On the Sunny side of Australia

Our first trip to Australia started with flights on three different planes before landing at Brisbane. I made a point of watching the traffic as we stretched our legs before hopping on another Quanta flight north to Cairns. At Cairns we would pick up our rented motorhome and drive 2,500 kilometres south along the coast to Sydney, New South Wales, and drop off the motorhome near the airport for the return flight home. The fourth flight to Cairns carried us over the spectacular Great Barrier Reef, but it also added to our jetlag. Our tired minds had to learn about driving in Australia during the 10-minute taxi run from the airport to the motor home rental depot. Along the route we saw road signs warning of wallabies, wombats, koalas, cassowaries and floods. They said nothing of careening cars coming from the wrong direction and pedestrians who came from out of nowhere regardless of whether the light was red or green.      Our camper was a four berth Italian Iveco with a body manufactured by Munro of New Zealand. It turned out to be bigger than we needed, but it was outfitted with absolutely everything a portable homemaker could wish. With local kids in school in mid November the campgrounds were at half capacity and there were no line-ups at attractions or other places of interest. Luckily our first campground was just a half-hour north of Cairns and we made it safely with me carrying on a monologue that went like this. “Keep left”, “Are those sugar cane plantations?” “Keep left” “Look, you can wrestle crocodiles at that ranch.” “Round-a-bout coming up! Keep left.”   Fortunately for both of us Jim positioned a sticker provided by the renter stating “Keep left” on the windshield right in front of him. On early morning starts we always alerted each other about keeping left. There are urban legends about campers heading out on their last day of holidays, forgetting to do “you know what” and wham. The worst way to end a vacation. Jim had read in “The World’s Most Dangerous Places” by Robert Pelton that getting knocked senseless by a lorry after stepping off the kerb and looking left instead of right, is the most common way that tourists take the fun out of their vacations in Australia and England. It didn’t take long to catch on and it helped that the kerbs at intersections have “Look Right” painted in bold lettering. Travelers to Australia like to tease each other with stories of dangerous snakes, lethal jellyfish, deadly spiders, nasty crocodiles and sneaky sharks, but we saw nary a one. We did do things that might seem dangerous like scuba diving on the Great Barrier Reef, riding a gondola car high above the rainforest and getting battered by two-metre waves in water where sharks sometimes swim, but the only time we sensed heart thumping, adrenaline rushing danger was when we walked across city streets.

 

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