Happy Now - Zedd & Elley Duhé

Book lovers will understand this: I just finished a great book and I feel lost…This book is over 700 pages and is in fact a horrible story, but so beautifully written I could not stop reading.

I have been reading a lot these weeks. Most books have all these reviews on them, from writers I know and like, but still: most books just don’t leave you wondering and hunkering to know what will happen after the book ends, as if the lives and people really exist. Characters that are human, imperfect, loving, fallible, likeable and summon emotion through their emotions. And yet, this is not a book I will pass along, as the story is so heavy. Let us just say that at a certain point I was sitting with my mouth wide open on a full Belgian terrace just reading and flipping pages while willing myself not to cry, thinking: “it is just a book, get a grip!”

But, I finished last night, so now I can move on to other stuff, like start with this post. What I am doing these days is trying to be more conscious of what I do and see on a daily basis, so that I can recount it when I finally sit down to write. At times the blog is written in 1 go, other times a few days are what it takes. This will probably be one of the latter kind, as I have many pictures to go through before I post. I kind of gave up on videos, but might just give it a try on this Wi-Fi in Melbourne city center.

Last post I have just left The Pearly Gates behind and was off to Melbourne. I don’t know why, but in my negligible research beforehand, the feeling was that I would like this city.

And I do. The original reason to come here is the fabulous miss Fisher. The series Miss Fisher’s murder mysteries, that I stumbled across on Netflix while I was down with the flu a year or so ago is set in the Melbourne area and we all loved the series! I had looked up where it is filmed and found out that Phryne’s house is a real building and made plans to go there. Hoping to maybe catch some of the filming of the movie (yay). Until my mom found out that the filming is in Morocco…(eye roll) But since I was coming here anyway, I looked up races and found a race for a good cause and signed up for that as well.

So off to Melbourne I went! There I met the first person working in hospitality that I liked. Elena at the Mercury North Melbourne was also a big fan of the show and could explain to me where the house was, 7 minutes’ walk from the hotel. I walked there on day one. [And two, and three].

I explored the city by tram that first afternoon. Melbourne city center is very well connected with trams and within the heart of the city the transportation is even free. I did the look around and follow my gut and found a nice place to sit and have my first dinner in the city.

Miss Phryne's house!

Yeah, food

Day two was for the exploration by foot. I went to the Queen Victoria Market, where the produce and fresh cheeses and fish looked so good!! Some souvenirs were bought, and I explored my first rooftop bar in the afternoon.

A bit of Den Haag in Melbourne

Aussie hat!

I left the city by rail to pick up my bib for the last 10K I had planned, changed hotels to a different, coastal part of the city, St. Kilda. That was the quaint coastal place I was hoping for!

Little bit of NL in St Kilda

Not such good news from the loved ones front

The Friday I left for a tour of Philip Island. We stopped at the Moonlit Sanctuary, an artisanal farm, the Nobbies, The Koala Conservation Centre and the Penguin Parade.

At the sanctuary you could buy a bag of feed for the animals, so of course is that where I went first. The park is filled with amazing aptly and not so aptly named animals, and I would recommend this unfancy and small sanctuary any day over a commercial zoo.

These are so common here!

Polly!

And I ran out of food :o((((

Yeah, we know...

Come to mama...

Duck for size reference

Bird with Lava complex

Not laughing...

Peacock-boo

The Nobbies

Australia has the smallest breed of penguin in the world. I am talking at the max 1 foot (30 cm) high mini cuties, that come home every evening and have to cross a beach to walk up to 2k to get to their boroughs up the hill. The seagulls (bullies) standing on the beach are at times taller than the penguins. The penguins wait up for each other and then scuttle across the beach in formation to confuse the seagulls. No pictures were allowed, but you can see it here:

https://youtu.be/CyVRl1owBXw

Saturday evening, I went out for the first time. Before that I had a poke bowl, but I think that and the crappy booze they were serving did a number on my belly, I had to throw up a few times and had gastrointestinal issues for 4 days. I will give going out another try this week. This was not great. The drinking in was, though...

When I was up un Sunday I actually considered not running the race. I have always learned, issues from your neck up, go run and everything from neck down, don’t. But I thought: DL>DNF>DNS, I will make it work for me.  (Dead least is greater than Did not finish is greater than Did not start). I had my first portaloo puke ever (not to be repeated, lord…) and showed up at the cold and windy start. We started off and I think over half of the crowd was walking, so after a while I slowed down to a walk too. My belly was hurting so bad that I thought I was going to have to leave the course for an emergency pitstop. The sun broke through around k 3-4 and at 5K I could take my sweater off. At 7 I was sure I could finish and I did.

Did laundry and very little else the rest of the day, as the next morning I had an early flight to Ayers Rock.

This trip, in its entirety, has been a trip never to forget. But in this amazing trip, there are some extra high points. And visiting Uluru is one of them for sure. When I was little, that was before Wikipedia, whenever you had to make a report for school, you had to look it up in an actual encyclopedia. I remember flipping through the volumes just for fun and in the few colored pictures see things and places with wonderment. Ayers Rock, as in the book it was still named, was one of those. In 1985, after years of struggle, the area of Ayers Rock and the Olgas, was returned in custody of the indigenous people and renamed to its original name: Uluru and Kata Tjuta national park.

This was a very expensive part of the trip, as this is in the middle of nowhere and I still refuse to share a bathroom with 14 other people and need air conditioning to sleep in temperatures over 35 degrees Celsius. But those accommodations where not that much cheaper, so I just closed my eyes and booked. I booked tours at the same time, hoping to fill up the rest of my time on the spot. There is a free shuttle that picks up all the tourists from the tiny airport, and drives to the Ayers Rock resort, that is divided in several hotels. There is a town square with shops, a supermarket and tourdesks, some restaurants and post office.

As soon as I got to the hotel, I got liters and liters of water, as it was extremely hot and dry that you could get unwell easily by doing normal activity. I went by the scenic flights desk, since as a single traveler you can not book a trip beforehand, just hope that there is a group you can join. And I could join a helicopter trip the next afternoon, so yay.

The first day I went on a Sacred Places and Sunset tour. The Aboriginal ask for respect for their sacred places and ask not to take pictures, so there are none to show. It was lovely to see how the environment was explained by stories and fables, and to see how the knowledge is passed down from generation to generation.

With the bus we went around the rock, getting out at certain spots to hear the stories the guide would tell is. The sky was rumbling, and clouds were packing up, rain was expected, so for this once I left my backpack in the bus, as did several others.

When I got back to the bus, as one of the firsts, as I was climbing the stairs, I saw some of my stuff under the seats and remember thinking, huh what is that doing there…until the coin dropped as I got to my seat that the backpack that I had left under the seat was open on the seat, with most of the contents all over. My heart stopped. My passport was in that backpack. As it is not proven waterproof and it pours when in rains here, I did not take the bag with me. More people were getting on the bus as it started pouring down outside and finding their stuff al around. Luckily enough there was not much missing, some coins, my cold bottle of cola light and from another couple a credit card and socks. Very random stuff. They went through everything, and as I have been travelling for so long now and moving from bag to backpack to bag to hotel room, some stuff I just keep on me. I hope I will not find out later that more is missing, but I feel lucky that my passport and emergency credit card that were both in a secret pouch in the bag, were still there. They found them but left them.

I felt not quite ok, for the rest of the day. You feel violated, someone showed you that they could have really given you trouble, but did not. We did get to see a very unique Uluru, with waterfalls cascading from all sides.

The police was called, they came over to our next stop, which was the sunset with view on the rock.

I did make a friend, Tommaso was on the bus too and we met up for the worst pasta ever. He was leaving the next day, but we talked about travel and how lucky we are that we can travel even while we live where other people vacation (he is from the Garda lake area). I did not sleep well that night, dinner did not help with my stomach ache, I guess I was still stressed about the bus thing and it was hot even with the aircon on. So I did not go to the 4.45 am sunrise tour I had booked, I slept until 9 and had a slow and easy morning. In the afternoon I was picked up for the helicopter ride. Let me first say, I am happy I could go along with someone, otherwise I would have missed the best bit of this whole experience. But this lady was not a kind person. Spoiled is a good name for it. She was annoyed that we were flying into the sun (sunset flight, but hey), that no video was being taken, that it was a bit hazy. Please let me not become that person! But I ignored her and had an amazing experience.

As I was sitting there on Wednesday, enjoying my pizza and book, I heard it. The Dutchies have arrived. What took ‘em so long? They are EVERYWHERE, you would be standing in an Ugg store and hear: Kijk ma, deze zijn leuk voor thuis! But they got there only on my last day in Uluru.

The next day I went for the Fields of light dinner, an art exposition that is combined with dinner and a talk about the night sky. That was so much fun and impressive, and I finally met more people I exchanged social media contact with. Still waiting on that video from the Great Ocean road, though…The bus driver gave us the tip: as an icebreaker debate how much a ice bear weighs. So that is the standard question I will be asking people I meet from now on, it works :o)

My Uluru uniform

The landscape became more and more red and arid

First sighting!

Red earth, green grass and black trees

I look down and see: lipbalm, AA battery, bottle cap and more junk :o(

Waterfalls

This is funny

The next morning it was back to Melbourne, where it was 38 degrees. I did mostly nothing (finished my book) and started this blog.

But to answer the title song of this post?

I am happy most of the time. But sadness sometimes suddenly flows over and through me like a tsunami and it physically hurts. Even though I am not in an ashram, fasting and meditating and with a vow of silence, being by myself and having many conversations with myself does equate to some navel-gazing. In the second-best book I have read these few weeks, Unsheltered by Barbara Kingsolver (author of one off my all-time favorites The Poisonwood Bible), a mom and daughter have this interaction that really touched me:

So I am allowing my heart to remember and training my mind to be ok with that to heal the blows that both have had in the last year.

Things I have learned:

The indigenous people have a very strong smell (nan ta hole solo, mi tata dushi)

I had known that the Australians are hard, no nonsense people, but they have to realize that they are dealing with tourists here. When it is coming down in sheets and you have elderly people with you, you can not keep saying: It’s only water! as the elderly around me panic. At the Fields of light, with everybody (except me) dressed up: “reckon you guys fancy a cooldown, it has been so hot.”

I have been lucky: I have at one point almost lost my phone but did not, the weather has been good: rain when needed and none for my scenic flights, almost lost my passport but did not, was sick but not out of commission, no snakes, no spiders. Yeah, all good.

My biggest issue so far: nobody to take pictures of me. If you don’t like selfie sticks and you are travelling alone, you’re screwed.

People are shit. It is sad that I live in a world where there is a sign: do not poke the animals with selfie sticks. And even sadder that people still do it. Taking pictures (with flash!) when none are allowed, poking and yelling at animals. It really pisses me off.

You have to watch out, you can become blasé quick: yeah, I cuddled koalas already, yeah saw sheep being shorn already, oh look, another wallaby….

I remember when I as little, that all English I heard was American to my untrained ears. Later I could tell the nuance and found out about the Brits. Even later you could tell where in the country the person was from. I love the language, I read mostly English. But Australian! This is not a pretty language! Sometimes I just stand there, blinking…nope, could not make anything from that…

When I got to Uluru, the first person I saw was wearing a biba dushi Aruba tshirt. And from then on it was a parade of destinations, from the Panama canal to Fiji. I want to resume the collection that my daddy started when I was growing up.

The weather here can be crazy. In Melbourne on the same day, even in the morning alone, they can get the wind from the arctic and the winds from the desert and that can be a full 8 to 10 degrees real feel difference.

This country is huge and beautiful. I could stay here for a year and still have things to see and do and do again.

The one perk of pay before you eat (and for me this is a thing in other countries), you can just leave when you are done. It saves you the awkward conversation:
“enjoyed your meal?“
“Euh, no.”
“Oh….”
“Yeah, sorry but it was really crap, I never knew pasta could do that.”  I have just given up and accept that the food ranges from fab to drab and the waitstaff is at best mediocre.

Cards are arriving!