aboard made it safely to land, but later several people died in attempts to salvage the wreck. During very low tides, the ship’s steel frame, winch and anchor become visible.

The story of the coast along the Great Ocean Road is about scores of such shipwrecks. Commemorative plaques denote locations at lookouts along the way.

We spent the night in a sweet coastal village, Port Campbell, at the Daisy Hill Country Cottages. Dinner was at an excellent restaurant called The Waves. Our hippie surfer dude waiter took Laura’s order: “I’ll have the vegetable curry.”

“Awesome.”

I said, “I’ll have the grilled John Dory.”

“Super.”

“I don’t need a straw in my coke.”

“Excellent.”

“I think we’ll have dessert.”

“Wicked.”

The Bee Gees played softly in the background.

Our room had a glass front woodstove. We slept in the red glow of a red gum fire, the smell of the sea drifting in the window.

(About those “Drive on Left” signs: A friend points out that after long stretches on two lane roads with little oncoming traffic to act as reminders, tired American and Continental European drivers sometimes revert instinctively to right hand mode. He’s right—it happened to me.)

Kangaroos

I complained to the owner of the Kookaburra Inn that I’d not seen any kangaroos after spending six weeks in Australia. I mean, the country was supposed to be crawling with them. Or I should say, jumping with them.

We’d driven more than a thousand miles of highways and seen scores of yellow warning signs showing the silhouette of a leaping ‘roo. So where were they all? We’d seen a few dead ones along the highway. Road kill. “Look, Laura! Isn’t that pile of steaming guts a kangaroo?”

The motel owner told us, “Tell you what. If you don’t see a kangaroo in that meadow in back of the inn, you can stay for free. But if you do, you pay double.” I knew better than to take that bet.

Early next morning we awakened and looked out the back.

There must have been fifty kangaroos, all grazing the way deer do. Perhaps they fill the ecological niche occupied by deer in Europe and the Americas.

Mostly they crouched and chewed on the grass. Occasionally one would rise up on its hind legs and hop to someplace where the grass was presumably greener.

They rest their tails on the ground. In order to move forward a foot or two, they raise both hind feet into the air and scoot themselves forward on their huge tails.

Kangaroos have no natural enemies so they’re not skittish. I was able to approach one closely.

One of our Australian friends told us people become close to kangaroos, especially injured animals they’ve rescued. They become semi-tame, as do deer.

But of course feeding wild animals harms them, making them dependent on unnatural foods and turning them into pests.

We’re told a startled or threatened kangaroo can inflict serious wounds by lashing out with the huge toes on their hind feet. Another good reason for not approaching them to feed them.

I didn’t see any joeys in their mama’s pouches. But we have a little more time left in the country. Maybe we’ll get lucky.

St. Kilda

Melburnians, when they’re off work, have many places to play. One such is the beach suburb of St. Kilda. We knew something was odd about the place when we looked at the tram schedule posted on a street corner in Richmond (where we are staying). The direct tram to St. Kilda didn’t begin running until 6:00 PM and stopped at 2:00 AM. What kind of schedule is that?

We pieced together our journey using transfers. On alighting from the last tram, we were greeted by this face.

Urban beaches seem to be good locations for amusement parks. I think back to when I was a teenager at Coney Island or the Boardwalk at Santa Cruz, California. St. Kilda is famous for its amusement park, Luna Park. An old fashioned wooden roller coaster is the main attraction here. Luna Park was closed when we visited so we didn’t get to ride it. I love the lurch and sway of the old coasters.

A row of elegant old houses overlooks Port Phillip Bay. Homes like this are fast disappearing. Developers scrape them off the valuable land they sit on in order to replace them with ugly high rises.

A sign on a building not far from the community organic garden proposes reducing a planned St. Kilda Triangle development project by two thirds. Apparently, someone has big plans for the area. Good luck to those who are trying to stop them.

We’re grateful we’re visiting this place while it still retains some of its charm. From the St. Kilda Pier, we spotted a couple of black swans. Their neck bands attest that they’re important enough to be tracked.

Cockatoos roost in hollowed-out spaces in palm trees. Their characteristic jarring screeches somehow blend into the scene.

But St. Kilda really comes into its own after dark. We watch the sun set behind the tea house on the pier, and head out for café-lined Acland Street, with its hundreds of sidewalk tables.

There, we discover the reason for the odd tram schedule. Few people bother to come during the day. There’s no need to run many trams out here until after dark.

Shop owners push the limits of propriety in their attempts to attract nighttime visitors.

Giant figures of partygoers perch on rooftops.

Acland Street is famous for its continental bakeries. We snacked twice at the Monarch Bakery, reputed to be the best in St. Kilda. But the Le Bon Cake Shop has the most photogenic window.

We dined with friends at Clay Pots, a seafood restaurant that specializes in simple preparation of whole fish, in large dishes intended for sharing. We ordered platters heaped with blue crab, mussels, giant prawns, Moreton Bay bugs, whole squid, stingray and more. Shellfish and crustaceans came in their shells, making for messy eating. We had to eat everything with our hands. Our meal seemed like an orgy—appropriate in earthy St. Kilda.

Bathroom Stuff

When traveling, I never know where I’ll find clues to the culture of the place I’m exploring. Recently I found some hints about Australian culture in public men’s rooms.

Some years ago the American media was full of controversy over needle exchange programs for intravenous drug users. Proponents were trying to slow the spread of diseases like AIDS. Opponents were concerned about enabling drug addiction.

I didn’t see any mention of a related health issue: Janitorial workers becoming infected by sticks from needles left in trash bins. To counter this threat, some Australian restrooms have safes into which people can discard hypodermic needles. The small, steel boxes are padlocked to keep innocent—and not-so-innocent—fingers out.

Australian authorities have a refreshing directness about such things. More so than their American counterparts, they seem to do the right thing with minimal partisan fuss.

—§—

When I was a kid, I was fascinated by the condom machines I encountered in the mens’ rooms of diners and roadhouses. There was something naughty and mysterious about them, hinting the existence of a world about which I knew nothing.

I haven’s seen this type of vending machine in decades. Finding them in Australia sent me straight back to the ’50s.

Today, the idea that a young man out on a date would stop in the restroom to buy a condom seems almost quaint. Back then, all we were concerned about was getting “knocked up.” In recent years, the grim reality is the risk of contracting terrible diseases.

Regrettably, my innocence about such matters is long gone.

(Note to fellow bloggers: People look at you funny when you take photographs in rest rooms.)

The Grampians

Residents of Melbourne have wonderful weekend getaway options. For example, about three hours away by car lies a mountainous region called the Grampians.

It’s fall in Australia, and we’re visiting the Grampians as the trees are coloring up. The weather is crisp, the sky is bright. I’ve rarely experienced a climate like this since moving to California from New Jersey in 1958.

The Grampians are a range of limestone mountains. They remain largely unexploited, probably because there is so much good land for farming and grazing elsewhere in Australia. By the time developers’ interests awakened, conservation had become a priority in Australia, and the Grampians were protected as a national park.

The usual signs abound inside the park, warning that vertical terrain can be dangerous.

A member of our party defiantly ignores the warnings. If that ledge were to break, a fall of hundreds of feet await him.

We’ve been reading about terrible wildfires in the State of Victoria caused in part by a drought of several years’ duration coupled with an extremely hot summer and high winds. But fire is a part of the ecosystem here. Four years ago (more or less) a large part of the eucalypt forest in the Grampians burned. We walked a track through blackened tree trunks.

The usual fire prevention efforts take place here, just as in US forests. I suspect though that fire management is a thorny problem for foresters. Too much suppression causes buildup of undergrowth and fuels resulting in intense fires that reach the canopy, killing the trees. Too little, and public pressure forces stepped up suppression efforts.

Ground fires burn away small wood and brush. Larger trees, although their trunks are blackened, put out new leaf and branch growth. I found this burned-over forest to be bursting with life, a green and pleasant place.

The two foreground plants, the ones that look like yuccas, won’t even bloom until a fire has burned through, improving the competitive picture for their offspring. Fire is essential to the environment.

Lake Bellfield is a reservoir completed in 1969. Impounded waters irrigate farmland valleys. It’s quite beautiful, and is open to the public for swimming, boating,and fishing. Motorboats do not disturb the placid scene: they’re not allowed.

But all is not well at Lake Bellfield. The water’s surface has sunk to about forty feet below normal levels. It should be lapping at the walkway visible on the left.

These are times of drought and high fire danger. Water use restrictions are in place. Everyone is conserving. Reminds me of California in the 90s, when a green lawn meant you were a water hog. Is this just a drought that will end in good time? Or is it an artifact of global warming? If the latter, Australians are in trouble.

Communities dependent on visitors and tourists were hit hard by the fires four years ago. Nobody wanted to come here to view the smoking ruins. The town of Halls Gap (pop. 300) holds an annual wine festival (pop. 6,000) designed to encourage Melburnians to return to the Grampians. For us, the festival proved to be a good place to get lunch.

We stayed at a motel called the Kookaburra Inn, so called because the eponymous birds congregate there. We heard their distinctive calls in the mornings and evenings, but managed to see only one, during a walk high in the Grampians.

That sound that used to be a staple of jungle movies—HOO HOO HOO HOO HA HA HA—that’s the call of the Kookaburra. Hearing one was another lifetime dream come true.

Small patios extend off the back side of our motel rooms, each separated from the next by a thin hedge. From the patio next to ours, I heard the noise of chairs scraping and the flicks of Bics followed by the smell of cigarette smoke. Then a voice screeched, “Shut ya cake hole, Ma!”

The rasping calls of the cockatoos were, by comparison, mellifluous.

Evening fell as we sat there. Ma and the cigarette smokers drifted away. One by one, cockatoos arrived. I was transfixed by the proximity of wildlife until one of our party offered a piece of pretzel. A cockatoo eagerly gobbled it up.

Yes, the birds come there for a handout. They’ve clearly lost all sense of pride, milking tourists for all they can get. “Spare change? Got any spare change?” Bums.